Verkan Vall looked at Marnik, and then at Klarnood, and back to Marnik.
“You got through,” he said. “Good work, Marnik; I thought they’d downed you.”
“They did; I had to crash-land in the woods. I went about a mile on foot, and then I found a man and woman and two children, hiding in one of these little log rain shelters. They had an airboat, a good one. It seemed that rioting had broken out in the city unit where they lived, and they’d taken to the woods till things quieted down again. I offered them Assassins’ protection if they’d take me to Assassins’ Hall, and they did.”
“By luck, I was in when Marnik arrived,” Klarnood took over. “We brought three boatloads of men, and came here at once. Just as we got here, two boatloads of Starpha dependents arrived; they tried to give us an argument, and we discarnated the lot of them. Then we came down here, crying Assassins’ Truce. One of the Starpha Assassins, Kirzol, was still carnate; he told us what had been going on.” The President-General’s face-became grim. “You know, I take a rather poor view of Prince Jirzyn’s procedure in this matter, not to mention that of his underlings. I’ll have to speak to him about this. Now, how about you and the Lady Dallona? What do you intend doing?”
“We’re getting out of here,” Verkan Vall said. “I’d like air transport and protection as far as Ghamma, to the establishment of the family of Zorda. Brarnend of Zorda has a private space yacht; he’ll get us to Venus.”
Klarnood gave a sigh of obvious relief. “I’ll have you and the Lady Dallona airborne and off for Ghamma as soon as you wish,” he promised. “I will, frankly, be delighted to see the last of both of you. The Lady Dallona has started a fire here at Darsh that won’t burn out in a half-century, and who knows what it may consume.” He was interrupted by a heaving shock that made the underground dome dwelling shake like a light airboat in turbulence. Even eighty feet under the ground, they could hear a continued crashing roar. It was an appreciable interval before the sound and the shock ceased.
For an instant, there was silence, and then an excited bedlam of shouting broke from the Assassins in the room: Klarnood’s face was frozen in horror.
“That was a fission bomb!” he exclaimed. “The first one that has been exploded on this planet in hostility in a thousand years!” He turned to Verkan Vall. “If you feel well enough to walk, Lord Virzal, come with us. I must see what’s happened.”
They hurried from the room and went streaming up the ascent tube to the top of the dome. About forty miles away, to the south, Verkan Vall saw the sinister thing that he had seen on so many other timelines, in so many other paratime sectors—a great pillar of varicolored fire-shot smoke, rising to a mushroom head fifty thousand feet above.
“Well, that’s it,” Klarnood said sadly. “That is civil war.”
“May I make a suggestion, Assassin-President?” Verkan Vall asked. “I understand that Assassins’ Truce is binding even upon non-Assassins; is that correct?”
“Well, not exactly; it’s generally kept by such non-Assassins as want to remain in their present reincarnations, though.”
“That’s what I meant. Well, suppose you declare a general, planetwide Assassins’ Truce in this political war, and make the leaders of both parties responsible for keeping it. Publish lists of the top two or three thousand Statisticalists and Volitionalists, starting with Mirzark of Bashad and Prince Jirzyn of Starpha, and inform them that they will be assassinated, in order, if the fighting doesn’t cease.”
“Well!” A smile grew on Klarnood’s face. “Lord Virzal, my thanks; a good suggestion. I’ll try it. And furthermore, I’ll withdraw all Assassin protection permanently from anybody involved in political activity, and forbid any Assassin to accept any retainer connected with political factionalism. It’s about time our members stopped discarnating each other in these political squabbles.” He pointed to the three airboats drawn up on the top of the dome; speedy black craft, bearing the red oval and winged bullet. “Take your choice, Lord Virzal. I’ll lend you a couple of my men, and you’ll be in Ghamma in three hours.” He hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with Verkan Vall, bent over Dalla’s hand. “I still like you, Lord Virzal, and I have seldom met a more charming lady than you, Lady Dallona. But I sincerely hope I never see either of you again.”
The ship for Dhergabar was driving north and west; at seventy thousand feet, it was still daylight, but the world below was wrapping itself in darkness. In the big visiscreens, which served in lieu of the windows which could never have withstood the pressure and friction heat of the ship’s speed, the sun was sliding out of sight over the horizon to port. Verkan Vall and Dalla sat together, watching the blazing western sky—the sky of their own First Level timeline.
“I blame myself terribly, Vall,” Dalla was saying. “And I didn’t mean any of them the least harm. All I was interested in was learning the facts. I know, that sounds like ‘I didn’t know it was loaded,’ but—”
“It sounds to me like those Fourth Level Europo-American Sector physicists who are giving themselves guilt-complexes because they designed an atomic bomb,” Verkan Vall replied. “All you were interested in was learning the facts. Well, as a scientist, that’s all you’re supposed to be interested in. You don’t have to worry about any social or political implications. People have to learn to live with newly-discovered facts; if they don’t, they die of them.”
“But, Vall; that sounds dreadfully irresponsible—”
“Does it? You’re worrying about the results of your reincarnation memory-recall discoveries, the shootings and riotings and the bombing we saw.” He touched the pommel of Olirzon’s knife, which he still wore. “You’re no more guilty of that than
