Duel Identity nfe-12 Page 7

  At least now the tempo and body movements were things she could control..

  "I hope you know what you're doing," David said tightly on his next visit to Latvinia. Against his better judgment, Leif and P. J. had persuaded him to get up on a horse. Except for a couple of fun-fair pony rides as a little kid, he'd never been in the saddle. It wasn't something kids from the streets of urban Washington did much, even in veeyar.

  "Just follow your instincts," P. J. told him, reining in the high-stepping stallion he'd chosen. Leif's mount was a bit less spirited, but he seemed comfortable enough in the saddle. Riding was probably another of those elite sports he'd been trained in.

  David tried to grip tighter with his legs. The ground seemed an awfully long way down as they clopped along. "My instincts tell me to get off and hail an au- tocab," he muttered unhappily.

  "P. J. picked a gentle horse, we won't go far, and you won't have to do anything extreme," Leif promised. "It's just to get you used to the saddle, in case this adventure takes us someplace the car can't go."

  "Doesn't the programming give you any help?" P. J. asked.

  "There's not even as much support as I got on swordsmanship," David said, trying to listen for any help routines. "And you might remember, that wasn't all that useful, either."

  "You came through the first sword fight just fine." P. J. tried to sound encouraging.

  "Sure, by accident, and except for wanting to lose my lunch," David pointed out.

  "Well, if we're lucky, Slaney won't have programmed in saddle sores," Leif said. "How about once more around the stable yard? That way if you fall, you'll only land in mud."

  "Great," David muttered as he led his horse into a turn. "Wonderful."

  As the boys swung round, they caught an unexpected dash of color entering the stable yard. It was Roberta Hendry-Viola da Gamba-this time in a bright red riding habit.

  The area near the gate was full of people. A large group of country types-peasants-were talking with the stable hands while hitching pairs of draft mules to crude two-wheeled wagons loaded with hay.

  Roberta stepped decisively to an empty wagon and stepped up on the tongue of a wagon where the mules were about to be yoked, which rested down on the muddy ground. "Comrades!" she called out. "I would call you my friends, but I won't-not until I've proven my friendship. I call you comrades, because that is what we should be-comrades in a struggle against an unjust and arbitrary social system! A system which demands that you lie quietly while others stand upon your backs and press your faces into the mud!"

  "Well, she picked a good place to talk about that,"

  P J. said, looking at the brownish, mushy ground around them.

  "Roberta always thought the peasants should be revolting." Leif shook his head. "Ask me, they already are! Have you taken a good whiff? Equal parts garlic breath and B. O."

  "That was probably an old joke even in this era," David told him.

  Roberta, meanwhile, was really getting into her speech. "The rich, the powerful, they'll say you can improve yourselves-work hard, and you'll become men of property.

  "That, of course, is a lie. Not merely because they'll only let you have whatever property they don't want, but because all property is theft!"

  She clambered onto one of the wagon's wheels so she could look down at her audience. "If you seek the comfort of religion-well, that comfort is only found in the next world, not in this one. 'The poor are always with us,' the churchmen say. And so it will be-so long as the rich continue to steal the wealth that belongs to all of us!"

  Her eyes raked their way across the growing crowd of upturned faces. "And what of the powerful? What of those like your dear princess, who claims to be concerned for you all?" Roberta made the word sound like some sort of curse. "Oh, she and those like her will do all they can to help you-except get off your backs! What are the lives of a few-if the world is to be changed?"

  "Great crib job," Leif said. "I think I detect quotes from everywhere-early socialists, anarchists, and that last one came from Mussolini, if I remember."

  "What I don't understand is why she's wasting her time," David muttered. "Those folks all have to be nonrole-playing characters. Who'd sign up to come here and just shovel horse dooky?"

  P. J. stared at the crowd, which was beginning to stir. "Maybe she knows something we don't about the programming here-or maybe she has a few friends in the crowd."

  The stable hands and peasants did seem to be responding to Roberta's fire-eating speech.

  "Now is the time to rise!" Roberta's voice was a clarion call. "Your so-called betters pretend to despise you, but in truth, that's really fear. They try to distract you with a pretty piece of cloth-a flag. They throw a few pennies at you, and expect you to be content. They build cannon to threaten you. But what good will those cannon be, if the cannoneers are on our side? Rise up, I say, rise! You have nothing to lose but your chains!"

  Carried along by her own oratory, she leaped up onto the two-wheeled cart itself. The sudden shift of weight made the wagon abruptly tip. Roberta tumbled from her perch, her fall broken by a giant pile of mud behind the cart.

  All three boys waved their hands before their faces in a fruitless attempt to ward off the sudden stink rushing toward them. That wasn't mud at all. Roberta had just discovered the location of the stable's muckheap the hard way.

  "Whoof!" David managed, his eyes watering. "It seems they feed the horses well in these parts."

  Roberta's former audience simply fell apart, roaring with laughter. The sudden movement and noise spooked David's mount, which broke into a nervous trot, moving through a lane appearing in the dispersing crowd.

  "Whoa, horse," David said nervously, sawing on the reins in an effort to slow his mount down. The horse paid no attention to his efforts, beginning to buck a little as it came closer to the mound of horse flop from which a bemired Roberta was emerging.

  Apparently, her appearance was the last straw for David's mount. It began making serious efforts to get its rider off its back.

  David gave up all pretense of being in charge of things. "HELLLLLP!" he yelled.

  Which would make for a softer landing? he wondered as he crouched low in the saddle, clinging as best he could. Should I aim for the mudf or for Mount Crapola over there?

  He was barely aware of P. J. coming up from the side, swinging down from the saddle. The young Texan approached David's mount, who was showing a lot of white around the eyes. "Hey, big feller," P. J. said in a soft voice. "Simmer down, simmer down."

  The horse shied, tossing its head, but before it could rear, P. J. got hold of the reins. "Nobody's gonna hurt you."

  "I wouldn't mind getting off if that would make him happy," David said in a strangled voice.

  "Shhhhh," P. J. said.

  David wasn't sure if that comment was aimed at him or the horse P. J. was trying to gentle. At least the blasted animal wasn't trying to fling him off anymore.

  P. J. finally indicated to David that it was safe to dismount. Luckily, he'd maneuvered them all into an area where the brown muck covering the ground really was mud, and not something worse.

  "We'll have to try this again-real soon," David said, rubbing his aching muscles as P. J. began to lead both his own horse and David's former mount away. "I just can't remember when I've had this much fun."

  Leif Anderson sat in his saddle, watching Roberta Hendry storm off, heedlessly squelching through mud puddles. Knowing Roberta, she'd probably synched out as soon as she realized what she'd landed in. If her simulacrum was that angry, how furious was the real-life original?

  Looks like Latvinia is downright hostile to good old Roberta, Leif thought as the simulacrum vanished through the stable gates. Is she going to keep fighting… or will she just make good on her threats to get this place shut down?

  Chapter 8

  Megan did her best to hide a yawn, and then fought the impulse to reach up and scratch her head vigorously. This has to be a sim, she told herself. In real life
her hair would have escaped even these tight braids surrounding the gold and diamond diadem at her brow.

  She supposed she should enjoy the unfamiliar experience of having an orderly hairstyle. Instead, she felt as though the braids were squashing her brain. That didn't improve her mood-nor did sitting through a deadly boring afternoon in the throne room. Megan made a mental note to avoid these lesser courts as much as possible and let her simulacrum handle them. She probably should have been saving her energy for the royal ball this evening.

  Apparently, the townsfolk of Herzen had a long and glorious tradition of bringing their disputes to be settled by their monarch instead of going to the local magistrates. Megan found herself being asked to act like Solomon in cases she barely knew anything about. She did her best to listen carefully, to resolve things fairly-and to make things hot for anyone who looked to be abusing their royal privileges.

  I hope I'm getting the hang of this, Megan thought.

  Then the two large families came before the throne, each clan looking daggers at the other. The people bringing the suit were Herzen townspeople. As far as Megan could make out from their complaints in German, the problem seemed to revolve around a missing bridegroom and a failure to pay thirteen goats. The other family group was more rural-peasants painfully dressed in their Sunday best.

  When it was the turn of these folks to put their case, they broke into torrents of what could only be native Latvinian. Megan couldn't say if this was some sort of Serbo-Croatian dialect or plain gibberish. It was odd that she was having trouble with translation-normally the Net provided instantaneous translation of every language and dialect imaginable.

  A smug voice came from the crowd of courtiers. "Surely the princess will understand the old speech of the country folk?"

  Yeah, the princess would understand it-but not her American stand-in, Megan thought sourly, at least not without some help I'm not getting right now. Looks like word of my Great Imposture is going to leak out.

  Megan held up her hand. The spokesman for the peasants, an older man with an enormous mustache, immediately stopped talking. "I beg the great one's pardon," he said more slowly. "Our feelings run before the horses."

  Megan managed not to gawk when she realized that the man was still talking in Latvinian-and now she was understanding him perfectly! She wondered what had gone wrong to block the translation, and what was now going suddenly right?

  Another of those pseudo-memories implanted by the simulation program whispered through her brain- something about being taught the language as a child by a distant relative of her mother's.

  That didn't matter-so long as she could answer the peasant spokesman in his own dialect. "You are pardoned, as long as your words do not fly like the birds," she said. "Continue, Oldfather-only slowly."

  The old peasant had quite a story to tell. It seemed the city slickers were making a good thing out of the betrothal visits. They'd enter into contracts with peasants in the surrounding districts, specifying a wedding within a certain amount of time or a bride-price in livestock. Then, one of the bride-to-be's uncles-a recruiting sergeant for the army-made sure the prospective bridegrooms were conscripted and taken off before the weddings could take place.

  As the old man continued, a rather military-looking member of the city family tried to vanish among the ranks of his relatives.

  Grim-faced, Megan had him hauled forth and put him to some searching questions-both in German and Latvinian.

  The poor sergeant was in a sweat. "Majesty, we would never have troubled you, except-"

  One of the quicker-minded female members of the family kicked him in the ankle.

  "We would never have brought this case, except those dirt-eaters insulted Your Majesty," the leader of the city clan quickly said.

  Megan continued her interrogation, finally digging out the information that the family ran a thriving butcher shop in the town, and was amassing money to expand the business. By the time she was finished, they'd still be in business, but in a much less prosperous fashion.

  Just like those real-life courtroom entertainment ho- los, she thought, giving her judgment. Megan glanced again at the quivering sergeant, wondering who had put the city slickers up to bringing this case before her. Was it a trick by Gray Piotr?

  She turned to where Alan Slaney stood, off to the side of the throne. His expression was a mixture of amusement and annoyance as he watched the case progress to judgement. Aware of her eyes on him, he looked up. "Did they think I couldn't plan ahead a little better than that?"

  Megan hid a smile. So, the courtroom drama was an attempt to embarrass her by jealous AHSO members.

  Her smile slipped a little. Unless Alan/Gray Piotr was pretending he'd thought ahead, which would mean..

  She thrust away all thoughts of court intrigue before they made her head burst. Better to concentrate on the grand ball to come.

  Matt Hunter came out of the Metro station at Dupont Circle to find Leif already waiting for him.

  "Hey!" Matt said, giving his pal a friendly punch in the shoulder, "been a while since I saw you. Thought you were going to spend all your time in New York City this summer."

  Leif shrugged. "Mom headed back to Europe with some friends. Dad's down here in D. C. right now working on some sort of intense negotiations. It's all a very hush-hush deal. He won't talk about it, not even to me. I figured I'd come down, keep him company, and catch up with some of my friends."

  Then it was Matt's turn to shrug. "You want to catch up with me, I can do it fast-not much is going on. It's been a pretty quiet summer down here. Hot, mainly. Except for sweating a lot, I don't have anything to report. How about you?"

  "Let's see." Leif screwed his face into a look of deep concentration. "Since finishing that summer course that Andy sabotaged for me, I nearly got whacked by a robber, survived a duel, helped wreck a couple of nasty political intrigues, and unmasked a traitor in the palace guard."

  Matt stared for a moment, his eyes going wide. Then he began to laugh. "That crazy sim! Lithuania, or whatever they call it."

  "Latvinia," Leif corrected him.

  Matt shook his head. "Yeah. I've heard a lot about it. In our crew-the Net Force Explorers especially-people are either crazy for it… or they're being driven crazy by it."

  "Megan, P. J., and David are really talking it up that much?" Leif said.

  "Not so much David-that's not his style," Matt replied. "But P. J. obviously thinks it's the coolest thing since indoor plumbing. And from the way she's been talking about it, I think Megan is beginning to believe she really is a princess."

  Leif winced. "Ooh, I could see that happening. How about the rest of you guys-the unbelievers?"

  "I can take it or leave it," Matt admitted. "The Squirt won't even talk about it. He tried to get in, but got bounced because of his age."

  That got a laugh out of Leif. "The Squirt" was Mark Gridley, son of the Net Force director. Mark was a computer wizard and a Net Force Explorer, but very young, only thirteen years old.

  "I figured he'd be telling everybody he could design a better sim," Leif said.

  "Nope, he just iced it out," Matt said. "Maj Greene has started ducking whenever she sees Megan. She says this sim is like a long, boring flatfilm-only it's worse because people you know are in it."

  "I would think Andy would be having a field day with this turn-of-the-century stuff," Leif said. "Asking Megan if she wears a bustle on her butt, that kind of stuff."

  "Not anymore," Matt said, shaking his head. "The last time he goofed on Lith-Latvinia, Megan acted as if she were going to challenge him to a duel."

  Leif jammed his hands in his pockets and laughed. "She might do just do that, too. Fencing and Latvinia seem to be the two things she's doing this summer." He rolled his eyes. "Some people take things too seriously. They start to think virtual reality is reality."

  "And you don't?" Matt asked.

  "I can take Latvinia or leave it," Leif told him.

  "I thought tha
t would be your thing," Matt said. "Hauling out your trusty sword and charging around with it."

  "The place can pop some nasty surprises on you." Leif's hands clenched into fists for a second as he remembered some of them. "In my case, they seem to crawl out of the woodwork the moment I happen to touch the hilt of my sword."

  "Doesn't sound like a lot of fun," Matt said. "David didn't sound exactly wild about the place, either."

  Leif shrugged.

  Matt grinned. "On the other hand, Captain Winters is delighted that you and Megan are so into this Latvinia place."

  Captain James Winters was the liaison agent between Net Force and the Net Force Explorers. "Winters likes it?" Leif said in disbelief.

  "He said it's kept two of his biggest headaches-you and Megan-too busy to create any trouble for him this summer." Matt laughed. "At least, so far."

  "I think he should pay more attention," Leif said. "There's some exposure possible if something goes wrong on the beta test. Besides us regular Net Force Explorers, he's got a Senator's son in Latvinia-not to mention the Russian ambassador's kid."

  All this mentioning of Latvinia got Leif glancing at his watch. This was about the time he usually synched in with his computer, opening the cybergate to Latvinia. There was a royal ball that evening… but nothing important happening this afternoon.

  Leif hesitated for just a moment, then slapped Matt on the back. "Enough of this Latvinia crap," he said decisively. "That's not what I came to Washington for. Let's have fun."

  He grinned as he and Matt left the central traffic island, crossing the street. "What's doing around here in real life?" Leif asked. "Think we could find ourselves a baseball game?"

  Leif got home later than he'd planned that evening. He'd already checked in by phone and gotten the message from his dad. The super-secret business negotiations were going to continue over supper. Leif unlocked the apartment door to the Andersons' Washington pied a terre and zipped straight to the kitchen. Given the family's often weird schedules, the freezer was always stocked with dinners to be nuked.

  Sniffing appreciatively as a nice beef dish began to bubble in the cooker, Leif rummaged around for a plate and silverware. This wasn't some mass-produced glop prepackaged in a food factory. The Andersons could pay for real people to prepare real food. Nowadays, it seemed to Leif that commercial frozen food sometimes tasted faintly of fish oil-even when the dish was supposed to be meat. Probably just his imagination-or maybe it was that heart-healthy stuff the government had added to any high-cholesterol meal.