The Practice Effect

by David Brin

  He wondered. Could Linnora really tell when the zievatron was operating? If she could, then did that mean someone else had just stepped through the reality transfer machine, following him onto this world?

  Dennis sighed. He pitied the poor sucker, whoever it was. There was nothing he could do to help the fellow right now, that was for sure. The guy was in for one series of rude shocks.

  “Well, no sense worrying about it,” he told the Princess. “Come back and get some sleep. It’ll be a busy day tomorrow.”

  3

  As the dawn light spread across the upland meadow, the little alien house shone with the colors of a King’s ransom in metal. The scholar Hoss’k whispered for his guards to keep still.

  Hoss’k eyed the little house speculatively. The gods only knew how he was going to take the damnable thing apart. There had been a reason he had refrained from harvesting the whole thing months back. And it hadn’t only been the need to get the captured Princess back to Kremer as quickly as possible.

  Anyway, the whole question might be moot. Just like the last time, Hoss’k had arrived only to find somebody here ahead of him! A solitary figure paced impatiently about the clearing, muttering softly and carrying boxes out of the little metal house.

  In the dim light, Hoss’k could half imagine that it was the foreign wizard himself! After all, the metal house was one of the obvious places to look for the fellow.

  Perhaps Nuel could be made to disassemble the house for him! In any event, capturing and returning the wizard to Kremer would do a lot to relieve the warlord’s wrath.

  Hoss’k was disappointed when the growing light revealed the intruder to be a light-haired man. It wasn’t Dennis Nuel at all, although the fellow did seem rather tall, like the wizard.

  And as he and his guards listened from the cover of a nearby copse of trees, it seemed the fellow did speak with the same outrageous accent. Hoss’d strained to pick up the words as the foreigner mumbled to himself.

  “… bloody mess!… return mechanism torn apart … stuff strewn around on the ground … crazy note about local intelligent beings!” The foreigner snorted as he picked through a pile of items pulled from crates on the ground.

  “… getting even with me, that’s what he’s doing. Just because I went to N-Mart for his gear instead of that expensive wilderness store he picked … probably decided to go play explorer, and really did a number on the damned zievatron just to make certain nobody else could fix it … must’ve known Flaster’d pick me next.…”

  Hoss’k had heard enough. One wizard would do in place of another. Maybe this one would be more tractable!

  He motioned for his guards to spread out to surround the unsuspecting alien.

  4

  “Watcha doin’, Dennizz?”

  Dennis looked up from his work. In the predawn half light he felt tired and irritable. Arth was supposed to be with Linnora, helping prepare breakfast for their busy day ahead. “What does it look like I’m doing, Arth?”

  “Wellll …” Arth rubbed his chin in what he had adopted as his “engineer’s” stance. He clearly thought Dennis’s question was Socratic, not sarcastic.

  “Uh, it looks to me like you’re attachin’ the glider to th’ cart, makin’ its wings into sails, like on a boat.”

  Dennis shrugged.

  Arth snapped his fingers. “Sure! Why not? There’s lots o’ wind up in these heights. Might help us along some o’ those uphill stretches ahead!” He turned and called back to the shack, where cooking smells were beginning to waft.

  “Hey, Princess!” Arth shouted, “come lookit what th’ wizard’s come up with!”

  Dennis sighed and worked steadily. They would have to get out of here soon. They had gained a good head start yesterday afternoon. But Kremer’s troops couldn’t be far behind them. He only wished he were really as sure as Linnora and Arth were that he could get them out of their next jam. He would hate to see the disappointed looks on their faces when he finally let them down.

  5

  “Father, the attacks have begun!”

  Prince Linsee looked up from the great map table as his son, Proll, strode into the conference room.

  “Where have they struck?”

  “All of the passes to the east are under assault by Kremer’s toady allies. The attacks were synchronized by messengers riding his accursed gliders. We expect another major force to hit us along the northern trade route within a day at most.”

  Linsee looked to Demsen. The leader of the Royal Scouts detachment shook his head. “If all the western lords have joined Kremer, I cannot get a message out to the King, especially not when those gliders are aloft. The plains of Darb are too broad to cross in a single night, even on a fast horse.”

  “Perhaps with a balloon?” Linsee suggested.

  Demsen shrugged. “And risk the few we have? Sigel and Gath are doing their best, but unless one of your people can lure a coven of Krenegee to help, I doubt the flotilla will be ready in time.”

  Prince Linsee looked downcast. There seemed to be little hope.

  “Don’t worry, old friend.” Demsen clasped Prince Linsee’s shoulder. “We shall give them a fight. And something may come up.”

  6

  “I thought those sails were supposed to help us!” Arth grunted as he pulled on the little cart. From behind, Dennis pushed.

  “So maybe it doesn’t work! Not every good idea pans out. Sue me!”

  They pushed the cart up a steep incline and finally reached a long, even stretch where they could rest. Dennis wiped perspiration from his brow and motioned Linnora to climb back aboard.

  “I can walk some more, Dennis. Truly I can.” Linnora looked angry at being forced to ride and having to watch as the two men did all the work.

  Dennis was impressed with her stoicism and courage. Surely her feet and ankles still caused her great pain. Yet it was she who seemed the most anxious to press on rather than find a place in the hills to hide and wait out the coming battles.

  “Sure you can probably walk some more,” Dennis said firmly. “But pretty soon you may have to run. I want you to be able to do it when the time comes.”

  Linnora looked as though she were about to become stubborn. Finally she sighed.

  “Oh, all right! I shall practice the cart some more and work on your sails for you.”

  She reached up, grabbed Dennis by the hair, and kissed him soundly. When she finished, she nodded “Hmmph!” as if by doing so she had established some important point. Then she climbed into the cart and took her accustomed seat, looking straight ahead.

  Dennis blinked in confusion for a moment but decided not to question anything that felt so nice.

  “Uh, Dennis?”

  Dennis looked up. Arth was gesturing down the mountainside behind them.

  Dennis was frankly getting a little sick of this habit of Arth’s of pointing out bad news. He turned around and looked where the little man indicated.

  There, in the bottom of the little mountain pasturage, was a large column of swiftly moving shapes.

  Galloping past the shack where they had spent the night swept a troop of cavalry at least two hundred strong. A detachment stopped to search the shepherd’s hut. The rest hurried on, their gray pennants flying as they swept up the trail after the fugitives.

  It wouldn’t take them more than twenty minutes to get here.

  Dennis shook his head. Looking at the rolling upland country ahead of them, he saw no place to hide for several miles, at least. The trail was constrained to the side of the slope, with rugged banks or drop-offs on either side.

  Okay, he thought, what’s going to get us out of this one?

  Arth and Linnora were looking at him expectantly. Dennis felt very tired.

  I’m fresh out of ideas.

  He was about to turn and tell them so when he caught sight of a small flurry of movement to the northeast, in the rough brush that covered the slopes in the direction that led, eventually, to the town of Zuslik. He peered
at the strange phenomenon. The disturbance was moving toward them at high velocity.

  “What the—?” Linnora and Arth turned and looked the way he indicated.

  There was no way they could run from it if it turned out to be something dangerous. Whatever was shaking up the dry bushes, sending dust flying into the air, was moving their way at terrific speed.

  Arth and Linnora looked as perplexed as he. “You know,” Dennis thought aloud, “I think maybe it just might—”

  The disturbance stopped suddenly, twenty yards away. There was a brief pause, as if the thing below the bushes, whatever it was, were taking its bearings. Then the trail of havoc turned and sped directly toward them!

  Arth backed away, lifting one of the swords Dennis had taken from the militiamen he had driven off yesterday. Dennis moved to put himself between whatever it was and Linnora, though he had begun to suspect …

  A shrub by the road parted in a shower of flinders. The cloud of debris settled slowly, to finally reveal a mound of dust—a pile that advanced on them in a whir of spinning treads.

  With a faint whine the Sahara Tech exploration robot’s turret opened. A pair of green eyes winked from the cupola within. Two rows of needle-sharp teeth grinned out from under the metal hood.

  “Well,” Dennis said, “it sure took you two long enough to catch up with us.” Nevertheless, he smiled.

  The robot beeped. The pixolet just grinned back at him through the cloud of floating dust. Then it shook its head vigorously and sneezed.

  7

  On the third fork of River Ruddik, the battle was not going particularly well for either side.

  To Baron R’ketts and Count Feif-dei, the advance up the narrow canyon was a slow and dangerous undertaking, wasteful of both time and men. They watched from horseback atop a small hillock in the middle of the steep gorge as their forces trooped past in two columns.

  The larger file headed westward, ever higher into the mountains, past heaps of rubble from the most recent of the many costly skirmishes in this hit-and-run war.

  The very hill the barons stood on had been formed only this morning, when an avalanche of boulders had rained down upon this spot, trapping twenty soldiers beneath instant headstones.

  The toll might have been far worse but for the prowess of the new King’s glider corps. Kremer’s crews had dived in, recklessly brave in the tricky air currents, and strafed the men of the L’Toff with hailstorms of deadly darts. They soon cleared the mountainside of defenders, allowing the lords’ armies to move on.

  Baron R’ketts watched the advancing column with an air of grim satisfaction. Even Baron … make that King Kremer … couldn’t complain much over the pace they were making. At least not reasonably.

  In spite of these early reverses Baron R’ketts still expected an easy victory and looked forward to the harvest of this campaign. He had heard wondrous stories of the wealth of the L’Toff. It was said that L’Toff men could practice tools and weapons to perfection in minutes, and the items would stay in that condition forever after! It was also said that L’Toff women had the gift of being able to practice men … restoring in their users the virility that had once been theirs.

  Baron R’ketts’s spine hurt from all this time on horseback. But he kept telling himself it was worth it. Kremer had promised him wealth and pleasure beyond his fairest dreams.

  He licked his lips in anticipation. He could dream of an awful lot!

  Count Feif-dei watched the passing invasion with a more dour eye. Whereas his brother Lord gazed upon the stream of armed men climbing into the hills, Feif-dei could only watch the thinner trickle going the other way—farmers, yeomen, practicers, and even journeymen makers from the villages in his county—holding bandages to wounds, wincing on makeshift crutches, or leaning upon one another as they picked their way downslope to the aid stations.

  Feif-dei knew that the best, most practiced bandages were saved for the nobility. Many, if not most, of these men would die—if not from blood loss, then from the wasting sickness that devoured the blood from within.

  The troops seemed to have little of the bubbling enthusiasm with which they had begun this campaign. Mostly they were tired and hungry and getting just a bit frightened.

  Still, there were a few here and there who spoke excitedly about the wealth they would win when they captured the enemy stronghold. Of his own blue-clad troops, he recognized some of the braggarts. They talked big, but unless they were watched closely they had an uncanny talent for being elsewhere when it came to any real fighting.

  Count Feif-dei cursed softly, careful so his neighbor would not hear. War was hell, and Baron R’ketts was a fool to savor it. He, Feif-dei, had once visited the lands of the L’Toff and been hosted courteously by Prince Linsee. He had tried several times to explain to R’ketts that the L’Toff were not tremendously wealthy. This campaign had one purpose only, to protect Kremer’s rear for the real war to the east.

  But R’ketts would listen to none of Feif-dei’s accounts of what lay ahead, preferring to believe his own fantasies.

  Count Feif-dei sighed. Ah, well. At least this struggle would keep R’ketts off of his back for a time. His folk and his lands would probably be as safe under the new King as under the old.

  Just let it be a clean victory, he prayed, with as few skilled farmers and guildsmen lost as possible.

  From up ahead there came a trumpet sound—a shrill warning. The lords heard a loud clatter of falling rock.

  “Oh, no. Not again!” Baron R’ketts moaned and covered his eyes. He sat immobile on his horse, shaking his head.

  Feif-dei quickly turned to his aides. “Hurry back to the semaphore post. Inform them of the new ambush and have them call for air support.”

  A messenger sped off. Baron R’ketts was still commiserating with himself, making no effort to investigate the situation. Count Feif-dei shook his head in disgust and spurred his horse toward the sounds of fighting.

  8

  “We strike and fall back, strike and fall back …” the courier explained hoarsely. “We have them stopped on all the other fronts, but in the Ruddik Valley the tide of lowlanders is endless! They just keep coming!”

  Prince Proll thanked the exhausted messenger and ordered him taken away to find rest. He turned to his father.

  “May I have leave, my Lord, to take forth with our reserves and crush the force in the Ruddik?

  Prince Linsee looked tired. He sat beneath a camouflaged canopy, under the trees near the eastern front. Outside they could hear the sounds of messengers coming and going at a run or a gallop. In the outer pavilion the battle staff argued over the tactical disposition of the L’Toff forces with their sparse royal allies.

  “No, my son.” The gray-haired Prince shook his head. “Your forces must remain in the north, with Demsen’s scouts. That is where the main attack will come—where Kremer’s full might will fall.”

  He did not add that the northern road was probably where the rebellious Lord would reveal his hostage—Princess Linnora—at a moment well chosen to strike at the defenders’ morale.

  When that moment came, they would need their best leaders to rally the men for the struggle of their lives. Old men, competent tacticians, could handle the delay along the eastern tributaries, especially when the balloon corps was ready to make its sally. But it would take sharp young fighters, such as Proll and Demsen, to give their soldiers heart, to adapt, to recover, and to continue harrying Kremer’s northmen.

  For once, Proll seemed to understand. The young man did not complain. He merely nodded and resumed pacing near the doorway, awaiting news.

  At last Linsee spoke again. “Send for Stivyung,” he told an aide. “I must know at last if his project is going to bear fruit in time.”

  9

  “Who the hell are you guys? Let go of me! What do you think you’re doing? Where are you taking me?”

  The guards held the tall foreigner tightly and dragged him over to where the scholar Hoss’k waited i
n his red robes, sitting below the trees on a hundred-year-old portable chair.

  The sandy-haired alien looked Hoss’k up and down. He straightened his shoulders. “Are you the grand high potentate around here? You’d better tell me what’s going on! Never mind what you did with Nuel … I want to know what you did to our zievatron!”

  “Be silent,” Hoss’k said.

  The foreigner blinked. He reared back. “Listen, fatso, I’m Dr. B. Brady, of the Sahara Institute of Technology. I am a representative of Dr. Marcel Flaster, who happens to be—”

  There was a loud thump as the alien hit the ground, knocked flat by the burly backhand of one of the guards. “The scholar said to be silent!”

  The fellow rolled over slowly and looked up, blearily. He did not open his mouth again.

  Hoss’k smiled in satisfaction. This one would indeed turn out to be more tractable than Dennis Nuel had been. His bluster meant he had few internal reserves and would bend quickly once shown the way of things. He already showed the signs.

  Apparently the guard had used too much force, though. The foreigner was slow to become lucid again.

  No matter, Hoss’k thought. By the time we are on our way back again, the high passes will be filled with my Lord’s troops. I’d rather make a procession past them, with my new prize, than journey down that silent, eerily empty road one more time.

  10

  “Are they gone yet?”

  Linnora turned and went “Sshhh!” at Arth, who ducked quickly back under the bushes and was quiet.

  Dennis watched anxiously as the Princess peered through the underbrush at the side of the road. The dust of the last of the cavalrymen settled slowly.

  She had insisted on being the lookout. Dennis wasn’t too happy about it, but he had to admit that she was right. The job didn’t put much strain on her feet, and she was less exhausted than the two men. Besides, Dennis had witnessed few things more remarkable than the girl’s eyesight.