Closer they came, and both men could hear a barker’s voice, calling out the names of the mysteries and wonders to be presented in the central tent, the luscious women and heroic men to perform antics and startling techniques. They could not make out the words, but Norbert recognized the broad vowels and trilled syllables of a Rosicrucian dike-country accent, from a Parish of the Northwest continent called Paracelsus, downhill and downstream from the rugged uplands of Dee.
The squire was surprised when Norbert put out his hand, and halted them both.
“Sir? Is that not the very voice of our target?”
“Zolasto Zo is not the target, but Hieronymus the Apostate. He will be in one of the side tents. If he is a man of dignity, he will not allow his tent to jig and gyrate, but it will exhale an aura of dignity, mystery, awe, and divine terror, such as priests possess and magicians mock. For a man of learning, to be reduced to telling fortunes and selling sham medicines will be hard, and so his tent will be less enthused than the others of the sideshow.”
Norbert began to pace in a curving path around the grove, not approaching it. The squire peered and stared, but the density of the branches deceived his sight, and he saw nothing aside from fragments of festivity: a moving sway of colored tent-cloth; a leaping child dressed in flame, a musician with a balalaika, an acrobat standing head-downward on a wheel; a naked and purple man of huge proportions from Epsilon Indi wrestling with a hippopotamus from Egypt; a sharp-faced redhead in a scarlet kimono carrying a parasol ringed by burning pearls; a group of laughing maidens in masks who had tied intoxicating lights into their hair shaking their tresses at others in the throng, so that whoever over-stared at the lights staggered and displayed dream-haunted and empty smiles.
Norbert suddenly stopped and pointed at something the squire could not see. “There. Your dueling pistol is loaded?”
“No, sir! It is considered improper to pack a pistol before a duel, lest an unscrupulous opponent introduce a contaminant into the chaff mix.”
“Have you other weapons, silent weapons, in case we met roughnecks or roustabouts?”
The squire drew a blade like an unadorned length of wood, and in his hands heat as from a black stove issued from it.
“I did not tell you to draw. Still the blade, but keep it in your hand,” said Norbert.
The wooden sword grew cold.
The squire heard the slight, sticky sound as Norbert drew one of his glassy knives from his nano-locked sheath. Norbert pushed his way between the trees of the grove, making his way to where a dark tent of many gables loomed. Its neighbors, gaily lit in pink and cerise and creamy white, kept swaying up to it and dancing away, leaving behind the smell of sugared candy, burning beeswax, and brandy-wine. It was the only tent that was not dancing.
At the pinnacle of the black tent was the image of the Coptic Eye, fortunately facing away from them, and above the tent a three-dimensional image of the major stars of Canes Venatici burned. The door of the tent was guarded by a pair of pale figurines, two fathoms tall: the muse Urania holding an astrolabe, and the titan Saturn holding a scythe. The tent had a wooden door shaped and painted with an image of a dark hand with a white palm, with the lines of palmistry labeled in small letters outlined in red.
When the hand moved to admit a patron, an interior lit by fiery torches was visible for a moment. A low stage or podium could be glimpsed with a lectern of black glass, and a line of folding pews facing it, already filled with a hushed and silent audience, while behind was a screen bright with an image of the rim of the Milky Way, and the dandelion puff of the globular cluster at M3. The line of Rania’s flight and return was shining in purple light. The magical significance of the various stars near her flight path was noted in yellow light, along with notes both astronomical and astrological, and tables comparing the past events and future events each passing star signified.
Norbert continued skulking through the tree shadows until he was directly at the rear of the tent, so that the ominous door and ancient figurines were not visible. The back flap of the tent was pressed up against the branches of the trees through which Norbert slid to reach it. All the lights and noise were on the far side of the tent. No carnival-goer nor roughneck, unless he happened to crawl under these trees, was likely to see Norbert in this location.
With a tiny motion of his knife, entirely without noise, Norbert cut a slit less than an inch wide in the tent fabric. Then he made the blade grow longer, and pushed just its tip into the tent, using the camera dot in the tip to look carefully left and right.
The moment seemed to hold its breath, and it grew longer, and Norbert did not move. The squire saw or sensed camera dots along the spine of Norbert’s dark cloak watching him sardonically. A minute passed, then several, and still the assassin did not move by so much as a hair. Finally, the squire said along the silent nerve channel they shared, “Sir? Your orders?”
Norbert stepped backward, and traced the knife back along the slit. The picotechnology in the blade evidently had very fine control over the nanotechnology it was usurping, for the slit became whole with no visible seam. “I have determined that Hieronymus the Apostate is innocent of any threat to the Guild, as shall be, very soon, all heretics seeking to reform the calendar.”
“What did you see in there?”
“One of the larger mysteries of the universe,” said Norbert. “Come! We need no longer skulk.”
Norbert walked around to the front of the tent, in full view of the multicolored bonfires burning in the center of the dancing encampment.
As soon as he stepped into the grove, he spread his arms, and let his cloak billow around him as if he were in a high wind, although there was no wind. “It is I! Norbert son of Yngbert of Rossycross! The Starfarer’s Guild in culminant arrogance unparalleled hereby usurps and treads upon both Earthly and sacred jurisdictions! I am here to slay the innocent! All heretics, dissenters, and unorthodox mathematicians step forth and present yourself!”
The bonfire went out, as did all the torches. The music fell silent. There was a moment or two of light, while the floating lanterns all sank to the grass and winked out. The dancers were still. There was a rustling sound, as of many bodies sitting, kneeling, or falling.
There was a noise of a confused trumpeting from the hippopotamus as it broke free from the limp arms of the purple-skinned wrestler and crashed through the grove and thundered away across the lawns of the graveyard, surprisingly swift for its size.
Norbert turned. Only the five-foot-tall hand guarding the entrance to the magician’s tent was still lit, pale as moonlight shining on ice, ominous with its white fingers and black palm. Norbert entered the tent. The squire, one eyebrow raised in a wry expression, followed.
The audience seated at the pews were all motionless. Norbert put his hand into the cleavage of a young maiden dressed in silks.
“Sir? You seem to have the lady at a disadvantage.”
“She is a doll.”
“Quite attractive, sir, but I am not sure groping her while unconscious is an unambiguous compliment. Her clothing will record and report the breach of decorum.”
“Do not toy with me. I mean she has no heartbeat. All here are dolls. This audience, the performers, and the crowd outside, all of them are grown from totipotent blood cells. It is Fox technology. We’ve been foxed.”
“Your Zolasto Zo seems quite the performer.”
“As are you.”
“What? Do you think I am Zolasto Zo?”
“Not at all. He never left Rosycross, which is a planet under interdict. Nor did his ghost. There is no conspiracy of secret pirate satellites, and Zo is too good a showman to attempt to lure the earthmen to view the wonders of Earth. The only thing that came from that planet was a reproduction of one of his publicity bills, which you sent to my desk.”