The Chaos Weapon by Colin Kapp Read Free Book Online

goal, its dark waters reflecting the random lights fromthe streets along the farther bank. He searched for a ferry, but instead came upon a bridge. It was a wide and ornate bridge, but unlit and probably seldom used, underscoring what his space survey had told him about the city’s isolation. As he started across the bridge the god on his shoulder shifted expectantly, as if it read something of menace in the strange city beyond.
    Wildheit had left the crawler near the patrol-ship, about six kilometers out. Experience had taught him that a space-marshal gained fewer enemies in a strange community if he made a quiet approach on foot rather than arriving with a full show of strength. Surely a man who walked to his destination appeared less ominous than one who came in an armored crawler fully capable of resolving a major outworld war. He paid for this philosophy with aching feet and a broad pain in his left shoulder where the brown, leathery, insubstantial god gripped with an inseparable attachment.
    As he traversed the bridge, his emotions were mixed. Social contact with a space culture as isolated as that of the Sensitives presented a psychological mountain he was ever tired of climbing. The tremendous adjustments of insight and outlook needed to adapt to a strange set of mores, beliefs, and circumstances was for him the equivalent of an intellectual death and rebirth. Nowhere, even on Terra, would he ever meet anyone able to appreciate his own peculiar views of the galaxy and its peoples. Always the onus was on him to hunt for sense and clues in any given situation, and to bring his perception down to within the narrow constraints imposed by a crucially limiting environment. Though practice had given him proficiency in the art, repetition had done nothing to lessen the mental torment of the experience.
    In front of him on the farther bank he began to make out namesigns written in Alpha Intergalactic characters. This suggested the dominant tongue would be a dialect of one of the thirty-seven space languages he had permanently memorized for use on assignmentsround the stars. As he walked, Wildheit called up the mnemonics relating to the Alpha tongues and tried to refresh his memory. Even from across the water it was obvious that the city was less advanced than his space survey at first had suggested. Here was a fair example of arrested pretechnological development, although there was abundant evidence of the use of electricity for lighting. Such an anachronism was not uncommon in communities founded by dissident colonists after the Great Exodus from Terra.
    The end of the bridge was guarded by twin gatehouses and a barbed metal gate. The structure itself proclaimed an element of paranoia and at the same time defined the technological capabilities of those it was designed to exclude. Wildheit estimated that given the necessity he could have taken such defenses without even breaking stride. At the gate he grasped the knotted summons rope. This evoked a gaunt bell so massive that its chime must have awakened half the city.
    Old lamps were lit above his head, dim and inefficient, yet driving back the shades from the square before the gate.
    “Who are you, who dare come in darkness?”
    “Space-Marshal Wildheit out from Terra on the orders of the Galactic Council. I wish to speak with someone in authority about a Chaos seer.”
    “You’re from outworld? You are forbidden to land.”
    “I have already landed. I’m on Federation business.”
    “Mayo doesn’t recognize the Federation.”
    “That’s unimportant. We protect you, nonetheless.”
    “Come back in daylight. I’ll see if anyone wishes to talk with you.”
    “Find someone now. I’ve traveled far, and the matter’s too urgent for delay.”
    “Wait, then. I’ll see what can be done.”
    Wildheit turned to the parapet and seated himself upon it, marveling at the naiveté of a community whichapparently believed security could be guaranteed by an iron gate.
    About