Murder, Conrad mouthed at Peter. Death. Kill. He’s going to kill you.
But Peter wasn’t getting it, wasn’t looking closely at Conrad at all. “You punched him,” he said to Bascal, who shrugged and didn’t deny it. “That’s mean. He can’t fight back, not with your bodyguard holding him. You’re the only man on this planet allowed to throw a punch.”
“Oh, I’m not allowed,” Bascal said, with a cryptic little smile. Then he strode off in the direction of the docks, and Peter, with a quick glance in Conrad’s direction, turned and followed him, intent on discussing the point further.
Conrad could only watch as the solar panels were set in place and the cables were dipped in the muddy lake, and the water around them began to fizz and boil. Four boys dragged the end of the folded balloon/bag/sail into place, and it billowed as if in a breeze. A bubble appeared in the material, and soon it was swelling, filling. Boys were arranging themselves underneath it, lifting it up so the hydrogen would travel down the length of the bag rather than spilling out the open mouth.
“This’ll take a while,” Bascal observed, to no one in particular. He was polite enough—if you could call it that—to stay away from Conrad, to keep from rubbing his nose in what had happened.
Or maybe it wasn’t politeness at all. Maybe he just didn’t want to draw attention to the issue, to get people wondering why Conrad wasn’t moving or talking, and had a personal robot guard following him around. The alarming thing was how easily everyone took this in stride. Nobody sought him out, asked him a question, even looked at him for more than a moment or two. It occurred to him, with foolish shock, that he was no major figure in these boys’ lives, any more than Peter Kolb or Raoul Sanchez were in Conrad’s own. They weren’t aching for his opinion. They weren’t pausing in their hurried work to fret about his well-being, any more than he ever had for them. And these were his friends, right? Probably the best friends he’d ever had.
Somebody struck up the chorus of the Fuck You Song, and within a few bars everyone was singing, the whole camp ringing and echoing with it. All except for Conrad, who had never felt lonelier in his life. Weirdly, he found himself wishing Feck were here, or his parents, or even that lady from the police station. Somebody uninvolved in this conspiracy.
He jabbed an elbow into the Palace Guard’s impervium side, and even this was ignored. Bascal might as well have made him invisible, intangible, a ghost. He considered dropping his pants, just to get some attention, then wondered if his escort would even allow it.
While the song rolled on, the Palace Guards had begun to gather on the dock. One of them said something, in a voice that was loud and polite but not quite distinguishable over the noise. The song faltered and died.
“This activity is dangerous,” the guard repeated. “You must desist.”
Bascal snorted. “Dangerous? This activity is necessary.”
The robot turned. “Spectral analysis of the gas in this enclosure indicates an explosive.”
“Not at this altitude,” Bascal countered. “Too much xenon. It’ll just burn.”
And that was true: you could light a match or campfire or barbecue grill with no problem, although the flames were reddish and somewhat sickly. But the boys’ research had indicated a problem with the more rapid forms of combustion. Xenon atoms were just too heavy; heating them soaked up all your energy. And they were large, swarming among the smaller oxygen and hydrogen molecules like elephants at a dog-and-cat show.
The robot considered this for a second or so, and then said, “Network confirmation is not available. However, internal simulation supports the assertion. What is the purpose of this activity?”
“It’s a balloon,” Bascal answered, obviously seeing little point in lying.
“It is anchored to a structure whose foundation has been undermined. The structure’s weight may not be sufficient to counteract buoyancy.”
A cautious look came over Bascal’s face. “Guard, are you programmed to interfere with educational activities?”
“No,” the guard replied.
“What are your exact instructions?”
The robot, faceless, considered Bascal. It seemed to understand that something important was happening, that Bascal was up to something. Detecting bad intentions was the thing’s entire purpose. That, and protecting the prince—even from himself. Anyway, they’d been overhearing all the important conversations, and surely must understand at least the gist of it all. Finally, the robot said, in King Bruno’s voice, “Hold to the camp schedule, and keep these kids from hurting each other. The fax is for camp activities only.”
“That’s all?”
“Other than built-in directives and prior standing orders, yes.”
The two of them faced one another—a Poet Prince versus the quantum computers of a brilliant but obedient machine.
“Guard,” the prince said carefully, “we are leaving this planette. I’ll go crazy if we don’t. Kindly support us by staying out of the way.”
The guard digested that, and replied, “You may not perform any activity without accompaniment.”
“Very well,” Bascal said, nodding. “One guard will accompany us.”
“A minimum of two guards are required in the presence of royalty.”
“Two, then.”
The robot did not reply. Did that mean it agreed? Assented? Conrad wanted to scream his objections. But the cables in the water bubbled on, and the bag slowly filled.
At first there was just a gas pocket, swelling down here at the bag’s lower end, but the boys did a fair job of teasing it along, driving it up the length of the wellstone tube. Eventually, the middle of the bag gained buoyancy and lifted into the air, forming a great arch like a rainbow over the planette’s northern hemisphere, while teams of handlers held the ends down firmly. This was impressive, considering how enormous and heavy the thing was. The wellstone film was translucent and microscopically thin, but there was a lot of it, folded over on itself several dozen times.
Then the rainbow itself began to swell and fatten, and Bascal gave the order to release the upper end, which shot up like a cork in water. It swelled as the pressure around it eased, dropping off rapidly with altitude. Now the balloon was the size of a small cabin, rippling slightly in the convection breeze, and the growing team of handlers was having more and more trouble holding it down. There was a lot of nervous joking, nervous laughter, boys calling for assistance or complaining that their fingers were tired.
“If you’re not a handler,” Bascal called out, over the rising commotion, “get in the cabin. Now! Now!”
And it was really happening. They were leaving, soon, in the next couple of minutes.
“There may be danger to any person left behind,” one of the robots said. “You may not leave any person behind.”
“Danger?” said Peter. “What danger?”
“The men staying behind are volunteers,” Bascal said. “They’re awaiting a rescue craft.”
“What danger?” Peter asked again.
“The explosion,” Bascal told him impatiently. “And some rain. It might get a little rough.”
“This is out of control,” Bertram said to the robot. “Stop it now. Please.”
The robot regarded him without comment. It wasn’t programmed to take orders—or even suggestions—from anyone but palace staff.
“It’s too late to stop it,” Bascal said. His voice was calm, brisk, triumphant. “The bag is an explosion waiting to happen. When we let it go, it rises and expands, and its buoyancy increases. If it doesn’t detonate immediately, it detonates when we unmoor the cabin and float a little higher.”