Orbit 4 - Anthology

by Edited by Damon Night

  Svir left the Barge and walked along the waterfront. The Festival of the Ostentatious Consumption was not due to begin for another six hours, but the citizens of Bayfast were already competing with one another for the best sites along the waterfront from which they could watch the events on Sacrifice Island out in the bay. Hedrigs knew he looked strange walking so seriously among the happy people. His severe costume contrasted sharply with the plaids and monochromes of the Bayfastlings. But Svir had his special reason for not wearing the costume Tatja had suggested.

  The people of Crownesse were happy, confident, and nationalistic. Originally they had been colonists from the Chainpearl and other Archipelagates. The hardships of The Continent had forced an, optimistic dynamism on them. In the thousand years since they declared their independence from the sea, it had often been remarked that they showed the most initiative and intelligence of any people on Tu. They had developed their bureaucratic system to heights existing nowhere else in the world. Their Bureaucracy was talented, flexible and, above all, devoted to the Crown. In the last two centuries the Reaches of Crownesse had grown threefold. The country already stretched most of the way across the southern coast of The Continent, and steady inroads were being made into the Interior. But the spiritual evolution of Crownesse had ended abruptly twenty years ago, when the strange and implacable Tar Benesh appeared in the King’s Court. The King had died and Tar Benesh had become the Regent. Shortly after, the King’s children had disappeared in a sea-wreck.

  Since those days twenty years before, Tar Benesh’s rule had been a study in expanding tyranny. He had, with the faithful help of the Bureaucracy, transformed the open competitive spirit of the Bayfastlings into an aggressive barbarism which could worship the destruction involved in the Ostentatious Consumption, and which could desire world conquest.

  Hedrigs was walking east, toward the Keep. That enormous semi-dodecahedron loomed black over the warehouse roofs. Even the ingenious Bayfastlings had needed seventy years to build this ultimate protection for the Crown. Nothing short of a year-long artillery bombardment could breach that artificial mountain—and the Keep had plenty of its own armament. Just ventilating the structure required the services of twenty draft animals.

  Svir stopped before he reached the two-hundred-foot open space surrounding the Keep. He slipped into the entranceway of, a closed shop and covertly inspected the castle port through which he must pass. Once more the horrible fear rose in him, making his every movement slow and clumsy. He knew he was going to die.

  A figure dressed in the uniform of a Guard captain walked across the open area toward the port. That was the signal to begin. The “captain” was a Tarulle agent whose job it was to warn the Guardsmen at the door to look sharp, since the Crown’s Inspector General was expected momentarily. In truth, The Crown’s I.G. was supposed to visit the Keep at this time, but he was being detained by other Tarulle agents. In any case, the two Guardsmen at the door should now be prepared to assume that the next authority figure they saw was the Inspector General.

  Hedrigs fumbled the suitcase open and lifted Ancho out. The animal responded nervously to the human’s obvious anxiety. Svir tried to reassure him. He depressed the tiny button on the side of the box strapped to the dorfox’s back. The contraption immediately began making a click-clock-click sound.

  What if the device were a bomb hooked up to a clock, timed to blow up after they were within the Keep? He debated for a moment whether to rip the machine off Ancho’s back. But there was no explosive which could possibly be fitted into a package this small and still do any damage to the castle. Tatja had no motive for tagging him with a clock bomb. And since his survival was necessary for the recovery of the Fantasia collection, the device probably had some beneficial—though certainly mysterious—role.

  He stood up, put the dorfox on his shoulder, and petted him. The animal began radiating immediately. His first target was a middle-aged merchant—one of the few people who were not yet at the waterfront. As the man passed Svir and Ancho, his eyes widened and he performed the nodding bow reserved for members of the Bureaucracy. Svir smiled and walked onto the open area before the Keep. In some peculiar way, when Ancho used the effect on others, it made Svir feel confident, competent. And this feeling of authority actually seemed to feed back to the animal, making him perform even more effectively. Hedrigs strolled briskly across the grassy plain.

  The two Guardsmen came rigidly to attention as he approached. One of them saluted. Svir offhandedly returned the salute. He passed his credentials to the Guardsman. At the same time he spoke the ritual words. “The Crown’s agent to inventory the Prizes.”

  The senior Guardsman looked up from the papers. “Very good, sir.” Both men wore ridiculously ornamented dress uniforms, but there was nothing ornamental about their weapons. In a single glance, the Guardsman gave Svir a thorough once-over. His alert and active mind checked for the minor details that would give an impostor away. Unfortunately for the Guardsman, his own mind made him see the details he was looking for. If questioned later, both Guards would swear they saw the Crown’s Inspector General entering the building, and not Svir Hedrigs.

  The fellow returned Svir his papers, and turned to an inconspicuous speaking tube that emerged from the black stone of the castle wall. Except for the words “Inspector General,” Svir couldn’t hear what was said. But that was enough. He had passed the second hurdle. At each checkpoint, the word would be passed back as to who he was supposed to be. With a greased sliding sound, a thirty-ton cube of stone lifted into the ceiling of the entrance. Beyond was darkness.

  Svir walked in, striving not to look up at the mass of stone above him, or back at the colorful city which would soon be blocked from his view. The stone cube slid smoothly down. Svir stood in the dark for almost five seconds. Ancho chirped nervously, and the device on his back continued to clock-click-clock. Hedrigs rubbed the little animal’s neck, and the dorfox began radiating again, none too soon. A second block of stone was lifting. Algae-generated light flooded the chamber. He stepped into the hallway and handed his papers to the Guardsmen standing there. Two of them were right by the entrance, while a third stood on a crenelated balcony near the ceiling. All three were dressed in loose, comfortable suits of Bureaucratic black. They weren’t nearly as formal as the fellows outside, but they showed obvious respect—and they were just as alert and competent as the dudes outside. Hedrigs’ identity was passed by speaking tube to the next checkpoint.

  Svir walked on confidently. The hall was well lighted and ventilated, even though it was within a mass of stone almost six hundred feet high. In some places the cold black stone was covered by wood paneling and cabinets filled with the Arms of Early Kings. He passed through three more checkpoints, each with its own door system. Whenever he had a choice of routes he took the middle one—he was following a radius straight to the center of the Keep, to the Crown Room vault. Some of the outer passages were almost crowded. Bureaucrats were making final arrangements for the evening’s events. Svir walked aloof from these groups, and hoped that none of them compared notes on exactly who they thought he was. As he approached the center, however, there were fewer and fewer people. Besides the Guards, he encountered only an occasional, very high-ranking Bureaucrat.

  Here the identification procedures became more complex. The walls were uniformly panelled and the floors heavily carpeted. Svir wondered at this strange luxuriousness in the most secret part of the Keep. Besides the usual paintings and displays, there were small glass windows at regular intervals. Beyond that glass, Svir could see only darkness. Probably there was someone back there watching what went on—guarding the guards. Svir was suddenly very glad that Tatja had had Ancho practice at deluding hidden observers. Now he knew the reason for the luxurious trappings. Besides hiding the observation posts, they probably concealed a variety of weapons and deadfalls.

  Finally he reached the last checkpoint—the doorway to the Crown Room itself. It was conceivable that at this moment,
only the Inspector General and Tar Benesh himself had authority to enter that storeroom of the nation’s greatest treasures and most secret documents. Here the clearance process was especially difficult. For a few uncomfortable moments, Svir thought they were going to take his fingerprints and run a comparison right there. Would the illusion extend to fingerprints? But apparently that procedure was used in special cases only, and Svir was not subjected to it.

  As they opened the outer vault door, Hedrigs casually turned to the officer in charge. “Captain, I have instructions to move some of the Prizes out to Sacrifice Island right away. I’d like to have a couple of squads ready when I finish the general inventory.”

  “Very good, sir,” she answered. “We have about twenty people with the proper clearance for just that job. I can have them here in fifteen minutes.” She handed Svir an algae lamp. “Don’t forget this, sir.”

  “Why, thanks.” Hedrigs accepted the lamp uncertainly. “If everything’s in order, my inventory should take about forty minutes—if not, it could be longer.” A lot longer, thought Svir to himself.

  Hedrigs turned and walked quickly into the lock area between the double doors. The outer door slid shut, the inner door lifted open, and he stepped into the Crown Room.

  The vault was a disappointment. The room was large and without ornamentation. Svir’s lamp provided the only illumination. Over all hung a musty smell, which the tiny vault ventilator shafts could not dissipate. The treasures were not heaped in a spectacular pile, but were neatly catalogued on racks that filled most of the room. Each object had its own classification tag. A row of cabinets along one wall housed the personal records of the Royal Family. Svir walked along the racks. (He almost didn’t notice the Crown Jewels and the nine-hundred-thirty-carat Shamerest cut diamond. In the dim light everything looked dull.) Finally he reached the red-tag area—the prime sacrifices for the Festival.

  And there it was—the Fantasie collection. Its sheer bulk was impressive. The ten thousand volumes were stacked on seven close-set racks. The entire mass rested on a dolly for easy handling. Obviously Benesh thought of Fantasie as an article of portable wealth rather than a source of philosophical and romantic pleasure. But—as Tatja so cynically pointed out—that massive collection was also the vehicle of Cor’s salvation. Even in this dim light, he could read some of the binding titles. Why, there was the last obra of Ti Liso’s Time Travel Series! For the last three centuries, the Chainpearl experts had been trying to find that issue. The series had been illustrated by Inmar Ellis—probably the greatest artist of all time. Svir noticed all this in passing. No matter how valuable this collection, its physical dimensions were much more important to him now. There was indeed enough room between the third and fourth racks to hide a human body.

  Now he had to find the correct passage to the prison tier. If Tatja had lied about that—

  The vault doors were so well constructed that Hedrigs did not know he had been discovered until the inner door lifted and he heard the raging voice of— Tar Benesh.

  The Regent advanced into the room. A look of astounded shock came to his face as he saw Hedrigs. Svir wondered briefly what authority figure the dictator saw in Ancho’s illusion. Benesh was less than five feet tall. He weighed more than two hundred pounds. Once that weight had been slablike muscle, but now he was as soft as the velvet and flutter-feather costume he wore.

  The Regent shakily raised his arm and pointed at Hedrigs. “Take that—man,” he choked. The black-uniformed Guardsmen swarmed toward Svir, their momentary confusion replaced by cool professionalism. Svir felt only confidence as they approached. He was in trouble, true, but he could work his way out of it.

  The confidence vanished. As the Guardmen grabbed him, Svir collapsed into the quivering apathy of total fear. He felt a burning needle thrust into the base of his neck, and simultaneously his entire body became a single charlie-horse. He couldn’t move, he could hardly breathe, and what he saw and heard seemed to be far away, observed through a curtain of pain. He felt his person being searched, and dimly heard Benesh say, “A dorfox, that’s the creature you saw.”

  “But, M’lord Regent, that’s a mythological creature.”

  “Obviously not! Search the Crown Room.” An unprecedented order. “No one enters or leaves this vault till we find—” he paused, realizing that this was impractical. It would tie up the Guard situation in the whole Keep. “No, belay that. But I want that creature, and I want it alive.” There was a lustfulness in his voice. “Check everyone and everything that passes through these doors.”

  Svir felt himself picked up, moved swiftly toward the door. And of all the humans in the room, he was the only one who noticed the dorfox seated on the shoulder of Tar Benesh.

  As they rushed him through the Keep passageways, Svir vaguely wondered what had given him away— though he really didn’t care now. Nothing could save him and Cor. And soon this paralysis would be replaced by the ultimate agony of interrogation.

  Finally his captors stopped. There was a dull creaking sound. Then he was sailing through the air. His hip struck the hard stone floor. His head and shoulders were resting in a pile of straw. He smelled rot and blood. The heavy door swung shut and he was in darkness.

  There was a shuffling sound, and someone was holding him. Cor! She pressed her body tight against his and whispered in his ear what seemed a complete irrelevancy. “I’m so sorry, Svir! I tried to warn you but they got me.” She was silent for a second, waiting for some response. He longed to put his arms around her. “Svir?” she whispered. “Are you all right? Svir!” But Hedrigs was so thoroughly paralyzed, he couldn’t even croak.

  * * * *

  “—realize we’re sitting beneath the Keep artillery. To get out, we’d have to go around the peninsula past the entrance guns. And now you want me to send twenty people on a diversionary raid! If Benesh ever connects us with this scheme, we’ll be blown out of the water—if we’re lucky!” Kederichi Maccioso slammed his broad fist down on Tatja’s desk, jarring her aluminum drinking carafe half an inch into the air.

  “Relax, Ked, we aren’t suspected of anything yet. It’s still a state secret that the collection is one of the sacrifices. There’s—” She broke off and motioned Maccioso to be silent. Even over the thrumming crowd sounds outside, they could both hear a scratching against the office window.

  Tatja Grimm pushed the window open and pulled a shivering, croaking Ancho into the room. She held him close and comforted him with low, gentle sounds. Maccioso sat down abruptly and stared at them, shocked.

  “The—dorfox wouldn’t come back alone unless Hedrigs had been taken,” he stuttered.

  Tatja smiled. “That’s right. Svir never had a chance— though he lasted longer than I thought he would.”

  “But this means Benesh knows. We’ve got to get a—” Then he seemed to realize what Grimm had just said. “What did you say? You knew all along he would fail?” His voice rose to an astonishing volume, rattled the window. “We’re all going to die because of you, you—”

  “Shut up, Ked,” Tatja said pleasantly. “You’re disturbing Ancho. Do you really think I would do anything to jeopardize my own life?” She set Ancho on her desk. “You know,” she said with apparent irrelevance, “I’ve studied dorfoxes. If they were just a little smarter or a little more mobile, they could take over the world. As it is though, I can manipulate them. With Hedrigs out of the way, I think Ancho will accept me as his new master.” She undid the clicker and set it carefully on her desk. “Hand me that bottle of lacquer, will you?” She accepted the bottle and screwed an atomizer onto its cap. Then she inserted the nozzle into the clicker’s keyhole and puffed the volatile lacquer into the box. In spite of himself, Kederichi Maccioso leaned over the table to watch this mysterious ritual. Ancho moved over to the corner of the table and munched the klig leaves that Tatja had thoughtfully provided.

  “That should fix it.” She undid the hidden catches and lifted the top off the box. “You know that picture-make
r we’ve been using in our latest issues? I’ve made some refinements on the invention.”

  Maccioso looked at the machine’s innards. It resembled only vaguely the picture-maker Tarulle used. In that device, light was focused on a special cellulose plate coated with very fine algae powder. Wherever light fell on the plate, the cellulose became charged and repelled the greenish powder from its surface. If the plate were properly coated with lacquer, a permanent picture resulted.

  Tatja pointed. “See, this clock movement pulls the reel of cellulose tape through the central area. Once every two seconds, this shutter takes an exposure. On alternate seconds, the shutter on the other side of the box takes a picture. So we now have a pictorial record covering nearly three hundred degrees. A picture every second, for nearly ten minutes.” She pulled the reel out of the clicker and began to examine it under a large magnifying glass. Maccioso had a clear, though distorted, view of the pictures through the same lens.

  The first thirty pictures covered Hedrigs’ approach to the Keep. Every other picture was reversed since it had been made on the opposite side of the cellulose. In spite of this, and the fact that the pictures were considerably less clear than ones made with simpler, one-shot devices, the sequence gave Maccioso the unreal sensation that he was sitting on Hedrigs’ shoulder. On every second frame, Svir’s head blocked out part of the picture.