“Win a smile from a stranger and you’ve got the beginning of a friendship.”     B. E. S.

Captain Barker Swung through the open hatch and brushed aside the two armed guards. From the look on the Captain’s face, Besh half expected to be struck. The man was large and his bushy salt and pepper beard did little to hide the scars on his face. The Captain took a stance directly in front of Besh and placed his fists on his hips. The hopeful smile that Besh proffered, like an early bloom, wilted beneath the Captain’s angry glare.

“So, you’re the stow-a-way,” he snapped. “What’s your name?”

Besh felt a certain amount of pressure. The threat registered but it was nothing he hadn’t faced before. His reply was calm and polite.

He said, “Ben Shuller, sir.”

The Captain leaned forward and snarled his response. “Sir? Do I look like a goddamned knight? I’m the Captain of this ship! Captain Barker.”

The youngest armed guard snickered until the Captain wheeled on him and stared him down. The mirth on the young man’s face quickly evaporated. For an armed man to be so intimidated spoke silent volumes to Besh. He cleared his throat and braced himself. Captain Barker returned his attention to Besh with a narrowed gaze. He crossed his muscular arms and studied the stow-a-way with peaked disregard. When he spoke again, the harsh edge of his anger was gone.

“Well, Mr. Shuller,” said the Captain in a calculating tone that grated like iron on iron, “do you have any idea how much of our resources you’ve squandered?”

“No, sir . . . I mean, Captain.”

“Nor do I but you will pay for every bit of it while you fester in the penal colony on Slag Island.”

Besh swallowed hard. He had no liking for prisons. The unarmed crewman who held Besh by one arm gripped the confiscated shoulder bag in his right hand. He extended it for the Captain who snapped it up and peered within. Besh used the quiet moment to consider the short ride. The Relay was an aligned system of jump portals called The Net. A large cargo ship, such as the one he was on, could make a planet run in less than a week. Besh had been aboard the Colonial Harbinger for only two and a half days. The Captain found nothing in the bag and tossed it back to the crewman. He looked around for a place to sit and the younger armed guard hastily pulled a crate over. Once seated, the Captain spoke again.

“What brings you to Pendragon?”

Besh cleared his throat and answered. “A friend asked for my assistance.”

“It may help if someone can vouch for you,” conceded the Captain. “What’s this friend’s name?” He readied his wrist communicator.

Besh answered, “David Loughty of Central City.”

The Captain spoke into his device. “Ship Com, give me an open line to David Loughty in Central City. Place on cabin speakers.”

The familiar burbling noise of ship to planet communication filled the cabin. A pert female voice answered. “Good day Captain Barker. How may I direct your call?”

“I need a David Loughty to vouch for a Mr. Ben Shuller.”

The female voice disappeared abruptly. An enveloping silence filled the cabin long enough to furrow the Captain’s bushy eyebrows. Then an official male voice came smartly across the cabin speakers. “Hello. The King is indisposed at the moment but a Mr. Ben Shuller is on his list of appointments. Please be sure to deliver him to Round Table Court by eleven hundred hours. Oh, and if the King’s friend has incurred any expenses, bring your tally to the secretarial office on the mezzanine.” The connection ended.

The Captain gaped at his wrist communicator. The crewman loosed his grip and returned the multicolored shoulder bag to Besh. The guards, with nothing better to do, stood at attention as the Captain cleared his throat and stood to face the friend of King David.

Besh loitered in the Captain’s cabin after being allowed to clean up. He had to admit, being the King’s friend had its advantages. The crewman who had returned his bag, Raul was his name, knocked at the door. Besh slipped the strap of the bag over his shoulder, hitched up his belt, and touched the pad that opened the door. As Besh looked at the young man, he noticed a few things he had not to begin with. Raul was of mixed race, sporting short blond hair and a small black mustache, but the thing he noticed over all the rest was the young man’s friendly smile.

“Ah, Raul,” said Besh happily. “Your timing is impeccable. Is the Captain ready?”

“Yessir,” came the young man’s reply.

Besh slipped through the narrow door and placed a hand on the crewman’s shoulder. He proffered his best smile, gave a sage pat to the lanky crewman’s back, and said, “Well, my good man, lead the way.”

Besh stood beside the Captain who was dressed to the nines in a blue uniform, his Captain’s cap with its brass Trauler Captain Insignia gleaming in the morning sun. His tunic, with black lapels, bore the customary white shoulder braid, medals, and pins of a seasoned Captain. A white seam ran the length of his pressed trousers which fell smartly above dress shoes buffed to a mirror-like shine. There was a distant look in the Captain’s eyes as he gazed toward his traul on the tarmac. With a gentle breeze blowing in from the sea, Besh followed the Captain’s gaze. Maintenance men in orange jumpsuits ran frantically, but professionally, about in service to the traul. On the outer hull was the worn name of the craft, Spiral Traul Colonial Harbinger.

Besh let his eyes wander beyond the traul. Out beyond the crylosite wave barriers, beyond the docks, the fishing dinghies, electric skiffs, and pleasure sails, he noticed a large passenger liner, gray in the distance, some eight stories high. The pleasant call of gulls was put to sea by the Captain’s sigh. Besh turned to him.

“She’s dinged in a thousand places and spayed to make room for net-hugging engines, but she’s my old girl and I’m proud of her,” said the Captain.

Besh responded sympathetically, “Dents and pride, that’s the way of it.”

Barker expanded the thought, “You lose your hull paint in a life-long shower of cosmic dust but there’s no diminishing the pride.” Then he turned and changed the subject of their conversation with a broad and meaty hand firmly to the back. “Sorry about earlier, you know, just being a Captain.”

Besh replied with a broad smile, “Oh no, Captain. It’s all on me. I prefer to ask, but I was in a pinch. I guess thumbing and bumming are in my blood.”

“It’s Sam,” said the Captain with a crooked smile. “Anyway, you ever need anything, you just give me a call.”

They turned to view the capital. The golden city was resplendent. There was hustle and bustle with plenty to spare. Electric trolleys dashed recklessly between buses and larger delivery vehicles. Airships, large and small, clogged the city air lanes. Beyond it all sat the Palatial Palace, in grand competition with the vaulting snow-capped mountains. It was a breathtaking view. Besh had not seen the completed palace on his previous visit, but he well remembered those majestic peaks. Besh turned back to the Captain.

The Captain cocked his cap back with a forefinger, smiled, and asked, “Shall we?”

His right leg always hurt. It was especially painful in advance of wet weather. With a wince, King David raised himself from the cushioned seat in his private room, laying aside his work tablet and dropping his headset. Being tall, he thought, just made it that much further to reach a fully erect posture. Beside his seat was his Excalibur walking cane. It had been a gift from his kitchen staff on his last birthday. It was nothing fancy or expensive but it was made to resemble a sword and was crafted with glass gems. David loved it nonetheless. It still made him smile. With cane in hand, he walked to the single door that accessed the royal garden.

As indoor gardens go, it was a bit overgrown but David liked it that way. The central trellis ran floor to ceiling, effectively cutting the garden in half. Morning Glories covered the trellis and gave privacy to the Queen. David sat on a marble bench beneath the colorful flowers and laid his cane across his lap. He rubbed a leaf between his thumb and forefinger. There was another marble bench just opposite the one on which he sat. It was a place from which his wife sometimes spoke to him. He wondered if she sat there. Since Albert left, she had been especially distant.

He called low through the trellis, “Elisabeth? Dear. Are you there?”

His call was met with silence. He felt sad and small. He felt alone. Why did she blame him? He hung his head with a sigh and toyed with the hilt of his cane. Albert was in his teens, he thought. Teens were that way, he thought. He was just off pouting somewhere. A King should be able to speak his mind, he thought. A King should be able to command not only his Kingdom but his family. David felt like a make-believe King? The argument was unfortunate; ill-timed. He didn’t really remember why they had argued but the Queen held him accountable for her son’s disappearance and none of the best trackers had yet to find him. The situation just got worse by the day.

“Dear,” he said, “I have some news.”

Not a sound.

“Besh is here,” he quietly continued. “He will be with us soon.”

The King listened for a moment then stood with a sigh. He missed his wife. How long would she punish him, he wondered? Might he ever feel her in his arms again? Decidedly, life was just empty without Elisabeth. Her smile meant the world to him. And he knew it; the only solution to this fiasco was to find his son and bring him home. He had spent a small fortune on local trackers, and he would surely spend more. If the trackers of Pendragon could not find the Prince then, perhaps, he should hire off-world. David shook his head and put his hand on the cool handle of the door.

A quiet velvet voice answered through the flowers, “Send him to me.”

Besh turned in a complete circle. The palace was huge. The vaulted ceiling gave him a sense of vertigo. The colorful fresco of King Arthur’s court was impressive. There was a hum in the large chamber as dignitaries and staff hurried about official business. The floor before them was a mosaic of intricate beauty emblazoned with the acts of Merlin. Crests and coats-of-arms marked the cardinal directions and lower-level doors behind which, no doubt, was a maze of hallways that meandered through the officialdom of palatial subculture.

The Captain whistled and the ceiling echoed the sound. He turned to Besh with a broad smile creasing his scarred face and said, “Who’d have thunk?”

There was a choice to be made as two separately majestic stairwells led to the mezzanine. In the ample mall of the second floor could be seen shops and offices alike. There was a festive air about the mezzanine but which one should they choose? Besh spied a lithe young man in meticulous attire racing down the steps in a dignified rush. His hand gripped the rich mahogany banister. He hurried across the tiled expanse and stopped just short of them. He looked up into the Captain’s face with recognition and when he spoke, his voice was instantly identifiable as the crisp male voice that had answered the Captain’s call.

“Ah, Captain,” he said. “You may take the stair to your right. At the top, turn right. Room thirty-two.”

The rugged Captain turned to Besh and placed his left hand atop the right shoulder of a smiling new friend. He said, “Well, I guess this is where we part. Remember what I said. Right?” With a solid pat to the shoulder, he turned toward the ornate stairwell.

Besh turned to the young man and noted an immaculately groomed youth dressed in cuffed trousers and long coat. The trousers were brown, the coat was a creamy off-white, the ruffled shirt was a glaring white. What a sight! With polished black shoes and neatly combed short umber hair, he had to be someone quite close to the top.

“Beasley's the name,” said the youth with a fleeting smile. “Royal Secretary to the King. If you will follow me, I will show you to the waiting room.”

King David stood before a full-length mirror assessing his choice of Royal Jacket. It was ambassadorial in nature with wide black lapels complimenting a rich burgundy-colored velvet. He worried the right lapel a bit and smoothed the velvet texture. He turned to one side to check and was not impressed. He noted the stooping posture of his age and turned to face himself squarely.

“You, there,” he commanded. “Stand your full measure.”

He threw his shoulders back and lifted his head but all he saw was a ridiculous old man. He was nervous. He could barely contain himself. How long had it been? The last time he saw Besh was on Albert’s fifth birthday. Twelve years! He had not seen his dearest friend in twelve years. He was beside himself. He threw off the burgundy jacket, took the cane that stood beside him, and walked to the window to calm himself. He was pretty sure he would make a fool of himself.