Mordirak was unperturbed. "Quite interesting. But I've seen enough, I think. Can I offer you transportation back to Clutch?"
"No, thank you," he replied disdainfully. "I'll make my own accommodations."
Mordirak nodded and left the gallery.
"Who was that?" Petrical asked. He knew only the man's name, but fully shared Lenda's antipathy.
Lenda turned back toward the assembly room. "No one."
XVIII
As he stepped through the lock from the shuttle to his tourer, Dalt considered the strange inner glee that suffused him at the thought of the Federation's downfall. He had seen it coming for a long time but had paid it little heed. In fact, it had been quite some time since he had given much heed at all to the affairs of his fellow humans. Physically disguising himself from them had been a prime concern at one time, but now even that wasn't necessary—a projected psi image of whomever he wished to appear to be proved sufficient in most cases. (Of course, he had to avoid image recorders of any sort, since they were impervious to psi influence.) Humanity might as well be another race, for all the contact he had with it; the symbol of the human interstellar culture, the Federation, was dying and he could not dredge up a mote of regret for it.
And yet, he should feel something for its passing. Five hundred, even two hundred years ago his reactions might have been different. But he had been someone else then and the Fed had been a viable organization. Now, he was Mordirak and the Fed was on its deathbed.
The decline, he supposed, had begun with the termination of the Terro-Tarkan war, a monstrous, seemingly endless conflict. The war had not gone well for the Terrans at first. The monolithic Tarkan Empire had mounted huge assault forces which wrought havoc with deep incursions into the Terran sphere of influence. But the monolithism that gave the Tarks their initial advantage proved in the long run to be their downfall. Their empire had long studied the loose, disorganized, eccentric structure of the Fed and had read weakness. But when early victory was denied them and both sides dug in for a long siege, the diversification of humanity, long fostered by the LaNague charter, began to tell.
Technological breakthroughs in weaponry eventually pierced the infamous Tarkan screens and the Emperor of the Tarks found his palace planet ringed with Terran dread-naughts. He was the seventh descendant of the emperor who had started the war, and, true to Tarkan tradition, he allowed the upper-echelon nobles assembled around him to blast him and his family to ashes before surrender. Thus honorably ending—in Tarkan terms—the royal line.
With victory, there followed the expected jubilant celebration. Half a millennium of war had ended and the Federation had proved itself resilient and effective. There were scars, yes. The toll of life from the many generations involved had reached into the billions and there were planets on both sides left virtually uninhabitable. But the losses were not in resources alone. The conflict had drained something from the Terrans.
As the flush of victory faded, humanity began to withdraw into itself. The trend was imperceptible at first, but it gradually became apparent to the watchers and chroniclers of the Terran race that expansion had stopped. Exploratory probes along the galactic perimeter and into the core were postponed, indefinitely. Extension of the boundaries of Occupied Space slowed to a crawl.
Man had learned to warp space and had jubilantly leaped from star to star. He had made mistakes, had learned from them, and had continued to move on—until the Terro-Tarkan war. The outward urge had been stung then and had retreated. Humanity turned inward. An unvoiced, unconscious directive set the race to tending its own gardens. The Tarks had been pacified; had, in fact, been incorporated into the Federation and given second-class representation. They were no longer a threat.
But what about farther out? Perhaps there was another belligerent race out there. Perhaps another war was in the wings. Back off, the directive seemed to say. Sit tight for a while and consolidate.
But consolidation never occurred, at least not on a productive scale. By the end of the war, the Terrans and their allies were linked by a comprehensive network of Haas gates and were more accessible to one another than ever before. Had the Federation been in the hands of opportunists at that time, a new imperium could have been launched. But the opposite had occurred: Federation officials, true to the Charter, resisted the urge to use the post-war period to extend their franchise over the member planets. They urged, rather, a return to normalcy and worked to reverse the centrist tendencies that all wars bring on.
They were too successful. As requested, the planets loosened their ties with the Federation, but then went on to form their own enclaves, alliances, and commonwealths, bound together by mutual trade and protection agreements. They huddled in their sectors and for all intents and purposes forgot the Federation.
It was this subdividing, coupled with the atrophy of the outward urge, that caused the political scientists the most concern. They foresaw increasing estrangement between the planetary enclaves and, subsequently, open hostility. Without the Federation acting as a focus for the drives and ambitions of the race, they were predicting a sort of interstellar feudalism. From there the race would go one of two ways: complete consolidation under the most aggressive enclave and a return to empire much like the Metep Imperium in the pre-Federation days, or complete breakdown of interstellar intercourse, resulting in barbarism and stagnation.
Dalt was not sure whether he accepted the doomsayers' theories. One thing was certain, however: The Federation was no longer a focus for much of anything anymore.
With the image of the near-deserted General Council assembly hall dancing in his head, he tried to doze. But a voice as familiar by now as the tone of his own thoughts intruded on his mind.
("Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/Things fall apart, the center cannot hold;/mere anarchy is loosed upon the world/ ... the best lose all conviction.") Don't bother me.
("You don't like poetry, Dalt? That's from one of my favorites of the ancient poets. Appropriate, don't you think?")
I really couldn't care.
("You should. It could apply to your personal situation as well as that of your race.") Begone, parasite!
("I'm beginning to wish that were possible. You worry me lately. Your personality is disintegrating.")
Spare me your trite analyses.
("I'm quite serious about this. Look at what you've become: a recluse, an eccentric divorced from contact with other beings, living in an automated gothic mansion and surrounding himself with old weapons and death trophies, brooding and miserable. My concern is genuine, though hardly altruistic")
Dalt didn't answer. Pard had a knack for cutting directly to the core of a matter and this time the resultant exposure was none too pleasant. He had long been plagued by a gnawing fear that his personality was deteriorating. He didn't like what he had become but seemed unable to do anything about it. When and where had the change begun? When had occasional boredom become crushing ennui? When had other people become other things? Even sex no longer distracted him, although he was as potent as ever. Emotional attachments that had once been an easy, natural part of his being had become elusive, then impossible. Perhaps the fact that all such relationships in the past had been terminated by death had something to do with it.
Pard, of course, had no such problems. He did not communicate directly with the world and had never existed in a mortal frame of reference. From the instant he had gained sentience in Dalt's brain, death had been a mere possibility, never an inevitability. Pard had no need of companionship except for occasional chats with Dalt concerning their dwindling mutual concerns, and found abstract cogitations quite enthralling. Dalt envied him for that.
Why, he wondered in a tangent, did he always refer to Pard in the male gender? Why not "it"? Better yet, why not "her"? He was wedded to this thing in his head till death did them part.
("Don't blame your extended lifespan for your present condition,") said the ever-present th
oughtrider. ("You're mistaking inertia for ennui. You haven't exhausted your possibilities; in fact, you've hardly dented them. You adapted well for a full millennium. It's only in the last one hundred fifty years or so that you've begun to crack.")
Right again, Dalt thought. Perhaps it had been the end of the horrors that had precipitated the present situation. In retrospect, The Healer episodes, for all the strain they subjected him to, had been high points while they lasted—crests between shallow troughs. Now he felt becalmed at sea, surrounded by featureless horizons.
("You should be vitally interested in what is happening to your race, because you, unlike those around you today, will be there when civilization deteriorates into feudalism. But nothing moves you. The rough beast of barbarism is rattling the cage of civilization and all you can do is stifle a yawn.")
You certainly are in a poetic mood today. But barbarians, like the poor, are always with us.
("Granted. But they aren't in charge—at least they haven't been to date. Tell me: Would you like to see a Federation modeled on the Kwashi culture?")
Dalt found that a jolting vision but replied instead, I wish you were back on Kwashi! He instantly regretted the remark. It was childish and unworthy of him and further confirmed the deterioration of his mental state.
("If I'd stayed there, you'd be over a thousand years dead by now.")
"Maybe I'd be happier!" he retorted angrily. There was a tearing sound to his right as the armrest of his recliner ripped loose in his hand.
How'd I do this? he asked.
("What?")
How'd I tear this loose with my bare hand?
("Oh, that. Well, I made some changes a while back in the way the actin and myocin filaments in your striated muscle handle ATP. Human muscle is hardly optimum in that respect. Your maximum muscle tension is far above normal now. Of course after doing that, I had to strengthen the cross-bridge between the filaments, reinforce the tendinous origins and insertions of the muscles, and then toughen up the joint capsules. It also seemed wise to increase the epidermal keratin to prevent ...")
Pard paused as Dalt carelessly flipped the ruined armrest onto the cabin floor. In the old days Pard would have received a lecture on the possible dangers of meddling with his host's physiology. Now Dalt didn't seem to care.
("You seriously worry me, Dalt. Making yourself miserable ... it's unpleasant, but your emotional life is your own affair. I must warn you, however: If you take any action that threatens our physical life, I'll take steps to preserve it—with or without your consent.")
Go away, parasite, Dalt thought sulkily, and let me nap.
("I resent your inference. I've more than earned my keep in this relationship. It becomes a perplexing question as to who is really the parasite at this point.")
Dalt made no reply.
Dalt awoke with Clutch looming larger and larger below him as the tourer eased through the atmosphere toward the sea. Amid clouds of steam it plunged into the water and then bobbed to the surface to rest on its belly. A pilot craft surfaced beside it, locked onto the hull, and, as the tourer took on water for ballast, guided it below the surface to its berth on the bottom.
The tube car deposited him on the beach a short time later and he strolled slowly in the general direction of his flitter. The sun had already completed about a third of its arc across the sky and the air lay warm and quiet and mistily opaque over the coast. Bathers and sunsoakers were out in force.
He paused to watch a little sun-browned, towheaded boy digging in the sand. For how many ages had little boys done that? He knew he must have done the same during his boyhood on Friendly. How long ago was that? Twelve hundred years? It seemed like twelve thousand. He felt as if he had never been young.
He wondered idly if he had made a mistake in refusing to have children and knew immediately that he hadn't. Watching the women he had loved grow old and die had been hard enough; watching his children do the same would have been more than he could have tolerated.
Pard intruded again, this time with a definite tone of urgency. ("Something's happening!")
What're you talking about?
("Don't know for sure, but there's a mammoth psi force suddenly operating nearby.")
A slight breeze began to stir and Dalt glanced up from the boy as he heard excited voices down by the water. The mist in the air was starting to move, being drawn to a point about a meter from the water's edge. A gray, vortical disk appeared, coin-sized at first, then persistently larger. As it grew in size, the breeze graduated to a wind. By the time the disk reached a diameter equal to a man's height, it was sucking in mist and spray at gale force.
Curious, the little boy stood up and began to walk toward the disk, but Dalt put a hand on his shoulder and gently pulled him back.
"Into your sand hole, little man," he told him. "I don't like the looks of this."
The boy's blue eyes looked up at him questioningly but something in Dalt's tone made him turn and crawl back into his excavation.
Dalt returned his attention to the disk. Something about it raised his hackles and he squatted on his haunches to see what would develop. It had stopped growing now and a number of people, bracing themselves against the draw of the gale, formed a semicircular cluster around it at a respectful distance.
Then, as if passing through a solid wall, a vacuum-suited figure with a blazing jetpack on its back materialized and hit the sand at a dead run. Carrying what appeared to be an energy rifle, it swerved to the right and dropped to one knee. A second figure appeared then, and as it swerved to the left, the first turned off its jet-pack, raised its rifle, and started firing into the crowd. The second soon joined it and the semicircle of observers broke into fleeing, terrified fragments. A steady stream of invaders began to pour onto the beach, fanning out and firing on the run with murderous accuracy.
Dalt had instinctively flattened onto the sand at the sight of the first invader, and he now watched in horror as the people who had only moments before been bathing in the sun and the sea became blasted bodies littering the sand. Panic reigned as scantily clad figures screamed and scrambled to escape. The marauders, bulky, faceless, and deadly in their vacsuits, pursued their prey with remorseless efficiency. Their ranks were forty or fifty strong now and as one ran in his direction, Dalt realized that he was witnessing and would no doubt soon be a victim of one of the mindless slaughters Lenda had been telling him about.
He sensed movement on his right and turned to see the little boy sprinting across the sand, yelling for his mother. Dalt opened his mouth to tell him to get down, but the approaching invader spotted the fleeing figure and raised his weapon.
Dalt found himself on his feet and racing toward the invader. With the high quality of marksmanship exhibited by the marauders so far, he knew he had scant hope of saving the boy. But he had to try. Something, either concern for a young life or for his own, or a combination of both, made him run. His feet churned up furious puffs of sand as they fought for traction, but he could not gain the momentum he needed. The invader's weapon buzzed quietly and out of the corner of his eye Dalt saw the boy convulse in mid-stride and go down.
The thought of self-preservation was suddenly submerged in a red tide of rage. Dalt wanted to live, yes. But more than that, right now he wanted to kill. If his pumping feet could get him there in time, the memory of the torn armrest on his tourer told him what he could do. The invader gave a visible start—though no facial expression could be seen through the opaque faceplate—as he caught sight of Dalt racing toward him. He began to swing the blaster around but too late. Dalt pushed the weapon aside, grabbed two fistfuls of the vacsuit fabric over the chest, and pulled. There was a ripping sound, a whiff of fetid air, and then Dalt's hands were inside the suit. They traveled up to the throat and encircled the neck. A dull snap followed and the invader went limp.
Extricating his hands, Dalt pushed the body to the ground with one and snatched the falling blaster with the other. After a brief inspection: How do
you work this thing? There was no trigger.
Beside him, the body of the slain invader suddenly flared with a brief, intolerable, incandescent flash, then oily smoke began to rise from the torn suit.
"What the—" Dalt began out loud, but Pard cut him off.
("A good way to hide your planet of origin. But never mind that. Try that little button on the side of the stock and try it quickly. I believe you've drawn some unwanted attention to yourself.")
Dalt glanced around and saw one of the invaders staring at him, momentarily stunned with amazement.
Then he began to raise his weapon into the firing position.
Suddenly everything slowed, as if under water. What's going on?
("I've accelerated your mind's rate of perception to give you a much-needed edge over the energy bolt that's about to come our way.")
The blaster had inched up to the invader's shoulder by now and Dalt dove to his left. He seemed to float gracefully, gently through the air. But there was nothing gentle about his impact with the ground. He grunted, rolled, pointed his blaster in the general direction of the invader, and pressed the button three times in rapid succession.
One of the energy bolts must have found its mark. The invader threw up his arms in a slow, wide arc and drifted toward the sand to rest on his back.
Then, as movements resumed their normal cadence, the body flared and belched smoke like the one before it. Dalt noted that he now occupied a position behind the advancing line of marauders.
Maybe you'd better keep up the speed on the perception, he told Pard.
("I can only do it in bursts. The neurons can't maintain the necessary metabolic rate for more than a minute or two.")
Dalt settled himself in the prone position, shouldered the weapon, and found that the button fit under his thumb with only a little stretching.
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