The Bright Black Sea (37 page)

A strange and badly scripted nightmare.

I was roughly pulled upright by hard vice-like hands
on my shoulders. I opened my eyes to see the red, vicious face of
Max glaring at me. 'You beast!' he shouted shaking me.

I recognized him now – the hulking spaceer who'd
pushed me aside at the space boat field.

'You black hearted scoundrel! You have made a whore
of my dearest wife! You have ruined my life!' he roared and rearing
back, released a hand from my shoulder and struck me in the face
with an open hand, sending my head reeling to one side.

As the stars cleared I knew I wasn't dreaming or in
some immersive-vid.

'You will die today, before the sun is over the rim!'
he bellowed. 'I demand satisfaction. You have ruined my wife and my
life!' And turning to almost a dozen people who had been drifting
into the room, he bellowed. 'Send for an Honor Judge. This sordid
affair must be settled now!'

There were two fully dressed men watching from the
corner of the room, one dressed in black and bearded, the other
young and in a blue uniform. The bearded man turned and nodded,
sending the uniformed one slipping through the gathering throng and
out the door.

The dim shape of what was happening began to dawn,
though it was far outside any previous experiences. I asked myself,
What would Captain Miccall or the Four Shipmates – or Brilliant
Pax do?
Well, none of them would lay about being rough handed
and slapped to start.

With my head still ringing, I brushed his hand off my
shoulder and finding my voice, demanded, 'What's the meaning of
this farce? Who are you? What in the Neb are you? And what are all
of you doing in here?' This last at the gathered mob, all but one
still in pajamas, robes and slippers. 'Get out!'

They just stared back at me, unmoved.

The assassin, Nadine was sobbing quite convincingly
now, 'Oh, please, Max. Let this affair rest. Let him go. This is
between the two of us.

'Never!' growled Max. He shall pay with his life for
stealing your honor and my self respect.'

'Every one go! Please everyone go!' Nadine
sobbed.

A few of the onlookers shuffled back a step, but
others from the hallway used the opportunity to slip in to get a
better view. This was theater and no one seemed willing to miss
it.

I'd no idea who or what was an
Honor Judge
,
but the next scene seemed to depend on him, so I took the
opportunity to get my bearings.

The room was high ceilinged and furnished, from the
frames of the paintings on the wall to the dresser and occasional
chairs in an over-ornate style – white, gilded and carved. The grey
light in the room came from tall windows behind thin curtains. It
was a bedroom, probably a hotel room for the spectators seemed
neither family or servants. The fellow in uniform who left to bring
the Honor Judge was likely a clerk and the gent with the beard,
perhaps the hotel's manager. From the way Max talked, his heavy
accents and awkward phrases, and the way Max and the manager were
dressed – in antique fabrics and styles, this had to be a
dissenting
throw-back
society, modeled after an ancient
Earth or early Earth settled planet's culture. There were thousands
of them scattered across the Nebula's moons.

So how did I get here, naked, and in bed with an
assassin? I recalled boarding the bumboat, the blue of the
stun-level plasma dart, and the awakening in the dark for a brief,
painful interrogation, and the blue flash again. I recalled the
scent of pines and the chill and how the box seemed to move, so it
was probably some sort of mock-ancient vehicle. But into this room?
I glanced back at the windows, or more likely glass doors leading
to a balcony. In Lontria's low gravity, it would've been easy to
hoist me up to the balcony in the darkness of night. Nadine may
have hauled me up herself after checking in, but more likely Max
slipped in and helped arrange this dramatic tableau.

I realized sitting naked in bed with an angry, brutal
looking husband pacing and occasionally raging at me and my
supposed lover, was not the strategic position I needed to shape
the coming events. My clothes were the first order of business.
Looking about, I found them, and hers, artfully scattered around a
chair in the shadows beyond the window – a carefully choreographed
still life of passion. I threw off the bed covers, stood, and
brushing past the still blustering Max, made for the chair to get
dressed. The assembled crowd gasped in shock, nudity must be a
local taboo. Not that I cared, they'd no business being here.

'Get out, you gaping idiots!' I yelled. 'This is a
private room, not a Neb-blasted theater! Get the Neb out, all of
you! What manner of people are you? Have you no sense of shame?' I
added, standing naked and pointing to the door. Whether it was my
words or that I seemed to have no sense of shame that drove them
out into the hallway, save the bushy faced manager, I couldn't say
and didn't care. They went no further than the hall outside,
however.

I quickly picked out and donned my clothes from the
collection by the chair – women in this society seemed to wear an
awful lot of things – and wrapped my com link around my wrist. I
turned to Nadine and Max who had stopped their squabbling to watch
me. 'I don't know what your game is, but I'm not playing it. Good
day.'

'Where're you going?' growled Max. 'Stop him.' This
to the hotel manager. 'The yellow coward will not escape his
fate!'

'I'm returning to my ship, and you'll not stop me...
I've had my fill of this farce.' Max was built on a scale that he
probably could stop me, but I was angry enough now that I was ready
to see him try.

'Not until honor is satisfied, you spineless coward.
No, Herr Captain, you're not returning to your ship standing up. I
intend to put a cold lead bullet through that black heart of yours.
You've been challenged to a duel and in New Prusza you can't run
from it, no matter how big a coward you are!'

'No, Max. Please don't kill him! Please Max... I
share the blame!' exclaimed “my” Nadine. How she could say that
without laughing, I didn't know.

Fortunately there was a disturbance in the hall to
put an end to that act – the arrival of the Honor Judge and his
assistant. I used those few moments to consult the information that
had been automatically transmitted to my com link when it had
crossed into this community from the outside. I learned, via the
neural link of my com link, that I was in Prusza, a large,
multi-crater throw-back society. Its laws and customs were
available to me from the com link as if I had memorized them
myself.

A quick check told me that it was, indeed, legal to
kill a person in a duel in Prusza. And in the case of adultery, it
was legal to demand immediate satisfaction. And further, in this
type of affair I could not decline the challenge. If I refused to
fight, the authorities would be called and I'd be tied to a ring in
the ground and shot by Max. Cuckolding Prusza's husbands is frowned
on here. Nadine had indeed found a legal way to kill me and from
their accents and clothing, they may actually be part of this
community so no suspicion would fall on them. The sinister beauty
of all this was that the squalid nature of the affair and the
legality of my death would likely insure that it would be quickly
covered up, least said the better. I glanced at Nadine. She'd been
watching me with her cool grey eyes in my brown study and had seen
the light of understanding dawn on my face. I caught just a flicker
of a smile when she saw me realize what she'd done.

Would it draw Min out of hiding? I didn't know. Cold
comfort.

In the meantime, Max had been talking to the Honor
Judge, demanding immediate satisfaction, to which the Honor Judge
readily agreed under the circumstances, adding that the dueling
park was available, he'd just returned from an earlier affair
settled at first light.

'Send around to the armorer,' Max growled. 'Dueling
pistols. We shall settle this like men. He'll not sleep with
another man's wife again.'

The Honor Judge nodded and turned to his assistant to
give the order for the weapons.

'Wait, sir.' I called out. 'Since I'm the one who's
been challenged, I believe the choice of weapons is mine.'

He turned back, gave me a bland look, and nodded.
'That is correct, sir.'

Having no experience with darters, much less
throw-back pistols, a duel with them would amount to no more than a
simple execution. He'd have to work harder than that...

'Since dueling swords and daggers are an acceptable
choice of weapons for this type of an affair, I'll defend my honor
with them,' I said without a glancing back at Max to see his
reaction. I hadn't been sparring with Barlan these past fifteen
years in Mycolmtre's two blade style fencing to have any doubt that
a sword and a dagger offered my best chance of escaping Nadine's
trap alive.

'Honor! Ha! Blades will allow me to savor my revenge
a little longer,' sneered Max, brightly enough.

The Honor Judge inclined his head gravely. 'As you
wish, sir.' Turning to his assistant, 'Dueling swords and daggers
to the Castle grounds.' And back to us, with a quick sidelong
glance towards Nadine, still clutching the bed clothes to cover her
nakedness, 'If you will follow me, we can proceed to the grounds
and prepare the field.'

I glanced back as I followed him out. If my choice of
weapons alarmed her, she didn't show it at all. She flavored me
with a brief bright, triumphant smile and a mocking goodbye
kiss.

'Do both of you have gentlemen to act as seconds?'
the Honor Judge added as we reached the hallway, the spectators
opening a lane for us while he discretely closed the door behind
us.

'My driver will act as mine,' said Max.

'No, but one's not necessary,' I said.

'Excuse me, sir. If you will allow me, I'm willing to
act as your second. My name is Doctor Hans Wissen. I am staying
here on holiday.'

Doctor Wissen was a spare, trim gentleman with a grey
pointed beard in a grey tweed walking suit standing on the fringe
of the curious crowd which filled the hallway. I gave him a hard
look. Already dressed – another of the gang?

'Wil Litang, Captain of the
Lost Star
,' I said
with a brief nod of greeting. 'May I ask why, given the creature
I'm portrayed to be?'

He shrugged carelessly. 'A second is necessary. One
will be chosen from the crowd, should it come to that. And since
you are a stranger, it is a simple act of courtesy,' he said with
apparent sincerity. 'Your character, or lack of it, will be decided
on the field of honor. Until ,' here he shrugged again, 'you need a
second.'

He struck me as sincere. And it didn't seem to
matter, in any event, so I nodded. 'That being the case, Doctor,
thank you.'

He nodded, and turning to the Honor Judge said. 'I
must fetch my bag. No need to wait. I shall catch up.'

I sighed and glanced at the Honor Judge, who'd been
standing behind me, no doubt making sure I'd not bolt. He nodded,
and we proceeded down the hall to the stairs that lead to a dark
wood paneled lobby, while the spectators rushed to their rooms to
throw on some clothes so as not to miss the final act.

It was very cool and damp in the pre-dawn twilight –
the dome here must have been designed to reflect more radiation to
produce a cooler than normal climate for Lontria. The morning
shower must have just dissipated for the air smelled of earthy wet
stones and tangy pines. The street was narrow, puddled, paved in
glistening cobbled stones and lined with grey stone and red brick
buildings built in some ancient Earth pattern.

Our small party, Max and his “driver”, the Honor
Judge, myself, and several hastily dressed men from the hotel,
strode swiftly in long, low gravity strides through the empty
streets, the rhythmic clattering of our footfalls loud in the
silence. With time to think, I glanced at my com link to determine
how much time had elapsed – nearly seven hours since I boarded the
bumboat, half a moon away. The
Lost Star
should just be
finishing fueling and I should've been back aboard hours ago. Blast
and damn. I tried calling the ship, but could not connect. Prusza's
dome was likely blocking the signals – these throw back communities
often did that to keep technology at some mythically ideal
level.

I'll confess that in my early years of learning two
bladed fencing I'd romantic dreams of some day needing it. I'd
grown out of that. Now, in the span of two months, ever since I'd
crossed orbits with Tallith Min, I've had to call to use those
skills twice in life or death situations. The imagined romance I
found notable only in its absence. I walked in a mix of anxiousness
(fear), eagerness, and anger with a churning gut. It struck me once
again, I needed to be careful what I wished for.

Doc Hans, half out of breath, pulled up alongside as
we entered through a stone gateway, a dark wooded park in the
brooding shadows of a tall, grim stone building, presumable, the
castle.

'Do you know your opponent?' he asked.

I shook my head “no”. 'It's a comic-opera sham,' I
said bitterly. 'You'd not believe my story. It's operatic as well.
Doesn't matter.'

'Oh, I'm rather curious, Captain. I'm fond of live
drama, and I found the performance rather unconvincing, too
operatic, as you say, to be authentic. But , I'm not a native,
which might explain it. My wife is Pruszian, so we split our time
between Prusza and the Met.'

I gave him an appraising look. Talking would keep my
mind occupied, so I said, 'As you wish...' And very briefly
outlined the story from the Yacht Club to date.

'...So you see, they think they've found a way to
kill me legally and in a manner that will likely be hushed up and
forgotten.'