by Джеффри Лорд
He’d have to be more careful than usual to say as little as possible and get the other people to talk freely. He usually tried this anyway the first few days in a new Dimension, since it was the best and safest way of learning his way around. Now the stakes were higher. He’d be best off if he could get by without saying anything at all.
He could pretend to have lost his memory and not know who he was, where he was from, or where he was now. He’d done this before, and he doubted that anyone in this Dimension was as good at breaking cover stories or detecting acts as the Russian secret police, whom he had outwitted in the past. Once he’d learned what it was safe for him to be and to know, he could pretend to slowly recover his memory.
Of course if they shot amnesiacs like diseased animals in this Dimension he’d be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire! The Kaldakans hadn’t done it the last time, though. He was willing to gamble they hadn’t acquired the habit in however many years had passed here since then.
The five soldiers passed Blade’s knives around and talked about them. This gave Blade a chance to make his face blank and relax his body until it would seem clumsy. His mind was anything but blank, however, and all his senses were even more awake than usual.
«All right,» said the helmeted man. «Who are you, and why are you running around here in that clothing?»
Blade frowned. «Who am I?»
«I asked you.» The man spat on the ground, but the woman frowned and pointed at herself.
«My name is Sparra.» She pointed at the helmeted man. «He is Chyatho. He leads us.»
«Leads?»
The rifleman raised his weapon, and this time Chyatho didn’t stop him. «Who are you?» said Chyatho again, more harshly.
«I think-I am a man,» said Blade slowly.
«You call that thinking?» said the rifleman, without lowering his weapon.
«Peace, Terbo,» said the woman Sparra. «Perhaps it is the best thinking he can do.» She stepped up to Blade. «Bow your head.» She repeated the words twice, then tried to show him what she meant. Seen from close up, she was attractive. Her figure was strong and full under her coveralls, and she had beautiful eyes and a wide, mobile mouth.
Blade, acting the part of a simpleton to the hilt, raised one hand and stroked Sparra’s cheek. This almost got him more than he bargained for. Chyatho raised his pistol. The click as he cocked it made Sparra turn around.
«No, Chyatho!»
«Why not?»
«We do not know who he is yet.»
«He is a man who touched you.»
«You do not own me, even if I have given you a child.»
«I should be able to keep other men away from you, at least.»
«I can do that well enough myself, thank you.»
«When you want to, yes.»
«Of course. Sometimes I do not want to. You cannot make me want to, either. And none of this has anything to do with this man.» She sighed. «Bow your head, stranger.»
This time Blade obeyed. She searched his scalp, probing in his dark hair with long, sure fingers.
«Any injuries?» said Chyatho.
«There have been some, in the past,» said Sparra. «This man has seen war, I think.»
«Are they recent wounds?»
Slowly the woman shook her head. «Then stand aside, Sparra,» snapped Chyatho. The pistol swung toward Blade. Terbo, the rifleman, Blade noted, was no longer aiming at him.
Sparra deliberately stepped in front of Blade. «You are a fool, Chyatho. Perhaps I would be better off if you did shoot me. There are many things beside head wounds which can make a man lose his memory. Fevers, great frights, the loss of someone he loves.»
Some strong emotion passed over Terbo’s face. «That is so,» he said. «Also, we are on Bekror’s land. He would not like to hear of our doing the Great justice without letting him speak.»
«Bekror will not speak to any purpose,» said Chyatho. «And are you so sure we are on his land?»
«He will say we are,» said the crossbowman. «I am sorry, Chyatho. But I think you are not wise, to want to kill this man simply because he touched Sparra. If the healers of Bekror’s house can bring back his memory, we may learn something from him. Even if they cannot, Bekror will always be grateful for another strong slave.»
«Are you all against me?» said Chyatho. His voice was almost a snarl.
«We are against you killing this man,» said Sparra.
«What is-kill?» said Blade.
Chyatho threw up his hands in disgust, nearly dropping his pistol in the process. Then he holstered it. «Very well. We shall take him to Monitor Bekror. But we shall take him as if he had his wits about him, just in case.» He pointed at Terbo and the crossbowman. «You two hold him while I bind his hands behind his back.»
Blade submitted to the binding, but held his wrists stiff as the ropes went around them. Chyatho didn’t notice. When he had finished, there was enough play in the bindings to let Blade free his hands in a couple of minutes.
He’s risked breaking his cover by doing this, but he couldn’t afford to be really helpless. He’d made a dangerous enemy in Chyatho, for no reason he could understand, and Sparra was in no position to be much of a friend.
He’d also learned hardly anything new about Kaldak. He didn’t even know how many years had gone by since his first trip, which could be important. If everyone who’d known him personally was dead, his secret was a lot safer. About all he knew so far was that one squad of Kaldak’s army had an odd assortment of weapons and no discipline worth talking about.
Monitor Bekror’s establishment was a walled fortress the size of a small town. The area inside its walls covered several acres, with buildings, trees, pools, and gardens all mixed together.
Long ago, before the atomic war which destroyed the original civilization in this Dimension, there must have been a town here. Most of it was either destroyed in the war or crumbled into ruins afterward, when the population shrank. What must have been the town hall survived, though. It became Bekror’s Great House, and the heart of his fortress. The walls had been reinforced with stone and stout gates, to make it easier to defend.
Blade’s captors led him through one of the gates in the outer walls, past ragged sentries mostly armed with magazine rifles or crossbows. A more neatly dressed man with a pistol led the whole party through the maze inside the walls to the Great House. There Chyatho went inside, to learn if the Monitor would receive them today. The others waited outside, giving Blade a chance to study the weird contrasts all around him.
There was the door itself. It was twice as high as a man, of elaborately carved wood, and closed by a wrought-iron bar as thick as Blade’s thigh. Above it in the wall was a niche, with two sentries on guard. They wore medieval-looking mail, but they sat by a water-cooled machine gun which might have come from the trenches of World War I. On top of the machine gun was something remarkably like a laser sight. Without moving his head, Blade could see five centuries of weapons and fortifications staring back at him.
By turning his head slightly, Blade could get even more confused. Of the five buildings in sight, two were log huts. One was a barracks, with soldiers coming in and out, and more sitting on the doorstep. Between the two huts was a large and thickly planted vegetable garden, with men and women working in it under the eyes of a couple of overseers. Both the men and the women wore nothing but loincloths. The people of Kaldak hadn’t worried much about nudity the last time Blade was here; this didn’t seem to have changed.
Of the three other buildings, one was stone like the walls, one was brand-new brick, and one was metal. The metal one was probably the oldest thing in sight. It was completely overgrown with vines and bushes and even small trees. The only clean spots were part of the roof and around the doorway. There the metal shone rustless and bright after what must have been centuries. Blade had the feeling that several Dimensions had all run together like puddles.
Eventually Chyatho came out, looking triumphant. Anoth
er guard came with him. «Monitor Bekror will see you now,» the guard said.
Inside the hall, the first thing Blade saw was two clerks. Both wore monkish-looking robes and carried jewel-hilted daggers in their belts. One was using an adding machine, the other a crude typewriter. They sat in a cubicle hung with colorful tapestries. Just outside the cubicle four armed men sat on sandbags piled around a heavy laser, placed so that it could sweep the whole hall in a matter of seconds. The soldiers wore uniforms instead of chain mail, but they also carried sheathed swords. Blade had to listen to the language around him to remember that he was in Kaldak, or indeed in any place real.
Monitor Bekror met them seated at a long table at the far end of the hall. Several guards stood close by, but he obviously wasn’t relying completely on them. He wore a shirt of plastic discs over leather, a sword, and a laser pistol.
How long has it been? Blade nearly shouted the question out loud. Then he saw a large tapestry hanging on the wall over the Monitor’s head. It showed a powerful dark-haired man flying above a ruined city on the strangest creature Blade had ever seen or imagined. It looked like one of the big metal waldos he’d learned how to control-the twelve-foot humanoid Fighting Machines. But it had a man’s face on top of its metal body, and great feathered wings growing out of its back. Laser beams shot out of its eyes, and the man held a flaming sword.
This question he had to ask, risky as it might be. He pointed at the tapestry. «The-the High One?»
Sparra shook her head. «That is the Sky Master Blade.»
Fortunately no one expected Blade to make a quick reply to that. He shook his head slowly. «The High One-I know him.»
«Is that your name for the Sky Master?» said Sparra.
Chyatho made a disgusted noise. «Sparra, do not waste Monitor Bekror’s time trying to get from this fool answers he will never give. Honored Monitor, we found this man on the bank of the Sclath.» He told the story of Blade’s capture. «I think Sparra hopes he may get back his wits. I do not. I think he has either lost them for good or is only pretending. If he is only pretending, we should learn what he really is.»
Sparra had been fizzing like a glass of champagne while Chyatho spoke. Now she bubbled over. «Chyatho wants this man killed or tortured only because he touched me. Clearly Chyatho is so proud of the power of his loins in giving me a child that he wishes me to be his alone. I am sorry to have to shame him by saying this here, Honored Monitor. But I do not think you want to judge this man on Chyatho’s word and nothing else.»
The Monitor cleaned his glasses, pulled at his goatee, and scratched his heavy belly, then shook his head. «I do not. Chyatho, is what Sparra says true? That you would bond with her by the New Law, not the Old?»
Chyatho sighed. «Yes. I have asked her a hundred times!»
«I have refused a hundred times, too,» snapped Sparra. «If Chyatho were not a fool, he would have stopped-«
The Monitor raised a hand and thumped the table with the other fist. «Enough of your quarrel. My hall is not the place for it. By the power of justice given me under both the Old Law and the New Law, I give my judgment.
«I shall take this man into my care. If he can be taught to work, he shall work. Even if not, he shall not go naked or hungry. The Sky Master Blade taught us that when we have both the Oltec and the Newtec, it is wrong to let men starve who can be fed.» Everyone in the hall bowed their heads at the mention of the sacred name «Blade.»
«I shall also send to Kaldak for a truthseeing machine. It is said that no man can hide his inner self from them.»
«Would it not be wiser to send him to Kaldak?» said Sparra. «I would be glad to take him.» Chyatho glared but said nothing.
«It is time that the rulers of Kaldak learned we of Sclathdon are their allies, not their slaves like captured Tribesmen,» said Bekror sharply. «If they mean any of their promises to us, they will send the truthseer here. If they do not, it is as well to learn now. If they do not want to learn about this man, the gardens can always use a strong man.»
«But if he is lying, and has some dangerous plans-«began Chyatho.
Bekror raised his cup as if he wanted to throw it at Chyatho. «Use your brains instead of your balls for once, Chyatho! We are so far from Doimar that they could not have sent him without magic, let alone just Oltec! The Tribes have been peaceful, and does he look like any sort of Tribesman anyway?»
«No,» said Chyatho, with a sigh.
«Very well. Then there is nothing he can do to harm us. That is my judgment, given by my power to take away your rank if you go on arguing.»
Chyatho nodded stiffly. Blade rather wished the Monitor hadn’t been so harsh. He’d probably guaranteed that Chyatho would take out his resentment on Blade the first time he thought he had a chance.
The Monitor signaled to his guards to take charge of Blade. They took his rucksack and knives, which made him uneasy for a moment, until he saw them given to Sparra-«spoils of the hunt,» the Monitor said. As the guards led Blade out, he knew he’d learned something, although it wasn’t exactly good news.
The Sky Master Blade was an almost divine figure in the history of this Dimension. If the people here learned that the man they held prisoner was the Sky Master himself, everyone would be curious about his return. Much too curious. They might not dare using the lie detector on him, but there would be a lot of questions asked. Scientists and engineers would be asking some of them. What would come of that? Nothing good for the Dimension X secret.
So-how safe was his identity? Apparently he was a long way from Kaldak, in an area brought under the city’s rule since his first trip. Bekror seemed openly resentful of Kaldak’s authority, in fact. It was unlikely that anyone here had ever seen the Sky Master Blade in the flesh, even if Blade’s earlier trip to this Dimension was not so long ago that people who had seen him then were still alive today.
If he stayed out of Kaldak and away from lie detectors, he would probably be safe. He couldn’t do much to find Cheeky while disguised as a feebleminded farmhand, but at least he’d be doing the more important job adequately.
And who could say? He might find a way to do both. Blade knew that as long as he was alive and alert, things could always change-sometimes even for the better. And at least he could hope to see trouble coming far enough in advance to run like hell, if that was the best he could do!
Chapter 5
As one of Bekror’s farmhands, Blade had food, simple work, and plenty of chances to keep his eyes and ears open. It would have been hard to come up with a safer way of learning about this Dimension. Only the loss of Cheeky and the need to keep up the act of losing his memory spoiled the fun.
He finally decided that it must have been at least a generation since his last trip to Kaldak. He couldn’t imagine so many changes taking place in less time. Of course the cold war with Doimar was still going on, and that sort of thing always pushed technology forward. It still took a certain amount of time to make the machines to make the machines to make the weapons! Twenty-five to thirty years at least, Blade guessed.
Since the Sky Master Blade came, there were two Laws in all the lands ruled from Kaldak, the Old Law and the New Law. Some people apparently preferred one, some the other. For example, under the Old Law women didn’t have to be chaste or faithful. The custom arose in the days when most people were sterile. All the fertile ones had to get together sooner or later for there to be any children at all.
Under the New Law, a man who had fathered a child on a woman could ask her to remain faithful to him for life. Often she agreed. If she did the father was obliged to protect her and the child.
On the other hand, some mothers still preferred their independence. Sparra was one of these. When a New Law man wanted fidelity from an Old Law woman, there was usually trouble. Blade only hoped he wouldn’t get caught in the middle of any more of it.
There was also Oltec and Newtec. The Oltec-or old technology-was the same as last time: the knowledge and machines left over fro
m the prewar civilization, such as the lasers and the power cells. In his last visit, Blade had helped the inhabitants of this Dimension relearn the use of these devices.
However, the superstitious fear of Oltec was gone. «The Sky Master Blade taught us wisdom» was the standard phrase. People could now repair a laser or recharge a power cell. They’d also rediscovered more Oltec which hadn’t been used since the fall of the old civilization. The antigravity skytugs were the best example of that, although they were still rare.
They had also rediscovered minicomputers. Already Kaldak had Fighting Machines better, more compact, and more powerful than the old waldo robots. Before long these computers would be used by civilians; that clerk with his adding machine would be out of work within a generation at most.
There was also Newtec-what the Kaldakans had reinvented for themselves since the time of the Sky Master Blade. Most of the storehouses of Oltec were long since exhausted. There still weren’t many places where new Oltec could be built or even repaired. It was much easier to build a hydrogen balloon and then tow it with a skytug, or build a steamboat and arm it with lasers, or build pistols, rifles, grenades, and mortars using plain old smokeless powder.
So the weird stew of technologies Blade saw around him actually showed a good deal of common sense and ingenuity on the part of the Kaldakans. He wondered how Doimar had done, with less prejudice against Oltec to begin with. However, since the two cities were still hostile, no one seemed to be willing to talk much about «the enemy.»
It was really ironic. Blade had expected great things of the people of this Dimension once they got started on the road back toward civilization. They hadn’t disappointed him either. But he couldn’t possibly step forward and take any of the credit he deserved. That would threaten the Dimension X secret! Blade had to laugh.
When Blade went to bed, the moon was out. He could tell this from the spot of pale light on the floor of his cubicle. Like the other farmhands, Blade lived underground, in what he suspected was once an Oltec bomb shelter. Now it was divided into cubicles by brick and timber walls. Most of the farmhands slept two to a cubicle, but no one wanted to share a cubicle with a half-wit. Once they’d seen that Blade could take care of himself, they let him have a cubicle alone.
