Rift in the Races (8 page)

“And you didn’t bother to test that before we came aboard? Are we your guinea pigs now?” Captain Asad made only the barest effort to restrain his temper at such flagrant disrespect.

“And why should we?” snapped the marchioness. The indignity of his constant inquisition throughout the tour, his acidic frankness and probing remarks, had finally combined with fatigue, constitutional irritation and nearness to the end of the tour to set her temper to sound against his at last. “
Citadel
, Captain, is not a nursery for the magicless, and you would do well to remember you are a ship’s captain and not an emperor from Earth. Know your place.”

The Queen’s eyes bulged at that, as did the earl’s and those of every other Prosperion in the room. Orli was certain that the Queen was going to strike the woman, but remarkably, she did not. It was clear from the narrow-eyed fury that glinted in Her Majesty’s eyes that anything she said would have ramifications in court later on—the public tearing-down of a marchioness was not a move to be made lightly, even by the Queen, and particularly when the marchioness controlled the largest and most belligerently peopled duchy on Kurr. Rather than speak the rebuke then, the Queen skewered her with a look so withering even Vorvington moved away from the marchioness a full two steps, a distance he’d not suffered since the beginning of the tour. No one said a word. Not even Captain Asad, though he did appear to appreciate the ferocity of Her Majesty’s nuclear gaze.

That scowl took nearly a full minute to evaporate from the War Queen’s face, but slowly it did, and the alert Captain Jefferies took the opportunity to set them all back on course.

“So, what is this anti-magic?” he asked. “I’m afraid I still don’t have any idea what you are talking about.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Aderbury, glad to be moving forward again. “Altin, would you like to explain? You worked more closely with Peppercorn than I did.”

Altin glowered at Aderbury, for the transmuter knew anti-magic as well as anyone, and Altin was perfectly happy standing beside Orli as he was. However, he could hardly refuse, particularly not with the Queen possibly teetering on the brink of drawing her sword or at the very least sicking the elf on someone.

He pressed through to the front of the group, reluctantly leaving Orli behind, and stood before the wooden door. He waited until everyone was looking at him, using the silence to snuff any lingering tension in the room.

“Through this door is the room we have named, perhaps inelegantly, ‘the closet.’” He lightly tapped on it with a knuckle. “It’s encapsulated with anti-magic, which is basically a spell that achieves a state of non-magic. It’s been tried off and on for centuries, but only half-heartedly. Most can’t fathom a use for it that wouldn’t have as many drawbacks as benefits, so it’s mainly been a curiosity, a plaything for philosophers and magic theorists but little more. It stayed as such for as long as it has simply because no one could pull it off. That is, until now.

“Thanks to our experience with your technology, we had a reason to find it. We commissioned diviners to start working on the idea of your ships’ communication machines, the big ones that you use to speak over the great distances, the ones that work much like telepaths do—something about tangled particles.”

Orli helped by offering the proper term, “Entangled.”

He smiled and thanked her with a nod.

“Perhaps more important, or at least potentially more dangerous, we also realized that we can’t communicate reliably at close range with your ships either. Not even if we were to have collar-pin communicators of the sort you are wearing now. While here on Prosperion, they seem to work reasonably well, even in some of the more heavily enchanted parts of Crown City, but the truth is, we don’t believe they will work well inside of
Citadel
at all—especially not when it is fully functional and, in particular, during a fight with the Hostiles where we might have as many as two thousand magicians casting all at once. In those moments, coordination will be of ultimate importance, and we believe there will simply be too much magical interference to make that form of communication dependable. And trust me,” he added as if an aside, “having been in battle alongside your ships before and unable to make contact, I do not wish to do such a thing again.”

Several of the captains were nodding at this, most of those present having been part of that great battle with the Hostiles a little over a year and a half ago. Even Captain Asad could find no obvious flaw in Altin’s reasoning.

“Needless to say,” Altin went on, “we needed to find some mechanism to enable your communication devices to function reliably on our space fortress. The obvious solution for both near and long-range communication was anti-magic, as unlikely as that might seem. And so Her Majesty, in her wisdom, funded Peppercorn’s research grant, and here we are, a scant ten months later, having achieved what everyone thought was impossible. Anti-magic has been cast upon the chamber beyond this door, and now this space can effectively house one of your tangled communication machines. If Peppercorn is right, your device will be unaffected by levels of channeled mana that will far surpass anything your
eclectical
systems have ever been exposed to before.”

Orli had been able to stifle her snickering at his repetition of the
tangled
mistake, but the second one snuck out. “Electrical,” she said. Roberto also looked amused.

“Right,
electrical
. Thank you.” Altin appeared agitated by his mistake, but clearly intended to press on. Aderbury, however, prevented that, stepping in front of his friend.

“Yes,
electrical
. Thank you, Orli. And thank you, Altin.” He patted Altin comfortingly on the shoulder. “The simple fact of it all, and before Sir Altin drags us all off into the weeds of this explanation, is that we believe we have found a way to make your devices work with nearly perfect predictability right here on
Citadel
. Anti-magic has been achieved.” He concluded with a grand gesture toward the door, glancing as he did at the Queen who appeared entirely satisfied.

The Earth delegates, however, stared blankly at the door and then back at the beaming Prosperions. Most of the captains looked as if they’d just been given a lecture on the fundamentals of gravity and were all completely underwhelmed. Orli, in the absence of other questions, and mainly to be polite, asked, “So, no more flickering lights and back-up power?”

“Well, not if the lights are in that room,” Aderbury qualified. “The spell only affects this small chamber here, which is why we nicknamed it ‘the closet.’”

“Well, let’s have a look,” said Captain Jefferies, also mainly to be polite. “If you plan to put an entanglement array in there, you’re going to need more space than a closet. They are a lot bigger than these.” He touched the com badge on his collar to make his point.

“We’ve got enough room,” Altin said. “It’s exactly four spans and a pair of fingers across, a quarter of that wide, and tall enough for any of us to walk in comfortably. Quite big enough for your equipment. I saw to it personally, having measured the machine myself.”

“And how did you manage that?” asked Captain Asad.

Altin made a face at that, the answer beyond obvious. “I paced it off, of course.”

“To measure one of our long-range communicators, you would have had to see one uninstalled. The only one not in use in this solar system is on the
California
, and I don’t recall Captain Paxton mentioning that request.” He looked over at her and she was shaking her head, confirming what he already knew. He looked back at Altin, his suspicion evident. “You haven’t been sneaking aboard our ships again, have you, Meade?”

Several of the other captains looked perturbed by this, and this time not because the captain had been so blunt. Vorvington and Lieutenant Andru shifted on their feet as well, obviously made uncomfortable by the possibility of Altin having done just that. It would not do to have Altin teleporting willy-nilly aboard fleet ships.

“Of course he didn’t sneak aboard your ship,” said the Queen, coming to Altin’s rescue impatiently. “Sir Altin simply measured the one we already have.”

Captain Asad and Captain Jefferies exchanged glances, the latter perplexed and the former seeming to feel that validation had finally come his way. The other captains looked equal parts surprised and put-upon.

“Oh, dear,” said Queen Karroll, realizing that the unanticipated interpretations were continuing to unfold despite her attempt at intervention. “It appears to me that sweet Admiral Crane forgot to tell you he gave us one of those contraptions before he took the rest of the fleet out in search of the Hostiles.”

“Yes, it appears he did,” replied Captain Jefferies. “I have to say, it’s somewhat surprising that he’d forget something like that, given that we’ve only got four spares in the entire fleet.”

“It looks like we only have three,” corrected Captain Asad.

“Well, I hope there is no need for such a copious pall as all this, my friends. It’s simply a loan among friends. We asked for something to test, something a bit more complicated than your small collar communicators, which we have some experience with, and the admiral suggested we take the big one since we were going to ‘need it anyway.’ Those were Admiral Crane’s words to me before he left, and he even went with my people back to his ship to get it midway through a bottle of my best elven wine. Far from a cause for disturbance, I thought it was sound allied thinking. Frankly, I’m surprised you don’t all agree.”

Captain Jefferies began to nod at that, this time looking less distressed. “That sounds like Crane,” he admitted. The crossed arms and rigid posture of Captain Asad and a few of the other captains signaled that several were still unhappy with the discovery. The entanglement arrays were expensive, the most guarded secret of the Northern Trade Alliance back on Earth. It was that technology that gave the NTA its competitive edge when it came to getting resource and settlement contracts. Captain Asad was certain that the director of the NTA would not be happy that the admiral had chosen to hand one of them off to the first friendly natives he met, especially if he’d been coerced to do it while under the effects of an alien intoxicant.

In an attempt to dissipate the renewing tension, Aderbury invited the curious to go inside, opening the door in what he hoped would be a suitably dramatic show. “Have a look. If nothing else, the view is spectacular.”

Sure enough, the view was spectacular. A panoramic view of everything around
Citadel
and, of course, of the redoubts fifty spans below. It was as if the door opened onto nothing and Aderbury had just stepped off a cliff—though he did not fall. “Just keep in mind,” he said as he moved deeper into the room, shaping the space for them by touching each wall and the ceiling with a hand, “if you close the door while you’re on the inside, the translation enchantments we’ve put on your collar pins and our amulets won’t work anymore. So don’t be alarmed.”

He looked back at them expectantly, assuming at least a few of them would have been eager to come enjoy the fun of standing in seeming emptiness, but none of them moved. More than one ship’s captain was staring back at him with narrowed eyes.

“What?” Aderbury asked, suddenly self-conscious.

“Where is it?” asked Captain Jefferies.

“Where is what?”

“The entanglement array.”

“Oh,” said Aderbury. “Well, nobody came to install it yet.”

“The admiral said you were going to send us someone to take care of that,” Altin added. “When we were ready, of course. And that you would show us how it works.”

“Of course,” said Captain Jefferies. Suddenly all trace of suspicion was gone from him. From the relaxing shoulders and embarrassed expressions on a few other faces, he was not the only one.

“I’ll be sure to ask him who he had in mind for that,” said Captain Asad, still wearing a dubious expression and bringing it to bear on Captain Jefferies more than on any of the Prosperions. Jefferies nodded as if, at least on that, he agreed.

“The view is spectacular,” repeated Aderbury. “At least come have a peek.”

A few of the fleet officers passed on the opportunity, as did the earl and the marchioness, but Orli was more than happy to go look inside the anti-magic closet. She couldn’t help but gasp as she stepped into it—and doing so required something of a leap of faith despite Aderbury standing comfortably out there. She couldn’t help but reach out to him as she did. He laughed and helped her discover its solidity.

“That’s wonderful,” she said at last. “And the ringing sound is gone. That’s even better. I’m not sure I could take too much of that.”

“Yes, it’s an effect that emanates from the shell around this room. You have no idea how much power is concentrated into this anti-magic bubble.” He leaned in conspiratorially and added for just her benefit, “That’s really why this chamber is so small. We frankly couldn’t get it any bigger. This is every ounce of twenty-eight enchanters right here, one of them a Y and three of them Ws, no less. But don’t tell them that.” He yanked his head back toward the group in the outer room. “We want them to be impressed.”

“I won’t,” she promised with a wink. “I love secrets.”