The Practice Effect

by David Brin

  The Princess withdrew from under the craft and sat up rubbing her head. But her muttered invective stopped the instant she saw who it was. “Dennis!” she cried out. And then she was in his arms.

  Finally, a bit breathless, he got a chance to ask her what she had been up to down there.

  “Oh, that! Well, I hope it was all right. I mean, I hope I wasn’t fooling around dangerously with things I don’t understand well enough. But you were asleep for so long, and some busybody went and told Father I’d dressed for war, so he’s had me watched ever since to make sure I didn’t go ride off after Kremer’s ears or something. I was starting to get bored, so bored that I decided I wanted to see—”

  She was clearly excited about something. But it was all coming just a bit too fast for Dennis. “Uh, Linnora, your ladies seemed a bit shocked seeing you burrowing under there like that.”

  “Oh!” Linnora looked down at her muddy knees. She started trying to dust herself off, then stopped and shrugged. “Oh, well. They’ll just have to get used to it, won’t they? In addition to being your wife, I expect to be taught wizarding, you know. And that seems to be a dusty business, from what I’ve experienced so far.”

  The twinkle in her eye told him that there were certain things she would expect from her lord husband. Clearly, he wouldn’t have to look far from home for an apprentice.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “I came down here and found everything just as we left it when we landed. Your Krenegee was here, too. But he seems to have gone off, now. Perhaps he’s hunting. I’ve been under there a long time, and maybe I’ve lost track of time.”

  Dennis despaired of his beloved ever getting to the point. “But what were you doing under there?” he insisted.

  Linnora stopped for a moment, her torrent of words cut off as she traced her train of thought.

  “The robot!” she declared suddenly. “I was bored, so I decided to talk to that wonderful creature-and-tool you brought from your world!”

  “You were talking to …” It was Dennis’s turn to blink. “Show me,” he asked at last.

  The L’Toff ladies were shocked even more when they saw the wizard and their Princess crawl down together into the grass and dirt. The women made ready to turn modestly away if their worst fears proved true.

  They gave out relieved sighs. Linnora hadn’t been so debased down in the lowlands. But then what were they doing squirming under there like that?

  The ladies realized, with regret that things would never be the same as they once were.

  3

  They had not really needed to crawl under the plane to examine the robot. Dennis realized later that he could have ordered the little automaton to drop the propeller, and its grip on the undercarriage, and come out. But by now it looked so much a part of the craft that it never even occurred to him at the time. The series of powerful practice trances, amplified by the magic of the Krenegee beast, had transformed the machine until it looked inseparable from the gleaming wooden flyer.

  When Linnora said she had been “talking” to the robot, she meant that she had done the actual speaking. The ’bot had replied using its little display screen.

  Dennis frowned as he looked at the rows of flowing Coylian script on the pearly rectangle. He couldn’t read the alien tongue as quickly as it sped past. Besides, he wondered, how had the robot learned to …

  Of course, he realized quickly. Since almost his first moment on Tatir, the machine had been gathering information on the inhabitants, at his command. Naturally, that included learning the writing they used here.

  “Split screen,” he commanded. “Coylian script on the left, Earth English translation on the right.”

  The text parted into two versions of the same report. He and Linnora had to crawl in a little farther to read, then, but that only brought them closer together, and he couldn’t think of that as a disadvantage.

  Immediately he noticed something interesting. Though Coylian letters were part of a syllabary, and English/Roman letters were a true alphabet, the two systems clearly shared a common style. The “th” sound in Coylian, for instance, looked like a mutated “t” and “h” melded together.

  Dennis recalled some of the calculations he had played with during his imprisonment. With a growing sense of excitement, he began to suspect that one of the theories he had come up with back then just might be true.

  He read the text for a while. It was a summary of early Coylian history, found on some ancient scrolls the ’bot had pilfered temporarily from a temple in Zuslik. The scrolls had referred specifically to the Old Belief, once followed widely on Tatir, but now adhered to only by the L’Toff and a few others. It seemed to consist mostly of apparent myth and legend, but interspersed through the gaudy stories, Dennis thought he saw a pattern.

  Dennis asked the robot to skim back to earlier entries, then ahead again. Linnora watched, fascinated, and from time to time suggested passages she had read earlier. Occasionally she stopped to explain a meaning he had not come across before.

  They spent a long time together under the cart, reading the correlated history of a world.

  Dennis was starting to get a crick in his neck when he finally felt he had enough data. The conclusion seemed incontrovertible.

  “This isn’t only another planet!” he declared. “It’s also the future!”

  Linnora rolled over and looked at him.

  “Yes, for you it is, my wizard from the past. Does this change things? Would you still marry with one who might be your distant descendant?”

  Dennis moved closer and kissed her. “I had no strong ties to my time,” he told her. “And you can’t be my descendant. I never had any kids.”

  Linnora sighed. “Well, that, too, can be remedied.”

  Dennis was about to kiss her again, and the ladies at the edge of the grove might have been shocked even more. But there came a sudden shout from somewhere directly overhead.

  “Dennizz! Princess!”

  This time there were two thumps and two series of muttered oaths. Both Linnora and Dennis emerged rubbing their heads. But they grinned when they saw who awaited them.

  “Arth!”

  It was, indeed, the diminutive thief. A crowd of L’Toff had gathered, and they watched in hushed admiration from the edge of the glade, for a Krenegee sat on Arth’s shoulder, purring.

  Dennis clasped his friend. “So Proll’s men were able to find you! I was afraid our description of that plateau wouldn’t be good enough and we’d have to go after you in the plane. We were worried about you!”

  Arth scratched the purring pixolet under the chin. “Oh, I was okay,” he said nonchalantly. “I spent th’ time bangin’ sticks together to make another flyin’ cart. Woulda tried it out, too, but th’ L’Toff an’ Demsen’s scouts came for me.”

  Dennis shuddered at the thought. He would have to have a good talk with the fellow—and with Linnora and Gath and anyone else who suffered under the illusion that Earth technology could just be banged together. Practice Effect or no, some things had to work right the first time!

  “Well, just as long as you’re all right.”

  “Sure, I’m fine. Sent a message to Maggin with Demsen’s troops. Asked th’ little lady to come out here from Zuslik to join me here for a vacation—with your Highness’s permission, o’ course.” He bowed to Linnora. Linnora only laughed and hugged the little thief.

  “Oh, by th’ way,” Arth went on, “I don’t know if you both have heard, but I guess you’d be interested. It seems Demsen’s boys caught up with a company of Kremer’s men out near North Pass. And guess who was with ’em? None other than our old friend Hoss’k!”

  “Hoss’k!”

  “Yeah. Th’ deacon got away, worse luck. But th’ Scouts did capture a strange fellow who was with Hoss’k. A prisoner, it seems. They got him back at Linsee’s tent now.

  “Funny thing, though. You know he talks a lot like you, Dennizz? All funny an’ open in th’ back of the throat, with that strange accent o
’ yours.

  “An’ some of th’ captured hillmen said he was another wizard!”

  Dennis and Linnora looked at each other. “I think we had better look into this,” the Princess said.

  4

  “Well, Brady. So Flaster chose you to come after me. He sure took his time about it.”

  The sandy-haired fellow sitting gloomily in the camp chair turned quickly about and stared.

  “Nuel! It’s you! Oh, lord, it’s good to see a fellow Earthman!”

  Bernald Brady looked harried and exhausted. He had a bruise on his forehead, and his typical snide expression had been replaced by apparently genuine delight and relief at the sight of Dennis.

  Linnora and Arth followed Dennis into the tent. Brady’s eyes widened on seeing the creature riding Arth’s shoulder, and he backed away.

  The pixolet apparently remembered Brady, too. It hissed unappreciatively and bared its teeth. Finally Arth had to take it outside.

  When they were gone, Brady turned imploringly to Dennis. “Nuel, please! Can you tell me what is going on here? This place is crazy! First I find the zievatron in pieces, and your weird note. Then all my equipment shows signs of acting funny. Finally, I get conked on the head by some big slob who acts like Minister Calumny himself and has a bunch of thugs strip me of all my gear.…”

  “They took your weapons? I was afraid of that.” Dennis grimaced. Kremer already had his needler, and there was no telling what other arms the ever-cautious Brady had brought along. No doubt Brady had not stinted quality in outfitting himself. With all that stuff, Kremer could still turn out to be a big pain down the road.

  “They stole everything!” Brady groaned. “From my campstove right down to my wedding ring!”

  “You’re married, now?” Dennis’s eyebrows rose. “To whom? Anybody I know?”

  Brady suddenly looked anxious. Clearly he did not want to offend Dennis. “Uh, well, when you didn’t come back—”

  Dennis stared. “You mean you and Gabbie?”

  “Uh, yes. I mean, you were gone so long. And we discovered we had so much in common—well, you know.” He looked up sheepishly.

  Linnora, too, was looking concerned.

  Dennis laughed. “Never mind, Bernie. We never had anything going, anyway. I’m sure you’re better suited to her than I ever would have been. Congratulations. Sincerely.”

  Brady shook Dennis’s hand uncertainly. He looked from Dennis to Linnora and back and seemed to understand the situation.

  But that only appeared to make him more miserable. The fellow wasn’t merely afraid and homesick. He was in love.

  “Well, we’ll see to getting you back to her as quickly as possible,” he told his erstwhile rival compassionately. I’ve got to visit Earth temporarily anyway. I’d like to trade a few local works of art for some items I can buy from N-Mart.”

  Dennis had plans. For the sake of both worlds he would make sure Linsee kept a tight guard on the zievatron, restricting the flow between the worlds carefully. They certainly didn’t want to create any paradoxes in time!

  But in a limited way trade could probably profit both realities.

  Brady shook his head. “Even if we could put a new return mechanism together from those parts you buried, we’d never get it finished in time! Flaster gave me only a few days, and those are about used up!

  “And when the airlock mechanism was wrecked, it destroyed the calibration settings. I don’t even know Earth’s reality coordinates!”

  “Well, I remember them,” Dennis assured him.

  “Oh, yeah?” A touch of Brady’s familiar sarcasm returned. “Well, have you figured out the coordinates for this crazy place yet? We never were too sure of them back in Lab One. We just sort of stumbled onto the settings. And now those, too, are ruined!”

  “Don’t worry. I can calculate them as well. You see, I think I know not only where we are, but when as well.”

  Brady stared. And Dennis started to explain.

  “Think about the most important discoveries of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,” Dennis suggested. “Clearly the most dramatic were bioengineering and zievatronics.

  “Physics was a dead end by the year 2000. Oh, there were lots of abstract problems, but nothing that seemed to offer a way to bring other worlds within mankind’s grasp. The solar system was a pretty barren place, and the stars remained awfully far away.

  “But with recombinant DNA, there appeared the possibility of creating almost any type of viable life-form, for whatever purpose. Work only beginning at Sahara Tech and at other institutions when we were there seemed to be leading to a world filled with wonders—giant chickens, cows that gave yogurt, even unicorns, dragons, and griffins!

  “Then there was the zievatron, which promised to reopen the road to the stars relativity seemed to have closed off forever.

  “Now imagine both of these trends,” Dennis asked, “taken into the future.

  “When, in a hundred years or so, the ziev effect was finally perfected, bands of migrants would travel to other worlds, to colonize or find space for their own diverse ways of life.

  “And by that time they wouldn’t take with them many tools, only the very minimum that could fit through the zievatron. After all, when you can tailor-make organisms for any function, why burden yourself with clumsy hunks of metal?

  “Self-repairing, semi-intelligent robots made of living matter would drive you to work, toil in the fields, and clean your house. Walking brains would record your messages and recite any information verbatim at command. Fiercely loyal great flying “dragons” with laser eyes would protect your new colonies against any danger. All these specialized organisms would be “fueled” by food generated at special facilities.

  “In the future, colonists would not go in starships, nor would they carry cold metal with them. Why should they, when they could simply step through a gate to their new worlds and design creatures for any function?”

  Brady scratched his head. “That’s a lot of speculation, Nuel. You can’t tell what’s going to happen in the future.”

  “Oh, but I can,” Dennis said with a smile. “Because this is it! This is the future, Brady.”

  Brady stared.

  “Imagine a group of colonists who belong to a fringe group with antimachine sentiments,” Dennis said. “Let’s say this group finds a beautiful world, accessible through the zievatron. They save up to pay transmission charges and then leave the complicated society of Earth for their paradise, shutting the door behind them.

  “At first all goes well. Then, all of a sudden, the complicated bioengineered creatures they depend upon start dying!

  “Their scientists finally find a cause. It is a plague, created by another race that plies the ziev space, one with whom man has by this time had skirmishes for several centuries. The enemy are called the Blecker, and they have chosen this isolated outpost of humanity to test their new weapon.

  “The Blecker had released a disease on Tatir, which is what the world was named. The plague could not kill any life-form capable of independent existence—able to find its own way in the wild—but it destroyed the synthetic food supply. Without that food the delicate symbiotes upon which the colonists’ civilization depended were doomed.

  “The scientists of Tatir discovered the attack too late to stop it. The dying was well under way, beginning with the huge but delicate dragons upon whom the planet’s defense relied.

  “Desperate, they reopened the zievatron link to Earth, to beg for help.”

  Brady sat on the edge of his seat, listening intently. “What happened then?” he asked.

  Dennis shrugged. “Earth was anxious not to get contaminated. They sent through a powerful device that would scramble the zievways to Tatir for a thousand years, until a cure could be found. When the machine had done its work, neither Earth nor the invaders could get through to this world.

  “But”—Dennis raised one finger—“before doing that, they sent through a gift!”


  From outside they heard Arth’s voice call. “I think th’ critter’s settled down now. I’ll bring him in. You all sit still!”

  The curtain parted and Arth entered again. The pixolet rode his shoulder. When it saw Brady it glared but was quiet. It spread its wing membranes and glided over to Linnora’s lap. She stroked the beast and soon it was purring again.

  Linnora whispered, “We of the L’Toff never forgot the gift from Earth, did we, my little Krenegee?”

  “No, you didn’t,” Dennis agreed. In the centuries of savagery that followed the inevitable fall of Tatir civilization, almost everything was lost. The few machines rusted away and were forgotten. Since most of the transports had been hovercraft, even the principle of the wheel was forgotten.

  “Most of the specialized animals died off, leaving only the sturdiest Earth stock and local fauna. The language started to change as virtually all learning and lore were lost.

  “The people were soon reduced almost to the level of beasts. It took a long time for the legends of written speech to inspire some genius to reinvent writing.

  “Back on Earth they had known all this would happen. And yet they could not help without risking a spread of the infection to the home world.

  “So they opened the portal just a crack, before sealing it for a millennium. They sent through the very latest product of their great research—the culmination of two converging fields, biology and reality physics.

  “What they sent through was an animal immune to the disease, for it could fend for itself, but one who carried with it a talent. That talent would pervade this world and give its people a chance.

  “With time, the people of Tatir absorbed some of the talent for themselves. Those who lived closest to the creatures absorbed the most of it and became the L’Toff.”

  Dennis finished, “The gift the Earth sent was a miracle, from our twenty-first-century perspective. It saved the people of this planet. And to think I once thought it useless.”