“I think,” said Pum, “my lord intends to do battle, in a strange realm where wizards are his foes.”
Am I that transparent to him? “Yes, it may be,” Everard replied. “I’ll first recompense you well, for you’ve been a right-hand man to me.”
The youth plucked his sleeve. “Lord,” he implored, “let your servant follow you.”
Astounded, Everard stopped in mid-stride. “Huh?”
“I would not be parted from my master!” cried Pum. Tears gleamed in his eyes and down his cheekbones. “Better death at his side – aye, better the demons cast me down to hell – than return to that cockroach life you raised me from. Teach me what I should do. You know I learn fast. I shall not be afraid. You have made me into a man!”
By God, I do believe that for once his passion is perfectly genuine.
It’s out of the question, of course. IS it? Everard stood thunderstruck. Pum danced before him, laughing and weeping. “My lord will do it, my lord will take me!”
And maybe, maybe, after this is all over, if he’s survived – maybe we’ll have gained something very precious.
“The danger will be great,” Everard said slowly. “Moreover, I await things and happenings from which hardy warriors would flee, screaming. And earlier, you’ll have to acquire knowledge which, most of the wise men in this world could not even understand, were it told them.”
“Try me, my lord,” answered Pum. A sudden calm had come upon him.
“I will! Let’s go!” Everard strode so fast that the youth must trot to keep up.
Basic indoctrination would take days, assuming Pum could handle it. That was okay, though. It would take a while anyway to collect the necessary intelligence and organize a task force. Besides, meanwhile there would be Bronwen. Everard couldn’t tell if he himself would live through the conflict. Let him first receive whatever joy came his way, and try to give it back.
Captain Baalram was reluctant. “Why should I enroll your son?” he demanded. “I’ve a full crew already, including two apprentices. This one is a landlubber born, small, and scrawny.”
“He’s stronger than he seems,” replied the man who called himself Adiyaton’s father. (A quarter century hence, he would call himself Zakarbaal.) “You’ll find him clever and willing. As for experience, everybody begins with none, true? See here, sir. I’m anxious for him to get into a trading career. For the sake of that, I’ll be happy to… make it worth your while personally.”
“Well, now.” Baalram smiled and stroked his beard. “That’s different. What amount of tuition had you in mind?”
Adiyaton (who, a quarter century hence, would have no precautionary need not to call himself Pummairam) looked gleeful. Inwardly, he shivered, for he gazed upon a man who must soon die.
From where the Patrol squadron waited, high in heaven, the storm was a blue-black mountain range crouched on the northern horizon. Elsewhere the sea reached argent and sapphire across the curve of the planet, save where islands broke the sheen and, eastward, the Syrian coast made a darkling line. Low in the west, the sun shone as cold as the blue around it. Wind whittered in Everard’s ears.
On the front saddle of his time hopper, he huddled into a parka. The rear seat was empty, like those of about “half the two-score vehicles that shared the sky with him. Their pilots hoped to transport prisoners. The rest were guncraft, eggs of armor wherein fire waited to hatch. Light clanged off metal.
Damn! Everard thought. I’m freezing. How much longer? Has something gone wrong? Did Pum betray himself to the enemy, or has his equipment failed, or what?
A receiver dial secured to the steering bar beeped and winked red. Breath exploded out of him, white vapor that the wind strewed and swallowed. Despite his years as a hunter of men, he must gulp before he could snap into his throat mike: “Signal received by commander. Triangulation stations, report.”
Down ahead, in wrack and spindrift, the enemy band had appeared. They had commenced their evil labors. But Pum had reached inside his garb and pressed the button on a miniature radio transmitter.