Short Fiction Complete

by Fred Saberhagen

  Left alone in the temple, Katsulos kicked the pieces of the plastic dummy into a pile, to be ready for careful salvage. He trod heavily on the malleable face, just in case someone besides his own men should happen to see it.

  Then he stood for a moment looking up into the maniacal bronze face of Mars. And Katsulos’ eyes, that were cold weapons when he turned them on other men, were now alive.

  II

  A communicator sounded, in what was going to be the High Lord Nogara’s cabin when he took delivery of the ship. Admiral Hemphill, alone in the cabin, needed a moment to find the proper switch on the huge, unfamiliar desk. “What is it?”

  “Sir, our rendezvous with the Solarian courier is completed. We’re ready to drive again, unless you have any last minute messages to transmit?”

  “Negative. Our new passenger came aboard?”

  “Yes, sir. A Solarian, named Mitchell Spain. As we were advised.”

  “I know Mr. Spain, Captain. Will you ask him to come to this cabin as soon as possible? I’d like to talk to him at once.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are those police still snooping around the bridge?”

  “Not at the moment, sir.”

  Hemphill shut off the communicator and leaned back in the thronelike chair from which Felipe Nogara would soon survey his Esteeler empire; but soon the habitually severe expression of Hemphill’s lean face deepened and he stood up. The luxury of this cabin did not please him.

  On the blouse of Hemphill’s neat, plain uniform were seven ribbons of scarlet and black, each representing a battle in which one or more berserker machines had been destroyed. He wore no other decorations except his insignia of rank.

  Within a. minute the cabin door opened, and a short, muscular, rather ugly man in civilian clothes entered. He smiled at once, and came toward the desk.

  “So, it’s High Admiral Hemphill now, with your commission from the United Planets. Congratulations. It’s a long time since we’ve met.”

  “Thank you. Yes, not since the Stone Place.” Hemphill’s mouth bent upward slightly at the corners, and he moved around the desk to shake hands. “You were a captain of marines then, as I recall.”

  And they gripped hands, both men thought back to that day of victory against the machines. Neither of them could smile at it now, for the war was going badly again.

  “That’s nine years ago,” said Mitchell Spain. “I’m a foreign correspondent now, for Solar News Service. They want me to go out and interview Nogara.”

  “I’ve heard that you’ve made a reputation as a writer.” Hemphill motioned Mitch to a chair. “I’m afraid I have no time myself for literature or other non-essentials.” Mitch sat down, and dug out his pipe. He knew Hemphill well enough to be sure that no slur was intended by the reference to literature. To Hemphill, everything was non-essential except the destruction of berserker machines; and today such a viewpoint was doubtless a good one for a High Admiral.

  Mitch got the impression that Hemphill, had serious business to talk about, but was uncertain of how to broach the subject. To fill the pause, Mitch remarked: “I wonder if the High Lord Nogara will be pleased with his new ship.” He gestured around the cabin with the stem of his pipe.

  Everything was quiet and steady as if rooted on the surface of a planet. There was nothing to suggest that even now the most powerful engines ever built by Earth-descended men were hurling this ship out toward the rim of the galaxy at many times the speed of light.

  Hemphill took the remark as a cue. Leaning slightly forward in his uncomfortable-looking seat, he said: “I’m not concerned about his liking it. What concerns me is how it’s going to be used.”

  Since the Stone Place, Mitch’s left hand was mostly scar tissue and prosthetics. He used one plastic finger now to tamp down the glowing coal of his pipe. “You mean Nogara’s idea of fun? I caught a glimpse of the gladiatorial arena. I’ve never met him, but they say he’s gone bad, really bad, since Karlsen’s death.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Nogara’s so-called amusements. What I really mean is that Karlsen may be still alive.”

  Hemphill’s calm, fantastic statement hung in the quiet cabin air. For a moment it seemed to Mitch that he could sense the motion of the C-plus ship as it traversed spaces no man understood, spaces where it seemed time might mean nothing and the dead of all the ages might still be walking.

  Mitch shook his head. “Are we talking about the same man? Johann Karlsen, Nogara’s half-brother?”

  “Of course.”

  “Wait a minute. Two years ago Johann Karlsen went down into a hypermassive sun, with a berserker-controlled ship on his tail. Unless that story’s not true?”

  “It’s perfectly true, except we think now that his launch went into orbit around the hypermass instead of falling into it. Have you seen the girl who’s aboard?”

  “I passed a girl, outside your cabin. I thought . . .”

  “No, I have no time for that. Her name is Lucinda, single names are the custom on her planet. She’s an eyewitness to Karlsen’s vanishing.”

  “Oh. Yes, I remember the story. But what’s this about his being in orbit?”

  Hemphill stood up and seemed to become more comfortable, as another man would by sitting down. “Ordinarily, the hypermass and everything near it is invisible, due to the extreme red shift caused by its gravity. But during the last year some scientists have done their best to study it. Their ship didn’t compare with this one—” Hemphill turned his head for a moment, as if he could hear the mighty engines—“but they went as close as they dared, carrying new long-wave telescopes. The star itself was still invisible, but they brought back these.”

  Hemphill picked up an envelope and shook out photographs, which Mitch spread on the desk. Most of them showed patterns of slightly curving parallel lines, dark against a sullen red background.

  Hemphill stood behind him. “That’s what space looks like near the hypermass. Remember, it has about a billion times the mass of Sol, packed into roughly the same volume. Gravity like that does things we don’t yet understand.”

  “Interesting. What forms these dark lines?”

  “Falling dust that’s become trapped in lines of gravitic force, like the lines round a magnet. Or so I’m told.”

  “And where’s Karlsen?” Hemphill’s finger descended on a photo, pointing out a spot of crystalline roundness, tiny as a raindrop within a magnified line of dust. “We think this is his launch. It’s orbiting about a hundred million miles from the center of the hypermass. And the berserker-controlled ship that was chasing him is here, following him in the same dust-line.” His finger moved to another photo, to point out a dark-shape. “Now they’re both stuck. No ordinary engines can drive a ship down there.”

  Mitch stared at the photos, hardly seeing them for the old memories that came flooding back. “And you think he’s alive.”

  “He had equipment that would let him freeze himself into suspended animation. Also, time may be running quite slowly for him. He’s in a three-hour orbit.”

  “A three-hour orbit, at a hundred million miles—wait a minute!” Hemphill almost smiled. “I told you, things we don’t understand yet.”

  Mitch nodded slowly. “He’s not a man to give up. No. He’d fight as long as he could, and then invent a way to fight some more.”

  Hemphill’s face had become iron again. “You know how many people have made a god of him since his departure, and what a boost to their morale his return would be. And you knew him. You saw what efforts the berserkers made to kill him. They feared him, in their iron guts, though I never quite understood why . . . Do you agree, then? If we can save him we must do so at once—without delay.”

  “Certainly, but how?”

  “With this ship. It has the strongest engines ever built—trust Nogara to have seen to that, with his own safety in mind.”

  Mitch whistled softly. “Strong enough to match orbits with Karlsen and pull him out of there?”

  �
�Yes, mathematically. Supposedly.”

  “And you mean to make the attempt before this ship is delivered to Nogara.”

  “That’s it. I’ve been keeping my rescue plan a secret; you know he wanted Karlsen out of the way.” Mitch nodded. He felt a rising excitement. “And if we succeed Nogara may rage, but what can he do? How about the crew, are they willing?”

  “I’ve already sounded out the captain. He’s with me. And since I hold my rank from the United Planets I can issue legal orders on any ship.” Hemphill began to pace. “The only thing that worries me is this detachment of Nogara’s police we have aboard; they’re certain to oppose the rescue.”

  “How many of them are there?”

  “A couple of dozen. I don’t know why there are so many, but they outnumber the rest of us two to one. Not counting their prisoners, who of course are helpless.”

  “Prisoners?”

  “About forty young men, I understand. Sword fodder for the arena.”

  III

  Lucinda spent a good deal of her time wandering restless and alone through the corridors of the great ship. Today she happened to be in a passage not far from the central bridge and flag quarters when a door opened close ahead of her and three men came into view. The two who wore black uniforms held a single prisoner, clad in a shirt of chain mail, between them.

  When she saw the black uniforms, Lucinda’s chin lifted. She waited, standing in their path.

  “Go round me, vultures,” she said in an icy voice when they came up to her. She did not look at the prisoner; bitter experience had taught her that showing sympathy for Nogara’s victims could bring added suffering upon them.

  The black uniforms halted in front of her. “I am Katsulos,” said the bushy-browed one. “Who are you?”

  “Once my planet was Flamland,” she said, and from the corner of her eye she saw the prisoner’s face turn up. “One day it will be my home again, when it is freed of Nogara’s vultures.”

  The second black uniform opened his mouth to reply, but never got out a word, for just then the prisoner’s elbow came smashing back into his belly. Then the prisoner, who till now had stood meek as a lamb, shoved Katsulos off his feet and was out of sight around a bend of corridor before either policemen could recover.

  Katsulos bounced quickly to his feet. His gun drawn, he pushed past Lucinda to the bend of the corridor. Then she saw his shoulders slump.

  Her delighted laughter did not seem to sting him in the least.

  “There’s nowhere he can go,” he said. The look in his eyes choked off her laughter in her throat.

  Katsulos posted police guards on the bridge and in the engine room, and secured all lifeboats. “The man Jor is desperate, and dangerous,” he explained to Hemphill and to Mitchell Spain. “Half of my men are searching for him continuously, but you know how big this ship is. I hope you will stay close to your quarters until he’s caught.”

  A day passed, and Jor was not caught. Mitch took advantage of the police dispersal to investigate the arena—Solar News would be much interested.

  He climbed a short stair and emerged squinting in imitation sunlight, under a high-domed ceiling as blue as Earth’s sky. He found himself behind the upper row of the approximately two hundred seats that encircled the arena behind a sloping crystalline wall. At the bottom of the glassy bowl, the oval-shaped fighting area was about thirty yards long. It was floored by a substance that looked like sand but was doubtless something more cohesive, that would not fly up in a cloud if the artificial gravity chanced to fail.

  In this facility, as slickly modern as a death-ray, the vices of ancient Rome could be enjoyed most efficiently. Every spectator would be able to see every drop of blood. There was only one awkward-looking feature. Set at equal intervals around the upper rim of the arena, behind the seats, were three buildings, each as large as a small house. Their architecture seemed to Mitch to belong somewhere on Ancient Earth; their purpose was not immediately apparent.

  Mitch took out his pocket camera and made a few photographs from where he stood. Then he walked behind the rows of seats to one of the buildings. A door stood open, and he went in. At first he thought he had discovered an entrance to Nogara’s private harem; but after a moment he saw that the people in the paintings were not all engaged in sexual embraces. There were men and women and godlike beings, posed in a variety of relationships, in the costumes of Ancient Earth when they wore any costumes at all. As Mitch snapped a few more photos he gradually realized that each of the paintings was meant to depict some aspect of human love.

  It was puzzling. He had not expected to find love here, or in any part of Felipe Nogara’s chosen environment.

  As he left the temple through another door, he passed a lady who was evidently the resident goddess. She was bronze, and the upper part of her beautiful body emerged nude from glittering sea-green waves. He photographed the smiling statue and moved on.

  The second building’s interior paintings showed scenes of hunting, and of women in childbirth. The goddess of this temple was clothed modestly in bright green and armed with a bow and quiver. Bronze hounds waited at her feet, eager for the chase.

  As he moved on to the last temple, Mitch found his steps quickening slightly. Could something be drawing him there?

  Whatever attraction might have existed was annihilated in revulsion as soon as he stepped into the place. If the first building was a temple raised to Love, surely this one honored Hate.

  On the painted wall fight opposite the entrance, a sow-like beast thrust its ugly head into a cradle, devouring the screaming child. Beside it, men in togas, faces glowing with hate, stabbed one of their own number to death. All around the walls men and women and children suffered pointiessly and died horribly, without hope. The spirit of destruction was almost palpable within this room. It was like a berserker’s—

  Mitch took a step back and closed his eyes, bracing his arms against the sides of the entrance. Yes, something more than clever painting and lighting had been set to work here, to honor Hate. It was something physical, that Mitch found not entirely unfamiliar.

  Years ago, during a space battle, he had experienced the attack of a berserker’s mindbeam, a weapon designed to throw organized thought into confusion. Men had learned how to shield their ships from mindbeams.

  Did they now bring the enemy’s weapons inside?

  Mitch opened his eyes. The beam he felt now was very weak, but it carried something worse than mere confusion.

  Mitch stepped back and forth through the entrance. Outside the walls of the temple, the effect practically disappeared. Inside, it was perceptible, an energy that pricked at the rage centers of the brain. Slowly, slowly, it seemed to be fading, like a residual discharge from a machine that has been turned off. If it was turned off, and he could feel it now, what must this temple be like when the projector was on?

  More importantly, why was such a thing here at all, built into these walls? Was it meant only to goad a few gladiators on to livelier deaths? Possibly. Mitch glanced at this temple’s towering bronze god, riding his chariot over the world, and shivered. He suspected something worse than the simple brutality of Roman games. Yes, worse.

  He remembered seeing an intercom station near the first temple he had entered. He walked back there, and thoughtfully punched out the number of Ship’s Records on the intercom keys.

  When the automated voice answered, he ordered: “I want some information about the design of this arena, particularly the three structures spaced around the upper rim.” The voice asked him if he wanted diagrams.

  “No. At least not yet. Just tell me what you can about the designer’s basic purpose.”

  There was a delay of several seconds. Then the voice said: “The basic designer was a man named Oliver Mical, since deceased. In his design programming, frequent reference is made to descriptive passages within a literary work by one Geoffrey Chaucer of Ancient Earth. The quote fantastic unquote work is titled The Knight’s Tale.”


  The name of Chaucer rang only the faintest of bells for Mitch. But he remembered that Oliver Mical had been one of Nogara’s brainwashing experts, and also a classical scholar.

  “What kind of psycho-electronic devices are built into these three structures?”

  “There is no record aboard of any such installation.”

  Mitch was sure about the hateprojector in the temple; it might have been built in secretly. It probably had been, if his worst suspicions were true.

  He ordered: “Read me some of the relevant passages of this literary work.”

  “The three temples are those of Mars, Venus and Diana,” said the intercom. “A passage relevant to the temple of Mars follows, in original language:

  “First on the wal was peynted a forest

  In which there dwelleth neither man ne beast

  With knotty, knarry, barreyn trees olde

  Of stubbes sharp and hideous to biholde.”

  Mitch could understand only a word here and there, but he was not really listening now. The words “temple of Mars” had been enough to convince him of the worst; for he had heard that phrase applied to a newly risen secret cult of berserkerworshippers.

  “And downward from a hill, under a bente

  Ther stood the temple of Mars armipotente

  Wrought of burned steal, of which the entree

  Was long and streit, and gastly for to see.”

  There was a soft sound behind Mitch, and he turned quickly. Katsulos stood there. He was smiling, but his eyes reminded Mitch of Mars’ statue.

  “Do you understand the ancient language, Spain? No? Then I shall translate.” He took up the verse in a chanting voice:

  “Then saw I first the dark imagining

  Of felony, and all its compassing.

  The cruel ire, red as any fire

  The pickpurse, and also the pale dread

  The smiler with the knife under his cloak