Gordon Dickson - Wolfling

Behind Jim, Slothiel stirred. He stepped forward toward the Emperor.

“Oran!” Slothiel said.

There was sudden amused laughter at the far end of the ballroom floor. Out of the corner of his eye, Jim caught sight of the three Starkiens spinning about swiftly, their rods coming up.

Then there were three odd, coughing sounds; and as Jim finished raising his head, he saw the three Starkiens stumble and fall. On the polished ballroom floor, they lay as still as Vhotan lay.

Jim turned to look toward the far end of the polished floor. There, just in front of one of the green curtains, stood Galyan, holding a black rod in his right hand, and a strange, handgun sort of device, with a long, twisted barrel, in his left. Behind Galyan were Melness and Afuan. As Jim caught sight of them, Galyan tossed the handgun contemptuously away from him. It skidded across the polished floor until its further progress was blocked by a leg of one of the dead Starkiens.

Followed by Melness and Afuan, Galyan walked toward the lounge end of the room. His heels rapped with a strange loudness on the polished surface of the floor. He laughed again at the small group still standing there, as he came.

“You’re quite a problem, Wolfling,” he said to Jim. “Not only do you come back alive, but, having come back, you force me into taking action ahead of schedule. But it’s all come out all right.”

He reached the end of the polished floor and stepped onto the carpet. He stopped and transferred his gaze from Jim to Slothiel.

“No, Slothiel,” he said mockingly. “Not ‘Oran.’—‘Galyan.’ We will have to teach you to say ‘Galyan.’ ”

Galyan’s words seemed to echo all about them. Looking at Slothiel, Jim saw the other High-born begin to stiffen and straighten. Galyan was the tallest of the High-born that Jim had seen, with the exception of the Emperor himself. But Slothiel was almost as tall. And now that he abandoned his carefully indifferent slouch, it could be seen how tall he was. The two men, both well over seven feet, faced each other across a distance of perhaps a dozen feet of carpeting.

“You’ve never been able to teach me anything, Galyan,” said Slothiel in a dry, hard voice. “If I were you, I wouldn’t expect to begin now.”

“Slothiel, don’t be an idiot!” Afuan spoke up. But Galyan cut her short.

“Never mind!” he said sharply, his lemon-yellow eyes still glittering unmovingly on Slothiel. “Who are we to tell Slothiel what to do? As he said—we’ve never been able to teach him anything.”

“ ‘We?’ ” Slothiel smiled bitterly. “Are you into the Emperor’s second person plural already, Galyan?”

“Did I say— we?” responded Galyan. “A slip of the tongue, Slothiel.”

“Then you don’t intend to kill him?” said Slothiel, indicating the frozen figure of the Emperor with a slight movement of his head.

“Kill him?” said Galyan. “Of course not. Care for him—that’s what I’m going to do. Vhotan never did take the best care of him. He’s not well, you know.”

“Are you?” asked Jim.

Galyan’s eyes flickered for a moment to Jim.

“Be patient, little Wolfling,” Galyan purred. “Your time is coming. Right now I’m amusing myself with Slothiel.”

“Amusing yourself?” said Slothiel with a grim irony that matched the cruel humor in Galyan’s voice. “You’d better be thinking up explanations for how Vhotan died.”

“I?” chuckled Galyan. “The Emperor’s Starkiens killed Vhotan, at the Emperor’s order. You saw that.”

“And who killed the Starkiens?” said Slothiel.

“You, of course,” said Galyan. “You went out of your head at the sight of Vhotan ordered killed for no reason—”

“No reason?” echoed Slothiel. “What about that disguised blue distortion light? Jim never had the Alpha Centauran Governor send it to Vhotan. That was your doing.”

Galyan twitched a finger. Melness scuttled forward and sideways, to pick up the small granitic-looking shape from the carpet and tuck it into a pocket in his kilt. He retreated hastily behind Galyan again.

“What distortion light?” asked Galyan.

“I see,” said Slothiel. He took a deep breath. “But of course I didn’t kill the Starkiens.”

“I wouldn’t go around telling the other High-born that, if I were you,” said Galyan. “The Emperor will need someone to look after him; now that Vhotan’s dead, I’ll be taking our uncle’s place. If you go around telling a wild story like that, the Emperor may well decide that you need treatment and isolation for your own good.”

“Oh? But even if I say nothing,” drawled Slothiel, “those three Starkiens were killed by a heavy-duty intersperser. The other Starkiens, when they get back, will wonder how three of their number could have been killed by a rod while those three were wearing full power bands. I can prove that I haven’t been near the heavy-duty weapon armory for years.”

“No doubt,” said Galyan. “But you said, ‘when the other Starkiens get back.’ You see, they won’t be back.”

Slothiel looked about suddenly at Jim. Jim nodded.

“So the Wolfling brought back word of our little traps on the colony planets, did he?” said the voice of Galyan. Both Jim and Slothiel looked back at the tall High-born. “You know then, Slothiel. The Starkiens won’t be back. I’ve got it in mind to create some new Starkiens—some responsible to me rather than to the Emperor. At any rate, you see your own choice. Be silent—or be removed from the social scene.”

Slothiel laughed, and reaching over, drew the rod from the loops in Adok’s belt.

Galyan laughed also, but with a half-incredulous note of contempt in his voice.

“Have you really lost your senses, Slothiel?” he said. “We’ve fenced as boys. You’ve got fast reflexes, but you know that no one’s faster than I am. Except—” He nodded at the still-paralyzed figure of the Emperor.

“But we haven’t tried it as men,” said Slothiel. “Besides, I’m a little tired of all our play-acting here on the Throne World. I think I’d like to kill you.”

He took a step forward. Galyan stepped hastily back onto the polished surface of the ballroom floor and slowly drew the rod from the loops in his own belt.

“Shall we bet on it?” he said. “Let’s bet a banishment amount of Lifetime Points, Slothiel. How about fifty Lifetime Points? That ought to put either one of us over the limit.”

“Don’t talk to me of toys,” said Slothiel, slowly advancing foot after foot, as Galyan equally slowly backed and circled away from him. “I think I’ve lost my taste for gambling. I want something a little more exciting.”

They were almost in the center of the polished floor area now. There was still a dozen feet between them, but tall and bent over as they were, their wide shoulders hunched forward, the rods held low before them, it seemed as if scarcely one of their own long arm lengths separated the two of them.

Abruptly the rod in Slothiel’s hand spouted the white lightning of its charge. At the same time, he leaned back and to one side in an attempt to outflank Galyan.

Galyan, however, crouched under the white bolt, which crackled where his head had been a moment before, and spun on his heels, still in crouched position, to come up facing Slothiel and with his own rod shooting white fire.

A little faster, and Galyan would have been able to drive the fire of his own rod under the line of fire from Slothiel’s rod. However, the moment of Galyan’s turning was enough time to allow Slothiel to lower the aim of his own weapon, so that the discharge from Galyan’s rod met the discharge from Slothiel’s head on, and the two lines of white fire splashed harmlessly into an aurora of sparks. From that first moment, the lines of fire from the two rods were never disengaged.