Armada of Antares

by Alan Burt Akers

  In an alien setting only the most stupid of blinkered idiots could say that they would not expect to see many different kinds of life. Differences in numbers of arms and legs, in facial and skull structures, are the most common ways in which diffs vary from apims, but they are only the outward show. The most significant differences are those of psychology rather than physiology, of racial outlooks rather than morphology. At least this Wolfgang was not such an onker as to be eternally surprised at the multifarious faces of nature.

  And suppose the Star Lords had scoured the galaxy to find different forms of life and placed them all here arbitrarily? What was their purpose? Why did they use me, Dray Prescot? One day, I promised myself, one day I’d find out.

  Wouldn’t a Pachak, with his tail hand, think an apim a most crippled mortal? Wouldn’t a Djang, with his four powerful arms, think an apim practically armless? Who is to say who differs from whom?

  The closed mind is always the most frightening horror in any world.

  “Anyway,” said this Savapim, who came from Germany on a spot of dirt circling a spot of light all but invisible from Kregen, “I am tired and it is late. Tomorrow I must continue my task. I envy you resident Savapims.” He glanced at me sharply. “Although, if you are doing your job properly, why was I needed here at all?”

  “There are many fresh diffs in Ruathytu just now,” I said diplomatically.

  He could sleep in Nulty’s room. I saw to his wants, and he stretched out. “As I say,” he said, yawning, “we now believe that the distribution of diffs and flora and fauna has clearly been carried out deliberately. And with a lot of snarl-ups. Has it been done to plan or arbitrarily? Has the initial distribution been completed, or is it a continuous process? And how long ago was it begun?” He yawned again. “And is evolution taking care of those species placed down in locales not suitable for them?”

  I nodded. “I think that must be so.”

  Wolfgang licked his lips as I went to the door.

  “It’s all a puzzle.” His voice softened and slurred. “Thank you for your hospitality. I welcome it. Kregen is a world very hard on the stranger at times. I have found many strange peoples in many places and I have already assumed they must have been placed here; at least it is a strong possibility, and only an idiot would comment adversely on the continuing occurrence of new peoples on a new world.”

  I did not point out to him that he was talking to a man who said he came from Havilfar and therefore to whom Kregen would hardly be a new world. As I closed the door he said through a huge and final yawn, “So who the devil is putting these damned diffs here on Kregen, anyway?”

  And that made me, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, smile. It was a hard, cynical smile. I thought the Star Lords controlled Kregen. I could be wrong, but at least I knew a little more than this Savapim.

  The gaining of my information had been extraordinarily painful, that I will admit.

  When I awoke in the morning and looked into Nulty’s room, Wolfgang the Savapim was gone.

  Pinned by one of my daggers to the wall was a note. I tore it down. The paper — ah, the paper! Savanti paper! Of first quality, beautiful, crisp, white. I had not asked Wolfgang about the Savanti paper and its important function. Now it was too late. The note was brief.

  “Lahal Amak: Thank you for the wine and the bed. We will go hunting the graint together, on the plains.”

  It was written in that beautiful flowing Kregan script, very pure, and instead of the usual Remberee was written Happy Swinging.

  “Happy Swinging to you, too,” I said, and burned the note.

  Chapter 14

  How Rees and Chido assisted the Star Lords

  Chido said, “Y’know, old feller, Wees ain’t half cut up about last night.”

  “Did he roar?”

  “By Krun! He roared like a chunkrah with hoofache!”

  “Let us go and take the Baths of the Nine.”

  So we went to the best establishment in the Sacred Quarter. The Baths of the Nine are extraordinarily decadent and luxurious in Ruathytu, as you may imagine, and we steamed and soaked. We found Rees moodily stretched on a slab with a Numim girl carefully brushing his glorious golden fur.

  “Huh,” he said when he saw us. “You apims and your naked skins! Oil and strigils! Barbarous!”

  So we imagined he was back to form, which was a relief.

  “Anyway, Hamun!” he bellowed. “Who was that Havil-forsaken man?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “He cleared off quickly this morning before I was up. He didn’t speak much.”

  “I’ll bet he didn’t.”

  We stretched out next to Rees and two Fristle fifis started in on us with oils, unguents, and scrapers. I leaned my head close to Rees in the warm scented room.

  Now nine is one of the most sacred numbers on Kregen. I was to perform wonders with the aid of a magic square based on nine, but that remains to be told. So I leaned toward Rees and I said, “The Nine have been asking questions.”

  He looked at me blankly.

  I said, “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “No, by Krun! I do not.”

  If he knew about the Nine Faceless Ones, he might not vouchsafe that information, bound by prior vows.

  I said, “They are faceless, Rees.”

  “Faceless! Bodiless! Specters! I need a drink!”

  Later, as we sat on the terrace overlooking the largest pool and watched the swimming and diving, I said, very lazily, acting my part as a chinless goggler like Chido, “Do, you know anyone connected with the vollers, Rees?”

  “Only that cramph Vad Garnath, and if he shows his face I shall kill him.”

  Now I did not think Garnath was involved with voller manufacture. He had mentioned that he might form a skyship flight or a voller squadron. That was not what I wanted.

  I tried for what I promised myself would be the penultimate time.

  “I don’t mean that, Rees. I mean making the damned things.”

  He looked over at me, his glass half raised. “Now, old son! You don’t want to go around talking about these things. It ain’t healthy.”

  “Downright unhealthy,” said Chido, going red.

  “I thought I could help the war effort.”

  “If they want you to help, they’ll ask you to help.” He drained his glass and bellowed, “Fill her up, you little fifi! Run!” And, to me: “You ought to join the regiment. I’m reforming. Better than ever. This time no damn regiment of monstrosities will overset us—”

  “Zorcas?”

  He chuckled and watched as the Fristle girl filled the glass.

  “No, Hamun. Totrixes! Damn contrary beasts, the most uncomfortable ride, apart from sleeths, that is.”

  So how could I not say I would ride with him in his fine new regiment?

  To get around that I shouted for more to drink. It was not wine but the fine sherbet-like drink much favored in the warmer parts of Havilfar. It was called sazz, from the fizzing, I suppose, and I drank half of it off before I spoke.

  “Let me first go to Paline Valley. Nulty might welcome a visit.”

  Chido snorted. “Since when has a Crebent ever welcomed a visit from his master?”

  “Ah,” I said, “but Nulty is a special kind of Crebent.”

  This was a mere interlude. I could not simply idle time away in Ruathytu now, ruffling and roistering, drinking and singing, carousing from tavern to tavern. Nor could I go with Rees and the new regiment he was forming, even though they were now to be mounted on totrixes. I knew my nikvove squadrons would have cut through Rees’s regiment at the Battle of Tomor Peak, totrixes or no totrixes, as they had in fact scythed down the three totrix regiments Hamal already had mounted.

  Poor Rees! This great blustering Numim, this Rees ham Harshur, Trylon of the Golden Wind, loved a good fight and a good laugh. This great golden lion-man had worn the Queen’s colors and fought for her during the rebellion which had seated her on the crystal thron
e, and now he was badly out of favor with that evil, scheming woman. Yes, indeed, poor Rees, for he had lost his way. I knew that. I do not think Chido could see it as clearly, for he saw with different eyes; but as we ate miscils and caught the crumbs as those tiny delicious cakes melted in our mouths, as we lazily picked up palines and savored them, I saw that Rees was troubled. Oh, he was forming a regiment and this time of totrixes, not zorcas. But for all the feeling I had for him I ached to see him acting so vivaciously to maintain his habitual lion-like bellowing and roaring.

  Once again concern over a friend had seduced me from my true work. Concern over an enemy had made me forget he was a Hamalian, an enemy, a man who was fighting the men of my own country of Vallia. Curse all wars!

  So, speaking, I admit, with a greater heaviness than I wished to show, I said, “I’ll ride out with you, old fellow, as soon as can be. We’ll see what a totrix regiment can do.”

  It doesn’t matter, we are told, if you lie to your enemy. I’d lie and cheat and do the dirtiest tricks possible on my enemies to assist my friends. As we sat in the scented air overlooking the pool with the happy sounds of splashing and diving, though, and I looked across as Rees took up a handful of palines and I saw his pleased look, knowing I had lied to him, I had no love at all for the life of a spy.

  I must get on with spying, though . . .

  I had been in Ruathytu less than a day. Adding on our travel time from Pandahem I fancied Tom Tomor and Kytun would have the army on the move heading northwest, I judged they would only have gone a short distance. As for Pando and Tilda, they must wait on the icy slab of anticipation for my return.

  I had not shaved this morning, and resisted the attempts of a charming little apim girl to shave me during the bathing ritual.

  Rees stood up, flinging the last paline into the air and catching it in his lion-mouth, his golden mane flowing. “You look as scruffy as the back end of a quoffa, Hamun!”

  Chido guffawed and, in his turn, stood up.

  But all the same, as Chido rose his eyes caught mine and he made a face which said, very clearly, “Poor old Wees is badly off color.”

  The cause might be that idiot called Nath the Crafty and his obsessive hatred of diffs, but I was not at all sure of that. It could just be that Rees felt more than a little humiliated that his gorgeous regiment of zorcamen had failed again so disastrously. The first zorca regiment he had raised had been tumbled over by a regiment of Pandahem hersanymen. It could be.

  Well, it was no use trying to saddle a fluttrell before you catch it. And, equally, I had my own zhantil to saddle.

  Many of our old friends and acquaintances of the Sacred Quarter had gone off to war, and the place festered with a sleazy gaiety that displeased me, notwithstanding the place was the capital city of an enemy country. The presence of so many diffs also posed an unsettling problem: there were many more fights centered on racial differences than there had ever been. At the time — I admit with all due shame, now — this had no power to worry me. The more fighting men of Hamal who were put hors de combat at their own hands, before they got to battle with my warriors of Valka and Djanduin, the better.

  By Krun! Yes!

  A fistfight broke out among a noisy group of bathers below the terrace as we turned to leave. Shouts and yells spurted up, bouncing from the high fire-crystal roof. Other people avoided the ugly scene, knowing the guards would quickly arrive. Rees turned back, looking down with hot eyes. Chido let out a tchh of annoyance.

  “There is that onker Gordano! He only came in from his volgendrin last night, for he called on me and left a note, and here he is brawling with Fristles.”

  “He should have found you last night at the Scented Sylvie,” said Rees, his voice growling. “Maybe a damned Kataki would have slashed his throat open with his tail blade.”

  I did not like this at all. But I caught at that word Chido used, volgendrin. I had heard men speak of them, as I have indicated, but I had not bothered, being busy about other pursuits. But the word must have a meaning over and above what I supposed.

  Chido turned back and leaned over the terrace parapet. The fight down there waxed warm and two men went headfirst into the pool. From one of them redness drifted into the water, chill and ominous.

  “Run, Gordano, you fambly!” yelled Chido. “Run!” But, being Chido, he shouted, “Wun!”

  Rees shouted something, but in such a way that his meaning was lost. He strode out, flinging his towel around his golden mane. I looked with Chido down at the poolside, at the greenery growing lushly in ceramic pots and hanging from the multi-planed rafters supporting the fireglass roof. A pot smashed, and an apim and a Numim, fighting furiously, rolled into the water in an almighty splash. I did not know which of the men fighting down there might be Gordano. I looked back over my shoulder. Rees had gone. Then Chido gripped my arm.

  “By Krun, Hamun! The guards have them!”

  The guards sorted out apim and diff and trundled them off in different directions. Chido let go my arm and wiped his forehead. “And Gordano’s arrested. The law will deal with him, the great onker.”

  “What does he do?” I said to Chido as we trailed after Rees.

  “Gordano has some sort of job — Havil knows what — over on his volgendrin. He doesn’t talk about it. Mysterious feller, even if he is my cousin and a Vad.”

  I pondered. When I had heard those three evil men plotting with their voices rising to me through the bronze grill there in the fortress of Smerdislad in Faol, I had more particularly marked their plans for me, for Vallia, for Hamal. They had said they would recruit more guards, if necessary, to take care of the volgendrins. Why should they do that? I had been taken to that fateful meeting only because I had followed Saffi to rescue her.

  I truly believed I had done that because the Star Lords — or the Savanti — had arranged it. Now I felt strongly again that the Star Lords — or the Savanti — had arranged this poolside fight purely for my benefit. Much was to grow from that fight. So much that it was no coincidence but must have been a carefully arranged scenario for the furtherance of the plans of the Star Lords — scarcely the Savanti — and an opportunity I must not miss. The Star Lords, of whom I then knew just about nothing at all, normally cared for me not one whit. But some force had put me in the way of overhearing that conversation in Smerdislad, and some force had directed that fight with its consequences to take place as I sat on the terrace directly above.

  Chido and I walked off to the guardhouse to find out what we could of his cousin Gordano.

  The Hikdar in charge, fat and imposing behind a balass desk, peered at us myopically, and then back to the ledger before him. “Gordano? No, Horters, no Gordano has been brought in.”

  Chido made a face and turned away, clearly considering that his cousin had managed to run from the guards. The fight had resulted in deaths, so the laws of Hamal would come into full force. The bleak local guard building, an unhappy piece of architecture, solid-walled and squat, had been designed to withstand a siege. One could see why. I walked off after Chido and saw him pause, then start to walk on again. Only this time he turned off the corridor down a side passage. I followed.

  “Quiet, old feller. There’s that fambly Gordano, and he’s up to something.”

  If the fight was indeed no coincidence but the chance I believed given to me by the Star Lords, it would be a single chance. From now on I must work alone. If I failed in this, I might easily be hurled back to the Earth of my birth, flung in a blue radiance fashioned after the likeness of a monstrous scorpion, sent packing four hundred light-years away from all I held dear on Kregen. No wonder I stepped lightly!

  This Gordano, rapidly and fluently talking to a somewhat thick-headed guard, a dwa-Deldar, looked far more like the usual Hamalian than ever young Chido could. I could not hear what he was saying, but I saw the wink of silver as a handful of dhems passed, to be clutched and stuffed away with practiced ease.

  Chido opened his mouth. Gordano saw him and his
voice rose to continue effortlessly: “Lahal, Nath! I’ve just been telling this good fellow that as I am Naghan Lamahan it is essential I write a letter. Now that you are here you can deliver it for me.”

  Chido gaped. I could imagine the wheels revolving in his mind. He was no Nath, by Krun! And this was Gordano ham Thafey, the Vad of Unlorlan, the son of Chido’s father’s brother, and who in a Herrelldrin hell was this Naghan Lamahan?

  “Lahal, Naghan,” I answered. “Nath and I will see your letter safely delivered.”

  This Gordano ham Thafey, the Vad of Unlorlan, gave me a pretty close stare, I can tell you. My dirty wisp of chin beard could not have impressed him, but the guard and Chido both spoke at once, then, and we had to sort out the babble.

  “You must hurry, Horters. The Hikdar will be yelling for me any mur!”

  “Very well. A mur only, then.” Gordano drew Chido aside.

  At that moment a bull voice roared along the passage. “Deldar! Where in Havil’s name have you got to, you cramph of an onker!”

  “By Havil!” gasped the Deldar. He bolted across the corridor to grab Gordano. That worthy, a dark-skinned man with a smooth complexion and exceedingly bright eyes, still wearing the lounging clothes he had donned after his arrest at the pool, smiled with a wide glitter and went peacefully. I saw Chido stuffing a piece of paper into his back pocket. So we walked back out of the guard station with blank and highly respectable citizens’ faces covering our thoughts.

  You have probably already guessed what ensued. Again, I stress, I did not think this was coincidence. Chido showed me the letter. Heavily sealed, it had clearly not just been written and was not a plea for help from a man in prison. “Gordano says it must reach the hands of Pallan Horosh in person, and at once; if it does not then Gordano will be stuck down in a dungeon of the Hanitchik and never see the lights of day again.”

  “There is no problem there. Let us take it to this Horosh and then—”

  “But, Hamun! I am contracted to join Rees’s new regiment. He is going to his estates of the Golden Wind tomorrow.”

  I did not fully understand yet, you see, so I made some observation into which Chido broke fretfully: “But Pallan Horosh will be at the volgendrin — Gordano says it is the Volgendrin of the Bridge. Rees cannot wait that long. You know how he is. He feels for the defeat his regiment suffered.”