The Golden Queen

Chapter 15

Maggie and Orick got off their airbike. Maggie’s legs were so cold she found it difficult to walk, and for a moment she just stood shaking in the snow outside the hot springs, wrapped in her blanket. The place was obviously an inn of some kind. Bears and humans were playing in the water, leaping and splashing, while androids manned dinner tables in a large common room. But it seemed to Maggie to be an odd inn, a relic.

The inn was not a living thing like the trees on her home world or like the city of Toohkansay on Fale. Instead it was made from some poured material, perhaps, Maggie considered, so that it could retain the organic lines of a living hostel even in such a cold environment. It was designed much like the buildings found on other worlds, and if Maggie had not been wearing her mantle, she wouldn’t have recognized that Wechaus was Backward. The androids waiting on tables were ancient models, a few thousand years behind the times. Few human patrons wore personal intelligences, and even those who did wore unsophisticated models. Perhaps it was the atmosphere of the inn itself, but Maggie imagined that if people here were any more relaxed, they’d have to be dead.

There was no sign of dronon or vanquishers on the premises, and Maggie took that as a good omen.

Maggie opened the front door for Orick. A golden android hurried up with a jaunty gait and said in a prissy voice, “Welcome to Flaming Springs! We’re so glad you could join us!” He eyed Maggie’s mantle and said, “May I set up an account for our honored guest in the name of…?”

“Maggie Flynn,” Maggie answered, somehow surprised that these people would require money for their services. This was new. She immediately began to wonder how much they would require, but knew that when Veriasse came, he would be able to settle the debt. At the very least, she could sell a knowledge token from her mantle. Each of the metal disks stored thousands of volumes of data, and would be valuable to anyone who wore a mantle.

“Of course, Maggie Flynn,” the android said, feigning that he recognized the name. “Let me show you to a room. You may order food at any time, and the pools are always open.”

He led them through a complex of small huts scattered like hills over the ground. Maggie guessed that steam piping kept the area free of snow. Around the grounds, alien treelike plants with purple fruit lived in containers.

The android opened a door, and Maggie suddenly saw why the rooms appeared so small from the outside. The upper room served as entryway to a luxurious submerged apartment below.

“Will this be adequate?” the android asked.

“Yes, thank you,” Maggie answered. “Do you have the time? And the date? Galactic standard.”

The android told her the time. They were one day and sixteen hours ahead of when they had left Cyannesse. Maggie made some quick calculations, realized that the temporal distortion was inversely proportional to the distance they jumped between gates. The shorter the jump, the more time they lost.

The android left, and Orick went out to the hot pools to swim. Maggie had had enough of the cold and darkness outside. A side room contained its own small pool where mineral waters cascaded down some falls. The room was decorated to look like a forest, with deep mosses and beds of ferns. Maggie retired there and lay in the water for a long time, letting the warmth seep into her bones. A startling thought struck her: she had left her pack out on the airbike, where it might get stolen.

She climbed from the pool, toweled dry, then dressed and ran out for her pack. It was still sitting in the dark, nearly frozen to the seat. She pulled it free, walked back into the common room of the inn. She had eaten a bite an hour before, but the smells were so enticing that she took a seat, asked an android for a steak dinner with mushrooms and wine.

While she waited, she took out a brush from her pack and brushed her hair. She could not resist the urge to check her pack, make sure that nothing of value had been taken. She opened it a little, dug through. Her gate key was there, and she rummaged for a moment, pulling out clothing, looking for the gifts that Grandmother had given Gallen and Orick.

Dinner came soon, and Maggie tried to enjoy the food but kept glancing up furtively.

Someone was watching her. Most of the guests at the inn were couples-young men and women out to celebrate, frequent pairs of bears. But not all of the couples looked so innocent. A thin man with a hawkish nose, long dark hair, and a thin goatee sat at a nearby table, hands folded under his chin. He did not hide the fact that he was watching her.

Yet he kept glancing toward the doors-both the front doors and those that led to the pools and the rooms at the side. Maggie lost her appetite.

She got up to leave, but the dark stranger came and discreetly took her arm, forced her to sit again, then sat next to her. “By any chance,” he asked, “have you been to Fale recently?”

“Yes,” Maggie said, then realized that because of the way her gate key sent her back in time, she was currently on Fale, held captive among the aberlains. “I mean, no.”

“I thought so.” He smiled. “Eat with me.”

“No, I have to be going,” Maggie said.

But the man gripped her arm, holding her, pulling her back to her seat. “Come now, you’ve hardly touched a bite,” he said, a gleam of excitement in his eyes. “Besides, you’ve only had the main course. You must try the desserts.”

“No,” Maggie said, trying to pull her arm from his grasp. “I must be going.” She yanked free.

“You won’t get far,” the stranger warned in a whisper, “not to the next gate.”

“What?” Maggie asked, her heart hammering. “Come follow me to your room. We must talk in private, before it’s too late,” the stranger said. He rose from his seat, walked out the back door. Maggie didn’t know why, but the man terrified her. There was a certain calculated power in his gestures, a toughness about him, and she imagined that if he got her alone, she would not be able to protect herself. She tried to still her heavy breathing, looked around the room for some sign of help. He expected her to come, but she couldn’t follow him out into the dark.

She stayed at the table, pretended to eat for an hour. She wanted to go to the pools, find Orick, but the pools were too close to her apartments. So she sat, hoping the stranger would leave. A patina of sweat broke out on her forehead, and she kept worrying that people were watching her, until Orick came in.

“Hey, Maggie!” Orick called loudly from across the room. “You should try these pools-they’re great!” He swaggered over to her table, his fur still wet. “Maggie,” he said with uncontrollable excitement, “half of these she-bears are in heat! I tell you, I can hardly believe my luck. Why, I met this she-bear named Panta, and she’s panting for me, the dear girl, I assure you. She’s invited me to her room tonight-”

“Good, good,” Maggie said without enthusiasm. She didn’t know how to tell him that something was dreadfully wrong. She especially did not want to talk here where every word could be overheard. Right now, she only wanted Orick to get away from her safely, keep him out of danger. “Why don’t you go with her?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Orick said. “Do you think I should? Are you all right? You look sick.”

“I’m afraid,” she whispered, hoping none of the other diners could hear. “This world may be more dangerous than we thought.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Orick growled too loudly. “This place is grand!”

“Yes, of course it is,” she said, hoping to quiet him. “Please, just go. I’ll be all right.”

A female bear came to the side door, stood up on her hind legs, sniffing the air. She saw Orick, walked over on all fours, and stood at the side of the table, demurely watching Orick with big brown eyes that fairly shouted her desires.

“It’s nice to meet you, Panta,” Maggie said. “I’m afraid I’m feeling tired. Why don’t you two take this table. I’ll see you in the morning, Orick.” She got up, realizing that she needed to go out the side door to reach her room, see this thing through on her own. If the stranger was waiting in the darkness to accost her, she would have to face him sooner or later. She did not want to place Orick in jeopardy.

She stalked back through the night. The hot pools had raised a cloud of steam that lingered in the air between buildings, shrouding everything in heavy fog. The faint green footlights set by the sides of the trail and under the trees gave the only illumination, and they seemed inadequate as she walked back through the maze of apartments.

But the stranger was not waiting for her in the shadows. She reached her own room, glanced skyward before entering. A line of fire ringed the sky, arching from horizon to horizon, and Maggie could just see it through the fog. Her mantle whispered that this planet had a ring around it.

Maggie spoke to the door. It registered her voice and opened. She walked into the room, looked down the broad staircase to the apartments below. There was no sign of the stranger. She closed the door behind her, crept downstairs. The apartment was empty.

She was just feeling safe when the door chimes rang, startling her. She opened the door. A short, bald, fat man stood at the door, his broad arms sticking deep in the pockets of his cloak. Both his leather cloak and his deep frown looked as if they had been worn constantly for years.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Maggie Flynn, is it? My name is Bavin. I own this establishment. May I speak with you for a moment?” He looked up at her with sad, baggy eyes.

She nodded. He glanced back nervously, closed the door. “The, uh, the thing is-” Bavin explained, “is that I want you to settle your bill and clear out before morning. I won’t have you bringing any trouble down on my inn.”

“I don’t understand,” Maggie said. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about that thing you’re carrying in your bag,” Bavin said, wringing his hands. “I’m not the kind of man who would turn you in for the reward, but there’s others who will. I won’t have you bringing any trouble down on us poor folks.”

“What are you talking about, ‘reward’?”

Bavin looked about cautiously, as if someone in the room might be listening. “The dronon-” he confided, “they’re looking for a beautiful woman who is traveling the Maze of Worlds. She’s rumored to be accompanied by several protectors. When you first came in, I wasn’t sure you were the one, because you rode in with only that bear. That cast some doubt in my mind. But you rode an airbike that no one would ever bring down this far south in the cold, and that seemed strange. Then you pulled that key from your bag at the table, and you had the planetary police asking about you.…”

“I don’t understand,” Maggie stuttered. “Are you sure they are looking for me?”

“The dronon sent more vanquishers just a few days ago, using the gates, same as you,” Bavin said. “Oh, they’ve got people scared-scared evil. Good people that would never have thought of doing business with their kind are scrambling now, and there’s some that would turn you over in a second, thinking it might give them some leverage in the future. But not me-not me!” Bavin was shaking his head, and Maggie realized that he denied any possible turpitude simply because he was tempted to turn her in himself. “So like I said, I want you to settle up your account and get out of here.”

“But where will I go?” Maggie said. “What will I do?”

“Don’t go to the gates, whatever you do. They’re watched. Beyond that, I don’t care what you do. Just settle your account.”

“But, I don’t have any money,” Maggie said.

The little man looked at her, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “What do you mean, you don’t have any money? How did you plan to pay for this?” He spread his arms wide, indicating the luxurious apartment.

“I planned to work, make some money,” Maggie said. Maggie reached up to her mantle, pulled off a small silver disk with the emblem of an android on it. Regretfully, she handed it to the man. She would be giving up all her knowledge about androids.

“I–I can’t take this,” Bavin argued, apparently having an attack of conscience. “It’s too much!” The little man grumbled under his breath, looked about the room. “Get out of here. Just get your things and sneak away.”

Maggie still had the pack she’d carried in. She went to her bedroom, got her blanket and robes. The soil of the day’s travel was still on them, and she was loath to wear the dirty robes, but she slipped into them quickly, wrapped her blanket around her shoulders. When she was ready to leave, she returned to the living room. Bavin was gone. He’d left the front door open for her.

She followed the little footpath through the fog toward the common room, thinking to warn Orick. But as she reached the corner by the pools, she could see the front of the inn.

Three green-skinned vanquishers hunched over her airbike. Two were ogres-typical military grunts-the third was a tracker.

The tracker leaned down, sniffing the airbike, his flat orange eyes tilting about like those on a fish. “This bike was driven by a woman and a bear. They traveled through two worlds in a matter of hours.”

“Then we’ve found her?” one of the soldiers asked.

“Yes,” the tracker said. Maggie began fading back into the shadows, looking for a way to escape. She wanted to circle the inn, approach the bike from the other side. Orick was eating in the common room and he needed to be warned, but she dared not go back into the inn. She thought that, instead, perhaps the vanquishers would go into the common room searching for her. If she reached the far side of the inn without being seen, she could hop on the airbike and speed away, creating enough of a diversion so that Orick could also escape.

She ran down the trail and circled to the back of the inn where there were no lighted trails. One moment she was rushing around a building, and the next someone leapt from the shadows, knocking her to the snowy ground.

Maggie screamed, tried to leap up and get some footing. But her captor held her arm, hissed, “Quiet!” then pulled her to her feet with great haste. She stood in the darkness, looking at the thin man she’d seen earlier in the dining room.

“Hurry-they’re after us!” he said, pulling her arm. She heard shouts at the front of the inn, and Maggie didn’t need coaxing. They ran over frost-crusted snow to a small field at the back of the inn, where dozens of aircars hunkered in the cold night.

Maggie looked back, saw vanquishers rushing toward them past a green footlight. One pulled out an incendiary rifle and fired.

The actinic chemical light shot out in an expanding ball, and the thin man pulled her down to the right. The fireball whooshed overhead, singeing Maggie’s face as it passed, then splattered against an aircar.

She and her benefactor weaved between several cars. Maggie spotted one with an open hatch. A guard dressed in black stood at the door, carrying an incendiary rifle.

Maggie glanced at the man, caught her breath. He was a twin to the thin man. She froze at the sight of him, but her companion urged her forward. As she lunged into the back seat of the aircar, the guard leapt away into the shadows.

The thin man started the ignition, began firing the thrusters, and Maggie looked out the window. His twin took cover behind another aircar and fired his incendiary rifle at the vanquishers. The tracker burst into flame, burned like a pillar in the night, his huge spiderlike body twisting in pain. From around the far end of the buildings, three more thin men rushed from the shadows, and two loped around from the front of the inn.

The vanquishers dove for cover behind some planters and began laying down suppressive fire while shouting for help.

The aircar rose, began sliding away into the darkness, and Maggie cried, “Wait! I’ve left a friend down there!”

“I know!” the thin man said, though he did not slow the aircar. “I was trying to warn him when the vanquishers arrived. They sent for reinforcements, so we had to move fast. We hope that by killing the tracker, it will give your friend a chance to escape.”

“We?” Maggie said.

“My doppelgangers,” the thin man said.

Maggie had never heard the word doppelganger, so her mantle filled her with understanding. Some people chose to become immortal by cloning themselves and downloading memories into the clones. Among those immortals were people who often kept multiple copies of themselves running at the same time so that they could work toward a common goal. Their leader was called the primary, while the copies were doppelgangers.

The aircar slid smoothly up into the sky, and Maggie looked down. White volleys of gunfire were whipping through the air. The hot springs looked like cloudy green gems from up here, and she watched another vanquisher turn into a living torch, then saw a doppelganger take a hit to the left leg and stagger. He managed one last shot before he toppled; the shot went wide and torched one of Bavin’s apartments.

She looked down at the dying man and felt peculiarly detached. Though he was human, he was, after all, only a copy of a man, and therefore not real. But she knew that the man had felt pain and desires like any other person; he had hopes and dreams, and he’d just chosen to give his life for her.

Maggie looked up at the thin man who piloted the aircar. Somehow it was comforting to know that he was the kind of man who would be willing to die for her.