It looked three-dimensional. It was similar to the dragon at the console and the clay dragons lying on the building pile except for this big white ball in its mouth.
At first Jonnie felt it was far too fancy. And just then another emissary arrived on the platform wearing a towering gold crown. This was far less fancy than that. But still.
Jonnie looked at it. It was a bit different from the other dragons. “Very beautiful,” said Jonnie so the Coordinator could tell the son-in-law.
They were fixing his clothes. It wasn't time yet by a long way. Jonnie looked at the helmet. Via the Coordinator he said to Mr. Tsung, “Tell me about this dragon.”
Mr. Tsung tossed it off and via the Coordinator told Jonnie that the throne of China had been called the “Dragon Throne.” “Lung p'ao" or "Chi-fu" patterns or robes were court dress. It was an Imperial...
Jonnie knew all that. “Tell him to tell me about this dragon. It 's different.”
Mr. Tsung sighed. There were a lot of other things, far more important, that he should be telling Lord Jonnie, and he didn't think it was very applicable just now to embark on myths and fairy tales. But, well, yes. This dragon was different. The whole story? Oh, my. Well, it went this way. Once upon a time...
Jonnie lay back on the bed with the helmet on his stomach and listened. Unfortunately he did have time. So he listened as Mr. Tsung went on telling him the long and involved fairy tale.
Suddenly about halfway through it, Jonnie abruptly sat up and said to the Coordinator, “I thought so! Please send for Sir Robert.”
It startled Mr. Tsung and Jonnie said, “Thank you. Very good story. Thank you more than you know!”
As Lord Jonnie seemed pleased and things were a bit rushed, Mr. Tsung happily went out to make sure the silk suit was altered correctly.
Jonnie looked around to see whether there were any button cameras in the place. He couldn't really tell. He didn't think so, but he would be very brief and cryptic to play it on the safe side.
A couple minutes later Sir Robert came in. He too had been grooming himself. He was wearing a cloak with the Royal Stewart colors, a matching kilt, and Scottish white spats. The wool was made of shining hairs. He was the complete Scottish soldier and lord, excepting only weapons. Jonnie had never seen him dressed in full regimentals before. Quite impressive. But the old man looked a bit hollow-eyed and worried.
“This is going to be a tough one,” said Jonnie.
“Aye, lad. Did ye ken thet Tolnep? I be no diplomat, laddie, and there's nae chonce of bringing Fearghus oot. The danger lies in antagonizing them lords and states thet isna involved as yet. A false step and we'll be adding them tae the enemy!”
He was upset. Even talking in dialect.
Jonnie never thought he'd have to soothe Sir Robert. “We have a chance. A good one. Now here's what I propose we do: you go in there by yourself and do all you can.” Sir Robert didn't much care for that but he listened. “And then when you have finished or think you have gone as far as possible, you call me in, introduce me however you please but not too specifically.”
“The communicator they've been using as host will do a' the introductions,” said Sir Robert.
“well, tell him what I said. All right?”
"Verra good, laddie. I’ll do whativer I can. An if I havna a cease-fire, I’ll ca you.
The old War Chief turned to leave. “Good luck!” said Jonnie.
“Aye, lad, that's exactly what I’ll be a needin'! We're nae a doin' weel at a' in the field!”
Jonnie looked at his watch. It wouldn't be long now.
Chief Chong-won popped in, grinning. “The hole in the dam has stopped all but a trickle! My men are replacing the armor cable, patching and replacing it. The lake will be armored again before nightfall.” He threw his arms up simulating the earlier explosion Jonnie had made. “Boom!” he said and vanished.
Jonnie thought, boom indeed. We'll all go boom if this conference fails.
Chapter 7
Sir Robert had not been in the conference room three minutes before he realized that he was fighting the most difficult duel of his life.
And he was in no shape for it. He had hardly slept at all since their return and he recognized now that this was a huge error. For all his nickname, “the Fox,” he felt sluggish mentally. That nickname had been earned in physical combat and not in a conference room. Had this been a matter of troop dispositions and tactics, he could have coped with it. He would have laid an ambush for this Tolnep and transfixed him with arrows and hacked him to pieces with lochaber axes.
But there stood the Tolnep, elegant, poised, and deadly, already pressing Sir Robert back toward defeat.
Sir Robert's morale was very bad. Half the antiaircraft cover of Edinburgh had been wiped out by a desperate charge of Tolnep marines. Russia was not answering at all. And his own wife was unreported after a cave-in of passages to the bunkers. It was desperate that he get a cease-fire!
Yet this Tolnep was dithering around, posing, fiddling with his scepter, flattering the emissaries, and acting like he had all the time in the world!
His name was Lord Schleim. He had a tittering laugh that alternated with insidious, acid hisses. He was a master of debate much like a swordsman became a master of his blade.
“And so, my worthy colleagues,” the Tolnep was saying now, “I really have not the faintest idea why this assemblage was convened at all. Your own time, your physical comfort, even the dignity of your august persons, representing as you do the most powerful lords of the universes, should not have been assaulted and insulted by an upstart lot of barbarians involved in a petty, local dispute. This is a purely local affair, a minor spat. It involves no treaties and so your presence was well known to be unneeded by this weak band of outlaws and rebels who seek to call themselves a government. I propose that we simply dismiss this gathering and leave it up to the military commanders.”
The august body stirred, bored. And they were an august body. Jewels glittered on the breathing masks of some. Brilliant cloth rippled as they moved. Some even wore crowns as tokens of the sovereign power they represented. Twenty-nine arbiters of the fates of sixteen universes, they were quite conscious of their power. They felt that if they so chose, they could flick this small and unimportant planet into eternity with no more than a careless gesture of a claw or finger tip. They were not really paying too much attention to Lord Schleim, but tittering and whispering to one another, possibly about trivial scandals that had occurred since last they saw one another. They were evidence, physically, of what happens when different genetic lines, moving up from different roots, became sentient.
Off to the side sat the small gray man. Another man, quite similar to himself but with a better-quality gray suit, had arrived. They were quietly watching Sir Robert. It was very plain they were not going to intervene or help further.
Sir Robert loathed courtiers. Weak and corrupt and dangerous– that had always been his opinion of this breed. His contempt, he counseled himself, must not show. “Shall we get on with this meeting?” he said.
The emissaries stirred. They muttered responses. Yes, let's complete the formalities. Must have come for something or other. Let's get it over and done with-I’ve a birthday party waiting for my pet lizard (a remark followed by laughter).
They had all shown their credentials earlier and these had been acknowledged by the group, all but Sir Robert's.