This George said, “Your father will be a little while yet.” Feeling caught, I stopped looking for him and turned back around.
“Sit down,” the giant said, and somewhat warily I did. The chair bobbed on its pivot as I sat down. I kept my eyes on George.
He leaned carelessly against his panel and after a moment he said, “Since you don’t seem to want to talk and we have to be here together for awhile yet, let me tell you a story. It was told to me by my mother the night before I went on Trial.”
And with that, he launched full into it, ignoring the fact that I was too old for such things:
Once upon a time (he said) there was a king who had two sons, and they twins, the first ever born in the country. One was named Enegan and the other Britoval, and though one was older than the other, I don’t remember which it was, and I doubt anyone else does, either. The two boys were so alike that not even-their dear mother’s heart could tell one from the other, and before their first month was out they were so thoroughly mixed that no one could be sure which to call Britoval and which Enegan. Finally, they gave the whole thing up as a bad lot, used their heads and hung tags on the boys and called them Ned and Sam.
They grew up tall and strong and as like each other as two warts on the same toad. If one was an inch taller or a pound heavier at the beginning of the month, by the end of it they were all even again. It was all even between them in wrestling, running, swimming, riding, and spitting. By the time they were grown-up young men, there was only one way to mark them apart. It was universally agreed that Sam was bright and Ned was charming, and the people of the country even called them Bright Sam and Charming Ned.
“Hark,” they would say as a horse went by on the road. “There goes Prince Charming Ned.” Or, alternatively, “Hey, mark old Bright Sam thinking under yon spreading oak.”
The boys did earn their names, and honestly. Ask Sam to do a sum, parse a sentence, or figure a puzzle and he could do it in a trice, whereas Ned just wasn’t handy at that sort of thing. On the other hand, if you like charm and heart, courtesy and good humor, Ned was a really swell fellow, a delight to his dear mother, and a merry ray of sunshine to his subjects, while Sam at his best was a trifle sour.
Then one day the Old King, their father, died and the question arose as to which son should inherit, for the kingdom was small and the treasury was empty, and there simply was not enough for both.
The Great Council of the Kingdom met to consider the problem. They met and considered, considered and voted, voted and tied. At first they said it was obvious that the elder son should inherit, but they found that no one at all could say which was the elder. Then an exasperated soul proposed that the younger should inherit, and all agreed that was a fine way out until they discovered that it was equally problematic which was the younger. It was at this point that they decided to vote to settle the question — but the vote turned out a tie, for half said, “A king should be bright so as to be able to rule intelligently and deal wisely with the friends and the enemies of the kingdom. Nobody really has to like him,” and the other half said, “A king should be beloved by his subjects and well thought of by his neighbors and peers. The Council can always provide the brains needed to run things if brains are ever required.”
At last, finally, and in the end, it was decided by all that there was only one way to settle the matter. Charming Ned and Bright Sam must undertake a Quest and whichever of them was successful would become King of the Realm, and take his fine old father’s place. If neither was successful, they could always bring in a poor second cousin who was waiting in the wings, hat in hand. Kingdoms always have second cousins around to fill in when they’re needed.
The Quest decided upon was this: it seems that many miles away — or so the story had come to them in the kingdom — there was a small cavern in which lived a moderate-sized ogre with a fine large treasure, big enough to handle the kingdom’s budget problem for some years to come. It was agreed that whichever of the two boys could bring the treasure home where it belonged would have proved to the satisfaction of everybody his overwhelming right to be king.
At this point the story was interrupted. One of the three crewmen stuck his head up through the stairwell and said, “We’re all tight, George. Miles says we can leave any time now.”
George said to me, “Strap yourself in there,” and pushed the button that locked himself into his own seat. Humming slightly to himself, he rapped a switch with the back of his hand and rumbled, “Ten seconds to drop. Mind your stomachs.”
In ten seconds, the rim bars pulled back and we dropped slowly into our tube and then out of the Ship. I was leaving home for the first time. Geo Quad, even at its worst, was still “Us” rather than “Them.” As we dropped into the tube, the dome went opaque around us and lights came on. There was none of the stomachupsetting moment of transition as we shifted from the artificial gravity of the Ship to the artificial gravity of the scoutship of which George had just warned us, though there might have been. Which meant that whatever else he might be, this George creature was a relatively effective pilot.
I still didn’t know how to take him. I have that problem when I first meet people — I have to get used to them slowly. For the moment, too young for me or not, I was content to have him go on with his story, because it gave me something to think about instead of Grainau and whatever I would find there.
He punched buttons for a minute, and then said, “Well, that ought to hold us for awhile. Now where was I?”
“The ogre and the treasure.”
“Oh, yes,” he said, and continued with his story:
Well, the two young men set off the very next morning, when the sun was up and the air was warm. Sam, intelligent as always, had loaded food and supplies into a knapsack and put it on his back, and buckled a great sword about his waist. Ned took nothing — too heavy, you know — but simply put his red cap on his head and walked on down the road, whistling. Everybody in the kingdom came down to the road to wave and see them off. They waved until the boys were around the first bend in the road, and then, like sensible folk, they all went home to breakfast.
Sam was loaded so heavily that he couldn’t walk as fast as his dear brother, and Ned was soon out of sight ahead of him, without even the sound of his whistle to mark him. This didn’t seriously bother Bright Sam, because he was sure that preparation and foresight would in the end more than make up for Ned’s initial brisk pace. When he got hungry, not having any food would slow him down.
But Sam walked a long time, day and night, and never saw his brother. Then he came on the skinniest man he’d ever seen, sitting by a great pile of animal bones.
“Hello,” Sam said. “I’m looking for an ogre who lives in a cave and owns a treasure. Do you know where I can find him?”
At the question, the man began to cry. Sam asked him what the trouble was, since sour or not, he hated to see people cry. The man said, “A young fellow stopped a day or two ago and asked me the same question exactly. And he brought nothing but trouble on me. I had a flock of sheep, and fine ones, too, and I was roasting one for my dinner when he stopped, and he was such a nice, pleasant fellow that I asked him to eat with me. He was still hungry after the first sheep, so I killed another, and then another, and then another. He was so friendly and charming, and so grateful, that I never noticed until he had gone that he had eaten every last one of my animals. Now I have nothing at all. And I’m starting to get hungry myself.”
Sam said, “If you will tell me where the ogre lives I will give you some of the food that I have with me.”