A huge branch overhung the river. Magnus was tempted, and would have tried it if he'd been alone, but he knew he couldn't haul the old lord up there. He kept wading, his legs growing more and more weary, and voices began to echo from the other bank of the stream, coming closer. They would be on him in a minute! Good or bad, they must find a hiding place, now!
"Go to . . . ground," the old lord wheezed. Magnus nodded; like a fox, they had to hide, and soon. "I'm looking for . . . a bolt-hole . . . my lord." For the first time, he began to think seriously of calling for his spaceship, and to hell with what it did to the mission by letting the lords know that someone else who knew about modern technology was active on the planet.
Then, suddenly, the trees on the left bank fell away into a small meadow. Magnus looked up in a panic—the first forester who came into that clearing would see them! He definitely had to call for Herkimer, now . . .
Then he saw the ovoid shape in the middle of the meadow.
A stone egg! He remembered the one Ian had come out of, remembered what Allouene had told him about the Safety Bases. He waded out of the river, hauling Lord Aran. "We have found it, my lord!"
The old man looked up, blinking. "What . . . ?"
"A Safety Base!" Magnus knelt slowly, lowering Lord Aran with him.
"But how . . . why . . . ?" Panic tinged the old lord's voice. Could it be, Magnus wondered, that he didn't know about these stations?
He remembered what Ian had told him of his fall into the egg, and pressed along the edge, trying to find the hidden hatch.
"We are lost," Lord Aran moaned, and slumped against the side of the rock. Then his moan turned into a cry of alarm as the surface gave way beneath him, and he fell into the hole.
Magnus leaped in after him, not giving the hatch time to close. Maybe it was keyed only for people of the right genetic makeup, maybe Lord Aran had just been lucky—but Magnus wasn't questioning good fortune.
The hatch closed above him, lights sprang to life, and Magnus, in a panic, called out, "No beacon! We need only rest, not rescue! Don't send for help!"
"As you wish, sir," a cultured voice replied. "Welcome to Safety Base 07734. What services will you require?"
"Only rest, food, and drink!" Magnus panted. "Thank you, Safety Base."
"We exist to serve," the computer's voice answered, then was silent.
Lord Aran looked about him, wide-eyed. "A Safety Base! Praise heaven!"
Then he collapsed into unconsciousness. Magnus was very glad—he was quite willing to wait, before Lord Aran started thinking of the inconvenient questions. He stooped to catch the old nobleman in a fireman's carry again, bore him down the spiral stairs to the nearest couch, then pulled off his boots, stripped off his wet clothes, wrapped him in a blanket, and propped his head on a pillow. That done, he straightened up with a sigh of relief, gazed a moment at his charge, then began to strip his own clothes off as he went into the bedroom, and just managed to aim himself toward a bed before fatigue took him and he fell.
* * *
Magnus awoke, bleary-eyed and aching. Looked around him and saw carpet, plasticrete walls, and viewscreens; he felt the smoothness of synthetics beneath his cheek—then suddenly remembered that he was on a medieval planet. Alarm sent him boltupright—had they been captured, or . . . ?
Then he remembered the end of the chase, the stone egg, the Safety Base, and went limp with relief. He hauled himself to his feet, stepped out of the bedroom, and saw the old lord still asleep on the couch.
Magnus nodded and went softly past him, knelt to pick up his clothes, and found them almost dry. How long had he slept?
He carried the clothes into the plush parlor and pulled on doublet and hose. Then he went up the winding stairs, stepped over to the control console, and asked, "How much time has elapsed since our entrance?"
"Ten hours, sir," the dulcet tones answered him. Ten hours! Magnus wondered what Siflot and the children had been doing in that time. Were they still free? "You did not activate the beacon."
"No, sir. You had commanded otherwise."
Well, that was a mercy. "News scan, please. Have there been any broadcasts?"
"A constant exchange of information, sir. Lord Aran's castle has fallen, his estates and serfs are being divided up between his neighbors, and the search for him continues."
"To no avail?"
"No, sir. His trail ended not far from this station." Magnus stiffened. "Where are they searching now?"
"In a spiral, sir, its center the point at which the trail ceased. The spiral has expanded to a diameter of five miles."
That was quick progress; they couldn't have been searching too thoroughly. Still, it gave Magnus a pang of anxiety for Siflot and the two children, if they had come as far as the forest. "Have they discovered any fugitives?"
"No, sir."
That was a relief, but it wasn't conclusive—if they'd caught the vagabond and the children, they might or might not have reported in by radio. On the other hand, who would think anything of a vagabond with two peasant children? Surely Siflot would think to disguise Heloise. Magnus relaxed, enough to realize how hungry he was. "Menu, please. Breakfast."
"Yes, sir. Our resources are limited; we can only provide steak and eggs, ham and eggs, several cereals, and rolls."
"Steak and eggs, please. And coffee." Magnus had learned to drink that beverage on Maxima, though he still wasn't certain he was happy about it.
A chime sounded below him. Going back down the stairs, he saw a steaming platter of eggs and brown meat on a small table, flanked by silverware. He crossed to it in two strides and sat down in one movement. The aroma was heavenly. He picked up a fork and started work.
Twenty minutes later, he decided it was time for a reconnaissance. With a sigh, he went up the stairs, pulled on his boots—and winced; they were still damp—then asked softly, so as not to wake Lord Aran, "Are there any enemies in the vicinity?"
"Define 'enemies.' "
Magnus bit his tongue; he didn't doubt that the computer knew what the word meant. It just wanted to know which side was which. Under the circumstances, since the lords were always the home team, he decided to drop the issue. "Are there any other human beings nearby?"
"Yes, sir. There is a woman twenty meters from this station."
Magnus froze. A woman? Who . . . ? Somehow, he thought he knew.
Magnus stepped out of the hatch; it remained slightly ajar behind him, as he had told it to—not that he really thought he would need a quick escape route, but he was growing very cautious. He stepped forward, hands on hips, feet wide apart, and looked about him, upward, breathing deeply of the fragrances of the forest, like a man enjoying a beautiful morning—and it wasn't terribly hard to pretend just that, though it was mid-afternoon.
She stepped forward from a screen of brush, lissome and lithe, as beautiful in a medieval gown and bodice as she had been in tights and jacket. But her face wasn't anywhere nearly as attractive when it was set in such stony anger.
Magnus glanced her way, then bowed his head gravely. "Good afternoon, Lieutenant."
"Don't give me 'good afternoon,' recruit!" Allouene advanced on him, eyes blazing. "Do you realize just what a churned-up mess you've made of things?"
"Not really," Magnus answered, slowly and deliberately. "The castle fell, as you intended it to."
"Yes, but we had to get an agent in to suggest strategy, after you shot out those first three cannon! You know you weren't supposed to use modern sighting equipment!"
Magnus just stared. "You told the lords to surround the castle with energy projectors and fire all at once?"
"Not me—Oswald," she said impatiently. "And he had the devil of a time getting into the camp and dreaming up a pretext to mention the notion, I can tell you!"
"So SCENT is responsible for the deaths of all those serfs."
Allouene shrugged impatiently. "It would have happened eventually anyway—and as soon as we saw you were bound and determined not to l
et events take their course, we had to stop you, fast! How the hell did you blow up all those energy projectors, anyway?"
"A man who tries to use nuclear power as a weapon is a fool," Magnus said evenly. "So you couldn't take the chance that Aran might have been able to hold out."
"He couldn't possibly have lasted! It was just a matter of time before the other lords would squash him! The most he could hope for was martyrdom, so his example might inspire other men!"
"Or scare them off," Magnus said evenly. "Besides, there was his granddaughter. Would you have left her an orphan? Or were you planning on her being martyred, too?"
"Don't get smart with me, recruit! No matter how much you think of yourself, you're just a bare beginner! You can't possibly know anything about social change, beyond what I've taught you!"
"Don't be so sure of that," Magnus retorted, "but true or not, I still know something of loyalty, and morality."
"The ends justify the means, Gar! You know that!"
"The ends do not always justify the means," he contradicted. "You must have a sense of proportion, a sense of balance."
"It's doctrine!"
"Doctrine by its nature is fallible. When it becomes inflexible, it opens itself to mistakes. You can't live your life by principles alone; you have to have compassion, too. If you don't, the best principles in the world can be corrupted into inhumanity. It's people who matter, not causes."
"If you honestly believe that, you can go someplace else to try to put it into practice!" Allouene snapped. "This is our planet, and we'll push it toward democracy as we see fit! And so will you! You took an oath, and you're under military discipline!"
"The oath I took was for the good of the people of the planets that SCENT would work on," Magnus said evenly, "and the military can only apply discipline through a court-martial."
"We'll convene one."
"You'll have to start without me, then." Allouene reddened, about to make another retort, but caught herself at the last instant. She took a deep breath, and forced a smile. "Look, Gar. The situation isn't totally fouled up yet. We can still salvage something. Leave the old lord to his own devices. His peers will catch him and try him, and he'll still be a martyr. Not as effective as dying in battle, but still good enough."
"And the child Heloise will still be alone in the world. And I will be have lost my honor, and have to live with the knowledge that I abandoned a man to whom I had sworn loyalty. No."
"Loyalty! Honor! You talk like somebody out of the Middle Ages!" Allouene snapped. "What have you done, gone native?"
"Let us say that I can understand the frame of reference," Magnus said, poker-faced.
"Then remember this—you swore loyalty to us first!" Allouene blazed. "You have no right to louse up our plans this way!"
"And you have no right to interfere with these people and their society. If you're going to do it at all, you should do it ethically."
"There are no ethics when it comes to trying to change a society!"
"There are," Magnus said. "You might start with trying to shorten the sufferings of the oppressed."
"We can't free them right away without starting a civil war! Even if they won and the lords were muzzled, the gentlemen and serfs don't know enough to establish a viable democracy! They don't even have the concept of human rights yet! Anything they build will fall apart! You'll have anarchy! Warlords fighting it out! Everybody will suffer!"
"But you can save the ones who are in the worst trouble in the meantime," Magnus retorted. "I won't try to upset your plans, Lieutenant Allouene—but I won't abandon this old lord, either."
"You already have upset our plans. And how do you think you can save that old lord, anyway?"
"I'll find a way," Magnus answered.
Allouene suddenly calmed, watching him narroweyed. "No, you won't—you already have, haven't you? You're too sure of yourself for anything else. You think you've figured out a way to save him! How?"
Magnus stood silent.
"Castlerock!" Allouene erupted. "You're planning to take him to Castlerock!"
"An interesting idea," Magnus replied.
"You fool, don't you know you'll never make it? It's seventy miles to that inland sea! With a hundred lords and all their dogs and all their men in between!"
"There will be long odds, no matter what I do," Magnus returned.
But the implications were just hitting Allouene. Her eyes widened in horror. "Damn! Castlerock, with all its escaped serfs, hit with a folk-hero like Lord Aran? You really do want to start that civil war, don't you?"
"Revolution," Magnus corrected, "and I don't think it will start for several generations yet."
"Castlerock can't hold out for several years, let alone several generations! The lords will concentrate all their firepower on it! They can't let it stand, especially not with Lord Aran there! The serfs will have to fight!"
"You could persuade the lords to ignore them," Magnus said softly.
"Ignore them? Can you ignore a live hand grenade under your dinner table? They can't allow it! We can't allow it!" Then Allouene caught her breath, realizing what she had said.
So did Magnus. "Try to stop me," he said.
Allouene's eyes narrowed. "We will."
CHAPTER 12
They tried. Oh, nothing overt—they couldn't let their intervention be obvious, after all—but Oswald had recruited dozens of locals as his agents before Allouene and her team ever arrived, and had several in the lords' camp; he saw to it that word of the fugitives' whereabouts leaked to the noblemen.
Magnus, however, made sure he and Lord Aran weren't there.
Oh, there were times when he couldn't evade their hunters completely, times when Oswald outguessed him and he found a squadron of soldiers in his path, or was ambushed, or betrayed by an innkeeper or a ferryman; but a society with plenty of hounds and some modern technology was pitted against a psionic master with a medieval heart and a modern education. The lords didn't really understand how their gadgets worked, but Magnus did. He saw to it that they stopped working; he saw to it that the soldiers were looking the other way as he and Lord Aran crept by; he countered the ambushes with telekinesis reinforcing karate.
Siflot, meanwhile, found the children and brought them to Magnus and Lord Aran, and together they fought their way through seventy miles of patrols and sentries, of checkpoints and cordons, until finally the day came when they found the escaped serfs, or the serfs found them.
And so they came to Castlerock, and stood atop its highest pinnacle to look back over the way they had come, the free-lance and his apprentice, the lord and his little granddaughter, and the jester. How they got there is another tale, to be told in another time and another place; for now, all that matters is that they did come there, despite all the efforts of the lords and of Master Oswald and his team; and Lord Aran said to Magnus, "What comes now?"
Magnus shrugged. "You are the lord here, not I."
"I am the lord," Lord Aran rejoined, "but there is more to you than there seems." He peered keenly at his bodyguard. "You are not of this world, are you?" Magnus stood very still for a moment, gazing out at the countryside.
Siflot looked up, more alert than alarmed. Slowly, Magnus turned to the lord. "You have guessed it," he said, "and I should not be surprised. I knew you were acute, my lord."
"Thank you for the compliment," Lord Aran said, with only a trace of sarcasm. "May I know your true name, and station?"
"I am a knight," Magnus said slowly, "and heir to a lord."
Siflot stared, wide-eyed.
Lord Aran nodded, triumph in his gaze. "I knew it! Breeding cannot be hidden long, especially in such crises as we have weathered together, young man. What is your house and nation?"
"I am a d'Armand, of Maxima," Magnus said slowly, "though I grew up far from there."
Lord Aran nodded. "And how have you come to be here?"
"That, I am not at liberty to say," Magnus answered, "though I will tell Your Lordship that
my spaceship awaits in orbit."
"And will you leave us, then?" Ian looked up, alarmed.
"I fear I must," Magnus said, "for to aid you further would be to betray my comrades."
"Have you not betrayed them already, in aiding me?"
"They believe so," Magnus said, "but I know otherwise. They will find that their plans to help the people of this planet are advanced more than they could have hoped for in a single year, and will find that they merely need shift their strategy to incorporate the fact of your survival, and coming to Castlerock."
"Indeed!" the old lord said, with some asperity. "Then it was not loyalty alone, or friendship, that bade you save myself and my granddaughter."
"It was," Magnus contradicted, "but I had need also to find a way to salvage the plans of my . . . friends, by saving you."
"Resolving a conflict of loyalties? Magnificent, if you achieved it! But how?"
"Yes, this is really quite interesting," Siflot said, composing himself to listen. "How shall Lord Aran survive, and Castlerock with him, without disrupting the plans of . . . our friends?"
"Why, by his own action," Magnus said. "I shall leave you a transceiver, with which His Lordship can access a transponder that will beam his voice to Terra. By that, he can declare Castlerock to be a sovereign nation, desiring associate membership in the Decentralized Democratic Tribunal, and asking its aid."
"But the D.D.T. will never interfere in the internal affairs of a planet!" Siflot protested.
Lord Aran glanced at him keenly, and Magnus, with a sense of satisfaction, knew that the old lord would not lack good advice. "It may, when that planet is not a member of the Tribunal, but is one the D.D.T. wishes to count among its members."
"But SCE—" Siflot coughed, then said, "Our friends would never allow it!"
"No, it would take the situation out of their control, wouldn't it?" Magnus smiled. "So they will, of course, intercept the message, and offer to give Castlerock support in their own right." He turned back to Lord Aran. "They will give you weapons, my lord, and instruction in their use, enough for you to be able to withstand the siege of the other lords."
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