“What happened to me,” she replied. Then she gathered what courage she had recently gained—to stand against a lifetime of domination—and made her plea a second time:
“They—the Duke Reddick—is going to have the Colonel killed. The Princess is under controls. It is all like the tales of the story tapes, the ones about evil spells. The Colonel is her friend, but she ordered him executed. Only she could not mean it—it was that machine! We can’t let her do it—”
She expected him to dismiss her summarily. Instead he continued to watch her with deepening interest. But what had been at first encouraging no longer seemed so. It was as if she were a part of the installation and he was fascinated by her reactions. And at that moment she was convinced that if anything could be done to break the black pattern now being woven, she alone must do it.
“You like these people, feel a certain kinship to them?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you had recently come from intensive briefing. That might explain why you would be more susceptible to the influence of a strong conditioning broadcast, even if it were alien. There is good evidence that the installation here maintains Basic as well as special directional broadcasts. I think, Roane, that perhaps once you are debriefed, you will find the Service will accept such an explanation for your extraordinary conduct. In fact”—he was warming to this disagreeable train of thought—“you could well provide them with an additional check here. But as for any more interference on our part—you must understand that that is completely out of the question.
“In the first place, to stop—if we could find a method of doing so—any of those machines would disrupt the patterns they have been weaving for a couple of centuries, and the people of Clio may be so tied to their influence that failure of control would be fatal. Have you thought of that?”
Roane blinked. That the control could be so far-reaching, no, she had not thought of that. On the other hand, it was a dire possibility. They knew something of what the Psychocrats had done to manipulate their human material, but they did not know all. Patient reprograming was one thing; sudden and complete cutoff was another. Clio might be brought out of her fog by degrees, but the cutoffs—Roane remembered Ludorica’s tale of the country whose crown had been destroyed.
“Arothner—”
“What?”
“There was a seacoast country—” She outlined the story as the Princess had told it.
Uncle Offlas nodded. “You see, the crowns control the rulers directly, and perhaps indirectly most of the ruled. Destroy the crown and the people are as Sorfalan puppets when their motive power fails. This ‘Ice Crown’ had been lost for a couple of generations—but it was still in existence. The pattern broadcast by the machine had been interrupted. It could be that when the Princess found the Crown there was a sharp change to compensate and bring the country back into a determined future. This abrupt about-face could be the result of some such need—”
“Need!” Roane interrupted him. “To let Reddick dictate—and she was changed—evil—You may not believe me, but she was! And as for pattern—wasn’t it true that the closed worlds were supposed to be given a basic background and then allowed to work out their destinies from that? That the whole purpose of these experiments was to watch such maturing?”
“That was our conception, up until we made the discovery here. But it would seem that we were wrong. We came here for Forerunner relics, but we may have found something of equal value. There is every reason to believe that this is not a basic control but a self-continuing experiment.”
He turned to the recorder. “I must tape what we have learned. Remember, no more interference. If it is necessary”—his voice was once more cold—“we can put you in stass until we are back on the ship. No more action apart from what is necessary for the carrying out of our mission. Leave your belt here—” He pointed to the table before him.
So he would take from her the means of any independent action. Roane pressed open the catch. As she laid it before him he added:
“You had better break out provisions. Double rations.”
Sluggishly she went to obey. The lift which the session in the fresher had given her was wearing off. Even if she managed by some now unforeseen chance to get away from the camp, she would not have the strength to reach Hitherhow. And without even a stunner, what good would revolt do her?
Roane brought out tubes and containers. Double rations? For a moment her thoughts lifted from the narrow rut of her troubles. She heard Sandar come in. And having loaded a tray with her choices, she returned to the com.
“I do not understand their silence. No reply to our urgent signal. Surely they cannot have broken orbit! Or if some such crisis arose, they would have beamed a warning.” Uncle Offlas was again tapping the com.
“One distort with about a quarter power left.” Sandar was piling boxes on the floor. “The rest are gone. There is a drain, there must be! To need full recharging so soon—”
“We have no idea about that installation. It may well be that it can pull from any power source in the neighborhood.”
“But if that is so,” Sandar said eagerly, “such an effect might be reversed. We could tap from it, maybe build up a real force wall to hold until the retire signal comes.”
“Too risky.” His father shook his head. “But your thought leads to something else. We cannot recharge the distorts now without endangering our com broadcast. And to remain in this unprotected camp—I don’t like the thought of that.”
“Strike this shelter—move into better hiding?” Sandar suggested.
“It might be well. Unless we get an answer soon.”
“So far the forest seems clear around here,” Sandar reported. “We could go back to the cave, set up a repeller at the mouth. They have their crown now. I don’t think they’ll come back.”
Roane divided the food containers, took her share. With a tube and two small boxes she went to her own quarters. Sleep was so heavy upon her that she had to force her eyelids open, keep doggedly chewing and swallowing. But before she had finished she lost the battle and was asleep.
Dreams were not uncommon. One often dreamed. Roane had wandered so in many strange places, some of them far stranger than the alien worlds she had seen with waking eyes. But this was the most vivid and “real” dream she had ever known, though in it she was only a spectator.
It was as if she had walked through the curtain of sleep into such a room as she had seen in the ambassador’s mansion in Gastonhow. There were chairs with tall, much-carved backs, portions of that carving touched with insets of metal, or with time-dulled paint, to make fantastic scenes. Behind them much of the wall was covered with a stretch of tapestry on which men mounted on duocorns hunted some quarry lost from sight in thread-formed trees. This, too, had the look of something faded by many years’ passing.
Yet it was as sharply clear to Roane’s eyes as if she stood there in body. Before her was a long table of rich red stone which bore on its surface a mottling of twisting green lines. And set out on this was a plate of gold. By that lay a set of knife, two-tined fork, and spoon, all fashioned of crystal ringed and banded with gold in which small green gems were set.
At a good, almost awkward distance away from this setting was a second. But here the plate was of silver, the eating implements of the same material, with handles of red. All had a richness of color which warmed Roane as had her surroundings in Gastonhow—though it was far removed from the more sophisticated trappings of her own civilization.
The room lacked occupants, but there was a kind of expectancy. Roane was keenly aware that she waited with rising excitement for some action of importance.
A man wearing a richly embroidered tabard backed in, bowing low at every step to the person he ushered through the portal. He had a staff in one hand and he brought the butt of that sharply down on the floor at intervals. If his action was some signal Roane heard no sound, nor, she was suddenly aware, had she heard any since her eyes had opened
on this.
She whom the usher had so heralded entered, her full skirts skimming in graceful folds which she adjusted now and then with small movements of one hand. In the other she carried a flat fan of purple feathers mounted on a jeweled handle.
The skirts, with tight bodice, cut low enough to reveal much of her shoulders, were of a deep purple shade, the lacings of the bodice black interwoven with silver. And the wide necklace of many drops, the earrings her elaborately dressed hair allowed to show, were of shining black stones. There was even a small circlet of them in her hair. There was no mistaking who walked thus—the Queen Ludorica.
Two ladies followed her, their dresses of a like cut, but of gray with laces of unrelieved black. They had ribbons of the same hue tied around their throats, and their heads were covered with lacy black veils. The whole effect was one of calculated somberness.
One stationed herself at the table to face the Queen, while the other remained by the door—though not so as to obstruct the entrance of the fifth member of the party—Duke Reddick.
His clothing was also purple, a duller shade than worn by the Queen. He passed around the table, drew out her chair and seated her with ceremony before he took that place at some distance from her.
A tray was handed in from beyond the door to the waiting lady, who brought it to her companion at the table. From it the latter took two fantastic cups wrought in the form of those grotesque animals Roane had first seen being set up in the garden at Hitherhow. Having filled them from a flagon, she set them on the table with care, touched each lightly on the side. Straightway the metal feet moved and the cups started on a stately march, one to Ludorica, one to the Duke.
A second tray with food was brought in and the Queen and then Reddick were served with great ceremony. They ate and drank. Roane saw their lips move and knew that they talked, but for her the scene was played out in utter silence. Twice their walking cups were sent back to be refilled.
Then the plates were cleared and the Queen and he whom she had considered her greatest enemy sat in apparent amity. From the front of his tunic Reddick brought forth a scroll which he spread flat on the table before him. While Roane could not read the words written there, she could see the black lettering, and ribbons of scarlet and black at the foot of the sheet, affixed by an irregular blob of purple of the hue of Ludorica’s gown.
The Queen leaned back in her chair, fanned herself with slow motions of the purple feathers. All the vivacity, those quick changes of expression which Roane had seen on her face in the past, had vanished. Her face was a mask under the piles and rolls of her hair. Even her eyes were half closed as if the lids and the long lashes acted to conceal what she thought or felt.
Reddick’s lips moved. He must be reading aloud what was written on the scroll. He glanced up at last, looking straight at Ludorica. And it seemed to Roane that he did so searchingly, as if he expected some protest, or at least some comment from her.
But if he did so, he was disappointed. She gestured with the fan, and the usher who had led her in came out of the shadows, took the scroll from the Duke, brought it to place before the Queen.
She let it remain rolled. To all appearances she was not interested in what it contained, nor in what Reddick wanted from her. Perhaps he grew impatient, for Roane saw his lips move again.
For the first time Ludorica answered him. No show of emotion troubled her mask. Instead a faint flush arose on the Duke’s cheeks. If that was caused by anger he suppressed all other signs of resentment valiantly.
But, having perhaps rebuked her kinsman, the Queen laid down her fan, spread out the scroll with both hands. Perhaps she reread what was written there. At least she sat so for several long moments.
Then she spoke again. One of the waiting ladies brought forward a small tray on which was a box which she opened before presenting it. The contents seemed a solid black block. Ludorica raised her right hand, pressed her thumb firmly against the block, and then to the paper, leaving a clear print. She then dipped her hand in a small basin the lady was quick to offer and washed her thumb clean.
She still held the scroll in her left hand, but allowed it to reroll as Reddick moved to draw back her chair. As she arose she left it lying.
Passing her kinsman as if he had become invisible, Ludorica left the room. The Duke caught up the scroll and tucked it once more within the security of his tunic before he followed her.
Roane stirred, or tried to stir. She had watched a very real scene which carried with it the conviction that by some weird chance she had been projected into Ludorica’s palace and there been witness to some dire action. But why—and how—
The room was gone suddenly. Instead she faced, for perhaps the length of one breath out of a lifetime, a single face. And that was going to haunt her—
“Roane!”
She was being shaken with increasing roughness, roused out of that state which did not seem wholly akin to normal sleep.
“Nelis!” Did she call that aloud? There was danger—
Roane opened her eyes. She was being drawn out of her bed roll by Sandar, and he was doing that shaking. But Sandar was not a part of—
“Roane! Wake up, can’t you? Wake up!” His last shake was hard enough to make her head roll on her shoulders. And she at last accepted that she was back from that strange far place. She lay in her cubicle at camp, and her cousin was using impatiently harsh means to acquaint her of that fact.
“Haabacca jet us to the Cloud!” he exclaimed. “Sniff this so you can see straight!” With one hand he pushed her head forward, with the other made a balled fist and then opened it under her nose, where the capsule he had so crushed could spend its fumes directly into her lungs. Sniffing those fumes cleared her head.
“What is the matter?” she asked sulkily. For all the ominous shadows which clung about that dream, she wanted to hold it—especially the very last—for a dream once gone is sometimes gone forever.
“We’re moving out.” He stood up. “Father let you sleep as long as he could. But we’re ready to collapse shelter now. Store your gear and do it fast!”
She crawled out of the sleeping bag, rolled it with the ease of long practice into a packet which fitted into a pocket in the wall. For the rest there had been a clean sweep here. All the possessions allowed her in this Spartan life had vanished. They must have been hard at work while she slept, slept and dreamed.
And out of that dream she carried the conviction that she had witnessed a true happening. Nelis Imfry—that was who it had concerned the most. The scroll that Reddick had produced and that the Queen had signed—and that last glimpse of a lean brown face before Sandar had shaken her awake—they were strung together as might be a necklace of view-pearls.
View-pearls? Roane paused in her sealing of the pocket. She had not the slightest esper rating. Had not Uncle Offlas had her tested long ago? An esper was invaluable to an archaeologist. Retrogressive hypnotherapy could be used by a sensitive to locate digging sites. There were those who could hold a circlet of view-pearls in their hands and read the authentic past. But she was not one of them. Then how did she know that she had done so now? And how had she been so empowered? Was it part of the same subtle influence which had drawn her to the Princess at their first meeting, forced her to serve Ludorica? But why should that influence now switch her concern to another?
Roane’s hand went to shield her eyes. She tried to think normally, to argue against this new compulsion. No—she was not going to—She was not! The installation was not going to use her, too. But it could not be that! The installation moved the Queen now and what she was doing was directly against her former will.
Could she herself now be a puppet—but whose?
“Roane, come on!” Sandar stood there. “What’s the matter, do you need another waking inhalation?”
“No!” She needed nothing except some quiet, a calm mind, and a chance to think. But when she would get all three she was not sure.
CHAPTER 13
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nbsp; THE SHELTER HAD BEEN COLLAPSED around the packed core of equipment. Unless someone stumbled upon it bodily, it was so well concealed that the camp could not be sighted by any forest traveler. With packs of emergency supplies the three withdrew to the cave passage.
There the elder Keil set a repell beamer working at the entrance, locked it on his thumb set so that no one else might turn it off. As long as he had Roane’s belt she would be a prisoner here, as safely captive as if she were chained by a collar, since without its force she could not go out as others could not enter.
Saying that there was no reason to waste time during their enforced stay in hiding, he and Sandar went back to the installation chamber. They had left a call beam at the dismantled camp to provide direction for their off-world rescuers.
Roane trailed the two men, but to watch those crowned pillars disturbed her. Was it true that the destruction of those inhuman controls might devastate Clio, bring about planet-wide chaos and death to peoples conditioned for generations as puppets? Or—but one could not be sure without careful study made by those trained to deal with such cases. And such study could take planet years.
In the meantime, Roane leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. She discovered she could pull from memory every vivid detail of that dream, if dream it was—from the gleam of the colors, the metals, the gowns, the high ceremony of the meal, to the expressions or lack of expression on the faces of those who had played out the scene.
Time. Her scratched hands balled into small fists which she wished she could use to batter her way out of here. Time was going to defeat her. She need only glance down that aisle of pillars to Uncle Offlas, wearing her belt draped over one shoulder. She had no plan—
Her head ached and the constant mutter of the machines seemed to match it throb for throb, until she could stand it no longer. The men were both intent upon what they were doing, studying the play of lights across those pillar surfaces. She gave a sigh and returned to the cave entrance where they had stacked their survivor kits.