Jack Chalker - Kaspar's Box

“I’m not going to sit around and wait for somebody to wake up out there, notice them, and try and take this ship,” Maslovic commented. “I think we get some of the squad up here and strip those stones off them again. That should break the circle.”

But before he could even call down via the ship’s intercom, the trio, as one, suddenly swayed, let go of one another, and collapsed in a heap on the deck.

Maslovic and Broz were there before Murphy could even move a step, quickly taking the necklaces holding the stones off their necks. That done, Maslovic called down for Rosen and Sanchez to come up and take the girls back to their quarters, carrying them if need be. Sanchez still wasn’t a hundred percent back, but she was more than up to this sort of thing.

Now they could settle back and try and figure out how to locate and extract four humans from a moon almost fifty-six thousand kilometers around at the equator and teeming with hundreds of thousands of representatives of unknown alien life-forms.

“Why do you still serve this man, Joshua?” Maslovic asked the big bodyguard who had chosen to come with them of his own free will.

“I have sworn a blood oath,” Joshua replied. “I shall follow him into Hell if need be.”

“You might not be far from doing just that,” Maslovic pointed out. “But why? What kind of oath would hold a man like you?”

Joshua turned and looked straight at the intelligence man. “What, precisely, is ‘a man like me’? Do you think I am nothing but a pirate? That I have no honor?”

“It is difficult to tell someone’s innermost self at the best of times. In your case, the only way I have of judging your sincerity and honor is by the company you keep. Tell me this, then: do you believe what he believes? Is that a part of it as well? That is, do you believe that there are actually demons out there, and that we are moving towards them?”

“I believe in evil,” the big man responded without hesitation. “Who commits it or who has it is the only question. I also believe in good. In an evil universe that is crumbling around us all, honor is the only thing one can cling to. That is my code and I cannot vary it. To do so would leave me with nothing at all.”

“You know he’s insane, don’t you? That he hears voices and sees visions no one else does and that he acts upon them without a second thought, even if they are random acts of violence?”

“He saved my life once, and the life of my extended family. Sane or not, I am bound to him.”

“Was it a Faustian bargain, then?” Captain Murphy put in. “Did you sell him your soul in exchange for them services that saved the others?”

“No. I appreciate that you are both attempting to understand what can only be understood in my personal context. To have sold him my soul would have been easy. He buys many, and is generous to those who sell. But as I do not believe in souls, I could not sell him mine. It would be meaningless. No. We were on a far colonial outpost. Most of my family was barely making ends meet. We were attacked by pirates, and Mister Macouri happened to be nearby doing some more normal business. He answered our call, and asked me what I would give for salvation, since his own beliefs preclude charity involving risk. I offered my humble services for soever long as he needed them, and my unquestioned obedience in life. He accepted, and hired local mercenaries to rescue us. He then put a reward on each pirate head, and they were tracked down and their heads delivered to his representative for payment. I had the will but not the resources to do that. Does that answer your question?”

Maslovic nodded. “I believe so. I’m not sure, though, that you won’t have to make a choice that is as ugly as any you’ve made before.”

“Why are you so disturbed, Maslovic? We are the same,” Joshua said to him.

“I beg your pardon?”

“We are the same. Your code—it says you obey orders. That you serve your mission as given by your superiors regardless of whether or not you, personally, believe it is right or wrong. You do it for family, for personal honor, and because it is your function in life. The rest do the same, except, perhaps, for the man Murphy here, who may do what is right and honorable, or not, depending on how he feels that moment, and those young women.”

Maslovic didn’t want to travel that road. “What about Magda Schwartz?”

“She is in highly profitable sales. Security equipment and all the peripherals that are needed. Most of her clients might be considered insane in one way or another. Great fortune and no responsibility does that more than not I have learned. She makes them happy and does not judge them. When she makes them happy, they give her big orders that make her rich by commissions. She, too, thinks that our part of the universe is falling apart. Her solution to it is to amass sufficient money so that she can at least be very comfortable until it ends or she dies happy. It is not something I would like to do, but I can understand it.”

“As can I, Joshua. As can I. Tell me, though—Macouri’s beliefs? Did he come by them himself, or did he get something through those stones?”

“I do not use the stones. He does. I do not think he gets any messages, but he does get the effects. They excite him and conform to his cosmology. But I believe he envies the young women. They can speak and understand. They have no need of cosmology.”

“And they couldn’t pronounce it anyway,” Murphy noted.

“Then why is he so frightened to be here?” Maslovic asked the bodyguard.

“Mister Macouri is a powerful man. He places power where I place honor and you place duty. That is more than sufficient where we live. But here, in their part of the universe, what is he? Without his power he is nothing. Without his power he is the potential victim.”

“Well, go on back and help him prop himself up,” the marine said. “We may yet need him.”

After Joshua had left, Maslovic turned to Murphy. “You’ve been around more than I have with these types. What do you think?”

“I dunno. If honor is so important that you promise to obey every command and the bastard commands you to strangle children, are you honorable? I don’t trust folks like that. They got no questions. This is a man who will unhesitatingly butcher the innocent because he promised a madman he’d do whatever the madman asked. Them’s the kind that put women and children in ovens and turned on the gas in past history. They give me the creeps.”

“Point taken.”

“You better watch it yourself, though, Sarge. Your own folk have a history of openin’ up on innocent kids if some crazy general or admiral says to. You got the real rock and a hard place. You expect your team to obey instantly, to die for you if need be, ’cause if they don’t it could be too late for everybody. That don’t make your kind evil like that fellow—he has a choice and he already decided it—but it does open up the same result. None of you are no better than the folks what give you the orders. That’s why I’m me own man. ’Cause everything I do is my responsibility, my decision, and I’m the only one what decides if I sleep good nights or not.”

“You continue to amaze me, Murphy. I thought you were just a drunken old sot.”

“Oh, I am . But there’s worst things to be. If I was real smart I’d be rich and retired with scantily clad girls peelin’ and feedin’ me grapes while I reclined in me garden. But I’m clever enough to have done somethin’ that most folks in me line of work rarely get to do.”

“Yes?”

“I’m old, Sergeant. I got old and I’m still here.”

The computers were of little help in figuring out a method of isolating and picking up the Stanley survivors, and they soon realized that the only hope they had was the same sort of contact system they’d used to speak in the first place. Somehow the waves or particles or whatever sort of energy linked all the Magi stones would have to lead them to one another.