Son of the Tree

XI

The aib-car landed, a big-bellied transport in need of paint. Two large men in red knee-length breeches, loose blue jackets, black caps, swaggered from the air-car, wearing the placidly arrogant expressions of a military elite.

«Lord Prince sends his greetings,» said the first to the Beland officer. «He understands that there are foreign agents among the passengers, so he will have all who land conveyed before him at once.»

There was no further conversation. Into the car trooped Elfane and Hableyat, the two Druids clutching their portable altar, the Mangs, glaring yellow-eyed at Hableyat, and Joe. These were all for Ballenkarch–the Cils and the aged woman in the black gown would continue their journey to Castlegran, Cil or Beland and none were discharged from the hold.

Joe crossed the fuselage, dropped into a seat beside Elfane. She turned her head, showed him a face which seemed drained of its youth. «What do you want with me?»

«Nothing. Are you angry with me?»

«You're a Mang spy.»

Joe laughed uneasily. «Oh–because I'm thick with Hableyat?» «What did he send you to tell me now?»

The question took Joe aback. It opened up a vista for speculation. Could it be possible that Hableyat was using him as a means to convey ideas of Hableyat's choosing to the Druids through Elfane?

He said, «I don't know whether or not he wanted this to reach you. But he explained to me why he's been helping you bring your Tree here and it sounds convincing to me.»

«In the first place,» said Elfane scathingly. «We have no more Tree. It was stolen from us at Junction.» Her eyes widened and she looked at him with a sudden suspicion. «Was that your doing too? Is it possible that.»

Joe sighed. «You're determined to think the worst of me. Very well. If you weren't so damned beautiful and appealing I would think twice about you. But you're planning to bust in on the Prince with your two milk-faced Druids and you think you can wind him around your finger. Maybe you can. I know very well you'd stop at nothing. And now I'll get off my chest what Hableyat said and you can do what you like with the information.»

He glared at her, challenging her to speak, but she tossed her head and stared hard out the window.

«He believes that if you succeed in this mission, then you and your Druids will wind up playing second fiddle to these tough Ballenkarts. If you don't succeed –well, the Mangs will probably figure out something unpleasant for you personally but the Druids–according to Hableyat–eventually will come out ahead.»

«Go away,» she said in a choked voice. «All you do is scare me. Go away.»

«Elfane–forget all this Druid-Mang-Tree-of-Life stuff and I'll take you back to Earth. That is if I get off the planet alive.»

She showed him the back of her head. The car buzzed, vibrated, rose into the air. The landscape dished out below them. Massive mountains shot and marbled with snow and ice, luxuriant meadowland with grass glowing the sharp bright color of prismatic green, spread below. They crossed the range. The car jerked, jolted in bumpy air, slanted down toward an inland sea.

A settlement, obviously raw and new, had grown up on the shore of this sea. Three heavy docks, a dozen large rectangular buildings–glass-sided, roofed with bright metal–formed the heart of the town. A mile beyond a promontory covered with trees overlooked the sea and in the shadow of this promontory the car grounded.

The door opened. One of the Ballenkarts motioned brusquely. «This way.»

Joe followed Elfane to the ground and saw ahead a long low building with a glass front looking across the vista of sea and plain. The Ballenkart corporal made another peremptory motion. «To the Residence,» he said curtly.

Resentfully Joe started for the building, thinking that these soldiers made poor emissaries of good will. His nerves tautened as he walked. The atmosphere was hardly one of welcome. The tension, he noticed, gripped everyone. Elfane moved as if her legs were rigid. Erru Kametin's jaw shone bright yellow along the bone line.

At the rear Joe noticed Hableyat speaking urgently with the two Druid missionaries. They seemed reluctant. Hableyat raised his voice. Joe heard him say, «What's the difference? This way you at least have a chance, whether you distrust my motives or not.» The Druids at last appeared to acquiesce. Hableyat marched briskly ahead and said in a loud voice, «Halt! This impudence must not go on!»

The two Ballenkarts swung around in amazement. With a stern face Hableyat said, «Go, get your master. We will suffer this indignity no longer.»

The Ballenkarts blinked, slightly crestfallen to find their authority questioned. Erru Kametin, eyes snapping, said, «What are you saying, Hableyat? Are you trying to compromise us in the eyes of the Prince?»

Hableyat said, «He must learn that we Mangs prize our dignities. We will not stir from this ground until he advances to greet us in the manner of a courteous host.»

Erru Kametin laughed scornfully. «Stay then.» He flung his scarlet cloak about him, turned, proceeded toward the Residence. The Ballenkarts conferred and one accompanied the Mangs. The other eyed Hableyat with truculent eyes. «Wait until the Prince hears of this!»

The rest had rounded a corner. Hableyat leisurely drew his hand from his cloak, discharged a tube at the guard. The guard's eyes became milky, he tumbled to the ground.

«He's merely stunned,» said Hableyat to Joe, who had turned protestingly. To the Druids, «Hurry.»

Lifting their robes they ran to a nearby bank of soft dirt. One dug a hole with a stick, the other opened the altar, tenderly lifted out the miniature Tree. A small pot surrounded its roots.

Joe heard Elfane gasp. «You two–»

«Silence,» rapped Hableyat. «Attend your own concerns if you are wise. These are Arch-Thearchs, both of them.»

«Manaolo–a dupe!»

Into the hole went the roots. Soil was patted firm. The Druids closed the altar, dusted off their hands, and once more became empty-faced monks. And the Son of the Tree stood firm in the ground of Ballenkarch, bathing in the hot yellow light. Unless one looked closely, it was merely another young shrub.

«Now,» said Hableyat placidly, «we continue to the Residence.»

Elfane glared at Hableyat and the Druids, her eyes flaming with rage and humiliation. «All this time you've been laughing at me!»

«No, no, Priestess,» said Hableyat. «Calmness, I implore you. You'll need all your wits when you face the Prince. Believe me, you served a very useful function.»

Elfane turned blindly as if to run off toward the sea but Joe caught hold of her. For a moment she stared into his eyes, her muscles like wire. Then she relaxed, grew limp. «Very well, I'll go in.»

They continued, meeting halfway a squad of six soldiers evidently sent out to escort them in. No one heeded the numb form of the guard.

At the portal they were subjected to a search, quick but so detailed and thorough as to evoke angry protests from the Druids and an outraged yelp from Elfane. The arsenal so discovered was surprising–hand-conics from each of the Druids, Hableyat's stun-tube and a collapsible dagger, Joe's gun, a little polished tube Elfane carried in her sleeve.

The corporal stood back, gestured. «You are permitted to enter the Residence. See that you observe the accepted forms of respect.»

Passing through an antechamber painted with grotesque half-demoniac animals they entered a large hall.

The ceiling beams were great timbers, hand-hewn and notched into a formalized pattern, the walls were surfaced with woven rattan. At either side banks of green and red plants lined the wall and the floor was covered by a soft rug of fiber woven and dyed in a striking pattern of scarlet, black and green.

Opposite the entrance was a dais, flanked by two heavy balustrades of rust-red wood, and a wide throne-like seat of the same russet wood. At the moment the throne was empty.

Twenty or thirty men stood about the room–large, sun-tanned, some with bristling mustaches–awkward and ill at ease as if unused to a roof over their heads. All wore red knee-length breeches. Some wore blouses of various colors while others were bare-chested with capes of black fur slung back from their shoulders. All bore short heavy sabers in their belts and all eyed the newcomers without friendliness.

Joe looked from face to face. Harry Creath would not be far from Vail-Alan, the center of activity. But he was not in the hall.

Beside the dais in a group stood the Redbranch Mangs. Erru Kametin spoke in a harsh staccato to the woman. The two proctors listened silently, half-turned away.

A house-marshal with a long brass clarion stepped into the room, blew a brilliant fanfare. Joe smiled faintly. Like a musical comedy–warriors in bright uniforms, pageantry, pomp, punctilio...

The fanfare again– tantara-tantivy–shrill, exciting.

«The Prince of Vail-Alan! Ruler Preemptor across the face of Ballenkarch!»

A blond man, slight beside the Ballenkarts, stepped briskly up on the dais, seated himself on the throne. He had a round bony face with lines of humor'around his mouth, nervous twitching hands, an air of gay intelligence, reckless impatience. From the crowd came a hoarse « Aaaaah» of reverence. Joe nodded slowly without surprise. Who else? Harry Creath flicked his eyes around the room. They rested on Joe, passed, swung back. For a minute he stared in amazement.

«Joe Smith! What in Heaven's name are you doing out here?»

This was the moment he had come a thousand light years for. And now Joe's mind refused to function correctly. He stuttered the words he had rehearsed for two years, through toil, danger, boredom–the words which expressed the two-year obsession–»I came out to get you.»

He had said them, he was vindicated. The compulsion which was almost auto-suggestion had been allayed. But the words had been spoken and Harry's mobile face expressed astonishment. «Out here? All the way– to get me?»

«That's right.»

«Get me to do what?» Harry leaned back and his wide mouth broke into a grin.

«Well–you left some unfinished business on Earth.»

«None that I know of. You'd have to talk long and fast to get me in motion.» He turned to a tall guard with a face like a rock. «Have these people been searched for weapons?»

«Yes, Prince.»

Harry turned back to Joe with a grimace of jocular apology. «There's too many people interested in me. I can't ignore the obvious risks. Now, you were saying– you want me to go back to Earth. Why?»

Why? Joe asked himself the question. Why? Because Margaret thought herself in love with Harry and Joe thought she was in love with a dream. Because Joe thought that if Margaret could know Harry for a month, rather than for two days, if she could see him in day-to-day living, if she could recognize that love was not a series of lifts and thrills like a roller-coaster ride–that marriage was not a breathless round of escapades.

In short, if Margaret's pretty frivolous head could be rattled loose from its nonsense–then there would be room in it for Joe. Was that it? It had seemed easy, flung out to Mars for Harry only to find Harry had departed for Io. And from Io to Pluto, the Jumping-off Place. And then the compulsion began to take hold, the doggedness. Out from Pluto, on and on and on. Then Kyril, then Junction, now Ballenkarch.

Joe blushed, intensely aware of Elfane at his back, watching him with bright-eyed speculation. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it again.

Why?

Eyes were on him, eyes from all over the room. Curious eyes, cold uninterested eyes, hostile eyes, searching eyes–Hableyat's placid, Elfane's probing, Harry Creath's mocking eyes. And into Joe's confused mind one hard fact emerged–he would be displaying himself as the most consummate ass in the history of the universe if he told the truth.

«Something to do with Margaret?» asked Harry mercilessly. «She send you out here?»

Joe saw Margaret as if in a vision, inspecting the two of them derisively. His eyes swung to Elfane. A hellion, obstinate, intolerant, too intense and full of life for her own good. But sincere and decent.

«Margaret?» Joe laughed. «No. Nothing to do with Margaret. In fact I've changed my mind. Keep to hell away from Earth.»

Harry relaxed slightly. «If it had to do with Margaret-why, you're rather outdated.» He craned his neck. «Where the devil is she? Margaret!»

«Margaret?» muttered Joe.

She stepped up on the dais beside Harry. «Hello, Joe» –as if she'd taken leave of him yesterday afternoon– «what a nice surprise.»

She was laughing inside, very quietly. Joe, grinned also, grimly. Very well, he'd take his medicine. He met their eyes, said, «Congratulations.» It occurred to him that Margaret was in sheer fact living the life she claimed she wanted to lead–excitement, intrigue, adventure. And it seemed to agree with her.