32
A WIZARD IN ABSENTIA
“Majority?” The man was clearly in his twenties!
Magnus decided not to ask—he just accepted the prevailing wisdom. “So Pelisse will become Countess,”
Magnus inferred.
“No reason not to,” Robert muttered, but he gave Magnus an uneasy glance, leaving his guest wondering just how Pelisse was supposed to fix any problems arising from the inheritance. In fact, of course, Robert hadn’t mentioned what the problem was, really. Somehow, Magnus thought he didn’t want to know.
Their flier circled around a huge, pastel layer-cake of a building and docked. They stepped out into an air lock. As they walked down the tube and through the dilating door, Magnus said, “Surely you could have your own robot tailors, and order anything from outside by video screen.”
“Of course, of course,” Robert said impatiently,
“but then there wouldn’t be any shopping, hey? Nor any reason to get out of the house at all. Let’s have a quick one, then get on to the tailor’s.”
Magnus was relieved to discover that Robert was referring to an alcoholic drink. He wasn’t so relieved when the “quick one” turned into two or three.
The tailor was a robot, after all, and all he had to do to measure Magnus was to have him stand against a wall screen that did the job in less than a second.
Then they sauntered down rows of fabrics, with Robert brightly extolling the virtues of each until Magnus selected a few, just to shut him up—he thought they were rather gaudy, himself, but they were Robert’s recommendations. His cousin seemed to think 33
Magnus’s preference for quieter fabrics was very un-sophisticated.
“And have that delivered by 1700 hours,” Robert told the robot tailor as they left.
It bowed. “As you wish, sir.”
As they strolled out of the store, Magnus protested, “There was no reason for haste.”
“‘Course there was, old boy—the ball next week.
Don’t you remember?”
“I can’t very well,” Magnus said slowly, “since I haven’t been told. What ball?”
“The one Mama is throwing! In your honor, old— I say! There’s Runcible!” And he hurried off to chat with a churn.
Magnus observed the two, noting the degree of loudness, the social distance between them, the lack of physical touching, the intonations, and half-a-dozen other signs of modern customs—but all the time, at the back of his mind, he was wondering why his aunt was putting on an impromptu ball, and why it was in his honor. Were they that desperate for something to do, for some trace of excitement, here?
Yes. Of course they were. How could he ever have wondered?
The haberdasher’s was only a hundred meters away, but it took them half an hour to get there—
Robert had to stop every few feet to greet friends, and had to beg off coming to drink with them because he had to squire his bothersome cousin around—and he didn’t hesitate to use those terms, when he must have known full well that Magnus could hear him. If he had thought of it. Magnus was beginning to won-34
der just how good a guide Robert was to the manners of this people.
He was very much aware of being the outsider, studying the customs as though he were an anthro-pologist, though for a much more pressing reason than academic research. It was horrifying to realize that this subject group he was observing were supposed to be his own flesh and blood, the people and stock from which he had sprung.
He understood now why his father had left home.
In fact, he had gone beyond a mere understanding to a very active sympathy.
The haberdashery comprised a vast assortment of hats and ties and other accessories. They could all have been displayed on screens, of course, and the orders placed by computer—but that would have de-prived the young men of a reason to go sauntering down the aisles, where they could be sure of encoun-tering one another and pause for a good, long chat.
Magnus resigned himself to a long and boring afternoon, the more so because he was seldom introduced and never included in the conversation—not that he would have wanted to be; it seemed to be exclusively a discussion of the latest styles, sports averages, and local scandals about who was sleeping in whose bed.
Magnus was sure it would have been fascinating, if he had only known what they were talking about.
So, when they arrived at home and he had endured high tea and was finally able to seek the comfort of his own rooms, he keyed the wall screen to news, and spent an hour absorbing a quick summary of recent events—local, Terran, and throughout the 35
Terran Sphere. Where he needed additional background to make sense of the summary, he keyed for more information—but still, an hour just wasn’t enough time to give him more than an inkling of what the young men had been talking about.
“The worst of it,” he told Fess, “is that none of it seems to matter much at all.” Since he was alone he could speak aloud. If anyone heard him—well, all the d’Armands were strange.
That will change as you come to understand more of it, Fess assured him. An hour a day will do wonders, Magnus.
“I hope so,” Magnus sighed. “Perhaps you can make sense of Robert’s hostility, Fess. Have I violated some taboo, done something to offend him?”
No, Magnus—none.
“Then why his hostility? He almost seems to feel that I am some sort of threat to him.”
Fess gave the burst of white noise that was his equivalent of a sigh and said, Magnus, I fear I must acquaint you with some of the less pleasant aspects of Maximan heredity.
“What?” Magnus frowned. “Adaptation to low gravity? That would effectively trap them on this asteroid. Or perhaps a chromosome for vile tempers?”
No, Magnus—inbreeding.
“Oh.” Magnus’s face went blank. “All of the above.”
Quite right, Magnus. Recessive traits are reinforced, and some of them are desirable—but some are not. Over the centuries, some of the more un/p>
pleasant traits have become widespread—such as low intelligence and emotional instability.
“So.” Magnus thought that one over. “A surprising number of my dear relatives will be idiots or madmen.”
Yes, Magnus, though in many cases, they will be neither, just… a little slow, or rather unpleasant.
“Which accounts for Robert.” Magnus nodded.
“Nothing wrong with him but a mild case of paranoia. And what, may I ask, is the matter with Pelisse?”
Nothing that I have detected.
“Yet?”
Yet. Of course.
That also accounted for Magnus’s uncle, and his delusion. And it gave Magnus an inkling as to why the Count’s son had elected to stay on Terra. In any event, the heir was not to be aired, and showed absolutely no interest in inheriting the family estates.
Magnus learned these details the next day, as he was escorting Pelisse through the mall. Between lengthy stops to chat with her friends, she managed to answer a question or two about the family.
“It is difficult to believe that Uncle Roger has no interest in the inheritance.” Actually, Magnus didn’t find it hard to believe at all.
“I know—but he doesn’t,” Pelisse said, “though it’s a good guess that he’ll expect a decent share of the income.”
“Of course.” Magnus smiled, not pleasantly. “All/p>
the money but none of the responsibility or inconvenience, eh? He won’t bring it off, will he?”
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll receive a generous settle-ment—but even if he didn’t, I don’t think that would persuade my dear uncle to come back.” Pelisse seemed to have grown rather nervous. She stopped abruptly, facing into a store-screen. “Oh, what a lovely gown! Come, Magnus, I must try it on!”
Magnus glanced up at the gown and wondered what could have taken her eye about it; it seemed quite ordinary to him. But, all things considered, there were worse things to do with his time than to watch Pelisse try on a tight-fitting gown, so he followed her around behind the screen and into the shop, not entirely reluctantly.
38
lan waked slowly, blinking, and sat up, looking about him, puzzled. The room seemed very strange.
Then he remembered.
Nothing had changed inside the stone egg; the light was still the same. He frowned, rubbing a hand across his mouth. How could he tell what time of the day or night it was? He rose, and went slowly toward the stairway, wondering how he would get out.
There was a clicking sound behind him.
He spun about.
The voice said, “Food and drink are served.”
He saw a new plate on the table with clean uten-sils beside it, and on the plate was a dark, thick slice of meat—a steak, and more of the wonderful bread, and something green, which must have been a vege-table. Beans? And a lump of mealy white-stuff, and a tall glass filled with white liquid. He ran to the chair, suddenly aware of his hunger again. He picked up the 39
steak in both hands, bit, and chewed. When he was done, he dropped the bone and scooped the beans into his mouth. They tasted far better than the hard, dry lentils he had always eaten, and the mealy stuff was creamy and smooth in his mouth. The white liquid proved to be cow’s milk—he had drunk of it now and again—and he drank it down in huge gulps.
When he was done, he sat back, sighing. He found a square of white cloth next to the plate and wondered what it was for, then noticed the grease on his hands. Surely the cloth must be for cleaning! He picked it up and wiped off the grease; then, with another happy sigh, he got up from the table, looking about him, and feeling very, very happy.
Then he remembered that his problems had only begun. He must still get out and go to Castlerock. He could not stay in this egg for the rest of his life, delightful though the prospect seemed, for the lord to whom it belonged must come in and find him sooner or later.
He went to the stairway again. Cautiously, he climbed up, but the guardian spirit made no move to prevent him.
When he came out into the upper chamber, he went right to the wall that he had fallen through the day before—or was it only that morning? As he was raising his hand to touch it, he stopped, realizing that he had no idea how much time had passed. It might still be daylight. He frowned, and mused aloud, “How can I tell what time of day it is, when I cannot see the sun?”
A bell chimed.
lan whirled, staring.
At the wall in front of the great chair, one of the windows had come to life. Through it, he could see the meadow outside the Great Egg, bathed in silver moonlight. He shrank back, afraid that if there were soldiers in the meadow, they might see him. Then he remembered how the dots had been there before, and came forward hesitantly, climbing up onto the chair and reaching out. He felt a hard surface beneath his fingers and realized that the guardian spirit had not really made a hole in the side of the Egg. How, then, could he see out? And if he could, surely someone else could see in! He dropped down from the chair and scurried around to hide behind it, peeking out at the “window.”
It was night; he had slept most amazingly. But how was this? The guardian spirit had heard his question, and given him an answer.
Perhaps also …
“How may I get out from this place?” he said, aloud. He waited a moment; nothing happened. Perhaps the guardian spirit had not heard him.
Suddenly, a section of the wall over to the side of the chamber slid back. lan stared at it in surprise, and not a little fear.
The wall was open. The night was outside. He could feel its breeze on his face.
Slowly, he picked up his staff and started toward the opening.
The music spangled and glittered in an array of high, rippling tones, while the bass notes throbbed beneath them in a rhythm that matched his pulse, then pulled it along to meld with the music’s tempo.
It was disconcerting, this synthesized music that was undeniably a waltz, yet far more physical than even that scandalous dance had ever been, pounding in his veins and making it seem the most natural thing in the world for his hips to gyrate, his muscles to shift against the rounded softness of Pelisse’s body, so close against his, matching the beat, and with it, his movements, like a hand in a glove. He looked down at her and swallowed, his throat thick with the sensations that flooded through his body, so rare for him and yet so unpleasantly familiar.
One of the disadvantages to being so tall was that he was looking down at her upturned, shining face, and could unfortunately not help seeing the decolletage beneath it—and, though the gown was low-cut and revealing, he was sure it wasn’t supposed to be so very revealing.
Was it?
He managed to force a smile, at least a small one, feeling his face grow hot, knowing that his eyes, at least, were filled with incredulous delight. All he could seem to see were her mouth, wide and very red, with rich, ripe lips that trembled on the verge of opening, almost begging to be caressed, tasted; the small, delightful tilt of her nose; her huge, blue eyes; and the equally huge, swelling mounds beneath her neckline. He tried to minimize the view by pressing her tightly against himself, but it was perhaps not/p>
the wisest course of action, for she murmured with pleasure, moving her hips languidly against his thigh, and he felt his own body responding. “Fair cousin,” he whispered, his tongue thick in his mouth.
Why, then, this cool, detached part of his mind that stood back watching, and snickered?
“Handsome cousin,” she breathed in return, eyelids lowering. “Will you not sweep me away in your ship, to some enchanted realm where only we two shall exist?”
Was that what she wanted, for him to steal her away from this gilded backwater prison? For somehow, his detached self didn’t doubt that she wanted something.
So did he—or at least his body did. His mind, though, was apprehensive, and his heart seemed to have jelled. Did it sense something that his mind only suspected, and his body ignored?
He knew it was bad, unhealthy, to think of himself in parts in this manner, but he couldn’t help it; though he ached with desire for pleasures he had never fully known, he was still reluctant, hesitant …
And amused.
He was shocked to realize it, and tried to banish the thought, to ignore his own cynicism, to concentrate on the desire within him, and the beautiful, provocative face turned up toward his, the sleepy eyes, the trembling lips….
He brought his own lips down, to brush against hers, and felt her whole body swelling up to meet/p>
his. Then the cymbals crashed, and he pulled back, startled. They were, after all, in public.
She made a moue of disappointment and lowered her gaze. “Why so shy, cousin?”
“It would be a poor return for the hospitality of your family, milady,” he said, “were I to seek to seduce their daughter.”
She tossed her head, her laugh a ripple of bright-ness that the music tried vainly to echo. “Do you think they care? Such concern was for the dark ages, when intimacy meant conception. Liaisons between cousins are no shame here, Magnus, nor even cause for a frown! Especially when the two have grown up apart, and are strangers, as we are—for there can be no incest in the mind, when we are worlds apart in our origins!”
It was a pretty speech, for a culture that used the language of science as social pleasantries—and an invitation so thinly veiled that he would verge on dis-courtesy to refuse it.
And he was tempted, his body ached with it. …
Suddenly, the longing crashed through him, through his reserve; the furious desire to banish the injuries of his past by immersion in her, in her body, bathing away the aura of humiliation and heartache that had always accompanied sexual overtures in his past. Almost in a rage to banish those memories, to scourge those responses, he lowered his head again and pressed his lips to hers. They trembled beneath his, parted only slightly, only enough to entice, to invite, and he caressed them with the tip of his tongue, 44
teasing them open, letting his mouth sink into hers, her lips warm and moist all about his, flesh sliding over flesh, awakening a thousand burning neurons to send their flame coursing throughout his body.
Vaguely and distantly, he was aware that they had stopped dancing, that they stood still, engrossed in the kiss, that her whole body seemed to reach up to his in delight, in … triumph?
Near the wall, her cousin Robert stared, outraged, the blood suffusing his face—but the Countess Matilda smiled, and exchanged a knowing, pleased look with the Baroness.
Magnus returned to his rooms in a strange state—
half euphoria, his head feeling as though it were inflated like a balloon with a vapor that held a strange and intoxicating aroma, the scent of Pelisse’s per-fume. But the other half was wariness, suspicion, almost a sense of foreboding. He sank down into a recliner and punched the pressure pads of the table beside it. In a second, the table delivered a tall glass of amber fluid into his hand. Magnus took a long drink, but it neither heightened the euphoria nor quenched the foreboding.
A pleasant evening, Magnus} Fess asked.
“Oh yes, very pleasant indeed! Five dances with my most attractive cousin, a long and intimate chat on the way to her room, an invitation to step in to continue the conversation, and when I declined, a very long and deep kiss! I should be ecstatic!”
But you are notf Why is that}
“That’s the hell of it—I don’t know!” Magnus put 45
the glass down too hard, but somehow it didn’t break. “Pelisse is probably the most beautiful woman that I have yet had the pleasure of meeting—
though with modern cosmetics, it’s hard to be sure. At least, she looks to be the most beautiful.
And she’s sympathetic, complaisant, intimate—
everything that should delight me! In fact, it does—but it also makes me nervous! Why is that, Fess?”
Could it perhaps be linked to your not accepting her invitation tonightf
Magnus nodded, short, choppy jerks of the head.
“Yes—oh, most certainly yes! The instant she asked me in, I could feel all my emotional armor clanking into place! Why is that, Fess? The fruit of painful experiences I’ve had in the past, with willing women—
all willing to be caressed, to go to bed, then to use me in any way they could? Or is there really something about Pelisse that sets my instincts for self-preservation to baring their teeth?”
Something of both, certainly, the robot mused. As to Pelisse herself, I would be cautious with any Maximan lady—but the only element in her conduct that might give you grounds for trepidation is that she has been so quick to welcome you so very thoroughly, and has shown so very much attraction to you so very quickly.
“Quickly! An understatement if I ever heard one!
Only two weeks, and she’s ready to invite me into her bed! Or at least into her room late at night—
perhaps I’m just being conceited in thinking she might have made the deeper offer.”