I'
m sorry to cause you discomfort
, the giant
carved-from-granite words loomed in the foreground,
the tight beam was my only hope; I prayed your mind could
accommodate it. so far, so good. your companions are momentarily non compos
mentis, but they'll soon be all right, except perhaps for some residual loss of
the real/ unreal discriminatory faculty. now to matters of import:
With an effort,
Retief focused his attention on the giant stone words: Voice, it appeared, was
concentrating its phenomenal mind-to-mind faculty on a 'private-line' linkage.
He gathered his forces, and, using his own imitation of the alien being's
Voice,' interjected:
"tone down the gain. you're knocking my consciousness
off-line."
sorry
,
came
the prompt reply, now at a comfortable level.
frankly, I need your help. this boss person has disrupted my
paradigm. I have tried to accommodate his interference into my own halcyon
gestalt, but the incompatibility runs too deep. I sense in you a kindred
spirit—a link, I hope, between my world-view and that of your unfortunate but
undoubtedly potent kind. will you join me, experimentally, just for a moment?
"You'll
have to show me how," Retief said aloud.
don't mumble, please
, was the prompt response.
but you are willing to make the attempt, I gather.
now just lower that barrier there
...
an impalpable pointer
indicated a ghostly structure deep in Retief s subconscious. He made an effort
of will and felt the wall dissolve. At once, Worm's Voice came in more
intimately, now in a small concise elite typeface rather than megalithic form.
the only way to reject this intrusion into my primary postulate is
to find common ground between him and yourself, none existing linking me with
his deepest fantasies, which are of violence and vainglory, concepts wildly
alien to my own peaceful aspirations
,
the Voice expatiated,
hmm, i'll have to rummage a bit ...
Retief was aware
of a disturbing sensation somewhere behind his memory; bright flashes winked
and faded, then steadied. He looked down, saw the sturdy legs of a ten-year
old, his feet in polished boots with jeweled spurs. His hand went to his side,
found the hilt of the chrome-plated saber that hung there. He drew it, snapped
down the chin-strap of his helmet, and started along the tiled street in the
deep twilight. High facades in a classic style lined the avenue, and at the end
a great edifice towered. Retief felt his heart beat fester. He was seeing the
ruined city of Northroyal—as it once was.
No one moved in the silent
street, but light glowed in a window here and there, and the portico of one
radiant edifice blazed with lights. It was the Hall of the Fallen in Battle,
Retief realized, from pictures he had seen of the ruins, yet here it was,
pristine.
not quite,
a
Voice spoke up suddenly and bewilderingly. Retief's thoughts roiled; he felt
vaguely that he should recognize the silent voice, but the thought was elusive;
it slipped away and he caught half-glimpsed impressions of cold, deep darkness,
a table laden with exotic food, a red carpet and a man—almost but not quite
familiar. As he watched, a whole side of the portico ahead went dark. He heard
faint sounds, followed by a sharp
smack!
and another element of the
glowing design disappeared. He hurried toward the sounds. A man appeared—no, he
realized, a boy, slightly older than himself, a stocky lad with a truculent
swagger. The boy advanced to the lighted archway above the grand stairs, then
paused and raised his hand. The arch went black. The boy laughed raucously and
executed a clumsy parody of the
Grande Pavane,
the ancient stately dance
of Northroyal.
Retief ran forward, heard
himself shout in the uncertain tenor of a pre-teener: "Stop that,
you!"
The capering boy halted and
looked around, a surprised expression on his blunt features. "Who're you,
dummy?" he called derisively, and concluded his insulting parody by bowing
from the waist. Retief climbed up the wide steps to him, and the vandal fixed
his eyes on the drawn sword and mimed astonishment. "Would you cut down an
unarmed man?" he yelped in pretended terror. Instead of replying, Retief
sheathed the weapon and the other lad at once produced an eighteen-inch
truncheon from his ragged sleeve. He made a tentative pass at Retief, who
grabbed the club, jerked it from the others hand and threw it clattering down
the white marble steps. The older boy backed off, then turned and ran off between
the looming, half-lit columns. Retief went around to the right side, where the
running boy reappeared a moment later; he skidded to a halt as he saw Retief.
"What do
you
care
about this old dump?" the boy demanded, circling warily in an attempt to
maneuver Retief into a position with his back to the steep drop-off at the end
of the column row. "I know you," he stated defiantly. "You're
one o' them kids from the Old School. Whatta
you
know?" As Retief
said nothing, the boy's derisive tone became more confident.
"I heard youse boys are
all sissies," he sneered. "Well, I'm Mean Soup, and I do as I
like." He fumbled at his belt and produced the energy weapon with which he
had shot out the lights. Retief kicked it from his hand, and Soup jumped to
recover it, but Retief tripped him down the steps. At the boy's yell, two other
teenagers appeared; they were slightly older than Soup, and dressed, like him,
in tattered cast-offs. Retief put his back to the wall, watching both of them
as they fanned out, one left, one to the right. But immediately, two more
ragamuffins emerged from the shadows of the columns, then more, until Retief
was ringed in by a dozen unkempt louts, each of them carrying an object Retief
recognized as an antique unit battle honor pried from the walls of the temple.
The tallest of them swaggered forward and stepped ten feet from Retief and
assumed a
dai-ako-nichi
stance.
"We're the Trashers,
jerk," he announced. "I'm Dude, the War Chief. You looking for
trouble?" He advanced a step, then leapt, aiming a lack at Retief s head.
Retief knocked the extended leg aside, stepped in, and kicked Dude's other foot
from beneath him. The nearly adult Trasher's head struck the marble paving-slab
with a
bonk!
and enough force to scramble his eyes out of focus. He made
pawing motions, then relaxed and lay supine. No one else moved. Soup had crept
back up the steps. He got to his feet and yelled at the others:
"Are you bums Trashers,
or choir-boys?"
"Put everything
back," Retief ordered. Soup turned on him with a yell, nearly fell down
the steps again, and said:
"Just who are you,
creep, all dressed up like Mama's little soldier-boy? Get that fancy
suit," he called over his shoulder. "Let's see how that gold braid
and them fancy buttons look on
us!"
He edged closer, as if
casually, and Retief knocked him back down the steps. This time the boy got up
and loped away up the empty street.
"Well, how about it,
Trashers?" one gang-member spoke in the lengthening silence. "Are we
going to watch how this kid cleans up on Trashers one at a time, or do we teach
him some respect, or what?" No one moved or replied. Retief pointed at a
husky lout of about eighteen, who was holding an enameled Badge of Merit engraved
with the name of a famous Brigade.
"You first,"
Retief ordered. "Put it back." The boy dropped the heavy casting with
a brazen
clang!
which echoed among the columns. At Retief s level look,
he stooped and recovered the centuries-old relic.
"Dura thing's
heavy," he complained. "I din't want it anyways." He turned and
went back inside the Hall. The others muttered and closed ranks. Retief looked
at another boy, this one with the three-hundred-year-old rhodium-plated helmet
of a Battle Officer of grade five perched incongruously on his unkempt mane of
bushy hair.
"You, too," Retief
ordered. The boy backed a step as if to blend into the crowd.
"Whatsa matter with
you?" he demanded. "What's wrong with having some fun? Who are you,
anyway?"
"He's some big shot's
kid," another volunteered. "Look at the fancy outfit. He's dressed up
like the Prince Imperial."
"Got him a toy sword,
too," commented another, a well-grown boy with a few straggly whiskers. He
brought out from behind him a sheathed cavalry saber dating back to the days of
Rhoxus I. He drew the blade and threw the sheath aside.
"I rated Master
Swordsman in my YMNA class," he stated, and advanced a step. "You
want to try me, kid?" Without awaiting a response he crouched slightly and
executed a
dorchoi
leap which put him within three feet of Retief, his
extended saber having passed between Retief s arm and chest. His grin
disappeared when he realized he had come to rest with the needlepoint of Retief
s saber prodding his throat.
"Put it back,"
Retief said quietly.
"I was
going
to,"
the boy muttered as he leaned back, away from the sword-point. The whole gang
followed him back in between the columns.
you see now how feckless these heroics were, and are,
the disembodied voice put in gently.
now to more important matters.
As the voice ceased, the darkling sky
dimmed into instant deep twilight, then full darkness. For a moment the glow
from the remaining lights above the classic architrave illuminated the steps;
then it, too, winked out, leaving Retief in darkness. Something stirred close
by.
"Retief, where
are
you?"
Magnan's worried voice spoke up near at hand. Retief blinked, concentrated on
gathering his awareness, saw dim light on a red carpet and polished woodwork.
Magnan stood dithering before him in the gloom, and across the room Boss was
crouched against the wall, whimpering:
"... like I was scared
of," he babbled. "I done went nuts! Can't stand bein' crazy!" He
got to his feet and looked around as if seeing the luxurious office for the
first time. "Who are youse guys!" he demanded as his eye fell on
Retief and Magnan.
"N-nobody, Mr.
Boss," Magnan hastened to assure him. "That is, I'm just B and O
officer, and this is, ah, Retief; he handles the semi-annual requisition and
that sort of thing. We were just going." He tugged at Retief s sleeve and
edged toward the door.
"Nobody, huh?" the
Boss echoed. "That does it! Now I'm having a conversation with guys which
there ain't nobody here." He clutched his head with both plump, be-ringed
hands and sank into a chair.
"Just a minute,
sir," Retief demurred. "Before we go, hadn't we better find out where
we've been?"
"Been?"
Magnan
cried, as if Astonished at an Unwarranted Leap in Logic, third class (1291-3-a).
"Why, we've been right here in this dismal cave, where else?"
"A cave with red
Aga-Khagan carpets?" Retief queried. "And why were you locked in the
closet?"
"Why, as to that,"
Magnan temporized, "I was simply wedged in among the rocks there ..."
His voice trailed off as he glanced toward the still open door of the tiny
chamber in which he and been confined. "Oh, dear, Jim," he muttered.
"We'd best hurry back to the Embassy and lie down; I'm having one of my
dizzy spells."
"I've never heard that
you had dizzy spells, Ben," Retief commented.
"This is the first
one," Magnan snapped. "You know, like 'the first annual golf tourney'
and so on; candidly, Jim, I've felt rather off my feed ever since we first saw
that Cuckoo Club. It's as though the whole planet is out of alignment with the
entropic vector; especially Vug-wise."
"And so it is,
Ben," Retief agreed. "Something to do with the problyon flux,
according to Boss."