Transit to Scorpio dp-1

by Alan Burt Akers

  “A slave girl? No-she means nothing to me.”

  I saw Delia swallow and her eyelids blinked, once.

  Natema smiled, like one of those she-leem of the plains, furred, feline, vicious, against which the clansmen wage continual war in protection of the chunkrah herds. She gestured and Delia returned once more to her tapestry. I noticed her fingers were not quite steady as she guided the needle; but her back was erect, her body taut, the pearls taking all their luster from the glowing glory of her skin.

  “For the last time, Dray Prescot-will you?”

  I shook my head, thankful that, at least for the time, Delia had been spared from immediate danger. What happened next was quick, brutal and, given the circumstances, expected. The Chuliks at Natema’s fierce, broken-voice command, seized me, ran me to the rail, thrust me half-over where I hung suspended over that gulf. Below me the water curled away from the long sandspit tailing at the end of the island. The air smelled very sweet and fresh, tanged with salt.

  “Now, Dray Prescot! One word! One word is all I ask!”

  I was not such a fool as to imagine I might easily survive such a dive; it would be a gamble with the odds heavily against me. I could easily throw these Chuliks off, snatch a rapier, fight my way through them and hope to escape into the warrens of the palace. But I did not think Natema would have me tossed into eternity. And, thinking that, I realized I was a fool, that she had been accustomed to doing anything at all and having anything she wanted from birth. But, if she did fancy she loved me, would she destroy me?

  I braced myself, ready to twist like a zorca and fling these two yellow-bellies into space.

  “One word, Natema, one word I spare you! No!”

  I heard Delia screaming, and the scuffling sounds of a struggle. I dragged up one arm and the Chulik gasped and tried to hold me down. I was ready to turn and rend them…

  “What is going on here?”

  The voice was harsh, strong with the tone of habitual absolute authority. The Chuliks hauled me back inboard. A tableau was frozen on that scented roof garden.

  All the slaves were at the incline. Delia was held down by two Chuliks. Natema was gracefully inclining her head in a semblance of a curtsey. The man to whom these obvious and immediate marks of servile respect were addressed must be Natema’s father, the Head of the House, the Cydones Esztercari, the Kodifex of the city himself.

  He was tall, gaunt, with a grim pucker in the lines around his mouth, an arrogant black light in his eyes. His hair and beard were iron-gray. He stood tall, clad all in the Esztercari emerald, a jeweled rapier and dagger at his side, and I wondered how many slaves he had had killed, how many men he had spitted in duel and bravo-fight. In his face showed clearly the fanatical obsession of power, the greed to possess power and to exercise it ruthlessly.

  “It is nothing, Father.”

  “Nothing! Do not seek to fob me off, daughter. Has the slave interfered with your girl? Tell me, Natema, by the blood of your mother.”

  “No, Father.” Natema resumed her natural arrogant stance.

  “The girl means nothing to him. He has said so.”

  The hooded black eyes pierced into me, into Delia, into his daughter. His hands, gloved, gripped the weapon hilts.

  “You are pledged to the Prince Pracek of Ponthieu. He is here to speak to you of the wedding arrangements. I have, as is proper, attended to the financial bokkertu.”

  A man stepped forward from the mass of emerald green clothing in the rear of the Kodifex. I saw Galna there, his face as white and mean as ever. This young man wore the purple and ocher of Ponthieu. His rapier was over-ornate. He took Natema’s hand and raised it to his forehead. He had a sharp-featured face, with that kind of lopsidedness to it that offends some people; but he was most polite.

  “Princess Natema, star of heaven, beloved of Zim and Genodras, the crimson and emerald wonders of the sky-I am as dust beneath your feet.”

  She made some formal icy reply. She was looking at me. The Kodifex saw that look. He gestured and men-human men-seized me and Delia. They hustled us to stand before the Kodifex. Natema cried out. He silenced her.

  “Do not think I am not aware of what the frippery this slave wears means, daughter! By your mother’s blood, do you think I am a fool! You will obey! All else is nothing!” He gestured, a familiar, habitual movement. “Kill the man, and the girl, kill both the slaves. Now!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Delia, Gloag and I eat palines together

  “Kill both the slaves. Now!”

  I kicked the noble Kodifex in the place where it would do him the least good, dragged the two guards around before me and hurled them staggering into the emerald green knot of nobles, snatched the Kodifex’s rapier from its scabbard, slew the two guards holding Delia with two quick and savage thrusts, and seized her hand in my free left hand and dragged her running toward the stairs at the end of the roof garden.

  “Dray!” she said, sobbing. “Dray!”

  “Run, Delia of the Blue Mountains,” I said. “Run!”

  At the foot of the stairs where the doorway, ornate this side, plain the other, separated the noble area from the slave quarters beneath the roof, two Ochs tried to stop me and died for their pains. I slammed the door shut after us. We ran.

  Slaves moving about their business stared at us with lackluster eyes. The buyers of the new slaves and the slave-masters like Nijni had beaten many backs right from the start so as to instill from the outset that fear and despair that is the necessary condition of the slave. We were not molested, scarcely remarked. I hoped that in a month or so the slaves would have found some semblance of the usual slavish chatter and hubbub and quick interest.

  “Where are we going, Dray? What are we to do?”

  I wanted to fall on my knees before this radiant girl and beg her forgiveness. But for me she would be home in Delphond, happy in the bosom of her family. How she must regard me with contempt and loathing! And, even worse, because I had been suspected of loving her she would have been killed! How often can that be said of a man’s unwanted attentions to a girl on Earth?

  “Hurry,” I said, not trusting myself to say more.

  In my room I rolled the trundle bed away. Gloag stared up. He saw Delia. His eyes went big. He saw the rapier. He whistled.

  “Come, Gloag, my friend,” I said, speaking with a harsh ruthlessness that made him jump up and Delia flinch.

  Out we sped into the warren of passageways and halls. In an alcove far from my room I ripped off the stupid finery and between us with the rapier we cut it up and fashioned breechclouts for Gloag and myself and a tunic shift for Delia. I felt a warm admiration for the way in which she had completely accepted her nakedness in our presence. On matters as desperate as those on which we were engaged the sight of a few inches of pink skin mattered little.

  We stood ready to venture forth. Delia went to hurl the strings of pearls away in disgust; but I restrained her. I put them to my teeth.

  “They’re real. They will serve a purpose.”

  Then a thought of shocking impropriety hit me. Natema as a proud princess would not clothe her slave girls in imitation pearls, it would be tasteless and loutish behavior. Would, then, she likewise clothe the man she hoped to make her paramour in imitation gems? I fancy my fingers shook a trifle as I rummaged through the pile of discarded clothing, the immense turban, the jeweled sash and slippers.

  The gems were real.

  I knew. I had not boarded prizes among the battlesmoke for the glory of it. I had been to a London jeweler and had handled the gems, precisely against that need.

  I held a fortune in my hands.

  “Hurry,” I said, and thrust the gems in a fold of cloth within my breechclout. Around my waist was buckled the broad leather belt of the steel-meshed warrior. We padded down corridors known to Gloag. He carried a billet of wood. I would not much like to stop that with my cranium.

  On Gloag’s tough dun-colored hide, over his left shoulder blade, I ha
d noticed a brand-mark, the solid block-lettered outlines of the Kregish letters for “C.E.” Natema would not disfigure the slave maidens who attended her and whom she would see every day, and to my infinite relief Delia, having been in the kitchens only for a day, she told me, had not been branded. As the princess’

  potential lover and then a corpse, I, too, had not been branded. We made sure that not a scrap of emerald green cloth remained of the fancy clothes in the material we chose for our new clothing. I slung a short scarlet square from my shoulders as a cape, and I forced Gload to do likewise.

  He knew his way with unerring accuracy, and I had navigated my way from the roof garden to my room, and so now I navigated my way alongside Gloag until we reached a narrow, dusty, cobwebby, flang-infested corridor low in the palace where water seeped oozing through the cracks between the massive basalt blocks of the walls on one hand. We would have a better chance at night, when the twin suns have set in their riot of topaz and ruby and, if we were lucky, with a little cloud to drift between the first of the seven moons. Like any sailor, once I knew the state of tide or moon I kept that information continually turning in my head, ready at any moment to bring forth the exact state of either. On Kregen, there were seven moons with their phases to consider; but I was automatically sure that I could tell when the darkest period of the night would occur.

  Accustomed to long periods on duty without food, I was concerned over Delia; but then Gloag astonished us all by producing a length of loaf, somewhat limp and bent, and a handful of palines he had kept over from the previous meal I had smuggled to him. We ate with a gusty hunger, not leaving a crumb. Given the circumstances the rest of our escape was not overly difficult. We crawled through a stinking conduit and postern. Gloag was a superb scout. We swam the canal, stole a skiff, rowed in the dim light of three of the smaller moons passing low overhead. The nearer moons of Kregen have an appreciable motion. To escape from the city would be out of the question without an airboat, and even then the city wardens would patrol the air lanes. I asked directions, discreetly, of slaves, and Gloag it was who discovered the exact whereabouts among the islands of the enclave of Eward. I was taking a desperate gamble; but I had a card to play.

  The city would be up over the escape of slaves, particularly from the ruling House, and we might simply be handed straight back. But I did not think so. Eward and Esztercari were at daggers drawn. We rowed quietly up to the stone jetty where men in the powder blue livery of Eward escorted us to an interview with the Head of their House. I had acted with arrogant authority, letting the guards see the tangible reality of my presence. A Vovedeer can be as autocratic and dictatorial as any other man who commands men, when the need arises.

  Our interview was informal and pleasant. Wanek of the family of Wanek of the Noble House of Eward reminded me of no one more vividly than Cydones of Esztercari. Both men contained that gaunt obsessive drive for power. He sat in his powder blue robes, hand on fist, listening. When I had finished he called for wine, and slave girls to care for Delia.

  “I welcome you to Eward, Dray Prescot,” Wanek said, as we sat down to the wine and a meal. The suns were breaking in golden and crimson glory patinaed with a paler green fire in the dawn above the rooftops. “My son, the Prince Varden, is away at this time. But I shall be honored to help you. We are not as the rasts of Esztercari.” His fingers gripped his chin, whitening about the knuckles. “This union between their princess and the puppy Pracek you speak of is serious.” And then he began a long discourse on the tangled power politics of the city.

  The General Assembly sat continuously. Never was there a break in their deliberations and debates and legislation. There were four hundred and eighty seats in the Assembly. In the city there were twenty-four Houses, both Noble and Lay, so that the average number of seats per House was twenty. Some, like Esztercari, boasted more, twenty-five, the same number as Eward. But the pressures came from alignments of power, alliances and pacts between House and House so that a party might always have the majority vote. When I marveled at the stamina of the Assemblymen Wanek laughed, and explained that only the seats counted. Anyone from a House could sit in the seats reserved to his House in the Assembly. Only the number of seats conferred the power; the men who sat in them came and went, continuously, often on a rota basis, like our system of watches at sea.

  “And the Esztercari carry the weight, the alignments, and Cydones Esztercari is Kodifex of all Zenicce!”

  Clearly, this was the source of the rancor in Wanek of Eward. Clearly, in his eyes, he should be Kodifex, the acknowledged leader of the most powerful coalition.

  Then I saw another of the interesting facts of life in Zenicce. A bent, wizened, bearded fellow in the gray breechclout of the slave was summoned and he, with a delicacy marvelous to see, removed the brand-mark from Gloag’s shoulder. He would have heated his irons and branded Gloag afresh, with the entwined “W.E.” but I prevented him.

  “Gloag is free,” I said.

  Wanek nodded. “Evidently, you and Delia of the Blue Mountains are free, Dray Prescot, for you are not branded. And so therefore must be your friend, Gloag.” He motioned the brand-remover away. “I will have his skin doctored. The scar will not show.” He chuckled, an unlikely sound, and yet fitting in context. “We are old hands at removing brands and substituting our own, in Zenicce.”

  His wife, upright, stern, yet still bearing an unmistakable aura of vanished beauty shining about her motherly virtue, said gently:

  “There are about three hundred thousand free people in Zenicce, compared with seven hundred thousand in the great Houses. Of course”-she gestured with one ivory-white hand-“they have no seats in the Assembly.”

  “They live on islands and enclaves split by avenues,” said Wanek. “They ape our ways. But they are merchants and tradesmen, like ourselves, and sometimes they are useful.”

  I had the sense not to remark that from his words one might assume those in the Houses might not be free. Within the Houses all those not slaves were free with a freedom denied to those independent free outside.

  Toward the center of the city the river Nicce divided once more in its serpentine windings to the sea and left a larger island than any other in the complex of land and water. On this island was situated the heart of the city-the buildings of the General Assembly, the city wardens’ quarters, administrative buildings, and a mind-confusing maze of small alleyways and canals off which opened the souks where anything might be bought or sold. The noise was deafening, the colors superb, the sights astounding and the smells prodigious.

  After a time when it seemed that Wanek and his wife had nothing better to do than talk to me, Wanek asked, most politely, if he might inspect my rapier. I did not tell him I had taken it from Cydones Esztercari. He took it with a reverence strange to me-he could have bought and discarded a thousand like it-and then his mouth drooped.

  “Inferior work,” he said, looking across at his wife with a small smile. She tut-tutted, interested in her husband’s occupation.

  “Krasny work. But the hilt is fashionable although too cluttered with gems for a fighting man.” He shot a look at me as he spoke. I rubbed my fingers.

  “I had noticed,” I said.

  “We Ewards are the best and most renowned sword-smiths in all the world,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  I nodded.

  “My clansmen obtain their weapons from the city, as needs they must; we do not care who fashions them provided they are the best we can buy-or take.”

  He rubbed his chin and handed the rapier back. “The weapons we make for sale to the butchers and tanners, who sell them to you for meat and hides, are never rapiers. Shortswords, broadswords, axes-rapiers, no.”

  “The man who owned this is not dead,” I said. “But he is probably still doubled-up and vomiting.”

  “Ah,” said Wanek of Eward, wisely, and asked no more. The talk drifted. I suppose they, like a number of persons in authority, did not realize that other people were tired when
they were not. The hated name of Esztercari cropped up again, and I learned they were the leading shipowners of the city. That figured. Then Wanek’s wife said something almost below her breath, about the damned butchers stealing what was not theirs, and murder, and then I heard a name spring out, hard and strong and resounding. Strombor, was the name.

  I believe, now, that then, when I first heard that name it rang and thundered in my ears with a clarion call-or do I deceive myself and am I influenced by all the intervening years? I do not know; but the name seemed to soar and echo and resound in my skull.

  At last I managed to make my leave-the question of payment for their hospitality had delicately been raised and as delicately dropped-and I was conducted to a chamber where Gloag snored away in the corner. I dropped on the bed and sank into sleep and my last thought was, inevitably, of Delia of the Blue Mountains. As it was on every night of my life.

  We roused in the late afternoon and satisfied our hunger with the fresh light crispy bread of Kregen, loaves as long as rapiers, and thin rashers of vosk-back, and palines, with the Kregen tea-full-bodied, aromatic, pungent-to finish. When we saw Wanek again he greeted us kindly. I asked for Delia.

  “I will ask her to join us,” said Wanek, and a slave departed-only to come back with the word that Delia was not in her room and the slave who had with such kind care and attention insisted on attending to her was also missing. I sat up. My hand fell to the hilt of the rapier.

  “Please!” Wanek looked upset. A search was instituted; but Delia was not to be found. I raged. Wanek was beside himself at the insult he was thus forced to endure-the insult to him in that he insulted an honored guest.

  Delia of the Blue Mountains and I had exchanged only a few words during our escape, for Gloag was near and, at least on my part, I felt a constraint, sure that she hated and detested me for what I had done to her. She had said something that puzzled me mightily. When we had both vanished from the pool of baptism in far Aphrasoe she had opened her eyes to find herself on the beach with the Fristles bearing down upon her, so that she had not been surprised to see me. When I had, in the moment of victory, been tumbled from the zorca, she had been taken to the city and straight to the House of Esztercari. Because of their shipping interests the Esztercari did a thriving business in slaves, and they could also command those caught in other ways. Then Delia had shaken me. For, she said, the very next day, she had seen me in that corridor, dressed in those accursed clothes, and had spilled and broken the water jar.