Empire of Two Worlds

I hesitated. “Maybe I shouldn’t say it. He wanted me to tell you he was dead. For your sake.”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “That would be like him. It is a long time now since they showed him to me. Is he …?”

“He’s all right,” I said quickly. “Rotrox prisons aren’t exactly pleasant places, but they leave him in peace now.”

I wanted to ask her if Bec still called on her, but the words wouldn’t come out. She rose and paced to the window, looking out blankly. Suddenly she turned, looking at me pleadingly.

“Couldn’t you help him? Couldn’t Becmath help him? He is on good terms with the Rotrox. They might release him for him.”

At that, I reflected, I could probably have tricked Imnitrin into sending Dalgo back to Rheatt with me. I could have told him I wanted him for myself. But I also knew that Bec would never stand for such a stunt.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Even if the Rotrox were willing — which they never will be — you’d never get Becmath to agree to it. You’ve tried, haven’t you?”

She made a hopeless gesture. “Yes, I’ve tried, but not for a long time.” She stood there, gazing at me sidelong, her eyes luminous. “How I hate that man! I don’t understand you, Klein. You are a strong man. You are a born leader. Yet with Becmath you are weak. Why do you follow him like a pet animal? Why do you not defy him? I cannot believe that you fear him.”

“There’s no mystery,” I said. “We both believe in the same things. That’s why I follow him.”

“He is evil, like the Rotrox.”

I shook my head. “He’s not evil,” I said defensively. “He’s a genius. Rheatt would be a lot worse off if it wasn’t for him.”

“Little he cares for Rheatt!”

There would be no point, I told myself, in trying to explain to her that Becmath worked not for himself, but for a higher ideal. Neither did I confess the doubts and anxieties that were beginning, despite myself, to eat into my guts.

Even before my trip to Merame we had begun setting up a baseline camp on the other side of the gateway. Most of our main equipment was already parked there: landsloops for street fighting inside Klittmann, big wagons for transporting food, fuel and ammunition, and a fleet of aircraft adapted for carrying heavy bombs so we could blast our way inside.

Bec planned a big role for aircraft in the new Killibol. He was quick to recognise that they could furnish the speedy communications the Dark World (to give it its ancient name) had so far lacked. City isolationism, as Bec called it, would shortly be at an end.

The two Rotrox legions were not long in coming. We pushed them through the gateway straight away to get them acclimatised. We didn’t interfere with them in any way, but our own Rheattite forces were organised along different lines — in small units, Klittmann fashion, gangster fashion. We’d already taught them what to expect when they got inside the city.

I spent all my time on the other side getting things straightened out for the big drive. A few days later Bec and the others joined me. They were all eager for action.

The scene was vivid. Brilliant searchlight lit up everything. Neither the Rotrox nor the Rheattites could see too well in what was to them unrelieved gloom. During the time we spent at the base camp we were forced to wear our goggles just as if we had been on Earth.

The Rotrox, arrogant as usual, wished to be in the vanguard. I issued them with maps and they set off in their troop carriers with us following a few hours behind.

We crossed the river by the bridge we had built and set off across the dead landscape. The landsloops went first, in convoy, followed by the wagons and our own troop carriers. The command sloop, with me, Bec, Grale, Reeth and Hassmann in it, was the same one we had journeyed to Earth in; it was the only one that was atom-powered and it was larger than the others. During the rest period, when we camped, we slept in tents.

Usually we ate an evening meal with the top Rheattite officers headed by Heerlaw, our top man in the League of Rheatt. On our second day out a row blew up at one of these meals. The others had elected to eat on their own; neither Reeth, Grale nor Hassmann had ever become socially familiar with the Rheattites. Bec and myself sat with Heerlaw and half a dozen other officers comprising the effective leadership of their part of the campaign.

Earlier that day we had come across the remains of the handiwork of the Rotrox legions ahead of us. Evidently the Rotrox had stumbled on a band of nomads. The wagons and protein tanks were smashed open and strewn all over the place. Bodies were everywhere. It didn’t look as if the Rotrox had left a single one of them alive.

“Is this the kind of civilisation we are bringing to Killibol?” one of the Rheattites denounced angrily. “Ever since I was a boy I have been hearing of the new vigour and freedom our work will bring to mankind. Is this what it means?”