Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera Read online

  Suddenly, Adalbert lifted his head from the table and sang in a thin, bleary voice,

  “Saddles and soap trays

  Goldfish and zeers

  Came into Aardvark

  All in one year.”

  Then he laid his head down again and slept.

  “Poor wretched little king,” John said. “But no matter. What’s good for Dramocles must be good for us all, for has not Dramocles himself told us so? Prince, you should join your father in wassailing and mirthful merriment.”

  “I understand your bitterness,” Chuch said, “but it carries you too far. You very well know the disesteem which exists between Dramocles and myself. I am most vehemently opposed to the King’s present course of action, and, indeed, to the King himself.”

  Snint said, “All of this is well known,” and John nodded grudgingly.

  “How could it be otherwise?” Chuch asked. “Never has he loved me. My functions in the government are few and ceremonial. Despite my years of military training, Dramocles has never let me command so much as a platoon of soldiers. And although I am still considered the heir apparent, I consider it unlikely that I will ever inherit the throne.”

  “It sounds like a tedious position,” said Snint, “for an ambitious young man such as yourself.”

  Chuch nodded. “Since coming into man’s estate, I have been forced to stew in my own ineffectuality, forever at the mercy of my father’s absentminded whim. There was nothing I could do about it. Until now.”

  John sat up straight, and his small eyes grew more attentive. “What about now?”

  Chuch set down his muggard. “I’ll not mince words. I wish to stand beside you, Count John and King Snint, in the struggle for hegemony that fast approaches.”

  John and Snint looked at each other. Snint said, “Surely you jest with us, young Prince. The ties of blood are strong. This momentary pique will pass.”

  “Damnation!” cried Chuch. “Will you give me the lie, then?”

  “Softly, Prince, I meant but to test you. Tell me, what do you think Dramocles has in mind?”

  “It must be apparent to you that his goal can be nothing less than the restoration of the old Glormish Empire. And you must admit that one planet seized and another invaded is a good beginning. But after this, the going gets harder. Neither Aardvark nor Lekk is militarily significant. But he’ll not get into Crimsole so easily, I think.”

  “Not with my good wife Anne in command during my absence,” said John.

  “Nor will he invade Druth,” said Chuch, “for he needs Rufus’s strong spacefleet. And there is still Haldemar to consider, as he sits in his distant planet of Vanir and considers the import of events. The outcome is unclear. But I’ll stake my life on Dramocles losing, especially if we can come to an agreement between ourselves.”

  “What would you hope to get from such an agreement?” asked Snint.

  “No more than what I’m entitled to–kingship of Glorm after Dramocles has been killed or exiled.”

  “Kingship of Glorm!” said John. “That’s a modest request indeed, coming from one who brings nothing to our cause but his good opinion of himself.”

  “Do not take me lightly,” Chuch said, scowling.

  “Such is not our intention,” said Snint. “We’ll take you as you are, with what you bring. So far, that is nothing. But welcome anyhow.”

  Chuch rose. “Gentlemen, I must take my leave, for I go out to repair my fortunes. I think you’ll be gladder to see me when we meet again.”

  John laughed, but Snint said, “I hope so, young Lord, and I believe it may be true.”

  Chuch gave the briefest of bows and left the tavern.

  11

  The conquest of Lekk began well enough. Rux was a thorough professional. He always kept 150,000 troops on red alert in case anything should come up suddenly. Now he had those troops loaded into 50,000 three-man spaceships that were always fueled and ready. Within an hour, the invasion was under way.

  Rux’s troops were mostly Mark IV robots from the Soldier Factory on Antigone. They were programmed to destroy anything that didn’t look like them. This kept the circuitry simple and the unit cost down. Dramocles had bought them at a bargain price because they had been superseded by the Mark Xs, the new humanitarian model capable of sparing women and children unless they acted hostile. Rux’s Mark IVs were not sophisticated troops, but Dramocles had plenty of them, and they seemed good enough for taking over a little place like Lekk.

  Rux landed his robots without opposition on the large island of Xosa, assembling them on the plain of Unglaze to the southeast of Sour Face Pass. Unglaze was a barren stretch of land bounded on one side by the mountains of Eelor, on the other by the swift-moving Hrox River. Sour Face Pass was a natural gap in the mountains that shielded the village of Biscuit, King Snint’s home and therefore the administrative capital of Lekk. Rux figured that by seizing Biscuit, he would nip the bud of resistance before it had a chance to sprout (a typical figure of speech among the Sberrians). Rux could only fit seventy-five thousand robots into his line of battle, but they seemed more than enough. The Lekkian defenses at this time consisted of seven hundred male Lekkians who had been shamed by their neighbors into volunteering, and four hundred Drikaneans from Drik IV who had been vacationing on Lekk and whose hobby was fighting.

  All that night on the plain of Unglaze you could hear the familiar prebattle sounds: the crackle pop of circuit breakers being tested, the soft squish squish of last-minute lube jobs, and the high-pitched clicks of robots torquing each other’s nuts to full tolerance. At first light, when the robots’ photoelectric sensors were able to function, Rux gave the order to attack. The robots advanced, an awesome wall of steel, shouting, “All glory to the Soldier Factory!” These were the only words they were programmed to utter.

  The Lekkians had anticipated this move and taken countermeasures. Irrigation equipment had been hastily comandeered from neighboring villages and set up on the Lekkian portion of the plain. A full night’s watering turned this land into a bog, into which Rux’s troops charged, or rather, waded. The robots suffered many short circuits, for they were dry planet troops and their water seals were more ornamental than efficient. They floundered in the mud, their ranks in disarray and their traffic pattern in confusion. At this moment the Lekkians attacked. A shock force of four hundred Lekkian and Drikanean troops mounted on mud skimmers penetrated Rux’s right flank. They were armed with sledgehammers and welding torches. In a matter of minutes they had created a combination traffic jam and junkyard, and they retired with insignificant losses. A second thrust through the center brought the robots to a complete halt. When the sun set, the thin Lekkian line was intact. Rux unhappily retired his troops for refueling, and wired Dramocles for more and better equipment.

  12

  Prince Chuch dispatched Vitello to the principality of Ystrad, with an urgent request that his sister, Drusilla, receive him. Upon receiving an affirmative answer, he arranged an immediate departure. He decided to pilot his own space yacht there, since Dramocles might soon ground all nonmilitary spacecraft, if he had not done so already. When he arrived at the spaceport, however, he was gratified to see that traffic was moving normally. He had a moment of anxiety when he gave his name to Ground Control and requested clearance. But it was granted without delay, and soon he was aloft.

  Once airborne, Chuch fed his destination into the ship’s computer. The city and outlying regions of Glorm fell away below him. He crossed the Sardapian Sea, and saw, gray in the distance, the mountains of Glypher. He crossed the Box Forest and soon the Euripean River appeared, a meandering silver thread. This marked the easternmost border of Drusilla’s domain. Below him was the land of Ystrad, a green place of forested hills. To the north the gleaming surface of Lake Melachaibo came into view, and on its near shore was Tarnamon, the many-turreted castle wherein his sister, Drusilla, lived. Receiving landing clearance, Chuch set down at the small spaceport nearby. Vitello was there to meet him.
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  The inhabitants of Ystrad, the Ystradgnu, were a non-Glormish people of considerable antiquity. They were a gentle folk, and hospitable to strangers, except on the occasions when they needed a sacrifice for one of their deities. Their principal exports were poetry and songs, which were in great demand among the races of the galaxy with no poetry or songs of their own. The annotation and analyzation of the Ystradgnu arts provided an entire industry for the analogists of the neighboring island of Rungx.

  Most of the Ystradgnu made their living by grazing herds of porcupines on their green hillsides and exporting the quills to the Uurks, a nonhuman people who had never disclosed why they needed them.

  The Ystradgnu had a method of ground transportation unlike anything else on Glorm. Travel between points on Ystrad was effected by trampoline networks. The trampolines, spaced an average of fifteen feet apart, crisscrossed the countryside. The Ystradgnu had been building and maintaining them since time beyond memory. The trampolines were made of heavy canvas and dyed in various bright colors–though by ancient tradition never yellow–and a large part of Ystrad’s revenue went to their upkeep. Viewed from the air, they appeared as complex patterns of multicolored dots. There was a legend that these patterns were part of a giant mandala, left there by the mysterious race that had introduced the porcupine to Ystrad and then vanished. It was a colorful sight on a Saturday, when the quill collectors and farmers bounced to the city for the weekly fair and quill skill competitions. All of that trampoline work gave the Ystradgnu the short, thick, heavily muscled legs that they considered the epitome of both masculine and feminine beauty, and which enabled the quill collectors to scramble up and down the hills after their porcupines.

  “Ridiculous,” Prince Chuch declared, and insisted on a more dignified means of transportation. There did exist a taxi service for “spindleleggers,” as all non-Ystradgnu were called. A cab took Chuch and Vitello to the great gothic castle on a crag overlooking Lake Melachaibo, where Drusilla kept the mysteries of the Great Goddess. This religion had, since ancient times, been concerned with fertility, piety, and the strict observation of ritual. Drusilla, as high priestess for Glorm, was considered the living representative of the Goddess, and spoke for her in the drugged frenzy that is necessary for true prophecy. Drusilla was also the final authority on that distinctive feature of the religion known as The Great Decorum.

  They proceeded on foot through the castle gate and into gloomy stone corridors illuminated only by beams of light through narrow slit windows high overhead. Chuch turned up his collar, saying, “It likes me not, these women’s mysteries.” And Vitello said, “This isn’t the way I came last time.”

  When they reached the central keep a high iron door opened and Drusilla stepped forward. Of middling height she was, and deep-breasted beyond the common consideration. Her hair, a glistening cascade of tooled red bronze, fell in fiery wavelets around her shapely shoulders. Her face, haughty and beautiful, framed cold gray eyes.

  “Come in,” she said. “Sorry to have inconvenienced you. We’re having the main entrance hall recarpeted.”

  Vitello was sent down to the lesser banquet hall to get some dinner. Drusilla led Prince Chuch to the Willow Audience Chamber. Brother and sister faced each other for the first time in nearly two years.

  It was a long, narrow room with one side a wall of glass, affording a splendid view of Lake Melachaibo, with stripe-sailed dhows moving along its gleaming surface. Chuch seated himself upon a small couch, and Drusilla took a Biltong chair nearby. A maid brought out Salvasie wine and the little honey cakes for which Ystrad was famous. After these amenities had been observed, Drusilla said, “Well, Chuch, and to what do I owe this most unpleasant visit?”

  “It’s been a long time, Dru,” said Chuch.

  “Not nearly long enough.”

  “You’re still angry at me?”

  “I certainly am. Your proposal that I sleep with you was an unpardonable insult to a priestess who is a champion of normal sexuality, which is to say, one woman with one unrelated man, or its converse.”

  “We could have been so good together, Dru,” Chuch said softly. “And we would have been committing incest, the big one, and so achieving semidivine status.”

  “I’ve got that already,” Drusilla said. “It comes with my priestess job. I can’t help it if you can’t get anything divine together by yourself. As for sleeping with you, even without the incest taboo, I’d rather couple with a yellow dog.”

  “So you said two years ago.”

  “So I still say.”

  “No matter,” Chuch said. “I’ve come here for an entirely different reason. You know, of course, that Dramocles has taken Aardvark, and presently invades Lekk.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard.”

  “And what do you think?”

  Drusilla hesitated, then said, “Official explanations have been offered.”

  “Which bear the mark of Max’s fine imagination.”

  “They do seem farfetched,” Drusilla said. “Frankly, I have been most disturbed. Thirty years of peace, a new era of progress begun, and then this. I’ve tried to reach Father on the phone, but all I get is his answering service. This isn’t like him at all. There must be a reasonable explanation.”

  “There is,” Chuch said, “and it should be plain enough to a woman like yourself, educated in the movements of the planets.”

  “You know I don’t believe in astrology.”

  “Nor do I. But astronomy’s another matter, is it not?”

  “What are you driving at?”

  “The fact that this is the first time in thirty years that the planets have been so situated in their orbits as to favor invading fleets from Glorm.”

  “You think Dramocles has been waiting all this time for that?”

  “Yes, that, and for the great celebration that has put all the local kings into his power.”

  Drusilla considered it and shook her head. “Dramocles is not so crafty, and he has not the patience for such an enterprise.” But there was a note of uncertainty in her voice, and Chuch pounced on it.

  “What do you really know of him, Dru? To you he is always dear old Dad, incapable of doing wrong. You are blinded by your love for him. Even though his present actions shriek treachery, you refuse to believe it.”

  “Dramocles, treacherous? Oh, no!”

  “Your feelings do you credit, my sweetling. But remember, you are more than his daughter. You are priestess of the Great Goddess, and it is your sworn duty to serve truth and liberty. If any other king had done as Dramocles has done, you’d condemn him out of hand. Because he is your father, you deceive yourself with pathetic evasions.”

  Drusilla’s mouth trembled, and she rocked from side to side. “Oh, Chuch, I’ve been trying to convince myself that there’s sense and reason in all this, that father has not broken his vows and forsworn his good name. But he has taken Aardvark, and now invades Lekk!”

  “What conclusion do you draw?” Chuch asked.

  “I cannot pretend to myself any longer that he’s not power-crazy, stung by the virus of crazed ambition. The prospect for mankind is clear–war, pestilence, and death. Oh, what can we do?”

  “We must stop him,” Chuch said, “before his madness engulfs the Local Planets in a catastrophic war. He’ll thank us for it later, when he comes to his senses.”

  Drusilla stood up, her face a field of dubiety across which the black hounds of fear chased the white fawns of hope.

  “But how?”

  “I have a plan whereby we can check his ambition, and leave him no worse off than before.”

  “I would not have him harmed!”

  “Nor I.” He noted her expression and laughed. “I know, we’ve never gotten along, Dramocles and I. We’re too alike for that! But I’ve always secretly admired the old man, and I’d gladly lay down my life for him. After all, he is my father, Dru!”

  Drusilla’s eyes were shining with tears. She said, “Perhaps this will bring the family closer
together at last, and then it will not all have been in vain.”

  “I’d like that, Dru,” Chuch said quietly.

  “Then you have my word that I’ll follow your plan, Brother, as long as it brings no harm to Dad.”

  “You have my most solemn word on that.”

  “Tell me what I must do.”

  “For the moment, nothing. There are some matters I must attend to first. I’ll contact you when the time is right.”

  “Let it be so,” Drusilla said.

  “Till later, then,” Chuch said, bowed deeply, and left the chamber.

  13

  Down in Tarnamon’s lesser banquet hall, Vitello was taking his supper of cold turkalo pie. Turkalo was the unique cross between the turkey and the buffalo, achieved only in Ystrad and kept a secret because it seemed good to keep such a thing a secret. Vitello found it tolerable fare, and washed it down with a flagon of opio wine from the poppy vineyards of Cythera.

  “Give us more of this stuff,” he said to the serving wench. “It gets cold a’night in these parts, and a man must make shift to protect himself. Protection! Who deals with the great ones puts his ass in a sling, as the ancients have it. Yet might not a groundling aspire? Is life nothing more than other people’s achievements? Given a vestige of a chance, what might not a Vitello achieve?”

  “What did you say?” asked the serving girl.

  “I asked for more opio wine,” Vitello said. “The rest was an internal monologue despite the use of quotation marks.”

  “You shouldn’t talk to yourself,” the girl said.

  “Then who should I talk to?”

  “Why, to me, since I am here.”

  Vitello looked at her keenly, though without really registering her. It was important to stick to business, to get ahead in this world. Was this girl something he could use “in the context of equipment,” in Heidegger’s immortal phrase, or was she simply a supernumerary not worth describing?