Foundation and Empire

‘In that case,’ said Barr, with soft emphasis, ‘I could not begin better than by informing you regretfully that I am not in the possession of love charms, potions, or philtres. Nor am I in the least capable of influencing the favours of any young lady as may appeal to you.’

‘I have no need of artificial aids in that respect, sir.’ The complacency undeniably present in the general’s voice was stirred with amusement. ‘Do you receive many requests for such commodities?’

‘Enough. Unfortunately, an uninformed public tends to confuse scholarship with magicianry, and love life seems to be that factor which requires the largest quantity of magical tinkering.’

‘And so would seem most natural. But I differ. I connect scholarship with nothing but the means of answering difficult questions.’

The Siwennian considered sombrely, ‘You may be as wrong as they!’

‘That may turn out or not.’ The young general set down his cup in its flaring sheath and it refilled. He dropped the offered flavour-capsule into it with a small splash. ‘Tell me then, patrician, who are the magicians? The real ones.’

Barr seemed startled at a title long-unused. He said, ‘There are no magicians.’

‘But people speak of them. Siwenna crawls with the tales of them. There are cults being built about them. There is some strange connection between it and those groups among your countrymen who dream and drivel of ancient days and what they call liberty and autonomy. Eventually the matter might become a danger to the State.’

The old man shook his head. ‘Why ask me? Do you smell rebellion, with myself at the head?’

Riose shrugged, ‘Never. Never. Oh, it is not a thought completely ridiculous. Your father was an exile in his day; you yourself a patriot and a chauvinist in yours. It is indelicate in me as a guest to mention it, but my business here requires it. And yet a conspiracy now? I doubt it. Siwenna has had the spirit beat out of it these three generations.’

The old man replied with difficulty, ‘I shall be as indelicate a host as you a guest. I shall remind you that once a viceroy thought as you did of the spiritless Siwennians. By the orders of that viceroy my father became a fugitive pauper, my brothers martyrs, and my sister a suicide. Yet that viceroy died a death sufficiently horrible at the hands of these same slavish Siwennians.’

‘Ah, yes, and there you touch nearly on something I could wish to say. For three years the mysterious death of that viceroy has been no mystery to me. There was a young soldier of his personal guard whose actions were of interest. You were that soldier, but there is no need of details, I think.’

Barr was quiet. ‘None. What do you propose?’

‘That you answer my questions.’

‘Not under threats. I am old, but not yet so old that life means particularly overmuch.’

‘My good sir, these are hard times,’ said Riose, with meaning, ‘and you have children and friends. You have a country for which you have mouthed phrases of love and folly in the past. Come, if I should decide to use force, my aim would not be so poor as to strike you.’

Barr said coldly, ‘What do you want?’

Riose held the empty cup as he spoke. ‘Patrician, listen to me. These are days when the most successful soldiers are those whose function is to lead the dress parades that wind through the imperial palace grounds on feast days and to escort the sparkling pleasure ships that carry His Imperial Splendour to the summer planets. I … I am a failure. I am a failure at thirty-four, and I shall stay a failure. Because, you see, I like to fight.

‘That’s why they sent me here. I’m too troublesome at court. I don’t fit in with the etiquette. I offend the dandies and the lord admirals, but I’m too good a leader of ships and men to be disposed of shortly by being marooned in space. So Siwenna is the substitute. It’s a frontier world; a rebellious and a barren province. It is far away, far enough away to satisfy all.

‘And so I moulder. There are no rebellions to stamp down, and the border viceroys do not revolt lately; at least, not since His Imperial Majesty’s late father of glorious memory made an example of Mountel of Paramay.’

‘A strong Emperor,’ muttered Barr.

‘Yes, and we need more of them. He is my master; remember that. These are his interests I guard.’

Barr shrugged unconcernedly. ‘How does all this relate to the subject?’

‘I’ll show you in two words. The magicians I’ve mentioned come from beyond – out there beyond the frontier guards, where the stars are scattered thinly—’

‘“Where the stars are scattered thinly,”’ quoted Barr, ‘“And the cold of space seeps in”.’

‘Is that poetry?’ Riose frowned. Verse seemed frivolous at the moment. ‘In any case, they’re from the Periphery – from the only quarter where I am free to fight for the glory of the Emperor.’

‘And thus serve His Imperial Majesty’s interests and satisfy your own love of a good fight.’

‘Exactly. But I must know what I fight; and there you can help.’

‘How do you know?’

Riose nibbled casually at a cakelet. ‘Because for three years I have traced every rumour, every myth, every breath concerning the magicians – and of all the library of information I have gathered, only two isolated facts are unanimously agreed upon, and are hence certainly true. The first is that the magicians come from the edge of the Galaxy opposite Siwenna; the second is that your father once met a magician, alive and actual, and spoke with him.’

The aged Siwennian stared unblinkingly, and Riose continued, ‘You had better tell me what you know—’

Barr said thoughtfully, ‘It would be interesting to tell you certain things. It would be a psychohistoric experiment of my own.’

‘What kind of experiment?’

‘Psycho-historic.’ The old man had an unpleasant edge to his smile. Then, crisply, ‘You’d better have more tea. I’m going to make a bit of a speech.’

He leaned far back into the soft cushions of his chair. The wall-lights had softened to a pink-ivory glow, which mellowed even the soldier’s hard profile.

Ducem Barr began, ‘My own knowledge is the result of two accidents; the accidents of being born the son of my father, and of being born the native of my country. It begins over forty years ago, shortly after the great Massacre, when my father was a fugitive in the forests of the South, while I was a gunner in the viceroy’s personal fleet. This same viceroy, by the way, who had ordered the Massacre, and who died such a cruel death thereafter.’

Barr smiled grimly, and continued, ‘My father was a Patrician of the Empire and a Senator of Siwenna. His name was Onum Barr.’

Riose interrupted impatiently, ‘I know the circumstances of his exile very well. You needn’t elaborate upon it.’

The Siwennian ignored him and proceeded without deflection. ‘During his exile a wanderer came upon him; a merchant from the edge of the Galaxy; a young man who spoke a strange accent, knew nothing of recent Imperial history, and who was protected by an individual force-shield.’

‘An individual force-shield?’ Riose glared. ‘You speak extravagance. What generator could be powerful enough to condense a shield to the size of a single man? By the Great Galaxy, did he carry five thousand myria-tons of atomic power-source about with him on a little wheeled gocart?’

Barr said quietly, ‘This is the magician of whom you hear whispers, stories and myths. The name “magician” is not lightly earned. He carried no generator large enough to be seen, but not the heaviest weapon you can carry in your hand would have as much as creased the shield he bore.’

‘Is this all the story there is? Are the magicians born of maunderings of an old man broken by suffering and exile?’

‘The story of the magicians antedated even my father, sir. And the proof is more concrete. After leaving my father, this merchant that men call a magician visited a Tech-man at the city to which my father had guided him, and there he left a shield-generator of the type he wore. The generator was retrieved by my father after his return from exile upon the execution of the bloody viceroy. It took a long time to find—

‘The generator hangs on the wall behind you, sir. It does not work. It never worked but for the first two days; but if you’ll look at it, you will see that no one in the Empire ever designed it.’

Bel Riose reached for the belt of linked metal that clung to the curved wall. It came away with a little sucking noise as the tiny adhesion-field broke at the touch of his hand. The ellipsoid at the apex of the belt held his attention. It was the size of a walnut.

‘This—’ he said.

‘Was the generator,’ nodded Barr. ‘But it was the generator. The secret of its workings are beyond discovery now. Sub-electronic investigations have shown it to be fused into a single lump of metal and not all the most careful study of the diffraction patterns have sufficed to distinguish the discrete parts that had existed before fusion.’

‘Then your “proof” still lingers on the frothy border of words backed by no concrete evidence.’

Barr shrugged. ‘You have demanded my knowledge of me and threatened its extortion by force. If you choose to meet it with scepticism, what is that to me? Do you want me to stop?’

‘Go on!’ said the general, harshly.