The Wellstone (11 page)

“What—” Conrad shouted, but even as the word was forming, he felt the air around him beginning to thicken, to crawl up the pathway of his voice and into his throat, silencing all. The robot was facing him with its blank metal face, training a speaker on him, focusing sound waves. Sympathetic vibration: it observed him, predicted the quivering of his vocal cords, and sent out a canceling wave. The silencer effect.

He tried again:
what
,
WHAT ARE YOU DOING!
But it was like a two-man trampoline bounce, when your partner stole your energy and went soaring higher and higher into the air, leaving you glued to the fabric no matter how hard you jumped.

It was like being smothered. Conrad began to hyper-ventilate, breathing in and out and in and out, much too fast. He knew the process didn’t actually interfere with his breathing, but tell that to his muscles, his lungs, his throat, which was already getting hoarse and yet could produce nothing more than a faint squeak or click. The robot advanced, taking up a position immediately beside him. Conrad shrank away, but of course the robot followed right along.

Bascal watched him with great interest. “Feels weird? I’ll bet it does. Sorry it has to be this way, boyo.” He studied Conrad for several seconds, not looking sorry, and when he finally spoke his voice was impatient. “Fuck, man, just breathe. It’s not hurting you. I’ll take it off as soon as we seal the hatches. I just don’t want you blowing our ride over ... what, a guilty conscience? I’ve liberated you from the possibility of action. You can’t affect anything. The guilt is all mine.”

“What’s going on?” Peter called out, from beyond the trees. He was coming in here. Behind him, Ng’s crew was dragging the electrolysis hardware along the Holy Fuckway, up toward the docks.

Bascal gave him a cheerful thumbs-up. “Nothing, just a discussion.”

Peter wasn’t buying that. “What’s wrong with Conrad?”

“Got something in his throat, I think. He’s breathing, though, so he must be okay.”

Conrad glared with a feeling beyond anger. This wasn’t a prank, or even a cruel humiliation. This was invasive, like a rape, except really it was a murder, and Conrad was the accessory. He put a level hand up across his neck, and would have drawn it sideways in a “you’re dead” gesture, except that the robot—with bullet-quick movements— caught his forearm in a cool and painless grip, and eased it gently but firmly back down toward his side.

Murder,
Conrad mouthed at Peter.
Death. Kill. He’s going to kill you.

But Peter wasn’t getting it, wasn’t looking closely at Conrad at all. “You punched him,” he said to Bascal, who shrugged and didn’t deny it. “That’s mean. He can’t fight back, not with your bodyguard holding him. You’re the only man on this planet allowed to throw a punch.”

“Oh, I’m not allowed,” Bascal said, with a cryptic little smile. Then he strode off in the direction of the docks, and Peter, with a quick glance in Conrad’s direction, turned and followed him, intent on discussing the point further.

Conrad could only watch as the solar panels were set in place and the cables were dipped in the muddy lake, and the water around them began to fizz and boil. Four boys dragged the end of the folded balloon/bag/sail into place, and it billowed as if in a breeze. A bubble appeared in the material, and soon it was swelling, filling. Boys were arranging themselves underneath it, lifting it up so the hydrogen would travel down the length of the bag rather than spilling out the open mouth.

“This’ll take a while,” Bascal observed, to no one in particular. He was polite enough—if you could call it that—to stay away from Conrad, to keep from rubbing his nose in what had happened.

Or maybe it wasn’t politeness at all. Maybe he just didn’t want to draw attention to the issue, to get people wondering why Conrad wasn’t moving or talking, and had a personal robot guard following him around. The alarming thing was how easily everyone took this in stride. Nobody sought him out, asked him a question, even looked at him for more than a moment or two. It occurred to him, with foolish shock, that he was no major figure in these boys’ lives, any more than Peter Kolb or Raoul Sanchez were in Conrad’s own. They weren’t aching for his opinion. They weren’t pausing in their hurried work to fret about his well-being, any more than he ever had for them. And these were his friends, right? Probably the best friends he’d ever had.

Somebody struck up the chorus of the Fuck You Song, and within a few bars everyone was singing, the whole camp ringing and echoing with it. All except for Conrad, who had never felt lonelier in his life. Weirdly, he found himself wishing Feck were here, or his parents, or even that lady from the police station. Somebody uninvolved in this conspiracy.

He jabbed an elbow into the Palace Guard’s impervium side, and even this was ignored. Bascal might as well have made him invisible, intangible, a ghost. He considered dropping his pants, just to get some attention, then wondered if his escort would even allow it.

While the song rolled on, the Palace Guards had begun to gather on the dock. One of them said something, in a voice that was loud and polite but not quite distinguishable over the noise. The song faltered and died.

“This activity is dangerous,” the guard repeated. “You must desist.”

Bascal snorted. “Dangerous? This activity is necessary.”

The robot turned. “Spectral analysis of the gas in this enclosure indicates an explosive.”

“Not at this altitude,” Bascal countered. “Too much xenon. It’ll just burn.”

And that was true: you could light a match or campfire or barbecue grill with no problem, although the flames were reddish and somewhat sickly. But the boys’ research had indicated a problem with the more rapid forms of combustion. Xenon atoms were just too heavy; heating them soaked up all your energy. And they were large, swarming among the smaller oxygen and hydrogen molecules like elephants at a dog-and-cat show.

The robot considered this for a second or so, and then said, “Network confirmation is not available. However, internal simulation supports the assertion. What is the purpose of this activity?”

“It’s a balloon,” Bascal answered, obviously seeing little point in lying.

“It is anchored to a structure whose foundation has been undermined. The structure’s weight may not be sufficient to counteract buoyancy.”

A cautious look came over Bascal’s face. “Guard, are you programmed to interfere with educational activities?”

“No,” the guard replied.

“What are your exact instructions?”

The robot, faceless, considered Bascal. It seemed to understand that something important was happening, that Bascal was up to something. Detecting bad intentions was the thing’s entire purpose. That, and protecting the prince—even from himself. Anyway, they’d been overhearing all the important conversations, and surely must understand at least the gist of it all. Finally, the robot said, in King Bruno’s voice, “Hold to the camp schedule, and keep these kids from hurting each other. The fax is for camp activities only.”

“That’s all?”

“Other than built-in directives and prior standing orders, yes.”

The two of them faced one another—a Poet Prince versus the quantum computers of a brilliant but obedient machine.

“Guard,” the prince said carefully, “we are leaving this planette. I’ll go crazy if we don’t. Kindly support us by staying out of the way.”

The guard digested that, and replied, “You may not perform any activity without accompaniment.”

“Very well,” Bascal said, nodding. “One guard will accompany us.”

“A minimum of two guards are required in the presence of royalty.”

“Two, then.”

The robot did not reply. Did that mean it agreed? Assented? Conrad wanted to scream his objections. But the cables in the water bubbled on, and the bag slowly filled.

At first there was just a gas pocket, swelling down here at the bag’s lower end, but the boys did a fair job of teasing it along, driving it up the length of the wellstone tube. Eventually, the middle of the bag gained buoyancy and lifted into the air, forming a great arch like a rainbow over the planette’s northern hemisphere, while teams of handlers held the ends down firmly. This was impressive, considering how enormous and heavy the thing was. The wellstone film was translucent and microscopically thin, but there was a lot of it, folded over on itself several dozen times.

Then the rainbow itself began to swell and fatten, and Bascal gave the order to release the upper end, which shot up like a cork in water. It swelled as the pressure around it eased, dropping off rapidly with altitude. Now the balloon was the size of a small cabin, rippling slightly in the convection breeze, and the growing team of handlers was having more and more trouble holding it down. There was a lot of nervous joking, nervous laughter, boys calling for assistance or complaining that their fingers were tired.

“If you’re not a handler,” Bascal called out, over the rising commotion, “get in the cabin. Now! Now!”

And it was really happening. They were leaving, soon, in the next couple of minutes.

“There may be danger to any person left behind,” one of the robots said. “You may not leave any person behind.”

“Danger?” said Peter. “What danger?”

“The men staying behind are volunteers,” Bascal said. “They’re awaiting a rescue craft.”

“What danger?” Peter asked again.

“The explosion,” Bascal told him impatiently. “And some rain. It might get a little rough.”

“This is out of control,” Bertram said to the robot. “Stop it now. Please.”

The robot regarded him without comment. It wasn’t programmed to take orders—or even suggestions—from anyone but palace staff.

“It’s too late to stop it,” Bascal said. His voice was calm, brisk, triumphant. “The bag is an explosion waiting to happen. When we let it go, it rises and expands, and its buoyancy increases. If it doesn’t detonate immediately, it detonates when we unmoor the cabin and float a little higher.”

As if in answer, one of the Palace Guards danced forward and grabbed the bottom of the balloon. Another of them did the same.

“Guards,” Bascal said, annoyed, “in about five minutes that material is going to become very slippery. You will not be able to hold it. The balloon will rise and explode, possibly injuring me. You must escort me to a safe place: a wellstone-reinforced structure which is not anchored to the planette.”

The guards, watched closely and nervously by everyone, pondered this.

“All children must enter the structure,” they finally said.

“I’m not going up in that thing,” Peter insisted. “I’m not.”

There were guards all around now, and one of them took hold of Peter’s wrist. Preparing to drag him to safety.

“Let go of him,” Bascal said impatiently. “Do you have any instruction to protect him from himself?”

“No,” the guard admitted.

“Then let him go. He’s not welcome among us. Run away, Peter. Head for the hills. You have about two minutes.”

“You’re a shit, Bascal!” Peter screamed. He was crying now, and Conrad didn’t blame him a bit. He realized what should have been obvious all along: that Bascal was crazy. He’d inherited his father’s driving passions and his mother’s easy charm, plus an artistic sensibility that seemed to come straight out of nowhere. But where was the de Towaji compassion that had won Bruno three Medals of Salvation in the days before his kingship? Where was the Lutui common sense, or the Tongan tradition of respect?

In that moment, it seemed that young Bascal would do anything, pay any price, to shock and embarrass his Queendom. He was
enjoying
Peter’s fear. And suddenly there were no safe options, not for Peter, not for any of them.

“Garbage pussy bloodfuck,” Ho Ng replied, sounding outraged on his monarch’s behalf. “You
better
run, little fucker.”

“Yeah,” Steve Grush added. Apparently he was back on the management team again.

Peter didn’t wait to be told a third time. Taking half a second to weigh the odds and face reality, he just put his head down and sprinted off, heading east past the rock formations, presumably toward the hills on Camp Friendly’s other side. And though he faced probable injury and certain abandonment, to his credit he did not wail or look back.

“Anyone else?” Bascal asked, looking around pointedly.

Nobody took him up on it. Nobody moved or breathed.

“All right, then. To the cabin. You!” He swept a pointing finger at the boys and robots holding down the bottom of the balloon. “Hang on tight and follow me. Your lives depend on it. We’re stopping right outside the cabin door. Clear?”

Nobody questioned the order. And since Conrad didn’t have a job to do, and couldn’t object, and didn’t care to join Peter in pain and exile, he followed docilely along with the crowd. The moment would be etched in his memory forever, endlessly questioned and reexamined for manliness and sensibility and moral correctness, but the truth was, he didn’t give it much thought at the time. Didn’t have to. His choices were just too limited, his time too short.

The cabin, tightly bound in wellstone film, looked like a badly gift-wrapped toy. The only opening was a vertical slash in the film, just in front of the doorway, which had been rigged to seal itself when the air pressure started dropping. Bascal arrived at the cabin slightly ahead of the others, and bent to snatch something up from the pit of its undermined foundation. A bottle? Green glass with a concave bottom. A wine bottle? Where had he gotten such a thing? Had D’rector Jed, or one of the other counselors, kept a private stash somewhere?

“In honor of my Latin ancestry,” the prince said, “I christen this ship
Viridity
: the burning green stamina of youth.”

Then he smashed the bottle against the gray-black film and the logs beneath it. The liquid inside was clear, like water. And without further ceremony, he commenced an inspection of the cables—wellstone ribbons, really—that trailed down from the roof, leading off in the direction of the towering column of the balloon. And the balloon was approaching, yes, carefully carried to its launch site at the front of the cabin. The butterflies in Conrad’s stomach were restless indeed.