stared at the various pieces, trying desperately to think.Something had awakened him--that was it. The slamming of a door ... ora lock.
He look a deep breath. He smelled green things. Dampness. A forest ateventide....
He knew then what was wrong. The lock of the _Yore_ had been openedand had been left open long enough for the evening air to permeate theinterior of the TSB; long enough, in other words, to have permittedsomeone to ride across the imaginary drawbridge that spanned themirage-moat. Afterward, the lock had slammed back into place of itsown accord.
He hurried into the rec-hall. Easy Money stood all alone behind thetourist-bar. The black rohorse was gone.
His eyes leaped to the rec-hall table. The Sangraal was gone, too.
He groaned. The little idiot was taking it back! And after he hadforbidden her to leave the "castle" too! Well no, he hadn't forbiddenher exactly: he had forbidden her to leave it _during his absence_.
He walked over to the telewindow nearest the lock and scrutinized thescreen. She was nowhere in sight, but night was on hand and the rangeof his vision, while considerably abetted by the light of the risingmoon, was limited to the nearer trees.
Presently he frowned. Was it still the same night, or had he beenunconscious for almost twenty-four hours?
It _couldn't_ be the same night--the position of the moon disprovedthat. And yet he could swear that he had been unconscious for no morethan a few hours.
* * * * *
Belatedly, he remembered his gauntlet timepiece, and returned to thebedroom-office. The timepiece registered 10:32. But that didn't makeany sense either: the moon was still low in the sky.
He knew then that there could be but one answer, and he headed for thecontrol room posthaste. Sure enough, the jump-board time-dial had beenset for 8:00 p.m. of the same day. He looked at the space-dial. Thathad been set to re-materialize the _Yore_ one half mile farther west.
He wiped his forehead. Good Lord, she might have sent the TSB all theway back to the Age of Reptiles! Even worse, she might have plunked itright down in the middle of WWIII!
She hadn't, though. In point of fact, she had done exactly what shehad set out to do--taken the _Yore_ back to a point in time from whichthe Sangraal could be returned to the castle of Carbonek less than anhour after it had been stolen.
Suddenly he remembered how she had watched him from the doorway of thecontrol room each time he had reset the time and space-dials.Technologically speaking, she was little more than a child, butjump-boards were as uncomplicated as modern technology could makethem, and a person needed to be but little more than a child tooperate them.
Grimly, Mallory returned to his bedroom-office and got into his armor;then, ignoring the throbbing of his reawakened wound, he mounted EasyMoney and set out. He had no weapons, but it could not be helped. Witha little luck, he would have need of none. He was about due for alittle luck, if you asked him.
He gambled that Rowena would use the same route back to the chamber ofthe Sangraal that they had used in leaving it--actually, she had noother choice--and he encephalo-guided Easy Money at a fast trot in thedirection of the river in the hope of overtaking her before shereached the entrance to the subterranean passage. However, the hopedid not materialize, and he saw no sign of her till he reached theentrance himself. Strictly speaking, he saw no sign of her theneither, but he did discern several dislodged stones that could havebeen thrown up by the black rohorse's hoofs.
Entering the passage, he frowned. Until that moment, the incongruityof a sixth-century damosel encephalo-guiding a twenty-second centuryrohorse had not struck him. After a moment, though, he had to admitthat the incongruity was not as glaring as it had at first seemed."Encephalopathing" was merely a glorified term for "thinking," andRowena, shortly after mounting Perfidion's steed, must have made thediscovery that she had only to think where she wanted to go in orderfor the rohorse to take her there.
He had not remembered to bring a light, nor did he need one. Theinfra-red rays of Easy Money's eye units were more than sufficient forthe task on hand, and overtaking the girl would have been as easy asrolling off a log--if she hadn't been riding a rohorse, too.Overtaking her wasn't of paramount importance anyway: he couldconfiscate the Sangraal after she returned it just as easily as hecould before.
The odd part about the whole thing was that Mallory never once thoughtof the inevitable overlap till he saw the flicker of torchlight upahead. An instant later he heard the sound of a woman's voice, andinstinctively he encephalo-guided Easy Money into a nearby shallowcave.
* * * * *
The flickering light grew gradually brighter, and presently hoofbeatsbecame audible. The woman's voice was loud and clear now, and Mallorymade out her words above the purling of the underground stream: "...And then he set down the maiden, and was armed at all pieces save helacked his spear. Then he dressed his shield, and drew out his sword,and Bors smote him so hard that it went through his shield andhabergeon on the left shoulder. And through great strength he beathim down to the earth, and at the pulling of Bors' spear there heswooned. Then came Bors to the maid and said: How seemeth it to you ofthis knight ye be delivered at this time? Now sir, said she, I prayyou lead me there as this knight had me. So shall I do gladly: andtook the horse of the wounded knight, and set the gentlewoman uponhim, and so brought her as she desired. Sir knight, said she, ye havebetter sped than ye weened, for an I had lost my maidenhead, fivehundred men should have died for it. What knight was he that had youin the forest? By my faith, said she, he is my cousin. So wot I neverwith what engyn the fiend enchafed him, for yesterday he took me frommy father privily: for I nor none of my father's men mistrusted himnot, and if he had had my maidenhead he should have died for the sin,and his body shamed and dishonored for ever. Thus as...."
At this point, the truth behind the sense of _deja vu_ that Malloryhad experienced the first time he had heard the tale hit him so hardbetween the eyes that he jerked back his head. When he did so, hishelmet came into contact with the cave wall and scraped against thestone. The rohorse and its two riders were directly across the streamnow. "_Shhh!_" Mallory I whispered.
Rowena I gasped. "It were best that I thanked ye now for thy greatkindness, fair knight," she said, "for anon we be no longer on live."
"Nonsense!" Mallory I said. "If this fiend of yours is anywhere in thevicinity, he's probably more afraid of us than we are of him."
"Per ... peradventure he hath already had meat," Rowena I saidhopefully. "The tale saith that an the fiend be filled he becomesaweary and besets not them the which do pass him by in peace."
"I'll keep my sword handy just in case he changes his mind," Mallory Isaid. "Meanwhile, get on with your autobiography--only for Pete'ssake, cut it short, will you?"
"An it please, fair sir. Thus as the fair gentlewoman stood talkingwith Sir Bors there came twelve knights seeking after her, andanon...."
For a long while after the voices faded away, Mallory IV could notmove. Hearing the story the second time and, more important, hearingit from the standpoint of an observer, he had been able to identify itfor what it really was--an excerpt from _Le Morte d'Arthur_. TheJoseph of Arimathea bit had been an excerpt, too, he realized now,probably lifted word for word from the text. It was odd indeed that asixth-century damosel who presumably couldn't read could be on suchfamiliar terms with a book that would not be published for anothernine hundred and forty-three years.
But not so odd if she was a twenty-second century blonde in asixth-century damosel's clothing.
Remembering Perfidion's secretary, Mallory felt sick. No, there was nonoticeable resemblance between her and the damosel that hight Rowena;but the removal of a girdle and a quarter of a pound of makeup, not tomention the application of a "lustre-rich" brown hair-dye and theinsertion of a pair of plum-blue contact lenses, could very well havebrought such a resemblance into being--and quite obviously had. ThePast Police were noted for their impersonations, and most of them
hadeidetic memories.
_Come on, Easy Money_, Mallory encephalopathed. _You and I have got alittle score to settle._
* * * * *
When he entered the chamber of the Sangraal, Rowena IV was arrangingthe red samite cover around the Grail. She jumped when she saw him."Marry! fair sir, ye did startle me. Methinketh ye be asleep in thycastle."
"Knock it off," Mallory said. "The masquerade's over."
She regarded him with round uncomprehending eyes. He got theimpression that she had been crying. "The ... the masquerade, fairknight?"
"That's right ... the masquerade. You're no more the damosel Rowenathan I'm the knight Sir Galahad."
She lowered her eyes to his breastplate. "I ... I wot well ye be notSir