John Wright - Fugitives of Chaos

Colin looked very smug and leaned back in his seat, and said, "I am the only one who has a right not to be surprised by the news. Didn't I always say the Earth we were learning about was not the Earth on which the estate stood? And I knew that a village with a dumb name like Abertwyi was something made up by Boggin. And I bet he let Mr. Glum make up that dumb island called Worm's Head. That cannot be a real name."

Victor said, "Worm's Head is real."

Quentin said, "It is the skull of the dragon whose spine forms the land throughout the peninsula." Then he muttered to himself. "I wonder on what world I stood when I opened the old mound at midnight? Or what king he was, who rose up before me, pale and glimmering in the moon?"

3,

I made a new discovery on the third day; there was a place to rent something like a roller skate, but the wheels were lined up in a line, like the blade of an ice skate, and the whole affair was encased in this huge plastic boot with snaps and clasps going halfway up one's thigh. Helmets and elbow pads and knee pads and thick gloves completed the kit, so the skater looked like some crazed warrior who had thrown away his breastplate, but kept his gauntlets and greaves.

There were only certain places and times where one was supposed to skate. Being released from so many arbitrary rules in my life, and not being Colin, I obeyed the traffic laws and stayed on the track and certain areas of deck set aside for this sport.

It was my turn to buddy up with Victor that day. I provoked him into racing me on skates. I won the first lap, but he figured out an energy-conserving glide step to use, and he had more mass to throw into the sharp turns. Awkward at first, he mastered the skill with effortless grace, as he did every thing he put his mind to.

Afterwards, over lemonade, I brought up a topic that had been gnawing at me.

I began with an apology. He just looked puzzled. We sat at a small cafe table, which was set along a balcony overlooking the indoor swimming pool (or "the great lake" as it should have been called). Sharp echoes reflected from the roof. Below us, there were sedate old men and women moving with timid pleasure through the water.

Victor had a towel around his neck, and he glowed from the sweat of our skate-race. A thin shirt of skintight stuff showed off the sculpted planes of his shoulders and chest. He was muscled like a swimmer, built for streamlined endurance, not for bulk. Yellow sunlight slanted through polarized windows and gave his contours a hard look, as if he were a statue of cast gold, or fine copper, machine-lathed to a perfect shape and hand-polished.

I said, "I'll never question your leadership again. If it hadn't been for me—"

He said, "Is this about the thing on the dock? Glum's attack?"

"If we had all gotten in a circle like you said, he would not have been able to carry off both me and Vanity. If he had only gotten one of us, you could have stopped him. I saw him turn visible when you demagnetized the ring of Gyges…"

"I'd like to point out that you are merely speculating about might-have-beens. Were we in a circle with our backs to the spot where he smashed up through the boards. It might have gone better or worse if you had been closer; I don't see that your conclusion is at all clear."

"If we had all been in the boat as I said, he would have capsized us and maybe killed us all."

"Possibly. On the other hand, we don't know what his swimming speed was. Again, you are speculating.

Since the situation is unlikely to rise again, the speculation does not seem to be one to lead to a provable theory one way or the other. Is there some experiment you can think of that would settle the question as to whether things would have gone better or worse had we acted otherwise?"

"Quentin was right, and I should have listened to him! I should not have been arguing with the leader!"

"I am not sure, legally, I was the leader at that moment in time. We attempted to settle the question of leadership by vote, and came to a tie. As far as that goes, everything was done by proper Robert's rules.

My only criticism against you is that you resigned leadership before an unambiguous next leader was chosen." He looked thoughtful, saying, half to himself, "Although, since you had appointed me second-in-command previously, I do not know if resigning your commission would have elevated me to leader or would have acted as my resignation, as well…"

I broke in on his ruminations: "You are our leader! Our chief. Only you; you always have been. There was no ambiguity."

He smiled and sipped his lemonade. "Amelia, when we were young, you and I had to be the ones leading the others, just because we were older. We had the self-control they lacked; we knew things they didn't.

I don't think those conditions obtain anymore. If anyone, Quentin is the natural leader at this point; the information in his book is giving him insights the rest of us don't have. I have made several suggestions as to how to defend ourselves against the next attack, which we have reason to believe will be a lethal one.

Mostly, I have been ignored." His eyes twinkled, and he threw back his head to drain the sour and sweet dregs of the lemonade.

He stood, as if preparing to have us depart. I put my hand out and took his hand. It was still warm and sweat-touched by the exertion of skating.

I said, "Wait. There's something I want to ask you."

He looked down at me, his gaze level and patient.

"It's about—oh! Can't you sit down?"

"You wanted to ask me whether I can sit down?"

"Please sit."

He resumed his seat.

"Victor, I have an important question to ask you."

He looked attentive.

"I—I—"

"You…? You…?"

"It is about us."

"Define'us.'"

"'Us'means'us'!"

"The whole group, all five, or just you and me? English is ambiguous when it comes to inclusive versus exclusive first person plural."

I said crossly, "This would be easier if you would at least try to guess what I am about to say!"

He leaned back in his chair and regarded me with what I can only call a Boggin-like expression. "What wavelengths can your brain generate? If you have a way of broadcasting a signal I can pick up, it would be very useful to secure communications practice."

I sat in miserable silence for a few moments. "Well—"

I could not ask him. I groped for some different question to ask.

I finally said in the most lame and insincere tone that has ever come out of a girl's mouth, "I was wondering if you knew what Vanity and Quentin were keeping from us… ?"

"Of course," he said in a tone as bland and certain as could be. "It's obvious."

"What?"

He seemed a little surprised. "Quentin does not want to tell us that we ought not go home."

4.

I blinked. "Not… home… ?"

He favored me with that Victor-raising-an-eyebrow look I knew so well from my youth. "Back to Chaos. Myriagon. Ialysus. Cimmeria. Phaeacia. And wherever Quentin's people hail from. We ought not go back."

"Why can't we go back? We don't even know what's there. It's unexplored terrain!"

"I did not say we could not. Obviously, we could jump on Vanity's boat as soon as she can summon it here, and, if the Argent Nautilus functions as promised, and nothing stops us, we could be in those places within a day. I said we ought not, not if we want to preserve the human race and the organized universe from attack. Our enemies, even when talking among themselves (in a situation we have every reason to believe was not arranged for our ears) seemed honestly to think this was the most likely outcome of our escape back to Chaos. I think we cannot ignore that opinion without some clear proof that is it false."