Blade"s captors led him through one of the gates in the outer walls, past ragged sentries mostly armed with magazine rifles or crossbows. A more neatly dressed man with a pistol led the whole party through the maze inside the walls to the Great House. There Chyatho went inside, to learn if the Monitor would receive them today. The others waited outside, giving Blade a chance to study the weird contrasts all around him.
There was the door itself. It was twice as high as a man, of elaborately carved wood, and closed by a wrought-iron bar as thick as Blade"s thigh. Above it in the wall was a niche, with two sentries on guard. They wore medieval-looking mail, but they sat by a water-cooled machine gun which might have come from the trenches of World War I. On top of the machine gun was something remarkably like a laser sight. Without moving his head, Blade could see five centuries of weapons and fortifications staring back at him.
By turning his head slightly, Blade could get even more confused. Of the five buildings in sight, two were log huts. One was a barracks, with soldiers coming in and out, and more sitting on the doorstep. Between the two huts was a large and thickly planted vegetable garden, with men and women working in it under the eyes of a couple of overseers. Both the men and the women wore nothing but loincloths. The people of Kaldak hadn"t worried much about nudity the last time Blade was here; this didn"t seem to have changed.
Of the three other buildings, one was stone like the walls, one was brand-new brick, and one was metal. The metal one was probably the oldest thing in sight. It was completely overgrown with vines and bushes and even small trees. The only clean spots were part of the roof and around the doorway. There the metal shone rustless and bright after what must have been centuries. Blade had the feeling that several Dimensions had all run together like puddles.
Eventually Chyatho came out, looking triumphant. Another guard came with him. "Monitor Bekror will see you now," the guard said.
Inside the hall, the first thing Blade saw was two clerks. Both wore monkish-looking robes and carried jewel-hilted daggers in their belts. One was using an adding machine, the other a crude typewriter. They sat in a cubicle hung with colorful tapestries. Just outside the cubicle four armed men sat on sandbags piled around a heavy laser, placed so that it could sweep the whole hall in a matter of seconds. The soldiers wore uniforms instead of chain mail, but they also carried sheathed swords. Blade had to listen to the language around him to remember that he was in Kaldak, or indeed in any place real.
Monitor Bekror met them seated at a long table at the far end of the hall. Several guards stood close by, but he obviously wasn"t relying completely on them. He wore a shirt of plastic discs over leather, a sword, and a laser pistol.
How long has it been? Blade nearly shouted the question out loud. Then he saw a large tapestry hanging on the wall over the Monitor"s head. It showed a powerful dark-haired man flying above a ruined city on the strangest creature Blade had ever seen or imagined. It looked like one of the big metal waldos he"d learned how to control-the twelve-foot humanoid Fighting Machines. But it had a man"s face on top of its metal body, and great feathered wings growing out of its back. Laser beams shot out of its eyes, and the man held a flaming sword.
This question he had to ask, risky as it might be. He pointed at the tapestry. "The-the High One?"
Sparra shook her head. "That is the Sky Master Blade."
Fortunately no one expected Blade to make a quick reply to that. He shook his head slowly. "The High One-I know him."
"Is that your name for the Sky Master?" said Sparra.
Chyatho made a disgusted noise. "Sparra, do not waste Monitor Bekror"s time trying to get from this fool answers he will never give. Honored Monitor, we found this man on the bank of the Sclath." He told the story of Blade"s capture. "I think Sparra hopes he may get back his wits. I do not. I think he has either lost them for good or is only pretending. If he is only pretending, we should learn what he really is."
Sparra had been fizzing like a gla.s.s of champagne while Chyatho spoke. Now she bubbled over. "Chyatho wants this man killed or tortured only because he touched me. Clearly Chyatho is so proud of the power of his loins in giving me a child that he wishes me to be his alone. I am sorry to have to shame him by saying this here, Honored Monitor. But I do not think you want to judge this man on Chyatho"s word and nothing else."
The Monitor cleaned his gla.s.ses, pulled at his goatee, and scratched his heavy belly, then shook his head. "I do not. Chyatho, is what Sparra says true? That you would bond with her by the New Law, not the Old?"
Chyatho sighed. "Yes. I have asked her a hundred times!"
"I have refused a hundred times, too," snapped Sparra. "If Chyatho were not a fool, he would have stopped-"
The Monitor raised a hand and thumped the table with the other fist. "Enough of your quarrel. My hall is not the place for it. By the power of justice given me under both the Old Law and the New Law, I give my judgment.
"I shall take this man into my care. If he can be taught to work, he shall work. Even if not, he shall not go naked or hungry. The Sky Master Blade taught us that when we have both the Oltec and the Newtec, it is wrong to let men starve who can be fed." Everyone in the hall bowed their heads at the mention of the sacred name "Blade."
"I shall also send to Kaldak for a truth-seeing machine. It is said that no man can hide his inner self from them."
"Would it not be wiser to send him to Kaldak?" said Sparra. "I would be glad to take him." Chyatho glared but said nothing.
"It is time that the rulers of Kaldak learned we of Sclathdon are their allies, not their slaves like captured Tribesmen," said Bekror sharply. "If they mean any of their promises to us, they will send the truthseer here. If they do not, it is as well to learn now. If they do not want to learn about this man, the gardens can always use a strong man."
"But if he is lying, and has some dangerous plans-" began Chyatho.
Bekror raised his cup as if he wanted to throw it at Chyatho. "Use your brains instead of your b.a.l.l.s for once, Chyatho! We are so far from Doimar that they could not have sent him without magic, let alone just Oltec! The Tribes have been peaceful, and does he look like any sort of Tribesman anyway?"
"No," said Chyatho, with a sigh.
"Very well. Then there is nothing he can do to harm us. That is my judgment, given by my power to take away your rank if you go on arguing."
Chyatho nodded stiffly. Blade rather wished the Monitor hadn"t been so harsh. He"d probably guaranteed that Chyatho would take out his resentment on Blade the first time he thought he had a chance.
The Monitor signaled to his guards to take charge of Blade. They took his rucksack and knives, which made him uneasy for a moment, until he saw them given to Sparra-"spoils of the hunt," the Monitor said. As the guards led Blade out, he knew he"d learned something, although it wasn"t exactly good news.
The Sky Master Blade was an almost divine figure in the history of this Dimension. If the people here learned that the man they held prisoner was the Sky Master himself, everyone would be curious about his return. Much too curious. They might not dare using the lie detector on him, but there would be a lot of questions asked. Scientists and engineers would be asking some of them. What would come of that? Nothing good for the Dimension X secret.
So-how safe was his ident.i.ty? Apparently he was a long way from Kaldak, in an area brought under the city"s rule since his first trip. Bekror seemed openly resentful of Kaldak"s authority, in fact. It was unlikely that anyone here had ever seen the Sky Master Blade in the flesh, even if Blade"s earlier trip to this Dimension was not so long ago that people who had seen him then were still alive today.
If he stayed out of Kaldak and away from lie detectors, he would probably be safe. He couldn"t do much to find Cheeky while disguised as a feebleminded farmhand, but at least he"d be doing the more important job adequately.
And who could say? He might find a way to do both. Blade knew that as long as he was alive and alert, things could always change-sometimes even for the better. And at least he could hope to see trouble coming far enough in advance to run like h.e.l.l, if that was the best he could do!
Chapter 5.
As one of Bekror"s farmhands, Blade had food, simple work, and plenty of chances to keep his eyes and ears open. It would have been hard to come up with a safer way of learning about this Dimension. Only the loss of Cheeky and the need to keep up the act of losing his memory spoiled the fun.
He finally decided that it must have been at least a generation since his last trip to Kaldak. He couldn"t imagine so many changes taking place in less time. Of course the cold war with Doimar was still going on, and that sort of thing always pushed technology forward. It still took a certain amount of time to make the machines to make the machines to make the weapons! Twenty-five to thirty years at least, Blade guessed.
Since the Sky Master Blade came, there were two Laws in all the lands ruled from Kaldak, the Old Law and the New Law. Some people apparently preferred one, some the other. For example, under the Old Law women didn"t have to be chaste or faithful. The custom arose in the days when most people were sterile. All the fertile ones had to get together sooner or later for there to be any children at all.
Under the New Law, a man who had fathered a child on a woman could ask her to remain faithful to him for life. Often she agreed. If she did the father was obliged to protect her and the child.
On the other hand, some mothers still preferred their independence. Sparra was one of these. When a New Law man wanted fidelity from an Old Law woman, there was usually trouble. Blade only hoped he wouldn"t get caught in the middle of any more of it.
There was also Oltec and Newtec. The Oltec-or old technology-was the same as last time: the knowledge and machines left over from the prewar civilization, such as the lasers and the power cells. In his last visit, Blade had helped the inhabitants of this Dimension relearn the use of these devices.
However, the superst.i.tious fear of Oltec was gone. "The Sky Master Blade taught us wisdom" was the standard phrase. People could now repair a laser or recharge a power cell. They"d also rediscovered more Oltec which hadn"t been used since the fall of the old civilization. The antigravity skytugs were the best example of that, although they were still rare.
They had also rediscovered minicomputers. Already Kaldak had Fighting Machines better, more compact, and more powerful than the old waldo robots. Before long these computers would be used by civilians; that clerk with his adding machine would be out of work within a generation at most.
There was also Newtec-what the Kaldakans had reinvented for themselves since the time of the Sky Master Blade. Most of the storehouses of Oltec were long since exhausted. There still weren"t many places where new Oltec could be built or even repaired. It was much easier to build a hydrogen balloon and then tow it with a skytug, or build a steamboat and arm it with lasers, or build pistols, rifles, grenades, and mortars using plain old smokeless powder.
So the weird stew of technologies Blade saw around him actually showed a good deal of common sense and ingenuity on the part of the Kaldakans. He wondered how Doimar had done, with less prejudice against Oltec to begin with. However, since the two cities were still hostile, no one seemed to be willing to talk much about "the enemy."
It was really ironic. Blade had expected great things of the people of this Dimension once they got started on the road back toward civilization. They hadn"t disappointed him either. But he couldn"t possibly step forward and take any of the credit he deserved. That would threaten the Dimension X secret! Blade had to laugh.
When Blade went to bed, the moon was out. He could tell this from the spot of pale light on the floor of his cubicle. Like the other farmhands, Blade lived underground, in what he suspected was once an Oltec bomb shelter. Now it was divided into cubicles by brick and timber walls. Most of the farmhands slept two to a cubicle, but no one wanted to share a cubicle with a half-wit. Once they"d seen that Blade could take care of himself, they let him have a cubicle alone.
Over the centuries, the ground and the rubble of the building on the surface shifted. A shaft opened from the surface into Blade"s cubicle. It would be a tight squeeze, but if he had to leave in a hurry he now had a line of retreat.
This let him sleep more easily at night. Not that he needed much help, after twelve hours" work and a heavy meal washed down with beer. The bed was crude but comfortable, too. Monitor Bekror was clearly the sort of master who believed that happy workers did their best. He was not one of the tyrannical masters who could drive their workers to the desperate step of running off to the Tribes.
The Tribes of mutants were much weaker now than the first time Blade came to Kaldak. Both of the great cities had expanded their lands. Where the cities ruled, the Tribesmen either died in the wars of conquest or fled beyond the reach of the cities.
Even then they still suffered losses. Sometimes they fought among themselves, larger Tribes with Newtec weapons devouring smaller ones. They exterminated the last pitiful bands of really serious mutants left over from the war. They even lost people raiding the outposts of the cities. Monitor Bekror"s home had once been such an outpost of Kaldak, but it hadn"t been attacked in five years. The lands of the Tribes were no more than two days" march away, but they seemed to have lost the will to fight.
Blade drank half the water in the jug on the floor by his bed and combed his hair with a comb of wire teeth set in a bone handle. The handle was carved into the form of a serpent. The craftsmen of Kaldak hadn"t lost their habit of making even small household objects beautiful.
Then he used the rest of the water to wash the dust and dinner sc.r.a.ps out of his beard. He"d started growing one as soon as he saw it was allowed. Right now it was just long enough to make him look like a tramp. However, another week and even the people who"d seen him on the first trip would have trouble recognizing him. Certainly n.o.body here was going to recognize him from the portrait of the Sky Master on the tapestry in Bekror"s hall!
If it hadn"t been for the Dimension X secret, Blade would have been hoping that some of his friends from the first trip were still alive. His solitary life didn"t give him friends that often. Chief Peython would probably be dead now, but what about his son, Bairam?
And Kareena-although she"d probably be a grandmother now, gray-haired and considerably older than Blade. He would still have liked to see her again. She had the combination of intelligence, courage, beauty, and the ability to stick up for herself he"d hope for if he ever looked for a wife again. After his experience with Zoe, he was afraid to do that again until after he retired-and what his chances of living that long were, G.o.d only knew. Certainly no life insurance company would have called Blade a terribly good risk!
He lay down on the bed and pulled the blankets over himself. He was just stretching out when he noticed that the patch of moonlight on the floor was smaller than before. Had the moon gone behind a cloud? Then he noticed that the patch was changing both shape and size much too fast. Someone was crawling down the shaft from the surface.
Blade rolled over until he could get a good view of the ceiling. At the same time, he tried to look as if he were asleep or dozing. It would be out of character for him to be alert and ready for his visitor.
Now the moonlight was almost gone, and he could hear sc.r.a.pings and scrabblings from overhead. A small pebble dropped out of the shaft and plopped into the water jug. Then a human figure followed it.
Blade wanted to laugh. Instead of a would-be a.s.sa.s.sin, perhaps Chyatho or someone sent by him, it was Sparra. She wore coveralls and her pistol, but had slung her boots around her neck. He recognized her at once, although she"d bound her dark hair under a scarf to keep off the dust of the shaft. She landed as lightly as a cat, looked around the room to make sure she was alone except for Blade, then undid the scarf. Her hair flowed down across her shoulders, framing her strong face. It shone glossy in the moonlight. Blade felt his breath quicken.
On her bare feet Sparra padded over to the bed and sat down cross-legged beside it. Then she lifted the blanket and ran her eyes down Blade"s naked body. She seemed to like what she saw.
"Those scars-so many of them," she murmured. "If you were not a soldier or a hunter of dangerous game, I would like to know what you were. Will I ever know? Will you ever know, you poor lost man? Well, even now I know one thing. You were not born witless. Your blood is sound. I wonder about your loins, though."
Blade was also wondering about his loins; other parts of his body, too. He"d never before had to make love to a woman while pretending to be feebleminded. At least she didn"t seem to expect him to be feeble-bodied as well. Perhaps if he- "But you won"t have had a woman for a long time, I suppose?" Sparra murmured. "No harm in that, but. . ." She ran nimble fingers up and down Blade"s shaft, until it started to quiver encouragingly. Then without bothering to undress she bent over and enveloped the sensitive flesh with her lips.
Sparra"s lips were as skilled as her fingers. That was Blade"s first thought. It was also his last coherent thought for quite a while, as the pleasure Sparra was giving him swallowed him up. He couldn"t have gone on acting if twenty scientists were standing around, ready to take notes on anything he let slip about the Dimension X secret.
Fortunately Sparra wasn"t taking notes. Her partner"s obvious arousal and pleasure increased her own. After Blade"s first few gasps she drew back and pulled off her coveralls. Under it she wore a sort of body stocking, with b.u.t.tons down the front. Then she went back to work.
A little bit later, she saw Blade"s fingers beginning to writhe, as if he wanted to reach out and touch. "I think you remember something," she said, licking her lips. She unb.u.t.toned the body stocking down to the waist. Blade reached out and cupped one of the full b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The dark nipple was already hard against his palm. He stroked it until Sparra threw her head back and gripped his wrist.
"Ah-n-n-no-too strong," and a few other things which made even less sense. Blade kept his hand in place, and after a while she let him go on. Her breast felt too good in his hand, and maybe his hand felt too good on her breast. I wonder how long it"s been since she was bedded?
Then Sparra twisted clear, and pulled her garment down so that she was bare to the waist. Now Blade could reach one breast while she bent over him again and put her lips to work. The breast he couldn"t reach, she kept pressing against him. When he finally groaned with release, she drank him down.
Then Sparra drew back and stripped off the rest of her clothes. She stood in the patch of moonlight and turned slowly, knowing Blade"s eyes were on her. He could tell she was no girl, and if he looked closely he could see the Stretch marks. Otherwise she was magnificent, with an all-over tan. Blade felt the beginnings of new arousal just looking at her.
She didn"t wait for him, and he didn"t expect her to. The lush triangle of dark hair between her thighs was already damp. She lay down on the narrow bed beside him, then rolled over on top of him. Her lips traced his eyebrows, then moved down over his cheeks and throat, while her hands chased each other over his ribs ....
She worked her way down until his new erection was cradled between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. There she stayed, squeezing him firmly between the solid curves. She slid back and forth, and sometimes shifted to rub a nipple against Blade"s rigid pulsing flesh.
At last Blade couldn"t stand it anymore. He clutched Sparra by both shoulders and pulled her up onto him. He slid smoothly into her inner warmth, and she moaned. His hands clamped down on the solid b.u.t.tocks, squeezing with more strength than tenderness as his own control faded.
It vanished entirely. So did Sparra"s. They thrashed together in a tangle of arms and legs. Blade"s groans mingled with Sparra"s sobs of delight, as their sweat ran together and then flowed off them to soak the blankets.
After what seemed like an hour, the moment of release ended, and they lay still.
Sparra lay quiet on top of Blade so long that he was afraid she"d gone to sleep. He badly wanted to himself, but didn"t want to be that rude to his partner. Besides, if someone came by and saw them together-well, Chyatho had been jealous enough over his simply patting Sparra"s cheek!
At last Sparra"s eyes flickered open. She raised her head and kissed Blade on the nose, then giggled. "Well, my friend. I thought your loins were sounder than your wits. I"m glad to know I"m still such a good judge of men. I wonder-were you a good judge of women, when you had your wits about you? Certainly you know your way around a bed."
Blade frowned, pretending to make a great mental effort. "I think-I think I had a-woman, wife? Anyway, when you touched me-I knew what I should do."
"You certainly did!" said Sparra unblushingly. "I hope you"ll remember it, too, now that it"s come back to you. I"m not going to use you up and throw you away after one night! No, by the Laws!" She wriggled up and bit his left ear hard enough to make Blade wince, then slid back down and rested her head on his stomach.
Blade let his fingers play with her tangled hair. He didn"t mind Sparra being hungry for him-he"d seldom had a more satisfactory bed partner. But if the affair went on too long, Chyatho would notice. Before that happened, Blade knew he should be ready to escape from Monitor Bekror"s estate.
Ideally he should find some place far enough from Kaldak to keep the Dimension X secret safe, but close enough to where he"d landed so that he could go on looking for Cheeky. He"d be d.a.m.ned if he was going to simply give up on the little fellow without a good fight!
It was easier to describe such a place than it would be to find it, though, but-wait a minute! What about the Tribes? They were close enough, certainly. They also had no science or technology worth mentioning, so they would be no danger to the Dimension X secret. If he told them that Cheeky was a magical animal, who would give them power against the Kaldakans. . . ?
Yes, but would the Tribes welcome strangers, or kill them on sight? Even if they let him in, how could he convince them that they should follow him anywhere, let alone in a war? And was Cheeky worth setting the whole border country aflame and getting hundreds or thousands of people killed?
Reluctantly, Blade decided he was not. The feather-monkey was a friend as well as a valuable scientific experiment. He could not convince himself that Cheeky was worth a war. He would go to the Tribes if he had to escape Chyatho or the lie detector, but not try to enlist them in a search for Cheeky.
Back to square one. If he only hadn"t pretended to have lost his memory-! But if he hadn"t, he still couldn"t have asked too many questions about Cheeky. If the Kaldakans weren"t suspicious already, the feather-monkey could easily make them so.
d.a.m.n! Blade nearly said the word out loud. He wanted to get up and slam his fist against the wall in sheer rage and frustration. Then he saw that Sparra really was asleep, her arms around him and her legs drawn up. He ran his hand down the smooth skin of her back to the cleft between her b.u.t.tocks. She wriggled like a kitten and smiled in her sleep. He wouldn"t wake her up yet.
He went back to trying to find a way out of this trap. It didn"t make any difference that he"d walked into the trap himself, or in fact that he really hadn"t had much choice. The Dimension X secret had to be protected, and that was that.
He did know one thing. This was the last time he was going to risk having to sacrifice someone else to keep the secret. This time it had been Cheeky, which was bad enough. Next time it might be the first human companion to make the trip safely.
This decision might surprise Lord Leighton. He might even put it down as a weakness. It wouldn"t surprise J, however, and he wouldn"t attribute it to a weakness on Blade"s part. Better than most, J knew that a good agent couldn"t be a wild animal, that he had to have some scruples.
Gently Blade began to caress Sparra back to wakefulness. They would make love again, then he would somehow try to make her understand he wanted to be alone. She would probably be ready for her own bed by then anyway.
One hand on her b.u.t.tocks, the other creeping under her to stroke a breast. The nipple hardening, her eyes opening, a little gasp of pleasure, her solid flesh moving against his so that he felt his erection returning- Someone screamed. It was faint and far off, but there could be no mistake about it. Then two more screams, and a shout.
"Tribesmen! Turn out, turn out! Tribes-!" and another scream ending in the gurgle of someone getting his throat cut. If you heard that sound once, you could never again mistake it for anything else-particularly when the first time, it was you doing the throat-cutting.
Blade sat up. Sparra rolled off the bed, nipples still erect and mouth still slack with desire. A sharp explosion sounded, then the crackle of a laser and several gunshots.
Now Blade heard a whole series of explosions and recognized them. Some were grenades, others mortar sh.e.l.ls. Instead of his going to the Tribes, the Tribes had come to him. And they"d come much better armed than anyone around here seemed to expect.
Chapter 6.
While Blade was figuring out what was going on, Sparra knelt naked on the floor, waiting for her arousal to fade. When it did, she pulled on her body stocking and belted the pistol over it. Then she sat down and started tugging on her boots.
Blade swung his feet over the edge of the bed and reached for his own clothes. Sparra shook her head. "No, my strong one. No. Bad men out there. They will hurt you. Hurt-trouble."
Being treated as a child just after he"d so thoroughly proved he was a man annoyed Blade, He let out an oath which made Sparra"s eyes widen. Then he stood up and pulled on his pants.