Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds (27 page)

A fourth choice was also available. Gillies were feeding some game into a large machine that had been airlifted out from Frostpile as a conspicuous show of hospitality, wealth, and power.

"Taxidermic robot," Alacrity commented as they unbuckled and dismounted to await the fun. "Rich people's toy." Dead wildlife was fed into it at one end, to be processed by the most rapid, modern computerized systems available, emerging a short while later, stuffed and mounted, at the other end.

Floyt looked around. No one seemed to have taken much notice of their arrival. Gillies and servitors were moving back and forth, attending to their tasks; a few hunters were scattered about, swapping lies.

No other tracking animals were nearby, though Alacrity suspected that all the dead game in the area would confuse anything but the determined Gresham's beast anyhow.

"Shouldn't we claim the woodsprite now, Alacrity?"

"Don't you want to see Dincrist's face when we pull that whatsit out of the cargo boot?"

"But when Dincrist gets close to camp, he'll know something's up. He might even give up the chase."

Floyt couldn't see any sign of an approaching horseman.

"Without finding out what's going on here? Not a chance." Alacrity was looking around, on the off chance that the Nonpareil was at Redlock's camp, but she was nowhere to be seen.

So they leaned casually on the skimmer, Floyt whistling nervously, the breakabout humming a half-remembered tune, until Dincrist, the only hunter left in the chase, pounded into sight on a horse ready to drop. His Gresham's beast preceded him, confronting the Terran and the breakabout with a slavering snarl.

Dincrist dismounted, and the two companions had trouble deciding which was frothing worst: man, horse, or tracking animal. "Fitzhugh, I'll have you dismembered for this! What have you done?"

"We gave you a little riding lesson, is all," Alacrity replied airily. Floyt, remembering the senseless slaughter of the magnificent flyer, laughed spitefully.

Furious beyond words, Dincrist reacted more violently than they'd foreseen, and the entourage members and subordinates who would ordinarily have restrained him weren't around to intervene. He lunged at the breakabout, swinging his nerve-fire riding crop. The sting-crop hummed wickedly; its lash cut Alacrity's cheek. The younger man froze in shock for a moment.

Floyt yelped and moved to separate them or something; he wasn't sure what. The peacemaking didn't get far. The Gresham's beast drove him away from its master by baring rank upon rank of tine-teeth.

When he moved toward the skimmer and its guns, the thing tensed to leap; it smelled the woodsprite on him and knew he was an enemy. The only reason it hadn't savaged Floyt or Alacrity was that it hadn't been commanded to.

Meanwhile, Alacrity had made a few decisions of his own, the most important one being that he wasn't going to be hit again. He blocked the crop's second swing, meeting the edge of Dincrist's wrist with the back of his own. Their free hands locked. People were yelling in the background, but Alacrity couldn't take time to listen.

Dincrist, bearing down, was more concerned with the leverage of arms and torsos; Alacrity relaxed sinuously, sliding in as though he were boneless, and took the shipping magnate's legs out from under him in a quick foot-sweep.

But Dincrist, sportsman and athlete, was fast and strong, even discounting his age. He landed well and almost gave Alacrity a knee in the groin as the breakabout pounced on him. They rolled, battling wildly, back and forth over the field-tamped campground.

The Gresham's beast had driven Floyt back up against the bulk of the processor, where his clutching hand found a gillie's wooden staff. Floyt took it and whirled it out before him horizontally just as the creature sprang at his throat. Its jaws clamped on the thick staff, splintering the wood, and locked there.

Alacrity had the satisfaction of connecting solidly with Dincrist's mouth, knocking the carefully kept silver hair askew, seeing blood flow. The tanned gentility faded; Dincrist howled as he buffeted and struck at Alacrity with fist and crop, like a child in a tantrum. The opponents hammered at one another.

At the same time, the Gresham's beast, its forelegs clear of the ground, growled, yanked, and tugged Floyt this way and that. Floyt could only feel thankful in a horrified way that the beast's reflex was to hang on to the staff rather than release and try for a new hold. Still, he could barely keep his grip, and the thing was slowly biting the staff in two, its reeking, steamy breath making him gag.

Floyt's clumsy, intermittent kicks to the horror's underside seemed not to bother it in the least. If it disarmed him, it would certainly either maim him or turn on Alacrity to help its master. The staff began to splinter, and the Gresham's beast screamed, sensing victory.

Alacrity heard it just as he put the sole of his boot squarely into Dincrist's stomach. The older man's breath whooped from him, and he rolled away, groaning. The breakabout surged to his feet and tore Dincrist's crop away from him, twisting its control to maximum. He rammed it into the Gresham's beast's ribs just as it bit through the staff.

A charge of nerve-fire went through it, and the creature bounded aside in a paroxysm, away from the pain-directly into the feeding hopper of the taxidermic robot. Its long tail was held fast, for the moment, by the idling feeder mechanism, and scrabbling to free itself, it almost snapped Floyt's foot off in a near-miss.

The Earthman, with a feeling of surreal calm, slapped down the control bar.

"No!" Dincrist shouted from where he lay. But the machine sucked the Gresham's beast, its bulging, hate-filled eyes fixed on Floyt, out of sight and began making grisly sounds.

The shipping tycoon was on his feet, but Alacrity still had the crop, and others had run to find out what was going on, among them the two Severeemish envoys and an enraged Redlock. The governor saw that they were going to clash again. He stepped between them and, shorter than either by half a head and more, shoved them stumbling away from him in either direction. From the anger like a black hood above his eyes, it was apparent that he was in no mood to be provoked. Both opponents quieted.

"Ah, yes," Theater General Sortie-Wolf hissed unpleasantly. "The High Truce."

He couldn't be enjoying this more if you tickled him,
Floyt thought.

"This bacterium is responsible for breaking the Truce," Dincrist managed, calmer now, just as Admiral Maska arrived to see what was going on.

"I got hit first; I hit back," Alacrity spat. His conditioning was now twisting his gut, as was Floyt's; they realized their peril.

Just then the clatter of the taxidermic robot drew everyone's attention. Their eyes went to the delivery platform of the processor.

With the others distracted, Floyt backed to the surface skimmer, where the woodsprite still cowered in hiding. He had no intention of seeing it fed into the machine.

Out onto the delivery platform slid the Gresham's beast, beautifully stuffed and mounted, in a very realistic pose. Its hide was clean, its teeth sparkled, and its glassy eyes were filled with hatred.

"Well," Alacrity proclaimed loudly, "you've gotta admit the effect's really lifelike. He's gonna look great in the trophy room."

Only Redlock's presence saved him from another attempt on his life.

CHAPTER 14—SATISFACTION GUARANTEED

Dame Tiajo wasn't in the least amused.

Alacrity quickly lost his smile when the matter was taken before her, immediately upon the return to Frostpile. Floyt was quite frankly intimidated, belaboring himself,
How could we have gotten ourselves
into so much trouble in so short a time?

"Do you know what you've done, you foolish men?" The old woman's rouged face was quivering, her eyes searing them. Dincrist could no more meet her gaze than could Alacrity and Floyt.

Redlock stood near, having delivered an unbiased summation of what he knew of the incident. But the essential part, the question of who had provoked whom, and where the guilt lay, was still unclear.

Dorraine was present with her father, First Councillor Inst. Seven Wars and Sortie-Wolf were on hand, intent on seeing the Severeemish Usages observed to the letter. Admiral Maska was in attendance as well.

"You've broken the High Truce, that's what you've done, you foolish little men!" Tiajo added.

"I'm 197 centimeters," Alacrity muttered, studying the floor.

"Shut
up
!"
Floyt and Tiajo both bellowed at him at the same moment, shocking one another. Floyt turned deathly pale, eyes screwed shut. Inst and Redlock exchanged the smallest grin; Dorraine hid her smile.

"You may discount the height of you that extends above your ankles, Master Fitzhugh," the grandam continued, tight-lipped. "For that is where I shall cut you off." Alacrity swallowed. "Someone is going to pay for what happened this morning. Now, it all seems to revolve around who struck the first blow. That would seem to be you, Captain Dincrist."

"But … Dame Tiajo, these runagates interfered with my rightful pursuit of my prey. That is, my
party's
prey; we'd been chasing it for over an hour."

"And that is provocation under the Usages of the Hunt," Minister Seven Wars contributed. "The Earther and his escort are clearly implicated."

"Yes, so long as the woodsprite was sole prey," Sortie-Wolf added. "One cannot pursue more than one prey and have exclusive right of pursuit." He looked at the disputants slyly.

"But he
had
two!" Floyt burst out. "Captain Dincrist shot down this-this bird, flying creature. We saw it."

"I bet we'd have trouble getting his friends' testimony on that one, though," Alacrity put in, addressing Tiajo.

"Where is the creature in question, the woodsprite?" Tiajo inquired.

"It escaped," Floyt announced, deadpan. In truth, the woodsprite
had
raced for the tree line, all elbows, rear end, and sole pads-escaping.

"The bone of contention has departed, eh?" Tiajo eyed Floyt, evaluating him in a new light, choosing not to contest his story. "Then, what does all this matter? Mutual apologies seem in order."

"Alas, no, Dame Tiajo," Seven Wars intoned. "That would violate the Severeemish Usages. There has been an infraction against the High Truce. This cannot be tolerated." Alacrity, paling, thought,
War!

"But it's all so hopelessly muddled," Dorraine said. "Surely the Severeemish don't approve of punishing the innocent along with the guilty."

"Indeed. It is muddled beyond any solution save one," Seven Wars shot back. "A death duel will settle it."

Floyt felt a sudden need to sit down. Dorraine gasped. Inst exploded, "You can't be serious!" Maska watched without comment, and Dincrist's mouth was a silent O. Alacrity reflected that if the Severeemish weren't the ones who'd tried to eliminate Dincrist and/or himself in the buzzball tank, they were doing somebody an awfully big favor, whether they knew it or not.

"Absolutely not," Tiajo decreed. "The pitting of human beings against one another in that way was stopped when we threw down the Presidium. I will not permit it."

"You would accept our fealty and then mock our Observances?" Sortie-Wolf demanded hotly.

Redlock looked at Alacrity as if he'd taken just about enough. But before the governor could speak, First Councillor Inst intervened.

"Wait! I see an alternative under your own Usages."

They all turned to him. The mahogany face was regal and composed, the voice deep and precise.

"Your own histories speak of the Severeemish Lords Requiter and Paladin, who had a muddled dispute between them. If memory serves, the elders gave them permission to settle it with a contest short of a death duel."

Dorraine took her father's arm and kissed him. They all watched the two envoys expectantly.

"Ah, yes," Sortie-Wolf said, "but those circumstances were quite extraordinary."

"So are these."

"Are we to be bent to every little Severeemish dot and dash?" Tiajo thundered. "Here we have a compromise within your Usages. Or have you come here
looking
for war?"

"Requiter and Paladin sailed one-man barbaustoes in a race through Slaughter Strait," Sortie-Wolf snapped. "As dangerous as a duel. What will you have? More tank-hopping? More ball-hitting?
Pah!
"

Tension gave the chamber a lightning feel. Floyt, like everyone else, was thinking desperately. Then, what seemed like a marvelous solution lit up his brain.

"Airbikes
!" he shouted triumphantly.

"Do you guys realize how much money's riding on this race?" Sintilla was beside herself with excitement. "Spican bank notes, ovals, ducats, currency bangles—they're betting a fortune, everybody in Frostpile."

That stopped Alacrity. Maybe it would be more profitable to
throw
the … But his conditioning made him half dizzy at the unformed thought, because Dame Tiajo had vowed that, as executrix, she would penalize the airbike race's losers, by which she meant Floyt as well as the breakabout. The race would be run with two-man airbikes, at the insistence of the Severeemish, since Floyt was a part of the altercation.

And
that
meant that to lose was to jeopardize the inheritance that had brought them all the way from Terra. So Alacrity banished from his mind thoughts of anything except winning.

"Where's
your
cash riding, Tilla?" he snarled at her as he fit the sweatband down over his forehead.

"On you guys, of course. They're giving the most fantastic odds against you!"

"Will you quit being so damn happy about it?"

The roof that served as Frostpile's airbike hangar and takeoff station had become so crowded with bettors and other celebrants that Tiajo had been obliged to have it cleared, ordering all but a select few to remove themselves and find observation points elsewhere. Nearby roofs were filling up with laughing, shouting, drinking, boisterous people who were perfectly aware of the possibility of death or injury resulting from the race, and not in the least depressed about it.