He was brushing the last crumbs from his lap when he first heard approaching hoofbeats.
He picked up the submachine gun and got quickly to his feet; the riders were approaching from the right, the east. He could not judge their distance well, but he could make out the jingle of harness now as well as the thudding hoofs; they could not be far. He considered taking cover but rejected the idea, as he was unsure he would have sufficient time. Furthermore, he would have to make contact with the locals eventually if he was to get anywhere with his investigation. Keeping the gun loose in his hands, he stood by the roadside and waited.
Within a few seconds half a dozen horsemen rode around the bend into view. All were big, burly warriors, clad in fur vests much like his own—he had chosen his garment well—and elaborately arranged loincloths. Each carried a sword slung on a broad metal-studded leather belt and a spear strapped to his shoulder; shields were slung at the back of each saddle. Their horses were large, sleek beasts, bay or black in color, and each carried a bulky pack as well as its rider.
The leader caught sight of the stranger by the roadside and slowed his mount from its trot. The others followed suit; the entire squad approached Slant at a slow walk and drew up in front of him.
The leading rider was a huge fellow, with heavily muscled limbs, long flowing black hair, and an immense drooping mustache; Slant guessed the man to be younger than himself. The horseman was first to speak.
"Hello, stranger!" His voice was a booming bass. "We had not expected to see anyone in this area. Whence do you come, and whither are you bound?" His speech was a degenerate form of the Anglo-Spanish pidgin spoken on many of the colony worlds; the computer relay translated it to Slant as quickly as possible, but the slight delay was enough to irritate the warrior with Slant's slowness of reply.
The reply was made in the same pidgin, twisted as closely as Slant could manage to the same form the horseman spoke, but it had been a long time since he had used any language but his own and the speech did not come readily at first.
"Hello, sir. I come from far away, a place called Tur, and have no particular destination." The name "Tur" was the first he could think of; he hoped it would be acceptable.
"Tur? I never heard of it Where does it lie?"
Remembering that he was near the eastern edge of the continent, Slant answered, "To the west."
"I know of no such place, and I think I would remember such a short, odd name. Is it this side of Praunce?"
"No, it's beyond Praunce." He was improvising desperately; it seemed advisable to locate his supposed home as far away as possible. He wished the man weren't so interested in where he came from.
"I was unaware that there are any inhabited lands beyond Praunce."
Slant shrugged.
"How did you come here, then, if your home is so distant?"
"I walked. I am a wanderer, of no fixed abode." He recalled this last phrase from enemy documents he had read long ago; without that he would not have been able to remember an appropriate word.
"A wanderer? What sort of wanderer? What do you call yourself?" The warrior's voice held a note of distrust; Slant guessed that people did not travel much in this society.
"I am called Slant. I go where I please, for I have no family or possessions, and I was weary of Tur." The words were beginning to come more easily now, and he could hear for himself that the name of his imaginary home didn't fit the language well.
"What's that thing you're holding?" The horseman pointed at the submachine gun.
Slant shrugged. "I don't know; I found it in the forest and thought it might be valuable."
"Let me see it." He held out a hand.
Hiding his reluctance, Slant handed over the weapon; the computer silently warned him, "Surrender is not permitted," as he relinquished it
A slight tension came over him, and he replied silently, "Shut up! I'm not surrendering; he just wants to look at the gun. He doesn't know it's a weapon, he's just curious." He struggled to keep his outward appearance calm. "If I were surrendering I'd give him my knife, wouldn't I?" He knew that the computer would kill him if it decided he was surrendering; he hoped that the horseman would not ask for his knife.
The man did not ask for the knife; he studied the submachine gun, turning it over in his hands, being careful not to work any of the mechanisms. Finally he looked up from it and asked, "Where did you find it?"
"Back that way." Slant pointed vaguely off to the southwest.
"It looks like some of the relics at Setharipoor; I'd be very careful of it if I were you. One of those relics destroyed half a museum a few years back; old magic, very dangerous stuff." He handed the gun back and Slant accepted it gratefully, with a polite nod of his head. His relief was not outwardly evident as he told the computer, "See? I wasn't surrendering."
"Affirmative."
The horseman was studying Slant now, much as he had studied the gun. "You say you just roam about aimlessly?"
"Yes."
"How do you live?"
"I eat what I can find, do what work I can find when I need money or goods, sleep in the open." He tried to look diffident.
The warrior was studying the vest and trousers Slant wore, and the cyborg suddenly realized that both garments looked brand new; neither had ever been worn before this morning, and he had not thought to age them artificially. That would, he saw, be very suspicious indeed in a penniless wanderer. The man probably took him for a thief or some other sort of outlaw.
The horseman reached a decision. "Slant of Tur, as you call yourself, I am Huarram of Teyzha, Captain of Warriors, and I go now to serve as ambassador to Orna. These lands and to the east are under the jurisdiction of Teyzha and the Council that rules Teyzha, and I think I would be failing in my duty to the Council were I to leave you wandering about here. Therefore I will send you to the Council with an escort, and let them decide what to do with you. You have committed no crime to my knowledge, nor acted against the city, and if this is the case you need have no fear; we are a just people, and harm no one without reason. Is this acceptable to you?"
Slant shrugged. "I have no objection." He suspected that Teyzha was his intended destination anyway, and this seemed as good a way as any to get there.
"Good, since you have no choice. Perhaps the Council will be able to tell you what this relic of yours is, as well." He turned to look over his shoulder at the other horsemen and said, "Silner, take this man back to the city and present him to the Council. He is not a prisoner, so treat him with respect—but he is not a friend, so be cautious." He turned back, nodded at Slant, and without further ado turned his horse up the road and spurred it forward.
All but one of the others followed, and a moment later they were out of sight, leaving Slant facing a lone warrior.
Silner was the youngest and smallest of the party, barely out of his teens, yet taller and broader than Slant. He wore white-striped brownish fur, and a thick braid of blond and reached halfway down his back. His face was clean-shaven; Slant, who had given up shaving more than ten years before, realized that Silner was the only one of the warriors who did not sport at least a mustache, and guessed that it was because he was too young to grow anything that looked halfway decent.
His horse was a glossy black animal; Slant looked at the creature and wondered whether he would be expected to walk while his escort rode. If Teyzha was in fact the disturbance center that the computer had been directing him toward, it was still a good distance away.
Silner settled that question by motioning for Slant to mount and holding out a hand to assist him. Slant obeyed, and found himself seated astride the horse in front of the saddle and rider. It was not a comfortable position, and it was not made any better by having to hang onto the submachine gun; he could not sling it over his shoulder without getting very much in Silner's way. Despite the awkward position, riding was, however, better than walking.
"Query: Advisability of current cooperation with native civilian."
The computer's question surprised Slant; it had failed to recognize the warriors as soldiers, apparently. Upon consideration, though, Slant realized they had no uniforms, no firearms—to a computer, operating on the assumption of a high-level technology, it was a reasonable mistake. It was also a good thing, since cooperation with an enemy soldier could be fatal.
"You want me to get close to the enemy weapons research, right? To do that, it appears I have to get into Teyzha, and this seems like the best way to do it. These people don't recognize my origin; I'm operating undercover. You heard the man say that I'm not a prisoner, and I'm still armed. Besides, riding is faster than walking."
"Affirmative. Continue action."
Slant nodded to himself, and noticed that while he had conversed with the computer Silner had turned the horse's head back toward Teyzha and that they were moving at a gentle trot. The young warrior did not deign to speak to Slant, then or for some time thereafter; it was not until they made camp that evening and it became necessary to discuss building a fire that the cyborg learned the youth had a pleasant tenor voice.
Chapter Three
AROUND NOON OF THE DAY AFTER SLANT LANDED, THE PAIR reached Teyzha. About midmorning they had emerged from the forest into rolling farmland, but since neat rows of trees served as boundary markers and windbreaks on every side of each little patch of cultivated land, and since the road continued to wind between hills, Slant did not have a clear view of the city until they were less than a kilometer from its gates.
As he had half expected, the city was walled, with dull gray stone fortifications that stood seven or eight meters in height. From a distance bright domes and spires could be briefly glimpsed through the treetops, rising above the drab walls, but as they drew nearer the angle became impossible, and he could see nothing of the city but the gray stone.
The trees and the swaying motion of the horse had prevented close study, but those towers had looked quite elaborate and substantial. Slant was pleased to see that the planet was not still in the caves-and-mud-huts stage.
He had little chance to consider the city; sooner than he had expected they were at the gate, and Silner was stating his name, rank, and purpose to a suspicious guard. Slant's knowledge of the local dialect was still poor enough that it took a conscious effort for him to follow a conversation, and he made no effort to follow this one, but simply sat, silent and disinterested, until at last the guard pushed open one of the gates and allowed them through.
Slant's disinterest evaporated. The city was fascinating. He was slightly impressed; he had not expected much, given the drab gray walls, but it appeared the decorative domes he had glimpsed were more representative of the city than were the walls.
The streets were paved, and as if that were not remarkable enough, they were paved with stone and equipped with gutters and sidewalks, all spotlessly clean and apparently dead level. This was not at all usual on the less-civilized worlds Slant had seen. No garbage was visible anywhere, and neither his eye nor his nose could detect sewage. Could it be that this primitive culture had underground sewers? If not, at least they had something that seemed to serve about as well. It was an accepted fact on some planets he had visited that cities stank, and he had expected the same here. Teyzha was a pleasant surprise.
He sniffed the air; there was not the slightest trace of foulness, but only fresh air, the sweat of his companion and himself, the odor of their horse, and a faint whiff of incense and cooking odors from buildings nearby.
The buildings were another surprise; he had expected sagging half-timbered structures scattered more or less randomly about the streets, interspersed, perhaps, with ones of brick or wood or stone. Instead, the street before him was lined with tidy stone structures, of cut and polished blocks and trimmed with ornate carvings. The structural stone was granite, or something very similar, but the carvings, sills, cornices, and so forth were of varying materials—mostly colored marbles, but he spotted malachite adorning the windows of one house, and lapis lazuli inlays on another.
Or at least there were ornaments of stones that resembled these; he knew well enough that minerals varied from world to world, and one could never be sure just what one was seeing.
Many buildings sported such luxuries as glass windows and brass hinges—though those were scarcely universal, of course. He was quite impressed.
The truly remarkable thing about the city, though—or at least about the avenue he and Silner were riding along—was that it appeared to be the work of a single architect, built all as a unit. Every building was in harmony with its neighbors, and all were graceful and elegant, with a pleasing repetition of detail. Not that all the buildings were the same; on the contrary, they varied greatly. The variations, however, were never of style, but of detail, size, purpose, and arrangement
If it had been the work of a single architect, Slant decided, he or she had been a singularly gifted one. He had rarely seen such a beautiful city street, even on Old Earth.
Silner and the occasional pedestrian they encountered along the avenue showed no signs of appreciating the beauty of the city; doubtless they were used to it.
Perhaps a kilometer from the gate they emerged from the broad avenue into an even broader plaza, a square paved with three colors of stone in spiral patterns, with a fountain bubbling at its center. Silner halted his horse and dismounted; Slant followed his example and swung to the ground. He discovered that he was stiff from his long ride, and that a great many parts of his body were slightly painful. He performed a curious stretching exercise he had been taught back on Mars, designed to loosen the muscles in preparation for hand-to-hand combat, and felt the tension and discomfort fade.
He noticed Silner staring at him and decided not to repeat the motion; the warrior's expression betrayed hostile astonishment, as if Slant's stretching offended him in an entirely new and original way.
When he was sure he had the stranger's attention, Silner turned and marched across the plaza to an especially large and elegant building that occupied most of one side, and up the steps that led to its entrance. Slant followed obediently, slinging the submachine gun on his shoulder as he did.
The building was adorned with rather more marble than was customary, and the cyborg guessed it to be the seat of the local government and the meeting place of the Council he had been brought to see. Silner did not hesitate upon reaching the top of the steps, but flung open the great black doors and marched across the antechamber within, and then onward into the torchlit corridor beyond.
Slant followed, thinking of nothing in particular, noticing how very dim the torches seemed after the brilliant sunlight outside. So far he was more or less letting events go as they would, taking the path of least resistance. He was aware that this was not what was expected of an IRU cyborg, so that it was no surprise when the computer said, "Cyborg unit is entering a building that must be assumed to be an enemy stronghold. Programming indicates that such an action must be considered a high-risk operation despite undercover status. All high-risk actions call for alert status, and cyborg unit should exploit all opportunities to reconnoiter enemy stronghold in detail."
"I can't reconnoiter anything; I'm not alone. This person ahead of me thinks I'm one of his own personnel from another base, per my cover story, and is taking me to the local authorities to obtain my clearance for free movement within this installation. It's advisable to cooperate completely until such clearance is obtained." That was a distortion of the truth, of course; the fact was that Slant didn't want to be bothered with a lot of military nonsense on what he was sure was a wild goose chase. He had begun to think that the gravitational disturbances were probably due to an instrument malfunction's causing a misinterpretation of some natural phenomenon on this planet; he really couldn't imagine how the disturbances could be artificial
The computer took a second or two before replying, and he worried for an instant that it might have decided he was lying. It would probably consider that treason and kill him. He continued to marc
h mechanically down the corridor as he waited for its response.
"Explanation accepted; continue action."
Slant exhaled, noticing for the first time that he had been holding his breath.
The computer had a final comment to add. "Cyborg unit is within area of concentration of anomalies representing enemy weapons research and approaching center of area of concentration. Extreme caution advisable."
That confirmed Slant's suspicion that Teyzha was where he'd been heading in the first place; he wondered if perhaps the ship's scanners had somehow misregistered something innocuous in the city, such as oil lamps or brain waves, as gravitational disturbances. He had no idea whether such a screw-up was possible, but it would serve to explain the matter. Whatever the situation, it appeared that he was in the right place to resolve matters.
The corridor ended in a pair of heavy wooden doors; Silner knocked upon one, then stood and waited. Slant, who had been trailing a few paces behind him, also stopped and stood.
The doors swung partway open, and a bearded face appeared between them.
"Oh, hello, Silner." The man spoke in a friendly and conversational tone, but the helmet that hid most of his curly black hair marked him as a guard of some sort. "What can I do for you?"
"Hello, Kirridin. I'm afraid I need an audience, as soon as possible. We picked up a stranger on the road, and Huarram thought the Council should see him."
The Cyborg and the Sorcerers Page 3
