The Practice Effect

1

The next day the road began to descend into a broad river valley.

Riding on Dennis’s shoulder, the pixolet peeped and grabbed a cluster of berries from an overhanging branch. It munched on a few of the purple fruits, and juice ran down its jaws. When it offered some to Dennis, he politely declined.

Dennis was feeling pretty good. His old camping skills had obviously come back. His backpack was snug now that he had found the right knots. His boots—broken in now—felt like supple extensions of his own feet as he stepped along the resilient highway. He was making good time.

But he could tell the forest would end soon. He still faced the problem of what he would do when he found civilization.

What sort of creatures were the autochthones? Would they have the technology to help him rebuild his half of the zievatron?

More important, would they decide to arrange his pieces neatly, by size and color, like someone had already done to the zievatron?

Maybe it might be a good idea to spy on the natives, as a first step.

“Easily suggested,” Dennis mocked himself. If their facial features are a little different, I’ll just use some river mud to make fake antennae and eye stalks and be in business! I might have to remove my nose and lengthen my neck a bit, of course, but only a few inches, at most.

“I wonder if I’ll need scales.”

As he hiked along, a number of fantasy scenarios occurred to him.

I know! I’ll keep my eye out for the country estate of the eccentric squire scientist G’zvreep, I’ll recognize it by the observatory dome protruding prominently from the west wing of his manor house.

Right, Dennis. When you knock, the kindly old native savant will answer the door himself, having sent the servants to bed while he scans the skies for comets. On seeing you he’ll flap his thorax in momentary revulsion at your two hideously flat eyes, your millions of tiny cranial tendrils. But when you raise your hand in the universal gesture of peace, he’ll hustle you inside and say, “Enter quickly! Thank Gixgax you came here first!”

In a meadow by the road, Dennis found the remains of a campsite. Coals were still warm in the firepit.

Dennis put down his pack. He set up the campwatch on one large stone and the pixolet on another. “All right, bright eyes,” he said to the creature, “let’s see if you’re good for anything but company. You can keep a lookout while I do some serious detective work.”

Pix cocked its head quizzically, then yawned.

“Hmmph. Well, it just goes to show how little you know. I’ve found something already!” Dennis pointed to the ground. “Look. Footprints!”

Pixolet sniffed, apparently unimpressed. Dennis sighed. Where was an appreciative audience when you needed one?

There were many deep impressions in the ground—apparently made by the large draft animals—and smaller hoofprints like those an unshod pony might leave. The droppings, too, indicated that this world must indeed have close analogs to horses.

After finishing with the animals, he searched for a clear set of bipedal prints and soon realized that everyone in the caravan had worn shoes.

From the sharp outlines of the corrugated tread, it was apparent these people used boots not unlike his own! Here certainly was evidence of technology. The tread patterns were all identical... as if some computer had come up with the perfect design that was mass-produced thereafter. He hurried about looking at the prints until a thought occurred to him.

Dennis grabbed his own left foot. Awkwardly, he tried to look at the sole of his own boot. Moving too quickly, he overbalanced and fell on his backside.

He stared at the pattern of his own boot and sighed. It was identical! Either the computers here had come up with the same design as those on Earth had, or...

He looked around. The bootprints were everywhere. No doubt nearly all of them were his own.

There was a peeping that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Dennis turned and glared at the pixolet. It wore its accustomed grin.

“Don’t you dare say one word!” Dennis warned the creature.

For once, Pix did as told.

There weren’t many more clues. By the firepit he found a few crumbly sticks of dried meat. Over where the animals had been staked there were scatterings of spilled grain.

By a tall tree Dennis found a red stain in the earth. It felt sticky, like blood.

There were scuffmarks in the ground, and loose tufts of fur. Then he found one long golden strand that glinted in the morning light. He looked at it for a long moment, then carefully stuffed it into a button-down shoulder pocket.

A bit closer to the forest, he found a dead animal.

It looked like a larger cousin of the pixolet’s. It had the snub nose and needle teeth, but it was the size and build of a mastiff.

The head stared at him dully from a spot three feet from the rest of the body. It had been sheared off, along with part of the shoulder, as if by a guillotine—or a high-power laser.

He stared at the carnage until the buzzing of the watch-alarm carried over from the firepit. Dennis looked up anxiously. What was coming?

He turned just as six ragged doglike things suddenly emerged from the line of trees. He did not have time to form a more accurate impression. They snarled—a low, gravelly sound—then charged.

The needler was in his hand before he had time to think. He had practiced drawing and blasting knots in tree trunks during the past few days of hiking. The exercise probably saved his life.

Balanced, legs apart, Dennis aimed just ahead of the beasts and fired.

The ground in front of the pack exploded, but the crazed things charged straight through the spray of dirt and grass single-mindedly. Dennis had no choice. He lifted his aim and fired again.

The pack tumbled into a howling mass. It divided almost instantly into the fleeing and the dead.

Dennis watched the survivors stumble away, howling in pain, their fellows bloody and still behind them. He looked down at the small weapon in his hand.

Powered by stored sunlight, the needler could peel tiny slivers off of any odd-shaped lump of metal he crammed into its ammo chamber, and fire them at high velocity. Dennis had thought it little better than a toy when he started out from the zievatron but he had begun to gain confidence in it with all the practice on the trail.

Now he stared at it in amazement.

What a killer, he thought.

2

Soon he could tell he was drawing near civilization.

The highway perceptibly widened as it dropped from the mountain pass. Some of the hillside meadows now showed signs of cultivation. A thick hedgerow now separated the highway from open fields on both sides. Through the branches he could see herds of grazing animals on the slopes.

He would run into traffic soon. A happenstance encounter on the road wasn’t the best kind of first contact. He didn’t want to face the sort of weapon that had severed the head of the beast back at the campsite. Dennis decided it might be best to continue his travels off the road for a while.

He searched for a break in the hedge, Pix awakened from its nap atop his backpack when Dennis drew his machete and started to chop at a thin spot in the windbreak.

The little beast leaped for a high branch, then crouched and looked down at Dennis reproachfully for interrupting its siesta.

Dennis didn’t find the going easy. The heavy blade bounced back from the branches, barely chipping them.

He looked at it in disgust. He had not used the machete much until now. It was covered with rust spots and the edge was dull. Dennis cursed Bernald Brady, taking what consolation he could from the fact that he had not misjudged the fellow after all.

As he sucked at scratches on the back of his right hand, he had an idea. What about the beautiful native knife he had found by the airlock? He shrugged out of his pack and retrieved the cloth-wrapped artifact from one of the bottom pouches. With a wary glance up and down the highway, he laid the cloth on the ground and unfolded it.

His eyes went wide.

A week ago he had put away a beautiful, sharp, resilient knife, an obvious product of high-tech craftsmanship.

What lay before him was still impressive, but it looked a lot more like a finely chipped piece of obsidian tied to a wooden handle by tightly wound leather strips. It was sharp and well made, but a far cry from the advanced tool he remembered first picking up.

His head felt light. A phenomenon, he remarked internally, touching the object lightly.

He was brought back to the present by a peeping cry from above. The pixolet chirped at him twice, shaking its head vigorously. Then it soared off into the thicket.

Dennis reached into his thigh pocket and pulled out the camp-watch. The little screen showed red lights on the road, coming this way.

He rewrapped the artifact. The mystery would keep. He hefted the pack once more and set to hacking in earnest with the machete. He had to get off the road!

Brambles caught at his pack and at the arm he kept up to protect his face as he bulled his way through the thicket. Finally, like a pip squeezed from a melon, he flew into the meadow and sprawled onto the grass.

Dennis rolled over, breathing heavily.

At least this time I’ll get a good look at them, he thought as he crawled away from the break in the hedge. At last I’ll find out what the natives look like!

He drew out the camp-watch again. The display showed a great many yellow lights, apparently depicting the herds of grazing animals Dennis had seen on the hillsides. To one side of the screen he saw two red dots and two yellow, coming this way down the road.

A pair of riders.

Pix’s green marker was nowhere to be seen. The fickle creature must have left him again.

He was concentrating so hard on the red dots on the road that it took him a moment to notice that two small pink lights had detached themselves from a nearby herd of yellows to the south. They were moving rapidly toward the center of the screen.

Toward the center, Dennis realized… that’s me.

“Haaaa-aayy-oooaaoo!!”

It came from behind him, a high, shrill cry that sent a shiver down his back. With the ululation came the sound of running footsteps. Someone was charging down on him from the rear!

Dennis clawed at his holster, holding little hope he could scramble about in time., At any instant he expected the sudden flash of some alien death ray to cut him down.

“Haaayyoo-oh!”

Encumbered by the pack, he rolled over onto his stomach, trying to bring his weapon up. He held the needler out in two shaky hands ready to fire at... the dog.

He blinked, poised to shoot… the small dog that growled at him, then hopped back to take cover behind a pair of small legs... the stubby, scuff-kneed legs of a small boy.

Dennis looked up and stared. The most ominous weapon in sight was a shepherd’s crook held by a four-foot-tall towhead with a dirty face.

The first sapient extraterrestrial with whom Dennis had made contact wiped a lock of untidy brown hair out of his eyes and panted. “…Ayoo-missuh…” The boy breathed excitedly. “Ooowan’ seem’pop?”

A bit numb from surprise, Dennis realized he probably looked silly laying there. Slowly, so as not to frighten the child; he picked himself up.

He decided not even to think about the incongruity of finding a human boy—apparently about eight years old— here on an alien world. There was no profit in it. He made himself concentrate on the language problem. Something about the sounds spoken by the boy had sounded strangely familiar, as if he had heard them somewhere before.

He tried to remember a few facts from the linguistics course he had taken in college in order to get out of the infamous Professor LaBelle’s English 7. There were a few sounds, he had learned, that were nearly universal in meaning among human beings. Anthropologists used to use them at the beginning of contact with newly discovered tribes.

He swallowed, then ventured one of them.

“Huh?” he said.

By now the boy had caught his breath. With a sigh of exaggerated patience he repeated himself.

“You wanna see my pop, misser?”

Dennis gulped. He did manage, at last, to make his head go up and down in a nod.

3

The pup ran around them, yapping about their feet. The boy—who said his name was Tomosh—walked earnestly beside Dennis, leading him over the hilly meadow toward his home.

As they walked, Dennis saw a pair of riders pass by on the highway. Seen through breaks in the hedge, the sources of the threatening red dots that had sent him plunging into hiding minutes before turned out to be a couple of farmers cantering past on shaggy ponies.

He was just starting to adjust to all this. Of all possible first contacts, this one had to be the most benign and the most confusing. Dennis couldn’t even begin to imagine how there had come to be humans here.

“Tomosh,” he began.

“Yessirrr?” The boy rolled his “r’s” in an accent that Dennis was only just getting used to. He looked up expectantly.

Dennis paused. Where could he even begin? There was so much to ask. “Er, will your flock be all right while you escort me to meet your folks?”

“Oh, the rickels will be fine. The dogs watch ’em. I just gotta go out an’ count ’em twice a day an’ give an alarrm if one’s missin’.”

They walked on in silence for a few more steps. Dennis didn’t have much time to prepare for his first meeting with adults. Suddenly he felt very nervous about it.

Before running into the boy he had resigned himself to standing out as an alien and taking his chances. To be slain on sight by mammal-hating antmen, for instance, would have merely been unavoidable bad luck. Nothing he could have done about that.

But small details of his own behavior could affect the way local humans reacted to him. A simple mistake in courtesy—a careless slip—might cost him everything. And in that case the fault would be his.

Perhaps he could ask a child questions that would only cause an adult to become suspicious.

“Tomosh, are there many other farms around here?”

“Nossirr, only a few.” The boy sounded proud. “We’re almost the farthest! The King only wants miners an traders to go into the mountains where the L’Toff live.

“Baron Kremer feels different, o’ course. M’pop says th’ Baron’s got no right to send in lumbermen an’ soldiers…”

Tomosh rambled on about how tough and mean the local overlord was and how the King, who lived far away to the east, would put the Baron in his place someday. The story broke down into gossip that sounded a bit sophisticated for a small boy… how “Lord Hern” was slowly taking over all the mines in the Baron’s name and how no circuses had come to the region in more than two years because of the troubles with the King. Although it was hard to follow all the details, Dennis gathered that the local setup was a feudal aristocracy, and apparently war was not uncommon.

Unfortunately, the story didn’t tell him anything about the crucial question of the world’s technology. The boy’s clothes, though dusty, looked well made. There were no pockets, but the belt of button-down pouches looked like it came straight out of a Kelty catalogue. Tomosh’s shoes looked a lot like the tough old sneakers Dennis had worn as a child.

A rambling farmstead came into view as they crested a low hill. A house, barn, and storehouse lay about a hundred meters back from the windbreak along the road. The yard was surrounded by a high stockade. To Dennis the place looked prosperous enough. Tomosh grew excited and pulled on Dennis’s hand. Dennis uneasily followed the boy down the hill.

The farmhouse was a low, rambling earth-sheltered structure with a shallow, sloping roof that gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. At first Dennis thought the reflection came from aluminum siding. But as they came closer he saw that the walls were actually laminated wooden panels, beautifully joined and vanished.

The barn was similarly constructed. Both buildings looked like pictures out of a magazine.

Dennis stopped just outside the gate. It was his last chance to ask stupid questions.

“Uh, Tomosh,” he said, “I’m a stranger hereabouts…”

“Oh, I could tell that. You talk funny!”

“Umm, yes. Well, in fact, I’m from a land far away to the… to the northwest.” Dennis had gathered from the boy’s ramblings that it was a direction about which the locals knew little.

“Naturally, I’m a bit curious about your country,” he went on. “Uh, could you tell me, for instance, the name of your land here?”

Without hesitation the boy “answered, “It’s Coylia!”

“So your King is the King of Coylia?”

Tomosh nodded with an expression of exaggerated patience. “Right!”

“Good. You know, it’s a funny thing about names, Tomosh. People in different lands call the world by different names. What do your people call it?” Dennis was determined to put “Flasteria” to rest.

“The world?” The boy looked puzzled.

“The whole world.” He motioned at the earth, the sky, the hills. “All the oceans and kingdoms. What do you call it?”

“Oh. Tatir,” he replied earnestly. “That’s the name of the world.”

“Tatir,” Dennis repeated. He tried not to smile. It wasn’t much of an improvement on “Flasteria.”

“Tomosh!”

The shrill cry came from the farmhouse. A rather husky young woman stepped out onto the front porch and shouted again, “Tomosh! Come here!”

The boy frowned. “It’s Aunt Biss. What’s she doin’ here? An’ where’s Mom an’ Pop?” He took off toward the farmhouse, leaving Dennis standing at the gate.

Something was obviously wrong. The boy’s aunt looked worried. She knelt and held his shoulders as she explained something earnestly. To mush was soon fighting back tears.

Dennis felt awkward. To approach before he was invited by the adult didn’t seem wise. But he couldn’t see just walking away, either.

Nothing looked awry about the house and yard. Real chickens pecked at the ground alongside what looked like a flock of tiny tame ostriches.

The paths about the farmyard apparently were made of the same resilient, hi-tech material as the highway. They had the same raggedy edges, almost blending into the surrounding dirt and grass.

That seemed to be the way the whole farm was put together. The windows in the house were clear and well fitted, but they were inserted at various rough approximations to level and square. Big and small windows were set side by side in no apparent pattern.

Tomosh clutched his aunt’s skirt, now fully in tears. Dennis was concerned. Something must have happened to the boy’s parents.

Finally he decided to approach a few steps. The woman looked up.

“Yourr name is Dennis?” She asked coolly, in the queer local dialect.

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Is Tomosh all right? Is there anything I can do to help?”

The offer seemed to surprise her. Her expression thawed just a little. “The boy’s parents are gone. I’ve come to take him to my home. You are welcome to sup and stay until my man comes to gather the goods and lock up.”

Dennis wanted to ask more questions, but her severe look kept him quiet. “Set here on the steps an’ wait,” she said. She led the boy inside.

Dennis wasn’t offended by the woman’s suspicion of a stranger. His accent probably didn’t help any. He sat on the steps where she had indicated.

There was a rack of tools on the porch just outside the front door. At first Dennis looked them over complacently, thinking about other things. Then he looked closer and frowned. “Curiouser and curiouser,” he said.

It was the strangest assortment of implements he had ever seen.

Near the door were a hoe, an ax, a rake, and a spade, all apparently shiny and new. He touched a pair of shears next to them. The edges were sharp, and they looked quite strong.

The handles had grips of smooth, dark wood, as one might expect. But the cutting edges didn’t seem to be made of metal. The razor-sharp blades were translucent and showed faint veins and facets within.

Dennis gaped. “They’re stone!” he whispered. “Some sort of gemstone, I do believe! Why, they may even be single crystals!”

He was staggered. He couldn’t imagine the technology that could provide such tools for a country farmer. The implements near the door were unbelievable!

But that wasn’t the last surprise. As he scanned the toolrack, Dennis felt a growing sense of strangeness, for although the tools farthest from the door seemed also to be made of stone, that was all they had in common with the beautiful blades near the entrance.

Dennis blinked at the incongruity. On the far left was another ax. And this one might have come straight out of the late Stone Age!

The crude wooden handle had been rubbed smooth in two places, but it still had bits of bark attached to it in spots. The blade appeared to be a piece of chipped flint held on by leather thongs.

The rest of the tools fell between these extremes. Some were as crude as could be imagined. Others were obviously the products of an extremely high materials science, and computer-aided design.

He touched the flint-headed ax, lost in thought. It might have been made by the same hand that put together the mysterious knife that lay wrapped in his pack.

“Stivyung’s the best practicer in these parts,” a voice behind him said.

He turned. Lost in thought, he hadn’t heard Aunt Biss come out onto the porch. The woman proffered a bowl and spoon, which he took automatically. Steamy aroma sparked a sudden hunger.

“Stivyung?” He repeated the name with difficulty. “The boy’s father?”

“Yah. Stivyung Sigel. A fine man, sergeant of the Royal Scouts before marryin’ my sister Surah. His reputation for practice was his downfall. That an’ the fact that he’s built just like the Baron—both height an’ weight. The Baron’s men came for him this mornin’.”

She seemed to think she was making sense. Dennis didn’t dare tell her otherwise. Much of his confusion might be due to the woman’s thick accent, anyway.

“What about the boy’s mother?” Dennis asked. He blew on a spoonful of stew. It was bland but compared favorably to the survival rations he had been eating for over a week.

Aunt Biss shrugged. “When they took Stivyung, Surah ran over to fetch me, then packed up an’ headed for the hills. She wanted to ask the L’Toff for help.” Biss snorted. “Lot o’ good that’ll do.”

Dennis was getting dizzy with all the references to things he didn’t understand. Who were the L’Toff? And what in the world was a practicer?

As for the story of the boy’s father being arrested, Dennis could see how a farmer’s pride might get him in trouble with the local strongman, but why would Stivyung Sigel be seized for being “built just like” his overlord? Was that a crime here?

“Is Tomosh all right?”

“Yah. He wants to tell you good-bye before you go.”

“Go,” Dennis repeated. He had sort of been hoping for some down-home hospitality, including a real bed and some trial conversation, before he tackled a larger settlement. Things didn’t sound too peaceful hereabouts. He wanted to find out who made the marvelous hi-tech items and head straight for that element in society, avoiding the Baron Kremers of this world.

Aunt Biss nodded firmly. “We got no room at my place. An’ my husban’ Bim is locking up this stockade tomorrow. If you want work, you’ll find it in Zuslik.”

Dennis stared down at the bowl. Suddenly he did not want to face another night in the wilderness. Even the clucking chickens made him feel homesick.

Aunt Biss was silent for a moment, then she sighed. “Oh, wha’ the hey. Tomosh thinks you’re a genuine pilgrim an’ not one of those layabouts we sometimes get in from th’ east. I don’t suppose it’ll do any harm to let you sleep th’ night in th’ barn. So long as you behave an’ promise to go peaceful in th’ morn in’.”

Dennis nodded quickly. “Perhaps there are some chores I can help with…?”

Biss thought about it. She turned and picked up the flint-headed ax from the porch rack. “I don expect it’ll do any good, but you might as well chop some firewood.”

Dennis took the crude ax dubiously.

“Well... I guess I could try…” He glanced over at the beautiful gemstone ax by the door.

“Use this one,” Biss emphasized. “We’ll want to sell it off quick, now that Stivyung’s gone. There’s a pile o’ logs aroun’ back.

“Good practice to you.” She nodded and turned to go inside.

There was that word again. Dennis felt sure he was missing something important. But he judged it would be best not to ask Aunt Biss any more questions.

First things first, then. He finished the stew and licked the bowl clean. It felt like the kind of unbreakable dinnerware found in homes all over Earth. But on closer examination he realized that the bowl was made of wood, fashioned wafer thin and varnished to perfection.

If I ever get the zievatron fixed, and if we ever start trading with this culture, they’ll be able to sell us millions of these! Their factories will be working overtime!

Then he remembered draft animals pulling sledges that slid noiselessly through the night.

What’s going on here?

Casting a wistful glance at the beautiful gemstone ax near the door, he resignedly picked up the caveman special and walked around to the woodpile in back of the house.