WANDERER
Dennis Schmidt
This book is dedicated to my children
An Ace Science Fiction Book/published by arrangement withthe author
PRINTING HISTORY
Ace Science Fiction edition/November 1985
All rights reserved.Copyright ® 1985 by Dennis SchmidtCover art by Carl LundgrenThis book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.
ISBN: 0-441-87160-7
Ace Science Fiction Books are published byThe Berkley Publishing Group,200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Prologue
The mountains rose on every side, dark and lonely in the night. A steady wind blew from the west, shredding the few clouds that clung to the sky and flinging them east-ward. Aside from the numbing light of the stars, the night sky was empty.
They sat in a circle, in the center of a plain, in the middle of the mountains. They were nine in number, clad in black, their long gray hair whipping in the wind. Full robes draped and obscured their figures, and deep cowls hid their faces from sight. They sat cross-legged, the skirts of their robes fanning out to cover the ground. There was nothing to indicate who or what manner of creature they might be.
For many minutes, the only thing that could be heard was the moaning of the wind as it swept across the plain and swirled around their circle. Then, as though born of the wind itself, a slightly different sound began to separate itself from the background. It started as the merest whisper. Gradually it grew in intensity, one moment sinking back into the wind, the next rising triumphantly above it. As it rose higher and higher, a light grew on the horizon to the east. Slowly, a moon pushed up between two peaks. Almost immediately it was followed by two more in quick succession. After a short pause, a fourth joined the other three and together they began their march across the sky.
Now the sound was louder and more intense than the wind. Its cadence was wild and irregular, yet seemed to hint at an internal logic that transcended any ordinary concept of order. When softer, it had seemed to come from the very ground itself. Now, as it grew in strength, it could clearly be traced to the circle of figures.
The light of all four moons was surprisingly bright, and revealed something new about the figures. Deep within the cowls were human faces. They were of various forms, but all had the same severe frown of concentration, and the same hard, bright eyes that stared out at things that were not visible. The lips moved slightly, forming the words of the chant that rose to intertwine with the moaning of the wind and swirl off toward the moons slowly climbing in the eastern sky.
The words of the chant were almost recognizable, yet somehow they resisted understanding, twisting from the mind's grasp at the last moment. Higher and higher rose the droning sound until it dominated the night, pulling the wind with it, forcing the clouds to flee, pushing the moons up, up, ever up. The plain, the mountains, and eventually the world began to move around their circle as though around an axis. They were the center.
As the first of the four moons reached the highest point in the heavens, the wordless, flowing chant stopped suddenly and the world was silent in surprise and anticipation. One of the dark figures spoke in a husky whisper that rang out against the mountain peaks. "See! See! It lies there in space, so serene, so beautiful. What shall we call it? What shall its name be?"
"Death," another answered in a dry, rasping voice. "Life," suggested a second.
"Beginning," came a third answer.
"End," was the fourth.
"Kensho," said a fifth, firmly, commandingly.
Nine heads nodded in agreement. "Yes, Yes. Kensho. For it shall be Death and Life. It shall be Beginning and End. It shall be Kensho. And it shall be Satori."
From the depths of one of the hoods came a cry of pain and horror. "Ahhhhhh! Madness! See how they kill each other!"
"Yesss," came the group's reply. "The Mushin strike, the mind killers, the leeches, the eaters of emotions."
"I am annoyed," one said, a whining complaint in the night.
"Mushin make annoyance into anger," came the muttered answer.
"I am angry," another continued, his voice hard and brittle.
"Mushin make anger into fury," the response hissed. "I am furious," shouted a third, the very air quivering. "Mushin make fury into rage."
"I rage, I rage!" shrieked a fourth, his cry splitting the night and causing tiny creatures to huddle in terror in their burrows.
"Now Mushin strike," the chant calmly continued. "Now the killers push the tottering mind over the brink to fall in endless insanity. And now they feed!"
A hideous silence followed, one heavy with dread and death. It was finally broken by a lonely wail. "Dead! Dead, all dead! Bodies everywhere! Twisted, bloody, eyes gouged out, throats torn out. Dead."
"Some live. A few. Those who control the emotions. Those who can still the mind. Nakamura knows. He will save them."
Now a chant rose, soft at first, slowly gaining force until it filled the world with its power. "Moons, moons, shining down on waters, waters moving slowly, moons moving slowly, yet being still. Still the waters, still the moons. Movement, strife, all longing is but a reflection, passing to stillness when the mind is calmed."
The chant ran out into the night, Roning along, smoothing the world. A calm settled over and around the circle. The nine figures were still.
As the second moon reached the height of the sky one of them spoke. "A man comes. And then another. They bring a way."
"Not a weapon, but a Way," the others answered. "Jerome, to save us from the Mushin."
"Edwyr, to save us from ourselves."
"Way-Farer. He who treads the Way that all may walk it."
"There is Judgment. Those who change survive. The race changes. The race survives."
"Kensho is true to its name. Mushin become Mind Brothers. The ends almost meet, the circle is almost full."
Now the third moon rose to its apex in the night sky. In one mighty cry the circle shouted, "They come! They come!"
The chant ran around the circle again. "With might beyond compare, they come."
"With space-spanning ships, they come."
"With mind twisting machines, they come."
"One comes to Kensho, one goes from Kensho."
"The balance is kept."
"The one who comes, stays, un-whole."
"The one who goes, returns, whole."
"They go." The final words were whispered in tense unison.
For the fourth time, a watchful silence fell over the circle of forms. Though none looked up into the sky, all were watching and waiting for the fourth moon to reach the point already reached by the three others. When it climbed to that place, a great sigh went up from the nine. The sigh changed into a moan that the wind took up and whipped against the mountains until the very air vibrated with it and the ground of the plain trembled and shook.
"Again they come. Many more."
"Yes, yes, they come again."
"Who will stay and who will go?"
"Who will keep the balance?"
"Who will close the circle?"
Eight hooded heads turned to the form at the eastern point of the circle. The cowl dipped slightly and a voice issued forth from its depths. "The past is easily traveled. One road leads back from here. The rest have withered through lack of use. What was is determined by what is. What is contains what must be. This way of seeing can tell no more."
The heads turned then to the figure at the western point. The cowl bowed in acknowledgment and sorrow. "The future is not as open and clear as the past. It is infinite and multitudinous. From this instant the paths of possibility flare off in all directions.
"Once we looked and paid a heavy price. We saw many ends. And some beginnings. Now that which is most probable will be shared. And that which is hoped for as well. Open and receive, for the fourth moon is high and soon will be setting."
The circle breathed deep and drew gently into a stillness that seemed to stop the very flow of time and being. Nothing moved. The wind halted and hung suspended in the frozen moons light.
Then it was over. The stars went once more on their way, the fourth moon began to set, the wind scurried on eastward in its journey as if to make up for lost time. One of the figures sighed and murmured, "I have seen an end."
"Yes," came the reply, "an end."
"And yet, it was a beginning."
"Yes, a beginning."
"That which has been is always becoming that which will be."
"Through the narrow instant of now the infinite future becomes the singular past. All ends are beginnings, all beginnings ends."
"The moons are setting as soon as they rise."
"The fate of Kensho has risen."
"Now it is setting."
"To rise again?"
"To close the circle?"
A pause followed, one filled almost to bursting with conjecture and wondering. Then with one voice, the nine cried out, "They come, they come, they come!"
Hours later, when the last of the four moons had set, the plain was empty except for the hiss and swirl of the wind. The mountains looked down on darkness. Nothing looked back.
Chapter I
The two men seated across the table from each other were a study in contrasts. One was dark of skin, hair, and eye. The other was fair, blond, with eyes of a blue so pale they almost appeared white. The dark one wore a midnight-hued robe, its folds hiding his shape in shadow. His garb was a sign of the high office he held within the Power. It bore no badge or insignia, yet all knew it declared him a Cardinal and one of the Adepts in the faith.
The pale man was dressed in the uniform of a Fleet Admiral of the Home Guard, a simple affair of light blue cut to conform to the figure. The color was in honor of Earth, the incredible water planet that even now looked blue and lovely as it hung in space.
Admiral Knecht watched the man in black with neutral but careful eyes. Cardinal Unduri, he thought, was just possibly the most intelligent, most devious, most dangerous man ever to serve the Power. Everyone knew his story, and he himself relished reminding them of it. Unlike most of those in the Hierarchy, Unduri had not been born into the upper classes on Earth. Instead, he had come from the lowest of slums, the vast, sprawling shantytown that lined both sides of the turgid, foul Congo River. Abandoned by his own parents at an early age, he had fought his way out of the slums and into a minor post in a local chapel of the Power. From that moment on, his rise had been swift, brutal, and nothing short of incredible. His appointment as representative of the Power on this mission was a clear indication of the importance attached to it by the Hierarchy.
As my appointment as military head shows how important we think it is, he reminded himself. The whole thing was incredible. He had viewed the tapes himself, many times, and still they made no sense. He had even gained illicit access to the full report of the mind probe the Hierarchy had conducted of Bishop Thwait. The full report, not merely the "official" summary the Power had submitted to the Investigating Commission. He shuddered inwardly. They had put one of their own on their damn machines and torn his mind into tiny pieces, searching, searching for the key to what had taken place aboard that scout ship. The results were astounding mainly because they literally made no sense. The whole thing was inexplicable.
No sense, no sense. The phrase echoed in his mind. The ship's tapes made no sense. The memories in Thwait's mind made no sense.
And yet it had happened. The condition of the scout, the crew, and the Bishop all gave grim evidence to that fact. The interior of the ship was blasted and half destroyed. It had barely managed to limp home on its auxiliary systems. But, astonishingly enough, there was no indication of any external damage! Whatever had taken place had not been the result of an attack from the outside followed by a boarding.
Which brought up the condition of the crew. More than half had been killed or wounded during the fratricidal conflict that had raged between Admiral Thomas Yamada's men and those who served the Power. Or so it seemed. But such a thing had never happened in the history of the Power or of the Fleet. What in the name of Kuvaz could have caused such a thing? It just didn't make sense. Falling on each other in the face of the enemy? Not one of those questioned could give a satisfactory answer as to what had happened or why they had acted as they did. Several had died under the interrogation, so there was no question of their having held back information.
And then there was the condition of the Bishop himself. The drooling, moaning, crying, terrified shell of Andrew Thwait. What could have plunged a man as tough as Thwait into raving insanity? What kind of enemy had that scout ship faced?
Which brought him to the strangest part of all. From what he'd seen on the ship's tapes, the enemy was totally unarmed; the planet was inhabited by a culture which was at best a Class Three.
A planet with no weapons, and a girl. The girl Thwait and Yamada had kidnapped to help with the preparation of the spy and for the purpose of "questioning" under the Bishop's machines.
The "spy" had been one Dunn Jameson, an Acolyte Third, Drive Engineer, who had been wiped for heresy against the Power. There had been no details as to the nature of his heresy or about the man himself. These had been erased from the computer's memory when the man's mind had been wiped. After being put on the Power's machines, a person simply ceased existing for all intents and purposes. The Power generally reprogrammed the wiped individual to serve some limited and expendable purpose. In this case he had been turned into a spy. The girl's memories had been used to help program the spy, to give him background on the planet. His mission had been simple: Gather information on the state of military preparedness, and find and kill a person known as the Way-Farer, who was apparently the planet's leader. As interesting as the situation was, Knecht could see no way in which it could have caused the mission's failure. From what the files indicated, the spy had done his job and then had been detonated as usual. No, he thought, Dunn Jameson was an irrelevant factor.
But the girl, the one lone girl. He had watched the tapes of her, the few they had, several times. He had viewed her as she was brought aboard the scout, unconscious and totally vulnerable. He had seen her under the machines. Watched while she had killed four men with her bare hands. Gazed in amazement as she ran through the battling ship, laser rifle spitting death everywhere she went, until finally she reached the communications room and blasted it into molten metal. And then, as an incredible finale, he had seen her disappear into thin air!
What in the name of Kuvaz were they getting them-selves into? He looked across the table at the Cardinal. Would he be as much an enemy as the planet toward which they were heading? Would the same thing that had happened to Thwait and Yamada, whatever that was, happen between him and Unduri?
The Admiral cleared his throat slightly and spoke, his voice unusually soft and gentle for a military man. "I, uh, suppose you've familiarized yourself with all the data on the previous mission, your Worship?"
The dark man nodded. "Of course, Admiral, of course." For a few moments, the Cardinal let his gaze rest on the face of the man on the other side of the table. Then he smiled slightly, his eyes glittering coldly in the bluish light that bathed the small room. "I rather imagine we are thinking quite similar thoughts, Admiral. Yes, quite similar." His voice was deep and smooth, soft and totally devoid of emotion. "Thoughts about Thwait and Yamada, about what happened to them above this planet that the girl called Kensho.
"I wonder, Admiral, do you know what that name means, that Kensho? I found it curious that it was nowhere in the report. Apparently, no one found it interesting enough to ask. And that in itself is interesting, no?
"Well, Admiral, my own curiosity compelled me to find out whether it does, indeed, mean anything. And not surprisingly, it does. Most of these Pilgrimage planets are named after the leader of the mission, or perhaps after the group that composed the mission. Quarnon, for example, was so named after the Admiral of the flagship that escorted the Pilgrimage and helped get it established. He died in the process, the victim of a particularly nasty life form the colonists found themselves confronted with. Asaheim, on the other hand, was named after the rather bizarre group that founded it, a group which claimed direct descent from the ancient Norse gods. Strange conceit for a group of mixed northern African stock, wouldn't you say?
"But Kensho? What, in the world, kind of name is that? A true mystery, until I remembered that Nakamura, their leader, was of Japanese descent and a High Master of the Universal Way of Zen, a minor sect of some fifteen million or so people that regrettably had to be wiped out during the Readjustment.
"Japanese, then, was the clue. Kensho, it seems, was one of the stages of what these primitives called Enlightenment or Satori. It appears—"
"Let's stop the sparring, Unduri," the Admiral interrupted, his voice flat and hard. "Yes, we're both thinking the same thoughts. One of the most disturbing is that I don't think I can trust you and you feel the same about me."
"Ah, Admiral, I admire the directness of your approach. Yes, indeed I do. So military, so forceful. And what you say is true, so true. For, you see, I am aware that you are a member of, as you people put it, the Committee."
The pale man tried hard not to show his surprise. So the bastard knows! But that means the Hierarchy knows! He checked his mind before it went any further in such speculation. There would be time for that later. Right now he had to deal with the man across the table from him.
Before he could reply, however, Unduri lifted his hand to halt him. "Please, Admiral, do not utter a word, either of denial or admission. It is unnecessary, really, and matters not a bit under current circumstances. Let it just stand as concrete evidence of the fact that I fully realize there can be no real trust between the two of us.
"Be that as it may, we find ourselves here together on this flagship, leading a fleet of some seven ships, all destined to envelope and conquer or destroy one tiny planet with a primitive Class Three culture of unknown, but presumably quite dangerous, character. I am here, quite simply, because I am the very best the Power has to offer. And I am sure you are here for similar reasons. Together, we must face this enemy and defeat them.
"I say together because neither of us can do it alone. Now I am quite sure you are intelligent and subtle enough to know precisely what I mean by that, Admiral. And that you are capable of understanding how completely to our mutual benefit it is to cooperate. Not trust each other, by Kuvaz, not for a second. But to cooperate despite our mutual suspicion. To do anything less, I fear, would make us vulnerable to the very fate which befell poor Thomas and Andrew. A fate I, for one, do not wish in the slightest to share."
Unduri watched as the Admiral sat back, stroking his chin in a contemplative motion so typical of the man. I know you, Knecht, know you almost as well as you know yourself. Years ago, when the Council of Adepts had discovered the existence of the Committee, each member of the Council had studied two members of the Committee in great depth, trying to learn all they could in the event it became necessary to control or destroy this infantile plot to seize power from the Hierarchy and transfer it to the military. Unduri had drawn Knecht and one other who had died at Quarnon. He had been as relentless in his study as he had been in everything he had ever undertaken for the Power.
The odd thing about Knecht, though, was how little there had been to learn. His past had been totally typical, bland, and rather uninterestingly normal. Unduri had probed and prodded, trying to find strengths, weaknesses, secret sins, anything at all that would give him a handle on the man, a way to intimidate or corrupt him. Most frustratingly, there had been nothing. He had no skeletons in any closets; in fact, he seemed to have no closets! He had no vices and few virtues. Yet somehow he had risen quite high within the military, was considered a brilliant tactician, a competent officer, and one of the most dangerous members of the Committee.
What he's doing right now is a perfect example of how the man operates, the Cardinal mused. He's sitting there as if considering what I have said. Yet I would swear there isn't a thought going through his mind. Somehow, he decided instantly on my offer and now he's just pretending to consider it because he knows it will look better if he does. I wonder if there really is a man behind those eyes? Could it be nothing but an animate machine?
The Admiral cleared his throat, dropped his hand back to the top of the table, and said gently, "Yes, Cardinal, I agree. It would be best if we cooperate completely. I am even prepared to trust you. I will tell you what you already know, but in greater detail. I am a member of the Committee. That is one of the reasons I was chosen for this mission. But the strict orders of the Committee are to forget about the potential conflict between us and the Power and to concentrate on the more immediate danger, that is, upon this strange planet and its quite evidently dangerous inhabitants.
"And now I will show my trust further by telling you the orders I have received from the High Command regarding how they wish me to conduct this mission." He paused for a moment as if trying to remember the exact wording of the orders. Unduri sat, leaning slightly forward in anticipation, surprised by what the Admiral was doing and not quite sure why he was doing it. "Mind you, Cardinal, these orders are not the written ones we both have copies of. These are the personal ones given to me directly and orally by the High Commander herself.
" 'Knecht,' she said, `I'm giving you seven battleships. We had five at Quarnon. The bastards destroyed two of them. The three left wiped the entire planet from the face of the universe. You'll have seven. Seven. That's how important I consider this mission. Now, Knecht,' she continued, `you could go in there shooting. Or you could lay off and play it like Yamada did. I don't like either option. So here's what I want you to do. Go in shooting, but only at that old flagship they have. Blast one of the moons, maybe two. Knock out the biggest population center you can find. Let 'em know you mean business. Land a couple of battalions of Marines and have them kill everything in sight for about fifty miles around their landing points. Then demand the unconditional surrender of the planet. If at any time you meet anything resembling significant resistance, destroy the whole place. Make Quarnon look like a charity ball. Do you understand?' I said, 'Yes, sir.' and left."
"The written orders read rather differently, Admiral."
"They do indeed, Cardinal, they do indeed. They outline standard contact policy. But I tell you this to show you that I do intend not only to work with you, but to trust you and share all the knowledge I possess.
"You see, Cardinal, I am fully convinced that this Kensho represents a deadly threat to our mutual empire. I am further convinced that the planet and every human on it must be either totally subjugated and enslaved or utterly destroyed. There can be no contact, no diplomatic inter-change, no mutual trade for mutual benefit, or any of the rest of the verbiage in the standard contact procedures. There can only be total victory for us, and total defeat for them. They must be smashed.
"I share this with you openly now, Cardinal, because when the moment comes to act, there will no longer be time to maneuver and negotiate between us. We must strike swiftly and hard, leaving them no opportunity to react. I will not sit out behind some moon as Yamada did and give them any opportunity to do to me what they did to him." Knecht stopped speaking for a moment and gazed at Unduri with his cold stare. "Do you agree, Cardinal? With no reservations, tricks, evasions, second thoughts, or anything at all, do you agree?"
Unduri settled back into his chair, a slight smile turning up the corners of his mouth. "I think we have more to fear from the Committee than we thought. And I also understand completely now why the High Command picked you for this mission.
"Yes, yes, I understand a great deal now. A great deal that needed understanding. Admiral, I thank you for your openness. And I will be as open and as direct myself. My secret orders are quite similar to your own. Kensho must be subjugated or destroyed. And as far as the Power is concerned, destroyed is better. It's so much neater, you know.
"Yes, Admiral, I agree. We shall destroy Kensho. One way or another, we shall destroy it. But now I think we must plan exactly how we intend to go about this task."
For the next two hours, the two men sat in the cold blue light and plotted the death of a world.
Chapter 2
Cardinal Unduri turned off the machine and leaned back into his chair, settling into its comfortable depths and gently rubbing his forehead and temples. He had been going over the files on the Kensho affair once more. How many times did that make? he idly wondered. Two hundred?
Possibly. Perhaps more.
The result, though, was the same as always. Confusion, frustration, and a vague, gnawing fear that he was missing something of critical importance. Something that could mean the difference between the success of this mission and a failure that would be even more spectacular than that of Bishop Thwait.
Cardinal Unduri had known Thwait. Known him well. A competent man, if a bit fanatical and overly impressed with the importance and power of his position. He was bright, but vicious, and sly; so obviously so that it was impossible for him to catch an enemy off guard. All one had to do was look at him to know how dangerous he was.
Yet someone, or something, had been vastly more dangerous than Andrew. More dangerous even than Andrew and an entire scout ship. Could it have been that single girl?
Somehow he doubted it. The girl had obviously been clever, resourceful, tough, and uniquely resistant to the operation of the machines. But it wasn't possible for one girl to defeat ... or was it? Damnit! That was the whole problem. He simply didn't have enough data to go on!
What about that spy, the one Thwait had sent down to the planet's surface to kill the Way-Farer? Dunn Jameson. He cursed the Bishop silently. Too damned efficient. He'd erased all record of Jameson when he'd wiped the man for his heresy. By the book, of course, but annoying. Unduri would have liked to know more about this heretic. There was something strange and disturbing about the files on the spy's mission on Kensho. Odd, unexplained discrepancies existed. And there was no firm evidence that the attempt to assassinate the Way-Farer had succeeded. Naturally, the implanted bomb had been exploded, so there was nothing left of the spy, was there? Another unknown. There hadn't been time enough to follow up and be sure. The end of the mission had come too swiftly, too brutally, too finally.
He sighed deeply. So many loose ends, so many unanswered questions. There was simply no way to find out precisely what had happened. Perhaps the Kenshites did have some sort of secret weapon. Who knew?
Even then, he admitted, the physical danger from some secret weapon was not what either he or the Council really feared. No. It wasn't even the whole planet full of people they were speeding toward. The physical force one little...
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