The Fugitive Worlds (14 page)

His mind seized up, chilled, as he absorbed a fact which had not been readily apparent at first glance. Curled up in the pelvic basin of each of the skeletons was another skeleton
—a tiny armature of fragile bones which was all that remained
of a baby whose life had ended before it had properly begun.

Yes, the plague had been
very
impartial.

Toller longed to turn and flee from the room, but the deadly coldness in his mind had percolated down through his body, immobilizing his limbs. Time had become distorted, stretching seconds into eons, and he knew that he was destined to spend the rest of his life frozen to the same spot, on that threshold of pessimism and pure despair.

"The villagers must have put all their pregnant women in here, hoping these walls would protect them," Lieutenant Correvalte said from close behind Toller. "Look! One of them was having twins."

Toller chose not to seek out that refinement of horror.

Breaking free of his paralysis, he turned and walked away from the room, acutely aware of being closely scrutinized by every member of his crew.

"Make a note," he said over his shoulder to Correvalte. "Say that we inspected the pumping machinery and found it to be in good condition and capable of being restored to working order in a short time."

"Is that all, sir?"

"I haven't noticed anything else that our sovereign would regard as important," Toller said in casual tones, walking slowly towards the station's entrance, disguising the anxiousness he felt, the pressing need to reassure himself that the sanity of sunshine could still be found in the outside world.

The Migration Day celebrations had taken Toller completely by surprise.

He had completed his survey mission and arrived back at the base camp in Ro-Atabri less than an hour before nightfall, having lost track of the date. Unusually for him, he felt deeply tired. The news that it was Day 226, the anniversary of the first touch-downs on Overland, had failed to strike any spark within him, and he had gone straight to bed after signing his ship over to Fleet Master Codell. Even the word that Vantara had returned to base earlier in the day had not roused him from the pervasive lethargy, the weariness of spirit which was taking the light out of everything.

Now he was lying in darkness in his room, which was part of the quarters which had once housed the guard of the Great Palace, and was quite unable to sleep. He had never been given over to introspection and soul-searching, but he understood very well that his tiredness was not physical in its origins. It was a mental tiredness, a psychic fatigue induced by a long period of doing that for which he had no taste, of going against his own nature.

Before leaving home he had visualized Land as one vast charnel house, and the reality of it had more than conformed to his expectations, culminating in the grisly find at the Styvee pumping station. Perhaps he was being self-indulgent. Perhaps—as one born into a privileged position in society—he was having his first taste of what life must be like for a common man who was forced to spend all his days in a kind of toil he detested and which had been forced on him from above. Toller tried reminding himself that his grandfather, that other Toller Maraquine, would not have allowed his composure to be so quickly disturbed. No matter what fearful sights and experiences the
real
Toller
Maraquine had had to contend with he would have deflected the force of them with his shield of toughness and self-sufficiency. But . . . but. . . .

How do I find room inside my head for twenty skeletons
neatly ranged against a wall, with another twenty skeletons
curled up inside them in the pelvic cradles? Another twenty-
one skeletons, I should have said. Didn't you notice that one of the women was having twins? What are you supposed to
do about two little manikins, with whitened twigs in place of
bones, who kept each other company in death instead of life?

An extra-loud burst of laughter from somewhere in the palace grounds brought Toller to his feet, swearing in exasperation. Men and women were getting drunk out there, getting themselves into a state in which they could exchange handshakes with skeletons, return the grins of skeletons, and pat unborn babies on their still-bifurcated craniums. It came to Toller that his only prospect of sleep that night lay in dosing himself with large quantities of alcohol.

Welcoming the positive decision, his inner tiredness abating slightly, Toller pulled on some clothes and left the room. Finding his way through unfamiliar corridors with some difficulty, he reached the garden on the north side of the grounds which was the center of the festivities. It had been chosen because it was mostly paved and therefore had stood up to decades of neglect better than the others. Even the parade ground at the rear of the palace was waist-high in grass and weeds. Several small fires had been lit in the garden, their orange-and-yellow rays partially obscured and softly reflected by ornamental fountains, statues and shrubs, making the place look much larger than it did in daylight.

Couples and small groups strolled through the spangled dimness, while others stood near the long table which had been set up for refreshments. Males outnumbered females by about three to one on the expedition, which meant that women who were in the opposite mood that night were enjoying a surfeit of romantic attention, while males who were redundant in such respects were concentrating on food, drink, song and the telling of bawdy stories.

Toller found Commissioner Kettoran and his secretary, Parlo Wotoorb, standing behind the table serving food and drink. The two old men were obviously enjoying the menial task, proving to all of the company that in spite of their exalted rank they still possessed the common touch.

"Welcome, welcome, welcome," Kettoran called out when he espied Toller approaching. "Come and have a drink with us, young Maraquine."

Toller thought that the commissioner was slightly overplaying his role—perhaps afraid of somebody missing the point —but it was a harmless enough foible, not one he found objectionable. "Thank you—I'll have a very large beaker of Kailian black."

Kettoran shook his head. "No wine. No ale either, for that matter. A question of useful payload on the ships, you see —you will have to settle for brandy."

"Brandy it is then."

"I'll let you have some of the good stuff, in one of my best glasses."

The commissioner sank down to his knees behind the table and a moment later stood up with a glittering crystal filled to the brim. He was handing the glass over when the jovial expression abruptly departed his face and was replaced by one of mingled surprise and pain. Toller took the glass quickly and watched with some concern as Kettoran pressed both forearms against his lower ribcage.

"Trye, are you unwell?" Wotoorb said anxiously. "I
told
you 'you should take more rest.'"

Kettoran inclined his head briefly towards the secretary, then winked knowingly at Toller. "This old fool thinks he is going to live longer than I am." He smiled, apparently no longer in distress, picked up his own glass and raised it to Toller. "1 bid you good health, young Maraquine."

"Good health to you, sir," Toller said, unable to muster a reciprocal smile.

Kettoran studied his face closely. "Son—I trust you will not think me impertinent—but you no longer seem the young game-cock who captained my ship on the voyage to Land. Something seems to have taken the starch out of you."

"Out of me!" Toller laughed incredulously. "Put your mind at ease, sir—I don't soften up so readily. And now, if you will excuse me. . . ."

He turned and walked away from the table, privately disturbed by the commissioner's comments. If the effects of
his malaise could be discerned so quickly by one who scarcely
knew him, what chance had he of keeping the respect of his own crewmen? Maintaining discipline was difficult enough at times without having the men begin to regard him as a hothouse plant who was likely to wilt at adversity's first cold breath. He sipped some brandy and walked around the garden close to the perimeter, keeping away from noisier centers of activity, until he found an unoccupied marble bench. Grateful for the solitude, he sat down.

Above him the narrowing crescent of Overland was nested near the center of the Great Wheel, that enormous whirlpool of silver luminance which dominated the night sky in the latter part of the year. Several comets were splaying their tails across the heavens, and myriads of stars—some of them like colored coachlamps—added to the splendor, burning
with an unwinking permanence which contrasted with the
brief dartings of meteors.

Toller addressed himself to his outsized goblet, which must
have contained close on a third of a bottle of brandy, downing
the warming liquor in patient, regular sips. It was a night on
which it would have been good to have female companion
ship, but even the thought that Vantara might be only a few
dozen paces away in the scented gloaming failed to elicit any
response from within him. It was also a night for facing up to truths, for discarding illusions, and the plain facts of the
matter were that he had made an enemy of the countess on their first meeting as adults, that she despised him now and
would go on doing so for as long as he stayed in her memory.

Besides,
came the slithering thought,
how can you even
think of courting a woman when there are twenty-one minia
ture skeletons watching you?

Toller kept on with his methodical drinking until the goblet
was empty, then assessed his condition. In spite of the
tiredness he had not yet succeeded in stunning himself with
alcohol. There was a perverse wakefulness at the core of his
mind which told him that at least one more brimming crystal
would be necessary if he were to escape the reproachful gaze
of the twenty-one bone-babies and sink into unconsciousness
before deepnight engulfed the world.

He stood up, as steady as a well-rooted tree, and was starting in the direction of the table to avail himself of
Kettoran's generosity when he saw a woman approaching
him. She was slim and dark-haired, and he knew before
being able to see her face properly that she was Vantara. She was wearing full uniform—no doubt her way of distancing
herself from those officers who were prepared to forget about
rank for the sake of the revel—and Toller braced himself for
a verbal skirmish. He did not have long to wait.

"What's this?" she said lightly. "No sword? Of course!
How silly of me to forget—there aren't any kings ripe for
skewering at this little gathering."

Toller nodded, acknowledging the reference to his grandfather, who had been dubbed Kingslayer by the populace of his day. "That's very funny, captain." He made to move past her, but she halted him by placing a hand on his arm.

"Is that all you have to say?"

"No." Toller was disconcerted by the unexpected physical contact. "1 would add that I'm going to replenish my glass."

Vantara looked up into his face, frowning slightly as she scanned his features. "What's the matter with you?"

"I fail to understand the question."

"Where is the great warrior, Toller Maraquine the Second, who is immune to bullets? Is he off duty tonight?"

"I was never one for riddles, captain," Toller said stonily. "Now, if I may be excused—I'm ready for another of the commissioner's sleeping potions."

Vantara transferred her grip to the hand in which he held his glass—the warmth of her touch like ambersparks playing on his flesh—and briefly bowed her head over it. "Brandy? Bring one for me, please. But not on such a gigantic scale."