The Adversary - 4 (47 page)

Basil opened his eyes and saw a dark mass, very tall and approximately man-shaped, standing on the snow in front of him.

"Hello, there," said the don. "I suppose it is you? As opposed to a hypothermic hallucination, that is."

The thing slid closer, seeming to exude a chill even more profound than that of the high alpine night.

You must excuse me if I stay within my armour.

"Perfectly understandable. I presume you've been observing my efforts."

Yours, especially.

"Ah. Well, I'm done now."

You propose to die here?

"There seems little alternative."

I could offer one.

"How very curious," Basil murmured. "Tell me about it."

I've been experimenting with my d-jumping faculty, learning to carry things outside this armoured mechanism that encases my body. It's a matter of mentally generating an upsilon-field, you see.

"Like a superluminal starship?"

Exactly. I've raised my capacity to about 75 kilos of inert mass.

Now I'm ready to try teleporting something alive. I could use an animal, of course.

Basil nodded judiciously. "Or you could use me."

There is considerable risk. I've not yet had the opportunity to translate any living thing in the external field. You would be riding outside the starship, as it were. In theory, it should work.

"What must I do?"

If you could manage to stand upright, and come as close as possible to the apparatus without touching it.

Basil groped about and found the shovel. "I shall have to balance on my broken ankle. The left leg is compounded. You'll have to be quick at it, for I shan't last long."

Come.

He sank the blade into the snow and heaved. The pain came in sickening waves and he cried out. Then he was standing, wobbling slightly before the dead-black monstrosity.

"I'm ready," he said, and the grey limbo claimed both of them.

III.

Nightfall

CHAPTER ONE

Rain deluged the Armorican night. Goriah, on the northwestern horizon, was an indistinct blob of light all but lost amid the lightning flashes. Secure inside a bubble of psychocreative force, Elizabeth and Minanonn flew through the storm.

"It seems more like January than early October," Elizabeth observed.

Minanonn said, "Four great tempests, one following the other! The weather reflects the perverse spirit of the times. In my stronghold in the Pyrenees, the snows have already sealed the high passes. This has never happened so early in the season during the five hundred and sixteen years of my banishment.

It's enough to make one believe in Nightfall! Our legends say that the Terrible Winter precedes it."

"Then we should be safe from war until spring," Elizabeth said.

"I wish that were so! But winter was an ambiguous term on Duat. Because our planet has no axial tilt, the seasons are not clearly defined. To us, therefore, winter is any prolonged period of bad weather."

Elizabeth did not comment on this. Instead she asked, "Will the mountain snows prevent members of the Peace Faction from attending the games?"

"Those who could not resist the lure of Aiken's novelty left last week, on the first day of the Truce. They are already in the lowlands. I fear that most of them will have to spend the next half-year there unless the weather moderates-and I blame myself not a little for their predicament. If I had not accepted the King's invitation to participate, my Peaceful Folk would not have been so attracted to the spectacle."

Rather undiplomatically, Elizabeth asked, "Whatever possessed you to accept?"

The Heretic uttered a rueful laugh. "I could rationalize the decision, saying that thus I affirm Aiken-Lugonn's sublimation of the ancient blood-letting of the Grand Combat. But why not be honest? In my heart, I was fired by the prospect of once again joining in on a whacking great row! My intellect may abjure violence and contention-but the Battlemaster of old still lurks within me, whether I will or no. Sometimes this drives me to despair. But at other times, when I am more philosophical, I bless Tana for having let me know myself as she must know me ... while still steadfastly holding me in her loving hand."

"Don't you ever curse yourself for giving in? For letting your frailty get the better of you?"

The Heretic's face had a lambent glow in the stormy darkness.

"Tana did not make us perfect, it is said, for then there could be no growth through triumph over pain and adversity, no supervening transcendence. Not for the individual, and especially not for the Galactic Mind."

"I was taught that," Elizabeth admitted. "Long ago. But the idea easily slips away from one. Especially when we're forced to confront suffering and evil. One becomes impatient with mysteries, and despairs of waiting for good to come out of one's own weakness."

They began to descend over Goriah. Minanonn showed a momentarily youthful grin. "Nevertheless, I still plan to fight in Aiken's Grand Tourney!"

The King himself came to greet them as they landed in the courtyard of the Castle of Glass. Only guttering oil lamps and torches lit the scene. In the shadowed area next to the garrison buildings, more than twenty of the dark, birdlike aircraft stood shrouded under high-slung canopies.

"Great to see you again in the flesh!" Aiken said to Elizabeth.

He stood on tiptoe and planted a light kiss on her cheek.

Minanonn rated only a sardonic tip of the royal hat. "What say we go inside so I don't have to strain my meagre faculties keeping the rain off us?"

"We wouldn't want you to exert yourself unduly," Minanonn said. "You must conserve your strength for the Grand Tourney.

So far, the storms have bypassed Nionel, but if this unseasonable rain continues, the Field of Gold may require metapsychic roofing. In bygone days, Kuhal and his late twin, Fian Skybreaker, performed the sheltering office at the arena in Muriah.

But I fear that Kuhal's solitary effort would not prove adequate to the task of covering the tournament grounds. The job would fall to you, High King."

"Or you, Brother Heretic," the King retorted. "Kuhal's not fighting in the lists. If you gave him a psychocreative hand, the pair of you could umbrella the Field of Gold against a cyclone.

What d'you say? It's a peaceful enough manifestation of power."

"I'll think about it," said Minanonn, rather glumly. They came into the castle portico, with its twisted pillars of bronze metal and purple glass, and tall, gold-gleaming torcheres.

Elizabeth put a casual question. "Is that all the aircraft you managed to salvage-twenty-one?"

"Observant, aren't you?" Aiken remarked. "No, we retrieved all twenty-seven. I sent six off to Fennoscandia right away to join the prospecting team." He eyed Elizabeth speculatively. "I thought you'd know that already, All-Seeing One."

She shot him an irritated glance. "I have to rest sometime.

And after monitoring that assault on Monte Rosa-"

"Excuses, excuses," the King scolded waggishly. "Some Pliocene dirigent you are."

"I'm not the dirigent!" she snapped. "Nobody appointed me to the office. Not Brede-and certainly not you."

Aiken raised one eyebrow. "Most of us took your assumption of the role for granted, lovie. Isn't it a bit late in the game to tell us you never intended to play?"

"I-I never said I wouldn't do my best to help you. And the others. But my position is only informal, advisory. I'm not competent to direct, and I have no power. I don't want any-"

"Oh, lass." The King was grave. "Still flying high above us all, are you? Looking down on all the scrambling Lowlives and feckless faerie folk? ... And do you have a bit of company now? A kindred proud soul to share your noble melancholia?"

Elizabeth said, "Don't be a bloody idiot." Her mind-tone was desperately weary.

"Where is he, anyway?" the King enquired. "I haven't been able to farsee hide nor hair of him for nearly a week. And with these storms one right after another, even the schooner's dropped out of sight. I was thinking about sending one of the flyers out to reconnoitre-in spite of the danger of it getting zapped by Marc's shipmates. But now that you're here, we won't have to risk lives. Will you come up to the tower with me right now and do a fast scan?"

"It's not necessary," Elizabeth said. "I know where Marc is.

That's what I've come here to talk to you about. You and Hagen and Cloud."

"Ah," said the King. "So that's the way the wind blows."

They were walking across the great entry hall. Even though it was still early in the evening, there were few people about.

Only the patient grey-torc soldiers of the palace guard were ubiquitous, still standing station in their gleaming bronze halfarmour and violet cloaks, but bearing Milieu-style weapons instead of the traditional glass blades.

"Marc is at Black Crag," said Elizabeth. "I'm here at his behest."

"So!" exclaimed the King. "Is he feeling more peaceable now that the scales are tipping my way? It must have been quite a blow to his plans, losing those X-lasers."

Elizabeth said, "Aiken, Marc brought Basil Wimborne to us from the top of Monte Rosa. Via d-jump."

The King stopped dead in his tracks. "Christ!"

Elizabeth regarded him in silence. The flippant insouciance had vanished.

"Is that what you came here to tell me?" Aiken demanded of her. "That Marc's ready to close in, and we should abandon the Guderian Project?"

"No," she said.

"What then?"

"Marc has a proposal for you and Hagen and Cloud. I'd like to discuss it with the three of you together."

Minanonn said, "I think you'll be as safe with the King as with me, Elizabeth. If you'll excuse me, I shall visit with the Farsensing Lady Sibel Longtress. In times long gone she and I shared many a diverting hour-debating the merits of peace."

He went off, leaving Elizabeth smiling.

"Quite the protector, isn't he?" Aiken's tone was sour.

"He approves of you and your reign thus far."

"Well, hoo-rah," the King drawled. "Pity he's not willing to fight for his high principles! I need every stalwart mind I can get these days. You know about my having to give Sharn and Ayfa the Sword-and what that could mean."

She nodded. "The Firvulag couldn't initiate the Nightfall War without their sacred weapon-and now they have it. You've taken a big gamble."

His black eyes were snapping. "Maybe not." They stood at the entry corridor to the castle's west wing, which was barred by a great bronze grille and guarded by elite gold troopers holding the leashes of spike-collared amphicyons. "I could call Hagen and Cloud up to the royal presence chamber to meet with us, but perhaps you'd fancy going down to them. I'll take you on a fifty-pence tour of the Guderian Project laboratories-and I wouldn't mind one bit if you told Marc just how we were progressing."

She said, "I'd be very glad to take your tour. To tell you the truth, I've been curious."

With a certain swagger, Aiken commanded the guards to unbar the gate. Then he led the way, pointing out the various security measures protecting the installation. Sensor systems ringed the entire wing where the young North Americans and the technical personnel resided. Elites were on duty inside, and the parapets were patrolled by heavily armed greys and silvers, programmed to report to their Tanu overlords any attempts to break out or in. The precincts about the single stairwell giving access to the modified dungeons, which had once held the "general store" of contraband, and now housed the laboratories, were guarded by Tanu stalwarts under the command of Celadeyr of Afaliah. The foyer was hedged with booby traps, both mechanical and metapsychic, in addition to electromagnetic barriers of increasingly lethal potential. If one managed to negotiate these hazards, there still remained the last bastion: the great SR-35 sigma-field, with its airlock that would only pass those whose mental signatures were on file in the royal computer.

"You are on file now, sweets," Aiken told Elizabeth with a wink. "But just for today."

The mirrorlike wall at the end of the airlock dissolved before them at the King's gesture, and they entered the laboratory anteroom. Elizabeth watched the dynamic field re-form behind them and tapped the pseudoslippery interface with one fingernail. "So this is the impregnable sigma that Marc hoped to breach with his X-lasers."

The King's jovial mien shaded off into grimness. "It is. The kids brought it from Ocala. As long as we keep the project under it, we'll be safe. Hagen says it's proof against a psychoenergetic attack to the five-hundreth degree of magnitude. Felice might have been able to mind-blast her way in here-but Abaddon hasn't a prayer. Not with the handful of minds he can muster in metaconcert these days."

"You can't use the Guderian device here in Goriah," Elizabeth pointed out.

"No," the King conceded. "Bit of bad planning on my part, that. I should have set up the labs at the Castle Gateway site in the first place, and devil take the inconvenience. But it's no use crying over spilt milk. The SR-35's no good for aerial operation, but we'll work out something when the time comes to move.

You can tell that to Marc, as well as all the rest of it."

They passed through a seemingly endless series of small workrooms where components of the tau-generator were being assembled and tested. Aiken knew what was going on in every chamber and greeted the technicians and senior scientists and their North American supervisors by name. The laboratories were crowded and deceptively chaotic in appearance. Much of the assembly was being done under micromanipulators, and to the uninitiated observer it was rather unexciting. The chemical engineering rooms were slightly more dramatic, full of burbling gadgetry and elusive stenches as critical materials were cooked up, then sent on to the manufacturing units.

In one of the larger workrooms of this type, Tony Wayland accosted the King.

"I'll need at least three more diamonds," he said, "twelve carats or better. Also an industrial laser that can drill holes five to forty microns in diameter, a cerametal whisker grower, some Canada balsam or an equivalent syn-resin, another bottle of argon, and a new room-mate. That miserable Hewitt snores like a sawmill."