The Parallel Man (4 page)

“Yes, Lady,” I ventured.

She looked at me with narrowed eyes. “You might do,” she said. “Don’t talk any more than you can help. Look down your nose at people. When someone’s as rich as Fenric people put up with almost anything, so if you’re asked a question you can’t answer just ignore it. For the Mercy’s sake don’t talk about hunting; Fenric is mad about it and you’d give yourself away in a minute to anyone who knows anything about it. Part of your getup will be a fake chip that looks like a high violet; don’t try to use it or you’ll give everything away. For emergency use Pello will give you some ecus, enough to make a good display. Don’t dare to lose them; they’re a good portion of my credit for this period.”

She lay back against the pillows and shut her eyes. “Take it away, Pello, and dress it. Make sure the wig and makeup over the dome is undetectable.”

The man called Pello led me out of the room by a different sliding door; this one led into an interior corridor. A glance back over my shoulder showed me that the walls of the bedroom seemed transparent from within; the woman’s bed might have been sitting on the open lawn before the house to all appearance. A curious fancy, to sleep in an interior room that seemed to be out in the open.

As we walked down the corridor, Pello spoke in a low voice. “She knows that you’re a masquerading human all right; no one could expect a real andro to obey orders like that. But she keeps up the pretense, curse her, so she can treat us like andros; it satisfies some spite in her. You’ve probably guessed my plan; take the clothing, the fake chip and the ecus and get away from here at the first opportunity. Once we’re clear we split the ecus. You can go your own way or stick with me. Simple enough, eh?”

I nodded slowly. “Too simple, perhaps,” I said. “You say she knows that you’re not an . . . andro, and that I’m not either. She doesn’t look foolish or trusting to me. Why is she trusting us?”

Pello smiled wolfishly. “She thinks she has us trapped here,” he said. “It’s easier to get in this place than it is to get out. But I’ve been here long enough to know all of her little ways; not just the ones she knows I know, but those she thinks I don’t.” We came to another door which he slid aside and I followed him into a small room with clothing laid out on a couch. Pello picked up a richly ornamented belt and stroked it with a curious smile on his face. “This belt for instance. If you left the grounds wearing it this thing would tear you in two. If you didn’t wear it Flavia would notice and take other measures. Unless. . .” he opened a slit in his gray suit and pulled out a belt which seemed identical to that on the bed. “Unless,” he concluded with a sly smile, “you think one step ahead of her. Now let’s get you dressed.”

I touched the circle at the collar of my gray garment and stripped it off, then lifted the blue cap from my head with a sense of relief. With Pello’s help I put on a close-fitting suit of sky blue and a vest, boots, and short cloak in darker blue, decorated with silver; the belt matched these and a pouch went at the belt. As he helped me dress and fix a violet-colored circle to my wrist, Pello talked. “Flavia needs backing for her trading ventures,” he said. “It costs a great deal to live in this style, and though she’s shrewd she’s been unlucky. It’s the old story; you can’t get credit unless you don’t need it. If her cousin the ultraviolet Fenric is visiting her and appears on good terms with her the local syndics will think that she only has to ask him and he’ll back her. They’ll fall over themselves trying to get in first, though if they thought she was in trouble they’d try to bring her down and carve up her trade among themselves.”

This meant little to me except to give some rough sort of sense to the masquerade I was undertaking. I could still see one objection though: “Does no one here know this Fenric, then?” I asked.

Pello shook his head. “He hasn’t been Home for so long that anyone who did know him wouldn’t recognize him. Anyway, a man that wealthy has no friends, only hangers-on and toadies. Fenric spends most of his time on a big tract of wilderness on some primitive planet, hunting every kind of animal he can import. His money comes from something that needs no work; some sort of monopoly in star-trade I think. So he plays at being a lord and ignores the Commonwealth.”

“He’s a sort of prince then, this Fenric?” I asked, and Pello shrugged and nodded. I smiled then and threw back my cloak over my shoulder. If they wanted someone to play a prince, I was better suited for the part than they knew. And though this clothing was strange, I felt more myself in it than I had done since I woke in that strange room. With a smile still on my lips, I followed Pello out onto the lawn where a crowd of brightly dressed men and women had gathered. My eyes swept over them indifferently and then suddenly I checked my stride and stared. For there, among the chattering crowd, surrounded by a circle of men and women and laughing with them at some jest, was Princess Delora!

Delora was dressed in a long, flowing garment of unfamiliar cut and her hair seemed longer, but her face and her mannerisms, such as the little toss of her head she gave when she laughed, were just as I remembered. Yet, when her eyes met mine across the crowded lawn there was no recognition in them. Her glance passed over my garments and perhaps she noticed the glint of the violet circle on my wrist which, according to Pello’s rambling, marked me as a man of wealth and consequence. She gave me a little smile before turning back to her companions and that smile shook me. It was full of an insincere warmth I was used to from court ladies who coveted the importance my attention could give them. There could be many reasons for Delora to pretend not to know me, to conceal her surprise at seeing me, but none I could think of for her to give me a smile full of such professional coquetry.

I moved toward her, and the people on the lawn fell back respectfully as courtiers might have done at Castle Thorn. It strengthened my resolve to act as I would have acted in my own place; when I came up to the group in which she was standing I turned to the oldest man among them and said to him pleasantly but with authority, “You may present this lady to me.”

He gave a little bow and said with dignity, “My honor, sir. Holder Fenric, may I present O Dela Delora, who graces our Living Theater with her beauty and talent.”

She gave a delicately exaggerated curtsy and smiled up at me with a professional charm that Princess Delora had never needed to learn. But her husky voice was the same as she said, “One has heard of you, of course, Holder.”

I inclined my head to the man who had introduced us and said with a dismissive note in my voice, “My thanks, sir.” He faded away tactfully, taking the others with him, and I turned to this new and puzzling Delora. “Your face seems very familiar,” I said.

She pouted with an annoyance that seemed genuine. “I don’t see how that can be, Holder,” she said, “since I understand that you haven’t been Home in some years. We of the Living Theater guard our images rather carefully. One wouldn’t want to be confused with those who perform for the 3V, whose images are, well, a bit too common. Theater people even have a prejudice against having holos taken.”

“And yet,” I said, “I’d swear that you have a tiny and entrancing mark on your arm, right . . . here!” Taking her right arm gently but firmly I lifted it so that the sleeve fell back and revealed a little red crescent-shaped mark on the inside of her upper arm; Delora’s clan mark. If it had not been there I would have felt and looked a fool, but I had to know. I released her arm and looked into her eyes, hoping for some spark of recognition; that mark had swept away all my doubts that this was really Delora.

But there was only anger and fear in her eyes; she stepped back and said, “A man of your wealth, Holder, may buy a good deal, including, it seems, some rather personal information. I don’t know what you hope to gain by this, but I would call your behavior Uncivil. I am not without . . .”

The voice of Flavia interrupted her, “My dear, is Fenric playing one of his little jests on you? He teased me unmercifully when we were children.” I felt clawlike fingers on my arm and looked down to see her at my side, her sharp features exaggerated by a hairdo which made her hair float like a soft cloud and an elaborate dress more suited to a woman younger and more beautiful.

The woman who had been introduced to me as Dela Delora hesitated, then decided to make light of her annoyance. She gave a little trill of laughter which seemed quite natural but went on an instant too long. “All right, Flavia, I admit he got a rise out of me. I’ll leave you two to renew childhood memories. Come and see me, Holder—in my new play.” She smiled a little too sweetly and moved away.

Flavia’s voice was sweetly acid as she said to me in a low voice, “You’ve evidently studied the behavior of real ultraviolets; you seem just as convinced as they that the world revolves around you. Not a soul here doubts that you’re Fenric. Now keep your mouth shut and that supercilious look on your face while I flaunt you at my guests.” She led me toward the crowd around the tables and began presenting her guests to me. I behaved as badly as I’d always dreamed of doing at receptions and parties; snubbing everyone who seemed self-important or unpleasant, talking only to people who interested me. Gradually I gathered a little circle around me; several of the women who were intelligent as well as beautiful, several of the men who seemed to be of some weight, and an outspoken old woman who was as amused by me as I was by her.

I disengaged my arm from Flavia’s and gave her a little push. “See to your guests, cousin dear,” I drawled. “I’m quite happy here.” She gave me a look of baffled fury, but she had no choice but to go. Presently Pello appeared at my elbow with a tray containing small tidbits of food and a flagon of good wine. He was dressed in a costume that was not as extravagant as those of the real andros; if he got rid of his blue cap he could pass for one of the guests. “Stay here with those things,” I told him and he bowed with a little glint in his eye and filled my cup.

A youngish pleasant-faced man who had not said much so far broke into the slight pause as I sipped my wine. “Heard that you hunt a bit, Holder,” he said.

1 could almost feel the tension in Pello as he held out the tray for me to select another tidbit. “Been known to, yes,” I told the pleasant-faced man.

“Benton’s my name, Holder; you wouldn’t have heard of me but I do a bit in that line myself. Got a bit of land up in the hills,” he said. The colored circle on his wrist was the same shade as mine and his wealth presumably was genuine. He went on: “Thing is, we used this new process they’ve discovered to clone and culture some wild boars. Got the cells from a museum exhibit. Well, they’re established now, but none of my people is too sure how to hunt them for the best sport. They’ve dug up some history books; tell me that boar were hunted from horses at one time . . .”

I shook my head. “Can be done but it takes a long time to train the horses and if the country is hilly they’re not much use. Better on foot anyway. Have you got proper boar spears? They’ll come right down the shaft at you if you don’t have a cross-piece . . .” We were soon absorbed in highly enjoyable technical discussion and the rest of the circle gradually drifted away, smiling indulgently.

Eventually, as I had hoped, Benton said tentatively, “Don’t suppose you’d like to see my place. Not much by your standards, I know, Holder, but any time you’d care to . . .”

“Call me Fenric,” I said. “Why not now? These people are beginning to bore me.”

Benton’s face lit up. “Would you really like to? Be delighted. Only came to this affair to meet you if I could. Have a little craft down on the meadow yonder. Anything you want to bring?”

“Can always get new stuff,” I said. “Oh I know,” I turned to Pello and said, “Get another tray of those things and another jug of the wine and bring them along.” He shot me a glance of startled admiration and trotted off to do my bidding. “Oh, Flavia,” I called as I saw her in a group nearby. “I’m off with Benton here for a while. Call on me if you need to on that matter we spoke of, but I don’t see why you’d need to, perfectly sound proposition, you’ll find the money easily enough. Expect me when you see me.” And I strolled off with Benton, Pello trotting behind us with a loaded tray, leaving Flavia open-mouthed. She couldn’t quarrel with me or threaten me in public without destroying the illusion she had gone to such pains to create, and anyway I thought that she had gotten good value for the pouchful of little golden tokens at my belt.

Benton’s “little craft” might have been a small pavilion erected in the meadow, but when we entered the door it lifted smoothly into the air and began moving away from the monstrous towers of the city. I turned to Pello. “Put that tray down somewhere and get that blue thing off your head,” I told him. “You can report to me later.” I turned to Benton. “Sometimes useful to have a man about who isn’t noticed as a man,” I said blandly.

Benton stared and then laughed. “By the Mercy, you star traders are high-handed,” he said admiringly. “That breaks about sixteen laws here at Home and there are plenty who’d call it Uncivil. But I can see the advantages. A violet chip can expose you to all sorts of unpleasantness at times.”

An inspiration struck me. “Been meaning to speak to you about that,” I said. Opening the collar of my garment I reached in and peeled from the green “chip” which I had been given soon after I woke in this land from my underarm, where it had been hidden since I donned the gray suit of the false andro. I put it on my wrist and transferred the violet chip to where the green one had been, hoping that whatever stuck the false chip to my skin would hold it there. “Now I’m away from Flavia’s I prefer not to be known as Fenric. The name that goes with this one is Casmir Thorn. So far as anyone is concerned I’m here to advise you on hunting boar.”

Benton seemed genuinely shaken. “I didn’t know it was even possible for a private citizen to have a second chip,” he said. “Of course you hear stories about Commonwealth agents being given false identities but . . . you don’t do a little work for the UC on the side, do you, um Casmir?”

I smiled at him. “I don’t like lying and I don’t like refusing to answer questions from a friend,” I said. “The less you ask me the less I’ll have to do either.” Benton laughed and shrugged, but there was admiration in his eyes; whatever explanation he was imagining for my mysterious activities was evidently creditable to me. I was quite pleased with myself; at one stroke I had cut away the immense complication of pretending to be a wealthy man of whose real life I knew nothing. I might still betray myself by my ignorance in conversation with these folk, but I did not have to keep up the character of Fenric.

As it turned out, I need not have worried. Young Benton was an enthusiast of hunting and was glad to talk of nothing else. For a knight of Thorn, hunting is part of the yearly round; one of the things that is done in season, for food and to exercise the skills of hand and eye that a knight needs. As the prince, I had been expected to take the lead in hunting as well as in war, and older and more experienced men had quietly made sure that I knew my business. I had heard plenty of hunting stories, for that was one of their ways of teaching, and I had myself taken most of the kinds of birds and beasts that are counted worth hunting: deer and wild pigs for the table, of course, but also beasts of the warren; wolves, foxes and wildcats, badgers, martens and otter, even squirrels and hares. And, of course, I had hawked for hares and for game birds.

There is a skill to taking each of these beasts, and my teachers would not have counted me a hunter if I had not known each of these skills. Benton seemed to know little of such skills, except for the most elementary sort of tracking; his talk was all of hunts in which he had put his life at risk against large and dangerous beasts, including many whose nature I could only guess at from details he let drop in the telling. Of course a hunter must have courage; a stag may turn at bay and boars are notoriously dangerous and unpredictable. But battle, not the chase, is the place to demonstrate bravery; skill is what counts in the hunt.

In fact, I was growing a little weary of Benton’s stories, for an armed and skillful man is in little real danger from a beast. But then he said something which changed my mind. Looking around the richly furnished room where we sat on cushioned chairs while our magical craft flew high in the air, Benton said hesitantly, “Most of my friends think I’m a bit of a fool to spend so much time and credit on hunting, you know. But it seems more . . . more real than most things a man can do these days. Just your own skill and a few primitive weapons against, well, against Nature. No machines to do it for you, to get between you and the thing you’re doing.”

Remembering the giant towers, the broad sterile streets with their few trees for show, thinking of weapons which made a man unconscious with the pressure of a finger, I began to realize that the hunt would have a value for these enchanters which a man of Thorn could scarcely understand. If they went to war it would probably be with strange wizardries which would leave little room for strength or bravery. I smiled at Benton and said, “You’ll be glad enough of a spear between you and the boar; a full-grown tusker can rip a man from knee to breast and lay him stark dead with one stroke. Have these beasts been hunted at all yet?”

Benton shook his head. “Not these; they’re just out of the tanks not long ago. But we managed to salvage some memory chains from the beast in the museum exhibit. Don’t know if you’ve followed the techniques they’re using these days for memory recovery from dead cells. They reckon that by what they call mix and blend techniques they can create quite a good facsimile of the original memory, with some artificial memories mixed in. Of course they’d only really know if they tried it on humans, and the Citizens’ Liberties Union would be after them if they tried that. Not to say it hasn’t been done in secret, of course.”

“Ran across a man named Droste,” I said as casually as I could manage. “Justinian Droste, I think, who had some sort of connection with that group.”

Benton grinned. “Oh yes, Droste is quite a big noise here at Home, though you may not have heard of him. Always on the 3V or in the latest fax, complaining about someone being deprived of their rights.” He laughed. “Been looking a bit silly today, though. Had a big case built up against some scientist for experimentation on humans. Then his star witness or chief exhibit, the man who was the victim of the experiments, disappeared. Without him Droste has no case. Joke is Droste’s own principles are getting in the way of looking for the man. Since he’s a citizen he has a right to privacy. They can’t even broadcast a holo of him, only appeal for him to come forward. Droste claims the man’s been kidnapped, but his evidence isn’t too strong. For all anyone knows, he just got tired of the food at Central Receiving and decided to check himself out informally.”

Most of this was meaningless to me, but at least it assured me that Droste was a man of some note, who could be found if I wanted to find him. Since Droste seemed to know something about how I had come to this city of the enchanters, I might have to seek him out eventually.