2565 A.D.!
A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN
By Jerome B. Bigge
Book Two
Chapter Fourteen
"That was `Jon Richards'?" Gayle asked me as I stepped back aboard the Squala, the Janis now hoisting her sails, the North Wind setting her jib as she rolled there in the waves ahead of the heavy galley. Doubtless Gayle had seen much through a tele- scope. I thought of what could have happened had Jon not sent the orders that he had to the North Wind. The flames, the burn- ing. The horrors of 20th Century military technology transported to a more simpler and more innocent time. I had much to think about. Jon's comments about this mysterious "Lady" he had met concerned me. Especially his description of how she favored her right hand. There was only one I knew who had such an injury!!!
"Yes," I answered, my voice curt. I saw the hurt in Gayle's eyes. Felt ashamed of myself. There was no reason to take my feelings out on innocent young Gayle. Upon the girl who in my heart now had won her own place. "It is not a time for talk," I said to her, "But later on I will share with you my own secrets."
"I don't think anyone but you could have pulled something like this off!" Lady Tirana smiled, petting Delilah as she stood at my side. Carl Talen nodded, his arm around his lovely Scribe.
"We can see the lights of Trella!" Sanda announced as she stepped into the captain's cabin where I was talking to Gayle. I had not made that fast a voyage, but I had been "delayed" a bit!
"Signal for a galley to tow us in," I smiled back. I had no wish to try to sail the Squala into Trella's busy harbor in the darkness! It was one thing to sail the Squala out in the open sea, another entirely to handle the ship in the close quarters of a busy crowded harbor, especially at night with only the harbor lights of the other ships at anchor to guide you around them!
"I am the Lady Lorraine of Trelandar," I spoke to the man who had come aboard for inspection. "I verify that there is no sickness or disease aboard and that I am not carrying anything of a nature prohibited by Imperial Law." The man nodding, regarding me there in the lamp light, studying my features beneath my veil.
"You're lucky to get through," he answered. "There's a re- port that the Dularnians have two warships in this area." I nod- ded and gave him a smile. I had warned everyone to keep their mouths shut about our meeting with the North Wind and the Janis!
"I did meet them, but my ship was fast enough to outrun them both," I smiled back. That was true, since the Squala had the "edge" on the North Wind and the Janis is slow like all galleys. It is no faster than Sarnian Lady, and even the Ronda outsailed "that" until the wind died and left us helpless before Darlanis!
"You are very lucky, my Lady," he answered, "Or there might be a slave collar around your neck right now." I wondered if Jon would like having me collared, kneeling there before him naked. I supposed that he might find the sight enjoyable. All men, if they are truly "men", desire total submission from their women.
"I have been made aware of that in the past," I answered.
"If they ever learn..." Gayle breathed as we settled down for the night. I saw no reason to go ashore when we had more comfortable accommodations aboard the Squala. Trella like most of the cities of the 26th Century is malodorous. There is a se- rious lack of "public sanitation" by 20th Century standards. A horse or unicorn makes somewhere around twenty pounds of drop- pings a day. There are slaves (male convicts) who clean the streets, but it is a futile hopeless effort, and only after a good drenching rain is the city actually clean and fairly odor- free. I once mentioned all this to Darlanis, who didn't consider it a serious matter. She like I is of course unable to do any- thing about it as it would be necessary to outlaw the use of such animals inside cities, which is of course totally impractical as she very carefully explained to me one time. One could construct a system of sewers, but most 26th Century cities lack such items with the exception of Arsana, the well known capitol of Dularn!
"We were under a flag of truce and one is allowed to `nego- tiate' with the enemy," I pointed out. I really didn't give a damm just then what Darlanis thought about it, and no body else had enough authority over a High Lady like me to "do" anything!
"Darlanis could get `nasty' about it if she knew about your firebombs," Gayle pointed out, slipping off her dress, the gold of her nipple clips shining against the creamy smoothness of her young breasts. The brief dark blue triangle of silk that covered her pubes and crotch reminding me of a 20th Century "G-string".
"As she probably `will' soon enough thanks to wagging tongues," I smiled back, Jon having told me that he knew already of the devices. Apparently my security precautions had been lacking although there had not been that many people there when I fired off the one shot just to test the devices to see if they would work or not. In any case I didn't think Darlanis would be able to use the things effectively since the range of ship's ca- tapults firing such things was only a bit over a hundred yards. It was an idea that I was already regretting, it being obvious to me that introducing 20th Century weapons technology into this era did little but make things worse, not better. Good old Lorraine Duval was "putting her foot into it" once again just like before!
Trella was beautiful in the sunlight. Most 26th Century ci- ties I've seen are. It is only when you get up close that you smell the stinks, the odors of life in a low technology society. After a while you do get used to them, although living out in the "country" like I do, I am more used to fresh air and the smell of green growing things than say someone like Darlanis, for example. That is why I don't live all the time in my palace here at Trel- la. Not that I have anything against Trella, but it is "stinky".
As the capital of Trelandar, it is the largest city in the country, with perhaps a hundred thousand people living inside its walls. The location is just to the south of the ruins of Los An- geles, which are generally avoided due to a superstitious dread of such areas. The radioactivity caused by its destruction hav- ing disappeared several centuries ago. Such ruins tend to be the topic of "ghost" stories, preferably told around a campfire near the ruins where one obtains the best "effect" from the tales. I tend to take such tales with the proverbial "grain of salt", al- though Darlanis tells me that she isn't so sure if there isn't something to some of the myths told about such places. There is considerable evidence that some people survived The War, but with their genes altered in such a way that they were no longer human! I once encountered such a creature, a scaly horned humanoid eight feet tall, which was like nothing I've ever seen before or again!
"Is it possible to build what I want?" I asked the man of the caste of the Builders. Such are the engineers and scientists of the 26th Century. I was explaining the concept of a wet cell battery that would generate twelve volts DC. A veiled woman re- garding me, perhaps his wife or assistant. Outside the open win- dows I could hear the sound of traffic. Of iron banded wagon wheels rattling over the dusty cobblestoned streets of Trella.
"Perhaps, but it will require the `help' of many of our caste," he answered, regarding me curiously. I had not explained what I wanted the battery for. I felt it best for the time being at least to keep it a secret that I possessed a 21st Century lap-top computer that just might possibly still yet be usable!
"Do so," I smiled in reply. Sanda standing there, watching, thinking what thoughts I knew not. I suspected she had little actual idea of what a computer "did". Perhaps like some people back in my own era she believed it was some sort of a "magical" machine that could give you answers to any problem you put to it!
"Could you build an airplane, Lorraine?" Gayle asked me as we stood looking out over the harbor, the Squala riding there at anchor perhaps a quarter of a mile out from shore. There were two heavy galleys at anchor, "48's" from the look of them. They had come to escort a group of merchantmen from Trella to Sarn. I suspected that word of the Janis and the North Wind had gotten to Darlanis by now. She was somewhere to the south of us visiting a number of places, doing her best to keep them "loyal" to her. I supposed Sharon was with her, no doubt enjoying the "sights" while Darlanis "campaigned" like some 20th Century politician!
"Some sort of glider, perhaps," I mused. An actual airplane was far beyond the Empire's technology, even if the Lorr didn't do anything about the violation of their EDICT! There really wasn't that much difference between Darlanis' Empire and that of Julius Caesar's back twenty five hundred years ago. There was a very "Roman" quality to the Empire of California, and the politi- cal system really wasn't all that much different either, I knew!
"What was holovision like?" Gayle asked, winning for herself a puzzled look as I had no idea what she was actually talking about. I suspected that she was referring to some form of TV, but obviously based upon a holographic technology unknown to me.
"Wrong century," I smiled back, leaning back against a pil- ing. A fisherman watching us both, his bobber riding the swell. "I'm from the 20th Century, not the 21st," I smiled back at her.
"You are aware that you could possibly be in violation of the EDICT," the man of the Builders told me as I gave him the six gold crowns for the device I had ordered constructed. It had taken them three days. There were handles mounted to transport it. The acid was in the clay jars. I had hired men to transport it out to the Squala. There I could test the computer and deter- mine if it still functioned or not. Sanda looked like a child waiting and hoping for Santa Claus to come sliding down the chim- ney. I had warned her not to get her hopes up. It had been al- most five hundred years since the computer had been last used.
"Now we find out if I got anything for my money," I said to Sanda as I clicked the computer's switch to "on". I did not ex- pect anything to happen. Sanda expected the opposite. Much to my surprise and perhaps hers the LCD screen began to glow! I saw the screen display some sort of menu, although it looked like nothing I was familiar with back in my own time. The display read to my utter surprise in brightly colored printed lettering:
"68090-100mhz, 64 megabytes RAM. 780 Megabytes available on hard drive. 580 Megabytes available on WORM drive. Internal bat- tery now recharging." A colorful menu then appearing on the screen, giving me a list of every program stored in the computer!
"It works, Sanda, it works," I said to her, my vision seem- ingly strangely blurred. After nearly five hundred years it still worked! Apple-Duval Inc. deserved an A-1! Gayle, peering over my shoulder, let out a "war-hoop" that I swear they could have heard in Trella! Lorraine Duval had "come through" again!!!