[Kelvin 03] - Chimaera's Copper (with Robert E. Margroff) (29 page)

"What's that? Copper?" Marvin seemed more than just curious.

"Yes. There's a lot of it where we're going."

"Copper? Lots of copper?"

"Yes." The revolutionary leader's manner was puzzling. Why should he be concerned about copper, when he could go after gold?

"It's rare here. It's our most valuable metal. One copper coin is worth three gold or two silver."

"We'll get you copper," Kelvin said, a mental dawn breaking. So copper was the most valuable metal, here! "Enough to buy your army. You do want that army?"

"Want it? I'd kill for it!"

Expressions had a way of carrying across the frames, Kelvin thought. His father had spoken that way at least once or twice about matters of lesser importance. Taking a deep breath and a firm hold on the sting, he stepped with faked confidence into the transporter. He was confident that it would work, but not about the rest of this misadventure.

Bloorg was waiting. In his hand was his copper sting, point on the metal floor. Kelvin nodded to him and waited also, feeling that it was the thing to do. The squarear could pick up from his mind what was going on.

Soon they were all there, with the exception of his father and Marvin. Then John Knight stepped from the transporter, and the group leader.

Marvin's eyes widened as he looked at Bloorg. His hand went to his sword.

Kelvin's right gauntlet grabbed the big revolutionary's wrist. "Don't! The squarears are in control!"

"Copper!" Marvin gasped, straining at the gauntlet.

"Friend." Maybe. In authority, anyway.

Bloorg spoke. "You were to bring the chimaera its seeds."

"We reached the wrong frame," John said, pretending not to notice the struggle going on.

"My fault," Kian explained. "I'm sorry. Even after you told us the setting--"

"I told you the setting for your own world. You disobeyed."

"I was there," Kelvin said. "I went to our home world for the seeds. They were not where Mouvar left them. I'm certain we can get the seeds, but it will take time to find the berries and harvest them."

"So you came back empty-handed."

"Yes." Kelvin felt uncomfortably like a schoolboy being scolded. It wasn't as if he hadn't run into difficulties.

"Who," Bloorg suddenly demanded, "are these others?"

Kelvin was sure the squarear already knew. But he answered hastily: "From the world we reached by error. They have a purpose in being here. The chimaera was in touch with me mentally. The chimaera approved their coming."

"The chimaera does not make policy. The chimaera does not make law."

"But--"

"You have disobeyed by returning here without the seeds. You have broken law by bringing others."

"I'm sorry," Kelvin said. He had known of no such law, but realized that ignorance was no excuse. Bloorg was like a teacher about to mete out punishment. But perhaps if he explained--

"The cost of our returning was that we help these people," he said. "You see, they have a tyrant, and--"

"Keep your mind still!"

Kelvin tried to relax. He knew that Bloorg was getting the story from him, and he hoped he was getting it right. There were so many things that he himself did not understand. For instance, why had the transporter been one-way until the gauntlets made it functional?

"Mouvar has his reasons," Bloorg said. "The people of that frame were not and are not ready. The transporter was for others."

"Mouvar watches over us all, doesn't he?" The thought slipped out into speech before he realized it.

Bloorg's eyes glowed. "You too are not ready."

Kelvin did a mental shrug. In time maybe his kind would be considered adults by the like of Bloorg and the chimaera. For now they were children or animals who weren't ready yet to learn. "Precisely. Animals. Mentally inferior life-forms."

Now Kelvin groaned mentally. He wondered how much of this conversation was being followed by Marvin and his men. It probably didn't matter, but they would be affected by the outcome.

Snick, snick, snick! Marvin and his fellows had their swords drawn, Kelvin had stopped watching them and had released Marvin's wrist as soon as Marvin seemed accepting. Now he realized that either he or the gauntlets had made a mistake.

"No squareheaded foreigner calls me an inferior life-form!" the revolutionary leader boomed.

Bloorg waved a hand. The blades glowed red. The men cursed mightily as their swords clanged to the floor.

"They have powers," Kelvin explained belatedly. "In many ways they are more advanced than we are. They have magic here, while in worlds like yours and my father's there's only technology."

"Do you know what you're talking about?" Marvin snarled. He shook his hand, his eyes narrowed with the lingering pain.

"Not really," Kelvin confessed. "Only that it's well to do what Bloorg says."

Marvin wrung his hand. "It's burned!" he said, looking at the palm. "It's burned bad!"

"Is it, Marvin Loaf?" Bloorg asked. His hands did marvelously strange tricks, the fingers twining and untwining like snakes. One finger snapped out at Marvin and made a circle of all his men.

Marvin looked astonished. "It's stopped! It's not burned anymore!"

"Mine neither," Hester said, amazed.

"Or mine!" Redleaf exclaimed, holding out his hands and staring at them.

Awe held the strangers from the wrong frame transfixed, silencing them.

"Now that that little demonstration is over," Bloorg said, "we can proceed with business. The chimaera had no authority from me to do what it did. The chimaera deserves to be punished."

"More than it has been?" Kelvin demanded. "More than being confined to one little island?" Kelvin was astonished by his own words. He must have had some help from the chimaera in forming them.

"Quite right. The chimaera shaped your thoughts and you spoke them as your own."

The chimaera was getting him and all of them into more trouble!

"Wrong. I am quite aware of the chimaera's reasoning in this matter. But I do not understand why it wants to give up its supply of copper to these simple beings."

"Because," Kelvin said, knowing that this was the chimaera's thought and that Bloorg would recognize it as such, "I am tired of being a target. Every inferior life-form with access to a transporter comes after my shed stings. I don't need them now, especially if I can locate others like myself. All I need is enough copper in my diet to keep from growing pale and weak and unmetallic. These roundears had a one-way transporter and can have it again. Let them take the copper to their own world and keep it there, confined. Whenever I shed an old sting they can have that as well. Then let the inferior life-form poachers go to that world to steal the copper. They will discover that they are as much prisoner as I am!"

Hoo! Kelvin thought. That would serve the poachers right! It would also rid the other frames of them. They would have to settle down to honest work in their primitive prison frame, hating every minute of it. The chimaera had a beautiful notion!

Thank you, Kelvin, Mervania's direct thought came. I am rather pleased with it myself.

"That's very commendable, Mervania," Bloorg said. Now Marvin Loaf's face changed, as he caught on to what was happening. Perhaps the chimaera had touched his mind, too, with a bit of explanation. "But what about the sting you now have? Your kind have been slain through the centuries for single stings. Indeed, the robot Stapular would have slain you earlier, had he not been waiting for your latest sting to mature. That was why he was able to deceive me; I assumed that since he allowed his living companions to be slain, he had no weapon sufficient to harm you. Surely there will be other poachers."

"That," Kelvin/Chimaera said with asperity, "is why I am confined to an island and why you guard the transporter! I expect you to do a better job in the future."

Bloorg's eyes closed and opened, their lids making an audible click. It seemed the chimaera had scored tellingly. "That might reduce the number and strength of expeditions, Mervania, once it is widely known."

"It will be," Mervania/Kelvin said. "And if the transporter is kept locked, at Marvin Loaf's outlet, and these inferior life-forms do not use the sting in magic--"

"We won't!" Marvin exclaimed, evidently willing to ignore the remark about inferior life-forms. "We don't even believe in that stuff! Much. All we want is the copper. Any horserear poachers come for it, we'll know what to do with 'em!"

"Agreed," Mervania/Kelvin said.

"Agreed," Bloorg echoed.

Kelvin was surprised and relieved. He had been afraid that all of them, the chimaera included, would be punished. Evidently the chimaera had understood the situation better than he.

Naturally, Kelvin, Mervania's thought came.

CHAPTER 22

Apprentice

"Grip my hands tighter," Helbah ordered. "Let your essence and mine mingle."

Charlain tried to do as directed. The glade, the trees, the animals peering on, even the aged face, all blurred. It was the dizzying twirl Helbah had made her do, and that bitter wine. Now her arms and legs felt numb. Her fingers tingled. She was, was...

Helbah's hands. Helbah's arms. Helbah. Where did Charlain end and Helbah begin? She could feel her heart beating in Helbah's chest, feel the pain of Helbah's reopened wound, feel the blood seeping, seeping through her black satiny wrapper.

"Helbah! Helbah! I'm you!"

"We're we. Notice which mouth you're speaking from."

Charlain noticed. She had spoken from a nearly toothless mouth with sagging cheeks--Helbah's. But when Helbah spoke it was from a mouth that had all its teeth and was perfect except for a bitter aftertaste.

"We can do it now!" one of the mouths said. "Concentrate!"

Charlain tried to remember. Her legs and arms jerked her. Over to the huge tree. Over to the big crystal sealed in its hollow. Her eyes fixed on its surface, then below. Murky smoke swirled and twirled. Then--

Soldiers fighting. Klingland uniforms against Kelvinian uniforms. In the background, through clouds of dust, the huge dome of the Klingland capital.

Swords clashed. Crossbow bolts flew. Men died. More dead lay in the red uniforms of the Klinglanders than the green uniforms of the attackers. Even as she realized this, more died.

"Hurry! Hurry!"

They had to be helped. They had to be given new strength. She could almost feel the weakness in those red- uniformed arms. She wanted them stronger, stronger, stronger, their minds and bodies refreshed.

It was like a great wind blowing through her, out of her, into the crystal, into the bodies and minds of the defending soldiers. A green-uniformed soldier was knocked from his saddle with a broad sweep of a defender's sword. Now another, and another! The green-uniformed men were going down like harvested stalks of grain! Now they were panicking, turning, running. Their horse's hooves raised dust as they rode into their dust, pursuing them, chasing them, forcing them to keep retreating and not turn back.

"Now! Now! Now!"

Dust rose, twirled, and--

Blurring twin capital domes, city, hills, forest, big hills, bigger hills.

Another army. Green uniforms with a few black uniforms. Bigger than the force driven from Klingland's capital. Fighting soldiers wearing the bright orange uniforms of Kance. The green uniforms and the black uniforms were winning. Orange uniforms lay with dead or dying bodies in them in the valleys and across the hills. There was no doubt the orange-clads were being driven back, closer and closer to the twin capitals.

This must not happen!

Strength, strength, strength surging through her arms. Out of her arms, to the bodies and minds of the defending warriors.

A green-uniformed soldier dropped his. sword and died. A second was cut down in similar manner. Here a black uniform screamed its agony until a great war-horse's hoof crushed the unfortunate Herman's head. More and more, the green- and black-clad died or were unhorsed. More and more the orange-clad struck down their opponents and fought with renewed force.

Now the orange had stopped retreating. Now the armies were facing each other in unyielding lines. Now the spears flew and the swords clanged and the spectacle was increasingly ghastly.

The Kance army was fighting well now, but remained outnumbered. No matter how hard the orange fought, they were certain to be cut down in the end. They had to have help. Magic help. Witch's help.

With an intensity she had not imagined she had, Charlain felt the buildup, the great ballooning of rage. In her body, in her soul. Growing, growing, growing. She believed the mechanism to be good and just, yet the force was so strong she could not begin to control it.

In the crystal, above the armies, there developed a great roaring ball of flame. All fighting stopped. The soldiers of both armies looked up. The blacks and the greens trembled. The orange-clads waved and cheered. For the ball was orange. Orange was on top.

With a sudden swoop the ball shot over the invading army. It descended. Men threw up their arms, trying vainly to ward off its heat. It glowed, and the horses danced, spilling their riders and stampeding in terror. Little tendrils of flame grew out of its sides, reaching down, touching, burning, crisping as it sped. Men cowered and threw away their fire-hot weapons. The horses bolted for elsewhere. There was chaos.

The ball imploded with an earthshaking report. Sparks showered down on the Kelvinian army.

The Kancians charged. Encouraged by the panic in the enemy resulting from the witch's fire, they met little fighting resistance. Their swords swung freely. Their spears darted. Men, good, bad, and indifferent, choked and died.

"Oh Lester," Charlain whimpered, remembering how it had been with him, knowing that similar horror was now being visited on so many more on his side. But there was no stopping it. The invading army was retreating, racing headlong for safety.

Charlain felt herself falling. She felt her face against the ground. She felt blades of grass in her nose and tickling her ears. She felt that she herself was dying.

"Oh what have I done?" she moaned. "What have I done?" "You did what had to be done," said her other mouth there above her. "What I had to do and you had to help me do."