The Stars, Like Dust

The student lounge was empty; it was dark as well. At four-thirty in the morning it could scarcely have been otherwise. Yet Jonti hesitated a moment as he held the door open, listening for occupants.

"No," he said softly, "leave the lights out. We won't need them to talk."

"I've had enough of the dark for one night," muttered Biron.

"We'll leave the door ajar."

Biron lacked the will to argue. He dropped into the nearest chair and watched the rectangle of light through the closing door narrow down to a thin line. Now that it was all over, he was getting the shakes.

Jonti steadied the door and rested his little swagger stick upon the crack of light on the floor. "Watch it. It will tell us if anyone passes, or if the door moves."

Biron said, "Please, I'm not in a conspiratorial mood. If you don't mind, I'd appreciate your telling me whatever it is you want to tell me. You've saved my life, I know, and tomorrow I'll be properly thankful. Right now, I could do with a short drink and a long rest."

"I can imagine your feelings," Jonti said, "but the too-long rest you might have had has been avoided, momentarily. I would like to make it more than just momentarily. Do you know that I know your father?"

The question was an abrupt one, and Biron raised his eyebrows, a gesture lost in the dark. He said, "He has never mentioned knowing you."

"I would be surprised if he did. He doesn't know me by the name I use here. Have you heard from your father recently, by the way?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because he is in great danger."

"What?"

Jonti's hand found the other's arm in the dimness and gripped it firmly. "Please! Keep your voice as it has been." Biron realized, for the first time that they had been whispering.

Jonti resumed, "I'll be more specific. Your father has been taken into custody. You understand the significance?"

"No, I certainly don't understand. Who has taken him into custody, and what are you getting at? Why are you bothering me?" Biron's temples were throbbing. The Hypnite and the near death had made it impossible to fence with the cool dandy sitting so close to him that his whispers were as plain as shouts.

"Surely," came the whisper, "you have some inkling of the work your father is doing?"

"If you know my father, you know he is Rancher of Widemos. That is his work."

Jonti said, "Well, there is no reason you should trust me, other than that I am risking my own life for you. But I already know all that you can tell me. As an example, I know that your father has been conspiring against the Tyranni."

"I deny that," said Biron tensely. "Your service to me this night does not give you the right to make such statements about my father."

"You are foolishly evasive, young man, and you are wasting my time. Don't you see that the situation is beyond verbal fencing? I'll say it outright. Your father is in the custody of the Tyranni. He may be dead by now."

"I don't believe you." Biron half rose.

"I am in a position to know."

"Let's break this off, Jonti. I am in no mood for mystery, and I resent this attempt of yours to-"

"Well, to what?" Jonti's voice lost some of its refined edge. "What do I gain by telling you this? May I remind you that this knowledge of mine, which you will not accept, made it plain to me that an attempt might be made to kill you. Judge by what has happened, Farrill."

Biron said, "Start again and tell it straight. I'll listen."

"Very well. I imagine, Farrill, that you know me to be a fellow countryman from the Nebular Kingdoms, although I've been passing myself off as a Vegan."

"I judged that might be a possibility by your accent. It didn't seem important."

"It's important, my friend. I came here because, like your father, I didn't like the Tyranni. They've been oppressing our people for fifty years. That's a long time."

"I'm not a politician."

Again Jonti's voice had an irritated edge to it. "Oh, I'm not one of their agents trying to get you into trouble. I'm telling you the truth. They caught me a year ago as they have caught your father now. But I managed to get away, and came to Earth where I thought I might be safe until I was ready to return. That's all I need to tell you about myself."

"It is more than I have asked for, sir." Biron could not force the unfriendliness out of his voice. Jonti affected him unfavorably with his too-precise mannerisms.

"I know that. But it is necessary to tell you so much at least, for it was in this manner that I met your father. He worked with me, or, rather, I with him. He knew me but not in his official capacity as the greatest nobleman on the planet of Nephelos. You understand me?"

Biron nodded uselessly in the darkness and said, "Yes."

"It is not necessary to go into that further. My sources of information have been maintained even here, and I know that he has been imprisoned. It is knowledge. If it were merely suspicion, this attempt on your life would have been sufficient proof."

"In what way?"

"If the Tyranni have the father, would they leave the son at large?"

"Are you trying to tell me that the Tyranni set that radiation bomb in my room? That's impossible."

"Why is it impossible? Can't you understand their position? The Tyranni rule fifty worlds; they are outnumbered hundreds to one. In such a position, simple force is insufficient. Devious methods, intrigue, assassination are their specialties. The net they weave across space is a wide one, and close-meshed. I can well believe that it extends across five hundred light-years to Earth."

Biron was still in the grip of his nightmare. In the distance there were the faint sounds of the lead shields being moved into place. In his room the counter must still be murmuring.

He said, "It doesn't make sense. I am going back to Nephelos this week. They would know that. Why should they kill me here? If they'd wait, they'd have me." He was relieved to find the flaw, eager to believe his own logic.

Jonti leaned closer and his spiced breath stirred the hairs on Biron's temple. "Your father is popular. His death-and once imprisoned by the Tyranni, his execution becomes a probability you must face-will be resented even by the cowed slave race the Tyranni are trying to breed. You could rally that resentment as the new Rancher of Widemos, and to execute you as well would double the danger for them. To make martyrs is not their purpose. But if you were to die in a faraway world, by accident, it would be convenient for them."

"I don't believe you," said Biron. It had become his only defense.

Jonti rose, adjusting his thin gloves. He said, "You go too far, Farrill. Your role would be more convincing if you pretended to no such complete ignorance. Your father has been shielding you from reality for your own protection, presumably, yet I doubt that you could remain completely uninfluenced by his beliefs. Your hate for the Tyranni cannot help being a reflection of his own. You cannot help being ready to fight them."

Biron shrugged.

Jonti said, "He may even recognize your new adulthood to the point of putting you to use. You are conveniently here on Earth and it is not unlikely you may be combining your education with a definite assignment. An assignment, perhaps, for the failure of which the Tyranni are ready to kill you."

"That's silly melodrama."

"Is it? Let it be so, then. If the truth will not persuade you now, events will later. There will be other attempts on your life, and the next one will succeed. From this moment on, Farrill, you are a dead man."

Biron looked up. "Wait! What's your own private interest in the matter?"

"I am a patriot. I would like to see the Kingdoms free again, with governments of their own choosing."

"No. Your private interest. I cannot accept idealism only, because I won't believe it of you. I am sorry if that offends you." Biron's words pounded doggedly.

Jonti seated himself again. He said, "My lands have been confiscated. Before my exile it was not comfortable to be forced to take orders from those dwarfs. And since then it has become more imperative than ever to become once again the man my grandfather had been before the Tyranni came. Is that enough of a practical reason for wanting a revolution? Your father would have been a leader of that revolution. Failing him, you!"

"I? I am twenty-three and know nothing of all this. You could find better men."

"Undoubtedly I could, but no one else is the son of your father. If your father is killed, you will be Rancher of Widemos, and as such you would be valuable to me if you were only twelve and an idiot besides. I need you for the same reason the Tyranni must be rid of you. And if my necessity is unconvincing to you, surely theirs cannot be. There was a radiation bomb in your room. It could only have been meant to kill you. Who else would want to kill you?"

Jonti waited patiently and picked up the other's whisper.

"No one," said Biron. "No one would want to kill me that I know of. Then it's true about my father!"

"It is true. View it as a casualty of war."

"You think that would make it better? They'll put up a monument to him someday, perhaps? One with a radiating inscription that you can see ten thousand miles out in space?" His voice was becoming a bit ragged. "Is that supposed to make me happy?"

Jonti waited, but Biron said nothing more. Jonti said, "What do you intend doing?"

"I'm going home."

"You still don't understand your position, then."

"I said, I'm going home. What do you want me to do? If he's alive, I'll get him out of there. And if he's dead, I'll-I'll-"

"Quiet!" The older man's voice was coldly annoyed. "You rave like a child. You can't go to Nephelos. Don't you see that you can't? Am I talking to an infant or to a young man of sense?

Biron muttered, "What do you suggest?"

"Do you know the Director of Rhodia?"

"The friend of the Tyranni? I know the man. I know who he is. Everyone in the Kingdoms knows who he is. Hinrik V, Director of Rhodia."

"Have you ever met him?"

"No."

"That is what I meant. If you haven't met him, you don't know him. He is an imbecile, Farrill. I mean it literally. But when the Ranchy of Widemos is confiscated by the Tyranni-and it will be, as my lands were-it will be awarded to Hinrik. There the Tyranni will feel them to be safe, and there you must go."

"Why?"

"Because Hinrik, at least, has influence with the Tyranni; as much influence as a lickspittle puppet may have. He may arrange to have you reinstated."

"I don't see why. He's more likely to turn me over to them."

"So he is. But you'll be on your guard against it, and there is a fighting chance you may avoid it. Remember, the title you carry is valuable and important, but it is not all-sufficient. In this business of conspiracy, one must be practical above all. Men will rally about you out of sentiment and respect for your name, but to hold them, you will need money."

Biron considered. "I need time to decide."

"You have no time. Your time ran out when the radiation bomb was planted in your room. Let us take action. I can give you a letter of introduction to Hinrik of Rhodia."

"You know him so well, then?"

Your suspicion never sleeps very soundly, does it? I once headed a mission to Hinrik's court on behalf of the Autarch of Lingane. His imbecile's mind will probably not remember me, but he will not dare to show he has forgotten. It will serve as introduction and you can improvise from there. I will have the letter for you in the morning. There is a ship leaving for Rhodia at noon. I have tickets for you. I am leaving myself, but by another route. Don't linger. You're all through here, aren't you?"

"There is the diploma presentation."

A scrap of parchment; Does it matter to you?"

"Not now."

"Do you have money?"

"Enough."

"Very well. Too much would be suspicious." He spoke sharply. "Farrill!"

Biron stirred out of what was nearly a stupor. "What?"

"Get back to the others. Tell no one you are leaving. Let the act speak."

Biron nodded dumbly. Far away in the recesses of his mind there was the thought that his mission remained unaccomplished and that in this way, too, he failed his dying father. He was racked with a futile bitterness. He might have been told more. He might have shared the dangers. He should not have been allowed to act in ignorance.

And now that he knew the truth, or at least more of it, concerning the extent of his father's role in conspiracy, there was an added importance to the document he was to have obtained from Earth's archives. But there was no time any longer. No time to get the document. No time to wonder about it. No time to save his father. No time, perhaps, to live.

He said, "I'll do as you say, Jonti."

Sander Jonti looked briefly out over the university campus as he paused on the steps of the dormitory. Certainly there was no admiration in his glance.

As he stepped down the bricked walk that wound unsubtly through the pseudo-rustic atmosphere affected by all urban campuses since antiquity, he could see the lights of the city's single important street gleam just ahead. Past it, drowned in daytime, but visible now, was the eternal radioactive blue of the horizon, mute witness of prehistoric wars.

Jonti considered the sky for a moment. Over fifty years had passed since the Tyranni had come and put a sudden end to the separate lives of two dozen sprawling, brawling political units in the depths beyond the Nebula. Now, suddenly and prematurely, the peace of strangulation lay upon them.

The storm that had caught them in one vast thunderclap had been something from which they had not yet recovered. It had left only a sort of twitching that futilely agitated a world here and there, now and then. To organize those twitchings, to align them into a single well-timed heave would be a difficult task, and a long one. Well, he had been rusticating here on Earth long enough. It was time to go back.

The others, back home, were probably trying to get in touch with him at his rooms right now.

He lengthened his stride a bit.

He caught the beam as he entered his room. It was a personal beam, for whose security there were as yet no fears and in whose privacy there was no chink. No formal receiver was required; no thing of metal and wires to catch the faint, drifting surges of electrons, with their whispered impulses swimming through hyperspace from a world half a thousand light-years away.

Space itself was polarized in his room, and prepared for reception. Its fabric was smoothed out of randomness. There was no way of detecting that polarization, except by receiving. And in that particular volume of space, only his own mind could act as receiver; since only the electrical characteristics of his own particular nerve-cell system could resonate to the vibrations of the carrier beam that bore the message.

The message was as private as the unique characteristics of his own brain waves, and in all the universe, with its quadrillions of human beings, the odds against a duplication sufficiently close to allow one man to pick up another's personal wave was a twenty-figured number to one.

Jonti's brain tickled to the call as it whined through the endless empty incomprehensibility of hyperspace.

"...calling...calling...calling...calling..."

Sending was not quite so simple a job as receiving. A mechanical contrivance was needed to set up the highly specific carrier wave that would carry back to the contact beyond the Nebula. That was contained in the ornamental button that he carried on his right shoulder. It was automatically activated when he stepped into his volume of space polarization, and after that he had only to think purposefully and with concentration.

"Here I am!" No need for more specific identification.

The dull repetition of the calling signal halted and became words that took form within his mind. "We greet you, sir. Widemos has been executed. The news is, of course, not yet public."

"It does not surprise me. Was anyone else implicated?"

"No, sir. The Rancher made no statements at any time. A brave and loyal man."

"Yes. But it takes more than simply bravery and loyalty, or he would not have been caught. A little more cowardice might have been useful. No matter! I have spoken to his son, the new Rancher, who has already had his brush with death. He will be put to use."

"May one inquire in what manner, sir?"

"It is better to let events answer your question. Certainly I cannot foretell consequences at this early date. Tomorrow he will set off to see Hinrik of Rhodia. "

"Hinrik! The young man will run a fearful risk. Is he aware that-"

"I have told him as much as I can," responded Jonti sharply. "We cannot trust him too far until he has proved himself. Under the circumstances as they exist, we can only view him as a man to be risked, like any other man. He is expendable, quite expendable. Do not call me here again, as I am leaving Earth."

And, with a gesture of finality, Jonti broke the connection mentally.

Quietly and thoughtfully, he went over the events of the day and the night, weighing each event. Slowly, he smiled. Everything had been arranged perfectly, and the comedy might now play itself out.

Nothing had been left to chance.