At Lord Bowen's invitation, I tried to talk to my friends, but they were all under the influence of the infernal machine. Tando insisted he was Baron Nycen, Tsang said he was Captain Ion, and Xato told me he was Count Hydron.

My host openly laughed and mocked my despair.

We went to another part of the ship where living quarters were. As we traversed the opulent halls, I asked about why I was there.

“It isn't clear to you?” Bowen asked.

“No,” I said. “your father had a clear purpose in that he wanted new blood to save his people. I can't imagine you want anything like that.”

“The only thing our people needed saving from was his incompetent leadership. What I need is players in my course of history. Only through the greatness of Lord Radon's own life can I hope to emulate it.”

“But you have plenty of people here to play it, including hostages!”

“Calm yourself, Renford. No one here is suffering, in fact they've never enjoyed themselves better. And I do have plenty of people, but more are needed all the time, otherwise the cast isn't complete.”

“Where do you intend to get more?”

“My father's city has quite a few. I thought we'd collect some later.”

I was about to reply to his outrageous statement when he closed and locked a door on me.

I found myself a prisoner, but not in a cold iron cell. The chamber Lord Bowen had locked me in was a restored stateroom of this ancient and barbarously luxurious vessel.

Hot under the collar and desperate to discover a way out of this quagmire, I searched all around the chamber and its adjoining rooms for something I could either use as a weapon or to get myself out of the room.

In my efforts I turned up many soft frilly items that might have seemed very pleasant under other circumstances, but nothing in the room or on my person seemed to be of any use against the solid riveted metal that formed the tight cage underneath it all.

After what might have been hours of searching and trying, at last I collapsed on the bunk and slept.

My dreams were memories of being back in Canada before being frozen in time. I remembered my time with Morninghawk, my old close companion, who dreamed of gold mining in Alaska. Even unconscious I had to wonder whether he'd made it and got the fortune he'd wanted.

He and I had spent many a long night in drinking or just talking, sometimes into early morning.

“Some men suffer a kind of subtle madness,” Morninghawk told me one morning over breakfast. “I'll give you an example. You know that overseer who sometimes comes into the bar? He appears jovial enough, but when he's on the job he becomes a real devil.”

“Do you mean he's strict with his men?” I asked him over bacon and coffee.

“No, a strict man merely has a cold adherence to rules. This fellow believes he is above the rules. He makes himself more important than he is, thinking that just maybe he'll be the boss of everything through force of will.”

I shrugged “So he's a tin Napoleon. There are a lot of those around. Some of them get elected to high office.”

Morninghawk brushed off his chair and sat, taking back the coffee pot “Sometimes they do, yes. But many times it proves to be the end of them.”

“Sure. They meet another fellow who is crazier than they are and somebody loses.”

“Or they become blind to their own faults and to everything around them, and they don't see danger for what it is anymore.”

I laughed and stole a piece of toast out of his hand “See? Danger, right in front of you!”

I awoke suddenly and wasn't sure why.

Then the thing repeated, it had been a voice “You there, wake up!”

At first I couldn't tell where the voice came from, then I looked up and saw a man leaning out of an open passage high on the wall.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Don't mind about me. You need to get out of here as soon as you can.”

I looked him over, he looked like one of those half-bred fellows like I'd met at Count Hassium's city, complete with silver pants. “Well, if that's going to happen you'll have to help me.”

“That's what I'm doing,” he lowered me a rope, “if you stay long enough for Bowen to assign you a roll from history you may never leave.”

I took hold of the rope and climbed up the wall to where he was “I figured that. He has all my friends here. Can we do anything about that?”

He shook his head “The odds are pretty poor, but the first thing to do in any case is to get you out of the cell.”

No sooner had I hoisted myself over the edge of the opening than did I hear the door to the chamber below open.

I looked down and saw two guards entering the room. At first they only looked around, but they must have heard me shuffling away from the opening in the small space above because they both looked up at once.

“Hey!” they shouted. “Come back down here!”

My new friend slammed the metal covering back over the hole and we scurried in near darkness in the crawl-passage between walls. I couldn't help but notice how dirty it was in there and I said as much.

“Most of the ship is like this,” he said to me as he led the way. “Bowen's men haven't refurbished most of it yet. It's barely in working order now.”

We rounded many turns and climbed up rusted ways to other levels. Although I couldn't hear anything in particular, I had a strong notion that the guards hadn't given up the chase. They had to be following somehow.

The man opened a panel in one crumbling metal wall, and we exited the crawl spaces into a large dim chamber. The room had many decks running up the walls, all coating in layers of rust and bathed in shadow. The only light came in through holes in the outer hull.

“Please,” I said. “What do I call you?”

“If you must, you can call me Pule. We really have to hurry and get you out of here, there are passages to the outside from here. They think the room is sealed, but...”

“Wait,” I walked up to a deck with a series of round portals on it, each with control levers to one side. “What are these things here?”

“Those used to be launch pods for escape,” Pule said impatiently. “They are most likely all broken, though, you can see what sad shape this place is in.” He tugged my arm, guiding me towards a breach in the wall, leading to what looked like a hollow space between layers of the hull.

“But, how many could one of those carry?”

“Maybe four, maybe six. Look, please don't worry about it now.”

I followed him, but I couldn't help but think that one of those launch pods, as he'd called them, could be awfully handy for getting my friends away.

“You sneak in and out of here pretty often?” I whispered to Pule.

He nodded, checking around the corner “Yes. Count Hassium had a party watching his son's activities here. I have been going back to their camp in the woods to report. I didn't come with the party, though, I was one of those that Bowen's people abducted.”

“You'd think they would just come in and put a stop to all this,” I said, trying not to trip over the various pipes and supports.

“Bowen's people are too numerous. They're loyal too.”

I stumbled a couple of times, in places there were tree-roots piercing the rusted out hull. I thought that I couldn't ever hope to get through there alone.

“Listen,” Pule said to me. “Should we become separated, head for the-”

Raygun fire came down from above like bolts of lightning!