Despoilers of the Golden Empire Read online

  In a matter of months, two hundred men had conquered an empire, with aloss of thirty-five or forty men. Eventually, they had to execute theold Greatest Noble and put his more tractable nephew on the throne, butthat was a mere incident.

  Gold? It flowed as though there were an endless supply. The commandershipped enough back on the first load to make them all wealthy.

  The commander didn't go back home to spend his wealth amid the luxuriesof the Imperial court, even though Emperor Carl appointed him to thenobility. That sort of thing wasn't the commander's meat. There, hewould be a fourth-rate noble; here, he was the Imperial Viceroy,responsible only to the distant Emperor. There, he would be nothing;here, he was almost a king.

  Two years after the capture of the Greatest Noble, he established a newcapital on the coast and named it Kingston. And from Kingston he ruledwith an iron hand.

  As has been intimated, this was _not_ Arcadia. A year after the foundingof Kingston, the old capital was attacked, burned, and almost fell undersiege, due to a sudden uprising of the natives under the new GreatestNoble, who had managed to escape. But the uprising collapsed because ofthe approach of the planting season; the warriors had to go back homeand plant their crops or the whole of the agriculture-based countrywould starve--except the invading Earthmen.

  Except in a few instances, the natives were never again any trouble.

  But the commander--now the Viceroy--had not seen the end of histroubles.

  He had known his limitations, and realized that the governing of a wholeplanet--or even one continent--was too much for one man when thepopulation consists primarily of barbarians and savages. So he haddelegated the rule of a vast area to the south to another--a Lieutenantcommander James, known as "One-Eye," a man who had helped finance theoriginal expedition, and had arrived after the conquest.

  One-Eye went south and made very small headway against the more barbarictribes there. He did not become rich, and he did not achieve anywherenear the success that the Viceroy had. So he came back north with hisarmy and decided to unseat the Viceroy and take his place. That was fiveyears after the capture of the Greatest Noble.

  One-Eye took Center City, the old capital, and started to work his waynorthward, toward Kingston. The Viceroy's forces met him at a placeknown as Salt Flats and thoroughly trounced him. He was captured, triedfor high treason, and executed.

  One would think that the execution ended the threat of Lieutenantcommander James, but not so. He had a son, and he had had followers.

  XV

  Nine years. Nine years since the breaking of a vast empire. It reallydidn't seem like it. The Viceroy looked at his hands. They were veinedand thin, and the callouses were gone. Was he getting soft, or justgetting old? A little bit--no, a _great deal_ of both.

  He sat in his study, in the Viceregal Palace at Kingston, chewing overthe events of the past weeks. Twice, rumors had come that he was to beassassinated. He and two of his councilors had been hanged in effigy inthe public square not long back. He had been snubbed publicly by some ofthe lesser nobles.

  Had he ruled harshly, or was it just jealousy? And was it, really, assome said, caused by the Southerners and the followers of Young Jim?

  He didn't know. And sometimes, it seemed as if it didn't matter.

  Here he was, sitting alone in his study, when he should have gone to apublic function. And he had stayed because of fear of assassination.

  Was it--

  There was a knock at the door.

  "Come in."

  A servant entered. "Sir Martin is here, my lord."

  The Viceroy got to his feet. "Show him in, by all means."

  Sir Martin, just behind the servant, stepped in, smiling, and theViceroy returned his smile. "Well, everything went off well enoughwithout you," said Sir Martin.

  "Any sign of trouble?"

  "None, my lord; none whatsoever. The--"

  "Damn!" the Viceroy interrupted savagely. "I should have known! Whathave I done but display my cowardice? I'm getting yellow in my old age!"

  Sir Martin shook his head. "Cowardice, my lord? Nothing of the sort.Prudence, I should call it. By the by, the judge and a few others arecoming over." He chuckled softly. "We thought we might talk you out of ameal."

  The Viceroy grinned widely. "Nothing easier. I suspected all youhangers-on would come around for your handouts. Come along, my friend;we'll have a drink before the others get here."

  * * * * *

  There were nearly twenty people at dinner, all, presumably, friends ofthe Viceroy. At least, it is certain that they were friends in so far asthey had no part in the assassination plot. It was a gay party; theViceroy's friends were doing their best to cheer him up, and weresucceeding pretty well. One of the nobles, known for his wit, had justessayed a somewhat off-color jest, and the others were roaring withlaughter at the punch line when a shout rang out.

  There was a sudden silence around the table.

  "What was that?" asked someone. "What did--"

  "_Help!_" There was the sound of footsteps pounding up the stairway fromthe lower floor.

  "_Help! The Southerners have come to kill the Viceroy!_"

  From the sounds, there was no doubt in any of the minds of the peopleseated around the table that the shout was true. For a moment, there wasshock. Then panic took over.

  There were only a dozen or so men in the attacking party; if the"friends" of the Viceroy had stuck by him, they could have held off theassassins with ease.

  But no one ran to lock the doors that stood between the Viceroy and hisenemies, and only a few drew their weapons to defend him. The othersfled. Getting out of a window from the second floor of a building isn'teasy, but fear can lend wings, and, although none of them actually flewdown, the retreat went fast enough.

  Characteristically, the Viceroy headed, not for the window, but for hisown room, where his armor--long unused, except for statefunctions--hung waiting in the closet. With him went Sir Martin.

  But there wasn't even an opportunity to get into the armor. The rebelband charged into the hallway that led to the bedroom, screaming:"_Death to the Tyrant! Long live the Emperor!_"

  It was personal anger, then, not rebellion against the Empire which hadappointed the ex-commander to his post as Viceroy.

  "Where is the Viceroy? Death to the Tyrant!" The assassins moved in.

  Swords in hand, and cloaks wrapped around their left arms, Sir Martinand the Viceroy moved to meet the oncoming attackers.

  "Traitors!" bellowed the Viceroy. "Cowards! Have you come to kill me inmy own house?"

  Parry, thrust! Parry, thrust! Two of the attackers fell before thesnake-tongue blade of the fighting Viceroy. Sir Martin accounted for twomore before he fell in a flood of his own blood.

  The Viceroy was alone, now. His blade flickered as though inspired, andtwo more died under its tireless onslaught. Even more would have died ifthe head of the conspiracy, a supporter of Young Jim named Rada, hadn'tpulled a trick that not even the Viceroy would have pulled.

  Rada grabbed one of his own men and shoved him toward the Viceroy'ssword, impaling the hapless man upon that deadly blade.

  And, in the moment while the Viceroy's weapon was buried to the hilt inan enemy's body, the others leaped around the dying man and ran theirblades through the Viceroy.

  He dropped to the floor, blood gushing from half a dozen wounds.

  Even so, his fighting heart still had seconds more to beat. As hepropped himself up on one arm, the assassins stood back; even theyrecognized that they had killed something bigger and stronger than they.A better man than any of them lay dying at their feet.

  He clawed with one hand at the river of red that flowed from his piercedthroat and then fell forward across the stone floor. With his crimsonhand, he traced the great symbol of his Faith on the stone--the Sign ofthe Cross. He bent his head to kiss it, and, with a final cry of"_Jesus!_" he died. At the age of seventy, it had taken a dozen men tokill him with treachery, something all
the hell of nine years ofconquest and rule had been unable to do.

  And thus died Francisco Pizarro, the Conqueror of Peru.

  THE END

  TO BE READ AFTER YOU HAVE FINISHED "DESPOILERS OF THE GOLDEN EMPIRE."

  Dear John,

  It has been brought to my attention, by those who have read the story,that "Despoilers of the Golden Empire" might conceivably be charged withbeing a "reader cheater"--_i.e._, that it does not play fair with thereader, but leads him astray by means of false statements. Naturally, Ifeel it me bounden duty to refute such scurrilous and untrue affronts,and thus save meself from opprobrium.

  Therefore, I address what follows to the interested reader:

  It cannot be denied that you must have been misled when you read thestory; indeed, I'd be the last to deny it, since I _intended_ that youshould be misled. What I most certainly _do_ deny is any implicationthat such misleading was accomplished by the telling of untruths. Afiction writer is, _by definition_, a professional liar; he makes hisliving by telling interesting lies on paper and selling the results tothe highest bidder for publication. Since fiction writing is mylivelihood, I cannot and will not deny that I am an accomplishedliar--indeed, almost an habitual one. Therefore, I feel some small piquewhen, on the one occasion on which I stick strictly to the truth, I amaccused of fraud. _Pfui!_ say I; I refute you. "I deny the allegation,and I defy the alligator!"

  To prove my case, I shall take several examples from "Despoilers" andshow that the statements made are perfectly valid. (Please note that Ido not claim any absolute accuracy for such details as quoted dialogue,except that none of the characters lies. I simply contend that the storyis as accurate as any other good historical novelette. I also might sayhere that any resemblance between "Despoilers" and any story picked atrandom from the late lamented _Planet Stories_ is purely intentional andcarefully contrived.)

  Take the first sentence:

  "In the seven centuries that had elapsed since the Second Empire hadbeen founded on the shattered remnants of the First, the nobles of theImperium had come slowly to realize that the empire was not to be judgedby the examples of its predecessor."

  Perfectly true. By the time of the Renaissance, the nobles of the HolyRoman Empire knew that their empire was not just a continuation of theRoman Empire, but a new entity. The old Roman Empire had collapsed inthe Sixth Century, and the _Holy_ Roman Empire, which was actually aloose confederation of Germanic states, did not come into being until A.D. 800, when Karl der Grosse (Charlemagne) was crowned emperor by thePope.

  Anyone who wishes to quibble that the date should be postponed for acentury and a half, until the time of the German prince, Otto, may doso; I will ignore him.

  A few paragraphs later, I said:

  "Without power, neither Civilization nor the Empire could hold itselftogether, and His Universal Majesty, the Emperor Carl, well knew it. Andpower was linked solidly to one element, one metal ..."

  The metal, as I said later on, was Gold-197.

  By "power," of course, I meant political and economic power. In theSixteenth Century, that's what almost anyone would have meant. If youchose to interpret it as meaning "energy per unit time," why, that'sreal tough.

  Why nail the "power metal" down to an isotope of gold with an atomicweight of 197? Because that's the only naturally occurring isotope ofgold.

  The "Emperor Carl" was, of course, Charles V, who also happened to beKing of Spain, and therefore Pizarro's sovereign. I Germanicized hisname, as I did the others--Francisco Pizarro becomes "Frank," etcetera--but this is perfectly legitimate. After all, the king's name inLatin, which was used in all state papers, was _Carolus_; the Spanishcalled him _Carlos_, and history books in English call him _Charles_.Either _Karl_ or _Carl_ is just as legitimate as _Charles_, certainly,and the same applies to the other names in the story.

  As to the title "His Universal Majesty," that's exactly what he _was_called. It is usually translated as "His Catholic Majesty," but the word_Catholic_ comes from the Greek _katholikos_, meaning "universal." And,further on in the story, when the term "Universal Assembly" is used, itis a direct translation of the Greek term, _Ekklesia Katholikos_, and isactually a better translation than "Catholic Church," since the Englishword _church_ comes from the Greek _kyriakon_, meaning "the house of theLord"--in other words, a church _building_, not the organization as awhole.

  Toward the end of Chapter One, I wrote:

  "Throughout the Empire, research laboratories worked tirelessly at theproblem of transmuting commoner elements into Gold-197, but thus farnone of the processes was commercially feasible."

  I think you will admit that the alchemists never found a method oftransmuting the elements--certainly none which was commerciallyfeasible.

  In Chapter Three, the statement that Pizarro left his home--Spain--withundermanned ships, and had to sneak off illegally before the King'sinspectors checked up on him, is historically accurate. And who canargue with the statement that "there wasn't a scientist worthy of thename in the whole outfit"?

  At the beginning of Chapter Four, you'll find:

  "Due to atmospheric disturbances, the ship's landing was several hundredmiles from the point the commander had originally picked ..." and "...the ship simply wasn't built for atmospheric navigation."

  The adverse winds which drove Pizarro's ships off course were certainly"atmospheric disturbances," and I defy anyone to prove that a SixteenthCentury Spanish galleon was built for atmospheric navigation.

  And I insist that using the term "carrier" instead of "horse," whilemisleading, is not inaccurate. However, I _would_ like to know just whatsort of picture the term conjured up in the reader's mind. In ChapterTen, in the battle scene, you'll find the following:

  "The combination [of attackers from both sides], plus the fact that theheavy armor was a little unwieldy, overbalanced him [the commander]. Hetoppled to the ground with a clash of steel as he and the carrier partedcompany.

  "Without a human hand at its controls, the carrier automatically movedaway from the mass of struggling fighters and came to a halt well awayfrom the battle."

  To be perfectly honest, it's somewhat of a strain on my mind to imagineanyone building a robot-controlled machine as good as all that, and thengiving the drive such poor protection that he can fall off of it.

  One of the great screams from my critics has been occasioned by thefact that I referred several times to the Spaniards as "Earthmen." Ican't see why. In order not to confuse the reader, I invariably referredto them as the "_invading_ Earthmen," so as to make a clear distinctionbetween them and the _native_ Earthmen, or Incas, who were native toPeru. If this be treachery, then make the most of it.

  In other words, I contend that I simply did what any other gooddetective story writer tries to do--mislead the reader without lying tohim. Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," for instance, usesthe device of telling the story from the murderer's viewpoint, in thefirst person, without revealing that he _is_ the murderer. Likewise,John Dickson Carr, in his "Nine Wrong Answers" finds himself forced todeny that he has lied to the reader, although he admits that one of hischaracters certainly lied. Both Carr and Christie told the absolutetruth--within the framework of the story--and left it to the reader todelude himself.

  It all depends on the viewpoint. The statement, "We all liked FatherGoodheart very much" means one thing when said by a member of his oldparish in the United States, which he left to become a missionary. Itmeans something else again when uttered by a member of the tribe ofcannibals which the good Father attempted unsuccessfully to convert.

  Similarly, such terms as "the gulf between the worlds," "the new world,"and "the known universe" have one meaning to a science-fictioneer, andanother to a historian. Semantics, anyone?

  In Chapter Ten, right at the beginning, there is a conversation betweenCommander Frank and Frater Vincent, and "agent of the Assembly" (read:_priest_). If the reader will go back over that section, keeping in mindthe fact that what they are "actua
lly" talking about are the CatholicChurch and the Christian religion _as seen from the viewpoint of acouple of fanatically devout Sixteenth Century Spaniards_, he willunderstand the method I used in presenting the whole story.

  Let me quote:

  "Mentally, the commander went through the symbol-patterns that he hadlearned as a child--the symbol-patterns that brought him into directcontact with the Ultimate Power, the Power that controlled not only thespinning of atoms and the whirling of electrons in their orbits, but theworkings of probability itself."

  Obviously, he is reciting the _Pater Noster_ and the _Ave Maria_. Therest of the sentence is self-explanatory.

  So is the following:

  "Once indoctrinated into the teachings of the Universal Assembly, anyman could tap that power to a greater or lesser degree, depending on hismental control and ethical attitude. At the top level, a first-classadept could utilize that Power for telepathy, psychokinesis, levitation,teleportation, and other powers that the commander only vaguelyunderstood."

  It doesn't matter whether _you_ believe in the miracles attributed tomany of the Saints; Pizarro certainly did. His faith in that Power wasas certain as the modern faith in the power of the atomic bomb.

  As a matter of fact, it was very probably that hard, unyielding Faithwhich made the Sixteenth Century Spaniard the almost superhuman beingthat he was. Only Spain of the Sixteenth Century could have produced theConquistadors or such a man as St. Ignatius Loyola, whose learned,devout, and fanatically militant Society of Jesus struck fear into thehearts of Protestant and Catholic Princes alike for the next twocenturies.