Black Knight of the Iron Sphere

by E.E. 'Doc' Smith, E.E. ''Doc'' Smith

Genres: Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

Lord Tedric of the Marshes, ex-Corpsman, revered hero of the Empire and personal friend of the Emperor, is a traitor. Fugitive from the Security Forces, Tedric and his blue-furred alien friend Ky-Shan intend to join up with the most ruthless and successful renegade in the Galaxy - the Bioman, Fra Villion. Tedric''s quest brings him in contact with a strange and fascinating band of people. There''s Milton Dass, a brilliant scientist who has invented the most staggering instrument of destruction the Universe has ever seen; Juvi, a prostitute seeking new excitement as a pirate; Yod, a black-planet boy hoping to revenge the death of his family; and, of course, Fra Villion himself, the Black Knight of the Iron Sphere.

Release date: June 24, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 121

Sample

On the planet Prime at the edge of the Galaxy, a frail, hunched man dressed in green robes, his face all eyebrows and wrinkles, knelt upon the crest of a hill and stared unblinking at the brilliant spread of stars that occupied the whole of the nighttime sky.

The man was Skandos, the histro-physicist; even among his colleagues, the Scientists of Prime, Skandos was recognised as a man of outstanding ability.

This was a time when the Empire of Man, the most sophisticated social achievement in human history, was inexorably entering its final decline, but tonight Skandos was thinking of the past. He was remembering a moment, thousands of years before, when the first primitive spaceship had touched down on Earth’s moon after a three-day trip and a mere 240,000 miles.

That, Skandos mused, had been the true beginning of human history. He wondered when would there ever come an end?

He well recalled the intervening years. From the Moon, it had been but a brief journey to the planets and the many habitable satellites of the Solar System. From the outer worlds the first hydrogen-eating ships had begun their slow journeys to the stars, generations passing on board before the final planet-fall.

And then had come the grandest leap of all: the invention of the N-space Drive and the voyage of the Viola, three thousand light-years in a mere nine days. With N-space the whole Galaxy had suddenly lain open to the seeking reach of mankind. Bold explorers piloted those first ships but in their wake had come the Scattering, when millions deserted the crowded worlds of the Solar System and went to the stars, to find new homes on a hundred virgin planets.

The Empire of Man developed gradually. Slowly, the political tentacles of Earth reached out to grasp the wayward, wandering children. The first emperors reigned in title only, but real power soon began to evolve in the royal line, until, by the time of the Empress Neva, one lone woman controlled the destinies of twenty thousand billion human beings.

That had been a golden age, Skandos thought. If such a term had any historical valid meaning, then the first few centuries of the Empire of Man, before the Biomen and Scientists had themselves drawn away to carve their own particular roles in the cosmos, when the submen were still regarded as fellow intelligent beings rather than as slaves to be exploited, when new worlds fell almost daily under the allegiance of the emperor, when the Imperial Corps of the One Hundred had preserved peace and law throughout the realm, that had been a truly golden time.

And yet, this constant outward spiral of human ambition had born within it the seeds of its own eventual destruction. Humanity was not alone in the Galaxy. A hundred intelligent species were discovered, studied, discussed, and then swept behind in the wave of Empire. It was inevitable that in time humanity would meet aliens who could not be so easily dominated.

The first of these advanced species was the Dynarx, green slime slugs whose mental processes were totally alien to those of man. The Dynarx ruled a thousand planets of their own, and the first human ships to try and penetrate their boundaries never returned. Others followed, including warships, but the fate of these vessels and their crews was no different. At last, acting from both fear and frustration, the emperor issued an edict declaring the entire sphere of Dynarx influence outside the bounds of human exploration. A portion of the Galaxy was thus lost to human expansion. A relatively tiny portion, true – but it was a beginning, a portent of eventual disaster.

That disaster came with the Wykzl. These creatures, twice human size and covered with blue fur, were more like men than Dynarx. They, too, were building an empire, and for the first time humanity came into intimate contact with an alien species as aggressive and ambitious as itself.

The result was perhaps inevitable: war erupted.

If a golden age had ever truly existed, the thousand-year war between men and Wykzl brought it to an end. Eventually, after millions had died, the imperial fleet met with total defeat and a truce was declared. The war was over and, with it, the age of human expansion.

The century since the end of the war could best be viewed as a period of decadence. Exhausted both spiritually and politically, the Empire of Man declined to a mere shadow of its former glory. Instead of a single emperor, a dozen great families shared power within the realm. Eventually, one of these families, headed by a man named Melor Carey, came to predominate. When the aged Emperor Kane IV died by his own hand, Melor promptly crowned his own son as Matthew I in an attempt to establish a new imperial line.

The reign of Matthew I proved as brief as it was predictable. Rebellion broke out among the frontier stars of the Empire, and the rebel fleet, led by remnants of the elite Corps of the One Hundred and supported by clandestine Wykzl weaponry, vanquished the imperial armada in a great space battle beyond the orbit of Pluto. The old imperial line was thus restored.

To some observers such an event might have seemed an indication of renewed glories, but Skandos was well aware that the Empire of Man had surely passed. The golden age had been the direct result of human innocence, and that quality had long since been consumed in the flames of the Wykzl war.

Despite its peculiar fascinations, however, human history remained only a tiny element in the total cosmic picture, and Skandos always strived to glimpse the wholeness, the vast complexity of stars, planets, galaxies, megagalaxies, and universes.

He closed his eyes. His breathing slowed until it was no longer detectable. Forces were at work throughout the universe, and he sought to determine their focal point. He knew the cast of immediate characters: Yod Cartwright, a young man in search of revenge; Lieutenant Jerome of the Corps of the One Hundred; Milton Dass, inventor of the awesome weapon known as the matter-scrambler; Lady Lola Dass, the most beautiful woman in the Galaxy, and Lady Alyc Carey, the most complex. And the prime combatants: the Bioman and pirate Fra Villion, and Lord Tedric of the Marshes. These were the participants, but where was the stage? Ah, here it was. Skandos smiled. Such an insignificant world: Nykzas, a rough frontier planet at the edge of the Empire. Straining, Skandos struggled to observe more clearly.

Squinting through the murky atmosphere of the basement cafe, Yod Cartwright gazed at the blank features of the subman waiter and struggled to think of some appropriate response. ‘How about a green cesma?’ he said tentatively, dimly recalling the name from an old tridee tape and certain it was a spaceman’s drink. ‘Do you have any of that?’

‘Hot or cold?’ growled the waiter.

‘Ah … hot, please.’ Yod looked down at the scarred porcelain surface of the tabletop, hoping he had spoken loudly enough to be heard above the din of this crowded room. He would have spoken with more authority except that he was afraid the waiter might take too much notice of him and refuse service. Imperial law prevailed, even on a planet as barbaric as Nykzas, and imperial law strictly forbade the serving of intoxicants to anyone under the age of nineteen; Yod had only just celebrated his seventeenth birthday.

But the waiter, whose hairy arms, pointed ears, and shaggy brow suggested he was descended from a dog or wolf, seemed little concerned with such technicalities. He barely gave Yod a second look. ‘You pay in advance,’ he said, thrusting out a big hand.

‘How … how much?’ said Yod, fighting the tremor in his voice.

‘Give me two solar coins for drink and tip.’

Yod considered asking how that broke down: how much for the drink and how much for the tip. With a sigh he reached into his pocket and fished out a pair of golden coins. The sad truth was that two solars represented exactly one-half of his present fortune. If Fra Villion’s representative failed to meet him here tonight as promised, then he was going to be in a great deal of trouble indeed.

The waiter, clutching his bounty, disappeared into the swirling mob, headed in the general direction of the bar. Alone, Yod leaned back in his chair and watched the clientele of this cafe. If there was a more disreputable watering hole in the Empire, he hoped he never had a chance to view it firsthand. The low-ceilinged, brick-walled room was packed with bodies. Every table was occupied, and there were many more people standing in the aisles or by the bar. Submen outnumbered real humans and, from where he was sitting in a relatively undisturbed corner, Yod could count over a dozen true aliens. Some of them belonged to species he couldn’t even begin to identify. He did recognise a six-armed Drixian and a squat, purple-skinned, octopoid Zorrazian. Like nearly everyone else in the cafe, both aliens wore heatguns strapped to their bodies. The presence of so much armament in such a restricted environment only added to the general atmosphere of restrained tension. Yod shifted nervously in his chair and tried to avoid letting his eyes come to rest on any single spot. The fact was, on the planet where he was born and raised aliens were something one read about in books. Six months ago if anyone had told him he’d be sitting in a bar with a dozen of them, he’d have laughed out loud. But this wasn’t funny. There was even a giant blue-furred Wykzl seated at a nearby table in the company of a tall blond man of muscular build who was dressed in the tattered remnants of a uniform. The presence of the Wykzl, mankind’s sworn enemy, failed to create any particular stir in this place.

A flash of motion, a loud clatter, and the sudden quivering of the table shook Yod from his reverie. Glancing up, he saw that his hot green cesma had arrived. It was an alien drink of Sirian origin, if he recalled the tridee tape correctly. Before drinking, he searched the tabletop in hopes of discovering some loose change; there wasn’t any. He hadn’t eaten in nearly twenty hours, and the two solar coins left in his pocket would barely purchase a loaf of stale bread. The distant appendages of his body – fingers, toes, and nose – already felt numb. It might have been hunger but was more likely pure fatigue. He hadn’t slept in a day and a half, either.

He raised the mug close to his lips and peered at the steaming green liquid inside. Once, when he had been fifteen, he had stolen some of his father’s homemade wine and drunk two full bottles. For more than a day after that he had been sick with fear that he might have poisoned himself – he was that ill. Well, I’m a lot older now, he thought boldly, tipping the mug. He took one cautious sip and blanched. The whole inside of his mouth felt as if it was on fire. Desperately, he swallowed, and the burning spread to his throat and stomach. Gasping, he fought to breathe. His eyes watered. Hot, he had told the waiter – a hot green cesma. Well, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about getting drunk.

‘You’ve got to gulp it down,’ said a voice close to his ear. ‘Don’t sip, gulp.’

Through watering eyes, Yod looked up at his visitor. She was a young woman. At first he thought she was beautiful but a more careful inspection showed she was merely gorgeous. A trace of subman blood was the one thing preventing her from staking a claim on true human beauty. Her hair and skin were very dark, her eyebrows shaped in a graceful arch that accentuated her slender, high-boned face. She wore a red velvet skirt that circled her hips and was split to reveal the smooth skin of her long legs. Her breasts were bare and she wore a heatgun in a shoulder harness. Something about her appearance made Yod feel distinctly uncomfortable. ‘I think it may be a bit warm,’ he said, referring to the cesma.

‘Oh, nonsense. It can never be too warm.’ She dropped down in an empty chair beside him. ‘Here – watch me.’ She wore a strongly scented perfume, and the sweet odour made Yod feel momentarily delirious. Removing the mug from his hands, she raised it to her lips. As Yod watched in amazement, she swallowed a huge gulp of the steaming brew. When she lowered the mug at last, nearly half its contents had been drained. ‘Now you try,’ she said with a smile; she showed no signs of strain from her ordeal.

Yod wasn’t about to be outdone by such a frail young girl. He took the mug, raised it to his lips, and made a courageous effort to swall. . .