Slave of Sarma

Chapter Nineteen

It was, Blade thought, like seeing your mirror image move and speak. The two men, except for the color of their turbans, were identical. Blade's turban was white. His double wore scarlet.

They were In a large square room in the palace of El Kal. Thick walls of sun-baked mud - the entire city was built of dried mud brick with ingenious gutters to prevent the infrequent flash storms from washing it away - made the room shadowy and cool. There were handsome rugs on the floor and as wall hangings. The only furniture was a long low couch and several ottomans and a taboret supporting an earthen jug of cool water.

Blade, as did his double, wore skin boots and baggy breeches and a handsome vest-like garment that left the chest bare. Blade could see a raw seamed cicatrix on the other man's belly, placed there by a surgeon's knife. His own identical scar had been attained in Hong Kong the year before. These Russians kept up to date.

"The name Gemma," said his likeness, "was pure coincidence. Natural enough, I suppose. When I got my wits about me after the trip through the computer I realized at once that you would come looking for me. You people know of TWIN, of course? So I called you Gemma and began searching for you as my twin brother. You obviously did the same thing."

The double was lounging on the couch, his legs carelessly crossed, a picture of coolness. Blade was slowly moving about the room, pausing now and then to gaze out across a small balcony at the mud. towers of the city. Blade was highly nervous and alert. He knew the other man must be the same, despite his appearance of calm. Blade did not deceive himself. This was a formidable adversary - was he not in a sense fighting himself - and this meeting was as deadly, as dangerous, as though they had been facing each other with weapons.

Blade turned away from the window. There could be no violence now. This was not the time for it and there was El Kal to consider, and the Princess Canda. Especially Canda.

His doppelganger took a pipe from his breeches and stuffed it with a finely ground root called hebac. He lit it with a taper from a fire bowl beneath the taboret and puffed smoke that was white in color and had a tang of incense in it.

"I step out of character," said the Russian. He waved the pipe at Blade. "Something I would not dare do in Russia, except on leave. I have always regretted, Blade, that you do not smoke a pipe. Most inconvenient for a fellow who loves a pipe as I do."

The voice was Blade's own, the English impeccable.

Blade had not really had time to put his own thoughts in order. The meeting had been sudden and unexpected. On their arrival in the city the Princess left him. He was separated from Pelops and the former mine slave Chephron and Zeena. Canda, after promising they would not be harmed, gave Blade a strange smile and vanished into another part of the palace. Blade was taken to the baths and given into the charge of a dozen doe-eyed maidens who wore hardly anything at all. After being bathed and barbered he was taken to the room and left alone. Moments later the Russian entered. And now?

The Russian recrossed his legs and puffed more fragrant smoke. He smiled - his dental work identical with Blade's - and said, "Come off it, old chap. Relax. Sit down and we'll have a long chat. I have a great many questions and, for that matter, I suppose you have a few, too. So relax and we can make a pleasant time of it. There is no danger, you know. No threat to you. Quite to the contrary - we are more or less allies, you know."

Blade grinned. "I didn't know. Just how did you arrive at that conclusion? I have been operating on the theory that we are deadly enemies."

The Russian used the Blade charm on Blade. His smile was a masterpiece.

"I know. I was afraid of this. But you must see how wrong you are! Back in our old lives, yes. Our two countries are more or less at war. But here? Wherever the hell here is! In a mud city surrounded by Moghs. And you coming from someplace called Sarma! I'll admit, old chap, that I have been damned confused and frightened. I haven't been searching for you to kill you. Far from it. I need you! I need information. I want to know what happened to me. And I want to get back to Russia someday. You are my only hope."

Blade straddled one of the ottomans. He shook his head. "I can't help you there. Have you had any pains in your head?"

The double touched his temple. "Yes. Terrible splitting headaches. Why? Does that mean anything in particular?"

Blade held an advantage. He had been in on the computer experiments from the beginning. This was his fourth venture into Dimension X. How best to use that advantage? He could not trust this man, or believe anything he said - yet there was a chance he was telling the truth. The issue might have to be decided back in Home Dimension.

He said: "The pains are a sign that they are probing for us. Trying to get us back."

Get him, Blade, back. He should have killed the Russian by now.

The double nodded. "I thought it might be something like that. I worked in cybernetics, on an elementary plane, before I was recruited by TWIN and became your double. A strange life, Blade, and not entirely a pleasant one. One tends to lose his own identity. I am more British than I am Russian, though I was born in Minsk and my name is Gregor Petroshansky. Who would believe that to see me now!" And he laughed.

Blade watched him. The man could not know about the uranium in Sarma. No sweat there. What to do, how to handle it? For a moment Blade toyed, barely toyed, with the idea of taking the man by surprise and strangling him. If he could. The double was probably as strong as Blade himself. And there remained the Moghs. He was in a Mogh city, in a Mogh palace, and he had seen the bodies of murderers hanging from hooks on the walls as he came into the city.

And there was Canda. The Princess. Blade could not know how she felt about this Russian. She had admitted sleeping with the man. She could not decide who pleasured her most.

No, thought Blade. Not yet. Play it cozy. Cunning. Use guile. Match the man facing him - trick for trick, cunning for cunning, lie for lie and guile for guile. It was the only way. The safest way. Wait. Watch for his chance. See which way the cat jumped.

As if following Blade's thoughts, as though they were telepathic twins as well as physical, the Russian said: "We must work out some sort of accommodation, Blade. Pledge a truce, old man! To tell the truth I daren't harm you just now. I, well, I sort of overdid the lost twin bit, I'm afraid. It would look damned odd, you know, if after all my wailing and lamentation I stuck a shiv in you the moment you turned up. No. That won't do. This El Kal is an absolute monarch and not a chap to fool about with. I've seen him in action and it gave me the bloody chills. He has a sign he makes when he is talking to a man - if he touches his throat, draws his finger across it, that man has had it. All you ever see of him after that is his bloody head, and I do mean bloody."

Blade could act with the best of them. If the man wanted it that way! Very well. They would play a little cat and mouse.

Blade walked to the couch and thrust out his hand. "I think you may be right. I need you as much as you need me. You know the ropes around here. I don't. We have to trust each other for the time being. And I have a proposition that I think might interest you."

They shook hands. Their eyes met, steady and penetrating, and Blade had the sensation of peering into his own soul. The feeling was uncanny, nearly frightening, and Blade sensed that his double felt it also.

The Russian slapped his knee. "There! That's done, then, and a good thing. And now, since I do know the ropes a bit better, I'll get us something to celebrate on."

He went to a thick leather door studded with brass. He opened it and clapped his hands three times. A moment later a young girl came into the room carrying a large jug on a tray. There were two mugs. The Russian signed for the girl to place the tray on the floor before the couch. As she turned to leave he placed a hand on her bare arm. She wore only a pair of filmy pantaloons.

The Russian winked at Blade. "Now, my friend, observe closely. There are many things to be said for life among the Moghs - and this is one of them."

As Blade watched from the couch the Russian kissed the girl on the lips. She stood unmoving, her arms limp at her side. When the man had finished kissing her she smiled and said, "Thank you, master."

The Russian winked at Blade again and chuckled. "You see. They all act like this."

He stepped behind the girl, then reached around her to caress her bare breasts. She stared ahead with a fixed smile. The Russian manipulated her breasts - Blade could almost feel the flesh on his own fingers - squeezing and pushing first to one side, then the other, his fingers twiddling at her nipples.

The hands went lower along the tiny waist and slid over buttocks and reached around and explored her front. The girl trembled and moaned a bit, and Blade felt himself reacting.

The Russian gave her a little push and stepped away. "That is all. You may go."

The girl bowed. "Thank you, master."

The double came back to sprawl on the couch beside Blade. "How about that, old man! They're all like that, all happy to oblige, and there must be a thousand of them around the palace. Nothing like that back in Russia, I assure you. I doubt if there is in England, from what I've seen."

Blade sampled his wine just as the Russian did. Blade had poured and waited. The double raised his mug and his white teeth flashed. "No monkey business, chap. No drugged wine. Not bad, is it?"

The wine was tart and dry. Blade guessed it had figs or dates as a base. He nodded. "Very good. Now - are you interested in hearing my proposition?"

The Russian filled his glass again. Blade nurtured a faint hope, vain as it turned out, that the man was a drunk. It would make things easier.

"I'm listening," said the double. For the first time there was a hard glint in his eyes that Blade recognized. He had seen it in his own.

Blade explained, briefly and without giving away any secrets, that the agent could regain Home Dimension only through Lord L's computer. There was no other way.

"This is not a time-space thing," Blade said. "Nor is it an all a dream, a reversal of reality. Nothing like that at all. There is no time slippage that can be corrected. I can't really explain it, and wouldn't if I could, but take my word for it. You are not going to suddenly wake up. Your brain was altered, molecularly restructured, by the computer. What has happened, in the simplest of terms, is that you have become aware of a new dimension that has been there all the time. You may very well have been walking through it, without perception, every time you entered the Kremlin. And the computer is the only way back."

"Wizard," said the Russian. "Absolutely wizard. You chaps are far ahead of us. Our boffins haven't a clue to anything like this."

Blade smiled. "We hope to keep it that way. And I may as well tell you, by the way, that you overdo the 'British' bit a little. You sound like a stage Englishman."

"Do I now? Strange, that I've only been copying you, Blade."

Blade had to grin. "Then I had better look to myself. Funny. I thought I was beginning to sound like a bloody Yank."

"The proposition, old man?"

"Just that you defect to us."

The Russian's amazement was genuine. "Defect? Me? My very dear fellow, I - "

Blade watched him closely. "Why not? In time, after all your security stuff is out of the way, you would have a better life. England is a better place to live, you know."

The other man nodded slowly. He stared at Blade over the wine mug. "That is opinion, not fact. But granting it - how could this be arranged?"

"Not difficult at all. You arrived naked, did you not?"

Another nod. A wry smile. "Did I! Naked in a raging sea. Thinking I had lost my mind. If I hadn't found some floating wreckage I would have drowned."

"You will be naked when you go back," Blade said. "You will be stunned and helpless and you will be arrested immediately. As a spy, an enemy agent, a man who threatened to blow up half of London. You will be put away for a very long time. You might want to defect then, but coming after the fact it won't carry much plausibility. But if you defect now, if you arrange it now with me, I can vouch for you when we get back. If we get back."

The man leaned toward Blade. "If, old man?"

Blade wanted to ruffle him, to worry him a bit. The man was too cool and sure of himself and Blade didn't like it. Psyche him a little, as the Americans said.

"There always has to be a first time," he said gravely, "when the computer will fail. When they won't be able to take contact."

The Russian lit his pipe again. He took his mug of wine and went to the balcony and peered out. It was beginning to get dark. It was a trick to keep Blade from seeing his face and there was nothing Blade could do about it.

"Tell me, old man - can a dead man be transported back to your Home Dimension? A body?"

"No. A man is dead when his brain dies. The computer can't alter dead cells."

A blare of weird music came from the courtyard beneath the window. Blade could see torches weaving patterns in the gloom. The Russian came back to the center of the room.

"That little celebration is for us," he explained. "For you, really. I had mine when I first arrived. But we are reunited now, twins who love each other, and they will really turn it on tonight. Feasting, dancing girls, the whole lot. Afterwards you will have your audience with El Kal. That will be rather important, you know. The Kal is going to decide which one of us remains as consort to Canda - and which one goes into exile. Classic situation, eh?"

Blade kept his face impassive. This was a new situation, an abrupt volte-face, and he needed time to cope. At the same time he was a trifle angered and let it show through.

"Canda? Who the hell cares about Canda? I thought we were discussing a serious matter! About your possible defection - you may not have all the time in the world, you realize? When the computer really finds us - "

His double smiled with all the Blade charm. "Oh, that. No problem there, old man. Of course I'll defect. I had already made up my mind about it. You have my promise as of now. What you don't understand is that we have to stay alive until the computer finds us. And you say that you can't know when that will be?"

Blade shook his head. "I can't. It might be in the next second. Might be a year. All I know is that they are trying - We've both had the pains. But I don't understand - "

"About Canda? And death? No, of course not. So listen to the morbid news, old chappie. El Kal runs the Moghs and Moghland, but Canda runs El Kal. But good, as the Yanks say. No mistake about it. What Canda wants Canda gets. And Canda wants both of us."

Blade, still puzzled, shook his head. "So? Still nothing but a trifle - surely an arrangement can be made."

The Russian went back to the couch and sank onto it. He filled his mug again. "One would think so. One would be wrong. There are several good reasons why - the chief one being that exile, here, is just another word for murder. Mogh law is very complicated and tricky. As I have good cause to know. God - they haven't found the wheel yet and they have a legal system that makes ours look on kindergarten level. All based on ignorance and superstition, but laws just the same. Unwritten laws are just as binding as the written ones, maybe more so.

"Anyway - any suitor for a royal Princess who is refused is sent into exile. Naked. Literally. Stripped of all his possessions. They give him a day's start. Then the pursuit starts - there is a nomad tribe, called the Ouled, who make a specialty of tracking down these poor bastards and killing them. They bring the head back and El Kal sticks it on a pike on the wall. This, mind you, is supposed to ensure a happy marriage."

Blade stared. "A happy marriage!"

"Yes. The rival is dead, you see, and can never trouble again. Mogh women are very highly sexed and very promiscuous. But that particular suitor will never cause trouble - his head is the proof of that."

"But - "

"Hear me out, old man. Under Mogh law a Princess can have only one consort."

Blade's smile was limp. "And Canda wants both of us?"

"That is the bind, old bean. She says she can't make up her mind which of us is better in bed. I would gladly surrender the honor to you, but she isn't having any."

"For my part," said Blade, "you can have the honor."

The double sighed loudly. "Like something out of the Arabian Nights, isn't it? But it does have its compensations, eh? That Canda is a bit of all right, no? One beautiful bird! But damned if I want to die for a bit of quiff. I want to stay alive and defect."

All Blade could say was that he would be eternally goddamned.

"I don't know about that," his double said, "but I do know that we are both in a spot of trouble unless we can figure something out. One of us is for it. Are you sure there is no way you can hurry that computer?"

"I am positive. It may never find us. I told you that."

The Russian agent stood up and raised his glass to Blade. "Well, here's to us. I hate to be smug about it, but at the moment I am the front runner. I left Canda just before I came here and she seemed very much satisfied. Of course it won't last You'll have your chance tonight after your seance with El Kal."

"Seance?" Blade thought it a strange choice of words.

"You'll find out," said the double. He poured them more wine and raised his glass.

"They'll be coming for us any moment now, I expect Cheers, old man."

Blade drank. The wine had gone bitter.