Pliocene Exile - The Adversary Part 65

We've got to send it tumbling down, and then with any luck the whole lash-up will collapse.

Ready? ... "

Fire.

Three green beams and four blue-white ones lanced out.

There was a bloom of steam and pulverized ice. The two psychokinetics exerted their mental power. The serac shuddered but stood fast.

"Rock it!" yelled Ookpik. "Fire again!"

The photon weapons sang. Bleyn and Aronn stood shoulder to shoulder, their handsome faces distorted by the effort. The cloud halfway up the icefall expanded. A grating sound reached their ears. Aronn cried, "It's going over the edge!" And then the trough of giant ice-blocks seemed to s.h.i.+mmer in the strengthening light. The fa.r.s.enses of the Tanu locked onto the sight and broadcast it to the grey torcs of the humans. They saw the face of the looming frozen cascade heave and ripple. Blue-and-white ma.s.ses flew up and outward as if in slow motion, then tumbled end over end with facets gleaming and projections fracturing like cloudy gla.s.s. A stupendous roar filled the air. Loose snow, shaken from the tumbling blocks, exploded in great clots, and crystal whirlwinds sparkled at the fringes of the monstrous avalanche.

In the aether, there were inhuman cries.

When it was over, the Gresson Icefall looked very little changed, for one chunk of ice is not very different from another.

But the ap.r.o.n of the fall, which had been dirty grey, was now pristine-and extended nearly halfway to the rocks where the climbing party had taken refuge. The Firvulag redoubt was buried beneath at least sixteen metres of icy rubble. The supply dump tents were only buried ten metres deep.

Ookpik looked at the others with a resigned expression. "You win a few, you lose a few. But I guess we'd better start climbing.

It's a long way up to Camp One."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Shackled with gla.s.s gyves, sullen but resigned, Tony Wayland stood beside Kuhal Earthshaker on the balcony of the Roniah City-Lord's palace and addressed the King's simulacrum, which appeared to be seated cross-legged in the limpid afternoon air just the other side of the bal.u.s.trade.

"Well, Your Majesty, you have to work the niobium in an argon atmosphere, for starters. That's the biggest part of your problem. As for alloying it with dysprosium, I'm afraid I haven't the foggiest."

"But you could experiment?" Aiken leaned forward anxiously, his hands braced on the knees of his golden pocket-suit.

"Oh, I suppose so." Tony's manner was barely civil. "Given sufficient quant.i.ties of the stuff to work with. But you say you don't have any of the pure element. Do you realize how difficult it's going to be, extracting the Dy from ores? I mean, even when you manage to coax the yttrium complex out of the crud, you'll have a devil of a time sifting the Dy out in any kind of pure state. I suppose you couldn't subst.i.tute some other paramagnetic substance?"

"No," said Aiken. "We have a gadget called an ion concentrator that might help with your refining problem, however."

"It might," Tony snapped. "But the problem's yours, not mine."

Kuhal Earthshaker cuffed the metallurgist lightly, sending him to his knees. "Remember to whom you speak, Lowlife! Your survival hangs by a thread!"

Tony only laughed. His golden torc and relatively fragile psyche would protect him against the more subtle manifestations of mental violence-as he knew very well from his years in Finiah. "Go ahead and beat me!" he sneered. "Fat lot of good I'll be to you if you crock up my cortex!"

Aiken nodded agreement. "It was always friendly persuasion that kept you turning out the barium, wasn't it, Tony?"

"d.a.m.n right."

"I want to be your friend, too," said the King winningly. "I won't have Lord Kuhal replace your golden torc with a grey or silver one if you give me your word of honour to work with us in a spirit of goodwill. I'm afraid you'll have to be kept under house arrest for the duration of the project, but that's more for your safety than anything else. You'll have free run of the Castle of Gla.s.s outside of working hours and whatever goodies your heart desires. When we get the Guderian device into operation, you can ask for whatever reward you like."

"All I want," said Tony forlornly, "is to go home to my wife in Nionel."

The King unfolded his limbs, stood up and stretched. "You help us make this gimcrack wire that we need, and you could be gazing into her loving eyes by Grand Tourney time."

"Eye," Tony corrected him. "Oh ... very well. I'll give it my best shot. You have my word."

"Send him out with the convoy tonight," Aiken ordered Kuhal, and vanished.

The Earthshaker steered Tony toward the stairway. "We'll leave the shackles on for safety's sake. They're not too uncomfortable. I wore them myself for a while."

"No s.h.i.+t?" said Tony listlessly. Gla.s.s links extended from each wrist to a ring fastened about his torc. The chains were more symbolic than confining; nevertheless the humiliation quotient was sizeable. He brooded as they descended into the lower regions of the palace and made their way to the courtyard, where chalikos waited to take them to the Roniah docks.

"But at least I'm free of that band of Lowlife cutthroats who caught me in the swamp," Tony remarked as he settled into the saddle. "I presume they were showered with the royal favour."

Kuhal said, "The High King was pleased to grant their requests. They asked for free pa.s.sage back through the timegate, should it be reopened, and the opportunity to take with them such of their fellows who also yearn to return to Elder Earth."

"Huh!" Tony was contemptuous. "Good riddance, I say."

Kuhal flashed him a sudden smile. "I think the High King shares your sentiment, Creative Brother."

A pang of remembrance went through the metallurgist's heart.

Creative Brother ... The Tanu in Finiah had called him that, and now this High Table member nonchalantly reaffirmed his adoption. Tony thought: I might be temporarily decla.s.se, but at least I have great expectations!

"I really meant it when I said I'd cooperate," he said in a low voice.

"I know." Kuhal was entirely amiable now. "And the knowledge gladdens me. I myself am one of those who would pa.s.s through the time-gate into the Galactic Milieu."

"You!" Tony cried, incredulous.

"If you do your work well and quickly, many people will owe you grat.i.tude. There are portentous events in the offing that you know not of, and your destiny may be crucial to that of thousands."

Tony was struck dumb. They rode out of the palace grounds and through the Tanu quarter of Roniah. The city was ruled now by Condateyr Fulminator since the death of Bormol in the Great Flood, and the population was somewhat diminished. But for the most part, Roniah had scarcely been touched by the turmoil visited upon so many other parts of the land. Ramas scuttled about delivering packages, sweeping the cobbled streets, and tending the flowerbeds. Fountains tinkled into silver basins in the cool, tree-girt plazas. Roniah was not so baroquely magnificent as the City of Lights had been, but it was splendid enough, with its filigreed arches of frost-white marble, its dazzling buildings with their stained-gla.s.s windows, and the roofs of gold and blue tile punctuated by lacy spires.

Tony and Kuhal rode down to the esplanade. All around them were the Tanu and human inhabitants of the city, strolling or going about their business in the drowsy afternoon heat.

"I'd forgotten how nice a Tanu city could be," the metallurgist said. "After Finiah fell, the Lowlives had me trapped up north in the Iron Villages. G.o.d, it was squalid. I ran away."

"And came to Nionel?" inquired the Earthshaker.

Tony grinned. "Right at Grand Loving time. I never expected to get married. And after I was, I couldn't bear to stay, even though I loved Rowane. They'd cut off my silver torc and ... well, you know. But after I left and got into all sorts of trouble, I realized that I had to be with Rowane again. I just had to. It's very odd, really. We had very little in common. Rowane is a Howler." He projected her astonis.h.i.+ng mental image, all softly haloed, and studied the reins of his chaliko. "Strange thing, love. One doesn't pick and choose."

"I understand, Brother. Better than you know."

"I don't suppose-" Tony hesitated, then said, "Would the King consider letting Rowane come to Goriah? If she'll forgive me for deserting her, that is?"

The beautiful, melancholy face of the Tanu was full of regret.

"There must be an incentive for great tasks, Brother. The King would say that Rowane is yours. But surely you will communicate freely with her. Through your golden torc, your hearts may meet across the leagues."