“You don’t sound very friendly to the viceroy, Patrician Barr,” said Mallow. “What if I’m one of his spies?”
“What if you are?” said Barr, bitterly. “What can you take?” He gestured a withered arm at the bare interior of the decaying mansion.
“Your life.”
“It would leave me easily enough. It has been with me five years too long. But you are not one of the viceroy’s men. If you were, perhaps even now instinctive self-preservation would keep my mouth closed.”
“How do you know?”
The old man laughed. “You seem suspicious. Come, I’ll wager you think I’m trying to trap you into denouncing the government. No, no. I am past politics.”
“Past politics? Is a man ever past that? The words you used to describe the viceroy — what were they? Murder, pillage, all that. You didn’t sound objective. Not exactly. Not as if you were past politics.”
The old man shrugged. “Memories sting when they come suddenly. Listen! Judge for yourself! When Siwenna was the provincial capital, I was a patrician and a member of the provincial senate. My family was an old and honored one. One of my great-grandfathers had been— No, never mind that. Past glories are poor feeding.”
“I take it,” said Mallow, “there was a civil war, or a revolution.”
Barr’s face darkened. “Civil wars are chronic in these degenerate days, but Siwenna had kept apart. Under Stannell VI, it had almost achieved its ancient prosperity. But weak emperors followed, and emperors mean strong viceroys, and our last viceroy — the same Wiscard, whose remnants still prey on the commerce among the Red Stars — aimed at the Imperial Purple. He wasn’t the first to aim. And if he had succeeded, he wouldn’t have been the first to succeed.
“But he failed. For when the Emperor’s Admiral approached the province at the head of a fleet, Siwenna itself rebelled against its rebel viceroy.” He stopped, sadly.
Mallow found himself tense on the edge of his seat, and relaxed slowly. “Please continue, sir.”
“Thank you,” said Barr, wearily. “It’s kind of you to humor an old man. They rebelled; or I should say, we rebelled, for I was one of the minor leaders. Wiscard left Siwenna, barely ahead of us, and the planet, and with it the province, were thrown open to the admiral with every gesture of loyalty to the Emperor. Why we did this, I’m not sure. Maybe we felt loyal to the symbol, if not to the person, of the Emperor — a cruel and vicious child. Maybe we feared the horrors of a siege.”
“Well?” urged Mallow, gently.
“Well,” came the grim retort, “that didn’t suit the admiral. He wanted the glory of conquering a rebellious province and his men wanted the loot such conquest would involve. So while the people were still gathered in every large city, cheering the Emperor and his admiral, he occupied all armed centers, and then ordered the population put to the atom-blast.”
“On what pretext?”
“On the pretext that they had rebelled against their viceroy, the Emperor’s anointed. And the admiral became the new viceroy, by virtue of one month of massacre, pillage and complete horror. I had six sons. Five died — variously. I had a daughter. I hope she died, eventually. I escaped because I was old. I came here, too old to cause even our viceroy worry.” He bent his gray head. “They left me nothing, because I had helped drive out a rebellious governor and deprived an admiral of his glory.”
Mallow sat silent, and waited. Then, “What of your sixth son?” he asked softly.
“Eh?” Barr smiled acidly. “He is safe, for he has joined the admiral as a common soldier under an assumed name. He is a gunner in the viceroy’s personal fleet. Oh, no, I see your eyes. He is not an unnatural son. He visits me when he can and gives me what he can. He keeps me alive. And some day, our great and glorious viceroy will grovel to his death, and it will be my son who will be his executioner.”
“And you tell this to a stranger? You endanger your son.”
“No. I help him, by introducing a new enemy. And were I a friend of the viceroy, as I am his enemy, I would tell him to string outer space with ships, clear to the rim of the Galaxy.”
“There are no ships there?”
“Did you find any? Did any space-guards question your entry? With ships few enough, and the bordering provinces filled with their share of intrigue and iniquity, none can be spared to guard the barbarian outer suns. No danger ever threatened us from the broken edge of the Galaxy — until you came.”
“I? I’m no danger.”
“There will be more after you.”
Mallow shook his head slowly, “I’m not sure I understand you.”
“Listen!” There was a feverish edge to the old man’s voice. “I knew you when you entered. You have a force-shield about your body, or had when I first saw you.”
Doubtful silence, then, “Yes — I had.”
“Good. That was a flaw, but you didn’t know that. There are some things I know. It’s out of fashion in these decaying times to be a scholar. Events race and flash past and who cannot fight the tide with atom-blast in hand is swept away, as I was. But I was a scholar, and I know that in all the history of atomics, no portable force-shields was ever invented. We have force-shields — huge, lumbering power-houses that will protect a city, or even a ship, but not one, single man.”
“Ah?” Mallow’s underlip thrust out. “And what do you deduce from that?”
“There have been stories percolating through space. They travel strange paths and become distorted with every parsec — but when I was young there was a small ship of strange men, who did not know our customs and could not tell where they came from. They talked of magicians at the edge of the Galaxy; magicians who glowed in the darkness, who flew unaided through the air, and whom weapons would not touch.
“We laughed. I laughed, too. I forgot it till today. But you glow in the darkness, and I don’t think my blaster, if I had one, would hurt you. Tell me, can you fly through air as you sit there now?”
Mallow said calmly, “I can make nothing of all this.”
Barr smiled. “I’m content with the answer. I do not examine my guests. But if there are magicians; if you are one of them; there may some day be a great influx of them, or you. Perhaps that would be well. Maybe we need new blood.” He muttered soundlessly to himself, then, slowly, “But it works the other way, too. Our new viceroy also dreams, as did our old Wiscard.”
“Also after the Emperor’s crown?”
Barr nodded. “My son hears tales. In the viceroy’s personal entourage, one could scarcely help it. And he tells me of them. Our new viceroy would not refuse the Crown if offered, but he guards his line of retreat. There are stories that, failing Imperial heights, he plans to carve out a new Empire in the Barbarian hinterland. It is said, but I don’t vouch for this, that he has already given one of his daughters as wife to a Kinglet somewhere in the uncharted Periphery.”
“If one listened to every story—”
“I know. There are many more. I’m old and I babble nonsense. But what do you say?” And those sharp, old eyes peered deep.
The trader considered. “I say nothing. But I’d like to ask something. Does Siwenna have atomic power? Now, wait, I know that it possesses the knowledge of atomics. I mean, do they have power generators intact, or did the recent sack destroy them?”
“Destroy them? Oh, no. Half a planet would be wiped out before the smallest power would be touched. They are irreplaceable and the suppliers of the strength of the fleet.” Almost proudly, “We have the largest and best on this side of Trantor itself.”