Empire of the atom, p.8
Empire of the Atom, page 8
Clane waited until Lady Lydia left the city for one of her periodic rests. Then he established residence in Linn, and requested of the Lord Leader permission to read the rare books. The great man, whose interest in such projects had long declined almost to vanishment, granted the permission
—and so Clane, and three secretary-slaves (two men and a woman) for some weeks, daily entered the palace library and read about the superstitions of a transitional period of history. The books had, in every case, been written after the legendary golden age, but before all details about such a period of human development were generally dismissed as nonsensical lies.
The books added very little data to what he already knew, but their authors reported the hearsay that had come by father through son for many generations from mistier days. The stories pointed a direction. They added to his certainty that he was on a trail that might lead to even more valuable discoveries than he had already made.
He was intently engaged one day in the pursuit of reading still another book when, on looking up to rest his eyes, he saw his step-grandmother come into the library. It was his first knowledge that she was back in the city.
For the Lady Lydia, the meeting was as unexpected as it was for Clane. She had almost forgotten that he existed, having returned to Linn because of a report from her husband’s physician that the Lord Leader was ailing. It was the kind of report that brought home to her the realization that she must waste no more time in her purpose of persuading the old man that Tews should be brought back from exile.
She saw Clane now for the first time under conditions that were favorable to his appearance. He was modestly attired in the fatigue gown of a temple scientist, a costume that was effective for covering up his physical deformities.
There were folds of cloth to conceal his mutated arms so skillfully that his normal human hands came out into the open as if they were the natural extensions of a healthy body. The cloak was drawn up into a narrow, not unattractive band around his neck, which served to hide the subtly mutated shoulders and the unhuman chest formation. Above the collar, Lord Clane’s head reared with all the pride of a young lordling.
It was a head to make any woman look twice, delicately beautiful, with a remarkably clear skin. Lydia, who had never seen her husband’s grandson, except at a distance— Clane had made sure of that—felt a constricting fear in her heart.
“By Uranium!” she thought. “Another great man. As if I didn’t have enough trouble trying to get Tews back from exile.”
It hardly seemed likely that death would be necessary for a mutation. But if she ever hoped to have Tews inherit the empire, then all the more direct heirs would have to be taken care of in some way. Standing there, she added this new relative to her list of the more dangerous kin of the ailing Lord Leader.
She saw that Clane was looking at her. His face had changed, stiffened, lost some of its good looks, and that brought a memory of things she had heard about him. That he was easily upset emotionally. The prospect interested her. She walked towards him, a thin smile on her long, handsome countenance.
Twice, as she stood tall before him, he tried to get up. And failed each time. All the color was gone from his cheeks, his face even more strained looking than it had been, ashen and unnatural, twisted, changed, the last shape of vistage beauty gone from it. His lips worked with the effort of speech, but only a muted burst of unintelligible sounds issued forth.
Lydia grew aware that the young slave woman secretary was almost as agitated as her master. The creature looked beseechingly at Lydia, finally gasped, “May I speak, your excellency?”
That shocked her. Slaves didn’t speak except when spoken to. It was not just a rule or regulation dependent upon the whim of the particular owner: it was the law of the land, and anybody could report a breach as a misdemeanor, and collect half the fine which was subsequently levied from the slave’s master. What dazed Lady Lydia was that she should have been the victim of such a degrading experience. She was so stunned that the young woman had time to gasp, “You must forgive him. He is subject to fits of nervous paralysis, when he can neither move nor speak. The sight of his illustrious grandmother coming upon him by surprise—”
That was as far as she got. Lydia found her voice. She snapped, “It’s too bad that all slaves are not similarily afflicted. How dare you speak to me?”
She stopped, catching herself sharply. It was not often that she lost her temper, and she had no intention of letting the situation get out of hand. The slave girl was sagging away as if she had been struck with a violence beyond her power to resist. Lydia watched the process of disintegration curiously. There was only one possible explanation for the slave speaking up so boldly for her master. She must be his companion and friend, as well as his slave.
It seemed to her that the moment had potentialities. “What,” she said, “is your name?”
“Selk,” The young woman spoke huskily.
“Oh, a Martian.”
The Martian war, some years before, had produced some hundreds of thousands, of husky, goodlooking boy and girl Martians for the slave schools to train.
Lydia’s plan grew clear. She would have the girl assassinated, and so put the first desperate fear into the mutation. That should hold him until she had succeeded in bringing Tews back from exile to supreme power. After all, he was not too important. It would be impossible for a despised mutation to ever become Lord Leader. He had to be put out of the way in the long run, because the Linn party would otherwise try to make use of him against Tews and herself.
She paused for a last look down at Clane. He was sitting rigid, his eyes glazed, his face still colorless and unnatural. She made no effort to conceal her contempt as, with a flounce of her skirt, she turned and walked away, followed by her ladies and personal slaves.
Slaves were sometimes trained to be assassins. The advantage of using them was that they could not be witnesses in court either for or against the accused. But Lydia had long discovered that, if anything went wrong, if a crisis arose as a result of the murder attempt, a slave assassin did not have the same determination to win over obstacles. Slaves took to their heels at the slightest provocation, and returned with fantastic accounts of the odds that had defeated them. She used former knights and sons of knights, whose families had been degraded from their rank because they were penniless. Such men had a desperate will to acquire money, and when they failed she could usually count on learning the reason.
She had a horror of not knowing the facts. For more than thirty of her sixty years her mind had been an unsaturable sponge for details and ever more details. It was accordingly of more than ordinary interest to her when the two knights she had hired to murder her stepgrandson’s slave girl, Selk, reported that they had been unable to find the girl.
“There is no such person now attached to Lord Clane’s city household.”
Her informant, a slim youth named Meerl, spoke with that mixture of boldness and respect which the more devil-may-care assassins affected when talking to high personages. “Lady,” he went on with a bow and a smile, “I think you have been outwitted.”
“I’ll do the thinking,” said Lydia with asperity. “You’re a sword or a knife with a strong arm to wield it. Nothing more.”
“And a good brain to direct it,” said Meerl.
Lydia scarcely heard. Her retort had been almost automatic. Because—could it be? Was it possible that Clane had realized what she would do?
What startled her was the decisiveness of it, the prompt action that had been taken on the basis of what would only have been a suspicion. The world was full of people who never did anything about their suspicions. If Clane had consciously frustrated her, then he was even more dangerous than she had thought. She’d have to plan her next move with care.
She grew aware that the two men were still standing before her. She glared at them. “Well, what are you waiting for? You know there is no money if you fail.”
“Gracious lady,” said Meerl, “we did not fail. You failed.”
Lydia hesitated, impressed by the fairness of the thrust. She had a certain grudging respect for this particular assassin. “Fifty per cent,” she said.
She tossed forward a pouch of money. It was skillfully caught. The men bowed quickly, stiffly, with a flash of white teeth and clank of steel. They whirled and disappeared through thick portieres that concealed the door by which they had entered.
Lydia sat alone with her thoughts, but not for long. A knock came on another door, and one of her ladies-in-waiting entered, holding a sealed letter in her hand.
“This arrived, madam, while you were engaged.”
Lydia’s eyebrows went up a little when she saw that the letter was from Clane. She read it, tight-lipped:
To my most gracious grandmother, Honorable lady:
I offer my sincere apologies for the insult and distress which I caused your ladyship yesterday in the library. I can only plead that my nervous afflictions are well-known in the family, and that, when I am assailed, it is beyond my power to control myself.
I also offer apologies for the action of my slave girl in speaking to you. It was my first intention to turn her over to you for punishment. But then it struck me that you were so tremendously busy at all times, and besides she scarcely merited your attention. Accordingly, I have had her sold in the country to a dealer in labor, and she will no doubt leam to regret her insolence. With renewed humble apologies, I remain,
Your obedient grandson, Clane
Reluctantly, the Lady Linn was compelled to admire the letter. Now she would never know whether she had been outwitted or victorious.
I suppose, she thought acridly, 7 could at great expense discover if he merely sent her to his country estate, there to wait until I have forgotten what she looks like. Or could I even do that?
She paused to consider the difficulties. She would have to send as an investigator someone who had seen the girl. Who? She looked up. “Dalat.”
The woman who had brought the letter curtsied.
“Yes?”
“What did that slave girl in the library yesterday look like?”
Dalat was disconcerted. “W-why, I don’t think I noticed, your ladyship. A blonde, I think.”
“A hlonde!” Explosively. “Why, you numbskull. That girl had the most fancy head of golden hair that I’ve seen in many years—and you didn’t notice!”
Dalat was herself again. “I am not accustomed to remembering slaves,” she said.
“Get out of here,” said Lydia. But she said it in a flat tone, without emotion. Here was defeat.
She shrugged finally. After all, it was only an idea she had had. Her problem was to get Tews back to Linn. Lord Clane, the only mutation ever born into the family of the Lord Leader, could wait.
Nevertheless, the failure rankled.
THE LORD LEADER had over a period of years become an ailing old man, who could not make up his mind. At seventy-one, he was almost blind in his left eye, and only his voice remained strong. He had a thunderous baritone that still struck terror into the hearts of criminals when he sat on the chair of high judgment, a duty which, because of its sedentary nature, he cultivated more and more as the swift months of his declining years passed by.
The work had another characteristic. On occasion, after he had made up his mind on a matter—although the counsel for the opposing sides were still wrangling—he allowed his thoughts to wander to the ever more pressing problem of the future of the family.
“The fact is,” he decided one afternoon, “I must see all those young people personally, and estimate their value as Lord Leader material.”
Quite consciously, he included the mutation among those whom he planned to visit.
That night he made the mistake of sitting on the balcony too long without a blanket. He caught a cold, and spent the whole of the month that followed in bed. It was there, helpless on his back, acutely aware of his weak body, fully, clearly aware at last that he had at most a few years to live, that the Lord Leader realized finally that he could delay no longer in selecting an heir. In spite of his personal dislike for Tews, he found himself listening, at first grudgingly, then more amenably, to his wife.
“Remember,” she said, again and again, “your dream of bequeathing to the world a unified empire. Surely, you cannot become sentimental about it at the last minute. Lords Jerrin and Draid are still too young. Jerrin, of course, is the most brilliant young man of his generation. He is obviously a future Lord Leader, and should be named so in your will. But not yet. You cannot hand over the solar system to a youngster of twenty-four.”
The Lord Leader stirred uneasily. He noticed that there was not a word in her argument about the reason for Tews’ exile. And that she was too clever ever to allow into her voice the faintest suggestion that, behind her logic, was the emotional fact that Tews was her son.
“There are of course,” Lydia continued, “the boy’s uncles on their mother’s side, both amiable adininistrators but lacking in will.”
She paused. “And then there are your daughters and sons-in-law, and their children.”
“Forget them.” The Lord Leader, gaunt and intent on the pillow, moved a hand weakly in dismissal of the suggestion. He was not interested in the second-raters. “You have forgotten,” he said finally, “Clane.”
“A mutation!” said Lydia, surprised. “Are you serious?”
The Lord of Linn was silent. He knew better, reluctantly. But he knew why he had made the suggestion. Delay. He realized he was being pushed inexorably to choosing as his heir Lidia’s plumpish son by her first husband.
“If you considered your own blood only,” urged Lydia, “it would be just another case of imperial succession so common among our tributary monarchies and among the barbarians of Aiszh and Venus and Mars. Politically it would be meaningless. If, however, you strike across party lines, your action will speak for your supreme patriotism. In no other way could you so finally and unanswerably convince the world that you have only its interest at heart.”
The old scoundrel, dimmed though his spirit and intellect were by illness and age, was not quite so simple as that. He knew what they were saying under the pillars, that Lydia was molding him like a piece of putty to her plans. Not that such opinions disturbed him very much. The tireless propaganda of his enemies and of mischief makers and gossips had dinned into his ears for nearly fifty years, and he had become immune to the chatter.
In the end the decisive factor was only partly Lydia’s arguments, and partly his own desperate realization that he had little choice. The unexpected factor was a visit to his bedside by the younger of his two daughters by his first marriage. She asked that he grant her a divorce from her present husband, and permit her to marry the exiled Tews.
“I have always,” she said, “been in love with Tews, and only Tews, and I am willing to join him in exile.”
The prospect was so dazzling that, for once, the old man was completely fooled. It did not even occur to him that Lydia had spent two days convincing the cautious Gudrun that here was her only chance of becoming first lady of Linn.
“Otherwise,” Lydia had pointed out, “you’ll be just another relative, dependent upon the whim of the reigning Lord Leader’s wife.”
The Linn of Linn suspected absolutely nothing of that behind-the-scenes connivance. His daughter married to Lord Tews! The possibilities warmed his shilling blood. She would serve Tews as Lydia had him, a perfect foil, a perfect representative of his own political group. His daughter!
I must, he thought, go and see what Clane thinks. Meanwhile I can send for Tews on a tentative basis.
He didn’t say that out loud. No one in the family except himself realized the enormous extent of the knowledge that the long-dead temple scientist Joquin had bequeathed to Clane. The Lord Leader preferred to keep the information in his own mind. He knew Lydia’s propensity for hiring assassins, and it wouldn’t do to subject Clane to more than ordinary danger from that source.
He regarded the mutation as an unsuspected stabilizing force during the chaos that might follow his death. He wrote a letter inviting Tews to return to Linn, and, a week later, finally out of bed, he had himself carried to Clane’s residence in the west suburbs. He remained overnight, and, returning the next day, began to discharge a score of key men whom Lydia had slipped into administrative positions on occasions when he was too weary to know what the urgent business was for which he was signing papers.
Lydia said nothing, but she noted the sequence of events. A visit to Clane, then action against her men. She pondered that for some days, and then, the day before Tews was due, she set out on her first visit to the modest looking home of Lord Clane Linn, taking care that she was not expected.
On the way, it occurred to her that she was not satisfied with her situation. A dozen of her schemes were coming to a head; and here she was going to see Lord Clane, a completely unknown factor. Thinking about it from that viewpoint, she felt astonished. What possible danger, she asked herself again and again, could a mutation be to her?
Even as those thoughts infuriated the surface of her mind, deep inside, she knew better. There was something here. The old man would never bother with a nonentity. He was either quiet with the quietness of weariness, or utterly impatient. Young people particularly enraged him easily, and if Clane were an exception, then there was a reason.
From a distance, Clane’s residence looked small. There was brush in the foreground, and a solid wall of trees across the entire eight-hundred foot front of the estate. The house peaked a few feet above a mantle of pines and evergreens. As her chair drew nearer, Lydia decided it was a three-story building, which was certainly minuscule beside-the palaces of the other Linns. Her bearers puffed up a hill, trotted past a pleasant arbor of trees, and came after a little to a low, massive fence that had not been visible from below. Lydia, always alert for military obstacles, had her chair put down.
