The First Science Fiction MEGAPACK®. Fredric Brown
five years ago. He was much heavier. His—father—was at the other side of the room already, checking with the waiters. Jon pulled his shoulders in, and let his breath out. It was the familiarity, not the change, that hurt.
It took some time before the room filled. There was a lot of space. One guest Jon noted was a young man in military uniform. He was powerful, squat in a taurine way usually associated with older men. There was a major’s insignia on his shoulder. Jon watched him a while, empathizing with his occasional looks that told how out of place he felt. He took neither food nor drink, but prowled a ten-foot area by the side of the balcony steps. Waiting, Jon thought.
A half an hour later, the floor was respectably populated. Jon had exchanged a few words at last with the soldier. (Jon: “A beautiful party, don’t you think?” Soldier, with embarrassment: “Yes, sir.” Jon: “I guess the war is worrying all of us.” Soldier: “The war? Yes.” Then he looked away, not inclined to talk more.) Jon was now near the door. Suddenly the loudspeaker announced: “The Party of His Royal Majesty, the King.”
Gowns rustled, the talk rose, people turned, and fell back from the entrance. The King’s party, headed by himself and a tall, electric-looking red-headed woman, his senior by a handful of years, appeared at the top of the six marble steps. As they came down, right and left, people bowed. Jon dropped his head, but not before he realized that the King’s escort had given him a very direct look. He glanced up again, but now her emerald train was sweeping down the aisle the people had left open. Her insignia, he remembered, told him she was a duchess.
Coming up the aisle in the other direction now between the bowing crowds was old Koshar. He bowed very low, and the pale blond young man raised him and they shook hands, and Koshar spoke. “Your Majesty,” he began warmly.
“Sir,” answered the King, smiling.
“I haven’t seen you since you were a boy at school.”
The King smiled again, this time rather wanly. Koshar hurried on.
“But I would like to introduce my daughter to you, for it’s her party. Clea—.” The old man turned to the balcony stairs, and the crowd’s eyes turned with him.
She was standing on the top step, in a white dress made of panel over silken panel, held with pearl clasps. Her black hair cascaded across one shoulder, webbed and re-webbed with a chain of silver strung with pearls. Her hands at her sides, she came down the stairs. People stepped back; she smiled, and walked forward. Jon watched while at last his sister reached his father’s side.
“My daughter Clea,” said old Koshar to the King.
“Charmed.”
Koshar raised his left hand, and the musicians began the introduction to the changing partners dance. Jon watched the King take Clea in his arms, and also saw the soldier move toward them, and then stop. A woman in a smoky gray dress suddenly blocked his view, smiled at him, and said, “Will you dance?” He smiled back, to avoid another expression, and she was in his arms. Apparently the soldier had had a similar experience, for at the first turn of the music, Jon saw the soldier was dancing too. A few couples away, Clea and the King turned round and round, white and white, brunette and blond. The steps came back to Jon like a poem remembered, the turn, the dip, separate, and join again. When a girl does the strange little outward step, and the boy bows, so that for a moment she is out of sight, her gown always swishes just so. Yes, like that! This whole day had been filled with the sudden remembrances of tiny facts like that, forgotten for five years, at once relearned with startling vividness that shocked him. The music signaled for partners to change. Gowns whirled into momentary flowers, and he was dancing with the brown-haired woman the soldier had been dancing with a moment before. Looking to his left, he saw that the soldier had somehow contrived to get Clea for a partner. Moving closer, he overheard.
“I didn’t think you were going to get here at all. I’m so glad,” from Clea.
“I could have even come earlier,” Tomar said. “But you’d have been busy.”
“You could have come up.”
“And once I got here, I didn’t think we’d get a chance to talk, either.”
“Well, you’ve got one now. Better make it quick. We change partners in a moment. What happened to the scouting planes?”
“All crippled. Didn’t sight a thing. They got back to base almost before I did this morning. The report was nothing. What about the picnic, Clea?”
“We can have it on…”
A burst of music signaled the change. Jon did not hear the day, but expected his sister to whirl into his arms. But instead (he saw her white dress flare and turn by him) an emerald iridescence caught in his eye, then rich mahogany flame. He was dancing with the Duchess. She was nearly his height, and watched him with a smile hung in the subtle area between friendship and knowing cynicism. She moved easily, and he had just remembered that he ought to smile back to be polite when the music sounded the change. The instant before she whirled away, he heard her say, very distinctly, “Good luck, Jon Koshar.”
His name brought him to a halt, and he stared after her. When he did turn back to his new partner, surprise still on his face, his eyes were filled with sudden whiteness. It was Clea. He should have been dancing, but he was standing still. When she looked at his face to discover why, she suddenly drew a breath. At first he thought his head had disappeared again. Then, as shock and surprise became suddenly as real as her wide eyes, her open mouth, he whispered, “Clea!” And her hand went to her mouth.
Clumsy! he thought, and the word was a sudden ache in his hands and chest. Reach for her. Dance. As his hands went out, the music stopped, and the languid voice of the King came over the loudspeaker.
“Ladies and gentlemen, citizens of Toromon, I have just received a message from the council that necessitates an announcement to you as my friends and loyal subjects. I have been requested by the council to make their declaration of war official by my consent. An emergency meeting over sudden developments has made it imperative that we begin immediate action against our most hostile enemies on the mainland. Therefore, before you all, I declare the Empire of Toromon to be at war.”
In the silence, Jon looked for his sister, but she was gone. Someone near the microphone cried out, “Long live the King.” Then the cry echoed again. The musicians started the music once more, partners found one another, and the talking and laughing grew in his ears like waves, like crumbling rock, like the cutter teeth clawing into the rock face of the ore deposits.…
Jon shook his head. But he was in his own house, yes. His room was on the second floor and he could go up and lie down. And by his bed would be the copper night table, and the copy of Delcord the Whaler which he had been reading the night before.
He’d left the ballroom and gotten halfway down the hall before he remembered that his room was probably not his room any longer. And that he certainly couldn’t go up to it and lie down. He was standing in front of the door of one of the sitting rooms that opened off the hall. The door was ajar, and from it he heard a woman’s voice.
“Well, can’t you do something about his index of refraction? If he’s going to be doing any work at night, you can’t have him popping on and off like a cigarette lighter.” There was silence. Then: “Well, at least don’t you think he should be told more than he knows now? Fine. So do I, especially since the war has been officially declared.”
Jon took a breath and stepped in.
Her emerald train whirled across the duller green of the carpet as she turned. The bright hair, untonsured save by two coral combs, fell behind her shoulders. Her smile showed faint surprise. Very faint. “Who were you talking to?” Jon Koshar asked.
“Mutual friends,” the Duchess said. They were alone in the room.
After a moment, Jon said, “What do they want us to do? It’s treason, isn’t it?”
The Duchess’ eyes went thin. “Are you serious?” she asked. “You call that treason, keeping these idiots