Cluster (20 page)

Flint mounted the chariot and took the reins. A tiny twitch put the dragon in motion. Its curled-under claws clattered against the hard path. “Don't let it go too fast,” a voice said.

Flint glanced about, but there was no one. “Where are you?” He believed in dragons, but not in ghosts.

“Here. It's the Ambassador. I'm using the radio.”

The voice was in his own skull. “I'll keep it in mind. The dragon's not going to wreck himself.”

The countryside was hardly visible at night, just a varied mat of vegetation, as on Outworld, the way a planet should be. Flint looked at the sky again, feeling nostalgic. He saw the tenuous cloud of the Milky Way, and the large faint patch of Galaxy Andromeda to the side, just as they were in the sky of Outworld. He pondered the notion that all his adventures stemmed from the malign influence of that distant cluster of stars.

He looked across to Etamin again, halfway around the sky. Home, so far away! What was Honeybloom doing now? Was the Shaman looking this way?

The dragon knew the way, spreading its vestigial wings for additional stability when banking around turns. The white steam jetting from its nostrils puffed into the sky and drifted back, bathing Flint in its warm aroma. He knew that steam was invisible; this was merely the condensation of water droplets as the breath cooled. Small matter; it was pleasant being a dragonmaster, and he urged the creature on. This was an attitude it appreciated, for it responded with a burst of speed that had the chariot wheels bouncing over the irregularities of the trail. Now it was a high-velocity ride, but Flint gave the animal free play. The chariot shook so hard it seemed ready to fly apart, and Flint reveled in the sensation. Was this what it was like to be a god, coursing through the sky?

Yet he wondered. Why had the Queen provided an unchaperoned dragon for the visitor? A soft, civilized man like the Ambassador could have been injured or even killed. Was she testing him? He grinned in the dark as the waves of vapor blew out his hair. If the Queen were curious about the mettle of Outworld, she would learn.

In due course they steamed into the palace demesne. There were a cluster of buildings and appurtenances, ornate affairs with columns, turrets, arches, and flying buttresses, probably a mishmash of Earthly medieval architecture. What sort of building had resulted when the pleasantly primitive Goths became Gothic architects? This was the physical manifestation of cultural regression toward the fringe of the civilized Sphere.
 

It was the same for all Spheres, whatever sapient species controlled them, for there was a built-in limitation: the lack of energy. With unlimited energy, all the Spheres could have been maintained at the highest level of civilization. Maybe it was really a blessing, for galactic conquest would become possible, and there were many creatures more advanced than humans. But as it was, many Spheres could flourish and their outer reaches had to fade. In no case was history reenacted; the technical approximation was echoed by culture. Where rapiers were the most advanced weapons, etiquette honored the proficient swordsman. The guidance of Earth history helped set the patterns, but this was a very general thing, with anomalies the rule. So there was no firm guide to the authenticity of the palace. The palace was what it was, and that was by local definition correct.

“Rogue dragon!” someone screamed as they slammed into the terminal. Men scurried about, spreading out a huge net with which to snare the rampant beast. But Flint smiled, and drew in on the reins gently. The dragon screeched to a stop precisely on target, its giant claws chiseling furrows out of the packed dirt. Flint dismounted in a cloud of steam and dust, gave the dragon a comradely pat on the nose, and marched regally into the main gate.

A shaken flunky took his name and planet, and another led away the dragon, who gave Flint another brief but meaningful glance. The rapport of Kirlians operated independently of species or intellect. Right now Flint had other things to do, but he would come to see the dragon again. He preferred its company to that of ordinary human beings.

Where there was one high-Kirlian animal, there might be others. Were all dragons like this one, on this world, or was it just this one? Probably no animals had been measured for this quality; few natives understood the nature of the regular Imperial surveys. Flint had been ignorant as a child and young warrior. Now he understood the secret of much of his success as a hunter on Outworld, and perhaps as a flintsmith too. Some animals and even some objects possessed auras, and he had unconsciously related to these.

“Ooooh, there's a handsome one,” a female voice remarked as he entered the gate.

Flint picked out the owner of that voice. It was a girl like none he had seen before. Her face was pretty, and her breasts were astonishingly uplifted and full, seeming about to burst out of harness, but the rest of her was grotesque. Her arms were grossly bloated to the wrists, and her hips jutted out at right angles into a posterior like an overgrown swamp hammock, a massive mound dropping vertically to the floor. Two pegs projected from that voluminous skirt, and Flint realized those were her slippered feet. Her face and hands and the alarming cleavage of her bosom were light blue.

“Haven't you seen a woman before?” she inquired.

“Don't stare,” the voice in his skull said. It was the Ambassador, on the job. “I can't look through your eyes, but I'm assuming from the voice that you've just met one of the palace escorts, a handmaiden to the Queen. She–”

“Shut up,” Flint mumbled, not pleased to have had this encounter intercepted.

The blue girl gave him an arch glance. “Well!”

“Not you,” Flint said quickly. “I was addressing my beating heart. I have not before observed such beauty.” The Shaman would not have approved of such a lie, but it seemed necessary.

“Wow! You'll do fine here,” the Ambassador said. “That's the ticket.” Flint wondered what a ticket was.

The girl flushed very prettily, her face, breasts, and hands turning so dark they were almost green. That made her look better. Flint realized that the flunkies outside had been blue too, but he hadn't noted it in the poor light. Just as his own people were green, and Sol's people were shades of white, brown, and black, these Capellans were blue. It all depended on the environment, especially the type of stellar radiation they received.

“You must be the envoy from Etamin,” the girl said. “We know there are real men there.”

“Yes,” Flint agreed. “Will you guide me to the...”

“Throneroom,” the Ambassador supplied.

“Throneroom?” Flint finished. “I am a stranger here.”

“Gladly, sir,” she agreed, putting one hand on his elbow, sliding her arm inside his. “I am Delle.”

“I am Flint of Outworld,” he said as she walked him down a long hall. “I am from a primitive world.”

“Yes. The gossip is all over the palace, how you brought Old Scorch to heel. That must have been some–”

“The dragon?” But of course it was. Just as the most ornery dinosaur of his region of Outworld had been dubbed Old Snort, a term both respectful and descriptive, the most ornery dragon here would be Old Scorch. Evidently news traveled like lightning in the palace, unless the girls had been watching from a window. “He's a fine animal.”

“He's burned eleven men in his day,” she said. “That's approaching a record. Usually an animal is destroyed after three, but he's the Queen's pet. He never scorches
her
, you bet. He's not supposed to be used beyond the palace grounds, but there must have been a foulup.”

“Very interesting,” the voice in his skull remarked. “They were supposed to send a docile animal.”

“As I said,” Flint continued, overriding him. “I am primitive. Please do not take offense. I am unfamiliar with your apparel. Does it reflect your form?”

“My form?” She looked perplexed.

“On my world, women have thinner arms and–”

“Watch it!” the ambassador snapped.

“Legs,” Flint finished.

Delle laughed so heartily that her breasts actually flopped in the rigid half-cups. “Here, I'll show you.” She glanced back down the hall, then drew him into an alcove. When she was satisfied they had privacy she pulled the side of her neckline away from her shoulder, baring the upper arm and half of the rest of her breast. “See, these are padded sleeves. It's the fashion, also warm on cold nights. I'm really quite skinny underneath.”

And all blue. “Oh.” Flint was relieved. “Forgive the confusion of a barbarian.”

“You really thought that was
me
?”

“I could not be certain. The skirt–”

“What a fat ass you thought I had!” she exclaimed, delighted. “Well, catch a glimpse of
this
.” She drew up a bulging hank of her skirt and petticoats to display as slender and symmetrical pair of blue legs as Flint could have wished. “This is a farthingale, a kind of bustle under the skirt. I'm quite human underneath. I have all the things a woman needs. Here, put your hand–”

“Careful!” the voice in his skull cried.

“Why?” Flint asked both girl and voice.

“To feel my thigh,” Delle said. “To prove its real, and whatever else you may doubt. It really is all there.”

“Because she'll seduce you if she can, quite without qualm,” the Ambassador explained at the same time, like a conscience. “You are a handsome man from an enticingly primitive planet, and she would gain notoriety. Don't let it happen. Suppose the Queen wanted your service, and you had just exhausted yourself with a handmaiden, little better than a chambermaid? Very bad form.”

Oho! Flint did not know the distinction between a handmaiden and a chambermaid, but he got the drift. First the dragon, then the flirt, testing him. The Queen was taking a greater interest in him than he had supposed.

Flint put his hand on her firm thigh. “Excellent,” he remarked sincerely. He slid his fingers up to cup her supple buttock. “How I regret a cannot explore this matter further.”

“Oh, but you
can
,” Delle said warmly. “I know a room where no one goes, and it has a huge bed.”

“But my urgency to wish Queen Bess a happy birthday is so pressing that all else palls. I may not dally.” As he spoke the world “pressing” he gave her buttock a good hard pinch, so that she jumped involuntarily, and withdrew.

“Beautiful!” the ambassador said. “You are a born diplomat.”

No, Flint thought. No diplomat. He merely liked to make his own decisions, to seduce rather than be seduced. The more someone pushed him, the more he went his own way. As the bastard speaking in his skull might find out in due course. The Ambassador was taking entirely too much interest.

The girl could make no serious objection. She was loyal to her Queen, perhaps a direct agent doing the Queen's specific bidding. Flint had learned on the slave world of Sphere Canopus not to confuse the relation between master and servant. People who failed the Queen could lose their heads. Probably nothing that went on in this palace was hidden from the monarch. This place was like a giant spider web (spiders were one of Sol System's more intriguing phenomena), and woe betide the visiting fly who misstepped.

They came sedately to the entrance of the main hall. “Now you must wait for the herald,” Delle explained. “Then walk slowly up and make obeisance to the Queen.”

“That's right,” the Ambassador said. “I will guide you. After that formality, you should have no trouble. Once the liquor starts flowing, just about anything goes.”

Flint clicked his teeth once in acknowledgment. Maybe then the Ambassador would kindly take a nap and leave Flint to his own devices. He needed no advice in handling liquor, food, and pretty girls.

“His Excellency Lord Pimpernel, Envoy Extraordinary of System Sheriton, realm of the Ram,” the herald announced. A rather pudgy little man with spotty skin minced up and made a deep bow to the Queen, who was out of the line of Flint's vision.

“The Lord High Poopdoodle of Pollux, Most Gracious Tzar of the Twins, Gentleman of Gemini.” A tall thin old man marched out, almost stumbling over his hanging sword, while Flint stifled a laugh. Poopdoodle of Pollux? It sounded like dragon refuse.

But the next introduction was even worse. “The Regent of the Fabled Green Planet, Scion of Star Etamin, Conqueror of the Dragon, Flint of Outworld!” the herald bawled.

Flint stood still, stunned by the audacity of the fanciful credits he had been assigned. Outworld had no Regent, and he had no authority even in his local tribe, let alone his planet. Were they trying to mock him?

“Get in there!” the skull-voice cried. “
All
their titles are ludicrous. Popdod of Pollux is just an ambassador, same as me.
He
didn't balk.”

Flint marched in. Now he saw the Queen, standing before her throne. She was short and blue, but impressive in padded sleeves and farthingale hoops that made her skirt even more like a barrel than that of Delle's. The material of her dress was thick and quilted, with golden thread and bright jewels at every interstice. She wore several necklaces of jewels that hung halfway down her body, reaching out to the edge of the vertical skirt. On either side of her neck were huge ruffs and wire frames extending the lines of her head out a foot or more. She wore an obvious wig pinned to her scalp, but still looked almost bald beneath it. Her crown perched at the top like the spire of a civilized church. In her right hand she held the scepter of power.

“Bow,” the voice said urgently. “Slow and deep.”

Flint faced the Queen and bowed, emulating the prior visitors.

“Well, it has manners after all,” the Queen said. Her voice was harsh and somewhat scratchy. She was a robust woman, not young but not yet old, with makeup caked on her face so that it looked like a fright mask. Flint suspected that her body under the elaborate dress did resemble the outer configuration: bloated into the shape of a hogshead of strong liquor. Maybe that was why she had set this style: to cover her defects, and make all others cover their assets.