The Ship Who Won

Chapter Ten

Plonk! The chariot was abruptly surrounded by the walls of Carialle's main cabin.

«That was a tight fit,» Carialle remarked on her main speaker. «You're nearly close enough to the bulkhead to meld with the paint.»

«But we made it,» Keff said, scrambling out. Gratefully, he stretched his legs and reached high over his head with joined hands until his back crackled in seven places. «Ahhh . . .»

Plenna rose and stared around her in wonder. «Yes, we made it. So this is what the tower looks like inside. It is like a home, but so many strange things!»

«I think she likes it,» Carialle said, approvingly.

«Well, what's not to like?» Keff said. «Are the magimen still coming?»

«They don't know where you've gone. They'll figure it out soon enough, but I'm generating white noise to mask my interior. It's making the spy-eyes crazy, but that's all right with me, the nasty little metal mosquitoes.»

«It is not you talking,» Plennafrey said, watching his lips as Carialle made her latest statement. «There is a second voice, a female's. Your tower can speak?»

Keff, realizing the habits of fourteen years were stronger than discretion, glanced at Carialle's pillar and pulled an apologetic face.

«Oops,» Carialle said.

«Er, it's not a tower, Plenna. It's a ship,» Keff explained.

«And it's not his. It's mine.» Carialle manifested her Myths and Legends image of the Lady Fair on the main screen. With tremendous and admirable self-control, Plennafrey just caught her mouth before it could drop open. She eyed the gorgeous silhouette, evidently contrasting her own disheveled costume unfavorably with the rose-colored gauze and satin of the Lady.

«You're . . . only a picture,» Plenna said at last.

«You want me three-dimensional?» Cari said, making her image «step» off the wall and assume a moving holographic image. She held out her hands, making her long sleeves flutter with a whisper of silk. «As you wish. But I am real. I exist inside the walls of this ship. I am the other half of Keff's team. My name is Carialle.»

The fierce expression Plenna wore told Carialle that Plenna was jealous of all things pertaining to Keff. That needed to be handled when the crisis had passed. To the magiwoman's credit, she understood that, too.

«I greet you, Carialle,» Plenna said politely.

«She's a winner, Keff,» Cari said, pitching her statement for Keff's mastoid implant only. «Pretty, too. And just a little taller than you are. That must have made things interesting.»

Keff colored satisfactorily. «Now that we're all acquainted, we have to talk seriously before Chaumel and his Wild Hunt catch up with us. What in the name of Daylight Savings Time just happened out there?»

«I have never seen the High Mages so . . . so insane,» Plennafrey offered, shaking her head. «They have gone beyond reason.»

«That's not what I mean,» Keff said. «The magic stopped all at once when we were hanging over that riverbed.»

«It has happened before,» Plenna said, nodding gravely. «But not when I was in the sky. That was terrible.»

«The huge drain on power obviously caused some kind of imbalance in the system,» Carialle said. She plotted a chair for her image to sit down on and gestured for the other two to seat themselves. «The drop came after the whole grid of what the lady called 'ley lines' bottomed out all over the planet. There was, for an instant, no more power to call. It came back after you all suffered a kind of blackout. Look.»

In their midst, Carialle projected a two-meter, three-dimensional image of Ozran, showing the ley lines etched in purple over the dun, green, and blue globe. Geographical features, including individual peaks and valleys on the continents, took shape.

«Oh,» Plenna breathed, recognizing some of the terrain. «Is this what Ozran looks like?»

«That's right,» Keff said.

«How wonderful,» she said, beaming at Carialle for the first time. «To be able to make beautiful pictures like that.»

Carialle ducked her head politely, acknowledging the compliment.

«Thank you, miss. Now, this is the normal flow of those mysterious electromagnetic waves. Here's what happened when you got that blast of dust in Chaumel's stronghold.»

The translucent globe turned until the large continent in the northern hemisphere was facing Keff and Plennafrey. The dark lines thickened toward a peak on a mountain spine in the southeast region, thinning everywhere else. What remained were small «peaks» on the lines here and there. «I think these are the mages who didn't come to dinner. Now here"—the configurations changed slightly, the bulges shifting southward—"is what happened when you escaped from the dinner party. And this next matches the moment when you teleported to Magess Plennafrey's sanctum sanctorum.»

The purple lines performed complicated dances. First, a slight bulge opened out in lines near a river valley in the southernmost mountain range of the continent, corresponding to a slight drop in the forces in the southeast. Chaumel's peak was nearly invisible amidst the power lines, until the mages dispersed to points all over Ozran. Occasionally, they reconverged.

«This big spike indicated when the eight mages found Plennafrey's hidey-hole,» Carialle said, narrating, «followed by the big one when everyone came to see the fun. Here comes the chase scene. A huge buildup as the others left Chaumel's peak. And—»

Abruptly, the lines thinned, some even disappearing for a moment.

«That has happened before,» Plenna repeated. «Not often, but more often now than before.»

«Absolute power corrupts, and I'm not just talking about political.» Carialle finished the ley geographic review.

«Can you run that image again, Cari?» Keff said, leaning close to study it. «Magic shouldn't cause imbalances in planetary fields.»

«But it does, depending on where it comes from,» Carialle said. «What's it for? Why is there a worldwide network of force lines? It must have been put here for a reason.» She turned to Plenna. «Where does your power come from, Magess?»

«Why, from my belt amulet,» Plennafrey explained, displaying the heavy buckle. The sash is an amulet, too, but it was my fathers, and I don't like to use it.» She undid her waist cincture and held it out to Carialle.

Carialle had her image shake its head. «I'm not solid, sweetie.» Instead, she directed the artifact to Keff. Carialle turned on an intense spotlight in the ceiling and aimed it so she and her brawn could have a better look. Keff turned the belt over in his hands. Carialle zoomed in a camera eye to microscopic focus.

The five indentations were there, as Chaumel had said, part of the original design. The buckle had been adapted for wear by some unknown metal smith at least eight hundred years ago, Carialle judged by a quick analysis. Braces and a tongue had been welded to its sides. The whole thing comprised approximately ninety cubic centimeters, and was plated with fine gold, which accounted for its retaining a noncorroded surface over the centuries. Carialle recorded all data in accessible memory.

«Can you teach me how to use it?» Keff asked, smiling hopefully at her. Plennafrey seemed uneasy, but allowed herself to be persuaded by the fatal Von Scoyk-Larsen charm.

«Well, all right,» she said. «I'll trust you.» Her expression said that she didn't trust often or easily. Such behavior on this world, Carialle noted, would not be a survival trait.

Plenna stood behind Keff and showed him how to place his fingers in the depressions. «Do not push down, not . . . solidly,» she said.

«Physically,» Keff corrected IT's translation. He cradled the buckle in his other hand, raising it to eye level. «Correct,» Plenna said, unaware of the box's simultaneous transmission as she spoke. «Imagine your fingers pressing deep into the heart, where they will contact the Core of Ozran.»

«Is that why you wear the finger extensions?» Keff asked, after trying to fit his hand into the depressions. His thumb and little finger had to curve unnaturally to touch all five spots, while Plenna, with her pinky prosthesis, could cover them without effort, bending only her thumb.

«Yes. Most mages do not have fingers long enough. It is one way in which we are inferior to the great Ancient Ones who left us these tools,» Plenna said with a trace of awe. «Now, think hard. Do you feel the fire inside? It should run up inside your arm to your heart.»

«I feel something,» Keff said after a while. «Now what?»

She looked around and pointed at me pedometer lying on the console. «Make that box fly,» she said.

Keff stared fixedly at the pedometer. His face turned red with effort. To Carialle's satisfaction, the device lifted a few centimeters before clattering back to its resting place.

«There, you see?» she said. «Mechanics.»

Plennafrey held out her hand for the belt, and Keff gave it back. «Now, here is how I do it.» Barely touching the five depressions, the magiwoman glanced at the box. It shot up to dangle in midair. Keff walked over and tried to push down on the hovering device. It didn't budge. He yanked at it with all his strength.

«It's as if you fixed it there,» Keff said, sweeping Plenna off her feet and kissing her. «Carialle, we're both right. They do use machines, but it's more than that. I can't duplicate what she just did. I nearly got a hernia raising the pedometer as far as I did. She set it like a point plotted in a three-dimensional grid, and she's not even flushed.»

The Lady Fair image didn't show the exasperation that Carialle let creep into her voice.

«All right, so they have natural TK and psi abilities which are amplified by the mechanism. Probably increased by selective breeding over centuries—you see what they've done to the Noble Primitives.»

«Sour grapes,» Keff said cheerfully. «And this gizmo can work from anywhere on the planet?» he asked Plennafrey.

«Yes,» the magiwoman said, «but closer to the Core of Ozran makes it easier.»

Keff nodded and sat down next to Plenna so he could examine the buckle once again. «Chaumel mentioned that, but he wouldn't say what it is. Is that the power source? Do you know how it works?»

«I do—or I think I do.» Plennafrey's eyes grew dreamy as she raised her hands to sketch in the air. «It is a great, glowing heart of power, somewhere deep beneath the surface of Ozran. It was the Ancient Ones' greatest work.» For a moment, the young woman looked sheepish. «My power is weak compared with the others. I have tried to figure out more about the Ancient Ones and the Core to try and increase my power, though not . . . not in the way some did.» She glanced uneasily at Carialle.

«I know all about your father, Magess,» Carialle said. «Whatever Keff sees and hears, I do, too.»

That reminded Plennafrey of what Carialle must have seen and heard that morning, and she blushed from the roots other hair to her neckline.

«Oh,» she said. Carialle kindly tried to take the sting out of the revelation.

«I also agree with everything he said about your situation. You're very brave, Magess.»

«Thank you. Hem! As I said, I wished to make my connection to the Core greater with harm to none. I have some ancient documents that I am sure hold the key to the power of the Core, but I cannot read them.» She appealed to both brain and brawn. «I dared not ask anyone for help, lest they take away my small advantage. Perhaps you might help me?»

«Documents?» Keff perked up. He rose and paced around the cabin. «Documents possibly written by the Ancients? Will you let me see them? I'm a stranger; I have no reason to rob you. I'm also very good with languages. Will you trust me?» He stopped at Plennafrey's chair and took her hand.

«All right,» Plennafrey said. She looked lovingly up into his eyes. «There is no one else I would rather trust.»

«She's completely out other league in this game,» Carialle said in Keff's ear. «What a pity there isn't a place on this nasty planet for nice guys . . . We have one problem,» she said aloud. «I can't lift tail from where I'm sitting, and at present, there's a surveillance team of overgrown marbles flying around my hull.»

«Where are Chaumel and the others?» Keff asked.

Carialle consulted her monitors, reanimating the globe. The enormous mass of purple had thinned away, leaving single points scattered along the crisscrossing lines. «Everyone's gone home except a few who are hanging around Chaumel's peak.»

«I am sure they will be looking for me in my stronghold,» Plenna said resignedly. «All is lost.»

«We need a conspirator,» Keff said. «And I know just the fellow.»

«Who? I told you all the others would steal my documents, and then you will be forced to read for them.»

Keff's eyes twinkled. «He's not a mage. Cari, can you get me out of here unobserved through the cargo hatch? I'm going to go enlist Brannel.»

«Who is Brannel?» Plenna asked, trailing behind Keff and Carialle as they headed toward the cargo hold.

«He's one of the workers who lives in the cave out there,» Keff said, pointing vaguely outward.

«A four-finger? You wish to entrust one of Klemay's farmers with secrets of the Core of Ozran?»

«You don't know what's in your files,» Carialle said. «Might be a book of recipes from the Dark Ages. Listen, Magess.» Carialle's image stopped in the hold as Keff began to move containers out of the way. Plennafrey trotted to a halt to avoid bumping into her. «We need help. Something very wrong is happening to your world and I think it has been going bad since your ancestors were babies. Your documents are the first piece of real information we've heard about. Brannel can do what none of us can: he can go in and out of your house without being noticed by the other magimen.»

«Cari?» Keff gestured at the larger boxes blocking the ladder to the hatch. Service arms detached from the walls and began to stack and move them to other shelves. «I'm also going to have to jump down three meters. You'll have to create a diversion.»

«Leave that to me,» Carialle said.

She led the magiwoman back toward the main cabin. «Now, we're going to have some fun.»

Devoting screens around the main console to three of her external cameras for Plenna's benefit, Carialle tuned into the eye-spheres, the service door, and the main hatchway.

They watched the eyes cluster as Carialle let down her ramp and slid open her airlock to disgorge a servo. The low robot rolled down onto the plateau and trundled off into the bushes with the cluster of spy-eyes in pursuit. The door slid closed.

«Go!» Carialle said, pitching her voice over the speaker in the cargo hold. She slid open the door just a trifle.

Leaving some skin behind, Keff slipped out the narrow opening, and dropped to the ground in a crouch. He ran down the hill and across the field toward where the workers were gathering at the cave mouth for their daily toil.

Trusting Keff to take care of that half of the arrangements on his own, Carialle watched with amusement through one of the servos guiding cameras as the spies followed. It rumbled downhill into a gully and plunged into a sudden puddle, splashing some of the eyes so they recoiled. Plennafrey laughed.

The servo rumbled forward into the midst of a cluster of globe-frogs, who rolled hastily backward and gesticulated at one another inside their cases, croaking in alarm. They moved into the servos path, continuing their tirade, as if scolding the machine for scaring them. Cari guided it carefully so it wouldn't bump into any of them and headed it for the deepest part of the swamp.

Low-frequency transmissions buzzed between the spy-eyes. Carialle hooked the IT into the audio monitors. From the look of concentration on her face, Plenna was already listening to them in her own way, and enjoying being in the know for a change.

«Where is it going?» asked Potria's voice. «Do you suppose its going to where they are?»

Plennafrey giggled.

«Is the stranger's house doing this on its own?» Nokias asked. «It is a most powerful artifact.»

Carialle huffed. «They still think I'm an object! Oh, well, there's nothing I can do about that yet.»

«If they knew you were a living being,» Plenna said, «they would not treat you as an object. Oh,» she said, reality dawning, «they would, wouldn't they? They did with Keff. Oh, my, what has my world become?»

Carialle felt sorry for Plenna. She might be one of the upper class, but she wasn't happy about the status.

On the screen, the spy-eyes were buzzing busily to one another, circling the area, trying to second-guess the servo's mission. Serenely, the robot rolled into a swampy place where pink-flowering weeds grew. Carialle set its parameters to seek out a marsh weed that had exactly fifteen leaves and twelve petals.

«That should keep it busy for a while,» Carialle said.

«What does it want in that terrible wet place?» Asedow's voice wailed. «I am getting aches in my bones just watching it!»

«Keep your eyes open,» Nokias's voice cautioned them. «There might be a clue in what this box seeks that will lead us to the stranger.»

Carialle joined Plennafrey's delighted chuckle.

Keff ran to the far side of the cave mouth so the hill would block the view of him from the spy-eyes' position. The Noble Primitives, still wiping traces of breakfast from their faces and chest fur, were listening to their crew chiefs assigning tasks for the day. Brannel, near Alteis's group, seemed bored with the whole thing. Keff now suspected that there was something in the Noble Primitives metabolism that rejected the amnesia-inducing drug, or he was cleverer than his masters knew. He was banking on the latter possibility.

«Ssst, Brannel!» he whispered. A child turned around at the slight noise and saw him. Sternly, Keff shook his head and twirled his finger to show the child she should turn around again. Terrified, the youngster clamped her hands together and returned to her original posture, spine rigid. Keff fancied he could see her quivering and regretted the necessity of scaring her. It was easier to frighten the child into submission than make friends. He hissed again.

«Ssst, Brannel! Over here!»

This time Brannel heard him. The Noble Primitives sheeplike face split into a wide grin as he saw Keff beckoning to him. He rose to hands and knees and crawled away from the work party.

Alteis saw him. «Brannel, return!» he commanded.

Wordlessly, Brannel pointed to his belly, indicating the need to go relieve himself. The leader shook his head, then lost all interest in his maverick worker. Keff admired Brannel's quick mind; the fellow had to be unique among the field workers on Ozran.

«I am so glad to see you safe, Magelord,» Brannel said, when they had retreated around the curve of the hill. «I was concerned for your safety.»

Keff was touched. «Thank you, Brannel. I was worried for a while, too. But as you see, I'm back safe and sound.»

Brannel was impressed. Only yesterday Mage Keff could speak but a little of the Ozran tongue. Overnight, he had learned the language as well as if he had been born there.

«How may I serve, Magelord?»

«I wonder if you would be willing to do me a favor. I need someone with your injenooety,» Keff said. Brannel shook his head, not comprehending. «Er, your smart brain and wits.»

«Ah,» Brannel said, docketing «injenooety» as a word of the linga esoterka he had not previously known. «You are too kind, Mage Keff. I'd do anything you wish.»

Inwardly, Brannel was jubilant. The mage had sought him out, Brannel, a worker male! He could serve this mage, and in return, who knew? Keff possessed many great talents and wide knowledge which, perhaps, he might share as a reward for good service. One day, Brannel, too, might be able to achieve his dream and take power as a mage.

Keff looked around. «I don't wish to talk here. We might be overheard. Come with me to the silver tower.» When Brannel looked askance at him, he asked, «What's wrong?»

«The noise it made. Mage Keff,» Brannel said, and put his fingers in his ears. «It drove me outside.»

«Oh,» Keff said. «That won't happen again. I want you to come in and stay this time. All right?»

Brannel nodded. The magelord rose to a stoop and began to make his way across the field. None of the workers looked his way. Brannel hurried after him, full of hope.

Instead of entering by the ramp through the open door, Keff directed Brannel around the rear of the tower and pointed upward. A slit as wide as his forearm was long had opened in the smooth silver wall.

«But why . . .?» he asked.

«The front's being watched,» Keff said. He joined his hands together and propped them on one knee. «Put your foot here—that's good. Now, reach for it. Up you go.»

Brannel grabbed the edge of the opening and heaved himself into it. Once he was up, he helped pull Mage Keff into a room crowded with boxes. They had to climb down from a high shelf with great care. When Brannel and Keff were inside, the opening in the wall closed. The female voice of the tower spoke in its strange tongue.

«Aha,» it said. «Come on through.»

«Come with me,» Keff said, in Ozran.

They walked down a short corridor. Two figures sat together in front of the great pictures of the outside. One of them rose and stared at him in horror and surprise.

The feeling was mutual.

«Magess Plennafrey!» Brannel, with one fearful glance at Keff, dropped to his knees and stared at the floor.

«It's okay, Brannel,» Keff said, reassuringly, plucking at the worker males upper arm. «We're all working together here.»

«Hush, everyone,» the other magess said in the towers voice. «Here comes our diversion. I don't want the spies to pick up any sound from in here.»

Carialle turned on a magnetic field in the airlock, strong enough to disable the spy-eyes, should any be bold enough to try to pass inside, but not enough to stop the servo. She slid the door upward. The low-slung robot rumbled imperturbably up the ramp and through the arch. In one slim, black, metal hand it held very carefully a single marsh flower.

Immediately, the spy-eyes thought they had their opportunity to storm the tower and zoomed after the servo. One hit the field before the others and clanked noisily to the ground, disabled. The over-the-air chatter became excited, and the other spheres reversed course at once, speeding away.

«That'll make them crazy,» Carialle said. The first spy sphere rolled halfway down the ramp before its owner, on the other side of the continent, was able to take charge of it once again. As soon as it was airborne, it flitted off.

«Good riddance,» Carialle said, and returned her attention to the situation inside the cabin.

Keff stood between Plennafrey and Brannel with his hands out. Brannel was on his feet, with his mutilated hands balled into fists by his sides. Plenna had both her long-fingered hands planted protectively on her belt buckle. The Ozrans were glaring at each other.

«Now, now,» Keff said. «I need you both. Please, lets make peace here.»

«You intend to explain to a worker what we are doing?» Plenna asked, appealing to Keff. «This one only has four fingers! You can give them directions, but they cannot understand detailed instructions or complicated situations.»

Brannel, following the secondary dialect with evident difficulty, replied haltingly in that language, which surprised the magiwoman as much as his daring to speak out in her presence. «I can understand. Mage Keff has agreed to give me a chance to help. I will do whatever Mage Keff wants,» he said staunchly.

Carialle made her image step forward. «Lady Plennafrey, you are suffering from a preconceived notion that all the people who have had the finger amputation are stupid. Brannel is the exception to almost any rule you can think of. He has superior intelligence for someone brought up with the hardships he suffered. I think he's far smarter than the favored few who live in the mountains with you mages. You're not that different. You belong to the same species,» she said, reaching for an example, «like . . . like Keff and I do.»

«You?» Plennafrey asked.

Almost amazed that such a thought had come from her own speakers, Carialle had to pause to consider the change of attitude she had undergone. Much of it was due to seeing the division of a single people on this world into masters and slaves. She now realized that it was counter-productive to separate herself from her parent community. Yes, she was different, but compared with everything else she and Keff encountered, the similarities were more important. Acknowledging her humanity at last felt right and proper. In spite of the way she always pictured herself, she knew inside the metal shell and the carefully protected nerve center was a human being. She felt warmed by the perception.

«Yes,» she said, simply. «Me.»

Keff beamed at her pillar. Her Lady Fair image beamed happily back at him. Plennafrey fumed visibly at the interplay. If Carialle was human, then the Ozran had a genuine rival. This, combined with her lovers liberal attitude toward the lower class, obviously dismayed the young woman. As she had proved before, she was resilient and adaptable. Plenna seemed to be considering Keff's point of view, but she thoroughly disapproved of Keff having another woman in his life. To disarm the magiwoman, Carialle made her image step back onto the wall. Plennafrey relaxed visibly.

«So I think you should understand that Brannel deserves an explanation if he is to help us.»

«Well . . .» Plennafrey said.

«I heard that some of the mages are descended from Brannel's kind of people,» Keff said persuasively. «Isn't Asedow's mother one like that? I heard Potria call her a dray-face.»

«That's true,» Plenna said, nodding. «And he is intelligent. Not good at thinking things through, but intelligent.» She smiled ruefully at Keff. «I don't wish to make things harder for my people or for myself. I will cooperate.»

«For what am I risking myself?» Brannel asked hoarsely, looking from one mage to another.

«For a sheaf of papers,» Keff said. «I need to see them. Magess Plenna will describe them, and Carialle will create an image for you to see.»

Brannel seemed unsatisfied. «And for me? For what am I risking myself?» he repeated.

«Ah,» Keff said, enlightened. «Well, what's your price? What do you want?»

Plennafrey, losing her newfound liberalism, drew herself up in outrage. «You dare ask for a reward? Do the mages not give you food and shelter? This is just another task we have given you.»

«We have those things, Magess, but we want knowledge, too!» Brannel said. Having begun, he was determined to put his case, even in the face of disapproval from an angry overlord, though somehow he was begging now. «Mage Keff, I . . . I want to be a mage, too. For a tiny, small item of power I will help you. It does not need to be big, or very powerful, but I know I could be a good mage. I will earn my way along. That is all I have ever desired: to learn. Give me that, and I will give you my life.» Keff saw the passion in the Noble Primitives eye and was prepared to agree.

«To give a four-finger power? No!» Plenna protested, cutting him off.

«Not good for you, Brannel,» Carialle said, emphatically, siding unexpectedly with Plennafrey. «Look what a mess your mages have made of this place using unlimited power. How about a better home, or an opportunity for a real education, instead?»

«What about redressing the balance of power. Cari?» Keff asked under his breath.

«It doesn't need redressing, it needs de-escalating,» Carialle replied through her brawns mastoid implant. «Could this planet really cope with one more resentful mage wielding a wand? We still don't know what the power was for originally.»

Brannel's long face wore a mulish expression. Carialle could picture him with donkey's ears laid back along his skull. He was not happy to be dictated to by the flat magess, nor was he comfortable being enlisted by a genuine magess.

«No one speaks of what went before this,» he said. «The promises of mages to other than themselves always prove false. I served Klemay, and now he is dead. Who killed him? I know whoever kills is not always the newest overlord in a place.»

Plenna's mouth dropped open. «How do you know that? You're uneducated. You've never been anywhere but here.»

«You talk over our heads as if we aren't there,» Brannel said flatly. «But I, I understand. Who? I wish to know, for if it was you, I cannot help.»

Plennafrey looked stricken at the idea that she could willingly commit murder. Keff patted her hand.

«He doesn't know, Plenna,» Keff said soothingly. «How could he? It was Ferngal,» he told Brannel. «Chaumel said so last night.»

«Yes, then,» Brannel said eagerly, «I will do what you want. For my price.»

«Impossible,» Plenna said. «He is ignorant.»

«Ignorance is curable,» Keff said emphatically. «It wasn't part of his brain that was removed.» He made a chopping motion at his hand. «He can learn. He's already proved that.»

Brannel looked jealously at Plenna's long fingers. «But I cannot use the power items without help.»

Carialle was immediately sorry Keff had mentioned the amputation. «Brannel, there's nothing that can be done about that now. Some of the other magimen use prosthetics—false fingers. You can, too.»

«If we were home,» Keff said thoughtfully, «surgery could be done to regrow the fingers.» He glanced up to find Plenna gazing at him.

«I must see these wonders,» Plenna said, moving closer. «Should I not come back with you? After all, you said you are here to learn about my people on behalf of your own. I can teach you all about Ozran and see your world. Someday we can come back here together.» She laid one long hand on his arm.

«Uhhh, one thing at a time, Plenna,» Keff said, his smile fixed on his face. Her touch sent tingles up his arm. Her scent and her lovely eyes pulled him toward her like a magnet, but the sudden thought of having a permanent relationship with her had never crossed his mind. Evidently, it had hers. He reproached himself that he should have thought of the consequences before he took her to bed. «Carialle, we may have a problem,» he subvocalized.

«We have a problem,» Carialle said aloud. «The eyes are back. They're circling around outside.»

«Oh!» Plenna ran to the screen. «Nokias, Chaumel, and the other high mages. They are trying to decide what to do.»

«Have they figured out that we're in here?» Keff asked.

«No,» Plenna said, after listening for a moment. «All of their followers are still searching.» Carialle confirmed it.

«Then we'd better make our move, pronto, if we want a chance at those papers,» Keff said. «All that remains is for our agent here to agree to fetch them for us.»

Brannel had been standing beside the console, listening to the three bare-skins talk. He folded his arms over his furry chest.

«I would do anything for you. Mage Keff, but such a chance comes only once to one such as myself. You asked me my price. I told you my hearts desire. Will you pay it?»

Keff appealed to Plennafrey.

«I think he deserves a chance.»

Clearly uneasy, Plennafrey eyed the Noble Primitive. «If all goes well, I agree he will be worthy of an opportunity,» she said slowly. «I do not know where to find him an object of power yet, but I will try.»

«All right, Brannel? Magess Plennafrey will teach you how to use a power object. She'll be your teacher, so she will control what you do to a certain extent—but you'll have your chance. She'll also teach you other things an educated man needs to know. Agreed?»

«Agreed,» Plennafrey said.

Brannel, his eyes shining, fell to his knees before the magiwoman. «Thank you, Magess.»

«There may be no power left for anyone,» Carialle reminded them. «If those power drops have been increasing in frequency over time, it may mean that whatever's powering the magic here on Ozran is finally running down.»

«What do I look for?» Brannel asked meekly.

Following Plenna's instructions, Carialle created the holographic image of a sheaf of dusty documents, yellow with age, and rotated it so the Noble Primitive could see all sides.

«They are very fragile,» Plenna said. «They could shiver to dust if you breathe on them.»

«I will be careful, Magess, I promise.»

«We're left with only one problem,» Keff said. «How do we get Brannel to Plennafrey's stronghold?»

Carialle's Lady Fair image drew an impish smile. «It might be worth a try to count on one of those power drops. If we can attract everyone's attention again, I might be able to break loose when the lights go off. After all, I'm not dependent on the Core of Ozran. I only need a moment. I can be set to launch at any second, and you'll have your diversion to teleport there in peace.»

«How can we do that?» Keff asked, bemused.

«By letting them know where you are,» Cari said. «You zoom outside and start the Wild Hunt all over. That will bring everyone here with a view-halloo, and if I'm right, overload the power lines. As soon as the tractor beam on my tail lets go, I'll take off and distract them away from you. I'll lead them on an orbit of Ozran while Brannel is getting your papers.»

«Do you have enough fuel?» Keff asked.

«Enough for one try,» Carialle said, showing an indicator of her tank levels, «or we may not have the wherewithal to get home. I burned a lot trying to break loose before. Don't fail me.»

«Did I burst my heart in the effort I never would, fair lady,» Keff said, kissing his hand to her. «We'll rendezvous here in two hours.»

With a final reproachful glance at Carialle's image, Plenna took her place on her chariot. Keff crouched behind her like the musher on a dogsled, and Brannel, hunched on hands and knees, clung to the back, white knuckles showing through the fur on his fingers.

«Ready, steady, go!» Carialle threw up the airlock door, and the chariot shot out the narrow passage.

«Yeeeee-haaaah!» Keff yelled as they zoomed over the Noble Primitives' cave. The spy-eyes froze in place.

Suddenly, the air was full of chariots. The mages in them looked here and there for Plennafrey, who was already kilometers away from Carialle.

«Look!» shouted Asedow, pointing with his whole arm, and the mob turned to follow them.

Chaumel blinked in, with Nokias and Ferngal alongside him. Like well-trained squadrons, the wings of mages fell in behind. Keff turned and thumbed his nose at them.

«Nyaah!» he shouted.

Two hundred bolts of red lightning shot from two hundred amulets and rods toward their backs. Plennafrey threw up a shield behind them, which deflected the force spectacularly off in all directions.

«If its coming, its coming now,» Carialle said in Keff's ear. «Building . . . building . . . now!»

«Hold tight!» Keff yelled, as the floor dropped out from under them when the power failed. Plennafrey's shoulders tensed under his hands, and Brannel moaned.

Shrieks and shouts echoed off the valley floor as the other mages were deprived of their power and fell helplessly earthward. Some were close enough to the ground to strike it before the blackout ended. One magess ended up sitting dazed, in the midst of broken pieces of chair, staring around in complete bewilderment.

As before, the power-free interval was brief, but it sufficed for Carialle to kick on her engines and break loose from her invisible bonds. With a roar and an elongating mushroom of fire, she was airborne. As one, the hundreds of mages swiveled in midair, ignoring Plennafrey and Keff, to pursue her. Her cameras picked up images of astonished and furious faces. Chaumel was hammering his chair arm.

«Catch me if you can!» she cried, and took off toward planetary north.

Another fifty meters, and Plennafrey transported them from Klemays valley to an isolated peak. Brannel, a huddled bundle of knees and elbows at her feet, was silent. Keff thought the Noble Primitive was terrified until Brannel turned glowing eyes to them.

«Oh, Magess, I want to do this!» he exclaimed. «It would be the greatest moment of my life if I could make myself fly. I could never even imagine this out of a dream. I beg you to teach me this first.»

Keff grinned at the worker males enthusiasm. «I hope you'll feel as energetic when you find out how much work it is to do magic,» he said.

«Oh, it feels so good to be free again!» said the voice in his ear. Carialle, knowing in advance where they were going, reconnected instantly with Keff's implants. «I have to keep slowing down so I don't lose my audience. They're such quitters! I've almost lost Potria twice.»

«Any unwanted watchers out there, Cari?» Keff asked, pointing his finger so the ocular implants could see.

«No spy-eyes here yet,» Carialle's voice said after a moment.

Plenna shot in over the balcony, which was a twin to the one at Chaumel's stronghold, and hovered a few centimeters above the gray tiles.

«I mustn't land, or the ley lines will indicate it,» she said.

Brannel hopped off and dashed inside.

«Good luck!» Keff called after him. Plenna lifted the chair up and looped over the landing pad's edge to wait beneath the overhang.

Brannel felt the floor humming through his feet and forced himself to ignore it. The discomfort was a small price to pay for associating with mages and having them treat him as a friend, if not an equal. Even a true Ozran magess had been kind to him, and the promise Mage Keff had made him—! The knowledge put a spring in his step all along the corridor walled with painted tiles. At the green-edged door, he turned and put his hand on the latch.

«Ho, there!» Brannel turned. A tall far-face with five fingers strode toward him. He had a strange, flat-nosed face, and his eyes turned up at the corners, but he was handsome, nearly as handsome as a mage. «You're a stranger. What do you think you're doing?»

«I have been sent by the magess,» Brannel said, leaning toward the house servant with all the aggression of a fighter who has survived tough living conditions. The servant backed up a pace.

«Who? Which magess?» the servant demanded. He eyed Brannel's prominent jaw with disdain. «You're not one of us.»

«Indeed I am not,» Brannel said, drawing himself upward. «I am Magess Plennafrey's pupil.»

That statement, and the casual use of the magess's name, shocked the house male rigid. His tilted eyes widened into circles.

Brannel, ignoring him, pushed through the door. The room was lined with hanging cloth pictures. He went to the fourth one from the door and felt behind it at knee level. Gently, he extracted from the hidden pocket a thick bundle. He forced himself to walk, not run, out the door, past the startled house male, down the hallway, and out onto the open balcony.

The chariot appeared suddenly at the edge of the low wall overlooking the precipice, startling him. Keff cheered as Brannel held up the packet and waved him onto the chairs end.

«Good man, Brannel! Where are you, Cari?» Mage Keff asked the air. «We're on our way back to the plain. Yes, I've got them! Cari, I can almost read these!»

The chair swept skyward once more. Now that his task was done and reward at hand, Brannel indulged himself in enjoying the view. One day, he would fly over the mountains like this on his own chariot. Wouldn't Alteis stare?

«Are those what they look like?» Carialle asked, from her position over the south pole.

«Yes! They're technical manuals from a starship,» Keff said, gloating. «One of our starships. The language is human Standard, but old. Very old. Nine to twelve hundred years is my guess from the syntax. Please run a check through your memory in that time frame for,» he held a trembling finger underneath the notation to make sure he was reading it correctly, «the CW-53 TMS Bigelow. See when it flew, and when it disappeared, because there certainly was never a record of its landing here.»

Keff turned page after page of the fragile, yellowing documents, showing each leaf to the implants for Carialle to scan.

«This is precious and not very sturdy,» he said. «If anything happens to it before I get there, at least we'll have a complete recording.» The covers and pages had been extruded as a smooth-toothed and flexible but now crackling plastic. In a tribute to technology a thousand years old, the laser print lettering was perfectly black and legible. He wondered, glancing through it, what the original owners would have said if they could see to what purpose their record-keeping was being put.

«Are these documents good?» Plennafrey asked, over the rush of the wind.

«Better than good!» Keff said, leaning over to show her the ship's layout and classification printed on the inside front cover of the first folder. «These prove that you are the descendant of a starship crew from the Central Worlds who landed here a thousand years ago. You're a human, just like me.»

«That makes everything wonderful!» Plennafrey said, clasping his wrist. «Then there will be no difficulty with us staying together. We might be able to have children.»

Keff goggled. Without being insulting there was nothing he could do at the moment but kiss her shining face, which he did energetically.

«One thing at a time, Plenna,» Keff said, going hastily back to his perusal of the folders. «Ah, there's a reference to the Core of Ozran. If I follow this correctly, yes . . . its a device, passed on to them, not constructed by, the Old Ones, pictured overleaf.» Keff turned the page to the solido. «Eyuch! Ug-ly!»

The Old Ones were indeed upright creatures of bilateral symmetry who could use the chairs reposing in Chaumel's art collection, but that was where their similarity to humanoids ended. Multi-jointed legs with backward-pointing knees depended from flat, shallow bodies a meter wide. They had five small eyes set in a row across their flat faces, which were dark green. Lank black tendrils on their cylindrical heads were either hair or antennae, Keff wasn't sure which from the description below.

«Erg,» Keff said, making a face. «So now we know what the Old Ones looked like.»

«Oh, yes,» Brannel said, casually standing up on the back to look, as if he flew a hundred kilometers above the ground every day. «My father's father told us about the Old Ones. They lived in the mountains with the overlords many years past.»

«How long ago?» Keff asked.

Brannel struggled for specifics, then shrugged. «The wooze-food makes our memories bad,» he explained, his tone apologetic but his jaw set with frustration.

«Keff, something has to be done about deliberately retarding half the population,» Carialle said seriously. «With the diet they're being forced to subsist on, Brannel's people could actually lose their capacity for rational thought in a few more generations.»

«Aha!» Keff crowed triumphantly. «Tapes!» He plucked a sealed spool out of the back cover of one of the folders. «Compressed data, I hope, and maybe footage of our scaly friends. Can you read one of these, Carialle?»

«I can adapt one of my players to fit it, but I have no idea what format its in,» she said. «It could take time.»

Keff wasn't listening. He was engrossed in the second folders contents.

«Fascinating!» he said. «Look at this, Cari. The whole system of remote power manipulation comes from a worldwide weather-control system! So that's what the ley lines are for. They're electromagnetic sensors, reading the temperature and humidity all across Ozran. They were designed to channel energy to help produce rain or mist where it was needed . . . Ah, but the Old Ones didn't build it. They either found it, or they met the original owners when they came to this planet. Sounds like they were cagey about that. The Old Ones adapted the devices to use the power to make it rain and passed them on to you,» he told Plennafrey. «They were made by the Ancient Ones.»

«The Ancient Ones,» Plenna said, reverently, pulling the folder down so she could see it. «Are there images of them, too? None know what they looked like.»

Keff thumbed through the log. «No. Nothing. Drat.»

«Rain?» Brannel asked, reverently. «They could make it rain?»

«Weather control,» Carialle said. «Now that does smack of an advanced technological civilization. Pity they're not still around. This planet is an incipient dust-bowl. Keff, I'm within fifty klicks of the rendezvous site. Beginning landing procedures . . . Uh-oh, power traces increasing in your general vicinity. Company!»

Keff heard cries of triumph and swiveled his head, looking for their source. A score of magimen, led by Potria and Chaumel, had just jumped in and were homing in on them along a northwest vector.

«They've found us!» Plenna exclaimed, her dark eyes wide. Keff stood upright and grasped the back of her chair.

The magiwoman started to weave her arms in complicated patterns. Brannel, realizing that he was in the firing line of a building spell, dropped flat. Plenna launched her sally and had the satisfaction of seeing three of the magimen clear the way. The rattling hiss of the spell as it missed its mark and vanished jarred Keff's bones.

«Can you teleport?» Keff asked, clinging to the chair's uprights.

«Someone is blocking me,» Plenna said, forcing the words through her teeth. «I must fight, instead.»

«You'd be a sitting duck in here anyway,» Carialle interjected crisply, «because the tractor grabbed me again as soon as I touched down. Keep moving!»

Plenna didn't need Carialle's message relayed to her. She took evasive maneuvers like a veteran fighter, zigzagging over the pursuers' heads and diving between two so their red lightning bolts narrowly missed each other. Keff saw Potria's face as he passed. The golden magiwoman had abandoned her look of elegant boredom for a grim set. If her will or her marksmanship had been up to it, she would have spitted them all.

Contrarily, Chaumel seemed to enjoy toying with them. He shot his bolts, not so much to wound, but more as if he were seeing what Plennafrey would do to avoid them. He seemed to have observed that she wasn't spelling to kill, obviously a novelty among Ozran mages.

Plennafrey dived low into the valleys, defying the magifolk to chase her through the nooks and crannies of her own domain. Keff felt the crackle of dry branches brush his shoulders as she maneuvered her chair through a narrow passage and down into a concealed tunnel. While the others circled overhead squawking like crows, she flew through the mountain. Brannel's keening echoed off the moist stone walls. Just as swiftly, they emerged into day.

Keff thought they might have shaken off their pursuers, but he had reckoned without Chaumel's determination. The moment they cleared the tunnel mouth, the silver magiman was there in midair, winding nothingness around and around his hands. Brannel gasped and threw his hands over his head to protect it.

Plenna flattened her hands on her belt buckle, and a translucent bubble of force appeared around her.

«Oh, child.» Chaumel grinned and flicked his fingers. The chair started to sink toward the ground.

«He made the force shield heavy!» Keff said. «We're falling!»

Abandoning her defensive tactic at once, Plennafrey popped the sphere and threw a few of her own bolts at Chaumel. Almost lazily, the other gestured, and the lightning split around him, rocketing toward the horizon. He made up another bundle of power, which Plenna averted. She returned fire, sending a handful of toroid shapes that grew and grew until they could surround Chaumel's limbs and neck. Two made contact, then fell away as open arcs, snaring and taking the other rings with them.

A moment later, Potria and Asedow appeared.

«You found them!» Potria called. The pink-gold magess was jubilant. Plenna turned in her seat and fired a double-barrel of white spark lightning at her. Potria shrieked when her fine clothes and skin were burned by some of the hot sparks. At once she retaliated, weaving a web with missiles of force around the edge that propelled it toward the younger magess.

Asedow chose that moment to drive in at them from the other side. His methods were not as smooth as his rivals. He produced a steady stream of smoky puffs that hung in the air like mines until Plennafrey, trying to avoid Potria's web, was forced back into them.

Keff was nearly shaken off when the first exploded against his back. Plennafrey turned her chair in midair, seeking to steer her way clear of the obstacles. No matter how she turned, she collided with another, and another. By then, Potria's web had struck.

All around him Keff felt rolls of silk fabric, invisible and magnetic, drawing him in, surrounding him, then smothering his nose and mouth. As the spell established itself, it threatened to draw every erg of energy out of his body through his skin. He gasped, clawing with difficulty at his throat. He was suffocating in the middle of thin air. Plennafrey, her slender form slumped partway over one chair arm, her skin turning blue, still fought to free them, her hands drawing primrose fire out other belt buckle. Her will proved mightier than the other female's magic. The sunlight flames consumed the air around her, then caught on the veils of web clinging to Keff and Brannel, turning them into insubstantial black ash. She was about to set them all free when they were overcome by dozens and dozens of bolts of scarlet lightning, striking at them from every direction.

As Keff lost consciousness, he heard Potria and Asedow shrilling at each other again over who would take possession of him and his ship. He vowed he would die before he would let anyone take Carialle.

A sharp scent introduced itself under his nose. Unwittingly, he took a deep breath and recoiled, choking. He batted at the bad smell, but nothing solid was there.

«You're awake,» a voice said. «Very good.»

With difficulty, Keff opened his eyes. Things around him began to take focus. He lay on his back in the main cabin of his ship. Beside him was Plennafrey, also in the throes of regaining consciousness. Brannel lay in a motionless heap under Plenna's feet. And leaning over Keff with a distorted expression of solicitousness was Chaumel.