Anderson, Kevin J - Gamearth 01 (36 page)

Dirac gave him a self-satisfied smile. "You are extrapolating a great deal from a small amount of data, gentlemen. We have only a few ambiguous measurements from Professor Verne's apparatus
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hardly enough information to concoct such a doom-filled hypothesis. Don't you agree, Professor?"

Verne remained silent for a moment, tugging on his great gray beard, then he frowned. "You are showing very little scientific objectivity, Dirac," he said quietly, and turned to go. "But, then, perhaps you are no longer an inventor."

Before Dirac could reply, Vailret turned his back on him and followed Verne without a word. Paenar looked as if he wanted to shout some more, but he scowled and moved in Vailret's wake.

Dirac recovered himself and called, "Have a nice day!" as the three men disappeared down the hall.

"Follow me," Verne said. Vailret blinked when they emerged into the sunlight, and Paenar adjusted his mechanical eyes. The wind had come up, whipping the ocean's damp scent through the winding alleys.

"Why bother?" Paenar said. "You may as well go and enjoy yourself. Play a game or two. We don't have much time left."

Verne stared at Paenar's artificial eyes. "Follow me," he repeated and turned to stride down a hex-cobbled street.

The professor stumped away from his workshop at a brisk pace, as if always two steps behind where he wanted to be. Vailret grew curious about what Verne had in mind. Paenar followed, fuming and angry, impotent in the face of the end of the world.

"Dirac is too quick to dismiss theories he does not like," Verne said.

"One of Maxwell's golden rules says that we must search for the truth, whether it be pleasant or unpleasant."

He stopped and shrugged. "Besides, my data supports what you have said about Scartaris. If nothing else, I trust my own data."

Verne led them out to the seawall around Sitnalta. Part of the wall had been battered away by the choppy water, and now many Sitnaltan engineers scurried about designing and constructing a new section of the wall, adding supports. A large spidery apparatus used elaborate systems of weights and counterweights to raise gigantic stone blocks, positioning them in rows along the wall. Puffs of steam and groans of stressed metal drifted into the air against the rumble of the ocean. Vailret could smell the salty, fishy mixture of the sea mixed with oil and smoke from the machinery.

Verne indicated the damaged section, speaking in a tone of amazement.

"Several weeks ago the ocean attacked our wall. The day was clear, and the sea was still as glass
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but a huge fist of water surged up from the sea, as if ... called by someone." He shrugged, "None of our theoreticians can account for it."

Vailret saw a vision of Bryl, possessed by the
dayid
of the khelebar forest, calling on all the water in the world to come to their aid. Vailret shuddered, but did not volunteer the information to Professor Verne.

They descended a steep, rime-covered staircase on the seawall, reaching a network of docks that stuck out like insolent tongues into the water. The cold wind blew in their faces. Vailret found it refreshing after Dirac's stuffy reception.

On the docks two men operated a vibrating generator submerged in the choppy water in an effort to lure fish into complex electronic traps. The fishing engineers soon gave up in disgust, covering their equipment with a canvas, and walked off the docks, leaving Professor Verne alone with his two companions.

Verne led them to the end of one of the docks and pointed to a large mechanical object floating in the water, tied up against the pilings in front of them. He whispered, filling his voice with a childish sense of wonder.

"This, gentlemen, is the
Nautilus
."

It looked like a huge motionless fish, nightmarish and prehistoric.

Jagged ridges ran down its long body, jutting like fins from crucial steering points. Thick gaping windows gleamed translucent at the waterline. Vailret sensed it was some kind of boat, and yet more than a boat. Paenar cast his mechanical eyes over the steel-plated hull and made a satisfied noise.

"Frankenstein studied thousands of fish, trying to figure out how they worked, how they swam, how they submerged themselves, how they remained under water. We used his results to create those frivolous toys in the fountain around our water clock, little mechanical fish that swim around and around, aimlessly. But I took his information one step further and combined the physics of the fish with the practicality of a boat. So this is not just a boat, but an underwater boat for submarine travel!"

Vailret looked at the
Nautilus
, not anxious to step out on the rocking, spray-covered hull. The round hatchway looked like a lidded eye on the front end of the ship. "Does it work?"

Verne tried to sidestep the question, then faced it squarely. "Yes, Frankenstein and I have taken it for several test runs near the shore. Oh, it is beautiful under the water, a world one does not normally see. My
Nautilus
will take you out toward Rokanun." He sighed and turned his eyes away.

"But this is not an exploitation of a simple law of nature, as the balloon was. The
Nautilus
is pure Sitnaltan technology, rooted in science and conceived through my own inventiveness."

Paenar understood and turned to Vailret. "He means we will not be able to cross the technological fringe beyond the city."

"No, I mean you may not be able to cross it," Verne said. "Nothing is absolute on Gamearth
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it depends on the roll of the dice the Rules of Probability [Kevin, punctuation after "dice"?]. Once you cross the fringe, the probability that machinery will fail increases exponentially. You always have a chance to make it, if you try enough times."

Vailret frowned, looking at the gleaming metal fish. "Does this mean you're giving us permission to take the
Nautilus
? Why didn't Dirac say anything about this?"

"I'm not certain if I can give you permission. But I can show you how to pilot her, and I can assure you that I will not be here to stop you if, say, tonight you wished to take her and go."

"Why are you dancing around your words?" Paenar said.

Verne shoved both hands in his pockets. "I am a prolific inventor
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I cannot remember how many certificates I have acquired from the Council of Patent Givers. But I am also a Sitnaltan. Since we rarely encounter strangers, and since none of our devices will function far from the city anyway, the question has never arisen if one of my inventions belongs to
me
, because I invented it, or if it belongs to the people of Sitnalta, who have constructed it and manufactured the materials.

"So, you see, if I were to ask Dirac about giving you the
Nautilus
, he would say the ship belongs to the city and not to me." His eyes sparkled.

"However, if I do not ask the question, then the issue will not be raised. And no one will deny you the right to take the boat."

Vailret digested the logic and grinned. "Admirably devious, Professor.

You are shrewd in other ways besides being just a great tinkerer!"

Verne stepped on the narrow deck of the
Nautilus
. He lifted up the round metal hatch and climbed into the control room. Vailret saw panels filled with switches, dials, and other controls. It all looked exotic and exciting.

The professor paused, looking up at the sun's position in the sky. He withdrew a ticking timepiece the size of an apple and cracked it open, nodding. "We should have sufficient time. Would you like to learn how to pilot her?"

* * * *

To celebrate the liberation of the Stronghold, Jorte dug up one of the last vats of the previous year's spring cider outside of his gaming hall and broke open the top. He took a wooden rod and stirred sediment from the bottom before everyone dipped cups into the cool brown liquid. Jorte waddled over to a table to drink and enjoy himself for the first time in a month.

Early in the afternoon, the veteran Tarne and several other villagers had crept out of the sheltering forest. They had seen the dragon in the sky, heard the loud battle inside the stockade fence. But now the Stronghold stood silent and ominous. Tarne hoped the ogres had killed each other. The gates were ajar and somehow intact again. He climbed Steep Hill alone, standing in front of the open gates, not knowing what to do next.

And Delrael rushed out to greet him.

After the word had spread, the other villagers flooded back into their old homes and buildings like a long awaited sigh. Lantee the butcher and his wife stared stricken at their demolished, empty smokehouse. Others were relieved that the destruction had not been greater. Most drifted off to Jorte's gaming hall, not yet ambitious enough to start the job of putting their lives in order before the harvest.

For two days they assessed the damage to the land and recovered from their shock. After his battle with Gairoth, Bryl seemed to be held in higher esteem by the villagers. Delrael stood with Tarne and Bryl inside the Stronghold fence, looking out over the landscape visible from the top of the hill. Tarne pointed to one of the cleared hexagons of cropland. "Our harvest this season will be poor. We tried to come out at night and do the weeding, but that was risky. The storehouses are empty.

"It's going to be a hard winter for all of us."

Delrael looked across the cleared land, past the beginning of the hexagon of forest terrain, but he said nothing.

"If the game lasts that long," Bryl muttered.

A reptilian shriek sliced through the air. Delrael crouched, letting his fighting instincts take over. Tarne and Bryl looked up to see the huge form of Tryos sailing overhead.

The dragon flapped his wings, splaying his pistonlike legs so that he landed with grace on the flat training area. He beat his wings a final time and folded them across his back, ignoring Tarne and focusing his attention on Bryl and Delrael.

"Finished!" Tryos cried in his high-pitched, clipped voice. "Rognos far from here! Never come back. Never."

"Very good, Tryos," Delrael said. "Gairoth is gone, too."

Tryos blinked his eyes-and bobbed his head up and down. "Isss good! No more Rokanun for me! Ssstay here now! Home of Tryos!"

Tarne stared, but Delrael ignored him. Bryl fell silent, standing back from the discussion.

"No more Rokanun?" Delrael asked, speaking in a slow and careful voice.

"Nah! I have thisss land."

"Okay," Delrael fidgeted, looking first at Bryl and then at Tarne. He got no encouragement from their appalled expressions. "But what about your treasure? All those years you worked to gather it, surely you don't just want to leave it there for robbers?"

Tryos lifted his head, snorted smoke. "They would not dare!"

Delrael crossed his arms over his leather jerkin. "Who do you think you're kidding, Tryos? If you stay away, it's a treasure for the taking."

The dragon turned his blazing eyes away. But Delrael smiled. "You could, of course, bring your treasure here. Look at these big empty storage chambers we have
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wouldn't they make a great start for a new set of catacombs?"

The dragon cocked his head, extending his long reptilian neck into the musty darkness of the storage pit Rognoth had gutted. "Pah! Smellsss like grain!" His voice echoed in the chamber; then he lifted his head back out again, blowing dust from his nose. "But they make good cavesss. I bring my treasure here."

"We'll help," Delrael volunteered. "Can we go right away?"

The dragon turned around in circles, then slumped to the ground, stretching his neck out and plopping his chin on the dirt. "Nah
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long flight." He closed his eyes. "Tired now."

Within moments, low rumbling sounds of the sleeping dragon drifted into the air, drowning out the faint noises of the villagers still rejoicing in the gaming hall.

In their private room in Sitnalta, Vailret and Paenar discussed everything Verne had showed them. All afternoon the professor had bombarded them with instructions, filling the
Nautilus's
control room with his accented voice.

Paenar remained rigid on the edge of his cot, staring at the blank wall. They sat listening to the steam-engine vehicles chugging into storage bays to let their boilers cool until morning. The manufactories had closed down for the night. Vailret waited for the gas streetlights to be lit and for the Sitnaltans to go to sleep.

"Our plan has one big flaw," Vailret said, disturbing Paenar from his daydreaming. "We have even less to fight with than Del and Bryl did. At least they had the Water Stone."

"We'll manage," Paenar said, but the bulky goggles masked his real expression. Lenses floated in their oils, hypnotic in the shadowy light.

Vailret shook his head.

"Against a dragon? How? Neither of us can even fight with a sword or shoot an arrow. Not that it would be terribly effective against Tryos, anyway."

Paenar spoke slowly in the new silence. "
Sitnalta
has a weapon that's effective against the dragon."