Barrington Bayley - Empire of Two Worlds

I shot across the cabin and jerked him away. Coolly he checked me, holding up his hand threateningly, dangerously.

“Hold it, man. A woman is everybody’s property.”

Bec looked at us, then turned back to the wheel. “What’s the matter with you, Klein? This isn’t too considerate.”

Hotly Gelbore and I exchanged feelings through the eyes. “The girl is mine!” I snarled. “Any klug who wants her passes me first.”

Becmath still did not deign to present more than his back to the argument, but he said sternly: “Now listen, you klugs. Any trouble over our little nomad girl and I myself will throw her off the sloop. So calm it.”

Grale had a slack-mouth grin. “And who gets the girl?”

“Klein is over you. Do what he says.”

It didn’t make me feel good that Bec had to reassert my authority over the others like that; but at least I had Gelbore. Grale gave me a dirty look and then joined Reeth, Hassmann and Tone in a game of cards. Gelbore huddled with me in a corner, regarding them with fear.

“Don’t worry,” I murmured. “They had it hard enough in Klittmann not to hold any resentment. You just stick with me.”

“Sure, I’ll stick with you,” she murmured back, giving a little shiver.

I left her and dropped back into the seat next to Bec. “Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t thank me,” he replied harshly. His voice was hard and brutal, harder than I had ever heard it before.

Eventually we came to a broad river of clear water, which according to Harmen’s map we had to cross. Floating down the river were big slabs of the lighter-than-water rock that is found in some parts. When the stream proved too deep for the sloop to ford, Reeth proposed that we lash it to one of these slabs.

The job took some time, but everyone brought up in Klittmann is something of a mechanic — as well as an electrician and builder. We managed to grapple one of the bigger slabs and hauled it to the shore using the sloop’s engine. The hardest part was lashing the sloop down safely. Then we cast off and went flowing downstream.

There was a landmark we had to watch for, so Bec figured we might as well stay on the water until we found it. The rock slab was bigger in area than the sloop, and we took to sitting out on it, detailing a couple of men at a time to steer us with poles.

I found myself sitting with Bec, alone and out of earshot of the others. Bec was eager to talk about those things difficult to understand that were so typical of him of late. When he looked at the others his expression was sardonic and he gave a half-grunt, half-chuckle.

“Gangsters,” he said. “That’s what we are, gangsters. Remember what the alchemist said? Gangsters loomed large among the people who came to Killibol. Maybe the corruption and stagnation began with that. But you know something, Klein? We are gangsters, and we are sharper than anybody in Klittmann.”

“That may be so,” I replied, “but here we are outside.”

“Yeah, that’s right. You know why? Only we represent change in Klittmann. We are dangerous. Have to be eliminated. Listen to me, Klein: we could be the germ of something different on this world. Yes, gangsters and all. Who else is there? In Klittmann now there is only self-interest. We could go beyond that — make a state that existed for itself and commanded the allegiance of all men. A state that conquered other cities and made an empire that released inventiveness in men and changed the whole world.”

I guess Bec had been working on me for a long time. Ever since I had met him, if the truth were known, I had been coming under the spell of his personality and of his ideas. Some of them I didn’t understand, but he had aroused a kind of loyalty in me that was like something magical. Certainly it went far beyond my upbringing.

“That state, that empire,” he told me, “is the hope of mankind. Something not for a man’s own sake, but for the sake of the thing itself. You with me Klein?”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, swallowing.

“The others are good guys — capable. But that’s all. Reeth maybe… but Grale and Hassmann? Not on your life. They’re mindless klugs. Tools. You have a mind, Klein. Maybe it’s pretty hard to find sometimes… but I’ve watched you. An idea gets through to you in the end.

“So my state, Klein, that comes before everything else. A city that progresses, right?”

I was carried away by what he was saying. It seemed to me that here was the first new, clean thing I had heard since I was born. A sense of loyalty that went beyond all personal considerations; here was what Bec was putting to me, and it sounded invincible. Maybe that’s ridiculous considering the situation we were in, but Bec had that quality: he could make even defeat seem fascinating and hopeful.

“Before everything, right?” Bec repeated. “Even before a woman.”

Gelbore was sitting on the edge of the raft, trailing her hand in the water. I looked at her and swallowed again. Much though I was inspired by Bec’s vision, there was one thing I had to admit.

“Sometimes nothing comes before a woman, Bec,” I said.

So what did Becmath do when he heard this?

He took out his handgun and before I fully realised what was happening he shot Gelbore. From former occasions I was familiar with the accuracy of Bec’s shooting. She took it in the head. Without a single cry she toppled into the water and disappeared from view.

When I saw her falling off the raft like a lump of clay my guts knotted into a tight ball. At the same time something indescribably sweet and painful passed through me. I sprang to my feet, on fire.

“You klug! I’ll kill you for that!”

“The state first, Klein.” Bec’s voice was incongruously gentle.

A man has to be logical. “O.K.,” I pledged with difficulty. “The state first.”

From that moment Bec had me hooked in a condition of unshakable loyalty. It was the first time in my life I had known real dedication. I think I had to have that, or I would never have been able to face the fact that I did nothing to avenge the killing of Gelbore.

And yet the whole thing was insane. Here we were, practically dead men, while Bec spouted dreams about state and empire. He talked to me more during the journey, expanding on his plans. He would establish regular traffic between the cities, he said, wipe out the nomad bands and set up staging posts so that travellers could replenish their supplies en route. It all sounded fine, the only missing part was how he was going to achieve all this.

But like I say, by now I was hooked on the dream and instead of greeting it with scepticism or derision I took it all with an air of hard-headed realism.

During the second day on the river we saw the landmark that would lead us to the gateway: a thousand-foot column of stainless steel. It was weathered and worn, corroded in places. Obviously it had been there a long time, but just as obviously it must have been erected after the nuclear explosion had destroyed the gateway. For some reason the people of that time had left it there as a marker.

Beyond the pillar a shallow valley ran between two long, rounded mounds for about two to three miles. After we grounded the sloop we followed it to where the mounds met. At the junction, or just before it, the ground was fissured into a gaping chasm that ran a fair distance. Situated neatly over that chasm was something that at first you weren’t sure was there.

It was like a big transparent, very clear jelly with a lavender tint. In shape it was an elongated ovoid, a big egg.

Bec looked at the alchemist.

Harmen nodded. “My calculations were correct. That’s it.”

We all got out to explore. When you touched the material of the gateway it was like putting your hand in very thin water. Thin oil, maybe. It didn’t impede motion but it felt cool and smooth.