Chapter 16: The End of Project EssChad

Where was the magnificence, the glitter and glamour of Pleorran's throne room? Where had all of its romance gone? No longed did it seem vast and mysterious, its high ceiling and shadowed walls whispering of pomp and intrigue. Now, it was just another room, Pete thought to himself. Large, but not that much larger than the main room of Markoth's residence. Poor Markoth, and poor skeptical Zallin, whose bones lay somewhere beneath the tumbled ruins of Dron's fort.

The throne room's wide doors had been flung open and high windows unshuttered, exposing its tawdry finery to the ruddy light of day. Pleorran's onetime throne, a polished slab of curiously veined stone, was now a work table where maps and other documents lay scattered. Behind it, with Pete by his side, Dron crouched at his ease. He listened intently while messengers came and went with reports of their rapid progress in pacifying Village Ul. Amy and Lyssa had gone to inspect the ruins of their workshop, taking along Nancy and Charley, but Dron had asked that Pete stay behind.

"The prisoners await your justice," Vult boomed, as two of the Thantan soldiers led in a file of Thantans, cringing Chosen Ones, and one defiantly erect Human, linked together by heavy bronze chains.

"Yes," Dron mused, thoughtfully picking his fangs with a curving talon. His gaze fastened in particular on one of the Thantans. "Tell me, friend Pete. What shall we do with this traitor?"

"Why, it's Klul!" Pete recognized the Thantan, who was far from being the selfassured bully he had been as Dron's aide. "So, he did join Pleorran. I wondered, when Amy and I didn't see him here."

"Yes. My old friend, Klul." The slitted pupils of Dron's eyes narrowed as he studied the nervous Thantan. "I wondered about him when I heard the story of your captivity. My childhood friend, the playmate of my youth, my steadfast aide during the long years of my exile. And all the time, when I thought him my staunchest supporter, he was but a spy for Pleorran's meager pay. What did he promise you? Wealth? Broad estates? Or was it that cheapest of lures, power over your fellow Thantans?"

"None of those," Klul sneered, his voice rising. "Nothing that you would understand. He is the Emperor! The One who Was, The One who Is, The One who Will Be! Chosen by the Six Elder Gods to be the rightful ruler of all of Thant, all of EssChad. He is the Undying One, who shall yet lead us to eternal glory!"

"Then, where is he?" Dron's voice was soft. He needed no shouts, no show of emotions to dominate the diverse beings in the throne room. "Where is this Undying Emperor of yours? Could it be that once again he has fled from the lesser beings who have defeated his forces?"

"He has fled, all right!" Heads turned as Steve's flat voice answered Dron. "Fled to where none of you will ever find him."

"What do you mean by that?" Dron's voice expressed only mild curiosity, but his gaze was intent. "Where has he escaped to, that we may not follow?"

"Ask Amy." Steve's laugh was as flat as his voice. "Her simpleminded little trap worked to perfection. When she opened Pleorran's portal into emptiness, he was standing too close. It was a tight fit, and I thought for a moment that he would not go all the way through. But, he did make it, kick his heels and squirm though he would. Klul's Undying Emperor was, the last time I saw him, taking a stroll through empty space. Somewhere in another universe, his freezedried body goes pinwheeling through emptiness forever. His ambition has made him the Emperor of an entire universe, and much good may it do him!"

"You lie!" Klul shrieked the words, tearing his chains loose from the hands of his guards and laying about him in a frenzy. Steve was helpless to escape his wrath, bound as he was with equally heavy chains to his fellow prisoners. "He is the Undying Emperor! He will yet return!"

Before anyone else could move, Pete was across the stone desk, catching up a billet of wood that was serving as a paperweight. Even as Klul sprang at Steve, he leaped onto the frenzied Thantan's back. Klul stumbled from the impact, pitching forward as Pete's crude club caught him behind one ear. His snout ploughed a furrow in the hard dirt floor, ending almost at Steve's feet. Pete sprang lightly aside as Klul flailed at him, hampered by the heavy chains. Before the Thantan could recover, a pair of Dron's guards had him securely pinned between them.

"Guard him well," Dron ordered. "This one we will hand over to the Council of Planners, to experience their justice. They will have the whole of the truth out of him. I would be too merciful, remembering past friendship, and give him a swift and painless death. Also, it would not be wise to deal death to one of our own while we are surrounded by Chosen Ones. Now for you, Ssteeve Zhorddan. What shall we do with you? You betrayed me, but you owed no strong loyalty to my cause. You also betrayed your friends, though. It is none of your fault that they still live."

"Yes, how do you justify your actions?" Pete glared at his fellow Human. "I'm almost sorry I stopped Klul."

"You have my most sincere thanks, anyway," Steve smiled calmly, seemingly unmoved now that the source of danger was no longer close by. "Justification? I need none, certainly not to such as you. My actions were in the highest tradition of government service. I saw a chance to promote the reestablishment of a stable government for Thant. Indeed, for all of EssChad, eventually. With it, the chance to overthrow a Communistic regime, as well. Once this was done, it should have been possible to make contact with high officials in Washington, and firmly cement relationships with the Emperor Pleorran. I did have to induce Pleorran to move against Dron's fort before he would have wanted to, or else Amy might have been able to finish her signaler and escape. I then had the two of you brought here, and the portal mechanism finished. All would have gone well, if only she hadn't panicked. I would have persuaded Pleorran that her continued existence was necessary, that she was the only one who could operate the portal for him."

"Sure, you would have," Pete answered. "In a pig's eye, you would have persuaded him."

"No, I mean it! I had it all arranged. All that it would have taken, was for his tame technicians to fail when they tried to operate the portal. I had one of the technicians see to it that a shutoff switch was installed where they wouldn't find it. Unless she was there, it wouldn't have worked, and they wouldn't have been able to figure out why not."

"And, when Pleorran disappeared?" Dron asked, his deep voice still mildseeming. "What did you do then?"

"None of his people saw him go," Steve answered him, smiling thinly. "They were only too glad to believe me, when I told them that he had withdrawn to a more secure place. I had the workshop repaired, the machine put back together as best I could. I know somewhat more about portals than I've admitted to, but I have been unable to get it to work for me. At that point in time, my best hope was that Pete and Amy would reach you, and that somehow you would be able to recapture the portal. I discouraged any pursuit by the villagers, saying that Pleorran had taken the two of them with him."

"And they believed you?"

"More or less. I don't know how much longer I could have kept up the pretense, even with the help of one or two of the Thantans who were in on the secret. Although you may not believe it, I was really quite pleased when you finally put in an appearance."

"Even though he might still decide to execute you?" Pete interrupted.

"That was a chance I had to take. I had no other choice, no other way to return to our world. Anyway, why should he have me killed? What I did had nothing to do with him. You're much too altruistic to try to talk him into it, and Amy isn't here right now to argue against me."

"Why would she do that?" Dron inquired, when Pete couldn't seem to find his voice. "Why would she want you dead?"

"She and her boss are a danger to all rightthinking men!" Steve fairly snarled the words, emotion creeping at last into his voice. "If they have their way, all of my world's governments will weaken and fall away, and the vast array of reachable worlds will be taken over by a bunch of anarchistic entrepreneurs whose only concern is for their own profits! Some of us can see that danger, and are already working to prevent it from happening. Our war has just begun, but it will go on as long as these criminals range unchecked through the universes!"

"I am sure that these persons you accuse would give us their own reasons for what they do," Dron answered mildly. "You are right, your dispute is with them, not with me. So, Pete. What shall I do with your friend? Shall I have him executed, as he no doubt so richly deserves?"

"Yes! I mean, no. I don't know!" Pete stopped for a moment, drawing in a deep breath as he beat down the anger that surged within him. "He's right, damn it! I can't ask you to execute him in cold blood, just because I'd like to see him dead, though I would certainly take pleasure in beating his face in. I would say to turn him loose, but his word is no good. He promised to act as one of the party until we were rescued, and he broke that promise as soon as he had the chance. Do what you want with him, I don't care. Lock him up, or let him go, but keep an eye on him whatever you do."

"Now," Dron turned to Pete when Steve had been led away to a cell. "What shall I do with the rest of these prisoners? Your advice has been good in the past, and you are more familiar with this village than I."

"The Thantans are your concern. Recruit them, turn them loose, give them to the Council of Planners, or execute them, as you choose. The Chosen Ones are another tale. They were led astray by Pleorran, and should not be punished too severely."

"Shall I, then, leave the same ones in control of this village as before? I do not think that wise."

"No, neither do I. As long as he may live, Ul will be no friend of yours. He may still be chief of a village, but not this one. Let him, instead, be chief of what was Village Krunnick. Let those who were his advisors and supporters go along with him. Then, instead of being the head of a large and powerful village, he will be but a minor chief, without power."

"That sounds wise, but who shall rule in his stead? Can you recommend one of his people for that post?"

"I think so. I came to know several of them fairly well, in the days that I spent here. There was one who was not averse to speaking with a stranger, was not afraid of learning new things, and was kind when he could have been cruel. UlGlat is a seasoned warrior, and one who men are glad to follow. He would be a good chief for this village."

"So be it, then. Let him be given the staff of leadership, and let this place be known as Village Glat. Now, you have been anxious to know what your friends have found. Go and join them, while I take care of less pressing matters."

Pete had no worries about mingling with the defeated villagers. Their world had been turned around and around and upside down so many times lately that they seemed to be almost in a stupor. There had been no apparent resentment of the victorious tribesmen among them, and the business of the village, the hunting and gathering of food, went on much as usual.

The splintered roof beams of their workshop had been replaced, Pete saw as he approached, but he was surprised at how much of the damage within the building had also been repaired. Nancy greeted him warmly as he entered, then led him over to where Amy and Lyssa were making adjustments to the portal mechanism.

"Come and see," she told him, smiling. "It's almost ready to go. It must not have been damaged, hardly, when the roof fell in."

"Or else, it's been repaired already." He told them of what Steve had said.

"Then, Pleorran is really dead." Amy looked down at her hands, as though she could see the Mad Emperor's blood upon them, then shrugged her shoulders. "I can't be sorry. He was old, and evil, and he would not have hesitated to kill us. Well, enough of that. Let's see if the portal will work."

"Just what are you planning to do?" Pete asked, shrugging his shoulders at her lack of concern.

"Once the portal is energized, Lyssa, Nancy, and Charley can search for habitable worlds. If nothing else, ones where we can obtain food. With the help of some of the Chosen Ones, you and I can put together a signaler. Once that's done, we'll call for help."

"How will you know where to direct your signal?" Pete studied the makeshift control panel, with its six knobs. "Won't it take as long to find the right universe, as to locate it directly?"

"No, not nearly as long. Each signal reverberates across several universes. We will only need to send a short message out on every fifth setting, on each dial. We can cover the whole range of universes within our reach in a matter of days."

Once more, their days settled into a routine of search and record, search and record. Countless universes were checked off, with either empty space or useless planets within their reach. While this went on, Pete helped Amy labor to build her signaling device.

"Just how much longer will this take?" Dron asked on the evening of the third day, appearing unheralded at the doorway to the workshop. He had left them pretty much to themselves, being busy with administrative chores.

"We are ready to begin signaling," Pete told him, stepping outside where a light mist was falling. Behind him, the workshop was a bustle of purposeful activity. "It should be but a few more hours before we start."

"That is good. We do not have much more time."

"Why, what's wrong? Is it the Planners?"

"Their army. When we came here, entering the swamps in search of Pleorran's retreat, we left behind a detachment of the Council's army, led by General Ha'athon. We had no time to tell him of our plans, to convince him that we were doing what had to be done. His scouts have by now found our camp empty, our tracks leading into the depths of the Great Swamp. As soon as he is able, he will follow after us."

"He'll think that you've joined Pleorran!"

"That is just what he will think. His parents were farmers, lowly peasants on a minor noble's estates. He has neither liking nor understanding of the nobility, and will not hesitate to think the worst of me. My scouts are watching, KeeBar not the least among them. There has been a great scurrying of messengers back and forth between his camp and Dronnta City. Doubtless, he is only waiting for more men and equipment to arrive before invading the swamps."

"That's all we need. More troubles!"

"Why, what's the problem? I thought that your search was going well. Have you other problems than those you have told me of?"

"We certainly do." Pete lowered his voice, stepping a little farther from the doorway. "The juice of the purpletopped reeds has kept us alive so far, but it won't for much longer. There are too many essential parts of our diet that it does not provide. Already, I have noticed that my teeth are loosening, the gums starting to bleed. Since I have been the most active, here on your world, I am the first to suffer. The women will be next, followed by Charley and finally by Steve. We must return soon to our world, or we will all sicken and die."

"Is there nothing that can be done?"

"Yes, but it would take time away from our search. We can't use the portal any longer, since we had to rebuild it for use with the signaler. It would have to be rebuilt again, so that we could reach other worlds. Then, we would have to search until we found a world where we could live, where the food would provide us with what we so desperately need. If we could find it, we could gather food to prolong our lives. Now, you tell us that our time is even more limited than we had thought."