Alex saw now how wrong that was. Blood made tyrants far more real than dry descriptions of their misdeeds.
What of the history he was living now? Would it also be emasculated for its appearance in some alien text one day? Or wouldn’t it matter because the histories would all be adjusted to fit the wishes of Xur and his imperial descendants?
“Hear me, Rylans!” Xur was all dictator now, fully into the role he’d chosen for himself. “When the green moon of Galan is eclipsed, the Ko-Dan armada under my command will invade. All who rise and join my cause will be spared to prosper. All who resist will wish for a death as quick as that which you have just witnessed. Your shield projector will not save you. Your false ethics will not save you. Not even your mighty resurrected Starfighters in their antique ships will save you.
“Nothing will save you!”
Enduran’s reply was quiet but firm. “We shall see, Xur. We shall see.”
“Indeed we shall, Father, and the seeing will be most pleasant . . . for me!”
With that the projection dissipated, Xur’s laughter fading to oblivion along with his contorted face.
There was no time for pause and reflection. Even before the last light from the projection globe had disappeared, the hangar had filled with activity. Mechanics hastened through final checks. Programmers activated their systems. Activity monitors regained control of their screens. The hangar was filled with much movement, little talk, and loud orders. The lights dimmed as power was checked, shone a moment later brighter than before.
Amidst this rush of preparation for battle Centauri turned to face Alex, his expression one of disbelief, and said, “You still wanna go, and miss all the excitement?”
The Rylan officer waited silently, curious as to how the peculiar young alien would react to this challenge. Grig waited too, expectant.
Alex noted that everyone’s eyes were on him. They were alien eyes, inhuman eyes. He thought about all he’d seen since being shanghaied from home. Home. The word flooded him with warm, comfortable memories; Louis nagging him, his mom coming home from work exhausted every night, the crickets chirping outside his bedroom, Maggie. Most of all, Maggie.
He let the uniform fall to the floor of the hangar.
From that moment on Centauri never stopped his muttering, though Alex could understand only bits of it. The old man reserved his loudest comments for the return of his payment to the waiting officer. A year’s recruiting spent slaving on a backward world, all wasted. Alex felt a little sympathy for him, but only a little.
Centauri had been dealing him from the bottom of the deck ever since he’d set eyes on him. Earlier than that, if you counted the Starfighter game as part of the deception.
He clung tenaciously to those thoughts, to his feeling of righteousness, as the car/starship lifted clear of the Rylan atmosphere and accelerated past the moon the locals called Galan .
“The little brat,” Centauri was mumbling in half a dozen languages as he prepared for the jump past light-speed. “Invent the game, disguise its origins, find the kid, drag him back here, and for what? He doesn’t want to be a Starfighter. Take me home! Okay! Home to Mommy we go. I give up. Hopeless.”
As the ship rose clear of the ecliptic, the only sound in the cockpit came from the steadily complaining Centauri. If he’d been a bit more attentive, a little less self-pitying, he might have paid more attention to his long-range scanners, might have made sure they were programmed to note things besides the known astronomical bodies which orbited Rylos’ sun.
Might even have been in a position to help.
6
At unexpected coordinates floated bodies that were not native to the Rylan system. They were all quite small, except for a single much more massive object around which they drifted.
This single immense artificial construct bristled with antennae and shafts of metal, serving as a nucleus for the lesser lights that accompanied it. Communications by means of low-power light beams passed between the monster and its numerous attendants. Orders were con-veyed, questions asked, replies made. Information of import passed between the assembled ships.
The busy exchanges were in preparation for a moment which the historians on the command ship were taking care to record to the smallest detail, so that every participant would be guaranteed his or her fair due. An exchange of a more personal nature was about to occur within the bowels of the great vessel that moved ponderously among shoals of lesser ships.
The dark corridor brightened unexpectedly before dimming again. The change did not trouble the nervous, stunted creature making its way along the passage. He knew the route by heart, and could have negotiated it as efficiently in complete darkness as in the artificial light.
A shiny globe tipped the long staff he carried. The black metal orb concealed an impressive array of ultra-miniaturized electronic components behind its smooth black finish. It belonged not to the pitiful example of underlife now toting it through the innards of the great warship but to the underling’s master. A master, the underling had decided, no worse than any other.
Unpredictable, though. He preferred masters who were predictable even if they were more abusive. Better predictable abuse than the sudden rages this new master was heir to. There seemed no way to anticipate his abrupt shifts in mood. Privately, the underling was convinced that his new master was more than a little insane.
That did not matter, however. All that mattered was that the real masters, the Ko-Dan, treated this new one in their midst as an equal. It was not for the underling to question this. Only for him to obey. That was all any of the Ko-Dan’s subject races could do. The underling had served for a long time.
But audiences with his new master still made him queasy.
Two guards stood stolidly outside the command center. Their presence was more a matter of ceremony than security, since it was ludicrous to imagine a threat to command originating from inside the command ship. But the Ko-Dan were fond of their rituals and traditions, and so he was made to wait near the portal while the words were spoken.
“What seek you here, underling?” asked one of the massive sentries.
“My master, the Emperor Xur.” He waved the black metal staff. “He ordered me to bring to him his scepter of office.”
Other ears overheard the byplay. The ritual was shortened by the Ko-Dan commander himself as he spoke from his position inside the center.
“What transpires?” inquired the noble Kril.
“An underling, Commander,” said the other guard. “He carries a weapon.”
“Scepter of office,” the underling protested, keeping his voice deferential.
Another figure, tall and imperious of manner, moved to stand next to Kril. The newcomer looked out of place within the Ko-Dan command center, but he didn’t feel out of place. He found his alien surroundings quite congenial.
He waved casually toward the doorway. “Yes, I sent for my scepter. Let him enter.”
The senior guard of the pair ignored the directive and looked hesitantly toward his Commander. Kril gestured curtly and the guard responded by stepping aside and slipping on the safety lock on his own weapon.
Wishing he were anywhere else but in this den of power, the underling advanced, holding the scepter out before him. Xur the Rylan, son of Enduran of the League Council, accepted the scepter with obvious pleasure. He juggled it in both hands, luxuriating in the weight and feel of the gleaming black metal.
When he’d finished toying with it he grandly dismissed the underling who’d fetched it for him. That poor creature bowed repeatedly as he retreated from the command center as fast as courtesy permitted, greatly relieved at having escaped without a reprimand or a beating.
Balancing the scepter on one shoulder, Xur turned to face the expressionless Commander standing nearby.
“A shape and insignia that should be familiar to you, Kril. I made certain the pattern followed precisely that of the staff carried by your own Emperor. Is the likeness not remarkable?”
“Excellent Ko-Dan manufacture,” Kril muttered. He did not care for these posturings, which the renegade Rylan tried to turn into audiences instead of discussions.
“Yes, it certainly is. There is much to be said for a work force that obeys the dictates of its superiors un-questioningly. That sort of devotion has heretofore been alien to Rylos and the other worlds of the League, but we’ll change that, won’t we?”
“Yes, we will,” agreed the Commander.
Other eyes watched; other ears listened. Finally one senior officer could stand it no longer and began muttering dark threats by way of his subordinate. Kril noted the grumbling but chose to ignore it so long as the grumbler remained discreet. He could hardly blame the officer for expressing aloud the feelings of many of his comrades.