David Brin - The Practice Effect

“Still, it does seem to me that I’ll have witnessed an’ had a small part in the events.” She looked up at Dennis with an idea. She spoke a little timidly, as if speaking an idea she was afraid he would laugh at. “Y’know, maybe someday I’ll write a book about what I saw an’ tell about all the people I met before th’ war began.

“Now, wouldn’t that be somethin’!”

Dennis nodded in agreement. “It would at that.”

She sighed and turned to stir the coals.

It had been years since Dennis had done any useful carpentry, and the tools he used now were unfamiliar. Nevertheless, he started work early the next morning.

He trimmed two long, stout poles from a pair of half-practiced hoes he had found on the porch, then he cut out several flat planks from one of the hay cribs. When Mrs. Sigel returned from her sister’s farm with better tools, Dennis drilled four holes in the sides of a light-framed watering trough, and slid the poles through the holes.

Perched on a stack of hay, her feet swathed in white bandages, Linnora worked on a leather harness. She deftly used an awl to punch holes in straps of hide, in places where Dennis had made marks, then fastened them together with thongs. She hummed softly and smiled at Dennis whenever he looked up from his work. Dennis grinned back. It was hard to feel tired when encouraged like that.

Arth puffed into the barn, carrying a small chair Surah Sigel had donated to the project. He put the chair down and examined the contraption Dennis was building.

“I get it!” The little thief snapped his fingers. “We put the chair in the tub an’ the Princess rides inside. Then we grab those poles an’ lift! I heard of those things. They call ’em ‘litters.’ When the Emperor from across the big sea came to visit our King’s father years back, I hear he was carried aroun’ in somethin’ like that. A couple of our big nobles tried to copy the idea an’ almost had riots on their hands before they gave up.”

Dennis just smiled and kept working. Using a beautiful saw with a serrated gemstone edge, he cut four identical round disks from a flat slab of wood. They were about a meter diameter and an inch thick.

Arth thought for a minute, then frowned. “But we’d need four men to carry this thing! There’s just you an’ me an’ the L’Toff donkey Surah’s given us! Who’s gonna support the fourth side?” He scratched his head. “I guess I still don’t get it.”

Dennis used a sharp-bitted drill carefully to cut a small circular hole out of the center of each disk.

“Come on, Arth,” he said when he had finished. “Help me with this, will you?”

Under Dennis’s direction, the bandit leader lifted one of the poles penetrating the sides of the trough. Dennis slid one of his disks over the end, then removed it to trim the center hole a little wider. When he tried again, it wedged into place a few inches down the shaft. He pounded it farther with a cloth-muffled hammer.

Arth lowered the tub. It lay canted at an odd angle, propped up at one corner by the upended disk. Linnora put down her work and edged forward on the hay to watch.

“What is it, Dennis?” she asked.

“It’s called a wheel,” he replied. “With four of these in place and with the help of Surah’s donkey, we should be able to carry you out of here tomorrow night almost as fast as if you could walk. Of course, it’ll force us to use the roads at first, but there’s no helping that. The road’s the only way over the pass, anyway.”

Dennis directed Arth to lift one corner at a time. He pounded a wheel onto each.

“This whole device is called a cart. Back in my homeland, this crude thing wouldn’t last more than a few hours, at best. I imagine at first it’ll scrape along little better than if we were dragging the trough on its belly. There’s no bearing between the axles and the holes in the body, for one thing. That’ll play hell with the rolling friction coefficient. Of course, with practice we can expect a lubrication effect to come into play eventually…”

Arth and Linnora glanced at each other. The wizard was getting opaque again. They had grown used to it by now.

“I could’ve made a better starter,” Dennis said as he drove the last wheel firmly into place. “But there’s no time. Right now they’re ranging all over the countryside looking for us, but once the sniffers find our trail, they’ll concentrate. We’d better be well into the mountains by that time.

“We’re going to have to count on the Practice Effect to fix this wagon up. Tonight Arth and I will take turns pulling it around the farmyard. By tomorrow maybe…”

Dennis stepped back and looked at the cart. He saw bewilderment on Arth’s face. But Linnora wore an expression of deep concentration. Her eyes were narrowed and she moved her hand as if trying to visualize something she had never seen before.

Suddenly she clapped her hands and laughed out loud.

“Push it! Oh, Dennis, push it and make it move!”

Dennis grinned. Linnora did not have the mind of a caveman. Her ability to envision the way things worked was just short of amazing, considering her background.

He lifted his foot and gave the back of the cart a shove.

Groaning loudly, it rattled and rolled down the gravel path and out the barn doorway.

Someone shrieked, and there was a loud thump outside. Dennis hurried out and found Surah Sigel seated on the ground, staring wide-eyed at the contraption. It had rolled to a stop a few feet away. Beside her a cloth bag of provisions lay open, its contents half scattered.

“I thought it was alive when it came out at me like that!” She blinked at the cart.

“It’s just a machine,” Dennis reassured her as he helped her up. “It’s what we’re going to use to carry the Princess…”

“I can see that!” Surah brushed his hands away and straightened her clothes stiffly. She started gathering the provisions— dried meats, fruit, and sacks of cornmeal—and shooed Dennis away when he tried to help.

“Tomosh just came back with word from my cousins down the road,” she said. “They’ve been quartering four of the Baron’s troopers for a week. And now the soldiers are saying they’re going to move out the day after tomorrow. They won’t say where, but my cousin thinks its westward.”

Dennis cursed softly. He and the others had to be through the pass before the troops entered the mountains. If they waited until tomorrow night they would still be on the road when the main force reached the gap!

“Tonight, then,” he said. “We’ve got to go tonight.”

Tomosh came running out of the house. He stopped and stared at the little wagon.

Arth supported Linnora as she hobbled over to take her seat in the cart. She laughed as Arth and the boy pushed it slowly about the farmyard.

Dennis shook his head. The little red wagon I had as a child would be more useful, he thought, than that creaky thing will be on its first da.

They started out soon after nightfall, while the moons were still down. The donkey snorted uncomfortably as it pulled the rickety cart. When it stopped at the gate and threatened to balk, Linnora strummed her klasmodion and sang to the restive animal.

The donkey’s ears moved, its breathing slowly settled as the girl’s melody calmed it. Finally, it responded to Arth’s gentle tugs and pulled at its awkward burden. Dennis helped push until they were out onto the road proper. There they stopped to bid the Sigels farewell.

Linnora whispered to Tomosh while Dennis shook hands with Mrs. Sigel.

“Good luck to y’all,” Surah said. “Tell Stivyung we’re fine if you see him.” Surah looked at the motley party dubiously. Dennis had to admit that they didn’t look like much of a force to take on Kremer’s patrols.