“If the top-ranked burglar in the galaxy can’t figure out a way to rig a door,” Maijstral observed, “then he isn’t worth, his title.”
*
Some time later, Conchita curled up next to Maijstral, pillowed her head upon his shoulder, and closed her eyes. Maijstral gave thought to the situation.
“You haven’t experienced any disappointment, have you?” he asked.
“Disappointment? Why should I be disappointed?”
“No feelings that, say, your fantasies haven’t been in some slight way, ah, completely fulfilled? Your expectations haven’t been in any way disappointed?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, and yawned. “You don’t mind if I take a nap, do you?”
Roberta, Maijstral concluded, was simply wrong.
Experience told in these matters.
“There is only one thing I have to request,” he said.
“Mm?”
“The hair,” he said. “You’ll have to change it.”
“The fin? It makes me look taller!”
“I think your height is perfection itself.”
“Well. Thank you for saying so.”
“The fin goes, yes?”
“Oh,” Sleepily. “If you insist.”
As Conchita drifted off to sleep, Maijstral noticed that the video was still on. He looked for the service plate to shut it off and saw that it was too far to reach without disturbing Conchita.
He looked at the image. The Western had ended, and instead Maijstral saw a red-haired puppet with a fixed smile.
Ronnie Romper, Maijstral thought. Oh no.
He looked in despair at the service plate, still out of reach.
“Gosh, Uncle Amos,” the puppet was saying. “I sure was scared. My knees were knocking together like anything!”
“Those dinosaurs were intimidating, that’s for sure,” Uncle Amos said, puffing his pipe. “I was getting pretty anxious myself.”
“I was so afraid I almost ran away.”
“But you didn’t,” Uncle Amos said. “That’s the important thing.”
Ronnie batted his eyes. “I don’t understand, Uncle Amos.”
Uncle Amos gazed at Ronnie from beneath his wizened white eyebrows. “Bravery doesn’t mean that you don’t feel fear,” he said. “A fellow about to be run over by a herd of dinosaurs would have to be pretty stupid not to feel fear, now wouldn’t he?”
“Gosh. I guess so.”
“A brave person is one who feels fear, but who overcomes it and goes on to do what he has to do.”
“Wow, Uncle Amos,” the puppet said, “I never thought of that.”
Maijstral stared at the screen. I never thought of that, either, he thought. A sense of wonder overcame him. He lay back and reviewed his life. Based on a conclusion he’d drawn at sixteen, when he’d fought his first duel, he’d always assumed he was a coward.
But he had fought the duel, and another just a few days’ ago, and in between he’d been in a number of situations in which either he was shooting at people, or they were shooting at him, or both were happening at once. And yesterday, during the raid on the Heart of Graceland, he’d been giving orders as if he were an experienced warrior instead of a sneak-thief with a sinking heart.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been afraid the whole time. But, just like Ronnie Romper, he’d done what he’d come to do, and not run away. Or rather, he hadn’t run away until it was time to run away.
And of course his profession involved breaking into other people’s homes. Preferably when no one was there, of course, but maybe that was merely common sense rather than a reflection on his bravery.
Perhaps, he thought, his sixteen-year-old assessment of himself had been overharsh.
He looked at the screen and blinked. Thank you, Ronnie, he thought.
The puppet had his uses, after all. He lay back, Conchita peacefully sleeping on his shoulder, and gazed upward, past the hospital ceiling, into a universe of expanding possibility.
*
Some months later, when she and Roberta had returned to the Empire, Aunt Batty went in search of her notes and failed to find them.
They were missing—all the information she’d gleaned from Roman’s genealogy, from her interviews with Joseph Bob, from her long conversations with Maijstral’s father. All gone.
She had packed them most carefully, she knew. And now the entire package was gone.
She considered this for a long moment. Most foolish, she concluded. Her memory was perfectly good, and of course she could draw on the pages of notes and manuscript that had never left the Empire. Most of the second volume was completed. It was only the third that would be delayed.
It was never wise to annoy a biographer, she thought. They—we—have ways of getting our revenge.
If there was anyone who was an expert in the matter of interpretation, in the slight distortions of the facts necessary to cast aspersions on a person’s character or ability, on an individual’s motivations or worthiness—well, that person was a biographer.
She would take very good care, she thought severely, with her study of Maijstral.
And if he regretted the outcome—well, Aunt Batty thought, whose fault was it anyway?
THE END
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rock of Ages Page 26
