Treason

Chapter 9 -- Jones

The town had a name, but I never knew it. Just another of the villages astride the great highway between Nkumai and Mueller. Once this had been one of the many small roads that let Jones trade with Bird, Robles with Sloan, but the Nkumai empire had made it a large road, heavy with traffic. The locals said you could stand beside the road and some party of travelers would come by every five or ten minutes all day. I saw no reason to doubt them.

It was only a year since my father and I had disappeared into the Forest of Ku Kuei and never returned; already we were legend. I heard stories that I had murdered him, or that he had executed me, or that we had killed each other in some terrible duel; I also heard the prophecy that Father would return one day and unite all the nations of the western plain in a great rebellion against the Nkumai. Of course I said nothing of Father's plunge into the lake in Ku Kuei, though I couldn't help wondering if he would have chosen death, had he known the great reverence the people of the plain had for his name.

It was ironic, too, since they had once feared him, before they knew how much harder a master was Nkumai than Mueller. Or was it? I had no way to compare. We of Mueller had no particular program of mercy toward those we conquered, back when we went out a-conquering. The people would have groaned under the heel of Mueller as surely as they complained about the oppression of Nkumai.

Talk of rebellion was all dreamwork anyway. Supposedly, Dinte ruled in Mueller, but it was well known that Mueller's independence was all show. On paper, Mueller was even larger and stronger than it had been under my father, but everyone knew that Nkumai's "king" ruled in Mueller as surely as he ruled in Nkumai. Harsh as the Nkumai might be, the whole Rebel River plain, from Schmidt in the west to the Starhigh Mountains in the east, was at peace. At peace because it had been conquered, yes, but peace brings security, and security brings confidence, and confldence brings prosperity. The people complained, but they were content enough.

The king of Nkumai? I heard much of this king, but I knew better, and so did others who had reason to know. Like the innkeeper in the town, a man who had once been Duke of Forest-edge but made the mistake of holding back some of the huge conqueror's tax the soldiers of Nkumai came to collect. After they stripped him of land and title, though, he still had enough money cached away to buy the inn and stock it, so perhaps it wasn't a mistake after all-- now that he wasn't of the nobility, he was pretty much left alone.

"And now I work here day in and day out, and I make a good living, but boy, I tell you cause you'll never know it, there's nothing like chasing the hounds after a cossie fleeing through the forest-edge."

"I don't doubt it," I said, particularly since I had hunted down many a cossie, too. We surplus armigers made up in memories for what we had lost in station.

"But the king says no more hunting, and so we eat beef and mutton mixed with horse manure and call it a stew."

"The king must be obeyed," I said. In those days, it never hurt to add a plug for the king. There's nobody here but us loyal supporters of Nkumai.

"The king must be screwed," said the innkeeper. I liked him better instantly. Had there been any other customers at the moment, of course, he surely would have been more circumspect. But he could tell by my speech, I suppose, that I was educated, which meant that I, too, was fallen from high station. "The king of Nkumai is about as common these days as starships."

I laughed. So he knew, too.

"Everyone knows the real power behind the throne is Mwabao Mawa," he said.

The name brought back floods of memories, ending on a dark night. when she tried to make love to a sweet young girl in her treehouse. Oddly, the memory stirred me and I thought wistfully of what might have happened if we had made love. Wouldn't she have been surprised.

"And what I know but not everyone knows is that the scientists are the power behind Mwabao Mawa," he said.

I smiled. How had the Nkumai been careless enough to let that secret slip? But again I pretended not to know. "Scientists? They're nothing but dreamers."

"Do you think so? Do you think because I've fallen on hard times that I don't have supporters and friends in high places? The same's true of Mueller. The geneticists are running things there-- Dinte's just there to keep those that love royal blood from rising up in rebellion. It's a sad day when those born to rule are keeping inns while self-appointed wise men oversee things they were never meant to handle."

He went into the back room, then, and didn't come back out until I had finished drinking the ale. I didn't need it, but every now and then it just felt good to drink. And afterward it felt good to piss. People who do these things every day never realize how much pleasure they involve. So I drank, and then I got up to leave.

"Don't go yet!" he called out, and he strode back into the common room. "Sit back down, and give me your word you'll not tell anybody what I tell you now. "

I smiled, and he foolishly took that for assent. He smiled back. "I knew in a minute," he said, "that you're not a common boy. It's not just your white hair, though sure enough that places you in Mueller or Schmidt. You've got the look about you. Even though you're alone, you've known how it was to command men."

I said nothing, just regarded him. I had made no attempt to disguise my bearing, so I wasn't terribly impressed that he had realized all this.

He grinned and quieted his voice. "My name's Hill Underjones. Understand that, so that you know that I'm not just a dreamer." Underjones made him only one step removed from royalty. "There are those who still oppose these inkers. We aren't many, but we're smart, and we're stockpiling old Mueller iron south of here, in Huss. It's a backwater country, but that's the best place to hide. I'll tell you who to see there, and he'll be glad to take you in. It doesn't matter who you are, one look at you and he'll want you. His name is--"

"Don't tell me his name," I said. "I don't want to know."

"You can't tell me you don't hate these inkers as bad as I do!"

"Maybe worse," I said. "But I break easily under torture. I'd give away all your secrets."

He looked at me slantwise. "I don't believe you."

"I urge you to try," I said.

"Who are you?"

"Lanik Mueller," I said.

He looked startled for a moment, then laughed uproariously. I often used my own name-- it always brought that reaction.

"Might as well claim to be the devil himself. No, Lanik Mueller was swallowed up-- what a joker. His father killed him. Might as well claim to be the devil!"

Might as well. He was still laughing as I walked out onto the street.

The inn faced the main highway, and as I stepped from the inn's wooden frontwalk, a beggar child ran past me, jostling me as he went. I was annoyed, and watched the boy as he ran on, finally to collide head-on with a very important-looking man with clothes whose price would have fed and clothed a beggar family for a month or more. The man had been talking to several younger men, and when the child struck him, he gave the boy a vicious kick in the leg. The child fell to the ground, and the man cursed hun soundly.

It was foolish of me, but this seemed at the moment to be the crowning injustice of all the million injustices I had seen and perpetrated in my life. This time, I decided, I would do something.

So I pushed myself into quicktime, and the people on the street slowed until they were nearly stopped. I threaded my way carefully through the crowd until I stood in front of the man who had kicked the child. His right foot was descending to the ground as he walked along, still in animated discussion with his young friends. It was a simple matter to have the soil of the road sink a decimeter directly under his foot, and to have a puddle of water form there, extending a full two meters on in front of him. With my hands I took one of the large stones used to chock wagon wheels and placed it so it would impede his left foot.

Then I walked to the stable where my horse was being fed and groomed, and leaned against the door. I felt more than a little silly to have gone to such lengths to effect such a small thing. It was more a desire for the prank, I think, than any moral principle that inspired the act.

However, now that I was in quicktime among the crowd, I took a moment to relax. In quicktime I had no need to be wary in case I met someone who would recognize me, instead of know-nothings who laughed when I mentioned my name. Instead I could survey the crowd at my leisure.

Since I was already being childish right then, I even toyed with the idea of picking pockets, not because I needed any money, but because it was possible to do it and never get caught. There is something about knowing you won't get caught that could tempt the most honest man, and I have never claimed to be unusually honest.

I looked over the crowd to see who might be a likely target. A little way down the road a large wagon was coming-- an Nkumai coach, and judging from the large contingent of mounted Nkumai soldiers, it contained somebody important. It was a warm day; the carriage was open; the sole occupant was a middle-aged man, rather stocky and thoroughly bald. To my surprise, he was white. I immediately supposed he was a Mueller returning from a visit to Nkumai. But the Nkumai don't give mounted escorts to foreigners who are leaving. Either this man deserved unusual honor (in which case, why didn't I know him?) or the Nkumai were letting foreigners high in their own government.

Wondering about him put the idea of picking pockets out of my mind. I slid back to real time, turning to watch the result of my prank. Exactly as I planned, the self-important stranger stepped into the rut I had made and fell headlong into the puddle. The splash was formidable, and he arose sputtering and cursing as all the people nearby laughed at him. Even his coterie of admirers couldn't hide their amusement as they solicitously helped him up. And, for all that the gesture was small, I felt a certain satisfaction, particularly when I looked at the laughing child the man had kicked.

The moment passed. People moved to the side of the road to let the Nkumai troop and carriage pass. I glanced at the carriage and was shocked to see, not the middle-aged man, but Mwabao Mawa.

She seemed only a little older-- it had scarcely been two and a half years-- and she held herself very importantly in the carriage. I briefly wondered why I hadn't noticed her in the carriage before, and where the bald-white man had got to. But at the moment that thought was pushed aside, partly because it didn't admit to any ready explanation, but mostly because I let myself remember my days in Mwabao Mawa's house. It seemed impossible to me now that I had once had breasts and passed for a woman. Been a woman, rather. And for a moment as I involuntarily reached up to my cheat I expected to find softness there, and, for that moment, I was surprised to find it gone.

I glanced down, realized the old habit I had fallen into, cursed myself for a fool, and then looked up to see Mwabao Mawa staring at me, at first in mild interest, and then, as the carriage pulled farther away, with recognition and surprise and, yes, fear. The fear was gratifying, but the recognition could be disastrous.

She turned to give instructions to the driver. I used that moment to step back into the stable and get out of sight. I also pushed into quicktime again-- I had to think, quickly. There was no way I could take my horse in quicktime, since Man-Who-Knows-It-All, despite all his efforts, hadn't been able to teach me to extend, my bubble of time control outside myself. In quicktime I could walk faster relative to the rest of the world than a horse could possibly carry me at a full gallop.

I went to my horse, a huge, stupid beast with all the instincts of a hog but with a price I could afford, and unloaded the saddlebags, selecting as much as I could carry, and taking anything that might give a hint as to my identity. There was little enough of that-- I had never been one for embroidered kerchiefs or blazoned leather. Then, carrying the bags, I slipped out a back door into the corral.

When Mwabao Mawa didn't find me quickly, she would forget. the search and figure she had only seen someone who reminded her of me. I didn't think I had made myself so remarkable that anyone would remember me, except perhaps the innkeeper, and he had reasons of his own for not cooperating with the Nkumai.

I tossed the bags over the fence of the corral, climbed after them and walked off down a side street. I'd have to stay in quicktime for several days, which irritated me, because in quicktime, of course, I aged more quickly relative to the real world. I wouldn't end up like Man-Who-Fell-on-His-Ass, but I resented losing days or weeks off my life. How old was I now, anyway? I had gained days and weeks when I was with Saranna in slowtime; I had lost many more days and weeks in quicktime among the Ku Kuei. Was I anywhere near my calendar age of eighteen? Hardly, even if my body seemed that young and strong. I had been through enough, I figured, to have a middle-aged man's memories. As I strode off through the back roads and started on my way to Robles in the south, I decided that quicktime didn't matter anyway. I had no particular desire to live to be old.

Still, I had no intention of letting the Nkumai catch me and realize who I was.

The worst thing about quicktime was the lonehness. No one is safer than a man who moves so quickly that he can't be seen. But it's a bit tough to carry on a conversation with someone who won't even know you're there unless you stand in the same place for a half hour.

I crossed the Rio de Janeiro into Cummings before I let myself back into realtime. No matter how alarmed Mwabao Mawa was, she wouldn't send troops more than a thousand kilometers to look for someone she had seen only a few meters off that very day.

Why did I go south? I had no particular object in mind. Except that I had lived in a dozen towns under Nkumai control in Jones and Bird during the past six months, and I wanted to get to a place where the enlightened empire of the physicists didn't rule. I didn't want to link up with any rebels gathering in Huss, so I went southeast over the da Silva pass.

There I found that there was no escape from the imperial committees. A few dozen scientists in Gill ruled from Tellerman to Britton, and no one was free.

I might have given up and gone right back to Schwartz then. Or, had my despair been even deeper, I might have gone back to Mueller and faced down Dinte. But I hadn't the weariness yet for retirement from the world, and I hadn't the passion for a dramatic death, and so both Schwartz and Mueller I reserved for the future. Instead I wandered from da Silva to Wood, from Wood to Hanks, from Hanks across the sea to Holt, and finally to Britton, where I found my true home, my true people, and learned what I had to do to keep them.