by Gardner Fox
Bran lifted his head once to take a deep breath, seeing those dangling ropes and straps as fingers waving him on. Hurry, hurry! they called. Alvar Drexel is on his way and you know that he is an impatient man. He will be driving his men and the engines of his spaceships to full capacity.
He will know where to come, too. The men in Andelkrann, still believing Gron Dhu to be alive and rayanar of the Lyanir, would have had no reason not to tell him. Yet for that very reason perhaps, Alvar Drexel would not know the need for haste. He would come to his ally Gron Dhu, believing him to be still in command of the Lyanir.
The pale green hexagon slid into position. Bran lifted the egg from its hollow and put it in his belt pouch. Then he caught one of the hanging ropes and began to wind it about the weapon.
“Haul away,” he said at last.
The ropes tautened. A winch creaked complainingly, somewhere up above. Slowly—Kronn, how slowly!—the weapon lifted. An inch, two inches off the ground it went, swaying in its net of hempen strands. Bran put a palm to it, as if to speed its upward progress.
The thing was heavy, maybe too heavy for the crude crane to lift out into the air. The ropes hummed.
“Take it up! Take it up!” he bellowed.
“Too late, Bran,” cried a voice.
A face peered over the rim at him: Peganna of the Silver hair, with disaster written on her features. Bran felt his heart give a big lurch.
“The fleet?”
“On the horizon. Lookouts sighted it far off and relayed the news by the lyani-horns. The war fleet is only at a cruising speed, otherwise it would have been here long ago. I guess Alvar Drexel expects to see my brother waiting for him.”
Bran rasped a curse and caught one of the taut ropes, going up its length hand over hand to the circled opening. He caught the metal rim and yanked himself up to stand beside the rayanal.
Her finger pointed northward.
He could see them now, tiny black dots that grew steadily, the closer they came. Soon they were large enough to show their outlines and Bran recognized five huge battlewagons, half a dozen cruisers, a dozen smaller scouters. Any one of them could wreck the encampment here with a score of well-placed blasts.
There was a pain in his middle, behind his belt buckle. To have come so far, and now to fail! The injustice of the thing was a bitterness on his tongue. He wondered in an insane moment if he could use the rose tetrahedron, even now. Of course he might destroy the vault ceiling, hurling it into the null world, yet also he would obliterate the Empire war fleet as well, with the same beam.
It could be worth trying!
He was turning toward the metal staircase when Peganna caught his arm. She had seen the stark fury in his eyes and asked, “What would you do?”
When he told her, she shook her head. “We dare not risk it, Bran. A beam from that—that thing below us might wipe out half my people. You would have to tilt it, prop it up for the correct angle of fire. It might topple over—even blow to nullity the rest of the vault.”
She shuddered at that thought and her fingernails were claws set in his wrist. She shook him gently, “It is better if I bargain.”
“You can never bargain with Alvar Drexel. I know the man.”
She would not release him and he would not use force against her. Frozen in that little tableau they watched the Empire fleet loom enormous in the sky above their heads. Black shadows from those titanic bulks lay like night over the vault and the encampment.
Bran had never appreciated how big the Empire spacers really were, until this moment. Their dark shadows matched his black despair.
From the flagship came a two-man flier, slim and streamlined, with a tiny compartment for its pilot and his companion. A narrow rod welded to its underpart widened into a thick lens which was the firing end of an atomic ray. The lens was aimed right at the man and woman on the vault as the flier gently lowered.
A Fleet captain stepped from the flier. He was a young man, one of the eager cadets newly risen in the Service. Bran did not know him. His white uniform was spotless, its gold braid and campaign medals, leather a-gun holster and military boots glittered with polish. Peganna he saluted, Bran Magannon he ignored except for one quick, sidewise glance.
“I am here to announce your formal arrest, by orders of Commander Drexel of the flagship Taliesin of the Empire space fleet assigned to sector 834. You will hold yourself in readiness to be taken aboard the ship within the hour.”
“Not quite as fast as all that,” Bran said softly.
The officer drew himself erect, chin in and shoulders rigid. “I am instructed to tell ex-Commander Magannon that he also is under arrest, according to the Articles of Space War, section 143.”
“Are you now?” asked Bran with a grin. “Son, you go back and re-read that section and while you’re at it, read over 149 as well.”
The eyes darted at Bran, widening slightly. “One forty-nine, sir?”
“Yes, that would be the right passage, I believe. It has to do with officers who have risen to the rank of admiral, past or present. You go back and read it over, then come see me.”
Almost instinctively, the officer saluted and turned on a heel. He went back to the flier, nodded to his pilot, and was taken up in a rising spiral to the Taliesin.
Captain Bettencourt shivered as he climbed out of the flier onto the deck of the flagship. In an aside, he told his pilot, “The old man’ll have my hide. He hates Magannon worse than poison.”
A lift took him to the bridge, where he stood at attention, relating what had taken place. Drexel scowled blackly when his recitation was at an end.
“One forty-nine? What the hell is section one forty—”
An orderly ran for the service manual, flipping pages. His eyes scanned the close print, and his lips twitched. He said softly, “It says here that—”
“Don’t interpret it for me, man. Read the damn thing.”
“I quote, sir: ‘Any officer of the rank of admiral, past or present, brought before any tribunal, must be accorded all the privileges of his office, except that of direct command.’ I unquote, sir.”
“Oh my God,” breathed Alvar Drexel.
He stared at Captain Bettencourt and the orderly. He had intended to bring Bran Magannon back in chains in the hold of the Taliesin. Instead, he would not only have to grant him the courtesy of a stateroom but detail an orderly to attend him, see that he had uniforms and campaign ribbons, even a dress sword if he wanted it.
“The purpose of the section is to show that the post of fleet commander is so important that even if arrested—”
“I know the whys and wherefores, captain! It’s just that I—I’d forgotten about one forty-nine. Damn his eyes! Magannon didn’t forget. Go down and tell him he shall be accorded all the courtesies. And—ask him what that metal box is he’s standing on.”
“Yes, sir. At once, sir.”
When Captain Bettencourt stood again before Bran Magannon and the queen of the Lyanir he was more respectful. He stood at attention just as he had done before Alvar Drexel.
“Commander’s compliments, sir. You shall be extended all the courtesies. Commander requests that you and the queen of the Lyanir come aboard, sir.”
“Under truce?”
“Yes, sir. Under truce.”
Captain Bettencourt resisted the inclination to grin. This Bran Magannon was everything rumor and legend said he was. Old timers had told the captain how Admiral Magannon had always been able to think his way out of any difficulty. He would be a match for the Old Man, all right. He never missed a trick. This might be fun, in a way.
A scouter was sinking toward the vault.
Bettencourt asked, “What is this thing, sir? Begging your pardon, sir, but Commander Drexel asked me to find out.”
“I’ll tell him myself, captain,” Bran smiled.
Bran escorted Peganna across the roof of the vault to a metal ramp being lowered by the scouter. Under his breath he told her to leave the talking to him, other than the ob
vious things. He warned her not to be surprised by what he did or said.
“I am always surprised by what you do, Bran. But I promise not to show it.”
Three uniformed Marines waited in the ten-man scouter. They saluted crisply and one of them escorted them to twin lounges. They were barely seated when the Taliesin towered overhead and the ramp was sliding out again.
Commander Drexel was in his quarters, seated behind a large desk when his visitors entered. His grin was wolfish as he rose to his feet and bowed.
“You shall be accorded every courtesy as my prisoner. I—”
“Go back, go back, Alvar,” said the Wanderer with a grin. “We are no prisoners of yours.”
Drexel laughed. “Are you not? Suppose I turn my rayers on the Lyanir below?”
“Even you aren’t that much of a fool.”
“Gron Dhu would support me. He and I have an agreement.”
“My brother is dead,” said Peganna softly.
The Commander goggled at her. Slowly he sank back into his desk chair, aware that his forehead was beading with sweat. If he had no ally among the Lyanir, what he had done amounted to an act of war. He had brought a battle fleet into a planetary atmosphere and by those same Articles of Space War which Bran Magannon quoted so glibly, this was a breach of the peace.
It was as if Bran followed his thoughts. “You overreached yourself, Alvar—as you always do. The best and safest course to follow now would be to submit an official apology, fill your water tanks as an excuse against your violation, and take off.”
Commander Drexel sneered, “Your very excellent advice might apply were this a planet of the Empire Federation, Magannon. This is an alien world. It has not been claimed by the star cluster.”
“All the more reason for caution, then. Check your manual, Alvar.”
Commander Drexel felt he had been buffeted about long enough. His palm slapped the tabletop. “I know the manual! This case has no place in it. The Lyanir were enemies. May still be our enemies. It calls for a new ruling.” His teeth worried his upper lip as he concentrated.
Peganna chafed under the restraint Bran had placed on her. Love him as she did, she was still queen of her people. Miranor was her world, the planet which she ruled. She leaned forward in the chair to which she had been ushered upon entering the cabin.
“Bran Magannon and I intend to come to Earth anyhow, Commander.”
“Ah, do you now? And why?”
Bran said warningly, “Peganna!”
She ignored him. The mockery in the face of Alvar Drexel was as a goad to her pride, causing her to lift her head in the regal manner with which she faced her own people.
“Because I have something now to trade for living space. A vault of scientific marvels. A metal rectangle filled with the—”
“Peganna!”
“Filled with what, your highness?”
The silky voice of the Fleet Commander should have warned her but she was beyond caution. She was a ruler of a proud people. It was not in her heritage to bow and scrape before any man. She erupted out of the chair and stood with arms by her side, her eyes blazing.
“Filled with marvels neither you nor I have ever seen! Even my own scientists find themselves like children in the vault. The knowledge of the Crenn Lir is to ours as ours is to a cave civilization. It is my intention to offer these marvels to the Empire, share and share alike, as equals.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” muttered Drexel.
Bran moved like a panther, coming beside Peganna and catching her arm, squeezing it with his strong fingers until she winced. His smile was cold as he turned it on the man who had been his subordinate in the years when he had worn the star cluster on his uniform.
“As long as the pot’s been kicked over, I’ll tell you more, Alvar. You have the chance to be a hero—or a fool. Take us with honor to Earth and you’ll get any reward you want. The vault is that breathtaking.”
Commander Drexel came close to goggling. He knew Bran Magannon as well as any man might know him. He was no weathervane to shift about with every breeze. If Bran Magannon thought the vault was that wonderful, why then—
His eyes narrowed. His finger pressed a stud of the control panel inset into his desktop. “There will be weapons in the vault, I assume.” His eyes were on Peganna as he spoke, and when her eyelids flickered, he knew he had struck home.
“Yes, weapons. Weapons on an alien world—an unfriendly world inhabited by the one-time enemies of Empire. It makes a difference. Oh, yes, quite a difference.”
A door opened. An ensign stood waiting, back rigid.
“Put these two in irons, Broome. Then have a scouter waiting alongside the deck for me. I’ll go down and examine the vault myself.”
Drexel seemed to bloat with triumph as he stared at Bran Magannon. “I have ways to make men talk, Bran Magannon. I won’t bother to use them on you or the wench with you. There’ll be Lyanir scientists below who won’t hold out their information on me.”
He turned his back on them and moved toward the doorway. Peganna moaned softly and turned an imploring face up at the Earthman. “Bran, Bran! You told me to say nothing. I—I couldn’t help myself.”
“It’s done, mavourneen.”
“What can he do if he finds a way to get into the vault and—and learns what some of those things can do?”
“As he said. He’ll take us to Earth as prisoners.”
Her haunted eyes searched his tanned face. “Then there isn’t any hope at all?”
“None I can see, achushla.”
She might have crumpled except that his arm was about her middle, holding her upright. Bran stared down into her pallid features and whispered hard oaths under his breath.
An ensign took them in the middle of an armed escort down into the hold of the huge spacer and locked them in a room with metal walls, with two cots at either end, with a table and two chairs riveted to the floor. The air was clean and scented. Normally, this was the quarters of a spaceman first class. For a while, it would be their home.
Peganna threw herself on the nearer bunk and, folding her arms over her face, began to weep very softly. Bran stared at her, wanting to comfort her yet finding no words with which to do it. Drexel was right. Weapons in the vault—and Kronn knew there were weapons!—would make a difference.
Commander Drexel would be a hero, all right. His claim would be that he had ferreted out a weapons vault on the Lyanirn planet of Miranor, that he had made a swift descent before those weapons could be trained on his fleet—and captured them. Otherwise, he would say, with those vault weapons the Lyanir could have smashed the Empire without stirring off its planet.
He was right. This was the frightening part of it. In the eyes of the Empire and its uncounted billions of people, he was absolutely correct. When word of what those marvels could do was spread across the Empire, a breath of relief would go up that would shake the star cluster standards from Acamar to Zosma.
He sat down hard on the closest chair.
Right now Drexel would be on the vault roof, asking questions. There would be torture if no one told him about the blue egg. Ah, and then—he would learn all he wanted to know about the vault.
Bran shivered. Though he had never employed torture himself as a Commander, he had served as captain under a brutal officer who was given to the use of a nerve stimulator—official equipment for the neurosurgeon on board ship—on a spy or two he had got into his hands. The nerve stimulator at its highest pitch could flay sensitive nerve ends like a tiny whip. No man could stand up to that pain, which made no mark except in the lines of a man’s face when he screamed.
The Lyanirn would talk, Kronn help them.
And their every word meant death for Peganna and himself.
He put his head in his hands.
He sat there a long time. Two hours or three or even four, it made no difference. The dead cannot stir and walk about. He roused to the opening of his quarters door. Four Marines with drawn a-guns came i
n and lined up with their backs to the wall. At least he does me the courtesy of being afraid, Bran reflected. Then Commander Drexel entered to stand before him.
Drexel tried to speak and could not, at first. Only his brilliant eyes and the high flush in his cheeks told of his excitement, of the flaming success he had achieved. Slowly he reached into the pocket of his white uniform jacket and lifted out the blue egg. He tossed it up and caught it.
“Traitor,” he said then, to Bran Magannon.
On a heel he swung toward the bunk where Peganna lay with an arm flung across her eyes. “Enemy ruler,” he whispered softly.
Then he snarled, “By all the gods of space! I knew some day I’d get you where I wanted you, Magannon! Ah, you can’t guess how it feels, to stand here and see you a broken man.”
His fist slapped into his cupped palm, again and again. “As a traitor, you’ll stand trial. You haven’t a chance. You know what they do to traitors? They hang them high.
“As for your queen, your precious Peganna—she’ll be executed, too. Oh, not the rope. Too undignified for a woman. They’ll gas your floozy.”
Bran went over the table, vaulting it with widespread legs and with his palms flat on its top, as if he were playing leapfrog. His action was so sudden, the four Marines could only gape. Then his head was ramming into Alvar Drexel’s face and as they went down in a heap the uniformed men dared not fire for fear of hitting their commander.
Bran lifted a hammerlike fist and rammed it into the face beneath him. He hit it three times, great swinging blows with every ounce of his strength behind them, before the Marines caught his arms and dragged him free.
Instantly Bran subsided. He had nothing against the servicemen. “Take him the hell out of here,” he told to the four. “And remind him that even prisoners of war are safe from insult.”
They carried an unconscious Alvar Drexel from the little cabin and the door clanged shut behind them. From her bunk, Peganna stared at Bran where he rubbed his knuckles.
“That was foolish, darling.”
“But very satisfying.”
“He’ll hate you more than ever.”
“He’s done his worst, already. He won’t flog me or anything like that. This isn’t a barbarian Empire, for all its faults. He has to feed me and keep me healthy—to stand trial. He wants me to kick air, does Commander Drexel, though if it were up to him, he’d find another punishment.”