by Dave Duncan
In a few moments, Marcel tactfully eased away to speak to Hannah.
“And how is my delicious Wendy?” Julian assumed a lecherous growl, while pretending to study the shrubbery.
Euphemia peered around the room indifferently. “Randy as an alley cat. How about my Captain Hook? Ready for boarding? Got your cutlass well sharpened?”
“Primed, loaded, and cocked. Why don’t we nip behind the sofa and have a quick one?”
“I’d rather wait for a slow one later.”
“Just one? It’s not like you to settle for just one, Wendy.”
“Well, think what you tempt me with! How’s a girl expected to refuse that?”
This verbal foreplay was interrupted by the arrival of Olga and the evening’s host, Pinky Pinkney. Conversation veered to a discussion of the latest news from Home, which was over a fortnight old.
“It is most unfair of the Peppers to keep the Goldsmiths waiting like this!” Pinky proclaimed. “Deborah is desperate to see London again.”
“You haven’t heard what’s delayed them?” Euphemia asked.
“Of course not. The Montgomerys are due back in a couple of days—perhaps they’ll know what’s keeping them.”
“No word from Head Office?”
“I’m afraid Head Office has been badly disorganized by the war. They’re not what they used to be.”
She sighed, and her dress struggled to contain the movement. “William and me aren’t due to go for years!”
Pinky made sympathetic noises. He was as slick as an oiled eel and parted his hair in the middle. “Are you quite sure of that, my dear? I think there were some changes made to the schedule while you were gone.”
“Really?” Euphemia asked with surprising interest.
“Dolores will know. Let’s go and ask her, shall we?”
Without a word of apology, the bounder led her off across the room. Julian sipped some of the nasty sherry.
“Don’t glare, darling,” said a throaty murmur. “People will think you’re jealous.”
He jumped. Olga was a heart-stopping Nordic blonde, a female Viking—something Wagner might have invented if he had dared. Tonight she wore a scarlet gown in a way that implied one deep breath would cause it to explode.
“Jealous? Of Pinky and Euphemia? There’s nothing between them.”
Olga fluttered golden lashes. “The way Pinky was looking at her, darling, there won’t be anything at all between them in a few hours.”
Julian drained his glass in one great Philistine gulp. Olga unnerved him on several levels. First, he had no idea whatsoever of her background—her English was too perfect to be her genuine mother tongue; she might not even be from Earth at all. Second, she was probably the oldest person in the Service, because she was a convert. Before changing sides, she had been a minor goddess, an avatar of Eltiana.
And third, she was blatantly promiscuous. No other woman on the station would dare to look at a man the way she was looking at him right now. She was probably not serious, because she had hung Julian’s scalp on her belt years ago, a few days after he arrived. He hoped she wasn’t serious, but at least a fellow need not watch one’s tongue with Olga. She was unshockable and never took offense. And at the moment she was trying to put the boot in.
“I think you are attributing unseemly motives to a perfectly innocent conversation. Mrs. McKay and Mr. Pinkney are—”
“Are rutting, dear. He is, anyway. He’s as loud as a wapiti.”
“What the deuce is a wapiti? And even if he is, why should Euphemia—”
Olga rolled her sea-blue eyes dramatically. “Julian, darling, I thought I cured your innocence years ago. Don’t tell me all my work was wasted! Weren’t you born in India? You should know that imperial exiles are the same everywhere.”
“Nextdoor is hardly a blooming colony,” he protested. “The Empire doesn’t reach quite this far—not yet, anyway.”
She smiled sardonically. “They like to pretend it’s a colony, though. Olympus is deliberately modeled on a British government station somewhere in the bush, isn’t it? Don’t deny it; you know it’s true. Lording over the natives, dressing for dinner…I remember Foghorn trying to get us to put up a flagpole so we could fly the Union Jack. Cameron threatened to strangle him with it if he tried.”
Julian blinked. He had not known that Olga had been around Olympus so long, for Cameron Exeter had gone Home thirty years ago. “What has that to do—”
“You’re not worried, darling?” she purred.
“Not about Pinky,” he said staunchly, fairly sure he was not even blushing, which was a jolly sight different from how he would have reacted to Olga’s claws two years ago. Pinky would get nowhere tonight—or any other night either—because Euphemia considered him a bore and a toad in the grass. It would not be Pinky skin to skin with Euphemia tonight, it would be Captain Smedley (Royal Artillery, ret.), and the sooner the better.
He made his escape from Olga as soon as he could without seeming to be running away. No one had mentioned the reason for his recall yet or told him whether he was scheduled to appear before the Committee itself. If he were, it would be an irrelevant formality, because decisions in Olympus were made by the inner circle, Pinky and his cronies. That was another characteristic of the Service—nobody trusted anybody; too many had gone over to the opposition. There had been traitors, one of whom had very nearly scuppered Edward Exeter by sending him Home into the middle of a battle in Flanders. Mana was addictive, and the Pentatheon could offer better sources of mana. Even a very minor god with his own temple collected far more of it than a preacher holding secret prayer meetings in the bush.
Euphemia and Pinky reappeared, but Julian’s efforts to resume his wooing were persistently defeated by Pinky, who clung to her like a treacle shampoo until his wife announced that it was time to go in to dinner.
Julian was alarmed to discover that he was paired with Olga, who proceeded to flirt shamelessly with him. Fortunately they were seated across from Jumbo and Iris, who were good company. Euphemia, he was annoyed to notice, had been placed next to Pinky.
Dinner went off as usual, with inconsequential small talk. It was all frightfully civilized—damask tablecloth, silver plate, hovering servants—and a welcome relief from the peasant hospitality he should have been enduring in Randorvale right now. The only time anything approaching business was discussed was when someone brought up the story of Jumbo’s miracle at Flaxby, deflecting a magistrate and two soldiers. Julian had learned of it from Purlopat’r, but apparently the news had leaked out just after he left.
It was impossible to dislike Jumbo. He was tall and lean and had gained his nickname from the length of his nose. He had a notably wry sense of humor and a becoming modesty.
“It was nothing much,” he protested. “I didn’t set out to work any miracles. I was so scared at the sight of those jolly swords that I started babbling my head off. Before I knew it, the chaps were on their knees, begging for mercy—wanting me to shut up, I expect. If I did spend some mana, then I got a whole lot more back in return. Jolly fun, actually. You should have seen the magistrate’s face….” He made a good story out of it, everyone laughed.
Julian did not mention his adventure in Randorvale. The conversation veered to the unusually warm weather.
If it was impossible to dislike Jumbo, it was still possible to distrust him. He had been the one who sent Exeter to what should have been certain death in the battle of Third Ypres. He claimed that he had been deceived by Jean St. John, but Jean had either died or done a bunk when Zath’s reapers caused the sack of Olympus, so there was no way to confirm the tale. Jumbo had been friends with both Exeters, father and son, during their respective tunes in Olympus. He was an adamant opponent of the Liberator prophecy.
Julian struggled not to yawn as he kept up his end of the conversation. The people around the table were all worried; they were all scared. It showed.
The meal was over, decanters waited on the sideboard. T
he hostess glanced around the table to make sure everyone had finished. Hannah Pinkney was a lightweight, far more interested in her proposed rock garden than in the Service’s mission to save the heathens or her husband’s slimy advances to Euphemia. Tonight she was dressed in lace and chiffon, all pink and fluffy, well suited to her personality.
“Well!” she said brightly. “Shall we leave the men to their cigars, ladies?”
The expected shuffle of movement as men rose to lift back their companions’ chairs…Olga removed her hand from Julian’s thigh.
“I should like a cigar tonight,” said a loud voice.
Hannah tracked it down to Ursula Newton and stared at her in consternation. Julian struggled against an urge to burst out laughing.
Ursula had not been drinking unduly. She was merely irate and consequently dangerous. Although not unattractive, she was too broad for her height, built like a Victorian mahogany dresser—muscle, not fat—lacking feminine grace. But she could preach damnation with the best of them or raise hell with a tennis racket, being aggressively good at anything she cared to try and inclined to bark at those who were not. Tonight she wore a lilac gown that displayed her powerful arms and shoulders and clashed with her dark coloring. Where Euphemia lacked taste, Ursula didn’t give a damn.
“You’re not serious, are you, dear?” Hannah bleated. “I mean, I’m sure we can find a cigar for you if—”
Ursula ignored her, scowling at Pinky. “No, I’m not serious about the cigar. I am serious about the Committee. I am very tired of discovering that every matter brought before it has already been settled. You men are planning to cross-examine Captain Smedley tonight and tomorrow you will tell the rest of us what to rubber-stamp.”
Pinky smiled graciously, but when Pinky smiled nothing showed of his eyes, only their heavy lids. “Aren’t you being a little unfair, my dear? You must agree that we men are free to discuss whatever we wish, as are you ladies. Surely you are not suggesting we should banish Captain Smedley from the table, mm? Wouldn’t that be unkind? Of course it would. If you have complaints about the way the Committee is being run, then you should address them to the chairman. Formally, I mean. In writing.”
Foghorn Rutherford was this year’s chairman. That did not matter. Despite the Service’s professed determination to remain a democratic association of equals, Pinky Pinkney was the one who pulled the strings, this year and every year.
Foghorn was loud, large, windy, and uncouth, a rubicund human bagpipe, likable in an uncomplicated sort of way, typecast from birth to be captain of a county rugby club. Now he harrumphed a steam-hooter noise. “I assure you that the Committee will have ample opportunity—”
“I don’t believe you!” Ursula snapped. “You are going to deal with Captain Smedley exactly the way you did with the man who brought in the news.”
Rutherford guffawed like a mule. “Ursula, old girl, if you imply that Pinky invited that rascally dragon trader to dinner, then he will demand pistols at dawn on the croquet lawn.”
Hannah tried to start a laugh, but no one picked it up.
Ursula returned her fearsome glare to Pinky. “If you will give me your word that no one here will as much as mention Edward Exeter for the rest of the night, then I shall happily withdraw. If not, I stay. So does Olga.”
Like the rest of the men, Julian had resumed his seat. Olga had resumed her fondling. Olga would certainly be involved in the ad hoc group dealing with the Liberator crisis—he should have realized that. She would have been coopted at once, for she knew better than any how the Pentatheon thought.
Pinky surrendered, smiling sleepily. “Stay by all means. Yes, I expect we shall talk shop. Why not, mm? Don’t we always? Any of you who want to stay, may stay. If shoptalk bores you, you may depart in peace and migrate to the drawing room. Is that fair enough? Very fair, I’d say.” He nodded to the waiting Carrots to bring out the port.
Everyone elected to stay, of course, and the men all refused cigars, which annoyed Julian, who needed a smoke. Next-door’s equivalent of tobacco tasted like burning pine needles, but it did pack a wallop of nicotine. The port came around, Ursula pouring herself a glass and passing it on with the correct hand; most of the women just passing it. Small talk fluttered like awkward moths until the Carrots had departed. Then Pinky nodded to Foghorn who boomed obediently, “I expect Doc told you, Captain? Edward Exeter is on the loose up in Joalland, proclaiming himself the prophesied Liberator chappie.”
With T’lin Dragontrader so sure of himself, there was no use trying to cast doubt on the identity of the culprit. “Yes, sir.”
“What’s he up to, hm?”
“I have no idea. I haven’t heard from him since he left here.” Julian could feel that statement being weighed all around the table. They didn’t trust him, which was fair enough, because he did not trust them.
“You know him better than any of us, Captain.” The speaker was Pedro Garcia, who had done a bunk in Thovale and left his flock to pay the piper.
“We were school chums, yes, but I’ve hardly seen him since—once, very briefly, two years ago. You lot know him better than I do, actually.”
Guff! Exeter in 1917 had been exactly the same person as the house prefect who had left Fallow in 1914. He was one of those people who never change. He had been as self-reliant at eighteen as he would be at eighty—or eight hundred, if he stayed on Nextdoor that long. He would sail his own course, guided by his own sense of what was honorable, letting nothing sway him. He had been upright, unassuming, admirable—all those proper things—and thoroughly square on top of it. He would be till the day he died.
Garcia shrugged, greasy as a Dago fish fryer. “He went native.”
Julian’s fist clenched. “Did he? I thought he went off back Home, to enlist and do his bit in the war. That was the plan.” Olga squeezed his thigh, but whether that was intended as a warning or encouragement, he did not know. Or care.
“Indeed, Captain? In his farewell address he told the Carrots he was going off to fulfill the prophecy.”
“What if he did? That prophecy has blighted his whole life. It killed his parents. It branded him a murderer in England. It kept him from enlisting. It cut down his friends like corn.” It had even killed the girl he loved, although Ysian had been a native and to mention her would do no good. “He walked out of Olympus to save the rest of us. If he’d stayed here, Zath would have struck at the Service again.”
Directly across the table from Julian, Jumbo said, “Hear, hear! You’re not being fair, Pedro old man. Exeter survived his first two years on Nextdoor without any help from us. It’s hardly cricket to call that ‘going native’! I’d call it ‘surviving under adverse conditions.’ Adopting local color, if you prefer. When he finally did get here to Olympus, he was a perfectly civilized young gentleman again.”
Julian smiled gratefully at him and reached for his port. He hoped the discussion was now over and he could trot off to bed. Euphemia’s bed.
Rutherford broke the awkward pause with a throat-clearing like a carillon of church bells. “We were wondering, Captain…Do you know a young lady named Alice?”
Julian took a sip of port. They were ganging up on him. “Sounds like a limerick. Did she live in a palace?”
“We can all think of a good rhyme for the last line,” Jumbo said, “but I don’t think that was what the chairman was getting at.”
“Alice Prescott, Exeter’s cousin? Yes, sir, I’ve met her. Why?”
“Just wondering!” Foghorn boomed. The port was turning his red face redder. “If we asked for her help to make Exeter see reason, do you suppose she would cooperate, what?”
Not in a thousand years. Alice had far more respect for her cousin than that. At least, Julian thought she probably had. Alice was on another world anyway.
“I really could not say, sir.” That sounded uncooperative. “I only met her once or twice.”
“We just wondered. Well, that ought to conclude the shop-talk, so—”
> “No.” Apparently Jumbo had other ideas. Jumbo was quick; he had a sight more gray matter than Foghorn, perhaps even more than Pinky. “Let’s review the problem. I have never made a secret of my dislike for the prophecy. Exeter’s father agreed with me all the way.”
Heads nodded, but the eyes were on Julian. He said nothing, waited for the haymaker.
“First,” Jumbo said, “it’s crazy to take on Zath. He’s not officially one of the Pentatheon, but he’s undoubtedly stronger than any of them. The Five are scared stiff of him.”
“Human sacrifice!” Olga said. Her hand was exploring busily. She must have decided that Julian’s scalp had grown back in again. “None of the others stoop to that.”
Jumbo nodded. “And it won’t only be Zath. The Pentatheon may not like Zath, but they won’t approve of an upstart stranger preaching reform, so Exeter can’t hope for much help from the Five. Second, the civil authorities will not take kindly to hundreds of people galloping off after a new prophet. We’re already meeting resistance, and we’re nowhere near to being the sort of threat that the Liberator would be.”
“Powers that be always want to go on being powers, you know,” Pinky remarked sagely.
Pinky himself was a prize example, so Julian couldn’t argue with that. They were picking on him because he had been Exeter’s friend. A chap must stand by his friends. “Civil authorities can be diverted, sir. You proved that yourself in Loxby.”
“Not if the Pentatheon throws its weight behind them!” Jumbo shook his head wearily, looking twenty years older than usual. “The next stage is likely to be plague and thunderbolts, you know. We don’t have anything like enough mana to protect the church against direct assaults.”
“The argument cuts both ways. Exeter as Liberator may draw the Chamber off. They won’t worry about us while he’s on the rampage.”
Jumbo was unconvinced. “They’re more likely to lump both heresies together and declare a general pogrom. Exeter’s a threat to all of us and everything we’re trying to do. We’re still terribly vulnerable. A hundred years from now, things may be different.”
