The Fugitive Worlds (32 page)

"We bagged and parachuted all the way to the ground
with our prisoner," Steenameert put in, breaking a lengthy silence. "It was only then that the cursed scarecrows overwhelmed our senses and blinded us to the forces which lay
in ambush. Had it been a fair and honorable contest things would have been very different. We would have walked in
here with our hostage—who would have been quaking and
in fear of his life because of the blade that lay across his
throat—and then we would have bartered him for your
freedom."

"I must report this to the captain." Jerene had become
slightly breathless, and the pupils of her eyes seemed to have
distended as they hunted over Toller's face. "She should be
apprised of all the facts."

"She believes us still to be in our own weightless zone!"
Toller sighed with relief and smiled as he realized why Vantara's attitude towards him had shifted so rapidly. "It
was only natural that she should have expected me to arrive at the head of an armada. It was only natural that she should
have felt a certain disappointment."

"Yes, but had she been a little less impatient. ..."
Steenameert abandoned his comment and lowered his head.

Toller glared at him. "What are you saying, Baten?"

"Nothing! Nothing at all!"

"Sir?" The tall blonde stepped forward as she addressed
Toller. "Can you tell us how long we have been here?"

"Why? Can't you count the days?"

"There is no day or night within this dome. The light never
changes."

Toller, who had been trying to reconcile himself to the
idea of being imprisoned for a long time, found the prospect of living in continuous even light strangely depressing. "I would say you have been here some twenty-five days. But
what about your meals? Do they not mark the days?"

"Meals!"
the blonde gave a wry smile. "Each cell has a
basket which the monsters constantly replenish with cubes
of . . . Well, each of us has a different opinion about what
we are forced to eat."

"Spiced bluehorn hoof," another tall woman—a swarthy,
brown-eyed skyprivate—suggested in aggrieved tones.

"Spiced bluehorn
shit"
the remaining flier put in with an exaggerated scowl, bringing snorts of amusement from her
companions. She had cropped brown hair which made an ill
match for her conventionally pretty face.

"These are Tradlo, Mistekka and Arvand," Jerene said,
indicating the three rankers in turn. "And, as you will have
noticed, they have already forgotten how to conduct them
selves in the presence of an officer."

"Rank no longer means anything to me." Toller nodded an informal greeting to the women. "Speak as you will; do
as you will."

"In that case. . . ." Arvand shimmied to Steenameert's
side, clasped his arm and gave him a warm smile. "It is
difficult to sleep in a lonely bed—don't you agree?"

"Not fair!" the blonde Tradlo cried, disconcerting Steenameert
further by gripping his other arm. "All rations must
be shared equally!"

Toller had an urge to move off in pursuit of Vantara, but it was obvious from Jerene's manner that she was eager to
go on speaking to him. He acquiesced when she turned away
from the others, implicitly creating a space in which they

could converse discreetly about matters of consequence.

"Toller, I am sorry that I have shown a tendency to make little of you," she began hesitantly. "You always seemed to bluster so much . . . and there was that sword . . . You made it so obvious that you longed to emulate your grandfather that—the logic of it now escapes me—all who met you assumed your ambitions to be in vain.

"But for anyone to do what you have done ... for you to have flown one of those antiquated wooden barrels through the black deeps of space to another world ... for you simply to
be
here. . . .

"All I can say is that Vantara is the luckiest woman in all of history, and that you will have no need,
ever again,
to stand in the shadow of your grandfather. There can never be any doubt that you and he were peers."

Toller blinked to ease a sudden smarting in his eyes. "I value what you say, but all I did. ..."

"Tell me something." Jerene switched to a tone of practicality rather sooner than Toller might have liked. "Have the monsters cast a spell over us? How is it that we can hear what they say, even when they are not in our presence, even when there is no sound? Is it magic?"

"There is no magic," Toller explained, again aware of the gulf which had opened between him and his kind. "It is the Dussarran way. They have progressed far beyond the need for shaping words with their mouths. They speak mind-to-mind, no matter how great the distance involved. Have these things not been explained to you?"

"Not a word. We are animals in a zoo as far as they are concerned."

"I suppose I received my education because the scarecrow I dealt with was buying time, preserving his life." Toller looked around the galleried dome with distaste. "When do the Dussarrans communicate with you?"

"There is one who seems to be known as the Director," Jerene replied. "He will speak to us for hours at a time—
always asking questions about our lives on Overland, about
our families, about our food, farming methods, the differ
ences between men's clothing and women's clothing . . .
Nothing is too trivial for him.

"Then there is another one—possibly a female—who gives
us our orders."

"What manner of orders?"

Jerene shrugged. "When to leave our cells and come down
here to the main floor . . . that sort of thing. We stay here while the food and water is being replenished up there by
one of the monsters."

"Does this so-called Director ever visit you in person? Do
you ever get Dussarrans who seem to be important figures
in their own society making close inspections?"

"It is difficult for us to tell. We sometimes see groups of the monsters behind that partition, but. . . ." Jerene
indicated a glazed, box-like structure which enclosed one of
the entrances to the dome, then she gave Toller a thoughtful
look. "Why do you enquire of such things, Toller?"

He gave her a thin smile. "I have lost one perfectly good
hostage—now I am in the market for another."

"But after what you have told us
...
It is impossible to
escape from here."

"You are wrong on that point," Toller said quietly, his
expression becoming somber. "It is possible to escape from
any
stronghold . . . provided that one's heart is sufficiently
set on it . . . provided that one is prepared to risk making
the ultimate escape. ..."

Toller and Steenameert were arguing about traditional and
modern methods of constructing furniture, with emphasis on
the design of chairs.

"Don't forget that we have had iron for only fifty years or
so," Toller said. "The design of brackets and angle braces
will improve; the design of woodscrews will improve."

"That is of little import," Steenameert countered. "Furni
ture should be regarded as a form of art. A chair should be regarded as a sculpture as much as a contrivance for supporting fat arses. Any artist will tell you that wood should only be mated to wood. Tenons and dovetails are
natural,
Toller, and not only are they much stronger than your wood-and-metal hybrids, they have a
tightness
which. ..."

He continued speaking as Toller knelt and tested the gallery flooring with a heavy webbing-repair needle taken from his emergency pouch. Toller looked up at him and shook his head, signifying that the floor construction was too strong to be ripped upwards in a surprise raid on anybody who happened to be underneath. They were in the part of the first gallery directly above the enclosure where, according to Lieutenant Pertree, groups of Dussarrans sometimes gathered to observe their captives.

"Yes, but ever since the Migration only the rich have been able to employ the services of competent joiners," Toller said as he straightened up. "Surely it is better for the ordinary citizen and his family to have
something
to plank their arses on—and I doubt if many of the said arses are fat—than for them to squat on the floor."

Toller and Steenameert were openly talking about furniture design—a subject which evoked mental images of joints and frames—and at the same time were searching for weak points in the structure of their prison. They continued the contrived discussion as they made their way downstairs to the enclosure itself. They were novices, true primitives, in the darkly glimmering and bottomless world of telepathic communication, but they had gleaned enough from their encounter with Divivvidiv to believe that the aliens were fallible and could be deceived. It was likely that attempts were being made to eavesdrop on their innermost thought processes, but Kolcorronians were warriors by instinct and had a talent for misleading enemies.

"You can't deny that doors have been improved by the addition of iron hinges and fittings," Toller said as he reached the enclosure. In general it was surprisingly similar to what an artisan from Land or Overland would have built for the same purpose. It was a rectangular three-element structure with one edge attached to the wall on each side of an entrance to the dome. The three faces ran from the floor to the underside of the first gallery, and were glazed from waist-level upwards.

Still arguing about historical developments in his home world's carpentry, Toller casually leaned against a corner of the enclosure and felt it shift slightly. He stood head and shoulders above all the aliens he had seen, and furthermore was built in much bulkier proportions, from which facts he estimated that his body weight was at least three times that of the average Dussarran. His physical power could be factorized upwards again, because of differences in muscle density, making him a force that Divivvidiv and his kind were unaccustomed to dealing with. There was a good possibility that a structure which a Dussarran saw as a formidable barrier could be breached by a single charge from Toller and Steenameert.

The alien captors had many undeniable advantages over the handful of Kolcorronians, but—Toller hoped—they were too sure of themselves, too complacent. Their best thinkers seemed to be expending their energies on remote abstracts, such as the dissolution of galaxies, while dismissing more immediate threats from close at hand. They were like high kings preparing defenses against global enemies, and all the while ignoring the body servant with the phial of poison or the smiling concubine with the slim dagger. . . .

"I concede the point about doors and door furniture, but
that is. a special case," Steenameert said, nodding significantly
as he tested a panel with his foot. "Metal has a natural function there, but it will always be out of place when you come to chairs and tables."

"We shall see what we shall see," Toller replied as they continued their leisurely circuit of the dome.