Public-domain ebook
Tonight the Stars Revolt!
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Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #64052.
The opening · free to read
Red Angus fled like a frightened hound through the twisted alleys of the Lower City. Dim lamplight from the towering white walls of the Citadel threw glowing brilliance across his naked chest, glinted on the metal studs of his broad leather belt, and on the rippling muscles of his long legs. He skidded on a patch of slops, righted himself and dove for the darkness of an arched doorway. He drew back in the shadows, barely feeling the burn of the new brand on his shoulder that stamped him as a pirate.
Faintly, he heard the shouts and drumming feet of the Diktor's police as they ravened in the streets, hunting him. His heart thudded swiftly under the high arch of his ribcase. Red Angus smiled wryly.
He was a hunted space pirate, just free of the cell blocks below the palace. But he was more than that to the Diktor of Karr. He was a Karrvan noble who had gone bad, who had fled into space and established an eyrie on a wandering asteroid, who had set himself up as a one-man crusade against Stal Tay, ruler of Karr by the grace of the god Stasor.
"I'll find a way," the pirate swore in the shadows, listening to the shouts and running of the guards, the sharp, barking blasts of their heatguns.
There was a faint sound behind the thick oaken door. Angus moved his naked back, still welt and scarred, away from the damp wood. He clenched a big fist and stood silent, waiting.
He was a tall man, lean in the belly and wide about the shoulders. His mouth was thin but curved at the corners as though used to smiling. Close-cropped reddish hair gave his hard, tanned face a fiery look. Dark blue eyes glistened in the half-squint of the habitual spaceman.
The oaken door swung open. A cowled form stood in the darkness of the archway putting out a thin, old hand toward him. Where the cowl hung there was only a faint white dimness for a face.
"The Hierarch will see you, and save you, Red Angus," said the old man. "Come in. He hopes you'll listen to reason."
"The Hierarch?" snorted the lean man in disbelief. "He's hand in arm with Stal Tay. He'd land me back with my ankles in a manacle chain."
The cowled man shook his head and whispered, "Hurry, hurry. There's no time to argue!"
A shout from a street less than sixty feet away decided the half-naked, winded Angus. He moved his shoulders in a bitter shrug and slid inside the door. The latch clicked on the door and a hand caught his. A voice, gentle with age, said softly, "Follow me."
Two hundred feet from the door the walls began to glow. Angus looked at his guide and saw an old man, a member of the Hierarchy, a priestly cult of scientists who were honored and protected by the Diktor. Thirty years before, when the people of the Lower City had been ravaged by disease, they had stormed the block of buildings where the scientists worked.
They had wrecked machines and killed men.
The people of the Lower City were no better than savages and the pagan superstitions they boasted were encouraged by Stal Tay. It pleased the Diktor to believe that science was something only the rich deserved. So Stal Tay stepped in. He withdrew the scientists from the world of men and gave them a little world of their own that was called the Citadel.
Red Angus and the scientist went through corridors that bent and twisted in subtle fashion. It was quiet in this underground tunnel. Once Angus heard the subterranean rush of a hidden river seeking an outlet in the great Car Carolan Sea. Water condensed in oozing droplets on the cold stone walls.
Then they were going up handhewn stone steps toward an archway in which a thick, soot-blackened door was opening. Lights glared beyond the doorway in a large room with a high, groined ceiling.
He saw Tandor first, standing big and massive among the cowled priests, the wall light glinting from his bald head. They had had a time taking him from the Lower City, Angus saw. There were cut marks on him, and the blood here and there on his rough wool tunic had dried.
A tall man in a white cowl that was bordered with purple came toward them. He said, "I saved your man from the Diktor's torturers. Money will do much in the Citadel. Even a pirate's first captain is not as valuable as a handful of sestelins."
Red Angus shrugged. "What do you want from me?"
The Hierarch nodded. "They told me you were a sensible man. Tonight I will free Tandor after you do me a service."
"What service?"
The Hierarch studied him carefully. "Kill the Diktor!"
Angus barked derisive laughter. "As well ask me to find the Book of Nard. I'd stand as much chance!"
"I may well ask that too, before you and I are through."
"Suppose I refuse?"
The Hierarch sighed. His black eyes glittered in the shadow of his cowl. "I'll smash your legs so you can't run, and let Stal Tay send his men for you. I'll put red-hot daggers in Tandor's eyes until he confesses your crimes. I--"
Angus scowled. "I thought the Diktor was your friend."
"He keeps us penned in the Citadel as his slaves. The scientific discoveries we make he claims as his own. He sent the diseases that the people blamed on the scientists."
Angus said, "I will kill him." But he thought to himself, I only play for time. It's promise or get my legs broken.
They led Angus to a little room where a cowled man waited for him with garments that were living reds and ochres, braided with gold and ornate with jewels. The scientist said coldly, "You are to impersonate the Ambassador of Nowk. He's red-headed and big with a scar on his face like your own."
The night air was crisp as Angus stepped with the cowled scientist through a stone gateway and into a long, sleek wheeler. He gathered his cloak of black sateenis about him and sank into the foamisal upholstery.
The cowled man whispered, "Everything is arranged. A woman dancer, Berylla by name, will dance for the Diktor. Right after that he plans to call you to his side to discuss the new trade agreement with Nowk. The dancer will give you the signal as she leaves. When you're summoned strike at the Diktor's neck. A divertissement in the form of drunken revellers has been planned. In the excitement, you will be spirited away."
Angus touched the slim dagger at his side and nodded.
The Diktor of Karr was a big man. He was solid in the shoulder and slim at the waist. His head was bald, and there was a jagged scar across his right temple. He sat on his jewelled throne and drummed restless fingers against the hand-carved arm.
Beside him sat a woman with sloe eyes and hair the color of a raven's wing. The thin stuff of her gown clung to supple haunches and proud breasts. She watched the new Ambassador from Nowk thread a path through the guests, unable to decide whether the man was ugly or ruggedly handsome. But he was big, with long, heavily-muscled arms and legs, and he had the look of a fighter.
Moana laughed softly. There was music in her voice and art in the manner of her movement as he drew closer. Her eyes ran over his big frame slowly, slumberously.
Red Angus came to a stop at the base of the dais and bowed low. He was a pirate but he had been in the great capitals of the Six Worlds.
"Your first visit to Karr?" smiled Stal Tay.
"The first, excellency."
"You like the court we keep?"
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