The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  * * * *

  When at last they emerged, very well wrinkled, she powdered herself from the spray nozzles while he employed the old-fashioned sprinkling box.

  The bath chamber had two doors, one to the corridor and one to the Honeymoon Suite. Both doors could be locked from the inside, though the one to the corridor would open to the voicekey of steward, stewardess, or any of the ship’s officers. The one to the Honeymoon Suite could be locked from either side. The M.’s Olympian had grumbled in Corwin’s hearing at this additional Honeymoon Suite convenience lacking to the equally-priced and in some ways even more luxurious VIP Suite. True, the VIP Suite had a similar direct-access door to the ship’s library, but users of the library were not expected to require the strictest privacy, and so its corridor access had no lock on either side.

  “Pundit,” said Angela, “could Jemmy be the other ‘plant’? Along with Belladonna?”

  He considered. “That’s far from a bad thought, Pundita. The chief rub, being that it seems a considerable waste of energy to have staged a swordfight on the catwalk for the sole benefit of the captain—who we may presume is party to the secret—and one blind passenger whose presence could hardly have been foreseen.”

  “Yes, but then, you see, we have only their word for it that the swords were lost at all. They’d have had to exchange a few blows, so that Dr. Junge wouldn’t suspect, or if she hadn’t been there, they could simply have hidden their swords, come down, and described whatever they wanted the rest of us to imagine took place. Actually, we only have their word for it that Jemmy ever even had a sword. When Valkyrie bit him, of course, that couldn’t have been rehearsed.”

  “Proving the hazards of such employment. Let us hope that NTC pays a handsome bonus for wounds sustained in the line of duty. Well, you may be right, Pundita, in which case we can indeed hope to watch a pretty shipboard romance burgeon between highwayman and adventuress.”

  “It won’t be a true romance.” Angela sighed. “But we can pretend.”

  “And flatter ourselves that in the perception of our fellow travelers, the mock romance will suffer by comparison with the true.” Still in the doorway between bath and bedroom, they shared two or three long kisses before going the rest of the way into their own suite and remembering—barely—to lock the door behind them.

  Chapter 6

  “... ‘What are tarts made of?’

  “‘Pepper, mostly,’ said the cook.”

  —Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures

  in Wonderland, Chapter XI.

  It was midafternoon over the Atlantic Ocean. Tomorrow the Cygnus should pass over the Azore Islands, preferably by daylight, though both schedule and route were flexible, allowing the captain to reroute in accordance with weather reports. Weather study had become so exact, communications so excellent, that airships rarely needed to ride out storms unless they were small, friendly storms, good for helping entertain the passengers.

  No such storm was in the immediate offing. Captain Denne had informed them they might meet one late tonight. Meanwhile, for passengers of human flesh this was the longest of the journey’s scheduled five days. Traveling the same route from east to west would make it seem still longer, for then it would come as the fourth rather than the second day. So the preferred east-to-west routes were farther north, over Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland; or farther south, down the African coast, up the South American, over the Great Trap—that Sargasso Sea or Bermuda Triangle with its curious reputation that lent the tang of delusive danger, like an End of the World prediction, to the vast oceanscape below. Why did flesh humans enjoy pretending to be frightened? The northerly and southerly routes were longer, but offered more to perceive.

  Ariella Celeste mused upon all this as upon some purely academic exercise. One advantage of being a vegeton was that “boredom,” obviously an unpleasant state of mind which some flesh folk called worse than nightmare, was to her a strange, alien, incomprehensible concept. She could have been happy riding for hours in one of the engine gondolas, gazing out at waves and sun, like the engine watchers.

  Since she rode in the passenger areas, she sat and plucked music from the aluminum harp with silver strings, thus justifying her title Musician of the Spheres as she helped ease the tedium of the flesh passengers. Although she thought that very few of them seemed in need of her music this afternoon. Vasilisa should be in the far half of the long promenade, practicing leaps and pirouettes to the accompaniment of her own wristband chip music player; the promenade deck of the smoothly moving airship was one reason Vasilisa preferred the Cygnus to plane or ocean liner when she must travel to dancing engagements in cities around the world. Mother Frances Jackson and Winterset Windsong must be in the promenade also, or else in the library lounge, continuing their dispute over matters touching the souls of humans. Twice or thrice over luncheon, their voices had grown loud enough to suspend conversations at other tables, and even to call down words of censure from Jove Olympian. Insofar as Ariella took notice of theological squabbling, she inclined mildly to Winterset’s arguments. The Olympians frowned on both disputants, the Catholic for excluding them entirely, the Pagan for including them on no more than an equal basis with all other deities.

  Luncheon today should have been served at four tables, each accommodating four persons, but the Olympians had objected to sharing a table with any mortals, even Captain Denne. They had claimed one table to themselves while M. Tolliver, who still limped badly, and Dr. Caduceus ate at a hastily-set table for two. The priests had lunched with Grafin von Cruewell at the captain’s table; the honeymooners and M. Gillikin at First Officer Flier’s; Ariella, Vasilisa, and the sullen Belladonna at Second Officer Airborne’s; while Third Officer Altocumulus again stood watch duty on the bridge. Seeing that the notion was to honor the passengers, the higher officers always took precedence.

  Serving arrangements varied from meal to meal. Dawn breakfast was a buffet in the promenade for those who awakened in time. Midmorning coffee was carried on trays to the passengers wherever they preferred to consume it. Today the luncheon tables had been set in the lounge, and in another half hour by human reckoning the tea tables would be set in the promenade, and Vasilisa must leave her dancing. Redbloods were so fond of hyperactivity.

  The Olympians had retired after luncheon to their suite, emerging only to enter the bath across the stateroom corridor. They would surely take tea in their suite. They might deign to take dinner with their fellow travelers, if allowed the heads of the two long tables, even despite their earlier objections to sharing tables with mortals. Had Ariella been cursed with strong emotions, she would have preferred that they continue their non-enjoyment of the flight shut away by themselves. In their case, her basic indifference shaded toward dislike. The Olympians, if nobody else, ought to have been able to appreciate fine harp music.

  The honeymooners, who might have been expected to enclose themselves in their private quarters, sat in threesome with M. Gillikin, playing out some adventure of imagination and verbal fencing, some form of Dungeon Chess without the dice and other props. Ariella thought they liked her music, but only as background. Belladonna the Ribald sat brooding in a corner of the lounge. By the crease of her brow and the tight folding of her arms, not even the unconscious depth of her being had yet been relaxed by the strains of Ariella’s harp.

  Only Grafin von Cruewell appreciated the music for itself. After luncheon she had begun playing a solitaire with many small red pegs set in a black board the shape of a swastika. The goal was to jump one peg over another, removing the one jumped, until a single peg remained alone at the center. The grafin’s fingers, moving deftly as a dog’s tongue, had half completed the first game when she shook her head, deliberately shut the marbleplast game case, and gave her entire attention to the notes flowing from Ariella’s tendrils on the harpstrings. The grafin’s dog napped at her feet. Canines were seldom gentle friends to plantlife, but this o
ne caused the vegeton no alarm.

  One true listener was a better audience than none. Still, the Musician of the Spheres would have played with no human auditors at all. She was well accustomed to her lesser role, her name in fine print beneath Vasilisa’s in huge on the programs. Few people ever recognized her as they recognized the Firebird upon being introduced. It suited her well. It gave her roots room to grow with freedom. Closing her eyes, she moved her vegetable soul from peace to tranquil rapture with three shimmering glissandi.

  There was some accident in the galley. All partition walls in NTC airships were of good sound-soak, but even so, Ariella, at the corner window, near the wall between galley and lounge, could sense the chef’s voice raised peevishly loud. The sound-soak trapped the words, but not the vibrations. Ariella continued playing.

  The galley door opened and closed again with a muted snap. M. Tolliver came the few steps down the passage to stand just within the lounge. Over the objections of Chef Lightouch, the captain had put the stowaway to work as scullery knave.

  “I fear me I have o’erturned one of the spice canisters,” said M. Tolliver.

  “A crime of unheard proportions,” murmured M. Poe.

  “Our amiable Mistress Lightouch,” M. Tolliver went on, “did most roundly refuse mine offer to scoop up the bulk of the spill, which, falling in a little mound, had not yet come into contact with her clean-swept floor. She bade me instead, with a box on mine ear, ascend once more into yon upper regions of the island, e’en with my game leg and all, and fetch her down a fresh supply from the storehouses.”

  “Does it pain you much, Herr Tolliver?” said the grafin. “Your leg where my little Leibstandarte chewed it?”

  “The merest trifle, milady. Your marvelous Laputan salves have much diminished wounds that were most grievous only yesterday, until today they cause me little more than the ghost of a limp.”

  “That is good,” said the grafin.

  “Nay, milady, it is admirable.”

  It was also an exaggeration. As the grafin could surely hear, the stowaway’s limp was not yet that much improved. But Ariella made no comment.

  “Now,” M. Tolliver resumed, “who would seize this fair chance and accompany me?”

  Ariella played on. It was not worth the trouble of speaking.

  “Oh, we shouldn’t,” said Angela. “We need the captain’s permission, or one of the other officer’s, to go up there.”

  “Dear, sweet Mistress Angela, I have our cook’s express command.”

  “But we don’t,” Angela argued. “And the hatch is right there in the passageway to the bridge. They’d only have to open the door, and we’d be caught.”

  “On the other hand,” said M. Poe, rising, “what, precisely, could they do to punish us? I don’t say I’ll come all the way into the balloon with you, M. Tolliver, but I’ll give you a leg up and maybe pop my head through the hatch for a peek.”

  “Well, that surely couldn’t hurt,” his bride agreed. “Yes, I’ll do that much, too. Are you coming, Ozzie?”

  M. Gillikin shook his head. “Not me! Not up any skinny little rope ladder. I understand that for guided tours they put a ramp up to the hatch in the promenade deck. I’ll wait for that.”

  “What about you, Belladonna?” Angela went on cheerfully.

  Belladonna looked up scowling. “The temptation to push that goblin’s dung Tolliver off the catwalk might do me.”

  Gently plucking a final chord, Ariella stood to follow the climbing party. She had been up within an airship’s sheath before. On a sunny day it was warm and close there among the airsacs, and even at its most brilliant the light had a fuzzy glow she found very pleasant.

  * * * *

  Ariella lay on the catwalk soaking in warmth, her eyes closed and palms open, while somewhere beyond her M. Tolliver searched for and found the extra stores of spices. She did not know how long he took. Not long, apparently, for neither the captain nor any of her watch officers discovered them.

  Chapter 7

  “‘You look a little shy: let me introduce you to that leg of mutton,’ said the Red Queen. ‘Alice—Mutton: Mutton—Alice.’ The leg of mutton got up in the dish and made a little bow to Alice! and Alice returned the bow, not knowing whether to be frightened or amused.”

  —Lewis Carroll, Through the

  Looking-Glass, Chapter IX

  Having been assured of the head places at table, as befit their godhood, the M.’s Olympian graciously agreed to take dinner with the rest of the company.

  Miz Ming, M. Stewart, and the wiry young waiter M. Garson set up a pair of tables for eight in the lounge. Still limping slightly, M. Tolliver helped arrange the chairs. He wore his ambiguous position—half passenger, half constrained laborer—with the dash and sweep of a full-length cape, and twice or thrice got in Garson’s way.

  In addition to their own seating arrangements, the Olympians demanded the prerogative of deciding everyone else’s. Somewhat to the general surprise, Captain Denne acceded to this at once, shrugging it off as a detail of little importance. It was her first officer who insisted on his own and his chief’s positions at table.

  At Jove’s table sat Vasilisa the dancer, Ariella the musician, Belladonna the Ribald, Dr. Cecily Caduceus, Winterset Windsong, Second Officer Wright Airborne, and at the foot of the table, opposite His Deityship, Captain Denne. Jove had stated a preference for pretty Third Officer Candace Altocumulus rather than Second Officer Airborne, but there the captain drew her line. Their Olympian Majesties might reign in the passenger areas if it pleased their fancy, but the captain still and always ruled the rest of the ship, and the third officer would stand watch as scheduled.

  Juno had caused Corwin to be seated at her right hand and M. Tolliver at her left, with Obersturmbannfuehrerin von Cruewell and M. Gillikin down the right side of the table, Angela and Mother Jackson down the left, and First Officer Flier at the table’s foot.

  A few points were immediately obvious. Jove had claimed most of those females whom he found personable, Juno most of the males. And they must have separated the two clerics, whom they seemed to find almost equally heretical, in order to minimize dogmatic skirmishing. Why Juno should have taken the madre in lieu of the virile priest was mysterious; but presumably she had acted as guardian of hearth and home in claiming Angela, whom Jove made no secret of considering the most desirable young mortal aboard, for her own table.

  Though duly grateful to the goddess for keeping him and his bride at the same table, Corwin little enjoyed the verbal maneuvers required of him in his unwanted role of Her Olympian Majesty’s quasi-Ganymede. Moreover, with brief and fragmentary intervals, he had been in reality perception for most of the voyage thus far. While the means of transport was in itself sufficiently novel and in keeping with the Venerable Edgar’s futuristic fantasy to explain much, the length of these relapses grew worrisome.

  To complete his annoyances, the soup was iguanice, a decoction of iguana broth thickened with pureed iguana meat and flavored heavily with anise. Lauded by such famous gourmands as Chambrier, Tlixon, and Wang Dow, it had taken the reality-perceiving world by popular storm within weeks of its invention. Corwin could remember the initial furor. He had been seven or eight years old at the time, still young enough to taste the stuff in its true character; and in his opinion both its immediate acclaim and its continuing reputation as gourmet fare were totally unmerited.

  The highest rules of etiquette permitted self-proclaimed fanciers only three grounds for declining to eat or drink anything set before them: special diet, an already full stomach, and allergy—for reasons still under scientific investigation, once an allergy was identified the sufferer rarely failed to perceive that particular substance for what it was. During the months that followed the episode which had jarred his perceptions so gravely, Corwin had found social mealtimes among the sorest trials of a sometime reality perceiver stu
bbornly clinging to fancy-class registration and manners.

  He did not consider himself overly finical. He had learned to consume with a cheerful countenance, instead of the roast lamb he had ordered, the rolled breast of chicken the restaurant was serving all fanciers that day. Even barbecued iguana he could chew and swallow, now, without a grimace. And no doubt this tureen of iguanice, having issued from the galley of an NTC airship, had been lovingly prepared from the finest ingredients: pampered iguanas, cream from pampered cows, and anise grown in real earth gardens. Therefore, even though forewarned by the smell, he bravely allowed M. Garson to ladle it into his bowl.

  His courage flagged as he and the soup sat regarding each other while they waited until everyone else was served. Nevertheless, when at last Juno lifted the first spoonful to her lips, Corwin followed suit. The tiniest sip sufficed to inform him that neither the passage of years, the maturing of childhood to adult taste, nor the proficiency of the airship’s chef prevented iguanice from being even more obnoxious than he had remembered it.

  He tried to appear absorbed in the conversation, hoping that no one would remark his failure to lift the spoon a second time to his mouth.

  In vain. “Is the soup still too hot for your delicate tongue, my Ganymede?” Juno inquired solicitously, laying down her own spoon. “We shall temper Our pace to yours.”

  “No,” he began, “I’d rather you ...” His voice died as he noticed that at some point Valkyrie had poked her head up into sight on the other side of the table. He knew little about canines, but mistrusted the set of her ears and the seeming intensity of her expression. He began, “Obersturm—”

  Valkyrie lunged, barking loudly.

  Dr. Junge exclaimed something in German and caught her dog back.

  “You will keep your Cerberus under control!” said Juno.

  The obersturmbannfuehrerin stood, turning her head toward the Olympian. “My little Leibstandarte dislikes something here. Either the company, or the smell of the soup. I will take her where she will be happier. Perhaps I would prefer to stay there with her, but I will return to the company, myself. I will not hold you back to eat the soup, however. I will rejoin you in time for the fish.”