Buck Rogers 1 - Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (17 page)

All the while that Buck and Ardala had been dancing, Twiki had watched and listened, his mechanical circuits and relays clicking over in time to the music. Now he tried a few steps of his own in imitation of Captain Rogers.

“Twiki, stop that! People are watching!” Theopolis scolded.

Instead of stopping, Twiki squeaked his pleasure and increased the vigor of his steps.

Meanwhile, Buck and Ardala carried on a breathless conversation while they danced before the hard-working orchestra.

“What happens if you bump together?” Ardala asked.

“You’re automatically man and wife,” Buck replied sardonically.

“You’re quite a man, Captain Rogers,” Ardala replied. She shifted her position to move closer to him as she continued her steps. “I suppose the Earth people believe your incredible fairy tale about being frozen for five hundred years.”

“Not on your life!” Buck denied. “They think I’m a spy!”

“A spy?” Ardala laughed wildly, her head thrown back and her lush, dark hair cascading across her sensuous shoulders and down her smooth, graceful back. “A spy!” she repeated. “One of mine?”

“They aren’t sure,” Buck said. “Yours—or the pirates.”

“How would you like to join up?” Ardala asked. “Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, Captain!”

“Who do I see to make my move?” Buck asked.

The princess moved even closer to him, raised her painted lips to Buck’s ear and hissed a single syllable. “Me!”

Beside Twiki and Theopolis, Wilma watched in fury and confusion. “Is anything wrong?” the computer-brain asked. “You look upset, Wilma, my dear.”

“I ordered you to keep Captain Rogers out of trouble,” Wilma told the computer angrily.

“I’m sorry, Wilma,” Theopolis’ lights blinked a blushing crimson, “he just seems to have a way of getting into things before we can get him out.”

“Yes, I can see that!” Wilma snapped.

As Wilma turned her back and stalked angrily from the room, Buck caught a glimpse of her over Ardala’s shoulder. He said nothing of the incident to Ardala, but his thoughts, like Wilma’s, were confused. Buck saw Wilma pass Kane on her way from the hall. Kane proceeded across the dance floor, ignoring the powerful rhythm of the music and striding determinedly up to the dancing couple.

“Your highness,” Kane demanded.

Ardala, still caught up in the power of the dance but tossing a glance back to Kane, said, “What is it?”

“Your highness—some of the ministers would like a few minutes of your time. It’s important, your highness.”

“Later, Kane.” Ardala returned her full attention to the music and to Buck.

“Business of the realm cannot wait,” Kane insisted. “I’m sorry, your highness, but your duty must outweigh trivial personal dalliances.” He cast a contemptuous sneer at Buck.

Ardala whirled furiously toward Kane. “Don’t you order me around, you pig,” she hissed in a hate-filled voice.

Kane leaned forward, spoke in a low tone but with urgency that compelled even the outraged Ardala to pay attention. “Your father expects you to serve the best interests of the realm, Ardala! You’d better remember, if you fail, Draco has twenty-nine other daughters!”

Ardala made a low, animal growl in her throat. Her eyes flashed and she raised her long, talonlike fingernails as if she intended to rake Kane’s face with them. She had actually started toward him, claws extended, when she felt Buck Rogers’ hand on her wrist. She turned, snarling, toward Buck, then got control of herself and pulled back from Kane.

The courtier stood before her, his normally swarthy complexion pallid for once. He had escaped by the narrowest of margins a public humiliation unparalleled in his career. If Ardala had clawed his face he would not have dared retaliate here in the Grand Ballroom before the assembled dignitaries of Earth and of Draconia. He would have had no choice but to submit to a public scourging and then withdraw in disgrace.

Instead, Ardala turned toward Buck and repeated a polite formula through angry, clenched teeth. “It’s been a great pleasure, Captain Rogers. But it seems that we both have our duty cut out for us.”

She extended her hand, those deadly talons now turned harmlessly down. Buck Rogers took the extended hand, courteously kissed it, murmured
sotto voce,
“Later, perhaps, Ardala?”

“I depart aboard my private launch at midnight, to return to the
Draconia.”
Her eyes met those of the dashing earthman, full of unspoken promise.

The princess turned, took Kane’s arm demandingly and ascended to rejoin her ministers who awaited beside her throne. Her bodyguard, Tigerman, watched all of this, the thoughts behind those inscrutable slitted eyes a mystery to all save himself.

Buck Rogers snapped a brittle wisecrack at Tigerman and strode away from the ellipse, headed toward the balcony outside the ballroom where Kane and Huer had conducted their earlier exchange. This time Buck found Wilma Deering standing there, alone, her eyes gazing sadly out over the beautiful, gleaming spires and shafts of the Inner City.

Buck approached Wilma from behind and spoke softly. “It’s a very beautiful sight, in its own way. We had city skylines in my era, Wilma, some of them breathtaking to behold. But the Inner City is unique.”

Wilma’s reply was so soft as to be nearly inaudible, yet it dripped icicles to the hearer. “I would much prefer to be alone just now. If you please, Captain Rogers.”

Buck heard his name accompanied by a little sound, a sound that Wilma nearly, but not quite, managed to suppress. The sound might have been a gasp—or a sob.

“Okay,” Buck said, “I’m sorry. So long.” He turned away and started back toward the Grand Ballroom.

“Wait!” Wilma cried. Buck stopped in his tracks, waiting for Wilma. “I’m sorry,” she echoed Buck’s earlier words.

“For what?” He turned to face her again. “Sorry for wanting to be alone? It’s good for you. A little solitude, helps you get your thoughts in order. Not five hundred years of it, maybe, but—”

“Don’t try to make me feel better, please. I’ve behaved very badly. It’s just that I’m so very mixed up.” She raised one hand to her brow. As she did so, Buck couldn’t help noticing the contrast between Wilma’s fingernails, gracefully rounded but trimmed short so as not to interfere with the operation of her Starfighter up in orbit, and the dark, pointed talons of the Draconian princess.

Buck shook his head. “I’m not quite myself either.”

“At least you have an excuse,” Wilma said. “That is, you do, if you’re—if you’re—”

“Telling the truth?” he supplied.

“You see?” Wilma said. A tear at last fell from one eye, landed with the tiniest of splashes on the form-fitting bodice of her trim military tunic. “Oh, Buck, I’m only making it worse.” She stopped again, clutched one hand with the other and forced herself to breath deeply. “This is very difficult, Captain Rogers,” she resumed. “l am a commander. I am not in the habit of explaining my—my—emotions.”

“Take your time,” Buck offered.

Wilma drew herself up, inhaled deeply and began. “It may not really help, Buck. You know, I’ve been trained all my life to be a leader. I couldn’t have elected a less demanding role. But in the National Sensitivity Tests, my score was a nine in Dominance. So it was natural for me to enter the military as a career.

“You see, Flight Officers are expected to go by the book. We are expected never to let personal feelings enter the equation. So if I’m clumsy and can’t express this correctly, I hope you’ll be patient with me.”

Buck checked his watch unobtrusively. Ardala’s launch would be taking off for its return flight to the
Draconia
soon.

“I’ll try to be brief,” Wilma said. She looked up into Buck’s blue-eyed countenance, then turned slowly to lean on the parapet and gaze out over the Inner City as she spoke. “I’ve never experienced feelings like this in my entire career, Buck. I’ve found myself laughing. Then crying. Furiously angry with you. Then overflowing with remorse and—and—tenderness for you. I did think you were a spy, Captain Rogers. But I know now that I was wrong.”

She took her hands from the parapet, turned and looked up at Buck, moving closer to him as she did. “I could never have fallen in love with a spy, I know that. And yet, I’ve fallen in love!”

At these words Buck was astonished. Before he could respond in any way, Wilma had reached up and drawn his face down to her own, and kissed him tenderly on the mouth. After a little bit she drew back and asked, “Did you like that?”

Buck blinked. “It was first class,” he said.

“Then I did it correctly?” Wilma asked.

“Really outstanding.”

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“You’re welcome as all get out,” Buck told her.

“Then why don’t we go someplace,” Wilma said. “The Palace of Mirrors is so public.”

Buck checked his watch again. “I’d really love to, Wilma, but it
is
getting late and I’m a little tired.” He saw the hurt expression on her face. “I’ve been out of it for five hundred years,” he added. “So I think I’d better go easy on reentry.”

He leaned over and kissed her softly on the cheek.

“You’re leaving!” Wilma exclaimed. “Just like that!”

“Just for tonight, colonel. We’ll get back to this later on, I promise.” He tossed her a casual salute and made for the nearest exit.

Wilma stared after him unbelievingly. For a few seconds her expression was one of deep hurt. Then the hurt was transformed into white-hot anger.

E I G H T

Princess Ardala gazed around the Grand Ballroom, still filled with swirling dancers, swaying musicians, glittering courtiers and dignitaries of the Draconian Empire and the Earth Directorate. The hour was late but the festive occasion would continue as long as its honored luminary the princess cared to have it do so.

When she felt that enough time had passed the princess discreetly signaled the orchestra leader and the music switched to the melody traditionally associated with the end of a formal gala. The leader of the Earth delegation, the aged Dr. Huer, ascended Princess Ardala’s dais to bid her goodnight.

He bent and kissed her hand. Then he made a circle of the dignitaries, exchanging a formal farewell and a handclasp with each. Even when he reached towering Tigerman, Huer raised his hand halfway. Tigerman made a deep, rumbling growl, perhaps his equivalent of a polite greeting.

“Er, yes. Well, and good evening and, er, pleasant dreams to you, too,” Dr. Huer mumbled. “Or, ah, good hunting. Catch a mousie or whatever one wishes a, ah, creature of your sort.”

Tigerman raised one murderously clawed paw.

Dr. Huer gingerly pressed his fragile old hand against the creature’s rasping pads, then withdrew.

The Princess Ardala cast a final glance around the ballroom, hoping to spot Buck Rogers in the still-colorful throng. She failed to find him and heaved a disappointed sigh as she drew her cloak around her regal shoulders.

She threw her head back regally and descended from the dais, her richly trimmed cloak drawn about her, Tigerman at her elbow, her ministers and courtiers trailing behind in an order rigidly determined by official protocol. Prominent among them, jealous of his place in the line and eager as ever to move forward to the princess’ side, was the oily Kane.

They made their way, accompanied by an Intercept Squadron honor guard, to the princess’ private launch. As soon as they had boarded safely and found their proper positions, the launch streaked upward, headed from Earth’s glittering Inner City to the Emperor Draco’s great flagship
Draconia.

Inside the cabin of the launch, Ardala was seated on a remarkable piece of furniture, a cross between a purely functional launch couch and a regal throne. The strap that ran across her graceful lap was another example of the same sort of compromise between function and symbolism. It was richly tooled in patterns derived from the royal crest of Draconia, studded with sparkling gems of every color. And it was a safety belt.

Above the princess’ head twin tiny speakers hung on wires so fine as to be invisible, providing musical distraction for her highness during the tedium of flight. Ardala gazed from the launch, watching the stars of the earthly sky, moving her head slightly in time with the music as if reliving a moment of the ball just ended. To either side of her throne-couch the launch’s bulkheads were covered with the richest spotted animal pelts, hung with the crest and arms of Imperial Draconia.

Suddenly the pleasant, soothing music was interrupted. Ardala reached for a control panel to correct the malfunction, but before she could reach the switch a new, yet familiar, voice came over the twin speakers mounted on their invisible wires.

“Chicago, Chicago,” the voice sang merrily.

Ardala swung her head around to see where the singing was coming from. The curtain that cut off the galley from the royal cabin was drawn aside and Buck Rogers entered the room. He was singing his old-fashioned song, carrying a tray in both hands with a bottle of Vinol on it and two elaborate goblets.

Tigerman leaped to his feet, snarling, placing himself between Princess Ardala and the earthman Buck Rogers.

“It’s all right,” Ardala soothed Tigerman. He cropped his menace from a snarl to a low, rumbling growl but continued slowly to advance toward Buck.