Ice Dragon

Chapter 14

After rejecting the notion that he might not have heard the Ice Master correctly, Blade went through more calculations of risk and advantage in less time than ever before in all his career in either Home or X Dimensions. Although he maintained an outward appearance of no more than casual interest, within his mind was working furiously, breaking down the Ice Master's statement into logical chunks.

The Ice Master wanted-or needed-an ally. So he had weaknesses or inadequacies. A man strong enough to stand alone does not seek allies. Doing everything oneself is always safer, but seldom possible. So-what were the man's weaknesses?

And he needed an ally against the Menel. What was he planning to do to them? Or was he merely planning to defend himself against something they were planning to do to him? How far was he planning to go against them, if he was moving in that direction? How much was he prepared to offer Blade in return for his help-assuming that it turned out Blade could in fact give any help at all?

Blade found himself devoutly hoping that he could strike a bargain with the Ice Master. The man's fear, weakness, ambition-whatever-opened the possibility of studying the menace of the glaciers and the Ice Dragons, searching out weak points for future attack, with the active help of the man who was helping to create that menace. And beyond that, if there was some sort of conflict between the Ice Master and his mysterious allies, it might prove the chink into which a wedge could be driven, driven home with mighty blows, to split apart the whole menace and bring it to ruin and collapse.

All this marched-or rather, stampeded like mad elephants-through Blade's mind in a few seconds, while he stared blandly at the Ice Master. Then he frowned with studied care and said quietly and slowly, «That is a very interesting thing you need. It is not one I would have expected of you. The Menel have given you far more power than even your great genius could have won for you alone.» That statement was a calculated risk. If he seemed too reluctant, the Ice Master might back off from his proposal, with consequences unknown but probably nasty. On the other hand, if he seemed too eager to join in a fight against the Menel, the Ice Master (except in the unlikely event that he were a complete fool) would hardly be able to avoid suspecting that he also was on Blade's list of Victims. Once again, everything depended on striking the right balance.

«They have,» said the Ice Master even more slowly and quietly than Blade, as though he were afraid of being overheard. «But what they have given is less than I would have liked, and they can take it back any time they please. I save them much work and a little danger, and because they are a lazy and cowardly race they reward me greatly. But they could easily decide I am too expensive a luxury, that I could be done without. And then they will throw me away, as easily as their scout ships kept pace with your flier and their lift-field brought it down to the ice. I am like a stick in the hands of a child who uses it to scratch figures in the dirt. When he is tired of scratching or finds a better one he will break the stick over his knee and throw the pieces away. I will not be thrown away. I will find help. I will!» The Ice Master's voice had abandoned all its cautious quietness now, rising to a roar on the final «I will!»

The Ice Master was insane, thought Blade. Whether or not he had been so when he first allied himself with the Menel, he had become so during his alliance with them.

The isolation under the polar ice, the ambitions that the superior science all around him had aroused, had definitely pushed him over the edge. Blade recognized the fact, recognized that it would make any cooperation with the Ice Master for any purpose at all even more dangerous, then filed it away in his mind. Then he turned his attention back to the Ice Master, who had now somewhat calmed himself, although his massive chest was still heaving violently. In the same tone of voice he had used before, he said, «I do not know whether I could help you, if the Menel are as strong as they appear to be. A people that can bring a dust cloud out of interstellar space to freeze a planet, then send it away when it has done its work, are not foolish or weak.»

That broke through the Ice Master's defenses almost by accident. If he had ever had any suspicions of Blade's reasons in probing for information on the Menel, they vanished, first in a torrent of wild, mocking laughter that went on and on, echoing hideously around the chamber until Blade thought the Ice Master had finally lost all control and had to fight with the temptation to clasp his hands over his ears, then in an almost equally wild, spewed-out jumble of recollections, theories, guesses, observations, and experiences over the past twenty years, out of which Blade set himself to assemble a coherent picture of the Menel.

The Menel (which was as accurately as human tongues could pronounce their name for themselves) were indeed from a planet of another star. Driven across space by some unspecified catastrophe or threatened catastrophe too great for even their super-science to meet, their ships had reached the fringes of this world's system some eleven hundred years before. Of the planets in that system, all were either too cold or too warm. But for a species with great knowledge and a life expectancy of two thousand or more years, cooling off one of the warmer worlds through tipping its climate into a glacial era was a perfectly reasonable project.

So the Menel brought the dust cloud; it performed its job and was sent on its way. Then they settled down in the northern polar regions, dug several cave complexes out of the rock below the glaciers, and waited for the day when the planet would be chilled down enough for them to move about on the surface freely for more than short periods of time. They were still waiting (Blade could hear the melodramatic note in the other man's voice) when the Ice Master had come upon the scene.

He had done so through an accident. The Menel were omnivorous, but animal protein was a desired luxury, and occasionally they raided south into human-inhabited territories in search of victims. On one of these raids, a Menel flier had suffered an engine failure, and crashed near the Ice Master's laboratories. He had rescued the survivors, protected them from the excessive warmth that would have killed them after a few hours, and promised to find ways of communicating with their colony if they would teach him how to do so. He had already been thinking in terms of striking a bargain with the Menel.

The process of working out a system of mutual communication had taken over a year, because neither species had a vocal apparatus suitable for reproducing the other's language. During all that year, the Ice Master had successfully concealed his dealings with the Menel from his assistants and even from his servants, several of whom were previous successful experiments in genetic and biological engineering. But eventually a mutually intelligible code emerged, one developed enough to permit the exchange of scientific data, and he released the two Menel to return to their colony with the word that a human sought to aid them.

Unfortunately, before the Menel could decide how to respond to this news, one of his experimental creations, a youth named Stramod, led a revolt among the servants and escaped with many of his fellows. So great was the uproar caused by this revolt that the Ice Master knew he must flee at once, with as much of his learning and equipment as possible, to the only beings on the planet who might have any reason to shelter or aid them.

His gamble had proved correct; he had been able to strike a bargain with the Menel. They helped him create the Ice Dragons, with which he terrorized the Treduki and indirectly the Graduki, so keeping down any possible opposition from the human population. The Dragons also kidnapped large numbers of human beings, some to be made slaves, some to be made guards or Girls or Dragon Masters, some to be simply fed into processing vats that broke them down into forms suitable for Menel food.

Some of the Ice Master's former friends and associates were now in Graduk ruling circles, supporting the Conciliators. A very few of them acted as his private intelligence network, through which he had been able to keep track of the doings of the Union for Cooperation comparatively well, and thus of Blade's arrival and of his history. He had immediately begun hoping that some circumstance would either destroy Blade or bring him north, and although the unanticipated Conciliator move against the Union had delayed this, so it had worked out.

The Menel had built him this massive base for his activities, as well as other facilities farther south where the Ice Dragons and the Dragon Masters lived. They did not keep a particularly close watch on what he was doing, although one of their settlements was nearby. However, he was certain that many of the guards were taken down into the settlement by the Menel for a day or two and given an extra layer of conditioning that made them act as spies on him. He didn't think the Menel had studied human psychology well enough to permit them to completely wipe out his own conditioning, which was advanced far beyond anything dreamed of in the outside world. That was the note of complacency on which he ended his long ramble through his own history and that of the Menel.

When he had finished and sat looking at Blade for some sort of reaction, Blade found himself once again having to do some very complex thinking in a very great hurry without any of it showing on his face. The Ice Master either had not told him or (incredible but not impossible) did not himself know a good many of the key facts about the Menel. So discreet exploring and inquiring on his own was going to be needed. This was equally true for information about the Ice Master's stronghold-he would be taking a great risk of warning the Ice Master about his real plans if he asked too many questions about that.

Set that question aside for a moment. What to say to the Ice Master now? Give him the impression of cooperation, somewhat willing but also dictated by fear for Leyndt's safety (if he thinks he doesn't need her as a hold, he will probably kill or condition her at once). Again, balance tone and choice of words perfectly-at a point when Blade would have given his right arm for the chance to give any one of his emotions-particularly the revulsion he felt for the Ice Master-full rein.

«I understand there is a sort of bargain involved here-my cooperation in return for Leyndt's safety.»

«Of course. But much more than that can be yours after a while-as I said, all the Girls you want, anything this stronghold provides. And when we have destroyed the Menel, anything this world provides. I will rule it, and you will be my second-in-command.» And do all the dirty work, thought Blade.

«All right. Have you thought of enlisting some of your prisoners in this project?» Two men tackling all the Menel seemed rather suicidal.

That almost pushed the Ice Master too far. «Nonsense! None of the male guards and slaves would be safe without a conditioning that makes them useless for anything more than fighting or menial work. That is why I hoped it would not be necessary to condition you-it would have been a total waste of all your higher qualities. And the Girls are like most women-they have no higher qualities to begin with. We can expect nothing from them. We can trust nobody but each other.» He reached out a hand as if he expected it to be shaken, and Blade obliged him, fighting off the urge to fling the man head first into the wall, hopefully breaking all of his bones in the process. But killing the Ice Master would not strike a fatal blow at the Menel. In fact, it would do nothing but leave him and Leyndt (and he didn't even know where she was) alone in the Ice Master's stronghold, with no way to get out of it or if they got out of it return to the south-assuming they were not promptly killed by the guards. For the Menel he had some sympathy-a new home for their race was something any people might seek, and be driven to drastic measures in doing so-but for the Ice Master he could have none.

The Ice Master rose to his full imposing height and raised his hand in farewell. Then he turned and strode toward the door. It opened to let him through, then closed behind him, and Blade was alone again.