Then Tober fetched our herd, brought forage for the dottles while we provided ourselves with foodstuff for our journey back. Pawbi rode behind me on fat Henery’s rump. I marveled that the cold seemed not to bother him.
The ride was a nightmare. If we had averaged twenty miles per hour before, we did better than half again that speed this time. The dottles literally flew through the storm, pausing only to shake the ice of the keep, with all its horror, from their paws. The road across the white wastes and down the precipitous stone-hewn path of the mountains was a maelstrom, a madly flowing stream of dottles. We did in one day what had taken us two days before, so that at the end of our first day we were again beside the stream where I had re-slain the dead-alives.
And it was the sixth hour, Greenwich, and I was as ready as I would ever be. I had sought the excuse; of needed privacy. It was granted me by the others who, I suspect now, had long concluded that I was truly something other than a man of Fregis-Camelot …
I moved out some three hundred yards from the fires to a series of upright stones and seated myself upon one of them. The time was right. I would make contact in exactly two. minutes, no more. I, myself, had arranged it. Not that we would be reduced to but two minutes message-wise. They would have taped what there was to tape—I likewise. This information would be fed instantaneously back and forth to be checked later. The two minutes were for us. By my ring chronometer the countdown was now thirty seconds. I pressed the appropriate stud and waited.
“In!” It was Kriloy’s voice, flat, curt, and mechanical.
“In,” I echoed him, resigned to proper formula. “Question. Are there Pug-Boos anywhere else on Fregis?”
“Certainly! The woods are full of them in Yorn territory. They live in family groups, spend most of their lives in select trees, and are about grade ‘0’ on the I.Q. chart. Question. Can you be prepared to leave, spaceboat-wise, at emergency signal?”
“Nope. I’ve signed on for the duration. Question. Is the planetary mag field broken in the area of Hish?”
“Yes! Question. Is your presence in your true capacity now known by the ‘baddies’?”
“No! Question. Can you release me from penalty of equipment use?”
“No! And you damn well know why.”
“Question. Have you included coordinates from Vuun territory in your tapes?”
“Yes! Time’s up. Contact in seventy-two hours, Greenwich. Fade now.”
“Fade now.”
And that was that. I had brought a small skin of sviss with me. I put it to my lips and downed a full third of it Then I relaxed on the stone to hear the message.
The receiver was also the belt, the circuit attuned to the node at the base of my skull. I activated the circuit The message began:
Aboard the Deneb-3—Fomalhaut I, five parsecs from Foundation Center: We came into the atmosphere of Fomalhaut II’s third planet (call it Alpha) counterposed to its axial spin; this, within two hundred miles of surface so that, atmospherically, there was but little resistance ‘ to temporal mass. A planned circumnavigation was made within the two-minute span, all systems open. The following information is hereby listed for general application to existing problems, excluding the normal, standard trivia.
As previously noted the planet is bereft of life, with the effects of a nuclear holocaust most evident. What had not been noted until now is that the planet is also completely sterile. No single amoeba, spore, bacillus, in any form, exists. Previous life is evidenced in that the shells of great cities and other marks of a humanoid civilization abound—metal bridges, canals, great roads. The marks of forests also remain, though, as stated, no life exists in any form. The planet is an absolute anachronism in that it has an atmosphere and land and great oceans—but no life. It is also extragalactic in that it has no magnetic field.
Jack-pot on that one, I thought, and continued to listen.
Since there is no magnetic field, Fomalhaut’s Alpha can be said—in terms of temporal space—to be nonexistent or, to put it differently, to exist simultaneously in hyper and temporal space. Fomalhaut’s Alpha can therefore be likened to a window, a way station, a bridge from somewhere else to here—to this galactic island.
Whatever the reasons, the facts of planetary destruction, the absence of life, and a consequent and total sterility must play some vital role—somewhere.
An instant conclusion is that extrauniversal, alien contact may have been made; may even now be working through this way station; and further, that according to information from you, Camelot-Fregis may even now be involved. You are therefore directed by the Foundation to proceed with caution. Under no circumstances are the life-forms of Fregis, in opposition or otherwise, to be aware of your existence. This directive is final until we have exact knowledge regarding the question of Alpha and/ or of the tie-in with Camelot-Fregis.
Latest data on the movement of Omnian forces is that a fleet of some three thousand ships, mustered in the port cities of Seligal and Kerch, have embarked for the north. They should arrive in Kelb within two days. It is estimated that some two hundred thousand warriors and twenty thousand cavalry comprise these contingents. Few dottles were seen boarding ships and it is estimated that the twenty thousand Omnian cavalrymen will receive their mounts in the subverted areas of Kelb and Ortmund. …
The message then continued and ended with a lot of trivia —interesting, but most of it known to me.
I returned to the campfire and Pawbi. We didn’t post a guard. Somehow I knew that with Pawbi around we had a small degree of protection—this, despite the fact that Hooli had been with the princess at the time of her abduction. If the Kaleen had a mind to check us out, I was sure he would be met with sufficient interference to come a cropper—which he would attribute to natural causes and switch his attention elsewhere. This didn’t mean that Pawbi would step in if the Kaleen’s interest was sufficient for a complete effort. Un-unh! The way I had it psyched, the Pug-Boos, for whatever their reasons, would interfere only to the extent that their efforts would not be recognized as such. Example: It was quite true that the Kaleen’s magic at Goolbie’s keep was sufficiently strong so as to encompass all who fell within its focal area. We have noted already the slow movements of the prince and his cohorts. It was absolutely insufficient, however, in that it did not allow the prince’s men to kill us. That’s where Pawbi played his game. He simply added to the Kaleen’s own strength so that those who would have killed us were powerless to do so. He did this in a way that no outside force would be suspected. In effect, the Pug-Boo’s game was to influence, to control, to perhaps direct But not at the expense of exposure. And they would continue to work in such a way that their presence remained hidden, until … Well, that was the big question. And it remained exactly that Who and what was the force of the Kaleen? Who and what were Pug-Boos? Was I really, by siding with Marack and the countries of the north, on the side of the angels? I continued to think so. So much so that I knew in my heart, as we pounded the last few miles toward Olagmaron on the following day, that I would not heed the directive of the Foundation to proceed with all caution.
I had concluded that I knew better than they what the developing “something” was. And that I, better than they, could best thwart, or otherwise provide the quite necessary fly in the ointment
We rode into Olagmaron city at dusk, or rather we rode around it, taking the granite road above the Cyr to the castle. I wanted above all else to avoid a meeting with Lord Fon Tweel.
“An additional caution, sirs,” I told Griswall and the others as we approached the castle drawbridge. “We must see that our rooms are next to each other’s. For it may be that with the lord Fon Tweel in charge at Glagmaron, we might have to fight our way from this courtyard, too.”
Griswall rode ahead to talk to the commander of the gate. All of the palace guards, a skeleton remnant now, were friends of Griswall. He was told that the lord Fon Tweel was camped on the great plain to the east of the city. The roster of his thirty thousa
nd men had been completed yesterday.
But Fon Tweel had yet-to prepare for the ride south to Gheese and Ferlach. Griswall cautioned the commander, in the king’s name, to make no mention of our presence. And, since he was their senior, and also well liked, they promised to do this.
I had dared the castle for one reason: This night there would be three Pug-Boos together—Hooli, Jindil, and Pawbi. I meant to have converse with the three of them.
We took Rawl’s now vacant apartment, and another next to that Charney and Hargis stayed with me. Tober stayed with Griswall. We dined in an adjunct to the great hall, were massaged and bathed in the room of the chirurgeons, then retired to our beds for much needed sleep—or so my men thought.
But it was not to be that way. “Sirs and friends,” I told them in the hallway, “these last days have seen us sworn to the king, to the princess, and to Marack. From now on and to the end this will be totally so. Be ready then,” I admonished, “to ride this very night. For I promise you that such things will happen soon that if you live your deeds will be saga and song throughout the ages in every hearth and hall in all our land. Sleep now and I will wake you.”
Griswall asked bluntly, “When, my lord?”
“I do not know as yet.”
“And will you sleep, Sir Collin?” Charney’s concern was obvious.
I smiled. “I mean to do that”
We clasped hands and entered our rooms. Charney and Hargis took the great bed and were almost instantly asleep. I chose a fur-covered couch which I pulled close to the stone-laced windows and lay down and closed my eyes.
But not to sleep—to relax, yesl To prepare myself for a contact that I could only hope would come.
And it did. The doors were finally opened to what had been hidden. In the end I knew that if my message to-my stalwarts bad suggested song and saga whether they lived or died, so now I knew this to be true. Above all else it would be true.
We had doused the candles, and the largest of the two moons, free now from the rain-filled clouds which had fled to the far horizons, peered curiously in at me. I stared back, unwinking, until my eyes grew tired. Relax. Relax, 1 told myself, breathing deeply of the scented night air. Relax, and let that which will be, be… . Time passed, and I felt a slow “goodness” then, throughout my body. It was as if each muscle were suspended, individually, free of tension, nonexistent, every bit of me free, so that my mind no longer had a body—so that my mind, too, was free.
I closed my eyes.
And Hooli came, and Pawbi and Jindil, and their voices were as one voice, and that voice, as before, was my own… .
“Collin!” the voice called. “Collin! It is time now for you and for us. And you were correct to think that we would come to you. A page has been turned, Collin, and a step has been taken. It matters not if the step was ours or theirs— it is irrevocable.”
“At what point are we, then?” I asked. My question implied a knowledge that I did not possess. Beyond the blackness of my closed eyes I could see them sitting in midair, out beyond the lace of stone—three pairs of legs flat out, pudgy paws over pudgy tummies… . Their shoebutton eyes seemed to gleam in unison and three pink tongues made a circular swipe around the blunted laughter of three brown and grinning muzzles.
“Your question has no answer, Collin,” my voice echoed back to me. “Since you know neither the beginning nor the end—or even the now of it all. You are here for a single purpose, and the time for that has come.”
“Oh?” I said. “And who are you to say this?”
“We sent for you, Buby.”
“Did you now? Really. Just how did you do that?”
“Through your Watcher, my dear.”
“The soothsayer and the crystal ball at Klimpinge?”
“Yes!”
I sighed. “But when you first appeared—when I was a prisoner in Castle-Gortfin—you asked me where I came from; who I was.”
“We would know if you knew or suspected us.”
I sighed again. “But me. How did you know you would get me?”
“We didn’t. Whoever! It would have made no difference. It makes none now.”
“I see,” I said slowly, though I didn’t, really. “But the
variables—myself, the princess. How could you know? What if I had been killed at Gortfln, in the tournament, at Goolbie’s keep?”
“The chances were that you would not As for the keep … well, we tried to warn you.”
“The chances that I would be killed at the keep—they, too, were slim?”
“Yes.”
“That’s hard to believe. But say I was killed—”
“There are always alternatives.”
“Another page?” I asked sarcastically.
“Something like that.”
“And perhaps another thousand years?”
“That, too, is possible.”
“Great Gods!” I exclaimed in irony. And then, “I know of you. I suspected, and now I know that there are other Pug-Boos on Camelot-Fregis.”
The three of them just smiled.
“All right,” I said. “Then tell me what I am to do, since you’ve arranged it all. I will then decide whether to do it But first check me to see if I’ve psyched you properly. To begin with: You are not of Fregis and you have taken the form of Pug-Boos for the simple reason that they alone are the most harmless and inoffensive of Fregisian mammals. You do this to conceal your presence from the force of the Kaleen —and, simultaneously, to gain entry to the presence of the kings and lords of the northlands as harmless pets. This gives you entry to their council, to then-thinking, and to all that will transpire by their hands. All this you use against the Kaleen… .”
The Pug-Boos smiled.
“Except,” I continued, “that you act as the people’s minstrels, too. Your music tells them of their past—the past of Fomalhaut’s Alpha. Therefore they know and love you, and see you as something other than simple Pug-Boos. …”
“Not true.” The Pug-Boos smiled. “They hear the sound of music, nothing else. Have you ever been told by anyone of the history which you read into the music? It remains solely in their subconscious. We do but serve to keep it there so that, genetically, it will be as an ingrained memory pattern, to be used—someday.”
“But don’t you risk discovery in the playing of this music?”
“The listeners are shielded at the time of the playing and nothing remains in their conscious minds. As of this moment, friend Hart Lenti, in all of the north there are no memories of a Pug-Boo’s song.”
I tried another tack. “I would know,” I asked, “if the Kaleen, too, is an animal or humanoid of Camelot-Fregis, possessed perhaps by another alien force, but in opposition to your own.”
“The Kaleen is a force unto itself. It is but a fragmented part of the whole, but acts for the whole.”
“And are you but the fragmented part of a whole, so that you, too, act for it in the guise of gentle Pug-Boos?”
They eyed me solemnly, then their voices came again: “Have done, Sir Collin. You shall be told so that you will know La part all that you need to know. Though we are of a common galaxy, ours is a life-form older by millennia than all that you know. We have long known of the force called the Kaleen on this planet which you have humorously dubbed Camelot We deem it a force beyond your present power to comprehend; beyond, in part, even ours. It is extragalactic, of another universe whose gateway is the planet Alpha of Fomalhaut II. Beyond that gateway, in that other universe, a battle has raged for uncounted millennia. The force is but one of the antagonists; of its opponent, we know nothing. Suffice it to say that the force sought an escape, a way perhaps to avoid final destruction. The unthinkable, energies of an entire galaxy were directed to the single purpose of creating a warp through hyperspace, to seize upon a single planet in a single system, and to substitute itself for the life-form of that planet, and so escape the holocaust that pursued it
“Alpha, the planet of Fomalhaut, was chosen
. The space warp was created. So, too, was the life-form of Alpha selected for transmigration… . But we, born of this galaxy, came to know of the warp, and our powers were such that we transferred all that was sentient life to Fregis Three, and destroyed by sterility all that remained on Alpha. And thus, though the gateway remained, its potential for exploitation was in part destroyed. We say ‘in part’ for the simple reason that in the transfer, a single, element of the force, dormant in the body of a sleeper, was also transferred. And it is here now. It is weak, without the strength to recross space to the gateway; with strength only to stay alive, to maintain contact, and to prepare for the time when a path from Fregis to Alpha is created so that the potential of the gateway will again be available. Then will the life of Camelot-Fregis— survivors of Alpha—be utilized again, as the force had intended in the very beginning.”
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