The Ragged Astronauts

significance, will be over and done with when… His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of running footsteps in the adjoining apartment. He turned and saw in the doorway of the toilet chamber the square-shouldered figure of Major Yachimalt, the adjutant responsible for communications between the palace and Skyship Quarter. Yachimalt’s anxious eyes took in the fact that Leddravohr was naked and he made as if to back out of the room.

“Forgive me, Prince,” he said. “I didn’t realise.…”

“What’s the matter with you, man?” Leddravohr snapped. “If you have a message for me, spit it out.”

“It’s a signal from Colonel Hippern, Prince. He says a mob is gathering at the main entrance to the Quarter.”

“He has a full regiment at his disposal, hasn’t he? Why should I concern myself with the activities of a rabble?”

“The signal says that the Lord Prelate is inciting them, Prince,” Yachimalt replied. “Colonel Hippern requests your authority to place him under arrest.”

“Balountar! That miserable sack of bones!” Leddravohr threw the looking glass aside and went to the rack which held his clothing. “Tell Colonel Hippern that he is to hold his ground, but to make no move against Balountar until I arrive. I will deal with our Lord Scarecrow in person.”

Yachimalt saluted and vanished from the doorway. Leddravohr found himself actually smiling as he dressed quickly and strapped on his white cuirass. With only five days to go until the first squadron departed for Overland the preparations for the migration were virtually complete and he had not looked forward to a span of enforced idleness. When there was no work to be done his thoughts all too easily turned to the unnatural ordeal which lay ahead, and it was then that the pale maggots of fear and self-doubt began the insidious attack. Now he could almost feel grateful to the ranting Lord Prelate for presenting him with a diversion, the opportunity to be fully alive and functional once more.

Leddravohr buckled on his sword and the knife he wore on his left arm. He hurried out of his suite, heading for the principal forecourt, choosing a downward route on which there was little chance of encountering his father. The King maintained an excellent intelligence network and would almost certainly have heard about Lain Maraquine’s suicidal behaviour of the previous aftday. Leddravohr had no wish to be quizzed about the absurd incident at that moment. He had given orders for a team of draughtsmen to go to the cave and copy the drawings, and he wanted to be able to present the transcription to his father at their next meeting. Instinct told him that the King would be angry and suspicious if, as was almost certainly the case, Maraquine proved to be dead, but it was possible that the drawings would mollify him.

On reaching the forecourt Leddravohr signalled for an ostiary to bring forward the dappled bluehorn he normally rode and in a matter of seconds he was galloping towards the Skyship Quarter. Emerging from the double coccoon of netting which enveloped the palace he entered one of the tubular covered ways which crossed the four ornamental moats. The sheath of varnished linen was proof against ptertha dust and provided safe passage into Ro-Atabri itself, but the sense of being enclosed and herded was irksome to Leddravohr. He was glad when he reached the city, where the sky was at least visible through the overhead mesh works, and he could follow the embankments of the Borann to the west.

There were few citizens abroad and most of those he saw were making their way towards the Quarter, seemingly guided by an extra sense which told them of significant events taking place far ahead. It was a hot and windless morning, with no threat from ptertha. When he reached the western limit of the city he ignored the covered way which ran to the perimeter of the skyship base, riding south of it in the open air to where he could see a crowd gathered at the main entrance. The side panels of the flimsy tube had been furled, enabling the crowd to form a continuous obstruction across the security gate. On the far side of the gate he could see a line of pikes projecting into the air, indicating the presence of soldiers, and he nodded in approval — the pike was a good weapon for demonstrating to unruly civilians the error of their ways.

As he neared the mass of people Leddravohr slowed his bluehorn to a walking pace. When his approach was noticed the crowd parted respectfully to make way for him, and he was surprised to note how many were dressed in ragged garments. The plight of the ordinary citizens of Ro-Atabri was obviously worse than he had realised. Amid much whispering and jostling, the edge of the crowd flowed outwards to create a semicircular space at the focus of which was the black-robed figure of Balountar.

The Lord Prelate, who had been haranguing an officer on the other side of the closed gate, turned to face Leddravohr. He started visibly at the sight of the military prince, but the expression of anger on his squeezed-in features did not change. Leddravohr rode to him at a leisurely pace, dismounted with a deliberate display of lazy confidence and signalled for the gate to be opened. Two soldiers drew the heavy gate inwards and now Leddravohr and Balountar were at the centre of a public arena.

“Well, priest,” Leddravohr said calmly, “what brings you here?”

“I think you know why I am here.” Balountar waited a full three seconds before adding the royal form of address, thereby detaching it from his first remark and creating a deliberate insolence. “Prince.”

Leddravohr smiled. “If you have come to beg a migration warrant, you are too late — they have all been disbursed.”

“I beg for nothing,” Balountar said, raising his voice, addressing the crowd rather than Leddravohr. “I come to make demands. Demands which must be met.”

“Demands!” Nobody had ever dared use that word to Leddravohr, and as he repeated it a strange thing happened to him. His body became two bodies — one physical and solid, anchored to the ground; the other weightless and ethereal, seemingly capable of drifting on the slightest breeze. The latter self severed the connection between the two by taking a step backwards. He felt as if he were no longer in contact with the surface of the plain, but poised at grass-top height, like a ptertha, with a comprehensive but detached view of all that was taking place. From that vantage point he watched, bemused, as his corporeal self played out an immature game.…

“Do not dare speak to me of demands!” the fleshly Leddravohr cried. “Have you forgotten the authority invested in me by the King?”

“I speak with a higher authority,” Balountar insisted, yielding no ground. “I speak for the Church, for the Great Permanence, and I command you to destroy the vehicles with which you plan to desecrate the High Path. Furthermore, all the food and crystals and other vital supplies which you have stolen from the people must be returned to them immediately. Those are my final words.”

“You speak truer than you know,” Leddravohr breathed. He unsheathed his battle sword, but some lingering vestige of regard for the processes of law dissuaded him from driving the black blade through the Lord Prelate’s body. Instead, he moved away from Balountar, turned to the watchful army officers nearby and addressed himself to a stony-faced Colonel Hippern.

“Arrest the traitor,” he said sharply.

Hippern gave a low command and two soldiers ran forward, swords drawn. A curious growling, grumbling sound arose from the crowd as the soldiers took Balountar by the arms and marched him, in spite of his struggles, inside the line of the Quarter’s perimeter. Hippern looked questioningly at Leddravohr.

“What are you waiting for?” Leddravohr stabbed a forefinger towards the ground, indicating that he wanted the Lord Prelate forced to his knees. “You know the punishment for high treason. Get on with it!”

Hippern, face impassive beneath the rim of his ornate helmet, spoke again to the officers near him and a few seconds later a burly high-sergeant ran towards the two soldiers who were restraining Balountar. The Lord Prelate redoubled his efforts to break free, his black-swathed body undergoing inhuman contortions as his captors forced him to the ground. He raised his face to his executioner. His mouth opened wide as he tried to utter a prayer or a curse, creating a target which the sergeant chose unthinkingly on the murderous instant. The sergeant’s blade drove into Balountar’s mouth and emerged under the base of his skull, severing the spine, ending his life between heartbeats. The two soldiers released his body and stepped back from it as a moan of consternation went up from the crowd. A large pebble arched through the air and skittered through the dust near Leddravohr’s feet.

For a moment the prince looked as though he would launch himself at the mob and attack them single-handed, then he wheeled on the high-sergeant. “Get the priest’s head off. Elevate it on a pike so that his followers can continue to look up to him.”

The sergeant nodded and went about his grisly work with the unruffled dexterity of a pork butcher, and within a minute Balountar’s head had been raised on a pikestaff which was then lashed to a gatepost. Rivulets of blood spead swiftly down the staff.

There was a long moment of utter silence — a silence which burrowed into the ears — and it seemed that an impasse had been reached. Then it gradually became apparent to those watching from within the base that the situation was not truly static — the semi-circle of ground visible beyond the gate was slowly shrinking. Those on the edge of the mass of human beings appeared not to be moving their feet, but they were advancing nonetheless, like ranks of statues which were being inched forward by an inexorable pressure from behind. Evidence of the tremendous force being exerted came when a fence post to the right of the gate creaked and began to lean in wards.

“Close the gate,” Colonel Hippern shouted.

“Leave the gate!” Leddravohr faced the colonel. “The army does not cower away from a civilian rabble. Order your men to clear the entire area.”

Hippern swallowed, showing his unease, but he met Leddravohr’s gaze directly. “Thesituation is difficult, Prince. This is a local regiment, mostly drawn from Ro-Atabri itself, and the men won’t take to the idea of going against their own.”

“Do I hear you properly, colonel?” Leddravohr altered his grip on his sword and a worm of white light coiled in his eyes. “Since when have common soldiers become arbiters in the affairs of Kolcorron?”

Hippern s throat worked again, but his courage did not desert him. “Since they became hungry, Prince. It was ever the way.”

Unexpectedly, Leddravohr smiled. “That’s your professional judgment, is it, colonel? Now observe me closely — I am going to teach you something about the essential nature of command.” He turned, took several paces towards the triple row of waiting soldiers and raised his sword.

“Disperse the rabble!” he shouted, sweeping his sword downwards to indicate the direction of attack against the advancing crowd. Soldiers broke rank immediately and ran to engage the foremost of the intruders, and the comparative silence which had pervaded the scene was lost in a sudden uproar. The crowd fell back, but instead of fleeing in complete disarray its members compacted again, having receded but a short distance, and it was then that a significant fact emerged — that only one third of the soldiers had obeyed Leddravohr’s command. The others had scarcely moved and were gazing unhappily at their nearest junior officers. Even the soldiers who had confronted the mob appeared to have done so in a tame and half-hearted manner. They were allowing themselves to be overcome easily, losing their weapons with such rapidity that they had become an asset to the surging throng. Cheering was heard as a large section of the covered way was pulled to the ground and its framing broken up to provide even more weapons.…

The other Leddravohr — cool, ethereal and uninvolved — watched with a mild degree of interest as the body-locked, carnate Leddravohr ran to a fresh-faced lieutenant and ordered him to lead his men against the crowd. The lieutenant was seen to shake his head in argument and a second later he was dead, almost decapitated by a single stroke of the prince’s blade. Leddravohr had lost his humanity, had ceased to register on the senses as a human being. Craned forward and shambling, black sword hurling a crimson spray, he went among his officers and men like a terrible demon, wreaking destruction.

How long can this go on? the other Leddravohr mused. Is there no limit to what the men will stand?

His attention was suddenly drawn to a new phenomenon. The sky in the east was growing dark as columns of smoke ascended from several districts of the city. It could only mean that the ptertha screens were burning, that some members of the community had been driven by anger and frustration to make the ultimate protest against the present order.

The message was clear — that all would go down together. Rich man and poor man alike. King and pauper alike.

At the thought of the King, alone and vulnerable in the Great Palace, the other Leddravohr’s composure disintegrated. Vital and urgent work had to be done; he had responsibilities whose importance far outweighed that of a clash involving a few hundred citizens and soldiers.

He took a step towards his complementary self, and there came a swooping sensation, a blurring of time and space…

Prince Leddravohr Neldeever opened his eyes to a flood of harsh sunlight. The haft of his sword was wet in his hand, and around him were the sounds of turmoil and the colours of carnage. He surveyed the scene for a moment, blinking as he sought to reorientate himself in a changed reality, then he sheathed his sword and ran towards his waiting bluehorn.