Seeker (11 page)

"Receive our tribu-u-ute!"

The red-robed priests led the drooping man in white to the towering rock's edge. Here they released their hold on his arms. The tribute must never be pushed. He must be seen to go of his own volition to his death.

As the sun sank into the lake, the tribute crumpled to his knees. From this position, slowly, unstoppably, he toppled over the edge and turned over and over as he fell.

The solo singer sang.

"Return to us!"

The tribute fell down and down, black against the red sky. His arms flailed out, but he made no cry. The timing was perfect. Just as the last of the setting sun dropped below the horizon, the tribute struck the water with a smacking hiss. Then came the sound of a more muffled impact, as he smashed onto the rocks just below the water's surface. A low sigh, like a passing breeze, rose from the crowd. Another day was ended. Another tribute paid. The dawn was secured, the sun would rise again. Life would go on.

The people started to leave.

As the royal children filed out with their mothers, one of them said, in a plaintive whine, "I didn't see the blood! I never see the blood!"

Soren Similin, standing beside the broad open stairway that led down the levels, heard this complaint and was struck by a sudden, brilliant idea. Of course! he thought to himself. All this time the solution had been staring him in the face.

The king called out to the Handler of the Corona.

"Get this damn thing off me! It tickles my neck."

The Handler of the Corona, a wealthy oil merchant proud to perform this ceremonial task, hurried forward with hands outstretched.

"Coming, Radiance!"

As he unbuckled the Corona, he murmured in the king's ear,

"It will be my name day soon, Radiance. I have the honor of supplying the tribute for that day."

"I hope he'll be an improvement on the riffraff they drag out these days," said the king. "They think I don't know they're drugged, but I can always tell."

"I believe you'll be proud of my offering," said the oil merchant.

"Let's hope so. I've had enough droopy tributes."

"My name is Cheerful Giver, Radiance," said the merchant, not sure that the king knew who he was.

"Good, good."

Waving a hand vaguely behind him as he went, the king hobbled off to his private quarters, one level below. His secretary waited for him to go, his mind filled by the idea that had just come to him. It was a simple and elegant solution, and as such, profoundly satisfying. And if it worked, he would soon be able to deliver the first of the mighty shocks that would raise him to glory.

T
HE GREAT TEMPLE OF
R
ADIANCE WAS BUILT ON SIX
levels, rising from the big public sanctuary at the bottom, through royal and priestly offices and quarters, to the grand terrace at the top. The temple was a complete world in itself. There were kitchens here, and storerooms packed with provisions; armories, where smiths worked before blazing furnaces; wash yards and laundry yards; slaughter yards for meat; and dairy yards for milk and cheese. There was a tailor and a barber and a hatmaker for the king's wives. And up at the highest level, hidden away at the back but conveniently placed for the evening offerings, there was a prison house. Here hundreds of prisoners were held in stone-lined pits known as tanks. Murderers, petty thieves, and homeless spikers were huddled together indiscriminately, beneath the heavy iron grids, waiting their turns to be sedated and led out to the high temple rock, where each paid for his crime or folly or plain bad luck by being sent tumbling to his death before the indifferent gaze of the people of Radiance.

When Soren Similin left the royal terrace that evening, it was to the tanks that he directed his steps. Beyond the tanks was a bleak stone-walled yard, built as an exercise yard for the prisoners. These lost creatures in their last weeks of life had neither the need nor the desire for exercise; so very little difficulty was made when the king's secretary had asked to be given the use of the yard. This was five months ago. Since then, carpenters and glaziers and metalworkers had transformed the yard into a glass-roofed laboratory, and a team of scientists had built within it a remarkable device, all in complete secrecy.

The only access to the laboratory was through the long room that contained the tanks. This alone made the secret project secure and beyond the reach of idle curiosity. The guards on duty by the tanks knew better than to question the secretary and his team as they came and went. It was the king's business, and in Radiance, the king's word was law.

An iron walkway ran over the top of the grids, raised a few feet above the bars to prevent the prisoners from reaching up at passing ankles. Not that there was any danger. The prisoners had no way of escape and knew they would not be leaving the tanks except to fall to their deaths; so they spent their days in a listless half sleep, all hope lost.

The guards on duty saluted Similin as he hurried by. On the far side of the walkway there was a locked door to which the secretary had a key. Beyond that door was a
second door, which was locked on the inside and had a spy hole in the middle. This door was only ever opened to members of the team.

As Soren Similin entered the laboratory itself, he was accosted by Professor Evor Ortus, a small, bald middle-aged man, whose lined and stubbly face showed that he had allowed himself very little sleep for the past week.

"I've had a new idea!" he cried. "See what you think of this."

The lab was festooned with apparatus. Ranged all round the walls, rack upon rack, were hundreds of short glass tubes, angled to receive the light that streamed by day through the glazed roof From the tubes ran traceries of fine copper pipes that fed into a tall copper cylinder, from which issued jets of steam. This cylinder in turn fed a sequence of ever-smaller glass vessels, the last and smallest of which looked for all the world like a bottle of plain water.

The professor drew Soren Similin past the table to a stand in one corner, where other members of the team were gathered round. There, draped over a clothes hanger, was a strange baggy garment, dripping moisture onto the floor. It was a sleeveless jacket, sewn in sections like a quilt, and each section was sagging under the weight of its contents.

"It came to me in the night," said the professor. "Of course, it's only a demonstration model. The actual jacket would have to be fully waterproof."

Soren Similin studied the dripping garment. He knew at once that it was useless, but he also knew he must tread very carefully. The professor was an outlander like himself, but of far higher status. He had gained great distinction in the academies of Radiance, and was now its most eminent scientist; but he was also a proud man who took offence easily. Professor Ortus believed himself to be not only the leader of the team, but the sole creator of the remarkable device that had taken shape in the former exercise yard. This suited Soren Similin very well. He sought no glory; he wanted no credit for scientific invention. He was happy to remain unnoticed, in the background.

"Fascinating!" he exclaimed. "What a fertile mind you have, Professor."

"The demonstration model is filled with plain water only, of course. It holds exactly four liters. More than sufficient for the task."

"The perfect quantity," said Soren Similin. "And, I would guess, no heavier to wear than a thick winter coat. Has anyone tried it on?"

He asked as if it were a matter of no more than idle curiosity. Ortus signalled to one of his juniors.

"Put it on. Stand where we can see you."

The junior stood in the light of the main lamps, and the professor studied the effect, frowning. Similin looked down. He knew he need say no more. Not only did the bulging jacket attract immediate attention, it caused even the idlest observer to wonder what was stuffed inside it.

"Ah," said Ortus, his excitement fading.

"You think it might give rise to suspicion?" said Similin in his soft voice.

"It might."

"I'm afraid you may be right. Never mind. We keep thinking."

"Keep thinking!" In his disappointment, the scientist allowed his frustration to show. "I've been thinking day and night! I've prayed to the Radiant Power above for illumination, but it's got me nowhere. I tell you, it's impossible!"

"Nothing is impossible," said the secretary, "to a mind as brilliant as yours."

"Where has brilliance got me?"

"Now, please, Professor! I won't hear that! Who has done all this? Who has found a way to take the power of the sun and store it in liquid form?"

He gestured at the apparatus that surrounded them, from the simple bottle of water, up past the pipes and the tubes, to the glazed roof above, through which the moon was now shining.

"True," said Ortus, recovering his spirits a little. "It is, I admit, a historic breakthrough. Some might call it a triumph of pure scientific discovery. Not that anyone knows about it yet."

"Patience, Professor. The world will learn of your historic breakthrough when it is perfected. We have one last difficulty to overcome."

"One last impossibility!" cried the scientist in exasperation.

Soren Similin believed he had the answer. But it suited him to lead the proud scientist to suppose he was making this final discovery for himself.

"I have only the mind of a common man, Professor," he murmured. "I have none of your brilliance and originality. But I can listen and repeat. Perhaps if I were to remind us all of the elements of the problem, your keen intellect will cast some new illumination on our dilemma."

"I've been over it and over it," said the scientist with a sigh.

"Then for my own benefit, perhaps. To make sure I understand the situation, before I make my next report to the king."

"To the king. Yes, of course. Very well."

"First, the achievements." The secretary ticked the list off on his fingers. "You and your team have found a way to store the energy of the sun in plain water, in sealed containers."

"I have named it 'charged water,'" said Ortus with some pride.

"An apt name, Professor. This 'charged water' can be made to release its energy in the form of an explosion. A large enough quantity, we believe, could achieve our objective, which is to destroy the island of Anacrea."

"Four liters or more."

"Just so. And here is the brilliance of your discovery. The 'charged water' is harmless so long as it remains sealed. Once exposed to the air, the explosion is triggered. This means the weapon can be carried safely onto the island, then triggered at the time of the carrier's choice."

"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Ortus. "But that's where it all falls down! The island is closed to outsiders. It is watched and defended. How is the weapon to be carried onto the island? In the night, unable to sleep, I thought of the water-filled jacket. But look at it! It's laughable!"

"Allow me, Professor," said Soren Similin in his most soothing voice. "Allow me, in my slow and plodding way, to list the obstacles that are still in our path."

Once more he ticked them off on his fingers.

"These so-called Noble Warriors do have certain limited powers, which have enabled them to repel direct attack, even by imperial axers. So our new strategy is to smuggle a massive bomb onto the island. Anacrea is a closed island, as you say; except, of course, to those who live there. Once a year only, for one day, it is opened to pilgrims. However, all pilgrims are searched. They are not permitted to carry bags. The holy places are watched over at all times by the Nomana. How, then, can our carrier convey our bomb—four liters of charged water in a sealed container—into the heart of the Nom?"

"That's the question! We all know the question. But who can come up with an answer?" The scientist threw a hopeless glance round his attendant team.

Similin reworded the problem, as if to aid their deliberation.

"Where could a carrier hide four liters of charged liquid so perfectly that the Nomana would never find it?"

"Where indeed? He can't drink it. The stomach can't hold four liters."

"If only," murmured the secretary, "the body had hollow passages capable of storing liquid in all its parts. In the arms ... in the legs ... in the—"

"By the Sun!" cried Ortus. "I've got it!"

"Got what, Professor?"

"Blood!"

"Blood, Professor?"

"Blood! Blood!" cried the scientist, his excitement mounting. "Why didn't I think of that before? The body is a sealed container within which flows more than four liters of liquid, in the form of ... blood!"

"Remarkable!" said the secretary. "It takes a genius to see something so simple."

"We'd have to modify the apparatus, of course." Ortus was now talking aloud to himself. "A system to pass the blood through the charging vessels. I see no insuperable problem there."

"So the blood would be charged, as you have charged the water?"

"Yes, yes. Let me think. Yes, it can be done! Sun be praised! What can match the heady joys of pure science! Method, persistence, a dash of genius, and—success! But of course, we must run a test, to be sure."

"You propose, in short, to make a human bomb."

"A human bomb? Yes, if you like. First we must run a test. We'll need a test subject, of course."

Soren Similin was satisfied. He had achieved his objective. Now he could slip into the background.

The scientist was energized by his breakthrough and eager to get to work. He started to bark orders at his team.

"You! Find a way to put a return flow on the assembly; I want a pumped circuit. You! Make me a good strong chair. You can cut wood, can't you? You! Figure out the inlets and outlets. Not as simple as it looks. No air contact, remember! This is still a sealed system."

Soren Similin headed for the door.

"When do you expect to be ready for the test, Professor?"

"Soon! Very soon! Tomorrow. End of the day. We don't need sleep, do we, boys?"

The members of the team grinned and shook their heads. The excitement had infected them all.

"You just bring us a subject. We'll do the rest."