2566 A.D.!

A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN

By Jerome B. Bigge

Chapter Forty

      "Careful!" Darlanis ordered, the men of the North Star pay- ing her little heed, their own captain standing there watching. I was still quite weak, despite the attentions of both Maris' and Darlanis' physicians. What I really "needed" right now was the services of a Priestess, but such will not serve on ships of war. The boat, rocking on the waves, there below me as my stretcher was lowered by sheers from the North Star. I saw Darlanis reach up for me, steady the stretcher as she stood up in the longboat. A seaman off the North Star foolishly grinning to himself as he looked up underneath the Empress' brief golden mesh micro skirt.

      "You should have stayed on the ship," Darlanis said to me.

      "And deprive you and Maris of my `wisdom'?" I teased her.

      I watched Queen Maris now swing out on a rope, lower herself down into the boat. The look on her beautiful face left no doubt in my mind as to her thoughts in seeing Darlanis fussing over me.

      The mayor of the village was a woman. Such is not uncommon among Dularnians, where the "status" of women is much higher than it is to the south in the Empire of California. I suspect that the reason is due to the fact that the Dularnian woman is trained in the use of weapons. Such also naturally gives her a different "outlook" on life I feel than that of her "sister" to the south. To Dularnians "freedom" and the "bearing" of weapons are two sides of the same coin. One wonders here... I still remember Janet Rogers' feelings about the "right to keep and bear arms"... We never did "agree" upon that topic, I should perhaps note here.

      "Your majesty," she spoke, bowing her head. Dularnians do not kneel before their monarch as Californians do before theirs. I watched the clouds slowly moving across the azure vault of the sky. Saw a seagull circling. There were perhaps a hundred or so people gathered, watching, all of them above the age of thirteen or so armed. The Dularnian mother teaches her children to use the sword and the bow if their father fails to do so. She takes pride in such things. In the fact that she is a free woman liv- ing in a free country. I think that is why Darlanis was never able to "conquer" these people. Her army could occupy territory, but could never win a lasting victory. I do not think that even with the weaponry of the 21st Century such would be possible now. I am of the Warrioresses. Such things are "understandable" per- haps only to one of my own caste. Janet Rogers was not a "Warri- oress", even though I understand now that she was fairly profi- cient in the use of firearms from what records we still have of her. She, like Darlanis, did not "understand" certain "things".

      "I have brought with me those who do not believe that you are happier with the flag of Dularn flying over your village than the Imperial Tarl of the Empire of California," Maris answered... The mayor was light haired, although not quite a true "blonde".

      "Your `exploits' are well known, as are `hers'," she said, regarding me. No doubt her viewpoint of me was somewhat "differ- ent" from that I might hold. There are always two sides to these matters. To those of Dularn I represented something terrifying. "And my son died in battle fighting against `HER'," she added, a look in her eyes as she regarded Darlanis that left no "doubts"!!

      "The Empire of California represents the `future' for Man- kind, a return to the `glories' of an age that is now but `leg- end'," Darlanis answered with a smile that I was sure was forced.

      "I know `enough' of that era `she' comes from to know that I would not wish to live in such a society," the mayor answered. I supposed that she could read probably as good as I could. Most Dularnians can due to their system of universal public education. Such is "supported", I might note here, by a system of taxation, not upon the entire population as was done during my time, but upon parents, who pay taxes according to their own income levels.

      "And just how much `do' you know?" I challenged her back, a bit "curious" I must admit here to see how much she did know of my era. I knew that Queen Maris and those of the upper classes did know quite a bit about the history of my time and that of Ja- net Rogers which followed it, but did such "knowledge" also ex- tend to mere fishing villages like this one perhaps fifty miles south of what was once Cape Flattery back in the late 1980's?

      "I know that you used machines to travel about in, that you used great silver birds to fly in the air, and that you possessed weapons that could kill at a distance half way around the world." Her eyes burning down into mine as I laid there on my stretcher.

      "We also had the electric light to turn night into day, the telephone to call people anywhere on the Earth, computers to help us work, and so many devices that would seem only `magic' now," I replied, wondering why I was "arguing" with a barbarian like her?

      "And a government that `ruled' your lives even worse than `hers'," the mayor quickly answered, nodding at Darlanis standing beside me. "I for one would rather live in her `Empire' than in the time from which you came," the blondish woman smiled back...

      "Perhaps she is right," Darlanis smiled at me, "Considering some of the things that you have told me of your era." There is no doubt far more "freedom" now than there ever was in my own time. There is legal prostitution, pornography, no "vice" laws, or is there restrictions upon the carrying of weapons. There are no "drug laws" like what we had, nor is there all the "licensing" and "regulation" that made up my 20th Century American society. Even Janet Rogers' "World Federation" was "freer" in some ways...

      "I do know enough about your era to know I would never wish to live in it either," Maris now interjected, just to "rub salt in the wound" a bit, I suppose. I often wonder what Janet Rogers would have made of all this. She was one who believed that there must be "limits" to freedom, that if guns were "outlawed", then it would be easier to control crime. She was "successful", but not because of her policies regarding firearms, but more so be- cause she introduced a system of castrating all violent criminals quite like what is done now. On the other hand I would like to see what Darlanis or Maris would do if they had to deal with the sort of "problems" that Janet Rogers had to deal with all the time that she was in charge of things. It is perhaps easy to criticize from a vantage point five hundred years in the future, but at the time I suspect Janet tried to do the best she could...

      "There is something to be `said' for this one," I smiled.

      "You would find the `Empire' of today different than the `Empire' you fought only last year," Darlanis spoke then, getting to the "grist" of the matter here. I knew quite a bit of "what" Darlanis had done, although I think Sharon had a lot to do with it. Darlanis was trying to live up to an "image" of herself that Sharon herself had gotten from a 20th Century "cartoon" series...

      "I have `heard' of such things," the mayor now "admitted".

      "But it is still the `Empire'," Queen Maris interjected. I watched the seagull circling overhead dive down, steal a fish from a fisherman's net while he had his back turned watching us.

      "There is also Trelandar," I pointed out, "Where we now have our own independent nation within the Empire itself," I retorted. "Born in a `revolution' that I did have some responsibility for."

      "And Talon is now a `part' of what the Empire is becoming," Darlanis "added". I had understood that she did have tarls and bird girls from Talon there in her own fleet. Obviously she had finally managed to settle things with Dala Dai during my absence.

      "You have forgotten the Nevadas," Maris added sarcastically.

      "My Prince does not let me `forget' I am a woman," Darlanis smiled back. Maris' marriage to Darl Jord had been "unhappy"...

      "You're probably `good' at `that'," Maris snapped back.

      "I did learn a few things from Lara," Darlanis smiled.

      "You could debate each other another time," I suggested.

      "Didn't really `accomplish' anything," Darlanis said to me sometime later on when we were alone and could speak freely. We would spend the night in the village and leave in the morning. I was admiring the workmanship of the furnishings there around me.

      "Perhaps you `accomplished' more than you thought," I said, looking up into the beautiful azure blue of her eyes framed by that lovely golden hair. She is the sort of a woman you are forced to "admire" despite yourself. That was my first "impres- sion" of her when I first laid eyes upon her there on the Ronda.

      "What do you mean?" the Empress asked, propping me up a bit, holding a cup to my lips so that I might drink. I knew she had slave girls who could have done this, but she preferred to do it herself. I am perhaps the woman that Darlanis most "admires"...

      "The people here saw the `woman' as well as the `Empress'," I said as Darlanis lowered the cup from my lips. Maris, despite her own beauty, had in a way looked rather "plain" alongside her. Such was, I supposed, due in part to Darlanis' "exotic" attire.

      "Most men who see me do notice that `fact'," Darlanis smiled, getting up, walking about the room. I wondered what one "Hugh Hefner" would have made of Darlanis, Empress of California?

      "Which is `why' you dress the way that you do," I answered.

      "A woman's beauty can be a `weapon' just as the sword she carries," Darlanis replied, giving me a smile as she stood there. She was considerably "smarter" than many people believed she was.

      "And sometimes one must `give' in order to `get'," I said.

      "I will consider it," Darlanis promised me with a smile.

Next Chapter