Carl was entirely unprepared for what happened. He should have anticipated it, of course, he had watched flitterboats all his life; but doing and watching are two different things. The flitter started going faster and faster and the ground dropped farther and farther below. Carl felt an oppressive tightness in his chest, and then discovered that he’d been holding his breath. The girl played delicately upon the knobs, buttons, switches, and sticks built into the armrests of the chair, and the flitter twisted, jogged, looped, spun, lifted, and dropped in an intricate, unpredictable pattern. Carl fought to keep down the little food he had eaten in the past twenty-four hours. The flitter stopped dropping when it was five feet above the ground, and a giant hand tried to shove Carl through the floorboards.
“They don’t eat grass, either,” the Guest remarked.
Carl gulped. “Pardon me?” He watched the Guest’s slender hands closely to see that they kept away from the controls.
“Flitters—they don’t eat grass. Horses eat grass.”
“Oh, yes, miz,” Carl said, not too sure of what they were talking about. “What do they eat?”
The Guest giggled, and it was a joyous, sparkling sound. “Very good,” she said. “I’m glad you can keep your sense of humor while you’re losing your—equability. Did you know you’d turned green on that last roll?”
“Miz?”
“Positively green,” she said, amused.
“Yes, miz. I’m not surprised. It’s an—interesting sensation. I guess you get used to it, though.”
“It’s great fun,” the girl-Guest said, turning the flitter around. “Where to, Bivouac Area Charlie?”
“Yes, miz, Bivouac Charlie it is, thank you.”
“You can keep calling me ‘miz’ if you want to, but my name is Alyssaunde,” she said.
Carl mentally reviewed the Rules for conduct with Guests. The two General Regulations were to avoid physical contact if possible, and always to be polite and proper. The usual formula for politeness was calling a Guest “miz” if a female, and “sir” if a male or if you couldn’t tell. If a Guest wanted to be called by her name there was no rule against it, and it was certainly more polite to do what she wished. It never occurred to Carl that the reason there was no ban on first-name calling was that the framers of the Rules had never conceived of the possibility.
“Alley-san, yes, miz.”
The girl laughed again. “Alyssaunde,” she corrected him, “and no ‘miz.’”
Carl struggled with the unfamiliar syllables until Alyssaunde was satisfied with his pronunciation. As she guided the flitter toward Bivouac Charlie, he examined the interior and tried to make sense of what he saw. The boat was a four-seater, two bucket seats in front and two in back. The seats faced forward while the boat was moving, and large web straps held you in place; but they swiveled freely while the craft hovered. There were windows all around the body and two screens that showed what was happening underneath. All the dials and knobs were around the seat Alyssaunde was in, so whoever sat there obviously controlled what the ship did.
“Are you an officer?” the girl asked.
“No.” Carl struggled between the familiar “miz” and the newly learned “Alyssaunde,” and decided to try to avoid both if he could. “I’m a corporal. See the two stripes painted on the sleeves of the chain mail? One stripe would be a private and three a sergeant. Officers have epaulettes.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
“Would you”—he indicated the small pile of booty at his feet—“like to buy a souvenir?”
The golden laugh again. “No, thank you, soldier. What would I do with a sword or an arrow?”
“They’re crossbow bolts,” Carl said. “Most of the Guests want souvenirs. They’re”—he searched for the word—“ethnic.”
“I’m not in the market for ethnic hunks of metal, but I appreciate the offer. Have you been in the army long?”
“Over four years.”
“Do you like it?”
“I guess so. I don’t know much else. I’m an army brat.”
“Army brat?”
“I was brought up in an army camp,” Carl explained. “My father was a sergeant in the light cavalry.”
“I don’t suppose you spent much time in school,” Alyssaunde said, “following your father from camp to camp.”
“I was brought up in Bivouac Bravo, where my father’s company is, and I went to the camp school for the full six years. I didn’t transfer to Bivouac Charlie until after I enlisted.”
“Ah!” Alyssaunde said, as though a great light had dawned. “Then the bivouac areas are stationary?”
“Of course. Why would anyone want to move a bivouac?”
There was a pause. Carl wanted to ask the Guest some questions of his own, about her, about the machine they were traveling in, about why she wanted to know so much about him; but one of the strictest Rules was to answer the Guest’s questions but not to ask them any. It was permitted to ask questions of the Inspectors, but they invariably answered that it was Classified Information, and then marked your name down in their little black books. No one knew what was done with the books, but it was generally conceded that it was wise to keep your name out of the Inspectors’ black books.
“I’ll set you down right here,” the Guest said, breaking the pause. “The bivouac’s right over the hill, and it would probably be wiser for both of us if no one sees you get out of the flitter.”
“Yes, miz,” Carl said, gathering up his booty. “Thank you.” He stepped out of the flitter and started trudging up the hill.
The flitter shot into the air and paused about five feet over his head. “Alyssaunde,” said an amplified whisper in his ear. The boat darted off, and she waved a slender hand at him as it climbed. “Alyssaunde!” the whisper came again, and then the flitter was just a dot in the sky. And then it was gone.
Chapter Three
“Now look, Jemmy,” Carl said with the air of a man trying to stay calm despite extreme provocation, “have you ever tried selling a breastplate? How do you know a breastplate won’t sell?”
The little man behind the counter lifted his hands toward the sky. “Look,” he appealed to heaven, “now he’s trying to teach me how to sell souvenirs.” He waggled a finger at Carl. “Look, I don’t tell you how to go out and fight your battles; you don’t come back and tell me how to sell my souvenirs; agreed?”
“Whose souvenirs?”
“All right, our souvenirs. But a breastplate won’t sell, regardless.”
“Listen, Jemmy, how often do I get a chance to capture a Saracen Grand Knight? In yesterday’s battle, at great risk to my own skin, I make my biggest capture in four years of active duty. Now his ransom gets split up by the whole company, but his armor is all mine. And you’re my agent.”
“These heavy, one-piece breastplates won’t sell,” Jemmy insisted. “The tourists don’t want to lug anything like that around.”
“I’ll tell you what, Jemmy; take this one and if it doesn’t sell I’ll never bring you another breastplate as long as I’m on active duty.”
“Deals he’s making me yet,” Jemmy informed whomever he was speaking to in the sky. “All right, I’ll take it, but it’s against my better judgment.”
Carl turned the breastplate over and, in an inconspicuous spot on the back, pressed a rubber stamp against the leather lining. The stamp, in indelible green ink, read:
PRIZE
captured in open battle
by C. F. Allan, Corporal
Eleventh L.M.I.A.C.
Never Dishonored
agent: honest jemmy
“There.” He tossed the breastplate onto the pile of iron-mongery already on Jemmy’s counter. “Add it to my list.”
The little man scribbled something on the bottom of a receipt form and, tearing it off the pad, handed it to Carl. “Here you are, Carl. Look, I hope it sells. You’re one of my best clients and I don’t like arguing with you. Besides, I got too much trouble arguing with the
customers and the Inspectors to argue with you.”
“You’ve got Inspector trouble? What are they crabbing about now?”
“My sign.” Jemmy pointed to the wooden signboard over the counter. It read: Genuine Battle Souvenirs.
“What’s wrong with the sign?”
“You like it? It’s distinctive, maybe? Here, I’ll show you what I wanted to put up.” He fished under the counter and came up with a sheet of heavy brown paper. “This is what I wanted it to look like.”
Carl examined the paper. Carefully and neatly printed on it in blunt pencil was the legend:
HONEST JEMMY’S
Authentic Battle Souvenirs
guaranteed genuine
The Best Prices in the Bivouac
“It looks OK to me. The Inspectors won’t let you put it up?”
“To you it looks OK; to me it looks OK; to the Inspectors it doesn’t look ethnic.” He shrugged. “Ethnic yet.”
“Well,” Carl said, “tough luck. It would have been a good-looking sign, but you know the old saying, ‘Never question the decisions of Inspectors, for they; are hard nosed and quick to anger.’”
“You’re right, of course. Look, come back in a week and I should have some of this stuff sold for you.”
“OK. I sure hope you do; I’ll be able to use the scrip.” Carl shook hands with Jemmy and wandered out of the little shop onto the Street of Guests, the only street with sidewalks in the whole bivouac. Four six-foot-high beetles hopped by the store entrance, chittering among themselves. Carl stepped aside to allow the Guests to pass. Two four-foot-high decapods with small metal cylinders plugged into a slit on their backs paused to stare at Carl. Carl took a step in their direction and the thinner one shrank back toward the heavier, who put a protective tentacle around it and whistled reassuringly.
Carl circled the two at a good distance so as not to alarm them and hurried back to the tent area. He had already missed dinner, but he had some crackers and dried meat in his locker. Washed down with a crock of the beer that Tent Seven kept illegally in a lockbox in the stream, it would make an adequate meal.
Corporal deMitre, Carl’s tent-mate, looked up from the chain mail he was repairing when Carl strode into the tent. “Where’ve you been, Allan?” he demanded. “They’re looking for you.”
Carl went to his locker and constructed himself a cracker and dried-meat sandwich. “Who’s looking for me?” he asked. “Where’s the mustard?”
“How come you only brought back one beer?” deMitre asked, putting down the pliers and pushing aside the spool of wire. “This wire-twisting is tiresome work. Here’s the mustard crock; I guess it’s empty.”
“What do you mean, you guess it’s empty?” Carl asked, shaking his head. “You’re weird, deMitre. Either it is empty or it isn’t empty. And it was full yesterday when I bought it from the commissary. And if you want a beer, you can get it yourself. What’d you do with the mustard, anoint yourself?”
“Yes,” deMitre said.
Carl, his mouth open, stared at deMitre. Then he waved his sandwich feebly in the air. “What?” he asked.
“Well, sort of,” deMitre said. “I got this cold.”
“Weird,” Carl repeated.
“They told me to plaster mustard all over my chest if I got a cold,” deMitre explained.
“My mustard?” Carl asked. “Did it work, at least?”
“You should have got the large-sized crock,” deMitre said. Carl looked for something to throw, but there was nothing handy, so he ate his sandwich.
“They want to see you, seven o’clock,” deMitre told him, going back to his pliers and spool of wire. “What you done now?”
“Who wants to see me?” Carl asked patiently.
“Higgins. At seven o’clock.”
“Captain-Chevalier Higgins? What for?”
“That’s what I asked you,” deMitre said placidly.
Carl munched on his sandwich and stared reflectively at the canvas ceiling. It couldn’t be anything serious, he told himself. Higgins would have sent a couple of guards for him if it were anything serious; Higgins didn’t fool around. But it didn’t have to be that serious—not serious enough to arrest him, just serious enough to break him back down to trooper. There was all the little stuff, of course: things that were technically illegal but winked at by the brass. Like the bottle of beer he was drinking, Carl realized. “Here,” he said, handing the bottle to deMitre, “I don’t want any more. Finish it.”
“Well,” deMitre said, taking the bottle, “if you insist.”
Carl snorted and checked his watch. “Time for evening exercises,” he said. “You coming?”
“I gave my platoon the night off,” deMitre said. “They’re in good shape, and I don’t want to over-exercise them. It takes the edge off.”
Carl shook his head, wonderingly. “One of these days you’re going to get in serious trouble, you know that?” he said. “You bend or twist regulations a little, you get away with it for a while; but you start breaking them, or eliminating them, and you’ll have a noble finger ripping off your chevrons.”
“I’m not the one going to see Higgins,” deMitre reminded him.
Carl left the tent without replying and went over to his corner of the parade field, where his platoon was stripped down to their kilts waiting for him. They had a roughhouse game of kickball going, which died out as he approached. They were good men, Carl reflected, the best. And he was lucky to be their platoon leader. Their tight discipline in battle and their sharp appearance on the parade field made Carl look good as their leader. They were a well-behaved group, too; getting in trouble just often enough so there could be no doubt about their masculinity, but not enough so that the discipline officer would remember any of their names.
“Fall in!” Carl called, reaching his assigned spot on the grass. The fourteen men in his platoon fell in to a single line, in size order, shortest to the right, and lined up.
“Ten-shun!” Carl called, when the fidgeting lessened. The men snapped to positions of attention, freezing in place, ramrod stiff. They seemed to be slanting slightly to the left, but Carl decided to ignore that. “Trooper Bitter,” he called, “come out and lead the platoon.” Carl believed in giving each of the men practice at command. It was, after all, the only way of finding out which of them had the potential for leadership.
“Yessir, Corporal,” Bitter replied, double-timing out to the front of the platoon.
Carl removed himself to the side of the platoon and joined in the exercises as Trooper Bitter led the men in the Daily Decade. Carl performed the motions by rote, allowing his mind to concentrate on worrying about why Higgins wanted to see him. After the exercises Carl delivered the obligatory “Inspirational Talk,” this evening a ten-minute dissertation on the value of keeping one’s chain mail shiny, including the dubious proposition that it would tend to blind the enemy in battle. His father, Field Sergeant Frederic ben Shahn Allan, Retired, had taught him that, having himself been blinded by a dazzling helm and losing the last two fingers of his left hand as a direct result.
Then it was seven o’clock, and Carl had an appointment with Captain-Chevalier Higgins. He dismissed his troop and headed for the command tent. Carl wondered, as he approached the tent, why the two-story, wood-frame building was called a “tent.” He wondered about a lot of the customs that, sanctified by ancient usage, no longer had any actual meaning or relevance. Why did their inspection kits contain twelve tent pegs, although their tents were framed with two-by-fours and had concrete floors? Why were they supposed to ignore the presence of Guests at some times, like during battles or ceremonies, and politely acknowledge them at others, like on the Street of Guests? Why were there some things that were just never talked about, like what was on the other side of the barrier? What did Captain-Chevalier Higgins want to see him about?
Well, the last he was about to find out. Carl walked through the orderly room and, tucking his knit cap under his arm, knocked on the commande
r’s door.
“Come in!”
Carl entered, took three paces forward, snapped to attention, and saluted. Then the feeling of shock hit the pit of his stomach, as he saw who else was in the room.
Captain-Chevalier Higgins was behind the desk.
On the observers’ platform were seven Guests: a pair of beetle Guests; an improbable-looking creature with three legs and a tall eye-stalk; three squat, pug-faced, lion-maned, massively muscled types that smelled vaguely of methane; and the girl Guest, Alyssaunde. Alyssaunde!
To Captain-Chevalier Higgins’ right were two aides-de-camp of staff rank and His Most Righteous and Honorable Majesty, Hiram VI, by the grace of God King of the Celts and Picts and Jutes, Emperor of Rome-in-Exile, and Hereditary Foe of the Supremacy of Allah. His Majesty was commonly known as Hiram, King of the West, as his traditional enemy was called Boris, Emir of the East; this showing their positions as rulers respectively of the west and east halves of Sector Seven.
Hiram VI was smiling, Carl noted, while Captain-Chevalier Higgins was frowning. The aides were maintaining a discreet neutrality. The Guests—how could you tell? Except for the girl, Alyssaunde. But Carl couldn’t—mustn’t—think of her as a girl: she was a Guest. Whether she looked horrible or beautiful, she was a Guest, and not a person.
Carl kept his gaze straight ahead and held his salute until Captain-Chevalier Higgins returned it. “Lance Corporal Allan reporting as directed, sir.”
“At ease, Corporal,” Higgins said. “You know why you’re here, of course.”
“No, sir,” Carl said, fighting a sudden impulse to scream. It was clear that everyone else in the room knew why he was there.
“Pah!” His Majesty Hiram VI suddenly spoke up. “We have no need of all this ceremony. I certainly have no need of any ceremony. I’m sure Corporal Allan would rather do without the ceremony; isn’t that so, Corporal?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Carl assured Hiram VI. “No ceremony would suit me fine, Your Majesty.”
Tomorrow Knight Page 2