The Doomfarers of Coramonde

by Brian Daley

  “We must hold,” Reacher advised his people via proclamation, “until the people of Coramonde overthrow the false ruler who misleads them into aggression.”

  Springbuck became a figure constantly seen at planning sessions and on practice fields. Even the most skeptical troop commanders and governmental leaders allied with him were convinced that this was no layabout Pretender or figurehead. He’d confer deep into the night with Bonesteel, Su-Suru and the others, then rise as early as any soldier for the day’s training. He drove himself harder than any of the men he commanded, and usually excelled them unless it was at some martial skill where his shortness of vision interfered. He often went among them, both speaking and listening, the latter even more important than the former. Dressed in Alebowrenian war gear, which had become something of a trademark of his and which he decided to retain, he was easily recognized by the men of the ad hoc army.

  Tales sprang up about him, of fairness and open-handedness to his men, of harshness with miscreants and a quick temper like a tropical storm. On one occasion an officer of Bonesteel’s Legion, convicted of raping a young woman of Freegate, denounced the Prince and his justice, saying he was no true son of Coramonde to betray one of his own to foreigners. In a rage, the son of Surehand called for the officer to be armed and, with Bar in hand, invited him to impose his own justice and do what he might. They fought, and the officer was as good a swordsman as he’d been accounted, but Springbuck slew him and had his body hung on a hook above the barbican as a caution to all. He gave the girl a generous sum for her dowry by way of compensation in part, the money coming from Bonesteel’s laden war chests, and the tale was known to everyone before the evening meal. No such breaches occurred again.

  Bonesteel and his most capable under officers instructed the Prince in the handling of steadily larger groups of men, both mounted and afoot, and he took readily to this, and to the set-piece battles they fought on scaled map boards.

  The warriors of Freegate and the Horseblooded he concerned himself with little, since the discipline and training of these must be left in the main to their own leaders.

  His confidence in his troops and himself grew. He even attempted to become proficient—at close range, at any rate—with the deadly bow of the Horseblooded. This was a composite weapon with a core of flat wooden staving, a layer of split horn glued to one side, a backing of tough, resilient animal sinew glued lengthwise and the whole bound with wrappings of sinew and strung with a cord of twisted hemp with spiral bindings of linen twine. It was a curved bow of remarkable power and, being only four feet long, the best bow a mounted man could want.

  But no man complained that he lacked a skill to command, or didn’t train as rigorously as they. On the whole, there were surprisingly few incidents of friction between men of such widely varied backgrounds, and part of this may have been due to his strong leadership.

  He found his thoughts turning to the future. What of Gil MacDonald? Would he return? It would soon be time to launch the lightning cavalry mission which was to meet the American on his reentry into Coramonde. There were many unknowns involved.

  * * * *

  Van Duyn, for his part, feared that the young Pretender and the diminutive King might not be able to hold together the hodgepodge of fugitives, nomads and naturally independent-minded men of Freegate, but the two seemed to doubt their ability not one whit, and time seemed inclined to prove them right in this. That gave the scholar comfort.

  As he walked back to the palace with the Snow Leopardess after watching maneuvers, headed for a casual dinner among the roof arbors—which was by way of becoming a custom for them—she said, “D’you know, Edward, up until now—until all this usurpation business—I’d thought to see if someday I couldn’t wed the Ku-Mor-Mai. What an alliance that would have been! But with everything up in the air, I don’t know if the next ruler will be the Prince, Strongblade, Yardiff Bey, you or some other party.”

  Van Duyn, nowadays an avowed bachelor, was nonplussed; but studying proud Katya, he found himself replying, “If that’s to be the prize here, I’ll give it my best try.”

  The Princess, white-gold hair floating around her and flashing in the sun, slipped an arm through his. “I think I should like that,” she said. “But since you’re not yet a head of state, mayhap a less formal and more private liaison can be established.”

  Van Duyn felt that happy misery he’d been warning himself against so often in past weeks, harbinger of a new enmeshment.

  Somehow, he didn’t mind.

  PART IV

  On Home Ground

  Chapter Nineteen

  Let the soldier yield to the civilian.

  —Marcus Tullius Cicero

  The silver jet, huge and sleek minister of the technology that had spawned it and the life to which Gil was returning, skimmed off the runway at Tan Son Nhut, rendering the Delta calm and peaceful under its departure pattern, a sky-reflective webwork. The plane made one stop at Yakota Air Force Base in Japan, where Gil stretched his legs and stood lost in thought, gazing absently into the darkened distance.

  The soldier sitting next to him, a big, moody redhead named O’Riordan, was disinclined to talk, and Gil didn’t much mind. The trip was filled with musings, snatches of memory from past months thrown up in turbulence to the surface of recall. At last he put them aside and fell asleep in the wonderful coolness of the pressurized cabin, high in the chilly air. He awoke periodically to watch as he flew through an accelerated day and night, jetting eastward as the sun westered.

  His delay at Oakland was gratifyingly brief. Landing at night, he had been outprocessed for separation and was stepping out of a cab at the airport within six hours. Men of his type were common enough there, but he drew glances nevertheless. Lean and drawn in newly issued, ribboned dress uniform, necktie chafing, Gil MacDonald went to the standby counter, uncomfortably aware of an unusual sensation, the stares of his own countrymen.

  Adolescents, women, children, the elderly—he’d been apart from them for twelve months and found himself nervous now that he was plunged back into their midst in the space of a day.

  Midst? No, not exactly. He still wore his uniform, and the bearing that set him at a distance. A young denimed couple clung to one another and showed him hipply outfront distaste. He turned his stare on them like some weapon, ferocity restrained, and an uncommonly intimidating something there made them look quickly away. Waiting for his flight while drinking an unbelievably cold beer, he mulled Edward Van Duyn’s words.

  “You’ll see that soldiers’ skills have no market in peace—which is as it should be. Your vocation has you marching to the drum, Gil; you’ll find it hard to stroll to the lyre.”

  He made a stop in Ohio to offer personal condolences to Olivier’s widow. A small, pale girl with moist eyes, she resembled her dead husband, the bespectacled machinegunner who’d been torn to shreds by a claymore mine on dismounted scout six weeks before. The visit was awkward for both. He could hear the unspoken question, one she knew was unfair but couldn’t repress.

  Why are you here and not my husband? Why did you live and not Paul?

  He left as soon as he could, saying he had to catch a plane. But he had plenty of time, and used it getting drunk at the airport. On his way to the departure gate, he noticed a newspaper headline: VIOLENCE AT ANTIWAR RALLY.

  He rethought his problems as his plane shot toward Philadelphia. The disorienting effects of his departure from combat were taking hold now. He saw subjectively that he’d left it behind, survived. Did he ever want to leave again? His mind skittered over the incredible events of that twenty-four hours or so in Coramonde.

  Undermining doubts of his own sanity began to intrude again. He put them aside; he and Pomorski had discussed the incident many times in private. He had no doubt that it had happened. As far as Gil knew, the others had never mentioned those occurrences to anyone outside the Nine-Mob. Even if they did, who’d believe? No, the facts of the incident were safe from exposure, due sim
ply to human nature.

  As time intervened between them and that episode, the other members of Lobo’s crew had found it harder and harder to recall. The memory retreated into unreality for them, and then into a sort of forgetfulness, as if it were slowly being eradicated from recollection.

  Not to Gil, though. He remembered it all vividly and had the feeling that there was a reason for it, though he didn’t know what it might be. He suspected that it was because he was destined to return to that other world, but the unequaled relief of being yanked from war and sent home made him reconsider. He shrugged; he would spend some time not thinking about it, come un-wired and get back to it later.

  There was time.

  * * * *

  Flora MacDonald, née Gilbert, held back her words, but tears welled in her eyes, tears that had nothing to do with the charcoal smoke of the barbecue. Across the picnic table sat her eldest son Gil, home from Vietnam, slightly more recognizable in casual clothes at their backyard party. She’d been amazed at his appearance when he’d walked unannounced into the house a week ago and thrown it into happy bedlam, with unfamiliar creases in his face and the upright saber on his right shoulder. And in days thereafter, more and more changes had become evident.

  Even now he sat staring into space, lost in thought, unconsciously taking ice cubes from his finished drink into his mouth and methodically breaking them with his teeth, sucking cool moisture from them. She thought about this automatic use of a source of water against heat and dehydration, and lost control of her tears.

  Changes. The second night home he’d rolled from bed with a single terrified scream, “Incoming!” The revelation had kept her awake until dawn.

  Then there were his frequent differences of opinion with his younger brother Ralph. Three years separated them, like as many centuries or continents.

  She sobbed silently, thinking of the talks that always seemed to devolve into arguments, with Ralph emotional and intense and his older brother quietly expository. Gil’s service had put the two irreconcilably in different camps with some unseen barrier between them, their mother and father standing helplessly to one side.

  Gil turned his head, musing broken. “What’s wrong?” he asked, surprised at the tears.

  She shook her head, not trusting to reply. “I’m going to clean up the kitchen,” she managed, and retreated from the patio. There were numerous survivors among the afternoon’s hot dogs and hamburgers. Ralph had tried a new approach to their old argument, the war, using inductive reasoning. Gil had challenged the chain of logic and the row resulted in Ralph’s screeching away on his Honda, taking fury out on the gears.

  Gil’s father made fresh drinks for himself and his son, Piña Coladas of which he was rather proud, and they sat to watch the sun go down.

  “You know what’s bothering her of course, don’t you?” he said.

  “I can’t seem to help it; we can’t seem to. I don’t know, it’s as if Ralph and I are screaming at each other, and neither of us can hear.” He rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “None of it’s the same anymore. I’ve changed. Don’t fit. Ain’t tuned in.”

  “Give it time. Rest as long as you like. Start college, or get yourself organized some other way. You did say you were thinking about school, didn’t you?”

  Gil took a long pull on his drink. “Once I did. I dunno, maybe I still do. I’m not going back to being assistant something-or-other. It was almost a relief that Sandy got engaged while I was gone; I couldn’t talk to her any more than to Ralph.”

  He was silent for a few minutes. He seldom drank anything but beer, and the liquor was beginning to affect him, bringing on uncharacteristic moodiness. With abrupt decision he said, “I’m thinking of going away again for a while, Pop.”

  “So soon? It’d break her heart, your mother! Can’t you wait? Save some money? You could travel during college vacation, do things in style.”

  “I don’t mean that kind of travel, Pop. It’s . . . impossible to explain.” He didn’t watch his father’s face, but lit an insect repellent candle and set it on the arm of his chair, its odor coming to him sharply. At length he spoke, to forestall the pained speech he expected.

  “If I go, I’ll be gone for a long time. How can I convince you that this isn’t just some crazy idea? It’s the only thing I can think of that I want to do, that I care about.”

  “Well, I don’t know how many parents have said it, but, dammit, if your son is worth his salt there’ll come a time when you’ve got to say, ‘If it’s what you want—’ Anything I can do to help? ’Cause I’ve known you a long time, kid, and I know what happens when you get a notion in that head of yours.”

  * * * *

  Whatever their differences, Gil had to admit that Ralph had kept his car in first-class shape. The old Chevy had never idled more smoothly or handled better. The day after his conversation with his father, Gil drove up the New Jersey Turnpike and changed for the Palisades Parkway. Just after he entered New York State, he left the Parkway and found the small town in Rockland County where Van Duyn had told him a man named Morrows, his former assistant, lived.

  Gil located Morrows with a phone directory. It turned out that the man lived in a rented bungalow. He answered the door with a cautious look in his eye, a pale, heavyset individual in his midtwenties, with what Gil tagged as a false front of condescension.

  “I’m here to talk to you about Edward Van Duyn,” Gil said.

  Morrows looked him up and down. “I’ve already told Institute Security and the police everything I know,” he replied.

  “Never said I was looking for him. He sent me.”

  Gil was satisfied with the effect. Morrow’s eyebrows shot up and the put-on calm slipped. Regaining composure, he invited Gil in.

  The ex-sergeant was sparing with explanations of his encounter with Van Duyn. He showed the note he’d brought and requested the two missing components for the original contiguity machine, the one still at the Grossen Institute. He asked Morrows’ help in using it.

  At first Morrows was skeptical, but details of Van Duyn’s instructions, taken in tandem with the handwriting of the note, convinced him that this newcomer had indeed spoken with his former research director since he’d shifted through the interface between universes in his second-generation machine. Morrows went to his desk and returned with sheafs of paper.

  “Ever since Dr. Van Duyn left I’ve been working, trying to interpret his data in full. The equipment works well enough, I suppose, though I haven’t activated it since his last experiment. He covered the trail of his research so well that I can’t quite ferret out all the details and variables.”

  “You haven’t tried it?”

  Morrows laughed nervously, as if some embarrassing secret had come to light. “Tried it myself? Take a chance on a miscalculation that might open a gateway to, say, the heart of a star? Don’t be asinine. Oh, once I’ve collated all my data, and perhaps expanded Van Duyn’s findings a bit, and made some preparations and so forth, then I’ll use the contiguity.” His eyes roamed the shabby little home. Anger etched his voice.

  “Do you think I like this? Living on assistantship pay without recognition or a future? It’s just that before I jump off into another cosmos, I want to be sure, that’s all. Simply a matter of a little more hard information, some more tests.”

  Then Gil understood. Morrows would never use the contiguity. He’d dither uncertainly, delay one more day or one more week, and in the end he wouldn’t go. Gil wondered what it would be like to see the apparatus every day, know you could leave anytime you chose, agonize over dangers and doubts and postpone, forever postpone.

  A living hell, he thought.

  “If you help me, Morrows, I’ll add considerably to your information, maybe clarify some of those variables you’ve got, nail down some unknowns for you.” He knew he could con this man.

  Morrows leaned forward in his chair, suspicion and condescension forgotten.

  * * * *

  The ne
xt day was Sunday. Though he didn’t usually work that day, Morrows went to the Grossen Institute. Proceeding according to the researcher’s instructions, Gil found an overgrown dirt side road leading to an unused gate in the fence surrounding the Institute grounds. The road had been used to bring in heavy equipment to build a power plant, then ignored and the gate locked. Tall weeds and young saplings had come in since then, effectively hiding Gil’s car from the main road. He was thankful for the Chevy’s high clearance in negotiating passage.

  The fence was unimpressive rusting chain link, more to keep out children and the idly curious than to repel serious invaders. This sleepy town knew little trouble and conditions required only nonchalant watchfulness against nuisances and vandals, not alert defense against determined, forceful intrusion, there being small profit for thieves in the equipment and information available at the Institute. The Grossen dealt exclusively in the abstract.

  Gil waited a few minutes at the fence, assuring himself that no one was near, and swarmed over it.

  Though the directors of the Grossen Institute were curious about Van Duyn’s abandoned apparatus, Morrows’ investigations clearly didn’t have much priority. He’d been relocated in a converted storage building near the power plant. It had garage-type doors for deliveries, doors that would fit in with Gil’s plan.

  Morrows was waiting for him and showed him the contiguity apparatus, a square frame of metal perhaps seven feet on a side, held upright by supports. There was surprisingly little ancillary equipment: a monitoring console and the tuning bank. Morrows warmed the device, studying various indicators with a critical eye. Gil watched and tried to memorize the sequence exactly.

  At last the other mated two cables and threw a switch. The framework instantly contained a bright scene, a green field with a warm sun overhead and a tree line in the distance. Gil knew he was looking at Coramonde again.