More technicians came onto the platform to inspect the fiasco, then chaffer earnestly with Hagen, the King, or the dynamicfield engineer Dimitri Anastos. Cloud Remillard and Kuhal Earthshaker watched Candyman do his a.n.a.lysis. The King demanded the immediate presence of Tony Wayland via a mindrocking summons on the declamatory farspeech mode. The metallurgist, wearing a haunted look, was drawn into the consultation.
After perhaps a quarter of an hour of wrangling, there was an abrupt resolution. All the technical personnel retired from the platform, leaving only the King standing beside the gazebo.
He held the two chunks of the stool in one upraised hand and the empty crystal box in the other. His mind commanded: Silence.
A child whimpered. Somebody coughed and somebody else stifled a sob.
"It"s only a temporary setback," Aiken informed them.
"Here"s the good news: Bert says that the pota.s.sium wafer travelling in this little box checked in with an approximate age of eleven point seven eight plus-or-minus zero point two million years. That"s as close as d.a.m.n-all to being right on the proverbial time b.u.t.ton. We have a gate to the Milieu."
Everybody gasped, then there were feeble cheers.
The King flourished the remnants of the doubly guillotined stool. "But it"s a very small gate-so far. Instead of filling the entire gazebo, the tau-field is being generated in a narrow slice a little over a handspan wide. It"s a glitch, but we think we know what"s causing it. It"s probably a single cable with a faulty core, and it"ll be unzipped and put through bench-testing immediately."
Resigned groans. A child asked, "Can we go tomorrow, King?" Tense laughter.
"I hope so, Riki," Aiken said. He looked over his shoulder for a moment at the gleaming latticework machine before tossing away the bits of wood and stowing the empty crystal box in the hip pocket of his golden suit. He walked to the platform edge.
The royal forefinger pointed uncompromisingly at Tony Wayland, who stood stiff at the foot of the steps. The metallurgist gaped in horror as the King transmitted a mental image to him on the intimate mode. Aiken said softly, "Eighty thousand Firvulag, Tony-plus the Angel of the Abyss. You will do your very best with that core, won"t you?"
Clutching his torc, Tony Wayland managed to nod.
He d-jumped directly into the shadowed inner recesses of the nearly deserted Firvulag royal enclosure. The only one who saw him materialize was young Sharn-Ador, banished for an obligatory nap in the middle of the hot afternoon.
"Father! Mother! The Foe!" screamed the boy, tumbling from his camp bed and scrabbling among the pieces of his discarded juvenile armour for his ceremonial sword.
Sharn and Ayfa came charging back, minds exuding metaphorical fire and brimstone. But they burst out laughing together as they identified the intruder.
The Queen reached down to hug her son. "It"s only our Low-our human friend, Smudger. He"s no Foeman. No danger to us. Go back to sleep."
Wide-eyed, the child gushed profound suspicion from his mind. "But he came out of thin air! Not from being invisible-he really came!"
Marc Remillard laughed.
"It"s one of the things he can do," King Sharn said drily.
"Now obey your mother, or you don"t get to watch the a.s.sent Encounters."
The royal pair led Marc to the chairs at the front of the box. Sugoll was there, and the revered dwarfish artisan couple Finoderee and Mabino Dreamspinner, who were noncombatant members of the Gnomish Council; but all the rest of the Firvulag n.o.bility were down in the lists, either getting ready to enter the High Affray themselves or giving support and encouragement to those who were.
"Too bad you didn"t come earlier, Remillard," Sharn said heartily. He directed his guest to a seat and signalled Hofgarn to replenish the food and drink. "You missed some lively jousts."
"Seventeen Foe fairly maimed and a dozen clobbered on points," dear old Mabino cackled. "The tally"s tipping our way at last."
Ayfa poured sangria for Marc herself and offered it with a gracious smile. Out on the Field of Gold there was a flourish of trumpets. The stentorian mind-voice of Heymdol Buccinator, Marshal of Sport, announced the upcoming contest and the rules of scoring.
"This may be fun," the Queen said. "The partic.i.p.ants must hack off the helmet-crests of the opposition to make points. I wouldn"t be surprised if there were low blows."
Lady Mabino t.i.ttered.
Sugoll, wearing his illusion of a handsome bald-headed humanoid, said, "Perhaps our guest, like so many humans, finds mayhem repugnant."
"I"ve been responsible for my share," Marc noted, drinking deeply of the spiced wine punch. "Even in the Galactic Milieu, we humans were a rough-and-ready lot-to the scandal of more civilized races ... As it happened, I was off visiting a very civilized world just this morning, testing a gift someone gave me yesterday."
Sharn and Ayfa concealed their stupefaction, but the two n.o.ble dwarfs gaped unashamed. Finoderee squeaked, "Te"s teeth-you mean you flew to another planet, Lowlife?"
Marc gave a brief mental explanation of the d-jumping metafaculty. "And since I was recently given a mitigator program-a technique that does away with most of the pain that usually accompanies the crossing into hypers.p.a.ce-I was eager to test it on a long-distance hop. I went to a world that I call Goal, fourteen thousand light-years distant."
"G.o.ddess," whispered the Queen.
"The mitigator worked perfectly," Marc said. "I was given it by a Tanu. An attempt at bribery. He said that it was a part of the Firvulag mental heritage as well, a legacy of Brede"s Ship that brought all of you to Earth a thousand years ago."
"That was before our time," Sharn said.
Wizened Finoderee bobbed his head, lost in introspection.
"We remember, though-don"t we, Mama?" Mabino"s lips trembled.
Marc said, "The Goal world is the place where I hope to take my children ... after you join me in subduing our mutual Foe, who keeps them captive in Castle Gateway."
Sharn knit his brows, pursed his mouth, and formed a steeple with enormous, spatulate fingers. He did not meet the hypnotic grey eyes of the Adversary. "I"m still taking that matter under advis.e.m.e.nt, Remillard. You know, we"re very impressed by you. Perhaps a trifle too impressed-ha ha! We Little Folk are only a simple barbarian nation, though, and all this high technology of yours is a radical pill to swallow."
"Our idea of wild innovation," said Ayfa, "is using domestic animals for transport."
"And captured Milieu weaponry for ... self-defence," Sugoll put in blandly.
Marc seemed unperturbed. "Our alliance could be very profitable to you. In return for a single act of cooperation, I would make you a gift of a highly sophisticated offensive metaconcert program five times more efficient than any you could engineer by yourselves. Your creative potential would be over the thousandth order of magnitude with the proper direction."
Old Finoderee gave a bark of confident laughter. "With eighty thousand of us linked for the zap, Aiken Drum will know he"s been hit with more than chopped liver."
"We do appreciate your offer," Sharn said, deeply earnest.
"And we"re thinking it over very carefully."
Marc"s smile tightened. "There may not be much time left. If Aiken"s scientists at Castle Gateway reopen the time-gate, there"ll surely be a fresh influx of human time-travellers from the Galactic Milieu. They could bring additional armaments to Aiken. There may even be operant metapsychics coming through who could oppose us mentally."
"It"s a serious matter," Sharn agreed. "And I don"t mean to doubt your word. But there have been rumours that this timegate device is going to be used as an escape hatch by the Golden Pismire. If he hauled his shining little scut out of here, it would suit us fine."
"If the time-gate opens," Abaddon said, "it will finish you."
"And you," Sugoll appended. He leaned over the rail of the enclosure, watching the melee that was taking place on the yellow sands. "The Tanu look to have the advantage. That last charge a travers by the human fighters under the Bottle Knight wiped the floor with Pingoll"s dwarves."
Marc"s mouth lifted in bemus.e.m.e.nt. "The Bottle Knight?"
Sugoll pointed out a bizarre combatant riding a greyish zebrastriped hipparion. Instead of the usual glowing gla.s.s armour he was harnessed in a species of scale-mail that appeared to be pieced together from the bottoms of variously coloured bottles.
His limbs were encased in rough-cut cylindrical sections, crudely joined with wire. His helmet looked like nothing more than a sawn-off carboy, with a tuft of broom-straw stuck in the neck for a crest and a snoutish visor made from a wine-magnum riveted to the facial region. The Bottle Knight carried a very long gla.s.s lance of no-nonsense design and a slick tilting targe with a peephole and a righthand aperture to accommodate the lance during the pa.s.s. This Bottle Knight, Sugoll informed Marc, although torced in mere silver and of unimpressive stature, had cut a wide swath through the four earlier jousting matches.