Rogue Queen Page 5

  O’Mara produced a bottle filled with a yellow-brown liquid, which he unstoppered and drank from.

  “Where’d you get that?” asked Bloch.

  O’Mara grinned. “Out of Doc Markowicz’s stores when the lad wasn’t looking. Have a swallow.”

  He held out the bottle to Bloch, who hesitantly took it and drank.

  “Weesky?” said Barbe Dulac. “Let me have some, please!”

  “How about the native girl?” said O’Mara. “That’s one human custom the darling should try.”

  “Be careful,” said Bloch. “Just a sip. It might not agree with you.”

  Iroedh tipped her head back as she had seen the others do. Unaccustomed to drinking from such a vessel, she got a whole mouthful. She felt as if she had swallowed a bucket of live coals, and coughed violently, spraying half the mouthful on the ground.

  “I—I’m poisoned!” she gasped between coughs.

  “Let us hope not,” said Bloch, thumping her back. When Iroedh’s equilibrium was restored he said: “Now let us prowl the ruins.”

  O’Mara replied: “You prowl, Baldy, while I take a bit of a snooze. The pictures wouldn’t be no damn good with the sun so high anyway.”

  “I, too, should like to rest,” said Barbe Dulac.

  “How about you, Iroedh?” said Bloch.

  Iroedh yawned, “Would you mind if I took a small nap also? I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

  “Do not tell me that half a swallow of whisky has had that much effect already!”

  “I don’t think it was that but the fact that I hardly slept last night.”

  “That is the coffee you drank yesterday. You nap, then, and I shall rouse you after a while.”

  O’Mara was taking another big swig and arranging his pack as a pillow. Barbe Dulac spoke to him:

  “John, won’t you get the sunburn, going to sleep with your chest bare?”

  “Sure and these stinking little red dwarf stars don’t put out enough ultraviolet to matter.”

  Iroedh asked for a translation, then inquired: “Is your sun, then, different from ours?”

  “Very much so,” said Barbe Dulac, “It looks about half as big and four times as bright. To us this one looks like a big orange—one of our fruits—in the sky.”

  “What do you call our sun?”

  “Lalande 21185. That’s just a number in a star catalogue.”

  Iroedh was about to ask what a star catalogue was when she saw that Barbe had dropped off. Accustomed to the simplest of sleeping accommodations, Iroedh dozed off herself, sprawled on the shattered pavement of the fort with her head pillowed on a stone.

  Later the voices of the other two aroused her. While she struggled to remain asleep, she was brought sharply out of the twilight zone by a loud smack, as of an open hand striking bare flesh.

  She opened her eyes to see Barbe Dulac stumble backward, half fall, and recover. A grille of red stripes across the female man’s cheek implied that the sound had been that of a slap. Barbe screamed and O’Mara roared:

  “That’ll learn you to trifle with an honest man!”

  He advanced with a curiously unsteady gait. Iroedh, gathering herself to rise, saw the bottle lying empty on the stones.

  This conflict left Iroedh at a loss. She was sure it was wrong, but as a member of another species she did not think it incumbent on her to intervene. At that moment, however, Bloch stepped around from behind a section of wall and walked toward O’Mara, saying:

  “What’s this? Look here, you can’t —”

  “’Tis your doing!” cried O’Mara. “No bald-headed old omadhaun is going to steal my girl!”

  Bloch halted in hesitation, his bodily attitude bespeaking fear of the other man’s violence. He looked toward Barbe, who said something Iroedh could not catch. However, it seemed to stiffen his sinews, for he took another step toward O’Mara.

  Smack! O’Mara’s big fist shot out and struck the side of Bloch’s face. Bloch’s head snapped back and he fell supine upon the stones.

  “Now,” said O’Mara, “will you get up and fight like a man, or must I—”

  Bloch got to his feet, moving at first slowly and jerkily, then with more agility. Iroedh, watching with horrified fascination, wondered why neither tried to pick up the gun or the machetes piled against the wall with the other gear. Such a method of settling differences was utterly foreign to the discipline of an Avtiny Community, where violence (except in war, the Royal Duel, and the Cleanup) was unknown.

  With a roar O’Mara lowered his head and charged like a bull vakhnag. Bloch stood a fraction of a second holding futile fists before him, then threw himself to one side, leaving one long leg thrust out to trip his assailant. O’Mara tripped, staggered on in a half-falling run, and fetched up against the knee-high parapet that ran along a section of the cliffward side of the stronghold.

  Iroedh had a glimpse of O’Mara’s boots in the air, then—no O’Mara.

  A long dwindling scream came up, cut off by the sound of a body striking a ledge. Sounds followed of the body striking again and again, and there was a rattle of loosened rocks.

  “Tonnerre de Dieu!” said Barbe Dulac.

  The three survivors hurried to the parapet and looked over. After they had searched for some seconds, Iroedh, catching a glimpse of contrasting color, said:

  “Isn’t that he in the branches of that khal tree?”

  They looked where she pointed. Bloch got out a small black object with shiny glass eyes and looked through it.

  “That is he,” he said. “Dead, all right.”

  He handed the glasses to Iroedh. She almost dropped them with astonishment as the pink-and-olive speck at the foot of the cliff leaped almost to within arms’ length. After one long look she handed the glasses back. “I’m sure he’s very dead indeed,” she said.

  “I fear,” said Iroedh, “I don’t understand your Terran customs yet. Did the O’Mara leap off the cliff because of his love for Bardylak, or was that some sort of ceremonial execution?”

  She stopped her questions when she saw the other two were paying no attention. They were jabbering at each other in their own tongue and Barbe Dulac was making strangled sounds while tears ran down her face. Iroedh understood this to be a Terran gesture symbolizing grief, but found it hard to understand. The female man had come to dislike O’Mara, who had certainly abused her. Why, then, such a display of emotion? Unless, of course, O’Mara was so important to the Terran Community that his death jeopardized its existence.

  She caught an occasional word she knew, like “terrible” and “love.” Presently the men put their arms around each other and pressed their mouths together, whereupon Barbe Dulac shed more tears than ever.

  At last Bloch said to Iroedh: “You saw what occurred, did you not?”

  “Yes, though I still don’t understand it. Did O’Mara kill himself?”

  “No. He was trying to kill me, or something close to it, and when I tripped him he fell over accidentally. Now, among us when one kills another for his own private purposes—”

  “You mean as when we kill off surplus drones or defective workers for the good of the Community?”

  “No; as if an Avtiny worker killed another merely because she disliked her, or because the other worker had something—”

  “Such a thing could never happen!” Iroedh exclaimed.

  “Your rogue drones attack workers to steal food and supplies, do they not?”

  “That’s different. A worker never attacks a fellow worker from the same Community, unless in carrying out the orders of the Council.”

  “It is different with us. The act is called ‘murder’ and is punished by death or long imprisonment.”

  “By ‘long imprisonment’ do you mean they starve the culprit to death? That’s a strange—”

  “No, they feed and house them, though not in fancy style.”

  “Then where’s the punishment? Some of our lazier workers would like nothing better—”

  Bloch
made motions of tugging at his vanished hair. “We keep getting off the subject! Just permit me to talk, please. If I go back to the ship and narrate this incident as it happened, some will say I murdered O’Mara because of our rivalry over Barbe. And while I do not believe I should be convicted, since Barbe can testify it was an accident and self-defense, it would cause a great stench and ruin my reputation back on Terra—”

  “If the death was justified according to your laws, why should anyone blame you?”

  “Never mind; take it from me that my career would be jeopardized. Therefore Barbe and I will not mention any fight or slapping. We will simply say that he got intoxicated on the medicinal whisky and tried to show off by walking on the parapet, and fell over.”

  “You mean to lie to your own Community?”

  “Not exactly; just to withhold part of the truth. He did get drunk and fall over the parapet, after all.”

  “A strange race, the men. What do you wish of me?”

  “Not to spoil our story. Keep silent about the fight.”

  Iroedh pondered. “Would it be right?”

  “We think so. I do not see what good would be accomplished by having an inquest and perhaps a trial when we were only defending ourselves.”

  “Very well, I’ll say nothing. As I’m awake now, shall I explain the ruins to you?”

  “Good God, no! We have to get back down, report O’Mara’s fall, and endeavor to recover his body.”

  “Why? His clothes and equipment would be ruined by the fall.”

  “It is custom,” said Bloch, starting to collect the gear.

  “Do you eat the bodies of your dead? Or do you make soap of them as we do?”

  Barbe Dulac squawked, and Bloch said: “Not ordinarily; we bury them ceremonially.”

  Iroedh sighed. “What people! Shall I carry his gear?”

  Bloch gave Iroedh O’Mara’s camera and container of photographic material and machete to carry, and led the way homeward. They wound down the trail, faster this time because it was mostly downhill and the worst brush had been cleared on the way up.

  As she picked her way down with O’Mara’s equipment banging against her skin as it swung from its straps, Iroedh wondered on the predicament of her companions. While she liked them as individuals, as one might like a friendly ueg or other tame beast, her first loyalty still lay toward her Community. She would therefore not hesitate to turn their troubles to her own advantage if occasion offered.

  She remembered the forgotten epic, the Lay of Idhios, which in its last canto told how the drone Idhios had used his knowledge of the liaison of Queen Vinir with the drone Santius to force the queen to steal the Treasure of Inimdhad and give it to him. That was back in the bad barbarous days when workers laid eggs and queens had but a single drone apiece, called the king, who presumed to dictate to the queen whom she should be fertilized by.

  Evidently, in dealing with creatures of primitive social organization like the men or her own remote ancestors, one could sometimes extort goods and services from one by threatening to reveal something to her discredit. Could she force Bloch to help Elham against Tvaarm by threatening to tell Subbarau on him? For an instant she thought she had an answer to her Community’s problem, and imagined Bloch mowing down the Arsuuny giants with his magical gun.

  But then second thoughts dampened her enthusiasm. Bloch was not the head man in his Community. She could not use her knowledge to force the whole complement of the Paris to help Elham, because their leader was Subbarau, over whom she had no hold.

  She might try to force Bloch to come back to Elham alone to fight for the Avtini—but that might not work either. Accustomed to a highly organized and disciplined Community, Iroedh realized that Bloch could probably not wander off at his own sweet will.

  Another thought struck her. “Bardylak!”

  “Yes?” said Barbe Dulac.

  “Have you, in the sky ship, one of those machines that tells when a man is lying?”

  “I understand we do. Nobody has to submit to it, but if an accused refuses, it makes the officers all the more suspicious.”

  So it wouldn’t be necessary for Subbarau to find evidence of irregularities, but merely to have his suspicions aroused, and the true story of O’Mara’s death would come out.

  Then could she make Bloch reveal some bit of technical knowledge that would give the Avtini the advantage they needed? If, for example, he’d lend her the gun…A dubious expedient. The gun was a complicated mechanism, and if not used right might blow a hole in the user instead of the target. To tell the truth, Iroedh was definitely afraid of it. Besides, one needed a supply of the little brass things that went with it.

  But something simpler, now, like the machete whose scabbard was slapping against her thigh. Anybody could understand that.

  Then she remembered how the Idhios continued. As the triumphant Idhios turned away, his eyes upon the treasure in his hands, Queen Vinir had driven a knife into his back and slain him. She explained that Idhios had tried to fertilize her without her consent—an impossible situation under modern Community organization, but one that in ancient days, apparently, occurred often and was deemed a serious crime.

  The lesson was that when you try to force a being of primitive social organization to do something for you by threatening to disclose her secret, take care she does not kill you to close your mouth forever.

  However, if the Lay contained this warning, it also pointed the way out. For it transpired that Idhios had written an account of the relationship of Queen Vinir with Santius and left it with his friend Gunes with instructions to deliver it to King Aithles, the queen’s one official drone, if anything happened to Idhios. So Gunes had given the tablet to the king, and the epic ended with King Aithles’s minions holding Queen Vinir and her lover with their necks across the windowsill of the palace while the king hewed off their heads with a hatchet so that the heads fell into the moat.

  Though as a result of her studies Iroedh was more broadminded than most Avtiny workers, even she could not visualize the slaying of a queen by a drone without a shudder. No wonder all the Avtiny Communities forbade the Lay of Idhios!

  Would any such elaborate maneuver be necessary in her case, however?

  They had nearly reached the floor of the valley of Gliid. Where the trail grew wider Bloch and Barbe Dulac walked side by side holding hands and paying Iroedh no heed.

  While Iroedh had at first been a little irked at being ignored, she now began to calculate how to turn their absorption in each other to her advantage. She hefted the machete. Perhaps in the excitement of telling their story and organizing the search for O’Mara’s body they’d never miss it.

  She said: “Daktablak! If you like, I’ll run ahead to our camp and ask our leader to assign some of us to help you recover the corpse.”

  “That will be splendid; thank you, Iroedh,” said Bloch vaguely, and turned his attention back to Barbe.

  Iroedh jogged off toward the main road, taking O’Mara’s possessions with her.

  IV. The Helicopter

  At the Avtiny camp the only worker in sight was Vardh. Iroedh asked her:

  “Where’s Rhodh?”

  Vardh pointed toward the towering bulk of the Paris. “Over there, prowling around in hope of picking up something useful. What sort of time have you had? Iinoedh thought they’d surely devour you—”

  “Go fetch Rhodh, please, dear,” said Iroedh.

  Vardh went obediently. Iroedh walked over to her chariot, climbed up, and pulled up the seat cover, which was hinged and served as the top of a chest in which she stored her cloak and other gear. She wrapped the machete in the cloak and laid the bundle back in the recess, then closed the top and placed the camera and other things upon it.

  “Well?” snapped Rhodh from the ground. “Will they fight on our side?”

  Iroedh gave a jump; she had not expected Rhodh to slip up on her like that. Rhodh had removed her cuirass and kilt (though she still wore the hip-length haqueton-tun
ic) and so had been able to come close without clanking. Now was the time, before Bloch arrived, to show her the machete and explain her plans for duplicating it in bronze to use in battle.

  “Not exactly,” said Iroedh. “But I have—”

  “What do you mean, not exactly? Will they fight for us or not?”

  “No, but—”

  “Failed again! I should have known better than to let you try. Another precious day wasted, with the Arsuuni due to march! I suppose that in your dreamy way you forgot all about our mission and spent your time discussing that rubbish on the Point! Of all the stupid, incompetent—Anyway, I won’t let it happen again. Tomorrow you can spend policing the camp while I take charge of Blok.”

  Rhodh marched off, leaving Iroedh to bite her lips. Forbidden thoughts of physical assault seeped into her mind, no doubt, she guessed, inspired by the lawless violence she had witnessed on Survivors’ Point.

  She called: “Rhodh!”

  “What is it now?”

  “I was trying to tell you one of the men fell off the cliff and was killed, and they’ll want to fetch his body. You could ingratiate yourself with them by sending a party to help.”

  Rhodh glowered back. “Let the men tend to their own ridiculous customs and I’ll tend to mine.”

  “Then I’ll go—”

  “You shall not! You shall clean the tethering area of the uegs and fetch them a fresh supply of greens. Get to work.”

  “Then you’d better return these to the men.” Iroedh held up O’Mara’s gear, all but the hidden machete. “They belong to the dead man, and the others will be looking for them.”

  “Hmp. Let me see them.”

  Rhodh took the articles and walked off, turning them over and pulling and poking at them. She walked toward the Paris, the low sun shining redly on the brass of her helmet.

  Now, thought Iroedh, if the men start looking for the missing machete, O’Mara’s goods will have passed through so many hands they’ll never be able to establish responsibility for it.