As he went into peril, he picked over the controls of his box, singing the Password in a passable voice, a bit wearily. He had been sitting high on the pass all day, and it had been a funny day. Spooky. Absolutely quiet. No movement in the Presences at all. He yawned, garbling the first words, his mouth gaped wide. It stuck that way. Someone else was singing….
‘Brother, brother, brother,’ the Presence beside him vocalized softly in flutelike tones. Tripsinger, go tell the Master General of your citadel to get word to the Grand Master of the Worshipful Order that I, Redfang, want to speak with him.’
And then, almost as an afterthought.
‘Are you recording this, youngster? Your Master General may want proof.’
The CHASE Commission was assembled in Splash One, conducting its scheduled meetings with considerable pomp. Among the audience were a number of VIPs, a few from Jubal, though most – including representatives from both the current and historic press as well as advisers and so-called neutral observers from the PEC – were from off-planet. Those from Jubal included the Honorable Wuyllum Thonks, not yet departed for he had not the means to depart, and his less than honorable lady, present for the same reason, although she did not understand why Wuyllum was at all worried. The only thing that had upset Honeypeach in a long, long time was Maybelle’s disappearance. Justin wanted her and Justin was getting nasty about it. Honeypeach licked the corners of her mouth and visualized what she would do when she found the girl. Maybelle had to come out of hiding sometime.
Grand Master Thyle Vowe was also in attendance, though several of his friends and colleagues were not. Gereny, for example, and Jem. And that sweetheart of Rheme’s, the Governor’s daughter, the one that Vowe had personally pulled off that boat before Honeypeach Thonks could lay hands on her. Luckily Rheme had alerted them to provide a backup escape, just in case she didn’t get away. These three and some others had established quite a redoubt in the half-empty warehouse in the fishing village of Tallawag. That it was an unlikely place for them to hide could have been testified to by several minions of Honey-peach’s who had been searching for Maybelle ever since Vowe had abducted her. So far, they hadn’t even come close.
Watching Honeypeach steam had given Vowe enough satisfaction to carry him over the deadly boredom of the hearings. He was of the opinion that the hearings were designed to be deadly, planned to be uninteresting in the extreme. Witness after witness testified to attempts to make sense out of Presence noises, some of them philologists who spoke pure jargon with no recognizable meaning. No one mentioned viggies. No one even thought of viggies. Vowe wondered at this. He had always had suspicions about viggies.
Harward Justin squatted at one side of the hearing room, low-bottomed as a toad, his slushy eyes swiveling from side to side of the room, his thin mouth stretching in a gratified grimace whenever a witness made a particularly telling point. For all the boredom, the place was crowded and concentration was intense.
Thus when someone jostled the Grand Master, he did not immediately respond. It took the elbow in his ribs twice more before he looked down to see a note held in the hand of an anonymous donor who was looking everywhere but at the Grand Master.
‘Emergency. Northwest Citadel, soonest.’ The name appended was Jasum Porlees, Master General of the Northwest Citadel. He and Thyle Vowe had been boys in choir school together.
The Grand Master let a little time elapse, then squirmed through the crowd to the door. Outside on the steps, the same anonymous man was standing, staring out over the city and talking almost without moving his mouth. There’s an air car waiting for you at the garage, Grand Master. Your friend says hurry.’
It was only when Thyle Vowe was halfway to the garage that he realized the man who had been talking to him was Rheme Gentry.
‘Your daughter’s all right,’ said the Master General of the Northwest, soon after Thyle Vowe’s arrival. He poured a cup of tea for the Grand Master and waited for the inevitable question.
‘Where is she, Jasum?’
‘Somewhere near the Black Tower. Or maybe most of the way here, by now. Probably coming pretty fast, since they won’t have to sing their way by anything.’
‘Won’t have to what? What in hell are you talking about?’
‘You’re not going to believe who told me, Thyle. Best way to tell you is to show you. Are you up for a short mule ride into the Redfang Range?’
The commission had heard witnesses for ten days and part of an eleventh. Finally it recessed for a day or two before reconvening to consider its findings. Some of the members took advantage of this interruption to see something of Jubal while there was still, in one member’s words, something to see. The destruction that would occur following their pronouncement was fully understood by certain members of the commission, although not by Honeypeach’s stepson, the chairman, Ymries Fedder. He had been brou-sotted in his apartment since arrival, and the commission had been chaired by its vice chairman, a junketeering bureaucrat from Heron’s World.
Harward Justin retired to the BDL building to take care of a few details. Wuyllum Thonks was waiting for him there.
‘What the hell are you doing here, Thonks?’
‘That’s what I’d like to know. What am I doing here? Honeypeach and I were supposed to be off this place a week or more ago.’
‘After the findings are announced, Governor, you can be on the first ship out. Along with the commission members. I had to seal things up to prevent any last-minute problems.’
‘And when will the first ship out be leaving?’
‘Three or four days. Maybe five if they want to make it look good. Some of them are sightseeing right now. They may take an extra
