The High-Tech Knight aocs-2

by Leo Frankowski

  "You came! By God in Heaven, you came!" Tadaos yelled suddenly.

  "Yes, I came. Now get on one of the mules and let's get out of this pig's sty."

  But once mounted up, he said, "My bow, Sir Conrad, do you think I could get my bow?"

  Tadaos's bow was an English longbow and pretty special. He was a fantastic shot with it, and I didn't know how much of that was the man and how much was the equipment. The guard at the gate was a graybeard in rusty armor. After some argument, haggling, and suggestions of violence, he produced bow, quiver, and arrows for eight pence. A bargain, except that the equipment was Tadaos's in the first place.

  "And my boat. Sir Conrad, do you suppose that there is any chance of getting back my boat?" On this point the oldster was adamant. - None. The boat had been confiscated along with the cargo, and both had been sold.

  "Then I am a boatman without a boat. What is to become of me?"

  "I can tell you that," I said. "You're coming along with me. I'm not going to charge you for my traveling expenses and I'm not going to hold you responsible for all the trouble I've gotten into on this trip. But I just shelled out four thousand pence to save your neck and I'm going to get it back, somehow. You once hired me at three pence a day plus food. That's what I'll pay you until you work off your debt."

  "You're a hard man, Sir Conrad."

  "Huh. That's the first time anyone's ever said that. Well, come along, gang. There's one more stop to be made before we head home."

  I had been transported to the thirteenth century while sleeping in the basement of the Red Gate Inn. I didn't know how that was accomplished but the answer just might be in that inn. In all events, I meant to go there.

  Chapter Thirteen

  We were fortunate to find a decent-enough inn that evening. They wouldn't let Tadaos in until he had taken a bath, which I considered to be a good recommendation for the place.

  The innkeeper set up a wooden tub in the courtyard, checking the wind with a wet thumb to be sure that Tadaos stayed downwind of the dining room. It was filled with hot water and Tadaos was tossed a bar of brown soap from beyond flea-jumping range.

  He was ordered to strip and get in. A servant picked up his old clothes with a long stick and carried them off, the stick pointing carefully downwind, to be burnt. They changed the water three times before poor Tadaos passed muster and was permitted to rejoin humanity. Even then, he was probably aided by the fact that it was getting dark.

  I also got a bill for washing down the mule Tadaos rode in on.

  One of my outfits fitted Tadaos fairly well, with the cuffs and sleeves rolled up, but I wouldn't let him cut it down permanently, not one of my nifty embroidered outfits!

  "It's just as well that Cousin Przemysl didn't invite us in for supper," Sir Vladimir said, "His table is terrible."

  I inquired of the innkeeper about the Red Gate Inn and was told that I shouldn't go there. It had been struck by lightning and was inhabited by devils.

  Slighting the competition a little was one thing, but that was ridiculous. When I pressed him further, he assured me that I could get there by staying on the trail we had arrived on. I couldn't possibly miss the place, if I was fool enough to go there.

  I couldn't tell my friends why the trip was necessary, and Sir Vladimir was not happy with this extension to our vacation. He wanted to go back and play hero some more at Wawel Castle. Krystyana and Annastashia were solidly on his team. It got to be a nagging contest, three against one.

  "Okay. Then don't go to the Red Gate Inn. I'm not sure I wanted you along anyway. Stay right here tomorrow with the girls. I'll take Anna and run up to the Red Gate Inn in the morning. She's fast enough to make it there and back in a single day, where the whole party would take two days easy. Anyway, Anna has been acting like she wants a good run, and we can't do that with you guys along."

  Sir Vladimir and the girls gave their grudging approval to the plan, and we called it a night.

  The next morning I was saddling Anna when Sir Vladimir came over. "Sir Conrad, I spoke rashly last night. Let me accompany you today."

  "Thank you. Apology accepted. But if you go, the girls will insist on going and then with those stupid palfreys, we'd have to move at a crawl. Anyway, we can hardly leave them here unprotected. Anna and I won't have any problems."

  "Still, I'd feel better if I went along. And let's bring the ladies. There's no need for undue haste."

  "Maybe I need a little time to myself. Anyway, I'm going alone. Don't bother following, you know you can't keep up."

  I'd left the horse barding and fancy clothes behind. This was a factfinding mission and the less attention I attracted, the better.

  Anna went like the wind. She could travel as fast with a big armored man on her back as a thoroughbred racehorse can with a little jockey aboard. And she could keep up that speed all day, not for just a single mile.

  It was an exhilarating joy to ride her across flat land and on mountainous trails it was stunt-flying and motorcycling and a carnival ride all in one. More than those, because we were closer to the ground than any stunt plane ever flew for long and no motorcycle could have maintained our speed over these trails. And on a carnival fide, deep down inside you really know that you are safe. This was reality!

  We went for about an hour without passing anyone on the trail. Then we came to a pleasant brook with a nice bit of pasture and we stopped for a while. The cook at the inn had packed me a lunch. In the Middle Ages, it was customary to get up at dawn but eat your first meal at ten in the morning. Dawn, I could take, since without decent lights there wasn't much sense to staying up late. But I've always eaten a big breakfast, and a year in this barbarous time still hadn't changed my desire for that.

  We ate. Anna was cropping the lush grass and keeping a sharp lookout.

  "Anna, would you come over here, please?"

  She trotted over.

  "Anna, what's two plus two? Tap it out with your foot."

  She tapped her foot four times.

  There was once a famous German showhorse called Clever Hans that had everyone, including his trainer, convinced that he could do simple arithmetic. It wasn't until many years later that a psychologist proved that Hans was reading the body language of the person asking him the question. He would start tapping his foot and as he started approaching the fight answer, his questioner would involuntarily stiffen up a bit. When he got to the fight answer, the trainer would relax a little and Hans would stop tapping his foot.

  I had to know if Anna's nodding and shaking her head in response to questions was the Clever Hans sort of thing, or if she really was an intelligent being in the guise of a horse.

  "Okay. Now give me three minus one."

  She tapped twice.

  "Now the square root of nine."

  She looked at me inquisitively, sort of tilting her head sideways, the way a dog does. "Do you know what a square root is?"

  She shook her head no.

  That tore it. I knew what a square root was and if this was the Clever Hans thing, she would have tapped out three. Down deep, I'd been expecting it all along. Anna was an outstanding creature. She was physically, mentally, and morally superior to anything a horse had a fight to be.

  "Anna, are you really a horse?"

  She stared at me for a second, then shook her head no.

  "Are you a human being?"

  She shook her head.

  "Some kind of machine, then?"

  No.

  "Some sort of alien? From some other planet?"

  No and no.

  "Are you naturally born? Some sort of mutant?"

  Yes and no.

  "You were born naturally and are not a mutant?"

  Yes.

  "Anna, I came to this country in some kind of a time machine, I think. At least it was a strange vault in the subbasement of an old inn. Do you know about time machines?"

  Yes and no.

  "Let me try again. Are you in any way connected with any individual o
r group that has anything to do with a time machine?"

  Yes' '

  "Do you know how such a device works?"

  No.

  "Well, at least that tells me that you're somehow connected with some pretty high technology. Are you the result of some high technology? Bioengineering?"

  Yes and yes.

  "But you were born naturally… oh, of course. Your ancestors were bioengineered."

  Yes.

  "You're from the future then?"

  No.

  "The past?"

  Yes.

  "There was some kind of lost civilization in the distant past?"

  Yes and no.

  That stumped me for a bit. How could it be there and not there? Technology requires a civilization. Doesn't it?

  "You were the product of a civilization?"

  Yes.

  "Was that civilization in the distant past?"

  Yes.

  "Then why-okay, it was there but it was not lost."

  Yes.

  "I guess that figures. If you've got a time machine, there's no way for anything to get lost. Back to you. You're an intelligent bioengineered creation."

  Yes and no.

  "You're doing that to me again. You, or at least your ancestors, were bioengineered."

  Yes.

  "And you're intelligent."

  Yes and no.

  "You're intelligent but not as smart as me."

  Yes.

  "If that's true, you're not far behind me. I haven't seen you do anything dumb yet and God knows that I've pulled some boners lately. Anna, you obviously understand Polish. Can you read it?"

  Yes.

  "Can you write?"

  No.

  "Anna, if I made up a big sign with all the letters and numbers on it, could you point to them one after the other and spell things out?"

  Yes and no.

  "You could try but your spelling isn't very good."

  Yes.

  "Good enough. We're going to have that sign made up as soon as we get back to Three Walls."

  "Anna, you're too intelligent to be treated as an animal. As far as I'm concerned, you are people. I don't own you, but I'd like to stay your friend. Is that okay with you?"

  Yes.

  "Would you like to work for me., doing just what you have been doing all along?"

  Yes.

  "I pay most of the men back at Three Walls a penny a day. Is that all right with you?"

  "Yes."

  "Fine. We'll make it retroactive to the time I met you in Cracow. That means that you have about three hundred pence in back pay coming. I might as well hold your money for you, but if there's anything you want to buy, let me know. Okay?"

  Yes.

  "Would you like to swear to me, just like all the other people have?"

  Yes, vigorously.

  "Then we'll do it. But to do it right, we ought to have witnesses, so I suppose we should wait until we get back to Three Walls. Okay?"

  Yes.

  That was one of the best moves I ever made.

  Getting ready to go again, I said, "Anna, we need more words than just yes and no. How about if shaking your tail means you don't care one way or the other and that yes-no thing you've been doing means that I haven't asked the right question?"

  Yes-no.

  "I guess I deserved that ' Are the above two communication symbols acceptable to you?"

  Yes.

  She was as literal-minded as a computer. "Eventually, we're going to have some long talks, but for now, is there anything that you are unhappy with that I can do something about?"

  Yes.

  It took another round of "twenty questions," but I found out what it was. She thought the food was fine and she didn't mind the work. People treated her well enough and she liked traveling. She didn't mind a saddle but the bridle annoyed the hell out of her. Would I please take the damn thing off?

  "Happy to, my friend. Of course, you never paid much attention to it anyway."

  We continued south, and higher into the High Tatras, a part of the Carpathians. Some purists claim that Tatras are part of the Beskids and the Beskids are part of the Carpathians, but call them what you will, they're half again higher than anything in New England. To me, they are the most beautiful mountains in the world, and I have loved them ever since my father took me up there when I was a little boy.

  It was a bright day with clear mountain skies and clean highland air. Anna was making good speed and many Slavic songs were written to be sung on horseback, to the rhythm of the horse's hooves. I was singing "The Polish Patrol" and in a fine mood when I came across the most dejected-looking man I'd ever seen. He was sitting by the road with his arms on his knees and his head on his arms.

  I brought Anna to a halt. Actually, I just thought about stopping, and Anna picked it up from the way I must have changed my body position on her back.

  "I know you, don't I?" I said.

  He looked up at me, but no hint of recollection lit in his eyes.

  "Of course I know you," I said as I dismounted. "You are Ivan Targ. You let me in your home last winter when I was lost in the cold."

  "Yes, now I remember. You were the giant with the priest." His head dropped back down to his arms.

  "Tell me, my friend, why do you look so sad? What is this terrible thing that has happened?" I sat down beside him.

  "That." He pointed to a field. It took me a moment to realize what was wrong with it. It was common to plant two types of grain in the same field at the same time, in that case wheat and rye. If the weather conditions weren't right for wheat, maybe the rye would do well, and vice versa. Most Polish breads are made from mixed-grain flour, so there was never any need to separate the grains after harvest. But in his field, every stalk of grain had been flattened to the ground.

  "The rains did that?" I asked.

  "Hail. Last night we had a hailstorm."

  "A pity. That will cost you a great deal of money."

  "That will cost me my life. Mine and my family's."

  "Surely your other fields will carry you through."

  "That is my only field. That is all the land we have been able to clear in two years' hard work. This crop was- all I had. If it had ripened, I could have fed my family through the winter and had extra to sell to the merchants. Now, I have nothing, my family has nothing. "

  "This is a disaster, but it doesn't have to cost your life. Surely your lord will help you through the winter."

  "I have no lord! Don't you see! I came to these mountains to be done with lords! I was sick of paying half of what I grew just to keep a fat man in his big house from having to work! I came here to be free, and now I will die for it."

  He was serious. This was not the wailing of a businessman over lost profits. This was a man who was looking death in the face.

  "Once you let me in from the cold, and gave me a spot by your family's fire. Without you, I might have frozen to death." I got out my pouch and poured about five hundred pence into my hand. It was a trifling amount for me, but enough to feed him and his family until spring. "You didn't know it at the time, but you were throwing bread onto the waters."

  Ivan stared at the money, then he stared at me. He was literally speechless. In a single morning, he had gone out expecting to find his field ripening, his plans prospering. He had found instead absolute disaster. And then, just as he had accepted the ultimate tragedy, a man he barely knew had come along and saved everything. His mind was not up to handling it all, and I had the feeling that he would continue sitting there for hours.

  "It is not a big thing," I said, "I've been lucky this last year. If you ever want to pay me back, I am Sir Conrad Stargard, and I live at Three Walls, near Cieszyn. If you ever decide that you want a lord again, you can come see me about that, too."

  He nodded dumbly. I mounted up and rode off, feeling good inside. One of the nicest things about wealth is that sometimes you can do some good in the world.

  In under an hour, w
e were approaching the inn, or at least where I had remembered the inn to be. What I found a hole in the ground. A blast crater more than two hundred yards across. I was dumbfounded as we climbed the rim and looked down into it. Anna stirred uneasily.

  There was the clean smell of a thundershower in the air, and this was a sunny day. The not-unpleasant smell of sparking relay contacts. Ozone.

  "Ozone! Radiation! Anna, get us out of here! This place has been hit with an atomic bomb!"

  Interlude Two

  I hit the red STOP button. Movement on the screen froze in mid-action.

  "Oh Jesus Christ, Tom! You nuked the inn?" I said. "For the love of God, why?"

  "Sit down, son. I didn't bomb that place, and neither did anybody else. It was an accident."

  "An accidental nuclear explosion in the thirteenth century?"

  "It wasn't all nuclear. More than half the energy in that blast was kinetic, and most of the rest was chemical. "

  "Even so-"

  "You know how our temporal transporters work. A canister arriving from another time has to arrive in a precisely defined volume of hard vacuum. If there's anything at all in that volume, you have two sets of atoms coexisting in the same space. A small percentage of the nuclei will be close enough to fuse, giving you some damn strange isotopes. Some of those are radioactive, and that caused the ionizing radiation that caused the ozone that my cousin smelled. I got quite a dose myself, once, in the early days when we were first working on time travel."

  "Many of the electrons interact with the electrons of other atoms, producing a lot of strange chemicals. Some of those chemicals are explosive. Some are poisonous."

  All of the atoms repel each other vigorously, and that caused the bulk of the explosion, sixty-nine percent of it, anyway.

  "A canister arriving at the inn three months after Conrad's first visit apparently emerged into solid rock, over eighteen feet out of registration."

  "Wow. Some sort of failure in the controls?"

  "I wish it had been that simple. We knew the explosion occurred, and site investigation showed a typical reemergence explosion. You know we use the reemergence effect under controlled conditions to generate all of our power and most of our basic materials. We understand the process completely, so there couldn't be any doubt about what happened."