Jean and Jeff Sutton - Lord Of The Stars

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Lord Of The Stars -- Jean and Jeff Sutton -- (1969)
(Version 2002.10.31 -- Done)
For the four Kicklighters -- Kurt, Andy, Nathan and Laurie
1
TOWARD DUSK, when the great emerald sun dipped below the horizon and the
heat of day was past, but before the chill of night seeped in, Danny liked to
walk out on the meadow and talk with Zandro. He could talk with Zandro while
in the forest, of course, or even when inside the big ship; but somehow it was
more fun when he was in the meadow.
Although they talked of many things -- of galaxies and small, furry
creatures that scurried through the tall grasses and hideous dangers that
lurked in the nearby swamp -- he had never seen Zandro. Danny didn't find that
strange, for in his short memory life took many forms -- or no form at all.
Zandro was one of the no-form ones.
He never wondered that Zandro's voice was silent, that it came into his
mind in almost the same way his own thoughts came. Yet, when he considered it,
there was a difference. He could feel Zandro enter his mind; it was almost
like a physical touch. Often, at night, he would awaken to the sensation, but
then Zandro would quickly withdraw, leaving him more lonely than ever in the
solitude of the big ship.
Neither did he wonder that he communicated with Zandro in the same way,
without speech, for words and images projected mentally came quite naturally.
By projecting images, he could express thoughts for which he had no words.
Besides, although he often spoke aloud to himself, it didn't make sense to
speak aloud to someone he couldn't see.
Danny got a warm feeling whenever he thought of Zandro. Zandro was his
friend, his protector! That idea had come to him...how long ago? He wasn't
certain, for at first he'd had but a vague concept of time. But it was true;
without Zandro...
The thought frightened him. Without Zandro he wouldn't have known of the
danger in the swamp. Neither would he have known about the food-yielding trees
and vines, how to find the edible plants that grew in the forest shade, or how
to use the tough cloth material he had found stowed away in the big ship to
protect his body against the hot sun and the thorns of trees.
He still remembered how Zandro first had warned him of the storms. He
had started toward the meadow when Zandro touched his mind and said, "You must
return to the ship."
"Now?" he asked disappointedly. The pleasant half-light had just
commenced.
"A big storm is coming," Zandro warned.
"Storm?" Danny was puzzling over the word when Zandro projected a mental
picture of great trees whipping back and forth, their branches tossing wildly
against a darkened sky. Brilliant spears of light stabbed downward. With them
came swirling balls of water, so closely packed they formed huge pools on the
ground. Frightening rumbling noises churned across the heavens.
"That is a storm," Zandro explained. Danny retreated fearfully to the
ship, locking the hatch behind him. In a short while he heard the wind rising.
Deep growling noises rumbled across the sky, followed by a spattering against
the metal hull which he knew must be caused by the small balls of water. Rain,
Zandro had called it.
After awhile he slept.
Since then Zandro had explained many things. The sky -- the place Danny
saw when he looked upward -- went on and on and on, never ending. The big
emerald fire in the sky -- the heat he felt at day was caused by the fire --
was a sun. The sun also gave light, which was why the darkness came when the
sun fell below the grassy plain. The small, gleaming lights he saw in the sky
at night also were suns, but they were too far away for their heat to be felt.
And the place on which he lived was a planet.
"Planet?" he asked, when Zandro first told him.
"Planets travel around suns, but they give no heat," Zandro explained.
"Does this planet go around the emerald sun?" he asked wonderingly.
"Yes, and so do other planets -- four more."
Danny gazed disbelievingly at the sky. "Why can't I see them?"
"You could at night if you knew where to look."
"Are they up there with the other suns?"
"Yes, but much closer."
"At night I see a big place in the sky where there are no suns," Danny
said. "Why is that?"
"It's a huge gulf," Zandro replied. He explained how such rifts ran like
rivers through certain parts of the galaxy, separating one mass of suns from
another. The emerald sun was located at the edge of the gulf Danny had asked
about.
Rivers in the sky! Rivers of nothingness! And on each side, great masses
of stars, each hot like the emerald sun. Danny was fascinated. How much Zandro
knew! "You mentioned a galaxy," he said tentatively.
"A galaxy is a great cluster of suns," Zandro explained. "The suns in
our galaxy are as many as the leaves of the forest."
Awed, Danny asked, "Is there more than one galaxy?"
"The number is endless."
"How can anything be endless?" he protested.
"That is the paradox of life," Zandro answered. The galaxy -- a mass of
great burning suns that flamed in a void, yet small when compared with the
whole -- was more than Danny could comprehend.
Another time, sitting beside the blue-green stream in the meadow, he
asked, "Why do you call me Danny?"
"Because that is your name."
"Name?" He contemplated the word.
"Everything that exists has a name," Zandro answered patiently. "Trees,
mountains, rivers, rocks..." As he spoke, Danny experienced a mental image of
each thing named. Zandro talked for a long time, explaining how names were
used to distinguish one thing from another, to group different objects into a
class, or to locate them in time or space. Danny thought that names were quite
wonderful. He was Danny!
But then another thought struck him. "There are lots of suns," he said.
"Billions upon billions," Zandro agreed.
"And lots of trees and lots of birds." He paused, feeling a great
solitude fill his soul, then blurted desperately, "Why is there only one me?"
The silence came again, so vast and deep that even the gurgling of the
stream seemed to cease before Zandro replied, "There are others like you,
Danny."
"Like me?" He clung desperately to the words, awed by the thought.
"Where?"
"Far, far away. They are not on Wenda."
"Wenda?"
"The name of this planet."
"Not here," Danny exclaimed. A dismal feeling filled his soul, bringing
such a loneliness that he turned from the meadow and rushed blindly back to
the ship, his eyes wet. He was alone!
He remained in the ship for several days. Too miserable to eat,
sleepless, he stared at the white metal walls. When Zandro sent probing
questions into his mind, he refused to answer. It was then he discovered that,
by concentrating, he could shut out Zandro, leaving himself alone with his
anguish.
Alone! That was how he felt. Trees had trees, and flowers had flowers;
little furry animals lived in the woods, and birds hopped from branch to
branch or flew over the grassy meadow. Shiny creatures with large, solemn eyes
lived in the blue-green stream; they all had one another, but he had no one.
His eyes brimmed at the thought. When finally he returned to the meadow, he
didn't mention being alone; it was too painful. Instead he asked, "Why are
some trees big and others small?"
"There are different kinds of trees," Zandro told him.
"But lots of them look alike, except for size."
"Their ages differ, Danny."
"Ages?"
"How long they've lived."
"Don't they live forever?"
"Not the same trees." Zandro explained how trees came into being, how
they flourished, reproduced, and died, leaving the younger trees behind. Danny
believed it quite wonderful.
"Does the same thing happen with birds and animals?" he asked. "Do they
come from seeds?"
"Yes, but in not quite the same way." Zandro went on to say there were
two kinds of each animal, and that together they brought new life. Male and
female! Danny pondered it, filled with wonder. Life came, flourished, and
passed away. That explained why the tall, pink flowers that grew in the meadow
and sent their fragrance into the air often disappeared for long periods of
time; the flowers died.
"How old am I?" he asked.
"On Wenda your age would be seven and a half years old."
"What are years?"
"The time it takes Wenda to go around the emerald sun. Each time it goes
around is one year. You would be a different age on the planet of your native
sun."
"My native sun?" He whispered the words aloud.
"A rather small sun," Zandro said. "Really quite insignificant. Your
native planet is somewhat smaller than Wenda and revolves around its sun in a
shorter period."
He asked faintly, "If there's only me, how did I get here?"
"You came in a ship."
"Alone?"
"The others who came with you are dead, Danny."
"Dead?" he asked tremulously. But, of course, he was alone.
"Life is a transient thing."
"How did they die?"
"The ship encountered trouble," Zandro explained. "It had something to
do with fuel and critical mass, but I'm not exactly certain what."
"How do you know?"
A long silence ensued before Zandro said, "Everything you've ever seen
or heard, even though you might not understand it at the time, leaves a record
in your brain. I read that record."
"Is that how..." He struggled for words.
"That I know your language, so much about you? Yes, that is how. You
have seen and heard far more than you could ever know, Danny, right back to
your earliest infancy."
Caught with another thought, Danny scarcely heard him. "But the ship
wasn't destroyed," he protested. "I can't see any marks on it."
"The ship you came down in is just a lifeboat launched from the big
ship. Did you ever wonder that it was so small?"
"It doesn't look small to me."
"Very small," Zandro asserted.
"Did it come down by itself?"
"It was automatically controlled." Zandro described how the lifeboat's
instruments had been set to detect the nearest planet and to actuate the
guidance and controls to bring it down into the atmosphere. When its sensors
had determined that the planet was habitable, the landing had been made
automatically. Otherwise the lifeboat would have sought another planet. "If
none of the planets within this system had been habitable, then of course you
would have died," he said.
Danny felt a great longing. "Why didn't the others come with me?"
"Perhaps there was no time. I'm not certain. Your memory pattern shows
confusion."
"What does that mean?"
"There was great excitement at the time. Your mind is filled with bits
of information, quite disconnected. I have a picture of a woman -- yes, it was
your mother -- putting you in the lifeboat, then rushing off to get your
father."
"Why didn't they come back?" he asked numbly.
"Perhaps there was no time," Zandro suggested. "I imagine the lifeboat
was programmed to launch itself automatically at the last possible moment."
Danny gravely contemplated the information. If Zandro knew that much, he
must know...
Zandro caught the question in Danny's mind and said, "It was a colonist
ship."
"What does the word mean?"
"Colonists? They are people who settle new worlds."
"Was my father a colonist?"
"He was the captain." Zandro explained what that meant. "The ship was
named the Golden Ram."
His father -- the captain! Danny felt a surge of pride. "Did he have a
name?"
"Gordell June," Zandro replied. "Your mother's name was Wenda."
"Like this planet?"
"He named this world for her, Danny."
"Were they coming here?" He asked excitedly.
"The name of this planet and the ship's proximity to it at the time it
was destroyed indicate that, yes. Fortunately for you, they were quite close."
"Did you get that from my mind?"
"Yes, but much of it is fragmentary."
"You mentioned my native planet." Danny whispered aloud again. "What is
its name?" Suddenly he felt an imperative need to know.
"Earth...Earth in the language of your people."
"Earth," he murmured, caught with the sound. A lovely name. He felt a
great longing. "My native sun?" he asked humbly.
"Your people call it Sol."
"Sol is a fine name," he declared stoutly.
"A name is just a means of identification," Zandro countered. "Remember,
we spoke of names -- how they are used to identify objects or to distinguish
one object from another. A name is just a form of number."
"No," he protested huskily, "it's not that way at all."
"Why do you say that?"
"A name makes me feel something," he asserted. "Earth and Sol -- they
make me feel good all over."
"You come from a race of dreamers, Danny."
"What are dreamers?"
"People who twist reality into unreality. It's characteristic of races
which can't face the harshness of life."
"My father wasn't that way," he denied. "He was captain of the Golden
Ram. You said so yourself."
"You're speaking from emotion," Zandro counseled. "I'm not," he denied.
"How do you know what you say?"
"I've seen things in your mind that your people call music and poetry
and art," Zandro explained. "They appear as attempts to disguise a Universe
which is too fearful for them. Your people attach emotions to inanimate things
to give them special meaning, make them something more or less than what they
are. That is why a name gives you that feeling. Actually there are millions of
planets quite similar to Earth. Then don't you find it strange that you should
feel attached to that particular one?"
"It's my native planet," he protested.
"You were far too young to remember it."
"Don't your people feel that way about their planet?" he asked
wonderingly.
"My people face reality."
"But what is reality?"
"Reality is this: but one race can survive in the Universe. My race."
The answer was stiff and uncompromising.
"Your race?" Danny felt a quick dismay.
"My race," Zandro repeated loftily. Danny sensed his quick withdrawal.
Bewildered, he stood on the meadow, watching the darkening sky. Zandro had
always been so gentle, so understanding; but this time his projected thoughts
had held a harsh, proud note that was totally unlike him.
Unlike him? The question startled Danny. Suddenly he realized how very
little he did know of Zandro. Nothing, really. Zandro had always talked about
him, never about himself. He'd never discussed his own people -- who they were
or where they came from. This was the first time he'd even mentioned them. The
Universe was created for his race! Danny didn't believe that. His father
wouldn't have believed it, either!
How had Zandro come to Wenda? He perused the question uneasily. Why was
he here? Were others of his kind on the planet? If so, why hadn't Zandro
mentioned them? It was all very strange. Why, he didn't even know what Zandro
looked like...if he had a body!
The last thought was disquieting. Up to now he'd never considered Zandro
as...a physical being. He'd always accepted him as...what? A voice in his
mind, a curiously disembodied being who was profoundly wise. Could a mind
exist without a body? He deemed it unlikely. What, then, did Zandro look like?
More important, where, if he had a body, was it?
His perturbation grew. Why did Zandro invade his mind at night? Why did
he flee at the instant of Danny's awareness? To escape detection? If so, why?
He'd always wanted to ask, yet somehow had never quite dared. There was so
much about Zandro he didn't know.
Yet Zandro was his friend; there was no denying that. Without him he
might never have known who he was or how he had come to this vast, quiet,
lonely world with its flaming emerald sun. He might never have known about his
father or mother or about the great ship named the Golden Ram which, like a
bird, had flown among the stars -- had broken its wing. He felt a sadness.
"Earth..." He spoke the name wonderingly. His father, Captain Gordell
June of the Golden Ram, had come from there, had named this planet Wenda for
his mother. He felt a fierce pride. His father must have considered it a very
fine planet.
He gazed at the sky. In the late dusk the first stars had appeared,
glowing in the firmament like the fireflies he often glimpsed at night in the
forest. His eyes went to the great black gulf where no stars gleamed. Across
that blackness, at some incalculable distance, was a wonderful sun named Sol;
and around it sailed the wonderful planet of Earth.
He grew more sober as he reached the small clearing in the forest where
the ship had settled down. Pausing at the edge of the trees, he studied the
squat shape nestled in the tall grass. In the deep dusk it appeared scarcely
more than a black shadow, discernible mainly through its geometric shape.
It was small; he could see that now. He looked again at the great black
gulf in the sky and at the countless dusky orange stars sprinkled off to one
side. Clearly this ship could never be flown among those stars -- certainly
not across that vast gulf. He knew that with certainty. But if men had bridged
that gulf once, they would come again -- another ship like the Golden Ram. He
felt a burst of pride.
The interior of the ship was dark, but he knew every inch of it from
long experience. The sleeping pallets that folded against the walls, the dials
and controls he'd never understood, the tool bins, cabinets that once had held
emergency food supplies and in which he now stored the fruits and nuts he
gathered in the forest, the narrow door that led to the curious engine
compartment -- how small everything appeared!
He closed the hatch, rotating the lock bar into place. Although he'd
never seen a large animal, Zandro's warning of the fierce beasts that lived in
the swamp prompted the precaution. He got some fruit from one of the bins,
then lay on a pallet, staring upward into the darkness. He wasn't the only one
of his kind! He felt a strange excitement. Across the gulfs of space were
others like him.
His last thoughts before falling asleep were of the Golden Ram -- how
immense it must have been! -- and of the brave man named Gordell June who had
been its captain.
In the lonely, quiet hours preceding the half-light of dawn, when sleep
was at its deepest, Danny felt the touch again. As if a warning signal had
been triggered in his brain, he fought to awaken, yet curiously was unable to
make his body obey.
"Sleep, Danny, sleep." The familiar voice came soothingly into his mind.
"Zandro!" Danny heard the strangled cry rip from his throat as he
struggled to push himself erect.
"Sleep, sleep, sleep."
"No, Zandro!"
"Sleep, Danny, and everything will be all right." The lulling words in
his mind brought a calming effect, and his struggles ceased; suddenly he
wanted nothing so much as to return to the deep slumber from which he had
awakened.
"Sleep, sleep. Forget Zandro's world, Danny. Zandro is here to help
you."
"Yes," he murmured drowsily. Zandro was his friend -- friend, protector,
and teacher. Zandro was good; he had come to this lonely world to help him. A
sense of peace stealing through him, all memory of his doubts about Zandro
slowly vanished.
In the darkness of the ship, he slept.
The emerald sun was high in the sky when Danny took his bow and arrows
and went outside. Pausing in the cool shade of the forest, he inhaled deeply,
his nostrils filled with the fragrance of the tall, pink flowers that shot up
each spring.
Spring! Four springs had come since that long-ago time when Zandro had
explained about the seasons and how they were caused by Wenda's axial tilt
from the vertical. Since then he'd counted each summer, each fall, each
winter, waiting for spring to come again, for that was the pleasantest time of
all. Spring meant tall, pink flowers, swimming in the deep pools along the
blue-green stream, exploring the tall rushes and stunted trees that bordered
the swamp.
It was spring, and on Wenda he was twelve springs old, which meant
twelve years old. On his native planet Earth, according to Zandro, he would be
more than fifteen years old. And he was growing! He could tell that by the way
the lifeboat's cabin seemed to be shrinking. Now he had to duck his head to
pass through the hatch, while at night he all but filled the narrow sleeping
pallet. And he was getting stronger. Last year he could scarcely bend the big
bow -- he'd gotten the concept from Zandro's mind -- which he'd made with the
tools in the bin. Now he could pull an arrow its full length, put it into a
target no larger than himself from a distance farther than he could hurl a
rock.
Shouldering the bow, he ate leisurely of fruits and berries as he picked
his way toward the meadow. He halted at the edge of the trees to gaze upward.
Scattered clouds, fleecy against an emerald sky, promised a cool afternoon.
"Zandro?" He projected the name mentally -- "telepathically" was the
word Zandro used -- and listened for an answer. He wasn't surprised that none
came. Zandro seldom responded when the sun was high and occasionally would
remain quiet for days at a time.
He reached the stream, pausing to gaze at the strange life forms that
lived in the blue-green water and in the thick rushes that grew along the
banks. Swift, finned creatures with huge globular eyes furtively watched him
from the depths, darting to mossy sanctuaries at his slightest move. Smooth-
skinned animals sat immobile at the water's edge, their long forked tongues
occasionally flicking out to scoop in unwary insects. Other animals slithered,
chirped, croaked, or uttered plaintive calls in the thick rushes.
He never tired of studying them. "Life has unending variations," Zandro
once had told him; and again, "Life is a constant battle for survival." Here,
along the stream and in the forest, Danny saw the truth of the statements.
Scarcely a day passed but that he didn't encounter a new life form; on every
side he was aware of the constant struggle for food. Each creature had its
prey and its predator.
At the edge of the swamp he halted, his pulses quickening. Ahead the
stream emptied into a marsh filled with stunted trees and rushes that grew to
great heights. An odor of decay permeated the air. "Don't go near the swamp" -
- Zandro's warning rang in his mind. Fierce animals lived there; death lurked
at every turn.
What kind of animals? Zandro had never told him. That, more than
anything else, piqued his curiosity. He had been this far before, but never
farther. Yet he had known all along that some day he would explore the swamp.
Today's as good as any, he decided impulsively.
His eyes swept over the scene, picking out areas where the land appeared
firmer. Fitting an arrow into the bow, he moved stealthily forward. As the
ground became soggier, he was forced to zigzag to avoid small pools of
stagnant water.
Now and then he paused to listen. The feathery whirring of frightened
birds rising from the tall rushes ahead, the rustling of small animals
scurrying from his path, the hum of insects -- the familiar sounds reassured
him. Ahead, where the rushes opened, he glimpsed a large, dark pool.
Stealing toward it, he suddenly realized that the mud underfoot appeared
to have been flattened by the passage of a heavy body. His throat
constricting, he stared at it. The mud had been flattened! He could tell by
its smooth surface, the lack of ridges and pitting. The reeds on either side
had been crushed. But no footprints! He raised his eyes; the flattened trail
led to the edge of the dark pool.
His heart thudding, he crept forward, conscious that his body was wet
with sweat. Gripping the bow tightly, be tried to still his fears. Go back! Go
back! He forced the warning from his brain. At the edge of the pool he halted,
gazing around. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.
He was beginning to relax when he dropped his gaze to the water, then
suddenly stiffened. Believing his vision to be playing him tricks, he peered
closer. His first impression was of a gigantic eye floating beneath the
surface. The eye stared back at him!
He caught his breath, trembling, and forced himself to study it. The eye
appeared to rest atop a huge black blob. Thick, dark trunks, tapering to fine
points, radiated out from all sides of the hideous apparition.
A monster! A monster sitting astride a nest of snakes! Terror-stricken,
he turned to flee when he froze again, a warning signal flashing in his brain.
He darted a quick look around. The rushes, the stunted trees, the stagnant
pool -- nothing appeared changed. A faint hissing came from overhead as a
small shadow crossed his path.
Alarmed, he threw a glance at the sky as he leaped backward. Nothing!
The sky was clear. The faint hissing came again. Attempting to locate its
source, he spotted a small bird hovering above the rushes.
His eyes swept past it, then jerked back as he realized the bird had
been stationary in the sky, its wings unmoving. Startled, he gazed at it with
a mixture of awe and fear. Its small red eyes, fixed squarely on him, held an
unidentifiable threat that caused him to shiver.
Threat from a small bird? He wanted to laugh. It was no larger than his
hand. Thousands of birds just like it lived in the rushes; he saw them every
day. Except that this bird didn't move its wings! And its beady red eyes...
He retreated a dozen paces without shifting his gaze. The hissing came
again as the bird moved toward him, its extended wings as motionless as
before. The sight was unnerving. It halted above the rushes a short distance
away.
Slowly, step by step, he edged around a stunted tree until the bird was
lost to sight, then halted, wondering what it would do. Hzzzzz...The strange
sound came again. This time he definitely associated it with the bird's
movements as it came into view, hovering above him at a distance of half a
dozen paces.
A bird that hissed? He'd never seen such a strange creature. Neither had
he ever seen such a monster as that in the pool. Unnerved, he wanted to turn
and flee, yet was restrained by the more imperative need to know what kind of
bird this was that flew without moving its wings. A bird that stalked him!
"Life has unending variations" -- Zandro's words came again. Gazing at
the bird, he reached a decision. Forcing himself to steadiness, he slowly
raised the bow, sighting along the arrow as he pulled back on the drawstring.
The beady red eyes fixed on him took no cognizance of the threat. Holding
steady, he released the arrow.
Thunk! It struck the bird a glancing blow, hurling it off to one side.
Leaping forward, he searched the rushes until he found the torn form. Gingerly
he picked it up, then stared at it in horror.
A metal bird! The crumpled form he held in his hand wasn't feathers and
flesh at all but was metal -- twisted metal and fine wires, like those he saw
behind the instrument panel in the ship. He felt his scalp prickle.
"Danny!" Zandro's voice came suddenly alive in his mind, filling him
with fear. "Get out of the swamp," the voice thundered. "Get out! Get out!"
Terrified, he raced toward the meadow, Zandro's command beating at his
brain. Sloshing through ankle-deep mud, he suddenly became conscious that he
still held the crumpled metal form in his hand. Violently, urgently, he hurled
it into the rushes, then fled to the safety of the ship.
"Sleep, Danny, sleep" -- the words came to Danny as if in a dream. He
twisted and turned restlessly on the narrow pallet, not knowing whether he was
asleep or awake.
"Sleep, sleep, sleep," the soothing voice in his brain said. "You are
asleep, Danny."
"Yes," he murmured.
"You will forget today, Danny. There was no pool, no monster, no bird."
"No pool, no monster, no bird," he murmured.
"You will forget them, Danny."
"I will forget..."
"Now sleep, sleep, sleep..."
2
THE LUXURIOUS offices of Sol Houston, Overlord of Space, fittingly
enough occupied the entire top floor of the 200-story Space Administration
Building in Gylan, capital of the planet Makal, third of the cobalt sun Apar.
Makal, in turn, served as the administrative center of the 17th Celestial
Sector of the Third Terran Empire -- which made Sol Houston a very important
man.
But Samul Smith wasn't thinking of that as he stepped into an atomic
lift and shot up to Sol Houston's private offices. He was wondering at his
abrupt summons. An emergency? Of course, otherwise Sol Houston would never
have called him so peremptorily. But what kind of emergency?
Samul Smith wasn't a worrier -- far from it -- but he liked to be
prepared. Ordinarily a summons was a summons; but this one, from Sol Houston
personally, perplexed him. As Overlord of Space, Sol Houston was answerable
only to the Regent Administrator of the 17th Sector, who in turn answered
directly to the Prime Administrator of the Third Terran Empire, the capital of
which was on Earth. As such, the Overlord concerned himself only with problems
of such moment that they could not be entrusted to any of his more than 100
immediate aides. That indicated quite an emergency.
Samul hummed happily. He liked emergencies. As a point in fact, as Sol
Houston's chief troubleshooter, that was all he got. He felt himself
fortunate. Every job was different, a challenge. As a bachelor, he could put
in as many hours as he liked. It wasn't supposed to be that way, of course;
the regulations governing working hours were quite strict. But he made it that
way all the same. He disliked regulations.
A secretary eyed him approvingly as he stepped from the lift. Offering a
smile meant to charm, she pressed a hidden button that opened the door to the
inner office. "Go right in, Mr. Smith." Her voice carried a lilt.
Samul nodded and walked past her. She'd like to get married, he thought
smugly. She used her eyes and voice like nets. Not that he would fall for such
transparent guile. Never! He valued his freedom too highly.
Sight of the three men seated at the long polished table confirmed his
suspicion that the emergency was far from ordinary.
Altair Harbin, Master of Colonial Operations.
Benkar Redmont, Master of Alien Cultures.
Ghengin Kaan, Master of Defense.
The three represented Sol Houston's top administrators, although Samul
knew they would never have gotten there were it not for the seniority
provisions of the vast civil service hierarchy that spun the wheels of empire;
seniority and politics, the latter of which was largely a matter of family. In
the absolutism of equality, guaranteed in the Constitution of the Third Terran
Empire, the same families somehow manipulated the same power levers.
As it was, each of the Overlord's masters commanded a jurisdiction
covering the more than 400 sun systems that comprised the 17th Celestial
Sector. And himself? Samul Smith: lowly investigator to the Master Council,
odd-jobman, jack-of-all-trades, and -- yes ! -- troubleshooter. But he worked
at Sol Houston's right hand; that made the difference.
He smiled wryly as he took a seat. Altair Harbin inclined his head in
curt acknowledgment; Benkar Redmont and Ghengin Kaan appeared not to notice
him. The slight didn't bother Samul. At the age of thirty standard years, he
was resented by the others, all of whom were in their seventies or eighties.
Besides, his name was Smith. In an age when names held great social and
political significance, a Smith was of no moment at all. Not when compared
with such names as those borne by the men sitting with him. Their given names,
in the male lineage, remained unchanged throughout the generations; their
surnames ran like rivers through human history.
Despite his cynicism, sight of the men reminded Samul of the power of
the names. He gazed at the Master of Colonial Operations. His given name,
Altair for the star, and surname, Harbin for that sun's greatest planet, gave
a clear statement of his family background; a Harbin had been first to
penetrate the system of that yellow-white star. The name, historically, was
synonymous with colonial operations.
Benkar Redmont, Master of Alien Cultures, claimed a more potent name
still, although many would challenge the fact. As every student of dark
history knew, Benkar was a contraction of Benjamin Karr, the first earthling
to discover an alien culture beyond the confines of the solar system -- small
plants on the planet Dorn, which wandered the second orbit of the bluish-white
binary, Alpha Centauri. Redmonts had dominated the field of alien cultures
ever since.
Ghengin Kaan's name was equally esteemed, for it derived from a great
conqueror of prehistory who was said to have invented and used the first
nuclear weapon in the Battle of Waterloo, the precise site of which had never
been determined.
But Sol Houston had the most prestigious name of all, for Sol was the
name of the mother sun, and Houston of the great Earth city of antiquity from
which men first had reached for the stars.
Samul smiled to himself. Despite legions of scholars, all that lay so
deeply buried in the barbaric past that it was scarcely credible, let alone
provable. But Smith! There were planets filled with them! At least no one
could say that he'd attained his present position through his family name.
He glanced covertly at his companions, seeking to discern some clue to
the trouble at hand. Benkar Redmont's narrow face, showing its seventy-eight
years for all the cosmetologists could do, held a speculative expression.
Ghengin Kaan appeared unruffled. Altair Harbin, at seventy-six years old the
youngest of the three, appeared grim. He knows, Samul thought. Then the
meeting had to do with his empire -- Colonial Operations.
His speculation was broken as the tall doors at the far end of the room
silently swung open and as silently closed behind Sol Houston. The Overlord
crossed the deep rug with a step surprisingly agile for a man of eighty-three.
Olive-skinned, his high cheekbones set in a craggy face, his gray eyes as hard
as the tophi pebbles found on the shores of the Wasach Sea, he wore the purple
cape of his office.
As the others started to rise, he waved them down. Taking his place at
the head of the table, he announced abruptly, "The survey cruiser Nomad has
been destroyed."
"Destroyed?" It took Samul an instant to recognize Ghengin Kaan's
squeaky voice. The Master of Defense appeared dumbfounded. Well he might,
摘要：

LordOfTheStars--JeanandJeffSutton--(1969)(Version2002.10.31--Done)ForthefourKicklighters--Kurt,Andy,NathanandLaurie1TOWARDDUSK,whenthegreatemeraldsundippedbelowthehorizonandtheheatofdaywaspast,butbeforethechillofnightseepedin,DannylikedtowalkoutonthemeadowandtalkwithZandro.HecouldtalkwithZandrowhile...

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