DAN WAS SEATED AT a small portatable near the suite window, absently staring out at the simulated sea. A tray of food rested on the table. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he was saying.
Nancy was seated at a similar table nearby, ignoring her meal. “No, everything makes sense,” she said, “eventually. Sometimes, though, you have to think about it for a while.”
“I don’t know—for a long time now I’ve had the feeling that there was something that my father wasn’t telling me,” he said. “Maybe he’s known that my mother, if what you say is true ... He trailed off, pushing back his chair and standing.
“I’m afraid it is true, everything I told you, Dan.”
“But that means she’s been lying to me.” He stood close to the window, forehead almost touching it. “Lying about why we came to England, about what she’s doing ... Shit, about everything.”
“Most parents lie. Ours, it turns out, happen to be especially good at it.”
The door to the suite whispered open. Jake came in, dragging a stungunned guard. “Dan, are you okay?”
Dan remained where he was, mouth open. “Dad, how’d you get here?”
“I used my wits ... and when that didn’t work, I used a stungun.”
“I was hoping you’d find us.”
“We have to get out of here quickly,” said Jake as the door closed behind him. He propped the unconscious man against the wall. “I’ve been damn lucky so far, but we better move now. Detailed explanations can come later.”
“I figured you’d come looking for me.” Running across the room, he hugged his father.
Jake hugged back. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Nancy has to come, too.” His son stepped back. “She isn’t—”
“I can’t stay here, Mr. Cardigan.” She had left the table. “You have no reason to trust me, I know, but—”
“We’ll thrash that out later,” he told her. “Right now we have to leave.”
The door slid open again. Kate Cardigan came into the room. Her face was pale, frowning. “None of you is going to leave,” she told them. In her right hand she held a lazgun.
Natalie awakened.
Directly in front of her, taking up nearly one entire wall of the large room she found herself in, was a vast animated painting of the original King Arthur. The handsome, bearded monarch was seated at his Round Table with a sampling of his knights.
The reporter was seated in a metal chair and her right arm hurt. Standing beside her, she noticed now, was Hilda Danenberg.
The doctor was holding a hypogun. “Don’t try to stand for a few minutes,” she advised. “I just gave you an injection to revive you. That silly woman had her stungun set far too high. You’d have been unconscious for a good day at least.”
“How long,” asked Natalie, her voice slurred and not quite her own, “have I been out?”
“Oh, not very long.”
Across the room Natalie spotted Sidebar. He was lying immobile, flat on his back and not functioning. “Why’d you revive me so soon?”
“I wished to talk to you,” explained the doctor. “And so does Mr. Pettiford.”
“Well, yes, I surely do.” A tall, lanky man had been standing behind Natalie’s chair. He came around into view, smiling thinly. “We want to know, for instance, how many spies and saboteurs you brought up here with you.”
“I don’t, unlike your crony here, hang around with spies and such,” Natalie assured him. “I happen to be an accredited reporter for Newz, and as I’m sure you must be fully aware, you people have seriously violated my rights as—”
“What about Jake Cardigan?” asked Dr. Danenberg.
“Last I heard, he was in London,” the reporter answered. “I do now and then, not by choice I can assure you, bump into his boorish partner, a fellow named Gomez, but truly, I have no official connection with the Cosmos Detective Agency whatsoever.”
Pettiford inquired, “Didn’t this Gomez come along with you to the Caribbean Colony?”
“I’m afraid I’m not exactly clear as to who you are.” Natalie frowned. “Which of the lunatic groups do you—”
“Well, yes, I can fill you in. I’m a Senior Knight First Class in the Excalibur Movement,” answered the lanky man. “That means I’m one of the heads of the whole—”
“That’s fine. Maybe I can interview you sometime.” Natalie attempted to stand. “As you ought to know, my sole and only reason for coming up to this tacky paradise was in order to prepare an interview with the self-proclaimed King Arthur II.” She was managing to stay on her feet. “Since you Excalibur people presumably support him and his claims, I would have thought you’d be grateful for any publicity I provide him. Instead, you seem intent on keeping me a virtual prisoner and—”
“We’ve had more than enough of your inane babbling.” Angry, Dr. Danenberg reached out and slapped her.
Natalie cried out and took a few steps away from her chair. “Smacking a newsperson is not a—”
“Who came here with you?”
“I came alone.” Natalie, legs shaky, crossed to where her disabled robot lay. “Of course I was accompanied by Sidebar. But since he’s a robot and not a person, I don’t imagine you want to count him. So ... She brought up a hand to her forehead, swaying. “Darn, I’m a lot dizzier than I thought.” Dropping to her knees, she slumped across the robot.
Slipping one hand unobtrusively across the robot’s chest, Natalie tapped the button that opened the compartment concealed in his side. There was a compact stungun stowed there.
“We already frisked your cameraman,” said Dr. Danenberg, impatience sounding in her voice. “We have the stungun, dear.”
“That’s okay, amigos,” announced Gomez as he came in by way of a side door. “I have one of my own.”