Federations

But the Computerman would not leave until the Gatewatch came to drag him away. The Computerman was shouting, “Beware the thing you covet! Beware! It is a thing accursed! All who do not possess it will crave it! It will drive you to madness; it will drive you to destroy your trusted servants, as you have destroyed your Torturer! Eschew this thing! Cast it away! The Computer cannot be controlled by it!” But by then the Gatewatch had gently pulled the old man out of the chamber and closed the door behind them.

Acting Captain Weston II sat upon his throne again, and bent his gaze upon the dark, scarred man before him. The man did not fidget or stir, but stood, calm and silent; and the giant stood waiting behind him.

“Speak!” ordered Weston.

The man said, “I have nothing more to say.” His voice was soft and pleasant to the ear.

“The Old Code requires you to speak to a superior officer. What is your name and station, rank and duty?”

“I am Henwas, son of Himdall. I come from Starwell. My rank is Watchman. I am come to report to the true Captain.”

“There are no Watchmen; the order is defunct. After the Boarding by the Enemy, all the outer Hull was laid to waste. No; you are no Watchman. You have the look of an aftman farmer about you.”

“I was not born a Watchman; indeed, I was born a farmer. My village is called Aftshear, in the secondary engine core, near the Axis, where the world has no weight. My youth was spent tending the many plants and green growing things from whence come our air, and life. But I was captured by the Enemy, and, for a time, was a slave. I escaped, and fled below decks, where every step is a crushing weight, and the air is poisoned by the radiations of the Seventh Barrage. The servants of the Enemy feared the radiation, and could not tolerate the weight, and did not pursue me. Crawling, I went still lower, till I was nearly crushed. Then I came upon a place where nothing was below me, except for the stars.

“There I was found by Himdall, last of all Watchmen, in the midst of a deserted place and empty corridors, a chamber lit, and filled with sweet air, although surrounded by darkness and poison on every side.

“Himdall nursed me back to health, and taught to me his art, and showed to me the Starwell, at whose deep bottom the stars underfoot turn and turn again. And I became a Watchman in truth, and was adopted as his son. And for long years I kept watch on the Enemy stars, and saw the slow, grave motions.”

Weston asked: “And do you believe the heresy which says the stars which move are not mere colored lights, but the Ships from which the Enemy, in ancient times, came forth?”

“I do. And yet among those lights, are four Ships friendly to our own, sent out, as we were, in ages past, from Earth. Their names I think you know: the Gotterdammerung, the Apocalypse, the Armageddon, and the Ragnarok.”

Weston stirred uneasily upon his throne. “I tell you the original Captain betrayed the crew, and fled. This happened when my father was a boy. He was Acting Captain; now I am the Acting Captain.”

“By what right do you call yourself so?”

Weston shouted angrily, “By right of blood succession!” Then he was quiet, and he said quietly, “You may give any report you must give to me.”

“Very well,” said Henwas Watchman, and he recited all he had said when first he had been brought before Weston: “The Eighth Barrage, which has been approaching for so many years, has turned aside, and seeks now to strike the Armageddon. The missiles and small ships of that Barrage shall smite their target starting twelve years hence, with a bombardment lasting a year or two, peaking fourteen years hence and diminishing thereafter. We shall not be struck by it; presumably the masters of Enemy now know we were boarded by the sixty armies from the landing party from the Dreadnought Kzalcurrang-Achai, which, in our speech, is named the Hungry Indeed For Battle.

“I further report that our escort ships, the Revenge and the Vendetta, were destroyed between thirteen and seven years ago by picket ships launched from the Tzazalkiurung, which, in our speech, is named Ready To Do Grave Harm. This ship is presently four light-minutes off our port bow, where it has remained for seventy years, no doubt waiting to see if it must render aid to the Kzalcurrang-Achai.

“Yet the main sweep of the Destroyer fleet has passed beyond us and done us no hurt. We are in the midst of some eighty Dreadnoughts and four motile planets. Their Crown ships are within eight light-minutes of us now, and have not maneuvered to avoid us by a further distance. Asteroids from the shattered planet called War Storm are all about us in each direction, and perhaps hide us from the main body of the Enemy, and from the Crown Ships, which take no heed of us, but proceed against the Armageddon and the Gotterdammerung. Of the Apocalypse there has been no sign for thirty years. The Ragnarok is hidden by a great light; either she maneuvers, or she is in full retreat.”

The Captain was sarcastic. “And you believe all this? That the fate of our world depends on the motions of these little colored lights?”

“I have one thing further to report. The escort ship Hermes Trismegistus out from the Gotterdammerung has entered an orbit of the Enemy planet called Promise of Destruction. She maneuvers without any flare, and will not be seen by the Enemy. The orbit will carry the Hermes Trismegistus to us before the decade ends. It is a rescue ship. When the officers from the Hermes come aboard, power and light will be restored to all sections, the wounded and the poisoned will be healed by their knowledge; and those who have not kept faith will be punished. If you have been disobedient, you will be taken before the Court Martial.”

The Captain sneered. “My nurse, when I was but a babe, would terrify me with tales of the Court Martial and the Day of Judgment that would come when the Earthmen would come up from Heaven underfoot. But you shall not live long enough to find the truth of these things, unless the medicine of the Earthmen knows how to resurrect the dead.”

The Watchman said simply, “I have lived near the radiations of the outer hull. I have the disease. I know the hour of my death is not far off. Why else would I be willing to bear the cursed ring?”

Weston drew on a chain around his neck. Up from inside his jeweled coat he drew out the ring. It was gold, inscribed with delicate circuitry, and set with gray stone. In the middle of the stone gleamed a strange light, which showed that the power of the ring still lived.

“Tell me the word which commands this ring.”

“I may only tell the Captain.”

“I am Captain! I am he! There is no Captain Valdemar! He is myth! Even were there such a man, he would be long dead, a hundred years or more gone by! I am the true Captain!”

“A true Captain would use the power, not for himself, but to complete the mission, and discharge the great Weapons the stories say our world carries at its Axis,” the Watchman said softly.

“And if that were my intention . . . ?”

“Then you would not have chained me,” said the Watchman, rattling his manacles.

The Captain sat until he felt his anger cool within him. Then he spoke in a voice most reasonable and even, “Watchman, if I could persuade you that there are no worlds hanging in the Void beneath our world, no Dreadnoughts of the Enemy, no war, except for the wars fought with the Enemy aboard our Ship, between here and Midline Darkhall, and spinward toward the Lesser Chasm, what then? If there is no world outside our world, no Weapons to fire, what reason have you them to withhold from me the Ring of Final Command?”

“No reason,” said the Watchman. “If there were no worlds below our feet, I would give the ring’s commands to you.”

“Then reckon this: If you are right, and there is a war in space below us, then this ship, and all aboard, were sent into that war, to fight, perhaps, to die, all in order to defend the ship called Earth from our Great Enemy.”

“Earth is not a ship. It is a planet. Earth is inside out, for the crew there live on the outer hull, and their air is outward from them. On Earth, gravity is backwards, and draws them toward their axis, so that they stand with their feet on the hull, with their heads looking down toward the stars.”

“Be that as it may; the Earthmen sent these great ships far out into space to fight their wars, not so? This they did with all wisdom and intention, knowing that even the swiftest flight across the Void would take generations, not so?”

“It is so.”