A Covenant of Justice Read online

  The Bridge to the Stars

  The command bridge of The Golden Fury looked like an elegant drawing room. One end of it fell away to become a railed terrace overlooking a giant window onto empty space, actually an enormous holographic display. Below this balcony, the ship’s flight crew—all specially neutered Vampires—worked busily at several ranks of work stations. The Lady glanced down at them only perfunctorily. Neuters held no interest for her. She turned back to her guests—in particular, the Dragon Lord.

  “Have you had enough to eat, your grace?” she asked with elaborate courtesy. The Lady offered her greeting purely as a formality; her question did not refer to the Dragon Lord’s immediate consumption of comestibles aboard the starship.

  The Dragon Lord belched contentedly and grinned a metallic smile. The stench of his eructation reached her delicate nostrils a moment later; but if it offended her, she betrayed no sign.

  “Feed well? Yes, indeed I did,” the Dragon Lord grunted happily. “For the first time in many years, I have not only filled myself to the point of satiation, but I have actually had to leave part of my meal uneaten because I could not hold any more. I had not believed I would ever know such joy again. Indeed, had I not received your delicious invitation to join you on this expedition, I would have gone dormant for days while I digested. Perhaps I still might.”

  The Lady hid her reaction to the Dragon Lord’s unexpected admission. Whatever surprise she might have felt, she carefully kept herself from showing it. She realized unhappily that the great Dragon’s candor about his own recent excess represented his way of chiding her, of letting her know that he remained very much aware of the hunting rites that Drydel—and by implication, herself—had practiced at the now-razed nest in the desert. She had asked the Lord to personally oversee the destruction of the remaining evidence. Of course, the bloody-damned lizard would use his knowledge to its maximum benefit for himself. He would remind her of this dishonor for years to come, subtly pushing her this way and that—a much more elegant way of throwing his considerable weight around than directly challenging her.

  She gave the Dragon Lord her sweetest smile—an industrial-strength dose. “I hope that all of your future assignments shall prove as pleasant.” And by that phrasing, she reminded him that he still worked for her, not the other way around.

  The Lady turned off her smile abruptly, and said, “We have to clean up a mess on Burihatin. d’Vashti’s mess. I shall require the complete cooperation of your best Dragons.”

  The Dragon Lord didn’t answer immediately. He rumbled deep in his throat, a sound the Lady knew represented a ruminative contemplation. “I wonder what the people on Burihatin taste like.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” the Lady remarked, surprising even herself with her straightforward reply. “I would advise you to take extraordinary care, though. We do not enjoy the same control on Burihatin that we do on Thoska-Roole, and you already know too well how precarious the situation on Thoska-Roole can sometimes get.”

  “Madame Zillabar—” The Great Dragon bowed in elaborate obeisance. “You may count on the total support of myself and all the warrior-lizards under my command. We will place ourselves completely at your disposal.”

  “Thank you, great Dragon. You honor me with your service.” The Lady turned to her Captain then, a near-featureless neuter, and nodded her command.

  The Star-Captain bowed and proceeded to his station. Quietly, he began whispering orders. A moment later, a solemn chime sounded throughout the vessel. It broke its orbit and headed out toward the darkness between the stars.

  When it had finally put enough distance between itself and the worst effects of the gravity well created by Thoska-Roole and its bloated red sun, the starship activated its faster-than-light stardrive. It wrapped itself in a fold of otherness and leapt into otherspace.

  Questions without Answers

  Sawyer sat alone for a long time with his thoughts. He hadn’t liked some of the things that the TimeBinder had said about his brother and himself. It bothered him. In particularly, he did not like the phrase “ethically retarded.” It implied that he and Finn had never considered these so-called higher concerns at all.

  In fact, Sawyer and Finn had had many long discussions about morality, ethics, philosophy, and individual responsibility. After a number of direct exercises and experiments in the physical universe, their unique experiences had revealed to them the limits of trust in the realm, and based on that information, they had developed a system of personal behavior consistent with their discoveries. They trusted no one, sometimes not even each other.

  For William Three-Dollar to call that “ethically retarded” seemed to Sawyer, evidence of a terrible prejudice against self-contained individuals.

  The only “alliance of life” that Sawyer had ever really noticed remained the unbreakable relationship between predator and prey. The universe offered you a choice between diner and dinner. ‘Tis better to dine, Sawyer and Finn had decided. All life feeds on death. Even plants, that depend only on sunlight for the energy to drive photosynthesis, feed on the heat death of a star. To characterize death as an enemy rather than accept it as part of the process seemed stupid, short-sighted, and narrow-minded. On the other hand, when death threatened you or someone close to you, it concentrated one’s attention immensely. It put the matter into the subjective domain, which Sawyer knew, always skewed one’s perceptions.

  In other words, the very real possibility of Finn’s death scared the hell out of him.

  Maybe they had made a very bad decision here. Maybe, as a result of their actions in tracking and capturing the TimeBinder, Lady Zillabar would now have the power to do a lot of harm to many unsuspecting people.

  1 Did he and Finn bear the responsibility for that?

  The question gnawed at his mind, coming back again and again to torment his peace. Should he have let Finn die to protect some people he didn’t even know? He and Finn had always considered rebels just as bad as governments. They shared equal arrogance, both claiming moral authority and righteousness of purpose. Governments and rebels not only deserved each other; if either didn’t exist, the other would have to invent them as an opponent. They needed each other. Why shouldn’t the Markham brothers profit from the pigheadedness of those who believed they knew better than anyone else what other people should or shouldn’t do? And besides, what else could they have done here? d’Vashti hadn’t given them much choice—death, or death by boonga.2

  Later, after Finn had lain down to rest again, Sawyer approached William Three-Dollar quietly. “Can I talk to you?”

  The spindly man sat in a corner, his bony knees folded up in front of his chest, his arms carelessly wrapped around them. He nodded. He moved over on the bunk and made room for Sawyer. “You look like a man who has swallowed a live toad.”

  “Huh? I don’t understand.” Sawyer sat down next to Three-Dollar.

  “You’ve never heard the old saying, have you? Swallow a live toad the first thing in the morning. Nothing worse will happen to you all day. Your face still shows the aftertaste of toad. You haven’t yet figured out that things can only get better.”

  Sawyer scratched his head in puzzlement. “I guess I still don’t get it. We had toads back home. Big things too—” He held up his hands, half a meter apart, to demonstrate the size. “—I don’t see how you could swallow one live. We used to eat them all the time when we couldn’t get anything else. They tasted awful. You don’t know how bad something can taste until you’ve eaten fried toad. Uh-uh—”

  The TimeBinder looked bemused. He hid his smile behind his hand, pretending to scratch his nose. When he looked over at Sawyer again, he said, “Something else besides the terrible taste of toads troubles you. And you want me to help you find a resolution, correct?”

  “I don’t know,” Sawyer admitted. “I guess I just wanted you to explain something. What did you mean when you said that Finn and I didn’t have the larger vision? Explain this larger vision
thing to me.”

  This time, Three-Dollar didn’t laugh at Sawyer’s ignorance. Instead, he spoke calmly and patiently. “Lee told me how you tried to teach honor to Kask, the Dragon. Do you remember how frustrated you became? The Dragon could only think of himself and his own honor; he didn’t care at all about the rest of you or your survival.”

  Sawyer shrugged. “Dragons don’t have a lot of intelligence. If a Dragon wants to complete a thought, he has to stand very close to another Dragon—whoever has the other synapse.”

  “Actually, Dragons have a great deal of intelligence,” the TimeBinder corrected. “But most of them focus their attention so tightly that they never get the chance to exercise their very real wisdom.”

  “Really?” Sawyer looked over at Three-Dollar.

  “I have it on the best authority.” He tapped his halo. “I remember it well. But, do you understand my point about the Dragon not caring about the rest of you?”

  “Yes, I guess I do.”

  “You survived—you and Lee and all of the others—because you cooperated, right?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Right. But the Dragon didn’t get it—not like the rest of you. So he wouldn’t cooperate. And the rest of you felt angry and frustrated, not just because he didn’t cooperate, but because he didn’t even understand the need to cooperate.”

  “And you think that Finn and I behaved as badly as the Dragon?”

  “Badly? No. The Dragon didn’t behave badly. He behaved exactly as a Dragon should have behaved. He couldn’t have done anything else, because he didn’t know anything else. And, if you remember, the Dragon demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to learn better. When he finally did learn that he had misplaced his trust and his honor and that the Vampires had betrayed him, what did he do? He created a new allegiance for himself, an allegiance to an even high standard.”

  “You didn’t answer my question—”

  “Do I think you and Finn behaved as badly as the Dragon? No, I think the two of you behaved worse. Much worse. The Dragon didn’t know better. You did.”

  Sawyer could feel the heat of his anger rising, but he suppressed the impulse. It hurt his throat to swallow so much pride, but he forced it down anyway. “We didn’t have a choice,” he said defensively.

  Three-Dollar snorted. “You had a choice. You chose not to acknowledge it.”

  Sawyer started to rise. “Thanks for your time, but I’ve already had enough abuse for today—”

  The TimeBinder grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. “We haven’t finished, Sawyer. You wanted to understand the larger vision. Before we can talk about that, you have to acknowledge the truth of your present vision. You and Finn have a focus almost as narrow as that of the Dragon. Just as the Dragons train themselves to focus only on their personal honor, you and your brother trained yourself to focus only on your own needs.”

  “So? Why shouldn’t we? Who else would have watched out for us?”

  “Sawyer, please—” The TimeBinder’s voice remained calm and mellow. “I don’t do this to hurt you. And I have a different purpose other than to sit in judgment of you. Understand, though, that you and Finn could just as easily have trained yourselves to live by a higher standard. The Dragon didn’t have a choice in his training. You did. Can you understand that distinction?”

  “I guess so. Yes.”

  “Good. Thank you. Because now you can begin to learn. The Dragon had to break his training to learn the higher vision of cooperation with your makeshift band of escapees. Can you acknowledge the courage it took for Kask to do that? Because you would have to do the same—break your lifelong training—to learn the larger vision that I talked about with Lee.”

  Sawyer felt frustrated. “I hear your words,” he said, “but they sound just like the same kind of words that everybody else uses.”

  “Yes, I guess they do. Let me try it another way. Can you accept responsibility for yourself?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Yes, you do. Can you accept responsibility for your own actions. Will you accept the consequences?”

  “Uh—I already have. Oh, I see—yes, I guess I do accept responsibility for myself.”

  “Yes, you do. You’ve demonstrated that over and over again. Now, let’s expand that vision. Can you accept responsibility for yourself and for Finn. Will you act as the cause of your lives, instead of the effect?”

  “Cause? Effect?”

  “Cause chooses. Effect lets others choose. Can you act as cause for yourself and Finn?”

  Sawyer nodded. “Yes, I already do.”

  “Good. Now, think for a minute. Could you act as cause for the band of escapees you led out of the labor camp? Could you commit yourself to the success of that group?”

  “We had no choice—”

  “You could have gone your own way.”

  “No, we couldn’t. We had to—” Reluctantly, Sawyer finished the sentence. “—We had to stay with Lee, so he would lead us to you.”

  “You could have gone your own way. You could have chosen to let Finn die. Or you could have chosen to abandon the group. Or you could have—”

  “Lee represented the Alliance of Life, so he had to commit himself to the survival of the others, so we had no choice either but to also commit to the success of the group—”

  “My point exactly. Sometimes, in order to succeed as an individual, you have to make sure that the family succeeds. Sometimes, in order to succeed as a family, you have to make sure that the tribe succeeds. Sometimes, in order to succeed as a tribe, you have to make sure that the nation succeeds. Do I have to go on? Sometimes, you have to make sure that your people succeed. Can you commit to that? Can you accept that large a responsibility?”

  Sawyer shook his head. “I can’t even conceive of it.”

  “Yes, I know. But now that I’ve planted the thought in your head, you’ll have to think about it, because it won’t go away.”

  “I find it very hard to believe that people would willingly unite for a purpose as nebulous as you describe.”

  “I’ll make it even harder for you to believe, Sawyer. Sometimes, people will not only commit to the success of a larger group; sometimes they will even sacrifice their own personal goals to ensure that larger success.”

  Sawyer didn’t answer that immediately. “It just seems so stupid to me,” he said. “Why die for people you don’t know? They don’t care. Nobody cares. Nobody ever did—except Finn.”

  “I see,” said Three-Dollar. And he did.

  My Dinner with Zillabar

  A curious thought had occurred to Lady Zillabar. In space, no one can hear you break the law. After some consideration, she decided to wear the resulting smile on her public face, but simply not explain it.

  She hissed away her maids and checked her appearance in a full-length mirror. As always, she demanded an impeccable presentation. Tonight, she wore a scarlet shroud wrapped tightly around her entire body, leaving only her head free. She could barely move. Her maids would have to wheel her in, serve her, feed her, hold her glass to her lips for her.

  She enjoyed the feeling of helplessness—while at the same time, remaining totally in control. She enjoyed taunting her privileged guests with this performance. Perhaps she relished her insect heritage. She fantasized about hives and queens. She thought about all the workers who lived only to service the queen, all the drones who lived only to mate with her. The queen lay in her chambers. She spent her entire life in glorious dreamtime. She ate and grew fat. She mated and grew fatter. She laid eggs, eventually at the rate of two or three a day.

  Lady Zillabar didn’t particularly enjoy the last part of that fantasy. She knew that she had the responsibility to further the Zashti line. Sometimes she wished that she could avoid it, but she knew that when at last she finally did mate with some unfortunate male, the hormonal surge would carry her into a state of psychotic desires. She would want nothing else, but to eat and mate and lay eggs—and she would want not
hing else until her reproductive storm began to ebb. With that in mind, she knew that she had to firmly consolidate her authority before the storm clouds began to gather over her bed. Otherwise . . . events would sweep past her. She had to stop the Gathering; if she could do that, she could safely mate.

  She thought about d’Vashti and laughed. She couldn’t imagine him accepting her challenge. Without a challenger, she could go for years without having to risk mating. Hm. Perhaps d’Vashti had done her a favor by arranging the death of Drydel.

  Satisfied, she nodded to her maids. They maneuvered her gracefully onto a slanted board and wheeled her into the dining salon where her guests waited—the senior officers of her starship, all Phaestor, several of her most trusted personal aides, and the Dragon Lord. They stood as she entered and applauded the glimmering audacity of her gown. Beyond the windows, the Eye of God stared balefully, a wall of blazing light that colored everything in the salon with an unholy aura. She loved it.

  The Dragon Lord waited respectfully at the end of the table, his tail twitching patiently back and forth. Her attendants wheeled her the entire length of the room so she could greet him face to face.

  “My Lady,” he said, bowing his great head low enough to look her straight in the eye. “You look good enough to eat!” And then he laughed in that great booming rumble of his, loud enough to rattle the slender glasses on the table.

  Behind her, Lady Zillabar could sense the shocked silence of her officers. Too straitlaced to visibly appreciate a joke as vulgar as this without approval, they waited for the Lady’s reaction. Zillabar and the Dragon Lord exchanged a private smile; he enjoyed teasing her like this. They had shared this joke before. At last, mindful of her attendants and her officers, she allowed her amusement to break through to the surface. She replied with coy grace, “But my Lord, you’ll spoil your appetite for dinner.”