Castle War c-4 Page 21

  “Yeah! What do you figure it’s worth? I mean, in Earth money.”

  “Well, there’s approximately twenty troy ounces of pure gold.”

  “Wow,” Jeremy said. “That works out to a bundle!”

  “I suppose so.”

  “If they’ll take it.”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is, this isn’t Earth. A while back I made some crack about Luster’s ancestors losing the Civil War. And he said, ‘Whut civil war?’ Maybe they don’t deal in gold here.”

  “Gold is universally valued,” Isis said.

  “Let’s hope it’s interuniversally valued.”

  They went back in to find that Dolbert was bolting the access plate back on. When he was done he squirmed out from under the craft. He went to the picnic basket, pulled out a bottle of soda, bit the cap off, and spat it out. He upended the bottle into his mouth.

  Luster poked his head out of the hatch, grinning triumphantly.

  “Computer says everthing’s workin’ fine now. That grav-eye-ton polarity gizmo just had some metal shavin’s cloggin’ it up, and that thermocouple gadget weren’t cracked at all. It was just busted off its mount. Dolbert put in a new bolt, and she’s as good as new.” Luster climbed down. “Ah don’t know whut we would’ve done iffen we’d’ve had't’get parts for this here thing. Would’ve took months't’order ’em.”

  “Would have taken a little longer than that,” Jeremy said. “Anyway, you guys did a great job.”

  “Weren’t nothin’,” Luster said.

  “It was marvelous,” Isis said. She took Luster’s face in her hands, brought his head down, and kissed his forehead.

  “Wull, thank you, ma’am,” Luster said, beaming.

  Isis approached Dolbert. Looking startled, he took off for the back of the garage.

  “Dolbert’s shy with the women folk,” Luster said.

  “Okay,” Jeremy said. “What do we owe you?”

  “Well, now, I’ll have't’do some figurin’.”

  “Look. Uh … we don’t have any money.”

  Luster smiled. “Ah kinda figured that.”

  “We can give you gold.”

  Luster guffawed. “Gold? Whut the hay-ull would we do with gold?”

  “It’s not worth anything around here?”

  “Shore, iffen yore the gummint.”

  “The … you mean only the government can have gold?”

  “That’s plumb right. It’s illegal't’own the stuff, ’cept fer a little jewelry. Now, there’s some folks that deal in it, on the side, like. Know whut ah mean? But Dolbert and I, here — wull, we don’t do nothin’ whut’s agin the law.”

  “No, no, I …” Jeremy scratched his head. “Then I don’t know how we’re going to pay you.”

  “Hmm.” Luster took off his cap and scratched his head. “Now, that shore is a problem.”

  Isis took Jeremy’s arm. “Will you excuse us for a moment?”

  “Shore will, ma’am.”

  Outside, Isis led Jeremy behind a stand of rusting iceboxes.

  “Jeremy, I’m going to offer myself to him.”

  “Huh? You can’t do that.”

  “It’s the only way.”

  “No. I’m the captain of the ship. I say you can’t.”

  “Jeremy, we have to get back, and soon.”

  “No! There’s gotta be another way.”

  “There’s no other way, Jeremy.”

  Jeremy opened his mouth to retort, then closed it. He looked stricken.

  “I still love you,” she said, and kissed him.

  She went back into the garage.

  Jeremy sat down on an upturned wooden bucket and stared off into the bedsprings and the fenders and the piles of old tires.

  A few moments later Isis returned with a strange look on her face. Jeremy stood up.

  “He wants you.”

  Jeremy’s mouth dropped open again.

  He steeled himself and went into the garage, where Luster awaited him with an enigmatic smile.

  “Take us for a ride,” Luster said.

  “Huh?”

  “Take us for a ride in that there spaceship of yores.”

  “Oh. Well, I can’t do that. First, I don’t know if we can get back home. Second, I might not be able to bring you back here.”

  “That’s fine by me.”

  “Really? But …”

  “Shore would like to ride in that thing. Besides, you owe Dolbert and me forty-seven fifty.”

  “Uh, yeah. Well, heck, okay. There’s room for two if you squeeze.”

  “Dolbert! C’mon. These here space people say they’ll take us for a ride.”

  Dolbert came out of the oily shadows tittering his delight.

  “Stand by to engage thrusters,” Jeremy said.

  “Standing by,” the Toshiba said. “But we’re not going to have any better luck this time than we did before.”

  “You have coordinates for the castle.”

  “Thing is, we’re going to have to negotiate the interuniversal medium again, and it’s all screwed up.”

  “We’re not going to hang around in it this time. We have the readings. Don’t we, Isis?”

  “We have tons of good data,” Isis said.

  “So, what’s the problem?” Jeremy said.

  “The problem is that the supercontinuum is undergoing so much instability that it’s going to make vector analysis an iffy proposition. That means there’ll be no computing our relative velocity and therefore our momentum at the point of entry into the metrical frame of the destination subcontinuum.”

  “Spit that out again in English.”

  “We don’t have any goddamn brakes on this thing.”

  “Oh. Well, do the best you can.”

  “R-r-roger!”

  “Engage thrusters!”

  “Engaged!”

  The inside of the garage disappeared from view, replaced by a shifting, inchoate nothingness.

  “Shore is pretty, space,” Luster said.

  “That’s nonspace,” Jeremy said.

  “Shore is pretty, anyway.”

  “Hold on to your chitterlings, brothers and sisters,” the Toshiba said gaily. “It’s going to be a rough ride.”

  Thirty-one

  Temple

  “Uncle Mordecai!”

  The man in the electric-blue leisure suit squinted through thick-lensed glasses. “What are you telling me, I’m related to you?”

  “Not by blood. You married my aunt Jacinda.”

  “Jackie! Good woman, rest her soul. You’re —?”

  “Incarnadine.”

  “I thought you looked familiar. You were young when I saw you last. You still look young. How old are you now?”

  “Three hundred fifty-six.”

  “A baby. Still at the castle?”

  “It’s home.”

  “I enjoyed it when I lived there.”

  Incarnadine looked around at the opulence of the temple. “You have a nice place here.”

  “It used to be a good business back in the old days. Now nothing. Bad location.”

  “To say nothing of those protection spells.”

  “Hey, I got quite an investment here. You should see the insurance premiums I gotta pay for vandalism. It’s murder today to run a business.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet. Uncle Mordy, you don’t live here, do you?”

  “Here, in this barn? No. I got a place in Palm Beach. I’m retired now.”

  Incarnadine was astonished. “You have a portal between here and Earth?”

  “For years. Why?”

  Incarnadine turned to Jonath, who was still prostrate on the stone floor of the sanctuary. “You think I’m a powerful magician? Here’s one who can do something I can’t.” He turned back to Mordecai. “You’re the only magician I know who can punch a portal between universes without castle power.”

  Mordecai shrugged. “It’s a simple trick.”

  “I’l
l bet. Where is it?”

  “Right in the back. Let’s go back to the house where we can talk, I can offer you a drink, whatever. Come on. Oh, your helper, here. You’re invited, too, pal.”

  Incarnadine helped Jonath up, then introduced him.

  “A pleasure,” Mordecai said. “Come on back.”

  Mordecai led them behind the base of the statue, through a doorway, and into a less voluminous chamber. Set into the base of the far wall was a small square opening.

  “I just found out I got problems with this thing. When I heard the alarm go off in the temple I came running and found that it shrank on me. Look at that. Like a cat door. I had to crawl through the damn thing. You know what’s going on?”

  “Yeah,” Incarnadine said. “The reason I’m here. The interuniversal medium is undergoing stress, and anomalies like this are happening all over.”

  “Well, let’s get in here before it chops someone in half.” Mordecai got down on his hands and knees and crawled through the opening.

  The room on the other side was a large paneled game room with a bar, couches and chairs, and a pool table. Mordecai led his guests through it and up the stairs to the first floor of a very large house. A hallway came out into a spacious living room with a view of a manicured lawn and garden. The property ended at a canal and slip, where a large cabin cruiser was moored.

  Decorator Swedish modern furniture graced the room, and modern paintings, among them what looked like an original Paul Klee, hung on the walls.

  “Great place,” Incarnadine said.

  “My late wife, Leah. She had taste. And a lot of money, God rest her soul. Sit down, sit down. You want a drink?”

  “No thanks.” Incarnadine sat on the sofa. Jonath remained standing.

  Mordecai seated himself in the matching white leather chair. “So, what’s the story?”

  “I was doing some military advising in Merydion —”

  “Those clowns!”

  “The same. Anyway, I detected some cosmic disturbance and checked the portal. It had constricted to a pinhole, and I was stranded.”

  “What were you going to do at the temple?”

  “Cast a teleportation spell to get me home.”

  “Whoa, you were taking quite a chance. The magic there is a little tricky.”

  “So I found out. I had some trouble with your protection devices. Good thing they were on automatic. If I’d had to deal with you —”

  “Forget about the teleportation thing. Those spells are monsters. You could arrive DOA back at the castle.”

  “There was the risk, but I had no choice. The portal was blocked.”

  “So, you’re here now. What’s the problem?”

  “Reports are that the Earth portal went strange. It could mean that the connection between here and the castle is completely gone. It was anchored in Pennsylvania, and I guess I should go up there and check things out, but I’m pretty sure it’s disappeared.”

  “I haven’t been back to the castle in years,” Mordecai said. “Wasn’t the portal in New York for a while?”

  “For a number of years, but Ferne moved it to Pennsylvania.”

  “Ferne. I remember Ferne. Beautiful girl. Gorgeous!”

  “Yes. She died last year, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I really am.”

  “Anyway,” Incarnadine said, “now that I’m here I’ll try to summon the portal, if you don’t mind.”

  “Be my guest. You need any help?”

  “Let me try alone first.”

  Incarnadine went to a blank section of wall and stood about five feet away. He stretched out his arms and began moving them in patterns, tracing a curvilinear figure.

  He did this for about a minute before stopping. He sighed. “Thank the gods.”

  “What for?”

  “The portal’s still here. They reported at the castle that some strange world had popped up at the locus of the Earth aspect, and that made me worry that there was no wormhole at all between Earth and the castle. But from the indications I got just now, the wormhole still exists. Problem is, it’s writhing around like crazy and there’s no controlling it. It’s wild, totally wild, as it used to be before I fiddled with it very recently.”

  “Then all you have to do is find it,” Mordecai said.

  “That’s going to be tough.” Incarnadine sat down. “Earth magic’s always been my bugaboo. Had a devil of a job wrestling with it last time I was here. Ferne did the anchoring in Pennsylvania. My brother Trent’s good at this sort of thing, too, but he’s on vacation and can’t be reached. And I have to get back soon. I must deal with the cosmic instability before it gets much worse.”

  “Well, you got a problem,” Mordecai said.

  “Yup.”

  “Good thing you came to me.”

  “Uncle Mordy, would you help me?”

  “What, I’m going to refuse a relative? You’re in trouble, you need a hand. Listen, I got nothing better to do.”

  “I would certainly appreciate it.”

  “It’s nothing. You want to get going now, or you want some lunch first? The cook’s off, but there’s some corned beef in the fridge, a little coleslaw —”

  “Time is a factor.”

  “Time, he says. There’s always time. The universe has time out the kazoo. There’s no end of it.”

  “Do you think we can summon the portal?”

  Mordecai leaned forward. “You got a wild portal. Summon it you can’t do.Chase it you gotta do.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t you worry how. We’ll find out how. When was the last time you ate?”

  “Days.”

  “Days!” Mordecai appealed to Jonath, who stood solemnly by. “Days, he says. Magic he can’t do without, food …phfft! Who needs it. Uh, listen, fellah, why don’t you sit down and take a load off your feet?”

  Jonath dutifully sat on the couch.

  “He don’t say much, does he?” Mordecai commented.

  “Mordy, Jonath has never seen Earth, or anything like it.”

  “I forgot. Pardon me, Jonath.”

  Jonath silently nodded.

  “Anyway. Listen, son, you gotta eat. The body can take a lot of punishment, but you gotta take care of it.”

  “How old are you, Uncle Mordy?”

  Mordecai held a hand up. “Don’t ask!”

  “I won’t. Getting back to business. Has anything untoward been happening here? I was wondering if the cosmic disturbance has had an effect.”

  “Yep. Big earthquake in California.”

  “Ye gods, the big one in L.A.?”

  “No, in Frisco. Terrible!”

  “Then there’s less time than I thought. We really have to get going.”

  Mordecai shrugged. “So, let’s get going. We’ll pick up something to eat on the way.”

  He led them downstairs again, turning left at the foot of the stairs. They went through a steel fire door and into a huge garage. Three automobiles were parked there: a silver Rolls-Royce, a white Mercedes, and something of an antique — a gargantuan mint-green 1959 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, bulbous chrome agleam, wicked rear fins razor-sharp and eager to impale pedestrians. In its exuberant and flamboyant crassness, the car was nonpareil.

  They got in, Incarnadine in front, Jonath in the rear. Mordecai took a black plastic box out of his pocket and pressed the stud on it. The wide garage door opened. Mordecai started the car and drove out.

  “Nice house,” Incarnadine said as the Cadillac rolled down the driveway.

  “It’s comfortable,” Mordecai said, clicking the door control again. “What do you think of this old buggy, eh?”

  “It’s one rara avis.”

  “You can’t buy quality like this anymore. They built them solid then.”

  “That Rolls didn’t look shabby.”

  Mordecai waved disdainfully. “Overpriced. This I have outfitted with a couple spells. Trouble is you can’t find leaded gas anymore, so it sits.”
<
br />   They cruised through palm-lined residential streets, sumptuous homes to either side.

  “This neighborhood’s certainly not for the hoi polloi,” Incarnadine said.

  “Some nice people around here. Some not so nice. But you live and let live.”

  After six or seven blocks, Mordecai turned onto a main boulevard lined with boutiques and trendy shops.

  “What you got here is Rodeo Drive East,” Mordecai said. “The prices would scare you.”

  “No doubt,” Incarnadine said.

  “Start with the portal-summoning. First push that third radio button. That trips a facilitation spell.”

  Incarnadine pushed the button and began concentrating. He tested the ether with his right hand, angling it this way and that. “I get the feeling it’s east of here. Out to sea?”

  “In the Bermuda Triangle,” Mordecai said. “Where else? Maybe we should take the boat out.” He shook his head. “Nah, we’d never catch it in the boat.”

  “I’ll try to reel it in.”

  “You do that. Open your window. The air-conditioning’s busted.”

  They swung through town and veered onto a business-clogged four-lane highway.

  “Listen, there’s a nice deli in West Palm Beach. Friend of mine used to own it. A nice Cuban fellow bought it and he’s doing a wonderful job.”

  “No time, Uncle Mordy. There.”

  Mordecai looked. “McDonald’s?”

  Mordecai wheeled into the lot and stopped in front of the take-out ordering station.

  A woman’s voice came through a tinny speaker. “Good afternoon, can I help you?”

  Incarnadine spoke up. “Give me a fish sandwich, a large order of fries, and a small Coke. Jonath, are you hungry?”

  Jonath nodded.

  “We also want a large Chicken McNuggets.”

  “Any fries with that?”

  “Right, large fries and another Coke. You’re gonna love this, Jonath.”

  “Me,” Mordecai said, “I like to sit inside when I eat, have a nice piece of fish. Give me a strawberry milkshake, honey!”

  They pulled around the building to the pickup window. After a short wait, the food came through. Mordecai paid, and they left.

  “It’s moving in, Uncle Mordy,” Incarnadine said, mouth full of fries. “The f’cilitation spell’s working.”