The final burst of white noise accompanied the flare; the screen went dark, and the CEO turned to them all, seeking out each one’s gaze, one by one, as the impact of what they had seen diminished.
“It will have to be edited down, of course,” ‘the minister of internal policy said at fast. “The broadcast nets will cut it themselves, if we don’t.”
“No, they won’t,” the minister of communications said softly. “I’ll invoke the Public Safety Clause. They’ll show it intact. I think they would, anyway.”
The CEO nodded. “Show it just the way it is. It speaks for itself.”
The commentators couldn’t allow that, of course–but they did keep the introduction brief. Everyone who was watching the news that night, on all the Terran and Khalian planets, sat silent in awe, feeling grief well up, as they watched the gallant Terran and Khalian ships, enemies turning against a greater enemy, fighting to the Iast without the slightest inclination to flee from a foe who fought in deadly silence, with no warning, no demand for surrender, no slightest offer of mercy. They watched, and saw a human come to the aid of a Khalian, fighting other humans . . .
Merchant humans.
The screen went blank, then lit again with the image of the two commentators.
“But they were eriemies, Dave!” said Chester. “Sworn enemies! Captain Goodheart, sworn to destroy every Terran ship he could–and Commander Sales, sworn to destroy Goodheart!”
“They died forsworn.” Chester nodded, frowning. “In the end, they realized who the real enemy was–and humans and Khalians joined forces against him.”
“It is a lie!” Throb leaped up, naked claws poised over the man’s image on the screen. “All humans are enemies to all Khalians! The Merchants swore to aid us, and betrayed us! The Fleet slew us wholesale, gutted our planets!”
“You have heard for yourself,” Serum said. He was older, beginning to gray around the muzzle. “We all heard the captain’s voice. The Merchants are the true enemy.”
“It was altered!” Throb lifted his head as an even better explanation hit, widening his eyes. “It was a complete fabrication! It never happened, none of it! The captain still lives! It is only that the Terrans wish to make us think he is dead!”
“What is, is.” Serum’s sorrow deepened to sternness. “Do not seek to deny what is real, or you will lead yourself and all your warriors into disaster.”
“I deny nothing but a lie! I state only what is true, what must be true! Must it not, Globin? . . .Globin!”
The pirate colony’s only human sat immobile, back bent, shoulders sagging, hands between his Iegs, head bowed.
“Globin!” Throb shrilled. “Are you senseless? Do you not hear? Tell them it is a lie!”
Slowly Globin lifted his head. His eyes were red; his face was gray; tears streamed down his cheeks.
Throb stared at him as though he were seeing a ghost.
“Let him be,” Serum said softly. “His god is dead.”
Globin–torso long, legs short and bowed, head two sizes too large for his ill-proportioned body. Eyes too huge through his bottle-glass spectacles, face a doughy mass, hair a black thatch, mouth almost lipless. Globin, the genius.
Globin, the outcast.
His fellow humans had heard his new name, given him by Goodheart’s Khalian pirates, and had twisted it to express their new hate. To them, he became–
Goblin, the traitor.
A traitor to all his race, to all that is right and good, for he helped the Khalian pirate prey upon human ships, helped the bloody Weasels shoot down Fleet ships.
Georgie Desrick, the outcast.
His playmates mocked his ugliness, his schoolmates parodied his clumsiness. His classmates scorned him for his bookishness, hated him for his exalting of the mind and complete disregard of the body.
But what friends could he have, except books? When none would teach him the use of his body, because it was too great an effort for so slow a learner?
“I swear, Georgie Desrick, I don’t know what you bother living for!”
“Why don’t you just drop dead, Georgie Desrick?”
The question was well asked–and its only answer was faith. Faith in his God, faith in humankind. Georgie Desrick clung to life by religion.
Finally, his fellow junior officers, in spite and hatred, manufactured excuses, made him a scapegoat, and set him adrift in a lifeboat.
And in the darkness and despair, faith at last wore out, and Georgie Desrick cursed both his race and his God.
Then Goodheart saved him–Goodheart, seeking to cultivate a human traitor, though Globin couldn’t know that until it no longer mattered–for Goodheart was his friend, Goodheart was his teacher, Goodheart was his protector.
Goodheart, was his god.
Saved by Goodheart, nurtured by Goodheart, given a name by Goodheart, accepted by the pirates on Goodheart’s orders, Globin lived by Goodheart and for Goodheart, all for Goodheart…
And Goodheart was dead.
“No, Globin, no!”
It was a furred paw that caught his hand, clawed fingers that twisted the knife from his grasp, a Khalian doctor that pressed the anesthetic spray against his arm ...
No, not Khalian, he thought with groggy insight as he sank down into the depths of sedation. Not Khalian. Pirate. Goodheart’s pirate ...
“What use, Throb? The captain is dead! How can you aid his revenge?”
“By finding his slayers!” Throb snarled as he stepped into the shuttle. “I cannot sit idle when my captain is dead, and his killers boasting in their guilt! You are Castellan in my absence, Serum!” And he slammed the hatch shut.
Serum watched the little shuttle lift off; his spirit ascending to the battlecruiser with Throb, knowing well how intolerable it was to sit and do nothing when every cell of his being cried out for vengeance.
Light-years away Throb’s ship broke out of hyperspace and began to snoop, lying quietly while its sensors scanned the whole area and searched for stars that moved. When it found none, and no signals other than the background static of stars, it winked into hyperspace again and was gone, to emerge a few light-years farther along the course, moving steadily in toward that part of the sky from which the final transmission had come. Again it scanned the sky, lying still for an hour and receiving—nothing. So it jumped again, and again ...
“It will take us months,” the helmsman estimated.
“Assuming what?”
“The top cruising speed of the captain’s ship, multiplied by the time elapsed since he left port.
Throb nodded. “Then months it will be.”
But it was only a day. Finally, when they broke out, there was radiation–the sub-light transmission of ships in conflict. Throb listened and recognized the battle as the one he had already watched, too many times. “Laggard light speed only now carries word of his doom! How long since the transmission was received on Barataria?”
“Five days, Lieutenant.”
“Then we are five light-days from the scene of the ambush, or less! Helm . . .”
“Object in movement!” cried the sensor operator.
Throb swung to the screen, staring. A pinpoint of light moved, only a little, but moved. “Bearing!”
“Toward us–two degrees to starboard. Velocity is half Tau!”
“Half of light speed? It will approach us in minutes! Match velocity! Ready an intercept!”