The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens (17 page)

The treasurer went on to tell of the various grades of membership until he got sleepy and took his leave.

###

Later, Borel asked Zerdai: “Love me?”

“You know I do, my lord!”

“Then I have a job for you.”

“Aught you say, dearest master.”

“I want one of those honorary memberships.”

“But Felix, that’s for notables like the King of Gozashtand only! I know not what I could accomplish—”

“You make the suggestion to Kubanan, see? And keep needling him until he asks me. He trusts you.”

“I will try, my dearest. And I hope Shurgez never returns.”

While ordinarily Borel would have investigated this last cryptic remark, at the moment his head was too full of schemes for self-aggrandizement.

“Another thing. Who’s the most skilled metal worker in Mishé? I want somebody who can make a working model that really works.”

“I’ll find out for you, my knight.”

Zerdai sent Borel to one Henjaré bad-Qavao the Brazer, a gnomish Mikardandu whom Borel first dazzled with his façade and then swore to secrecy with dreadful-sounding oaths of his own invention.

He then presented the craftsman with a rough plan for a wheel with a lot of rods with weights on their ends, pivoted to the circumference so that they had some freedom to swing in the plane of rotation of the wheel. There was also a trip arrangement so that as the wheel rotated, each rod as it approached the top was moved from a position leaning back against a stop on the rim to a straight-out radial position. Hence the thing looked as though at any time the weights on one side stood out farther from the center than those on the other, and therefore would overbalance the latter and cause the wheel to turn indefinitely.

Borel knew just enough about science to realize that the device would not work, though not enough to know why. On the other hand, since these gloops knew even less than he did, there should be no trouble in selling them the idea.

That night Kubanan said: “Sir Felix, a brilliant thought has struck me. Won’t you accept an honorary membership in our proud Order? In truth, you’ll find it a great advantage while you dwell in Mikardand, or even when you journey elsewhere.”

Borel registered surprise. “Me? I’m most humbly grateful, excellency, but is an outsider like myself worthy of such an honor?” Meanwhile he thought: good old Zerdai! If I were the marrying kind . . . For a moment he wavered in his determination to shake her when she’d served her turn.

“Nonsense, my lad, of course you’re worthy. I’d have gone farther and proposed you for full membership, but the Council pointed out that the constitution allows that only to native-born Mikardanders of our own species. As ’tis, honorary membership will provide you with most of the privileges of membership and few of the obligations.”

“I’m overcome with happiness.”

“Of course there’s the little matter of the initiation.”

“What?” Borel controlled his face.

“Yes; waive it they would not, since no king are you. It amounts to little; much ceremony and a night’s vigil. I’ll coach you in the ritual. And you must obtain ceremonial robes; I’ll make you a list.”

Borel wished he’d hiked the printing charges on the lottery material by another fifty percent.

###

The initiation proved not only expensive, but an interplanetary bore as well. Brothers in fantastic robes and weird masks stood about muttering a mystic chant at intervals. Borel stood in front of the Grand Master of the Order, a tall Krishnan with a lined face that might have been carved from wood for all the expression it bore. Borel responded to interminable questions: since the language was an archaic dialect of Gozashtandou, he did not really know what he was saying half the time. He was lectured on the Order’s glorious past, mighty present, and boundless future, and on his duties to protect and defend his interests. He called down all sorts of elaborate astrological misfortunes on his head should he violate his oaths.

“Now,” said the grand master, “art thou ready for the vigil. Therefore I command thee: strip to thy underwear!”

Wondering what he was getting into now, Borel did so.

“Come with me,” said Grand Master Sir Juvain.

They led him down stairs and through passages that got progressively narrower, darker, and less pleasant. A couple of the hooded brethren carried lanterns, which soon became necessary in order to see the way. We must be far below the ground level of the citadel, thought Borel, stumbling along in his socks and feeling most clammy and uncomfortable.

When they seemed to have descended into the very bowels of the planet, they halted. The grand master said: “Here shalt thou remain the night, O aspirant. Danger will come upon thee, and beware how thou meetest it.”

One of the brothers was measuring a long candle. He cut it off at a certain length and fixed it upright to a small shelf in the rough side of the tunnel. Another brother handed Borel a hunting spear with a long, broad head.

Then they left him.

So far he had carried off his act by assuring himself that all this was a lot of bluff and hokum. Nothing serious could be intended. As the brothers’ footfalls died away, however, he was no longer so sure. The damned candle seemed to illuminate for a distance of only about a metre in all directions. Fore and aft the tunnel receded into utter blackness.

His hair rose as something rustled. As he whipped the spear into position, it scuttled away; some ratlike creature no doubt. Borel started pacing. If that damned dope Abreu had only let him bring his watch! Then he’d at least have a notion of the passage of time. It seemed he’d been pacing for hours, though that was probably an illusion.

Borel became aware of an odd irregularity in the floor beneath his stockinged feet, and he bent down and explored it with his fingers. Yes, a pair of parallel grooves, two or three centimeters deep, ran lengthwise along the tunnel. He followed them a few steps each way, but stopped when he could no longer see what he was doing. Why should there be two parallel grooves like a track along the floor?

He paced until his legs ached from weariness, then tried sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. When he soon found his eyelids drooping, he scrambled up lest his initiators return to find him asleep. The candle burned slowly down, its flame standing perfectly still for minutes at a stretch and then wavering slightly as some tiny air current brushed it. Still silence and darkness.

The candle would soon be burned down to nothing. What then? Would they expect him to stand here in complete darkness?

A sound made him jump violently. He could not tell what sort of sound it was; merely a faint noise from down the tunnel. There it came again.

Then his hair really rose at a low throaty vocal noise, the kind one hears in the carnivore cage of the zoo before feeding time. A sort of grunt, such as a big cat makes in tuning up for a real roar. It came again, louder.

The dying candle flame showed to Borel’s horrified gaze something moving fast towards him in the tunnel. With a frightful roar, a great yeki rushed into the dim light with gleaming eyes and bared fangs.

For perhaps a second (though it seemed an hour), Felix Borel stood helplessly holding his spear poised, his mouth hanging open. In that second, however, his mind suddenly worked with the speed of a tripped mousetrap. Something odd about the yeki’s motion, together with the fact of the grooves in the floor, gave him the answer: the animal was a stuffed one pushed towards him on wheels.

Borel bent and laid his spear diagonally across the floor of the tunnel, and stepped back. When the contraption struck the spear it slewed sideways with a bang, rattle, and thump and stopped, its nose against the wall.

Borel recovered his spear and examined the derailed yeki at close range. It proved a pretty battered-looking piece of taxidermy, the head and neck crisscrossed with seams where the hide had been slashed open and sewn up again. Evidently it had been used for initiations for a long time, and some of the aspirants had speared it. Others had doubtless turned tail and run, thus flunking the test.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor and lanterns bobbed closer just as the candle on the shelf guttered out. The grand master and the masked brethren swarmed around Borel, including one with a horn on which he had made the yeki noises. They slapped him on the back and told him how brave he was, then led him back up many flights to the main hall, where he was allowed to don his clothes again. The grand master hung a jeweled dragon insignia around his neck and welcomed him with a florid speech in archaic style: “O Felix, be thou hereby accepted into this most noble, most ancient, most honorable, most secret, most puissant, most righteous, most chivalrous, and most fraternal Order, and upon thee be bestowed all the rights, privileges, rank, standing, immunities, duties, liabilities, obligations, and attributes of a knight of this most noble, most ancient, most honorable . . .”

The long Krishnan night was two-thirds gone when the hand shaking and drinking were over. Borel and Kubanan, arms about each other’s necks, wove their way drunkenly to the latter’s apartment while Borel sang what he could remember of an Earthly song about a king of England and a queen of Spain, until Kubanan shushed him, saying: “Know you not that poetry’s forbidden in Mikardand?”

“I didn’t know. Why?”

“The Order decided it was bad for our—
hic
—martial spirit. B’sides, poets tell too damned many lies. What’s the nex’ stanza?”

###

Next morning, Sir Felix, as he tried to remember to think of himself, began to press for consideration of his perpetual motion scheme. He obtained an interview with Grand Master Juvain in the afternoon and put his proposal. Sir Juvain seemed puzzled by the whole thing and Borel had to call in Kubanan to help him explain.

Juvain finally said: “Very well, Brother Felix, tell me when your preparations are ready and I’ll call a general meeting of the members in residence to pass upon your proposal.”

Then, since the working model was not yet ready, Borel had nothing to do for a couple of days except breathe down the neck of Henjaré the Brazer and superintend the building of the lottery ticket booth. The printing job was nowhere near done.

Therefore, he whistled up Yerevats to help him pass the time by practicing driving the buggy. After a couple of hours, he could fairly well manage the difficult art of backing and filling to turn around in a restricted space.

“Have the carriage ready right after lunch,” he ordered.

“Master go ride?”

“Yes. I shan’t need you though; I’m taking it myself.”

“Unh. No good. Master get in trouble.”

“That’s my lookout.”

“Bet master take girl out. Bad business.”

“Mind your own business!” shouted Borel, and made a pass at Yerevats, who ducked and scuttled out. Now, thought Borel, Yerevats will sulk and I’ll have to spend a day cajoling him back into a good humor or I’ll get no decent service. Damn it, why didn’t they have mechanical servants with no feelings that their masters had to take into account? Somebody had tried to make one on Earth, but the thing had run amok and mistaken its master for a cord of firewood . . .

The afternoon saw him trotting down the main avenue of Mishé with Zerdai by his side looking at him worshipfully. He could not get quite used to the curious sound made by the six hooves of the aya when it trotted.

He asked: “Who has the right of way if somebody comes in from the side?”

“Why, you do, Felix! You’re a member of the Order, even if not a regular Guardian!”

“Oh.” Borel, though he had about as little public spirit as a man can have, had been exposed to the democratic institutions of Earth long enough so as to find these class distinctions distasteful. “In other words, because I’m now an honorary knight, I can tear through the town at full gallop hollering
‘byant-hao!’
and if anybody gets run over that’s too bad?”

“Naturally. What think you? But I forget you’re from another world. ’Tis one of your fascinations that beneath your hard adventuresome exterior you’re more gentle and considerate than the men of this land.”

Borel hid a smile. He’d been called a lot of things before, including thief, swindler, and slimy double-crossing heel, but never gentle and considerate. Maybe that was an example of the relativity the long-haired scientists talked about.

“Where would you like me to drive you?” he asked.

“To Earth!” she said, putting her head on his shoulder. For a moment he was almost tempted to renege on his plan to leave her behind. Then the resolute selfishness that was the adventurer’s leading trait came to his rescue, and he reminded himself that on a fast getaway, the less baggage the better. Love ’em and leave ’em. Anyway, wouldn’t she be happier if they parted before she learned he was no do-gooder after all?

“Let’s to the tournament ground outside the North Gate. Today’s the battle betwixt Sir Volhaj and Sir Shusp,” she said.

“What’s this? I hadn’t heard of it.”

“Sir Shusp forced a challenge on Sir Volhaj; some quarrel over the love of a lady. Shusp has already slain three knights in affrays of this kind.”

Borel said: “If you Guardians are supposed to have everything in common like the Communists we used to have on Earth, I don’t see what call a knight has to get jealous. Couldn’t they both court her at once?”

“That’s not the custom. A maid should dismiss the one before taking another; to do otherwise is in bad taste.”

They reached the North Gate and ambled out into the country. Borel asked: “Where does this road go?”

“Know you not? To Koloft and Novorecife.”

Beyond the last houses, where the farmed fields began, the tournament grounds lay to the right of the road. It reminded Borel of a North American high school football field: same small wooden grandstands, and tents at the ends where the goal posts should be. In the middle of one stand a section had been built out into a box in which sat the high officers of the Order. Hawkers circulated through the crowd, one crying: “Flowers! Flowers! Buy a flower with the color of your favorite knight! Red for Volhaj, white for Shusp. Flowers!”