Rock of Ages

by Walter Jon Williams

  Maijstral could only hope that the intruder’s submarine was as obstinately safety-minded as his own.

  The submarine entered the tunnel. The engine noise, magnified by the close quarters, throbbed in Maijstral’s head. He wiped purple foam from his white dinner jacket.

  “Is there any possibility of establishing communication with the palace?” he asked.

  “I could surface to extend a radio aerial,” the submarine offered.

  “Never mind. Is there any way I could keep the palace informed of my location?”

  “I could use active sonar.”

  “Please do so.”

  “It would be unsafe to use sonar in the tunnel. I will, commence pinging as soon as we reach open water.”

  “Where is the other sub?”

  “I have no readings on my sensors.”

  The submarine floated effortlessly from the tunnel and into the astonishing blue of the open water. A horrid groaning noise ensued, causing-metallic objects in the submarine to rattle alarmingly, Maijstral’s nerves leaped.

  “What was that?”

  “A sonar ping, sir. Shall I discontinue active sonar?”

  “No. Follow the other sub and keep on pinging.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Another groaning noise rumbled through the sub’s frame. Why, Maijstral wondered, was it called a ping when it sounded more like a cetacean in the depths of some unspeakable gastric agony?

  Running-lights appeared ahead. “I see a submarine!” Maijstral said. It was getting closer.

  “That is the craft you have asked me to follow. It has suffered damage to one of its running lights, violating safety regulations, and its autopilot is returning it to the docking bay.”

  Delight filled Maijstral. He had never felt like cheering a hard-wired safety mechanism before.

  “Follow the sub into the dock, please,” he said cheerfully.

  “Very good, sir.”

  The two submarines passed each other, Maijstral’s sub groaning in welcome, and Maijstral peered from his cockpit for a glimpse of the intruder. He was disappointed: the stranger was still wearing a darksuit, and all Maijstral could see in the other cockpit was a camouflage hologram the color of the blue ocean, marred here and there by clumps of purple fire retardant.

  The submarine itself was the same two-seater sport model as Maijstral’s, bright blue. Apparently the intruder hadn’t planned to make an escape by submarine and had been forced to grab the first sub available.

  Then the intruder’s submarine gave a lurch, banked in an abrupt change of course, and sped off in a northward direction, increasing its speed.

  “What happened?” Maijstral demanded: “I thought the other sub was returning to dock.”

  “Someone must have overridden the submarine’s safety mechanisms. I will report this violation as soon as we reach our destination.”

  “Follow that sub!”

  “Very good.”

  The stranger presumably had a full complement of burglar tools and the ability to override the programming of artificial intelligences. All Maijstral had were his pistol and a couple of knives he hadn’t as yet removed from their sheaths. Still, if he could keep the enemy in sight, marking his location with active sonar, he should be able to attract rescuers who would help him overcome the intruder.

  Maijstral’s submarine appeared to be gaining on the intruder. Perhaps the intruder was not as good a pilot as Maijstral's autopilot. Maijstral’s heart cheered.

  Then the intruder sub peeled away from the reef, diving and circling simultaneously. “Follow!” Maijstral commanded. Diving planes made adjustments and the submarine heeled over like a falcon stooping, in slow motion, on its prey.

  The submarines spiraled down into the deep, one after the other. Blackness surrounded them. Maijstral had to crane his neck left or right to keep his target in sight.

  He peered out to starboard and saw the other sub slip under them, still heading for the bottom, and then leaned out to port and, after a few seconds, saw the intruder reappear. But its orientation seemed, different somehow, and Maijstral’s brow furrowed as he tried to work out what had changed.

  “It’s coming up!” he said.

  Maijstral’s own submarine lurched as diving planes moved to a new attitude. “The other submarine is not following safe proximity procedures,” the sub said. “I will report it at the first opportunity.”

  Maijstral’s heart gave a lurch. “What do you mean by safe proximity—” he began, desiring clarification.

  “We are in danger of collision,” the submarine announced.

  The other submarine’s silhouette narrowed as it presented its bow toward Maijstral. “It’s trying to ram us!” Maijstral yelped.

  “Yes, sir,” the sub remarked conversationally. “I am commencing evasive—” Its tone changed radically as a clanging alarm began to sound. “Collision alert!” it shouted. “Prepare for impact!”

  “Prepare how?” Maijstral demanded, his heart flailing as he saw the other submarine’s bow growing larger. “What am I supposed to—”

  Bright yellow foam exploded suddenly into the cabin from a dozen inlets, covering everything and hardening almost instantly. Maijstral was frozen in mid-complaint, mouth half-open. Frantically, he tried to gulp air. There was a hideous crash and jarring that ran up Maijstral’s spine, and he felt the submarine roll alarmingly.

  Maijstral tried to move, but he couldn’t. The foam had frozen him in place. He couldn’t see anything, but his sense of balance suggested that he and his submarine were inverted and heading for the bottom.

  “Collision foam has been deployed,” the submarine said, voice muffled by foam. “It should be possible to breathe through it with effort, but it will dissolve in a few seconds.”

  “Hwa hoing hon?” Maijstral demanded, mouth frozen with foam. The submarine nevertheless seemed to understand his demand.

  “We have suffered damage to the diving planes,” the submarine said. “We are compelled to continue at a downward angle until we reach the bottom.”

  Terror clawed at Maijstral’s heart. “He’re hinking?”

  “Hull integrity is at one hundred percent,” the computer reported. “We will wait at the bottom until rescue can reach us. Please try to remain calm.”

  “Halm?” Maijstral demanded. They’d been rammed by the enemy and were sinking, and Maijstral had been frozen into a block of quick-hardening foam, and he was supposed to remain calm?

  “Halm?” he demanded again.

  The foam was beginning to loosen its grip. Maijstral fought to free one arm, then tore away bits of foam until he could remove the pieces around his mouth.

  “What about the other sub?”

  “It has also sustained damage. It has undergone an emergency blowing of its ballast tanks, and has made an uncontrolled ascent to the surface.” The computer adopted a bitter tone. “Its pilot will be severely disciplined when word of this reaches the authorities.”

  Maijstral could only hope so.

  For himself, he suspected that the first person he was going to see would be Colonel-General Vandergilt.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The first person Maijstral saw, as his submarine was towed back into dock, was in fact Colonel-General Vandergilt. The second was Prince Hunac, still in his feathered costume, and the third was Mangula Arish, who seemed pale and unsteady but whose media globes gleamed bright and ferocious.

  Nichole was not to be seen. Probably Diadem security had her under lock and key.

  The sub nudged up to the dock, and the canopy hissed open. Maijstral stepped onto the dock, and Prince Hunac ran up and hit him on the chest. The clenched hand bounced off without making much of an impression.

  “Yes?” Maijstral said, puzzled.

  Hunac thumped him again. He kept bounding up and down on the balls of his feet, and his bright-pupils looked bigger than his fists. “You abused my hospitality, you thief!” he screamed. “I challenge you!” He had lost his grip on Hi
gh Khosali and spoke in Human Standard.

  Maijstral realized that Hunac was only hitting him in the chest because he couldn’t reach his face. “Thief?” Maijstral said. He turned vaguely and pointed at the submarine. “But you got your sub back,” he pointed out.

  Hunac kept bouncing up and down. Somewhere in his mind Maijstral registered the fact that he had never before seen anyone who was literally hopping mad.

  “I’ll cut you to pieces!” Hunac said, and punched Maijstral’s chest again.

  Everyone, Maijstral was reminded, was trying to kill him. Or marry him. Or maybe both. There didn’t need to be a reason, it was just this thing everyone had agreed to do at some secret meeting to which Maijstral had not been invited.

  “You’ll have to stand in line,” Maijstral said. He picked Prince Hunac up bodily arid moved him out of the way, and then began his weary trek to Nichole’s quarters.

  It was safer than anywhere else he could think of.

  *

  Nichole’s household, of which Maijstral’s soon became a subset, moved within the hour to an exclusive resort hotel outside Havana. Diadem security, appalled at their precious human commodity becoming involved in a firefight in a presumably secure place like the Underwater Palace, had called in the reserves, and soon squads of large, grim humans and even larger, grimmer Khosali were patrolling the corridors, the roof, and the public areas doing the things that security people normally do—talking into their sleeves, patting the hidden pockets that concealed their weaponry, and scrutinizing hapless tourists who were left to conclude, from their somber and ominous appearance, that there was some kind of international crime convention in town.

  Maijstral, once he’d showered off the foam and changed into a dressing gown, merely lay on the bed in the darkness of his room and stared at the ceiling. He’d slammed down three brandies, but never felt less drunk in his life. Adrenaline had burned off the alcohol the second it reached his system.

  He was, he realized, doomed. Three challenges in three days, and all for things he hadn’t done, and there was no earthly reason why the challenges should stop now.

  The stranger, of course, had got clean away. Summoned a waiting flier once the submarine surfaced, and was last tracked over the mainland, flying low to avoid detection.

  Maijstral had, eventually, found out why Prince Hunac was mad at him. One of Prince Hunac’s priceless prehistoric steles had been found-under Maijstral’s bed. The intruder had planted it there, clearly, just before Maijstral arrived and began shooting. Maijstral had encountered the perpetrator making an exit, not as he’d assumed, during the break-in itself.

  Prince Hunac, whose reasoning faculties had not been at their best following his consumption of whatever was in his ritual beverage, had assumed that Maijstral and the stranger were partners, that something had gone wrong with their plan, and that Maijstral and the stranger had been attempting their getaways when their submarines collided.

  There were any number of problems with Prince Hunac’s theory, but he wasn’t in any condition to make a more logical construction, and Colonel-General Vandergilt, happy with seeing Maijstral again in trouble with one of his hosts, had not been inclined to change the Prince’s mind.

  Three challenges, Maijstral thought despairingly, in three days.

  He was the Hereditary Prince-Bishop of Nana! he protested. How dare these people challenge a man of the cloth!

  He tried vainly to visualize a strategy that could get him out of at least some of the fights. But every thought was interrupted by the chilling image of Joseph Bob raising the bladed end of a dire staff for the coup de grace.

  The dire staff. He was going to have to do something about that.

  He sprang from the bed, ready to don his darksuit and head for his burglar equipment, but at that moment the phone chimed. He went to the service plate and touched the ideogram for “phone,” then another for “image.”

  “Hello, Drake.” The Duchess looked at him with level violet eyes. “I hope I’m not interrupting your rest.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping.”

  She didn’t seem surprised. “I had a hard time finding where you were. And then I encountered some functionary who didn’t want to forward the call.”

  “I’m hiding out. Nichole has much better security than I do, and—well—it seemed the best thing to make use of it.” He stepped toward the bed and sat on it so as to make it clear to Roberta that if he was not-sleeping tonight, he was not-sleeping alone.

  It wasn’t that he was immune to the thought of Nichole’s comfort, but he had never felt less erotic than he did right now. Plus, he needed to be alone in order to skulk.

  “I’m sorry if I neglected to communicate with you,” he said. “My life has been . . . overwhelming . . . of late.”

  “So Kuusinen told me. It’s obvious that you are the victim of a conspiracy.”

  He forced a haunted smile. “I would like to think so. If these are all random occurrences, then the universe is far more erratic than I’d ever suspected.”

  Roberta showed no sign of amusement. “Kuusinen said that you suspected the Bubber.”

  “Yes.”

  She gave a little shake of her head. “I don’t think your theory holds water. He can’t be responsible for what happened at the Underwater Palace.”

  He can if I say he is, Maijstral thought, but there was top much sense in what Roberta had just said.

  Roberta’s look softened. “Besides,” she said, “he’s been working constantly to prevent the duel. I’ve seen him try, but Joseph Bob won’t see reason. Will’s terrified that his brother will be hurt.”

  “A good sociopath would be able to imitate those emotions quite well,” Maijstral pointed out.

  The Duchess looked doubtful. “If you say so,” she said.

  “I’m open to any other theories,” Maijstral said.

  She bit her lip. “I don’t have one. And we’ve only got a few hours.”

  “Yes.”

  Doomed, Maijstral thought. The word, rolling about in his brain, had a certain orotund majesty, like a tolling bell.

  Doomed, doomed, doomed.

  Roberta cleared her throat. Her eyes were shiny and she was blinking hard. She tried to make her tone businesslike. “I’ve arranged for a medical team to be present. There will be media globes recording the event to show that it will be fair. Kuusinen said that you accepted his offer to practice with the staffs, but that there wasn’t an opportunity.”

  Roberta’s tears were beginning to have their effect upon Maijstral. His own eyes stung. He wanted to sit in the dark and have a good long cry.

  “I’ll pick you up half an hour before, sunrise,” Roberta said.

  “I will look forward to seeing you,” he said.

  For the last time, his inner voice added.

  They both rang off before the call got too soppy. Maijstral dried his eyes and got his darksuit from the closet. He put it on and felt better at once.

  He’d fixed one duel, he thought, and by the Active Virtues he’d fix a hundred if he had to.

  *

  The Bubber frowned into the phone pickups that were transmitting his image to Joseph Bob. “I think Maijstral has a good case,” he said.

  “For stealing from me?” Joseph Bob asked. The Prince was in the act of practicing with his weapon. Light glinted off the wicked blades of the dire staff as he advanced, whirling the staff before him.

  “Maijstral’s got two more challenges in the last two days.”

  Joseph Bob halted, frowned, grounded his weapon. “They’re not going to fight him first, are they?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “It bolsters Maijstral’s case that there’s some murderous conspiracy involved.”

  Joseph Bob hoisted his weapon again. “Well, I’m not a conspirator,” he said.

  “Of course not. But if it were, to turn out that you were the dupe of a conspirator, it wouldn’t look good fo
r us.”

  Joseph Bob thought about this for a moment, twirling the staff idly.

  “I’m just looking out for our interests, J.B.,” the Bubber added.

  Joseph Bob nodded. “You’ve a point there,” he conceded. “But it also doesn’t look good if I let people steal from me.” He gave another brisk nod as he came to a decision. “Tell you what—if it turns out there’s a conspiracy involved, I’ll challenge the conspirators, too, for daring to use me in their plans.” He gave a boyish grin. “That’ll take care of it.”

  Still grinning, he lunged with the weapon, meanwhile giving out the paralyzing Yell of Hate recommended by the best combat instructors.

  The Bubber sighed, “Well,” he said. “If you’re sure.”

  “Of course I’m sure,” Joseph Bob said, falling briefly on guard, and then he attacked again. “Yaaaaaah!” he shouted.

  The Bubber terminated the call and walked into the other room where Her Grace of Benn waited. In order to have neutral territory in which to conduct negotiations, they had rented a room in Key West, and the place suffered from an overindulgence in the rustic and picturesque: woven palm frond lampshades, fishnets drooping from the ceiling, an ashtray made to resemble a starfish.

  “Didn’t work, I’m afraid,” the Bubber said.

  Roberta made a face. “It was worth a try.”

  “It was a good argument. I would have been convinced. But J.B. is having too good a time to really pay attention to quibbles.” He sat next to Roberta and patted pockets for his cigaret case. “He’s enjoying this belated discovery of martial ardor far too much,” he said glumly. “It’s being brought up in a house full of weapons, I suppose, and early exposure to all the stories about our ancestors’ prowess . . . the warrior spirit was bound to break out sooner or later. I’m just sorry it’s wrecking your engagement.”

  “If it is an engagement,” Roberta said, equally morose. The Bubber produced his cigaret case and then looked at it for a moment as if he couldn’t remember why he’d been searching for it.

  “Could I have one of those?” Roberta asked. “It’s bad for training, but occasionally one has cravings.”