Rock of Ages

by Walter Jon Williams

  It was legally possible to marry both, of course, but he suspected the women in question would not be open to the suggestion, and in any case the solution was more likely to double, rather than answer, his dilemma.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the dire staffs and shuddered.

  The staffs, he realized, did offer a solution to the question of marriage, but one he would rather not consider.

  *

  In a mood to break bones and bang heads, Roman entered Maijstral’s room. His naked skin was a shedding; flaking, burning torment, and he felt as if molten metal were coursing along his nerves. His muzzle, where the new age-ring was growing, was on fire.

  Annihilation seemed a worthwhile alternative. Lacking that, he would have happily settled for the cheerful oblivion of psychopathic violence.

  Unfortunately neither seemed likely. Instead Roman found Maijstral in a contemplative mood, studying the genealogy that Roman had prepared.

  “You called, sir?” Roman said.

  Normal words for a servant to address to his employer, but there must have been something odd in the inflection, because Maijstral gave a start and looked wildly at Roman for a moment, as if a threatening stranger had just entered and growled out a threat. But Maijstral’s heavy-lidded eyes shuttered again, and he looked again at the long scroll.

  “I observe you have left room for my descendants,” he said.

  “Yes,” Roman said. Normally he would have said something more polished, along the lines of, Indeed, I hope to be able to inscribe each happy event, and soon, appropriate sentiment mixed with a decided hint that it was high time Maijstral got betrothed to his duchess. But in his current crazed condition, complex sentences were rather beyond him, and simple declaratives were more the thing.

  Maijstral continued gazing at the scroll.

  “I have spent the day with Miss Nichole,” Maijstral said.

  I trust the sojourn was pleasant would have been something along Roman’s normal lines at this point, but the thought of Nichole—he had always been passionately fond of Nichole—sent his thought-impulses veering off into any number of unexpected byways, and he managed no reply at all.

  Maijstral, who had raised one eyebrow in anticipation of a reply, waited for a moment and then lowered it. He pursed his lips and gazed at the scroll again.

  “She tells me that she is considering leaving the Diadem,” he said. “And she has also favored me with a proposal of marriage.”

  Roman's ears flattened in amazement and his tongue flopped from his muzzle. His thought-impulses scattered, reformed, scattered again. Nichole! Always his favorite—the only human to cause him to forget his usual prejudice against actresses and celebrities. But . . . but . . . duty! It was Maijstral’s duty to marry the Duchess.

  Nichole!

  Duty!

  Nichole!

  Duty!

  The conflicting notions volleyed in his head for a few seconds, and then he managed to pull himself together and croak out a question.

  “Did you give her an answer?”

  Which was pretty good, under the circumstances, though his normal line would have been, Did you favor her with a reply, sir?

  “The matter,” Maijstral said, “is still under discussion.”

  “Hrrrr,” said Roman, a sound of frustration much like a growl.

  Couldn’t his employer make up his mind about anything? The Duchess was clearly a perfect, brilliant match, but if Maijstral was determined to be feckless and irresponsible, then running off with an actress was the perfect way to do that, and Nichole, to Roman’s way of thinking, was the perfect actress.

  Pick one or the other! he wanted to roar. Either one will do!

  He stifled these thoughts, though the effort cost him. Hence, “Hrrrr.”

  He would have apologized, but Maijstral seemed not to hear. Maijstral rose from his chair and held out his arms.

  “The supper costume, please,” he said. “The white suit tonight, with the gold braid. If I must spend the evening mirroring Nichole’s glory, I may as well wear the most reflective thing I've got.”

  *

  The Shrine Room featured stone tablets of intricate workmanship that prescribed the rite now being performed by Prince Hunac. There were chants, the drinking of ritual intoxicants, offerings of quetzal feathers, flowers, and fruit, and blood drawn via a silver needle in the shape of a stingray spine—the genuine article would have been used by Hunac’s ancestors, but fortunately the concept of hygiene had entered the life of humanity since then.

  It was difficult to see Hunac, partly because of his short stature, partly because he was enveloped by a feathery ritual costume. Fortunately, media globes floated overhead at all the best angles, and the results were transmitted to screens set in the back of the room.

  The crowd watched respectfully from the sidelines, facing either toward the ceremony itself or the handy video screens. Nichole stood in the very front of the crowd—it was her due as a member of the Three Hundred—and Maijstral stood at her side and paid as much attention to the crowd as to the ceremony itself.

  He was beginning to develop a morbid interest in ritual bloodletting.

  Alice Manderley hovered in the back of the room, watching neither the monitors nor the ceremony itself. Perhaps, Maijstral thought, the sight of blood was unappetizing to her. He felt a certain sympathy for a kindred soul.

  Or perhaps she was looking for her husband Kenny, who was not present. Doubtless he was advancing his career somewhere else.

  Aunt Batty stood opposite Maijstral in the front row and watched with an expression of polite attention. Maijstral could only guess what a Khosali gentlewoman would make of this sort of ritual. Probably, he concluded, nothing very positive.

  Standing next to her in his green suit, Paavo Kuusinen watched everything very carefully and, as was his wont, let no detail escape his eye.

  Midway back in the crowd, Maijstral could see Major Ruth Song, who still looked very like Elvis Presley. Next to her was a red-faced man in a uniform that Maijstral didn’t recognize. As he glanced over the crowd, Maijstral accidentally locked eyes with the man and received a glare of hatred and defiance, a stare of sufficient emotional violence to cause a chill of alarm to travel through Maijstral’s nerves.

  Maijstral looked away. He didn’t even know the man. Perhaps, Maijstral thought, he had intercepted a glare meant for someone else.

  Laurence and Deco, Maijstral observed, were purposefully making their way through the crowd toward him, or rather toward Nichole. Maijstral sighed. Introductions, at this stage, were inevitable.

  The intoxicants, whatever they were, had Hunac fairly loopy by the end—he was swaying on his feet and there was a broad, white, lopsided grin on his face. As the ceremony concluded the crowd tapped their feet in the pattern for reverence, though a few of the humans in the group banged their hands together in applause, a startling sound that the Constellation Practices Authority recommended as a more human custom than the Khosali practice of foot-tapping. The uniformed man with Major Song, Maijstral observed, was one of the more insistent hand-bangers.

  Nichole turned toward Maijstral. “That was most enlightening,” she said. “Did Hunac get up to all that at school?”

  “Legend says he did. I never knew anyone who saw anything, though.”

  “Maijstral,” said Laurence, who, now the crowd was dispersing, had finally reached his goal. “That was enthralling, don’t you think? A link to our barbaric past.”

  “Odd to think of the universe being maintained in such a manner,” Maijstral commented, and then turned toward Nichole to do his social duty. “Nichole, may I present—”

  At this point a large fist filled Maijstral’s eye and he went down. He blinked up from the floor in amazement and saw the large red-faced man standing over him and glaring at him. Major Song tugged at the man’s uniform sleeve.

  “You’re a dirty rat-lover!” the man proclaimed. “That apology—hah! I’ve never seen anything so insinc
ere.”

  “Milo,” Major Song said, tugging, “don’t do this!”

  Maijstral could think of nothing better to say than, “Who are you?”

  “What you said was an insult to everyone who died in the Rebellion!” the man went on. “I challenge you, you rat-loving thief!”

  Major Song gave up her tugging. “He’s drunk,” she said apologetically to the crowd at large, accompanying her; comment with a hands-up boys-will-be-boys gesture.

  “Who are you?” Maijstral asked again.

  “Robert the Butcher was a disgrace to humanity, and so are you,” the man opined.

  At this point the crowd, which had been agitated, suddenly fell silent. Prince Hunac had arrived, surrounded by his assistants. Maijstral observed that the assistants were dressed in full-feathered regalia and carried wooden swords edged with obsidian as well as large clubs consisting of a suggestively shaped stone lashed into the crotch of a stout stick.

  The assistants were rather short, but their demeanor was of an intense, ominous, and unfriendly nature.

  “Who profaneth the rites?” Hunac demanded, speaking—oddly enough—with the full majesty of High Khosali.

  Maijstral knew a cue when he heard one. He pointed at Milo.

  “He profaneth them!” he said.

  Prince Hunac snapped his fingers, and Milo, whoever he was, was promptly engulfed by Hunac’s feathered entourage. Thumps, thuds, and yelps of pain accompanied his exit from the Shrine Room. Major Song followed, waving her arms and asking them, please, to stop. Which, it may be pointed out, they did not.

  Kuusinen and Aunt Batty broke through the crowd. Maijstral looked at Prince Hunac.

  “Who was he?” he asked.

  Prince Hunac grinned broadly and giggled as the intoxicants caught up with him. His pupils were wide as saucers. Considering what he’d been drinking, it was a significant accomplishment to have managed High Khosali at the height of the crisis. He dropped into the simpler forms of Khosali Standard. “Never saw that man before,” he said. He offered a hand. “Would you care to stand?”

  “Thank you.”

  Maijstral accepted Hunac’s hand, but Hunac was unsteadier than Maijstral, and there was a certain amount of tugging back and forth before Kuusinen intervened to help Maijstral rise. Nichole’s welcome arms steadied him as he found his feet.

  “Are you all right, sir?”

  “A complete stranger!” Maijstral complained to the world at large, and then, “I’m getting tired of being punched.”

  “So is your attacker, I imagine,” Hunac said cheerfully. “You’d best get some patches on that shiner.”

  “Yes, I suppose.” Media globes were swooping in, and it was clearly time to leave.

  “Let me go with you, Drake,” Nichole said.

  “Gladly.”

  “I say. Maijstral,” Laurence began, submerged in the crowd, “I believe you were about to introduce me—”

  Maijstral and Nichole were already gone.

  *

  “I wonder if you underestimated the strength of public feeling,” said Mangula Arish, “in regard to your controversial statements yesterday.”

  “What controversial statements?” Maijstral snarled.

  Now that he was physically safe, Maijstral found himself with the luxury to grow angry. How dare these people? Who did they think they were?

  He and Nichole were hastening down a palace corridor to his rooms. Only a reporter, it seemed, would have the nerve to interrupt them. She had to hop alongside in order to keep up with their rapid pace, a form of locomotion that made the bell-shaped skirt look as if it were being rung repeatedly.

  “Your alleged apology for the acts of your grandfather. There are those who have found it wavering and insincere, even mocking.”

  In truth, Mangula’s editor had done an outstanding job with the unpromising material—it had been a slow news day, otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered. He’d edited Maijstral’s words to maximize their potential, then sent the edited versions to the usual political hotheads, who were always eager to get their faces on video.

  He had succeeded beyond his own cynical expectations, though he didn’t think the controversy was good for more than a day’s play. If Maijstral actually ended up in a duel and got killed, however, he could count on running the story for at least two or three days.

  By then there might be some real news to broadcast.

  “There are those who claim that you should be forced to apologize again for the nature of your remarks,” Mangula went on.

  “Apologize for my apology?” Maijstral said.

  Everyone, he realized, simply everyone, was trying to kill him. He was going to get a few necessities from his room, he decided, and move into Nichole’s suite and never come out. He would be surrounded by Diadem security until he left the planet. And then he’d recruit his own guards, a solid wall of muscle to stand between him and an inexplicably hostile universe. . . .

  “Perhaps in view of the fact that you’ve been set upon by an outraged citizen,” Mangula led on, “you might consider an apology of greater depth and sincerity.”

  “He was set on by one drunken man,” Nichole pointed out. “That’s hardly a lynch mob.”

  Maijstral turned the corner just before his room, intent only on escape from this inquisitorial nightmare, and then saw, silhouetted against the distinctive, intricate design of the hallway’s Bludarsian Seawood paneling, a peculiar shift of light, of color, of pattern. A perfectly familiar shift, though usually he only saw it when he was stealing something and caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror, cloaked by his darksuit. . . .

  Triumph sang in his nerves. Got you! he thought.

  Anger and exultation mingled in Maijstral’s nerves, a perfectly dangerous combination. The spitfire slid from his armpit into his hand with practiced ease. He flung himself prone on the carpet, and—as Nichole and Mangula yelped in alarm—Maijstral opened fire.

  Got you got you got you!

  Stylish energies flamed off invisible shields and scorched the walls. Alarms clanged. Bright purple fire-retardant foam poured from the ceiling fixtures. Whoever was in the darksuit fled as Maijstral poured fire after.

  “What . . .” Mangula got out, and then there was the hum of a stunner—the burglar returning fire—and Mangula flopped to-the carpet, suddenly unstrung. Her sculptured hairstyle was melting rapidly. Her silver media globes thudded to the ground like overripe metallic fruit. The mystery figure disappeared around the L-intersection at the end of the corridor.

  Mangula spoke with great effort and severity as Maijstral rose to his feet.

  “Gleep,” she said.

  “Call security!” Maijstral told Nichole—perfectly pointless after all this, but it would give her something to do and keep her out of the line of fire—and then he sprinted after the intruder, for all the world like the character that Laurence played in the vids.

  His feet, slicked by the foam that was pouring from the ceiling fixtures, promptly slid out from under him and he crashed face-first onto the purple billows.

  Laurence’s character never had these problems. Especially not when he was wearing a white suit.

  “Fnerg,” Mangula said with satisfaction.

  Maijstral rose and slid, slipped, and skated down the hallway. Presumably whoever was in the darksuit could fly, and would have got a good lead on him by now.

  “Snerk,” Mangula commented.

  As he approached the L-intersection he wondered whether to charge ahead or slow down and proceed cautiously in case the stranger was waiting there with a weapon. He opted for the better part of valor, but then to his alarm found that the slick foam under his feet wasn’t about to let him put on the brakes. His momentum carried him inexorably out into the intersection, and so he raised the spitfire and squeezed off a few more shots—suppressive fire, he hoped desperately—and then he slammed into the wall hard enough to make his teeth rattle.

  “Yibble!” Mangula shouted triumphantly.
>
  The intruder had long since fled. Maijstral’s shots had only caused more foam to rain down. He charged down the corridor, banged through a series of doors that looked suspiciously ajar, and then found himself in the submarine pen, a cavernous dome built on a plateau of white sand, with a tunnel leading downward and opening onto Palancar Wall.

  There was a small private submarine diving into the tunnel amid a gush of bubbles.

  Maijstral fired, causing a cascade of steam but no visible effect on the submarine other than to vaporize one of its running lights. The villain was getting away! Desperately he looked about for a submarine he could call his own.

  “Submarine!” he shouted. “Open!”

  Three unlocked canopies obligingly popped open, all small subs that Prince Hunac kept for the convenience of his guests. Maijstral hopped into the nearest, a colorful green two-seater with a transparent canopy.

  “Power up!” he said. “Close hatches!”

  “Very good, sir,” said the submarine. The instrument panel flickered to life. The controls seemed similar to an aerial flier—not surprising, considering that a submarine was just an aircraft adapted to another medium.

  “Follow the submarine that just left,” Maijstral said. “Top speed.”

  “Flank speed is not possible in the docking area.”

  Maijstral clenched his teeth. Hard-wired safety mechanisms, in his experience, always led to frustration.

  “As fast as possible, then.”

  “Very good, sir.” The submarine cast off and thrashed toward the tunnel entrance. Air bubbled out of ballast tanks as it began to submerge.

  “Do you carry any weapons aboard?” Maijstral asked hopefully.

  Artificial intelligences are incapable of surprise.

  “No, sir,” it said. So much for the cheerful fantasy of a volley of torpedoes to precede the submarine out of the tunnel.

  The surface closed over Maijstral’s head. The submarine angled down toward the brightly lit tunnel.

  “Hurry,” Maijstral urged.

  “I am proceeding with all possible speed in view of necessary safety precautions.”