The Adversary - 4 (18 page)

Hagen said: I am Marc Remillard's son. We'll pay for your cooperation by working with you to overcome our mutual enemy-whom we know a great deal better than you do.

Without our help he will destroy you as he will probably destroy us.

HE TELLS ME YOU ARE THE ENEMY!

Hagen said: And has he told you that he's learned to d-jump?

There was a long silence. Finally the thunder-voice said: WAIT WHERE YOU ARE FOR THREE HOURS. THEN COME UP TO CALAMOSK WITH YOUR VEHICLE TOPS OFF AND YOUR ARMAMENTS DEMOUNTED-AND WE'LL ALL HAVE TEA.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Basil Wimborne and his crew of Bastards came again to the citadel of Calamosk, which they had visited earlier that year under far different circumstances. Then, during the worst of the rainy season, Basil had served as one of the leaders of the refugee army retreating from the flood-ravaged Aven Peninsula.

The little cadre that later became the Bastards had formed an impromptu staff under himself, Chief Burke, Sister Amerie, and Elizabeth. After the throng of displaced people had been driven away from Afaliah by the implacable Celadeyr, they had approached the smaller city anticipating an even ruder dismissal by its arriviste human master, Sullivan-Tonn. Instead, they found that Sullivan and his young Tanu fiancee had been freshly ousted by Aluteyn Craftsmaster and a rabble of renegade knights from the Great Retort. Calamosk was battered and provision-short after the siege, but Aluteyn had given the refugees whatever could be spared before advising them to press on farther north to more prosperous regions.

Riding into Calamosk behind Ochal the Harper, Basil and his Bastards noted certain changes. The colourwashed halftimbered cottages that had once sheltered bareneck human townsfolk were now nearly all empty. Weeds grew among the street cobbles and there was abundant dust lying about, and neglected heaps of animal droppings. The stone planters and public gardens were untended and suffering from the summer drought.

Because he had once worn a golden torc, Basil alone among the contingent rescued from the dungeon was experienced enough in the use of the mind-enhancer to speak telepathically on the Tanu mode. He now asked Ochal: What has happened? The city looks so shabby so unlike the other Tanu cities I have seen since the Flood.

Ochal said: The ramas. Those who have not died have fled into the wilderness. It is a result of the fighting the mental strife the turmoil attending the Craftsmaster's takeover. Ramas are peaceloving creatures with sensitive and fragile minds. Wearing torcs they react to manifestations of extreme emotionality in adverse ways fleeing the malign aetheric vibrations if possible and suffering acute psychosomatic disorders if restrained. Not only Calamosk but my own lamented Bardelask and even Goriah itself have experienced this flight of the ramas. The High King has naturally ordered that replacement apes be sent to the capital. But Calamosk has had to initiate a complete new breeding program.

Basil said: Hard luck for the local nobs needing domestics.

Ochal said: Many grey-torc humans are still faithful nay eager to serve ... and even numbers of barenecks.

Basil: Those who were too timid or too prudent to go the Lowlife route-or too wise to rush up to Goriah hoping the King would give them golden torcs!

Ochal: [Laughter.] That has been a problem in more cities than Calamosk. King Aiken-Lugonn has had to depart considerably from his original hope of offering instant citizenship to any human who requested it.

Basil: Mm. His instincts were generousOchal: But fortunately for the good order of the High Kingdom they were overruled by his innate pragmatism. Ah!

... We arrive at last.

The caravan came into the forecourt of the central citadel, where there were numerous torced humans of every station as well as civilian and fully armed Tanu. None of the neglect evident in the city's outer purlieus affected the castle environs.

Human servitors ran up to assist the dismounting of the new arrivals, and Basil and his Bastards were attended every bit as solicitously as their escort. The Elite Guard of human golds stood by, however, their Milieu-style weapons at the ready.

Ochal said to Basil, "Here's a great honour for you-the CityLord himself comes down to bid you welcome."

Basil inclined his head respectfully as a Tanu creator wearing a short tunic and aquamarine half-armour came sweeping up.

"Parthol Swiftfoot," said he, by way of introduction. He briefly tapped the pleasure-circuitry of the Bastard's grey torcs, precipitating a startled reaction among those who were metapsychically unsophisticated. "My personal felicitations! King's most anxious to meet you."

"And we, him," said Basil.

Calm, he told his friends.

Keep calm!

"Suppose we clean you up a bit first, eh?" Parthol winked.

"Old Celo's dungeon-not exactly a health resort."

Basil managed a dry laugh. "You're very considerate, Lord Parthol."

"Follow me! Nice surprise waiting!" And the Tanu was off, with Basil and the others tumbling along in his wake (for a Tanu stalwart can easily cover two metres at a stride). He pointed out noteworthy improvements in the citadel defences instituted by his predecessor, the late Aluteyn, as he led them through the barbican, across the inner ward, and up an ornate white marble ramp into the palatial keep.

"You were ... one of the Craftsmaster's companions in adversity?" Basil said breathlessly.

Parthol chortled. "Fellow jailbird, you mean! Quite right. Old Thagdal slung me into the Retort for murder. Decapitated my mother-in-law, Coventone Petrifactrix, on a Royal Hunt up in the Dark Mountains. No one would believe I mistook her for a Firvulag. Can't think why."

They passed down a series of marble staircases into the bowels of the castle, where torches in silver holders illuminated corridors paved in pink and black tiles. A certain anxiety radiated from Basil and the Bastards at this descent. "Not the dungeon this time!" Parthol reassured them. They came to a huge black door with silver fittings, guarded by statuesque human females in silver-lustre armour. Grinning expectantly, the City-Lord of Calamosk gestured, causing the portal to open, and motioned for the visitors to follow him inside.

The Bastards began whispering and elbowing one another.

Somebody unloosed an incredulous whistle. They had come into a complex of vaulted and pillared connecting chambers that seemed to combine features of a sumptuous Turkish bath with the decor of a fin-de-siecle Hungarian whorehouse. There were dripping crystal chandeliers, baroque divans in veil-curtained alcoves, and a fantastic gilt-and-jasper steam room, the walls of which were adorned with Paphian mosaics.

"Amusing, isn't it?" Parthol remarked to Basil. "Your lamented compatriot Sullivan-Tonn had it installed during his brief tenure and we decided to keep it. Ingenious race, you humans-if those depictions are a fair sampling of your Old World sexual mores."

Basil cleared his throat diffidently. "Some of the mosaics have-uh-a folkloric derivation. The centaurs and the mermaids, for example, and the-uh-more heroically proportioned individuals."

"Oh? What a pity. Still, I'd wondered why we didn't get any of those coming through the time-gate." He broadcast a brief order on the command mode and a jolly-looking Polynesian couple in flowered lava-lavas trotted in bearing trays of carnations. They wore silver torcs, and as they passed the flowers to the bemused Bastards, they seemed to radiate comfortable reassurance.

"Salote and Malietoa will see to your comfort," Parthol said.

"We're a bit short-handed, so you'll have to scrub one another's backs, but I think you'll enjoy your ablutions. Try the bubble bath! That Sullivan thought of the damnedest things. And when that's done, you can have fresh clothes. I'm proud to say that Calamosk boasts a really first-rate tailoring moduplex-a Halston 2100. Make any type of apparel you like."

Mr. Betsy, who had been savouring his carnation, let out a great sigh of rapture.

Parthol beamed at the Elizabethan in the sadly dilapidated finery. "We're a bit short of Milieu fabrics since the time-gate closed-not much of a selection in nebulin or dacolite or repelvel-but you'll find some very nice linen and fine cotton: and I'm quite certain there's at least twenty ells of tourmaline silk brocade left, and you might fancy silver lace for that collar thingy of yours."

Phronsie Gillis smothered a wicked simper. "And I'll just have me some silk knickers from the scraps!" Betsy ignored her.

Parthol Swiftfoot said to Basil, "I'll come to fetch you in a couple of hours. You won't try to escape or hide or anything tedious like that, will you? Not to put too fine a point on it-you are all wearing grey torcs. We could track you down easily. At least wait until you've heard what the High King has to say before you begin plotting and scheming."

"Very well," said Basil. "We'll wait."

As the Bastards finished King Aiken-Lugonn's high tea, the noncommittal chit-chat slowly faded to silence and all eyes turned to the small figure of the monarch. He was sitting in front of the unlit hearth of the presence room on a throne of gilded oak; his guests had had to make do with tufted floor cushions and most now lounged on these, leaving only a few of the recalcitrantly suspicious and Mr. Betsy standing. The King was wearing his golden storm-suit without the hood; a simple circlet of black glass rested on his dark red hair. He drank minted iced tea from a Waterford tumbler and then chewed the cubes as the stillness grew and the Bastards stared.

"How many of you," the King said at last, "would like to go back through the time-gate to the Galactic Milieu?"

Pandemonium.

Aiken smiled and raised a hand. An appalling blast of coercion struck every mind dumb. "Sorry about that, but we don't have much time to spare. More guests will be arriving very shortly to join our little party. Among them will be the lady who clapped you all into the Afaliah slammer after helping to steal your aircraft-Cloud Remillard."

"Remillard!" exclaimed the minds and voices of the Bastards.

"I see that a bell has rung," the King remarked. His smile was grim. "Yes, she's his daughter. Marc Remillard and his exrebels have been living in North America for twenty-seven years, mostly minding their own business. But not any longer. It seems the rebels had children, and the kids decided that they'd had enough of the old folks' domination, and so they packed up and blew the homestead and came here.

Cloud was first, with a handful of others. Later her brother Hagen came with all the rest of the second generation."

"Good God," said Basil. "It's incredible! Marc Remillard was alleged to have perished in the Rebellion, together with his top confederates."

Aiken shrugged. "Madame Guderian had a lot to answer for.

I don't know if she let 'em go through willingly, or if they coerced her. Probably the latter. They brought contraband galore."

"Oh, Your Majesty, never mind that!" cried little Miss Wang passionately. "Tell us more about reopening the time-gate-and going back!"

"Not possible," Dimitri Anastos told her. "It's a one-way warp, Milieu to Pliocene."

"Not," said Aiken, "if you build a second Guderian tau-field generator here.

Which is what Marc Remillard's children and their friends propose to do."

"To go home!" cried Miss Wang. "To undo the terrible error!

To leave this awful place and live once again in the tranquillity of the Milieu-"

"Oh, I dunno," said Phronsie Gillis, pulling a dubious face.

"This exile has its hairy moments, but by and large I dig it.

You feel like boogying back, Bets?"

Mr. Betsy uttered a hollow chuckle. "Surely you jest."

"The Milieu is a benevolent despotism! To hell with it!" said Pushface.

"Speak for yourself, joker," Chazz said. "I'd be at the head of the queue for a return ticket."

"How many of you," Aiken asked, "would go back?"

Eleven hands rose-and then a twelfth, from an eagle-beaked man who said, "Me too, King-if you and the friggerty Angel of the Abyss are planning a little war."

Phronsie Gillis gave him a thunderous scowl. "Any war that features ol' Marc the Paramount Badass Grand Master won't be little, Nazir! More likely it'll be terminal to the Pliocene Earth, and the Milieu'll end up never been born!"

"No, that can't happen," Dimitri interjected with pedantic insistence. "Contrary to popular superstition, so-called alternate universes or parallel space-time lattices are impossible. One does not kill one's own grandfather and subsequently vanish!

No action here in the Pliocene can alter the primary reality of which the Milieu-and all future events, for that matter-is a manifestation. According to the universal field theory-"

"Stuff it, Dimitri," said Mr. Betsy.

A wrangle broke out, which Aiken cut off with another coercive slap. "Those of you who would go. How many are able to pilot the Tanu aircraft?"

Miss Wang, Phillipe, Bengt Sandvik, Farhat, Pongo Warburton, and Clifford raised their hands.

"How many pilots would stay here?"

Hands went up from Mr. Betsy, Taffy Evans, Thongsa, Pushface, and Stan Dziekonski.

The King fixed Mr. Betsy with a ruminative eye. "Just what did you do back in the Galactic Milieu?"

Betsy drew himself up in an attitude of stubborn hauteur.

Basil quickly said, "Dr. Hudspeth was a researcher and test pilot with Boeing's Commercial Rhocraft Division."

"I'll be gormed," murmured the Nonborn King. His gaze roamed over the rest of the assembled crew and the adventurers stiffened, feeling redactive probes invading their memories, trying in vain to shut the mental windows that the grey torcs had opened into their brains.

"An Oxford don who climbs mountains," Aiken mused wonderingly. "A third engineer on a tramp starfreighter ... a surgeon who did one microtomy operation too many ... an upsilon-field generator designer for G-Dyn Cumberland ... an egg-bus maintenance mechanic ... an Eskimo electronics engineer ... too bad there's no metallurgist ... "

When the King withdrew his scrutiny, Basil said, "Sir, we have been told that you bear us no ill will. Your deputy, Ochal the Harper, described you as a just and worthy ruler-given a few human eccentricities."