Chapter 5

“We bid you welcome to our universe, Mattern,” the xhindi said in his mind. “Come, follow us. We will lead you to the port on Ferr that we have made ready for you.”

“Will the ship be safe there?” Mattern asked, remembering the further danger of touching alien substance.

“As safe as she could be anywhere in this space.” And then the mellifluous one added, “Remember, whatever risks there are, now we share them with you.”

A point of livid light that danced so Mattern knew it must be alive led them to the gleaming purple-dark ovoid that was Ferr, then to the place that had been set aside for the Valkyrie. The xhindi had been right about the port so far as the ship herself was concerned. Probably they’d had a fair idea of what materials she and her contents were composed of from the ships that had passed fleetingly through their space, never pausing to become real. What they could not allow for were the random factors.

The ship set down on the “safe” port at Ferr. It made contact with the glossy alien ground. And, as it did so, Captain Schiemann very quietly disintegrated. No explosion, no sound. He simply crumbled into a white powder which slowly drifted away, and then was gone.

“Coal into diamonds,” Mattern found himself saying as he stared at Schiemann’s pipe rolling on the empty corridor floor, “dust unto dust.” When the pipe quivered to a stop, he began to laugh hysterically.

“So you think it’s funny, do you?” a gentle voice said behind him.

Mattern turned. Balas stood there.

“I’m afraid that I don’t agree,” Balas went on with that frightening softness. “He was good to me, and to you too, Lennie. He was damned good to the both of us. And this is the way you repay him. It wasn’t a nice thing to do, Lennie.”

Mattern opened his mouth to deny intent, but all that came out was the bubbling laughter.

“I know you didn’t mean for him to disappear like that,” Balas said, almost kindly. “It’s just that I guess you don’t care what happens to anybody but yourself. No, you don’t care for yourself even, just the things you want. You’re awful greedy, Lennie--awful greedy.”

His voice was very reasonable. “If I don’t do something to stop you, you’ll do the same thing to our whole universe that you did to the captain. It would be wrong for me to let that happen. So, you see, I have to kill you. I’m sorry, Lennie, because I like you, but I know you’ll understand.”

And he lunged for Mattern, reaching out the four monstrous arms that were his in hyperspace, the eye in his forehead brilliant with that hideous sanity.

Mattern backed away, still laughing. If Balas has gone sane, he thought, then perhaps I have gone mad. Only I am still conscious of everything that’s going on: the danger I am in, the way I am behaving. In fact, I have control over all of myself except my laughter. I know where we are--Balas and I are locked inside the ship alone together, and only one of us is coming out alive.

Undoubtedly the xhindi could have passed through the hull or opened the airlocks in some way, if they had wanted to. But they made no move to try, merely remained outside, watching. The two humans, in that space and time, were alone in a small private war of their own. Mattern could not tell whether the xhindi outside were enjoying themselves, as a group of humans would have under like circumstances, but he seemed to sense anxiety for the outcome--not only of that battle but of another, inner one. Why, I’m beginning to read their thoughts, too, he realized, in the middle of his fear and hysteria. I am growing closer to them by the minute.

And Balas was getting closer to him. Mattern had a blaster, of course, but he was afraid to use it. A bolt of alien energy might produce a reaction that could rip both universes. Yet, bare-handed, he was no match for the bigger, stronger man. Fortunately, he had never pretended to be a hero, not even to himself in the saneness of normspace, so he was able to turn and run. Balas pursued him through the desolate corridors of the Valkyrie, Mattern’s laughter echoing crazily in the emptiness.

His only hope was to find a hand weapon--or something that could be used as a hand weapon. And, as he rounded a bend, Mattern saw the primitive fire axe hanging against a bulkhead, the traditional relic that all spaceships, large and small, carried and kept burnished and ready for a use that would never come. But there was another use it could be put to.

Instinct made Mattern seize the axe from its hooks on the wall. Instinct surged up from the handle to fill him with the power and joy and knowledge to use it. He turned to face Balas’ onrush, and his laughter no longer sounded insane in his ears; it had the triumphant energy of a primeval war cry.

The madman’s charge was lightning fast, but Mattern was the younger man by at least a decade. He told himself that he meant only to stun Balas, but he was conscious all the time that, if Balas were merely stunned, the problem would be merely postponed. He lifted the axe and brought it down. And then Mattern was alone, the only human being in an alien space and an alien time, locked in this ship with the drifting white dust that had been his friend, and the bleeding corpse that had been--no, not his enemy, but his friend also, and who had, only minutes after death, already begun to haunt him. It was then that Mattern remembered the other man he had killed in the same way.

Karl Brodek had never haunted him, but that was because Len knew the killing was justified--it was retribution, not murder. For Len had seen Brodek kill his mother, not all at once, but little by little. It was her face that stayed with him always, her blue eyes and her sweet voice. She’d been the only one he ever had, really--the brother had been nothing but a wailing blob of protoplasm--and then Schiemann, a little. Now he was more alone than he’d been in all of his solitary life.

He knew that the eerie creatures outside meant him no harm, but would have liked to comfort him if they could. That made it worse rather than better. If only there were some tangible enemy to attack, to beat his fists against ... but the only enemy he could find was the monstrous form reflected in the mirror of his own cabin.

He was no longer laughing, he noticed; the fit was over. And so, he sensed, was the anxiety outside. In some way, he had passed a test.

It was then that the xhindi began to speak to him through the hull of the ship, urging him to come out. “You have come so far,” they said, “and time is a precious and a dangerous commodity. We cannot afford to waste it, either of us.”

He did not--could not--respond.

They could have forced him out, but they were kind--or perhaps only wise. They simply coaxed and waited. After a while, moving stiffly, as if he had cogs instead of a heart, he opened the airlock and went outside. He set foot on the dark polished surface of Ferr. But there was no thrill of strangeness or of triumph or anticipation. There was ... nothing. His physical senses were all operating. He knew there was neither gravity nor lack of it. He knew there was no atmosphere--and he accepted that, not because he accepted the xhindi’s word that he would not need to breathe in this continuum, but because he didn’t care whether or not he breathed; he didn’t care about anything.

“Come,” the xhindi said, in audible words now, and their spoken voices were as sweet as their mind voices.

He found himself moving as through a nightmare, as he proceeded according to their directions, and the xhindi themselves, with their monstrous grace and musical voices, were a logical part of the black ballet in which he found himself participating.

The dignitaries of Ferr, a fantasy procession in the moonlit colors of hell--smoke and flame and shadow--came to greet him and to lead him to the mbretersha. She glittered splendidly upon her throne of alien substance--a monster, of course, in human terms, and yet also a great lady, as a queen should be in any terms. Through the fog of his own immediate perception, she reached out and touched him with her dignity and compassion.

“I am very sorry,” she said, “that such a thing should have happened. I know you are full of grief for your comrades, and I wish that I could have postponed our interview. However, I must press you, for the longer you stay on this world, the greater the risk is for my people.”

Somewhere before, it seemed to him, he had heard her voice--sensed her mind pattern, anyway. If he had not known that she was the mbretersha, he would have fancied that hers had been one of the minds that had spoken to him, the most persuasive of the cajoling creatures that had sung him their siren songs as he flashed transitorily through their universe. But, he thought dully, that was impossible. She was the mbretersha, the queen.

She read his thoughts, and the pattern of her appearance altered subtly. It was a warm and kind expression of herself; it was a smile. “You must learn, Mattern, that the concept of a ruler in this universe differs from the concept in yours. Here a ruler is the servant of her people, not their master. It is her obligation to take care of them, protect them, watch over them--in whatever way seems most fitting to her. She can have no pride in herself, only in them. They are more than her children.”

It was funny, Mattern thought, that she should so easily plan to break the rules of her universe. A space rat like him--that was one thing; it was to be expected. But a queen? Now that he was coming back to life a little, he began to wonder about this again.

Deftly, she picked the wonder out of his mind and answered it. “Our Federation, like yours, is an artificial creation. Its laws are no more than arbitrary regulations, devised by the various peoples of each universe with regard to the greatest good of the majority, and thrust upon majority and minority alike.”

Mattern began to understand, or thought he did. “A queen isn’t likely to hold with democracy,” he said--though perhaps not aloud.

She was a little impatient. “It’s not a question of absolute power or divine right--simply that my people come first, even before myself; my own world is part of me, and I am part of it by nature and instinct. Its needs are my needs. When my people are hungry, I feel the pangs.”

Most rulers justify themselves like that, he thought, keeping his lips pressed firmly together. But they all do the same things.

But he couldn’t keep her out of his mind. “No,” she said, “you’re wrong. I was not speaking metaphorically. My nervous system is attuned to my people’s; it is a hereditary trait bred into my family. So being the ruler is not a pleasant station to occupy.”

It certainly wouldn’t be, he thought, if she was telling the truth--to suffer every pang that was suffered on the planet, and, if the attuning were psychic also, every sorrow. He expected her to pick the disbelief out of his mind, but she smiled and went on to tell him about her planet.

Ferr was not a large world. Moreover, it was essentially a barren one. It had been rich only because it had previously engaged in sub-rosa commerce with Mattern’s universe. “And the last traffic was long, long ago,” she told Mattern. “In a day much before mine, when my mother ruled.”

“What happened? What stopped the traffic?”

“Our captain died of old age, and we have had trouble finding a successor to him.”

“Why is it so hard to get somebody else?” Mattern asked bluntly.

She paused. When she spoke again, it was so obliquely that he did not realize immediately that it was an answer. “Time was when we had more contact with your people. There were many who knew of the xhindi, although few had actually encountered us. It was not difficult for us to get humans to work with us then. But the barbarians took over your world and your people lost the knowledge of how to get through to us. And when they regained it, we were not why they wished to get through. Much of the problem is in making people believe that we exist.”

He nodded. “The flluska call you demons.”

“There are still some on Earth who call us demons, Mattern. Your rulers and administrators do not call us demons--no, they are too learned for that--but your Space Service, by means of divers spells and conditionings, prevents most of those who pass through hyperspace from seeing and hearing us. And, of those who do, most are too frightened for negotiation.”

She asked with sorrowful archness, “Are we so terrible in your eyes, Mattern?”

“I don’t know,” he said slowly, bewilderedly. “Sometimes you are, and I know you will be again. But right now, to me you look--almost beautiful.”

There was silence, and, for a moment, he thought that he had offended her.

Then, “Thank you,” she said softly. “It is a great compliment.”

He was anxious to know why they had chosen him as their human representative. “Weren’t there any men who did try to get through?” he asked.

“A few--a very few--reached this space.” She added reluctantly, “Some of them proved to lack stability of substance--”

He was angry, at her, and at himself, for not realizing that he had not been chosen. It had merely been a question of survival. “Then you knew what could happen to Schiemann!”

“It could have happened to anyone, Mattern. You knew there were risks to be taken. We did not conceal that from you.”

And that was true. It had not occurred to him that the risks would not be equally shared by all three members of the ship’s company.

The mbretersha continued: “And others of those who come through go mad. We feared that might happen to you, Mattern.”

“Others go sane also,” he said.

“This is the first time that has happened in my experience. But truly, Mattern, a madman would not seek to reach us.”

“I wonder,” Mattern said. “I wonder if anybody but a madman would.”

This time he had displeased her. There was chill silence, and then: “Time is short. It is best that we return to discussing our business together. Now we will pay you for the merchandise you have brought us with a substance which is stable on Earth--at least it was in times gone by--and which used to become a stuff of considerable value. On your next trip--”

“What makes you think there’s going to be a next trip? What makes you think I’m going to come back here again?” He would really have to be a madman to go through that all over again.

The mbretersha smiled. “You will come, Mattern,” she said. “You will come when you see how rewarding it is to deal with us. And you will come because--”

“Because of what?” he demanded, more sharply than one should address a queen.

“Because your kqyres will make sure that you do.” The tall, splendidly illuminated being who stood close to her throne bowed as she introduced him: “This is Lord Njeri, who served as kqyres with the previous captain. He will serve with you.”

“Kqyres? What’s that?” Apprehension quickened inside Mattern. “And what right have you to--”

“Your partner is dead,” the mbretersha told him. “Lord Njeri is your new partner.”

Mattern stood staring at her. No point protesting further, he knew; he was on her world, in her power. For the time being, he would have to obey her.

“Come, Captain Mattern,” said the kqyres. “It is fitting that we superintend the loading of the ship.”

So they went back to the port and Mattern watched the xhindi fill the Valkyrie’s hold with some queer, spongy-looking substance that couldn’t possibly be of value anywhere. And beside him stood the kqyres, as he was to be beside him for the next fifteen years.

“If you are disturbed about my effect upon your people when they catch sight of me,” the kqyres assured the young man, “you may ease your mind. I shall make myself so that I am barely visible in your universe. Only those who look for me can see me. You need have no fear,” he added with a sigh. “I have been through all this before.”

“Yeah, that’s what she told me,” said Mattern grimly.

“It is disloyal of me, I know,” the xhind murmured, “but I had hoped the mbretersha would not find a human representative before I died. I am aware of my obligation to my world--but it is not a pleasant prospect to spend one’s last years in exile, however honorable.”

“Don’t worry, as soon as we get to normspace, I’ll send you back. I’m not going on with this.”

The kqyres seemed to shrug sadly. “You cannot send me back, for I am permanently attached to you. Wherever you go, I go--until the mbretersha chooses to free us, one from the other.”

Mattern couldn’t believe that. Once he got out of this alien universe, none of its laws could apply to him.

“Secondly,” the kqyres informed him, “you will want to come back here. When you look at the cargo and see what it is, you will want to come back.” He sighed again. “I know your species so well. And I do not fancy they have changed.”

VI

When the Valkyrie reached normspace, her cargo proved to be the traditional reward--gold. Not the most precious metal in the universe any more, certainly, but still valuable. What there was in her hold would come to perhaps as much money as Mattern might, if his luck had held, have amassed in several decades of operating with Schiemann in normspace.

“Well,” said the kqyres as Mattern stood goggling at the glowing bullion, “is the payment just?”

“Yeah,” Mattern grunted, “fair enough.” His mind was working busily: Captain Schiemann is dead, and so is Balas, so I can’t do anything about that. A man’s got to have some kind of business. Why shouldn’t I go on trading with the xhindi, since I seem to be one of the few people lucky enough to be able to do it? Besides, from what the mbretersha said, I couldn’t get out of it even if I wanted to. So why fight? Ethics aside, it’s a good deal. I’d make more money that way than any other way. I could see a lot of Lyddy.