Part 99 (2/2)
Sugoll, wearing his illusion of a handsome bald-headed humanoid, said, ”Perhaps our guest, like so many humans, finds mayhem repugnant.”
”I've been responsible for my share,” Marc noted, drinking deeply of the spiced wine punch. ”Even in the Galactic Milieu, we humans were a rough-and-ready lot-to the scandal of more civilized races ... As it happened, I was off visiting a very civilized world just this morning, testing a gift someone gave me yesterday.”
Sharn and Ayfa concealed their stupefaction, but the two n.o.ble dwarfs gaped unashamed. Finoderee squeaked, ”Te's teeth-you mean you flew to another planet, Lowlife?”
Marc gave a brief mental explanation of the d-jumping metafaculty. ”And since I was recently given a mitigator program-a technique that does away with most of the pain that usually accompanies the crossing into hypers.p.a.ce-I was eager to test it on a long-distance hop. I went to a world that I call Goal, fourteen thousand light-years distant.”
”G.o.ddess,” whispered the Queen.
”The mitigator worked perfectly,” Marc said. ”I was given it by a Tanu. An attempt at bribery. He said that it was a part of the Firvulag mental heritage as well, a legacy of Brede's s.h.i.+p that brought all of you to Earth a thousand years ago.”
”That was before our time,” Sharn said.
Wizened Finoderee bobbed his head, lost in introspection.
”We remember, though-don't we, Mama?” Mabino's lips trembled.
Marc said, ”The Goal world is the place where I hope to take my children ... after you join me in subduing our mutual Foe, who keeps them captive in Castle Gateway.”
Sharn knit his brows, pursed his mouth, and formed a steeple with enormous, spatulate fingers. He did not meet the hypnotic grey eyes of the Adversary. ”I'm still taking that matter under advis.e.m.e.nt, Remillard. You know, we're very impressed by you. Perhaps a trifle too impressed-ha ha! We Little Folk are only a simple barbarian nation, though, and all this high technology of yours is a radical pill to swallow.”
”Our idea of wild innovation,” said Ayfa, ”is using domestic animals for transport.”
”And captured Milieu weaponry for ... self-defence,” Sugoll put in blandly.
Marc seemed unperturbed. ”Our alliance could be very profitable to you. In return for a single act of cooperation, I would make you a gift of a highly sophisticated offensive metaconcert program five times more efficient than any you could engineer by yourselves. Your creative potential would be over the thousandth order of magnitude with the proper direction.”
Old Finoderee gave a bark of confident laughter. ”With eighty thousand of us linked for the zap, Aiken Drum will know he's been hit with more than chopped liver.”
”We do appreciate your offer,” Sharn said, deeply earnest.
”And we're thinking it over very carefully.”
Marc's smile tightened. ”There may not be much time left. If Aiken's scientists at Castle Gateway reopen the time-gate, there'll surely be a fresh influx of human time-travellers from the Galactic Milieu. They could bring additional armaments to Aiken. There may even be operant metapsychics coming through who could oppose us mentally.”
”It's a serious matter,” Sharn agreed. ”And I don't mean to doubt your word. But there have been rumours that this timegate device is going to be used as an escape hatch by the Golden Pismire. If he hauled his s.h.i.+ning little scut out of here, it would suit us fine.”
”If the time-gate opens,” Abaddon said, ”it will finish you.”
”And you,” Sugoll appended. He leaned over the rail of the enclosure, watching the melee that was taking place on the yellow sands. ”The Tanu look to have the advantage. That last charge a travers by the human fighters under the Bottle Knight wiped the floor with Pingoll's dwarves.”
Marc's mouth lifted in bemus.e.m.e.nt. ”The Bottle Knight?”
Sugoll pointed out a bizarre combatant riding a greyish zebrastriped hipparion. Instead of the usual glowing gla.s.s armour he was harnessed in a species of scale-mail that appeared to be pieced together from the bottoms of variously coloured bottles.
His limbs were encased in rough-cut cylindrical sections, crudely joined with wire. His helmet looked like nothing more than a sawn-off carboy, with a tuft of broom-straw stuck in the neck for a crest and a snoutish visor made from a wine-magnum riveted to the facial region. The Bottle Knight carried a very long gla.s.s lance of no-nonsense design and a slick tilting targe with a peephole and a righthand aperture to accommodate the lance during the pa.s.s. This Bottle Knight, Sugoll informed Marc, although torced in mere silver and of unimpressive stature, had cut a wide swath through the four earlier jousting matches.
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