“Does she live in your village?” Hume asked eagerly.
“Yes” Ann lied. By now she had her fingers crossed behind her back, rather frantically.
“One more good reason for leaving this damn wood.” Hume sat back in the boat. Ann did not know whether to be annoyed or relieved. “She sounds just like my dream girl,” Hume said. “Talking of dreams – I’ve been having these dreams lately. I suppose that’s why I’m in a bad mood with all—”
Ann climbed out of the boat. She did not want to hear about Hume’s dreams, particularly not that kind of dream, blondes with hourglass figures and so forth. “Tell Mordion.”
“I did. They worried him,” said Hume.
They would, Ann thought. “I have to be home for—”
But Hume started climbing out of the boat too, determined to tell her. Ann gave in and stood on the shingle with her arms folded, resigned. “They’re frightful dreams,” Hume said. “I’m in this box-thing with wires going in and keeping me alive, and there’s supposed to be something to keep me unconscious, but it’s gone wrong and I’m awake. I’m screaming, Ann. Beating on the lid and screaming, but nobody hears. It’s so awful I have to make myself wake up most nights.”
It evidently was awful. Hume, from the look of him, had forgotten all about blondes and even about the bruises Mordion had given him. “How horrible,” Ann said. She had not the heart to tell Hume that these should be Mordion’s dreams – or the dreams from what the Bannus had put into Mordion’s head, probably. It was one of the more awful by-products of being able to read minds. She no longer envied Hume.
“Mordion says they should be his dreams,” said Hume.
“Er—” said Ann.
“Up until today,” Hume said, brooding again, bent into a zigzag half out of the boat, “those dreams were enough to make me swear to break the ban on Mordion. But now I’m not sure I care!”
Ann thought about it all. “You may be right,” she admitted. “It’s not fair that you should devote your life to Mordion.” At this, Hume unbent himself to give her, first, an incredulous look and, then, a huge grateful smile. “But don’t go out of the wood all the same,” Ann said. “And now I really must go.”
As she began striding from rock to slippery rock on the now much more perilous crossing of the river, Hume shouted after her. She thought the first bit was “—and thanks!” But the next bit, nearly drowned though it was in the roaring of the water, was definitely “—see your cousin!”
“Oo-er!” Ann said as she made the final leap to the earthy opposite bank. “What possessed me to go inventing cousins at him?” She walked into the woodland on the other side of the river with her insides quaking. She simply had not realised that Hume might be like this when he started growing up. She still liked him a lot, but still only as a friend. Nothing else seemed right, considering she had helped make Hume. But it made her feel wretched that she had told Hume lies.
She felt so wretched and her insides quaked so that she did not notice where she was until she was starting up the passage between the houses. There she smelt lunch cooking on both sides and broke into a trot. All I need is Mum mad at me! she thought.
Hang on! she thought, as she came to the grey car. How long was I in that field this time? she asked her imaginary people.
About a couple of hours, the King replied.
Ann was late for lunch. Luckily, there was some kind of row going on between Dad and Martin, and Mum was too anxious about that to give Ann more than a mild scold, ending, “And wash your hands at once!”
“Coupled with vengeful hand-washing,” Ann muttered, running water at the kitchen sink. “I ought to know exactly how Hume feels. Parents!”
From the sound of things, Martin had cause to know how Hume felt too. He had evidently said something that got up Dads nose properly. All the time Ann was bolting her mixed grill in order to catch up, Dad kept saying, “You’d say anything, Martin, if you thought you could make yourself interesting by it.” From time to time, he added, “Sure you didn’t see a flying saucer too? Little green men with goggle eyes?”
“I know what I saw,” Martin replied sulkily each time. Sometimes he added, “And I wish I’d never told you now.”
And the atmosphere became tenser and tenser, until finally, as Ann was clearing the first course away, Martin was goaded into shouting, “You wouldn’t believe in God if He walked through this door this minute!”
“Martin!” exclaimed Mum.
“I can tell real from make-believe, even if you can’t!” Dad yelled back. “And don’t you shout at me!”
Mum rushed the treacle tart on to the table and tried to soothe things down. “Now, Gary. Martin could easily have seen someone making a film, couldn’t he? Treacle tart, Martin. Your favourite.” She carved out a thick, trickling slice and realised she had forgotten the plates. “Oh now look! I’m under stress! Ann, don’t just sit there – you’re not ill now – pudding plates. They film things all over the place these days, Gary, you know they do!”
Ann slid a plate under the waving slice of tart and put the plate in front of Dad to help with the soothing. “Then Martin shut his eyes when he looked at the cameras and the directors and all that, did he?” Dad asked contemptuously, pouring sugar all over the slice of tart Dad needed more sugar than anyone else Ann had ever met He could not eat any of the fruit he sold. He said it was too sour for him. And the marvel was that he never got fat, big as he was. “Nice try, Alison,” he went on. “Pity Martin forgot the film crew. I don’t know what he saw, but I know why. If he hasn’t got his nose in a comic, he’s watching aliens on TV all night long. He doesn’t know truth from fiction, that boy!”
“Yes I do!” Martin got up from the table with a crash, swept past the plate of treacle tart Mum was trying to give him and banged out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
For Martin to ignore treacle tart was unheard of. Ann was convinced by this that Martin really had seen something strange. When lunch was finished – in subdued and grumpy silence – and Ann had – much too quickly – cleared away, she went to find Martin. He was sitting on the top step of the stairs, glowering.
“About what you saw—” Ann began.
“Don’t you start now!” Martin snarled. “I don’t care what you think. I just know I did see a man dressed like Superman, and he was climbing the gate into the old farm. So there!”
“Superman!” said Ann.
Martin looked at her with hatred. “Yes – only wrong colours. Silver body-suit and green cape. And I did see him.”
“I’m sure you did,” Ann said. She was too worried and preoccupied even to try to soothe Martin. Could it have been Yam Martin saw? But Yam had never worn any kind of clothes, let alone a green cape.
She went out and across Wood Street, fairly convinced that someone else had now entered the field of the Bannus. Or was it – this was the worrying part – that the field was getting larger?
“The field has remained stable,” said Reigner Five as he came into the pearly hall of the conference chamber in the House of Balance. He waited until the two half-live sentinels at the entry had scanned him and unjoined their hands to let him through, and walked over to the table where the other three were waiting. “That is – as far as my instruments can detect at this distance anyway.”
“That’s not much comfort,” Reigner Three said impatiently. “Reigner Two’s been missing for days now. Are we to assume that he and the Servant are still inside the field, or what?”
“I think so,” said Five. He sat down and carefully fed the cube he had brought with him into the slot in the arm of his black pearly chair. “This is the processed information from Two’s monitors,” he told the other three Reigners. “Not that it tells us much. But it shows no record of either Two or the Servant coming out of the bannus field. And there are one or two other things it does show that I thought you all ought to see. Ready?”
When the three nodded, Five activated the cube. The glassy surface of
the table had been showing reflections of their four faces, three young and one old, and all glowing with health from anti-age treatments, but as Five flicked the control the reflections vanished. The cube’s minor theta-field came into being there instead, flickering as it established.
A scene jumped into being on the table, tiny and perfect. Reigner Two, encased in a green tweed suit a size too small for his plumpness, and wearing a long striped muffler round his neck, paced irritably in a pearly corridor. The other Reigners recognised the place as just beside the long-distance portal in the House of Balance. Evidently Two was still on Homeworld here, just about to start his journey. He looked solid enough to be picked up, from his pink, petulant face to his big black boots. Figures and signs running along the outer edges of the image showed Reigner Two to be in perfect health at this point, if a little high in adrenalin.
Reigner Four laughed. “Two’s counting seconds as usual! Doesn’t he look a fright in that costume?”
“I suppose a robot put him into it,” said Reigner Three. “I think we should have a human in charge of costumes.”
“We have – a young woman called Vierran – House of Guaranty,” said Five.
Shadows swung on the table, looming on the pearly walls, one shadow advancing, the others hastily getting out of its way. Following his advancing shadow, the Servant lounged into the tiny picture wearing clothes as strange as Reigner Two’s.
Reigner Four guffawed. “Mordion looks like a scarecrow! What is that yellow thing with buttons?”
“It seems to me” said Reigner Three, “that this young woman in charge of costumes has a sense of humour that could be rather unwise.”
On the table, the tiny Reigner Two spun round and his voice rang out of hidden speakers, life-size and perfectly reproduced, with the familiar slight bray on the last word. “And about time too!”
The tall Servant bent his head apologetically. “Forgive me, sire—”
“And don’t call me sire!” snapped Reigner Two. “I’m travelling as your servant for security. No one’s supposed to know who I am. Let’s get going.” He snapped his fingers at someone out of range of the monitors. The portal keepers, like everyone else in the House of Balance, were keeping well out of the Servant’s way. “Open up, there!”
The portal enlarged from a crease in the pearly wall into a smooth round archway. Reigner Two marched through with the Servant following respectfully. Empty white light filled the table for the second the pair were in transit.
The picture flicked back as the portal-reception area of a head office on one of the nearer worlds. Like all Reigner Organisation offices it was open-plan and large. Reigner Two and the Servant were emerging into a rather overlighted blaze of whites, greens and pinks. This was a world that tried to imitate the pearly splendours of the House of Balance. At the edge of the picture, a man wearing the neck chain of a Sector Governor, who was just leaving the office with the air of someone wanting his dinner, looked over his shoulder as the portal opened and stopped in his tracks. Awe and dismay came over his face. He whirled round and rushed across to the Servant.
“Reigners’ Servant! This is an unexpected pleasure! I see by the strange garb that you’re off on another mission. They do keep you busy, to be sure, hahaha!” He failed to recognise Reigner Two and ignored him completely. The tiny image was clear enough to show that Reigner Two was not sure whether to be pleased that his disguise was so good, or annoyed not to be as well known as his Servant. “What can I do for the Reigners’ Servant today?” gushed the Sector Governor.
Mordion Agenos smiled that particular smile of his. “I’m surprised you knew me,” he said. “We both feel pretty strange in these clothes.” Reigner Two looked soothed.
“Oh, I’d know the Reigners’ Servant anywhere!” the Governor gushed. Reigner Two scowled.
“I suppose the Servant has got a pretty recognisable face,” Reigner Four commented. “Looks like a death’s-head.”
“It fits the job,” said Five.
Reigner Three agreed. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a Servant who looked the part so well.”
While they were speaking, Mordion had been explaining where they needed to go.
“Earth – Albion Sector – that’s right out on the spiral arm, isn’t it?” the Governor said distractedly. He was obviously calculating how much work this would mean and trying to look polite at the same time. “Certainly, certainly. Of course. I’ll set it up at once – though it is a long way, you know. I think you’ll be able to make three long walk-throughs, but I’m afraid most of the journey will have to be in single hops. That’s speaking from memory, of course. We don’t often have to set this particular journey up, aside from trade cargo. I’ll go and check. And you’d like me to send word ahead of you? I wouldn’t want you to be kept waiting any longer than is absolutely necessary.”
Mordion bowed his head and seemed to agree to this. The Governor said, “Then forgive me while I go and attend to it personally.” He beckoned. There were quite a few lesser executives, managers and consuls standing about in the overlit space, staring unashamedly. Nearly all of them hurried forward as their Governor beckoned. “Look after the Reigners’ Servant,” the Governor commanded. “Make sure he has everything he needs. You four come with me.” He dashed out of the picture, with his four underlings after him at a trot.
The other lesser ones gathered eagerly round the Servant, except for the last to reach him. That one was crowded out and had to make conversation with Reigner Two instead. Neither of them seemed to enjoy it. Inside the crowd, the Servant was talking politely and readily, telling the underlings the latest gossip from Homeworld, refusing offers of food and drink, and making jokes about his odd clothing.
“He seems quite at his ease!” Reigner Three remarked. “He never talks like that to us. I was told he never talks to anyone. Who misinformed me?”
“No one. Cool down,” said Reigner Five. “He never talks to anyone here in the House of Balance. They all keep out of his way.”
“With good reason!” said Reigner Four. “But you’re wrong, Five. I was told he talks to that nasty bit of work who found them those ridiculous clothes.”
“Oh?” Three said, mollified, and added with venomous interest, “Nasty bit of work, is she? Doesn’t she fancy you then, Four?”
“No,” said Four. “Because I’m not her horse. Thank goodness.”
All the Reigners laughed.
While they were talking, the Sector Governor must have been setting the journey up with frenzied speed. He came hurrying back, bowing and ushering. The Servant and Reigner Two, still in the crowd of respectful underlings, were hurried across to another long-distance portal and bowed inside it. The image on the table flicked to white again, and then flicked back to another Reigner Organisation office, this one made of stone and metal in a blank, artistic design. There another Sector Governor, this one better prepared, hurried politely up to the Servant.
“My dear Servant! Do, please, forgive us. We’ve only just heard you were coming.”
After this came an office hung with native artworks, followed by another that seemed to be constructed of hammered bronze. In each, another Governor dashed up to the Servant and fawned upon him.
After the fifth such scene, Reigner Three exclaimed, “This is like a royal progress! Nobody’s even noticing poor old Two.”
“Yes, I thought that would interest you,” murmured Five.
“I suppose Mordion is our direct representative,” Reigner Four said, not sounding too happy about it. “Whenever he appears, they all know they’re really dealing with us.”
“Yes, but does our Servant remember it?” Reigner Three demanded.
Reigner One, in his usual way, had up to then been keeping placidly silent. Now he stroked his white beard and twinkled a kindly smile at Three. “Of course he remembers it. I saw to that part of his training with great attention. I assure you he’s as humble as he is loyal.”
“I still think it’s a
mistake to send him out unmonitored,” said Three. “But for this accident, we’d none of us know how these sector heads behave to him.”
“Oh, I would. I do,” said Reigner One.
“But just think of the power at the Servant’s—” Three began again.
“Shut up, Three,” Reigner Five said, flapping an irritable hand. “This next bit coming up is important.”
Reigner Two and his Servant had entered one of the long walk-throughs, where several sectors were able to phase their portals together into an avenue stretching from world to world, for light years across the galaxy. The image on the table strobed from white to picture, to white and back to picture, as the two passed the joins in the portals, but the strobing was fast enough not to interfere with the picture of the tall Servant strolling beside the much shorter Two. It was just a little trying on the eyes. The walk-through looked like a well-lighted tunnel composed of a paler version of the same pearly stuff as the room in which the Reigners sat. Both pearly substances did in fact come from the same source, and that source was, ironically, Earth flint. Only flint imported from Earth was strong enough to stand the strain of the portal. The image reminded all four of the watching Reigners just how important Earth was.
It was clear that Reigner Two had been having the same thoughts as Reigner Three. “You’re very polite to all these bootlicking fools,” his tiny image said to the Servant in a peevish life-size voice. “Do you have to be?”
“I think I do,” the Servant answered, considering it. “They’re all so mortally afraid they’ll offend the Reigners if they offend me. It was impressed on me in my training that I’m simply the public face the Reigners show the Organisation. This means I have to show them that I’m not in the least offended.”
Reigner One shot Reigner Three a humorous look. See? said the look.
“You’re probably right,” Reigner Two told the Servant grumpily. He was looking nervously around. The tunnel seemed to oppress him. The figures racing at the edges of the image gave his heartbeat as faster and his blood pressure up. Or perhaps he was nervous for another reason.