The Ship Who Won (23 page)

working their heads off, and furry sommeliers decanting

wine. I think he's acting like the teleportative equivalent of

a maitre d'."

"All right, I concede that they might be technicians.

What I want to know is just what they want with us so

badly that they have to trap us in place."

"What we appear to be, or at least I appear to be, is a

superior technical gizmo. Your girlfriend and her green

sidekick at least don't want something this big to get away.

The greed, by the way, is not limited to those two. At least

eighty percent of the people here experience increased

respiration and heartbeat when they look at you and the IT

box, and by proxy, me. It's absolutely indecent."

Chaumel went around the room like a zephyr, defusing

arguments and urging people to sit down to prepare for

the meal. Keff admired his knack of having every detail at

his fingertips. Couches with attached tables appeared out

of the ether. The guests disported themselves languidly on

the velvet covers while the tables adjusted themselves to

be in easy range. The canape servers vanished in midstep

and the remains of the hors d'oeuvres with them. Napery,

silver, and a translucent dinner service appeared on every

table followed by one, two, three sparkling crystal goblets,

all of different design. White, embroidered napkins

opened out and spread themselves on each lap.

Something caught Keff squarely in the belly and behind

the knees, making him fold up. A padded seat caught him,

lifted him up and forward several feet into the heart of the

circle of magifolk, and the tray across his middle clamped

firmly down on the other arm of the chair. Under his heels,

a broad bar braced itself to give him support. A napkin

puffed up, settled like swansdown on his thighs.

"Oh, I'm not hungry," he said to the air. The invisible

maitre d' paid no attention to his protest. He was favored

with china and crystal, and a small finger bowl on a doily.

He picked up a goblet to examine it. Though the glass was

wafer-thin, it had been incised delicately with arabesques

and intricate interlocking diamonds.

"How beautiful."

"Now.that is contemporary. Not bad," Carialle said, with

grudging approval. Keff turned the goblet and let it catch

the torchlight. He pinged it with a fingernail and listened

to the sweet song.

A hairy-faced server bearing an earthen pitcher

appeared next to Keff to fill his glass with dark golden

wine. Keff smiled at him and sniffed the liquid. It was fragrant, like honey and herbs.

"Don't drink that," Carialle said, after a slight hesitation

to assess the readouts from Keffs olfactory implant. "Full

ofsulfites, and just in case you think the Borgias were a fun

family, enough strychnine in it to kill you six times over."

Shocked, Keff pushed the glass away. It vanished and

was replaced by an empty one. Another server hovered and

poured a cedar-red potation into its bowl. He smiled at the

furry-faced female who tipped up the comers other mouth

tentatively before hurrying away to the next person.

"Who put poison in my wine?" Keff whispered, staring

around him.

Chaumel glanced over at him with a concerned expression. Keff nodded and smiled to show that everything was

all right. The silver magiman nodded back and went on his

way from one guest to another.

"I don't know," Carialle said. "It wasn't and isn't in the

pitcher, but I wasn't quick enough to follow the burst of

energy back to its originator. Seems it isn't an unknown

incident, though."

All around the room, a Noble Primitive was appearing

beside each mage. Full of curiosity, Keff eyed them. Each

bore a different cast of features, some more animal than

others, so they were undoubtedly from the magimen's

home provinces. Asedow's servant did look like a six-pack.

The pretty girls servant was hardly mutated at all, except

for something about the eyes that suggested felines. Potria

didn't look at her pig-person, but stiff-armed her goblet

toward him. Cautiously, the Noble Primitive took a sip.

Nothing happened to him, but two other servants nearby

fell over on the floor in fits of internal anguish. They vanished and were replaced by others. Whites showing all

around the irises of his eyes, the pig-man handed the goblet back to his mistress, and waited, hands clenched, for

her nod of approval. Other mages, their first drink satisfactory, held their glasses aloft, calling loudly to the wine

servers for refills.

"Food-tasters! There's more in heaven and on earth

than is dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio," Keffsaid.

"Hmph!" Carialle said. 'That's an understatement. I

wish you could see what I do. Those langorous poses are

just that: poses. I'm recording everything for your benefit,

and its taking approximately eighteen percent of my total

memory capacity to absorb it. I'm not merely monitoring

three language forms. There is a lot more going on sub

rosa. Every one of our magifolk is tensed up so much I

don't know how they can swallow. The air is full of power

transmissions, odd miniature gravity wells, low-frequency

signals, microwaves, you name it."

"Can you trace any of it back? What is it all for?"

"The low-frequency stuff is easy to read. It's chatter.

They're sending private messages to one another, forming

conspiracies and so on against, as nearly as I can tell, everyone else in the room. The power signals correspond to

dirty tricks like the poison in your wine. As for the microwaves, I can't tell what they're for. The transmission is

slightly askew to anything I've dealt with before, and I can't

intercept it anyway because I'm not on the receiving end."

"Tight point-to-point beam?"

"I wish I could transmit something with as little spillover," Carialle admitted. "Somebody is very good at what

they're doing."

IT continued to translate, but most of what it reported

was small talk, mostly on the taste of the wine and the current berry harvests. With their chairs bobbing up and

down to add emphasis to their discourse, two magiwomen

were conversing about architecture. A couple of the magifolk here and there leaned their heads toward one another

as if sharing a confidence, but their lips weren't moving.

Keff suspected the same kind of transference that the

magifolk used to control their eye spheres. He looked up,

wondering where all the spy-eyes had gone. That afternoon on the field the air had been thick with them.

Keff contrasted the soup that appeared in huge silver

tureens with the swill that Brannel's people had to eat. And

he and Cari were still not free to leave the planet. Still, in

spite of the shortcomings, he had a feeling of satisfaction.

'This is the race everyone in Exploration has always

dreamed of finding," he said, surveying the magifolk. "Our

technical equals, Cari. And against all odds, a humanoid

race that evolved parallel to our own. They're incredible."

"Incredible when they amputate fingers from babies?"

asked Carialle. "And keep a whole segment of the race

under their long thumbs with drugged food and drink? If

they're our equals, thank you, I'll stay unequal. Besides,

they don't appear to be makers, they're users. Chaumel's

mighty proud of those techno-toys left to him by the Old

Ones and the Ancient Ones, but he doesn't know how to

fix 'em. And neither does anyone else. Over there, in the

comer."

Keff glanced over as Carialle directed. On the floor lay

Chaumel's jelly jar. He gasped.

"Does he know he lost it?"

"He didn't lose it. I saw him drop it there. It doesn't

work anymore, so he discarded it. Everybody else has

looked at it with burning greed in their eyes and, as soon as

they realized it doesn't work anymore, ignored it. They're

operators, not engineers."

They're still tool-using beings with an advanced civilization who have technical advantages, if you must call it

that, superior in many ways to ours. If we can bring them

into the Central Worlds, I'm sure they'll be able to teach us

plenty."

"We already know all about corruption, thank you,"

Carialle said.

A servant stepped forward, bowed, and presented the

tureen to him. Keff sniffed. The soup smelled wonderful. He gave them a tight smile. Another popped into

being beside him bearing a large spoon, and ladled some

into the bowl on his tray. The rich golden broth was

thick with chunks of red and green vegetables and tiny,

doughnut-shaped pasta. Keff poked through it with his

silver spoon.

"Cari, I'm starved. Is any of this safe to eat? They didn't

assign me a food-taster, even if I'd trust one."

"Hold up a bite, and I'll tell you if anyone's spiked it."

Keff obliged, pretending he was cooling the soup with his

breath. "Nope. Go ahead."

"Ahhhh." Keff raised it all the way to his lips.

His chair jerked sideways in midair. The stream of soup

went flying off into the air past his cheek and vanished

before it splashed onto his shoulder. He found himself facing Omri.

1.11!

'Tell me, strange one," said the peacock-clad mage,

lounging back on his floating couch, one hand idly spoon-ing up soup and letting it dribble back into his bowl.

"Where do you come from?"

"Watch it," Carialle barked.

"From far away, honored sir," KefF said. "A world that

circles a sun a long way from here."

'That's impossible."

Keff found himself spun halfway around until he was

nose to nose with a woman in brown with night-black eyes.

'There, are no other suns. Only ours."

Keff opened his mouth to reply, but before he could get

the words out, his chair whirled again.

"Pay no attention to Lacia. She's a revisionist," said

Ferngal. His voice was friendly, but his eyes were two dead

circles of dark blue slate. 'Tell me more about this star.

What is its name?"

"Calonia," Keff said.

'That leaves them none the wiser," Carialle said.

'That leaves us none the wiser," Chaumel echoed, turning Keffs seat in a flat counterclockwise spin

three-quarters around. "How far is it from here, and how

long did it take you to get here?" Keff opened his mouth to

address Chaumel, but the silver magiman became a blur.

"What power do your people have?" Asedow asked.

Whoosh!

"How many are they?" demanded Zolaika. Hard jerk,

reverse spin.

"Why did you come here?" asked a plump man in

bright yellow. Blur.

"What do you want on Ozran?" Nokias asked. Keff tried

to force out an answer.

"Not-" Short jerk sideways.

"How did you obtain possession of the silver tower?"

Potria asked.

"It's my sh-" Two half-arcs in violently different directions, until he ended up facing an image of Femgal that

swayed and bobbed.

"Will more of your folk be coming here?" Keff heard.

His stomach was beginning to head for his esophagus.

"I. .." he began, but his chair shifted again, this time to

twin images of Ilnir, who gabbled something at him in a

hoarse voice that was indistinguishable from the roar in his

ears.

"Hey!" Keff protested weakly.

'The Siege Perilous, Galahad," Carialle quipped. "Be

strong, be resolute, be brave."

"I'm starting to get motion sick," Keff said. "Even flyer

training wasn't like this! I feel like a nardling lazy Susan."

The chair twisted until it was facing away from Ilnir. A

blurred figure of primrose yellow and teal at the comer of

his eye sat up slightly.

Beside Keffs hand, a small glass appeared. It was filled

with a sparkling liquid of very pale green. Keffs vision

abruptly cleared. Was he being offered another shot of poison? The silver blob that was Chaumel shot a suspicious

look at the tall girl, then nodded to Keff. The brawn

started to take the ornate cup, when two more tasters

abruptly keeled over and let their glasses crash to the

ground. Two more servants appeared, always four-fingered

fur-faces. Keff regarded the cup suspiciously.

"What about it, Cari? Is it safe to drink?"

"It's a motion sickness drug," Carialle said, after a quick

spectroanalysis. Hastily, before he was moved again, Keff

gulped down the green liquid. It tasted pleasantly of mint

and gently heated his stomach. In no time, Keff felt much

better, able to endure this ordeal. He winked at me pretty

girl the next time he was whirled past her. She returned

him a tentative grin.

The Siege Perilous halted for a moment and Keff

realized his soup plate had vanished. In its place was a

crescent-shaped basket of fruit and a plate of salad. His

fellow diners were also being favored with the next course.

Some of them, with bored expressions, waved it away and

were instantly served tall, narrow crockery bowls with

salt-encrusted rims. Before he spun away again, he

watched Zolaika pull something from it and yank apart a

nasty-looking crustacean.