Star Bridge

by James Gunn

  Horn paced the room impatiently; Sair’s faded eyes followed him curiously. Horn had to get back to Eron; every wasted moment was agony. But he had to have Sair, too.

  “You know what will happen if Duchane wins,” Horn pleaded. “Or if he drowns in his own sea of blood and the leaderless mobs rage through Eron. They’ll tear the Empire apart. They’ll wreck the Tube system that holds the stars together, tear down the very walls of Eron itself, and die. They must be starving already; no food has come through for days.”

  “Duchane.” Sair nodded, and then he sighed. His head shook decisively. “No. No. All my life I’ve worried about these things: freedom—starvation. Starvation and freedom. Between those millstones I wore my life away. Now there’s only one freedom I want, the final one: death. Let other, younger men battle for their ideals. Let them throw their inexhaustible energy into the struggle and find it useless against the tides and currents that sweep men and empires to their destinies. Let them pawn themselves to causes and discover that they cannot buy themselves back. I have no strength to spare. There is barely enough to draw in one breath after another. I want only peace and time to die. Here is as good a place as another.”

  “They said you were dead,” Horn said quietly. “Many people believed it. And the hopes of uncounted billions died, too. If they discovered that you were alive, it would draw them together; among the chaos of their own wild passions, unleashed for the first time, it would save them. They need you. It’s useless to speak of other men; there are no others who can do this job. Even the Empire needs you. Only you can save it, for Duchane will destroy it, win or lose.”

  Sair looked up, his face alive. “You believe that, don’t you?”

  Horn nodded.

  Sair sighed heavily. “Perhaps it’s true. A dying man must be dragged from his grave to serve the living. Is there no peace? No peace anywhere?”

  Horn waited, scarcely breathing.

  Slowly Sair raised himself to his feet. “What are we waiting for?” he asked. His lips curled wryly. “Let’s go free the slaves and save the Empire.”

  Horn let out his breath and turned to the door. He held it open for the old man. Sair’s stride was surprisingly brisk as they walked toward the Tube room. Now that he had made his decision, he was full of questions about the situation on Eron and about how they took the fortress. He nodded shrewdly as Horn described the Warden’s need for troops and the way they guessed it and the plans they laid to take advantage of it. By the time he had described the battle, they had reached the Tube room.

  “Redblade,” Horn said. “This is Peter Sair.”

  Sair’s eyes danced. “The pirate?” He tilted his head back to stare into Redblade’s bearded face. “Among other things, I have been called a pirate.”

  Redblade laughed. “Your men, Liberator.” He swept his arm toward the cluster of men who had survived the attack. There were about seventy-five of them now. There were a few bodies on the floor, and a handful of men were gathered sullenly in one corner. The main body were in black uniforms, scavenged from the stores. To identify them from other Security agents, the sleeves of the tunics had been cut off above the elbow. The faces had a strange similarity; they were all hard, thin, and hungry. “Thieves, murderers, traitors,” Redblade went on. “Command us—and maybe we’ll obey.”

  Sair chuckled. “This young man has done a good job, even with me. Let him continue.”

  Horn turned to the men. “Prisoners!” he shouted. “Redblade and I and a few others—we’ve done what everyone said couldn’t be done. We’re escaping from Vantee. Alone we wouldn’t have a chance; together we can tear Eron apart and take what we want out of the pieces. We need one thing: discipline.

  “We’ll take you to freedom and give you a chance to live in a world where you can go where you want to go and do what you want to do without asking permission of any master. But you’ve got to take orders until we’ve won; those who refuse will be shot down. Redblade has given you one chance; this is your second and last one. Those who will obey my orders or Redblade’s or Peter Sair’s instantly, without question, step forward and turn around.”

  The men looked at each other and murmured. Half of them stepped forward and turned, then most of the remainder until only five were left.

  “All right,” Horn said. “Here’s your first order.” He shouted, quickly, “Shoot down those men!”

  The five died before they could reach their guns. In the corner the bunch of ragged men crouched warily.

  “Good,” Redblade said admiringly. “Very good!”

  “Salutory,” Sair agreed.

  “Into the ship!” Horn ordered. “Let’s go to Eron!”

  They swarmed up the escalator into the waiting ship. The transport was not built to hold so many, but they jammed them in, seventy of them.

  Before they followed, Horn turned to Redblade. “I’m going to trust you,” he said slowly. “Don’t betray me.”

  Redblade frowned; after a moment his face cleared. “I don’t think I will. I think I wouldn’t like to have you mad at me.”

  The three of them took chairs in the ship’s control room and strapped themselves in, Horn as pilot, Redblade as copilot, Sair as navigator.

  Horn let his hands fall forward on the panel. “Three hours to Eron,” he said, “and the ship’s clock won’t have changed a second when we arrive.”

  “An interesting detail,” Sair said. “How do you explain it?”

  “Everything stops in the Tube,” Horn said. “No light, heat, sound—no energy at all. It must be connected in some way to how the Tube works.”

  “You’ve discovered something generations of scientists have searched for,” Sair said intently. “How did you do it?”

  Horn shivered. “I went through the Tube conscious. Never again.”

  “It’s too bad we can’t do that now,” Sair said. “We could put those three hours to good use. But I’m afraid it’s some kind of field effect, generated in the gold bands, perhaps. We haven’t time to locate it.”

  “And a shipload of madmen would be little use on Eron,” Horn added.

  “I must ask you, then, to outline the situation before we depart—and arrive,” Sair said.

  Horn went through it quickly from the political aspect to the strategic position. “The key, then, is the north cap. Whoever controls that, controls Eron.”

  “Then we must control the north cap,” Redblade said simply.

  “True,” Sair said. “It won’t be an easy job—others will have the same idea—but that will be chiefly a military operation. I won’t be much use there. I must make myself felt in Eron.”

  “And you can’t do that until we capture the control room,” Horn said. “Let’s go!”

  He tapped the keys with practiced fingers. The ship slid forward into the lock. Horn waited while the red light on the panel turned to gold. He tapped the keys once more. There was a brief surge of power that pressed them back into their seats—

  They blinked. The ship thumped gently into the cradle. Horn glanced at the clock on the panel. It was moving, but no time had elapsed, according to its stiff hands. The cradle was moving with them now; it slid them out of the air lock.

  They had returned to Eron.

  “No time,” Horn said wonderingly. “It is as if within the Tubes wasn’t a part of our universe at all.”

  He hadn’t time for any more reflections. Redblade was pointing at the screen. It was directed toward the floor beneath the cradle, and the floor was a battlefield for ants. Masses of them swayed back and forth, became detached, joined back together. Slowly it separated itself into a battle between drab little ants and large green ones.

  A few faces had been turned up toward them and then more. It spread, like a white sea, across the floor.

  The drab ones were slaves. Somehow they had fought their way here from the lower levels. Battling in from the wide doorway were giant Denebolan lancers in the green uniforms of Transport. That was Fenelon. Did it mean th
at Fenelon was alive, Horn wondered, or had these mercenaries found another master?

  The battle was going against the rabble. The huge Denebolans were mowing the undisciplined horde down like ripe grain, using pistols where there was room, swinging clubs and swords when they were closed in. Many of them were dragged down and swarmed under, but the rabble was doomed. Hundreds of them died for every Denebolan.

  Through the hull Horn heard the whine of ricocheting bullets. Shouts came from the rear of the ship. Horn was on his feet and racing toward the port before they started. It was open. The escalator was in front of it, but no one was climbing down. Through the oval door came a rain of bullets.

  Several men were huddled against the corridor wall. “We can’t get out,” one of them shouted. “They’ve killed two of us already. In a minute they’ll be climbing up here.”

  “Who’s shooting?” Horn demanded.

  “The damned slaves!”

  “We’ll have to make them understand that we’re trying to help them,” Horn said impatiently.

  “After ten centuries of betrayal,” Sair said softly from behind, “do you expect them to recognize assistance when they see it?”

  “I’ll have to tell them,” Horn said. He started for the deadly opening. “Hold your fire!” he shouted. “We’re friends—”

  It was useless. The sound would never carry through the clamor below. Sair’s gentle hand drew him back.

  “Come on, you dead men!” Redblade shouted. “We’ll fight our way out!”

  “That’s not the way either,” Sair said. “This is my job: diplomacy. This is why you needed me.”

  Before anyone could stop him, he had slipped past. He stood unarmed and alone in the empty oval, looking out over the sea of faces, calmly.

  A bullet whistled past him. He didn’t flinch. Slowly quiet spread out over the faces. Through it came a mutter. The mutter became a shout from a thousand throats.

  “SAIR!”

  The old man raised his hand toward the distant door. “Let us fight the enemy!” he shouted. His voice was loud and clear and strong.

  Horn leaped toward him as a volley of bullets streamed through the door.

  THE HISTORY

  Creation.…

  It is its own nemesis. Success is temporary, and idolization will not make the ephemeral permanent. Decay is implicit in the birth of any organism.

  An empire is an organism.

  Leadership is admired and imitated while it is creative. As a substitute, force is self-defeating. The consequences are inevitable. Outside the organism, resistance to incorporation grows strong; inside, rebellion begins.

  Creators are always a minority. Geniuses, saints, supermen, they rise in response to the challenge of conditions. They leave the mass of the people behind them. They must transform the world or perish.

  Eron’s answer to the rhythmic repetition of challenge and response had become fixed: force. And force must always give way to a greater force.…

  18

  WAR

  Horn’s momentum carried Sair to one side out of the path of the bullets.

  “They shot!” Sair exclaimed softly.

  “The Denebolans,” Horn said. “That had to be. If one side is your friend, the other is your enemy. Somebody shoots at you all the time.” He rolled over and started crawling back. “Redblade! Sharpshooters!”

  Three short-sleeved guards came forward on hands and knees. They lay full-length below the level of the port. Their pistols lifted; they sighted toward the wide doorway. In a few seconds bullets were streaming toward the tall lancers.

  “Let’s go back to the control room,” Horn said. “It’ll be a few minutes.”

  In the screen, the change was obvious. The ragged rebels were attacking with a maniac frenzy, and the Denebolans were falling back before it. The wide doorway was being cleared by the sharpshooters’ deadly accuracy. The size that made the lancers such dangerous fighters made them easy victims to ambush. They were men and mortal; one bullet was enough. Hundreds died. Those who could not retreat were torn apart.

  When the lancers were gone, the rebels turned their white faces to the ship once more.

  “Sair!” they shouted.

  The fighting men from the naked plains of Vantee raced down the motionless escalator and cleared a semi-circular area at the foot of it. Sair followed, slowly, and the mob grew silent. Behind him came Horn and Redblade. With him the pirate carried a hastily improvised, portable amplifier. He held it under his arm for Sair to use. It thundered the soft voice through the towering room.

  “Rebels! Soldiers of freedom! As you recognized, I am Peter Sair, once president of the Quarnon League, most recently a prisoner of Eron on Vantee. Like me, these other men in the captured uniforms of Security agents were prisoners. With courage and desperation, they fought their way to freedom and brought me with them. They are fighters and leaders. We will have need of them.

  “You, too, are fighters. But you have no leaders, and leaderless men are weak. There is no time for democratic processes. I ask you to recognize me as your leader and to name me as your leader to all other rebels, wherever you meet them. I do not ask this because I am eager for glory or hungry for power. I have had enough of both; they are fleeting and worthless. I ask this because I am Peter Sair; my name and face are known.

  “Eron must fall, but it must fall without breaking apart. That means there must be leadership. I ask your allegiance; I ask your unquestioning obedience.”

  As the echoes died away, there was silence, and then the room rocked once more with the shout of “SAIR!”

  Horn realized, as he had realized above in the ship, what had made Sair great. His talent was people; the thing to do and the thing to say that would move them—that was sure instinct.

  “Agreed!” Sair said, and there was a touch of wistfulness in his titan’s voice. “I am bound, as you are.” His voice grew strong again. “Let us get down to business. My lieutenants are Redblade and Horn. Obey them as you would obey me. Under them will be the men who came with us from Vantee. As experienced fighters, they will lead you; each of them will command fifty men.

  “They did the impossible: they escaped from Vantee. With your help they will do the impossible again!”

  Redblade took over the amplifier and, holding it easily at mouth level, began barking commands. The men from Vantee moved out and began splitting the mob into groups. It was quick and efficient. Soon there were almost seventy groups being inspected for arms, ammunition, and physical condition. While they were being organized, instructed, and drilled, guards were posted at the door and up and down the corridor.

  Redblade called for any of the rebels with information to come forward. Out of the few who made their way slowly across the floor, Horn picked one whose eyes were bright and intelligent. In response to their questions, his story came out in brief spurts of words that they pieced together into coherence.

  His group of rebels had seized a ship at the warehouse level. With a fantastic idea of reaching another planet, they had forced the pilot to take them out of Eron. Once in space, they had been helpless and confused; the pilot took advantage of their indecision to slip the freighter into a north cap lock. Instead of help, he found a quick death. The rebels spilled out into the cap, raging back and forth aimlessly as groups attacked them and they attacked others.

  Inside Eron rebellion was general. The slaves had poured up into the forbidden upper levels. Sometimes the gray guards fought against them; sometimes they joined the ragged mob. Often they found gray guards fighting with the personal guards of the various Directors; most prevalent were Duchane’s black agents. But the golden blood had run thick, and it was red, like that of other men.

  The battle had seemed to be going against the rebels when they had fled into space, but it might have been just a local action. There was no pattern to it, no order, no easy victor.

  Yes, they were hungry. They hadn’t eaten since they left the warehouse level. But it helped to th
ink that the Golden Folk and their guards were hungrier. The warehouses had been the first areas seized by the rebels; they would be the last surrendered.

  They had seen other rebel groups during the fighting in the cap, but had been unable to join forces with them. Most recently, these Denebolan giants had charged out of one of the Tube rooms and forced them back into this one. Such reinforcements were coming frequently, but there was no way of predicting from which room they would come or from what world or on whose side they would fight.

  No, he hadn’t seen Wendre Kohlnar. Some of the golden women had been killed; he had seen it happen in the early hours of the uprising. The madness had wanted to drown itself in blood; they had taken no prisoners. Later they had been too desperate and afraid to do anything but defend themselves.

  Horn’s eyes were distant and unhappy as he turned to Redblade. “Are we organized?”

  “As much as possible. Most of it will have to be done under fire. That’ll shake ’em down. So far they’ve been a mob; now they’ll learn what it is to be an army.”

  “What do you think? Will they have a chance against trained guards?”

  Redblade squinted speculatively at the milling men. “These men have something personal to fight for—over and above their lives. The guards are fighting for money. I’ll take these, puny lot though they are.”

  “How many are armed?”

  “More than I thought. Over fifty percent.”

  They went over their plans in the light of the forces they had gained. The chief goal was the control room, which was down the corridor to the left. Twenty groups would be sent in that direction with instructions to take and hold all Tube rooms as they came to them. Five of the fastest men in each group would be designated runners to report new developments to headquarters. No group was to move forward until its sides and rear were protected.

  Fifteen groups would start down the corridor to the right, with the same instructions. The rest would stay at headquarters as guards and reserve.