The Last Paladin

by Ward Wagher

  “I feel fine,” Scout said meekly. “I want to leave.”

  “We cannot always do what we desire, is that not so, Paladin?”

  “Uh… I suppose not,” RWB stammered. “Look, Scout, she is absolutely right. I could not bear to lose you.”

  “This is just not fair,” Scout complained.

  RWB interpreted that as meaning Scout conceded the argument. He had been rolling up his sleeves for a protracted fight and was grateful to avoid that. He was too tired.

  “Listen, Scout, I need to get back to the office. There is a lot happening after last night. I will be back to see you tonight.”

  “Just run out, then, I do not care.”

  He left a sulking Scout in her bed as the nurse followed him into the hallway. She turned to face him, folding her arms around across an enormous bosom. He thought she was perhaps taller than he.

  “I worry she will try to slip out of here,” he commented.

  “I will see to it that she stays,” the imposing nurse said. “She is not as strong as she thinks.”

  “I had thought, perhaps, we could move her to Wilton House and arrange for care.”

  “That is a workable idea, but perhaps premature.”

  “Thank you for your help, Nurse…”

  “I am Mrs. Brown,” the monolith replied. “If I can be of further help, just ask for me.”

  He watched as she turned and rumbled down the hall. He decided she now resembled a piece of large earth-moving equipment. His two guards of the day joined him, Lesa and Muddy, and they walked to the elevator.

  “That woman was scary,” Lesa muttered under her breath.

  RWB grinned. He had already noticed Lesa’s habit of making sotto voce comments. She obviously thought no one heard and she was wrong. He said nothing further, though.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Kind of you to finally get around to meeting with me, Paladin,” the vigorous middle-aged man said as he strode into RWB’s office.

  “I thought to myself,” the Paladin replied, “self, we need to see what the foreign minister is up to. Things were getting kind of boring around here, Mr. Worley.”

  “Touché,” Worley murmured. “And you can call me Clint.”

  “Clint it is, then. I am really sorry for not getting back to you sooner,” RWB apologized. “It seemed as though you have things well in hand. There were several other departments that appeared… suboptimal. That has consumed my attention.”

  “Not to mention the Portland attack,” Worley shook his head. “When the news broke, I was frightened for your safety.”

  “No great loss, Clint. All Holden would have to do is to pull together a meeting of the movers and shakers in the Palatinate and select a new Paladin. Life would go on.”

  “That would be a difficult thing to do for several reasons, Paladin. Things were unsettled after your father’s death. If we had another such change so soon, things might be more unsettled. Besides, you underrate yourself. You have come up to speed in the job faster than anyone thought possible. I, for one, would mourn the loss of the opportunity.”

  “Funny,” RWB commented, “Chaim said much the same thing.”

  “Do you listen to Chaim?” Worley asked.

  “Usually.”

  “The man makes more sense than anyone, I know. Pay attention, Paladin.”

  “Okay, I think we should change the subject,” RWB said uncomfortably.

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “When the Foreign Minister comes to see me, I would presume we would not discuss domestic matters.”

  “What do you want to know?” Worley had a hint of a smile on his face.

  The Paladin flashed him an obscene gesture and Worley just laughed.

  “We need to talk about these attacks,” RWB stated. “The Arabians got Pop. They almost got me. But for an anonymous source, we would not have known where they came from.”

  “But you would have had a pretty good idea,” Worley countered. “But, apropos of nothing at all, we are going to have to do something about that.”

  “We should not forget about the Free Staters. Both groups came in through the CFS. We do not know if the Free Staters simply missed them, or if they willingly looked the other way.”

  “That is a very good question.” Worley steepled his fingers in front of him. “Chaim told me about that, and I have our embassy in Columbia doing some quiet looking around. No answers as yet.”

  “Speaking of which,” RWB replied, “what about the ambassador?”

  “Xavier? What about him?”

  “Holden told me he wanted to resign,” RWB explained.

  Worley snorted. “Yes, Xavier wants to do that about twice per year.”

  “So, I need to get him in here and stroke him?”

  “That usually works best,” Worley nodded. “I can request his presence in Chicago if you like.”

  “I would like that. Thank you.”

  “You are welcome.”

  “Back to the matter at hand,” said RWB. “Pop told me one time that he could never figure out whether the O’Blecks were just dumber than dog doogie, or if they were really sly.”

  Worley scraped his teeth across his lower lip. “I think that the O’Bleck family has always displayed a kind of animal cunning. Beyond that, they are fundamentally stupid. It is a never-ending source of amazement to me that they have managed to stay in power longer than your family has held the Palatinate.”

  “Anyway, I think we need to find some way of quietly letting them know that we are unhappy with them… in a way that pinches. And we need to do something about the Arabians.”

  “Let me think about the O’Blecks,” Worley mused. “I can probably come up with something that would be the equivalent of the president getting his fingers caught in an aircar door.”

  “In other words, something that would really hurt and be embarrassing, but cause them no permanent damage.”

  “More or less. I think what really rankles them is that they know that they only stay in power on our sufferance.”

  “It might be good to remind them of that,” RWB laughed.

  “The real challenge is what do we do about the Arabians?”

  “I have no clue as to what to do about that,” RWB admitted. “Practically anything I can think of would cause the Grand Mufti to declare Jihad.”

  “I wish I knew how your father did it,” Worley said.

  “Of what do you speak?”

  “Time after time, your father tied the Arabians up in knots. It was like he would pull the rug out from under them and they would have no idea who did it. Anytime they would plan something against another country in general or the Palatinate in particular, it would come to nothing. They did not like looking like idiots, but they could never pin the blame on anyone. I believe they were frustrated.”

  “I will be no help, there, Clint, I knew nothing of this.”

  “Your father would give instructions to me or Chaim and we would tie them up in knots. We could never figure out where he got his information. It was unerring.”

  RWB tapped his fingers on the desktop as he thought about that. “Chaim received an anonymous tip that allowed us to solve Pop’s killing.”

  Worley sat up in his chair. “How did that turn out. I heard none of the details.”

  The Paladin caught himself. Even the Foreign Minister did not need to know about this.

  “The people that did it did not survive the efforts to bring them to justice.”

  Worley twisted his head slightly and looked at the Paladin out of the corner of his eye. “Why do I believe there is more to it than that?”

  “That is all I can tell you, Clint,” RWB stated firmly. “And I think we need to change the subject.”

  “Very well, Paladin. Shall we talk about the off-planet issues?”

  “I think that would be a good idea,” the Paladin replied.

  “First of all, we should talk about the Centaurans,” Worley began. “As you
know, the so-called Alpha Male set his dictatorship in place about five years ago. He preaches the manifest destiny of the Centaurans and claims they will eventually rule over the entire Sphere of Man. Chaim has had problems maintaining intelligence assets out at Centauri, but it looks as though the Alpha Male has managed to stamp out any resistance to his rule at home. He has started building up his navy.”

  “And he has probably ruined the premier tourist planet in the entire known galaxy,” RWB commented, “although I suppose that is the least of the problems associated with that freak.”

  “Exactly. And, as you know, the League Navy is primarily a piracy suppression force. Your father suggested the navy go in and clean out the Centaurans’ navy and got nowhere.”

  “I remember him grumping about that,” RWB said. “The navy does a good job of keeping the Arabians locked up on Earth. I would think they would see the same threat at Centauri. And they are only four light-years away.”

  “If we do not do something soon, we will not be able,” Worley said.

  “Would the League listen to me?”

  “They did not listen to your father,” Worley replied simply.

  “Keep that on the list for our next meeting. I think we need to pay attention to this.”

  Worley nodded and then continued. “There are no other immediate threats that we are aware of. The New Americans are almost as nutty as the Centaurans, but spend all their time fighting with each other.”

  “What about the Greens?” RWB asked.

  Worley tilted his head as he considered the question. Xanadan in the Pharos system had been settled by radical Greens from Earth and had built a functioning society that seemed to work if a little strange. The rogue planet that smashed the system also left some homeless Greens rattling around the Sphere of Man.

  “The good news is that the Greens seem to coalesce from all over and they stay together. After the Xanadan disaster, they have been much less aggressive in promoting their environmental message. Mostly they do not want to be bothered. I am happy to leave them alone.”

  “They are a curious bunch, though.”

  Worley snorted. “Curious does not begin to describe them. Shall we continue?”

  “Please do.”

  “Harcourt’s World is beginning to industrialize. So far it consists of light industry, although they have a groundcar manufacturing business that seems to muddle along. Victor is a nest of pirates in spite of our best efforts. New Prussia mostly minds its own business. Caledon seems to be stable and growing. I think they will eventually rival Earth as one of the great powers.”

  “Earth is not one of the great powers, Clint.”

  Worley smiled at the Paladin. “Not militarily, no. But Mother Earth’s economy dwarfs all the worlds in the Sphere of Man combined. And the Palatinate is a big piece of that.”

  “Point taken.”

  “The rest of the colony worlds probably do not amount to a dog’s breakfast. There are so many we are starting to lose track of many of the ones that get planted.”

  “I wonder when we will encounter another alien species,” RWB said. “Other than the Woogies, the universe seems a bit sparse in that aspect.”

  “And we could spend an evening speculating about that,” Worley laughed, “and we would not answer the question.”

  “But does that not bother you?” RWB persisted.

  “Of course, it does. The Woogies have no idea, either, by the way.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I am as curious about that as you, Paladin. So, I asked the Woogie ambassador once. We had an interesting conversation. Their cosmogony is wrapped up in their theology, so it is kind of hard to determine what they actually think. But they are also surprised another race has not turned up, although they mentioned the Dimmatae as a possible candidate.”

  “Dimma what?”

  “A species of aquatic animals on New Stockholm.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  Worley nodded. “I had to look it up. However, that about covers the state of Earth, the League and the Sphere of Man.”

  “What will we talk about next week?”

  “I will have to think of something,” Worley said dryly.

  “And when you return, you can call me RWB like everyone else does.”

  “I will take that under advisement. Holden does not call you that.”

  “That is because Holden is an old woman.”

  “May I quote you on that?” Worley asked with his sly smile.

  RWB laughed. “You can tell him anything you desire. He only believes what he wants to.”

  “That is our Holden,” Worley said as he stood. “Thank you for your time, Paladin.”

  He eased out of the office leaving a bemused Paladin at his desk.

  “I believe I like that man,” RWB commented as he turned to the tasks listed on his comp term.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “What are we doing out here, anyway?” Scout asked.

  RWB looked down at the golf ball on the tee and took another practice swing. He peered at the flag on the green in the distance and adjusted his stance.

  “The goal is to get this little white ball from the tee box to the hole where that flag is waving out there.”

  “And you are doing this for what reason?”

  “It is a sport, Scout. It is fun.”

  “Sometimes you just amaze me,” Scout stated. “Here we are in the middle of nowhere on the biggest lawn I have ever seen, and you are wasting time chasing a ball around. You probably cannot even hit it straight with that stick.”

  RWB grinned at her. He thought she was fun when she was frustrated, which she often was after the doctor ordered them in no uncertain terms to stay away from the alcohol and drugs.

  “This stick is called a driver. And, watch.”

  He looked down and focused on the ball and raised his head while continuing to watch with lowered eyelids. Carefully holding his arms as straight as possible, he flexed his wrists as he rotated his shoulders and pulled the club back over his right shoulder. With a grunt, he rotated the club along with his shoulders and struck the ball with the face of the driver.

  With a sharp ting, the ball soared into the air and quickly curved to the right.

  “Was that where you wanted it to go?” Scout immediately asked.

  He raised an eyebrow at her sarcasm. He raised the end of the club and studied the crystalplast head. It was unmarked, as expected.

  “Not exactly. That was called a slice. We are now going to utilize an ancient move called the mulligan.”

  “And what,” she asked, using several expletives, “is a mulligan?”

  He pulled another ball from one pocket and a tee from the other. “A mulligan is a do-over. It was pioneered by the Paladins.”

  He set another ball on the tee and lined up the shot. This time the ball arced away and flew straight towards the flag. He watched as it landed and rolled on the fairway. He hitched up his pants and turned to her.

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  “I think you are cheating.”

  He climbed into the golf cart and looked at Scout as she crawled in the other side.

  “If we were playing against an opponent, that would be cheating.”

  “So, are you not being dishonest with yourself then?”

  He laughed. “No, I am being very honest with myself. You will notice that I declared a Mulligan.”

  Behind them Jones sat in the chase cart and looked over at Lesa Carper, rolling his eyes.

  “I have never seen this game before,” she commented, looking confused.

  “If you want to learn the game, the Paladin would not be the best teacher.”

  The golf course had been carved out of the wilderness of the western part of the Palatinate, not far from the Mississippi River. It was part of a private club that catered to the wealthy on Earth. In practice, the Palatinate supplied an adequate number of citizens with the means to pay the membership fees. RWB
had joined at the age of sixteen, with his father’s permission. The old Paladin had not played but thought the sport would provide some discipline and serve to encourage his son to spend time in the country, rather than in the various dives in Chicago.

  “All of those trees around here make me nervous,” Lesa said.

  “Good,” Jones replied. “I think we have good coverage with our people spotted around the course. The drones and top cover also add to the security. But you saw last week how quickly things can go wrong.”

  “Wrong? It was nearly a complete disaster.”

  “It was a complete disaster,” Jones stated emphatically. “The final death toll was fifteen. That was the disaster. And it could have been far, far worse.”

  “And we could have lost the Paladin,” she continued.

  “And we could have lost the Paladin,” he agreed. “And what did you learn from that, Lesa?”

  “Never take security for granted.”

  “And?”

  “I suppose we should be prepared to do anything necessary to protect the principal.”

  “That is good as far as it goes,” he said. “You showed good initiative that night. I believe we need to train harder, though,”

  “Oh, I agree one-hundred percent with that, Chief.”

  Jones nodded as he scanned the surroundings. It was pleasant that day, still early enough in the summer that it was cool. Most areas of the Palatinate never really got hot during the summers. The extended centuries of global cooling now had people wondering if the glaciers would begin a long march from the north. Cities in the far north, like Winnipeg, battled the encroaching fields of ice and survived only because of the abundant hydrogen-fusion power, which the inhabitants used to continuously melt the leading edge of the glacier and pump the melt away to the south. The clouds of vapor generated by the process were visible from space and other people worried that the resultant clouds would increase Earth’s albedo and further contribute to the declining temperature.

  On the fairway, RWB pulled an iron out of his golf bag and marched over to where the ball lay in the carefully manicured grass. He thought he was about one-hundred-fifty yards from the hole and calculated he would need a high angle to keep the ball from rolling off the back of the green.