'Do you always dine like this?' he asked.
'Oh, yes,' said Keja, 'Ptarmigan prefers to have people where he can see them.' She raised a finger and the waiters moved forward.
'Uh, Keja, how long have I been here?'
'Since yesterday night. You're famous, little brother. According to Ptarmigan half the galaxy is out looking for you. You're supposed to be leading us all to Jokers World. What do you think we'll find there?'
'On present showing, a damn great bomb.' He saw her flinch. 'Sorry, I didn't mean that. Famous, eh?'
'There's a dozen ships in orbit, most of them Terra Novaean and Whole Erse. More turn up every hour. Ptarmigan is very angry about it. I haven't quite understood it all, but I gather that everyone wants to kidnap you. Is it true that you'll discover Jokers World in five days' time, whatever happens?'
'I expect so. How come everyone knows?'
'Well, you haven't been keeping it a secret, have you? United Spies are in on it too. Ptarmigan has to send special squads out every hour to sweep up those little robot insects they keep dropping on the palace. One got into the kitchen and opened the oven on a soufflée, and that's outside all the rules!'
'Is one of the ships Creapii?'
'I don't know.'
Tarli leaned round his young stepmother and nodded. 'My apologies, O Dom, but I have been overhearing the conversation—'
"Eavesdropping, ' said Keja sternly.
'—and as a matter of fact one of the ships is a Creapii VMFTL squareship, Chain Stars registration.'
'Chain Stars, eh? Oh, boy.' A thought struck him and his hand flew to his belt. 'Keja, was there a bottle—'
'It's safe. My maid said one of the security men told her that it contains the Water of Life. Not that I'm prying, of course.'
'Of course not. In the last few days I've nearly been killed, overdrawn at the Bank, I've breathed for an hour underwater, I've got into orbit by a very bawdy method, and I've had a swim on the surface of a star. Oh yes. And I walked out of the Maze on Minos even though my chest was smashed up. Life is one gay round. Someone ought to start writing my biography now, before it's too late!'
'Try him, then,' said Keja, indicating a diner on the far side of the table. Dom recognized the scarred man and his battered robot.
'That's Charles Sub-Lunar, isn't it? The one they call the Renaissance Man?'
Keja saw the man and the robot looking at them, and raised her glass and smiled. Under cover of this she said: 'Yes, and Joker expert. And historian. His poetry is rather good, too. Did you know he was the one who deciphered the Joker language?'
‘The poet and the mad computer,' quoted Dom.
'Yes, though he's not really mad. I don't know who the poet was. His servant is quite fascinating, too, don't you think he looks fascinating with all those scars, Dom? Dom?'
'Uh, yes,' said Dom, slowly. He twirled his wineglass thoughtfully. 'Funny, isn't it, you form an impression of people . . . I think I'd like a word with him. Excuse me.'
Dom sidled round the table, but had not been careful enough. Joan caught him lightly by the arm - lightly it looked, at least, but there was a knowledge of anatomy behind the hold.
'Good evening, grandson. You have been mixing with some very bad company, it seems. Ways is the chief torpedo of the Joker Institute.'
Dom sighed. 'All right, grandmother. I suppose you have been prying into my mind?'
'Well, you were unconscious and it naturally seemed the logical thing to do.'
'Oh, naturally.'
'Don't be peevish, this is real life. Every security man in the galaxy knows about Ways. Once he assassinated the deputy-chief of United Spies, you know. He's a robot with a killer instinct. I see you've still got that swamp crawler?'
'He's spent a little time with Ways. I think it's likely that he's been booby-trapped,' said Dom. 'I wouldn't worry too much.'
'You think you're invulnerable. Don't bank on it,' said Joan. She glared at Ig.
The Emperor rose slowly to his feet and rang a small black bell. The diners began to leave the table. Dom saw Sub-Lunar and his serving man disappear into the crowd.
'What happens now?' he asked. 'I understand everyone's waiting for me to make a move.'
'Are you going to discover Jokers World?'
Most of the diners had left. The Emperor bowed to them and left them seated. Across the room Hrsh-Hgn and Isaac chatted to Tarli.
'I think so,' said Dom. 'I'm getting the . . . the sort of outline of it already. It's not a planet. I mean, it may be a planet but... well, Widdershins is a planet, with an orbit, a hydrosphere and a magnetic field and so on, but Widdershins is also a world and a culture.'
'I see,' said Joan, 'I wonder where it could be?'
'I've got five days, less now, so that rules out most places outside the life-bubble. I think...' Dom stopped. 'You are pumping me'
'For the sake of Widdershins. I don't want you to find Jokers World and lose it to a mob. You don't care about politics. I tell you, used properly this could be the making of the Sabalos family.'
'You mean that seriously?'
'I do.' She rose. 'We'll talk about this later. Are you coming to see the Masque?'
'You must!' said Tarli, hurrying round the table. 'It's a special production. Sub-Lunar wrote it on the ship coming here. Father likes a little entertainment after dinner.'
Dom thought it was mildly entertaining. It was a skit on current Earth-Outer Worlds politics, which were always good for a laugh, written in early Greek style. All the characters wore larger-than-life masks, spangled with jewels. The chorus was robotic.
Then it nailed Dom to his seat.
The chief protagonist was a goat-legged Chairman Pan, complete with horn and.syrynx. It happened after the bit of business with the First Sirian Bank, a bloated silver globe on spindly legs.
The Bank said: 'do you think, then, that man can PREVENT HIMSELF BEING OUSTED BY ROBOTS?'
Pan capered across the stage: 'Certainly. What robot could do my job? They can only go down to Class Ones, you know.'
Chorus: 'Brekekekex, co-ax, co-axial!'
Pan: 'But list! Who is this weary traveller?'
Another actor lurched on to the stage. He was a bright, vivid green. He was staggering under the combined weight of a pair of winged sandals that left a trail of feathers, a large sword made of rubber, a giant bottle of water and, on one emerald shoulder, a taxidermist's nightmare of glass eyeballs, feathers, tufts of hair and badly-assorted claws.
Pan: 'Good grief!' What are you doing with that strange, ill-assorted creature?'
Traveller: 'It's not a strange creature, it's my pet.'
Pan: 'I was talking to your pet. What do you seek, traveller? Get on with it so we can continue with this sketch.'
The traveller peered myopically around the stage and then glared at the audience.
'I'm looking for a world of Jokers,' he muttered.
Pan said: 'Try Earth. They are quite good-humoured on Terra Novae, too. Oh, those Jokers. Be off with you! They don't exist - do they?'
'Yes and no. That is, no and yes.'
Bank: ' everyone knows they have moved to the UNIVERSE NEXT DOOR— '
Pan: '—so why not look on the dark side of the sun?'
Traveller: 'Gosh, yes! The dark side of the sun, you say? I'll go there directly.' He shuffled off.
Dom woke next morning in a bedroom almost oppressive in its wealth, washed in a gold bowl and strolled down to the dining hall. He was late for breakfast. Most of the night had been spent in a fruitless discussion with Joan. There had been a row when Ig was taken to a laboratory and probed for every conceivable weapon, to the little animal's distress. Nothing was found, but Ig, coiled across Dom's shoulders, was strangely silent today.
Sub-Lunar had left after the Masque, after taking an urgent call from Earth.
Down in the hall a floating sideboard had been laid out with large dishes under covers. Dom padded silently over the carpet, experimentally lifting lid
s. One covered a dish of smoked red fish, another the considerable wreckage of a boar's head. A third was just fruit. Being a Widdershine, he settled at last for the fish, and sat down at one end of the empty table. Out of interest he lifted the lid of a large tureen, and slammed it down hurriedly; the Emperor had been entertaining drosk guests.
A few minutes later a small door across the hall opened and a girl tiptoed in. She was small, and dark like Tarli. Dom g r inned. She blushed, and sidled along the sideboard with her eyes fixed on him.
She piled a small dish with little fish and sat down at the opposite side of the table. Dom stared at her. In the morning light she seemed to glow. It was uncanny. The glow followed her, so that when she moved an arm she left a faint, golden ghost in the air. An electro-physical effect, but still impressive.
They ate in silence, broken only by the hum of a large, antique Standard clock.
Finally he steeled himself. 'Can you speak Janglic? Linaka Comerks diwac? How about drosk? - upaquaduc, uh, lapidiquac nunquackuqc quipaduckua-dicquakak?'
She poured herself a tiny cup of coffee and smiled at him. Dom groaned inwardly. Drosk was bad enough, but he could handle it. He prepared his epiglottis and sinuses for the supreme test.
'Ffnbasshs sFFshs - frs Sfghn Gss?'
Her second smile struck him as unnecessarily prim. She clapped her hands. A moment later he felt a presence by his elbow.
A giant was standing behind his chair. A pair of eye-slits surveyed him dispassionately from a small head atop a body as broad as it was high, which was almost two metres. It wore a jerkin of leather, covered with familiar angular designs in red and blue. A variety of hand weapons were stuck into the belt. It was a drosk - an old one - so of course it was a female. If there had been any males in the place they were probably in her deep-freeze right now.
The girl sang a glissando of bell-like note. The red eyes blinked.
'Empress say what you say?'
'I was just trying to be sociable,' said Dom. 'Who are you?'
The giant held a brief interchange with the girl, and said, 'I her bodyguard and lady-of-the-bedchamber.'
'That must be economical.'
'Lady Sharli say you come for a ride?'
Without waiting for his answer the drosk lifted him out of his chair with one hand. Ig woke up and bared his teeth, then whined as the giant picked him up gently in another great paw and crooned to him. The swamp ig blinked, then ran up one iron-muscled arm and perched on the drosk's head.
Sharli was already walking across the broad patio outside the hall. She looked sympathetically at Dom as he was dumped at her feet like a parcel, and stamped her foot - to Dom's amazement, for even his mother had never resorted to that in her expert tantrums - and waved one tiny finger at the giant, who bowed to her. She helped Dom to his feet.
A robot was standing holding the reins of two creatures. Dom hadn't seen horses before, except the pair that had been regretfully sent back on his birthday. But these were Laothian horses. Therefore they were robots.
Sharli was helped on to one with a coat of anodized aluminium. The reins were some woven metal, hung with jewels and bells.
Dom's mount was copper-coloured. As he climbed into the control saddle it turned and looked at him through multi-faceted eyes, and said: 'Can you ride, buster?'
'I don't know, I've never tried.'
'Okay, then let me do the work, huh?' said the horse, pawing the ground.
'What did they put a Class Five brain in a horse for?' Dom asked as they walked away from the palace, with the drosk trotting behind.
'I'm kept for guests. You gotta be intelligent with some of them,' said the horse conversationally. 'You the guy who's going to discover this great El-Ay in the sky?'
'Yes. Have you ever met a Class Five, registration TR-3B4-5?' asked Dom.
'Oh, him. We were programmed together. He went off to serve some backplanet king, and I got landed with this.'
'I thought you might have known my Isaac. You've got the same conversational style,' he said.
'Being a horse isn't too bad,' said the horse, tossing its head. 'They gotta treat me well, on account of us Class Fives being officially Human. You get regular overhauls and three jolts a day . ...id you say something?'
'I'm thinking,' said Dom. He bit his lip and stared at the scenery.
Nothing grew on Laoth. The planet was sterile. Incoming ships went through a rigorous decontamination and visitors were stripped of everything except necessary colonic bacteria. Laoth's atmosphere had been imported. A world with an economy based on the manufacture of electronic miracles couldn't afford one tiny virus in the wrong place.
But a bare world was inhuman. So, around his palace, another Emperor Ptarmigan, the first of the dynasty, started to build a garden...
Rooted in barren dust, powered by sunlight, the robot acres were deader that a corpse but, like a corpse, roared with tiny life.
Electronic men were a fact of life. A fifth of the Human population was metal. Electronic nature was something else again.
The stately copper trees were nevertheless squat and gnarled like oaks to support their selenium-cell leaves, which tinkled in the breeze. Humming birds - an electronic hum - whirred among the spun-silver flowers, where small golden bees tapped the currents into their tiny batteries and flew back to their secret, dark storage cells. In a little mineral-rich brook that wound through the garden the reeds sucked up the metals and threw forth brittle sulphur flowers. In the depths, zinc trout churned. And in the cool pools aluminium water lilies opened like hands.
The horses trotted between the trees and along gravel paths lined with nodding flowers. Sharli led him to a small hill where a streamlet gushed out of the ground and fell over a rock outcrop into a deep blue pool. A small pagoda had been built amid beds of golden lilies, shot with copper.
She sat down and patted the seat beside her, then spoke to the giant.
'Lady Sharli say to tell about yourself,' the drosk said. She was throwing a two-foot knife in the air and catching it by the blade.
He did. There were long pauses when the giant translated, and he had plenty of time to watch a little brass spider which scuttled out of a cranny a few feet above his head and, taking up a position on a steel twig, swung purposely outward.
Sharlie was a good audience, and possibly the giant was a good interpreter. The girl gasped at the account of the fight in the Bank, and laughed and clapped her hands, weaving a golden haze in the air, when he told her about the escape by sunpuppy.
The spider climbed another twig and swung again.
'Empress say, were you not scared?'
Dom tried to explain the predictions while the spider completed several more jumps. He hadn't finished before the spider had completed a web of fine copper wire and retired to a twig, paying out two tiny power cables behind it.
Dom told himself that he was being too expansive, too sure of himself. But Sharli was gazing at him wide-eyed. It was too much to resist. Besides, her perfume was going to his head. He was acutely aware of the giant lady's maid behind him, and the horse, too, had sniggered once or twice.
While he was demonstrating his grav sandals by flying a figure-of-eight above her head a small mechanical fly blundered into the spider web. There was a minute blue flash.
Prowess in catching and steering windshells was being explained while the spider slowly dismantled the protesting fly with two spanner-like legs.
Another horse galloped between the trees. At the controls was Tarli, almost hidden in an armour made of leather slabs in a complex overlapping pattern. He removed his fearsome helmet, wiped his forehead with his gauntlet, and smiled brightly at Dom.
'Greetings, step-uncle. I thought you might be here. I hope you have not been overly bored?'
'Not at all,' said Dom airily. 'Er, your costume . . . '
Tarli raised his eyebrows. 'I have been Sham fighting. You do not fight Sham on Widdershins?'
Dom thought of one or two fights he ha
d seen on the jetties, when four-foot long dagon-knives were used. 'It's usually for real on Widdershins,' he said. 'Sham?'
Tarli unslung a long bundle from his horse and drew out a sword as tall as he was. The handle was leather-bound, with no superfluous decoration. The blade was invisible, except when it caught the light, when it showed up momentarily as a thin green sliver.
'Shamsword,' he explained. 'The blade is, of course, only a few microns thick, forged as a molecule in the special sword-light of dawn. Strong, too. Perhaps you are a good swordsman?'
'I can use a memory-sword,' said Dom. He drew his own and demonstrated. Tarli took it gingerly.
'How does it work?'
'There's a little matrix field projector in the stud that can generate up to a dozen shapes.'
Tarli handed it back. 'Not an honourable weapon,' he said sadly. 'You would perhaps like a sham battle?'
He laughed at Dom's expression and pulled two wooden lathes from his bundle. 'For practice,' he explained. 'So novices don't lose too many appendages in the learning. I am the second-best shamuri on Laoth.'
Dom felt Sharli's eye on him.
'Okay,' he said miserably. After all, he could handle a sword by proxy on the tstame board, even if it was only a two inch skewer wielded by a mommet. And they were only wooden poles.
Tarli unpacked another helmet and some pieces of leather body armour, and Sharli helped Dom into them.
'You'd better explain the rules.'
Tarli smiled. 'This is only stick sham. Anything goes, but you've got to use the stick. Sharli will give us the signal.'
The girl, who had been watching them with interest, shook her head and spoke sharply to her brother.
'She says we've got to fight for a prize. My sword against your grav sandals. I don't think that's fair.'
'Don't worry,' said Dom. He bent down and began to unstrap his sandals. Tarli sighed and laid his shamsword on the seat alongside them.
Sharli waved a small handkerchief.
The poles met in mid-air, once, and they circled each other warily.
The Dark Side of the Sun Page 13