“I will not live to see salvation, yet I know it comes,” said Henwas, “I never knew the other men who serve aboard those other ships; yet I know that there are those aboard them who would gladly do for me what I now do for them. That knowledge is enough for me.”
One of the knights, evidently realizing the Henwas meant to do an act which would provoke the Enemy to destroy the world, stooped, picked up a fallen dagger, and, before any of Alverin’s men could think to stop him, threw it. The dagger spun and landed fair on the middle of Henwas’ back. Henwas, back arched, eyes blind with pain, now shouted, “Computer! Shut these doors!”
“ACKNOWLEDGED. ALL STATIONS NOTIFIED OF OVERRIDE COMMAND LOCATION.”
The men in the room swept forward like a tide, but too late; the golden doors fell to, and shut in their faces.
Alverin raised his hand, and cried out with a great voice to rally his men. “Alberac’s curse has told all the computer screens now where the ring hides! The Enemy will sweep this area with fire, exploding all the decks below us if they need be! Come! We must be gone! It may be already too late…” And he set his men passing swiftly out of the chamber. He and his paladins stood on the dais before the golden doors, unwilling to depart till all the men had gone before them.
And as they stood so, through the doors, they heard the great, chiming and inhuman voice call out, “WEAPONS FREE. INITIATING LAUNCH. WARHEADS AWAY.”
There came a noise like thunder. And a great voice echoing from every wall rang out; and it was the Watchman’s voice, tremendously amplified, and echoing throughout every corridor of every nation of the great ship. They heard the Watchman call out, saying, “I have seen it! I have seen it! And the heavens are consumed with light!”
Then, more softly, they heard the great voice say, “Father! If you see this, you shall know; I did not leave my post…”
And then, even more softly: “Computer, now destroy this ring, and let its curse be ended, and return all functions to their proper stations and commands…”
Light returned to the chamber where they where, and they heard, as from far off, a great noise of wonder, as of many voices of people near and far, all crying out at once. And they knew that light returned to darkened places which had known no light for years beyond count.
One of the knights took hold of Alverin’s cape. “Sire, look!” and he pointed to where the giant Carradock lay.
Of Valdemar’s body there was no sign. He was gone.
“Look there.” One of the knights, in wonder, pointed upward to where the two black birds were huddled among the pillar-tops, bundles of black feathers, croaking.
“They are his magpies,” said Alverin softly. “Even in ancient times, from before he was blind, he always kept such birds near him, to remind him of what he dared not forget.” And, to himself, he murmured, “Or perhaps, since all this was arranged by his cunning, perhaps it is I who am blind, or who have forgotten…”
One of the black birds croaked, and spoke in a voice like a man’s voice: “No matter what the cost. The Mission goals must be accomplished. No matter what the cost.”
The other black bird croaked and said, “All’s fair in war. All’s fair. All’s fair.”
Alverin and his men departed from that place, and did not look back.
WARSHIP
by George R. R. Martin and George Guthridge
George R. R. Martin is the best-selling author of the Song of Ice and Fire epic fantasy series and a range of other novels such as Fevre Dream, The Armageddon Rag, and Dying of the Light. He is a prolific author of short stories, which have garnered numerous nominations and wins for the field’s major awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, Stoker, and World Fantasy Awards.
George Guthridge is the author of several novels, including The Madagascar Manifesto (with Janet Berliner). He’s also written dozens of short stories, which have appeared in Amazing Stories, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and in numerous anthologies. He has won the Bram Stoker Award for best novel, and has been a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
“Warship” is the very first SF story Martin ever tried to sell professionally. “Tried” being the operative word. It wasn’t until some years later when he showed the story to his friend George Guthridge—who saw something in it, and offered to rewrite it—that the story found a home in the pages of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
Invulnerable, she is. Earth’s answer to Sarissa’s defiance of Earth authority, she carries fourteen lasercannon, dual solar guns, a belly filled with conventionally armed missiles. Self-repairing, computerized to a point approaching sentience, she has backup systems should any instruments prove defective—supervisory capacities should any of her crew of fifty-one prove derelict. She is powered by two Severs-stardrive engines.
She is Alecto.
Graciously, gloriously she began her cruise homeward at five times lightspeed, her duralloy awash with starlight. Now she had stopped. Behind her, once reddened by Doppler shift, Sarissa’s sun is again gold.
He was the last of the crew, and his strength was waning. First Dutyman Lewis Akklar found solace in those facts, an emotion he felt but could not explain, something similar to what he once had felt toward the paintings of Degas and Renoir. He was sitting in the command chair, his eyes dull; now a smile creased his lips, turned the left corner of his mouth slightly upward. Back and forth, slowly back and forth he continued to swivel the chair. The smile broadened.
His legs were outstretched, and his pants, plastic and sweat-soaked, clung wetly to his legs. His face throbbed with heat; his temperature, he knew, was about 104 degrees. His hair—straight, black—was unkempt, and it occurred to him he needed a shave and shower, some sleep. That, too, he found ironic.
Except for the low humming of the instrument panel and an occasional click as a switch cut in, the bridge around him was empty.
On three sides the silent impersonal instruments winked their multicolored lights off and on in ever-changing patterns. Above him the viewscreen revealed its endless stars: an expanse of coldness and loneliness. He knew Sol was the bright yellow star in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Somehow he did not give a damn anymore.
So this was how it was to end. Belford, Petrovovich, Captain Doria, Lieutenant Judanya Kahr: all his friends and shipmates—killed by disease. Though capable of firing some of the most sophisticated weaponry ever installed in a spacecraft, the crew had not realized until too late for retaliation that the Sarissi emissaries had smuggled aboard a biological agent. Now only Ak-klaf, a clerk-holographer, remained.
Again he was conscious of the viewscreen. The galaxy seemed adazzle with pinpricks of light. Stars, knots in a salmon net, faces in a classroom: his mind had insisted upon those comparisons ever since he had volunteered for the international draft back home in the Republic of the Aleutians. Yet the loneliness he felt toward those images had preceded that induction by several years. It had been loneliness, he now knew—not wanderlust—which in mid-semester had taken him from those schoolchildren and set him upon the grease-blackened deck of the Ulak out of Cold Bay, the nets piled at his feet overlay upon neat overlay, the sea slapping the hull and the gulls cawing overhead as they waited to alight, wings lifting, should the cook dump the garbage. He had loved the ship, the chilling, constant fog; the fishing voyage had neither erased nor intensified his loneliness, but at least had given him reason for it.