Pausert shook his head. "Other than the fact I can't get loose, no."
"I've got a small vibro-razor hidden in my bootheel, Captain. Along with lockpicks and some electronic gear. If I could get to it . . ."
Pausert smiled for the first time in quite a while. "Hantis—these ropes. They're klatha proof. But can you cut them?"
Hantis blinked. "Possibly. They muzzled poor Pul. That could be why."
Captain Pausert thought they probably did that to stop the grik-dog biting them, but he held his tongue. Instead he said: "Goth, do you think you could 'port that razor into my mouth? As we can't even use our fingers?"
"Sure, Captain." She smiled wickedly. "Open wide."
He did. And the tiny tool arrived neatly between his lips like a little cigar. And abruptly disappeared. "Sorry, Captain. Wrong way round. If you'd clicked it on then you could have taken out your tonsils."
A moment later, the hilt was held by his teeth. He felt around the ported vibro-razor with his tongue until he found the click-switch. The vibro-razor starting buzzing like an angry gnat under his nose. Very cautiously, he touched it to Goth's silky rope-wrapping. It frayed. He went on, trying not to cut her. The rope might resist klatha, but it was no match for Imperial technology. By the time that the Leewit had dealt with nine more crystals, Goth was shrugging off her rope-cocoon.
After that, freeing all of them was a quick job.
The sun had moved directly above Castle Aloorn and the room was already full of dancing rainbows. Vezzarn got awkwardly to his feet, rubbing life back into his arms and hands. "Let me see if I can master an alien lock, Captain. If I can find the door, that is."
"It is there, behind the mirrors in the corner," said Hantis, pointing. "But it isn't intended to be opened from the inside."
"Milady, I've even dealt with a safe like that," said Vezzarn with a lopsided grin. He walked over to the far corner and began examining the smooth surface with the tiniest folding magneto-calipers the captain had ever seen.
"What about guards?" asked the captain. "Where would they be?"
Hantis waved her slim elfin hands. "In my day there was no need for guards. Aloorn is a peaceful, friendly place where any visitor would be welcome."
The captain grimaced. "Well, this kind of welcome I could skip. What about a way out, Hantis?"
The Sprite wrinkled her sharp nose. "That . . . could be difficult. Of course it is not a problem if you can levitate. But there is no walkway down. And we are about one hundred and twenty of your feet off the ground."
"What about those platform things?" asked Goth.
Hantis shrugged. "Every set of chambers has a hoist. Most of our people use them rather than levitating, which takes a great deal of effort. In my time we could have gone to an unoccupied chamber, swung the hoist arm out and dropped down. But it would appear to me that Castle Aloorn is very well populated right now. To get to a hoist you would have to break into some Sprite's home. And we are, as a species, able to scream telepathically. Someone has been trying to probe me since we have been trapped in here. Fortunately, I have very good shields."
"Haven't felt anything," said Goth, warily.
"That is not surprising," said Hantis. "I am a better-than-average telepath among my own kind, and I can barely pick up the general drift of human thoughts. Our minds are very differently constructed. That is why the captain's klatha use does not affect me the way it does other adults."
Over in the corner, Vezzarn sighed. "Sorry, Captain. But it's not working. The mechanism itself is simple enough. But there is something else there. It's not mechanical and not hyperelectronic. It's some kind of energy construct. I can't budge it. The door is open except for that."
"Klatha lock," said Hantis.
"Can you do anything about it?" asked Captain Pausert. The Leewit was still crumbling crystals, but there were a lot of them, and the mirrors were full of rainbows. All of them were bathed in the multicolored light. It made the Nartheby Sprite look even more alien.
Hantis shook her head. "No."
Then, the mirrored door swung open. They all stared at it. Even the Leewit stopped her whistling. Peering cautiously back at them was a wizened Sprite, a knife in his hand. He put his finger to his lips. Some gestures obviously crossed both species and time lines. He beckoned and said something.
"He'd come to cut us loose. He wants us to go with him," said the Leewit. "He has the hoist ready back in his master's chambers. He will help us to escape, he says."
"Something about this smells wrong to me," said Goth.
Pausert felt the same way. He remembered Hantis' klatha skills. "Is he telling the truth?"
Hantis nodded. "But you need to remember, Captain, that truth-hearing only extends to the limits of what the speaker knows. He might not be aware that he is lying. Some of the great truth-hearers of our history have been fooled thus."
"We better chance it anyway, Captain," said Vezzarn nervously. "We need to get out of here, before these folks see what the little Wisdom has done to their precious crystals. I reckon they're not going to be pleased."
The captain could see his point. Even if the Sprites of Castle Aloorn had been planning to kill them, they were going to be mad about the destruction the Leewit had wrought. They might as well go and find trouble as wait for it. And the Leewit was looking tired. "Come on, brat," he said, snagging her and hoisting her up onto his back.
"Don't need to be carried," she said, peevishly.
"But I need you to have lots of spare breath for whistling."
The Leewit thought about that. " 'Kay," she said and wrapped her arms around his neck.
The party walked towards the beckoning Sprite . . . and Pul paused. "Nanites," he growled. "He's been near Nanites."
Hantis stopped too. "Is he possessed?"
Pul sniffed. "No. He's just touched something that had their exudates on it. But there is a trace of Nanite in these corridors."
Pausert wasn't aware of the Nanite smell, but he could just rell that big vatch again, along with a feeling of being laughed at. "Even more reason to get out of here," he said. "Come on. Our guide is getting nervous."
They swung the door to click shut behind them. The Sprites were in for something of a shock when they opened their execution chamber. The destruction, and the absence of dead bodies, would give them something to think about. All the captain could hope was that it frightened them out of pursuit. Not that he was too sure where he was going, except that it should be somewhere else. Then, somehow, he must try to catch that wary vatch, get back to the Venture and back to their mission.
They went past numerous round doors. The passage was empty, which seemed a little odd, seeing that it was mid-afternoon. Perhaps the Sprites slept during the daytime. Hantis didn't, herself, but she had spent a lot of time among humans. The captain enquired about it, as they hurried after their scurrying guide.
Hantis shook her head. "It is a little odd. I'll ask our guide." She did so, in a quick exchange.
"He says they are at a council-of-war meeting. His master sent him to rescue us now as everyone would be there. He would have come earlier, otherwise."
They went up several spiral ramps, very steep and difficult to climb, and came at last to a larger round door, covered in ornate embossed-work—a pattern that looked like complex multipetaled flowers. Their guide touched one of these with a wide open palm.
"I wonder whose rooms these are? It's a pretty posh door," said the Leewit, who still had breath for talking. The captain would have asked too, except that his lungs were gasping from the climb.
"This . . . part . . . of the castle had been destroyed, in my day," said Hantis, trying to catch her breath. There was something reassuring about the fact that even the alien had found the climb hard going.