Restoree (9 page)

Jokan objected strenuously to being excluded but was finally convinced he could not be in the section.

“Why don’t I just take Sara with me now? I’d better use tonight to cover my return and give me time for an accident. I could then take her on to Lothara.”

Harlan shook his head. “No, Sara stays with me.”

“Brother, I’m not about to . . .”

“She stays. I have my reasons,” he reasserted so firmly that Jokan shrugged and pressed no further.

What remained of the day was spent in getting uniforms and making what alterations we could to get a reasonable fit. Not even the largest issue jacket accommodated Harlan’s breadth of shoulder. The cuffs were halfway up his arm and, even when I had let down the sleeve all I could, it hung unmilitarily high above his big hand. Sinnall decided that regulation issue would be too skimpy for Harlan’s frame in any event and the discrepancies would pass as back-country inefficiencies. The assorted ages and sizes of the four men identified them as provincials. Gartly, with darkened hair and a day’s growth of beard, would not resemble the correct old soldier.

Cire sprinkled a white powder in Harlan’s dark hair and with the lack of eyebrows (his, too, had been singed in the barrier crossing), an unmilitary shamble and slouched shoulders, he looked amazingly unlike himself. He even demonstrated the witless expression he could assume whenever necessary.

Hunger and fatigue vied for first place in my attention by late evening and, when someone remembered to get some dinner, I could barely eat for weariness.

“Sara, you’re barely rested,” Harlan said with concern. “It’s just as well she doesn’t have to be Searcher tomorrow. She’d fall asleep,” he laughed gently.

“I still think it’s a good plan,” Jessl grumbled.

“Sinnall’s orders give us a better opportunity. I prefer to take my own risks,” Harlan said to silence him. He helped me rise and escorted me up the stairs. “I’ll be right back,” he assured Gartly and Jessl who looked after us knowingly.

My face must have been burning when I got into the privacy of the room. I heard Harlan closing the door, but all I could see was the big double bed. All I really wanted was to sleep. And certainly if the boat was neither time nor place, neither was this with those men downstairs. My expression must have shown my thoughts, for Harlan took one look at my face and chuckled.

He took off my robe and led me to the bed, tucking me in.

“Sleep, dear my lady, is what you need right now,” he said softly. “And I am relieved you do not need to go to the palace. That was too dangerous. Too dangerous, though Jokan’s reasoning was good. He does not know, Sara. Sleep.”

I did.

CHAPTER SIX

H
ARLAN WOKE ME, GENTLY SHAKING
my shoulder. At first, the sight of a stranger in uniform bending over me was frightening until I recognized Harlan through the powdered hair.

“Fool you?” he grinned.

“Scared me witless,” I grinned back, casting a glance at the dented pillow beside me.

“Well?” he dared me, “there are only three bedrooms here and I want it plain how matters stand between us. Remember, dear my lady, on this planet it is considered an honor to share the Regent’s bed.”

“I don’t want to be in Gorlot’s bed,” I smirked at him wickedly.

“Neatly said,” he said respectfully, but still grinning. “Now rise and dress or I’ll make something more of that,” and he indicated the bed. “After all, Sara, we slept together like innocent babes for who knows how long?”

Realizing myself topped, I gestured him out of the room. It took me a little while to figure out the closures on the green gown. I heartily wished for the simplicity of the zipper. Strange how easily I assumed in a mental leap that Earth would be able to supply Lothar with zippers when I could hardly understand the spatial distances between the two planets. Paper would be a boon, too, I continued in my mental perambulations, instead of the cumbersome Babylonique slates. I was just picking up the cloak when Harlan knocked again. I opened the door to him, the heavy jewelry clinking, tinkling with my movement. Harlan looked at me with a wondering expression on his face. He stepped quickly in the room, closing the door behind him.

“Didn’t I put it on right?” I asked with a pang of doubt. “I know it took the longest time. I had to figure things out. Oh, for the lowly zipper.”

Harlan began to smile, slowly.

“You are very different as the Searcher, dear my lady,” he said slowly.

Pleased with the sincerity of his admiration, I pivoted on my toes, only to find myself locked in his arms, his face and eyes unbelievably stern.

“Are you still the girl who starved herself for me? The girl who sailed me to safety? Or are you . . .”

“Harlan, we’ve a long trip,” Jessl yelled from below.

Harlan’s tone had become almost savage, his arms around me tight and cruel.

“I’m still Sara, no matter what I wear,” I whispered, startled.

“Sara . . . who?”

“Sara of the Estril, Odern Cave, Jurasse,” I whispered, scared.

“We’re coming,” Harlan roared, turning his head briefly toward the door.

I thought he would release me but, holding me more tightly still, he bent his head and kissed me with rough and demanding lips. I seemed to sink inside him, held up only by his arms, knowing only the reality of his bruising mouth.

“HARLAN,” Jessl bellowed and we both heard his steps on the wooden staircase.

“A map of how to get to Jokan’s, from the Barracks’ airfield,” Harlan said hurriedly in a low voice, thrusting a tiny slate in my hand. “Anyone else would know. It’s not far.”

He opened the door just as Jessl reached it. It was now Jessl’s turn to stare at me.

“Well
,
well.” He looked nervously at Harlan. “That’s what kept you.”

With as much dignity as I could muster because I was still trembling, I gave both men a haughty look and swept out of the room.

Gartly was sitting facing the stair as we descended and he sprang to his feet, knocking the stool over. His face was completely expressionless. At first, I thought he must be equally struck speechless by my transformation. He turned without a word and left the house. I stared after him, hurt.

“The costume was his wife’s,” Harlan remarked gently. “She, too, was lovely.”

Young Sinnall appeared in the door and bowed low. As we left the house, Cire came round the side of the house, and he too bowed.

“A lot better than stolen fishermen’s clothes, hmm?” I said.

“That is the truth,” Cire said, his eyes wide.

“Hey, where’s my breakfast?” I demanded, stopping dead on the path outside the front door.

“Here,” laughed Harlan, holding up a metal bottle and a small package, cloth wrapped. “I’ll never let you starve again,” he remarked, cocking an eyebrow at me.

“Will you two stop that and let’s get off the ground?” Jessl snapped, irritably. “It’s a three-hour trip from this cave-forsaken stretch of soil.”

Laughing, I followed them down to the landing circle where the waiting official planecar idled its rotors. Sinnall had rigged a seat of sorts for me in the luggage area, apologizing profusely for the cramped accommodations. Cire announced that he would take the uncomfortable seat until such time as we encountered official traffic. Consequently I saw a great deal of such landmarks as the immense pit quarries of South Motlina, for Cire had been alone in Gartly’s house near Astolla and had taken us south, away from prying inquiries about the wrecked boat. I saw the oil fields of Wingar and finally the city of Astolla itself and the delta we had nearly landed on. Northward into the mountains of Lothar the ship climbed.

I realized that Lothar had been lucky in several respects: a common enemy to unite it early in its history and the geographical accident which linked its two largest land masses from the north pole to the sixty-sixth parallel. At this point the continents split and rapidly separated east and west, leaving a green ocean between their land legs, dotted with several large islands and driblets of isles in the southern hemisphere. The eastern continent, over which we flew, was more mountainous and larger, the western one, a vast rolling plain ringed with bluffs and precipices, periodically penetrated by navigable rivers and deep lagoons. The western sea was shallow, spiked with tiny islands, deepening finally into a great crevasse of several thousand square miles before the sprawling arm and exaggerated peninsular fist of the eastern continent pouted seaward.

Used as I was to the ribbons of roads seen from the air on Earth, it struck me that Lothar had leapt from primitive wheels to a form of jet plane, thanks to the accommodating Mil. The only roads were foot trails, since most transportation, even by the poorer farmers, was done by air. Land was too valuable to be used up in wasteful roads when the whole sky was open for travel. During the trip I was constantly amazed by the gigantic craft that carried freight and the almost fragile vehicles that transported a single passenger: hummingbirds and vultures.

I missed, however, what I had hoped most to see: an airborne view of Lothara. The excessive number of aircars above Lothara, official and civil, flying at distressing proximity, necessitated my retreat behind the curtain. Sinnall answered and satisfied several official summonses before he made the turn into a pattern at the Central Barracks landing field. Here again, we unexpectedly encountered another touch of the fabulous streak of luck Harlan enjoyed.

The one unsettled detail was how I was to make my way from the Barracks airstrip to the city proper without detection. Sinnall had suggested that I remain hidden until nighttime, which meant a long stretch of hours, waiting behind the hot cloth.

I had my directions tucked in the top of my dress and was startled when our planecar was waved off an obviously overcrowded field and directed to an auxiliary civil field.

“As soon as there is no one around, you can just jump out,” Jessl remarked to me through the curtain.

“Get an aircab to Place of Birds, Sara,” Harlan suggested and passed in a small bag of coins.

I held it gingerly in my hand, acidly commenting to myself that it did me a great deal of good. I had absolutely no idea which coin of this realm meant how much. Just another little oversight. I would be so glad to get to Jokan’s. I presumed there would be food in his larder, and I was hungry again. Once on the field, it seemed we took forever parking and three times Sinnall gave someone his orders to read and I heard each member of the unofficial section grumble out his name and a batch of numbers. Harlan, I remember, gave the name of Landar, in a stupidly high-pitched voice that almost got me giggling.

Finally, I heard Sinnall give the order to debark.

Harlan thrust his head back of the curtains.

“Gold coins are worth more, the larger the better. Silver, the larger, are alloy-mixed and worth less. Take care, dear my lady,” he whispered and cupping my head with one large hand, kissed me on the lips with sweet speed. I heard him deliberately bumbling out of the planecar and then the retreating cadence calls.

I slipped into the front of the ship and looked cautiously over the windowsills. There was much coming and going on the field and many women among the men. Reassured I climbed out of the planecar. It was easy to guess which way was the entrance by following the direction of the crowd of brightly costumed Eclipsers. I strode forward confidently.

“Are you claimed, lady?” a male voice asked in my ear and whirling, startled, I saw a medium-tall man smiling hopefully at me.

“Yes, I most certainly am,” I said and turning, left him standing there.

Two more offers by not as promising companions made me hover close to a large party of mixed revelers until I reached the gates. The women were allowed to pass quickly, but each man was forced to show identification and every tall man was drawn aside. The hunt was on for someone answering Harlan’s description.

The novelty of being accosted by admiring males wore off before I got to the next busy street. There were plenty of planecars, but they were all aloft and I had no idea how one signaled them. I suppose I should have asked someone, but I had been so long away from people, all sorts and sizes of people, that faces and forms were entertaining to me. Not so entertaining were shadowy figures at the edge of the masses of revelers: blowsy drunken creatures, beggars with hideous purple scars, whining their pleas. The section bordering the airfield was obviously poor and I followed the flow of the crowd toward the center of the city. Gradually the poor buildings gave way to pleasanter areas of spiraling walks, connecting fluted colonnaded buildings in muted colors. Guards were stationed at crossroads and they constantly stopped the taller male figures in any group. I smiled to myself at the secret joke that Harlan had entered in an official car and been welcomed royally.

I came, finally, into the Great Bazaar, an enormous square with a central park, comprised of successively larger squares of shops, one outside the other, like the top view of a child’s nest of blocks. Only the stores were staggered so that, through the separating alleys, one caught enticing glimpses of other treasures. I wandered through the crowds, wide-eyed at the fascinating stores, trying to imagine the purpose of this or that; trying on in my mind the gorgeous dresses. I decided that the jewels I wore were better than many on display and my dress more becoming.

Thirsty, I stopped at a beverage stand of which there were many, some with the air of permanence, some obviously holiday-rigged.

When the counterman looked expectantly for my order, I realized I couldn’t ask for lemonade or Coke. For a moment I could only stare at him idiotically.

Suddenly, hands covered my eyes. Frantic, I grabbed at them.

“Guess who?” an eager young voice whispered in my ear.

Thinking it was only an Eclipse game, I relaxed.

“I’m not good at guessing-games,” I replied finally.

The hands dropped as if my skin had burned them.

“I beg, I beg your pardon, lady,” a stammering voice apologized.

I turned and looked up a long expanse of white over-shirt before I came to the boyish face. There was a shocked surprise in his eyes and an appeal for understanding the boy did not expect to find. He was about sixteen, I guessed, and his frame had shot up before he could accumulate the flesh to cover it. It gave him an angular awkwardness; a bag-of-bones appearance to his clothes and an obvious inferiority. His gray eyes regarded me with an unspoken plea not to scorn him. He reminded me so of my brother, Seth . . . and someone else I couldn’t place . . . but he did remind me of Seth at his gawky stage. It was this quality, this puppyish wistfulness that caught my sympathy.

“I mistook you, Lady Searcher. Really I did and I was so pleased the Lady Fara . . . I mean . . .” and he trailed off aimlessly.

Quickly I put my hand on his arm to reassure him, for he seemed about to take off into the crowd.

“No harm done. This is Eclipse, isn’t it? And, truly, I am flattered to be mistaken for the Lady Fara.”

A brief eagerness flared in his eyes and he looked as if he were about to smile, but his face turned unnaturally mature.

“Please, buy me a drink and think no more of it,” I said quickly. “Something . . . light,” I added, indicating two drunken carousers with distaste.

The smile flickered again and was replaced with a guarded expression.

“Two cornades,” he said to the counterman, tossing a coin to the fellow.

“Thank you, lord, have a safe Eclipse.”

The young boy handed me my drink with the polished grace of a courtier, totally out of character for his age.

It was a fruit concoction, tart and cold, and just what I had my mouth set for. We stood at one side of the crowded stand, saying nothing because I could think of nothing to say.