"Noticed! You wonderful man! You figured out how to cram that whole program into such a limited brain!"

"Only applying what you taught me, dear."

"Well! Such excellent application deserves reward." Her eye gleamed as she turned back to him.

"If you're going to deliver on that promise, you'd better keep your strength up."

Lona took a bite. "Done to a turn!" She didn't say which one. "Is X-HB-9 ready to manufacture?"

"Needs a little more field-testing to be certain—but, yes, I'm pretty sure it is. It'll bring you breakfast in bed tomorrow."

"Oh, goody! Just what we need for the triple contract I've lined up!"

Dar dropped his fork. " Triple… contract?"

"Uh-huh." Lona nodded, hair swaying. "I talked Amalgamated into renewing our contract without the exclusivity clause."

"How did you manage… NO! Cancel that! I don't want to know!''

"Poor dear." Lona reached past the candles to pat his hand. "But there's nothing to be jealous about. I didn't do anything unethical, let alone immoral."

Yes, but that didn't say what she had implied. Also, Dar kind of wondered about her ranking.

"Simple threats," Lona explained. "I told them we were thinking about opening our own dirtside sales office."

Dar's jaw dropped. Lona merrily took another bite, and he shoved his mandible back up to his maxillary. "Boy; you really don't lack for chutzpah, do you?"

"Why not? We probably will open a dealership on Terra, in twenty years or so."

"Actually, I was thinking about all the Maximan families getting together and opening a cooperative distributing corporation—but I think we need more leverage first. You know, get Terra totally dependent on our product, so they can't threaten to take us over. Otherwise, we might suffer a sudden horrible decline in creativity… Uh… What's the matter?"

"And you tell me I've got nerve," she gasped. "Good thing you don't live on Terra, Dar—you'd wind up running PEST."

Dar felt a surge of irritation. "I only want to run them out of town."

"I know," she sighed. "You never did have much respect for good old healthy self-interest. Maybe I do have a function around here, after all."

"Maybe!" Dar squawked. "I'm just the errand boy!"

Lona stared into his eyes for a long moment, then reached out to pat his hand again. "Please keep thinking that way, dear. It works wonderfully for me."

Dar was pretty sure he was supposed to feel complimented. Anyway, he glowed inside, just on general principles. "So how much is this triple deal going to bring?"

"Well, over the next three years, and with a guarantee to each company to bring out a new model, on a four-month rotation plan… just about five hundred thousand each."

Dar could feel his eyes bulge. "A million and a half?"

Lona nodded, looking immensely pleased with herself.

Dar sat back, sucking in a long breath. "Yes. Well, I can see that might make a little research and development desirable, yes."

"But that's the good part about it." Lona winked. "You've already done the tough part. With a robot who serves breakfast in bed, it's just a short step to one who can load the dishwasher."

Dar developed a sudden faraway look in his eyes. "With extendable arms, that shouldn't be too tough—and once you've got the telescoping arms, it could vacuum the cobwebs in the corners, and wash the walls."

"And if it can wash the walls, it can paint them!"

"Yeah." Dar grinned. "No more having to rent a painter-robot from the homecare store. I see the point. We have half the improvements figured out already. No wonder you wanted me to add another workroom before we finished mining out another ice cavity."

"Well, yes." Lona looked down, toying with her wineglass. "Actually, Dar, I was going to ask you if you could add on the northwest circular room. It isn't very large…"

"The one right next to our bedrooms on the plans?" Dar frowned. "Sure. What kind of product are you planning to develop in it?"

Lona actually blushed and lowered her eyes. "A product that would be very small at first. But it would grow. Fifteen years or so, but it would grow."

Dar stared.

Then he stood up and came around to take her hand. "Darling—are you telling me we can finally start a baby?"

She nodded, smiling up at him—and he was amazed to see her eyes fill with tears.

"Yes," she whispered, just before her mouth was pre-empted.

An hour later, their breathing slowed down enough for Lona to heave a satisfied sigh, and for Dar to breathe into her ear, "Will you marry me now?"

"Uh-huh." Lona turned to him, nodding brightly. "I do think children should have that much security, at least."

"Security?" Dar pursed his lips and asked, carefully, "Does this mean you might be planning to stay home for a couple of years?"

Lona nodded, eyes huge and face solemn. "At least two years before I go kiting off to Terra again, Dar. I promise."

Cordelia sighed, misty-eyed. "I do so love happy endings."

"Yet was it truly?" Geoffrey said, frowning up at Fess. "Did she keep her promise, Fess?"

"Regrettably, she did not," the robot answered. "In practice, she could not—there was need for her to attend business meetings and speak with prospective clients."

Magnus asked, "Wherefore could her husband not have done so for her?"

"He was quite willing," Fess sighed, "but he lacked the gift for it, perhaps due to his earlier career as a teacher—he was obsessed with the need to tell the precise truth.

He just was not as good at business as she was."

"Nor as good at aught else, from what thou sayest." Magnus added.

"Thus it seemed to himself, too. He died feeling that his life had been full and enjoyable, but insignificant."

"Papa hath said that all folk must find and know their limitations," Gregory said,

"then seek to transcend them."

"It was Dar Mandra who first enunciated that aphorism, Gregory; it has been passed down from generation to generation of your family. But the operative word is seek. The attempt will surely result in better work than you would otherwise do, and may result in greater accomplishments—but may still fall short of your goal."

Gregory's eyes lost focus as he tried to digest that statement, but Geoffrey was still frowning. "Did the founder of our house, then, accomplish nothing with his life?"

"That depends on your definition of the term 'accomplish.' With his wife, he built a major company within the Maxima conglomerate, raised three children to become excellent citizens, and formed an enduring marriage that gained substance as it aged."

"Yet he did not create anything in his own right, nor invent or discover it."

"Only in that he had not found the answer to the question he had formulated, and did not realize that no answer may be an indicator of the correct answer. His son Limner, though, took that question and likewise tried to answer it: 'Why can physical objects be mapped into seven-dimensional space, when electromagnetic waves cannot?' He, too, failed to discover its solution, just as Dar had—but took the lack of an answer as an indicator."

Gregory asked, "What did Limner think it did indicate?"

"That perhaps electromagnetic waves could be mapped into seven dimensions; they only needed a different technique. Just as electromagnetic radiation was its own medium, the transmitter had to be its own isomorpher.''

Magnus looked up. "Yet 'twas Dar's thoughts, and the question they led to, that enabled Limner to discover that principle."

"That is so, yes."

"Then," Magnus demanded, "how can he be said to have failed?"

"He had not, of course—yet he felt that he had."

Geoffrey squeezed his eyes shut and gave his head a shake. "A moment, I prithee—thou dost say he succeeded in some measure, but knew it not?"

"Precisely. Dar's feelings of failure were due to a fundamental misunderstanding of his own nature—he was not an engineer, like Lona, but a research scientist.''

"Oh, the poor ancestor!" Tears brimmed Cordelia's eyes. "To die feeling so, when

'twas not true!"

"Oh, do not pity him, Cordelia. He recognized his true success as a husband, a father, and a stalwart member of the community. In his old age, he counted accomplishments in scholarship and commerce to be relatively inconsequential, as indeed they were."

Gregory stared, scandalized. "Why! How canst thou say the discovery of new knowledge is of no consequence!"

"Only relatively, Gregory, only relatively. For Dar's measure of worth was in adding to the happiness of other people—and in that, he had succeeded enormously. Now hush, children. It is time to sleep. Tomorrow, we will begin to solve the mystery of the castle."

Chapter 6

« ^ »

The rain came down, and it hit with thunder. Rod jolted awake wide-eyed, lurching up on one elbow to stare at the ceiling. The only light was the soft glow of the will-o'-the-wisp Gwen had lit on Fess's saddle before they settled down. Rain roared on the tent.

"How long has it been going on, Fess?" Rod murmured.

"It began only ten minutes ago, Rod."

Then the whole tent-top turned bright with lightning, barely gone before thunder bellowed. Rod turned and looked down at his youngest, and sure enough, the little boy lay rigid, eyes wide, scared witless by the thunder but too proud to cry out.

"You know there's nothing to be scared of, don't you?" Rod said conversationally.

"Aye, Papa." Gregory relaxed a little. "The lightning will not hurt us, nor will a tree fall on us—we pitched our tent far from the branches."

"And lightning bolts are much more likely to strike a higher object, such as a tree or the castle. Yes." But Rod reached out a hand anyway, and Gregory's fingers seized on his like a little vise.

"Oh! 'Tis glorious," Cordelia breathed.

The whole tent flashed bright again as thunder slammed down at them. It showed Magnus and Geoffrey halfway to the door. Darkness struck, and Rod could just barely hear Geoffrey say, "I do so love a storm!"

" 'Tis grand," Magnus agreed. The gloom lightened, and the sound of the rain became even louder.

" 'Ware the rain." Gwen was sitting up beside Rod, facing the door. "Doth it come toward thee?"

"No, Mama, 'tis at the tent's back." Lightning flared with a thunder blast, and Rod saw the boys hunkered belly-down with their chins on their fists, gazing out, and Cordelia wriggling up between them.

" 'Tis right atop us," Gregory murmured. "There is no delay 'twixt lightning flash and thunder."

Rod smiled; ever the scientist! Well, if it let the boy share his siblings' pleasure, what harm? "Don't you want to look at it, too?"

Gregory looked up at him, then smiled. "Aye!" He turned and crawled toward the door.

Rod caught Gwen's hand and squeezed a little. She returned the pressure and murmured, "Why should they have the sight to themselves, my lord?"

"Hey, the family .ought to stay together, right?" Rod rolled up to his hands and knees. "After you, dear."

"What, durst I trust thee so?"

"Sure, the kids are awake. But let's go side by side, if you doubt me."

Gwen giggled and they rubbed elbows as they came to their feet and stepped over to join their offsprings. Lightning blazed as they came to the doorway, thunder crashing down around their heads. Rod looked up in time to catch the last sight of the tower tops in silhouette—and stiffened.

"Hist!" Geoffrey cried.

They all fell totally silent, ears straining.

" 'Twas not the last boom of the thunder alone," Magnus said.

"I hear a lass wailing," Cordelia answered.

Rod started to say what he'd heard, then bit his tongue and stared up at the unseen tower with narrowed eyes. Gwen's hand tightened on his arm.

Gregory said it for him. "I do hear a man's laughter."

"Aye, and 'tis as wicked and foul a laugh as ever I've heard," Magnus agreed.

"I, too, hear it, my lord," Gwen murmured.

"He's gloating," Rod said softly. "I don't know what about…"

"The maid?" Cordelia guessed. "Doth he rejoice at having made her weep?"

"I mislike this castle," Magnus said, his voice hard.

Thunder tore at the stones, bleached white by the lightning.

When it quieted, Gregory asked, "Ought we go home, then?"

"Nay." Magnus said it even faster than Rod. "Whatever is here, we must face and banish it."

Thunder blasted them again, the next lightning flash following so hard on the first that it seemed one long, unbroken instant of light with only a flicker between. Then it died, and the afterimage danced before Rod's eye, confirming what he'd thought he had seen.

As the thunder faded, Cordelia gasped, "Was it a lass?"

"Mayhap." Geoffrey's voice hardened. "Whatsoe'er 'twas, it was long-haired and cloaked."

"Yet why did it plummet head-first toward the ground?" Gregory wondered.

"Because it was pushed, brother," Geoffrey answered.

"Or did it throw itself down?" Cordelia wondered.

"Whate'er 'twas, it was the fruit of wickedness," Magnus answered.

Rod could hear the anger in his voice, and said quickly, " Was, Magnus. Remember the was. Whatever happened there, however cruel or vicious, it was done two hundred years ago, not tonight."

"But how evil must it have been," Cordelia cried, "that the spirit must live through it again, and again and again, for two hundred years!"

"Then 'tis time it was finished." Magnus's voice was grim, with a determination Rod had never heard in it before. "Whatever lies within that stone pile, 'tis a fell, foul evil, and we must not let it stand."

Rod frowned down at his boy. He was right, of course—but where had this sudden determination come from? Magnus had never heard anything about Castle Foxcourt but its name, before tonight. He wondered further about it as the family settled down once again, but decided to say nothing to Gwen—yet.

"Wherefore doth it not now appear so grim, Papa?" Cordelia looked up at the walls of the castle, golden now in the morning light.

"Because it's dawn, dear, and everything looks better by the light of the day.''

"Then too, the rain hath washed it clean," Gwen explained, "as it doth with all. The sky is cleaner above, and mine heart doth sing within me to behold it."

"But we still have to get into the castle." Rod frowned up at the drawbridge. "There's the little problem of getting that slab of wood down."

"We must turn the windlass, Papa," Magnus said brightly. "Shall I?"

Rod turned to him. "What—do you think you can make it move without even having seen it?"

"Oh, aye, and next shalt thou bid a mountain come to thee!" Geoffrey jibed.

"Aye, sin that I know where it should be."

"Thou canst not truly, Magnus!" Cordelia stated.

Gregory didn't say anything; he just gazed up at Magnus wide-eyed. After all, if Big Brother said he could do it…

"Mayhap he can," Gwen suggested, "though even if he cannot, 'twill be good practice for him."

"Yeah, you need to stretch if you want to grow." Rod nodded slowly. "Okay, go ahead. It would save a bit of time."

Magnus frowned up at the drawbridge, his eyes losing focus. Gwen watched him carefully.

Rod glanced from Magnus to the castle, half-expecting the old planks to come rattling down. Just as a caution, he waved the other children back. They went, but with poor grace.

Magnus relaxed and shook his head in chagrin. " 'Tis no use—there is no response."

Gregory looked disappointed. Geoffrey's eye lit with vindictiveness, and both he and Cordelia started to say something, but Rod caught their eyes, and they stopped openmouthed.

"Still, 'twas good for thee to attempt it." Gwen stared at the castle. " 'Tis odd, though."

"So we do it the old-fashioned way." Rod replied.

"I shall!!"

"No, I am best at…"

" 'Tis my turn…"

" No!" Rod barked.

The kids fell silent, staring at him with truculence—but also with apprehension. He saw, and forced a smile. "I appreciate your willingness, kids, but there might be a bit of danger there—you know, rotten beams and falling rocks. I'm pleading seniority on this one—just me and Magnus."

"Wherefore doth Magnus go!"

"Magnus, thou dost cheat!"

"Wherefore not Mama?"

"Because," Rod said, "someone has to take care of you three."

"Fess can mind us!"

"Fess cannot stop you from following," Gwen pointed out. "Wouldst thou promise me not to go within?"

"Nay!"

"Then I bide here." Gwen gave Rod a sunny smile. "Go quickly, husband."

"With all dispatch. Let's go, son." Rod gazed up at the castle, but this time, he didn't really see it. His attention was on the unseen world, as he thought of pushing against the ground, away—and, slowly, drifted up to the arrow-slit at the top of the gatehouse.

"Thou didst promise all dispatch," Magnus reminded him, hovering in midair and leaning against the narrow window.

"All right, so I'm a slow old man," Rod grumbled, "just because I didn't have the good fortune to grow up using psi powers, the way you did. Come on, inside." He turned sideways and drifted in. It took a little shoving, though.

"Thou art hardly come," Magnus said, sliding in effortlessly.

Rod slapped his belt. "That's muscle, boy, not flab." He looked around, frowning.

"Not so bad."

It wasn't. There was a slab fallen from the roof, and the morning sunlight coming through it and the arrow-slits, showed them a round room of old, mellow stone. The corners were filled with antique spiderwebs, and a broken table and bench stood near one wall. Except for that, the room was empty, with a few shards of crockery on the floor.

"Not anywhere nearly as bad as… What's the matter?"

Magnus's eyes had lost focus; he was turning slowly about the room, his face drawn. "I do hear voices, Papa."

"Voices?" Rod tensed. "What are they saying?"

"Naught… too distant… only some feel of loud talk, and soldiers' oaths…"

"Well, it's the gatehouse; there would have been soldiers here, so it's easy to ascribe it to them." Rod carefully ignored the chill oozing down his spine. "Probably just the wind playing a trick with the acoustics, son, like a whispering gallery."

"Dost thou truly think so?"

Rod didn't, so he said, "What bothers me is what I don't hear—or see."

That caught Magnus's attention. "And what is that?"

"Birds." Rod pointed up toward the rafters. "There's a dozen nesting places in this room, but not a single one is used—not even a trace that there ever was a nest."

Magnus looked around, nodding slowly.

"Come on, let's find that winch." Rod turned away toward the doorway. "High time we got your brothers and sister in here." And Gwen. Most especially Gwen.

The porter's room was empty, except for some more crumbled furniture. Shafts of sunlight pierced its darkness, from a row of slits along one wall.

"Well, that's why you couldn't turn the windlass." Rod looked around him as he stepped in. "No windlass."

"Aye… I thought at a thing that was not…" But Magnus had his abstracted air again.

"Yet how did they make the drawbridge raise or lower?"

"Counterweights, probably. Let's go find the gateway." Rod led the way across the room, out into the passageway, and looked around. Light filled it, from the courtyard archway. "There!" He strode over to the great portal, closed now by the drawbridge, and pointed to a huge iron ball attached to a chain that ran up into darkness. "But there had to be an operating line, somewhere…"

"Yon." Magnus pointed. Rod followed his direction and saw, centered above the gate, a huge pulley with a strip of something that might once have been rope hanging from it and looping over to the side, into a hole in the wall.

"Into the porter's room." Rod nodded. "Makes sense. Come on." He ducked back into the chamber they'd just come from and looked up at the front wall. The rope came through the hole, sure enough, and draped into a pulley like the one over the gateway.

Only about four feet of it hung down, though, and on the floor under it was a mound of toadstools.

"Well, so much for the operating line. But how…" Rod broke off, frowning. "Wait a minute. The drawbridge goes higher than that pulley."

"Aye. 'Tis for the portcullis." Magnus stepped back out into the passageway and pointed.

Just below the central pulley was the top of the iron gate. Rod's gaze traveled over to the corner and traced the chain attached to it, following it down to the huge iron ball that rested on the ground. "Frozen open, fortunately. But then how did they work the drawbridge?"

"Yon." Magnus pointed up into the gloom.

Squinting, Rod could barely make out huge links that traversed overhead to run over great, rusty sprocket wheels in the back wall.

"Very sharp, son." Rod nodded. "Very good observation."

"It is not."

"Oh?" Rod peered at him, with a stab of apprehension. "This is definitely not your standard drawbridge. How're you figuring out what to look for?''

"I am not. I hear them."

"Them?" The stab twisted. "Who?"

"A murmur, a babble of voices—but among them is one telling another how to manage these devices.

Rod stared at him for a moment, not that Magnus was watching. Then he linked his mind to his son's. The rest of the room darkened even more about him.

"Dost thou hear?"

Rod shook his head. "Just a babble, like a distant crowd."

"Yet 'tis there."

"Oh, yeah, it's there all right. Where it's coming from, is another matter." Rod turned away. "Come on, let's figure out how to get that drawbridge down. I think we need your mother in here."

Magnus led him out through the archway and into the courtyard.

It seemed spacious after the porter's room and the tunnel, but Rod knew it could only be a hundred feet across. The keep bulged out into it, like a hugely fat tower.

There were a lot of dead leaves and broken branches, of course, and mounds of humus in the corners, with weeds sprouting luxuriantly.

But not a single bird. Nor, now that Rod noticed it, a butterfly.

He wrenched his mind back to business, to suppress a shiver. "Where's this counterweight?"

"We have stepped over it." Magnus pointed behind him. Rod looked down, and saw a metal slab set in the stone; he'd thought it was a threshold to the archway. But now that he looked, he could see it was rust, not just brown stone, and that rings rose from its corners, rings that were fastened to huge links whose chains stretched up on the wall to disappear, over huge sprocket wheels, into the stone above the archway.

Now. Rod shivered.

Magnus was pointing up. " 'Tis so well balanced that the drawbridge doth need but a strong pull to let it down."

"Yeah—but the iron slab goes up then, and everybody coming in or going out has to ride under it."

"True." Magnus frowned, in an abstracted sort of way. "Wherefore did the Count not use iron balls again, and keep the gateway clear?"

"Nice question." And Rod had an answer, which was anything but nice. Not that he was about to say it, of course—and he decided, then and there, that Magnus was never going to touch that bar.

A caroling cry echoed above them.

Rod's head snapped up.

There, atop the gatehouse, perched his two younger sons, with his wife and daughter gliding down in lazy spirals on their broomsticks. He couldn't help noticing, all over again, that Cordelia had a full-sized broomstick now, not just a hearth broom, and wasn't much shorter than her mother any more.

Gwen pulled up beside Rod and hopped off. "Thou wert so long about it that we grew impatient." But he saw the concern in her eyes. "What kept thee?"

"Trying to figure out the drawbridge system." Rod noticed his two boys drifting down like autumn leaves. He shuddered, and hoped the simile wasn't apt.

"Is't so rare?" Gwen asked.

" 'Tis odd, at the least," Magnus answered.

Gwen turned to him, and her eyes widened. "How is't with thee, my son?"

"Well enough…"

"Is it truly?" Gwen set her broomstick against a wall and reached up to press a hand against Magnus's forehead. She stared off into space for a few seconds, then said,

"Step to the wall, and touch the stones."

A crease appeared between Magnus's eyebrows, but he did as she bade. Rod

"listened" to Gwen's mind, eavesdropping on the eavesdropper, as Magnus's hand touched rock.

A babel of urgent voices filled his ear, some conjecturing whether or not there would be a battle, some discussing how exciting it all was. Beyond them were the voices of soldiers bawling orders, and under it, surfacing and submerging, the sinister laugh they had heard in the midst of the thunderstorm.

"Away," Gwen snapped, and Magnus slowly took his hand from the wall, then turned to his mother with a troubled gaze. "Thou hast heard it?"

"Aye. 'Twas some peasant folk come into the castle for fear of a siege—and 'twas hundreds of years agone."

"He is a past-reader!" Gregory's eyes were huge.

"Magnus always gets to do things first!" Geoffrey grumped.

" 'Tis not fair!" Cordelia complained.

" 'Tis as like to be a burden as a joy," Gwen assured them, and turned to Magnus again. "Thou hast a form of clear sight, my son. I've heard it spoken of, yet never known a one who had it. Thou canst read the thoughts embedded in the stones, or wood or metal, by the anguish or joy of those who dwelt near them."

"A psychometricist!" Rod's eyes were wide.

Magnus turned to Gwen, trying to focus on her face. "Yet wherefore have I not noted this aforetime?"

"For that thou hast ever been in places thronged with living folk, whose thoughts did obscure any that came from stones."

"Sure it might not be part of the boy turning into a young man?" Rod asked.

"Mama did speak of strong feelings," Gregory pointed out. "Mayhap such thoughts stay not in stones, with lesser feelings."

Gwen nodded. "There is some truth to that—and I bethink me that this castle has seen many who were overwrought."

"And not pleasantly." Rod scowled. "Try not to touch anything, okay, son?"

"I will endeavor…"

"Then I'll give you some help." Rod turned to face the gatehouse. "We still have to get that drawbridge down, unless we're going to expect Fess to wait outside the whole time."

"Aye…" Magnus turned, his frown deepening, seeming to come into clearer focus.

"Gregory, help me. Just think of holding that chain up, when the time comes. Gwen, if you and the other kids would take the right-hand chain… ? Good. Now, everybody think hot at it." He glared at the bottom link, concentrating on it while the rest of his surroundings grew fuzzy. The link began to glow, first red, then orange, on through yellow into white, until finally the metal flowed. "Now," Rod grated, and the chain lifted a foot. Rod sighed and relaxed, watching the metal darken back down the spectrum as it cooled. He turned to look at the rest of his family, but their chain was just now yellowing. Rod glanced back at his own, saw it was ruby again, and told Gregory,

"Okay, put it down now." The chain lowered to swing clinking against the wall, and Rod turned to add his bit to the right-hand chain. The metal flowed, the chain rose—and, with a low and rising growl of breaking rust, the huge old sprocket wheels began to turn. The growl rose to a grown, underscored by a furious clanking as the drawbridge fell away at the end of the tunnel, faster and faster, till its tip slimmed into the far bank of the moat. Hooves clattered on the wood.

"Careful, there!" Rod called, alarmed. "Those boards might be rotten!"

"The unsound ones fell to powder when the drawbridge dropped, Rod, and I can pick my way well enough around the holes." Then the clattering changed to thunder as Fess's hooves echoed in the tunnel, and the great black horse came trotting in.

The children cheered. Gwen glanced at Magnus, saw his face alight, and relaxed a little.

"Why is destruction the only thing I do better than the rest of you?" Rod grumbled.

" 'Tis for cause that thou hast come to it lately, husband, not grown to it," Gwen assured him breezily.

Gregory was staring at the huge bar buried in the stone. "We could have lifted it, Papa…"

"This was faster."

"Yet now we cannot draw the bridge up again."

"I know." Rod grinned. "Works out nicely that way, doesn't it?"

They spent the morning exploring the rest of the castle, and found a lot of dead leaves and branches blown in through the windows over the years. They also found a fair quantity of antique furniture, some of it still intact.

But not a single bird. Not even a rat or a mouse, for that matter.

"And never a one, through all these years." Cordelia looked up at the rafters. "How could that be, Papa?"

Rod shrugged. "They felt unwanted, dear."

"What was it that wanted them not?"

Rod avoided the question. "But look at the bright side—at least we won't have to set out traps. Or endanger a cat, either."

"Nay, Papa." Geoffrey corrected. " ' Tis the cat would endanger the rats."

"Not some of the rats I've seen—but there aren't any here. One advantage to ghosts, anyway." Rod had a brief, dizzying vision of an advertising sign: "Rid your house of those troublesome pests! Hire a haunt!" With, of course, a picture of a comical ghost shouting "Boo!" at a rat and a cockroach who were neck-and-neck in a dead heat away from the spook. Rod found himself wondering what to name the ghost?

Buster? He shook his head and came back to the here and now.

"And none have dwelt here for two hundred years." Gregory gazed about him, wide-eyed.

"Not a living soul," Rod agreed. Strangely, there were no signs of squatters having moved in, or even having spent the night. On the other hand, that would've been hard to do, with the drawbridge up—which raised the question of why it was still up. Rod had a mental picture of the last servants to leave, heaving hard on the lip of the bridge, and watching it rise slowly, riding up on its counterweight. Either that, or the last servant had decided not to leave. Rod shuddered at that thought, and hoped he never met the person.

It was a pretty basic castle—just a keep with a curtain wall, diamond-shaped in its ground plan, with watchtowers at north and south, the keep itself serving to guard the western point, and the gatehouse at the east. There were only three floors to the keep, the first being all one huge, open room fifty feet in diameter, and the second divided into several rooms, presumably family quarters. The third was piled with small catapults and moldering crossbows and rusty bolts—the upstairs armory, for aerial defenses.

"Enough!" Gwen clapped her hands. "If we are to dwell here, no matter how short a while, we must needs make the keep fit for dwelling. Magnus and Gregory, sweep and dust! Cordelia and Geoffrey, hurl trash out into the moat!"

Geoffrey whooped and set to it; heaps of leaves began to swirl out the windows.

Cordelia glowered at a broken, old table, and it rose off the floor, cracked leg dangling, and drifted toward the window.

Magnus frowned. "Wherefore do they pitch while we sweep, Mama?"

"For that thy sister's the best at making things fly," Gwen answered, "and Gregory's well suited to kiting along the ceiling and beams."

"Yet Geoffrey and I…"

"Are chosen for these tasks, for reasons thou knowest well." Gwen said, with steel beneath her voice; then her manner softened. "I promise thee, thou'lt trade tasks when we go to another floor. Aid me in this, my son."

Magnus grinned. "As thou wilt have it, Mama. Wilt thou lend me thy broomstick?"

And away he went, sweeping up a storm; Rod wondered about the whirlwinds in it.

He sighed with relief, and blessed his eldest—trying to put a broom in Geoffrey's hands was asking for a major confrontation, unless you went after him with a quarterstaff. Even then, the broomstick would probably beat the quarterstaff, and there wouldn't be much work done.

All went well for a good fifteen minutes; then Geoffrey remembered to grumble.

"Wherefore must we clean?"

"Wouldst thou truly wish to dwell in so stale a mess?" Cordelia asked, with scorn.

Geoffrey started to answer, but Magnus cut him off. "Do not ask, sister—thou dost not truly wish to hear his answer."

Geoffrey flushed an angry red, but before he could blast, Gregory burbled cheerfully. "Mayhap 'twill help to banish the ghosts."

That gave Geoffrey pause. He cocked his head to the side, frowning.

"Real ghosts!" Gregory went on, his eyes shining. "I had thought they were but old wives' tales!"

"On Gramarye, old wives' tales can turn real, Gregory," Fess reminded.

Gregory nodded. " 'Tis a point. Are they true ghosts, or only some aspect of psi we've not met before?"

"So much conversation surely cannot increase productivity."

"Oh, thou art but a killjoy, Fess!" Cordelia scoffed. "How can we help but speak of so wondrous a thing as our very own haunted castle?"

"It is difficult, I know," the robot commiserated. "Still, you have been instructed to accomplish a task, and so much chatter inhibits your work."

"Then give us summat to quiet us," Gregory suggested. "Tell us more of our ancestors."

Fess was silent a moment; after thirty years of Rod's squelching him every time he tried to discourse on family history, it was a little difficult adjusting to the idea that somebody was interested again. Slowly, he said, "Gladly, children—but you had many ancestors. Of which would you like to hear?"

"That minor issue of which thou didst forbear to speak, yester eventide," Magnus said, too casually. "Papa did mention an ancestor who did seek to find a family ghost.''

Fess sighed. "You would remember that."

"Wouldst thou not also, under such circumstances as these?"

"I fear I would," Fess sighed, "yet I would prefer to gloss over it."

"Then speak of our ancestor who finished building the Castle Gallowglass!"

"D'Armand, Cordelia," Fess reminded.

"Aye, ninny!" Magnus jibed. "Canst thou not remember that Papa took the name

'Gallowglass' when he came to Gramarye?"

"Oh, forever!" Cordelia said crossly. "What matter if I slip in its usage now and again?"

"Great matter, if thou dost ever seek to discover thine ancestral home!"

"And which of us shall ever wish to leave Gramarye?" Geoffrey scoffed. "Cordelia hath right, for once."

"Once!" Cordelia squawked. Geoffrey grinned wickedly in answer. Magnus was silent.

"Well enough, then." Cordelia turned away and tipped her nose up, scorning Geoffrey. "Tell us of the ancestor who did finish Castle d'Armand."

"Which?" Fess almost seemed hopeful. "It was finished several times."

"Several?" Magnus frowned. "How long dist thou dwell therein, Fess?"

"From A.D. 3050, Magnus, till your father left home in 3542," Fess answered.

"Four centuries?" Gregory gasped. Geoffrey glanced at him in annoyance; he wasn't good with figures.

"Four," Fess confirmed, "which is most of the time that has elapsed since I was activated."

"But was it not a delight?" Cordelia demanded.

"On occasion, yes," Fess admitted, "but it just as often was not. It depended on my owner of the time."

"Thou didst esteem Lona highly," Cordelia said, "for thou didst build her castle for her."

"True, but I would have done so for any other owner who so commanded—and did, since that was only the first time Chateau d'Armand was finished. It was quite modest by Maximan standards, you see."

Geoffrey frowned. "I misdoubt me an her descendants could abide that."

"They had difficulty," Fess admitted. "In fact, her son and grandson each built an addition, but one that was dictated by her original plan, thereby finishing the castle a second and third time. Nonetheless, their neighbors' houses were far more grand.

They were good souls, though, and envy did not bother them greatly."

"Not so their wives," Cordelia demurred.

"You have guessed accurately, Cordelia." Fess sounded surprised. "Yes, the wives found it quite difficult to accept such relatively modest quarters, the more so because they were themselves younger daughters of grander lords."

"Lords?" Magnus lifted his head, frowning. "I wot me an thou didst speak of factors and crafters. Whence came nobility?"

"By mail, Magnus, from the heralds of Europe. Maxima was, after all, a sovereign world, with its own government…"

"But thou hast said Maxima had no government."

"Not really, though I can understand how my remarks could have seemed to indicate that. Nonetheless, the Maximans did have some mutual means of coordinating logistics and resolving disputes, and they had annual meetings of the leaders of all the Houses."

Magnus nodded. "And if that assembly did declare the head of a household noble, who could contradict it?"

"Precisely. The Earl Mulhearn was the first to receive a patent of nobility, and the others followed in a rush. Your own ancestor, Theodore d'Armand, changed his first name to 'Ruthven' and applied to the Assembly for status as a duke."

Magnus whistled. "He saw no vantage in modesty, did he?"

"No indeed. In fact, Ruthven saw no point in anything that was not his own idea…"

"Tell us of him," Cordelia begged.

"Nay!" Magnus turned to her with a scowl. "I claim primacy. I wish to hear of the ancestor who sought a family ghost!"

"Thy chance hath passed." Cordelia turned on him. "You know Mama and Papa have told us…"

She broke off at the very credible imitation of a throat-clearing, and turned to Fess with a frown. Before either of them could say anything, the robot told them, "The distinction does not exist; it was Ruthven who wanted a spectre."

"Then we must hear of him!" Cordelia settled herself for a long listen.

"If it is absolutely necessary…"

"Why dost thou hesitate?" Magnus frowned, puzzled. "What harm is there in telling us of him?"

"Ought we not to know of all our ancestors?" Cordelia demanded.

"There are some aspects of family history that should perhaps wait until you are more mature."

"Oh, pooh," Cordelia retorted, and Magnus concurred. "An we are old enough to have witnessed lords who have broke faith with their king and rebelled, we are old enough to know the truth of our own family."

"There is some merit in that, I suppose…"

"What fun is there in hearing only good of our ancestors?" Cordelia demanded.

"She speaketh truly," Magnus averred. "Wouldst thou have us believe our forebears were wax figures?"

"Oh, they were all quite human, Magnus. It is only that in some cases…"

"Some were more human than others?"

"You might say so, yes."

"Yet accuracy is of the greatest import," Gregory pointed out."

"Aye!" Cordelia leaped on it. "Is not the truth thy prime criterion?"

"No, frankly, Cordelia—in my program, loyalty to my owners is primary."

"Thy current owner will not mind thy speaking the truth of thy former owners,"

Magnus pointed out.

"There is some validity to that," Fess said reluctantly. He was remembering how Rod had taken him to task when he had poked around in the family library and learned some of the facts about those ancestors that Fess hadn't told him.

"And there is the matter of loyalty to thy future owner," Magnus added.

"Which will be yourself, since you are the eldest."

Magnus blithely ignored Geoffrey's glare. "Thus, thy present owner careth not, and thy future owner doth desire thee to tell. Ought thou not to speak?"

Fess capitulated. "Very well, children. But remember, if you find your relationship with the subject of this tale distasteful, that you required me to tell it.

"We shall not reproach thee," Cordelia assured him.

"But an archway at the base of a tower cannot stand, Ruthven.''

" 'Milord,' Fess," Ruthven said sternly. "I am noble now."

"But the Assembly…"

"The Assembly will no doubt grant my request at its next meeting. After all, it raised Joshua Otis to Marquis, only last week; it surely can have no reason not to bestow a like title upon me."

Silently, Fess sighed and carefully did not point out that the Assembly had no particular reason to grant Ruthven's request, either. If the factory business department had not been automated, d'Armand Limited would have gone bankrupt from sheer neglect.

Not that the House of d'Armand would have fallen. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Ruthven seemed to spend all his time building.

"Of course the tower will stand."

"How, milord?"

Ruthven waved the question away. "A minor detail. See to it, Fess."

The robot sighed within and focused its lenses on the blueprints. Perhaps a judicious use of gravity generators… On a low-gravity asteroid, there was no concern about the tower falling down… But if there was too little of it, it might fall apart from centripedal force.

"How dare they!" Ruthven stormed, jamming his helmet at Fess. "How can they have the effrontery to be so insolent!" He yanked at the seals of his pressure suit so hard that the fabric ripped. He saw the gaping rent, and cursed all the more loudly.

"Ruthven, please!" His wife came running with apprehensive glances. "The children…"

"They had damned well better be at lessons in their nursery, madame, or I shall bid Fess cane them!" Ruthven yanked his arms out of the pressure suit, relying on Fess to catch the sleeves in time, and pulled his feet out of the legs as he stepped forward.

"The degraded peasants!"

"Ruthven!" his wife gasped. "Your own children?"

"Not the children, you goose! The Assembly!"

"What… Oh!" Matilda's eyes widened. "Did they refuse your patent of nobility?"

"No—much worse! They raised me to the rank of…" Ruthven's voice sank to a hiss.

"… Viscount!"

"Viscount! Oh, how dare they! One cannot be lower, and still be a peer!"

"Precisely." Ruthven threw himself into a lounger and pushed the "medium massage" button. "I shall be revenged upon them! I shall humiliate them! How, I do not know—but the time will come, will come for each of them!"

"At least," Fess offered, "you are now legally a lord."

"But only barely a lord, you officious ingrate!" Ruthven shouted. "How dare you address me as 'you'? Do you not know a more respectful form of address?"

"But… my program indicates no flaw in etiquette…"

"Then it shall!" the new Viscount thundered. "You shall learn, sirrah, you shall be educated! I shall buy the module today!"

Castle Gallowglass rose far above its humble beginnings in a maze of towers joined in vaulting arches, a fairytale concoction of metallic traceries and onion domes and gargoyles.

It was a mess.

It was a hodgepodge of periods and styles of architecture, all jumbled together without rationale or critical standard. Somewhere beneath the festoons of rococo plasticrete, the original, classic simplicity of Lona's tranquil palace gathered in upon itself—but the casual passerby would never know it was there. What he would see was the most disgusting example of nouveau riche lack of taste Fess had ever seen—and after a hundred fifty years of contemplating the handiwork of the Maximans, that was saying quite a bit.

Not that he could say it, of course—not about his owner's masterpiece. His new programming had seen to that.

"How could they possibly have denied me!"

"I'm sorry, milord, I'm sorry." Fess's judgment circuits produced massive reluctance at the sound of his own words. "The College of Heralds of Europe says that another family's been using that coat of arms of three lions quartered with fleur-de-lis, for many generations."

"Then they may forfeit the device! How much do they want for it?"

Inwardly, Fess shriveled, but his vocoder said, "Oh, no, sorry, milord boss! Coats of arms simply can't be bought!"

"Don't say 'can't' to me!" Ruthven raged. "They have no right to that device, I tell you—because I want it!"

"Well, certainly, milord boss, but that doesn't mean there is any way we can get it."

"There must be a way! Confound it, find a way to gain a coat of arms!" Ruthven stalked away toward the bar.

Fess sighed and rolled off toward the library to plug himself into the data banks. He knew very well that no family would be willing to give up its coat of arms, and that the College of Heralds would not honor such a transaction even if it could be made. The answer, of course, lay in designing a device that Ruthven would accept, and that was not already in use.

"A wonderful design." Ruthven beamed at the drawing. "It says so much."

"Yes, milord boss." Fess knew quite well that the device said only what the viewer read into it. It was nothing but the silhouette of a man with girded loins, a cloak, and a staff in his hand, standing with one foot atop some nameless geological formation, facing toward the left, but with his back mostly toward the viewer. Nonetheless, it was silver on a field of blue, so he knew Ruthven would like it.

"A masterpiece! Am I not a genius?"

"Yes sir, boss milord. No, boss mi—uh, yes, milord!"

"Architecture, fine letters, now design—there are no limits to my talents! Surely the College of Heralds cannot deny me now!"

"No sir, boss milord." That, Fess could say with conviction—because he had examined the records of the College thoroughly, then sent off the sketch by fax as soon as it was finished. He hadn't shown it to Ruthven until the College had sent back preliminary approval.

"None must deny me anything." Ruthven patted his stomach, which had grown steadily with the years and was approaching critical mass. "There is none like me!"

The phrase struck an echo in Fess's memory banks—several of them, in fact.

"But, boss milord!" Fess protested. "How am I going to do that?"

"Order one from Terra, of course." Ruthven waved away the problem.

" Order one, milord sir? A family ghost?"

"There is a catalog, I presume."

"But you can't buy a thing that doesn't exist!"

"Of course ghosts exist. Every noble family on Terra has one." Ruthven gestured carelessly with sausage fingers. "An ancestral ghost for my castle, Fess. At least one.

Don't ask me for particulars, though. I know nothing about them."

That, at least, was true. Sometimes Fess could have sworn that Ruthven had gone to great pains to know nothing—and when he did accidentally pick up some information, he did the best he could to forget it. His way of making sure he had a clean mind, no doubt.

But the ghost of one of Ruthven's ancestors? Would he want one, really? Fess was tempted, and if he could have brought back Lona's ghost, he would have. He would have loved to see her haul Ruthven over the coals fifty times, for what he had done to her palace—and when she had finished, she would have bullied what was left of him into restoring some vestige of order to his household. Or maybe the ghost of Dar, who would have taken one look around, bellowed in outrage, taken Ruthven apart, then remembered his vocation as a teacher and put the aging playboy back together and tried to explain the basics of good taste to him.

Or, best of all, the ghost of Tod Tambourin—alias Whitey the Wino.

Now, wait. The ghost of Whitey… That had possibilities…

A shriek split the night, and the Countess Freiliport came barreling out of the bedroom. Fess heaved a 16-Farad sigh, stretched alloyed arms (the more conducive to the mood because Ruthven had given him a new, and very skeletal, body) to catch her, and began soothing. "There, now, Milady, it's gone. Nothing to be afraid of, no spooks out here, only your good old faithful Fess the butler, here to make sure the nasty thing can't get at you…"

"Oh! It is you!" The Countess collapsed against Fess's ribcage, sobbing. The sobs choked off as she saw the ribs and went rigid.

He had to head off the scream. "That's just my new body, Milady. The Viscount thought it would go better with the decor. It's really still good old Fess inside here. Was he as bad as all that?"

"Who? The ghost? Oh!" The Countess went limp. "He was horrible! First only those spectral footsteps, coming closer and closer, and no answer when I called out 'Who's there?'—no answer at all, mind you, until that horrid moan broke out right by my ear, and that glowing cloud appeared, towering over the foot of my bed!"

"Only a glowing cloud?"

"No, no! Only at first. It gathered in on itself slowly, till it had assumed the form of a perfectly horrid old man, skinny as a rail, moaning so dolefully that my heart went out to him—until he saw me!"

"Saw you? What then?"

"Why, he… he winked at me! And began to come toward me, reaching out and grinning that lascivious leer… Oh! I was never so frightened in my life!"

That, Fess could believe. The hologram of Whitey had been assembled from clips of him in the role of a vampire in a 3DT epic he had directed, and in which he had also starred.

"I am so sorry you have had such a fright, Milady. If you wish, I shall summon your chauffeur…"

"Oh, my heavens, no!" The Countess turned to blow into her handkerchief, then tucked it back into her bosom with a sniffle, straightening and turning back toward the room. "It was wonderful. I wouldn't have missed this night for the world." She stepped firmly toward the bedroom, then faltered and looked back over her shoulder. "I don't suppose he might come back—the ghost, I mean?"

"I'm afraid not, Milady," Fess sympathized. "Only one visitation per guest per night, you know."

"Ah. Well, I was afraid of such a thing." The Countess sighed and went back toward the bedroom. "I really must discuss the issue with your master, Fess. So paltry of him, to limit his hauntings in that fashion."

The door closed behind her, and Fess resigned himself to refereeing another bout in the morning. It was a compliment, really, but Ruthven just could not abide anything remotely resembling criticism. He was sure to bristle, and was likely to anger the Countess, jeopardizing a family friendship that went back a century and a half.

"If thou wert human, Fess, thou wouldst have been tempted to refrain from interfering. Ruthven would have had no more than he deserved!"

"True, children—but I am a robot, and was capable of pouring unlimited oil on the waters."

"E'en so, thou shouldst not have." Geoffrey folded his arms and lifted his chin. "He had not commanded thee to intervene, had he?"

"No, children, but when Lona died, she asked me to look after her descendants for her."

Geoffrey heaved a sigh, deflating, but Cordelia had a merry glint in her eye.

"I am sorry that you have received a somewhat unflattering portrait of your ancestors from me," Fess said gently.

"Unflattering, indeed! In Father's book of the family history, Ruthven appears a noble and generous character, renowned for his building and beautifying. Why is there no mention of his failings in that chapter?"

"Why, because Ruthven wrote it. And he did increase the glory of his family, in a way."

"In some way, mayhap." Magnus grinned wickedly. "But by this time, had not the other folk of Maxima gained summat of a sense aesthetic?"

"They had, Magnus," Fess sighed. "All applied for patents of nobility, and all received them—and most felt obliged to find some civic duty to do, as well as to gain some cultural refinement."

Magnus was puzzled. "Dost mean all who dwelt on Maxima were noble?"

"According to themselves, yes—and almost all of them are now worthy of the term."

"Yet even in Ruthven's time, they did know a monstrosity when they saw one?"

"I fear they did," Fess sighed, "and yes, they did look with contempt on Ruthven's

'masterpiece.' The ghost of Whitey redeemed him in their eyes, though."

"For that it brought to their minds the illustrious founder of our House?"

"No, because it was such great fun. Word of the apparition spread, of course, and within a fortnight, everyone wished to be invited to stay the night at Castle d'Armand."

"And therefore did need to treat gently with Ruthven and his wife."

"Quite so, Cordelia, at least to their faces."

"And each guest wished to stay in the 'haunted' room, I warrant," Magnus said, grinning again.

"Yes, and there was considerable fussing when they found someone else was already there, fussing which descended upon the head of the majordomo."

"Thyself, of course."

"Correct, Gregory. Yet since it assured Ruthven that most of them would come back for another weekend, it worked to the benefit of himself and Matilda."

"And thou didst need to stand watch o'er the bedroom door o' nights?"

"I fear so. Everyone who stayed there wished to be frightened, so of course they all were, and it fell to me to calm them."

"And to intervene 'twixt them and Ruthven in the morning?"

"Generally, yes."

"But that could not last." Cordelia protested. "Soon or late, everyone on Maxima must needs have stayed in the haunted chamber."

"Aye," Geoffrey agreed. "There are not so many people on but one asteroid, after all."

"True, quite true—and I was never so relieved as when the Viscount tired of the hologram, and I could deactivate it."

"Did not their children wish it to stay?"

"No; they quite resented it, for their schoolmates had teased them about it unmercifully…"

"Jealousy, no doubt," Geoffrey muttered.

"Thou shouldst know, brother."

"… AND about the mansion," Fess concluded, overriding Geoffrey's response.

"When they grew, they made sure to gain a thorough grasp of all the arts, including the study of aesthetics, and were much less concerned with social pretensions."

"Dost thou mean they became noble?"

"Well, they had certainly furthered the process. In fact, they eventually gained enough taste to see the amusing side of the holographic display, and would now and again ask to have the 'ghost' once more turned on for a while, then turned off again."

"Would we could so deal with the spectre within this castle," Gregory sighed.

"It would be pleasant, yes—though I suspect that these ghosts may be considerably harder to eradicate. And you must remember that there may be an element of actual danger involved."

"Dost thou truly think so?" Geoffrey perked up noticeably.

"I do. When your father first came to Gramarye, he was nearly frightened to death by the ghosts in Castle Loguire, until I pointed out to him that the cause was a subsonic harmonic of their moans, not their actual presence."

Magnus turned somber. "I misdoubt me an these ghosts will be a part with them."

"Aye, for those were nice ghosts," said Gregory, "as Father hath told it."

"Fair or foul, we shall vanquish them," Geoffrey said proudly. "The villain's not made that can stand against us, an we stand together.''

"Remember that, please, Geoffrey—it may become an important principle in your lives."

"And now?" Gregory asked.

"Most especially now. Please be very careful, children, to be sure you are never alone, in Castle Foxcourt. Now back to work! I feel my storytelling has slowed your cleaning."

Chapter 7

« ^ »

Rod kept a weather eye cocked on his children the whole time, but all he could see was that the four of them were working industriously. "Gwen, there's something wrong."

"How so, my husband?"

"They're all working in the same room, without bickering. What's more, they're keeping their noses to the grindstone, without having to be nagged."

"Oh." Gwen dimpled. " 'Tis not so amazing as that. Hast thou not heard what Fess doth tell them?"

"Yeah, but that just makes it worse! When I was a kid, I went crazy when he tried to give me a lecture on top of my having to do chores!"

"Thy children are not thyself," Gwen said, but her tone was gentle, sympathetic.

"And, too, these tales of thine homeland are like visions of a magical kingdom to them."

Rod frowned. "I suppose that makes sense. If people in a high-tech environment used to read fairy tales for escape, then…"

"Even so," Gwen agreed. "In any event, husband, I pray thee, do not question our good fortune."

"Or our good horse. Well, so long as there's nothing to worry about." And there wasn't, so Rod was obviously going to have to find something else to serve the purpose. He turned away, going back to sweeping the trash out from the corners, and gradually working his way further and further into the available shadows, closer and closer to the archway to the stairs. He carefully hadn't mentioned the downstairs armory. If it wasn't on the ground floor, it was in the cellar—and Rod didn't want the kids going anywhere near a real, authentic dungeon. Especially Magnus.

So he waited until Gwen had gathered them in the courtyard again, and was setting out leftovers—then quietly slipped away to explore.

He was only halfway to the cellar door when he heard hooves on the floor behind him. His heart jumped into his throat, and he spun about, then relaxed with a gusty sigh. "You nearly gave me heart failure!"

"I would just as soon you did not explore the dungeon alone, Rod," Fess told him.

"I was trying to sneak off unnoticed."

"It is my duty to notice you, Rod. I promised your father."

"Yeah, but he also told you to take orders from me, from then on." Rod turned away, heading back toward the huge oaken doors that closed the spiral stair from the Great Hall.

"I have obeyed all your orders, Rod."

"Yes, but not always their intent. Though I have to admit I'm glad of your company—as long as the kids don't tumble to it, and follow us."

"Gwen had them well occupied."

"Yes; that's the advantage of the appetites of youth." Rod heaved at a door, and it fell off its hinges. In several pieces. He stared down at its remains, then said, "Remind me to have that replaced."

"Yes, Rod."

"Immediately."

"To be sure."

They started down the curving stairway, and ran out of daylight pretty quickly. "It is not safe to proceed further, Rod."

"Yeah, I noticed." Rod held up a dead branch. "I salvaged something out of the detritus the wind blew in."

"Foresighted of you. Would you care for a spark?"

"Naw. It'd take too long." Rod glared at the end of the stick. After a minute, it burst into flames.

"You have learned well."

"Just practice." Rod held up the torch. "Let's see what's down here."

They came out into a narrow corridor—and Rod stopped dead. "Fess—there's evil here!"

"I am sure much wickedness was done here, yes."

"I mean now! I've never felt such malice!"

"I sense nothing, Rod."

Rod looked up slowly at the robot. "Nothing at all? Listen on human thought-frequencies."

Fess stood still a moment, then said, "Nothing, Rod."

Rod nodded slowly. "Then it's completely psionic."

"It would seem to be more intense than poor lighting and restrictive architecture could account for. Shall we leave?"

"Not until I'm sure what's here." Rod stepped ahead down the hall. "But I think we'll keep the kids out. I'll remind them what dungeons were for.''

"They were for storing foodstuffs, Rod, and other supplies the castle needed, especially those of military nature."

"It wasn't just potatoes they stowed down here, Fess." Rod steeled himself, then thrust his torch through one of the open doorways and stepped in.

"What do you see?"

"Damp stone walls." Rod frowned. "And a dirt floor, with several circular mounds about two feet across. And one open pit, the same size, with the dirt piled beside it."

"What is in the pit?"

"Apples. Or their mummies, anyway." Rod stepped back into the hall. "I give in.

They did keep stores down here."

"Shall we forego the rest of the exploration, then?"

"Not until I've seen the whole thing. Come on."

There were six open doorways, one holding bundles of dust that might once have been arrows, another holding casks, and so on.

The the pool of torchlight showed doors.

Rod stopped, then stepped ahead with determination, but with his heart in his throat.

The doors had iron gratings in them, about a foot square. Rod thrust his torch through, but saw only empty shackles. He pulled the branch back out with a sigh of relief.

"Empty, Rod?"

"Yes, thank Heaven. Come on."

The final two doors showed dim light filtering down. "Must be at the side of the keep." In spite of the light, the feeling of evil intensified. Rod peered through the left-hand grating. His jaw hardened.

"What do you see?" Fess asked.

"I can recognize a few items," Rod answered. "There's a rack, and I'm pretty sure the coffin thing is an Iron Maiden."

"The torture chamber."

"Off-limits, especially for Magnus." Rod turned away. "Come on, let's go back."

"But you haven't investigated the last chamber, Rod."

"And I'm not going to, either—at least, not until after lunch. I'm pretty sure what I'm going to find there."

"What is that, Rod?"

"Let's just say that, if you're going to have a torture chamber for extracting information, you're going to keep the raw material close at hand—and apples aren't the only things that leave mummies."

After lunch, they went back to cleaning. Gwen and the kids set to work on the Great Hall, and Rod took the basement. He was right about the remaining cell—and even though it was two hundred years old, he handled what he found there with pity as he rolled it in their oldest blanket and set it on Fess's saddle for its last trip. He dug a deep hole far down the slope from the castle, and lowered the blanket down. As he started to throw the dirt back in, Fess said, "He was probably a Christian, Rod."

"She, I think."

"What evidence have you?" The robot sounded puzzled. "There is no clothing left, after all these years."

"Not even a scrap—but if that was a man, he had the broadest pelvis I've ever seen on a male. And as to his religion, you're probably right, and I'll ask Father Boquilva to come along on our next trip and say the funeral service."

"I wish you would say a few words now, Rod."

Rod looked up at the horse-head with a frown. "Odd of you to be so sentimental about someone you never knew."

"Humor me," the horse suggested.

Well, if there was one thing Fess was never without, it was a reason. Rod didn't ask—he just took the advice, and recited as much of the Twenty-Third Psalm as he could remember, added a few snatches from Ecclesiastes, and ended with a verse of the Dies Irae. Finally, he asked eternal rest and light everlasting for the soul that had inhabited the pitiful remains, and started shoveling.

On the way back, he asked, "Any particular reason why you wanted that?"

"Yes, Rod—to aid the spirit's rest."

Rod frowned. "You don't believe the ghost would come walking back in the middle of the night, do you?"

"I would not," Fess said slowly, "declare anything impossible, on Gramarye."

Rod tramped back in across the drawbridge, carefully avoiding the missing planks, crossed the courtyard, and went into the keep.

He had a pleasant surprise. He could scarcely believe it was the same room. There wasn't a speck of trash anywhere to be seen, and Gregory was just finishing dusting the last of the cobwebs out of the corners, high in the air, floating up near the ceiling.

Their bedrolls were spread over mounds of pine boughs, and Cordelia was laying bowls and spoons around the edge of a picnic cloth. Magnus, Geoffrey, and Gregory were unloading bundles of logs and sticks next to the fireplace, where their mother stood over the great hearth, face lit by the flames of a small fire as she tasted something in a pot that hung from a crane. She twitched her nose, unsatisfied, put the cover back on, and pushed the cauldron back over the flames.

"Amazing! How did you manage this in only two hours?" Then Rod answered his own question. "No, of course—what's wrong with me? This is the kind of situation that does justify using magic, doesn't it?"

"Oh, nay, Papa!" Gregory said, eyes wide. "Such spirits as do slumber here, we have no wish to wake, an we can avoid it."

"Then how did you manage it?"

"With good, hard work," Gwen answered, with some asperity, "though I will own,

'twas somewhat faster to think at the trash, and make it fly itself out the window. Yet there was still a deal of sweeping and hauling to do, and thy children have labored mightily."

"As their mother has, I'm sure." Rod came and sat down by the fire. "You're going to make me feel as though I haven't done my share."

Gwen shuddered. "Nay. I think the chore thou hast done, was one none of us would have wished—though I think I should have stood by thee the while."

"It wasn't fit for you to see," Rod answered, "and Fess was company enough."

"Aye." Cordelia looked up. "He hath great experience of the surprises in castles, hath he not?"

"Not in the sense you mean, Cordelia," Fess answered. "However, as supervisor of the construction robots that built each stage of Castle d'Armand—I became somewhat conversant with the making and mending of castles."

"As well thou shouldst be, in light of all that Count Ruthven made thee do! Yet wherefore was he so churlish in his manner?"

Fess was silent. Rod had to explain, "It's called inbreeding, Cordelia—and since it could be construed as an insult to the family, Fess won't say anything about it."

"Not e'en an I ask him the question direct?"

"No—he'll just refer you to me. Count yourself referred," Rod turned to Fess. "Tell them what inbreeding is, would you?"

Fess rasped a sigh of white noise. "It occurs when people who are too closely related, have children, Cordelia."

"Thou dost speak of the law which saith first cousins may not wed?"

"Yes, and that second cousins should not. Oh, do not mistake me—when such a marriage occasionally occurs, it will not always result in great harm. But if first cousins marry first cousins for three or four generations, problems are likely to occur."

Cordelia asked. "Of what manner of problems dost thou speak?"

"Anything you can think of, Cordelia." Out of the corner of his eye, Rod was aware of Gregory listening, wide-eyed. "Birth defects of all sorts. Some of them don't show up until later in life, though—anything from a person being born without a limb, or with a weak heart, to having low ability to heal. One such boy was perfectly normal in every way—until he broke his legs, and they never healed properly, and wouldn't grow along with the rest of him."

"How horrible!"

"But the problems we're thinking of in your ancestor's case, were problems of the mind."

Cordelia lifted her head as understanding came. She turned to Fess with a beatific smile. "Such as behaving like a churl?"

"Well, that, too," Fell admitted, "though in Ruthven's case, I fear another aspect of inbreeding may have become obvious."

"He's talking about a drop in intelligence," Rod explained. "Not always, mind you—but even now and then is bad enough."

Magnus spoke up. "Dost mean we are heir to all these ills?"

"Oh, you kids are safe, thanks to your mother."

"Aye, for that I married thee."

"Well, true, there was some inbreeding on your side, too," Rod said, with a glance at his collection of espers, "but you had the good sense to marry me. I mean, someone from outside the gene pool."

"Thou hadst first said it best."

"Well, thanks. Of course, you had a bit bigger pool; there were a few hundred thousand of you. But the good citizens of Maxima all stem from thirty-two-thousand-odd ancestors, and have been cheerfully marrying each other for five hundred years."

"Then all must have some aspect of this inbreeding," Cordelia inferred.

"Yes, even if it only shows up as occasional ugliness—or not so occasional, in the case of a good many of my—" Rod coughed into his fist, "—female compatriots."

"Yet surely this was not true of all the d'Armands!"

"Fortunately, it only became fully evident in Ruthven's case," Fess agreed. "Both his sons, as I have told you, reacted to his excesses by becoming much more reserved, and cultivating their artistic sensibilities—though, I must admit, neither was extraordinarily high in mental capacity."

"Not really necessary." Rod shook his head. "What counts is the goodness of the person. We don't all have to be geniuses." He noticed Gregory's eyes suddenly glazing, and knew his words were sinking in where they were needed the most.

"And their children?" Cordelia prompted.

"They were noble in every sense of the word, Cordelia," said Fess, "and most of your ancestors have deserved the honorific. Some were frighteningly bright, some were amazingly simple, and most were more intelligent than they needed to be. Your grandfather was a most excellent gentleman, a truly good human being, intelligent and sensitive, in addition to being highly responsible, and caring deeply for his wife and children. It was an honor to serve him."

"Was he truly such a paragon?" Geoffrey seemed surprised.

"He was indeed."

"Why then, 'tis no wonder that our father is so princely a man." Magnus turned to Rod with a glint in his eye. "Or was it simply that thou wast reared in a castle?"

"I wasn't."

The children stared in surprise.

Then Gregory coughed and said, "We had thought thou wast reared in the Castle d'Armand, of which we have spoken."

Rod shook his head, smiling. "Not so, kids. Your grandfather was the second son of the current Count—and I'm his second son."

"The Count's eldest son inherited the title," Fess explained, "and the castle with it."

"They were Viscounts, though." Gregory corrected, "Thou didst say so explicitly, Fess."

"Yes, Gregory, but the third Lord d'Armand so far surpassed his grandfather that he was able to be of major service to Maxima, in its relations with Terra, and was therefore created Count. Your grandfather could thus be given the rank of Viscount, and a third of the family estates."

"Then where didst thou grow, Papa?" Cordelia asked.

"We grew up in the Grange, dear—just a big house, but roomy enough for my parents, my brother, and my sister. And, of course, for me."

"Your father somewhat understates the issue," Fess advised the children. "The house had twenty-two rooms, and most of them were quite large."

"Still, 'twas not a castle." Cordelia was severely disappointed.

"Oh, it was adequate." Rod leaned back, stretching. "More than adequate, in fact—but only because Grandpa was living with us."

"Thy father?" Magnus stared. "Was he not the Viscount?"

"No, my grandfather," Rod amplified.

"Then he was the Count himself." Geoffrey was confused. "Wherefore did he live in the lesser house?"

"He, ah, found it more congenial," Rod explained.

"Your father understates again," Fess assured the children. "Inbreeding and recessive genes caught up with my old master in his seventy-third year…"

"Also the realization that he was never going to get away from Maxima," Rod reminded. "He finally admitted that to himself.''

"That is mere conjecture, Rod, bordering on slander," Fess stated.

"It's conjecture based on all the advice he gave me, mostly to leave home as soon as I grew up."

"He did seem to regret his youthful decision to stay and take care of the family business," Fess admitted, "though that was also his responsibility. He was, after all, the heir."

"And how did these regrets affect him?" Magnus asked.

"He became—somewhat foolish," Fess answered.

Geoffrey cocked his head to the side. "Thou dost mean he went mad."

"Most would say that," Fess agreed. "Certainly, from his conversation, he was no longer fully aware of the real world, and had escaped into a fantasy realm of his own devising. He spoke of knights and fair maidens, of wizards and dragons. He believed himself to be chronicler of a royal court in a fantastic land."

"He was lots of fun to be with, though," Rod said quickly.

"Unless he decided that you were a monster of some sort," Fess demurred.

Rod shrugged. "Even there, he had very good judgement. After all, the Duchess of Malcasa was an old dragon."

"What did he do to her?" Geoffrey asked, eyes wide.

"Oh, nothing. Never hurt a soul, mostly because Fess was always there. That's why his successor gave us Fess, along with the Grange."

"There was also some mention of being 'outmoded' and some claim, on the part of his wife, that the only antiques that graced a house were furniture," Fess said darkly.

"Which applied as much to Grandpa as it did to you," Rod said quickly, "and I think you've disproved the 'outmoded' part a few hundred times since then. Starting as soon as the two of you moved in, in fact—you became very good at calming Grandpa down."

"I merely accorded him the respect that was due him, Rod."

"Yeah, and couched everything in the terms he was using." Rod turned back to the children. "Me, I thought it was a fun game. What was I—six? So if he said a bush was an ogre, I was ready to play along."

"Thou didst take pleasure in his company, then?"

"Oh, yes," Rod said softly. "Always."

"What was this fantastic land he did see?"

"The kingdom of Granclarte," Rod sighed, gazing off into the years of a childhood made magical by a childish old man. "I used to sit and listen to him for hours."

"Well, for half-hours," Fess amended, "though in a child's time-sense, the tales must have seemed longer."

"Longer? They never ended!" Rod turned back to the children. "He wrote some excellent stories in the process. They became instant best-sellers, after he died."

"After?" Cordelia asked. "Wherefore not whiles he lived?"

"He would not publish them," Fess explained. "He was quite insistent on the point. It was perfectly compatible with his delusion, I assure you. He was writing for the glory of the Courts of Granclarte, not for his own aggrandizement.

"Mad as a hatter," Rod sighed, "but a wonderful old man." He gazed off into space, into the years of his childhood. "I used to sit on the floor in his study, listening to him tell me about the wonderful adventures of the knight Beaubras and his quest for the Rainbow Crystal. Of course, the voicewriter was picking up his every word. When I grew up, I found out that, after the Nanny-bot took me off to tuck me in, he'd sit up and edit it all. But it was wonderful to hear."

"What was the Rainbow Crystal?" Gregory demanded.

"In the story, it was sort of a master-key," Rod explained. "It could tie all the different sorts of magic together, uniting them to confound the evil sorcerer Maumains."

He smiled down at them. "Of course, in the real world, it was the big prism that hung in the middle of my mother's chandelier—but I liked it better his way."

"Aye," Cordelia breathed. "When may we read his books?"

"As soon as I can find a copy, dear. Unfortunately, I left them all about thirty light-years back."

Fess said nothing, but Gregory eyed him speculatively.

"Oh, why did he not endure till we could meet him!" Cordelia cried.

"I'm sure he wanted to," Rod sighed, "but he had a prior engagement. I hope he found Granclarte as he ascended. The Count was good enough to let us stay on in the Grange after he died, though—it was wrenching enough to be suddenly without Grandpa. Even made it pretty clear that my older brother Richard would inherit the place when Dad passes on, in his turn."

Magnus frowned. "And what wilt thou inherit?"

"Nothing." Rod smiled sadly. "There's nothing left over. All the houses are taken by my cousins, and all the family land, too—if you can call bare rock 'land.' Oh, there'll be a bit of money from my father—a goodly bit; he contributed quite a few designs to the family business, and invested the proceeds well and wisely, so he has made quite a sum on his own. But that's all."

"You did have an option, Rod," Fess reminded. "You could have taken a position in d'Armand Automatons, Ltd., and doubtless done quite well."

"Yeah, but a poor relation is a poor relation, no matter how cleverly it's disguised."

Rod made a face. "Besides, Maxima was… boring."

"Oh, truly?" Magnus perked up. "In what way was it boring?"

Rod glanced at Fess out of the corner of his eye. Magnus caught it, and turned to the robot. "Wilt thou not tell me, Fess?"

"We have spoken of this before," Fess said, somewhat severely. "I will not betray your father's confidences."

Rod did a rapid mental balancing act. He and Fess had managed to distract the children, quite successfully, from their current, rather grim, surroundings. He compared the advantages of continuing that distraction, with the disadvantages of letting their minds return to the haunted castle around them, and made his decision.

"Oh, go ahead and tell them!" He leaned back. "After all, there's nothing in my past that I'm really ashamed of. A bit embarrassed, maybe, but not really ashamed."

"As you will have it, Rod," Fess sighed, and Rod sat back to listen as the tale grew more and more lurid, and his ears grew more and more red.

Chapter 8

« ^ »

"Look, Fess, just call me 'Rod' when we're alone. I know you can do it!"

"I cannot, sir master boss." Fess was looking better these days—he had gone through two body changes and an overhaul. He fairly gleamed with a metallic shine, and his arms and legs were much fuller than the pipestems he had worn when he first came to Maxima. They had to be—they were the storage places for his spares and tools, now. His torso had been enlarged enough to hold his computer/brain, and his

"head" had consequently been reduced to a much more anthropoid size and form. He was virtually a metal android now, albeit a somewhat barrel-chested one. "I cannot change my terms of address," he explained, "unless my owner issues the command."

"And Dad won't do it, because he has too much respect for his. ancestors." Rod shook his head and went back to sorting through his revolving closet. "One more reason why I need to get off this provincial backwater of a planetoid.''

"I cannot understand your preoccupation with leaving, young master."

"Yeah, well, if I could have gone to college on Terra, as Cousin Rupert did, maybe I wouldn't be quite so antsy. But when you have to stay here on Maxima and let college come to you, via comm screen, and the only place you've ever visited is Ceres, you start developing a huge hankering to see some of what you're learning all about."

"Such feelings are consistent with my knowledge of the juvenile male of the species, Rod. But if you wish to leave home, why not ask your father's permission?"

"Oh, come on, Fess. If he could afford to send me to Terra and put me through college, he would have!"

"The support I had in mind was moral, not financial."

"He wouldn't give it, Fess. He'd think I was crazy, to go jaunting off into nowhere on a tramp freighter. He'd also be panicked out of his mind with worry."

"I think you may underestimate your father, boss master sahib."

"Are you kidding? It'd be one thing if it had never crossed his mind to get off Maxima when he was young—but it's entirely another, knowing that he actively decided against it!"

"You cannot know what your father's thoughts were when he was young, master boss raj."

"Fess, you remember how Grandpa used to tell me, every few weeks, that as soon as I was old enough, I should leave Maxima?"

"You did take into account that your grandfather was no longer of sound mind, did you not, young effendi?"

"Yeah, and now I know what drove him around the bend! Every time he told me to go, he reminded me that he'd given that same advice to Dad."

"Surely he had always had too great a sense of responsibility to act so selfishly, young master batyushka."

"Would it have done him so much harm, as long as he was home before Grandpa went off the tracks? Especially since he's spent the rest of his life just hanging around on this back patch of the estate, taking care of Grandpa and us, and waiting, just in case something happened to both Uncle Despard and Cousin Rupert—which it never has."

"May it never!" But your father's self-sacrifice should be a shining example to you, young master baas!"

"Oh, absolutely blinding—and I'm going to make damn sure it doesn't happen to me!

That freighter from Mars is in, and the captain says they can use another hand.

They're slipping orbit at midnight, outbound for Triton—and I'm going to be with them!

Make sure my bag gets to the spaceport by 2300, Fess."

"As you wish, very young master," Fess sighed. ''Meanwhile, there is still a matter of tonight's ball. If you are not there, questions will be asked."

"Don't I know it, though! Why do you think I'm going? Besides, if I'm out at a ball, nobody will expect me till way after midnight… Ah, there!" Out of the closet, Rod pulled a set of frills with buttonholes. He slipped it on over his singlet. "Yuck! I like formal shirts, but they're way overdone this year!"

"They lend you a look of elegance, young master boss."

"Elegance have long trunks, Fess—and that's what I need to carry these things in. I just wish I could get out of going to this one last ball."

The robot emitted the burst of white noise that was its equivalent of a sigh. "You may counteract the boredom by reminding yourself that it will be the last one you need ever attend, Rod. Still, some of the young ladies have truly wonderful hearts…"

"And truly deplorable looks, with faces like mashed potatoes. Well, no, I'm being unfair. Strike the 'mashed.' "

"But surely their figures excite your interest."

"Who would know, under all the drapery they have to wear to these things?

Probably just as well, too." Rod shuddered. "Not to mention their minds. I mean, the inbreeding here is really beginning to show."

The robot forbore mentioning that Rod himself might be something of an example. It wasn't really true, and besides, it would have been a cheap shot. "I must urge you to retain your politeness, young master sahib. There is no reason to visit your own torments on the young ladies."

"Yeah, you're right," Rod sighed. "It's not their fault that they're unattractive, or that I'm a misfit who can't settle down and have a good time raising a family and holding down a job, a maverick who needs adventure! Excitement! Independence!" His eyes sparkled and gleamed. "That's the life for me—out on my own! Bound to no one!

Rugged individualism! Untrammeled! Self-reliant!" He sighed with a happy smile, then gave his head a shake and turned to let the robot push studs into his shirt. "Pack my bag for me, will you, Fess?"

The ball was every bit as boring as Rod expected it to be. Not that he disliked the starched collar or the swallow-tailed coat; he always got a kick out of being in costume—it made him stand a little taller, and put a spring in his step. He felt like a character out of a nineteenth-century play in his white tie and tails.

And it wasn't the atmosphere of the ball, either. Rod had a bent for the fantastic, had had it for all of his twenty-one years, and had never quite outgrown his childhood games of "Let's Pretend." In fact, he was doing very well in the Maxima Amateur Theater Society and the Light Opera Association of Maxima. No, in terms of stepping into character, he was right at home.

And it wasn't even that the dances were too sedate—Rod enjoyed the waltz and even the minuet; they went along with the acting. No, it was the company—the simple fact that there was no one else there who was interesting to talk to, and certainly nobody female who was good-looking.

"Oh, I love your costume!" Lady Matilda Bolwheel chirped.

"I'm glad you do," Rod murmured. She damned well had better like it, since every man in the place was wearing a variation on it. "And your dress is very fetching." He gallantly forbore to mention what it would fetch.

"Why, thank you." She turned coyly half-away, letting her eyelashes droop, reminding Rod of a 3DT clip of a cow his tutor had shown him when he was ten.

But she was obviously angling for him to ask her for a dance, and there wasn't much else to do. With a mental sigh, he braced himself and said, "Shall we dance?"

She blossomed into radiance. "Why, I'd be delighted!"

And off they went, in a stately whirl of crinoline and swallow-tails.

When the dance was over, though, Matilda kept firm hold of Rod's arm, with the clear intention of monopolizing him for the evening. "Oh, do let's go into dinner together, Rodney!"

"Uh, well, I've been on a diet lately…"

"Ah, there you are, Rodney!" Lady Mulhearn, his hostess, came sailing up like a square-rigged galleon. "How naughty of you to hide with Matilda, when you know we must have you circulate! You do know Lady Jenine, don't you?"

The question was purely rhetorical; everybody knew everybody else on Maxima; there were only three hundred thousand of them, and only a few thousand in Rod's generation. "Hi, milady." Rod bowed, thankful that the issue of Matilda had been, at least temporarily, squelched.

"My pleasure, sir." Jenine dropped a curtsy. She had the golden complexion that comes from the mingling of all Terra's races, as had most of the people on Maxima.

Rod himself was considerably paler than the norm, but he tanned well. He was a throwback in other ways, too. "There's a new dance out," he ventured. "Have you heard of the gavotte?"

"Oh, I just love it! Shall we prance?"

The line would have been a hopeful sign, if Rod hadn't heard it before in the same 3DT historical that had brought back the gavotte. He turned to make his apologies to Matilda, but Lady Mulhearn was already doing it for him. "You mustn't be selfish, Tildy… No, do go away, Rodney, there's a good boy… After all, when there are so few eligible bachelors, young ladies must learn to share."

The pout was beginning as Rod led Jenine out to gallop.

"And to think this all came from a 3DT epic!" Jenine burbled as she bobbed and weaved. "Didn't you just love Hamlish Hofernung as Louis XV?"

"He lived up to his nickname, that's for sure." Inwardly, Rod sighed. He was in for a good ten minutes of discussion of nothing but the latest tank stars and their exploits. It wasn't that epics were the only thing Jenine was interested in—it was just that they were the only topic she knew anything about. At least she had a modicum of wit, though—or witty lines, provided she'd heard them from an actor.

Dinner surpassed the proverbial bore crashing; it didn't even leave any splinters.

Rod had learned how to smile on cue at a very young age; he and his brother had practiced making faces in the mirror, so he was admirably suited to being a good conversationalist. He had perfected the trick of mental activity on two levels, thinking about something interesting with his forebrain while his speech and hearing centers were routed together on automatic, ears picking up cues that his mouth responded to by delivering up the appropriate noncommittal responses. "Is that so?"

"You don't mean it!"

"You don't say…" There were even places for "Uh-huh," and "Yes," and "I thought so myself." But never, of course, for "No," or "I don't agree"; those might take some explanation, and actually involve saying something.

Officially, he had taken Lady Heloise into dinner; she was plain as a prairie, but she at least had a brain, and could comment on the day's news, if nothing else. But by some strange fluke, he had Lady Morwenna on his other side, and Lady Laetitia across the table. The result was a matter of trying to respond to three conversations at once, since none of the girls was willing to wait for either of the others to stop talking before she directed another comment at Rod. He actually had to pay attention to what they were saying, which ruined all the fun—not that it was in any great shape to begin with. Why they couldn't aim their ramblings at their own dinner companions, Rod didn't know—though it might have had something to do with the gentlemen in question being half again as old as themselves. But they had much better prospects than Rod; after all, some money is better than none, isn't it?

Which led to the inescapable conclusion that Rod wasn't the kind of man these young ladies intended to marry (or that their mamas intended for them), but that he was the kind they wanted to dance and flirt with.

Why me? It certainly couldn't have been his looks.

Maybe his conversation. In a desperate attempt to divert attention away from himself, he pointed his nose at Marquis Msimangu, Lady Laetitia's escort. "I hear a rumor that you've designed a new robot, milord."

"Why, yes, actually." Hugo came alive with surprise that anybody should be talking to him. "Still full of bugs, of course, but looks as though the damned thing may actually work."

Rod paused a fraction of a second, to let one of the young ladies ask the polite follow-up, but they were all looking as though the lemon in their tea was getting to them.

"What kind is it?"

"Oh, a household 'bot. It'll do all the usual—you know, cook, clean, dust, pick up…"

Rod frowned. "Usual, yes. What's the new part?"

"Oh, it makes toast. For those who like their grilled bread truly fresh—it has two slots in its chest, and makes the toast right there, by your bed."

"A startling innovation," Rod murmured, picturing himself sitting up in bed and being hit in the eye by two slices of toast. "Really wakes you up in the morning."

Lady Morwenna ostentatiously turned aside and straightened in "surprise."

"Oh! Lady Michelle is talking about that new card game from Terra!" She turned a dazzling smile back toward Rod. "You know, the one you can play without a calculator to hand?"

Rod still couldn't understand why people needed special calculators for bridge and canasta—but then, he had never taken card games seriously enough to try to keep track of which cards had been played. "Really? How's it work?"

"Oh, the object of the game is to match cards by number," Lady Laetitia spoke up, oblivious to Morwenna's start and glare—it had been her topic! And she took it back.

"Yes, you ask the player to your left, 'Have you any eights?' or some such, and if they have, they must give them to you."

"Intricate," Rod murmured. "What if they don't have any?"

"Why, then they say, 'Go fish!' and you search through the extras."

"It's a great deal of fun," Lady Heloise said, delighted to find something she could talk about. "Frees you from trying to think about the cards, and lets you pay attention to the play."

"Like a drama where the characters are very simple?"

"Oh, you've seen the new Notty Alent romance!" Laetitia gushed. "Isn't she just splendid as Lady Carstairs!"

"And that wonderfully decrepit house she's brought into, as governess!" said Morwenna. "What a comedown for the poor thing—a lady born, and finding all the money gone when her father dies." A tear glistened at the corner of her eye. All the other ladies were silent, too, contemplating the awful spectacle of actually having to earn their own livings.

Rod cleared his throat, aware that reality should never intrude at a ball. "Your gown is striking, Laetitia." In fact, it almost struck out. "I don't believe I've ever seen that cut before."

"Why, thank you!" Laetitia flushed with pleasure, and Morwenna cooed, " She reached Monsieur Valdez first!"

"Really, Titia, you were quite precipitate," Heloise scolded. "I swear you scarcely let the poor man step off the boarding ramp before you were on him!"

" 'She who hesitates is lost,' " Laetitia quoted, looking immensely pleased with herself.

"Mine will be done for Thursday's ball, though, so don't think you'll keep the advantage, Tish."

Laetitia sat back with a pinfeather smile. "A genuine original by an authentic Terran couturier."

Well, that explained it. Rod had heard about the new arrival, and had been so surprised that a Terran designer would actually choose to come to Maxima, that he had asked Fess for a brief on the man. The robot had run through the last six months'

news, and given him the not-so-startling information that Monsieur Valdez was more widely known by his Terran trade name of Monsieur Iberien. That put the whole thing in perspective. Rod remembered, from his weekly newsfeeds, that Monsieur Iberien had struck out on his own only two years ago, after ten years' apprenticeship in the House of Lachenoir. He had obtained backers, launched his first fall line, garnered unanimous critical censure, obtained absolutely no orders except one from a costermonger who wanted something special for his wife, and had gone spectacularly bankrupt. "I understand he has a novel theory as to what constitutes art."

"Yes, it does seem singular." Sir Gilman, on Morwenna's other side, frowned.

"Something about the feeling you get, you know, when you look into a can of worms."

The ladies paled and Rod said quickly, "Well, that was only an example. He says art consists entirely in arousing strong emotional responses, and the nature of the response doesn't matter."

"I certainly receive a great emotional response from looking at your dress, Laetitia,"

Morwenna purred. Laetitia flushed angrily, but Rod said, "Yes, it's called envy."

Actually, he sympathized with Morwenna. The dress had only a touch of Monsieur Iberien's theory left in it—the emotion it tried to arouse was surprise, by use of fluorescent colors and patterns of dots running counter to the stripes, and it certainly enhanced Laetitia's appearance, by distracting attention from her face. Rod speculated that Monsieur Iberien might do very well here, after all, as long as he could restrain his artistic impulses and try to give the ladies what would help them. Apparently he had really let himself go, on Terra, and no woman was terribly interested that season in wearing a dress full of fishbait. His fall collection had become a matter of passing the hat in November; the other designers had pooled their resources and paid him to leave Terra, before he brought the whole fashion industry crashing down. He had been able to settle his debts, but had arrived on Maxima almost destitute.

Not for long, though. The ladies of Maxima wouldn't really care what their clothes looked like, as long as they were made by a genuine Terran designer—and his spirits might revive enough to start giving expression to his notion of art again. Rod decided that, no matter what happened to him aboard that freighter, he was not coming back for the next season.

The clock chimed 2300, and Rod, with a start, realized that Fess would be arriving at the spaceport with Rod's duffel bag. He gritted his teeth, forced a smile, and kept dancing, and the "Minute Waltz" seemed to last an hour. But it finally ended; he bowed to his partner. "Forgive me, milady, but I must attend to an urgent matter."

"Certainly not so urgent as all that!"

"Didn't you hear how they were playing? I'm sorry, but I really have to step out for a moment." He turned away, hurrying.

He almost made it to the door before an elbow-glove hooked out to snag him, with a hand inside it. The hand tightened, and Rod's eyes bulged; she'd hit a pressure point—accidentally, surely. He turned, forced a sickly grin. "It's been a wonderful ball, Lady Mulhearn."

"Oh, but it's scarcely begun!" Lady Mulhearn turned back toward the ballroom, keeping a firm hold on his arm. "Surely you can't leave yet. Your dear mother would think my soiree a crashing bore, if you were home before three."

"I wouldn't think of it! I'll find a quiet bistro."

"Excellent! I have one in the Florida room. Or perhaps you wish to join the gentlemen at cards."

Somehow, Rod wasn't in the mood for five-card draw. "Really, milady—I have to be in before midnight."

"Posh and poppycock! Your parents would be ashamed of you, if you didn't last past one!"

"But I have a headache. Absolutely splitting, I tell you. It's a sinus vacuum! It's a migraine! It's…"

"Stuff and nonsense!" Lady Mulhearn turned to the nearest robot. "An analgesic for the young gentleman, Fadey!"

The robot pressed a button at its waist; two pills fell into its hand. It held them out to Rod as it popped open its chestplate and pressed a button. Water gushed, then stopped, and it took out a foaming glass.

Rod gulped the pills and reached for the water. He almost spat it out; it wasn't water, it was a potion. "Lady Mulhearn, please…"

"You'll be right as rain in two shakes." To emphasize the point," Milady shook him.

"Now, a mild card game in dim lighting, and you'll feel fine."

"But I have to run home! My cactus plant needs me!"

"What for?"

"I forgot to water it before I left…"

"No matter; you can call your robot and have him do it. Fadey!"

The robot snapped off its hand and held it out. The thumb held an earphone; the forefinger had a mike.

Rod waved away the handset, feeling a surge of panic at the reminder of Fess.

"Lady Mulhearn, my deepest apologies, but I really must leave now! Any longer, and it'll be too late!"

"Too late?" the lady demanded. "Too late for what?"

"To find my glass slipper!" Rod cried, twisting his arm free and all but running for the door.

He gained the hatchway and stepped into his car with relief. Out with ignominy, maybe—but out!

He saw the freighter's lander alone, still joined to the terminal by the boarding tunnel.

Well, not quite alone—just inside the clear plastic of the tunnel stood a solitary, gleaming figure, a duffel bag slung over its shoulder.

"Good old Fess! Faithful to the end!" Rod brought the car in right beside the old family robot, pressed the button that matched position and sealed lock to lock, then jumped to the hatch and pressed the pressure plate. The ramp checked for pressure and opened, and Rod leaped out. "Thanks, Fess!" He caught the duffel bag off the robot's shoulder.

"Lander for freighter Murray Rain will lift off in five," the nearest loudspeaker announced in a brazen voice.

Five what? Rod wondered, then noticed what Fess held on his other arm. He dropped the duffel, ripped off his coat and tossed it to Fess, followed by his frilled front. He grabbed the loose broadcloth shirt off Fess's other arm, tugged it on, and reached for the jacket—then froze, as he realized who was standing in the shadows just behind Fess.

The Viscount stepped forward into the light with a gentle smile. "You could at least have told me, son."

"Who did?" Rod snapped out of his trance with a glare at Fess.

"I must fulfill my duty to my master, Rod," the robot said, with a tone of apology.

"Yes, he really must; that's how he's made," the Viscount said. "Don't blame him, son; his prime loyalty is to me; he doesn't have any choice but to do as his program dictates, and he knew I'd want to know you were leaving."

"Fess, I can never trust you again!"

"Oh, of course you can, son—when you're his owner. Then, he'll be as fanatically loyal to you as he now is to me."

Rod tossed his head impatiently. "That's thirty years away, at least, Dad, and it's Dick who will inherit… Wait a minute. You said when I'm his owner!"

"As you will be, from this moment. Fess, I hereby give and bequeath you to my younger son, Rodney. Serve him as you have served me—and, from this day forth, obey no commands but his."

"But Dad, I can't take him along! I'm spacing!"

"Every crewman is allowed baggage, son, and you have only one small pack. I think you'll find that Fess masses no more than your allowed luggage. And he can fit into whatever kind of storage space they give you."

"I hate to ask him to fold up like that, but… Wait a minute! You're talking about him going with me on that freighter!"

"That is what I had in mind, yes. I know I have to let you go your own way—but I can at least make sure you're as well protected as possible."

"You're letting me go? You're not going to try to make me go back?"

"Make you go back? Son, you don't know how many times I've wished I'd jumped a freighter when I was your age! Oh, I'll miss you, and I'll miss you sorely—but I want you to go, while you're still young and still can! Godspeed!"

"And Godspeed to you, too, Dad." Rod threw his arms around his father in a bear hug. After a second, the older man returned it.

The lander hooted, and Rod stepped back, alarmed to see tears in his father's eyes.

"Go with God, son—and God go with you. May the wind be ever at your back, and may you find your heart's desire."

"Thanks, Dad," Rod husked. "And may yours find you. Stay well."

"I'm lifting," the lander squawked. "Through the hatch now or never, kid."

And, suddenly, Rod found he didn't want to go, after all—but his father turned him around, and walked with him, quick-step, toward the airlock. "Now, don't forget where your handkerchief is, and don't forget to write—and don't forget Fess."

"I won't, Dad—or you. Ever." Rod turned back to wave, but the hatch was closing, cutting off his view of his father, and of Maxima.

Fess stepped back beside him as the hatch closed. "You are my master now, boss Rod sahib. Command, and I will obey."

Rod stood very still, the reality of the situation coming home to him.

Then he turned, slowly, with a spreading grin. "Well, just for openers—stop calling me 'boss.' "

"And thou never hast since?" Cordelia asked.

"No, Cordelia, though I did call him 'milord' unless he specifically ordered me to do otherwise."

"It's not really legitimate," Rod growled, "or it wasn't, until Tuan ennobled me here."

"But it did remind you of your heritage, Rod, and of the conduct becoming your station."

Gregory frowned. "Yet thou dost not call him 'lord' now."

"No, Gregory. When we landed on Gramarye, your father gave his usual order to call him only by his name as long as we remained here—and as you can see, we have not yet left."

"Nor shalt thou." Gwen came over to latch on to Rod's arm.

"Not while you're here," Rod answered with a grin.

The children relaxed, almost imperceptibly, and Cordelia asked, "Hast thou enjoyed having Papa for a master, Fess?"

"Cordelia," the robot answered, "it has been a blast."

Chapter 9

« ^ »

All was quiet, except for the distant calls of night-birds wafting through the windows.

There wasn't even the rustle of a mouse searching for crumbs. Moonlight crept in through a tall slit window, drifted across the floor, and was gone.

It was only a slight sound, but it grew quickly to a wail that tore at the heartstrings.

The Gallowglasses shot bolt-upright, staring about them. Rod reached out and caught Gregory to him; Gwen hugged Cordelia. Rod clasped Geoffrey's shoulder, felt a slight quivering.

Then he saw Magnus.

The boy sat still, every muscle taut, staring at the apparition.

She was beautiful, even now, with her hair disheveled and her face contorted with terror. She was pale as moonlight on snow, her garments a cloud about her. "A rescue," she moaned, "a rescue, I beg of thee! A rescue, good souls, from this monster who hath chained me here. I prithee…"

Suddenly, her gaze leaped up to fix on something above their heads, and her fists came up to her lips as she began to wail again, voice rising to a scream that seemed to pierce their temples. Then she leaped, shot toward them…

And was gone.

Bitter cold chilled them, then faded. The last echo of the scream rang into nothingness.

In the silence, Rod heard Cordelia sobbing, and white-hot anger flared in him, against the thing that could so terrify his child.

But what thing was it? He looked behind him, but only darkness was there.

Light was the one weapon against it. He pressed Gregory into Gwen's arm and turned to blow on the coals, laying kindling on them until flame licked up. He put on a heavier stick, glared at it to give the fire a boost, laid a log on, and turned back to his family.

They seemed to thaw in the warmth of the fire, but not much.

" 'Tis well now, daughter—'tis well," Gwen murmured. "What e'er 'twas, it is gone."

Cordelia gasped, bringing her sobs under control.

But Rod saw Magnus still tense, eyes gazing off into darkness. Rod concentrated, listening, and could hear distant, mocking laughter echoing into stillness far away.

Magnus relaxed a trifle, and his eyes came back into focus. " 'Tis gone, as much as

'twill ever be."

"Oh, I don't know." Rod's eyes narrowed. "I think we might be able to make it a little more permanent than that."

Magnus stared at him, shocked. "We are no priests, to exorcise spirits!"

"No, we're fighting wizards. Expert espers, where I come from—and every form of magic we've encountered on this planet has been psionic, in some way or another.

Why should ghosts be different?"

Magnus's stare held; he almost whispered, "Dost mean we can lay this spectre to rest?"

Rod shrugged. "It's worth investigating."

"Then we must! Whatsoe'er we can do, we shall! The lady is in peril dire—e'en now, past her death, she doth bide in terror! Howsoe'er we can aid her, 'tis vital!"

The other children stared at him, startled, and Gwen seemed very thoughtful; but Rod only nodded, flint-faced. "Let's learn what we can, then. First we need to know who she was, and what happened to her."

"Who she is, Papa!"

"Was," Rod grated. "She's dead, son, no matter whether or not you can see her!

She died two hundred years ago!"

Magnus stared at him, but Rod held his stony gaze, and the boy finally relaxed a little. "Was," he agreed. "Yet she is still in torment. How shall we learn?"

"As to that, you're the only research tool we've got," Rod said, "but the rest of us are going along; no splitting this family at night in this castle!"

"Never!" Cordelia shuddered.

"What! Wouldst thou search now, husband?"

"But we must, Mama!" Magnus cried. " 'Tis only at night they are so strong! By day, we might learn no more than we already know!"

Gwen stared at him, surprised.

"Were you thinking of drifting back to sleep?" Rod asked.

Gwen shuddered. "Nay, I think I shall not slumber now till dawn bringeth light!

Wherefore should we not wander these halls? We have conned them already—and can we see worse than we have?"

"It's possible," Rod allowed, "so let's keep our torch with us." He turned to pull a branch out of the fire. "You remember that ball-of-light spell you used when we first met?"

"Aye, husband." Gwen smiled ruefully. " 'Twas due to ghosts' work then, too, was't not?"

"Yeah." Rod nodded. "I think I'm beginning to understand how that happened now.

Well, lead on, stone-reader."

Magnus stepped away in front of them, frowning, then reached out to touch the wall.

He stood still a few seconds, then drifted toward the stairway, fingertips brushing rock.

The other children followed. Behind them, Fess clopped into movement.

Rod hung back to murmur in Gwen's ear. "Any question as to the nature of the malady, Doctor?"

"Not a doubt of it," Gwen answered softly. "She is a beauteous lass, though a spectre, and he is in love, as any young man might be."

"Yes." Rod nodded. "I'm relieved, really."

"I, too. I feared he might be so distraught that he'd try to join her."

"Kinda my thought, too." Rod gave her a sardonic smile. "Fortunately, he's young enough to still be sufficiently scared of girls so that he's more apt to sublimate than to woo. Well, let's follow where love leads, dear."

"Have we not always?" she murmured, but he'd slipped behind her, and didn't hear.

The stairway hadn't seemed nearly so long by daylight. But they toiled up, following the curve as they went. Fess's hooves rang loudly in the stairwell. Rod turned to him, glaring. "You don't have to make that much noise, you know."

"True, Rod, but I do not think you would truly wish me to move silently behind you, on such an occasion."

"A point," Rod admitted. "The more noise, the fewer spooks. But can I hear myself think?"

"Do you truly wish to?"

At the top, Magnus stepped away from the wall, frowning and looking about him.

"Lost the scent?" Rod asked.

"Nay, yet 'tis quite faint. And I bethink me there's more to her tale than she herself."

Rod nodded. "True. There's also the thing she's afraid of."

"Let us seek through all." Magnus stepped over to the nearest doorway, pushed the door open wide, and stepped in, reaching out to touch the wall.

Cordelia had managed to slip back to her parents. Now she whispered into her mother's ear. "What hath him so beset?"

Gwen smiled at her, amused. "Why, lass, what dost thou think?"

"That he's besotted," Cordelia said promptly. "Is it thus boys behave, when they're lovestruck?"

"Aye, till they finally come nigh the lass. Then pursuit halts awhile."

Cordelia smiled. "Let us hope this light-o'-love doth not give encouragement."

"Any lass must, if the lad's not to flee," Gwen said. She stopped in the middle of the chamber to look around. It was perhaps twelve feet square, walls bare stone except for a tapestry hanging on one wall. The room held a bed, a small table, a stool, and a chest.

"Standard medieval furnishings." Rod reached out to the tapestry, then thought better of it. "Do you suppose this thing would crumble if I touched it?"

"I would not chance it," Gwen answered.

"A knight dwelt here." Magnus's voice was a sigh, a breeze. "A knight, and his lady wife. They were goodly, and content with one another—though toward the end of their tenure the knight was oft upset by the Count's son."

"Upset?" Rod said. "Why?"

Magnus shook his head. "All manner of wrongdoing—and the knight was on his guard to prevent such malfeasance."

"Had they no children?" Cordelia asked.

"Aye, and they were oft in this chamber, though they slept elsewhere."

"Elsewhere" turned out to be the room next door, and there was a similar suite across the hall for another knight and family. Magnus stayed in it only long enough to ascertain its nature, not even touching the walls, then came out.

"So the married knights took it in shifts, to attend on their lord." Rod looked about the chamber, musing. "How many did you say were in here in a year?"

"Four, to each suite—each to a season."

"And all were on edge, toward the end, because of the Count's son." Rod nodded.

"We'll probably find a dormitory for the bachelors, outside the keep. What kind of people lived here after the heir became Count?"

"The single knights thou hast spoke of, though they but slept here. There is small trace of their presence, and that only for their more—earthly pleasures." Magnus's face hardened. " Most of their wenches were willing, yet I do sense summat of women's fear and pain."

Cordelia began to look angry.

"I'm beginning to see why the place was abandoned." Rod turned away, face dark.

"What else is on this floor?"

They went out, and turned into the next chamber. Their torch was burning down; Rod plucked a mummified stick from a wall sconce and lit it. It burned brightly but quickly.

The room held only a single bed, a washstand, and a chest.

"A gentle-lady dwelt here." Magnus's voice seemed to come from a distance. "She did wait upon the Countess till she was wed; then another took her place, till she in turn wed"

"Probably several of these rooms; usually more than one lady-in-waiting at a time."

Magnus nodded. "The last dwelt in some apprehension, for the Count's son had grown to young manhood, and had an eye for the lasses. He had no scruples as to his manner of attaining their favors—though he feared his father's wrath."

"Did this damsel leave the castle free of him?" Cordelia asked, eyes thoughtful.

Magnus nodded. "She wed, and went—and none dwelt here after."

"Wherefore?"

"I know not." Magnus turned to the door, moving like a sleepwalker. "Let us seek."

He drifted on down the hallway, fingertips brushing the wall, and turned into the next chamber.

But it was exactly like the one before; the memories were of different women, but held no new information. So it was with the third, and the fourth—though the last lady-in-waiting of that chamber had been importuned by the heir, who had become quite unpleasant when she refused. She had managed to break away; the young man had pursued her, but had been brought up short by one of his father's knights, who had rebuked him soundly and reported the incident to the Count, who personally took a horsewhip to his son. Nonetheless, the lady asked permission to return to her parents, and the Countess granted her request.

Cordelia frowned. "I begin to have some notion of the cause of this spectre's misery."

"I, too." Gwen wasn't smiling.

"No more rooms on this floor." Rod stood at the end of the hall, glowering around at the doorways and the slit-window in the end wall. "Back to the stairs, folks."

Gregory went first, being the lightest, followed by Geoffrey, then Magnus. They were going up in order of ascending weight, with the levitators first. "Just in case the masonry isn't what it once was," Rod explained. But he insisted on bringing up the rear.

At the top of the stair, a small chamber opened on either side of the hallway, very much like the ones below. Magnus stepped into the one on his left, concentrating and touching the stones. " 'Twas another lady-in-waiting dwelt here—the Countess kept two near her in the night. This damsel…"

He broke off, for the air was thickening in the corner, beyond the torch's pool of light.

The Gallowglasses held their breaths, their eyes wide.

The keening started before the form had become clear; Gregory clapped his hands over his ears. Then she drifted there before them, the same young lady they had seen in the great hall below, wailing in fear and terror.

"Damsel, what affrights thee?" Magnus cried, stepping forward and reaching out.

Rod thrust out an arm, blocking him.

"Thou dost!" the girl wailed. "Go, get thee hence! Leave me in peace!"

Rod started to talk, but Magnus beat him to it. "I cannot, for thy pain is mine, and when thou dost feel agony, a blade doth twist in mine heart! Nay, speak! Tell me why thine unquiet spirit still doth walk, and I will set it aright!"

A glimmer of hope glowed in the darkness that was her eyes, but she moaned,

"Thou canst not, for I did not roam these halls till thou didst come to wake me! 'Tis thou, and thou alone! But for thee, I'd not have walked!"

Magnus's head snapped up, and he fell back a pace, staggered—but Gwen stepped forward and asked, very calmly, "Canst thou truly say thou hast lain quietly?"

The girl's face contorted, and her hands came up to her cheeks as she wailed once again, a wail that soared up and up until it rang in their ears, then twisted and was gone, and the room lay empty about them.