Edgar Burroughs - Beyond The Farthest Star

When I reached my new quarters, the door was opened by a rather nice looking chap in the livery of a servant.

"This is your master, Korvan Don," said the green-uniformed Zabo agent who accompanied me.

The man bowed. "My name is Lotar Canl, sir," he said; "I hope that I shall be able to satisfy you."

Morga Sagra's apartment was in the same building as mine; and almost immediately we commenced to be invited out and entertained, but I had the feeling that we were being constantly watched. Well, so is everyone in Kapara. The entire nation lives in an atmosphere of intrigue and suspicion. The army fears the Zabo, the Zabo hates the army; everyone fears the five top men of the regime, each of whom fears the others. The head of the nation is called the Pom Da, literally the Great I. The present Pom Da has ruled for ten years. I suppose he had a name once, but it is never used; he is just the Great I, a cruel and cunning monster who has ordered many of his best friends and closest relatives destroyed.

Morga Sagra is a most sagacious girl; she was cut out by nature for intrigue, treason, and espionage. She thinks far ahead and lays her plans accordingly.

Everywhere that she went, she told people that I was from another world. She did this not so much to attract attention to me, but to help convince the Kapars that I had no ties in Unis and no reason to be loyal to that country. She wanted them to understand that I would be no traitor to Kapara, and eventually her plan bore fruit-the Great I sent for me.

Lotar Canl, my man, was evidently greatly impressed when he gave me the message. "You can go very far in Kapara, sir," he said, "if the Pom Da becomes interested in you; I am very proud to serve you, sir."

I already knew that I might go far if the Pom Da noticed me, but in what direction I was not certain-the paths of glory sometimes lead but to the grave.

WHEN I REACHED THE ORNATE BUILDING which houses the head of Kapara, I was first carefully searched for concealed weapons and then escorted by two heavily armed guards to a room presided over by a grim, elaborately uniformed and decorated official. Here I waited for about half an hour, my two guards sticking close to me; then the door at the far end of the room opened, and another officer appeared and called my name.

The guards arose with me and escorted me to the door of an enormous chamber, at the far end of which a man sat behind a huge desk. The guards were dismissed at the doorway and told to wait, and two officers took their places and escorted me the length of the room into the presence of the Pom Da.

He is not a large man, and I think that he appears even smaller than he is because of his very evident nervousness, fear, and suspicion.

He just sat and eyed me for what must have been a full minute before he spoke. His expression was venomous, seeming to reflect the deepest hatred; but I was to learn later that this expression was not reserved for anyone in particular; it was almost habitual with him, and this is understandable because his whole ideology is based on hate.

"So you are Korvan Don, the traitor?" he shot at me.

"I am no traitor," I said.

One of the officers seized me roughly by the arm. "When you address the Pom Da," he shouted angrily, "always refer to him as the Highest Most High."

"You are betraying Unis," said the Pom Da, ignoring the interruption.

"Unis is not my country-Highest Most High."

"You claim to be from another world-from another solar system. Is that right?"

"Yes, Highest Most High," I replied.

"One Highest Most High in a conversation is sufficient," snapped the officer on my other side. I was learning Kaparan high etiquette the hard way.

The Pom Da questioned me for some time about the Earth and our solar system and how I could know how far away it was from Poloda. I explained everything to him to the best of my ability, but I doubt very much that he understood a great deal of what I said; the Kapars are not highly intelligent, their first Pom Da having killed off a majority of the intelligent people of his time and his successor destroying the remainder, leaving only scum to breed.

"What were you in that strange world from which you say you came?" he asked.

"I was a flyer in the fighting forces of my country and also something of an inventor, having been at work on a ship in which I purposed travelling to another planet of our solar system."

"How far from your Earth would this planet be?" he asked.

"About 48,000,000 miles ," I replied.

"That is a long way," he said. "Do you think that you could have done it?"

"I had high hopes; in fact, I was almost on the verge of perfecting my ship when I was called away to war."

"Tonas is less than six hundred thousand miles from Poloda," he mused. I could see that he had something on his mind, and I guessed what it was, or at least I hoped. He talked to me for over a half an hour and then he dismissed me, but before I left I asked him if he would order my gold and jewels returned to me.

He turned to an officer standing at one end of his desk and instructed him to see that all of my belongings were returned to me; then the two officers and I backed out of the room. I had stood all during the interview, but that was not at all surprising as there was only one chair in the room and that was occupied by the Pom Da.

The green Zabo car took me back to my quarters, and the men who accompanied me were most obsequious; and when Lotar Canl opened the door and saw them bowing to me and calling me Most High, he beamed all over.

Morga Sagra came in from her apartment presently; and she was delighted with the honour that had been done me, and she didn't let any grass grow under her feet before she let it be known that I had been received by the Pom Da in an interview that lasted over a half an hour.

Now we commenced to be invited into the homes of the highest; and when my gold and jewels were returned, as they were the day after my interview with the Pom Da, Sagra and I were able to splurge a little bit; so that we had a gay time in the capital of Kapara, where only the very highest have a gay time, or even enough to eat.

Among our acquaintances was a woman named Gimmel Gora, with whom Morga Sagra had associated while I was in the prison camp; and she and her man, Grunge, were with us a great deal. They were not married, but then no one in Kapara is married; such silly, sentimental things as marriages were done away with nearly a hundred years ago. I did not like either Gimmel Gora or Grunge; in fact, I did not like any of the Kapars I had met so far, with the possible exception of my man, Lotar Canl; and, of course, I even suspected him of being an agent of the Zabo.

The Kapars are arrogant, supercilious, stupid, and rude; and Grunge was no exception. I did not know what he did for a living; and, of course, I never asked, as I never showed the slightest curiosity about anything. If a stranger asks too many questions in Kapara, he is quite likely to find his head rolling around on the floor-they don't waste ammunition in Kapara.

We were making a lot of acquaintances, but I was not any place with my mission. I was no nearer learning about the amplifier than I had been in Orvis. I kept talking about the ship I had been inventing in my own world, hoping in that way to get a hint from someone that would lead me on the right trail; but after two months in Ergos, I hadn't been able to get the slightest lead; it was just as though no such thing as a new powerful amplifier existed, and I commenced to wonder if the Commissioner for War had been misinformed.

One day a green car stopped before the building in which my apartment was located. Lotar Canl, who had been at a front window saw it, and when a summons came at our door, he looked at me apprehensively. "I hope that you have not been indiscreet," he said as he went to open the door.