Part 26 (1/2)

”Oh, I dunno,” said Phronsie Gillis, pulling a dubious face.

”This exile has its hairy moments, but by and large I dig it.

You feel like boogying back, Bets?”

Mr. Betsy uttered a hollow chuckle. ”Surely you jest.”

”The Milieu is a benevolent despotism! To h.e.l.l with it!” said Pushface.

”Speak for yourself, joker,” Chazz said. ”I'd be at the head of the queue for a return ticket.”

”How many of you,” Aiken asked, ”would go back?”

Eleven hands rose-and then a twelfth, from an eagle-beaked man who said, ”Me too, King-if you and the friggerty Angel of the Abyss are planning a little war.”

Phronsie Gillis gave him a thunderous scowl. ”Any war that features ol' Marc the Paramount Bada.s.s Grand Master won't be little, n.a.z.ir! More likely it'll be terminal to the Pliocene Earth, and the Milieu'll end up never been born!”

”No, that can't happen,” Dimitri interjected with pedantic insistence. ”Contrary to popular superst.i.tion, so-called alternate universes or parallel s.p.a.ce-time lattices are impossible. One does not kill one's own grandfather and subsequently vanis.h.!.+

No action here in the Pliocene can alter the primary reality of which the Milieu-and all future events, for that matter-is a manifestation. According to the universal field theory-”

”Stuff it, Dimitri,” said Mr. Betsy.

A wrangle broke out, which Aiken cut off with another coercive slap. ”Those of you who would go. How many are able to pilot the Tanu aircraft?”

Miss w.a.n.g, Phillipe, Bengt Sandvik, Farhat, Pongo Warburton, and Clifford raised their hands.

”How many pilots would stay here?”

Hands went up from Mr. Betsy, Taffy Evans, Thongsa, Pushface, and Stan Dziekonski.

The King fixed Mr. Betsy with a ruminative eye. ”Just what did you do back in the Galactic Milieu?”

Betsy drew himself up in an att.i.tude of stubborn hauteur.

Basil quickly said, ”Dr. Hudspeth was a researcher and test pilot with Boeing's Commercial Rhocraft Division.”

”I'll be gormed,” murmured the Nonborn King. His gaze roamed over the rest of the a.s.sembled crew and the adventurers stiffened, feeling redactive probes invading their memories, trying in vain to shut the mental windows that the grey torcs had opened into their brains.

”An Oxford don who climbs mountains,” Aiken mused wonderingly. ”A third engineer on a tramp starfreighter ... a surgeon who did one microtomy operation too many ... an upsilon-field generator designer for G-Dyn c.u.mberland ... an egg-bus maintenance mechanic ... an Eskimo electronics engineer ... too bad there's no metallurgist ... ”

When the King withdrew his scrutiny, Basil said, ”Sir, we have been told that you bear us no ill will. Your deputy, Ochal the Harper, described you as a just and worthy ruler-given a few human eccentricities.”

Aiken laughed.

Basil continued persistently. ”You have tantalized us with visions of a return to the Milieu and frightened us by suggesting that the Pliocene might be the scene of a renewed Metapsychic Rebellion. You have rummaged in our brains in a desultory fas.h.i.+on, and I presume that you will interrogate us more stringently in good time, in order to learn the location of the other exotic flying machines-”

”Oh, I know that,” Aiken said. ”Cloud Remillard told me.”

”Then tell us what you intend to do with us,” the don demanded. ”Are we to remain enslaved? Are we mere p.a.w.ns in your dealings with the young rebels?”