The Ship Who Saved the Worlds

by Anne McCaffrey

"Has anyone else ever come here?" Keff asked Chaumel.

  "It is considered a No-Mages'-Land," the silver magiman said. "Rumors are that things go out of control within these mountains. I could not come this far in my youth. I became confused by the overabundance of power, lost my way, and nearly lost my life trying to fly away. Here is the path, all marked out before us, as if it was meant to be."

  "We should never have lost sight of the source of our power," Plenna said. "Nor the aims of our ancestors." Her own tragedy, Keff guessed, was never far from the surface of her thoughts.

  The two chariots began to throw tips of shadows as they ran over the broken ground. Soot-rimmed holes ten meters and more across punctuated the snow-field. Keff followed the indicator on his compass as the numbers came closer and closer to the target coordinates.

  All at once, Chaumel, Carialle, and the Frog Prince said, "That one."

  "And down!" Keff cried.

  * * *

  The tunnel mouth was larger than most of the others in the snow-covered plain. Keff felt a chill creep along his skin as they dropped into the hole, shutting off even the feeble predawn sunlight. Plenna's chariot's soft light kept him from becoming blind as soon as they were underground. Chaumel dropped back to fly alongside them.

  They traveled six hundred meters in nearly total darkness. Plenna's hand settled on Keff's shoulder and he squeezed it. Abruptly the way opened out, and they emerged into a huge hemispherical cavern lit by a dull blue luminescence and filled with a soft humming like the purr of a cat.

  "You could fit Chaumel's mountain in here," Carialle said, taking a sounding through Keff's implants.

  The ceiling of this cavern had been scalloped smooth at some time in the distant past so that it bore only new, tiny stalactites like cilia at the edges of each sound-deadening bubble. Here and there a vast, textured, onyx pillar stretched from floor to roof, glowing with an internal light.

  The globe-frogs began to bounce up and down in their cases, pointing excitedly. Keff felt like dancing, too. Ahead, minute in proportion, lay a platform situated on top of a complex array of machinery. It wasn't until he identified it that he realized they had been flying over an expanse of machinery that nearly covered the floor of the entire cavern.

  "I have never seen anything like it in my life," Chaumel whispered, the first to break the silence. His voice was captured and tossed about like a ball by the scalloped stone walk.

  "Nor has anyone else living," Keff said. "No one has been here in this cavern for at least five hundred years."

  "Stepped field generators," Carialle said at once. "Will you look at that beautiful setup? They are huge! This could light a space station for a thousand years."

  "It is amazing," Plennafrey breathed.

  She and Chaumel leaned forward, urging speed from their chariots, each eager to be the first to land on the platform. Keff clenched his hands on the chair back under his hips until he thought his fingers would indent the wood, but he was laughing. The others were laughing and hooting, and in the frogs' cases, jumping up and down for pure delight.

  "The manual says . . ." Keff said, piling off the chair, pushed by Plenna who wanted to dismount right away and see the wonders up close. "The manual says the system draws from the core below and the surface above to service power demands. It mentions lightning—Cari, this is too cracked to read. I must have lost a piece of it while we were flying."

  Carialle found the copy in her memory bank. "It looks like the generators are made to absorb energy from the surface as well to take advantage of natural electrical surges like lightning. Sensible, but I think it got out of hand when the power demands grew beyond its stated capacity. It started drawing from living matter."

  Plenna surrendered her belt buckle to the Frog Prince. He left his shell and joined Keff and Chaumel at the low-lying console at the edge of the platform. The brawn, on his knees, displayed the indicator fields to Carialle through the implants while signing with the amphibioids. Stopping frequently to compare notes with his companions, the Frog Prince read the fine scrawl on the face of each, then tried to tell the humans through sign language what they were.

  "So that says internal temperature of the Core, eh, Tall?" Keff asked, marking the gauge in Standard with an indelible pen. "And by the way, it's hot in here, did you notice?"

  "Residual heat from years of overuse," Carialle said. "I calculate that it would take over two years to heat that cavern to forty degrees centigrade."

  "Well, we knew the overuse didn't occur overnight," Keff said. "Ah, he says that one is the power output? Thanks, Chaumel." He made another note on a glass-fronted display as the magiman gesticulated with the amphibioid. "Pity your ancestor didn't have any documentation on the mechanism itself, Plenna."

  "Isn't that level rising?" Plennafrey asked, pointing over Keff's shoulder. Keff looked up from the circuit he was examining.

  "You're right, it is," he said. Subtly, under their feet, the hum of the engines changed, speeding up slightly. "What's happening? I didn't touch anything. None of us did."

  "I'm getting blips in the power grid outside your location," Carialle replied. "I'd say that some of the mages have gotten tired of the truce and are raising their defenses again."

  Keff relayed the suggestion to Chaumel, who nodded sadly. "Distrust is too strong for any respite to hold for long," he said. "I am surprised we had this much time to examine the Core while it was quiescent."

  Swiftly, more and more of the power cells kicked on, some of them groaning mightily as their turbines began once again to spin. The gauge crept upward until the indicator was pinned against the right edge, but the generators' roar increased in volume and pitch beyond that until it was painful to hear.

  "It's redlining," Keff shouted, tapping the glass with a fingernail. The indicator didn't budge. "Listen to those hesitations! These generators sound like they could go at any moment. We didn't get here any too soon."

  "The sound is still rising," Plenna said, her voice constricted to a squeak. She put out her hands and concentrated, then recoiled horrified as the turbines increased their speed slightly in response. "My power comes from here," she said, alarmed. "I'm just making it worse."

  The frogs became very excited, bumping their cases against the humans' knees.

  "Shut it down," Tall commanded, sweeping his big hands emphatically at Keff. "Shut it down!"

  "I would if I could," he said, then repeated it in sign language. "Where is the OFF switch?"

  "Is it that?" Chaumel asked, pointing to a large, heavy switch close to the floor.

  Keff followed the circuit back to where it joined the rest of the mechanism. "It's a breaker," he said. "If I cut this, it'll stop everything at once. It might destroy the generators altogether. We have to slow it down gradually, not stop it. This is impossible without a technical manual!" he shouted, frustrated, pounding his fist on his knee. "We could be at ground zero for a planet-shattering explosion. And there's nothing we could do about it. Why isn't there a fail-safe? Engineers who were advanced enough to invent something like this must have built one in to keep it from running in the red."

  "Perhaps the Old Ones turned it off?" Chaumel suggested. "Or even our poor, deceived ancestors?"

  "Off?" Plennafrey tapped him on the shoulder and shouted above the din. "Couldn't Carialle turn off every item of power?"

  "Good idea, Plenna! Cari, implement!"

  "Yes, sir!" the efficient voice crackled in his ear. "Now, watch the circuits as I lock them out one at a time. The magifolk won't notice—they'll think it's another power failure. You and the globe-frogs should be able to trace down where the transformer steps kick in. See if you can make a permanent lower level adjustment."

  The turbines began to slow down gradually as the power demands lessened. The Frog Prince and his assistants were already at the consoles. As the only one with his hands outside a plastic globe, the leader had to monitor the shut-downs and incorporate the readings his assistants took through the control
s. His long fingers flicked switches one after another and poked recessed buttons in a sequence that seemed to have meaning to him. The whining of the turbos died down slowly. In a while, the amphibioid raised his big hand over his head with his fingers forming a circle and blinked at Keff in a self-satisfied manner.

  "You're in control of it now," Keff signed.

  "I am now understanding the lessons handed down," the alien replied, his small face showing pleasure as he signed. "'To the right, on; to the left, off,' it was said. 'The big down is for peril, the small downs like stairs, to your hands comes the power.' Now I control it like this." He held up Plennafrey's belt buckle. His long fingers slid into the depressions. "This one is in much better condition than the single we have, which has done service for our whole population for all these many years."

  Tall glanced toward the controls. The switches pressed themselves, dials and levers moved without a hand touching them. The great engines stilled to a barely perceptible hum.

  "At last," he gestured, "after five hundred generations we have our property back. We can come forward once again."

  He seemed less enthusiastic once the extent of the damage began to emerge. Series of lights showed that several of the turbines were running at half efficiency or less. Some were not functioning at all. At one time, some unknown engineer had tied together a handful of the generators under a single control, but the generators in question were nowhere near one another on the cave floor.

  "It'll take a lot of fixing," Keff said, examining the mechanism with the frogs crowded in around him. The indicators in some of the dials hadn't moved in so long they had corroded to their pins. He snapped his fingernail at one of them, trying to jar it loose. "We'll have to figure out if any of the repair parts can be made out of components I have on hand. If they're too esoteric, you might need to send off for them, providing they're still making them on your home planet."

  "Home?" one of the globe-frogs signed back, with the fillip that meant an interrogative.

  "If you have the coordinates, we have your transportation," Keff offered happily, signing away to the oops, eeps, and ops of IT's shorthand dictation. "Our job is to make contact with other races, and we're very pleased to meet you. My government would be delighted to open communications with yours."

  "That is all well, Keff," Chaumel asked, "but do not forget about us. What of the mages? They will be wondering what happened to their items of power. Blackouts normally last only a few moments. There will be pandemonium."

  "And what for the future?" Plenna asked.

  "Your folk will have to realize that you now coexist with the globe-frogs," Keff said thoughtfully. "And, Tall, she's right. You are going to have to do something about the mages. They're dependent upon the system to a certain extent. Can we negotiate some kind of share agreement?"

  "They can have it all," Tall said, with a scornful gesture toward the jury-rigged control board. "All this is ruined. Ruined! You come from the stars. Why do you not take my people back to our homeworld? We are effectively dispossessed. We've been ignored since the day we were robbed by the Flat Ones. No one will notice our absence. Let the thieves who have used our machinery have it and the husk that remains of this planet."

  "We'd be happy to do that," Keff said, carefully, "but forgive me, Tall, you won't have much in common with the people of your homeworld anymore, will you? You were born here. Five hundred generations of your people have been native Ozrans. Just when it could start to get better, do you really want to leave?"

  "Hear, hear," said Carialle.

  One of the amphibioids looked sad and made a gesture that threw the idea away. The Frog Prince looked at him. "I guess we do not. Truth, I do not, but what to do?"

  "What was your people's mission? Why did you come here?"

  "To grow things on this green and fertile planet," Tall signed, almost a dance of graceful gestures, as if repeating a well-learned lesson. He stopped. "But nothing is green and fertile anymore like in the old stories. It is dry, dusty, cold."

  "Don't you want to try and bring the planet back to a healthy state?"

  "How?"

  Keff touched the small amphibioid gently on the back and drew Chaumel closer with the other arm. "The know-how is obviously still in your people's oral tradition. Why not fulfill your ancestors' hopes and dreams? Work together with the humans. Share with them. You can fix the machinery. I agree that you should make contact with your homeworld, and we'll help with that, but don't go back to stay. Ask them for technical support and communication. They'll be thrilled to know that any of the colonists are still alive."

  The sad frog looked much happier. "Leader, yes!" he signed enthusiastically.

  "Help us," Keff urged, raising his hands high. "We'll try to establish mutual respect among the species. If it fails, Carialle and I can always take you back once we've fixed the system here."

  Chaumel cleared his throat and spoke, mixing sign language with the spoken linga esoterka. "You have much in common with our lower class," he said. "You'll find much sympathy among the farmers and workers."

  "We know them," Tall signed scornfully. "They kick us."

  Keff signaled for peace.

  "Once they know you're intelligent, that will change. The human civilization on this planet has slid backward to a subsistence farming culture. Only with your help can Ozran join the confederation of intelligent races as a voting member."

  "That's a slippery slope you're negotiating there, Keff," Carialle warned, noticing Plenna's shocked expression. Chaumel, on the other hand, was nodding and concealing a grin. He approved of Keff's eliding the truth for the sake of diplomacy.

  "For mutual respect and an equal place we might stay," the Frog Prince signed after conferring with his fellows.

  "You won't regret it," Keff assured him. "You'll be able to say to your offspring that it was your generation, allied with another great and intelligent race, who completed your ancestors' tasks."

  "To go from nothing to everything," the Frog Prince signed, his pop eyes going very wide, which Keff interpreted as a sign of pleasure. "The ages may not have been wasted after all."

  "Only if we can keep this planet from blowing up," Carialle reminded them. Keff relayed her statement to the others.

  "But what needs to be done to bring the system back to a healthy balance?" Chaumel asked.

  "Stop using it," Keff said simply. "Or at least, stop draining the system so profligately as you have been doing. The mages will have to be limited in future to what power remains after the legitimate functions have been supplied: weather control, water conservation, and whatever it takes to stabilize the environment. That's what those devices were originally designed to do. Only the most vital uses should be made of what power's left over. And until the frogs get the system repaired, that's going to be precious little. You saw how much colder and drier Ozran has become over the time human beings have been here. It won't be long until this planet is uninhabitable, and you have nowhere else to go."

  "I understand perfectly," Chaumel said. "But the others are not going to like it."

  "They must see for themselves." Plenna spoke up unexpectedly. "Let them come here."

  "Your girlfriend has a good idea," Carialle told Keff. "Show them this place. The globe-frogs can keep everyone on short power rations. Give them enough to fly their chariots here, but not enough to start a world war."

  "Just enough," Keff stressed as the Frog Prince went to make the adjustment, "so they don't feel strangled, but let's make it clear that the days of making it snow firecrackers are over."

  "Hah!" Chaumel said. "What would impress them most is if you could make it snow snow! Everyone will have to see it for themselves, or they will not believe. The meeting must be called at once."

  The Frog Prince and his companions paddled back to Keff. "We will stay here to feel out the machinery and learn what is broken."

  Keff stood up, stamping to work circulation back into his legs.

  "And I'll stay
here, too. Since there is no manual or blueprints, Carialle and I will plot schematics of the mechanism, and see what we can help fix. Cari?"

  "I'll be there with tools and components before you can say alakazam, Sir Galahad," she replied.

  "I had better stay, too, then," Plenna said. "Someone needs to keep others from entering if the silver tower leaves the plain. She attracts too much curiosity."

  "Good thinking. Bring Brannel, too," Keff told Carialle. "He deserves to see the end of all his hard work. This will either make or break the accord."

  "It will be either the end or the beginning of our world," Chaumel agreed, settling into the silver chair. It lifted off from the platform and skimmed away toward the distant light.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The vast cavern swallowed up the few hundred mages like gnats in a garden. Each high mage was surrounded by underlings spread out and upward in a wedge to the rim of an imaginary bowl with Keff, Chaumel, Plenna, Brannel, and the three globe-frogs at its center on the platform. All the newcomers were staring down at the machinery on the cave floor and gazing at the high platform with expressions of awe. The Noble Primitive gawked around him at the gathering of the greatest people in his world. All of them were looking at him. Keff aimed a companionable slap at the worker's shoulders and winked up at him.

  "You're perfectly safe," he assured Brannel.

  "I do not feel safe," Brannel whispered. "I wish they could not see me."

  "Whether or not they realize it, they owe you a debt of gratitude. You've been helping them, and you deserve recognition. In a way, this is your reward."

  "I would rather not be recognized," Brannel said definitely. "No one will shoot fire at a target that cannot be seen."

  "No one is going to shoot fire," Keff said. "There isn't enough power left out there to light a match."

  "What is going on here?" Ilnir roared, projecting his voice over the hubbub of voices and the hum of machinery. "I am not accustomed to being summoned, nor to waiting while peasants confer!"

  "Why has the silver tower been moved to this place?" a mage called out. "Doesn't it belong to the East?"