Mark S. Geston - Lords Of The Starship

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LORDS OF THE STARSHIP

by Mark S. Geston

ACE BOOKS, INC.

1120 Avenue of the Americas

New York, N.Y. 10036

Cover by John Schoenherr. Map by Jack Gaughan

DEDICATION:

To "Home"

PREFACE

Historians, as a rule, are particularly fond of "golden ages." They

delight in pointing out how those condemned to live in current times come out

so poorly when compared to the august citizens of later days. But it seems

that in the years immediately following the Dorian Restoration, even the

darkest chroniclers could not contain their admiration for their own times;

even more remarkably, they chose to write about it while it was going on, not

waiting until we had fallen into the inevitable pit.

Because of this ebullience and of the massive writings that it prompted,

we should be in a unique position to answer the question that is connected to

all golden ages: why did they fail? It is, therefore, all the greater tragedy

that it seems that there is really no sure way of even approaching the

question; the libraries that have survived for our scrutiny contain vast

numbers of works on history, sociology, and the like (but most are oddly

deficient in works of science) which appear to be virtual carbon copies of

each other. Almost all of them are brimming with confidence in their own age

and an almost irrepressible optimism about the future. Their titles (_The

Finest Age_, _Now Forever_, _Millennium of Gods_, _Present Perfect_) give mute

testimony to the temper of the times . . . and further notice that the authors

of these books were not crackpots or blind utopians, but acknowledged

authorities, men of substance and learning. Of a Fail we can find no mention;

it is difficult enough to find mention of the mere possibility of decline.

But while explicit mention of the beginning of the end is absent, one

can easily see that the number of works begins to slacken around 1483. The

hopes echoed in writings published after that date are almost identical to

previous works, but they are fiercer, more emphatic, more desperate in tone.

This decline continues until there were simply no more books printed at all;

exactly when this occurred it is impossible to tell because of the varying and

usually inaccurate calendars employed in later days.

At first, one might suspect some monstrous plot designed to remove all

pessimistic literature from the hands of the people, but we have enough

evidence to surmise that almost no restrictions of this nature were ever

imposed. It would seem that people had been so happy, so incredibly content

that when things took a change for the worse, they could only ignore it. One

can almost envision those last wretched authors fighting battles with their

own minds that might have rivaled the chaos that was raging beneath their very

windows. Their incessant denial of the obvious in favor of the broken memories

of the past led, in many cases, to out and out insanity.

And then, one supposes, people just stopped writing and turned their

attentions to darker things.

The age that followed this collapse, the one which we are in now, has

been given many names, none of them really miserable enough: the Darkness, the

Pit, the Black Years, Badtime, and so on. For the year 1483 was merely the

beginning, when the first vital parts began to fail. Separating this date and

the present, there lie an indeterminate number of years during which things

not only failed but changed and sometimes even grew.

In man, the change consisted, I think, of a loss; of what I cannot say,

but the results of it are the ghastly societies of our times.

In the World, the change was more visible, or it would be to a citizen

of the First World, had he the misfortune to be alive now. Our World has been

twisted, warped, and torn so utterly out of shape that it bears virtually no

physical resemblance to the First World. The people and some of their stories

linger on, but that is all. Just how this monstrous dislocation was

accomplished is probably beyond human ken, but its fact is undeniable; the

maps and statistics in First World volumes could not all be complete

fabrication, yet none of them bears the slightest resemblance to any portion

of the World today. . . .

_Five pages here seem to be missing or censored out_.

How can I sum up an uncalculated age of confusion and darkness in a few

pages? I cannot. My mind reels and stumbles as each passing minute reminds me

of yet another tragedy, another catastrophe that my readings have prodded from

my imagination with their mindless optimism, and which my direct experience

has more than confirmed the possibility of. I am sickened and humiliated that

the fate of my race and my World should come to such a dreadful and apparently

permanent juncture.

_Fragment of a manuscript found during the opening of the Black Library

at Calnarith_.

Sir Henry Limpkin's head servant had brought him word of the proposed

meeting at a little past midnight; he had been fully awake when the man

entered and thus did not fly into his customary rage. An Office of

Reconstruction officer treasures his sleep as some do pearls, but tonight it

was not to be had.

When he was told that General Toriman's batman had brought a summons to

his residence, he had slipped out of his smoking jacket and into a warm sports

coat even before the servant had returned with his greatcoat and boots.

A hansom cab was called, and Limpkin left as soon as it arrived at his

doorstep, leaving word that Lady Limpkin was not to be disturbed and that she

should not worry if he did not return by morning.

Normally it is about a twenty-minute drive to General Toriman's castle

on the slopes of Mount Royal, but the icy slush slowed the cab's horse

considerably. In the half hour that it took to reach his destination, Limpkin

had a chance to think, his concentration broken only by an occasional curse

from the freeziflg driver above and the hard thump of the iron-shod wheels

hitting a pothole.

After some ten minutes of driving they came to the city walls, were

identified, and passed through, leaving the North Gate behind. They took the

seldom-used River Road that curves off to the northwest just past the northern

extremity of the walls; after a bit of fast trotting, Limpkin could spot the

lights of Caltroon against the hulking immensity of Mount Royal.

Limpkin dismissed the cab at the castle's main gate (being careful to

generously tip the frozen driver) and rang for admittance. "Your business,

sir?" called a voice from the high battlements. Limpkin looked up but all he

could discern were three flagpoles: to the right, Toriman's personal flag with

the family coat of arms; to the left, the regimental banner of the 42nd

Imperial Hussars, Toriman's unit before he retired, with a tangle of battle

streamers flying above it; and in the center, the black and silver of the

Caroline Republic. "Sir Henry Limpkin to see General Toriman, as requested,"

he shouted at the bodiless voice.

A small door opened on Limpkin's left; a man appeared with a lantern and

a polite, "Follow me, if you please, sir?"

Limpkin was led across the icy courtyard through Caltroon's second wall,

past the now lifeless formal gardens, and finally into the Great Keep.

Caltroon's history could be traced back almost seven hundred years to

the time when it had been but a small, fortified outpost of a forgotten

empire. Since then at least thirty nations and a hundred great men had added

walls, fortifications, towers, and, five hundred years after Caltroon's birth,

the Great Keep.

It was a place of great antiquity, where the inherited relics of a

thousand defeated nations lay, where crossbowmen of Toriman's personal guard

patrolled over stone-filled shafts, housing the rusting shells of ballistic

missiles six centuries old. The Toriman coat of arms, brought from distant

Mourne with its mailed fist and winged horse, hung beside those of the

greatest men that ever strode the World in those pathetic days. Everywhere one

looked, his eye would alight upon the beautiful or the awesome, never anything

else. For it was an identifying characteristic of the masters of Caltroon that

they should prize beauty, because their lives were so often devoid of it, and

power, because without that they would soon have no life at all.

Limpkin thought of all this as he was led through the labyrinthine rooms

and halls. The bloodied lance of the present and the pitted rifle of past ages

hung between a piece of exquisite crystal sculpture from Bannon der-Main and

an illuminated manuscript from the Black Library at Calnarith. But the dust

was gathering on the beautiful and the powerful alike. The castle and its

master were, by slow degrees, dying. _As I am_, thought Limpkin wearily, _as

is the Caroline Republic, as is the World_. The lot of them would never

actually fall, but the dust would simply keep on piling up until they were all

buried.

Limpkin absently recalled that once, when he had had lunch with Toriman

and several other officers and civilians from the War Office, he had remarked

to the General that mankind seemed to have lost something a very long time

ago. As to what it was or as to when it had disappeared, Limpkin could give no

clue. And Toriman had turned to him and said that he often got the same

feeling; perhaps the missing essence could be found? Perhaps. Toriman was

credited with stranger feats, and Limpkin had received unofficial word that

the General had been wandering around the western wastes for the past four and

a half months; perhaps this meeting . . .

Limpkin quickly abandoned this line of thought as the servant opened a

door and stood to one side. "The General is waiting for you in his study,

sir," he murmured, and vanished into the shadows behind Limpkin.

General Toriman's study was a colossal room more reminiscent of the nave

of a cathedral rather than the cozy, walnut paneled dens that one usually

associates with gentlemen's studies. Its walls consisted of hardwood bookcases

running the length of the room. Row upon row of finely bound volumes, richly

inlaid map trays, and celestial globes of all sizes filled the walls and

dotted the floors on either hand. The far wall was dominated by a huge walk-in

fireplace; its fire, along with four wrought-iron chandeliers, lighted the

vast room with a warm, pulsating glow. Replicas of the three flags that

Limpkin had seen flying from the walls stood by the fireplace, their brocaded

insignia glowing in the rust-yellow light. And once again, the Toriman coat of

arms, this time made of burnished steel and brass, hung directly above the

mantle. The rest of the wall was paneled with a deeply stained mahogany.

As Limpkin walked into the cavernous room, he became aware of the floor:

black and white checkered marble. Even a room as large as this one could have

been made more pleasant by the vast quantity of books and artifacts at hand;

the warm fire, the soft light and darkness, the smell of fine leathers, paper,

and rare wood were all canceled out by that cold floor. Leaf through one of

the volumes and a soft rustling would be heard; listen to the fire: a pleasant

crackling. But walk upon the floor, with the regimental insignia of the Army

graven into the black squares, and you put a frigid screen over the soft

beauty of the place. Limpkin crossed the floor quickly, his steel-tipped

traveling boots clanking harshly on the polished marble.

Toriman's desk was set directly in front of the fireplace; it was almost

as impressive as the room itself. It was at least seventeen feet long, made of

a single slab of rosewood; it was supported by four thin, almost delicate legs

which, along with the border that hung down about five inches from the

rosewood sheet, were richly carved and inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

Complicated but not profuse gilt moldings ran around the desk.

Turned toward the fire was a rather large, high-backed chair; it too was

done in rosewood with gilt embellishments. It was upholstered in black and

gold brocade. General Toriman sat there, leafing through an ancient folio with

the General's crest on the covers.

Toriman was old now, almost sixty-eight, and his face showed the

reflected horror and misery of a lifetime spent on the battlefield. His hair,

iron gray, was combed back severely and was remarkably thick for a man of his

age. His face, with its interlacing network of lines and old scars, was a

marvel of shadows; his deeply set eyes sat in two dark caves, betraying their

presence only by an occasional glint as they caught the firelight. His sharp

nose, solid jaw and almost lipless mouth completed the cold portrait.

As he rose to greet Limpkin, one could see that his marvelous physique

of latter days had deteriorated only slightly; the General still carried his

bulk with the brutal grace of an Imperial Hussar. Limpkin felt as if he had

moved under a thunder cloud.

The two men were not the best of friends. Toriman had no real friends,

but for the past ten years they had known each other fairly well. Toriman was

the first to speak, apologizing for his dragging Limpkin out on such a beastly

night, but he thought that he had come upon something which he and his Office

should know about as soon as possible. He motioned toward another high-backed

chair, this one not quite so large, which Limpkin pulled close by the fire. A

servant brought in some wine, and the General produced a small walnut

thermidor from amid the clutter of maps and documents on the desk.

When both men had settled down with their goblets and cigars, Toriman

spoke. "Limpkin, I hope that you will forgive the faulty memory of an old man,

but am I correct in saying that your job involves something to do with the

development of the nation? I think you told me at a party once, but as I said

. . ." Toriman touched a finger to his forehead; firelight glinted off a gold

ring. "Yes. 'Getting the country back on its feet' is the usual phrase.

Although I am, at times, really quite confounded as to how I am to recreate a

world that I know nothing about and one which might" -- Limpkin's voice

dropped slightly -- "exist only in legend." He brightened a bit. "But, it's an

easy job; most hopeless ones are. I can sit in my fine office on George Street

and fire off no end of orders and plans. And the results? My dear Toriman, you

can see as well as I that the Caroline Republic and the rest of the World is

nothing more than a sometimes-freezing, sometimes-burning hell hole. It

appears that it has, for all intents and purposes, always been so and will

continue to be so, or worse, until some benevolent deity chooses to bring it

to an end."

"You paint a discouragingly black picture."

"The model is black" -- Limpkin paused -- "a fact which the exploits of

the 42nd Imperial Hussars and other elements of other armies has not helped."

Instead of being insulted Toriman only seemed to relax a little.

"Correct, more or less; I offer no apologies and no excuses. Those days are

dead now." Toriman drew thoughtfully on his cigar and stared into the fire.

"But we can hardly allow the unalterable past to sully the plotting of a

brighter future, can we?"

"Hardly. Please continue," breathed Limpkin, more relieved than anything

else. "Do you remember, once several years ago, I had had lunch with you and

several other officials? And do you remember that you had taken me aside and

remarked that the trouble with the World lay not in its barren fields, but

within the spirits of the men who inhabit them?"

"Yes, of course. As a matter of fact, I had been thinking of that very

instance on the walk here."

"Good, fine. I have a report" -- Toriman lifted a fat folder from the

desk -- "whose contents I will not bore you with." He dropped it with a slight

smile. "In substance, though, it says almost exactly what you had suspected:

something has been lost. Call it the ego, the will to power, or whatever you

mean; we both know what I am talking about."

"Then I was right?" Limpkin asked a little incredulously.

"Oh, quite right. Now, don't go complimenting yourself," Toriman said,

smiling, the firelight glittering off his shadowcloaked eyes. "Many men have

suspected it before. The trouble is that few could prove it and fewer still

would admit it to themselves. I must confess that even I had some trouble in

getting used to the idea that most of the people alive today are virtually

emotional eunuchs.

"But that is true, as I said, of only most. I hope that I am not being

overly vain in considering myself in the minority. And I hope that my

estimation of you, Limpkin, is equally correct. But back to the report. . . ."

Toriman picked up the folder once again and began leafing through it.

"This essence, which neither of us can precisely name, was probably lost

long ago before any modern records were penned. But the legends, as far as I

can tell, contain a great deal of truth. I have traveled much in the service

of my country" -- Limpkin thought he could detect a trace of disgust, but he

chose to disregard it -- "into many strange -- the rabble would call them

enchanted -- lands and I have seen many of the relics that our fathers left

behind. They are older than you or I can ever possibly imagine; their

character strikes the people dumb with awe -- which, of course, defines our

whole problem right there. The Grayfields with its fleets of spectral

aircraft, overgrown with fireweeds and vines, but as real as my hand. The

Fortress at the mouth of the Tyne River -- beside it even my ancient and

mighty Clatroon appears to be a wooden lash-up built only yesterday."

Limpkin was amazed and somewhat frightened to find the myths of his

provincial childhood suddenly acquiring awesome substance; but he also found

an odd comfort in it. "Please go on."

Toriman looked into his eyes for an instant and nodded. "Go on? How far

shall I go on? For every legend there are ten actual wonders. The hulks of

great ships, aircraft, and machines litter the edges of the World, and not

even the legends attempt to understand them."

"Just by way of curiosity, why have we not heard more of these things?"

Toriman shrugged. "Who can say? The World is an incredibly vast place,

far outpacing the estimates of even the wisest geographers. It is easy for

even works of the Tyne Fortress' magnitude to become lost in it.

"Our World, Limpkin, the civilized one, is but a small island. The

ravages of a hundred thousand pogroms, wars, inquisitions, and 'rectifications

of history' have further helped to erase any sure knowledge of the past. The

might and power and skills have almost all been purged from the earth."

Limpkin nodded and then simply asked, "How did it happen?"

"What happen?"

"The end of the First Days."

"Oh? Not even the Black Libraries can tell us that, but I can make a

guess as to how long ago it happened: three thousand years."

"Small wonder that traces of the old World are so hard to find. It must

have been an incredible cataclysm."

"Perhaps. Some volumes in the Black Library at Calnarith hypothesize an

Apocalypse of some sort, but these accounts are always submerged in so much

religious rot -- Second Comings and the like -- as to be almost useless. But

whether our loss in man occurred just before any Arrnageddon or, more likely,

as the result of one, is irrelevant. The thing was lost and then all the

horrible decline followed. Perhaps men just went to bed one night, and when

they awoke they found that the night had stolen something from them.

"In some places the fall was rapid and absolute, as it is in the far

west and south. In other places, here for instance, the fall was slow and

agonizing. Hell, Limpkin, if I see right, we are still sliding and won't stop

until our lands are as sterile as the Black Barrens, our cities occupied by

dry rot and worms, and our descendants the pets of lizards."

"And now it is you, my dear General, who is painting the black picture.

Obviously, you have brought me here to present a scheme for relieving the

blackness. What do you suggest?"

Toriman blew a smoke ring and lightly said, "Rebuild."

Limpkin had expected something a trifle more original. He let out a

little laugh. "General, I realize that that is the way out but certain rather

formidable obstacles stand in one's way."

"Overcome them." The General seemed to have sunk into a pocket of

conceit arising from his very evident ignorance of the real state of the

nation; Limpkin wondered, for the smallest of moments, if the man was going

senile. Limpkin patiently pointed out, "My Office has been working on that

problem for the past century and we have come no closer . . ."

"That is because you were not working with the right tools nor with the

right technique," Toriman said amiably.

Limpkin was beginning to get upset. "Perhaps being always on the

business of war, dashing across the country from one campaign to another, you

have not been able to examine the land and the common people as closely as I

have. "I admit that, by comparison, the Caroline is in pretty fair shape; but

what we are comparing it to . . . dammit, Toriman, stop grinning at me

"Sorry, Limpkin." But he kept his grin.

"The land is destitute; the collections of hovels that we call towns and

cities are virtually ruled by juvenile gangs and vice lords; industry, such as

it is, has maintained a steady 2.8 -- 2.6% annual decline." He shot a frigid

glance at Toriman. "And foreign wars ravage our fields, destroy our finest

men, and bleed the state treasury white."

"Why?"

"What?"

"I asked, why haven't these faults, which I have already outlined (so

you can see I am not a total dunce), been corrected by your Office?"

Limpkin was getting progressively more irritated. "We have tried. Didn't

I tell you that? The cellars of the Office are glutted with copies of orders

and directives to the Government, our own regional offices, to the people

themselves; some of these orders are more than eighty years old! We've sent

out every kind of order, used every kind of appeal, threat, or tactic that we

could think of, but the letters go out and that is the last we ever hear of

them. Send a man out and he comes back empty-handed or beaten to a pulp,

depending upon the temperament of the people.

"Ah, the people! The bloody-damn, sacred people! Tell them that their

very lives depend upon a dam or upon the repair of a city's walls and it's

like talking down an empty well. It's almost as if the men were less than men,

as if" -- Limpkin lifted an eybrow -- "they had lost something." Toriman

smiled briefly, his face a harlequin mask of shifting light. "All right then,

once again we have come upon this fact. Now what?"

"First of all, my agitated friend, perhaps we should qualify ourselves

by saying that this essence has not really been lost, but rather has been, ah,

anesthetized by three millennia of simple hell. Acceptable?"

"It seems to be your conversation."

"All right, we don't have to go traipsing off into the Barrens or some

other objectionable place looking for enchanted vials with this thing in them.

All we have to do is awaken it in the citizenry."

"Ah, there you are. Just what my Office and its counterparts have been

trying for years to find. With all due respect, General, you have told me

nothing that I did not already suspect, and if you can offer nothing more

original and concrete than these philosophical or psychological meanderings,

then we can both count the night a failure."

Toriman took a puff on his cigar and then suddenly crushed it in an

ebony ash tray on the desk. "Yes, quite right. We have had enough of cigar and

brandy talk. Enjoyable, but time consuming." The General's voice shifted

emphasis subtly. He heaved himself out of the chair and vanished into the

shadows past the fireplace. He was back in a second, towing a wheeled frame

with a map strung between its uprights. He pushed the chart in front of the

fire so that the translucent vellum took on a three-dimensional aspect when

viewed from the front.

Limpkin studied the map. To his right in the east was the Sea and the

coastline of the World. He could recognize the Maritime Republics, New Svald,

and the Dresau Islands off the Talbight Estuary. Above and below this, the

seacoast was pockmarked by minor nations with progressively unfamiliar names

(some of which, such as Truden and Dorn, he had previously thought of as

existing only in children's tales).

He caught a reference point, the free city of Enador to the south of the

Talbight Estuary, and followed the Donigol Trace westward until it reached the

southern extremity of the Caroline. Around his homeland were her neighbors and

their sister nations; very comforting, but the eye could not help but notice

that they comprised only a very small portion of the map.

Ignoring the smile of satisfaction that Toriman was wearing, Limpkin got

up and unabashedly gawked at the illuminated chart. The fire behind it made it

look as if the World were floating on a sea of molten glass. The cartography

was flawless; mountains appeared to be in relief and the rivers seemed to flow

with turquoise water. Many of the countries had their national standards

printed under their names: the golden eagle of the House of Raud, the winged

horse and mailed fist of Toriman's own Mourne, the four stars of Svald and the

seven of New Svald, and the indecipherable rune-standard of the tribes which

laid claim to the heraldry from Heaven and Earth and less savory realms and

deposited them on this frantic map.

Toriman eased back into his chair and began talking. Limpkin at once saw

that this was to be a virtual lecture and the guise of dialogue would be

discarded. Toriman began. "Limpkin, before you lies the concentrated knowledge

of too many years spent in places that I and the other people who helped to

make this map had no business being in. Rather like a partial outline of . .

." "Hell," Limpkin meekly offered. Toriman accepted it without notice and

moved on.

". . . of hell, although I must own that Purgatory seems like a better

term; more varied, you know.

"The map itself represents an unknown percentage of the World. Beyond

its precincts lie, one would suppose, more lands and seas and oceans, but of

them we have not even legends. But for all intents and purposes, this map will

be more than adequate." Toriman got up from his chair again and stood before

the glimmering chart; he lit another cigar and used it like a pointer. "Now,

here we are. Around us, of course, are ringed our neighboring states. Direct

your attention, if you please, to our northernmost province, number 1 8, which

goes by the name of Tarbormin, I believe. Up there, in those desolate

highlands, lies a lake, unnamed, from which springs a river, also unnamed. It

flows down, Out onto this plain" -- tracing the course of an incredibly thin

streak of blue with the glowing cigar -- "where it crosses into our

illustrious and thoroughly detestable sister state of Yuma.

"It continues across Yuma, having acquired the name, the Tyne, and quite

a bit more water, past the Armories, and finally down into the Imperial Vale

where it is lost to common knowledge.

"Once into the Vale, the Tyne becomes quite a large river. In one spot,

Bloody Ford, it's almost a mile across. That name is mine, I'm afraid."

Toriman's voice shifted slightly, away from the tone of absolute command. "The

42nd had been pursuing bandits and we were quite taken up in the chase until

the half-men and their wild dogs set upon us." Toriman gazed off into the

pulsating darkness for a moment and then returned his eyes to the map.

"Forgive me, Limpkin, I will try to stick to essentials; but there are so many

memories here, all either bitter or awesome ones, never beautiful, except for

one." Again his eyes wandered, this time to the northern reaches of the World

where the coastline dissolves into a shattered patchwork of fjords and inlets.

The tight skin went slack about his face and his eyepits fell to the cold

marble floor. "Again, Limpkin, your pardon. This is almost turning into an

expedition into a life I would rather forget."

"A woman?" Limpkin questioned, hardly knowing he had said it.

"Yes," replied Toriman in a distracted manner. Limpkin was mildly

astounded that Toriman was capable of even approaching such a thing as

affection.

"And flow?"

"Dead, for this was my youth, so very, very long ago; dead by my own

hand, I suppose, but that was in the days when we still used the Plague as a

tactical weapon." He shook his head like a man rising from a heavy sleep. "The

Tyne," he continued abruptly, the scarred skin again drawn tautly against the

skull, the eyes flashing in their dark sockets; so sudden was the change that

Limpkin instantly dropped the thought of questioning the General on a point:

that the Caroline Army had never used the Plague as a weapon because of its

unpredictability. "The Tyne exits the Imperial Vale here, after about six

hundred miles, and curves southward until it finally reaches down to here."

Toriman outlined an area near the bottom of the map. "It enters the Black

Barrens where, through some ancient wizardry, or more likely radiation

poisoning, the land is as sterile as an operating theater. Finally the Tyne

flows into the sea, whose probing arm you can just see here along the bottom

of the map; here we find our elusive goal.

"On the western side of the delta stands the Tyne Fortress, which I told

you about earlier, and on the other bank, the eastern one, lie the Yards."

"Yards . . . ?" Once again Limpkin was totally in the dark.

Toriman looked slightly exasperated. "No legends? Curious, the people of

western Yuma certainly have enough about it." Toriman resumed his seat and

picked several sheets of paper from a folder. "Briefly, the Yards are an

enigmatic, to say the least, expanse of concrete situated on the banks of the

Tyne delta. I have no absolutely sure information on who might have built

them, for what purpose, or anything along those lines; but I can guess that

the Fortress and a rather curious structure several miles upriver called Gun

Hill were constructed for its defense." The General looked at the papers on

the desk for a moment. "Just as an aside of no significance, all the main

armament of the Fortress and what is left of Gun Hill's battery are pointed

west; but all of these affairs are of great antiquity so I shouldn't think

that any menace they were supposed to combat is still alive.

"The Yards themselves are approximately four miles wide, five where they

reach down to the Sea, and about nine miles long. Along the middle of this

field, and running about ninety percent of its length, is a huge elevated ramp

or slipway of truly titanic dimensions; this ramp runs into the Sea and drops

off into an excavated trench leading to deep water. All about the Yards lie

mile upon mile of rail track with what appear to be carriages for cranes still

on them and in operating condition.

"There are huge storage caverns emplaced under the surface of the

concrete, which are filled with more machinery and equipment; also, there are

vast rooms apparently devoted to the design of -- but more of that later.

"I spent quite some time in and around the Yards -- I was almost killed

when I strayed into one of the Fortress' minefields. One can still trace out

what must have been a complex of roads leading away from the Yards and through

what I think may be the remains of a town that surrounded them. Of these

ruins, there is little except for a spectacular tower located in the middle of

the Delta. Its name was Westwatch; once it might have been tied to the Yards

and the Fortress by several large bridges, but this is almost pure

speculation.

"So here we have four structures. The tower is but a hollow shell now,

but its thousand-foot height might have been used to watch for whatever the

Fortress was supposed to fight. But it would be best to leave the Fortress

alone, for I suspect that despite its fantastic age the equipment inside of it

is still quite alive and eminently capable of accomplishing its purpose:

killing. Then there is Gun Hill. Who can fathom it? Huge, incomprehensible

machines remind my military mind of nothing so much as the mounts for siege

cannon." Torimon paused for a sip of wine.

"I am astounded," mumbled Limpkin in a dazed voice. "They must have been

incredible men."

"If they were men at all. No, now don't look so surprised." Toriman's

expression changed from one of complete command to one of perplexed doubt; the

eyebrows arched and the lips were tightly pursed. The voice, usually so

beautifully sure and commanding or reaching downward for some lost, gentle

sorrow, was now halting and confused. "I know very little of those that built

the Yards and the Fortress and I can only express a personal opinion of them:

they were not" -- the General stopped uneasily and searched for the words --

"not of my kind of flesh and blood. They were _different_, Limpkin, and

fanatically dedicated to ideals totally at odds with those I hold eternally

sacred; I can only feel this, smell it in the wind that blows from Gun Hill or

the Fortress, but I feel it as strongly as I feel the strength of Caltroon's

walls. There is an essence inhabiting those ruins which I cannot help but feel

would, if given physical substance, try to kill me. Lord, just talking about

it brings a fear to my heart; can you feel it too, Limpkin?"

Limpkin said yes, he did, but in a guarded tone, for while he knew that

anything Toriman could fear should have thrown him into a panic, all he could

feel was a great deal of puzzlement at the General's reaction and an

irrepressible sense of worshipful pride in hearing of the great buildings. It

was almost as if he had been descended from the race that Toriman now said he

hated. Limpkin thought it best to try to return the conversation to its

original course. "But what has this to do with us? The builders are dead, they

must be, for such great power in the hands of the living could hardly have

escaped the World's notice."

Toriman brightened at this. "Quite right, Limpkin; just a personal

opinion, but one which I think you will share more closely when you see the

Yards for yourself. But even if you do not feel it as strongly as I when you

look upon the land, you will feel a deep fear for the countries that surround

it and us. And if not fear, then hate; the World is up to here with it. The

World is your hell, my purgatory; it is a . . ."

". . . prison," Limpkin again filled in unexpectedly; Toriman's

mask-face broke into something really approaching a wide grin.

"Precisely. And when a man is unjustly condemned to a prison, what is

his first desire?"

"Why, to escape, naturally."

"Again right. But in our case the prison, the World, is so escapeproof

that the sheer weight of despair has weighed us down and killed hope itself.

This is why that sleeping bit of motivation has never awakened. Even if it

did, it would probably die of starvation. Despair, Limpkin, is the key. What

we need is the antithesis of despair: hope."

"Obviously, but isn't this just . . ."

The General held up his hand. "From the brief sketch I have given you,

what do the Yards sound like they were built for?"

Limpkin thought for a moment. "A shipyard?" he asked in a cracked voice.

Toriman's fear of a moment ago was now completely banished by this new

factor. "Yes, quite, exactly. A shipyard, the obvious conclusion. And I will

further confess to you that any ships that might have issued from the Yards

did not sail upon any sea."

"Meaning?"

"The night sky . . ."

"A starship !" Limpkin almost screamed with rage that Toriman should

climax his tale with such an absurdity. "Toriman, is this your great

antithesis of fear? This?"

Again Toriman halted him with a gesture of the hand and a turning of the

head. "I am dead serious. No proof, none at all, but this conclusion is

inescapable."

"But no nation, not even the whole World, could have actually built . .

." Limpkin rolled his eyes at the mere thought of the size of such a ship.

"Why not? Someone built the Fortress and the Yards; remember, they were

not crippled by the dead air of the World. Now, what I propose is that the

Caroline build a duplicate; I have found quite a few fragmentary plans left,

and the Yards' cellars are filled with parts. Make it the escape route, the

way out of this vile prison."

"Escape to where, if I might ask?"

"That," said Toriman with a wave of his hand, "is a minor detail."

"I'm afraid, General, that I have been led into too many pits of

ignorance by your convoluted manner of speaking. The idea of a starship

lifting us all to a, hopefully, better world is certainly intriguing, if

impossible."

"But the ship's primary purpose will not be one of simple

transportation, but that of a Cause, the thing about which all the dormant

hopes of our nation can crystallize.

"And here is the trick: the ship will betray the people for their own

good. Here, look at this." Toriman unfolded one of the sheets he had removed

from the folder. Standing up, he laid the report aside and spread the paper

out on the desk. Limpkin also rose and saw on it a beautifully executed

"artist's conception" of what must be Toriman's ship.

It was an overpowering thing; incredibly long and thin, it looked

exactly as one might suppose a starship to look like. Its sharp, pointed nose

hovered far above the flat expanse of the Yards; the body curved back,

dolphin-like, to a pointed tail atop which grew a single vertical fin of

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LORDSOFTHESTARSHIPbyMarkS.GestonACEBOOKS,INC.1120AvenueoftheAmericasNewYork,N.Y.10036Copyright(c)1967byMarkS.GestonAllrightsreserved.CoverbyJohnSchoenherr.MapbyJackGaughanDEDICATION:To"Home"PREFACEHistorians,asarule,areparticularlyfondof"goldenages."Theydelightinpointingouthowthosecondemnedtoliveinc...

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Mark S. Geston - Lords Of The Starship

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