Captain Flandry: Defender of the Terran Empire

by Poul Anderson

  Behind and above, rocks, bushes, stretches of bare gray dirt reached sharply blue-shadowed, up toward habitation and the crowning Arena. Overhead, the sky was empty save for the sun and one hovering vulch. Downward, land tumbled to the sullen flatness of the sea. Around were hills which bore thin green and scattered houses. Traffic trudged on dust-smoking roads. Ilion reared dark, the Linn blinding white, to north and northeast; elsewhere the horizon was rolling nakedness. A warm and pungent wind stroked faces, fluttered garments, mumbled above the mill-noise of the falls.

  Jaan's staff swung and thumped in time with his feet as he picked a way steadily along a browser trail. Ivar used no aid but moved like a hunter. That was automatic; his entire consciousness was bent toward the slow words:

  "We can talk now, Firstling. Ask or declare what you will. You cannot frighten or anger me, you who have come as a living destiny."

  "I'm no messenger of salvation," Ivar said low. "I'm just very fallible human bein', who doesn't even believe in God."

  Jaan smiled. "No matter. I don't myself, in conventional terms. We use 'destiny' in a most special sense. For the moment, let's put it that you were guided here, or aided to come here, in subtle ways"—his extraordinary eyes locked onto the other and he spoke gravely—"because you have the potential of becoming a savior."

  "No, I, not me."

  Again Jaan relaxed, clapped him on the shoulder, and said, "I don't mean that mystically. Think back to your discussions with High Commander Yakow. What Aeneas needs is twofold, a uniting faith and a uniting secular leader. The Firstman of Ilion, for so you will become in time, has the most legitimate claim, most widely accepted, to speak for this planet. Furthermore, memory of Hugh McCormac will cause the entire sector to rally around him, once he raises the liberation banner afresh.

  "What Caruith proclaims will fire many people. But it is too tremendous, too new, for them to live with day-to-day. They must have a . . . a political structure they understand and accept, to guide them through the upheaval. You are the nucleus of that, Ivar Frederiksen."

  "I, I don't know—I'm no kind of general or politician, in fact I failed miserably before, and—"

  "You will have skilled guidance. But never think we want you for a figurehead. Remember, the struggle will take years. As you grow in experience and wisdom, you will find yourself taking the real lead."

  Ivar squinted through desert dazzlement at a far-off dust devil, and said with care:

  "I hardly know anything so far . . . Jaan . . . except what Yakow and couple of his senior officers have told me. They kept insistin' that to explain—religious?—no, transcendental—to explain transcendental aspect of this, only you would do."

  "Your present picture is confused and incomplete, then," Jaan said.

  Ivar nodded. "What I've learned—Let me try and summarize, may I? Correct me where I'm wrong.

  "All Aeneas is primed to explode again. Touchoff spark would be hope, any hope. Given some initial success, more and more peoples elsewhere in Sector Alpha Crucis would join in. But how're we to start? We're broken, disarmed, occupied.

  "Well, you preach that superhuman help is at hand. My part would be to furnish political continuity. Aeneans, especially nords, who couldn't go along with return of Elders, might well support Firstman of Ilion in throwin' off Terran yoke. And even true believers would welcome that kind of reinforcement, that human touch: especially since we men must do most of work, and most of dyin', ourselves."

  Jaan nodded. "Aye," he said. "Deliverance which is not earned is of little worth in establishing freedom that will endure, of no worth in raising us toward the next level of evolution. The Ancients will help us. As we will afterward help them, in their millennial battle. . . . I repeat, we must not expect an instant revolution. To prepare will take years, and after that will follow years more of cruel strife. For a long time to come, your chief part will be simply to stay alive and at large, to be a symbol that keeps the hope of eventual liberation alight."

  Ivar nerved himself to ask, "And you, meanwhile, do what?"

  "I bear the witness," Jaan said; his tone was nearer humble than proud. "I plant the seeds of faith. As Caruith, I can give you, the Companions, the freedom leaders everywhere, some practical help: for instance, by reading minds under favorable circumstances. But in the ultimate, I am the embodiment of that past which is also the future.

  "Surely at last I too must go hide in the wilds from the Terrans, after they realize my significance. Or perhaps they will kill me. No matter. That only destroys this body. And in so doing, it creates the martyr, it fulfills the cycle. For Caruith shall rise again."

  The wind seemed to blow cold along Ivar's bones. "Who is Caruith? What is he?"

  "The mind of an Ancient," Jaan said serenely.

  "Nobody was clear about it, talkin' to me—"

  "They felt best I explain to you myself. For one thing, you are not a semi-literate artisan or herdsman. You are well educated; you reject supernaturalism; to you, Caruith must use a different language from my preachings to common Orcans."

  Ivar walked on, waiting. A jackrat scuttered from the bleached skull of a statha.

  Jaan looked before him. He spoke in a monotone that, somehow, sang.

  "I will begin with my return hither, after the exile years. I was merely a shoemaker, a trade I had learned in what spare time I found between the odd jobs which helped keep us alive. Yet I had also the public data screens, to read, watch, study, learn somewhat of this universe; and at night I would often go forth under the stars to think.

  "Now we came back to Mount Cronos. I dreamed of enlisting in the Companions, but that could not be; their training must begin at a far earlier age than mine. However, a sergeant among them, counselor and magistrate to our district, took an interest in me. He helped me carry on my studies. And at last he arranged for me to assist, part time and for a small wage, in archeological work.

  "You realize that that is the driving force behind the Companions today. They began as a military band, and continue as civil authorities. Nova Roma could easily reorganize that for us, did we wish. But generations of prophets have convinced us the Ancients cannot be dead, must still dwell lordly in the cosmos. Then what better work is there than to seek what traces and clues are left among us? And who shall better carry it out than the Companions?"

  Ivar nodded. This was a major reason why the University had stopped excavation in these parts: to avoid creating resentment among the inhabitants and their leaders. The paucity of reported results, ever since, was assumed to be due to lack of notable finds. Suddenly Ivar wondered how much had been kept secret.

  The hypnotic voice went on: "That work made me feel, in my depths, how vastly space-time overarches us and yet how we altogether belong in it. I likewise brooded upon the idea, an idea I first heard while in exile, that the Didonians have a quality of mind, of being, which is as far beyond ours as ours is beyond blind instinct. Could the Ancients have it too—not in the primitive dim unities of our Neighbors, but in perfection? Might we someday have it?

  "So I wondered, and took ever more to wandering by myself, aye, into the tunnels beneath the mountain when no one else was there. And my heart would cry out for an answer that never came.

  "Until—

  "It was a night near midwinter. The revolution had not begun, but even here we knew how the oppression waxed, and the people seethed, and chaos grew. Even we were in scant supply of certain things, because offworld trade was becoming irregular, as taxation and confiscation caused merchantmen to move from this sector, and the spaceport personnel themselves grew demoralized till there was no proper traffic control. Yes, a few times out-and-out pirates from the barbarian stars slipped past a fragmented guard to raid and run. The woe of Aeneas was heavy on me.

  "I looked at the blaze of the Crux twins, and at the darkness which cleaves the Milky Way where the nebulae hide from us the core of our galaxy: and walking along the mountainside, I asked if, in all that majesty, our lives alone cou
ld be senseless accidents, our pain and death for nothing.

  "It was cruelly cold, though. I entered the mouth of a newly dug-out Ancient corridor, for shelter; or did something call me? I had a flashbeam, and almost like a sleepwalker found myself bound deeper and deeper down those halls.

  "You must understand, the wonderful work itself had not collapsed, save at the entrance, after millions of years of earthquake and landslide. Once we dug past that, we found a labyrinth akin to others. With our scanty manpower and equipment, we might take a lifetime to map the entire complex.

  "Drawn by I knew not what, I went where men had not yet been. With a piece of chalkstone picked from the rubble, I marked my path; but that was well-nigh the last glimmer of ordinary human sense in me, as I drew kilometer by kilometer near to my finality.

  "I found it in a room where light shone cool from a tall thing off whose simplicity my eyes glided; I could only see that it must be an artifact, and think that most of it must be not matter but energy. Before it lay this which I now wear on my head. I donned it and—

  "—there are no words, no thoughts for what came—

  "After three nights and days I ascended; and in me dwelt Caruith the Ancient."

  18

  A bony sketch of a man, Colonel Mattu Luuksson had returned Chunderban Desai's greetings with a salute, declined refreshment, and sat on the edge of his lounger as if he didn't want to submit his uniform to its self-adjusting embrace. Nevertheless the Companion of the Arena spoke courteously enough to the High Commissioner of Imperial Terra.

  "—decision was reached yesterday. I appreciate your receiving me upon such short notice, busy as you must be."

  "I would be remiss in my duty, did I not make welcome the representative of an entire nation," Desai answered. He passed smoke through his lungs before he added, "It does seem like, um, rather quick action, in a matter of this importance."

  "The order to which I have the honor to belong does not condone hesitancy," Mattu declared. "Besides, you understand, sir, my mission is exploratory. Neither you nor we will care to make a commitment before we know the situation and each other more fully."

  Desai noticed he was tapping his cigarette holder on the edge of the ashtaker, and made himself stop. "We could have discussed this by vid," he pointed out with a mildness he didn't quite feel.

  "No, sir, not very well. More is involved than words. An electronic image of you and your office and any number of your subordinates would tell us nothing about the total environment."

  "I see. Is that why you brought those several men along?"

  "Yes. They will spend a few days wandering around the city, gathering experiences and impressions to report to our council, to help us estimate the desirability of more visits."

  Desai arched his brows. "Do you fear they may be corrupted?" The thought of fleshpots in Nova Roma struck him as weirdly funny; he choked back a laugh.

  Mattu frowned—in anger or in concentration? How can I read so foreign a face? "I had best try to explain from the foundations, Commissioner," he said, choosing each word. "Apparently you have the impression that I am here to protest the recent ransacking of our community, and to work out mutually satisfactory guarantees against similar incidents in future. That is only a minor part of it.

  "Your office appears to feel the Orcan country is full of rebellious spirits, in spite of the fact that almost no Orcans joined McCormac's forces. The suspicion is not unnatural. We dwell apart; our entire ethos is different from yours."

  From Terra's sensate pragmatism, you mean, Desai thought. Or its decadence, do you imply? "As a keeper of law and order yourself," he said, "I trust you sympathize with the occasional necessity of investigating every possibility, however remote."

  A Terran, in a position similar to Mattu's, would generally have grinned. The colonel stayed humorless: "More contact should reduce distrust. But this would be insufficient reason to change long-standing customs and policies.

  "The truth is, the Companions of the Arena and the society they serve are not as rigid, not as xenophobic, as popular belief elsewhere has it. Our isolation was never absolute; consider our trading caravans, or those young men who spend years outside, in work or in study. It is really only circumstance which has kept us on the fringe—and, no doubt, a certain amount of human inertia.

  "Well, the times are mutating. If we Orcans are not to become worse off, we must adapt. In the course of adaptation, we can better our lot. Although we are not obsessed with material wealth, and indeed think it disastrous to acquire too much, yet we do not value poverty, Commissioner; nor are we afraid of new ideas. Rather, we feel our own ideas have strength to survive, and actually spread among people who may welcome them."

  Desai's cigarette was used up. He threw away the ill-smelling stub and inserted a fresh one. Anticipating, his palate winced. "You are interested in enlarged trade relationships, then," he said.

  "Yes," Mattu replied. "We have more to offer than is commonly realized. I think not just of natural resources, but of hands and brains, if more of our youth can get adequate modern educations."

  "And, hm-m-m, tourism in your area?"

  "Yes," Mattu snapped. Obviously the thought was distasteful to him as an individual. "To develop all this will take time, which we have, and capital, which we have not. The nords were never interested . . . albeit I confess the Companions never made any proposal to them. We have now conceived the hope that the Imperium may wish to help."

  "Subsidies?"

  "They need not be great, nor continue long. In return, the Imperium gains not simply our friendship, but our influence, as Orcans travel further and oftener across Aeneas. You face a nord power structure which, on the whole, opposes you, and which you are unlikely to win over. Might not Orcan influence help transform it?"

  "Perhaps. In what direction, though?"

  "Scarcely predictable at this stage, is it? For that matter, we could still decide isolation is best. I repeat, my mission is no more than a preliminary exploration—for both our sides, Commissioner." Chunderban Desai, who had the legions of the Empire at his beck, looked into the eyes of the stranger; and it was Chunderban Desai who felt a tinge of fear.

  The young lieutenant from Mount Cronos had openly called Tatiana Thane to ask if he might visit her "in order to make the acquaintance of the person who best knows Ivar Frederiksen. Pray understand, respected lady, we do not lack esteem for him. However, indirectly he has been the cause of considerable trouble for us. It has occurred to me that you may advise us how we can convince the authorities we are not in league with him."

  "I doubt it," she answered, half amused at his awkward earnestness. The other half of her twisted in re-aroused pain, and wanted to deny his request. But that would be cowardice.

  When he entered her apartment, stiff in his uniform, he offered her a token of appreciation, a hand-carved pendant from his country. To study the design, she must hold it in her palm close to her face; and she read the engraved question, Are we spied on?

  Her heart sprang. After an instant, she shook her head, and knew the gesture was too violent. No matter. Stewart sent a technician around from time to time, who verified that the Terrans had planted no bugs. Probably the underground itself had done so. . . . The lieutenant extracted an envelope from his tunic and bowed as he handed it to her.

  "Read at your leisure," he said, "but my orders are to watch you destroy this afterward."

  He seated himself. His look never left her. She, in her own chair, soon stopped noticing. After the third time through Ivar's letter, she mechanically heeded Frumious Bandersnatch's plaintive demand for attention.

  Following endearments which were nobody else's business, and a brief account of his travels:

  "—prophet, though he denies literal divine inspiration. I wonder what difference? His story is latter-day Apocalypse.

  "I don't know whether I can believe it. His quiet certainty carries conviction; but I don't claim any profound knowledge of people. I could be
fooled. What is undeniable is that under proper conditions he can read my mind, better than any human telepath I ever heard of, better than top-gifted humans are supposed to be able to. Or nonhumans, even? I was always taught telepathy is not universal language; it's not enough to sense your subject's radiations, you have to learn what each pattern means to him; and of course patterns vary from individual to individual, still more from culture to culture, tremendously from species to species. And to this day, phenomenon's not too well understood. I'd better just give you Jaan's own story, though my few words won't have anything of overwhelming impression he makes.

  "He says, after finding this Elder artifact I mentioned, he put 'crown' on his head. I suppose that would be natural thing to do. It's adjustable, and ornamental, and maybe he's right, maybe command was being broadcast. Anyhow, something indescribable happened, heaven and hell together, at first mostly hell because of fear and strangeness and uprooting of his whole mind, later mostly heaven—and now, Jaan says, neither word is any good, there are no words for what he experiences, what he is.

  "In scientific terms, if they aren't pseudoscientific (where do you draw line, when dealing with unknown?), what he says happened is this. Long ago, Elders, or Ancients as they call them here, had base on Aeneas, same as on many similar planets. It was no mere research base. They were serving huge purpose I'll come to later. Suggestion is right that they actually caused Didonians to evolve, as one experiment among many, all aimed at creating more intelligence, more consciousness, throughout cosmos.

  "At last they withdrew, but left one behind whom Jaan gives name of Caruith, though he says spoken name is purely for benefit of our limited selves. It wasn't original Caruith who stayed; and original wasn't individual like you or me anyway, but part—aspect?—attribute?—of glorious totality which Didonians only hint at. What Caruith did was let heeshself be scanned, neurone by neurone, so entire personality pattern could be recorded in some incredible fashion.