Pliocene Exile - The Adversary Part 86

"Why don't you stuff it, you anachronist b.o.o.by?" Betsy hissed. Then he seemed to notice for the first time that they were high in the ionosphere. The expanse of the Northern Peneplain spread out below like a brown and ochre map of low relief, veined with dark green watercourses. "Where are you taking us?" he asked the King petulantly. "I'm not really in the mood for any joyrides."

"No joy," muttered the King. "Now that I can fly one of these birds with medium incompetence, I thought I'd better have a cautious look-see at the River Seine. It's been four days since Marc got the bad news from Elizabeth, and still not a squeak out of him. So it's time for an aerial survey."

"G.o.d's death!" snarled the incarnation of Good Queen Bess.

"What if the brute tries to zap us?"

"We're out of range of the 414 blasters. Hagen says that there's nothing heavier on Kyllikki, now that the X-lasers are out."

"Remillard could d-jump on board!"

"He doesn't know we're here. We're too high to see, and he's got no reason to be fa.r.s.ensing up here. Now quit your chuntering, man, and get on that ground sweeper. Comb the river starting at the estuary."

Grumbling bitterly, Betsy did as he was told.

The King relaxed in his seat, staring pensively at the daytime stars. After a while he said to Dougal, "I hate to admit it, but I've about given up trying to figure out what Marc Remillard will do next. I guess I didn't really expect him to reply to my invitation to the Grand Tourney. He's hardly about to abandon his scheme after so many years, just because his kids run out on him. Elizabeth said it was a long shot, though, that he might pack it in. And I saw for myself that the guy really does love his children."

"Love is not love," Dougal murmured, "when it is mingled with regards that stand aloof from the entire point. As you should know."

"I like enemies I can pin a label on," Aiken complained.

"Sharn and Ayfa! Nodonn! Even Gomnol, d.a.m.n his dead eyes.

But Marc's a different breed. So b.l.o.o.d.y charming ... "

"One may smile and smile and be a villain."

The King seemed to be talking to himself. "I can't let Remillard put the wind up me. I've got to carry on with my royal duties, even if it means he might nail me when I least expect it.

But if I could find where he's hiding ... " He called out to Betsy. "Any sign?"

"Negative," growled the counterfeit Elizabethan.

"The king's will," Dougal said, "is not his own. He may not, as unvalued persons do, carve for himself, for on his choice depends the safety and health of the whole state. So then, my liege, be b.l.o.o.d.y, bold and resolute! Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are-for if 'tis true that doomsday's near, then die all, die merrily!"

He placed both hands upon the crowned lion blazon on his knightly surcoat.

Aiken stared at the golden charge. "Perhaps I should have taken the lion for my emblem instead of the hand." His brow creased. "Dougie, I've seen it before. Back on Dalriada, when I was just a juvenile delinquent disturbing the peace of the other haggis-wallopers. What does the lion emblem mean?"

"It is Asian, of course," said the madman, "and an ancient badge among our Scottish kinfolk as well, with its motto S Rioghal Mo Dhream'Royal Is My Race. It's the crest of Clan Gregor."

Aiken drew in a sharp breath. "And that's your family name?"

"No. I was born a Fletcher-a sept of the clan. But the one I sought so long is a MacGregor unknowing. Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless." The mad knight smiled at the King.

Aiken sank back in the pilot's seat and began to laugh. "First it's born and then it's rooted! Priceless!" He opened a leg pocket, took out a white handkerchief, and wiped his face.

"Thanks Dougie, I needed that."

The medievalist said softly, "My liege, receive what cheer you may. The night is long that never finds the day."

"If you can get control of yourself," came Betsy's acerbic interruption, "you might care to take a goggle at this, Your Majesty. I've scanned the entire river from the Gulf of Armorica to its confluence with the Nonol just below Nionel. The only remotely anomalous object I can pick up on this barbarian peepscope is here-a little over one hundred kilometres inland."

The King frowned at the display. "Jack up the magnification.

No, that only makes it fuzzier. And look how the d.a.m.n thing keeps hopping about, skipping up and down the river like a willo'-the-wisp."

"I told you it was anomalous," Betsy said. "It could be some obscure gravomagnetic effect, or a glitch in the imaging circuitry.

After all, the poor scope's at least a thousand years old. On the other hand-"

"You don't get this gremlin in any other part of the river?"

"No. We could descend to a lower alt.i.tude, of course, or probe it with a detector beam or your fa.r.s.ense."

"I don't think we'll risk that," said the King. "If it is Kyllikki, they might feel the tickle."

"The better part of valour is discretion," Dougal quoted.

"And I have a High Table meeting at Castle Gateway in an hour," Aiken added. "If Marc wants to play coy, I'll let him.

For now."

There were other travellers abroad in the land besides those headed for the tournament Field of Gold, and Mary-Dedra, chatelaine of Black Crag Lodge, came to tell Elizabeth of the latest batch.

"Six more got in just after lunch. On foot, without supplies, and they'd sent back their escorts before setting out on the last leg of the climb today. That's twenty-two all told. Nine humans, the rest Tanu."

"But there's nothing we can do," Elizabeth exclaimed.

"Didn't you tell them that?"

"They're not taking no for an answer."

"Oh, dear. I suppose I'll have to deal with them myself."

Elizabeth pressed fingers against her aching temples, trying to call up a self-redactive impulse. But she'd been at the fa.r.s.ensing too long, hoping to discover where Marc and the schooner might be concealed, and the fatigue and some perverse mental block frustrated healing. She sent out a plea to Creyn on the intimate mode, then said to Dedra: "You'd better bring them all up herewithout the children-I'll try to explain things as kindly as possible."

The human fa.r.s.ensor nodded and left the suite. Elizabeth sat in a chair by one of the large windows, which stood open to the breeze coming out of the north. The heath had begun its second bloom, brightening the dusty green slope with patches of carmine and delicate pink. Brother Anatoly pottered in the kitchen garden below, and cerulean doves cooed in the rafters of the rambling chalet.

Creyn closed the door softly behind him. She sent him a wordless appeal and he strode to her chair and spread his hands over her head. The throbbing ceased.

"Thank you." She let her eyes close. The hands descended to rest lightly on her hair as he stood behind her.

"Have you found anything?" he asked.

"Not a trace. Marc must be using some kind of artificial screen. Not a sigma-that would stick out like a beacon-but something absorptive that swallows my mental beam instead of reflecting it. I never had much to do with such mechanisms back in the Milieu so I don't have counterprogramming. Most of my fa.r.s.ensing was communication, bespeaking other teachers and exchanging information among the worlds of the Human Polity.

Hunter-searcher fa.r.s.ensors operated in an entirely different sphere." Aware that she was babbling, she fell silent. After a few moments had pa.s.sed, she said, "Perhaps Marc's done the unexpected after all. Gone away to another planet and taken the others with him."