All The King's Horses
Randall Garrett & Robert Silverberg
(as by Robert Randall)
Astounding – January 1958
illustrated by van Dongen
There are reactions which, once triggered, can neither be halted, altered, nor reversed, until they've run their course. On Nidor, certain individuals had done certain things... and thought they acted in full free will....
Nibro peSyg Sesom, newly-elected Elder Grandfather of the Clan Ghevin, paced uneasily through the narrow corridors that circled the Kivar Temple in Holy Gelusar. He walked with a firm stride, scowling impatiently, waiting for word to come that his fellow members of the Council had finally assembled.
Nibro had reached the first of his goals—Council membership, at the unprecedented age of thirty-three. But his real work lay ahead of him.
There was something dank and foul in the air, he thought, as if the night rains still fell. Nibro peSyg turned to the short, stooped Nidorian at his side.
"Gwyl peDrang, remind me to have decent ventilation installed when the Great Temple is rebuilt."
"Decent ventilation. I'll make a note of it, Grandfather Nibro."
"Make sure that you do. I think if I had to spend the rest of my life inside this relic of antiquity I'd leave the priesthood and go back to engineering," Nibro peSyg growled. "I don't know how the Elder Grandfathers stood this place so long."
"They had no choice—until you reached the Council," Gwyl peDrang said tactfully. "Ever since the Great Temple was destroyed—"
"I know," Nibro peSyg said. He paused, leaning over the edge of a window, staring out into the city. It was mid-morning; the Great Light was climbing high, its bright rays diffusing through the pearl-gray cloud layer that covered Nidor. Impatiently, Nibro scratched the yellow-golden down on his corded right arm. "They haven't been able to afford a new Temple," he said. "Well, that's all over with now. I'll see to that. Great Light knows how they've stood it so long."
"I don't know either, Grandfather Nibro."
Nibro peSyg wheeled sharply and glared at his companion. "And stop that 'Grandfather Nibro' stuff. That was all right when I was a minor priest in Sugon. Now I'm the Elder Ghevin, and keep it in mind."
"I'm sorry, Elder Ghevin," Gwyl said quickly. "Force of habit, I guess; it's hard to remember that you're not a Sesom any more."
Nibro detected a certain note in the man's voice. He smiled and said, "I could hardly have remained a Sesom and been elected to the Council, could I? There already is an Elder Sesom. What's the matter? Getting sentimental over those meaningless Clan names?"
"Oh, no! I just—"
His protestations were cut short by the deep, sonorous crash of a gong in the main auditorium of the little temple.
"The Council is gathering," Nibro said. "Give me my cloak."
Gwyl took the blue cloak which he had draped over his arm and put it around Nibro's broad shoulders. The new Elder Ghevin fastened the metal gorget at his throat, shrugged his shoulders so that the cloak draped properly, and turned around.
"How does it look?"
Gwyl smiled approvingly. "Fine, Gran ... Elder Ghevin. Just fine."
"Good. Now you get busy with that list I gave you. Make sure my stuff is moved into the office by this afternoon. I've got a speech to make."
He turned and strode toward the main auditorium.
An acolyte stood outside the heavy bronze-ornamented door, his nose superciliously aloft as Nibro approached. "The Elders have gathered," the acolyte said. "They await you within."
Nibro peSyg nodded. In a sense, Nidor had been waiting for him a long time—thirty years, now. The Elders could wait a few minutes. "Are they all there?"
"Yes, Elder Ghevin." The acolyte squinted at Nibro obliquely, with much the same expression Gwyl had used. The look seemed to suggest there might be something wrong about a member of the Clan Sesom metamorphosing abruptly into a Ghevin.
Nibro wondered momentarily if he had made a mistake by forcing his way into the Council in this unorthodox way. He tightened his lips and banished the sudden doubt. He had seen the opportunity, and he had taken, it. Why shouldn't a man change clans, if he had a good reason for doing it?
He glowered at the acolyte. "Open the door."
The acolyte threw open the heavy door. Nibro peSyg stalked in.
The other fifteen Elders were in their time-ordained places, seated in a wide semicircle facing the door. Behind them, the ceiling aperture allowed the rays of the Great Light to enter—feebly.
The lens in the Great Temple must have been a thrilling sight, Nibro thought. I wish I had been old enough to see it before its destruction.
He glared at the fifteen. They were old men; they had seen the Temple. Their golden down had turned light silver with age.
His gaze rested on the empty seat at the far left—the seat that now belonged to him, as the Elder Ghevin. Next to that sat the Elder Lokness, next to him the Elder Yorgen, and so on across the dais to the Elder Brajjyd at the fat right.
Old dodderers, Nibro thought contemptuously. His eyes caught those of the Elder Lokness—the one Elder who had opposed Nibro's spectacular rise to the Council. Nibro smiled mockingly at the man.
The Elder Vyless, oldest and wisest member of the Council, rose and peered down at Nibro. "We welcome you to our midst as a member of the Council," he said.
Nibro smiled. "Good. I wouldn't want to stay where I'm not welcome."
"You have sent word you wish to address us, on this your first day of Councilhood. Is this true?"
"It is," Nibro said. He struck a conscious pose in the center of the floor, swelled his deep chest, pulled his big body erect. He was. an imposing figure, and he knew it. "I have waited for this day all my life," he said ringingly. "The day I could stand before the Council of Elders as an equal, and speak my mind."
"We know you will be an asset to us," old Vyless said.
Nibro folded his muscular arms. "Fellow Elders of Nidor, I have a very serious topic to bring before you today. Some of you—those who spoke with me at length before my election—are probably aware of what it is I'm about to say."
He paused for a moment. "It is thirty years since the Great Temple was destroyed. Thirty years since disaster swept over our world, since the madness wiped the Bel-rogas School from our midst, drove the devil Earthmen back to the skies, brought the Temple down in flames. And thirty years in which the Council of Elders has convened in this subsidiary temple, this ... this little shed not fit for stabling deests!
"An entire generation has grown up—my generation, fellow Elders—that has never seen the Great Temple, never known the thrilling sight of the Great Light cascading down from the mighty lens. And, I may add, has never felt the true grandeur and nobility of our way of life. We lack a focal point for our existence. The Way of our Ancestors is shattered, and must be rebuilt. The Temple—at the heart of Holy Gelusar—is still a blackened ruin!"
"And you propose that we rebuild it," interjected the Elder Lokness dryly. "I think we've been through this before, young man."
Nibro glanced angrily at the Elder Vyless. "Please request our brother of Lokness to hold his patience until I have finished speaking. And to address me with the respect due a member of the Council."
Lokness subsided, muttering bitterly.
"You may continue," the Elder Vyless said.
"Very well. Almost two cycles ago, in the great cataclysm that swept our world, the Council of Elders was reduced to a subsidiary role for the first time in the history of Nidor—for the emergency, it was said. A secular authority arose, the Directorate—represented now by that nonentity in Tammulcor, Ganz peDel. Fellow Council members, the emergency is long over—and still a Director rules in Tammulcor!"