Some hours later, Herktaskor said farewell. He walked like one in a daze. Schuster stood in the lock watching him go. He himself felt utterly exhausted.

  If it turns out I’ve done this to him, to all of them, for nothing, may my own dear God forgive me.

  Mukerji hurried from the wardroom. His feet clattered loudly on the deck. “Martin!” he yelled. “Davy’s alive!”

  Schuster spun on his heel. A wave of giddiness went through him and he leaned against the bulkhead.

  “His call came after you went off with that Brahmin,” Mukerji said. “I didn’t know if I would do harm by interrupting you, so—Yes. He was wounded, hand and leg, nothing that won’t heal, you know we need not worry about any local microbes. He fainted, and I imagine that he went directly from a swoon to a sleep. He could still only mumble when he called from Rebo’s castle, said he would call back after he had gotten some more rest and explain his idea. Come, Romulo and I have already broken out a bottle to celebrate!”

  “I could use that,” Schuster said, and followed him.

  After a few long swallows, he felt more himself. He set down his glass and gave the others a shaky grin. “Did you ever have anybody tell you you were not a murderer?” he asked. “That’s how I’m feeling.”

  “Oh, come off it,” Pasqual snorted. “You are not that responsible for your apprentices.”

  “No, maybe not, except I sent him where I could have gone myself— But he’s O.K., you say!”

  “Without you here on the spot, that might make very little difference,” Pasqual said. “Krish is just a spaceman and I just an engineer and Davy just a kid. We need somebody to scheme our way out of this hole. And you, amigo mio, are a schemer by trade.”

  “Well, Davy seems to have thought of something. What, I don’t know.” Schuster shrugged. “Or maybe I do know—some item I learned in school, and forgot. He’s closer to his school days.”

  “Assuming his idea is any good,” Pasqual said with a return of worry, “I have not made any feasible plans myself, but believe me, I have thought of many harebrained ones.”

  “We’ll have to wait and see. Uh, do you have any more details on the situation in Gilrigor?”

  “Yes, I spoke directly with Rebo, after Davy had shown him how the radio works,” Mukerji said. “The assassins were killed in his attack. He said he ordered that because he suspected they were indeed Sanctuary guards. If he had taken any of them prisoner, he would have been bound to release them again, or else face an awkward clash of wills between himself and Sketulo. And they would promptly have taken word back here. As it is, he has avoided the dilemma, and can claim his action was perfectly justified. At arrowshot distance, he could not see their insignia, and the natural assumption was that they were bandits—whom it is his duty to eradicate.”

  “Excellent.” Schuster chuckled. “Rebo’s a smart cookie. If he finds an excuse not to send a messenger here, as I’m sure he can, we’ll have gained several days before Sketulo wonders what’s happened and sends someone else out to inquire—who’s then got to get there and back, taking still more time. In other words, by keeping our mouths shut about the whole business, we turn his own delaying tactics on him.” He looked around the table. “And time is what we need right now, second only to haulage. Time for the Sanctuary to get so badly off balance, so embroiled internally, that no one can think up a new quasi-legal gimmick for stopping us.”

  “Be careful they are not driven to violence,” Mukerji said.

  “That’s not too likely,” Schuster replied. “The attempt on Davy was by stealth; I’m pretty sure Sketulo will disown his dead agents when the news breaks. Any decision to act with open illegality is tough for him, you see. It’d give people like Rebo much too good a talking point, or even an excuse to fight back. Besides, as I already remarked, time should now begin to work against the old geezer.”

  Pasqual cocked his head at the merchant. “What have you been brewing?”

  “Well,”—Schuster reached for the bottle again, liquor gurgled cheerily into his glass—“First off, as you know, I introduced Newtonian astronomy. I disguised it as a fictional hypothesis, but that only makes it sneakier, not any less explosive. Nobody can fool himself forever with a pretense this is only a fairy tale to simplify his arithmetic. Sooner or later, he’ll decide the planetary orbits really are elliptical. And that knocks a major prop out from under his belief in the sacredness of circles, which in turn will repercuss like crazy on the rest of the religion. Sketulo foresaw as much, and right away he forbade any use of my ideas. This simply delays the inevitable, though. He can’t stop his astrologers from thinking, and some of them from resenting the prohibition. That’ll make tension in the Sanctuary, which’ll occupy a certain amount of his time and energy, which’ll therefore be diverted from the problem of how to burke us.”

  “Nice,” Mukerji frowned, “but a little long-range. The revolution might take fifty years to ripen.”

  “Admitted. The trend helps our cause, but not enough by itself. So today I got Herktaskor here. We talked theology.”

  “What? You can’t upset a religion in an afternoon!”

  “Oh, sure. I know that.” Schuster took a drink. His grin broadened. “The goyim have been working on mine for two or three thousand years and got nowhere. I only pointed out certain logical implications of the local creed, and suggested some of the answers to those implications which’ve been reached on Earth.”

  “So?” Pasqual asked wonderingly.

  “Well, you know I’m interested in the history of science and philosophy, like to read about it and so forth. Because of this, as well as some family traditions, I’ve got a knowledge of the Kabbalah—the system of medieval Jewish theosophy. In one form or another, it had tremendous influence for many centuries, even on Christian thought. But believe you me, it’s the most fantastically complicated structure the human race ever built out of a few texts, a lot of clouds, and a logic that got the bit between its teeth. Jewish Orthodoxy never wanted any part of it—much too hairy, and among the Chasidim in particular it led to some wild emotional excesses.

  “But it fits the Larsan system like a skin. For instance, in the Kabbalah there are nine subordinate emanations of God, who are the separate attributes of perfection. They’re divided into three triads, each denoting one male and one female quality plus their union. There hasn’t been much numerology here before now, but when I pointed out to Herktaskor that three points determine a circle, he gasped. Each of these triadic apices is identified with some part of the body of the archetypal man. The first Sephirah encircles the lot, which also accords nicely with Larsan symbolism, and the conjunction of them produces the universe…Well, never mind details. It goes on to develop techniques of letter rearrangement by which the inner meaning of Scripture can be discovered, a doctrine of triple reincarnation, a whole series of demonologies and magical prescriptions, altogether magnificent, glittering nonsense that seduced some of the best minds Earth ever knew. I gave it to Herktaskor.”

  “And—?” Mukerji asked very softly.

  “Oh, not all. That’d take months. I just told him the bare outlines. He may or may not come back for more. That hardly matters. The damage has been done. Larsan philosophy is still rather primitive, not ready to deal with such strong meat. Religion is theoretically a pure monotheism, in practice tainted with the ghosties and ghoulies of popular superstition, and no one so far has given its premises a really thorough examination. Yet theology does exist as a respectable enterprise. So the Consecrates are cocked and primed to go off, in an explosion of reinterpretations, reformations, counter-reformations, revelations, new doctrines, fundamentalists reactions, and every other kind of hooraw we humans have been through. As I’ve already said, the Kabbalah sure had that effect on Earth. In time, this should break up the Sanctuary and let some fresh air into Larsum.”

  Schuster sighed. “I’m afraid the process will be bloody,” he finished. “If I didn’t think it was for the long-range best, I wouldn’t have done this thing—not even to save our lives.”

  Pasqual looked bewildered. “You are too subtle for me,” he complained. “Will it?”

  “If we can move that generator here within the next few weeks, I’m certain it will. Herktaskor is no fool, even if he is a natural-born theologian. After what happened about the calculus, he’ll be discreet about who he picks to talk my ideas over with. But those are good brains in the Sanctuary, hungry to be used. If fact is denied them to work with, theory will serve. The notions will spread like a shock wave. Questions will soon be openly raised. Sketulo can’t lawfully suppress discussion of that sort, and the others will be too heated up to obey an unlawful order. So he’s going to have his hands full, that guy, for the rest of his life!”

  Rebo, Marchwarden of Gilrigor, reined in his fastiga on the crest of Ensum Hill. One hand, in an iron-knobbed gauntlet, pointed down the long slope. “Aesca,” he said.

  David Falkayn squinted through the day-gloom. To him the city was only a blot athwart the river’s metal gleam. But a starpoint caught his eye, and the heart sprang within him. “Our ship,” he breathed. “We are there.”

  Rebo peered across kilometers of fields and orchards. “No armed forces are gathered,” he said. “I think I see the townsfolk beginning to swarm out, but no guards. Yet undoubtedly the Sanctuary has had word about us. So it is plain they do not intend to resist.”

  “Did you expect that—really?”

  “I was not sure. That is why I brought so large a detachment of my own warriors.” The cuirassed figure straightened in the saddle. The tail switched. “They would have been the ones breaking the law, had they tried to fight, so we would have had no compunctions. Not only the Wardens have chafed at the Consecrate bridle. My troop will be almost sorry not to bloody a blade this day.”

  “Not I.” Falkayn shivered.

  “Well,” Rebo said, “peaceful or not, you have done more harm to them than I ever could. The world will not be the same again. So simple a thing as wagons—less toil, more goods moving faster, the age-old balance upset. And I will use some of that released power to overrun the Kasunians, which means I will be one to reckon with in the councils of the realm. Ever will your people be welcome in Gilrigor.”

  Falkayn dropped his glance, guiltily. “I cannot lie to you, my friend,” he stumbled. “There may never be any more of us coming here.”

  “I had heard that,” said Rebo, “and ignored it. Perhaps I did not wish to believe. No matter now.” Pride rang in his tones. “One day our ships will come to you.”

  He raised his ax in signal. His riders deployed and the huge wagon lumbered over the ridge, drawn by twenty fastigas. The generator and crane lashed atop it glowed under the red sun.

  The driver lowered his drag brake, a flat log, so the vehicle wouldn’t get away from him on the downhill stretch. Groaning, squealing, banging, and rattling, the thing rocked onward.

  It moved on eight rollers. They revolved between planks, the forward pair of which was adjustable by square pegs to permit turning. There were bumpers fore and aft to prevent their escape on an incline. As each roller emerged from the rear, two hooks caught two of the oblong metal eyes which ringed the grooves cut near either end of the log. These hooks were shrunk onto a pair of crossbraced, counterweighted arms mounted high on the wagon bed. The arms were held in place by leather straps within a frame that stopped sidewise motion, and pivoted on shapeless leather pads atop their posts. A couple of workers hauled lustily. The arms swung high. At the limit of their permissible arc, the carefully shaped hooks slipped out of the eyes and the roller fell onto a wooden roof that slanted downward to the front. Two other natives, equipped with peaveys, stood there to make certain of its alignment. It boomed quickly between its guideboards and dropped to the road behind the front bumper. The wagon passed over it, the arms dropped in time to catch the next log, and the cycle began anew.

  Each roller had three curved sides.

  Draw an equilateral triangle, ABC. Put the point of your compasses on A and draw the arc BC. Move to B and describe AC, then to C and describe AB. Round off the corners. The resulting figure has constant width. It will roll between two parallel lines tangent to it, maintaining that tangency for the whole revolution.

  As a matter of fact, the class of constant-width polygons is infinite. The circle is merely a limiting case.

  To be sure, Falkayn thought, the rollers on this goldberg of his would wear down in time, approach the forbidden crosssection and have to be replaced. Or would they? Someone like Rebo could argue that this proved the circle was actually the least perfect of all shapes, the degenerate product of a higher-order form. As if the poor old Consecrates didn’t have theological problems enough!

  He clucked to his mount and rode on ahead of the wagon, toward his ship.

  A Plague of Masters

  -1-

  First he was aware of rain. Its noise filled the opened airlock chamber, a great slow roar that reverberated through the spaceship’s metal. Light struck outward, glinted off big raindrops crowded together in their falling. Each globule shone quicksilver. But just beyond that curtain was total night. Here and there in blackness a lamp could be seen, and a watery glimmer reflected off the concrete under its pole. The air that gusted into the lock chamber was as warm as wet, and full of strange smells; Flandry thought some were like jasmine and some like rotting ferns, but couldn’t be sure.

  He tossed his cigarette to the deck and ground it under his heel. The hooded raincape which he slipped on seemed useless in such weather. Diving suit might help, he grumbled to himself. All his careful elegance had gone for naught: from the peaked cap with the sunburst of Empire, down past flowing silkite blouse and embroidered blue doublet, red sash with the fringed ends hanging just so, to sleek white trousers tucked in soft but shiny leather halfboots. He pressed a control button and descended from the lock. As he reached ground, the ladder retreated, the valve closed, lights went out in the ports of the flitter. He felt very much alone.

  The rain seemed even louder here in the open. It must be striking on foliage crowding every side of the field. Flandry heard water gurgle in gutters and drains. He could make out several buildings now, across the width of concrete, and started toward them. He hadn’t gone far when half a dozen men approached from that direction. It must be the receiving committee, he thought, and halted so that they might be the ones coming to him. Imperial prestige and so forth, what?

  As they neared, he saw they were not an especially tall race. He, who was about three-fourths caucasoid, topped the biggest by half a head. But they were wide-shouldered and well-muscled, walking lithely. A nearby lamp showed them to be tawny brown of skin, with black hair banged across the forehead and falling past the ears, a tendency toward almond eyes and flattish noses. They wore a simple uniform: green pocketed kilt of waterproof synthetic, sandals on their feet, a medallion around each neck. They moved with a confident semi-military stride, and haughtiness marked the beardless faces. Yet they were armed only with truncheon and dagger.

  Odd. Flandry noted the comforting weight of the blaster at his own hip.

  The squad reached him and deployed. There had been another man with them. One of the squad continued to hold a gracefully shaped umbrella over this one’s head. It was a head shaven smooth, with a symbol tattooed on the brow in fluorescing gold. The man was short and slender, but seemed athletic. Hard to judge his age; the face was unlined, but sharper and with more profile than the others, a sensitive mouth and disconcertingly steady eyes. He wore a robe which flared outward from the shoulders (held by a yoke, Flandry judged, to permit free air circulation around the body) and fell in simple white folds to the ankles. On its breast was the image of a star.

  He regarded Flandry for several seconds before speaking, in archaic and thickly accented Anglic: “Welcome to Unan Besar. It is long since an…outsider…has been on this planet.”

  The newcomer sketched a bow and answered in Pulaoic, “On behalf of His Majesty and all the peoples of the Terran Empire, greetings to your world and yourself. I am Captain Sir Dominic Flandry of the Imperial Navy.” Intelligence Corps, field division, he did not add.

  “Ah. Yes.” The other man seemed glad to slip back into his own language. “The dispatcher did mention to me that you spoke our tongue. You honor us by taking the trouble to learn.”

  Flandry shrugged. “No trouble. Neural educator, don’t y’ know. Doesn’t take long. I got the implantation from a Betelgeusean trader on Orma, before I came here.”

  The language was musical, descended from Malayan but influenced by many others in the past. The ancestors of these people had left Terra to colonize New Djawa a long time ago. After the disastrous war with Gorrazan, three centuries back and a bit, some of those colonists had gone on to Unan Besar, and had been isolated from the rest of the human race ever since. Their speech had evolved along its own track.

  Flandry was more interested in the reaction of the robed man. His beautifully curved lips drew taut, for just an instant, and a hand curved its fingers to claws before withdrawing into the wide sleeve. The others stood impassive, rain running off their shoulders, but their eyes never left Flandry.

  The robed man exclaimed, “What were you doing on Orma? It’s no planet of the Empire. We’re beyond the borders of any empire!”

  “More or less.” Flandry made his tone careless. “Terra is a couple of hundred light-years away. But you must be aware how indefinite interstellar boundaries are—how entire hegemonies can interpenetrate. As for Orma, well, why shouldn’t I be there? It has a Betelgeusean trading base, and Betelgeuse is friendly to Terra.”

  “The real question,” said the other, hardly audible above the rainfall, “is why you should be here.”