David Brin - The Practice Effect

Dennis wondered why no one else had ever developed gliders. Perhaps it had something to do with the imagery that took place when a person practiced an object. One had to have an idea of what one wanted in mind. Perhaps no one could conceive of an untethered kite as anything but fatal to the rider, and so they always were until Kremer made his breakthrough.

Dennis arranged the candle directly below the opening in the bottom of the trial balloon. He smiled with assurance. “You’ll see, Perth. Just make sure those buckets of water are handy in case we have an accident.”

He acted confident, but he was less than entirely certain. In a science-fiction story he had read as a boy, another Earthling had, just like himself, been transported to another world where the physical laws were also different. In the story, magic had worked, but the hero’s gunpowder and matches had all failed!

Dennis suspected that the Tatir Practice Effect merely supplemented the physics he knew, rather than supplanted it. He certainly hoped so.

Clear smoke rose from the candle, entering the balloon through the hole at the bottom.

Arth offered Dennis and Stivyung his best loungers and pulled out a few string-and-stick chairs that “needed a lot of work anyway,” he insisted. He gave Dennis and Stivyung two very nice pipes and happily puffed away on a hollowed twig and corncob contraption—working it slowly toward perfection, or at least staving off a decline to uselessness.

Dennis shook his head. The Practice Effect took a lot of getting used to.

“Will someone explain to me just what Baron Kremer is trying to pull?” Dennis asked as they waited for the bag to fill. “I take it he’s defying the central authority… the King?”

Stivyung Sigel puffed moodily at his pipe before answering.

“I was in the Royal Scouts, Dennis, until I married and retired. The Baron has been hard on us royal settlers out on the western frontier. He doesn’t care to have me and my land around, whose loyalty he can’t count on.

“The Baron’s supported by the maker guilds. The guilds don’t like homesteaders setting up too far from the towns. We make our own starters—chip our own flint, tan our own hides and rope, weave our own cloth. Lately we’ve even found out how to start makin’ our own paper, if the truth be told.”

Arth and Perth looked up, their interest piqued. Gath blinked in surprise. “But the paper guild’s the most secret of the lot! How did you learn…?” He snapped his fingers. “Of course! The L’Toff!”

Sigel merely puffed on his pipe. He said nothing until he noticed that all eyes were on him and he was clearly expected to go on.

“The Baron knows now,” he said, shrugging. “And so do the guilds. Common folk might as well find out, too. What’s happening out here is the sharp edge of something big that’s shaping up back in the estates an’ cities to the east, too. People are getting tired of the guilds, and churchmen, and petty barons pushing them around. The King’s popularity has gone way up ever since he cut the property requirement to vote for selectmen and since he’s been calling an Assembly every spring instead of one year in ten.”

Dennis nodded. “Let me guess. Kremer’s a leader in the cause for barons’ rights.” It was a story he had heard before.

Sigel nodded. “And it looks like they’ve got the muscle. The King’s scouts and guards are the best troops, of course, but the feudal levies outnumber them six or seven to one.

“And now Kremer’s got these free-flying kites to carry scouts wherever he wants. They scare the daylights out of the opposition, and the churches are spreading word that they’re the ancient dragons returned to Tatir again…proof that Kremer’s favored by the gods.

“I’ve got to give Kremer credit there, No one ever thought of gliders before. Not even the L’Toff.”

One more mention of the L’Toff brought Dennis’s thoughts back to Princess Linnora, Baron Kremer’s prisoner back at the castle. She had begun to show up in his dreams. He owed her his freedom, and he didn’t like to think of her still trapped in the tyrant’s power.

If only there was a way I could help her, too, he thought.

“Balloon is almost full.” Gath used the word as if it were a proper name.

The bag was starting to stretch from the pressure of hot air within. It didn’t form a very even sphere. But here it didn’t pay to lavish excess attention on most “made” goods, anyway, so long as they started out useful enough to be practiced.

The candle was less than half gone. The balloon bobbed within its frame, straining at the tiny gondola’s shrouds. The basket bounced on the floor, then lifted away entirely.

There was a hushed silence, then Maggin laughed out loud and Arth clapped Dennis on the back. Gath crouched beneath the balloon, as if to memorize it from every angle.

Stivyung Sigel sat still, but his pipe poured forth aromatic smoke, and his black eyes seemed to shine.

“But this thing won’t lift a man!” Perth complained.

Arth turned on his subordinate. “How do you know what it’ll eventually be able to do? It’s not even been practiced yet! Weren’t you the one sneering at ‘new-made’ things?”

Perth backed down nervously, licking his lips as he stared superstitiously at the slowly rising balloon.

“Actually,” Dennis said, “Perth’s right. After practice this one will probably lift better than any similar balloon on… in my homeland. But in order to lift several men we’ll still have to make a much bigger balloon in that empty warehouse you told me about, Arth. We’ll practice it there, then Gath and Stivyung and I will use it to escape at night, when the Baron’s flying corps is in its sheds.”

Arth had a mercenary gleam in his eye. “You an’ Gath an’ Stivyung won’t forget about the message to the L’Toff, will you?”

“Of course not.” All three of them had good reasons for heading straight for the mysterious tribe in the mountains once they got out of town. Dennis intended to tell them about their captive Princess and offer suggestions how she might be rescued.

Arth expected to rake off a nice reward from the L’Toff for his part in all this, as well as have the pleasure of giving the Baron tsuris in the process.

The balloon bobbed against the ceiling. “All right,” Dennis said, “you all were going to teach me how to concentrate to get the most out of practice. Why don’t we start?”

They took their seats. Stivyung Sigel was the acknowledged best practicer, so he explained.

“First off, Dennis, you don’t have to concentrate. Just using a tool will make it better. But if you keep your attention on the thing itself, and what you’re using it to accomplish, the practice goes faster. You give the tool tougher and tougher jobs to do, over weeks, months, and think about what it could be when it’s perfect.”

“What about that trance we saw you under in the prison yard? You practiced the saw to perfection in a matter of minutes!”

Stivyung considered. “I have seen the felthesh before, when I dwelled, for a time, among the L’Toff. Even among them, it is rare. It comes after years of training, or under even more rare circumstances. I never imagined I would ever enter that state.

“Perhaps it was some magic of the moment and the desperation of our need.”

Stivyung seemed pensive for a long moment. He shook himself at last and looked at Dennis. “In any event, we cannot count on the ax falling twice in exactly the same spot. We must rely on normal ways as we practice your ‘balloons.’ Why don’t you tell us again just what this example is doing now and how it could gradually come to, do it better. Don’t get too far ahead of what it is, or it won’t work. Just try to describe the next step.”