The Chalice of Death (11 page)

She smiled. “Secret, Navarre, secret! Let's maintain the pretense—I'm Earthman to Marhaill's Court, you to Joroiran's. It wouldn't be ethical for me to speak of such matters to you.”

“Well enough. But if the fleet's not left yet, that means one of two things—either they're about to leave, or else they don't know where to go!”

“I lean toward the latter,” said Carso. “Earth's a misty place. I expect they're desperately combing the old legends now for some hint.”

“If we were to obtain three Kariadi battlecruisers, and ambush the Joran fleet as it came down on Earth …” Helna mused aloud.

“Could we?” Navarre asked.

“You're in Kariadi garb. What if I obtained an appointment in our space navy for you, Navarre? And then ordered you out—with a secondary fleet on—ah—maneuvers? Say, to the vicinity of Earth?”

“And then I tell my crewmen that war has been declared between Jorus and Kariad, and set them to destroying the unsuspecting Joran fleet!” Navarre went on.

“Not destroying,” said Helna. “Capturing! We make sure your battle wagons are equipped with tractor-beams—and that way we add the Joran ships to our growing Terran navy.”

Carso gave his approval with a quick nod. “It's the only way to save Earth. If you can handle the appointments, Helna.”

“Marhaill is a busy man. I can take care of him. Why, he was so delighted to see me return after a year's time that he didn't even ask me where I had been!”

Navarre frowned. “One problem. Suppose Kausirn
doesn't
know where Earth is? What if no Joran fleet shows up? I can't keep your Kariadi on maneuvers forever out there, waiting for the enemy.”

“Suppose,” said Helna, “we make sure Kausirn knows. Suppose we
tell
him.”

Carso gasped. “I may have been drinking, but I can't be
that
drunk. Did you say you'd tell Kausirn where our settlements are?”

“I did. It'll take the suspense out of the pressure of his threat. And it'll add a Joran fleet to a Kariadi one to form a nucleus of the new Terran navy—if the space battle comes out properly.”

“And what if Kausirn sends the entire Joran armada out against your puny three ships? What then?”

“He won't,” said Navarre. “It wouldn't be a logical thing to do. Earth is known to be defenseless. Kausirn wouldn't needlessly leave Jorus unguarded by sending out any more ships than he needs for the job.”

“I still don't like the idea,” Carso insisted, peering moodily at the oily surface of his beer. “I don't like the idea at all.”

Chapter Ten

Four days later Navarre, registered as Melwod Finst at the Hotel of the Red Sun, received an engraved summons to the Oligocrat's court, borne by a haughty Kariadi messenger in red wig and costly livery.

Navarre accepted the envelope and absently handed the courier a tip; insulted, the messenger drew back, sniffed at Navarre, and bowed stiffly. He left, looking deeply wounded.

Grinning, the Earthman opened the summons. It said:

By These Presents Be It Known

That Marhaill, Oligocrat of Kariad, does on behalf of himself and his fellow members of the Governing Council invite

MELWOD FINST

of Kariad City to Court on the seventh instant of the current month.

The said Finst is therein to be installed in the Admiralty of the Navy of Kariad, by grace of private petition received and honored.

The invitation was signed only with the Oligocrat's monogram, the scrollwork
M
within the diamond. But to the right of that, in light pencil, were the initials
H. W
., scrawled in Helna's hand.

Navarre mounted the document on the mantel of his hotel room and mockingly bowed before it. “All hail, Admiral Finst! Melwod Finst of the Kariadi navy!”

Court was crowded the following day when Navarre, in a rented court costume, appeared to claim his Admiralty. The long throne room was lined on both sides with courtiers, members of the government, curious onlookers who had wangled admission, and those about to be honored.

Marhaill, Oligocrat of Kariad, sat enthroned at the far end of the hall, sprawled awkwardly with his long legs jutting in different directions. At his right sat Helna, befitting her rank as Earthman to the Court and chief adviser of Marhaill. On lesser thrones to both sides sat the eight members of the Governing Council, looking gloomy, dispirited, and bored. Their functions had atrophied; Kariad, once an authentic oligarchy, had retained the forms but not the manner of the ancient government. The Governing Council's only value was decorative.

It was an imposing tableau.

Navarre stood impatiently at attention for fifteen minutes, sweating under his court costume—and praying fervently that his dye would not run—until the swelling sound of an electronic trumpet called the assemblage to order.

Marhaill rose and made a brief but highly-charged speech, welcoming all and sundry to court. Then Helna surreptitiously slipped a scroll into his hands, and he began to read, in a deep, magnificently resonant voice which Navarre suspected was his own, and not simply an artificially, magnified tone produced by a microamplifier embedded in his larynx.

Navarre counted. His name was the sixty-third to be called; preceding him came three other new admirals, four generals, seven ministers plenipotentiary, and assorted knights of the realm. Evidently Marhaill believed in maintaining a goodly number of flashily-titled noble gentry on Kariad. It was a method for insuring loyalty and service, thought Navarre.

Finally:

“Melwod Finst. For meritorious service to the realm of Kariad, for abiding and long-standing loyalty to our throne, for generous and warm-hearted qualities of person, and for skill in the arts of space. We show our deep gratitude by bestowing upon him the rank of Admiral in our space navy, with command of three vessels of war.”

Navarre had been carefully coached in the procedure by Helna. When Marhaill concluded the citation, Navarre clicked his heels briskly, stepped out of the audience, and advanced toward the throne, head back, shoulders high.

He gave a crisp military salute. “Thanks to Your Grace,” he said, kneeling.

Marhaill leaned forward and draped a red-and-yellow sash over Navarre's shoulders.

“Rise, Admiral Melwod Finst.”

Rising, Navarre's eyes met those of Marhaill's. The Oligocrat's eyes were deep, searching—but were they, he wondered, searching enough to discover that the new admiral was a shaven Earthman, renegade from Jorus? It didn't seem that way.

The shadow of a smile flickered across Navarre's face as he made the expected genuflection and backed away from the Oligocrat's throne. It was a strange destiny for an Earthman: an admiral of Kariad. But Navarre had long since learned to take the strange in stride.

He knelt again before Helna, thus showing the gratitude due his sponsor, and melted back into the crowd, standing now in the colorfully-sashed line of those who had been honored. Marhaill called the next name. Navarre adjusted his admiral's sash proudly, and, standing erect, watched the remainder of the ceremony with deep and abiding interest.

The military spaceport closest to Kariad City was the home base of the Fifth Navy, and it was to this group that Helna had had Navarre assigned.

He reported early the following morning, introducing himself rather bluntly to the commanding officer of the base and requesting his ships. He was eyed somewhat askance; evidently such prompt action was not expected of a political appointee in the history of the Kariadi navy. In any event, a sullen-looking enlisted man drove Navarre out to the spaceport itself, where three massive first-class battle cruisers stood gleaming in the bright morning rays of Secundus, the yellow sun.

Navarre nearly whistled in surprise; he hadn't expected ships of this order of tonnage. He watched, delighted, as Kariadi spacemen swarmed over the three ships, getting them into shape for the forthcoming battle maneuvers. They weren't expecting an actual battle, but from their enthusiasm and vigor Navarre knew they would be grateful for the unexpected opportunity of experiencing actual combat.

“Very nice,” he commented, whenever any of the base officers asked his opinion of his command ships. “Excellent ships. Excellent.”

He met his staff of under-officers, none of whom seemed particularly impressed by their new commander. He shook hands coldly, rather flabbily. Since they all knew he was a political appointee, he was determined to act the part fully.

At noon he ate in the officers' supply room. He was in the midst of discussing his wholly fictitious background of tactical skills when a frightened young orderly came bursting in.

“What's the meaning of this disturbance?” Navarre demanded in a gruff voice.

“Are you Admiral Finst? Urgent message for Admiral Finst, sir. Came in over top-priority wires from the palace just now.”

“Hand it over, boy.”

“Finst” took the sealed message, slid it open, read it. It said,
Come back to palace at once. Treachery. Serious danger threatens. Helna
.

“You look pale, Admiral,” remarked an officer nearby.

“I've been summoned back to the palace,” Navarre said brusquely. “Urgent conference. Looks very serious, I'm afraid. They need me in a hurry.”

Suddenly all eyes swung toward the political appointee, who had in a moment revealed that he was actually a person of some importance.

“What is it, Finst? Has war been declared?”

“Sorry, I'm not at liberty to say anything now. Would you have a jet brought down for me? I must get to the palace at once.”

Helna was pale and as close to tears as Navarre had ever seen her. She paced nervously through her private apartments in the palace as she told the story to him.

“It came in through my spy-web,” she said. “We were monitoring all calls from Kariad to Jorus, and they taped—this!”

She held out a tape. Navarre stared at it. “Was it always standard practice to tape every call that goes through?”

“Hardly. But I suspected, and—here! Listen to it!”

She slipped the tape into a playback and activated the machine. The voice of an operator was heard, arranging a subspace call from Kariad to Jorus, collect.

Then came the go-ahead. A voice Navarre recognized instantly as that of the Lyrellan Kausirn said, “Well? This call is expensive. Speak up!”

“Kausirn? Carso here. I'm on Kariad. Got some news for you, Kausirn.”

Navarre paled.
Carso
? Why was the half-breed calling Kausirn? Suspicion gnawed numbly at him as he listened to the unfolding conversation.

“What do you have to tell me?” came the Lyrellan's icy voice.

“Two things! The location of Earth, and something else. The first will cost you twenty thousand units, the second thirty thousand.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Carso. We have our own clues about the whereabouts of Earth. Fifty thousand credits is no small amount for such information.”

“You've heard the price, Kausirn. I don't really care, you know. I can manage. But you'll feel awful foolish when Navarre pulls what he's going to pull.”

“Explain yourself.”

“Fifty thousand credits, Kausirn.”

A moment's silence. Then: “Very well. I'll meet—your terms. Give me what you have to tell me.”

Carso's heavy chuckle was heard, deep-throated, confident. “Cash first, talk later. Wire the money to the usual place. When it reaches me, Lord Adviser, I'll call back—collect.”

The Lyrellan's angry scowl was easy to imagine. “You'll get your filthy money!”

Click
!

Helna said, “That's all we transcribed. The conversation took place at about 100 this morning. It takes approximately two hours to wire money from Jorus to Kariad. That means Carso won't be calling back for a half hour yet.”

“I can't believe it,” Navarre muttered. He clenched his blue-stained fists. “But yet I heard it. Carso—selling us out!”

“He was only a half-breed,” Helna said. “He didn't have the pure Terran blood. You heard him: he didn't care. It was just a chance to get money. All the time he journeyed with us to Earth, he was doing it simply as a lark, a playful voyage. The man has the morals of a worm!”

Broodingly Navarre said, “He was banished for killing an innkeeper in a fit of drunken rage. And if we hadn't stopped him he surely would have killed the old Genobonian librarian. Everything in his character was sullen and drunken and murderous, and we let him fool us! We thought he was a sort of noble savage, didn't we? And now he's sold us out to the Lyrellan!”

“Not yet. We can still stop him.”

“I know. But obviously he's the one who betrayed us to Kausirn while I was on my way back to Jorus last month; heaven knows why he didn't give Kausirn the coordinates for Earth while he was at it. I guess he was holding out for a higher price—that's the only sensible explanation. Well, now Kausirn's met his price.”

Navarre glanced at the clock. “Order a jetcab for me, Helna. I'm going to pay Carso a visit.”

Carso's lodgings were close to the center of Kariad City, in a dilapidated old hotel that might have seen its best days during the long-gone time of the Starkings' League. There was something oppressively ancient about the street; it bore the numbing weight of thousands of years.

Navarre kept careful check on the passage of time. Helna's astonishingly efficient spy system was now monitoring the influx of wired cash from Jorus to Kariad. She would arrange that the fifty thousand units en route from Kausirn would be delayed in reaching Carso at least until 1300. The time was 1250 now.

Navarre left the cab half a block from Carso's lodging house, and covered the rest of the distance on foot. A tired-looking Brontallian porter slouched behind the desk in the lobby, huddled over a tattered yellow fax-sheet. When Navarre entered, still imposingly clad in his admiral's uniform, the porter came to immediate attention.