The Reign of the Brown Magician

Chapter Fifteen

“We know where one of them is,” Gregory explained. “Rachel Brown’s body is in cold storage at Base One. We haven’t located Nancy Brown yet, though.” He hesitated, then asked, “Do you want us to bring you Rachel?”

Pel thought about that, and felt tears welling up; the matrix swirled an uncomfortable shade of blue and splashed up the throne room walls. His throat tightened, and for a moment he couldn’t speak.

He missed Rachel so much-but bringing her back here, to a strange place where her father radiated color and light, where zombies walked the halls, and where her mother was dead…

And besides, if Gregory and the others were to steal Rachel back, it might alert the Empire and make it that much harder to recover Nancy.

He swallowed, and managed to speak.

“Not yet,” he said. “But the minute you find Nancy, get them both.”

* * * *

Wilkins was disappointed; it wasn’t a woman, or anyone interesting at all. It was just a couple of berry-pickers working unusually close to the edge of the marsh.

He’d come this far, though, he figured he might as well go on. Especially since one of them, the one who’d been on the highway to begin with, had spotted him; now they were both standing there, talking quietly and watching him approach.

Wilkins didn’t really think there’d be any trouble if he turned and headed back to the fortress, but he hated to think they might think they’d scared him off.

“Good morrow, gentlemen!” he called. The locals seemed to consider that a normal greeting.

“And to you, sir!” the taller one called back-not that either of them was particularly tall; the people of Faerie ran a bit short, by Imperial standards, and Wilkins wasn’t sure if it was the gravity or the diet that was responsible.

Probably both, he decided.

These two weren’t runts, though-just middling.

And they hadn’t turned and run, nor called any threats, nor just stood there silently the way most peasants usually did. Maybe they’d be interesting after all.

“My name’s Wilkins,” Wilkins said-he was close enough now that shouting was unnecessary. A native-a human native, anyway, not the dwarfs or gnomes or whatever they were that he’d met once or twice-would probably have phrased it differently, getting “hight” or “yclept” in there, but Wilkins didn’t feel like dealing with that just now, and these two looked bright enough to figure out what he meant even if he didn’t talk like an old book.

For a moment, the pair of strangers seemed to take that in stride. Then the taller one’s eyes widened.

“Wilkins, did you say?”

Wilkins stopped walking a few feet further away than he had originally intended. Warily, he said, “Yes, sir-do I know you?” He didn’t remember meeting this fellow anywhere, but he’d offended a few people, mostly women, and his name might have been spread around.

“Spaceman First Class Ronald Wilkins?”

Now Wilkins’ own eyes widened; he stared.

He should have realized. These two were too clean, their blond hair too short, their beards still only half-grown. “Who’re you?” he asked.

The taller one stepped forward and held out a hand. “Samuel Best, Imperial Intelligence,” he said.

Wilkins hesitated for half a second. The man was Intelligence. That could mean a treason charge, a desertion charge, that could mean anything-shaking that hand might be his own death sentence, and in any case, to Wilkins touching an Intelligence man would be like touching a rat.

On the other hand, offending an Intelligence man was a very bad idea, very bad indeed. Wilkins stepped forward and took the proffered hand.

“I hadn’t expected to find you alive,” Best said, as he released Wilkins’ hand. “Are any of the others with you? Do you know what’s happened to them?”

“Which others?” Wilkins asked. “Do you mean the Earthpeople?”

“The Earthpeople, or Lieutenant Dibbs, or anyone…look, you have a lot to tell us. Have a seat, have some of these berries-sorry we don’t have anything to drink.” He gestured to the buckets and a hummock of dry grass. “Oh, this is Begley. He’s in Intelligence, too,” he added as an afterthought.

Together, the three men settled to the ground.

* * * *

Howe’s concern about which cabinet officer to tell had been irrelevant, she saw; the first thing Marshal Albright had done was to call Secretary Markham in to hear the news.

“You know, at first glance,” Markham remarked, as he twiddled with a pen, “it would seem perfectly natural for this Pellinore Brown to want to recover the bodies of his wife and child.”

Albright nodded. “I thought of that,” he said. “It’s the method that has me puzzled-and concerned. Why is he using Shadow’s spies? For that matter, why are Shadow’s spies still here? Shouldn’t they all have been recalled? I suppose I should have known better than to have believed that Operation Spotlight had really broken the back of Shadow’s whole network of subversion and espionage, but this Brown Magician was supposed to be on our side-or at least, not hostile. It seems hostile to be sneaking around this way, though, instead of just asking for his family. He hasn’t communicated openly with us at all-our only sources of information have been our own spies, both telepathic and normal. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t even know that Shadow was dead, or who had replaced it.”

“And even there, he’s deliberately blocked all telepathic contact with his government,” Markham pointed out. “No one in his fortress can be read.”

“And our telepath on the spot, Proserpine Thorpe, went rogue,” Albright agreed. “Probably subverted by this Brown. Hardly a friendly act.”

“And Earth’s government, the United States-they held our men hostage demanding recognition,” Markham added. “Brown’s an Earthman originally.”

Howe didn’t follow this; she wasn’t familiar with the Thorpe case, or recent actions on Earth. She saw which way the wind was blowing, though.

“Shall I have Felton shot?” she asked.

Albright and Markham glanced quickly at each other; then Albright shook his head.

“Not yet,” he said.

* * * *

“I can just climb up a goddamned ladder?” Wilkins demanded. “Why in bloody hell didn’t they lower one sooner, then, before Dibbs and the rest got butchered?”

Best shrugged. “They don’t tell me everything,” he said. “Hell, half the time they don’t even tell me what I’m supposed to be doing, or half the information I need to do it.”

Wilkins snorted. “I can believe it,” he said. He looked back at the marsh for a moment, considering.

“Listen,” he said, “I don’t know what our Mr. Brown is up to out there in his castle, but it’s taking too damn long to suit me. Maybe he’d send me home tomorrow-but for all I know, it’d be next year at Donalmas before he saw fit to do it, and if I walk back up to Sunderland I’ll have sore feet, but I’ll be back at Base One in a fortnight.”

Best nodded. “They’ll be glad to hear from you, if they have any sense.”

“And if they have closed the fucking warp, I’ll just come back here, and my temper’s going to be foul enough after that walk that Brown had damned well better send me home!”

Begley laughed nervously.

“Either of you care to join me?” Wilkins asked.

Begley’s laughter died; he glanced warily sideways at Best.

Best shook his head.

“’Fraid not,” he said. “We have our orders-such as they are-and I said I’d wait here until I got further instructions. So I wait here.”

Wilkins shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said.

* * * *

“Wilkins has emerged from the fortress,” Brian Hall reported.

Markham leaned back in his chair and looked up at the telepath. He didn’t need to say anything to convey his question.

“Pelbrun the Brown Magician, ruler of Faerie, is indeed the Earthman Pellinore Brown; Wilkins heard the entire story from Brown’s own lips, though he didn’t bother to remember most of it, and our link is sufficiently tenuous that we can’t recover anything he’s not consciously thinking about. Wilkins met our man Best on the road, and the two exchanged information, so we were able to pick up some of the details from that.”

Markham nodded, and Hall knew that the details could wait.

“Wilkins is on his way back to our standing space-warp.”

“Good,” Markham said. Then he frowned. “Wasn’t he going to have Brown send him back?”

Hall nodded. “Yes, sir-but Brown refused. He told Wilkins that he had sent someone into the Empire to get something, and could not risk Wilkins interfering with that; he would only send Wilkins when he had obtained whatever it is he’s after. Wilkins had no idea what that might be, or how long this might take, and finally left the fortress in disgust. It was sheer good luck that he encountered Best so quickly.”

“Sent someone to get something?”

“Yes, sir. It might have been the bodies. It might have been something else.”

“Have you been snooping, Hall?”

“Not intentionally, sir.”

“But you know about the bodies. I suppose all you telepaths do.”

“Not consciously, sir, but the information does tend to leak, and I am working on related matters.”

Markham knew well that information leaked among telepaths; fortunately, most of them were very good at keeping their mouths shut around most non-telepaths. Fear of summary execution could do that.

Of course, they would blab to anyone high enough in the Imperial government the minute someone asked the right question-fear of summary execution did that, too.

“What’s Best doing now?” he asked. “Is he coming back with Wilkins?”

“No, sir; he’s still awaiting orders. I believe they’re on the way.”

Markham nodded, leaning back still farther, hands folded across his belly.

Then abruptly he sat up, startled, as the telepath’s words registered.

“Orders are on the way?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir.”

“I didn’t send any orders.”

“A messenger went through the warp two or three days ago, I believe,” the telepath said.

“At whose direction? Who wrote those orders?”

“It wasn’t Marshal Albright,” Hall assured him hastily, unable to ignore the suspicion of a political double-cross that suddenly dominated Markham’s thoughts. “And it wasn’t Intelligence, either; it was Under-Secretary Bascombe.”

“Bascombe?” Markham straightened further. “That idiot?”

“Yes, sir.”

For a moment Markham stared at the telepath; then he glanced at the door.

“Bascombe sent Best in the first place,” he said. “And Best’s in Intelligence.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Does Albright know about this?”

“Not yet, sir-but I’m sure he’ll find out. You know how it is.”

“Yes, I know-you mutants can’t keep a goddamn secret for five minutes.” Markham knew that was unfair, that it usually took either Intelligence or someone of cabinet rank to pry secrets out of the telepaths, but he didn’t care about being fair right now. “All right,” he said, “call Albright’s telepath for me, tell him I want to talk. And try not to mention this to Celia Howe-you or any of your family.”

“Yes, sir,” Hall said. “But…”

“I know,” Markham said. “Intelligence will find out. But I’d like to talk to Albright first.”

* * * *

The purple uniform was a dead giveaway; Wilkins knew from half a mile away that he had spotted another friendly face. He assumed at first that the other man was a native guide, but there was never any question about the messenger. He had to be an Imperial.

Convincing them of his own identity was a bit trickier; the messenger was nervous and knew nothing at all about this world or who’d been there before him, and Poole, unlike Best, hadn’t memorized the complete roster of Colonel Carson’s ill-fated command.

Once he had convinced them, the conversation was much shorter than his talk with Best-Poole and Simons weren’t interested in the details of how he’d survived or who was running things, and had little to add to what Best had already told him.

He gave them directions for finding Best and Begley, got directions to aid his own memory of where the wreck of I.S.S. Christopher lay, and then headed on eastward.

* * * *

Albright and Markham stood side by side, watching as the research ship I.S.S. Magnet settled smoothly into her docking cradle. The telepaths had already assured them that the ship had found and collected a dead woman, but even so, Markham had some last-minute doubts. While space was immense, Nancy Brown hadn’t been the only one to die aboard Emerald Princess; how sure were they that this was the right corpse?

And if it wasn’t, was it because the Brown Magician’s agents had already somehow recovered the one they wanted?

And what was Brown up to, anyway? Why were these corpses so important to him? Why hadn’t he just asked for them?

The ship was down, the docking bay doors grinding slowly shut; Markham turned away from the thick glass of the window.

“I want to see this for myself,” he said. “You coming?”

“I’ll watch from here,” Albright said.

Markham shrugged. “Please yourself.”

By the time he emerged from the stairwell the gauge by the door showed the docking bay at 30% Terran sea-level air pressure and rising; Markham forced the latch and, with the help of the entry guard, heaved the door open.

Air whooshed past, almost sweeping him out into the bay; his ears popped. He let the wind carry him forward, across twenty feet of steel flooring, until he put up a hand and caught a fin to stop his progress.

The fin was hot steel-one of the guidance vanes for a collection bin on Magnet’s side, hot with waste heat from the ship’s gravity generators. Markham snatched his fingers away.

He gasped for breath-the air was still thin in here-and glanced up, first at the side of the ship looming over him, then back at the observation area. Albright was shouting something, but Markham couldn’t hear anything but roaring wind; he supposed the Imperial Marshal was chastising him for hurrying out here before the pressure was equalized.

Markham didn’t care about that; he looked up at the collection bin just above his head. It was tightly closed, the heavy shutter holding in whatever the gravity generators had drawn out of the void.

There were other, identical bins elsewhere, a girdle of five of them encircling Magnet’s waist. The corpse could be in any of them, even the one on the underside that was only accessible from the service sump.

The rush of air was slowing, and a loud thump sounded; Markham looked for its source and saw that the ship’s main hatch was opening.

“Come on,” Markham shouted, “get on with it! I want to see her!”

A helmeted head appeared in the doorway. “She’s not pretty, sir,” the spaceman said.

“You think I give a tinker’s dam what she looks like? Open those shutters!”

“You can get a look at her from in here, if you want.”

“Can I?” Markham had never before had any use for Magnet, and had little idea how she operated.

“Yes, sir.”

“Show me.” Markham hurried to the hatchway, where the spaceman reached down and caught his arm, boosting him up the yard or so between the floor of the docking bay and the floor of the airlock.

Together, the two men made their way into the ship’s interior, through bare steel passages that gave no indication which of the curving surfaces were meant as walls, which as floors or ceilings. Markham remembered that when the massive gravity generators, capable of drawing in anything that would fit in the bins, were in use, they made it impossible to maintain ordinary shipboard artificial gravity. The crew had to tolerate the spillover, which would draw them toward the generators, so that “up” and “down” would be distorted all over the ship.

When that was happening, Markham judged that this straightforward corridor would become a slanting, treacherous tunnel. The grab bars along one side, he realized, would be rungs of a ladder.

“She’s in Number Four,” the spaceman said, pointing diagonally upward. He spun the wheel to undog the circular hatch at the end of the passage, swung the heavy portal open, and led the way into a peculiar space, a horizontal cylinder some thirty feet in diameter, webbed with catwalks and struts that were built at nightmarishly contradictory angles. The air here was thick and hot; Markham could sense the heat radiating from the far side.

The gravity generators were just beyond that bulkhead.

The spaceman wasn’t giving any guided tours, though; he said, “This way,” and pointed to a strangely-angled staircase leading up and to the left.

Markham followed. The spaceman paused long enough at the next hatchway to unclip a hand-held electric light from its bracket, and a moment later the two men were crawling through a narrow steel tube where that lamp’s dim glow, largely blocked by the spaceman’s body, was the only light. The air was hot and stank of sweat and machine oil.

Then the spaceman stopped and turned-Markham wasn’t sure how he managed it in the confined space of what was really little more than a large pipe. He lifted the lamp almost in Markham’s face.

“There she is,” he said, gesturing.

Markham looked up in the direction indicated, and flinched.

A face was staring down at him through a window-or rather, a ruined red and black thing that had once been a face was pointed in his general direction.

He was a scientist, Markham reminded himself, and he stared calmly back, over his initial shock.

The window was a chunk of glass, or at any rate a clear substance, roughly six inches wide, a foot long, and four or five inches thick, set into the wall of the tube; it gave a view of the interior of one of the collection bins.

The woman’s corpse had landed in the bin with the face pressed up against one end of the window; dark hair, grey dust, and a small pinkish something Markham didn’t recognize at first covered the rest. More dust was smeared on her face; so was a dark powder that was probably dried blood.

The face had been battered even before she went out that airlock, and weeks drifting in hard vacuum had not been kind; the skin was flaked and torn, the flesh dehydrated and shrunken, bone protruding here and there. Markham looked at the pink thing for a moment, just to get away from that hideous visage, and then wished he hadn’t.

The pink thing was the shrivelled remains of a finger, one that was very clearly not attached to a hand.

“She landed a bit hard,” the spaceman remarked. “Three fingers snapped right off and bounced around a bit-things get brittle when they’ve been out there in the cold for awhile.”

Markham swallowed bile.

“We got lucky,” the spaceman added. “Never had one land with the face on the viewport like that before. Makes it a lot easier to get a look at her. So, that the right one?”

“Good God,” Markham said, “you expect me to tell from that?”

The spaceman shrugged, and the little light wavered, sending eerie shadows dancing across the dead woman’s face. “She’s the only woman we found,” he said. “We’ve got dead men in two of the other bins, five of them in all, a couple in Emerald Princess crew uniform, so we’re pretty sure it’s the right bunch, and she was the only woman.”

Markham stared up at the corpse. Then he shook his head.

“It’s probably her,” he said. “I was hoping I’d be able to tell from the descriptions I got, but I hadn’t realized…well, I didn’t account for her condition. We’ll need to get Captain Cahn’s men to identify her-they knew her when she was alive.”

“Should’ve sent one with us,” the spaceman said. “I’d hate to make another trip when we could’ve done it in one.”

“I didn’t think of it,” Markham said. “I can’t think of everything.” He shuddered, all enthusiasm gone. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“After you,” the spaceman said sardonically, and Markham began working his way back out of the observation tube.