“That's right,” Imp said from where she lay. “If you smash the Fortress you'll kill Aulden and the others."
“But…"
“No buts, Geste!” The Skyler's tone had softened somewhat.
Imp said, “I know you mean well, Geste, and maybe you're right, in the abstract, but we can't do it. We can't kill our friends and smash the Skyler's home. We can't."
Geste looked up at the Skyler, and then down at Imp, who still lay sprawled before him.
“You want to surrender?” he asked.
“We don't want to,” Imp replied, lifting herself up on one elbow. “We have to. If Thaddeus has those seven people, we can't let him kill them."
“Would you say that if Aulden weren't one of them?"
“I don't know,” Imp admitted, “I really don't. But it doesn't matter, because he is one of them."
“If he is,” Bredon said, breaking into the conversation for the first time. He had been very carefully thinking over what he had seen, in the light of his new understanding of Terran technology. “Why did Thaddeus only show those images for quick flashes like that? Maybe he faked them, or used old recordings."
Startled, the other three all looked at him. “But Mother said…” Imp began.
“If he faked the pictures, couldn't he have faked that transmission, too?” the Skyler asked her.
Geste stared at Bredon, but said nothing. The corners of his mouth twitched, however, and Bredon knew he was thinking hard, and was pleased with the results.
The two women, after staring at each other speechlessly for a few seconds, turned to stare at Geste, waiting for his response.
“Could he be faking it?” Imp demanded.
“I think,” the Trickster said at last, “that we had better check for ourselves that Thaddeus does have captives, that he hasn't killed them already, before we agree to anything."
“How can we do that, if Thaddeus is faking all the transmissions out of Fortress Holding?"
“We'll demand to see the captives in person, in the flesh."
“He won't allow that,” the Skyler said derisively.
“Why not?” Geste asked. “If he doesn't, what is he afraid of?"
The Skyler hesitated, then answered, “He won't trust us inside his fortress. We might sabotage the place, somehow."
“He can take precautions. Or he can bring the prisoners out."
“He won't bring them out; we might rescue them."
“Then he'll have to let us in. If he doesn't, then we'll fight him. All we want is proof that they're still alive."
The Skyler studied the Trickster's face. “You're up to something, Geste,” she said. “I know you are, and Thaddeus will know it, too."
“My reputation,” he said with a mock sigh, addressing himself to Bredon. “No one ever trusts me!"
“That's right, and Thaddeus won't, either,” the Skyler said.
“But he'll let us in anyway,” Geste said with a smile, “because he's absolutely certain that he's smarter than I am, and able to counter whatever scheme I might have."
“Then you do have a scheme!” Imp exclaimed.
Geste smiled again, wryly. “Not really,” he said.
After a pause he added, “At least, not yet."
Chapter Twenty-One
“'…I, Hsin of the River, will grant you a wish. Anything you desire shall be yours!’ And he gestured grandly at the surrounding magnificence.
"Thedor blinked in surprise.
"'I want to go home,’ he said uncertainly.
"'Of course,’ said Hsin. ‘My creatures will carry you from this house, and from this island, and see you safely home. That is not enough; I had intended to do that much in any case. What else would you have?'
"Thedor thought for a moment, and then he said, ‘My friends will not believe me when I tell this tale. Can you give me some token to show that I do not lie?'
"'Again, you ask too little,’ Hsin said. ‘I tell you that my creatures will escort you to your village, in plain sight of all. Furthermore, if you return here, you will always be welcome in the House of Fifty Peacocks, and although you may not see me, my familiar spirits will always be ready to speak to you, and to testify to whoever may accompany you as to the truth of what you say. Now, what more would you have of me?'
"Overwhelmed, Thedor thought long and hard, and then said, ‘My grandfather, whom I loved, died last year. Could you bring his spirit to speak to me, so that I might thank him for the wisdom he taught me, and tell him how much I miss him?'
"At this, Hsin was overcome with emotion. When he could speak again, he said, ‘Death is hard, is it not, little one? Alas, even I cannot bring back the dead, unless I have studied their souls while they still lived. Is there nothing you would have for yourself?'
"'I can think of nothing,’ Thedor said.
"'Then go in peace,’ Hsin replied, ‘and I will have spirits watch over you and keep you safe from all harm, for as long as you shall live…"
– from the tales of Atheron the Storyteller
****
The image of Thaddeus, bright against the gathering dusk, stared at Geste in outraged disbelief. “You want what?” it demanded.
“Look, Thaddeus,” Geste answered calmly, “we know that you've had Aulden there for wakes now. You could be showing us recordings, or simulations, or androids, or pseudoclones, or even the original bodies with the brains rebuilt. We need to know that these are really who you say they are, and there is nothing you can transmit that can't be faked. We need to see these people, talk to them, feel them, maybe run gene scans and neuropattern tests with our own equipment.” Geste shrugged. “I don't think we're being unreasonable at all. You're asking us to surrender ourselves to you in exchange for the lives of our friends; well, we want to check your credit, so to speak, and make certain that you actually have those lives and haven't already destroyed them. You couldn't buy a ship back on Terra without a credit check, and you can't here, either."
“If you think I'm bringing them out where you can get at them with one of your sleight-of-hand maneuvers, Geste, you've gone mad."
The Trickster remained cool. “Then let us in,” he said.
“So you can sabotage my fortress?"
“Take whatever precautions you like."
Thaddeus paused, considering, and then asked, in a far calmer tone, “You'd submit to a search and give up all your equipment?"
“Everything that's not built in, anyway. And we might want some of it back to run tests with."
“You'd have no objection to suppressor fields?"
“I'd welcome them, Thaddeus; you couldn't run a simulation under full suppression."
“How do you know that I won't just keep you all here?"
“You want our equipment and our help, and we'll leave orders for an all-out attack if we aren't out after a certain time-say, second sunrise tomorrow."
This was a bluff, of course, since Imp had sabotaged the weapons systems, but Thaddeus had no way of knowing that.
Thaddeus nodded.
“All right,” he said. “Come along, then, all of you. I'll have everything ready in, oh, three hours, and you'll be out again within thirty hours. Fair enough?"
“That's fine."
“I'll send a floater to bring you in."
“Fine."
Thaddeus smiled almost pleasantly. “I'll see you then.” His image flicked out of existence, leaving the drifting terrace lights and the fading glow in the west.
“There,” Geste said, turning to the others. “We have three hours to come up with something."
“Geste, can't you shut up? He might be listening,” Imp said.
“I'm not going,” the Skyler announced suddenly, before Geste could answer Imp's complaint. Startled, the others all turned to her.
“I'm not going,” she repeated. “It's crazy. I'm not giving up the Skyland for anybody, not Thaddeus or Aulden or you two, and I'm not going to walk into a trap, either. Three hours! He could do anythi
ng in three hours!"
“But, Skyler…” Imp began.
“You shut up!” the Skyler said, almost spitting at her in sudden rage. “You went and pulled the plug on us! We might have caught him off-guard and stopped him, but you wrecked it all! I did my share, I brought you here with all those infernal machines you rigged up, and then you ruined everything!” She turned her attention to the Trickster. “I've gone as far as I intend to, Geste. I'm sorry, I know you mean well, but I can't do any more. I'll wait here until you come out-if you come out-but that's all. I'm not coming in. If Thaddeus wins, I'm sorry, but I'll survive. It won't last forever."
“I'm sorry, too,” Geste replied. “But I understand."
For an awkward moment the three immortals stood facing each other, while Bredon sat to one side, watching uncomfortably. Then Imp turned to face Geste, pointedly giving the Skyler no further attention, and said, “All right, we have three hours-what do we do?"
“I wish I knew,” the Trickster said, as the Skyler turned and marched away in the direction of her private wing of the house. Lights and music sprang up before her.
Before Imp could snap at him, Geste added hastily, “But I'll think of something. Let's see if we can do anything useful with any of the weapons."
Imp nodded, and turned toward the house, Geste close behind.
Bredon watched them go, but stayed where he was. He knew that he could be of no use with the weapons; he simply did not know enough about the technology involved, despite his high-speed training. He sat back in his floating chair to contemplate the scenery and the situation. The gaseous lights drifted overhead, and peacocks still stalked the lawns, but the music had departed with its mistress.
Precisely three hours after the image of Thaddeus had vanished a bright red floater, egg-shaped and glowing and perhaps half a meter long, sailed up across the star-flecked black sky. It turned and skimmed over the side of the Skyland, and came whistling across the lawn toward the terrace.
Bredon was there waiting for it. The Skyler had not been seen since she stalked off the terrace and into her personal chambers. Geste and Imp were also somewhere in the house, presumably still improvising gadgetry and schemes.
“Hello!” Bredon called.
The floater ignored him. It swept in about a meter above the dark stone pavement, emitting a variety of low beeps and whistles, then turned and cruised along the perimeter of the terrace.
“Hello,” Bredon called again, waving.
The floater continued to ignore him. When it had completed a full circuit it spiralled inward from the edges, slowing steadily, until it came to a stop hovering above the center of the terrace.
Seeing that this machine would not acknowledge his existence, Bredon shrugged and called, “Skyland, tell Geste and Imp that the floater is here."
“I have already done so, sir, and they are on their way,” the Skyland replied, in a calm, imperturbable tone that struck Bredon as being a little too smug.
“Thank you,” he said, wondering what the Skyland thought of the situation. It did not seem to have the same sort of awareness and personality that Gamesmaster did, but surely, he thought, it must have an opinion.
Before he could ask anything, Imp emerged from the house, her long hair drifting about her in an uneven auburn cloud as she strode onto the terrace. She had changed her clothes, and now wore a black velvet garment that Bredon had no name for. He stared, forgetting all about the Skyland's opinions.
The fabric covered her shoulders, breasts, and belly smoothly and tightly, as if stretched into place, while leaving most of her upper body bare. From the waist down it flared out into a flowing, voluminous skirt that moved as if with a life of its own, sometimes wrapping and coiling itself about her hips and legs, other times drifting out in a cloud of cloth that seemed indistinct about the edges, as if the material were dissolving into the air.
Bredon found this garb both startling and devastatingly attractive. He stared, and forced himself to remember that he wanted Lady Sunlight, not Imp.
His body still responded in its own way, undaunted by any message from the conscious mind.
Imp did not notice. She did not look at him at all, but hurried to the floater. She reached out to pat the machine, but it shied away.
She turned and called, “Hurry up, Geste! We don't want to keep him waiting!"
Bredon wondered whether she meant Thaddeus or Aulden.
Geste appeared almost before Imp had finished her sentence, his flying platform gliding at his heels. “All right,” he said. “Let's go."
“The platform may not come,” the red egg announced in a harsh monotone. “I am to bring three humans. No other self-propelled beings or devices are permitted."
“Three?” Geste asked. “Not four?"
“Three,” the floater repeated.
Geste threw Imp a worried glance. “Maybe Thaddeus did eavesdrop, if he knows the Skyler isn't coming."
Reluctantly, Bredon suggested, “I don't think that's it. I think he didn't want me along."
“Oh,” the Trickster said, momentarily looking foolish. “Oh, of course."
Imp looked at Bredon with interest. “I think you're right. I don't think Thaddeus thinks of you as human at all. He probably sees you as Geste's pet."
Bredon grimaced. “I'm not a Power,” he acknowledged.
“Thaddeus may think Bredon's an android or some sort of Trojan horse,” Imp said, turning to Geste.
“He may indeed,” Geste agreed. “It's too bad we didn't think to make him one.” He asked the floater, “Did your master tell you which three humans you were to bring?"
“The three humans to be found on this terrace,” the machine answered.
“No further description?” Geste persisted.
“No further description,” the machine replied.
“Well, here are three humans, then. Let's go."
“Acknowledged.” Something extruded from the underside of the egg, something as red and gleaming as the egg itself. At first it was a slim cylinder, but a few centimeters above the stone pavement the cylinder stopped. Its lower end transformed into a disk, which expanded swiftly and silently.
To Bredon, it looked as if the egg were spilling blood, pouring it in a steady stream into a circular puddle, a pool spreading across an invisible barrier three centimeters above the terrace.
When the red disk was almost three meters in diameter the expansion abruptly stopped. Imp and Geste stepped forward, and up onto the disk.
Bredon was more hesitant; he had trouble believing that the disk could actually hold him. The egg had seemingly created it from thin air, and although he knew from his crash course in modern technology that the necessary material might have been retrieved from bent-space storage, or synthesized out of the air itself, his years of experience in his own society left him emotionally convinced that it had to be an illusion.
Cautiously, he forced himself to put a foot on the disk.
It seemed as firm and solid as the terrace itself. Reluctantly, Bredon lifted his other foot and stepped forward.
Immediately, the disk material began spreading again, but this time the outer edge grew vertically instead of horizontally, rising up to form a cylinder around the three humans. At a height of about a meter and a half it curved inward, forming a dome.
Even as it grew, the floater was moving; as the Skyler's home vanished behind the rising walls it was already receding. By the time the dome had closed overhead, Bredon knew they were off the Skyland entirely.
As with all the tranportation the immortals used, however, there was no sensation of movement. It was as if the three of them had stood on the motionless disk while the Skyland sped away from them.
When the dome was complete, the last circle of blue sky closed away, they were left without any point of reference at all. The original egg glowed warmly, providing them with light, and a soft, musical hum emanated from floor, but they had nothing to see except the egg, the blank red walls, and each other. T
hey stood in uneasy silence.
Bredon wanted to ask what plans Geste had come up with, but he knew Thaddeus was listening, so he carefully said nothing. He turned his eyes away from Geste to avoid temptation.
After roaming aimlessly along the featureless red dome for a time, his eyes seemed to settle somewhere of their own volition. He found himself staring at Imp, and once again felt his body responding involuntarily to the extravagant sexual advertisement of her clothing. He forced himself to look away.
Geste's gaze wandered from the egg to Imp to Bredon, then around the dome and back to the egg, and Bredon had the impression that he was thinking hard about something while trying to look casual.
Imp simply stared blindly into space, oblivious to the others.
Bredon finally settled on staring at the egg, trying to guess just what it was capable of. This was ultimately pointless, since he could not tell, by visual inspection, whether it had a bent-space extension, and if it did have one, then it could be capable of anything. Studying the floater did, however, keep his eyes and mind off his companions.
Time passed-perhaps only a minute or two, possibly as much as an hour. Bredon had lost all sense of time in the absence of both conversation and the outside world. The only interruption of the silence came when Geste remarked, apropos of nothing, “Judging by this floater, Thaddeus is using a better grade of technology now than he has in the past-no wheels, no wings, no lenses or levers or dials. This is as modern as most of my own stuff. Maybe he's trying to impress us; he never trusted the slick stuff before."
Imp glanced at the egg, but no one spoke, and the silence returned, longer and stronger than before. Geste shrugged, started to say something more, then thought better of it.
At last, however, the dome began to fade, turning from red to pink, then to ever-greater transparency until it vanished completely, revealing that they had been delivered into a large chamber of dark stone, presumably somewhere in Fortress Holding.
When the dome had vanished the disk on which they stood sank down, merging seamlessly into the gray stone floor, its red color fading gradually into the gray.
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