Empire of Two Worlds

I was carried away by what he was saying. It seemed to me that here was the first new, clean thing I had heard since I was born. A sense of loyalty that went beyond all personal considerations; here was what Bec was putting to me, and it sounded invincible. Maybe that’s ridiculous considering the situation we were in, but Bec had that quality: he could make even defeat seem fascinating and hopeful.

“Before everything, right?” Bec repeated. “Even before a woman.”

Gelbore was sitting on the edge of the raft, trailing her hand in the water. I looked at her and swallowed again. Much though I was inspired by Bec’s vision, there was one thing I had to admit.

“Sometimes nothing comes before a woman, Bec,” I said.

So what did Becmath do when he heard this?

He took out his handgun and before I fully realised what was happening he shot Gelbore. From former occasions I was familiar with the accuracy of Bec’s shooting. She took it in the head. Without a single cry she toppled into the water and disappeared from view.

When I saw her falling off the raft like a lump of clay my guts knotted into a tight ball. At the same time something indescribably sweet and painful passed through me. I sprang to my feet, on fire.

“You klug! I’ll kill you for that!”

“The state first, Klein.” Bec’s voice was incongruously gentle.

A man has to be logical. “O.K.,” I pledged with difficulty. “The state first.”

From that moment Bec had me hooked in a condition of unshakable loyalty. It was the first time in my life I had known real dedication. I think I had to have that, or I would never have been able to face the fact that I did nothing to avenge the killing of Gelbore.

And yet the whole thing was insane. Here we were, practically dead men, while Bec spouted dreams about state and empire. He talked to me more during the journey, expanding on his plans. He would establish regular traffic between the cities, he said, wipe out the nomad bands and set up staging posts so that travellers could replenish their supplies en route. It all sounded fine, the only missing part was how he was going to achieve all this.

But like I say, by now I was hooked on the dream and instead of greeting it with scepticism or derision I took it all with an air of hard-headed realism.

During the second day on the river we saw the landmark that would lead us to the gateway: a thousand-foot column of stainless steel. It was weathered and worn, corroded in places. Obviously it had been there a long time, but just as obviously it must have been erected after the nuclear explosion had destroyed the gateway. For some reason the people of that time had left it there as a marker.

Beyond the pillar a shallow valley ran between two long, rounded mounds for about two to three miles. After we grounded the sloop we followed it to where the mounds met. At the junction, or just before it, the ground was fissured into a gaping chasm that ran a fair distance. Situated neatly over that chasm was something that at first you weren’t sure was there.

It was like a big transparent, very clear jelly with a lavender tint. In shape it was an elongated ovoid, a big egg.

Bec looked at the alchemist.

Harmen nodded. “My calculations were correct. That’s it.”

We all got out to explore. When you touched the material of the gateway it was like putting your hand in very thin water. Thin oil, maybe. It didn’t impede motion but it felt cool and smooth.

The fissure was a couple of hundred feet deep. Its being there was probably accidental — accidental insofar as it was a by-product of the atomic explosion centuries ago — because the ground thereabouts was considerably broken up and smaller cracks rayed out at various angles.

We went back to the sloop to talk it over. “How do we know it still works?” Grale snapped tensely.

“Have you got any instrument that might test it?” Bec asked Harmen.

The alk shook his head. “Afraid not. The only way is to try it out. The gate is directional, by the way. You have to enter it from the right direction. Going through from this end of the egg, straight between the walls of the valley, will take you to Earth, You get nowhere by trying it from any other angle. Likewise you take the reverse procedure to get from Earth to Killibol.”

Hassmann sighed. “And if it don’t work you go to the bottom of the gulf. That’s pretty!”

“You’ve played crazier games, Hassmann.” Bec settled himself comfortably in the driver’s seat and started the motors.

“You’re not taking us through just like that!” Grale protested. He was sweating slightly. “We ought to send somebody through first! To see if it works! To see what’s on the other side—”

“And if it doesn’t work, Grale, what are you gonna do then? You want to sit here and starve?”

Bec twisted round to look Grale straight in the eyes as he said this. We were all silent.

Grale started to laugh.