The Lost King (20 page)

"Know what?"
Dion turned his attention to their next-door neighbor—a
recreational vehicle that had been converted into a fighter and had
evidently seen better days. "About the game? I didn't, until you
told me—"

"No, not the game.
The Jarun. Who he was and what you said to him. And what do you mean
you don't speak his language?"

"I don't. And I've
studied the languages and habits of many of the races in the galaxy."

"Just out of
curiosity, kid. How many languages do you speak?"

"About eighty, I
guess. Only thirty or so fluently, though. The others I have trouble
with sometimes. Why? How many do you speak?"

"Two—my
native tongue and gruntspeak—what we're talking now. Didn't
that master of yours ever hear of translators?"

"Of course. I know
how to use one. But Platus said that a person who could communicate
directly with another being in his own language was paying him a
compliment that would always be remembered and appreciated."

"Well, you've won
the Jarun's heart—if it has a heart." Shaking his head,
Tusk laid a hand on Dion's shoulder. "Let's go see the general."

Who is this? and what
is here?

And in the lighted
palace near

Died the sound of royal
cheer;

And they cross'd
themselves for fear,

All the knights at
Camelot.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
"The Lady of Shalott"

The sun's heat radiated
off the concrete slab of the spaceport in shimmering waves, creating
mirages of pools of blue water in the distance. Back inside the
cockpit of the spaceplane, Dion wiped sweat from his face and glanced
enviously at Tusk, who had changed into khaki shorts and a mesh
weave, sleeveless T-shirt.

"You want to
borrow a pair of my shorts, kid?"

"Aren't we going
to meet this general of yours?"

"Sure, but Dixter
doesn't stand on formality," Tusk assured him.

Dion's opinion of this
general was being lowered every moment. He climbed into the crew's
quarters to change.

"Hurry up, kid."

Having completed the
initial shutdown of all the important systems, Tusk left the
remainder of the work to XJ and pulled himself up into the cramped
living quarters.

Dion was standing near
the metal storage chest where he kept his clothes. He had put on a
clean pair of blue jeans and was holding what Tusk supposed was a
shirt in his hands. Staring at the fabric intently, Dion was
smoothing it with his fingers.

"What'd you find?
Moths?" Tusk was in a good humor. "Damn, you've got white
skin! Must come with the red hair. You're gonna burn to a crisp on
this planet. We'll have to get you some sunblock. Come on— Hey,
what's wrong?"

"Nothing,"
Dion said. He seemed startled and irritated that Tusk had interrupted
him. Pulling the shirt over his head, he turned to climb the ladder
leading up to the hatch.

Tusk, coming up behind
him, took the opportunity to stare intently at the shirt, wondering
what about it had attracted the boy's attention.

Actually, it wasn't a
shirt so much as tunic. It was loose-fitting, obviously homemade,
with a slit opening for the head and raglan sleeves. Some sort of
fanciful design had been embroidered on the cloth with shiny silver
thread. Beyond the fact that the tunic was handmade—and a
clumsy job of sewing at that, thought Tusk, who was accustomed to
mending his own clothes on long flights—there was nothing
special about it. . . .

The decorative
embroidery.

Around the neck, around
the hem of the sleeves and the hem of the tunic itself glistened tiny
symbols—eight-pointed stars.

Tusk's good mood
evaporated.

"Open up, XJ! And
say, what about the air cooler? It's hotter than hell's kitchen in
here!"

"Do you realize
how much fuel we use up running that system? And have you seen the
prices on this planet?" the computer demanded. "Besides,
the perfect temperature for a human being, nude, with no wind, is
eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit. Which is the current interior
temperature—"

"Fine. I'll hang
around here nude!"

"Nude! You—!"
XJ's circuits jammed, it was so outraged that it momentarily lost its
voice. "I run a respectable plane! What would people think?
Suppose General Dixter dropped in! And do you have any idea what
they're charging us for electricity on this planet? It's criminal—"

The hatch whirred open.
Dion pulled himself up and out. Tusk—his gaze fixed with a
weird sort of fascination on the boy's tunic—followed more
slowly. What was it? A sign to someone? Some sort of superstitious
protective nonsense? I wonder if lasbeams would bounce off . . .

Tusk grinned at
himself. You're headed for the edge. And you're letting the kid and
that damn computer drive you there! It's a pretty design. That's all.
A pretty design.

The two walked swiftly
across the burning hot pavement. Tusk shot a glance at Dion's face,
but he might have read more emotion in the concrete beneath his feet.
Whatever the kid knew or was thinking, he was keeping it to himself.

I should dump him,
leave him here, Tusk decided. He's an eighty-year-old man inside a
seventeen-year-old body. And a cold and calculating old man at that.
That "stand off, don't touch me" air of his sets my teeth
on edge. To say nothing of the fact that he now knows as much or more
about that damn spaceplane as I do! Speaks eighty languages, but only
thirty fluently! Ha! Why did I let that electronic nightmare of mine
talk me into this? I should have followed my instincts and gotten rid
of the kid like I planned. I should have—

"Hey!" Dion
tugged on the sleeve of Tusk's shirt and pointed. "Isn't that
the direction you said the headquarters was?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah.
Sorry, guess I wasn't watching where I was going. I got a lot on my
mind."

Quit kicking yourself.
You didn't have to listen to XJ. Sure, life on board the plane would
have been hell for a while, but the computer would've gotten over it
eventually. It was your own damn curiosity got you into this. You had
to know.

Well, he thought
gloomily, now maybe you're gonna find out.

General Dixter's
headquarters were easily visible once the two got out beyond the
jumble of planes parked in the spaceport. Painted the same tan color
as the arid, barren land surrounding it, the mobile trailer
appeared—by some trick of the eye—to be close to the
port. In actuality, it turned out to be about five miles away, as
Tusk realized wearily when he and the boy set out walking. A hitched
ride from a passing hoverjeep took them to their destination.

Dion looked with
disfavor on the hand-painted sign over the door. He couldn't read the
lettering but presumed it was regulation military—the language
taught to all those who entered the Commonwealth's Armed Forces.
Computer devised, the language had been designed primarily to develop
manuals that could be read and understood by all races, but it had
degenerated into a spoken language that was a crude mixture of
military alpha—as it was called—and several major
languages in the galaxy. Translators were far better for daily
communication and were relied upon heavily, but this unofficial
language had gained favor among the troops-—particularly the
mercenaries, who had modified it to their own sort of cant.

"What does that
say?" Dion asked, pointing at the sign.

"Oh, so's there's
something you can't understand?" Tusk remarked, still
preoccupied with his inner misgivings.

The boy's flashing blue
eyes brought the mercenary up short.

"Sorry, kid.
Didn't mean to be sarcastic. Just in a bad mood." Tusk felt his
face grow warm and was thankful that his dusky skin hid his
embarrassed flush. "The sign's written in grunt-speak. Says
'Army Headquarters.' It's no wonder your master never taught this to
you. For one thing, it isn't recorded anywhere. For another, it's
probably a lot different than what it was years ago. And for third,
the Guardians were above this sort of thing. We grunts use it. That's
where the name came from."

"Will you teach it
to me?"

"I'll try."
Tusk was dubious. "Only it really just sort of grows on you—"

"Like a virus?"
Dion's voice was cool, but the mercenary— looking at the boy
sharply—saw a smile in the blue eyes.

"Yeah." Tusk
relaxed and grinned. Sometimes he had to admit he kind of liked this
kid. "Yeah, like a virus."

The mercenary climbed
up several rickety stairs and shoved open a screen door that had—from
the smell—been recently repainted. Strolling inside with easy
nonchalance, Tusk turned to say something to Dion and discovered he
wasn't there. The boy was holding back, outside the door, his lips
stretched taut, his face so pale the mercenary was half-convinced he
could see through the translucent skin. It was as if the kid thought
his life's fate were going to be decided in the next three minutes.

Catching hold of the
sleeve of the boy's tunic, Tusk hauled him inside.

"Hi, Bennett. I'm
Tusk, remember? Here to see the general," the mercenary said to
a soldier seated at a desk.

Bennett's neatly
pressed and immaculate uniform was in marked contrast to what the boy
had seen the other mercenaries wearing—everything from
loincloths to long, flowing robes, to nothing but scaly skin.

"One moment, sir."

The aide stood up from
his desk. After giving Tusk a sharp, appraising glance and letting
his eyes flick briefly and euriously over the boy standing tense and
tight as a drawn bowstring at the mercenary's side, Bennett vanished
into an adjoining room, carefully closing the door behind him.

Tusk strolled over to
examine several maps that had been Velcroed onto fuzzy boards and
hung on the wall. Though every window in the place was wide open, it
was only slightly cooler inside than out, he noted, mopping sweat
from his brow. The air-conditioning must have broken down again. An
ancient fan standing on top of a file cabinet near the aide's desk
whirled its blades industriously. The only apparent effect it was
having, however, was to require that every scrap of paper be held
down by a weight. The aide returned.

"The general will
see you—" Bennett began formally, but his words were run
over by the man himself, who came out of his office to meet them.

"Tusk! Where've
you been?" Dixter grasped the mercenary's hand and shook it
warmly. "I was told you requested our coordinates. But that was
days ago! Didn't you Jump?"

"Into a war zone,
sir?" Tusk shook his head.

Dixter grinned. "This
isn't that much of a war. Still, it pays the bills. Come in. Come in.
And your friend, too. How did you make out on Rinos 4? I heard from
Ridion that you got caught in that mess—"

Dion—not
expecting the general's sudden arrival—had leaned over the desk
to examine the aide's computer. His face was averted when Dixter
entered the room, and by the time the boy stood up and turned toward
him, the general had started back into his office, his hand resting
on Tusk's shoulder.

Tusk launched into a
doleful account of flying his spaceplane smack into the middle of a
civil war. The general was listening sympathetically, his eyes fixed
on the mercenary. Dion slipped in behind Tusk and stood with his back
to the wall. While the two soldiers discussed the civil war on
Rinos—in which, apparently, the general had considered taking
part, then rejected as being a no-win situation—the boy studied
both his surroundings and the man in charge.

The room in the
general's trailer drew his attention first. Not because as a room it
was anything extraordinary—it wasn't, being small and boxlike
with two windows, a closet, and a large fan. What captured the boy's
attention was that the walls were papered from ceiling to floor with
antique maps and star charts. Dion had never seen so many maps or
imagined that so many maps existed and could be gathered together in
one space. Rolls of maps hung from hooks, maps were nailed to the
walls or had been stuck up with masking tape. And some of the maps
seemed—to Dion's fascinated gaze—to be clinging to the
wood of their own volition.

Maps of star systems
vied for attention with maps of planets, maps of countries, and—stuck
up in a prominent place near the general's desk—a street map of
some city. Hundreds more maps stood rolled up in corners or arranged
in bundles on the floor. A whirring ceiling fan above the general's
desk brought the maps to life. They whispered and fluttered and
rustled like wild things.

Platus had never had
access to maps like these. Dion's gaze went hungrily to systems whose
names he recognized yet had never seen mapped out. He could live in
this room for a year and never grow bored, he thought. Wondering idly
how many of these worlds the general had visited, Dion turned from
the maps to study the man.

John Dixter's tanned
face was seamed and lined, gray streaked his hair at his temples and
his receding hairline made a high, lined forehead seem even higher.
His rugged outdoor life made it difficult to tell his age from his
appearance, but Dion guessed him to be in his early fifties. Of
medium height, the general's upper body was firm and muscular, with
only a hint of softening around the waistline. His brown eyes, caught
in a web of fine wrinkles, were clear and sharp and penetrating and
seemed accustomed to scanning great distances. His uniform, unlike
that of his aide's, was rumpled and creased and looked vaguely as if
it had been slept in. (Dion was to discover later that this was
precisely the case. When the general was too busy to return to his
own quarters, he often slept in the trailer, on a cot stored in the
closet.)