The Days of Glory Page 9

  “How would the Humans know that Starbird was in danger of losing the fight?” demanded Hornwing.

  “It’s not impossible that they had some way of monitoring the fight.” The suggestion came from Mark Chaos.

  Eagleheart stood up again. “This argument is achieving nothing. We have had an alternative suggestion offered by Lord Hornwing. Does anyone else wish to express an opinion?”

  Cain Rayshade of Aurita came forward. “I agree with Hornwing,” he said, “that a great many lives have been wasted. But as to his alternative to Eagleheart’s course of action, I think we would be stupid to arrange a further duel after the Humans have interfered with this one. It would almost be condoning their action. The Human fleet deliberately broke an agreement between their commander and Lord Skywolf. We cannot simply ask the Humans if we can try again. We must think of the people of the Beast nations, and their right to a fair settlement in matters of dispute.

  “We have been at war for some time. Felides, Lemurides—and Ursides—have given their lives in the defense of the honor of Daniel Skywolf and the Beast nations. We have an obligation to those men to protect their rights as well. The Human fleet is guilty of this transgression, and it is against the Human fleet that we must direct our reprisals, not against one of their number in a duel.”

  Judson Deathdancer stood then, and spoke for the first time. He said simply: “I thank Cain Rayshade for being so concerned about my dead friends. I assure him that they would want only to be remembered, not to have more lives lost in a foolish crusade to extract a vengeance which may be quite without justice. I am with Hornwing.”

  The Beast lord of Falcor, having established himself as the most immediate of the great heroes after the battle, wherein he and his men had accomplished so much, carried more weight than usual. Many of the minor lords would go along with what Deathdancer said.

  Eagleheart considered speaking again, but Mark Chaos had already begun to counter Deathdancer’s words.

  “My Lord Deathdancer,” he said quietly. “Vengeance is not uppermost in our minds. We do not want to smash the Human fleet as a simple matter of vengeance. We are not barbarians. There is something here which is far more than a matter of avenging our dead. We must think of those who—with all respect to the dead—are of much greater importance. We must think about the living.

  “We must think of the living Beasts, not only those gathered here, but those on every inhabited planet of the stars. We must think of what this war means to ourselves, and to our people, of the fact that this affair of the honor of one of us has come to be a defense of the honor of us all. This is a great thing which has happened. It has made us one people. It has given us a new pride in our race. The heritage of gene banks, animals, and Human construct surgeons has never been one to be ashamed of. We have never been any less than the Humans who were transformed from animals by a slower process, with no construct surgeons to help them. But this war has given us, for the first time, a genuine racial identity. It has unified us in a fight to defend die rights of every individual one of us. None of us is ever alone from this time on. The honor of the Beasts is something which every one of us can believe in, and something which every one of us must defend.

  “What the Humans did last night was personally damaging to Daniel Skywolf and his cause. It withheld a settlement by unfair means. But it was more than that. It questioned the whole system by which our honor may be defended. It was a direct insult to the code of honor by which we live. Ralph Eagleheart has said that we need help. The Lords Hornwing and Deathdancer have said that too many lives have been lost already. 1 say, have we the right to keep this war to ourselves? Must we lose the cause of Lord Skywolf, and the cause of the Beast nations, because we have forbidden the Beast nations to defend what they hold to be right? I say, if we do that, then we have committed a crime on a par with that which the Humans committed when they landed their ships on Stonebow.

  “The men we have lost are martyrs. We ask for help, not to avenge them, but to carry on the cause for which they died, to make sure that they did not die for nothing.”

  Hornwing assented almost immediately. Judson Death-dancer was slower to agree, because he was still trying to fit the metal ghost into the scheme of things. But there was no real doubt about the decision of the council.

  LICKING THE WOUNDS

  There was a council of war in the Human camp as well The four high lords of the House of Stars, the sons of Star-castle of Home, were trying to pick up the pieces.

  “This battle has cost us a great deal more than a minor defeat and a number of good men,” said David Starbird. His right hand was tightly bound with bandages and hidden by a fingerless leather glove. It would be withered and useless for the rest of his life. “This battle,” he continued, “has cost us the right to dictate the war. We can no longer be the arbiters of what is honorable and what is not. We can no longer set the rules of the game. We have broken the rules we have made, and every protest we make from now on will be ignored. Now it is Eagleheart and Eagleheart alone who can decide the future.”

  “What else could I do?” asked Blackstar.

  “What else? Why did you do it? Why did you respond to a message which could have no possible foundation, no possible meaning?”

  “It was a call for help,” said Blackstar softly, and without anger or excuse. “It was an appeal from a man you and I knew well: our friend, Juan Castanza. A man you liked and trusted enough to make second-in-command of your ship. Should I not have trusted him also? Would you not have trusted him enough to respond to his appeal for help?” “During a duel? We had agreed—” inserted Starflare, but Blackstar silenced him with a gesture.

  “Would you have me ignore him, David? Ignore a man who thought something was so wrong that he thought it necessary to break the agreement? Whose judgment should I rely on? Mine, when I am out beyond the fifth planet, in empty space? Or his, when he is here, on Stonebow? Who should I ask whether it is important enough to break the duelling covenant? What could I do, save trust him?” “He’s right,” added Rainstar. “You’d have done the same yourself, David.”

  “Yes, yes. I’d have had to. I’m sorry, Alexander.”

  “What do we do now?” asked Blackstar, changing the subject

  “What can we do? I can offer to fight Skywolf again—one-handed. They’d laugh at us if I offered. They would probably take it as an insult—mockery to add to our chicanery.”

  Blackstar hesitated. “You could own the duel lost and give up the girl,” said Blackstar, at last coming to the point. “It was I that broke the agreement, but it is you who should take the responsibility. Theoretically, we lost that duel on ethical grounds.”

  “We lost the duel! I should take responsibility! Damn it, I concede that you were right to do what you did, but I won’t take the responsibility upon myself. That duel wasn’t lost. I was at a disadvantage, but the weather and the darkness would have favored the knife rather than tire gun. You seem to think that I was all but dead. I could have won!”

  “That’s not the point. We broke the covenant. We lost.” Blackstar was hesitant and unhappy. He was not pressing his point hard enough. He seemed almost ashamed of what he was saying.

  “You’ve never been fond of this war, have you, Alexander? You don’t like being under my command. You don’t approve of Angeline, and you think I’m in the wrong. You think I should have given up the girl when Skywolf first made his insulting demands. You trusted Castanza all right, but you don’t trust me. You’ve no respect at all for what I feel, for what I believe. You’ve made a terrible mistake and you expect me to acknowledge responsibility for it, to suffer for it. I won’t do it, Alexander.”

  Blackstar was not angry. “I’m only second in rank here,” he said. “It’s your war. Do what you want. I’ll fight for you, whether I believe in you or not.”

  “We still have more ships and more men,” said Starflare. “We can win.”

  Starbird threw up his hands. “Ships, men…
they don’t mean anything. This war is a matter of ethics and honor. The question is not whether we can win, but whether we ought even to try. Must I concede the duel as lost? Must I lose the war because a dead man sent a lunatic message. If only Castanza were alive to explain. Surely if I explain to the Beasts what happened, they will understand. They won’t call for me to give up everything I’ve fought for.”

  “You’ll have to ask the Beasts that,” said Blackstar.

  “They won’t want to fight with a lesser force,” said Rain-star. “They’re hound to call for a surrender.”

  “It’s my decision,” said Starbird definitely. “I have to think.”

  He walked away, alone, and walked among the Human ships, speaking to no one. He walked up the slope to the top of the hill, where he had stood before the duel. He could look up into the mountains and see them with clarity for the first time. He stood there for some time before Black-star again judged it wise to approach him.

  “You know I’m right, David,” he said.

  “I know,” sighed Starbird. “But that’s not all there is to consider. How important is right? How important is what I feel? What I have to decide is not what is right, but whether Angeline is more important than what is right.” “You really love the girl, don’t you?”

  “Very much. What would you do, if you had to balance your wife against a matter of ethics?”

  “I don’t know,” said Blackstar. “I hope that there could never be a position where I had to measure Ceara against the code of honor. That you are in such a situation is not altogether your fault, I suppose. I’d like to be sure that I’d follow that advice I’ve given you, but I can’t be sure. It’s a simple matter of measuring thousands of men against an emotion, but the values which you have to compare are yours and yours alone. How much is your love worth to you? How much are Human lives worth to a high lord of the House of Stars?”

  “You make it sound more clear-cut than it is. There’s the matter of loss of face. Do you think any man whose life 1 save by backing down is going to think any more of me for it? He’ll despise me for moral cowardice. No one is going to thank me for saving his life at the expense of what he considers his honor. That’s the trouble: all the men are identifying with the cause. It’s not a matter of Starbird against Skywolf to them. They are beginning to think in terms of Human against Beast. They all imagine themselves to have a personal stake of honor in the outcome of the war.” “I know that,” said Blackstar. “And it is a very dangerous way to think. Thoughts and ideas like that threaten the world we live in. But is it all the more reason for giving up?” “I don’t know.”

  “Remember, David, who you are. A high lord of the galaxy. Heir to the House of Stars, if anything happens to me. You cannot stand alone and take the entire responsibility for a wrong decision. History will judge us all. You’ll not be tire only villain.”

  “History cannot judge. History only knows what happens. It knows nothing about what might have happened. It is a prosecution without a defense. Stop talking in platitudes, Alex. I know what is right and what is wrong. But my choice is not that easy.”

  Martin Hawkangel of Home put a hand on Blackstars shoulder and the high lord moved aside. “Lord Starbird,” said Hawkangel, “we have maintained surveillance on the Beast communications since the battle. They have just appealed to the starworlds for more ships and more men, from wherever they can be spared. They want to replace Stormwind.”

  Starbird was bewildered. “They haven’t called for surrender? They want to continue the war?”

  “Apparently.”

  As Starbird went away with Hawkangel, Blackstar read in his face that the choice had been made. Eagleheart had taken his brother’s decision for him. It was Eagleheart’s war from now on.

  But he did not imagine the real extent of the threat.

  STARFLARE

  James Starflare is the third son of Starcastle of Home.

  He is physically much like Blackstar, but a shade less in every way. His features are coarser, his height a fraction less, his reflexes slower, and he carries his body in a strut rather than a stride.

  Once he even considered himself as a competitor for the affections of Ceara, the girl whom Blackstar married.

  In character, he is a good deal less than any of his brothers. He is full of aggression and the perpetual need to compensate for the fact that his brothers are better men than he. He is often sullen and destructive. He is extremely stubborn and not very clever. He is always very conscious that he cannot hope to equal his older brothers, and he will be perpetually in their shadow.

  Unfortunately, his quest to prove himself does not lead to an actual improvement, as in the case of Richard Storm-wind or Cain Rayshade. Its only positive result is to make him immune to fear and conscience. This conquest denies him the greater qualities of courage and honesty, because without being afraid, he has no need to be brave, and not having a conscience, he is not even honest with himself.

  He is always trying, sincerely but misguidedly, but never succeeds.

  His memories are not happy ones, although he was brought up in the same house, with tire same opportunities and encouragement, as his brothers. There is always a confused impression of frustration and pain which defies sensible interpretation of his childhood years.

  Even his dreams are drab and colorless. They are valiant dreams of success and excellence, but his realism and his pessimism rob them of their flavor and appeal.

  Yet Starflare, for a few brief moments, is to inherit all. He takes Blackstar’s place as the heir to the galaxy, and Starbird’s as Angeline’s lover. But he survives his father only by a matter of minutes, and to become Angeline’s lover he has to take her by force. He is inadequate even for what he does accomplish.

  RAINSTAR

  Christopher Rainstar is the fourth son of Starcastle of Home.

  He is small, but he carries his family’s angular features with characteristic dignity. The only thing which marks him as different is the expression in his eyes, which always seem to be trying to hide. Despite the facial resemblance to his brothers, he is different in many ways. He is closer by far to his younger sister, Dawnstar.

  Like Dawnstar, he is lost in a world of his own: a world compounded of vivid memory and visions of the future, in the midst of which the confusing present only rarely seems to hold any focus of interest. His visions of the future show a very different world to that of his sister’s dreams, and a very different world to that which the present is creating. In his youth it all seemed real and even inevitable; but time has shaken the truth of his images, and he now knows for certain that they are illusions. Yet they are so much a part of him that he has the utmost difficulty denying them.

  His visions show a world where Eagleheart’s war is quickly settled, without the emergence of any major characters save Eagleheart and Skywolf, and without attracting any real attention from those not intimately connected with the affair. So Richard Stormwind and Mark Chaos are hardly ever heard of, Skywolf eventually dies in the arena, and Eagleheart is murdered by his wife. Blackstar, after Star-castle’s death, comes to terms with his task and eventually transforms himself into a great leader, who carries forward Adam December’s great dream of galactic harmony with resolution and success. Blackstar’s own son carries on in the same tradition. Starbird marries Angeline, Starflare is killed in an accident, and Martin Hawkangel marries Dawnstar.

  As time goes by, Rainstar sees his future wrecked by an obstinate present which surges forward in the wrong direction. But his dreams are still vivid and real. Somehow, his resilience and his close relationship with Dawnstar enable him to retain his sanity. But disillusionment gets the better of him after Stareflare’s rape of Angeline, and he deserts the House of Stars altogether, surviving the fall of the city huddled away in some forgotten comer of the galaxy with Ceara, the wife of the dead Blackstar.

  The desertion of the House of Stars at this point is his only substantial action throughout the entire war. In a w
ay it is the direct cause of the fall of the city because his anger leads him to give Mark Chaos the secrets of the defenses which control the dome of omega-energy around the city. This information allows Chaos and Deathdancer to penetrate the city and prepare the alliance with John Mindmyth, which represents the actual betrayal of the House of Stars.

  He is as weak as his father, and his role is not an attractive one, but the burden of the false future which he is forced to live with is a heavy one, and he cannot be blamed too much.

  BLACKSTAR AND THE BEASTS

  During the afternoon, the council of the Beast lords was hastily reassembled when Alexander Blackstar and John Mindmyth walked into the Beast encampment and asked that they should be heard.

  When the Beast lords had gathered, Blackstar spoke. He said: “I am the High Lord Alexander Blackstar of Home, and this is John Mindmyth of Home. I have come to explain to you my reasons for landing the Human fleet last evening, thus breaking the agreement between my brother and the Beast Lord Skywolf of Sula.

  “The truth of the matter is this: I received a message from Juan Castanza, who was in charge of the Lord Star-bird’s ship while Starbird himself was absent. The message was an appeal for help, in urgent tones. I took what steps I could to find out what was wrong, but received no reply. I was faced with the choice of breaking the covenant or refusing an appeal for help from an officer in the Human fleet. As you can see, it was no real choice. I had to trust Castanza and land.

  “When we landed, we found no overt signs that anything was wrong, save one. Juan Castanza was dead, without a mark on him, and without any detectable sign of illness. We still have no idea who or what killed him. But something must have frightened him badly before he died.

  “That is the reason why the Human fleet landed. I do not offer it as an excuse for our action. The code of honor does not admit to the existence of excuses. Had you chosen to claim a victory in the war, we would have been forced to consider your claim with some seriousness. However, that is not what you have chosen to do. You have instead appealed for more ships, with every intention of continuing the war, abandoning the control and discipline which both sides have maintained in the past. Very well, that is your choice. I cannot admire it, and I do not understand what lies behind it. How it can further the cause of Lord Sky-wolf of Sula is quite beyond me. But we have forfeited our right to criticize what you have claimed is a fair retaliation to our landing.