Annihilation Factor

by Barrington J. Bayley

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Military Sci-Fi

Synopsis

From the Garlowe Clusters in the north to the Veils of Darkness in the south, the Star Kingdom sprawled over roughly a fifth of the galaxy. So huge was this realm that those who tussled for power over it seemed unable to appreciate that it faced annihilation by the Patch, a roving region of peculiar pseudo-energy a light-year across which drained the life-force from any living thing it encountered. The Patch had moved into the Kingdom and was systematically feeding on system after system. Cynically unperturbed by the appalling loss of life, the royal houses merely tried to involve the Patch in their machinations, to the extent that civil war broke out all over again. But in the event, the Patch was to provide the crucial factor in the struggle for absolute power. The Annihilation Factor!

Release date: November 28, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 141

Sample

Jundrak came as a bringer of uncertain news. The manner of his coming was far from uncertain. He came hurtling down the long-range
space slip with tubes screaming; when still a couple of light-years from Smorn he cut the motors, to fall the remaining distance
along the galactic causeway with transcendental velocity. Then, applying negative power, he came to an abrupt standstill.


His piloting was precise. He could now look down on Peredan’s fifty-year-old encampment without needing to adjust his position
by as much as a single yard. With startling clarity in the crystal-bright air, the minute empire of the pretender prince was
laid out a few hundred feet below.


It was everything he had expected: stiff, colourful, bustling. Brightly painted spaceships stood on the launching ground.
Gay pavilions were arrayed in semi-circles for close on ten miles, extending in a neat swirl to enclose quarters, barracks,
and the extraordinary amount of equipment comprising the ever-operating defences. Stacked to one side of the camp, rearing
like huge city blocks covered with red plastic sheeting, were the precious stores of weapons, trackers, every kind of fighting
paraphernalia — Peredan’s reason for living.


The whole outfit was on its toes; waiting for the word that had never come yet.

Jundrak received a free demonstration of the camp’s efficiency the moment his ship appeared over the base. Six warning missiles
exploded around him: above, below, and to each quarter. He was impressed, but not surprised. Lingering for a few dangerous
seconds, he settled at length to an unhurried landing on the edge of the launching field.


The missiles were not the only precaution. A peculiar pressing feeling assailed his body as he took his hands from the controls, together with an odd aching sensation across the bridge
of his nose. He recognised it. A damper field had been thrown over his tiny bell-shaped vessel.


In that case, nothing in the ship would work. Experimentally he operated the port switch. Nothing. It would have to be opened manually.


Whatever happened, then, he was helpless. But no matter; he had come not so much as an enemy as an adviser.

He applied his hands to the port locks. Yielding easily, the side of the cabin swung down to give access to the ground. He
stepped out, stretching his body and breathing deeply in the invigorating, oxygen-rich air. Now he could see his ship as an
incongruously small, golden shape against the monstrous battlecruisers that reared beyond the camp. He had chosen the enigmatic
bell-craft purposely, knowing that it would seem a strange visitation to the rebels. They would be impressed and amazed that
the tiny boat could make the same journeys as their giant battlewagons. Being isolated for fifty years, they almost certainly
had not heard of the new means of propulsion using natural fault-lines in space known as slipways, which enabled his frail-looking
little bell-craft to travel the galaxy.


Already two men waited to meet him, dressed in blouses and hose of shimmering black space-silk, laser pistols swinging casually
on their lean hips. Like all Peredan’s officers, they carried no insignia.


“I am here to speak with Peredan,” Jundrak said without preamble.

“Prince Peredan,” the taller of the two answered, “does not interview every space tramp who comes jetting in here. What do you want,
enlistment?”


Jundrak gazed steadily at the man. “Spare me the babble,” he said in a firm voice. “I am Jundrak, of the family Sann —ancient
friends of Peredan’s fathers. Now take me to him.”


The officer smiled wryly. “Many friends of old are not so friendly now. However, the prince will be told of your arrival.
But first we must ask for your weapons.”


Jundrak reached into his clothing and handed over a high-frequency neutron beamer, a small dagger, and a hand version of the
standard force-rifle. The officer examined them, smiled again, and politely handed back the last.


“You may keep this. A force-gun will not work anywhere within the confines of this camp.”

That was as Jundrak had already suspected. His senses, heightened by a long military training, told of numerous cancelling
energies vibrating through the air. He very much doubted if even the neutron beamer would prove fully effective — but the
officers would not wish to reveal everything.


They kept silence during the walk to Peredan’s tent. Jundrak looked at the structure with interest. It was like a fairy palace
of draped plastic, awnings, spires and domes standing in a rich, multi-coloured relationship. The plastic had been sprayed
with some preparation to make it stiff and durable, and Jundrak did not doubt that the “tent” had the solidity of granite.
The bivouac appearance of the encampment was an illusion.


“Wait here,” said the tall officer, and went inside leaving Jundrak in the care of his comrade.

After a wait of ten minutes he reappeared, looking less self-assured than before. Wordlessly he nodded, and made a beckoning
gesture. Jundrak followed him through the covered entrance and into the interior of the tent.


Now Jundrak’s impressions were fully confirmed. They walked through large halls and enclosures which seemed to extend indefinitely,
washed in a refreshing pale green light and worked in cool pastel shades of green, blue and yellow. The walls bore little
in the way of ornament, but the furniture, tables, chairs and desks, were of very fine workmanship, as were various items
of equipment which Jundrak did not recognise but which he guessed to be communicators and data-retrievers of some kind. Peredan
had found time for luxury. Silk-garbed officers glanced up incuriously as he passed by, but the man at Jundrak’s side ignored
them.


Deeper in the tent the atmosphere was even quieter, even more cool, and almost deserted. For the first time Jundrak saw women
— young women seated at large, expensive desks, apparently doing nothing in particular. Secretaries, he wondered? Mistresses?
Or just ornaments?


At the end of a long foyer the officer stopped before a porch-like door. “Go in,” he instructed.

Jundrak pushed at the panel. It seemed to collapse into glittering shards and withdraw itself away. Beyond it was Peredan’s
office.


He stepped through, the door re-forming behind him. Standing beside a polished table, his knuckles resting lightly on the
varnished surface, was Peredan.


The two men gazed at one another, Jundrak avidly, Peredan with only cursory interest, as though part of his attention was
elsewhere. Jundrak stripped off his black gloves and laid them on the table — a conciliatory gesture in military parleys,
indicating that he carried no secret finger-weapons.


“I confess it has long been an ambition of mine to get a look at this camp of yours,” he said blandly, eyeing the other. He
could remember seeing Prince Peredan when he was very young, when his father had taken him to the Royal Palace to be introduced
to the court. For some reason Peredan’s face had made a fixed impression on him, and he looked closely now to see if he could
discern any change in it. The Prince’s features were still smooth and youthful, making him look more like a youngster of seventy
than the three centuries he had actually lived. But on second glance the youthfulness was artificial. As Jundrak was later
to find out, his face changed with circumstance and passing emotion, and sometimes one could be looking at a different man.
Even now a momentary shift of mood passed across the Prince’s features, turning him into something older, more care-worn,
the flesh around the eyes altering in colour and texture.


“I am sure many military men have felt the same, for any of a number of reasons,” Peredan snapped in a curiously weak voice.
“Tell me why you are here.”


Jundrak drew himself erect, clicked his heels and inclined his head in a stiff bow. “I am the accredited envoy of His Majesty
King Maxim. His Majesty has instructed me to offer yourself and your followers a full amnesty, together with generous terms
of resettlement, in return for your co-operation in a matter of grave importance.”


“An amnesty?” The Prince looked at him with incredulity and amusement. “Are you serious? Maxim won’t get rid of me that easily!”


“Something … has arisen,” Jundrak said uneasily, wondering how to broach the subject. “Something that makes it imperative
for us to settle our differences and unite against the common menace.”


“Explain.”

“The kingdom itself is threatened with annihilation.” Jundrak drew a deep breath, then went on. “The north-east sector has
been entered by an unknown life form, powerfully inimical to human life. All our defences have failed to hold it … we must
make a common cause and fight as one!”


“So,” mused Peredan. “An alien invasion!” He seemed intrigued, scarcely surprised or alarmed at all.

“Not quite. At first we thought of it that way, but as far as we can make out the intruder is a single organism moving through
space. Not even an organism, more a … well, they call it the Patch. At first the scientists did not even think of it as an entity, merely as a moving region of space of unusual characteristics.
They’ve been forced to change heir minds. Its size is indeterminate, but its movements suggest volition.”


“And?”

“It appears to feed off biological vitality. Planets that pass through it are left completely dead! Men, animals, even the
vegetation! All dead!” A note of horror must have entered his voice, for Peredan frowned and looked sombre.


“My agents reported something unusual in the north-east, but I paid little attention to it. They certainly made no mention
of anything like this.”


“All news media are, of course, rigorously censored and rumour is dealt with severely throughout the kingdom these days. Outside
of the affected worlds, few people know anything about it.”


“And how many worlds have perished so far?”

“Even fewer people know that. I would guess, not more than fifty.”

“Not more than fifty!” Peredan seemed stunned. “Maxim of course, won’t become seriously worried until half of humanity has been wiped out. Typical!”
The Prince paced the room restlessly, his simple lilac robe flowing behind him. “But at least he admits his incompetence by
sending you here. Tell me what has been done to deal with the menace so far.”


Briefly Jundrak made a frank list of the measures taken by the Royal Fighting Forces in their increasingly desperate attempts
to deal with the unknown. The prolonged-reaction bombs (continuous nuclear explosions lasting a month), the monstrous gamma-ray
projectors (specially built at crippling cost). The Patch had taken it all without any detectable change in its inner state.
Vast quantities of radio-active material dumped in its path had made no difference either. There was even a theory that the
Patch liked these titillations.


Jundrak did not omit to tell of the armed spaceships it had engulfed. Peredan’s gaze dropped as he finished.

“There has never been anything like this before. What is it Maxim wants from me?”

“Surely I don’t need to answer that. Your resources here are known to be considerable. Apart from your armaments, weapons
perhaps unknown to us, you have some of the best scientists in your entourage. The existence of the kingdom comes before political
quarrels.”


“So Maxim thinks he will make use of it to swallow me up in a general crisis.” Peredan smiled wryly. “Tell him that if the
safety of the kingdom is truly his main concern, to put his forces under my orders and I will direct operations.”


“He will hardly agree to that.”

“And neither will I agree to what amounts to the same thing.”

Deadlock. Jundrak had known it would come to this. Had, in fact, counted on it. But he affected shock. “Peace and security
has always been your motto. How much is it worth, if you can stand by and watch whole systems annihilated?”


“It is Maxim who is the usurper, not I or my father.”

“But who knows? Perhaps in the confusion … you would find the opportunity to unseat Maxim and put your father back on the
throne again.” Jundrak’s voice became caressing, almost sly.


“Perhaps! If I based my strategy on perhaps, I would not have sat here on Smorn for the past fifty years, far from the centre of power.” He lifted his hand in a weary
gesture, as if unwilling to expend the effort on it. “With what we have here I could challenge the kingdom even now. But I
will not stake my resources, bringing civil war to the galaxy a second time, on anything less than the assurance of victory.
Young man, I am in this game to win. So don’t imagine that I will fritter away my substance on other pursuits, however worthy, or that this organisation will
be used for any other purpose than the one for which it was created.”


He delivered the short speech in a quiet, almost conversational tone. But during it Jundrak gained his first firm impression
of the man: an impression of hardness beneath the flaccid exterior, of an obdurate, almost despairing will. This was a man
who would never admit that his cause was lost, and whose fanaticism infected those gathered around him with unswerving loyalty.


“In any case,” the pretender Prince continued, “your suggestion seems hardly fitting to your role as Maxim’s envoy.”

“Forgive me, Your Highness. I was speaking not as an envoy but as an individual.”

At this, Peredan’s eyebrows rose slightly. He turned to a small panel in the wall behind him, opened it to extract two glasses
and a flask. Motioning Jundrak to a chair, he poured a green fluid from the flask and added water. The liquid turned milky.


“Pernod,” he said. “An ancient beverage from thousands of years ago, and a delightful addition to civilised living, I find. A colleague
of mine — the Duke of Returse — discovered the recipe shortly before our exile. As a result this encampment is the only place
in the universe where one can obtain it.”


Jundrak sipped the drink. It had a pleasing, refreshing taste of aniseed.

“Now tell me what the people think of me in these dark years, those billions oppressed by Maxim.” Peredan seated himself opposite
Jundrak, and did not try to sound anything less than sardonic.


“It is hard to read the public mind. The Royal Fighting Forces, of course, consider you a danger — but not an ultimate one,
Officially they could mop you up, but leave you in peace so as not to stir up dissent.”


“Propaganda. They have not come here because they would not dare. Tell me about the people.”

“I think you are slowly fading from memory.”

“Of course.” Peredan looked sad. “So be it. It was expected. But everything will change once I have vanquished the usurper
and placed my own family on the throne again. You shall see, it will chan. . .