The Starkahn of Rhada Read Online Free Page A

Two
     
    Beware, O, beware, all you safe and lawful people,
The deathmen, the spellwitches, the weepers
And all the dreadful daemons of the night
Dream of revenge--
    Whilst they watch you from The Cloud , yes!
    Chant from the Book of Warls ,
early Second Stellar Empire period
     
    The crimes committed in the name of a better world are legion! What if the victims of the Russian Purge Trials could speak? What if the millions murdered by Hitler could give tongue to their agony? What if the descendants of those tortured souls we have condemned to the intergalactic night could return to face us--their tormentors? Should we not tremble?
    Lord Megum, Chairman of the Concerned Coalition,
late First Stellar Empire period.
Tape fragment of a speech found in the ruins of Tel-Buda, Earth
     
    To approach the great dark ship was like a step backward into time. I had to remind myself that this was not the age of Glamiss and Kier the Rebel and Queen Ariane. This was now---the modem age. Fact, not fear and superstition, ruled. Not Glamiss the Conqueror, but placid Sokolovsky of Bellatrix governed the Empire from the Galacton’s throne in Nyor. Not Kier the Rebel, but a council of reasonable guildsmen directed the destinies of the Rhadan planets. The cybs and demons with which the Navigators and old warlocks used to frighten grown men and women were half a millennium out of date. There were no ghosts, and I was a modem man, an officer of the Fleet, a Rhadan nobleman and an educated person. Still, the dreadful ship made my blood run cold.
    At the reduced distance I had to lower the magnification of the Q-band holograph to keep the dark spaceship within the confines of my pod. It hung against the luminous sky, rotating ponderously, as enigmatic as the ruins of Astraris or the Sphinx.
    There were no ports or transparent surfaces that I could see. But there was nothing remarkable about that. Few of the ancient starships had glassine decks.
    “Any better readings?” I asked.
    “Mass distribution is interesting,” Ariane said. “That thing is almost solid.”
    “Solid? How could that be?”
    “The entire hull is packed with protonic and nucleonic hardware. The logic cards alone must number in the quintillions,” Ariane said. “I don’t know, Kier. The whole thing gives me a bad feeling. The ship is practically one immense space-born computer. I don’t know why I think so--call it female intuition if you like--but I think it is some sort of war-games device. A weapons system.”
    I tried to digest that, still staring at the holograph of the monstrous black hulk. “There are no life-support systems? No crew areas?”
    “None. The entire vessel seems to be automatic, guided by a low order of intelligence in the protonics. Wait, one. I’m getting a low-level sensor reading on the scan. Hold while I compute.”
    I drew an uneasy breath, and presently Ariane spoke again. “There is one free passageway leading to what seems to be a special area in the central core. But the chamber is only two meters by two meters by four meters. Except for that and the access passage, the hull is packed solid with circuitry and machines.”
    “Close to fifty kilometers,” I said, my throat dry. “Acknowledged,” the cyborg replied. No protest this time.
    I shut down the holography, and the walls of my pod grew transparent once again. I watched as the growing bulk of the dark starship blotted out the Delphinus star. I could feel Ariane maneuvering, tacking against the drift of the plasma winds from the white dwarf.
    At fifty kilometers the strange vessel’s size became overpowering. It was one thing to see the derelict’s holographic image inside my pod, it was quite another to see the thing itself, as long as the island of Tel-Manhat, blotting out the sky. We seemed, even at this distance, to be under the curve of the great hull.
    “Kier,” Ariane said suddenly. “I am picking up some indications of power consumption. Very low. Less than a