Requiem For A Ruler Of Worlds

by Brian Daley

  Chapter 2

  The Chosen

  The message had been etched into a rock at the side of the pressbounded roadway by some anonymous cyclist now generations dead: 2 km upgrade.

  Sweating over the randonneur handlebars, Floyt didn't let it deceive him; he'd pedaled the route before and knew that the warning was nearly a full kilometer shy of the mark. An error or a bit of mischief by one of the ancients; that, or the lay of the land had been changed when the Srillans brought havoc to Terra in their final raid, two hundred years before.

  Lowering his head, Floyt settled into a practiced, determined cadence, the muscles of his legs working easily even though he was tired from a long afternoon's tour. It was the first time he'd gotten to do any cycling in two months.

  Having slept later than intended on his precious rec-day, he'd expected to find only tired, leftover bikes remaining at the Earthservice Recreation Bureau substation. Not at all interested in the sport, he'd forgotten that everyone who could get to a screen or projector was watching the Earthwide Soccer Cup game (Antarctica vs. Truk Islands, a grudge match).

  So Floyt had been able to check out a gleaming new machine, a true joyride; he'd changed from his planned route, an easy one, to a challenging afternoon's travel.

  The incline grew more pronounced and his breathing harder as he churned up the hill. The road was better than most, uncracked and therefore uncluttered by weeds or grass, even though rural highways received no maintenance from Earthservice. Little surface travel took place between population centers, except for a few hikers and cyclists, amateur naturalists, and similar eccentrics.

  Floyt was just over 175 centimeters tall, rather stocky, with green eyes and the powerful legs of a lifelong bicyclist. He had close-trimmed brown hair and beard, with a good deal of gray in both. He wore cycling shoes, shorts, and singlet, with safety helmet and fingerless gloves. He was not known for standing out in a crowd.

  The perspiration seeped down from his sweatband, into the scabs covering the scrapes on his cheek and temple put there by Arlo Mote during a party two days earlier. Mote worked in the same data management center with Balensa, Floyt's contracted spouse—Floyt preferred the ancient term "wife," but it was very much out of vogue just then—and was a Hemingway revivicist, the most ardent and overbearing Floyt had ever met.

  Floyt's leg muscles began to complain at the workout he was giving them, but he persisted. Cycling was the only real exercise he got, his only chance to push his body to its limits and get in some solitary thinking time. He dug in, pressing down on a pedal with one foot, lifting against a toe clip with the other, then reversing the procedure. Though he'd resolved not to think about it, his mind strayed back to the fight two days ago at the data center's semiannual rapport/morale mixer. Balensa had insisted that Floyt accompany her to what had actually started out as a rather modest affair. Nevertheless, Arlo Mote and a few other buffs had come costumed as their chosen personae, a not uncommon practice on preterist Earth.

  Only a few light intoxicants were served; no limited-use drugs or severe mood-alterers. Still, Mote had somehow contrived to become belligerently drunk. Dressed in ersatz safari clothing, he'd paid elaborate attention to Balensa, quoting Papa's writings at some length, with a good deal of slurring, as though they were his own.

  Mote lived in a role-playing commune centered on the "Lost Generation" between the first two world wars. The commune provided activities and facilities to the Earthservice Rec Bureau on a part-time basis; Mote was involved in many of the dramatic reenactments and roundtables, and Floyt supposed that that gave the man a certain romantic patina in the workplace. Balensa herself had been raised in an extended-family/academic-group concentrating on the Italian Renaissance; occasionally she alluded to the great passion in her soul.

  Floyt had already concluded that some of it had been vented in Mote's direction but, in his easygoing way, made no issue of it. Overreaction in such a situation was frowned upon by Terran society in general and Earthservice psych-counselors and Peaceguardians in particular. Floyt was surprised at the intensity of the resentment he'd had to suppress, though.

  But at length even the good manners and restraint required by the close quarters in which most Terrans lived had worn thin. Objecting to Mote's pawing of Balensa, Floyt reflected that it was too bad he couldn't mail the ersatz Hemingway a gun, so that the man could consummate his impersonation by blowing his brains out.

  Coming up the long hill toward the crest, legs trembling, Floyt felt satisfaction in the fatigue he'd worked up, but the memory of the fight still made him wince.

  Mote had further goaded him with barely veiled insults to his avocation, the tracing of genealogies. More, the man had provoked him with what was ostensibly a manly embrace, but in reality a humiliating mauling, and everyone there understood it.

  Mote's revivicism had led him into antisocial behavior; it also sparked, in some fashion, a like response from the usually mild-mannered Floyt. It was as if some Terran ancient out of his genealogies were reacting, rather than Floyt himself.

  He'd shoved Mote away hard, his first violent act since the age of twelve, nearly thirty years before. The fight had then become inevitable.

  Arlo Mote had brought his cherished boxing gloves with him, of course; he was wont to tote them about slung casually over his shoulder, since displaying an elephant gun was something the Peaceguardians wouldn't permit. He and his little circle of hangers-on occasionally put on bouts at the role-playing commune, though the word was that none of them was a particularly good boxer.

  Mote liked to joke that he was always hoping to run into a Max Eastman revivicist, for a decisive match; Floyt had always hoped that Mote would run afoul of a Jack Dempsey buff who'd play a leathersynth lullaby all over his face and skull.

  The gloves being there, though, the crowd immediately began to clamor for a match. The idea alone was titillating because a fight unsanctioned and unsupervised by proper officials carried the heady intoxication of sin.

  Floyt quickly found himself being laced into the clumsy, peculiar-feeling gloves as Arlo Mote stripped off his safari jacket, with its ammunition loops and dummy rifle rounds. Floyt stared at the avid faces and overbright eyes as the crowd formed a ring around them.

  Only Balensa tried to stop the fight; she was obviously worried about both men. That stung Floyt, making him determined to go on with it.

  Arlo Mote had naturally dabbled in boxing. Most people present had only a vague idea of the rules, gleaned from centuries-old motion pictures and stories. Floyt began to tremble, but not simply from fear of being injured. He hadn't grown up in a role-playing commune or historical preserve, or in an upper-bureaucrats' enclave. He'd been raised in a mass-dwelling complex, back in the days before creche indoctrination and improved surveillance techniques had made Terran society quite so tranquil.

  He'd run the great corridors in a roaming troupe, as had so many children, riding the transways and playing forbidden, sometimes lethal games in the chuteshafts. As the gloves were being laced on, he remembered the last time he'd been involved in violence.

  A boy from another troupe had insulted a girl in the one with which Floyt roamed as a peripheral. Floyt's troupe caught up with the boy when he was alone. Floyt, the youngest, hadn't done much of the stomping and rib-kicking, sick with it even while it was going on. He'd quit the troupe and the corridors, turning inward.

  Then the memory passed, and Mote was coming at him. But the revivicist had made a mistake; by unconscious identification with his idol or by natural disposition, he'd drunk far too much for a man in a boxing match.

  Floyt had managed to block or evade most of Mote's punches and even land a few of his own. The gloves were thumbless, pillowlike, the only sort Earthservice would approve; little damage had been done on either side.

  Then Mote must have remembered a little something from Hemingway's life; using his greater weight, he bulldozed Floyt into a corner and scraped the eyelets and laces of his glove across
the smaller man's face, trying for his eyes.

  Floyt barely saved himself by burrowing his head against Mote's slick, gray-haired chest. The eyelets had abraded and lacerated his cheek and temple, but he scarcely felt the pain or heard the screaming, shrieking workers. He did recall, later, hearing Balensa crying out to Mote, begging him to stop.

  Now Floyt fingered the wounds; with accelerated healing treatments, the scabs were already peeling away.

  It would've been poetic justice to beat Mote at his own game somehow, like one of the ancients in the pugilistic fantasies of the motion picture era. But there'd been no poetry that day, and Floyt had only a limited notion as to how to go about such a feat. Suddenly furious, he'd flung his arms around the barrel torso and brought his knee up sharply.

  Onlookers went berserk, some in an almost sexual frenzy, others looking ill. A few had only seen Floyt break the rules, though most knew that Mote had done so first. One or two thought that what they'd seen were the rules.

  But it was to the groaning, curled-up Arlo Mote that Balensa rushed. Floyt recognized then that he'd brought an end to his spousal contract in the most atavistic and inane way he could possibly have imagined.

  * * * *

  The sun was westering beautifully, a red ball among glorious orange and purple clouds, as he came to a stop at the crest of the hill, drawing deep breaths and watching.

  He glanced for a moment to his bare wrist. He'd left his accessor at home so that no one could contact him. That act of omission might result in his being charged with a misdemeanor if Earthservice became aware of it and decided that he had no viable excuse for taking himself out of communication. He didn't care; he didn't want to receive Balensa's contract termination decree over an accessor.

  He soon had his wind back, and the evening breeze began to feel chilly. Earthservice Functionary 3rd Class Hobart Floyt pushed off, cruising downhill toward the Atlantic Urbanplex and home. Where beforetimes the click-song of the coasting bicycle had lifted his heart and charged his spirit with a wild yet serene freedom, that day it gave him no joy; Balensa would be waiting at home with the decree.

  He asked himself repeatedly what the point of living was.

  * * * *

  Floyt reluctantly handed in the beautiful bicycle. Dawdling, he took a leisurely cleanup at the Rec Bureau substation before changing into rec-day attire. Though Balensa was—had been—after him constantly to dress as Benvenuto Cellini, he preferred a comfortable old Edwardian suit.

  The passenger transways and chuteshafts were unusually empty; he supposed that postgame celebrations were still in progress. Truk had trounced Antarctica.

  For the first time he wondered who'd be required to move out of the apt. Maybe the Housing Division would require both spouses to vacate; the apt was large for the quarters allotment of unattached functionary thirds. The prospect of once again commuting between a bachelor's cubicle and his workplace was so depressing that Floyt began thinking about applying for implant medication.

  The media-environment dwellings of Earth's golden age were gone forever, he knew, but he often longed for the lost days when work could be done at home. Earthservice rationales spoke of the efficiency of centralization, and of socialization, but many nursed the unspoken suspicion that other reasons were the true concern. Authority and its trappings had to be displayed, and served.

  Floyt, immersed in these thoughts, almost passed her by without a sideways glance.

  "Excuse me, sir? Citizen?"

  She was standing near the cul-de-sac off a chuteshaft alcove where the large urbanplex map was located. She had a lost look about her and held a scrap of paper.

  The woman was a true heartpulse, taller than most men, tall as an offworlder, with coppery skin and swirling black hair in an arrangement that looked windblown yet artful.

  She wore sheer beige body swathings, glint anklets, minimal soleskins, and a high choker of tourmalines.

  He realized that he was gawking. After some initial fumbling, he got out, "Yes? Me?"

  It could be no one else; no other pedestrians were nearby.

  "I'm more than a little turned around, I'm afraid. If you wouldn't mind … " She gestured vaguely at the map cul-de-sac.

  "Of course."

  Floyt felt an involuntary tingle of excitement as he entered the cul-de-sac with her. The map niches in the older plexes were rather secluded; he himself had kissed a girl or two in them as a young man.

  He got a grip on himself. She simply wanted directions. No doubt a woman so attractive was tired of flirtation, especially from middle-aged men who were out of practice. Don't make a fool of yourself, Hobart!

  Still, the exotic scent she wore made him giddy as he accepted the scrap of paper. After she'd thanked him, his gaze stayed on hers a half second too long, while he admired her clear green eyes and high-arched brows and full, glistening lips. He felt vaguely unfaithful until he remembered that his marriage was about to be terminated.

  He bent to the map. She was standing behind him; he couldn't stop himself from breathing deeply, inhaling her perfume. He was certain that she was an actress or dancer.

  He pointed to the map. "You see, we're right here. It's easy to get turned around in those lower interchanges, I know."

  He referred to the paper, eyes flickering for an instant's glimpse of long, beautifully formed legs that were bewitchingly posed. His glance returned to the map.

  "Now, you take a right turn here at the thighs, and then you—" He gasped in horror at his slip, turning instantly to apologize. It saved him. She had a medical styrette in her hand, poised to thrust home. She was so surprised by his sudden whirl, though, that she hesitated for a critical instant.

  Gorgeous, statuesque women do not lure strangers into out-of-the-way places to give them flu shots! He knew instantly that he was in danger, probably deadly danger. The Hobart Floyt who reacted to it was some entity of reflex with whom the conscious man was quite unacquainted. He threw himself back flat against the map and the styrette just missed his shoulder.

  Before she could recover, he shouldered past her, stumbling clear. She came after him again. He pulled over a recycling can, bouncing it into her path and scattering trash. She struck her shin on it, falling, but she'd nearly cornered him.

  He shouted for help as, evidently used to this sort of thing, she sprang up to cut off his escape. She didn't look unnerved by his yelling.

  "Stop! Get back!" he hollered as they maneuvered, he to evade or defend, she to close. "What're you doing? You've confused me with someone else!"

  "Come here, you damn groundling!" she said under her breath. He had no time to spare for being flabbergasted that she was an offworlder. She was the first he'd ever seen in person.

  A crumpled beverage cup bearing Antarctica's colors had left a puddle on the ground, and Floyt faked left, toward it. Countering him, the woman stepped into the spilled drink; her soleskinned foot slid.

  In the instant it took her to regain her balance, Floyt dodged right, for the opening she'd left, at the same time snatching up the waste can and throwing it. She blocked, but the can struck the styrette, triggering it. A narrow jet of liquid puffed into the air.

  He couldn't make a break for it; if she brought him down from behind, she'd finish him.

  Just then the chuteshaft opened, discharging a boisterous party of soccer fans. The woman knew when to cut her losses; she backed out of combat range and dashed from the cul-de-sac.

  By the time Floyt cautiously rounded the corner, she was gone from sight and the corridor was filling with rollicking sports buffs. There were no Peaceguardians to be seen. The best thing to do, he concluded, was return to his apt before anything else happened. He had to take a last look at the scattered trash and the beverage slick to convince himself that it had really happened.

  She must've mistaken me for somebody else, he said to himself. There just wasn't any other explanation.

  Chapter 3

  Paroled to the Stars

  Ala
crity Fitzhugh had lost consciousness with no expectation of waking up, but he opened filmed-over eyes and looked out at a distinctly clinical room.

  He groaned, fighting down nausea, completely disoriented. He blinked. His harsh breathing hissed between locked teeth. The nausea passed after a few moments, and he realized that he didn't feel too terrible aside from the wooziness; he had the instinctive sensation that considerable time had passed.

  Waking up at all was against the odds, he decided, and it would have been in a detention cell or prison treatment center, if anywhere, that he'd have expected to find himself.

  This place, though, was neither. It reminded him more of a Srillan hospital he'd been in once while recovering and awaiting a hearing after a crash, some of the most civilized hospitality he'd ever received. He was acquitted, rightly, of all charges, but found out later that if he'd been judged guilty, the death sentence would've been carried out by the same concealed equipment that had ministered to him so faithfully.

  The recollection made him uneasy. He glanced around. An abundance of medical apparatus was apparent in the room, but it was all tucked into wall nooks or folded back into floor or ceiling, inoperative. His was the only bed.

  He could see no windows or viewpanels in the blue-white, deathly silent place, and no ventilation grills, though the air seemed fresh enough. He was under no restraint, and the single door was unguarded, at least on the inside. Floor, walls, and ceiling radiated soft light, sufficient without being too bright.

  He sat up, moving his arms and legs experimentally, exploring his ribs and head. No fractures, no concussions—not even a bruise. Not surprising in a modern medical facility, but he was on Terra—or anyhow, that was the last place he remembered being.

  A light sheet covered him, and he was naked. He'd slept in grav-bunks, flotation hammocks, and suspension fields, but this arrangement was the sort he tended to prefer. He tried to piece together the last things he could recall. The fight came back vividly; he felt quite lucid.