The Ship Who Won (17 page)

levels aren't infinite."

Ripostes and return attacks were slowing down. The

magiwoman maintained an expression of grim amusement

throughout the conflict, while the magiman couldn't dis-guise his annoyance.

As if attracted by the conflict, a bunch of globe-frogs

appeared out of the brushy undergrowth at the edge of the

crop fields. They rolled into the midst of the Noble Primitives, who were huddled into the gap, watching the aerial

battle. The indigenes avoided contact with the small creatures by kicking out at them so that the globes turned

away. The little group trundled their conveyances laboriously out into the open and paused underneath the

sky-bome battle. Keff watched their bright black eyes

focus on the combatants. They seemed fascinated.

"Look, Carialle," Keff said, directing his contact-button

camera toward them. "Are they attracted by motion, or

light? You'd think they'd be afraid of violent beings much

larger than themselves."

"Perhaps they are attracted to power, like moths to a

candle flame," Carialle said, "although, mind you, I've

never seen moths or candles in person. I'm not an expert

in animal behaviorism, but I don't think the attraction is

unusual. Incautious, to the point of self-destructive,

perhaps. Either of our psi-users up there could wipe them

out with less power than it would take to hold up those

chairs."

The two mages, sailing past, parrying one another's

magic bolts and making their own thrusts, ignored the

cluster which trailed them around the field. At last the little creatures gave up their hopeless pursuit, and rolled in a

group toward Keff and Carialle.

'Tour animal magnetism operating again," Carialle

noted. The globe-frogs, paddling hard on the inner wall of

their spherelike conveyances with their oversize paws,

steered over the rocky ground and up the ramp, making

for the inside of the ship. "Ooops, wait a minute! You can't

come in here. Out!" she said, in full voice on her hatchway

speakers. "Scat!"

The frogs ignored her. She tracked them with her internal cameras and directed her servos into the airlock to

herd them out the door again. The frogs made a few determined tries to get past the low-built robots. Thwarted, they

reversed position inside their globes and paddled the other

way.

"Pests," Carialle said. "Is everyone on this planet intent

on a free tour of my interior?"

The globe-frogs rolled noisily down the ramp and off

the rise toward the underbrush at the opposite end of the

clearing. Keff watched them disappear.

"I wonder if they're just attracted to any vibrations or

emissions," he said.

"Could be-Heads up!" Carialle trumpeted suddenly

She put her servos into full reverse to get them out of

Keffs way Without waiting to ask why or what, Keff dove

sideways into Carialle's hatch and hit the floor. A split

second later, he felt a flamethrowerlike blast of heat

almost singe his cheek. If he'd remained standing where

he was, he'd have gotten a faceful of fire.

'They're out of control! Get in here!" Carialle cried.

Keff complied. The battle had become more serious,

and the magic-users had given up caring where their bolts

hit. Another spell flared out of the tips of the woman's fingers at the male, only a dozen meters from Keff.

The brawn tucked and rolled through the inner door.

Carialle slid the airlock door shut almost on his heels. Keff

heard a whine of stressed metal as something else hit the

side of the ship.

"Yow!" Carialle protested. That blast was cold! How are

they doing that?"

Keff ran to the central cabin viewscreens and dropped

into his crash seat.

"Full view, please, Cari!"

The brain obliged, filling the three surrounding walls

with a 270# panorama.

Keff spun his pilots couch to follow the green contrail

across the sky, as the male magician retreated to the far

end of the combat zone. He looked frustrated. The last,

unsuccessful blast that hit Carialles flank must have been

his. The female, beautiful, powerful, sitting up high in her

chair, prepared another attack with busy hands. Her green

eyes were dulling, as if she didn't care where her strike

might land. The five magimen on the sidelines looked

bored and angry, just barely restraining themselves from

interfering. The battle would end soon, one way or

another.

Even inside the ship, Keff felt the sudden change in the

atmosphere. His hair, including his eyebrows and eye-lashes and the hair on his arms, crackled with static.

Something momentous was imminent. He leaned in

toward the central screen.

Out of nothingness, three new arrivals in hover-chairs

blinked into the heart of the battle zone. Inadvertentiy

Keff recoiled against the back of his chair.

Tow! They mean business," Carialle said. "No hundred

meters of clearance space. Just smack, right into the middle."

The spells the combatants were building dissipated like

colored smoke on the wind. Carialle's gauges showed a

distinct drop in the electromagnetic fields. The mage and

magess dropped their hands stiffly onto their chair arms

and glared at the obstacles now hovering between them. If

looks could have ignited rocket fuel, the thwarted

combatants would have set Carialles tanks ablaze.

Whatever was powering them had been cut off by the

three in the center.

"Uh-oh. The Big Mountain Men are here," Keff said,

flippantly, his face guarded.

The newcomers' chairs were bigger and gaudier than

any Keff and Carialle had yet seen. A host of smaller seats,

containing lesser magicians, popped in to hover at a

respectful distance outside the circle. Their presence was

ignored by the three males who were obviously about to

discipline the combatants.

"Introductions," Keff said, monitoring IT. "High and

mighty. The lad in the gold is Nokias, the one in black is

Femgal, and the silver one in the middle who looks so

nervous is Chaumel. He's a diplomat."

Carialle observed the placatory gestures of the mage in

the silver chair. T don't think that Femgal and Nokias like

each other much."

But Chaumel, nodding and smiling, floated suavely back

and forth between the gold and black in his silver chair and

managed to persuade them to nod at one another with

civility if not friendliness. The lesser magicians promptly

polarized into two groups, reflecting their loyalties.

"Compliments to the Big Mountain Men from my

pretty lady and her friend," Keff continued. "She's Potria,

and he's Asedow. One of the sideliners says they were

something-bold? cocky?-to come here. Aha, that's what

that word Brannel used meant: forbidden! That gives me

some roots for some of the other things they're saying. I'll

have to backtrack the datahedrons-I think a territorial

dispute is going on."

Nokias and Femgal each spoke at some length. Keff

was able to translate a few of the compliments the magimen paid to each other.

"Something about high mountains," he said, running IT

over contextual data. "Yes, I think that repeated word must

be 'power,' so Femgal is referring to Nokias as having

power as high, I mean, strong as the high mountains and

deep as its roots." He laughed. "It's the same pun we have

in Standard, Cari. He used the same word Brannel used

for the food 'roots.' The farmers and the magicians do use

two different dialects, but they're related. It's the cognitive

differences I find fascinating. Completely alien to any language in my databanks."

"All this intellectual analysis is very amusing," Carialle

said, "but what are they saying? And more to the point,

how does it affect us?'

She shifted cameras to pick up Potria and Asedow on

separate screens. After the speeches by me two principals,

the original combatants were allowed their say, which they

had with many interruptions from the other and much

pointing towards Carialle.

'Those are definitively possessive gestures," Keff said

uneasily.

"No one puts a claim on my ship," Carialle said firmly.

"Which one of them has a tractor beam on me? I want it

off."

Keff listened to the translator and shook his head. "Neither one did it, I think. It may be a natural phenomenon."

'Then why isn't it grounding any of those chairs?"

"Cari, we don't know that's what is happening."

"I have a pretty well-developed sense of survival, and

that's exactly what its telling me."

"Well, then, we'll tell them you own your ship, and they

can't have it," Keff said, reasonably. "Wait, the diplomats

talking."

The silver-robed magician had his hands raised for

attention and spoke to the assemblage at some length, only

glancing over his shoulder occasionally. Asedow and Potria

stopped shouting at each other, and the other two Big

Mountain Men looked thoughtful. Keff tilted his head in

amusement.

"Look at that: Chaumel's got them all calmed down. Say,

he's coming this way."

The silver chariot left the others and floated toward

Carialle, settling delicately a dozen feet from the end of

the ramp. The two camps of magicians hovered expec-tantly over the middle of the field, with expressions that

ranged from nervous curiosity to open avarice. The magician rose and walked off the end of the chairs finial to

stand beside it. Hands folded over his belly, he bowed to

the ship.

"So they can stand," Carialle said. "I gather from the

shock on the faces of our Noble Primitives over there that

that's unusual. I guess these magicians don't go around on

foot very often."

"No, indeed. When you have mystic powers from the

astral plane, I suppose auto-ambulatoly locomotion is rele-gated to the peasants."

"He's waiting for something. Does he expect us to signal

him? Invite him in for tea?"

Keff peered closely at Chaumel's image. "I think we'd

better wait and let him make the first move. Ah! He's coming to pay us a visit. A state visit, my lady."

Chaumel got over his internal debate and, with solemn

dignity, made his way to the end of the ramp, every step

slow and ponderous. He reached the tip and paused, bowing deeply once again.

"I feel honored," Carialle said. "If I'd'a known he was

coming I'd'a baked a cake."

a CHAPTER SIX

'The initiative is ours now," Keffsaid. He kept watch on

the small screen of his Intentional Translator as it

processed all the hedrons Carialle had recorded while he

was unconscious and combined it with the dialogue he had

garnered from Brannel and the magicians' discussions.

The last hedron popped out of the slot, and Keff slapped it

into his portable IT unit on the control panel. 'That's it.

We have a working vocabulary of Ozran. I can talk with

him."

"Enough to ask intelligent questions?" Carialle asked.

"Enough to negotiate diplomatically for our release, and

inform them, 'by the way, folks, we're from another

planet'?"

"Nope," Keff said, matter-of-factiy. "Enough to ask stupid questions and gather more information. IT will pick up

on the answers I get and, I hope, translate them from context."

'That IT has never been worth the electrons to blow it

up," Carialle said in a flat voice.

"Easy, easy, lady," Keffsaid, smiling at her pillar.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm letting the situation get to me. I

don't like being out of control of my own functions."

"I understand perfectly," Keff said. "That's why the

sooner I go out and face this fellow the better, whether or

not I have a perfect working knowledge of his language."

"If you say something insulting by accident, I don't think

you'll survive a second blast of that lightning."

"If they're at all as similar to humans as they look, their

curiosity will prevent them killing me until they leam all

about me. By then, we'll be friends."

"Good sir knight, you assume them to be equal in courtesy to your good self," Carialle said.

"I must face the enchanters knight, if only for the sake

of chivalry."

"Sir Keff, I don't like you leaving the Castle Strong

when there's a dozen enchanters out there capable of flinging bolts of solid power down your gullet, and there's not a

thing I can do to protect you."

'The quest must continue, Carialle."

"Well..." she said, then snorted. "I'm being too protective, aren't I? It isn't exactly first contact if you stay inside

and let them pelt away at us. And we'll never get out of

here. We have to establish communications. Xeno will die

of mortification if we don't, and mere go our bonuses."

'That's the spirit," Keff said, buckling on his equipment

harness.

Carialle tested her exterior links to IT. "Anything we say

will come out in pidgin Ozran. Right?"

Keff paused, looked up at her pillar. "Should you speak

at all? Are they ready for die concept of a talking ship?"

"Were we ready for flying chairs?" Carialle countered.