The Space-Time Juggler

by John Brunner

Genres: Science Fiction; Hard Science Fiction; Space Opera

Synopsis

In the long twilight if a galactic empire, the old king is dying. He has little choice but to name his callow young son as heir and his wanton daughter as regent. It seems the long decline is destined to continue. But everything is changed by the appearance of a rival claimant: a long-lost princess, accompanied only by a loyal champion and a mysterious advisor. Will her arrival herald a bright new dawn for the empire? Or drive a once-proud civilisation to the brink of war . . . ?

Release date: October 31, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 79

Sample

IT WAS A wild night. The wind shouted in the bending trees like a giant’s child, shrieking its glee at the black, cloud-racing sky, and the rain poured and spattered on the earth, churning even the tough, thin Argus grass from its place, dancing like a cloud of devils across the hard bare roads, whipping the faces of travelers like a myriad of icy needles, soaking and re-soaking the imperial banners over the castle of the kings till they were too heavy to stand out from the staffs at the bidding of the wind, too heavy to reveal that they hung upside-down to signify the passing of a king.

Outside the black castle, people waited, watching. They were gray people, common people, men with the coarse hands of farmers and mechanics, women with lined, careworn faces and eyes like dying coals.

A bell was tolling.

The same storm whipped at the windows of a lone helicopter but a few miles distant in the night. It had not the look of something made with human hands, for it came from one of the mutant worlds beyond the bounds of the Empire, whither the unhuman children of men had been harried by the lash of hatred, and where they had built themselves a culture that still retained knowledge lost to the Empire in the Long Night that had swamped the stars ten thousand years before.

The man at the controls handled them with delicacy, for the ship was bucking like a live thing, and half an impatient move might tear the blades from the screaming rotors and toss them a mile to the barren lands below. He had a high bald forehead and sensitive lips, but the nose and eyes of an eagle, and his hands were pale and long. His voice, when he spoke, was low and pleasant.

He glanced for a second over his shoulder and said, “Nice weather, eh, Sharla?”

There were two other people in the cockpit behind him, uncomfortable on seats built for not-men bigger than mere humans. The girl on the left shuddered, and drew her cloak tighter around her, and tried to force herself closer into the corner where she sat. She said, “Landor, is there much further to go?”

Landor risked a quick glance from the wildness outside to the position marker glowing like a firefly in the corner of the control panel. He said, “Not far. Perhaps another ten minutes’ flying time will get us there.”

The third passenger grunted expressively. He said, “This is the ride of the furies, Ser Landor, and no mistake!”

Landor laughed shortly, without taking his eyes from the storm or shifting hands or body an infinitesimal fraction. He said, “You have the makings of a poet, Ordovic.”

“A poet? Not I,” Ordovic retorted, his eyes straying from the windows to the pale, set face of Sharla across the seat beside him.

“I’m nothing but a common fighting man, more at home with a spear than a pen and happier with a sword than either.”

He dropped his hand to the hilt of his own blade, and the steel rang very softly in its scabbard, and at the noise his dark eyes filled with something that belied his self-deprecation.

He added, putting his hand to the clasp at his neck, “You’re cold, my lady. Will you take my cloak?”

Sharla stopped him with a gesture. “Not now, Ordovic. We have but ten minutes’ flying to do, and I have no wish to freeze you for that space of time. There will be warmth at the castle.”

Landor said pointedly, “There may be a warm reception for us in more ways than one, Sharla. Ordovic, I’m no fighting man—my swordsmanship went with my youth—and I place our safety in your hands.”

Ordovic squared his shoulders and under the coarse brown cloak there was a glint of metal. “But twenty-eight years, Ser Landor,” he boasted, “and as strong as a Thanis bull.”

Sharla glanced at him very swiftly, and away. Her lovely face was troubled.

The crowd before the castle thinned slowly. Many of them had watched since sundown last evening, and had seen the banners dip and vanish and rise again inverted in the dim red glow of the winter sun, and had raised the Passing Cry for Andalvar of Argus, and watched in the wet chill of the storm in honor of their ruler.

On a bare slab of rock beside the road waited a boy of seven and a crone of sixty, bent and worn, for old age came quickly on this harsh bare world. The boy yawned and huddled against the old woman, trying to share the impact of the blast. Nearby, men stamped and shifted and blew on their hands, and their leather coats dripped water.

Suddenly the old woman closed her eyes, folded her cold hands together, and whispered, “Ronail?”

“Here, granny,” the boy said, putting his arm around her wasted shoulders.

“Ronail, I see bad days,” the old woman whispered, her voice like the rustle of dry leaves in the wind. “Ronail, I see evil days ahead of Argus, and I pity you.”

One of the men nearby turned suddenly, his beard spangled with drops of rain like tiny jewels. He bent low and said urgently to the boy, “What was that?”

The boy said casually, with the inconsequentiality of youth, “’Tis only granny. She’s a seeress.”

The man’s eyes lit, and he bent closer to hear the faint words as they fell from her stiff, withered lips. Other men stepped near.

“Ronail—Ronail, where are you?”

“Here, granny,” said the boy comfortingly. He pressed up against her.

“Ronail—I see bad times for Argus soon. I see the black witch scheming to oppress us and forget the Empire—the people groaning and the soldiers bought—the Empire become dust.”

“Ay!” whispered the bearded man. “The black witch. Andra! This is an evil day for Argus.”

“Ssh!” said a man behind him. “There may be more.”

“The purging of the fire and the chastening of the whip,” recited the old hag in her mumbling tones. “The sores and the wraths of the lords—”

The bearded man signed himself, and the boy, after gazing in wonder for an instant, followed suit.

“Ay, the dark of the Long Night is near to be seen, and ere the black witch be forgotten there are black days for Argus!”

There was another sound than the storm, faintly, in the distance, like the buzzing of a monstrous fly, and the crone opened her eyes and stared unseeing at the castle.

The noise grew. Even the deaf could feel it now, a great steady drone that made the ears ring and the heart falter. They stood, searching the bare black sky.

Then there was a light that shone more brightly than all the moons of Argus—called after the many-eyed god for its nine bright satellites—which flared out of nothing in the sky and grew steadily as the noise grew. Above it there became visible a shimmer like the wings of an insect.

“A devil!” shouted someone, and they threatened to break and run, but the bearded one said scornfully, “What devil would venture near the castle of the kings? No, ’tis a machine, a flying machine. I have seen such in my travels, but I never thought to see one in the air of Argus.”

They passed the explanation from mouth to mouth, and they signed themselves and stood fast. Slowly, the light settled, tossed by the wind but driving gently down into the bare space that the first drawing-aside had left. The noise was like the drumming of a demon.

It touched the wet ground before the castle, and the light vanished and the noise ceased.

The door of the thing opened and three figures came out, the first two dropping lightly to the ground and turning to aid the third.

Together the newcomers passed through the crowd, who drew back at the air of authority worn by the leader of the three. He was a tall man with a shining helmet and a cloak that stood out behind him like great wings, and he strode. . .