"Oh, I dunno," said Phronsie Gillis, pulling a dubious face.

"This exile has its hairy moments, but by and large I dig it.

You feel like boogying back, Bets?"

Mr. Betsy uttered a hollow chuckle. "Surely you jest."

"The Milieu is a benevolent despotism! To h.e.l.l with it!" said Pushface.

"Speak for yourself, joker," Chazz said. "I'd be at the head of the queue for a return ticket."

"How many of you," Aiken asked, "would go back?"

Eleven hands rose-and then a twelfth, from an eagle-beaked man who said, "Me too, King-if you and the friggerty Angel of the Abyss are planning a little war."

Phronsie Gillis gave him a thunderous scowl. "Any war that features ol' Marc the Paramount Bada.s.s Grand Master won't be little, n.a.z.ir! More likely it'll be terminal to the Pliocene Earth, and the Milieu'll end up never been born!"

"No, that can't happen," Dimitri interjected with pedantic insistence. "Contrary to popular superst.i.tion, so-called alternate universes or parallel s.p.a.ce-time lattices are impossible. One does not kill one's own grandfather and subsequently vanish!

No action here in the Pliocene can alter the primary reality of which the Milieu-and all future events, for that matter-is a manifestation. According to the universal field theory-"

"Stuff it, Dimitri," said Mr. Betsy.

A wrangle broke out, which Aiken cut off with another coercive slap. "Those of you who would go. How many are able to pilot the Tanu aircraft?"

Miss w.a.n.g, Phillipe, Bengt Sandvik, Farhat, Pongo Warburton, and Clifford raised their hands.

"How many pilots would stay here?"

Hands went up from Mr. Betsy, Taffy Evans, Thongsa, Pushface, and Stan Dziekonski.

The King fixed Mr. Betsy with a ruminative eye. "Just what did you do back in the Galactic Milieu?"

Betsy drew himself up in an att.i.tude of stubborn hauteur.

Basil quickly said, "Dr. Hudspeth was a researcher and test pilot with Boeing's Commercial Rhocraft Division."

"I'll be gormed," murmured the Nonborn King. His gaze roamed over the rest of the a.s.sembled crew and the adventurers stiffened, feeling redactive probes invading their memories, trying in vain to shut the mental windows that the grey torcs had opened into their brains.

"An Oxford don who climbs mountains," Aiken mused wonderingly. "A third engineer on a tramp starfreighter ... a surgeon who did one microtomy operation too many ... an upsilon-field generator designer for G-Dyn c.u.mberland ... an egg-bus maintenance mechanic ... an Eskimo electronics engineer ... too bad there's no metallurgist ... "

When the King withdrew his scrutiny, Basil said, "Sir, we have been told that you bear us no ill will. Your deputy, Ochal the Harper, described you as a just and worthy ruler-given a few human eccentricities."

Aiken laughed.

Basil continued persistently. "You have tantalized us with visions of a return to the Milieu and frightened us by suggesting that the Pliocene might be the scene of a renewed Metapsychic Rebellion. You have rummaged in our brains in a desultory fashion, and I presume that you will interrogate us more stringently in good time, in order to learn the location of the other exotic flying machines-"

"Oh, I know that," Aiken said. "Cloud Remillard told me."

"Then tell us what you intend to do with us," the don demanded. "Are we to remain enslaved? Are we mere p.a.w.ns in your dealings with the young rebels?"

Aiken leaned back in the throne of intricately carved and gilded wood. It was a trophy, stolen centuries ago from the Firvulag by some Tanu Hunt, and the back was surmounted by a shining lion guardant with chrysoberyl eyes. Ignoring Basil's questions, the King pointed to a man who stood apart from the rest, whose dreaming face was framed by a ginger beard and who wore a surtout of crimson over a chainmail shirt.

"You aren't one of Basil's b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," Aiken said. "Who are you?"

"Only a madman," said Dougal, "seeking the saviour."

"Dougal's quite harmless," said Basil.

"Mad?" The King seemed puzzled. "Is that why I can't probe your brain?"

"Perhaps," said Dougal. "Or there might be another reason."

Aiken lifted one eyebrow. "And would you like to go home to the Galactic Milieu, Sir Dougal the Mad?"

"Sire-I am, as thou, at war 'twixt will and will not."

"Ah," said the King. He arose from the throne and went to the long table where the food and drink were arrayed. He helped himself to more iced tea from a faceted crystal urn and began to poke through the plates of cakes, biscuits, and finger sandwiches. He said, "The adult children of Marc Remillard's rebels have defied parental authority by coming to Europe. The elders are on their way here via windjammer, h.e.l.l-bent to stop the kids from building the Guderian device."

"If it were done when 'tis done," said Dougal, "then 'twere well it were done quickly."

Aiken blinked at him, then said, "Cloud and Hagen originally intended to make a pact with Nodonn. Now, of course, they've set their sights on Me. They want not only the exotic aircraft, but the lot of you to fly and maintain them. The fleet is to be used for toting them and their equipment about as they gather materials for the time-warper. I understand some of the rarer elements will have to be located through aerial surveys, then mined and refined on the spot."

"And you intend to cooperate," Basil stated.

Aiken popped a square of shortbread into his mouth and munched it up. "I have strategic reasons for doing so. And I want you to help me to help these young rebels."

"It's Hobson's choice we have," Taffy complained, "collared with these f.u.c.kin' torcs!"

Aiken sipped his tea with bowed head. "Alas, my friends-I face a certain dilemma there. Try to appreciate my position. I want this time-gate built and so do about half of you ... so you say. But what if those who don't want to return to the Milieu get sick and tired of the gate-building scheme and do a flit-or perhaps scarper with some of the aircraft? That could jeopardize the entire operation. We have too few pilots and ground-crew folks as it is, and I'd hate to lose any of you." He smiled in a winning fashion.

"You intend to keep us torced, then," said Basil.

"Until the time-gate's finished. But I promise that you won't be coerced or punished through them if you behave reasonably.

Now how does that strike you?"

"We'll end up having to fight off that monster, Marc Remillard!" Mr. Betsy cried. "When he arrives with his pack of metapsychic felons, those of us piloting the aircraft will face heaven knows what kind of mechanical and mental zappery!"

"We'll have weapons of our own, and we also have some sigmas that can be installed on the ships," Aiken said. "And there are such things as mental screens against mind-blasts."

"I'm sure I wouldn't know," the rhocraft engineer retorted.

Aiken grinned. "I keep forgetting. You don't know Me very well." He set down the tea tumbler and strolled back to the throne, where he struck a pose. "Let me give you a small demonstration of what it takes to be King of the Many-Coloured Land."

He stood quietly for a moment, eyes closed. Then the lids lifted and his mind's fire seemed to look out through the deep orbits. His hair stood out, lit by dancing sparks, and the gla.s.s coronet shone with an inner fluorescence. A webwork of crawling violet and amber lightnings poured down from his shoulders to his feet, sheathing his body as though he had become a living electrode. The web coalesced into a blazing nimbus, and about his head was a veritable mane of golden flames, reflecting off the gilt-wood carving of the lion above the throne. He lifted both hands and held miniature suns, and seemed to grow in stature until he towered incandescent against the ceiling beams and threatened to ignite the Firvulag trophy banners hung there.

Waves of coercion and psychocreative force oscillated in the room. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds' minds seemed filled with crashing sonorities. They were transfixed, enthralled by the apotheosis.