Empire of Women & One of our Cities is Missing (Armchair Fiction Double Novels Book 25) (3 page)

THE
PHIRANS must have had plenty of warning of the attacking fleet, for their
armada was sighted some four hours out of their solar system.
 
Their ships were old, a style obsolete for
half a century, which is a long time in the growth of galactic science.
 
However, they had obviously been recently
refitted and newly engined, for those blunt, clumsy power hogs were fairly
splitting the ether when Konaparian telescopes identified them.
 

They split
their forces right and left, which could be taken either for feminine thinking
or stupidity, for no man would have divided his power that way.
 
Tor Branthak took immediate advantage of the
weakness and blasted his forces into the opening between and poured fission
bombs and detonator rays right and left into the Phiran fleet.
 
It looked to Chan as if the battle were ended
before it had begun.
 
The women had
lost.
 

Gan Alain
kept the
Warspear
right on the Regent’s tail where he could see what was
going on and be ready to repel attack as per agreement.
 

Then the
Phirans, old and dilapidated as their fleet seemed, sprang a surprise.
 
They had opened in the center just wide
enough to get out of the way of a huge dark shape coming up from their
rear.
 
They had kept a screen of ships
between it and the Konaparians or it would have been seen before.
 
Now it was too late.
 
Chan recognized her after a minute and sang
out a warning.
 

“That’s a
Mixar ship, Cap!
 
She carries potent
stuff!”

Chan knew
Mixar was on the outer rim of the Dires cluster, and that this ship must have been
a year making the trip to Phira; thus her presence here must be due solely to
chance. But that chance looked like disaster to the Konaparians.
 
This thing was a super-dreadnought in size,
and no one really knew what a Mixar ship packed in armament.
 
The cult of Myrmi-Atla had originally come
from the planets of the Regulus group, where the Mixar Amazons had kept out
all intruders since the earliest days of space travel.
 
When he said she was potent, Chan had
understated the case.
 
Tor Branthak’s
heart must have bounced in his boots when he saw her.
 

The big
ship opened fire at once.
 
A ray came out
of her nose turret that must have been three feet wide at the orifice, and it
broadened its path.
 
It struck the
nearest of its enemies, a Konapar cruiser, then lanced swiftly right and left
while Konaparian ships zoomed frantically right and left and up and down—any
way to leave the vicinity of that dread, dark shape.
 
The ships the ray had touched seemed
unaffected as they drove straight on in their courses, through the Phiran
fleet; but the fact that they did not fire a shot revealed the truth—they were
manned by dead men.
 

Chan took
a look at the visiscreen to see what the fleet was doing as a whole.
 
The
Warspear
and the Regent’s, big
master-class cruiser were almost the only force now left in range of the Mixar
threat, the rest of the valiant Konaparians rapidly vanishing to the rear.
 
Space torpedoes were blossoming into fire
against the Mixar hull, but the men who had fired them had left the scene.
 

The
torpedoes didn’t seem to
effect
her armor.
 
She boomed on inexorably nearer the Regent’s
ship, and it struck Gan Alain that the Regent was only waiting to see what his
new employee could do about it—which was silly, as the Mixar was at least ten
times the
Warspear
’
s
size.
 
Actually, the Regent was probably stunned with surprise, and had unconsciously
looked to his newest ally for a possible salvation of the situation.
 

The Cap
had a tight grin on his grim face, and Chan watched him pull the graviton-sphere
hatch lever, watched the glowing sphere of charged metal drift out into
space.
 
Gan Alain was revealing one of
his special weapons, and probably with it, its range.
 
Perhaps the Regent would be surprised in a
disagreeable as well as a pleasant way.
 

GAN
FLICKED a repulsor ray against the sphere, and it moved sluggishly off toward
the Mixar ship.
 
Then the Cap spun the
Warspear
end-for-end and gave the rear jets to the deadly sphere.
 
The
Warspear
went away fast, but the
rough iron sphere of red hot metal bobbed equally fast, though more clumsily,
on its way toward the big stranger, looking about as harmless as a hunk of
asteroid rock.
 

The
maneuver was probably as incomprehensible to the Mixars as it was to the
Regent, who turned tail too, and fled after the
Warspear.
 
The graviton sphere is a device that is
unknown in the Dires system.
 
The
Warspear
had gone far to pick that up.
 

The sphere
went humping along toward the enemy, who seemed to watch it
contemptuously.
 
They swerved the Mixar
gently aside to avoid it, no more than necessary.
 
The sphere swerved too, and now picked up
speed.
 
The Mixar took alarm then and,
like the
Warspear
, spun around and gave it their rear jets.
 

What they
didn’t know was that the sphere was carrying a motor generator creating
gravitons, which was fueled by a fission metal, which was also its
warhead.
 
It manufactured gravitons so
fast that its artificial gravity was by now nearly equal to a big planet like
Phira, and it was so close that all the blasts in the Mixar fuel tanks couldn’t
drive it away.
 
They were trying to
escape a thing that nothing ever escaped, unless, like Cap, they got away
before the generator really got up speed.
 
Since the sphere had no genuine inertia or mass of its own, its artificial
gravity drew it toward any object inexorably, in spite of all attempts to
escape.
 

The jets
had no effect upon the sphere, for it wasn’t the same chunk of iron it had been
when the
Warspear
’
s
jets started it on its way.
 
Now it was a vast contact bomb, homing on the
Mixar ship, and its graviton generators were stepping up more revolutions by
the second.
 

The only
effective defense against the thing now was to bomb or torpedo it so that it
wasted its explosive force in space, but its size was so small that this was a
virtual impossibility in the short time remaining.
 
The Mixar had made the mistake of trying to
blast it away with its jets, as it had seen the
Warspear
do.
 

The
explosion blew a hole in the Mixar’s rear into which the
Warspear
could
have driven and parked, with room for a theater besides.
 

The Mixar
dreadnought lost way, drifted slowly in a circle, her jets guttering as she
tried vainly to get going again.
 
Then
she blew up, giving off a glare of light like a little star as her fuel fissioned.
 

The
disaster took the heart out of Phira and put it back into the Konaparian
fleet.
 
The invaders appeared again from
out of the blue yonder.
 
The Phirans
smashed into them, fighting heroically, but with no apparent tactic but
desperation.
 
They were well weaponed,
but outnumbered.
 
With better tactics,
they might have counted heavily, but it was evident they had based their hopes
on the big ship from the neighboring solar system, and that it had contained
their tactical brains, too.
 

The Cap
grinned as he eased his big body from the control seat and motioned Chan to
replace him.
 
“It looks as if the
Matriarchs are going to have to take masculine orders for awhile,” he said to
Chan, but the mate didn’t smile.
 

“I don’t
like it, Captain,” said Chan.
 
“What have
you got against the Phiran females you should knock their pins out for
Konapar?
 
How do you know it wouldn’t
have paid better to fight for the women, as it is natural for a man to do?”

Gan
frowned, shook his head.
 
“You’ll find
out, DuChaile.
 
Wait until you
understand the Matriarchs; then you’ll agree.”
 

The
Phirans fled, reformed, tried to meet Konapar again on the edge of their solar
system.
 
But it was no good.
 
They lost two to one in a brief, raging
encounter.
 
They fled again, a fifth of
the fleet that had come out to meet the invaders.
 
The rest drifted, hulls riddled, along the
route they had so recently covered.
 

It was the
only resistance to the invasion.
 
When a
scout party jetted down over Alid, a white flag of surrender floated over the
spire of the Temple of Myrmi-Atla—and the Temple of Alid rules all Phira.
 

CELYS,
high priestess of Myrmi-Atla, stood peering from the ornate leaded panes of her
sanctum in the temple.
 
She watched the
orange sky where one by one the great warships of Konapar loomed out of the
flaming horizon, grew huger, settled to a landing on the plateau above the
valley where the Holy City stretched along the high, curving banks of the
sacred river Kroon.
 

There were
tears in the lovely emerald-flecked gold eyes of the priestess.
 
Her long lashes were wet, and her slender
hands upon the black and gold of the drapes trembled with anger.
 
She knew quite well why Gunnar Tor Branthak
had broken treaty with Phira.
 
It was not
for gold, not for loot, not for power.
 
What the Tor wanted was
the secret!
 

Beside the
window the dark stones slid silently aside, revealing an opening and a passage
within the seemingly solid wall.
 
In the
darkness a tall, pale figure moved like a cold flame, silent as a ghost.
 
Celys turned as the figure reached out and
touched her shoulder.
 
The two stood with
eyes fixed upon each other, then, as if moved by identical emotion, joined in
close embrace.
 
The one who had entered
from the wall
murmured:
 
“It had been so very long, dear.
 
The Mother has sent me to replace you.
 
You are to return to Avalaon.
 
She needs to take council in this crisis, and
you should be there.”
 

Celys
released herself from the arms of the newcomer.
 
As they turned about each other, the illusion of one slipping into the
place of the other was magically perfect.
 
Anyone watching would have sworn some mystery of identity was here, for
the two women seemed to have changed places, yet Celys still stood by the
window.
 
One glided into the wall, which
returned to its seeming solidity, and the other moved into the identical
posture in which Celys had stood, peering through the lifted drapes over the
conquered city.
 
And there was no change
in her.
 
It was Celys, high priestess of
Myrmi-Atla, the supreme power over
all the
planet
Phira until today.
 

Celys
turned from the window, letting the dark drape fall and shut out the hated
sight of the conquerors.
 
She
stood,
a pale flame in the temple gloom, a lance of green
in her diaphanous robe—the green that symbolized the lifeblood of the
All-Mother—topped by the ruddy hue of her rich red-gold hair, curled and coifed
high, bound in a net of emeralds.
 
She
stood, weeping silently, her face stiff from the effort to keep from sobbing
aloud.
 

Across the
polished stone paving of the temple chamber came a swiftly running white-robed
figure, one of the acolytes, a girl of perhaps fourteen.
 
She swept to a half-salaam before Celys,
then clasped her about the waist, her voice choked:
 
“Dear Mistress, I know how your heart twists
in pain.
 
But let us go—the Empress in
Mixar offers asylum.
 
The ship waits, why
will you not go to safety?
 
We do not
matter, but
you
bear the very torch of the true religion in your
breast.
 
You must save it, to light the
fire where it will not be snuffed out again.”
 

Celys put
her hand on the girl’s head and raised her face.
 
“No, little friend, I may not shame the
Mother by running away.
 
I, before all
others, must face the conqueror without fear.”
 

The girl
clung to her silently for a moment, then as in an afterthought, said:
 
“There is a little messenger
come
to you, a tiny wisp of a girl.
 
She says she comes from an enemy ship and
bears a secret message.
 
I thought she
lied, or was mad, for it hardly makes sense.”
 

“Send her
to me,” said Celys.

LITTLE
Elvir stood before Celys, somewhat abashed by her regal beauty and the sadness
in her face.
 
But her pretty chin squared
with determination, and her child’s
heart beat
madly,
her mind spinning with plans.
 

She
began:
 
“I slipped away when no one was
looking, to see for myself the city of Amazons, where women rule men, and men
are but servants.”
 

Celys’
eyes went chill, and she half turned away.
 
“If that is all the child wants, take her and put her outside the temple
gates.”
 

Eloi, the
acolyte who had shown her into the sanctum, took Elvir firmly by the arm, but
the little slave girl twisted free and darted behind the tall form of
Celys.
 

“That
isn’t all.
 
I bear an important message that
Captain Gan Alain would trust to no one but me.”
 

“What is
the message, sparrow?” asked Celys coldly, withdrawing slightly from the
somewhat grimy hand that clutched her immaculate skirts.
 

“Not Gan
Alain, the pirate?” queried Eloi, pausing in her circling attempt to catch the
quick little child.
 

Elvir
shrieked at her, horrified at her words.
 
“He’s
not
a pirate!
 
He’s a
privateer, and the bravest fighting man in all space.”
 

“The
difference is found only in the spelling of the word,” commented Celys, smiling
in spite of herself at the loyalty on the pert face.
 

Eloi’s
eyes caught those of Celys, both of them realizing that here might be some kind
of a lever, some tiny opening in the conqueror’s armor.
 
Gan Alain was a mercenary, mercenaries can be
bought, and here was contact with one in the pay of the enemy.
 
Celys bent, then, her eyes searching the
child’s face for character, to know whether her words would be lies or
not.
 

“Tell me
quickly, child.
 
Did your master send
you, and is he in the employ of Tor Branthak?”

“That he
did, and that he is.
 
He wants you Amazon
women to hide yourselves, to have no contact with the enemy in any way.
 
Otherwise a terrible fate will befall you.”
 

Celys
laughed, suddenly perceiving the real mind behind the message.
 
“And did your master truly say those words,
little sparrow, or did you yourself get them from some storybook?”

But now,
Eloi, who had again caught hold of Elvir’s slender wrist, suddenly raised it so
that Celys could see and cried
out:
 
“She has the sign of the Mother upon her
forearm!
 
She is one of our own temple
slaves!”

Celys
looked startled,
bent
and peered at the little blue
scroll and enclosed symbol of Myrmi-Atla upon Elvir’s arm.
 

“Where did
you come from, imp?
 
And what do you
want?
 
Answer truly, or I’ll have you
thrashed until you tell the truth!”

Elvir had
been whipped before.
 
Tears gathered in
her eyes, and at last she blurted
out:
 
“I only wanted Captain Gan to stay away from
the Amazons…and I didn’t know what else to do.”
 

Celys’
further questions proved of no help.
 
Her
origin remained a mystery, except that it was obvious that the ship from which
the Cap had taken her was one bought and paid for by a Phiran buyer, at which
time Elvir had received the indelible tattoo of ownership.
 
Celys had her sent to the slaves’ quarters
and proceeded to forget about her.
 
Tor
Branthak would demand audience within the hour and she must make ready.
 
She had no time for a silly child.
 
As for Tor Branthak, she could not imagine
what she should be ready for, except that it would not be pleasant.