The Warlock Wandering

by Christopher Stasheff

  Brother Joey frowned. "I have to admit that the power input does have an effect…"

  "And bigger ships go faster from breakout point to destination," Rod added. "Eaves is sure to have a courier after us as soon as he comes out of the coma."

  Brother Joey relaxed. "We have lead enough."

  "Yes, if some other agent wasn't shadowing us, and sending off a report of his own. Ah, for the dear old days of Morse code!" Rod sighed. "The days of yore, when people communicated from ship to shore by radio, which could be jammed."

  "Yeah, I remember Morse code." Yorick grinned. "Would you believe I actually learned it once?"

  Chornoi nodded. "So did I. Not that we ever used it, but it was part of basic training, anyway."

  Rod slouched down in his chair, and started drumming his fingers.

  "Courage, people," Whitey reassured them. "I know some people who're working on trying to invent FTL radio."

  Brother Joey stared. "How do they think they can do that?"

  Rod started tapping his toe against Yorick's. The caveman showed every sign of paying close attention to Brother Joey and Whitey.

  Whitey shook his head. "Search me. But there's my granddaughter—she's a computer expert—and the kid she married; we traveled together for a while."

  Think PEST might really know we're coming? Rod tapped out against Yorick's foot.

  "They settled down on a big asteroid called 'Maxima,' where they found a lot of kindred souls who liked tinkering with computers and ignoring PEST."

  Rod went rigid. Maxima was his family home.

  Not a chance, Yorick tapped back. If there were another agent, he would've tried to kill us.

  "So your granddaughter and her husband are trying to put the two together, by inventing FTL radio to use against PEST?" Brother Joey asked.

  Whitey nodded. "They figure that's got to be the logical consequence. See, they figure that the main reason the Terran Sphere lapsed into dictatorship is because its territory grew so big that the governing representatives on Terra couldn't keep track of what was going on at home."

  Then we shouldn't have any trouble getting through their security, should we? Rod tapped. I mean, we are in one of their own ships.

  Good point…

  "And not knowing about home, meant that they passed laws their constituents didn't like?"

  Whitey nodded again. "So their constituents wanted to kick them out of office."

  "Naturally," Brother Joey murmured.

  Is there a time machine on Terra? Rod tapped.

  "So the only way to keep power was to take it," Whitey said.

  Brother Joey nodded. "Be done with all this nonsense about elections, eh?"

  How many times do I have to tell you? Yorick tapped back. If VETO didn't have a time machine in PEST headquarters, they couldn't be giving aid!

  "Ah, you know the symptoms. And, of course, they couldn't make the outer planets obey therr^ if they couldn't get their orders to them in time—so the sensible thing to do was to cut off the frontier."

  "Keep only the planets they can rule," Brother Joey sighed. "Well, I'm afraid that does make some sense."

  Whitey smiled. "So the whole problem boils down to the territory having grown too big for the speed of the communications."

  And if VETO hasn't been helping PEST, Yorick tapped, I'm a monkey's uncle!

  Thought it was the other way around, Rod tapped back.

  Awright, Darwin. Just wait, and let's see what you evolve into.

  "Wait a minute." Chornoi sat forward."You mean your granddaughter figures that if she can develop faster-than-light radio, PEST will automatically collapse?"

  "Well, not right away, and not all that easily, but that's the gist of it, yes," Whitey confirmed.

  Brother Joey sat back, dazzled. "My heavens! What an audacious scheme!"

  Whitey cocked his head to the side, watching him. "Kinda makes you want to join them, doesn't it?"

  "It does, yes!"

  Rod looked up, having caught the last bit of the conversation. "I expect we could drop you off there, on our way."

  Brother Joey gazed off into space. "I do seem to be a better engineer than a missionary…"

  "We're going to try to gate-crash Terra," Rod explained. "We ought to have a fairly good chance, in one of their own scoutships."

  Chornoi frowned. "If PEST hasn't been told who's in this ship."

  Rod shrugged. "Life is filled with these little uncertainties."

  Whitey shook his head sadly. "'Fraid I can't come along, folks. On Terra, I'm a very wanted person."

  "So are we," Rod agreed, "but we don't have much choice in the matter."

  "But I do, and this time I'm going to play smart and use it," Whitey sighed. "Just let me off at Maxima, will you?" He looked up as Stroganoff and Mirane came up, holding hands and beaming. "How about you two? Want to get off at Maxima?"

  Mirane paused halfway down to her seat. "That's where that cadre of engineers and physicists are building robots, isn't it?"

  "The very place."

  Mirane finished sitting. "I'd like to visit there, yes. I'm going to need to know everything I can about computers."

  "Oh?" Whitey perked up. "Just what are you two planning to do?"

  "Get married, first," Stroganoff said, with a smile at Mirane that could have seared paint. "Then we're going to make the Grand Tour from pleasure-planet to pleasure-planet."

  "Oh?" Whitey lifted an eyebrow. "And what're you planning to use for money?"

  "Oh, we're not going to pay for it," Mirane cried, scandalized. "The company will."

  "Company? What company?"

  "The epic company," Stroganoff explained. "I've banked enough to start my own corporation, Whitey. We'll make three or four epics on each resort, then move on to the next one. Care to write us some scripts?"

  "I just might, depending on what you're planning to do on each planet, besides making epics."

  Mirane gazed at Stroganoff. "Well, we thought we'd try every dreamhouse, and have duo-dreams together."

  "Just the three of you?"

  Stroganoff nodded. "Me, Mirane, and Notem-Modem 409."

  "So." Whitey leaned back, grinning. "You figured it out, too, huh?"

  Mirane nodded. "PEST has every dreamhouse computer rigged to condition its users to obey authority, which means that, eventually, PEST will be able to rule the outer planets without having to worry about a navy."

  "But we only experienced one dream in one computer," Brother Joey objected.

  "True, Brother, but if they could do it to one, they've probably done it to all."

  "Sure can't hurt to check," Stroganoff explained, "and if we find out PEST has, Mirane and Notem-Modem will reprogram that computer."

  "I do wonder what Master Eaves' thoughts will be, when he doth waken," Gwen mused.

  "Probably the same," Rod grunted. "I have a notion he linked up with PEST out of pure self-interest." He turned to Chornoi. "How about you? Want to get off at Maxima?"

  Chornoi was pale as ivory, but she shook her head. "I'd be no safer there than anywhere else, which is to say that I won't be safe anywhere." She shrugged. "Why not try Terra? It's the last place PEST would think to look for me."

  Rod shook his head. "Sorry I got you into this, folks."

  "We're not." Stroganoff smiled as he gazed into Mirane's eyes.

  Whitey grinned. "And I'm suddenly looking forward to seeing Lona and Dar again. Might not have managed it ever, if it hadn't been for you. Talk about a surprise visit!"

  "I've had a bit of a surprise, too." Brother Joey was gazing off into space. "I might have muddled along, wasting years without discovering my true vocation, but for this."

  "Not cut out to make converts?" Rod sympathized.

  "Oh, yes, but of a different sort. And on a much larger scale…"

  "All that?"

  Chornoi nodded. "A hundred security satellites, Major, in a hundred^lifferent orbits. They're really there—and each one's aimed with ever
ything from lasers on up to a small tactical nuke."

  "Well, our detectors say so, all right. But why? What're they afraid of?"

  "Whatever shows up."

  "From outside, or inside? Are those satellites supposed to keep invaders out, or the population in?"

  "Yes."

  Rod rolled his eyes up in exasperation.

  "Wouldn't matter if we could get through the security net," Yorick pointed out. "Where could we land?"

  Rod frowned at the blue-and-white globe floating in front of him on the viewscreen. "There must be some farmland, here and there—maybe even some parks!"

  "The farms are run by robots," Chornoi said,"and every square foot of the parks is covered by a surveillance camera or two."

  "Well, back to the original idea," Rod sighed. "Looks like we'll have to bluff it out."

  That wasn't too hard, up till the actual landing. Whenever one of the satellites challenged the scoutship, it honestly and truthfully identified itself as an official government craft. It even handled spaceport clearance—being a spy ship, it could bypass Luna, where all commercial ships had to dock; shuttles took cargo and passengers down to Terra. It was a cumbersome system, but it did give PEST total control over who came to Terra, and who left.

  Well, almost total. They really hadn't counted on enemies coming in on one of their own ships, and a spy ship at that. So the satellite net bucked the landing request to an actual human, a division head, and he gave the scoutship clearance to go directly to the spaceport PEST maintained on Terra for official use. It all went perfectly smoothly, even the landing—until they stepped out of the ship.

  The little man in the gray tunic with the tan tabard stepped forward with a smile pasted on, holding out a hand—obviously a bureaucrat. "Welcome back, Agent Ea…" He stopped short, staring at the quartet stepping out of the scoutship.

  Rod managed a sickly grin. "Uh, hi there."

  The bureaucrat turned and snapped his fingers at a large man behind him. There were a half-dozen of them, all bulky, all with surly frowns on their faces, all in uniform. The one he'd indicated slipped a small, flat square out of a pocket and pointed it at the Gallowglasses.

  The bureaucrat turned back to them, his face totally without expression."Where is the agent Wirlin Eaves?"

  "Uh, afraid he couldn't make it." Rod swallowed. "Bit of a rough trip and all, you know. Vicious criminals on that planet Otranto, not to mention a couple of vampires and a wolfman, and a rampant dreamhouse computer…"

  The bureaucrat turned to his henchman. "Do you have them? Good. Send for identification." He turned to the rest of the thugs and nodded at Rod. "Arrest them."

  "Now, wait a minute!" Rod held up a hand. "You don't know anything about us! We're legitimate agents, all of us—except for my wife, maybe, and I didn't see any problem in bringing her along on a business trip. We just stumbled across this scoutship, and we needed a way to get home, and nobody else was using it, so…" He swallowed.

  home,

  "Uh, it was really too bad about Eaves, but he just couldn't make it."

  The man with the flat square pressed a button into his ear and gazed off into space for a moment, then nodded. "Confirmed. The crop-haired woman is a renegade agent marked for execution."

  "Crop-haired!" Chornoi squalled. "I'll crop your head, you foul-mouthed chauvinist!"

  The man ignored her. "The other woman and the talkative man are tied for first place as Public Enemies—and the burly man is a major foe."

  Yorick stared. "Why me?"

  "I do not know," the bureaucrat snapped, "but my superiors must have had excellent reasons for so designating you."

  "Don't worry about it," Rod assured Yorick, "the excellent reasons just haven't happened yet."

  The bureaucrat stared at him, at a loss for a moment. But only a moment, then his mouth tightened in contempt, and he snapped his fingers at another flunky, one wearing a portable control console strapped to his waist and shoulders. The man threw a key and thumbed a toggle, and the air around the quartet seemed to thicken. A faint moire of colors, like the refractions on a soap bubble, swam about them in a sphere.

  "A force field now surrounds you," the bureaucrat said. "My superiors have informed me that the four of you are very skilled at evading capture, but there is no method of escaping this globe of force."

  Yorick took an experimental kick at the force field. His foot slowed and stopped, all within the space of an inch or three. Chornoi stared, then slammed a chop at the moire, but her hand bounced right back, clipping her in the nose. She howled in anger.

  "I gotta see this to believe it!" Rod aimed a jab at the moire, straight from the shoulder. It felt as though his hand hit a mattress. The moire roiled on, unperturbed.

  The bureaucrat actually smiled. It was a bare twitch of the lips, but it was a smile.

  Gwen tested the field with her fingers, feeling it with a thoughtful frown.

  The bureaucrat turned away, beckoning to the man with the console. "Come."

  The operator followed him.

  The force field scooped the company off their feet as though it were a snow shovel and rolled them down the hall, shouting and squalling.

  The bureaucrat smiled again.

  Gwen scrambled to her feet, flushed with anger, and scurried to keep up with the force field, one hand touching the unseen wall, scowling in concentration.

  Rod saw, and shuddered.

  Gwen reached out and hauled Chornoi to her feet with deceptive ease. "How can that gleaming slab make an invisible wall like to this?"

  "Well, I don't know the details," Chornoi panted, "but roughly, it's a sort of transmitter. It projects a small magnetic field that triggers a localized warping of the gravitational field. It wraps itself around the tiny globe of electromagnetic force, then expands according to how much power the operator feeds into the trigger field."

  Gwen nodded, then glared at the back of the operator's head for a few minutes. Finally, she closed her eyes—and the moire disappeared.

  The operator jarred to a halt, fiddling frantically with sliders and pressure-pads. "My board died!"

  The bureaucrat whirled about, staring, appalled. So did all his henchmen.

  So did Rod. He knew he couldn't even dream of understanding that console—and here his wife, who hadn't even heard of an electron till a few weeks ago, had figured out a gadget that was so complicated, it was almost abstract.

  At least, she'd figured it out well enough to turn it off from twenty feet away.

  Gwen smiled gaily, snapped her fingers—and the moire swirled about them again. Rod stared at it in disbelief, then reached out to probe. Yes, the wall of force was there again.

  "Do not fash thyself," Gwen said to the bureaucrat, "we are once more enveloped."

  The bureaucrat darted a glance at his operator, who was still stabbing at pressure-pads and jamming toggles. Sweat rolled down his brow; he shook his head.

  The bureaucrat turned back to Gwen, staring in horror.

  Gwen nodded. "This time, 'tis of my doing—and 'tis I who have the managing of it." She smiled brightly at Rod. "Come, husband, let us go." And she strode straight toward the bureaucrat.

  Chornoi and Yorick yelped as the field scooped them off their feet again. They rebounded and scrambled back up, and joined Rod in a quick scurry to keep up with Gwen.

  The bureaucrat jumped aside, shouting, "Stop them!"

  His thugs instantly formed a line.

  Gwen sailed into them.

  They flew like tenpins and bounced off the walls. A couple of them rolled to the ground, unconscious, but the rest whipped out blasters and started firing.

  Yorick frowned, feeling the unseen wall. "It's growing harder."

  Gwen nodded, tight-lipped. "My field doth drink the flame of their weapons. I do feel it."

  Rod's head whipped around, staring at her. "Be careful!"

  In spite of the strain, she smiled and reached out for his arm. "Fear not, my lord. I can contain it
."

  The "my lord" helped. "Mind telling me how you did this little trick?"

  Gwen beamed up at him. "I felt within that 'console,' as thou dost term it, with my mind. Thou hadst taught me long ago, husband, how to make the tiniest bits of matter speed their movement, or slow; so 'twas not totally strange to me, to sense the flow of bits so much tinier. I let my mind flow with their movement, and did discover how they streamed in patterns that did set up a small ball of force, which did summon up and mold a force much greater, from the earth itself."

  Rod's mind reeled, also his ego. Just by feel, with only a little knowledge to guide her, she had figured out how to shape an electromagnetic field and use it to make a gravity wave extrude a bubble of force around them. He patted her hand and said, "I'm just glad you're on my side."

  She smiled sweetly at him. "I, too."

  "Just a little warm." Chornoi was feeling the force field with her fingers. "All that wild, pure energy going into it, and it's just a little bit warm."

  '"T will grow hot soon enow, an we cannot find sanctuary." Gwen's brow was moist." Tis thou must now direct me."

  "Sanctuary?" For a moment, Chornoi just stared, totally at a loss. Then inspiration struck, and she grinned. "Turn left at the end of this hallway!"

  Yorick waved a hand to fan himself. "Give her every shortcut you know. It's getting hot in here!"

  "The charges in those blasters just have to run down soon," Rod grumbled.

  They turned a corner, and the hallway opened out into a broad concourse. People in drab coveralls were hurrying here and there all about, most of them carrying satchels.

  Another half-dozen uniformed men came running, blasters waving, shouting.

  "So much for the chance of their charges running down," Rod growled. "But they won't shoot when there're so many taxpayers around!"

  "All personnel and passengers seek cover," an amplified voice boomed around them. "Dangerous criminals are at large within the concourse. Security agents must fire to kill. All personnel and passengers seek cover!"

  "So much for the taxpayers," Rod grunted.

  Heads jerked up all along the concourse. Then people dived for doorways or fled around corners, screaming.

  "Down here! Quickly!" Chornoi pointed at a broad staircase.

  Gwen swerved and stepped onto the escalator. Everyone managed to stay with her except Yorick, but he was back on his feet in a second.