Free The Warlock of Rhada by Robert Cham Gilman Page B

flashed in Emeric’s eyes--and faded. There were, he realized, two faces to the Order of Navigators. One was theological, compassionate, concerned with the saving of the ancient treasures and men’s souls. The other was simply expedient. What Glamiss said was quite possible--even understandable, if the rumors about witchcraft in Trama were true. The Inquisition sought to wipe out the black arts root and branch, true. But what the Inquisition burned out of the laity often found its way into the laboratories of Algol. The Order could be a stern father, cautioning all men in the Great Sky to “do as I say, not as I do.”
    Emeric raised his eyes to Vyka’s first rim, now breaking through the mists of early morning along the treeline. He murmured an Ave Stella. Again, he thought, faith is challenged.
    “I cannot believe that the Order is condoning treachery, Glamiss. But if Ulm is outlawing you, it is possible the Gloria might be put at his disposal. Ulm is your lord. Just or unjust, he has the right.”
    “No longer, Emeric. I say this to you and you must take it as a man, not as a priest. We will settle the right and wrong of this business when I hold Trama.” The young warleader’s eyes were narrowed against the dawn. He looked calculating, Emeric thought, more ruthless than one would have imagined possible in one so youthful.
    Glamiss said, “Last night we spoke of Nyor. Those were dreams. Here’s Trama. It is only a valley and a tribe of weyrherders and perhaps”--he smiled grimly --”some useful witchery. It is a fall, my friend priest, from the feathered cape of the Star King to shaggy weyr skins--but we’d best take what the time and place offer. I want to be in full command here before Ulm and your bishop can reach us.” He shouted for the troop to mount, and turned again to Emeric. His tone was ironic, for he had controlled his anger now. “Who knows? It may be that future history will say something important happened here today.”
    Vulk Asa said softly, “Those who survive to write the history will decide that, Warleader.”
     
    The starship Gloria in Coelis, grounded on the sandy plain to the west of Lord Ulm of Vara’s keep, was ancient. Though the men who presently flew her were the wisest of their time, they had no really clear notion of how the vessel operated, when it was built or how fast it traveled. From time out of mind, the Order of Navigators had trained its priests in the techniques of automated starflight by rote. Even now, as the Gloria’s two million metric tons depressed the soil of the Varan plain, the duty Navigators on the starship’s bridge, were chanting the Te Deum Stella, the Litany for Preflight, this ritual being one of the first taught to young novice Navigators on the cloister-planets of Algol.
    Though the three junior priests on the bridge were chanting the voice commands that activated the immense ship’s systems, in fact only the propulsion units (sealed after manufacture in the time of the Empire) responded. The priests did not know that the vessel’s life-support systems and its many amenities had ceased to function more than a thousand years earlier. The interior of the starship was lit by torches burning in wall-sconces, water and food were stored aboard in wooden casks, and the ship’s atmosphere was replenished not by the scrubber units, as originally intended, but by the air that was taken aboard through the open ports and hatchways. The starships were capable of almost infinite range, for the engines operated on solar-phoenix units. But the length of any star voyage was limited by the food and water supply and by the fouling of the air by the hundreds of men and horses of the warbands the starships most often carried.
    The bridge had been depolarized, and from within this consecrated area where only a Navigator might pass, the duty crew could see the squat towers and thick walls of Lord Ulm’s keep. The warband, almost a thousand armed men, was mustering on