White Stars

8. Matters of Honour

Not long after the exchange between the Duke of Queens and Lord Shark, Trooper Kevin O'Dwyer, becoming conscious of his own lack of exercise, waddled out for a stroll in the sweet-smelling forest which lay to the west of the duke's palace.

Trooper O'Dwyer was concerned for the duke's safety. It had only just dawned on him what the stakes were to be. He took a kindly and patronizing interest in the well-being of the Duke of Queens, regarding his host with the affection one might feel towards a large, stupid Labrador, an amiable Labrador. This was perhaps a naive view of the duke's character, but it suited the good-natured O'Dwyer to maintain it. Thus, he mulled the problem over as he sat down under a gigantic daffodil and rested a pair of legs which had become unused to walking.

The scent of the monstrous flowers was very heady and it made the already weary Trooper O'Dwyer rather drowsy, so that he had not accomplished very much thinking before he began to nod off, and would have fallen into a deep sleep had he not been tapped smartly on the shoulder. He opened his eyes with a grunt and looked into the gaunt features of his old comrade Trooper Gan Hok. With a gesture, Trooper Gan Hok cautioned O'Dwyer to silence, whispering, "Is anyone else with you?"

"Only you." Trooper O'Dwyer was pleased with his wit. He grinned.

"This is serious," said Trooper Gan Hok, wriggling the rest of his thin body from the undergrowth. "We've been trying to contact you for days. We're busting off. Sergeant Martinez sent me to find you. Didn't you know we'd escaped?"

"I heard you'd disappeared, but I didn't think much of it. Has something come up?"

"Nothing special, only we decided it was our duty to try to get back. Sergeant Martinez reckons that we're as good as deserters."

"I thought we were as good as POWs?" said O'Dwyer reasonably. "We can't get back. Only experienced time travellers can even attempt it. We've been told."

"Sergeant Martinez doesn't believe 'em."

"Well," said O'Dwyer, "I do. Don't you?"

"That's not the point, trooper," said Gan Hok primly. "Anyway, it's time to rejoin your squad. I've come to take you back to our HQ. We've got a foxhole on the other side of this jungle, but time's running out, and so are our supplies. We can't work the power rings. We need food and we need weapons before we can put the rest of the sergeant's plan into operation."

Through one of the gaps in his shirt Trooper O'Dwyer scratched his stomach. "It sounds crazy. What's your opinion? Is Martinez in his right mind?"

"He's in command. That's all we have to know."

Before he had become a guest of the Duke of Queens, Trooper O'Dwyer would have accepted this logic, but now he was not sure he found it palatable. "Tell the sergeant I've decided to stay. Okay?"

"That is desertion. Look at you — you've been corrupted by the enemy!"

"They're not the enemy, they're our descendants."

"And they wouldn't exist today if we hadn't done our duty and wiped out the Vultures — that's assuming what they say is true." Gan Hok's voice took on the hysterical tones of the very hungry. "If you don't come, you'll be treated as a deserter." Meaningly, Trooper Gan Hok fingered the knife at his belt.

O'Dwyer considered his position and then replied. "Okay, I'll come with you. There isn't a chance of this plan working anyhow."

"The sergeant's got it figured, O'Dwyer. There's a good chance."

With a sigh, Trooper O'Dwyer climbed to his feet and lumbered after Trooper Gan Hok as he moved with nervous stealth back into the forest.

"But, dearest of dukes, you cannot take such terms seriously!" The Iron Orchid's skin flickered through an entire spectrum of colour as, in agitation, she paced the floor of the "gym".

Embarrassed, he fingered the cloak of the dormant duelling automaton. "I have agreed," he said quietly. "I thought you would find it amusing — you, in particular, my petalled pride."

"I believe," she replied, "that I feel sad."

"You must tell Werther. He will be curious. It is the emotion he most yearns to experience."

"I would miss your company so much if Lord Shark kills you. And kill you he will, I am sure."

"Nonsense. I am the match for his automaton, am I not?"

"Who knows how Lord Shark programmed the beast? He could be deceiving you."

"Why should he? Like you, he tried to dissuade me from the duel."

"It might be a trick."

"Lord Shark is incapable of trickery. It is not in his nature to be devious."

"What do you know of his nature? What do any of us know?"

"True. But I have my instincts."

The Iron Orchid had a low opinion of those.

"If you wait," he said consolingly, "you will observe my skill. The automaton is programmed to respond to certain verbal commands. I intend, now, to allow it to try to wound me." He turned, presented his sword at the ready and said to the automaton, "We fight to wound." Immediately the mechanical duellist prepared itself, balancing on the balls of its feet in readiness for the duke's attack.

"Forgive me," said the Iron Orchid coldly, "if I do not watch. Farewell, Duke of Queens."

He was baffled by her manner. "Goodbye, lovely Iron Orchid." His sword touched the automaton's; the automaton feinted; the duke parried. The Iron Orchid fled from the hall.

Righting herself at the exit, she entered her little air car, the bird of paradise, and instructed it to carry her as rapidly as possible to the house of Lord Shark the Unknown. The car obeyed, flying over many partially built and partially destroyed scenes, several of them the duke's own, of mountains, luscious sunrises, cities, landscapes of all descriptions, until the barren plain came in sight and beyond it the brown mountains, under the shadow of which lay Lord Shark's featureless dwelling.

The bird of paradise descended completely to the ground, its scintillating feathers brushing the dust; out of it climbed the Iron Orchid, walking determinedly to the door and knocking upon it.

A masked figure opened it immediately.

"Lord Shark, I have come to beg —"

"I am not Lord Shark," said the figure in Lord Shark's voice. "I am his servant. My master is in his duelling room. Is your business important?"

"It is."

"Then I shall inform him of your presence." The machine closed the door.

Impatient and astonished, for she had had no real experience of such behaviour, the Iron Orchid waited until, in a while, the door was opened again.

"Lord Shark will receive you," the automaton told her. "Follow me."

She followed, remarking to herself on the unaesthetic symmetry of the interior. She was shown into a room furnished with a chair, a bench and a variety of ugly devices which she took to be crude machines. On one side of her stood Lord Shark the Unknown, a sword still in his gloved hand.

"You are the Iron Orchid?"

"You remember that we met when you challenged my friend the Duke of Queens?"

"I remember. But I did not challenge him. He asked how he might make amends for destroying the lichen I had been growing. He built his continent upon it."

"His Afrique."

"I do not know what he called it. I suggested a duel, because I wished to test my abilities against those of another mortal. I regretted this suggestion when I understood the light in which the duke accepted it."

"Then you would rather not continue with it?"

"It does not please me, madam, to be a clown, to be put to use for the entertainment of those foolish and capricious individuals you call your friends!"

"I do not understand you."

"Doubtless you do not."

"I regret, however, that you are displeased."

"Why should you regret that?" He seemed genuinely puzzled. "I regret only that my privacy has been disturbed. You are the third to visit me."

"You have only to refuse to fight and you are saved from enduring that which disturbs you."

The shark-mask looked away from her. "I must kill your Duke of Queens, as an example to the rest of you — as an example of the futility of all existence, particularly yours. If he should kill me, then I am satisfied, also. There is a question of honour involved."

"Honour? What is that?"

"Your ignorance confirms my point."

"So you intend to pursue this silly adventure to the bitter end?"

"Call it what you like."

"The duke's motives are not yours."

"His motives do not interest me."

"The duke loves life. You hate it."

"Then he can withdraw."

"But you will not?"

"You have presented no arguments to convince me that I should."

"But he seeks only to please his fellows. He agreed to the duel because he hoped it would please you."

"Then he deserves death."

"You are unkind, Lord Shark."

"I am a man of intellect, madam, whose misfortune it is to find himself alone in an irrational universe. I do you all the credit of having the ability to see what I see, but I despise you for your unwillingness to accept the truth."

"You see only one form of truth."

"There is only one form of truth." His grey shoulders shrugged. "I see, too, that your reasons for visiting me were whimsical, after all. I would be grateful if you would leave."

As she turned to go, something mechanical screamed from the desk. She paused. With a murmur of displeasure, Lord Shark the Unknown hurried to his consoles.

"This is intolerable!" He stared into a screen. "A horde has arrived! When you leave, please ask them to go away."

She craned her neck to look at the screen. "Why!" she exclaimed. "It is My Lady Charlotina's missing time travellers. What could their reason be, Lord Shark, for visiting you?"