(eng) Mack Reynolds by Perchance to Dream

Author:Perchance to Dream [Dream, Perchance to]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Princeton—Kingsley Cusack

He was getting more used to his awakening after a programmed dream. There was not quite the psychological aftereffects that he had first suffered. But, for that matter, there hadn't been quite as much to experience.

He disengaged himself from the electrodes and left the box and, as usual, sat in the academician's swivel chair at the desk to gather his thoughts.

He had spent most of the eight hours of the dream riding at breakneck speed from Volsini south, so that by the time he reached Sutri both horses were on the verge of collapse, though he had twice switched back and forth. He traded the mounts for two fresh ones and continued the ride, taking time only to snatch at food and wine. It was there that the dream ended. All during the ride, there had been practically nothing in the mind of Horatius, save his father's health and, more pressing still, the need to get to Rome and volunteer to be Carmenta's guard, so that he could prevent her from talking and revealing that he had been her seducer.

Well, at least he had acquired more of the accumulated memories of Horatius which included a wealth of material about several of the major Etruscan cities he had visited with the Tarquin embassy.

He got up and went on into the dining room and ordered his meal, impatient to get to his notes.

The food finished, he returned to the sanctum and sat before the vocotyper. He particularly wanted to record one scene in which Horatius with his father, Celer, had confronted the rex, Tarquin. Kingsley wanted to get as much of that down on paper as possible. In actuality the event preceded the battle that had taken place near Tibur, but it was still quite clear in his mind.

He spoke into the vocotyper's receiver carefully.

It was the first time Horatius had met his rex and he was impressed. Tarquin Superbus used the Regia for his conferences and there the two found him, seated behind a table where he worked with various clerks and assistants. A lictor announced them and Tarquin looked up as though irritated by the interruption, but he answered the salute Celer Horatius gave him as commander in chief of the forces of the city. Tarquin said something to the clerks, who gathered up the materials they had been working on and left the room, leaving the two alone with the rex.

At this time of his life, Lucius Tarquin Superbus was an old man, though he was hale and carried himself straight. He was approximately seventy years of age, although he still rode before his armies in the field and was not beyond engaging in the thickest of the battle. But the years of pressure and responsibility had soured him and young Horatius found that he could not warm to the man despite the fact that, as rex, he wasHoratius' ultimate commander.

Celer introduced the younger man simply. "My son, Phipe Horatius Codes, who assumed the toga but yesterday."

Tarquin

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