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And the reward? MacDougal was glaring at him, for the commission of his numerous sins. What sins? Flammarion had no idea, except that, over twenty years ago, he had met Chan Dalton. Earl Dexter, pressed for information upon his return from the Gallimaufries, might as well have taken a vow of silence. All he would say was that they would be with Chan Dalton soon enough, and they would then have answers to all their questions.
As one small consolation, the Ambassador had become too preoccupied with their upcoming meeting with Dalton to continue his endless complaints about being down on Earth; which was just as well, because Earl Dexter was leading them through a setting which combined every conceivable element of noise, dirt, confusion, and strangeness.
The first part of the journey was a long drop through the black depths of a vertical drop-shaft. Earl Dexter had particularly warned about it, not realizing that to Kubo Flammarion and Dougal MacDougal this would provide a few welcome seconds of comfortable free-fall.
But that was the end of comfort. They had emerged into a series of vaulted chambers of rock where everything felt wrong. Instead of curves, following the natural stress lines of a habitat, every wall was flat as a plate and straight up-and-down. The roof, by contrast, was all random lumps and dimples, broken at intervals by ugly, powerful, and inconstant lights that threw broken reflections onto the jumble of cables, tents, guy ropes, and partitions that cluttered the floor. Above them, ramshackle multilevel platforms hung tipsily between steel pylons, with rope ladders stretching from one to another or hanging down to the ground beneath.
And that floor! Not metal, or plastic, but black granular soil in which blossoming plants grew everywhere, sprouting along zigzag walkways while blood-red vines festooned every column. A flowery perfume filled the air, tainted with a hint of a less pleasant smell.
The human population of the Gallimaufries was as tight-packed as the flowers. There were no wheeled vehicles, and everyone went on foot or was carried on swaying sedan chairs with a bearer at each corner. On these lower levels, gaudy yellow and vermilion was favored in clothing, trimmed with sequins and piped with gold, silver, and chartreuse. The people rivaled the flowers for color. They also, Flammarion realized, made a lot more noise and they smelled less pleasant. Blame the quarantine for that, packing them in ten to a box — except that Earth had been this way, crowded and dirty, long before the big Q.
Dougal MacDougal was sniffing the air and glowering around him. “Inconceivable.” He had to shout to be heard above the general racket. “Twenty-three years ago, Dalton returned a hero from the Stellar Group expedition to Travancore. He could pick anywhere in the solar system as his home. And he chooses to live here .”
“It’s where he started,” Flammarion replied loudly. “He was born and raised in the Gallimaufries.” Then he wished that he had kept his mouth shut. Earl Dexter’s behavior suggested that there was much more mystery to Chan Dalton than his choice of residence, and Flammarion didn’t want to get into that delicate subject with the Ambassador.
Instead he went on, “Are you sure we are looking for the right man?”
Dougal MacDougal had been conspicuously reticent about revealing to Flammarion just why it was so important to find the particular person of Chan Dalton; and as a fishing expedition for information, this latest effort also proved a failure. The Ambassador turned to favor Flammarion with another silent glare, then trudged on behind Earl Dexter. Kubo wheezed his way after them with his head down. Earth’s thick air and gravity were killers, no wonder all the people down here were crazy. Much more of this, and he would need one of those sedan chairs himself.
Earl Dexter halted abruptly at a corridor that co
“This is what ?” MacDougal, Flammarion was pleased to see, was wheezing even worse than he was. On Earth, being big and heavy had its drawbacks.
“This is where I leave you,” Dexter said. He pointed. “Dalton’s right ahead, sitting at the far end. You don’t need me any more.” He looked at Flammarion and held out his hand. “I did my bit, like I said. So if you wouldn’t mind …”
“You get the rest when I’m sure it’s Dalton, and not before.” Flammarion squinted into the dimly lit chamber ahead. “Where is he? I can’t see a bloody thing, and there’s dozens of ’em.”
“You’ll know him easy enough. Soon as you get used to the light.” Dexter tried to eel away, but Dougal MacDougal caught and held him. “Look, I don’t need to go in there. I told him you were coming, I got no business with the Boz.”
Kubo Flammarion took no notice. His eyes were adjusting, and he could see a long, darkened room. A score of men and women stood in a line that stretched to a tall, elevated dais at the far end. On the dais was one enormous and flower-bedecked seat, and on that throne sat one man in stiff robes of dark green. He was wearing a ridiculous yellow hat perched like a beehive on top of his head.
Kubo peered, swore, and peered again. One man was walking forward to go down on one knee before the seated figure. After a few seconds of conversation, inaudible to anyone but the two of them, he rose to his feet, bowed, and retreated. He walked right past Flammarion and his companions without even a glance.
The next person in line, a woman in a long dress of pale yellow, stepped forward toward the dais. Kubo pulled a little image cube from his pocket and stared at it.
“It’s him!” he hissed. Half a dozen heads at the back of the line turned. Flammarion stared again, to make absolutely sure. The man in the chair was big, solid, and somehow menacing. “He’s changed a hell of a lot, bigger and broader, and he looks fu
“Excellent.” MacDougal’s growl turned more heads, of everyone except the woman at the front of the line. “We’ve found him. Now I can do my part.”
“I hope you can.” Kubo flinched at the Ambassador’s glare and went on, “It might not be so easy. See that hat? He’s not just Chan Dalton any more. He’s a top enforcer for the Duke of Bosny — boss-man of this whole shooting-match. Down here, he doesn’t follow the rules. He makes them.”
It was a miracle, at least from Flammarion’s point of view: Dalton remembered him.
They had to wait until the whole line of supplicants had been attended to before they could approach Chan Dalton. But when they did get near, even before Kubo or Ambassador MacDougal could speak, the man in the chair removed his hat, gri
“It’s been over twenty years!” Kubo recalled Chan Dalton as a young Adonis, lithe and slim and golden-haired. The man before him now was thick through the middle and had a scarred, weary face. Had Kubo himself changed as much? “Do you really remember me?”
“Of course I do. You were sent to see me when I was stuck on Horus, out in the Egyptian Cluster. Typical — you were the one they used to dump all the shit on, weren’t you, when anything unpleasant had to be done? Things have changed, I hope.”
“Well. Maybe.” Kubo coughed and glanced uncertainly at Dougal MacDougal. “This is the human Ambassador to the Stellar Group.”
“Oh yes?” Chan offered MacDougal a polite, distant stare.
“He has come all the way from Ceres to talk to you.”
“That right?” Chan turned back to Flammarion. “He came with you?”
“Yes. No. I mean, I came with him.”
“Why does it take two of you? You could have told me why you’re here. I would have listened to one of you just as well, and I know you from the old days.”