The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  Valkyrie whimpered once, and the footfalls halted.

  But it seemed to have been a coincidental whimper, and the dog slept on. Surely Dr. Caduceus would have given her some sedative or painkiller, cautiously administered from the shipboard supplies meant for human patients.

  The footfalls resumed, and presently their maker appeared in the narrow, vertical view afforded Corwin by the crack between wardrobe door and frame.

  It was the ship’s steward.

  Even as he hove into view, he was turning to face the bed, offering the watcher in the wardrobe one quick view of his profile and then only his back. Nevertheless, Corwin could not be mistaken. The uniform, the stance ... Yes, it was definitely M. Steward Stewart’s stance of deferential self-assurance, and he wore it undimmed.

  But this was not the posture one expected to witness in a would-be murderer creeping with stealth upon the intended victim. Stewart might have come simply to check on the well-being of von Cruewell and her dog, might even have been directed to do so by Captain Denne or Dr. Caduceus. Had the captain’s command to remain behind locked stateroom doors been issued to cabin crew as well as passengers? And if so, might it not be countermanded for the flight attendants without the passengers’ advance knowledge?

  Corwin was forced to conclude that springing forth at this juncture would hardly trap a culprit, assuming Stewart to be one. Or at least, it might trap him, but it could not prove his culpability. The witness crouched in the wardrobe, wished that he could massage his lower left leg, and waited.

  Stewart laid one hand on the obersturmbannfuehrerin’s shoulder. She stirred, but only momentarily, before sinking back into apparent slumber. Stewart lifted his hand, seemed to watch and listen for several moments, and finally nodded. Reaching into a pocket in his jacket, he brought out—Corwin had to squint, even move his head a few centimeters—a hypodermic needle.

  No. That must be fantasy perception. Hypodermic needles were antiques, replaced decades ago by the reputedly painless swish injectors. But what legitimate motive could M. Stewart have for producing a swish injector here? Or for angling in and bending over Valkyrie with the thing? Would Dr. Caduceus have delegated such work to the ship’s steward?

  Possible—but even if Stewart were trained in paramedicine, should he not first have wakened the dog’s mistress and informed her?

  The immediate risk to Valkyrie outweighed all else. Corwin thrust open the wardrobe door and lunged forward.

  His cramp-tightened leg betrayed him. Thanks to the narrowness of the cabin, he reached Stewart—indeed, knocked him off balance by staggering hard against him, slewing off balance himself in the process. The injector went flying. Von Cruewell’s chair, struck by the men’s topple, skidded over, its legs bruising and further entangling Corwin’s. Valkyrie whimpered.

  “Was ist los?” cried the obersturmbannfuehrerin. “Valkyrie—”

  “He had an injector!” Teetering on his knees, Corwin found the truncheon, still attached by its thong to his right wrist, and aimed a blow at Stewart, who had fallen partly on the bed. Stewart tried to kick, lost purchase and slipped down farther on the edge of the mattress, gave a short cry of pain, and clutched at Corwin, catching his wrists.

  “Ah!” said von Cruewell. “Is that you, Herr Stewart?”

  Stewart’s face showed pure panic. With a last, painful squeeze, he cast off Corwin’s wrists and scrabbled up.

  Corwin managed to hook him with the truncheon round one ankle. Stewart fell sprawling but kicking. His free foot thudded between Corwin’s chin and collarbone.

  By the time Corwin’s thoughts began to clear, Stewart was at the door, von Cruewell shouting German oaths as she tried to grope around what must have been, even to a sighted person, a maze of chair and human legs.

  The charley horse still tweaking his calf and instep, Corwin levered himself up on his arms, flopped forward, and fell short of Stewart, who turned at the noise, in the act of opening the door. There was a pocking sound, and Stewart seemed to go stiff. Another pock, and he crumpled to the floor.

  Angela stood in the doorway, one of her shoes in hand, the washcloth in which she had wrapped it already fallen away. One of her walking shoes, with a solid realwood heel three centimeters high by five across.

  * * * *

  “But it’s the steward!” That was the voice of the Raven’s young bride, coming from the doorway. Good, thought Ilna. Spontaneous identification given by three persons, even fanciers, established courtworthy evidence. Besides, it seemed that they had Stewart’s person, for M. Garvey went on, “Did I—Is he all right?”

  “Only unconscious, I think,” replied her bridegroom. “Possibly only dazed. Help me secure him. Isn’t there some trick of pulling a jacket down around the wearer’s elbows? If he’s wearing the right style of jacket ...”

  So the Raven was unsure of his perceptions again, was he? That would have been a beautiful thing to watch, an amateur attempting such a trick for the first time while unsure whether the subject’s outer upper garment were back-fastening, front-fastening, pullover, or adaptable. Ilna smiled, disentangled herself from her fallen chair, and advanced to the doorway, using the sliding step in case other obstacles should be in her way. She met none.

  The bride was saying, “I didn’t want—Oh, his head’s bleeding!”

  “Good,” Ilna told her. “I begin to think that it is you, M. Garvey, who are the Raven, and not your husband. With what did you strike him, to stop him so neatly?”

  “My shoe. The heel of my shoe. Oh, Corwin, what kind of shoe is this? I thought it was one of my rubber-soled hiking shoes, but now it seems like a ten-centimeter spike heel! I didn’t think I owned any spike heels.”

  “I will feel it, M. Garvey,” said Ilna, “and tell you what it is, when M. Stewart is secured. You will both move away now—but stand ready—and let me secure him. I have my tape, and I have experience.” Squatting, she quickly ascertained that Stewart lay face down, if somewhat doubled together. “Help me pull him straight, M. Poe. You will take his shoulders. Yes, good.” Hauling the steward’s hands up behind him, she got her tape from her belt case, crossed his wrists, and wound three loops snugly about them. “An injector you say he had, M. Poe?”

  “A swish injector. I assume. To me it appeared an old-fashioned hypodermic needle, but—”

  “What happened to it?”

  “It flew from his hand when we…er…grappled. No, blank that,” Poe confessed. “I fell against him. A cramp in my leg. Fairly well worked out, now. Angela, I don’t remember tabbing for you—”

  “Shame on you, then!” said the bride. “But you did. Even if the chime was a little jagged.”

  “Ah! It must have happened when he seized my wrist.”

  “This injector,” Ilna broke in with justified impatience, as she moved down to find Stewart’s ankles. “Do you know if it broke?”

  “No. That is, I heard nothing. I believe the carpet is of a very deep pile, is it not?”

  “Swish injectors don’t break anyway, do they?” said the bride.

  “We do not yet know that it is a swish injector, M. Garvey. There are certain addicts who prefer injecting certain substances with antique needles, so your husband could have seen true. We must find that injector, or what is left of it, and learn what it held. If it is broken, we must soak up what we can with a towel. Although it is possible that he meant an air bubble injected into the blood stream to do the work.”

  “Ugh!” said the young woman.

  “Yes, M. Garvey, very ugly. You may look for it now at once, both of you,” Ilna directed them, adding one final thickness to the tape around Stewart’s legs. “He will not get away from us now.”

  Sensing their move to the window side of the stateroom, Ilna stood, found Stewart’s shoulders, dragged him all the way into the cabin, shut and locked the door.

  “Have you locked us
in?” Poe demanded.

  “We do not yet know whether M. Stewart acted alone or has confederates aboard. I want you for witnesses to the interrogation.”

  “I think not, thank you,” said Poe, sounding, as they said, white about the gills.

  M. Garvey added, “You aren’t going to ...” And she sounded alarmed.

  “No,” Ilna said sadly, “then you are not the Raven after all, neither one of you. My Raven would have offered to assist me with choice techniques of the KGB. But do not worry, M.’s. My license has many limits. M. Stewart is more than ninety percent reality perceiver, at his last registration test, so my little ink stamp will probably not work upon him, Herr Poe. We must fall back on simple questions. With, perhaps, just a few little drops of truth serum. My license allows that much. You may examine it and read for yourselves.”

  Chapter 21

  “I think, Mr. Wizard, I shall have you blow a bubble around me; then I can float away home and see the country spread out beneath me as I travel.”

  —L. Frank Baum, The Road to Oz, Chapter 24

  “No, no, I don’t mind being an Oz villain to while away an idle hour or two.”

  —Karr, “A Computer Wizard in Oz”

  (original version, in Oziana 1986)

  “So ’twas our trusted steward smuggled the stuff aboard,” said Jemmy. “Alone?”

  “So it would appear,” Corwin replied, “seeing that no one else has been arrested. Obviously, he had contacts at either end, so that his capture may lead to the apprehension of other involved parties on the ground; but the authorities seem satisfied that nobody else presently aboard this airship was involved.”

  By “the authorities,” Angela knew her husband meant Dr. Junge, but the obersturmbannfuehrerin had told them to help preserve what was left of her cover. Lots of people might suspect that she was with Inindrucon or some other crimetracking force, but nobody else in the Melon except Corwin, Angela, and Captain Denne knew for sure. The story posted on the shipboard newscreen said that Captain Denne had used radio contact with police databases in London, New York, Yambouli, and Indianapolis to computer-tie M. Stewart with other evidence on file. Not even the captain knew about Dr. Junge’s truth serum, if that’s what it had really been. The obersturmbannfuehrerin had told M. Stewart that was what it was, as she injected him with it just when he was regaining full consciousness, and he had certainly seemed to believe her. But you heard that even reality perceivers could be hypnotized or otherwise tricked sometimes. Anyway, it hadn’t looked to Angela like a fearsome or illegal-method interrogation, and Corwin—who was so talented at perceiving such things even when they weren’t there—agreed that Dr. Junge had appeared to do nothing that violated the steward’s rights, either human or legal. Last night, after thinking for a few moments that she had used a spike heel on M. Stewart when it really had been one of her plain hiking shoes, Angela guessed that she herself might have been capable of seeing vile things where they weren’t. Had the whammy left that behind?

  “Methinks,” said Jemmy, with a nod at the window, through which they could still see the Cunard cargo liner Second Seal gliding westward, “that I may count myself fortunate not to find myself e’en now in the brig of yon vessel, alongside our unlamented former steward.”

  “I should guess,” Corwin agreed, “that you ought to count yourself very fortunate indeed.”

  “I wouldn’t call M. Stewart ‘unlamented,’ though,” said Angela. “Not exactly. It’s left Miz Ming and Amahl alone to do all the waiting on us.”

  “Nay, madame,” said Jemmy, “they have pressed one or two of the aboveboard climenoles into service as stewards’ assistants.”

  “Only to set up tables and help M. Lightouch in the galley. Miz Ming and Amahl still have to do all the fetching and carrying and other little things for us spoiled passengers. I’ll bet, Jemmy, if you promised to be on your best behavior, and not go climbing around aboveboard anymore without permission, Captain Denne would let you out of irons to fill in for M. Stewart the rest of the trip.”

  “Nay, I am no steward!” he protested, looking almost alarmed. “It likes me well enough to lie here at mine ease, even in irons.”

  As well it might! she thought. They were sitting in lounge chairs on the promenade deck, and Jemmy’s right wrist was fastened to the arm of his chair with a light cord. “Your ‘irons,’” she remarked, chuckling, “look to me like part of a jump rope.”

  He joined her chuckle, but insisted, wiggling his wrist on its dozen centimeters of leeway, “Nay, Mistress Angela, ’tis stout iron linkage.” He pronounced “iron” the British way: eye-ron.

  “I’d have said a set of plastisteel handcuffs,” said Corwin. “How do you perceive the rest of your surroundings?”

  “Light and airy, with white clouds in blue sky above, and sparkling sea below. I am doubly fortunate in that they have, it would seem, no dungeons on Laputa, only irons. I am trebly fortunate, as is the poor wench whose head last night got into the way of my boot, that she is happily recovering and will suffer no permanent ill effects.”

  “In fact,” said Corwin, “unless M. Goodwrench should amend her stated intention of letting the matter drop without charges pressed, I cannot see that they have anything more on you than the original charge of stowing away. Assuming, of course, that you were merely taking an innocent stroll around Laputa last night to clear your head.”

  “Why, sir, what else should I have been doing?” the highwayman asked, wide-eyed as a baby.

  “Then the captain has simply ‘clapped you in irons,’” said Angela, “to play along with your own world.” She glanced to the far end of the promenade deck, where Miz Ming was sitting in what looked like very serious conversation with both Mother Frances and Winterset Windsong. Angela had been careful not to ask anybody for any details about last night’s whammy party, but she was extremely grateful that Corwin had pulled her out of it early. She thought she understood better than she ever could have before how his experience of being buried alive had shaken his whole perception of the world. She wasn’t sure whether her own perception would ever be through quite such a rose-colored glass again, after last night’s nightmares. Because the nightmares she’d had in the honeymoon stateroom hadn’t come from outside. They’d come from somewhere deep inside of her, and the whammy had just let them out.

  Maybe before the trip was over she’d make her own appointment to chat things through with Winterset and the madre. They were going to be very busy, of course. Miz Ming wasn’t the first person they’d seen already this morning. But Ozzie had spent only about ten minutes with them. Miz Ming must have been there half an hour already. Well, if the captain caught her extending her coffee break, Angela supposed the madre and priest could always say they’d been the ones to chime for the stewardess. Miz Ming had carried their midmorning coffee tray down to them. Besides, Belladonna had said she understood the captain and watch officers themselves were lining up for counseling.

  Meanwhile, poor Amahl Garson was having to fetch and carry trays, refill cups, and set up for lunch with only one of the Melon’s aboveboard crew to help him. “Jemmy,” Angela teased again, “are you sure you wouldn’t really rather be free again to help wait on us idle—”

  “Begone! Leave me to my durance vile. Yet stay,” he added, as she stood up in mock obedience. “Is’t e’en true that the man would have murthered the dog?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Reseating herself, Angela sighed. “He went very green when I found his injector and Dr. Junge asked what would happen if she swished a little into his own arm.” Angela shut her mouth, half afraid that she had revealed too much, and glanced at Corwin.

  He shot her a wink and took over the explanation. “A purely rhetorical question on the obersturmbannfuehrerin’s part, of course. Under the circumstances, having awakened just in time to prevent an unexplained injection, many a dog lover would surely have been less rhetor
ical. To explain his reaction, M. Stewart pled the general inadvisability of dosing healthy bodies with substances meant for injured or diseased ones; but I understand that such preliminary tests as our good Dr. Caduceus was able to run on a sample of that injector’s contents indicate the general inadvisability of anyone, in whatever condition of health or incapacity, being dosed with the stuff.”

  “Only don’t ask us to pronounce what it was,” said Angela. “No, don’t lift your brow at me, Pundit! You couldn’t pronounce it either, and I’ll bet you don’t even remember all the syllables, any more than I do.”

  He smiled, but didn’t try to prove her wrong.

  “To wish to kill such an animal!” said Jemmy, shaking his head. “For no more than mere guilty fear, too! seeing that similar brute beasts are trained to sniff out opiates. Ay, me! ’Twas well that ye both were sharing Dr. Junge her vigil at her beast’s bed of pain.”

  “’Twas also well,” Corwin said without a blush, “that all three of us had happened to nod off at the same time, or Stewart might never have tried it and been found out in the aftermath for a whammy smuggler.”

  “Had he smuggled it aboard at Nostalgia City,” the highwayman mused, “I might have glimpsed him about it, though of a truth the ship above us seems verily as large as the true Laputa would be.”

  “But he brought it aboard at New Acropolis,” said Angela. “When he came aboard with the Olympians. Nobody checked their baggage, or his either, there.”

  “It would appear,” Corwin added, “that he planned to smuggle it through the Yambouli Customs by slipping it into the Olympians’ luggage, which is rarely given more than the most nominal and cursory check anywhere. Escorting them to their hotel, still in the capacity of their own personal attendant, he could have abstracted it once again whilst unpacking their things for the overnight stay. Meanwhile, by concealing the boxes of drug-spiked anise, saffron, and cloves among the ship’s other stores, he could spread suspicion over everyone aboard in the event of discovery. It might have worked, had M. the Ribald not stabbed Valkyrie in yesterday evening’s fray, thus inspiring Stewart’s own assassination attempt.”