City of Golden Shadow, Page 56

  "I say! Hold on there, will you?"

  Paul turned. A startled Gally turned, too, suddenly feral as an alley cat his little fingers extended like claws. A man was running toward them with the easy grace of an athlete. He seemed unquestionably human and an Earthling.

  "Ah, thank you," he said as he reached them. "I was afraid I'd have to chase after you all the way to the bazaar. Not much joy in this heat, what?"

  Paul was a little uncertain. He had a reflexive feeling that he should fear recognition or pursuit of any kind, but it was difficult to reconcile that with the stranger's appearance. The smiling newcomer was a tall and handsome young man, blond-bearded and lithely muscular. He wore an outfit similar to Paul's, except that he had a loose white shirt beneath his waistcoat, and instead of sandals made from canal-fish hide, he wore high leather boots.

  "Say, dashed rude of me just to come belting up to you this way and not introduce myself," the blond man said. "Brummond—Hurley Brummond. Used to be Captain Brummond of Her Majesty's Life Guard, but that was long ago and far away, I suppose. Ah, and here's my friend, Professor Bagwalter, caught up at last. Say hello, Bags!" He gestured to an older man, also bearded, but more formally dressed, who was limping toward them, a frock coat draped over his arm. The new arrival paused before them, panting, removed spectacles which had been steamed opaque, then took out his handkerchief and wiped at his streaming brow.

  "Good Lord, Brummond, you have led me a chase." He waited for a few more breaths before continuing. "Pleasure to meet you folks. We saw you go in at the gate."

  "That's right," said the blond man. "We don't see many of our folk here, and we know pretty near all of them. Still, we didn't chase you just because you were new faces." He laughed. "It's not that boring at the Ares Club."

  The professor coughed. "I didn't chase them at all. I was trying to keep up with you."

  "And a damn foolish idea, too, in this swelter." Brummond turned back to Paul. "Truth is, for a moment I thought you were an old mate of mine—Billy Kirk, his name was. 'Kedgeree' Kirk, we used to call him, on account of he was so particular about breakfast. He and I fought together in Crimea, at Sevastopol, and Balaktava. Fine gunnery man, one of the best. But I saw as soon as I caught up that it wasn't so. Damned remarkable likeness, though."

  Paul was having trouble keeping up with Brummond's swift, clipped speech. "No, my name is Paul. Paul. . . ." He hesitated as for a moment he felt even his name grow slippery and dubious. "Paul Jonas. This is Gally. And Klooroo here, who pulled us out of the Great Canal."

  "Fine boy," said Brummond, ruffling Gally's hair. The boy scowled. Klooroo, who had fallen silent at the man's initial approach, seemed just as happy to be ignored.

  Professor Bagwalter was looking at Paul speculatively, as though he were an interesting example of some rather arcane scientific effect. "You have a strange accent, Mister Jonas. Are you Canadian?"

  Paul stared, caught off-balance. "I . . . I don't think I am."

  Bagwalter raised a bushy eyebrow at Paul's answer, but Brummond reached out and clasped Paul by the shoulder. His grip was very strong. "Good Lord, Bags, we aren't going to stand here in the blazing sun while you riddle away some linguistic nonsense of yours, are we? Pay no attention, Jonas—the professor can't listen to the first bluebird of spring without wanting to dissect it. But as long as we've interrupted your day, let us buy you a drink, what? There's a fair-to-middling soz-house just down that little sidestreet, there. We'll get the boy something weaker, eh?" He laughed and squeezed Paul's shoulder companionably; for a moment, Paul was afraid something might be pulled loose. "No, better still," Brummond said, "we'll take you to the Ares Club. Do you good—give you a taste of home. Come, then, what do you say?"

  "That's . . . that's fine," Paul replied.

  Paul was dismayed to discover that the Ares Club doorman—a rather ill-favored taltor—would not allow Klooroo to enter. "No dog-faces," he pronounced, and would not entertain further discussion. A potentially embarrassing situation was avoided when the nimbor volunteered to show Gally around the bazaar. Paul accepted the offer gratefully, but Brummond did not seem to approve.

  "Listen, old man," he said as Gally and Klooroo walked away, "love thy neighbor, all well and good sort of thing, but you won't get far putting too much faith in greenskins."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, they can be all right in their way, and this one seems fond of you and the boy, but just don't expect him to cover your back. They're not trustworthy. Not like an Earthman, if you see what I mean."

  The inside of the club seemed strangely familiar. A word, Victorian, drifted through Paul's head, but he did not know what it meant. The furniture was heavy and overstuffed, the walls paneled in dark wood. Dozens of strange creatures' heads on plaques—or unplaqued, but companioned by the rest of their stuffed bodies—stared down at the visitors. Except for Paul and his two companions, the club seemed empty, which gave the ranked glassy stares an even more intimidating effect.

  Brummond saw Paul staring at a huge shaggy head, vaguely feline, but with the mandibles of an insect. "Nasty-looking customer, eh? That's a yellow stonecat. Live in the foothills, eat anything they can get, including you and me and Auntie Maude. Almost as unpleasant as a blue squanch."

  "What Hurley's not mentioning is that he's the one who dragged in that particular trophy," said Professor Bagwalter dryly. "Killed it with a cavalry saber."

  Brummond shrugged. "Got a bit lucky, you know the sort of thing."

  With a wide choice of tables, they selected one at a small window overlooking what Paul assumed was the bazaar, a massive public square almost completely covered with small awnings. A vast crowd, primarily Martian, swirled in and out beneath them. Paul watched it, amazed by the vitality and activity. He almost thought he could see patterns in the ebb and flow of the marketers, repeating designs, spontaneous shared movements like a flock of birds on the wing.

  "Jonas?" Brummond nudged him. "What's your poison, old man?"

  Paul looked up. An aged nimbor wearing an incongruous-looking white dinner jacket was waiting patiently for his order. Without knowing where the idea came from, he asked for a brandy. The nimbor inclined his head and disappeared on soundless feet.

  "You know, of course, that the local brandy is barely fit to hold the name," said Professor Bagwalter. "Still, it's a damn sight better than the local beer." He fixed Paul with his sharp brown eyes. "So, what brings you to Tuktubim, Mister Jonas? I asked you if you were Canadian because I thought you might have come in with Loubert on L'Age D'Or—they say he's got a lot of Canucks in his crew."

  "Blood and thunder, Bags, you're interrogating the poor fellow again," laughed Brummond. He leaned back in his chair as if to leave the field to two well-matched adversaries.

  Paul hesitated. He didn't feel well-matched at all. and there was something about Professor Bagwalter that made him decidedly uncomfortable, although it was hard to define just what it was. Where Brummond, like Klooroo and others he'd met here, seemed as comfortable with life on Mars as a fish in a stream, the professor had a strange edge, a questioning intelligence that seemed out of place. Still, just a few moments of listening to them talk about someone named Loubert and someplace called Canada made it clear he would never be able to bluff his way through.

  "I'm . . . I'm not sure how I got here," he said. "I've had a head injury, I think. I found the boy . . . actually, I don't remember very well. You'll have to ask him. In any case, there was some trouble, I remember that, and we escaped. First thing I really remember is floundering in the Great Canal."

  "Well, doesn't that trump all," said Brummond, but he sounded less than astonished, as though this kind of thing happened rather frequently in his vicinity.

  Bagwalter, on the other hand, seemed quite pleased to have something around which to base an inquiry, and to Paul's discomfort and Hurley Brummond's great disgust, spent the next half hour questioning him closely.

  Paul was finishing his second thr
oat-burning brandy and feeling a little more relaxed when the professor returned to the subject that seemed to interest him most. "And you say you've seen this Vonari woman before, but you don't remember where or when."

  Paul nodded. "I just . . . know."

  "Maybe she was your fiancée," offered Brummond. "Yes, I'll bet that's it!" After sitting in bored silence for some time, he had suddenly warmed to the subject matter. "Maybe you were injured trying to protect her from the Soombar's guards. They're heavy-handed fellows, you know, and pretty nimble with those scimitarish noggin-loppers of theirs. That time they were going to pop Joanna into the Soombar's seraglio—well, I had my hands full and then some."

  "Hurley, I wish. . . ." the professor began, but Brummond was not to be held back. His blue eyes sparkled, and his golden hair and beard seemed almost to crackle with static electricity,

  "Joanna—she's my fiancée, the professor's daughter. I know, I know, damn presumptuous to call one's fiancée's father 'Bags,' but the professor and I had been through a great deal before I ever met Joanna." He waved his hand. "She's back at camp with The Temperance right now, laying in supplies for an expeditionary voyage we're going to make to the interior. That's why I chased after you, to tell the truth. If you'd been good old Kedgeree Kirk, I was going to offer you a place in the crew."

  "Hurley. . . ." said the professor with some irritation.

  "In any case, it seems like every time I turn around, one of these green-skinned wallahs is trying to abduct Joanna. She's a sturdy gal, and admirable as all get out, but it's really a bit much. And monsters—I can't tell you how many times I've had to pull her out of some squanch-hole or other. . . ."

  "For goodness sakes, Hurley, I'm trying to ask Mister Jonas some questions."

  "Look here, Bags, just for once you've got to let go of all this science twaddle. This poor fellow's fiancée has been kidnapped by the priests and they're going to sacrifice the girl! They've beaten him so badly that he can hardly remember his own name! And you'd just as soon poke and prod him as offer him any help, wouldn't you?"

  "Here now," said the professor, taken aback.

  "I'm not sure. . . ." Paul began, but Hurley Brummond stood up, unfolding to the full extent of his impressive height.

  "Don't you worry, lad," he said, and almost knocked Paul across the table with a comradely crack on the back. "I'll ask around—there's more than a few, both green and white, who owe a favor to Brummond of Mars. Yes, that's just what I'll do. Bags, I'll meet you both in back of the club at sundown."

  He was gone from the room in three strides, leaving Paul and the professor almost breathless.

  "He's a good lad," Bagwalter said at last. "Tough as nails and big-hearted. And my Joanna loves him dearly." He took a sip of his sherry. "But I do wish sometimes he weren't so damned stupid."

  Far across the desert, the sun had almost disappeared behind the distant mountains, going to its rest contented after a long day scorching the upturned face of Mars. The last rays struck crimson glints from all of Tuktubim's windows and translucent spires.

  From the balcony at the back of the Ares Club, Paul stared down the hillside on what seemed to be a vast scatter of rubies and diamonds. For a moment, he wondered if this place could be the home he had sought. It was strange, but somehow quite familiar as well. He could not remember where he had been last, but he knew it had been somewhere different—there had been several somewheres in his past, he felt sure—and even without the specific memories, he felt rootless weariness in his bones and thoughts.

  "Look at that!" said Gally, pointing. Not far away a huge flying ship, similar in shape to the ceremonial barges they had seen on the Great Canal, was slowly rising past the towertops into the evening sky, guide ropes dangling. Hundreds of dark shapes moved on its decks and in the complicated rigging. Lanterns glowed along its length, dozens of bright-burning points. The barge almost seemed to be a living constellation sprung from the vaults of the night.

  "It's beautiful." Paul looked down. Gally was rapt, wide-eyed, and Paul felt something like pride that he had protected this boy, had brought him safely out of . . . out of. . . ? It was useless—the memory would not come. "It's too bad Klooroo didn't stay to see this," he continued. "But I suppose it's all very familiar to him." Klooroo of the Fisher People, perhaps feeling he had fulfilled his promise once Paul had discovered other Earthmen, had brought Gally back from the bazaar and then headed off to his shanty town beside the canal. "Still, he was kind to us, and I was sad to see him go."

  "He was only a nimbor," said Gally dismissively.

  Paul stared at the boy, who was still raptly watching the airship. The remark seemed oddly out of character, as though Gally had absorbed some of the attitudes of those around him.

  "Wind from the desert tonight." Professor Bagwalter released a thin stream of smoke from his lips, then screwed his cigar back into the corner of his mouth. "It will be hotter tomorrow."

  Paul found that hard to imagine. "I don't want to keep the boy up too late. Do you think Mister Brummond is going to be here soon. . . ?"

  The professor shrugged. "You never can tell with Hurley." He produced and examined his pocketwatch. "He's only a quarter of an hour late. I shouldn't worry."

  "It's flying away!" said Gally. The large airship was disappearing into the growing darkness. Only the lights were visible now, bright pinpoints growing ever smaller.

  Bagwalter smiled at the boy, then turned to Paul. "The little fellow tells me you rescued him from a place called the Eight Squares or something. Was that back on Earth?"

  "I don't know. I told you, my memory is bad."

  "The boy says it's just down the Great Canal, but I haven't heard of any such place here and I've done a lot of traveling." His voice was light, but the shrewd eyes were again watching Paul closely. "He also said something about the Black Ocean, and I can promise you there's nothing like that here."

  "I don't know." Paul felt his voice rising, but could not make it sound normal. Gally turned from the balcony railing to look at him, eyes wide. "I just don't remember! Anything!"

  Bagwalter removed his cigar and stared at the smoldering tip, Then lifted his eyes to Paul's once more. "No need to get worked up, old man. I'm being a bit of a bore, I know. It's just that there were some rather odd fellows asking questions at the club a few days ago. . . ."

  "Look out below!"

  Something whizzed between them and hit the balcony floor with a loud slap. It was a rope ladder, and it seemed to have dropped onto them from nowhere. Stunned, Paul looked up. A shape hovered overhead, like a dark cloud in the otherwise clear sky. A head poked out, peering down at them.

  "Hope I didn't hit anyone! Damnably hard to keep this thing steady."

  "It's Mister Brummond!" said Gally, delighted. "And he has a flying ship, too!"

  "Climb up!" shouted Brummond. "Hurry—no time to waste!"

  Gally went up the ladder, shinnying as quickly as a spider. Paul hesitated, still not quite sure what was happening.

  "Go on," said the professor kindly. "It does no good—once Hurley's got a bee in his bonnet, there's no stopping him."

  Paul grabbed the swaying ladder and began to climb. Halfway to the waiting airship he paused, beset by a kind of spiritual vertigo. There was something tragically familiar in this situation, leaving one barely understood place to scramble toward another, even less comprehensible refuge.

  "Would you mind moving on," Bagwalter said gently from below. "I'm not getting any younger, and I'd just as soon be off this ladder as quickly as possible."

  Paul shook his head and resumed his climb. Brummond was waiting at the top, and pulled him over the railing with a single tug.

  "What do you think of this little beauty, eh, Jonas?" he asked. "I told you there were a few favors I could call in. Let me show you around—she's a lovely piece of work, fast as a bird, quiet as grass growing. She'll do the job for us, you'll see."

  "What job?" Paul was getting tired of asking questions.r />
  "What job?" Brummond seemed dumbfounded. "Why, we're going to rescue your fiancée! At dawn she goes to a special cell underneath the Soombar's palace, and then it'll be too late, so we're taking her out tonight! Only a dozen guards, and we probably won't have to kill more than half of them."

  Before Paul could do more than open his mouth and close it again, Brummond had sprung away to the airship's oddly shaped, ornately carved wheel. He pulled on it, and the ship rose so swiftly that Paul almost fell from his seat. The city dwindled below them.

  "For the honor of your lady, Jonas!" Brummond shouted. His golden hair fluttered in the strong wind of their ascent; his grin was a glinting spot in the gloom. "For the honor of our dear old Earth!"

  With mounting discomfort, Paul realized that they were in the hands of a madman.

  CHAPTER 25

  Hunger

  NETFEED/NEWS; DA Cries foul As "Snipe" Case Dropped

  (visual: Azanuelo holding press conference)

  VO: Dallas County District Attorney Carmen Azanuelo said that the defection and disappearance of witnesses from her landmark murder prosecution is "the clearest example of subversion of justice since the Crack Baron trial."

  (visual: Defendants at arraignment)

  The prosecution of six men, including two ex-police officers, for the murder of hundreds of street children, often called "snipes," excited tremendous controversy because of the allegations that local merchants hired the men as a "death squad" to keep the upscale areas of Dallas-Fort Worth free of street children,

  (visual: children panhandling in Marsalis Park)

  Prosecutions for "snipe-hunting" in other American cities have also had trouble obtaining convictions.

  AZANUELO: "They have intimidated, kidnapped, or killed our witnesses, often with help from elements inside the police department. They are murdering children on the streets of America, and they're getting away with it. It's as simple as that. . . ."