Part 41 (1/2)
”To serve the Imperium.” Karsler reflected briefly, and then remarked with apparent irrelevance, ”Grandlandsman, I will describe an incident I witnessed en route to this hotel and this meeting. It was late afternoon, and the streets of the city were steaming. I walked along, thinking of little beyond the heat and discomfort, until I came to a plaza at the bottom of Eev Street, where a considerable crowd had gathered. The buildings lining the square were fire blackened and bullet scarred, for this was the site of the great ma.s.sacre of the last Aennorvi and native defenders of Jumo Towne, some weeks past. At the center of the square rose a rough scaffold equipped with a post and a block. A squad of Grewzian troops surrounded the scaffold.”
Torvid took a cigarette from the enameled box. Lighting it, he listened in silence.
”Something was about to happen there,” Karsler continued, ”and so I paused to watch. Presently a cart containing several uniformed constables of the local police force arrived at the foot of the scaffold. The constables escorted a prisoner, a naked Ygahri male, who was removed from the cart and transferred to the custody of our countrymen. At this juncture a warrant was read aloud, and the crimes of the prisoner were made known to the public. It seems he was a fugitive native laborer guilty of fleeing the diamond mines, an illegality under the old Aennorvi law, which as yet remains active under the Grewzian administration. Moreover, it was the second such offense of which this Ygahri had been adjudged guilty. The punishment, fixed by statute, involved both corporal discipline and mutilation.
”The sentence was carried out by our Grewzian soldiers in full view of the a.s.sembled citizens,” Karsler reported expressionlessly. ”The native was bound to the post and whipped until his back streamed with blood. He was then taken down and conveyed to the block, where a Grewzian sergeant equipped with an ax amputated the anterior portion of the culprit's right foot, an operation certain to discourage future excursions. The wound was cauterized with a heated iron, and the prisoner-now unconscious-was returned to the cart and removed. The constables and troops withdrew, the crowd dispersed, and I continued on to the Queen of Diamonds Hotel.” Karsler fell silent.
”Well?” Torvid prompted at last. ”Your point?”
”Is it not self-evident?”
”You are about to plunge, I suspect, neck deep into some mora.s.s of sentimental guilt, and you hope to drag me down into the sweet muck to wallow alongside you.”
”You have spoken of serving the Imperium.” Karsler chose his words with care. ”That is the first duty of our House, and so it has always been. Does that duty demand blind obedience and unquestioning loyalty? If so, we Stornzofs have willingly enslaved ourselves.”
”What is this?” Frowning, Torvid extinguished his cigarette.
”Our system is deeply flawed,” Karsler returned deliberately. ”This is a fact I failed to recognize during my Promontory years of seclusion, and one I could overlook as a soldier at war. In recent weeks, however, I have been out in the world, where certain truths are impossible to ignore. The imperfections in the Imperium's structure are so obvious and marked that only a fool could fail to perceive them, and only a hypocrite or a coward could refuse to acknowledge them. I am a Stornzof as well as an Elucidated, and I believe as deeply as you do in serving our nation. But I ask you now, as your nephew and kinsman, to consider the possibility that we most truly serve Grewzland in striving to correct the Imperium's greatest defects.”
”I see.” Torvid appeared to consider his reply at some length. When finally he spoke, his tone was unwontedly forbearing. ”You have appealed to me as a kinsman, and I will answer you as such. Indeed, it seems I can hardly do otherwise, which may be a weakness. But you are my oldest sister's son by our second cousin, thus doubly a Stornzof, your blood a distillate of Grewzland's finest, and I cannot forget that. Therefore I will tell you this. Your questions and misgivings are the product of youthful indecision, merely. I will go so far as to confess that such qualms sometimes clouded my own vision and judgment when I was a boy. I, too, pondered issues of conscience. Irresolution all but paralyzed my will. Almost perversely I undermined my own value to country and imperior. But then, before it was too late, I recognized my error. My eyes opened, and I realized that a man cannot serve his country with a divided heart and mind. He must commit himself fully, without reservation, or else he is worse than useless-he becomes a liability. Recognizing the dangerous arrogance of my doubts, I chose of my own volition to abandon them. I, a Stornzof, submitted to something that I could recognize as greater and more important than myself and my personal concerns, greater even than all my House-that is, the might and glory of the Grewzian Imperium. I did this because Grewzland required it, and in that yielding discovered the strength that is unconquerable. It is more than time for you to do the same.”
Karsler recalled the grey seas and grey skies of the past. They seemed far distant. He said nothing.
”You are silent.” Torvid studied his nephew. ”Be aware that I have spoken to you of inward things, as I would to few others, because you are of my blood and we are linked by the strongest bonds, despite all differences. It is no small thing for me to hold out the hand, and it is not a gesture to be ignored. You understand me?”
”Yes, Grandlandsman,” Karsler replied. ”Now as never before, I understand you.”
”PLEASE, SIR, WHAT IS THE HOUR?” Luzelle appealed in Grewzian.
Ignoring her query, the guard propelled a new drunk into the communal cage, locked the door, and turned away.
”Please, sir,” she persisted, ”will you not, if you please, tell us how long we are here? There is no clock, no window to see the sun, and-”
The guard exited the lockup in silence, and the door closed behind him.
”Oh, why don't they ever answer?” she exclaimed in frustration. ”I only ask the time of day, would it kill them to tell me?”
”Ah, but an insect tyrant must take his pleasure where he finds it,” Girays suggested.
”I hate them. They're malevolent morons.”
”I quite agree, but outrage won't mend matters. You'll only make yourself ill.”
”Thank you, Doctor v'Alisante. How long do you think we've been here?”
”I don't know, but I believe we're well into the afternoon, which would make it about twenty-four hours.”
”A whole day lost-we can't afford it, I can't stand it! These rotten little Aennorvi nincomp.o.o.ps are ruining us, over nothing! We're going to lose, and it's all their fault! Oh, I'd like to throttle somebody!”
A couple of listening drunks whistled and whooped.
”Please, Luzelle, calm yourself,” Girays enjoined wearily. ”If you've no concern for your own health, then spare a thought for mine. You are giving me a headache.”
”Oh-sorry.” She considered. ”I really am sorry. I must be making life miserable for you.”
”Don't take credit for Aennorvi work.”
”Well, I'm not helping much. I'll try to be more patient, I'll try to be quiet and calm. It won't be easy, but I will try.”
”Interesting.”
”What is?”
”You. I've never heard you express such sentiments, wouldn't have thought you had it in you. You've changed a bit, these past few years.”
”Not for the worse, I hope.”
”Far from it.”
”Well. I suppose I must have been something of a brat in those days.”
”You were indeed. A very charming brat.”
”Oh.” She was not certain whether she had been complimented or insulted. ”Well, you know, you've changed too. The Girays v'Alisante I knew six years ago wouldn't have exerted himself, much less risked his own freedom, in defense of some nameless fugitive native laborer.”
”Exerted? I served as your translator, nothing more.”
”A little more.” She lowered her voice discreetly. ”You saved that poor native. He'd never have escaped, but for you. I saw you trip the constable and I know you did it on purpose.”
”The constable?” Girays shrugged. ”A very clumsy fellow, a most unlucky chance. I am a conservative traditionalist, as you know, and could never knowingly violate the law.”
”Quite so. As time goes by, I am coming to realize just how truly conservative Your Lords.h.i.+p really is.”
SHE KEPT HER WORD. She strove for patience, she tried to be quiet and calm. The miserable hours crawled by. The sweltering air pressed, the drunks vocalized and vomited, the flies swarmed by the hundreds, but she stifled all complaint. Eyes shut, she lay for a while upon her pallet in the hope that sleep might offer relief, but the flies buzzed and lighted on her damp flesh, the nameless wingless insects feasted on her blood, the agitated thoughts swirled through her head, and sleep eluded her. Rising to her feet, she paced the tiny confines of her cell, but activity only inflamed the mental fever. She envisioned her rivals, pressing on toward Aveshq. She contemplated the injustice of it all. Indignation, frustration, and mounting desperation scorched her brain. She strove for patience, she tried to be quiet and calm. The miserable hours crawled by. The sweltering air pressed, the drunks vocalized and vomited, the flies swarmed by the hundreds, but she stifled all complaint. Eyes shut, she lay for a while upon her pallet in the hope that sleep might offer relief, but the flies buzzed and lighted on her damp flesh, the nameless wingless insects feasted on her blood, the agitated thoughts swirled through her head, and sleep eluded her. Rising to her feet, she paced the tiny confines of her cell, but activity only inflamed the mental fever. She envisioned her rivals, pressing on toward Aveshq. She contemplated the injustice of it all. Indignation, frustration, and mounting desperation scorched her brain.
The counsel of Girays might have helped to cool and clear her head, but he had somehow managed to fall asleep, and she would not disturb him. The counsel of the drunks she did not desire.
Time seemed to have suspended itself, and yet in the real world outside the West Street Station the hours must have been pa.s.sing-in fact, evening must have arrived, for presently a khaki guard entered with a supper of bread and water for the prisoners. Attending first to the men, he came at last to Luzelle's little cage, where he paused to scrutinize her at unhurried length.
He was medium sized and nondescript, with a round tanned face and bushy black hair that sprang from his head in wiry ringlets. Evidently he did not believe in bathing. Even in the fetid atmosphere of the station lockup, the rank odor of his body was noticeable.
”Please, sir,” Luzelle essayed in Grewzian, without much hope of success, ”would you if you please tell me what is now the hour?”
”Six,” he answered, to her surprise.
”May we if you please speak with the captain?”
”Captain will be back the day after tomorrow. Or else the day after that.”
His breath fanned her face foully, and she resisted the impulse to step back. ”This day has brought no report of stolen money?” she inquired.