Empire of Women & One of our Cities is Missing (Armchair Fiction Double Novels Book 25) (2 page)

THE
WARSPEAR
was loafing along under a half G acceleration somewhere between Denebola and
Konapar, when the news tape started clicking out the story of the space battle
that had served as a “declaration” of war between Konapar and Phira.
 
The captain’s hands reached for the controls,
rang the acceleration alarm, and changed course.
 
He upped the speed to a good ten G’s.

Nobody
takes that kind of acceleration if they can avoid it unless, like the Cap,
they were raised on a two-G planet.
 
Or
unless there was a terrific reason which made it imperative, such as the reason
in the Cap’s mind as his eyes glittered in retrospection over the war news and
what it implied.
 

The
Warspear
had to pass Phira within a
half-hour’s
distance.
 
But the Cap swung closer to the gigantic
gray-green globe now, turning on the vari-wave detectors to pick up any
vibration that might be disturbing the ether around Phira.
 
There was a scramble of sound, but it was all
in code and nothing he could make sense of, though he tried.
 

A few
moments after the war news had come through on the tape, the radar screen
picked up a ship, dead ahead, making for the atmosphere of Phira under full
rocket blast.
 
The Cap signaled her for
identification.
 
That he had no business
asking made no difference to him.
 
Apparently the strange ship knew that fact, for she refused to
answer.
 
The Cap leaned to his
intercom.
 

“Mister
DuChaile, put a torpedo across her bow,” he said calmly.
 

Chan
DuChaile was the first mate of the
Warspear
, and he deserved his
post.
 
Under his direction the torpedo
crew put a guided missile across the stranger’s bow so close the Cap couldn’t
see space between the fiery wake and the hull.
 
The stranger’s captain couldn’t see it either, apparently, for he
flashed a surrender signal immediately
;
not too
surprisingly, because the
Warspear
could scare almost anything in space
into a collapse.
 
Especially
merchantmen, which this ship was, and which the
Warspear
was built for.
 
In plain words, the
Warspear
was a
pirate.
 

When the
prize crew boarded the captive they found to their delight that they had indeed
captured a prize.
 
She was loaded to the
bulkheads with explosives, and a hundred tons of fission-grenades, designed to
be thrown by repulse rays in hand weapons.
 
These latter were outlawed wherever the Terran Empire held sway.
 
It was a terrible weapon to place in a common
soldier’s hands, and the Cap looked thoughtful when the prize crew reported the
cargo to him.
 
If the Phirans had much of
that type of weapon, they must mean business, outlawed business they didn’t
intend to allow any Terran to rule, or any code of decency to forestall.
 
Alid, on Phira, was proving herself to be the
barbarian nation she was!
 

For an
instant the Cap chuckled.
 
If he’d
touched the other ship with just one ray, that cargo would have sent both ships
to glory.
 

But he
stopped chuckling when he learned of the forty-odd slave girls bound for the
Temple of the Matriarchs in Alid.
 
They
had been branded already with the blue hieroglyph of Myrmi-Atla, which meant a
strictly manless future for them, were they delivered to the infamous
temple.
 

The Cap
went over to the prize and looked at them.
 
They were just kids, only beginning to blossom into maidenhood.
 
Obviously the crew wanted to take them
aboard, but the Cap knew better than that.
 
He ordered them sent to the hideaway on the Black Moon.
 

But for
the first time in his career, one of his orders was obeyed with questioning
glances and a few mumbles of “it ain’t fair”…for the Cap bent too long a glance
on a sprightly little being he called “Elvir” because she was so small and
quick.
 
An “elvir” is a baby eel.
 
She was a pert little blonde, not at all like
an eel except for her smooth and quick movements, but the name seemed to fit
all the same.
 
Perhaps it was the way she
accepted it, and the way she wriggled into the Cap’s heart.
 
Anyway, Elvir came aboard the
Warspear
,
and jealousy shone out of the eyes of many of her crew.
 
But it was a good kind of jealousy, for Elvir
was only ten.
 

THE PRIZE
crew boarded the freighter and headed her for the hideaway on the rock named
the Black Moon…the Cap could always get quick cash out of a cargo of
explosives.
 
Then the
Warspear
resumed course for Konapar.
 

Before
long, Elvir’s pert beauty and high sense of humor had endeared her to
everyone.
 
She was full of questions, and
she carried a potent load of sunbeams in her laugh and in her child’s way of
playing.
 
The crew got a boost out of
her, and she was too young to have to worry about any fights starting over
her…or so the captain thought.
 
Pirates
his men might be, but there’s a soft spot in the core of every real man, and the
hardy fighters aboard the
Warspear
were no exception.
 

Elvir had
never been to space before she had been placed aboard the freighter, and she
was determined to learn all about it, which was funny because it was so
impossible.
 

“Where are
we, Captain Alain?” she’d ask, and he’d take her on his knee and trace out
their course through the stars on the chart with one broad, scarred finger, and
tell her a whopping big lie about the people of each planet along the
course.
 
She’d swallow it all and come
back for more.
 

“What is
the Empire of Terra?
 
Who are the pirates
you have to fight for Terra?”
 
The Cap
had reversed the truth and told her the
Warspear
was engaged in
exterminating pirates.
 
He’d patiently
explain how huge the Terran Empire was, taking in a good portion of the galaxy,
and how numberless the independent worlds where pirates could hang out
masquerading as honest merchant ships.
 
Little Elvir drank it all in, her eyes sparkling as she absorbed the
star charts he handed her, and you’d swear she understood it all as well as he
before a week was out.
 

“Will I
meet some pirates?” she’d ask…and the Cap would look at Chan DuChaile and
wink.
 

“I hope
not,” he’d say.
 
“Pirates are terrible
bad men!”

“What do
pirates look like?” she’d ask, and he’d have them with long whiskers and
blasters as big as beer kegs and bandy-legged and cross-eyed.
 

Chan and
the other officers would laugh, but the fact was they themselves were about as
war-scarred a bunch of mercenaries as ever looted a city or sacked a ship; and
just about as deadly as any story-time pirate could hope to be.
 

But
Captain Gan Alain had contacts, a reputation for straight dealing, and had
turned in plenty of honest jobs convoying trading ships that had had sense
enough to hire him.
 
The rims of the
Terran Empire were rough and tough, and most everything went.
 
But most of the men on the
Warspear
knew the value of a good record on the official books, and especially did Gan
Alain know this.
 
He’d done convoying
long enough for the traders to know
he
never doublecrossed
an employer who paid his price.
 

There were
others in the business, however, like Tiger Phelan, whose record included
a half
-dozen convoys that never reached port, and a dozen
lame excuses by the Tiger as to where other cargoes had disappeared to—from his
own holds.
 
Men like the Tiger forced
action against themselves by messing up the record.
 
Out of a hundred trips, it was natural to
lose one or two convoys.
 
But it would be
a very dumb and blind trader who hired the Tiger to take him across the void
from Dires to Delphon.
 

On the
record, the Cap’s nose was clean.
 
He
could cradle at almost any civilized port without a murmur from
officialdom.
 
So far, that is…

ELVIR was
either well developed for her age, or had adult instincts, for she fell for
the captain.
 
There was some excuse, for
he
was
the kind most women make fools of themselves over.
 
Full of vitality, ruddy-cheeked,
curly-haired, he was taller and broader than most men of Earth stock.
 
He’d been raised on a heavy planet, though he
never talked much about exactly where it had been, and what kind of a home he’d
had.
 
On the
Warspear
everyone had
secrets and sore spots—that’s why they were there.
 

Captain
Alain he was called, formally.
 
In space
some were allowed to call him “Cap”, and a few called him Gan, off duty.
 
He was a mild enough man, ordinarily
;
but so powerful that the mildness was deceptive.
 
He didn’t have to shout or bluster or throw
his weight around to get obedience.
 
His
men had seen him break a man’s back by hitting him in the belly in a fight, and
they didn’t give him any arguments.
 
Big
he was, with his mane of red-gold hair and beard making him look even
bigger.
 
Nobody pushed the Cap
around.
 
He could let out a bellow that
made the plates in the hull rattle, but he seldom did.
 
It wasn’t necessary.
 
Men leaped to obey his quietest whisper.
 

He was no
ladies’ man, but when there were ladies present, they did their best to make
one out of him.
 
Now little Elvir was on
the same course, but somehow with her it was comical, she was so small.
 
In spite of his attitude toward females, the
Cap made a fuss over her; and so did all the rest, but without the reaction she
gave the Cap.

IT WAS mid-course
between Phira and Konapar that the radar beams began to have grasshoppers.
 
The telescope finally gave the answer:
 
they were heading smack into a whopping big
fleet, as DuChaile put it.
 

The Cap
began to decelerate,
then
turned the controls over to
Chan.
 
Most of the crew guessed what was
ahead, but if they’d suspected their captain was planning on plunging right
into the middle of the Konapar war fleet, they’d have worried a lot more than
they did.
 

Soon the
fleet became visible, strung out in a series of V’s too numerous to
count.
 
There were hundreds of them and,
as they neared, the televisor began to bellow out questions at the
Warspear
.
 
When the crew heard their captain’s answer,
they suddenly had reason to worry, and most of the officers felt sure this was
IT—the lugubrious finish of the
Warspear
’
s
career.
 
But every man stood to his post, grimly
ready.
 

“Tell your
commander this ship is the
Warspear
, heavy-cruiser class, with
five-score seasoned fighting men, reporting for action against the Phiran
tyranny.”
 

Chan
DuChaile, listening, had never heard the government of the Matriarchs called a
tyranny before, and he didn’t like the idea of fighting against women; but he
knew Gan Alain well enough to realize there were wits at work, so he listened
without too much amazement.
 

After a
few seconds, the receiving screen came to life.
 
Mentally, Chan analyzed the scene in his own peculiar way:
 
A big, black-bearded mogul in a monkey-suit
trimmed with gold braid, garnished with medals, draped with golden spaghetti
and epaulettes.
 
Chan recognized him,
after a snort of disdain, as the Regent of Konapar.
 
He’d seen his picture in a dozen bars in
ports across the Dires sun-cluster.
 

Yet, after
a good look at him, Chan wouldn’t have given more than two brass buttons for
the young prince’s chances of ever taking over the rule of Konapar from this
fellow.
 
He was neither bad looking nor
particularly villainish in appearance; it was just that he was a man who got
what he wanted, and who wanted everything.
 
Too ambitious, Chan classified him.
 

He was
big-necked, big chested, black-haired, a very handsome man.
 
His cheeks were a little too full and flushed
with good living.
 
His eyes, the deep
sloe-black of most Konaparians, were just a little sleepy-lidded, with a gleam
of temper veiled behind.
 
His complexion
was clear and his voice was hearty and pleasant.
 
He was a man’s man who knew how to be liked
by those under him.
 
Chan liked him, and
Chan wouldn’t have trusted him as far as he could throw the
Warspear
off
the surface of Jupiter.
 

Captain
Alain, also observing the lusty ambition in the man, saw that he was the kind
who never grabs with one hand, but uses both.
 

“What are
your arms, Captain?” the Konaparian ruler was
saying,
and those sleepy eyes were registering caution at sight of a man as powerful
and as obviously experienced in space war as the Cap.
 

Gan Alain
grinned, a kind of respectful, now-you’re-joking grin, and
said:
 
“Ah-ahh!
 
We mercenaries have our little secrets.
 
We have to be a wee bit ahead of the average military armament to stay
alive, you know.
 
I’ll guarantee to best
any ship my tonnage, and most of them twice that, if necessary.”
 

Chan
DuChaile snickered at the Cap’s effrontery, here in the midst of a war-fleet of
total strangers, and refraining from telling his armament or its range.
 

The Regent
colored the slightest bit, but his face didn’t move a muscle.
 
“Now, by Satan, Captain, how can I direct
your ship in battle if I don’t know your range?”

“It won’t
be necessary to direct my ship in battle, Your Highness,” answered the
captain.
 
“Employers invariably put
mercenaries in the fore of every battle, since they do not have to pay dead
men.
 
My duties will consist only of
guarding your person and your ship from surprise attack, let us say, by
ambitious parties unknown who would stand to benefit by your demise.
 
Agreed?”

FOR A LONG
minute the Cap’s eyes held the Regent’s, eye to eye in a subtle exchange, a
kind of measuring of each other.
 
The
Regent, whose name was Gunnar Tor Branthak, pulled his beard thoughtfully, and
his color went back to its normal ruddy hue.
 

“I do not
expect any attacks by unnamed parties, but I fully understand your
meaning.
 
Those are your terms, and I
accept them.
 
Your pay will be regular
battle pay equal to that received by my native supporters of equal rank.
 
Naturally you will receive a share in the
loot, which should amount to a fortune.
 
But, you are aware I am not contracting to protect
you
against
any resentment your lack of enterprise under fire might arouse?”

It was
Captain Alain’s turn to flush with repressed anger, and his big fist came up in
a gesture that said more than any words.
 
Just the same, he supplied the words to go with the fist.
 
“If any man finds cause to reproach the
Warspear
for cowardly actions during battle, I will claim no share of any prize won by
the forces of Konapar.
 
The name of Captain
Gan Alain should be warranty enough of the value of this ship to your project!”

“Agreed
then!” the Regent snapped.
 
“The
Warspear
will fight under my personal direction, and take orders from no other officers
whatever.”
 
The ‘visor
went blank and Gan Alain turned and gave Chan a wink.
 

Chan
grinned inwardly.
 
What had happened was
an example of the cool wits of his commander.
 
The
Warspear
had jetted into an imperial war fleet staffed with
jealous nobles and officers of royal blood, and contracted to guard the Regent
from treachery from anyone of them.
 
Chan
would have bet that there were a dozen sub-potentates who were at this moment
boiling violently around the collar and unable to do anything about it but
sizzle.
 
Who but the Cap would realize
and take advantage of the fact that every ruler has his enemies, and that they
would be looking for an opportunity such as might occur in battle to blast
the Regent’s ship by “mistake”.
 

Gan Alain
had learned by sad experience that a mercenary takes an unequal chance in
battle beside allies, many of whom are relatives.
 
They will send a hireling to his doom every time
in preference to a brother or a cousin or a rich neighbor.
 
The Tor’s deal gave him a ship, which could
have no ulterior motive, as the
Warspear
’
s
crew stood to gain
nothing unless the Tor remained alive.
 

ALL THIS
time little Elvir sat silently in the control cabin perched on top of the file
cabinet, her knees holding the chart book where the course to Konapar was
scrawled out in red ink.
 
She closed the
big folder of charts and pushed it into the cabinet between her knees without
getting down.
 
Her eyes were half-shut,
and the mate figured she was thinking about the women who ruled Phira and what
was going to happen shortly to them.
 
He
chucked her under her pretty, round chin and
asked:
 
“Are you worried about the Amazons,
chicken?
 
We won’t hurt them if they
behave themselves.”
 

She shook
her head, gave him a peculiar smile.
 
Then she qualified the gesture with a confidential whisper the Cap
couldn’t hear.
 
“I’m really thinking
about the women, but it’s because I’m worrying about what will become of
Captain Alain when he gets mixed up with a city full of nothing but old
women.”
 

To Elvir,
any woman over eighteen was old.
 

The
inference behind her words tickled Chan so that he laughed.
 
She grinned too, her eyes sparkling up at
him, woman-wise in a child’s face.
 
It
hit him suddenly.
 
“Don’t worry about the
Cap where women are concerned.
 
He can
take ‘em or leave ‘em alone.”
 
He eyed
her with wonder in his gaze.
 
The scamp
was actually jealous, and not with any childish jealousy, either.
 

She shook
her curls again.
 
“You don’t know about
the Priestesses.
 
I do!
 
I was to be a slave in the Temple of
Myrmi-Atla, the glorious All-Mother.
 
The
other slaves talked about them all the time.
 
They’re not ordinary women; they’re sorceresses.”
 

The mate
pooh-poohed the idea.
 
“There’s no such
thing as sorcery, child.
 
Not on Phira, anyway.”
 

“You’ll
see,” she predicted direly, knowingly with the all-wisdom of a child.
 
“They’ll wind the captain around their
fingers.
 
And I don’t want to see it.
 
I like him too much to see him made a fool
of.
 
If I was elder, I’d do something
about it.”
 

Chan
wanted to say
bluntly:
 
“What?” but sight of her serious face made him think better of it.
 
Instead he
said:
 
“Tell you what, Elvir; you and I can look
ahead a little.
 
We can plan to outfigure
them.
 
If some of the Matriarchs get
under his skin, we’ll fix them, eh?”

She put
her child’s hand in the mate’s horny paw and shook.
 
“It’s a deal, Chan.”