Their Majesties' Bucketeers

by L. Neil Smith

  He drew out and displayed a pair of springbow bolts that differed from the others I had seen in that they were bright and untarnished, striations of the lathe-worker’s tools plain upon them. One was a featureless rodlike target missile, the other of the hollow, bulbous variety with a nipple screwed into its tip for a percussion cap.

  “I believe,” Mav said, “that we will try the less-spectacular projectile first. Will you assist me?”

  We had returned to the violated display case at the opposite corner of the room. Mav reached down and grasped the springbow, removing several fragments of glass from atop the weapon and shaking smaller particles out of the mechanism.

  In design, a springbow is an elegantly simple device—although this specimen was considerably embellished with wood carving and engraving on the metal parts—essentially a hollow cylinder of iron with a deep groove pressed into the top for placement of the arrow, and slotted along the sides where a heavy coil spring is visible.

  Mav tucked away the hollow quarrel and we walked back to the other corner of the room. “As you can see, this rear portion is made to fit one’s upper limb like the stock of a rifle.” Indeed, extending from the receiver was a stout rod that terminated in a large two-thirds cylinder of leather-padded sheet metal. Mav placed this around his upper limb just above the point where it branched and, with his middle hand, grasped the handle, being careful not to place his finger in the trigger guard.

  With his leftmost hand he pressed hard upon a stirrup underneath the weapon, swinging it down and forward. A pair of longish levers thus were pivoted upward so that the internal spring was compressed until it locked in place. Mav returned the stirrup to its original position.

  “An archer used to wear a pair of quivers,” he explained, “one on either walking leg. Cocking and loading with the outside hands, he might achieve a rate of fire superior to any breech-loading cartridge rifle short of our very latest magazine repeaters of today.” He fitted the target bolt into its groove.

  I said, “In that event, I am surprised that firearms ever came to replace this weapon.” The tensed and powerful spring behind the quarrel, I discovered, was making me quite nervous.

  “I’ve often wondered about that very thing myself,” said he. “The powder guns of the time were crude and inefficient in the extreme—although, in justice, they were lighter and required considerably less muscular effort to charge and fire them. Now, here we go!”

  He swung the springbow upward, pointing it at the doors, and pulled the trigger. There was a dull twang, and the bolt flew forward—with a disappointing thud. The arrow bounced off the first door, rang and clattered on the flagging at our feet.

  “Peculiar,” said Mav. “There’s scarcely a mark to show where it struck.” Indeed, except for a small fingertip-sized dent, the door was quite undamaged.

  “Do you suppose you operated the weapon incorrectly?”

  “I doubt it greatly. The mechanism is simplicity made manifest, as you are at liberty to ascertain for yourself.” This time, he allowed me to arm the device, in which enterprise I failed miserably, being unable to swing the stirrup more than a few degrees from its resting place. This prompted two ideas on my part.

  “Now I appreciate the popularity of firearms. But look here, Mav, your notion of a surmale murderer hiding in a suit of armor is all wrong.” I glanced once more at the imposing, albeit hollow, figures by the door, one grasping a mighty chariot sword, the other a war hammer of massive proportions.

  “Please be reassured,” said he, “I never seriously entertained it.” He replaced the bolt and fired again.

  With precisely the result as before.

  Mav placed the weapon butt-first on the floor, leaning against the foremost of the three doors, and prepared his pipe again. I could see him trying to do his Resre breathing without calling my attention to it, but he was not to succeed on this occasion. “This vile contrivance!” he exclaimed. “It embodies more annoying paradoxes than a herd of metaphysical philosophers!”

  Despite my disappointment for his sake, I had a difficulty of my own—suppressing laughter—for Mav is ordinarily so calm and unrufflable. And besides, he is quite appealing, somehow, when he is angry. To preserve his pride and my composure, I wandered back to the other corner of the room and lifted the old shield to examine the large ragged hole that something had to have made in the door—a hole that Mav’s experiments had so far failed to reproduce. “Do you suppose, if you had used the hollow, explosive arrow…?”

  Even at this remove, the negative pattern in his fur was easily discernible. “No, in the first place, it is heavier, and thus capable of even less velocity and penetration. Nor do I believe—as I anticipate you are about to conjecture—that the arrow blasted its way through the door. How, then, could it have killed Srafen? Now if we had found two arrows…No, I suspect that the spring in this bow has simply fatigued with age. I felt it was a little too easily cocked. And once again we are left with a myriad of irritating questions.”

  My fur rippled despite my best efforts. “Have you not frequently quoted the late Professor Srafen to the effect that new questions are the result of the best experiments?” Idly, I fingered the shredded edge of the hole in the panel.

  “Your memory is altogether too good tonight, Mymy. Perhaps you ought to take over this investigation!”

  “Perhaps I— Mav, come here! Does this mean anything?” The edges of the hole had crumbled like stale algae cakes under my fingers.

  “Heaven’s sweet evaporation, Mymy! I congratulate you! This door is positively eaten through with damprot, unlike those that were preserved, high and dry, in the Museum’s attic. Why, I could practically—”

  Thump! He slammed the springbow bolt in his hand against the panel. It made an ugly wound, yet did not quite penetrate. “Well, there’s more integrity there than I suspected, but even our worn-out springbow might drive a quarrel through and some distance beyond.”

  I gave that a great deal of consideration, and an answer to another problem flashed upon my mind. “How much effort is required to detonate a percussion cap?”

  He paused. “Oh, I see what you are getting at. But no, I am afraid the impact, even against so insubstantial a barrier, would still be sufficient to set the explosion off. An admirable effort, however; you are beginning to think like a detective.…I could wish the same thing for myself.” He moved to reexamine the exploded bolt. “In any case, we still have these considerable traces of wood fiber within the whitepowder cavity to account for. Had not Professor Srafen died so horribly, one might reason that—Hallo?”

  Abruptly there was movement at the edge of the screen. “Cap’n?”

  Mav sighed. “Yes, Leds, what is it?”

  “Will there not be any explodin’ after all? I been sitting, braced for it, this past hour.”

  “I’m truly sorry, old fellow, to have imposed upon your nerves in such a manner. No, there will be no explosions—unless you count those of frustration, which even now are going off inside my brains. And you may definitely tell your superior tomorrow that he may restore this place. We’ll be learning nothing more of value from it, I’m afraid.”

  The old lam said, “I’m sorry, Cap’n. Well, I’ll just be getting back—Oh, I near forgot: here’s the paper you asked for. That’s why I disturbed you in the first place, beggin’ your pardon.”

  “Excellent. Thank you, Leds. Mymy, here is another of the preparations I mentioned. You’ll recall that, on the night of the murder, I caused a roster to be collected of everybody present, along with certain details such as precisely where, as well as could be remembered, each individual was seated. For example, here is the Archsacerdot, and you will notice half a dozen of Srafen’s old Navy chums sitting in the southeast corner to our right. Now this new list of Leds’s is of the original holders of tickets to the lecture, which, primarily owing to the anti-Ascensionists, was conducted by invitation only. See, here am I, duly accredited with three admissions—comparing that to the later
Bucketeer account, you’ll notice that you and I are listed, and that one of our tickets remained unused.”

  Indeed, I thought, although that hadn’t prevented me from having to personally associate with Vyssu in the end. “And what is it that you hope to learn from these accountings?”

  He pored over the scrolls: “Well, I have just learned something already—that Srafen’s husband, Law, was among those individuals invited, yet he did not attend. Instead, their wife, Myssmo, was here that night, along with a guest.”

  “A Dr. Ensda, by any chance?”

  “Not particularly discreet or subtle is our Myssmo, is she? It must have galled Srafen particularly sorely, as rhe believed such pseudophilosophies as lunology and the reading of jaw striations were soon to be rendered extinct by science. Do you notice anything else about this charlatan?”

  The Bucketeers had him down as “Professor Doctor Zanyw N’botpemy Ensda, Lunologist and Celestial Counselor.”

  “The springbow,” I replied immediately, “the eye swords, and the sailor. And, unless I am mistaken, Mav, is this Zanyw N’botpemy Ensda not a Podfettian name, as well? Could it be a pattern is emer—”

  At that very instant there occurred yet another commotion behind the screen, around which appeared—despite Leds’s best efforts to the contrary—a ragged and disheveled-looking Niitood, his bandages trailing behind him like a train.

  “Mav! Mymy! You’ve got to come at once! Someone’s broken into my apartments and smashed every piece of equipment to bits!”

  VIII: The Shrine of Fundamental Truth

  BANG!!!

  “Now you see, Mymy? The trigger must be squeezed, not jerked.” Mav took the little weapon from my hand, pressed the spring-loaded button upon its side just forward of the T-shaped handle, gave the barrels a quarter-turn, and ejected both spent cartridges.

  As relatively small-bored as the pistol was—precisely a standard Fodduan finger-width, or thirty-three to the pound by old-fashioned reckoning—still, my middle hand was tingling after half a dozen rounds; I was desirous of leaving off and getting back to our picnic.

  This much credit I will give to Vyssu: she had laid a splendid feast before us—smoked sandshrimp, obrega taproot sliced thin and highly spiced, and my favorite, cactus pears in an unusual sauce prepared from a steeping of crushed nopal scales. She’d spread a layer of clean white sand from one of our panniers upon the ground to make a table, and even where I stood, a dozen lam-heights away, the aroma of the pears pricked tantalizingly at my nostrils.

  Mav gave the barrels a twist. “Try it again, Mymy!”

  “Must I?” I grasped the handle as Vyssu rippled encouragement. I’d been told she’d been through this before and was a creditable shot herself. Sighing, I aligned the rear sight blade so that it stood between the paired horns of the front, centered this arrangement upon a pad of spiny leptocaul toward which Mav was directing me, and carefully, despite a nervous trembling in my hand, squeezed the trigger.

  Click!

  I’d started violently as the striker fell, then turned to Mav in confusion. “It didn’t explode; is something wrong?”

  His fur gave signs of alarm until he pushed the muzzle of the pistol away from his eye; then it turned to exasperated amusement. “Nothing that cannot be instantly corrected—provided you do not shoot your instructor. Please be mindful of the direction you point that thing, Mymy, and forgive me, for I did not load the chambers that time, in order to determine whether or not you were developing what is called a flinch. I fear that you have.”

  I felt annoyance ripple across me. “I could have told you as much, myself. How can you bear discharging that reciprocator of yours, much less a service revolver, at twenty-two and twelve to the pound apiece, as you have said?”

  “There is a difference,” he replied patiently, “between feeling the weapon moving in your hand, and feeling it hurt your hand. It is common, with the noise and everything, to confuse the two. The object is to endeavor to ‘follow through,’ to finish up after the gun discharges with sights and target in the same relative positions as before you pulled the trigger. Now have another go—this time I’ll really load it—and then we’ll have our luncheon.”

  This was a day of novel experiences, as were many which I spent with Mav. I’d often picnicked here in Lovely Sands, a few fymon above Hedgerow, with my family. Never before, however, had such an occasion included shooting lessons.

  Nor had I come by watuback.

  Yesterday, the morning after our second trip to the Museum, I had received my telephone several hours earlier than anticipated. (I suspect this was some subtle means of evening accounts on the part of the sales clerk, for the early morning visit put both Zoobon and me to some inconvenience, yet how could I complain of such zealous service?) Not thirty minutes later, I accepted, as well, my very first telephone message.

  “Mymy?”

  “Is it you, Mav?”

  “None other. I trust I haven’t interrupted your breakfast. We have a busy schedule today; I must first see Niitood, whose jaws are out of joint because I sent a uniformed Bucketeer with him last night instead of attending to the matter myself. I ordered the place left untouched, which perturbed him even further until I made amends by billeting him at Vyssu’s…er…establishment.”

  “I see, and did he find the prospect entertaining?”

  There was a considerable pause, then: “Mymy, Vyssu also operates a perfectly conventional rooming house upon her premises—well, conventional enough for the Kiiden, anyway. But, since you mention it, it did occur to me that some company might cheer him, after being blown up, jailed, and burglarized within the space of two days. Did you know they broke another camera for him, as well?”

  “I began to understand that such was the case the twenty-seventh time he mentioned it last night. Did Vyssu supply his companions, or did she herself—”

  “Mymy! I’m ashamed at your attitude. It may edify you to learn that she is an entrepreneur rather than an assembly worker, so to speak, and in any event—”

  “What does your schedule include for me today? Nothing so redundant as my errands yesterday, one would fondly hope.”

  A disadvantage to the telephone is that it will not convey physical expressions. However, I knew Mav well enough to see, in my mind’s eye, the chuckle in his fur. “Indeed not, my dear, puritanical assistant. You will undertake a highly important task while I attempt to complete a wholly different one. Do you recall the fellow in front of the Museum the evening of the lecture?”

  “Why, there were hundreds,” I replied with irritation. It occurred to me that this sort of blind conversation had its positive side as well, for Mav could not see my angry fur at the moment. “Oh, you mean the ragged, dirty person on the waggon, the one haranguing the mob?”

  “One Kymmi Kiidit Adem, according to the report, proprietor of something called the Shrine of Fundamental Truth located upon Pauper’s Island.”

  “And what is it you wish me to ask him?”

  Another pause, and I could hear him first prepare, then inhale from, his pipe. “Simple facts as to his whereabouts during the murder we already have from our lamn outside the Museum, watching him at the very instant they heard the explosion. From you, some assessment of his character—had he sufficient animosity toward Srafen to delegate an act of violence? I appreciate the subjectivity of such a task, and its consequent difficulty, but frankly, I can’t think where else to begin. In some ways, it is worse than the tangle of physical evidence that confounds us.”

  It was my turn to chuckle invisibly, but more at the situation than at my friend’s expense. “I’ll do the best I can, my dear Inquirer. May I ask where you can be reached while I am negotiating with religious fanatics?”

  “I plan spending the day in the Imperial Navy yards, locating those old friends of Srafen who were present at the lecture. I suggest, when you have had enough of Pauper’s Island, that you inquire at the Precinct for messages. Unless some emergency arises, you can brin
g me up to date tomorrow morning in Lovely Sands.”

  “And who are we interviewing there, suspicious birds and cacti?”

  “We shall interview ourselves. I need a test to think about what I have learned—and failed to learn. And I believe that I shall teach you to shoot and ride upon the back of watun just like an Einnyo pioneer!”

  Pauper’s Island is the uppermost of three large obstructions—King’s Island and Shield being the others—in the winding mouth of the River Dybod where it passes through Mathas and into the gulf that also bears that name.

  Now that I have mentioned names, I’ll add that Pauper’s Island’s is entirely misleading. Straight across the Dybod from Riverside is a truly impoverished working-class district called Pauper’s Bridge. The island between them, being within the sight of water all round and thus originally an undesirable locale, once housed the poor and indigent, factory employees and mill hands such as one still finds upon the eastern bank—and, indeed, all over that side of the river.

  However, some generations ago, a high wall blocking out the watery view was constructed, and the place became a sort of haven for university students, poets, and musicians of a particularly disreputable variety. Thus it remained until perhaps a dozen years ago when others, less unconventional but admiring the peculiar atmosphere, began displacing both workers and loafers. It is now quite the rage for single persons in search of adventure and young triplets as yet unwilling to settle into staid conventionality to lease or purchase a refurbished flat and pretend that they are daring freethinkers, radical friends of the workers, and artistes. Their one and only real accomplishment, it seems to me, is to have bidden the rent up tenfold in as many years.

  Thus I was somewhat surprised when Mav informed me of the location of the Shrine of Fundamental Truth—one would likelier have expected it to be in Fasmou Common or the Cuff, where one supposes such rabble as we saw at the Museum keep themselves on ordinary days.