Chapter Four
SPIDERS IN AJAR
After picking up all the Faetians from Station Deimo, Quest was approaching Phobo. An increasingly brilliant star was already conspicuous in the porthole.
Vydum Polar, Phobo’s engineer, had become the new station chief.
When the disintegration war began on Faena and when Phobo and Deimo each sent out two torpedoes, the young Faetians on Phobo, insisting on a peaceful visit by spaceship to Deimo and outraged by the station chief’s conduct, had replaced Dovol Sirus even before the destruction of Faena and before communicating with Deimo about the changes on Phobo.
Dovol Sirus had not resisted. He had even willingly surrendered his powers to Vydum Polar, believing that at last he was going to get some peace of mind and all his worries would be shouldered by the inventor. He was, however, cruelly mistaken.
Quest flew to Phobo with all Deimo’s Faetians and with Dm Sat and Toni Fae from Terr.
Vydum Polar and Ala Veg had to sit with Dm Sat in order to pass judgement on the war criminals. Um Sat named them as the Lutons and Dovol Sirus.
The concave cabin walls were hung with landscapes of Faena—forests, meadows, rivers, towns and seas that did not exist any more.
Terrified and outraged, totally unprepared for such a state of affairs, the accused sat before the judges on a black bench and behind, against the silvery walls, stood all the Faetians left in space.
The space station always turned on its axis. The gigantic sphere of Mar kept appearing in the portholes and floating away again with inexorable regularity. The baleful, reddish-brown colours of the planet during the strange, swift-passing night alternated in the cabin with the daytime glow of Sol.
Um Sat proved to be a Faetian with a will of iron. He had been seriously ill on Terr and had only fully recovered on the journey. Now, enormously tall, white-haired and white-bearded, he had vigorously taken charge of the Faetian colony. The first thing he had done was to put the war criminals of space on trial. He now sat calmly at the table, rhythmically tapping it with his finger.
The interrogation began. Vlasta Sirus, smirking nastily, put up an evasive and spirited resistance.
“The self-appointed court has no right to try us. There are no laws in space and you cannot pass sentence.”
“The law is the will of the Faetians here,” replied Um Sat firmly. His knitted brows boded ill for the accused. He glanced significantly at the landscapes in their frames, which were now black in token of mourning.
The old scientist inspired Vydum Polar with great respect. He did not look like the other men of learning who had refused to recognise him. On the contrary, Um Sat was interested in Vydum’s inventions and immediately invited him to implement Brat Lua’s project.
In spite of her assumed arrogance, Vlasta Sirus had the shivers. She looked pathetic, although her tone of voice was defiant.
“Then look for war criminals among the chiefs of the space stations, not among the serving girls.”
These words aroused general laughter among the Faetians, who knew the real part played by Phobo’s greenhouse nursery-woman.
General Dovol Sirus, gasping at the insult to his wife, was forced to confirm that the decision to send torpedoes to Deimo had been suggested by Vlasta. When he was being questioned, he would hastily jump to his feet, though with an effort. He was now very annoyed, emphasising this in every possible way.
“I can only be condemned for weakness of character in my family life and not for my military actions. I am only a Faetian businessman. My general’s rank was conferred on me for the trade-mark of the munitions workshops. As a Faetian businessman, I was intending to acquire territory on Mar so as to sell plots of land at a profit to the Faetian settlers.” And he smiled trustingly.
“Whom did you force to prime the disintegration torpedoes?” asked Ala Veg bluntly.
“I primed them myself.”
“Was it safe?” asked Ala Veg, pursuing her inquiry further.
“Absolutely. The warheads were well screened to prevent radiation.”
“So at no risk to yourself, you took measures to destroy Deimo?” Ala Veg was remorselessly driving the accused into a corner.
“I had to come to terms with fear. I mean above all my fear of my wife, Vlasta Sirus,” replied Dovol Sirus, wiping the perspiration from his bald patch.
“I was right not to trust the Faetians on Deimo,” interposed Vlasta Sirus. “They were the first to try and destroy our Phobo.”
“But wasn’t Vlasta Sirus plotting the same move against Deimo?” asked Vydum Polar, coming forward.
Vlasta Sirus glared from under close-knit black eyebrows with contempt at her failure of a son-in-law who had dared to condemn her.
“War isn’t a picnic,” she said defiantly.
“Did the accused really not know of the Agreement on Peace in Outer Space?” Um Sat reminded her, calmly pouring himself some water and motioning to Dovol Sirus that he could sit down.
“How could that be known to a simple nurserywoman who was serving in space for the benefit of the Faetians?” said Vlasta, lowering her eyes.
At this point, even her meek spouse jumped up again and shouted:
“All of us here knew about it!”
“Then why did you lay in torpedoes for the station?” inquired Ala Veg nastily, looking the former chief of Phobo straight in the eye.
“The Faetians on Deimo couldn’t be trusted.” And Dovol Sirus smiled disarmingly at her again.
“And what has the former chief of Deimo, Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard Mrak Luton, to say about his misbehaviour?” asked Um Sat.
Mrak Luton rose heavily to his feet.
“I, at least, don’t vegetate under someone’s heel. I am a soldier. I was carrying out the orders given to me. Here is an order from Dictator Yar Jupi. I was under obligation to carry it out in the event of a disintegration war. I cannot be condemned for my integrity as a soldier. The one to blame is certainly not me, his officer, but Yar Jupi himself, who violated an order he had signed in person.” Mrak Luton laid the written tablets down on the table.
“Mrak Luton, did you know that the warhead was not screened and that it was lethally dangerous to be anywhere near it; yet you still drove my husband Tycho Veg to certain death?”
Mrak Luton grinned and shrugged his fat shoulders.
“An officer sent his soldier ahead in battle. There was a war on.”
“The reference to war is irrelevant,” observed Um Sat. “It shouldn’t happen on a planet, much less in space, for war is an unjustifiable crime.”
“Even if it is defensive?” asked Mrak Luton challengingly.
“A disintegration weapon is an attack weapon. It can never be defensive.”
“The inventor of the disintegration weapon, of course, has a clearer idea of what to call it,” commented Vlasta Sirus maliciously. “Perhaps it would be more correct to condemn the one who created this weapon, not the ones who were forced to use it! But he is passing judgement!” And she sighed heavily with affected bitterness.
“Very well, then! Condemn me, Um Sat, scientist of matter, because I made my discovery public on two continents simultaneously, hoping that the fear of exterminating all living things would prevent the insanity of wars; condemn me because I did not ban dangerous knowledge as I would do now. But those who, after surviving in space, used that knowledge to harm others—they should answer for their crimes.”
The Elder had remained true to himself. As before, he had not been learned in the profundities of the soul; he still thought that it was enough to punish the guilty and ban dangerous knowledge for all time so that evil would be averted. But he was the oldest of the survivors, no one could doubt his integrity, and so he was putting on trial those guilty of a disintegration war in space. An unfamiliar harshness rang in his voice and his eyes burned darkly.