Rebellious Stars Read online

  ‘“Thank you, Major.” Aratap liked the night air of a planet full of green and growing things. Tyrann was more beautiful in its way, but it was a terrible beauty of rocks and mountains. It was dry, dry!

  He went on: “You cannot handle Hinrik, Major Andros. In your hands he would wilt and break. He is useful, but requires gentle treatment if he is to remain so.”

  The major brushed that aside. “I’m not referring to that. Why not the general alarm? Don’t you want them?”

  “Do you?” Aratap stopped. “Let us sit here for a moment, Andros. A bench on a pathway along a lawn. What more beautiful, and what place is safer from spy beams? Why do you want the young man, Major?”

  “Why do I want any traitor and conspirator?”

  “Why do you, indeed, if you only catch a few tools while leaving the source of the poison untouched? Whom would you have? A cub, a silly girl, a senile idiot?”

  There was the faint splashing of an artificial waterfall nearby. A small one, but decorative. Now that was a real wonder to Aratap. Imagine water, spilling out, running to waste, pouring indefinitely down the rocks and along the ground. He had never educated himself out of a certain indignation over it.

  “As it is,” said the major, “we have nothing.”

  “We have a pattern. When the young man first arrived, we connected him with Hinrik, and that bothered us, because Hinrik is—what he is. But it was the best we could do. Now we see it was not Hinrik at all; that Hinrik was a misdirection. It was Hinrik’s daughter and cousin he was after, and that makes more sense.”

  “Why didn’t he call us sooner? He waited for the middle of the night.”

  “Because he is the tool of whoever is the first to reach him, and Gillbret, I am sure, suggested this night meeting as a sign of great zeal on his part.”

  “You mean we were called here on purpose? To witness their escape?”

  “No, not for that reason. Ask yourself. Where do these people intend going?”

  The major shrugged. “Rhodia is big.”

  “Yes, if it were the young Farrill alone who was concerned. But where on Rhodia would two members of the royal family go unrecognized? Particularly the girl.”

  “They would have to leave the planet, then? Yes, I agree.”

  “And from where? They can reach the Palace Field in a fifteen-minute walk. Now do you see the purpose of our being here?”

  The major said, “Our ship?”

  “Of course. A Tyrannian ship would seem ideal to them. Otherwise, they would have to choose among freighters. Farrill has been educated on Earth, and, I’m sure, can fly a cruiser.”

  “Now there’s a point. Why do we allow the nobility to send out their sons in all directions? What business has a subject to know more about travel than will suffice him for local trade? We bring up soldiers against us.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Aratap, with polite indifference, “at the moment Farrill has a foreign education, and let us take that into account objectively, without growing angry about it. The fact remains that I am certain they have taken our cruiser.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “You have your wrist caller. Make contact with the ship, if you can.”

  The major tried, futilely.

  Aratap said, “Try the Field Tower.”

  The major did so, and the small voice came out of the tiny receiver, in minute agitation: “But, Excellency, I don’t understand—There is some mistake. Your pilot took off ten minutes ago.”

  Aratap was smiling. “You see? Work out the pattern and each little event becomes inevitable. And now do you see the consequences?”

  The major did. He slapped his thigh, and laughed briefly. “Of course!” he said.

  “Well,” said Aratap, “they couldn’t know, of course, but they have ruined themselves. Had they been satisfied with the clumsiest Rhodian freighter on the field, they would surely have escaped and—what’s the expression?—I would have been caught with my trousers down this night. As it is, my trousers are firmly belted, and nothing can save them. And when I pluck them back, in my own good time”—he emphasized the words with satisfaction—‘I will have the rest of the conspiracy in my hands as well.”

  He sighed and found himself beginning to feel sleepy once more. “Well, we have been lucky, and now there is no hurry. Call Central Base, and have them send another ship after us.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Biron Farhill’s training in spationautics back on Earth had been largely academic. There had been the university courses in the various phases of spatial engineering, which, though half a semester was spent on the theory of the hyper-atomic motor, offered little when it came to the actual manipulation of ships in space. The best and most skilled pilots learned their art in space and not in schoolrooms.

  He had managed to take off without actual accident, though that was more luck than design. The Remorseless answered the controls far more quickly than Biron had anticipated. He had manipulated several ships on Earth out into space and back to the planet, but those had been aged and sedate models, maintained for the use of students. They had been gentle, and very, very tired, and had lifted with an effort and spiraled slowly upward through the atmosphere and into space.

  The Remorseless, on the other hand, had lifted effortlessly, springing upward and whistling through the air, so that Biron had fallen backward out of his chair and all but dislocated his shoulder. Artemisia and Gillbret, who, with the greater caution of the inexperienced, had strapped themselves in, were bruised against the padded webbing. The Tyrannian prisoner had lain pressed against the wall, tearing heavily at his bonds and cursing in a monotone.

  Biron had risen shakily to his feet, kicked the Tyrannian into a brooding silence, and made his way along the wall rail, hand over hand against the acceleration, back to his seat. Forward blasts of power quivered the ship and reduced the rate of increasing velocity to a bearable quantity.

  They were in the upper reaches of the Rhodian atmosphere by then. The sky was a deep violet and the hull of the ship was hot with air friction, so that warmth could be felt within.

  It took hours thereafter to set the ship into an orbit about Rhodia. Biron could find no way of readily calculating the velocity necessary to overcome Rhodia’s gravity. He had to work it by hit and miss, varying the velocity with puffs of power forward and backward, watching the massometer, which indicated their distance from the planet’s surface by measuring the intensity of the gravitational field. Fortunately, the massometer was already calibrated for Rhodia’s mass and radius. Without considerable experimentation, Biron could not have adjusted the calibration himself.

  Eventually, the massometer held steady and over a period of two hours showed no appreciable drift. Biron allowed himself to relax, and the others climbed out of their belts.

  Artemisia said, “You don’t have a very light touch, my Lord Rancher.”

  “I’m flying, my lady,” Biron replied curtly. “If you can do better, you’re welcome to try, but only after I myself disembark.”

  “Quiet, quiet, quiet,” said Gillbret. “The ship is too cramped for pettishness, and, in addition, since we are to be crushed into an inconvenient familiarity in this leaping prison pen, I suggest we discard the many ‘lords’ and ladies’ which will otherwise encrust our conversation to an unbearable degree. I am Gillbret, you are Biron, she is Artemisia.

  I suggest we memorize those terms of address, or any variation we care to use. And as for piloting the ship, why not use the help of our Tyrannian friend here?”

  The Tyrannian glared, and Biron said, “No. There is no way we could trust him. And my own piloting will improve as I get the hang of this ship. I haven’t cracked you up yet, have I?”

  His shoulder still hurt as a result of the first lurch and, as usual, pain made him peevish.

  “Well,” said Gillbret, “what do we do with him?”

  “I don’t like to kill him in cold blood,” said Biron, and that won’t help us. It would ju
st make the Tyranni doubly excited. Killing one of the master race is really the unforgivable sin.”

  “But what is the alternative?”

  “We’ll land him.”

  “All right. But where?”

  “On Rhodia.”

  “What!”

  “It’s the one place they won’t be looking for us. Besides which, we’ve got to go down pretty soon, anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Look, this is the Commissioner’s ship, and he’s been using it for hopping about the surface of the planet. It isn’t

  Envisioned for space voyages. Before we go anywhere, we’ll ave to take complete inventory aboard ship, and at least make sure that we have enough food and water.”

  Artemisia was nodding vigorously. “That’s right. Good! I wouldn’t have thought of that myself. That’s very clever, Biron.”

  Biron made a deprecating gesture, but wanned with pleasure, nevertheless. It was the first time she had used his first name. She could be quite pleasant, when she tried. Gillbret said, “But he’ll radio our whereabouts instantly.” “I don’t think so,” said Biron. “In the first place, Rhodia has its desolate areas, I imagine. We don’t have to drop him into the business section of a city, or into the middle of one of the Tyrannian garrisons. Besides, he may not be so anxious to contact his superiors as you might think. Say,

  Private, what would happen to a soldier who allowed the Commissioner of the Khan to have his private cruiser stolen from him?”

  The prisoner did not answer, but his lip line became pale and thin.

  Biron would not have wanted to be in the soldier’s place. To be sure, he could scarcely be blamed. There was no reason why he should have suspected trouble resulting from mere politeness to members of the Rhodian royal family. Sticking to the letter of the Tyrannian military code, he bad refused to allow them aboard ship without the permission of his commanding officer. If the Director himself had demanded permission to enter, he insisted, he would,have to deny it. But, in the meantime, they had closed in upon him, and by the time he realized he should have followed the military code still more closely and had his weapon ready, it was too late. A neuronic whip was practically touching his chest.

  Nor had he given in tamely, even then. It had taken a whip blast at his chest to stop him. And, even so, he could face only court-martial and conviction. No one doubted that, least of all the soldier.

  They had landed two days later at the outskirts of the city of Southwark. It had been chosen deliberately because it lay far from the main centers of Rhodian population. The Tyrannian soldier had been strapped into a repulsion unit and allowed to flutter downward some fifty miles from the nearest sizable town.

  The landing, on an empty beach, was only mildly jerky, and Biron, as the one least likely to be recognized, made the necessary purchases. Such Rhodian currency as Gillbret had had the presence of mind to bring with him had scarcely sufficed for elementary needs, since much of it went for a little biwheel and tow cart, on which he could carry the supplies away piecemeal.

  “You might have stretched the money farther,” said Artemisia, “if you hadn’t wasted so much of it on the Tyrannian mush you bought.”

  “I think there was nothing else to do,” said Biron hotly. “It may be Tyrannian mush to you, but it’s a well-balanced food, and will see us through better than anything else I could have gotten.”

  He was annoyed. It had been stevedore’s work, getting all that out of the city and then aboard ship. And it had meant a considerable risk, buying it at one of the Tyrannian-run commissaries in the city. He had expected appreciation.

  “Well, it tastes awful,” said Artemisia,

  “Well, you’ll get used to it,” retorted Biron, mimicking her petulance, so that she flushed and turned away angrily.

  The water situation was the worst. Tyrann was a desert planet, in the first place, where water was at a premium and men knew its value, so none was included on board ship for washing purposes. Soldiers could wash themselves and their personal effects once they had landed on a planet. During trips a little grime and sweat would not hurt them. Even for drinking purposes, water was barely sufficient for the longer trips. After all, water could be neither concentrated nor dehydrated, but had to be carried in bulk; and the problem was aggravated by the fact that the water content of the food concentrates was quite low.

  There were distilling devices to reuse water lost by the body, but Biron, when he realized their function, felt sick and arranged for the disposal of waste products without attempt at water recovery. Chemically, it was a sensible procedure, but one has to be educated into that sort of thing.

  The second take-off was, comparatively, a model of smoothness, and Biron spent time playing with the controls afterward. The control board resembled only in the dimmest fashion those of the ships he had handled on Earth. It had been compressed and compacted frightfully. As Biron puzzled out the action of a contact or the purpose of a dial, he wrote out minute directions on paper and pasted them appropriately on the board.

  Gillbret entered the pilot room.

  Biron looked over his shoulder. “Artemisia’s in the cabin, I suppose?”

  “There isn’t any place else she could be and stay inside the ship.”

  Biron said, “When you see her, tell her I’ll make up a bunk here in the pilot room. I’d advise you to do the same, and let her have the cabin to herself.” He muttered the addition, “Now there’s one childish girl.”

  “You have your moments, too, Biron,” said Gillbret. “You’ll have to remember the sort of life she’s used to.”

  “All right. I do remember it, and so what? What sort of life do you think I’m used to? I wasn’t bom in the mine fields of some asteroidal belt, you know. I was bom on the biggest Ranch of Nephelos. But if you’re caught in a situation, you’ve got to make the best of it. Damn it, I can’t stretch the hull of the ship. It will hold just so much food and water, and I can’t do anything about the fact that there isn’t any shower bath. She picks on me as if I personally manufactured this ship.” It was a relief to shout at Gillbret. It was a relief to shout at anybody.

  But the door opened again, and Artemisia stood there. She said, freezingly, “I would refrain, Mr. Farrill, from shouting, if I were you. You can be distinctly heard all over the ship.”

  “That,” said Biron, “does not bother me. And if the ship bothers, you, just remember that if your father hadn’t tried to kill me off and marry you off, neither one of us would be here.”

  “Don’t talk about my father.”

  “I’ll talk about anyone I please.”

  Gillbret put his hands over his ears. “Please!”

  It brought the argument to a momentary halt. Gillbret said, “Shall we discuss the matter of our destination now? It’s obvious at this point that the sooner we’re somewhere else and out of this ship, the more comfortable we’ll be.”

  “I agree with you there, Gil,” said Biron. “Just let’s go somewhere where I don’t have to listen to her clacking. Talk about women on space ships!”

  Artemisia ignored him and addressed Gillbret exclusively. “Why don’t we get out of the Nebular area altogether?”

  “I don’t know about you,” said Biron at once, “but I’ve got to get my Ranch back and do a little something about my father’s murder. I’ll stay in the Kingdoms.”

  “I did not mean,” said Artemisia, “that we were to leave forever; only till the worst of the search was over. I don’t see what you intend doing about your Ranch, anyway. You can’t get it back unless the Tyrannian Empire is broken to pieces, and I don’t see you doing that.”

  “You never mind what I intend doing. It’s my business.”

  “Might I make a suggestion?” asked Gillbret mildly.

  He took silence for consent, and went on, “Then suppose I tell you where we ought to go, and exactly what we ought to do to help break the Empire to pieces, just as Arta said.”

  “Oh? How do you propose doing
that?” said Biron.

  Gillbret smiled. “My dear boy, you’re taking a very amusing attitude. Don’t you trust me? You look at me as though you think that any enterprise I might be interested in was bound to be a foolish one. I got you out of the Palace.”

  “I know that. I’m perfectly willing to listen to you.”

  “Do so, then. I’ve been waiting for over twenty years for my chance to get away from them. If I had been a private citizen, I could have done it long since; but through the curse of birth, I’ve been in the public eye. And yet if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was bom a Hinriad, I would not have attended the coronation of the present Khan of Tyrann, and in that case I would never have stumbled on the secret which will some day destroy that same Khan.”

  “Go on,” said Biron.

  “The trip from Rhodia to Tyrann was by Tyrannian warship, of course, as was the trip back. A ship like this, I might say, but rather larger. The trip there was uneventful. The stay on Tyrann had its points of amusement, but, for our purposes now, was likewise uneventful. On the trip back, however, a meteor hit us.”

  “What?”

  Gillbret held up a hand. “I know quite well it’s an unlikely accident. The incidence of meteors in space—especially in interstellar space—is low enough to make the chances of collision with a ship completely insignificant, but it does happen, as you know. And it did happen in this case. Of course any meteor that does hit, even when it is the size of a pinhead, as most of them are, can penetrate the hull of any but the most heavily armored ship.”

  “I know,” said Biron.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea why the ship’s screen had failed. It was just one of those things to which no one will ever know the answer, but it had failed. Anyway, the meteor struck amidships. It was pebble-sized and piercing the hull slowed it just sufficiently so that it couldn’t blaze its way out again through the other side. If it had done that, there would have been little harm to it, since the hull could have been temporarily patched in no time.

  “As it was, however, it plunged into the control room, ricocheted off the far wall and slammed back and forth till it came to a halt. It couldn’t have taken more than a fraction of a minute to come to a halt, but at an original velocity of a hundred miles a minute, it must have crisscrossed the room a hundred times. Both crewmen were cut to pieces, and I escaped only because I was in the cabin at the time.