Crystal Dragon (27 page)

"Liad—" Scholar vel'Anbrek said urgently.

"Yes, yes, my friend. Time is precious. Allow me a dozen heartbeats more, that I might beg you to reconsider your position."

"I never had a taste for adventuring," the other scholar said, taking his hand from the guard and going two deliberate steps back. "I will remain, and do what might be done here."

The old man sighed. "So it shall be, then. Keep well, old friend, as long as that state is possible."

vel'Anbrek bowed. "Go forth and do great deeds, Master." He turned on his heel and strode away; the wall misted before him, and reformed behind, as solid-seeming as Jela, standing patiently to the rear, tree cradled in his arms.

Tor An blinked. It had seemed for a moment as if the bark had grown ears, but—

With a burble of joy, Lucky the cat leapt out of the tree's pot and galloped, tail high in ecstacy, toward the carry chair, and without hesitation bounded over the tumble bar and into Master dea'Syl's lap.

"Well." The old man presented a finger, and received an enthusiastic bump. "You must tell me who this fine fellow is, Pilot."

"That is Scholar tay'Nordif's cat, sir," Tor An said politely, unaccountably relieved to see the animal again. "She calls him Lucky."

"Does she so? May she be correct in her estimation."

Tor An took a breath, reached into his jacket and pulled out the documents the scholar had entrusted to his care.

"If you please, sir," he said. The master's dark, sapient gaze lifted courteously to his face. "If you please," Tor An repeated, stepping forward. "Scholar tay'Nordif sends you these tidings."

"Ah." The master considered the packets gravely and at last held out a hand. Greatly relieved, Tor An surrendered them, and then turned, gesturing toward the immobile Jela and his burden.

"Scholar tay'Nordif also makes you a gift, sir."

There was a small silence; the master absently skritching the cat's chin with one hand, the documents on his knee, unopened and apparently unregarded, while he looked past Tor An, to Scholar tay'Nordif's offering.

"A gift of an M Series soldier is generous indeed," Master dea'Syl said at last. "I believe I have not seen the like since my Wander days. Introduce me, pray, Pilot."

Tor An stared at Jela, stricken. The soldier smiled slightly and inclined his sleek head.

"My name's Jela, sir," he said in his easy voice. "Am I right in thinking you intended to hire Pilot yos'Galan to lift you out of here?"

"Indeed you are. Am I correct in thinking that the military has at last come to its senses and will act upon my findings?"

"Unfortunately, no," Jela said seriously. "I'm working with an independent corps of specialists. Our mission is to liberate your work and use it to aid as much of the galaxy as possible in escaping the
sheriekas
."

"A worthy mission, and one with which I find myself in harmony. I willingly align myself with your corps of specialists. Pray put down your camouflage and let us depart."

"No camouflage," Jela said, "but a member of the team."

"Ah? Fascinating. Please, M. Jela, place your associate on the cargo rack at the rear of this chair. I shall be honored to bear it with me."

Jela hesitated, then stepped 'round and slid the tree into the rack, using the straps to fasten it securely.

"Excellent!" Master dea'Syl said, giving the cat one last chuck under the chin and placing both hands on the control stick. "Allow me to show you the back way out."

He spun the chair on its pad of air and moved toward the wall through which he'd entered, Jela right behind. Tor An stood where he was, hands fisted at his sides.

"Scholar tay'Nordif—" he protested. Jela sent him a look over one broad shoulder, his face expressionless.

"Our first objective," he said patiently, "is to secure the equations. No one of us is more important than that."

Tor An glared. "
Your
first objective!" He snapped. "I claim no membership in your team of specialists, and I will not abandon Scholar tay'Nordif to—"

Jela held his hands up, showing two wide, empty palms. "How," he asked quietly, "are you going to get her out of the arena, assuming she's managed to survive this long?"

Tor An opened his mouth, closed it.

"Right," the soldier said, sounding weary. "Come along, Pilot. You're needed at your board."

ABSOLUTE SILENCE FILLED the arena; the scholars on their benches shocked into silence by her outburst. As who, Maelyn tay'Nordif thought bleakly, would not be? She should abase herself before Prime Chair, beg pardon of her challenger and let the match proceed. To whinge or to argue—- it was unseemly; unworthy of one who had attained her long-coveted Seat...

"In what way," Prime Chair inquired, dangerously soft, "do you find this challenge to be fraudulent, Scholar? Do you deny having authored the work under challenge?"

"I do not," she answered, hastily, before that—other—took the initiative, to what new disaster who could predict? She cleared her throat. "I do, however, object to your continued manipulation of the scholars of this Tower, Prime Chair, and I call upon you to explain yourself!"

Horrified, she brought her hand to her lips, but the terrible words had already been uttered, and hung, vibrating, in the charged air.

"
You
call upon
me
—" tay'Welford breathed, and smiled. "Scholar, you misunderstand. It is you who are called to explain certain assertions incorporated in the work referenced in a properly submitted Petition to Prove, which has been filed by one of your colleagues. I have reviewed this petition as well as its supporting documentation, and find that the challenge has merit. You are therefore called to defend your work, here and now, before the full gathering of your colleagues."

"The blades need not enter into it," she said, reasonably. "Prime, I myself located the error and subsequently repaired it. If you will allow me—"

He turned away from her, raising his voice so those in the most distant seats could hear, "Scholar tay'Nordif pleads a stay of challenge. It appears that she lacks the courage to defend her own work! How say you, colleagues? This Tower is built upon the integrity of its scholarship! Are we to allow this—"

"If this Tower is built upon the integrity of its scholars," Maelyn heard her traitor voice ring out, "then the walls crumble around us where we stand!" She spun, raising her hand to point at each section of seats in turn. "I call upon the scholars gathered here to do the math!" she shouted. "How many of your colleagues have fallen in proof during the last dozen semesters? How many of them stood between Ala Bin tay'Welford and his ultimate goal—the Prime Chair?"

There was murmuring in the stands now, and consternation. Some scholars rose to their feet, others brought out math-sticks and personal diaries.

"Do the math!" she cried again, as she fought the strange, false conviction that she knew tay'Welford in some other guise, and that she perfectly understood his purpose, which was neither the glory of the Tower nor the preservation of its scholars and their work. "Tally the loss to the field since this man came among you! Consider his purpose!"

"What can we know of his purpose?" someone called down from the stands. "He is a scholar, as we all are; his purpose must be the peaceful pursuit of his work!"

"It is not!" she returned, and knew it for truth. She turned and faced tay'Welford, who stood as a man quick-frozen, as sometimes were the laborers at home, if night caught them outside the dome. His smile was rigid, and his eyes full with dire warning. Behind him, Scholar ven'Orlud frankly gaped.

Fascinated, Maelyn watched her hand rise, the wedge of her fingers pointing directly at Ala Bin tay'Welford.

"This man is no scholar," she shouted; "he is a liar and a thief. His whole purpose in being here is to lay this Tower to waste in the name of his masters, and to steal away our most precious treasure!"

"You fool!" tay'Welford hissed, and snatched the blade from his sash.

MASTER DEA'SYL SET A brisk pace, leading them through a maze of dusty tunnels, up yet another cargo lift, and thence into another tunnel, this one bearing all the markings of being in current use.

"This way," Tor An panted, "is not so secret as some."

"That is correct, Pilot," the master said, unperturbed. "There is a measurable risk of discovery in this section of our journey. I do assure you, however, that the risk is acceptable—and in any case, it must be run. There is no other path from where we were to the place we must come to. Quickly, now; we are almost—"

Abruptly, the chair braked, skewing sideways on its cushion of air. The pot in the cargo bay slammed against its restraints; the tree's limbs trembled. Jela flung out an arm, stopping Tor An in his tracks, then crept forward alone, stealthy and silent, to peer 'round the next corner.

Tor An gripped the side of the carry-chair, watching as Jela raised a hand, palm out, fingers waggling briefly in something that might have been hand-talk for
wait
.

Moments dragged by; Tor An's whole attention was focused upon that broad, steady palm—when a spot of damp coolness touched the fingers that gripped the sled's tumble bar so tightly, he jumped and bit his tongue in his endeavor not to gasp. Glancing down, he saw Lucky the cat looking earnestly up into his face, amber eyes depthless and clear. Carefully, one eye still on Jela, he moved his free hand and rubbed the cat's ear. His attention was rewarded with a purr so soft he scarcely heard it where he stood—and then Jela's hand swept out and up—
come on
.

THE BLADE CAME IN low, impossibly fast. She knew a heartbeat of utter terror before she sidestepped, spinning out of the path of danger in a swirl of robes.

"Murderer!" she shouted. "Thief! Take him! Hold him for the Governors!"

For a instant, it seemed as if every scholar present had been quick-frozen, then a few found their feet and surged forward, shouting. Their movement thawed the others, who swarmed down the stands, some with blades drawn, others with math-sticks still in hand. Crying aloud, they closed on Ala Bin tay'Welford. Scholar ven'Orlud, who yet stood by, abruptly came to life, snatching at tay'Welford's sleeve, her hand going to the knife in her sash. tay'Welford spun, blade flashing—

Maelyn tay'Nordif did not stay to see more. The onrushing wave of scholars was no longer interested in her, and by dint of dodging, ducking, and simple pushing, she quickly reached clear floor. She paused a moment to take her bearings, thoughts a-whirl with half-grasped questions and calculations—what matter to her where the spaceport lay?—while she pulled the hem of her robe up through the sash, freeing her legs for quick movement. She had the clear sense that a decision had been made, though what it might be, she could not have said. Her feet, however, were better informed. She spun, spied a hallway that matched some parameter of that unknown decision, and began to run.

ONCE AGAIN, THEY were in an ancient and long-undisturbed supply tunnel. They went more slowly now, Master dea'Syl setting a pace that showed some respect for the tricky footing his carry-chair floated above.

"How time does render us all obsolete," the old man remarked. "Would you believe, gentles, that this was the main supply line for Osabei when I was a child? Many hours did I labor at the receiving dock, absorbing the principles of practical mathematics. Far too often, I was called to right a supply train which had jumped the track, or to carry out some measure from a barge which had foundered from overload."

Tor An blinked. "You were a child within these walls, Master?"

"Indeed, I was once a child, Pilot, though I grant one might find it difficult to credit. In those days, you see, it was possible for Houses of a certain status to pledge a child to the Tower from which the House elders wished to receive notice. I am not able to tell you what it was my own House sought, as of course this was never disclosed to me. However, when I ascended to grudent, I was shown the contract of pledge, on which the signatures of all six elders appeared."

"It seems a hard price," Tor An observed, blinking away a sudden rising of tears, as he thought of the bustling and busy house that was no more—

"Perhaps. Certainly others have thought so. I cannot fault the arrangement, myself, as in it I found my lifework and perhaps—as M. Jela may have imparted to you—the means to preserve humankind from oblivion."

The tunnel, Tor An thought, was widening gradually and tending somewhat to the right. He shot a glance to Jela, walking in his chosen position at the rear, and saw that the walls no longer crowded those wide shoulders quite so nearly.

"We are in fact, approaching the very thing which first struck fire from my mathematical curiosity," Master dea'Syl said, and raised his voice somewhat. "M. Jela, you will find this interesting, I think."

The tunnel continued steadfast in its rightward tending; the walls widening even more, into a neglected receiving bay. Carts and barges lined the left wall, awaiting cargos; on the right, empty twine spindles were set into the walls, a hose dangled untidily from a cobweb-covered cannister, the graphic denoting spray sealant barely visible through the dust. A shelf still held a set of dust-shrouded tools, neatly laid out by function; a hand-cart and a cargo-sled leaned against the wall beneath. Three tracks described a tricksy dance through the dust—in-going, out-going, and in-process, Tor An thought, oddly soothed by the simple ordinariness of the arrangements. It was plain that the bay had been abandoned for some time, and yet, with only a little bit of cleaning and stocking, it could be made as functional as it had been during Liad dea'Syl's long-ago boyhood.

At the far end of the hall, where the bay doors would normally be, was a curved blank wall of made of some unfamiliar milky orange material. It gave back no reflection; seemed, indeed to absorb what feeble light came from the panels set into the ceiling, and there appeared to be ...things... moving within and beneath the milkiness. Tor An walked forward, eyes squinted against the vaguely unsettling color, trying to get a clear sight of those ...things. As he approached, he felt his skin prickle, as if a charge leaked from the... whatever it—