Chapter XV

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

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

Had he ruled harshly, or was it just jealousy? And was it, really, as some 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 a public 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 the Viceroy returned his smile. "Well, everything went off well enough without you," said Sir Martin.

"Any sign of trouble?"

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

"Damn!" the Viceroy interrupted savagely. "I should have known! What have 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 are coming over." He chuckled softly. "We thought we might talk you out of a meal."

The Viceroy grinned widely. "Nothing easier. I suspected all you hangers-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 of the Viceroy. At least, it is certain that they were friends in so far as they had no part in the assassination plot. It was a gay party; the Viceroy's friends were doing their best to cheer him up, and were succeeding pretty well. One of the nobles, known for his wit, had just essayed a somewhat off-color jest, and the others were roaring with laughter 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 from the 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 people seated around the table that the shout was true. For a moment, there was shock. 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 the assassins with ease.

But no one ran to lock the doors that stood between the Viceroy and his enemies, and only a few drew their weapons to defend him. The others fled. Getting out of a window from the second floor of a building isn't easy, but fear can lend wings, and, although none of them actually flew down, the retreat went fast enough.

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

But there wasn't even an opportunity to get into the armor. The rebel band 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 had appointed 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 Martin and the Viceroy moved to meet the oncoming attackers.

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

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

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

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

And, in the moment while the Viceroy's weapon was buried to the hilt in an enemy's body, the others leaped around the dying man and ran their blades 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 he propped himself up on one arm, the assassins stood back; even they recognized 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 pierced throat and then fell forward across the stone floor. With his crimson hand, he traced the great symbol of his Faith on the stone--the Sign of the 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 to kill him with treachery, something all the hell of nine years of conquest 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 with being a "reader cheater"--_i.e._, that it does not play fair with the reader, but leads him astray by means of false statements. Naturally, I feel 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 the story; indeed, I'd be the last to deny it, since I _intended_ that you should be misled. What I most certainly _do_ deny is any implication that such misleading was accomplished by the telling of untruths. A fiction writer is, _by definition_, a professional liar; he makes his living by telling interesting lies on paper and selling the results to the highest bidder for publication. Since fiction writing is my livelihood, I cannot and will not deny that I am an accomplished liar--indeed, almost an habitual one. Therefore, I feel some small pique when, on the one occasion on which I stick strictly to the truth, I am accused 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" and show that the statements made are perfectly valid. (Please note that I do not claim any absolute accuracy for such details as quoted dialogue, except that none of the characters lies. I simply contend that the story is as accurate as any other good historical novelette. I also might say here that any resemblance between "Despoilers" and any story picked at random from the late lamented _Planet Stories_ is purely intentional and carefully contrived.)

Take the first sentence:

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

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

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

A few paragraphs later, I said:

"Without power, neither Civilization nor the Empire could hold itself together, and His Universal Majesty, the Emperor Carl, well knew it. And power 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 the Sixteenth Century, that's what almost anyone would have meant. If you chose to interpret it as meaning "energy per unit time," why, that's real tough.

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

The "Emperor Carl" was, of course, Charles V, who also happened to be King of Spain, and therefore Pizarro's sovereign. I Germanicized his name, as I did the others--Francisco Pizarro becomes "Frank," et cetera--but this is perfectly legitimate. After all, the king's name in Latin, which was used in all state papers, was _Carolus_; the Spanish called 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, it is a direct translation of the Greek term, _Ekklesia Katholikos_, and is actually a better translation than "Catholic Church," since the English word _church_ comes from the Greek _kyriakon_, meaning "the house of the Lord"--in other words, a church _building_, not the organization as a whole.

Toward the end of Chapter One, I wrote:

"Throughout the Empire, research laboratories worked tirelessly at the problem of transmuting commoner elements into Gold-197, but thus far none of the processes was commercially feasible."

I think you will admit that the alchemists never found a method of transmuting the elements--certainly none which was commercially feasible.

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

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

"Due to atmospheric disturbances, the ship's landing was several hundred miles 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 Sixteenth Century Spanish galleon was built for atmospheric navigation.

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

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

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

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

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

In other words, I contend that I simply did what any other good detective story writer tries to do--mislead the reader without lying to him. Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," for instance, uses the device of telling the story from the murderer's viewpoint, in the first person, without revealing that he _is_ the murderer. Likewise, John Dickson Carr, in his "Nine Wrong Answers" finds himself forced to deny that he has lied to the reader, although he admits that one of his characters certainly lied. Both Carr and Christie told the absolute truth--within the framework of the story--and left it to the reader to delude himself.

It all depends on the viewpoint. The statement, "We all liked Father Goodheart very much" means one thing when said by a member of his old parish in the United States, which he left to become a missionary. It means something else again when uttered by a member of the tribe of cannibals 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, and another to a historian. Semantics, anyone?

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

Let me quote:

"Mentally, the commander went through the symbol-patterns that he had learned as a child--the symbol-patterns that brought him into direct contact with the Ultimate Power, the Power that controlled not only the spinning of atoms and the whirling of electrons in their orbits, but the workings of probability itself."

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

So is the following:

"Once indoctrinated into the teachings of the Universal Assembly, any man could tap that power to a greater or lesser degree, depending on his mental control and ethical attitude. At the top level, a first-class adept could utilize that Power for telepathy, psychokinesis, levitation, teleportation, and other powers that the commander only vaguely understood."

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

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

The regular reader of Astounding may remember that I gave another example of the technique of truthful misdirection in "The Best Policy," (July, 1957). An Earthman, captured by aliens, finds himself in a position in which he is unable to tell even the smallest lie. But by telling the absolute truth, he convinces the aliens that _homo sapiens_ is a race of super-duper supermen. He does it so well that the aliens surrender without attacking, even before the rest of humanity is aware of their existence.

The facts in "Despoilers of the Golden Empire" remain. They _are_ facts. Francisco Pizarro and his men--an army of less than two hundred--actually _did_ inflict appalling damage on the Inca armies, even if they were outnumbered ten to one, and with astonishingly few losses of their own. They did it with sheer guts, too; their equipment was not too greatly superior to that of the Peruvians, and by the time they reached the Great Inca himself, none of the Peruvians believed that the invaders were demons or gods. But in the face of the Spaniards' determined onslaught, they were powerless.

The assassination scene at the end is almost an exact description of what happened. It _did_ take a dozen men in full armor to kill the armorless Pizarro, and even then it took trickery and treachery to do it.

Now, just to show how fair I was--to show how I scrupulously refrained from lying--I will show what a sacrifice I made for the sake of truth.

If you'll recall, in the story, the dying Pizarro traces the Sign of the Cross on the floor in his own blood, kisses it, and says "_Jesus!_" before he dies. This is in strict accord with every history on the subject I could find.

But there is a legend to the effect that his last words were somewhat different. I searched the New York Public Library for days trying to find one single historian who would bear out the legend; I even went so far as to get a librarian who could read Spanish and another whose German is somewhat better than mine to translate articles in foreign historical journals for me. All in vain. But if I _could_ have substantiated the legend, the final scene would have read something like this:

Clawing at his sword-torn throat, the fearless old soldier brought
his hand away coated with the crimson of his own blood. Falling
forward, he traced the Sign of the Cross on the stone floor in
gleaming scarlet, kissed it, and then glared up at the men who
surrounded him, his eyes hard with anger and hate.

"I'm going to Heaven," he said, his voice harsh and whispery. "And
_you_, you _bastards_, can go to _Hell_!"

It would have made one hell of an ending--but it had to be sacrificed in the interests of Truth.

So I rest my case.

I will even go further than that; I defy anyone to point out a single out-and-out lie in the whole story. G'wan--I _dare_ ya!

(SECRET ASIDE TO THE READER; J. W. C., Jr., PLEASE DO _NOT_ READ!)

Ah, but wait! There _is_ a villain in the piece!

_I_ did not lie to you, no. But you were lied to, all the same.

By whom?

By none less than that conniving arch-fiend, John W. Campbell, Jr., that's who!

Wasn't it he who bought the story?

And wasn't it he who, with malice aforethought, published it in a package which was plainly labeled Science Fiction?

And, therefore, didn't you have every right to think it _was_ science fiction?

Sure you did!

I am guilty of nothing more than weakness; my poor, frail sense of ethics collapsed completely at the sight of the bribe he offered me to become a party to the dark conspiracy that sprang from the depths of his own demoniac mind. Ah, well; none of us is perfect, I suppose.

DAVID GORDON.

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from _Astounding Science Fiction_ March
1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.