The Grand Ellipse Part 14

The three of them made their way along a gravel path to a door in the high garden wall. The door hung ajar on its rusty old hinges; probably it had been used in the very recent past. They went through, transferring themselves in a disorienting moment from the forgotten rusticity of the silent garden to the bustle of a busy city street.

Luzelle stood still, trying to take it in. Tall buildings of honey-colored stone arose on all sides. Horse-drawn carriages, carts, and hansom cabs filled the wide urban avenue, and there were people, hundreds of people everywhere. The suddenness of the change was almost as startling as transference by ophelu.

"Look. Look at." Mesq'r Zavune pointed. "There is Rakstriphe's Victory Column. Very famous. We are in Hurba."

"By sunset, just as they promised," said Girays.

"Hansom. Waterfront," urged Luzelle. "Ticketing agencies. Pa.s.sage to Aeshno. Come on on, gentlemen, let's grab a cab, let's go!"

"Whew!" Zavune smiled.

"Couldn't have put it better myself," Girays agreed, entertained.

"What are you smirking about?" Luzelle asked him.

"I am not smirking. I never smirk."

"You are. You do."

"If you've detected some sign of mild amus.e.m.e.nt, it's a natural response to your rather-how shall I put it-charmingly impetuous enthusiasm."

"Girays, you know I can't stand it when you-"

"Because, you see," he continued with annoying composure, "in your eagerness you have failed to consider the lateness of the hour, and its effect. By this time the ticketing agencies are shut up for the night. There's no possibility of booking commercial pa.s.sage from Dalyon before tomorrow morning."

"For now, we stuck," Zavune informed her.

"Unless, of course, you happen to enjoy access to a private yacht," Girays suggested helpfully. "Or a dependable night-flying balloon, or perhaps some really imaginative newfangled suboceanic vehicle, or a trained leviathan, or-"

"You needn't belabor belabor the point." Luzelle scowled. the point." Luzelle scowled.

"The Herald Inn, not far from here," Mesq'r Zavune told them. "Very excellently clean. Good food."

Food. Luzelle's stomach rumbled responsively. She noticed herself smiling.

They took a cab to the Herald Inn, an elderly but immaculate establishment with black half-timbering and a gabled roof, where there were plenty of decent rooms available at stiff city rates.

Luzelle ate a good dinner of Hurbanese winepoachies in the Herald's old dining room, in the company of Girays and Zavune. The latter, she discovered, was almost feverishly antic.i.p.ating a very temporary reunion with his wife and children in his homeland of Aennorve. The conversation scarcely touched on the Grand Ellipse, and for a short time it was possible to relax and enjoy the illusion that the three of them were ordinary dinner companions rather than rivals.

The meal ended, and camaraderie began to wane. Luzelle was already wondering if she might somehow find a way tomorrow morning of beating them both to the docks. To her surprise, Girays insisted on walking her back to her room. She suspected that he wanted some sort of private conversation, and this proved to be the case.

They paused in the empty corridor at her door, and Girays turned to face her. His angular face had lost all trace of characteristic amus.e.m.e.nt or weariness. An odd little frisson-trepidation? excitement?-ran through her at the sight, and she asked, "What is it?"

"That gun," said Girays.

"Khrennisov FK6 pocket pistol."

"So I noticed."

"Good weapon for self-defense."

"In properly trained hands. Where did it come from?"

"A p.a.w.nshop in Lanthi Ume." She paused, then added with a certain delicious enjoyment that she strove hard to disguise, "Karsler Stornzof helped me pick it out."

"But how amiable of him."

"Yes, I thought so."

"Unfortunately the gallant Grewzian seems to have overlooked a small but possibly telling detail. In his zeal to serve a lady, he has succeeded in placing a deadly weapon in the hands of one who-forgive me if I am mistaken-has not the slightest notion how to handle it."

"Oh?" She considered denial, but recognized the pointlessness. "Was it so very obvious that I don't know how to shoot?"

"It was to me, because I know your face; I know your eyes."

"Bav Tchornoi doesn't, and he was the one I needed to convince. Worked, too."

"Yes, but tell me-what would you have done if Tchornoi had called your bluff? Would you actually have fired? Do you even know how?"

"Well, it didn't go that way." Even to herself she sounded lame.

Girays smothered a curse. "That irresponsible fool of an overcommander ought to be horsewhipped. Is he trying to curry favor with you, trying to get you killed, or both?"

"Don't blame Karsler-"

"Karsler?"

"It wasn't his doing. We were walking together-"

"Indeed?"

"We met by accident, only he thinks it wasn't altogether an accident."

"Really."

"I'd been a little ill, and he'd helped me. He really was wonderful-"

"Wonderful, again!"

"Anyway, we pa.s.sed a p.a.w.nshop, and I told him I wanted to buy a gun. He didn't suggest it, he didn't have any say in the matter. It really didn't matter whether he was with me or not, I'd have gone ahead and bought some sort of handgun in any case. Since he was was there, he helped me pick out a good one. That's all." there, he helped me pick out a good one. That's all."

"Perhaps not quite all. He encouraged you, I suppose."

"Hard though it may be for you to believe, Girays-it was my own decision."

"And then he washes his hands, he walks away, without troubling to instruct you."

"He didn't have any choice, or any time. We are in a race, after all. He told me to practice."

"Oh, well, that absolves him of all. Will you defend everything that he does?"

"This is ridiculous. I'm not obliged to defend anything or anybody, to you. Why should I?"

"Why indeed? Why should you give the slightest thought to anything in the world beyond your own determination to get whatever you want, at any cost? Only now that you have secured this d.a.m.ned gun, and the golden Grewzian who egged you on is nowhere to be seen, perhaps you aren't too proud to let me show you how to use it?"

"What?" For a moment she was unsure that she had heard him correctly.

"We'll probably take the same ship for Aennorve. We'll have a few days, I can show you how to handle the Khrennisov. If you wish."

"Oh." She drew a deep breath. He had taken her by surprise, and she did not know how to react. After a moment she confessed, "This isn't what I expected. I was sure you'd think it a dangerous mistake for me to carry a gun."

"I do. But I can think of an even more dangerous mistake-for you to carry a gun that you don't know how to use. Will you let me show you?"

"Yes." The a.s.sent emerged easily, but the next words required effort. "Thank you."

"Tomorrow, then." He was too well bred to display anything resembling triumph.

"Girays?"

"Yes?"

"What in the world possessed you to enter this race?"

"Let's talk when we have more time, aboard ship. That's what long sea voyages are good for, you know-time."

"Time and talk may be all that this one will be good for. We've fallen so far behind, we'll need a miracle or magic to catch up with the Stornzof kinsmen now."

7.

THE SUN WAS HIGH IN THE SKY when the when the Inspiration Inspiration embarked from Lanthi Ume, speeded on its way by the salutes of the Grewzian patrol vessels. For hours she hurried east across the Jeweled Expanse, whose blue waters echoed the color and mildness of the cloudless skies. The air was magnificent, and the scenery uncommonly noteworthy by seagoing standards, for the ship threaded a path among the countless steeply pitched, colorfully vegetated islands that lent the Jeweled Expanse its name. embarked from Lanthi Ume, speeded on its way by the salutes of the Grewzian patrol vessels. For hours she hurried east across the Jeweled Expanse, whose blue waters echoed the color and mildness of the cloudless skies. The air was magnificent, and the scenery uncommonly noteworthy by seagoing standards, for the ship threaded a path among the countless steeply pitched, colorfully vegetated islands that lent the Jeweled Expanse its name.

Karsler Stornzof stood on the deck watching island after island go by, some so close that he needed no spygla.s.s to distinguish the close-packed white-stuccoed houses clambering up the sharp-graded slopes. The grey-green bemubit trees with their gnarled white trunks were likewise distinguishable, along with terraced gardens dripping voluptuous cascades of the purple khilliverigia, known as Youth's-Excuse, already abloom in these sunny climes.

Not all of the islands were inhabited, or even clothed in flora. Many exposed their naked volcanic rock to the skies. Others, devoid of humankind, sheltered colonies of bright-winged liftzoomers, whose iridescent plumage decorated expensive hats all over the world.

The hours and islands pa.s.sed under the sun, the memories of war receded, and earlier memories seeped to the front of Karsler Stornzof's mind; recollections of colder seas, harsher terrain, duller grey skies, and other times, better times, wherein principle and discipline supported understanding, or so he had once imagined.

But he had been a simpleton, he was starting to realize. He had been so credulous, so ignorant of reality, so unprepared. He had thought the truth of the Promontory the truth of the world, and he had been a sorry fool.

He hadn't seen that for himself, not for a while, and most of the rest of the world still didn't see it. In fact, most of the world seemed to regard him with exaggerated admiration, a phenomenon he scarcely comprehended. The troops under his command had won a few gaudy victories, the drama and significance of which had been vastly inflated by the popular press, but how many readers had ever considered the deflating reality of trained, well-equipped Grewzian strength, and enemy disadvantage?

His best Promontory teacher, the Elucidated Llakhlulz, would have had words to offer. But then, what had E. Llakhlulz himself known of the real world beyond the Promontory?

Time, salt water, and islands flowed. Karsler Stornzof watched and remembered, until a whiff of costly tobacco invaded his air. He turned to confront the Grandlandsman Torvid, and a flash of something like annoyance singed his mind before he remembered his duty.

"You dream, Nephew," Torvid observed with amus.e.m.e.nt. Sunlight glanced sharply off his coin-bright silver hair and his monocle.

"There is little else to do up here on deck, Grandlandsman." Karsler uncomfortably attempted to match the other's light tone.

"Ah, to be sure. And what could be the subject and source of your dreams? Victory, one might hope?"

"That is the goal of the race."

"Sometimes I fear you forget it. There are other dreams to fill ardent young minds."

"Or even ardent old ones."

"Oh, Nephew, you kindle my hopes. Could you be something less of a prig than I had supposed? Is it possible, Promontory notwithstanding, that you are truly a Stornzof?"

Karsler bit back an acrid reply. The anger that filled him was irrelevant and counterproductive, as E. Llakhlulz could so well have explained. He might have echoed the grandlandsman's sarcasm, but only at the expense of large values, and therefore he contented himself with the mild query, "You are a qualified judge of the breed?"

"As good as any," Torvid responded easily. "Good enough to judge the response of a healthy Stornzof male to a female in heat. Do not take my observation in the wrong way, Nephew. The little Vonahrish thing contrives to make her presence known, and it is only natural that your glands should feel the pull."

"You allude to Miss Devaire?"

"Bravo."

"You often cite our family name, Grandlandsman. Is it characteristic of a Stornzof, in your opinion, to defame respectable women?"

"Ah? It seems I was mistaken. You are indeed a prig of the first water."

"That being so, I will relieve you of the tedium of my presence."

"And an offended prig, at that. Stay where you are. I intended no affront to your well-developed sense of propriety. Quite the contrary, I compliment your taste, and I withdraw an earlier complaint. The fair Devaire is less boringly bourgeoise than I had initially supposed. She possesses a certain quality of impertinence that is not unamusing. I daresay there is entertainment to be found in bringing that one to heel."

"The point is academic, Grandlandsman." This time Karsler did not trouble to mask his disgust. "As you yourself have observed, we are unlikely to encounter Miss Devaire or any other Grand Ellipse contestant again before the conclusion of the race. Your influence with the Overgeneral Brugloist has effectively crippled the compet.i.tion."

"Yes, and I do not recall receiving thanks for it."

"Your efficiency no doubt deserves credit. Nevertheless I cannot help but wonder if an honest race, fairly run, might not have yielded a far more satisfying victory."

"You are perhaps too much the connoisseur, Nephew. Victory is victory and always sweet, particularly in light of the sole alternative. Moreover, your fine distinctions are inconsistent in their application. You never whined of inequity or dishonesty when the Szarish woman's peculiar conveyance was running us all into the ground."

"In that case the advantage stemmed legitimately from Szett Urrazole's own talents and accomplishments. And her initial lead might well have evaporated later in the race. Now we shall never know, thanks to the murderous zeal of the Lanthian resistance."

"Desperate characters." Torvid tapped a precarious cylinder of ash from the tip of his cigarette.

"I believe so, and therefore wonder at the absence of enemy action directed specifically against us. I am the only Grewzian contestant. The Overgeneral Brugloist has interceded on my behalf, all but ensuring my success; an abuse of power-that is to say, a manifestation of Grewzian solidarity-deeply offensive to rival nations."

"If Brugloist's intervention strikes you as morally objectionable, then you need scarcely have availed yourself of his a.s.sistance," Torvid observed dryly. "The Inspiration Inspiration could and should have sailed without you, for what is worth a blot upon a sweetly pure conscience?" could and should have sailed without you, for what is worth a blot upon a sweetly pure conscience?"

"As the affair was arranged by an overgeneral of the Imperium, I scarcely enjoyed the luxury of choice."