by Rick Cook
On wheels, on tracks, on legs and on cushions of air, the forces Craig had fashioned out of magic and engineering began to pass by their creator in review. In spite of the noise, the choking dust and the diesel and gasoline fumes, Craig hung over the balcony rail and watched entranced for hours.
Thirty-one: PICNIC ON PARADISE
Karin was as good as her word. They were breaking camp at dawn and by the time the sun was full up they were back in the forest. By mid-day they had found another camp site. The hillside Karin chose was not far from the plain and its plentiful supply of dragon fodder, but the trees were tall and broad enough to provide cover even for a dragon. There was a rock outcropping with an overhang that would shield their fires from prying eyes and could serve as a lookout spot as well. At the foot of the hill a small stream wound through the forest.
By the time they had returned to their old camp site and brought their goods to the new spot, it was late in the afternoon. This time Karin insisted on gathering the firewood and she brought in several armloads of dead branches.
"The wood is neither green nor rotten," she explained as she threw down the third load. "It makes almost no smoke."
Dinner that night was a stew of dried meat, grain and dried fruit, all from Karin’s rations. Tomorrow they could explore and see what kinds of food they could find in the forest. For tonight it was easier to eat what they had.
"So tell me about dragon riding," Gilligan said as they scraped the last of the stew out of their bowls.
"It is much the same everywhere, is it not?"
Gilligan shrugged. "I wouldn’t know. We fly airplanes, not dragons."
Karin looked at him strangely.
"Machines," Gilligan explained. "Non-living flying things."
"I see," Karin said slowly and then seemed to gather herself. "Well, it takes several years to become a flier. You must bond with your dragon, of course. Then you must learn how to maneuver, how to fly in formation and combat tactics."
"You mean you actually fight air-to-air combat on those things?"
"Yes."
Gilligan whistled. "That must be something to see. I imagine your tactics aren’t anything like ours."
"Well," Karin said slowly, "there are many things to consider. In general, the rider who starts with the best position will win. That usually means diving on your enemy from above with the sun at your back. But of course there are many other things you must consider. Relative strength, level of training."
"It’s the same with us," Gilligan told her. "If we get in close we try to have the advantage in height and position. Diving out of the sun is a favorite tactic."
"We do that also," Karin said.
"Do you break off after one pass?"
"We might. It depends on numbers and your dragon’s fighting potential. Some dragons, like Stigi, are very strong and fierce. In a melee I would have a considerable advantage." She paused and frowned. "Still, there are a great many things which can happen in such a situation. Diving on an enemy and past him is surer."
"Have you ever been in a dog fight?"
"Crave pardon?"
"That’s what we call short-range air-to-air combat. Dog fights."
Karin considered. "I see. Yes, the expression is somewhat apt. But no, I have never been in battle of any sort."
She hesitated for a minute. "Mick, may I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Are you bonded to another?"
Mick looked up from the fire. "I beg your pardon?"
"Bonded? I do not know your customs, but do you have a life companion, a mate?"
"We get married," Gilligan told her. "I was. Not any more."
"Your wife died? I am sorry."
"No, we’re divorced-that means we ended the marriage."
Karin grew solemn. "Among us that is not a thing done easily."
"It isn’t easy with us either," Gilligan said, thinking of the lawyers, the interminable conferences, the constant phone calls and the months of aching, gaping hurt.
"Forgive me for asking, but how did your wife displease you?"
Gilligan smiled mirthlessly into the campfire. "She didn’t displease me. I displeased her. I think. Or maybe we just displeased each other. Anyway, she had her choice of rotating to Alaska with me or leaving me, so she left." He snapped the twig and threw it into the fire.
"Look, it was nobody’s fault. Okay? It’s just that I’m a pilot and an Air Force officer and she couldn’t handle that."
For a while neither of them said anything. "I understand, somewhat," Karin said slowly. She sighed. "I was to be married once, while I was in training. But Johan wanted me to give up flying. I could not do that."
The fire turned the pale skin of her cheeks ruddy and painted reddish highlights into her blonde hair.
"I couldn’t either. God knows I loved Sandi, but I just couldn’t give it up."
Karin looked up at him and smiled slightly. "We are two of a kind then."
"Guess so," Gilligan agreed.
They sat by the fire for a while in companionable silence.
The next morning Karin took Stigi out into the open and carefully exercised him. She was frowning when she led him back into camp.
"How’s the wing?" Mick asked, seeing her expression.
"Not good. It is healing, but only slowly. It may be another half-moon before Stigi is strong enough to bear us away."
"Is it infected or something?"
"Nothing like that. It is simply taking more time than it should to heal. If I did not know better I would think he was not properly fed." She sighed. "As it is, I suspect it is simply the nature of this place. It is harder for dragons to stay aloft here, you know."
"I hadn’t noticed."
She led Stigi back to his resting place and spent the next hour or so grooming him and talking to him. To Mick, lounging under the overhang, the sight was remarkable. Beauty and the Beast, he thought.
Karin was still frowning when she left Stigi and came to sit beside him in the shade.
"Something else wrong with Stigi?"
"No. Nothing like that." She dropped down beside him.
"What then?"
Karin bit her lip. "Mick, there is something else you should know. After last night… The way you describe your mount… I think I am the one who brought you down."
"I know."
She turned to him wide-eyed. "You knew? And you did not tell me."
"I pretty much figured it out the first day. I got a better look at you than you did at me and unless there were other dragon riders in the area it pretty much had to be you."
"And you made me gather up my courage to tell you! Thank you very much, I am sure."
"Hey," he said, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder, "I was the one who hurt Stigi. I wasn’t sure how you’d take that."
"Yes, but you did not mean to."
"And you didn’t mean to shoot me down." He grinned. "We’re even. By the way, how did you bring me down?"
"With this," Karin said, reaching behind her and drawing an arrow from the front part of the quiver.
"Do not touch it," she admonished as she held it up for his inspection. Gilligan saw the whole arrow, from head to fletching, was made of iron.
Karin pointed to two black dots, one on each side of the broad arrow head. "These crystals on either side of the head are eyes," she explained, pointing to the shiny black buttons. "When both can see their target the arrow’s aim is true. There is a spell to keep the target centered in each crystal."
"Like a guidance head," Gilligan nodded. "But that still doesn’t explain how an arrow brought down a twenty-eight-million-dollar aircraft with triply redundant everything."
"The death spell," Karin told him. "It paralyzes anything the arrow strikes."
"So that’s why my electronics went to hell." He shook his head. "I’m damn glad Congress is never going to hear about this."
There was very little they could do. They did some exploring, hunted a bit and
gathered berries and other wild foods from the forest. But that did not take much time. Karin spent an hour or two working with Stigi every day and another half hour or so grooming him. Mostly they lazed around camp and talked while they waited for Stigi’s wing to heal.
There was one chore that needed to be done regularly. Stigi was very efficient at converting dragon food into dragon droppings. Although he was partially housebroken and used a spot down hill from the camp, the spot had to be shoveled out and spread around, well mixed with earth. Otherwise the smell and insects would have made the camp uninhabitable.
Using her hand axe, Karin made them two wooden scoop shovels. They looked a little odd to Gilligan and the handles were too short for his taste, but they were much better than using hands.
Every two or three days Karin or Gilligan would "clean the catbox," as Gilligan insisted on calling it. It was hard, dirty work but it was at least something to do.
"Well, this part of the woods should be green next year," Gilligan said, stretching backwards to try to get the kinks out of his back. "You know this is one thing we never had to worry about with an F-15."
Karin tamped down a mound of mixed earth and dragon dung and looked up.
"Back at the Capital the grooms and stable hands would take care of such chores. But it is part of dragonriders’ training to be able to care for our mounts in the field."
"Does that include making shovels out of expedient materials?"
"Expedient… ? Ah, I see." She smiled in a way Gilligan found utterly charming. "No, I learned that from my uncle when I was growing up on the farm. He would make such implements to take to the village and sell." She looked down at the scoop beside her. "I think he would find these a little crude, though."
"You grew up with your uncle?"
"My parents died when I was young," Karin said. "A hard winter, not much food and some malevolent magic." She shrugged. "Life was hard before the Sparrow brought us new magic."
"Who’s this Sparrow?" Mick asked, as much to keep her sitting beside him as to keep from going back to shovelling.
She turned to him, her blue eyes wide. "You must know the Sparrow. He comes from your world."
"The only Sparrow I know is an air-to-air missile."
"This Sparrow is a mighty wizard. Near four years ago he broke the entire Dark League of the South in a great battle of magics. Since then his new magic has spread across the land, driving back the dark."
"From my world, you say? Do you know where?"
" ’Tis said from a place called the Valley of Quartz."
"Silicon Valley? Yeah, I suppose if we had wizards that’s where they’d be. Have you ever met this guy?"
Karin shook her head. "I am not stationed at the Capital. I have seen him once, though. He and his fellow wizards, Jerry and Danny." She stopped. "Are those more of your air-to-air missiles?"
He smiled. "If they are I never heard of them."
"Well, no matter," the dragon rider said with a glance at the horizon. "It grows late. If we do not finish soon we will have to bathe in the dark."
Gilligan stood up. "I guess you’re right." He reached down to help her up and when she stood up they were almost nose to nose. He held on and their eyes locked. Then Karin dropped her hands and broke away.
"Quickly," she said with a breathless little laugh. "We would not want to have to finish on the morrow."
Even working at their best pace, it was still nearly dark when they got back to their camp. Karin went to the stream to bathe first and Mick stayed behind to build the fire and start dinner. Once the fire was going and the stew was bubbling in its pot, he had nothing to do but stare into the flames and think.
Karin came back from the stream with her clothes over her arm and her blanket wrapped around her.
"I feel cleaner without them," she explained. "They need to be washed."
"I wish to God you’d put them on," Gilligan said tightly, keeping his attention riveted on the fire.
"Why?"
"It’s easier to take." He looked up at her. "Dammit, lady! Do you have any idea how hard it is on me to keep my hands off you anyway?"
"Then why try?" Karin asked softly, letting the blanket drop.
The flames traced out the curve of her hip and the swell of her breast and the light put a ruddy glow in her cheek and highlighted the pale strands of her hair.
Mick sucked in his breath at the firelit vision before him. Then he stepped forward and clasped her to him.
"I never did get my bath, you know."
Karin giggled and nuzzled the pit of his shoulder. "You smell all right."
"And if you keep that up, I’m not going to get any sleep either."
"Are you complaining?"
Gilligan leaned over and kissed her. "Hell no. Just observing."
The fire had long since died and the only light came from the stars that powdered the sky. There was not enough light to see, but that didn’t matter and hadn’t mattered for hours. Being shot down, the dragon, none of it mattered. He hadn’t felt this good since Sandi… well, not in a long time. And maybe not even then, come to think of it.
As he bent to her again he noticed that Stigi had very ostentatiously turned his back on them.
At last they both relaxed, soft and sleepy and warm in each other’s arms.
"What is it?" Karin said, feeling Mick tense suddenly.
"I’ve got to go back, you know," Mick said softly. "If I can find a way out, I’ve got to go back."
Karin shifted and snuggled more closely to him. "I understand. I too have my duty."
"So where does that leave us?"
"It leaves us with meanwhile," Karin told him. "We have meanwhile."
"Yeah," Mick said, reaching out to caress her. "We have meanwhile."
Karin giggled. "Remember today is a hunting day. We will be walking and away from camp almost the whole day."
"So?"
"So you said you needed sleep."
"Right now," Gilligan said into her ear, "there are things I need more."
Thirty-two: THE ULTIMATE WATER BALLOON
Craig was deep in the design of a new kind of battle armor when one of Mikey’s robot servants came for him.
"The Master commands your presence," the robot said in a Darth Vader voice of doom.
"You mean Mikey?"
"The Master. Come." With that the robot pivoted on its heel and marched out the door with Craig hurrying along behind.
Mikey was up on the battlements, standing next to a troughlike contraption and looking out over the valley.
"What’s shaking, dude?" Craig said as he puffed up with the robot guide.
"Shaking? A whole lot. I want you to see my latest invention."
Since Mikey had ignored everything he had done since he made the giant robot, Craig didn’t think this was quite fair. But he didn’t object. Instead he bent over and inspected the device.
"What is that thing?"
"It’s a water balloon. The best goddamn water balloon you’ve ever seen."
It didn’t look much like a balloon to Craig. Just a featureless silvery sphere, like those mirrored balls people used to put on pedestals in gardens. The sphere was resting in the trough and there were some springs and some other, less identifiable, bits of machinery underneath.
"What does it do?"
"Watch," Mikey told him. "But put these on first." He snapped his fingers and the robot stepped forward and proferred a couple of smashed ham sandwiches.
"Not those, you fucking moron!" Mikey said. "Give him the goddamn goggles!
"Jeez, Craig, you need to do something about these robots. They’re so fucking stupid."
Craig started to tell him it wasn’t one of his robots, but Mikey had already slipped on a pair of dark goggles and was looking back out over the valley. Craig took the pair of goggles the robot was holding out to him, wiped the mustard and mayonnaise off the lenses and slipped them on.
Mikey threw a lever on the side of his device an
d the silvery ball whisked down the trough and out over the valley in a high, lazy arc. Craig watched the ball shrink to a dot and then lost it in the sun.
Suddenly the world exploded.
Castle, valley and mountains all disappeared in a blaze of blinding radiance. Craig squinched his eyes shut but the sight was burned into his vision. He opened his mouth but he was bowled over backwards as if he had been slapped by a giant hand. Sand and bits of rock stung his skin and the wind whipped insanely about him. The parapet shook beneath him until he was sure the castle was coming down. The noise shook him like a terrier shakes a rat. All he could do was lie curled up in a ball and scream at the pain in his ears and the red after-images in his eyes.
Then it was over. As suddenly as it had come the noise and the shaking stopped. Cautiously, Craig opened his eyes and tried to climb to his feet.
Mikey was standing at the battlement braced like a sea captain facing into a storm. His hair was blown back and his clothes had been whipped about, but he stood firm and unrelenting, looking out over the valley. As he gazed on the roiling clouds of dust and debris below his smile reminded Craig of a picture he had seen once in Sunday school, of Moses looking out over the Promised Land.
Craig shook himself and looked around. The pennants on the castle towers had been torn to shreds by the blast. Half the roof tiles had been blown off the conical roof of the nearest tower and the chamber below gaped up. His robot guide lay in a twitching heap, unable to rise.
Mikey said something, but it didn’t register on Craig’s numbed and ringing ears.
"What?"
"I said, ’Neat huh?’ " Mikey half-shouted.
"What in the hell was that?"
"Like I said, a water balloon."
"Like hell!"
Mikey’s smile grew broader. "Nope. Take a sphere of water-just ordinary water-and squeeze it real hard. Pretty soon the atoms disassociate into hydrogen and oxygen. Then if you squeeze it hard enough those hydrogen atoms are forced close enough together that they fuse." He threw up his hands. "Poof! Instant H-bomb."
"Jesus Christ," Craig said. Then he looked out over the dust-filled valley. "Jesus H. Fucking Christ on a goddamn rubber crutch!"