Now Alverin raised his straight slim sword and called upon those within the chamber to surrender, saying, “Whoso lays down his arms, shall be spared, and set free, I vow, suffering no hurt nor any dishonor!”
Because the rumor of Alverin’s honesty and clemency was so well known, the knights and pikemen in that chamber instantly threw down their swords and pole-arms. None had heart to fight, seeing their leader, Weston, lay swooning with his life blood bubbling out of him. The weapons fell ringing to the chamber floor.
But one of the Computermen seized up a pike and, with a terrible cry, cast it straight into Alverin’s breast. Alverin staggered backward, pierced through the heart and lungs. In that same instant of time, the man who had cast the pike was stricken through his arm by three arrows. Yet these shots were not ill-aimed; for Alverin’s men, by custom, spoke before they struck, wounded rather than slew.
Alverin drew the pike-head out from his bloody chest and wiped the blood away. The wound closed up into a scar and then Alverin’s chest grew fair and smooth again. He cast the bloody pike aside. “I am an Earthman; I was born beneath blue sky!” he called out. To the wounded man, he said, “The knowledge of the men who made this entire world have made me as I am, and I am not to be slain by your small weapons.” And he ordered his physician to tend to the wounded among the enemy, even the man who had smitten him.
Alverin turned. He saw Valdemar laying motionless, his body crushed beneath the fallen giant. “So,” Alverin whispered, “These secret paths you showed to us were not a trap. Did you play us true, this once, old liar? If so, where is the ring?”
Now he turned again. In the threshold of the golden doors leading to the Main Bridge, a pikeman still crouched above Henwas the Watchman, a steady knife still touching the prone man’s throat. Henwas was bleeding at the shoulder and the leg, and yet his face was remote and calm, as if no wound nor pain could trouble him.
Alverin stepped forward till he could see, lying in the shadow of the door, dying, Acting Captain Weston II, and, in his bloodstained hand, the ring.
Beyond was the Bridge, a large dimly lit cathedral of a space, surrounded on all sides by the darkened screens of the Computer.
Weston croaked, “Pikeman. Slit the Watchman’s throat if the rebel-king steps forward one step more.”
“Weston,” said Alverin in a soft, stern voice, “Yield up to me the ring. I will restore to all the world, the light, the power, and the justice, which, by right, should have been ours. You have my solemn promise that all your men shall be dealt with justly.”
“Should I believe a mutineer? You betrayed Valdemar,” hissed Weston wearily.
“After he surrendered to the Enemy. Free men follow leaders into battle, and render him the power of Command, only while he does their will, in pursuit of a just war, or in defense against hostility. That power of Command, incapable of destruction, returned to the free men of this ship, upon Valdemar’s abdication of it. By their fair and uncoerced election, I was tendered the Command, and so am Captain. That trust I hold sacred; render me the ring, and I shall see this world prosper.”
“Prosper? Are we not surrounded by enemy worlds?” Weston asked softly.
“We are too humble for their attention,” Alverin said, “If we do not offend them, they will pay us no more heed.”
“And if the ring is used to launch the fabled Weaponry at World’s Core?” Weston now raised himself on one elbow. His face was pasty-white, his eyes wild and sick.
“Then the world dies, if not in this generation, then in the next.”
The lieutenant, his hand being bandaged by a tall pale doctor, spoke up, “Sire! Yield the ring to Alverin! Even we, so many years his foe, acknowledge his justice, wisdom, and trueheartedness. If any man is deserving of empire, it is such a man as this!”
But Henwas, who still had him by the ankle, said a voice of calm command, “In your last moment, sir, I pray you be a Captain truly. Use the ring, or give it me, to complete the mission of the Twilight of the Gods. We both are dying, you of wounds, me of radiation poison and disease. Should we, in such a time as this, abandon our posts and sue for peace? This whole world was made for war.”
“Pikeman, stand away. Here, Watchman; take the accursed thing. Do your duty; kill all my enemies, you, them, everyone. And be damned to you all.” With a curse on his lips, Weston slid into death, and his cold hand gave the ring to Henwas.
Henwas came up to his knees and thrust the pikeman down across the dais’ stairs. Such was the strength of his arm that the man was flung many yards away. Alverin and the elves started forward suddenly, but Henwas, leaning inward from the golden door, reached and touched the shining ring against the dark, cold mirrored corner of the nearest of the many computer screens which filled the huge, black bridge.
He spoke the words: “Eternal Fidelity. I am forever loyal.” And all the mirrors flamed to life and shone with purest light. On each screen images appeared, words, symbols, strange letters and equations, and everywhere, the thousand shining lights of all the Enemy stars.
A pure and perfect voice, like no voice ever to be made by lips or tongue of man, rang out: “READY.”
Several of the Computermen screamed in fear or shouted with joy. One sank down to his knees and cried out, “Oh, that I have seen this day!” Even the knights and guards of Weston’s, and Alverin’s tall men, stood speechless, eyes wide.
But the Chief Computerman called out for the men to avert their eyes, “This is a deception of the Enemy! The Computer cannot speak to men, except through us!” But one of the knights smote him across the face with his fist. The Chief Computerman fell to the deck, and lay sullen, wiping his mouth, weeping and afraid to speak again.
One of the overman knights raised his bow, and spoke in a soft, clear voice, “Noble lord Alverin! We have heard the word which can command the ring. One shot, and all the world shall be yours!”
“Nay, Elromir,” spoke Alverin, “Not even to win empires will I have such a blow be struck, against a man wounded and unarmed.”
The Watchman, kneeling, said, “Computer! Are there weapons at this world’s core, ready to strike out against our enemies?”
“ALL WEAPON SYSTEMS AT READY. TARGETS ACQUIRED. FIRING SEQUENCES READY TO INITIATE. STANDING BY.”
Alverin said, “Watchman, I pray you, wait! You will unleash a storm of fire! None save me aboard this ship even recall the origins of this war, its purpose, or its cause. Why do you condemn all the nations, lands, and peoples, here aboard the Twilight, to be obliterated? Think of those born innocent, years after this dreadful ship of war was launched. Our Captain betrayed us; we have surrendered; let it rest at that.”
Henwas said, “When the stranger, whom I now know to have been Valdemar, gave my master Himdall this dread ring, he did so with these words: ‘You alone shall know when the waiting is completed, when the enemy grows lax, and deems us dead.’ Only now do I understand the Captain’s purpose after all these years, even from before my birth. The other ships we know only as names of glory, these ships are hard beset by that great foe which ruined and overthrew our world so long ago; and our true world Earth, though we have forgotten it, still calls to us to fight in her defense. The Captain expected us to fight and die for the glory of the fleet, to die, if need be, to have all the Twilight die, if it would forward the mission goals, and accomplish our duty.”
Alverin said, “But, those aboard the other ships, why do you give such love and loyalty to them, that you are willing to call destruction down on all our world, for the sake of those whom you have never seen, and do not know?”