The Adversary - 4 (40 page)

The rushing snow passed Basil by. He dared to lift his head and look down, in time to see the avalanche reach the base of the couloir and make glittering puffballs as it buried the bergschrund. Chazz spoke a last telepathic curse and Derek simply said: Goodbye. Nirupam was serenely reciting a Buddhist prayer as he expired from a severed spinal cord. Basil called the names of all three men telepathically and out loud, and then he hung there facing the ice and let tears course down his weathered cheeks. It was sunny and very quiet.

After a while he summoned the long-range faculty of his farspeech and bespoke Bleyn the Champion in Camp Bettaforca. No, he said, he would not turn back. Since he still carried the winch and cable, he would complete the climb up the now avalanche-free slope and see to the installation of the apparatus, so that Camp 2 might be set up easily by the next support team. It would be a simple matter for him to return to Camp 1 by nightfall by winching down and then following the marked route across Tine Glacier.

Reluctantly, Bleyn agreed to this. And for some time he watched the dogged human creep upward, and heard with his mind's ear the tag that spun endlessly through Basil's mind, to be broadcast inadvertently into the aether: I, demens, et saevas curre per Alpes, ut pueris placeas et declamatio fias.

The Tanu knew that Basil was quoting from a human poet again, as he had done when delivering his orientation speech at the start of the climb. The verse from Kipling had appealed to Bleyn's native bravura; but this one, oddly enough, seemed to come from Basil's own unconscious: Go, madman, and hurry over the cruel Alps, that you may delight small boys and inspire feckless adulation.

Humans, thought Bleyn the Champion, were a paradoxical lot.

CHAPTER

NINE Aiken was alone on his balcony in the Castle of Glass, watching Kyllikki with his farsense. Although it was night in Goriah the sun had just set in the region of the Atlantic just north of the Azores where the great schooner ploughed along in a fair breeze. Her solar-collector sails gleamed like bronze in the warm light. She sailed on a flaming sea with the evening star over her shoulder and deep night her destination.

Aiken called: Elizabeth.

Yes. How are you dear?

Cultivating lionheartedness. I've been watching Kyllikki and drinking Laphroaig and stuffing myself with Scotch eggs. There are three portable sigmas all charged and ready to hang around my royal neck when I decide to go to sleep and I can't help thinking how a beam from an X-zapper could slice through those shields like a sgian dhu through a goddam clootie dumpling ... I don't suppose you know where Marc is?

No. When he left us on Wednesday after the baby's cure he gave no indication when he'd return here. Shall I do a scan of Goriah for you?

Please.

... All clear unless he's put up a mental umbrella.

Are you sure?

Aiken I can't farsearch for him as I would an ordinary person. Once he pops through the superficies into normal space he's free to disguise his aura or even wipe it out so that not even a Grand Master can track him.

But I know he isn't able to carry anything large along with him. Only small objects that would fit inside the armour. Certainly not an X-ray laser. You're safe from him wearing your sigmas. And I really don't think he'd try to kill you ... yet.

Not like his darling son Hagen you mean? Well that one's cooled down nicely! All the same he won't get any rides in those aircraft-granting Basil and the boys manage to bring them back. Both Hagen and Cloud are staying with me on tight leash until further notice. Let 'em work on the Guderian device with old Celo breathing down their necks watching for a false move.

How is the project coming?

Well enough I guess. They've taken apart half the gadgets in my contraband store cannibalizing components and materials.

Have you thought further about whether you'd return to the Milieu?

All I can think about is confronting Marc. Get the damn thing over and done with.

He'll pick his own time and place. Unless you do as I suggested.

Meet him at your place? ... Not on your life! He'd have both of us right where he wanted us.

He had the chance to dominate me already when he took over the executive during Brendan's redaction.

And he let me go. I don't think you understand Marc! YouthinkYOUdo?!

Better than you. I've worked with him and I've also done a deep memoreview of some Rebellion history materials that I studied a long time ago. Marc is a man with his own strange code of honour. If he agreed to confer with you on neutral ground with me as monitor he'd do you no harm.

Ha! I'd wallop him without blinking a fewking eye-truce or not!

No you won't. Not if you give your word to me. I know you.

Damned if you do Woman! This matter of Marc toting things around with him on the d-jump really tears it. When he gets the program squared away what's to stop him from plopping Kyllikki herself right down in the castle courtyard.

Listen to me Aiken. Try to understand. Once Marc becomes capable of that sort of psychotransport he has no motive left for opposing the reopening of the timegate.

I want to get the two of you together to be sure you realize this.

? ... You mean the Milieu fuzz would be no threat to Marc if he could hop all over the planet-with his geriatric villains and their gear tucked under his metaphorical arm?

Exactly.

[Elation] Woman you could be right. [Dejection.] Oh-oh.

We're forgetting a complicating factor. Those bloody Rebel kids. And I use the sanguine modifier with deliberate precision.

Any resolution would have to involve them. Marc doesn't want to let them go.

[Perplexity. Anger. Dichotomous potentialities. Fatigue.] I know dear. Nothing can be done immediately anyway. I'll be too busy watching the situation on Monte Rosa and advising the people there.

You think the Famorel Firvulag will attack tomorrow then?

When the two assault teams try to take off on their big push over the top?

It's only two days until Truce-and the Famorel Little People are more traditional-minded than Sharn and Ayfa. They'll quit fighting and go home at dawn on October first.

I watched them creeping around the base of the mountain today. Damn! If only I could do something! But I barely managed to queer the Bessemer converter coup. The drain left me too pooped to fly-although Hagen and his crowd don't know that.

You'll regain your strength more quickly now that the integration of your personality is proceeding. Eventually you'll be even stronger than before.

No doubt. If I live so long. But I've an uncanny feeling ...

Do you know we're the only two Greenies left?

?Group Green?

All of them gone. Except the two of us. And now daft Dougal blethering on about Asian and his noble sacrifice, and the Tanu on my High Table deciding it's Marc Remillard who's the Adversary that will set off the Nightfall War.

Then the only one left will be you.

Aiken dear. You've been drinking too much malt whisky. You're maudlin-and you're wrong. Stein's alive.

I've looked for him. Never found hide nor hair nor horned helm ... You are a bit squiffed. I'll show you him and Sukey and little Thor if you promise me that you'll never try to make contact with them or interfere with them in any way.

They had a kid-? Aw. I promise. On my honour as Nonborn King. Why should I drag them into my troubles?

But w a i t ... are they happy?

Happy as can be.

[Sentimental satisfaction.] Then show me. Please.

Wait. There.

[Image: River island half-moon rushlighted window reflection black water cypresses live oaks cinnamons log house jetty clinkerbuilt dory crocodile fence silvered garden plot thorn-guarded yard thatch roof stick chimney. Open bead-screened summer room work shed main cabin glass windows wide hearth planked floor A MAN A WOMAN HOLDING A CHILD.

] A boy named Thor you say? How old?

About two months now. He's a lovely strong child.

Sukey looks fine. Stein looks ... older. How do they live?

He hunts and fishes and traps. Sometimes very rarely he goes down the Garonne and sails to Rocilan to trade. Sukey is starting to pester him to take her and the child but he puts her off afraid she would want to settle near the city. Near Tanu and other humans who would find out.

How Stein helped Felice at Gibraltar? ... Does that bother him?He remembers. He thinks it was necessary but he remembers. It would be much worse if you were to come back into his life. Stein must be let alone like a healing wound. Look.

[Image: Baby placed in cradle cries Father takes him holds against massive deerskinvested shoulder pats tiny back expertly dips fingertip in honeypot Baby suckles Father cuddles yellow-bearded ferocity smiles.

] He makes a pretty good dad.

Your unconscious thought so.

... A weird thing that and one I never would have anticipated.

The unconscious uses what it must.

And why Mayvar for my mother figure-and not you?

She was right.

You loved her and him too power& vulnerability stature&puniness maturejudgment&childishimpulse. In both. In you. Their child is father of your man. You chose your parents and gave birth to yourself.

I love you too!.

Sisterly. I'm the Ice Queen remember?

[Quiet laughter. Contemplation of slowly fading image.] Funny, I haven't been interested in that sort of thing lately.

You will be. Don't worry about that.

Save my energy for the real problems! ... One piece of good news today amidst the encircling gloom: We've located Tony Wayland that metallurgist we need for the Guderian Project. Would you believe? Chief Burke and his Lowlives nabbed the guy and offered to barter him to us!

All they want in return is free passage back to the Milieu and a fair shake for their bandito buddies. Of course I agreed. The Chief will be coming into Roniah tomorrow to work out details of the swap with Kuhal Earthshaker at the City-Lord's place.

Hm. I haven't been in touch with Peo since before young Brendan's redaction. Strange that he should be willing to deal with a fellow Lowlife as a commodity.

Tony was eager to be sold down the river. The alternative was being hanged for high crimes and misdemeanours.

Good grief.

Good night Elizabeth.

Walter Saastamoinen came onto Kyllikki's bridge punctually at midnight to relieve Patricia Castellane at the helm.

"All peaceful, I presume," he remarked, thumbing the key pad of the course director and studying the replay of first-watch performance events. "You're doing very well at manual for an apprentice, Pat. The director only overruled you once in the entire four-hour trick."

"It's a relief to be able to do something besides those miserable psych-up exercises," she said. "My metafunctions aren't going to get much stronger through mental muscle flexing. More likely weaker, with my dirigent formation. But try to tell Jeff that." Her mouth was taut with resentment.

Walter moved to the wheel, disengaged the autopilot, and let the soul of the great schooner come into him.

Oh, you beauty!

"Sailing Kyllikki is good for what ails both of us. I wish we could just keep going. Alter course to the south ... touch in along the coast of Africa ... round the Cape of Good Hope and go up into the Indian Ocean to see Pliocene Asia. Marc would never let us range out, after the Antarctic tragedy. But now there's no real reason why we shouldn't."

She was making them coffee at the dispenser and now handed a mug to Walter, frowning slightly. "I don't understand you."

"The Milieu coppers aren't going to be able to nab us if Marc succeeds with this new d-jump thing." He twiddled with the atmospheric analog unit next to the binnacle. "As I understand it, he should be able to take us all extraplanetary once he gets the thing mastered. We could cruise around until he does. Forget about fighting with the kids over the time-gate. Surely they'd be willing to delay the opening until we got safely away."

"Would they?" Patricia's voice was flat. "I can think of at least one who might not."

Walter ignored that. "I'm not sure I trust this little weather analoger overmuch," he said, frowning. "It's wishy-washy about the deep trough below Rockall. Doesn't want to commit itself on trend. We may have to ask Marc to do a deep scan of the system. If the storm drifts our way we could be in for an uncomfortable couple of days that could be avoided with a course change, given the proper trend data."

Patricia was not to be distracted. "You know Hagen hates Marc. The boy is looking forward to setting the Magistratum on his father! We'll have to use force to keep that time-gate closed.

Nothing else will suffice. Unless you convince the children of their danger, Walter."

"I like sailing along the moonpath, don't you? It doesn't often happen that it works out just right that way-but when it does, it's magic."

She slammed her coffee cup down on the chart console. "Stick your head in the sand, then! Keep dreaming that we can solve this terrible mess with sweet reason and kindly intentions. But Cordelia Warshaw and I know better-and it won't be long before even Marc has to face the truth."

Walter's lips compressed into a hard line. He stared straight ahead, adjusting the wheel with delicate movements.

Patricia said, "I was talking to Jordy about the teleportation of external mass. In order for Marc to carry objects situated outside his CE rig, he'll have to expand the upsilon-field generated by his mind. It means jacking up the input power to the rig-putting a greater and greater stress on his brain. He can't do it abruptly or he'll risk overload. Kramer's not even sure that Marc has the capacity to encompass an area large enough to be practicable. Then there are the passengers. Will they need life-support gear for jumps on Earth? All we have is the spare suit of CE armour, three more tons of mass for Marc to carry.

The testing will take time ... But I hardly think Hagen or Aiken Drum will delay opening the time-gate while Marc solves his teleportation problems."

"We could ask them to," Walter said.