Rick Cook - The Wizardry Cursed

"But that thing is not round," Moira said. Then she looked narrowly at Judith. "Or does it approach roundness for sufficiently large values?"

Judith looked blank. "I don’t understand."

"Neither do I," Moira sighed. "It was something Jerry said."

She stopped and for an instant Judith thought she was going to cry. But instead she said, "If there is nothing more you need I will leave you to your work."

Judith leaned forward to her desk again. "You know," she said absently, "I’ve worked on mission-critical software before. But this is the first time I’ve had the whole world on my shoulders."

"How does it feel?"

Judith gave her a tight little smile. "I don’t like it." She sighed and turned back to Moira. "People are going to get killed in this, aren’t they? Probably a lot of people."

Moira nodded gravely. "This troubles you?"

"Yeah. A lot. Before when I’ve fought a campaign it’s been a game. At the end you picked your pieces up and put them back in the box until next time. Here there won’t be any next time and I’m sending people to their deaths on the strength of my bright ideas."

"They will go with or without you, Lady," Moira told her. "The best you can do for them is to give them the tools so they may win."

Judith grimaced as if she was tasting something sour. "Yeah, but that doesn’t make it easier."

"I am told that it never is easy, Lady."

"Lady, this is fantastic," Bal-Simba said as he looked over the plans. "I am astonished that you have accomplished so much in so little time."

Judith shrugged. "Mostly it wasn’t any harder than hacking out some simple BASIC subroutines. Besides, I had Malus, Juvian and some of the apprentices to help me."

"Still, I remember how long it took a dozen of you to produce what we needed the last time you were our guest."

"That’s why it took so long. What we did then laid the groundwork for what I’m doing now." She smiled. "The secret of good programming is that you spend ninety percent of your time up front building tools and maybe ten percent on the actual job-plus the other ninety percent of the time it takes to debug everything, of course. Unlike most of the people I’ve worked for, you were smart enough to stand back and let us spend the time on the tools. So now…" again the shrug, "it’s easy."

"You said you also wanted to discuss strategy. My guard commander tells me your suggestions are, um, somewhat unorthodox."

Judith smiled. "I’ll bet he did."

"Well, he did put the matter-ah-somewhat more strongly."

"I can understand that. But I know Craig and Craig’s a gamer."

Judith rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward. "Look, one of the problems most gamers have is they spend too much time worrying about hardware and not enough on C3-command, control and communications. If I know Craig, he’s got some horrendously effective hardware. But he’s weak on the things that will let him use it effectively.

"Now," she went on judiciously, "we could try to match him on the hardware. But we really can’t because he’s had longer to play with this stuff and he has control of the Bubble World. So mostly we won’t bother. Instead we’ll use pretty much the weapons and tactics your people already know-plus the new magic-and we’ll primarily use technology to enhance the C3. We may not be as powerful as he is, but we’ll be better coordinated."

Bal-Simba grinned. "Excellent, Lady." Then the grin faded. "But you have laid your plans in terms of only one of our enemies, this Craig. What about the other one? The one called Mikey?"

Judith’s frown matched the wizard’s. "I don’t know. So far we haven’t seen anything that isn’t in Craig’s style. Either Mikey is just like Craig or he’s up to something that hasn’t shown up yet."

"Ah," said the wizard Malus, "you sent for me, my Lord."

Bal-Simba looked up from his desk and eyed his tubby little colleague.

"My Lord," he inquired pleasantly, "have you ever flown on a dragon?"

Malus blinked. "A dragon, my Lord?"

"Yes. Have you ever flown on one?"

"Why, ah, no. No I haven’t. That is…"

"We need wizards with the dragon cavalry in the attack. You are among the best qualified of the Mighty for the job." Bal-Simba forbore to mention that Malus’s main qualification was his weight. In spite of his girth, he was the lightest of all the Mighty-save for Juvian, who suffered from an airsickness no spell could cure.

Malus half-bowed, torn between honor and trepidation. "Well, thank you, my Lord, but I mean, after all, a wizard on dragonback…"

"It is voluntary, of course," Bal-Simba said blandly.

"Oh naturally I volunteer, but, ah, wouldn’t a levitation spell work just as well?"

"Dragons do not like to have other flying things near them when they are on the wing. Especially not something so unnatural as a flying wizard."

Malus deflated like a cold souffle. "Oh."

Bal-Simba beamed and clapped the smaller man on the shoulder. "Excellent. Now, report to the Master of Dragons in the main aerie. He will see to your training as a dragon rider. Later the Lady Judith will brief you on tactics and teach you the new spells you will need."

As the pudgy wizard bowed and turned toward the door he remembered that he was deathly afraid of heights.

Judith pushed a strand of dark hair out of her face as she bent over the map again. Her lower back ached from the time she had spent standing like this and she was hoarse from talking all morning, but at last the plan seemed to be coming together.

"Okay, that leaves the communications relay here." She stabbed her finger down on the three-dimensional map that occupied the whole table top. "If we lose that we lose most of our ability to coordinate between the attacking force and the Capital."

Moira checked her stack of wooden tablets. "We have an entire squadron of dragons assigned to protect it. They carry your new weapons. The squadron leader is waiting outside should you wish to meet her."

Judith stood up from the map and stretched to try to get the kinks out of her back. "Yeah. There are a couple of things we need to go over." And it’ll give me an excuse to sit down. She was still studying the map when she heard the door open.

"Reporting as ordered, my Ladies."

Judith looked up at the sound of the voice and gaped.

The squadron leader was a fresh-faced brunette with a fine dusting of freckles and one of those complexions that no one over the age of twenty can ever have.

"Have they explained your mission to you?" Moira asked, apparently oblivious of the effect the squadron leader was having on Judith.

"Yes, Lady. We have been running training exercises every day for as long as our dragons can fly."

"And the weapons?"

The dragon rider grinned. "Amazing, Lady. The dragons do not like them, but…" She shrugged.

"Okay," Judith put in. "Remember those things are most effective against metal-robots or flying machines. Don’t use them against biologicals unless you have to. Also keep in mind there is a maximum and a minimum range. Also, the closer they get before you shoot the better your chances of hitting, but the fewer shots you can get off before they are too close."

"We have been practicing these things, Lady."