Crews were sent off in lifeboats, bearing word that Free Hermes was confiscating both cargo and carrier. The losses to Timebinders Insurance were staggering—and also to Stellar and Interstar, for their coverage extended to less than half of these values.
Men landed in wilderness areas of the planet Ramanujan and flitted inconspicuously to rendezvous in the city Maharajah. On an appointed night, they converged on a cluster of towers which were the core of XT Systems. Overpowering the guards, they set explosives to wreck equipment which would take years to replace and destroy data stores which could never be replaced. Prisoners whom they released afterward said they had identified themselves as a commando of Free Hermes.
XT had been at a nexus of the global economy. As such, it had made the government its servant. Now massive unemployment came, bankruptcies, dislocations, civic upheaval. The cry arose for legislators whose loyalty was to Ramanujan itself, and Parliament dissolved on a vote of no confidence.
* * *
Sanchez Engineering was engaged in an ambitious project on barren but mineral-rich St. Jacques, which would make its resources readily available to the humans dwelling on its sister world Esperance. The leaders of the colony, who were nobody's hirelings, had written a stiff penalty for nonfulfillment into the contract.
Suddenly the technicians called a strike, alleging that the war posed too great a hazard. In vain did the directors of Sanchez reveal what detectives learned, that the union bosses had taken a whopping bribe. No legal proof was available, at least not without disastrously prolonged litigation; and if this went against them, the persons accused need only withdraw themselves from Esperancian jurisdiction.
"The answer's easy," said their spokesman around his cigar to the board chairman of Sanchez. "Use your influence to end the fighting."
But at best, the corporation would remain gravely injured.
Galactic Developments owned a moon of Germania, which it had made into an entrepot for that stellar neighborhood. There, after a short, sharp battle, landed ships, whose crews efficiently looted the treasures before lifting back into space and bombarding the installations.
They did not even pretend to be Hermetian. They were from the independents Sindbad Prospecting and the Society of Venturers, out to punish the Seven for an unholy alliance with Babur.
The Germanian space police made no move throughout. Later the government denied complicity, declared it had been taken by surprise, and took charge of the remaining assets which Galactic Developments had in this system "pending an arrangement which, in view of the present emergency, will be more in the public interest."
The Seven struck back. Baburite warships accompanied theirs. The announcement was that Babur thus exercised its right and duty to suppress piracy. Few beings believed it.
Hammer blows fell on bases of the hostile companies. But these, forewarned, had for the most part been abandoned. Damage was thus comparatively small. The character of the typical independent operator—else he would long since have entered one of the great combines—was such that he counted it as an investment. He might go broke; but if not, his gamble should pay off richly. A share in Mirkheim, reduced competition from the Seven, plunder along the way . . . he saw opportunity before him, and jumped.
Privateers and Hermetians alike could resupply on a hundred different worlds, attack wherever they chose, and vanish back into vastness. Babur had no such advantage. Seeing the forces of the Imperial Band dispersed and under fire, the Commonwealth naturally launched probing assaults of its own, which intensified with time and lack of effective response. As for the Seven, the whole intricate structure whereon they had based their might was crumbling. After Timebinders Insurance stopped payment on claims, they knew they must make what terms they could.
Spring was full-blooming in Starfall when the patriot army stormed it. The attack was two-pronged. Christa Broderick's city and farmland followers, who throughout the winter had held themselves to sniping and sabotage while they gathered strength, appeared in the streets. They fell on all the mercenaries they could find, surrounded such strongholds as the Hotel Zeus, and commenced bombardment. Meanwhile the guerrillas whom Adzel and Chee Lan had been leading in the Arcadian Hills and the Thunderhead Mountains entered from the west and moved to take Pilgrim Hill. A wild variety of cars, trucks, and buses had carried them from their fastnesses over the valleys, protected by atmospheric fighters which the ducal navy had sent down. Now that navy was in combat with the enemy's guardian ships—off behind a cruelly soft blue sky—and the fight for the city must be waged on the ground.
Must be. As long as the occupation forces refused to surrender, it was necessary to dig them out, body by body. A nuclear warhead fired from orbit would annihilate them, if the Free Hermetian fleet was victorious, but at cost of the city. The hope that their side would win in space, and thus hold the entire planet hostage, kept Benoni Strang's men in battle—that, and the fear of retaliation among those of them who were native born and had freely served his revolutionary regime.
Adzel trotted along the esplanade. It thudded to his hoofs. In the crook of an arm he carried a blast rifle. Perched on his shoulders, Chee manned a heavier energy weapon. Most of the troop loping wolfishly behind bore slugthrowers, tools for hunting such as every outback household possessed. The artillery that trundled among them—cannon, mortars, rocket launchers—used chemical explosives. It had been furtively made in hundreds of small factories and home workshops, according to plans retrieved from public data banks before the first Baburite soldier landed.
Coordinating the whole effort, across the world and at last with the armed return of Grand Duchess Sandra, had been the truly difficult task. The anger to power it was already there, in many a Traver as well as in Followers and Kindred. Government by terror does not work on people used to liberty, if they have hope of deliverance. And Strang's most rigid censorship could not keep hidden the fact that Babur's cause was waning.
Overhead in sunlight, flyers dueled. Seen from below, they were bright flecks, unreal as stars. Reality was the hardness underfoot, sweat, harshly drawn breath, the taste of the fact that soon one might be dead but there was no way left to turn back. On the right flowed the Palomino, brown and murmurous, its opposite shore rising in green slopes where villas lay scattered and fallaron trees bloomed golden. On the left, older houses stood close-ranked, deserted, their windows blind. Ahead swelled the hill, steeps and terraces, gardens and bough-roofed walks, to the gray bulk of the Old Keep. Beyond it lifted the lattice of Signal Station and a pastel glimpse of the New Keep. Sounds of gunfire drifted from the east.
"You're shivering," Chee said to Adzel.
"Today I must again make myself kill," the Wodenite answered.
John Falkayn quickened his pace and drew alongside. Like the other humans, he was unkempt, grimy, and gaunt, clad in whatever rough clothes he happened to own, his uniform a blue band wrapped around the left biceps. Sewn to it was the insigne of a colonel, cut out of sheet metal. He pointed. "We should turn off up yonder path," he said. "'Twill bring us around to a grove of millionleaf which'll give us some cover."
"Aye." Adzel took that direction.
Bullets began to whinner past, followed by the crack of their rifles. A man in the ranks screamed, clutched his stomach, went to his knees. His fellow irregulars drew further apart and advanced crouched, zigzag, as Chee had drilled them. Several flung themselves prone to return the fire before hurrying on.
It grew heavier when they reached the bosquet, a buzzing that ripped through foliage, thudded into wood and sometimes meat. Energy beams flashed from the Old Keep and back against it, trailing thunder and acridness. Adzel trotted about, calming his men, disposing them in formation. An occasional slug, nearly spent, bounced off his scales. Chee crouched low, a minute target, wasting no shots of her own across this distance.
"The enemy are concentrated in the stout stone building," Adzel said. "Our first move will be to neutralize it."
"Destroy, you m
ean?" John Falkayn said. "Oh, merciful Christ, no. The records, the mementos—half our past is in there."
"Your whole stinking future is here," Chee snapped.
Positioned, the artillery cut loose. Guns roared, rockets whooshed, explosives detonated in racket, smoke, and flinders. Slowly the Old Keep crumbled. At last from the wreckage stepped a Merseian waving a white flag.
"Kittredge, have your unit secure this place," Adzel said. "The rest of us, on to the New Keep." He lifted his weapon and charged. Men howled as they followed. "Namu Amida Butsu," he whispered.
"Ya-ah!" screamed Chee. Her gun began to throw its bolts. They crashed lurid around the barricade which blocked the main door. A cyclic slugthrower hailed forth its reply. Adzel staggered. Chee swiveled her weapon past the right side of his torso and centered her fire. Flame geysered. A burning man climbed over the barricade, mindlessly shrieking, fell on the turf outside and sprattled like an overturned beetle, still burning. Adzel recovered and pounded onward.
He reached the rude fortification. Timbers, tables, sandbags, rocks came apart beneath his flailing hoofs. He leaned across and laid about him with his clubbed blaster. From his back, Chee sent narrow beams, finickily aimed. Surviving defenders broke and fled.
Adzel pursued them down echoing corridors. A squad dashed from a side room. His tail sent them tumbling. "Come on, you sons!" John Falkayn shouted to his troops. "Is he going to do it all?" They entered like a tidal wave.
Grim small battles ramped throughout the edifice. From its rotunda, the attackers recoiled. There every entrance had an obstruction, behind which men crouched shoulder to shoulder, firing—Strang's Hermetians. Dead lay thick in the halls after that charge; the wounded begged for help which nobody could bring.
In a room where councillors had met, Adzel and Chee gathered their officers. Blood smeared the Wodenite's scales and dripped from between them, scorch marks dulled his flanks, the dragon head was blackened by smoke. "I think we should offer them amnesty if they will lay down their arms," he said.
John Falkayn spat. "When my sister's husband died under their arrest, God knows how? Never."
"Besides," Chee observed, "if I'm not much mistaken about human affairs, you'll have trouble enough after this war without them in your body politic."
Assent rasped forth. "Very well," said Adzel. "However, I refuse to send unsupported infantry again. And if we destroy the structure from outside, as we did the Old Keep, we'll exhaust ammunition that will be needed in the lower city, not to mention killing disabled people of ours. Suggestions?"
Chee bounced in her saddle. "Yes," she said.
The enemy occupied the galleries beneath the dome . . . but not the outside of it. The Cynthian climbed that and planted a shaped charge which blew a hole. Perched on the edge, she sprayed the interior with fire. The soldiers in gray uniforms must seek shelter away from their breastworks. Adzel led a rush across these, and fighting became hand-to-hand.
The Wodenite himself found Benoni Strang dying of a gut shot, recognized him from pictures, and bent down to learn what he could and give what comfort he might. Cradled in those great arms, the man looked dimly upward and gasped, "Listen. Tell them. Why should you not tell them? You're not human, it's nothing to you. I brought everything about . . . I, from the first . . . for the sake of Hermes, only for the sake of Hermes. A new day on this world I love so much . . . Tell them. Don't let them forget. There will be other days."
The ducal navy was victorious in its home space because, while it had considerable help from the independent merchants, Babur had recalled much of its Hermetian force to the sun Mogul. This was after the Seven had—piecemeal, in chaos—withdrawn as allies.
Thereafter the defeat of Babur would have hinged only on time and determination; and the lack of replacements for rapidly deteriorating parts of ships would have made the time fairly short. The Imperial Band did not surprise van Rijn when they declined a finish fight. Thirty years before, they had shown the intelligence to cut their losses on Suleiman. Nevertheless he admitted gaining astonished respect for them when they sent messengers directly to him. Had they all along known that much about Technic civilization?
The meeting took place near Mirkheim, between a pair of ships. Chronos came battle-ready from Hermes, bearing him and Sandra. (David Falkayn and Eric Tamarin-Asmundsen stayed behind in command of the united fleet, prepared if need be to exact vengeance.) The Baburite vessel humbly bore no weapons. They orbited amidst uncountable diamond suns while images passed back and forth between them.
The little being stood foursquare before the scanners and spoke into a vocalizer. To Sandra it no longer appeared ugly. And was it just her imagination that found sorrow in the flat syllables?
"—We were used. We understand that we ourselves were among those who used us . . . . Let you and we make peace."
"What of the Commonwealth?" she replied.
"It mounts its onslaught. But as yet it is not strong."
"Hold on," said van Rijn, and switched off sound transmission. He turned to the woman. "The boojer speaks right. The Home Companies would fight a total war if possible, so they may gain what the Seven has lost. But if we, Hermetians and independents, stop fighting, if we use our influence against more war by anybodies, ja, hint that we and Babur together will resist—the public wish to go on spending lives and money should puffle away on Earth and Luna till not even the Commonwealth government can continue."
Troubled, she said, "I can't believe in suddenly putting ourselves on the side of these . . . creatures. After what they've done."
His words came whetted. "Can you instead believe in more people killed? And is not a question of getting buttock to buttock with the Baburites, what would freeze ours and sizzle theirs anyway. Is simply a question of we stop hostilities quick, on terms everybody can live with, and then lean on the Commonwealth to squash its 'unconditional surrender' clabberbrains."
Sandra paced around the bridge. How her muscles longed for a horse, a surf, a trail among glaciers. The viewscreen gave her mere immensities. Van Rijn sat like a spider, puffing a churchwarden pipe whose reek stung her nostrils. In the viewscreen frame the nonhuman shape waited patiently.
"What should we propose today?" she asked.
"We is talked about it before often enough," he answered. "Now that we see how anxious Babur is to make a deal with us, I say let's pick these quidbits out of our chaffing.
"The Commonwealth government can never recognize the independents as rightful agents, no more than it could ever really recognize the League. Hemel! Something besides another government having the right to decide things? Much too dangerous. Might get folks at home wondering if they do need politicians and bureaucrats on top of themselves.
"So: You, heading the Hermetian state, has got to front for us. Like you originally proposed, Hermes takes over Mirkheim, under a treaty that says you license legitimate companies from everywhere. A reasonable tax on that ought to repay what you lost in the war, plus a little extra for buying offplanet goodies like heavy industrial equipment and Genever. Babur disarms. Its fleet will soon be no use anyways, without supplies from outside; and the Commonwealth would not make peace if Babur was going to reengineer its forces. Hermes, though, will guarantee its safety plus a fair share in Mirkheim." Van Rijn chortled. "Babur becomes your protectorate! Musical chairmanships, nie?"
Sandra halted, folded her arms, caught his gaze, and inquired pointedly, "What about yourself? You and your buccaneer companies?" O Pete, be with me now.
But he made no demand, he only looked off into the Milky Way and said, rough-toned, "Is not your problem. Give those of us that want, a chance at Mirkheim, and everything else is a bone we gnaw between ourselves. Many bones must go dry before what is dead can rise again."
He smote his knee. "Ready to start bargaining on this basement?" he challenged.
Dumbstruck, she nodded. He swung back to the stranger.
XXI
Early during the triumph and toil, reu
nion and wrangling, merrymaking and mourning, there was held a private party at Windy Rim on Hermes. It was to say farewell.
Two of those who came would soon be departing together for Sol aboard Chronos, David Falkayn and Eric Tamarin-Asmundsen. However, they had been separated for weeks, each busy with different shards of the huge confusion. This was their first chance to talk at length since shortly after the armistice. Following dinner, they drew apart from the others for a while.
The room they chose was a study, enclosed in wood panels of beautiful grain, shelves of codices in leather bindings, ancestral portraits, a gun rack, a desk whereon many high decisions had been written. A window stood open to the young night. Air drifting in was cool, fragrant with blossoms, alive with the sound of the river in the canyon below.
Falkayn hoisted his tumbler. "Cheers." Rims clinked. The men settled down in deep armchairs and drank, a taste of peat smoke from the birthworld of their race.
Rise of the Terran Empire Page 24