King David's Spaceship (codominion)

by Jerry Pournelle

  In contrast to King David’s handsome youthfulness, the Prime Minister was old. His face was wrinkled, and his belly spilled over his waistband. Malcolm Dougal was quite aware that he would probably look much like Sir

  Giles Og in thirty years — except that he did not expect to live thirty more years. His occupation made that highly improbable.

  “I had understood this meeting was to be secret, Majesty,” Dougal said.

  King David nodded. “It was and it is. Tell me, my lord, how many of your secret police do you have outside?”

  Malcolm Dougal said nothing. The king nodded again. “And as I knew you would not let me come here alone, I saw no harm in bringing a few guardsmen as well. Trustworthy guardsmen.”

  “And Sir Giles?” Malcolm asked.

  “He’s the reason for the meeting. Malcolm, the budget’s no good. Sir Giles must have more money or the administration is going to collapse.”

  “Raise taxes,” Dougal said.

  Sir Giles’s voice was quite clear and steady, unlike his appearance. His orator’s voice and timing had been a major reason for his rise through Parliament. “I cannot in good conscience ask for higher taxes, my lord. We have the highest taxes in our history at this moment. Yet, between the wars, the mysterious expedition to-” He hesitated over the name. “To Makassar, and the growing amounts the secret police absorb, more than half the kingdom’s revenues have vanished. With such high taxes we should not have financial problems — but we do. I must know why.”

  “No, “Malcolm said.

  “I think we must tell him,” the king said.

  “Sire! Your promise-”

  King David shrugged. “I gave you my word, Malcolm. I won’t break it. Here, let’s sit down and end the formalities. There’s a lot to talk about. Get us a drink, will you, Sir Giles?”

  King David sat in a rustic armchair before an open fire and waved the others to join him. He was not large, and although his features were handsome in shape and design, his face had been disfigured by an early disease, so that the gentlemen of the bedchamber had their work cut out before public appearances. He had not bothered with makeup for this meeting. The small scars gave him a rugged appearance, adding to his look of determination.

  “His Majesty has told me nothing,” Sir Giles said. He brought small glasses and a bottle of grua and set them on a table near the king’s chair. “He told me only that it is vital to the realm that the large sums spent by your office continue.” Sir Giles paused. “I am a loyalist, and I appreciate the necessity for police to consolidate our new acquisitions, but I am not prepared to pay for my own enslavement, by the crown or by anyone else.”

  Dougal laughed. “I do not have in mind enslaving the citizens of Haven, Sir Giles. Quite the opposite—”

  “You will pardon my saying that as we do not know where the money goes, we have no evidence of your intentions—”

  “The work is vital to the entire planet,” King David said. “My word on it.”

  “And mine,” Dougal added.

  “Not enough,” Sir Giles said. “Not enough at all.”

  “I see.” Dougal regarded the Prime Minister coldly. “Neither my word nor the king’s is good enough—”

  “Of course not.” The older man lifted his glass. “Your health.” They drank. “I am loyal to the dynasty, but I am also loyal to the Constitution. If you cannot entrust me with your secrets, I belong not in the government but in opposition.”

  “Sir Giles has brought his resignation,” the king said.

  “I see.” Dougal stared into the crackling fire. Without Sir Giles the coalition supporting the government would collapse. The coalition was needed.

  Or was it? Could the king rule without a government? Malcolm dismissed the thought sadly. The secret police were efficient, but they would be unable to hold on against an enraged populace. The rights of Parliament had been easily won from King David’s father, but won easily or not they would not be lightly surrendered.

  And government by terror would never produce what Prince Samual’s World needed.

  Would anything?

  Malcolm quickly reached a decision. “I’m going to tell you a story, Sir Giles. After you’ve heard it, you will never be far from one of my men. If you ever betray us—”

  “Spare me your threats.”

  “They are not threats. I hoped to persuade you not to ask to hear.”

  Sir Giles sat quietly for a moment. “I almost believe you have a good reason for what you’re doing—”

  “I do.”

  “But I will not give up the Constitution for an unknown reason. Tell your story. But I promise you only that I will keep your secret. I do not promise to help in whatever-”

  “You’ll help once you know,” Dougal said. “My only problem is knowing where to begin.” He stared into the fire. “In King John’s time Haven became the largest single state on Samual. He consolidated a number of petty princedoms and city-states, and it looked for a while as if the old dreams of a single government on this planet would be realized. But the next step was Orleans, and the Orleanists wouldn’t join. The wars went on. Eventually we developed new industries, and unification looked possible again. Except that everything was wasted on wars. Every effort at conquest of the Orleans Republic failed.”

  “We nearly had them beaten,” King David mused. “One more campaign—”

  “Almost,” Sir Giles said. “Until that damned Colonel MacKinnie of theirs beat us at Blanthern Pass. Iron Man MacKinnie — my lord, I am familiar with our history. What has this to do with the budget? Orleans is our duchy now—”

  “It is our duchy because the Imperials came and their Marines helped us defeat Orleans,” King David said quietly.

  Malcolm nodded. “Precisely. The Imperials allied with

  Haven, and they are helping us establish a unified government on Samual. There’s nothing on the planet that can stand up to their weapons.” He laughed bitterly. “So after ten generations of dreaming about it, we’re getting unification handed to us.”

  “But we’re getting it,” Sir Giles said. “More slowly than I like.”

  “It goes slowly and it costs money,” Dougal said. “Both for a reason.”

  “Yes.” The young king’s voice was hard. “Our goal is to unify the planet, not enslave it. The Imperials will do that soon enough.”

  “Sire?” Sir Giles carefully set his glass on the table. “The Imperials are Haven’s ally. How can they enslave us? They’ve fewer than fifty people on the planet.”

  “Allies.” Dougal was contemptuous. “Everyone assumed they would be allies, Sir Giles. And they did help us with Orleans. But my agents have found out why they did. They intend to use us to unify the planet, then bring in colonists from other worlds. Traders. Petty bureaucrats who want to be aristocrats and who’ll become our nobility. We will have damned little say in that government.”

  The Prime Minister was silent for a long moment. The only sounds came from the forest, and from the popping of the logs in the fireplace. “I would not have thought it of them,” he said finally. “The Navy officers do not act like conquerors. They do not seem such villains.”

  “They’re more dangerous than villains.” Dougal spoke rapidly now. “They’re fanatics. The Imperial Navy intends to unify the human race so it can never again fight an interstellar war. If they have to kill off half of mankind to justify Lysander’s title as ‘Emperor of Humanity’ they’ll do it.”

  “Just as we were willing to unify Samual by conquest,” David said.

  “I see that well enough,” Dougal said. “I know what motivates them. The same goal motivates me. If I’d been an Orlean citizen I hope I’d have had sense enough to see that unification was necessary, and worked to gain some status in the union. Which is what we must do for Samual within the Empire.” The policeman’s voice rose in angry tension. “And by God we’ll outwit them yet!”

  Sir Giles leaned forward. “What — what are you doing? We can’t f
ight the Empire—”

  “No. The best we have couldn’t win a single battle,” Dougal said. “But despite that, we can be our own masters yet. They have laws, Sir Giles. They have a Constitution. We can exploit that. One of their rules is that worlds that have space travel enjoy a far higher status than those that don’t. Worlds with space travel control their own domestic affairs, and have representation in the Imperial Parliament—”

  “Space travel? But that’s impossible,” Sir Giles protested. His eyes widened in sudden comprehension. “You are using the secret funds to build spaceships? How? We know nothing of spaceships—”

  “That is the real secret,” Dougal said carefully. “And I would very much rather it remained a secret even from you. It will be the strangest secret you will ever hear, and even a hint — a hint — to the Imperial Navy would destroy all our hopes.”

  “I see.” Sir Giles sat again and rested his chin on both hands. The veins on their backs showed darkly against his neat white beard. He turned to the king. “I suppose, Sire, that this hideously expensive expedition to Makassar has something to do with this? That you expect those men to spy out the secrets of spaceships from traveling in them, and bring that knowledge back to us?”

  A good cover story, Dougal thought. “Yes.”

  “It can’t work,” Sir Giles said. “Sire, my lord, you have not a technical background. I am many years away from my training as an engineer, but I can tell you this: there is not a factory on Prince Samual’s World that could build such a thing even were the Imperials to give us free run of their ships. We haven’t the basic tools, we don’t even know what the problems are. This scheme is madness!”

  “There is more,” King David said. “We have hopes for more. We have hopes that our expedition to Makassar will return the most priceless cargo ever to come to Prince Samual’s World. A cargo of freedom.”

  “How?”

  “Our secret is fragile,” Dougal said. “Worse, the Imperials themselves know Makassar’s secret—”

  “This talk of secrets,” Sir Giles said. “You don’t understand at all. Your expedition is no secret. The Navy knows your men went there. As to their orders to spy out the ‘secrets’ of the Navy ships, were you to tell the commandant he would be no more than amused. My lord, you do not appreciate the difficulties involved! It will be a hundred years before we are able to build spacecraft—”

  “Perhaps,” Dougal said. “And perhaps not.” There was an ominous silence as Dougal coldly studied the Prime Minister’s face. “You are determined to have it all, aren’t you? You leave me few choices. Either I must tell you the rest or have you killed.”

  “Lord Dougal, I forbid it!” The king’s voice was sharp and loud. “I have deliberately turned away from learning of many of the things your police have done in my name, but by Christ you will not sit here and threaten my Prime Minister!”

  Dougal spread his hands. “I said I had two choices, Sire.” And another behind that, he thought. My men are outside, and the king has few guardsmen here …

  “I had not known you were disloyal,” the king said. “Your thoughts are obvious to one who has grown up at court.”

  “I am loyal, Sire,” Dougal protested. “Loyal to Prince Samual’s World, Haven, the dynasty, and you.”

  “In that order.”

  “Yes, Sire. In that order.” He stood, a small man in plain kilts, unarmed, his rabbit features almost comical, but the room was filled with menace. “Majesty, Sir Giles, there is nothing I will not do to keep this world free! We will not be ruled by outlanders! Prince Samual’s World has been our home for centuries, and what claim has. Sparta or Earth itself to rule us?” He visibly fought for control of himself.

  “The secret, Sir Giles?” Dougal’s voice rose. “It is simple enough, so simple that a careless word will doom our great plan.” He smiled wryly. “And I needn’t shout it, eh?” He sat again, and lowered his voice. “There is a building on Makassar, a building which the locals believe to be no more than a temple. But inside it is an old library…”

  * * *

  Sir Giles listened with growing horror. It was obvious that neither Dougal nor the king appreciated the magnitude of the problem they had set themselves. When the policeman had finished talking, Sir Giles poured a drink and thought furiously. How could he tell them?

  Simple enough. He couldn’t.

  “There. Now do you understand? Will you aid us?” King David asked anxiously.

  “Sire, your cause is noble and just,” Sir Giles said. “And certainly the knowledge that your expedition may bring back to us could change our world. But—” He paused, and felt Dougal’s cold stare. “There is more to building a spacecraft than knowledge,” Giles said. “You will grant that I know more of our technical capabilities than you. And I do not think that even with detailed plans we will be able to build a ship.”

  “We can try,” Dougal said.

  “And this is where all the money has gone.”

  “Much of it went to finance the expedition,” Dougal said. “The rest is being invested in expansion of the Haven shipyards, and in establishing a secret military base in the Corliss Grant Hills. We have sent many young scholars there. Always there have been legends of communications without telegraph wires … and already we can do that. The devices are crude, but they work. In the shipyards we are studying metal working, ostensibly to build metal craft that will travel under the sea — but if we can make them water-tight we can make them air-tight as well, to withstand the aether of space. Sir Giles, we are doing all we can—”

  And worth doing, too, Sir Giles thought. But not for the reasons you think. There is no possibility of a spaceship. Yet, if I say so, they will kill me. The guardsmen and Dougal’s secret policemen would cooperate on that. There is only one way I will leave this lodge alive.

  He rose and went to the desk. “This is my resignation,” he said. He took it and threw it into the fire. “I will help you. But you will forgive me if I am not certain that you will succeed—”

  “None of us are,” Dougal said. “We cannot even be certain that MacKinnie will return. But without him there is no hope at all.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BATAV

  The harbor at Batav was lined with stone steps leading to the waterfront, and patrolled by great warships flying the Temple flags and banners, saffron-robed acolytes standing in the bows to challenge newcomers. The harbor entrance was closed by a massive chain stretching between huge rafts at the ends of a log boom.

  Loholo explained to the guard boats that they were from Jikar, but at MacKinnie’s orders did not tell them the ship was commanded by men from the stars. One of the patrol boats escorted them past the chain. Subao moved slowly, sails furled, the crew working the sweeps. The bottom was visible below the ship, and gangs of men stood in water to their waists to scoop out mud from the main channel.

  “Convicts,” Loholo said. “You don’t want to run afoul of the priesthood here. But they do keep the harbor open. Finest harbor on Makassar.”

  They were shown to a gray stone dock, a niche cut into the harbor sea wall and lined with log rafts so that the ship could be tied up without concern for the enormous tides on Makassar. Nearby another crew of convicts strained at pumps to force silt into barges. Another barge had been filled and was headed out to sea.

  “The Temple priests run everything here,” Loholo said after they made Subao fast to the raft. “There’ll be one of their junior deacons along in a while to make you an offer on your trade goods. You’ll do best to stall him until you find what the local merchants will pay for part of the cargo, but you’ll have to sell some of it to Their Holinesses. If you don’t, we’ll never leave this harbor.”

  MacKinnie stood on the quarterdeck of Subao and watched the traffic along the harbor street in front of him. In contrast to Jikar, there was activity, but not as much as Nathan would have expected for a large city like Batav. There were not many ships moving about in the harbor, either. Draymen u
nloaded a cargo vessel four rafts down from Subao, but the intervening slips were empty, and there was another large space before the next ship.

  High above the harbor stood a chalk-white building, flying the banners of the Temple, great red and blue crosses on a field of black, with a stylized portrayal of the Temple itself at the fly. The old Imperial Library had been built of native granite, and had formed a part of the Vice-regal Palace. Gargoyles and cherubim were carved in stately rows around its cornice, while Corinthian columns held the four porticos at the cardinal compass points. MacKinnie had seen nothing like it on Prince Samual’s World, and found the massive strength of the building impressive despite its ugliness.

  “That’s the Temple,” Brett said quietly. He was standing on the opposite corner of the quarterdeck from MacKinnie, with Kleinst and Longway eagerly asking him about the city. “God Himself built it before the Fall, when we were all star men here, and He put all wisdom and knowledge in it. But the men of Makassar were proud, and said that since they had all knowledge, they didn’t need God. In wrath, He struck at the Temple — see, you can see on the side there where part of it was rebuilt. But before He could destroy it, the priests reminded Him of His promises to our people, and He spared the Temple, but took from us the knowledge of how to use the great wisdom in the Temple. Only the priests know, and they don’t know how to translate the words of the angels when they can make them speak at all.”

  Brett sniffed loudly. “That’s what the Temple priests will tell you. There was a time when they had believers in every city, and their deacons and acolytes controlled whole duchies and kingdoms. In most places, the true Christians like those in Jikar were a little band forced to hold meetings in secret. But now the Temple people don’t control much more than Batav, and it’s their followers in other cities who meet in secret and fear for their lives. All that happened in two men’s lives, or so I am told.”

  “But what would have caused such a rapid transformation of the religious values of a whole society?” Longway asked with interest. “My observation has been that such changes take a long time unless they come with technological changes. We experienced a comparable collapse of the established church on Prince Samual’s World, but gunpowder and discipline and money were more at the root of it than anything else.”