I dreamt. I was at the seashore, and the sun reflected from the glassy water. It flashed in my eyes, and I turned away. I twisted in the chair, opened my eyes. My head was thick.
I stared at the pale green walls of the room, across the grey-green rug. It was silent in the room and I didn’t move. The door stood open.
I remembered turning the light off, nothing more. Someone had turned it on; someone had opened the door. I had come as a killer in the night; and someone had found me here sleeping, betrayed by my own exhaustion.
I sat up, and in that instant realized I was not alone. I turned my head, and looked at the man who sat quietly in the chair on my left, leaning back with his legs thrust out stiffly before him, his hands lightly gripping the arms of a rosewood chair upholstered in black leather. He smiled, and leaned forward. It was like looking into a mirror.
I didn’t move. I stared at him. His face was thinner than mine, more lined. The skin was burned dark, the hair bleached lighter by the African sun; but it was me I looked at. Not a twin, not a double, not a clever actor; it was myself sitting in a chair, looking at me.
“You have been sleeping soundly,” he said. I thought of hearing my voice on a tape recorder, except this voice spoke in flawless French.
I moved my hand slightly; my gun was still there, and the man I had come to kill sat not ten feet away, alone, unprotected. But I didn’t move. I wasn’t ready, not yet. Maybe not ever.
“Are you rested enough,” he said, “or will you sleep longer before we talk?”
“I’m rested,” I said.
“I do not know how you came here,” he said, “but that you are here is enough. I did not know what gift the tide of fortune would bring me, but there could be no finer thing than this—a brother.”
I didn’t know what I had expected the Dictator Bayard to be—a sullen ruffian, a wild-eyed megalomaniac, a sly-eyed schemer. But I had not expected a breathing image of myself, with a warm smile, and a poetic manner of speech, a man who called me brother.
He looked at me with an expression of intense interest.
“You speak excellent French, but with an English accent,” he said. “Or is it perhaps American?” He smiled. “You must forgive my curiosity. Linguistics, accents, they are a hobby of mine and, in your case, I am doubly intrigued.”
“American,” I said.
“Amazing,” he said. “I might have been born an American myself…but that is a long dull tale to tell another time.”
No need, I thought. My father told it to me often, when I was a boy.
He went on, his voice intense, but gentle, friendly. “They told me, when I returned to Algiers ten days ago, that a man resembling myself had been seen here in the apartment. There were two men found in my study, quite dead. There was a great deal of excitement, a garbled report. But I was struck by the talk of a man who looked like me. I wanted to see him, talk to him; I have been so very much alone here. It was a thing that caught my imagination. Of course, I did not know what brought this man here; they even talked of danger…” He spread his hands in a Gallic gesture.
“But when I came into this room and found you here, sleeping, I knew at once that you could not have come but in friendship. I was touched, my friend, to see that you came here on your own, entrusting yourself to my hands.”
I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t try.
“When I lit the lamp and saw your face, I knew at once that this was more than some shallow impersonation; I saw my own face there, not so worn by war as my own, the lines not so deeply etched. But there was the call of blood to blood; I know you for my brother.”
I licked my lips, swallowed. He leaned forward, placed his hand over mine, gripped it hard, then leaned back in his chair with a sigh.
“Forgive me again, brother. I fall easily into oratory, I fear; a habit I should do well to break. There is time enough for plans later. But now, will you tell me of yourself? I know you have in you the blood of the Bayards.”
“Yes, my name is Bayard.”
“You must have wanted very much to come to me, to have made your way here alone and unarmed. No one has ever passed the wall before, without an escort and many papers.”
I couldn’t sit here silent, but neither could I tell this man anything of my real purpose in coming. I reminded myself of the treatment the Imperial ambassadors had received at his hands, of all that Bale had told me that first morning in the meeting with Bernadotte. But I saw nothing here of the ruthless tyrant I expected. Instead, I found myself responding to his spontaneous welcome.
I had to tell him something. My years of diplomatic experience came to my assistance once again. I found myself lying smoothly.
“You’re right in thinking I can help you, Brion,” I said. I was startled to hear myself calling him by his first name so easily, but it seemed the natural thing to do.
“But you’re wrong in assuming that your state is the only surviving center of civilization. There is another, a strong, dynamic, and friendly power, which would like to establish amicable relations with you. I am the emissary of that government.”
“But why did you not come to me openly? The course you chose, while daring, was of extreme danger; but it must be that you were aware of the treachery all about me, and feared that my enemies would keep you from me.”
He seemed so eager to understand that he supplied most of his own answers. This seemed an opportune moment to broach the subject of the Bale’s two agents who had carried full diplomatic credentials, and who had been subjected to beating, torture, and death. It was a contradiction in the dictator’s character I wanted to shed a little light on.
“I recall that two men sent to you a year ago were not well received,” I said. “I was unsure of my reception. I wanted to see you privately, face to face.”
Bayard’s face tensed. “Two men?” he said. “I have heard nothing of ambassadors.”
“They were met first by a Colonel-General Yang.” I said, “and afterward were interviewed by you personally.”
Bayard’s face went red. “There is a dog of a broken officer who leads a crew of cut-throats in raids on what pitiful commerce I have been able to encourage. His name is Yang. If he has molested a legation sent to me from your country, I promise you his head.”
“It was said that you yourself shot one of them,” I said, pressing the point.
Bayard gripped the arm of the chair, his eyes on my face.
“I swear to you by the honor of the House of Bayard that I have never heard until this moment of your Embassy, and that no harm came to them through any act of mine.”
I believed him. I was starting to wonder about a lot of things. He seemed sincere in welcoming the idea of an alliance with a civilized power. And yet, I myself had seen the carnage done by his raiders at the palace, and the atom bomb they had tried to detonate there.
“Very well,” I said. “On behalf of my government, I accept your statement; but if we treaty with you now, what assurance will be given to us that there will be no repetition of the bombing raids?”
“Bombing raids!” He stared at me. There was a silence.
“Thank God you came to me by night, in secret,” he said. “It is plain to me now that control of affairs has slipped from me farther even than I had feared.”
“There have been seven raids, four of them accompanied by atomic bombs, in the past year,” I said. “The most recent was less than one month ago.”
His voice was deadly now. “By my order, every gram of fissionable material known to me to exists was dumped into the sea on the day that I established this state. That there were traitors in my service, I knew; but that there were madmen who would begin the horror again, I did not suspect.”
He turned and stared across the room at a painting of sunlight shining through leaves onto a weathered wall. “I fought them when they burned the libraries, melted down the Cellini altar pieces, trampled the Mona Lisa in the ruins of the Louvre. I could save only a fragment here, a remnant there, always telling myself that it was not too late. But the years passed and they have brought no change.
“There has been an end to industry, farming, family life. Even with the plenty that lies about us for the taking, men fight over three things: gold, liquor, and women.
“I have tried to arouse a spirit of rebuilding against the day when even the broken storehouses run dry; but it’s useless. Only my rigid martial rule holds them in check.
“I will confess. I had lost hope. There was too much decay all around me. In my own house, among my closest advisors, I heard nothing but talk of armament, expeditionary forces, domination, renewed war against the ruins outside our little island of order. Empty war, meaningless overlordship of dead nations. They hoped to spend our slender resources in stamping out whatever traces might remain of human achievement, unless it bowed to our supremacy.”
When he looked at me I thought of the expression, “Blazing eyes.”
“Now my hole springs up renewed,” he said. “With a brother at my side, we will prevail.”
I thought about it. The Imperium had given me full powers. I might as well use them.
“I think I can assure you,” I said, “that the worst is over. My government has resources; you may ask for whatever you need—men, supplies, equipment. We ask only one thing of you—friendship and justice between us.”
He leaned back, closed his eyes. “The long night is over,” he said.
There were still major points to be covered, but I felt sure that Bayard had been grossly misrepresented to me, and to the Imperial government. I wondered how Imperial Intelligence had been so completely taken in and why. Bale had spoken of having a team of his best men here, sending a stream of data back to him.
There was also the problem of my transportation back to Zero Zero world of the Imperium. Bayard hadn’t mentioned the MC shuttles. In fact, thinking over what he had said, he talked as though they didn’t exist. Perhaps he was holding out on me, in spite of his apparent candor.
Bayard opened his eyes. “There has been enough of gravity for now,” he said. “I think that a little rejoicing between us would be appropriate. I wonder if you share my liking for an impromptu feast on such occasion?”
“I love to eat in the middle of the night,” I said, “especially when I’ve missed my dinner.”
“You are a true Bayard,” he said. He reached to the table beside me and pressed a button. He leaned back and placed his finger tips together.
“And so now we must think about the menu.” He pursed his lips, looking thoughtful. “Tonight, permit me to select the menu,” he said. “We will see if our tastes are as similar as ourselves.”
“Fine,” I said.
There was a tap at the door. At Brion’s call, it opened and a sour-faced fiftyish little man came in. He saw me, started; then his face blanked. He crossed to the dictator’s chair, drew himself up, and said, “I came as quick as I could, Major.”
“Fine, fine, Luc,” he said. “At ease. My brother and I are hungry. We have a very special hunger, and I want you, Luc, to see to it that our dinner does the kitchen credit.”
Luc glanced at me from the corner of his eyes. “I see the gentleman resembles the Major somewhat,” he said.
“An amazing likeness. Now—” he stared at the ceiling. “We will begin with a very dry Madeira, I think; Sercial, the 1875. Then we will whet our appetites with Les Huitres de Whistable, with a white Burgundy; Chablis Vaudesir. I think there is still a bit of the ‘29.”
I leaned forward. This sounded like something special indeed. I had eaten oysters Whitstable before, but the wines were vintages of which I had only heard.
“The soup, Consomme Double aux Cepes; then Le Supreme de Brochet au Beurre Blanc, and for our first red Burgundy, Romanee-Conti, 1904.”
Brion ran through the remainder of a sumptuous menu. Luc went away quietly. If he could carry that in his head, he was the kind of waiter I’d always wanted to find.
“Luc has been with me for many years,” Brion said. “A faithful friend. You noticed that he called me ‘Major.’ That was the last official rank I held in the Army of France-in-Exile, before the collapse. I was later elected as Colonel over a regiment of survivors of the Battle of Gibraltar when we had realized that we were on our own. Later still, when I saw what had to be done, and took into my hands the task of rebuilding, other titles were given me by my followers, and I confess I conferred one or two myself; it was just necessary psychological measure, I felt. But to Luc I have always remained ‘Major.’ He himself was a sous-officer, my regimental Sergeant-Major.”
“I know little about events of the last few years in Europe,” I said. “Can you tell me something about them?”
He sat thoughtfully for a moment. “The course was steadily downhill,” he said, “from the day of the unhappy Peace of Munich in 1919. America faced the Central Powers alone, and the end was inevitable. When America fell under the massive onslaught in ‘32, it seemed that the Kaiser’s dream of a German-dominated world was at hand. Then came the uprisings. I held a Second Lieutenant’s commission in the Army of France-in-Exile. We spearheaded the organized resistance, and the movement spread like wild-fire. Men, it seemed, would not live as slaves. We had high hopes in those days.
“But the years passed, and stalemate wore away at us. At last the Kaiser was overthrown by a palace coup, and we chose that chance to make our last assault. I led my battalion on Gibraltar, and took a steel-jacketed bullet through both knees almost before we were ashore.
“I will never forget the hours of agony while I lay conscious in the surgeons’ tent. There was no more morphine, and the medical officers worked over the minor cases, trying to get men back into the fight; I was out of it and therefore took last priority. It was reasonable, but at the time I did not understand.”
I listened, rapt. “When,” I asked, “were you hit?”
“That day I will not soon forget,” he said. “April 15, 1945.”
I stared. I had been hit by a German machine gun slug at Jena and had waited in the aid station for the doctors to get to me—on April 15, 1945. There was a strange affinity that linked this other Bayard’s life with mine, even across the unimaginable void of the Net.
We finished the 1855 brandy, and still we sat, talking through the African night. We laid ambitious plans for the rebuilding of civilization. We enjoyed each other’s company, and all stiffness had long since gone. I closed my eyes, and I think I must have dozed off. Something awakened me.
Dawn was lightening the sky. Brion sat silent, frowning. He tilted his head.
“Listen.”
I listened. I thought I caught a faint shout and something banged in the distance. I looked inquiringly at my host. His face was grim.
“All is not well,” he said. He gripped the chair arms, rose, got his canes, started around the table.
I got up and stepped forward through the glass doors into the room. I was dizzy from the wine and brandy. There was a louder shout outside in the hall and a muffled thump. Then the door shook, splintered and crashed inward.
Thin in a tight black uniform, Chief Inspector Bale stood in the opening, his face white with excitement. He carried a long-barrelled Mauser automatic pistol in his right hand. He stared at me, stepped back, then with a sudden grimace raised the gun and fired.
In the instant before the gun slammed, I caught a blur of motion from my right, and then Brion was there, half in front of me, falling as the shot echoed. I grabbed for him, caught him by the shoulders as he went down, limp. Blood welled from under his collar, spreading; too much blood, a life’s blood. He was looking into my face as the light died from his eyes.