The White Stars

"Then we are agreed. There is no more to say. Would you choose a sword?"

"I'll leave that to you, sir, for I respect your judgement better than my own. If I might continue to borrow your automaton until the appointed time…?"

"Of course."

"Until then." The Duke of Queens bowed. "O'Dwyer?"

The trooper looked up from a gun he had partially dismantled. "Duke?"

"We can leave now."

Reluctantly, but with expert swiftness, Trooper O'Dwyer reassembled the weapon, cheerfully saluted Lord Shark and, as he left, said, "I'd like to come back and have another look at these some time."

Lord Shark ignored him. Trooper O'Dwyer shrugged and followed the Duke of Queens from the room.

A little later, watching the great kite float into the distance, Lord Shark tried to debate with himself the mysteries of the temperament the Duke of Queens had revealed, but an answer was beyond him; he merely found himself confirmed in his opinion of the stupidity of the whole cosmos. It would do no great harm, he thought, to extinguish one small manifestation of that stupidity: the Duke of Queens certainly embodied everything Lord Shark most loathed about his world. And, if he himself, instead, were slain, then that would be an even greater consolation — though he believed the likelihood was remote.

8. Matters of Honour

Not long after the exchange between the Duke of Queens and Lord Shark, Trooper Kevin O'Dwyer, becoming conscious of his own lack of exercise, waddled out for a stroll in the sweet-smelling forest which lay to the west of the duke's palace.

Trooper O'Dwyer was concerned for the duke's safety. It had only just dawned on him what the stakes were to be. He took a kindly and patronizing interest in the well-being of the Duke of Queens, regarding his host with the affection one might feel towards a large, stupid Labrador, an amiable Labrador. This was perhaps a naive view of the duke's character, but it suited the good-natured O'Dwyer to maintain it. Thus, he mulled the problem over as he sat down under a gigantic daffodil and rested a pair of legs which had become unused to walking.

The scent of the monstrous flowers was very heady and it made the already weary Trooper O'Dwyer rather drowsy, so that he had not accomplished very much thinking before he began to nod off, and would have fallen into a deep sleep had he not been tapped smartly on the shoulder. He opened his eyes with a grunt and looked into the gaunt features of his old comrade Trooper Gan Hok. With a gesture, Trooper Gan Hok cautioned O'Dwyer to silence, whispering, "Is anyone else with you?"

"Only you." Trooper O'Dwyer was pleased with his wit. He gri

"This is serious," said Trooper Gan Hok, wriggling the rest of his thin body from the undergrowth. "We've been trying to contact you for days. We're busting off. Sergeant Martinez sent me to find you. Didn't you know we'd escaped?"

"I heard you'd disappeared, but I didn't think much of it. Has something come up?"

"Nothing special, only we decided it was our duty to try to get back. Sergeant Martinez reckons that we're as good as deserters."

"I thought we were as good as POWs?" said O'Dwyer reasonably. "We can't get back. Only experienced time travellers can even attempt it. We've been told."

"Sergeant Martinez doesn't believe 'em."

"Well," said O'Dwyer, "I do. Don't you?"

"That's not the point, trooper," said Gan Hok primly. "Anyway, it's time to rejoin your squad. I've come to take you back to our HQ. We've got a foxhole on the other side of this jungle, but time's ru

Through one of the gaps in his shirt Trooper O'Dwyer scratched his stomach. "It sounds crazy. What's your opinion? Is Martinez in his right mind?"

"He's in command. That's all we have to know."

Before he had become a guest of the Duke of Queens, Trooper O'Dwyer would have accepted this logic, but now he was not sure he found it palatable. "Tell the sergeant I've decided to stay. Okay?"

"That is desertion. Look at you — you've been corrupted by the enemy!"

"They're not the enemy, they're our descendants."

"And they wouldn't exist today if we hadn't done our duty and wiped out the Vultures — that's assuming what they say is true." Gan Hok's voice took on the hysterical tones of the very hungry. "If you don't come, you'll be treated as a deserter." Meaningly, Trooper Gan Hok fingered the knife at his belt.

O'Dwyer considered his position and then replied. "Okay, I'll come with you. There isn't a chance of this plan working anyhow."

"The sergeant's got it figured, O'Dwyer. There's a good chance."

With a sigh, Trooper O'Dwyer climbed to his feet and lumbered after Trooper Gan Hok as he moved with nervous stealth back into the forest.

"But, dearest of dukes, you ca

Embarrassed, he fingered the cloak of the dormant duelling automaton. "I have agreed," he said quietly. "I thought you would find it amusing — you, in particular, my petalled pride."

"I believe," she replied, "that I feel sad."

"You must tell Werther. He will be curious. It is the emotion he most yearns to experience."

"I would miss your company so much if Lord Shark kills you. And kill you he will, I am sure."

"Nonsense. I am the match for his automaton, am I not?"

"Who knows how Lord Shark programmed the beast? He could be deceiving you."

"Why should he? Like you, he tried to dissuade me from the duel."

"It might be a trick."

"Lord Shark is incapable of trickery. It is not in his nature to be devious."

"What do you know of his nature? What do any of us know?"

"True. But I have my instincts."

The Iron Orchid had a low opinion of those.

"If you wait," he said consolingly, "you will observe my skill. The automaton is programmed to respond to certain verbal commands. I intend, now, to allow it to try to wound me." He turned, presented his sword at the ready and said to the automaton, "We fight to wound." Immediately the mechanical duellist prepared itself, balancing on the balls of its feet in readiness for the duke's attack.

"Forgive me," said the Iron Orchid coldly, "if I do not watch. Farewell, Duke of Queens."

He was baffled by her ma

Righting herself at the exit, she entered her little air car, the bird of paradise, and instructed it to carry her as rapidly as possible to the house of Lord Shark the Unknown. The car obeyed, flying over many partially built and partially destroyed scenes, several of them the duke's own, of mountains, luscious sunrises, cities, landscapes of all descriptions, until the barren plain came in sight and beyond it the brown mountains, under the shadow of which lay Lord Shark's featureless dwelling.

The bird of paradise descended completely to the ground, its scintillating feathers brushing the dust; out of it climbed the Iron Orchid, walking determinedly to the door and knocking upon it.

A masked figure opened it immediately.

"Lord Shark, I have come to beg —"

"I am not Lord Shark," said the figure in Lord Shark's voice. "I am his servant. My master is in his duelling room. Is your business important?"

"It is."

"Then I shall inform him of your presence." The machine closed the door.