Gordon R. Dickson's SF Best

by Gordon R. Dickson

  He got up and went out quickly. In the darkness outside, he ran to the stables and burst in. There in the feeble illumination of the stable's night lighting, he saw the Prince, pale-faced, clumsily saddling the gelding in the center aisle between the stalls. The door to the stallion's stall was open. The Prince looked away as Kyle came in.

  Kyle took three swift steps to the open door and looked in. The stallion was still tied, but his ears were back, his eyes rolling, and a saddle lay tumbled and dropped on the stable floor beside him.

  "Saddle up," said the Prince thickly from the aisle. "We're leaving." Kyle turned to look at him.

  "We've got rooms at the inn here," he said.

  "Never mind. We're riding. I need to clear my head." The young man got the gelding's cinch tight, dropped the stirrups and swung heavily up into the saddle. Without waiting for Kyle, he rode out of the stable into the night.

  "So, boy . . ." said Kyle soothingly to the stallion. Hastily he untied the big white horse, saddled him, and set out after the Prince. In the darkness, there was no way of ground-tracking the gelding; but he leaned forward and blew into the ear of the stallion. The surprised horse neighed in protest and the whinny of the gelding came back from the darkness of the slope up ahead and over to Kyle's right. He rode in that direction.

  He caught the Prince on the crown of the hill. The young man was walking the gelding, reins loose, and singing under his breath – the same song in an unknown language he had sung earlier. But, now as he saw Kyle, he grinned loosely and began to sing with more emphasis. For the first time Kyle caught the overtones of something mocking and lusty about the incomprehensible words. Understanding broke suddenly in him.

  "The girl!" he said. "The little waitress. Where is she?"

  The grin vanished from the Prince's face, then came slowly back again. The grin laughed at Kyle.

  "Why, where d'you think?" The words slurred on the Prince's tongue and Kyle, riding close, smelled the beer heavy on the young man's breath. "In her room, sleeping and happy. Honored . . . though she doesn't know it . . . by an Emperor's son. And expecting to find me there in the morning. But I won't be. Will we, good Kyle?"

  "Why did you do it, Lord?" asked Kyle, quietly.

  "Why?" The Prince peered at him, a little drunkenly in the moonlight. "Kyle, my father has four sons. I've got three younger brothers. But I'm the one who's going to be Emperor; and Emperors don't answer questions."

  Kyle said nothing. The Prince peered at him. They rode on together for several minutes in silence.

  "All right, I'll tell you why," said the Prince, more loudly, after a while as if the pause had been only momentary. "It's because you're not my bodyguard, Kyle. You see, I've seen through you. I know whose bodyguard you are. You're theirs! "

  Kyle's jaw tightened. But the darkness hid his reaction.

  "All right –" The Prince gestured loosely, disturbing his balance in the saddle. "That's all right. Have it your way. I don't mind. So, we'll play points. There was that lout at the beer garden, who put his hands on me. But no one would tell me his name, you said. All right, you managed to bodyguard him. One point for you. But you didn't manage to bodyguard the girl at the inn back there. One point for me. Who's going to win, good Kyle?"

  Kyle took a deep breath.

  "Lord," he said, "some day it'll be your duty to marry a woman from Earth –"

  The Prince interrupted him with a laugh, and this time there was an ugly note in it.

  "You flatter yourselves," he said. His voice thickened. "That's the trouble with you – all you Earth people – you flatter yourselves."

  They rode on in silence. Kyle said nothing more, but kept the head of the stallion close to the shoulder of the gelding, watching the young man closely. For a little while the Prince seemed to doze. His head sank on his chest and he let the gelding wander. Then, after a while, his head began to come up again, his automatic horseman's fingers tightened on the reins, and he lifted his head to stare around in the moonlight.

  "I want a drink," he said. His voice was no longer thick, but it was flat and uncheerful. "Take me where we can get some beer, Kyle."

  Kyle took a deep breath.

  "Yes, Lord," he said.

  He turned the stallion's head to the right and the gelding followed. They went up over a hill and down to the edge of a lake. The dark water sparkled in the moonlight and the farther shore was lost in the night. Lights shone through the trees around the curve of the shore.

  "There, Lord," said Kyle. "It's a fishing resort, with a bar."

  They rode around the shore to it. It was a low, casual building, angled to face the shore; a dock ran out from it, to which fishing boats were tethered, bobbing slightly on the black water. Light gleamed through the windows as they hitched their horses and went to the door.

  The barroom they stepped into was wide and bare. A long bar faced them with several planked fish on the wall behind it. Below the fish were three bartenders – the one in the center, middle-aged, and wearing an air of authority with his apron. The other two were young and muscular. The customers, mostly men, scattered at the square tables and standing at the bar wore rough working clothes, or equally casual vacationers' garb.

  The Prince sat down at a table back from the bar and Kyle sat down with him. When the waitress came they ordered beer and coffee, and the Prince half-emptied his stein the moment it was brought to him. As soon as it was completely empty, he signaled the waitress again.

  "Another," he said. This time, he smiled at the waitress when she brought his stein back. But she was a woman in her thirties, pleased but not overwhelmed by his attention. She smiled lightly back and moved off to return to the bar where she had been talking to two men her own age, one fairly tall, the other shorter, bullet-headed and fleshy.

  The Prince drank. As he put his stein down, he seemed to become aware of Kyle, and turned to look at him.

  "I suppose," said the Prince, "you think I'm drunk?"

  "Not yet," said Kyle.

  "No," said the Prince, "that's right. Not yet. But perhaps I'm going to be. And if I decide I am, who's going to stop me?"

  "No one, Lord."

  "That's right," the young man said, "that's right." He drank deliberately from his stein until it was empty, and then signaled the waitress for another. A spot of color was beginning to show over each of his high cheekbones. "When you're on a miserable little world with miserable little people . . . hello, Bright Eyes!" he interrupted himself as the waitress brought his beer. She laughed and went back to her friends. ". . . You have to amuse yourself any way you can," he wound up.

  He laughed to himself.

  "When I think how my father, and Monty – everybody – used to talk this planet up to me –" he glanced aside at Kyle. "Do you know at one time I was actually scared – well, not scared exactly, nothing scares me . . . say concerned – about maybe having to come here, some day?" He laughed again. "Concerned that I wouldn't measure up to you Earth peo- ple! Kyle, have you ever been to any of the Younger Worlds?"

  "No," said Kyle.

  "I thought not. Let me tell you, good Kyle, the worst of the people there are bigger, and better-looking and smarter, and everything than anyone I've seen here. And I, Kyle, I – the Emperor-to-be – am better than any of them. So, guess how all you here look to me?" He stared at Kyle, waiting. "Well, answer me, good Kyle. Tell me the truth. That's an order."

  "It's not up to you to judge, Lord," said Kyle.

  "Not –? Not up to me?" The blue eyes blazed. "I'm going to be Emperor!"

  "It's not up to any one man, Lord," said Kyle. "Emperor or not. An Emperor's needed, as the symbol that can hold a hundred worlds together. But the real need of the race is to survive. It took nearly a million years to evolve a survival-type intelligence here on Earth. And out on the newer worlds people are bound to change. If something gets lost out there, some necessary element lost out of the race, there needs to be a pool of original genetic material here to replace it."
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br />   The Prince's lips grew wide in a savage grin.

  "Oh, good, Kyle – good!" he said. "Very good. Only, I've heard all that before. Only, I don't believe it. You see – I've seen you people, now. And you don't outclass us, out on the Younger Worlds. We outclass you. We've gone on and got better, while you stayed still. And you know it."

  The young man laughed softly, almost in Kyle's face.

  "All you've been afraid of, is that we'd find out. And I have." He laughed again. "I've had a look at you; and now I know. I'm bigger, better and braver than any man in this room – and you know why? Not just because I'm the son of the Emperor, but because it's born in me! Body, brains and everything else! I can do what I want here, and no one on this planet is good enough to stop me. Watch."

  He stood up, suddenly.

  "Now, I want that waitress to get drunk with me," he said. "And this time I'm telling you in advance. Are you going to try and stop me?"

  Kyle looked up at him. Their eyes met.

  "No, Lord," he said. "It's not my job to stop you."

  The Prince laughed.

  "I thought so," he said. He swung away and walked between the tables toward the bar and the waitress, still in conversation with the two men. The Prince came up to the bar on the far side of the waitress and ordered a new stein of beer from the middle-aged bartender. When it was given to him, he took it, turned around, and rested his elbows on the bar, leaning back against it. He spoke to the waitress, interrupting the taller of the two men.

  "l've been wanting to talk to you," Kyle heard him say.

  The waitress, a little surprised, looked around at him. She smiled, recognizing him – a little flattered by the directness of his approach, a little appreciative of his clean good looks, a little tolerant of his youth.

  "You don't mind, do you?" said the Prince, looking past her to the bigger of the two men, the one who had just been talking. The other stared back, and their eyes met without shifting for several seconds. Abruptly, angrily, the man shrugged, and turned about with his back hunched against them.

  "You see?" said the Prince, smiling back at the waitress. "He knows I'm the one you ought to be talking to, instead of –"

  "All right, sonny. Just a minute."

  It was the shorter, bullet-headed man, interrupting. The Prince turned to look down at him with a fleeting expression of surprise. But the bullet-headed man was already turning to his taller friend and putting a hand on his arm.

  "Come on back, Ben," the shorter man was saying. "The kid's a little drunk, is all." He turned back to the Prince. "You shove off now," he said. "Clara's with us."

  The Prince stared at him blankly. The stare was so fixed that the shorter man had started to turn away, back to his friend and the waitress, when the Prince seemed to wake.

  "Just a minute –" he said, in his turn.

  He reached out a hand to one of the fleshy shoulders below the bullet head. The man turned back, knocking the hand calmly away. Then, just as calmly, he picked up the Prince's full stein of beer from the bar and threw it in the young man's face.

  "Get lost," he said, unexcitedly.

  The Prince stood for a second, with the beer dripping from his face. Then, without even stopping to wipe his eyes clear, he threw the beautifully trained left hand he had demon-strated at the beer garden.

  But the shorter man, as Kyle had known from the first moment of seeing him, was not like the busboy the Prince had decisioned so neatly. This man was thirty pounds heavier, fifteen years more experienced, and by build and nature a natural bar fighter. He had not stood there waiting to be hit, but had already ducked and gone forward to throw his thick arms around the Prince's body. The young man's punch bounced harmlessly off the round head, and both bodies hit the floor, rolling in among the chair and table legs.

  Kyle was already more than halfway to the bar and the three bartenders were already leaping the wooden hurdle that walled them off. The taller friend of the bullet-headed man, hovering over the two bodies, his eyes glittering, had his boot drawn back ready to drive the point of it into the Prince's kidneys. Kyle's forearm took him economically like a bar of iron across the tanned throat.

  He stumbled backwards choking. Kyle stood still, hands open and down, glancing at the middle-aged bartender.

  "All right," said the bartender. "But don't do anything more." He turned to the two younger bartenders. "All right. Haul him off!"

  The pair of younger, aproned men bent down and came up with the bullet-headed man expertly handlocked between them. The man made one surging effort to break loose, and then stood still.

  "Let me at him," he said.

  "Not in here," said the older bartender. "Take it outside."

  Illustration by RICK BRYANT

  Between the tables, the Prince staggered unsteadily to his feet. His face was streaming blood from a cut on his forehead, but what could be seen of it was white as a drowning man's. His eyes went to Kyle, standing beside him; and he opened his mouth – but what came out sounded like something between a sob and a curse.

  "All right," said the middle-aged bartender again. "Outside, both of you. Settle it out there."

  The men in the room had packed around the little space by the bar. The Prince looked about and for the first time seemed to see the human wall hemming him in. His gaze wobbled to meet Kyle's.

  "Outside . . . ?" he said, chokingly.

  "You aren't staying in here," said the older bartender, answering for Kyle. "I saw it. You started the whole thing. Now, settle it any way you want – but you're both going outside. Now. Get moving!"

  He pushed at the Prince, but the Prince resisted, clutching at Kyle's leather jacket with one hand.

  "Kyle –"

  "I'm sorry, Lord," said Kyle. "I can't help. It's your fight."

  "Let's get out of here," said the bullet-headed man.

  The Prince stared around at them as if they were some strange set of beings he had never known to exist before.

  "No . . ." he said.

  He let go of Kyle's jacket. Unexpectedly, his hand darted in towards Kyle's belly holster and came out holding the slug pistol.

  "Stand back!" he said, his voice high-toned. "Don't try to touch me!"

  His voice broke on the last words. There was a strange sound, half grunt, half moan, from the crowd; and it swayed back from him. Manager, bartenders, watchers – all but Kyle and the bullet-headed man drew back.

  "You dirty slob . . ." said the bullet-headed man, distinctly. "I knew you didn't have the guts."

  "Shut up!" The Prince's voice was high and cracking. "Shut up! Don't any of you try to come after me!"

  He began backing away toward the front door of the bar.

  The room watched in silence, even Kyle standing still. As he backed, the Prince's back straightened. He hefted the gun in his hand. When he reached the door he paused to wipe the blood from his eyes with his left sleeve, and his smeared face looked with a first touch of regained arrogance at them.

  "Swine!" he said.

  He opened the door and backed out, closing it behind him. Kyle took one step that put him facing the bullet-headed man. Their eyes met and he could see the other recognizing the fighter in him, as he had earlier recognized it in the bullet-headed man.

  "Don't come after us," said Kyle.

  The bullet-headed man did not answer. But no answer was needed. He stood still.

  Kyle turned, ran to the door, stood on one side of it and flicked it open. Nothing happe- ned; and he slipped through, dodging to his right at once, out of the line of any shot aimed at the opening door.

  But no shot came. For a moment he was blind in the night darkness, then his eyes began to adjust. He went by sight, feel and memory toward the hitching rack. By the time he got there, he was beginning to see.

  The Prince was untying the gelding and getting ready to mount.

  "Lord," said Kyle.

  The Prince let go of the saddle for a moment and turned to look over his shoulder at him.r />
  "Get away from me," said the Prince, thickly.

  "Lord," said Kyle, low-voiced and pleading, "you lost your head in there. Anyone might do that. But don't make it worse now. Give me back the gun, Lord."

  "Give you the gun?"

  The young man stared at him – and then he laughed.

  "Give you the gun?" he said again. "So you can let someone beat me up some more? So you can not-guard me with it?"

  "Lord," said Kyle, "please. For your own sake – give me back the gun."

  "Get out of here," said the Prince, thickly, turning back to mount the gelding. "Clear out before I put a slug in you."

  Kyle drew a slow, sad breath. He stepped forward and tapped the Prince on the shoulder.

  "Turn around. Lord," he said.

  "I warned you –" shouted the Prince, turning.

  He came around as Kyle stooped, and the slug pistol flashed in his hand from the light of the bar windows. Kyle, bent over, was lifting the cuff of his trouser leg and closing his fingers on the hilt of the knife in his boot sheath. He moved simply, skillfully, and with a speed nearly double that of the young man, striking up into the chest before him until the hand holding the knife jarred against the cloth covering flesh and bone.

  It was a sudden, hard-driven, swiftly merciful blow. The blade struck upwards between the ribs lying open to an underhanded thrust, plunging deep into the heart. The Prince grunted with the impact driving the air from his lungs; and he was dead as Kyle caught his slumping body in leather-jacketed arms.

  Kyle lifted the tall body across the saddle of the gelding and tied it there. He hunted on the dark ground for the fallen pistol and returned it to his holster. Then he mounted the stallion and, leading the gelding with its burden, started the long ride back.

  Dawn was graying the sky when at last he topped the hill overlooking the lodge where he had picked up the Prince almost twenty-four hours before. He rode down towards the courtyard gate.

  A tall figure, indistinct in the pre-dawn light, was waiting inside the courtyard as Kyle came through the gate; and it came running to meet him as he rode toward it. It was the tutor, Montlaven, and he was weeping as he ran to the gelding and began to fumble at the cords that tied the body in place.