The Ring of Ritornel

by Charles L. Harness

  Andrek, stretched out under the loose elastic belts on his cabin bunk on the Xerol, was trying perfunctorily to nap. But it was no good. Sleep was impossible. Since boarding, every moment had increased his feeling of impending disaster. The ship had closed around him like a giant plated fist. It might squeeze shut and crush him at any moment. His thoughts were racing, and sleep was out of the question. He laced his fingers under the back of his head and stared glumly at the overhead bunk light. From there, his eye followed absently a jagged weld-line across the ceiling. He had noticed similar repairs in other parts of the ship. Evidently Xerol had seen heavy battle service in years past, and had been extensively rebuilt.

  He was certain that he was being sent away to die. Both of Oberon’s so-called assignments, official and unofficial, were transparent subterfuges, devices simply to get him on Xerol, away from people who might ask questions or help him. Xerol’s voyage to the Node would take three days. At some time within the next three days, Oberon would have him killed.

  Three days. Which day would it be? How would it be done? Who would do it? As he thought about it, he could see how ridiculously simple it would be. Anyone on the ship, from the captain down to the cabin boy, could walk up to him at any moment, pull out a biem, and put a hole in him. They knew he had no weapon, no means of defense. The locked door of his cabin was no protection. Anyone with a duplicate photo-key could open it from the outside. He looked over at the door uneasily, as though expecting it to swing open. He shook his head dizzily. He’d have to get a grip on himself. There had to be a way out, and he was going to find it.

  Why did Oberon want him dead?

  Because he loved Amatar? If the Magister wanted to break that up, all he needed to do was to give him an outlandish assignment in a foreign galaxy, where he’d be away from Goris-Kard for years.

  No, there was more to it than that. It was almost as if the Magister considered him a personal threat. And that was ridiculous. How could an insignificant advocate, even on the staff of the Great House, affect the powerful dynasty of the Delfieri?

  The thought was implausible—yet he could not get it out of his head. If, perchance, he were a personal threat to Oberon, it was an unwitting threat, certainly not of his choosing or volition. In any such role he was a puppet, plunged alone, friendless, into a totally alien drama, with plot unknown, and lines unlearned.

  But was he alone in this? Certainly, the gray pilgrim of Ritornel had interceded for him in Huntyr’s office. But where was the pilgrim now? On the ship? It seemed unlikely. Now that Oberon’s people knew about the pilgrim, the ship’s officers would not allow him to board. Or else, he would be permitted aboard and then taken prisoner. Or killed.

  Andrek shivered. At this moment, a nearby cabin might have a corpse for an occupant.

  He unbuckled the bunk belts and tried to sit up. His unaccustomed weightlessness caused him to lose contact with the side bars of the bunk, and he floated out into the center of the room, over the central table and chairs. He looked down. On the table was his attaché case. And that suggested other problems. Raq, the spider, was probably hungry. For that matter, so was he. His conscience bothered him, especially since he had promised Amatar to feed the hideous little creature. On the other hand, he had never really overcome his fear of Raq, and now he grasped at an opportunity to delay the encounter. Raq would have to wait; he didn’t feel equal to the task of facing her on an empty stomach.

  He touched the “ceiling” lightly with his fingertips, then floated over to the cabin door, where his magnetized shoe soles contacted the floor. He opened the door quietly and looked outside. The corridor was empty. He closed and locked the door and strode off toward the mess. At least, at table, he should be reasonably safe. It was difficult to imagine sitting opposite a ship’s officer, quietly eating one’s dinner and sipping a little wine, engaged perhaps in light conversation about Xerol’s motors and accommodations—and then being suddenly shot on the spot. Andrek’s mouth twisted wryly. What a breach of table etiquette! But on further reflection, he decided that it wasn’t very funny. And the people assigned to kill him were probably not too concerned about form or manners.

  The entrance was just ahead. He could smell the odors of cooking, and hear the muffled voices amid the sharper clatter of dishes and silver. He suddenly realized how hungry he was. His mouth watered and his steps speeded up a little. For a moment, he almost relaxed.

  But even as he walked through the entrance of the mess, he felt a sharp premonition of danger.

  Three people were seated at the first table. Even before he sought out their faces, he knew who they were—who they had to be. The scene was an exact replica of the dining hall on Terror’s moon, even to the angle of the table, the wine bottle, the empty chair waiting for him.

  Vang smiled icily at Andrek and motioned toward the chair.

  Huntyr turned around, his golden eye patch alive with pinpoints of reflected light. Hasard simply glowered at the advocate.

  Huntyr was the first to speak.

  “All chance of Alea, Don Andrek!” he said genially. “Will you join our table?”

  Andrek was certain the pounding of his heart was audible all over the little dining room. He realized very quickly several things. If there were any doubt as to his intended fate, it was gone now. He was to be killed on the ship, en route to the Node. He had not merely walked into a trap: he had been placed in one. Things were being done to him.

  And Vang was a real surprise. Evidently either Oberon didn’t trust Huntyr to handle the assassination alone, or else Vang had a very special function in the plot. Perhaps he was both supervisor and specialist. In either case, his presence indicated that Oberon was not satisfied with the conventional forms of murder, and that something bleak and horrid was brewing. But if Vang was a specialist, what was his specialty? Andrek had a feeling he’d soon know, sooner than he wanted, and that it would not be a pleasant discovery. Meanwhile, he intended to survive, even though this would require massive alterations in his hitherto aloof approach to life and circumstance. If he came out of this alive he doubted that he would still be recognizable as Andrek, don and advocate. Let it be so: he was going to live.

  And now, within seconds he had to make an accurate military appraisal of the situation, try to guess their plan of attack, how they intended to kill him, marshal his weapons, plan a defense. Weapons? Defense? It was very funny. No gun. Not even a club. But wait. There was Raq. Under the right conditions, against the right man, Raq would certainly provide an element of surprise. It might work. But certainly not against Vang. And probably not against Huntyr. Huntyr was experienced, cautious. But Huntyr’s assistant, Hasard, had never impressed him as bursting with intelligence. Hasard was just right. First, of course, he’d have to get Hasard into his room, alone with him and Raq. But that would still leave Huntyr and Vang. He must be free from interruption during those critical moments with Hasard. But how could he keep the other two occupied during his trial with Hasard? And then he had the answer. And with that, the whole plan crystallized, scintillating, unanswerable, perfect. To save his life, a man will cram into one vital instant the intelligence and imagination of a lifetime.

  His case was complete, his brief ready; it was time to address the court.

  He greeted them with friendly banality. “May the Ring of Ritornel embrace you all!” He took the chair offered by Huntyr, then calmly launched his attack. “Weren’t you mildly insulted?” he asked Huntyr.

  “Insulted?” Huntyr’s fork hung in midair.

  “To be assigned personally to the murder of one so harmless?”

  Without changing a muscle, Huntyr’s face somehow ceased to smile. “That’s bad talk, your Honor.”

  Andrek looked over at Vang. “Have you ever shot a man?” he asked amiably.

  The monk opened his mouth, then shot an inquiring look at Huntyr. He turned back to Andrek but did not answer.

  Andrek laughed. “I thought not. Not your line, is it? Nor mine. But your
comrade has shot men before. Several. As you know, he has been told to kill me. I’m unarmed. In fact, I don’t know one end of a biem-gun from the other; and I can’t hide. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Huntyr’s man Hasard, here, could do it, but you are here to see that Huntyr does it personally. And you’ll probably blab it all over Goris-Kard when you return, how the heroic Huntyr killed a harmless, helpless don.” His lip curled. “Huntyr! What admiration—what acclaim—awaits your return!”

  Huntyr scowled. “You talk too much, Don Andrek. You have a way of making people say things they shouldn’t say. But I know all about you. I don’t have to say anything.”

  Andrek laughed. “Quite true, my treacherous friend. You are well advised to be silent. There will be more than sufficient talk by others.”

  Huntyr wiped his mouth roughly with his napkin. “And anyhow, you have it all wrong.”

  Vang suddenly turned warning eyes on his companion.

  Andrek had guessed right. There was already bad feeling between Huntyr and Vang. Each wanted to control the assassination, and neither would take orders from the other. The situation was building up. If his control held, Huntyr and Hasard would be leaving the table within a few more minutes. He might even get a little unconscious help from Vang.

  “Careful, Huntyr,” chided Andrek. “You’re not only risking your fee, but also your professional future. Your Alean friend thinks you’d better follow his orders, and bear up under the ridicule. In fact, I think he wants you to shut up altogether. Think it over, and pass the salt, if you please.” He waited. “Brother Vang, the salt?”

  The monk snapped the container viciously toward Andrek. The advocate caught it expertly in midair and gave him a friendly smile. He looked at Vang as he talked, but he knew that Huntyr was listening—and with growing resentment.

  “I myself have several assistants,” said Andrek. “I trained them myself, and I trust them completely. In fact, I take pride in them. A professional man is best judged by the performance of his assistants, don’t you think? Now, of course, if Huntyr feels he is basically incompetent in the selection and training of his assistants, then he is quite right in not delegating the assignment.” He looked first at Hasard, then at Huntyr. “Is something wrong with your steak?” he asked the investigator solicitously.

  Huntyr threw down his napkin, glared first at Andrek, then at Vang. Finally, he summoned Hasard with an imperious jerk of his head, and they both clacked heavily out of the room with as much dignity as their magnetized shoe soles would allow.

  Andrek shook his head regretfully. “No sense of humor. Spoils a good man. No offense, you understand, but I think you might have made a better selection.” He regarded Vang with a long curious appraisal. First, the monk would have to be kept here a few minutes. That should not be too difficult. Second, a large, unexplainable sum of money would have to be planted on the Alean. And that was going to require finesse.

  “Linger a moment, Ajian,” urged Andrek. “Even on hyper-drive, this will be a long three-day trip. You are making it very difficult for an old classmate to be friendly.”

  Vang, who was pushing back his chair, hesitated, then stared coldly at Andrek. “What do you want?”

  Andrek said, “May I see your die?”

  The Alean made an involuntary gesture toward his chest. “Why?” he asked suspiciously.

  Andrek’s eyebrows lifted in feigned astonishment. “How can my seeing your die possibly place you at a disadvantage? Is it conceivable that you could be afraid of me?”

  Vang hesitated, then shrugged and reached into the folds of his long robe and drew out the die. “It can make no difference,” he said. But he kept it in hand, and did not disconnect it for Andrek’s closer inspection.

  As Andrek suspected, it was still the old pyrite dodecahedron, one of millions grown on mass production lines in the Alean shops, the one that Vang had bought years ago at the Academy. It declared instantly the economic status of its wearer. Vang was a poor man, and he wanted to be rich. This should facilitate the next phase of Andrek’s plan. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out the credit refund check Huntyr had given him that morning. He turned it over on the table and took out his stylus. “I’m endorsing this in blank. It’s worth ten thousand gamma to any person presenting it at any bank. And I’ll stake it against your Holy Die.”

  Vang looked at Andrek in open amazement. His eyes shifted covertly to the check. He said noncommittally: “You seem very sure of yourself. What do you want to wager about?”

  Andrek answered quietly. “A test of strength. I’ll take Ritornel, you take Alea. I propose to prove to you, here and now, that Ritornel is supreme over Alea.”

  This was rankest heresy, and Andrek smiled inwardly as he watched the monk’s reaction. In slow sequence, Vang turned pale, then pink, then, as his anger mounted, red.

  Andrek continued coolly. “Is our predestined life-death cycle immune to the operation of the laws of chance, or is the eternal return, the Omega, the Ring, merely the statistical consequence of chance? I contend that the conflict can be resolved—in favor of Ritornel—by a simple experiment. If I am wrong, you take the check for ten thousand gammas. If I am right, I take your die.”

  “What is the experiment?” demanded Vang harshly.

  “The equipment consists simply of my check, your die, and my ink marker. Here is the check, face down. We will take turns rolling the die. The number that comes up each time will be taken as a vector, with the direction of the number on a clock face. And we draw a line having the length of one edge of the die, from the center of this line on my check, in the direction of that number. For example, if the die comes up ‘six,’ we draw a line three centimeters long—one die-length—straight down the check, in the direction of ‘six’ on a clock face. At the end of that line we mark an ‘x.’ Then the die is rolled again. Say the second number is ‘nine.’ From the ‘x’ we draw another three-centimeter line in the direction of the ‘nine’ on a clock face. That gives us a new point of departure. We will roll a total of twelve times, and we add the new vector each time to the previous terminus of the line.”

  “How can that prove anything?” said Vang suspiciously.

  “If Ritornel holds dominion over Alea, the line will eventually return to the starting position on the check; if the line zigzags away at random without returning to the start, then destiny is not a foreordained return, but is instead a matter of pure chance, and Alea is supreme over Ritornel.”

  He waited as Vang considered this.

  The problem was identical to the statistical mechanics of molecular motion, whereby the mean free path of a given molecule in a fluid is determined. It was also known as the “drunkard’s walk”: if a drunkard started from a lamp post and took twelve steps, each in random direction from the one preceding, how far would he be from the lamp post? He would not be twelve steps distant, but he wouldn’t be back at the lamp post, either! By the laws of chance, his distance from the lamp post would be the square root of the total length of those twelve steps. And so must be the outcome of the experiment he now proposed to Vang. The line would wander randomly around in the near vicinity of the check, and the final point, theoretically, would be the square root of thirty-six centimeters—two die-lengths—distant from the starting point. So he would certainly lose. It was a simple exercise in statistical mechanics, and religion had nothing to do with it.

  Apparently Vang realized this too. Andrek waited as the monk mentally double-checked the math. The ten thousand gammas were as good as planted on him.

  “I will do it,” said Vang finally. “Not for the money, but in obedience to Alea, that sacrilege may be punished, and the falsity of Ritornel be revealed.”

  Andrek suppressed a smile. “I have no wish to offend the goddess. We could wager for buttons.”

  Vang frowned. “No. Alea has already forgiven your presumption. It is agreed.” As he put the die on the table, he shot one final searching look at the advocate from narrowed,
glinting eyes. “Let us drink to the bargain.” From the table tankard he pressured two capsules of wine and handed one to Andrek. “To Alea!”

  “To Ritornel!” countered Andrek. He waited until Vang had taken a couple of swallows, then lifted his own capsule to his lips. The Aleans were skilled poisoners, and there was no sense in running any risk.

  “I must unscrew the locking loop,” continued Andrek, “so that the ‘two’ can come up.”

  Vang nodded.

  Andrek rolled the die. It clattered briefly along the steel tabletop, then stopped, held to the metal surface by the natural ferromagnetism of the crystal pyrite.

  Vang spat. “A ‘one’—the Sign of Ritornel. Mark your line.”

  Andrek measured off the line against the die face one length in the direction of one o’clock, then handed the die to Vang. “Your turn.”

  Vang rolled a “two,” and shuddered.

  “Disaster at the Node!” said Andrek cheerily. He measured it off, then rolled. “A ‘three.’”

  Vang relaxed. The line was moving away.

  The next numbers were four, five, and six. Andrek looked curiously at the resulting figure, which was a geometrically perfect half of a dodecagon. “Alea seems to be on your side, Brother Vang. We’re already several die-lengths away from the start.”

  Vang did not smile, but his eyes glittered. “Roll!”

  Andrek threw a “seven.” Vang followed with “eight,” and then Andrek took a “nine.”

  They both examined the figure uneasily. Clearly, it was a dodecagon, three-fourths complete. The line was circling back!

  Andrek felt drops of perspiration forming on his forehead. What was happening was a statistical impossibility. He suddenly realized that perhaps the check was not going to get planted on Vang. But he had to lose! His life might depend on it. What was the probability that nine numbers could come up in exactly this sequence? One in twelve to the ninth power! Was it conceivable that the god Ritornel truly existed?