The Warlock Wandering (11 page)

"Wolmar." Rod frowned. "Right after the PEST coup d'etat." His eyes lost focus as he gazed off into space. "Nice question..."

"And, sin that thou didst ask it, I doubt'me not an thou hast an answer."

Yorick glanced sideways at Gwen. "Where'd you get her. Major?"

"Just lucky, I guess.... What was your answer?"

"To make it easy to try another assassination attempt." Yorick grinned. "The early PEST years are ideal for the purpose. The interstellar totalitarian government is brandnew, at its brightest strength, with plenty of agents left over

from its coup, but not yet tied down to the central planets as secret police."

Rod nodded, feeling numbed. "Yeah... that does kinda stack the odds in their favor.... But why one of the frontier planets? Why not Terra?"

"Too hard to cover up a murder attempt." Yorick shook his head. "Too many people."

"Yeah, but would they really care?"

"There is that," Yorick said judiciously. "But a much more practical point is that, with all those people to hide among, it'd be too easy for you to get away. And they know the two of you well enough to realize that you could be very hard to hold on to."

"A point," Rod admitted, "and it is hard for us to just disappear here in the grassland, isn't it?"

"Or even in the town," Yorick agreed, "what there is of it."

"Yet they have already attempted murder," Gwen pointed out, "and failed. Would they not essay summat more subtle?"

"Such as trying to frame us for murder?" Rod nodded.

"Yes, I think you've summed it up nicely, dear."

"A nice little death sentence would suit them just fine/'

Yorick mused, "especially with a bunch of savages to insist on it not being commuted to something humane, such as life imprisonment."

Rod snorted.

"If you say so," Yorick said affably. "But it's the best theory I can come up with. Got any other candidates in mind. Major? Who else might want to create a handy little murder incident?"

Rod glowered, staring at the top of the Wall, thinking it over. Finally he said, "Shacklar."

A sentry paced by, dark against the stars. They fell silent, staring, eyes locked onto him until he passed, and the curve of the wall hid him from sight. 82 Christopher Stasheff

Rod hissed, "Now!" and closed his eyes, concentrating on the feeling of lightness. He began to drift upward out of the shadow. Gwen matched his pace, rising on her broomstick. They accelerated, moving faster and faster. Yorick swallowed heavily and clamped his jaws shut.

Up, over the wall, and down the other side they glided, Yorick slung between them. His feet jarred against earth, and he let go of them as though their arms were hot metal. He gave himself a shake, heaved a deep breath, and turned to Rod with a bright smile. "Now! Just why did you suspect General Shacklar?"

"Let's talk about it when we're a little further from the Wall." Rod darted an uneasy glance toward the walkway at the top. "Come on, let's go!"

They dashed across fifty yards of open ground, into the shadow of an outbuilding, plowed to a halt, and propped themselves against the shack, chests heaving. "After all," Yorick panted, "this little murder just might bring all Shacklar's last ten years of work crashing down. He's managed to get the two sides almost to the point of joining in a single government. Why would he take a chance on busting it up?"

"To finish the job." Rod grinned.

Yorick and Gwen stared.

"Think it over." Rod felt quite pleased with himself.

"Gwen and I have given him the perfect opportunity to hatch his united government. We're totally new, so no one's going to gripe much if we're just handed over to the Wolmen. That would give our friendly natives a heck of a lot more confidence in Shacklar, with the added advantage of having made the Wolmen negotiate with Shacklar as a nation, all banded together. So all the General has to do is make it clear that the Wolmen are just as much involved in deciding this case as the colonists are, and it could be the first action of that unified government he's been trying to develop."

"Very good, so far as it goes." Yorick nodded, lips pursed.

"But what if the gamble fails? What happens if you manage to disappear, or if you're so inconsiderate as to prove yourTHE WARLOCK WANDERING 83

selves innocent, or something? Then he's got a civil war on his hands."

"Not all that civil," Rod said, scowling. "I think he could smooth over a 'Not guilty' verdict, if he had to. He's got the two sides getting along well enough right now. They even need each other a little. Both sides sure want what the other has to offer. All he has to do is find them a convenient excuse for forgetting the whole thing."

"Just a face-saver." Yorick said thoughtfully. "Ever consider diplomacy as a career. Major?" Rod opened his mouth, but Gwen spoke first. "He hath, and he doth." She looked from Rod to Yorick. "Yet neither of thee doth explain why no Wolman is missing." Both men stood stock-still."

"Shall I tell thee?" Gwen said, smiling. "It may hap that Shacklar hath had his assassin disguise himself as a Wolman."

"Yeah, it's possible." Rod kept his eyes on Yorick as he nodded. "And, of course, the Futurians could have done that, too."

Yorick returned the nod. "Very possible. Major."

"So, then." Gwen set her fists on her hips and looked from the one to the other. "We have two schemes, either of which may serve. How are we to find out which is true, gentlemen?"

"Or if neither is." Rod shrugged. "We've got to find more information."

"Yeah, we keep coming back to that, don't we?" Yorick rubbed his temple with a forefinger.

"And how wilt thou accomplish this finding, my lord?"

"Go to the place where people talk, of course." Yorick grinned. "Feel like a drink. Major?"

"Very much, but..." Rod exchanged glances with Gwen.

"I don't know if it'd be too healthy for us to^how up in Cholly's."

Yorick spread his hands. "So it's my job. So what? Do I care? Do I worry about those bloodthirsty soldiers mis84

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taking me for a spy? No! Do I ask for honor? Do I ask for praise?"

"You're asking for it, period! Okay, we're thankful, we're grateful! We'll praise you to the skies! We'll even give you a good reference! What do you think you might hear that's worth repeating?"

Yorick elaborated a shrug. "If I knew, I wouldn't have to socialize. Y' never know—maybe somebody's doing an awful lot of sudden spending. If he is, three guesses where he got the funds? Oh, you can find out all sorts of stuff you weren't expecting!"

Rod pondered. "Might be. But remember, this is all just a guess. For all we know, the Wolman could have committed suicide. Our hypothetical assassin isn't even a rumor."

"Don't worry, I won't give the rumor currency—not so much as a farthing." Yorick flashed him a grin. "I'm off to the pub with the public. Major. See you in the false dawn." He tugged his forelock in Gwen's direction, and turned away to disappear into the night.

"I trust the dawn will be all that is false," Gwen murmured.

"A point," Rod admitted. "What do you say we follow him? Discreetly, of course."

"Assuredly," Gwen agreed. "Who can be so discreet as ourselves?"

Rod proffered his arm. She hooked her hand over his elbow, and they wandered off into the night, following Yorick's mental trail.

"Yet is there not greater hazard here, my lord? We might, after all, sit safe in some shed and listen with our minds."

"No doubt." Rod poked his nose over the windowsill for a quick peek at the inside of Cholly's Tavern. "But I can't resist watching that muscle-bound jester in action. Besides, we're at the back of the building, and in the shadows. Nobody's apt to see us. I mean, they do have indoor plumbing here." Inside, Yorick was gradually bringing the conversation closer and closer to the politics of the moment.

"Aye, here's to our Wolman brothers!" A corpulent corporal lifted his mug in a toast.

"And our Wolwoman sisters," a PFC agreed. A trooper shrugged. "You have 'em as sisters, if you want. Me, I'd favor closer relations." He won a general, leering laugh, and a middle-aged private called, "Relations is what they'd be, shavetail. These Wolmen don't hold with casual acquaintance. Seducers go quick to the shotgun." Yorick juggled with it, and lifted his glass. "Well, here's to the distaffs. May they not be disowned by distiffs." His answer was a chuckle that died a quick death. Soldiers fell silent, glancing at each other. "Don't know much, do yer?" A sergeant snarled.

Yorick frowned at him, and shrugged. '"Last come, first numbed.' So the Wolmen get mad at us. So what?"

"So what, he says!" growled one of the older privates.

"Yer wasn't here when the battles was real, chum! Yer didn't have ter go out 'gainst them bloody spears and see yer buddy's bowels ripped out!"

"Yer didn't have an arm chopped off," growled a maimed veteran, "and see the stump a-pumping!"

"Yuh didn't have their devil's yowling clawing at yuh ears, whiles yuh pulled back tuh the Wall with a dozen, where yuh'd gone out with a hundred," growled a grizzled sergeant, "and them spears and arrows poking at yuh from all sides."

"Don't sell them short," a gnarled corporal grated. "Vicious, they is, when they's fighting."

"And they isn't no cowards," another rumbled. "Arrowheads and spears can kill a man as dead as any blaster-bolt, my lad. And y' can't duck 'em, when they come in clouds!"

"How many did we lose?" The grizzled sergeant glared down into his beer. "A dozen a day? Sixty in a week? A hundred?"

"And for years it went on, years and years!" A fortyish 86 Christopher Stasheff THE WARLOCK WANDERING 87

sergeant slammed his tankard down on the bar. "We'll not have those days back—no, not at any cost!"

With a shock, Rod recognized Thaler.

"Well, even I wouldn't go that far," the grizzled sergeant mused. "I can think of some prices I wouldn't pay."

"For all that, so can I," the fortyish one admitted. "But there's plenty of prices well worth it!" He glared around him. "What's two lives, against the thousands that a war would cost? What's two lives, hey?"

The room was silent. Finally, "Aye," grunted the grizzled veteran, "but like as not, they'll squirm out of it at the trial."

"Only if they're innocent," Yorick put in quickly. "Okay, so I haven't known Shacklar as long as you have—but I'd have faith in his justice."

"Innocent or not, who cares?" Thaler turned to glower at Yorick. "If they're freed, the Wolmen will explode and swarm down on us again! And this time, every man jack one of 'em has a blaster!"

A mutter of apprehension ran around the bar. Most men shuddered, and the room was quiet.

For a time. Then a voice said,

"Kill 'em."

Shocked silence.

Then another voice. "Aye."

"Aye, kill 'em!"

"What matter two lives, in place of thousands?"

"Aye! Give the Wolmen their dead bodies in the morning, and they'll go away!"

The grizzled sergeant frowned. "But when Shacklar finds out..."

"He won't make no fuss," Thaler said, with a vicious grin. "What's the dead, compared to the living? Nay, Shacklar may be sheet-pale, but he'll say naught."

"But they're innocent!" Yorick protested.

"So're the men who would die in a war!" Thaler snarled.

"What's two innocents against a thousand, laddie? Eh?"

"But the trial!" Yorick bleated. "Would you want to go without a trial?"

"They're not me," Thaler snarled. "They're not any of us."

That drew a low rumble of agreement.

"But..." Yorick stabbed with a finger. "If you sell them for peace, what's gonna happen when one of you is accused?"

"Oh, my bleedin' heart!" the grizzled sergeant growled.

"What's-a-matter, bucko? You want war?" Thaler looked Yorick up and down, as though measuring him for a coffin.

"Ayuh, I think that's it. You've never seen a battle, have you, laddie? And you're sick with craving to be blooded."

"The hell I am!" Yorick said quickly. "I saw my share of scrapes before I wound up here—and calling 'em 'police actions' didn't cut the casualty lists!"

"I don't believe a word of it." Thaler slipped off his bar stool and stepped up very close to the Neanderthal, blood in his eye. "You don't have the look of a fighter to me. But you'd be glad enough to see us die in your place."

"Let's go get them," someone growled.

"Aye!" "Aye, get 'em and blast 'em!" "Serve 'em on a platter!" "Aye!"

"You're in it, laddie." Thaler fixed Yorick with a glittering eye. "Come with us now, or we'll know you're against us, and a traitor to the whole of the colony!"

"With you?" Yorick stared.

Then he leaped off his bar stool. "I'll do more than come with you! I saw the two of them scurrying for cover when I was coming in here. You come with me, and I'll show you where to find them!"

Thaler stared, then slowly grinned.

"Let's go!" Yorick shouldered his way through the mob, heading for the door. 'Rod and Gwen exchanged one quick, appalled glance, then shot away from the building at top speed.

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Where, my lord? Gwen's thoughts sounded inside Rod's head.

Anywhere, Rod answered, looking around frantically. There! He pointed to two huge barrels, lying on their sides, empty. Crouch down!"

Gwen did, clutching her broom to her, eyes squeezed shut. Rod hefted the barrel up and lowered it gently over her. Then he crouched down beside her, staring at the second barrel, concentrating, blocking out the rest of the world. The barrel lifted slowly, then descended to settle over him. He relaxed and sat back, leaning against its side, but kept his eyes shut, listening with his mind, seeing through the eyes of one of the less-intelligent soldiers back in the middle of the mob.

Yorick exploded out of the tavern with the lynch mob behind him. "Come on! I'll show you the last place I saw them!"