The Ragged Astronauts

“Lord Glo!” Prad was incredulous and angry. “Are you ill or drunk?”

“Neither, Majesty.”

“Then stop prating about visions and answer my question concerning the crystals.”

Glo seemed to be labouring for breath, his plump chest swelling to take up the slack in his grey robe. “I fear I may be indisposed, after all.” He pressed a hand to his side and dropped into his chair with an audible thud. “My senior mathematician, Lain Maraquine, will present the facts on my… hmm… behalf.”

Toller watched with growing trepidation as his brother stood up, bowed towards the dais, and signalled for his assistants, Quate and Locranan, to bring his easel and charts forward. They did so and erected the easel with a fumbling eagerness which prolonged what should have been the work of a moment. More time was taken up as the chart they unrolled and suspended had to be coaxed to remain flat. On the dais even the insipid Prince Pouche was beginning to look restless. Toller was concerned to see that Lain was trembling with nervousness.

“What is your intention, Maraquine?” the King said, not unkindly. “Am I to revisit the classroom at my time of life?”

“The graphics are helpful, Majesty,” Lain said. “They illustrate the factors governing the.…“The remainder of his reply drifted into inaudibility as he indicated key features on the vivid diagrams.

“Can’t hear you,” Chakkell snapped irritably. “Speak up!”

“Where are your manners?” Leddravohr said, turning to him. “What way is that to address such a shy young maiden?” A number of men in the audience, taking their cue, guffawed loudly.

This shouldn’t be happening, Toller thought as he rose to his feet, the blood roaring in his ears. The Kolcorronian code of conduct ruled that to step in and reply to a challenge — and an insult was always regarded as such — issued to a third party was to add to the original slur. The imputation was that the insulted man was too cowardly to defend his own honour. Lain had often claimed that it was his duty as a philosopher to soar above all such irrationalities, that the ancient code was more suited to quarrelsome animals than thinking men. Knowing that his brother would not and could not take up Leddravohr’s challenge, knowing further that he was barred from active intervention, Toller was taking the only course open to him. He stood up straight, differentiating himself from the seated nonparticipants all around, waiting for Leddravohr to notice him and interpret his physical and mental stance.

“That’s enough, Leddravohr.” The King slapped the arms of his throne. “I want to hear what the wrangler has to say. Go ahead, Maraquine.”

“Majesty, I.…“Lain was now quivering so violently that his robe was fluttering.

“Try to put yourself at ease, Maraquine. I don’t want a lengthy discourse — it will suffice for you to tell me how many years will elapse, in your expert opinion, before we can produce pure pikon and halvell.”

Lain took a deep breath, fighting to control himself. “It is impossible to make predictions in matters like this.”

“Give me your personal view. Would you say five years?”

“No, Majesty.” Lain shot a sideways glance at Lord Glo and managed to make his voice more resolute. “If we increased our research expenditure tenfold… and were fortunate… we might produce some usable crystals twenty years from now. But there is no guarantee that we will ever succeed. There is only one sane and logical course for the country as a whole to follow and that is to ban the felling of brakka entirely for the next twenty or thirty years. In that way.…”

“I refuse to listen to any more of this!” Leddravohr was on his feet and stepping down from the dais. “Did I say maiden? I was wrong — this is an old woman! Raise your skirts and flee from this place, old woman, and take your sticks and scraps with you.” Leddravohr strode to the easel and thrust the palm of his hand against it, sending it clattering to the floor.

During the clamour which followed, Toller left his place and walked forwards on stiffened legs to stand close to his brother. On the dais the King was ordering Leddravohr back to his seat, but his voice was almost lost amid angry cries from Chakkell and in the general commotion in the hall. A court official was hammering on the floor with his staff, but the only effect was to increase the level of sound. Leddravohr looked straight at Toller with white-flaring eyes, but appeared not to see him as he wheeled round to face his father.

“I act on your behalf, Majesty,” he shouted in a voice which brought a ringing silence to the hall. “Your ears shall not be defiled any further with the kind of spoutings we have just heard from the so-called thinkers among us.”

“I am quite capable of making such decisions for myself,” Prad replied sternly. “I would remind you that this is a meeting of the high council — not some brawling ground for your muddied soldiery.”

Leddravohr was unrepentant as he glanced contemptuously at Lain. “I hold the lowliest soldier in the service of Kolcorron in greater esteem than this whey-faced old woman.” His continued defiance of the King intensified the silence under the glass dome, and it was into that magnifying hush that Toller heard himself drop his own challenge. It would have been a crime akin to treason, and punishable by death, for one of his station to take the initiative and challenge a member of the monarchy, but the code permitted him to move indirectly within limits and seek to provoke a response.

“ ‘Old woman’ appears to be a favourite epithet of Prince Leddravohr’s,” he said to Vorndal Sisstt, who was seated close to him. “Does that mean he is always very prudent in his choice of opponents?”

Sisstt gaped up at him and shrank away, white-faced, anxiously dissociating himself as Leddravohr turned to find out who had spoken. Seeing Leddravohr at close quarters for the first time, Toller observed that his strong-jawed countenance was unlined, possessed of a curious statuesque smoothness, almost as if the muscles were nerveless and immobile. It was an inhuman face, untroubled by the ordinary range of expression, with only the eyes to signal what was going on behind the broad brow. In this case Leddravohr’s eyes showed that he was more incredulous than angry as he scrutinised the younger man, taking in every detail of his physique and dress.

“Who are you?” Leddravohr said at last. “Or should I say, what are you?”

“My name is Toller Maraquine, Prince — and I take pride in being a philosopher.”

Leddravohr glanced up at his father and smiled, as if to demonstrate that when he saw it as his filial duty he could endure extreme provocation. Toller did not like the smile, which was accomplished in an instant, effortless as the twitching back of a drape, affecting no other part of his face.

“Well, Toller Maraquine,” Leddravohr said, “it is very fortunate that personal weapons are never worn in my father’s household.”

Leave it at that, Toller urged himself. You’ve made your point and — against all the odds — you’re getting away with it.

“Fortunate?” he said pleasantly. “For whom?”

Leddravohr’s smile did not waver, but his eyes became opaque, like polished brown pebbles. He took one step forward and Toller readied himself for the shock of physical combat, but in that moment the glass axis of the confrontation was snapped by pressure from an unexpected direction.

“Majesty,” Lord Glo called out, lurching to his feet, looking ghastly but speaking in surprisingly fluent and resonant tones. “I beg you — for the sake of our beloved Kolcorron — to listen to the proposal of which I spoke earlier. Please do not let my brief indisposition stand in the way of your hearing of a scheme whose implications go far beyond the present and near future, and in the long run will concern the very existence of our great nation.”

“Hold still, Glo.” King Prad also rose to his feet and pointed at Leddravohr with the index fingers of both hands, triangulating on him with all the force of his authority. “Leddravohr, you will now resume your seat.”

Leddravohr eyed the King for a few seconds, his face impassive, then he turned away from Toller and walked slowly to the dais. Toller was startled as he felt his brother grip his arm.

“What are you trying to do?” Lain whispered, his frightened gaze hunting over Toller’s face. “Leddravohr has killed people for less.”

Toller shrugged his arm free. “I’m still alive.”

“And you had no right to step in like that.”

“I apologise for the insult,” Toller said. “I didn’t think one more would make any difference.”

“You know what I think of your childish…” Lain broke off as Lord Glo came to stand close beside him.

“The boy can’t help being impetuous — I was the same at his age,” Glo said. The brilliance from above showed that every pore on his forehead was separately domed with sweat. Beneath the ample folds of his robe his chest swelled and contracted with disturbing rapidity, pumping out the smell of wine.

“My lord, I think you should sit down and compose yourself,” Lain said quietly. “There is no need for you to be subjected to any more of…”

“No! You’re the one who must sit down.” Glo indicated two nearby seats and waited until Lain and Toller had sunk into them. “You’re a good man, Lain, but it was very wrong of me to burden you with a task for which you are constitutionally… hmm… unsuited. This is a time for boldness. Boldness of vision. That is what earned us the respect of the ancient kings.”

Toller, rendered morbidly sensitive to Leddravohr’s every movement, noticed that on the dais the prince was concluding a whispered conversation with his father. Both men sat down, and Leddravohr immediately turned his brooding gaze in Toller’s direction. At a barely perceptible nod from the King an official pounded the floor with his staff to quell the low-key murmurings throughout the hall.

“Lord Glo!” Prad’s voice was now ominously calm. “I apologise for the discourtesy shown to members of your delegation, but I also add that the council’s time should not be wasted on frivolous suggestions. Now, if I grant you permission to lay before us the essentials of your grand scheme, will you undertake to do so quickly and succinctly, without adding to my tribulations on a day which has already seen too many?”

“Gladly!”

“Then proceed.”

“I am about to do so, Majesty.” Glo half turned to look at Lain, gave him a prolonged wink and began to whisper. “Remember what you said about my flying higher and seeing farther? You’re going to have cause to reflect on those words, my boy. Your graphs were telling a story that even you didn’t understand, but I.…”

“Lord Glo,” Prad said, “I am waiting.”

Glo gave him an elaborate bow, complete with the hand flourishes appropriate to the use of the high tongue. “Majesty, the philosopher has many duties, many responsibilities. Not only must his mind encompass the past and the present, it must illuminate the multiple pathways of the future. The darker and more… hmm… hazardous those pathways may be, the higher.…”

“Get on with it, Glo!”

“Very well, Majesty. My analysis of the situation in which Kolcorron finds itself today shows that the difficulties of obtaining brakka and power crystals are going to increase until… hmm… only the most vigorous and far-sighted measures will avert national disaster.” Glo’s voice shook with fervour.

“It is my considered opinion that, as the problems which beset us grow and multiply, we must expand our capabilities accordingly. If we are to maintain our premier position on Land we must turn our eyes — not towards the petty nations on our borders, with their meagre resources — but towards the sky!

“The entire planet of Overland hangs above us, waiting, like a luscious fruit ready for the picking. It is within our powers to develop the means to go there and to.…” The rest of Glo’s sentence was drowned in a swelling tide of laughter.

Toller, whose gaze had been locked with Leddravohr’s, turned his head as he heard angry shouts from his right. He saw that, beyond Tunsfo’s medical delegation, Lord Prelate Balountar had risen to his feet and was pointing at Glo in accusation, his small mouth distorted and dragged to one side with intensity of emotion.

Borreat Hargeth leaned over from the row behind Toller and gripped Lain’s shoulder. “Make the old fool sit down,” he urged in a scandalised whisper. “Did you know he was going to do this?”

“Of course not!” Lain’s narrow face was haggard. “And how can I stop him?”

“You’d better do something before we’re all made to look like idiots.”

“…long been known that Land and Overland share a common atmosphere,” Glo was declaiming, seemingly oblivious to the commotion he had caused. “The Greenmount archives contain detailed drawings for hot air balloons capable of ascending to…”