CHAPTER VIII PERIL IN PENARI Dawn crept into the sky from a grey east rim and splattered strands of paled, tired light on the scorched land, lingering on the ruts of the old freeway, the thorn-scarred hillock, the ragged roofs of the town. A din of curses, clapping, hoots and guffaws were the only sounds to be heard in the dry, still morning. "That's it!" Deyron screeched, "Enough of this comedy! I've had enough! I am not going to put up any more with the antics of this wild beast!" "But you were doing so marvelously well yesterday!" Leoynar protested. "With a little more time, a bit more perseverance, you'll get it done, I promise you." "He'll never get it done," Jackal shouted, hugging his sides in hilarity. "The renegade with the tender buttocks had better hitch a ride on the carts for the rest of the trip, lying down. Ha-ha! A grand spectacle that was. The best in my whole life. Ha-ha!" "Grand indeed," Deyron spluttered, climbing down from the saddle with buckling knees, "now that I see your face I don't find it the grandest of all creatures under your sun." Jackal came threateningly closer. "You have a problem with my face, have you? Let me tell you, see this crater here? I earned fifty Nukes with that, and this grinning mutant apple- mushroom there, a past memento of the City of Mushroom York. And here the little skull with the lousy toupee, and I mean lousy as infested with lice, the emblem of Carmel. Two thousand Nukes, imagine that! I am rather proud of it. Maybe I'll keep it and not burn it out." Deyron shoved him aside. "I am not in a mood to philosophize about the aesthetics of self-inflicted mutilations. I feel mean and hungry, so keep away from me!" He marched into the centre of the camp, reeking of sweat and steaming fury. Trajan lifted his eyes from his bowl and grinned at the Superpre. "Good exercise?" Deyron filled up his bowl with a snort, spooned and gobbled up bread and broth as if he had not seen food since his arrival. As he gradually quietened down, he said in a half-pleading voice: "Forgive me, Captain, but this horse thing is really too much. I don't have the feel for it at all. I lack the natural talent to master such a barbarous skill." "Do you know what is wrong with you, Deyron? You're tackling the issue for the wrong reasons! This is not a matter of pride or dignity. It is a matter of survival. Naturally back home, failure doesn't mean hardship but here it does. For your own good, I advise you to try to continuing mastering a horse. Loosen up, Deyron, relax. Just think it is not a competition, only a means of staying alive. Take it in your stride, a few hours a day, the horse will become more familiar to you, and you to him." Deyron sighed, shrugged, his gaze darkly flicking over the camp where the families of the clan were preparing for the next stretch of the journey. His gaze fell upon the headgear at Trajan's feet. "Must we still wear them?" he gasped horrified. "Yes, we must. We are coming into more populated regions." Wagons, horses and an ever thinning crowd finally got on the road after having laid to rest one more hireling from Jackal's group, an elderly couple and a newborn infant. "Natural selection," Jackal commented dully and kicked his horse's flanks, "fewer mouths to feed the better." He spurred to the head of the column where he took his position at Trajan's side. The hard, dry air of the wastelands mellowed as humid drafts sailed in from the coast the farther they travelled southeastwards. Around noontime they could trace the tang of sea shores in the breeze, and for the first time they saw birds in the sky, seagulls wheeling, screeching and diving like small plumed missiles. A curtain of needle-fine precipitation descended from the sky as the company wound their way down a sandy hummock. "We are approaching the harbour, Jackal announced. "Hey, you there, young Cougar with the Scowl, have you ever travelled so far beyond the Great Divide and the Plains? I guess not, and how fares our Renegade with the Tender Buttocks. Glorious spit, he is riding on a horse!" "I told you he could do it," Leoynar said triumphantly and craned his neck to gain a better view of the city, which shimmered in the distance through the rain, and the fork of traffic bumping towards its gates. * * * 'WEL , YOU R E IN PENARI,' the flapping signboard stated, weeping rain through the empty letter sockets. With cocked pistols a line of sentries nervously checked each procession that filed past them. One sentry examined the bulk of their retinue with bloodshot eyes. "No carts, horses, or families into the city," he snapped, "especially children, they are a menace. You can camp around here if you like but only individuals can enter Downtown Penari. "And leave your weapons behind, hirelings!" he snarled over his shoulder as he marched off. "Well, it seems most of us are stuck here," Leoynar concluded, "but to me it doesn't look too bad. At least we don't have to be constantly on the lookout for marauding invaders. Do you think we can enter town to do some shopping, Trajan? Clothes, sustenance, medication?" "I fear that our insta-funds are worthless here. They buy things with Nukes. In terms of material wealth I am as poor as a mountain clansman. If you want to shop you'll have to borrow from our new Lar Protector who has Nukes aplenty, I believe, hanging around his belly." Jackal had dismounted, plucking off his sundry fire arms and blades from his body like picking lice. "I am going into town. Reno will stay behind to guard our possessions. Are you coming with me?" "Forgive me, Jackal, but could I borrow some Nukes from you?" "Of course!" Jackal roared, "how many do you want, twenty, fifty? I am willing to lend you as many as you need until your Captain can earn some for himself. Here, take them." Leoynar bowed. "O Overman, for a hireling you are very generous!" "Don't be too grateful, Leoynar, it will obviously cost you an arm and a leg to pay him back." "Of course, I always charge interest!" Jackal thumped Trajan on the back. "But for now, let's us have a grand time in town." With the wagons they improvised a sort of crescent-shaped barrier where in the inner circle the travellers pitched their tents and lit their cooking fires for the evening. The drizzle had stopped, leaving a damp smell of sea and sewage. The party going into Downtown Penari noisily approached the entrance to the city where an erratic queue of incoming revellers sporting headgear and helmets of all shapes and colours were being stripped and searched. "You didn't mention a strip search." "What of it, a captivating display of public nudity. They wouldn't care to look at your face though, all they care is hidden weapons. Peace and order in the city, you understand. It wouldn't make a difference." "It will make a difference, for us." Jackal halted and when he looked at them, he was not laughing. "Are you so different that it would make the difference? I would certainly love to view your nakedness, Captain! But hold on, I have an idea, the Jackal is never out of ideas." The remainder of the party stood back while Jackal sauntered to a bloated pod of a sentry who with stocky legs spread wide and firm, and full lips glued into silence, watched the forced striptease and the telltale gestures of the strippers. He drew the sentry to a side, exchanging words and sensually caressing his broad belt doubtlessly exchanging something more. Presently he returned chuckling cheerfully. "That deputy deserves a medallion for greed. I am a few Nukes lighter but that was well worth it. Come follow me, he told me there is a hidden alley nearby where we can slip through. He also told me the name of the diner where I can find a reliable ferry master, which is the most important thing of all, amongst others, and why I came here for." Teeming with a Minus Zero Age plasmodium of humanity the City of Penari was a far cry from harshness of the Great Divide and the desolateness of the Hungry Plains. High-placed citizens in swirling togas of silver, gold and purple, jingling with stone-studded bracelets and neck chains, rubbed shoulders with several groups of folk appearing oddly out of place amongst the gaiety of colours, wearing puritanical costumes of either starkly black or white and rarely smiling, the Zeroborn Pagans. Here and there refugees from the North and the Plains, looking grim and tattered, threaded through the crowd that slowly swelled by increasing bands of jobless, helmeted hirelings. A huge renegade, his bare right arm black as night, his left arm orchid rose, his bare right leg copper brown, his left leg platinum ivory, crossed Jackal's path, his goggled eyes peering closely at the brassard tattoo on the Jackal's arm. "Overman, how many under your thumb?" the renegade demanded. "Thirty!" "Impressive! How many left." "Uh, three." Belching an oath the renegade swung away, his limbs swaying in a parade of colour. "And what about your own pack, you hypertrophied rainbow!" Jackal yelled after him. "If you're so smart yourself why are you on the dole!" Jackal trailed morosely after Trajan with hunched shoulders. "Oh well, for someone like him who loses his limbs so easily, he would be more of a medi-care liability, though I wonder where he's got his body-grafter from. A work of great professionalism, I must admit, with the delicate touch of an artist." "Pardon my rudeness," Leoynar interrupted, "but isn't it time we look for something more useful and specific. I want to lay my hand on some medicine, if I can." "It really freaks my mind why you bother so much about those fossils in your camp." "It is essentially about your own man I am thinking," Leoynar retorted. "He is suffering from a high fever, or don't you care." Jackal fluttered with his fingers. "Oh him, an irksome liability. He'll snuff out in the morning." "Meanwhile, he may not. Now, if you allow me to go shopping, I'd prefer that to your pleasure-seeking strolls around town." "Okay, Voht, go with our friend Leoynar on his holy mission and find a good apothecary. Mind, I want to see you all in camp before supper in one piece, hear?" "Deyron," Trajan said, "go along with Leoynar, while I, Jeremy and Jackal go and do important business of our own. Be on your guard." The party split up, pushing separate trails through the throngs of swaggering lustrous city dandies and not so lustrous grim-looking Pagans, lining the wide boulevards of Penari in a continuous stream, apparently awaiting some portentous event yet unknown. Evidently feeling at home and finding his way effortlessly through the multitude Jackal, stringing Trajan and Jeremy along with him, abandoned the crowds of Downtown and steered his company into the less gaudy, more dowdy grub-alleys of the Inner City. Upon entering the designated diner the first impression was like setting foot in a spatial grotto, where luminaries disappeared to murky vacuum and circles of light fainted on the floor like burnt out asteroids. Isolated planets of tables and stools occupied the frontage and interior, all taken by sectors of the more rough and able of the city, and hirelings looking for work. Jackal led his party to the bar arrayed at the innermost recesses of the diner like a sacrificial tabernacle where a bartender, whose gleaming baldness was tattooed with a picture of a nude rather ineffectively shading her virginity with a handful of her tumbling golden hair, tended to his duties with the resigned penitence of a de-haloed saint. "Good evening, good sirs," he greeted with choirboy voice which suggested to Jackal that he had been emasculated some time in his early career. "Whiskey for all of you?" "Artificial or the genuine stuff?" "Quite genuine, if I may so, sir." "Meaning of course, lying dog of the Blessed Virgin or Golden Goddess on your Skull, that you baptized it with rainwater." The bartender shook his head with a wisp of smile. "Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, Born from the Foam, sir. And these are hard times, sir, very hard indeed. Maybe some wine, perhaps, of very good year, I assure you, sir." "Pah! Whiskey will do for me." "A glass of wine for me, if you don't mind," Trajan said. Jeremy who had not said one word since they were admitted into the city, overwhelmed by the multifarious omnium-gatherum of Penarian society, was confronted with the choice of brown liquid in a tumbler or blood-red in a slender glass. Fancying neither he opted for plain water. Jackal intently swept the interior with his eyes. "I am on the lookout for someone," he imparted to the bartender, swiping his lips with the mouthpiece, "the master of The Duck and The Dolphin. I am desirous of buying passage to Vespar. Where can I find him?" The bartender smiled at him like a maiden in love. "I can certainly help you, if the price were right." Jackal fixed him with a glare. "Are you his agent? What's his name, Stephanola, I think it is. If you know where he is, tell him that I have a pressing matter to discuss with him." The bartender nodded and winked sweetly to an unexplored corner of the salon where the reign of shadows held sway against the probe of the ceiling lights. Out of the web of dark nebulae a tall young woman stepped into the light. Braids of red hair hung down from her shoulders to her waist, her unpitted skin tan as young wood, her eyes as green as the aquamarine crystals dangling from her ears. "I am Stephanola," she said in a mezzo voice, "ferry mistress of the The Duck and The Dolphin. How can I be of assistance?" Jackal spun an arc on his stool to face her, his breath catching in his throat. "A coli-girl! Of all the amazing discoveries. A chick, not even a full-grown hen, is supposed to guide us across the treacherous Main!" "Listen, renegade!" Stephanola spat at him, "I was a renegade once, like you, before the prospect of becoming repeatedly mutilated to show allegiance to the various paramounts became a bit too much to bear for my sense of beauty. How, do you think, did I acquire my Duck and Dolphin? By skulking in bars like you? In an honest-to-god match to the dead, renegade! Stephanola always carries her passengers across but of course you can always pick and choose from other vermin-ridden boats infesting the harbour." Jackal jumped down from his stool and drained his tumbler. "Don't be angry with me, gracious Stephanola, I was just poking fun. You do come indeed highly recommended. You're hired, that's settled. I'll leave my Captain to discuss business with you." Whispering in Trajan's ear, he pleaded: "I am willing to go as far as fifty Nukes, but no more than that, please Captain, please! I'll leave you two alone. I have some interviewing to do." He slipped away, to mingle with the orbits of crowd in the centrum of the diner while Stephanola, leaning against the bar, laid out the terms of her contract with uninterested efficiency as if she was ordering a meal a la carte. "If you want to leave the coast you'll have to move fast," she suggested lazily. "Would you care to tell my why?" Trajan asked, studying his half-drunk grass, puzzling over the enigma why the wine had the expected tingling of invigoration but did not invigorate or refresh him at all, only dulling the fatigues of the day into deeper ravines of insensibility. "Fearing a crisis on the borders, and especially sighting those strange Aseuran craft flying overhead, the Paramountcy of Penari has called an emergency session. Penari has declared itself neutral so far but there are some who would like a non-aggression pact with Magnificent Xandia, and others who would not. At any rate, the gauntlet will be thrown tonight and whatever the outcome, it is best for strangers like you to leave the area, especially you, Renegade Who Speaks with the New Aristocratic Tongue." Trajan circumvented her tentative probing into his origins by enquiring: "You are of the opinion that those flying craft are of Aseuran design?" She smiled like a cat who had hidden away the pot of cream. "You are playing a wily game, Captain. Don't you know what is happening in Aseur?" "You tell me." "If you insist on playing the game to the hilt. Aseur has found the courage to open the box of science once more and what everybody has seen walking the clouds yesterday are the fruits of their enterprise. That's what they think. You want to go to Vespar, do you? Vespar has not yet joined the alliance of the Dominion but those craft came from there. Vespar is forging ahead with even greater strides than the rest of Aseur. You will be in for a lot of marvels and surprises in Vespar whatever you are seeking there!" "I am very convinced of that fact," Trajan reassured her. Jackal retreated from his manpower hunt in a great huff. "I didn't realize the lateness of the hour," he wheezed through his headgear, "Come away, it is high time we return to camp. What have you agreed?" "Sixty Nukes, it is my final offer." Trajan spread his arms helplessly and Jackal's teeth ground in frustration. "All right, that's all you get. No more! We sail tomorrow morning before dawn." "I'll visit your camp tonight," Stephanola said, "to see what you can bring along, and what you can't. I don't want to spar needlessly with customs in Vespar." Delaying no more Jackal tugged them along the floor of the diner, brushing aside the coquettish invitations of the bartender to stay on for dinner by artificial firefly light. "Go, give your naked goddess a brush up on the arse," he growled and tramped down the alley like an oversexed bull on a rampage. "Hold there," Trajan called out, running after him. "why all this sudden haste? I didn't know before that recruiting could be so nerve-racking!" "You are beside the point, Captain. It is true nothing much remains for pickings, only cud and bones. I need good, able men, not riffraff out for a quick Nuke, but I am worried about this extraordinary session of the Penarian Paramountcy. I am telling you, it's more than one can bargain for. Once they have declared a resolution, this whole place will be turned topsy-turvy." Trajan experienced a nagging suspicion that Jackal did not exactly paint the situation in true colours but coming onto the open boulevards of Downtown Penari it appeared evidently enough to the alert eye that tension was high amongst the crowd, particularly around the announcing stations. The diverse urbanites no longer regarded one another with apathetic unconcern, but with wary suspicion, at a time when friends and neighbours could turn to deadly adversaries by higher decree. A further alarming development of the evening was that all exits across the city were being reinforced with more heavy arsenal and sentries. They turned their back on the lights of Penari without encountering disturbance, returning to their improvised barracks where everything was quiet. Leoynar had returned to camp one hour before and had just completed his round, tending and heartening the sick and wounded with his newly bought curatives and dressings, and warmness of care. Lulled by another satiating meal the weary travellers laid down to rest. Stephanola appeared as she had promised just after supper and made a tour around the camp for a cursory inspection. She conferred with Trajan and Jackal at the side of their tent. Both stood with uncovered heads. She hardly flattered Jackal with a second look and although her expression remained as bleached as a nuclear winter, her aqua eyes glinted with speculative conjectures as she studied Trajan, summing up with brutal candour, "You have to act even faster than you think. Maybe in the next coming hours. The assembly is still locked in debate but the order to strengthen the frontier has already been given. All borders will be closed, including the harbour. By then, not one ship will be able to slip through the net." "How much time do we have?" "Preciously little, we may have to move out under cover of the night." "All right, we'll begin our preparations right away. Jackal, you'd better start unpacking your wagons." "Just a minute," Stephanola sharply interrupted, "you didn't mention you were bringing oldies and children." "A small oversight." "Not so small if you knew that the sick, injured and dying are barred from entering Vespar. Possible carriers of contagious diseases are absolutely sanctioned against." "No one has so far been diagnosed with the plague, for goodness sake!" Trajan protested irritably. "These are only people undernourished by hard times. I thought we have reached an agreement." Stephanola snapped her fingers in exasperation. "Sure, we had an agreement, an agreement between you and me, not with those people. Leave them behind, and Stephanola will still stand by her accord to ferry you across the Main." Jeremy who had been hovering behind Jackal's back pushed to the front. Not a syllable crossed his lips but the anguish in his grey eyes was apparent. Discerning the aggravation and embarrassment mounting on Trajan's humankind resemblant face, Stephanola's purple lips shaped into a mysterious smile. The lips curved to form a suggestion when suddenly a fracas tore through the quietness of the camp. The crackling of automatic fire, howls of men and whickering of horses drew nearer as the clans people fled from the campfires into the darkness. Trajan dashed to the centre of the clearing, rephar already in hand, looking round quickly. "It is coming from your side of the camp, Jackal!" he shouted and sprang away. His advance was fiercely blocked by a stampede, ripping through the compound like a horde blinded in fury. He was momentarily blinded himself by a whirlwind of dust and dirt kicked up by the hoofs. A giant shade of midnight flew into his direction, hampering his line of vision, and action, even further. He manipulated his rephar, determined to cut a path of spitfire through the mob. The shade rubbed its flanks against him, nudging his shoulder with a reassuring snort: Brightloft had sprung into the rescue, thrusting back the other horses with kicks and stomps of his mighty legs. Trajan patted the horse, smiled briefly into his eyes. "Move your stumps!" he yelled to his companions, "Jeremy, Jackal, mobilize your men! Scruts, where are they! Are they not supposed to be on guard?" Jackal had already melted away into the encircling darkness. Jeremy went giddily ransacking through the wreckage of the camp for his unresponsive guards. Deyron and Nagus hurried to him, their faces bleak and frightened. "Where is Leoynar?" Trajan demanded. Without waiting for an answer he sped after the Jackal. Jackal stared down with storms of rage contorting his haggard face on one of his men, who leaned against the wheel of a cart, the bandages around his chest soiled with a fresh darkening stain. The Overman spoke not one word but his man gasped in agony: "They came upon us through the shadows without warning. They knew precisely what they were looking for. Overman, I tried to stop them but I am only one, wounded man against treason." Nagus started in a trembling voice: "Leoynar--." Trajan grabbed his shoulder. "Have you seen him?" Nagus stared at Jackal. "He was called away by one of your men on an urgent summons. But Rohmi went with him." "Rohmi is dead," Jeremy said, "I've just found his body on the outskirts of our camp." His black gaze rested on Jackal. "His blood was spilt by a renegade knife." Jackal's big hands swooped wrathfully down on the wheezing man and clutched him by his blood-stained rags. "Rat! Who has done me this treachery! Spit it out or you will not live long enough to reap the rewards of your vile conspiracy!" The wounded man heaved a sigh with a kind of hopeless serenity. "I am dying, Overman. The renegade with the healing hand has throughout the journey kept me on the side of life with his charitable heart. I would have remained thus, but when everyone thought it was safe to go to sleep they lured him to my side on a false pretext. They were waiting for him and struck when he thought he was only coming to console a sick man to rest. I tried to interfere, I tried to save the renegade from being taken, but they put their daggers into me. Voht and Reno, they are the plotters, Overman! For five hundred Nukes apiece they delivered him into the hands of the Magni-Xandians and done me to death a second time!" His head fell back and the man promptly expired. All eyes were fixed on Trajan but he turned his back on them without a word and withdrew. He strode to a halt in the centre of the camp, his eyes gazing on the trampled fires and scattered damage. His first instinct was to jump on Brightloft and go in hot pursuit. But this is what they expected him to do, he reflected, a race to the rescue that would lead to an ambush. He tried his optic strip but received no response. How far away are the abductors now? Probably very far, out of reach on the Hungry Plains. He covered his face with his hands. Why Leoynar, by the Lars, why Leoynar? What will they do to him? Put him on the rack, batter his wise and beautiful face? Why had he let Leoynar come with him on this mission full of dangers and treachery? He needed well-trained commanders, but the Tres-Tiorem, even the Interplanetary Spacio High Command had none to spare; Iucari-Tres did not have enough armed forces. What they had was a space patrol. Sophisticated, engaged in regular battle drills with drones in space but no commands on sea, land and air. They would have been swarmed long ago by Carlomon's armies had the IsoMén Equation been proven to be the gateway it should have been, wide open and without deadly side effects. Ignorant, trusting Leoynar was the only one they could spare. But so was he, ignorant, too self-contented with his self-assumed superiority to foresee the unforeseen. He stretched his arm to the night. Blue it will be in a moment, hot-blue like a young sun falling from the sky. Jeremy fell before him on the dirt, looking up with tears streaming down his cheeks. "Captain, five of my guards are dead, their throats cut from behind as they kept watch. We have lost some horses, but we still have retained the best ones. Give the command! I will take the best young men with me, hunt down the traitors to their lair and bring back My Lord Leoynar, bring him back with my dying breath." He sank down on the ground, sobbing. The others hovered in the vicinity. Without looking at him, Trajan said to Jackal: "You knew something of this, didn't you? Rumour has come to you, most likely through the mouths of other hirelings, that the Magni-Xandians were hunting for a different sort of game. This explains your failure in gaining new recruits. They would rather snare such game, which would turn them into rich men at one stroke. What was the directive given?" "What can I say in my own defence?" Jackal said gruffly, "Except that I thought at first it was a whispering campaign undertaken by Magni-Xandian spies to foment dissent. They are usually good at it. According to them, enemy agents have infiltrated through the frontlines. The behest was to seek them out and bring the Aseuran spies to justice!" The realization stung Trajan for a painful moment. "Aseuran spies? You thought we were Aseurans?" "Aren't you?" "Why didn't you warn me!" "I didn't realize that the price has gone so high! Five hundred Nukes! You can buy a small town with it." "How do your principles stand, Jackal?" Trajan slowly turned to face the Jackal fully. "Why are you still here? Are you waiting on the sidelines for the right moment to spring the trap, for the remaining three of us? Fifteen hundred Nukes, or even more. You can retire in all luxury, in all ill-gotten wealth." Jackal stumbled backwards, his gaze flicking from Trajan's intense face to the pointing rephar resting on the Captain's hip. "Captain!" he cried out. "I am as good as a beggar. Voht and Reno have voted to change sides. Skander is a thing of the past. What is an overman without men?" He clenched his hands, his rough voice pealing through the tension-ridden atmosphere: "You stood true by Granddaddy Dego in his time of need. He has given you his Dego's Stone in recognition of a debt he may never be able to repay. You preserved his life. And I have sworn to myself, the moment I knew the truth, to stand true by you in your time of need, as part of the debt my family owe you. "If you don't believe me, if you think I am lying, fire your weapon and hit me, right here on the chest under my Dego's Stone. When you meet Dego Kolmarin, just tell him how his grandson has died!" Trajan relaxed, tucking away the rephar. He turned his eyes to the blackness beyond, his thoughts to the abductors fleeing across the pitiless face of the Plains. For the first time since his arrival he allowed his Oracles to roam free. The distance between him and the quarry had already lengthened far and beyond but traces of Leoynar's essence lingered still, faint but there. "Captain," Jeremy pleaded. Trajan seized his hand and pulled him to his feet. "No," he said, "it's too late. They have outdistanced us long ago. To go after them is to fall into a trap. We'll continue with our journey to Vespar." The success of the mission was hanging in the balance, to seek and destroy was the prime objective. Leoynar had become a regrettable casualty but the urgency to go to Vespar had doubled to an excruciating degree: Vespar, where the opposite end of the Isomén Equation was located. Finding the gate back to Iucari-Tres, summoning his own destructive contingent of commanders. Then find Leoynar, find him and wreak havoc on his abductors and torturers. His voice was level as he continued to speak: "Leoynar is all right, they will keep him well for a purpose. If it were otherwise, they would have killed him in the first instance." Stephanola approached, swaying a little, her slim elegance a jarring incongruity with the hopelessness of their situation. "Don't fret," she purred. "The assault has solved part of your problem. With less human baggage to bother about, the passage will be a lot quicker. But the remaining families with children remain a thorn in your side, Captain, or if I may say so, New Aristocrat." "We take them along, or the deal is off." "Well, considering your humanitarian sentiments I may be able to bend my rules a little. I can ship them as contraband for a couple of Nukes more, thirty perhaps?" "Thirty!" Jackal sputtered. "This is downright robbery!" Trajan jumped on him and grabbed his collar. "Through the treason of your men, my uncle was taken captive. Give the lady her due, or you'll meet a sorry end at my hands, here and now." "Your uncle!" Jackal gaped. He lowered his eyes, his voice became almost inaudible. "I didn't know." Stephanola received and counted out her payment with graceful indifference. "You have the finest Irridio-chips of this continent, Jackal," she opined, a slighting smile twitching at the corners of her glossy lips. "Make ready with all speed. The Duck and The Dolphin will be waiting in the bay at the south end of the headland in thirty minutes." * * * The Duck and the Dolphin could be called a cross between a small ark and a barge. Broad-bellied with grotesquely swollen bilges, her sails the colour of scorched hides, she nonetheless navigated the waters with admirable manoeuvrability. Under the stars winking feebly through the threading mist she slipped out of the harbour like a bulging walnut stuck with quills. "She will sail as solid as a duck in tranquil weather," was Stephanola's slogan, "and as agile as a dolphin in storms." However, good weather was holding firm during the length of the passage, and storms, if such things plagued the Main, was still far away in the making. Shortly after their departure from the bay, the stillness of the sea was rent by a siren's howl, rolling over the waves from the far-off honeycomb of pricking lights, which was Penari. Stephanola remarked: "They sealing up the borders definitely. It is a good thing we got away in time." "What will happen to the citizens?" Stephanola regarded Trajan with a quasi-astonished rolling of her eyes. "Why do you care? The Paramountcy will probably announce their version of the story to the citizenry: 'We are a neutral folk, burghers, we will stand firm.' The hard fact of the matter is that Magnificent Xandia will surely annex them in no time as a vassal province." An amused smile played on Trajan's lips. "You call me a New Aristocrat. Do I look like one?" "Honestly, Captain!" Stephanola exploded in mirth and he thought that the manner with which she half hid her perfect teeth with her hand, was quite charming in a way. "Must you continue playing your game. Feel at home! You're on the high seas, and very soon back in Vespar where looks like yours won't give you away." She was still laughing when she swayed away to check the mastheads. Trajan leant against the railing of the forward bow, a westerly breeze ruffling his hair, his eyes keenly regarding the far horizons where, if the present current was holding steady at the stern, the shorelines of Vespar would materialize in the late hours of the afternoon. He could not help snorting bitterly into the foam whipped up by the ship's speed. Jackal, who was skulking away somewhere at the aft side of the ship, apparently mourning the loss of his men as acutely as he was contemplating Leoynar's plight, thought he was an Aseuran and so after all did Stephanola although she brought the inference one step further by her implication of 'New Aristocrats'. Jeremy, steeped in the past folklores of the lands, assumed differently; yet, he, reared in isolation from the rest of the world in the wilderness of the Great Divide, was far closer to the truth than the other two could ever dream. Vespar will determine who had made the right guess, and who not. As Stephanola had predicted correctly, the coast of the Aseuran continent rose and loomed into full view during the course of the afternoon. The transit across the Main was smooth, and without incident. The ferry mistress was in high spirits when she dropped anchor in a lively harbour bustling with jollies and trawlers, large and small. The appearance of a motorboat of customs officers along her port bow did nothing to dampen her enthusiasm. "Put on your headgear," she briskly instructed Jackal, "wearing headgears is a must here for hirelings, as you'll soon know. No, not you, Captain!" "Hasn't the thought crossed your mind that one hireling accompanied by a New Aristocrat is a bit strange? Hirelings always travel in groups, wouldn't you say, and two is company." Stephanola pursed her lips in annoyance but she then shrugged her shapely shoulders and strode off to meet the officials. Business with them was conducted in a brisk, no-nonsense way. In navy blue uniforms, with bright red piping running along the trouser legs, they looked sprightly and civilized and Stephanola was obviously a popular visitor on their shores. Without causing any trouble, not even deigning to look in the hulls where the families stayed hidden, they sailed off in their motorboat with much waving and hoopla to the next incoming ship. Backdropped against the scenery of the harbour, on a surge of hills, amongst a cluster of woods and villas, a ring of towers, silvery white, rose gleaming into the sky. After all the ruins and wastelands and squalor they had left behind, it was a captivating sight of splendour, reminiscent of home. "That is the Chine Residence and ruling chambers of the Syndic of Merinburg," Stephanola explained. "Merinburg?" Trajan mused, "part of Vespar?" "Merinburg is one of Vespar's port cities. It thrives on trade, commerce and exchange of knowledge with the other port cities of the Dominion of Aseur. It supplies interesting shows of night entertainment too, if you'd care to visit the Hall of Flower Lights in the Centrum." "Of course, I want to be entertained. Come, Jackal, a good opportunity, maybe, to stretch your legs after a long sea voyage and become familiar with a new world?" "Why not," Jackal grumbled, not overtly enthusiastic. Nagus and Ralph preferred to stay behind in The Duck and The Dolphin to carry out their duties of preparing supper for the people and feeding the small herd of horses they kept, and take on the extra burden of care left unattended by Leoynar's absence. Jeremy and Deyron were lying in their bunks, struggling with the aftereffects of seasickness, and Stephanola had other thousand worries of her ship to mind. Finally it was only the two of them who approached the gates of Merinburg. "Keep your headgear on, hirelings," the sentinel ordered them with an unfriendly grimace, "before you find a good skin-grafter. No one wants to vomit over the sight of your faces." And he let them through. Merinburg had the semblance of a cultured and orderly city. The hysterical extravaganza of Penarian apparel seemed all but absent. Linen ensembles in grey or turquoise, or one-piece suits of chamois foulard or hyacinth, with only a minute detail of ornamentation. What they lacked in fashion, the Merinburgers made up with makeup and grafting. A pair of eyes with two different colours was the vogue of the day, stirring homesickness for the genteel self-indulgence of Phylee-Patre. "You must tell me who your eye-grafter is," Jackal whispered to Trajan in a voice full of fascination. "These folks around me certainly have wonderful sets of eyepieces but none that can change colour like yours." "What if I tell you that I was born like that." "Go climb a tree!" the Jackal said, almost sounding like his old self. He then went away to sniff around an open mart which traded mainly in synthetic body parts and came back quivering with excitement. "Rumour has it that the top brass of Vespar is in town. They are going to watch a performance at the Hall of Flower Lights. I want to go and see them. Coming with me?" "Go ahead, Jackal. Enjoy yourself. I'll rest here awhile, before going back to the ship." Jackal pranced away like a colt who had refound his freedom. With his brawny arm around the slender waist of a girl with a small forest of purple eyelashes he faded into the crowd. Trajan walked away from the bustle of the main street and turning a corner he came upon a sloping cobbled street that took him after meandering through a grove and a row of garden- villas to the hill of the Merinberg Syndic's Residence, glimmering rose-silver under the spreading dusk. He pulled off his headgear and admired the Chine Residence through his own eyes, platinum towers with smaragdine-tinted windows, nestling on a green hill, yellow-stippled with daisy-hearts. The marble girdle of a wide fountain swept around the foot of the southwestern scarp. A pair of sentries passing by frowned when he bared his head but startled they glanced at his face and quickly marched on. Chance was that Vesparans would still find him striking in some uncommon way, but in their eyes only because he had the luck to find a very talented grafter, nothing more sinister. At this moment he wanted to enjoy the cool of the falling night. Lights had sprung to life in the facing arc of villas and along the avenue of the fountain. He sat down on the girdle and in the quietness he felt Leoynar's loss pressing on his heart. How many more companions would he lose so dear to him before he could put the finishing strokes on his mission? A string of ballflower lights garlanding the fountain flickered on, illuminating him in a soft halo. A rill murmured down the scarp into the girdled basin and he dipped his hands into the gurgling water and washed away the traces of brine from his face and hair. Drying himself on his sleeves he kicked away the helmet far across the avenue. At last he had no need of that infernal thing. A woman so old that he could not even guess her age emerged flying from one of the tree-shadowed corners of the avenue and picked up the headgear in her wrinkled hands. When she came closer she looked at him with fearful eyes and dropped, with her fingers spread before her face, quivering on her knees. "My Lord!" Trajan recoiled against the fountain as if the woman had delivered a blow. In a moment he had recovered, bending over, seizing the woman's arm, compelling her to stand. "Mistress, on your feet! What is this nonsense? Look at me!" "I may not cast my eyes upon a lord." "This is outrageous!" Trajan cried, "I don't want to hear any more of this!" He grabbed her shoulders and shook her like a rag. "I am not a Lord, I am not!" The woman raised her eyes to him with a strange glow shining in her clear eyes. "But you are, you are. The Frame has brought me to you. Look, look how bright it now looks, brighter and brighter with each step that I took to come upon you." She thrust the object that she called the Frame into his hands. "But that is--." Trajan could not hide his shock and amazement. That is a microcom. "You know what it is! At last the Frame has found its rightful master. And you must wear the headgear. I give it back to you. You must wear it to protect yourself, to hide the likeness of Lord Trajan Schurell, whom men are seeking to destroy." "No! No!" For the second time Trajan flinched away from the woman as if she carried a deadly disease. "No, no, you must not call me in this manner!" The woman smiled in a rueful and loving way, proffering him the helmet with two hands: "I know how you must feel, and seeing the fear in your unusual eyes, which even the Lords Schurell did not have the fortune to be endowed with, I know I am right. But you are so young, so vulnerable. Wear the headgear. Disguise yourself as a hireling once more, I pray to you!" Yielding to her insistence Trajan put the musty gear back on. The woman, as if stung by sudden fear, took him by the hand. "My Lord, forgive my rudeness but you must come now, come away with me. These windows around us have eyes, and they must not see us. We will be safe in the darkness." "I must go back to my ship," Trajan grumbled through his mouthpiece. "My people are waiting for me and they might think I've lost my way in the city." "I beg of you, let me come with you." Trajan gritted his teeth. "On one condition, don't address me as 'my Lord' in front of the others. To everyone I am Captain Ermiz, do you understand? And who are you anyway." "My name is Assiya, Captain Ermiz." 'Now, where have I heard that name before?' Trajan rummaged through his mind as he, with the woman Assiya trailing him closely, departed from the illuminated circle of the fountain. They thought themselves fortunate that the neighbourhood was deserted while the denizens of Merinburg were having a good time elsewhere. All windows of the Chine Residence seemed to be curtained or closed, except one window that enjoyed a perfect view on the harbour, and on the fountain girdle. A tall, proud figure stood there, clutching the draperies with knuckles white to the bone, observing every detail of the scene below, from the moment of indignation when the hireling showed the insolence of taking off his helmet to the moment of disbelief, the jarring flash of revelation, as the young stranger, his face unscarred, squinted upon the Chine Residence with wonder and curiosity in his extraordinary eyes, washed himself with water from the fountain, then the woman coming upon him and finally the two figures fleeing from the Chine, swallowed by the darkness.