The Last Starfighter by Alan Dean Foster

“Yes, Xur, but that is little more than a name to you. To us it conjures up the image of a real person, of a great evil. Enduran knows this more than any other.”

“Enduran? Why him?”

“Watch, listen, learn.” Alex held his questions and did as he was told.

Within the spinning globe of light a face began to take form. It resembled another recently observed and Alex struggled to place it. Then he had it, and understood what Grig meant. The resemblance was striking, and frightening.

Enduran had appeared on the floor of the hangar, shaking off the protective hands of the aides who tried to hold him back. The ambassador approached the projection fearlessly. His expression hinted at anger barely held in check.

The projection reacted to this new presence, smiled humorlessly. “Hello, Father.”

“You have no father,” said Enduran. “I have no son.”

The image did not appear in the least upset. “And neither of us has any illusions. No, that is not quite right. You still believe in the invulnerability of your foolish, outmoded ‘Frontier.’ It is less solid than the image you gaze upon now, and will vanish just as easily should I will it so . . . Father.”

“Do not call me Father!” Enduran fought to check his emotions. Were he to lose his temper and strike out at a pillar of smoke it would draw only laughter from the traitor. Enduran would never give him that kind of satisfaction.

“You are no longer my son. That much is settled. You have made yourself an outcast, not only from your family, but from your civilization, from that which nurtured you. You have betrayed on a level unprecedented in history. Knowing this, why have you chosen to return?”

The projection was am used. “I wouldn’t think that after all you’ve learned that my intentions are still open to question. I thought I made them quite clear when I was thrown out of the Council.” Some of Xur’s humor gave way to the blind fury barely concealed beneath his veneer of politeness.

“I have returned to fulfill my destiny, Father. The destiny you and the other members of the Council denied to me. I have returned to claim my birthright. I have returned for the good of all Rylans, as my supporters well know.”

“Dabblers in evil,” Enduran responded. “They see in a return to ancient combat only an opportunity for shallow excitements. Past that they see nothing. I do. You have returned for the good of Xur and Xur alone, with an armada of Ko-Dan warships behind you. I knew you to be a megalomaniac, but I did not think you so complete a fool. Or do you really think the Ko-Dan will let you rule as you wish?”

“The Ko-Dan see in me a ruler more sympathetic to their long-term goals than the present members of the Council.”

“Their goal is nothing less than total domination of the League and all its peoples.”

“On the contrary. Your xenophobia has blinded you, Father, as it has blinded all on the Council. The Ko-Dan desire only friendship and good relations with the League worlds.” Xur spoke with assurance, convincingly. Alex began to see how he, like so many of history’s successful tyrants, could paralyze the truth with honeyed words.

“Who can blame them if the present government is unremittingly hostile to their attempts to forge a peaceful, mutually beneficial alliance?”

“An alliance which the Ko-Dan would dominate utterly. That is not an alliance; it is an invitation to place ourselves in perpetual servitude.”

“Nonetheless, I believe them,” said Xur breezily. “One seeks right-thinking allies where one must.”

“They will make what use of you they can and then cast you aside.”

“I think not. You see, Father, our aims converge. They wish a sympathetic ruler governing the worlds of the League, and I wish to rule. What could be more convenient?”

“It is convenient for you and for the Ko-Dan, not for anyone else. Leave the League in peace. Return to your exile and drink no more at the fountain of Ko-Dan flattery.”

Alex leaned close to whisper in Grig’s ear. “Exile? Hey, Grig, what’d he do?”

“He tried to seize control of the League and have himself declared dictator, absolute ruler, king, head tax collector . . . whatever the operative designation your people favor. He’s a scoundrel and half mad. That is what makes him so dangerous. If he were completely mad or sane he would not be such a threat. But he is clever, Xur is. Too clever. I am convinced he should stay in Rylan space, though . . . without a ship or suit.”

“The Ko-Dan wish only to be our friends,” Xur was saying confidently. “Why not give them a chance?”

“The Ko-Dan are the reason our ancestors created the Frontier in the first place.” Enduran’s resolve was as unshakable as his logic. “As for you, Xur, you have no greater ambition than to be a petty tyrant, a Ko-Dan satrap lording it over your own people.”

“There are those Rylans who would welcome me, Father.”

“I am aware of the deviants who follow you. Slavish sycophants reveling in the prospective return of ancient anarchy. League justice took care of them and put an end to your cult. Your followers are few and scattered.”

“League justice!” The flimsy mask of civility that Xur had affected until now was finally thrown aside as his true feelings came to the fore. For the first time Alex was exposed to the naked hatred that motivated Enduran’s renegade offspring. “The League is a refuge for weak worlds populated by weak beings who have lost the ability and the will to control their own destinies. I will return to them the legacy of their own past.”

“That past is filled with war, death, destruction. The legacy of the League is peace,” Enduran said softly. “But no matter what course is chosen, it is for the citizens of Rylos and the other worlds to choose. They will not let a dangerous and unbalanced child like yourself decide their future for them.”

Xur suddenly turned sly, his expression guarded. It was not pleasant to see.

“And yet it was this ‘child’ who caught your master spy. Or did you think, Father, that in my ‘megalomania,’ that I underestimated the abilities of the League? Far less than they underestimate me. Until now I have not revealed what I know, for I knew you would only replace him who I found out with another, whom I would have to dig out all over again.

“Now there is no longer any need to maintain the game. It is time for all deceptions to be exposed and all screens to be cast aside. Look to your own warboard.”

Against his will, Enduran turned. The main screen in the briefing chamber behind him suddenly went blank, then filled with static. A flurry of activity among those monitoring the screen failed to clear away the interference. When a picture finally emerged, it was clear it was no longer under local control.

The image was faint and hazy with distance, but still recognizable. Enduran could not repress a start as he identified the figure filling the screen. It was a Rylan, seated, restrained, and frightened. A deceptively thin helmetlike device cupped his head, holding it immobile.

“A personal friend, perhaps, Father?” said Xur’s projection. “Someone you appointed yourself? Or merely another ignorant tool of League ‘intelligence’? Not that it matters. It is enough to provide an example of how I shall treat all who oppose me.” The projection nodded and said something in a language Alex’s translator was not equipped to transcribe Ko-Dan.

The helmet shrank. A scream sounded from the war-board, accompanied by a distinct cracking sound that was clear enough even over the great distance the projection was covering. Eyes popped clear of their sockets while Rylan blood gushed in several directions to stain flesh, clothing and restraints. The helmet continued to contract long after the unfortunate Rylan’s life had fled, contracted until there was nothing left atop the imprisoned shoulders save a pinched neck that ended in raw white bone.

No one moved in the hangar or the warroom. No one spoke. Rumors of Xur’s barbarisms were well known, but it was something else to have actual evidence of them served up on a large screen in garish color. Of all the onlookers Enduran was the least shocked. He knew better than anyone else what his son was capable of.

Better than anyone else except perhaps one other.

To Alex it was a scene from a bad horror flick. Knowing it was real and not cinematic make-believe made a number of other things a lot more real. Suddenly he saw Grig as an individual, saw Enduran as a father as well as an eloquent alien. Concepts and visions which he’d only read about in school took on solidity. History was full of blood and the deeds of Xur’s emotional relations. Puritan esthetics cut them out of student texts, with the result that the horrors of the past became sanitized.

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