Buck Rogers 1 - Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (16 page)

Yet even as Ardala received the formal tribute of the waiting dignitaries, her eye probed the ballroom before her.

And at the opposite end of the ballroom, observing with a keen appreciation of the symbolism as well as the immediate beauty of the spectacle, stood Buck Rogers.

For an instant Ardala’s eye caught that of Buck. She seemed to transmit a jolt of human electricity across the ballroom to the earthman, and in return he nodded to her, smiling seriously. The princess caught the expression, returned it with the subtlest hint of some added ingredient.

The line continued to move past the princess, while Buck’s attention was caught by an insistent tapping at his leg. He looked down and saw Twiki and Dr. Theopolis standing, the drone holding something toward him in one metallic hand. “We brought you a quantity of Nirvana, Buck,” Dr. Theopolis said.

“Eh?” Buck expressed complete puzzlement.

“For your headache,” Theopolis explained. “Nirvana is a very strong relaxant. You take a single capsule, that should relieve any tension that is causing your headache. More than one would make you very woozy, though, so be careful with the medicine.”

“Thanks,” Buck said. He took the little bottle of capsules and tucked it into his tunic. “One more thing, guys. I need a rose.”

“Did you say,
rose
?” Theopolis asked.

“A red one.”

“I don’t understand, Buck. Why do you need a rose?”

“Never mind, Theopolis, Twiki. Just get me one, please, quickly!”

“Just a minute, Twiki.” Dr. Theopolis spoke authoritatively, stopping the quad in its tracks. “Buck is getting us involved in something here, and before we commit ourselves I’d like to find out just what he’s planned.”

Twiki squealed characteristically and began to move again.

“Wait, wait,” Theopolis’ voice rose with agitation, “where are you taking me, Twiki?”

As the two mechanical beings departed, Wilma Deering approached Buck Rogers, her appearance of restrained poise and trim attractiveness a telling contrast to the overwhelmingly barbaric beauty of the Princess Ardala. “How did you like the presentation, Captain Rogers?” Wilma asked Buck.

“Impressive,” Buck commented. “Did that light-show come all the way from her daddy’s kingdom?”

“I don’t understand your terms of almost contemptuous familiarity Captain.” Wilma frowned sternly, then continued. “I would suggest a more respectful form of reference than
daddy.
The Emperor Draco may well be the greatest leader that this galaxy has ever known.”

“He
is
impressive,” Buck conceded. But the expression on his face and the gesture he made with his hands, indicating King Draco’s imposing girth, suggested that Buck was still not taking the leader with total seriousness—or at any rate, was far from awed by the imperial Draconian presence.

Before Wilma could reply, Buck continued, “I wonder why Draco didn’t come in person. Or do peaceful conquests bore him?”

“Conquests? You’d better get your understanding of the treaty squared away, Captain Rogers. This is a mutual trade pact concluded between equals.”

“Uh huh!” Buck grunted ironically. “And the princess up there and her boyfriend Kane are just a couple of down-home folks, doin’ their jobs and ekin’ out a livin’. Is that it?”

“I think we all know why you resent their presence,” Wilma replied coldly. “It spells the finish of you and your pirate pals, Rogers!”

“A word of advice, Colonel,” Buck replied with equal remoteness. “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”

A look of real puzzlement crossed Wilma’s face. “Greeks?” she repeated. “What are Greeks?”

“I guess it’s pretty far back now,” Buck explained. “You folks have apparently lost most of Earth’s history. Do you remember the story of the Trojan Horse?”

“Is that some kind of sign of the zodiac?” Wilma asked.

“Never mind.” Buck shook his head hopelessly. “Forget all about it. I guess I come from a time that was hopelessly paranoid. See ya around.”

He started to walk away just as Twiki and Theopolis returned from the mission upon which he had sent them. Twiki carefully balanced a satin pillow in his arms. A perfect red rose with tiny dew drops sparkling on its petals reposed on the pillow.

As the drone scuttered up, Wilma said sternly, “I thought I told you to stay with him. There’s definitely something not right with that man, and I want to find out what it is!”

“He isn’t feeling well tonight, Wilma dear,” Theopolis intoned.

“He looks like he feels all right to me. Hmph!” She stood with her fists balled on her hips as she looked into the distant crowd where Buck had disappeared. Finally she turned her eyes back to the mechanicals and noticed the pillow and rose for the first time. “What’s that for?” Wilma demanded.

“We don’t know,” Theopolis replied. “It’s just something that Buck asked for. He seems to be up to—Twiki, stop!” As the drone scuttered away again Theopolis called back to Wilma, “I don’t know what’s got into Twiki tonight. He seems to have developed a mind of his own all of a sudden!” Theopolis blinked his lights furiously. “Twiki, you’re at it again. Twiki, stop, where are you going this time? We can’t run away from Wilma like this, Twiki!”

But Twiki was scuttling determinedly toward the reception line where Buck Rogers was standing in place, impatiently awaiting his turn to be presented to the princess. The little quad scuttled up to Buck and lifted the satin pillow toward him, presenting the red rose for his approval.

“What kept you, Twiki?” Buck asked. “Here, let me have that.”

Dr. Theopolis flashed his lights. “Buck, no one else is giving flowers to the princess. You’re going to make everyone else in the hall look—”

“Stick close, fellas,” Buck interrupted. “We’re in the on-deck circle.” He waited while the man ahead of him in line, a pompous, middle-aged bureaucrat with a twittering, overweight wife on his elbow, was presented to Princess Ardala.

Then it was Buck’s turn.

He drew back his shoulders and stepped into position before the princess. Ardala responded to Buck’s splendid appearance and to the force of personality that she felt radiating from him. Her lovely, subtly tilted eyes—what the poet-bard of an earlier age would have poesied as her downward-slanting eyes—glowed under long, curved lashes that were both delicate—and cruel.

Ardala extended her hand in formal greeting. At the same time she spoke to Buck. “Congratulations to you, Captain Rogers. And may I offer my imperial thanks. We are grateful to you for saving the
Draconia
from plunder by those horrible privateers.”

“Not too loudly, princess,” Buck answered. “Around here, they seem to think that I’m a privateer myself. Thanks to you!”

“Thanks to me?” the princess asked in surprise. Buck tried without success to tell whether her expression represented mockery or real astonishment, or some combination of the two. “I hope I didn’t cause you any embarrassment,” the princess continued. “You aren’t angry with me, are you?”

“Does this look like I’m angry?” Buck snapped his fingers at the robot by his side. Twiki raised the rose-bearing pillow to Ardala as Theopolis intoned in his syrupy tones, “On behalf of the people and the government of—”

Buck took the rose from its satin repository and handed it to Ardala. “From me to you,” he said simply.

Beside the mirrored wall of the ballroom, Wilma angrily observed Buck’s intimacy with the royal guest of honor. Wilma’s heart was a seething cauldron of mixed emotions: attraction to Buck, jealousy of Ardala, anger with the man for paying attention to the princess rather than to herself. She was realizing that her own feelings were complex and difficult—and that the difficulty swirled maddeningly around the vortex of William Rogers!

Wilma saw Ardala take the rose greedily from Buck, clearly aware that it was not merely a beautiful flower but a symbol of triumph in the contest for his attention. She lifted the rose to her nostrils and sniffed eagerly. Kane at her side snarled silently. The princess glanced down at the robot and the brain.

“And who is your charming little friend?” Ardala asked Buck.

“His name is Twiki,” Dr. Theopolis volunteered.

“And that thing around his neck,” Buck added, “is Dr. Theopolis, former member of the Inner City Council of Computers.”

Twiki bowed, Theopolis dangling from his tunic.

“Your majesty,” Theopolis intoned.

“May I have the honor of the next dance?” Buck asked Ardala.

Jealously, Kane put in, “The princess does not—”

“Does not mind if she does,” Ardala interrupted him. She reached for Buck’s arm, took it and descended at his side, from the throne-bearing dais to the gleamingly polished dance floor. The crowd parted to permit them room as Buck and Ardala made their way to a position near the orchestra. At a signal from Buck, given over the shapely shoulder of Princess Ardala, the orchestra began once more to play.

Wilma Deering, watching this show, frowned angrily. No, for all that she had virtually dismissed Buck from her presence, grading him as a boor at best and a traitor at worst, she was not in the least pleased to see him moving on intimate terms with the Princess Ardala.

While Buck carried on his odd triangular relationship with Ardala and Wilma, Dr. Huer and Kane had left the Grand Ballroom and were conferring on serious matters outside. Their setting was a beautiful balcony, beneath which the vista of the Inner City presented a breathtaking view. But neither Huer nor Kane was interested in the sight. Both were concerned with what information they could obtain—and what information or misinformation, they might be called upon to provide to the other.

“I must say that I owe you a debt of gratitude, Kane,” Dr. Huer said in his dry, old man’s voice. “Or perhaps more accurately, I should say that this entire planet owes you a debt. You know, there are those who consider you a traitor to the world of your birth for giving up your Earth citizenship and becoming a subject of the Emperor Draco.”

“A traitor—me?” Kane burst into raucous laughter. “Surely you’re not serious!”

“I definitely am. But they must all see by now that you have been our friend at court. It was your efforts that made this trade treaty possible for Earth and Draconia.”

“We have all worked, Dr. Huer. It’s been hard, I’ll admit.”

“If the Council were so to honor you, Kane, would you consider resuming your Earth citizenship?”

“Nothing would suit me more! I must say that I’ve missed the Inner City. Draconia has its splendors, but you know, Doctor, once you grow up in a place . . .” Kane pointed across the vista before them. “That building over there—it was the Communications Center when I was a boy. I wonder, is it still?”

Huer nodded. “And the Department of Water and Power is now in the copper tower over to the left.” He raised a dark-tunicked sleeve and pointed.

Kane grunted. “It’s been so long, Doc, so long. Sometimes I can’t even remember. For instance, the central security barracks and the Intercept Squadron launching bays—they used to be concealed on the north side. Least I think I recall that. Are they still over there?”

Huer hesitated, smiling a secret smile. “That would be secret information, Kane. Not that I distrust you personally, of course. I’m sure you’ll understand.”

Kane smiled back, showing rows of massive, grinning teeth. The two men resembled a black bear and a pink flamingo as they stood side by side. But he knew that Huer’s power lay in his brilliant brain, not his spare body, just as Huer knew that Kane’s strength lay not in his massively muscled bulk, powerful though that body was, but in his influence with the Princess Ardala and through her the mighty empire that her father Draco ruled.

“Sure,” Kane laughed at last, “I understand. Besides, what difference does it make where a few troopers keep their foot-lockers, eh, Doc? Besides,” and he smiled again, less menacingly than the last time, “I’ll always be an earthman at heart, regardless of what my citizenship papers say. Maybe I’ll just stay on Earth this time, permanently.”

“I do hope so,” Huer agreed.

They shared a last glance at the city’s vista, then returned to the Grand Ballroom where the orchestra was still performing its courtly, formalized, modern-archaic dance-music.

“Is this the way they dance where you come from?” Buck asked Ardala as she swayed formally in his arms.

“With slight variations,” she replied. “The universal culture of this space age, you know.”

“Huh! You’ll have to forgive me then, Ardala. My dancing is about five hundred years out of date.”

“If you’ve another preference,” the princess replied, “you know, this
is
my party.”

Buck turned to the orchestra leader and snapped his fingers to get the musician’s attention. When he had done so he continued to pop his knuckles, setting up a rocking rhythm that he’d learned in the remote era of the twentieth century. He moved like a famous disco dancer of the ancient past. The orchestra leader, the musicians, the dancers, and not least by any means, the Princess Ardala, gaped as Buck demonstrated a sexy boogie step of the late 1980s.

“What are you doing?” Ardala asked at last.

“Gettin’ down,” Buck answered. “It’s from before your time, princess. Hope it doesn’t frighten you.”

“Frighten me?” she answered sharply.
“Nothing
frightens me!”

“Great,” Buck encouraged her. “Then why don’t you give it a try. It ain’t hard to do, lady, just lay back and boogie.”

Princess Ardala joined Buck in the boogie step, at first hesitantly, then with more confidence, finally with a barbaric abandon that brought an admiring gleam to his blue eyes. He even began to hum a familiar tune along with the orchestra’s beat. “Chicago, Chicago . . .”

The onlookers stood in awe. Wilma had come to the edge of the crowd and stood watching Buck and Ardala. Her face showed that she was utterly appalled by the abandon of the public performance. Theopolis and Twiki stood beside Wilma.

“It’s expressive,” Theopolis declared, his lights flashing in time to the emphatic rhythm.

“It’s disgusting,” Wilma sneered.

“Primeval,” Theopolis said.

“I do not approve,” Wilma said, adopting a regal tone more appropriate to the wildly dancing Ardala.