The Stars, Like Dust Read online

  He saw them now from between two granite monoliths that met in a V. He rested his blaster in the crotch. The sun was on his back. He felt its feeble warmth soak through, and he was satisfied. If they happened to look in his direction, the sun would be in their eyes and he himself would be that much less visible.

  Their voices were sharp in his ear. Radio communication was in operation and he smiled at that. So far, according to plan. His own presence, of course, was not according to plan, but it would be better so. The plan was a rather overconfident one and the victim was not a complete fool, after all. His own blaster might yet be needed to decide the issue.

  He waited. Stolidly he watched the Autarch lift his blaster as Biron stood there, unflinching.

  Artemisia did not see the blaster lift. She did not see the two figures on the flat rock surface. Five minutes earlier she had seen Rizzett silhouetted for a moment against the sky, and since then she had followed him.

  Somehow, he was moving too fast for her. Things dimmed and wavered before her and twice she found herself stretched on the ground. She did not recall falling. The second time, she staggered to her feet with one wrist oozing blood where a sharp edge had scraped her.

  Rizzett had gained again and she had to reel after him. When he vanished in the glistening boulder forest, she sobbed in despair. She leaned against a rock, completely weary. Its beautiful flesh-pink tint, the glassy smoothness of its surface, the fact that it stood as an ancient reminder of a primeval volcanic age was lost upon her.

  She could only try to fight the sensation of choking that pervaded her.

  And then she saw him, dwarfed at the forked-rock formation, his back to her. She held the neuronic whip before her as she ran unevenly over the hard ground. He was sighting along the barrel of his rifle, intent upon the process, taking aim, getting ready.

  She wouldn’t make it in time.

  She would have to distract his attention. She called, “Rizzett!” And again, “Rizzett, don’t shoot!”

  She stumbled again. The sun was blotting out, but consciousness lingered. It lingered long enough for her to feel the ground jar thuddingly against her, long enough to press her finger upon the whip’s contact; and long enough for her to know that she was well out of range, even if her aim was accurate, which it could not be.

  She felt arms about her, lifting. She tried to see, but her eyelids would not open.

  “Biron?” It was a weak whisper.

  The answer was a rough blur of words, but it was Rizzett’s voice. She tried to speak further, then abruptly gave up. She had failed!

  Everything was blotted out.

  The Autarch remained motionless for the space it would take a man to count to ten slowly. Biron faced him as motionlessly, watching the barrel of the blaster that had just been fired pointblank at him. The barrel sank slowly as he watched.

  Biron said, “Your blaster seems not to be in firing order. Examine it.”

  The Autarch’s bloodless face turned alternately from Biron to his weapon. He had fired at a distance of four feet. It should have been all over. The congealed astonishment that held him broke suddenly and he disjoined the blaster in a quick movement.

  The energy capsule was missing. Where it should have been, there was a useless cavity. The Autarch whimpered with rage as he hurled the lump of dead metal aside. It turned over and over, a black blot against the sun, smashing into the rock with a faint ringing sound.

  “Man to man!” said Biron. There was a trembling eagerness in his voice.

  The Autarch took a step backward. He said nothing.

  Biron took a slow step forward. “There are many ways I could kill you, but not all would be satisfying. If I blasted you, it would mean that a millionth of a second would separate your life from your death. You would have no consciousness of dying. That would be bad. I think that instead there would be considerable satisfaction in using the somewhat slower method of human muscular effort.”

  His thigh muscles tensed, but the lunge they prepared was never completed. The cry that interrupted was thin and high, packed with panic.

  “Rizzett!” it came. “Rizzett, don’t shoot!”

  Biron whirled in time to see the motion behind the rocks a hundred yards away and the glint of sun on metal. And then the hurled weight of a human body was upon his back. He bent under it, dropping to his knees.

  The Autarch had landed fairly, his knees clasped hard about the other’s waist, his fist thudding at the nape of Biron’s neck. Biron’s breath whooshed out in a whistling grunt.

  Biron fought off the gathering blackness long enough to throw himself to one side. The Autarch jumped free, gaining clear footing while Biron sprawled on his back.

  He had just time to double his legs up against himself as the Autarch lunged down upon him again. The Autarch bounced off. They were up together this time, perspiration turning icy upon their cheeks.

  They circled slowly. Biron tossed his carbon-dioxide cylinder to one side. The Autarch likewise unstrapped his, held it suspended a moment by its mesh-metal hose, then stepped in rapidly and swung it. Biron dropped, and both heard and felt it whistle above his head.

  He was up again, leaping on the other before the Autarch could regain his balance. One large fist clamped down on the other’s wrist, while the other fist exploded in the Autarch’s face. He let the Autarch drop and stepped back.

  Biron said, “Stand up. I’ll wait for you with more of the same. There’s no hurry.”

  The Autarch touched his gloved hand to his face then stared sickly at the blood that smeared off upon it. His mouth twisted and his hand snaked out for the metal cylinder he had dropped. Biron’s foot came heavily down upon it, and the Autarch yelled in agony.

  Biron said, “You’re too close to the edge of the cliff, Jonti. Mustn’t reach in that direction. Stand up. I’ll throw you the other way now.”

  But Rizzett’s voice rang out: “Wait!”

  The Autarch screamed, “Shoot this man, Rizzett! Shoot him now! His arms first, then his legs, and we’ll leave him.”

  Rizzett brought his weapon up slowly against his shoulder.

  Biron said, “Who saw to it that your own blaster was unloaded, Jonti?”

  “What?” The Autarch stared blankly.

  “It was not I who had access to your blaster, Jonti. Who did have? Who is pointing a blaster at you right now, Jonti? Not at me, Jonti, but at you!”

  The Autarch turned to Rizzett and screamed, “Traitor!”

  Rizzett said, in a low voice, “Not I, sir. That man is the traitor who betrayed the loyal Rancher of Widemos to his death.”

  “That is not I,” cried the Autarch. “If he has told you I have, he lies.”

  “It is you yourself who have told us. I not only emptied your weapon, I also shorted your communicator switch, so that every word you said today was received by myself and by every member of the crew. We all know you for what you are.”

  “I am your Autarch.”

  “And also the greatest traitor alive.”

  For a moment the Autarch said nothing, but looked wildly from one to the other as they watched him with somber, angry faces. Then he wrenched to his feet, pulled together the parted seams of his self-control, and held them tightly by sheer nervous force.

  His voice was almost cool as he said, “And if it were all true, what would it matter? You have no choice but to let matters stand as they are. One last intranebular planet remains to be visited. It must be the rebellion world, and only I know the coordinates.”

  He retained dignity somehow. One hand hung uselessly from a broken wrist; his upper lip had swollen ludicrously, and blood was caking his cheek, but he radiated the hauteur of one born to rule.

  “You’ll tell us,” said Biron.

  “Don’t delude yourself that I will under any circumstances. I have told you already that there is an average of seventy cubic light-years per star. If you work by trial and error, without me, the odds are two hundred and fifty quadrillion to one
against your coming within a billion miles of any star. Any star!”

  Something went click! in Biron’s mind.

  He said, “Take him back to the Remorseless!”

  Rizzett said in a low voice, “The Lady Artemisia——”

  And Biron interrupted, “Then it was she. Where is she?”

  “It’s all right. She’s safe. She came out without a carbondioxide cylinder. Naturally, as the CO2 washed out of her blood stream, the automatic breathing mechanism of the body slowed. She was trying to run, didn’t have the sense to breathe deeply voluntarily, and fainted.”

  Biron frowned. “Why was she trying to interfere with you, anyway? Making sure her boy friend didn’t get hurt?”

  Rizzett said, “Yes, she was! Only she thought I was the Autarch’s man and was going to shoot you. I’ll take back this rat now, and, Biron——”

  “Yes?”

  “Get back as soon as you can. He’s still the Autarch, and the crew may need talking to. It’s hard to break a lifetime habit of obedience…. She’s behind that rock. Get to her before she freezes to death, will you? She won’t leave.”

  Her face was almost buried in the hood that covered her head, and her body was formless in the thick, enveloping folds of the space-suit lining, but his steps quickened as he approached her.

  He said, “How are you?”

  She said, “Better, thank you. I am sorry if I caused any trouble.”

  They stood looking at each other, and the conversation seemed to have burned itself out in two lines.

  Then Biron said, “I know we can’t turn time backward, undo things that have been done, unsay things that have been said. But I do want you to understand.”

  “Why this stress on understanding?” Her eyes flashed. “I have done nothing but understand for weeks now. Will you tell me again about my father?”

  “No. I knew your father was innocent. I suspected the Autarch almost from the start, but I had to find out definitely. I could only prove it, Arta, by forcing him to confess. I thought I could get him to confess by trapping him into attempting to kill me, and there was only one way of doing that.”

  He felt wretched. He went on, “It was a bad thing to do. As bad, almost, as what he did to my father. I don’t expect you to forgive me.”

  She said, “I don’t follow you.”

  He said, “I knew he wanted you, Arta. Politically, you would be a perfect matrimonial object. The name of Hinriad would be more useful for his purposes than that of Widemos. So once he had you, he would need me no longer. I deliberately forced you on him, Arta. I acted as I did, hoping you would turn to him. When you did, he thought he was ready to rid himself of me, and Rizzett and I laid our trap.”

  “And you loved me all the time?”

  Biron said, “Can’t you bring yourself to believe that, Arta?”

  “And of course you were ready to sacrifice your love to the memory of your father and the honor of your family. How does the old doggerel go? You could not love me, dear, so much, loved you not honor more!”

  Biron said, miserably, “Please, Arta! I am not proud of myself but I could think of no other way.”

  “You might have told me your plan, made me your confederate rather than your tool.”

  “It was not your fight. If I had failed—and I might have—you would have remained out of it. If the Autarch had killed me and you were no longer on my side, you would be less hurt. You might even have married him, even been happy.”

  “Since you have won, it might be that I would be hurt at his loss.”

  “But you aren’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  Biron said desperately, “At least try to see my motives. Granted that I was foolish—criminally foolish—can’t you understand? Can’t you try not to hate me?”

  She said softly, “I have tried not to love you and, as you see, I have failed.”

  “Then you forgive me?”

  “Why? Because I understand? No! If it were a matter of simply understanding, of seeing your motives, I would not forgive you your actions for anything I might have in life. If it were only that and nothing more! But I will forgive you, Biron, because I couldn’t bear not to. How could I ask you to come back to me unless I forgave you?”

  And she was in his arms, her weather-cold lips turning up to his. They were held apart by a double layer of thick garments. His gloved hands could not feel the body they embraced, but his lips were aware of her white, smooth face.

  At last he said in concern, “The sun is getting lower. It’s going to get colder.”

  But she said softly, “It’s strange, then, that I seem to be getting warmer.”

  Together they walked back to the ship.

  Biron faced them now with an appearance of easy confidence which he did not feel. The Linganian ship was large, and there were fifty in the crew. They sat now facing him. Fifty faces! Linganian faces bred from birth to unquestioning obedience to their Autarch.

  Some had been convinced by Rizzett; others had been convinced by the arranged eavesdropping on the Autarch’s statements to Biron earlier that day. But how many others were still uncertain or even definitely hostile?

  So far Biron’s talking had done little good. He leaned forward, let his voice grow confidential. “And what are you fighting for, men? What are you risking your lives for? A free Galaxy, I think. A Galaxy in which each world can decide what is best in its own way, produce its own wealth for its own good, be slave to none and master of none. Am I right?”

  There was a low murmur of what might have been agreement, but it lacked enthusiasm.

  Biron went on, “And what is the Autarch fighting for? For himself. He is the Autarch of Lingane. If he won, he would be Autarch of the Nebular Kingdoms. You would replace a Khan by an Autarch. Where would be the benefit of that? Is that worth dying for?”

  One in the audience cried out, “He would be one of us, not a filthy Tyranni.”

  Another shouted, “The Autarch was looking for the rebellion world to offer his services. Was that ambition?”

  “Ambition should be made of sterner stuff, eh?” Biron shouted back, ironically. “But he would come to the rebellion world with an organization at his back. He could offer them all of the Lingane; he could offer them, he thought, the prestige of an alliance with the Hinriads. In the end, he was pretty sure, the rebellion world would be his to do with what he pleased. Yes, this was ambition.

  “And when the safety of the movement ran counter to his own plans, did he hesitate to risk your lives for the sake of his ambition? My father was a danger to him. My father was honest and a friend of liberty. But he was too popular, so he was betrayed. In that betrayal, the Autarch might have brought to ruins the entire cause and all of you with it. Which one of you is safe under a man who will deal with the Tyranni whenever it suits his purpose? Who can be safe serving a cowardly traitor?”

  “Better,” whispered Rizzett. “Stick to that. Give it to them.”

  Again the same voice called from the back rows. “The Autarch knows where the rebellion world is. Do you know?”

  “We will discuss that later. Meanwhile, consider instead that under the Autarch we were all headed for complete ruin; that there is still time to save ourselves by turning from his guidance to a better and nobler way; that it is still possible from the jaws of defeat to snatch——”

  “——only defeat, my dear young man,” came a soft interrupting voice, and Biron turned in horror.

  The fifty crewmen came babbling to their feet, and for a moment it seemed as though they might surge forward, but they had come to council unarmed; Rizzett had seen to that. And now a squad of Tyrannian guardsmen were filing through the various doors, weapons ready.

  And Simok Aratap himself, a blaster in each hand, stood behind Biron and Rizzett.

  20. WHERE?

  Simok Aratap weighed carefully the personalities of each of the four who faced him and felt the stirring of a certain excitement within him. This would be the b
ig gamble. The threads of the pattern were weaving toward a close. He was thankful that Major Andros was no longer with him; that the Tyrannian cruisers had gone as well.

  He was left with his flagship, his crew, and himself. They would be sufficient. He hated unwieldiness.

  He spoke mildly, “Let me bring you up to date, my lady and gentlemen. The Autarch’s ship has been boarded by a prize crew and is now being escorted back to Tyrann by Major Andros. The Autarch’s men will be tried according to law and if convicted will receive the punishment for treason. They were routine conspirators and will be treated routinely. But what shall I do with you?”

  Hinrik of Rhodia sat beside him, his face crumpled in utter misery. He said, “Consider that my daughter is a young girl. She was led into this unwillingly. Artemisia, tell them that you were——”

  “Your daughter,” interposed Aratap, “will probably be released. She is, I believe, the matrimonial object of a highly placed Tyrannian nobleman. Obviously, that will be kept in mind.”

  Artemisia said, “I’ll marry him, if you’ll let the rest go.”

  Biron half rose, but Aratap waved him down. The Tyrannian Commissioner smiled and said, “My lady, please! I can strike bargains, I admit. However, I am not the Khan, but merely one of his servants. Therefore, any bargain I do make will have to be justified thoroughly at home. So what is it exactly that you offer?”

  “My agreement to the marriage.”

  “That is not yours to offer. Your father has already agreed and that is sufficient. Do you have anything else?”

  Aratap was waiting for the slow erosion of their wills to resist. The fact that he did not enjoy his role did not prevent him from filling it efficiently. The girl, for instance, might at this moment burst into tears and that would have a salutary effect on the young man. They had obviously been lovers. He wondered if old Pohang would want her under the circumstances, and decided that he probably would. The bargain would still be all in the ancient’s favor. For the moment he thought distantly that the girl was very attractive.

  And she was maintaining equilibrium. She was not breaking down. Very good, thought Aratap. She was strong willed as well. Pohang would not have joy of his bargain after all.