Rock of Ages

by Walter Jon Williams

  “An understatement if ever I’ve heard one. Do you have any further thoughts?”

  “Somewhat, sir. Though we cannot know the reason the coffin was taken to Graceland, we can know that whatever it was that Major Song intended to do with it, she may have done it by now. In which case the coffin and your father may be shipped out and destroyed.”

  “Time is of the essence, then.”

  “I fear so, sir. With this in mind, then, I have called up from computer files all the available architectural plans of Graceland, and I have asked my computer to perform an analysis of the data in order to determine all the places in Graceland where something the size of your father’s coffin may have been hidden.”

  “I imagine there must have been a very great many.”

  “The resultant number was dismayingly large. Somewhere in excess of fifty thousand. But the probability of a coffin being hidden in many of these places was not very large—one could hardly put it anywhere public—and so I have further analyzed the data and come up with something in the neighborhood of three thousand possible—sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “You look startled.”

  Maijstral’s green eyes glittered, and he smiled thinly. “An inspiration, Mr. Kuusinen. I just realized where the coffin is hidden. I believe we may go ahead and rescue my father now.”

  “Ah—very good, Mr. Maijstral.”

  “But keep your architectural plans in reserve. I may be wrong. And—do you have a few moments?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish to employ you in your legal capacity, if I may. Would you mind accompanying me to my room?”

  *

  “Mangula Arish, I’ve tracked you down! Stop! Come back!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Torment, Dornier! Eternal torment!

  Eh? Eh? You were saying?

  Long have I planned my vengeance, Dornier! Years have passed while my plans grew to fruition!

  What are you going on about?

  And now our minds have been wired together. You can’t escape me—you’re at my mercy! My mercy, Dornier!

  Are you . . . Quigley?

  Who is Quigley? Is Quigley a spy?

  A spy? Oh, Virtues, no. Quigley is an old school chum.

  Enough of your school chums, Dornier! You’re in Hell now!

  Hell. Oh, yes. I remember now.

  Contemplate your sins, Dornier. . . .

  Quigley’s cook used to make the most perfect little omelettes. You couldn’t have her make me one now, could you, Quigley?

  I’m not Quigley!

  You’re not?

  Get this through your head, Dornier! You’re dead, you’re in Hell, and I am not Quigley! Can’t you get it straight?

  Oh, of course. I’m being so silly. Of course you’re not Quigley.

  Just remember that, Dornier!

  You’re Jacko. I remember now.

  I’m not Jacko!

  Of course you are. You’re Jacko and this is one of your jolly little pranks.

  I’m not Jacko!

  Hahaha! I’ve found you out at last!

  Aaaaah! I give up! I can’t stand it!

  Most amusing, Jacko. Your best yet, as far as I’m concerned.

  Your brainlessness! Your endless driveling! I refuse to spend eternity with the likes of you! I’m canceling Hell and I’m canceling it now!

  No need to get upset, old man. After all, I was bound to guess your identity sooner or later.

  It’s over! I’m going to call Major Song and have you disconnected!

  Oh . . . I say, tell the Major to bring tea and cakes. I’ve worked up quite an appetite.

  *

  “Roman?”

  “Sir? You called?”

  “Please sit down. I have something to say.”

  The red-eyed, fiery-skinned giant seemed uncomfortable as he sat in Maijstral’s presence. In addition to the obvious reason for his discomfort, Roman wasn’t used to being seated in the presence of his social betters.

  Maijstral frowned down at the table before him, where his genealogy, so carefully assembled by Roman, had been unrolled. He looked at his ancestors running back thousands of years, and thought of Roman’s own genealogy, which went back even farther.

  He cleared his throat. He wanted to be able to pick the right words for this.

  “Roman,” he said, “before we go off to rescue my father, I thought I would acquaint you with some of the contents of my will.”

  “Sir!” Roman barked. “Not necessary!”

  This was hardly Roman’s usual form, Maijstral knew, but then he reminded himself that this was hardly the usual Roman.

  “I am certain,” Roman added, more in his usual style, “that any dispensation which you have chosen to make is more than adequate.”

  “Well. There’s a little more to it than endowments and so forth. Something special.”

  “Sir?”

  “Your family has been in service to mine for hundreds of years. Never in all that time has there been a single instance in which your family has failed to give its utmost for mine.”

  Maijstral was startled as Roman gave a brief roar, but it proved not to be anger, but rather something more in the nature of clearing the throat.

  What Roman said, finally, was, “We endeavor to gratify, sir.”

  “And you have. You have. And in recognition of that, I placed in my will the intention that, on my death, the City of Seven Bright Rings be petitioned that one of my titles—that of Baron Drago—be given to you, or your heir. I also made provision for the transfer of sufficient funds to support any reasonable pretensions to which a member of the nobility might aspire.”

  “Sir!” The arm of the chair came loose in Roman’s hand.

  His reddened eyes almost leaped from his head. “But then,” Maijstral added, “I reconsidered.”

  A twitch danced across Roman’s countenance. “I understand, sir,” he said. “It is hardly fitting that I—”

  Maijstral tried to repress a smile. “Roman,” he said, “please let me finish.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Roman observed the chair arm in his hand, and looked at it in surprise, not knowing how it got there.

  Maijstral cleared his throats “I reconsidered,” he repeated. “I thought, why should all this wait till I’m dead, when by all rights you should have your reward now. So I have just now instructed Mr. Kuusinen to draft a petition to the City of Seven Bright Rings; and as soon as the Imperial Recorder in the next room copies it with his jade pen, and I sign it, the petition will be sent by the Very Private Letter service to the Emperor. And since we did the Empire that service on Peleng, as I’m sure you remember, I have every reason to believe that my petition will be granted…”

  His voice trailed off as he saw that Roman was simply staring off into space, the chair arm in his hand, his mouth fallen open and his tongue lolling.

  “Well,” Maijstral said. “Soon you’ll be Lord Drago, so I thought you’d better be prepared. That’s all, Roman—you may go.”

  “Sir—”

  Maijstral rose and held out his hand. “Thank you, Roman. You have always given complete satisfaction.”

  Slowly Roman rose from his chair. He held out his hand, recollected the chair arm was still in it, switched the chair arm to the other hand, then took Maijstral’s hand and clasped it. Maijstral winced as bones took the strain.

  “Thank you, sir!” Roman bellowed.

  Maijstral winced a second time at Roman’s astounding volume.

  “You’d best go and prepare,” he said. “We’ll be leaving in a few minutes.”

  “Very good, sir!” Roman roared, turned on his heel in formal military fashion, and marched out, the chair arm still in one hand.

  Maijstral massaged his wounded hand, looked down at the genealogy, and smiled.

  He had always thought that Roman would make a good lord. Every so often he and Roman were compelled to travel incognito, and Roman had on occasion operate
d under the name of Lord Graves, a perfectly genuine person who happened to be Maijstral’s distant cousin. Roman had been so splendid at being Lord Graves, at adopting the proper mix of lordliness, condescension, and noblesse oblige, that Maijstral had often found it very odd of the universe that he, Maijstral, was the lord, whereas Roman, who was so much better at it, was the servant.

  Of course Roman also believed in lords, and emperors, and so on, and Maijstral didn’t. Perhaps conviction added something to Roman’s performance that Maijstral, for all his birth and training, lacked.

  There was a knock on the door, and then Tvar entered. Maijstral sniffed her ears.

  “How fare our guests?”

  “Drexler, Manderley, and Chang have been safely locked in Savage Simon’s dungeon. Drexler has also been persuaded to forfeit his sixty novae and change.”

  “Very good.” Maijstral would make the sixty novae part of Roman’s—Lord Drago’s—endowment.

  It wasn’t enough to support a lord for very long, but it would make a good start, and Roman could always steal some more. And it was more than Maijstral had to his name when he joined the nobility at his father’s death.

  “We’ll leave as soon as Conchita gets back,” he began.

  “Right here, boss.”

  The camouflage holograms dissolved and Conchita floated down from the ceiling.

  “Conchita,” Maijstral said, “you must some day allow me to introduce you to the concept of a door, and of the door-frame, on which you may knock.”

  “Sorry,” Conchita said, “but the window was open, so I just flew up and came in. It seemed quicker than going the long way.”

  “Do you have our disguises?”

  “Well—mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  “You asked for five, boss, but I could only find four.”

  Maijstral raised his eyebrows. “You could find only four Elvis holograms in all of Memphis?”

  Conchita looked apologetic. “There’s a high demand, boss, with the Memphis Olympiad coming up next week. And there’s some kind of big ceremony going on right now, pre-Olympiad, with pilgrims from all over. You know how much Elvis’s admirers like to dress up like him, right? Well, I called all over Memphis and I only got four holograms.”

  “Well,” Maijstral sighed. “Can’t be helped, I suppose.”

  Conchita brightened. “But I got a fifth hologram. It was the last one the store had.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “Ronnie Romper.”

  “Ronnie Romper?”

  “Yeah. The puppet from the children’s videos. I really liked him when I was little.”

  Tvar lolled a Khosalikh smile. “I adore Ronnie Romper!” she said. “I used to visit the Magic Planet of Adventure every week.”

  Maijstral, it is apropos to remark, did not adore Ronnie Romper. He believed that the little puppet, viewed by everyone else as a harmless vehicle for juvenile delight, was in fact a horrid omen of doom.

  This was not precisely superstition, but rather a product of some dubious inductive reasoning: a maniac assassin had once tried to cut Maijstral in half while wearing a Ronnie Romper disguise; and therefore Maijstral always viewed any close association with Ronnie Romper as an invitation to homicide.

  If not precisely logical, the view has a certain consistency. That’s inductive reasoning for you: it’s sneaky, but at least it’s based on data.

  “How are we going to sneak Ronnie Romper into Graceland?” Maijstral demanded.

  Conchita gave it some thought. “Well,” she said, “if Ronnie’s with us . . .”

  Maijstral surrendered. Obviously it was his fate to take Ronnie Romper into battle.

  “Very well,” he said. “But let’s leave at once, before I think better of it.”

  *

  The main gates of Graceland were jammed: pilgrims, both human, Khosali, and otherwise, a great many of them either dressed as Elvis, wearing Elvis masks, or disguised by Elvis holograms, were swarming up against the stanchions, trying to get into the festival. Music boomed indistinctly in the distance, all bass notes and rhythm. The far-off roar of an audience rose and fell.

  “Why you are Ronnie Romper disguising?” asked one Troxan. The tiny alien, who normally would have stood about as far from the ground as Maijstral’s navel, was floating through the crowd on an a-grav harness ornamented with rhinestones, a cape, and a standing collar.

  Maijstral found himself devoutly wishing he’d given the Ronnie Romper disguise to someone other than Roman, who by virtue of his height was far from inconspicuous.

  It occurred to him that, insofar as Roman’s answer to the alien’s question might be to remove the Troxan’s head from his shoulders, he should answer the question himself, and quickly.

  “We’re coming from a party,” he said.

  “I am climaxing this system my unbusiness journey,” the Troxan said. “Most event making, friend finding grand tour.”

  To his horror, Maijstral realized that he knew this particular alien—his name was Count Quik, and Maijstral had met him on Peleng.

  It really wasn’t Maijstral’s fault that he hadn’t identified the Troxan immediately. Identification of Troxans is one of the minor arts, as they all have the same bodies, multilayered onion heads, and more or less fixed expressions. Sound resonates between the various cartilaginous layers of their heads and gives Troxans the most acute and discriminating hearing in the galaxy.

  Maijstral cleared his throat and lowered his voice, afraid that his speech would prove fatally recognizable to the Troxan.

  “I’m afraid we’ve run out of time,” he growled. “So sorry. Good-bye.” He began to elbow his way back to the rear of the crowd.

  “Farewells, Mr. Maijstral,” the Troxan said politely.

  Maijstral clenched his teeth and continued his progress to the rear of the crowd, the others in his party following.

  “Was that Count Quik?” Kuusinen asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think he will give us away?”

  “He didn’t last time.”

  “Last time he didn’t catch us in the act of breaking and entering.”

  “Either way we’ve got to act swiftly, and crowding in front of the main gates is the least expedient way I can think to deal with the situation. We’ll find a side entrance, and our identification codes should get us in. Once past the perimeter, we’ll go straight to our destination. Very likely we’ll get the business over with before Count Quik even gets to the main gate.”

  “Very good.”

  Out of the blue, a woman marked by a stiff, distinctive hairstyle charged right through the midst of them, knocking Roberta to the ground in her haste before she disappeared into the crowd. Media globes circling the woman’s head marked her position in the crowd as she ran on. Kuusinen and Maijstral bent to pick Roberta up.

  “Are you all right?” Maijstral asked.

  “I’m fine. Wasn’t that Mangula Arish who just knocked me down?”

  “I don’t know,” Maijstral blinked. “Was it?”

  The party scattered before a flying wedge of Mayans, who likewise disappeared into the crowd at a run.

  “What’s going on?” Roberta demanded.

  “I haven’t the vaguest . . .” Maijstral began, and then his blood froze at the sight of the Baron Sancho Sandoval Cabeza de Vaca bearing down on him, waving his cane.

  “Are you sure my holograph is functioning?” Maybe, he thought, all these people were recognizing him.

  “You look fine,” Roberta said.

  “Let’s get out of here anyway.”

  They made their escape before the elderly Baron Sancho could hobble up to them, then circled around Graceland’s perimeter until they discovered a gate, the entrance that led to Love Me Tender Street.

  “If we’d had time to develop a plan,” Maijstral pointed out, “we would have come here at the start.”

  Assuming the dignified mien of the Elvii, Maijstral led his group toward t
he gate, which obligingly rolled open at his approach. Two guards stationed behind the gate snapped to attention, and a third presented a portable log-in scanner and pen.

  “Please sign in, sir.”

  Nothing for it but to continue, Maijstral decided. He reached for the pen and signed “Elvis Presley” in what he hoped was a bold hand.

  The guard looked at Roman. “Why the Ronnie Romper disguise?” he asked, then turned pale at the sound of Roman’s answering growl. His hand automatically rose to the pistol at his belt.

  “We’ve been to a party,” Maijstral said, in what he hoped was the voice of an old man. “My friend has a bad case of indigestion.”

  “Hrrrr,” Roman agreed.

  The guard’s suspicion dwindled, but didn’t vanish entirely. “And why are you disguised?” he said. “You’re one of the Elvii—you already look like Elvis.”

  Inspiration struck Maijstral. “Ahhhhhh,” he said, drawing out a world-weary sigh. “Even I sometimes yearn to be young again.”

  “Oh,” the guard said. “Gotcher.”

  Maijstral led his group through the gate. The guard looked after Roman as he passed.

  “By the way,” he added, “my kids love your show.”

  Maijstral discovered, once inside, that Love Me Tender Street was crowded. Several concerts were going on at once in the various auditoriums and open-air concert venues, and more visitors were entering every second. The sound of music and the roar of the crowds were much louder. Maijstral’s group found it slow going, but they made steady progress until a group of children spotted Ronnie Romper and ran up to join the party.

  “Do your Pumpkin Dance!” one of them demanded.

  “Take us to the Magic Planet of Adventure!” said another.

  “The Pumpkin Dance!”

  “Where’s Cap’n Bob?”

  “Sing the Pangalactic Friendship Song!”

  Graceland, Maijstral realized, was a tourist mecca; and the tourists, seeing a holographic video character, were assuming that this was part of the entertainment.

  Maijstral was on the brink of explaining that Ronnie was very busy now, in the midst of an adventure that was taking him from the Magic Planet of Adventure on a mission to Graceland to rescue Elvis from danger, but he found his explanation preempted by Roman himself.