The Ship Who Won (15 page)

oozed down to his stomach. He burped. "I needed that.

And I need some food, too. Warm, high protein.

"While I replenish myself, tell all, fair lady," Keff said. "I

can take it." With far more confidence than he felt, he

smiled at her central pillar and waited.

"Now, let's see, where were we?" she began in a tone

that was firm enough, but his long association with Carialle

told him that she was considerably agitated. "You got hit by

scarlet lightning. Not, I think, a natural phenomenon, since

none of the necessary meteorological conditions existed.

There's also the problem with its accuracy, landing right at

your feet and knocking you, and you only, unconscious. I

refuse to entertain coincidence. Someone shot that lighting

right at you! I persuaded Brannel to bring you inside."

"You did?" Keff was admiring, knowing how little of the

language she would have had to do any persuading.

"After he scooted, and not without persuasion, I add for

accuracy's sake, we had a plague of what I would normally

class as reconnaissance drones, except they have no perceptible internal mechanisms whatsoever, not even flight

or anti-grav gear." Carialles screens shifted to views of the

outside, telephoto and close-angle. Small, colored spheres

hovered at some distance, flat apertures all facing the

brainship.

"Someone has very pretty eyes," Keff said with interest.

"No visible means of support, as you say. Curious." The

buzzer sounded on the food hatch, and he retrieved the

large, steaming bowl. "Ahhh!"

On the screen, a waveguide graph showing frequency

modulation had been added beside the image of each

drone. The various sound levels rose and fell in patterns.

"Here's what I picked up on the supersonics."

"Such low frequencies," Keff said, reading the graphs.

'They can't be transmitting very sophisticated data."

'The/re broadcasting voice signals to one another,"

Carialle said. "I ran the tapes through IT, and here's what I

got." She played the datafile at slightly higher than normal

speed to get through it all. Keffs eyebrows went up at the

full sentence in clear Standard. He went to the console

where Carialle had allowed him to install IT'S mainframe

and fiddled with the controls.

"Hmm! More vocabulary, verbs, and I dare to suggest

we've got a few colloquialisms or ejaculations, though I've

no referents to translate them fully. This is a pretty how-de-do, isn't it? Whoever's running these artifacts is

undoubtedly responsible for the unexpected power emissions the freighter captain reported to Simeon." He

straightened up and cocked his head wryly at Carialle s pillar. ''Well, my lady, I don't fancy sneak attacks with

high-powered weapons. I'd rather not sit and analyze language in the middle of a war zone. Since we're not armed

for this party, why don't we take off, and file a partial report

on Ozran to be completed by somebody with better

shields?"

Carialle made an exasperated noise. T would take off in

a Jovian second, but we are being held in place by a tractor

beam of some kind. I can read neither the source nor the

direction the power is coming from. It's completely impossible, but I can't move a centimeter. I've been burning fuel

trying to take off over and over-and you know we don't

have reserves to spare."

Keff finished his meal and put the crockery into the synthesizers hatch. With food in his belly, he felt himself

again. His head had ceased to revolve, and the cold had

receded from his bones and muscles.

'That's why I'm your brawn," he said, lightly. "I go and

find out these things."

"Sacrificing yourself again, Keff? To pairs of roving

eyes?" Carialle tried to sound flip, but Keff wasn't fooled.

He smiled winningly at her central pillar. All his protective

instincts were awake and functioning.

"You are my lady," he said, with a gallant gesture. "I seek

the object of my quest to lay at your feet. In this case,

information. Perhaps an Ozran's metabolism only gets a

minor shock,when touched with this mystical power beam.

We don't know that the folk on the other end are hostile."

"Anything that ties my tail down is hostile."

"You shall not be held in durance vile while I, your

champion, live." Keff picked up the portable IT unit,

checked it for damage, and slung it around his chest. "At

least I can find Brannel and ask him what hit me."

"Don't be hasty," Carialle urged. On the main screen

she displayed her recording of the attack on Keff. 'The

equation has changed. We've gone suddenly from dealing

with indigenous peasantry at no level of technology to an

unknown life-form with a higher technology than we have.

This is what you're up against."

Keff sat back down and concentrated on the screen,

running the frames back and forth one at a time, then at

speed.

"Good! Now I know what I need to ask about," he

said, pointing. "Do you see that? Brannel knew what the

lightning was, he knew it was coming, and he got out of

its way. Look at those reflexes! Hmmm. The bolt came

from the mountains to the south. Southwest. I wonder

what the terms are for compass directions in Ozran? I

can draw him a compass rose in the dust, with planetary

sunrise for east..."

Carialle interrupted him by filling the main cabin with a

siren wail.

"Keff, you're not listening. It might be too dangerous.

To unknown powers who can-tie up a full-size spaceship,

one human male isn't a threat. And they've downed you

once already."

"Its not that easy to kill Von Scoyk-Larsens," Keff said,

smiling. 'They may be surprised I'm still moving around.

Or as I said, perhaps they didn't think the red bolt would

affect me the way it did. In any case, can you think of a way

to get us out of here unless I do?"

Carialle sighed. "Okay, okay, gird your manly loins and

join the fray, Sir Galahad! But if you fall down and break

both your legs don't come running to me."

"Nay, my lady," Keff said with a grin and a salute to her

titanium pillar. "With my shield or upon it. Back soon."

a CHAPTER FIVE

Keff walked into the airlock. He twitched down his

tunic, checked his equipment, and concentrated on loosening his muscles one at a time until he stood poised and

ready on the balls of his feet. With one final deep breath

for confidence, he nodded to Carialles camera and

stepped forward.

Regretting more every second that she had been talked

into his proposed course of action, Carialle slid open her

airlock and dropped the ramp slowly to the ground. As she

suspected, the flying eyes drifted closer to see what was

going on. She fretted, wondering if they were capable of

shooting at Keff. He had no shields, but he was right: if he

didn't find the solution, they'd never be able to leave this

place.

Keff walked out to the top of the ramp and held out

both hands, palms up, to the levitating spheres. "I come in

peace," he said.

The spheres surged forward in one great mass, then

flit!, they disappeared in the direction of the distant

mountains.

'That's rung the bell," Keffsaid, with satisfaction. "Spies

of the evil wizard, my lady, cannot stand where good

walks."

A whining alarm sounded. Carialle read her monitors.

"Do you feel it? The mean humidity of the immediate

atmosphere has dropped. Those arching lines of stray

power I felt crisscrossing overhead are strengthening

directly above us. Power surge building, building..."

T feel it," Keff said, licldng dry lips. "My nape hair is

standing up. Look!" he shouted, his voice ringing. "Here

come our visitors!"

Nothing existed beyond three hundred meters away,

but from that distance at point south-southwest, two

objects came hurtling out of nonexistence one after the

other, gaining dimensionality as they neared Carialle, until

she could see them clearly. It took Keff a few long milliseconds more, but he gasped when his eyes caught sight of

the new arrivals.

"Not the drones again," Keffsaid. "Its our wizard!"

"Not a wizard," Carialle corrected him. 'Two."

Keff nodded as the second one exploded into sight after

the first. 'They're not Noble Primitives. They're another

species entirely." He gawked. "Look at them, Cari! Actual

humanoids, just like us!"

Carialle zoomed her lenses in for a good look. For once

KefFs wishful thinking had come true. The visitor closest

to Carialle's video pickup could have been any

middle-aged man on any of the Central Worlds. Unlike

the cave-dwelling farmers, the visitor had smooth facial

skin with neither pelt, nor beard, nor mustache; and the

hands were equipped with four fingers and an opposable

thumb.

"Extraordinary. Vital signs, pulse elevated at eighty-five

beats per minute, to judge by human standards from the

flushed complexion and his expression. He's panting and

cursing about something. Respiration between forty and

sixty," Carialle reported through KefFs mastoid implant.

"Just like humans in stress!" Keff repeated, beatifically.

"So were Brannel and his people," Carialle replied,

overlaying charts on her screen for comparison. "Except

for superficial differences in appearance, this male and our

Noble Primitives are alike. That's interesting. Did this new

species evolve from the first group? If so, why didn't the

Noble Primitive line dead-end? They should have ceased

to exist when a superior mutation arose. And if the bald-faced ones evolved from the hairy ones, why are there so

many different configurations of Noble Primitives like

sheep, dogs, cats, and camels?"

'That's something I can ask them," Keff said, now subvocalizing as the first airborne rider neared him. He

started to signal to the newcomer.

The barefaced male exhibited the haughty mien of one

who expected to be treated as a superior being. He had

beautiful, long-fingered hands folded over a slight belly

indicative of a sedentary lifestyle and good food. Upright

and dignified, he rode in an ornate contraption which

resembled a chair with a toboggan runner for a base. In

profile, it was an uncial "h" with an extended and flared

bottom serif, a chariot without horses. Like the metal

globes that had heralded the visitors' arrival, the dark

green chair hovered meters above the ground with no visible means of propulsion.

"What is holding that up?" Keff asked. "Skyhooks?"

"Sheer, bloody, pure power," Carialle said. 'Though, by

the shell that preserves me, I can't see how he's manipulating it. He hasn't moved an extra muscle, but he's

maneuvering like a space jockey."

"Psi," Keff said. 'They've exhibited teleportation, and

now telekinesis. Super psi. All the mentat races humankind has encountered in the galaxy rolled together aren't as

strong as these people. And they're so like humans. Hey,

friend!" Keff waved an arm.

Paying no attention to Keff, the sledlike throne veered

close to Carialle s skin and then spun on its axis to face the

pink-gold chariot that followed, making the occupant of

that one pull up sharply to avoid a midair collision. She sat

up tall in her seat, eyes blazing with blue-green fire, waves

of crisp bronze hair almost crackling with fury about her

set face. Her slim figure attired in floating robes of ochre

and gold chiffon, she seemed an ethereal being, except for

her expression of extreme annoyance. She waved her long,

thin hands in complex gestures and the man responded

sneeringly in land. Keffs mouth had dropped open.

"More sign language," Carialle said, watching the

woman's gestures with a critical eye. "New symbols. IT

didn't have them in the glossary before."

"I'm in love," Keff said, dreamily. "Or at least in lust.

Who is she?"

"I don't know, but she and that male are angry at each

other. They're fighting over something."

"I hope she wins." Keff sighed, making mooncalf eyes at

the new arrival. "She sure is beautiful. That's some figure

she's got. And that hair! Just the same color as her skin.

Wonderful." The female sailed overhead and Keffs eyes lit

up as he detected a lingering scent. "And she's wearing the

most delicious perfume."

Carialle noted the rise in his circulation and respiration

and cleared her throat impatiently.

"Keff! She's an indigenous inhabitant of a planet we

happen to be studying. Please disengage fifteen-year-old

hormones and re-enable forty-five-year-old brain. We

need to figure out who they are so we can free my tail and

get off this planet."

"I can't compartmentalize as easily as you can," Keff

grumbled. "Can I help it if I appreciate an attractive lady?"

"I'm no more immune to beauty than you are," Carialle

reminded him. "But if she's responsible for our troubles, I

want to know why. I particularly want to know how\"

Across the field, some of the Noble Primitives had