Kesley

“ To Antarctica!
VIII
The sleep-wrapped city was dark and silent. Kesley raced down the quiet streets, cutting laterally once to avoid the yellow glare of a wandering patrolman's swinging sodium lamp.
He knew he had to move quickly. The city's gates would, of course, be barred, and he had no desire to try the lakefront way of leaving Chicago. He was no swimmer, and the lake, unguarded though it was, seemed endless. There was only one way out.
Pulling his richly-brocaded cloak around him, he looked ahead for some sign of the night patrolman who had just passed. ”

“ This idiot has ruined my robes."
Kesley allowed himself to be tied to a chair.
"You're a bold fool," the big man said, coming over to glower down at Kesley. He knotted his fingers in his thick, tangled dark beard, and smiled, baring stained yellow teeth. Kesley met the noble's gaze evenly.
The deep eyes were set in a network of fine wrinkles. They were not the eyes of an ordinary man. They were heavy with the shadow of a hundred thousand days gone by, and infinities of days to come. Kesley realized that the man before him was no mere noble. He could only be Don Miguel, Duke of South America. ”

“ All around him, swarthy men on burros or horses or stubby piebald mutant beasts waited patiently to be admitted. Most of them were clad in broad-brimmed sombreros and colorful serapes; Kesley grinned wryly at that. South America was an unchanging microcosm. Beneath the friendly sky, life, frozen always in a stasis of todays, moved on slowly, with manana never quite arriving.
Kesley wondered about van Alen. The Antarctican had run away, and presumably had been shot by a bandit. Was he dead, his corpse lying rotting on the plain? It didn't matter, now. Kesley was in the hands of Duke Miguel. ”

“ The wolf paused in mid-stride as if frozen, shuddered once, and dropped. There was the sickening smell of burning fur in the air.
Kesley felt a quick burst of hot anger. He looked down at the smouldering ruin of the wolf huddled darkly against the ground, then to the stranger, who was smiling as he reholstered the blaster.
"What the hell did you do that for?" Kesley demanded hotly. "Who asked you to shoot? What are you doing here, anyway?"
He raised his knife in a wild threatening gesture. The stranger moved tentatively toward his hip again, and Kesley quickly relaxed. ”

“ Kesley glanced uneasily around the room. "May we be alone, Duke Winslow?"
Chuckling, the Duke said: "Certainly not. My life is much too important to me, young one. But you can speak freely here; the word of my court is sacred."
"Very well, then. I'll begin at the beginning." Drawing a deep breath, he said, "I was sent here to assassinate you."
Around Winslow, courtiers paled and reached for their weapons at Kesley's flat admission, but Winslow himself showed no reaction whatever. It was infuriating to see the slow smile finally spread over his face. "How unfriendly," he observed at last. ”

“ Winslow, Miguel, me. What do we have in common?" van Alen demanded suddenly.
Startled, Kesley stopped to think of their common characteristics. Nothing in common, he nearly answered. Then he saw he was wrong.
Physical vitality. Long life. These things were obvious.
The deepness of the eyes. Constant for all three.
And a deepness of personality, a strange complexity of behavior, a pattern of actions that appeared to be based on random selection. Yes, that was it. "You're unpredictable," Kesley said. "One never knows what to expect from you. It's as if you act without motivation sometimes." ”

“ Kesley saw himself kneeling in the Duke's long hall, rising to advance on nerveless legs to the throne—
Plunging a knife into the Ducal bosom.
Firing an echoing pistol shot as he rose from obeisance.
Leaping forward and throttling Winslow on the throne.
Actually, he knew, it would not be that way. A Duke had an eternity to lose at an assassin's hands, and would be expected to surround himself with protection. No one, not even Miguel, would place himself at the mercy of anyone begging audience simply for the sake of "amusement." There were too many years to be lost. ”

“ Only the distant towers of New York still blazed with radiation; the chain reaction there would continue through all eternity, as a warning and a threat. But Kesley wasn't concerned with that.
He started down a new furrow, guiding the plough smoothly and well, strong arms gripping the beam while the horse moved steadily onward. In front of him, the broad expanse of Iowa Province stretched out till it looked like it reached to the end of the world. The brown land rolled on endlessly, stopping only where it ran into the hard blueness of the cloudless sky. ”

“ Lazy curlicues of smoke hung wavering in the air above the shacks. Kesley looked around.
Great God, he thought suddenly. They're people!
He rode down into the ghetto, feeling ashamed of his own bodily symmetry and genetic heritage, which seemed abnormal here. He, alone, of all the human beings within a half-mile radius, was untainted, and the thought made him feel strangely humble.
"Who is it you want?" a man asked. The toll-keeper, Kesley thought with sudden weird irony.
The "man" facing him was more nearly human than most ”

“ Moving quickly and smoothly, he stripped the patrolman, donned his clothes, and bound the unconscious man with his ambassadorial robes. The guard stirred; Kesley stunned him with a blow of the truncheon and dragged him into the courtyard of a small, private dwelling. ”

“ Kesley resolved that if he ever escaped from Winslow he would stay as far as he could from all the Dukes. Life was hard enough without making one's self subject to the caprices of life-jaded Immortals. ”

“ Van Alen shook his head frowningly. "You're not the green boy you were when you left, you know. You've seen the courts of the Dukes; you've worked on a farm. You know what it is to flee for your life."
"And I've seen Mutie City and the Colony and Wiener," Kesley added. "I've really been around."
"And?"
"And I think the world's rotten at the core! I think you can save it—if you'll only lift your damned Barrier and give what you have here to the rest of the world!" ”

“ Colin's done a glorious visomural, and the sensotapes—"
"You've produced nothing," Kesley said inexorably. "You create for yourselves—each other, at best. But not for the world outside."
"The world outside doesn't want us."
"Wrong. We don't understand you. And it's as much your fault as ours." Kesley turned away. "Leave me alone, Lisa. I should never have come here. I want to leave."
The jagged, violet blades of knifegrass glinted strangely in the morning sun. Kesley waited patiently while his hungry horse grazed. Mutant horse, mutant grass, the cycle held firm. ”

“ But better learn to curb it. These people are your superiors, whether you like it or not, and if a Duke wants a dollar to enter his city, you put down your dollar or you ride the other way."
"Superiors, hell! They've got no right—"
"You're just so much dirt, Kesley," the Antarctican said with sudden force. Oddly, the words did not stir Kesley to anger. "Learn that lesson now. Whatever you may think you are, that doesn't alter the fact that you're nothing more than dirt."
Kesley swallowed hard, but said nothing. Van Alen was right, he was forced to admit. ”

“ It was not easy persuading the guards to sleep."
Kesley rubbed his eyes, tried to peer into the darkness. The momentary glow of light had revealed the bizarre, piebald mutant towering above him. Cautiously, Kesley extended his hand and felt the rough, cool skin of the mutant's bare chest as if to confirm his vision.
"What are you doing here, Dawnspear?"
"There are those who would not have you die," the mutant replied. "Winslow and Miguel know you. Two Dukes are in league to take your life, now. They can be dangerous enemies. Come." ”

“ Kesley feinted with the stiletto and flicked it through the air past Miguel's head and into the center of the arms-bearing shield on the wall. The Duke, who had not so much as blinked, laughed heartily.
"A good man with a knife! A good man indeed." Serious again, he said, "But you could have killed me. Why didn't you?"
"Kill an Immortal?" Kesley replied listlessly. "I'd sooner try to harness a whirlwind. How could I possibly kill you?"
"By plunging the knife into my heart," Miguel said. "You obviously fail to understand the true nature of our immortality." ”

“ The looming palace ahead was the nerve-center of a continent, and one man—one man—controlled the multitude of ganglia. The entire vast spread of North America, from the dismal radiation-roasted Eastern seaboard to the broad plains of the Middle-West farming country to the open, relatively unscathed lands of the far West, depended for its organization on Chicago and on Chicago's Duke.
For the first time, Kesley realized the immensity of the confusion that would result when he struck down Winslow. ”

“ There they were, Spahl and Foursmith and Ricketts and Huygens and Devree, each one looking as if he had come down from a different world. They ruled the city.
"Why did you take me in?" he asked.
"There were reasons," Huygens, the double-header, said resonantly.
Always reasons, Kesley thought. And everyone knows them but me.
"This Daveen—he's not a mutant, is he?" Kesley asked.
"No," Foursmith said. "I saw him once, in the court of Duke Winslow. He is very tall, without hair, and blind. He's not one of us." ”

“ Kesley asked horror-stricken.
"We simply are requesting that you leave. We do not wish to risk an armed attack upon ourself."
"You can defend yourself, can't you?"
"We are not afraid of the Duke. We simply wish to avoid any conflict as unnecessary expenditure of material and effort. You now have three minutes, plus or minus one, in which to leave freely."
Sweat began to pour down Kesley's back. He glanced at the screen, saw Winslow's advancing forces. They had somehow tracked him to Wiener. ”

“ But he knew one thing—the answer to his life's riddle lay in Antarctica, the once frozen continent, now an earthly paradise surrounded by an impenetrable barrier.
But how to get there? The only means of transportation were the spindly six-legged mutant horses. And it was suicide for Kesley to travel on the American continents. Two immortal dictators had set king-size rewards for his capture—dead or alive. But somewhere in the two continents there was someone who would help him, someone he had to find. The future of the world depended on his success. ”

“ Kesley remembered the time van Alen had broken Kesley's grip in the Iowa farmhouse, had removed Kesley's hands from his throat as if he were a child. "But while you're doing that, I push the knife in. You don't have a chance. Will you dictate the abdication?"
"I've ruled here three hundred sixty years and more," van Alen said. "It's not easy to give up a throne in a moment after so long."
Again Kesley dug the knife in. This time, a few drops of blood trickled down, staining van Alen's broad collar. Immortal blood. ”

“ The robot glided away on its treads toward a lift-ramp. Kesley followed, suppressing his impatience.
He wondered if the Duke of Antarctica would be surrounded by long rows of halberdiers. Somehow he doubted it.
A pulse tickled annoyingly in the side of his throat as the elevator rose. The trip was brief; the door-panel was sliding open almost before it had closed.
The robot rolled out first and started off down a long, bright corridor. Kesley followed.
The corridor seemed to be endless. Finally, the robot paused before a richly-panelled door and touched a stud. "Yes?" a deep voice said. ”

“ The Colony was even more grotesque and wonderful a place than Kesley had imagined, in that first dazzling introduction in the park. After the darkness of the world of the Twelve Dukes, and the different darkness of Mutie City, the Colony stood forth as a land of beacon.
Total anarchy prevailed, for one thing. People lived where they liked, ate as they pleased, worked or did not work. There was always enough food. The Colony was self-sufficient, insular, smug in its seclusion. ”

“ Kesley studied the old man, realizing with a shock that he had almost forgotten the contours of Narella's face until seeing the girl's features mirrored here on Daveen's untroubled face.
A tense silence prevailed in the room.
Finally Daveen said: "Five years has changed you, young friend. You've lost your youthful face; I see beginning wrinkles where smoothness once was."
Kesley frowned. "How do you know? You're blind, aren't you?"
"The blind have ways of seeing. ”

“ Why?"
"You've seen the world. You've seen other Dukes. You know what the world is like. You've matured. It was a sink-or-swim process, and you swam."
Kesley began to see what was coming. His fingers started to tremble.
"Five years ago," van Alen went on, "I said no. Today's answer is different. It's yes."
Van Alen laid his still powerful hand on Kesley's shoulder. "I can't take down the Barrier myself. I need it up there, as protection—protection against emotional fears that even I know, intellectually, are foolish.
"But you can take it down, Dryle—as Duke of Antarctica!" ”

“ Kesley thought of the shining towers and compared them with the squat tenements of Chicago and Buenos Aires. "It's an incredible city."
"Yes," Daveen said.
With sudden bitterness Kesley said: "Why does the Antarctican Duke keep that barrier up? Why doesn't he invite the world down here to see what he has? Why must ninety percent of mankind live in squalor?" ”

“ He was counting on some random twitch of the Immortal's psychology to put the Duke in his power. But would Winslow, as had Miguel, bare his chest willingly to the blade?
Probably not, Kesley thought balefully. From what he had already deduced of the workings of the Immortal mind, it was hardly likely that any two Dukes would share a behavioral pattern. And that left Kesley in an awkward position.
"A week is a long time," Kesley said, as they rode through the gates. The double doors clanged shut behind them, sealing off Winslow's palace from the city. "I'll be ready when the time comes, padre." ”