E-Wusk waved the compliment aside. "If Gul Darr requests that I go to the Greater Galaxy, I will do it."
"I request it, since I am acting for Gul Darr in his absence. I have asked Supreme how we can best assist Gul Darr, and Supreme answered that we must establish a trading mission on the world of Montura."
E-Wusk delivered himself of a massive, rippling shrug. "I don't understand how that will assist Gul Darr, but maybe that's because I don't understand what Gul Darr is trying to do. If he needs a trading mission on Montura, I'll take one there. I'll leave tomorrow."
"You should have a staff."
"Of course." E-Wusk shrugged again. "Trading with an unfamiliar world can be complicated, and when the unfamiliar world is in an unfamiliar galaxy, the complications become positively exhilarating. I'll take the best staff available. I'll also take partners to assist me. Gul Ceyh is exceptionally useful in matters of this kind. So are Gul Kahn and Gul Meszk. They will be eager to assist Gul Darr in a time of need."
"A trading mission with three master traders in addition to yourself • should achieve instant and overwhelming success," Rok Wllon observed.
"Of course. But what, precisely, are we to do? I have learned from experience that those assisting Gul Darr are tokens in a game for which only he knows the objective. I don't mind being manipulated by Gul Darr, but it is difficult to know what to do when one doesn't know why one is doing it."
"Gul Darr can be overly secretive," Rok Wllon agreed. "In this case, though, Supreme is the player. Supreme says we can best assist Gul Darr by developing friendly relations with the natives of Montura and obtaining their assistance. I asked how this might be done, and Supreme replied that Montura is a trading center. From this I deduce that a trading mission is the best means of establishing friendly relations with the natives."
E-Wusk tossed a trio of limbs impatiently. "Supreme explains even less than Gul Darr does. I can trade anywhere, but I still don't understand how this will help Gul Darr. What sort of assistance does he require from Montura's natives?"
"As you said, Supreme explains less than Gul Darr does."
"I'm willing to help Gul Darr whenever and wherever he requires it, but I'm a trader, and only a trader. I wouldn't know how to go about obtaining assistance in anything but trade."
"Agreed," Rok Wllon said soothingly. "I am entrusting the trading mission to you. Once you have prepared the way, I'll find another individual with different capabilities and experience to obtain the natives' assistance."
"That is satisfactory," E-Wusk said. "Now if you'll excuse me l must complete a few parcels of unfinished business if I'm to leave tomorrow."
"The matter is not quite that urgent," Rok Wllon said, still being soothing. "I have at least one extended personal errand of my own to perform. You can prepare yourself at leisure and still reach Montura before I do."
"Will Gul Darr come to Montura?"
"That is not known. He is on a long and difficult and perhaps dangerous mission of his own."
"I hope he does," E-Wusk said. "He always knows what to do, and when he's away, no one else seems to. Anyway - " The enormous body shook with laughter. "Ho! Ho! Ho! Adventuring with Gul Darr is rare sport. Very well. I will see the others, and we will prepare to go trading at Montura whenever you are ready for us."
Rok Wllon took leave of him and transmitted to his unofficial residence, a modest apartment where he was known simply as Rok Wllon. Both the council meeting and his interview with E-Wusk had taken less time than he'd anticipated, and he was early. He indulged in a vinegar bath, soaking luxuriously while he savored his success and congratulated himself on his efficiency. Gul Darr should be pleased. So should Supreme, if Supreme possessed such an emotion - sometimes Rok Wllon was uncertain about that.
He knew that Gul Darr possessed far too many emotions, not to mention irrational biases. For one, Gul Darr fervently disliked Rok Wllon. This did not disturb Rok Wllon, who disliked Gul Darr with equal fervor. He considered the First Councilor's personal ethics to be abominable, but he did not hold Gul Darr responsible for that. The First Councilor came from the planet Earth, where all personal ties were abominable.
But Rok Wllon could not deny Gul Darr's competence, and he was well aware that competence, in crisis situations, had to be placed above personal ethics. He deplored the necessity, but he conceded it.
He felt enormously pleased that Gul Darr, too, was able to put aside his personal feelings when a crisis demanded it. Gul Darr did not like Rok Wllon, but he did respect his abilities, and when a delicate and highly responsible task had to be undertaken, it was to Rok Wllon, the Eighth Councilor, that Gul Darr sent his special emissary. Not to his old friend E-Wusk, the Second Councilor, who was the galaxy's leading authority on trade and commerce and a blundering dint in everything else, but to Rok Wllon, whom he disliked.
And Rok Wllon had performed in a manner that fully justified the confidence placed in him. Now he had a greater responsibility: to lill I Y out the suggestions Supreme had entrusted to him and to him alone.
But first he had Gul Darr's emissary to deal with.
URSDwad arrived precisely at the agreed time sequence, which pleased Rok Wllon. Whatever else could be said of Gul Darr, he trained his assistants properly. Rok Wllon received URSDwad without ceremony but with the politeness due a colleague's assistant, got him seated, and moved to his desk.
"Gul Darr," he announced with a pompous flourish, "will be pleased to know that I have been able to persuade the council to grant his request. The thousand ships are authorized, complete with crews and scientific personnel."
"Equipment and supplies?" URSDwad asked.
"Naturally those are included. The approval depends upon the amount of solvency Supreme is willing to furnish, but I am confident that Gul Darr will receive everything he has asked for."
"Gul Darr will be most gratified," URSDwad remarked politely. "Further, I have presented all of his data and recordings to Supreme and asked Supreme for recommendations. This was Gul Darr's suggestion, but I would have done so in any case before presenting his request to the council, as Gul Darr is well aware. Supreme confirms the necessity for a thorough investigation of this - this Udef. When I asked for recommendations as to how Gul Darr might be assisted in this investigation, Supreme suggested that we establish a mission on the world of Montura."
URSDwad echoed blankly, "Montura?"
Rok Wllon activated a projection of the triple galactic system.
"Here is our Galaxy Prime, which Gul Darr for reasons of his own calls the Milky Way. Here is the Lesser Galaxy, where Gul Darr at this moment is investigating death worlds. And here is the location of Montura, close to the center of what we commonly call the Greater Galaxy."
URSDwad was regarding the projection blankly.
"As Gul Darr is well aware," Rok Wllon continued, "Supreme rarely explains. I asked how Gul Darr's investigation might be assisted, and Supreme said, 'Send a mission to the world of Montura in the Greater Galaxy. Establish friendly relations with the natives and secure their assistance.' Obviously Supreme considers that the natives of Montura are in some way capable of helping Gul Darr. Supreme describes Montura as a trading center, so the most effective method of establishing ourselves there quickly would be with a trading mission. I have asked E-Wusk to take charge of such a mission, and he has agreed. He will take three master traders with him if they are willing."
He paused. URSDwad had abandoned the projection and now was regarding Rok Wllon blankly.
"That should insure the instant success of the trading mission," Rok Wllon went on. "There may be general problems of relations with the Monturan natives that have nothing to do with trade. Gul Darr will be aware that E-Wusk's talents are not the proper type for dealing with such problems. I have suggested to Supreme that Gul Darr's former assistant, Gula Schlu, would be an excellent choice to handle this responsibility, and Supreme has concurred. Do you remember Gula Schlu?"
URSDwad remembered her. His blank expression had changed to one of astonishment.
"I always thought Gula Schlu's abilities were not given their proper scope by Gul Darr. If she is willing, it will be interesting to see how she manages without his restrictive influence." Again he delivered himself of a pompous flourish. "In accordance with Supreme's suggestion, we will establish a mission on Montura. E-Wusk will supervise the trading, and Gula Schlu, if she is willing, will be in charge of all other matters. And because Supreme obviously considers this mission to be of crucial importance to the problem Gul Darr is investigating, I will direct it myself - perhaps in person. And I suggest that when Gul Darr has learned whatever he thinks he needs to know from his explorations in the Lesser Galaxy, he should come to Montura and join my staff."
URSDwad inclined politely. "I will convey your invitation."
"Do you plan to wait and return with Gul Darr's fleet? I will ask Supreme for a solvency authorization today, but assembling it will take some time."
"I will wait and return with it."
"I expect to leave immediately to visit Gula Schlu and invite her assistance. Since you are going to remain here, I will entrust you with the assemblage of Gul Darr's fleet. Come at this time tomorrow, and I will have the solvency clearance. I'll also have some recommendations for scientific personnel."
"Thank you." URSDwad hesitated. Then he asked, "Did you present Gul Darr's message to the council as it was written?"
"I rephrased it in a manner more suitable to the council's mood," Rok Wllon said glibly. "But of course I presented it. Why else would the council approve Gul Darr's request?"
URSDwad departed, and Rok Wllon went immediately to his official residence, where he seated himself at the communications console and opened his personal inditer, the direct communications link to Supreme with, which each councilor was equipped. He first requisitioned, in accordance with the council's action, unlimited solvency for the specific purpose of equipping Gul Darr's thousand ship expedition to the Lesser Galaxy.
Supreme's assent came instantly.
Rok Wllon then drafted a statement, revised it, revised it a second time, and finally, when it seemed satisfactory, indited it: "Concerning your recommended mission to the world of Montura in the Greater Galaxy: I have invited TWO, E-Wusk, to assume personal responsibility for establishing a trading mission on Montura. I will invite Gula Schlu, who previously has acted as an agent of Supreme, to assume responsibility for friendly relations with the Monturan natives .• I will head this mission myself. Have you any other suggestions as to actions that might be taken either here or on Montura to ensure its success?"
"Establish friendly relations and secure the assistance of the Monturan natives," Supreme answered.
"Have you any suggestions as to how we should proceed?" "Montura is a trading center."
Since these were the answers Rok Wllon had obtained previously, it seemed obvious that Supreme had nothing to add; and it seemed even to Rok Wllon that Supreme was providing a rather sketchy basis for a critically important mission. He persisted, "Is there any special product or equipment that would be useful?"
Supreme answered negatively.
"Is there any known individual, or any individual with a specialized skill, who might be useful?"
"A specialist in diseases or conditions of the epidermis might be of assistance," Supreme answered.
Rok Wllon regarded the statement perplexedly. He knew that no clarification would be forthcoming, no matter how he rephrased the question. Supreme almost never explained itself.
He had one final question, but he hesitated to ask it. He'd felt no obligation to retail Gul Darr's silly exaggerations to the council. The other councilors would have ridiculed him for repeating such nonsense.
But Gul Darr had made a statement in a written report, and he felt that Supreme should be informed, if for no other reason than to make it aware of Gul Darr's mental instability. Again he framed his question carefully before he indited it.
"Gul Darr states that the death force he is seeking to identify is a threat to the larger life forms throughout the triple galactic system.
He also says that if it is not neutralized, it may destroy all the intelligent life in the universe. Is this possible?"
Supreme answered at once, and Rok Wllon sat for a long time staring at the single indited word his console had spat into his lap.
"Affirmative."
4
On the spaceship's viewing screen, a dead world.
But not necessarily a world without life. Much of this world's beauty had survived, and a full measure of its ugliness, and both were delineated in the impersonal scrutiny of the viewing screen.
The telescopic eye moved in random twitches - glimpsing, focusing briefly, treating grotesque horrors and pastoral serenity with the same hurried impartiality. It zoomed in on an urban street, and before the viewers had fully comprehended the revolting detail spread before them by the screen's relentless magnification, it was showing them velvety rural pastures fenced with neatly pruned hedges from which yellow fruit hung, mouth-watering in the urgency of its bulging ripeness.
The street had been lined with orderly ranks of graceful, spiraling towers that stood serenely amidst park-like clumps of scarlet and purple vegetation. Broad-leaved ground cover half concealed the scattered dead that lay in its colorful embrace, but those who had died on the wide thoroughfare were starkly silhouetted against its polished white surface. These were gathered in massive clusters, as though stricken while on parade, and they lay molding and decaying beneath dark, rippling clouds of bloated crawling and flying insect-like life that clung obscenely to the rotting corpses and gorged.
The eye twitched again and picked out a rural dwelling and its satellite buildings. The inhabitants lay dead on a flowering carpet of heaving, maroon - colored grass, surrounded by strange animals or something like animals. The heaving grass posed its own monstrous question mark. The minds of those watching at first could not grasp the fact that with so much death entwined in it the grass still lived and responded to winds that still blew.
Occasionally the viewing screen framed an awesome beauty that reminded Jan Darzek of another beautiful world, called Earth by its inhabitants, from which he had been too long absent. The differences were haunting similarities; the similarities, tantalizing differences.
The inhabitants of this world - those who lay on their faces - - could have been mistaken for humans except when the highest magnification was used, but the farm animals were like nothing on Earth, from any perspective.
Darzek murmured to himself, "But in a world where England is finished and dead, I do not wish to live."
Thus a poet of another time and place and of a severely limited viewpoint. What said the bard whose world had ceased to exist? This world's poets, whether they had sung melodiously, or cackled, or hissed, or shouted - this world's poets were silenced forever, and their very language had been crushed out of existence. When the ultimate catastrophe struck a world that had not achieved space travel or in an incipient level of space colonization, no one escaped. No one. Tedious eons of evolution had achieved this high civilization, piling with infinite patience one sand grain of progress onto another, until there was soaring architecture, and conscientious husbandry, and expertly woven and dyed fabrics that now rotted with their dead owners, and glittering machines that waited in silence for the touch of a hand now lifeless.
The stars had been its destination, and one tiny, primitive artificial satellite remained in orbit, chirping a coded, solar - powered transmission of scientific information that long since had lost its urgency. All of this splendid achievement and bright aspiration had been halted with the suddenness of a thunderclap on the clear, untroubled morning of a promising spring day. There remained only a dead world and a word - the word taken from a plaque on the satellite and tentatively rendered in the familiar alphabet as Balubda: a dead world's name, abstracted from its orbiting
tombstone.
It could not be. Any planetary expert, of whatever scientific persuasion, would argue that a local world - wide catastrophe that exterminated all of the larger life forms was impossible, and at Darzek's elbow several of them were. In such an advanced civilization there had to be mines, subterranean constructions, interior rooms, aseptic environments, perhaps even experimental space capsules where someone would survive. Darzek ignored them. There was no sign of any survivor, and for the moment his thoughts were on poetry.
He believed in the universality of poetic feeling. Regardless of what the scientists might think, poets would welcome and embrace the idea of the instantaneous death of a world. They would believe, with the Earth poet, that in a universe where the world of Balubda was finished and dead, they did not wish to live.
The viewer had picked out a high mountain slope, where a scattering of heavily clothed adults and children lay dead in the snow along with a small herd of the strange animals. They were herdsmen and boys, or herdswomen and girls, or herdspeople.
[Jan Darzek 03] - This Darkening Universe Page 3