Zach Hughes - Closed System

"The ancestor worlds," Pat asked, when he hadrecovered from the chilling shock of realization."Is there a name for them?"

"The sacred names," the old man breathed, and,in a sing song, began to chant off the names of a half-dozen Zedeian planets. Of the six he named,five had been destroyed in the Zedeian war by theUP planet reducers.

The old man clasped his hands as if in prayer,looked upward. "And the father world, the worldof Fonforster, from whence came the sacred andancient books, the treasure of the world, the trea­sure of Zede, the sacred writings and the god listsand the stories of their triumphs and acts."

Pat had more questions ready. He was forestalledby a sound of the door opening. A priest stoodthere, smiling at the old man. "Father," the priestsaid, "you may come with me."

A smile lit the old man's face. "It is time, then?"

"It is time," the priest said.

"My friend," the old man said, coming to Pat'scot to take his hand, "my journey begins. I'm sorry you're not going with me. Since your memory hasbeen blunted, I'm sure the good priests will re­fresh it, so that you may prepare for your ownjourney."

Pat felt cold. He wished for his weapons, for anyweapon. The old man was going to his death witha smile on his face, gladness in his heart. He rose,still a bit weak, paced the small cell. He had nodoubt in his mind that he'd be next, and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. Helooked around for a weapon. There were only thetwo homespun blankets on the rock ledges whichserved as cots. Otherwise the room was bare. Hewas dressed in shirt, beltless pants, underwear,and the soft, comfortable slip-on shoes he favored.A shoe was not heavy enough to make a weapon.He had only his hands. He resolved to use them when they came for him. He would not submitcalmly, without a struggle, to the injection, or whatever they used, to send a man into a littlesleep and then on that "journey to Zede."

When the door opened he was standing with his back against the wall next to it. The door opened outward and he held his breath, waiting for apriest to step inside.

"Pat?" That soft, throaty voice, and then she steppedinto the cell, Corinne. She'd changed from the longpurple gown into a neat coverall singlet, belted atthe waist. He lowered his hands. She saw him,turned to him and smiled.

"I told them to bring you to me immediatelywhen they had finished," she said. She shivered. "Idid not

intend to have them put you here." She knew, and she accepted it. What kind ofwoman was she? He was looking at her with new eyes. "There was an old man here. He was being sent to Zede."

She looked down, and her face saddened. "Soon,such measures will no longer be necessary. Wewill be able to educate them out of their super­stitions."

"Corinne, just who is 'we'?" "Not here," she said. She turned and left thecell, and he followed. There were no guards, nopriests. They came out into a stone corridor, madea turn, and were back at the apartment whereshe'd stabbed the syringe into his neck. Inside, shesat down. He stood facing her.

"I won't offer you a drink," she said, with afunny little grin. "I don't think I could stand another of yourdrinks." "Pat, it was necessary. We're so close now. Wehad to know what chance there was of your being

followed here, and, knowing you, I don't thinkwe'd have gotten the whole truth without the drugs.There's no lasting ill effect." "As there was with the dexiapherzede?" "I didn't know that the side effects were so terri­ble. I swear that to you." "And yet you kept me pumped full of it for sevenand a half days." She looked down.

"Why didn't you just tell me you wanted tocome here to Dorchlunt?" "I wasn't sure of you, Pat. And it was so vitalthat I get the diamond here. I couldn't go back toZede II with you with the diamond aboard. They would have—" She paused.

"The diamond is here?" She nodded. "Who are they, and what would they have donewith the diamond?"

She sighed again. "Pat, it's a long story. Perhapswe had better have that drink."

"I'll do it, and I'll stay carefully beyond yourreach," he said, moving to the bar to pour thatvery good Taratwo brandy. He sat on the arm ofthe sofa. She was curled into a chair, legs partiallyunder her.

"When my brother was fifteen he went to ZedeII on a government scholarship to continue hisstudy of ancient history. He did his thesis on theZedeian war of a thousand years ago. He was quitethe young prodigy, astounding the learned profes­sors with his skill in writing, and with his ability to retain knowledge, so they opened the archives to him, gave him free run. He discovered a govern­ment file tucked away in crates of documents whichhad once been classified top secret, but were thenso old that secrecy didn't matter. Most of themwere just dry statistics—the accounts of interestabout the war had long since been removed andfiled elsewhere—but my brother was, and is, avery thorough man. He found one encoded docu­ment and spent weeks with the computers break­ing the code."

Pat eased himself down onto the sofa. Appar­ently she was going to take a long time getting up to present-day events.

"You know the background of the Zedeian war?"

"In summary, yes."

"There's more tradition still alive on the Zedeworlds than in the rest of the UP," she said. "Theirlegends are more explicit, for example. I've readthe books of Zedeian myths and legends. They refer, not too specifically, and sometimes in fanci­ful, symbolic language, to the original world, tothe Old Earth."

"Yes, I've heard of some of those myths. Seriousscholars discount them, because, after all, the Zede worlds were settled by the same people who set­tled the original UP planets."

"But the Zedeians, at least the traditionalists,insist that the Zede worlds were settled separately,and only later, after thousands of years, mergedwith the growing UP."

"Well, whatever," Pat said.

"The Zedeian myths state that before the nu­clear war on Old Earth, Earth was split by rivalrybetween two philosophies, or beliefs, or forms ofgovernment—that part is not quite clear. TheZedeians, even back in the dark beginnings of theirhistory, had a tradition of militarism. They saythat they are the descendants of the greatest raceof warriors ever produced on Old Earth, and thatwas the feeling that led, in part, to the war."

"Makes sense," Pat said. "Delusions of grandeur."

"Ah?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "They hadfought the vastly more populous UP to a standstillbefore the UP used planet reducers."

"OK, I'll concede that they're fighters," Pat said.

"And more scientific advances still come fromthe Zede worlds than from the rest put together,"she said.

"I'd have to see figures on that."

"No matter. Before the UP began to use planetreducers the Zedeians had been working on a new,very

powerful weapon. When it became apparentthat they would have to surrender they loaded allthe scientists and technicians who had been work­ing on that weapon onto a colonization ship—"

"Ah, ha," Pat said.

"Yes. It's still there. Up there." She glanced up­ward. "Their mission was to lose themselves inspace. They traveled, however, in a predetermineddirection, the direction least likely to attract pur­suit. Toward the core. That way, if, somehow, theZedeians averted total defeat, ships could look forthem, and find them. They were ordered to con­tinue to work on the weapon, and they were very close to having it perfected. If they ironed out thelast flaws in it, they were to arm the six ship'slaunches—"

"Six launches against the UP battle fleets?"

"—and return to rescue the Zede Empire."

"Let me do some guessing," Pat said. "Theyfound only this one poor, barren planet. They werenot too excited about it, but they'd gone just aboutas far toward the core as they could go. They putthe ship in orbit and continued to work on theweapon, and one of the experiments, or something,went wrong, disabling the ship, leaving them no choice but to land on the planet and make the bestof it."