by J F Bone
I didn’t really hear him. My mind had recoiled from what he had told me. Two thousand years, he had said. Two thousand years! And he was not old! Truly he was the Father of Evil, for only Evil and the soul are immortal! “You said two thousand years, didn’t you?”
Wolverton chuckled. “I should have added objective,” he said.
I didn’t understand.
“It’s a trick with time,” he explained. “Actually I suppose I’m about forty or forty-five. It’s not strange. Anyone with a lightspeed ship can do it as long as one stays in normal space time. Take a two-week trip subjective at Lume One and ten objective years go by just like that. It’s an old trick. The Time jumpers knew about it before hyperdrive was developed, but it’s been forgotten for centuries. Most of the time I’m not here. The Halsites take care of the Holding for me. I heard about you three years ago so I waited until you made your try for me. It was inevitable that you would. Your Bearers are always trying to get me inspired partly by religious and partly by economic reasons—and they pick the best of each year’s, crop to try. As a result I get about three new recruits a year. The old ones pick them up and indoctrinate them. But we keep up the fiction of Wolverton being here. It’s good business.” Wolverton looked at the dumbfounded expression on my face and laughed.
“So you don’t understand,” he said. “Well, you have plenty of time to learn after we treat about five rim worlds. We’ll be practical about it and let you learn about lightspeed and time stasis the normal way—in a spaceship!”
“No,” I said.
“But you can’t turn me down,” he protested. “I thought you understood. People need you—need you badly. Our others can modify a little but they can’t convince. It takes a hundred of them to even begin to cover a world—and there aren’t very many hopeful worlds left. We have to hold the line or humanity will breed itself into extinction.”
“I am still your prisoner,” I said, luxuriating in the first real weakness I had found in him. “You might as well know that I still oppose you. I don’t believe you. You are Evil and Evil has a smooth tongue—Zard said it long ago, and it is still the truth.”
Wolverton groaned.
“Nor will I help you!”
Anger flowed from him. “You stupid fool!” he blazed. “Do you think I’d ask you to do anything for me? His rage struck me like a blow. I’m telling you—not asking. You will do something for your race—something you can do, or so help me God, I’ll condition everything out of you except your superstitious prejudices and maroon you on Samar!”
He meant what he said. His anger was a true anger—and he had spoken the Name we all knew yet did not speak aloud. And he was not struck down. I was confused and upset. I shivered with a fear that was as icy as the River of the Dead. There was something wrong here—something I could not understand. Then I saw the light.
“I will bargain with you,” I said. Zard’s plan was becoming clear. “I will join you in good faith.”
“With what reservations?”
“None—I will swear this by Zard’s bones.”
He looked at me speculatively. “What is the nature of this bargain?”
“I will join you willingly if you leave this world.”
He smiled. “Sorry, it’s no go. It’s too good a psi trap. And your race has a virtual monopoly on the supply. You presume too much on my claims about your value. You’re not that valuable.”
I sighed. This was not the way. Zard would have opened it if it were. I had weakened—but he had not retreated. I had shown a softness in my armor and had given him hope of conquering—and with that little opening what could he not do?
He needed but one break in my defenses—and I would be lost. Already I was dangerously weakened. Rapidly I repeated the catechism of Zard as he talked, and presently his voice faded and was gone as the ecstasy of spiritual union with the Word gripped me in firm protecting hands.
“Come with me,” Wolverton said a week later. “I have something to show you.”
Obediently I rose and followed him. A Halsite followed as we walked out into the sun. We had come a different way than before—a way I had never taken. Before me was a broad concrete plain studded with oddly curved walls. In the center of the area a tall, pinch-waisted, needle-nosed spaceship stood on its landing pads—pointing straight up to the sky. I looked at it with awe. It was bigger even than a trader and it looked oddly menacing yet beautiful.
“Yours?” I asked.
He nodded. “Mine. She’s Earth-built—one of the last battle cruisers ever built in an Earth yard. Ships like this aren’t made any more—even though she’s four thousand objective years old. Come, let’s look at her.”
As we approached, I could see the ship was enormous. It rose over our heads like some great campanile tower, yet despite its size there was an air of subtle refinement about the mass, an impression almost of delicacy—as though it had been tenderly and carefully constructed by men who loved their work. Each part was beautifully finished and perfectly machined, and the diamond-hard non-corrosive metal gleamed in the golden sunlight. And despite its huge size and absurdly tiny jets, it looked fast!
“It’s big enough to move an entire city!” I gasped.
“She has a crew of five—and capacity for fifty marines,” Wolverton replied.
“All that size—but—”
“Most of it is taken up with weapons systems,” he said. “I could utterly destroy a planet of this size with her weapons. She’ll travel at Lume One as long as you care to drive her—or she’ll go clear up to ultra band in hyperspace. She’s the fastest, deadliest thing in this sector—beautiful—isn’t she?” He talked as though the ship was a woman—a woman he loved.
“I wanted you to see her,” he pointed at the ship, “so that you will know exactly what I mean when I offer you freedom such as you have never known. With this ship we can do anything—go anywhere. Time means nothing—hours in hyperspace—years in normal spacetime. I’m offering you the Universe if you join with me to work and save—to keep men from following the old paths to racial destruction.” His voice, eyes, and entire body were tense. Conviction flowed from him in smothering waves. I had never really felt the power of the man and I was shaken. Shaken and unsure. For the Word seemed oddly weak in the presence of this titanic ship and the equally titanic man who owned it. I could not explain the feelings that surged inside me—missionary to the human race—freedom from worldly bounds—greed for life and knowledge—weariness and surrender to Wolverton’s endless urging—all were there, but there was more than that. I kept looking up at the ship, my head whirling from the dizzying sweep of her—her beauty and power filling my eyes. My heart soared with her soaring lines. I felt quite enthralled—uplifted—caught in a force greater than my will. Now—suddenly I knew why Wolverton spoke of the ship with such passion in his voice. It must have shown in my eyes for a great gladness lighted his. “I will join you,” I said in a small voice—and inside me something died as soon as I had spoken. I had the hollow feeling I had lost my soul.
“I will not ask you to swear,” he said with odd gentleness. “I have pushed you far enough. Let us go to the laboratory and remove that ring and restore your powers.”
A voice inside me spoke sluggishly. “Fight fire with fire—craft with craft,” it said. “Strike down the Evil doer with his own spear,” but the voice was weak. I followed Wolverton and as I walked the voice became stronger. “And the Father of Evil took Zard to the top of Mount Karat, and from this high place he offered the world and eternal life if Zard would fall down and worship him. And Zard refused. I shook my head. I had promised—but what was a promise when it involved the Father of Evil. To slay him, one could promise anything, and yet receive absolution.
The ring was removed from my neck, and with its removal awareness flowed into me. I was whole again! I could see as only an Adept knew how to see. I turned to Wolverton with pleasure in my eyes, and as I looked at him I stiffened with shock!
; His barriers were down!!
>
I could penetrate his mind as though it were thinnest air, and in my brain the voice rang out loud, clear, quick, eager, triumphant!
Now—NOW!!—KILL!!!
I took his mind in mine, encompassing it. I held his life. One surge of power, one squeeze and he was dead. The Father of Evil—helpless in the grasp of righteousness.
I paused, savoring my triumph searching for the evil I knew lay concealed beneath the surface web of flashing thoughts. I probed beneath them, brushing aside his feeble defenses—and stopped—appalled!
For there was no evil, no guile, no treachery—only a deep limpid pool of abiding faith and selfless love for mankind that transcended anything I had ever dreamed. There was anger, too, a clean bright anger at the stupidities and follies of mankind, impassioned yet impersonal, and oddly lacking in bitterness. He knew that I could snuff him out as easily as an acolyte snuffs a candle upon the Altar of Zard. Yet he neither shrank nor feared. And I realized with numbing shock that he had placed himself in my hands, knowing what I was, and what I would do. Frantically I tried to withdraw, but I was immersed in love, drowned in it, absorbed in a warm golden glow that rushed along the power that connected us.
I shuddered. Father of Evil? If he was evil, then every responding fiber of my heart and mind was evil too, and I was damned beyond redemption. With a groan I wrenched myself free. I could not kill him. Nor could I longer stand the shattering concepts of his mind. And with stark realization I faced the elemental truth that it was I, not he, who was wrong!
He looked down at me as I stood shrunken and defeated before him, and his eyes were kind. “It was a chance I had to take,” he said softly. “And I was right. You were not conditioned beyond redemption.” He sighed and placed his hand on my shoulder. It was warm and gentle, and I did not shrink from his touch. “There are many worlds,” he murmured, “and it is getting late, and you are unique. Another like you might not appear again. The plan would be useless without you, yet without your complete cooperation it would fail. So I opened my mind, dropped the screen which shielded me.” He smiled wryly. “Desperate measures of a desperate man,” he said with a trace of the old masking cynicism.
But I knew him now and could see behind the mask. A strange wonder filled me. I had tried to apply the Missionary Creed, but it was he who was the missionary and I the convert. Slowly I knelt and placed my hands in his as I would to a Bearer of the Word. “Show me the way, Master, and I will follow,” I said.
He raised me to my feet. “No Saul,” he said. “Not that way. In the struggle to come, you will be the leader. Like your namesake.”
THE END
A QUESTION OF COURAGE
I smelled the trouble the moment I stepped on the lift and took the long ride up the side of the “Lachesis.” There was something wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it but five years in the Navy gives a man a feeling for these things. From the outside the ship was beautiful, a gleaming shaft of duralloy, polished until she shone. Her paint and brightwork glistened. The antiradiation shields on the gun turrets and launchers were folded back exactly according to regulations. The shore uniform of the liftman was spotless and he stood at his station precisely as he should. As the lift moved slowly up past no-man’s country to the life section, I noted a work party hanging precariously from a scaffolding smoothing out meteorite pits in the gleaming hull, while on the catwalk of the gantry standing beside the main cargo hatch a steady stream of supplies disappeared into the ship’s belly.
I returned the crisp salutes of the white-gloved sideboys, saluted the colors, and shook hands with an immaculate ensign with an O.D. badge on his tunic.
“Glad to have you aboard, sir,” the ensign said.
“I’m Marsden,” I said. “Lieutenant Thomas Marsden. I have orders posting me to this ship as Executive.”
“Yes, sir. We have been expecting you. I’m Ensign Halloran.”
“Glad to meet you, Halloran.”
“Skipper’s orders, sir. You are to report to him as soon as you come aboard.”
Then I got it. Everything was SOP. The ship wasn’t taut, she was tight! And she wasn’t happy. There was none of the devil-may-care spirit that marks crews in the Scouting Force and separates them from the stodgy mass of the Line. Every face I saw on my trip to the skipper’s cabin was blank, hard-eyed, and unsmiling. There was none of the human noise that normally echoes through a ship, no laughter, no clatter of equipment, no deviations from the order and precision so dear to admirals’ hearts. This crew was G.I. right down to the last seam tab on their uniforms. Whoever the skipper was, he was either bucking for another cluster or a cold-feeling automaton to whom the Navy Code was father, mother, and Bible.
The O.D. stopped before the closed door, executed a mechanical right face, knocked the prescribed three times and opened the door smartly on the heels of the word “Come” that erupted from the inside. I stepped in followed by the O.D.
“Commander Chase,” the O.D. said. “Lieutenant Marsden.”
Chase! Not Cautious Charley Chase! I could hardly look at the man behind the command desk. But look I did—and my heart did a ninety degree dive straight to the thick soles of my space boots. No wonder this ship was sour. What else could happen with Lieutenant Commander Charles Augustus Chase in command! He was three classes up on me, but even though he was a First Classman at the time I crawled out of Beast Barracks, I knew him well. Every Midshipman in the Academy knew him—Rule-Book Charley—By-The-Numbers Chase—his nicknames were legion and not one of them was friendly. “Lieutenant Thomas Marsden reporting for duty,” I said.
He looked at the O.D. “That’ll be all, Mr. Halloran,” he said.
“Aye, sir,” Halloran said woodenly. He stepped backward, saluted, executed a precise about face and closed the hatch softly behind him.
“Sit down, Marsden,” Chase said. “Have a cigarette.”
He didn’t say, “Glad to have you aboard.” But other than that he was Navy right down to the last parenthesis. His voice was the same dry schoolmaster’s voice I remembered from the Academy. And his face was the same dry gray with the same fishy blue eyes and rat trap jaw. His hair was thinner, but other than that he hadn’t changed. Neither the war nor the responsibilities of command appeared to have left their mark upon him. He was still the same lean, undersized square-shouldered blob of nastiness.
I took the cigarette, sat down, puffed it into a glow, and looked around the drab 6 x 8 foot cubicle called the Captain’s cabin by ship designers who must have laughed as they laid out the plans. It had about the room of a good-sized coffin. A copy of the Navy Code was lying on the desk. Chase had obviously been reading his bible.
“You are three minutes late, Marsden,” Chase said. “Your orders direct you to report at 0900. Do you have any explanation?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Don’t let it happen again. On this ship we are prompt.”
“Aye, sir,” I muttered.
He smiled, a thin quirk of thin lips. “Now let me outline your duties, Marsden. You are posted to my ship as Executive Officer. An Executive Officer is the Captain’s right hand.”
“So I have heard,” I said drily.
“Belay that, Mr. Marsden. I do not appreciate humor during duty hours.”
You wouldn’t, I thought.
“As I was saying, Marsden, Executive Officer, you will be responsible for—” He went on and on, covering the Code—chapter, book and verse on the duties of an Executive Officer. It made no difference that I had been Exec under Andy Royce, the skipper of the “Clotho,” the ship with the biggest confirmed kill in the entire Fleet Scouting Force. I was still a new Exec, and the book said I must be briefed on my duties. So “briefed” I was—for a solid hour.
Feeling angry and tired, I finally managed to get away from Rule Book Charley and find my quarters which I shared with the Engineer. I knew him casually, a glum reservist named Allyn. I had wondered why he alway
s seemed to have a chip on his shoulder. Now I knew.
He was lying in his shock-couch as I came in. “Welcome, sucker,” he greeted me. “Glad to have you aboard.”
“The feeling’s not mutual,” I snapped.
“What’s the matter? Has the Lieutenant Commander been rolling you out on the red carpet?”
“You could call it that,” I said. “I’ve just been told the duties of an Exec. Funny—no?”
He shook his head. “Not funny. I feel for you. He told me how to be an engineer six months ago.” Allyn’s thin face looked glummer than usual.
“Did I ever tell you about our skip—captain?” Allyn went on. “Or do I have to tell you? I see you’re wearing an Academy ring.”
“You can’t tell me much I haven’t already heard,” I said coldly. I don’t like wardroom gossips as a matter of policy. A few disgruntled men on a ship can shoot morale to hell, and on a ship this size the Exec is the morale officer. But I was torn between two desires. I wanted Allyn to go on, but I didn’t want to hear what Allyn had to say. I was like the proverbial hungry mule standing halfway between two haystacks of equal size and attractiveness. And like the mule I would stand there turning my head one way and the other until I starved to death.
But Allyn solved my problem for me. “You haven’t heard this,” he said bitterly. “The whole crew applied for transfer when we came back to base after our last cruise. Of course, they didn’t get it, but you get the idea. Us reservists and draftees get about the same consideration as the Admiral’s dog—No! dammit!—Less than the dog. They wouldn’t let a mangy cur ship out with Gutless Gus.”