Fall of the White Ship Avatar (9 page)

Alacrity toyed with his food for a second, then slumped his shoulders. "You're right as you can be.

When can I meet Vinzix?"

"Any time you like. He's here at Ends Well just at the moment, as a houseguest. What I propose is that you and Hobart go freshen up while I fill him in. He and I were planning on playing a round or two of rovers this afternoon; if you two would care to come along, we could all discuss strategy. Er, do either of you play?"

Alacrity shook his head. "Never had the time. Besides, it's a rich folks' game. But it'd be nice to stretch our legs; we've been cooped up in a little padded trash-can for—anyway, for way too long."

Floyt, bewildered, inquired, "What's 'rovers'?"

CHAPTER 5—BAND OF ANGELS, COMIN' AFTER US

Rovers wasn't the game it had been back in medieval Terra, but when he was reminded of its origins, Floyt the history buff recognized it at once. The Ancients had played it, a sort of forerunner to golf.

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Millennia before, archers would go afield over a prearranged course, firing arrows from a given point to a particular target, the shots selected for their difficulty and the challenge they presented. From there they'd fire to the next, and so on over the course.

Rovers has changed a lot,
observed Floyt, watching the approach of Lord Marcus Perlez and the Darwin's Star autochthon, Vinzix.
For one thing, I don't remember anything about the Ancients having
robot caddies.

Or at least that was what it appeared to be, floating along behind Perlez, a chunky thing that was mostly torso, riding a compact hoverunit. It looked like a cross between a mirrored chiffonier and one of Lord Marcus's prized jukeboxes.

Marcus had on the traditional get-up: A sporty kilt with an orange-and-green plaid that seemed to be made of light-bulb filament, complete with a sporran covered with some sunset-coral fur. A jaunty purple tam-o'-shanter sat low on his brow. He also wore blinding argyle socks, cleated shoes with tassels on them, and a shirt of rather rakish see-through beige cobweb.

Vinzix was a different matter. Alacrity looked the humanoid over, trying to keep an open mind about Dars.

Vinzix was a whisker or two shorter than Alacrity. The native of Darwin's Star was startlingly humanlike, with the look of some impossibly Olympian ideal, like all of them. His splendid bronze skin fairly shot the light of Cornucopia back into their eyes; his shoulders were wide, wider than a human's could've been for his height, and if they weren't articulated exactly like a
Homo sapien's
, they were no less impressive: muscular bundles, striated and vascular. Vinzix's torso was short, narrowing almost absurdly to a tiny waist, but his legs and arms were long and well defined. He had too many fingers with too many joints, the way Floyt saw it, including some kind of little extra bottomside thumb. He smelled like polishing fluid.

Vinzix's face was like something that belonged among the long-vaporized images of Mount Rushmore, except that the forehead was eerily high and the eyes unnervingly backset and unblinking. There was also the fact that the Dar's mouth appeared to run halfway around his head.

Vinzix wore only a winding of stuff that looked like woven bugle-beads and a kind of baldric that held a pouch at his hip.

Three women walked along behind Vinzix and Lord Marcus, barefoot on the soft-carpet turf of the First Castway, wearing the revealing glowtulle livery of Ends Well. Floyt almost waved and called greetings to Tomasina and Callisto, but it came to him that neither was necessarily present; such were Lord file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (43 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12

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Marcus's staff. One of the three women held the
bansai
buffalo, Larrup.

Lord Marcus Perlez waved at the two happily as he and Vinzix approached, but the humanoid made no greeting. Alacrity wasn't surprised; Dars were notoriously condescending creatures who seemed to work at being arrogant and offensive. Alacrity speculated on how long Marcus had known him and how well the nobleman understood the Dar's language.

"Yes, yes, yes, ideal weather, eh?" Perlez said heartily as he and Vinzix joined Alacrity and Floyt on the first release point. The little robo floating along behind swiveled its head at Vinzix and hiss-popped a translation in the language of the natives of Darwin's Star. Vinzix listened impassively.

That explains a lot,
Alacrity thought; the little machine was programmed as translator. Alacrity spotted where the linguistic junk probably went. The head wasn't very anthropomorphic, running more to receptors and pickups than smiles; it looked like it had directional sound. Its several arm appendages were folded up close to its torso. It was giving Vinzix a running, low-volume translation.

"Yes, the weather's fine, quite," Floyt said amicably, adjusting the floppy
petasos
sunhat he'd borrowed; the afternoon had gotten warmer. Alacrity nodded.

Vinzix hiss-popped something to the robot, which it dutifully translated. "Yes, it's a suitable day."

Alacrity knew enough about the Dar's language to know that the robocaddie was running a very sophisticated translation program, possibly something the Union of Species had worked up. Vinzix's reply, from the little Alacrity could get, was layered with sarcasms, insults, and threats—the sort Dars always used in dealing with other species.

"Nice robo," Alacrity said to Lord Marcus.

"Yes. Albrecht is a wonderful little fellow, the latest thing," Marcus answered absently, shading his eyes with his hand and studying the first castway. "With a special protocol augmentation module that the dealer recommended. I'm afraid neither Vinzix nor I are very good at the other's tongue."

Floyt said "Oh?" pleasantly. Alacrity hid his smirk by looking downrange, too. To the women Marcus said, "Well, my treasures, run along now." He gave Larrup's head an absentminded tousel; the trio of beauties headed back for Ends Well.

The first castway was a long shot, through an avenue of immense gaff trees festooned with garrote vines, under a yellow-green corridor of leaf canopy. The target was a holoprojection, what appeared to be an animal the size of a moose, many-legged and decked with a fantastic rack of antlers. It pawed the ground and caracoled but stayed in one spot, some one hundred meters and more downrange, in what looked to be a shaft of sunlight.

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"My good friend Vinzix, will you please do me the honor of taking the first release?" Lord Marcus invited.

The automaton translated. Alacrity didn't catch any of the harsh or provocative inflections a Dar would routinely use to show contempt.
Real discreet program, all right.

Vinzix grunted something that had at least one revilement Alacrity recognized, but Albrecht the caddy translated it as "That's most kind of you, sir."

The humanoid pulled on a pair of heavy, instrumented gauntlets that reminded Floyt of buzzball gloves he'd seen on Epiphany, except that these were nearly elbow length. Vinzix hissed something quick to the robo as he took up his stance on the release point, feet planted directly beneath his shoulders, side-on to the pawing holo-target.

In the meantime, Albrecht unfolded and extended two of his arms. The ends were equipped with odd fittings Floyt didn't recognize, and began to glow and tone-sound. A bright nexus blossomed between the metallic palm-gadgets, gathering light and energy around it. It pulsed and whirled like a miniature sun, throwing off swirls of radiant spindrift.

Albrecht held it out to Vinzix, who took it in one armored palm. Floyt wondered if the energy ball had any substance, heft, or mass, or if it were just a balanced skein of forces.

Vinzix cupped it in both hands like a cricketeer and made a kind of prancing approach to the foul line.

With a powerful windup that gathered all the fibrous muscles of his back and left arm, he released the energy globe at the target. As he did, his right foot crossed the foul line.

The light projectile flamed and spun away downrange, looping and curving a bit; Floyt had no idea how Vinzix could've judged what it was going to do, or calculated his aim.

The whirling sunball just missed a thick limb, then looped in to hit the pawing target holobeast on the withers, high up.

There was a spectacular outburst of light and sparks along with a crash of sound from somewhere, and the target was gone.

Alacrity saw that Vinzix was aware he'd crossed the foul line, but contrary to sportsmanship and form, the Dar ignored it when he should've reshot or conceded a point. Marcus saw it, too, and that the humanoid wasn't being a gentleman. The old man shrugged it off.

"My turn, I think," Lord Marcus said as Vinzix stepped out of the way with an upturned nose. "Alacrity, young friend, now what would you suggest for this shot? A novaglobe like my opponent's?"

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"I'm the wrong one to ask, Marcus. By the way, are you playing evens?"

"Well, no; that is to say, it
is
my home ground, after all, even though it's a new course," Marcus said. "I spotted Vinzix two extra bolos and a dartspread. Only sporting."

Alacrity nodded, thinking,
I wonder what you'd say if you knew Vinzix thinks sportsmanship isn't worth
voiding his scent sac on?

"Very well, then," decided Lord Marcus, rubbing his encased palms together. "I think we'll have the blazing twirlspear. Might as well open up with my best, eh? Albrecht, if you will?"

Albrecht used one of the arms he'd used to make the novaglobe and a third, equally strange-looking one.

Floyt couldn't help shrinking back from the process, worried about what might happen if all that tame energy somehow got out of hand.

Albrecht's palms, pressed together, sprang apart; between them a blazing rod of blue light grew. Small electrical arcs writhed and spat along it. Floyt let out an involuntary yip, boggled by the thought of what the technology involved might possibly cost.

Marcus took the spear of light, balancing it on his palm, squinting at his target, the holobeast having reappeared. He made his approach to the foul line, very like a javelin thrower, and released.

The spear twirled and crackled as it blazed away downrange. It didn't fly quite true, vibrating and waffling a bit in ways that weren't like a real spear at all, but more like it was alive.

Yes; this has to be a very, very expensive playground,
Floyt concluded.

Lord Marcus had gauged his release against the timing of the hololoop, the rearing and pawing of the target. He'd gotten that right, but not the path of flight. The spear clipped through a hanging garrote vine, blowing it aside in a fierce discharge, deflected by it, missing the target. The energy spear struck a tree root to the left of the image and yielded the rest of its charge there.

Well, it's not all light effects.
Floyt determined, gazing at the smoldering ends of the vine.

"Shall we proceed?" Marcus said. Albrecht translated for Vinzix, who strode off downrange, ignoring the humans.

Alacrity and Floyt trailed the two players. There were no easy routes through the undergrowth and trees between the casting point and the target. Except for Albrecht, who floated above, they were all obliged to bushwhack their way along. Lord Marcus seemed to enjoy it; Floyt and Alacrity simply put up with it

—they were getting very good at that sort of thing. Vinzix muscled his way through, sometimes leaping over or wriggling around the more substantial obstacles. There was apparently some point to the added file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (46 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12

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hardship, but it eluded Floyt. Eventually Lord Marcus beckoned them onto a narrow path like a game trail.

When the bush thinned a bit, Marcus said to Alacrity, "Oh, before I forget … " He passed over an intricately woven gilt document bearing ribbons and stamps. Alacrity took it and examined it closely.

"Exactly one voting share in the White Ship, made out in your name," Marcus said. "I've already registered the formal transfer, although how much good that will do you I can't really say, Jordan."

Alacrity opened an inside pocket to tuck it away. "More than you know; it'll get me into the next board meeting. That's all I need."

"Ah, yes," Marcus said, armored hands clasped behind his back. "Don't take this the wrong way, m'lad, but you really have two choices, the way I see it. Vinzix and I are cooperating on our,
own
plan regarding the White Ship, you see. You can confide in me and let me help you—and I wish to, believe me—or you'll have to pretty much go it alone, although I'll do what I can for you, of course."

Alacrity wore the withdrawn expression Floyt knew so well. Albrecht was keeping up a running translation for Vinzix, who watched Alacrity closely.

"And don't get
me
wrong, Marcus," Alacrity said at last as they came up the rise to the target area with its scorched tree roots and vanished holobeast. The next castway lay just beyond, and from where they were they could see the target.

"I'm grateful to you," Alacrity went on, "but it's just not that simple. I have an obligation to—someone, to make sure the information I've got isn't used the wrong way." He was thinking of Heart and how much more she would hate him if she thought he'd used the data he'd stolen from her father to profit some outside party; as it was, she had little enough sympathy for his personal quest for mastery of the White Ship.