The Empire of Isher

by A. E. van Vogt

  “Well,” the stranger’s voice cut raspingly across his thought, “what do you think of it?”

  Slowly, Hedrock turned toward his captor. He saw a long, pale-faced’ individual, about thirty-five years old. The man had maneuvered the mobile unit toward the ceiling, and he was standing behind a transparent energy insulator. He regarded Hedrock with large, brown, suspicious eyes. Hedrock said, “I can see there’s something damn funny going on here. But I happen to need money quick, so I’ll take the job. Does that make sense?”

  He had struck, he realized, the right note. The man relaxed visibly. He smiled wanly. He spoke finally with an attempt at heartiness that didn’t quite come off. “Now you’re talking. You can see how it was. I thought you weren’t going to come in.”

  Hedrock said, “The spaceship startled me, located here in the heart of the city.” It was a point, it seemed to him, that he should press hard. The fact that all this was new and strange to him would emphasize that he had no advance knowledge of the existence of a spaceship. He went on, “So long as we understand each other, I guess we’ll get along. The eight hundred credits a week still goes, does it?”

  The man nodded. “And it’ll be clear, too,” he said, “because I’m taking no chances on you not coming back here.”

  Hedrock said, “What do you mean?”

  The man smiled sardonically. He seemed to be more pleased with the situation. His voice sounded cool and confident as he said, “You’re going to live aboard till the job is done.”

  Hedrock was not surprised. But he made a protest as a matter of principle. He said, “Now, look here, I don’t really mind staying aboard, but you’re taking a pretty high-handed manner. What’s up? It’s all very well for me to keep saying it’s none of my business. But every few seconds you keep pushing something new at me until—well, I think I have a right to a few general facts.”

  “Like hell you have,” the man snapped.

  Hedrock persisted, “What’s your name? I don’t think it will hurt you if I know who you are.”

  There was a pause. The other’s long face twisted into a frown. He shrugged finally. “I guess I can tell you my name.” He smiled with a sudden savage exultation. “After all, she knows it. My name is Rel Greer.”

  It meant nothing, except that it wasn’t Kershaw. Hedrock didn’t have to be told who she might be.

  Before he could speak, Greer said curtly: “Come along! I want you to change your clothes. Over there.”

  He must have noticed Hedrock’s almost imperceptible hesitation. “Or maybe,” he sneered, “you’re too modest to undress out in the open.”

  “I’m not modest,” said Hedrock.

  He walked over and picked up the work clothes he was supposed to change into, and he was thinking, Shall I take a chance and keep my rings on? Or take them off?

  He looked up, and said aloud, “I’d like to examine this insulated suit before I put it on.”

  “Go ahead. It’s your funeral if there’s anything wrong with it.”

  “Exactly,” said Hedrock.

  The interchange, brief though it was, had already brought him a vital piece of information. He had taken one glance at the suit, and recognized that it was in good repair. These insulated suits for atomic workers had a long history; if anything went wrong they lost their gloss. This one positively shone; and Greer’s casual acceptance of his suggestion that he examine it seemed to signify that the man didn’t know anything about such things. The implications were tremendous. As he went over the material, Hedrock’s mind was busy. Greer had indicated that the ship was not capable of flight. If that were true it could only mean that the motors had been taken apart. And that there was an uncomfortably large amount of radiation flooding the engine room. Because of the decision he had to make, it was a point that needed checking. He looked up, and asked the question.

  Greer nodded, but there was a wary expression in his eyes. He said, “Yes, I took them apart, and then I realized the job was more than I cared to undertake.”

  That sounded reasonable enough, but Hedrock chose to misunderstand. “I don’t get that. The work is simple enough.”

  Greer shrugged. “I just didn’t want to be bothered.”

  Hedrock said, “I never heard of an authorized trade school—let alone a college—graduating an atomic motor repairman who couldn’t put an engine together again. Where did you get your training?”

  Greer was impatient. “Look,” he said flatly, “get into that suit.”

  Hedrock undressed quickly. He was not satisfied with the results of his attempt to find out how good a mechanic Greer was. But the brief conversation gave direction to the decision he had to make. If there was free radiation in the engine room, then he couldn’t take his rings with him. An insulation suit was efficient only if there was—no metal inside it; and, while it was possible that he might be able to use his rings against Greer before there was any danger, the risk was too great. It was much safer to slip the tiny weapons into a pocket of his suit just as if they were simple ornaments. There would be other opportunities to use them.

  It required only a few moments to change his clothes. It was he who led the way down into the bowels of the ship.

  They came to a world of engines.

  He saw that Greer was enjoying his astonishment. “The ship is a new invention,” he said smugly. “I’m selling it. I’m negotiating, and have been for some weeks, with the Empress herself.” His lips tightened, then he went on, “I decided to tell you that on the way down. It isn’t any of your business, but I don’t want you worrying your head about it, and maybe prowling around. Now you know where you stand.

  It’s her idea that the whole thing be kept quiet. And I pity any interloper who goes counter to her wishes in anything. The Earth wouldn’t be big enough to hold such a fool unless he were a Weapon Shop man.

  There, is everything clear?”

  It was much clearer than Greer realized. The great scientist, Kershaw, had hired Gil Neelan and Greer and others whose names had not yet been mentioned to assist him in perfecting his invention. Somewhere along the line Greer had murdered everyone else aboard, and taken control of the ship.

  Hedrock climbed out of the engine room and up to the repair shop on the level above. He began to examine the tools, aware of Greer watching him. In turn, but much more casually, he watched Greer.

  Once more he was testing to discover just how much the man knew. Greer spoke again at last:

  “I’ve fixed a place for myself in the empty room above this repair shop. I’ll spend most of my time there during the next two months. It isn’t that I don’t trust you, or that there is very much you can do. But while I’m up there I’ll know that you’re not wandering around the ship, prying into secrets.”

  Hedrock said nothing. He did not quite trust himself to speak, for fear that he would say too much to a man who had now irrevocably revealed himself. Greer was obviously not a scientist. And in a few minutes, as soon as he climbed up to the chamber above, the problem of seizing the ship would be solved.

  The irritating thing, then, was that Greer didn’t go up to the next level right away.

  He had another reason for wanting the man to depart. One of the amazing aspects of his various interchanges with Greer was that the other had not yet asked him for his name. Hedrock had no intention of saying that he was Gilbert Neelan; he intended to claim that the whole situation was too unnormal for him to reveal his identity. But still that might make for unpleasantness and delay.

  Greer broke the silence. “How come a man of your training is out of a job?”

  It sounded like the beginning of an inquiry. Since his name was not involved, Hedrock replied quickly,

  “I’ve been wasting my time out on the planets. Damn fool!”

  Greer seemed to consider that, for several minutes went by. At last he said, “What brought you back?”

  There could be no hesitating over that. If Greer went “upstairs”, and examined his clothes, he’d
find the name of Daniel Neelan written in a notebook. It was a possibility that had to be taken into account. “My brother’s death,” Hedrock said.

  “Oh, your brother died?”

  “Yes.” It was the story he had originally intended to tell. Now, he could tell it without naming names.

  “Yes, he used to send me an allowance. When that stopped, I made inquiries, and it seems he’s been missing for a year, unregistered. It’ll take about six months more to close the estate, but, as you probably know, the courts recognize non-registration as proof of death in these days of multiple assassinations.”

  “I know,” was all Greer said.

  In the silence that followed, Hedrock thought, “Let him mull that over.” It wouldn’t do any harm, in the event he did find the notation about Neelan, for Greer to believe that Gil and Dan Neelan had no strong feelings for each other. “It’s more than ten years,” Hedrock said aloud, “since I saw him. I found I didn’t have the faintest sense of kinship. I didn’t give a damn whether he was dead or alive. Funny.”

  Greer said, “You’re going back into space?”

  Hedrock shook his head.“Nope. Earth for me from now on. There’s more excitement, fun, pleasure.”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Greer, after a silence, “exchange my last year in space for all the pleasure in Imperial City .”

  “Each to his own taste—” Hedrock began.

  And stopped. His will—to get the man up to the insulation room—collapsed to secondary importance.

  For here was information. The astonishing thing was that he hadn’t guessed it before. It had been implicit in every facet of this affair.“My last year in space—” Why, of course. Kershaw, Gil Neelan, Greer and other men had taken this ship on a trial interstellar cruise. They had been to one of the near stars, possibly Alpha Centauri, or Sirius or Procyon—in spite of all his years of life, Hedrock trembled with excitement as he ran over the names of the famous nearby star systems.

  Slowly, the emotional repercussions of Greer’s words died out of him. The picture of what had happened was far from clear, except for one thing. Greer had volunteered the new fact. He wanted to talk. He could be led into saying more. Hedrock said, “My idea of life isn’t cruising around space looking for meteors. I’ve done it, and I know.”

  “Meteors!”Greer exploded. “Are you crazy? Do you think the Empress of Isher would be interested in meteors? This is a hundred-billion credit deal . Do you hear that? And she’s going to pay it, too.”

  He began to pace the floor, obviously stimulated. He whirled suddenly on Hedrock, “Do you know where I’ve been?” he demanded. “I—”

  He stopped. The muscles of his face worked convulsively.(Finally, he managed a grim smile. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he’ said. “You’re not pulling anything out of me. Not that it really matters, but—” He stood there and stared at Hedrock. Abruptly, he twisted on his heel, climbed the stairway, and disappeared from view.

  Hedrock gazed at the stairway, conscious that the time had come for action. He examined the ceiling metal with a modified transparency, and nodded finally in satisfaction. Four inches thick, the usual alloy of lead and “heavy” beryllium, atomically processed. The transparency also showed the exact spot where Greer was sitting, a blurred figure, reading a book. Or rather, holding a book. It was impossible to see whether he was reading.

  Hedrock felt himself cold, grim. His only emotion was a remote, deadly pleasure that Greer was sitting up there, smugly imagining himself in control of the situation.

  He maneuvered the heavy polisher directly under the spot where Greer was sitting, and turned its finely toothed surface to point upward. Then he began his estimation. Greer had looked about one hundred and seventy pounds. Two thirds of that, roughly, was one hundred and fourteen. To be on the safe side, allow for a blow that would kill a man of a hundred pounds. Greer didn’t look too physically fit. He’d need the handicap.

  There was, of course, the four-inch floor to figure in. Fortunately, its resistance was a formula based on tension. He made the necessary adjustments, and then pressed the button control.

  Greer crumpled. Hedrock went upstairs to where the man lay sprawled on a leg-rest chair. He examined the unconscious body with a color transparency, for detail. No bones broken. And the heart still beat.

  Good. A dead man wouldn’t be able to answer questions. There were a lot of questions.

  It required considerable mathematical work to plot a system of force lines that would bind Greer into a reasonably comfortable position, allowing his arms and legs to move, and his body to turn, and yet be capable of holding him forever if necessary.

  Seven

  HEDROCK SPENT THE NEXT HALF HOUR GOING OVER THE ship. There were many locked doors and packed storerooms which he temporarily by-passed. He wanted a general idea of what the inside looked like, and he wanted it quickly.

  What he found in that cursory search did not satisfy him. He had a spaceship that couldn’t leave its hangar; a ship, moreover, which it would be dangerous for him to leave now that he had control of it.

  It might be guarded. The fact that he had not seen any of Innelda’s soldiers proved nothing. They could be wearing invisibility suits. The Empress would be desperately anxious not to draw the attention of Weapon Shop observers to concentrations of government forces. And so, Robert Hedrock had come along an apparently deserted street, and entered the ship of ships before the commander of the protecting forces could make up his mind to stop him.

  If that picture was even close to the reality, then it would be virtually impossible for him to get away from the machine without being picked up for questioning. It was a risk he dared not take. Which left him where? He went thoughtfully down to the insulation room, and found Greer conscious. The man glared at him with mingled hate and fear.

  “You don’t think you’re going to get away with this,” he n a voice that trembled. “When the Empress finds out about this, she’ll—”

  Hedrock cut him off. “Where are the others?” he asked. “Where are Kershaw and—” He hesitated—“my brother, Gil?”

  The brown eyes that had been glaring at him widened. Greer shuddered visibly, then he said, “Go to hell!” But he sounded frightened.

  Hedrock went on in a steady voice, “If I were you I’d start worrying about what would happen to you if I should decide to turn you over to the Empress.”

  Greer’s face acquired a bleached look. He swallowed hard, and then said huskily, “Don’t be a fool!

  There’s enough here for both of us. We can both cash in—but we’ve got to be careful—She’s got the ship surrounded. I figured they’d let somebody through, but that’s why I greeted you with that ninety thousand cycle cannon—just in case they tried to come in, too.”

  Hedrock said, “What about the telestat? Is it possible to make calls outside?”

  “Just through the ’stat in the Trellis Minor Building.”

  “Oh!” said Hedrock, and bit his lip in vexation. For once he had over-reached himself. It had seemed logical to render that particular ’stat useless, and so head off all other candidates I for the job that was being offered. Then he hadn’t expected that the trail would lead directly to the interstellar ship itself.

  “What do you get on any other ’stat?”

  “A fellow named Zeydel,” said Greer in a grim tone.

  It required several seconds for Hedrock to recall where he had heard that name before. At the Empress’

  table, some months earlier. One of the men had expressed abhorrence at the idea that Innelda would employ such a creature. Hedrock remembered her answer. “God made rats,” she had said, “and God made Zeydel. My scientists have found a use for rats in their laboratories, and I have found a use for Zeydel. Does that answer your question, sir?” She had finished haughtily.

  The man who had brought up the subject was known for his sharp tongue. He had flashed back at her,

  “I see. You have human beings in your laboratories who ex
periment on rats, and now you have found a rat to experiment on human beings.”

  The remark had brought a flush to Innelda’s cheeks, and for the man two weeks banishment from her table. But it was apparent that she still had a use for Zeydel. Which was unfortunate, because it seemed to preclude bribery, that important adjunct of recent Isher civilization. Hedrock did not accept the defeat as final. He loaded Greer, force lines and all, on to an antigravity plate, and carted him upstairs to one of the bedrooms in the upper half of the ship. And then he started on his second exploration of the ship. This time, though every minute now seemed valuable—and a crisis imminent—it was no cursory search.

  He went through every room, using a power drill to break recalcitrant locks. The personal quarters above the control room held him longest. But Greer had been there before him. Nothing remained that gave any clue to the real owner’s whereabouts. Greer must have had plenty of time to destroy the evidence, and he had used it well. There were no letters, no personal property, nothing that would ever cause embarrassment to a murderer. It was in the nose of the ship, in an airlock, that Hedrock made his prize find. A fully equipped lifeboat, powered by two replicas of the giant engines in the main machine, was snugly fitted there into a formfitting cradle. The little boat—little only by comparison; it was nearly a hundred feet long—seemed to be in perfect condition and ready to fly.

  Hedrock examined the controls carefully, and noticed with excitement that, beside the normal accelerator, was a gleaming white lever, with the letters infinity drive printed on it. Its presence seemed to indicate that even the lifeboat had the interstellar drive mechanism built into it. Theoretically, he could sit down at the controls, launch the lifeboat into the air, and escape into space at a speed which pursuing ships would not be able to match. He examined the launching devices. They were automatic, he discovered. The spaceboat need merely glide forward from its cradle under normal drive, and its movement would activate the electrically operated lock. At tremendous speed, the lock-door would slide open; the boat would race through it. And the airlock would close the moment it was clear.