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The Meddlers by J. F. Bone

CHAPTER 1

I walked slowly down the dimly lit Avenue of the Merchants, eyed the goods on display, absorbed the sights, sounds and smells of Cit Eldora and displayed the characteristic curiosity of an Earthling tourist. Not the slightest trace of anxiety or nervousness marred the smooth contours of my face; my eyes mirrored no hint of the demands that my brain and adrenals were sending to my muscles.

I walked through the crowd of Parthians and tourists toward the vehicular part of the avenue. In an avenue of this size, I figured there should be some readily available form of transport; a gharry, a cycle cab, or even a taxi. The austerity measures initiated by Eldor XIV hadn’t reached the tourist trade yet, so my chances were good, but I had to depend on luck, and I didn’t like that.

Get out of here! my brain screamed. Hurry! You know what they’ll do if they catch you! I swore silently at the adrenalin that had pushed the panic button. I didn’t dare betray excitement. I was a blasé and superior Earthling and I’d better stay that way if I loved my skin and wanted to keep it intact.

Parth, with its low population, its open spaces, its trackless forests, primitive economy, and humanoid species was an irresistible attraction to Earthlings, surfeited with an overcrowded, overorganized world. The gravity, two-thirds that of Earth, was an added attraction. Parth was everything Earth was not, and Eldor XIV made it all available for a price.

Earthmen came in droves and went home to tell their friends. Tourism poured wealth into Eldor’s treasury, raised living standards in the cities, and brought the blush of prosperity to the countryside, a new situation for the feud-ravaged world, and most Parthians were in no mood to risk their easy living for the doubtful honor of having another Family in charge. The old society had drowned in the flood of tourist wealth that gave Eldor the monetary muscle and helped his efforts to turn the government of Parth from an oligarchy into a dictatorship.

If Eldor had his way, all Parth would be subject to his whims. If he weren’t supported and bankrolled by George Gordon Bennett, he still might be marginally acceptable, but with Bennett in the picture, Eldor was intolerable. I had known Bennett for nearly ten years and in that time I’d found little that was lovable and much that was suspicious. It was because of Bennett that I was here and it was because of Bennett that I was running. I had underestimated that blonde pirate. My bug had been discovered and my only hope of survival lay in flight. I could blow the lid off Parth if I got back to Earth. My tapes could trigger a popular revolt that might sweep Eldor from power and return the Families to their old place. I could maybe send Bennett to rehabilitation. At the very least I’d bring him out into the open.

The police didn’t know my identity, but unravelling that puzzle was just a matter of time. They didn’t know what I had looked like, and my appearance had changed since I had landed and passed through Customs and I.D. check.

But problems existed, too. Bennett, at least, would know my true identity, my purpose, and my ultimate destination. That would narrow the chase. There were only a few hundred thousand Earthlings on Parth and at least half of them were female, which would narrow the search even more. Most male Earthlings on Parth could be eliminated categorically, and the rest could be psych-checked in a matter of hours. I had to get away quickly; cleanly if possible; messily if necessary. All I must do was evade capture by a highly organized, superbly equipped police state on a world where I was an alien and had no organization or sympathizers to shield me. I grinned wryly. There was nothing to it!

I was conscious of the package under my left arm. I’d have to use those tapes. They were in triplicate—ordinary voice-letter microtapes in cassettes ten centimeters square and about the thickness of a piece of cardboard. They had self-destruct devices incorporated into them, but I had little faith in that ruse, for whatever one mind can conceive, another can subvert. One I’d mail to Earth. It wouldn’t get there, of course, but it might misdirect the pursuit. I had no doubt that every piece of mail leaving Parth would be examined, and the ham-handed postal authorities would turn the tape into a blank. I’d send another to the Autarch of the Borkarq Family, hereditary enemies of the Eldora. Arrangements had already been made with the Autarch about how to avoid the destruct mechanism. The third tape I would keep. If I were caught and the tape decoded it would be my death warrant, but I had no intention of being caught.

I reached the curb, found a post box and deposited the tape to Earth. With a whine of turbines, a ground car swept past, the gold circlet and dagger of the police emblazoned on its side. I flicked my handlight at a taxi with a red vacancy sign in its window, bulled past two big Parthians who also had signalled the car at the same time, and was inside before they realized how easily they had been manhandled. The driver lowered the flag, fed gas to the turbine and sped off before the natives could contest my occupancy.

“Where to, Earthling?” the driver said in bastard Lingua Franca.

“Warehouse district,” I said. “I’ll tell you where to go when we get there.”

CHAPTER 2

The car took me to the warehouses that lay along the banks of the Sanes River. It was a gloomy district with the squat black buildings sitting side by side on pilings along the riverbank. Beyond them the long wharves were lined with ships, idle now—with their deck lights gleaming through the foggy darkness.

“Turn left,” I directed as the cab began to move past the faces of the dark buildings. “Stop here.”

“That’ll be four sentars, sir,” the cabbie said.

“A fair and reasonable price,” I said, as I took a vibrator from my pocket and stunned him with a medium intensity discharge. I pushed the fellow away from the tiller bar and maneuvered the cab into a dark place between two buildings. Then I arranged him comfortably on the front seat, stuffed a hundred-sentar note in his tunic, locked the vehicle against thieves, and left.

These warehouses were peculiar to Parth, I thought as I moved soundlessly through the darkness. Material stored in them was virtually immune from seizure, a fact I had learned years ago. At that time I had paid twenty years’ rent on a cubicle and packed it with any material I might need at some future date. Since Transworld paid the bill, it was no skin off my pocketbook. I found my shed, unlocked it, checked with area security to keep a guard from visiting, and laid out the things I wanted. I struggled into a spacesuit, a heavy-duty job of the clumsy design common ten years ago. I found a kelly and a set of weights, then restored the other gear and locked the cubicle again. I might need the contents again some years hence. Three minutes later I slipped into the Sanes River and vanished under the surface.

The gentle sweep of the current carried me downstream and finally into the more rapid flow of the main current away from the stone jetties. In midstream the gentle trip became nightmare. The Sanes might once have been a beautiful river, but the dredges, tugs, barges, industrial wastes, and ocean-going vessels had turned the water into a sludgy soup festooned with waste and debris. I took the darkness as long as I could before anxiety drove me to the surface.

I was a quarter of a mile from shore—and directly in the path of a freighter coming upriver from the ocean. I took one horrified look, valved air and dove for the bottom. I didn’t dare move as the ship passed over me, its weed-covered keel scarcely a meter above. Finally the noise and motion had passed, and the river began to flow smoothly again.

I slowly rose to the surface. By adjustments of air supply, I was forced to float, and delicately suspended myself, barely awash on the surface. But despite the problems of maintaining flotation I moved steadily downstream on the schedule I had planned, until I came to the first of the dams that held back water for the navigation locks. Here the current died and I was forced to swim. I reached the dam, moved underwater across its upstream face until I reached a sharply shelving bank and crawled up until my helmeted head broke the surface. Crouched behind a screen of brush overhanging the bank of the river, I looked upward at the stonework of the dam looming above me. Voices sounded from above, their soft Parthian accents oddly menacing. “You say it was an Earthman who tried to kill Eldor?” one voice said curiously.

“Aye, that is what I was told. But he will not get away. Guards are everywhere. He cannot leave the city. By morning he will be caught.”

“Then why are we ordered to be alert?”

“Just in case, Karther, just in case. The police might let him slip. So we and other lockmen will watch, in case he comes this way.”

I grinned. With any luck at all, those two would be watching a long time.

All I had to do was wait for a ship to come downstream and, when the locktenders were busy, slip ashore and disappear into the woods bordering the river. My traffic check through this lock had indicated i would never have to wait over two hours. So I allowed that much time.

But I didn’t allow for the flap my successful penetration of Eldor’s security had thrown the police into. It was nearly two-and-a-half hours before the first boat came down the channel, and this craft was a police launch, its blue lights gleaming, its antennae circling purposefully, and its crew alert.

As the lockmen went to handle the patrol boat, I twisted the radar opacity knob on my suit belt, left the water and swarmed up the bank toward the welcoming green arms of the forest. I was in sight less than fifteen seconds and the darkness covered me. But I had scarcely reached the shelter of the woods when a sword blade of white light flashed overhead followed by the high-pitched whine of a stun charge. Ahead of me, something heavy flopped in the brush and lay still. I picked myself out of the dirt where the light had automatically sent me and crawled away from the beam into the sheltering darkness. About twenty meters away I froze against the ground as a party of Partshelter of a hians came up from the river along the beam of light.

“Search says it’s still here,” one of them said. “Wonder why it didn’t spot him before.”

I held my breath as they went past.

“Boat says about ten meters left. Those detectors are real gadgets. Ah—here he—oh Kirt!”

“What’s the matter, Drumo?”

“You know what we got?” Drumo’s voice was heavy with disgust. “You know what the ferdeelan schluck we got? Headquarters ain’t gonna be happy about us wastin’ time on a ferdeelan Vardel!”

“A Vardel!” Someone laughed.

I grinned into the darkness. The big, stupid beasts roamed the outskirts of Parthian cities looking for things to scavenge. They were essentially harmless, but they looked enough like a man to fool a relatively non-sophisticated search scanner.

I listened to the Parthians go with mingled relief and exasperation. This was cutting it too fine. Dawn would probably find me still trying to reach the ship, and with dawn would come trouble. The Parthian’s electronic and nucleonic gadgetry might not be as good as Earth’s, but the optical systems in their orbital stations couid track a fly through a forest. During darkness one could move reasonably freely on Parth, but daylight was another story. Presently the boat’s engines started and it swung upriver and disappeared. I broke cover as soon as it was out of sight, ran across to the water below the dam, entered the river and continued downstream.

The cave was where I remembered it, and the cycle was still there in back, covered with dirt and plastic wrap. I dug it out and checked it. The engine whined to life as I turned the steering rod, climbed into the bucket seat, and sped off down the narrow forest trail below the cave.

Fifty kilometers down the highway I turned onto a side road and into the abandoned stronghold of one of the Families. It sat upon a wooded hill, a large sprawling structure slowly crumbling into ruin. The walls, revetments and windows were cracked and chipped by time, but were still remarkably well-preserved.

Below the building were the squad rooms, the quarters and the missile sites that once made this stronghold a rallying place. Farther below ground were the factories and armories. Except for the material the Family had moved after the first landing of the Earthlings, the works and tools were still there. It was an eerie feeling to walk through the place. I had done it once before and had no desire to repeat the experience.

I had rented a piece of this property and stored an Altair-class spacecraft in one of the empty missile silos in the area. I had closed the lid on the ship, knowing with relative certainty that neither it nor its contents would be touched as long as the rent was paid. Five years ago, when I started chasing Bennett, I knew that it wasn’t going to be a quick affair and had made some plans for the future. I wasn’t going to get killed by lack of foresight or lack of materials if I could help it. I had traps laid for him on both Halsey and Earth, waiting until I could trigger them. And it was just the luck of the game that the break occurred on Parth. Halsey would have been a harder job than this.

CHAPTER 3

False dawn cast its gray light across the horizon as I drove the cycle into the shelter of a revetment near the silo where it would be shielded from the blast at takeoff. Beyond was a manway into the silo and I worked on the doorway for nearly two minutes, burning away rocks and tendrils with a hand laser before I could open it. The ancient metal, still bright and uncorroded, swung back, tearing loose the vegetation I had missed. I turned on my handlight and descended a metal ladder to the primary corridor forty meters below.

I went down the corridor, through another door and into a dusty room crowded with seats, scanner cells and instruments. I pushed a large yellow-handled switch on the master control console and was rewarded with a glow as the bank of lights came on. That was the nice thing about a Parthian nuclear power plant; its useful life was virtually forever. I closed the silo lid switch and slowly, with remarkably little noise, the lid of the silo moved against the pressure of the vegetation that covered it. I didn’t wait for it to open; there was too much yet to do. I ran to the lock that opened into the interior of the silo, cracked it open and squeezed myself between the wall and the drive tubes of the spacer before circling the spacer to look for the boarding ladder. The noise was louder here, a grinding metallic protest mixed with ripping and popping sounds as the rising lid parted the growth above it. Pieces of wood and leaves rained down and I winced as a larger piece struck me on the shoulder.

I found the ladder about half way around the ship and began to climb the rungs that extruded from the hull plates.

Since the hull was slightly larger at the stern than at the bow, it was no great effort to make the climb; although once, some twenty meters above the base, I looked down and had an acute attack of vertigo, for to my eyes there was nothing below me except empty air and the sheer smooth wall of the launch tube. I clung, shivering, to my perch, while the dizzy spell passed, and then resumed the climb.

And then it was over. The air lock was in front of me, the outer door was open and I crawled in with a sigh of relief. A minute later I was in the pilot’s chair. I closed the air lock doors, retracted the boarding ladder and energized the primaries that would bring life to the ship. The control panel gleamed. The vision tank, set on forward viewing, showed a circle of daylight above the shaft. I was barely in time. Dawn was breaking. Reaction washed through me in icy waves as I watched the exciter dial climb toward firing range. The optical scanners in Parth’s orbital stations would soon be searching the visible terrain. Their computers would instantly note the new hole in Parth’s surface where the silo had been opened. Within seconds position data would be flashed to Cit Eldora and in other seconds the deviation would be checked and a missile would home on the unauthorized hole in Parth’s surface. I sweated as I watched the exciter dial, my fingers poised over the firing keys. Slowly the indicator approached the green area. Seconds clicked inexorably past on the chronometer. I set a timer, coupled it into the drive controls and converter and waited. I’d have to take off at max, which was disturbing. I fastened the safety web around me and watched the drive exciter until it hit the green line, then retracted the stabilizing rods, fired the jets and advanced the throttle to its farthest notch. I was slammed into the web by an instant two-Gee acceleration that quickly built to five. When the yacht leaped skyward I went smoothly into blackout as the acceleration drove the blood from my brain into my rump. I was conscious just long enough to note that the rear view screen showed a picture of incredible violence, far more than could have been caused by the jets.

The ground heaved and boiled as an enormous explosion ripped the silo apart. My last thought before acceleration blackout was how much power there was in a full-driven ion jet. It didn’t occur to me until much later that no jet could have done that much damage. That explosion had been a missile. I had left in the proverbial nick of time.

In hyperspace there is virtually no inertia and hence virtually no acceleration pressure; and so in due time the robomedic healed my injuries and I regained consciousness. I screamed once or twice before I realized where I was, then grinned weakly and exerted the necessary will power to overcome the distortions of Cth. The trip timer read ten hours and twelve minutes. I’d made it! I’d won the bundle, the brass ring, the ball of wax. The worst was over.

Bennett was beaten. Even if the yellow-bearded giant knew I’d trapped him and started after me instantly, he would be too late. I had the faster ship and would arrive on Earth days ahead of him. My ship, gleaming plasticly in the monochrome light, was able to hold the yellow band with ease and could touch green if driven at maximum.

Well—that was it. I’d have a few days en route to write my story, and once I turned the yarn over to Jim Flynn my troubles would be over.

I was on a euphoria kick that made any possible horror Cth could create a thing of no importance. Getting Bennett wasthat bearded too great a triumph; the man was a meddler, an interferer, an organizer of cells of dissatisfied subversives. He was a boon companion to dictators, autarchies, lobbyists, political manipulators, bureaucrats, and corporation executives. Wherever there was power, there was Bennett. As Chairman of the Board of Spaceways, the fourth of a line of Bennetts who stretched backward into antiquity, he was the summation of family power. I grinned wryly. Fourth—hell! George Gordon Bennett IV was the same person as George Gordon Bennett I. The man was immortal! And it wasn’t agerone that kept him young. The antiagathic that gave humans and humanoids life spans of well over two centuries was good, but merely postponed death and dissolution. It didn’t restore youth, and that’s what Bennett’s technique did. It peeled age from the body as one would peel the layers off the heart of an onion. And the process worked for aliens as well as man. Eldor XIV was the same person as Eldor XII—or so similar that resemblance passed the bounds of coincidence. There was no Eldor XIII. Parthians, too, had triskidecaphobia.

And there were others who seemed to live exceptionally long lives. Somewhere, someone had the secret of eternal life—and eternal youth. It might not be Bennett, but the big man was obviously a very big man in the organization. He ran the show on a score of worlds inhabited by feathered, furry, scaly and smooth-skinned power wielders. They obeyed him because they would sell their souls for immortal life and unlimited power. Whatever Bennett’s motives might be, he controlled the commodity and exacted the price.

And the price was chaos.

Right now, mostly because of Bennett, the confederacy was tottering on the brink of disaster. A few pushes and the entire organization could disappear. Worlds that were once firm members were drawing away from the Central Authority. Civilization was teetering between order and anarchy. If Bennett had his way, the confederacy would be fragmented into enclaves controlled by absolute rulers. Civilization would be set back to the days when there was no such thing as interworld cooperation. The sector-wide organization of the confederacy would be shattered—to disappear perhaps forever. And that bearded atavism would become the greatest wrecker of all time.

I shook my head. The picture wasn’t complete. Why would Bennett want to wreck the confederation? It didn’t make sense. Granted, the confederacy was an unwieldy instrument and most worlds didn’t appreciate the authority that the organization held over their planets. But organization was the only alternative to anarchy and the sociologicians managed to keep some order in the hodgepodge of worlds.

I began to become suspicious of Bennett years ago; for the last five I had trailed him from one world to another observing what he did and trying to fit the patterns together. It had started innocently with a feature article entitled “Profile of a Tycoon,” which Transworld wanted for a holiday supplement. Material was plentiful, since the rich are always a source of news and Transworld’s morgue was remarkably complete. For a switch, I decided to write the yarn from a physical viewpoint and was in the process of assembling data when I noticed the incredible resemblance between George Gordon Bennett IV, twelfth president of IP Spaceways, and George Gordon Bennett I, third president of IP Spaceways. The two were virtually identical except that the first George Gordon Bennett had been dead for nearly two thousand years! Curious, I checked further and found other odd resemblances. Ezra Wheeler, Chairman of the Board of United Metals; Walter Heppner, President of Confederated Atomics; and Arthur Johansson, junior delegate to the Confederation Council, all from different time periods, all closely resembled George Gordon Bennett. All except the present Bennett had died violently or mysteriously and in no case was a body recovered. The five men spanned the twenty-century gap between the present George and the first one. Photos showed detailed similarities of face and body that could not possibly have been coincidental. All five were the same man!

CHAPTER 4

It was nice to be home again, I thought as I looked out of the view wall across the scintillating splendor of San Francisco spread below me. Not that I saw much of these quarters in Transworld Towers. Most of the time I was far too busy roaming the confederacy looking for stories for Transworld’s insatiable appetite. I got to use the apartment—one of my prerequisites for taking the job—whenever I was in town, which wasn’t more than a few days at a time, often months apart. Yet it was the place I called home, and I looked upon it as my base, my anchor to reality in a civilization that often seemed madly bent upon its own destruction.

The robobutler handed me a martini, clicked, beeped and announced in its impersonal, impeccable voice that there was a visitor at the door.

“Who is it?”

The robot clicked, twittered and cheeped behind its transite facade. > >He doesn’t say, sir. < <

“Tell him to go away. I’m not receiving company tonight.”

>>I cannot, sir.< <

“Why not?”

“Because I jiggered your Tin Woodman a couple of days ago,” a heavy amused voice said. “It can’t stop me from doing anything.”

I whirled. Bennett was standing in the middle of the room looking at me with a quizzical smile on his bearded face. “Did you think a robot would stop me?” he asked. His blue eyes lighted wickedly. “I see you did; well, live and learn.”

The thought came to me that I had never really seen the man before—just the shell. He was tremendous, not in size but in force. The impact of his personality was like a hammer blow. And for the first time in my life I was really afraid. It wasn’t the titillating fear of discovery or pursuit, but the cold gut fear of someone so hard and ruthless that your best is of no avail. The fact that my story was already in Flynn’s hands was no assurance of safety. It might be more dangerous than if it hadn’t been written at all.

“What do you want?”’ I asked.

“You!” Bennett said as he lifted the metallic thing in his hand and pressed its trigger. It was a weapon, I noted without surprise, and death, my mind reported with fading wonderment, was neither terrible nor heroic. It was merely final…

When I awoke I was in a spaceship. The standard shockcouch and web told me that much.

But what sort of spaceship?

The harsh monochromatic color that pervaded every object in the tiny cabin was a deep uncompromising violet.

Violet!

The implication struck like a thunderbolt! I was in a hypership travelling in absolute Cth! But violet was impossible! At that tremendous velocity the ship should buck and slam across the narrow warps of Cth like an unbroken horse! But this job didn’t even vibrate; there wasn’t even the smooth surges of a freighter travelling in the lower red. It was years in advance of the best that Earth could produce—and Earth had the highest technological civilization in the known galaxy!

“Ah! Awake, I see.” The bass voice was almost friendly.

I looked across the cabin at the open door framing the massive figure of George Bennett. He smiled, his beard parting to reveal a white flash of teeth.

“Sorry I had to stun you, but I didn’t have time to reason with you. Wouldn’t have done much good anyway. And I’m too old to outmuscle you—though give me a month to get in shape and I’d take you on just for the hell of it.”

“What does this mean? Where am I?”

“Dead,” Bennett grinned. “At least for the record. You were seen going to your ship at San Quentin Spaceport. Something went wrong. You defocused on takeoff and triggered a second order explosion in the pit.” Bennett shrugged. “That was the end of you. Naturally no one knew you were never near your ship, but instead were in mine. It’s getting harder to die accidentally nowadays what with this technological spurt the confederation is going through. Time was when one could simply disappear in hyperspace, but with the new detectors that’s getting risky, except for an emergency exit. One of these days we’re going to have to find a new sort of out.” Bennett shrugged. “I expect we may have to take a few years and die naturally. All these accidents are beginning to pile up. They make people like you suspicious,” Bennett chuckled in a rumbling bass.

“You won’t get away with this!” I snapped, and then groaned silently. Another cliche! Nobody listening to me would ever believe I was the man who had won the Mc-Cormick Award for creative journalism. I sounded more like a terrified college freshman in a speech exam.

“Those accidents are only suspicious if you’re looking for something. Nowadays they’re used only for emergencies. Like tonight.” Bennett eyed me speculatively. “You know, you would have done better if you had been less impatient. Jim Flynn was scheduled to die next year and he had chosen you to be his successor. You could have blown things sky high if you’d waited. Now he’ll stay on and train another successor. That’s hard on an old man with too much fat and a bad heart. You may kill him; really kill him.”

“I? What have I to do with this? Wait a minute. You’re not trying to tell me that Jim’s mixed up in this?”

“Up to his ears. I never would have spotted you if he hadn’t pointed you out.”

I was stunned. It was impossible to believe that fat, honest Flynn was a member of a power group that included Bennett. It didn’t make sense. Flynn was against consolidation of power. Said it meant nothing but trouble. “I don’t believe it,” I said flatly.

“That’s your privilege. It really doesn’t matter whether you do or don’t. You’re not going to tell anyone about it. You’re crossed off the confederation census list.” Bennett’s voice turned grim. “And since you’re officially dead, it wouldn’t cause too much pain to translate the official into the actual. So exercise a little caution. Sure, I know you dislike me, but don’t let emotion cloud reason. Any group that can count people like Wadsworth, DakKohl, Bernstein, Caantrava, and Chang Li among its members can’t be too bad.”

My face froze as Bennett calmly recited some of the more important names in the confederation. There was no doubt the big man was telling the truth. I had too much experience with liars and the Sorovkin technique not to be able to recognize one.

“Son, you only began to strike pay dirt when you stumbled on me. This time I’m just a minor fish in the pool. You missed the real payoff; it was right under your nose. Flynn is the big boy in this cycle; he is the focal point. I was just an expediter collecting the loose ends and making the machinery run efficiently. Trouble is that your outlook’s too narrow and too short. You don’t think big enough or long enough.”

I drew a long, slow breath. Bennett’s implications were frightening. If his organization reached into so many high places, how low did it reach?

“We go all the way in both directions,” Bennett replied, answering my unspoken question. “There’s nearly a hundred thousand of us and we can’t all be on top. That would be neither wise nor efficient. When you’re out to change society you don’t work by imposing your will on the majority. That’s never worked since the beginning of history. Any change that’s permanent has to come from the mass of society. So we condition the mass. We’re changing a whole planetful of serfs into something that’ll be a credit to the galaxy in another century.”

My self-control wavered. “So you’re a telepath, too,” I murmured. “I hadn’t suspected that.”

Bennett shook his head. “Not exactly. To anyone who knows the Sorovkin techniques, your thoughts were obvious.”

I flushed. This was almost an insult.

“Oh come now—don’t take it so hard. The Sorovkin method isn’t telepathy; you use it yourself. The only difference between us is that I learned the tricks from the Master, while you had to be content with a disciple. You’ll have an opportunity to correct your errors if you wish. Sorovkin still takes a few advanced students.”

“But he’s been dead for centuries.”

“Believe me, the reports of his death are greatly exaggerated. He’s going strong.”

“He’s with you?”

“Sure, why not? Our philosophy appealed to him. So did rejuvenation. You’re conditioned,” Bennett said. “In your way, you’re just as bad as those newsmongers during the interregnum. You haven’t got the long view— and since you don’t know what we’re up to, you think we’re evil.”

I snorted.

Bennett chuckled. “You can’t help being yourself, can you?” He laughed. “Maybe I sound like an old-fashioned villain, but I get a kick out of being melodramatic. Adds a touch of spice to a long dull life. But it’s the simple truth, son, you’re in my power. And don’t get any ideas about escaping. It can’t be done.”

“You can’t watch me forever.”

“I won’t have to. A few hours more and we’ll reach home base. Then we’ll let Nature take her course. In a month or so you should be acquiring some sense. But enough of this. I’m an old man and I’m getting garrulous. Just relax and enjoy the ride. We’ll be hitting breakout in a few more hours. I just wanted to welcome you aboard.” Bennett turned abruptly and left the cabin.

I looked around the bare walls and ceiling. There wasn’t much there. I patted my clothing. My kelly was gone. So was my wallet, my keys, and my pocketknife. They hadn’t left me a thing except my clothing.

I wondered why Bennett had visited me. The welcome was as phony as an Eridean’s honesty. Bennett wanted something—and in all probability had planted the stimulus that would get him the response he wanted. But if Bennett was trying to recruit me he was in for trouble. I had strong feelings about meddlers in human affairs—no matter what their intentions or motives might be. Interference with individual liberty and privacy was interference in the two basics on which society was built.

I rose to my feet and quietly inspected the cabin. The door was locked and the mirror set in its surface probably served double duty as a scanner lens. Bennett was on hand too soon after I had awakened for it to be an accident. Getting out of the room would be easy enough, but leaving a ship travelling in Cth violet would be another story.

I smiled wryly. One thing at a time. First I had to get out of this room. Then I could worry about getting off the ship. I turned away from the mirror on the door and reached for the lapels of my jacket. The thin, flexible-plastic stiffeners were still there. Carefully I extracted one, slipped it into my pocket and turned back to the shockcouch.

I turned off the cabin light and lay there in the darkness wondering whether the scanner in the door was sensitive to infra red and if someone was constantly watching. I doubted it, but the only way to find out was to try. This yacht wasn’t a prison ship, nor were Bennett and his crew jailors. Amateurs would be careless no matter how conscientious they tried to be.

I lay quietly, waiting.

The lights in my room flicked on briefly and then went off again.

That solved one problem. The scanner wasn’t sensitive to infra red. I came off the couch and knelt before the cabin door. Spaceship locks were child’s play: I probed with the thin plastic strip, twisted gently and swung the door open. Step one; I was out of the cabin. Now to get out of the ship.

I moved out into the companionway. It was annular, a ringlike passage separating two levels of the ship. Somewhere along it a manway led to the central shaft that connected the converter room and drive to the living quarters and the control cabin. And opposite the manway would be a lifeboat. Such an arrangement was standard.

I walked swiftly and silently down the passage and spotted the small red handle of the emergency lifeboat release protruding from the wall beside me. I broke the safety seal, inserted the handle into the release slot and heard a voice.

“Hold it right there, mister,” an icy contralto ordered.

My shoulders twitched with a slow, half-resigned shrug. “Well, you have to admit it was a good try,” I said as I turned slowly around, the release lever still gripped in my right hand. It was a woman—wouldn’t you know it! They always appear at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Ten seconds later and I’d have had it made. I eyed her curiously, from the soft spaceboots to the form-fitting jumper to a pale face crowned with a wealth of blue-black hair over dark blue eyes. She wasn’t beautiful. Her face was too strong and her body too lean. But I liked what I saw, except for the coldness in her eyes and the kelly held competently in her slim right hand.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The woman’s eyes suddenly widened, “Robertshaw!” she gasped. “You’re supposed to be locked up!”

“Stone walls do not a prison make,” I said and took a step toward her.

“Stay where you are or I’ll shoot!”

“You don’t look like a killer,” I said. Nevertheless I stopped.

“That’s better. Now turn around and walk right back where you came from, carefully. I know your reputation.”

I smiled. “Then you should know I never fight with women.”

“Only because they never give you a chance. They’re too busy gushing over you and falling down in your path.”

“It would be nice if you conformed to type.”

“I’m different,” she snapped.

I turned to face the wall and reached for the edge of the lifeboat release.

A sizzling needle of energy scorched my fingers. “Try that again,” the girl said grimly, “and I’ll burn a hole clean through your hand.”

“Well, that answers one question,” I said, as I threw the release lever at her head. I wasn’t gentle about it. Her hands rose instinctively to ward off the flying metal, and while her gun was raised my shoulder struck her in the midriff. I got my hands around the kelly, tore it from her grasp and smashed the heavy receiver against the side of her head in one uninterrupted motion. The girl’s eyes rolled upward as she crumpled to the floor. She wants to make like a man—then she’s gotta take it like a man, I thought; yet mixed with that was a feeling of uneasiness.

Stuffing the kelly into the waistband of my trousers, I turned back to the lifeboat, and opened the hatch cover. I hesitated for a microsecond and then scooped the unconscious girl from the floor and stuffed her into the boat. Not only would she be useful as a hostage, but from the angle I was looking at her she had a strong resemblance to Bennett.

I snapped the acceleration web over us and stabbed at the release button. The hatch slammed shut, the boat jerked. A crushing force drove the breath from my lungs and the blood from my brain as the boat tore free of the mother ship and began dropping like a stone through the Cth components. A warm purplish blackness, enfolded me.

CHAPTER 5

I struggled back to consciousness, feeling as though I had been passed through a meat grinder. I ached in every muscle and joint from the tremendous buffeting of the descent through the Cth continuum. Something had hit me in the face, leaving a thick lip, a bloody nose, and a bruised cheek as mementoes of its passage. The dried blood on my scalp testified to another collision. Drops of coagulated blood still hung in solid red balls in the air and drifted slowly about with the currents.

The woman beside me wasn’t in much better shape, although her face was unmarked save for a swelling blue bruise on the side of her jaw, and I’d given her that. She was still unconscious but her breathing was regular and her heartbeat was strong. A real tough chicken, I thought as I looked at her with proprietary pride.

I felt good. My guess had been right. A ship as advanced as Bennett’s would have to carry advanced design lifecraft. The lifeboat would have to have Cth capabilities. And it did. But its capability wasn’t that of the parent ship. Far from it! But so long as the fuel wire lasted, we could operate the converters and travel in the lower portions of the Cth red, and thus aim for interstellar distances. The fuel spools should last perhaps a month, which gave us a fair radius of action and a chance to reach a system that would support our kind of life.

I released my web and pulled myself gently away from it into the floating mess. It would take hours to restore a semblance of order to the confusion. I set about trapping the larger items and putting them back where they belonged, glancing occasionally at the control board and the woman under the web. Both were blank-faced and apparently lifeless, the control board because the pounding had defocused the jets, which had automatically thrown safeties on and killed the drive. Fortunately the decelerators had worked in those first frantic seconds of falling through Cth components. Subjective time had slowed almost to a standstill as we swept on across the interstellar gulf toward a star cluster lying athwart our path a parsec ahead. It would take about three weeks subjective—a bit over four years objective—to reach it, and since we were heading in the right direction, I decided to leave well enough alone.

I kept an eye on the woman while I worked, not particularly concerned, but wanting to be ready when she regained consciousness. As it was, I almost missed. I was busy securing the dowser when she moved with speed and purpose. Her body bowed upwards against the web as she reached for the control with her left hand. A small webcor blaster blossomed in her right.

She never had a chance to use it. I dove for the web control and reached it well before her struggling hand found it. I twisted the control knob to maximum and the blaster jumped from her hand as the web crushed her into the resilient deck of the cabin. Air hissed out of her lungs as the pressure increased.

“That wasn’t nice,” I said as I picked up the webcor and thrust it into a tunic pocket. I loosened the web a little so she could breathe.

“Damn you!” she said. She eyed me suspiciously. “You move fast. I should have remembered.”

“I was watching you.”

“Not closely enough. I ought to have beaten you.” She twisted her face into an oddly eloquent expression. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this temporary success will do you any ultimate good. Bennett will be on you like a hawk as soon as he gets a fix on you.”

“It might not be as soon as you think. Even if he stopped dead the instant we left the yacht, our own course down through the components would be hard to follow. He could miss us by several parsecs. And if he didn’t stop instantly we could very well be in another fold of Reiman Space at breakout.”

“Of course he’ll have to get special equipment to track you,” she shrugged, “but he’ll get it. And in due time he’ll get you. I’m too important to his plans.”

“How much is due time?”

“Does it matter?” she asked.

“It does indeed. If due time is long enough, I’ll be back in the confederation.”

She laughed. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t know where you are, where the confederation is, or what you’re going to meet inside that cluster. You have a lifeboat—but you can’t travel more than a few parsecs. It doesn’t have that kind of fuel, so unless you have some quick way of getting a few miles of copper wire, you’ll never get off the planet you land on. Therefore if you want to get back home you can’t make planetfall unless you can figure some way of getting into space again.”

“I can get help.”

“Where? You should know from confederacy history that planets seldom help star travellers, but you don’t seem to have learned. In any case, how many worlds are there in the confederacy?”

“Fifty-two,” I replied.

“And how many have a more advanced technology than Class Two?”

“Two.”

“So your chances are about one out of twenty-six of finding an inhabited world with a technology as good as Earth or Lyrane. Actually the figures are closer to one in a hundred if Del Armand’s figures are to be believed. And your chances of finding a habitable world are even less. About one in a thousand I’d guess. There are figures on that, but I can’t remember them. However if you do find a livable world, about the best you can expect is an ecology about a degree above the apes.”

“You don’t sound encouraging.”

“I’m not. I’ve been kicking around a lot and I’ve had an opportunity to see things. There’s more to this galaxy than the confederation.”

“Well, I’m not going to worry about it. We’ll try the G-type suns in that cluster ahead. There ought to be one that will have a suitable planet.”

She chuckled. “While you’re at it check the ion flares and the subspace communicator. You may be yelling for help sooner than you expect. And while you’re at it, how about turning me loose. It was a fool trick to try to disarm you, and I’m sorry I tried—but I’m not used to being clipped. I was angry.”

I shook my head. “No dice. You’re probably still angry. You stay right where you are until I can figure some way to keep you from killing me the moment my back is turned.”

“Look at it reasonably. What could I gain?”

“Nothing. But that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t try. No, I’ll keep you as you are until we check those worlds ahead. With luck we might even find a confederation outpost.”

The woman laughed. “You’re incorrigible!” she said. “I thought I’d seen them all, but you’re a new one. You see hope where none exists.”

“What’s so odd about looking on the bright side?”

“You didn’t even know where we were going in the yacht.”

“That’s true, but I can find out.” I bent over the celestial navigation tank and started the starmap indices rotating. “We should have a pattern soon—ah! Here we are!” The hum of the index stopped and bright letters appeared on the surface of the tank.

NO COMPARABLE PATTERN

“Huh?” My startled exclamation brought a smile to her face. “That’s impossible! There has to be a pattern.”

“No, it’s quite believable.”

“But we’ve mapped half the galaxy!”

“Then this could be the other half—or maybe not in our galaxy at all! You don’t know how fast a ship can go in the violet, or where it goes when it passes the folds of Reiman Space. Upper Cth isn’t like the lower components. The peaks are so close together that we cover an enormous distance every jump. There have been theories that we could cross the entire universe on a violet jump, and its quite possible that we could be clear across the galactic lens.”

‘“Don’t you know?”

She shook her head. “I don’t even know where Aurum is, even though I was born there. Dad and Mother keep that secret between them.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s home base, and because it’s the only place in the known universe where living organisms can be rejuvenated. It has to be kept secret.”

I swore softly under my breath. I should have stayed with the ship. Knowledge of that planet’s location would have been the biggest good news the confederacy ever had. And it would have killed any further plotting by Bennett and company.

Now what? I could broadcast a distress signal, but I doubted that anyone would be within range. And it would be more likely to attract Bennett than anyone else. Much as I would like to know the location of Bennett’s planet, I doubted that it would be wise to allow myself to pass into that pirate’s hands again. In the weeks—objective— that had passed since the lifeboat had left the yacht, Bennett had probably raised a first-class anger against me for kidnapping his daughter. And besides, on sober second thought, it might not be such a good idea to go to Aurum. Others, certainly, had gone with the intention of learning where the world of eternal youth was. located, but the women’s assertion that only her father and mother knew indicated that no one had been successful. Which, of course, again brought up the redundant question of who her parents were. There was enough of George Gordon Bennett in her big-boned body to make half the answer obvious.

“What’s your name?” I asked curiously. “If we’re going to share this boat, we should be at least that informal.”

She smiled. “It’s Martha,” she said, and stopped.

“Bennett? I thought so. Despite your hair you look enough like that pirate to be his daughter.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” she said.

“Quoting your father, you should know the Sorovkin technique. Now, was it or wasn’t it a compliment?”

She shrugged. “Dad keeps telling me I have a lot to learn. I guess he’s right; give me another century or two and I may be able to analyze someone like you.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” I said, “so stop trying. “Incidentally,” I went on, “how many years have you used trying to be a good agent?”

She glared at me. “How old do I look?” she asked.

“Not over twenty-five.”

I eyed her curiously. She could be twenty-five, or two hundred and fifty, or twenty-five hundred for that matter. It didn’t make any difference. What counted was her experience. I drew the webcor from my pocket and pointed it at her.

“Go ahead and shoot,” she said. “I’m not going to tell you another thing about my age.”

“I don’t give a hoot how old you are. But it’s just occurred to me that you might be old enough to be smart. You’re safe enough under that web, but I can’t leave you there, for a number of reasons, including sanitary ones. Besides, I’m probably going to need your help. So I’d better see to it that you’re defanged but useful.”

She glared at me, but there was curiosity behind the anger in her eyes. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Pull your teeth. Now get your hands over your head. Stretch them way up.”

She shook her head. “You won’t shoot,” she said.

“Correction,” I stated calmly. “I won’t kill you, but I’ll blister your pretty hide. I can stop the aperture down to a needle, and that’d be even better. A square inch at a time might not be pleasant, but I’ll bet it will get results.” I thumbed the intensity knob and twisted the -aperture control. “Now get those hands up.”

She slid her arms beneath the restraining web until they were stretched over her head. I set the web controls to maximum, crushing her into the resilient floor, where she lay, immobilized.

“You’re squeezing the breath out of me!” she gasped. “Loosen up, please!”

“Later,” I said. Right now I have a job to do, and I can’t be bothered keeping an eye on you while I do it. Breathe shallowly. You’ll get enough air.”

I turned away and began to examine the emergency lockers, grunting with satisfaction when I found a coil of woven duralloy cable. The task of immobilizing her wasn’t going to be nearly the problem it had appeared to be at first…

Martha Bennett sat cross-legged on the deck and peered over my shoulder as I manipulated the controls of the life boat. Her face held a peculiar mixture of anger and grudging respect as she watched me calculate a course toward a G-type star. She ran an exploratory finger along the circle of duralloy cable welded around her slim waist and followed it with her eyes to where its other end was welded to the after bulkhead. The cable was long enough to give her complete freedom of the facilities and the aft portion of the little cabin, but it was too short to allow her to reach the controls, no matter how she tried. I had been fiendishly clever. She could have cut the cable with the tiny blaster concealed in her waist belt, but she wasn’t wearing her belt. I had stripped her down to the essentials before I welded the cable around her waist.

“When are you going to give me back the rest of my clothes?” she demanded.

“I’m not concerned about your comfort,” I replied. “I’m interested in my safety. That pile of assorted gadgetry you were carrying had too many lethal qualities to be reassuring, and I just might have missed one or two when I checked your things.”

“You got everything,” she said.

I shook my head. “I doubt it. Your saying so makes me sure I missed something.” I shrugged. “But whatever it is, it’s of no immediate harm, and I can check you over later. Meanwhile you’re safer for me the way you are.” I read off the course data in the navigation computer, nodded and swivelled my chair to face her. “You know, I’d just as soon not kill you,” I said. “You could be useful, and under the neurocytograph you’ll give enough details to hang your father a dozen times. So don’t worry, I won’t bother you unless I must. You’re safe enough if you behave yourself. To me you’re just a means to an end.”

“I am, am I?” she sounded displeased. “Can it be that I’ve lost my girlish charm?”

Women! I thought.

“I’m your prisoner. I’m at your mercy.” Martha contrived to make it sound like an invitation. “I couldn’t stop you if you wanted to do anything.”

“I don’t want to do anything,” I said uncomfortably, “I don’t want to be involved with you and placed in a spot where you can wheedle me into letting you out of that cable. I don’t trust you, and I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“Coward!”

“Cautious,” I said. “That’s how I’ve managed to stay alive. I don’t take chances when I don’t know the answers.”

CHAPTER 6

I turned away from the controls, “Lunch ready?” I asked.

“Is that all I get for slaving over self-heating cartons?”

“What else do you want?” I reached out and patted her and she sighed. She had been partially right. I was male and I was susceptible. We had spent more than a month together and familiarity bred. I wondered sometimes if I was enough man for her. But she hadn’t complained and I hadn’t touched her until she gave the invitation. The element of affection in our relationship didn’t mitigate my suspicion in the slightest. And while our intimacies helped relieve the boredom of our tiny world, they accomplished nothing except to prove that we were physically compatible, and should be able to populate an empty world if we were to land on one. Aside from a certain tenderness, I never lost my caution. I summed it up very nicely after one of our interludes when she begged me to let her loose. “My dear,” I said, “I’m fond of you. I admire you. I enjoy you, and I like you. Probably I love you. But I do not trust you. And I do not intend to turn you loose until you cannot interfere with my plans. Until we land, you will remain as you are. Is that clear?”

We entered the star system, located a G-type star with a family of planets and were moving toward it at about lume 0.75, which was fast enough if we wanted to get there in a year or so. I kicked the boat into Cth red, flicked out, dove in again, killed speed and popped out travelling a scant ten thousand kilometers per second, just a few million kilometers from the fourth planet of the system. It was beautiful pilotage and Martha looked at me with admiration. The fact that she probably could do just as well didn’t make any difference. She was proud of my skill.

“How much fuel have we got left?” Martha asked as she watched the world unroll beneath us in the vision tank.

“Enough for a landing. Maybe enough for a trip to the next star. No more. Hunting for this G-type took a lot more than I expected. Anyway this is a pretty good planet.”

“So it seems. Want me to run an analysis?”

“Go ahead. It should run about Earth normal I’d guess. It makes me homesick to look at it.”

“Let’s hope this Eden doesn’t have too many snakes,” Martha muttered as she set up the instruments. It was a green and lovely place with a bluish atmospheric shell, smears of white clouds curling across the visible hemisphere and obscuring the dark mass of the oceans. It looked like home, and it well could be if we didn’t find the metal we needed. And there was no assurance that we would. Copper was the standard power metal, and we would need at least a ton of fourteen-gauge copper wire to drive us across the parsecs that separated this world from the confederation. The amount wasn’t great if the culture was advanced on the planet below. If the culture wasn’t, the problem was appalling. For in all of the wandering man had done in the name of the confederation, few civilizations higher than Class III had been found and civilizations below Class II knew nothing about organic chemistry or nuclear physics, and damned little about metallurgy.

The planet was inhabited. There were small cities, vilages and farmlands visible. Possibly the dominant life was alien, but there was a statistical probability that it was humanoid. It was odd how many times Nature had chosen the upright, binocular vision, thumb-handed type as the dominant organism. But there were other life forms that had developed intelligence and intellect.

“Well, what’s down there?” I asked.

“Gravity 80 percent Earth normal. Atmosphere: Oxygen 20 percent, the rest helium, chlorine, nitrogen and rare gases. Carbon-based ecology. The other data indicate it’s livable for carbon, hydrogen, oxygen-type life.”

“Well, that’s good enough tor me. What do you think?”

“What do I think. I think if you want to go down there, I’ll have to go with you. Where you go, I go. I think I must play Ruth to your Naomi, even though you are the wrong sex for the part.” She laughed and added “Thank Heaven!”

“What’s so funny?” I asked. I had the feeling that I was being obtuse.

“You wouldn’t appreciate what I was thinking.” She looked at me, veiled her eyelids and regarded me with such a naked expression of lust that I flushed. “I’ll tell you if you really want to know.”

“You don’t have to. I’ve seen that siren look before. And anyway I meant what did you think of the planet.”

“Oh that. It’s all right. However, it would be nice to know if the dominant race is humanoid.”

“There’s no way of checking,” I said. “We don’t have the equipment. We’ll just have to take our chances. After landing the few kilograms of wire left won’t be enough for much more than a blast-off, we’d need a thousand times that if we want to go somewnere.”

“The boat will hit as high as the yellow component on copper fuel,” she added, “about four hundred lumes— which might take us where we want to go in a few dozen years. Chances are we’d be dead of old age long before that time.”

“Oh stop it! It wouldn’t be over five. You know the difference between subjective and objective time as well as I do.”

“I don’t think I’d care to live five years in this boat with you. Two months has been plenty.”

“I’m going to orbit for a while and find the best landing spot,” I said. “I don’t think we should put down close to one of those larger towns. You really can’t tell what sort of life inhabits this world.”

“The odds’ll be a hundred to one they’re bipedal and about the same they’re not humanoid,” Martha insisted. “Town ecology is characteristic of a primitive type of civilization.”

“Let’s hope there’s more than an architectural resemblance. I think I’ll land on the edge of that northern forest.” I pointed. “The one below us now—and we’ll come down at night when it’s quiet. Now stand still a moment.” I took the webcor from the control board, pulled the loop of duralloy away from her skin and severed it with a high intensity beam. “It’s time you were free. I’ll need you to help me land.”

Martha rubbed the hot spot where the blast had singed her, stretched and dropped into the bunk beside the control chair. “It’s about time.”

Martha changed her clothing. The tight pants were appreciably tighter. She smiled. She had gotten fat from the confining life aboard the lifeboat, where there once were planes and angles, now there were curves.

As I tilted the gyros, the lifeboat spun on its long axis and presently was orbiting stern first. “All right, we’re ready to go down,” I said, “what sort of an approach do you recommend?”

“Dad designed these for either a straight-in curve, or a skip approach. It’s harder on the boat to come straight in. The heat shield won’t protect the wings, and we’ll lose aerodynamic stability. Straight-in is only for emergencies. So we do it primitive—like back in the rocket days. We calculate an approach corridor, decelerate and then glide down to a landing. Actually it shouldn’t be too hard, although this boat’ll probably stall out at 200 kph.”

I shrugged. “We can only die once. I’ve never landed a lifeboat.”

“I have, and walked away from it,” Martha said.

“Then you’d better land this one.”

“Why not?” Martha slipped into the pilot’s chair. “I might as well earn my passage.” She checked the instruments.

“You pick the exact site,” I suggested. “One is about as bad as another.”

“We’ll skip in the upper atmosphere to kill speed,” Martha said, as she rotated the ship on its gyro to bring the bow forward. The air will do a better job of slowing us than the jets could ever do. I’ve noticed a good spot-— a shallow bay, a level beach and a salt marsh that ultiCautiousmately becomes dry land. We should be able to put this job on the ground without a bit of trouble.”

“Okay, you’re flying. Take her down.”

Martha did, and the landing went precisely as it should, a glass-smooth approach, a delicate touchdown that killed residual heat and speed in clouds of spray and steam, a crushing deceleration as we hit the marsh, a series of bumps and a final grating jar as we slid onto dry soil. Martha grinned as she closed the control board. “That was a good landing, if I do say so myself.”

“I agree,” I said. “You really brought her down like an expert.”

“I’ve had years of experience. Incidentally, we’d better run a check and find out what biological adaptations we’ll have to simulate in order to live here.”

“I hope there aren’t too many.” I frowned. “Adaptation is always a mess.” I opened sampler ports, took air and soil samples, passed them into the analyzer and waited. The writer hummed, clicked and began extruding tape. “Hey! look at this—four plus coordination with Earth. Well, what do you know?”

“How many major adaptations?” Martha asked practically.

“One. The whole place is high in chlorides. We’ll need a greater salt tolerance; either an increased renal efficiency or sweat gland modifications.”

“Would we be hurt if we went outside as we are?” Martha asked.

“Of course not. The chloride is a long term thing.”

“Then let’s go out.”

I shrugged. “If I were you, I’d wait until morning.”

“Well, open the port at least.”

“Uh-uh. I want to be able to see what’s outside.”

“Cautious?”

“Cowardly. It won’t be impossible to wait until morning, just uncomfortable.”

It was.

Dawn came with startling abruptness, and with it a yellow sun, slightly larger than Earth’s, shining uncompromisingly from a cloudless, greenish sky.

“Want to explore?” I asked, ‘it’s going to be some time before the survival box’ll be able to cook us up what we want.”

She nodded. “I want to get out of here and breathe some unregenerated air, and get a bath. To put it frankly, this place stinks!”

“Okay, let’s go. I pushed the hatch control to “open.”

“But first, let’s attend to our defenses.” I opened the arms locker and took out two kellys—heavy military models— and the webcor. I clipped a charge belt and holster around my waist and handed her the second kelly.

We climbed down to the ground and stood still for a moment, letting our bodies accustom themselves to gravity, sunlight, and fresh air.

“Deserted place,” Martha murmured as she scanned the dark trees and the empty clearing. “Could we have frightened the denizens off?”

“Could be, but I doubt it. Probably they sleep in the daytime. There was plenty of noise early this morning.”

“I didn’t hear it.”

“You couldn’t; not over the noise you were making. Or do you know you snore now that you’re under gravity?”

“I do not.”

“Next time I’ll make a recording and prove it to you.”

Martha looked at me with mock anger, then spoiled the effect by giggling. “Come to think of it, what can I do except stop sleeping in the same room with you?”

“You could keep your mouth closed,” I said, “even though that’s asking a lot—Oh! Oh!” My head turned sharply to the right toward the beach. “We’ve got company.”

Martha looked along the direction of my eyes. A startled expression crossed her face. “Well, for Heaven’s sake!” she gasped. “I don’t believe it!”

CHAPTER 7

I couldn’t believe it either. It was a robot riding an animal, a huge splayfooted beast whose long legs argued a certain amount of speed. Behind the robot was a cluster of stumpy-legged, cylindrical beasts with roughly tetra-hedral heads bearing horns above each eye and at the end of their muzzles. They milled about uneasily and made querulous noises.

The robot regarded us fixedly.

“What’s that about low technology?” I asked. “See how that thing moves, hardly any jerkiness at all. It’s as good as a Mark Ten.”

“I don’t think—” Martha began, but what she thought was not said, because the robot uttered a hollow shriek and came racing across the meadow toward us. I noticed then that it was carrying a spear, and the thing was pointed at us.

“On max,” I ordered, drawing my kelly. “Robots are hard to stop.”

“Minimum,” Martha replied, drawing her blaster and putting a low intensity charge into the rider, while I was still setting the charge knob. It stiffened and fell off the animal with a clatter of metal, and didn’t move. “I thought so,” she said, “That’s no robot. It’s an armored humanoid. We had people like that once. They were called knights.”

“When was that?”

“Back in the Dark Ages—several thousand years ago.”’

“Was that why they were called knights?” I asked.

She ignored me.

The humanoid’s mount eyed us suspiciously as we approached, sniffed, emitted a whistling screech, before tleeing toward the semicircle of horned animals, its splay-feet spattering mud as it ran.

“We’ve been too long without a bath,” Martha said.

I ignored her and turned the prone figure on its back. Instantly an iron fist gripped my arm.

“Look out!” Martha screamed. A sizzling streak from her kelly cut through the blade of a knife driving at me. The shock of the discharge tore me out of the thing’s grasp as the blast slammed it back to the ground.

I shook my head, half dazed by the shock.

She came closer, her kelly ready, as I unlaced and removed the headpiece to reveal a face startlingly human with only minor differences. Only high heavy cheekbones that gave the face a triangular shape, tiny ears, and a complete lack of facial hair except for long thick eyelashes indicated a different species. The eyes were open and the face held a fixed, inanimate expression.

Martha placed fingers on the figure’s neck. “Pulse rate’s slow for something this size, eyes are glassy, breathing is slow. I’d say it’s in shock.”

“Why not?” I asked. “How would you like to have a knife melted out of your hand?”

“I’m not wearing iron gloves. Frankly, I doubt if the fellow’s burned.”

“Let’s get him down to the ship.”

“Him? Are you sure it’s a him?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s a they, but I can’t see calling him it. You can call him her if you wish.”

“Thanks, I’ll withhold judgement. Probably you’re right. Warriors in primitive societies are usually male.”

“Do we have a translator aboard?”

“We should have a Hunt-Winslow semiportable multipurpose.”

“Hope it’s not broken.”

“She shrugged. “It’s probably all right. Those things are rugged.”

“Well, how about finding it while I get this fellow over to the boat.”

By the time Martha located the Hunt-Winslow, the native’s eyes had lost their empty look and he was making noises—guttural sounds, followed by liquid sounds, tongue clicks and glottal stops. It was obviously a language, but equally obviously it was unrelated to any I knew.

“The translator, dummy,” Martha muttered impatiently.

I shook the fog out of my brain, put a helmet on the native, and turned the thing on. The native froze in mid-speech and remained that way while the cyborg ransacked his brain and filled a section of memory banks. Finally recognizable sounds came from the translator’s speaker, a little metallic, because something is always lost in translation, but the meaning was perfectly clear despite the archaic construction. I took the helmet off his head and packed it in its case while the translator changed his odd sounds into Fedspeech.

“Prithee, fair sir,” the translator crackled, “with what fell thing didst thou unjesset me?” the translator paused, waiting for an answer.

It’s called a blaster,” Martha explained. “It’s one of our weapons.” The translator dutifully translated into guttural gurgles and glottals. I noticed with some surprise that it managed to retain her tonal qualities.

“Is it that thy lord is dumb that thou bee’st so forward?” the cyborg translated.

Martha boggled and I grinned. “Nay, fair sir,” I said. “Tis this way in my land. The ladies speak often, first and longest.”

He shrugged—a peculiarly familiar gesture that made me smile. It said so much without words.

Martha flipped the translator switch. “I don’t think I’m going to like this fellow,” she said. “He’s a male sex chauvinist.”

“And what’s so bad about that? You’ve been living with one. Now turn that machine back on.”

“Hight I Sar Malthor, lord of this demesne. ‘Twas a peasant, Garlan by name, who apprized me of thy presence. As suzerain I did arm myself and ride out to see if he spoke truly, and he had indeed for your great wedge of metal does indeed lie in the zocca pasture. And the zoccas refuse to pasture with that metal before them. They are shy beasts and betimes stubborn.”

I noticed that the translator was beginning to do a better job with the native’s tongue, and I was grateful. I have no knack for archaic forms.

“As justice of the peace, and chief magistrate, it is my duty to investigate all strange occurrences and crimes in my demesne. You are an occurrence, and your metal keeps our beasts from their pasture.” He had risen to a sitting position and was eyeing the evidence before his eyes with disbelief. The plowed trail trailing back to the sea had destroyed a fair bit of pasture as well as making a record of our speed when we had hit the beach. It wasn’t hard to follow his train of thought. Sorovkin technique worked quite well on him, which surprised me.

“This metal,” the translator said, “it is very strange. Not even Maestro Calli, the greatest smith in Tharn, could fashion such a thing, or cast so great a form in one piece. And it gleams like a new-struck coin despite its scraping over the ground.”

I brightened. Coinage—ah! Where there is coinage there must be copper. I looked at Martha and she nodded. She was better at Sorovkin than I.

“Well, where do we go from here?” I asked.

“I would suggest…” he let it dangle.

“Yes?”

“You could set me free after you have exacted an oath. I would then, perforce, be sworn to aid you. And if I am not mistaken you need aid. For never have I seen such strangely attired folk as you. Your woman is without modesty, displaying her limbs like a foolish page, and you wear such garments as we hide beneath our armor or our robes.”

“Different lands, different customs.”

“You must be from a different land indeed.”

“My land is quite a distance from here,” I admitted. “And I agree we should conform to your customs.”

“My race is long on conformity,” he explained, “and we have strong traditions.”

“Okay, we’ll take a chance on your traditions and hope that honoring your word is one of them. Swear the oath.”

“I’d be delighted,” he said. His voice changed and became oddly formal. “I pledge the honor of my family and my honor as a warrior that I shall bear thee true faith and allegiance and shall not forswear myself without giving fair warning. I will fight in thy defense. I will share my wealth and property with thee and I shall honor thee as a friend.”

“That’s a lot.” I was impressed.

“Now give me something, a bracelet, a ring, a chain to signify you accept my fealty.”

I slipped off my wrist chronometer and handed it to him.

” Tis a strange, rare gem,” he breathed. “I have never seen its like. These figures that flash upon its surface. What do they mean?”

“They tell time—the time on my world, and mean Galactic time.”

“It is truly a king’s gift,” he said as he slipped it on his wrist and admired the fit. “Now help me into my harness, and I shall return to Lothain for conveyance and proper clothing. You would do well to remain hidden until I return.”

CHAPTER 8

Martha was unhappy with Tharn. She was an active woman who had been involved in major social and political affairs for most of her life, and to live in a circumscribed static society run by and for males was hard on her. She was effectively separated from the mainstream, not because she was incompetent but because she was female.

I had it made. I was the boon companion of the Lord of the Manor. I taught him karate and the military arts and he taught me the techniques of sword and spear, axe and mace. Sar Malthor and I respected each other and got along famously. I could suggest things that Sar Malthor often implemented. I was free to come and go as I pleased. I was respected and envied, held a certain amount of real power, and was recognized as an important individual.

All this was denied to Martha. She was confined to the manor and to household tasks. Her companions were cultural morons whose activities were almost entirely domestic, and her only access to power was through me. And what was worse, she wasn’t an individual, she was Warren Robertshaw’s woman. It galled her independent soul, and since she wasn’t used to operating through a man who was her political if not her personal enemy, she was continually frustrated. I sympathized, but that didn’t help matters. It came to a head several tennites after we had settled in at the manor. A tennite is the Tharn week, a ten-day period ending with a holy day at the temple, which combined the functions of religious services, a town meeting and a justice court.

I had come from a pleasant and active day helping supervise the construction and layout of a new irrigation system, and Martha was waiting for me in our quarters.

“Have a good day, dear?” I asked as I took off my cloak and walked toward the fireplace to warm myself.

“Ha! I had a good day all right! It was a real gasser! I found out why I’ve been so popular among the female element; and it’s not because of my brains or my foreign accent!”

I shrugged and said nothing. I had learned from experience not to interrupt when she used this tone of voice.

“Can’t you guess why this room has been filled with Tharn females every day?”

“No,” I said.

“I’ve endured their mindless chatter for weeks. I’ve listened to them nibble cliches to bits with their sharp little teeth. I’ve auditioned soliloquies and choruses of domestic difficulties and servant problems until my head ached. And for what?” Martha gripped the collar of my jerkin with spasmic fingers and glared at me. “Do you know why I’ve done this? Do you know why I’m so popular? Do you know why? I thought it was because I’ve tried to inject some social consciousness into this gaggle of geese. I thought they came because they wanted to learn something. They didn’t want to learn anything. They just wanted to look at the freak who has menstrual periods in the wintertime; the freak who’s fertile all year around! Or did you know they’re seasonally polyestrus?”

“I know.” I nodded. “After all the Hundred Days are a major topic of male conversation.”

“They would be,” she said. “That maid of ours, Gayla! I’m going to make her regret the day she ever opened her big mouth about me.

“So what’s the harm?” I asked. “Everyone knows we’re strangers.”

“Not that strange!”

“Well, maybe not. Possibly you could have lied.”

“I didn’t even consider it. It was something of no importance.”

“To you, maybe, but not to them. Sex is a big thing in this culture.”

“So I realize. Well, I hope I didn’t ruin your standing.’”

“Oh mine isn’t hurt. Males are fertile and capable sexually all year, and there are such things as harlots— surgically altered females who are sterile but capable of sex all year. Nice ladies don’t mention them, though.”

“And so the women think that I’m—”

“I doubt it.” I smiled benevolently. “No, you’re just a freak.”

“How nice.”

“But you can be grateful that females don’t count for much in Tharn. The men don’t ordinarily listen to them. Other than being mildly envied for having a sexpot for a wife, I doubt if I suffer at all.”

“Damn! I think you planned it this way!”

I laughed. “Do me a favor,” I said, “and ask the women back for tea, or whatever.”

“Why? They won’t come anyway. I pointed out a few unpleasant truths to them about their mental level.”

“Oh they’ll come, if only for curiosity. And they may be useful. We’ll need to work together if we are to get off here.”

Martha looked thoughtful. “Okay, I’ll invite the yak club back. I’ll talk about you. That should bring the subject low enough to attract a mob.”

I shrugged. Women!

“You know,” she said after a moment’s silence, “maybe we should stay here and get this culture moving. If I could be certain that I was accomplishing something to better this society I wouldn’t mind being a kitchen agitator.”

I shook my head. “No way. We concentrate on getting out.”

“So you can save the confederation from Dad?”

“Something like that.”

“Just what do you think he’s doing?”

“He’s breaking up the union. He’s trying to make enclaves of the united worlds.”

Martha looked at me oddly. “Is that all you can see?”

“Isn’t it enough? Economic disintegration, chauvinism, mutual distrust and antipathy would lead to war and social chaos. People would suffer; many would die.”

“I suppose so.” Martha’s voice was neutral and I had the impression that I had been turned off, that I had voiced a political cliche of no importance. “That’s a matter between you and Dad if you ever get together.”

“Oh, we’ll get together.” My voice was assured. “And he’ll know when I’m back.”

“I have no doubt he will,” she replied. For some reason she sounded amused, and it bothered me. “But first you must get there.”

“Don’t worry.”

“But when?” she grinned at me. “You’re going to be an old man before you get back, and by that time the confederation should have changed beyond recognition.”

“Not necessarily,” I said.

“Surely you don’t think you can get pure copper wire all at once. The technological problems are enormous.”

“We’ll handle them as we come to them.”

“We?”

“Of course. You and I must work together.”

She kissed me then. “You say the nicest things every now and then. I’ll help you. I won’t double-cross Dad, but I’ll help you. And maybe in the meantime we can do something for this world.”

“I’ll make a bargain with you,” Martha suggested.

“Ah, the kicker,” I thought.

“If you get home too late to change things, you’ll turn us over to Dad. Agree, and I’ll help you all the way.”

Why not, I thought. I have nothing to lose. “Okay, I agree.”

CHAPTER 9

“Why don’t you play sorcerer to Sar Malthor’s swordsman?” Martha asked. “You know enough to be a fairly good technological wizard and I can help you. Between us we can move this bunch of clods into dynamism, and with Sar Malthor to front for us we can gain a position of power.”

“Like this year, maybe,” I added. “I’ve thought of that, but he’s honorable and he believes in the code. He might not approve.”

“Does that matter? You don’t have to tell him everything. Suggest; let him think he’s doing it himself. One thing’s certain; you’re not going to get a ton of copper all by yourself, let alone purify it and turn it into drive wire. You’re going to need help and lots of it, so you might as well get it through Sar Malthor. After all, he did swear an oath.”

“Why the sudden change in attitude?”

“I said I’d help and I’ve been asking questions and studying manuscripts. Since the Hunt-Winslow taught us the language these studies have been relatively simple. The local temple has quite a library, and Alfon, Sar Malthor’s page, has been bringing me manuscripts. He thinks I’m beautiful and exotic.”

“Smart boy.”

“He also thinks I’m sexy,” she added smugly.

“He’s too smart.”

“So with Alfon’s help I have learned a lot about Tharn, and I’m impressed. It’s one of the strongest and most stable governments I have ever seen; a self-renewing pyramidal structure composed of secular and religious divisions, both of which are united in the Tarnas or priest-king.”

“Spare me the details,” I said. “Just tell me if it can be penetrated without inside help.”

“It can’t.”

“Well, that settles it. We’ll have to use Sar Malthor.

Fortunately, he’s ambitious and not too bright. I don’t want to be responsible for setting a man on horseback—”

“You mean jessetback,” Martha interjected.

“—loose on this country,” I continued, ignoring the interruption. “This is a nice stable state and it would be a shame to disrupt it. It has considerable charm.”

“To a vegetable, perhaps,” Martha said acidly. “But we don’t agree on the functions of society, so let’s drop it.”

I nodded. Martha thought society’s function should be to stimulate; I thought it should be to protect. We didn’t agree and probably never would, but there was no sense fighting about it.

“Okay, so we push Sar Malthor up the hierarchial ladder. We’ll have to use the Hunt-Winslow to do it. And he’s going to learn a lot of things not in the Tharn curriculum. That machine isn’t selective. Already, from the one talk we had while the cyborg extracted his language and knowledge, he knows altogether too much about how our culture operates. He uses words I never taught him.”

“It’s something we’ll have to live with; without the technology the concepts can’t do much harm.” Martha eyed me curiously. “What rank do you figure he’s good for?”

“Provincal,” I said. “I think he’d make a fine replacement for our present one. Sar Virra of Valthi is someone Tharn could do without.”

“Who told you that?”

“Rumors only. He’s a pretty foul specimen if they are even partly true. Personally, I think Sar Malthor would be a better lord than the one we have.”

“Particularly for our purposes?”

I grinned. “Anyway he’s tentatively agreed to let me groom him for the trials, and he’s teaching me the manual of arms in return. I’m going to become a swashbuckler.”

“Between you and me,” she said, “I’d rather have a kelly.”

Feeling slightly deflated, I went down to the tiltyard to find Sal Malthor or Jorn the Smith. I felt that I was right to point Sar Malthor at Sar Virra. I had the perfect solution for the cultural contribution essential to qualify a man for anything higher than a Marchal—the next step above a manorial lord and a dead end of soldiery that guarded the borders of the island against pirates and raiders, and collected customs and export taxes.

From Regionals on up through Provincials and Councillors to the Tarnas himself all candidates must present some worthwhile contribution to Tharn at their trial. It could be either aesthetic or practical, but it had to be original.

For Sar Malthor, Martha had dreamed up the invention of the age—a jesset collar. Believe it or not, the human race would still be in the Dark Ages if it hadn’t been for the invention of the horse collar, which revolutionized transportation and made it possible to use something far more efficient than bullocks or human muscles as a power source.

But my work was just beginning. The Hundred Days were initiated with the festival of the Lucerpal, and that little orgy was just around the corner, temporally speaking. Already the spring plowing and sowing was under way, and everyone from adolescent to ancient would stop in the temple court to observe the shortening of the shadow cast daily by the stele upon the stone.

The trials were held at the end of the Hundred Days. Even with the cyborg and the temple and manor manuscripts we poured into it, there was hardly enough time to make a background of knowledge sufficient to turn Sar Malthor from a victim into a victor. He had tried and failed twice before, and as I saw it, he’d need to be nearly letter-perfect to survive the third trial. I didn’t tell him this, but I made the cyborg sessions as difficult as I dared and kept him under the helmet until his ruddy bronze skin turned green with strain and fatigue. I watched his diet and saw that he stayed healthy. His wives resented me for wearing him out with study almost as much as I despised them for feeding him sugars when what he needed was steak.

Martha stated it better than I could when she observed that Sar Malthor had better be teachable, because without him we’d never get off the ground. The more I learned about Tharn society, the more I became convinced that the first Tarnas was a genius. The pyramidal structure was bad enough, but when it was reinforced with popular participation in decisions and continual renewal from below, and buttressed with checks and safeguards against dynastic control, badly trained officials and administrators, the result was virtually crackproof.

And Sar Malthor got his revenge for the skull-cracking sessions with the cyborg through muscle-wrenching sessions in the tiltyard.

It began with simple exercises. Then it graduated to exercises in armor. Then it postgraduated into the manual of arms.

“With what do you wish to begin?” Sar Malthor asked.

“Something simple, I think. Mace or axe maybe.”

“Do you think you’re ready for the mace? You pick a strange weapon to begin with. An it were I, I’d choose the sword anytime. Observe.” He walked over to the arms rack and selected a mace. The handle was short, heavily ribbed and wrapped with leather to ensure a firm grip. At one end was a loop of leather through which Sar Malthor slipped his wrist. At the other end was a stout metal ring to which was fastened half a meter of chain and a spiked ball of steel about ten centimeters in diameter.

“This is a mace,” Sar Malthor said. “It looks simple does it not?”

“Simple and effective,” I agreed. “You swing it and bash the other guy.”

“Like this?” Sar Malthor flicked the handle and the spiked ball came hurtling at my head. I didn’t even have time to duck. But the ball stopped millimeters from my nose, reversed its course, came back again, clicked against my corselet and dropped to the ground. “Broken skull, smashed ribs,” Sar Malthor said. “Nice, isn’t it?”

“What?” I sputtered. Suddenly I revised my opinion of the weapon.

“It is one of the deadliest against an armed man,” Sar Malthor said.” In the hands of an expert it is irresistible; particularly if he is mounted and can deliver the ball on the downward swing. But it is not for beginners. Here, let me show you. Ho! Ranver, set up the targe!”

The man-at-arms standing by the arms rack turned toward the wall and picked up a man-sized, wooden dummy, roughly shaped to resemble a Tharn warrior, and thrust it into a stone socket embedded in the ground.

“Now watch,” Sar Malthor advised as he mounted his jesset and rode at the dummy. The ball whirled overhead and descended as the jesset raced past. There was a glint of steel, a heavy crack of metal against wood, and then the targe was missing half the knob that had formed its head.

“Helm,” Sar Malthor ordered, and Ranver placed a metal drum over the battered head of the targe. Once more Sar Malthor rode down on the figure. This time the sweep of the ball ended in a ripping clang and the metal drum, bent and torn, went sailing through the air.

“See,” Sar Malthor said, as he reined the jesset to a halt and dismounted beside me.

“All right, you name the weapon. I don’t think I’m ready for the mace.”

“The axe is good,” Sar Malthor said thoughtfully. “Yet it is inferior to the sword at close quarters and to the mace at middle distance. However, it is easy for beginners, for everyone has chopped wood, and thus the rudiments of axe work are known to the muscles.”

Not to mine, I thought. I’ve never chopped a stick of wood in my life! But I nodded.

“The technique is easier,” Sar Malthor said. “It merely depends on pressing home a continuous attack that keeps your opponent constantly on the defensive, waiting for a chance to counter. With the axe you cannot let up. I can see where it might appeal to one like you. Now pick you an axe and let us get to work.”

I selected an axe and followed the Tharn into the sunlight. The air was warm. The sand was hot underfoot. I felt oddly alive.

“Now,” Sar Malthor said. “Let me see you swing the axe.”

I swung.

“No, not that way; you’re swinging cross-handed on the forward stroke, and you follow through too far. You’re off balance for the return cut that must follow immediately before your enemy can skewer you like a fowl on a spit.

Keep the stroke shorter. Ah! That’s better. You swing well to the left and poorly to the right, which is normal for a right-handed man. Don’t shift your grip; turn your wrists and swing cross-handed. Sure its hard to get power in the stroke but you’ll learn. That’s it! Get the idea? Keep the stroke short. The leading arm should be straight from wrist to shoulder. Back and forth with the edge. Now the spike. Fine, but get some body into the blow.

“Weave the steel in front of you. Move forward; keep the blade moving. Don’t stop! Press on! Don’t slow it down! Back—Forth—Back—Forth—get the rhythm of it? Now keep swinging until you can’t hold the axe, and keep the strokes short!”

The axe fell from my limp fingers. “Good God! Malthor! Are you trying to ruin me?”

“A boy of sixteen summers would class that as a light workout in the School of Arms. You’re strong all right, but you’re soft. You have no endurance.”

“I’m not a boy of sixteen.”

“No, you’re a man; older, stronger, smarter. Your trouble is that you’re not used to hand weapons. It is tiring to wield them, but that will pass. Ere the time of the trials you will be competent.”

“I asked for this,” I muttered.

But finally the drill was over, and I had my innings.

“All right, you’ve had your turn. Now it’s mine.”

The Tharn’s face lengthened as we mounted our jessets for the ride to the ship. “I despise this priestly study,” he said. “Yet were I sure ‘twould help, I would submit with less reluctance.”

“You have my word it will.”

“I have failed twice before.”

“You will not fail this time.”

“I am ambitious, but—”

“What you have done so far would hardly be a workout for a high school freshman,” I said with malice. “But when you’re through you’ll be a competent scholar and well grounded in all your knowledge. Now let’s be off. We have a date with the cyborg, and you’ll feel like a squeezed fruit when it’s over.”

CHAPTER 10

Spring in Lothain was green and lovely. As the peasants turned the rich brown earth with their crude plows and sowed the crops for another year, life burst from the soil in an ecstasy of growth. It was a time of activity as the sun rose higher in the sky each day.

The village priest, Vra Cedras, a young man who eyed me with suspicion whenever we met, watched the stele in the temple court, noting the ever-shortening shadow cast at high noon. The progress of the shadow was also noted by the village elders, and the tempo of the work in the fields increased. Everyone labored.

As the work proceeded there was an undertone of excitement. Sar Malthor, lord though he was, was still a farmer and the son of a farmer. The excitement of the manor roused a sympathetic emotion in his breast as he rode across the acres watching his people at work. I rode with him and eyed the activity with interest but without emotional involvement. I was tired from drilling in arms and laying out lesson plans, and this kind of activity wasn’t really my bag.

“You are a strange fellow, Rossaw,” Sar Malthor sighed as he leaned across the high pommel of his saddle. “This wonderful time of year does not stir you. You seem cold, curious, and indifferent. You cannot be a child of the soil.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m a townsman.”

“But surely even a townsman celebrates the Lucerpal.”

My mind was blank. The Lucerpal was a spring festival: that much I knew. But why and how it was celebrated was a mystery. But I realized that I’d better say something or Sar Malthor might realize that my homeland was farther away than he dreamed. “Of course, I shrugged,” but it is not as exciting an event as it is here.”

Sar Malthor sniffed the air. The scent of new-turned soil was wine to him, and he savored it like a gourmet.

“You love the land,” I said, stating the obvious as I kneed my jesset closer to better observe the subtle play of emotion that crossed the Lord of Lothain’s face. Sorovkin technique worked on Tharns almost as well as on humans, but there were enough differences to require a great deal of concentration and practice in correlation. Sar Malthor was a good subject. He never realized he was being studied; or if he did, he didn’t care.

“It is a love that goes far back in time,” Sar Malthor replied, “back to the days of my childhood. I was born of the soil. My strength comes from it. And with every spring I am renewed.”

I eyed Sar Malthor’s ecstatic face, turned to the fields. In a way, it was a shame I had landed on the Tharn’s demesne. For Sar Malthor was about to embark upon a future progressively more divorced from the soil he loved.

“We should be ready for the trials this time,” I murmured.

Sar Malthor shook his head. “Don’t remind me. I was happy watching the fields grow smooth. Twice before have I tried but failed to advance. I did badly in priestly knowledge—and there is no sense in charging a fortress with a lance. At arms I am a match for almost anyone but I am not good at bookish lore. Three trials are all one can have.” A gloomy frown creased his face. “I feel I should keep my last chance, for if I fail I am here at Lothain until I die—a petty lord with no chance for advancement.”

“I have helped you,” I pointed out. “I have increased your knowledge a hundredfold.”

Sar Malthor’s face brightened and darkened in a quick reversal of mood. “It still is not fair, Rossaw. It does not strike me as honorable to take advantage of my fellows by using your wisdom and your machines.”

I shrugged. “Suit yourself,” I said. “It’s your life. But you can live without me.”

“And where do you think you’re going?”

“To find someone a little more practical and a little less honorable. Someone who needs—and can use—the help I can give him.”

“Do you think to find someone like that?”

“Naturally. Sar Virra probably would like to be Tarnas. Not all men are like you.”

“But it isn’t fair to take your help. In honesty I should depend on the brain the gods have given me and not seek the aid of wizards from distant lands.”

“I can’t follow your reasoning. Is there any law against learning?”

Sar Malthor shook his head.

“Or against teachers?”

“No.”

“Then why should you not help yourself to what I can teach? After all, the fact that I am able to teach you is not your colleague’s misfortune, it is your good fortune. And a man is a fool who takes no advantage of his luck.”

Sar Malthor scratched his chin reflectively. His eyes were hooded and remote as he stared across the fields. “You put it differently than the priest, yet there is a flaw in your words. It is in truth good fortune for me, and I would fain be fool to waste it. There are vacancies in other positions more important than this one I now hold.”

“Then you will still let me teach you?”

“I shall.”

I sighed. I went through this with him at least once every tennite. But he always went back to the same doubts. I suspected the priest was discouraging him but didn’t have the nerve to ask. Of course, he could be cautious. There was a Tharn proverb about burned hands and fire.

“What is in it for you, Rossaw?” Sar Malthor asked. “I know you. You think in terms of advantage.”

I laid it on the line. “If you gain power, I shall want to be your right hand. I want power as much as you do, but unlike you I cannot hold it in Tharn under your laws. So I must gain power through you.”

“How much power?”

“All I can wield with safety.”

“You will not ask me to commit a moral sin?”

“No.” I’d gone through this route before, too. The repetition of identical answers apparently eased Sar Malthor’s doubts. I grinned. There wasn’t much question that Sar Malthor would try. I offered him the world he longed for, and the way wasn’t really immoral.

Sar Malthor nodded unhappily. Just then a shrill yell rent the air from the manor. “It clears!” The words were high and shrill on the crisp spring air. “It clears!” A young Tharn raced past us, his long bronze legs scissoring distance from the narrow road. “It clears!” he cried. “It clears!”

And so, incredibly, did Sar Malthor’s face. “It’s an omen,” the Lord of Lothain muttered.

CHAPTER 11

Singly and in groups the villagers entered the temple court and stared at the square gray stone in its center; they noted how the shadow of the stele fell within the curved line incised on the surface of the stone. There were nods and smiles.

“It clears,” the watchers said, and then hurried away with eager steps on particular errands of their own. “The Lucerpal has come,” others would mutter, and then look askance at the temple as though some sacrilege was about to be committed. “The Lucerpal” youngsters would shout and run laughing and giggling down the street.

“I get the feeling something’s going to pop,” I said. “It’s like sitting on top of a volcano.”

Sar Malthor smiled. “It’s not serious,” he said. “It’s just the Lucerpal. Everyone has been awaiting it. Young and old alike.” his expression sobered as a thought crossed his mind. “Perhaps I was wrong when I said it wasn’t serious, Rossaw,” he said. “Although it is now a time of gaiety and celebration that ushers in the Hundred Days, it was not always so. There are some aspects that go back to ancient times when the Old Gods ruled and the blood that flowed was not all in the veins of the celebrants. I wonder how the Old Gods feel on the days when their shadows return to the Lucerpal and the pleasures that Tharn has decreed must replace the old blood sacrifice.”

“I don’t think they should feel too badly. Gods that live for death are not worthy of life, and the fact that the Old Gods persist would seem to indicate that they loved life more than death.”

“I would that I knew for sure, but your words are comforting,” Sar Malthor acknowledged. “Certainly this is a time for pleasure. No one, not even I, is exempt. For I too, am a Tharn.”

“Even you? But aren’t you the lord here? Aren’t you the one the people look up to?”

“They look to me for leadership, protection, and justice,” Sar Malthor said gently. “They do not look up to me. We stand eye to eye. I am a Tharn, just as they—more skilled at arms—better trained and taught, but I am still a Tharn, not a god. I have heard of some lords who thought they were of different mold than other folk, but they do not long survive. Such pride always brings destruction to its owner.

No, the Lucerpal belongs to the Old Gods and to the Tharns, and since I am a mortal and not a god, I, too, enjoy the pleasures.”

Sar Malthor’s green eyes were as soft and peaceful as the budding trees below. “It’s a lovely season,” he said. “It is no wonder that it is a time of peace throughout the land.”

“Eh?”

“All quarrels are in truce,” he said. “There is no exception to this law—since it was made by the Gods and not by man.” He smiled. “There are more important things than fighting.” He added, “although in late winter it hardly seems that way. But our bad tempers of the wintertime all vanish in the warmth of spring.” He began to sing in a harsh but not unmusical voice:

And now to the soft and balmy air of Spring

Our winter cloaks of prudish virtue fling.

See how the sun has risen in the sky,

To warm hearts chilled by Winter’s icy eye.

His rays bring life to fruit the new-turned soil,

And yield rich Harvests for our Season’s toil.

With warming lips soft Spring the world awakes,

With joyous feasts the Winter’s fast she breaks.

With dulcet songs she warms our hearts anew

And once again heats up the heady brew

Of life and laughter and the warm embrace

Of Love whose soft enchanting grace

Turns frowns to smiles, or fills the lesser breed

Of beast with selfish fierce possessive greed.

Sweet Spring whose lovely blooms and blossoms rare

Pour forth their fragrance on the gentle air

To send the message understood by all,

Sounding with fragrant horn—the Lucerpal!”

Sar Malthor paused and looked critically at me. “Well,” he demanded after a moment’s silence, “What do you think of it?”

“Is it original?” I asked.

“Of course.” Sar Mathor looked offended. “I am no minstrel to sing another’s song.”

“It’s not what I would expect from you.”

“Why not?”

“You’re a fighting man.”

“I also have a heart, and I have feelings. I am not all law and iron.”

“Is the Lucerpal the start of the fertile period of the women?” I asked.

“Yes,” Sar Malthor said, “But it is more than that. There is a deeper meaning to these next few days than the ability to once more lie with our mates. During Lucerpal all cares and problems are laid aside. The King of Fools and the Prince of Wine rule us. For the moment we do as we please rather than as we must.” Sar Malthor turned at a sound behind him. It was one of the maid servants, a comely wench in a knee-length red skirt and low-cut bodice. She was carrying a pottery jug of wine and her flushed face and unsteady movements told that she was carrying more within her.

“She’s drunk!” I exclaimed. My astonishment was genuine. In the months I had been at Lothain I had never seen a female drink.

“Of course,” Sar Malthor shrugged as he took the jug from the girl, drank deeply and handed it back.

“My Lord!” the maid murmured, her back suddenly rigid and her face surprised. “I didn’t think ‘twas…” she stopped and her face became even more flushed.

Sar Malthor laughed and slapped her generous behind. “Nor have you yet thought aright, although the offer’s made an’ you want it.” The maid squealed and fled, giggling. “She was looking for Leja, the under officer of the second watch,” Sar Malthor explained. “From the rear he looks like me, and she’s fuddled enough to make a mistake.”

“Oh—”

“Not that I’d mind bedding her. She’s a sturdy wench and one that would try the mettle of a man.”

“So I noticed.”

Sar Malthor flushed. “It’s the Lucerpal,” he said. “The season affects me. But I’m not supposed to be above it like Vra Cedras, the priest. The Old Gods can still touch me with their madness.” He strode across the roof, flung open the wooden doors to the crenellated balcony that overlooked the Great Hall and peered into the torchlit dimness below. “We’ll have the banquet tonight,” he said. ” Twould be foolish to wait longer.” He raised his voice. “Ho! Arvald! Fanser! Bort!” he shouted in a voice that could have been heard over the din and clatter of a hundred fighting men.

One after another the Major-domo, the Steward, and the Bailiff came running. Sar Malthor might be a poet but he was also a leader.

“It is the start of Lucerpal this evening,” he said.

The three men smiled and nodded.

“There will be open house at the Manor.”

“Aye, Lord. The Lady Alwys is attending to it now.”

“And to the banquet for the officers of the garrison, the priest, the headmen and their mates?”

“That I am already preparing, my Lord,” Fanser the Steward said. “The tables are set and the lanterns are up. The word has been passed to the demesne. All will be as usual.”

The sun had set but streaks of color still splashed the sky and the normal hush of evening was drowned in a rising murmur from below.

“See how Lucerpal comes to Lothain,” Sar Malthor said. His face was sober but underlying its expression was a hint of pride.

I gasped. It looked as though the entire population of Lothain was massed in the tiltyard, their faces ruddy blobs as they looked upward toward Sar Malthor.

A smile fastened itself upon Sar Malthor’s lips and spread to his eyes. “It always starts here,” he murmured. “The Lucerpal must start somewhere, but the fact that it starts here and not at the temple is a tribute to me, and I am honored. Later they will go to the temple in the village and ask the priest for his blessing. He will, of course, refuse, since the priesthood of Tharn have sworn eternal war against the Old Gods and their works. But he will not attempt to prohibit the festival. Indeed, he will appoint the King of Fools even as I appoint the Prince of Wine, and although the temple gates will be closed during the entire Lucerpal, the steps of the temple will be the court of the king. We shall go there later. Our priest is young and he finds it hard to permit the Old Gods to pull upon the souls and bodies of the folk. It is doubly hard during the first night of the revels, for he, too, is a Tharn.”

“My people have spring festivals,” I said, “but they are not like this.”

“It is the Old Gods’ way and has been celebrated thus long before the first Tarnas brought us the priesthood and Tharn. Some things do not change and the Lucerpal is one of these. It is the sop the victor must give the vanquished.”

“Hmm,” I murmured to myself, “a sort of spiritual catharsis, a relief from excess faith. Martha’s right. That first Tarnas was a genius.”

Sar Malthor muttered, “Soon we can go to meat. And afterwards we shall go to the temple and watch the young priest discharge his office. And after that to bed.” He raised his arms and silence fell upon the crowd.

“Welcome!” Sar Malthor roared. “Food and drink are laid for you on the training field where there is room for all.”

A murmur of approval answered him.

“Folk of Lothain,” Sar Malthor continued, “it is again Lucerpal. The planting is done and the Old Gods gather for their days. Treat them well, give them that which is their due, yet respect the Temple and Tharn. As Lord of Lothain, I proclaim the next five days free from work and care. Enjoy them—they are yours.”

I could hardly believe the orderliness of the exit—or the bawdy marching song about the soldier’s wife and the jesset that accompanied their departure. It wasn’t a nice song.

“All right, Rossaw, let’s go to our own ordeal,” Sar Malthor said.

“Is it time?”

Sar Malthor laughed. “It is my feast. I give it. I furnish the food and drink. And I set the time. When I arrive it starts. No sooner. No later.”

“But the guests?”

“They will be there. No man or woman of a demesne fails to be present when its lord invites them to appear. Sar Malthor smiled. “Not even the Lucerpal is excuse. But you can be grateful. This is the only ceremony. Tomorrow we can ride into the country and watch the peasants teach the Field Gods how to be fertile and fruitful. Later there will be games and sports. And the nights will be game.” Sar Malthor smiled. “You will have to see it to appreciate it. Now, let us go. We’re fashionably late. More delay and Arvald and Fanser will hate me.”

On the following day the crowd increased as folk came from the far corners of Lothain, pushing carts or riding in two-wheeled wagons drawn by jessets or zocca. Around the hard-packed square in front of the moat where men-at-arms drilled and practised exercises of war, sprang a village of colored tents and pavilions, some of surprising size and richness. And almost as quickly a market appeared. In the space of a day the area was a full-blown country fair. But there was more than that.

The Lucerpal is a happy time, I thought. The seed is planted, the fields are sown, the women are in bloom. Truly this is the season for joy and laughter, for the conception of children, for demonstration to the Field Gods of what is expected of them. Malthor said it was an orgy, but he was wrong. It was an offering to the Old Gods.

“It’s essentially a fertility rite,” Martha decided as we stood upon the battlements of the manor house and watched the activity beyond the moat. “It’s a renewal of faith in nature.”

“Not quite, my lady,” Sar Malthor said. He stood in the half darkness, surrounded by his wives, who had exchanged their drab winter dress for thin garments, through which the outlines of the bodies gleamed. I watched the grace and beauty of them. They seemed to glow with an inner fire that made the plainest of them beautiful and the beautiful incredible.

Sar Malthor looked up at me. “Strange things happen at Lucerpal. We do things that we do at no other time of the year. Now I lie with my wives that they may bear me fair daughters and strong sons. Now I know love as do the others of my folk. I hear this is not the way with you. But do not regret your loss. Perchance the gods will compensate you.”

“It’s not that bad,” Martha demurted.

“But to miss the rush of spring when the blood stirs swiftly and maidens become more beautiful. To miss the heightened senses, the joys, the ecstasy of love! No, you are deprived, and I sorrow for you.”

I could see why the festival was an annual affair. After five days of it, one needed a year to recover. Fertility Rite, Bacchanale, Saturnalia, Pandemonium and Carnival all rolled into one plus a few additions peculiar to Tharn philosophy and physiology; it was too much for any human. It was fortunate that Tharh females didn’t reach peak fertility until close to the end of the Hundred Days. As it was, there would be more than one newcomer in the houses of the demesne before another sevenmonth was past. But Lucerpal babies were looked upon as good fortune even though their parentage might be suspect.

Pleasant or not, I was glad it would soon be over. For there were more important things to do. Sar Malthor had to be ready for the trials.

CHAPTER 12

“The trials this year will be held in Zamal, the chief city of this province,” I announced.

“I know,” Martha groaned. “I had the girls in for cakes and ale this morning. Alwys got a little high on the ale and spilled the news. They’re quite a show from what I have heard. I think I’ll enjoy seeing them.”

“I planned to leave you here where you’re safe. Zamal’s no place for a good-looking country girl.”

“Like hell you did! Just start unplanning right now!”

I grinned, and she looked relieved.

“We’ll leave in a week,” I said. “Sar Malthor is already selecting the fifty who will go, and your name is on the list.”

“It’s nice to have a friend at court,” Martha said. There was no cynicism in her voice, and that surprised me. Three months ago she wouldn’t have sounded so nice.

Zamal, chief city of Valthi Province, in which Lothain was located, was again selected by Sar Vostek, the Tarnas’s Lord Chamberlain, for the annual trials in the Southern Provinces. The choice was an honor to Zamal, but no honor to Sar Virra, the Provincal. To Sar Virra it was a damned expense and a creator of excitement and ferment, neither of which he liked. Sar Malthor said, with a note of contempt in his voice, that the trials probably interfered with certain of Sar Virra’s private amusements, which were not specified, and with his consultations with Lorn, his seneschal, on how to wring another tax out of his subjects.

“What he does with this wealth is beyond me,” Sar Malthor said. “Methinks he is a miser and hoards coin for the love of it. Certainly the treasure can do him no other good, for there is only so much a man can buy.”

“Not so,” I said. “Wealth can buy power. It can buy men. It can buy respect.”

“Not in Tharn. In other lands perhaps, but not here. Here such things are earned, and Sar Virra has earned them by the strength of his mind and arm.”

“But perhaps he does not buy Tharns. Perhaps he does not wish to remain Provincal, but looks to the Council, or at the Tarnas himself.”

“But how? The Tarnas is as young as Virra and he is of long-lived stock. Moreover he is sacrosanct unless deposed.”

“Have you ever heard of assassination?”

“Of the Tarnas? Nonsense!”

“That is a task for which men can be bought. Not Tharns perhaps, but…”

Sar Malthor’s face was a study in perplexed alarm. I had given him an unpleasantness to chew upon, one which he had apparently never considered. He was not devious, nor was he a plotter. He was honest, courageous, and loyal—the ideal man not to have in a position of great power. No wonder he had not advanced.

“I see that I am going to have to teach you the seamier side of politics,” I said grimly.

He shook his head. “I do not wish to learn.”

“But you must. You cannot become a great lord and not realize that most men are not as you.”

Sar Malthor shrugged. “Perhaps so, but if I do advance, I shall deal justly with all folk regardless of degree.”

“Then let me do the other work that must be done to keep you alive to do good.”

Sar Malthor smiled. “Agreed,” he said.

We traveled from Lothain to Zamal without incident. The weather was fair, the sun warm, the nights pleasant, and we had brought plenty of provisions. Our slow-moving jessets covered some fifteen harads a day and within a week the towers and roofs of Zamal were visible across the harbor as we rounded the promontory that marked the western boundary of Zamal Bay. The city, nestled behind its seawall, lay on a peninsula jutting into the bay and connected to the mainland by a narrow spit and a causeway. Before the city the spit widened to form a sandy plain covered with saltgrass. Near the walls the saltgrass gave way to cultivated fields. In the center of the city rose two rocky hills, the smaller covered by a round gray building some three stories high, and the larger topped with an immense stone fortress whose walls, towers, and battlements frowned grimly upon the town and the temples below.

I recognized it as Zamal Castle, the home of Sar Virra of Valthi, Provincal of Valthi and Lord of Zamal. In spite of myself I was impressed. This was no fairy castle, no fanciful amusement center. This was the real thing.

We fell in behind a column dressed in blue and yellow livery that contrasted garishly with our red and white. There were the usual friendly insults, and the two manorial lords saluted each other with dignified gestures.

“Think thou to try again, Sar Malthor?” the gold-and-blue-dressed warrior asked.

“Aye,” Sar Malthor said. He leaned toward me. “That’s Sar Fernad of Alora. He’s up for his second trial if he decides to go. He’s a nice lad; a bit weak on the backstroke with the sword, but a fairly good hand with axe and halberd. He’s not worth a damn with the mace. If he passes the mental exams he’ll probably fail combat. He swings the ball like a peasant swings a flail, plenty of power, but no finesse. Fortunately for him, it is the sword with which these lower trials are fought, and he can hack well enough.”

“How many demesnes in Valthi?”

“Twenty-four. But not all the manors will field their lord. Many are three-time losers. Others do not wish to try, but come only to give their youths and men-at-arms a chance for advancement.”

“Twelve hundred people from this province alone,” I murmured.

“And there are four provinces in the southern sector,” Sar Malthor pointed out.

“Close to five thousand people, counting the women. That town can’t hold them.”

“It will be crowded, but Zamal can accommodate us if Sar Virra has made proper preparations.”

“You haven’t told me much about your regional boss.”

“There isn’t much to tell,” Sar Malthor said. “He took the trials six years ago. He was smart enough to pass knowledge, level-headed enough to pass judgement, and so stark a swordsman that he fought clear from the lowest bracket of the passing group to the sole survivor. He killed two men in the process—something he did not need to do—and literally butchered Sar Samdi, the old Lord of Valthi.”

“Is he a good Lord?”

“He could be worse. He is overly fond of taxes and women, and he delights in inflicting pain.” Sar Malthor’s lips closed firmly and he said no more.

It wasn’t like Malthor to run a man down, I thought, as I studied the grim face of the Lord of Lothain. This Sar Virra must be a grade-one stinker.

We camped that night about five harads from town, and the next morning moved up to the walls of Zamal. Men-at-arms wearing the gold and white livery of Valthi guided us to a camp site where tents were pitched and fires built in the pits dug to hold them. The serving women of the train set about the housekeeping chores of the camp under the eye of Vida, Fanser’s wife, while Sar Malthor and Alwys, his favorite wife, myself and Martha mounted jessets and rode to the main gate of Zamal.

The feet of our mounts echoed hollowly on the hewn timbers of the drawbridge spanning the moat surrounding the town as we approached the squad of gold and white guardsmen at the gate.

“Halt!” the commander of the guard snapped. ‘“Who comes?”

“Sar Malthor of Lothain, my wife, a friend and his wife.”

The guardsman checked a list. “Who’s the friend?” he asked. “You are down for only two spaces.”

“His name is Warn Rossaw.”

I smiled. Sar Malthor could never pronounce my name.

“And his woman’s name?”

“Martha,” I answered.

“They will have to find lodgings. We have allotted no room.”

“I have a friend who owns the Blue Kazlik Inn—Garn Hobaday. He will give them lodging.”

“I note it for my relief,” the guard said. “Pass on.”

We rode into the town.

“Whew! This place is ripe,” Martha said in a pained tone. “Why doesn’t someone do something about sewers?”

“Probably never heard of them,” I said.

“I’m not so sure I can take this.”

“It could be worse.”

“How?”

I grinned. “You’ve got me there,” I said.

We rode through narrow twisting streets, past dark orifices of shops covered with striped awnings, past half-naked children, past scattered groups of townsfolk and a trickle of gaudily liveried men-at-arms. The houses lining the streets leaned outwards from the curb, their overhanging balconies jutting overhead, nearly meeting above the center of the narrow street. It was like riding through a tunnel, the thin rays of evening sunlight above us intensifying rather than relieving the gloomy half-light surrounding us.

The street opened abruptly upon a small square with a fountain in its middle.

“Air, thank heaven!” Martha breathed. “I felt buried alive back there.”

“Ware slops!” the cry floated down from overhead.

“Spur!” Sar Malthor shouted.

Instinctively Martha kicked my beast which leaped nimbly ahead, carrying us barely clear of a stream of liquid filth that cascaded down from an overhanging balcony and splattered against the cobblestones of the streets.

“Keep an eye overhead!” Sar Malthor said. “You never can tell what might be coming down.”

Martha gagged at the odor. “If that had hit me, I’d never feel clean again,” she said.

“Just keep your eyes open and stay in the middle of the street. It’s safer there,” I suggested.

We rode across the square and into another tunnel-like street.

“It isn’t far now,” Sar Malthor said.

“I hope not,” Martha murmured, drawing a shocked glance from Alwys. Women weren’t supposed to intrude on a man’s conversation.

“That’s good,” I said smoothly, to relieve the tension. “We could stand a roof over our heads.”

“It’s just around this bend, fronting on the Square of the Carpenters,” Sar Malthor swung his jesset around the corner and entered a square somewhat larger than the one we had passed. It boasted a small fountain and a peripheral border of hitching rails to which some twenty jessets were tied. A tall multi-storied building with odd jutting windows and a peaked roof faced us.

Garn Hobaday met us at the door. He was a plump moon-faced man in a white smock. His face wore a worried expression, but his eyes lighted at the sight of Sar Malthor. “My friend of Lothain. You have returned. Are you come for the trials?”

Sar Malthor nodded. “I have two here who need lodging.”

“But I have no rooms, even for friends of my Lord of Lothain,” the innkeeper insisted. “Sar Virra has requisitioned all available—no—one moment. There is my room. They can have that. Since my wife died I have no need for large quarters.”

“Ever a hand for business, eh, Garn?” Sar Malthor chuckled. ” ‘Tis not profitable to let rooms lie untenanted.”

“It is the taxes,” Hobaday growled. “Sar Virra leaves us scarce our lives. His exactions grow more oppressive each year. Were it left to the folk of Zamal, he would have been cast out long since, but he leaves the country demesnes unharmed, and we are not a majority in this region.” .

“A good warrior can often be a bad lord,” Sar Malthor said noncommittally. “And the demesnes are not left untouched.”

Garn nodded and turned to face me. “An you desire, sir, you and your lady can have my room. ‘Tis not much but you will find naught else in Zamal this fortnight.”

“It will be fine, whatever it is,” I said. “My wife is tired and needs a bed.”

“They are strangers, Garn, from a far-off land,” Sar Malthor explained.

“We’re from the far South.”

“From the South, eh?” Garn asked. “I have heard their seasons are the reverse of ours, though Tharn knows why.”

“Where did you hear that?” Sar Malthor asked.

“From a sailor who has been there. Many and wonderful were the tales he told of strange races dressed in furs, and of the soft cold feathers of solid water that floated down from the sky and whole sheets and mountains of solid water as clear as glass and glowing curtains of fire hanging in the sky at night.”

“Forgive me for misjudging you, Rossaw,” Sar Malthor said. “Those tales you told me. I thought them but fancies.”

“They were hard to believe, living as you do in this soft land,” I smiled.

“The room,” Martha murmured.

“This way,” the innkeeper said briskly. He led the way past the stables where three barefoot youngsters took the jessets. We went through the heavy front door, into the common room, past the great fireplace, up the stairs, down a dark hall and into a large light room meticulously clean and neat.

“Wonderful!” Martha exclaimed. “A bed! A real bed!”

“With feather quilt and mattress,” Garn added. “A bed fit for a queen.”

“And the price?” I asked.

“One crown, two shields a day.”

“Done, and here’s your rent for a fortnight.” I dropped a half dozen broad copper coins into the innkeepers hand.

Sar Malthor smiled. “We go now, my wife and I, to the castle to pay our respects to Sar Virra. I shall see you anon.”

“Make it very late,” Martha sighed. “I can sleep for a week.”

Sar Malthor and the innkeeper left, and Martha nodded at the door. “Close it and lock it if there is a bar,” she requested.

I closed the heavy door and dropped the bar into place.

I looked at her with mild puzzlement etched on my face. “All right, it’s locked. Now what’s bothering you. You’re not tired. You’re tougher than I am.”

Martha had gone over to the window and was peering through it from behind the curtain.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Come here; see that man in gold and white? He’s been following us ever since we left the town gate.”

“One of the gate guards?” I asked. “He wears Sar Virra’s livery.”

Martha shook her head. “I don’t think he’s a guard. He wears no indication of rank, but the way the men-at-arms at the gate treated him I’d say he held a position of power.”

“I didn’t notice him.”

“You weren’t meant to. But I did. He nearly looked a hole through me. I haven’t been undressed in public for quite a while, but I know that look.”

“Hmm. Perhaps I’d better have a talk with him.”

“No, don’t bother. See, he’s turning away. Probably he was just curious. Neither you nor I are quite the same as the natives and he probably noticed the difference.”

“Blue eyes, black hair and white skin aren’t ordinary in this part of the world. You are an outstanding color variant.”

“It’s mostly our eyes,” she said. “Now if we had russet hair and bronze or green eyes, we’d never stand out.”

“Frankly, I like you better as you are,” I said, “and I’ve never hesitated to admit I’m a stranger. But I don’t like the idea of someone following me.”

“Nor do I. The fellow was probably nothing more than curious, but I didn’t like his looks, and I don’t like being a curiosity.”

I chuckled. “If men didn’t eye you, you’d be offended. If they do, you’re worried. I wish you’d make up your mind.”

“I don’t know this society well enough to treat it with familiarity, and neither do you.”

I turned to the pack roll I had brought with me and began to undo its lashings.

“Now what are you going to do?” she asked.

“Go out and reconnoiter. One of us will have to know this city. You cannot, therefore I must. So you might as well get some rest.”

“I am tired,” Martha admitted. “That was quite a trip. I’m not as good a jesset rider as these natives.”

“You’re a darn sight prettier,” I joked as she removed her riding boots and skirt and substituted a pair of low-heeled shoes and a robe from the pack. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Be careful,” Martha warned. “Take no chances.”

“What makes you so strangely cautious?”

“I don’t know, but somehow this place frightens me. I don’t like it, and I wish I were away from it. It wasn’t so bad at Lothain, but here—there’s something wrong with this town. It doesn’t feel right.”

“All right. I’ll be careful. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Bar the door and rest. I’m sure Sar Malthor wouldn’t have placed us in any danger. This inn is safe enough.”

“I suppose so.” She followed me to the door and watched me walk down the hall, turn at the stairwell, wave, and vanish. She closed the door, and I heard the bolt click, and then she went to the window and watched me cross the square. The last thing I saw before I turned the corner was her face at the window.

CHAPTER 13

I walked slowly toward the center of the city, pausing at times to impress landmarks on my memory, turning every now and then to retrace my steps to make certain I knew the way back.

As I moved away from the walls surrounding the town, the crowds thickened until some streets were choked with people. Men-at-arms in liveries of many colors collected in small knots, talking and exchanging gossip about their various localities. Townsfolk moved past them intent on their own affairs. Soberly clad merchants stood in the doorways of their shops. There was a scattering of ragged beggars, a few sailors, a handful of blue-clad priests in robes and street masks, and a horde of roughly dressed laborers working on new buildings. Like the countryfolk, townsmen didn’t stop working when the sun went down. Until the last light vanished activity continued. A troop of cavalry mounted on white jessets picked their way single file through the street, and an occasional cart, its ungreased wooden wheels shrieking protest, rolled by piled high with bales and boxes. But nowhere on the streets did I see a woman walking. There were a few on jessets, and others in carts and sedan chairs, but none proceeded on foot. Virtually every person on the streets was male. As I moved ever inward from the periphery of the town, the streets widened and vehicular traffic thickened. And finally I came upon a broad avenue that ran ruler straight from the low hill crowned with the huge, windowless, circular structure I had seen from outside the town, to the second and higher hill whose crest was covered by the walls and battlements of Zamal Castle.

A man-at-arms in gold and white livery eyed me curiously as I walked past. “Hold a moment, fellow,” he commanded.

I stopped.

“Where do you go?” the Tharn asked.

I shrugged. “Just looking around,” I said. “I’m a stranger here.”

“That’s obvious. With your queer eyes and such pale skin one can tell you are not a Tharn. But why are you here?”

“To see how Tharns select their leaders. In my land it is done differently.”

“Where is your land?”

“Far from here—to the south. I am here with Sar Malthor, Lord of Lothain.”

“You should have many strange tales to tell.”

“I have wandered far.”

“Come with me. I know a wineshop nearby. You can tell me your adventures.”

“I have little time. I have promised to meet Sar Malthor at the Hall of Truth.”

“Do you know where it is?”

I shook my head.

“Good. Then I will guide you and you can tell me of your travels as we go. My name is Wittal, and I’m a member of Sar Virra’s garrison as you can see.”

I wanted nothing less than to talk, but there was no help for it, and besides the fellow could probably help me find my way through the maze of winding streets better than if I attempted them alone. We walked slowly and I told stories culled partly from fact and partly from imagination. Wittal listened, occasionally interjecting some comment on a piece of incredible information like a snowstorm or ice fishing, and time passed.

“Well, here you are,” Wittal said. “This is the Hall of Truth.” He cocked a thumb at the arched entrance to a great barnlike building across the street. “Methinks you do not belong within its walls.”

I grinned at him. “Thank you,” I replied. He had led me in a half circle and I knew it. But I made no complaint. Indeed, I was curious more than anything else.

“It is I who should thank you,” the man-at-arms replied. “Never have I heard such tales as you tell. I would like to hear more.”

“You have heard me out,” I said. “Now I must find Sar Malthor.”

“I did not mean now, but later. Where do you lodge?”

I was silent tor a moment. This Wittal was an annoyance, but he seemed harmless enough. And I could always arrange to avoid him if it became necessary. “I’m at the Blue Kazlik Inn.”

“Good! I know the place. Perhaps I shall see you there.” The man-at-arms waved a friendly farewell and turned back the way he had come, while I went across the street to the arched doorway. So this was the Hall of Truth where the candidates on trial would be housed for the next ten days. It was located between the arena and the castle. I could have reached it in five minutes rather than the half hour I had spent walking with the man-at-arms. The gate was guarded by a squad of spearmen who barred my passage.

“Have you business here, fellow?” the squad leader asked. I looked over my shoulder. Wittal had vanished.

“I wish to speak to Sar Malthor of Lothain,” I announced. I knew he was at the castle, but that was none of this man’s affair.

“And who be you?”

“Warn Rossaw. He knows me.”

“That will not suffice. While Sar Malthor is in the Hall of Truth he cannot see anyone. Come back five days hence when the trial of knowledge is over.”

“He did not tell me this.”

“He assumed you knew. Everyone knows.”

“Not I.”

“You must be the stranger,” the guardsman said. “As I look at you, I see that it is so.”

“The stranger?”

The guard chuckled. “Word of you and your woman has spread. The gate guards who admitted you and Sar Malthor were relieved just before we went on duty. By now the whole castle knows of you. And by tomorrow most of the townsfolk will know.”

I grimaced. “I didn’t realize we had become such celebrities.”

“Strangers are always news, particularly strangers as strange as you.” The guardsman looked at me curiously. “An I were you,” he added cryptically, “I would be getting back to my woman. ” Tis not safe for a beauty like her to be left alone in a city like Zamal.”

“Why?”

“Ask no more questions. I have said too much already. But you were with Wittal, and Wittal is Lorn’s man.” The guardsman turned abruptly and walked back to his men.

I stood uncertainly for a moment and then turned back the way I had come, the short way. My steps lengthened as I recalled some of the campfire gossip of Sar Virra, and Lorn, his seneschal. Presently I was running.

It took time to return to the inn, for in spite of the care I had taken to remember my route before I was waylaid by Wittal, I missed a turn and became thoroughly lost in a rabbit warren of streets and alleyways. The uneasiness that had made me retrace my steps swelled to full-blown anxiety as I passed square after square, none of them familiar. The worry was nearly panic by the time I emerged from a narrow, twisting alleyway into a square larger than the others; on the opposite side, dim in the dying glow of evening, stood the Blue Kazlik Inn. Nothing had changed. The square was quiet. Grinning with relief I walked across the open space toward the inn-yard.

My toe caught in an upturned cobble and I stumbled to my hands and knees, as an arrow cut the air above my bent body and ricocheted off the cobblestones of the square.

Action and reaction were simultaneous. I jerked the kelly from my sleeve, and sprinted for the inn, moving from side to side to confuse the hidden archer. A flicker of gold and white showed at an upstairs window—the one from which Martha had waved goodbye. The flicker became an arm holding a bow. I snapped a medium intensity blast at the arm. A sharp explosion and a puff of greasy smoke leaped from the casement. Beyond it someone screamed, then all was silent. I hit the door of the inn, burst it open and blaster in hand, glared wildly around the common room. It was empty. I went up the stairs two at a time. I wasn’t quiet, but no one bothered me. The inn was as silent as a tomb. I moved down the hall to the door of our room. It stood half-ajar. I kicked it open. A man in gold and white livery lay on the floor, his left arm burned off at the elbow. He stunk of burned hair and flesh. It was Wittal and he was unconscious from shock. A quiver of arrows hung from the bedpost. I knelt beside the bed, tore the opened pack roll apart and transferred half a dozen spare charges for the blaster to my pockets, and stuffed the kelly into my trousers. The webcor wasn’t enough for my purposes, but I took it anyway. I couldn’t find the other kelly.

I tried to revive Wittal without success, and cursed because I had left the Medikit outside with the fifty from Lothain. Finally I went downstairs.

“Innkeeper!” I roared in the empty common room. “Show yourself else I burn this place to the ground!”

A muffled pounding answered me. I followed the noise into the kitchen and across it to a heavily barred door. I swung it open and customers and servants poured out. They must have been packed like sardines, I thought grimly. Among them was Hobaday, the innkeeper. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, his face was swollen, and one eye was half shut behind a puffy bruise.

“What happened?” I said, as I caught him by the jerkin. We were alone; the others had fled into the street.

“Sar Virra’s men—a whole troop. They came upon us, beat an answer out of me, and locked us all in the buttery.”

“An answer to what?”

“To where your lady was lodged. I told them, but they would have found her anyway. They knew she was here. They went up the back way.”

“Which you showed them,” I said tersely.

The innkeeper shrugged. “I like to stay alive and our lord, Sar Virra, has no respect for the lives of those who oppose him. Moreover he has an eye for a pretty wench, and your lady is beautiful. It is enough reason. It has happened before.”

“But he can’t—”

“Sar Virra is lord of this region, master of the high, middle and low justice, and you are not a Tharn. As long as he stays in good grace with the Lord Chamberlain and the Tarnas, he can do as he pleases, and what ordinary citizen can approach Sar Vostek or the Tarnas?” Hobaday shrugged. “You can see what I received. And that is but a taste. An I defied Sar Virra’s men, I had been slain outright.”

“Where have they taken her?” I demanded.

The innkeeper shrugged. “To the castle, of course. Where else? Behind those walls none can gainsay Sar Virra.”

“One can,” I said grimly.

“An you value your life, do not attempt it. The castle is impregnable and Sar Virra has many warriors and men-at-arms.”

“What would you have me do? Forget it?”

“It would be best. There are other women.”

“Not for me.”

The innkeeper shrugged. “That is your concern,” he said.

“There is a body upstairs, dressed in the livery of Sar Virra,” I said coldly, “They left one behind to take care of me.”

“Then you are a dead man. You cannot kill Sar Virra’s man and live. You will not leave this city alive.”

“I am not yet dead.”

The innkeeper spread his hands in a gesture that said my death would be only a matter of time. “But you will be. No one slays Sar Virra’s men and lives to tell of it. No one in Zamal will help you. We have learned what it means to oppose our lord, and to aid his enemies.”

“And you are a friend of Sar Malthor?” Incredulous contempt tinged my voice.

“I am not a brave man,” the innkeeper replied. “I am a man of peace. Because Sar Malthor and I were born on adjacent farms does not mean that I partake of his love of battle.”

I shrugged. “I could kill you,” I said. “Your cooked carcass would be a lesson for other cowards.”

“An you will,” the innkeeper said. “I cannot stop you. But if I help you I am a dead man for sure. As it is you may not kill me.”

“What makes you think I’m any more merciful than your lord?”

“Your eyes. They are not the eyes of a beast. And I have willingly done you no harm.” He touched his forehead. “I have even bled for you.”

“You can do one thing more,” I said. “You can hide me until I can escape this city and return to my friends.”

“I dare not.”

I shrugged. “Then I will tell Sar Virra’s men when they catch me that you tried to hide me, and spoke against Sar Virra. Since I am a stranger with no reason to hate you, they will believe me.”

“But that would mean my death.”

“It seems you have no choice. You are not man enough to kill me, yet you dare not turn me out for fear I will have you killed.”

“Could you lie a man’s life away?”

“If a thing of great enough importance depended on it I could. Look at me and see if that is not so.”

The innkeeper nodded slowly. “You could do that,” he admitted. “All right, I will hide you an you do not betray me if you are found.”

“It’s a bargain,” I said.

CHAPTER 14

After learning a method of entering the inn unseen, I went out into the streets with a hooded cloak covering my face. As I had suspected Hobaday had a private entrance. Innkeepers are alike anywhere in the galaxy. I described in specific detail what would happen to him if he betrayed me and he swore with tears of terror in his eyes that he would be my true man forever. Personally I hoped that forever would last until dawn.

Slowly, speaking to no one, I made my way toward the castle. I wondered what had happened to Martha. She might have given a good account of herself, but she might have been caught by surprise. I hoped she was unhurt and feared that she was injured. For given a chance, she would fight, and she was as strong as the average Tharn male. They’d have to damage her to subdue her. Presently I found the causeway. I had no idea what I was going to do. I wondered if I could storm the castle single-handed. But for the moment I must wait for Sar Malthor at the end of the causeway stretching from the castle to the city. He came eventually, together with his wife Alwys in a sedan chair. There was a link bearer and a couple of men-at-arms in Sar Virra’s livery escorting him. I stopped him, calling his name from the shadows at the foot of the causeway. I told him what happened. His breath caught in his throat as he heard me out.

“Are you sure that Sar Virra is privy to this?”

“Not certain, but Wittal, whom I burned, was pointed out as Lorn’s man, and Lorn is Sar Virra’s seneschal.”

“By Tharn! I’ll call him to account for this. He cannot do this to my friends.”

“You’ll say nothing. Talk and Martha is dead. Keep silence, my lord. If Sar Virra has Martha it will do more good to bide your time, pass the trials, and then call him to account by trial of battle. As his peer you can do this.

And he will think he can win and so he’ll spare her life. But right will be on your side. We cannot lose!”

“He’s a stark fighter and deadly with the sword. Yet I have sworn to fight your battles, and I will do this. I will even try harder to pass the trials. Meanwhile, you had better get back to the men of Lothain. You’ll be safe there. I must go to the Hall of Truth. It is arranged and I cannot change it.”

“I know,” I said, “but I have another place to go.”

“You do not plan to enter the castle?”

“I do.”

“It’s madness.”

“That is what Sar Virra and Lorn will think.”

“But the size of the place. You’ll be discovered.”

“I don’t think so, they won’t be looking for me in their back yard, and you can narrow the search for me.”

“How?”

“Tell me the logical place to look for Martha.”

“There are two, and both are in the donjon—that great square tower at the north end. That’s the strongest place in the castle. All else could fall and that would still stand. Sar Virra and Lorn both live there.”

“And where in that tower would I be likely to find her?”

“At the very top, or the very bottom, in the aerie or the dungeons—probably the aerie. An you get trapped in either end you’ll never get out. Forget this madness. I will pass the examinations, kill Sar Virra and we can walk into the castle as the new lord and seneschal.”

“You make it sound simple,” I said, “but that will take at least five days and probably much longer. And Martha in that fellow’s hands for ten minutes is too long. I’ve heard the campfire gossip. I have come to despise Sar Virra of Valthi, and I have never met him.”

“You wouldn’t change your opinion if you encountered the fellow,” Sar Malthor said. “Tharns are not usually vile. Virra is an exception.”

“Wish me luck,” I said.

“I do,” he answered, “and if it will ease you I swear to try and kill Sar Virra. That knowledge should comfort you if you are caught and hanged.”

“I have my kelly and your training with weapons to harden me. And I have surprise to aid me. It is not as impossible as you fear.”

Sar Malthor shrugged. “Do not be foolhardy, my friend, and whatever you do, do not kill Sar Virra. His person is sacrosanct. You would turn every hand in Tharn against you. He can be called to account only by his peers, by the Tarnas, or by a Folk Council. An I pass the trial I will be his peer, and he will be my task. He never can be yours.”

My first problem was to get into the castle, and the best way was the most direct one. What I needed was a livery, and I knew exactly where to get one.

I found it in the third alehouse—a drunken man-at-arms so stupefied with wine that he was no problem to maneuver out of the house and into an alley. I did a few things to him with the kelly on needle aperture and minimum intensity. When I was done he was most cooperative, even eager to give me the passwords for the outer and inner baileys, but unfortunately he did not know the word for the keep, which would have done me no good anyway. If the inner guard was anything like that of Lothain, it knew every member of the donjon’s staff by sight. So I set the kelly on maximum stun and gave him a full second, then I left him in the darkness, stripped to his undergarments. The stun, together with the alcohol, would keep him quiet for hours.

Clothed and armed in soldier’s gear, and wearing Sar Virra’s livery, I staggered boldly up the causeway and past the outer guard, mouthing the password and reeking with wine. I had no trouble. I crossed the outer bailey—past the stables and outbuildings, across the cleared space before the inner bailey walls.

This guard was more alert—which was to be expected. “Halt!” he cried, dropping his spear point to the level of my chest.

I halted.

“Give the password.”

“Zamal and Valthi.”

“Not that one, you drunken fool. That’s for the outer bailey.”

“Ain’t this the outer bailey?”

“No, and even you should know it, Now Quick! The password or I call the guard officer.”

“Ah—Valthi and Virra.”

“Your memory is better than your balance,” the guard said. He raised his spear and I staggered past. The inner bailey courtyard was lit with numerous lanterns set in sconces along the walls. On its inner face the courtyard gave onto a broad moat in the center of which stood the huge square tower of the donjon.

Inefficient, I thought, a ditch would have served just as well, if not better for my purposes. I eyed the tower. The stones were rough. An active man could conceivably climb them, particularly at the southwest corner, which was under repair. About twenty feet above the water was an arrow slit, with several stones knocked out of its edges. A man could squeeze through that hole. The only problem was that it was visible from the main gate. But there were no guards on the drawbridge and only a lighted sentry post in front of the raised portcullis. The keep was not closed for the night. I almost wished it were, since that would give me greater security from discovery. As it was, someone crossing the drawbridge might see me. I’d have to shoot my way out with no assurance that I could make it.

I still had things to do to make my escape as easy as my entrance. I found the rope I wanted without much trouble, marked where it was, and left it alone. I’d need it going out, not going in. Just to be on the safe side, I marked another location where rope was to be found, and from this store took a three-meter piece about as big as my thumb in diameter. I wrapped this around my waist, got rid of my sword and sword belt behind a coil of rope and stuffed the dagger beneath my tunic. I went back to the southwest corner of the donjon, knotted one end of the rope and jammed it into a crack between two of the coping stones of the moat and let the free end drop into the water. I made a careful mental note of the exact location of the rope in relation to the tower before sealing the actions of the webcor and the kelly, taking off my sandals and lowering myself into the moat. My chain-mail jacket weighted me down and I promptly sank below the surface, but I had expected this; keeping my position in the water as stable as possible, sank some three meters to the bottom and then walked across the twenty-foot gap between the edge of the moat and the walls of the donjon. The big rough-hewn rocks of the donjon offered good handholds as I pulled myself slowly to the surface about two meters from the debris pile where the masons were rebuilding the corner of the wall.

With considerable care, and taking plenty of time for the excess water to run off my clothes, I moved up the debris pile to the wall and began to climb the sloping surface. My bare fingers and toes found cracks for foot and fingerholds until the sloping wall of the moat gave way to the sheer wall of the tower. If it hadn’t been for the repair work, I never would have made it. As it was I had some hair-raising moments before my fingers got a firm grip on the inner edge of the arrow slit. I left a little skin on the stones as I squeezed through the opening—but I was inside the donjon! Now all I had to do was avoid getting into the dungeon!

The arrow slit opened into a small bare room, hardly more than a niche in the thick walls of the keep. I passed through the doorless archway and into a corridor that ran through the walls and opened onto other arrow slits. It was unlit and dark as the pit. Evidently this corridor was purely military, unused except in time of war, for it echoed only silence.

At intervals along the inner wall heavy nail-studded doors were set into the masonry. I tried each one as I came to it. Each was closed and apparently locked, for I could not budge them. The fifth door, however, yielded to my push and swung open with a hideous creaking that I was sure would alert the entire garrison. I froze, waiting with my kelly in my hand, but nothing happened. There was no challenge, no alarm, just the same dusty silence. The door opened onto a rough wooden landing from which one flight of stairs went up and another, downward.

“As far up as you can go, or as far down,” Sar Malthor had said. In my book upward was the probable way. And that was the way I went. I passed two landings and the stairs came abruptly to an end at another annular corridor with more arrow slits and more locked doors. This level, however, was divided into sections by two cross corridors. I went down one of these, trying the doors. Some were open, others closed. The open ones gave onto groups of rooms that were obviously empty apartments, and obviously of no use to me.

I had looked into two of them and was about “to leave the third when I noticed a beam of light coming through a hole in the floor. Curious, I tiptoed over to the hole, put my eye to it and looked down into a richly furnished room. A big man—larger than Sar Malthor—wide-shouldered, heavily muscled, and thick through the middle, sat in a large, padded chair before a fireplace. The ruddy glow picked out highlights of his face and body without showing any details. His pose was a picture of comfort, his robe half-open, his legs crossed, his feet encased in slippers of Didikhide, with the fur side in. A nude young Tharn female sat at his feet.

He was eating slices of spiced meat, which he took one by one from a silver tray held by another nude. Other females, equally devoid of clothing, sat on the floor or stood by the fire warming themselves. It was obvious that he liked his females available and it was equally obvious that they were used to their situation, for there was no constraint nor shyness to be seen, and most of them, when they saw his eye upon them, postured and displayed their smooth bodies in attitudes that had meaning even to me. By Tharn standards they ranged from pretty to beautiful, and there was no question that they were owned.

This was Sar Virra. I needed no introduction to know who he was, and even at this distance I disliked him. As I watched, a tall, gray man entered. He spoke. “We have her fast, my lord, as you directed.”

“Did she give much trouble?” the seated man asked. His voice was mellow and pleasant, an incongruous voice for so gross a body.

“She fought like a she-Fer. Pasora has a broken arm, Valase has a broken nose and all are bruised and hurt. She is as strong as a man, milord, and fights like a man with fist and foot; and in addition she bites.”

“We’ll cure that anon. And what of her man?”

“I left Wittal to care for him. With an arrow through his throat he’ll not be caring what happens to his woman.”

Sar Virra laughed. “And where is this she-Fer now, Lorn?”

“Gerd has her in the aerie. She has been warned that the strange woman is dangerous.”

“Gerd will be careful enough, I expect. You have done well, Lorn.”

“Thank you, milord. Is there any other way I may serve you?”

“Not unless you can persuade Sar Vostek to hold the trials somewhere else next year. Zamal has become a perennial trial center.”

“It is unfortunate that we have so many advantages, but Zamal is well located and your predecessor built the second largest arena in all of Tharn.”

“Curse his memory.”

“Gladly; but that will do no good. Moreover, the arena is built of stone, so burning it would hardly be possible. Sar Samdi is dead, but his works live on.”

“To bedevil me and keep me from my pleasures.” Sar Virra placed his foot on a kneeling girl’s rump and shoved her roughly aside. “I did not become lord of Valthi to act as host for a motley crew of office and glory seekers, rag-tail peasants, and petty lords.” He snapped his fingers. Two slender girls darted from behind his chair, one with an amphora in her hands, the other with a golden goblet. The cup was filled before Sar Virra’s eyes and the girl holding it knelt gracefully and presented it to her lord. Sar Virra took the cup, drained it, and tossed it back to the cup bearer, who caught it deftly and faded back into the shadows.

He spoke again to Lorn. “My neighbor Provincal, Sar Tami of Jortan, sends word of his arrival. Apparently he is spared the trials this year. Jortan is a state that should never be a Province and would not be one an I had my way. Quarter him befitting his station, but not in the castle. Explain that we are undergoing extensive repairs. Methinks he’d send me a gage of battle rather than a letter an he were sure I held his jewel.” He gestured and the girl he had been fondling stood up and rotated slowly before him. “So I shall honor his coming by bedding her this night.” Sar Virra said.

“Thank you, master,” the girl said.

Sar Virra chuckled. “See what patience and attention to detail can do, Lorn? A year ago she was afire with pride, hatred and contempt. Now she thanks me for the very thing she spurned.”

“You turn women into harlots without a surgeon, my lord. Would that I could do as well.”

“Not so, Lorn. They are not free with their favors. Nor are they altered from the way Tharn has made them. That would spoil my pleasure. Now, be off. I will inspect my new addition tomorrow.”

Lorn left the room and I played voyeur while Sar Virra played with his women. The peep show was at once disgusting and fascinating, but I didn’t wonder how he commanded such instant obedience. To these he had the powers of a god. It wasn’t hard to imagine what had been done to them. But Martha was a different kind of woman from the subservient Tharn female. I couldn’t imagine her behaving like these.

“Enough,” Sar Virra said. “Kyri and Selme remain. The rest of you go back to your kennels.”

There was a stir of movement as the women filed out, except for the two Sar Virra chose—big broad-beamed Selme and slight, graceful Kyri.

“Come here,” Sar Virra said, and the girl Kyri came and knelt before him. He took her chin in his hand and lifted her bent head. “Are you excited that Sar Tami is near?” he asked.

“No, master,” the girl said in a clear emotionless voice.

“Would you go to him if you were free?”

“No, master. I am no longer worthy of him. You have made me into an animal, fit only for your lust.” Her voice was uninflected.

Sar Virra’s face darkened. “So! There’s spirit in you yet?” The hand under her chin flicked across her face, knocking her sprawling in a grotesque huddle on the floor. “So much for spirit,” he said. He pulled at a cord dangling beside his chair and in moment a big rawboned woman in a gray smock came into the room from the same door through which the others had left.

“Gerd,” Sar Virra said, “take this animal and teach her to respect her master, but flog her tenderly so that her hide is not marked. I would have her in pain but not disfigured. Perhaps when you are finished this time she will know her station.”

“My lord—please—no!” Kyri said. Her voice still held that flat stolid note. “I pray your mercy. Some demon had my tongue.”

“The demon was in your mind. But we shall exorcise it, Gerd and I. We shall drive it so far from your brain that it never will return. Gerd shall flog your rump and scorch your hide until your mind is as clear as limpid water.”

“Master!” Kyri grovelled, her limbs quivering, her buttocks twitching as she crawled toward him and embraced his outthrust leg. “Please don’t.”

“I am inclined to mercy,” Sar Virra said, “but I cannot brook a mouthy slave. Your cries move me. Your body attracts me. But you give me no pleasure.” He rose to his feet. “Take her away, Gerd.”

Kyri screamed, a raw note of terror and despair that made my skin prickle as Gerd bent over her, twisted her arms behind her back and tied her wrists.

“Don’t mar her permanently, Gerd,” Sar Virra said as the woman pulled the nude girl to her feet, “just break her and break her thoroughly.”

“Never fear, master. When you next see her she will be as sweet as a flower and as gentle as a carm. This time I will exorcise her demon completely.”

Kyri stopped screaming. She just stood there and shivered, which was worse than the screams.

“You should betimes remember that ease is sweet and pain is bitter,” Sar Virra said. “You should remember whose animal you are and whose pleasure you serve, and whose hands hold your life and death.”

“I know these things, master. Have mercy.”

“But you do not believe. You are stubborn. You are defiant. So, like a stubborn jesset you must be better trained. Leave me Gerd.”

“And that,” Sar Virra soliloquized as the door closed behind the two women, “is another reason I hate Sar Tami. The girl serves me, yet she loves him. Though I own her, she thinks of him. By Tharn! She’ll surrender or she’ll die! I’ll have no more of this!”

The woman Selme eyed Sar Virra with outright terror.

“Now wench, you’d not defy me?”

“Never, master,” Selme said.

Sar Virra sighed. “I know not which is worst, defiance or compliance. Yet I can enjoy compliance where opposition only enrages me.”

Sar Virra arose from his chair. Despite his bulk he moved with an odd grace that said much for the musculature beneath his fat. He was huge. He was impressive. He was essentially evil. Despite Tharn law, I debated a moment on the advisability of burning him right there, and while I debated he moved out of sight.

I knew where I had to go. I had somehow to reach that door in Sar Virra’s chambers. There was probably another way to the aerie, but this was direct and private and I wouldn’t leave a trail of stunned and burned bodies behind me on my way to Martha. That would be stupid, because guards weren’t on duty all night. They changed at regular intervals, and the bodies would be found and the alarm would be out before I could escape. I’d be trapped in the castle. I had no illusions about the effectiveness of modern weapons. Despite adventure video and books, one man still couldn’t beat an army, and at two hundred yards the effectiveness of a kelly was almost zero, while a crossbow could still drive a quarrel through a man’s body.

Silence and stealth were the best policy. And besides, I had noted something. When Lorn had left Sar Virra’s quarters he had drawn the bolt of the door, and in the orgy that followed and the distraction of Kyri’s pitiful defiance, no one had thought to close the bolt again. Not that it mattered to Sar Virra. There would undoubtedly be a guard outside his door. But to me, the information was vital.

I left the unused room, descended the stairs and continued around the annular corridor on the level below. I rounded the second corner and stopped. Ahead was the glow of a cresset and I could see the guard leaning on his spear in front of Sar Virra’s door. I set the kelly carefully. I didn’t want him out more than half a minute, but I wanted him totally unconscious for that time. He’d know something had happened, of course, but having had no experience with a blaster, he’d probably charge it to drowsiness, or wine, or something he ate. He certainly wouldn’t mention it to his guard commander. That would be a good way to end up doing extra duty.

I waited until he was leaning against the wall and yawning before I beamed him. He stiffened with spasmic shock, as they always do when a stun charge hits, and by the time his muscles were starting to loosen he was coming out of it. He never really knew what hit him, but in the fifteen or twenty seconds that his brain was short-circuited from his body, I had gone by him, opened the door to Sar Virra’s room and closed it behind me.

The noises coming from the curtained bed effectively covered my stealthy passage across the room and the noise I made opening the private door. Nevertheless it was with a feeling of relief that I felt the wooden stairs under my bare feet.

I climbed between the walls in a vaulted tunnel winding upwards. It was completely dark except the occasional tiny shafts of light from under doors that mitigated the blackness. Sar Virra, I thought, could easily check on anyone living in the donjon if he wished. Probably he did. Possibly he discovered the people in the suite above his own and eliminated the peeper.

I shrugged and continued to climb. The stairs ended abruptly at a door, and for the first time since I’d been in Tharn I saw a lock. It wasn’t much of a mechanism and it could be opened by hand on this side, but from the other side it would be impossible to open if one didn’t have the key. I turned the wards that released the bolt, eased the door back and stepped through it into the aerie.

CHAPTER 15

The door opened onto a passageway lined with closely spaced doors. I moved down them, listening, but all I could hear was silence, faint murmurings and snores. And then, “I’ll see your lord in hell first!” came faintly through one of the doors. I had found Martha.

Gerd’s voice replied, “I don’t know where hell is, but let us see what you will say anon.” There were soft rustling noises, a thump of a body being dropped on something hard, and Gerd’s voice with a satisfied sound saying, “There, that does it, my pretty,” another silence and, “Lorn wasn’t wrong. You are a beauty, oddly formed, but attractive. You will amuse my lord.”

“Your lord can go jump in the lake!”

“And why should he do that?”

“Oh, get out of here!”

“I shall bring you some food.”

The door opened and I hit Gerd at the base of the skull with the butt of the kelly. She dropped like the proverbial stone. I stepped into the cell to rescue my beloved, and the ceiling fell upon my head with an explosion of soundless light!

I awoke with my head in Martha’s lap. She was rubbing my wrists and making small noises that were intended, I guess, to be comforting. At least that was how I took them. Gerd was lying in the corner neatly trussed into a ball with strips of cloth. Martha was as naked as the day she was born. I wondered a little at the complete practicality she had shown in taking care of Gerd, and the complete impracticality in taking care of me. She’d have done better for herself if she had put on some clothing.

I groaned and felt my head. I had the grandfather of headaches and the room persisted in tilting up on edge and sliding away from me.

“Thank God you’re awake,” Martha said. “I thought you were Gerd coming back. I hit you with the stool. You know, Warren, I love you, you damned quixotic fool!”

“You have a poor way of showing it,” I replied.

“I couldn’t wait, not if I was going to get her. So I got you instead. And she darn near got both of us. Lucky her dress was within reach. I dragged her in as she was coming to, clobbered her once more for luck and tied her up. Now how about being a good fellow and going out into the hall to collect my things.”

“Go yourself, I groaned. “You’re in better shape than I am.”

“I can’t. Gerd chained me to the bed.”

“That’s what I should have done with you back at the inn. Then we wouldn’t be here.”

“It’s not funny.”

“Why didn’t you use the kelly? And cut the chain?”

“It’s out in the hall. You dropped it when you went down and I can’t reach it.”

I pushed her away, crawled into the hall, recovered the kelly and the bundle Gerd had been carrying. Martha was clothed again and had burned off the chain that fastened her to the bed. She had to leave the strap of iron riveted around her ankle, but we could cut that off later with a file. I still wasn’t feeling too good, but could walk, albeit unsteadily. My head hurt, and I had occasional double vision. If I didn’t have a concussion, I had a good imitation of one. “I had the webcor in a sleeve holster,” I said.

“I’m glad I didn’t find it. I’d have roasted myself trying to burn that chain.” She sighed. “I wonder why it is,” she muttered as she laced her bodice, “That every time I get in a tight spot, I wind up stripped.”

We went back down the hall. I found the door readily enough, but it had swung closed and locked. I couldn’t open it.

“You know where Gerd keeps her keys?” I asked.

“They weren’t on her. I didn’t leave her anything except her smock.”

“Well, we can’t go back the way we came unless we have a key. So take us back the way you came.”

“I don’t know how I came. They had me in a sack.”

“Oh, great.” I lapsed into silence. Martha was carrying the kelly and I had the webcor. She was the better shot and was in better condition than I, so she led the way.

We came to a corridor running at right angles to the one we were in. It was short and ended with doors at each end, lit dimly by smoky little lamps that looked vaguely like the one that made Aladdin famous. We turned left and Martha opened the door to a fair-sized room furnished in Tharn style and lighted with candles in sconces on the walls.

“Wonder what this is for?” Martha said.

“Maybe it’s a common room,” I said. Talking was painful so I shut up and watched Martha check it out.

The room had three other doors, one in each of the walls. All were closed. Gingerly Martha tried the first. It opened on a metal grating beyond which was another room, larger than the one we were in, and better lighted. A group of women in shapeless gray smocks, belted at the waist, were seated around a long table, eating and talking. Their conversation was about Sar Virra and was the usual chatter about sex and children. Probably they were the ones I had seen in Sar Virra’s quarters. Martha quietly closed the door, crossed the room and tried the one in the opposite wall.

This opened into another short hall that was open at the far end. The high-pitched voices of two Tharn women floated to our ears.

“I wasn’t raised to be a scullery maid,” one piped. “My father was a cloth merchant and I was gently reared. I had maids to do this kind of work.”

“Don’t let Gerd hear you say that or you’ll be on permanent detail. Just be thankful you are washing pots rather than doing other chores,” a lower-pitched voice answered. “I’ve been Sar Virra’s ward for two years and when our lord starts calling for you to serve him you’ll wish you were back on this job.”

“I didn’t ask to be his Ward. And I don’t want to be his doxy. I don’t care for anything about him.”

“What difference does that make? You have no choice.

You’ll do what the rest of us do. Just thank Tharn that the beast is sterile, or you might have a belly full of him.”

The other girl laughed nervously. “How can you joke about such a thing?”

“It comes with practice,” the second voice replied.

Martha closed the door and tried the third one. It was bolted from outside but there was a slot in the ward through which a rod could be thrust to push the bolt back. Unfortunately we didn’t have the rod. I handed Martha my dagger and she probed with it while I stewed impatiently and hoped that no one would surprise us at our work.

“Ah,” Martha sighed as the bolt slid aside, “that does it.”

The door opened onto a hallway lit with a glowing cresset that gave off an acrid odor and a feeble glow intensifying rather than relieving the gloom around it. We bolted the door behind us and moved softly down the curved hall. I had no idea where we were: possibly in an annular that ran around a central column or an airshaft. If it did, then logically there should be a ramp or a stairway leading to the lower levels.

The silence around us was broken only by the faint sussurating whisper of our bare feet on the wooden floor as we tiptoed silently along. We came to a cross corridor that turned toward the inside of the annular and we went down it hoping it would lead to a stairway.

A glow from ahead brought us to a halt. And then slowly we inched forward. The corridor ended at a circular landing cut across by the straight edge of a staircase and a heavy wooden railing. Four doorways opened onto the landing, and standing beneath the cresset, which illuminated the area, was a Tharn warrior clad in a mail shirt and a gold and white jupon. Buckled to his belt was a sword and he held a spear in his hand. His back was toward us as he leaned, half-asleep, against the railing. But his presence was enough to destroy any hopes we had of passing unobserved.

The expression on Martha’s face was eloquent as we moved back into the dimness of the corridor. The sentry posed an obvious problem. We could immobilize or kill him, but that would trigger an alarm as soon as his relief came, and we had no idea how soon that might be.

Martha pushed me into a doorway in the corridor, made signs that I was to stay there and moved away into the darkness. I had no idea what she was planning to do, but since I could think of nothing but my aching head at the moment, I was content to let her do it.

Behind me came the quick slap of running feet. I shrank back into the doorway as a figure brushed past me, running toward the lighted guard post.

The sentry snapped to alertness. His spear slapped into his hands and levelled. “Halt! Who’s there!” he asked harshly.

“Me, Alyse,” came the high pitched voice I had heard in the scullery.

“What in Tharn’s name are you doing here?” the guard asked.

“Hush! Not so loud, Furth. We might be heard.”

“You’ll have me hanged yet,” the guard muttered. “How is it that you managed to get out. I thought Gerd watched over you like a mother kluk.”

“She’s busy with the new one Lorn brought in this evening. She left Mora and I working in the scullery; and since she did not return when we were done, I came to you.”

“But why? You’re Sar Virra’s, not mine.”

“Not yet, my love. I am scheduled for tomorrow. Tonight I am yours if you want me.”

“Want you! Tharn knows I want you! But this is insane. You’ll have us both hung from the tower gibbet!” But despite the words the sentry didn’t sound displeased.

“For a moment with you, my darling,” Alyse whispered, “I would brave death itself.” I leaned from the doorway and watched as she moved forward and touched the sentry, slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

For a second the man stood rigid, then his arms closed around her.

“Come, my dearest—out of the light—we do not have too much time,” Alyse said. “Tonight I would be with the one I love.”

“But, my duty!”

“If you value me less than your silly duty—”

“You know I don’t. I’ve loved you ever since we were children and played together. But you are the lord’s property. And I am his man.”

“Pah! He has plenty of others. I’m not his woman. He took me without my consent and against my will. I owe him nothing.”

“Nor do I,” the sentry said, “except my oath.”

“And what is an oath to such a lord? I love you Furth, and I want to be yours ere he has me. Come, my love— come with me out of this light.”

The sentry shook his head, shrugged, laid his spear carefully against the wall and took Alyse by the hand. For a moment I thought he would turn in my direction, but instead they went the other way.

“There is a dark corridor here,” the sentry said, “but only a moment now. My relief is due shortly.”

“A moment,” Alyse agreed, “a moment that may fill a lifetime.”

They disappeared into the darkness and I wondered where Martha was as I moved toward the landing. She came out of the opposite doorway as I entered the landing. We grinned at each other as we slipped across the lighted area and into the archway. A spiral staircase turning to the left led downward, along the side of a column of stone bound with iron bands. The stairs jutted from the column to form a helical passageway two meters wide that wound down the center of the tower. The outer wall was pierced with arrow slits that covered the inside. A staircase like this was easily defended. Attackers would find it impossible to use their weapons, while the archers of the defense would be virtually unhampered.

Eight levels: our feet moved quietly from step to step, and the first level appeared. It was a platform like the one above and beyond its arched entrance we could see the arm and shoulder of another sentry. Quietly we moved past and down the winding stair. At the next level the staircase changed to a broad stone ramp that filled the well and spiralled down into the depths. We passed another guard and moved on, our feet making quiet slithery sounds against the stone.

At the fourth level we paused. The archway was wider here and flanked by two sentries who were animatedly discussing the forthcoming trials of courage.

“An Sar Malthor makes the finals,” one said. “You will see such swordsmanship as you never have seen before.”

“I have seen our lord. Is this Sar Malthor the equal of him?”

“Probably. Maybe even his master. I have served under both and Sar Malthor trains daily.”

“Hmm. This I would like to see. Sar Virra seldom stirs himself.”

The first speaker chuckled. “I wonder what reasons you have for that remark,” he said.

“They are my own,” the second guard replied, “but let us say that I love a good fight.”

“Steady now—methinks I hear our relief approach!”

“You always had a good ear, Gorm.”

The two men stiffened into silent statues as from below the click of metal-shod feet and the rattle of equipment came up the ramp.

We were frozen with indecision for a moment. Martha slipped across the platform to the farthest corner and dropped into the dark recess between the wall and the ramp. She undid the waistband of her dress and pulled the skirt over her head as she crouched into a small dark huddle in the corner. I turned back up the ramp as a glow of light filtered up from below and the clink of iron-shod feet and equipment became clearer. There was a doorway in the wall around the bend large enough to hold one man, but not two. Martha had taken the danger of exposure to give me relative safety.

“Guard halt,” a voice barked. There was the clash of metal against stone, the simultaneous thump of wooden spear butts against the floor, and silence.

“Who’s there?” The harsh voice of the first sentry filled the hall.

“Friends.”

“Advance and be recognized.”

Feet clicked on the platform floor. Metal grated. “Report,” a voice demanded.

“All quiet sir. Nothing to report.”

“Fourth file front! Relieve the sentries!” There were more sounds of movement, the second thump of wood against wood, and then the guard officer’s voice, “Fifth file, follow me. Guard detail stand easy.” Feet clicked off into the distance as the rustle and clink of arms and armor filled the silence.

I shivered. Any moment now, someone would see that shapeless pile of cloth in the corner, someone would get curious, someone would investigate, and Martha would be caught.

“Gorm was telling me of a master swordsman in the trials,” a voice said. “Says he can beat our lord.”

Feet clattered on stone.

“Fall in at the rear,” the leader’s voice ordered. Detail, ‘ten-shun! Slope spears! Forard march!” The sounds increased, passed the niche where I crouched and went upward into the distance. I released my breath and went down the ramp. Martha was shivering with reaction. I could feel her racing heart as she slipped the skirt down from her head. The new sentries were silent, and we slipped past them. The guard would be back shortly and we had to get off the ramp before they came upon us.

Below us the rumble and clink of metal sounded. Now what, I wondered. We inched forward down the ramp to a vaulted doorway that opened onto a bare courtyard. In the flickering cresset light we could see the heavy iron grille of a lowered portcullis, the chain and winch, the two guards standing beside the gate, and the darkness beyond. Main gate, I thought. We get off somewhere around here.

“Dead end!” Martha whispered. “Go back!” I eyed the courtyard for a moment. Then I moved. Beckoning to Martha to follow I went back up the ramp looking carefully for the doorway I knew must be there. When I found it, it only took a moment to open, but shrieked like a damned soul.

“Who’s there?” the challenge was sharp as I closed the door.

We froze. The door was still open a crack but I didn’t dare touch it. Below I could hear the sentry’s mailed feet on the stair. He came half a dozen steps, then stopped. I crouched beside the door with the webcor in my hand and Martha leaned over my shoulder taking aim with the kelly.

“Well, are you going up or down? Make up your mind,” a voice came from below.

“I’m coming down. I’m no hero, and that sounded like a corphy. Shrieked like a damned soul, it did.”

“It was probably a door.”

“What’s a door doing opening and closing by itself? There’s no one up here. It’s gotta be a corphy. What else would be opening doors in a deserted hall?”

“You and your ghosts. Come on down. I’ll go look if you’re so queasy.”

“There’s nothing here.”

“Quiet, you sodden wineskin. I thought I heard something. It screamed once. Maybe it’ll scream again.”

“I keep telling you, Bern, there’s nothing here. I’m shining the lanthorn clear up to the next floor and there’s nothing. Besides, the next floor’s not our perimeter. There’s lots of strange noises in the donjon since our lord took over six years ago. I’ve heard many things I don’t want to know about.”

“I’ll bet you have,” Bern said, “but I’ll bet someone’s in the archway corridor.”

“Some thing’s there, you mean. That level is empty. It’s always empty.”

“I’m going to look,” Bern announced.

“You do that. I’m going to stay down here where it’s light. I want no part of ghosts of this castle.”

“All right,” Bern sighed, “you win. I’ll stay with you.”

“Now you’re being smart. You’re not paid to chase ghosts and corphys.”

Bern grunted…

We felt our way along the annular corridor in the pitchy darkness. I knew where we were, but had no idea which was the niche under repair. I had to check every one. After four wrong guesses I came upon the one I was searching for. I led the way to the slit and looked out and down. Six meters below the moat glimmered blackly in the starlight. Most of the folk of the inner bailey were asleep and everything was quiet.

I leaned out of the opening and swore silently. Just how were we to get down to the moat. I hadn’t brought a rope, and we needed one.

“What’s wrong?” Martha whispered.

I told her.

“Wait,” she hissed. “I’ll be right back.” She disappeared into the darkness. Presently she came back with a rope made of pieces of cloth tied together. It seemed stout enough. “You said something about a room; so I looked for an empty one. I found the bed hangings were still in good shape. You’re going to slide down the bed curtains, my lord.”

“I’ll slide down anything slidable,” I said. “Did you by any chance bring anything to tie this rope to?”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“My turn,” I said, as I went down the corridor. I came back with a heavy bench to which we tied the makeshift rope and then we rappelled down to the waters of the moat. I pointed out where the exit rope was placed and sent Martha off while I repeated the submerged act that brought me to the castle. I didn’t want to lose the mail shirt. For some reason I thought it might be needed. Although I had a sublime faith that nothing could go wrong there was no reason to throw caution away.

We were across the moat, across the grass of the inner ward, and into the open carpenter shop when a horn blew from the battlements of the keep. Lights flickered on in the great tower as I found the coil of strong fiber rope that I had stashed earlier. Slinging it over my shoulder, we ran up a flight of stairs on the inner side of the bailey wall as the voices of men-at-arms and the rattle of equipment came from the guardroom below.

A double file of warriors moved at a run toward the donjon, as I looped the rope around one of the crenellations and tossed the ends over the wall. I smiled. The hounds were far behind, and by the time they realized Martha was gone we would be out of the castle.

I watched the snakelike coils vanish into the darkness below as Martha slipped over the edge and slid down the doubled rope to the ground, with me close behind. Pulling on one end, Martha retrieved the rope and began coiling it up when a heavy hand clamped on her shoulder. I was already at the outer wall looking for a stair to the battlements.

“What are you—” a man’s voice demanded.

Martha whirled, her hand flashing to the kelly at her waist.

“Over here!” her captor shouted as she went limp in his grasp. Instinctively his grip loosened, and she exploded. One elbow dug into his ribs, her knee came up to his groin, and with all her strength she drove the kelly into his solar plexus.

The air gushed out of him and he retched. Martha belted him across the skull with the butt of the blaster and darted across the outer ward to the curtain wall; dragging the rope behind her. She went up the stairs to the battlements past an amazed sentry who had only time to gasp before she beamed him down with a maximum stun. Scrabbling with haste we tossed the rope over the wall and slid down, burning our hands as we went. Voices called confusedly as we zigzagged through the ditch filled with pointed stakes and scrambled over the parapet.

Arrows hissed around us and two smashed into my mail shirt but most of them were aimed badly. I was thankful I kept the shirt. The nervous energy that had kept me going drained away, leaving me weak and spent. I crawled into a crack in the rocks where nothing could reach us and drew Martha .after me.

“Got a knife?” I asked.

“No.”

“Then get mine. It’s inside my shirt. Cut this damned arrow out!”

“Arrow—oh Warren! you’re wounded!”

“Got me through the deltoid just as we went ever the hill. It was a spent quarrel. No, damn it! Don’t cut me, cut the arrow. It goes clear through. Just push it out. There’s some antibiotic in my pouch—squirt it in the hole.”

“You’re hurt,” Martha said redundantly as she did what was necessary. She was quick, efficient and gentle, and her hand didn’t quiver as she drew the shaft from my arm. “Now the cell rejuvenant. I’ll be all right in a day or two, and I don’t hurt now.”

“You’re still bleeding.”

“It will stop. Let’s go.”

Behind us the thump of the curtain wall’s drawbridge sounded above the brazen clangor of a bell in the keep. There would be a hornet’s nest around our ears in a few minutes.

“Wait!” Martha said. She turned and scrambled up the bank. An arrow hissed over her head as she levelled the kelly and traced a line of energy along the battlements. Men screamed as the blast sliced their body cells, and a sudden shocked silence fell upon the castle. Without pausing, Martha lowered the blaster muzzle to cover the drawbridge. Flames leaped from the wood, driving the jessets back as a mounted party attempted to leave the castle. The dames hissed and crackled as Martha stopped the beam down to minimum aperture and sliced the bridge in half. With ponderous slowness the structure toppled into the depths, leaving a yawning gap between the castle and the causeway.

Inside the castle, the bell stopped ringing.

“That does it,” Martha said, as she dropped beside me. “Give me another charge for the kelly.”

“How many of those people did you kill?” I asked as we scrambled down the slope.

“I don’t know, maybe several, maybe none. I burned a few. But I owed them something.”

“Remind me not to give you any credit,” I said. I don’t want you to owe me a thing.”

“Oh shut up!” Martha said, “and get moving. Damn! I wish I had some shoes.”

“Tomorrow.” I replied.

“My feet are bleeding.”

“Serves you right. You waste ammunition. You burned up a whole charge back there.”

“It takes a lot to cut through a drawbridge.”

“I’d have beamed the men.”

“And let some get away—maybe get out? Right now they’re penned up in the castle.”

“You’re forgetting the postern gate.”

“It takes time to get out that way, and it’s on the other side of the castle. We have a good lead.”

“Come on,” I muttered, “we still haven’t got all night.”

“I can’t move any faster. These rocks hurt!”

“Oh, for Tharn’s sake! Why didn’t you say something?”

“I did, but you didn’t listen.”

“All right, all right. We go around over here where it’s smoother. It’s still a way to safety, and if Sar Virra isn’t a fool, he’ll have patrols in town before long.”

“I’m not worried about patrols,” Martha said as she patted the kelly. “The patrols had better worry about us.”

“Chances are pretty good they won’t look too hard,” I responded. “Cutting that drawbridge could have frightened them. It may occur to them that we’re dangerous.” I was right. We never saw a patrol as I led the way back to the private entrance of the inn and into the attic room Hobaday had prepared for me.

“Not exactly the Ritz, nor yet the bridal suite,” Martha commented as she stripped off her wet dress and wrapped herself in one of the quilts Hobaday had brought, “and the heating is primitive.” Her teeth chattered. “I’m cold,” she said.

“You’ll remember this coolness with longing tomorrow afternoon,” I intoned prophetically. “It’ll be as hot as the proverbial hinges up here under the roof.”

“Tomorrow isn’t now.”

“I suppose not.”

“You could help me get warm. You have no idea how much I want your arms around me,” she finished. “You were the loveliest sight I ever saw when you came falling through that door. Incidentally, why did you come?”

“That’s a fool question. You’ve been with me since the beginning, and despite your subversive relatives, I love you.”

Her face softened. I put my good arm around her shoulders. Her body was cold under the quilt. Her arms came out and wrapped around my neck. Her lips were soft. I sighed. I knew it would be like this. My feet were a mess. My arm hurt. My head ached. There was a roaring in my ears, a taste of acid in my mouth, and a fierce hunger that made none of these things important. I had my woman back and that was all that mattered.

“Warm enough?” I asked.

She nodded and pillowed her head on my chest, sighed and stretched her smooth body.

“How did they ever get you?” I asked.

“It’s a long story.”

“We have plenty of time, and we can always take an intermission if it gets dull in spots.”

“I think this is going to be an awfully long story,” Martha smiled, “and it’s going to be awfully dull—in many spots. I was born on Aurum a number of years ago. The first thing I remember—”

“To hell with it,” I said. “It’s dull already.”

CHAPTER 16

There were searches; four of them in the next two days, but we had plenty of warning and saw to it that no evidence of our presence was left in the attic where we spent most of the time.

Hobaday kept us supplied with the news. Wittal had died. The news of Martha’s escape was all over town. Sar Virra was furious. Three guards were hanged and their bodies left dangling from gibbets on the castle battlements. Others were flogged and still others imprisoned. Patrols scoured the town and countryside searching for, as Hobaday described it, “two bloody knaves, one a female, who plotted to slay Sar Virra.” Lorn, the seneschal, with a troop of mounted warriors, headed into the hinterlands. Rumor had it that Sar Virra had banished him. The entire castle was in ferment. Sar Vostek, outraged when a search party entered his quarters, withdrew himself and his entourage from the castle and encamped near the ancient baths and hotsprings.

In fear ot her life, Gerd sought sanctuary with Sar Tami of Jartan and told him of Kyri. Sar Tami visited Sar Vostek, and after a long and furious meeting punctuated by shouts and oaths a courier was sent on a fast jesset to Aslak with a message for the Tarnas. Large numbers of armed seamen had come ashore from the merchant ships in the harbor and were terrorizing the waterfront stores and wineshops. Hobaday was certain they were pirates. I thought they were mercenaries. Probably they were sailors taking advantage of the fact that the normal policing of the town had been completely disorganized by the actions of Sar Virra. I grinned as the reports came in. Sar Virra, apparently, was not used to losing, and in consequence had lost his composure and his temper, and might conceivably lose his province and his life. Already there was talk of sending a deputation to the Tarnas to form a Folk Council of Valthi, to arraign Sar Virra for maladministration. Sar Tami had issued a mortal combat challenge to Sar Virra branding him a thief and a liar.

On the fifth day Sar Malthor emerged from the Hall of Truth as a passed examinee and promptly challenged Sar Virra to combat to the death on a number of grounds ranging from abduction to abuse of authority. Since Sar Malthor’s challenge was judged to be political and Sar Tami’s personal, the Lord Chamberlain decided that Sar Malthor had precedence, for, if he slew Sar Virra, the succession to the Provincal was automatically determined, while if Sar Tami won, there would have to be an elimination match between a horde of contending aspirants. As it was, there were nearly a half dozen political challenges based upon the supposition that Sar Virra was in disfavor and that if he survived both Sar Malthor and Sar Tami he would be an easy victim to some lesser warrior.

Betting was two to one that Sar Vina would kill Sar Malthor, and even money that he would dispose of both Sar Malthor and Sar Tami. And this shocked me, because I thought Sar Malthor was the ultimate in a fighting man.

“Aye, Malthor’s good all right,” Hobaday agreed, “but he’s not the match of Sar Virra. I saw Virra kill Sar Samdi, and never in my life have I seen such skill and power. He is larger, stronger and more skilled than Malthor. He has grown fat; so he is probably slower and may tire more easily, but Sar Malthor has small chance against him.”

“And I talked him into this,” I said to Martha when Hobaday had left. “I think I’ve sent him to his death.”

“You didn’t know.”

“I should have,” I said. I looked out of the tiny attic window to the square below. “I have to get to Malthor, I can’t stay here.”

“Where are you going?”

“To find Hobaday and arrange for a couple of disguises. We’re going to Sar Malthor. He needs us.”

“I don’t have too much confidence in Hobaday,” she said. “He betrayed us once. He could do it again. He’s weak. I think he’s waiting to see how things turn out.”

“Could be, but I don’t think so. He’s afraid of what I’ll do and he’s in too deep to back out.”

“But Sar Virra wants me, not you,” she said.

“That’s immaterial. We’re tied to Sar Malthor and I must get to him.”

“Well, if you must, so must I.”

And so we left the Blue Kazlik Inn dressed in the hooded jerkins and wrapped leggings of southlanders, with our skins dyed bronze and a pillow tied around Martha’s slim waist to make her look pregnant. It wasn’t much, but it was the best Hobaday could do other than give us the name of the southland lord who had come to Zamal to watch the trials, and who was supposedly our sponsor.

The street was crowded. Hawkers and cutpurses were busy. Vehicular traffic was heavy, most of’t leading toward the arena.

“What’s on for today?” I asked a well-dressed Tharn, a local merchant from the look of him.

“Not much,” he said. “Elimination bouts mostly. There are two regions and four demesnes open, and they’ll be fought for today and tomorrow. It’ll be good enough, but these are only the preliminaries.”

“Like at home,” I said to Martha.

She looked at me with complete incomprehension, and then nodded, since what I said apparently called for an affirmative reply.

“The duel between Sar Malthor and Sar Virra is scheduled soon?” I asked.

“Aye, at noon two days hence, and you had better be there early if you want to see the show. Everyone will be there for that match.”

“Why? I hear Sar Virra will win easily.”

“The smart money is two to one on him, but at those odds there’s a lot of Malthor money appearing. I’ll bet that by tomorrow the odds will be five to three at most.”

“The age of honor,” Martha said caustically.

“Let’s find Sar Malthor,” I said.

The gate guards were almost laughable. They had become toll takers. I bribed our way out with two crowns, and Martha and I were in Sal Malthor’s camp within an hour. Sar Malthor was in the city, but was expected momentarily. The folk were apparently glad to see us, and Martha became an instant target for Alwys and the other three women in our group. Rumor had gotten past the city walls and it wasn’t long before Martha was the center of attention for the women of a dozen demesnes. I didn’t feel the least bit sorry for her.

I went to see our blacksmith. “Jorn,” I said, “can you make me a sword? A rather special sword.”

“How soon do you want it?”

“Now.”

“Well, I can modify an existing sword quickly enough. Heat and a hammer can do wonders. I can remove the hilt and draw the temper from the steel and shape and re-temper it before the sun is at nooning. Now what is so special about this blade?”

“Double edged, but taper it thicker and heavier from the hilt forward, with the maximum thickness and width about two thirds of the way down the length of the blade, and then taper it inward smoothly to a point, a sharp point. Set your temper for extreme hardness, but quench the blade in oil, not water.”

“This is a strange blade, master, and a stranger way to put hardness in the steel.”

“It is for a good cause,” I said. “It will help our lord win his fight.”

“I shall do as well as I can,” Jorn said.

While he went to work, I found Martha and asked her to get the women to bring all the cooking oil they could find to the smithy. By noon Jorn had a finished blade that fitted my specifications.

“I’ll have no time to polish the metal, master,” Jorn said, “but the blade is ready.”

“That won’t be necessary. A smooth finish is enough. This blade is for use, not for show, and besides when we are through it may not take a polish.”

“Eh? And how is that?”

“Let us temper it and find out. The women have brought the oil. Empty your quenching bath and fill it with what they have brought, and heat the steel for maximum hardness.”

He heated the metal with care, bringing it to a uniform orange glow from end to end. Then he removed it from the heat and watched it cool until a firm blue chased across the smooth surfaces. He held the blade an instant longer, then plunged it into the oil. A cloud of smoke and a few bubbles rose from the bath and presently Jorn took the blade out. The steel was dark with a bluish sheen.

“Now let us see how you have done,” I said. I took the blade and using both hands, raised it overhead and brought it flat side down with all my strength upon the anvil. The blade rang like a bell at the impact, and sprang back from the steel. I looked at it carefully. The edge was straight and true.

“That halberd,” I said. “Lay it across the anvil.”

Once more I raised the blade and brought it down. The blue steel sheared cleanly through the neck of the halberd, severing the thick steel rod as though it was so much wood. I looked at the edge, grinned and handed it to Join. He looked and his eyes widened.

“Not a sign of turning. It’s as straight as when I forged it!”

“Set up a targe,” I ordered, “and fit it with a shirt of mail.”

“Aye, master,” the smith replied. By this time a small crowd had gathered, attracted by the performance. I took the sword and thrust it at the mail, with all my strength. The point tore through the links with a faint screech of ripped metal and stuck some ten centimeters into the wooden body of the targe. I finished the demonstration by slicing a helmet in half with ridiculous ease.

“The weight of the blade being forward aids the cut,” I said to Jorn. “And no mail today is proof against the strength and hardness of this blade. Now will this not help Sar Malthor?”

“Like another arm,” Jorn muttered. “Let me swing it.”

“You made it, now see if you can break it.” I knew he couldn’t. My Earth-tempered, space conditioned muscles were nearly half again as strong as his, despite their size. But Jorn tried and failed. He also tried to sharpen the edge and dulled his best files and wore away his hardest whetstone without making an appreciable change in the metal.

“Tharn’s bones!” he marvelled, “what is this thing?”

“It is the oil bath,” I said. “You have two hardnesses of steel, a softer more resilient core to absorb shock and an extremely hard outer face for cutting and thrusting. Water cools too fast. If a blade as hard of edge as this were quenched with water, it would be as you said—brittle as glass.”

“I know. And indeed I thought I had quenched this blade too soon, but you said maximum hardness, so I obeyed your orders. Such a blade has never been forged in all Tharn. It will go down in legend, and I made it!” He smiled happily to himself.

“It needs a name,” I added. “Think on it man. And when Sar Malthor returns, give him the blade and show him what it can do.”

“Aye, master. That will I do gladly.”

“And do not mention my name. This is your gift. The tempering and shape is your idea.”

“And why should I do this? Both you and I know it is not true.”

“I have my reasons. Sar Malthor might refuse the sword if he knew I designed it. He will not refuse to try the work of Jorn the Smith. There is a difference, Jorn, between you and me.”

“Aye, any fool can see that. But you love our lord even as we do and would wish him no ill.”

“That is true, but Sar Malthor knows more of my land than you do. I have told him much of its wonders and he feels that its works might give him an unfair advantage. You know his sense of honor.”

“I do indeed. He’d die for it. And so I will do as you ask. The blade is my doing and I had you test it because you are his friend.”

“You can hold that story?”

“Until death if need be.”

I grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “Give the blade a good name,” I said, “a lucky one.”

“I’ll do that, and I’ll wait for him at the edge of camp. The first thing he will do is see Jorn the Smith. The second thing he’ll see is Cullendor, the sword. And if he doesn’t love it at first sight, I’ll eat it bit by bit.”

“You’d better oil temper your teeth before you try a thing like that,” I said.

Jorn grinned.

CHAPTER 17

Sar Malthor returned late that afternoon and we had a fine old-fashioned reunion. He was, I noticed, carrying the new sword.

“Where’d you get that Vark-stabber?” I asked. “It’s a new one.”

“It’s amazing,” Sar Malthor said. “Jorn made it. I’ve never seen anything like it. It will revolutionize warfare. This sword gives me a chance. With a bit of luck I can take Sar Virra. And the point—it is true genius to combine sword and spear into one weapon that can do the work of both. It is even a greater combination than the halberd!”

“I never realized what I had asked of you when I asked for help,” I said. “I thought you would have no trouble with him.”

“He’s the best fighting man in Tharn,” Sar Malthor said. “A few years ago no one could touch him. Today, before Cullendor came to my hand, I could have given him a battle. Tomorrow I may defeat him.”

“Right is on your side.”

“Right is on the side of the better warrior. There have been many times when inept virtue has been slaughtered by experienced vice,” Sar Malthor replied soberly. “But now with this blade in my hand I do indeed believe that virtue may have some reward; for by any judgment I am more virtuous than Sar Virra of Valthi.”

I went to bed that night with the warm inner feeling that comes with having done well.

The next day Sar Malthor went through an hour drill with Cullendor and satisfactorily sheared and pierced mail until his face wore a look of happy accomplishment. “With this blade, I think I could challenge Tharn himself,” he said.

“I wish I knew what you meant by Tharn,” I said. “To me it is like living in a country called God, inhabited by people called God, whose principal deity is called God, and the culture hero who unified the land was named God. It’s confusing.”

“Perhaps so, but you have it right, I think. Actually, a Tharn never thinks of Tharn as Tharn, or confuses him with Tharn. It’s easy enough to identify each.”

“Providing you are born with the knowledge,” I sighed. “At any rate, I hope that your activities don’t get back to Sar Virra. You put on quite a show this morning.”

“The yard was screened off with canvas and guarded by my men. It was safe.”

“Are you sure Sar Virra hasn’t bought some of your men?”

“I’ve never given it a thought.”

“Well, it’s too late now to give it one. We’re closing the pasture gate after the zocca have strayed if Sar Virra has an informer in his pay. Have you given orders for your men to remain in camp tonight?”

“Of course not. Other than the regular guard, there’s no one in camp. They’ve all gone to the city.”

“What was the name of that friend of yours we met on the road? Sar Ferdinand?”

“You mean Sar Fernand of Alora?”

“That’s the man. How is he?”

“Poorly. He passed the trials of mind but failed the trial of body. He tried for Jadna Region and met a man who knew how to use a sword. He will recover, I think.”

“I think we should visit him and give him aid and comfort,” I said. “The best possible thing you and the Lady Alwys could do is to visit Sar Fernand and comfort him.”

“I do not think he wishes to be comforted. He nearly lost his left arm, and will be in much pain.”

“You will probably be in more if you stay here, and so will I. Let us depart at once with our wives and remove temptation from Sar Virra’s path.”

“Oh, I see.” Sar Malthor was thoughtful. “Warn,” he said at last, “you have a sneaky and suspicious mind.”

“When my friend is a sword stroke away from being Provincal, and when the Provincal is someone like Sar Virra, I have every right to be suspicious.”

“Very well, then; we shall leave at once.”

“Quietly, with no word of destination where anyone can hear. We go in silence and tell no one of our going.”

We had a miserable evening. Sar Fernand’s arm proved to be a flesh wound and we had to sit through a blow by blow recounting of the battle and how through ill luck, Sar Fernand’s parry failed to deflect his opponent’s blade.

Finally the evening drew to a close. We accepted Sar Fernand’s invitation to stay the night; or rather I accepted with such alacrity that the others had, perforce, to agree.

We rode back to the Lothain camp the next morning. It was a shambles. Two men were dead, four more wounded. The other four of the camp guard were unhurt. Tents were down, goods were trampled and burned. Poor Jorn would never make another sword. A spear had caught him in the chest. Laid out on the ground were four dead raiders. All were dressed in rough clothing without livery. One was a tall gray man I had seen before. A crossbow bolt had struck him in the neck. Lorn the seneschal would do no more secret work for his master, Sar Virra. Jorn and Lorn—how odd, I thought, that two with such like names should be killed at the same time.

Sar Malthor was appalled and enraged. “This passes all bounds,” he swore. “I shall have the conjer’s head,” he sputtered.

I shuddered. Why is it that cliches are the same everywhere? Possibly these might be fresh to Sar Malthor, but I didn’t think so. They came too easily. “Let’s burn our dead,” I said, “and take the bodies of the raiders to Sar Vostek. He might like to have some concrete evidence if his master decides to hang Sar Virra.”

“But how might he keep them for the Tarnas?”

“Pack them in a cask of wine. Sar Vostek, I understand, has plenty.”

Sar Malthor laughed. “I’ll even furnish the wine and send it to the old zocca as a gift.”

“Do that, but meanwhile you have a date with Sar Virra and we’d better get an armed escort to ride with you. And incidentally, you will be in full armor with your visor closed when we enter Zamal. No assassin is going to kill you to smooth Virra’s path. Martha and I will be with you,” I added. “You may need our weapons on your side.”

“I hope not, but do as you must. I will not try to stop you.”

“You couldn’t if you tried. You’re a nice guy Sar Malthor, but this is a situation where nice guys have no business. We’ll keep an eye out for trouble, and maybe it won’t get close to you.”

Nothing happened, but all the way to the arena I was on the lookout. We saw Sar Malthor safely to the entrance of the arena and then pushed our way toward the stands.

“Look for a place high up, with a good field of fire,” I said to Martha. “I wouldn’t put it past Virra to spot an archer or two in the crowd. Keep an eye open.”

“It’s a good thing these folk haven’t invented gunpowder yet,” she said. “It would be impossible to see a pistol.”

I took my kelly from beneath my jerkin, set the aperture on needle and the intensity on full, and sat with it held loosely in my lap. I didn’t want to kill anyone except the one I was aiming at, but I did want to kill him.

There was a stir of movement at the edge of the area, and a herald dressed in the bright green tabard of his profession walked to the center of the arena.

“Hear me, Tharns all!” he shouted. His voice had the peculiarly penetrant quality common to heralds. It carried easily across the rows of seats. “Comes now to the test of battle the noble lords Sar Malthor of Lothain and Sar Virra of Valthi to lay their case before the ultimate court of arms and the will of Tharn.”

Two men in armor, carrying long swords over their shoulders, stepped into the arena from opposite sides.

The herald turned to the warrior in yellow. “Do you, Sar Virra wish to continue this quarrel?” The armed figure nodded—a jerky motion of the helmet—like a mechanical doll. The herald then turned to the one in red, repeated the question and received the same reply.

“There being no reconciliation,” the herald announced, “the battle will be joined.” He retreated to the edge of the arena.

The two men saluted each other with a complex ritual of flashing blades. From somewhere near the, arena a trumpet brayed, the crowd roared and Sar Malthor struck! Cullendor whistled downward in a fierce two handed cut that Sar Virra barely parried, and for a moment the warrior in yellow retreated from the vicious attack of his smaller opponent. Bright blood stained the gray iron of Virra’s sleeve where one of Sar Malthor’s cuts had slipped past his guard. The crowd was silent, stunned at this unexpected turn of events.

A trumpet brayed and both warriors lowered their blades.

“Are you satisfied, Sar Malthor?” the herald shouted.

The red warrior shook his head.

“And you, Sar Virra?”

The yellow shook his head.

“Battle will again be joined!”

This time Sar Virra was ready and Sar Malthor’s stroke was met by a parry of such power that the clang of steel meeting driven steel could be heard to the topmost tiers of the stadium.

A howl of delight came from the spectators.

The long blades whirled and clashed as the metal figures danced an odd and deadly, step around the arena. Now it was Sar Virra who pressed the attack and Sar Malthor who gave ground. Relentlessly Sar Virra pursued htm with vicious cuts that were barely parried or avoided. Blood seeped from beneath Sar Malthor’s mail, and again the trumpet brayed.

Again neither warrior signified that he was willing to quit, and in a moment both were back again at their deadly game.

What was motivating Sar Malthor? Why didn’t he remember what he had tried in the tiltyard. Even I could see that it was going badly for Sar Malthor. He was backing off, retreating from the hail of blows that rained on him without interruption. The roar of the crowd was deafening. It had a predatory note that made the short hairs at the nape of my neck stand erect, and the skin tingle. My hand closed around the grip of my kelly. A Tharn sitting beside me was leaning forward, eyes fixed on the swordplay. One blast and Sar Virra would be finished. But my finger didn’t close on the firing stud. Sar Malthor had ceased retreating and was attacking, forcing the bigger man to give ground. The crowd was silent and tense as the initiative once more shifted to the challenger.

“It’s about over,” the Tharn said as his intent gaze relaxed for a moment. This is the last gasp. Sar Virra has him now.”

“Sar Malthor looks stronger,” I said.

“Look now! Here it comes!” the Tharn said. “Sar Virra is taking the play away from him.” The man’s eyes again riveted on the arena.

Sar Virra had come to life. Sar Malthor’s attack was held, parried and smashed back with crashing sledgehammer blows that staggered the smaller man and drove him backwards. A stroke, half-parried, turned Sar Virra’s blade sideways. With scarcely diminished force the broad blade glanced off Sar Malthor’s helmet, staggering him. I lifted the kelly as the big man stepped in, his sword a gleaming arc in the sunlight. But the blow never landed. Sar Malthor thrust! The blade caught Sar Virra in the midriff and the grunt of exploding air could be heard clear up to where we sat. The big man wilted, the inner force that had kept him going evaporated as the point entered his belly and bulged the mail at his back!

Sar Virra staggered. His sword arm sagged.

“Tharn! What’s this?” the Tharn beside me exclaimed. “What happened?”

I thought triumphantly that it was the Judgment of God.

Sar Malthor jerked his sword from Sar Virra’s body and moved in for the kill. A crashing stroke drove Sar Virra to his knees. A second, falling true upon the yellow helmet bit into the iron. Sar Malthor wrenched the blade free as Sar Virra pitched forward, his face buried in the sand, his helmet red with blood.

The crowd gasped as Sar Malthor heaved his sword up and brought it down in a whistling arc that ended on the mailed neck of Sar Virra before the trumpets could sound! No armor could withstand that blow. The head of Sar Virra, cut cleanly from his shoulders, lay in the arena! Judgment! Judgment of Tharn!

Bedlam filled the stands after the final moment of stunned silence. Cheers and whistles mounted to a thundering ear-splitting crescendo as Sar Malthor lifted Cullendor in a gesture of triumph.

CHAPTER 18

Sar Malthor immediately laid claim to the Province of Valthi, and since no one was eager to face him in combat after his defeat of Sar Virra, Sar Malthor was judged to have properly succeeded Sar Virra. He was enfeoffed in an elaborate ceremony attended by the Tarnas, the Lord Templar of Zamal, and most of the lords of the Tarnas’s Council.

I was a little surprised by the Tarnas. He was hardly past adulthood, a big, muscular, smooth-faced youth, with eyes that knew too much and saw too much. I am accomplished in the Sorovkin technique of muscle reading, yet I was unable to read the Tarnas, so perfect was his facial and body control. No wonder this young man was Tarnas. If this was the standard for kingship, Sar Malthor would be hard put to achieve it. Outside of George Gordon Bennett, I had never met a man who affected me so powerfully.

After the Tarnas had presented him with the yellow Galring plume, the mace and the gauntlets of his rank, Sar Malthor was officially pronounced Provincal of Valthi, suzerain of four regions and twenty-four demesnes, lord of the free cities of Zamal and Horthal, and member of the Tarnas’s Grand Council. That was a lot of authority and titles. In fact it was overwhelming.

“What do I do with all this, Warn?” Sar Malthor asked as he paced up and down his rooms in the city hall of Zamal. “Where do I start?”

“With Sar Virra’s administrative machinery, of course. You have to use your predecessor’s men until you can replace them with your own. Some you will not want to replace since they are loyal to whoever is in power. Some you will replace at once; people like Lorn, for instance, and those who were sycophants and lackeys. But I’m sure you know enough good men to fill their positions.”

“I know one at least,” Sar Malthor said. “You will be my seneschal.”

“I like the title of Executive Assistant better, or perhaps Executive Associate.”

“Those words are not in our language. You will have to be content with seneschal or reeve. The powers are, I think, the same. You act for me and in my name on all matters I do not wish to handle, or which I have delegated to you.” He smiled. “When I go fishing or hunting you are the Provincal.”

“That’s more than I want,” I said, “but there is one position I need.”

“You may have it.”

“Now wait a minute; you haven’t heard what it is.”

“I don’t care.”

“It’s treasurer—keeper of the purse, levyer of taxes, collector of fines, imposts and excises, controller of all funds save those you will need for your court and your soldiery. I want full control of the excess money.”

“Why not? As long as it’s excess you may have it. But I had not thought you to be a miser like Virra.”

“I’m not. I simply want this province to become the greatest and best in Tharn. I want it to be an example. I want it to be the model for all others, and that will take money. The state will have to initiate the reforms.”

“Why?”

I almost told him the truth right then. Possibly it would have been better if I had. For then he might have turned me down; and I would have had to take other measures— ones that didn’t involve what was essentially a betrayal of trust. But he didn’t press me, and I didn’t tell him I wanted a thousand sentars of copper and the technology to turn it into one hundred percent pure copper and the industry to draw it into miles of fourteen-gauge wire.

So I answered him with half-truths. “Pride, I suppose,” I shrugged, “for it is no small thing to be the friend of ; Provincal. It is a greater thing to have that Provincal in feald, although I feel that your oath was discharged long since.”

Sar Malthor shook his head. “Not so; for you have brought me to this place that I could never have reached myself. It was your tutoring and your weapon that brought me here.”

I didn’t deny that the sword was my idea. If he knew it was mine and was not upset, I was content. “But it was you who passed the trials and slew Sar Virra,” I said.

“I knew it!” Sar Malthor exclaimed. “I knew Cullendor was your doing. Old Jorn I knew for years. He was a good smith, but a new idea never entered his head unless someone placed it there.”

“You cannot prove it,” I said smugly. “Jorn is dead.”

“Nevertheless, I know, and that is another debt you have laid upon me.”

The entire population of the castle turned out to receive Sar Malthor. Together with the guild officials, merchants and companies that had come to the trials, plus the crowd of townsmen who always gathered to see a parade, it made quite a show. The route stretched from the Tarnas’s tent outside the walls to the inner bailey at the castle; and down that corridor lined with people, Sar Malthor and his company from Lothain rode to take over the leadership of Valthi Province.

“Now let us take our new home,” Sar Malthor said as his jesset stepped onto the causeway. We rode upward, crossing the new drawbridge that replaced the one Martha had destroyed.

He turned to me as we rode into the donjon. “Thanks to you, Warn, this has come to me.”

Othvar, the castellan, welcomed us as we dismounted in the donjon. He was an old soldier, old enough to have served under several Provincals. The fact that he had survived and gained in rank meant one of two things, either that he was an opportunist, or was loyal to his job and to whatever authority was in power. I could not fault him if the second were true.

“Now what is our immediate business, Warn?” Sar Malthor asked.

A look of complete comprehension creased Othvar’s face. I could have laughed at the speed with which he divined where the power lay at the moment, and where the administrative authority would be, at least for awhile.

“May I suggest that you visit your quarters, my lord,” Othvar interrupted. “It would be well if you became acquainted with the domestic staff.”

“A good idea,” Sar Malthor agreed.

“And Othvar,” I added, “I shall want the apartments directly above Sar Malthor, that I may be close at hand if he needs me.”

“See to it, Othvar,” Sar Malthor said.

“Aye, my lord,” Othvar said. His voice answered Sar Malthor, but his eyes were on me. I nodded and he smiled faintly. There was no word spoken, but Othvar knew, and would act accordingly.

Sar Virra’s quarters had been completely refurnished and the private door to the aerie was discreetly hidden behind an arras. I wondered who was in charge of the aerie since Gerd had deserted to Sar Tami of Jartan, and I mentioned it to Sar Malthor as Martha, Lady Alwys, Sar Malthor and myself were at dinner.

“It might be well to find out,” Sar Malthor said. “It’s been a week since Gerd brought news of Kyri Vanatra and Sar Virra’s private games to Sar Tami. Surely he made some provision for their keep.”

“He could have killed the lot of them,” I said.

“There must have been more than twenty,” Martha said.

“Well, let’s find out,” Alwys said. I looked at her with mild surprise. It was the first positive thing I had heard her say since I had met her. I looked at Martha, a question in my eyes. She lowered her lids and looked innocent.

I shrugged and led the way up the stairs. We all carried candles, which made the ascent easier, but even so it was quite a trip. We came to the locked door and I pushed back the wards, jamming them with my dagger to prevent the door from swinging shut and locking as it had done before.

The corridor was empty; so was the common room and the kitchen. Gerd’s quarters were a shambles. I found the door to the cell block closed and barred. I looked through the spyhole in the first door.

“Martha—you and Alwys go back to the kitchen at once!” I said. “Bring water and cups or dippers. Move!”

“What is this?” Sar Malthor asked.

“Don’t talk, give me a hand.” I swung the door open and Sar Malthor gasped. The girl was still alive—so were twenty-two of the twenty-four in the aerie. One had hanged herself in her chain, the other had apparently died a day or so before. The rest were badly dehydrated and starved, but were still alive. Several weren’t rational, but Martha assured me that this was only temporary. It was not until early in the morning that we finished caring for Sar Virra’s harem, which had simply been forgotten by everyone.

Martha and I went through the place a second time, just on the off chance we might have missed something. “I knew that I was in a prison cell,” Martha gasped as she looked into the room she had so briefly occupied, “but I didn’t realize it was part of a block.”

“Hello,” I said, “what’s this?” We had come back to Gerd’s quarters and as I leaned against what seemed to be a panelled wall, it gave a little under my weight. “There’s a door here.”

“Why would it be hidden?”

“Because it held something Gerd didn’t want to show to people.”

“A makeup stand maybe?”

“Don’t try to be funny.” I was feeling around the doorway and by pushing on it I could see its outline, but I couldn’t move it beyond the first tiny crack. “Guard!” I yelled.

A sentry appeared. “Yes sir—what do you want?”

“A battleaxe,” I said, “get me one, now!”

“Yes, sir,” he said and vanished. Five minutes later I had my axe.

Six strokes later we were in an ugly little room. It was obviously a torture chamber, filled with instruments ingeniously designed to inflict pain without causing visible damage to the victim.

“Do you think she used these things?” Martha asked as she fingered a device composed of straps and levers whose purpose was all too clear.

“Sure, probably used the hearth over there to toast her victims. Notice the ingenious arrangement beside it. Have you ever noticed how sensitive your peripheral nerves can become to heat?”

“Stop it!” Martha clutched my arm. “This place is bad enough. Now that I know what Gerd was talking about I don’t want to know any more! Let’s get out of here.”

“Just a moment. There’s another door. Let’s see what’s behind it.”

“Your curiosity is going to cost you dearly some day.” Martha prophesied. “Something big, green and scaly, with teeth, is going to pop out of one of these doors you open.”

“Now I know why Sar Virra had such good control over his women,” I said. “He left nothing to their imagination.” I pushed the door open. “Oh my God!” I said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Get out of here. Get a detail and a litter. This is no place for you—or me. Sar Virra didn’t kill her, but the lack of food and water did the job he started. She’s dead.”

“Who’s dead?”

“Kyri Vanatra—Sar Tami’s love.”

Martha made a strangled sound of pity and pain as she looked over my shoulder. “What did the poor girl do?”

“She talked back to Sar Virra.”

“No!” Martha said, “don’t go! She’s alive!”

Kyri’s eyes opened and focused on Martha. Two tears trickled down her cheeks.

“Oh you poor baby!” Martha said softly as she went down on her knees beside the girl. She touched her and Kyri screamed, the croak of raw vocal cords that had screamed too long.

“She’s mine,” Martha said. “I’ll take care of her. Have someone bring food and water and a litter. We’ll take her to our rooms wherever they are—”

I didn’t wait for her to finish.

CHAPTER 19

“I think I should inspect the dungeon,” I said to Sar Malthor the next morning. “I would like to go with you, he said. “It would be preferable to what has been arranged for me. Othvar tells me that I must receive the Guildsmen who have petitioned for lower taxes. Now what do I know about taxes?”

“Stall them,” I suggested. “I’ll have the clerks go over the records and if the taxes are too high we can reduce them. Don’t make a snap decision.”

“I had no intention of doing that, but there will be much talk of things in which I have small interest.”

“You’ll learn, and probably you’ll like it before you are done.”

“I wonder,” Sar Malthor said. He looked down at me from his greater height. “You found another prisoner in the aerie, I have heard. Is she still alive?”

“She is,” I said, “but barely.”

“Who is she?”

“Kyri Vanatra, Sar Tami’s love,” I replied, “but she’s in no condition to see anyone. Martha is caring for her.”

“Bring her to health if you can. She may be useful to us. It would be helpful to have Sar Tami owe us a favor. How long do you think it may be before she is well?”

I shrugged. “Who knows?” I said, “Physically maybe a month. Mentally probably longer. Perhaps as long as a year. I will have to ask Martha. Healing the sick is her field.”

“Keep me informed,” Sar Malthor said.

He was already beginning to sound like an executive, I thought with satisfaction. Probably he’d be acting like one before too long. I hadn’t spelled it out, but he understood instantly my interest in Kyri. She could mean more to Valthi than any other single thing. For it is valuable to have friendly neighbors; if we could obligate Sar Tami, we would have Jartan as an ally. I was more than satisfied with Sar Malthor. If he kept developing and something happened to the Tarnas, he might well become ruler of all Tharn.

I sighed and considered my place on the castle staff. I was Sar Malthor’s right hand, and I was glad that was all I was. It was a weakness in my character, I suppose, that I disliked final responsibility, but I was happier with an executive who backed me up and left me alone. And certainly I had to have such a boss here for I was too alien to rule directly. I was already being called the warlock and my invasion of the castle was cited as evidence of my magical powers. I was hated already by some survivors of those whom Sar Virra had hanged and by others for no other reason than my strangeness. I was envied by others for the power I wielded. And I was loved, too, but only by Martha and Sar Malthor.

A squat man in a stained, leather jerkin and dirty, cloth breeches rose to his feet as we entered the dungeon.

“Welcome, your worships,” he said in a husky voice. His eyes, bright beads in his lined face, twinkled at us from a head peculiarly askew on a thick neck.

“Grut, our warder and hangman,” Othvar said. “He comes by his position honestly. Many years ago he was hanged—by Sar Samdi, I believe.”

“Aye,” Grut said, “He were the one.”

“But the rope broke rather than Grut’s neck. It pleased our lord that he survived, and he made Grut the hangman when he recovered.”

“And my first duty was to hang him who had tried to hang me,” Grut said. ” ‘Twas a fitting end for that bungler.”

“Grut has never made the mistake of failing to hang a man properly.” Othvar said.

“We’ll not be needing a hangman,” I said firmly.

“You don’t mean that!” Grut protested. “There is always need for a hangman, and I’m the best in Tharn.”

“Don’t frighten him, sir,” Othvar said. “If he thought he were not needed, it would kill him. He would have nothing to do and nowhere to go. Because of his trade he is feared and hated by castlefolk and townsmen alike. Remove him from the Provincal’s protection and the folk would kill him. And besides, sir, he is a good man and an efficient worker.”

“We will still be needing a warder. I would not cast him out,” I said.

Grut grinned crookedly. “Thank you, your worship. And someday there will be others to hang. There always is.”

“We wish to see the prisoners,” Othvar said.

“Aye, my birds are in their cages. Come with me sirs.” Grut picked up a ring of keys from the bench and unlocked an iron door. “They be this way, my little beauties. Which do you wish to see?”

“All of them. And I want their histories.”

“Aye,” Grut said as he led the way down a dark noisome corridor lined with grated doors. “These three,” he said, “were to be hung this week an the old lord lived. They were guards who were neglectful of their duties and let a maid escape.”

“Release them,” I said. “Have them report to me tomorrow morning in proper dress.”

“Aye,” Othvar said.

Grut swung the door wide, “Out with you. Back to your huts, and be grateful that your new lord is merciful. An he were not you’d be seeing me professionally.”

“It’s a sight I’d rather forego,” one of the men said as they scrambled out of the cell.

“This one,” Grut went on, “is a townsman. He refused to pay taxes levied by Sar Virra.”

“Release him,” I said.

We passed down the line of cells. Whatever Sar Virra might have been, one thing was certain. He was a firm believer in jails. The cells were mostly filled.

“Would you care to see the question room, your worship?” Grut asked. “There is only one prisoner there now. We received her this morning from Sar Tami. He thought our new lord might want her, and he had given his word that he would not mistreat her.”

“Her?”

Grut nodded.

“One moment, sir,” Othvar said. “Before you become too merciful you should know that this one is Gerd, the keeper of Sar Virra’s women. I have placed her case before our lord in writing.”

“Well, let’s see her.”

Grut led us into a cavernous room filled with devices of wood and metal. The purposes of some were horribly clear, the use of others was more obscure, but it was obvious that this was a torture chamber.

“You like it sir?” Grut queried hopefully. “I keep the instruments clean and ready for use.”

“Where is the prisoner?” I asked.

“In there,” Grut said, pointing to a door set in the far wall.

Gerd looked at us, blinking painfully as the light struck her eyes. Slowly she came to her feet. She was big, plump and muscled like a peasant, but her body had a shrunken look as she cringed back from the light. She wore a smock, but it didn’t hide the quivering of her flesh.

“Are you come for me?” she asked. She didn’t ask for mercy, I noted. Undoubtedly she knew it would do no good.

“Do you know Sar Virra is dead?” I asked.

“No—that cannot be!”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” I said. “She sounds sorry to hear it.”

“Gerd was loyal to Sar Virra,” Othvar said. “He took her out of the stews and made her someone of importance. She never failed him until that woman escaped. But that was failure enough. Sar Virra would have hanged her.”

“Keep her safe,” I said. “We will deal with her later— justly, I hope.”

“I gather that she may miss the irons,” Grut said, “but will probably get the rope.” He grinned as he closed the door on her frightened face, locking her again in the tomblike dark of the cell.

“Are there any more?” I asked.

“No, sir,” Othvar said. “That is all. You found the others.” His face was blank. “There was a reason, I think, for the dungeon, but none for the aerie,” he said.

“You didn’t approve?”

Othvar stiffened. “It’s not my place to approve or disapprove. I am only the castellan. I keep the castle in order. Frounce keeps it provisioned. Kensyr defends it. Our duties have little overlap. I neither know nor care what my lord’s reasons may be. I guard his prisoners, keep the quarters, see that the services are performed. Beyond that I do not go.”

Compartmentalized! I thought. People like Othvar neither knew nor wanted to know what was going on beyond their narrow field, and they neither cared nor wanted to care. No wonder it’s easy to take over control of a place like this, I thought. Act like a leader and the sheep follow. They can’t help following any more than they can help breathing. They demand a leader. It’s pretty poor material to turn into a civilized state. I sighed. “All right, Othvar, let’s go,” I said. “We’re through here.”

CHAPTER 20

I sent for Othvar and told him I wanted to see the guardsmen I had released from the dungeon. As I recalled there was one who was different from the others, a tall alert fellow who lacked the stolid attitude of acceptance that characterized most men-at-arms. Most soldiers were Tharns who decided that a pike was better than a plow, and cast their lot for soldiering after they had failed their primary education. I had checked with Kensyr and discovered that the one named Furth had almost become a lordling before failing his secondary education. If he had any moral character at all, I could use the man. I needed intelligent people. I wondered if he was the one I had marked among the prisoners. It would be pleasant to discover I was correct in my judgment.

He was the second to appear. He came clinking into my chambers in full armor with a clean gold-and-white japon over his mail. He gave me a brisk military salute and stood motionless. Only his eyes were alive. They watched me with a mixture of worry and curiosity, which I understood. Suddenly I recognized him. He was the guard with the girl friend in the aerie.

“Pikeman first-class Furth, reporting as ordered, milord,” he announced, before he lapsed into alert silence

“I took you from the dungeon, Furth,” I said.

“Aye, milord.”

“Would Sar You won’t get themirra have hung you?”

“Probably, milord. He was not forgiving.” Furth’s voice was expressionless. “He had already hanged three of us before he went to his death.”

“Was the sentence just?”

“I suppose so, milord. I had left my post to relieve myself. I should not have left. The strange woman must have escaped while I was gone. It was my fault that she escaped.”

“You have all the qualities of a good liar, Furth,” I said.

“Milord?”

“You keep the story simple and basically truthful. You do not embellish, you do not deviate. Yet you lie.”

“How, milord?”

“You are shielding someone. You have been since the beginning.”

“That is not so, milord.”

“Her name is Alyse,” I went on. You were with her and not alone.” I shook my head. “There is no need to lie to me. I am not Lorn. I have no reason to punish you or your mistress.”

“You are indeed a warlock as they say. No man could know that; but why am I here then, if not to be punished for deserting my post?”

“I need you. I want you to take ten men and mark a map for me. Kensyr tells me that you are better educated than the ordinary man-at-arms, and that you missed passing first trials only because you were irreverent.”

“I was a fool, milord, I should have dissembled. I know the value priests set upon belief in Tharn, but I was young and hot-headed.”

“You have learned to become a better liar since.”

“Aye, milord.”

“See to it that you do not lie to me in the future. If you do well with this mission, I will have you sponsored for another trial. What I have learned of you indicates that you could be a good lord. You lie, but not for personal gain.”

“I shall do my best, milord.”

“Then come with me. I shall show you what I want.” I led him over to the table near the window where a large scale map of Valthi was unrolled. “You can read a map, I suppose?” I asked.

“Yes, milord, I can even make one.”

I nodded. Kensyr had told me of his talents. “You will take ten men and map Valthi,” I said, “but the map you make will not be an ordinary one. It will show the points that can look toward other points, or into valleys. It will show the shortest lines of sight that can be stretched from town to town. The points must not be more than two harads apart.”

“It will take several weeks, milord, perhaps several months.”

“Weeks,” I said, “I do not want all the points, just the ones connecting manors and the regional forts to Zamal. That should be done quickly. Do the job within the month, and bring the map to me. You will leave as soon as you can. Othvar will furnish you the men and equipment. I will take Alyse into my household as a maid so she will be under my protection while you are gone.”

“I shall do my best, milord,” Furth said. “I shall not lie to you again, and you shall have your map as soon as I can make it.”

Martha came in shortly after Furth was dismissed.

“Sar Malthor presented a cultural contribution to Tharn,” she said. “What happened to it?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The jesset collar.”

“I still don’t know. It’s being used, I guess.”

“Well, why not find out. You want to get out of here. So do I. I want to get back to civilization.”

“How is a jesset collar going to help us fuel our space ship?” I asked.

She smiled, the kindly, pitying, superior smile a governess reserves for a not-too-bright child. “Haven’t you ever studied the development of civilization?” she asked.

“Years ago,” I answered, “somewhere in elementary school.”

“It’s too bad it didn’t stick,” she said. “Then maybe you’d understand why I’m interested in the jesset collar.”

“I’m interested in electrolysis, amalgams, cyanide extraction, smelting and wire-drawing,” I pointed out.

“You won’t get them,” she prophesied, “until the Tharns accept the jesset collar.

“Why not?”

“Because the things you want are things in which the Tharns have no present interest. And there isn’t enough of Warren Robertshaw to do everything himself. The techniques you mentioned involve metallurgy, chemistry, physics, engineering; those in turn involve a horde of ancillary disciplines. You can’t have those without developing the things your people need.”

“And the jesset collar is one of the things they need?”

“Absolutely. Have you seen how heavy hauling is done; how the big stones and timbers are moved?”

“Of course—gangs of Tharns do that kind of work.”

“Right. Because they can’t use jessets. The breast band of the harness either chokes the animal, or the entire fore-quarters go through it. Put a collar on them so they can put their shoulder muscles into the pull and they’ll out-haul a score of men.”

“How do you know?”

“I once worked on a free-life farm on Earth. They used horses there, and I remember how they were harnessed. They could pull amazing loads, and a jesset is enough like them to be used the same way. Just think of what it would do to free men for better work than draft animals. It would revolutionize this society.”

I shook my head. “I don’t see it.”

“The requirements of a civilization,” she explained, “are transportation, communication, money and a stable government, or do you disagree?”

“I could think of other things, like an intellectual base.”

“Sure, and there are laws, morals, patriotism and a hundred others, but they are all secondary. What you should do is consider the basics. Take government for instance.”

“It could hardly be better. It allows for autonomy and individuality, yet preserves central authority. It would be perfect if there were some way to coordinate the secular and churchly aspect of society.”

“I agree. Now how about money?”

“There’s some coinage.”

“Not enough, and I’m not talking about coinage. I’m talking about money—the medium of exchange—letters of credit, interest, loans.”

“There’s only minimal knowledge of these things. Coins are used to purchase goods. Loans are made, but mainly for goodwill and often for labor in kind. I’ve never heard of interest—and as for credit or letters of credit, ha!”

“But you must have capital to establish industry, and you must have industry to produce your wire.”

“Not really. I can train a team that will do the job.”

“To what purpose? What they would be doing would have no meaning to them. They wouldn’t be interested, and you wouldn’t get off the ground. Besides, you couldn’t train them. They don’t have the background. You could teach them to work by rote, but that won’t get you airborne. You’d spend all your time correcting mistakes.”

“But the whole process is simple enough. It doesn’t take much brains to purify a ton of copper. The electrolytic process is easy to operate.”

“But hard to set up. And besides, have you looked at their coinage?”

“Sure, crowns, shields, and bits. Ten bits equal one shield; ten shields equal one crown.”

“No no, I mean the metal.”

“The crowns and shields are copper, the bits are silver.”

“Have you seen any gold coins?”

“Yes, the double crowns are gold, but there aren’t many of them.”

“And what’s the relative size of the double crown and the crown?”

“About the same,” I said, and then the light dawned. “And the bits are about the same size as the shields, why that means that copper is almost as rare as gold, and silver is common.”

“You know,” she said, “there’s hope for you yet.”

“And silver can be purified as easily as copper—”

“And it works better than copper in the converter— less impedance, higher atomic weight, greater conductivity, more power per gram.”

“Sure that’s why the navy jobs use silver. They’d probably use gold if they could get it in quantity and if it wasn’t too expensive.”

“We do. We synthesize it rather cheaply. That’s why our ships run up into the violet.”

“Can our lifeboat run on gold?”

“Of course, in fact the deceleration out of the violet was done on about a hundred meters of gold wire. After that we ran on copper. The converter can also use silver. In fact it runs more efficiently on silver than on either gold or copper, but it’s more expensive than copper and not as fast as gold. But you could reach the blue easily with silver, and it would be more economical since its conductivity is better.

“I’m being given too many choices.”

We dropped the subject by mutual consent. There was no need for more discussion. She had done what she wanted by changing the goal of my search from copper to silver. That was enough for her for now and I would have enough to do with the new goal to keep me busy. My knowledge of metallurgy was skimpy; Martha’s was no better. The cyborg in the boat probably had more data plus some useful technology; until we needed it, we’d leave it there. It was better that way.

Right now we needed communication between the various demesnes and regions of the province more than we needed silver metallurgy. Couriers were too slow. I didn’t know what was going on. I was operating in a fog. Decisions had to be made from incomplete data. Plans had to be tentative. Judgments had to be reached with crossed fingers, and all this was anathema to me.

Something had to be done. Sar Malthor had gone and returned. He had traveled as far as Jortan and had met Sar Tami at the border. They had hunted for awhile together and parted friends.

“I could stand no more, Warn,” Sar Malthor said as we sat in his quarters after dinner. “The fellow talked of nothing but hunting and Kyri. I expect he thinks I have her and intend to keep her. I tried to disabuse him, but he was getting impossible and I had to leave else I would have bleated your secret for all to hear.”

“You did fine,” I said calmly. “As soon as she is well, we can let Sar Tami know.”

“And you have done well as I expected,” he said. “The province is at peace. People seem happy. There’s a feeling of excitement in the air.”

“I worry about that,” I replied, “I don’t know what’s going on.”

Sar Malthor shrugged. “Who does?” he asked. “But what can be done about that? Your reports reached me days after you took action. I couldn’t have changed your decisions if I had wished to do so. But I wasn’t worried. I’d have sweated more had I been the one to give the word.”

“I shall soon have a system where we can talk to each other in a matter of hours, no matter where we are in the province.”

“That’s impossible!”

“Not really. It’s just an adaptation of a system we already have. From the marches we already know when there is danger from the sea.”

“Ah yes, the signal fires, but they mean only but one thing—danger! They do not tell us who, or how many or from where. So we mobilize all our forces to handle perhaps two score of pirates. We waste energy.”

“That can be changed,” I explained. “Imagine towers built across the land. Each tower is so located that it can see at least two other towers. All of these funnel in to Zamal. On each tower is a house with long wooden arms painted white so they can be seen from afar. These arms can move, and each movement means a letter of written language, or a number from zero through nine. Since there are only twenty-three characters in the Tharn alphabet they can be handled easily by two arms.”

“How?”

“Like this,” I explained, drawing a piece of parchment and a pen across the table. We have a tower—thus and on top of the tower we put a house. On the house we attach two white-painted arms that can be moved. Anta, the first letter, would look like this from the next tower. With a series of diagrams, I showed him a simple semaphore system for the alphabet and basic numerals.”

“Ah, I see, and the arms would spell out messages. But what of the night?”

“Lanterns, milord, with sliding panels to shut off the light. We would use long and short flashes.

“I see. You seem to have it well thought out.”

“Not too well. I have to study the code. Looking at some letters, it seems rather cumbersome. I shall work on it further.”

“Do so; meanwhile I shall order survey parties to scour the province for tower sites. This idea has virtue.”

“I have already done that milord.”

Sar Malthor smiled. “You move fast, friend Warn.”

Later I sought out Vra Branvar, the castle chaplain. He was a round man whose years were hidden beneath layers of fat. His appetite and his patience were legendary. He had grown old in the service of Tharn and wise in the ways of both men and gods. He had survived Sar Virra unscathed, which was some sort of a miracle, and unlike Vra Cedras, the priest of Lothain, he expressed no overt suspicion of my motives. In fact he seemed disinterested in what I was doing, except for the usual worries that priests always seem to have for parishioners who deserve hanging but have not yet made it to the gallows.

“Greetings Vra Branvar,” I said politely.

“Peace my son,” the priest replied. “What brings you here this day? It is not often that the worldly men of Castle Zamal visit their poor priest on any day except a holy one.”

“You wrong us, Vra Branvar,” I protested. “You priests tend to shut us out except on holy days.”

“You are always welcome, my son.”

“And I am always glad to see you.”

The amenities concluded, we got down to business. I brought out the rolls of parchment on which I had written the codes and semaphore signals. “I want you to study these drawings and from your knowledge of letter frequency, make me a chart of dots and dashes of light that can be easily read by eye, and semaphore arm positions that cannot be mistaken,” I requested.

“You set me a strange task,” the priest murmured.

“You are the best read and the best lettered in the castle. Who else should I turn to?”

“I can see what you plan. It is simple yet wonderful. This way one man can talk to another as far as he can see. Strange that no one has thought of such a thing before.”

“Someone has to be first,” I shrugged.

“Admittedly, but why you? Why is it that around you there is literally an aura of first things? Men leave you bursting with ideas. I do not know whether this is good or evil. You create ferment wherever you go, and ferment is not Tharn’s way. Tharn’s way is peace and tranquility, yours is change and uproar. And your woman is as disturbing as you. You are no usual person, my son, and with you as seneschal, Valthi may have a harder time than she had under Lorn. Before men needed only to fear for the safety of their money and their daughters. Now they must fear for the safety of their minds and souls. You are a wind of change, my son, and you blow very hard.”

Am I that obvious? I thought. Or has this priest a keener mind than I guessed?

“I am an ordinary man, my son,” Vra Branvar said, “but I have seen many people, and never have I seen ones like you and your mate. You look on different goals than the rest of us. Your eyes are fixed on another place than here. You want to return. Why don’t you?”

“I cannot. But in time I shall. I owe a debt to Sar Malthor and until it is paid and Sar Malthor is secure, I may not leave.”

“And to make him secure you will turn this province upside down?”

“Inside out, if I must,” I replied.

Vra Branvar smiled. “I think I shall appreciate you in time. Meanwhile I shall do as you ask.”

“And don’t try to cozen me with tales of your ordinariness,” I warned. “First of all I don’t believe them, and second they are not true.”

“It has been a long time since there has been intelligence among this province’s rulers. I am not sure that we shall survive it,” Vra Branvar said.

I laughed at him and left the small temple over which he presided. I hoped that the priest would never become my enemy, for he was a man to be respected and possibly feared. Vra Branvar wielded considerably more power than I cared to have aligned against me. I wondered if I could kill the priest if it became necessary and was conscious of a revulsion I didn’t have when I watched Sar Malthor kill Sar Virra.

My lips twisted into a wry smile. Perhaps I should discover if I could kill a Tharn—coldly, objectively, judicially. I shivered, suddenly cold despite the heat of the day. I had the perfect test, for Gerd deserved to hang. Martha would destroy her in a moment, but could I do it? I wondered.

CHAPTER 21

It was a continual struggle not to plant too many technological advances too quickly. I could think of a dozen ways to improve this world, like plumbing, pumps and gravity water feeds, like overshot wheels to power gristmills rather than slow-footed zocca yoked by the horns to the millstones, like foot-operated warps on the looms in the weaver’s lofts. Like steam engines and railroads. Oh there were hundreds of little things I could suggest. Every one of them could be used, and none would be beyond Tharn’s technology or capacity. But I didn’t know how much it took to cause a technological explosion, and I had no idea how to extrapolate the possible effects that could arise from a technological improvement.

Transportation, communication, money, and government—the four elements of a technical civilization. Already we’d interfered with transport, and the progress of one technological innovation I had given to a man who died soon after amazed me.

The idea of oil-tempering, which I thought safely buried with Jorn’s death, was far from dead. One of Jorn’s apprentices had brains. He remembered the oil bath and the forging of Cullcndor, and presently Zamal’s smiths—who had never been particularly noteworthy in Tharn—became famous for the sharpness of their blades and the hardness of their mail. And the apprentice rose quickly to a position of leadership in the Ironworker’s Guild. Fortunately, the guild clapped a lid of secrecy on the tempering process and the use of bone black in their forges to make higher carbon steel. The development stayed in Zamal and would leak out to others slowly. But the mere fact that there was a development would stimulate others to search for it, and who knew what they might discover in the search.

Nevertheless, I went on. I couldn’t stop. I had to get back to the confederation. I expect Martha recognized the need that drove me, because she helped me set up the means for the discoveries to appear. But Martha’s help was limited because she had a baby who took most of her time. A forty-five kilogram baby called Kyri.

“She’s still in shock,” Martha told me. “She’s withdrawn.”

“Is it curable?”

“Probably, but so far it isn’t going well. She needs constant attention, and I can’t afford to give it to her.”

“That’s right,” I said. “I need your help.”

“I know. I should use the Hunt-Winslow on her, but I’m afraid it’ll shove her into complete catatonia.” Martha shook her head. “It’s a shame. She’s such a pretty thing.”

“Sar Malthor is getting restless. He wants to get going with some of the reforms we’ve talked about and you’re necessary. I can’t predict their effect. I have a letter from him that’s loaded with ambition. He’s tired of inspections and is coming back to Zamal where the action is. Says he’s tired of being a salesman, so you’d better get Kyri a nurse. There are lots of women in the castle.”

Martha laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound. “So I get a nurse for Kyri.”

Her voice was acid. “I’ve tried that. Let me tell you how that went?” She didn’t wait for an answer but swept on. “I talked to Alyse. I told her what I wanted. I stressed the fact that she and Kyri had been sisters in misery as toys of Sar Virra. I expected sympathy and understanding but I drew a blank on both counts! I showed her Kyri. “Ah, she’s mad!” Alyse says. “No,” I say, “she’s in a withdrawal state. She needs help and comfort.” All she’d say was, ” Tis not for me to nurse the like of her. Belike it’s catching. No, milady, I will not. It is not meet for a free maid to nurse a wittol. ‘Tis a job for the gaoler. Give her to Grut and bid him do his duty.”

“And what’s that?” I ask. “Ah,” she says, “it is Grut’s task to straitly imprison those who are mad and to hang them an they do not recover in a fair time.”

“And what’s a fair time?” I ask. She shrugs and says she knows not, but in any event she will not care for Kyri. Martha grimaced. “Right then I lost my temper and threw her out.”

“Bodily?”

Martha nodded.

“Did you have any better luck with the others you asked?”

She shook her head.

“Then maybe you’d better turn her over to Grut,” I said.

“Over my dead body,” she replied, and she sounded as though she meant it.

So I had a few words with Furth, and the next day Alyse was helping Martha take care of Kyri. Neither Martha nor Alyse liked it, but they both accepted the situation as one of the consequences of living in Tharn. Martha wanted no more of my help, and Alyse wanted no more of Furth’s displeasure.

But I didn’t make the error of underrating my woman. She was an equal and often a superior partner in my enterprises. And often she thought of things I had overlooked or neglected in the rush of business that flowed around me.

It was her suggestion that kept me from being in the unhappy position of providing fuel for a spaceship I didn’t control.

“You should bring the lifeboat to Zamal,” she said. “A team of jessets could drag it back to the water. It could float and could be towed here without too much trouble and stored in one of the warehouses on the docks. I’m going to need some of the mechanisms and I can’t be running to Lothain every time I need a tool. Besides, I don’t feel easy with it there and us here. It’s too far away.”

“I feel the same way,” I admitted. “Still, I don’t want to call attention to the boat.”

“It’s a choice between two evils.”

“And the lesser, I suppose, is to have it at hand rather than at Lothain.”

She nodded. “You have to consider that if you don’t claim it, it becomes the property of the manor, and the new lord of Lothain has considerable autonomy. So maybe you’d better get cracking.”

I had the map for the semaphores within a month, and Furth was already supervising the job of building wooden towers on the hills he had selected. He had Sar Malthor’s authority to corvee the men he needed from the demesnes, and the towers literally sprang from the earth. I expect that I was a puzzle to Furth and to the others I recruited and employed. But I slowly assembled a staff I could use, and presently as the men I employed recommended others it became a self-creating process. I worked them hard, but granted them privileges that others didn’t have. They were an elite group and they knew it. It made them the objects of envy and hatred, but it also increased their dependence on each other and on me.

I quickly discovered that my activities could not go on in the castle since the constant comings and goings of my men interfered with the orderly running of the place and nearly drove poor Othvar to distraction. Furthermore, those who were mine were too easy to monitor, Kensyr warned me of this. He was a good soldier. He was a strange find in a fortress dominated by Sar Virra, but he was the type who could survive a man like the late Provincal. Under Sar Malthor’s regime he flourished. He was loyal to authority. So I took his advice and some of Sar Virra’s hoard to purchase a block of warehouses and a dock in Zamai. The seaman’s guild and the merchant’s guild objected that I was infringing on their ancient privileges, but when they learned that the government was not going into trade or transport, they dropped their objections, and even helped when asked.

“How do you like being a meddler?” Martha asked one day. “You know you are destroying this pleasant, static land. You’re triggering a revolution that will shake this world. You’re doing precisely what Dad is doing.”

“But not for the same reasons. I’m meddling to get out of here and to stop him from destroying the confederation. He’s trying to establish exactly what I’m trying to destroy.”

“There’s just a possibility that Dad is smarter than you,” she said, “and that what you see is only enough to draw false conclusions. You never have been competent to judge my father.”

“Is he competent to judge the confederation?”

“He’s had more experience,” she said, “and he has a lot better help than you have.”

“Present company excepted?”

“Present company included. I’ve never been anything but a fringe worker. I’m not even competent to hold the notebooks of the people who do the inside work.” She paused and stared thoughtfully into the darkness of the smoke-stained vault of the ceiling overhead. “But don’t fret. I can help you twist this society to fit your ends. And I’ll do it gladly—not because I think you’re right or that your goal is proper, but because this society must be stimulated or it will die. It has been unchanged too long, and it has solidified and stagnated. Like men, societies can die on stagnation. They must struggle, fail, succeed, grow, and develop.”

“Why?”

“Because intelligence has a destiny. I don’t know what it is or where it lies, but intelligence must develop no matter what the cost. The products of intelligence must appear: technology, philosophy, literature, art. To stand still too long at any level means death. Of course, development also has its dangers. It may lead to species suicide, or to a prolonged Interregnum like the one on Earth before the New Enlightenment. But as long as activity is not completely suppressed societies have a chance to live.”

“To what end?”

“I don’t know, but it must be something great.”

I shook my head. “I can’t agree with you. This world would go on very nicely if it never progressed. People are content.”

“But are they really? Look, I was born on a world that was content. The race that ruled it had achieved what they thought was perfection. They developed a technology that relieved them of every care and worry. Nothing could harm them. Every wish was fulfilled. Even age was conquered and they could live lives of perpetual youth. They could be forever young, forever satisfied and forever—bored.

“When Dad and Mother found the world it was dead. The last of that race had committed suicide millenia before. All that remained was the great indestructible self-renewing fortress their technology had built to house the remnants of their race. They died because they refused to look ahead, to seek destiny. They became a dead end, an eddy in the stream of intelligence, pursuing a circle of futility. Their intelligence and development was far beyond ours. Today, in the monument they left, thousands of people work to learn the old ones’ secrets and avoid the fate that overtook them.

“We are the gadflies of society, stinging it into activity when it stagnates, and our reasons for being are as diverse as our races. We have crackpots and despots, anarchists and altruists, missionaries and meddlers. But we all work together to do what must be done to keep society alive and growing.”

“So that’s the philosophy,” I murmured. “I hadn’t figured on fanaticism. You people are insane.”

“Perhaps,” Martha said easily, “but perhaps insanity is necessary for development. Can you prove it’s not?”

CHAPTER 22

A page intercepted Sar Malthor as we climbed the staircase to my quarters. I wanted to show him the progress we had made with the semaphores and he wanted to see Kyri. The page handed the paper he carried to Sar Malthor and waited expectantly while the Provincal read the words. Sar Malthor waved the page off, and handed me the sheet.

“Sar Tami of Jartan, with an escort of a hundred men-at-arms, has crossed the border at Torlain Manor. He is heading for Zamal to visit Sar Malthor and learn more of semaphores,” it read.

“Too many words,” I muttered. “It sounds like a proclamation.”

Sar Malthor smiled. “It probably was amplified by a clerk in the message center. But that’s immaterial. What do you think of the content?”

“A hundred is a lot of men-at-arms for so poor a province as Jartan. And if his reason for coming is the semaphores, he’s either lying or incredibly stupid. He knows how they work. I sent him detailed drawings and the code, just as I did the Tarnas and every other Provincal in Tharn. No, that’s not his reason. He’s after something else, and he thinks he may need force to get it.”

“Kyri?”

“Probably. I sent him news of her, too, although not by open channels. His agents have been active in Zamal. They were not too clever, although that may have been deliberate. So I saw that several were told that she was in the castle. I expected a reaction, and this is it.”

Sar Malthor sighed. “Kyri is a pretty thing. I will miss her.”

“She will be missed more by Martha than by anyone else.”

“At times I have thought of wedding her.”

“Aren’t three wives enough?”

He shrugged. “A man thinks of all women at this time.”

“Thank God I’m not like you,” I said. “I don’t think I could take it.” Sar Malthor laughed and then sobered. “Do you think Kyri is cured?” he asked.

“Aye, Martha says she is, and she knows more of this than I. Give Martha a little time to get Kyri accustomed to the thought that Sar Tami is coming and there will be no trouble.”

“How much time do you need?”

“About thirty days,” I said.

“Well, that’s not impossible. It should be easy to delay him that long. I’ll send orders to the demesnes on his route to afford him full hospitality. He’ll average three days at each: one to be received, one to be entertained, and one to recover from the hospitality. Yes, it should take at least thirty days before he gets here—and it might take longer. Our wines are strong and our maids are pretty.” Sar Malthor sighed and looked a trifle unhappy. “I never knew what was needed to run a region,” he said. “The duplicity, the schemes, the complex planning, the enforced trust one must place in others, the need for organization rather than individual effort. It’s appalling!”

“That’s because you are conscientious.”

“Eh?”

“A disease of good rulers and great statesmen. You should be proud.”

“I have much to learn, Warn.”

“And if you keep going as you are now, you will one day be the greatest Tarnas Tharn has ever had since the first one.”

Sar Malthor flushed and looked uncomfortable. “I am not yet an effective Provincal and you talk about Tarnas. Where, Warn, will your ambition be satisfied?”

“At the same place yours is,” I said with a grin, “at the top! I don’t think you’ll be content with anything less.”

“I am wondrous ambitious, but have I the ability?”

I shrugged. “We’ll deal with that problem when it comes. Right now we have this to do. After you’ve been lord of a province for a few seasons, you should be ready for the Tarnas.”

“I wish I had your confidence to add to my ambition,” Sar Malthor said as he led the way to the central ramp of the donjon.

Sar Tami and his hundred men moved slowly across Valthi toward Zamal. We tracked his progress and with equal lethargy got ready to receive him in Zamal. Since we were again hosts for the trials, this would give us an opportunity to test our new city administration, and the Council of Guilds would function in preparing Zamal for the influx some three months hence. Sar Malthor was acquiescent but not particularly agreeable about it.

“It’s really a waste of time and money, Warn. We could bring him to the castle, entertain him, give him Kyri and send him home with half the trouble and none of the fanfare.”

“You miss the points,” I said. “There are several reasons we should go all out. First, it was Sar Tami’s support that gave you the chance to kill Sar Virra.”

“It also gave Sar Virra the chance to kill me.” Sar Malthor chuckled without malice. It always amazed me that he could be so careless with his life and so lacking in rancor toward me for putting it into such jeopardy. But he was a warrior and I was not, which gave him a different outlook, I suppose.

“Then it gives the city a chance to practise the ceremonies we shall offer those who come to the trials this year. We can, if we do this right, get the trials here permanently, which would be a tremendous commercial boost for Zamal.”

“And a tremendous headache for me,” Sar Malthor sighed.

I ignored him. He wasn’t the one who was getting the headache out of this Chamber of Commerce promotion. Martha was. It was her baby and although I was ostensibly the father of the scheme, she was doing all the work and making decisions. And it was remarkable how it had improved her temper.

“And third: it gives Sar Tami the nice warm feeling that he’s appreciated. And even if he returns to Jartan disappointed about Kyri, he will feel friendly to you. And we may need him again someday.”

Sar Malthor shrugged. “You never cease to scheme, Warn. I would that I could get into your mind and learn what you really think. At times I worry about you.”

“I shall never do you any harm, milord. You have from the beginning been a friend to Martha and myself, and we have needed friends. This is no land for strangers.”

“Aye, it does close inward upon itself.”

“A fact which I hope to change someday,” I said. “It is not good to always contemplate one’s navel and to look no farther than one’s nose.”

“Now that would be a feat of contortion I would enjoy seeing,” Sar Malthor chuckled. “But you are right. We Tharns think far too little of the other islands in the world. Indeed many of us in the inland regions think that this is the only island, rather than just the largest and most civilized.”

He was wrong on both counts, but I didn’t correct him. I’d have to use the lifeboat’s search records to prove him wrong, and he might not believe me even then, and besides the southern island continent was only minimally larger and more cultured.

The semaphores reported Sar Tami’s progress from demesne to demesne, and Zatnal was ready for him when he arrived. Sar Malthor, backed by a hundred household troops, rode from the city to welcome the visitors. I watched the initial reception from the city wall and thought that the ceremony was considerable improvement over the bumbling welcome Sar Virra had given the trials last year. Martha was standing beside me looking proud, and she had a right to be, for this year was her show, the first well-organized reception that Tharn had ever seen. The details moved like clockwork, and the folk of Zamal—ever ready to celebrate— outdid themselves.

Sar Tami was impressed. When I joined the two Provincals as they rode through Zamal’s gate, he was still talking about it. “This is magnificent!” he gushed. “You welcome me as though I was the Tarnas. Truly, I thought there might be small welcome here. My priests tell me that you are not greatly loved, and that you, Rossaw, are feared like Death himself.”

“Even priests can be wrong,” Sar Malthor said. “Indeed my folk look upon Rossaw and myself as liberators. For little of Sar Virra’s tyranny remains, and what we find we root out.”

“I dreamed once of tearing this castle down stone by stone,” Sar Tami said as he looked up the causeway at the towering walls.

“You would have found it difficult,” Sar Malthor said. “This is the strongest fortress in Tharn.”

Sar Tami laughed. “I know,” he said, “but as I said, I dreamed.”

Sar Malthor laughed. “And now you breach the walls without catapult or ram.”

“And seal friendship between our province and yours,” I added smoothly.

“Ah! I see why they call you warlock,” Sar Tami said. “Your fame has gone far as the one who hates Tharn, mocks priests, and dreams of wonders like this semaphore system that lets you talk to the entire realm without leaving Zamal.”

“Thank you, milord,” I said.

“We must talk of this later.”

“Certainly milord, as long or as often as you wish.”

“Tonight perhaps. And now, Sar Malthor, shall we ride into your castle and exchange pledges of support against unnamed enemies?”

I chuckled quietly. I thought he had put it rather nicely. For he, too, was having trouble with the priests. It was only yesterday that Vra Branvar denounced him as a scheming villain.

Martha, once the invitations were in hand, turned perverse and refused to go. I think she knew she would lose Kyri, since the two had developed a fondness for each other, it was going to be painful. And for some reason unknown to me Martha had become quite perverse. I wondered if it had anything to do with that evening two nights ago. We had dinner, the three of us, Martha, Kyri and I, and I was reading one of the multitudinous reports of my agents. For some reason the women didn’t leave me alone as they usually did, but sat beside the fireplace and talked in soft murmurous voices while I read.

My eyes turned to the women sitting half in the shadows, half in the light of the fireplace that outlined their translucent skin and brought highlights and haloes to their hair. They looked young and vulnerable. For a moment I regretted what I was going to do. I would, of course, be as kind as possible, but the ultimate effect upon Kyri might be disastrous. But I really couldn’t consider that. She was a tool. Whether she knew she was a tool or not made little difference.

She was not the best of tools, I reflected, but she would have to do. For although Sar Malthor was satisfied with being Lord of Valthi and desired no higher position at the moment, I knew that when this life became routine he would want to move upward. To do that he would need friends, and he could bind Sar Tami to him with unbreakable bonds if Kyri was indeed Sar Tami’s love—and he was hers. It was a gamble, but it was worth taking.

I needed Sar Tami as much as Sar Malthor did. Jartan was an ideal province to absorb our next step in communication technology. It was not nearly as priest-ridden as Anadel, the province to our west and the mountainous terrain was hard to control with poor communications. It was time, I thought, to establish a wire-borne system, a telegraph, over silver wire, of course! And with Jartan and Valthi united in one communication net, a ton of silver wire could be easily mislaid and find its way into our lifeboat.

Of course, Jartan entered into this scheme even further because it was the mines in her mountains that would supply the metal that would be needed. The obvious maneuver was to bring Kyri and Sar Tami together and pray that they were still attracted to each other, and that the Lord of Jartan would be grateful. I was a little doubtful about the attraction, since my agents informed me that Sar Tami had cut quite a swath of maidens during his trip to Zamal, but I consoled myself with the thought that this was the Hundred Days, and quick seduction was not a marriage. Even more significant, Sar Tami had no wives.

Martha was sitting beside Kyri and the two, their heads close together, made a lovely picture as the firelight picked haloes around bronze and black hair and bronze and white skin. They talked softly, occasionally pausing to look at me, and finally Martha saw that I was watching and the talk stopped.

“What gives with you two?” I asked.

“Woman talk,” Martha said. “Nothing that would interest the lordly male.”

“Martha, you’re almost insulting,” Kyri protested softly. She faced me, “Your lady is fascinating,” she continued. “She has been so many places and has done so much. I wish that I had such an adventurous life.”

“Don’t believe more than half she tells you,” I chuckled. “She has a wonderful imagination.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say those things. We were talking about my escape from this tower,” Martha said.

“I only wish that I had the courage to do what Martha did,” Kyri said, “but I was afraid. Afraid of Sar Virra, afraid of Gerd, afraid of failing and being punished. I was too soft. I still am.”

“On the contrary,” I said, “Martha is too hard.”

“And what do you mean by that?” Martha asked with an edge in her voice.

Kyri laid a hand on her lips. “You mustn’t talk to your lord like that!”

“Why not?”

“It’s not feminine.”

“It wasn’t intended to be,” Martha said. “It doesn’t mean I don’t love him, but it’s merely to let him know that he’s no better than I am. Men get these silly delusions.”

Kyri’s mouth opened in a shocked “O” of surprise.

“I wouldn’t advise you to try it, Kyri,” I said smiling, “Martha and I were raised in a land where men and women are equal.”

“How terrible,” Kyri said softly. She turned to Martha, “I’m sorry for you.”

“You’re sorry for me!”

“I’ve wondered at times why you were so strong and so fierce. Poor Martha.”

“Just what is this ‘poor Martha’ bit?” Martha demanded.

The Tharn inclined her head. “You are a woman,” she said.

“Of course I’m a woman.”

“And yet you try to act like a man.”

“I do not.”

“But you do, Martha. You talk back to your lord; you fight with him. You practise with weapons. You talk about government and laws and taxes. You want to make your voice heard. You wear those ridiculous trousers, ride jessets, walk unescorted through the castle and the town, read books, hate cooking and needlework, know nothing about running a household, and in fact you behave as much like a man as possible.”

Martha eyed Kyri with mild surprise. “What would you want me to do?” she asked, “become a spineless complaisant worm? Women are just as good as men. Better in some ways. We live longer. We’re less subject to pressures. Pound for pound we’re stronger. And if we try we can be just as tough.”

“And what do you gain?” Kyri asked, “You aren’t treated with courtesy. You can’t use your proper weapons to get your way. You have to compete with men on their terms and in their world. You can’t afford to let down. Is it worth it?”

“And that has been your downfall,” Martha said. “You are passive. You cannot fight for what you want. You take what comes to you, rather than going out to get it.”

Kyri nodded. “Yet in most cases, just as much comes to one who waits as to one who runs. Not many women want what you do. Most of us would rather be women than to compete on man’s terms in a man’s world. As for me, I feel that I would lose more than I could gain, for in the long run I cannot avoid my sex. Men and women were made for a purpose: man to support the family, woman to nurture it. We are essentially preservers, not predators, and we deny our sex when we try to be what we are not.”

“Perhaps for you, but not for me,” Martha said shortly, “and I’ll bet that there are more women like me hiding under dresses in Tharn than there are ones like you. They simply don’t have a chance to express themselves.”

Kyri shook her head. “We can’t prove this; so why argue about it? I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” She walked out of the room, her movements as graceful as a dancer’s.

Martha looked at me, “And what do you think of that, my lord and master?” she asked with quiet triumph. “The girl stood up for her ideas.”

“She certainly isn’t the same as when she came here.”

“She isn’t well yet, but she’s a lot better.”

“She’s well enough.” I said.

Martha shrugged. “You’re in no mood to listen. I’ve been watching you. You have spaceship on your mind.”

I nodded. “It’s never very far from my mind.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“And I mean it just as sincerely.”

Martha sighed. “I worry about Kyri. I expect it’s the maternal in me, but I think of her as a daughter.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ll send Vra Branvar a big contribution for the temple. With the priests praying for us. how can we lose?”

“Easily,” Martha said cryptically.

Martha could still be angry that I wanted to exhibit Kyri but I didn’t think so. I suspected that she was worried, but that couldn’t be helped. “We have to go,” I said. “You know how Sar Malthor is about invitations.”

Martha shrugged. “Oh, all right, I’ll go. But I wish Alyse were here to help me dress. She picked a poor time to have a baby!” She walked across the room to the small still pool of water set into one of the walls and looked down into it. “It’s virtually impossible to do an adequate job with this makeshift,” she said disgustedly. “I’d give anything for a good mirror. Incidentally, when is that glass works of yours going to produce some decent plate? They’ve done nothing so far but make jewelry and art objects and bottles.”

“It won’t be too long,” I said. “We’re working on it. However, I wanted to get glassblowing started before we went to casting and molds. Insulators and batteries require a glassblowing technology. You can’t hold acids in earthenware vessels unless they’re glazed and even glaze doesn’t hold too well with strong ones. And you can’t keep current in wire without insulators.”

“You never stop, do you?” she asked a trifle bitterly.

“I can’t,” I said. “I’d like to, but I can’t. I keep thinking of your father and the confederation.”

“Lifeboats don’t have temporal compensators,” she said. “If you get spaceborne you’ll have to face that.”

“I know,” I said, “a thousand years could pass.”

“A thousand? Do you know how far you are from home?”

I shook my head.

“A million would be more like it,” she said. She shrugged. “Oh to hell with it,” she snapped. “Let’s get ready for the banquet.”

The Great Hall of Zamal Castle was filled with a long U-shaped table lined with benches. Servants of the castle, and others hastily recruited from town were running about carrying smoking platters and dishes, wine jugs and trays of fruit. At the head table Sar Malthor and his wives, Sar Tami, myself, Kaver, Sar Malthor’s military chief, Martha, Othvar and a few of the important merchants of the town sat in elevated state looking down at the lesser folk seated along the arms of the “U.”

I nudged Martha. “Where’s Kyri?” I asked. “I don’t see her anywhere.”

“The grand entrance; she’ll be here! Look! here she comes now!”

I gasped. Martha must have helped her make that gown, I thought. It was a masterpiece, concealing, yet hinting at things no Tharn seamstress could imagine. Hours of consummate art and careful fitting had gone into the heavy brocade from which Kyri’s face and neck arose like a bronze flower. There was a subtle grace in her movements, enhanced by the ripple of cloth over her body.

Sar Tami half rose from his seat, “Kyri!” he said. The word was strained through a tight throat.

Sar Malthor sucked in his breath with a faint whistling sound.

Without a word, Kyri crossed the room and stopped in front of the table between the two lords. “My lord,” she said, and neither knew to whom she was speaking. “I should have come sooner, but I lacked the courage.”

“You’re beautiful!” Sar Tami said, “even more beautiful than when we were betrothed.”

“I am not the same as I was,” Kyri said. “Then I was a child. Now I am a woman.”

“I know,” Sar Tami murmured. “It could hardly be else.”

“But you thought that my hardships with Sar Virra had destroyed my beauty?” Kyri asked, “and you hesitated to send for me?”

“I never knew for certain that you were here,” he said, “or that you were alive. No, that is a lie. You are right. I knew all right, but I was afraid your beauty was destroyed.”

“I waited for you.”

“I am here. I came. I still didn’t know that you were whole, but I came anyway. I cannot be parted from you, and that is the truth.”

“For me? Not for knowledge of the semaphores?”

“To seek you. Had I desired only the semaphores I could have sent my seneschal. And Warn had already sent me plans. No, I was told you were alive, and I came seeking you. Yet I will admit that I came in fear. I had heard tales that were not pretty. I feared you had been changed.”

“I have, my lord.”

“But the change becomes you. You are a lady, a great lady. I have never lost my love for you. I have never wed although I could have done so many times.”

Kyri blushed and looked helplessly at Martha. Martha smiled and nodded.

“I wish to ask two questions, my lord,” Kyri said. “In public, where all may hear.”

“What are they?” Sar Tami asked. His voice was unsteady.

“First, do you still want me?”

Sar Tami nodded. “More than ever,” he said. “My eyes are filled with you.”

Kyri nodded. “And do you want me as your wife?”

Sar Tami never hesitated. “Yes,” he said and his voice was firm. “I want you as the mother of my children.”

“If you would not, I would,” Sar Malthor said.

Sar Tami darted an angry glance at his host. “The question was mine to answer, my lord.”

“And well you have answered,” Sar Malthor replied. “It becomes you.”

“I have not seen her for nearly three years,” Sar Tami said. “May I have the opportunity to look my fill?”

“My lord,” Kyri said. “This is not seemly. I am not your mistress nor your wife, that you should say me so.”

“Call a priest. Let us be wed.” Sar Tami said.

“This Sal Malthor’s house. He is lord here.” Kyri insisted. “He freed me. It is his will that I obey. He slew Sar Virra and I owe him much. Yet he has not claimed me as was his right. He has treated me with gentleness, stayed my terrors, made me whole again. Have you done as much?”

“I thought you dead.”

“You should have looked. No—perhaps it was well that you did not.”

Sar Tami sighed. “I was at fault,” he admitted, “yet I still love you, and I will have you as my wife.”

“And you, Sar Malthor, will you release me? For by law I belong to you as do all Sar Virra’s chattels.”

“I never laid claim to you,” Sar Malthor said. “You are free to stay or go.”

“It is too bad that you have three wives already,” Kyri said.

“Many lords have more.”

“Yet I am a selfish woman,” Kyri said softly, “I would be like Martha and have a man to myself. Would you put your other women aside?”

Sar Malthor shook his head. “No. They are good wives and have borne me sons. I could not in honor do that. Nor, much as I desire you, would I do it.”

“I have no wife,” Sar Tami said. “I have never married. And I shall never marry unless it be with you.”

Kyri looked at Sar Malthor. “You are a true lord, and had it been that I were betrothed to you, I would marry you gladly. For you would be gentle and kind. And I need gentleness. Yet I need love more. And I love Sar Tami.”

The Lord of Jartan’s face lighted. “Then it is me?” he asked.

“It was never anyone else,” Kyri said. “But I feared that Sar Virra had defiled me forever. I did not feel worthy to be your mate.”

“There is but one thing to do,” Sar Tami said. He turned to Sar Malthor. “Would you call a priest, my lord? I have lived in hope that Kyri was alive—and fear that she was dead. I have lived too long with hopes and fears. I want to live with joy.”

Sar Malthor smiled slowly. “I thought it would end thus,” he said. “Nor am I unhappy. But know this. If you are not a true lord to Kyri I will call you out and strike you down.”

“I would deserve it,” Sar Tami said. “And now, my lord, the priest.” He looked at Kyri. She nodded, eyes glowing, face alight. And Vra Branvar entered, dressed in his robes of office with a smile on his face and a “bless you my children” benediction on his lips. It was pure camp, but the crowd loved it, and so did the principals.

“You staged that like the final act of a musical,” I whispered to Martha.

She looked at the pair. “Thank God for happy endings,” she said. “Would that they came more often.”

“It’s not entirely happy,” I replied, “Nor do I think it will ever be. There will be dark nights and sudden fears. Kyri’s not finished with Sar Virra yet, and she is right when she says she needs love. Sar Tami will have his troubles.”

“Perhaps. Still you seem to have few enough with me, and my past could well be darker than Kyri’s.”

“We’re different.”

Martha laughed. The merry sound cut across the noisy hall. “And besides,” she said, “you’ve never bothered about wedding me.” ,

“You know our laws as well as I do,” I replied. “We’ve been married ever since I made that entry in the log.”

“I’d like something more formal. Something to remember.”

I shrugged. “If we ever get home I’ll marry you in the National Cathedral—in front of the entire world, if you wish it.”

“That would be nice,” Martha said, “I like large audiences. But what will we do with the children?”

“What children?”

“The one I’m carrying for openers. By next year you’ll be a father.”

I looked at her. There was no amusement in her eyes, just a deep unfathomable tenderness I had never seen before.

“I told you that I’d have your child,” she said.

“How long?” I asked.

“Three of these months at least. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed.”

“Well, I did think you were fatter; and that explains your moods.”

She laughed. “They’re just beginning. Just wait.”

“No way,” I said. “I’m going to move faster now. I have no desire to raise our child on Tharn.”

She shrugged. “That’s immaterial. If we go we go. If we stay we stay. Right now I feel like your wife, and it’s not a bad feeling.”

“Don’t let it overpower you,” I said. “We have lots to do.” I took her hand and held it tenderly. “I really don’t understand you. We’re not secure by any means. The priesthood wants my hide. The conservative members of the Tarnas’s council are snapping at Sar Malthor for keeping me. It’s going to be hard for him to resist the pressures to dump me. And so you get pregnant.”

“Twill be a counter-irritant, milord,” she said softly. “You need other problems than those of state.”

I laughed and kissed her, and for the first time since Sar Malthor became Provincal I relaxed. What the hell, I thought, with someone like Martha supporting me I can beat the lot of them.

CHAPTER 23

I couldn’t help thinking that Martha was right about the antipathy of the priesthood for strong rulers. Certainly she saw the causes of conflict better than I, and recognized the basic truth that secular and religious authority could not share power over the folk. One of the two must triumph, and the Tarnas must become a king who was secondly a priest, or a priest who was secondly a king.

But although I had noticed a tendency for individual priests to grasp for power, I thought nothing particular about it. After all, it was natural to be power hungry. It was only when Vra Branvar remonstrated about the speed with which new developments were entering Tharn society that I began to suspect that the priesthood was unhappy. Vra Branvar could care less for power beyond that which he had, and this clouded the issue even as his repetitive admonitions and protests triggered an alarm reaction in my mind.

I had always considered priests as people dedicated to their gods and their doctrines; unworldly folk who dealt with such intangibles as morality and souls. In Tharn, at least, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Those were the outward trappings: the things that appeared to a casual and uninquisitive eye, but they weren’t true. The Tharn priesthood was, with few exceptions, dedicated to power. They believed that the temple was the only group fitted to run the nation, and that the secular arm should be subordinate. Their goal was a theocratic state, and I had come into that ideal like a gust of wind into a dusty cave.

I was anathema, for I brought with me the one thing that a theocracy cannot endure—change! A theocracy thrives on stasis, for a stable and unchanging world is the best environment for the establishment of doctrine and dogma, the two pillars that support the churchly state.

The matter came to a head when I was attacked by one of the castle guards. The fellow had apparently watched me for weeks, reading my habit patterns until he thought he had found the ideal place to cut me down. What he didn’t know was that Earthly color vision is far more sensitive than that of a Tharn, and that I was aware of the bluish gray of his cloak against the grayish white of the stone where he lay hidden. And, aware of his presence, I recognized the threat implicit in it, as he had no right to be in this area, which was forbidden to anyone except my personal staff, Martha, and Sar Malthor.

I recognized him as one of the donjon guardsmen. “Arund,” I said, “put down that knife!”

“Heretic conjer!” he said, “die!” And then he lunged at me.

He was being overly dramatic, a cold little part of my mind thought. It was like a bad play. I slipped past the thrust, caught his wrist in an arm bar, leaned forward and dropped him on his back, kneed him in the groin and kicked him in the face as he doubled up with pain. Then I called the guard.

Sar Malthor wanted to hang the man, but I prevailed on him to let me have the fellow. I took him down to the warehouse where I had stored the lifeboat and used the Hunt-Winslow to extract his memories. In an hour I knew who had hired him and why. It was a shock. I would never have expected Vra Branvar to participate in an assassination plot.

I had Arund placed in the dungeon, and with several men I couid trust, I went to visit the castle priest. He didn’t deny my charge.

“I hired the man,” he said, “and told him to kill you.”

“But why? I thought we were friends.”

“I am also a soldier of Tharn,” the priest said. “I, too, take orders.” He smiled faintly. “But I am justified. I told them it wouldn’t work—that you couldn’t be killed by any ordinary plot. But from now on, if I were you, I would beware of arrows and never walk too close to the walls where things could fall upon your head.”

“But Branvar—what did I do that you would have me killed?”

“You see, my friend, you are a threat. You are the greatest threat to the stability of Tharn since the death of the first Tarnas. A large number of people would breathe easier if you did not breathe at all.”

“I think I understand,” I replied, “although it all seems very stupid. I have controlled the technology I have given you. None of it will do any harm if used wisely.”

“Ah, there’s the rub. Who is to say what is wise? No, Warn, you bring change and change is dangerous.”

“It is more dangerous to stand still, but enough of this. I shall have to arrest you and banish you from the castle. I cannot have you here.”

“You will have to carry me, and I am a grevious weight.” He patted his paunch and smiled at me. “I no longer have feeling in my legs. Soon I shall have no feeling in my heart. I was opposed to this, and this is my expiation. I have taken khej.”

Khej—the alkaloid extracted from yellow swamproot— a deadly neurotoxin for which there was no antidote. It paralyzed the extremities first, then the body, and as its effects progressed, the vital functions of breathing and heartbeat stopped. Vra Branvar was a dead man. I was talking to a corpse.

“I knew you would be forgiving if you survived,” Vra Branvar said. “You are gentle and you would pardon me. But I would not be able to pardon myself. I obeyed my orders but I have violated a tenet of Tharn. A priest must not kill, and for that there is no expiation.” His arms sagged limply, but his face was calm. “There is no pain in this, my son. It is a gentle death, and probably far better than I deserve.”

“A leech,” I blurted, knowing even as I said it that I was not being rational.

“I wouldn’t last that long,” Vra Branvar said. His voice was weaker as his vocal cords relaxed. “Take care, my friend, and when you return to that strange place from whence you came think of me now and again, for it is in the thoughts of others that one gains immortality.” He closed his eyes and presently his breathing stopped.

I wept. When I returned to the donjon I told Sar Malthor that he could hang Arund if he wished and ordered all the donjon guards to be brought to me one by one for testing. Two ran. I let them go. Three others were disloyal according to the Hunt-Winslow. These I imprisoned. Five others were potential risks. These I sent to outlying districts. The remaining forty were loyal.

I was a little surprised that the percentage of risks was so low; that the temple could influence only twenty percent was a good sign.

Now that I knew my enemy, I began learning about the temple. I read the scrolls in the castle library, and the more I read the more I was convinced that neither the first Tarnas nor his first few successors had any idea of freezing Tharn into stasis. It was the fifth Tarnas who was weak and allowed himself to be dominated by the priesthood. His reign was very long, and at its end religion had its entry into secular matters. They had expanded that entering wedge ever since. A Priest was now on the Tarnas Council. Priests adjudged both civil and clerical cases in the courts. Priests served on Provincal’s Councils, on City Councils, on Regional Councils. Priestly organizations now owned land and ran it for their benefit. And slowly they were moving into power. I was not the first to oppose them, but thus far I was the most successful.

The temple raged as their power slipped, yet they could do nothing except plot murders that did not succeed and give us enough confessions to hang half the upper hierarchy. The Tarnas laughed at them when the temple tried to have Sar Malthor impeached and me removed, but that was only the first step. In the end he might yield to the pressure and force Sar Malthor to make an unpleasant choice. Right now Sar Malthor wouldn’t listen to such a suggestion, and the Tarnas was not unhappy about the priesthood’s troubles. But things could change. I was. I knew, on dangerous ground. As an alien I was automatically suspect; I was a foreign interloper.

To add insult to injury, I treated priests with courtesy and kindness. I never said a word against the priesthood. I lavished gifts and money on senior priests and spent our revenues freely on new temples and adornments. As a result I built my own clique within the temple; priests who were more interested in wealth and luxury than in temporal power. They gave me warning of what the militants were planning and it was easy to forestall them. And I never hanged nor imprisoned a priest, although I was sorely tempted to do so.

But I also never arrived at a truce with the power-oriented group in the temple hierarchy. They still disliked Sar Malthor and loathed me. Had they had their way they would have lords like Sar Virra running every province. They preferred selfish, sensual tyrants to lords like Sar Malthor. A Sar Virra type did nothing to disturb the status quo, while Sar Malthor was interested in efficiency and reform. Moreover, Sar Malthor had encountered priestly interference when he was Manoral of Lothain, and he didn’t forget it. Like me, he remained untouched by arguments or exhortations. He remained neutral and let me carry the fight; we never spoke of this but it was an unvoiced agreement that I should scotch the priests under the umbrella of his protection.

As a result he became a popular hero. Of course, he deserved it and I was no more than mildly envious. For although he had hanged Gerd and Arund and several of the slimier members of Sar Virra’s household, he was more famous for his liberalized laws that removed the death penalty for petty theft and minor crimes. These were punished by restitution and labor on provincial projects. Valthi was chronically short of labor and this was a logical as well as a merciful solution.

He established a uniform system of justice that went down to the demesnes. He set up a token force of provincial police in each demesne and region, headed by a lordling and staffed by a squad or two of the brightest men-at-arms we could find. It established the authority of Zamal Castle throughout the province and gave the folk a counterbalance to temple and manor if one was necessary. Ordinarily the provincials didn’t interfere with local autonomy so long as it was just and reasonably fair, and they never interfered without Sar Malthor’s sanction. For the provincials were the Provincal’s presence; his eyes and ears and arm if need be. And woe betide the Manoral or Regional who disregarded the police or failed to perform his duties fairly and equitably. A list of these was kept in Zamal and in the trials, if their offenses were sufficient, they would be challenged for cause by better-trained, better-armed, and younger aspirants eager to become a Manoral or Regional at the expense of the luckless incumbent from whom the Provincal had removed protection.

“Think what Sar Virra could have done with this system,” Sar Malthor said.

“I am, and I’m thinking what will be done with it when we are gone,” I said. “We may have created a monster.”

Martha was not approving although she admitted that it was probably the only way an equitable form of justice could be established that would not be infiltrated by the priesthood. “I don’t like the idea of centralizing power in the Provincal,” she said. “But if it gets the priests out of the power structure it may do more good than harm.”

And while Sar Malthor became ever more loved, I became ever more hated. It worried Martha and it bothered me, but I consoled myself with the thought that it wouldn’t be for long, for I had already tested and demonstrated the first telegraph.

We held a meeting to celebrate the event. Sar Tami insisted that we have it in Karida, his capital and citadel. It wasn’t much of a town compared to Zamal, but we were welcomed and treated with courtesy by the hillfolk.

I brought samples of the equipment and the wet plate storage batteries I planned to use to power it. Sar Tami was not particularly interested in the equipment, but when he heard that two operators fifty harads apart could talk to each other over a wire stretched on poles, he became interested. It required at least fifty people to man a semaphore system of equal length.

It amused him when I said that I planned to turn the semaphores over to the priesthood for civil and clerical use just as soon as I had the government wires strung in Valthi. “It should keep you informed about what the priests are doing. A few of your old operators could intercept every message they send.”

“And it will keep some of my operators employed,” I added. “Of course they’ll use code, but we can probably break that easily enough.”

“Just as long as you keep ahead of them you’ll be safe,” Sar Tami agreed, “but never give them an opening.”

I assured him that I wouldn’t, and went into a series of conferences on how to exploit the new communication device. We decided to use the light code and a make and break system that would make lights flash at the receiving end. I thought it would be better to use the auditory dot dash that was employed on space, airline, and ocean beacons in the confederation, but I was overruled.

“Our people know the light code already,” Sar Malthor said. “Why confuse them with something else?”

“It’s easier to read, and faster,” I replied.

“That’s not important. What we already have is fast enough.”

I gave in, not because I thought they were right, but because the two Provincals were now committed and I would have the wire I needed. I sent a messenger to Furth and told him to deliver the first four reels of wire to my technicians at the warehouse for testing. They already had their instructions about what to do with it. I sent the message by courier because for some reason I couldn’t explain I was doubtful about the semaphores. I suppose it was because its messages were too open to interception.

The days passed pleasantly. Martha showed up late one afternoon with a smug smile on her face that went oddly with her swollen waistline. “You look as though you are happy with pregnancy,” I said.

“I’m happier, but I’m getting clumsy. I didn’t think we’d be here for months. Anyway I’ve made a deal with Kyri.”

What’s that?”

“She’s going to establish a hospital for women. Sar Tami will do about anything she wants now that she is carrying a baby. Some males are like that.” She looked at me and I felt uncomfortable, for I wasn’t like that at all. I considered pregnancy a normal part of a woman’s life— an attitude that infuriated Martha since she thought it made her eligible for special considerations.

“And that’s the result of your meddling?” I asked.

“Of course. I knew you were planning to turn Kyri over to Sar Tami and so I did a little proselytizing while Kyri was recovering. I planted a few suggestions cued to appropriate triggers such as pregnancy and sex, and Kyri has responded beautifully.”

“And you call me a meddler—the pot calling the kettle black.”

“You don’t need to make comments on my waistline,” she said. “It’s as much your fault as mine.”

“It takes two to dance a measure,” I admitted, “but you have no cause to complain about my activities.”

“I don’t, not really. I just want to caution you; so you won’t get hurt. I’ve been meddling in public affairs ever since I was old enough to help Dad. And I simply had to do something about Tharn. I still think there should be more to a woman’s life than cooking, gossiping, going to the temple on holy days, sewing, keeping a husband contented during the Hundred Days, and having children in the fall.”

“There are other occupations.”

“Sure, harlot, barmaid, governess, housemaid, midwife—and field hand if you are a peasant’s wife. I want more than that. I want to use my hands, brains and skills. I want to be a person, not a member of a sex group. I want—oh damn your eyes Warren Robertshaw— you know what I want!”

“Equality,” I shrugged, “and who’s denying it to you?”

“This whole society. It’s worse now that I’m pregnant. I’m being hemmed in and I’m bothered!”

“Having a baby frightens you?”

“Oh, not that. Not the way you are thinking. I can care for the nipper all right, but I didn’t think I’d have the troubles I’m having. I want watermelon. I’m dying for strawberry ice cream and a real dill pickle made with real cucumbers. I want crepes Suzettes, artichokes and a banana split. I didn’t think of these things when I decided to let you become a father.”

“Who does?” I asked. I held her hands and made sympathetic noises until she stopped quivering. “I’m not sorry you’re pregnant,” I said, “but I’m sorry it’s bothering you.”

“It shouldn’t. I’ve had babies before in other cycles, but this is my first in this one, and I don’t remember the others. You only remember what’s been stored for your future and things like babies don’t have value in a new life. In rejuvenation you’re actually reborn at some specific instant in your life. I usually choose age twenty. That’s when I started to work for Dad. I keep some older memories and all survival experiences but not everything else. I don’t, for instance, remember any of my previous cycle husbands or lovers.”

“That’s convenient,” I said in a slightly miffed tone.

“It’s necessary. There’d always be comparisons. As it is, you’re the first and only husband in this cycle—and for practical purposes the first and only one I’ve ever had.”

“That’s nice,” I said, “but what happens after this life?”

“We become rejuvenated, and maybe we never see each other again—and maybe we do. Dad and Mom have been carrying on a love affair for four millennia, and maybe it’ll last forever. Yet she was a hundred and seventy and he was ninety when they met.”

“A sort of December-September affair?”

“Not exactly. They found Aurum and started even. She was twenty and he was twenty-four, physiologically, when their first rejuvenation was over. And neither of them knew anything of what had gone on before. They call it their second chance. And they’ve made a lot out of it.”

“Undoubtedly,” I said, “but why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’m scared as well as bothered. I want to talk to someone civilized enough to understand my fears and smart enouch to do something about them.”

“Me?”

“I’d rather it was another woman, but you’ll have to do. Kyri is fine company but she doesn’t really appreciate what I’m fretting about.”

“Neither do I,” I said, “explain.”

“I’m a coward. Warren. I don’t want to give birth to a baby in a world with no knowledge of the pathogenesis of infection or antisepsis. I don’t want to get puerperal fever. I want to have a healthy child and a normal delivery.”

“Can’t I help? I know something about medicine and we have the medikit.”

“Can you get us off this world before I’m due?”

I shrugged. “It’ll be touch and go. Maybe, maybe not.”

“Then there’s no way to avoid it. On Tharn pregnancy and birth are completely female roles. No male will touch them. It is considered defilement to even touch a woman in her terminal month. If you want to operate in this male society you have to leave me to the witches and midwives. The only male in a delivery room is a priest and he comes only to give last rites for the dying.”

I felt like kicking myself. I hadn’t researched pregnancy at all. In fact, I hadn’t considered it in my plans. Hell! I hadn’t considered a lot of things, which might make me human, but didn’t make me a very good meddler.

“That’s why I’m so glad Kyri is going to have a hospital in Kardia. She’s not one of these hidebound females who act as though custom and tradition are everything. She knows something about soap, water, disinfectant and clean linen. She’s the only independent woman I know.”

“Eh?”

“It’s partly the result of what Gerd and Sar Virra did to her. They broke her religious taboos, interfered with her sexual rhythm, and turned her into a reflex preparation to satisfy Sar Virra’s lusts, and in the process destroyed all of the conditioning that is a legacy of this society. When we got her there was nothing left of her except memories and when I rebuilt her personality, I left her a free intellect. I educated that intellect, trained it, and made it into a competent and logical mind. I put her through the lifeboat’s educator and filled her with medical technology, since that’s one field in which women can function. She’s considerably better educated and balanced than her husband—he’s a crazy romantic—and if she establishes a hospital it will be a good one. I want to come here to have my baby.”

“Poor Sar Tami,” I sighed.

“Lucky Sar Tami, you mean. Instead of getting a doormat, he’s getting a partner. She’ll carry that man a long way—”

“And you want to come here to have your baby?”

She nodded.

The thought crossed my mind that Martha might have made Kyri into a duplicate of herself, a cultured female tied emotionally to a troglodyte male to whom she was appreciably superior intellectually. It bothered me a little until my ego came to my rescue. For after all I was no simple-minded idiot who wanted a woman merely for love. I wanted her intelligence, her know-how and her administrative skill fully as much as I wanted her body. And she was carrying our child, which was a stigma of sorts. For she was the one who got pregnant and assuming that she knew what she was doing when it happened, it was less than smart. Unfortunately it was another complicating factor.

CHAPTER 24

Intelligence is not the sole property of those with superior education, I learned to my sorrow. It must have been a time of utter bliss to the priesthood to be able to work unchecked by Martha, Sar Malthor or myself. While the three of us and our hundred men-at-arms were out of the province, they went to work. They got the Tarnas to issue a restraining order, preventing further cooperation between Jartan and Valthi. They got a second order instructing Sar Malthor to discharge me since I was a foreigner and ineligible to hold Tharn office. They cut off those who were using the new technology from access to the temple and religious guidance. They took over the operation of the semaphores.

In the months we were away my following melted away like snow in the summer sun, and I never would have heard until it was too late had not Furth, defying his wife and his hope of salvation, ridden to Jartan by secret ways to tell us of the ferment in Valthi.

Sar Malthor immediately assembled his troops, armed himself and went galloping post hasteback to Zamal.

I couldn’t move so fast. Martha’s condition held me to a slow crawl, and after the first day when we traveled only ten harads, Martha told me to go ahead and she would return to Karida and remain with Kyri.

“It’s better that I stay here,” she insisted. “I’m not really able to travel over these rough roads in springless wagons. I have another two months, I think, and I’d hardly get to Zamal before I’d have to return. Go on without me. You’ll travel faster and work more effectively if you travel alone. Here—take this and my luck wish with it.” She handed me the second kelly. “Give me the webcor. It will be enough, I think, and right now I doubt if I could hold the big gun steady enough to hit anything.”

I protested, but I knew she was right. She had no real friends in all Tharn except Kyri. The others tolerated her, but her knowledge and her attitudes made them uneasy and afraid, and with my power in doubt, Martha could have a bad time indeed in Valthi. She was better where she was. I kissed her goodbye and she clung to me briefly, femininely and possessively, and then she was herself again. She waved to me as I rode off, a Spartan wife bidding farewell to a soldier husband.

I rode until late that night with Furth at my side. We found a sheltered glen and unpacked our blanket rolls, but I could not sleep. I wandered far enough away that I would not disturb Furth, whose snores were those of one at peace with himself. I came out on a ledge that gave a view of a valley and a line of hills in the distance. Barely visible was the winking light of a semaphore on top of one of the distant hills. I focused on it with mild curiosity, spelling out the letters as they flowed from the blinking lanthorn.

ATTENTION URGENT WARN ROSSAW HAS

CROSSED BORDER AT KONLE VALLEY

NOTIFY ALL TROOPS CAPTURE IF

POSSIBLE KILL IF NOT—VANTHA.

Vra Vantha was the chief priest in Zamal, the Lord Templar, and one who was my enemy. I had enough evidence of his work to hang him twice over, and while I was at the castle he was very quiet. He was roaring now. I wondered if he had found the documentation of bribery, perjury, nepotism and assassination which I held. Certainly he had no fear of me, and I had better avoid contact with any troops if I expected to remain alive.

Somehow the situation had deteriorated beyond all reasonable grounds. Something more than priests was aligned against me.

I let Furth sleep another hour and then roused him.

“What is it, milord?’” he asked. His voice was thick with fatigue.

“I want the truth, Furth. What awaits in Zamal?”

“Trouble, milord. The priests have risen against you. By threatening to cut off religious service, by refusing to consecrate, baptize and hold service for the dead they have forced the guilds to declare against you. The castle is badly divided. Those who work for you are mostly in your favor; the rest are not.”

“How many men can I count on?”

“Not over a score, milord.”

“And how many can Sar Malthor command?”

“Virtually all of us. After all, he is the Provincal, and he has our oaths. An Sar Malthor gave you passage; no man would dare stand in your way. But I fear he is sore pressed. There is an order from the Tarnas demanding your arrest and delivery to the capital. I do not think Sar Malthor dare disobey it. I think you were a fool, milord, to raise the anger of the priests. Tharn is not smiling on you.”

“Yet Sar Malthor is my friend, and you are faithful.”

“I owe you my life, milord.”

“That debt was long paid.”

“Not in my mind, milord. But this journey will, I think pay it in full. Now where do you want to go?”

“To Zamal, of course. Where else?”

“You ride straight into the heart of the fire?”

“I can go nowhere else. My power lies in Zamal. It is the only place I know well enough to gain shelter until this storm passes.”

Furth nodded. “It is a bold course, milord, but no one has ever accused you of lack of boldness.”

We saddled and rode off through the forest along one of the many game trails, and it was there we met the enemy.

I never heard them. My first knowledge of an attack was a quarrel slamming into my mail shirt. It didn’t penetrate. Little indeed could get through oil-tempered chain mail. I jerked out one of the kellys, turned in my saddle and sprayed the four men spurring out of the trees with a minimum aperture charge of sublethal intensity. It was as though a gigantic hand swept them from their jessets. Armor was an invitation to a kelly. It might protect against a lethal charge by grounding it, but it spread a stun charge over the entire body, throwing the wearer into a tetanic convulsion.

I rode over to them, ignoring Furth’s goggle-eyed amazement, and took a good new-style sword, an axe and two sacks of food from the fallen heroes.

“Tharn! What was that thing?” Furth asked. “Magic?”

“A weapon,” I replied. “I have not killed these men, but they could just as easily be dead, had I wished.”

“That is the sort of weapon no soldier needs,” Furth said. “It takes the skill out of war and turns it into killing.”

“And that is the sort of weapon you will get if you discover enough and war among yourselves long enough. A man named Aloysius Kelly discovered the blaster principle a thousand years ago and we have never been able to really improve upon it since that time. It did a great deal to make wars too bloody to fight. It could be called a weapon for peace. Instead it is called a kelly.”

We had no further trouble with patrols that day, but the first victims would be recovering soon and one of their number would presently be racing for Zamal Temple with the news that I was coming with a flaming sword to demand vengeance. It shouldn’t increase the composure of the priesthood—nor of the Tarnas for that matter.

For the next day and the ones that followed we played hare and hounds with mounted patrols. As I checked the liveries of the men who hunted us, I thought they must have a couple of squadrons in the area. Anyway I looked at it, it was a polyglot organization. I could recognize liveries of four of our demesnes and several others from nearby provinces. These latter surprised me. I was not aware that a nationwide scheme was afloat to rid Tharn of Warren Robertshaw. But I should have realized that the temple was a national institution and what affected one part affected all of it. Priests were like pigs, I thought. Stick one of them and they all squeal in unison. But in this case the squeals were followed by action.

I wondered if Vra Branvar’s suicide was proclaimed as martyrdom in provinces outside of Valthi. The fat priest had done me no favor by killing himself. Probably he knew that when he swallowed the khej. I wondered why I had wept for him when he died. But I knew as surely as I was in the forests of Valthi being hunted by Tharns that I would weep again if that act could be repeated. I had liked Vra Branvar.

Later that day we crossed the path of a straggler in a livery I did not recognize. He saw us and turned to run, but before he had gone ten meters I cut him down with a stat blast.

“He is not dead,” I repeated to Furth as we dragged the man into the cover of a brushy cleft in the ground where a small stream ran. down the rocky bottom. “I am not about to leave a string of corpses behind me unless I must.”

“You are more merciful than I, milord. That man is from one of the demesnes of Arnadel. The diamond pattern of his japon is characteristic. He has no business here. In your place I would cut his throat.”

“That would be a poor return for the information he is going to give us,” I said. “Come now, let us get him on his back and disarm him. I don’t want him to feel too secure.”

We worked quickly, and by the time the stat charge had worn off we had the fellow disarmed, stripped and bound to a small tree.

The Tharn looked hatred at me, but tne hate was mixed with fear. “Priest killer!” he spat.

“What priest have I slain?” I asked.

“You poisoned Vra Branvar. And for that you are proscribed. Men-at-arms from all provinces are hunting you. My death will be avenged.”

“Tell me what is going on.” I demanded.

“You do not know?”

“Only that I am hunted and that the priests have lied about me.”

“They have lied to good purpose—if they lie,” the trooper said. “You have been cut off by the temple and proscribed by the Lord Templar of Valthi. The Tarnas has published a writ for your arrest and the Lord Templar has added a reward for you dead or alive. A thousand crowns is a great fortune, my lord. Many have volunteered to take you, and the Lord Tertiplar has enrolled them all as a secular arm of Tharn.”

Tharn, the god. I thought, not Tharn the state.

“And what of Sar Malthor?”

“He has been silent. The Lord Templar says he has been consorting with witches and warlocks, but the Tarnas shows no eagerness to proscribe him and the people of Zamal laugh at the Lord Templar even though some countryfolk believe the charges. Were Sar Malthor in my province the story would be different, since we are not so lacking in reverence for Tharn as you are in Valthi.”

Well, that was something, I thought. But Sar Malthor was effectively immobilized by the Tarnas, and the Lord Templar had a free hand. The ironic thing was that I had probably supplied the priest with the crowns he was offering as head-money. For I had done my best to purchase the neutrality of the Zamal temple. I shrugged. I’d know better next time than to try to compromise a priest with gold. They did not have the same values as secular folk and they were not willing to stay bought. I was learning a great deal about how a good meddler should operate. The only trouble was that I might not live long enough to apply it.

I asked more questions and received more answers that generally fitted the pattern I had already extrapolated. A minority of Tharn were for me, a minority were against, and the majority didn’t care. They leaned toward the temple because the temple was familiar and I was not. Well, that was to be expected, and with the price on my head as large as it was, I could expect to have virtually everyone’s hand against me. But I had no intention of being taken. Before we had left Valthi for Jartan I had instructed my technicians in the method of refueling the lifeboat, and I had ordered Furth to take four reels of newly drawn pure silver wire to the warehouse where I had stored the spaceship. There were nearly two tons of metal in those reels. I had also left instructions that the few hundred feet of copper wire remaining on the fuel reels be divided among the loading crew as a reward for industry. Since copper was of high value, I was fairly certain that the ship was fueled. Since I had supervised the extraction process myself and had tested each batch that came from the crucibles, I was not worried about the purity of the silver. Nor was I worried about gauge. I had used case-hardened oil-tempered dies and had drilled the final holes myself; there was little chance for improper gauging. The weight, however, was another thing. Silver was some two-thirds heavier than copper, and while it furnished more reaction mass and hence higher speeds, there would be less lineal meters to feed into the drive unless I could load an extra ton of weight on the fuel reels. Half a ton could be loaded inplace of the six other people the boat would not be carrying and another half ton could be compensated for by things that could be jettisoned, such as bunks and extra spacesuits and other survival gear. The net result should be that the lifeboat would have the same gross weight, but the silver wire should nearly quadruple its cruising range and put our speed at least into the blue. And if we couldn’t raise a confederation planet in that distance there was something wrong with the galaxy.

Oh, it was great! I could go literally trillions of standard miles if I could only cover the hundred and fifty kilometers separating me from the lifeboat. That was the critical distance.

For a week Furth and I worked our way toward Zamal. We traveled mainly at night and stood watches back to back during the day when the searchers were active. Once we were discovered by a patrol and I was forced to use the kellys on maximum to take care of the leader. I killed the others as a security measure, to prevent them from reporting how close to Zamal we had come and how many of us were coming. Fortunately, none of them were from Valthi, which for some odd reason made me feel belter. But I was at last certain of one thing. I could kill if necessity demanded it.

After the noise and the smoke had dissipated, Furth and I looked down at the six bodies and then looked at each other. There was a question in Furth’s eyes and I answered it.

“I think you had better leave me,” I said quietly. “You have done all that a true soldier can be expected to do. And from now on I may have to leave a trail of bodies behind me.”

“My oath was to the death,” Furth said.

“I relieve you of it. Go back to Alyse. Tell her, if she asks, that you couldn’t find me. Join the searchers. Cover yourself.”

“But what of you, milord?”

“I think I can take care of myself from here on. A determined person can always enter a city, no matter how well it may be guarded. And of all places in Tharn, I know Zamal best. Now before you go, help me bury and conceal these bodies so they will not soon be found.”

“An you think it best, milord,” Furth said. He sounded relieved and I didn’t blame him. The debt had been more than repaid. He had been faithful to an alien against his own people and that was more than I had a right to ask. Yet I felt a genuine sense of loss when we covered the last corpse and he rode off toward Zamal. Since he had been my man and accountable only to me, he was now accountable to no one until he took service under another lord. He was free to choose. I hoped he would go to Sar Malthor, as I had made arrangements for him to enter next year’s trials, and Sar Malthor, I was sure, would carry them out, if only for friendship’s sake.

Three days later I came out of the forests on the peninsula opposite the docks of Zamal and looked at the city. It was beautiful in the distance. I could see across the two kilometers of water to the docks and warehouses and the seawalls. I could see the laboratory where my assistants and I had built the devices that were responsible for my downfall. In that large gray warehouse directly across from me was my lifeboat, hopefully resting on its fins in launch attitude in the bottom of a heavily timbered silo, fueled and ready to leave. There were a number of pieces of advanced gadgetry in my quarters in the castle that I wouldn’t be able to save, including the Hunt-Winslow translator I had used for extracting the truth from reluctant Tharns. I shrugged. I could get along without it and I was sure that transistors, microminiaturization, and liquid hydrogen moderated circuitry would be beyond this race for centuries to come. Some of the other devices, however, were not so sophisticated and could really do damage if they were studied by Tharns bright enough to understand their implications. I debated whether I should try to secure them and finally decided against it. Tharn would simply have to take its chances, or perhaps Sar Malthor would have the brains to destroy them.

I waited until it was dark and then made my way down the steep slope to the water, stripped to my undergarments, sealed my kellys and slipped into the warm water of Zamal Harbor.

I had plenty of time and I would utilize it wisely. First I would swim to the anchored vessels in the harbor that showed no lights. Using these as shields, I would then work my way from one to another toward the shoreline, avoiding the active docks and vessels showing lights. It was a crooked course and in a way a dangerous one since the water lizards were large and numerous, and the biggest ones had no compunctions about attacking Tharns. I didn’t know whether they would attack me, but I carried a dagger in the event that they might. My plan was basically sound, but none of the baggage I carried was lighter than water and I regretted every ounce of it before I reached the anchor rope of the first vessel. It had taken too much energy to reach this stage of my swim, and I had to find something that would aid me to go the rest of the way.

The tide. I noted, was coming in and with it came some of the debris that collects around any harbor; boxes, boards, pieces of timber, garbage. I searched the floating mass and found a fair-sized plank, its edges waterworn and smooth. I drove the dagger into it, wrapped the belt of my kellys around the blade, and using the board as a float pushed off toward the second boat.

It was almost too easy. No one noticed me. No one challenged me. I reached my dock with ease, recovered my weapons and worked my way through the close-set, growth-covered pilings to the shore and the iron ladder that extended from a concealed trap door in the floor of the warehouse above, to the beach below. I had put this bolt-hole in the warehouse months ago—just after I had bought it—on the theory that one should always have an escape route when engaged in meddling. The thought was paying off now.

I climbed the ladder, found the wards and opened the trap and presently I was inside the warehouse. It was deadly quiet. Nothing moved. There was no sound except for faint external noises. I could hear the beating of my heart and the rush of blood through my veins as I moved with slow careful motions to clear my kellys and leave the store room.

I found the door and pushed on it gently.

It squeaked!

The sound cut the stillness, shattering it.

“Quiet, you fool!” a voice whispered in the darkness.

“That wasn’t me,” another said softly.

“Nor me,” said a third.

“Then it must be—” the first voice said.

“ME!” I roared, slammed the door open and darted across the floor, a darker blob in the darkness of the warehouse.

I had one advantage. I knew the layout and I knew where I was going, and the shortest distance between where I was going and where I wanted to be wasn’t a straight line. And at least for a moment surprise and darkness covered me.

I caromed off something soft that grunted and then screamed as I struck out with the dagger. There was a hard thump of metal against the floor and a softer thump followed by a groan. My foot hit metal. I bent and felt the outline of an axe. I picked it up. It might, I thought, be handy.

I slipped into the shadow of a pile of boxes as a flash behind me bloomed into a blazing torch.

“What did you do that for?” a voice demanded.

“If that’s Rossaw I want to see him,” the torch bearer said.

“And if it’s not you’ve given the trap away.”

“I never thought it would work anyway. The warlock’s too smart to come here.”

“Where else can he go?”

“A thousand places. There are Tharns who like him.”

I was grateful for the information, but it did me no good. Two more torches blossomed redly and the darkness was no longer effective concealment.

There had been four of them—bounty hunters with an idea I might come here. The one on the floor groaning and bleeding was one of my technicians. Either the fellow was a priestly follower or he was tempted by the size of the head money, probably the latter. The Hunt-Winslow wouldn’t have let a priest-oriented man past the cleanup after Arund had tried to kill me. I didn’t recognize the other three.

“Hey! There he is! It’s the warlock!” one of the three shouted and they came for me. They had knives and I had an axe. The Tharn knife can be either thrown or used as a stabbing or cutting weapon. It is deadly enough at close quarters, but it doesn’t compare with an axe.

Sar Malthor’s voice came to my mind. Swing it! Keep the stroke short: cross-handed on the backstroke—keep moving in—don’t stop or he’ll split you like a fowl. I lifted the axe and moved forward.

The blade stuck in the mail shirt of the second man to face me and the third leaped in with his knife as I tugged at the handle. I couldn’t work the head free, and I had no opportunity to draw my own knife before he was on me. I threw a forearm smash at his face and tried to block his thrust. I felt a sharp stinging pain in my forearm as my foot drove into his belly, knocking him backwards.

I grunted with pain as I drew my own knife. Three bodies now lay on the floor. I moved towards the fourth man, and he fled, yelling at the top of his lungs for help.

I let him yell and ran for the lifeboat. It was as I had left it except for the empty wooden reels piled near the closed hatch. It was fueled!

I coded the lock combination and the hatch slid open. I slid into the pilot’s chair, pushed the button that closed the hatch, pushed the buttons that started the exciter, watched the indicator until it hit the green line and fired the jets. They roared into life and the boat balanced for a moment on a column of fire and then leaped upward through the wooden shaft above it and out into the air.

Behind me the warehouse burst into flame! There were enough flammables in it to keep the Tharns occupied as I shot upward through the night. As a meddler I had been reasonably successful. I had set Valthi on the road to progress and had escaped with my life. I honestly couldn’t have expected more.

Now all I had to do was check the coordinates of Sar Tami’s city, land, pick up Martha, and we’d be gone. And to hell with Tharn and its priests. For unless I was completely wrong, the winds of change would become a gale that the stasis-minded could not survive. I was congratulating myself, nearly dislocating my elbow patting myself on the back, when the annunciator crackled.

“Lifeboat—lifeboat over Zamal—you are being tracked. Hold course and speed or I will fire.” The bass voice was unmistakable. It belonged to George Gordon Bennett.

CHAPTER 25

I pushed the transmitter key. “Bennett,” I said. “Stand clear. Do not fire. I have your daughter aboard.”

“You’re a bad liar, Robertshaw,” Bennett’s amused voice came from the speaker. “You’re alone. You couldn’t possibly hold her for this length of time. Now, I don’t want to kill you; so do as you’re told and be a good boy. You’ve caused enough trouble already.”

I shrugged. He had detectors as good as those on a navy ship, and he probably had firepower. I didn’t have a chance. I didn’t have enough speed to get into Cth nor did I have the defensive armament to avoid the solid and vibratory destruction he was undoubtedly capable of hurling at me. And since I had no intention of dying uselessly, I surrendered.

I did exactly as I was told and waited until the bulk of Bennett’s spacer loomed alongside me. A lighted rectangle appeared in one side of the featureless metal ovoid. Grapples clanked against the hull of the lifeboat and presently I was back in the spot I had left three years ago.

Bennett was waiting for me in the main cabin as I was ushered in by two armed crewmen. There was another man with him—and I blinked in surprise as I recognized the smooth, inscrutable face of the Tarnas. He smiled briefly at me and lapsed back into a stonelike immobility.

Bennett was as piratical as ever, only this time he wasn’t quite so overpowering.

“Dammit, Robertshaw,” he said, “it took us nearly six weeks subjective cruising in threespace at lume one to locate you, and we wouldn’t have done it then except for Eltran’s report that there was an alien on Tharn who was causing a great deal of commotion with his meddling. He was moving our stasis experiment out of its static state.”

“Your what?”

“Our experiment in government. We found this world a long time ago and it was ideal for our purposes. It was chaos; a multiplicity of warring tribes, a horde of gods and godlings who demanded blood sacrifices, hereditary ruling and warrior castes that ground the peasantry into the soil, and the chance for a future that was less than good.

The really useful thing was the terrain. The four island continents of which Tharn is one were ideal for setting up controlled experiments. One was uninhabited, and the other three were much like Tharn, since the people all come from the same ethnic stock. So we set up a four-part experiment to determine what effect stasis, religion, government and anarchy would have on the populations. For each big island we established a single state and enforced its laws until it was viable. You landed in stasis. It’s a wonder that you didn’t recognize the society. It was based on twelfth-century Earth.”

“I recognized it all right, but I couldn’t believe it. I opted for parallel development. There were enough differences to throw me off.”

“Those were our modifications to stabilize it.” Bennett said. “We were after an unchanging society rather than an ideal form of government for individual expression.”

“So I never got free of you after all.”

“In a sense that’s true. You ended up in a society we had constructed, but I suppose you’d have had trouble avoiding us no matter where you went. We cover a lot of the galaxy nowadays. Virtually all of the oxygen-breathing, humanoid-dominated worlds are associated with us in one way or another. And there’s more of us every year. We’re a big organization.”

“That’s obvious,” I said. “You even have the Tarnas.”

Bennett shrugged, “I’m sorry. I should have introduced you, but I thought you had met. Warren Robertshaw, I’d like you to meet Eltran, first Tarnas of Tharn—also sixth, fourteenth, nineteenth, and twenty-fifth.”

The Tarnas smiled and held out his hand, Earth-fashion. “It’s a genuine pleasure,” he said in perfect lingua franca. “Bennett’s been telling me about you for hours. It is an honor to meet you, sir.”

I was stunned; and Bennett’s introduction had left me numb. He had put me first! Against the Tarnas of Tharn, he had put me first! And in the protocols of Earth it was all the more important who was introduced to whom.

“That’s right, Robertshaw,” Bennett said, “you understand it correctly. Eltran knew it when he met you at Sar Malthor’s confirmation. That’s why he mentioned you specifically—a superior Earthling named Robertshaw— was what the message said. And by God, he was right!”

Bennett grinned at me through his golden beard. “Hell, man! I’d have spent a year cruising threespace to find you. You’re a key link and they don’t come often. Look what you’ve done here: you took a society that for half a millenium was locked in as tight an inherent stasis as our best minds could devise and broke it wide open in three objective years.”

“I didn’t do it all,” I muttered, “Martha did a lot. Sar Malthor helped, and there were dozens of others.”

“Nuts! I’ve looked at the records. Had any one of the others been turned loose here alone or with someone other than you, nothing would have happened. You were the nexus, the key link, the pivot around which the whole thing turned. Sure you made mistakes. You failed to evaluate the priesthood correctly. You didn’t make political and commercial alliances. You didn’t establish an effective intelligence group. But you imposed change on a static society.”

“I was trying to get to the confederation.”

“Oh, that,” Bennett’s voice was a dismissal. “You can’t do anything about that area. Not now. You’ll discover that once a historical trend is set into motion, it must run its course. There was one instant in time when you could have disrupted the plan, and you picked the right instant then, but I could forestall you and I did. That time has passed and the historical trend has been set in motion. Not even God can change it now.”

“Who gave you the right to play with sentient lives?” I asked.

“God, I suppose,” Bennett shrugged. “As I figure it I am one of those people who have an ability to foresee disaster. I also have the ability to do something about it. So I do what I can.”

“Tharn would have destroyed itself had not one of Bennett’s ships visited us,” Eltran explained. “We were butchering each other. I could see that much, but could do nothing. I was the lord of a weak barony, fighting for my life against outlaws, gods, and neighbors. And I was barely surviving. We made an agreement, Bennett and I. I promised to be his vassal, and he gave me the crossbow and taught me tactics and strategy. His experts taught me how to organize a state. And I became the first Tarnas.

“You must see the anarchy experiment here before you leave. Tharn was like that once. But Bennett came and Tharn survived. The reforms were mine, but the moving force, the subtlety, the cleverness that made the state endure beyond my time—those were his. Tharn was better for it, for I could never have become Tarnas without his help. And the state I built was better than I. Three times since, I have returned. Each time I have tried to move the creation into progress. Each time I have failed.”

“The historical elements weren’t right,” I insisted.

“Balderdash! I was failing again when you appeared. I took the same route to power each time, and each time I was trapped in my creation. You appeared and unerringly went to the things that had to be done. No matter what the priests do now they cannot stop Tharn from moving. You have triumphed, and the state will now develop as it should.”

“‘The experiment was finished years ago,” Bennett explained. “We gathered our data. And we also learned that progress cannot be forced. It needs the cooperation of the people and a desire for change. If we had come in and strewn technology about, it would have done no good. A few would have taken it and used it to gain personal power and suborn the state. Hereditary transfer of power would have inevitably followed and Tharn would have been dead within three generations. And we haven’t been able to spare a nexus since the confederation crisis appeared. They’re needed for more important things than saving a single world from stasis. So we kept retaining agents like Eltran and sending them back in the hope that some day one of them would come up with the key link.”

“But we never did,” Eltran said. “I know my counterparts on three of the big islands—on the fourth, of course, there is nothing but folk who hunt each other. No central force could conceivably exist in that witches’ brew. I worked with my counterparts twice. Both times we failed to achieve anything worthwhile except some inconsequential trade agreements.”

I didn’t tell the story of Robert the Bruce, although I thought of it. Somehow it didn’t seem appropriate.

“But you succeeded,” Eltran said. “In retrospect it looks simple. Pick the key link and break it. Tharn was being held in stasis by lack of communication.”

“And heavy transport,” I added.

“And once these appeared,” Bennett said, “It was all over. Tharn will develop now and will in turn force the development of other parts of this world. We won’t have to worry about Tharn for a millenium.”

“Martha thought of the jesset collar,” I said. “That was not my doing.”

“Oh, by the way, where is she?” Bennett asked.

“In Jartan. With Sar Tami, the Provincal.”

“Then she’s safe enough,” Eltran assured us. “Sar Tami is a Tharn of honor.”

“She’s going to have a baby,” I added.

“How nice,” Bennett remarked. “She’s had others. Most of them have been rather ordinary. Perhaps this one will have your good qualities, plus some of hers. I’m not impressed with Martha’s offspring. She usually falls in love with some overmuscled oaf—” He stopped abruptly, looked hard at me and began laughing.

“Well, for once she’s made a sensible choice. Probably because you were the only one around.”

“I resent that,” I said.

“Go ahead, I didn’t mind. But let me give you one piece of advice. She needs a man she can respect. She’s like her mother that way. She’s cerebral all right, but she is a nice healthy female animal, too—and that’s a hell of a combination, especially when it’s complicated by a superiority attitude. Laura, my wife—you’ll meet her on Aurum—is an outstanding example of the type. I’ve always wondered how I’ve been able to endure her for these millennia.” He laughed again and I tried to be noncommittal. This was a new phase of Bennett. The man was a fascinating mixture of cliche and creativity. I could study him for years, and I probably would. I wondered what he had in store for me, and for Martha. For I had no intention of leaving her in this life cycle or the next. Maybe sometime in the distant future we would tire of each other, but in my present euphoria I doubted it.

Bennett chuckled. “You won’t believe this, but I’m going to send you back to Earth. To Transworld News, in fact—after a little indoctrination, of course. No, brainwashing, just indoctrination. You’ll have to understand what’s going on before you can function as a nexus in a civilized community. You’ll be taking Jim Flynn’s job after all. He’s earned a rest and he’s got to be pulled out before he really dies. I wouldn’t want to lose him. He’s another pivot point.”

“What would I be doing?”

“You’re not going to like this.”

“Tell me. I’m not as good as you at Sorovkin.”

“You will be, that’s part of the indoctrination. But roughly, it’s like this. The confederation is too unbalanced. Lyrane and Earth are too advanced. Halsey, Parth and the others are too primitive. There is a genuine danger that the advanced worlds will—with the best of intentions—build an empire over which one or the other would rule. The confederation must be preserved, but the present format has to be changed. There cannot be a dominant world or dominant worlds. I think you can extrapolate the stress patterns from there without my help. But in such a situation—”

“The dominant worlds could destroy, but they could not hold. It’s a simple matter of logistics, I said. Any fool can see it.”

“You’d better tell that to the fools who run the confederation. They’ve gradually come to be dominated by Lyrane and Earth and the thought that a central authority can regulate the fifty worlds, it has to be stopped. That sector of the galaxy can’t stand another Iterregnum. It must be strong and stable and united.”

I got a brief hint of something darker and more threatening than the possibility of the confederation collapsing into an Imperium dominated by Earth or Lyrane or both. And I could see why Bennett had been working towards enclave worlds to limit the aggressiveness and push of the two superior civilizations that were imposing their culture on the others.

“It has to be a union, not an empire.” Bennett said. “An empire can’t last. It can’t even hold a single solar system. You know enough Earth history to know that. It can’t process the data and achieve prompt solutions. It would choke in its own bureaucracy. Each world must be discrete. The confederation can only mediate. It cannot rule. It must—”

“Control space,” I finished, “but not the worlds within that space.”

“Precisely,” Bennett said. “What you’ve been calling enclaves and dissociation is the second step toward Galactic civilization. And it won’t be accomplished without pain. For the confederacy has gone too far down the road to empire. It must be checked and controlled. There must be a retrenchment, a time of reorganization, a time of pause.”

“So that’s the reason for the push toward enclaves.”

“Yes, the worlds must become independent in fact as well as in name, and there must be popular participation in government, no matter what form it may be.”

I looked past Bennett. Eltran had quietly departed, leaving us alone. There was an innate courtesy in Tharn that we humans seldom have. To Eltran, our family matters were private and he had left us to ourselves.

“There ought to be a better way.” I said.

“If there is, it has eluded me.”

“Perhaps with Martha’s help, I can find it. We worked as a team here and we’d work as a team there.”

“I never interfere with what God has joined together,” Bennett said. There was a malicious note in his voice. “All I want is to see the ultimate triumph of reason.” He left it there. If a jest, it was subtle enough to elude me.

We talked about plans. We would pick up Martha, say farewell somehow to Sar Malthor and go to Bennett’s world, the world called Aurum, whose wonders Martha and Bennett had hinted at. I was not convinced that I should work with Bennett nor was I convinced that his solution for the confederacy was correct, but I would take an open mind with me and learn what I could. Perhaps Bennett was right after all. At least he was not the enemy he had seemed—he was just another meddler with an end in view. I could get along with that kind of a man. I was one myself!

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25