Baver sat on the sleeping shelf in his cell. It was night, and the only light was the faint glow from an oil lamp down the corridor. He was grateful for that much. Charles DuBois had told him about the dungeon in the City of Kazi, and like the rest of the crew he’d gotten a mini-briefing on what had happened to Chan and Anne there. Then there was the canto in the Järnhann Saga, about the dungeon Nils had been in in Hungary.
This is probably one of the most civilized prison cells on the planet, he told himself. No leg irons, I’ve got my own latrine bucket, my own water pail—and the sleeping shelf has a straw mat on it! It’s not even really filthy!
He half grunted, half chuckled. Semi-barbaric accommodations for a semi-barbaric prisoner. He had become semi-barbaric, at least outwardly. But semi-barbaric hadn’t been enough. The true, hundred percent barbarians had escaped.
Or was Nils actually a barbarian? In antiquity, barbarians had evolved into civilized men—men whose society was ruled from towns, by governments. Could barbarians evolve into something besides civilized man? Maybe Nils was that something else; maybe he only seemed to be a barbarian because he lived in a barbarian milieu. Or was he simply a new and fuller flowering of barbarianism?
Flowering of barbarianism! This time Baver’s chuckle was genuine.
What, he asked himself, would Nils do if he were here? The answer seemed obvious: Nils would sleep. He wouldn’t fret, and he wouldn’t try anything heroic. Not unless there was a good prospect that it would work, or some prospect anyway.
Or—If there was no prospect at all that it would work, no prospect at all of freedom, probably Nils would do something to go out on his own terms. To create an effect, probably dramatic, instead of going down silently.
Or would he? Baver shook his head. When it came to Nils Järnhann, guesses were suspect. Good guesses required understanding, he told himself, and he certainly didn’t understand Nils. Admired him, liked him, was intrigued by him—yes. But he didn’t understand him.
He stood up, stretched, bent and touched his feet. And told himself he should try exercising to exhaustion; maybe that would help him sleep. But somehow . . . He sat back down.
He recognized now one of the things that bothered him. Besides captivity of course. Ever since he’d left the ting ground with Hans—No, ever since the Phaeacia had left for New Home, and he’d realized how isolated he really was, living with the Salmon Clan—ever since then he d been comforted by the concealed pistol he’d carried in the holster pocket of his jumpsuit. His ace in the hole, his security.
Now it was gone.
Interesting, he told himself: I miss it, but somehow I don’t feel as insecure as I used to with it, say a year and a half ago.
He touched his left side pocket and felt the palm-sized radio there. The emperor hadn’t been overimpressed. He took it out, all ninety grams of it. He’d carried it for—how many kilometers? Nine thousand? Ten? Carried a radio that didn’t work. Why? Certainly not for any comfort it gave him. Every time he remembered it, it reminded him of how cut off he was. More than once he’d thought about throwing it away. But how many spare radios were there aboard the Alpha? One or two? None? And if he did get back to the Northmen someday, Matt and Nikko would get word of it and come to debrief him on what had happened. Then Matt could fix it or replace the faulty power tap, or whatever.
Absently, Baver slid the power switch.
And the power light flashed on, a bright red spot in the dimness of his cell! He stared, the breath stopped in his throat. After a long several seconds, he moved the instrument close to his mouth and pressed the transmit button. A green light came on. It took an effort to control his excitement and speak quietly.
“Alpha,” he murmured, “this is Ted. Alpha, this is Ted. Over.”
The answer came from more than 108 degrees of longitude west of him, in the not-quite-human voice of the Alpha’s computer. “This is pinnace Alpha. I am currently located on the Terran surface at coordinate XE: 09.585267, Yn: 56.471394.” As it had begun to speak, Baver had thumbed the volume down so it was loud enough to hear, but no louder. The pinnace continued. “In local terms, I am in a sheep pasture 165 meters distant, at 151 degrees azimuth, from the main gate of the castle of Jørgen the First, Karlssen, Stennaeve, King of the Danes. The date is 2834, August 26, Earth Reckoning. The hour, local time, is 14:23:41.”
To Baver there was a poignant homely beauty in the computer’s voice, its sweet, ordinary, prosaic message, its textbook-proper speech. He melted hearing it.
“My primary security system is activated. Nikko Kumalo is inside the castle, interviewing Anders Henrikssen, Raadgiver, principle advisor to King Jørgen. Matthew Kumalo is with her, as her bodyguard. They have been away since hour 13:48:17, this date, and their sole open connection with myself is an input-only line, to record the interview. They predicted their return as before hour 20:00.
“If you have a message, you may state it at whatever length you please. Over.”
Baver moved the switch to the pause position; for the moment he had no idea what to say. He could override the input-only instruction by declaring an emergency-two, but—what could they do right away, that would make a difference?
Was the emperor listening to his thoughts? Or perhaps some other telepath assigned by him? He’d simply have to hope not. He’d start by giving his situation, then his location, and go on from there until he was done or someone had intervened.
“This is Ted Baver,” he murmured to his radio. “I’m in a prison cell in China, in the capital. Beijing isn’t the capital anymore; I’ve passed through what I think was Beijing. There are some big old buildings still standing, but most of it’s farms and a big army camp. The new capital is in a valley, in a range of forested hills. It’s a long day’s horseback ride from there, north or maybe northeast; call it a day and a half . . . ”
He went on to describe the capital, the palace, and the ogre guards. Then dropped back to tell how he’d left the Balkans with Nils. He told briefly of Achikh and the Mongols. And that the emperor was a telepath, with, according to Kaidu, a dream of conquering the world.
When he was done, he felt surprisingly good, even hopeful. He did wish, though, that he had his recorder and cubes; he’d have copied the cubes to the computer, so they’d have them even if he never got back.
He wondered again what had been wrong with his radio. He recalled it getting wet, soaked actually, at least twice in his saddlebag, the first couple of days. But supposedly it was waterproof. Matthew could probably explain it to him, if he ever got out of there.