by Brian Daley
He sighed. We seem fated to veer between mansions and skid row. If we ever end up in normal surroundings I'm not sure I'll know how to act anymore.
Ends Well featured old-fashioned stairs and hallways, no whisk-platform transport system or chuteshafts. Alacrity, looking around, couldn't tell if it had changed; he'd been there only briefly, as a child. An awful lot had happened to him since; several lifetimes' worth.
The companions took in the splendor with only a fraction of their attention, the rest devoted to Tomasina's smooth, finely muscled behind, which orbited through divine figure eights as she led the way. Floyt was reassured in that Alacrity had reemerged from his distraction enough to oggle. Alacrity did not, however, as might otherwise have been the case, offer to lick Tomasina's skin until his tongue wore down.
They came at length to the central kitchen, high up in the summit of Ends Well, a room only slightly smaller than a concert hall, with sky and sunlight all around. It was equipped with every variety of food processor and cooking tackle Alacrity could think of, along with a lot he didn't recognize, in glittering maxtech surfaces and brushed metal. There were banks of readout projectors and indicators in glowing colors.
But in one corner sat a modest little work area consisting of heating unit, sink, preservation locker, and countertop—archaic, simple, and uncomplicated. There Lord Marcus Perlez puttered, chopping and dicing, humming to himself, keeping one eye on a wok, his apron covering a very expensive housesuit. The place smelled nearly as mouth-watering as Tomasina.
A woman was standing by, attentive to him. She was Tomasina's duplicate, right down to the attire, the fragrance, and the darkly lustrous Lillith's eye at her bosom.
Lord Marcus turned as he heard their footsteps, gave them a cheerful, harried wave and a grin, bushy eyebrows fluttering, then went back to his cooking. Tomasina's double gave them a quick smile.
"Sorry, sorry; can't let this stuff get away from you, y'know, or it's ruined, just ruined," Marcus told them over his shoulder, waving a wooden spatula. "Take yourselves some seats! Here; keep me company. Too early for a drink?"
"It's late afternoon for us," Floyt replied as he and Alacrity sat on high, heavy old stools upholstered with bluish leather.
"We'll have what you're having," Alacrity added. "And thanks. You're looking well, sir."
Perlez took a moment from his cooking to wipe his hand on his apron and give Alacrity a quick, firm wrist-clasp. But there was something distracted about it, and Floyt could see that the old man and Alacrity were both thinking of less pleasant times.
"Good to see you, m'lad," Perlez said, winking, one bushy eyebrow lowering. He was gruffly compassionate, giving Alacrity's wrist a last squeeze. "Glad you made it."
He turned to Floyt. "You too, you too!" He had time for a rushed Terran-style handshake, then he was back to his chefery. "Callisto, if you'd be so kind as to do the honors, my pet?"
Callisto turned out to be the woman next to him and, what with the advanced systemry in the kitchen, she had five drinks ready with amazing speed, depth charges in frosted beer mugs, the liquor some thick stuff as dark as the Lillith's eyes. Floyt studied, with some trepidation, the shot glass standing on the bottom of his mug, but clinked glasses with the rest.
As Tomasina busied herself setting out sopmat coasters, Lord Marcus said, "My dears, these good gents and I have a few things we should discuss in private, so I'm afraid you must busy yourselves elsewhere. That's presuming you don't prefer to retire, too, sir?"
That last was to Floyt. Alacrity said, "No, I want him to hear this."
Tomasina smiled beautifully. "We have work to do anyway, thank you, sir. I'll be taking lunch and working on the staff roster in the greenhouse if you require any service."
"I'll be going through the household accounts," Callisto announced. Floyt, studying her closely, saw that her eyes were an even lighter shade of the eerie, miraculous blue than Tomasina's.
Lord Marcus let out a yipe, skipping aside and nearly falling as his right shin was struck. Floyt gaped down at what had buffeted him, a wooly brown thing about the size of a Welsh corgi with layered giltfix on its horns and a dog collar set with ranks of gleaming, pea-size lava pearls around its solid little neck.
Marcus had managed not to spill his drink, and now he set it aside, then stooped to pick up the dwarf bison that was still butting his leg. "How d'you like my little bonsai?" He scratched the thing's shaggy back; it squirmed, tail flicking.
"This is Larrup, old North American buffalo, bred from pure stock from Adam's Apple."
Floyt could only stare. The last American bison had died in the Second Breath, and he'd never expected to see a live one much less a gene-engineered miniature. Alacrity took a quick glance at Larrup and went back to studying Lord Marcus.
Marcus handed Larrup into Callisto's lovely arms; she and Tomasina took their drinks and left together while Floyt stared at the identical derrieres wistfully, as Alacrity and Marcus exchanged calculating looks.
"Clones?" Floyt asked in a low whisper, riveted on the callipygian grace.
"Nah!" Lord Marcus yelled, worrying the food with his spatula once more. "Any dimwit could have some clones run up, and what would that reveal to him or her about human nature and the Universe?"
Floyt was at a loss to tell. Perlez brandished the spatula at him—"Nothing!"—and resumed cooking. "No, I recruit my treasures based on an ideal of my own. How many such is our human race blessed with, out of all the planets we've populated? And of those, how many will consent to join my household? And then there's always the temptation to compromise my standards."
"They look the same as when I was a kid," Alacrity piped up suddenly.
"Yes; well. There's been a certain amount of turnover since then," Perlez admitted, and an uncomfortable silence flourished abruptly, except for the feverish cooking.
"I feared the worst when I heard the latest news, boy," he said to Alacrity all at once. "I thought you niight've gone and gotten yourself hurt or tossed into the lockup somewhere, Jordy."
Jordy, Floyt registered. He'd known from the first that Alacrity Fitzhugh was an alias. He'd always felt it impolite to ask, and Alacrity never offered to clarify. It was still a shock to hear. Jordy.
"Oh, I got by all right," Alacrity was saying. "Had some help at the right time. Lord Marcus, this is my friend, Citizen Hobart Floyt, of Terra."
Perlez spared Floyt a cordial half bow and a wave of the spatula. Floyt waved in answer and took another cautious sip of his depth charge.
"Rather thought that's who you are," Perlez called to Floyt over his shoulder, bending over his wok again. "You two laddybucks raised some fuss, eh? Get ready now; here's something you'll like."
Then he was handing them plates heaped with food, taking one for himself. The three sat there eating off a counter. They garnished with a bit of teriyaki sauce and dug in. The food was so good that for a moment Floyt almost lost track of what was being said.
"All the arrangements are made, Jordan," Perlez was saying, "or should I call you Alacrity? I'll transfer the voting share to you whenever you like."
"Alacrity's fine," Alacrity said, eating with great concentration. "And thanks."
Lord Marcus savored his own cooking a lot, even though he didn't look like he had to watch his weight. "Have you thought about what you're going to do with that share?" he asked, still apparently intent on his meal.
Alacrity looked up at him. "Haven't thought about much else, Lord M. I'm taking back the White Ship."
Perlez's chopsticks opened and a bit of beansprout dropped onto his chin.
"Taking her back," Alacrity vowed, "and I'm using her the way my family meant her to be used. And when I find out the secrets of the Precursors, I'll use them the way my family wanted, not the way the Board of Interested Parties or the Betterment League or the Progress Cartel or the Spican government thinks it ought to be done. The White Ship isn't for easy money or quick power. There's got to be something higher than that, some
thing more worthy, or what's the point of it all?"
Perlez had cleaned up the spillage. "Well, that's a virtuous idea, boyo. But how?"
"I'm not sure yet, but I know I will. I didn't, until a little while ago, after I fell in with Hobart, here," Alacrity explained. Floyt cringed inwardly, knowing Alacrity was thinking of the causality harp.
"I'm not trying to be mysterious," Alacrity went on. "I'll explain the whole thing to you later."
Floyt was watching Perlez's face. The old man said, "Ever run into a man named Dincrist?"
Floyt looked back to his food and Alacrity showed no response.
"It is my conclusion that you have," Perlez continued, "because the word is that he'd very much like to get his hands on you. There's also mention of a gentleman named Baron Mason, an extremely influential and formidable man who's become an Interested Party of late. What's this all about, Jo—Alacrity?"
Alacrity thought for a moment. If he couldn't trust Lord Marcus Perlez, things were about as bad as they could get anyway.
"Dincrist has his own plan to take control of the Ship board. But all the details of that fell into the hands of … somebody I know." He held up his fist, showing his proteus. "I managed to get a copy and I've studied it all the way here from Luna. I think that same takeover idea can be used by somebody else. Me. Or us, if you want. It all involves leverage on the board."
Floyt watched, speculating on how far Alacrity would go in not mentioning Heart by name if the talk came down to cases. Perlez napkinned his mouth and mustache and stuck out his hand. Alacrity gripped his wrist and Lord Marcus reciprocated.
"As for Baron Mason," Alacrity thought it fair to add, "Ho and me had a kind of run-in with him, on a place called Blackguard. As a matter of fact—"
Alacrity dug another proteus out of his pocket, an ordinary-looking but powerful model. "I took this from Mason in the Grand Guignol Compound there."
Floyt recalled that vividly, surprised it had slipped his mind. Evidently Alacrity had simply been carrying it around in his warbag all that time since.
"This one is full of encrypted stuff I haven't been able to crack," he said. "But maybe if we could borrow some of your equipment, Ho and I could pump it dry."
Perlez was nodding thoughtfully, looking the thing over. "That sounds splendid. But the first thing we'll have to do is get your name on that share. And I want you in on a council of war with Vinzix. He's a minor shareholder, even though he's got a lot more of them than you. He and I rather see things the same way. He's from Darwin's Star."
Alacrity's frowned. "A Dar, huh? I'm not real fond of 'em. Bunch of snotty, high-handed liars."
Perlez stopped eating again. "So? I've heard a bit about what you've been doing and where you've been seen from time to time. I'd have thought you'd learned by now that you can't always be choosy about your allies, or judge them beforehand."
Alacrity toyed with his food for a second, then slumped his shoulders. "You're right as you can be. When can I meet Vinzix?"
"Any time you like. He's here at Ends Well just at the moment, as a houseguest. What I propose is that you and Hobart go freshen up while I fill him in. He and I were planning on playing a round or two of rovers this afternoon; if you two would care to come along, we could all discuss strategy. Er, do either of you play?"
Alacrity shook his head. "Never had the time. Besides, it's a rich folks' game. But it'd be nice to stretch our legs; we've been cooped up in a little padded trash-can for—anyway, for way too long."
Floyt, bewildered, inquired, "What's 'rovers'?"
Chapter 5
Band Of Angels, Comin' After Us
Rovers wasn't the game it had been back in medieval Terra, but when he was reminded of its origins, Floyt the history buff recognized it at once. The Ancients had played it, a sort of forerunner to golf.
Millennia before, archers would go afield over a prearranged course, firing arrows from a given point to a particular target, the shots selected for their difficulty and the challenge they presented. From there they'd fire to the next, and so on over the course.
Rovers has changed a lot, observed Floyt, watching the approach of Lord Marcus Perlez and the Darwin's Star autochthon, Vinzix. For one thing, I don't remember anything about the Ancients having robot caddies.
Or at least that was what it appeared to be, floating along behind Perlez, a chunky thing that was mostly torso, riding a compact hoverunit. It looked like a cross between a mirrored chiffonier and one of Lord Marcus's prized jukeboxes.
Marcus had on the traditional get-up: A sporty kilt with an orange-and-green plaid that seemed to be made of light-bulb filament, complete with a sporran covered with some sunset-coral fur. A jaunty purple tam-o'-shanter sat low on his brow. He also wore blinding argyle socks, cleated shoes with tassels on them, and a shirt of rather rakish see-through beige cobweb.
Vinzix was a different matter. Alacrity looked the humanoid over, trying to keep an open mind about Dars.
Vinzix was a whisker or two shorter than Alacrity. The native of Darwin's Star was startlingly humanlike, with the look of some impossibly Olympian ideal, like all of them. His splendid bronze skin fairly shot the light of Cornucopia back into their eyes; his shoulders were wide, wider than a human's could've been for his height, and if they weren't articulated exactly like a Homo sapien's, they were no less impressive: muscular bundles, striated and vascular. Vinzix's torso was short, narrowing almost absurdly to a tiny waist, but his legs and arms were long and well defined. He had too many fingers with too many joints, the way Floyt saw it, including some kind of little extra bottomside thumb. He smelled like polishing fluid.
Vinzix's face was like something that belonged among the long-vaporized images of Mount Rushmore, except that the forehead was eerily high and the eyes unnervingly backset and unblinking. There was also the fact that the Dar's mouth appeared to run halfway around his head.
Vinzix wore only a winding of stuff that looked like woven bugle-beads and a kind of baldric that held a pouch at his hip.
Three women walked along behind Vinzix and Lord Marcus, barefoot on the soft-carpet turf of the First Castway, wearing the revealing glowtulle livery of Ends Well. Floyt almost waved and called greetings to Tomasina and Callisto, but it came to him that neither was necessarily present; such were Lord Marcus's staff. One of the three women held the bansai buffalo, Larrup.
Lord Marcus Perlez waved at the two happily as he and Vinzix approached, but the humanoid made no greeting. Alacrity wasn't surprised; Dars were notoriously condescending creatures who seemed to work at being arrogant and offensive. Alacrity speculated on how long Marcus had known him and how well the nobleman understood the Dar's language.
"Yes, yes, yes, ideal weather, eh?" Perlez said heartily as he and Vinzix joined Alacrity and Floyt on the first release point. The little robo floating along behind swiveled its head at Vinzix and hiss-popped a translation in the language of the natives of Darwin's Star. Vinzix listened impassively.
That explains a lot, Alacrity thought; the little machine was programmed as translator. Alacrity spotted where the linguistic junk probably went. The head wasn't very anthropomorphic, running more to receptors and pickups than smiles; it looked like it had directional sound. Its several arm appendages were folded up close to its torso. It was giving Vinzix a running, low-volume translation.
"Yes, the weather's fine, quite," Floyt said amicably, adjusting the floppy petasos sunhat he'd borrowed; the afternoon had gotten warmer. Alacrity nodded.
Vinzix hiss-popped something to the robot, which it dutifully translated. "Yes, it's a suitable day."
Alacrity knew enough about the Dar's language to know that the robocaddie was running a very sophisticated translation program, possibly something the Union of Species had worked up. Vinzix's reply, from the little Alacrity could get, was layered with sarcasms, insults, and threats—the sort Dars always used in dealing with other species.
"Nice robo," Alacrity said to Lord Marcus.
"Yes. Albrecht is a wonderful little fellow, the latest thing," Marcus answered absently, shading his eyes with his hand and studying the first castway. "With a special protocol augmentation module that the dealer recommended. I'm afraid neither Vinzix nor I are very good at the other's tongue."
Floyt said "Oh?" pleasantly. Alacrity hid his smirk by looking downrange, too. To the women Marcus said, "Well, my treasures, run along now." He gave Larrup's head an absentminded tousel; the trio of beauties headed back for Ends Well.
The first castway was a long shot, through an avenue of immense gaff trees festooned with garrote vines, under a yellow-green corridor of leaf canopy. The target was a holoprojection, what appeared to be an animal the size of a moose, many-legged and decked with a fantastic rack of antlers. It pawed the ground and caracoled but stayed in one spot, some one hundred meters and more downrange, in what looked to be a shaft of sunlight.
"My good friend Vinzix, will you please do me the honor of taking the first release?" Lord Marcus invited.
The automaton translated. Alacrity didn't catch any of the harsh or provocative inflections a Dar would routinely use to show contempt. Real discreet program, all right.
Vinzix grunted something that had at least one revilement Alacrity recognized, but Albrecht the caddy translated it as "That's most kind of you, sir."
The humanoid pulled on a pair of heavy, instrumented gauntlets that reminded Floyt of buzzball gloves he'd seen on Epiphany, except that these were nearly elbow length. Vinzix hissed something quick to the robo as he took up his stance on the release point, feet planted directly beneath his shoulders, side-on to the pawing holo-target.