Gordon R. Dickson's SF Best

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "No," said Kyle. "He'll ride the gelding."

  "He'll want the white."

  "He can't ride the white," said Kyle. "Even if I let him, he couldn't ride this stallion. I'm the only one who can ride him. Take me in."

  The tutor turned and led the way into the grassy courtyard, surrounding a swimming pool and looked down upon, on three sides, by the windows of the lodge. In a lounging chair by the pool sat a tall young man in his late teens, with a mane of blond hair, a pair of stuffed saddlebags on the grass beside him. He stood up as Kyle and the tutor came toward him.

  "Majesty," said the tutor, as they stopped, "this is Kyle Arnam, your bodyguard for the three days here."

  "Good morning, Bodyguard . . . Kyle, I mean." The Prince smiled mischievously. "Light, then. And I'll mount."

  "You ride the gelding, Lord," said Kyle.

  The Prince stared at him, tilted back his handsome head and laughed.

  "I can ride, man!" he said. "I ride well."

  "Not this horse, Lord," said Kyle, dispassionately. "No one rides this horse, but me."

  The eyes flashed wide, the laugh faded – then returned.

  "What can I do?" The wide shoulders shrugged. "I give in – always I give in. Well, almost always." He grinned up at Kyle, his lips thinned, but frank. "All right."

  He turned to the gelding – and with a sudden leap was in the saddle. The gelding snorted and plunged at the shock; then steadied as the young man's long fingers tightened expertly on the reins and the fingers of the other hand patted a gray neck. The Prince raised his eyebrows, looking over at Kyle, but Kyle sat stolidly.

  "I take it you're armed good Kyle?" the Prince said slyly. "You'll protect me against the natives if they run wild?"

  "Your life is in my hands, Lord," said Kyle. He unsealed the leather jacket at the bottom and let it fall open to show the slug pistol in its holster for a moment. Then he resealed the jacket again at the bottom.

  "Will –" The tutor put his hand on the young man's knee. "Don't be reckless, boy. This is Earth and the people here don't have rank and custom like we do. Think before you –"

  "Oh, cut it out, Monty!" snapped the Prince. "I'll be just as incognito, just as humble, as archaic and independent as the rest of them. You think I've no memory! Anyway, it's only for three days or so until my Imperial father joins me. Now, let me go!"

  He jerked away, turned to lean forward in the saddle, and abruptly put the gelding into a bolt for the gate. He disappeared through it, and Kyle drew hard on the stallion's reins as the big white horse danced and tried to follow.

  "Give me his saddlebags," said Kyle.

  The tutor bent and passed them up. Kyle made them fast on top of his own, across the stallion's withers. Looking down, he saw there were tears in the bearded man's eyes.

  "He's a fine boy. You'll see. You'll know he is!" Montlaven's face, upturned, was mutely pleading.

  "I know he comes from a fine family," said Kyle, slowly. "I'll do my best for him." And he rode off out of the gateway after the gelding.

  When he came out of the gate, the Prince was nowhere in sight. But it was simple enough for Kyle to follow, by dinted brown earth and crushed grass, the marks of the gelding's path. This brought him at last through some pines to a grassy open slope where the Prince sat looking skyward through a single-lens box.

  When Kyle came up, the Prince lowered the instrument and, without a word, passed it over. Kyle put it to his eye and looked skyward. There was the whir of the tracking unit and one of Earth's three orbiting power stations swam into the field of vision of the lens.

  "Give it back," said the Prince.

  "I couldn't get a look at it earlier," went on the young man as Kyle handed the lens to him. "And I wanted to. It's a rather expensive present, you know – it and the other two like it – from our Imperial treasury. Just to keep your planet from drifting into another ice age. And what do we get for it?"

  "Earth, Lord," answered Kyle. "As it was before men went out to the stars."

  "Oh, the museum areas could be maintained with one station and a half-million careta- kers," said the Prince. "It's the other two stations and you billion or so free-loaders I'm talking about. I'll have to look into it when I'm Emperor. Shall we ride?"

  "If you wish. Lord." Kyle picked up the reins of the stallion and the two horses with their riders moved off across the slope.

  ". . . And one more thing," said the Prince, as they entered the farther belt of pine trees. "I don't want you to be misled – I'm really very fond of old Monty, back there. It's just that I wasn't really planning to come here at all – Look at me, Bodyguard! "

  Kyle turned to see the blue eyes that ran in the Imperial family blazing at him. Then, unexpectedly, they softened. The Prince laughed.

  "You don't scare easily, do you, Bodyguard . . . Kyle, I mean?" he said. "I think I like you after all. But look at me when I talk."

  "Yes, Lord."

  "That's my good Kyle. Now, I was explaining to you that I'd never actually planned to come here on my Grand Tour at all. I didn't see any point in visiting this dusty old museum world of yours with people still trying to live like they lived in the Dark Ages. But – my Imperial father talked me into it."

  "Your father, Lord?" asked Kyle.

  "Yes, he bribed me, you might say," said the Prince thoughtfully. "He was supposed to meet me here for these three days. Now, he's messaged there's been a slight delay – but that doesn't matter. The point is, he belongs to the school of old men who still think your Earth is something precious and vital. Now, I happen to like and admire my father, Kyle. You approve of that?"

  "Yes, Lord."

  "I thought you would. Yes, he's the one man in the human race I look up to. And to please him, I'm making this Earth trip. And to please him – only to please him, Kyle – I'm going to be an easy Prince for you to conduct around to your natural wonders and watering spots and whatever. Now, you understand me – and how this trip is going to go. Don't you?" He stared at Kyle.

  "I understand," said Kyle.

  "That's fine," said the Prince, smiling once more. "So now you can start telling me all about these trees and birds and animals so that I can memorize their names and please my father when he shows up. What are those little birds I've been seeing under the trees – brown on top and whitish undereath? Like that one – there!"

  "That's a Veery, Lord," said Kyle. "A bird of the deep woods and silent places. Listen –" He reached out a hand to the gelding's bridle and brought both horses to a halt. In the sudden silence, off to their right they could hear a silverbird-voice, rising and falling, in a descending series of crescendos and diminuendos, that softened at last into silence. For a moment after the song was ended the Prince sat staring at Kyle, then seemed to shake himself back to life.

  "Interesting," he said. He lifted the reins Kyle had let go and the horses moved forward again. "Tell me more."

  For more than three hours, as the sun rose toward noon, they rode through the wooded hills, with Kyle identifying bird and animal, insect, tree and rock. And for three hours the Prince listened – his attention flashing and momentary, but intense. But when the sun was overhead that intensity flagged.

  "That's enough," he said. "Aren't we going to stop for lunch? Kyle, aren't there any towns around here?"

  "Yes, Lord," said Kyle. "We've passed several."

  "Several?" The Prince stared at him. "Why haven't we come into one before now? Where are you taking me?"

  "Nowhere, Lord," said Kyle. "You lead the way. I only follow."

  "I?" said the Prince. For the first time he seemed to become aware that he had been keeping the gelding's head always in advance of the stallion. "Of course. But now it's time to eat."

  "Yes, Lord," said Kyle. "This way."

  He turned the stallion's head down the slope of the hill they were crossing and the Prince turned the gelding after him.

  "And now listen," said the Prince, as he caught up. "Tell me I've got it all right.
" And to Kyle's astonishment, he began to repeat, almost word for word, everything that Kyle had said. "Is it all there? Everything you told me?"

  "Perfectly, Lord," said Kyle. The Prince looked slyly at him.

  "Could you do that, Kyle?"

  "Yes," said Kyle. "But these are things I've known all my life."

  "You see?" The Prince smiled. "That's the difference between us, good Kyle. You spend your life learning something – I spend a few hours and I know as much about it as you do."

  "Not as much, Lord," said Kyle, slowly.

  The Prince blinked at him, then jerked his hand dismissingly, and half-angrily, as if he were throwing something aside.

  "What little else there is probably doesn't count," he said.

  They rode down the slope and through a winding valley and came out at a small village. As they rode clear of the surrounding trees a sound of music came to their ears.

  "What's that?" The Prince stood up in his stirrups. "Why, there's dancing going on, over there."

  "A beer garden, Lord. And it's Saturday – a holiday here."

  "Good. We'll go there to eat."

  They rode around to the beer garden and found tables back away from the dance floor. A pretty, young waitress came and they ordered, the Prince smiling sunnily at her until she smiled back – then hurried off as if in mild confusion. The Prince ate hungrily when the food came and drank a stein and a half of brown beer, while Kyle ate more lightly and drank coffee.

  "That's better," said the Prince, sitting back at last. "I had an appetite . . . Look there, Kyle! Look, there are five, six . . . seven drifter platforms parked over there. Then you don't all ride horses?"

  "No," said Kyle. "It's as each man wishes."

  "But if you have drifter platforms, why not other civilized things?"

  "Some things fit, some don't, Lord," answered Kyle. The Prince laughed.

  "You mean you try to make civilization fit this old-fashioned life of yours, here?" he said. "Isn't that the wrong way around –" He broke off. "What's that they're playing now? I like that. I'll bet I could do that dance." He stood up. "In fact, I think I will."

  He paused, looking down at Kyle.

  "Aren't you going to warn me against it?" he asked.

  "No, Lord," said Kyle. "What you do is your own affair."

  The young man turned away abruptly. The waitress who had served them was passing, only a few tables away. The Prince went after her and caught up with her by the dance floor railing. Kyle could see the girl protesting – but the Prince hung over her, looking down from his tall height, smiling. Shortly, she had taken off her apron and was out on the dance floor with him, showing him the steps of the dance. It was a polka.

  The Prince learned with fantastic quickness. Soon, he was swinging the waitress around with the rest of the dancers, his foot stamping on the turns, his white teeth gleaming. Finally the number ended and the members of the band put down their instruments and began to leave the stand.

  The Prince, with the girl trying to hold him back, walked over to the band leader. Kyle got up quickly from his table and started toward the floor.

  The band leader was shaking his head. He turned abruptly and slowly walked away. The Prince started after him, but the girl took hold of his arm, saying something urgent to him.

  He brushed her aside and she stumbled a little. A busboy among the tables on the far side of the dance floor, not much older than the Prince and nearly as tall, put down his tray and vaulted the railing onto the polished hardwood. He came up behind the Prince and took hold of his arm, swinging him around.

  ". . . Can't do that here." Kyle heard him say, as Kyle came up. The Prince struck out like a panther – like a trained boxer – with three quick lefts in succession into the face of the busboy, the Prince's shoulder bobbing, the weight of his body in behind each blow.

  The busboy went down. Kyle, reaching the Prince, herded him away through a side gap in the railing. The young man's face was white with rage. People were swarming onto the dance floor.

  "Who was that? What's his name?" demanded the Prince, between his teeth. "He put his hand on me! Did you see that? He put his hand on me! "

  "You knocked him out," said Kyle. "What more do you want?"

  "He manhandled me – me! " snapped the Prince. "I want to find out who he is!" He caught hold of the bar to which the horses were tied, refusing to be pushed farther. "He'll learn to lay hands on a future Emperor!"

  "No one will tell you his name," said Kyle. And the cold note in his voice finally seemed to reach through to the Prince and sober him. He stared at Kyle.

  "Including you?" he demanded at last.

  "Including me, Lord," said Kyle.

  The Prince stared a moment longer, then swung away. He turned, jerked loose the reins of the gelding and swung into the saddle. He rode off. Kyle mounted and followed.

  They rode in silence into the forest. After a while, the Prince spoke without turning his head.

  "And you call yourself a bodyguard," he said, finally.

  "Your life is in my hands, Lord," said Kyle. The Prince turned a grim face to look at him.

  "Only my life?" said the Prince. "As long as they don't kill me, they can do what they want? Is that what you mean?"

  Kyle met his gaze steadily.

  "Pretty much so, Lord," he said.

  The Prince spoke with an ugly note in his voice.

  "I don't think I like you, after all, Kyle," he said. "I don't think I like you at all."

  "I'm not here with you to be liked, Lord," said Kyle.

  "Perhaps not," said the Prince, thickly. "But I know your name!"

  They rode on in continued silence for perhaps another half hour. But then gradually the angry hunch went out of the young man's shoulders and the tightness out of his jaw. After a while he began to sing to himself, a song in a language Kyle did not know; and as he sang, his cheerfulness seemed to return. Shortly, he spoke to Kyle, as if there had never been anything but pleasant moments between them.

  Mammoth Cave was close and the Prince asked to visit it. They went there and spent some time going through the cave. After that they rode their horses up along the left bank of the Green River. The Prince seemed to have forgotten all about the incident at the beer garden and be out to charm everyone they met. As the sun was at last westering toward the dinner hour, they came finally to a small hamlet back from the river, with a roadside inn mirrored in an artificial lake beside it, and guarded by oak and pine trees behind.

  "This looks good," said the Prince. "We'll stay overnight here, Kyle."

  "If you wish, Lord," said Kyle.

  They halted, and Kyle took the horses around to the stable, then entered the inn to find the Prince already in the small bar off the dining room, drinking beer and charming the waitress. This waitress was younger than the one at the beer garden had been; a little girl with soft, loose hair and round brown eyes that showed their delight in the attention of the tall, good-looking, young man.

  "Yes," said the Prince to Kyle, looking out of the corners of the Imperial blue eyes at him, after the waitress had gone to get Kyle his coffee, "This is the very place."

  "The very place?" said Kyle.

  "For me to get to know the people better – what did you think, good Kyle?" said the Prince and laughed at him. "I'll observe the people here and you can explain them – won't that be good?"

  Kyle gazed at him, thoughtfully.

  "I'll tell you whatever I can, Lord," he said.

  They drank – the Prince his beer, and Kyle his coffee – and went in a little later to the dining room for dinner. The Prince, as he had promised at the bar, was full of questions about what he saw – and what he did not see.

  ". . . But why go on living in the past, all of you here?" he asked Kyle. "A museum world is one thing. But a museum people –" he broke off to smile and speak to the little, soft-haired waitress, who had somehow been diverted from the bar to wait upon their dining-room table.

&n
bsp; "Not a museum people, Lord," said Kyle. "A living people. The only way to keep a race and a culture preserved is to keep it alive. So we go on in our own way, here on Earth, as a living example for the Younger Worlds to check themselves against."

  "Fascinating . . ." murmured the Prince; but his eyes had wandered off to follow the waitress, who was glowing and looking back at him from across the now-busy dining room.

  "Not fascinating. Necessary, Lord," said Kyle. But he did not believe the younger man had heard him.

  After dinner, they moved back to the bar. And the Prince, after questioning Kyle a little longer, moved up to continue his researches among the other people standing at the bar.

  Kyle watched for a little while. Then, feeling it was safe to do so, slipped out to have another look at the horses and to ask the innkeeper to arrange a saddle lunch put up for them the next day.

  When he returned, the Prince was not to be seen.

  Kyle sat down at a table to wait; but the Prince did not return. A cold, hard knot of uneasiness began to grow below Kyle's breastbone. A sudden pang of alarm sent him swiftly back out to check the horses. But they were cropping peacefully in their stalls. The stallion whickered, low-voiced, as Kyle looked in on him, and turned his white head to look back at Kyle.

  "Easy, boy," said Kyle and returned to the inn to find the innkeeper.

  But the innkeeper had no idea where the Prince might have gone.

  ". . . If the horses aren't taken, he's not far," the innkeeper said. "There's no trouble he can get into around here. Maybe he went for a walk in the woods. I'll leave word for the night staff to keep an eye out for him when he comes in. Where'll you be?"

  "In the bar until it closes – then, my room," said Kyle.

  He went back to the bar to wait, and took a booth near an open window. Time went by and gradually the number of other customers began to dwindle. Above the ranked bottles, the bar clock showed nearly midnight. Suddenly, through the window, Kyle heard a distant scream of equine fury from the stables.