The Parallel Man Page 4

  I moved toward her, and the people on the lawn fell back respectfully as courtiers might have done at Castle Thorn. It strengthened my resolve to act as I would have acted in my own place; when I came up to the group in which she was standing I turned to the oldest man among them and said to him pleasantly but with authority, “You may present this lady to me.”

  He gave a little bow and said with dignity, “My honor, sir. Holder Fenric, may I present O Dela Delora, who graces our Living Theater with her beauty and talent.”

  She gave a delicately exaggerated curtsy and smiled up at me with a professional charm that Princess Delora had never needed to learn. But her husky voice was the same as she said, “One has heard of you, of course, Holder.”

  I inclined my head to the man who had introduced us and said with a dismissive note in my voice, “My thanks, sir.” He faded away tactfully, taking the others with him, and I turned to this new and puzzling Delora. “Your face seems very familiar,” I said.

  She pouted with an annoyance that seemed genuine. “I don’t see how that can be, Holder,” she said, “since I understand that you haven’t been Home in some years. We of the Living Theater guard our images rather carefully. One wouldn’t want to be confused with those who perform for the 3V, whose images are, well, a bit too common. Theater people even have a prejudice against having holos taken.”

  “And yet,” I said, “I’d swear that you have a tiny and entrancing mark on your arm, right . . . here!” Taking her right arm gently but firmly I lifted it so that the sleeve fell back and revealed a little red crescent-shaped mark on the inside of her upper arm; Delora’s clan mark. If it had not been there I would have felt and looked a fool, but I had to know. I released her arm and looked into her eyes, hoping for some spark of recognition; that mark had swept away all my doubts that this was really Delora.

  But there was only anger and fear in her eyes; she stepped back and said, “A man of your wealth, Holder, may buy a good deal, including, it seems, some rather personal information. I don’t know what you hope to gain by this, but I would call your behavior Uncivil. I am not without . . .”

  The voice of Flavia interrupted her, “My dear, is Fenric playing one of his little jests on you? He teased me unmercifully when we were children.” I felt clawlike fingers on my arm and looked down to see her at my side, her sharp features exaggerated by a hairdo which made her hair float like a soft cloud and an elaborate dress more suited to a woman younger and more beautiful.

  The woman who had been introduced to me as Dela Delora hesitated, then decided to make light of her annoyance. She gave a little trill of laughter which seemed quite natural but went on an instant too long. “All right, Flavia, I admit he got a rise out of me. I’ll leave you two to renew childhood memories. Come and see me, Holder—in my new play.” She smiled a little too sweetly and moved away.

  Flavia’s voice was sweetly acid as she said to me in a low voice, “You’ve evidently studied the behavior of real ultraviolets; you seem just as convinced as they that the world revolves around you. Not a soul here doubts that you’re Fenric. Now keep your mouth shut and that supercilious look on your face while I flaunt you at my guests.” She led me toward the crowd around the tables and began presenting her guests to me. I behaved as badly as I’d always dreamed of doing at receptions and parties; snubbing everyone who seemed self-important or unpleasant, talking only to people who interested me. Gradually I gathered a little circle around me; several of the women who were intelligent as well as beautiful, several of the men who seemed to be of some weight, and an outspoken old woman who was as amused by me as I was by her.

  I disengaged my arm from Flavia’s and gave her a little push. “See to your guests, cousin dear,” I drawled. “I’m quite happy here.” She gave me a look of baffled fury, but she had no choice but to go. Presently Pello appeared at my elbow with a tray containing small tidbits of food and a flagon of good wine. He was dressed in a costume that was not as extravagant as those of the real andros; if he got rid of his blue cap he could pass for one of the guests. “Stay here with those things,” I told him and he bowed with a little glint in his eye and filled my cup.

  A youngish pleasant-faced man who had not said much so far broke into the slight pause as I sipped my wine. “Heard that you hunt a bit, Holder,” he said.

  1 could almost feel the tension in Pello as he held out the tray for me to select another tidbit. “Been known to, yes,” I told the pleasant-faced man.

  “Benton’s my name, Holder; you wouldn’t have heard of me but I do a bit in that line myself. Got a bit of land up in the hills,” he said. The colored circle on his wrist was the same shade as mine and his wealth presumably was genuine. He went on: “Thing is, we used this new process they’ve discovered to clone and culture some wild boars. Got the cells from a museum exhibit. Well, they’re established now, but none of my people is too sure how to hunt them for the best sport. They’ve dug up some history books; tell me that boar were hunted from horses at one time . . .”

  I shook my head. “Can be done but it takes a long time to train the horses and if the country is hilly they’re not much use. Better on foot anyway. Have you got proper boar spears? They’ll come right down the shaft at you if you don’t have a cross-piece . . .” We were soon absorbed in highly enjoyable technical discussion and the rest of the circle gradually drifted away, smiling indulgently.

  Eventually, as I had hoped, Benton said tentatively, “Don’t suppose you’d like to see my place. Not much by your standards, I know, Holder, but any time you’d care to . . .”

  “Call me Fenric,” I said. “Why not now? These people are beginning to bore me.”

  Benton’s face lit up. “Would you really like to? Be delighted. Only came to this affair to meet you if I could. Have a little craft down on the meadow yonder. Anything you want to bring?”

  “Can always get new stuff,” I said. “Oh I know,” I turned to Pello and said, “Get another tray of those things and another jug of the wine and bring them along.” He shot me a glance of startled admiration and trotted off to do my bidding. “Oh, Flavia,” I called as I saw her in a group nearby. “I’m off with Benton here for a while. Call on me if you need to on that matter we spoke of, but I don’t see why you’d need to, perfectly sound proposition, you’ll find the money easily enough. Expect me when you see me.” And I strolled off with Benton, Pello trotting behind us with a loaded tray, leaving Flavia open-mouthed. She couldn’t quarrel with me or threaten me in public without destroying the illusion she had gone to such pains to create, and anyway I thought that she had gotten good value for the pouchful of little golden tokens at my belt.

  Benton’s “little craft” might have been a small pavilion erected in the meadow, but when we entered the door it lifted smoothly into the air and began moving away from the monstrous towers of the city. I turned to Pello. “Put that tray down somewhere and get that blue thing off your head,” I told him. “You can report to me later.” I turned to Benton. “Sometimes useful to have a man about who isn’t noticed as a man,” I said blandly.

  Benton stared and then laughed. “By the Mercy, you star traders are high-handed,” he said admiringly. “That breaks about sixteen laws here at Home and there are plenty who’d call it Uncivil. But I can see the advantages. A violet chip can expose you to all sorts of unpleasantness at times.”

  An inspiration struck me. “Been meaning to speak to you about that,” I said. Opening the collar of my garment I reached in and peeled from the green “chip” which I had been given soon after I woke in this land from my underarm, where it had been hidden since I donned the gray suit of the false andro. I put it on my wrist and transferred the violet chip to where the green one had been, hoping that whatever stuck the false chip to my skin would hold it there. “Now I’m away from Flavia’s I prefer not to be known as Fenric. The name that goes with this one is Casmir Thorn. So far as anyone is concerned I’m here to advise you on hunting boar.”

  Be
nton seemed genuinely shaken. “I didn’t know it was even possible for a private citizen to have a second chip,” he said. “Of course you hear stories about Commonwealth agents being given false identities but . . . you don’t do a little work for the UC on the side, do you, um Casmir?”

  I smiled at him. “I don’t like lying and I don’t like refusing to answer questions from a friend,” I said. “The less you ask me the less I’ll have to do either.” Benton laughed and shrugged, but there was admiration in his eyes; whatever explanation he was imagining for my mysterious activities was evidently creditable to me. I was quite pleased with myself; at one stroke I had cut away the immense complication of pretending to be a wealthy man of whose real life I knew nothing. I might still betray myself by my ignorance in conversation with these folk, but I did not have to keep up the character of Fenric.

  As it turned out, I need not have worried. Young Benton was an enthusiast of hunting and was glad to talk of nothing else. For a knight of Thorn, hunting is part of the yearly round; one of the things that is done in season, for food and to exercise the skills of hand and eye that a knight needs. As the prince, I had been expected to take the lead in hunting as well as in war, and older and more experienced men had quietly made sure that I knew my business. I had heard plenty of hunting stories, for that was one of their ways of teaching, and I had myself taken most of the kinds of birds and beasts that are counted worth hunting: deer and wild pigs for the table, of course, but also beasts of the warren; wolves, foxes and wildcats, badgers, martens and otter, even squirrels and hares. And, of course, I had hawked for hares and for game birds.

  There is a skill to taking each of these beasts, and my teachers would not have counted me a hunter if I had not known each of these skills. Benton seemed to know little of such skills, except for the most elementary sort of tracking; his talk was all of hunts in which he had put his life at risk against large and dangerous beasts, including many whose nature I could only guess at from details he let drop in the telling. Of course a hunter must have courage; a stag may turn at bay and boars are notoriously dangerous and unpredictable. But battle, not the chase, is the place to demonstrate bravery; skill is what counts in the hunt.

  In fact, I was growing a little weary of Benton’s stories, for an armed and skillful man is in little real danger from a beast. But then he said something which changed my mind. Looking around the richly furnished room where we sat on cushioned chairs while our magical craft flew high in the air, Benton said hesitantly, “Most of my friends think I’m a bit of a fool to spend so much time and credit on hunting, you know. But it seems more . . . more real than most things a man can do these days. Just your own skill and a few primitive weapons against, well, against Nature. No machines to do it for you, to get between you and the thing you’re doing.”

  Remembering the giant towers, the broad sterile streets with their few trees for show, thinking of weapons which made a man unconscious with the pressure of a finger, I began to realize that the hunt would have a value for these enchanters which a man of Thorn could scarcely understand. If they went to war it would probably be with strange wizardries which would leave little room for strength or bravery. I smiled at Benton and said, “You’ll be glad enough of a spear between you and the boar; a full-grown tusker can rip a man from knee to breast and lay him stark dead with one stroke. Have these beasts been hunted at all yet?”

  Benton shook his head. “Not these; they’re just out of the tanks not long ago. But we managed to salvage some memory chains from the beast in the museum exhibit. Don’t know if you’ve followed the techniques they’re using these days for memory recovery from dead cells. They reckon that by what they call mix and blend techniques they can create quite a good facsimile of the original memory, with some artificial memories mixed in. Of course they’d only really know if they tried it on humans, and the Citizens’ Liberties Union would be after them if they tried that. Not to say it hasn’t been done in secret, of course.”

  “Ran across a man named Droste,” I said as casually as I could manage. “Justinian Droste, I think, who had some sort of connection with that group.”

  Benton grinned. “Oh yes, Droste is quite a big noise here at Home, though you may not have heard of him. Always on the 3V or in the latest fax, complaining about someone being deprived of their rights.” He laughed. “Been looking a bit silly today, though. Had a big case built up against some scientist for experimentation on humans. Then his star witness or chief exhibit, the man who was the victim of the experiments, disappeared. Without him Droste has no case. Joke is Droste’s own principles are getting in the way of looking for the man. Since he’s a citizen he has a right to privacy. They can’t even broadcast a holo of him, only appeal for him to come forward. Droste claims the man’s been kidnapped, but his evidence isn’t too strong. For all anyone knows, he just got tired of the food at Central Receiving and decided to check himself out informally.”

  Most of this was meaningless to me, but at least it assured me that Droste was a man of some note, who could be found if I wanted to find him. Since Droste seemed to know something about how I had come to this city of the enchanters, I might have to seek him out eventually.

  I was tired enough of his hunting tales to pretend more interest than I really felt. I made some noncommittal noise, which encouraged Benton to go on. “Story just broke,” he said, “but it should be in the fax by now. Let’s see.” He touched something on the arm of his chair and from a slit in a bow table by his side came a thin sheet of some flimsy parchment-like material, covered with writing. “Ah yes, here it is on the first sheet,” said Benton, “with a backup on another sheet, which I’ll key if you’re interested.” He handed me the sheet, which was covered with writing in small square characters which it took me a moment to master, though I am a fair scribe. In large letters at the top of the sheet were the words, “CLU Head Accuses Academician,” then my hand clenched on the sheet, crumpling it in involuntary betrayal of my emotions. For under those words were two pictures, more vivid and lifelike than any painting I had ever seen in church or castle. One showed the face of Justinian Droste looking as I had seen him from my bed soon after I awoke. The other face, staring out at me from the picture with a saturnine glower, was that of my tutor and guardian, Mortifer the Enchanter!

  5. Benton Hall

  After the first shock, it almost seemed inevitable. Mortifer was an enchanter, I was in a land of enchanters, so surely he must have played some part in bringing me here. I had never entirely trusted Mortifer, despite my respect for my father, who had trusted the enchanter so well that he set him over me as my tutor and guardian. Despite his outward suavity and respectful air, Mortifer had always struck me as a cold man who regarded other people only as pieces in some elaborate game. Perhaps he had brought me to this land to play some part in some game of his; well, he would find me an unwieldy tool. I remembered that as a youth I had sometimes outwitted better players at board games by moving my pieces about almost at random and letting them wrack their brains to discover the elaborate stratagems they thought lay behind my moves. I was doing much the same in this deadlier game, keeping on the move and in disguise, hoping that one of my random moves would lead to some advantage for me.

  Benton had not noticed my agitation, for he was intent on another sheet of the same kind as the one he had handed me. “Doesn’t really say much,” he complained. “The backup is all details on the careers of the two men and the original story didn’t say all that much either, just hints that Mortifer had been caught more or less red-handed experimenting on humans and that Droste had the alleged subject of the experiments. Then there was a late break saying that the man had disappeared, with Droste all but accusing Mortifer of kidnapping or worse.”

  “This Mortifer,” I said as casually as I could manage, om where does he come, of what Academy is he a member?”

  Benton chuckled. “By the Mercy, you’re right. If a man’s an academician there must be an academy about some
where. Well, let’s see, must be on the fax here somewhere. Ah yes; Royal Academy of Life Sciences of Carpathia.”

  I nearly blurted out that if there were any “Royal Academy” in the land of Carpathia, I, the Prince Royal of Carpathia, should know of it; but I restrained my tongue. Whatever lies Mortifer had told he had at least used the name of my homeland in those lies and this gave me a reason to put the question I was burning to ask: “And where is this place Carpathia?” I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could.

  But Benton’s answer made little sense. “One of those little star systems out on the Tail, I think,” he said with a shrug. “One terranorm planet which went pretty well back to nature during the Wars of Unity. Fairly flourishing place, now, I believe—reasonable amount of trade. Would have thought that you’d know more about it than I, since you’re a star-trader. Shouldn’t be more than a few days’ flit from Home in a modern starship.”

  He was looking very slightly puzzled, a puzzlement that might turn to suspicion, and much as I longed to press my questions I shrugged and turned the conversation to his obsession, knowing that it would distract him.

  “Ah well,” I said, “can’t remember everything. I’ve forgotten already how many boars you told me you had.” He was off at once on questions and stories about hunting which lasted until his flying pavilion came to earth with a very slight jarring sensation. Out of politeness, I had not even been able to read further on the lettered sheet he had given me, but I folded it and shoved it in my pouch for future reading.

  The flying pavilion was grounded beside a sort of lodge, a rustic enough place but with some dignity. There were blue-capped serfs to meet us at the door and, to my joy, a blazing fire on the hearth in the great hall. Benton smiled at the pleasure I did not try to hide. “Try to keep up the old ways here,” he said. “I’d like you to try some of my venison, you’re hungry, and some Napa I have laid down here.” I agreed heartily since only the edge had been taken from my appetite by the snacks served at Flavia’s gathering. A table was set for us before the fire, but we had hardly-begun to eat when a slim green-clad figure appeared at the entrance hall, obviously feminine, despite red hair cut like a boy’s. She had a bow in her hand and a dagger at her belt. Benton rose to his feet with a smile. “Mirianne,” he said. “Nice to see you up here. Mirianne, this is, er, Casmir Thorn. Casmir, my sister, Mirianne, who laughs at my hobby but drops in on me when she needs a change from her usual pursuits.”