by Julian May
Epone rode away across the fort compound toward a small structure with pots of flowers hanging from its veranda roof. The hostlers led tall Dougal after her.
Claude watched them go and said, “Well, now you know, Richard. It’s a good thing you’re out of it. She looks like mighty rough trade.”
The ex-spacer swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat at memory’s slow return. “Who… who the hell is Aslan?” he managed to ask.
“A kind of Christ figure in an old fairy tale,” the old man replied. “A magical lion who saved children from supernatural enemies in a Never-Never Land called Narnia.”
Felice laughed. “I don’t think his franchise extends to the Pliocene. Would either of you gentlemen care to join me in a hot tub?”
She marched off to the bathhouse, dusty feathers awave, leaving the others to limp slowly after.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Oh, what a night it had been!
Aiken Drum lay sprawled on snowy sheets and let his silver torc give him a replay of the high. Fizzy exotic booze. Delicious exotic food. Fun and games and music and dance and romping and stomping and flying and galloping those exotic broads with their crazy boobs down to there. Sweet houghmagandy. Hadn’t he shown them that he was big enough! And hadn’t he found his heart’s home at last… Here in Exile, among these people who loved to laugh and venture as he did, he would thrive and grow and shine.
“Gonna be Sir Boss!” he giggled. “Gonna roj this whole fewkin’ world until it yells quits! Gonna fly!”
Oh, yes. That, too.
Slowly, his naked body rose from the bed. He spread his arms wide and soared toward the ceiling where the morning sunlight shining through the drapes made ripple-bars of greeny gold. The bedroom was an aquarium and he was a swimmer in the air. Zoom! Bank! Roll! Dive! Let go and fall bouncing back to the bed shouting with delight, for it was a rare gift even among the talented Tanu, and the ladies, especially, had greeted his discovery of it with great excitement.
Wonderful silver torc!
He scrambled off-the bed and went to the window. Roniah down below was awake and going about its business, human figures strolling or bustling, stately Tanu mounted on gaily caparisoned chalikos, and everywhere the little ramas at work, sweeping, gardening, fetching and carrying. Kaleidoscopic!
…Hey, Aik. Where you be, buddy?
The mental hail came to him hesitantly and garbled at first, then with increasing confidence. Raimo, of course. The surly woodsman had undergone a remarkable change of attitude as Aiken’s new metafunctions became manifest at the party. Raimo left off his shit-kicking and got friendly. And why not? He could sense a winner, that one!
You there, Ray? You talking at me, Woodchopper?
Who the hell else? Hey, Aik, if this is a dream, don’t wake me up.
No dream. It’s realio-trulio and we are in for one helluva good time. Hey! What say we bust out and do a little sightseeing in the town?
They got me locked in, Aik.
You forgot what we learned at the party? Hang on a nano-sec while I put my clothes on and I’ll be right there.
Aiken threw on his golden costume, checked to be sure that no Tanu was watching, then launched himself out of his bedroom window. Hovering above the mansion like a great gleaming insect, he sent his seekersense homing in on Raimo’s querulous thought pattern, then dived at the open window of his buddy and popped into the room crowing, “Ta-dah!”
“Damn, you really do know how, don’t you?” Raimo said with some envy. “Seems I’m only good for pickin’ up furniture.” By way of demonstration, he caused the bed to dance and sent tables and chairs flying about the room.
“Everybody’s different. Chopper. You got your talents, I got mine. You could have diddled the mechanism of the lock to escape, you know.”
“Shit. Never thought of it.”
Aiken grinned. “You’ll be thinking of a lot of things from now on, Ray, and so will I. Last night was some kinda eye-opener, no?”
The former woodsman laughed out loud and the two of them wallowed in a mutual replay, chortling over the discomfiture of the scandalized Sukey and Elizabeth, who had retired abruptly when the members of the Hunt joined the festivities. Poor straity-ladies! No sense of humour and probably fridgies to boot. It had been good riddance when they left, and the party had gone on until dawn, featuring entertainments increasingly delightful that the two men could savor to the full, strengthened by their silver torcs. Good old meta-boodly psychokinoodly!
Aiken gestured out of the window. “Come on. Let’s see how the human half lives. I’m curious about the way the normals operate in this Exile setup. Don’t sweat the flying bit, Ray. I can hold up the both of us.”
“They’ll spot us.”
“I’ve got another metafunction. The illusion thing. Check this!”
There was a soundless snap and the small golden man disappeared. A tiger swallowtail butterfly flapped up and landed square on Raimo’s nose. “Keep those paws down or I go hornet,” said Aiken’s voice. The butterfly vanished, and there was the practical joker again, standing in front of Raimo with one finger resting on the forester’s nose.
“Hell’s bells, Aik! You are loaded!”
“Say again, Chopper. Gimme your hand. Come on, don’t be a poop. We’re off!”
Two yellow butterflies flew away from the Tanu dwelling and over the town of Roniah. They swooped above the workshops of potters and rooftile makers and weavers and carpenters and metalsmiths and boatwrights and armorers and glassblowers and sculptors. They intruded upon lapidaries and painters and basketmakers and rehearsing musicians; sipped nectar from the jasmine that bloomed beside swimming pools where pregnant women lounged and laughed; flew into an open-air school-room where a dozen blond, lissom children pointed their fingers in amazement and a startled Tanu teacher sent a dangerous query arrowing back toward Bormol’s mansion.
“To the docks!” Aiken ordered, and they flew toward the riverside. Broad flights of steps led down to a busy landing stage. Rama stevedores unloaded barges while human dock-hands and boatmen, many of them naked to the waist in the morning heat, went about their jobs or loafed in shady places waiting for some other man to finish his.
The two butterflies landed atop a fat mooring bollard and turned back into Aiken and Raimo. One dockworker gave a shout. Seagulls rose up from the pavement and pilings, squawking an alarm. Aiken strolled off the bollard, leaving Raimo sitting there and blinking, and struck a pose in thin air. A burly bargee gave a shout of laughter and exclaimed, “Well, if it ain’t Peter Pan himself! But you better send that there Tinker-bell back for a refit!”
The dockside loafers roared. Up on the bollard, Raimo extended both of his arms to the side. His slanty-eyed Finnish face wore a crooked grin and a look of odd concentration. Immediately a dozen gulls fluttered down and aligned themselves from his wrists to his shoulders.
“Hey, Aik! Shootin’ gallery! Zap before crap or you lose!”
The hovering little man in gold took aim with his forefinger. “Tarn!” he said. “Pam-pam-pammidy-pom!”
Small flashes ran along Raimo’s plaid-flanneled arms. He was engulfed in a cloud of smoke and fragmentary white feathers. The audience whistled and applauded while Raimo sneezed. “Attaway, li’l biddy buddy!”
“And for my encore,” Aiken cried, making a pass with both hands at the bollard itself, “I give you, shazooml”
There was a sharp explosion. The heavy timbers of Raimo’s perch disintegrated, leaving him suspended above the water wearing a look of pained surprise.
“Was that nice?” the ex-forester expostulated. He floated over to the chuckling Aiken, grasped him by the epaulets of his golden suit, and suggested, “Maybe we should cool off with a swim!”
The two airborne figures began to wrestle, bouncing low over the muddy yellow waters of the Rhône among the moored lighters and wherries and barges like wind-tossed carnival balloons. The men on the docks cackled and stamped, and terrified ramas d
ropped their burdens and covered their eyes.
Enough!
Creyn’s mental command whipped out, hauling the two back to the quayside and depositing them onto the pavement with a painful jolt. Four attendants from Bormol’s mansion stepped forward to take firm hold of the still snickering miscreants. With the fun clearly at an end, the dockworkers and boatmen began drifting back to their jobs.
“I am programming mental restraints upon your major metapsychic functions until you have received proper training at the capital,” Creyn said. “We’ll have no more of this childish behavior.”
Aiken waved at Elizabeth, Bryan, and Sukey, who were being escorted down the quay stairs together with Stein on his litter.
Raimo said, “Aw, Chief. How else we gonna learn what we can do?”
Aiken added, “Lord Bormol told us last night to get right into it. And did we ever!” He winked at Sukey, who glared at him.
Creyn said, “From now on, you’ll do your learning in a controlled environment. Lord Bormol doesn’t need you repaying his hospitality by destroying his wharf.”
The little man in gold shrugged. “Don’t know my own strength yet is all. You want me to try putting that thing back together again?”
Creyn’s eyes, opaque blue in the sunlight, narrowed. “So you think you could? How very interesting. But I think we’ll wait, Aiken Drum. It will be far safer for all of us if you stay on the leash for the time being.”
Elizabeth’s thought came stealing gently along…
So many wild talents you do have Aiken. What else is hidden in there? Let me look.
She sent a probe boring into him. It caromed off a hastily erected but effective barrier.
“Cut it out, Elizabeth!” Aiken cried aloud. “Quit or I’ll fewkin’ well zap you!”
She regarded him sadly. “Would you, really?”
“Well…” He hesitated, then gave her a lopsided smile. “Maybe not, sweetie-face. But I can’t have you messing about with me, you know. Not even in fun. I’m not Stein… or Sukey, either.”
Creyn said, “Our boat is waiting for us at the end of the landing stage. We must be on our way.” But as they all went down the dock, the Tanu man reached out to Elizabeth on a narrow-focus mode that spoke to her mind alone:
Did you see how he did that?
Primitive/effective. Even versus me unprepared. Concerned?
Appalled actually.
How effective torc restraint?
Adequate now while he still unuse full potential. Later silver never suffice will seize gold. Educators face dilemma that one. May require termination. Not my decision Tanabe thanked.
Capable vast mischief even when latent. Rare old human-type uncommon in Milieu: clown meddler.
Type not unknown among Tanu alas. Predict kid smash hit Muriah. Query Muriah survive impact.
Ironical just deserts to you slave masters. Humanity prey-perilous.
Ah Elizabeth.
Deny? Laugh. Manipucraftylators! Desocialization/re-socialization exiles shrewdly essayed. Example: castle environment anxietyprovoke. Follows party warmfriendshippower-sexgoodies. Reinforce lesson severed heads. Crude goodguy/badguy punish/reward terror/relief mindforming. Aiken + Raimo + (Sukey?) yours. Both Hunts victorious.
How else integrate minimal delay? Some types e.g., Aiken superhazard.
More like you than you?
Perceptive Elizabeth. Angelic aloof overflyer despising pathetic exile misfits.
“Ah, Elizabeth. We get to know one another better and better.”
The skipper who welcomed them to the unusual boat that would take them downriver wore khaki pants and a sweat-stained T-shirt. His belly overflowed his waistband. A crinkly peppered-salt mustache and fringe-beard bracketed the jovial smile on his mahogany face. He flicked Creyn a casual salute, one finger tapping the bill of a decrepit U.S. Navy cap of twentieth-century vintage.
“Welcome aboard, milord and ladies and gents! Skipper Highjohn at your service. Take any pew you like, but the best view is up forward. Bring that stretcher over here and lash it to the tie-downs.”
The human travelers came onto the strange craft and settled somewhat apprehensively into the seats, which were pneumatically cushioned and form-fitting, with elaborate harnesses that the skipper helped them to fasten.
“Is the river very rough, Captain?” Sukey inquired. She had positioned herself near Stein and kept darting uneasy glances at the sleeping giant while the attendants secured him with strong webbing.
“Don’t you be concerned. I’ve done this Rhône-Med run for sixteen years and never lost a boat.” Highjohn flipped a lid on the chair arm and revealed a hidden container. “Little barf-bucket if you need it.”
Aiken piped up, “You may not have lost a boat, but how about a passenger?”
“You look like you got a strong ticker, boy. If things get too wild for you, Lord Creyn will program a calmative into your torc. Everybody set now? We’ll be stopping for lunch at Feligompo Plantation around noon for any of you who have appetites. Tonight we’ll be at Darask, which is below the site of the future Avignon. You know, the place with the bridge. See you later.”
With a friendly wave, he went forward. The attendants from the mansion who had carried on Stein and their baggage now trooped ashore. Deckhands began scurrying about the vessel, preparing it for castoff. The passengers watched with mingled interest and unease.
The riverboat was similar in design to most of the others at the quayside, measuring about fourteen meters from its high, knife-sharp bow to its glutcally rounded stern. It was a distant cousin to the inflatable rafts and foldboats used by sportsmen and explorers on the whiter waters of the Galactic Milieu. The hull, stenciled on both sides with the name of the boat, Mojo, was a tough air-filled membrane with fat exterior corrugations and pillow-like fenders jutting out at regular intervals along the waterline. It looked as if it could be deflated and disassembled for shipment upstream via caravan. Tightly covered hatch openings fore and aft gave access to cargo holds, while the passenger accommodation was in an open area amidships that was arched over with a series of half-hoops. The dockworkers quickly covered this frame with panels of deeply tinted transparent film resembling decamole. When the last section of the bubbletop was sealed, an air blower began to operate inside the boat, providing ventilation for the occupants and rendering the waterproof canopy rigid.
Sukey turned to Elizabeth, who sat in the seat beside her. “I didn’t like the way the Captain talked. What are we getting into?”
“An interesting ride, at any rate, if the signs and portents add up. Bryan, do you know anything at all about the River Rhône?”
“It was all cut up with dams and locks and bypass channels in our time,” the anthropologist replied. “The gradient is probably a lot steeper here in the Pliocene, so there are bound to be rapids. When we approach the Avignon region about a hundred-fifty kloms south of here, we’ll be in an area that very likely has a deep gorge. In the twenty-second century it was stoppered by the Donzere-Mondragon Barrage, one of the largest dam projects in Europe. What we’ll find down there now… well, it can’t be too bad or they wouldn’t try to navigate it, would they?”
Aiken uttered a shaky laugh. “Good question. Well, ready or not, guys, we’re off to the races.”
A rather stout telescoping mast was rising up behind the passenger compartment. When it reached its full height of four meters, the top section opened to disgorge a boom with a roller sail, looking for all the world like an old-fashioned portable movie screen. The sail unfurled and gave a few tentative swiveling motions. Deckhands cast off the boat’s mooring warps, and vibration in the deck betokened the operation of a small auxiliary engine. The Mojo began threading in and out of the other shore traffic on its way to the mainstream, leading Bryan to deduce that it must utilize more than one rudder for maximum maneuverability.
They angled sharply away from the shore. As the current took them, the walled city of Roniah fell away astern with amazing swi
ftness. It was not easy to estimate their speed, since they were a good two hundred meters from either shore; but Bryan guessed that the sediment-laden flood was racing along at a minimum of twenty knots. What would happen when this great volume of water was compressed between high rock walls farther downstream challenged the imagination of the anthropologist. His speculations were of a decidedly queasy sort.
Raimo, in the seat next to him, had found his own brand of solace. He took a pull from his replenished silver flask and offered it to Bryan rather half-heartedly. “Tanu popskull. Hardly Hudson’s Bay standard, but not too bad.”
“Maybe later,” Bryan said, smiling Raimo grunted and took another swallow. The euphoria of his morning adventure had faded away, leaving the ex-forester brooding and ill at ease. Bryan tried to draw Raimo out with questions about the previous night’s revelry but received only the curtest replies.
“You hadda be there,” Raimo said, and lapsed into silence.
For nearly an hour they moved easily through a wide bluff-sided channel, the forested foothills of the Alps on their left hand and arid tablelands rising above the near-jungle of the humid bottoms on the right. Occasionally, Creyn pointed out the location of a plantation; but the threes were so thick that it was impossible to see any details of the settlements ashore. They glimpsed smaller boats plying the shallows and once they overhauled a long covered barge riding deep in the water, bare-masted and having only a small bubble over the midships steersman’s cockpit. The bargee greeted them with a toot from his airhorn, to which Skipper Highjohn responded with a syncopated blast of his own.
The river made a wide curve and the channel passed between a tall headland and a group of craggy islets. Small mechanical sounds announced the furling of their sail, the boom’s folding, and the withdrawal of the telescoping mast back into its housing. Far from losing speed, the boat moved along faster rounding the point. It seemed to Bryan that they must be making thirty knots or more. Simultaneously he became aware of a deep vibration transmitted by the water through the sealed hull of the boat, the inflated headrest of his seat, and the very bones of his skull. The vibration increased to an audible roar as the boat came charging around a sharp bend. The walls of a canyon rose on both sides.