The Ship Who Won (32 page)

device, passed on to them, not constructed by, the Old

Ones, pictured overleaf." Keff turned the page to the

solido. "Eyuch! Ug-;i/!"

The Old Ones were indeed upright creatures of

bilateral symmetry who could use the chairs reposing in

Chaumels art collection, but that was where their

similarity to humanoids ended. Multi-jointed legs with

backward-pointing knees depended from flat, shallow

bodies a meter wide. They had five small eyes set in a row

across their flat faces, which were dark green. Lank black

tendrils on their cylindrical heads were either hair or

antennae, Keff wasn't sure which from the description

below.

"Erg," Keff said, making a face. "So now we know what

the Old Ones looked like."

"Oh, yes," Brannel said, casually standing up on the

back to look, as if he flew a hundred kilometers above the

ground every day. "My father's father told us about the Old

Ones. They lived in the mountains with the overlords

many years past."

"How long ago?" Keff asked.

Brannel struggled for specifics, then shrugged. 'The

wooze-food makes our memories bad," he explained, his

tone apologetic but his jaw set with frustration.

"Keff, something has to be done about deliberately

retarding half the population," Carialle said seriously.

"With the diet they're being forced to subsist on, Brannel's

people could actually lose their capacity for rational

thought in a few more generations."

"Aha!".Keff crowed triumphantly. 'Tapes!" He plucked

a sealed spool out of the back cover of one of the folders.

"Compressed data, I hope, and maybe footage of our scaly

friends. Can you read one of these, Carialle?"

"I can adapt one of my players to fit it, but I have no

idea what format its in," she said. "It could take time."

Keff wasn't listening. He was engrossed in the second

folders contents.

"Fascinating!" he said. "Look at this, Cari. The whole

system of remote power manipulation comes from a

worldwide weather-control system! So that's what the ley

lines are for. They're electromagnetic sensors, reading the

temperature and humidity all across Ozran. They were

designed to channel energy to help produce rain or mist

where it was needed.... Ah, but the Old Ones didn't build

it. They either found it, or they met the original owners

when they came to this planet. Sounds like they were

cagey about that. The Old Ones adapted the devices to use

the power to make it rain and passed them on to you," he

told Plennafrey. 'They were made by the Ancient Ones."

'The Ancient Ones," Plenna said, reverently, pulling the

folder down so she could see it. "Are there images of them,

too? None know what they looked like."

Keff thumbed through the log. "No. Nothing. Drat."

"Rain?" Brannel asked, reverently. 'They could make it

rain?"

"Weather control," Carialle said. "Now that does smack

of an advanced technological civilization. Pity they're not

still around. This planet is an incipient dust-bowl. Keff, I'm

within fifty klicks of the rendezvous site. Beginning landing

tWIW IVlU^iUfJmy v Juu,y

procedures . . . Uh-oh, power traces increasing in your

general vicinity. Company!"

Keff heard cries of triumph and swiveled his head, looking for their source. A score ofmagimen, led by Potria and

Chaumel, had just jumped in and were homing in on them

along a northwest vector.

'They've found us!" Plenna exclaimed, her dark eyes

wide. Keff stood upright and grasped the back of her chair.

The magiwoman started to weave her arms in complicated patterns. Brannel, realizing that he was in the firing

line of a building spell, dropped flat. Plenna launched her

sally and had the satisfaction of seeing three of the magimen clear the way. The rattling hiss of the spell as it missed

its mark and vanished jarred Keffs bones.

"Can you teleport?" Keff asked, clinging to the chairs

uprights.

"Someone is blocking me," Plenna said, forcing the

words through her teeth. T must fight, instead."

"You'd be a sitting duck in here anyway," Carialle interjected crisply, "because the tractor grabbed me again as

soon as I touched down. Keep moving!"

Plenna didn't need Carialles message relayed to her.

She took evasive maneuvers like a veteran fighter, zigzagging over the pursuers' heads and diving between two so

their red lightning bolts narrowly missed each other. Keff

saw Potria's face as he passed. The golden magiwoman had

abandoned her look of elegant boredom for a grim set. If

her will or her marksmanship had been up to it, she would

have spitted them all.

Contrarily, Chaumel seemed to enjoy toying with them.

He shot his bolts, not so much to wound, but more as if he

were seeing what Plennafrey would do to avoid them. He

seemed to have observed that she wasn't spelling to kill,

obviously a novelty among Ozran mages.

Plennafrey dived low into the valleys, defying the magifolk to chase her through the nooks and crannies of her

own domain. Keff felt the crackle of dry branches brush

his shoulders as she maneuvered her chair through a narrow passage and down into a concealed tunnel. While the

others circled overhead squawking like crows, she flew

through the mountain. Brannel's keening echoed off the

moist stone walls. Just as swiftly, they emerged into day.

Keff thought they might have shaken off their pursuers,

but he had reckoned without Chaumels determination.

The moment they cleared the tunnel mouth, the silver

magiman was there in midair, winding nothingness around

and around his hands. Brannel gasped and threw his hands

over his head to protect it.

Plenna flattened her hands on her belt buckle, and a

translucent bubble offeree appeared around her.

"Oh, child." Chaumel grinned and flicked his fingers.

The chair started to sink toward the ground.

"He made the force shield heavy!" Keff said. "We're

falling!"

Abandoning her defensive tactic at once, Plennafrey

popped the sphere and threw a few of her own bolts at

Chaumel. Almost lazily, the other gestured, and the lightning split around him, rocketing toward the horizon. He

made up another bundle of power, which Plenna averted.

She returned fire, sending a handful of toroid shapes that

grew and grew until they could surround Chaumels limbs

and neck. Two made contact, then fell away as operifarcs,

snaring and taking the other rings with them.

A moment later, Potria and Asedow appeared.

"You found them!" Potria called. The pink-gold magess

was jubilant. Plenna turned in her seat and fired a double-barrel of white spark lightning at her. Potria shrieked when

her fine clothes and skin were burned by some of the hot

sparks. At once she retaliated, weaving a web with missiles

of force around the edge that propelled it toward the

younger magess.

Asedow chose that moment to drive in at them from the

other side. His methods were not as smooth as his rivals.

He produced a steady stream of smoky puffs that hung in

the air like mines until Plennafrey, trying to avoid Potrias

web, was forced back into them.

Keff was nearly shaken off when the first exploded

against his back. Plennafrey turned her chair in midair,

seeking to steer her way clear of the obstacles. No matter

how she turned, she collided with another, and another. By

then, Potrias web had struck.

All around him Keff felt rolls of silk fabric, invisible and

magnetic, drawing him in, surrounding him, then

smothering his nose and mouth. As the spell established

itself, it threatened to draw every erg of energy out of his

body through his skin. He gasped, clawing with difficulty at

his throat. He was suffocating in the middle of thin air.

Plennafrey, her slender form slumped partway over one

chair arm, her skin turning blue, still fought to free them, her

hands drawing primrose fire out other belt buckle. Her will

proved mightier than the other female s magic. The sunlight

flames consumed the air around her, then caught on the veils

of web clinging to Keff and Brannel, turning them into

insubstantial black ash. She was about to set them all free

when they were overcome by dozens and dozens of bolts of

scarlet lightning, striking at them from every direction.

As Keff lost consciousness, he heard Potria and Asedow

shrilling at each other again over who would take possession of him and his ship. He vowed he would die before he

would let anyone take Carialle.

A sharp scent introduced itself under his nose. Unwit-tingly, he took a deep breath and recoiled, choking. He

batted at the bad smell, but nothing solid was there.

"You're awake," a voice said. 'Very good."

With difficulty, Keff opened his eyes. Things around

mm began to take focus. He lay on his back in the main

cabin of his ship. Beside him was Plennafrey, also in the

throes of regaining consciousness. Brannel lay in a motionless heap under Plennas feet. And leaning over Keff with a

distorted expression ofsolicitousness was Chaumel.

a 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 other 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. Keffwas clutching his side

as if cradling bruised ribs. Plenna stood behind Keff, erect

and very pale. Brannel, disoriented, huddled in a comer

beside Keffs 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 other accident

again for Inspector MaxweU-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