L. Modesitt - Fall of Angels

“Stop spacing out. Get on with it,” he muttered, turning to the firin cells. The power bank was down to twenty percent,and the system wouldn’t work at levels below twelve. His eyes went to the windmill, which turned in the lighter morning breeze. The cell being charged was over eighty percent. Another day might find it at ninety percent if the wind picked up, if …

Nylan laughed ruefully. Far less than a day of continuous heavy laser usage would discharge one bank of cells, and it would take nearly half a local season to recharge the individual cells in just one of the four banks they had brought down from the Winterlance. The more he tightened the beam and the shorter the energy pulse, though, the less the effective power drain, and that meant some things were less power-intensive. Darkness knew he’d better find less power-intensive ways to use the laser.

With a little more than half the stone for the tower cut, he’d exhausted two banks and most of the third. The emergency charger had recharged three cells, but each bank held ten. Still … he had gotten more proficient with managing the laser’s power flows, and each row of stones took a shade less power. Also, the cut edges and leftover chunks could be used, perhaps for the less exposed inside walls.

Terwhit … terwhit. The call of one of the birds-a green and brown scavenger-drifted across the high meadow from beyond the field, along with the smoke from the small cook fire.

The engineer studied the curves of the Sybran blade again, with his eyes, senses, and fingers, frowning as his senses touched a slight imperfection in the hilt. Then he grinned. Who was he deceiving? He was no bladesmith, just a dumb engineer trying to figure out how to counterfeit a workable sword while no one was around to second-guess him if his idea didn’t work-using questionable techniques in an even more questionable environment.

Terwhit. With a rustle of feathers, the small greenishbrown bird flitted from a twisted pine in the higher rocks behind the partly built tower toward the firs in the lower southwest corner of the high meadow.

Nylan ran his fingers over the Sybran blade again, thenpicked up the endurasteel brace he had unbolted from one of the landers. Again, he forced himself to feel the metal. It also had several imperfections hidden from sight-Heavenbased quality control or not.

Finally, he powered up the firin cell bank, pulled on the goggles and the gauntlets, and picked up the heavy brace. After readjusting the laser, he pulsed the beam, slowly cutting along what felt like the grain of the metal. He pursed his lips, considering the apparent idiocy of what he did-guiding a laser with a sense of feel he could not even define to create an antique blade out of a brace from a high-tech spaceship lander.

The heavy tinted goggles protected his eyes, although he realized that he wasn’t using his vision, but that sense of feel, a sense that somehow seemed to break everything into degrees of something. What that something was and how he would categorize it were more questions he couldn’t answer.

He didn’t try, instead releasing the power stud and letting his senses check the cut and the metal-which felt rough, almost disordered.

With another deep breath, he flicked on the laser and spread the beam for a wider heat flow, using his senses and the power from the laser to shape and order the edge of the blade, trying to replicate something like the feel of the Sybran blade.

After the second pass, he unpowered the laser and pushed back the goggles, wiping his forehead. Then he bent and picked up the plastic cup, swallowed the last of the water in it, and set the empty cup back on the ground beside the cell bank where the power cable wouldn’t hit it.

One of the marines-Istril-sat atop one of the rocky ledges and watched as he readjusted the goggles and studied the model blade again.

Once more, he picked up the metal that had been a brace and triggered the laser, shifting his grip, and trying to ensure that his gauntlets were well away from the ordered line of powered chaos emanating from the powerhead.

After his first rough effort at shaping the blade, he turned to the curved hand guards and tang. As he shaped the metal, he tried to smooth it, just as he once had smoothed power fluxes through the Winterlance ’s neuronet. When the rough shape was completed, he unpowered the laser and checked the cells-a drop of less than one percent so far. Not too bad for a first try.

He pushed back the goggles and blotted the area around his eyes, then studied the blank blade. Even with one rough cut, the shape looked better than the local metal crowbars.

He could feel Istril’s eyes on him, but he did not look toward the rocks. The smoke from the cook fire was more pronounced, as was the hum of people talking. He did not look toward the landers, either. Instead, he inhaled, then exhaled deeply and replaced the goggles and lifted the laser.

Trying not to feel like an idiot, he triggered the laser and continued to use his mental netlike sense and the power of the laser to work the metal, almost to smooth the grains into an ordered pattern while trying to create the equivalent of a razor edge on both sides of the blade.

By the time he finished with the laser, not that long it seemed, sweat poured down his forehead, out and around the goggles, and his knees trembled. Done with the laser, he set the powerhead down and waited as the metal cooled toward the color of straw.

The oil-and-water mixture in the crude trough felt right, but whether it was … time would tell. Using the modified space gauntlets, he swirled the mixture in the trough and eased the blade into it, letting his new sense guide the tempering-or retempering. Then he laid the blade on the sheltered sunny side of the black boulder where it would complete cooling more slowly.

He set aside the goggles and checked the power meters-a drop of one percent, maybe a little more. He nodded. He could make something that looked like a blade, but was it any good?

As he saw Ryba’s broad-shouldered figure striding grimlytoward him, he offered himself a smile. He’d get one opinion all right-and soon.

“Why did you take my blade? It had to be you. No one else would-”

Nylan held up a hand to stop her. “I’m guilty. I didn’t hurt it. I needed a model, and I didn’t want to feel like a fool.”

“Model for what?”

His eyes turned toward the flat rock where his effort rested.

“Darkness! How did you do that?”

“Art, laser, dumb luck-all of the above. Don’t touch it; it’s still hot enough to burn your skin, and I don’t know if it will work. It looks right; it feels right, but I’m no swordsman. It could shatter the minute it’s used. I don’t think so, but it could.”

Ryba stepped up to the blade and looked down at the slight curves of the deep black metal. “It’s beautiful.”

“Technology helps,” Nylan admitted. “But I don’t know if it will even work. It could break apart at the first blow.”

“I don’t think it will.” Ryba looked at him. “It looks like it will last forever.”

“It doesn’t matter what it looks like. It’s how it feels and lasts.”

She studied the blade again. “I need to teach you more about using blades. It would be a shame for someone who can create this not to be able to use it well.”

“You don’t even know if it’s right.”

Ryba’s dark green eyes met his. “About some things, I can tell.”

Nylan shrugged.

“How many of these can you make?”

“Over time, enough for everyone, and probably a few more. I’d guess a little less than a two-percent charge on the bank for each. But I don’t want to do that many until we’ve got enough stone for the tower.”