David Brin - The Practice Effect

He did not add that the northern road was probably where the rebellious Lord would reveal his hostage—Princess Linnora—at a moment well chosen to strike at the defenders’ morale.

When that moment came, they would need their best leaders to rally the men for the struggle of their lives. Old men, competent tacticians, could handle the delay along the eastern tributaries, especially when the balloon corps was ready to make its sally. But it would take sharp young fighters, such as Pro1l and Demsen, to give their soldiers heart, to adapt, to recover, and to continue harrying Kremer’s northmen.

For once, Proll seemed to understand. The young man did not complain. He merely nodded and resumed pacing near the doorway, awaiting news.

At last Linsee spoke again. “Send for Stivyung,” he told an aide. “I must know at last if his project is going to bear fruit in time.”

“Who the hell are you guys? Let go of me! What do you think you’re doing? Where are you taking me?”

The guards held the tall foreigner tightly and dragged him over to where the scholar Hoss’k waited in his red robes, sitting below the trees on a hundred-year-old portable chair.

The sandy-haired alien looked Hoss’k up and down. He straightened his shoulders. “Are you the grand high potentate around here? You’d better tell me what’s going on! Never mind what you did with Nuel…I want to know what you did to our zievatron!”

“Be silent,” Hoss’k said.

The foreigner blinked. He reared back. “ Listen, fatso, I’m Dr. B. Brady, of the Sahara Institute of Technology. I am a representative of Dr. Marcel Flaster, who happens to be—”

There was a loud thump as the alien hit the ground, knocked flat by the burly backhand of one of the guards. “The scholar said to be silent!”

The fellow rolled over slowly and looked up, blearily. He did not open his mouth again.

Hoss’k smiled in satisfaction. This one would indeed turn out to be more tractable than Dennis Nuel had been. His bluster meant he had few internal reserves and would bend quickly once shown the way of things. He already showed the signs.

Apparently the guard had used too much force, though. The foreigner was slow to become lucid again.

No matter, Hoss’k thought. By the time we are on our way back again, the high passes will be filled with my Lord’s troops. I’d rather make a procession past them, with my new prize, than journey down that silent, eerily empty road one more time.

“Are they gone yet?”

Linnora turned and went “Sshhh!” at Arth, who ducked quickly back under the bushes and was quiet.

Dennis watched anxiously as the Princess peered through the underbrush at the side of the road. The dust of the last of the cavalrymen settled slowly.

She had insisted on being the lookout. Dennis wasn’t too happy about it, but he had to admit that she was right. The job didn’t put much strain on her feet, and she was less exhausted than the two men. Besides, Dennis had witnessed few things more remarkable than the girl’s eyesight.

He lay back on the dry sticks and needles beside the little cart. They had pushed the wagon into this thicket fifteen minutes before. It had been just in time, as the lead elements of Kremer’s cavalry pounded around the rim of the mountain only moments later.

He and Arth had fallen to the ground exhausted, hardly noticing the apparently endless procession of horsemen who galloped past. It was only in the past few moments that the roar in Dennis’s ears—and the laboring of his lungs—had quieted enough for him to hear anything at all.

Dennis felt a sharp tug on his sleeve. He turned his head and saw the robot standing only inches away. It had nudged him with one manipulator arm. Its red “attention” light flashed.

Dennis rose onto one elbow and looked at the small line of text that appeared on the machine’s little screen.

“Oh, hell. Not now!” he told it.

The thing still wanted to fulfill the very first function he had given it—to report what it had found out about the inhabitants of this world. No doubt it had discovered a lot, but now certainly wasn’t the time for a debriefing!

He patted the little robot on its turret. “Later, I promise, I’ll listen to everything you have to tell me.”

The machine’s lights winked in response.

“Okay,” Linnora said. She used the Earth term she had picked up from Arth. “The last of the horsemen are gone. From what we saw on high, they cannot be followed closer than an hour by any other forces, even more cavalry.”

“All right,” Dennis said, groaning as he sat up. “We chance the road again.”

It was the only way deeper into the mountains. And deeper to the south they had to go if they were to arrive in time to do the beleaguered L’Toff any good.

Dennis stood up and held out his arm. The pixolet swooped down from its vantage point on a branch overhead, from which it had watched the cavalcade of horsemen. Grinning, it seemed to think the episode a wonderful joke.

Of course, they never would have made it this far without Pix and the ’bot.

This forest thicket in which they had hidden had been more than three miles away when they first caught sight of their pursuit. He and Arth could never have hauled the cart this far in time.

But the robot proved to be powerful when he ordered it to lend a hand—or claw. It was at least as good a tractor as the donkey had been. They covered those three miles quickly.

During the race for shelter, Dennis was certain that he had felt that queer resonance effect again between the humans and the Krenegee, directed at the tools they were using. It had been a mild version of the felthesh trance. He was sure the cart and robot had changed again even over that short stretch.

At his command, the ’bot took its place under the wagon again. Two of its three arms clamped onto the undercarriage to hold on.

Already the arms were beginning to look suited to the task.

Linnora and he pushed the cart through a gap in the bushes, while Arth ran back up the road to keep watch. Once they were onto the highway, Linnora climbed aboard and reset the glider sails. Dennis almost stopped her, but then he shrugged and let her finish. Who could tell? The flapping things might frighten some party of troops they came upon.

Arth came hurrying back. “Th’ whole army’s headed this way, Dennizz! At th’ rate they’re comin’ we got no more’n an hour’s head start.”

“Okay. Let’s get going.”

Linnora belted herself into the cart, its sleek, almost streamlined sides glistening in the sunshine. Arth climbed aboard and took the brakes, whose friction bars and bindings had begun to look almost like machine-designed units.

Dennis remained on his feet to help push. He would hop in when they came to a downhill slope.

Linnora had already begun to enter her practice meditation. Maybe he was becoming more sensitive, or maybe it was the presence of the pixolet, but Dennis could already feel its traces begin to fill the space around him.

The pixolet, seeing a better place to position itself than his shoulder, abandoned him and launched itself to the top of the twin masts. The sails drooped under its weight, but the creature seemed happy enough. Its purring intensified the feeling that strange powers were already at work, helping mould the cart into something better.

Fine, Dennis thought, but I’d still rather have an armored personnel carrier, made from scratch by the Chatham Works in England.

With a sigh he nodded to his motley crew, and signaled the robot to commence pulling at top speed.

Dennis pushed on the upslopes, and ran alongside on the downhill sections while Arth applied the brakes and Linnora steered. The robot whirred and the sails flapped.