Christopher Stasheff - King Kobold Revived

“Possible, I suppose.” Rod frowned. “But it doesn’t seem very likely. I mean, I suppose there really are some hard-hearted cultures who take that attitude—you know, ‘Return with your shield, or on it,’ and all that. But their mission wasn’t exactly a total flop, you know. Their ship did come back stuffed. They took everything that wasn’t nailed down before they burned the stuff that was.”

“E’en so, they did have dead,” said Brom, “and if they’d gained recruits by promising great bounty with little danger, they would now have reason to fear the wrath of the kin of the slain ones.”

“Ah, I see you know the ways of recruiting-sergeants,” Rod said brightly. “But they’d have to face that anger anyway as soon as the rest of the villagers found out they were back. I mean, sooner or later, somebody was bound to notice they were there. So why sneak in?”

Catharine looked up slowly, her face lighting. “They stole back like thieves in the night, did they not?”

Rod frowned and nodded. “Yeah. How does that…” Then his eyes widened. “Of course! Your Majesty has it!”

“What?” Brom looked from one to the other, frowning.

“Aye, she hath!” Gwen jumped up. “The whole of this expedition was done in secret!”

“Aye!” Tuan’s eyes fired. “Indeed, that hath the ring of truth!”

“Hypothesis does not account for all available data,” Fess said flatly behind Rod’s ear.

“But it’s got the right feel,” Rod objected. “Now, just how they managed to hide the little fact that they were gone for thirty-six hours, I don’t know; but I could think of a few ways, myself.”

Gwen looked up, alarmed.

“That means, Your Majesty,” Rod said, hastily turning to the King, “that we’re not being attacked by a hostile nation.”

“Nay, only thieves who come in ships.” Tuan frowned. “Is there not a word for such as they?”

“Yeah; they call ‘em ‘pirates.’ ” Rod wasn’t surprised that the people of Gramarye had forgotten the term; their culture was restricted to one huge island and had been isolated for centuries.

Tuan frowned thoughtfully, gazing off into space. “How doth one fight a seaborne bandit?”

“By knowing something about the sea.” Rod turned to Brom. “Is there anybody in Gramarye who does?”

Brom frowned. “We have some fisherfolk in villages along the coast.”

“Then, get ‘em,” Rod called back over his shoulder as he headed for the door. “Get me a fisherman who knows something about the winds and the coastlines.”

“An thou wishest it, we shall. But where dost thou go, Lord Warlock?”

“To find out what’s current,” Rod called back.

“But there’s got to be a current here somewhere!”

“They are not visible on standard reflected-light photographs, Rod,” Fess explained, “and when we arrived on Gramarye we had no reason to take infrared stills.”

Rod’s starship was buried under ten feet of clay in a meadow a few hours ride from Runnymede. He had persuaded the elves to dig a tunnel to it so he could visit it whenever he wanted.

Now, for instance. He was enjoying the rare luxury of Terran Scotch while he pored over a set of still pictures on the chart-table screen. “I don’t see anything, Fess.”

“Isn’t that what you expected, Rod?”

Fess’s robot brain, a globe the size of a basketball, hung in a niche in the curving wall. Rod had temporarily taken it out of the steel horse body and plugged it in to act as the ship’s automatic control section. Not that he was going anywhere; he just needed Fess to operate the ship’s auxiliary equipment, such as the graphic survey file. And, of course, the autobar.

“Well, yes, now that you mention it.” Rod scowled at the aerial picture of the Gramarye coastline, the mainland coastline opposite, and the open sea in between. Fess had taken the pictures during their orbital approach to the planet two years earlier. Now they were stored as rearrangements within the electrical charges of giant molecules within the crystal lattice of the on-board computer memory. “I hadn’t expected to find anything except plants and animals—but I hadn’t said so. Better watch out, Metal Mind—you’re getting close to intuitive hunches.”

“Merely integrating large numbers of nonverbal signs, Rod,” the robot assured him.

“I should be so good at integrating.” Rod stabbed a finger at a bump on the mainland coastline. “Expand that one for me, will you?”

The glowing plate in the tabletop stayed the same size, of course, but the picture within its borders grew, expanding out of sight at the edges, so that the bump became larger and larger, filling the whole screen.

Rod drew an imaginary line with his finger. “Quite a demarcation here—this arc that goes across the bump. Divides the vegetation rather neatly, don’t you think?”

“I do not think, Rod; I simply process data.”

“One of these days, you’ll have to explain the difference to me. What’s this stuff in the upper left? Looks like the tops of a lot of ferns.”

“It may well be so, Rod. The majority of the planet is in its Carboniferous Era, and giant ferns are the dominant plant form.”

“There’s a strip of beach alongside them. What’s that lying on it?”

“A primitive amphibian, Rod.”

“Kind of fits in with the whole ambiance,” Rod said, nodding. “Wonder what’s under the Carboniferous flora?”

“Carboniferous fauna, I would presume.”

“You certainly would. No bogeymen?”

“Human habitation usually occurs in cleared spaces, Rod.”

“You never know; they might have something to hide. But if you’re going to talk about a cleared space, here’s the rest of the bump.” Rod frowned, peering closely. “Looks like there might be some small trees there.”

Fess was silent for a few seconds, then said slowly, “I agree, Rod. Those do appear to be trees. Stunted, but trees nonetheless.”

“Odd-looking for a fern, isn’t it? Where did trees come from, Fess?”

“There can only be one source, Rod—the Terra-formed island of Gramarye.”

“Well, let’s be fair—maybe some of the seed got scattered during the Terra-forming.”

“Quite possible, Rod—but it is the mechanism of scattering that is of importance. There must be some sort of communication between this mainland area and Gramarye.”

“Such as the ocean current I’m looking for? Well, well!” Rod peered closer, delighted. “Let’s see—besides the trees, it’s just a featureless light green. Can you check what makes that color, Fess?”

The picture stayed the same size on the screen, but the robot analyzed the pattern of electrical charges that was the recorded image. “It is grass, Rod.”

Rod nodded. “Again, that couldn’t come from a Carboniferous fern-patch. But it’s such a clean break between the ferns and the grassland! What could make such a clear demarcation, Fess?”

“Exactly what you are no doubt thinking of, Rod—a line of cliffs, the cliffs Toby mentioned.”

“I was kind of thinking along that line, now that you mention it.” Rod looked down at the picture. “So we could be looking at the beastmen’s lair. It does match Toby’s description—except for one little thing.”

“I see no anomaly, Rod.”

“Right. It’s not what is there—it’s what isn’t. No village.”

Fess was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I see your point. There is no sign of human—or subhuman—habitation.”

“No dragon ships drawn up on the beach, anyway.”

“There is only one logical conclusion, Rod.”

“Yeah.” Rod leaned back and took a sip of Scotch. “I know what I think it is—but let’s hear what you’ve got in mind first.”