Read Times Without Number Online
Authors: John Brunner
Times Without Number (10 page)
Don Miguel's reaction, too, at first sight of the subject of their remarks
was to assume she must be out of her mind. For one thing her costume --
even for a night given over to fancy dress -- was ridiculous. It appeared
to consist of blue feathers pasted directly on to her skin, on her hips and
buttocks and on her belly as high as her navel. There were low red shoes on
her feet; around her wrists were beaded bands of various colours, and aside
from that she wore only designs in yellow paint on her face, shoulders
and breasts. She seemed to have emerged from the southward-leading avenue
connecting Empire Circle with the river embankment, and was standing now
in the middle of the roadway staring about her. She seemed both dazzled by
the sudden brightness here and dazed by her surroundings, for she glanced
wildly from side to side like a trapped animal seeking a way of escape.
Ribald yells went up from the crowd and the noise of singing died as
people turned to stare. Not far from Kristina and Don Miguel were a pair
of civil guards; an indignant man of middle age marched up to them and
spoke in furious tone, pointing at the feathered girl. Don Miguel did
not catch the actual words, but their import was clear, for a grinning
youth next to him bellowed, "Speak for yourself some of us like to see
'em that way!"
It occurred to Don Miguel that the sight of someone so nearly unclothed
was hardly fit for a duke's daughter, but the realisation was both
belated and misplaced, for Kristina, her pretty face set in a frown of
curiosity, was staring intently at the girl in blue feathers. She said,
"Miguel, I've never seen a costume anything like hers before. Where do
you suppose it comes from -- a tropical country? Asia, Africa . . . ?"
Something clicked in Don Miguel's mind. The word "premonition" flicked
through his thoughts. But he did not try to pin the idea down. A group
of drunken workmen at the edge of the crowd nearest to where the feathered
girl was standing had clearly made up their minds that if she came out in
public half-naked she could expect what they intended to do to her.
Leering, they moved closer to her, about five or six in a group.
Tiger-wise, she paused in her frightened staring and half-crouched to
confront them.
It looked as though the situation was going to turn nasty.
"Kristina," he said in a low voice, "I think I ought to get you away
from here."
"You'd do much better," came the reply as tart as lemon-juice, "to make
these civil guards go and help the poor girl before those men start to
gang-rape her!"
Accustomed to more conventional language from well-bred young women, Don
Miguel was taken aback and so distracted he failed to witness the next
development. A sudden cry drew his attention back to the feathered girl,
and he saw in amazement that one of the workmen was lying prostrate on
the hard ground and she was in the process of hurling another of her
assailants over her shoulder in a perfect wrestling throw.
"Oh, lovely!" Kristina clapped her hands, then caught Don Miguel by the arm.
"Come on, let's go and cheer her!"
But the ferment of her earlier remark was working in his mind by now,
and the premonition was coming clearer.
Never seen a costume anything like hers before . . .
What was he doing standing here like a petrified dummy? He started to
shoulder his way towards the feathered girl as violently and rapidly as
he dared, ignoring the complaints of those other bystanders he had to
push aside. Somehow Kristina kept up with him.
By the time he made it to the clear patch of ground surrounding the girl,
two more men had joined the first on the pavement, bruised and cursing,
and the girl was spitting what were obviously insults at them. Her voice
was almost as deep and strong as a man's despite the fact that she was
shorter than Kristina. Listening, Don Miguel felt the hairs on his nape
start to prickle.
The girl was small and thin, but wiry. Now he was close enough he could see
that she had black hair dressed in stiff wings either side of her head.
Her complexion was olive-sallow. And the words she was uttering sounded
like --
like
, not the same as -- the language of Cathay.
Don Miguel was as well-acquainted with the costumes, customs and languages
of the major civilisations of history as any Licentiate of similar
experience, and better than most. He could make himself understood in
Attic Greek and Quechua, Phoenician and Latin, Persian and Aramaic. He
could also recognise the characteristic vowel-consonant clusters of many
other tongues which he did not speak fluently. And what the girl was
hissing at her attackers did not fit any language he could call to mind.
The most obvious and most logical explanation for her presence was
that she must be a legitimate visitor to Londres -- perhaps a member of
the Cathayan ambassador's train. Under the influence of a brainstorm,
or having taken some foreign drug or potent liquor, she might have lost
her senses and run off . . .
But in that case you'd expect her to be a mere dancing-girl or geisha. You
wouldn't expect her to be capable of throwing burly workmen aside as
though they were straw-filled dummies.
It simply didn't figure!
In his worried concentration, he had taken another couple of paces
in the girl's direction, and the second was one too many. Suddenly,
without warning, she screamed and hurled herself at him.
He reacted barely in time. She was not merely a wrestler, he discovered
to his dismay. She was a killing fighter, fantastic though that was
in view of her sex. Her first move had been to launch a crippling kick
at his crotch, and the best he could manage was to twist aside so that
her toe struck his thigh instead. Even so, the force of the kick caused
him to lose his footing. He had to go down on one knee, fending her off
from below, and she seized his right arm at wrist and elbow and gave it
such a violent wrench he thought she might dislocate the joint. Pivoting
frantically on his pinioned arm and knee, he swept his other leg through
a half-circle and knocked her feet from under her. She was unbelievably
strong for her build, but she was light, and that was something she
could do nothing about.
Losing her grip on his arm, she tumbled sideways, rolled free, and came
back at him with a lightning-fast leap, head aimed for a butt in his
belly. In his turn he rolled, hoping with a distant corner of his mind
that street-dirt was not going to foul his cloak and breeches too badly
for him to return to the palace, and with joined legs flung her slamming
over his head to measure her length behind him. Recovering faster than
he could, she wheeled around and tried to sink her teeth into his thigh
as he scrambled to prevent her rising again. Clumsily he fell on her,
and pinned her wrists and one leg to the ground in an improvised but
serviceable hold which exploited his superior weight. Then, by main force,
he started to bring her wrists together.
She said nothing, but set her jaw grimly and stared up at him, straining
to dislodge his grip. During that long moment Don Miguel found time to
hope prayerfully that there were no Licentiates or Probationers in the
crowd around who might recognise him behind his half-mask. If there
was anything more undignified that a member of the Society could do
than wrestle with a woman in the middle of Empire Circle, he couldn't
imagine it.
All right, there was no alternative, however much it went against his
principles. Woman or no, he was going to have to hurt her. He shifted
his fingers on her wrists and stabbed down at the ganglia.
The shock went all the way through her. She forgot about resistance for
long enough to let him seize both wrists in one hand and cramp them
together, still applying the agonising pressure. With the hand thus
released he sought the carotid arteries in her neck and scientifically
began to strangle her.
In fifteen seconds she was limp. He gave her a little longer to ensure
that she would not recover too quickly, and then sat wearily on his heels,
wiping sweat from his forehead. Mingled now with the encouraging cries
of the crowd, of which he had barely been aware during the struggle,
he now heard voices of complaint directed at his "ruthless" treatment
of the feathered girl.
Ruthless! Those peopte should have had to tackle her!
But the situation must be regulated straight away. Where the blazes were
those civil guards he'd seen standing near the bonfire? As the saying
went, the only time you couldn't find a guard was when you wanted one --
Ah, here they were, officiously thrusting their way among the crowd to
the accompaniment of good-humoured mockery. He got to his feet.
"Make these people stand back!" he ordered crisply. "Get a hackney-carriage
and help me load thig girl into it!"
The civil guards bridled. One of them, bristling his mustachios, demanded,
"Who do you think
you
are, then?" He dropped his hand to his sword-hilt.
Don Miguel drew a deep breath. "Do as I say! I'm Don Miguel Navarro of
the Society of Time, and this is Society business. Jump to it, you fools!"
The scar across his face made him look savage and very much a man to be
obeyed, but it was the talisman-like name of the Society which caused
the guards to blanch and comply, and imposed a startled hush on the
crowd followed by a ripple of comment.
Taking off his cloak, Don Miguel laid it over the girl on the ground. She
was stirring a little already, though still a long way from regaining
consciousness. It would be advisable to tie her hands and ankles,
he decided. The kerchief he had in his pocket would serve for the
former. When he looked around for something longer to go round her legs,
something dangled before his eyes. Glancing up, he saw that Kristina had
eluded the civil guards and was offering him the girdle of her gown. He
took it with a word of thanks and knotted it fast.
"Who is she?" Kristina demanded. "Why did she attack you when you hadn't
threatened her?"
"I don't know who she is," Don Miguel grunted. "But if she's what I
think she might be, there's going to be the devil to pay tonight."
IV
In the dark padded interior of the hackney-carriage they sat mostly in
silence, staring at the cloak-shrouded form of the girl laid along the
opposite seat as successive scythe-sweeps of light from roadside lanterns
moved over her.
Suddenly Kristina shivered and pressed up against Don Miguel. She said,
"Miguel, what did you mean when you said there'd be the devil to pay
tonight? You sounded so fierce, I was frightened."
Already Don Miguel regretted that he had spoken. More than that, he
regretted having acted with so little to go on -- yet what alternative
had there been? If his vague, ill-formulated, horrifying suspicions were
correct, and the girl had been taken into custody by the ordinary civil
guards and some unimaginative local justice of the peace had stumbled
on her origins . . .
Potentially it would be like opening a second Pandora's Box, and perhaps
this time there might not even be hope left at the bottom.
Of course, far more likely was that the mystery would be satisfactorily
explained in everyday terms tomorrow morning, and he'd earn himself a
severe reprimand from the General Officers. Right now, he hardly dared
guess at the outcome.
He said apologetically, "If you don't mind, Kristina, I'd rather not
tell you any more until I've had a chance to investigate."
She glanced at him, lips a little parted as though about to ask another
question, but decided not to and merely clung closer than ever at his
side. He stroked her arm comfortingly and wished that the driver would
hurry.
This feathered girl frightened him! Kristina had been right about her
costume -- it was nothing remotely like any that he'd seen pictured from
anywhere in the modern world. Worse still, it was like nothing he'd
chanced across in his study of history. And as to the language she'd
spoken . . .
He choked the thought off with an effort as the carriage wheeled with
a grating of iron tyres on cobbles and drew up in the forecourt of the
Society's Headquarters Office.
Like the Commander's palace, it was set in large and handsome grounds;
like the palace, too, it was dominated by a tall tower housing time
apparatus. There the resemblance ended. It was completely in darkness
tonight, but for a single yellow square of a window on the ground floor
near the main door and two flambeaux in sconces under the porch.
Jumping from the step of the carriage almost before it had halted,
Don Miguel uttered an oath under his breath. Tonight, naturally, there
might be only the duty Probationer in the entire building -- but also,
just possibly, the man he needed to see more desperately than anyone in
the world.
"Get the girl out!" he rapped to the driver. "I'll have the door opened."
The man nodded and clambered down from his high seat, while the horses
shifted uneasily in the traces. Don Miguel started up the dark steps.
The door opened before he reached it, and there stood a young man
blinking diffidently in the light of the flambeaux. He was twenty or less,
snub-nosed, blue-eyed, below Don Miguel in height but well enough built.
"Are you alone?" Don Miguel flung at him.
"Ah -- yes, Licentiatel" the young man said. "I'm Probationer Jones,
sir, on duty tonight of course. I believe your honour is Don Miguel
Navarro. What service can I do you?"
"You're
completely
alone? No one else is here at all?"
" Absolutely no one, sir," Jones declared, eyes wide with surprise at
the force of the question.
Don Miguel's heart sank. So the agony of apprehension must drag on longer
yet. Still, there was no help for that. He passed a weary hand across
his forehead.
"There's a girl in my carriage," he said. "She ought not to be here,
or anywhere else, for that matter. I'm having her brought inside."
Jones gave a sigh. "Very well, sir. I presume you'll want a suite in
the quarters upstairs, and privacy -- "
The look on Don Miguel's face made him break off, stuttering with
confusion.
"Have members of the Society required such services of you?" Don Miguel
demanded.
was to assume she must be out of her mind. For one thing her costume --
even for a night given over to fancy dress -- was ridiculous. It appeared
to consist of blue feathers pasted directly on to her skin, on her hips and
buttocks and on her belly as high as her navel. There were low red shoes on
her feet; around her wrists were beaded bands of various colours, and aside
from that she wore only designs in yellow paint on her face, shoulders
and breasts. She seemed to have emerged from the southward-leading avenue
connecting Empire Circle with the river embankment, and was standing now
in the middle of the roadway staring about her. She seemed both dazzled by
the sudden brightness here and dazed by her surroundings, for she glanced
wildly from side to side like a trapped animal seeking a way of escape.
Ribald yells went up from the crowd and the noise of singing died as
people turned to stare. Not far from Kristina and Don Miguel were a pair
of civil guards; an indignant man of middle age marched up to them and
spoke in furious tone, pointing at the feathered girl. Don Miguel did
not catch the actual words, but their import was clear, for a grinning
youth next to him bellowed, "Speak for yourself some of us like to see
'em that way!"
It occurred to Don Miguel that the sight of someone so nearly unclothed
was hardly fit for a duke's daughter, but the realisation was both
belated and misplaced, for Kristina, her pretty face set in a frown of
curiosity, was staring intently at the girl in blue feathers. She said,
"Miguel, I've never seen a costume anything like hers before. Where do
you suppose it comes from -- a tropical country? Asia, Africa . . . ?"
Something clicked in Don Miguel's mind. The word "premonition" flicked
through his thoughts. But he did not try to pin the idea down. A group
of drunken workmen at the edge of the crowd nearest to where the feathered
girl was standing had clearly made up their minds that if she came out in
public half-naked she could expect what they intended to do to her.
Leering, they moved closer to her, about five or six in a group.
Tiger-wise, she paused in her frightened staring and half-crouched to
confront them.
It looked as though the situation was going to turn nasty.
"Kristina," he said in a low voice, "I think I ought to get you away
from here."
"You'd do much better," came the reply as tart as lemon-juice, "to make
these civil guards go and help the poor girl before those men start to
gang-rape her!"
Accustomed to more conventional language from well-bred young women, Don
Miguel was taken aback and so distracted he failed to witness the next
development. A sudden cry drew his attention back to the feathered girl,
and he saw in amazement that one of the workmen was lying prostrate on
the hard ground and she was in the process of hurling another of her
assailants over her shoulder in a perfect wrestling throw.
"Oh, lovely!" Kristina clapped her hands, then caught Don Miguel by the arm.
"Come on, let's go and cheer her!"
But the ferment of her earlier remark was working in his mind by now,
and the premonition was coming clearer.
Never seen a costume anything like hers before . . .
What was he doing standing here like a petrified dummy? He started to
shoulder his way towards the feathered girl as violently and rapidly as
he dared, ignoring the complaints of those other bystanders he had to
push aside. Somehow Kristina kept up with him.
By the time he made it to the clear patch of ground surrounding the girl,
two more men had joined the first on the pavement, bruised and cursing,
and the girl was spitting what were obviously insults at them. Her voice
was almost as deep and strong as a man's despite the fact that she was
shorter than Kristina. Listening, Don Miguel felt the hairs on his nape
start to prickle.
The girl was small and thin, but wiry. Now he was close enough he could see
that she had black hair dressed in stiff wings either side of her head.
Her complexion was olive-sallow. And the words she was uttering sounded
like --
like
, not the same as -- the language of Cathay.
Don Miguel was as well-acquainted with the costumes, customs and languages
of the major civilisations of history as any Licentiate of similar
experience, and better than most. He could make himself understood in
Attic Greek and Quechua, Phoenician and Latin, Persian and Aramaic. He
could also recognise the characteristic vowel-consonant clusters of many
other tongues which he did not speak fluently. And what the girl was
hissing at her attackers did not fit any language he could call to mind.
The most obvious and most logical explanation for her presence was
that she must be a legitimate visitor to Londres -- perhaps a member of
the Cathayan ambassador's train. Under the influence of a brainstorm,
or having taken some foreign drug or potent liquor, she might have lost
her senses and run off . . .
But in that case you'd expect her to be a mere dancing-girl or geisha. You
wouldn't expect her to be capable of throwing burly workmen aside as
though they were straw-filled dummies.
It simply didn't figure!
In his worried concentration, he had taken another couple of paces
in the girl's direction, and the second was one too many. Suddenly,
without warning, she screamed and hurled herself at him.
He reacted barely in time. She was not merely a wrestler, he discovered
to his dismay. She was a killing fighter, fantastic though that was
in view of her sex. Her first move had been to launch a crippling kick
at his crotch, and the best he could manage was to twist aside so that
her toe struck his thigh instead. Even so, the force of the kick caused
him to lose his footing. He had to go down on one knee, fending her off
from below, and she seized his right arm at wrist and elbow and gave it
such a violent wrench he thought she might dislocate the joint. Pivoting
frantically on his pinioned arm and knee, he swept his other leg through
a half-circle and knocked her feet from under her. She was unbelievably
strong for her build, but she was light, and that was something she
could do nothing about.
Losing her grip on his arm, she tumbled sideways, rolled free, and came
back at him with a lightning-fast leap, head aimed for a butt in his
belly. In his turn he rolled, hoping with a distant corner of his mind
that street-dirt was not going to foul his cloak and breeches too badly
for him to return to the palace, and with joined legs flung her slamming
over his head to measure her length behind him. Recovering faster than
he could, she wheeled around and tried to sink her teeth into his thigh
as he scrambled to prevent her rising again. Clumsily he fell on her,
and pinned her wrists and one leg to the ground in an improvised but
serviceable hold which exploited his superior weight. Then, by main force,
he started to bring her wrists together.
She said nothing, but set her jaw grimly and stared up at him, straining
to dislodge his grip. During that long moment Don Miguel found time to
hope prayerfully that there were no Licentiates or Probationers in the
crowd around who might recognise him behind his half-mask. If there
was anything more undignified that a member of the Society could do
than wrestle with a woman in the middle of Empire Circle, he couldn't
imagine it.
All right, there was no alternative, however much it went against his
principles. Woman or no, he was going to have to hurt her. He shifted
his fingers on her wrists and stabbed down at the ganglia.
The shock went all the way through her. She forgot about resistance for
long enough to let him seize both wrists in one hand and cramp them
together, still applying the agonising pressure. With the hand thus
released he sought the carotid arteries in her neck and scientifically
began to strangle her.
In fifteen seconds she was limp. He gave her a little longer to ensure
that she would not recover too quickly, and then sat wearily on his heels,
wiping sweat from his forehead. Mingled now with the encouraging cries
of the crowd, of which he had barely been aware during the struggle,
he now heard voices of complaint directed at his "ruthless" treatment
of the feathered girl.
Ruthless! Those peopte should have had to tackle her!
But the situation must be regulated straight away. Where the blazes were
those civil guards he'd seen standing near the bonfire? As the saying
went, the only time you couldn't find a guard was when you wanted one --
Ah, here they were, officiously thrusting their way among the crowd to
the accompaniment of good-humoured mockery. He got to his feet.
"Make these people stand back!" he ordered crisply. "Get a hackney-carriage
and help me load thig girl into it!"
The civil guards bridled. One of them, bristling his mustachios, demanded,
"Who do you think
you
are, then?" He dropped his hand to his sword-hilt.
Don Miguel drew a deep breath. "Do as I say! I'm Don Miguel Navarro of
the Society of Time, and this is Society business. Jump to it, you fools!"
The scar across his face made him look savage and very much a man to be
obeyed, but it was the talisman-like name of the Society which caused
the guards to blanch and comply, and imposed a startled hush on the
crowd followed by a ripple of comment.
Taking off his cloak, Don Miguel laid it over the girl on the ground. She
was stirring a little already, though still a long way from regaining
consciousness. It would be advisable to tie her hands and ankles,
he decided. The kerchief he had in his pocket would serve for the
former. When he looked around for something longer to go round her legs,
something dangled before his eyes. Glancing up, he saw that Kristina had
eluded the civil guards and was offering him the girdle of her gown. He
took it with a word of thanks and knotted it fast.
"Who is she?" Kristina demanded. "Why did she attack you when you hadn't
threatened her?"
"I don't know who she is," Don Miguel grunted. "But if she's what I
think she might be, there's going to be the devil to pay tonight."
IV
In the dark padded interior of the hackney-carriage they sat mostly in
silence, staring at the cloak-shrouded form of the girl laid along the
opposite seat as successive scythe-sweeps of light from roadside lanterns
moved over her.
Suddenly Kristina shivered and pressed up against Don Miguel. She said,
"Miguel, what did you mean when you said there'd be the devil to pay
tonight? You sounded so fierce, I was frightened."
Already Don Miguel regretted that he had spoken. More than that, he
regretted having acted with so little to go on -- yet what alternative
had there been? If his vague, ill-formulated, horrifying suspicions were
correct, and the girl had been taken into custody by the ordinary civil
guards and some unimaginative local justice of the peace had stumbled
on her origins . . .
Potentially it would be like opening a second Pandora's Box, and perhaps
this time there might not even be hope left at the bottom.
Of course, far more likely was that the mystery would be satisfactorily
explained in everyday terms tomorrow morning, and he'd earn himself a
severe reprimand from the General Officers. Right now, he hardly dared
guess at the outcome.
He said apologetically, "If you don't mind, Kristina, I'd rather not
tell you any more until I've had a chance to investigate."
She glanced at him, lips a little parted as though about to ask another
question, but decided not to and merely clung closer than ever at his
side. He stroked her arm comfortingly and wished that the driver would
hurry.
This feathered girl frightened him! Kristina had been right about her
costume -- it was nothing remotely like any that he'd seen pictured from
anywhere in the modern world. Worse still, it was like nothing he'd
chanced across in his study of history. And as to the language she'd
spoken . . .
He choked the thought off with an effort as the carriage wheeled with
a grating of iron tyres on cobbles and drew up in the forecourt of the
Society's Headquarters Office.
Like the Commander's palace, it was set in large and handsome grounds;
like the palace, too, it was dominated by a tall tower housing time
apparatus. There the resemblance ended. It was completely in darkness
tonight, but for a single yellow square of a window on the ground floor
near the main door and two flambeaux in sconces under the porch.
Jumping from the step of the carriage almost before it had halted,
Don Miguel uttered an oath under his breath. Tonight, naturally, there
might be only the duty Probationer in the entire building -- but also,
just possibly, the man he needed to see more desperately than anyone in
the world.
"Get the girl out!" he rapped to the driver. "I'll have the door opened."
The man nodded and clambered down from his high seat, while the horses
shifted uneasily in the traces. Don Miguel started up the dark steps.
The door opened before he reached it, and there stood a young man
blinking diffidently in the light of the flambeaux. He was twenty or less,
snub-nosed, blue-eyed, below Don Miguel in height but well enough built.
"Are you alone?" Don Miguel flung at him.
"Ah -- yes, Licentiatel" the young man said. "I'm Probationer Jones,
sir, on duty tonight of course. I believe your honour is Don Miguel
Navarro. What service can I do you?"
"You're
completely
alone? No one else is here at all?"
" Absolutely no one, sir," Jones declared, eyes wide with surprise at
the force of the question.
Don Miguel's heart sank. So the agony of apprehension must drag on longer
yet. Still, there was no help for that. He passed a weary hand across
his forehead.
"There's a girl in my carriage," he said. "She ought not to be here,
or anywhere else, for that matter. I'm having her brought inside."
Jones gave a sigh. "Very well, sir. I presume you'll want a suite in
the quarters upstairs, and privacy -- "
The look on Don Miguel's face made him break off, stuttering with
confusion.
"Have members of the Society required such services of you?" Don Miguel
demanded.
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