Mack Reynolds - Dawnman Planet

If Ronny Bronston had thought the surface buildings of the nadirscraper, which housed the Interplanetary News in Greater Washington, were ostentatious, he could only admit he had had little upon which to base his opinion—comparatively.

Baron Wyler’s official residence was some ten kilometers outside the Phrygia city limits. At first, the Section G agent couldn’t place the theme; but it began to come to him, when his limousine—driven by a United Planets Space Forces marine, in dress uniform, with another seated beside him—was stopped at a gate by a squad of men in an armor of yesteryear and in short linen tunics. They were armed with spears, swords buckled to their sides.

The driver said from the side of his mouth, “You’re getting the full official greeting, sir. Ordinarily, we could’ve driven inside.”

Six of the guards stood at rigid attention, spear butts grounded. An officer, his breastplate of gold, approached the heavy hovercar, and came to the salute.

He said, “Hail the Plenipotentiary from the United Planets!”

Maintaining his dignity, Ronny nodded.

The officer said, “If your Excellency will alight, you will be conducted to audience with the Supreme Commandant.”

Evidently, his two marines were going to be left here at the gate. Ronny mentally shrugged. He was already in the Baron’s hands. Let them bounce the ball. He left the car.

In a clatter and a small cloud of dust, a chariot, pulled by three enormous white horses, came speeding forth. Ronny blinked at it. He had seen chariots in illustrations, and in historic Tri-Di shows, but never in actuality.

The driver pulled the horses to a rearing halt, only a few feet from him.

The officer said, not a flicker of expression on his face, “If His Excellency will mount…”

Ronny Bronston looked at his marines from the side of his eyes. They remained expressionless as well. He wondered vaguely if they would have pulled this gimmick had he been an eighty year old man. Well, there was nothing for it. He jumped up into the wheeled vehicle and grasped the edge, next to the driver.

They were off in a clatter.

The setting was beginning to come to him. The double-headed ax motif, the bulls in fresco and statuary. Once, as a boy, his father had taken him to the so-called Palace of Minos, at Knossos on Crete. Baron Wyler had obviously drawn upon the reconstructions of Sir Arthur Evans in building his residence. The British archaeologist had notoriously exercised his imagination in the reconstruction; but many a Cretean must have turned in his grave at this version of a palace of the four thousand year old civilization.

They clattered up a broad ramp, Ronny Bronston hanging on for life, and came to a rearing halt before an entrada flanked with highly colorful columns, which started narrow at the bottom and widened at the roof.

There was another guard unit, clad in the costume of Knossos, at the entry. A full twenty of them here. They came to the salute.

An officer stepped forward, came to attention.

“The Supreme Commandant sends greetings to His Excellency, the Plenipotentiary from United Planets.”

Ronny stepped down from the chariot, looked at the driver bitterly. Inaudibly he muttered. “Do you have a license to operate that thing?”

“Thanks,” he said to the officer. “I would like to see the Baron immediately.”

“His instructions are to bring you to his quarters upon arrival, Your Excellency.”

He turned and marched, stiff legged, into the building. Ronny followed.

As at the Interplanetary News building in Greater Washington, the resemblance to the ancient past fell off immediately in the interior. The officer’s costume seemed doubly ludicrous among the hosts of guards, messengers, secretaries and officials, all garbed in modern dress.

Two guards, fish-cold of eye, stood before an elevator door, one behind a device of switches and screens. Ronny assumed he was being given an electronic frisk. Well, they’d find him clean. It would have been ridiculous to think he could approach the ruler of Phrygia armed.

The elevator opened and the officer accompanying him gestured. Ronny entered alone, the door closed and the car dropped.

Then the door reopened, and even before Ronny Bronston could step out, the tall, heavy-set man there—his face beaming—reached for his hand.

“Ronald Bronston!” he said heartily. “Your Excellency, I’ve been waiting for you!”

He was at least as tall as Phil Birdman, but would have outweighed the Indian by fifty pounds. He carried his weight well; gracefully, might be the word. He moved as a trained pugilist moves, or perhaps one of the larger cats. His charm reached out and embraced you, all but suffocatingly. His face was open, friendly; his eyes, blue and wide-set; his nose, the arched Hapsburg nose, giving an aristocratic quality that only his overwhelming friendliness could dissipate.

He could only be , Ronny realized, Baron Wyler, Supreme Commandant of the Planet Phrygia, and, were Phil Birdman correct, would-be dictator of this sector of the galaxy .

Ronny let his hand be pumped, admittedly taken aback. He realized now that, although he had never seen even a photo of the Baron, he had built up a ficticious picture of him. Yes, the picture , he admitted in sour realization, had nothing to do with reality . Among other things, far from being middle-aged or even an elderly Prussian type, the Baron was little older than Ronny, himself.

Ronny Bronston hated to be touched by another man—other than perhaps a quick handshake—however, he suffered now his host to place an arm around his shoulders and lead him to as comfortable a room as the Section G agent could remember ever having been in. It was a man’s room. A small but complete bar to one side. A number of large, well-used chairs and couches. Racks of books that, even at a distance, looked interesting and oft-handled. Good, well-chosen, not necessarily expensive, paintings on the walls. A fireplace.

A fireplace , Ronny thought. At this distance down into the Earth’s crust ? He wondered vaguely what effort must have gone into devising a manner of dispelling smoke and fumes.

The Baron was at the bar. “May I suggest this departure on the wines of the Rhine and Moselle? One of my ancestors imported the Riesling grape to Phrygia. Local soil conditions were somewhat different; but I trust you will find a lightness and bouquet not at all unpleasing.” Even as he spoke, he was pouring from a very long necked bottle into two delicate crystal glasses.

Ronny found himself seated in one of the chairs, glass in hand. The Baron was across from him and now picked up a small sheaf of papers from a coffee table.

He read aloud. “Ronald Meredith Bronston, 32. Born in Luana, Hawaii. Parents, Michael L. Bronston, and Pauline Meredith. Studied, ummm, ummm, finished education at University of Stockholm… ummm, ummm, at age of twenty-six took position at New Copenhagen in the Population Statistics Department. Was discovered by Bureau of Investigation scouts and jockeyed into Section G…”

Ronny stared at him. ” Jockeyed ,” he protested. “I applied for a position that would take me overspace and was lucky…”

Baron Wyler chuckled at him magnanimously. “My dear Bronston, no luck is involved in getting into our friend Metaxa’s Section G. Not one human being in a million qualifies. Were you a bit more privy to the inner workings of your ultra-ultra cloak and dagger organization, you would know that at any given time at least a hundred of Metaxa’s picked men are scouting out potential agents. You were probably selected as far back as when you were in high school.”