Rick Cook - The Wizardry Cursed

The general thought hard. "Thank you, gentlemen." The officers rose to go, but the general motioned his intelligence officer back into his chair. "Matt, stay behind for a minute, will you?"

"Now," the general said when the others had filed out and closed the door behind them. "What do you think this thing is?"

The intelligence officer frowned and shook his head.

"I don’t have the faintest idea. If it is Soviet, it’s stealthed well beyond what we thought they could do and it’s carrying one holy hell of an electronic counter-measures suite. I don’t know anything that could produce returns like that, or the kind of interference that’s coming out of that area." He paused significantly. The northern border was so sensitive that if the intelligence officer at this base didn’t know, no one in the Air Force knew.

"I’ll tell you something else," he went on at last. "From what I’m hearing, I don’t think the spooks know what those things are either. CIA and NSA don’t tell us everything, but the reactions I’m getting tell me they’re in the dark and they’re plenty worried."

It was the general’s turn to frown. "Why so?"

"The arms control talks. If the Soviets can produce something that good without our having an inkling of it, then our ’national technical means of verification’ aren’t worth a damn. If we can’t catch them with our satellites and spy planes then we can’t make sure they aren’t cheating." He made a throw-away gesture. "Poof, no treaty."

The general didn’t say anything for a long, long time.

"Would they really blow a treaty over some anomalous returns?"

"It sure as hell wouldn’t help."

"But why the hell would the Soviets take something like that out over the ocean? Haven’t they got enough places to test it where it would be secure?"

The intelligence officer shrugged. "Ask me another one. But don’t be surprised if we get some company before long. Important company."

The general cracked the knuckles in one fist and then the other, like a man preparing for a fight. Then he smacked his right fist into his left palm and stared out into space.

"All right," he said finally, "what you’re telling me is that it’s vital to the security of the United States that we find out what the hell these things are?"

The IO chewed that over for a minute and then nodded. "Not ’vital’ maybe, but damned important. Yessir, that’s my assessment."

The general slammed his palm down on the desk. "Then we’re by damn going to find out, and soon! I want some F-15s prepared with long-range ferry tanks and recon gear up the wazoo. Damn, I wish I had some EF-111s!" He looked over at his intelligence officer.

"The next time that thing shows its nose we’re going to be ready. We’re going to find out what this sucker is and we’re going to nail him!"

"Behold, the Mousehole!" Wiz Zumwalt said, standing in the lobby of his new secret headquarters and gesturing grandly. Moira, who was standing beside him, only sniffed.

The Mousehole-no one could remember who came up with the name-was a one-story complex of glass and stone raised overnight by magic. It meandered beneath the trees in a small valley like a giant’s game of dominoes. In addition to the labs and workshops, the complex included wings of private quarters for the programmers, wizards and their servants and helpers, storerooms and, most importantly of all, a room for their soon-to-be-acquired computer.

Wiz put his hands on his hips and surveyed the scene. With its airy spaces, hidden fluorescent lighting and non-static carpeting, the complex would not have looked out of place in a Silicon Valley industrial park. Of course, it did have a few features most Silicon Valley complexes lacked-such as windows that opened and the smokeless torches in brackets along the walls because the electricity wasn’t hooked up yet.

"You know," Wiz said, "the Wizard’s Keep has a lot of atmosphere, but this is still pretty neat."

"This is still madness," Moira responded grimly. "I just hope we do not all live to regret this."

"You mean you hope we do live to regret it."

"You know perfectly well what I mean!" the hedge witch snapped. "And here on this island, of all places!" She growled in frustration, crossed her arms and turned away.

Wiz came up behind her and put his arms around her. "I don’t like it either, darling. But we’ve got to be able to use a computer and that means taking risks."

He felt her stance begin to soften. "And they don’t patrol this island regularly. So we’re safer here than anywhere else. Besides, we’ve taken precautions."

In fact the precautions had taken more time than the buildings. Not only was the glass carefully dulled to avoid any hint of reflection and the stone colored to match the surrounding rock, but powerful blocking spells had been erected over the place. From the air the valley appeared as simply another hill. Magical emanations were blocked. Even infrared, UV and radar signatures were tightly controlled.

Moira sighed. "Oh, I know, love. But on the same island as our enemies!"

"It’s a big island. We’re nearly a hundred miles away from them. As long as we don’t have dragons flying in and out of here or something we’ll be safe enough."

"I suppose," Moira said in a tone that suggested she supposed nothing of the sort. But she relaxed and turned back toward Wiz.

He smiled down at her. "Besides, look at the bright side. In this world there are no dwarves trying to kill me."

Glandurg was bent over his locating talisman. For two days there had been no sign of the Sparrow even on his searching device. Now he was attempting a difficult spell to increase its power temporarily.

His followers were crowded around the stump where he sat, watching as he poured all the magical energy he could muster into the device. The sweat was running down Glandurg’s brow and even Gimli was uncharacteristically quiet.

The device pulsed, flickered and then lit with a faint blue glow. Within it a shadowy arrow pointed south.

Glandurg jumped up off the stump so quickly he almost knocked Ragnar over. "South! The alien wizard has gone south." His face split in a wide smile. "Excellent. We have driven him from his hole and now we can follow him. He will not be so well protected in his new lair." He jumped up on the stump and struck a heroic pose.

"This time we shall not fail!" he proclaimed in ringing tones.

The other dwarves listened politely, but with a notable lack of enthusiasm.

"This means the griffins again, doesn’t it?" Thorfin asked glumly.

"I don’t see why we don’t just grab the thing now," Danny complained as he and Wiz made their way back to their quarters. "It’s been nearly a week since we got here and we can’t do anything until we get that computer."

It was well past midnight and the halls were deserted. The support staff was small and was not on duty around the clock. Even Jerry had turned in an hour ago, leaving Wiz and Danny to finish reviewing the results of their search for a "candidate" computer system.

"Because it’s still legal," Wiz told him. "They haven’t done anything they aren’t supposed to yet."

"But we know they’re going to."

"But they haven’t. So we don’t touch it."

"Like, the KGB is really going to use a supercomputer in the United States."