The Ship Who Won (12 page)

which gradually cleared. Before Carialle could panic further, the contacts began sending again. Keffs vitals

returned, thready but true. He was alive! Carialle was

overjoyed. But Keff was in danger. Whatever caused that

burst of power to strike at his feet like a well-aimed thunderbolt might recur. She had to get him out of there. A

bolt like that couldn't be natural, but further analysis must

wait. Keff was hurt and needed attention. That was her

primary concern. How could she get him back?

The small servos in her ship might be able to pick him

up, but were intended for transit over relatively level

floors. Fully loaded they wouldn't be able to transport

Keffs weight across the rough terrain. For the first time,

she wished she had gotten a Moto-Prosthetic body as Keff

had been nagging her to do. She longed for two legs and

two strong arms.

Hold it! A body was available to her: that of the only

intelligent man on the planet. When the bolt had struck,

Brannel, with admirably quick reflexes, had flung himself

out of the way, rolling over the stony ground to a sheltered

place beneath the rise. The other villagers had run

hell-for-leather back toward their cavern, but Brannel was

still only a few meters away from Keffs body. Carialle read

his infrared signal and heartbeat: he was ten meters from

Keifs body. She opened a voice-link through IT and

routed it via the contact button.

"Brannel," she called, amplifying the small speaker as

much as she could without distortion. "Brannel, pick up

Keff. Bring Keff home." The IT blanked on the word

home. She spun through the vocabulary database looking

for an equivalent. "Bring Keff to Keffs cave, Brannel!" Her

voice rose toward hysteria. She flattened her tones and

increased endorphins and proteins to her nutrients to

counter the effects other agitation.

"Mage Keff?" Brannel asked. He raised his head cautiously from the shelter of his hiding place, fearing another

bolt from the mountains. "Keff speaks?"

Keff lay in a heap on the ground, mouth agape, eyes half

open with the white showing. Brannel, knowing that sometimes bolts continued to bum and crackle after the initial

lightning, kept a respectful distance.

"Bring Keff to Keffs cave," a disembodied voice

pleaded. A females voice it was, coming from underneath

the mages chin. Some kind of familiar spirit? Brannel

rocked back and forth, struggling with ambivalent desires.

Keff had been kind to him. He wanted to do the mages

wishes. He also wasn't going to put himself in danger for

the sake of one of Them whom the mage-bolts had struck

down. Was Keff Klemays successor and that was why he

had come to visit their farm holding? Only his right to succeed Klemay had just been challenged by the bolt.

Across the field, the silver cylinder dropped its ramp,

clearly awaiting the arrival of its master. Brannel looked

from the prone body at his feet to the mysterious mobile

stronghold. Stooping, he stared into Keffs eyes. A pulse

twitched faintly there. The mage was still alive,

if

unconscious.

"Bring Keff to Keffs cave," the voice said again, in a

crisp but persuasive tone. "Come, Brannel. Bring Keff."

"All right," Brannel said at last, his curiosity about the

silver cylinder overpowering his sense of caution. This

would be the first time he had been invited into a mages

stronghold. Who knew what wonders would open up to

him within Keffs tower?

Drawing one of the limp arms over his shoulder, Brannel hefted Keff and stood up. After years of hard work,

carrying the body of a man smaller than himself wasn't

much of an effort. It was also the first time he'd laid hands

on a mage. With a guilty thrill, he bore Keffs dead weight

toward the silver tower.

At the foot of the ramp, Brannel paused to watch the

smooth door withdraw upward with a quiet hiss. He stared

up at it, wondering what land of door opened without

hands to push it.

"Come, Brannel," the silky persuasive voice said from

the weight on his back.

Brannel obeyed. Under his rough, bare feet, the ramp

boomed hollowly. The air smelled different inside. As he

set foot over the threshold into the dim, narrow anteroom,

lights went on. The walls were smooth, like the surface of

unruffled water, meeting the ceiling and walls in perfect

comers. Such ideal workmanship aroused Brannels admiration. But what else would one expect from a mage? he

chided himself.

In front of him was a corridor. Narrow bands of bluish

light like the sun through clouds illuminated themselves.

Along the walls at Brannels eye level, orange-red bands

flickered into life, moving onward until they reached the

walls' end. The colored lights returned to the beginning

and waited.

"I follow thee. Is that right?" Brannel asked in mage-speak, cautiously stepping into the corridor.

"Come," the disembodied voice said in common Ozran

and the sound echoed all around him. Mage Keffwas certainly a powerful wizard to have a house that talked.

Carialle was relieved that Brannel hadn't been frightened by a disembodied voice or the sight of an

interplanetary ship. He was cautious, but she gave him

credit for that. She had the lights guide him to the wall

where Keffs weight bench was stored. It slid noiselessly

out at knee level before the Noble Primitive who didn't

need to be told that that was where he was to lay Keffs

body.

'The only intelligent man on the planet," Carialle said

quietly to herself.

Brannel straightened up and took a good, long look at

the cabin, beginning to turn on his callused heels. As he

caught sight of the monitors showing various angles of the

crop field outside, and the close-up of his fellow Noble

Primitives crouched in a huddle at the cave mouth, he let

out a sound close to a derisive laugh.

Carialle turned her internal monitors to concentrate on

Keffs vital signs. Respiration had begun again and his eyes

twitched under their long-lashed lids.

Brannel started to walk the perimeter of the cabin. He

was careful to touch nothing, though occasionally he

leaned close and sniffed at a piece of equipment. At Keffs

exercise machines, he took a deeper breath and straightened up with a snort and a puzzled look on his face.

'Thank you for your help, Brannel," Carialle said, using

the IT through her own speakers. "You can go now. Keff

will also thank you later."

Brannel showed no signs of being ready to depart. In

fact, he didn't seem to have heard her at all. He was wandering around the main cabin with the light of wonder in

his eyes beginning to alter. Carialle didn't like the speculative look on his face. She was grateful enough to die furry

male for rescuing Keff to let him have a brief tour of the

facilities, but no more than that.

Thank you, Brannel. Good-bye, Brannel," Carialle said,

her tone becoming more pointed. "You can go. Please.

Now. Go. Leave!"

Brannel heard the staccato words spoken by the mage's

familiar in a much less friendly tone than it had used to

coax him inside Keffs stronghold. He didn't want to leave

such a fascinating place. Many objects lured him to examine them, many small enough to be concealed in the hand.

Some of them might even be objects of power. Surely the

great mage would not miss a small one.

He focused on a flattened ovoid of shiny white the

size of his hand lying on a narrow shelf below a rack of

large stiff squares that looked to be made of wood. Even

the quickest glance at the white thing told him that it

had the five depressions of an item of power in its surface. His breathing quickened as he reached out to pick

it up.

"No!" said the voice. That's my palette." Out of the wall

shot a hand made of black metal and slapped his wrist.

Surprised, he dropped the white thing. Before it hit the

floor, another black hand jumped away from the wall and

caught it. Brannel backed away as the lower hand passed

the white object to the upper hand, which replaced it on

the shelf.

Thwarted, Brannel looked around for another easily

portable item. Showing his long teeth in an ingratiating

smile and wondering where the unseen watcher was concealed, he sidled purposefully toward another small device

on top of a table studded with sparkling lights. His hand

lifted, almost of its own vohtion, toward his objective.

"Oh, no, you don't," Carialle said firmly, startling him

into dropping Keffs pedometer back onto the monitor

board. She watched as he swiveled his head around, trying

to discover where she was. "Didn't anyone ever tell you

shoplifting is rude?"

He backed away, with his hands held ostentatiously

behind him.

"You're not going to leave on your own, are you?" Carialle said. "Perhaps a little push is in order."

Starting at the far side of the main cabin, Carialle generated complex and sour sonic tones guaranteed to be

painful to humanoid ears. The male fell to his knees with

his hands over his ears, his sheep's face twisted into a rictus. Carialle turned up the volume and purposefully began

to sweep the noise along her array of speakers toward the

airlock. Protesting, Brannel was driven, stumbling and

crawling, out onto the ramp. As soon as she turned off the

noise, he did an abrupt about-face and tried to rush back

in. She let loose with a loud burst like a thousand hives of

bees and slid the door shut in his face before he could

cross the threshold.

"Some people just do not know when to leave," Carialle

grumbled, as she ordered out a couple of servos to begin

first aid on Keff.

Driven out into the open air by the sharp sounds, Brannel hurried away from the flying castle and over the hill.

On the other side of the field, the others were crouched in

a noisy conference, arms waving, probably discussing the

strange mage. No one paid any attention to him, which was

good. He had much to think about, and he was hungry.

He'd been forced to consume some of the woozy food. He

hoped he hadn't had enough to dull what he had learned

this day.

During his youth, when he had fallen ill with fever,

vomiting and headache, he had been unable to eat any of

the food provided by the overlords. His parents had an

argument that night about whether or not to beg Klemay

for medical help. Brannel's mother thought such a request

would be approved since Brannel was a sturdy lad and

would grow to be a strong worker. His father did not want

to ask, fearing punishment for approaching one of the high

ones. Brannel overheard the discussion, wondering if he

was going to die.

In the morning, the floating eye came from Klemay to

oversee the day's work. Brannel's mother did not go running out to abase herself before it. Though he was no

better, she seemed to have forgotten all about the urgency

of summoning help for him. She settled Brannel, swathed

in hides, at the edge of the field, and patted his leg affectionately before beginning her duties. She had forgotten

her concern of the previous night. So had his father. Brannel was not resentful. This was the way it had always been

with the people. The curious thing was that he remembered. Yesterday had not disappeared into an

undifferentiated grayness of mist and memory. Everything

that he'd heard or seen was as clear to him as if it was still

happening. The only thing that was different between yesterday and the day before was that he had not eaten.

Thereafter, he had avoided eating the peoples food

whenever possible. He experimented with edible native

plants that grew down by the river, but lived mostly by

stealing raw vegetables and grain from standing crops or

from the plough-beasts' mangers. As a result, he grew bigger and stronger than any of his fellows. If his mother

remarked upon it at all, when the vague fuzz of memory

lifted, she was grateful mat she had produced a fine strong

big son to work for the overlord. His wits sharpened, and

anything he heard he remembered forever. He didn't want

to lose the gift by poisoning himself with the people's food.

So far, the mages had had no cause to suspect him of being

different from the rest of his village. And he was careful

not to be disobedient or bring himself to their attention.

The worst fate he could imagine was losing his clarity of

mind.

That clear mind now puzzled over Keff: was he or was

he not a mage? He possessed objects of power, but he

spoke no mage-talk. His house familiar knew none of their

language either, but it used the same means that Mage

Klemay did to drive him out, as the workers of his cave

were driven by hideous noises outside to work every day of

their lives. Keff seemed to have power yet he was struck

down all unaware by the mage-bolt. Could Keff not have

sensed it coming?

Once on the far side of the field, Brannel squeezed

between bushes to the slope that led to his hiding place