Science Fiction Adventures – December 1956
(1956)*
Randall Garrett & Robert Silverberg
(as by Calvin Knox and David Gordon)
illustrated by Giunta
Alone and unaided, Dane Regan flung his wild challenge against the stars, and began his one-man vendetta against the massive might of the most dangerous empire in history!
Dane Regan stood in the observation room of the starship Sybil, looking at the great star cluster ahead. His face was a calm mask, but inwardly he was seething with excitement.
Fifteen years!
Fifteen years since a small boy and his elderly guardian had fled before the hounds of Jillane, fled in frantic haste to exile. Fifteen years since Dane Regan had seen the cluster.
Now, he stared at the fiery shower of stars that filled the skies, drinking in the sight hungrily. It was a globular cluster, situated well to the zenith of the galactic lens, and far from normal galactic trade routes. There were ten thousand mighty suns in the cluster and over a thousand habitable planets, ruled by the Empire of the Hundred Kings. Fifteen years before, when he had been a boy of ten, Dane Regan had fled the cluster to escape death at the hands of Gwyll, King of Jillane, most feared of the Hundred Kings.
And now he was returning. He stared with quiet intensity at the diamond-hard, many-colored points of light. One of them was the sun around which Jillane revolved. Dane Regan no longer feared Gwyll of Jillane. This time, he thought, it's Gwyll's turn to know fear.
"It is rather beautiful, close up like this," said a soft voice behind him. "I can understand why you're staring that way."
Dane turned, half-surprised, and saw lean-faced Coleman, the captain of the Sybil. Regan smiled.
"Yes, it is—quite beautiful. How far are we from it now?"
"About two hundred light years/' the captain said. "We'll be there in about six hours."
"Good," said Regan.
The Empire Cluster was nearly twenty thousand light-years from the Main Lens of the galaxy itself; few ships ever went to it. Dane had been lucky to be able to book passage aboard a merchant vessel. He was the only passenger. He had been aboard her for a month now, moving through the vast empty spaces that separated the globular clusters from each other and from the Main Lens of the galaxy.
"The Empire people are queer people," said the captain, reflectively stroking his hollow cheeks. "Have you ever been there before?"
"No," Dane lied. He met the captain's cold glance squarely to back the statement up. Regan didn't want anyone to know who he was, not even the men on the Sybil. Then he added: "Queer? What do you mean by that?"
"Oh—different, you might say. All these globular cluster peoples are. They're isolated.
Their systems of government have evolved away from the galactic norm."
"Clannish, I suppose," Dane said. "Don't care for strangers?"
"Some of them. I hear that in the Ventar Cluster, on the other side of the galaxy, it's worth a stranger's life to wander around unprotected on, one of their planets. They're wary of strangers in the Empire Cluster too, but it's not that bad there. If you're a good fighter, you'll win their respect."
"I can take care of myself," Dane said.
"I hope so." The captain turned his head from the viewplate to look at Dane. "You're a Solarian, aren't you? You look like an Earth-man to me."
"Vegan," Dane corrected.
"Vega VI."
"I knew it was some part of the Solar Federation. Well, you've got money—that's a great help. You'd end up as a peasant or a worker if you didn't. If you swing it right, you might be able to buy your way into some noble's army."
"Maybe," said Dane. "I want to look the situation over first."
"They like free-lance soldiers," the captain said. "The peasants can't fight; it's a gentleman's profession. But a lot of the nobles don't care to fight, either."
"I'll see how I get along," Dane said.
-
A day later, Dane Regan was on Jillane, one of the thousand planets of the Empire, and capital of the Kingdom of Jillane, one of the largest of the Hundred Kingdoms.
The jetcopter from the spaceport had dropped him off in the heart of the city of Pellin, eight million strong, the buzzing heart of Jillane. He stood quietly in the shadow of a towering building for a moment, breathing deeply, sucking in the tangy, high-oxygen air of Jillane. He had almost forgotten what the air tasted like.
But it bit into his lungs now, and reminded him of what had been done to him, what he had been forced to relinquish, what he had lost. He glanced up. Flashing from the wall of a skyscraper was a giant portrait of Gwyll—crafty, hunchbacked Gwyll, his ugliness carefully edited for public consumption.
Regan smiled. He had no clearer image etched into his mind than that of Gwyll. He'd borne the monarch's visage in mind for a decade and a half.
He made a mock salute toward the huge portrait and began to walk. Silent electric cars glided through the streets; occasionally, a jet-copter or some noble's private plane would hum overhead. The commoners wore drab clothing, much like Dane's, but the merchants and nobles dressed in gaudy, many-colored tunics and vests. The nobles also wore swords.
The first step, Regan thought, is clothing.
"Pardon me, friend," he said, stopping a chunky, red-bearded commoner who was hurrying by. "Can you help me?"
"Speak up, stranger. What is troubling you?"
"Where can I find a clothing shop? I need a new outfit, and—"
The commoner examined Dane's drab outfit, then looked at his own. "In faith, friend, yours is much finer than my own! Why do you think you need new clothes?"
Dane scowled. The blockhead obviously thought he wanted to replace his clothing with a new suit of drab. "I need something a bit more costly," Dane said. He gestured at the violet-and-green blaze of silk that glimmered on the body of a youthful noble passing just then.
The commoner chuckled coarsely. "Fine plans you have, boy! Why not ask to buy a star or two as well?"
"But—"
The commoner shook his head. "I've no time to waste with madmen. What store would sell you a noble's clothing?"
He shouldered his way past Dane and continued down the street. Anger flared hotly in Regan for a moment; then he cooled, and realized that what the man said was true. No clothing store would sell him a noble's attire.
But there were other ways of getting what he wanted. He turned down a side street, found himself in a purple-shadowed canyon between two immense office buildings. He edged along the side of one of the buildings, slipped into a shadow-hidden doorway, and waited.
It didn't take long. A merchant, of about his own build but with a mild, vacuous expression about the eyes that hinted at flabby muscles, came along shortly. Dane glanced up and down the street; at the moment, no one was looking.
As the merchant passed, Dane stepped out behind him. "Got the time, sir?"
"Why, it's—"
The merchant turned, and Dane chopped into the side of his throat with a straight-edged hand. The other gagged, choked, and reeled crazily. Dane calmly pumped two quick blows into the man's body and gathered him in. He hauled the unconscious merchant back into the alcove.
Five minutes later, Regan emerged, dressed in a costly tunic made of green and red teflon, encrusted with shimmering platinum mesh. He was the very picture of an upper-class Jillanian.
The next stop would have to be an arms shop. The schedule of activities unfolded itself clearly in Regan's mind; he'd been planning and waiting for this day so long he knew precisely what each move would be.
The arms shop was not a large place, but it had the glittering sumptuousness of an expensive jeweler's. Regan entered and studied the array of swords on display while waiting for the proprietor to appear.
To an ordinary citizen of the galaxy, the habit of carrying so ancient and outmoded a weapon as a sword seems ludicrous in the extreme. A disruptor pistol is far more efficient, and doesn't require nearly as much training and practice to make one an expert.
But for the nobles of the Empire, the disruptor pistol was too effective. In a duel with pistols, it was likely that both men would die—a duel with a disruptor is tantamount to suicide.
The Empire of the Hundred Kings was closely related to the feudal system of ancient history. But the division between noble and commoner was more than simply a right of birth, although that concept entered into it. Basically, the reason for its development lay in a mutation that had taken place nearly a thousand years before.
Exactly what had happened, no one knew; the truth had been covered up by ten centuries of political rewriting of history. But Regan had a fair idea of what the core of the situation was.
A cosmic ray—a heavy nucleus of an atom accelerated through tens of thousands of light years by the interacting electrostatic, magnetic, and gravitational fields of a hundred million suns—had speared through the reproductive organs of a man or woman at a velocity close to that of light.
Chromosomes had been twisted apart and re-formed; genes had been disrupted and reassembled under the tremendous energy of that tiny bit of matter. Most of the results had been abortive or lethal changes in the germ plasm. But one was not. Somehow, through the workings of the universal laws of probability, one set of chromosomes had changed in just the right way and had been lucky enough to come together with another set and produce a human being. And that man—the first of his kind—had had the Power.
In prehistoric times, it might have been called the Evil Eye—and it is possible that this was not the first time such a mutation had occurred, in the long history of the human race. But this was the first time any individual had ever had the ability to strike another human dead with a glance and had lived to reproduce his kind.
And—naturally, in the raw environment of the frontier worlds—such men became kings.
It was evidently a sex-linked characteristic. No woman had ever been born with the Power. And, too, it was self-defeating; no man who had it could kill another who had it. It was recessive; only a few of any generation had the Power and could use it. These became nobles—the rest were commoners, who had to watch their step lest a single glance from a nobleman drop them where they stood.
Like hair or eye coloring, the ability could be diluted. Some nobles were more powerful than others. Most nobles, in fact, could only stun—only the Kings could actually kill.
And he could become a King, who could kill.
That was the reason for the swords. Only a noble or an army officer could carry one; they were a gentleman's weapon for settling disputes. One never used the Power against anyone but a commoner; it wouldn't work. And a disruptor pistol would kill too many nobles, and thus deplete the line of those chosen few who had the Power. Therefore—they carried the sword.
"May I help you, sir?" said the small, white-haired man behind the counter.
Dane turned and lifted an eyebrow. "I'm here to buy a sword—a good, strong, flexible rapier."
"Yes, sir. We have some excellent blades in stock, sir."
He shuffled back and produced an arms-case laden with gleaming weapons. Regan looked them over, testing their weight and temper and flexibility, and handed them all back regretfully.
"None of them satisfy you, sir?"
"I'm afraid not," Regan said. "They're not what I have in mind. Do you do custom jobs?"
The man nodded. Regan outlined what he wanted, describing and sketching it from needle point to jewelled pommel.
The little technician rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "This is a fine weapon you've planned, sir. I assure you we'll do justice to it. That electro-hardened blade will take time, though. Tomorrow evening at the earliest."
"Tomorrow evening it is," Dane said. "Your price?"
"Mmmm. Let me see ..." He jotted down figures on a pad. "With matching scabbard, eight hundred stellors," he said at last.
Regan glanced at him coldly, and the little man quailed .visibly. Regan knew what the technician was thinking: if this stranger were a noble, as seemed likely, then his glance could be painful, if not fatal.
"Seven hundred at the very most," said Regan with an air of finality.
There was a moment of indecision. Then: "Yes, sir. Seven hundred." It wasn't too bad, Regan thought. The sword-maker would still show a worthwhile profit.
...
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