City of Golden Shadow (74 page)

"I'm . . . I'm not sure how I got here," he said. "I've had a head injury, I think. I found the boy . . . actually, I don't remember very well. You'll have to ask him. In any case, there was some trouble, I remember that, and we escaped. First thing I really remember is floundering in the Great Canal."

"Well, doesn't that trump all," said Brummond, but he sounded less than astonished, as though this kind of thing happened rather frequently in his vicinity.

Bagwalter, on the other hand, seemed quite pleased to have something around which to base an inquiry, and to Paul's discomfort and Hurley Brummond's great disgust, spent the next half hour questioning him closely.

Paul was finishing his second throat-burning brandy and feeling a little more relaxed when the professor returned to the subject that seemed to interest him most. "And you say you've seen this Vonari woman before, but you don't remember where or when."

Paul nodded. "I just . . . know."

"Maybe she was your fiancée," offered Brummond. "Yes, I'll bet that's it!" After sitting in bored silence for some time, he had suddenly warmed to the subject matter. "Maybe you were injured trying to protect her from the Soombar's guards. They're heavy-handed fellows, you know, and pretty nimble with those scimitarish noggin-loppers of theirs. That time they were going to pop Joanna into the Soombar's seraglio-well, I had my hands full and then some."

"Hurley, I wish. . . ." the professor began, but Brummond was not to be held back. His blue eyes sparkled, and his golden hair and beard seemed almost to crackle with static electricity,

"Joanna-she's my fiancée, the professor's daughter. I know, I know, damn presumptuous to call one's fiancée's father 'Bags,' but the professor and I had been through a great deal before I ever met Joanna." He waved his hand. "She's back at camp with The Temperance right now, laying in supplies for an expeditionary voyage we're going to make to the interior. That's why I chased after you, to tell the truth. If you'd been good old Kedgeree Kirk, I was going to offer you a place in the crew."

"Hurley. . . ." said the professor with some irritation.

"In any case, it seems like every time I turn around, one of these green-skinned wallahs is trying to abduct Joanna. She's a sturdy gal, and admirable as all get out, but it's really a bit much. And monsters-I can't tell you how many times I've had to pull her out of some squanch-hole or other. . . ."

"For goodness sakes, Hurley, I'm trying to ask Mister Jonas some questions."

"Look here, Bags, just for once you've got to let go of all this science twaddle. This poor fellow's fiancée has been kidnapped by the priests and they're going to sacrifice the girl! They've beaten him so badly that he can hardly remember his own name! And you'd just as soon poke and prod him as offer him any help, wouldn't you?"

"Here now," said the professor, taken aback.

"I'm not sure. . . ." Paul began, but Hurley Brummond stood up, unfolding to the full extent of his impressive height.

"Don't you worry, lad," he said, and almost knocked Paul across the table with a comradely crack on the back. "I'll ask around-there's more than a few, both green and white, who owe a favor to Brummond of Mars. Yes, that's just what I'll do. Bags, I'll meet you both in back of the club at sundown."

He was gone from the room in three strides, leaving Paul and the professor almost breathless.

"He's a good lad," Bagwalter said at last. "Tough as nails and big-hearted. And my Joanna loves him dearly." He took a sip of his sherry. "But I do wish sometimes he weren't so damned stupid."

Far across the desert, the sun had almost disappeared behind the distant mountains, going to its rest contented after a long day scorching the upturned face of Mars. The last rays struck crimson glints from all of Tuktubim's windows and translucent spires.

From the balcony at the back of the Ares Club, Paul stared down the hillside on what seemed to be a vast scatter of rubies and diamonds. For a moment, he wondered if this place could be the home he had sought. It was strange, but somehow quite familiar as well. He could not remember where he had been last, but he knew it had been somewhere different-there had been several somewheres in his past, he felt sure-and even without the specific memories, he felt rootless weariness in his bones and thoughts.

"Look at that!" said Gally, pointing. Not far away a huge flying ship, similar in shape to the ceremonial barges they had seen on the Great Canal, was slowly rising past the towertops into the evening sky, guide ropes dangling. Hundreds of dark shapes moved on its decks and in the complicated rigging. Lanterns glowed along its length, dozens of bright-burning points. The barge almost seemed to be a living constellation sprung from the vaults of the night.

"It's beautiful." Paul looked down. Gally was rapt, wide-eyed, and Paul felt something like pride that he had protected this boy, had brought him safely out of . . . out of. . . ? It was useless-the memory would not come. "It's too bad Klooroo didn't stay to see this," he continued. "But I suppose it's all very familiar to him." Klooroo of the Fisher People, perhaps feeling he had fulfilled his promise once Paul had discovered other Earthmen, had brought Gally back from the bazaar and then headed off to his shanty town beside the canal. "Still, he was kind to us, and I was sad to see him go."

"He was only a nimbor," said Gally dismissively.

Paul stared at the boy, who was still raptly watching the airship. The remark seemed oddly out of character, as though Gally had absorbed some of the attitudes of those around him.

"Wind from the desert tonight." Professor Bagwalter released a thin stream of smoke from his lips, then screwed his cigar back into the corner of his mouth. "It will be hotter tomorrow."

Paul found that hard to imagine. "I don't want to keep the boy up too late. Do you think Mister Brummond is going to be here soon. . . ?"

The professor shrugged. "You never can tell with Hurley." He produced and examined his pocketwatch. "He's only a quarter of an hour late. I shouldn't worry."

"It's flying away!" said Gally. The large airship was disappearing into the growing darkness. Only the lights were visible now, bright pinpoints growing ever smaller.

Bagwalter smiled at the boy, then turned to Paul. "The little fellow tells me you rescued him from a place called the Eight Squares or something. Was that back on Earth?"

"I don't know. I told you, my memory is bad."

"The boy says it's just down the Great Canal, but I haven't heard of any such place here and I've done a lot of traveling." His voice was light, but the shrewd eyes were again watching Paul closely. "He also said something about the Black Ocean, and I can promise you there's nothing like that here."

"I don't know." Paul felt his voice rising, but could not make it sound normal. Gally turned from the balcony railing to look at him, eyes wide. "I just don't remember! Anything!"

Bagwalter removed his cigar and stared at the smoldering tip, Then lifted his eyes to Paul's once more. "No need to get worked up, old man. I'm being a bit of a bore, I know. It's just that there were some rather odd fellows asking questions at the club a few days ago. . . ."

"Look out below!"

Something whizzed between them and hit the balcony floor with a loud slap. It was a rope ladder, and it seemed to have dropped onto them from nowhere. Stunned, Paul looked up. A shape hovered overhead, like a dark cloud in the otherwise clear sky. A head poked out, peering down at them.

"Hope I didn't hit anyone! Damnably hard to keep this thing steady."

"It's Mister Brummond!" said Gally, delighted. "And he has a flying ship, too!"

"Climb up!" shouted Brummond. "Hurry-no time to waste!"

Gally went up the ladder, shinnying as quickly as a spider. Paul hesitated, still not quite sure what was happening.

"Go on," said the professor kindly. "It does no good-once Hurley's got a bee in his bonnet, there's no stopping him."

Paul grabbed the swaying ladder and began to climb. Halfway to the waiting airship he paused, beset by a kind of spiritual vertigo. There was something tragically familiar in this situation, leaving one barely understood place to scramble toward another, even less comprehensible refuge.

"Would you mind moving on," Bagwalter said gently from below. "I'm not getting any younger, and I'd just as soon be off this ladder as quickly as possible."

Paul shook his head and resumed his climb. Brummond was waiting at the top, and pulled him over the railing with a single tug.

"What do you think of this little beauty, eh, Jonas?" he asked. "I told you there were a few favors I could call in. Let me show you around-she's a lovely piece of work, fast as a bird, quiet as grass growing. She'll do the job for us, you'll see."

"What job?" Paul was getting tired of asking questions.

"What job?" Brummond seemed dumbfounded. "Why, we're going to rescue your fiancée! At dawn she goes to a special cell underneath the Soombar's palace, and then it'll be too late, so we're taking her out tonight! Only a dozen guards, and we probably won't have to kill more than half of them."

Before Paul could do more than open his mouth and close it again, Brummond had sprung away to the airship's oddly shaped, ornately carved wheel. He pulled on it, and the ship rose so swiftly that Paul almost fell from his seat. The city dwindled below them.

"For the honor of your lady, Jonas!" Brummond shouted. His golden hair fluttered in the strong wind of their ascent; his grin was a glinting spot in the gloom. "For the honor of our dear old Earth!"

With mounting discomfort, Paul realized that they were in the hands of a madman.

CHAPTER 25

NETFEED/NEWS; DA Cries foul As "Snipe" Case Dropped

(visual: Azanuelo holding press conference)

VO: Dallas County District Attorney Carmen Azanuelo said that the defection and disappearance of witnesses from her landmark murder prosecution is "the clearest example of subversion of justice since the Crack Baron trial."

(visual: Defendants at arraignment)

The prosecution of six men, including two ex-police officers, for the murder of hundreds of street children, often called "snipes," excited tremendous controversy because of the allegations that local merchants hired the men as a "death squad" to keep the upscale areas of Dallas-Fort Worth free of street children,

(visual: children panhandling in Marsalis Park)

Prosecutions for "snipe-hunting" in other American cities have also had trouble obtaining convictions.

AZANUELO: "They have intimidated, kidnapped, or killed our witnesses, often with help from elements inside the police department. They are murdering children on the streets of America, and they're getting away with it. It's as simple as that. . . ."

Good heavens, Papa, will you quit complaining?"

"I'm not complaining, girl. I'm just asking."

"Over and over again." Renie took a breath, then bent to try to pull the strap tight on the suitcase again. Few of their possessions had survived the fire, and the confusion of recent events had left Renie no time for shopping, but they still seemed to have more things than they did storage. "We're not safe here in this shelter. Anyone can find us. I've told you a hundred times, Papa, we're in danger."

"That's the damned silliest thing I ever heard." He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head as if to banish the whole concept into the oblivion it deserved.

Renie fought a powerful urge to give up, to stop fighting. Maybe she should just sit down beside her father and join him in wishing the real world away. There was a freedom in being obstinate, the freedom of ignoring unpleasant truths. But someone finally had to acknowledge those truths-and that someone was usually her.

She sighed. "Get up, you old troublemaker. Jeremiah's going to be here any moment."

"I'm not going nowhere with no girly-man."

"Oh, for God's sake." She bent over, pulled the strap tight across the straining suitcase, and secured it on the magnetic tab. "If you say one stupid thing to Jeremiah, just one stupid thing, I'm going to leave you and your bloody suitcase by the side of the road."

"What kind of way is that to talk to your father?" He glowered at her from under his brows. "That man attacked me. He tried to strangle my throat."

"He came looking for me in the middle of the night and you two had a fight. You were the one who went and got a knife."

"That's right." Long Joseph's face brightened. "Hoo-hoo, that's right. And I was going to cut him up for damn good, too. Teach him to come sneaking round my place."

Renie sighed again. "Just remember, he's doing us a big favor. I'm on half-pay while I'm suspended, Papa, remember? So we're lucky to find somewhere to go at all. There isn't supposed to be anyone living in that house until they sell it. Do you understand that? Jeremiah could get in trouble, but he wants to help me track down the people who did this to Susan, so he's helping us."

"Okay, okay." Long Joseph waved his hand, indicating that as usual, she was underestimating his social graces. "But if he comes sneaking in my room at night and try to get mannish with me, I knock off his head."