“Nobody wanted them around,” Alea whispered.
“So the cities are sanctuaries for the outcasts,” Magnus said, his face grave. “Let’s have a look at the countryside, Herkimer.” The city street dissolved into an expanse of patchwork fields dotted by small villages with thatched roofs—but as the landscape unrolled below them, they saw larger towns clustered around central hills upon which stood mansions in front of broad courtyards surrounded by smaller buildings.
“No castles, at least.” Magnus frowned. “It’s not quite a feudal setup.”
“Isn’t it?” Alea asked. “Could we have a closer look at one of those mansions, Herkimer?”
“Of course,” the computer answered, and one huge house swam toward them until it filled the screen.
“It’s made of stone,” Alea pointed out, “and the walls are pretty thick, to judge by the depth of the windows—which aren’t all that large, by the way.”
“No, they’re not,” Magnus agreed. “Three feet high at the most, and maybe two wide. Not a fortress, but it would still be hard to capture.”
“There are no walls around the property, though,” Alea admitted, “so they can’t be too worried about attack. Either that, their weapons are so powerful that the walls would only be there for privacy.”
“Let’s hope it just means a peaceful culture,” Magnus said. “But one with rulers and subjects,” Alea pointed out. “See how many people are out there working in the fields?”
“That could simply mean that everyone works.” Then Magnus saw the woman in green silk riding on a gray horse and the man in velvet and brocade who rode the chestnut stallion beside her, with several liveried guards behind them. “Or it could be a rigid class system.”
“You would raise a question.” Alea glanced at him with annoyance. “Now I want to go down there just to find out the answer.”
“So do I,” Magnus admitted. “Even more, though, I want find out why they’re so sure of the peace. No one’s wearing armor, and that isn’t a very large troop of bodyguards.” H added as an afterthought, “Of course, the peasants could be opressed.”
Alea shrugged. “How badly? We’ve seen worse, much worse. Besides, you can’t tell just by looking at them.”
“Yes, though Brigante was the first planet I’ve seen where that wasn’t true.”
Alea shrugged. “All we could see from orbit was that the was a priestly class and a peasant class. It made sense that the priests should have been exploiting the peasants.”
“Yes, and it took a dirtside tour to find out that the people were really quite happy.” Magnus winced at the memory of civilization that had no government above the level of a to council—if you didn’t count the secret society that had virtually become the government.
Evanescent’s telepathic species had a great deal to do with the smooth running of Brigante’s society, too, and was where the alien had joined them—though only Alea knew about her and at the moment, even she didn’t remember.
“Displaying catalog,” Herkimer said, and the screen before them became a collection of small pictures arranged in three walls, one behind the other.
Magnus glanced from one frame to another. “A medieval civilization amid the ruins of a modern one—well, I’ve seen that before.”
Alea thought of her home world and winced. “We’ll have to be on the watch for people who remember how to use the old machines—or even to build new ones.” She remembered the dwarves of Midgard building radio transceivers.
“Well, we won’t learn anything more up here.” Magnus stood up. “Cancel display, Herkimer, and fabricate us some costumes like the ones we’ve seen, would you?”
The picture-walls disappeared, and Herkimer asked, “Costumes of the privileged class or the peasantry, Magnus?”
“Do you feel like being a lady of wealth and breeding this time?” Magnus asked Alea.
“A peasant will be fine, thank you.” Alea had a grudge against the wealthy and privileged. “Besides, the ruling class is so small that they probably all know each other and would be very suspicious of strangers.”
“True,” Magnus agreed. “Peasants, Herkimer. We’ll start at the bottom and work our way up, as usual.”
Alea stood, too. “Should I start calling you Gar Pike again?”
“That would be wise,” Magnus said, nodding.
“I don’t know why you bother with that alias,” Alea grumbled. “No one here is going to know who Magnus d’Armand is.”
“Only the wrong people.”
“You mean SCENT agents. We don’t even know that there are any of them working here.”
“In fact, there probably aren’t,” Gar said, “but it’s one chance we don’t have to take. I’d prefer my former colleagues don’t recognize me if they do happen to be in the neighborhood.” The fact that SCENT was also his father’s organization was just as much of a problem—the name “d’Armand” was rather famous among their ranks.
Privately, Alea suspected that Magnus would be easy to recognize under any name—on backward planets where nutrition was rarely what it should be, there weren’t very many men who were nearly seven feet tall. On the other hand, there weren’t many women who were six feet four inches, either. Even on her home world she had stood out, to her sorrow. She once again felt an overwhelming rush of gratitude to Magnus for taking her away from that misery, but stiffened her face, determined not to let it show.
Magnus misunderstood the expression; his voice lowered, becoming gentler. “Come now, it won’t be all that bad. We’ll probably discover that the peasants are well fed and well clothed, and quite happy with their lot. Besides, we could do with a touch of sun and fresh air again.”
“And rain!” Alea’s pulse quickened at the thought. Truth to tell, she would have taken shore leave even if nobody on the planet needed her—after six months shipboard, she was glad of an excuse to go outdoors again.
So was Evanescent, of course, but she didn’t bother telling the humans—or even reminding them that she existed. There would be time enough for that, if it were necessary.
The next shipboard day, Herkimer spiraled around the planet Oldeira to the night side, where he settled into a clearing in a forest, not far from a road, that led to a village only a few miles away. Magnus and Alea went down the gangplank, he with a spring in his step, she nearly dancing. They picked their way across the clearing by the light of a lantern that had a very medieval look, then disappeared into the trees.
Herkimer remained, gangplank extended, though usually he would have lifted off as soon as they had disembarked and been halfway back to orbit before the humans had reached the forest. Now, though, the ship still sat, as though trying to remember what it was supposed to do next—until Evanescent prowled down the gangplank, a huge ball of a cat face with a foreshortened feline body that seemed much too small. Nonetheless, she moved with fluidity and grace as she disappeared into the forest, following the trail of the humans’ thoughts.
Only then did the gangplank slide back into the ship and Herkimer rise into the night sky, not even knowing that his computer-brain had been dormant for a few minutes. He wouldn’t even think to compare his memories to the ship’s clock, for how could he have lost time without being aware of it?
They broke out of the underbrush onto the road. Alea looked up at the narrow strip of sky, so strewn with stars that it gave as much light as a full moon on Terra. Then she turned to Gar. “What do we do now? Look for a guide?”
“I usually do,” Gar admitted, “preferably someone who’s planning to keep traveling for a while.”