Reward for Retief (36 page)

            "You'll take me with
you?" the lad responded eagerly. Retief nodded.

            "Of course we'll take
you," Magnan said impatiently. "But where? There's nothing outside
that door but chaos. How are we to regain stable ground?"

            "Got to rotate under
it," the boy said, as if it were obvious. "See, old Capgoldblatt
tricked me: Pried me loose from my primary postulate, and the whole Shrodinger
function collapsed, anyways that's what Humphrey says. Well, it's pretty
obvious we'll have to bypass all that and sneak out along a paradigmatic error
of closure."

            "Why, wherever did you
learn such big words?" Magnan queried dazedly. " 'A paradigmatic
error of closure,' you said. Why, the very concept is disconsonate with the
fundamental postulates of modern physics. And who, pray, is this
Humphrey?"

            "Then you better find
some new postulates," the boy dismissed the objection curtly. "And
Humphrey is my friend. Don't look like much, but he helps me a lot, talking to
me, and all."

            "Talks to you?"
Magnan echoed. "Just how does he do that, when you're confined here
alone?"

            "I don't care if you
believe me or not," the lad stated defiantly. "How do I know how he
does it?"

            "Oh, dear," Magnan
dithered. "I fear we've gotten off on the wrong foot ..."

            The boy made a production of
angling his sneaker-clad feet and eyeing them suspiciously.

           
"My
feet are
OK," he declared with finality. "Must be yours are mixed up." He
craned in an exaggerated fashion to peer at Magnan's once-elegant but now
scuffed melon slicers.

            "Look OK, too," he
decided. "So I still say it's your postulates. I think you got yer
coordinates knocked slanchways coming through the Vortex. Better recalibrate."

            "That's easier said
than done," Magnan replied testily. "In the absence of reliable
parameters."

           
perhaps I can help
, the small voice spoke up abruptly.

            "Good lord!"
Magnan yelped, covering his ears. "After all these hours of silence, I thought
you'd gone. Have you no duties requiring your attention?"

            Meanwhile, the boy had
backed away, then went past Magnan to take a stand beside Retief. "Look
out for the Big Scary Voice," he yelped. "I don't want—"

           
what you want, alien eater, is of little consequence,
the Voice boomed out with such force
as to send Magnan to his knees, clutching his head as if to prevent it from
exploding.

            Retief put a hand on the
boy's unkempt head. "What's your name, fella?" he asked.

            "Sobby," the boy
blurted. "I wasn't spose to tell anybody. But I guess it's OK because
that's only a nickname."

            "Who gave it to
you?" Retief prodded.

            "Old Marshall,"
the boy said promptly. "Use to call him Barky, and one day he heard me.
Said to you, lad, I'm Field Marshall Prince Barcarol. And as for yourself, by
the same principle of nomenclature, the rest of the lads will henceforth call
you 'Sobby,' rather that 'Sobhain,' or 'Milord'."

            "So your real name is
'Sobhain'," Retief confirmed. "That's a noble name, Milord. On his home
world, a few centuries ago, he was a national hero, 'the Prince of the Green,'
was his sobriquet. Your parents made a good choice. Who were they?"

            "They're the Anointed
of Rohax," the boy stated flatly.

            "So I had begun to
suspect, Milord," Retief informed the lad. "Can you tell us how you
came to be here?"

            "That man laid hands on
me and dragged me in here," Sobby said, giving Boss a look colder than the
core of Icebox Nine.

            "That look was as cold
as the core of Icebox Nine," Magnan contributed. "Colder. Why did he
drag you in here? Earlier, you said you were here before him."

            "That was before,"
Sobby explained. "He locked me in here, alone, and later on someone threw
him in, too."

            "To be sure,"
Magnan mumbled. "But that's not what Retief meant—"

            "Retief?" the boy
exclaimed, staring up at the tall man with an astonished expression. "I
knew Barky would send someone—but, no, I suppose he didn't ..." His voice
trailed off uncertainly.

            "He probably did,"
Retief said. "But you're correct: it wasn't me. I didn't know. But I'd
like to help you, if you'll tell me what happened."

            "Well, Battle
Commander," the boy responded readily, "Captain Lord William came in
one night and woke me up, told me about the—invasion I guess it was, not a
revolution like that upstart Knout told everybody. Captain Willy got me out and
aboard a fleet boat, and we made it to Vanguard without an intercept, and he
made a deal with a Tip trader, Captain Goldblatt, to take me to the place Willy
had made ready for me. He left me aboard and went out on an errand and never
came back; so I did as he'd said and we shipped out. Three days out, the First
Officer led a mutiny, and then they got to fighting over who was in charge, and
let the maintenance go and burned the main coil, and got lost and made an
emergency landing in the last world Goldblatt had in the navigator. They set up
camp and nobody was watching me, and I escaped and wandered around in the park
until I found the house, and then old Runt, from the ship, came along one day
and hit me over the head, and I woke up here. Vince was the First Officer that
killed Captain Goldblatt, and—"

            "Hold hard, you little
rat!" Boss yelled. "Don't you start lying about
me!
Matter of
fact, I ain't even dead yet!"

            "Be calm,
Captain," Retief advised. The boy stood his ground calmly, but fell
silent.

            "That's why you're
afraid of me," the lad told Boss.

            "Go ahead,
Milord," Magnan urged the boy. "You were just saying that some person
named Runt assaulted you—"

            "He must have waited
for me," the boy explained. "I decided to go back out and try to find
a loyal crewman, but as I stepped through the door, he struck me down, the
cowardly swine."

            "Calmly, lad,"
Magnan admonished. "That's all over and done: now we must apply our
thoughts to the problem of escape."

            "Why not just open the
door and walk out?" Sobby suggested. "Now you're here, Boss won't be
able to stop us."

            As Boss started up with a
reflexive snarl, Magnan waved him back. "Your only hope for clemency,
sir," he advised the unshaven fellow, "is to lend us your assistance
now. I assure that good behavior at the juncture will weigh heavily in your
favor at the inquiry which will inevitably follow this farcical affair."

            "Yeah?" Boss
rejoined scornfully. "I don't see no junction. And what about the Vortex
old Worm got set up out there?" He went to the door and opened it wide to
reveal whirling snowflakes visible against the blackness.

            "Close it, close
it!" Magnan yelped. "Well freeze in that icy wind!" He turned up
the brocaded collar of his early mid-morning semi-demi half-cloak, official
occasions, for use during, then turned a despairing look on Retief.

            "Whatever are we to
do?" he implored. "I confess I've quite lost my grasp of the tactical
situation. After all that confusion in the closet-cum-rockpile, and then that
dreadful chaotic state of affairs out there! All I can grasp is that this poor
lad appears to be some sort of kidnapped princeling, and it's surely our duty
to assist in his repatriation."

           
it was precisely to that end that I led you here,
the almost forgotten Big Voice put in
.
I
have suffered quite enough disturbance
to the natural order of things. take the appropriate action at once, and rid me
of this nuisance!

           
"Have a
care, Big Voice, or whoever you are," Magnan responded testily. "It
is hardly appropriate that a mere disembodied voice—and a silent one at
that—should presume to issue commands to Terran diplomats. You might try asking
nicely," he added, in a more conciliatory tone.

            "You heard Big Scary
Voice too!" Sobby blurted. "So it's not me going off my head, like
old Runt said!"

            "Anyway," Magnan
added sulkily, still addressing the Voice: "I already said we should help
to rescue this poor child. We're committed to do so!"

            "I'm getting out of
here," Boss stated. Hearing no contradiction he enlarged on his thesis:
"I can't take no more!" He broke for the door, and they let him go.

            "It's as well,"
Magnan commented. "He'd only have been a nuisance in any event. Besides, I
doubt he'll get far in that cataclysm raging outside."

            Retief went to the closet
whence he had extricated Magnan, opened the door and carefully examined the
interior. He turned and motioned to the boy. "Come over here,
Milord," he suggested; the lad complied. Retief pointed to a space between
stacked boxes and hanging garments. "See if you can squeeze through
there," he said. "It was a bit too tight for Mr. Magnan, but you
should be able to make it." He lifted the lad and boosted him up to the
dark crevice, into which the boy squeezed easily.

            "What do you see,
Sobhain?" Retief asked.

            "It's home!" the
boy called, his voice somewhat muffled but clear. "It's the field, and I
see the Shallow Sea! Boost me just a little higher, Commander, and I can catch
that branch and climb out of this hole. I don't understand, but I like it! I
thought I'd never see home again, and all the time it was next door!"

            "Not quite,
Milord," Retief corrected.

            Magnan crowded up behind
him. "I smell fresh air and spring flowers," he cried. "What's
happening, Retief? Have you found an escape route?"

            Before he could reply, the
boy cried out. "Oh, no! It's a Rath raiding party, the scoundrels! As bold
as can be, riding in echelon across the Plain! Where are the Guardians?
Quickly, Battle Commander, we must give warning!" As he spoke, the lad
scrambled up and through and was gone.

            "What's
happening?" Magnan yelped. "What did he mean, about a raiding party?
Where is he?"

            "He got through, Mr.
Magnan," Retief told his excited colleague. "I can't see anything through
the opening except a dim light."

            "Poor child,"
Magnan mourned. "And poor us as well, I fear. What are we to do, Retief?
We seem to be sinking deeper and deeper into alien paradigm within alien
paradigm! How are we ever to find our way out?"

            "Let's start with the
door," Retief said, and went to it. Boss was there before him, his back to
the door.

            "No, you don't, Mister.
I know what's out there, and you ain't letting it in here!"

            Retief gently pushed him
aside.

            "Just go sit on your
chair and think enobling thoughts," he suggested, and flung the door wide
open on a blast of discordant sound and garish light. Magnan, at his side,
hunched his shoulders and averted his eyes from the chaotic spectacle. Retief
took his arm and urged him through, and in an instant they were caught up in a
hot, buffeting wind which nearly knocked Magnan from his feet. Retief hauled
him upright.

            "Try to ignore the
distractions," he suggested. "Close your eyes and imagine we're
walking across a level floor to the door across the room."