The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens

by L. Sprague De Camp

  And now how could he get away with the gold? It was probably too heavy for the buggy; he’d need a big two-aya carriage, which couldn’t be obtained in a matter of minutes. How could he make his getaway at all before the fight? With his dear damned friends clustering round . . .

  They were filling him with good advice: “I knew a man who’d begin a charge with lance level, then whirl it around his head as ’twere a club . . .” “When Sir Vardao slew that wight from Gozashtand, he dropped his lance altogether and snatched his mace . . .” “If you can get him around the neck with one arm, go for his crotch with your dagger . . .”

  What he really wanted was advice on how to sneak out of the acropolis and make tracks for Novorecife with a third of the Order’s treasury. When he had gulped the last tasteless morsel, he said: “Good sirs, please excuse me. I have things to say to those near to me.”

  Zerdai was crying on her bed. He picked her up and kissed her. She responded avidly; this was an Earthly custom on which the Krishnans had eagerly seized.

  “Come,” he said, “it’s not that bad.”

  She clung to him frantically. “But I love only you! I couldn’t live without you! And I’ve been counting so on going with you to far planets . . .”

  Borel’s vestigial conscience stirred, and in a rare burst of frankness he said: “Look, Zerdai, it’ll be small loss no matter how the fight comes out. I’m not the shining hero you think I am; in fact some people consider me an unmitigated heel.”

  “No! No! You’re kind and good . . .”

  “. . . and even if I get through this alive I may have to run for it without you.”

  “I’ll die! I could never companion with that brute Shurgez again . . .”

  Borel thought of giving her some of the gold, since he couldn’t hope to get it all away himself. But then with the Guardians’ communistic principles she couldn’t keep it, and the Order would seize all he left in any case. Finally, he unpinned several of his more glittery decorations and handed them to her, saying: “At least you’ll have these to remember me by.” That seemed to break her down completely.

  He found Yerevats in his own room and said: “If the fight doesn’t go my way, take as much of this gold as you can carry, and the buggy, and get out of town fast.”

  “Oh, wonderful master must win fight!”

  “That’s as the stars decide. Hope for the best but expect the worse.”

  “But master, how shall pull buggy?”

  “Keep the aya, too. Volhaj is lending me his oversized one for the scrap. Tell you what: when we go out to the field, bring one of those bags inside your clothes.”

  ###

  An hour later, Yerevats buckled the last strap of Borel’s borrowed harness. The suit was a composite, chain-mail over the joints and plate armor elsewhere. Borel found that it hampered him less than he expected, considering how heavy it had seemed when he hefted before putting it on.

  He stepped out of the tent at his end of the field where Volhaj was holding the big aya, which turned and looked at him suspiciously from under its horns. At the far end Shurgez already sat his mount. Borel, though outwardly calm, was reviling himself for not having thought of this and that: he should have hinted that his weapon would be a gun; he should have bought a bishtar and sat high up on its elephantine back, out of reach of Shurgez, while he potted his enemy with his crossbow . . .

  Yerevats, bustling about the animal’s saddle, secured the bag he had brought with him. Although he tried to do so secretly, the jingle of coin attracted the attention of Volhaj who asked: “A bag of gold on your saddle? Why do you that, friend?”

  “Luck,” said Borel, feeling for the stirrup. His first effort to swing his leg over his mount failed because of the extra weight he was carrying, and they had to give him a boost. Yerevats handed him up his spiked helmet, which he carefully wiggled down on to his head. At once the outside noises acquired a muffled quality as the sound was filtered through the steel and the padding. Borel buckled his chin strap.

  A horn blew. As he had seen the other knights do the day of the previous battle, Borel kicked the animal into motion and rode slowly down the field towards his opponent, who advanced to meet him. Thank the Lord he knew how to ride an Earthly horse! This was not much different save that the fact that the saddle was directly over the aya’s intermediate pair of legs caused its rider to be jarred unpleasantly in the trot.

  Borel could hardly recognize Shurgez behind the nasal of his helmet, and he supposed that his own features were equally hidden. Without a word they wheeled towards the side of the field where the grand master sat in his booth. They walked their animals over to the stand and listened side by side while Sir Juvain droned the rules of the contest at them. Borel thought it an awful lot of words to say that, for all practical purposes, anything went.

  Beside the grand master sat Kubanan, stony-faced except at the last, when he tipped Borel a wink. Borel also caught a glimpse of Zerdai in the stands; catching his eye, she waved frantically.

  The grand master finished and made motions with his baton. The fighters wheeled away from each other and trotted back to their respective tents, where Volhaj handed Borel his lance and buckler, saying: “Hold your shaft level; watch his . . .” Borel, preoccupied, heard none of it.

  “Get you ready,” said Volhaj. The trumpet blew.

  Borel, almost bursting with excitement, said: “Good-bye, and thanks.”

  The hooves of Shurgez’s mount were already drumming on the moss before Borel collected his wits enough to put his own beast into motion. For a long time, it seemed, he rode towards a little figure on aya-back that got no nearer. Then all at once, the aya and its rider expanded to life size and Borel’s foe was upon him.

  Since Shurgez had started sooner and ridden harder, they met short of the mid-point of the field. As his enemy bore down, Borel rose in his stirrups and threw his lance at Shurgez, then instantly hauled on the reins braided into the aya’s mustache to guide it to the right.

  Shurgez ducked as the lance hurtled toward him, so that the point of his own lance wavered and missed Borel by a meter. Borel heard the thrown spear hit sideways with a clank against Shurgez’s armor. Then he was past and headed for Shurgez’s tent at the far end. He leaned forward and spurred his aya mercilessly.

  Just before he reached the end of the field, he jerked a look back. Shurgez was still reining in to turn his mount. Borel switched his attention back to where he was going and aimed for a gap on one side of Shurgez’s tent. The people around the tent stood staring until the last minute, then frantically dove out of the way as the aya thundered through. Yells rose behind.

  Borel guided his beast over to the main road towards Novorecife, secured the reins to the projection on the front of the saddle, and began shedding impedimenta. Off went the pretty damascened helmet, to fall with a clank to the roadway. Away went sword and battle ax. After some fumbling he got rid of the brassets on his forearms and their attached gauntlets, and then the cuirass with its little chain sleeves. The iron pants would have to await a better opportunity.

  The aya kept on at a dead run until Mishé dwindled in the distance. When the beast began to puff alarmingly, Borel let it slow to a walk for a while. However, when he looked back he thought he saw little dots on the road that might be pursuers, and spurred his mount to a gallop once more. When the dots disappeared he slowed again. Gallop—trot—walk—trot—gallop—that was how you covered long distances on a horse, so it should work on this six-legged equivalent. Oh, for a nice shiny Packard! After this he’d confine his efforts to Earth, where at least you knew the score.

  He looked scornfully down at the bag of gold clinking faintly at the side of his saddle. One bag was all he had dared to take for fear of slowing his mount. It was not a bad haul for small-time stuff, and would let him live and travel long enough to case his next set of suckers. Still, it was nothing compared to what he’d have made if the damned Shurgez hadn’t popped up so inopportunely. If, now, he’d be
en able to get away with the proceeds both of the stock sale and of the lottery . . .

  ###

  Next morning found Borel still on the aya’s back, plodding over the causeway through the Koloft Swamps. Flying things buzzed and bit; bubbles of stinking gas rose through the black water and burst. Now and then some sluggish swamp-dwelling creature roiled the surface or grunted a mating call. A shower had soaked Borel during the night, and in this dank atmosphere his clothes seemed never to dry.

  With yelping cries, the tailed men of Koloft broke from the bushes and ran towards him: Yerevats’ wild brethren with stone-bladed knives and spears, hairy, naked, and fearful-looking. Borel spurred the aya into a shambling trot. The tailed men scrambled to the causeway just too late to seize him; a thrown spear went past his head with a swish.

  Borel threw away his kindness-to-animals principle and dug spurs into the aya’s flanks. The things raced after him; by squirming around he could see that they were actually gaining on him. Another spear came whistling along. Borel flinched, and the spearhead struck the cantle of his saddle and broke, leaving a sliver of obsidian as the shaft clattered to the causeway. The next one, he thought gloomily, would be a hit.

  Then inspiration seized him. If he could get his money bag open and throw a handful of gold to the roadway, these savages might stop to scramble for it. His fingers tore at Yerevats’ lashings.

  And then the twenty-kilo weight of the gold snatched the whole bag from his grasp. Clank! Gold pieces spilled out of the open mouth of the sack and rolled in little circles on the causeway. The tailed men whooped and pounced on them, abandoning their chase. While Borel was glad not to have to dodge any more spears, he did think the price a little steep. However, to go back to dispute possession of the money now would be merely a messy form of suicide, so he rode wearily on.

  He reeled into Novorecife about noon, and was no sooner inside the wall than a man in the uniform of Abreu’s security force said: “Is the senhor Felix Borel?”

  “Huh?” He had been thinking in Gozashtandou so long that in his exhausted state the Brazilo-Portuguese of the spaceways at first was entirely meaningless to him.

  “I said, is the senhor Felix Borel?”

  “Yes. Sir Felix Borel to be exact. What—”

  “I don’t care what the senhor calls himself; he’s under arrest.”

  “What for?”

  “Violation of Regulation 368. Vamos, por favor!”

  Borel demanded a lawyer at the preliminary hearing, and since he could not pay for one, Judge Keshavachandra appointed Manuel Sandak. Abreu presented his case.

  Borel asked: “Senhor Abreu, how the devil did you find out about this little project of mine so quickly?”

  The judge said: “Address your remarks to the court, please. The Security Office has its methods, naturally. Have you anything pertinent to say?”

  Borel whispered to Sandak, who rose and said: “It is the contention of the defense that the case presented by the Security Office is prima facie invalid because the device in question, to wit: a wheel allegedly embodying the principle of perpetual motion, is inherently inoperative, being in violation of the well-known law of conservation of energy. Regulation 368 specifically states that it’s forbidden to communicate a device ‘representing an improvement upon the science and technics already existing upon this planet.’ But since this gadget wouldn’t work by any stretch of the imagination, it’s no improvement on anything.”

  “You mean,” sputtered Abreu, “that it was all a fake? A swindle?”

  “Sure,” said Borel, laughing heartily at the security officer’s expression.

  Abreu said: “My latest information says that you actually demonstrated the device the day before yesterday in the auditorium of the Order of Qarar at Mishé. What have you to say to that?”

  “That was a fake too,” said Borel, and told of the thread pulled by Zerdai in the wings.

  “Just how is this gadget supposed to work?” asked the judge. Borel explained. Keshavachandra exclaimed: “Good Lord, that form of perpetual motion device goes back to the European Middle Ages! I remember a case involving it when I was a patent lawyer in India.” He turned to Abreu, saying: “Does that description check with your information?”

  “Yes, your Excellency.” He turned on Borel. “I knew you were a crook, but I never expected you to brag of the fact as part of your defense against a legal charge!”

  “Bureaucrat!” sneered Borel.

  “No personalities,” snapped Judge Keshavachandra. “I’m afraid I can’t bind him over, Senhor Cristôvão.”

  “How about a charge of swindling?” said Abreu hopefully.

  Sandak jumped up. “You can’t, your honor. The act was committed in Mikardand, so this court has no jurisdiction.”

  “How about holding him until we see if the Republic wants him back?” said Abreu.

  Sandak said: “That won’t work either. We have no extradition treaty with Mikardand because their legal code doesn’t meet the minimum requirements of the Interplanetary Juridical Commission. Moreover the courts hold that a suspect may not be forcibly returned to a jurisdiction where he’d be liable to be killed on sight.”

  The judge said: “I’m afraid he’s right again, senhor. However we still have some power over undesirables. Draw me a request for an expulsion order and I’ll sign it quicker than you can say ‘non vult.’ There are ships leaving in a few days, and we can give him his choice of them. I dislike inflicting him on other jurisdictions, but I don’t know what else we can do.” He added with a smile: “He’ll probably turn up here again like a bad anna, with a cop three jumps behind him. Talk of perpetual motion, he’s it!”

  ###

  Borel slouched into the Nova Iorque Bar and ordered a double comet. He fished his remaining money out of his pants pocket: about four and a half karda. This might feed him until he took off. Or it might provide him with a first-class binge. He decided on the binge; if he got drunk enough he wouldn’t care about food in the interim.

  He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror back of the bar, unshaven, with eyes as red as his hair and his gorgeous private uniform unpressed and weather-beaten. Most of the bravado had leaked out of him. If he’d avoided the Novorecife jail, he was still about to be shipped to God knew where, without even a stake to get started again. The fact that he was getting his transportation free gave him no pleasure, for he knew space travel for the ineffable bore it was.

  Now that Zerdai was irrevocably lost to him, he kidded himself into thinking that he’d really intended to take her with him as he’d promised. He wallowed in self-pity. Maybe he should even go to work, repugnant though the idea appeared. (He always thought of reforming when he got into a jam like this.) But who’d employ him around Novorecife when he was in Abreu’s black books? To go back to Mikardand would be silly. Why hadn’t he done this, or that . . .

  Borel became aware of a man drinking down the bar; a stout middle-aged person with a look of sleepy good nature.

  Borel said: “New here, senhor?”

  “Yes,” said the man. “I just came in two days ago from Earth.”

  “Good old Earth,” said Borel.

  “Good old Earth is right.”

  “Let me buy you a drink,” said Borel.

  “I will if you’ll let me buy you one.”

  “Maybe that can be arranged. How long are you here for?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know yet?”

  “I’ll tell you. When I arrived, I wanted a good look at the planet. But now I’ve finished my official business and seen everything in Novorecife, and I can’t go wandering around the native states because I don’t speak the languages. I hoped to pick up a guide, but everybody seems too busy at some job of his own.”

  Borel, instantly alert, asked: “What sort of tour did you have in mind?”

  “Oh, through the Gozashtando Empire, perhaps touching the Free City of Majbur, and maybe swinging ar
ound to Balhib on my way back.”

  “That would be a swell tour,” said Borel. “Of course it would take you through some pretty wild country, and you’d have to ride an aya. No carriages. Also there’d be some risk.”

  “That’s all right, I’ve ridden a horse ever since I was a boy. As for the risk, I’ve had a couple of centuries already, and I might as well have some fun before I get really old.”

  “Have another,” said Borel. “You know, we might be able to make a deal on that. I just finished a job. My name’s Felix Borel, by the way.”

  “I’m Semion Trofimov,” said the man. “Would you be seriously interested in acting as a guide? I thought from your rig that you were some official . . .”

  Borel barely heard the rest. Semion Trofimov! A bigshot if ever there was one; a director of Viagens Interplanetarias, member of various public boards and commissions, officer of capitalistic and cooperative enterprises back on Earth . . . At least there’d be no question of the man’s ability to pay well, and to override these local bureaucrats who wanted to ship Borel anywhere so long as it was a few light-years away.

  “Sure, Senhor Semion,” he said. “I’ll give you a tour such as no Earthman ever had. There’s a famous waterfall in northern Ruz, for instance, that few Earthmen have seen. And then do you know how the Kingdom of Balhib is organized? A very interesting set-up. In fact, I’ve often thought a couple of smart Earthmen with a little capital could start an enterprise there, all perfectly legal, and clean up. I’ll explain it later. Meanwhile we’d better get our gear together. Got a sword? And a riding outfit? I know an honest Koloftu we can get for a servant, if I can find him, and I’ve got one aya already. As for that Balhib scheme, an absolutely sure thing . . .”