Lord tedric, p.15
Lord Tedric, page 15
The white sun grew larger. A small green star shined beside it. Prime? he thought, and then he knew.
This wasn't a dream. This was real. The Scientists had called him to them.
He floated gingerly down. The atmosphere of the green planet was thick and sweet. He breathed real air again as he glided through white clouds. A bird swept past his head.
There wasa forest below, endless, deep and bright.
His feet touched the ground.
He felt whole again. He was himself in all respects. The wind touched his face, The smell of wood and dirt teased his nostrils. He was shaking. It wasn't from the cold; the white sun beat down upon his bare head.
A man stepped out from behind a nearby tree and approached with one hand outstretched from his heart.
The man was short, hunched, and dressed in green robes. A crest of white hair topped a round skull. His face was all eyebrows and wrinkles. He said, "Tedric, I welcome you in the name of my brothers."
When he spoke, the man's lips did not move. "Skandos," said Tedric. He clasped the man's hand. It was frail, the grip of a child.
"Then you remember me?" Skandos smiled. "I... I'm not sure," Tedric said. "When I saw you, I knew your name, but. . ."
"But you know where you are?"
"On Prime." He said that much firmly. "And you are a Scientist."
"One of many, yes. Skandos, the histro-physicist. You and I once spent many hours together. You have forgotten, but that is of no matter."
"You were my teacher."
"I assisted you, yes."
"You were the one who brought me here from-from the other place."
Skandos nodded. He pointed to the ground. "Shall we sit down, Tedric? I am not young and, despite what you may presently feel about my realness, neither am I incapable of growing tired."
"Yes, of course, Sir' " Tedric sat down. Even though he was quite naked, the bare ground seemed as comfortable as a soft cushion.
"You have been worried, Tedric, over certain matters."
Tedric said, "I suppose it's the uncertainty of everything. I feel like a child lost in a dark cave. I recall so little of in life here or before; it comes to me only in snatches. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, because I don't really know what it is you expect of me."
"What makes you think it's anything at all?" Skandos asked sharply.
"Because... well, because you did bring me here, didn't you? It wasn't for no reason at all, was it?" "No, it wasn't for no reason, but you are Still mistaken. We want nothing from you. Nothing specific.
It took Tedric a long moment to digest that statement and find that he simply could not accept it. "Then why have you deliberately directed me in every move I've made?"
"We have done nothing of the kind," Skandos said, still smiling.
"But as far back as the fist-boxing tournament, you-'
Skandos held up a hand to interrupt. "Perhaps it will be easier, Tedric, if I simply explain and you listen. We have chosen to bring you here to our world at this time for a number of specific reasons. One reason is to put your mind at rest concerning what you have just asked me. I think that if you listen to what else I have to say that will occur naturally."
"I don't mean to doubt you, Sir. I merely-" "Then shall we listen?" Skandos arched his huge, thick brows.
"Yes," Tedric said. "Yes, I'm sorry. I'll listen." A bird sat on the tree branch directly above his head. Its high, pensive song seemed out of place here, an intrusion of ordinary beauty into an extraordinary setting.
"You were brought here," Skandos said, "from another place and time because we discovered that your presence in our universe in ight prove beneficial to thoseforces which we, the Scientists of Prime, most deeply value. What we did was, I ad-mit, a terrible and pretentious act, a tampering with the actual substance of time and space. I can only defend our deed by saying that it was not un-dertaken for whimsical purposes.
Only the very salvation of this universe would have forced us to act as we did."
Tedric could not keep quiet. "Are you saying that I'm somehow responsible for saving the entire universe?"
Skandos laughed, a gentle sound, bird-like in itself. "No, nothing quite so dramatic as that."
"Then what?"
Skandos fixed him with a stare. "May I go on at
my own pace? I thought we had agreed."
"Yes, of course." Tedric felt flustered. This whole thing seemed far beyond his comprehension. "I'm sorry."
"That's quite all right. I understand your concern. Still, I have mentioned our purposes in as much detail as I have only as a prelude to a certain question. One reason you were brought here was to learn your feelings regarding your situation. Tedric, I am authorized by my brother Scientists to ask whether you are now content to stay here or whether you would prefer to return to your original world?"
The question caught Tedric totally by surprise. He had never considered even the remote possibility that there might be a way of returning to his own home. He looked at Skandos to be sure of the sincerity of what he had asked and then, convinced of that, attempted to give an honest reply to the question. "I don't see how I can be expected to tell you that, sir. I remember so little of that other life. It comes to me only occasionally, in dreams. It seems to be a terrible and beautiful world. What can I tell you?"
"I know it is not entirely fair. Your forgetfulness was not deliberate on our part. It seems to be an aftereffect of spatial/temporal transference. We never intended that you should not know who you
are.
"But it still makes it hard for me to decide."
Skandos nodded solemnly. "Yes, I can well understand. Still, I must ask. Can you answer?" Tedric thought long and hard but there was never any real doubt as to his reply. "I must choose to
stay here. It is my home now. This is real and that other place is a dream. I cannot go back there."
"You can if you wish. If you do, this universe ill become the dream."
"No," Tedric said flatly. "I wish to stay."
"Then I will not ask you again. I cannot say your decision displeases us. Nor was it totally unexpected. We feel that you have passed the first phase of your life here. We are glad."
Tedric nodded. He felt glad himself. For the first time, he felt like a true inhabitant of this universe. The burden of his own dim past had gone away; he was a free man at last.
"But is that all you can tell me about your reasons for bringing me here?" "Now that you have made your decision, no." Skandos wrinkled his brow in an expression of concern.
"Still, I am afraid I must be cautious in what I actually reveal. Our enemies are at least as strong as we are. There is an unspoken agreement between us. Pitched war between ourselves and them is too horrible to contemplate. Therefore, we both fight our battles through agents. If I tell you too much, I risk being accused of direct intervention.
They, our enemies, might choose to retaliate in kind."
"But who are these enemies? Not the Wykzl?" Skandos smiled an ironic smile. "No. Not hardly. They are-" His smile faded away. "That is one of the things I'm afraid I cannot reveal."
A sudden flash of inspiration struck Tedric and he spoke before he had a chance to consider the idea. "Do these enemies of yours have any connection with the strange clouds that have recently invaded the Wykzl nation?"
Skandos looked stunned. "You know of the clouds?"
"Mo-leete told me. The Wykzl commander. It was the reason he attempted to seize the mines on Evron Eleven."
"Yes, I should have known he. . ." Skandos seemed to be murmuring to himself, rather than directing his thoughts toward Tedric. He said, "But Moleete surely cannot be aware of the clouds' true significance."
"I don't know about that. I was only guessing myself."
"Guessing?"
"Yes, unless it was one of the things you planted in my mind."
Skandos shook his head. "That is another of the reasons we brought you here. You see, Tedric, we planted nothing in your mind. When you were here on Prime, we taught you only enough to allow you to enter the Academy on Nexus. For us to have done more would again have risked the charge of intervention. We have given you no direct instructions."
"But I-" Tedric could not believe what Skandos said. There were too many moments when h had heard the Scientists speaking as if they stood in the same room with him. "I find that hard to believe. I know it was you."
"No, Tedric, not us-you. Your own perceptions led you toward the right paths. There was a reason you were brought here and not someone
else. It was you we wanted-you as a free man. For a puppet, anybody would have served."
"But even at the beginning, even before I went
aboard the Eagleseye, at the Academy, I remember how I lost that fight to Matthew Carey because you'd told me to."
Skandos shook his head. "That was not us, Tedric. You lost to Carey because you sensed the danger in showing your own ability too soon. You have given us credit for wordless voices that are not our own."
"Are you hinting that I possess some sort of' special powers? Am I a telepath? Do I see the future?" Skandos shook his head very firmly. It was clear he did not feel free to discuss this point. "I will only say that any powers you possess are barely in an embryonic stage at present."
"They will grow stronger?"
"They can grow stronger."
"Then it's up to me?"
"It's up to who you are."
Tedric sat back on his haunches. He knew he had to accept what Skandos had said as the truth, and yet this sudden freedom seemed only to make the situation more complex. He felt the overwhelming burden of great responsibility. "What do I do now?"
he heard himself asking. "I am not the one to tell you that, Tedric, but this much I believeI can safely say: do what you can do, accept your own perceptions. So far you have done well; we trust you to continue. Give yourself that same trust." "But I've accomplished so little. I helped destroy a single Wykzl cruiser, and the Wykzl are not even the real enemy, according to you. After that, I'm supposed to go out and save an entire universe?" Skandos saw the humor in what Tedric said and smiled. Suddenly, tilting awkwardly forward, he reached out and gripped Tedric's arm.
His grasp was far stronger than it had been before. "I know what I've told you has only confused and bewildered you. We expected that would be the case. In time, however, much that I have said will become clear. Until, then, please do not concern yourself with the fate of the universe. Worry about yourself, Tedric. Grow. Expand. Find out who and what you are. Do that, and you will have done well. I can say no more." "But-" Tedric began. It was too late. With no warning, Skandos disappeared. There was no puff of smoke, no rush of air. One moment he was present and the next he was gone. Tedric was just controlling his surprise when another startling fact intruded upon his consciou s-ness.
He was no longer sitting on the ground. He was floating through the air. The trip back to the Eagleseye only repeated in reverse order the sensations Tedric had experienced on his way to Prime. So much had happened to him these past hours (or years) that, dream or not, his ability to express wonder seemed to have eroded. He swept through N-space like a man asleep. He reached the Eagleseye and penetrated its core. He floated in his room above his own body, then dropped down. Body and spirit merged.
He was one again. And awake. Tedric sat up, blinking. A dream? he asked himself casually. Or had it all been real?
He shook his head. No, that wasn't the point, he decided in a flash of enlightenment.
Something Skandos had said came back to him and for the first time made real sense.
Tedric now understood that the purpose behind his present existence was nothing more than simple existence. He was here so that he could be here. He must act. That was all.
And this simple fact filled him with such ecstatic joy that he could barely restrain himself from standing, shouting, and cheering. He dropped quietly down and listened to the hum of the ship's huge engines. He felt the gentle air against his face. Nolan was snoring, a rhythmic tune. Things came clear to him. Earth was next. The Eagleseye was going there now and he would meet Emperor Kane. A victory? A way of saving a universe? He didn't know about that, but he did know it was next. He faced an unknown enemy, one perhaps stronger than the Scientists of Prime. He knew nothing of that enemy, except that somehow they (or it) had something to do with the Wykzl's clouds.
Should he start there? Fight the clouds first? But to fight the clouds, he would need the cooperation of the Wykzl and to have that he would have to defeat them in battle and to do that he would have to have a strong and determined Empire behind him. So perhaps that should be the first step. To bind the Empire together, to recapture the glory of
the past. And he knew there could be only one way of achieving that: he must confront the Careys and drive them away from the reins of control. So perhaps, on Evron Eleven, he really had begun to save the universe. It all seemed so simple, so obvious. It wasn't.
He understood that. He faced the work of a lifetime-or more. He could only begin, and hope there would be time. The universe must wait to be saved. Would it? Tedric slept.
He dreamed. And, for the first time, he dreamed not of that other place and time but of this place, this time, this world. He dreamed not of yesterday. He dreamed of today-and tomorrow. And that, he knew as soon as he awoke, was the real beginning.
E.E. Doc Smith, Lord Tedric
