Robert E Mills, page 3
"etween his scales and the black body armor he wore.
And when the mindless herald roared, "M;y lord Blorg!" in a voice as cold and empty as the deserts of Sserp, he felt the hand of death clutching at his heart.
The lair was ablaze with an impure, flickering light and the lord of the Ysss shielded his eyes, clapping his black-gloved hands over the one-way visor of his helmet, as he beheld the vortex of energy that was the Dark Emperor.
As the massive doors swung open, revealing the figure of a cloaked giant with four arms, dressed all in black except for the three blood-red plumes that sur-mounted its helmet, Ylang- Ylang's mental voice reverberated throughout the huge stone chamber with the resonance of thunder in a cathedral. Approach me, Lord Blorg! it boomed, in a voice like the crack of doom.
Haaass! Haaass! As he approached the emperor, Blorg's body jerked like a marionette, and fear was the puppet-master. Tremors ran over his frame the way a plain rolls to an earthquake, and his guts churned and bubbled like a cauldron in hell. When he collapsed before his master in the ritual act of prostration, the serpent-lord felt the shadowy substance of Ylang's mind embracing his consciousness. His lidless eyes had no tear-ducts, but Blorg wept in his heart.
Primula remains free; the greatest armada ever seen among the stars is destroyed; and my Supreme Commander has been defeated by a rabble of mystics, mer-chants and pirates.. How shall I repay my lord Blorg?
Haaa-aa-ass! Haaa-aa-aas! Blorg's terror infiltrated his lungs with the suffocating cold .of the airless void.
What Ylang asked was tantamount of ordering him to design the sleek vehicle of his own death!
Ylang consumed bodies and energies wholesale-hundreds at a time, one after the other; the Great Devourer's most fearsome aspect was his evil and gluttonous appetite. And Blorg's fear, the terror of this otherwise fearless engine of destruction, was a delicacy to if-a caviar of the spirit. Ylang savored the reptiloid' s fear with the delectation of a connoisseur sampling the rarest of wines; the awful game would be played out until, sip by sip, the cup had been drained.
What shall be my lord's reward, O Blorg of the thousand tortures? What does he deserve? -"I Blorg's only replay was a telepathic wail, as dread atomized his thoughts to the gibberish of panic.
Was not Blorg elevated to sit at the right hand of Ylang? Should not his reward be elevated above alt things as well?
Voiding and convulsive, Blorg was received into the mercy of unconsciousness. With a mental sign that ran down the chromatic scale, Ylang acknowledged its satisfaction. The cup was drained; the reptiloid was an empty vessel. . .
Haaa-aa-aa-aaass! When Blorg awoke, he felt a savage joy rising in the chambers of his dark heart, crowd-ing out even the surprise he felt at still being alive. In the outermost sectors of his mind he could hear the glorious song of the angel of the pit. It seemed to him that even the molecules of his body hummed to that obscene music of pure evil, that malevolent hymn in celebration
of mindless and transcendant destructiveness. Instead of death, Ylang was granting him its greatest reward: entry into the domain of its murderous and inconceiv-able ecstasies!
Ylang welcomes its creation. . . its son! the Devourer purred, causing th blood of all in Kordor to run as cold as a polar sea. And chooses to admit him to its heart. Blorg had done well, and found worthy oppo-nentsfor his sire. and liftedfrom its neck the heavy yoke of boredom. The lair darkened rapidly, as Ylang banked its energies and condensed its mass into an onyx cloud whose outer tendrils lapped at Blorg's recumbent form.How was my son spared?
The lord of the Ysss concentrated his thoughts, de-ferring the promise Qf delicious surrender in order to reply. As I have learned from you, 0 Lord of Life, and Death, I attempt to prepare for all eventualities. Invincible as I. imagined the flagship, Devastator, to be, yet did I. have it equipped with an ejector-capsule of sur.
passing speed and quality. And so, »'hen the scum of a pirate, Rian, overcame my screens and backed up my reactors, I was able to jettison and escape before the final explosion consumed the starship. The force of that blast sent my capsule far out into the void and knocked me unconscious. . . But not before I had activated my racer-signal, whose code is known throughout all the empire star fleets . . .
He was almost enveloped in the glowing fog of Ylang's outer blackness, and Blorg felt his mental control dissipating. One of the armada's retreating forward scouts picked me up and transferred my capsule to the destroyer, Nightfall. . . one of the few vessels to reach hyperspace intact. . . And now your dedicated servant has returned.
As the tendrils of black fog encircled his body, Blorg's eyes rolled up in his head. Just before he sank into an ocean of annihilative visions, he heard his lord once more:
Be restored now, sweet Blorg. And later, we shall hatch grand schemes together. . .
The fighting was hard, but nevertheless, the liberation of Aquaea was accomplished swiftly. The people of the waterworld were still warmed by the fires of anger and resentment kindled by the coming of the savage invaders; they had not been slaves of the Dark Empire long enough to see their hostility melt into submission.
Acts of ambush, sabotage and assassination were performed on a grand scale, as the Aquaeans avenged themselves on their conquerors at every opportunity.
By the time the League forces rolled into the cities, the skies dominated by their bright aircraft and transports.
the empire's hold on the land had already been seriously weakened. As violence begets violence, so the barbar-ity of the empire's invasion and occupation bred its counterpart in the terrible retaliation of the populace.
War is a disease of the spirit, and there is no need to dwell on its pathology here. Let it be sufficient to say that the invaders sowed dragon's teeth and reaped a
harvest of blood. And then one day, after the madness and carnage had subsided, Aquaea was free once more.
Dann Oryzon studied the lines of black-uniformed prisoners that stretched along Merport's central boulevard as he marched down to the slave-pens at the spaceport's transshipment center. He felt relieved at having been spared the tragedy of the occupation, a time when the greatest crime was the assertion of human dignity. The human Aquaeans had cried for further revenge until Garthane himself went to the Merport com-center and addressed them on the nation's vidscreens. He argued for mercy, and proposed that the captive soldiers of the Dark Empire, themselves virtual slaves of Ylang, should devote all their energies to the rebuilding of the waterworld's cities. For the upper echelon officers, there would be a trial, where they would have to account for their war-crimes. The High Master, in the name of the Fellowship, ancient guardian of the galaxy, invoked the Infinite and the spirit of life as he asked the Aquaeans to show goodness, mercy and justice in their judgments. The sensors at each vidscreen site registered and transmitted the feelings of the people as they decided the fate of the invaders.
Dann was proud of his fellow-citizens; they had sided with the forces of life.
His heart fluttered "like a wounded bird when the entered the slave-pens with the liberation force. The place reeked like a stockyard, reminding him of "the stalls where he was held prisoner on the empire's gar-gantuan slaver. How could sentient creatures pen their brothers and sisters in such a filthy and horrible place?
How could they stand to inflict unthinkable cruelties on them, violating not only their bodies and minds, but their souls as well? The god-like and immortal Ylang's gifts to the sentient beings of the cosmos were rape and murder and violations of the spirit. They had to fight Ylang; and they had to win: there was no other alternative. Death itself, the thing that mortals fear most, was preferable to the dominion of the Dark Emperor.
Tears ran down his cheeks as Dann walked through the pens, looking for his family. The sight of his wounded, suffering people, many of them neighbors and schoolmates, tore at his heart with the claws of a vulture. He stopped to wipe his eyes.
"Dann? . . . Is that my Danni? Oh, thank the great Sea!" A croaking voice caused him to open his eyes and turn to the left. He saw an oid woman reaching out to him. It was Mrs. Maraner-his foster-mother! They-came together, and Dann embraced the woman who had loved him as much as she had loved her own children. She cried and he cried, and neither could speak for several minutes. When he finally able to talk, Dann held Mrs. Maraner at arm's-length, looked into her eyes and asked the question that had haunted him for months.. "Talli and Nona. . . Gen. . . Zak Spar and his mother. . .? How are they?"
In the seconds it took Mrs. Maraner to answer, he relived that moment during the invasion when he awoke after the explosion of the homing-missile and saw the
dead bodies of Mr. Spar, old man Maraner and his young foster-brother, Orlow.
"The girls are here. So's Niva Spar. Gen. . . " The old woman's voice broke, and sadness clouded her eyes. "Gen died two months ago."
He held her close, as she sobbed in that strange, quiet way of hers. He had loved his foster-brothers, and they had loved him; now both of them were gone. . . No, not gone-transformed; taken back into the dark heart of the Infinite, where their bright energies would be re-channeled into other forms of existence.
"And Zak Spar?" Dann asked, his heartbeat quick-ening I as he: did. Zak was not to be seen after the explosion, and Dann had always permitted himself the luxury of believing that his best friend was still alive.
"Nobody knows," replied Mrs. Maraner. "They came and took us away. We never saw him again."
And Dann wondered whether he would ever see him again, either. . .
That evening, the League held a banquet in honor of these who had lost their lives in the Dark Empire (great events and occasions are always celebrated by banquets in the Primula galaxy). As Dann entered the assembly hall in the company of Nila, Rian, Purpur and Ween Leever, a man approached them. It was Commander Marmor, chief of the Liberation forces.
"Come over here, son," Marmor said. "I want you to meet some good people." Dann nodded, smiling in spite of himself. The commander was a touch and taciturn old bird who reminded him of old man Maraner. He followed Marmor, who stopped in front of a group of young Aquaean males and females in camouflage fatigues. Dann looked at them for a long time before he recognized his old friends, schoolmates and sweethearts. He yelped with surprise as they surrounded him, the men shaking his hand and slapping his back, the women rumpling his hair and smacking kisses on his face and head. They all look so grown-up, he thought. So much older than I remembered them.
Suddenly, a voice came from the rear of the group; Dann straightened up and stood as still as a calcinite statue. "That can't be Dann Oryzon," it said. "He was the hottest hydro-jockey from Merport to Seaville . . .
and this guy's a landlubber, if I ever saw one."
"Zak!" Dan shouted, pushing his way through the crowd of young resistance-fighters. "Zak Spar!" And then before him, he saw the tall, rangy frame of his best friend. He looked up into Zak's smiling and full-bearded face. "Hey!" he exclaimed, grabbing him by the beard.
"Where'd you get the bird's nest?"
"It's a face-warmer," Zak replied. "It gets pretty cold up there in the hills, Danni."
The two young men grew serious as they spoke of the loved ones they had lost. The embraced, and then shook hands solemnly, in the two-handed fashion of Aquaean humans.
"That's Dann's best friend, y'know," Ween Leever told Rian, as they watched the reunion. "He always
used to tell me about him. Never knew if he was alive or dead." A wistful note entered his voice. "Maybe someday I'll see my friends again."
As Nila hugged Ween, Rian thought of the friends and loved ones he had left behind on Urgel. He would never see them again. . . not in this life. "Yeah," he answered, his voice barely audible. "Yeah." It was all he could say.
Dann brou~ht Zak over, and introduced him to his companions. "This is my buddy, Zak Spar," he said simply.
Zak was charmed by Nila, awed by Rian, relieved by Ween's shyness, and flabbergasted when the towering Purpur shook his hand and meowed. "You're the heroes of the galaxy," Zak said, wonder making his voice as bright as the plates on the Hazard's hull.
"All in a day's work," Rian remarked, with a wave of his hand and a shrug of his shoulders.
"Captain Rian's modesty makes it seem just a shade easier than it actually was," Nila said, turning Zak's knees to jelly with her smile.
"How'd you ever get away, 01' buddy?" Dannasked, freeing Zak from Nila' s gentle spell.
"Luck." Zak shrugged as he turned to his friend.
"Just plain 01' good luck."
"What kind pfluck?"
"Well, when that homie's minimissile went off in our house, the concussion blew me right out the window. I landed smack in the middle of that big, ugly Ekra bush - you know, the one I always hated to trim -and I the empire soldiers didn't even see me. When I came to, they where gone. So I lit out for the hills."
"You always were lucky, Zakki," Dann said. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned around to see Garthane beside him, smiling like the sun on a summer's day.
"Zak Spar," he said, putting an arm around the shoulders of both men, "I'd like you to meet Garthane, High Master of the Fellowship of Light. . . my father."
Dann relished the effect his announcement had on his friend. IfZak's mouth had opened any wider, he could have docked a hydro-skimmer in it.
"May the waters favor you, sir," Zak said, using the Aquaean benediction, shaking Garthane' s hand as if he were using a manual bilge pump. "Your spn's quite a guy, I can tell you. The best there is."
"The Infinite be with you," Garthane replied, responding with equal courtesy. "My son's merit shows itself in his choice of friends, Zak Spar."
Zak gulped as the great man said this. He.lowered his eyes and mumbled, "Thank you, sir."
When he looked up, Zak found himself surrounded by smiles. Dann broke the silence as he spoke to his companions.
"The waters have favored me today," he said. "Tomorrow, they will favor you."
Tanella I and II, the twin suns that warmed Aquaea, shone gently through the waterworld's enveloping cloudbanks, causing the hydro-skimmer that carried
Dann and his companions to cast a soft, double shadow on the surface of the ocean. The craft was headed out toward the heart of the Western Sea, as Dann went in search of his former guardian, Lii-Arc, chief of the Quee, the dolphin-folk who inhabit the planet's waters.
The night before, when Dann informed his friends of his plan to take them into the waters and introduce them to Lii-Arc, they were excited by the prospect, and readily agreed to go with him. But there were two notable exceptions: Rian and Purpur.
"I've strung out the stars like pearls on a necklace,"
the pirate said, "and descended into the bowels of the black planet. But I'll be damned if I stick my head under water for anyone!"
Purpur's reaction was one of puzzlement. It was his custom to eat fish, not consort with them.
"It's all right, Purr," Nila said, stroking the felinoid's luminous silver mane. "The Quee are mammals, just as we are."
"Yeah," grunted Rian. "Just one big, happy family.
Well, you peoplejust go right ahead and turn yourselves into tishbait if you want to, but I've got absolutely no interest in piscine affairs."
"Don't tell me you're. . . afraid to come with us?"
Nila asked teasingly.
The skipper of the Hazard glowered at her. "Lady, the thing that can scare Red Rian hasn't been created yet. Ask your late pal, Blorg, how frightened I can get.
Or that pile of radioactive debris who runs the Dark Empire."
"Come on, Rian," Ween Leever said. "We're gonna see things that almost no one else has ever seen. Aren't you curious?"
"Nah. Count me out." Rian replied, affecting an air of unconcern as he turned away from his compansions.
"I've never known you to back away from anything, Rian," said Nila.
"I'm not backing away," he replied, without turning around to face her. "It'sjustthatI..."
"What is it, then?" she asked gently.
When Red Rian turned around, he had a sheepish grin on his face. His hands flapped helplessly at his sides like fish dying on a beach. "I can't swim," he muttered.
Two hours before they they went out on the ocean, i Dann took Rian and Purpur to Merport's municipal ~
pool, gave them depth-suits (he'd ordered a special one made for the giant cat-man the day before), and showed them how to negotiate the fluid medium.
It turned out to be an experience he would never forget, what with Purpur clawing the water and yowling with fear, and Rian bonking his head on the bottom of the pool, his hands and feet working totally independent of each other, all the while spluttering a string of obscenities never before heard in the Primula galaxy.
Dann laughed until his sides ached and the visor of his depth-suit fogged over.
But by the end of the session, his pupils had been transformed into passable swimmers. In fact, Purpur, once he accepted the properties of the new medium, I
was able to move about in the water almost as gracefully!
as he did on land; and Rian displayed a stroke and kick'
well worth developing. They would be all right in the Western Sea.
When the hydro-glider was about two hours out of Merport, Rian even began to boast about how easily had had mastered the art of swimming, how naturally it had all come to him. "It's actually very simple," he said. "All you've got to do is let go, and trust your instincts."
He was about to elaborate, but was interrupted by a shriek of .laughter. He looked around and saw Dann, doubled-up over the glider's port rail, guffawing loudly as he recalled the sight of the skipper of the Hazard during the first part of the swimming lesson.
Rian's jaw snapped shut and his eyes went wide. The crimson flush that spread over his face muted the au-burn of his long hair and beard. He muttered something about wanting to check-out the hydro-glider's instrument panel and stalked off.
