The Ship Who Won

Chapter Eleven

Carialle fought against the blackness that abruptly surrounded her, refusing to believe in it. Between one nanopulse and the next, Chaumel had appeared in the main cabin, past the protective magnetic wall she had set up, and stood gloating over the contents of a captive starship. Outraged at the invasion, Carialle set up the same multi-tone shriek she used on Brannel to try and drive him out. Chaumel threw up protective hands, but not over his ears.

Suddenly she could move nothing and all her visual receptors were down. She could still hear, though. The taunting voice boomed hollowly in her aural inputs, continuing his inventory and interjecting an occasional comment of self-congratulation.

She spoke then, pleading with him not to leave her in the dark. The voice paused, surprised, then Carialle felt hands running over her: impossible, insubstantial hands penetrating through her armor, brushing aside her neural connectors and yet not detaching them.

«My, my, what are you?» Chaumel's voice asked.

«Restore my controls!» Carialle insisted. «You don't know what you're doing!»

«How very interesting all of this is,» he was saying to someone. «In my wildest dreams I could never have imagined a man who was also a machine. Incredible! But it isn't a man, is it?» The hands drew closer, passed over and through her. «Why, no! It is a woman. And what interesting things she has at her command. I must see that.»

Invisible fingers took her multi-camera controls away from her nerve endings, leaving them teasingly just out of reach. She sensed her life-support system starting and stopping as Chaumel played with it, using his TK. She felt a rush of adrenaline as he upset the balance of her chemical input, and was unable to access the endorphins to counteract them. Then the waste tube began to back up toward the nutrient vat. She felt her delicate nervous system react against pollution by becoming drowsy and logy.

«Stop!» she begged. «You'll kill me!»

«I won't kill you, strange woman in a box,» Chaumel said, his voice light and airy, «but I will not risk having you break away from my control again as you did when the magic dropped. What a chase you led us! Right around Ozran and back again. You made a worthy quarry, but one grows tired of games.»

«Keff!»

«I'm here, Carialle,» the brawns voice came, weak but furious. Carialle could have sung her relief. She heard the shuffling of feet, and a crash. Keff spoke again through soughing pain. «Chaumel, we'll cooperate, but you have to let her alone. You don't understand what you're doing to her.»

«Why? She breathes, she eats—she even hears and speaks. I just control what she sees and does.»

For a brief flash, Carialle had a glimpse of the control room. Keff and the silver magiman faced one another, the Ozran very much in command. Keff was clutching his side as if cradling bruised ribs. Plenna stood behind Keff, erect and very pale. Brannel, disoriented, huddled in a corner beside Keff's weight bench. Then the image was gone, and she was left with the enveloping darkness. She couldn't restrain a wail of despair.

It was as if she were reliving the memory of her accident again for Inspector Maxwell-Corey. All over again! The helplessness she hoped never again to experience: sensory deprivation, her chemicals systems awry, her controls out of reach or disabled. This time, the results would be worse, because this time when she went mad, her brawn would be within arms reach, listening.

Swallowing against the pain in his ribs, Keff threw himself at Chaumel again. With a casual flick of his hand, Chaumel once more sent him flying against the bulkhead. Plennafrey ran to his side and hooked her arm in his to help him stand.

«You might as well stop that, stranger,» Chaumel advised him. «The result will be the same any time you try to lay hands on me. You will tire before I do.»

«You don't know what you're doing to her!» Keff said, dragging himself upright. He dashed a hand against the side of his mouth. It came away streaked with blood from a split lip.

«Ah, yes, but I do. I see pictures,» Chaumel said, with a smile playing about his lips as his eyes followed invisible images. «No, not pictures, sounds that haunt her mind, distinct, never far from her conscious thoughts-tapping.» The speakers hammered out a distant, slow, sinister cadence.

Carialle screamed, deafeningly. Keff knew what Chaumel was doing, exercising the same power of image-making he had used on Keff to intrude on his consciousness. Against this particular illusion Carialle had no mental defenses. To dredge up the long-gone memories of her accident coupled with Chaumel's ability to keep her bound in place and deprive her of normal function might rob her of her sanity.

«Please,» Keff begged. «I will cooperate. I'll do anything you want. Don't toy with her like that. You're harming her more than you could understand. Release her.»

Chaumel sat down in Keff's crash couch, hands folded lightly together. Swathed in his gleaming robes, he looked like the master of ceremonies at some demonic ritual.

«Before I lift a finger and free my prisoner"—he leveled his very long first digit at Keff—"I want to know who you are and why you are here. You didn't make the entire overlordship of this planet fly circuits for amusement. Now, what is your purpose?»

Keff, knowing he had to be quick to save Carialle's sanity, abandoned discretion and started talking. Leaving out names and distances, he gave Chaumel a precis of how they had chosen Ozran, and how they traveled there.

». . . We came here to study you just as I told you before. That's the truth. In the midst of our investigations we've discovered imbalances in the power grid all of you use,» Keff said. «Those imbalances are proving dangerous directly to you, and indirectly to your planet.»

«You mean the absences that occur in the ley lines?» Chaumel said, raising his arched eyebrows. «Yes, I noticed how you took advantage of that last lapse. Very, very clever.»

«Keff! They're crawling over my skin,» Carialle moaned. «Tearing away my nerve endings. Stop them!»

«Chaumel . . .»

«All in good time. She is not at risk.»

«You're wrong about that,» Keff said sincerely, praying the magiman would listen. «She suffered a long time ago, and you are making her live it over.»

«And so loudly, too!» Chaumel flicked his fingers, and Carialle's voice faded. Keff had the urge to run to her pillar, throw himself against it to feel whether she was still alive in there. He wanted to reassure her that he was still out there. She wasn't alone! But he had to fight this battle sitting still, without fists, without epee, hoping his anxiety didn't show on his face, to convince this languid tyrant to free her before she went mad.

«I've discovered something else that I think you should know,» Keff said, speaking quickly. «Your people are not native to Ozran.»

«Oh, that I knew already,» Chaumel said, with his small smile. «I am a historian, the son of historians, as I told you when you . . . visited me. Our legends tell us we came from the stars. As soon as I saw you, I knew that your people are our brothers. What do you call our race?»

«Humans,» Keff said quickly, anxious to get the magiman back on track of letting go of Carialle's mind. «The old term for it was 'Homo sapiens' meaning the 'wise man.' Now, about Carialle . . .»

«And you also wish to tell me that our power comes from a mechanical source, not drawn mystically from the air as some superstitious mages may believe. That I also knew already.» He looked at Plennafrey. «When I was your age, I followed my power to its source. I know more than the High Mages of the Points about whence our connection comes to the Core, but I kept my knowledge to myself and my eyes low, having no wish to become a target.» Modestly, he dropped his gaze to the ground.

If he was looking for applause, he was performing for the wrong audience. Keff lunged toward Chaumel and pinned his shoulders against the chair back.

«While you're sitting here so calmly bragging about yourself,» Keff said in a clear, dangerous voice, «my partner is suffering unnecessary and possibly permanent psychic trauma.»

«Oh, very well,» Chaumel said, imperturbably, closing his hand around the shaft of his wand as Keff let him go. «What you are saying is more amusing. You will tell me more, of course, or I will pen her up again.»

Sight and sensation flooded in all at once. Carialle almost sobbed with relief, but managed to regain her composure within seconds. To Keff, whose sympathetic face was close to her pillar camera, she said, «Thank you, sir knight. I'm all right. I promise,» but she sensed that her voice quavered. Keff looked skeptical as he caressed her pillar and then resumed his seat.

«Keff says that our power was supposed to be used to make it rain,» Plenna said. «Is this why the crops fail? Because we use it for other things?»

«That's right,» Keff said. «If you're using the weather technology as you have been, no wonder the system is overloading. Whenever a new mage rises to power, it puts that much more of a strain on the system.»

«You have some proof of this?» Chaumel asked, narrowing his eyes.

«We have evidence from your earliest ancestors,» Keff said.

«Ah, yes,» Chaumel said, raising the notebooks from his lap. «These. I have been perusing them while waiting for you to wake up. Except for a picture of the inside of an odd stronghold and an image of the Old Ones, I cannot understand it.»

«I can only read portions of it without my equipment,» Keff said. «The language in it is very old. Things have changed since your ancestors and mine parted company.»

«It's a datafile from the original landing party,» Carialle said. «That much we can confirm. Humans came to Ozran on a starship called the TMS Bigelow over nine hundred years ago.»

«And where did you get this . . . datafile?»

«It's mine!» Plenna said stoutly. She started forward to reclaim her property, but Chaumel held a warning hand toward Carialle's pillar. With a glance at Keff's anxious face, Plenna stopped where she stood.

«Yours?» The silver magiman looked her over with new respect. «I didn't think you had it in you to keep a deep secret, least of magesses. Your father, Rardain, certainly never could have.»

Plenna reacted with shame to any mention of her late father. «He didn't know about it. I found it in an old place after he . . . died.»

«Does that matter?» Keff said, stepping forward and putting a protective arm around Plenna's waist. The tall girl was quaking. «We're trying to head off what could become a worldwide disaster, and you're preventing us from finding out more about the problem.»

«And this 'datafile' will tell you what to do?» Chaumel was delicately skeptical.

Carialle manifested her Lady Fair image on the wall.

After a momentary double take, Chaumel accepted it and occasionally made eye contact with it.

«Given time, I can try to read the tapes,» Carialle said. «In the meantime, Keff can translate the hard copy.»

Chaumel settled back. «Good. We have all the time you wish. The curtain you set about this place will prevent the others from finding us. In a little while they will be tired of chasing shadows and go home. That will leave us without disturbance.»

«Can I use my display screens?»

The silver magiman was gracious. «Use anything you wish. You can't go anywhere.»

Grumbling at Chaumel's make-yourself-at-home attitude, Carialle spent a few minutes re-establishing the chemical balances in her system. Two full extra cycles of the waste-disposal processor, and her bloodstream was clear of everything but what belonged there. She increased the flow of nutrients and gratefully felt the adrenaline high fade away.

She assessed the size of the tape cassette Keff held up and noted that there was one place for a spindle on the small, airtight capsule. Two other input bays were made to take tapes as well as datahedrons. Carialle rolled the capstan and spindle forward from the rear wall of the player, narrowed the niche so the tape wouldn't wobble, then opened the door.

«Ready,» she said.

«Here goes nothing at all,» Keff said, and slid the tape in.

Carialle closed the door. As she engaged the spindle, the cassette popped open, revealing the tape, and letting go a puff of air. Carialle, who had been expecting just that, captured the trace of the thousand-year-old atmosphere in a lab flask and carried it away through the walls to analyze its contents.

Slowly, she rolled the tape against the heads, comparing the scan pattern produced on her wave-form monitor with thousands of similar patterns.

«Can you read it?» Keff asked.

«We'll see,» Carialle said. «There are irregularities in the scan, which I attribute to poor maintenance of the recording device that produced it. Of all the lazy skivers, why did one have to be recording this most important piece of history? It would have been no trouble at all to keep their machinery in good repair, damn their eyes.»

«Did you want it to be easy, lady fair? Do you know, I just realized I'm hungry,» Keff announced, turning to the others. «Plenna, we've had nothing since last night, and damned little then. May I buy you lunch?»

The magiwoman turned her eyes toward him with relief. Her face was beginning to look almost hollow from strain.

«Oh, that would be very nice,» she said thinly. A timid croak from the side of the weight bench reminded him Brannel was still with them. He was hungry, too.

«Right. Three coming up. Chaumel?»

«No, very kindly, no,» the silver magiman said, waving a hand, although keeping an eye on him that was anything but casual. Keff gave instructions to the synthesizer, and in moments removed a tray with three steaming dishes.

«Very simple: meat, potatoes, vegetables, bread,» Keff said, pointing the food out to his guests.

«Hold it, Keff,» Carialle said. «I don't trust our captor.» Keff aimed his optical implants at each plate in turn. «Uh-huh. Just checking.»

«Thank you, lady dear. I count on your assistance,» Keff said subvocally. Placing the first plate on its tray in Plenna's lap, he handed the second filled dish and fork to Brannel before he settled on me weight bench to enjoy his own meal.

Brannel was still staring at the divided plate when Keff turned back.

«What's the matter?» Keff asked. «It's good. A little heavy on the carbohydrates, perhaps, but that won't spoil the taste.»

Wordlessly, Brannel turned fearful eyes up to him.

«Ah, I see,» Keff said, intuiting the problem. «Should I try some first to show you it's all right? We're all eating the same thing. Would you like my dinner instead?»

«No, Mage Keff,» Brannel said after a moment, glancing wild-eyed at Chaumel, «I trust you.»

If he had any misgivings, one taste later the worker was hunched over his lunch, shoveling in mouthfuls inexpertly with his fork. He probably would have growled at Keff if he had tried to take it away. In no time the dish was empty.

«You packed that away in a hurry. Would you like another plate? It's no trouble.»

Eyes wide with hope, Brannel nodded. He looked guilty at being so greedy, but more fascinated that «another plate» was no trouble. As soon as the second helping was in his hands, he began wolfing it down.

«Huh! Crude,» Chaumel said, fastidiously disregarding the male. «Well, if you want to keep pets . . .»

Brannel didn't seem to hear the senior mage. He sucked a stray splash of gravy off his hairy fingers and scraped up the last of the potatoes.

«How's my supply of synth, Cari?» Keff asked, teasingly. The worker stopped in the middle of a mouthful. «I'm teasing you, Brannel,» he said. «We're carrying enough food to supply one man for two years—or one of you for six months. Don't worry. We're friends.»

Plenna ate more sedately. She smiled brightly once at Keff to show she enjoyed the food. Keff patted her hand.

«Bingo!» Carialle said, triumphantly. «Got you. Gentlemen and madam, our feature presentation.»

A wow, followed by the hiss of low-level audio, issued from her main cabin speakers. Carialle diverted her main screen to the video portion of the tape. On it, a distant, spinning globe appeared.

«The scan is almost vertical across the width of the tape,» Carialle explained. «Very densely packed. You could measure the speed in millimeters per second, so where glitches appear there's no backup scan. Because this was done on a magnetic medium, some is irrevocably lost, though not much. I have filled in where I could. This is not the full, official log. I think it was a personal record kept by a biologist or an engineer. You'll see what I mean in the content.»

The tape showed several views of Ozran from space, including technical scans of the continents and seas. Loud static accompanied the glitches between portions. Carialle found the technology was as primitive as stone knives and bearskins compared to her state-of-the-art equipment, but she was able to read between the lines of scan. She put up her findings on a side screen for the others to read.

«Looks like a damned fine prospect for a colony,» Keff said, critically assessing the data as if it were a new planet he was approaching. «Atmosphere very much like that of Old Earth.»

«Ureth,» Plennafrey breathed, her eyes bright with awe.

Keff smiled. «Uh-huh, I see why they made planetfall. Their telemetry was too basic. We wouldn't miss aboveground buildings and the signs of agriculture from space, no matter how slight, but they did. Hence, first contact was made.»

The Bigelow's complement had been four hundred and fifty-two, all human. Keff fancied he could see a family resemblance to the flamboyant Mage Omri in the darkskinned captain's face.

Chaumel lost his veneer of sophistication when the first Old One appeared on screen. He stared at it openmouthed. Keff, too, was amazed by the alien being, but he could appreciate that, to Chaumel, it was analogous to the gods of Mount Olympus visiting Athens.

«I have never seen anything like them. Have you, Carialle?»

«No, and neither has Xeno,» Cari said, running a hasty cross-match through her records. «I wonder where they came from? Somewhere else in R sector? Tracing an ion trail at this late date would be impossible.»

What could not have been indicated by the still image in the folders which Keff has seen was that each of the aliens five eyes could move independently. The flat bodies were faintly amusing, like the pack of card-men in Through the Looking-Glass. The tapes compressed many of the early meetings with the host species, as they showed the crew of the Bigelow around their homes, introduced them to their offspring, and demonstrated some of the wonders of their seemingly inexplicable manipulation of power.

The Old Ones had obviously once had a thriving civilization. By the time the crew of the Bigelow arrived, they were reduced to two small segments of population: the number who lived singly in the mountains and the communal bands who tilled the valley soil. Being few, they hadn't put much of a strain on the available resources, but it wasn't a viable breeding group, either.

Keff listened to the diarists narration and repeated what he could understand into IT for the benefit of the Ozrans.

«The narrator described the Old Ones and how happy they were to have the humans come to live with them. He's talking about ugly skills possessed—no, fabulous skills possessed by these ugly aliens, who promised to share what they knew. Whew, that is an old dialect of Standard.»

An Old One was persuaded to say a few words for the camera. It pressed its frightful face close to the video pickup and aimed three eyes at it. The other two wandered alarmingly.

«I can understand what it says,» Chaumel said, too fascinated to sound boastful. «How it speaks is what we now call the linga esoterka. 'How joy find strangejoy find strange two-eyes folk,' is what this one says.»

«He's pleased to meet you,» Keff said with a grin. He directed IT to incorporate Chaumel's translation into his running lexicon of the second dialect of Ozran. «It sounds as though a good deal of Old One talk was incorporated into a working language, a gullah, used by the humans and Old Ones to communicate.»

The mystical sign language Keff had observed was also in wide usage among the green indigenes, but the narrator of the tape hadn't yet observed its significance. Keff could feel Carialle's video monitors on him, as if to remind him of the times that IT ignored somatic signals. He grinned over his shoulder at her pillar. This time, IT was coming through like the cavalry.

«So that is where the expression 'to look in many directions at once' comes from,» Chaumel said excitedly. «We cannot, but the Old Ones could.»

In his corner, Brannel was hanging on to every word. Keff realized that his three guests comprehended far more of the alien languages than he could. The two mages chimed in cheerfully when the Old Ones spoke, giving the meaning of gestures and words in the common Ozran tongue, which Keff knew now was nothing more than a dialect of Human Standard blended with the Old Ones' spoken language. Somewhat ruefully, he observed that, with Carialle's enhanced cognitive capacity, he, the xenolinguist, was the one who would retain the least of what was going by on the screen. Carialle signaled for Keff's attention when a handful of schematics flashed by.

«Your engineer identifies those microwave beams that have been puzzling me,» she said. 'They're the answerback to the command function from the items of power telling the Core of Ozran how much power to send. Each operates on a slightly different frequency, like personal communicators. The Core also feeds the devices themselves. Hmm, slight risk of radioactivity there.» One of Carialles auxiliary screens lit with an exploded view of one of the schematics. «But I haven't seen any signs of cancers. In spite of their faults, Ozrans are a healthy bunch, so it must be low enough to be harmless.»

Another compression of time. In the next series of videos, the humans had established homes for themselves and were producing offspring. Some, like the unknown narrator, had entered into apprenticeships to learn the means of using the power items from the Old Ones. The rest lived in underground homes on the plains.

«Hence the division of Ozrans into two peoples,» Keff said, nodding. «It's hard to believe this is the same planet.»

The video changed to views of burgeoning fields and broad, healthy croplands. Ozran soil evidently suited Terran-based plant life. The narrator aimed his recorder at adapted skips, full of grain and vegetables being hauled by domesticated six-packs. The next scene, which made the Ozrans gasp with pleasure, showed the humans and one or two Old Ones hurrying for shelter in a farm cavern as a cloudburst began. Heavy rain pelted down into the fields of young, green crops.

In the next scene, almost an inevitable image, one proud farmer was taped standing next to a prize gourd the size of a small pig. Other humans were congratulating him.

Keff glanced at the Ozrans. All three were spellbound by the images of lush farmland.

«These cannot be pictures of our world,» Plenna said, «but those are the Mountains of the South. I've known them since my childhood. I have never seen vegetables that big!»

«It is fiction,» Chaumel said, frowning. «Our farms could not possibly produce anything like that giant root.»

«They could once,» Carialle said, «a thousand years ago. Before you mages started messing up the system you inherited. Please observe.»

She showed the full analysis of the puff of air that had been trapped in the tape cassette. Keff read it and nodded. He understood where Carialle was headed.

«This shows that the atmosphere in the early days of human habitation of Ozran had many more nitrogen/oxygen/carbon chains and a far higher moisture content than the current atmosphere does.» Another image overlaid the first. «Here is what you're breathing now. You have an unnaturally high ozone level. It increases every time there is a massive call for power from the Core of Ozran. If you want more . . .»

In the middle of the cabin Carialle created a three-dimensional image of Ozran. «This is how your planet was seen from space by your ancestors.» The globe browned. Icecaps shrank slightly. The oceans nibbled away at coastline and swamped small islands. The continents appeared to shrink together slightly in pain. «This is how it looks now.»

Plenna hugged herself in concern as Ozran changed from a healthy green planet to its present state.

«And what for the future?» she asked, woebegone eyes on Carialle's image.

«All is not lost, Magess. Let me show you a few other planets in the Central Worlds cluster,» Carialle said, putting up the image of an ovoid, water-covered globe studded with small, atoll-shaped land masses. «Kojuni was in poor condition from industrial pollution. It took an effort, but its population reclaimed it.» The sky of Kojuni lightened from leaden gray to a clear, light silver. «Even planet Earth had to fight to survive.» A slightly flattened spheroid of blue, green, and violet spun among them. The green masses on the continents receded and expanded as Carialle compressed centuries into seconds. For additional examples, she showed several Class-M planets in good health, with normal weather patterns of wind, rain, and snow scattering across their faces. The three-dimensional maps faded, leaving the image of present-day Ozran spinning before them.

Chaumel cleared his throat.

«But what do you say is the solution?» he asked.

«You overlords have got to stop using the power,» Keff said. «It's as simple as that.»

«Give up power? Never!» Chaumel said, outraged, with the same expression he would have worn if Keff had told him to cut off his right leg. «It is the way we are.»

«Mage Keff.» Brannel, greatly daring, crept up beside them and spoke for the first time, addressing his remarks only to the brawn. «What you showed of the first New Ones and their land—that is what the workers of Klemay have been trying to do for as long as I have lived.» He looked at Plenna and Chaumel. «We know plants can grow bigger. Some years they do. Most die or stay small. But I know—»

«Quiet!» Chaumel roared, springing to his feet. Brannel was driven cowering into the corner. «Why are you letting a fur-face talk?» the silver mage demanded of Keff. «You can see by his face he knows nothing.»

«Now, look, Chaumel,» Keff said, aiming an admonitory finger at him, «Brannel is intelligent. Listen to him. He has something that no other farmer on your whole world does: a working memory—and that's your fault, you and your fellow overlords. You've mutated them, you've mutilated them, but they're still human. Don't you understand what you saw on the tape? Brannel knows when, and probably why your crops have failed, so let the man talk.»

Brannel was gratified that Mage Keff stuck up for him. So he gathered courage and tried, haltingly, in the face of Chaumel's disapproval, to describe the failed efforts of years. «We seek to feed the earth so it will burgeon like this—I know it could—but every time, the plants either die or the cold and dryness come back when the mages have battles. The farms could feed us so much better, if there was more water, if it was warmer. Of the crops"—he held up all eight of his digits—"this many do not survive.» He folded down five fingers.

«You're losing over sixty percent of your yield because you like to live high,» Keff said. «Your superfluous uses of power, to show off, to play, to kill, is irresponsible. You're killing your world. One day your farms won't be able to sustain themselves. People will die of starvation. No matter what you think of their mental capacity, you couldn't want that because then you'd have no food and no one to do the menial labor you require.»

Chaumel looked from Keff's grim face to the spinning globe of Ozran, and sat down heavily in the crash couch.

«We are doing that,» he said, raising his long hands in surrender. «Everything he says, he knows. But if I lay down my items of power to help, my surrender will not stop all the others, nor will appealing to wisdom. We mages distrust each other too much.»

«Then we need to negotiate a mass cease-fire,» Carialle said.

«Not without a ready alternative,» Chaumel returned promptly. «Our system is steeped in treachery and the counting of coup.»

«I found references to that, too,» Keff said, consulting a page of the first manual. «Somebody made a bad translation for your forefathers of instructions given to officers seeking promotion. It says 'consideration for continued higher promotion will be given to those individuals who complete the most successful projects in the most efficient manner.' It goes on to say that those projects should benefit the whole community, but I guess that part got lost over time. There's a similar clause in our ship's manual, just in updated language.»

Chaumel groaned.

«Then all this time we have been making an enormous mistake.» He appealed to Keff and the image of Carialle. «I didn't know that we were acting on bad information. All my life I thought I was following the strictures of the First Ones. I sought to be worthy of my ancestors. I am ashamed.»

Keff realized that Chaumel was genuinely horrified. By his own lights, the silver mage was an honorable man.

«Well,» Keff said, slowly, «you can start to put things right by helping us.»

Chaumel chopped a hand across.

«Your ship is free. What else do you want me to do?»

«Seek out the Core of Ozran and find out what it was really meant to do, what its real capacity is,» Carialle said at once. «Its possible, although I think unlikely, that you can retain some of your current lifestyle, but if you are serious about wanting to rescue your planet and future generations—»

«Oh, I am,» Chaumel said. «I will give no more trouble.»

«Then its time to redirect the power to its original purpose, as conceived by the Ancient Ones: weather control.»

«But what shall we do about the other mages?» Plennafrey asked.

«If we can't convince 'em,» Carialle said, «I think I can figure out how to disable them, based on what our long-gone chronicler said about answerback frequencies. With a little experimentation, I can block specific signals, no matter how tight a wave band they're broadcast on. The others will learn to live on limited power, or none at all. It's their choice.»

«We'd employ that option,» Keff said quickly when he saw Chaumel's reaction, «only if there is no other way to persuade them to cooperate.»

«And that is where I come in,» Chaumel said, smiling for the first time. «I am held in some esteem on Ozran. I will use my influence to negotiate, as you say, a widespread mutual surrender. With the help of the magical pictures you will show us"—he bowed to Carialle's image—"we will persuade the others to see the wisdom in returning to the ways of the Ancient Ones. We must not fail. The size of that gourd . . .» he said, shaking his head in gently mocking disbelief.

«I still think you're wrong to leave Brannel behind,» Keff argued, as Plenna lofted him over the broad plains toward Chaumel's stronghold.

«It is better that only we three, with the aid of Carialle and her illusion-casting, seek to convince the mages,» the silver magiman said imperturbably. He sat upright in his chariot, hands folded over his belly.

«But why not Brannel? I'm not a native. I can't explain things in a way your people will understand.»

Chaumel shook his head, and pitched his voice to carry over the wind. «My fellows will have enough difficulty to believe in a woman who lives inside a wall. They will not countenance a smart four-finger. Come, we must discuss strategy! Tell me again what it said about promotion in the documents. I must memorize that.»

The chariots flew too far away even to be seen on the magic pictures. Brannel, left alone in the main cabin, felt awkward at being left out but dared not, in the face of Chaumel's opposition, protest. He remained behind, haunting the ship like a lonely spirit.

The flat magiwoman appeared on the wall beside him, and paced beside him as he walked up and back.

«I don't know when they'll be coming back,» Carialle said very gently, surprising him out of his thoughts. «You should go now. Keff will come and get you when he returns.»

«But, Magess,» Brannel began, then halted from voicing the argument that sprang to his tongue. After all, this time she was not driving him away with painful sounds, but he was unhappy at being dismissed whenever the overlords had no need of him. After all the talk of equality and the promise of apprenticeship following his great risk-taking in Magess Plennafrey's stronghold, he, the simple worker, was once more ignored and forgotten. He sighed.

«Now, Brannel.» The picture of the woman smiled. «You'll be missed in the cavern if you don't go. True?»

«True.»

«Then come back when you've finished your work for the day. You can keep me company while I'm running the rest of the tapes.» The voice was coaxing. «You'll see them before Magess Plenna and Chaumel. How about that as an apology for not sending you out with the others?»

Brannel brightened slightly. It would be hard to return to daily life after his brush with greatness. But he nodded, head held high. He had much to think about.

«Oh, and Brannel,» Carialle said. The flat magess was kind. She gestured toward the food door which opened. A plate lay there. «The bottom layer is soft bread. You can roll the rest up in it. We call it a 'sandwich.'»

He walked down the ship's ramp with the «sandwich» of magefood cradled protectively between his hands. The savory smell made his mouth water, even though it hadn't been long since he had eaten his most delicious lunch. How he would explain his day's absence to Alteis Brannel didn't yet know, but at least he would do it on a full belly. Associating with mages was most assuredly a mixed blessing.

«Why not relax?» Chaumel said, leaning back at his ease in a deeply carved armchair that bobbed gently up and down in the air. «He will come or he will not. I shall ask the next prospect and we'll collect High Mage Nokias later. Sit down! Relax! I will pour us some wine. I have a very good vintage from the South.»

Keff stopped his pacing up and back in the great room of Chaumel's stronghold. Chaumel had decided on the first mage to whom he would appeal, and sent a spy-eye with the discreet invitation. Evening had fallen while the three of them waited to see if Nokias would accept. The holographic projection table from the main cabin was set up in the middle of the room. He went over to touch it, making sure it was all right. Plennafrey watched him. The young magiwoman sat in an upright chair in her favorite place by the curtains, hands folded in her lap.

«It's important to get this right,» Keff said.

«I know it,» Chaumel said. «I am cognizant of the risks. I may enjoy my life as it is, but I love my world, and I want it to continue after I'm gone. You may find it difficult to convince my fellows of that. I achieve nothing by worrying about what they will say before I have even asked the question. The evidence speaks for itself.»

«But what if they don't believe it?»

«You leave the rest to me,» Chaumel said. He snapped his fingers and a servitor appeared bearing a tray holding a wine bottle and a glass. He poured out a measure of amber liquid and offered it to Keff. The brawn shook his head and resumed pacing. With a shrug, Chaumel drank the wine himself.

«All clear and ready to go,» Carialle said through Keff's implant.

«Receiving,» Keff said, testing his lingual transmitter, and let it broadcast to the others.

«I have pinpointed the frequencies of all of Chaumel's and Plennafrey's items of power, including their chariots. They're all within a very narrow wave band. Will you ask Plenna to try manipulating something, preferably not dangerous or breakable?»

Plenna, grateful for something to do to interrupt the waiting, was happy to oblige.

«I shall use my belt to make my shoe float,» Plenna said, taking off her dainty primrose slipper and holding it aloft. She stepped away, leaving it in place in midair.

«But you're not touching the belt,» Keff said. «I've noticed the others do that, too.»

Plenna laughed, a little thinly, showing that she, too, was nervous about the coming confrontation. «For such a small thing, concentrating is enough.»

«Here goes,» Carialle said.

Without fanfare, the shoe dropped to the ground.

«Hurrah!» Keff cheered.

«That is impossible,» Plenna said. She picked it up and replaced it, this time with her hand under her long sash.

«Do it again, Cari!»

Carialle needed a slightly more emphatic burst of static along the frequency, but it broke the spell. The shoe tumbled to the floor. Plennafrey put it back on her foot.

«No answerback, no power,» Carialle said simply, in Keff's ear. «Now all I have to do is be open to monitor the next magiman's power signals and I can interrupt his spells, too. I'm only afraid that with such narrow parameters, there might be spillover to another item I don't want to shut off. I'm tightening up tolerances as much as I can.»

«Good job, Cari,» Keff said. He smacked his palms together and rubbed them.

«You are very cheerful about the fall of a shoe,» Chaumel said.

«It may be the solution to any problems with dissenters,» Keff said.

A flash of gold against the dark sky drew their attention to the broad balcony visible through the tall doors. Nokias materialized alone above Chaumel's residence and alighted in the nearest spot to the door. As their message had bidden him, he had arrived discreetly, without an entourage. Chaumel rose from his easy chair and strode out to greet his distinguished guest.

«Great Mage Nokias! You honor my poor home. How kind of you to take the trouble to visit. I regret if my message struck you as anything but a humble request.»

Nokias's reply was inaudible. Chaumel continued in the same loud voice, heaping compliments on the Mage of the South. Keff and Plenna hid behind the curtained doors and listened. Plenna suppressed a giggle.

«Laying it on thick, isn't he?» Keff whispered. The girl had to cover her mouth with both hands not to let out a trill of amusement.

Nokias mellowed under Chaumel's rain of praise and entered the great hall in expansive good humor.

«Why the insistence on secrecy, old friend?» the high mage asked, slapping Chaumel on the back with one of his huge hands.

«There was a matter that I could discuss only with you, Nokias,» Chaumel said. He beckoned toward the others' place of concealment.

Keff stepped out from the curtains, pulling Plenna with him.

«Good evening, High Mage,» he said, bowing low. Nokias's narrow face darkened with anger.

«What are they doing here?» Nokias demanded.

Chaumel lost not a beat in his smooth delivery of compliments.

«Keff has a tale to tell you, high one,» Chaumel said. «About our ancestors.»

Carialle, alone on the night-draped plain a hundred klicks to the east, monitored the conversation through Keff's aural and visual implants. Chaumel was good. Every move, every gesture, was intended to bring his listeners closer to his point of view. If Chaumel ever chose to leave Ozran, he had a place in the Diplomatic Service any time he cared to apply.

She kept one eye on him while running through her archives. Her job was to produce, on cue, the images Chaumel wanted. Certain parameters needed to be met. The selection of holographic video must make their point to a hostile audience. And hostile Nokias would be when Chaumel got to the bottom line.

«You are no doubt curious why I should ask you here, when we spent all day yesterday and all morning together, High Mage,» Chaumel said, jovially, «but an important matter has come up and you were the very first person I thought of asking to aid me.»

«I?» Nokias asked, clearly flattered. «But what is this matter?»

«Ah,» Chaumel said, and spoke to the air. «Carialle, if you please?»

«Carialle?» Nokias asked, looking first at Plennafrey, then at Keff. «Has he two names, then?»

«No, high one. But Keff does come from whence our ancestors came, and his silver tower has another person in it. She cannot come out to see you, but she has many talents.»

That was the first signal. Using video effects she cadged from a 3-D program she and Keff watched in port, she spun the image up from the holo-table as a complicated spiral, widening it until it resolved itself as the globe of Ozran, present day.

Nokias was impressed by Keff's 'magic,' according him a respectful glance before studying the picture before him. Chaumel led him through a discussion of current farming techniques.

At the next cue, Carialle introduced the image of Ozran as it had been in their distant past.

». . . If more attention were paid to farming and conservation,» Chaumel's smooth voice continued.

Maybe a little video of a close-up look at the farms run by the four-fingers would be helpful. Pity the images taken through Keff's contact button were 2-D, but she could coax a pseudo-holograph out of the stereoscopic view from his eye implants. She found the image from the dog-peoples commune, and cropped out images of the six-packs hauling a clothful of small roots.

». . . Higher yield . . . water usage . . . native vegetation . . . advantage in trade . . .»

In the seat of honor, Nokias sat up straighter. Chaumel's sally regarding superior trading power among the regions had struck a chord in the southern magiman's mind.

«My people farm the tropical zone,» Nokias noted, nodding toward Plennafrey, who was all large eyes watching her senior. «We harvest a good deal of soft fruit.» Chaumel reacted with polite interest as if it were the first time he'd heard that fact. «If the climate were warmer and more humid, I could see a greater yield from my orchards. That does interest me, friend Chaumel.»

«I am most honored. High Mage,» the silver magiman said smoothly, with a half-bow. «As you see, there has been a deterioration . . .»

Keeping the holo playing, Carialle ran through the datafile, looking for specific images relating to yield. With some amusement, she discovered the video from her servos search for the marsh flower. Globe-frogs clunked into one another getting out of the low-slung robots way. They gestured indignantly at the servo for scaring them.

«Help us save Ozran,» Chaumel was saying, using both gesture and word to emphasize his concept. «Help us to stay the destruction of our world by our own hand.»

«Help,» Carialle repeated to herself, translating the sign language Chaumel used.

«It would also be good to cease dosing the workers with forget-drugs so they will be smart enough to aid us in saving our world,» Plennafrey spoke up, timidly.

«That I am not sure I would do,» Nokias said.

«Oh, but consider it,» Plenna begged. 'They are part of our people. With less power, you will need more aid from them. All it would take is giving them the ability to take more responsibility for their tasks. Help us,» she said, also making the gesture.

Carialle played the video of the first landing, including the encounters with the Old Ones. Nokias was deeply impressed.

«This proves, as we said, that the workers are of the same stock as we. There is no difference,» Chaumel concluded.

«I will think about it,» Nokias said at last.

«Help,» Carialle said again. «Now, where else have I seen that gesture used?» She ran back through her memory. Well, Potria had used it during the first battle over Keff and the ship, but Carialle was certain she had seen it more recently—wait, the frogs!

She replayed the servos video, reversing the data string to the moment when the robot surprised the marsh creatures. The frogs weren't reacting out of animal fright.

«They were talking to us!» Carialle said. She put the image through IT. The sign language was an exact match.

Intrigued, Carialle ran an analysis of every image of the amphibioids she had and came out with an amazing conclusion.

«Keff,» she sent through Keff's implant. «Keff, the globe-frogs!»

«What about them?» he subvocalized. «I'm trying to concentrate on Nokias.»

«To begin with, those globular shells were manufactured.»

«Sure, a natural adaptation to survive.»

«No, they're artificial. Plastic. Not spit and pond muck. Plastic. And they speak the sign language. I think we've found our equal, spacefaring race, Keff. They're the Ancient Ones.»

«Oh, come on!» Keff said out loud. Nokias and Chaumel turned to stare at him. He smiled sheepishly. «Come on, High Mage. We want you to be prosperous.»

«Thank you, Keff,» Nokias said, a little puzzled. Favoring Keff with a disapproving glare, Chaumel reclaimed his guest's attention and went on with his carefully rehearsed speech.

Carialle's voice continued low in his ear. «They're so easy to ignore, we went right past them without thinking. That's why the Old Ones moved up into the mountains—to take the technology they stole out of reach of its rightful owners, who couldn't follow them up there. When the humans came, they didn't know about the frogs, so they inherited the power system, not knowing it belonged to someone else. They thought the globe-frogs were just animals. It would explain why they're so interested in any kind of power emission.»

«I think perhaps you're on to something, lady,» Keff said. «Let's not mention it now. We're asking for enough concessions, and the going is hazardous. We can test your hypothesis later.»

«It's not a hypothesis,» Carialle said. But she controlled her jubilation and went back to being the audio-video operator for the evening.

«Very well,» Nokias said, many hours later. «I see that our world will die unless we conserve power. I will even discuss an exchange of greater self-determination for greater responsibility from my workers. But I will let go of my items only if all the others agree, too. You can scarcely ask me to make myself vulnerable to stray bolts from disaffected . . . ah . . . friends.»

«High Mage, I agree with you from my heart,» Chaumel said, placing a hand over his. «With your help, we can attain concord among the mages, and Ozran will prosper.»

«Yes. I must go now,» Nokias said, rising from his chair. «I have much to think about. You will notify me of your progress?»

«Of course. High Mage,» Chaumel said. He turned to escort his guest out into the night.

Gasping, Plennafrey pointed toward the curtains. The others spun to see. A handful of spy-spheres hovering there flitted out into the window and disappeared into the night.

«Whose were they?» Chaumel demanded.

«It was too dark to see,» Plenna said.

«I am going,» Nokias said, alarmed. «These eavesdroppers may be the enemy of your plans, Chaumel. I have no wish to be the target of an assassination attempt.»

Escorted by a wary Chaumel, Keff, and Plennafrey, the golden mage hurried out to his chariot. He took off, and teleported when he was only a few feet above the balcony.

«I do not wish to distress you, but Nokias is correct when he says there will be much opposition to our plans,» Chaumel said. «You would be safe here tonight. I am warding every entrance to the stronghold.»

«No, thank you,» Keff said, holding Plennafrey's hand.

«I'd feel safer in my own cabin.»

Chaumel bowed. «As you wish. Tomorrow we continue the good work, eh?» In spite of the danger, he showed a guarded cheerfulness. «Nokias is on our side, friends. I sense it. But he is reasonable to be afraid of the others. If any of us show weakness, it is like baring one's breast to the knife. Good night.»