The End of Fame

by Bill Adams

  But now a disturbance rippled through the black flock. The feast broke up, and it took me a moment of peering to understand why, more than a hundred meters away. Worrying the body back and forth had widened the hole, and the water had been just deep enough for a current to carry the dead fisher sideways beneath the ice. The suddenly deprived ice bats screeched at fate and each other. And the familiar shape of a smaller one at the edge of the pack suddenly turned its sonar wave of cries toward me; the big fox ears cocked and the blind head stopped moving; and the bat began to skate my way. Others followed.

  Not good.

  I could feel the mass of the cliff and tower behind me, so near and yet so far. I would have to watch and make sure none of them circled to my rear. The breathing disciplines Summerisle had taught me so many years before kicked in, calming and strengthening. I bent and anchored down the sled, got into an infantry crouch, and fired. I wasn’t really worried yet.

  The A-rifle gave its recoilless cough and a slug went screaming off toward the nearest bat, which never noticed or altered its course toward me.

  And nothing happened.

  A second, larger skater was competing for the lead now and I put the next shot between them. And that’s where it went, clear between them, to burn propellant a moment later and veer into one of the far bats at the broken ice—one still steaming with the fisher’s warm blood.

  Of course. The rest of these creatures were too well insulated, too wind-chilled at the surface, for the heat-seekers to detect. Maybe their exhaled breath would be enough, if the bullet were very close by, but⁠—

  I would have to aim, the old-fashioned way, and with an unfamiliar weapon.

  It took six increasingly panicky shots to take down the two leaders, and the rest of the pack were not deterred in the slightest; they probably didn’t notice or associate the deaths with me. They wheeled toward me in two attack wedges. I tried to lead them, the way I’d heard hunters describe it, but lost several shots as they tacked back and forth to make progress against the offshore breeze.

  So close to the Tower, to the hidden pages of the great Book. But there are always many ways for a story to end. The important thing is to go out with panache—and a bang. Ten shots left, and maybe sixteen bats; let them get close enough to hit but not so close you don’t get to fire the whole clip⁠—

  Do well what is left to do; it may scare them off yet⁠—

  But I’d only fired four times, only knocked down two, when with a sudden crack and splash the ice collapsed beneath the sled, and I was suddenly up to my knees in water—so cold where it seeped in, it burned like fire—the A-rifle flying from my hands to skim away across the crust. I grabbed at the sack with Foyle in it, got it free of the sinking sled, and clasped it to me. The closest bats were only seconds away, their teeth gleaming, and no, it was worse than that because the clicking and shrilling was right behind me⁠—

  —louder than ever before⁠—

  So loud, in fact, that the attackers’ own chittering was drowned out. They had veered aside, were running with the wind, were fleeing the terrible racket tuned precisely to the range of their sensitive ears.

  And when I looked behind me, I saw an amphibious robot vehicle, massive enough to have broken the ice around us, regarding me with slowly turning cameras while its loudspeaker continued to drive the bats away. In a few minutes the ice bats were lost in the distance; the noise cut out.

  “We need help,” I said loudly. I saw no microphone to address directly.

  The robot sat there, a dumb metal hulk, cameras rotating with seeming randomness and finally coming to a complete halt. Several times a mechanical whir started up from its deep interior, only to die down. And then the speaker pock-pocked back to life; as a hatch opened in the vehicle’s side, exposing passenger seats, another type of sound, rusty as with long disuse, emerged.

  “I hear you…and recognize your authority.”

  ◆◆◆

  Inside the cab of the rescue robot, I stripped off the temp suit, wrestled Foyle out of the sack, and held her close. Her green eyes, so bright in a gray face, opened occasionally but without real consciousness. I tried to talk to the robot, but got no answer. Two salt-pitted windows gave me just enough of a view to follow our course up to the cliff, through shallow water and broken ice, and into a cave in its side; then there was only tunnel darkness, and at one point a dead stop followed by the stomach-feel of ascending in an elevator. Then a stretch of gray corridor. Stop. And the hatch popped open.

  We were met by a round little woman in late middle age, who held a pistol as if she were afraid of it. Her eyes searched my face. “I don’t understand,” she said. “The radio said—who are you?”

  “My friend needs a doctor,” I said.

  “I’m the doctor, but⁠…⁠” She scurried away to a wall communicator nearby, half turning at the last moment to wave the pistol, some concession to a threat or request she’d meant to make. She spoke quietly but urgently into the comm, breaking off once to ask my name.

  “Say it’s Christopher Sly and Foyle,” I told her.

  She passed that on, and without making out words I could hear the burst of interest in the reply. Meanwhile, I carried Foyle out of the vehicle, which retreated back down the corridor in the manner of robots—not bothering to turn around—to reveal the entrance to a small infirmary. Six of its eight beds were occupied by soft, middle-aged men and women, some terribly injured and unconscious, the others watching me with cow eyes as I stretched Foyle out in one of the available places. No one spoke until the doctor appeared at the doorway and reported, “The master says you’re to come right up. He needs you immediately, he says.”

  I stayed where I stood, indicating Foyle. “We were in a shuttle crash. She took a blow to the head, and her leg was broken. Don’t trust the way I’ve set it. Here are the labels of the shots I gave her. Pain stuff, and first-stage suspend.”

  “Immediately, the master said.”

  “Foyle is more important. If I don’t think you understand that, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Poor boy, I’m sorry,” the doctor said, and bustled over to Foyle’s bed. “I don’t know what’s going on, I’m doing what I—hold this.” She handed me the little pistol and palpated Foyle’s leg. Then she checked the pulse in Foyle’s neck, opened one eye, and peered into it carefully. “Not so easy to kill one like this, I think,” she said gently. “Please go. The master needs you. There’s no one else left to help him. The household is⁠—⁠” Her voice choked up, and she gestured at the other patients.

  “All right. You’ll⁠—⁠”

  “I will take good care of her.”

  She gave me directions I could follow through the lower castle to reach her “master.” She didn’t notice her pistol had disappeared into my pocket.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  An elevator. A corridor past a kitchen and a laundry. The human-era wood paneling and flooring appeared to have been added to much older stonework. And yet there was something strangely familiar about it all⁠…

  But soon I was standing in a dark cigar-box of a chamber where a wall-sized communicator gave a split-screen view of other rooms in the castle. A chair and folding table stood in front of it. The chair was empty. The table held a clay pipe, still smoking, and a translation of Epictetus. Another of Summerisle’s Stoics. I glanced at the page.

  Remember, you’re an actor in a play,

  Whatever kind the author chooses, short

  Or long. And whether you’re required to be

  A poor man, magistrate, or cripple, act

  The part as naturally as you can.

  This is your duty, to act the part you get.

  Selecting it belongs to someone else.

  I swore under my breath.

  Somewhere water was running, and then it stopped. A door opened and Summerisle stepped in, wearing the simple black robe of a Master and looking noticeably older than when I’d last seen him.

  “My boy,” he
said. “I wondered if it had been you in the shuttle. But I thought it burned and crashed.”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t send more searchers, and sooner. I’ve been otherwise engaged.”

  “The Pretender landed, I take it,” I said.

  “The⁠—⁠? Oh, yes. Thirty-six hours ago. After the defense satellites reported the shuttle ejection, I knew the Raven had been hijacked, and it wasn’t hard to guess by whom. It was all in the Manfred play, wasn’t it? We just didn’t want to see it…Anyway, once his people had fought their way into the tunnels, I could see them on my screens. And I could see his hostages.”

  “So there was fighting?”

  He slowly lowered himself into the chair, as if he’d been taking a physical beating instead of a mental one. I wondered how long he’d been awake.

  “Fighting and surprises. Evidently the last time…your Pretender visited here, he secretly left some devices behind. Robot saboteurs the size of insects, with sophisticated little brains and explosive bellies—top-drawer military technology he must have got from the Few, via Malatesta. Then he went back to Venezia and played Prince Hal. The Satanic cleverness of it all; in his genes, I suppose. Anyway, when he arrived this time, the bugs radioed reports and maps to him before our defense computers realized what was going on. Then they began to detonate in critical places. I lost my telemetry in the landing area and elsewhere. Our automatic defense scenario was undermined. Most of our fighting robots were wiped out immediately.”

  He picked up his pipe and pulled at it as if it were brandy.

  “For a few hours the invaders actually disappeared from my computer screens. I wonder if they got some sleep in that interval—hard to understand what’s keeping them on their feet otherwise.

  “When they reappeared, they’d bypassed the subway from the landing field to the castle. They were down in the maintenance tunnels. Our servants had armed themselves, and made a stand there—horrible casualties, but it helped drive the attack back into the path we’d planned against. By then, your Pretender’s early advantage was gone. He needed a guide after all.”

  “I suppose he put pressure on Captain Marius.”

  Summerisle nodded. “What a chess game it’s been, boy; from time to time I’ve been able to see and hear parts of it. Our captain had to say something for the sake of the women and his own life. But he pled ignorance of many defenses, led them into traps and out again, peeling off more of the Hard Men every time.” He shook his head, a look of admiration on his face.

  “I’d never thought we even needed these inner defenses. If Hel were known to the Few or the Tribunal, it would simply be destroyed. But our young friend must not have told Malatesta much; he doesn’t want Hel destroyed, he wants to possess its secrets and take over the war against the Column. I’d never imagined an attack of that kind.

  “But our captain is an imaginative type, with a love for the unexpected and the devious. He planned all these defenses personally. And, an hour ago, he led your Pretender through his masterpiece, the Welcome Gallery. Computer-aimed guns came right out of the walls, and when the Hard Men tried to return fire⁠—⁠” He cocked an eyebrow. “Did your Pretender tell you how the Shy Lock works? Yes? But we never told him all of it: it wasn’t just the Column’s space-drives that we planted flaws in; it was everything the munitions factories make. In the Welcome Gallery, a tune played, and suddenly all the Hard Men’s A-rifles and EM pistols went useless. They were massacred in seconds. But their leader still has his living shield.”

  He gave directions to the comm wall; the views flickered and changed. “They should have reached the living quarters by—Yes.”

  And I could see them, moving through what looked like an enormous library of portable books. Captain Marius, looking badly beaten and with a bloody bandage around one knee, was walking with the support of Domina, whose face was drawn and haggard as I had never seen it. The Pretender followed at a distance. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought his limp had returned; he was pushing Julia in front of him. Her arms were apparently bound behind her back, and her expression wasn’t so much weary and resigned as dazed, almost mindless. The Pretender had one arm around her neck, a knife at her throat.

  “You see the way he’s holding it?” Summerisle asked.

  “No safe way to kill him,” I said. “A last spasm or the weight of his body falling could finish her. The bastard said it on the ship—there’s still no answer to cold steel.”

  “He’s home free anyway,” Summerisle said. “We’re in the butler’s pantry, looking through comm screens, not gunsights.”

  The Pretender appeared to be shouting something. Summerisle asked the wall for sound, and the next time we heard him:

  “Come on out, O Kublai Khan! A person from Porlock has come to break your dream—Wake up!”

  “Is it just…raving?” Summerisle asked me.

  “Allusion,” I said. “ ‘In Xanadu did Kublai Khan,’ blah blah. I guess that’s all he’s got to fall back on now—poems and books that I read in college, his imitation past.”

  “Come on, you old, old man! I don’t want to burst your bubble, but it’s just you and me now. Wake up, O Red King, and let’s see which of us is dreaming.”

  “He won’t wait much longer,” Summerisle murmured. “Perhaps I should just go face him, talk to him. See if I’m still his old Master.”

  “It’s too late for that. He’s a mad dog. He doesn’t want to live anyway.”

  Summerisle looked at me sadly. “You’d kill him? I understand. I hate the things he’s done, too, but try to see him whole, Evan. Remember all the stress we—I, I put on his mind. If he knows where he is at all, he thinks he’s doing what has to be done to topple the last and greatest dictatorship in history. I can’t judge him. I know too well—once you get in the business of saving the universe, compromising and killing seem to be your sacred duty.”

  “Maybe we should give him a testimonial dinner,” I said. “Of course, the waiters are all downstairs with sucking chest wounds.” Summerisle didn’t flinch, but he was a Stoic and a Kanalist. “If you can’t deal with a mad dog, Master, you don’t deserve to be the Consultant—or Domina’s husband, or Julia’s father.”

  And this time he reacted. With astonishment. “I—the Consultant? You thought…You’ve got it wrong. The Consultant—our captain and chief—is on the screen in front of you, trying to protect his family.”

  “Marius?”

  “One of his names, one of his gyal-wa masks—his favorite…Julia’s confidant and friend. After our reports from Venezia, mine and Domina’s, he decided to go judge the boy firsthand. And he wanted to see the play, not just read it.”

  “And the Pretender has only seen the Consultant’s true face—you never told him about gyal-was.”

  “Sharp as ever, boy, and correct. But I think we must also credit our captain’s acting, to keep the secret and manage the boy so well. Now it’s my turn to see what I can do.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder when he started to rise. “No, Master,” I said, watching Julia’s face in the monitor; it was hard to know who should rule the universe, but not what to do now. “I was his best friend. I’ll find a way.” I could feel the weight of the little pistol in my jacket pocket.

  The wall gave us the Pretender’s threats again. “Two minutes, that’s all! Show yourself, or I’ll start putting these puppets back in their box.”

  “If…if you could get him to stay in one place,” Summerisle said, “I might be able to enter behind him.”

  “With a handgun,” I said. “I assume the home-team models are gunpowder, not electronic.” There was not a shred of suspicion in his eyes as he nodded.

  “Yes—yes, I must get one. You’re right…Of course the others come first. But you don’t realize what a tragedy it would be if we had to kill the boy.”

  “Why? Who is he? And for God’s sake, who’s the Consultant?”

  He lifted his hands helplessly. “I’m sure, afte
rwards⁠—⁠”

  “Even now?” I said, almost shouting. “Even now, you’ll say ‘oath of secrecy’!”

  He took a Master’s breath, and suddenly there was no arguing with him. “If I could have broken my vows, I would be the Consultant. I’ll tell you this: He is the most cunning, protean man I have ever known. A harder man than you—working with me in the underground, he saw many comrades die. But he wishes you well. I told him of our meeting in Venezia; it was no accident he placed you in that escape shuttle. And I believe this: now, with his life in the balance, he would want you there, you, of all men. He would want your judgment.”

  ◆◆◆

  After all, I never did hear Luc Kostain hit the water.

  While the elevator took me the last few floors up to the Consultant’s living quarters, I saw how easy it would be to pass off in a play, one short speech:

  I managed to hang by the bottom of the bridge—thank God for that rope construction—until both of you were gone. The knife had missed my spine and heart, and shock kept me from feeling too much pain until I reached a friend, a bar girl near the docks. She knew smugglers who could get me offplanet—and give me a job, and the first family I’d ever known. And when the Column cops crushed them, I joined the resistance with a will⁠…

  Any matinee audience would accept that. And it was true, there was always something in Kostain that could have been my friend—an orphan and outsider like me. But there was also a dark cloud somewhere behind him, driving him through the world without direction. When did he learn to think, to read, to invent? No, it would be a cheap Castle of Otranto reversal, unbelievable were it not for the one thing it explained. Domina. Domina’s love. And the Pretender’s terrible, corrosive jealousy over it, once he knew who the Consultant was⁠…

  The elevator doors opened. I began to walk through the Consultant’s living quarters. And my sense of unreality became stronger moment by moment. That baronial dining room—that private gymnasium. These were the rooms, this was the castle, that lonely, bookish boys growing up in boondocks and flatlands retreated to in their dreams. And here was the drafty sitting room lit by an enormous fireplace blazing with logs some robot must frequently replace…and ancient weapons hanging from the walls, not blunt decorations, but as sharp as the ones I’d kept in college. Why must everything endlessly shrink and spiral back into my dreams, my fantasies? Do you genuinely remember the crash of the Raven’s shuttle, Evan—or just the moment afterward when, miraculously unharmed, you described it to Foyle? Can you be sure which of you is the unconscious one now? Will you ever be free, will you ever see a logic behind it all that compels belief in this waking world?