A Wizard In Absentia Read online

  He expected a hot and outraged denial from the Countess and from Pelisse—but Matilda only looked away, her face pale, and Pelisse kept her gaze on the floor.

  The Count glanced from one to the other with a scowl. So, then, he had not been in on it. He turned to Magnus, starting to speak—but, afraid it might be an apology, Magnus beat him to it. "Quite ridiculous, I know, and really showing only my own conceit—after all, though I would not say I was handsome, I flatter myself that being tall, muscular, and having a certain amount of presence, might make me not altogether unappealing. But, as I say, this shows only my own arrogance . . . "

  "Indeed," Robert muttered.

  " . . . and after all," Magnus went on, "so beautiful a lady as Pelisse certainly could not be in love with me. Could you, Pelisse?"

  "No," Pelisse admitted, though she almost strangled on the word.

  Pain stabbed Magnus, even though he had already guessed the truth of it. But he kept his face grave and nodded. "No, of course not. I must ask your forgiveness, fair cousin, for having presumed to fantasize as much—but you are fair, after all, so I think I might be forgiven for a masculine weakness."

  "Of course," Pelisse said, managing to raise a haunted gaze to him.

  Robert stood silent and trembling, fists clenched, glaring hatred at Magnus.

  Magnus took it as tribute and fed his confidence off the other man's dislike. "Yes, quite ridiculous, all of it—beginning with the notion that I might wish to inherit."

  Instant consternation. All the minor relatives were talking at once; the Countess and Pelisse stared at him with huge, disbelieving eyes; and Robert's jaw dropped.

  "Come, now!" The Count raised a hand and waited till the tumult stilled, locking gazes with Magnus. When the room was still, he said, "Not wish to inherit? Turn your back on a billion-a-year business? Wealth and power, and a title with it? How could you not wish to inherit?"

  Angered though he was, Magnus wasn't quite vicious enough to tell the old man that he was no more interested in life imprisonment on a twenty-mile asteroid than the Count's own son had been. "Worldly considerations aside, sir, there is the matter of qualification for the position. I know little about robotics and nothing of modern industry; I haven't the slightest idea how to manage even one factory, let alone a whole complex. If I were to become Count, it would certainly be disastrous for d'Armand Automatons—and the good of the family is, after all, paramount." He thought he had done that rather neatly.

  But the Count waved these objections away. "You could learn, young man—and while you did, you would have excellent advisors. Have wealth and luxury no appeal to you?"

  "No more than to any man." Magnus chose his words carefully. "But I have another title waiting for me on my homeworld, and estates and wealth with it." He didn't bother saying that Rod's title was probably not hereditary—he was sure the lands were. Never mind that he would be expected to share them with his siblings—he wasn't all that sure that he wanted to inherit on Gramarye, either. "But I wish to see something more of the universe before I tie myself down to one place. I do not yet wish to rest."

  "You will, though," his great-uncle protested. "When you're tired of rambling, you will. And you'll have become addicted to the pleasures of the modern world. What of the inheritance then, eh?"

  Even now too polite to say that a mere asteroid would be too small for him, Magnus assured him, "I would find a way to carve out a niche for myself, as my father has done."

  "Quite sure of that, are you?" The Count looked doubtful, and he wasn't the only one.

  "Quite," Magnus confirmed. "In fact, I am so sure, that I will sign any documents you wish, relinquishing my claim to the title and the company."

  Everyone burst into disbelieving but delighted exclamations—except for the old Count. He kept his gaze on Magnus and rode out the hubbub. When it slackened, he raised a hand again, and gradually, the room stilled. "But what of your father?" the old man said then. "What of my nephew, eh? After all, he has the strongest claim of all. What assurance do we have that he will not show up seeking the title, eh?"

  Magnus just barely managed to choke back a bark of laughter. The High Warlock of Gramarye, give up his castle and estates, his title and his world, for nothing but a tastelessly opulent mansion on an airless asteroid, where the use of the psionic powers he had discovered would have to be exercised so discreetly as to be virtually undetectable? Give up a world for this?

  He didn't say that, of course. Gravely, he answered, "I cannot speak for my father; however, I very much doubt that Rod Gal—Rodney d'Armand will wish to give up his life's work and his world, to take over the family business. I do suspect that he will probably wish to see you again, sir, and his brother, no matter Uncle Richard's condition—but that he will not wish to stay. Assuming he can arrange transportation, that is."

  "Transportation?" The Count frowned. "How could he not? He had to have a ship to get where he is in the first place, didn't he?"

  Magnus felt a stab of guilt. "He did, sir, but he gave it to me, for my travels."

  "You mean he's trapped there?" The Count shook his head, muttering—but Magnus saw the flare of hope in Matilda's eyes. "We can't have that!" the old man said. "Have to find a way to send him a ship, yes. After all, he is family."

  "I will send an inquiry, sir," Magnus said politely, "and ask him for a formal abdication of rights to the claim—though I doubt that my father will be able to receive it"—again, the stab of guilt "without his ship, and its guiding robot."

  "But I do not wish to inherit!" Pelisse cried, then lowered her eyes instantly.

  "Pelisse!" her grandmother gasped, scandalized. Again, the Count held up a hand for silence. "What's this, Granddaughter? Not wish to inherit! But why?"

  "Why, because I don't know enough," Pelisse sobbed. "I don't, Grandmother! I've studied, I've learned as much as I can, I could design and build a robot from scratch, I know all the principles of management—but I'm frightened! I can't bear the thought of having to manage the company on my own, the thought of all the members of the family who might suffer if I make too many mistakes!" She looked up at Matilda through her tears. "Can't you understand that?"

  Matilda stood rigid—then, unexpectedly, thawed. She came over to her grandchild and put an arm around her shoulders. "Of course, dear, I understand—far better than you can know, in fact. But we must do what we're given to do—must do as well as we can, and hope, darling, only hope."

  "You will not want for good advice," the Count muttered.

  "But it is I who will have to decide!" Pelisse wailed.

  "You have said yourself that you have the knowledge." Magnus frowned. "It is support you need, not advice—emotional support, the knowledge that there is someone there to depend on, if you fail."

  "Of course!" Pelisse turned a tear-streaked face to him. "Now do you understand?"

  "Quite well." Magnus held himself still against a surge of anger, then turned to nod toward his rival. "But you will pardon me for suggesting that your cousin Robert might be willing to be the staff upon which you might lean. His knowledge of these affairs is certainly far greater than mine—and, unless I quite mistake him, he would be very willing indeed."

  Now it was Pelisse who froze.

  Matilda lifted her gaze slowly, seeking out Robert. He braced himself visibly, and bore up under her scrutiny.

  "So that is the way of it," Matilda murmured. "All the time, and right beneath my nose, too. Really, child, you might have told me."

  "But you don't approve of Robert," Pelisse mumbled.

  "As a liaison? Certainly not; he's far too wild. But as a husband? Well, when he has settled down—who can tell? I'll have to consider the matter—carefully."

  The Count turned a frosty glance on his kinsman. "I think you had better be done sowing your wild oats, young man, and very quickly, too."

  "Yes, sir," Robert said meekly.

  "I might also suggest," said Magnus, "that your uncle the professor might find
it possible, perhaps even desirable, to return to Maxima during the summers, when he is not preoccupied with teaching. What is his field?"

  "Why, robotics, of course," said the Count, frowning.

  Magnus restrained an urge to shout at him, and only smiled. "How perfect! Has he never asked d'Armand Automatons to test new ideas for him?"

  "Well, the occasional notion . . . "

  "He really should have you manufacture all his pilot models. After all, family is family. And I think you might find that he would be available for consultation even during his teaching terms, if his share of the family inheritance were contingent on his assistance. I was under the impression that consultancies enhanced a professor's prestige."

  "What an excellent idea!" The Count stared. "Really, young man, you might find you have a gift for this sort of thing, after all."

  "No, Great-uncle—only for intrigue. Which, as I've told you, permeated the very air I breathed as an infant." Magnus didn't mind the occasional exaggeration.

  But Matilda frowned. "You don't know the professor as we do, young man. I doubt that he would be willing to return to Maxima even for three months at a time."

  Somehow, Magnus found he could believe that. "Must be a way." The Count scowled. "After all, family is paramount, eh?"

  Magnus pursed his lips. "Perhaps I might talk to my academic cousin?"

  "Well—I suppose you might, if you were willing to go to Terra."

  "Has he no hyper-phone?"

  "Of course—but do you really think it will do any good?"

  "There is a possibility," Magnus said.

  Magnus adjourned with Matilda to the communications center of the household. Magnus, Fess's voice said in his mind, I hope you are not planning anything unethical.

  Is persuasion unethical? Magnus returned.

  It can be ethical or unethical, depending on your methods.

  Then observe my methods, and judge them when I am done, Magnus thought curtly. He didn't need his resident daemon to tell him that what he was contemplating was not completely proper. He sat with the Countess in the household's communication center. He glanced at the range of clocks above the communicator screen and noted the time in Boston, on the continent of North America. Eight o'clock in the evening—an excellent time for a family call. He glanced up at the Countess. "Will the connection be long in coming?"

  "Not terribly," Matilda answered, just as the glow of the screen broke into snow, then cleared as a pastel flower blossomed from the center outwards. Words came from the flower's center, swelling to fill the screen. You have connected with 27-14-30-260-339977AZ.

  Aunt Matilda nodded. "It is Roger's address." Magnus frowned. "Why does he not identify himself by name?"

  Matilda glanced at him with amusement and, yes, condescension, no matter how slight. "To guard against theft." She turned back to the screen, unaware that she had left Magnus wondering how a mere display of digits could be a charm against burglary. "Please inform Professor d'Armand that his stepmother is calling."

  Stepmother? Magnus concealed his surprise. Matilda was the Count's second wife, then. He wondered how that affected the succession.

  The display remained constant, but the music modulated into the word, "Affirmative."

  "Showy," Matilda muttered, "but cheap." Magnus didn't understand a bit of it, so he kept his face impassive.

  Then the flower faded from the screen, revealing the face of a middle-aged man, which hit Magnus with a shock. The second wife must have been a good twenty years younger than the first. He had thought it was illness that had made the Count look twenty years older than his wife, but now he realized it was simply time.

  The professor had a long, pallid face, and a guarded manner. The resemblance to the Count was unmistakable. "Matilda! What a pleasant surprise!"

  "And a pleasure to see you, Roger." There was real warmth under the Countess's reserve. "And let me relieve your mind before we go any further—your father is no worse, if no better."

  "Glad to hear the former, and sorry to hear the latter." Roger glanced toward Magnus. "Would I be right to infer that this young man is therefore the reason for your expending so much money for this call?"

  "He is my excuse," Matilda admitted. "Roger, meet your Cousin Magnus—Rodney's son."

  "Rodney! Then he still lives?" The professor turned to Magnus with a quickening of interest. "We had feared that he must have fallen prey to the hazards of his profession—a secret agent's life, and all that. Is your father well, young man?"

  "Yes, quite well." Magnus hid the shock of hearing his father described as a secret agent—but of course, that was what he was, though it was no longer his primary occupation. "I bring his greetings to all the family—but I must convey them to you in this fashion, since I do not expect to visit Terra." That wasn't quite true, but he was resolved to come nowhere near anyone else bearing the name "d'Armand."

  "I regret to hear it." The professor frowned. "You would enjoy Cambridge—it's something of an oasis amidst the desert of the modern world."

  "Is it really? I'm afraid I know so little of Terra." Even as he spoke, Magnus's mind was reaching out, following the tachyon beam inward past Mars' orbit, past Luna, seeking the mind so distant in the connection. He needed a bit more talk to have the feel of that mind, the signature, the insubstantial air that would make it distinct from all the other minds on Earth. "I gather that Cambridge is a city restricted to the pursuit of knowledge?"

  "You might say that." The professor smiled. "Though so many of our research institutions are allied with commerce now, that we might more accurately say that Cambridge is devoted to the business of knowledge."

  "What is the appearance of the town?"

  "A strange wording; I gather that your native idiom differs from my own." The professor gave him a keen look. "Well, young man, we specialize in old buildings and new postures, if that means anything to you."

  It meant more than he knew; Magnus had singled his mind out of the throng, and was letting his own consciousness filter through that of his cousin, feather-light, insubstantial, but gradually perceiving the world as the professor perceived it, soaking up his thoughts and memories. "My own world reveres the antique, Professor." That was putting it mildly—the whole culture had been modeled on an idealized view of the European Middle Ages. "It is an attitude with which I can sympathize."

  "Then you must come to Cambridge and discover it for yourself." The professor smiled again, still very much on his guard. "But surely you have not taken the time to contact me simply for a description of my city, young man."

  "No, but I have wished to meet you, and a discussion of the town in which you live gives me an additonal sense of your personality," Magnus answered. "I am embarked on a voyage of selfdiscovery, you see, and I have begun it by seeking out my roots, attempting to learn something of my father's people."

  "It is a process with which every professor is familiar—he is exposed to it so constantly." Roger's features softened, his guard lowering as he gained confidence and a sense of superiority over his young caller. "What have you learned thus far?"

  "That family is extremely important to all my relatives," Magnus returned, "frequently more important than their own welfare."

  The professor frowned, not liking this view of the topic. "And do you find this attitude healthy?"

  "It is certainly to the benefit of the family," Magnus returned, "and each individual's welfare seems to depend on that of the family. All in all, I find it conducive to the welfare of the individuals involved, yes."

  "But don't you also find it somewhat restrictive?" There was an undertone of the defensive there—Magnus pursued, and found the guilt from which it stemmed. As he talked, his mind softened the edge of that emotion, mellowing it into a feeling of obligation. "Quite restrictive, since I was born and raised on a planet not much smaller than Terra. When you have had a whole world to wander, or at least a very large island, you come to miss the outdoors."

  Matilda looked
up indignantly.

  "I came to miss it before I had experienced it," Roger said, with a smile.

  "Young men are always restless," the Countess said crisply, "and long to explore new environments. Isn't that so, Magnus?"

  "I live in witness to it." Magnus allowed himself a slight smile, but his mind was sifting through the memories that the conversation brought up in Roger's mind. "I cannot help but wonder what attractions there must be on your overcrowded Terra, to make you wish to stay there."

  The question brought a flood of emotions and memories, though the professor maintained a bland smile. Magnus probed delicately, following linkages of associations down to underlying attitudes. He worked very carefully; this wasn't really his gift, but he had witnessed his mother and sister doing it, and had even been on the receiving end once or twice, when he was sunk in apathy. Yes, the professor's dislike of Maxima was superficially due to a natural youthful wanderlust, but it endured for a deeper reason—what Magnus could only think of as an emotional claustrophobia, a feeling of suffocation under the presence and chatter of too many people in too small a space. Magnus examined more closely, and found memories of never-ending demands from the Countess, the Count, and a score of other relatives. Roger had been the one on whom everyone else had loaded the responsibility of recommending what to do with Uncle Richard; he had been the one who had had to support his father through the decline and death of his first wife. As one of the few really stable people in the family, he had always been the object of the others' emotional demands, had been the one who kept the rest of them functioning—and this before he was out of his teens! Magnus sympathized; in two short weeks, he had already begun to feel the attachment of those emotional tendrils, the conflicting pulls of several people at once. Nontheless, family came first—and if Cousin Roger wanted the financial benefits of d'Armand Automatons, he would have to shoulder some of the responsibility.