Tatja Grimm's World

Six

The tavern was old, luxurious—even respectable. Its slopping floor and high ceiling created the illusion that the hall was an open bowl. Crystal spheres cast an even, unwavering twilight over tables and patrons. Svir Hedrigs squinted gloomily at the newly polished table surface. Barely visible beneath the varnish were three centuries of minor vandalism. Krirsarque had been a university city for almost ten generations; unnumbered students had carved their names in the durable furniture of the Bayside Arbor.

It was still early and not a third of the tables were occupied. The jongleurs were up on their platform, playing songs and doing acrobatics. So far their amusements had not drawn a single couple onto the dance floor. Svir grunted his disgust, and extended long legs under the table. He absently caressed the furry body of the creature sitting on the table. The animal turned its outsized head toward him and regarded him with limpid black eyes. A deep purring sound came from its wide, pointed ears. Then it turned away and scanned the hall. The ears that were not ears flicked this way and that. Far across the hall, a waiter looked severely in their direction, and began walking toward them. When he got to within three tables of Svir, he stopped, puzzled, with the air of someone who has forgotten his purpose. The waiter shook his head confusedly and headed back to the bar.

“Good boy, Ancho,” murmured Svir. Tonight he didn’t want to argue with anyone about his pet’s presence in the tavern. He had come out for one last fling before sailing tomorrow. Fling—hah! He knew he would just sit lumpishly till closing time. For the thousandth time he cursed his bad luck. Who’d have thought that his thesis topic would require him to sail all the way to Crownesse? Because of the season, that was more than ten days sailing time, unless one could afford hydrofoil passage—which he certainly could not.

The hall was filling now, but there weren’t many unattached girls. Svir concluded with sick self-pity that this night he didn’t have the courage to play either side of catch-and-be-caught. He slouched back and made a determined effort to finish his drink in one draft.

“May I join you?” The soft voice came from behind and above. Svir choked violently on his skaal. He looked up to see that the speaker was as pretty as her voice.

“Please do!” he gasped painfully, trying to regain some shred of poise. “Miss, uh…?”

“Tatja Grimm.” The miracle lowered herself gracefully into the chair next to his, and set her drink on the table next to Ancho’s forepaws. Svir felt himself staring. He constantly daydreamed of encounters like this, but now that he was confronted by reality he didn’t know what to do. In fact, Tatja Grimm was not pretty: she was beautiful, beautiful in an especially wonderful way. From a distance she would have appeared to be a slender girl with a superb figure and reddish-brown hair. But Tatja Grimm was more than six feet tall—nearly as tall as Svir himself. Her hands were slim and delicate—and larger than the hands of most men. But the most wonderful thing of all was the look of genuine interest and intelligence in her gray-green eyes.

“And your name?” Tatja smiled dazzlingly.

The wheels went round and Svir remembered his name: “Svir Hedrigs.”

Tatja rubbed Svir’s pet about the neck. “And that,” spoke Svir, happy at finding something to say, “is Ancho.”

“A dorfox? They’re awfully rare, aren’t they?”

“Uh-huh. Only a few can survive ocean voyages.”

Tatja played with Ancho for a few seconds. The dorfox responded with satisfied humming. The human female was accepted.

But Svir’s hopes were shattered almost as quickly as they had crystallized. Three men came over and sat down, without a word to him.

“Miss Grimm, did you…?” one began. Then he noticed the dorfox. The newcomers sat silently and watched her and the animal. Svir didn’t know what was going on, but there was obviously more competition here than he could handle.

Tatja Grimm looked up from the dorfox. “Men, this is Svir Hedrigs. Svir, meet Brailly Tounse, Svektr Ramsey, and Kederichi Maccioso. They are respectively the printmaster, overeditor, and barge captain for Tarulle Publishing Company. I serve as the science editor for Fantasie.”

Like hell. Svir knew he was naturally gullible. Once, in this very tavern, a couple of netscrapers managed to convince him they were hot-air balloonists. Since then, he had always been on guard. No way could his new “friends” be what they claimed. The Tarulle fastboats weren’t due in the Krirsarque area for another three days. Svir had been very upset to learn that his ship would stay a day ahead of the Tarulle fleet as the publishing company sailed east through the Chainpearl Archipelagate. He wouldn’t receive the latest copies of Fantasie—all two years’ worth—until he reached Bayfast in Crownesse. In any case, people like Svektr Ramsey and Ked Maccioso were for too important to sail ahead of the barge, just for the sake of slumming in a Krirsarque dance hall. The frauds at his table had aimed far too high in their impersonation. Of all the literary corporations in the world, Tarulle was the most prestigious. In a very real way, Fantasie had molded Svir’s life: as a teenager, it had been stories like “Pride of Iron” that turned him to astronomy. Svir had long admired Rey Guille and the Overeditor, Svektr Ramsey. But never had he seen a Science Department in Fantasie, nor heard of Tatja Grimm.

Well, he determined, I can trade you lie for lie. Aloud, “So happy to meet you. I find a lot of your stuff especially provocative since my specialty is astronomy.”

“An astronomer?” The over-muscled bruiser identified as Ked Maccioso seemed impressed.

“That’s right,” Svir affirmed. And, actually, he was an astronomer. But the others might assume from his unmodified assertion that he worked with the Doomsdaymen who manned the sixty-inch High Eye on the Continent. Life in the Doomsday mountains was a constant struggle against asphyxiation, cold, mountain apes, and Hurdic tribesmen. “I’m out here to deliver some speeches at Krirsarque University.” This last was an inversion of the truth. Svir was a graduate student in astronomy at Krirsarque. For the last two years he had worked with the thirty-inch telescope at the university. The most recent journals from the Continent had brought news that the priests of Doomsday had duplicated some (or—gods forbid—all) of Svir’s work. Now he had to journey to the coast to meet with the Doo’d’en and thrash the problem out.

“What’s your preference in astronomy?” asked Tatja. “Seraphy?”

“No,” replied Svir. Seraph was not visible from Doomsday. “I’m in positional astronomy. Using very delicate trig techniques, we measure the distances to some of the nearer stars.” And someday I’ll do much more.

“Really! I bought an article on that very subject for the latest issue.” She snapped her fingers. “Brailly Tounse” reached into a side pouch and handed Tatja a magazine. She gave it to Svir. “See.”

Svir gasped. There was the familiar masthead of Fantasie. In small letters beneath it were the words: “Issue of the 162nd Meridian. Whole Number 5,239.” Here was physical proof that the Tarulle fleet had already arrived.

The cover was a Togoto pastel, at least the equal of that artist’s Lindolef study. Svir opened it to the table of contents. Beneath the magazine’s famous motto, “Things are not as they seem,” were listed ten stories by authors from all over the world, including new works by Ivam Alecque and Enar Gereu. Svir flipped through the pages and came across one that caught on his fingers. It wasn’t made of the usual seaweed pulp, but of some heavier, lacquer-coated material. At the top of the page was written: “Meet the Fantasie staff.” There were six portraits, done in tones of green. They weren’t acid-etch prints, or even paintings. Though green tinted, these pictures seemed realistic beyond all art. And one was a perfect likeness of… Tatja Grimm.

Svir wondered if he looked as embarrassed as he felt. These people were everything they claimed to be. And now Tatja Grimm was even more desirable—if that were possible—than she’d been before the others appeared.

Tatja placed her hand on his arm as she saw what he was looking at. “How do you like those pictures? It’s something we picked up in the Osterlais. Those pictures are made by a machine that looks at its subject and instantly ‘paints’ the picture, just like in the Diogens stories.” Her hand slipped down onto his. For a moment Svir’s vision blurred. A warm glow spread through his body. “My picture is at the bottom there because the Science Department was only introduced last year, when Svektr here gave in to the increased popularity of Contrivance Fiction… How long have you been acquainted with Fantasie?”

“Ever since I was in triform school. Ten years. The Tarulle Barge has come through the Archipelagate five times in that period. I’ve looked forward to each arrival more and more eagerly. I’ve worked part time for the University Library’s Restoration Department, seen all the issues they have.”

Tatja laughed, a friendly, intimate chuckle. The men at the table receded into the far back of Svir’s consciousness. “Such restoration is a worthwhile job. Did you know that in all Tu, there is only one complete collection of Fantasie?”

“You mean the proof copies on the barge?”

“No. Not even the Tarulle Company has a complete version. Remember, there was a fire on the Old Barge three hundred years ago; all the copies to that date were lost. Up to twenty years ago there were several complete collections, but a series of accidents has destroyed all but one.” She put a faint accent on the word “accidents.”

Svir had never thought about it, but it was possible that only one complete collection existed. As the Tarulle Company toured the world, they sold their magazines and printed extra copies to drop off at later island chains. Delivery was quite unreliable compared to a subscription service—such as some island magazines used. Thus it was very difficult to get a continuous sequence of issues. And Fantasie was seven hundred years old. Even though most issues had been recopied and their stories anthologized—any major library contained thousands of stories from the magazine—there were still “lost” issues unavailable on the Chainpearls.

The person or government that possessed the complete set must be very wealthy and dedicated to culture. “Who has the collection?” asked Svir.

“The regent of Crownesse, Tar Benesh,” Tatja answered.

Svir frowned. Tar Benesh had never impressed him as a man with deep cultural roots. He almost missed what Tatja Grimm said next. She wasn’t looking directly at him, and her lips barely moved. She seemed to be preoccupied with something far away.

“It’s too bad Benesh is going to destroy them.”

“What! Why? Can’t he be stopped?” His shocked questions tumbled over each other. Why would anyone want to destroy seven hundred years of Fantasie? The epic cycles, the ingenious short stories—all those glimpses into worlds-that-are-not—would be lost. Half the faculty of Arts and Letters at Krirsarque University would suicide.

Tatja’s hand tightened around his. Her face came near to his. “Perhaps there is a way to stop him. With you and your dorfox perhaps—”

“Please, Miss Grimm, not here!” Ked Maccioso leaned forward tensely, at the same time glancing around the tavern. Svir’s circle of attention expanded. He realized that now the Arbor was half full, the dance floor overflowing, and the jongleurs in fine form on their resonation platform. Tatja’s presence had made him completely unaware of the changes.

She nodded to the barge captain. “I suppose you’re right, Ked.” She turned back to Svir. “When were you planning to return to the Continent?”

Return? Then Svir remembered the lie he had implied. But he couldn’t reveal his fraud to her now.

“I sail tomorrow for Bayfast.”

“Would you like to come on the Tarulle Barge? It’s slower than hydrofoil, but we’ll get you there just the same.”

“I certainly would.” The words came spontaneously, but he felt no desire to retract them. Imagine sailing off with a beautiful, famous girl—into adventure. His previous reality seemed pale indeed beside these prospects.

“Why don’t you come out to the Barge with us tonight. We’ll show you around.” She looked straight into his eyes. The men with her watched carefully, too. They couldn’t talk here.

“Okay.” Svir set Ancho on his shoulder. They stood and worked their way to the door. The music and party sounds faded as they descended the ancient stone stairs that led from Highrock to the wharves of the Krirsarque harbor.

There were people waiting by a lander. Soon the silent crew was paddling them out to sea. Apparently the landing was a secret. It was well into the night sleep period and no other craft were moving. A breeze swept across the water, splashed luminescent algae into the boat. The crew shipped their oars and raised a sail.

Half an hour passed. No one spoke. Ancho shivered quietly, fearful of the water. They left the glowing waters of the harbor behind. It was cloudy, so even the light of Seraph was denied them. Gradually Svir convinced himself there was a greater darkness on the water ahead of them. And then he was sure. The huge pile of the Tarulle Publishing Barge rose tier upon tier out of the ocean. Beside it floated the smaller forms of scout hydrofoils. All were without lights.

They pulled over to the hulk, and a group of company sailors hauled the little boat into a lighter bay. A section leader saluted Maccioso. She said, “XO’s compliments, sir, and no exterior activity noted.”

Maccioso returned the salute. “Have him take us out past the shelf.”

Svir was escorted up a zigzag of stairs, into the heart of the vessel. They entered a luxurious, brightly lit room. Just maintaining the algae pots must have cost several man-hours a day. The five seated themselves around a table, on which was fastened a detailed map of Bayfast, the capital of Crownesse.

“This must all seem a bit melodramatic, Svir,” spoke Tatja, “but Tar Benesh has an efficient spy system extending from Crownesse on the Continent all the way to the Osterlai Archipelagate. The regent is ambitious without limit. He—”

Ancho began nibbling at the map. As Svir pulled him back, the animal keened an almost inaudible whistle. For an instant everyone in the room felt stark terror. Then Svir patted the little animal, and the dorfox relaxed. The feeling of panic disappeared. Ancho turned his large eyes toward Svir as if to ask forgiveness.

Tatja smiled shakily. “Tar Benesh is an extremely intelligent, capable individual. He is also perverse … and mad. Since he came to power in Crownesse, he has been a collector of Fantasie. We believe that, to enhance the value of his collection, he has sabotaged the others.”

“We know for a fact that he has destroyed other collections,” Brailly Tounse interrupted.

“Every five years Benesh holds the Festival of the Ostentatious Consumption. You may have heard of it…”

Svir gulped. “You’re not telling me that the Fantasie collection is going to be one of the sacrifices?”

Tatja nodded her head slowly. “Yes, that’s it exactly. The Festival is scheduled to begin ten days from now. We plan to arrive in Bayfast on the night wake period of the Consumption.” She gestured to the map of the Bayfast area and the detailed floor plans of the Crown’s keep. “I can’t go over the details of the plans now, but we are going to try to save that collection. Our magazine has the unconditional backing of the entire Tarulle Company—” she glanced at Maccioso “—in this venture. It’s not going to be easy. But I think we could succeed if we had Ancho’s help. And we need you too. You know Ancho best, and can persuade him to cooperate.”

Svir glanced down at the little mammal, who sat licking his paws, unaware of the plans being made for him. “Yes,” he answered, “dorfoxes are strange that way. It takes years to gain their loyalty.”

“Svir, this will be dangerous. But we need you. And some of the stories Benesh has exist nowhere else. Will you come with us and help?” She was pleading.

Svir suddenly realized what he was being asked to do. He could get killed—and all for some magazines. Before now he had been uneasy at the mere thought of traveling to Crownesse, and now he was going to risk his life in a plot against the government of that country. Some sensible element within him was screaming No, no, no! But he saw the pleading in Tatja’s eyes. He was hooked. “Yes,” he quavered, then continued more strongly, feigning confidence, “I’ll do anything I can.”

“Wonderful!” said Tatja. She stood. “You’ll want to go ashore and get your stuff together. Ked will have a boat take you back.” The group left the room and walked toward the outer hull. About halfway there, Tounse and Ramsey left them for the typeset area. The walk gave Svir time for some heart-stopping second thoughts. He had a vivid imagination and it was working overtime now. Ancho responded to his fright, moving nervously on his neck.

They reached the landing bay, and Maccioso went off to get a crew. Tatja turned to Svir. She grasped his hand gently and moved close. “Thank you, Svir. Fantasie is the most valuable artwork in the world. I want to save that collection very much.” She slipped her arms around him. He felt her body against his, her lips against his. His fears and half-conscious plans to junk the whole project were erased. He would be back.

Seven

It was well past midmorning. Svir stood, with Ancho on his shoulder, at the edge of the deck that reinforced the barge’s bowform. Tatja had said she’d meet him here and take him on a tour.

The Tarulle Barge was especially impressive by day. Over the centuries, it had grown without any overall plan. New barge platforms had been added and built upon, then built over again until the mass resembled nothing so much as a man-made mountain of terraces, cupolas, and cranes. The rigging and much of the hull were of spun glass—the most modern construction material. Yet some of the inner hulls were braced by timbers three hundred years old. From the top of the main mast to the bottom of the lowest hold was almost three hundred feet.

Now the filmy sails were stretched taut as the barge tacked across the Monsoonal Drag that blew steadily off the Continent.

Svir grabbed the railing to steady himself in the wind. Just looking up at those masts was enough to make him dizzy. He turned back to the ocean, the whitecapped waves that stretched out to the horizon. Two company fastboats cut through the farther waters as they sailed out to minor ports of the Chainpearl Archipelagate.

And the Tarulle fleet was not alone on the main. Svir could pick out three cargo barges at various distances. The Chainpearls lay along one of the busiest trade routes on Tu. For all their cultural importance, the publishing lines accounted for only a small fraction of total ocean tonnage. Most publishing enterprises were operated landside, and contracted with shipping companies to serve other islands. Relatively rare were the huge publishing barges, like Tarulle, which toured the entire world and printed a variety of books and magazines.

“Hey, Svir!” Tatja’s voice came clearly over the wind. He turned to see her striding toward him. Her hair was caught in a soft reddish swirl tied with a clip to the front of her tunic. The wind blew it back and forth to caress the side of her face. She seemed small and delicate even in her coveralls, but when she came near, her eyes were level with his. Her smile sent a long shiver down his spine.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t get together earlier in the morning,” she said, “but things are really moving around here. The Chainpearl run is always the busiest of the circuit, and when we have monsoon winds, every press is running at the breaking point.”

“Uh, that’s all right; I’ve had plenty to see,” he replied. As a matter of fact, the wake period had been something of a bore so far.

Since lunch he had wandered about the decks. The crew was distinctly hostile toward nonessential personnel. His ears still burned from insults received when he walked in a door marked TRIPULATION ONLY. These people weren’t really stranger-haters. They just didn’t want nonprofessionals messing up their work.

Tatja reached out to pet Ancho’s neck fur. Ordinarily the little animal didn’t enjoy being fondled by others, but he had taken a shine to Tatja. He didn’t retreat from her hand, and after a moment began purring satisfaction. “Hello, Ancho. You don’t look a bit seasick… Keep a careful hold on him, Svir. Some of the areas I’ll show you could upset him. But I want to see how hardy he is.”

Ancho had recovered from his initial fear of sailing, though he clutched at Svir’s shoulders more tightly than was necessary to maintain his perch. Dorfoxes came from a single island far around the world. They were long-lived and relatively infertile. Most became mortally seasick when taken aboard a ship. Ancho was an exception. Betrog Hedrigs, the great explorer and Svir’s grandfather, had brought the animal to Krirsarque forty years before. Ancho was probably the only dorfox in the Chainpearls. Perhaps it was just as well, for if dorfoxes were common, they would have turned society upside down.

Svir and Tatja descended two flights of stairs, to the vat holds. This was a different world: the inside of a claustrophobe’s nightmare. The wind was no longer audible, but there was an ominous creaking from the hulls. Dim orange light filtered from half-dead algae pots. Worst of all was the smell. Svir had been raised near the ocean, and generally enjoyed the odors of the sea. But here, the essence of those smells was being distilled.

Some of the workers actually smiled at them: Tatja’s presence was safe conduct.

Tatja pointed to where the water was coming through the bow-form. “The whole papermaking operation runs at just the speed that water can flow through these hulls. Not much vegetation in this part of the sea—that’s good for the fastboats, and bad for papermaking. It’s still worth seeing, I think.”

The seawater flowed through the underpart of the barge like a subterranean river. Narrow catwalks hung inches above the dark water. Every forty feet they had to climb up a short flight of steps and then down again, as they moved from the hull of one barge platform to the next. They walked about two hundred feet through the gloom. Svir admired the graceful way Tatja moved along the catwalk, and cursed his own fearful, halting pace. Below them, the channels narrowed, and the stench of concentrated seaweed was overpowering. Workers dribbled reagents into the sludge, thickening it even more as it approached the pressing drums and its new life as paper.

Tatja gave a running account of what was going on. She also kept a close eye on Ancho for any signs of nausea or disorientation. But the dorfox seemed quite calm. It was a different story for Svir. The stench was beginning to get to him. Finally he asked, “How can the hull take these chemicals? I should think it would rot inside of a few quarters.”

“That’s a good question,” Tatja responded. “The processing seems to have just the opposite effect. The carbonates in this sludge seem to replace the wood fiber. Over the years, the timbers actually become stronger. And what we discharge beneath the hull is so concentrated it kills any parasites that might nest there. Oops!”

She slipped on the walk. Svir’s arm reached out and grabbed her waist as Ancho caught for his hair. The three of them teetered precariously for a moment. Then Tatja laughed nervously. “Thanks.”

Svir felt obscurely proud. He might move more slowly than she, but when it came to a test, his caution paid off. He didn’t remove his arm from her waist.

At last they reached the stern. Here the remaining water was pressed from the bleached sea mass, and the paper was actually formed. The fine sheets hung for several days before they were wound about drums and taken up to printing. They walked up to the next deck, where tons of newly printed magazines were stored. Here there was only a faint musty smell. Thank the gods the final product didn’t smell like seaweed.

Tatja hung close on his arm and became more talkative. The Tarulle Company put out five different magazines every eighteen days. Fantasie and a couple of vice magazines accounted for three hundred thousand copies per issue and provided the bulk of the Tarulle income. Since some copies were stocked for as long as two years before they were sold, the barge carried two hundred tons of magazines. Over the centuries, it had been a race to keep up with world population increase. The barge was ten times as large as its first platform. All the latest machinery was employed. But even with increased landside printing and the prospect of automatic typesetting equipment, they were still falling behind.

They came to one of the loading slips. The sound of the wind was strong; beyond the huge hole in the hull was a bright panorama of sky and sea. A fastboat was moored here, its sails reefed and booms raised. A fifteen-ton load of magazines was being hoisted onto the hydrofoil by one of the barge’s cranes.

They watched the scene for several minutes. Finally the operation was complete, and the boat pushed away from the barge. Its booms were lowered and the boomsails—like sheets on a clothesline—were hung out. As it moved out of the barge’s wind shadow, it gathered speed, and the booms tilted into the wind. The whole affair lifted up on the slender stilts of its hydrofoils, and the boat moved away at nearly forty miles an hour. Then the barge’s crewmen closed the loading port and everything was dim again.

Tatja frowned. “You know, I’ve always wondered why they tilt the boomsails like that.”

Svir grinned broadly and gave her an explanation of Dertham’s pressure theories, complete with an analogy to tacking. Her eyes showed scarcely concealed admiration. “You know, Svir, that’s the clearest explanation I’ve ever heard of that. You ought to write it up. I could use some decent articles.”

“Okay!” said Svir. Then he noticed the dorfox. “He’s glazing over,” he said, indicating the animal’s eyes.

Tatja agreed, “So I see. We better cut things short. It’s almost supper time anyway. Let’s take a quick look at the print deck, and leave the editorial offices for later.”

They went up another stairway and entered a low room filled with noise and whirling machinery. Svir wondered if all vessels were this crowded. It destroyed the romantic air he had always associated with far sailing. He kept a close hold on the dorfox and petted him comfortingly. This was no place for Ancho to run about unprotected.

There were two printing presses in the room, but only one was in operation. At one end of the machine, a yard-wide roll of sea-paper unwound and slid between rotating drums. The upper drum was inked, and with every swift revolution it pressed print on at least twelve feet of the flowing paper. Beyond this first pair of drums, a second pair did the same for the underside of the sheet. The paper finally moved under a glass flywheel that chopped it into neat, yard-square sheets that landed in a small dolly, ready to be taken to the cutting and binding section. The machine was driven by a spinning shaft that connected to windmills outside.

One of the printmen looked up angrily and started toward Svir. Then he noticed Tatja, and his manner changed. Up close, Svir saw that the inkstained face belonged to Brailly Tounse. “Day, ma’am,” Tounse shouted over the din. “Anything we can do for you?”

“Well, if you have a couple of minutes, could you describe your operation, Brailly?”

Tounse seemed momentarily surprised, but agreed. He took them down the print line and traced the progress of the paper through the machine. “Right now we’re doing almost five thousand impressions an hour; that’s about one hundred thousand pages after cutting. Sometimes we go for days scarcely idling, but when we move into the Drag we have to make up for every minute of it. I’m pushing these machines at their limit now. If you could get us a hundred ounces of iron, Miss Grimm, we could make more steel bearings, and run these things as fast as the wind can blow.” He looked at Tatja expectantly.

She smiled and shouted back, “Brailly, I’ll bet there isn’t a thousand ounces of iron in the whole barge.”

Svir was confused. Since when did a printmaster ask an editor for mechanical help—and for something as ridiculous as iron! Perhaps the fellow was just teasing, though he certainly looked serious enough.

Tounse grimaced, wiped a greasy hand over his bald head, leaving a broad black streak. The man was obviously exhausted. “Well,” he said, “you might stick around and watch us install new boards on the other machine.” He waved at the idle printing press.

Tounse’s crew brought in sheets of rubbery printboard. The elastic base made it possible for them to stretch the type across the drum and fasten down the edges. The dur-sap type gleamed dully in the light. In a few moments it would be black with ink. When the first sheets were properly tied down, the workers moved down the line and tacked four more on the underside press. Then they hand-fed twenty feet of paper through the machine.

Tounse nodded to the man at the clutch. The gearing engaged. Perhaps the fellow released the clutch too fast. Or perhaps the gearing was fatigued. Whatever the cause, the machine was transformed into a juggernaut. Gears splintered and paper billowed wildly about him. The first print drum precessed madly and then flew off its spindle, knocking Tatja and Tounse against the first machine. The glass blade at the far end of the room shattered, and slivers flew everywhere. Whirling chaos lasted several more seconds.

Tounse seemed on the verge of breaking down himself: he had schedules to keep. Svir stepped around the wreckage to help Tatja.

“Svir—where’s Ancho!”

The dorfox was gone. Tatja bounced to her feet and swore. “Tounse! Forget your damn machines. We’ve got to find that animal.” Soon Tounse and his whole crew were searching the print deck for Ancho. Svir wondered briefly if the dorfox could be deceiving them with an “I’m-not-here” signal. Ancho hadn’t pulled a trick like that in five years, though gran’ther Hedrigs claimed it was the dorfoxes’ most common defense in the wild. If Ancho had not been killed in the mangle, he was probably scared witless. Panic would drive him outside and to some higher deck.

Svir left the others and ran outside. He glanced quickly about and ran up to the next level. Soon he had reached a deck of masts and windmills. He stopped, gasping for breath. From the sails and rigging above him came a continuous, singing hum. He was alone except for a single sailor in a short semiskirt. She was climbing a rope ladder that stretched down from the tallest mast. Svir wondered what she was doing. The rigging should be adjustable from the bridge; besides, it was too windy to climb safely. Then he looked past the girl. Almost forty feet above her, he saw Ancho’s furry form. Svir ran toward the mast.

The dorfox continued up the rope. He had panicked completely. Ancho was trying to retreat from all the things that frightened him, and up was the only direction left. Svir debated whether he should follow the sailor, then saw that it would just upset her precarious balance. The wind blew the ladder into a clean catenary form. As the sailor rose higher, she was forced to climb with her back to the ground and the rope above her. Ancho was radiating helpless distress—even down the deck it made Svir faint with fear. For a heart-stopping instant it looked as if she were going to fall. Her feet slipped from the rope and she hung by one hand from beneath the ladder. Then she hooked her leg around the ladder and inched forward. She was no longer climbing. One hundred fifty feet above the deck, the ladder was blown horizontal.

Finally she reached Ancho. She seemed to coax him. The dorfox clutched at her neck. The two came slowly down the long, curving ladder.

The girl collapsed at the base of the mast. Ancho released his tight hold on her and scuttled over to Svir.

Svir held the whimpering animal as he helped the sailor to her feet. She was a bit taller than average, with black hair cut in short bangs. At the moment her face was very pale. “That was a brave thing you did,” said Svir. Without doubt, she had saved the animal’s life. “You really know how to handle those ropes.”

The girl laughed weakly. “Not me. I’m a translations editor. Llerenito editions mainly.” She spoke in brief, anguished spurts. Her mind knew she was safe now, but her body did not. “That’s the first time I ever climbed them. Oh gods! Every time I looked down, I wanted to throw up. Everything looked so far away and hard.”

She sat back down on the deck. She was shaking as much as Ancho. Svir put his hand on her shoulder.

“I like to come up here on my free time,” she said. “Your animal came running across the deck like his tail was on fire. He just grabbed the ladder and climbed. I could tell he didn’t want to climb, but he was terrified of whatever chased him. Every few rungs, he’d stop and try to come down. I—I had to do something.”

As she spoke these words, Tatja arrived. She ran over and inspected Ancho with a careful, expert eye.

She didn’t say anything for several seconds, though she favored the girl with a long, calculating glance. Could Tatja he jealous? thought Svir, surprised. Finally Tatja turned to Svir and smiled. “Svir Hedrigs, be introduced to Translations Editor Coronadas Ascuasenya. Coronadas Ascuasenya, Astronomer Svir Hedrigs.”

“Pleased.” The girl smiled hesitantly.

“Tatja, Coronadas climbed almost to the top of the mast to save Ancho.”

“Yes, I saw the last of it. That was a brave rescue.” She petted Ancho. “I just hope we haven’t wrecked the dorfox. We were fools to take him along this morning.” She looked up at the sun, which was just past the zenith. “We might as well get some dinner. It’s too late to start any training. We can begin this evening.” Svir wrapped Ancho in his jacket, and they returned to the lower decks.

Eight

The sun was three hours down before they began. The night was clear and Seraph lit both sea and barge in shades of blue.

Tatja had used paperboard partitions to simulate a hallway within Benesh’s keep. She had constructed the mock-up on a deck out of the wind and hidden from the view of other ships. “I’ll admit it’s pretty crude, but we don’t need anything elaborate just yet,” she said. “The dimensions are the same as inside the Keep. You can see side passages opening off the main one.”

Svir walked to the entrance of the maze. It certainly wasn’t very convincing. The ceiling of the passage was purple sky. Company sailors were to simulate the Royal Guards of the Keep. They didn’t seem too certain of just what was expected of them.

Tatja reached past Svir’s shoulder to pet Ancho. “We want Ancho to make these ‘Guards’ hallucinate. It’s going to take some practice, but I want him to convince whoever he points those pretty ears at that you constitute an authority figure.”

Svir tried to break the news gently: “I doubt if that’s possible. Dorfoxes aren’t very bright. It seems to me that in order to generate a detailed illusion, Ancho would have to be humanly bright.” Tatja shook her pretty head. “Nope. The intelligence of the victim provides all the background detail. I’ve spent some time on Dorfox Island, and I know things like that are possible. C’mon, let’s start, or we’ll still be at it when we pull into Bayfast.”

Ancho was usually sluggish at night, but he perked up noticeably when Tatja had a large bowl of rehydrated klig leaves brought on deck. He strained to push his nose past the bowl’s cover, but it was securely fastened. The dorfox would have to earn his treats. Svir’s father had often played games like this with Ancho, and had managed to teach him a number of tricks.

Svir stepped back from the klig leaves and put Ancho on his shoulder. The “Royal Guards” had assumed their posts in the passageway. He saw Cor Ascuasenya standing at the far end of the mock-up.

Tatja stood behind Svir. In this position she could watch what happened with relative impunity, since Ancho was not likely to turn around and broadcast in her direction. “All right, Svir, give it a try. Let’s see if Ancho will give us a demonstration.”

Svir walked slowly through the mock-up. Everything seemed quite normal. But then, Ancho rarely aimed his illusions at his master…

When he was through, Tatja asked the first sailor what he had seen.

The fellow looked at her a little blankly. “What do you mean? When are you going to start the test?” The others were similarly confused. None of them had been conscious of Svir or Ancho as they walked down the hall. Tatja unfastened the lid on the klig bowl.

“That was a good performance ,” she said. “Ancho managed to scan every person as you walked past. Now we have to make him try other effects, till he produces exactly what we re looking for.” She fed Ancho two leaves. The little mammal sucked on them greedily, momentarily enraptured. When he was done he reached out for more, but Tatja had already relocked the basket.

Svir petted Ancho, who appeared to enjoy the game. “You know, Tatja, Ancho is really dependable with that I’m-not-here signal. And he can scan a lot of people at once. Why can’t you settle for that?”

“Being invisible isn’t enough. You’ll be going all the way to the center of the Keep—to the vault where the most precious sacrifices are kept. With Ancho’s I’m-not-here, you probably could steal the Guards’ keys. But what if some of the doors have combination locks? You need more than the Guards’ passive acceptance. They must actively help you. And there are more than five thousand volumes in the Fantasie collection. That comes to at least two tons. You’ll need help getting them out.” She picked up her noteboard and pen. “Let’s try it again.”

And again. And again.

Ancho soon learned that anything he tried would earn him some reward, but that if he repeated a previous performance, the prize was smaller. So he tried to come up with a new effect on each try. They soon exhausted the natural dorfox responses, the projections which served so well on the dorfox’s native island. Some of these could drive away predators or dull their senses. Others attracted insects and lulled their suspicions.

Ancho also tried the tricks he had been taught since arriving in civilization. On one pass all the crewmen in the passage broke into fits of hysterical laughter. Cor Ascuasenya had the giggles for fifteen minutes after Ancho came by. What they saw was hilariously funny, though they couldn’t explain to Tatja and Svir just why.

Each trial was a little different than the last. Tatja had innumerable variations to suggest. But after the first half hour, the project was awfully boring. For the sailors it was also uncomfortable. Ancho had put them through an emotional wringer. In one twenty-minute period he made them laugh and cry. He had responded eagerly to all the attention showered upon him, but now was beginning to lose interest. And he had yet to display any behavior Svir had not seen previously. What Tatja was asking of Ancho was quite unrealistic. A half-guilty feeling of relief grew in Hedrigs. He really wanted to help Tarulle Company with the rescue. Even more, he wanted to help Tatja. But it was beginning to look as though he would not have to risk his life, after all. He wasn’t exactly eager to stick his nose into the business of Tar Benesh.

For the hundredth time, Svir started down the mock passageway. He was still surprised by the respect and obedience these sailors showed Tatja. She must have more authority on the barge than her title indicated. When she made a suggestion in her low, pleasant voice, people hustled. It was evidence of how the best people rose to the top in any organization. What had he done to deserve her?

“Damn it, man, stand up straight when you walk!” It took Svir an astonished second to realize that Tatja was speaking to him. “Come back and start over. How can you expect the dorfox to cast an illusion of authority if you drag about like an addled tri-form student?”

Svir bit back a sharp reply. He walked to the beginning and started over. He almost swaggered down the passageway, imitating the gait of a Crownesse bureaucrat he had once seen at a university dinner in Krirsarque. The effect was subtle. Suddenly he was no longer pretending. He actually felt important and powerful, the way he had always imagined politicians and generals must feel. It seemed only natural that the sailors should snap to attention as he passed them. He returned their brace with an informal salute. The feeling of power disappeared when he came to the end of the passage.

Tatja smiled. “Wow! Cor, what did you see when Svir walked by you?”

Ascuasenya looked confused. She glanced from Tatja to Svir and back again. “When I first looked at him coming down the hall, I could swear it was my father—but my family is in the Llerenito Archipelagate! Closer, I saw that it was Captain Maccioso. I mean, I knew it was Svir—it had to be. But it was Ked Maccioso at the same time. Even now when I look at him, I see Maccioso—and yet I see Svir, too.” Svir glanced at Ancho’s ears. They weren’t pointing at Cor. The illusion persisted even after the dorfox stopped radiating.

Tatja didn’t say anything for a second. She made a note in her book and looked up. “Can you see Ancho sitting on Svir’s shoulder?”

Cor squinted. “No. All I see is that queer double image I just described.”

The others had similar reactions. About half saw Svir as Tatja. These people were especially confused, since they were seeing two Tatja Grimms. Every one of them realized that Ancho’s trickery was involved, and all but two could see Svir behind the illusion.

Svir was amazed. Even Gran’ther Betrog had never mentioned anything like this. But what practical use was it? A half-baked illusion that wasn’t even uniform. It would never fool the Royal Guards.

But Tatja seemed to feel otherwise. She finished writing in the notebook and looked up, smiling. “Well, we’ve done it. The illusion is one of the strongest I’ve ever seen. It persists even in the face of contradiction-to-fact situations. See, Svir, all you have to do is act confident. Ancho knows you and will radiate the same thing. I really didn’t mean to jump on you.”

Svir nodded, still blushing from the unexpected attack. Her technique worked, but it was shocking.

Tatja continued, “We’d better knock off now. Ancho’s losing interest; by now he’s crammed full of klig leaves. And most of you look pretty dragged out. Let’s have another session after lunch.”

During the rest of the voyage they had three hours of practice in every wake period. Toward the end, Ancho was able to broadcast the authority signal even better than he could the i’m-not-here. He also grew fat on the klig leaves, assuming an almost spherical form. Tatja had him perform his new trick under every conceivable condition—even in the dark, down in one of the holds. They found that if a single authority figure were suggested to all the “victims,” then they all saw that same person. It took Ancho only a fraction of a second to set up the illusion in the human mind, and it persisted without booster treatment for almost ten minutes. Ancho could detect people hiding behind bulkheads, and could even project the illusion through many feet of stone.

One experiment was a mystery to Svir. Tatja produced a flat balsir box and strapped it to Ancho’s back. He didn’t seem to mind; the box was light and apparently the straps didn’t chafe. The contraption looked vaguely like an oversize cookie cutter—its profile was an irregular set of semicircles and lines. Stubby cylinders of glass and wood projected from either side of the box. On top was a little hole, like the keyhole in a clock. And the device clicked almost like a clock when it was mounted on Ancho’s back.

Tatja refused to reveal the purpose of the contraption. She said it was a last precaution, one whose usefulness would be impaired if Svir knew its purpose. He couldn’t imagine what sort of precaution would have such properties, but he accepted her explanation. Perhaps it was empty—a placebo to give him the false confidence necessary to trigger Ancho’s authority signal.

The drag kept Tatja busy—even busier than the general run of the crew. Outside of their practice sessions, Svir was with her only two or three hours in every wake period. He actually saw more of the translations editor, Coronadas Ascuasenya. It was surprising how often he found her eating at the same time and in the same meal hall as he. He came to enjoy those meals more and more. Ascuasenya was older than she looked. She’d been with Tarulle almost seven years. She’d actually worked with Rey Guille, and had met most of the authors who had shaped Svir’s world view. She was no competition for Tatja—how could anyone be?—but Cor was pretty and intelligent and very nice to be with.

Svir spent the rest of his free time in the barge library, where Tatja’s influence had opened some otherwise locked doors. Only fifteen or twenty people out of the thousand 011 board were allowed in the library, but once inside there was no restriction on use of materials. Here Tarulle kept copies of all available issues of magazines published by the company. That amounted to about twenty thousand volumes. Jespen Tarulle was in the publishing business to make money, but he had a sense of history and the barge library was the most luxurious part of the craft that Svir had yet seen. Here was none of the cramped stuffiness of the lower decks. Virtually none of the sea or ship noises were audible through the thick glass windows. Deep carpets covered the floor. During the night wake periods, well-tended algae pots supplemented Seraph’s light. The librarian was a strange old bat. He was helpful enough, showing Svir how to find just what he wanted in the stacks. But he treated the magazines with an awe that went beyond Svir’s. You’d think he was a priest in a temple. Wherever Svir went in the stacks, the gangling librarian was sure to follow, lurking in wait for some desecration.

Maybe the guy wasn’t nuts. To a confirmed Fantasie addict, the library was halfway to heaven. The Tarulle collection was nearly three quarters complete—more than four thousand issues.

That was better than any library on the Chainpearls. There were several copies of the first issue, printed just forty years after the invention of movable type. In those years the magazine was sold in yard-square sheets, folded into quarters. Only rarely was a story illustrated, and then with crude woodcuts. But that was part of the enchantment. On a single barge—the predecessor of the present compound vessel—they had printed such works as Delennor’s Doom and Search for the Last Kingdom, novels that after seven hundred years were still studied by poets and read with enjoyment by near illiterates. And here he could see the originals, genius seen direct across the centuries.

That first barge had been owned by an ambitious trading family distantly related to the present publisher. In the beginning, the barge carried general trade between the islands of the Osterlai group, at the same time providing regular and vital communication between those islands. As the publishing sideline became more profitable, the family gave up their other trading operations and visited islands further and further asea. The lands beyond the horizon provided ever more enchanting themes and original authors. Fantasie readers were the first, and for a long time the only, cosmopolitans on the planet.

The magazine’s success was not without repercussions. The effects of the first interplanetary fantasy were shattering both for the magazine and for the rulers of the Tsanart Archipelagate. Ti Liso’s Migration foreshadowed the rise of contrivance fiction. Liso’s hero discovered a species of flying fish, which during the winter season in the northern hemisphere migrated to the southern hemisphere of Seraph. The hero captured several of the vicious creatures and taught them to pull his sailing boat. After an eight-day flight the fish deposited him, half-starved, on the south polar continent of Seraph. The story went on to describe the civilization he found there. It was an unfortunate coincidence that Liso’s Seraphian government was an absurd dictatorship founded on Tu-worship—for the tyrannical government of the Tsanarts was just such a farce in reverse. In plain fact the story had not been intended as satire. It had been written as straight adventure. Liso, a native of the Osterlais, had honestly conceived the most ridiculous autarchy imaginable. The Seraphiles of the Tsanarts did not take it as a joke, and for the next fifty years, until the fall of their religion, Tsanart waters were forbidden to the barge. This was an especial hardship, since the technique for sailing to the windward was not fully developed at that time. Avoiding the Tsanarts cost many tens of days sailing time.

Each day brought Svir closer to the coast of the Continent, closer to Bayfast. Back in Krirsarque, the prospect of invading the Crownesse Keep had seemed a faraway adventure. But now he was coming to realize that it was a reality which he personally would have to face. More and more he spent his time in the library, in retreat from the nightmare that approached. He had always found refuge in Fantasie, and now he dived into the more recent stories with a vengeance. Sometimes he could avoid thinking of his own problems for hours at a time. Despite the literary past, he enjoyed the recent stories most. The straight fantasy themes had been handled in every conceivable way in the past seven hundred years. It was only in the last two hundred that the idea of physical progress had emerged; the idea that there could be mechanical means of achieving fantastic ends. In the last fifteen years nearly half of Fantasies output had been c-f.

Hedrigs read straight through Enar Gereu’s new serial. Gereu was a biologist from the Sutherseas. His science was usually strong and this novel was no exception. Like many authors, he assumed the discovery of large metallic deposits on the Continent. Such deposits made possible the construction of huge metal machines—machines powered by the same as-yet-unexplained mechanism that made the sun shine. As far as Svir could tell, this story contained a genuinely original idea—one that he wished he had thought of first. Instead of going directly to Seraph in his metal “ships of space,” Gereu set up way-stations, artificial satellites in orbit about Tu.

The ultimate landing on Seraph produced deadly peril. Gereu populated the other planet with a race of intelligent animalcules. Svir choked—this fellow was supposed to be a biologist? But on the next few pages the author justified the alien life form in a manner quite as logical and novel as his space-island idea. Svir found himself totally caught up in the story as the human race fought to protect itself from the menace brought home by the explorers. The struggle was one of the most suspenseful he had ever read. Things looked hopeless for humankind. … He turned the last page.

The dirty bastard! Svir’s feeling of warm anticipation was suddenly shattered. Gereu let the human race fall before the invaders! He suppressed a desire to rip the magazine up into small pieces. The shock was like finding a snake in schnafel pastry. Wasn’t there enough tragedy in the real world? He had seen far too many stories of this type lately. Feeling quite betrayed by Messrs. Ramsey and Gereu, the young astronomer stood up and stomped out of the library. He scarcely noticed the librarian rush forward to secure the abandoned magazine.

Svir stopped on the deck near his cabin. It was past midday. Far above him the wind whistled through the empty rigging and mastwork. Just two miles away the brown and gray cliffs of Somnai rose abruptly from the ocean, hiding Bayfast from view. Where the surf smashed into the base of Somnai, the coastal plankton formed a glistening green band. In this longitude Seraph hung almost thirty degrees above the horizon, its bluish crescent wraithlike in the daytime sky.

The scene had no appeal. Svir cupped chin in palm and morosely inspected the pitted guard railing he leaned against. Even in Fantasie there was no escape. Reality could not be ignored: For all practical purposes they had reached Bayfast. He’d heard Kederichi Maccioso was treating with the Port Commander for permission to land. There was some problem about getting pier space, but that would be cleared up, and come this afternoon they would be sailing right past the Regent’s Keep into the Hidden Harbor. And tonight he, Svir Hedrigs, would be risking his life to save some damned collection of old magazines.

Nine

Coronadas Ascuasenya had made a careful analysis of the astronomer from Krirsarque: Hedrigs was a wimp, a naive kid who was following his libido straight to destruction. So why was she hung up on him?

The kid was tall, too skinny to be really good-looking. But he was bright, with an imagination that sparkled as she remembered Rey Guille’s had. And if he lived long enough, he might eventually grow up. She knew he was Betrog Hedrigs’s grandson; that should count for something. Old Betrog was the first to trek across the Continent, and the story of that expedition was a hair-raising thing.

So Cor watched and waited and wondered how directly she dared interfere. Finally there was no time left. The dope would be dead if she waited another day:

She found him at the railing just outside his cabin. He didn’t look up till she was at the railing beside him.

“Hi, Cor.”

“Hi.” She smiled. They stood for a moment silently, watching the sparkling sea. Then she said, “It’s tonight, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” casually.

“Svir … don’t go through with this thing.” So much for the subtle approach.

“Huh?” He looked at her in some confusion. “Why not?” “Magazines are things; they are not people. They are not worth dying for. And I think you would die. Crownesse is the most powerful country in the world. When we move into port, we’ll pass Hangman’s Row. They play rough here.”

“I agreed to do it, Cor. And I owe it to Tatja.” But there was fear on his face.

She took a deep breath and started over. “You don’t owe her one thing. Tatja Grimm is…” what? Cor stumbled on the question that had haunted her the last five years, the question that had eventually driven Rey Guille from the barge. “You’ve been used. Can’t you understand that? Tatja Grimm is not a very nice person.” The first statement was true; the second was beyond Cor’s knowing.

Svir scowled. “You can’t expect me to believe that. I’ve watched the crew working with her. She gets more wholehearted cooperation and respect from them than any officer.”

Cor sighed. “Yes, she is truly popular.” Five years ago Grimm could barely understand Spräk. After the Termiter incident things changed and changed again. Her vision, her invention, her scheming had increased Tarulle wealth more than it had grown in the previous century. “She is so popular, you should guess that she runs everything of importance here. The people you think are boss—Jespen Tarulle, Ked Maccioso, Svektr Ramsey—love and fear her. They’ve benefited by everything she’s done.

“And she’s at least as talented when it comes to mechanical things. She designed the power trains they use in printing. She invented the special sailing rigs we have on our hydrofoils.”

Svir looked up sharply at this last claim, and his face reddened. After a moment, he said, “And you? How are you free of this ‘spell’?”

Another mystery Cor had spent five years trying to understand. When she didn’t answer, Hedrigs’s tone became angrier. “And if she has done all you say, why do you think the plan to save the Fantasie collection will fail?”

“Before, increasing the wealth of the Barge increased Tatja’s power. Now … now I think she’s run us as far as she can. She’s never before messed with groundside politics. And even if the scheme succeeds, you may not.

“I … I don’t want you hurt, Svir. Tatja is not precisely evil. But she is beyond my understanding. And I know that if it would further herself, she’d put your life in jeopardy. Besides, I … want you myself.” Her voice dropped almost to a whisper.

Svir seemed to soften. The things Cor had said became more understandable and more excusable. “I’m sorry, Cor. I didn’t know you felt that way. But you’re wrong. Tatja is wonderful. And I love her.”

Wimp. “No! Just let me show you. Can you make Ancho broadcast that I’m-not-here signal?”

“Yeah.” Svir petted the animal sitting on his shoulder. “He’s almost seemed to enjoy things these last couple of days. If he knows that something is expected of him and yet I don’t pull that confidence act, he’ll generally broadcast the I’m-not-here.”

“Fine. Let’s use him to do eavesdropping. I’ll give you odds five-to-one that Tatja Grimm will be doing something you will find out of character.”

Svir seemed shocked by her vehemence. He suddenly seemed in search of excuses. “It’s kind of late, you know. She’s probably asleep.”

“Sleep? She does very little of that.” She caught his arm. “C’mon.” Cor led him fifty yards aft and down a couple of flights. They were well into the day sleep period, and hardly anyone was about. The mast watch could detect any hostiles approaching the vessel, but they were not well placed for observing the deck itself.

Finally Svir and Cor stood below the balcony of Tatja’s office. This was Cor’s last chance to back down. A terrified chill enveloped her. She had never crossed Tatja before, never really wanted to. Those who had—or who couldn’t accept what Tatja was—were all gone now. None had been killed; most had been left better off than before. Rey Guille had been set up with a cute little vice editor, and left with a groundside publishing career. But those earlier antagonists were never immediate threats to Tatja’s interests.

Svir cuddled Ancho. “Stay close, Cor.” He climbed one of the pillars, then gave Cor a hand up. Anyone outside Ancho’s range could see them, but it was too late to worry about that; they were committed.

They crawled to the office window and peeked over the sill.

The office was almost as large as the barge library. These last five years, the Tarulle Barge had used a considerable fraction of its new fortune to support Tatja Grimm’s strange hobbies. Walls and racks were piled high with Grimm unintelligibilia: floor plans of the ruins at Alt-Llerenito were draped over copies of the earliest writing found in the Tsanarts. Dozens of boxes held sea floor core samples Grimm had collected from all over the world. Black cloth hooded her daytime/nighttime experiments.

Tatja sat at her desk, her face in profile. Cor sucked in a breath, and grabbed Hedrigs’s arm. His mouth hung open, but he had the sense to know this was not the time to ask questions.

This was not the Tatja Grimm known to the world outside. There was the same face, that same red hair. But gone was the shapely body that no doubt had been such an attraction for Svir Hedrigs. Her jacket draped flat across slenderness. For the real Tatja Grimm was pre-menarche; nearly eighteen years old, yet still with the body of a twelve-year-old. Cor guessed there were only three—now four—people on the Barge that knew this secret. The past five years had proved it to be dangerous knowledge.

Tatja slumped forward, studied a large sheet of paper on her desk. Her face had none of the familiar animation and good nature. Her eyes were wide and staring, and a tear glistened on her cheek.

Hedrigs petted Ancho, and the two interlopers leaned close to the window. What was she reading that could be so depressing? The paper on her desk was a detailed engineering diagram of—what? Then Cor recognized it as one of the Osterlai plans for a steam-driven turbine. The engine was ingenious and quite workable, but many thousands of ounces of iron were necessary for its construction. Attempts to make boilers of nonmetallic materials had been comical, and occasionally disastrous, failures. Why would an engineering diagram cause someone to cry? Cor could imagine the question rattling around Hedrigs’s brain.

Tatja looked up suddenly, not at the window, but at the door to her office. Someone was asking admittance. She moved with amazing speed to cover the diagram and compose her features. She did nothing to disguise her figure. Cor realized there were secrets within secrets here.

The visitor was Brailly Tounse. Their conversation was mostly inaudible. “Your people took fifteen ounces … iron. My iron. Why?” “… needed steel.” Grimm’s expression was haughty.

Tounse was not put off; in all the years, he was the only one left with active hatred for the mistress of the barge. It didn’t affect his performance—and perhaps that was why he was allowed to stay. “So? I … too. We can’t run the presses without some metals, you …”

“Tough. We’re … lee of the Somnai now, so it doesn’t matter… return it after we leave Bayfast… need it to rescue … Fantasie collection.”

This last promise seemed to mollify Tounse somewhat, but he still asked, “… really think … will go through with it?”

Tatja laughed, and Tounse’s face went red. Her words were lost to the watchers. Footsteps sounded on the gangway across the next deck up. Another few seconds and they would be in clear view of people beyond Ancho’s range.

They backed to the edge of the balcony, slid awkwardly down the pillar. Seconds later a trio of crew appeared on the deck above, but by then Svir and Cor had recovered themselves and were casually walking away. Five minutes later they were on the other side of the barge.

This close to the Somnai, the wind was a tiny thing, but Cor found herself shivering in a film of sweat. She hadn’t realized how frightened she had been. They stopped a few feet from the entrance to Hedrigs’s cabin. Cor looked at him. “Well?”

Hedrigs was silent, looking at his feet. Then, “I don’t know, Cor. I made a promise. Perhaps if I knew more, what we saw wouldn’t be incriminating. I’m all confused.”

“When do you have to make up your mind?”

“Sometime this evening. I’m going to have a final briefing before lunch in the night wake period. I don’t know how long after that I’d be leaving.”

“Don’t go; at least think about what I said and what we saw.” She looked at him. “Please.”

Svir laughed harshly. “That’s one thing you can be absolutely sure of.”

She touched his hand briefly, then turned and walked away. She had done what she could. And somehow, for the first time in five years, she felt that Tatja Grimm had been outmaneuvered.

Svir didn’t get much sleep that afternoon. He lay on his bunk in the shuttered cabin and stared into the darkness. What was Tatja Grimm? To him she had been a miraculous discovery, an escape from loneliness. And until now he had never doubted her sincerity. To the crew she was an immensely popular leader, one who could solve any problem. To the top officers on the barge she could be a tyrant, a bitch-goddess. Where did that leave the Tatja Grimm who sat silently, crying over an engineering diagram?

In any case, Tatja was not what he had imagined. And that revelation put the present situation in a new light.

Though it was past sunset, he didn’t go down for breakfast. For one thing, crew came around and asked him to move to another cabin—something about painting the first one. Afterwards, he paced tensely back and forth in the new cabin. On the bed, Ancho chirped and croaked in misery.

Rescuing the Fantasie collection was an important project, but, as Cor said, not one worth dying for. Only now did he realize how weirdly he had been influenced by Tatja. Svir had agreed to do a job, but the promise had been extracted by means of fraud. What else was on Grimm’s agenda? If he went through with the plan, Svir Hedrigs would probably die tonight. And that death would not be the adventurous, romantic death of a hero, but an empty, final thing. Just thinking about it gave him the chills. How close he had come to sacrificing himself for … nothing. If it hadn’t been for Cor he would have, too. She was as true as Tatja was false.

He would turn Tatja down—the most she could get him for was his passage. She would have to find another sucker and another dorfox. He would see the Doomsday astronomer and get that situation cleared up. And, and he would see Cor again, and ask her to come back to the Chainpearls with him.

Svir fed the dorfox, then went down to the main chow hall. He didn’t see Cor. That was unusual, but not surprising. They were still working extra shifts. He would see her later in the evening, after he confronted Tatja. Now that the decision was made he felt so relieved, anxious only to be done with telling Grimm of it. He walked quickly up the steps to the briefing room, trying to imagine what Tatja might do when he told her he wasn’t going to help her.

The barge was entering Bayfast Harbor now. That entrance was a narrow gorge cutting through the Somnai cliffs. Seraph was nearly full, and its brilliant blue light transformed the normally brown cliffs into shimmery curtains of stone. Svir had to crane his neck to see the top, where the Bayfast naval guns were mounted, pointing down at him. The Tarulle Barge was almost half as wide as the entrance.

His stride broke as he noticed a landing boat pulling away from the barge. That girl with the helmet of short black hair—she looked like Coronadas Ascuasenya. He rushed to the terrace rail. She was a hundred yards away and not facing him, but he was almost sure it was Cor. On her lap she carried a small suitcase. What was going on? He ran along the rail, shouting her name. But the wind, channeled by the gorge, threw back his words. The boat rounded the curve of the gorge, disappeared. Perhaps it wasn’t Cor after all. But the old Fantasie motto came to mind: “Things are not as they seem.”

His mood was considerably subdued by the time he reached the executive deck. He confronted one of Tatja’s secretaries and was ushered into the briefing room.

Tatja smiled faintly as Svir advanced on her. “Have a seat, Svir. Ready to begin the briefing?”

Svir didn’t accept the proffered chair. He stood awkwardly before the table. Tatja’s physical presence made him suddenly ashamed. After all, he had given her a promise. And his spying had revealed nothing overtly evil. “Tatja—Miss Grimm, I’ve been thinking, uh, about this … project. I know it’s important to you—to everyone here. But I, uh, I don’t think that I’m the right, uh …”

Tatja picked a crystal letter opener from her desk. She flashed him a broad smile. “To make a long story short, you’ve decided you would rather not go through with it. You’re willing to pay for your passage, but you feel no obligation to risk your neck on this scheme. Is that what you are trying to say?”

“Why, yes,” Svir said, relieved. “I’m glad you see my point of view.”

Tatja didn’t say anything. She inspected the letter opener, tossed it into the air in a glittering whirl, and caught it just before it would have struck the table. A strange gurgly sound came from behind her lips. Svir realized she was laughing.

“You know, Hedrigs, you are the most gullible person I ever met. Correction: the second most gullible. You’re a provincial, overgrown adolescent, and how you thought you could fool anyone into thinking you had ever been off the Islands is beyond me. I need that dorfox. Did you think our encounter on Krirsarque was an accident? I’ve been studying those animals a long time. If I had you killed, I’m certain I could become Ancho’s new master. Only my … high moral character prevents me from taking that course.”

She smiled again. It was almost a sneer, revealing a hostility that seemed to transcend the subject at hand. “If I had known Ascuasenya could be such a nuisance, I would have kept her out of your way. Yes, I know of your activities this afternoon; no one gets on that balcony unnoticed. No matter. For my plans to succeed I now need some new form of leverage. Poor little Ascuasenya is perfect for my purposes.”

She sat back and relaxed. “I said you were the second most gullible person in my experience. Coronadas Ascuasenya is the first. She believed me when I told her that you had already left the Barge for Bayfast. She believed me when I told her that our spies had discovered new information which you had to have to avoid disaster. She believed me when I said that with the proper credentials she could get into the castle. Those credentials are very good counterfeits, by the way. When she is finally discovered, the Regent’s men will believe they have foiled a serious espionage attempt.”

Svir stepped back from the desk, as shocked by her hostility as by what she was saying. For an instant she didn’t seem human; Grimm sat in the middle of an infinite complex of scheme and counterscheme. Every detail of the last ten days had pushed him according to her whim. And still she is driving me. Only now she has a whip that could really make me die for her.

“Do you know what Tar Benesh does with spies, Svir Hedrigs?” The astronomer shook his head dumbly. Grimm told him. “And when they get done, the spy is generally burned alive,” she added. “So, Svir my love, run to your cabin, get Ancho, and come back here. The briefing’s going to take a while; and you will find that the only way you can rescue Cor is to save the Fantasie collection in the process.”

Svir had never before wanted to kill anybody. He wanted to now—very much. This creature had imperiled the two lives he valued most. He took a deep breath, fighting dizziness. Grimm watched, her smile as mocking as her words. When he finally spoke, his tone was almost mild: “You hate us that much?”

There was a change in the other’s eyes. The smile broke for an instant, then returned. “I hate stupidity, something you all have in such excess.”

Ten

Six hours later, Svir Hedrigs emerged from the offices of the Tarulle executive deck and descended to the debarkation levels. He wore a baggy suit and carried a balsir cage disguised as a suitcase. Ancho sat comfortably within the cage; he wore the mysterious clicker on his back.

The barge had reached its pier space and was so firmly tied in that it was difficult to tell where barge ended and pier began. Seraph cast a bright, cheerful twilight across Bayfast. The clashing colors of the city were transformed into pastels. Here and there those pastels were highlighted by yellow and green sparkles where people had uncovered their evening lamps. This shimmery, glowing pattern stretched up to the edge of the seaward cliffs and around the bay to the inland cliffs, which cut off the Monsoonal Drag and made Bayfast a placid spot even at this time of year.

Svir left the barge and walked along the waterfront. The Festival of the Ostentatious Consumption was not due to begin for another six hours, but the citizens of Bayfast were already competing for the best sites along the waterfront from which to watch the events on Sacrifice Island. Svir knew he looked strange walking so dourly among the happy people. His severe costume contrasted sharply with the plaids and monocremes of the Bayfastlings. But he had his special reason for not wearing the costume Tatja had suggested.

The people of Crownesse were happy, confident, and nationalistic. Their ancestors were mainly from the Chainpearls. The hardships of The Continent had forced a dynamism on them. Their bureaucracy was talented, flexible, and—above all—devoted to the crown. In the centuries since they declared their independence from the sea, their culture had spread far: from Sfierro and Picchiu—the old Llerenito colonies in the north—all the way around the coast to the southern tip of the Continent. For the most part (and as such things go), the crown’s rule had been a beneficial thing. That changed abruptly twenty-five years ago, when the implacable Tar Benesh appeared in the King’s Court. The king had died and Tar Benesh had become the regent. Shortly after, the king’s children had disappeared in a sea wreck.

Since that time, Tar Benesh’s rule had been a study in expanding tyranny. He had, with the faithful help of the bureaucracy, transformed the open spirit of the Bayfastlings into an aggressive barbarism which could embrace things like the Ostentatious Consumption, and which would enslave the world rather than lead it.

Svir was walking east, toward the keep. That enormous polyhedron loomed black over the warehouse roofs. Even the ingenious Bayfastlings had needed seventy years to build this ultimate protection for the crown. Nothing short of a year-long artillery bombardment could breach that artificial mountain—and the keep had artillery of its own.

Svir stopped before he reached the plaza that surrounded the keep. He slipped into the entryway of a closed shop and covertly inspected the castle port. Once more the horrible fear rose in him, making every movement slow and clumsy. He was going to die. The whole plan was so complicated, and depended so heavily on Ancho and the tenuous information Tatja had about the keep’s design. But he knew he wasn’t going to back out. Tatja had discovered a motive strong enough to make him take the risk. It had worked with Cor and now it was working with him.

A figure dressed in the uniform of a guard captain walked across the plaza toward the port. That was the signal to begin. The “captain” was a Tarulle agent whose job it was to tip the guardsmen at the door to look sharp because the crown’s inspector general was expected momentarily. In truth, Inspector General Stark was supposed to visit the keep at this time, but he had been detained by other Tarulle agents. In any case, the guardsmen at the door were prepared to assume that the next authority figure they saw was the inspector general.

Svir fumbled open the suitcase and lifted out Ancho. The animal responded nervously to his obvious anxiety. Svir tried to reassure him. As per instructions, he depressed the tiny button on the box strapped to Ancho’s back. The contraption immediately began making a click-clock-click sound.

What if the device were a bomb hooked up to a clock, timed to explode after they were in the keep? For a moment, he considered ripping the machine off Ancho’s back. But there were limits to paranoia, even when it involved Tatja Grimm. Since his survival was necessary for the salvation of the Fantasie collection, the device probably had some beneficial purpose.

He stood up, put the dorfox on his shoulder, and petted him. The animal began radiating immediately. His first target was a middle-aged merchant—one of the few people who were not yet at the waterfront. As the man passed Svir and Ancho, his eyes widened and he performed the nodding bow reserved for members of the bureaucracy. Svir smiled and walked onto the open area before the Keep. In some peculiar way, when Ancho used the effect on others, it made Svir feel confident, competent. And this feeling of authority actually seemed to feed back to the animal, making him perform even more effectively. Svir strolled briskly across the plaza.

The two guardsmen came to rigid attention as he approached. One of them saluted. Svir offhandedly returned the gesture. He passed his credentials to the guardsman. At the same time he spoke the ritual words. “The crown’s agent to inventory the prizes.”

The senior guardsman looked up from the papers. “Very good, sir.” Both men wore ridiculously ornamented dress uniforms, but there was nothing ornamental about their weapons. In a single glance, the guardsman gave Svir a thorough once-over. His alert and active mind checked for the minor details that would give an impostor away. Unfortunately for the guardsman, his own mind made him see the details he was looking for. If questioned later, both guards would swear they saw the crown’s inspector general enter the building, not Svir Hedrigs.

The fellow returned Svir’s papers to him and turned to a speaking tube that protruded from the black stone of the castle wall. Except for the words “Inspector General,” Svir couldn’t hear what was said. But that was enough. He had passed the second hurdle. At each checkpoint, the word would be passed back as to who he was supposed to be. With a greased sliding sound, a thirty-ton cube of stone lifted into the ceiling of the entrance. Beyond was darkness.

Svir walked in, striving not to look up at the mass of stone above him—or back at the city which would soon be blocked from his view. The stone cube slid down smoothly. He stood in the dark for almost five seconds. Ancho chirped nervously, and the device on his back continued its click-clock-click. He rubbed Ancho’s neck, and the little dorfox began radiating again. None too soon. A second block of stone was lifting. Algae-generated light flooded the chamber. He stepped into the hallway revealed and handed his papers to the guardsman standing there. Two were right by the entrance, while a third stood on a crenelated balcony. All three wore unadorned uniforms of bureaucratic black. They weren’t nearly as formal as the fellows outside, but they seemed just as competent. Svir’s identity was passed by speaking tube to the next checkpoint.

He walked on. The hall was well lighted and ventilated—even though it was within a mass of stone four hundred feet high. In some places the stonework was covered by wood paneling and cabinets filled with the arms of early kings. He passed through three more checkpoints, each of a different design. Whenever he had a choice of routes, he took the middle one—he was following a radius straight to the center of the keep, to the crown room vault.

Some of the outer passages were almost crowded. Bureaucrats were making final arrangements for the evening. Svir walked aloof from these, and hoped that none of them compared notes on exactly who they thought he was. As he approached the center, however, there were fewer and fewer people. Besides the guards, he encountered only an occasional very high-ranking bureaucrat.

Here the identification procedures became more complex. The walls were always paneled and the floors heavily carpeted. Svir wondered at this strange luxury in the most secret part of the keep. Besides the usual paintings and displays, there were small glass windows at regular intervals. Beyond that glass, Svir could see only darkness. Probably there was someone back there watching, guarding the guards. Svir was suddenly very glad that Tatja had had Ancho practice at deluding hidden observers. Now he knew the reason for the luxurious trappings. Besides hiding the observation posts, they probably concealed a variety of weapons and deadfalls.

Finally he reached the last checkpoint: the doorway to the crown room itself. It was conceivable that at this moment only the inspector general and Tar Benesh himself had authority to enter this storeroom of the nation’s greatest treasures and most secret documents. Here the clearance process was especially difficult. For a few uncomfortable moments, Svir thought they were going to take his fingerprints and run a comparison right there. Would the illusion extend to fingerprints? But apparently that procedure was used in special cases only, and Svir was not subjected to it.

As they opened the outer vault door, he casually turned to the officer in charge. “Captain, I have instructions to move some of the prizes out to Sacrifice Island right away. I’d like to have a couple of squads ready when I finish the general inventory.”

“Very good, sir,” she answered. “We have about twenty people with the proper clearance for that job. I can have them here in fifteen minutes.” She handed Svir an algae lamp. “Don’t forget this, sir.”

“Uh, thanks.” He accepted the lamp uncertainly. “If everything’s in order, my inventory shouldn’t take that long.”

He turned and walked quickly into the lock area between the double doors. The outer door slid shut, the inner lifted open, and he stepped into the crown room.

The vault was a disappointment. The room was large and without ornamentation. Svir’s lamp provided the only illumination. Over all hung a musty smell. The treasures were not heaped in some spectacular pile, but were neatly catalogued on racks that filled most of the room. Each object had its own classification tag. A row of cabinets along one wall housed the personal records of the Royal Family. Svir walked along the racks. He almost didn’t notice the Crown Jewels and the 930-carat Shamerest diamond; in the dim light everything looked dull. Finally he reached the red-tag area—the prime sacrifices for the festival.

And there it was: the Fantasie collection. Its sheer bulk was impressive. The thousands of volumes were stacked on seven close-set racks. The racks sat on dollies for easy handling. Obviously Benesh thought of Fantasie as an article of portable wealth rather than a source of philosophical pleasure. But—as Tatja had so cynically pointed out—the collection was also the vehicle of Cor’s salvation. Even in this dim light, he could read some of the binding titles. Why, there was the last obra of Ti Liso’s zombie and golem series! For the last three centuries, Chainpearl experts had been trying to find that issue. The series had been illustrated by Inmar Ellis, probably the greatest artist of all time. Svir noticed all this in passing. No matter how valuable this collection, its physical dimensions were more important to him now. There was indeed enough room between the third and fourth racks to hide a human body.

Now he had to find the correct passage to the prison tier. If Tatja had lied about that… But if she lied, then she couldn’t possibly get the collection. Not by Svir’s efforts, anyway.

The vault doors were so well constructed that Svir did not notice that he had been discovered until the inner door lifted and he heard the raging voice of—

Tar Benesh.

The regent advanced into the room. A look of astounded shock came to his face as he saw Svir. Svir wondered briefly what authority figure the dictator saw in Ancho’s illusion.

Benesh was less than five feet tall. He weighed more than two hundred pounds. Once that weight had been slab-like muscle, but now he was as soft as the velvet and flutter-feather costume he wore.

He raised his arm shakily and pointed at Svir. “Take that—man,” he choked. The black-uniformed guardsmen swarmed toward Svir, their momentary confusion replaced by professionalism. Svir felt only confidence as they approached. He was in trouble, true, but he could work his way out of it.

The confidence vanished, replaced by sudden terror.

Then the guardsmen had him. He felt a needle thrust into the base of his neck, and his entire body became a single charley horse. He couldn’t move, he could scarcely breathe, and what he saw and heard seemed to be far away, observed through a curtain of pain. He felt his person being searched, and heard Benesh say, “A dorfox, that’s the creature you saw.”

“But M’Lord Regent, that’s a mythological creature.” “Obviously not! Search the crown room.” An unprecedented order. “No one enters or leaves this vault till we find—” He paused, realizing that this was impractical. It would tie up the guard situation in the whole Keep. “No, forget that. But I want that creature, and I want it alive.” There was a lustfulness in his voice. “Check everyone and everything that passes through these doors.”

Svir felt himself picked up, moved swiftly toward the door. Of all the humans in the room, he was the only one who noticed the dorfox seated on the shoulder of Tar Benesh.

As they rushed him through the keep, Svir wondered what had given him away—though he really didn’t care now. Nothing could save Cor and himself. And soon this paralysis would be replaced by the ultimate agony of interrogation.

Finally his captors stopped. There was a creaking sound. Then he was sailing through the air. His hip struck the hard stone floor, adding extra fire to his pain. His head and shoulders were resting in a pile of straw. He smelled rot and blood. The door swung shut and he was in darkness.

There was a shuffling, and someone touched him. Cor! She held his shoulders and whispered what seemed a complete irrelevancy. “I’m sorry, Svir! I tried to warn you but they got me.” She was silent for a second, waiting for some response. He longed to put his arms around her. “Svir?” she whispered. “Are you all right? Svir!” He was so thoroughly paralyzed he couldn’t even croak.

Eleven

“—realize we’re sitting beneath the keep artillery. To get out, we have to go around the peninsula past the entrance guns. And now you want me to send twenty people on a raid! When Benesh connects us with this scheme, we’ll be blown out of the water—if we’re lucky!” Kederichi Maccioso slammed his fist down on Tatja’s desk, jarring her drafting instruments an inch into the air.

“Relax, Ked, we aren’t suspected of anything. It’s still a state secret that the collection is one of the sacrifices. There’s—” She broke off and motioned Maccioso to be silent. Barely audible against the thrumming crowd sounds, there was scratching at her office window. Tatja pushed the window open and pulled a shivering, croaking Ancho into the room. She held him close, comforting him with low sounds. Maccioso sat down abruptly and stared at them, shocked.

“The dorfox wouldn’t come back alone unless Hedrigs had been taken.” It was an accusation.

Tatja smiled. “That’s right. Svir never had a chance, though he lasted longer than I thought he would.”

“So Benesh knows. We’ve—” Then he realized what Tatja had just said. “You knew all along he would fail.” His voice became flat, deadly. “For all that you’ve done for Tarulle, I knew there’d come a time you’d sacrifice the barge. Don’t think I haven’t planned for it.”

“Shut up, Ked,” Tatja said pleasantly. “You’re disturbing Ancho. I know all about the coup you and Brailly have had in reserve the last three years.” She set Ancho on her desk. “You know,” she said with apparent irrelevance, “I’ve studied dorfoxes. If they were just a little smarter or a little more mobile, they could take over the world. As it is, I can manipulate them—much to Hedrigs’s surprise, I’m sure. With him out of the way, Ancho will accept me as his new master.” She undid the clicker and laid it carefully on her desk. “Hand me that bottle of lacquer, will you?” She accepted the bottle and screwed an atomizer onto its cap. She inserted the nozzle into the clicker’s keyhole and puffed the volatile lacquer into the box. In spite of himself, Kederichi Maccioso leaned over the table to watch. Ancho moved to the corner of the table and munched the klig leaves that Tatja had thoughtfully provided.

“That should fix it.” She undid hidden catches and lifted the top off the box. “You know that picturemaker we’ve been using in our latest issues? I’ve made some refinements.”

Maccioso looked at the machine’s innards. It did resemble the picturemaker Tarulle used. In that device, light was focused on a cellulose plate coated with a special green dye. Wherever light fell on the plate, the dye faded toward transparency. If the plate were properly coated with fixing lacquer, a permanent picture resulted.

Tatja pointed. “See, this clock movement pulls the tape through the central area. Once every two seconds, this shutter flicks open. On alternate seconds, the shutter on the other side of the box takes a picture. So we have a record covering nearly three hundred degrees, a picture every second for ten minutes.” She pulled the reel out of the clicker and began to examine it under a large magnifying glass. Maccioso had a distorted view of the pictures through the same lens.

The first thirty pictures covered Svir’s approach to the keep. Every other picture was reversed, since it had been made on the opposite side of the cellulose. Despite this and the fact that the pictures weren’t as clear as ones made with one-shot devices, the sequence gave Maccioso the strange sensation that he was sitting on Svir’s shoulder. On every second frame, Svir’s head blocked out part of the picture.

Tatja carefully inspected each picture, becoming increasingly excited as they showed the interior of the keep. Here the exposure she had chosen was more effective and the pictures sharper. “See, the paneling, the paintings—they weren’t in any of the reports. And here, I’ll bet this is what snagged Hedrigs.”

Maccioso squinted at the tiny picture. It looked no different than the three or four previous. “That rectangle on the wall—it’s some kind of window. My guess is the guards have heard of those poison gases we saw in the Sutherseas. That little window is one end of a periscope, and the observer is in another room, protected from the gas, and apparently beyond Ancho’s range.” They looked at the rest of the pictures, but the last ones were badly underexposed, showing nothing but vague green blurs. They saw' something of the crown room. In one of the pictures, Tatja claimed she saw a group of men.

She reached for tiny dividers. “We know that Ancho can broadcast through almost twenty feet of porphyry.” She made some rapid measurements of relative sizes on the tape. “That periscope window is about three inches by three.” She sat back and her eyes unfocused for a moment. “Now assuming their optics are no better than elsewhere, that periscope can’t have a resolution better than half an inch.” She looked up and flashed Maccioso a dazzling smile. “I’m all set!”

Tatja got up and began to take off her clothes. Maccioso stood up too. Admiral, barge captain … helpless little boy. For almost five years he had loved and feared this woman. She had worked miracles for the Tarulle Company, magic that he knew must one day turn on them. As Tatja laid her shirt on the chair, he reached out a huge hand to grab her shoulder, forcing her face close to his.

“You never intended this scheme to save Fantasie, did you?”

Tatja shrugged. “You know the saying, Ked. 'Things are not as they seem.’ ”

“What are you after, damn you?” He shook her, but received no answer. “Well, if you think we’re going to sit still for this, you’re mad!”

“Poor Ked,” Tatja said gently. Her hand moved softly up his arm, found a nerve in his elbow. As he jerked back, she slipped from his hold. “It’s true. We’ve come to a … parting. And I have put you all at risk.” She reached into an alcove and drew out a full suit of black armor. The crown’s inspector general was about her height, but the armor had been designed for a male. In places it chafed tight, but she managed to get it on.

She slipped a steel-edged rapier into its sheath and picked up Ancho from the desk. At the door she turned to face him. “Your chances are good if you keep Brailly on a leash. And go through with the diversion. You really have no choice.”

Kederichi Maccioso stared at her for a moment, then nodded slowly. His voice came almost gentle. “That’s right, you … bitch.”

Seraph was in its last quarter, and the evening wake period was ending. Nearly a million people—the entire population of the capital—were crowded along the water’s edge. In the waning blue light the crowd was a mosaic carpet covering the streets and the roofs of the lower buildings. The festival was its noisiest as the Bayfastlings cheered the first sacrifices being towed into the bay. These were the secondary sacrifices, the appetizers. The barges formed a continuous train out to Sacrifice Island. They were stacked high with worked jade, optical devices, paintings. Hanging from the stern of each, an oil-wick torch lit the sacrifices.

A twisted smile crossed Tatja’s lips as she regarded the scene. She descended to the sub-pier passageway reserved for official use, and five minutes later emerged on the city side of the crowd. There were plenty of people here, but there was no need to push through crowds. She spoke quietly to Ancho, petted him just so. According to all her theories, Ancho would accept her as his new master, but this was the critical test. She couldn’t tell whether he was radiating or not. Certainly the signal was having no effect on her. Then she noticed that people came to attention as she walked past. Good Ancho.

She reached the keep without incident. The guardsmen looked her over very carefully, this being the second inspector general they had seen that day. But they let her through. As she stood in the darkness between the two doors, she moved the dorfox to her waist. The armor plates gave him good purchase, and now he was below the view of the periscopes.

As she came to the doors of the crown room, Tatja spoke in a low, masculine voice to fool any listening tubes. Even with her visor up, she knew the armor would deceive the hidden observers. And of course the guardsmen in the hall didn’t have a chance. With Ancho’s help, even her fingerprints passed inspection.

Once in the crown room she moved quickly to the royal records. She lifted out the drawer she wanted, thumbed through it, and pulled out a single sheet of vellum. Good. It was the same form as had been publicly displayed at the Assignation of the Regency. From her pouch she drew a seemingly identical paper, smudges and all, and slipped it into the file. She smiled to herself; she had spent hundreds of hours crafting the forgery. It was the high point of her brief career in the drafting arts—and totally beyond the skill of ordinary humans.

Then she left, ignoring the puzzled guards. They had expected the IG to supervise the removal of the prizes.

Tatja found the stairway to the Conciliar Facet unguarded. This was unexpected good fortune. Perhaps Maccioso’s diversion had been more effective than she’d planned.

She removed the black resin armor and set the outfit on one of the display racks that lined the base of the stairwell. This was the most perilous part of her plan. Ancho would be a marginal use, an emergency escape tool at most.

From a cloth pouch she drew a white dress and jeweled sandals. She slipped them on, put Ancho on her shoulder, and ran up the stairs. This stairway wasn’t often used, since it was a single spiral ascending four hundred feet. Most people preferred to go by stages. Even so, Tatja kept the rapier. Except for that, and the dorfox clutching her shoulder, she might have been an Island girl at a communion picnic.

She took the steps three at a time, so fast that she had to lean toward the center of the spiral to keep her balance. After she first conceived this scheme, she spent much effort scouting Bayfast, studying the people and the keep. Tar Benesh had created the Festival of the Ostentatious Consumption to draw attention from a much more solemn event that took place every five years at the same time. The top people in the bureaucracy were scrupulously honest, but if she were even minutes late, she would have to wait five years—or possibly forever. Taking the back way would avoid Benesh’s Special Men, but if she were wrong about the bureaucratic esprit of the rest, then she would likely die.

Tatja took the four-hundred-foot stairs in a single sprint. At the top of that flight was an entrance to the Conciliar Facet, a pentagonal amphitheater that crowned the enormous polyhedron that was the keep. Beyond the next door was the final test. She slid the door open and crept onto the uppermost tier of the amphitheater. There was a cool breeze, and Seraph blue covered everything. From the city came crowd sounds.

Less than a third of the seats in the facet were filled, and those were down in the center, by the podium and reading lamp. Virtually everyone here wore bureaucratic black. An important exception was the gross and colorful bulk of Tar Benesh, sitting in the first row before the podium.

Tatja glanced around the Facet. Maccioso’s diversion must have worked. Few of the guards appeared to be Benesh’s bully boys. There were only fifteen or twenty armed men present. Of course one of them might still be rotten, but that was a chance she must take. She noticed one man just five feet from her hiding place. The fellow leaned unprofessionally against the edge of the tier, blocking her entrance. She reversed the hilt of the rapier and moved swiftly forward, ramming the pommel into the base of the man’s neck. He collapsed quietly into her arms. She dragged him back, at the same time watching for signs that someone below had noticed.

The speaker’s voice came clearly to her. She knew there were about five minutes until the ceremony reached its critical point. She looked at her rapier. It was no longer an asset. Without putting herself in silhouette, she reached up and slid the weapon over the battlement. There was a faint scrape and clatter as it slid slowly down the side of the fifty-foot facet. Tatja set Ancho down, and petted him. Only the most subtle effects would be much use here. They waited.

The ceremony was nearing its end. On the podium stood the Lord High Minister to the Crown, the highest bureaucratic officer of Crownesse. The man was old, but his body was lean, and his voice was clear and strong as he read from the curling parchment. He had the air of a man who was for the thousandth time repeating a fervent and sincere prayer, a prayer that had so often been fruitless that it had become almost perfunctory.

“And so in the Year of the Discovery nine hundred and seven did the Crown Prince Evard II and his sister, the Princess Marget, take themselves aboard the Royal Yacht Avante to tour the eastern reaches of their Dominions.

“And on the fifth day of their voyage a great storm sent their yacht upon the Rocks of the South—for so we have the word of the ship’s captain and those crewmen who survived the tragedy.”

Tatja stood up slowly, out of their view. She fluffed out her skirt and waited intently for the moment that would come.

“The royal children were never found. So it is that the regent continues to govern in their stead, until such time as our rulers are recovered. On this twenty-fifth anniversary of that storm, and by order of the regent, I ask that anyone with knowledge of the royal family step forth.” The Lord High Minister glanced about moodily. The ceremony was almost a legal fiction. It had been fifteen years since anyone had dared Tar Benesh’s revenge with a story of the lost children. It is not surprising that the minister almost fell off his stand when a clear, vibrant voice answered his call.

“I, Marget of Sandros, do claim the crown and my dominions.” Tatja stood boldly on the uppermost tier, her arms akimbo. Behind her, and invisible to those below, sat a small animal with large ears. The startled bureaucrats stared at Tatja, the beautiful woman who had turned a ceremony into a coup. Then their eyes turned to the regent. The gaily dressed dictator advanced six ominous steps toward Tatja. His pale eyes reflected hatred and complete disbelief. For twenty-five years he had ruled the most powerful country on Tu—and now a lone girl was challenging him at the very center of his power. Benesh gestured angrily to the guardsmen—the sleek professionals with thousands of hours of target and tactical experience, the deadliest individuals in the world.

“Kill the impostor,” he ordered.

Twelve

When they came, Svir was ready.

He and Cor had lain quietly in the darkness, telling each other their stories in frightened whispers. As Cor massaged the numbness from his arms, Svir told her of his one backstop against Tatja’s treachery. Brailly Tounse—who seemed to hate Tatja as much as Svir did—had provided him with five pounds of Michelle-Rasche powder. Now that powder lay in the heavy weave of his jacket.

“It’s safe until the cloth gets twisted tight,” he whispered to Cor. “Then almost any extra friction will set it off.”

He struggled out of his jacket. Cor helped him wedge the fabric into the door crack. Though only a small portion of the jacket could be jammed in, it would be enough to set off the rest of the powder. Then they retreated to the far corner of the cell. There was nothing more they could do. He hadn’t said so to Cor, but the best they could hope for was a quick death. If they weren’t killed in the explosion or by the guards, then the next stop was the torture chambers. Their present cell was a carefully contrived filth-pit, designed to prepare prisoners psychologically for what was to come. Somehow the prospect of torture and death no longer provoked absolute terror in him. Cor was the reason. He wanted to hide his fear from her—and to protect her from her own fears.

He put his arm around Cor’s waist and drew her to him. “You came out here to save me, Cor.”

‘Tou did the same for me.”

“I—I’d do it again.”

Her reply was clear and firm. “I, too.”

When they came, there was plenty of warning. It sounded like a whole squad. The heavy footsteps stopped, and when they began again, there were only two or three men. Svir and Cor slid under the filthy straw. The footsteps stopped at the door. Svir heard the key turn, but he never heard the door open. For that matter, he never actually heard the explosion. He felt it through his whole body. The floor rose up and smashed him.

He forced himself to his feet, and pulled Cor up. Svir was scarcely aware of blood flowing down his jaw from his ear. The doorway was a dim patch of light beyond the dust and smoke. They gasped futilely and ran for the opening.

The blast had destroyed the bottom hinges and blown the rest of the door into the ceiling. In the hallway lay the two guardsmen. Both were alive, but in much worse shape than the prisoners. One, with a severe scalp cut, tried ineffectually to wipe the blood from his eyes. Svir and Cor stepped over them and ran down the hall. Then they saw the men at the end of the passage—the backup section. The two prisoners came to a sudden halt and started to turn in the other direction.

A guardsman smiled faintly and twisted a lever mounted in the wall. A weighted net fell onto the two escapees. As the guard approached, Svir lashed out at his legs, hoping to provoke lethal retaliation. The guard easily avoided the extended hand, and grabbed it with his own. “You know, fella, for someone whose life we’re supposed to protect, you’re making things damn difficult.” Svir looked back blankly. He couldn’t make sense of the words spoken. The net was removed, and the guards marched Svir and Cor down the hall. The couple looked at each other in complete confusion. They weren’t even treated to the paralysis the guards had used before. It was a long uphill walk, and the guards had to help Cor with the last part. Svir wondered if he had gone crazy with fear and was seeing only what he hoped to see. They came to the final door. The guard captain went through. They could hear him through the open doorway.

“Marget, the individuals you requested are here.”

“Fine,” came a familiar voice. “Send them out. I want to talk to them alone.”

“Begging your pardon, Marget, but they have repeatedly offered us violence. We could not guarantee the safety of your person if you interview them alone.”

“Mister, I told you what I wanted.” The voice took a tone that brooked no argument. “Now jump!”

“Yes, Marget!” The captain appeared at the door. He gestured courteously to Svir and Cor. “Sir and Madam, you have been granted an interview with the queen.”

“The—Queen?” Cor asked incredulously. She got no answer. They were pushed past the door and found themselves standing on the top tier of the Conciliar Facet. By the light of waning Seraph they saw a beautiful girl in a full-skirted dress.

Tatja turned to them. “You two look like hell,” she said.

Svir started angrily toward her, his fright and pain transformed into hate. There was a scuttling sound on the floor, then a tugging at Svir’s clothing. A soft wet nose nuzzled his neck. Ancho! Svir’s hands reached up and petted the trembling animal.

“Marget?” asked Cor. “Queen? Really you are the Lost Princess of Crownesse?”

Tatja looked beyond them, at the departing guards. “You might as well know the truth. You can’t do anything about it. I was no more Marget of Sandros than you; now I am incontrovertibly the queen. My footprints match those of the infant princess which are kept in the crown room. You should have seen the look on Benesh’s face when the Lord High Minister announced that I was heir to the crown. The regent had the royal children murdered twenty-five years ago. The job was botched and he couldn’t produce bodies that would pass an autopsy. He knew I was a fraud but there was no way he could prove it without revealing his own guilt.”

Svir looked across the curving dome of the keep at the city. The crowd sounds came clear and faint through the air. The crowd had moved away from the waterfront. There would be no sacrifices tonight—the people had been told that the crown had been claimed. Crownesse had a queen. That called for the largest of festivals, a celebration that would go on for many days.

Svir turned to Tatja Grimm. “You had to lie and cheat and steal and—probably—murder to do it, but you certainly got what you wanted. You control the most powerful country in the world. I wondered what could make you as vicious as you are. Now I know. The hidden motive that mystified me so much was simple megalomania. Female ‘Tar Benesh’ has taken over from male. Is this the end of your appetites,” he said, the hate rising in his voice, “or will you one day rule all Tu?”

Tatja smiled at Cor and Svir, the scornful smile that was now so familiar. ‘You never were very bright, were you? It’s possible that I’ll take over the world. As a matter of fact, I probably will. It will be a by-product of my other plans. I chose Crownesse very carefully. The country has immense physical resources. If there are large heavy-metal deposits anywhere, they are in Crownesse. The government is talented and dedicated. Most administrative posts are awarded on the basis of civil service tests. And the entire bureaucracy is fanatically dedicated to one person: the legal holder of the crown. They served Tar Benesh and his evil for twenty-five years, and they will serve me just as faithfully. I will not be bothered with coups and elections, as I might be if I took over one of the archipelagates.

“We’ve reached a critical point in the development of civilization, in case you haven’t noticed. In the past century there have been a number of basic scientific discoveries. The pharmacists of the Sutherseas have developed drugs which control most of the major diseases. A physicist in the Osterlai Archipelagate invented that picturemaker we use. All over the world, revolutionary advances are being made. Rey Guille was right, you know: Organizations like Tarulle are responsible for this. For centuries they spread ideas from island to island until finally scientists stopped thinking of them as fantasy and actually invented what writers described. I’m making a gift of that Fantasie collection to Tarulle, by the way.”

“How magnanimous.”

Tatja ignored him. “These inventions and techniques are going to have effects far beyond what is obvious—just think what that picturemaker will do for parallax astronomy. If they all were brought together and worked over intensively, the changes would be even more spectacular. But you people on the islands are too lazy to do that. The people of Crownesse are not. They’ve had to work awfully hard just to stay alive here on the Continent. They will take your inventions and use them and develop more inventions, until they control the entire planet.”

She looked up into the sky, at Seraph and the bright star Prok. “I’ve had five years on the Tarulle Barge, enough time to sail the world, enough time to guess what this place really is. Myth and standard archeology agree that we originated somewhere deep in The Continent, that man moved to the islands recently—just before the rise of civilization. What else could explain the absence of prehistorical remains on the Islands? But every year the biologists and the explorers come closer to the true answer. That truth would be known around the world if I published all the stories I am getting at Fantasie: the human race originated in the islands—and in the historical past.

“Do you understand me? This is a world of shipwreck, where people lost their memories and their minds.” Her arm brushed at the sky. “And Seraph is too near; any fool can see that. Out there must be empires so vast they can ‘lose’ whole planetary systems.” Tatja’s voice changed, lost its authority and its spite. She turned to look at Svir and Cor; her eyes were soft. For a moment she wasn’t the master of all events, but a young girl, very much alone. “You call me megalomaniac. That is to laugh. What is worth having here? Ruling this world does not interest me, except for one thing: I’ve never found anyone I can talk to, anyone who can understand the things I often want to say.”

Svir suddenly understood the meaning of her scornful smiles: hopeless envy.

“And that is why I am going to turn this world upside down, and make of it a fire so bright that someone real will notice.”

The fallen goddess turned from the parapet and the gay crowds. She didn’t look up as she walked away.