Dying of the Light

Garse said when Dirk remarked on the limited interior space. He strapped Dirk into a rigid uncomfortable seat with a tight battle harness, did likewise for himself, and took them swiftly aloft.

The cabin was dimly lit and completely enclosed, with gauges and instruments everywhere, even above the doors. No windows; a panel of eight small view-screens gave the pilot eight different exterior views. The decor was unpainted, unornamented duralloy.

'This vehicle is older than both of us,' Janacek said as he took them up. He seemed eager enough to talk, and friendly in his abrasive sort of way. 'And it has seen more worlds than even you. Its history is fascinating. This particular model dates to some four hundred standard years ago. It was built by the Wisdoms of Dam Tullian, well within the Tempter's Veil, and used in their wars against Erikan and Rogue's Hope. After a century or so it was disabled and abandoned. The Erikaners salvaged it during a peace and sold it to the Steel Angels on Bastion. They used it in a number of campaigns, until it was finally captured from them by Prometheans. A Kimdissi trader picked it up on Prometheus and sold it to me, and I adapted it to the code duello. No one has challenged me to aerial combat since. Watch.' His hand reached out and depressed a glowing button, and suddenly there was a surge of acceleration that pressed Dirk back against his seat. 'Auxiliary pulse-tubes for emergency speed,' Janacek said with a grin. 'We will be there in less than half the time it took you, t'Larien.'

'Good,' Dirk said. Something was nagging at him. 'Did you say you got it from a Kimdissi trader?'

'That is truth,' Janacek said. 'The peaceful Kimdissi are great arms traders. I have scant regard for the manipulators, as you know, but I am not above taking advantage of a bargain when one is offered.'

'Arkin made a great show of being nonviolent,' Dirk said. 'I suppose that was all another sham.'

'No,' Janacek said. He glanced at Dirk and smiled. 'Startled, t'Larien? The truth is perhaps more bizarre. We do not call the Kimdissi manipulators without reason. You studied history on Avalon, I assume?'

'Some,' Dirk said. 'Old Earth history, the Federal Empire, the Double War, the expansion.'

'Yet no outworld history.' Janacek clucked. 'It is expected. So many worlds and cultures in the man-realm, so many histories. Even the names are too much to learn. Listen, and I will enlighten you. When you landed on Worlorn, did you notice the circle of flags?'

Dirk looked at him blankly. 'No.'

'Perhaps they are no longer in place. Once, though, during the Festival itself, the plaza outside the spacefield flew fourteen flags. It was an absurd Toberian conceit, yet it came to pass, in a fashion, though the planetary flags in ten of the fourteen cases represented nothing. Worlds like Eshellin and the Forgotten Colony did not even know what a flag was, while at the other extreme the Emereli had a different banner for each of their hundred urban towers. The Darklings laughed at us all and flew a cloth of solid black.' He seemed very amused at that. 'As for High Kavalaan, we had no flag for all our world. We found one, though. It was taken from history. A rectangle divided into four quadrants of different colors: a green banshee on a field of black for Ironjade,

Shanagate's silver hunting bat on yellow, crossed swords against crimson for Redsteel, and for Braith a white wolf on purple. It was the old standard of the Highbond League.

'The League was created about the time that the starships first returned to High Kavalaan. There was a man, a great leader, named Vikor high-Redsteel Corben. He dominated Redsteel's highbond council for a generation, and when the offworlders came he was convinced that all Kavalars must band together to share knowledge and wealth equally. Thus he formed the Highbond League, whose flag I have described to you. The union was sadly short-lived. Kimdissi traders, fearful of the power of a unified High Kavalaan, contracted to provide modern armaments exclusively to the Braiths. The Braith highbonds had joined the League only from fear; in truth, they wished to shun the stars, which they avowed were all full of mockmen. Yet they did not shrink from taking mock-man lasers.

'So we had the last highwar. Ironjade and Redsteel and Shanagate together subjugated Braith, despite the Kimdissi arms, but Vikor high-Redsteel himself was killed, and the cost in lives was hideous. The High-bond League outlasted its founder by only a handful of years. Braith, badly beaten, fastened on the belief that it had been tricked and used by Kimdissi mock-men, and thus cleaved to the old traditions even more firmly than before. To blood the peace and make it lasting, the League-now dominated by highbonds from Shanagate-seized all the Kimdissi traders on High Kavalaan and a ship of Toberians as well, declared all of them to be war criminals-a term the offworlders taught us, by the way-and set them free on the plains to be hunted as mockmen. Banshees killed many of them, others starved, but the hunters took the most and carried the heads home for trophies. It is said that the Braith highbonds took special joy in flaying the men who had armed and advised them.

'We are not proud of that hunt overmuch today, yet we can understand it. The war had been longer and bloodier than any in our history since the Time of Fire and Demons. It was a time of great griefs and towering hatreds, and it destroyed the Highbond League. The Ironjade Gathering withdrew rather than condone the hunting, declaring that the Kimdissi were human. Redsteel soon followed. The mockmen killers were all Braiths and Shanagates, and the Shanagate Holding was thenceforth leagued only to itself. Vikor's banner was soon abandoned and forgotten, until the Festival caused us to remember it.' Janacek paused and glanced toward Dirk. 'Can you see the truth now, t'Larien?'

'I can see why Kavalars and Kimdissi don't like each other much.' Dirk admitted.

Janacek laughed. 'It goes beyond our own history,' he said. 'Kimdiss has fought no wars, but the world has bloody hands. When Tober-in-the-Veil attacked Wolfheim, the manipulators supplied both sides. When civil war flared on ai-Emerel between the urbanites whose universe is a single building and the disaffected star-seekers who urged a broader horizon, Kimdiss was deeply involved, giving the urbanites the means to win conclusively.' He grinned. 'In truth, t'Larien, there are even tales of Kimdissi plots within the Tempter's Veil. It is said it was Kimdissi agents who set the Steel Angels and the Altered Men of Prometheus against each other, who deposed the Fourth Cuchulainn of Tara because he refused to trade with them, who interfered on Braque to keep technology stillborn beneath the weight of the Braqui priests. Do you know the ancient religion of Kimdiss?'

'No.'

'You would approve,' Janacek said. 'It is a peaceful and civilized creed, exceedingly complex. You can use it to justify anything except personal violence. Yet their great prophet, the Son of the Dreamer-accepted as a myth- figure, but they continue to revere him-he said once, 'Remember, your enemy has an enemy.' Indeed he does. That is the heart of Kimdissi wisdom.'

Dirk shifted uneasily in his seat. 'And you're saying that Ruark-'

'I am saying nothing,' Janacek interrupted. 'Draw your own conclusions. You need not accept mine. I told all of this to Gwen Delvano once, because she stood cro-betheyn to me and I had a concern. She was vastly amused. The history meant nothing, she told me. Arkin Ruark was only himself, not some archetype of outworld history. So she informed me. He was also her friend, I was told, and this bond, this friendship' -his voice was acid as he said the word-'somehow transcended the fact that he was a liar and a Kimdissi. Gwen told me to look to my own history. If Arkin Ruark was a manipulator by mere fact of birth on Kimdiss, then I was a taker of mockman heads by simple virtue of being Kavalar.'

Dirk considered that. 'She was right, you know,' he said quietly.

'Oh? Was she?'

'Her argument was right,' Dirk said. 'It seems as though she was wrong in her assessment of Ruark, but in general-'

'In general it is better to distrust all Kimdissi,' Janacek said firmly. 'You have been deceived and used, t'Larien, yet you do not learn. You are very like Gwen. Enough of this.'

He tapped one of the viewscreens with a knuckle. 'We have the mountains close at hand. It will not be long now.'

Dirk had been gripping his laser rifle very tightly. He wiped his sweating palms on his trousers. 'You have a plan?'

'Yes,' said Janacek, grinning. And at that he leaned across the space between them and smoothly snatched the laser from off Dirk's lap. 'A very simple plan, in truth,' he continued, setting the weapon down carefully out of reach. 'I will hand you over to Lorimaar.'

Chapter 12