Nightmare Kingdom: A Romance of the Future Page 12

  “I gave it to her last Christmas,” Isaiah said, his voice tremulous.

  “She’s been here then,” Claire said.

  Mack nodded. “What now?” he asked, looking to Jamie.

  His head ached, his shoulder throbbed; he was tired and hungry. None of that matters. They had to find the kids before they were taken away from Sanctuary. Once they were in the stronghold of the home planet, it would be virtually impossible to recover them.

  And there were no Gare aristos on this planet so as long as they were here they would not be tortured for their blood. He didn’t allow himself to look again at the pink scarf Isaiah held so tenderly in his hands. He didn’t want to face the possibility that they were already too late.

  Claire felt like her head would pop with impatience at the way the three men just stood around. She wanted to get back into the flyer and search for the Princess Adaeze. After all, it would be hard to hide even a small space traveling ship on this thinly occupied world.

  But instead Jamie led the way as they walked toward one of the tall buildings, saying there was someone he needed to talk to there. If it had been anybody but Jamie, she would have argued. But even now, after all these years, she still had an instinctive trust in him.

  The place they eventually entered was a marketplace for fresh produce, having the appearance of an open air market back on Earth, but lying within one of the tall, look-alike buildings.

  The sunlight that shone down on the glossy looking fruits and vegetables, the delicate slices of meat and carefully prepared exotic dishes, all properly cooled or heated for preservation, was artificial.

  This place only looked natural, Claire decided. What it actually displayed was the high art form of an advanced civilization.

  She tried not to be impatient as Jamie introduced her to the proprietor, an Aremian of advanced age called Sage, who greeted the other three by name, looking only slightly anxious about the identity of his visitors. He kept glancing toward the wide doorway as if expecting the cops at any minute.

  Jamie had only said she was his friend Claire, but the vendor bowed so deeply his head almost touched the floor and said in well-accented Aremian, “Welcome to my humble establishment, Lady Empress.”

  It was, in fact, the correct way to address an empress who had been widowed, but was still treated with great reverence. This was one well educated outlander.

  She nodded graciously, but didn’t deign to speak to one of such low estate, wondering what kind of game this Sage and her Jamie were playing.

  “We have nothing to trade today,” Jamie said, his Oklahoma drawl emphasizing a calculated kind of charm. “Except info.”

  “My good friend, I will do what I can to help you and will be interested in what you have to say in exchange.” Still gazing nervously between Claire and the doorway, he showed them to seats, remaining standing himself until his empress gave him permission to sit down even though in her presence.

  Mack and Isaiah left the chair closest to Sage for Jamie in what seemed to be a customary situation. Jamie was the one to barter, whether it was for advanced Aremian weapons or, as now, for information about the whereabouts of the New London youngsters.

  And two princesses, Claire thought urgently. Maybe her daughters had already been captured and surrendered to central authority.

  Wanting desperately to start questioning this man who she was already certain was a spy for the Aremian government, she barely managed to keep quiet and follow Mack and Isaiah’s example by letting Jamie take the lead.

  Mugs of hot coffee, a luxury from Earth rarely seen outside the Palace de Gare itself, was served to guests while Claire fretted inside at the slow pace of the meeting.

  Terrible things could be happening to her girls while they were sitting here playing at politics. Seeing Isaiah’s tired and worried face, she was reminded that she was not the only one who had a child at stake in this game. Isaiah was longing for his little Alice and no doubt, Mack had his own concerns about his venturesome young sons.

  Charlie and David, those were their names. Their faces and forms played through her mind and, having time to study them now, she was impressed with how unlike the two boys were. Charlie was thin and tall with sun-bronzed skin and light blue eyes. David was another edition of Mack, his skin darker than his brother’s, his eyes brown, and built in stronger, broader lines.

  She supposed Charlie took more after golden-haired Karen with her tall, slim shape. She frowned at something about the boys that puzzled her, but was jerked back to what was going on around her when Sage began to speak.

  “My friend, we realize that troubling times have returned for your people and wish to express the sympathy of all of Terrainaine.”

  Sympathy? Claire guessed Jamie was hoping for a whole lot more and wondered if her presence was making things more difficult for this man. He probably didn’t know which side she was on with her two Gare daughters. She got to her feet. “Perhaps I’d better take a stroll.”

  “Sit down, Claire,” Jamie requested. “Please.”

  She settled back in her chair, but didn’t fail to notice that Sage analyzed both her and Jamie, trying to understand their relationship.

  “We thought you might want to know that the former empress and her daughters began to feel themselves unsafe at the Palace de Gare on Aremia and so came here to seek comfort from the empress’s own people.” Claire guessed that Jamie was giving away no more than what he expected the trader already to know. The landing must have been witnessed from Terrainaine.

  “We sensed as much,” Sage returned cautiously, “when we observed the imperial ship Princess Adaeze come in for landing just outside New London.” He glanced uneasily again at Claire. “Of course, I only know what I have heard. Rumors and hearsay.”

  Yeah, Claire thought, suspecting that this wily individual was clued in to the heart of the local intelligence effort.

  “Well,” Jamie drawled, more Oklahoman than he’d been even when she first met him, “kids being kids, ours seem to have taken off with the cruiser and we’d like to know that they’d safe.”

  “We thought perhaps they’d dropped by here,” finally Claire could stand it no more. She’d had to say something.

  “And I wanted to know if you’d seen my daughter Alice,” Isaiah spoke in an uncharacteristically low, but menacing tone.

  “And my boys,” Mack said simply.

  “My, my, but you seem to be missing a remarkable number of children for such a small community,” Sage allowed his tone a touch of mockery this time, as though their exposed anxiety had given him new courage.

  That tone in his smug voice was the last straw.

  SEVENTEEN

  Jamie watched in open-mouthed amazement as Claire leapt to her feet, closed the distance between her and the Terrainaine trader, and placed one slender hand flat against his chest.

  “Blasted traitor that you are, you will remember that I was wife and heir to the honored Mathiah the tenth and will obey me even at the cost of your life. I wish to know where the royal princesses and those accompanying them are and I want to know immediately.”`

  The speech had little flavor of the girl from Chicago, it came straight of the lips of the woman who had helped ruled the largest empire in the known universe for the past fifteen years.

  Jamie covered an ironic smile as he watched old Sage quake in his sandals. He didn’t know much about the culture of Aremia, but enough to understand that if the Gare aristos were regarded as demigods, then a dead emperor had ascended to being a god in his own right. Which meant when Claire invoked her dead husband, she was not only calling on divine power, but linking herself with that power.

  Old Sage was a skeptic, but even he was impressed by the flaming figure of the dark-haired goddess who rested her long, narrow fingers against his chest. With luck, he’d have a heart attack in the next two seconds.

  “No insult was meant, your imperial highness,” he protested, obviously afraid to move. “And I can assure y
ou that the royal princesses are safe and in control. Even now they speak to the people of Terrainaine and Sanctuary.”

  Not blood, but Sanctuary. Jamie had to work hard not to grin. Sage had called the planet by its Earther name.

  Claire removed her hand and Sage sank from his chair to the ground in the position of a supplicant.

  “Good Lord, get up man,” Mack growled the words, offended by such subservience. Isaiah raised his snaky eyebrows, but didn’t comment.

  Claire acted as though it were perfectly normal to have a human being groveling at her feet and Jamie was thinking more about how absolutely glorious she looked than anything else.

  “This isn’t entirely good news,” she confided for Jamie’s ears only. “Adaeze and Lillianne are gifted, but they’re still just kids and they definitely aren’t ready to run a city.”

  “Not a city, honored majesty,” the man on the floor whispered, “they have gone to the governor’s castle and from there are seizing all of Blood . . .all of Sanctuary.”

  Jesse rubbed his fingers over his unshaven chin. “Now why would they want to go and do that?”

  “Do they have Alice and the boy who was stolen?” Isaiah stepped closer to ask.

  “And what about Charlie, David and the other boys?” Mack added with deep seriousness. Not only did he love his sons, but he sure as hell didn’t want to go back to Karen and explain how he’d allowed them to be harmed.

  Jamie looked down at the man on the floor. He’d known Sage a long time and gotten to rather like him. Besides he was a man who had grown up in a democratic country and he had little taste for public humiliation. “Get up, Sage,” he said, “you’re embarrassing yourself.”

  The man didn’t twitch a muscle and Jamie felt sure that his orders didn’t mean much to an Aremian when the woman who had been chosen by the emperor to be his consort was present.

  He frowned at Claire. “You may rise, Sage of Terrainaine,” she intoned, “and respond to the questions asked by my companions.”

  There were two Claires here, Jamie realized, the saucy, outspoken girl from the streets of Chicago and the decidedly imperious lady of the Gare. He wasn’t sure which was more frightening, or lovable.

  He told himself he’d never really been attracted to weak little clinging vine type of women. If he had been, he sure as hell wouldn’t have hooked up with Karen even temporarily.

  Sage had lost all his famed self-possession. Never before had Jamie seen him so downcast. “You are perhaps aware, oh, fount of wisdom, that the empire is in revolt.”

  Jamie figured ‘fount of wisdom’ referred to Claire. “Can the fancy talk and get to the point,” he ordered.

  Claire nodded. “That’s why we left Aremia. Lots of people wanted to kill us.”

  “Sanctuary has been largely cut off from that dissention, though a couple of large ships landed with supplies arranged before the death of our late, honored emperor.”

  Sage had always been a little longwinded. Jamie had supposed it was part of his stock in trade, but this was getting ridiculous. Claire didn’t seem surprised so he supposed she’d heard this kind of gush before.

  “Then this morning we heard a voice speaking to us again and we rejoiced that once more the empire had a far speaker.”

  “But everybody wasn’t happy,” Claire added, “because that voice belonged to a girl. One of my daughters, I suppose?”

  “The voice identified itself as that of the Princess Adaeze and she said that since she and her sister were the only living far speakers, a talent inherited from her father of glorious memory, we could consider ourselves fortunate that she had decided to occupy this world and make it her home.”

  “I guess she didn’t like New London that much,” Jamie commented.

  “She’s thirteen years old,” the mother of the subject under discussion pointed out, “and you let her take over just like that, abomination and all?”

  “The fact is, Lady Empress, that Sanctuary is a dependent world. Practically all necessities must be shipped in here from other places and we can not survive without a far speaker. And the princesses seem to be the only ones available offering us that service.”

  Mack gave a short burst of laughter.

  “So we welcomed them to Terrainaine, delivered the Earther prisoners to their care, and surrendered the governor’s house to them. That’s where they are now?”

  “You’re certain?” Isaiah stepped closer. “You know they are still there.”

  “The Princess Adaeze continues to make announcements to the people of Terrainaine. Already she has arranged for a shipment of much needed goods for our planet. And she has put the satellites on alert against any attempted invasion. Any ship that attempts to enter our atmosphere without permission will be blown, as the boy Charlie so succinctly stated, to smithereens.”

  “Wow!” Mack capped this speech.

  “We’d better get up to governor’s house before she decides to invade Aremia,” Claire said, sounding very disapproving of her older daughter, though Jamie thought he saw a glint of pride in her eyes.

  EIGHTEEN

  Once again Mack flew and Isaiah sat at his side. They must be as concerned about their children as she about her own, Claire thought, then looked up to meet Jamie’s eyes.

  Now she remembered. With the sound of the flyer as cover, she could whisper privately to him, “That older boy of Mack and Karen’s looks more like you than either of them.”

  “We were young when we first started out in London.”

  She inched a little closer to him, hardly aware that she was doing so. “I know. I was there.”

  “Not for long. Anyway some kids got married real young. Some just connected for a while and then went on to someone else.” He grinned. “Karen decided someone else named Mack was more her type. They’ve been together ever since.”

  “Are you saying that Charlie is your son?”

  “In New London, the father of the child is the man who raises him. That’s Mack.”

  “Oh, really, Jamie,” she said in disgust. “You know what I’m asking you.”

  He looked out at the land passing underneath the flyer. “Won’t take long to get to the castle.”

  “Jamie!”

  “What right have you to ask me? You went off and married someone else.”

  “What choice did I have?”

  “All kinds of choices, I was willing to fight for you, but you said that wasn’t what you wanted. From where I stood you choose bloody Mathiah with his crowns and jewels and I went home to New London.”

  Normally she was hot tempered, but today she was cold as the winter frost in the tall mountains of Aremia. This was the thanks she got for saving his life and those of others. “I made the best of things.”

  “From my viewpoint best looked downright superior. And sure, you’re right, Charlie’s my boy. Did you think I became a monk when you dumped me?”

  They both knew this was unfair. They hadn’t known each other long enough to really be in love. And they’d been so young. “I never knew you saw us as Romeo and Juliet.”

  “More like much ado about nothing,” he said sarcastically.

  She grabbed his hand and held on tight. It was fifteen years later, but nobody could make her so mad as Jamie. Here they were, each of them now thirty years old and still acting like kids.

  It was, she thought sadly, because their youth had been taken away from them.

  He didn’t try to pull his hand away so they sat, close together and connected, and she wondered if he felt the living warmth between them and though she was for some reason mildly embarrassed when Isaiah turned to look at them, she still didn’t turn loose of his hand.

  “Governor’s house just ahead. The cruiser is parked out past the gardens.”

  She leaned forward to view the scene ahead. It still looked the same, the glittering, pointy-roofed gray metal building, surrounded by trees, hedges and flowering plants, spotted with lovely fountains and the carefully designed trail
s where she had once walked with Mathiah.

  These came to an abrupt edge where the desert took over. Governor’s house was an artificially constructed oasis in the midst of sandy, stony soil where nothing grew and no animals lived. The castle and New London itself were terrariums where humans from both worlds could live in the illusion of beauty and richness.

  Jamie seemed to guess her thoughts. “We have bees now to pollinate the plants. Imported for us from Earth. We’re beginning to build an environment.”

  She wondered why they had bothered when Aremia would provide everything they needed. Somebody had been farsighted enough to see that the time would come when they would need to be independent and she’d be willing to bet it hadn’t been the current mayor of New London.

  “Wish we could radio the kids that it’s us landing,” Mack worried as he brought the flyer down toward the ground.

  “My girls communicate in other ways,” Claire said.

  “But not with you.”

  “No, not with me.” If that were possibly, she’d be communicating with Adaeze and Lillianne all right. They’d know in clear strong language exactly how she felt about the two of them taking off without even leaving her a message not to worry.

  She’d never had any decent parentage herself, but she was damned sure this wasn’t how it was supposed to work.

  “You’d better let me get out first. They’re less likely to shoot at me.”

  All three men protested and Jamie climbed through the open door before she could, still holding on to her hand so that he dragged her behind him. The first thing she did after releasing herself from Jamie’s grip was head toward the cruiser where one of the guardsmen saluted as she approached.

  She showed her displeasure by refusing to acknowledge him, stepping past to enter the ship and summoning her companions to follow. Captain Thereon hurried toward the incoming party.

  “I’ll have you shot,” she told him in no-nonsense terms. “And you’re lucky I don’t choose a more uncomfortable form of punishment.”