Part 85 (1/2)
How are the solar impellers holding up?”
”Very well,” said the former starfleet strategist.
”Have Walter take us up at a modest cruise speed, then.
We're in no hurry. Maintain the camouflage-and be sure it's dense enough to foil aerial surveillance as well as farsight scan.”
”We'll be secure enough,” Gathen said, ”unless one of the King's people actually eyeb.a.l.l.s us from the riverbank.”
”We ought to make certain no stray thought betrays our position,” Patricia said, glancing at Manion.
”I'll count on you to take care of that,” Marc said.
Cordelia Warshaw asked, ”Do you have any further orders for us?”
”Relax,” Marc told them all, the famous smile overriding the desolation in his eyes. ”I myself intend to go fis.h.i.+ng.”
CHAPTER FIVE.
During that Truce before Nightfall, it seemed that almost everyone in the Many-Coloured Land was on the move.
The Tanu had always flocked to the games; but this autumn, the King issued an extraordinary proclamation, commanding that every human-even those who customarily remained at home caretaking the cities and plantations and other establishments-must attend the Grand Tourney. So they all came out to enjoy the holiday, people torced in gold and silver and grey, and the lowly bareneck serfs as well. The cities, with the exception of the capital and Roniah, which hosted the travellers, were left almost deserted but for the faithful ramas. The King's invitation was extended to outlaw humans, too, and they came trickling out of the Spanish wilderness, the high Helvetides, and the Jura. The royal word reached into the swamps of Bordeaux and the Paris Basin and the haunted forests of darkest Albion.
Drawn as much by the prospect of fun and free food and drink as by curiosity over the import of the King's decree, more than 45,000 human beings set out for Nionel and the Field of Gold-virtually all who resided in Pliocene Europe. Of them, perhaps 1500 were operant golds and twice that number were torced with the precious metal but lacking in significant mental powers. There were 4200 silvers, some 8500 greys, and under 20,000 barenecks who had willingly accepted Tanu servitude.
The free Lowlives numbered about 8000, but more than half of those were already residents of Nionel.
Tadanori Kawai was among the few who heard the King's proclamation and politely demurred. He wished to husband his failing strength, and there was considerable work to be done preparing Hidden Springs for the rainy season.
Stein Oleson heard the proclamation and ignored it. His Viking intuition told him what the Fimbulvetr presaged, and he knew that the Field of Gold was no place for him or his family.
Huldah Henning, away on the Isle of Kersic, never knew of the royal announcement at all, nor would she have accepted its invitation. She was in her eighth month, and the tri-hybrid son of Nodonn Battlemaster rode turbulently in her womb.
To his metapsychically operant subjects King Aiken-Lugonn sent a more sombre message: Attend the Tourney, ready to cooperate in metaconcert, or risk the Foe's conquest of our land.
The response was one of overwhelming fealty. Every goldwearer in the kingdom who was not at the threshold of Tana's Peace or in Skin set out obediently for Nionel: some 2400 pureblooded Tanu and less than 5000 hybrids. Together with the operant human golds and silvers, the minds pledged to the King's service in the event of Nightfall totalled just over 13,000.
Not counting the Howlers, there were more than 80,000 Firvulag.
On a day in mid-October, when the Roniah Fair was at its height and the air quivered in thirty-five degree heat and thunderheads skulked about the flanks of the steaming Mont-Dore volcano, the fearsome prodigy appeared!
Travellers on the Great South Road craned their necks and came to a standstill, peering into the dazzling afternoon sky.
Their minds and voices uttered cries of amazement, surprised recognition; or near panic-according to whether the observer was Tanu, human or Firvulag. Chalikos, h.e.l.lads, and the motley collection of hipparions and half-tamed antelopes that the Little People rode or drove spooked as they caught sight of the thing.
The highway, the Roniah fairgrounds, and the adjacent campsites were thrown into an uproar of plunging beasts, laughing humans, bemused Tanu, and outraged Firvulag.
It looked at first like a dark, floating fish. It had stubby fins and a needle nose and seemed to swim down through the heatthickened air with sinister deliberation, becoming more and more enormous as it neared the earth. Purple strings of fire, like a dimly glowing net, enshrouded it. (And revealed to the former Milieu citizens that it had to be none other than a rhocraft, albeit one of highly unorthodox configuration.) A terrified dwarf shot a bolt of psychoenergy at the thing hovering overhead, and his countrymen wailed aloud, fearful of retribution.