With these words he replaced the empty magazine, held the grip in one hand—keeping his finger off the trigger—with the front of the weapon pointed away from both of them. He placed his other forefinger and a thumb upon the shallow serrations at the rear of the upper portion and drew it toward him. The upper half slid backward until it locked in this position, all the beauty and symmetry of its flowing lines lost.
"Is it broken?" Arran asked, unable to suppress a disap-pK)inted quaver.
"No, young master. Stone-cold empty it be, an' atellin' us so. It'd be fair important if your life depended upon this toy. Ye'd know it be past time t'slap in another cassette an' be ready t'thrust again or be thrust." Indeed, a second "magazine" object lay within the pouch, along with the crystal-containers and a few other, less recognizable, objects. "Now this here," Old Henry poked a flat, colorless finger at one of the unidentified objects still in the black pouch which lay upon its once-transparent wrapper upon the oil-stained bench before them, "will be testin' of our luck."
"What be—is it?" Without waiting for the old man's answer, Arran reached an eager hand toward a small rectangular solid of a crumbling material he had never seen before and yet which looked familiar. It was covered, every siemme squared, with lettering, once bright-colored, now dirty and faded.
Old Henry brushed his hand away. "Have care, young master. It be pasteboard, as they usta be callin' it, same as
books be fashioned from, an' never intended t'last single century, lettin' alcHie any six or seven."
Indeed, the box had begun to crumble at the boy's touch. Neither had its condition much improved by his handling of the pouch in the cellar. Where it had been tucked into the box, Old Henry prised a fragile end-flap away. Inside, within an unprinted, lidless half box, was visible a row of five green-brown metallic cylinders, each at least two siemmes long and half again the diameter of a thille. Arran realized they were analogous to the larger cylinders which hung upon his bedroom wall with the steyraug, yet half of the objects visible in the box were topped with elongated domes of an unfamiliar, frosty, almost mildewed-looking substance.
"Our luck be aholdin', young master m'lad. These be power charges for yon antique weapon. Hmm—aged, I think me, beyond usin'." He gave the boy a broad wink and laid a finger beside his nose. "Still, with bitta fiddlin', we may be after obtainin' some good athem."
With elaborate care the old man took a pair of forceps from the bench and lifted one cylinder out. Arran could see that all five in the end row, perhaps all fifty or so in the box, were identical, being stacked top-to-bottom alternating with bottom-to-top. The end opposite the mildewed-looking tip had been flattened in some fashion, like the head of a nail.
Old Henry took the object across the room, opened a metal-framed window in the face of the right-hand spreighformer, and placed it inside, careful afterward to seal the window. He placed a palm over a light-sensitive area, touched a colored grid with his forefinger, and waited as the colors changed. Then he nodded, whether to himself or to the machine Arran could only guess.
Crossing to the row of ore-storage bins, Old Henry pushed a small hand-scoop into one of them, retraced his steps and emptied it into a hopper low in the spreighformer face. He checked the readings again and added a cup of petroleum and a scoopful of odd-colored dirt from a different bin. The spreighformer hummed a while, afterward falling silent.
What Old Henry afterward removed from the manifesting chamber bore only the most superficial of resemblances to what he had first placed in its analyzing window. In place of
40 HENRY MARTYN
the dull-surfaced and corroded brown-green cylinder from the faded pasteboard box, an object of metallic gold appearance now glittered in the proffered hollow of his wrinkled palm.
"Brass it be," Old Henry explained as they examined the object. Arran observed how, like almost every artifact he had seen from this period of antiquity, the thing bore lettering. How the ancients loved to write and read! This time it was fine, eye-straining scratches upon the flattened head. "Alloyed copper an' zinc. Aluminum-titanium likely'd done quite as well, or many another mix Old Henry can think of, but perhaps they didna have knowin' athat in ancient times, else 'twas after provin' too expensive for them."
The great wonder to Arran was that the floury tip of the walther-charge—"Cartridges they were after callin' 'em . . ." —was also golden, dull of luster, and waxen to the touch. "Aye, but it be thinnest platin', wot they usta be callin' *wash', though I canna say why. Underneath be nothin' but purest dross. Lead, buttery-soft t'take t'riflin'—I'll be explainin' that anon—an' expand upon contact with target t'make larger woundin'."
It was at this moment Arran realized, with a wonderful, delicious sense of shock, that he was looking across time toward an incredibly primitive era when, instead of the pure kinetic energy which thrustibles generated, weapons had been simple devices (simple in theory, anyway, he was still learning the difference between simplicity in principle and practice) for throwing tangible physical objects at people and animals and things. For him the contrast between this idea and tools of hand-knapped flint was less considerable than it might have been for someone of an earlier century.
Old Henry retrieved the original cartridge from the window of the spreighformer and replaced it in the pasteboard box among its venerable fellows. Now he took the fresh cartridge and, retracting a spring-loaded follower with his thumb, slid the shiny object into place in the top of the magazine he had removed from the walther-weapon.
"Now we'll just be seein' how successful we been," Old Henry told the wide-eyed boy. "Nor brass nor lead be hard part, but what be inside, primin' an' propellant powder.
Lotsa complicated organic moUycules they be made of. Also we'll be after seein' why this toy, as dangerous as it may be under certain circumstances, be no more than toy, compared t'thrustibles, why them as had wieldin' alesser weapons lost t'ye dread Hanoverians."
He slammed the magazine into the grip, pulled back its upper half, let it return under spring-pressure with a metallic, ringing snap. With a nod at Arran, he flicked a lever upward, pulled another down and backward, and turned the thing upon himself, its muzzle resting light against his solar plexus.
Something flashed! This time it was not from the lightning outside.
An impossible roar—not thunder—filled the room.
Chapter V: Natural Selection
Old Henry Martyn had thrust himself.
Arran's ears sang with the room-filling roar of the walther-discharge. His mind reverberated with shock. Lightning glared outside the workshop's grimy windows, drowning shadows, searing images upon his brain in hard-edged black and white. A crack of thunder followed in an instant, not a decibel louder than the pistol, which seemed to mock the frightened boy.
"Henry!" To all appearances unharmed, Old Henry puckered his face into an evil and self-satisfied grin. Adding a wink for Arran, and casting his wrinkle-shrouded eyes down, toward his midsection, he laid the walther-weapon aside— the top half was locked back again—upon the oil-stained bench. A thin curl of bluish smoke drifted from its muzzle and the window in its side.
"'Twas after bein' some louder'n I expected."
An unfamiliar, and, it seemed to Arran, pleasant tang filled the air as Old Henry began picking with scientific pre-
42 HENRY MARTYN
occupation at a small, dark button-shape of distorted metal which, centered in a scorched patch of his tunic front, seemed to cling to the fibers there. The old man shook his head, waggling his jaw and swallowing as if to clear his ears. He freed the spent projectile from his clothing, upturned Arran's wrist, and placed the bit of lead, still hot to the touch, upon the boy's damp palm, where it danced from line to line in time to the shaking of his hand.
Residual noise in Arran's ears had by now become a thin, steady whine. It would haunt him for several days, heterodyning when he essayed to whistle, until it seemed to fade and vanish. In certain frequencies, in particular in the ear he'd ha
d turned toward Old Henry at the crucial moment, he would never hear as well as he had again. Outside, a great exhalation of damp wind blew wet leaves and shreds of nondescript debris across the window, presaging violent change in the already unpleasant weather. The heretofore unnoticed hiss of raindrops upon the courtyard flags dropped in pitch and rose to a roar as the summer storm became a torrent, whipped by their impact into a froth which seethed across the stones.
Still stunned by what had happened, Arran nodded at his mentor with a certain absence of awareness. Thoughts foamed odd-shaped across his mind like the rain outside upon the flags. He stared in disbelief at the distorted object in his hand. To him, it presented the appearance of a miniature bog shroom, complete with broad, rounded cap and a short, hollow-bottomed stem. The cap, the portion which had struck Old Henry, was imprinted with the coarse texture of the fabric whereupon it had come to a sudden stop.
Old Henry winked again, seized the abused material of his peasant's tunic (the same sort Arran wore, speaking volumes of the Islay family) between both thumbs and forefingers, working it until the blemish, a stretching of the warp and weft where the projectile had struck, disappeared. The garment would require washing to remove the powder stain. Grinning, he pulled the tunic up and inspected his naked abdomen with mild curiosity. Upon his belly—with its thin covering of snow-white hair, yet smoother and firmer than Arran might
have expected in one of so advanced an age—a thumb-sized reddening, scarce more than a rash, had already begun to fade.
"I mighta tried yon toy against my unprotected flesh," he observed, "but ye never know. Still, 'tis everything an' all I expected. I'll ha' ye know, lad, though 'twas after bein' very least of ancient weapons, this twennytoo 'twas still considered lethal instrument in proper circumstances."
Confused, Arran placed the expanded projectile beside the weapon upon the bench. He glanced outside. The courtyard had become a temporary, shallow, boiling lake, cratered by giant drops and what might be hail. He wondered for an anxious minute where Waenzi had got himself to. It failed to occur to him that, long before the coming of mankind to Skye, a million generations of the animals had proven capable of seeing to themselves.
"I understand. That is, I believe I do. Those old charges in their box were too far gone for replication. Or did the spreighformer fail—"
"No, young master, it didna fail. Yon cartridge worked just as it was supposed to. Yon ancients—bigger they were than us, their children, b'more'n head-height. Still, they were that mooch softer."
"What?" That his ancestors might have been different in their material beings, from himself and people he knew, was something Arran had never heard in his history lessons. He absorbed it as a metaphysical blow, much in its effect like having watched Old Henry thrust himself. "You mean to say what failed even to harm you would have killed one of them?"
"That it likely would." The old man shook his silver-thatched head. "In fairness, we might allow that our clothin' be some better. Common kefflar'U stiffen itself 'gainst any blow, but it was after bein' expensive drygood, used for armorin' warriors in yoredays. Now we dinna use nothin' else for togs, an' some say 'twas kefflar an' nothin' else put end to ancient art of weaponry called ipsic h'some practitioners, and be others gundo. ''Arran nodded in the beginnings of comprehension, but offered nothing in reply, for he knew Old Henry well enough to understand that more was in the offing. He
44 HENRY MARTYN
was right: "Even had I unleashed weapon *pon me bare old ribs, without tunic t*stint blow, likeliest I'da drawn drap ablood or two an* no much more."
They paused, noticing as the light in the room brightened. Outside, the sky was purple-gray and dark as night. Inside, not for the first time since Old Henry had "adopted" him, Arran's grasp upon the universe had been shaken to its foundations. Satisfied with the effect, for he believed shaking anyone's foundations was healthy exercise for all concerned. Old Henry shifted where he sat and gave Arran a light punch upon the upper arm.
"We*re harder, lad, perhaps from nothin' more'n centuries athrustin' one another for personal reasons an' in service t'Ceo, Monopolity, an' Empery-Cirot. Them as be goin' t'die of such, they die. Them as survives makes babies. Tougher do we get, though bitter may we regret selectin' process. Thus upon firmer flesh do bullets, blades, even lasers, have less effect than mighta been expected be our ancestors. Their weapons canna be called useless—I s'pose bullet in eye'd reach brain—but close as may be."
Arran nodded again. "Presumably our medical art is better, too."
Old Henry shook his head. "Such things dinna always improve with time. Had I used methods approved b'latest poison-peddlers, bone-breakers, an' ray-burners at 'Droom, ye'd be ailin' still, for all that they work miracles in other ways. Take this Morven fellow, friend of your father's. No reason for him t'be all bundled up in wheelie-chair if he didna want t'be, down deep inside. But cancer—I used what I had of ancient knowledge, an' here y'be."
Thunder roared. Somewhere beyond the margin of the Holdings an everblue fell in the forest, barkless and steaming. No one had heard it fall, but it would be lying there in the morning, just the same. The torrent hammered upon the workshop rooftop. Hearing the old man was difficult enough. Old Henry shifted again, as if uncomfortable with what he would say next.
"Any case, medical art works for individuals, against species. N'bad, ye understand, save soft survive t'breed. When they've time, mind ye. Men came blazin' up from Airth-a-Le^end, thrustin' his way off mother planet, and've
never knew moment's peace after. Hanover's been fightin' at intervals with Jendyne Empery-Cirot more'n thousand years. Bad for individuals, good for species. Horrible as may be to contemplate, 'tis what's made us tougher'n forebears." The old man narrowed his eyes, looked this way and that before continuing, caught himself in this precaution, and winked at Arran. "One way medicarts might've helped, aside from sometimes slaughterin' weak as easy as any beam or bullet. Could be a few errant chromysomes, be accident or design, sneaked outa labs where dreaded Oplytes rumor t'be bom or bred."
Oplytes. Again Arran found his head whirling as the parts inside seemed to rearrange themselves. He knew next to nothing about the giant, unkillable warriors created by the Monopolity and the Empery-Cirot, among others. He was not alone in his ignorance, nor was it just that of a small boy upon an isolated world. It was claimed no one knew much about them. What was known was whispered or spoken not at all, although his father had commanded a battalion of them in the most recent flare-up of the Thousand Years' War. He caught Old Henry grinning that teacher's grin of his, and, for the briefest moment, wanted to kick him in his skinny shins. Why, he had always believed his civilization to be the most advanced, the most humane, the most. ..
The Skyan watched as confusion wrote itself across the boy's features. "Why, ye ask, does Old Henry bother himself tellin' ye these things? Dinna deny it, I see it upon your face. Tis your heritage an' birthright, Arran m'lad, for blood of conqueror an' rebel alike flows through your veins, child that ye be of Robret Islay an' Glynnaughfem Fair. Mistress Woodgate teaches Hanoverian part of ye, an' Old Henry part that's Skyan."
"But—"
"Because, in memory of your mother, outa respect for those with whom he once made Great Bargain, your father asked me."
Arran blinked, surprised to the bone for the third time this rainy afternoon. Old Henry always acted as if things he passed along were secrets of the imperium-conglomerate, information suppressed by the Monopolity as treasonable, in any case lending the most mundane fact a delicious
46 HENRY MARTYN
feeling of sedition. Now, to be informed that he was told these things at his father's specific bidding ... the thought tapered off unconcluded and unsatisfying, as thoughts often did when Old Henry had provoked them.
As far as what Old Henry had asserted—Arran shifted his thoughts (unaware of the potential vice it represented) to a more comfortable and less-confusing subject, the fabled art of ipsic. The personal wea
pon of the present age, Arran knew, was the self-coUimating kinergic thrustible. Utilizing §-physics—the same forces harnessed in the estate's power generator, and, indeed, which allowed starships to ply the Deep between the systems—the thrustible generated a focused pulse of pure, recoilless energy, rated in measure-keys of destructive force per square siemme.
Strapped to the upper surface of the forearm, with its dangerous end out past the knuckles, such a weapon had a thin "yoke"—grip-safety and thumb-trigger—which lay in the user's palm, connected by a bridge between the first and second fingers to the "axis": what another age would have called the barrel. The power supply was an ergonomic cluster located near the elbow. Sighting was accomplished by means of a built-in, low-power laser.
Possession of thrustibles was forbidden to all but members and retainers of the elite. They were expensive and, upon this account as well as others, rare by comparison with other artifacts. Most bore the mark, rather than the brandname of a mass-producer like this walther-weapon he'd found, of famous artisans. Despite the fact that he was entitled by virtue of his birth, Arran had examined such weapons only once or twice at his father's indulgence.
Unaware he was now eschewing the same vice of evasion which he had earlier begun to embrace, he resolved of a sudden to think the rest through—the part about his father and his mother—when he was alone. As good teachers do. Old Henry had an idea of what was happening within the boy's mind and let him alone to puzzle over it. When time came for more information, more foundation-shaking, Arran would come and ask. He always did.
Now, thoughtful and gazing into the obsidian darkness, Arran noticed a flicker of motion. Lightning burned onto his retinas the jerky movements and human angularities of
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