JULIEN

II

Chapter 52

A pillar of fire by night

The man was clearly scared. He was sitting on a stool in the middle of the Council Chamber, his grey hair and tired face indicating that he was getting on in years. He really didn't look like a warrior. A number of important figures sat around the walls of the little oval room, including a boy with unusually long red hair whose white Marks indicated clearly who he was. All the same, he waited patiently for Master Subadar to open proceedings.

“My Lord,” said Subadar, “this is one of the Dalannis who came in of his own accord to offer us his services. He's already undergone a general probe, and he thinks he might be able to give us some information about the explosion in the Nyatchoung Ling archipelago. Personally I believe him completely, and I think you'll find what he has to say interesting.”

“What is your name, please?” asked Julien, addressing the man directly.

“Tchernag, Your Lordship.”

“You have my undivided attention.”

“Your Lordship, I've been living in Ksantir for a long time now. I'm still interested in finding a place where my people can have a better life than they do now, but I'm neither blind nor stupid. I might not always like the way the R'hinz is governed, but I seriously doubt if my own people could do any better. And the fact that they dared to detonate a converter on the planet's surface...”

“What's a converter?”

“It's a device that converts part of its mass into energy at a far higher ratio than any chemical process. I believe it's one of the weapons that has been declared illegal in the R'hinz.”

“It certainly has.”

“It's illegal on Dalann, too. Converters can only be used in space or on lifeless asteroids. But I think I know why they detonated this one. I can't be absolutely certain, but there has been a lot of talk, even among those who aren't technically minded, about the impossibility of locating in real space places that have been reached using a no-field generator. Several attempts have been made by sending out a kind of beacon that radiates a very brief, but extremely powerful, signal in every direction. The huge energy needed is created by detonating a converter which allows the beacon to function and send out its signal as it is being destroyed by the detonation.”

“Do you think that's what happened here?”

“If it wasn't an illegal weapon that had its origins on Dvârinn I would say it's the most likely hypothesis. Perhaps originally it was a beacon that was designed for use in space, and someone decided that, since they had no way of getting it into space, they could try using it on the surface.”

“But the signal sent out... it can't travel faster than light, can it?”

“No, of course not!”

“And nobody knows how far Dalann is from Dvârinn. It could take thousands of years for the signal to arrive. It's insane!”

“I agree, Your Lordship. But there is always a tiny possibility that Dalann isn't so very far from Dvârinn. Anyway, if someone had detonated a converter on Dalann it would be considered an unpardonable crime.”

“But you don't think we should view it as an act of war?”

“No, Your Lordship. That's the reason I'm here: I thought maybe I could help Your Lordship and your councillors to put a correct interpretation on the event.”

“I think you're sincere. All the same, I should perhaps remind you that your colleagues haven't been particularly friendly towards us recently – in fact they have made a number of attempts to kill me, and they succeeded in murdering one of my closest friends in cold blood.”

“I wasn't aware of that, My Lord. I'm not particularly important, you understand.”

“Still, someone thought you could be useful on Dvârinn.”

“That's true, but I was just a small cog in a big engine.”

“I suppose that you and your... former colleagues are afraid that an atomic explosion is likely to make us rather less lenient towards those of you who have decided to turn yourselves in?”

“I just want Your Lordship to be aware that only a few very senior people could have made the decision to do such a thing. They're the same people who had a complete overview of what our plan was. Most of us are only too glad to find ourselves forced to settle here in the R'hinz – we're a lot happier here than under the brutal government we had back home.”

“Wouldn't you like to be able to go back to your own world?”

“No, not really – and I think that goes for quite a lot of us. We were taken away from our parents when we were still very young, so now we consider our real family to be the one we have built here. And who would choose to leave Dvârinn or Nüngen for an overcrowded world ruled by a military dictatorship?”

“That's quite a critical view of your native world.”

“I've been here long enough to see the difference. It took several years, but anyone with a grain of intelligence would have to come to the same conclusion.”

“Do you have a family here?”

“I have a wife, two children who have left home and are now living their own lives, and three grandchildren. My wife was born in Ksantir and only found out about my true origins a few weeks ago. She decided that it didn't change anything between us and that she would stay with me and share my fate, whatever that might be. At the moment our neighbours think I'm away visiting relatives in the islands of the south-west.”

Julien was silent for a while while he examined the man's face.

“All right,” he said. “I'm inclined to believe you. But I have one more question: what would you do if the Dalannis found a way to carry out a full scale invasion of the R'hinz?”

“I've spent quite some time thinking about that, Your Lordship. First, I don't think it is possible – at least, not in my lifetime. But even if it was, I've come to the conclusion that trying to take control of Dvârinn, or even just a couple of small archipelagos, by force would be a bad idea. Nor do I think that such a takeover would actually help those Dalannis who really need help. Worse, I think those who are in charge would probably transform Dvârinn into another Dalann. I don't want that to happen, and I think that a lot of the others who turned themselves in to you feel the same way as I do. I'd go so far as to say that if it came to the crunch I would be ready to fight to defend Dvârinn. I know that makes me a traitor to my own people. But is it really treason to fight for a land one has come to love against those who exiled me and gave me no choice but to spy on a world which was not our enemy?”

“I would say that you are the only one who can answer that. Thank you, Tchernag. I think you should be able to return home soon.”

oo0oo

Once the Dalanni had left the room Julien turned to Subadar.

“If he's right,” he said, “it means we've got time to sort this out. The Dalannis aren't embarking on a mad do-or-die war, and even if their signal does reach Dalann, it will be years, or more probably centuries, for them to get here.”

“They could build another no-field generator,” Tannder pointed out.

“True, but it sounds as if the machine needs the energy of an entire planet if it's to transport anything sizeable.”

Dennkar coughed gently to apologise for breaking into the conversation, then said, “That's why we think that the attempt to abduct you was made, in order to force the Guides to cooperate with them.”

“I bloody well hope the Guides would have told them to get stuffed!” exclaimed Julien.

He put his hand on the neck of Wenn Hyaï, who as usual was at his side, and transmitted the Guide's comment to the rest of the gathering.

“Wenn Hyaï says that he can't say for certain what the Guide's Circle would have done, but he thinks they would not have given in. The Guides' first rule is to ensure that nobody can ever force them to use their Gift. He also wants to remind us that although the enquiry into the use of ghorrs against me is still going on, so far there has been nothing in it to suggest that Guides were involved in any way whatsoever.”

“So it looks to me,” said Aldegard, who until now had not spoken, “as if you'll probably have to deal with the results of this business with our descendants, rather than with us.”

To Julien this unexpected reminder of his quasi-immortality came like a punch in the stomach. For a moment he had a vision of a world in which everyone at this meeting would be no more than a memory, characters in a history book. Even Niil, who looked so young as he sat there... Julien closed his eyes, trying to put this unpleasant future out of his mind.

“I suppose that's true,” he said, after a pause in which everyone else was probably thinking the same thing, but from a different point of view. “But we still have to do what's necessary now. Lord Tahlil, you're Mirror for Dvârinn, so do you have any suggestions?”

“We could probably offer citizenship to those who want it, provided they are ready to swear allegiance to the Emperor. After all, they've been living among us for a long time and, if that man is anything to go by, they're fully integrated into our population. And we could always check their sincerity with a targeted probing.”

“What about the others?”

“We could send them back to Dalann. I understand that a number of target-klirks have been placed secretly on the planet. I don't think they would have any intelligence that the Dalannis don't already possess. And clearly it could be done without endangering the Guides doing the transporting.”

“What about any that are still in hiding?”

“I'm sure they are still in contact with some of those who have turned themselves in. We could announce an amnesty for anyone prepared to trust the Emperor's word, and at the same time we could put a time limit on accepting it. Anyone caught after the time limit expires gets an automatic one-way ticket to Tandil.”

“How do we deal with the ones who actually killed our people? And what about our own traitors, people like Ajmer? After all, if the senior Dalannis surrendered we'd be able to probe them and that would reveal their entire network.”

“It would be your privilege to decide their fate, my Lord. However, the law recommends that anyone conspiring against the Emperor should be sent to Tandil. And for murderers and their accomplices...”

“Tandil too, I suppose.” Julien sighed. “All right: for those fools who were seduced by Dalanni agents, let it be proclaimed that they have three days to make amends. Like Ajmer, they will be demoted from any position of authority they may hold and then they will be given the choice between emigrating to Dalann and... anyone got any ideas?”

“We could offer them a job maintaining the sea-marker system in the polar regions, for example,” suggested Niil. “That way they'd be doing something useful. And it's a very well-paid job, too – I know that because Ksantir pays an obscene amount of tax to the Imperial Administration to cover the costs of it!”

That remark lightened the atmosphere a little.

“Good,” said Julien. “We'll find them some sort of work where they won't be able to do any more plotting. But for the ones with blood on their hands, we can't just let them go with a slap on the wrist. It'll have to be Dalann or Tandil.”

“My Lord,” said Tannder. “I claim the honour of avenging Aïn's death.”

“Sorry, Tannder, but you do not have my permission. If you insist we can send the culprit to Tandil, but I don't want you to fight. I'll see to it personally, as indeed I've already started to do, that Aïn's clan suffer as little as possible from their loss, but I refuse to let those closest to me take part in any more stupid duels.”

“But, My Lord...”

“I have no doubt at all that you could kill anyone in single combat, Tannder, but I really don't think that either my honour or Aïn's would be enriched in any way by you doing it.”

“But...”

“I'm quite sure that somewhere in the Great Book of Traditions there's an entire chapter giving you the right, and maybe even the duty, to do that kind of thing, but I beg you, as a token of your friendship, to forgo that right. Will you do me that favour?”

“Of course, My Lord.”

“Thank you, Tannder. I promise that I appreciate your sacrifice. I imagine that you and Dennkar will be willing to undertake the search for those Dalannis who are still in hiding. As for me, I intend, with the help of Master Subadar and Xarax, who will soon be back to full health, to retake possession of the Imperial Palace. It's not that I fancy living somewhere magnificent – it's more that I think there are some interesting things to find in the Palace. And of course it will free up an entire storey of Bakhtar Tower...”

“Not at all, My Lord,” said Aldegard. “I hope you'll continue to see the Tower as an extension of your own home.”

oo0oo