Gordon R. Dickson - Childe Cycle 06 - Chantry Guild

Ace Books by Gordon R. Dicbon

ALIEN ART & ARCTURUS LANDING

THE ALIEN WAY

COMBAT SF THE FAR CALL THE FOREVER MAN HOME FROM THE SHORE

IN IRON YEARS JAMIE THE RED (with Roland Green)

LOVE NOT HUMAN MASTERS OF EVERON NAKED TO THE STARS

ON THE RUN SPACEPAW THE SPACE SWIMMERS

SPACIAL DELIVERY TIME TO TELEPORT/DELUSION WORM

WAY OF THE PILGRIM

THE EARTH LORDS

The "Childe Cycle" Series

DORSAI! LOST DORSAI NECROMANCER SOLDIER, ASK NOT THE SPIRIT OF DORSAI TACTICS

OF MISTAKE THE FINAL ENCYCLOPEDIA THE DORSAI COMPANION

THE CHANTRY GUILD

THE

CHR TRY

GUILD

fil AGE BOOKS, NEW YORK

This Ace book contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition. It

has been completely reset in a typeface designed for easy reading, and was

printed

from new film.

THE CHANTRY GUILD

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with

the author

PRINTING HISTORY Ace hardcover edition / October 1988 Ace mass market edition

/ June 1989

Cover art by Jim Bums. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by

mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address:

The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue,

New York, New York 100 16.

ISBN: 0-441-10266-2

Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 100 16.

The name "ACE" and the "A" logo are trademarks belonging to Charter

Communications, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

CHAPTER

A little before dawn, Amanda Morgan woke in the front room of the tiny

apartment rented by the family which had risked giving her shelter. A young

girl shared the front room floor with her; but she still slumbered, as did the

rest.

Amanda had slept in the shapeless brown smock that had been all but forced on

the inhabitants of this world and its sister planet of Mara by the Occupation

Forces now ruling them. She rose now without putting on her ankle-high bush

boots, and squatted on her heels beside her borrowed sleeping mat, and rolled

it up.

Stowing it in a corner of the room and picking up the boots in one hand, she

quietly let herself out into the hall. Still carrying the boots, she went

along it to make use of the communal bathroom at the hall's end; then

descended the narrow wooden stairs into the street.

Just inside the tenement's street door, she stopped to put on the boots. The

smock had a hood, which she now pulled up over her head to hide her face.

Silently, lifting the latch of the door, she slipped out into the mist-dimmed,

pre-dawn light of the empty streets of Porphyry. It was a small town in the

subtropical uplands of Hysperia, the northeastern continent of the Exotic

planet of Kultis.

Through those streets between the graying, unpainted wood faces of the

tenements, she went swiftly. Most of the local

2 Gordon R. Dickson Exotics, rooted out of their

countryside homes, had been brought here and required to build these dwellings

for their own shelter, close under the eye of authority; and the fact that the

required design and materials of the buildings made them firetraps had not

been entirely unintentional on the part of the designers. For the plan behind

the Occupation was for the Exotics of Mara and Kultis to die off-as much as

possible by their own doing.

She thought of those sleeping within; and felt a sensation as if her heart

moved under her breast at the thought of leaving them, as a mother might react

at having to leave her children in the hands of brutal and antagonistic

caretakers. But the word that had been sent her was the one message that could

override all else; and she had no choice but to go.

After several turnings down different streets she slipped between two

buildings and emerged into the open yard-space behind them. Just before her

lifted the six-meter height of the wooden fence that now enclosed the town;

and which those who inhabited it had also been forced to build.

At the foot of this fence she stopped and, reaching in through a slit in her

robe, loosened something. As she gave her body a shake a coil of loose rope

dropped about her feet. She stepped out of it and bent to pick it up by the

running loop already worked into one end.

She gathered up the rest of the rope and dropped it by arm-lengths back onto

the sparse grass of the untended ground at her feet, shaking it out and

recoiling it up again into loose loops in her left hand, to make sure there

were no kinks in it. Then, taking the last meter or so of the other end with

the running loop into her right hand, she shook the loop sliding through that

eye of rope to a larger circle, swung it a few times to get the feel of its

weight and balance, and took a step back from the foot of the wall.

She looked up at the fence, past the flimsy walkway that allowed it to be

patrolled by those on guard, with no more than their heads showing above the

pointed ends of the uprightly placed logs that made it.

Selecting one particular log-end, she swung the captive loop in her right hand

in a couple of graceful circles and then let it fly upward. She had been

handling a lasso since her early childhood on the distant planet of her birth,

one of the few Younger Worlds

THE CHANTRY GUILD 3 where a variform of horses

had flourished. The loop flew fair and true to settle over the upper end of

the log she had chosen.

She pulled it tightly closed, and tried her weight on the rope. Then, with its

aid, she walked up the inner face of the wall until she could pull herself

onto the walkway. Loosening the loop from the log-end, she enlarged it and put

it around her so that it formed a loop diagonally about her body from one

shoulder and around and under her opposite hip. Doubling that loop with more

of the rope, she threw the long end of it down the wall's far side, climbed

over the fence and proceeded to rappel down its outside face, mountaineer

fashion. Once solidly on the ground she pulled the rest of the rope around the

log-end overhead and down into her hands. Recoiling it around her waist over

her robe as she went, she headed for the darkness of the forest, only a short

distance away.

The forest hid her and she was gone. But she had not left unobserved. One of

the early waking inhabitants of a building, looking out a back window, had

seen her go. By bad luck, he was one of the few locals who tried to curry

favor with the Occupation Forces-for there were good and bad Exotics, as there

were people of both kinds in all cultures. His attention had been caught by a

glimpse of a figure moving outside while the curfew of the night just passed

was still in effect. Now he lost no time in dressing and hurrying himself to

Military Headquarters.

Consequently, she was almost to her destination when she became aware of being

followed by green- uniformed, booted figures, with the glint of metal in their

hands that could only come from power rifles or needle guns. She went on, not

hurrying her pace. They wei-e already close enough to kill her easily with

their weapons, if that was what they wanted. They would be waiting to see if

she would lead them to others; and in any case their preference would be to

take her alive; to question her and otherwise amuse themselves with her before

killing her. However, if she could only gain a few minutes more, a small

distance farther . . .

She walked on unhurriedly, her resolve hardening as she went. Even if they

tried to take her now before she reached her intended destination, still all

might not be lost. She was Dorsai, of the Dorsai; a native of that cold, hard,

meagerly blessed planet whose only wealth of natural resources lay in its

4 Gordon R. Dickson planet-wide ocean and the scanty

areas of arable and pasture land on its stark islands, upthrust from the waves

like the tops of the underseas mountains.

For generations, the Dorsai had seen their sons and daughters leave home to

sell their military services in the wars of the other Younger Worlds; and so

earn the interstellar credits the Dorsai needed to survive. While those behind

her now were the sweepings of those other worlds. Not real military; and

spoiled beyond that by the fact that the Exotics they were used to dominating

did not know how to fight, even if they were willing to do so to save their

lives. So that those who followed her now had come to believe that merely to

show a weapon to any unarmed civilian produced instant obedience.

So, at close quarters, if those behind did not first cripple her with their

power or needle guns, she could handle up to half a dozen of them. In any

case, it would be strange if in the process she could not get her hands on at

least one of their weapons. If she did that, she would have no trouble dealing

with even a full platoon group.

But she was almost to the place toward which she had been headed; and they

were still some meters behind her. It became more and more obvious they were

merely following, unsuspecting that she might know they were there, and hoping

she would lead them to others they could capture as well. She had been working

here as an undercover agent from Old Earth for three years now; helping the

local populace endure, and wherever possible, resist these followers of

Others-the new overlords of the Younger Worlds. These soldiers would at least

have heard rumors of her. Undoubtedly it was inconceivable to them that she

could be alone and elude them that long-that she must have some organization

helping her.

She smiled a little, to herself'. Actually, her most active work in those

three years had amounted to occasionally rescuing a prisoner of these same

jack-booted imitation soldiers, when this could be done without giving away

her true identify. Mostly, her job had been to provide reassurance to the

local Kultans. So that they, like the other dominated peoples of' the Younger

Worlds, would know they had not been entirely forgotten by those still holding

out behind the phase-shield of Old Earth. Holding yet, against the

THE CHANTRY GUILD 5

combined strength of the Younger Worlds and the self-named, multitalented

Others who ruled them.

But now, her hopes lifted. Those following had delayed almost too long. She

had at last reached the little hillock of flourishing undergrowth and young

trees, which she had transplanted here three years before with great care and

labor. She stopped; and, almost casually, began to tear up a strip of turf

between two of the trees.

That, she thought, should intrigue them enough to keep them from rushing upon

her too swiftly. The turf came free, as it had been designed to do; being

artificial, rather than real, like the rest of the vegetation in the hillock.

Below it was the metal face and handle of a ship's entry port.

At last, she moved swiftly, now. A second later the door was open and she

was inside, closing it behind her. As she turned the handle to locking

position, the blast from a power rifle rang ineffectively against its outer

side. She took two strides, seated herself in the chair before the command

panel and laid hands on the controls.

A Dorsai courier vessel did not need time to warm its atmosphere drive before

responding, even after three years of idleness. Almost in the same moment as

she gripped the control rod, the ship burst from the hillock, sending an

explosion of earth, grass and trees in all directions. On ordinary atmosphere

drive she lifted and hedgehopped over the nearest ridge. As soon as she knew

she was out of her pursuers' sight, she phase-shifted the craft clear of the

planet in one jump. Her next shift was almost immediate, to two light-years

beyond the sun just now rising, which was the star called Beta Procyon by

those on Old Earth.

Out at last in interstellar space, she was beyond pursuit and discovery by any

ship of the Younger Worlds. Here in deep space, she was as unfindable as a

minnow in a world-wide Ocean.

She glanced around the unkempt interior of the vessel. It was hardly in

condition for a formal visit to Old Earth, let alone to the Final

Encyclopedia. But that was beside the point. What mattered was that she had

got away safely past whatever ships had been on guard patrol around the Worlds

under Beta Procyon. Ahead of her still lay the greater task, the matter of

6 Gordon R. Dickson reaching Old Earth itself-, which would

mean running the gauntlet of the Younger Worlds' fleet besieging that world.

Somehow she must slip safely through a thick cordon of much better armed and

ready battleships, to which her own small vessel would indeed be a minnow by

comparison.

But that was a problem to be dealt with when she came to it.

CHAPTER

2

Through the library window, the cold mountain rain of early winter in the

north temperate zone of Old Earth could be seen slanting down on the leafless

oaks and the pines around the little lake before the estate building that was

the earliest home he could remember, as Hal Mayne. Overhead, obscuring the

peaks of the surrounding mountains, the sky was an unbroken, heavy, gray

ceiling of clouds; and the gusts from time to time slanted the rain at a

greater angle, and made the treetops bow momentarily. The darkness of the day

and the lowering clouds made the window slightly reflective; so that he saw

what was barely recognizable as an image of his face, looking back at him like

the face of a ghost.

An unusually early winter had commenced upon the Rocky Mountains of the North

American continent. An early winter, in fact, was upon the whole northern

hemisphere of the planet. Outside, the day was chill and dismal, sending

forest creatures to their dens and holes. Within the library a fire burned

brightly in the fireplace, with the good smell of birch wood, started by the

automatic machinery of the house on a signal from a satellite overhead. The

ceiling lighting was bright on the spines of the antique books that solidly

filled the shelves of the bookcases covering all the walls of the room.

This was the home where the orphan Hal had been raised by his tutors, the

three old men he had loved-and the place where

8 Gordon R. Dickson he had watched those three killed when

he had been sixteen eleven years ago. It was an empty house now, as it had

been ever since; but usually he could find comfort here.

They're not dead, he reminded himself. No one you love ever dies-for you. They

go on in you as long as you live. But the thought did not help.

On this cold, dark day he felt the emptiness of the house inescapably around

him. His mind reached out for consolation, as it had on so many such

occasions, to remembered poetry. But the only lines of verse that came to him

now did not comfort * They were no more than an echo of the dying year

outside. They were the lines of a poem he had himself once written, here in

this house, on just such a day of oncoming winter, when he had just turned

thirteen.

Now, autumn's birch, white-armed, disrobedfor sorrow, In wounded days, as that

weak sun slips down From failing year and sodden forest mold, Pray for old

memories like tarnished bronze;

And when night sky and mist, like sisters, creeping, Bring on the horned owl,

hooting at no moonMourn like a lute beneath the wotfskin winds, That on the

hollow log sound hollow horn.

-A chime rang its silvery note on his ear. A woman's voice spoke. "Hal," said

the voice of Ajela, "conference in twenty minutes. " "I'll be there," he said.

He sighed. "Clear!" he added, to the invisible technological magic that

surrounded him. The library, the estate and the rain winked out. He was back

in his quarters at the Final Encyclopedia, in orbit far above the surface of

the world he had just been experiencing. The rain and the wind and the

library, all as they would actually be at the estate in this moment, were left

now far below him.

He was surrounded by silence -silence, four paneled walls and three doors; one

door leading to the corridor outside, one to his bedroom, and one to the

carrel that was his ordinary

THE CHANTRY GUILD 9

workroom. About him in the main room where lie stood were the usual padded

armchair floats and a desk, above a soft red carpeting.

He was once again where he had spent most of the past three years, in that

technological marvel that was an artificial satellite of the planet Earth, the

Final Encyclopedia. Permanently in orbit about Earth. Earth, which in this

twenty-fourth century its emigrated children now called Old Earth, to

distinguish it from the world of New Earth, away off under the star of Sirius

and settled three hundred years since.

Around him again was only the silence-of his room, and of the satellite

itself. The Final Encyclopedia floated far above the surface of Earth and just

below the misty white phase-shield that englobed and protected both world and

Encyclopedia. Too far off to be heard, even if there had been atmosphere

outside to carry the sound, were the warships which patrolled beneath that

shield, guarding both the satellite and Earth against any intrusion by the

warships of ten of the thirteen Younger Worlds, beyond the shield.

Hal stood for a moment longer. He had twenty minutes, he reminded himself'.

So, for one last time, he sank into a cross-legged, seated position on the

carpeting and let his mind relax into that state that was a form of

concentration; although its physical and mental mechanisms were not the usual

ones for that mental state.

They were, in fact, a combination of the techniques taught him as a boy by

Walter the InTeacher-one of those three who had died eleven years ago-and his

own self-evolved creative methods for writing the poetry he had used to make.

He had developed the synthesis while he was still young; and Walter the

InTeacher, the Exotic among his tutors, had still been alive. Hal remembered

how deeply and childishly disappointed he had been then, when he had not been

able to show off the picture his mind had just generated, of the birch tree in

the wet autumn wood. The raw image of the poem he had just written.

But Walter, usually so mild and comforting in all things, had told him sternly

then that instead of being unhappy he should feel lucky that he had been able

to do it at all. The ability Walter had said, was not unknown, but rare; and

few people ha@ ever been able to conceptualize on that level. He had explained

10

Gordon R. Dickson

that the difference between what most could manage and what Hal had evidently

been able to do was the difference in the creation of what Walter gave the

name of "vision, " as opposed to an "image" -quoting an ancient artist of the

twentieth century who also had the capability. "Most people can, with

concentration, evoke an image," Walter had told him, "and, having evoked it,

they can draw it, paint it, or build it. But an image is never the complete

thing, imagined. Parts of it are missing because the person evoking it takes

for granted that they're there. While a vision is complete enough to be the

thing, itself; if it only had solidity or life. The difference is like that

between a historic episode, thoroughly researched and in the mind of a

historian, ready to be written down; and the same episode in the memory of one

who lived through it. Now, is it an actual vision you're talking about?" "Yes.

Yes!" Hal had said eagerly. "It's all there-so much you can almost touch it,

as if it was solid. You could even get up and walk around it and see it from

the back! Why can't you try harder and see it?" "Because I'm not you," Walter

had answered.

So, now, under the pressure of his concentration, but for the last time, there

seemed to take shape in the air before Hal a reproduction of the core image of

the Final Encyclopedia's stored knowledge.

Its shape resembled a very thick section of cable made of red-hot, glowing

wires-but a cable in which the strands had loosened, so that now its thickness

was double that it might have had originally-it appeared about a meter in

cross section and perhaps three meters in length.

In this mass, each individual strand was there to be seen. Not only that; but

each strand, if anyone looked closely enough, was visibly and constantly in

movement, stretching or turning to touch the strands about it, sometimes only

briefly, sometimes apparently welding itself to another strand in what seemed

a permanent connection.

Originally it had appeared before him like this thanks to the same

technological magic of the Encyclopedia that had seemed to place him in his

old home, below. With the broadcast image he had formed this continually

updated vision in his room so that he could study it. But over the years, as

he had come to

THE CHANTRY GUILD

I I

learn each strand of it, he had begun to be able to envision it by

concentration alone.

He had begun this study after seeing Tam Olyn, then Director of the

Encyclopedia, standing in the data control room and examining the same image

perpetually broadcast there. For all Hal knew, at the moment that room and

image could be next door to him now. There was no permanent location within

the Encyclopedia to any of its parts, because it moved them around at the

convenience of its occupants.

Tam Olyn had been Director of the Encyclopedia for nearly a hundred years.

Before that he had been an interstellar newsman, who had tried for his own

personal revenge to turn the hatred of all the occupied worlds upon the

peoples of Harmony and Association, the two self-named Friendly Worlds

colonized by the Splinter Culture of both true faith-holders and religious

fanatics.

Tam had blamed them, then, for the death of his younger sister's husband-to

avoid facing his own guilt for that death. When he had failed to make the

Friendlies anathema to the rest of the human race, he had at last seen himself

for what he had become. Then he had come back here, to the Encyclopedia, at

which he had once shown a rare talent. Here, he had risen to the Directorship;

and he alone had learned to identify the knowledge behind each apparently

glowing strand, merely by gazing at it, without the help of the instruments

used by the technicians who were always on duty in the core room.

So it had been Tam's example that fired the imagination of Hal. For a moment

Gordon R. Dickson - Childe Cycle 06 - Chantry Guild

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