The Nonborn King (26 page)

The midwatch was invariably taken by Jitlian and Cloud while the men slept. His daughter would couch herself like some pale nereid on the foredeck, generating the metapsychic wind. Back in the cockpit, the dark-haired boatbuilder at the helm maintained an east-northeast course so steady that the wake was a phosphorescent line drawn with a straightedge through tilting reflections of stars. Sometimes a flying fish would erupt, to gleam like the ghost of a drowned seabird before plunging back into fluid dark. Or there might be schools of luminous squid, or vast patches of snakelike elvers squirming silver in the moonlight So young- So confident of success. But there was no way of predicting mad Felice's response to their overtures. Cloud and Elaby were strong coercers whose redactive faculty was also highly developed. Jillian was a PK lionness. Vaughn, in spite of his limited intelligence, packed a respectable psychocreative wallop in addition to his usefulness as a farsensor- The ketch's lockers were packed with assorted weapons, as well as the docilizalion equipment (which might work), and a 60,000walt hypnogogic projector (which probably wouldn't). In a direct mental confrontation, the children didn't stand a chance against Felice: Their only hope lay in overcoming her through guile.

The guile of Owen Blanchard.

Marc's farsight penetrated the ketch's fo'c'sie, which the venerable rebel strategist had commandeered for his private quarters. Blanchard tossed uneasily in his narrow bunk on this night, soaked in perspiration in spite of the mild weather. From time to time there would be episodes of Cheyne-Stokes respiration, in which the breaths would come farther and farther apart, then cease altogether for nearly a full minute before resuming with a snoring gasp- Steinbrenner had said that the condition was probably benign. On the other hand, Blanchard was 128, with only one rejuvenation. He had adamantly refused to submit to Ocala Island's rather quirkish regen tank.

How the old boy had raged against his impressment for the voyage! Marc had had to exert every erg of his own coercion and charisma to pry Owen loose from his beloved hurrah's nest down on Long Beach, a thatched hut where he lived with a collection of indolent cats, countless scavenging land crabs, and a plague of palm-cockroaches the size of playing cards. Owen Bianchard's sole interests, when he was not reminiscing over days of lost glory, were beachcombing for shells and playing his vast collection of classical music recordings. The cats made futile stabs at exterminating the roaches and crabs, but Owen didn't really mind sharing his hut with them The invertebrates ate a lot less than the cats, and the record-flecks were indestructible

At the start of the voyage, when the ketch had wallowed in a smart chop in the Gulf Stream, Owen had been deathly seasick He rallied once they entered the region of calms, but still preferred to spend most of his time below, playing portentous selections by Mahler and Stravinsky on his implanted micromductor He was cool to the four youngsters and they in turn maintained a diplomatic aloofness from him It was impossible for them to believe that this frail aesthete had once directed a rebel armada in a near-successful strike against the Galactic Milieu. Marc was only too aware of the undercurrents circulating among the young people In spite of their pledge to follow Owen's leadership, they would insist that Marc's deputy prove himself once they reached Spain. If Owen moved too cautiously, there was a strong probability that the others would dispose of him, knowing they were temporarily out of Marc's reach And then some disastrous error would doubtless be perpetrated, and Felice would blast the entire foolhardy crew to ions.

Marc withdrew his farsight and came to himself Brows knit in a funous scowl, he gulped down the remnants of his dnnk and flung the glass into the dark garden Patricia's light had gone out

Damn them all' Damn Owen Blanchard for surrendering to old age. Damn the younger generation for their half-baked impatience. Damn Cloud for not trusting. Damn Hagen for being weak.

Damn the universe and all its empty stars.

"Hagen'" he roared Hagen'.

I'm inside With Diane.

Get nd of her' We're going to the observatory'

At the time of the Galactic Milieu, only five solar systems (not counting that of Earth) had managed to engender intelligent beings who survived the penis of high technology and passed into metapsychic coadunation, that state of mental Unity that admits of the peaceful, noncompetitive colonization of compatible planets

Marc Remillard's computer in the observatory on Ocata told him that there was an infinitesimal probability that a single coadunate world existed in the Pliocene Milky Way Galaxy He had mapped exactly 634,468,321 main-sequence stars of spectral types F2 to Kl, those adjudged most likely to have worlds harboring sentient life Over the past 25 years of exile, he had mentally probed 36,443 of them in search of a coadunate race and a new base for the dream that had failed

In that search and that dream was life for him, and purpose He should have rested for another two weeks before resuming, but he would not No action or advice of his would affect the events in Spam (What outcome his subconscious wished for he did not dare to investigate too closely ) No the star-search was his work He would not let the young distract him from it any longer

Together, he and Hagen selected the one hundred stellar candidates that would occupy his attention for the next twenty days They ranged in distance from 4000 to 12,000 light-years, but for a metapsychic of Marc's caliber, range was almost a negligible factor, provided that the mind could be focused upon the remote object of scrutiny with the necessary precision, and this maintained for a critical interval In the absence of an alerted "receiver," direction was accomplished with delicate auxiliary equipment temporarily fused to the operator's brain and supercharging it with energy Other equipment, heroically life-supportive, enabled the star-searcher to survive the experience

Hagen helped Marc settle into the body-molding metal-and ceramic casing, programmed the vitals, adjusted the bloodcirculation shunt, and set the timer for the 20-day period The search would be earned on only at night During the sunlit hours, the searcher would sleep m oblivion-stasis

"Ready?" The young man had the massive, completely opaque helmet suspended from its traveling hoist His face was white and his mind leaked apprehension, but not for his father's sake. Formerly, Marc had prepared for the star-search atone: Hagen's assistance was redundant... except as training.

"What are you waiting for?" Marc's voice was already tired. "Put it on me."

The thing came down. Fourteen liny photonic beams drilled Marc's skull and fourteen electrodes slipped into his cerebral cortex, sprouting invasive superconductive filaments. Two more needle probes linked to the refrigeration and pressurization systems pierced his cerebellum and stem. The pain was excruciating and brief.

INITIATE METABOLIC REPROGRAMMING.

Fluid filled the casing. Marc stopped breathing- The liquid circulating in his body was no longer blood; nor, strictly speaking, was he still a human being, but rather a living machine, protected both internally and externally from his own brain's hyperactivity.

ENGAGE AUXILIARY CEREBROENERGET1CS Each telepathic command came to Hagen via the computer's audible voice, and simultaneously on the VDT screen. His father was gone. The devilish mechanism was in complete control, waiting with cold patience while Hagen reiterated and verified each operation, then proceeded to the next thing on the checkoff list.

ACTIVATE INSERTION,

Hagen's hand on the command mouthpiece was slippery. He said, "Insert operator," and the armored mass rotted to a small platform atop a hydraulic lift.

ACTIVATE ASCENSOR.

"Take him up." The encapsulated body on its recliner carriage rose toward the observatory dome. Automatically, without a sound, a segment of the roof rolled away. The lift slowed and halted. The stars of Pliocene April waited for Marc Remillard just as they would wait, in some month to come, for Marc's son.

ACTIVATE DRIVE.

"Close final linkage and drive," Hagen commanded. Coordinates for the first study were fed into the focusing decent. The visual display of the computer went blank, leaving only small blinking SLIs. The searcher had begun his work and there would be no more communication until he ''returned." The interior illumination of the observatory was shut off. All of the systems were locked and impregnable, totally shielded, defended by a hidden array of X-lasers (as Hagen and every other inhabitant of Ocala Island knew only too well). No one, no thing could interfere.

Hagen replaced the command mike on its bracket- He stood for a moment, looking up, seeing the slowly revolving carriage at ihe top of the lift cylinder occult the spangled sky.

"Not me!" he shouted, his voice thick with hatred. "Not

me'

He fled, and the doors locked automatically behind him.

8

"WE'RE LOST'" TONY WAYLAND DECIDED "THIS DAMN RIVER can't be the Laar. It's flowing north, not northwest."

"I fear you're right, milord." Dougal squinted at the purpling landscape. It was welt past sunset. "We'd best make for shore, and after a good night's sleep try the fair adventure of tomorrow. Mayhap the mighty Asian will come to us in dreams, and set our feet aright for far Cair Paravel "

He hauled on the sweep and guided the raft toward the right shore They grounded on mud in a grove of enormous linodendron trees whose gnarled branches were hung with swags of moss.

"'Ware crocodiles," Dougal said casually, shouldering their packs of supplies. "We must seek higher ground."

Leaving the raft, they slogged downstream for a few hundred meters and found a steep-sided hummock, which had evidently been a small islet during the late rainy season It supported a few cinnamon trees and currant bushes and had an area of open grass "This looks good," Tony said "At least the critters will have to work climbing up, and there's dnftwood for a fire."

For once, setting up camp was relatively painless. After a frugal supper of bulrush tubers and grilled beaver, they slumped contentedly beside the fire

"Our path of flight has been a rough one, milord." Dougal was combing his ginger beard- Leftover bits of beaver fell onto the golden lion emblem on his knightly surtout and skipped away from the soil-repellant fabric. "Do you repent of having taken French leave from Vulcan's stithy?"

"Don't be an ass. Dougie- We'll find the way to Goriah. We'll try one more day on this nver and if it doesn't start a westerly trend, we'll take off overland. Damn... I wish I was a better orienteer I goofed off shamelessly during that phase of our training at the auberge "

"It was a tedious exercise, I trow At any rate, our pursuers seem to have packed it in."

"Let's hope so. That great black lout of a Denny Johnson is likely as not to hang us for traitors if he catches up with us." Tony began fiddling with their compass, a magnetized needle that had to be floated on a bit of chaff in a cup of water. "That can't be right," he muttered. "Move your bloody great slicer, will you?"

Amiably, Dougal shifted his mild-steel bowie knife

"That's better. You know, I thought we were home free when we reached this river It was just as that fellow from the Paris Basin told us back at Fort Rusty: the second major watercourse west of the Moselle. But was the first river we crossed really majorf And this one did seem to appear rather sooner than I anticipated." Tony put the compass away and stared dispiritedly into the fire. "I might have known things were going loo wetl."

"The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger," Dougal observed He was cleaning his nails with the knife. "I follow as your obedient servant, milord, but what will become of us if this Aiken Drum denies sanctuary?"

"He won't He'd covet a metallurgical engineer even more keenly than the Hidden Springs Lowhfe contingent. I'm a prize, Dougie! There's going to be war between Drum and the Firvulag, you know, and iron weapons could make all the difference, "

From the Jungle came an unearthly blatting, like a muchmagnified and bungled flourish of brasses.

"Hoe-tusker elephants?" Tony suggested, drawing closer to the fire. Dougal's eyes glittered beneath bushy red brows. "Or the evil presences of this enchanted wood! I sense them all about us ... the cruels and hags and incubuses, wraiths, horrors, efreets, sprites, orknies, wooses, and ettins!"

Tony broke out m a muck sweat. "Damn you, Dougie! It's just some beast, I tell you!"

The trumpeting was joined by an ensemble of roars and whoops and obscure, evil chittering.

"Ghouls and boggles," the knight intoned. "Ogres and minotaurs! The spectres and the people of the toadstools'"

With a rustle of titanium chainmail he climbed to his feel. drew his great two-handed sword, and struck a noble attitude in the dying firelight- "Stiffen the sinews! Summon up the blood! Screw your courage to the sticking place, and we'll not fail!"

"For God's sake pipe down!" Tony expostulated.

Gaze riveted to the sword, Dougal declaimed:

Wrong will be right, when Asian comes in sight At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more.

When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,

And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.

He grinned, sheathed the sword, yawned, and said, "That'll do it. Sack out in peace, old son." He curled up and was snoring within two minutes.

Cursing, Tony put more wood on the fire. The Jungle noises got louder.

In the rooming, the islet was bedecked with dewdrops and the night's fearsome bedlam gave way to melodious birdsong. Tony woke stiff and puffy-faced- Dougal, as always, was splendidly dauntless "Looks like a beautiful day, milord! Proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim, hath put a spirit of youth in everything!"

Tony groaned. He went to take a leak in the bushes. Watching him from a crystal-beaded web was a spider bigger than his hand- Somewhere in the misty woods back of the huge tulip trees, wild chalikos were whickering. At least. Tony hoped they were wild They launched the raft again and sailed on- Their river merged with another coming from the east and the countryside became more open.