Another series of blinding multiple flashes filled the air between them, Bowmore now decidedly upon the defensive. Henry Martyn fell this time, struggling to retain his sweaty grasp upon the slippery remote in his left hand. Unlike his opponent, the master-murchan leaned in hard to make the best advantage of it, but Henry Martyn raised his weapon to meet the murchan's. Their gleaming axes collided once again, showering both with brilliant, painful motes of ener-
gy, echoing in miniature the fury of the storm still raging round them, almost forgotten, as they fought. An infinitesimal pause. The look which passed between them was one of recognition and of parting, as if each, being at the end of his capacity and resigned to oblivion, realized that only one would walk away from this and live again. The moment ended. Again they hacked at one another.
Bowmore's arm shot forward as if he could augment his thrustible's energy with muscle power. He was answered with an upraised axis. Their weapons clashed a final time. Still upon his back, Henry Martyn forced Bowmore to retreat and arose by sheer strength and determination, launching an immediate attack of his own, a single, slashing thrust. Its object parried, countering with a blur of weary overhand flailing. Henry Martyn, also long since exhausted, parried and flailed himself, wide of the mark, as Bowmore backed away another step.
This time, as Bowmore attacked, Henry Martyn ducked inside his guard, crouching to the deck. He rose and let Bowmore's momentum take him past, turned, and jabbed him in the back with his thrustible, delivering the weapon's full power into the man's kidney. The breathless victor backed away three steps. Bowmore fell to the deck, his eye already glazing, his wide, cruel mouth silenced forever.
"And that, my friend, ends a policy of repeated mercies which should never have begun!" Aware, of a sudden, that he still held the remote in his left hand, he overrode the setting and tossed it into the §-field. It struck with a flash and crackle and disappeared. Speaking to SuUers-Masen, he pointed a weapon-heavy hand toward the object which had been Bowmore. "Get that trash cleared away!"
Chapter XLIV: Return to Skye
It was a small room. Owing to its shape and the peculiar" manner in which it had been decorated, its dimensions were difl&cult for her to determine. Approximating a circle with a low, domed ceiling, all of its surfaces had been carpeted (if that was the word; "upholstered" came to mind) in light-swallowing black, floor, ceiling, and walls flowing into one another indistinguishably.
Aside from two reclining chairs, low-backed in defiance of the current mode, and a knee-height glass-topped table, the only other feature was a waist-high shelf, carpeted like the walls, running about the room's circumference, including a door which all but disappeared when it was closed. Upon the shelf, with scarcely a siemme between them, stood thille-readers fashioned by the hands of more than a hundred worlds. Above each, hovering against faultless blackness, hung an image, a scene from the surface of one of the millions of planets which comprised the Monopolity.
"Come, Mistress Daimler-Wilkinson," a deep-voiced man spoke, each syllable flat and final in the anechoic chamber, | responding to a look of disapproval lying upon her pretty face. "Havin' endured uncountable difficulties and delays, havin* outwitted stolid guards, influence-peddlin' secretaries, all eunuchs of varyin' degrees of literality, to return without your uncle's knowledge, in contravention of his wishes—as well as against my specific orders—you didn't expect to find me a closet egalitarian. You didn't expect me to retire from what our ancestors more frankly termed the 'Bore 'Droom,' to some humble, cluttered office somewhere, to slip out of my finery with a sigh of relief and assume the attire of someone below my station. Or p'raps loll about au naturel? I'm the Ceo, girl. I enjoy being what I was brought up to be since birth."
After the effort which had brought her, she found she was unable to speak a coherent word, let alone as she had planned. He chuckled, drawing her to a chair, taking the other himself "You want something, that's clear enou^. To you, the power and wealth at my disposal appear infinite, although no one knows better than I their too real limits. I don't blame you, you could hardly feel otherwise, or for wantin' something from the fellow possessing them. Everybody does. I've grown used to it and make allowances."
"Sir, I—"
"You realize, of course, that nothin' is free. I'll want something from you in return— oh, dear me, child, no! Not that."
She let her breath out, relieved, but knowing she would have paid that price or any other to obtain what she sought. Having waited too long to decide for the man she loved, it might now be too late to interfere in the trap being laid for him. Having reached her decision, she was discovering herself as unstoppable in its execution as the implacable Henry Martyn.
The Ceo shook his head. "What d'you think I am—don't answer that! Instead, think a moment: I'm the Leupould IX, Ceo of the grandest imperium-conglomerate in the history of the galaxy, in effect the absolute ruler of something like a million systems, with subjects numberin' in the quintSlions." He lifted a hand and let it drop to the arm of his chair. "You're an exquisitely beautiful child, without doubt. And I'm a man with a man's tastes, increasingly rare upon this planet. But if I accepted a billionth of the fleshy offers coming my way, I should be a wrinkled old prune like my esteemed colleague Ribauldequin!"
Not knowing what reply to offer, Loreanna, in her wisdom, offered none. She was curious to know how those who plotted, like her uncle, to sway or distract men of power with the lure of sex would take hearing that they—at least Leupould—regarded it as an occupational hazard, foremost a threat to their physical well-being. Having arrived upon the capital world, she was reminded all over again, by observing contrasts between shipboard life and the audience she had just quitted, how such eloquently spoken, overly dressed, cleverly masqued, and terribly good-mannered creatures
406 HENRY MARTYN
had planned to use her with what amounted to far greater-brutality than ever Henry Martyn had. j
"No, my dear, what I want from you, I already have. My luxury, my satisfaction, lies in something which you, lackin' my disadvantages, have never had to value. What I hunger after is reliable knowledge. I struggle after it every day, as my most impoverished subject struggles after bread."
"Sir?"
"D'you not understand? I know what you want and why you want it!" A single antique reader stood upon the glass table between them. He activated a thille within it. Into life sprang another planetary scene, a flower-dotted meadow and blue forest against a backdrop of mountain peaks. Behind them a misty ribbon of silver arched across the great bowl of the heavens. "Somewhat outdated, I fear. They've built a shanty settlement in yon pasture."
Despite this news, Loreanna brightened. "I understand," she responded. "You have no hidden intentions to worry about upon my part?"
The Ceo bobbed his great head with enthusiasm. "Let me tell you it's a relief, a precious moment in which I feel free to relax a trifle. If I didn't—if it weren't—you and I shouldn't be here, most of my time and effort, you see, bein' spent in an attempt, not entirely successful, to determine those very things of people I've no choice but to deal with."
Loreanna nodded, feeling something like sympathy for this great man who was never certain he was hearing the truth— or words of genuine friendship. Thus she was able to tell him, in as brief and simple a manner as she found possible, all which had befallen her and what she had learned concerning Tarbert Morven, Skye, and Henry Martyn. Finishing, she glanced up from her lap to discover Leupould peering at her.
"Mistress Loreanna, you're about to find, perhaps to your consternation, given the time and effort you yourself have recently expended, that you hadn't much to tell your Ceo of your circumstances, or those of Henry Martyn or his planet —what was its name, Skye, wasn't it?—that he didn't already know." Again Loreanna nodded, meekly. Leupould surprised her by throwing back his head and bursting into laughter. "You truly hope that what I claim is true, don't you?
Thrust me, Vm disposed to help you at that!
But you must forgive me. I was compelled to give in, just once more, to a lifelong habit of double-checking to see what guilty look a casual remark may provoke."
"I ... I am most sorry, sir . . ."
The Ceo laughed again. "See here: one confidence, however involuntary upon your part, deserves another. I fear my hesitancy over the name of Henry Martyn's planet was another deception. I am familiar with its situation for the best of reasons. Unknown to anyone else upon Skye, or Hanover for that matter, an individual there has long served as my personal eyes and ears."
"Mistress Lia Woodgate!" It was the Ceo's turn for surprise. The words burst out against her will and better judgment.
"Great Expulsion, how d'you reckon that?"
She had to clear her throat before explaining. "A cultured Hanoverian girl with more comfortable prospects here, off on the raw frontier ostensibly tutoring the sons of a countrified Drector you yourself created, one hated, albeit unknowingly, by one of the Monopolity's most powerful figures?"
Leupould blew a considerable volume of air through his nostrils.
"Who else," she nodded at the table, "could have enthilled that scene?"
"Well," Leupould answered, "one hopes it isn't that obvious to others. It helps, in that regard, that her sympathies are genuinely and entirely with the Skyans. Mistrustful of the reports of'disinterested' observers, I make appropriate allowance to balance any bias she may manifest."
"You find that easier," Loreanna ventured her new understanding, "than constantly wondering where her true desires and loyalties might lie?"
The Ceo inclined his head. "I trust that this arrangement meets with your unalloyed approval?" Loreanna blushed. "What you've no way of knowin' (it is to be hoped!) is that Lia's also my daughter, upon the wrong side of the blanket as the sayin' goes, and entirely unaware of her parentage. The confidence I place in you is something you may not appreciate until you're older. She's not the only such child I
408 HENRY MARTYN
own to, but the onliest I care for. I tell you so you'll understand my personal concern for what happens upon Skye."
"Sir, I do not know what to say . . ."
"Say nothing, ever, of what I've told you. The point is that Lia, fully as indomitable as the Ceo she serves, kept report-in' secretly to me through all her personal tribulations. Until recently. Despairin' of greater satisfaction than revenge, it was her hope that, despite the part she believed I played in the Usurpation, Morven's excesses would not go unpunished."
"Henry Martyn believed you did approve the Usurpation and told me so."
"Say rather, Lx)reanna, that Leupould of Hanover is not the incompetent fool his Jendyne opposite, Ribauldequin, appears to be. I often suspect even he merely finds it advantageous to cultivate such an impression. He may, in fact, be among the shrewdest power-managers in the galaxy. Say, rather, that I am one who, never bein' certain whom to trust, allows his underlings opportunity to betray their real sympathies and motivations."
"At the cost of how many innocent lives?"
"Among how many quintillions?"
"I have heard this argument before, sir. It is my conviction that each sapient life is unique—the product of unrepeatable combinations and permutations of heredity, experience, and free will—and therefore not properly subject to the Law of Marginal Utility."
Leupould smiled. "Now you know, my dear, why I regard your uncle with respect and affection. He's not afraid to argue with me, either."
Loreanna was taken aback. "Argue? I was arguing with the—"
Laughter: "It runs in the family. Now, since I've no need for more detail of what's happened upon Skye, and since you are uncommonly reticent regardin' time you spent with the notorious Henry Martyn, what further observations have you to offer, pertinent to the circumstances?"
Loreanna gave it thought. "Only that this arrangement between you and your—Mistress Woodgate, more than any skill or passion upon my part—"
"I assure you, those qualities were far from ineffective in your cause."
"Thank you, sir—I think. I was about to say that it explains my relatively easy access to an otherwise notoriously inaccessible—"
"Not altogether, my dear." A section of the carpeted wall, not that through which they had come, swung aside.
"Uncle!"
"Please forgive me," he told her, "for eavesdropping. My reasons for doing so were two in number. The first is that the Ceo and I have a problem. Our protege, Morven, is becoming something of an embarrassment, being responsible, among other transgressions, for having sparked the legend of Henry Martyn. You have only confirmed what we had deduced in that regard."
"That may be the noblest of Morven's accomplishments," the Ceo nodded, "I rather fancy pirates." Daimler-Wilkinson gave his sovereign a look complaining that the man could well afford to fancy them, having others to clean up the messes they made. The Ceo laughed.
"And the second?" Loreanna asked her uncle.
"The second—oh!" A look of infinite sadness crossed his features. "Why yes. It would seem, in light of the Law of Marginal Utility, that I have dealt an inexpressible injustice to the 'onliest' individual I care for. I had to see how well she had survived the consequence, whether any possibility exists that she might someday find it in her heart—" Loreanna opened her mouth. "Say nothing," her uncle interrupted, "until I have found a way to make amends. I shall begin by paying an older debt, telling you the truth, however painful it may be, regarding the fates of your mother and father."
The Ceo put up a hand. "Tell her later. And don't be surprised but what she knows already. This is quite touchin', but if we're to avoid accrual of even more debt, we've scant time to put you aboard your ship, Sedgeley."
Loreanna turned to look at Leupould. "Aboard a star-ship?"
"Why yes, my dear," her uncle answered for his sovereign, "a punitive flotilla the Ceo is about to dispatch to troubled Skye."
410 HENRY MARTYN
"How were you able to make your way down here unde- ■ tected?"
It was a weary young captain who, when battle and storm were ended, had seen to the repair of the Osprey using spars and cabelles salvaged from four other drifting and disabled vessels. Mixing his own crewbeings among theirs, as was his habit, with orders to return the prizes to Sisao and Somon as best they could, in due course he reached Skye. Passing himself as a construction foreman, with the name of Captain Bowmore as reference, he transferred to a murchan-vessel standing in synchronous orbit, and with a gang of common laborers, lubberlifted surfaceward. Travel from the equator, northward had been similarly contrived. He peered up from I the dirty, drink-ringed surface of the table at which he sat,' through a layer of smoke, hanging at eye level, which dimmed ^ the already burdened atmosphere within The Wasted Corsair.
"Strange greeting, after more than two years, Donol."
A man with thinning hair, wearing expensive clothing in the latest style of Hanover, stood backlighted against the fuzzy globes hanging from the rafters. "Forgive me, Arran. It was a shock learning otherwise when I had thought you dead all this time." He gave him a crooked half smile. "And other preoccupations prey upon my mind."
He sat without asking, continuing conversation only after a dirty-aproned wench had departed with their order. Amidst mindless noise and a dense forest of human forms, still for the most part farmers and herdsmen, although the place never gave up its pretense of being a spaceman's bar, soldiers and officers of the Holdings guard enjoyed the fleshpots, rendered equal in rank and identity by the bleary, smoke-filtered illumination. Prey to his own preoccupations, the ' younger brother nodded understanding as the elder spoke.
"It would be good seeing you, Arran, were it not so dangerous. You do not want to hear you have grown a measure and become a man into the bargain."
Arran looked about him at the drifting wreckage of humanity crowding them shoulder to shoulder, animated, to appearances, only by the force of their own raucous laughter, amidst stenches of excreta, decaying garbag
e, unwashed bodies, and enthilled blaring someone had mistaken for
music. "Growing up is not the most enjoyable of processes, but one can be proud of having survived it. You appear to have survived. And prospered."
Donol shrugged. "For one supposed to be no more than a prisoner, learning all he might from the enemy? I assure you, Arran, any privilege I have earned I regard as a trophy, a measure of my effectiveness as a spy. And any damage my reputation suffers upon that account is not only a necessary sacrifice in our behalf, but a species of protection."
Arran grinned unpleasantly. "I see. What have you managed to learn?"
Again Donol shrugged. "Everyday matters of tactical import, movements, shipments, which I used to pass to Robret and which I now share with Lia, who has astonished everyone by becoming our unquestioned leader. And Fionaleigh Savage, who represents her in the field." He edged closer to Arran, lowering his voice. "The one strategic fact I have concerns an alien philosopher—and a device he has offered Morven, capable of enslaving an entire planet."
He took pains to explain in detail, to Arran's evident growing alarm, underlining the threat they represented, not only to Skyans but perhaps the entire Monopolity. He described the false rendezvous with the alien which had resulted in Robret's capture, with certain convenient emendations.
"The Black Usurper has lately received the actual instrumentality, Arran. He required considerable practice to become proficient, but is about to make use of it now. It is his most closely cherished secret I have managed to ferret out. Now, are you going to tell me how you got here?"
Arran looked at him across the rim of his caffcup. "Is it important?"
"No one among the Hanoverians, none of their vaunted equipment, detected your arrival, Arran. I did not know of it until you sent word through the gardener. We have great need of the ability to come and go undetected."
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