Gateway To Xanadu (38 page)

“If it meant keeping yourself from getting hurt, yes,” he answered, the faint flush on his skin doing nothing to detract from the steel-like insistence in his black eyes. “I’m supposed to be here to keep things like that from happening to you, not to be the cause of their happening. And he hit you too, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he hit me,” I answered, ignoring the very gentle fingers that carefully touched my cheek.

“Absolutely the first to ever lay a glove on me. Most of the men I meet on assignments bow and kiss my hand. Don’t you think you’re being ridiculous?”

“No, I don’t,” he answered in a very flat way, then climbed slowly to his feet. “What I am being, though, is exhausted. Let’s get to bed and catch what sleep we can.”

“We prefer sleeping right here,” I told the hand outstretched to me, more than disgusted with his nonsense. “Sleep is something I need too, and I’ll do a better job of it if I work at it alone. Besides, don’t you think you’ve had enough females in that bed for one night?”

His skin went flushed again, darker than before, and unbelievably those eyes avoided mine. I’d just been trying to be my usual sarcastic self, but Val was embarrassed! It had clearly only just come to him that everything he’d done in that pavilion had been watched, and for some reason, the idea upset him.

“That wasn’t what I meant, but you might be right at that,” he muttered, rubbing his face with one hand as he continued to look away from me. “I’ll get you a pillow and a cover. ”

He took himself out of the room, was back in a minute with the pillow and a fur cover, then disappeared again and stayed disappeared. I got myself comfortable and settled down to sleep, but a last, strange thought came to me before I drifted off. I didn’t know how I knew it, but I would have sworn that Val’s embarrassment stemmed not from his actual doing, but from the fact that I knew about it. Why it should bother him to have me know about something like that was beyond me, but there was no doubt that it did bother him. Val was strange all right, in some ways stranger even than the members of the non-humanoid races I knew, but there was nothing I could do right then to change him. Once the assignment was over, though . . .

“Now, people, we’re ready to go,” the amiable young man announced to the lessened crowd around him, his handsome face smiling attractively at everyone. “The ladies will leave first, and in a short while the men will follow. You may go anywhere you please in the white zone, but remember to stay in the white zone only. If you wander into another color zone, you’ll find yourself in a different proposition, one you probably won’t care for. You men should be especially careful of that.”

The men looked at each other with grins and chuckling, understanding the point without needing explanations. Everyone there knew what was happening, and the best thing I could come up with about the situation was that we were finally beginning to move on deeper into the Sphere.

Slaves had come to wake us that morning, and the fact that one male slave accompanied the three females said that my location wasn’t a surprise to whoever was in charge. I wasn’t in the mood for what he was offering and said so, but wasn’t given the option of refusal in the matter of bathing and dressing.

We were up to the costumed part of the tour, and it was taken for granted that not many people would know everything there was to know about the clothing brought by the slaves. I gave in without more than a token protest and let myself be dressed, then went to have breakfast with Val.

The costume brought to me was more than modest, a long-skirted light pink dress with very wide skirt, high neck and long sleeves, delicate lace clustered around throat, hem and wrists. Val appeared in red leggings, black boots, dark brown tunic-vest, and light pink shirt, complete with swordbelt and sword and sheathed dagger; we spent a minute looking each other over before sitting down to the meal the slaves had brought. I’d been told I didn’t have to worry much about the dress, but should avoid moving too abruptly or putting undue pressure on seams. The dress was designed to rip when attacked in the proper way, and underwear was, needless to say, not included in the outfit. Being given that particular information wasn’t terribly surprising, but I couldn’t help wondering if Val’s stuff was set to do the same thing.

“You’re looking well rested this morning, Jennifer,” Val said smoothly and in character as he seated me at the table that had been set up in his front room. “Our schedule has beers arranged for us, and we should both enjoy it.”

“What are we scheduled for, uncle Vat?” I asked, and the wariness I showed wasn’t acting. Val had a definite twinkle of amusement in his eye, and I’d learned to be wary at the very least when it came to things he considered funny.

“We’re scheduled for a ride through the countryside before lunch,” he told me, sitting down at the table and starting to uncover dishes. “It seems the Management has decided that I would be happiest if I were allowed to pursue the gentler sex and bend them to my will, so that’s what I’ll be doing. You, of course, will be the member of the gentler sex that I pursue and bend.”

“I don’t understand,” I protested, trying to sound young and confused instead of old enough and cynical enough to tell him what to do with his pursuit and bending. “What has a ride through the countryside got to do with . . .”

“The ride won’t simply be a ride,” he interrupted as though not at all interested in what I had to say.

“You, as the pursued, will be a young woman who is willfully running away from the protection of her family to avoid the need to obey them. I, as the pursuer, will be an outlaw who finds the trail of the young woman and decides to avail himself of the bounty so fortuitously placed in his grasp. I will take you captive, ignore your pleas for freedom, and happily work my will upon you.”

“And what if I don’t want to have your will worked on me’?” I asked, showing as much of my mad as was safe. “What if I want to do something else?”

“As your uncle, I’m entitled to make your choice for you, sweetheart,” he told me with amused patience and a wolfish grin. “Your choice turned out to be doing it my way, so we don’t have to go into it any further. Just make sure you stay in the white zone when you start running. There are other zones around here you’d like a lot less, where all women found in it are made slaves and badly abused, some dominated by men, some dominated by other women. There are also all-male zones where women would be very unwelcome, and you especially don’t want to end up there. Just eat your breakfast, and then we’ll get started.”

“I don’t want to get started,” I said through my teeth, seriously considering throwing all those dishes of food he was uncovering at him. “And I don’t want any breakfast if I have to have it with you! I’m going back to my own pavilion.”

“You don’t have a pavilion any more,” he answered, half ignoring me as he began piling my plate with food. “Just the way I won’t have one any more once we finish this food. We have to be moving on to the next place that’s waiting for us, and the next thing, to be done-and the place where we’ll rejoin John Little. He sent me a message saying he’ll be going through a different zone, but we’ll meet again farther in toward the center. Now, pick up that fork and start eating.”

The look he shot me then was supposed to be stern and commanding, but I could tell he was watching for a reaction to the information he’d just given me. I didn’t try to hide the fact that I found it just as interesting as he did, or at least I didn’t try to hide it from him. For the benefit of the slaves and any viewing equipment they might have gotten working again, I pouted, snarled, glared and huffed, then dug into the food I had suddenly developed an appetite for.

The day around us was pretty even at that early hour of the morning, .and most of the men in the crowd were walking back and forth inhaling the fresh air and touching the hilts of their swords, as eager and excited as a bunch of kids waiting to start their first mixed but unchaperoned picnic. Most of the women in the group were young and pretty, sending the men teasing, insolent glances while we waited for the mounts to be brought up. That teasing majority consisted of slaves, of course, and the men had been cautioned to run down only the woman whose dress matched the color of his shirt. Some very few of the women were going through with male companions, and mix-ups wouldn’t have been appreciated by either member of those couples.

When the mounts were brought up, there was a delay in departure until all of the guests present had a chance to examine them. Rather than supplying live animals which would give trouble to the inexperienced rider, the Sphere provided very cleverly made robots in the form of four-footed kiddie cars, capable of being managed by anyone with an I.Q. above 20. The things were large enough to accommodate any of us comfortably, came in stripes and plaids and solid colors, seemed to be made of hide and hair, and even moved their heads as if they were alive. The reins on them were jeweled leather, and they were only partly for show; the mounts’ forward movement was controlled by foot pedals installed in the stirrups of the wide, soft-leather saddles; press down with either set of toes and the thing rolled rather than walked forward, moving up to a good clip depending on how long you pressed. If you wanted to slow or stop you pulled on the reins, again the length of pulling time determining whether you simply slowed or stopped completely. The mount was not only well balanced to avoid its going over, it even had a computer brain to keep it from doing something that might cause it to fall over. It was as foolproof as high technology and lengthy experience with damned fools could make it, and those in the group looked forward even more to getting started.

The mount assigned to me turned out to be white, an occurrence that set some of the men chuckling as one of the male slaves helped me into the saddle. The skirt of my dress was wide enough to let me sit astride, and I didn’t notice the snickering group with their eyes on me until one said something to the others that set them laughing, then was answered by another, “She won’t be for long if she makes a habit of riding that way. Getting caught might come too late.”

They all laughed again and sent brief glances toward Val, who was deep enough into his role to chuckle indulgently while sending me a dirty grin. If I’d had even a hair less self-control I would have dismounted again and practiced some forms on all of them, but that wasn’t the time or place to act like a beginner. I sent Val a glance that had a solemn promise in it, turned away from the lot of them, and toed my mount into motion out of there.

It was an odd feeling to be rolling over the grass instead of trotting or galloping, but there was no denying my kiddy car was easier and more comfortable to ride than some of the mounts I’d had in the past. I headed away from the area of pavilions behind and among some of the other women, our direction also taking us away from the river, the open country running into modest forest once we had gone a short distance. As soon as we were out of sight of the pavilions the girls who were slaves each picked a separate direction, and five minutes later I was riding alone.

I continued on through the wide, bright forest, beginning to enjoy the day and the ride in spite of myself.

The Pleasure Sphere, just like the rest of Xanadu, was carefully weathercontrolled, which guaranteed that no one would have their pleasure spoiled by day after day of rain or cold or something else inimical.

I usually preferred natural weather, but riding under wide green trees bathed in golden sunshine, breathing in air like perfume, and hearing the birdsong all around, didn’t let me be overly critical.

Despite the way I was enjoying the ride, I didn’t hesitate to toe my mount up to top speed and keep it there. It would not be too long before the men came riding after us, and if I could possibly manage it I was going to ride all the way to our lunch stop before Val caught up with me. That pursuit game was great entertainment for the men, but there was a reason why most of the women involved were slaves; once a man sets out to literally hunt a woman down, something happens inside him and he’s no longer the nice, harmless guy who bought you a drink the day before. He becomes something else entirely, something unpleasant. I didn’t expect the same thing to happen to Val, but he was having too good a time at my expense and I didn’t see any reason to give him more of it.

The forest changed back to open grassland, and I still didn’t see any signs of anyone else. When I reached a rise in the ground I spotted a few tall poles in the distance to my left, white pennons standing out motionless from their tops, probably announced the beginning or end of the white zone, depending on how you looked at it. If I’d known for sure what was in the adjoining zone I might have gone that way, but only the men had been given that information and Val hadn’t indulged any urges to share it with me. I moved in annoyance on my saddle, pulling at the pink skirt under me to make it more comfortable, but it really didn’t help much. Riding in skirts was stupid, but I supposed attacking a woman in pants wasn’t as easy or entertaining.

I’d been riding almost an hour when one of my occasional checks behind showed a lone figure, some distance off but rolling right in my direction. I didn’t have any doubts as to who it could be, but jamming my toes into the stirrups didn’t get me any more speed. It came to me then that the men must have been given some way of finding their matching females, and also that their mounts were probably set to roll faster than those of the women. Playing the games that unfairly made me mad, even though it wasn’t anything completely unexpected. The men were the ones paying to have a good time, so weighting the game in their favor was only a matter of course. If I hadn’t been one of the ones being pursued, I wouldn’t have thought about it twice.

But I was one of the ones being pursued, and playing sitting duck has never been my favorite pastime.

There was the beginning of a stand of stone ahead and to my right, a jumble of rocks and boulders that almost seemed dropped there to break up the monotony of the landscape. I turned my mount in that direction and continued on at top speed, determined not to give up without a struggle.