The Baron did not rise to the young man’s challenge. Instead he grinned and whispered to one of his aides, who sped away.
Kremer waved forward trays of refreshment, which he diplomatically sampled first. He had seats brought for his guests as the troops stepped back to create a broad aisle from the dais to the courtyard wall.
The L’Toff looked suspicious, but they could hardly refuse. They sat nervously near their host. As they turned his way, Dennis thought he saw, in the face of the angry young man, a family resemblance to Linnora.
He wondered if her fey sensitivity had informed the Princess that relatives were only a few hundred meters away.
Dennis had finally become convinced Linnora really had such a gift. Over a month ago the power had led her to the zievatron, where she was captured. It had enabled her to know him in the dark prison yard weeks later.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep her from falling under the spell of Hoss’k’s fallacious logic, or to let her see through Kremer’s manipulative explanations.
In any event, her talent was apparently intermittent and quite rare even among the L’Toff. Kremer didn’t seem afraid of it.
Arth clutched Dennis’s shoulder and gasped. Dennis followed his pointing finger.
A cluster of guards were dragging a prisoner from one of the castle’s lower gates. Dust rose from the struggle, for the captive was very big and very angry.
Dennis suddenly realized it was Mishwa Qan, the giant whose strength had been key to their breakout from jail. Mishwa bellowed and heaved against his bonds. When he saw they were leading him to a scarred, upright post, the battle became furious.
But the guards had been chosen carefully to be almost his equal in size. Dennis saw his old nemesis, Sergeant Gil’m, pulling a rope tied to Mishwa’s neck.
Kremer motioned the scholar Hoss’k forward from his entourage. Hoss’k bowed to the dignitaries and brought forth items to show them, one at a time. Dennis stirred when he saw that the first was his camp-watch alarm.
As the L’Toff stared at the lights on the screen, Dennis wondered what changes practice had wrought in the tiny machine since the last time he had seen it.
No doubt Hoss’k was pointing out how difficult it would now be for an enemy to approach the castle undetected.
Then he demonstrated Dennis’s monocular, showing the L’Toff how to use it, pointing out various objects. When the ambassador put the scope down he was visibly shaken.
Dennis felt a slow burning rise within him—a combination of shame and deep anger. In spite of the strategy he had chosen, for very good reasons, his natural sympathies were with the L’Toff.
Dennis didn’t like it one bit when Hoss’k turned and pointed directly at him. Kremer smiled and bowed slightly to his wizard. The Baron’s well-rehearsed personal guard shouted Dennis’s name in unison.
He scowled. If only there were some way of communicating with the L’Toff privately!
By now Mishwa Qan had been dragged to the post and tied into place. Dennis had already figured out that they planned to execute the man. He had witnessed many executions during the past week, and there was nothing at all he could do. Arth knew that as well and stood almost rock-still.
The guard, Gil’m, marched up to the overlord and bowed. Kremer drew something small from his robe and handed it to the trooper, who bowed again and turned to march back down the dais toward the prisoner.
Realization struck Dennis. “No!” he cried aloud.
Gil’m marched halfway to the target post. Mishwa Qan glared back at him, hands flexing uselessly under his bonds. The big thief shouted a challenge at Gil’m which everyone in the yard could hear, offering to take the trooper on blindfolded, with any choice of weapons.
Gil’m simply grinned. He lifted a small black shape.
Dennis felt a purple outrage. “No!” he screamed.
He vaulted the fence and ran toward the execution aisle, dodging one set of guards, then plowed through two more who ran to cut him off. He flattened one with a round house. Those on the dais turned to look at the commotion as one of Dennis’s own guards tackled him from behind. At that moment Gil’m aimed Dennis’s needler and pulled the trigger.
In the confusion only a few people were actually looking at the prisoner when the burst of tiny metal needles struck at hypersonic velocity. But everyone heard the explosion. Dennis heard Arth’s astonished gasp.
Fighting partway free of a pile of guardsmen, Dennis struggled up far enough to see a bloody stump where the target post had been sheared in half. Beyond that lay a gaping hole in the wooden wall.
The needler had, indeed, been getting practice. Gil’m grinned and held the weapon up to the sun.
A wave of revulsion and shame overwhelmed Dennis. He snarled and flailed at those around him, biting at one hand that grabbed near his face. Then a heavy object struck him from behind and turned off the lights.
7
Linnora stared at the little creatures that arranged themselves in such orderly rows on the face of the little box. At the far right they shifted and reformed with great rapidity, hopping into new positions almost faster than she could follow with her eyes. The group next to the left shifted their formations more slowly, and so on. At the far left, the tiny bugs were patient, and seemed to take about half a day to make their next move.
The little box wasn’t much more than four times the size of the first digit of her thumb. On each side it had two straps, one of which ended in little metal pieces whose purpose she had yet to divine.
Hesitantly, Linnora tried pressing a few of the many little nubs that protruded from the half of the box where no bugs danced. The bugs hopped into new patterns every time she touched one of the nubs.
A part of her wanted to laugh at the antics the little creatures went through—there was an urge to play and make them dance some more.
No. She put the little box down and withdrew her hand. She would not experiment with living things. Not without knowing what she was doing and having a clear idea of her purpose. That was one of the oldest credos of the Old Belief, handed down from parent to child from the earliest days of the L’Toff.
Only a deep conviction that they needed to be within the box to survive kept Linnora from breaking it to set the little slaves free.
That and a lingering uncertainty that they really were slaves.
The ordered patterns had a feeling to them…not joy exactly, but pride, perhaps. She sensed that very much had gone into the making of the little box and its tiny occupants.
There was more complexity here than she had ever encountered before one month ago.
If only I could know for certain, she sighed silently.
Deacon Hoss’k had made such a consistent and logical case! The wizard’s people must have used ruthless means to accomplish such wonders…especially to freeze the state of practice in each of these amazing tools. The lives of many of the equivalent of the L’Toff in Dennis Nuel’s homeland must have been sacrificed so these things would remain in unchanged perfection.
Or must they? Linnora shook her head, confused.
Could the whole logic of making and practicing be different somewhere else?
Once upon a time it had not been the same here on Tatir, according to the Old Belief. In ancient days, before the fall, it was life that had been perfectible, and tools had no powers at all.
That was what the stories said.