The Parallel Man Page 5

  “Pursuits is right,” said the girl. “Nice to be the hunter instead of the hunted for a change. At least the men you bring up here are interested in hunting animals rather than heiresses— usually. But welcome to Benton Hall anyway, Casmir Thom.” Her eyes met mine as her fingers rubbed the violet-colored circle on her earlobe in a gesture that seemed unconscious, but may have been meant to give point to her words.

  I grinned at her; there was something rather engaging about this forthright young heiress. “Why lady,” I told her, “I am not here to hunt for an heiress, only for a little sport with your brother’s boars. But I can see the attractions of—nobler quarry.”

  She laughed at that, and fell into easy conversation with her brother and myself. I asked what sport she had found with her bow, and from that the talk turned to archery. Before long we were shooting her hunting arrows at targets here and there in the hall, as men will do sometimes in a hunting lodge after the evening meal when no ladies are present. Here the lady was the worst of us, and crowed with laughter when we lodged an arrow in the mouth of a deer head hung high on the wall or shot a shaft into the opening of a wine flagon held presented toward us by a serf. There is a knack to this kind of indoor shooting, usually done with the bows at half-pull and I can usually put an arrow where I want it every time in such games, though at real shooting out of doors I do not rank with best. By the end of the evening Benton and his sister were well pleased with me for slight enough reasons, and I went to bed well pleased with the evening and with their company.

  In the morning we broke our fast with bread and sweet preserves, along with a hot bitter liquid that was refreshing once you got used to its wry taste. Benton showed me his arms room and I belted on a short sword and dagger, feeling foolishly relieved to be armed again, though I knew that edged weapons would be of little use against the enchanter’s weapons I had seen. Benton had spears of various patterns and I showed him the right length for a boar spear and where to place a cross-bar. Benton summoned a man in brown, who carried off the spear and returned surprisingly quickly with several made to the same pattern but with cross-bars.

  Carrying the spears, we set off down the hill upon which the lodge was built to look at the thickets where the wild pigs had established themselves. Benton had whistled up a dog, which seemed more a pet than a hunter and Mirianne had her bow and a quiver of hunting arrows, but it was more an amble and an exploration than a hunt. As we reached some broken ground, small hillocks overgrown with underbrush, Benton hesitated. “There’s a sonic fence along here,” he said, “and the beasties we’re after are inside it. We’re not really prepared . . .” Just then the dog by his side began to bark noisily. Then, his excitement growing, the beast sprang from Benton’s side to chase something that scuttled away in the underbrush. “Oh damn,” said Benton, “he’s got a neutralizer in his collar; he’s right through the fence. Ranger! Come back here, you idiot!” He ran forward, shouting and whistling, with Mirianne and me at his side. For a second I had a feeling of panic, then felt a sort of vibration deep in my bones, but in a stride I felt normal again.

  “If you hadn’t spoiled him . . .” Minanne had begun when there was a sharp yipping sound and the dog ran back toward us, his tail between his legs, followed by a long lithe form that was chillingly familiar.

  “Young tusket,” I told my companions. “Most dangerous kind. Keep your spear pointed at him.” I fell into a guard stance, tracking the boar with my spear-head, my hands in position on the shaft to thrust or take the shock of an impact. An old boar will stand his ground and threaten, a sow is usually dangerous only when she is defending her young, but a young boar is as dangerous as he is unpredictable.

  This one slashed at the dog, and then, as I had feared, swerved toward us. “Spread out,” I called to the others. Mirianne was carrying a spear and I had to treat her as a hunter, not as a lady to be protected. With the three of us to choose from, no longer in a clump but spread out in a line, the young boar hesitated. If he wanted to run between us and escape, I for one would let him; I had no need for meat or trophies and here among strangers I had no reputation to maintain. A prince must be first in the chase, as in all things, but a private person may choose not to compete.

  The best thing would be for the boar to attack me; I could dispatch him with the skill of long practice. The worst would be for the boar to go for Mirianne; she had spirit but even if she had the skill she did not have the weight to stop the beast. Neither the best nor the worst happened; the boar went for Benton. “Shoulder,” I shouted and he shifted the aim of his spear-head from the head, an almost impossible target, to the shoulder. The spearpoint skidded over the rough skin of the boar, then caught, and pierced through the ribs just behind the left foreleg. If the boar had the cunning to swerve away from Benton it could simply run off the point and be free to attack again. But with the insensate fury of its kind it tried frantically to reach the target it had picked.

  As it scrabbled its way toward Benton the spear pierced its internal organs, but it must have missed the heart, for the creature’s strength seemed unabated. When it reached the cross-bar its full weight bore on Benton for the first time; he staggered backwards a few paces. “Down,” I cried, “ground the spearbutt if you can.” It would have been best if he had thrown his weight at the boar, almost as if he were as eager to get at the boar as the boar was to get at him, but that was not something I could explain in a few shouted words. He did almost as well, though, by bearing down with his weight on the spearbutt until he had got it lower than the point which was deep in the boar’s guts. Helped by a small hillock behind him he grounded the butt and let the boar pump out its blood and life against the unyielding toughness of the spear.

  I had been ready to run full tilt into the boar’s side with my spear if Benton had not held him, but now I relaxed a little, shifted my spear to my left hand and drew my shortsword. So long as Benton was holding him all was well. If Benton weakened I could hamstring the boar and end it. Mirianne moved up beside me, pale but in control of herself. She looked at the thrashing boar with horrified fascination, but she neither shrank back from it nor gloated at its overthrow. My liking for her increased and I gave her a quick smile. “Almost over now,” I told her and then called to Benton, “Shall I finish it for you?” He gave a jerky nod, as his muscles still strained against the boar’s struggles, and I darted in, grabbed a foreleg and flipped the boar on its back. A quick hard slash and the throat was cut. Blood flowed; the limbs thrashed more slowly and stopped. There was a stink of death as muscles relaxed. I grinned at the exhausted Benton. “Now you know how to kill a boar,” I said.

  He stood up, working his cramped fingers. “By the Mercy,” he said, and it was half a prayer and half an oath. He smiled at me and said with fair pretense of jauntiness, “Thanks for letting me have this one. But if we meet another one today, 1 think I may let you kill it.”

  I shook my head. “The boar chose you. And you did very well for your first. Next time bear forward with your weight and try to use the leverage of the spear to get the beast off its feet . . .” I went on with my advice until he had recovered his breath and his composure. Then I tactfully urged him toward the lodge, on the pretext of sending serfs back for the meat. If I judged him correctly, Benton’s courage was of the sort that rises to meet a challenge, but leaves the man shaken afterward. I remembered young knights with that temperament, vomiting after a battle, their bodies taking revenge for the strain that had been put on them.

  When we arrived back at the lodge, Benton left Mirianne and me with a murmured apology. Mirianne turned to me and said in a low voice, “Thank you for what you did; and for what you didn’t do. He’s too hard on himself in many ways, but I think that for once he feels he’s done well. I don’t know what you are, Casmir Thom, aside from being a very cool and professional huntsman, but if we can do anything for you . . .”

  I smiled at her and said lightly, “At the moment I could do with a change of clothing and to hav
e my man, Pellow, found and sent to me.”

  “Of course,” she said. She looked at me searchingly, then touched my arm lightly and went on into the lodge. I found my own room and stripped off my garments and relayed in a stream of water in the “convenience.” It was a pleasure; it would be easy to get used to and I wondered if something of the sort could be devised at Castle Thom if I ever got back there.

  When I had dried myself on towels that looked rough but were marvelously smooth, Pellow appeared at the doorway, carrying an armload of clothing. He looked at me with an enigmatic expression and laid his burden on the bed. “From the lady of the house,” he said. “You’re in high favor it seems. I’ve been evading questions about you; my ignorance was taken for great discretion. Apparently you really do know about hunting. If I hadn’t seen holos of him, I’d begin to think that you were really Fenric.”

  I smiled grimly. “Hunting is probably the only thing that Fenric and I have in common,” I said.

  Pellow looked at me speculatively. “Here at Home and on most planets I know of hunting as an amusement for the very wealthy,” he said, “and yet the C and C chip of yours looks plain, ordinary green to me. Or is that a fake too? And if it isn’t, what in the Mercy’s name were you doing under that fake blue dome?”

  I looked into his eyes which were a dark gray. “Suppose you tell me your story first,” I said. It would be a lie of course, but the sort of lie it was might tell me something about the man.

  He looked down at his hands, then looked into my eyes again with a good imitation of candor. “My name is Joseph Pellow,” he said. “Pellow with a ‘w.’ I was a starflitter once, but I got into trouble on a Szilar planet and the lizards got me Banned. Took my free ride Home and squandered the ecus I’d been paid off in trying to forget my Banning. Tried to get more and only got into trouble. Finally, the only thing for it was to go under the dome. What I want now is to get out to one of the newer human colonies. Things are too rigid here at Home; no scope for an enterprising man. With my share of the ecus in that pouch . . .” His eyes flicked over to where I had left my soiled clothing.

  I hid a smile and picked up the belt with the pouch. Opening the pouch I spilled out the small gold-colored discs it contained and told Pellow, “Divide them into two piles; I’ll choose one and leave you the other.” He gave me an admiring grin and did as I had told him. I watched his hands to see that none of the discs disappeared.

  “Benton can’t stay here much longer,” he told me, “he has business to attend to in the City. He’d leave you here to hunt if you wanted, but I wouldn’t advise it; you’re too isolated here if the Fenric thing blows up, as it might. You have quick wits and good luck, cit; I’ll be happy to stay with you if you want me. What are your plans?”

  I looked at him and said slowly, “Stay with me if you wish, Joseph Pellow. I plan to make a journey, if I am not prevented. A journey to a place called Carpathia.”

  6. The Voyage of Argo

  Pellow darted a sharp glance at me. “And where may that be?” he asked.

  I tried to remember the exact words that Benton had used. “One of those little star systems out on the Tail,” I said.

  Pellow’s hands closed protectively over his little pile of golden discs. “Star passage is expensive,” he said. “Still . . . Wait, though. Benton is a trader. Surely he can arrange passage for us if you ask him. From the questions the sister asked me, they have the idea that you do some sort of secret work. If you told him that you wanted to get to Carpathia unobtrusively, he’d probably be able to arrange passage for us on a cargo ship. It’s done often enough; I know from my days as a flitter.”

  I hesitated. Some obscure sense that I was somehow being pursued or sought told me to leave no trail that could be followed. But surely if Benton thought that I was on some secret errand he would turn away anyone trying to trace me. I had done little enough for him but he felt himself obliged to me. In fact, I felt the obligation went in the other direction, but I liked young Benton and did not mind being obliged to him. “All right,” I said reluctantly, “I’ll speak to him.”

  Benton was engagingly eager to do something for me and to prove himself a man of importance. He unlocked a small room full of gleaming machines and flashing lights, spoke to several disembodied voices and imaged faces, then turned to me and said with a smile, “We’re in luck. A startrader who owes our House a favor actually has a cargo going to Carpathia. You and Pellow will travel as special supercargoes responsible for that shipment. The ship is a little Independent carrying a variety of small shipments. But the captain is experienced and the ship is fairly new. She’ll lift day after tomorrow if that suits you, and you can go aboard tomorrow night.” He waved my thanks aside and plunged into plans for a boar hunt and feast the next day.

  Between the hunt and the feast I was in little condition to take much note of my surroundings when Benton’s flying pavilion carried me back to the city the following evening. The pavilion landed on a broad sweep of what looked like lawn, brightly lit by glowing globes on tall poles. When Pellow and I emerged from the pavilion, though, the stuff underfoot was not grass, but some slightly resilient stuff the color of grass. A tough, competent-looking man in dark, close-fitting garments met us and led us past immense mysterious structures to a great circular thing like a giant’s shield flung carelessly on the false greensward. A square opening in the edge of the thing was evidently an entryway; a light warmer than that of the globes spilled from it.

  I could see as we entered that the outer walls of this thing were immensely thick, made of some smooth dark stuff. Inside there was a sort of high desk occupied by a slender man with the look of a clerk. On the wall behind the desk the word “Argo” was written in golden letters and beneath it a stylized picture of a small sailing galley that might have sailed the Inner Sea. Standing beside the desk talking to the clerk-like man was a tall dark-haired woman of remarkable beauty, who had an air of absolute authority. She might have been a reigning queen. I was not surprised when my guide saluted her and said, “These are the two men from Degnan Freres, Captain.”

  She nodded and gave us a brief smile which lit up her dark eyes. “I’m Elena Petros,” she said. “Welcome aboard Argo. Your cargo is already sealed in Gamma hold. I’m not sure what point there is to sending you with it, but you’re welcome enough to the spare cabin.” Her eyes flicked over Pellow, then measured me with an approving look I might have resented from a woman less magnificent than this one. “You have the look of a Carpathian,” she told me. “I presume that you’re homeward bound.”

  A sudden feeling of uncertainty swept over me. “I hope so, Lady,” I said. Could it really be so easy as this, stepping onto this strange vessel and voyaging back to the place I had come from? Could Castle Thorn and the court of Carpathia exist in the same world as this place of enchantments? Young Benton had spoken as if a cargo to Carpathia was a commonplace enough affair, but surely nothing like this great dark disc had ever been seen in the skies of my homeland.

  Captain Elena Petros looked into my eyes. Her own magnificent dark eyes seemed to pierce my soul. “Will home be home when you get back?” she said softly. “Yes, it’s a feeling that starflitters know well.” She gave another of her brilliant smiles and turned to the clerkly man. “There shouldn’t be anything else coming aboard tonight, Tamma,” she told him. “You might as well seal the sally port and show these cits to their cabin.” The man saluted and slid down from his high stool. He touched a circle on the desk, and with a deep hum the ramp by which we had climbed up to this entryway lifted from the ground, pivoting on the threshold. It covered the doorway by which we had entered, fitting flush with the inner wall with a slight click. Those thick walls and the door made by the ramp made a formidable barrier. Against what, I wondered?

  I learned the next morning, as I sat on my bed in a room that except for its smaller size might have been the room I had awakened in in the place they had called a “hospital.” As in that other room, there was a
n oval of swirling colors on the wall, which Pellow called a “View.” Touching one of the now-familiar circles made the colors vanish, to be replaced by what seemed to be a window looking out on the area we had walked through the night before. Dawn was still streaking the sky with colors when three red flashes chased each other across the scene and a woman’s voice spoke from the air. “Lift off in thirty seconds,” said the voice. “Off-duty crew and passengers secure for liftoff.”

  There was a deep rumble and the fabric of the room shook very slightly, in the oval view the ground suddenly dropped away, and I saw again, as I had seen from Benton’s flying pavilion, the towers of the enchanters’ city. It was set among rolling hills: I looked for Benton’s estate and lodge but we were soon too high to see any building of ordinary size.

  Higher and higher we went: I saw snow-capped mountains off to one side and a blue infinity that could only be the sea a long way off on the other side. The panorama was already vaster than any I had seen from the highest peak in Carpathia, but we rose yet higher; what sky I could see turned strangely dark, and the land beneath me seemed to take on a curve. As I watched in fascination the arc of the sky grew in proportion to the land and stars began to appear. After I don’t know how long I saw the starry sky engulf the land and sea, until the place we had come from was only a circle of misty blue set in a night sky full of stars.