by Tom Godwin
He had been trying to watch four different directions at once and he realized that the constant swiveling of his neck was causing his stiff blouse collar to slowly cut his throat. And he saw that it was—for the moment, anyway—peaceful and quiet where they sat. The sun was warm and golden before them, bright flowers sweetly scented the air, and giant rainbow moths were fluttering over them, their tiny voices like the piping of a thousand fairy flutes.
"I wish I had been born a country girl," Lyla said. "I'd like to have a life like this, and not—what mine will be."
He asked the question to which he had to have the answer:
"Once you were going to marry Val and live on Jardeen, weren't you?"
"I . . . so my foolishness is no longer a secret?"
"Foolishness?" he asked.
"We met two years ago when I was attending the Fine Arts university on Jardeen. I was younger and a lot more naïve than I am now. I thought we were desperately in love and would get married as soon as I finished school and would live happily ever after, and all that."
"And it didn't turn out that way?"
"I had to make that promise to Daddy and when I wrote to Val about it, he seemed to approve. He didn't suggest I renounce the proxy marriage when the time was up, or anything. He just wrote that I knew what I wanted to do. He seemed relieved to be free to go ahead with his political career."
"I see," he said, and then, "you don't feel bad about it, do you, Lyla?"
"Feel bad? I wouldn't marry Val Boran if he was the last man on Vesta! Even Lord Narf isn't as self-centered as he is!"
"You don't have to marry Narf, either," he said. "You know that."
She looked down at the ground and said in a dead voice, "I made a promise."
"Rockford told me that your father never really knew Narf—that on the few times they met, Narf put on the act of being a refined gentleman, very respectful toward the king's daughter."
She did not answer and he said, "Is that the way it was?"
"Yes. That's the way it was. But how could I tell Daddy, as he lay dying?"
"You couldn't, Lyla. But if your father could be here today and know what you know about Narf, do you think he would want you to marry him?"
"No . . . I guess not. But Lord Narf loves me in his own way, I think—and that's more than anyone else does."
Then her tone changed and she said, "I'm so glad that you're here today, Dale—I'm glad that there is someone who cares at least a little about what happens to me."
On her face was a poignant longing for someone to love and comfort her. It seemed to him, now beyond any doubt, that there could never be anything for him in his career but loneliness. How different the warm love of Lyla would be from the cold austerity of the military and its endless succession of weapons and killing—
* * *
He moved, to sit beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. "Lyla," he said, "I want to tell you—"
"Dale . . ." The word was a despairing sob as her composure broke and she held tightly to him, crying, her voice coming muffled as she pressed her face against his chest. "Help me, Dale! How can I marry that sadistic beast when it's someone else I can't live without—and he doesn't even know I love him!"
"But he does!" He hugged her closer, "He does know, and he loves you even more than you love him."
"Are you sure?" She raised a tear-stained face, hope like sunshine through clouds on it. "Are you really sure Val loves me, after all?"
"Val?"
The revelation was like the stunning concussion shock of a blast beam passing two inches overhead. His vision blurred and there was a hideous roaring in his ears. She was still holding to him for comfort and it seemed to him that was wrong—he should be clinging to her for support . . .
"Dale . . . what's the matter?"
"But I thought—" He swallowed with difficulty. "I thought you meant that I was the—"
Something struck the top of his head; this time, for certain, the concussion shock of a blaster beam passing close above it. There was a vicious crack as the beam split the tree beyond, then a crash and explosion of wood fragments as a second beam followed the first.
He rolled from the log, taking Lyla with him. The arrow bushes shielded them briefly, long enough for them to reach the temporary safety of a small swale.
"Dale!" Her dark eyes were wide with puzzled surprise and one small foot was bare from the loss of a sandal. "Someone shot at us!"
He thought, So Narf got his pictures, after all.
"Rootenant!" Alonzo came running. "They are that way—awr spread out to be sure to kirr you."
Alonzo motioned with his nose, a movement that seemed to cover all the high ground beyond them. At least, the enemy was not between them and camp. Not yet.
A distant shout came, an order from Narf to his men:
"All of you—down that ridge! Get between Hunter and camp!"
"It's him!" Her fingers gripped his arm. "He wants them to kill you!"
They had fired from a distance too great for his own blaster. He could not defy them from where he now stood.
"I'll have to try to get within range of them," he said. "I'll go back—"
"No!" Her grip on his arm tightened. "Don't leave me, Dale—don't let him find me here."
He looked down the length of the swale. At its lower end the ghost tree forest began, dense and concealing—but all down the length of the swale the snarevines lay in thick, viciously barbed entanglements, overlying a bed of sharp rocks and boulders. She could never get to the safety of the ghost trees in time.
Narf had his pictures, now. What would he do to her in the insanity of his hatred and triumph when he reached her?
"All right, Lyla," he said. "I'll see that you get to the trees—"
* * *
There was a crashing of explosions and debris leaped skyward behind them and along both sides of the swale. The firing continued, scattered but very effectively consistent, and he said as he drew his blaster, "I guess they don't want us to go away."
He set the regulator of the blaster at lowest intensity so that the beam would not clip dangerous flying fragments from the boulders. The green, tough vines disintegrated reluctantly while the precious minutes sped by; while the unhindered assassins would be hurrying to the point where the entire swale would be visible to them and under their fire.
Alonzo was following along near the top of the swale's side, ignoring the danger as he watched the progress of the enemy and reported it to Hunter: "Now they are half-way, Rootenant, hurrying faster—"
They reached the lower end of the swale. The last of the vines disintegrated and the ghost tree forest lay before them.
He touched her cheek in farewell. "Get on to camp, as fast as you can run."
The firing abruptly ceased as he spoke. There was an ominous silence. Alonzo came running, his tone almost a yelp in its urgency:
"They are awrmost where they can see us! We got to get her out of here, Rootenant—awrfur quick!"
* * *
"Lyla!"
It was the voice of Val, sharp with concern for her. He came running out of the ghost trees, all his cold impassiveness gone. "Are you hurt, honey—are you hurt?"
"You came for me!" She whispered the words, her face radiant. Then she ran to meet him, her arms outstretched, crying, "Val . . . oh, Val . . ."
Their arms went around each other.
Then the woods erupted as ten blasters laid down a barrage to block any escape to camp.
"I'll try to give you a chance to get through," Hunter said quickly. "Be ready for it when it comes."
He ran toward the firing line, taking advantage of the concealing afforded by the first fringe of ghost trees. They should be almost within range of his own weapon, now—
Again, the firing abruptly ceased, as though by some signal. There came the furious raving of Narf:
"It's that Boran she wants! Kill him too!"
Sonig cursed with bitter rage. "Jardeen is lost
to Verdam if any witness escapes—and we'll all hang, besides."
There was a second of silence, and then Narf's command:
"Kill the woman, too!"
There was a roar like thunder as the firing began. The ground trembled and debris filled the air with flying fragments. Hunter, still running toward the enemy under cover of the trees, saw Val trying to get Lyla to safety and saw them both hurled to the ground as a tree exploded in front of them. They would never live to rise and run again—
* * *
He saw Rockford's plan, at last, and what his own duty would now have to be: He knew why Rockford had said of this day, "If you can live through it, you will have it made."
And he had a cold feeling inside him that he was not going to have it made.
He took a deep breath and ran toward the enemy, out of the concealment of the ghost trees and in the open where they could not fail to see him, his blaster firing a continuous beam that fell only a little short of the enemy, that showed them he would be close enough to kill them within seconds if he was not stopped.
The fire concentrated upon him, giving Lyla and Val their chance for escape. He ran through an inferno of crashing explosions, twisting and dodging on ground that trembled and heaved under his feet, while razor-sharp rock shrapnel filled the air with shrill, deadly screaming sounds.
Something ripped through his shoulder, to spin him around and send him rolling. He scrambled up, firing as he did so, and ran drunkenly on.
Something struck the side of his head and he went down again. He tried to rise and fell back, a blackness sweeping over him that he could not hold away despite his efforts to do so.
It seemed to him that the firing had suddenly stopped, that in its place was the hoarse buzz of a police stun-beam. It seemed he saw helicopters overhead, bearing the bright blue insignia of the Royal Guard and then there was nothing but the blackness.
* * *
There was a brief, dreamlike return to consciousness. He was in a Royal Guard helicopter and Alonzo was beside him, grinning, and saying, "You be O.K.—I grad! And my Princess Ryra—rook at her now, Rootenant!"
He saw Lyla, her hand in Val's, and her face was glowing and beautiful in its new-found happiness. Then she was bending down, kissing him, and saying, "Dale . . . Dale . . . how can we ever thank you for what you did?"
* * *
When the blackness lifted the second time he was lying, bandaged, on a cot in the meeting hall and the voice of Rockford was saying, " . . . Ready to go in just a minute."
The hall was filled with members of the royal court who had come for the wedding. He saw the white robes of the Church of Vesta dignitaries who had come to officiate at the wedding. Then he saw the seven grim old men seated at the far end of the table.
The Royal Council—with the judicial power to give even death sentences in crimes committed against royalty.
Sonig, his face white and staring, was being half led, half carried, away from them.
Narf, in the grip of another Guardsman, was standing before the Council and saying in a tone both incredulous and sneering:
"Is that my sentence?"
"There is a qualification to it," one of the Council said. "It seems only just, in view of your crime, that you be tortured until death—"
The rest of the words were lost as the blackness swept back. But before unconsciousness was complete, when all else in the hall was gone from him, he heard Narf's cry; an animal-like bawl of protest, raw and hoarse with anguish . . .
* * *
"Ah . . . you're coming out of it, my boy."
Rockford was standing over him. "They gave you a Restoration shot on Vesta forty-eight hours ago. It will be wearing off in a minute and your head will clear."
He sat up, and the dizziness faded swiftly away. He saw that he was in the compartment of an interstellar ship and he knew that it was Earthbound.
And that Vesta, and brown-eyed Lyla, were now part of the past . . .
"Don't look so sad, my boy," Rockford said. "You'll get due credit and promotion for the invaluable part you played in my plan."
"But—"
"I know. But she was never yours. You'll find life is full of heartbreaks like that, son.
"And we accomplished our mission. Narf's crime neatly invalidated the proxy marriage. Then Lyla set a new precedent by marrying Val that very day. Earth has never had two such loyal and grateful friends as Val and Lyla."
"You knew all about them, didn't you?" he asked.
"Strategic Service has to know everything. And I knew they were still in love even though each was too proud to admit it. That's why I had to insist on Val coming to Vesta. After that, it was only a matter of using you to awaken Val to the fact that she did not love Narf. And of taking care of various little details, such as faking an official request for the helicopters to come out two hours ahead of time, getting Val off to find her at the proper time, and so on."
Rockford smiled at him, "And you learned that an old man's mind can be mightier than the space fleets of the Verdam empire—and that the line of duty that produces the best results can sometimes be very devious."
He thought of the white-faced Sonig, and the anguished bawl he had heard from Narf.
"I suppose they were going to hang Narf and Sonig at once."
"The Council would have, no doubt. But Lyla was so happy that she begged the Council to give them very light sentences—or just let them go free. So I suggested a compromise. The Royal Council regarded it as very fitting."
"What was it?"
"For Sonig, no punishment. The murder attempt, being news of public interest, will be broadcast upon Vesta and other worlds, including a factual, unbiased account of Sonig's participation in it. Shortly afterward, Sonig will be taken to Verdam and turned over to his own benevolent government. Vesta will file no charges."
"But Sonig lost Jardeen for his government. They'll execute him for that!"
"Yes, I'm afraid so. Shall we call it poetic justice?"
"What about Narf?"
"His sentence was life-long exile on his Sea Island estate. He will be provided with all the luxuries to which he has been accustomed, including a full staff of servants. He will continue to enjoy all his possessions there, including his gallery of nude paintings, his risqué films, his pornographic library, and so on. In fact, since he is so fascinated by pornography and such a collector thereof, any pornographic material which might become available on Vesta in the future will be sent to him."
"That's not right . . . I mean, they were going to torture him to death."
"Not 'to death.' It was 'until death.' There's a difference."
"But that bawling noise he made—"
"Ah . . . that was due to the one restrictive qualification to the benign terms of his exile. Every woman on his estate was to be removed before he reached there, leaving men servants only. Patrol boats will see to it that for so long as he lives no woman shall ever set foot on the Sea Islands."
Rockford smiled again. "Lord Narf succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in keeping his boyhood vow of being always a man among men."
EMPATHY
The crisis with the natives was at hand and still the ERB showed no sign of permitting a Frontier Corps officer to make any suggestions.
For the fifth time that day Captain Harold Rider walked up the single dusty street of what had been his Frontier Corps outpost on Deneb Five until the unexpected arrival forty-eight hours before of General Beeling and his Extraterrestrial Relations Board unit. He came to the huge ERB Headquarters prefab at the end of the street. There, still on duty at the door, was the ferret-faced guard who had turned him back twice before.
The guard lounged indolently against the wall, seemed not to see Rider. But when Rider reached out to open the door he came to life with a quick sidestep that barred the way, straightening to attention with his hands brushing his holstered blaster and club.
"No admittance!" he snapped, with the crisp intonation of those who e
njoy authority. "General Beeling and the others must not be disturbed, as I told you before."
He added, with deliberate delay, "—sir."
Rider withdrew his reaching hand and considered the pleasure of smashing the pointed chin and walking into the building across the man's stomach. He regretfully dismissed it as wishful dreaming. The feud between the old Frontier Corps and the politically powerful and young ERB was approaching its decisive climax and reached even to Deneb. He was a despised and unwanted superfluity in what had been his own camp and they would like nothing better than an excuse to arrest and confine him.