“This is my nephew,” Ikematsu informed. “I go nowhere without him.”
Suddenly he made a series of quick movements, disengaging the catches of his harness, at which the rifle rack, the mortar tube and the other weapons fell away, arranging themselves on the ground with surprising neatness.
“See,” he said. “I disarm, contrary to all principle, provided my nephew accompanies me. I ask only that my armoury be stored safely and returned to me eventually.”
“Oh, all right,” Carson agreed. He was relieved that the kosho was being cooperative, not guessing that Ikematsu’s first demand had been no more than a bargaining counter.
He and the major helped the animals drag their dead into the pod for space burial later. Squatting inside the pod, the cheetahs especially cast feral glances at the kosho; but their discipline restrained them from any threatening word or gesture.
The pod lifted off. In the orbiting cruiser they delayed only while the bodies and the prisoners were transferred. Then they dropped, with the other pods Carson ordered, onto Mo.
Five hundred commandos sliced through the moving city with a ferocity its inhabitants could hardly have envisaged. Even so, it was nearly four hours before the fugitive had been located and taken prisoner.
That gave time for the pig Fire Command Officer to learn about the life style of the cities of the plain. He was reminded once again of his conclusions concerning the Oracle’s pronouncements; accordingly, he engineered another small, but personal, triumph. With referring to Admiral Archier, he called his own department and arranged to have the whole plain nuked as they departed.
“Those cities are a social experiment,” he explained to Brigadier Carson as they watched the pinpricks of light blossom on the curve of the planet below them. “An experiment in academics: they spend—spent, rather—their whole time studying—studying history and social philosophy, among other things. Can’t be too careful. No knowing what ideas they were brewing. Could be what Oracle was talking about.”
Carson had misgivings. “The Admiral will be annoyed if he hears about it. He’s supposed to give the order for things like that.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Gruwert said jovially. “He can’t attend to every little detail, can he?”
And some of you humans, the pig added to himself with satisfaction, aren’t so hot when it comes to making decisions.
In Claire de Lune’s command centre Ragshok had synched into the Fleet Manoeuvres Network. On the screens he saw the current dispositions as the last few ships—of a rather depleted fleet since the battle with the Escorians, he noticed—joined formation. He had learned to read some of the codes, too. He had identified, for instance, the code for what he now thought of as his own ship, and had been able to respond to instructions.
Although it was only hours since he had joined the fleet, so far there had been no trouble. He had ignored beamed requests for reports, and as far as he knew no one had tried to come through the intermat, though as it wasn’t working yet it was hard to be sure. Probably they would despatch someone in a boat sooner or later. Things could get tricky.
He called Tengu again. “Well?”
The image of the systems engineer appeared in the air before him. “Not yet. I’m still checking. If there’s a fault, I’ll find it, I swear.”
But Tengu looked worried, and Ragshok cursed. After all their work, this had to happen!
Installing the flux unit from his ship Dare had been no small job for a start. While that was underway he had toured half a dozen worlds, picking up rebel fugitives who had managed to evade pursuit following the battle, privateer gangs like his own, and anyone he could persuade to throw in with him and who could use a weapon.
He had packed nearly three thousand men and women into Claire de Lune. They would be getting restless if he didn’t soon produce what he had promised them.
His whole plan depended on getting the intermat working. Tengu had earlier inspected the transceiver kiosks and announced them undamaged, despite not properly understanding how they functioned. The fact that they would not work within the bounds of the ship had seemed reasonable at the time: they were a ship-to-ship facility, and he had presumed there would be no problems once they came within range of the rest of the fleet.
But how long would the Imperial staff remain incurious about a ship that was supposed to have been abandoned?
“Speed it up, will you,” he grated to Tengu, dismissing him.
“Eh, chief,” said Morgan, messing about at the comdesk. “Look at this.”
Ragshok squinted at the display area as Morgan put up the data Fleet Manoeuvres was putting out. “It’s a general order,” Morgan said. “They’re moving out.”
“Where to?”
Morgan shook his head. “Just somewhere. Nowhere interesting. To the next bit of trouble, I guess.”
“Damn Tengu!” raged Ragshok. “This is his fault! I trusted him!”
“What shall we do?”
“You can get the GDC and everything out of that?”
He was referring to Galactic Directional Coordinates. “Yes, I think so,” Morgan said.
“Then we obey orders.”
Tentatively, for he still was not too expert at handling the Planet Class destroyer, Morgan entered figures on his desk, called the engine room, and began to manoeuvre.
Somehow or other he got into formation. The fleet withdrew from the system, meshing bubbles, and hurtled for the unknown.
8
Diadem—Galactic Diadem, or the Jewel in the Galactic Crown, as it was variously known in official documents—presented to the approaching visitor a splendid sight of depth within depth, of stars of every size and colour grouped, constellated, strewn and focused in patterns of dazzling complexity that no jeweller could ever have equalled. Perhaps even more exciting, to one from the outer parts of the Empire was the thought of the splendours, invisible from his first vantage point, of the inhabited planets Diadem contained. In the past the development of the Diadem worlds had been on a colossal scale. There were cities which, like the starry perspective of Diadem itself, exhibited depth upon depth of architectural glory, though many of these were inhabited mainly by animals now, and there were worlds galore with sculpted climates and reconstituted biospheres that rendered them planetary paradises, each according to the private tastes of its owner, though maintenance had been cursory in the decades of the robot strike and on some of them nature had already begun to take its own course.
How it appeared to the large vessel that entered, with the permission of the Imperial Council (Diadem being one of the few regions of the galaxy where absolute territorial rights between alien races were respected), and leisurely made its way to a slightly bluish sun, was a different matter. The Methorians did not see in the comparatively short wavelengths that composed the visible spectrum for humans, and in fact did not see sharply defined solid objects at all. On their own planets were no standing cities, no fixed structures but instead gauzy rolling masses that floated and circulated within the atmospheric bands characteristic of gas giants.
Imperial Council Member Koutroubis arrived at the fifth planet of the sun only a short time ahead of the scheduled meeting with the Methorian delegate, an event he did not look forward to in the least. The planet, a light-year from the group of worlds where the Council was accustomed to sitting, was a private residence that had been chosen mainly for its placid traffic-free atmosphere, but also because it was the home of an old friend of his who was always willing to do a favour.
Oskay Rubadaya, white-haired man of middling years, waved his arms in greeting as Koutroubis’s official statecar descended to land just outside one of the many lodges he had dotted about the planet. The lodge itself was a rambling construction extending for about a mile in any direction. Before it there stretched a level meadow of pale green moss reaching almost to the horizon—the reason why the site had been selected. On its fringes arboreal parkland began. It was Rubadaya’s pleasure to go for long walks through that parkland, a recurring feature over the whole planet. He was particularly fond of trees; the parks had been planned and planted by a tax-item artist from one of the outer regions of the Empire.