Mercedes Lackey - The Wizard of Karres

"Good thing you didn't try it," said the Leewit sternly.

The captain held up his hands. "But it felt like it would work. And I have worked out new klatha stuff that did."

Goth grinned at the Leewit. "Like our Egger trip."

"Or those clumping cocoon shields," said the Leewit, snorting. "Toll was so right, Goth."

The captain began to feel more than a little irritated. Sure, they'd had some misadventures here and there, but he didn't have a guiding pattern in his head. "I worked out how to do klatha hooks and the vatch-handling all by myself. And the cocoon shields might have been awkward to get you out of, but they worked. They worked pretty well."

"Oh, they work all right, Captain. Except," Goth scowled, "when you leave me behind and attack hundreds of Sprites on your own. They just don't work the same way that most of the witches of Karres do things. That's what Toll said when Maleen suggested you'd need a pattern to teach you. She said you were better off learning to do them on your own and maybe seeing them in new ways. So Maleen and some of the other premotes did some work on it. Came out they agreed with Toll. Came out they thought we wouldn't survive if you were taught. So we've had to let you blunder along. Sometimes I wondered if we would survive because you weren't trained. But it seems like you're pretty lucky so far, Captain. It's hair-raising, though."

"But don't do any more 'sperimetal twists while we're linked," said the Leewit, shaking her finger at him.

The captain smiled at her. "Ex-pe-ri-men-tal. Not even little ones?"

" No ," both of them said firmly.

It was somehow comforting to discover that Karres had not just turned him loose untrained without consideration of the matter. He could see the point, to some extent. A schooled witch would tend to approach things in the way in which they had been taught. Coming at it cold, he had a rather different perspective, and had come up with different but effective answers, even if some of them had been rather hair-raising.

Just that little burst of the three of them working together at the Sheewash Drive had shortened their journey by several weeks. The captain had added considerable power to the drive, as they saw when they picked up beacons on the communicator. The journey from Porlumma to the Imperial Capital would now take four days instead of nearly three weeks.

The trip wasn't entirely peaceful, though. The captain was awakened from his sleep by an intercom call from Goth. "Captain. You'd better get here, quick." She was laughing as she said it, but the Leewit was yelling in the background so he had a pretty good idea what the problem was.

He was quite right. It was Silver-eyes, who was, as usual, tormenting the Leewit. The little vatch gave up the moment the captain arrived and buzzed affectionately around him. Hello, Big Dream Thing. Ooh, did you ever give that big bully a hiding! Can I bring some more big ones? They're scared of you.

The thought was enough to make the captain shudder. Some vatches, like Silver-eyes itself, couldn't be handled. The next big one might be the same—only much more powerful. Not right now. I don't want to frighten them all off.

That seemed to amuse the little vatch. Guess so. That last big one is making a lot of noise about it. The others are mostly laughing, though.

There are a lot of others? Pausert felt weak at the thought.

Oh, sure. Little ones like me, lots and lots. Not so many big ones. But I'll be a big one too, some day. You wait and see! I'm already a little bigger now from eating that dream-candy.

Having seen the Nanites from a vatch perspective, the captain thought that he knew what Silver-eyes was talking about. Lots of it? Inside dream-people?

Yep. But they're dream-not-people. They're not there. Just the candy is. It sorts of thinks together to be a pretend-dream-people.

The vatch, obviously getting bored with all this conversation, went back to tormenting the Leewit. In the interests of peace, tranquility, and the noise levels in deep space, the captain had to tickle the vatch with klatha hooks to get it to go away.

* * *

When they entered the area around the capital planet, Pausert discovered that the new drive fitted on Porlumma had one other serious advantage: The signature of this engine was quite unlike the one that the ISS was hunting for. They passed unmolested through the cordon and went peacefully onward towards the great spaceport at the Empire's heart.

"What's the program, Hantis?" the captain asked, as they drifted in to land along with the thousands and thousands of other ships that were here for the Empire's biggest annual event.

The Sprite made a face. "The witches have cooperated for some time with Hailie. But the Empress is in quite a precarious position, as you know. Something like open contact with the witches of Karres could be the final straw to give her enemies the leverage to insist that she step down. Her stepson would jump at the opportunity. So the contacts are very secret. We have a rendezvous point at the Nenbutal Grill—it's an eatery on the portside of town. I give a certain password, and things will be taken from there."

"Hmm." The captain rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I think we'd better all go along with you."

"An escort will be welcome. We can pretend to be a mere party of diners."

So, once the ship had docked and port formalities and customs had been dealt with, the entire crew of the Venture with her special passengers took a cab into the town, heading for the Nenbutal Grill. Pausert was relieved to think that his responsibilities were almost over. It had been a tougher mission than he'd anticipated when he'd cheerfully taken it on, back on Emris. But it was finally nearing completion.

However, when they stepped out of the cab into the cold evening air, Pul took a deep sniff of the warm steamy aromas coming out of the half-timbered restaurant and suddenly evinced a desire to visit a lamp-post further up the street. Hantis followed him, holding his leash.

Hantis came back a few moments later, trailing the stocky yellow grik-dog. "My dear Captain," she said, coolly, "I'm really not feeling at all well, and the smell of that Nenbutal food has quite put me off. I don't believe I'll dine after all. Will you call me another cab to take me back to my hotel?"

Captain Pausert fumbled for words. "Ah. Certainly ma'am. I think we'll accompany you. To tell the truth, I'm not all that fond of Nenbutal food myself." And he hailed a passing cab.

Back at the huge spaceport, the captain waited until he was sure they were quite alone. "What was wrong?"

"Pul smelled Nanites," said Hantis, worriedly. "I think that the rendezvous must have been discovered."

"Pretty sure, ma'am," said Vezzarn. "Something else smelled about that restaurant, too, and I don't mean the food or these Nanites. I looked in through the window, and those diners just didn't look right. You know why? No wine. You ever been to a Nenbutal place where they haven't served more wine than food?"

"I wonder what effect alcohol, or other drugs, would have on Nanite-controlled people?" said the captain. "I guess it might make those bodies harder to handle."

"Probably," Hantis agreed. "But what do I do now?"

A plump woman with gray hair and a rather frumpish uniform approached them. "Pardon me, sirs and ladies, but your coach has arrived."

The captain was about to point out that they'd not ordered a coach, when the woman continued. "You are the party I am waiting for from Nikkeldepain, I'd venture to guess, sir?"

The captain realized suddenly that it was Hulik do Eldel. Hulik made up as an older woman, and padded out to change her shape.