UPON THE MOUNTAINTOP

Several months had passed and much had changed for the increased and solidified Coalition Fleet. As they drew nearer the tri-colonies of his home, Brunner stood upon the bridge of the Kythera now only as an observer. He had been relieved of command after the incident at Rembrandt, and his case had not yet been tried.

But this was only a formality. In the light of recent events, the resulting loss of the Soviets as an ally was now of relatively small importance, while from the standpoint of pride and independence, much had been gained.

Though he had never wanted it, and told himself it meant nothing to him, Brunner had become a national hero. And to the Dutch, so often stoic and reserved, his defiant stand aboard the Icarus had become something of a legend. He found it all exceedingly strange, rather too much of a contrast to the isolation and despair which he had felt such a short time before. And he wondered how many other 'heroes' of the past were simply men who had done what they had to do at the time, thinking (and caring) not at all about posterity.

But such thoughts were very far from him now. He was concerned about the approaching battle; and not at all in the way he always had been before. For one thing his younger brother, who had joined the space navy after the fall of Athena, would be present. He had done what he could to protect him, getting him assigned to a friend's destroyer group, but the added worry was not lessened because of it. Fighter escorts were always in danger, and though Tomas was a good pilot, he had never before flown in combat, and seemed overly determined to make his mark before the war ended.

There was little enough doubt as to who would prevail. The Belgians and Swiss, now bearing the brunt of the U.N. and Commonwealth peace-keeping efforts (nothing like a pang of conscience), had drawn off most of their forces to defend what remained of their original possessions. Word had also been received that the French Elite, under tremendous pressure both home and abroad, had withdrawn from Irish New Belfast, and left it to its original keepers.

What troubled him now was that men on both sides would be killed, to settle a dispute which every day became more academic. The Alliance had been beaten, and yet their pride would not let them surrender without a fight, what had never been theirs. The Coalition was vindicated, but still bitter at its wounds, remained set upon claiming the debt in full. He found both motives equally abhorrent, and had retained enough humanity not to think of himself as East German first, last and always. The words 'us' and 'them' still left an aftertaste.

His one consolation, and it was not a substantial one, was that he himself would play no part in it. His supposed aptitude for (and curiosity about) the ways of war had been more than quenched. If it were humanly possible, he intended to resign from the military immediately after his hearing, and never fight again. His earlier revulsion to bloodshed had returned, redoubled in strength by experience.

It was not easy to put such a past behind him, and the images of victims and violence that had burned indelibly into his memory, still troubled his thoughts of the future. And as he watched his son continue to grow, his one prayer was that Man would finally, finally come to his senses, and have done forever with cooperative mass-murder.

That it was normal for a father to want to spare his son from the pain he himself had experienced, he knew. That in some respects it was impossible, and wrong to try, he also realized. But THIS pain, this Hell, he wished with every ounce of his being could be spared from all the children of men from now until the end of time. His one regret was that there wasn't more he could do to work in that direction. He was no politician, could not even take them seriously…..

"Enemy ships approaching, Colonel. Ninety-six vessels, mostly fighters, fighter-bombers and destroyers, clustered about four light cruisers."

These words, and the ensuing battle-tension on the faces around him, brought him sharply back reality. He moved to stand before the wide sweep of glass and look out at the sea of Space before him. He studied the relatively small force approaching their own, nearly three times as strong.

And beyond them, he saw with love and sudden longing the rose and aqua hues of Athena. His home. And beyond all, the white, crystalline stars: perfect, pure and untouchable, untainted by the follies of men.

"Not much of a force," said Liebenstein to his exec. "And why give battle so far beyond the grids?"

"Perhaps it's only a feint," replied the other.

"Forgive me, Colonel," put in Brunner, turning. "But I believe they mean to give only mock battle and then fire out into warp. It would also explain….."

"Thank you, Captain, that will be more than enough." Liebenstein knew this as well as he, but had wanted to keep the edge of hardness and keen attention among his officers. "Very well, Muller. Order the fleet to spread out, and engage if he's willing."

Seeing with his now practiced eye what was unfolding before him, Brunner felt real hope rise inside him as it had not done for many months. Could it be this easy? Had his long trials at last been rewarded: to retake his home with so little bloodshed?

Then the journey had brought him full circle. It was not far from here that Dubcek (the remembrance saddened him, but he pushed on) had stood before the glass, not so long ago that they had been startled and undone by an Enemy that seemed so strong and unassailable, their own chances against it, so desperate and hopeless. Yet somehow they had found a way. And now…..

His assumptions had been correct. After scarcely twelve minutes of half-hearted fighting, the Alliance vessels began to move off and fire into light-speed. And he sensed also that this was not at all what their High Command had intended. Some Belgian or Swiss general had mercifully disobeyed orders, and given up the colonies with only mock resistance. He looked up again at Athena, and now nothing stood between him and that beautiful orb, filled with life. His HOME

There came the sound of cheering and fraternal congratulation all around him, but he heard none of it. He was completely isolated within his own emotions.

At first he could feel nothing but child-like joy, and a blissful release from care and tension. This feeling grew, and deepened, until he felt himself to be standing atop a high pinnacle, looking down on a vast panorama of mountain, clouds and snow, at other peaks, and other conquerors like himself. But in that moment none stood so high as he, and his heart swelled to bursting with pride and gratitude, and love for all men.

He was home! It was over. He had WON.

But then as this elation, almost sexual, faded, he grew thoughtful and more deeply introspective. And though he tried to stop them, or at least soften them with thoughts of his present happiness, memories began to come back to him of the sorrow and suffering he had seen, and of his comrades who had not survived. And from this same lofty pinnacle, he saw with new and vivid bitterness the full insanity of war.

After all that—-all the fighting, the hanging on, the despair and true heroism, hearts breaking and breaking through….. This plethora of human passions, pushed to their utmost limit, had not worked miracles of unification and achievement, or even brought men to a new understanding. There was nothing positive in any of it. All the battles, death and anguish, had not paid their awful price for good, but merely to resist an evil, and restore things to the way they had already been.

How could anyone rejoice and claim victory? He saw then with melancholy and absolute certainty that no nation anywhere, ever, gained anything lasting from such a war. And though a personal victory might be won, on any national or international scale this was impossible. Human nature was not changed, and the seeds and roots of the scattered weeds were not eradicated, but merely remained beneath the surface, awaiting their chance to rise and reek havoc again.

And the spiritual quota was not even returned to its original starting point. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were dead, many more wounded, maimed, bereft or displaced. And for WHAT?

Nothing had changed.

Nothing had been accomplished.

And nothing was the same.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, whirled angrily. Seeing before him the familiar face of Eric Dobler, a destroyer captain formerly under his command, he tried to relax his features and his mind. But seeing the restive sorrow in the other's face, he suddenly felt a new sense of care and alarm.

"What is it, Eric? What's wrong?"

… "Your brother is dead. He kept asking for you, but there was no time."

Brunner's mouth worked, but no sounds would emerge.

"He asked me to give you a message. To say….. He tried to be like you. That he was sorry. Sorry he had failed….. He couldn't hold them off."

Brunner hung his head in agony and shame. And the words of Joseph Conrad sprang, so easily to his mind, seeming to sum up perfectly this brutal sham of Man's creation. DEAR GOD.

"The horror! The horror!"

And the tears that his wife was so fond of, trickled bitterly down his cheek.

……………………………………………………………… …………………………

EPILOGUE

NIEMAN

Nieman stood leaning over the main ship's console, the sharp lines of its blues, greens and whites reflected in his face. His lean, strong body was wrapped in celluloid black. The face too was hard and sharp, aged beyond illusion but not desire, eyes taut like those of a man with a squadron behind him and no fear of death ahead, but only a smoldering anger that had displaced all other emotion. And emptiness. A fleet of robot ships—-that was enough.

Omega V was gone. Without reason, without warning, an entire system. A synthetic sun that was supposed to last a billion years. While he was away fighting for the lives of others….. He had never trusted the Guardians, though the soft and protected Commonwealth did; and now he would ram it down their throats. Spirit beings! The space they occupied was real enough—-the silver threads like a massive, geometrical spider's web encircling the Hole in Space, the white globes pulsing across them. Hole in Space. That was what THEY called it. An immense dark clot in the sky, so black, with no stars behind it. He would see how untouchable they were.

His hatred had had four long years to smolder. The year of isolation had been longest, training himself to feel nothing, in the face of danger. Even the fourteen odd months of pirating had crawled—-the killing of his crew had been a sad necessity. Then the slow, meticulous construction of the fleet. Human minds were worthless here; they would only be read and turned to jelly with strange fears and false images. Only a close-knit, automatic response to telepathic command, forty fast-black robot ships, were of any use. Why he had chosen black he couldn't say, unless perhaps it was a gut feeling they didn't like it. But the Hole was black….. STOP THESE USELESS THOUGHTS! NEXT YOU'LL BE THINKING OF MARIA.

It was not possible they weren't aware of his opposition. But they seemed to allow such things. . .or perhaps they couldn't stop them. No, that was too much to ask himself to believe. Certainly no one had stopped the fascist uprising, the snowballing of events which had led to interworld war, the slaughter, the death camps. True the Commonwealth had eventually come to grips. But the destruction, the loss of life, could never be justified. So much for Divine intervention.

He had to start closing down his mind, as he had taught himself through the years of emptiness. He wasn't sure how greatly distance mattered, but he was getting close. Already the shimmering outline could be seen on the monitor, the bright specks of racing white. From here the blackness beyond did not seem so dark. But soon it would be Darkness itself, enveloping the sky. It was for the heart of the blackness he aimed. Perhaps it was their only vulnerable point, they guarded it so well. He looked up at the wide portal, and as he expected the visions had begun. A long chute, a cylindrical spiraling of gray and glossy skulls.

He looked away, then remembered. Shook his head sardonically and tightened his face. The images weren't outside, they were inside. He stood atop a geyser of emerald fire. But they couldn't stop his thoughts. "Central computer, phase three," he just managed. Now unless his commands were coded and specific the ships would not respond. He felt his own surge forward, felt the sharp jolt of electric current as for a moment his wired throat cleared the images away.

"Bastards!" He could see them now, closer, breaking away from the strands and coming at him like miniature suns. He felt them probing the mechanized brain. "One-nine three-nine!" And the unreal minds all functioned in a different key. He managed to fire three burst from the left wing before his fingers turned to lizards and were gone.

"AAHH!" Another shock, stronger, and he could see again. He was closer still, the web becoming an expanding grid pocked with dark and geometric holes. His ships crossed and interwove, fired a massive burst. The globes hovered and sometimes blinded him with light, but either could not or would not attack the ships. Their shields were up, but how much that mattered…..

Then his fleet was gone, as if it had never been, and the globes receded. A harder jolt, but somehow he knew this was no illusion. All false images faded. He was himself, without pain, in his own vessel. And the grid was still larger, the growing blackness like wet and physical night behind it. His hands were back on the console and he fired seven bursts, at the racing globes or at the shafts themselves. But each time he fired into nothingness: the lines of brilliance were no longer there. Above, to the side, but not there. And this too was no illusion. He hurled his rage at nothing and no one.

Suddenly a huge black hexagon was before him.

Fear.

His mind began to signal reverse thrust, and only a supreme effort of will overrode it. The blackness he headed toward….. Why did it terrify him so? It was as Fear itself. And suddenly the looming shaft above him appeared not as a barrier, but as the strand of a protective net which covered a great abyss, a hole in living Space. And he was falling through.

"No!" He could not turn back now! This was why he had come. He would destroy them. Somehow! This had to be the key. But they no longer seemed an enemy and this silent, screaming void was no friend. Was it yet too late…..

"NO!" He was inside.

It was cold in that place, through the ship and through the celluloid, and the last thing he saw as he looked back through the monitor was a tightening circle of black, like a swirl of inky cloud, enveloping the Guardians' web.

Then all was dark, but for a sickly and sporadic flashing of the console. He felt a kind of dull dread, a physical weakness, but not yet fear. He had pierced all barriers, and stood at the heart of the nightmare.

Only he could not remember why he had come. No, he remembered. But it did not seem like much of a reason. "Guardians!" His rage would not fire in that place, and the screaming hurt his throat. As the silence hurt his ears.

The ship's momentum had begun to deteriorate, as if such principles did not apply here. This did not startle him. It seemed almost doubly familiar. But then the outer hull began to deteriorate as well—-he could feel it. "It isn't possible." The shields were down, this he knew, but the vessel's outer skin was of pure platinated osmodidium, seven times descended from stainless steel. It resisted heat, friction, impact and atmosphere. But in that cold wet nothing it tinged and flaked as if with rust, was pocked and threw out buds like a face torn by a shotgun. It broke down, came apart, and fell away all around him, leaving him naked and without a ship.

He stood alone in the black without protection. The celluloid and wires were all that remained—-why he couldn't say. For a time his body was suspended, and his feet danced like those of a marionette trying to find the stage. Then they touched bottom on something very hard and smooth. A wide stair. He began to feel suffocated, knew there was no oxygen but this wasn't why. He took a step forward, up another, and the feeling eased, if only slightly. He was as a shark that could never sleep. Unless it kept moving, he would die.

He continued to climb, as the steps got steeper, which was very soon. They were taller, progressing, and he labored on and it was harder and harder to breathe. Finally the stairs were eight feet high and he could go no further. He was almost weeping, feeling lost, when he went to lean against the obstructing wall before him. But it was gone, and he fell forward into grey mists.

He stumbled to the rocky ground—-the rocks were red—-and he found himself in a deep chasm lit and shadowed by a pale sun in a purple sky. Looking up he saw an ancient and abandoned stone fortress upon the heights to his left, with tattered streams of white flying distended circles about it and a sound like the wind wailing but there was no wind. The air was thin and weak.

He suddenly felt exposed there, and sought shelter from the wraiths above among the overhung shadows of the left-hand wall. He hunched to a leaning sit and tried to think very carefully.

He understood. This was his past, and he knew what must be done. A beautiful and wistful woman was imprisoned there, in that place, and he would have her as his own at all costs. And for the first time he felt his aggression not as a flaw, a defense against the void, but as a rightness and a strength, because he knew she needed him. So he stayed very still and waited for the darkness of night. Not that this would blind their sight but because he felt safer in the dark, though not the black. So as the sky lost red and reached its deepest blue, he set out.

He moved out from the overhang to a narrow vertical slit, a long scar in the rockface. He climbed slowly and determinedly, sure of each step and never making a sound. He reached and sweated and pulled, till he was nearly halfway up.

Then suddenly the wraiths were aware of him and streaked down from the high walls with a shrieking wail that was horrible to hear. They reached him, swirled about him and gnashed their sharp teeth from mouths that were like bats' mouths and screamed their terrible scream. He reached with one arm to ward them off, nearly fell. He found his grip and seized a stone and hurled it at the nearest. It went clean through, and he nearly fell again.

But then, as he hung by one hand, vulnerable, the screaming increased and they came closer but did not finish him. Then he realized that they could not. They were as fear, and could not physically harm him, but only make him do the things to harm himself. So he cautiously recovered himself, stood firmly on the tiny ledge, and put them from his mind. There might be other obstacles to reach her, but these he would not fear.

He reached up and continued to climb as the noise died away and only a ghost image of the wraiths remained frozen in the air. Climbing steadily, he had almost reached a level with the first buttress—-one last knot of stone—-when a low studded door burst open from the darkness of the wall to the extreme right, and four black wolves poured out and rushed headlong toward the place where he would emerge above the cliffs, and he was hard pressed to reach it before they did.

These were no illusion. He leapt to his feet and pulled the long knife from its sheath as the first was upon him. One back-slash with the blade as he dropped to a knee and it fell dying before him, its throat cut. The others closed as he rose again and they snarled and tore as he kicked and slashed, and after a time two more were dead but his legs were badly marked and it was hard to stand, and he fell to the ground.

Then the last, the largest, which had bided its time was upon him, going for his throat. The knife had fallen away and he reached up with his hands to grab it around the neck and try to pull it off. He succeeded partially, raising himself halfway; but it was soon at him again, tearing at the side of his face. Driven by an overpowering rage, he seized it just below the ear and dragged it away until he had its neck firmly in his two hands, and squeezed and kicked until the wolf moved no more. He let it fall to the ground as he rose, and sullenly brushed the dirt from him and strained his eyes to focus on the dark castle before him.

There was only one entrance, near to the small door which had emitted the wolves, locked tight upon their demise. There it was: a vast arch guarded by a spiked portcullis. To his amazement as he came forward he saw that the grid was raised, the way open.

He stepped toward it cautiously, came to it, looked about him for some kind of trap. But he found none, passed through and entered a long corridor, which led in time to a double-door upon his right. He entered a broad chamber of half-light, knowing he had reached the heart of the Castle. He entered.

A lone figure sat in a heavy throne at its head, a circled fire to one side, an enormous leopard chained to an iron ring on the other. Six doors stood silent at the back of the chamber.

"Hello Nieman," said the bald figure from its throne. The firelight distorted his features, but the fat and sneering visage would have been ugly in any light. He wore a mantle of crimson, edged in gold.

"Where is she?" he demanded.

"Not so fast," spoke the other calmly. "I am not a person to offend."

"I'm not afraid of you."

The mouth gave a dry, humorless laugh. "Do you know who I am?" He twisted a ring around his fat finger with the opposite hand.

"I know what you're called," retorted Nieman, his anger growing. "The ancients called you daemon. Religious fools say you're the Devil."

"And what do you say?" It turned the ring more quickly.

"That you don't exist. I am talking to myself." He looked to the row of doors, tried to feel her presence among the stone. He stepped toward the second in line.

"Stop!" cried the visage, which he ignored. He pulled open the door as the great cat broke free of its chains and came after him. It rushed and leapt full in his face. But he had turned; he caught it in mid-air and hurled it against the wall. It gave a cry of pain and alarm, crashed to the floor senseless, where he left it. He was tired of killing.

"Fool!" cried the god. "Do you still doubt me?"

"The servant is real but the master a dream." He paid no further attention as the visage dissolved into excrement. But the fire remained.

The way before him was too dark to see, so he went back to the entrance and pulled a torch from its mount just inside the arch. He returned to the door, and looked inside.

He entered a shallow stone hallway which ended in a tight spiral of stairs, leading downward. His torch was the only light. He descended slowly, the way cramped and his legs tight and bleeding, and after perhaps three hundred steps came upon a long catacomb, which he entered from a recessed hole in its side. The way was thick with webs which he brushed aside with is free hand, as he stepped out silently into the endless row of tombs.

She had to be there, somewhere: the way the shadows played upon the walls, the branching crypts and long row of stone caskets. The way his shadow-self stalked behind him, so tall.

He walked a long way, silent but for the sounds of his moving, then heard something like a faint groan of pain, unmistakably feminine, to his left and a short way ahead. He moved towards it, thrust the torch ahead of him and into a high, wide antechamber like a small cathedral, several caskets deep. He heard the sound again, this time a cry of terror and alarm, and strained his eyes to see. He moved closer, wedged the torch between two caskets and looked to the front of the chamber.

And there she was, the love of his life: above an altar, mounted halfway up the wall behind it, spread like a crucifix, arms and legs bound by iron shackles, garment torn, a hideous mask covering her face and spreading out in huge lizard's fins an arm's length wide. Only her eyes were visible, wide with terror, pleading against the act sure to come.

"Please, no. No. . .God. Please, I beg you. Please." And she lost all control and wept bitterly. He lowered his head, his heart torn apart.

"Don't cry, I won't hurt you." He stumbled for words, inadequate. "I haven't come to hurt you, I swear it….. By everything that is and isn't sacred I make this vow: that I will be to you whatever you need me to be, that I will never leave you, and that the day I knowingly cause you pain I will be the instrument of my own destruction. Please, don't cry."

He felt the tears pushing at his eyes, but would not leave her there a moment longer. He shook off emotion, climbed onto the altar and lifted the heavy mask from its hook above her head, set it quietly beside him.

Her deep, gentle face looked out at him with disbelieving gratitude and love. It was cut in several places from the short spikes which lined the inside of the mask; but as she had remained very still the damage was not deep. He found an iron bar leaned against the ground, remounted the altar and began to pry away the rusted bands. It was not possible to do so without hurting her, but she bit her lip and endured the pain.

And as the last shackle came off her wrist she slid into his arms. And suddenly she knew him, and trusted him, and he embraced her heavily, weeping. She returned the affection weakly, touching the back of his neck with her fingers. He had never felt this way, nor ever thought he could. The tears would not stop.

"I'm so glad I found you," he stammered. "Dear God, I'm glad. What if….. What if I had never found you?" He stepped back, and an incomprehensible horror engulfed him.

The words echoed all around him, down the row of tombs, endless.

"Never found you. Never found you. Never found….." And with a sudden fearful burst like the realization of death, he remembered. Remembered where he was, and understood. Dear God, he understood.

She slipped back out of his grasp as darkness poured into the room. Like reverse action she was back upon the wall, the iron hoops replacing themselves. The mask was up and she was crying. Her blood flowed gently down the spikes.

"NO!"

But the room began to spin, to break into fragments, and she was gone. He floated again in the cold wet nothing, the world without order or hope. He shrank into a weeping ball and clutched his head with his hands, lost as he had never been lost.

But then to his bewilderment, he began to feel a weight of substance around him, a materializing structure: his ship was coming back. A floor, walls, then the hull returned, and he knelt in the familiar control room, looking up at the monitor. The inky black was patching, broke, and he could see the outline of a vast web. This time he did not fight as the ship drew closer, and closer still. A great silver shaft was above him. . .and he emerged once more into the present, living, and unchangeable world.

At a distance of two hundred miles he turned his ship around, back to face the Guardians. There the vessel stood still in Space, as a single globe approached him from out of the glowing network. It came very close, filling all the screen, but was silent. Thinking it a messenger, he addressed it with words.

"All right," he said, broken at the last. "All right, you helped me find her. The one miracle of my life. I am grateful." The white sphere did not react. "But if you have that power, then you could have saved her life….. No. I left her." The realization staggered him. "I….. But now I have learned. I respect you. Bring her back. Please. . .bring her back." He began to sob without tears.

"PLEASE."

At that moment the sphere glowed with a blinding light. It might have been an unreadable message. It might have been a warning, or a gesture of peace. But whatever it was or was not, it remained beyond human understanding. It could not change the past or help him now.

As the globe receded he turned the ship again, bewildered, and flew toward unfamiliar stars.

The End