The Ship Who Won (14 page)

Femgal, magical ones. There is a silver cylinder in the crop

fields among the workers. It is huge, High Mage, as large

as a tower. I do not know how it got mere! There is a man

nearby and... I do not know this person."

Iranika cackled to herself. The other spy-eyes spun on

hers, pupils dilated to show the fury of their operators.

"You knew about it all the time, old woman," Potria said,

accusingly.

"I detected it many hours ago," Iranika said, maddeningly coy. "I told you there had been strange movement in

the ley lines, but did you listen? Did you think to check for

yourselves? I have been watching. The great silver cylinder

fell through the sly with fire at its base. A veritable flying

fortress. It is a power object of incredible force. The man

who came from within has been consorting with Klemays

peasants."

"He is not tied to the Core of Ozran," Nokias declared

after a moments concentration, "and so he is not a mage.

That will make him easy to capture. We will find out who

he is and whence he comes. Lend me your eyes, Dyrene.

Open to me."

"I obey, lord," the tinny voice said.

Concentrating on his target, the Mage of the South laid

his left hand across his right wrist to activate the Great

Ring, and raised both hands toward the window. A bolt of

crackling, scarlet fire lanced from his fingertips into the

sly.

"He falls, High Mage," Dyrene reported.

"I must see this stranger for myself," Iranika said. Without asking for leave, her spy-eye rose toward the great

window.

"Wait, high ones!" Dyrene called. "A peasant moves the

strangers body. He carries it toward the silver tower." After

a moment, when all the spy-eyes hovered around Dyrene s

sphere, "It is sealed inside."

Iranika groaned.

"I want this silver cylinder," Asedow said in great excitement. "What forces it would command! High Mage, I

claim it!"

"I challenge you, Asedow," Potria shrilled at once. "I

claim both the tower and the being."

Other voices raised in the argument: some supporting

Potria, some Asedow, while there were even a few clamor-ing for their right to take possession of the new artifacts.

Nokias ignored these. Potria and Asedow would be permitted to make the initial attempt. Subsequent challengers

would take. on the winner, if Nokias himself did not claim

liege right to the prizes.

'The challenge is heard and witnessed," Nokias declared,

shouting over the din. He raised the hand holding the Great

Ring. With a squawk, Plenna sent her spy-eye to take refuge

underneath Nokias s floating chair and warded the windows

of her mountain home. Humming, scarlet power beams

lanced in through Nokias s open window, one from each of

the two mages in their mountain strongholds. They struck

together in a crashing explosion sealed by the Great Ring.

"And the contest begins."

All the eyes flew out of the arching stone casement

behind the challengers to have a look at the objects of contention.

"It is bigger than huge," Plennafrey observed, spiraling

her eye around and around the silver tower. "How beautiful it is!"

'There are runes inscribed here," Iranikas old voice

said. Plennafrey felt the faint pull of the old woman trying

to attract attention, and followed the impulse to the red

spy-eye floating near the broad base. "Come here and see.

I have not seen anything in all my archives which resemble

these."

"I spy, with my little eye, an enigma of huge and significant proportions," Nokias said, his golden sphere hovering

behind them as they tried to puzzle out the runes.

"It is a marvelous illusion," Howet said, streaking back a

distance to take in the whole object. "How do I know this

isn't a great trick by Femgal? Metal and fire-thats no

miracle. High Mage. I can build something like this myself."

"It is most original in design," Noldas said.

"Femgal hasn't the imagination," Potria protested.

"Its lovely," Plenna said, admiring the smooth lines.

Iranika sputtered. "Lovely but useless!"

"How do you know?" Potria snapped.

While her servos were taking care of Keff, Carialle kept

vigil on the mountain range to the south. No rain was falling, so where had that lightning, if it was lightning, come

from? An electrical discharge of that much force had to

have a source. She didn't read anything appropriate in that

direction, not even a concentration of conductive ore in

the mountains that could act as a natural capacitor. The

fact that the bolt had fallen so neatly at Keffs feet suggested deliberate action.

The air around her felt ionized, empty, almost brittle.

After the bolt had struck, the atmosphere slowly began

to return to normal, as if the elements were flowing like

water filling in where a stone had hit the surface of a

pond.

Her sensors picked up faint rumbling, and the air

around her drained again. This time she felt a wind blowing hard toward the mountain range. Suddenly the scarlet

bolts struck again, two jagged spears converging on one

distant peak. Then, like smithereens scattering from under

a blacksmiths hammer, minute particles flew outward

from the point of impact toward her.

She focused quickly on the incoming missiles. They

were too regular in shape to be shards of rock, and also

appeared to be flying under their own power, even increasing in speed. The analysis arrived only seconds before the

artifacts did, showing perfect spheres, smooth and vividly

colored, with one sector sliced off the front of each to show

a lenslike aperture. Strangely, she scanned no mechanisms

inside. They appeared to be hollow.

The spheres spiraled around and over her, as if some

fantastic juggler was keeping all those balls in the air at

once. Carialle became aware of faint, low-frequency transmissions. The spheres were sending data back to some

source. She plugged the IT into her external array.

Her first-assumption-that the data was meant only for

whatever had sent each-changed as she observed the

alternating-pattern of transmission and the faint responses

to the broadcasts from the nontransmitting spheres. They

were talking to each other. By pinning down the frequency, she was able to hear voices.

Using what vocabulary and grammar Keff had recorded

from Brannel and the others, she tried to get a sense of the

conversation.

The IT left long, untranslatable gaps in the transcript.

The Ozran language was as complex as Standard. Keffhad

only barely begun to analyze its syntax and amass vocabulary. Carialle recorded everything, whether she understood

it or not.

"Dam you, Keff, wake up," she said. This was his spe-cialty. He knew how to tweak the IT, to adjust the

arcane device to the variables and parameters of language. The snatches of words she did understand

tantalized her.

"Come here," one of the colored balls said to the others

in a high-pitched voice. "... (something) not . . . like

(untranslatable)."

"... (untranslatable) . . . how do ... know . . ." Carialle

heard a deep masculine voice say, followed by a word

Brannel had been using to refer to Keff, then another

unintelligible sentence.

"... (untranslatable)."

"How do you know?"

An entire sentence came through in clear translation.

Carialle perked up her audio sensors, straining to hear

more. She ordered the servo beside the weight bench to

nudge Keffs shoulder.

"Keff. Keff, wake up! I need you. You have to hear this.

Aargh!" She growled in frustration, the bass notes of her

voice vibrating die tannoy diaphragms. "We get a group of

uninhibited, fluent native speakers, situated who knows

where, and you're taking a nap!"

The strange power arcs that she had sensed when they

first landed were stronger now. Did that power support the

hollow spheres and make them function? Whoever was

running the system was using up massive power like air:

free, limitless, and easy. She found it hard to believe it

could be the indigenous Noble Primitives. They didn't

have anything more technologically advanced than beast

harness. Carialle should now look for a separate sect, the

"overlords" of this culture.

She scanned her planetary maps for a power source and

was thwarted once again by the lack of focus. The lines of

force seemed to be everywhere and anywhere, defying

analysis. If there had been less electromagnetic activity in

the atmosphere, it would have been easier. Its very abundance prevented her from tracing it. Carialle was

fascinated but nervous. With Keff hurt, she'd rather study

the situation from a safer distance until she could figure

out who was controlling things, and what with.

No time to make a pretty takeoff. On command, Carialle's servo robots threw their padded arms across Keffs

forehead, neck, chest, hips, and legs, securing him to the

weight bench. Carialle started launch procedures. None of

the Noble Primitives were outside, so she wouldn't scare

them or fry them when she took off. The flying eye-balls

would have to shift for themselves. She kicked the engines

to launch.

Everything was go and on green. Only she wasn't

moving.

Increasing power almost to the red line, she felt the

heat of her thrusters as they started to slag the mineral-heavy clay under her landing gear, but she hadn't risen a

centimeter.

"What kind of fardling place is this?" Carialle

demanded. "What's holding me?" She shut down thrust,

then gunned it again, hoping to break free of the invisible

bonds. Shut down, thrust! Shut down, thrust! No go. She

was trapped. She felt a rising panic and sharply put it down.

Reality check: this could not be happening to a ship other

capabilities.

Carialle ran through a complete diagnostic and found

every system normal. She found it hard to believe what her

systems told her. She could detect no power plant on this

planet, certainly not one strong enough to hold her with

thrusters on full blast. She should at least have felt a twitch

as such power cut in. Some incredible alien force of

unknown potency was holding her surface-bound.

"No," she whispered. "Not again."

Objectively, the concept of such huge, wild power controlled with such ease fascinated the unemotional,

calculating part of Carialle's mind. Subjectively, she was

frightened. She cut her engines and let them cool.

Rescue from this situation seemed unlikely. Not even

Simeon had known their exact destination. Sector R was

large and unexplored. Nevertheless, she told herself

staunchly, Central Worlds had to be warned about the

power anomaly so no one else would make the mistake of

setting down on this planet. She readied an emergency

drone and prepared it to launch, filling its small memory

with all the data she and Keff had already gathered about

Ozran. She opened the small drone hatch and launched it.

Its jets did not ignite. The invisible force held it as firmly as

it did her.

Frequency analysis showed that an uncapsuled mayday

was unlikely to penetrate the ambient electromagnetic

noise. Even if she could have gotten one in orbit, who was

likely to hear it in the next hundred years? She and Keff

were on their own.

"Ooooh." A heartfelt groan from the exercise equipment announced Keffs return to consciousness.

"How do you feel?" she asked, switching voice location

to the speaker nearest him.

"Horrible." Keff started to sit up but immediately

regretted any upward movement. A sharp, seemingly

pointed pain like a saw was attempting to remove the rear

of his skull. He put a hand to the back of his head, clamped

his eyes shut, then opened them as wide as he could, hoping to dispel his fuzzy vision. His eyelids felt thick and

gritty. He took a few deep breaths and began to shiver.

"Why is it cold in here, Can? I'm chilled to the bone."

"Ambient temperature of this planet is uncomfortably

low for humans," Carialle said, brisk with relief at his

recovery.

"Brrr! You're telling me!" Keff slid his legs around and

put his feet on the ground. His sight cleared and he realized that he was sitting on his weight bench. Carialles

servos waited respectfully a few paces away. "How did I get

in here? The last thing I remember was talking to Brannel

out in the field. What's happened?"

"Brannel brought you in, my poor wounded knight. Are

you sure you're well enough to comprehend all?" Carialle s

voice sounded light and casual, but Keff wasn't fooled. She

was very upset.

The first thing to do was to dissolve the headache and

restore his energy. Pulling an exercise towel over his shoulders like a cape and moving slowly so as not to jar his head

more than necessary, Keff got to the food synthesizer.

"Hangover cure number five, and a high-carb warm-up," he ordered. The synthesizer whirred obediently. He

drank what appeared in the hatch and shuddered as it