The Stars, Like Dust

  Biron forced himself to his feet. He limped badly as he made his way to the wall. He used the butt of the whip and the guard slumped. Then back to the first, who made no defense either, his eyes moving silently to the very moment of unconsciousness.

  Biron sat down again, nursing his foot. He stripped shoe and stocking from it, and stared in surprise at the unbroken skin. He chafed it and grunted at the burning sensation. He looked up at Gillbret, who had put down his visisonor and was now rubbing one lean cheek with the back of his hand.

  “Thank you,” said Biron, “for the help of your instrument.”

  Gillbret shrugged. He said, “There’ll be more here soon. Get to Artemisia’s room. Please! Quickly!”

  Biron realized the sense of that. His foot had subsided to a quiet quiver of pain, but it felt swollen and puffy. He put on a stocking and tucked the shoe under his elbow. He already had one whip, and he relieved the second guard of the other. He stuffed it precariously within his belt.

  He turned at the door and asked, with a sense of crawling revulsion, “What did you make them see, sir?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t control it. I just gave them all the power I could and the rest depended on their own complexes. Please don’t stand there talking. Do you have the map to Artemisia’s room?”

  Biron nodded and set off down the corridor. It was quite empty. He could not walk quickly, since trying to do so made his walk a hobble.

  He looked at his watch, then remembered that he had somehow never had the time to adjust it to Rhodian local chronometry. It still ran on Standard Interstellar Time as used aboard ship, where one hundred minutes made an hour and a thousand a day. So the figure 876 which gleamed pinkly on the cool metal face of the watch meant nothing now.

  Still, it had to be well into the night, or into the planetary sleeping period, at any rate (supposing that the two did not coincide), as otherwise the halls would not be so empty and the bas-reliefs on the wall would not phosphoresce unwatched. He touched one idly as he passed, a coronation scene, and found it to be two-dimensional. Yet it gave the perfect illusion of standing out from the wall.

  It was sufficiently unusual for him to stop momentarily in order to examine the effect. Then he remembered and hurried on.

  The emptiness of the corridor struck him as another sign of the decadence of Rhodia. He had grown very conscious of all these symbols of decline now that he had become a rebel. As the center of an independent power, the Palace would always have had its sentries and its quiet wardens of the night.

  He consulted Gillbret’s crude map and turned to the right, moving up a wide, curving ramp. There might have been processions here once, but nothing of that would be left now.

  He leaned against the proper door and touched the photosignal. The door moved ajar a bit, then opened wide.

  “Come in, young man.”

  It was Artemisia. Biron slipped inside, and the door closed swiftly and silently. He looked at the girl and said nothing. He was gloomily conscious of the fact that his shirt was torn at the shoulder so that one sleeve flapped loosely, that his clothes were grimy and his face welted. He remembered the shoe he was still carrying, dropped it, and wriggled his foot into it.

  Then he said, “Mind if I sit down?”

  She followed him to the chair, and stood before him, a little annoyed. “What happened? What’s wrong with your foot?”

  “I hurt it,” he said shortly. “Are you ready to leave?”

  She brightened. “You’ll take us, then?”

  But Biron was in no mood to be sweet about it. His foot still twinged and he cradled it. He said, “Look, get me out to a ship. I’m leaving this damn planet. If you want to come along, I’ll take you.”

  She frowned. “You might be more pleasant about it. Were you in a fight?”

  “Yes, I was. With your father’s guards, who wanted to arrest me for treason. So much for my Sanctuary Right.”

  “Oh! I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too. It’s no wonder the Tyranni can lord it over fifty worlds with a handful of men. We help them. Men like your father would do anything to keep in power; they would forget the basic duties of a simple gentleman——Oh, never mind!”

  “I said I was sorry, Lord Rancher.” She used the title with a cold pride. “Please don’t set yourself up as judge of my father. You don’t know all the facts.”

  “I’m not interested in discussing it. We’ll have to leave in a hurry, before more of your father’s precious guards come. Well, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s all right.” Biron’s surliness canceled out any meaning to his apology, but, damn it, he had never been hit by a neuronic whip before and it wasn’t fun. And, by Space, they had owed him Sanctuary. At least that much.

  Artemisia felt angry. Not at her father, of course, but at the stupid young man. He was so young. Practically a child, she decided, scarcely older than herself, if that.

  The communicator sounded and she said sharply, “Please wait a minute and we’ll go.”

  It was Gillbret’s voice, sounding faintly. “Arta? All right at your end?”

  “He’s here,” she whispered back.

  “All right. Don’t say anything. Just listen. Don’t leave your room. Keep him there. There’s going to be a search of the Palace, which there’s no way of stopping. I’ll try to think of something, but, meanwhile, don’t move.” He waited for no reply. Contact was broken.

  “So that’s that,” said Biron. He had heard also. “Shall I stay and get you into trouble, or shall I go out and give myself up? There’s no reason to expect Sanctuary anywhere on Rhodia, I suppose.”

  She faced him in a rage, crying in a choked whisper, “Oh, shut up, you big, ugly fool.”

  They glared at each other. Biron’s feelings were hurt. In a way, he was trying to help her too. There was no reason for her to be insulting.

  She said, “I’m sorry,” and looked away.

  “That’s all right,” he said coldly, without meaning it. “You’re entitled to your opinion.”

  “You don’t have to say the things you do about my father. You don’t know what being Director is like. He’s working for his people, whatever you may think.”

  “Oh, sure. He has to sell me to the Tyranni for the sake of the people. That makes sense.”

  “In a way, it does. He has to show them he’s loyal. Otherwise, they might depose him and take over the direct rule of Rhodia. Would that be better?”

  “If a nobleman can’t find Sanctuary——”

  “Oh, you think only of yourself. That’s what’s wrong with you.”

  “I don’t think it’s particularly selfish not to want to die. At least for nothing. I’ve got some fighting to do before I go. My father fought them.” He knew he was beginning to sound melodramatic, but she affected him that way.

  She said, “And what good did it do your father?”

  “None, I suppose. He was killed.”

  Artemisia felt unhappy. “I keep saying I’m sorry, and this time I really mean it. I’m all upset.” Then, in defense, “I’m in trouble, too, you know.”

  Biron remembered. “I know. All right, let’s start all over.” He tried to smile. His foot was feeling better anyway.

  She said, in an attempt at lightness, “You’re not really ugly.”

  Biron felt foolish. “Oh well——”

  Then he stopped, and Artemisia’s hand flew to her mouth. Abruptly, their heads turned to the door.

  There was the sudden, soft sound of many ordered feet on the semi-elastic plastic mosaic that floored the corridor outside. Most passed by, but there was a faint, disciplined heel-clicking just outside the door, and the night signal purred.

  Gillbret had to work quickly. First, he had to hide his visisonor. For the first time he wished he had a better hiding place. Damn Hinrik for making up his mind so quickly this once, for not waiting till morning. He had to get away; he might never have another chance.

  Then he called the captain of the
guard. He couldn’t very well neglect a little matter of two unconscious guards and an escaped prisoner.

  The captain of the guard was grim about it. He had the two unconscious men cleared out, and then faced Gillbret.

  “My lord, I am not quite clear from your message exactly what happened,” he said.

  “Just what you see,” said Gillbret. “They came to make their arrest, and the young man did not submit. He is gone, Space knows where.”

  “That is of little moment, my lord,” said the captain. “The Palace is honored tonight with the presence of a personage, so it is well guarded despite the hour. He cannot get out and we will draw the net through the interior. But how did he escape? My men were armed. He was not.”

  “He fought like a tiger. From that chair, behind which I hid——”

  “I am sorry, my lord, that you did not think to aid my men against an accused traitor.”

  Gillbret looked scornful. “What an amusing thought, Captain. When your men, with doubled advantage in numbers and weapons, need help from myself, it is time you recruited yourself other men.”

  “Very well! We will search the Palace, find him, and see if he can repeat the performance.”

  “I shall accompany you, Captain.”

  It was the captain’s turn to raise his eyebrows. He said, “I would not advise it, my lord. There would be some danger.”

  It was the kind of remark that one did not make to a Hinriad. Gillbret knew that, but he only smiled and let the wrinkles fill his lean face. “I know that,” he said, “but occasionally I find even danger amusing.”

  It took five minutes for the company of guards to assemble. Gillbret, alone in his room during that time, called Artemisia.

  Biron and Artemisia had frozen at the purring of the little signal. It sounded a second time and then there was the cautious rap upon the door, and Gillbret’s voice was heard.

  “Do let me try, Captain,” it said. Then, more loudly, “Artemisia!”

  Biron grinned his relief and took a step forward, but the girl put a sudden hand upon his mouth. She called out, “One moment, Uncle Gil,” and pointed desperately toward the wall.

  Biron could only stare stupidly. The wall was quite blank. Artemisia made a face and stepped quickly past him. Her hand on the wall caused a portion of it to slide noiselessly aside, revealing a dressing room. Her lips motioned a “Get inside!” and her hands were fumbling at the ornamental pin at her right shoulder. The unclasping of that pin broke the tiny force field that held an invisible seam tightly closed down the length of the dress. She stepped out of it.

  Biron turned around after stepping across what had been the wall, and its closing endured just long enough for him to see her throwing a white-furred dressing gown across her shoulders. The scarlet dress lay crumpled upon the chair.

  He looked about him and wondered if they would search Artemisia’s room. He would be quite helpless if a search took place. There was no way out of the dressing room but the way he had entered, and there was nothing in it that could serve as a still more confined hiding place.

  Along one wall there hung a row of gowns, and the air shimmered very faintly before it. His hand passed easily through the shimmer, with only a faint tingling where it crossed his wrist, but then it was meant to repel only dust so that the space behind it could be kept aseptically clean.

  He might hide behind the skirts. It was what he was doing, really. He had manhandled two guards, with Gillbret’s help, to get here, but, now that he was here, he was hiding behind a lady’s skirts. A lady’s skirts, in fact.

  Incongruously, he found himself wishing he had turned a bit sooner before the wall had closed behind him. She had quite a remarkable figure. It was ridiculous of him to have been so childishly nasty a while back. Of course she was not to blame for the faults of her father.

  And now he could only wait, staring at the blank wall; waiting for the sound of feet within the room, for the wall to pull back once more, for the muzzles facing him again, this time without a visisonor to help him.

  He waited, holding a neuronic whip in each hand.

  9. AND AN OVERLORD’S TROUSERS

  “What’s the matter?” Artemisia did not have to feign uneasiness. She spoke to Gillbret, who, with the captain of the guard, was at the door. Half a dozen uniformed men hovered discreetly in the background. Then, quickly, “Has anything happened to Father?”

  “No, no,” Gillbret assured her, “nothing has happened that need concern you at all. Were you asleep?”

  “Just about,” she replied, “and my girls have been about their own affairs for hours. There was no one to answer but myself and you nearly frightened me to death.”

  She turned to the captain suddenly, with a stiffening attitude. “What is wanted of me, Captain? Quickly, please. This is not the time of day for a proper audience.”

  Gillbret broke in before the other could more than open his mouth. “A most amusing thing, Arta. The young man, whatsisname—you know—has dashed off, breaking two heads on his way. We’re hunting him on even terms now. One platoon of soldiers to one fugitive. And here I am myself, hot on the trail, delighting our good captain with my zeal and courage.”

  Artemisia managed to look completely bewildered.

  Under his breath the captain muttered a monosyllabic imprecation. His lips scarcely moved. He said then, “If you please, my lord, you are not quite plain, and we are delaying matters insufferably. My lady, the man who calls himself the son of the ex-Rancher of Widemos has been arrested for treason. He has managed to escape and is now at large. We must search the Palace for him, room by room.”

  Artemisia stepped back, frowning. “Including my room?”

  “If Your Ladyship permits.”

  “Ah, but I do not. I would certainly know if there was a strange man in my room. And the suggestion that I might be having dealings with such a man, or any strange man, at this time of night is highly improper. Please observe due respect for my position, Captain.”

  It worked quite well. The captain could only bow and say, “No such implication was intended, my lady. Your pardon for annoying you at this time of night. Your statement that you have not seen the fugitive is, of course, sufficient. Under the circumstances, it was necessary to assure ourselves of your safety. He is a dangerous man.”

  “Surely not so dangerous that he cannot be handled by you and your company.”

  Gillbret’s high-pitched voice interposed again. “Captain, come—come. While you exchange courtly sentiments with my niece, our man has had time to rifle the armory. I would suggest that you leave a guard at the Lady Artemisia’s door, so that what remains of her sleep will not be further disturbed. Unless, my dear”—and he twinkled his fingers at Artemisia—“you would care to join us.”

  “I shall satisfy myself,” said Artemisia coldly, “in locking my door and retiring, thank you.”

  “Pick a large one,” cried Gillbret. “Take that one. A fine uniform our guards have, Artemisia. You can recognize a guard as far as you can see him by his uniform alone.”

  “My lord,” said the captain impatiently, “there is no time. You delay matters.”

  At a gesture from him, a guard fell out of the platoon, saluted Artemisia through the closing door, then the captain. The sound of ordered footsteps fell away in both directions.

  Artemisia waited, then slid the door quietly open an inch or two. The guard was there, legs apart, back rigid, right hand armed, left hand at his alarm button. He was the guard suggested by Gillbret, a tall one. As tall as Biron of Widemos, though without his breadth of shoulders.

  It occurred to her, at that moment, that Biron, though young and, therefore, rather unreasonable in some of his viewpoints, was at least large and well muscled, which was convenient. It had been foolish of her to snap at him. Quite pleasant looking too.

  She closed the door, and stepped toward the dressing room.

  Biron tensed as the door slid away again. He held his breath and his fingers stiffe
ned.

  Artemisia stared at his whips. “Be careful!”

  He puffed out his breath in relief and stuffed each into a pocket. They were very uncomfortable there, but he had no proper holsters. He said, “That was just in case it was somebody looking for me.”

  “Come out. And speak in a whisper.”

  She was still in her night robe, woven out of a smooth fabric with which Biron was unfamiliar, adorned with little tufts of silvery fur, and clinging to the body through some faint static attraction inherent in the material, so that neither buttons, clasps, loops, or seam fields were necessary. Nor, as a consequence, did it do more than merely faintly dim the outlines of Artemisia’s figure.

  Biron felt his ears reddening, and liked the sensation very much.

  Artemisia waited, then made a little whirling gesture with her forefinger and said, “Do you mind?”

  Biron looked up at her face. “What? Oh, I’m sorry.”

  He turned his back to her and remained stiffly attentive to the faint rustling of the change of outer garments. It did not occur to him to wonder why she did not use the dressing room, or why, better still, she had not changed before opening the door. There are depths in feminine psychology, which, without experience, defy analysis.

  She was in black when he turned, a two-piece suit which did not reach below the knee. It had that more substantial appearance that went with clothing meant for the outdoors rather than for the ballroom.

  Biron said, automatically, “Are we leaving, then?”

  She shook her head. “You’ll have to do your part first. You’ll need other clothes yourself. Get to one side of the door, and I’ll have the guard in.”

  “What guard?”

  She smiled briefly. “They left a guard at the door, at Uncle Gil’s suggestion.”

  The door to the corridor ran smoothly along its runners an inch or two. The guard was still there, stiffly immobile.