He had surprisingly small hands, one of which he used to seize my own. A voice, female, came from behind him: “Well, y’big lummox, don’t stand there gawkin’, ask ’em in! It ain’t a fit night outside for a magistrate!”
Confederates informally referred to the municipality that we had arrived in as “Mud City”. I had expected any soil that might once have existed on this soggy, rain-beaten world to have long since washed down into the sea. Now I faced scraping off a kilogram I had managed to accumulate—on each foot—in ten second’s exposure to the great outdoors.
The locals pronounced it “Hobgidobolis”. It was the capital of the nation-state of Udobia, the site of Gabelod, the official queenly residence—as it had been for her predecessor, Jagelid XXIII—of Eleador XLIX, whose royal countenance, judging from holograms ’commed to the mother-ship, closely resembled those of the riding-beasts of Sca.
Not that we would be seeing it. Our assignment limited itself to picking up this strangely-courageous deep cover agent, who had spent two decades “inventing” cheap mass-affordable flintlocks, introducing the concept of barrel-rifling, initiating mass-production, while also producing almanacs, newspapers, political handbills, that sort of item, for a living. By local standards, he had become wealthy doing it.
He had also managed to indoctrinate a promising Kilroy genius, one Johd-Beydard Geydes, himself an inventor, colleague, competitor in the printing trade. A member of the upper classes, thus influential in his own right, already Geydes had accepted the “non-aggression principle” that Confederates feel signifies an elementary understanding of basic ethical philosophy. He had even begun writing about it. Assured of other hands to carry the ball of social revolution, the phony b’Goverd looked forward now to “dying”, in order to move forward to his next assignment.
Or retiring, if his wife had anything to say about it.
“By all means!” he shouted suddenly. “What can I be thinkin’ of? Dorrie, put the kettle on at once, me darlin’. These poor boyos’re drenched!”
Murphy ushered us inside: myself, Charlie Norris from the Peter LaNague, Owen Rogers, plus a big-shouldered curly-headed martial-arts instructor named Redhawk Gonzales, who had demonstrated to me, during training, that the Confederacy had forgotten more about mayhem than Vespucci had ever invented. We had rigged ourselves out as Udobian sailors.
Inside, a low, heavy-beamed ceiling flickered in the orange-yellow light from a huge fireplace set into each wall. “B’goverd”, who was rich by local standards, could easily afford the tons of fast-growing vegetable matter this crude heating-system consumed. In such a manner did Afdiarites measure their relative status. Even so, directly in the focus of the roaring hearths, the chill damp of the planet remained intolerable.
Rogers pushed past me to thrust a gray-silver parcel into Murphy’s hands. “Better take this, Woodie. You look like government warmed over.”
In the light of four fires, I could see it, too. Murphy, the first Confederate I had met ever to do so, actually appeared old—heavy lines in his face, silver splinters among the ebony. Moving stiffly, he accepted the package, began to unwrap it, both his hands trembling slightly.
“Sure, an’ it’s the dirty blackmold-spores that’ve got t’me, after all this time, Owen darlin’, ’steada the dirty Black an’ Tan. Another year, two at most, an’ I’ll be subvertin’ the Devil’s bailiwick for him.”
“Six months, more likely,” Rogers contradicted him. “Unless you get back to the ship, where they can take proper care of you.” He indicated the half-opened package. “In the meantime, that’ll help some.”
“It will indeed.” Ignoring modesty, he peeled off his Afdiarite clothing, slipped into a perfectly ordinary smartsuit with help from Rogers, a look of benediction in his tortured eyes. “I’ll be after lyin’ down a while, I think. Mind y’keep your Sassenach hands off me wife!”
“You slipped up, that time,” laughed Norris. “Sassenach is Scotch Gaelic!”
“Shit!” Murphy answered, his Irish accent mysteriously vanishing, “Any of you guys got a cigarette? Smoking hasn’t been invented here yet.”
-2-
It had come time for the “primitive expert” to earn his passage.
Envious, I looked around at the other team-members, each huddled, considerably less miserable than I would soon be, beside one of the Murphys’ cavernous fireplaces. I set my jaw, then wrapped my sodden cloak about my chilly shoulders, trying to conceal the burden I had been entrusted with. The task ahead seemed very nearly insurmountable. It consisted of nothing more than a short walk through the streets of Hobgidobolis.
In the rain.
Sprawled in a heavy wooden rocking chair, the still-unconscious secret agent snored, competing creditably with the thunderous downpour outside his thick windowless walls. His color was noticeably better already, Confederate medical technology working its now-familiar “magic”.
“Up the high street this way,” I repeated Dorrie Murphy’s careful instructions, shivering with horrified disbelief at the pale wrinkled skin of my pointing fingers. “Then left after that, for two more blocks.”
She nodded, lifting a scoopful of coals from one of the hearths, to replenish the supply in a reservoir under the seat of her husband’s chair. He stirred, mumbled something about “Outbound at last!”, rolled over into what looked like an uncomfortable position, started snoring again.
I shivered again, shot a resentful glance at the others, nodded resignedly, lifted the latch. Forcing my way back into the eternal storm, I was soaked again instantly. So much for Confederate miracles. Shaking my head, I had to think hard to remember which way to turn up the street. The summery respite was over. Visibility was down to mere centimeters.
The Udobian streets were massively cobbled. There was no vehicle traffic; the downpour would drive hauling-beasts insane. Heavily-laden myself, I clambered from stone to rounded stone, attempting to avoid a ruined ankle, ineffectively shielded by the broad overhanging roofs of buildings set apart by swiftly-running gutters. It was impossible to hear anything but the rain, mingled with my own tortured gasping for air.
Suddenly: “What do ye think ye’re doin’ in this part o’town, Jack Tar?”
He had to shout it in my ear. The menacing demand was made by a hulking shadow deliberately barring my way. Instantly I regretted our choice of disguises. Apparently sailors were welcomed only at the port.
“Officer, I—”
The man stepped back quickly. With a swish even louder than the rain, the constable’s quarter-staff swung out in a wide arc toward the side of my head, clanging instead off the forte of my hastily-drawn smallsword, its tip still in the scabbard-throat. My hip took most of the force, although my wrist began tingling with its ferocity, as well.
“Resistin’ arrest, is it?” Setting both his hands on the staff, he raised it for a second swing. He never got the chance. Stepping inside his guard, I lifted my elbow, then straightened my wrist, burying half a meter of quarkotopic steel in his throat. He went down to his knees with a horrible gurgle, his blood blackening the runoff between paving blocks.
If he hadn’t rushed me I’d have simply given him the pommel on the jaw.
Gravel skritched on the stone behind me. I lurched as another wooden weapon sighed through the empty space I had just occupied. The brass-shod staff end slammed to the ground. This policeman had a whistle at his lips. I saw him draw breath to summon help, wrenched the blade messily from his partner’s neck, slashed it across his face. The whistle-stub fell to the pavement, whirled away in the torrent, along with most of his nose. The pale blue eyes above his ruined horror of a face were filled with surprise. He grunted with agony. I ended that with a deep thrust of my short, stiff blade through his solar plexus, finishing with a reflexive W-shaped pumping flex of the wrist.
The nightmare minutes stretched into what felt like hours. I tried dragging the bodies between two buildings, but they kept washing back into the street. Finally, I managed to wedge t
heir quarter staves between a pair of walls, knotted their cloaks around them, then left both dead men half-floating, half-hanging, the first policeman’s limp arms making reproachful gestures as the moving waters waved them at me.
I staggered back into the street, shaking from much more than the cold. I resheathed a sword cleansed thoroughly by the rain, glancing around for witnesses, thanking whatever waterlogged gods this planet possessed that its buildings were constructed without any windows for busybodies to peer from. Seeing no one, I reoriented myself with some difficulty, resuming what was becoming an endless voyage to the house of Murphy’s native friend, the inventor-philosopher Johd-Beydard Geydes.
At the appropriate door, I unfastened the harness Murphy had given me. Attached to it was a fortune in gold, platinum, precious stones, practically everything the agent Murphy had accumulated here, plus a healthy portion of his original operating funds. Not surprisingly, the bulk of it was silica-gel crystals, another “invention” of B’goverd’s, the cornerstone of a coming industrial revolution. Geydes was rich, but he would need more capital if the renaissance the little Irishman had started were to continue. Both men had spoken of an academy. This was meant as the seed-money, to be delivered to Geydes with untaxable anonymity.
As quietly as possible, I lifted the slanted meter-square door of the delivery bin around back, accessible from the inside, as well. I laid the bundle on a grill set in its bottom to keep packages as dry as was humanly possible on this miserable planet, then slowly lowered the cover again, eager to retreat to Murphy’s—not to mention his fireplaces.
A hand fell on my shoulder.
“Now, now, my dear fellow, that shouldn’t be necessary.” A strong arm pressed my elbow, slowly forcing my swordblade down and back into its sheath. “I’ve an idea who you are and why you’re here. Shall we make our way to Ubert’s place, or stand here in the rain discussing it?”
I turned, looking up. And up. And up. In the rotten light, I could just make out the tall, gaunt, distinguished form of “Johd-Beydard Geydes?”
He shook his head sadly, “Dear boy, if I were in the employ of Her Equality’s Peace Police, you’d just have given away the name of a fellow conspirator. Pray so not bother making up an amateur lie with regard to your own identity. You’re one of Woodie’s mysterious friends who visit him from time to time. But this visit is the last, is it not?”
I shrugged.
“Let us be off, then. I would have a word with him before he departs.”
The journey back was easier, with two of us to hold each other up. Geydes paused momentarily at the alley where blood still ran into the street. “Bardin-Luther Garder and Jibby Ralv-Budge,” he shouted into my ear, “They weren’t such a bad sort. Rather a pity you had to kill them.”
I spat—the effect was lost in the downpour—refusing other comment. The cops had meant to kill me. We trod onward to B’goverd’s door.
Inside, the agent was sitting up, now, sharing a meal with the others.
“Johd-Beydard, ye rascal! Caught us up to it, did ye?”
The man nodded solemnly. “And now you’re going away to the stars from which you came. It will be most dull here without you, my old friend.”
“Ah, ye’ll find others to teach, Johd Beydard. That young Walder Boddale Bagdabara is after inventin’ repeatin’ firearms already, an’ a century ahead of schedule at that. Hedry Wallaz Keddedy’s foolin’ with magnetism.”
He sighed. “Just remember to avoid the likeliest paths the comin’ revolution’ll want t’follow. Each of the major political systems has its own methods of policy-making’. Authoritarianism, such as ye have here, operates on whim, divine inspiration, the stomach-grumblin’ of the monarch. Majoritarian systems appeal to the ”wisdom“ of the masses—too bad there ain’t any—usually a lot of votin’ gets done t’everybody’s ruination. Individualists, my friend, do ‘none of the above’.”
“I shall try to remember that, Woodie—once I figure out what it means.”
“It means that, no matter how pretty its promises, in order for the government t’act humanely toward somebody, it must first act inhumanely toward somebody else. Because it produces nothin’ itself, y’see? The only ‘service’ it can offer anyone is t’beat people up an’ kill ’em, or threaten t’do so. This helpin’ an’ hurtin’—usually the same people by turns—are inextricably entwined. In a free market system, everybody benefits—this we call ‘profit’—because of the marvelous, absolute, an’ totally bewilderin’ subjectivity of economic value ... ”
“Which in turn,” he replied, “depends on the Law of Marginal Utility that you taught me about. I shall endeavor to remember, my friend.”
“Ye do that—an’ someday ye’ll stop the rain.”
“Someday,” Geydes intoned, as if by ritual, “we’ll stop the rain. Goodbye, Carlos Woodrow Murphy. Whatever else, I shall never forget you.”
“Nor I you, lad. Have a nice revolution.” With that, Murphy sighed, fell immediately asleep again. His wife Dorrie barely rescued the half-full soup bowl just in time to keep it from spilling on the floor.
-3-
Notes from the Asperance Expedition
Armorer/Corporal YD-038 recording
Page Thirty-Nine:
Ships of the Confederate Fleet
Tomfleet: Bobfleet: Trans-universe:
Tom Paine Maru Bob Heinlein Maru Ragnar Danneskold
Tom Jefferson Maru Bob Wilson Maru Hagbard Celine
Tom Szasz Maru Bob Shea Maru Captain Nemo
Tom Edison Maru Bob LeFevre Maru Peter LaNague
Tom Huxley Maru Bob Poole Maru Star Fox
Tom Sowell Maru Bob Walpole Maru Zorro
Also, numerous smaller auxiliaries such as Little Tom, Tom Lehrer Maru, Tom Smothers Maru, Tom Swift Maru, and Bob Phipps Maru.
Some of Malaise’s scattered colony-ships, desperately reworked their nearly-exhausted drives. They got back into the first universe. Thus there is a need perceived for two Confederate fleets, Tomfleet, Bobfleet, searching for lost colonies in both continua—plus a third, smaller cadre of scouting vessels traveling between the two universes.
Those notes I made by firelight, unable to sleep, the ghosts of two peacekeepers haunting me. Say their names: Bardin-Luther Garder, Jibby Ralv-Budge. A pair of human beings doing their jobs. Now they were unfeelingly-butchered meat in a flooded alleyway. I had done it myself.
Going to see for myself, as Lucille had challenged me to do, had turned out to be a more complicated, less satisfactory experiment than I anticipated. I could approve—not that any of my teammates cared—that the Murphys had been trying to raise the living standard on this planet for twenty years, struggling against a system that had been deliberately constructed to prevent progress. Now the valiant spy would die if we could not get him back to the ship. I could approve of rescuing him, as I said, not that anybody cared whether I approved or not.
Around me, Gonzales, Rogers, Norris, were sleeping noisily beside their personal fireplaces, wary even in sleep, hands on their weapons. The Murphys were in another, smaller room with even bigger fireplaces. I rolled over to warm my other side, tucked the notebook away, quietly unsheathed my smallsword. Despite its sophisticated alloy, its sheen appeared dulled by the use I had put it to. For the dozenth time that evening, I wiped its length, trying to get it clean. It did no good at all, perhaps because the tarnish was inside me, rather than upon the blade.
It had been child’s-play, murdering the two policemen.
On the other hand, hypocrite that I was rapidly becoming, I was still feeling shocked at my discovery during the evening’s dinner conversation, that elsewhere—on Sodde Lydfe—relations among the allies of the Hegemony of Podfet would be systematically sabotaged by means of dirty tricks being openly discussed, even laughed about now, while simultaneously communications were to be opened between various warring states. Murphy looked forward to getting “plugged into the program” if he could recover his health quickly enough. Dorri
e asked about technical details. She supplied the praxeological expertise on Afdiar.