Rogue Princess
(aka Saxon Pretender)
Science Fiction Quarterly – February 1952
(1952)*
L. Sprague de Camp

It's a mad, merry mixup when Claude Godwin, star of 21st Century costume pictures, finds himself involved with a princess of Greenland, kidnapped, and told that he is the rightful heir to the throne of England. Not that Godwin enjoys being the Saxon Pretender, but the alternatives are even less to his liking!

-

Monarchy has a tendency to persist as a half-serious game, long alter all the meaning of "kings" and "queens", etc., has departed from a nation's life. In its proper place, this can be a rather charming anachronism, but there's always the possibility that someone, or some group, may try to "restore" the throne in earnest This aside, we can look upon such problems as "legitimacy"—no joke in past centuries, when prolonged and devastating wars often accompanied a change of sovereigns—with amusement, as Mr. de Camp does here. A delightful dissertation on one of the reasons why the head who wears the crown rests uneasily.

-

Chapter 1

	CLAUDE GODWIN became involved with the princess as follows:

	In driving north from Santa Barbara, most people follow Route US 101, which cuts inland across the base of Point Conception. Some, however, take the secondary road that runs along the seashore around the Point—via Jalama and Surf—leaving 101 at Gaviota and rejoining it at Arroyo Grande. It is a winding road, much of it blasted out of cliff sides where the Santa Ynez Mountains come right down to the Pacific. The road runs along a rugged and almost unpeopled stretch of coast, forming a great contrast with the shores southeastward, which—ever since California became the most populous state about the year 1990—have been almost solidly built up from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

	On an October afternoon Claude Godwin was driving his fellow-actor, Westbrook Wolff, along this scenic stretch and explaining why he intended retiring at the early age of thirty-one:

	"... so I can make thirty grand a week; what good does it do me? Coming on top of the income from my securities, Uncle gets ninety-four dollars out of every additional century, leaving me a lousy six bucks, which will buy one Sunday newspaper."

	Wolff sighed. "Wish I knew how you did it. I've known a lot of actors, and never yet knew one who could save up enough to live on in ten years. By the time Uncle, and your agent, and your ex-wives have all had a crack at your stipend—"

	"Not to mention the parties; the ponies; the contractor who puts in your swimming-pool; the tailor who makes you a suit a week out of imported Tibetan yak-wool, and so on. I avoid the alimony problem by staying single; I live in a small house without a swimming-pool and stay away from parties and ponies.

	"That's why they call me MacGodwin," he concluded. He was a dark young man, handsome in a histrionic way, and rather on the small side. For hero roles the studio put lifts in his shoes.

	"But then you're not a typical actor," said Wolff; "in Hollywood you stand out like a sunflower in a coalscuttle."

	"I am an individualist; you are eccentric; he's nuts. I never did like the damned show-business anyway. What I always wanted was to be a scientist. You know, like that Doctor Rotheiss I played in Crimson Dawn"

	"Why don't you?"

	Godwin sighed in his turn. "You just don't walk into a casting-office in some scientific institute and get taken on as an electrogeologist. I did go see old Dr. Goff—you know, the president of Cal Tech. I told him I knew I wouldn't stay young and handsome forever. Hell, I'm no great actor; I'm just a guy who can jump around in front of a camera with a wig and a sword and leer at the dames. Well, I told the old geezer about my secret craving. Says I: 'Dr. Goff, I think I could be a real honest-to-Goldwyn scientist if I had a chance, but how do I go about it? I can't see enrolling here as a frosh with the sobsisters from all the papers and picture-mags breathing down my neck. So what?'

	"He squints at me and sprinkles some cigar-ashes down his shirt-front, and says, 'Take this,' and hands me a book off his desk. 'Go through it and do all the problems; then come back. If you still wish to become a scientist we shall go on from there.' "

	"Did you?" said Wolff.

	"That's the sad part; even sadder'n when I got bumped off in Fatal Decision. It was a math book: plane, solid, and analytical geometry. I struggled through about half and gave up."

	"Doesn't sound like you, Claude."

	"No, does it? But I got to where the funny little diagrams and equations and things just went round and round when I looked at them. I couldn't make sense of them even by sitting up all night over a bucket of coffee. Maybe if I'd had a normal education, instead of being in show-business from the age of six weeks, it might have been different. But it's too late to go back again and begin over, like I did in Three Wishes.'"

	Wolff yawned and stretched. "Oh, well, maybe there's some other science that doesn't require so much math. Say, haven't we seen enough of this Godforsaken scenery? How about a stretch on the beach?"

-

	THEY HAD just come around Point Arguello and the road was undulating along a stretch of sand-dunes between the Coast Range and the sea. Godwin looked for a place to park and presently found a turnout; he stopped the Studebaker and got out, not bothering to raise the top because at that time of year the climatic engineers allowed rain only on Wednesdays.

	They climbed down the sandy, grassy slope to the beach. A few yards away, a heavy surf boomed against the hard-packed sand. The beach was a small crescent, with its concave side facing seaward—perhaps a hundred yards long—and terminated at each end by a rocky promontory. The landscape seemed devoid of human life. Shoreward the olive-brown hills bore a scattering of oaks among the scrub.

	Godwin took a sharp look to make sure that he could see his car from where they were, and started north. At the promontory, he and Wolff had to scramble over the rocks and found themselves at the beginning of another little crescent of sand. They plodded north to the next promontory and were climbing over these rocks when Wolff (who being the taller was in the lead) drew in his breath sharply and held out a hand in warning.

	Godwin halted, thinking that perhaps his friend had surprised a family of sea-lions or some such denizens of the wild. Wolff silently beckoned. Godwin moved up beside the other actor.

	Just beyond the rocks, at the beginning of the next beach, a girl was lying nude on her back upon the sand, asleep in the sun. She was a girl of pretty good size— "brawny" was the word that occurred to Claude Godwin. She was moderately pretty in a flat-faced, Oriental way, as if she were part Asiatic, but there was nothing Mongoloid about the carroty-red hair stirring in the breeze. Dark glasses protected her eyes from the sun, and her head lay on a handkerchief spread out upon the sand. Beside her a neat pile of clothing was held down by a small camera.

	Wolff whispered: "Boy, ain't that something? What'll we do?"

	Godwin murmured: "She's liable to get a bad burn sleeping in the sun that way, even this late in the year."

	"She probably didn't mean to go to sleep; but we can't exactly wake her up to tell her so."

	"N-no. On the other hand we can't just walk off as if nothing had happened ..."

	"Say!" hissed Wolff. "I got an idea!" He outlined a plan.

	"Swell," said Godwin. "But which of us does what with what?"

	"Oh, I take it and you're in it."

	"No sir! You'd make a better model than I."

	"Can't! I'm running for king this winter!"

	"Let's flip then."

-

	WOLFF WON the toss. He cautiously climbed down and picked up the camera, while Godwin removed his clothes and piled them on the rocks. When he was as nude as the girl he climbed down and stood beside her.

	"If she wakes up now we'll have some explaining to do," he whispered.

	"Don't make me laugh or she will. Now lie down beside her. No, on your back; no point doing it on your stomach."

	Wolff retreated a few paces, adjusted the camera, and took a photograph of the recumbent pair. The automatic film-winder purred faintly and stopped with a click at the next frame. Godwin started to rise, but Wolff motioned him back, took two steps, and shot a picture from another angle.

	This time Godwin did get up. While Wolff replaced the camera on the girl's pile of clothing, Godwin climbed back up on the rocks and dressed with guilty haste. When he had finished, both men crept down off the promontory on the south side and hiked swiftly back the way they had come. When they had put enough distance between themselves and the girl they let out their pent-up mirth in raucous war-whoops, capering and slapping each other on the back. "Boy, wait till she gets those pix back from the drugstore!" "What I wouldn't give to see her face ..."

	"Hey!" said Godwin suddenly. "Suppose she recognizes me? I may not be Hollywood's most popular actor, but my puss does get around. My agent says I packed 'em in at Julianehaab in The Honor of the Clan."

	"What's Yooly-anna-hawp?"

	"The capital of Greenland. Since the climate-control boys melted off the ice-cap, the Greenlanders have become the world's most fanatical movie-goers. There's nothing else to do on the long winter nights."

	"You mean, not much else. But I wouldn't worry; your last few pictures all had you wearing a mustache, so they wouldn't know you without it."

	They came to the place where they had first reached the beach and climbed back up the slope. When they were back in the car, Godwin drove slowly, peering ahead.

	"Whatcha looking for?" said Wolff. "Her car. She musta parked somewhere; nobody lives along this stretch ... Ah, there it is!"

	He slowed to a crawl as they came abreast of another parked automobile. This was a typical Hollywoodian vehicle: an enormous pink Cadillac convertible with imitation python-skin upholstery. Godwin said; "You'd swear that was a star's car, now wouldn't you? But I've never seen our sleeping beauty around the studios."

	"Neither have I. She doesn't look to me like star-material, anyway; she might belong to some actor or producer."

	Godwin speeded up, saying, "We could look up her license-number, but it's not worth the trouble. And what do I wanna get involved with strange dames for? I got enough trouble holding off the ones I know already."

	"Well, you'd have a time convincing anybody who sees those pix you're not involved with her." At Godwin's look of alarm Wolff added; " 'S all right, Claude old boy. When the paternity suit comes up I'll testify for you; I'll say you're impotent."

	"That would be a big help. But I'm not worried; I look different without my makeup, and I'm too short to run for king, like you; and some day I'll quit this racket anyway."

	Westbrook Wolff did indeed intend to run for King of the United States of America, at the decennial contest to be held in Washington in December. For, following the wars and revolutions of the twentieth century, the world— in a frantic search for stability and security—had revived the obsolete institution of monarchy. The United States had done so in a more rational manner than most nations. Instead of the nation's entrusting the choice of the monarch to the vagaries of heredity, the king and queen were chosen from Hollywood's bravest and fairest for ten-year terms at a beauty-contest in which the U. S. Senate served as judges.

-

	IN DUE COURSE, Claude Godwin returned to Hollywood. After several months of miscellaneous movie work he was chosen for the title role of Sabatini's Scaramouche, being remade for the eighth time in two centuries. When inevitable delays postponed shooting for a few days he let himself be talked into attending a party at the house of his leading lady, Gloria Malloy.

	About twenty-three hundred Godwin surveyed the scene and found it not to his liking. In one corner, Gloria Malloy was giving the English actor, Beaumont, the lowdown on the sexual aberrations of Hollywood, in the process accusing practically every denizen of cinematographic jungle of being queer in one way or another. In another corner, Vakassian, the script-writer was complaining to Cuevas, the bit-player, about the crass materialism of the motion-picture industry. In the third, Gloria's husband, Lauder the cameraman, was making love to Cuevas's wife. The fourth was occupied by a roaring crapgame involving Finkelman the producer, Novalis the director, and McCarthy the sound-technician. McCarthy's girl had fallen into the swimming-pool and had been sent home in a taxi, while Novalis's girl had passed out and been carried upstairs to recover.

	Claude Godwin had heard and seen it all before and found it boresome. Despite his almost complete lack of formal education, he liked to picture himself as a serious thinker, interested in world affairs and the latest advances in the arts and sciences. Inevitably, he found that very few cared to discuss such matters, and those few usually had some axe to grind and were willing to lecture him on their pet obsession but not to listen to his replies. "To hell with it," he said, and let himself quietly out the front door just as Gloria plunged into an account of the alleged necrophilia of Horton the singing-cowboy star.

	The Studebaker was parked in the driveway behind Finkelman's all-chrome Mercedes-Benz. Godwin got in, started the engine, and pressed the button that actuated the parking-wheels, so that the car should sidle crabwise out of its space without the necessity of cramping the wheel. (This was now regular equipment on Super De Luxe Ultra Imperial models; on the plain Super De Luxe Ultra Special or standard line it was extra.)

	Claude Godwin set the control lever on the steering-column for sidewise travel, stepped on the foot-brake, released the hand-brake, and started to let the foot-pedal up slowly, when he became aware that something was not normal. Some whisper of sound told him that he was not alone in his car; that there was, in fact, a man crouched behind the front seat ...

-

Chapter 2

	WHEN HE came to Claude Godwin was lying on a bed.

	As he opened his eyes, he gradually became aware, first, of the ceiling; then of the pajamas he was wearing; then of a large window through which he had a view of rather barren looking greenish-gray hills under a gray sky; then of something on his left wrist.

	It was a handcuff, and attached to the handcuff was a tall, broad, moonfaced, 250-pound man with prominent blue eyes and a fringe of faded blond hair around a pink scalp covered with the fuzz that resulted from the persistent use of trichogenone, the hair-growing hormone.

	"What the hell?" said Godwin.

	"Yes?" said the man. "You are feeling better now, ha?"

	"Better? Than what? Where am I? Who are you? Why was I snatched? How long have I been out? What's the idea of this bracelet?"

	"Vun at a time. First, I am Sven."

	"Sven who?"

	"Sven Kaalund. But ve shall be friends be, yes? So you call me Sven; I am calling you Claude."

	"Well, isn't that damned decent of you! And where am I?"

	"Dis is de King Edvard Hospital in Julianehaab, in Greenland."

	"Greenland!" Godwin shouted. "But why? What have I got to do with Greenland?"

	The moon face smiled. "You vill everyting in time learn. Meanvile, please to be a good boy and do as you are told."

	"The hell you say!" yelled Godwin. Propping himself up on his left elbow he swung a right at Kaalund's jaw.

	In a calmer moment, Godwin might have admitted that it was a silly thing to do. Although he had had occasion to learn boxing in the course of his employment, he was hardly in a position to land a real blow; nor was he, at 145 pounds, fairly matched with his vast opponent. But Godwin was anything but calm.

	Sven Kaalund moved his big head and raised his right shoulder so that Godwin's fist bounced off the deltoid muscle as off a truck-tire.

	"Yeow!" yelled Godwin.

	A terrific pain had shot through his left wrist, doubling him up into a foetal position. It was gone in an instant, and Godwin relaxed. He now looked more closely at the other end of the handcuffs. Instead of a twin of his own cuff encircling Kaalund's wrist, the cable attached to his own cuff ended in a gadget something like a knuckle-duster, gripped in Kaalund's great fist. A guard ran across the back of Kaalund's hand: and on the other side of this object were buttons, on one of which Kaalund's thumb rested lightly.

	"I told you to be good," said Kaalund in the tone of one reproving a child.

	Godwin recognized the Kobik neuronic stimulator, the outstanding improvement in the art of inflicting pain since the time of Torquemada. Godwin almost wept with frustrated rage, but then pulled himself together.

	"What are you?" he asked.

	"Detective, first-class, of de police department of Julianehaab."

	The door opened and a nurse said something.

	"Han gar man inte uden Forskyndelse," said Kaalund. "Sage on Ophœveran at man kan ham snakkes."

	The nurse disappeared. Not knowing Danish, Godwin could not follow the conversation. He relapsed into glowering silence while an interne took his temperature and blood-pressure and other bodily indices. When the interne (who like most Greenlanders showed a mixture of Danish and Eskimo descent) finished his task and departed, Godwin asked his man-mountain, "What now?"

	"You shall yust for de boss vait."

	"Who's he?"

	"Prime Minister  Gram. I do not know vat about you so important is dat the head of de whole country is coming to see you, but dat is how it is."

-

	GODWIN stared out the big window at the bleak landscape, noting the dwarf willows and birches sparsely scattered over the craggy hills. The hospital must be located on the outskirts of Julianehaab, for there were only a few houses in sight. The melting of the ice-cap by the climatic engineers a century before, while it had made Greenland into a modern nation with a huge habitable area and a lusty and growing population, had not converted it from a miniature Antarctica into a tropical paradise. Instead the land had become something like a large insular combination of Iceland and Norway, with the damp climate of the former and the snag-toothed mountainous coast-line of the latter.

	The door opened and in came & lean dark bald man with a long droopy nose. Sven Kaalund jumped up, saying,

	"God Dag, Excellenz!"

	The man replied in almost-perfect English: "Good-morning, Kaalund. Good-morning, Mr. Godwin. I am Anker Gram. How are you feeling?"

	"Like plain and fancy mayhem,'' growled Godwin. "What is this? I'm an American citizen, and you can't go snatching me all over the world! I won't stand for it! My government will make a stink—"

	"On the contrary, my dear Mr. Godwin, you will stand for it," said Anker Gram.

	"Huh?"

	Gram drew a brown paper envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket: an envelope of the sort that photographic service establishments send back prints and negatives in. Gram took out two prints and handed one to Godwin, saying, "Does this look familiar?"

	The print was obviously one of those that Westbrook Wolff had taken eight months previously of Godwin and the red-haired girl lying nude on the beach near Point Conception. The color of her hair came out fine.

	"Guk," said Godwin.

	"And now this."

	Gram extended the other print, a portrait showing the same girl, seated, clad in a shimmery evening-gown with a tiara on her hair. This picture was of the sort that actors like himself had made up in great numbers to send their fans, and true to form it bore in the lower right corner a facsimile of a longhand legend reading: Hjertlige Oensker, Karen af Greenland.

	"What does it say?" said Godwin.

	"Best wishes from Karen of Greenland."

	"You mean Karen's a name? That— uh—she's—"

	"Certainly; it is the Scandinavian equivalent of 'Catherine'. And the young lady, if you have not yet realized the fact, is Princess Karen, the only child of our king, Edvard III of Greenland."

	"But—what—that is—I didn't know—"

	"So she maintained her incognito throughout your liason? I knew she had entered the University of Southern California under the name of 'Karen Hauch', which is of course her true laic name: Agnes Brigitte Karen Leonora Margaret Arrebo-Hauch. She seems to have shown more prudence than—-"

	"What d'you mean liason?" cried Godwin; "I never even saw the dame, except when that pic was taken!"

-

	HE DESCRIBED the jape to Gram, who shook his narrow head. "It is a fine story, and from your air of virtuous indignation one might almost believe it if one did not know better."

	"How do you know better? Was you there? All the evidence you got is that fool pic, which shows us acting a little unconventional, maybe, but—"

	"Unconventional!" said Gram with a grin. "No, my fine American bird, you will never get anybody in Greenland to believe that, especially as your countrymen are a byword for uninhibited lechery. And since the medical evidence was inconclusive, and most of the population has heard a rumor of one sort or another, we find it necessary to act accordingly."

	"How'd they find out?"

	"That is simple. When the princess finished her roll of film she air-mailed it back to Julianehaab for developing and printing by her favorite photographer, Hans Tungak. When he saw the prints, he knew something was wrong and took up the matter with the government."

	"So what?"

	"We naturally sent a mission to the United States to escort the princess home before she could get into any more trouble. Incidentally they found who you were from the pictures and brought you also. That was perhaps not strictly in accord with international law, but since one of Tungak's assistants, who also saw the photographs, had talked, our hand was forced."

	"But why? Even if I had done what you guys think, what good does it do to kidnap me to this god-forsaken piece of Arctic real-estate?"

	Gram smiled thinly. "Perhaps you are familiar with the legendary American institution called a 'shotgun wedding'?"

	"You mean you want me to marry the dame?" 

	"Precisely."

	"I won't!" yelled Godwin; "I'm damn well gonna stay a bachelor until I feel like changing!"

	"You will not find the position of consort difficult; your material wants will be well supplied."

	"Hell with that! I got all the dough I need. In fact I was gonna quit the movie racket. I don't care if the Prince Consort brushes his teeth with a platinum toothbrush set with natural diamonds. I'm gonna do what / want when I want it, and I ain't gonna marry no lady wrestler ..."

	Gram let him rave until he ran down, then said: "You forget, Mr. Godwin, we have means of coercion available. Has Kaalund demonstrated his special manacle yet?"

	"Yeah."

	"Well, either you shall go through the ceremony in a civilized manner, or we will have Kaalund stand beside you as best man, with his handcuff on your wrist so that should you balk he can apply the necessary stimulation. Would you like a cigar?"

	"Thanks," said Godwin and took the proffered smoke; then wished too late that he _ had spurned the offer in righteous wrath.

	"You see," said Gram, puffing, "you Americans take a very cavalier attitude towards sex, like the Eskimos from whom we Greenlanders are partly descended. At least such is the impression given by your fiction and your cinema. In fact, since paternity is, among you, usually a matter of some doubt, I note that when you adopted the institution of monarchy you made it elective, so that the problem of legitimacy should not trouble you. We, however, look upon things differently. Our monarchy operates on strictly legitimatist principles, and we therefore cannot have our princesses running around and—ah—mating with all and sundry."

	"I tell you I never—" began Godwin, but Gram continued.

	"I was opposed to Karen's going to California alone for just that reason; but she is a usually sensible girl and persuaded her father to her way of thinking, so I weakly gave in. And now we must—how do you express it?—pay the devil."

	"Even if you make me do this, I won't—I'll—I'll run away and get a divorce at the first chance. You can't keep me locked up the rest of my life."

	"I do not believe that will be necessary. There is another possibility that will, I think, reconcile you to your—ah—fate."

	"Yeah? It better be good."

	"It is; it transpires that you are the beneficiary of the most amazing coincidence in history."

	"Well?"

	"You are the legitimate heir to the throne of Great Britain."

-

	GODWIN stared at the other for a moment. "Huh? Ga wan, you're loopy!"

	"It has been proved, I assure you." 

	"What's the matter with George XII?"

	"He is merely the descendant of the usurping bastard Duke of Normandy, William Fitz-Robert, while you are the heir of Harold Godwinson—otherwise Harold II—the last Saxon king of England."

	"You mean the guy who got bumped off at the Battle of—uh—Hastings?"

	"The very one. Harold Godwinson's children by his mistress Edith Swan-neck being ineligible, you are the oldest legitimate descendant in the male line of his posthumous son by Aldyth, Harold Haroldson."

	"Ulp. And you mean you're gonna talk the Limies into kicking out George and putting me in his place?"

	"That is the idea."

	Godwin tugged at his hair with his free hand. "I never heard of such a crazy idea in my life! I must be in a booby-hatch and you're one of the inmates!"

	Gram relighted his cigar. "You shall see. Your accession to the British throne will not be so difficult as you suppose. For one thing the British, like most people, have made a fetish of legitimacy in recent decades. For another George XII is unpopular for his vices—a thoroughly maladjusted type."

	"Wait! Last winter I played a supporting role in Bonnie Prince Charlie. I dunno much about the real history—you know how the script-writers always hash it up—but it was something about a guy who claimed to be the rightful King of England and invaded Scotland to prove it, but got chased out again. They had us running around in kilts and wigs and talking with Scotch accents. Well, why couldn't the descendants of this Charlie guy have something to say about your project?"

	"Oh, you mean the Jacobites. The answer is 'no', for several reasons. The English Parliament decreed that James II, having become a Roman Catholic (this being a time of religious controversies) was ineligible to be king, and the succession was therefore vested in his daughter Mary and her husband Prince William of Orange, a grandson of King Charles I who lost his head. Then when William and Mary died sine prole—"

	"What did they die of?"

	"Without issue. The crown went to Mary's sister, Anne. In the meantime, Parliament had passed the Act of Settlement in 1701, which named as Anne's successor a granddaughter of James I, whose husband was Elector of Hanover; when Anne died in 1714, this woman's son became King George I. The Jacobites claim the line should have gone to James II's son James Stuart, and then to this man's oldest son Charles—the fellow in the cinema, and then to Charles's younger brother Henry of York. Then when Henry died leaving no more descendants of James II they should have gone back to the descendants of Charles I, through his daughter Henrietta, who married Duke Philip of Orleans—"

	"Stop! You got me dizzy with all these Jameses and Charleses; what happened to the Jacobite claim, finally?"

	"Oh, nobody has taken it seriously for centuries. It got into the royal house of Sardinia for a while and then into the royal house of Bavaria. Just now the pretender is a young man named Werner von Wittelsbach, a German living here in Greenland."

	"Why does he live here?" asked Godwin.

	"I arranged that our leading magnate, Thor Thomsen, should offer him a job here he could not afford to refuse, so we could keep an eye on him. And where should he live? The Germans do not want him because he is also the Bavarian pretender, and Bavaria is now under the Austrian crown; and the British will have not have him because Jacobitism is high treason by their act of 1707."

-

	GODWIN said: "I remember from a book that one time there was a Danish king of England named Cahoots or something. What happened to his line?"

	"The claim of Knud the Mighty comes down to the modern Danish royal house through his nephew, Knud II, since both his sons died sine prole. The Arrebo-Hauchs are related to this line, but only by a cadet branch. And as the present King of Denmark will have nothing to do with, such an enterprise, we must resort to the remaining line of pretenders: the descendants of Harold of Wessex—which means you, my friend."

	"How do you know? They didn't have birth-certificates in the Middle Ages, so you can't trace a line over a thousand years. Who ja think you're kidding?"

	"Ah, but we can! Have you ever heard of Viggo Bruun?"

	"Nope."

	"Naturally not, because we have kept his work quiet. Dr. Bruun is the world's greatest authority on terrestrial magnetism. He discovered the Bruun effect." 

	"What's that?"

	"A permanent impress left in the magneto-gravitic matrix of our planet by every event that happens on its surface; something like the Akashic Record of the occultists. By means of an instrument he has developed, Dr. Bruun can photograph these impressions. The instrument is called a parachron, short for 'parachronoscope'."

	"You mean if you took this here gadget you could see the Battle of Waterloo being fought over again?"

	"More or less."

	"My Goldwyn, what'll they think of next? But what's this got to do with me and your nutty king scheme?"

	"Simple. We have made records of the entire lives of Harold Haroldson and his descendants; we have been working on it for several years, and now have a huge library of the lives of historical characters."

	"It'd sure be a big library; a roll of film to give one man's whole life would fill a good-sized room."

	"Not so bad as that. You can condense a lot, for example cutting the periods of childhood and sleep. For genealogical purposes, you only need the first twenty years or so—up to the time when the man begets his eldest child."

	"Could I see some of these movies?"

	"Certainly, as soon as the physicians say you may leave. Quarters have been prepared for you at the palace, and the faithful Kaalund will accompany you. Now you must excuse me, please. I take it the prospect of royalty no longer appalls you?"

	"I'll think about it. But wait: you never said why you Greenlanders are going to all this trouble. What's in it for you?"

	Gram smiled. "A matter of high politics. You know that, in theory, the King of England reigns but does not rule. However, he has some influence as ex officio chairman of the Commonwealth Conference, under the Act of Parliament of 2035—especially right now when the governments of the Dominions are evenly divided over the Assam problem. We wish to accomplish several things, such as taking Greenland out of the Scandinavian Union and into the Commonwealth; a British King faithful to our interest would be very useful. And now goodbye; I shall see you soon."

-

	THOUGH he thought it more prudent not to say so outright, Godwin had made up his mind to resist this lunatic scheme to the last ditch, as well as the plan to marry him to Karen. So they'd put him up as a figurehead King of Great Britain with the idea that Gram could always control him through his wife! From what he recalled of the proposed wife's brawn, perhaps Gram had something there, too.

	While Gram had recovered the print of the photograph by Wolff, he had left behind the portrait photograph of the girl herself. Godwin glared at it. A handsome wench even if a little big and squarish. She must weigh nearly as much as he. He pointed to the inscription, Hjertlige Oensker, Karen af Greenland, and asked: "How do you pronounce that?"

	Kaalund obliged with a jerky, guttural singsong. Godwin, staring at the print, was struck by the thought that Gram might have left it with him in the hope that he should fall in love with it. He cast it from him, saying, "Sven, put that thing on the bureau, face down. I don't care if she's Crown Princess of Greenland or Queen of Mars; the less I see—"

	The door was opened by a nurse who stepped to one side and curtsied as another woman entered. Kaalund heaved himself erect again and bowed, crying,

	"God Dag, Hoeched!"

	Godwin blinked and looked again. Yes, it was the red-haired girl on the beach: Karen Hauch, Princess of Greenland.

-

Chapter 3

	CLAUDE GODWIN stared. His imagination had been adding little by little to his unwanted fiancée's thews until he pictured her as a veritable female gorilla; and here she turned out to be not so big after all. She was better-looking than he remembered her even if not quite the beauty that the photographer had made her out in the portrait.

	"Well!" she said. "So you are the terrible Claude Godwin!" She spoke with less accent than Sven Kaalund. though her English was not so flawless as the Prime Minister's.

	"That's right," he said. "I suppose you want to see what your partner in sin looks like before it's too late?"

	"You need not be so nasty, Mr. Godwin. After all it was your own doing that got us into this fix, and I am not' liking it any better than you."

	"But you know nothing happened!"

	"Are you sure?"

	"I think you would have woke up," he said dryly; "so why didn't you tell 'em so?"

	"I did but they did not believe. My poor father was terribly shocked by that photograph. So now I am stuck with you."

	"What's so terrible about me?" he retorted, stung. "Lots of dames think a movie-star's a pretty good catch."

	"Oh, I did not say there was anything really wrong with you. In fact one might say you were quite pretty." (Godwin winced.) "But you know what self-centered and immoral people actors are, and I could have had the captain of the U. S. C. football team; he was a big man."

	"Is that so? Well, I could have—" began Godwin hotly, then thought better of what he was going to say. "But let's not fight over who got rooked the worse on this deal. I don't suppose you have any idea how to get out of it?"

	"No-o", she said, with a glance at Kaalund, who was taking all this in. "We shall have to make the best of it; perhaps love will come after the first ten or twenty years."

	Godwin realized that they could not make any serious plans for evading their fate in Kaalund's presence, and that Gram was determined to keep Godwin under close surveillance until he had accomplished his aims. While Gram's political objectives sounded no more wicked than most political maneuvers, the thought of being used as a passive pawn in this game made Godwin clench his fists with rage.

	"Your sense of humor." he said, "is well-developed but gruesome. When they gonna let me outa this box?"

	"Tomorrow, they tell me. And now I must leave to shop down-town for my—how do you say—torso?"

	"Trousseau," said Godwin with a shudder. "You got the other already, worse luck."

	"And to keep you from being bored by the wait, I am giving you these." She brought out of her handbag a white paper bag which she handed him, saying: "Ne les avalez pas; serrez-les entre les dents."

	"Hey!" Sven Kaalund spoke up. "No languages I am not understanding! You speak English, Dansk, or notting else!"

	Godwin blinked in bewilderment. He had a limited knowledge of French, dating back to an abortive singing career, and it seemed to him that she was telling him not to swallow the bag but to do something to it with his teeth.

	"Thanks," he said.

	"It is nothing. I shall be seeing you again, yes?"

	"All too soon, I'm afraid. G'bye, Miss—uh—what shall I call you?"

	"The people here say 'Your Highness' but that is too formal for your betrothed. And I do not know you well enough —for 'Karen', because we Greenlanders are not using first names everywhere as you do in the United States. So call me 'Miss Hauch'."

	"Okay, Miss Hauch. S'long."

	She was gone. Kaalund rumbled: "Let me see dat bag, Claude. I am here from being poisoned to stop you as veil as other tings."

	Godwin wordlessly handed over the bag. Kaalund looked in and handed it back. "Gumdrops!"

	Godwin took out a gumdrop. Now the pattern became a little clearer. She must have said something like "Do not swallow them; hold (or pinch) them between the teeth." If it had only been possible for her to repeat the sentence ... he gripped a gumdrop firmly between his molars. It softened and dissolved with the passing of the minutes. Now, if she had meant to convey a message in one of these things, it would be in some sort of capsule. He would have to eat his way through the entire bag to be sure.

	When the first gumdrop had gone the way of all confections he took a second. Kaalund looked at him with a mouth-watering expression, but Godwin hard-heartedly ignored it and continued to consume the candies himself. It would hardly do to have the message-capsule eaten by his guardian. The detective muttered something about; "I see vat she meant by de kind of people actors is!"

	Godwin continued devouring his way through the bag. When he had eaten over half the gumdrops, he came to one that felt a little different from the others. It had a hard core, and as the gelatinous outside dissolved away his teeth closed down upon this object, not much bigger than a vitamin pill. As he wondered whether he would have to hide the capsule under his tongue until Kaalund was asleep so that he could investigate it more closely, a buzzing sensation in his teeth startled him so that he almost dropped the thing out of his mouth.

	Recovering in time he gripped the capsule more firmly. The thing contained a tiny sound-record player which had been actuated by the pressure of his teeth, and which was now playing off its record. The sound was transmitted through his teeth and skull so that he could hear it quite clearly though nobody else could. He heard, Mr. Godwin! Mr. Godwin! This is Karen Hauch. By now you know of Minister Gram's plans for us-I do not wish to marry you and I suppose you feel the same way. Our only chance of escape is by air, but I do not know if I can make arrangements; see if you can bribe Detective Kaalund.

	The record stopped. Godwin bit it again without result. He had heard of these phonographic capsules; the only way to repeat the record would be to unscrew the casing and wind it up again with a microscopic screw-driver. After some thought Godwin swallowed the capsule.

	That left the rest of the gumdrops. Although this was probably the only one with a message, there was a chance that another might contain a similar capsule with further plans of escape. He therefore did not dare hand over the rest of the bag to Kaalund, though he was already sated with the taste of gumdrops. He kept right on eating, remarking to the ceiling, "You know, Sven old man, my studio would pay plenty to get me back pronto. We were just gonna start shooting Scaramouche, and it'll raise hell with their plans if they gotta dig up a new star at this late date."

	"Unh," said Kaalund.

	"In fact I'm not exactly broke myself. If I chipped in, the guy who arranged to have me sent back to Hollywood would pick up a nice piece of lettuce."

	"Ha. You tink I am vun of your corrupt American policemen, so you can bribe me to let you go, huh? Veil, dis is Groenland, Claude, and de sooner you learn de difference the better off you are. No more bribes, please."

	Godwin stewed a while in silence, then said, "Say, don't they have anything to read in this dump?"

	"Do you read Dansk?" 

	"No."

	"Den it vould no good do yon. De newspapers and books in de hospital library is all in Dansk, except some in Eskimo."

	The door opened again and the nurse spoke to Kaalund, who reported: "Another visitor, Claude. My, such a popular fellow ve got!"

-

	THE VISITOR turned out to be a stout, eyeglassed young man who bounced in and said effusively, "I am glad to meet you, Mr. Godwin! I am Karl Bruun, the son of Viggo Bruun. We understand you wish to visit my father's laboratories?"

	"I did say something of the sort to Gram."

	"Would tomorrow morning suit you?"

	"Okay, if they let me out by then. Do you work in this lab?"

	"Only on my off-time. I am a whale-herd."

	"A what?"

	"I herd whales. The bowhead whale, once almost extinct, is one of Greenland's main economic assets."

	"How do you do it? I mean, d'you chase 'em around with a motor-boat?"

	"No, with a helicopter. I also have to be ready to drive off orcas. Just now, my relief has the machine out. We shall see you tomorrow morning, then. And by the way, lest you be bored while awaiting your release from the hospital, I brought you some gumdrops." Karl Bruun handed over another paper bag. "They taste better if you grip them between your teeth and let them dissolve slowly. I must be running: good-bye!"

	Godwin glared into the bag. Another capsule message? He grimly popped the first into his mouth ...

	This time he had to go through nearly the entire bag, while Kaalund glowered at him and made Danish noises in his throat. At last he came upon the one containing the capsule. The message said, Mr. Godwin? You know who this is. If you do not like your situation we may find it possible to cooperate, for there are those who would like to do, with that upon which the present stasis depends, that which you would like to do with yourself. If you agree, signify by saying, when you meet us, "The gumdrops were superb."

	Now what did that mean? They (the Bruuns, he supposed) evidently wanted to help him somehow, but he could not make any sense of that long and involved third sentence. He would play along with them anyway to see what happened.

	He finished the bag, crumpled it, and threw it into the waste basket just as the nurse announced another visitor. This was a tall blond young man, of pure Nordic type, with several scars crisscrossing his face who began, "Godwin? I'm Werner von Wittelsbach. My boss, Thor Thomsen, sent me to ask if you were comfortable."

	"I'm doing about as good as you can in jail."

	"Mr. Thomsen will be glad to hear it. By the way, he thought you might like these."

	And the young man thrust forward a third bag of white paper. As Godwin took it, von Wittelsbach said: "He suggests you go through the gumdrops before you start on the big piece."

	Godwin, locking into the bag, saw that it did indeed contain a number of gumdrops and, at the bottom, something that looked like a small chocolate-bar wrapped in aluminum foil.

	"Thanks," he said with notable lack of enthusiasm.

-

	THE FACE of Werner von Wittelsbach, who was standing by Godwin's bed, now underwent a noticeable change. Up to now the young man had behaved with the correct and colorless affability of any well-brought-up man sent on such an errand. Now, however, there was a glitter of animosity in his eye and a hostile edge to his voice as he said, "So you are the so-called Saxon Pretender, eh?"

	"The—? Oh, that. So they tell me, though I think it's a lot of fertilizer. And you're the—uh—Jacobite Pretender, huh?"

	"I am the rightful King of Great Britain. We shall see, sir, whose claim prevails."

	Thereupon von Wittelsbach brought his heels together with a click, bowed, and stalked out. Godwin had never seen anybody click heels outside of actors playing parts in movies about Old Vienna; he did not suppose that anybody actually did it in the twenty-second century. Yet there it was.

	"Herregott" said Kaalund. "Are dey trying vith gumdrops to poison you? You better not eat dem all; dey make you sick."

	Godwin glowered at his jailer and went grimly to work on the gumdrops, though by now the taste almost nauseated him. This time the one with the capsule was the third one he ate. The message ran, Claude Godwin! If you wish help in achieving your objective of escaping from Greenland, hide the chocolate bar in the parachon tomorrow morning and leave it there. That is all for the present.

	Godwin sighed. Everybody seemed anxious to help him to escape except Kaalund and Gram, the ones who really mattered. And why should they want him to leave a chocolate bar in the time-viewing machine? Was Thor Thomsen trying to sneak a message to the Bruuns, too? Or was it a bomb to blow up the machine? That seemed unlikely; if Viggo Bruun were a man of any sense, he would have at least one complete set of plans of the parachon in a safe place. Fie might, even have filed applications for patents, in which case the machine's principles of operation would eventually become public knowledge. There was no such thing as a secret invention anymore; even if there were, .why should Thomsen wish to blow up such a marvelous machine?

	Anyway, Thomsen had been the only one to sign off at the end of his message so that Godwin would not have to eat all the other gumdrops to make sure they had no capsules in them. Accordingly Godwin removed the chocolate bar from the bag and tendered the rest of the gumdrops to Kaalund, saying, "Like some?"

	"Tank you."

	"Keep the whole bag."

	"Tanks; I told you you vould not feel good if you ate too many."

-

	THE DETECTIVE went through the rest of the gumdrops like a devouring flame. In a few minutes they were all gone. An orderly came in and spoke. Kaalund said, "He vants to know vat you vish for lunch."

	"Tell him thanks, but I don't want any lunch."

	"I told you! But dat is no reason vy I am starving." He spoke at length in Danish to the orderly who went out and returned with a tray heaped with enough food for two ordinary men. Kaalund fell to with his free hand while Godwin, bored and restless, stared gloomily out the window.

	"Sven," Godwin asked, "if the climatic engineers had such success in melting the ice-cap off Greenland, why don't they do the same with Antarctica? That's a lot bigger than Greenland."

	"Sure," said Kaalund with his mouth full of Smoerrebrod, "but so much vater vould de level of the de oceans raise maybe ten, tvelve meters, and vat vould happen to all de seaports? De melting of the Greenland cap raised it about a meter and a half, and some cities like New Orleans raised a awful stink."

	Kaalund finished and summoned the orderly to remove the tray.

	"You know, Claude," he said, "I am not feeling so good neither. Maybe I should not be eating on top of dose candies ..."

	The orderly removed the tray. Godwin, glancing at Kaalund, felt a shock of alarm. The man's ruddy round face had taken on a mottled hue, and sweat glistened on his forehead.

	"I got a fordoemme belly-ache," muttered the sufferer. "I must telephone for my relief to come qvick so I can .... Ow!" The big man grunted and doubled over. "Hey, Claude, push de button! Somebody is poisoning me!"

	With a bellow of pain the detective rolled out of his chair to the floor.

-

Chapter 4

	THEY TOOK the moaning Kaalund away, and presently an-other detective came in and picked up the hand-grip on the other end of Godwin's handcuff. This was a smaller man, black-haired and flat-faced, who introduced himself as Niels Kirdlavik.

	"Is that an Eskimo name?" said Godwin. 

	"Yes."

	"Are you Sven's regular relief on this job?" 

	"Yes."

	"What's gonna happen next?" 

	"Do not know."

	"Do they know what's wrong with Sven yet?"

	"Do not know."

	The man was not a sprightly conversationalist. Presently, another detective and a couple of uniformed cops came in and poked around the room. They gathered up the remains of the gumdrops and retrieved the empty bags that had contained the first two lots from the waste-basket. The detective asked Godwin a lot of questions that brought out the stories of the three bags of gumdrops, though Godwin refrained from telling about the message capsules.

	Godwin finally asked, "Was he poisoned? How is he now?"

	"He vas. Ve think it vas meant for you, whom it vould have killed qvick, but he is so big it vill not hurt him much. He vill be back to vork in a couple days."

	"Who's trying to poison me?"

	"That is vat ve are trying to find out. It might have been your last visitor, or any of the people who prepared and brought the lunch."

	Godwin did not know of any motive for Thomsen's trying to murder him—though never having met the man he was in no position to judge. The name of Werner von Wittelsbach had entered his mind at once. The man did have a motive, even though a screwy one. But while Godwin hesitated to tell about this, the detective bustled out.

	The afternoon was dull. In answer to his loud protests the hospital personnel finally dug a battered book in English out of their library: The Theory & Practice of Chicken Fanning, by John II. Pappakostas, N. Y.: McGraw-Hill, 2097, 347 pp., $49.50.

	Claude Godwin groaned and covered his eyes with his free hand.

-

	Next morning he was awakened by a tug on his wrist and Kirdlavik's voice: "Hey, Mr. Godvin, vake up! The doctors is examine you to see if you can go out!"

	Examination showed that the effect of the drug that had kept him unconscious during his transportation to Greenland had wholly worn off. Kirdlavik unlocked his handcuff long enough for him to dress.

	"Where am I going?" he asked.

	"To the palace; they got a room there for you."

	"Yesterday, Gram" said I could visit the lab where Bruun's got his parachron. Why couldn't I stop there on my way?"

	"I vill see." Kirdlavik spoke Danish into the telephone, then said: "You may." While the policeman had been telephoning, Godwin slipped the seeming chocolate-bar into his pants pocket.

	When Godwin had finished dressing and had eaten his breakfast, still anther detective arrived to take the place of Kirdlavik, who was yawning from his all-night vigil. Otto Malling, a tall thin knobby man with faded blue eyes and a handlebar mustache proved more communicative than the dourly silent Kirdlavik and started off with a lecture on the beauties of Greenland in general and the Junianehaab region in particular: "... and you must take a ride out to the Oster-Bygt where is the ruins of the houses Eric the Red and his people made when they came here in 982..."

-

	GODWIN was not overly impressed by Julianehaab, where the bicycles outnumbered the automobiles, though it did have a quaint, old-fashioned air with its field-stone houses with small windows and steeply gabled roofs. The taxi purred up a winding street towards an academic-looking group of buildings.

	"The University of Greenland," said Malling. "The laboratory is this building separate from the rest. You understand, I suppose, that the parachron is a secret yet; you must not talk about it to anybody except those like Doctor Bruun who know already."

	"If it's so important, wouldn't the news leak out?"

	Malling shrugged. "Plenty of rumors is floating about, but so long as nobody knows exactly, no harm is doing."

	Malling showed his identification to the uniformed cop at the front door of the laboratory building. Inside, they waited in a small front office, where Malling exchanged chaff in Danish with a girl secretary. Presently two men entered: Karl Bruun and an older man with a white goatee introduced as Viggo Bruun. Both Bruuns had their sleeves rolled up and were dirty from tinkering; they wiped their hands on pieces of waste and shook hands.

	Godwin said, "The gumdrops were superb."

	"Good," said the elder Bruun. "You wish to see the parachron, do you not?"

	He led the way through featureless concrete halls to an automatic elevator where another policeman stood guard. On the second floor of the building he led them from the elevator to a. large room at whose door stood still another gendarme.

	"Why all the cops?" asked Godwin. "Even if this machine works—I mean, in spite of the fact that it works, I don't see why the secrecy."

	Bruun said, "It is Anker Gram's doing; he has all sorts of profound political plans connected with the parachron. Besides, he thinks some criminal might destroy the machine lest it be used to view his crimes in the past. This machine should eliminate crime and clear up a lot of mysteries like the Aarestrup fraud."

	The elder Bruun led them into a laboratory room littered with the usual clutter of wires, tubing, electric cables, glassware, stands, clamps, meters, old copies of technical magazines, and ash-trays made of discarded scientific apparatus. In the middle of the room, on a massive bench, stood the parachron, a thing somewhat like a television set without its cabinet, but much larger. Besides the viewing screen facing the door, the machine bore on top a gadget with a parabolic reflector, something like a small radar antenna.

	Viggo Bruun continued, "We think that is all foolishness. This is science; we should' take it around the world to solve the great historical problems, and not waste time in political maneuvers and tracking down petty pickpockets. "

	"If you had to track them down," said Otto Malling, "you would not take such a yolly attitude about them."

	"Perhaps not, my friend," said Bruun. "But if this works that way a lot of you fellows will be out of jobs, because a crew with a parachron can visit the scene of every crime and get all the evidence to convict right there."

	"If the lawyers don't have the machine outlawed, because it makes it too hard for their clients to make an honest living by robbery," said Malling.

-

	BRUUN turned back to Godwin. "Some day, maybe, we can take the parachron down between Latitudes Thirty and Forty North and really find out something about history; meanwhile Anker Gram says no, and he is the boss."

	"You mean," said Godwin, "you gotta lug the machine around to the places where the things actually happened? You can't just sit here in Greenland and twiddle knobs and see the Battle of Waterloo?"

	"That is right; you cannot. Actually, the magneto-gravitic matrix precesses about three degrees to the West per century, so the impressions of the Battle of Waterloo would be—let me see—" (he glanced at a wall map) "—about where the southwest tip of England is now." Bruun sighed, a far-away look in his eyes. "If I can only live long enough to get it down to the latitude of Alexandria and photograph the lost books in the Library ..."

	"How ja get the pix Grain says prove I'm descended from that King Harold?"

	"We flew the parachron in one of the whaling helicopters down to the middle of the Atlantic, between fifty and fifty-five North, and fifty and fifty-five West. The whole life-history of King Harold and his immediate descendants is there. It is quite a job, because if you start shooting on a stormy day the wind makes the helicopter—how would you say—wobble about, so the pictures wobble too."

	"Look, Dr. Bruun. I'm no scientist, just a dumb actor, but I know a little about probability, and it sure doesn't stack up that I should be the guy to get—uh—involved with the Princess Karen, and at the same time to be the eldest whatsit descendant of this old king. That's too much like drawing two pat royal flushes in a row."

	Bruun smiled faintly. "You cannot argue with facts, my friend. Would you like to see the parachron in operation?"

	'You bet!"

	Bruun turned to the machine. "Karl, put the quintode tube back in. You see, Mr. Godwin, you can't see much right here, except the neighborhood of Bergen about the year 420 A.D., or the Oslo region about 320. And they are not very impressive."

	Karl Bruun replaced the tube that had been taken out of the machine, the windows became opaque and the room dark except for the faint glow of vacuum-tubes inside the jungle of rods and wires and condensers. Viggo Bruun twirled knobs until a ghostly light appeared on the viewing screen; then a blizzard of flickers and. flashes like a television set out of tune.

	The image cleared. Godwin found himself looking at a rugged landscape with a body of water in the distance.

	"Bergen Fjord," said the elder Bruun.

	As the scientist turned more knobs, the antenna on top revolved, and the image on the screen swept around, in a panorama. The image was black-and white, surprising to Godwin who had been brought up on color in photography, cinematography, and television.

	Bruun said: "We are about the tenth of June, 421 A.D. As I remember, there is a man who goes close by here ..." The image jerked as he made an adjustment, "'There he is! Take a good look."

-

	A MAN WAS walking across the view. Though Godwin could not judge his size well without familiar objects to compare him with, he got the impression of a short man. He was dark and shaggy, clad in rough woolens: a kind of kilt wrapped around him under the armpits and reaching to his knees and a shawl over his shoulders. He bore a bag on his back and gripped a staff in his free hand. As Godwin watched, the man passed out of sight.

	"Very few people in Norway and Sweden at that time," said Bruun. "You have to hunt hard to find one. Mostly they were a miserable lot of Lapp-like folk living along the shores and digging clams. The big migration of Nordics from Jutland had not yet started."

	"How far back can you go? To the age of the dinosaurs?"

	"Oh, my, no! In the theory you can go back twelve thousand years, the time required for the matrix to precess clear around the earth. In practice the image gets fuzzy when you try to go back more than five thousand. There is one nice view a little older than that ..."

	The scene shifted, and Godwin was looking at a huge herd of bison drifting through snow-covered woodland.

	"That is near modern Upsala," said Bruun. "If we go on back and eastward all we see is Russian and Siberian forest—hundreds of years and thousands of miles of it."

	Godwin asked, "How about those movies of my ancestors? Got any here?"

	"Yes."

	Viggo Bruun spoke in Danish to his son. The parachron was switched off. There were clicks and whirrings in the dark, and a motion-picture image sprang into life on one concrete wall.

	"This," said Viggo Bruun, "is the first reel of the Harold of Wessex series. That is King Harold marrying Aldyth. It wobbles a little because of the wind the day we photographed it."

	The scene—black-and-white like the direct view, and badly lighted— showed a man and woman in early-medieval costume standing before a man in ecclesiastical garb. The first man was a tall, broad-shouldered clean-shaven fellow with a crown on his square-cut blond hair.

	"Those are Earls Edwin and Morcar, who made all the trouble," said Bruun. "The little fellow at the right of the scene ..."

	"Say," said Godwin, "that Harold guy looked all right; he'd have made a good actor."

	"Quite a heroic character, but you ought to see the other Harold he fought against, King Harold Sigurdson of Norway. There was a legendary character in real life! Now the wedding is over and they are going in to the wedding-feast ..."

	As the film ground on, Godwin remarked: "It just occurs to me this'll put the costume-movie out of business. You could dub in the sound. Who'll pay to see an actor playing Lincoln when he can see Lincoln himself?... Say, this damn thing doesn't give a guy any privacy at all!"

	"That is right. With the parachron you can really find out who is descended from whom." After a further pause Bruun said, "Here are a few sequences of the Battle of Hastings, to give continuity."

	Looking at the confused and dust-obscured scene, Godwin said, "We could put on a better battle in Hollywood. Look at those extras just standing around! Half of 'em aren't earning their pay."

	"Let me remind you that this is the real thing, my friend."

	"Well, then your King Harold needed a good director. Maybe the costume-movie has a future after all, if this is what the real thing looks like. But I'll say one thing: the censors wouldn't let us show guys' guts and gore spilled all over the place tha way this does. Oh-oh, there's your King Harold all haggled up!"

	"He is dead. Now," said Bruun, "we come to the birth of Harold Haroldson ..."

	It occurred to Godwin that now was the time to secrete the chocolate-bar in the parachron. But he could not do it, even if he could get away with it. Though he was not a scientist, the thought of destroying a valuable scientific discovery, the life-work of this nice old bird Bruun, was repugnant to him. He would even rather marry Karen.

	The reel came to its end. Bruun threw the switch that let daylight into the room again, saying, "We have all the rest, showing the birth of Harold Haroldson's eldest son Stigand Haroldson, and his eldest son Godwin Stigandson, and so on. We can establish that the senior branch is the Godwin family of York and follow them down to the nineteenth century when birth-records became general and genealogists preserved the pedigree of your family. Shall we have lunch now?"

-

	GODWIN was surprised at the speed with which time had flown. After lunch the Bruuns excused themselves and Godwin asked Malling, "What do we do now?"

	"Whatever you like, so long as I get you to the palace by seventeen hundred. You must be there in time for the bethrothal banquet tonight."

	"The what?"

	"Has nobody told you? The king is giving a party, your engashment to Princess Karen to announce; all the bigwigs will be there."

	"Well, how about, visiting that oyster-bug or whatever you called it?"

	"The Oster-Bygt? Sure, we got time enough." Malling gave directions to the taxi-driver, who drove them out of Julianehaab along a narrow winding road.

	Godwin wished people would leave him alone long enough to think. Despite the assurances of the Bruuns, he was still not convinced that the British throne was kosher; those movies could have been faked.

	Then he realized that he still carried the so-called chocolate-bar in his pants pocket. If the thing were a time-bomb, it might go off any minute and splatter him and Malling all over southern Greenland.

	"What makes you so pale?" said

	Malling solicitously. "Are you not feeling good?"

	"I—I'm all right, thanks," said Godwin, tensing his jaws to keep his teeth from chattering.

	He would have to get rid of the thing, but in an inconspicuous manner, and in such wise that when and if it did go off it would not kill anybody. It wouldn't do to throw it out of the cab ...

	They reached the Oster-Bygt and got out to look at a singularly unimpressive group of ruins: a little clump of what once had been houses of raw fieldstone, unmortared, of which now only a few stretches of thick wall remained. Wire fences surrounded them and a policeman paced back and forth.

	"The settlement of the great Eric Thorvaldson," said Malling reverently. "We keep the cop there to stop American tourists from carrying the houses away as souvenirs, stone by stone."

	"Let's walk down to the shore," said Godwin.

-

	THEY CLIMBED ever the rocks, hampered by being handcuffed together. When they came near the sluggish sea Godwin threw the chocolate-bar as far as he could.

	At Malling's questioning look he said: "That was a piece of candy in that bag von Wittelsbach left with me; I figured it might have been poisoned too."

	"You should not have thrown it away! We needed it to examine!"

	"Too late now; let's go back."

	As the taxi purred off on the road back towards Julianehaab, a terrific roar split, the air behind them. The shock made the little automobile quiver, and the air was filled with the cries of startled gulls. Craning his neck, Godwin saw a tall geyser of water settling back into the sea a few meters off-shore.

	Malling ordered the taxi-driver to turn around again and return to the parking-lot at the Oster-Bygt. He hurried down to the shore, where the uniformed policeman was already standing, looking out to the sea. There was nothing to be seen. At last Malling returned to the cab, saying, "Maybe, Mr. Godwin, it is just as well you threw that thing away when you did!"

	"Why don't you pinch Werner von Wittelsbach before he poisons or blows up somebody else?"

	Malling looked unhappy. "I should like to. But it is not easy without very good proof, and we do not know that the candy-bar was what exploded. That young man is a—how do you say—protégé of Thor Thomsen, who works closely with Herre Gram ... So you see ..." The detectives spread his hands helplessly.

-

Chapter 5

	AT THE GATES of the palace stood a pair of troopers of Greenland's microscopic armed force, wearing parade uniforms, topped by conical, cossack-style lambskin hats. When Malling identified himself and his fellow-passenger they snapped to present-arms with a click and a clank that made Godwin wince.

	"You will get used to it," said Malling.

	The taxi drove around a winding driveway between scrubbv dwarf trees and stopped in front of a big field-stone house similar (except in size) to the other residences of Julianehaab.

	"The palace," said Malling, getting Out and paying the taxi-driver. "Oh, here comes the king!"

	Godwin looked around at the crunch of tires on gravel. Three men were approaching on bicycles. The one in front, in civilian tweeds, was a man about Godwin's stature with a fringe of graying red hair around his nude scalp. He looked stocky and powerful, and the resemblance to his daughter was obvious. Behind him pedalled two more soldiers in black kalpaks, each with a drawn saber held against his right shoulder.

	Malling came to-attention and took off his hat, saying; "God Dag, Herlighed!"

	The leading cyclist braked to a stop and got off, saying; "God Dag, Malling," and then to Godwin, "So this is my future son-in-law, eh?" He wrung Godwin's hand in a bone-crushing grip. "Come inside."

	King Edvard III led the way to the front door and bellowed, "Ingeborg!"

	When a woman appeared, the king exchanged words with her in Danish, then said to Godwin, "Your room is not quite ready yet. Come into my sitting-room."

	Then he conversed briefly with Malling, who finally unfastened the hand-grip of Godwin's fetter from his hand and remained outside while the king led Godwin into a room and closed the door.

	"He was afraid to leave you alone with me," said King Edvard. "As if I needed protection from you! Ha!"

	"What ja mean, your Majesty?"

	The king stuck out his jaw and thrust his face close to Godwin's, his blue eyes narrowed to slits. "I mean if it weren't for Gram's fordoemme banquet tonight, I'd tie you into knots and stamp the remains into the floor, young swine!"

	The king reached out and tweaked Godwin's nose between his powerful fingers.

	"Ouch!" said Godwin.

	"That's just a taste. Lucky for you, I can't afford to have you turn up at the banquet with a pair of black eyes and a few broken teeth."

	Godwin's temper rose in its turn. "Look here, pop, I don't care who you are; you can't push me around! If you wanna fight, I know something about that too. An actor has to learn—"

	"Actor! To make it worse, he had to be an actor!"

	"What's the matter with being an actor? I didn't ask you to kidnap me up to the end of nowhere and marry me to your daughter!"

	"And who asked you to seduce my poor innocent darling and drag the honor of the royal house in the mud?"

	"I never did!"

	"But those photographs—"

	"That was just a joke—"

	"Yust a yoke!" roared the king, his speech more Danish under stress. "I'll show you vat is a yoke—"

	"I can prove it! Damn it, let me talk for a change! You can take your parachron to California and set it up on the beach, and see exactly what happened! And if I didn't leave her as pure as I found her, I'll not only marry the dame; I'll eat your second-best crown, jewels and all."

	"So?" .said the king. "That's an ill wind of another color. If we could take the parachron to California ... But Gram would never consent."

	"Why not?"

	"It suits his purposes to marry you to Karen, and this gives a fine excuse. He can always say that since the rumors about, those photographs have got out among the people, nobody would believe our denials even if the machine proved otherwise." The king lit a knobby pipe and blew great clouds of smoke.

	"Is Gram a kind of dictator in Greenland?"

-

	EDVARD lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level. "For practical purposes, yes. He is in a strong political position and controls the police and the guards, so the rest of us must jump to his bidding. If I could get away with it I'd—hew do you say it—hop the coop too."

	"You mean quit?"

	"Absolutely. This monarchism is a lot of nonsense; an archaistic revival based on a temporary emotional aberration among the world's peoples. Maybe after you're safely—ah—hooked I can persuade Anker Gram to let me abdicate, and you and Karen can handle the headaches. I have no more use for Greenland now that my wife is dead. Maybe I'll settle in your California, where it's at least warm."

	Godwin lit a cigarette and said: "If you fly the coop you oughta take me along."

	"Why? You caused this trouble, even if you only meant it as a joke."

	"No reason. But—I don't suppose you can bribe a king, can you?"

	"Not this king; I've made arrangements to be assured of an adequate income no matter where I live."

	"How about a screen test?"

	"A screen—you mean you could get me in the movies? Yes?" A light of eagerness showed in the king's eyes.

	"I don't say I can get you a good part, but I can give you a start. I got some little influence."

	"Now you are speaking. You promise to get me into the movies, I'll promise to try to help you escape ... If you can prove what you said, about you and Karen."

	"I can't do that until we're in California."

	"I understand; we have to trust each other a little. We shall have to try to make it in one foul swoop—you and me and the Bruuns and their machine all together. Karen, too, if she wants to come. But don't fool yourself; getting away from Anker Gram won't be so easy as falling off a tree."

	There was a knock on the door, and Ingeborg announced that Mr. Godwin's room was ready. In the hall Detective Malling waited to take up his old duty. He looked relieved that nothing had happened either to the king or to his charge.

-

	IN THE suite turned over to the future prince-consort, Godwin found a valet, one Syv, waiting to serve him. Syv had laid out a gaudy costume of the sort that Godwin would have associated with historical movies; a garb similar to a diplomatic uniform, with a high-necked coat covered with gold lace in front. "Do I wear that?" he said.

	"Yes, sir," said Syv.

	By the time Godwin was regally clad, sounds without indicated that the festivities were imminent, though the sub-Arctic summer day still had several hours to go. Godwin said; "By Goldwyn, I could use a drink about now!"

	"I vill get vun, sir," said Syv. "Vat vould you like?"

	"How about a double Martini? And get one for Otto too."

	Malling protested, but with little fire of conviction, and when Syv came back he let himself be persuaded to drink. Half an hour later Godwin was regaling his hearers with reminiscences, "...so the director says: 'Are you a stunt man or aren't you?' and the stunt man, he says: 'If you wanna wrassle that there octopus, you get in that there tank and wrassle him. I got a family.' So the director turns to me and says—what is it?"

	It was Ingeborg with a message that his Majesty and her Highness were awaiting Mr. Godwin to accompany them in to dinner.

	Feeling no pain, Claude Godwin, accompanied by a slightly weaving Malling, rose to leave. Godwin murmured; "Pull yourself together, Otto. They'd never believe you could control me if they saw you stagger."

	The ill-matched pair made a reasonably smooth progress to a reception-room where they found the king and the princess milling around with early arrivals. Godwin, remembering his costume-pictures, half expected a liveried trumpeter at the door to blow a flourish and announce his name, but no such thing happened. The Greenlanders, even if they kept a king, were somewhat stingy with their pomp. Malling whispered; "Hold your left hand close to my right, Mr. Godvin, so the handcuff von't show."

	"Hell with that," said Godwin. "If they're such dopes as to throw an engagement party they gotta drag the groom to with bracelets, damned if I'll help 'em out."

	Godwin was introduced to various people, but as most of the talk was in Danish he could only give them glassy smiles of polite incomprehension. A servitor passed him with a tray of glasses containing a pale liquid that Godwin took for more Martinis. His first sip however showed that he had got hold of something stronger.

	"Aqvavit," said Malling.

	Karen was saying; "Father, how shall Mr. Godwin take me in to dinner with Mr. Malling attached to him?"

	Godwin suggested: "The king could take Malling in, and I could follow right behind with you,"

	"Nonsense," said Edvard. "I shall take my daughter in, and since you're joined to Malling you can take him."

	Karen said; "Has not this foolishness gone far enough? I am sure we could trust Mr. Godwin not to dive through the window if he were freed."

	The king shrugged. "No doubt, but he won't agree." He nodded towards where Anker Gram was talking to the British Minister Plenipotentiary. "By the way, I don't think you know Thor Thomsen, our leading industrialist."

	Godwin saw that Thor Thomsen was old and potbellied with a jowly bulldog face. The Stuart Pretender glowered gloomily over the industrialist's shoulder.

	"I have had that—ah—pleasure," said Werner von Wittelsbach.

	As Godwin finished his drink it occurred to him that his unknown ill-wisher might have poisoned it, but he was too well lubricated by now to care. When dinner was announced he trailed docilely in behind the king and Karen, Malling shambling beside him.

-

	AN HOUR later, Godwin had tucked away the last of the banquet and sniffed suspiciously at a glass of yellowish liquid set before him.

	"Svedish punch," explained. Malling. "Used for breading." 

	"For what?"

	"Breading. You know, ven we say 'skeal'."

	"Oh, toasting." Godwin tried some and found it good though sweetish. Malling had already drunk half of his.

	The chatter died as Gram finished his coffee and rose. He made a speech ending in "Skaal!" which Godwin took for a toast to the king. Godwin watched those around him and went through the same ritual motions. Gram made another speech with a "Skaal!" to Karen Hauch. When he did the same thing once more Godwin started to rise for the third time, but a jerk on his handcuff brought him down again. Malling hissed. "Sit down, stupid! That vas to you!"

	"How should I know? He knows I don't understand Danish."

	"Den you better learn, but fast."

	Gram, ignoring Godwin's gaffe, went ahead to make another speech introducing somebody, who in his turn made a speech. Not being able to understand what was said gave Godwin an uncomfortable feeling of having been struck deaf, though he tried to laugh when the others did.

	Two hours, five speeches, and uncounted Swedish punches later the banquet broke up. Godwin awakened Malling by jerking the handcuff, and together they wandered into the ballroom, where the king had started the record-player and was dancing with Thomsen's wife, a middle-aged dame with a battleship jaw. Through the broad windows on the north side the long Greenland sunset blazed in purple and gold. Godwin spotted Karen Hauch and dragged the now alarmingly unsteady Malling over to her, saying; "Miss Hauch, I hope some day when I'm not hitched to old Otto I can ask you for a dance."

	"It is too bad," she replied. "If Mr. Malling could find a partner we could make a foursome of it ..."

	"You mean like a square-dance, the kind I danced in Blood in the Ozarks? But it would take awful good shink —synchronization, and I don't think the guy's up to it. Matter of fact I'm not either."

	Then Karen went spinning away in the arms of Werner von Wittelsbach, who gleamed triumphantly over her shoulder at Godwin. Maybe, the latter thought, the German had cherished hopes of not only acceding to the British throne, but also of becoming Karen's consort.

	"Mr. Godwin." It was Sir Keith Lampson-Hart, the British minister.

	"Yesh?"

	"What's this rumor about your putting in a bid for the British crown, on some silly dynastic pretext?"

	"Better ask Gram or the king," said Godwin. "They cooked it up, not me." He hiccupped.

	"I just thought I'd say," said the diplomat, "that the British crown is conferred by the British people, you know. They make the rules of legitimacy and any time they don't like the result they can change them, you know."

	"Thanks for the advice, Sir Keith." Godwin turned to Malling. "Otto, let's get outa here! If I don't get a breath of fresh air I'll pass out in front of all the bigshots of Greenland!"

	He dragged the wordlessly goggling Malling through a door. Not knowing the layout of the mansion and being the worse for wear, it took him some time to find an exit ...

-

	HE FOUND himself, not quite knowing how he had come there, leaning against the fieldstone wall on the west side of the house. He was standing on moss-covered ground dotted with waist-high dwarf willows and birches. Beside him, Malling had folded into a sitting position with his back to the house, his prominent blue eyes picking up highlights from the sun set.

	Godwin drew in long breaths of the cool air and felt his vision clear somewhat, though a headache threatened to take the place of his former anesthesia. He did not know how long he stood there gazing at the sunset. In more equatorial latitudes the phenomenon would have ended long since, but in Greenland it lasted from twenty-one hundred to midnight and was immediately followed by a sunrise of equal leisureliness.

	"Hey, you!" said a voice.

	Godwin turned. Werner von Wittelsbach stood before him with a couple of elongated objects cradled in his arms.

	"I have been looking all over for you," said the Stuart Pretender. "I thought you had run away; now, you degenerate American mongrel, we shall see who files a claim to the British throne!"

	"Pardon me if I'm thick, old boy," said Godwin, "but what the hell are you talking about?"

	"We will fight it out, pig-dog!"

	"How the hell can I fight with Malling tied to me?"

	"We shall not fight in the barbarous American fashion, with fists, but in the cultured German manner. Take one!"

	"One what?"

	Von Wittelsbach thrust the large ends of the objects into Godwin's face. Godwin saw that they were the hilts of a pair of swords. Hardly knowing what he did he took one and waggled it for balance, saying: "Are you kidding?"

	"On the contrary, I am most serious! Only a light-minded American would joke about the duties and honors of kingship-."

	"Don't be a sap. I don't want the damned kingdom; I got a career and plenty of dough already. If you wanna be king, go ahead; I'm not stopping you."

	"A coward, eh? Then I shall have the pleasure of beating your backside raw with the flat. Bend over." Von Wittelsbach's voice was thick with the effects of alcohol.

	"Look here," said Godwin, "I said I wasn't interested in fighting, but I won't let you push me around. I suppose you think I don't know how to handle these silly stickers, huh? You didn't see me do Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet a coupla years ago, didja?"

	"Bend over, swine!" yelled von Wittelsbach, and be took a wild swipe at Godwin.

	Godwin parried more by reflex than by intention and instantly found himself engaged. He discovered that he was holding, not a foil, epee, or other familiar hand-weapon, but a German Schlaeger with a big basket hilt, a long straight narrow blade, and no point but a razor-sharp edge. The purpose of the implement was not to kill an antagonist, or even to pretend to do so, but to inflict cuts on his scalp and face which would later result in a prized set of scars, and also give him a chance to show his Aryan mettle by continuing the fight without flinching even when his head was a mass of gore.

	If he had been less befuddled, Godwin would perhaps have devised a way out of his predicament. After all the weapon was unfamiliar to him and the Stuart Pretender had an advantage of height and reach. Godwin could not run with the half-corn arose Malling chained to him, and he never thought of yelling for help. While he could fence well enough for cinematographic purposes, he had never expected to have to fight a real duel for blood— handicapped, moreover, by having a drunken detective chained to his wrist!

-

Chapter 6

	WERNER von Wittelsbach, left arm behind his back, advanced upon Claude Godwin with wide-spread legs, swinging his Schlaeger at Godwin's head as if he were cutting sugar-cane. Godwin, who had learned saber-fencing for the part of the noble Confederate officer in The Last Plantation, had no trouble in parrying, especially as von Wittelsbach was almost as drunk as he. But crude as the methods of Schlaeger fencing seemed, Godwin realized that his opponent would wear him down in time by superior strength of arm and wrist.

	Godwin threw back a few strokes without effect and tried to use footwork, but was hampered by Malling. As he dragged at Malling's arm, the detective, aroused by the clang of blades, lurched to his feet.

	"Hey!" cried Malling "Nej, i Gronland bliver ... In Greenland is dat forbidden! Stop, at vunce!"

	Otto Malling staggered forward, his hands groping the air, just as von Wittelsbach aimed a terrific cut at Godwin. Malling thrust his head in the way so that the long blade came down upon his skull with a short dull sound. He fell to hands and knees, blood running from a two-inch gash in his scalp, and collapsed on the moss.

	As he did so, Godwin decided that this medieval farce had gone far enough. He stepped forward and kicked von Wittelsbach in his most vulnerable parts. As the German doubled over, Godwin brought the pommel of his Schlaeger down on his head. Werner von Wittelsbach fell across the body of the detective.

	Godwin stuck the point of his saber into the ground so that the blade remained upright and bent to examine the recumbent forms. Both were alive if unconscious, and Malling's wound did not appear serious. Then Godwin examined the hand-grip of the handcuff which Malling still held.

	Malling's right hand was secured to the grip by a shaped guard that passed over his knuckles. This guard was hinged at one end and latched at the other, and fitted the back of Malling's hand so closely that while it was in place there was no chance of his losing his grip accidentally. However, the latch that held the guard in the closed position was not locked, and a little manipulation enabled Godwin to open it and remove the grip from Malling's hand.

	He had got this far when a suppressed feminine cry made him whirl. There stood Karen Hauch and Karl Bruun. The latter exclaimed, "What is this? Are they dead?"

	"No." Godwin explained.

	Karl Bruun said, "So you are free? Good! You wish to come with us, do you not?"

	"Where to?"

	"My father and I are making a break for freedom, together with Karen and the king. We heard the swords and came to see ..."

	"Say no more; lead on!"

	Karl Bruun led the way along the winding paths until he was almost out of sight of the palace. They approached a large helicopter. When they reached the machine Godwin saw that half the capacious cabin was taken up by the parachron. He said, "Taking the gadget?"

	"Yes. My father has always wished—where is he?"

	Karl Bruun began hunting around, but no trace of the Elder Bruun did he find.

	. "Bevare!" he said. "I told him not to be wandering off—"

	They stood uncertainly for a few minutes. Bruun said, "I do not dare go off to hunt, because then if he returned I should be missing. As I was saying, we hope to get the machine to a country where we shall be allowed to use it for scientifical purposes and not this absurd dynastic business ... I hope he gets back before the police discover Malling and Wittelsbach, or learn that we took the parachron off the roof of the laboratory building."

	"This the machine you herd whales in?"

	"Yes. We shall not be allowed to keep it, but if it can get us to Canada that is all we ask. Ah, here he is!"

	Viggo Bruun appeared, snapped: "Jag fand ham ikke; nu skal vi gaa," and boosted Karen Hauch into the helicopter.

-

	UNCOUNTED hours later Claude Godwin yawned himself awake.

	Despite the excitement of escape he had fallen asleep almost as soon as they had taken off. Now he looked around, stiff from sleeping sitting and overhung from strong drink. The sun was up, but that meant little in these latitudes. His watch told him that he had been asleep something over ten hours; in fact it was about time for breakfast.

	Karen was sitting by Viggo Bruun, who twiddled the dials of the radar set while Karl Bruun piloted. They were all talking Danish, but switched to English when they became aware that Godwin was awake.

	Viggo Bruun said: "That should be the Naskaupi River ahead. I hope, Karl, that your inspiration of cutting inland will not land us in prison for breaking the Canadian flying-regulations."

	"If we had gone straight for Gander anybody who followed us could have picked us up," said Karl Bruun.

	"Speaking of which, here is a pip! Somebody is behind us," said Viggo Bruun.

	In a matter of minutes Godwin, peering past the parachron through one of the rear windows, saw a speck against the piled clouds. The speck swiftly grew to an airplane which swelled and flashed by overhead with an explosive shriek and roar, and dwindled to a speck again as It banked for a long turn.

	"Thomsen's machine!" cried Karl Bruun.

	"That would be Wittelsbach piloting," said the elder Bruun. "Here he comes again."

	The airplane, having slowed to a mere 200 k. p. h., came back. Again it skimmed overhead, barely missing the helicopter. Godwin, forgetting his aching head, flinched as it passed.

	The Bruuns were excitedly talking Danish again. Karen Hauch said, "He wishes us to alight. See, he is putting down his wheels to break our rotors if we do not."

	The helicopter sank towards the bleak Labrador landscape, where the coastal tundra began to give place to forest. As the country was mostly open at this point there was no trouble in finding a landing-place. They had hardly touched their wheels to the moss when the airplane (a sportsman's version of a fast single-jet police craft, without armament) alighted too, its flaps and slots extended, and taxied up beside the helicopter. The canopy flew open and von Wittelsbach and Thomsen scrambled out. The former ran over to the helicopter, waving a pistol.

	"Get out!" he shouted. "Keep the bands up!"

-

	WHEN THE four people in the helicopter had complied, Thomsen waddled past them with a hatchet in his hand. He climbed into the helicopter, whence presently came smashing sounds.

	"Hey!" cried Godwin. "He's busting up the parachron!"

	Von Wittelsbach said nothing but swung his gun to cover Godwin, who glanced around, expecting to see signs of strong emotion on the faces of the Bruuns. Instead they took the destruction of their life's work impassively.

	"What's this all about?" said Godwin.

	Viggo Bruun said: "It is all right; there are complete plans—"

	"Were," said von Wittelsbach. "We got them out of Gram's private safe-deposit box and burned them. Now shut up."

	A mosquito sank its probe into Godwin's cheek, but he did not dare slap it for fear von Wittelsbach might mistake the move and shoot. The smashing sounds ceased and Thor Thomsen climbed out of the helicopter, saying, "God. Skylte dem op."

	The sentence sounded enough like "Good; shoot them up," so that Godwin guessed the meaning, a guess confirmed when von Wittelsbach raised the pistol and aimed at Viggo Bruun.

	"Hey!" yelled Godwin. "Thomsen! You can't trust that creep; he tried to poison me when you only wanted him to take a message—"

	There was a metallic sound behind him, followed by the roar of a shot. Godwin, craning his neck, saw that the door of the luggage compartment of the helicopter, below the passenger compartment, was hanging open, and that on hands and knees in the cavity with a pistol in his hand crouched Edward III, King of Greenland. When Godwin turned back, von Wittelsbach lay supine with a huge hole in his chest through which fragments of bone and lung could be distinguished amidst the general gore. Thomsen was slowly raising his hands.

	"Well, well," said the king. "So they were right when they said you had hired the man who killed that witness in the case of the Aarestrup fraud! And fearing lest the Bruuns with their machine should track down the whole story, you chased us to destroy the parachron and all the witnesses. What a bloodthirsty little man!"

	Though he did not know about the Aarestrup fraud, Godwin followed the general drift of the accusation. He said, "Say, your Majesty, isn't it too bad you couldn't have shot him before Thomsen busted the machine? Now it's gone for good ..."

	"Not quite," said Viggo Bruun. "I feared some such attempt, so I made a duplicate set of plans, addressed them to the British Government, and had Karl drop them on the deck of a British ship on one of his whale-herding flights."

	"Oh," said King Edvard. "Then all is not lost. When I got to the helicopter I found nobody—Dr. Bruun must have gone off to search for me—so I hid in that compartment lest the police find me."

	"It is better than that," said Viggo Bruun. "Sir Keith passed on a confidential message to me that the British had built a machine and tried it out. The first thing they discovered was that Harold Haroldson had no legitimate heirs, though plenty of the other kind. The picture Gram was using to advance Mr. Godwin's claim was partly a fake, using modern actors dressed up like eleventh century Anglo-Saxons. I knew that all along, but did not dare say so. They also found that legitimacy is no good, anyway, because every few generations you find that the putative heir to the throne is not the son of the king, but of some lover of the queen. So all that foolishness will soon be ended."

-

	A MONTH later, having testified in the Canadian court that sentenced Thor Thomsen, Claude Godwin returned to Hollywood. Despite frantic long-distance conferences the studio had not been able to hold off on the shooting of Scaramouche, but had gone ahead with Ricardo Pergolesi in the title-role. However, as Godwin's contract had four months to run, they gave him the lead in Carson of Venus, Only, as the real Venus had been visited and found not to resemble that imagined by Burroughs in any particular, the setting of the story had been moved to a suppositious planet of Procyon and the title changed to Swords Across the Void. The studio had also found the Burroughs plot too corny for their purposes and had entirely re-written it until nothing was left of the original—not even the names of the characters.

	Godwin sat in his bungalow telling his adventures to his friend Westbrook Wolff: "...and now Viggo Bruun is at Cal Tech finishing a new parachron, and he's promised me a job as technician when my contract runs out. I may never be a real scientist, but I can twiddle knobs and hold a soldering-iron ..."

	"How about our red-haired sun-bather?"

	"Back at U. C. C; her old man took a house in Glendale, and thinks I'm Santa Claus because I got him a bit-part in The Spider of Moscow. Anker Gram stood on his head trying to get us all back to Greenland so he wouldn't have to pay me damages for kidnapping me, but they wouldn't go. That reminds me—-" Godwin picked up the telephone and dialed. "Karen? Claude. Ja like to see the premiere of Amazon Gold tomorrow night?... Okay, I'll pick you up at twenty-hundred. See ya."

	As Godwin hung up, Wolff looked at him with an amused expression, saying, "Don't tell me that after all the fighting and running you did to avoid marrying the dame you're going to do it anyway!"

	"Not at all. I am dating Miss Hauch in the normal manner, and if on further acquaintance we decide we're made for each other and etcetera, who knows? Or again we may not. But nobody's gonna pressure us into it!"

The End