Sir Howard spoke hesitantly; he wasn't sure how his father would take his proposal. He wasn't sure himself it was quite the right thing to do. But the old man's reaction surprised him. "Yes," he said in his tired voice, "I think that's a good idea. Get away from here for a few months. When I'm gone you'll be duke, now, and you won't have many chances to go gallivanting. So you ought to make the most of what you have. And you've never seen much of the country except between here and New York. Travel's broadening, they say. Don't worry about me; I have enough to do to keep two men busy.
"I'll ask just one thing, and that is that you don't go joining up in any more of these local wars. It's you I've always worried about, not Frank, and I don't want any more of that. I don't care how good the pay is. I know you're a mercenary young rascal; I like that, because I don't have to worry about your bankrupting the duchy. But if you really want to make money, you can try your hand at running the Poughkeepsie Shoe Co. when you get back."
Thus it came about that Sir Howard again found himself riding north, and to his own mild surprise doing some heavy thinking. Luckily the hoppers hadn't made much red tape about the travel permit. But he knew they'd keep an eye on him. Even though he hadn't done anything, he'd be on their suspicious list because of his brother. He'd have to be careful.
Jogging along, you had plenty of time to think. He knew he had the reputation of being simply a large, energetic, and rather empty-headed young man with a taste for action. It was time he put something in that head, if only because of the prospect of inheriting the duchy.
He felt that something must be wrong with his picture of the world. In it the burning of people for scientific research was just. But he didn't feel that Frank's death had been just. In it, whatever the hoppers said was right, because God had set them over Man. It was right that he, Howard van Slyck, should salute the hoppers. Didn't the commoners have to salute him in return? That made it fair all around. He was bound to obey the hoppers; the commoners were bound to obey him. It was all explained to you in school. The hoppers likewise were under obligation to God to command him, and he the commoners. Again, perfectly fair.
Only there must be something wrong with it. He couldn't see any flaw in the reasoning he'd been taught; it all fitted together like a suit of Chrysler super-heavy silico-manganese steel plate. But there must be a flaw somewhere. If he traveled, and kept his eyes open, and asked questions, maybe he could find it. Perhaps somebody had a book that would shed light on the question. The only books he'd come across were either fairy tales about the daring deeds of dauntless knights, which bored him, or simple texts on how to run a savings bank or assemble a cream separator.
He might even learn to associate with commoners and find out how they looked at things. Sir Howard was not, considering his background, especially class conscious; the commoners were all right, and some were even good fellows, if you didn't let them get too familiar or think they were as good as you. What he had in mind was, for one of his class, a radical departure from the norm.
He squirmed in his lobster shell and wished he could scratch through the plate. Damn, he must have picked up some bugs at Poughkeepsie Manor, free of vermin though it was normally kept. That was the hoppers' fault.
It began to rain; one of those vigorous York State spring rains that might last an hour or a week. Sir Howard got out his poncho and put his head through the slit in the middle. He didn't worry about his plate, because it had been well vaselined. But the rain, which was coming down really hard, was a nuisance. With his visor up it spattered against his face; and with it down, he had to wipe the lucite constantly to see where he was going. Below the poncho, the water worked into his leg joints and made his legs feel cold and clammy. Paul Jones didn't like it, either; he plodded along with his head drooping, breaking into periodic trots only with reluctance.
Sir Howard was not in the best of humors when, an hour later, the rain slackened to a misty drizzle through which the far shore of the Hudson could barely be made out. He was approaching the Rip van Winkle Bridge when somebody on a horse in front of him yelled "Hey!"
Sir Howard thought he wanted more room. But the strange rider sat where he was and shouted: "Thought I'd skip the country, didn'tcha? Well, I been laying for you, and now you're gonna get yours!"
From his costume the man was obviously a foreigner. His legs were incased in some sort of leather trousers with a wide flap on each leg. "What the hell do you mean?" answered the knight.
"You know what I mean, you yellow-bellied bastitch. You gonna fight like a man, or do I have to take your breeches down and paddle you?"
Sir Howard was too cold and wet and bebugged to carry on this lunatic argument, especially as he could see the town of Catskill—where there would be fires and whiskey—across the river. "Okay, foreigner, you asked for it. Have at you, base-born!" The lance came out of its boot and was lowered to horizontal. The gelding's hoofs thundered on the asphalt.
The stranger had thrown his sheepskin jacket into the ditch, revealing a shirt of chain, and sent his wide-brimmed hut scaling after it, showing a steel skullcap. Sir Howard, slamming down his visor, wondered what form of attack he was going to use; he hadn't drawn the curved saber that clunked from his saddle. With that light horse he'd probably try to dodge the lance point at the last minute—
The light horse dodged; the knight swung his lance; the dodge had been a feint and the foreigner was safely past his point on his left side. Sir Howard had a fleeting glimpse of a long loop of rope whirling about the man's head, and then something caught him around the neck. The world whirled, and the asphalt came up and hit him with a terrific clatter.
To get up in full armor, you had to be on your stomach und work your knees up under you. He rolled over and started to scramble up—and was jerked headlong. The stranger had twisted his rope around a projection on his saddle. The horse kept the rope taut; every time the knight got to his knees it took a step or two and pulled him down again. When he was down he couldn't see what was happening. Something caught his sword arm before he had a chance to get his weapon out. Rolling, he saw that the stranger had thrown another noose around his arm. And down this second rope loops came snaking to bind his other arm, his legs, his neck, until he was trussed like a fawn.
"Now," said the foreigner, coming toward him with a hunting knife in his hand, "let's see how you get into one of these stovepipe suits—" He pushed the visor up and gasped. "Sa-a-ay, you ain't the guy at all!"
"What guy?" snarled Sir Howard.
"The guy what ducked me in the horse trough. Big guy named Baker, over in Catskill. Your suit's like his, and you ride the same kind of critter. I thought sure it was him; I couldn't see your face with the helmet on in this bad light. It's all a mistake; I'm sure sorry as all hell, mister. You won't be mad if I let you up, will you?"
Sir Howard conceded that he wouldn't be mad; the fact was that with his anger at his ignominious overthrow by this wild foreigner's unfair fighting methods he had mixed a grudging admiration for the man's skill and a great curiosity as to how it had been accomplished.
The stranger was a lean person with straw-colored hair, some years older than Sir Howard. As he undid the rope he explained: "My name's Haas; Lyman Haas. I come from out Wyoming way; you know, the Far West. Most folks around here never heard of Wyoming. I was having a quiet drink in Catskill last night at Lukas's Bar and Grill, and this here Baker comes up and picks an argument. I'm a peaceable man, but they's some things I don't like. Anyway, when it came to the punch, this Baker and two of his friends jump me, and they ducked me in the horse trough, like I told you. I see now why I mistook you for him: you had your trade-mark covered up under that poncho. His is a fox's head. This'll be a lesson to me never to kill nobody again before I'm sure who he is. I hope I didn't dent your nice suit on the pavement."
"That's all right. A few dents more or less won't matter to this old suit. It's partly my fault, too. I should have thought of the poncho."
Haas was staring at
the Van Slyck trade-mark and moving his lips. "Give . . . 'em . . . the . . . works," he read slowly. "What's it mean?"
"That's an expression they used a long time ago, meaning 'Hit them with all you've got,' or something like that. Say, Mr. Haas, I'd like to get somewhere where I can dry out. And I wouldn't mind a drink. Can you recommend a place in Catskill?"
"Sure; I know a good place. And a drink wouldn't hurt either of us."
"Fine, I've also got to buy some insect powder. And when that's been attended to, perhaps we can do something about your Mr. Baker."
The next morning the good citizens of Catskill were astonished to see the person of Squire Baker, naked and painted in an obscene manner, dangling by his wrists and ankles from a lamppost near the main intersection. As he was quite high up and had been efficiently gagged, he was not noticed until broad daylight. Baker never lived the incident down; a few months later he left Catskill and shipped on a schooner in the chicle-and-banana trade to Central America.
3
"Say, How, I'd kinda like to hear some music."
Sir Howard had not gotten used to Haas' calling him "How." He liked the man, but couldn't quite make him out. In some ways he acted like a commoner. If he were, the knight thought he ought to resent his familiarity. But there were other things—Haas' self-possession, for instance. Oh, well, no doubt the scheme of social stratification was different out West. He turned the radio on.
"That's a neat little thing you got," Haas continued.
"Yep; it's nice when you're making a long ride. There's an aerial contact built into the lance boot, so this little toothpick acts as an aerial. Or, if I'm not carrying a lance, I can clip the aerial lead to my suit, which works almost as well as the lance."
"Is they a battery in the saddle?"
"Yes, just a little light battery. They have a real fuel battery, but they don't let us use it."
They topped a rise, and Albany's State Office Building came in sight. It was by far the tallest building in the city, none of the rest of which was yet visible. Some said it had been built long ago, when York State was a single governmental entity—and not just a vague geographical designation. Now, of course, it was hopper headquarters for a whole upstate region. Sir Howard thought the dark, square-topped tower looked sinister. But it didn't become a knight to voice such timid vagaries. He asked Haas: "How is it that you're so far from home?"
"Oh, I wanted to see New York. You been to New York, I suppose?"
"Yes, often. I've never been very far upstate, though."
"That was the main thing. Of course, they was that guy—"
"Yes? Go on; you can trust me."
"Well—I don't suppose it'll do no harm, this being a long way from Wyoming. Him and me was arguing in a bar. Now, I'm a peaceable man, but they's some words I don't like, and this guy didn't smile when he said 'em, either. So we had it out in the alley with sabers. Only he had friends. That'll be a lesson to me, to make sure whether a guy has friends first before I fight him. I wanted to see New York, anyway, so here I am. When I run out of money on the way, I'd make a stake doing rope tricks in the theaters. I made about six hundred clinkers in New York last week. It's purty near gone now, but I can make some more. They ain't nobody around these parts knows how to use a rope."
"Why," said Sir Howard, "what became of it? Were you robbed?"
"Nope; just spent it." The airy way in which this was said made Sir Howard shudder. The Westerner looked at him narrowly, with a trace of a smile. "You know," he said, "I always had the idea that lords and knights and such were purty free with their wallpaper; threw it around like it wasn't nothing. And here you're the carefullest guy with his money I ever did see. It just shows you."
"How did you like New York?" asked the knight.
"Purty good; there's lots of things to see. I made friends with a guy who works in a furniture factory, and he took me around. I liked to see the chairs and things come buzzing down the assembly line. My friend couldn't get me into the power plant though. They was a hopper guard at the door. They don't let nobody in there except a few old employees and I hear they examine them with this dope they got every week to make sure they haven't told nobody how the power machinery works.
"But I got tired of it after a few weeks. Too many hoppers. They get on my nerves, always looking at you with those little black eyes like they was reading your mind. Some says they can, too. I guess after what you told me about your brother it's safe for me to say what I think of 'em. I don't like 'em."
"Don't they have hoppers out West, too?"
"Sure, we got some, but they don't bother us much. What they say goes, of course, but they let us alone as long as we mind our business and pay our hopperage. They don't like the climate—too dry."
"They don't interfere too much in our local affairs, either," said the knight, "except that the big cities like New York are under their direct rule. That's how there are so many down there. Of course, if you—but I've already told you about that."
"Yeah. And it's a crime the prices you pay for steaks around here. Out in Wyoming, where we raise the critters, we eat mostly that. It's the hopperage charges, and all these little boundary tolls and tariffs between here and there makes'em so expensive."
"Do you have wars out West, too?"
"Sure, once and a while us and the Novvos gets in a scrap."
"The Novvos?"
"Folks who live down south of us. Stock raisers, mostly. They ain't like us; got sorta reddish-brown skins, like Queenie here, and flat faces. Hair as black as yours, too."
"I think I've heard of these people," said the knight. "We had a man at the manor last year who'd been out West. But he called these red-skinned people Injuns."
"That a fact? I always thought an Injun was what made the hopper cars and flying machines go. It just shows you. Anyhow, we get in a fight with the Novvos about grazing rights and such, now and then. Mostly mounted-archery stuff. I'm purty good at it myself. See." He unfastened the flap of an elongated box that hung from his saddle, which proved to be a quiver. He took out the two halves of a steel now. "Wish I had one of those trick saddles like yours to pack my stuff in, 'steada hanging it all over till me and my horse looks like a Christmas tree. But I travel purty light, at that. You got to, when you only got one little horse like Queenie. I suppose that high cantle's mostly to keep you from getting shoved off the horse's rump by some guy's toothpick." Haas had been fitting the halves of the bow together. The bow had a sighting apparatus just above the grip.
"See the knot in that big pine? Now watch. Yeeow!" The mare jumped forward. Haas whipped an arrow from his quiver; the bow twanged. The Westerner swung his mount back, walked her up to the tree, and pulled the arrow out of the knot. "Maybe I shouldn't a' done that," he said. "We're getting purty close in to Albany, and maybe they got a regulation about shooting arrows inside the city limits. What's they to see in Albany?" One of the hoppers' hexagonal glassy dwellings had come into view among the old two-story frame houses.
"Not much," replied the knight. "The first thing I have to do is to go to the Office Building and have my travel permit stamped. How about you?"
"Oh, mine ain't that kind. I had it stamped in New York, and now I don't have to report to the hoppers again till I get out to Chicago. But I'll tag along with you. Far's I can see they ain't neither of us got to get anywheres in particular."
They waited on the sidewalk in front of the Office Building for a quarter of an hour before they had a chance to go in, for, of course, they couldn't precede a hopper through the doors. By that time Sir Howard's steel-clad arm ached from saluting. A pair of the things passed him, chattering in their own incomprehensible tongue, which sounded like the twittering of birds. They smelled like very ripe cheese. He was startled to hear one of them suddenly switch to English. "Man!" it squeaked. "Why did you not salute?"
Sir Howard looked around, and saw that it was addressing Haas, who was standing stupidly with a cigarette in his mouth and a lighter in hand. He pu
lled himself together, put away the smoking things, and took off his hat. "I'm sure sorry as all hell, your excellency, but I'm afraid I wasn't looking."
"Control your language, Man," the hopper twittered. "Being sorry is no excuse. You know there is a five-dollar fine for not saluting."
"Yes, your excellency. Thanks, your excellency, for reminding me."
"Smoking is forbidden inside anyway," the thing chirped. "But since you have assumed a more respectful attitude I shall not pursue the matter further. That is all, Man."
"Thank you, your excellency." Haas put his hat back on and followed Sir Howard into the building. The knight heard him mutter, "I'm a peaceable man, but—"
Sir Howard found a man with a drooping white mustache at the travel-permit counter, who stamped his permit and entered his visit without comment. The man had the nervous, hangdog air that people got working around hoppers.
As they headed back to where their horses were tethered, Haas said, very low: "Say, How, do you reckon that hopper that bawled me out was showing off to his girl friend?"
"They don't have girl friends, Lyman," replied Sir Howard. "They don't have sexes. Or rather, each one of them is both male and female. It takes two to produce a crop of eggs, but they both lay them. Hermaphroditic, they call it."
Haas stared at him. "You mean they—" He doubled over, guffawing and slapping his chaps. "Boy, wouldn't I like to have a couple of 'em in a cage!"
4
"Let's eat here, How; we can watch the railroad out the window. I like to see the elephants go by."
"Okay, Lyman. I guess this is about as good as any place in Amsterdam."
At the bar, men made way respectfully for the suit of armor. "Two Manhattans," ordered Sir Howard.
"Straws, sir?" asked the barkeeper.
"Nope," mumbled the knight, struggling with his helmet. "At least, not if I can get this thing out of the way. Ah!" The bib came up finally. "I'll have to take the damned hat apart and clean it properly one of these days. The hinge is as dirty as a secondhand hog wallow."
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