Empire of Two Worlds

Thirteen

The first thing I did on getting back to Rheatt, after reporting to Bec, was to go and see Palramara.

It had been a long time. The elevator took me up and I stepped into the once-familiar top room where she was waiting for me.

Rheattite women wear well: she hadn’t changed much. “You wanted to see me,” she said, sitting down and staring at me calmly.

Up to that point my mind hadn’t been quite made up about whether to deliver Dalgo’s message complete. I decided then that she deserved not to be told any lies. At the same time I realised that I could be brutal if I wanted. A part of me would have liked to hurt her because of what had happened. But I had to recognise that it hadn’t been her fault: she had been a chattel, a spoil of war.

“I’ve been up on Merame,” I told her. “I saw your husband. He asked me to give you a message.”

Her eyes widened. “Yes?”

I hesitated. “Maybe I shouldn’t say it. He wanted me to tell you he was dead. For your sake.”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “That would be like him. It is a long time now since they showed him to me. Is he…?”

“He’s all right,” I said quickly. “Rotrox prisons aren’t exactly pleasant places, but they leave him in peace now.”

I wanted to ask her if Bec still called on her, but the words wouldn’t come out. She rose and paced to the window, looking out blankly. Suddenly she turned, looking at me pleadingly.

“Couldn’t you help him? Couldn’t Becmath help him? He is on good terms with the Rotrox. They might release him for him.”

At that, I reflected, I could probably have tricked Imnitrin into sending Dalgo back to Rheatt with me. I could have told him I wanted him for myself. But I also knew that Bec would never stand for such a stunt.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Even if the Rotrox were willing — which they never will be — you’d never get Becmath to agree to it. You’ve tried, haven’t you?”

She made a hopeless gesture. “Yes, I’ve tried, but not for a long time.” She stood there, gazing at me sidelong, her eyes luminous. “How I hate that man! I don’t understand you, Klein. You are a strong man. You are a born leader. Yet with Becmath you are weak. Why do you follow him like a pet animal? Why do you not defy him? I cannot believe that you fear him.”

“There’s no mystery,” I said. “We both believe in the same things. That’s why I follow him.”

“He is evil, like the Rotrox.”

I shook my head. “He’s not evil,” I said defensively. “He’s a genius. Rheatt would be a lot worse off if it wasn’t for him.”

“Little he cares for Rheatt!”

There would be no point, I told myself, in trying to explain to her that Becmath worked not for himself, but for a higher ideal. Neither did I confess the doubts and anxieties that were beginning, despite myself, to eat into my guts.

Even before my trip to Merame we had begun setting up a baseline camp on the other side of the gateway. Most of our main equipment was already parked there: landsloops for street fighting inside Klittmann, big wagons for transporting food, fuel and ammunition, and a fleet of aircraft adapted for carrying heavy bombs so we could blast our way inside.

Bec planned a big role for aircraft in the new Killibol. He was quick to recognise that they could furnish the speedy communications the Dark World (to give it its ancient name) had so far lacked. City isolationism, as Bec called it, would shortly be at an end.

The two Rotrox legions were not long in coming. We pushed them through the gateway straight away to get them acclimatised. We didn’t interfere with them in any way, but our own Rheattite forces were organised along different lines — in small units, Klittmann fashion, gangster fashion. We’d already taught them what to expect when they got inside the city.

I spent all my time on the other side getting things straightened out for the big drive. A few days later Bec and the others joined me. They were all eager for action.

The scene was vivid. Brilliant searchlight lit up everything. Neither the Rotrox nor the Rheattites could see too well in what was to them unrelieved gloom. During the time we spent at the base camp we were forced to wear our goggles just as if we had been on Earth.

The Rotrox, arrogant as usual, wished to be in the vanguard. I issued them with maps and they set off in their troop carriers with us following a few hours behind.

We crossed the river by the bridge we had built and set off across the dead landscape. The landsloops went first, in convoy, followed by the wagons and our own troop carriers. The command sloop, with me, Bec, Grale, Reeth and Hassmann in it, was the same one we had journeyed to Earth in; it was the only one that was atom-powered and it was larger than the others. During the rest period, when we camped, we slept in tents.

Usually we ate an evening meal with the top Rheattite officers headed by Heerlaw, our top man in the League of Rheatt. On our second day out a row blew up at one of these meals. The others had elected to eat on their own; neither Reeth, Grale nor Hassmann had ever become socially familiar with the Rheattites. Bec and myself sat with Heerlaw and half a dozen other officers comprising the effective leadership of their part of the campaign.

Earlier that day we had come across the remains of the handiwork of the Rotrox legions ahead of us. Evidently the Rotrox had stumbled on a band of nomads. The wagons and protein tanks were smashed open and strewn all over the place. Bodies were everywhere. It didn’t look as if the Rotrox had left a single one of them alive.

“Is this the kind of civilisation we are bringing to Killibol?” one of the Rheattites denounced angrily. “Ever since I was a boy I have been hearing of the new vigour and freedom our work will bring to mankind. Is this what it means?”

This was strong stuff indeed. All the officers were young, belonging to the new generation we had raised. As he said, he’d been indoctrinated since he was a boy. To some extent they’d been quarantined from the real unpleasantness of Rheatt’s position, or rather it had been played down to them. This was their testing time, their first exposure to nasty reality.

“From the Rotrox we must always expect brutality,” Heerlaw answered, glancing at Bec. He was a man who wouldn’t deviate no matter what he saw. He had been closest to us and he had the kind of toughness that’s bred in Klittmann itself.

“We must co-operate with them for the sake of the task,” he continued. “The end justifies the means.”

Another officer broke in, slamming his knife on the table. “I say it was an atrocious act. It should be punished.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Heerlaw told him. “How could the Rotrox have done otherwise? What if the people they found had sent word to the city we are about to attack?”

Throughout all this argument Bec sat silent. Suddenly I found myself speaking.

“You’re right,” I said. “It’s sickening. If this is how we’re going to behave it would be better if we had never set out. The Rotrox are monsters and it’s not easy to imagine what will happen when they get inside Klittmann.”

Bec glared at me fiercely. A brooding silence followed, in which the Rheattites continued to eat uneasily. Shortly afterwards we left for our respective tents.

Bec spoke to me warningly as we entered our own tent. “I don’t want any disaffection in our ranks, Klein,” he said, lowering himself into a comfortable chair and pouring us both goblets of hwura. “I think you spoke out of turn there.”

“Maybe.” I accepted the goblet. “But that guy had a point. Our Rheattites still aren’t too hard-bitten. We’ve led them to believe they’re going to build an empire worth building. Instead they see that mess we saw today. Frankly I’d be happier if the Rotrox were well out of this.”

Bec snorted contemptuously. “I can remember when you wouldn’t have turned a hair. Anyway, the Rotrox put us where we are. I’ll handle them when the right time comes. Heerlaw has the right idea: the end justifies the means.”

I knocked back the goblet and reached for the jug. “You haven’t seen the things I saw on Merame.”

We drank for a while. Bec was thoughtful. Finally he looked at me curiously and said: “I think you’d better make a trip back to Rheatt for a day or so, Klein.”

The goblet stopped midway to my mouth. “Why?” I said in surprise.

“Those klugs were shooting their mouths off back there. I’ve had one or two indications back home — in Rheatt, that is — too. It could be there’s an independence movement growing. Now would be the time for it to come into the open, when we’re not around to stop it.”

“But we’ll soon be at Klittmann! I don’t want to miss that.”

“Oh, you won’t, with any luck. Just nose around Parkland and see if everything’s quiet. If there’s nothing up you can fly out to Klittmann. Otherwise, you know what to do.”

I was disappointed, but Bec was adamant. I had to go.

When I got to Parkland I soon got the feeling that Bec had given me a bum steer. Everything was as usual. The supply routes to the gateway were functioning perfectly. All the League of Rheatt organisations were waiting expectantly for news of the first victory.

Bec had told me to stay for at least two days, maybe three, I hung around, feeling moody and uncertain. There was no real need for me here. My mind was with those columns millions of light years away, pushing their way forward with headlights blazing.

Suddenly I thought of Harmen, the old alk. Bec and he had been close, in a way. Bec had got a lot of his ideas from him. Maybe it would be a good idea to talk to Harmen, I thought.

His laboratory was some distance from Parkland so I flew there in a small aircraft I piloted myself. I found Harmen sitting in a spacious study. In a small bookcase were the precious books he had managed to bring from Klittmann so many years ago.

On the way in I had noticed that the building was full of his assistants, or apprentices as he called them, wearing purple smocks. Harmen kept the house well lit for their benefit and wore dark goggles all the time. Otherwise he was the same crazy alk I had known before. His hair straggled down his shoulders and his big hooked nose poked out beneath the goggles, making him look like some weird animal.

I told him he’d soon be able to move back into Klittmann if he wanted to. He was non-committal. The move would be difficult, he said. Some of his equipment was heavy and conditions might not be stable in Klittmann for a while.

I got up and started pacing the room. Something was eating me but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“It’s crazy!” I blurted suddenly. “When we got driven out of Klittmann you’d have sworn we didn’t have a chance in hell. But Bec got us through the gateway and here to Earth — with your help, that is. Even then, you’d think we still didn’t have a chance, except maybe just to stay alive. We were jumping into the dark. Yet here we are moving back to Klittmann with an army. In a few days we’ll own the place. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Harmen nodded. He seemed to know what I was trying to say.

“Becmath is a man of destiny. That’s why it happened. A lesser man taking such a chance would have landed in the middle of a desert. There would have been nothing for him. A man like Becmath lands in the middle of a whirlpool of events, of which he can take advantage. The universe denies him nothing.”

I stared at him. “Why, you crazy loon….” I shook my head. “All that philosophising is just junk. It doesn’t mean anything.”

The alk’s mouth creased in a tolerant smile. “Indeed? And yet that is how the universe works. I know. I am close to the preparation of the Tincture.”

I waved my hand. “Junk,” I repeated.

“And the gateway — is that junk?”

He had me there. Then, too, I remembered the frightening little homunculus that had appeared in the retort under the garage in Klittmann. Harmen had proved he knew what he was talking about. If it was junk, then it was junk that worked.

“I can see that you are confused,” Harmen said, his voice becoming confidential. “Becmath’s ambitions do not interest me except insofar as they help or hinder my work. But I can see what shape they take. Even when we were travelling over the barrenness of Killibol I knew that something was ahead that would enable Becmath to rise to power. I did not know what it would be, but I knew there would be something.”

“But how could you know?” I said, fascinated now. “Did you have a premonition? A vision?”

He shook his head, smiling again. “I had merely studied the patterns events make. They are not what we take them to be: sometimes the effect draws on the cause.”

He paused. “My life’s work is the preparation of the Tincture. The Tincture, or the Primordial Hyle, is the basic material of existence of which all other elements and forms are corruptions or superficial appearances. Hence it is the goal of all alchemical work. It is indivisible, subtle and fugitive; it is not ruled by the laws of space and time. The ancient texts say that a man who possesses it can know all, can travel anywhere through space and time.”

I remembered him making similar claims years before. Then, the meaning of what he said had been lost on me. Now I seemed to understand it better.

“You speak of visions,” he continued. “I can give you visions. Come with me.”

He rose and led me out of the study and into the laboratories beyond. Purple-smocked apprentices made way for us. We passed through one workshop filled with a confusion of electronic valves, retorts, and other stuff I couldn’t begin to describe. Some of it was glowing and buzzing. Then, at the far end, big wooden doors swung open for us. We passed through and they closed again.

The chamber facing us was like a long hall, deathly quiet. It was empty except for electrode-like devices protruding from the walls, floors and ceiling at the far end.

“Preparation of the Tincture is the primary aim of alchemy,” Harmen explained, “but there is another related, subsidiary aim: the creation of artificial beings. This apparatus goes a short way towards both.”

He stepped to a control board and activated it with a loud snap, then adjusted certain controls. The chamber began to hum.

“Do not be frightened by anything you see,” he warned me. “Theoretically the Tincture is everywhere, at the basis of everything. All forms and creatures are derived from it — to obtain it, one merely has to make it manifest itself.”

A sense of frightful tension between the electrodes began to make itself felt. My muscles began to tighten up. Instinctively I backed towards the door.

“Easy,” Harmen murmured. “No harm will come to you.”

Suddenly there was a sound like the clap of a giant electric spark. The space between the electrodes became a riot of colour. Then the spark coalesced into a tall figure — that of a man, dressed in bizarre, coloured clothes!

It was the figure in the retort all over again, but this time the creature was life-size — and undeniably real! His face was of a dark colour, almost black, which was offset dazzlingly by the crimson of his tunic and the whites of his eyes. His gaze lit on us and he began to walk towards us.

For a moment he seemed to rush towards me, growing bigger. Then he vanished, to be replaced by another figure between the electrodes, this time a woman dressed in simpler, green garments.

“Ignore them,” Harmen murmured. “They are merely momentary creatures, produced spontaneously from the primitive Tincture by the field of stress.”

The woman vanished and in her turn was replaced. The creatures began to stream off faster; then they came no more. The whine of power rose to a howl as Harmen poured in the energy from the control board. I felt myself sweating.

“We are approaching the threshold,” Harmen said, his voice louder. “Now, Klein — behold!”

As he said that it was as if I had been sucked into some kind of vortex. I ceased to become aware of my surroundings. Momentarily I got a vivid sense of blackness, of being surrounded by stars and galaxies. I felt so stunned I could make no kind of reaction to it but merely let myself be carried along.

Then the impression of outer space vanished and I was looking down on the surface of Killibol. The advancing army was rumbling across the bare, level surface, sending a flood of light ahead of it.

All at once I seemed to see not just that one scene but the whole of Killibol together: the whole dead, slate-grey planet, with scores of cities like termite heaps none of which suspected what was to come upon them. At the same time images of Earth and Merame began to get jumbled up in it. And then my vision seemed to expand to include hosts of strange dramas on countless planets across the universe; Bec’s saga was just one of them. I began to see what the alchemist had tried to tell me: that you can’t always separate cause and effect. When the alchemists of ancient times had made that gateway between Earth and Killibol they had created more than a physical bridge; they had linked the two planets in other ways as well. Becmath, it seemed to me then, had been predestined to change the world he lived on since the moment he was born; he had been instinctively drawn towards the means of effecting that change as surely as, in some desert parts of Earth, certain animals are drawn to sources of water by some sense that cannot be explained.

There was a humming in my ears. The feverish visions passed. I was standing in Harmen’s chamber amid the dying whine of power. Gasping, I wiped the film of sweat off my face.

“Is it real?” I breathed, “Or an hallucination?”

Harmen shrugged. “There may not be so much difference between the two. I prefer to say that it is real.”

He opened the big wooden doors. Thankfully I staggered out. I didn’t think I cared for the experience he had forced on me.

“And is that the Tincture you talk about?”

“No,” he said, frowning. “It comes close to the reality of the Tincture — but in an extremely attenuated form that cannot be maintained. It is an ephemeral, partial manifestation of the Tincture brought about by extreme stress. Hence, like the corrupted Tincture of the gateway, it confers some of its properties — in this case visions of far-away events, and glimpses into the operations of matter in all its forms. To try to grasp it is like trying to grasp at air. Fully manifested Tincture is a palpable solid; it can be handled and made into an object.”

Still breathing deeply, I glared around the bubbling laboratory. “That certainly must be something,” I said. “You reckon you’re going to make this stuff?”

“I believe I am close. The electric tension method I have just employed is not able to cross the final threshold… but we have other, more traditional processes under way.” Harmen ran his fingers through his untidy hair with a hint of weariness. “To be frank, there is no reliable record that the final aim has been achieved by any man, except for the notable Hermes Trismegistus who became as a god. But no one doubts that the goal is attainable. And I am closer than anyone for many centuries.”

He steered me between his watching apprentices and back towards his study. “There is something else of which I should in fairness warn you. You now possess a doppelganger.”

“A what?”

“You remember the transient beings who came into existence as the field built up? You have been in contact, however remotely, with an attenuated Tincture field. I have found from experience that transient creatures fall away easily from such a field. There is now a phantasmal duplicate of yourself which will show itself in moments of extreme stress and for a short time after your death.”

“I don’t seem to remember asking for that!” I yelled angrily. All the bad stories I had heard about alks came flooding to my mind. I was ready to believe them, now.

But Harmen was unperturbed. “It will do you no harm, You won’t even know about it, in all probability. I mention it only to forewarn you that Becmath also has a doppelganger.”

“Bec?”

“Of course. He has always taken a close interest in my work. He also has gone through your recent experience. He drew great confidence from it.”

In a strange way the visions I had been given, hallucinatory or not, had also given me confidence. Something had jelled in my mind. I felt more clear now about what was worth doing and what was not.

I flew back to Parkland and decided to rejoin Bec straight away. Ordering an aircraft to be readied to take me to the gateway, I went back to my private tower to clean up and get a change of clothes.

As soon as I stepped out of the elevator I stopped short. Grale was there. He was holding a handgun. Backing him up were two Rheattites of the League of Rheatt.

Grale grinned in his most unpleasant way.

“Hello, Klein. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded, going cold. “You’re supposed to be on Killibol.”

“I’m pretty annoyed about that,” he admitted, raising his eyebrows. “I wanted to be there when the fun started. But don’t worry. There’ll be plenty of laughs left when I finally walk in on dear old Klittmann.”

“Does Bec know you’re here?” I asked, measuring the distance between us.

Grale sniggered. His face looked even more greasy than I had ever seen it. “Bec sent me here, Klein. He figures you’re getting soft. He wants you out of the way till the job’s over”

So it was a bum steer after all. Bec had realised my indecision. Maybe he had thought I would foul things up for him.

“And you’re the guy to do it, eh, Grale?” The old hatred between us flared in the air until it was almost red.

“Who else? I’ve waited twelve years for Bec finally to wise up to you. It’s a real pleasure to see the roles reversed.” Suddenly he snarled at the Rheattites: “O.K., you klugs, I’ll handle it. Beat it.” Then, remembering they didn’t understand Klittmann, he repeated his instructions in faltering Rheattic.

As they left I edged along the wall. Grale was a pent-up spring, a frustrated killing machine. He was dangerous.

Alone with me, his grin became even wider. “You know something, Klein? Bec just wants me to keep you here cosy for a few days. So you can’t go giving orders he doesn’t like to those Rheattites you’ve nursed all these years. But why should I? Bec would understand if you raised objections. I might even have to kill you in self-defence. Then I could get back to the invasion.”

I could hardly expect Grale to pass up this golden opportunity to get rid of me. He raised his handgun, his eyes shining and the lips drawn back from his white teeth. The knuckle of his index finger whitened.

Now I was opposite the blind covering the hole that, uniquely among the mobsters, I had included in the wall of my living quarters. I yanked back the blind, stepping aside.

Grale gave a yell as the sunlight flashed into his uncovered eyes. His bullet slammed into the wall beside me. He fired again, blindly. I was blind, too, but I wasn’t dazzled. My eyes were closed. My gun was in my hand and I loosed off all fifteen shots in quick succession. Groping, I closed the blind.

Not all my shots had found their mark, but there were more than enough red stains on Grale’s black jacket. He was as dead as he deserved to be.

I took a repeater from the arms cupboard, picking up a spare clip. The two Rheattites down below found the gun staring them in the midriff when I left the tower.

They backed away, consternation in their eyes. Very likely they had heard the gunfire and it unnerved them to see the white masters fighting among themselves.

“What were your orders?” I barked.

One shook his head. “We had no particular orders. We were to act as guards. The situation was not explained to us.”

“Well, I’ll explain it to you. The man upstairs is dead. He was trying to settle a private score, but I beat him to it. Does he mean anything to you?”

They shook their heads again. Grale was almost a stranger to them. I was the boss they were used to.

“All right,” I said curtly. “Let’s get back to Headquarters.”

A few hours later I had flown to the gateway. The experience Harmen had given me was like a vivid dream overhanging everything, and I decided I was going to be near Bec for the next part of the proceedings, whether he wanted me there or not.