Роджер Желязны - Warriors of Blood and Dream

But Cameron was not in his professional mode. That aspect of the temora tree was for the lab. The polished and unmarked floor was commanding his nowtime attention. He took one step forward, then another, carving his way slowly and fluidly on an unseen path. Each movement flowed from the one before, yet there was no clear line of demarcation between where one left off and the next began. But there was precision.

One step. Two. Turn and pivot.

But no one to throw. Or to throw him.

Cameron switched his mind-set from judo to karate, and wished that he had trained more in that art. He had only a green belt's skill and complexity to work from. Still, a karateka could punch and kick at chimeras and feel fulfilled. Judo required an uke to offer resistance and a tori to counterthrow. There were no other judokas on this world.

But somehow, improbably, there was a karateka . The air shimmered before Cameron, a heat refraction, perhaps. He looked up to see the serene features of Hideo Nakajima, his old sensei , advancing toward him, his faded black belt and its embroidery before him in perfect detail to the smallest thread.

The sensei advanced deliberately, with none of the speed that he would produce against a high-ranked opponent in free combat. He launched a series of blows. Cameron blocked, pivoted, and delivered a roundhouse kick. In a movement of grace and economy, the black belt evaded the blow and landed a side kick of his own. Cameron saw his sensei' s foot meet his gi , but he felt nothing. His mind raced back to that first series of blows he had blocked, his mind registering what it had ignored in the instinctive transition to counter kick. No impact. He had blocked nothing.

He turned to face his partner and found himself alone.

Off to the side stood the Project Manager. Beside him was a visiting Alcaidan, one Cameron had not seen before. Or had he?

The Alcaidan smiled and turned away.

The Project Manager folded his hands neatly on the desk before him and looked at them. So did Cameron. Those hands were weapons, as lethal as those of any karateka . How many forms Mainwaring's hands had shuffled, how many memos they had signed! And how those documents could cut down a career.

But those hands weren't those of a hatchet man now. Mainwaring looked worried himself.

"Peter," Mainwaring said, "it relieves and gratifies me that our hosts have finally extended a social invitation to us. It pains me that it has been extended to you. But so be it."

Cameron waited, but Mainwaring's gaze had once more retreated to his manicured and immobile hands.

"An invitation," Cameron stated, with no interrogatory inflection.

"They invite you to an interview. If you comport yourself satisfactorily—whatever that may mean—you will be invited to a Hunt."

"I see."

"Do you?" Mainwaring raised his eyebrows. "There's a lot I don't see. What these Alcaidans are really like. They're shapeshifters, but what do they really look like when they're not trying to make some sort of impression on us? How do they think? Why do they invent and have us process endless forms and have us carry on to little purpose? My job has involved too much idle paper pushing, even—I'll be frank—by my standards. And I've pushed a lot of meaningless paper in my fight to the top of the tree."

"Very Savoyard," Cameron observed.

"Yes, Peter, I do understand my own allusion. It does take some brains to oversee you scientists and free you from the paperwork you all disdain. I'd like to see you do your part and produce some marketable derivatives from these botanical compounds that you seem to think are so unique and promising. It would make my job easier—and yours safer—if you can come up with a pharmaceutical that the company can convert to some value." He paused and frowned. "Meanwhile I've got to deal with these Alcaidans and their whims and ways. And figure out what we can give back to them when they get around to demanding compensation. Perhaps this Hunt will give you some insight." Mainwaring looked at Cameron's expectant face. "Or do you have one already?"

Cameron regarded Mainwaring soberly. "Straw mats and judo gis ."

Mainwaring's eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth, thought better of it. He silently waved Cameron out.

Ansari Farhal was this year's Master of the Hunt and therefore inheritor of the Alcaidan title of kir . Kir—an Earthside drink of cassis and white wine. Very cool and refreshing, as Cameron remembered it. Ansari kir looked cool. Refreshing, however, was not the word. Noble was more it. Noble in purpose, not in effete decay.

Ansari's eyes glittered. His clothes glittered. He shimmered as he moved. His motions were economical, smooth, purposeful. Nothing wasted. He used his hands, did not study them. He motioned Cameron to a chair.

"Would you like to join our Hunt?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Do you know what it is, what is its quarry, what it is about?"

"No."

Ansari kir turned from his desk to the window and looked out on the forest that began beyond his walls. No tended greensward, no formal gardens to the estate of this nobleman. A local Schwarzwald seemed his estate.

Cameron studied his profile and thought of Roman coins.

Ansari kir turned back to look at Cameron full face. "We come to a gorge with an untried bridge over turbulent rapids. Someone must try the bridge—or the quarry escapes. You or a companion of the Hunt. How do you choose?"

Cameron turned and looked about him in studied scrutiny.

"I see no bridge, no rapids, no companions."

Ansari kir nodded. "You'll do."

"That answer did it?" Mainwaring asked.

"Seems so."

Mainwaring shook his head. "I don't see that this tells us much. I don't understand the mode of thinking, the allusion. Perhaps that's why I wasn't chosen. But, Peter—would you explain?"

"Explaining spoils it," Cameron said, then relented at the sight of Mainwaring's visage. This was no longer the bureaucratic whip cracker that had formerly menaced and plagued him. The Project Manager needed help. "It's self-referential. The answer is part of the question. And this was an interior joke, acknowledging our own idiom. A bridge that shouldn't be crossed till we get to it. Perhaps we never will."

Silence from Mainwaring.

"They're telling us to stop making elaborate contingency plans," Cameron added gently. "Stay in the moment."

The Hunt was gathering in the courtyard when Cameron arrived, but Ansari kir disengaged himself from the preparations to meet his offworld guest. Glass in hand and with a lazy camaraderie that transcended noblesse oblige, he placed his arm about Cameron's shoulder and escorted him up the broad steps and into his hall. A great punch bowl of crystal rested on a rough-hewn trestle table covered by a damask cloth. A pleasing set of contrasts. Heaped on silver trays was an array of rolls and loaves, some with warmth rising from them. Several sportsmen busied themselves with cutting the breads and layering them with spreads from nearby bowls. All turned toward the master of the hall and the Hunt as he neared with Cameron in tow, and all raised their glasses in salutation.

"Mr. Peter Cameron," Ansari kir announced. He stepped back and raised his glass. "Our new companion of the Hunt!"

All the company swung glasses to lip in graceful parabolic arcs. The nearest took a crystal goblet chased in silver, filled it from the bowl, and extended it to Cameron.

"The Hunt!" Cameron toasted. "And the Field!"

To an approving murmur all drank again. Cameron as well.

"Drink up and eat, gentlemen," Ansari kir said. "Our mounts await us."