The Adversary - 4 (38 page)

The Recruiting Service had artfully spread its net on a treeless savanna where the Great South Road ascended to bypass a precipitous gorge of the Rhone. Up there on the windswept heights, one could see for scores of kilometres in almost every direction; any traveller who attempted to leave the main thoroughfare could be spotted at once. Tony's first clue to imminent danger was a cheery billboard: WELCOME WAYFARERS!

THIRSTY? HUNGRY?

FREE FOOD & DRINK AHEAD!

HILLTOP HOUSE R.R.S.-6 KM The afternoon when Tony hiked that stretch had been a hot and dusty one, and he viewed the sign with elation. But then a caravan of hellads pulling carts of chaliko fodder to Roniah overtook him, and one of the teamsters gave Tony a lift. His name was Wiggy and he was quick to explain the true nature of the establishment they were approaching.

"Friggerty crimps' nest, that's wot it is! You watch your arse there, pilgrim, or they'll have you grey-chokered and off to Goriah as a raw ree-cruit in the King's Shitkicker Brigade."

The drivers, well known to the recruiting team and off limits because of their gainful employment, nonetheless were accustomed to pig out on the free refreshments every time they passed. There was nothing Tony could do but face up to jeopardy with a stout heart. He tramped inside with the rest and soon they were sitting at long tables drinking cold beer or sangria and munching on snack foods. It was obvious that the teamsters were old acquaintances of the presiding captal and the squad of soldiers who ran the place. Tony felt his innards churn as the officer jokingly referred to him as a "live one" and promised that Wiggy would receive a nice bounty should Tony sign up.

"Thanks awfully, but I've been sick," the metallurgist said.

"I'm not the type you're looking for at all. You want brave people for the King's army." (The late Karbree's elephant rifle, concealed in a rancid rawhide sheath, had been left outside in the wagon with Tony's other duffle.) The recruiting captal's eyes twinkled. "Plenty of other good bunks available in the royal service! I can tell you're an educated man-not spook fodder like the rest of this gang of hellypatoots." The drivers, drinking and eating fast while the game lasted, guffawed and elbowed one another. "If you've got a technical skill, we could sign you up for the new Scientific Corps that the Creator Guild is instituting. It's headed up by good old Lord Celadeyr, a real Tanu gent if there ever was one. Loves human beings just like a genuine mensch and passes out silver torcs like carnival kickshaws to scientific mavens who cooperate nicely."

"Well-uh-I'm more of a humanities student," Tony mumbled.

"Brains is brains," said the genial captal. "You'd like it in Goriah. All the women you want, good food and liquor, night life-shoot, I'd go myself if I could."

He whipped out a parchment scroll crowded with fine print, a ballpoint pen, and a handsome blue velvet bag that contained something circular, lumpy, and about sixteen cents in diameter.

"Just sign here, guy, and you'll never regret it. We can have you off to Goriah by express caravan tomorrow ... after an evening of fun and games in Roniah down the pike that you'll never forget! What say?"

The teamsters sitting around the table with Tony and the captal giggled like lunatics and all of them except Wiggy urged him to sign. As a final inducement, the captal opened the bag and dramatically took out a gleaming grey torc. The laughter and joking were instantly quelled. The necks of all the drivers were bare.

The captal pushed the torc across the table toward Tony. Its knobbed catch was open. The twisted metal was hollow, incised with small openings to ventilate the psychoelectronic components inside.

"Take off your scarf," the captal suggested to Tony. "Just try it on." He touched his own grey necklet. "These things are wonderful. They do things for you, y'know? No more headaches or sore feet or feeling blah or tired or scared. And that's not the half of it. If your boss is a gold or a silver, he can program pleasure for you through the torc. Give you a rush like you never had from sex or dope or even buzz-heading. Make you forget all your troubles in the wink of an eye, this magic collar will. Sign."

Four large troopers materialized behind Tony's seat. He half rose, then dropped back, with sweat streaming from his head and soaking his neckerchief. "I-I'd rather not just now."

The teamsters downed the dregs in their tankards, snatched up a last cookie or handful of nuts, and drifted toward the door.

Wiggy had a shamefaced look.

"Sign," urged the captal, his eyes locked onto those of the panic-stricken metallurgist.

"Sign!" chorused the quartet of bruisers, grinning like wolves.

Tony tried to push his chair back. It wouldn't budge. The captal had risen and taken up the torc. He came around to Tony's side of the table, twisting the thing farther open on its rotating hinge, poising it above Tony's head.

"Goddammit, no!"

Tony's mind triggered the pleasure-induction circuitry of the recruiting team through his own golden torc, hitting their brains with the maximum orgasmic load. All five of the soldiers dropped to the floor as though they'd been poleaxed.

"Holy shit," breathed Tony's teamster friend. Several other drivers peered over his shoulder and gaped.

Pushing the table back, Tony negotiated the bodies, faced the teamsters, and ripped the scarf from his neck. There was a gasp.

"Enough is enough! Now I've got to get out of here. These fellows won't remember a thing when they wake up ... I don't think. But in case they do, I want to be far away." Tony summoned his most imperious glare. "Will you drive me to Roniah or won't you?"

Wiggy touched his forehead, smirking. "Your carriage awaits, Exalted Lord."

Tony grabbed the grey torc and advanced upon the man with it. "I have a good mind to collar you, to be quite sure that you keep your word."

"No!" the teamster shrieked. "No!"

Tony gave a nasty little chuckle. "So you do know what overindulgence in Tanu delights can do to a chap! Very well.

Just so we understand one another. Now let's get moving."

He was about to discard the torc when he thought the better of it, replaced it in the velvet bag, and took it along.

That evening in Roniah, he sold the device on the black market for enough money to buy a completely equipped chaliko, a new outfit of clothes, a decamole boat and camp hut, and a suspect but very flashy parure of rubies that would make an appealing peace offering for Rowane. He had plenty of money left to insure that he would travel the rest of the way to Nionel in style, and the next morning he was on his way.

Once again, fickle fortune thumbed its nose at him. The chaliko turned out to be a lemon that went permanently lame 40 kloms north of Roniah. If he returned to the city to complain or procure a fresh mount, he stood a chance of being picked up for committing mental mayhem upon the Royal Recruiters. He was in the midst of country that teemed with hostile Firvulag, many no doubt eager for a last hit before the Truce, which began in five days. Northbound traffic had dwindled to military trains and poor straggling refugees, bound like himself for the Promised Land of Nionel. There seemed little chance for Tony to hook a ride, but proceeding on foot in his expensive new outfit would make him a sitting duck to human and exotic marauders.

There remained the option of travel by water. The Saone at this point was broad and sluggish, readily navigable by sailing dinghy; or he could simply row along in the placid lagoons. He tried this, and it worked. Progress was by no means rapid, but once he was in the Lac de Bresse it would be clear sailing to the trailhead of the Western Track-and then, on to Nionel! ...

Thus Tony found himself poling through misty canebrakes that 27th of September, ever alert for falling leeches. His farsight was useless in the featureless swamp and he had to continuously orient himself by means of his wrist navigation unit. He cursed himself for not spending the extra money on a course director with a bleeper earplug, back in the Roniah black market. But who would have thought he'd need it? When he finally reached an area with twisting creeks he gave a sigh of relief. It was the end of the leeches, at any rate. Then the sun came out, and with it mosquitoes and midges. He smeared himself with bug repellant and endured.

Occasionally he passed small low-lying islets. As the time for elevenses rolled around he beached the dinghy on one of these and brewed up coffee under a taxodium all hung with moss. He had a decamole table-and-bench combo that inflated in a jiffy and a good selection of leftover pastries to eat. A pair of blackand-red anhingas watched him from a nearby tree, craning their snaky necks. A small aquatic rodent paddled in an adjacent pool, leaving a languid wake. There were waterlilies. The sun was warm and the bugs went away. Tony Wayland felt at peace.

Rowane ...

With his eyes dreamily closed, he let his farspeech call to her.

She was more than 300 kilometres away, but perhaps yearning would give strength to his feeble metafaculties. He said: I'm coming back to you little bride. Your Tonee is on his way with a new golden torc to keep his spirits up! From now on there'll be no stopping us. Wait for me Rowane. Wait.

He dozed a bit-then woke to the sound of paddles chunking.

Who's there his mind called involuntarily. He started up from the table, spilling cold coffee and scaring off a tiny harvest mouse that had been foraging among the crumbs.

The reeds across the pool parted and a big decamole canoe daubed with camouflage colours glided into view. It carried five human men and a woman, all impressive physical specimens and all armed to the teeth. Another war canoe was bow-to-stern with the first and bore a second woman and three more men, along with a number of freight packs. The bow oarsman in the lead craft, an enormous Native American in jungle fatigues, lifted a zapper and took aim just as Tony made up his mind to try a dash to his dinghy.

"Stop right there," said Chief Burke.

Tony fell back with a sullen glower, hands high. The canoes landed and the desperados disembarked. One of the women began going through Tony's gear while the others loafed about, vanished discreetly into the bushes, or tinkered with the coffeemaking apparatus. The rummaging woman, who was a stocky Latin type with arcs of blue mascara above her large eyes, gave a whoop of excitement when she uncovered the Rigby elephant gun."Madre! Will you look at this cojonudo piece? Two barrels-and a shot from just one would blow any of you poor cagarrutas clean in half!"

Burke subjected his prisoner to a deep scrutiny. "Don't I know you? What's your name?"

"Bill," said Tony, his eyes shifting. "Bill-Johnson."

A big black man standing behind the Indian laughed richly.

"Hey-could be my long-lost little brother! Wonder if he can sing tenor?"

"His name's not Bill," the Latin woman called. She waved something. "Not unless he's got a thing for yellow-silk boxer shorts and a matching hanky with 'Tony' embroidered on them in love-knots."

"You leave those alone, dammit!" Tony howled. He thanked heaven that the rubies were in a hidden money belt.

The woman clucked at him in mock pity. "Ay! Hoy tiene mala leche-no?" She held up a slender book-plaque. "This is all we need right here, Peo. I thought the guy looked familiar."

She came over and handed the book to Denny Johnson, who studied the title display.

"Technic of Metallurgypresented to one Anthony Bryce Wayland by the Alchymist Society of Manchester University."

Denny stepped forward ominously. "So! Our absconding strawboss from the Iron Villages. You all remember Tony Wayland, who betrayed our people at the Vale of Hyenas! Shall we hang him now-or wait till later so's not to spoil our lunch?"

Tony pulled aside the scarf he still wore at his throat. Gold gleamed. "Don't touch me!" he cried, fingering the necklet. "I can mind-burn you or zap you to death anytime I want to!" A very small gout of psychoenergy flew from the extended fingers of his other hand and zorched the damp moss in front of Chief Burke's boots. "That's just a sample, Redskin! Now drop that gun-and don't any of the rest of you get cute, or-"

Tony Tony Tony.

A sprightly little ring of flames danced about Tony's own feet.

Chief Burke unbuttoned the top of his green blouse and said: As you can see I've got a golden torc too. And that means I can see your metapsychic aura. It's very small. I might even call it piss-poor ... or roughly equal to mine in the aggressive metafunctions. Unless you want to chance a fast weenie roast you lose your bluff.

"Oh, bloody hell," said Tony in disgust. "Hang me and have done with it."

Burke shook his head. "You're more valuable to us alive.

The aether has been buzzing about you for several weeks. It seems King Aiken-Lugonn is very anxious to make your acquaintance."

Tony perked up, then caught a certain look in Burke's eye and slumped again. "What have I done to him, for God's sake?

Sometimes it seems that everyone in the whole Many-Coloured Land is out to nail my hide to the wall."

"You're trading-goods," Burke said succinctly. "That's all you have to know." He turned to Denny Johnson, handing him the photon gun. "He's your prisoner from now on, YellowEyes. Take damn good care of him if you ever expect to do Baron Scarpia again at the Garden."

"Take him on the Roniah operation?!" Johnson exclaimed.

"Are you out of your tomahawking mind, Peo?"

"We don't have to invade Roniah looking for arms," Burke said. "It's no longer necessary to use force to insure fair treatment for Lowlies, or our own passage through the time-gate.

We'll go into Roniah openly and the King's High Table deputy, Kuhal Earthshaker, will welcome us and give us whatever we ask for."

"Because of him?" cried one man.

The Chief nodded. "Wayland is a turncoat and an informer and an all-round consecrated twerp. But he's also our ticket back to the Galactic Milieu."

The gathering of desperados murmured and whispered. The Latin woman cried out, "But Orion Blue and Karolina and the two others died because of this puto! And Basil's people were betrayed! I say he must hang!"