The Practice Effect (8 page)

The boy frowned. “It’s Aunt Biss. What’s
she
doin’ here? An’ where’s Mom an’ Pop?” He took off toward the farmhouse, leaving Dennis standing at the gate.

Something was obviously wrong. The boy’s aunt looked worried. She knelt and held his shoulders as she explained something earnestly. Tomosh was soon fighting back tears.

Dennis felt awkward. To approach before he was invited by the adult didn’t seem wise. But he couldn’t see just walking away, either.

Nothing looked awry about the house and yard. Real chickens pecked at the ground alongside what looked like a flock of tiny tame ostriches.

The paths about the farmyard apparently were made of the same resilient, hi-tech material as the highway. They had the same raggedy edges, almost blending into the surrounding dirt and grass.

That seemed to be the way the whole farm was put together. The windows in the house were clear and well fitted, but they were inserted at various rough approximations to level and square. Big and small windows were set side by side in no apparent pattern.

Tomosh clutched his aunt’s skirt, now fully in tears. Dennis was concerned. Something must have happened to the boy’s parents.

Finally he decided to approach a few steps. The woman looked up.

“Yourr name is Dennis?” She asked coolly, in the queer local dialect.

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Is Tomosh all right? Is there anything I can do to help?”

The offer seemed to surprise her. Her expression thawed just a little. “The boy’s parents are gone. I’ve come to take him to my home. You are welcome to sup and stay until my man comes to gather the goods and lock up.”

Dennis wanted to ask more questions, but her severe look
kept him quiet. “Set here on the steps an’ wait,” she said. She led the boy inside.

Dennis wasn’t offended by the woman’s suspicion of a stranger. His accent probably didn’t help any. He sat on the steps where she had indicated.

There was a rack of tools on the porch just outside the front door. At first Dennis looked them over complacently, thinking about other things. Then he looked closer and frowned. “Curiouser and curiouser,” he said.

It was the strangest assortment of implements he had ever seen.

Near the door were a hoe, an ax, a rake, and a spade, all apparently shiny and new. He touched a pair of shears next to them. The edges were sharp, and they looked quite strong.

The handles had grips of smooth, dark wood, as one might expect. But the cutting edges didn’t seem to be made of metal. The razor-sharp blades were
translucent
and showed faint veins and facets within.

Dennis gaped. “They’re stone!” he whispered. “Some sort of
gemstone
, I do believe! Why, they may even be single
crystals!
”

He was staggered. He couldn’t imagine the technology that could provide such tools for a country farmer. The implements near the door were unbelievable!

But that wasn’t the last surprise. As he scanned the toolrack, Dennis felt a growing sense of strangeness, for although the tools farthest from the door seemed
also
to be made of stone, that was all they had in common with the beautiful blades near the entrance.

Dennis blinked at the incongruity. On the far left was another ax. And
this
one might have come straight out of the late Stone Age!

The crude wooden handle had been rubbed smooth in two places, but it still had bits of bark attached to it in spots. The blade appeared to be a piece of chipped flint held on by leather thongs.

The rest of the tools fell between these extremes. Some were as crude as could be imagined. Others were obviously the products of an extremely high materials science, and computer-aided design.

He touched the flint-headed ax, lost in thought. It might
have been made by the same hand that put together the mysterious knife that lay wrapped in his pack.

“Stivyung’s the best practicer in these parts,” a voice behind him said.

He turned. Lost in thought, he hadn’t heard Aunt Biss come out onto the porch. The woman proffered a bowl and spoon, which he took automatically. Steamy aroma sparked a sudden hunger.

“Stivyung?” He repeated the name with difficulty. “The boy’s father?”

“Yah. Stivyung Sigel. A fine man, sergeant of the Royal Scouts before marryin’ my sister Surah. His reputation for practice was his downfall. That an’ the fact that he’s built just like the Baron—both height an’ weight. The Baron’s men came for him this mornin’.”

She seemed to think she was making sense. Dennis didn’t dare tell her otherwise. Much of his confusion might be due to the woman’s thick accent, anyway.

“What about the boy’s mother?” Dennis asked. He blew on a spoonful of stew. It was bland but compared favorably to the survival rations he had been eating for over a week.

Aunt Biss shrugged. “When they took Stivyung, Surah ran over to fetch me, then packed up an’ headed for the hills. She wanted to ask the L’Toff for help.” Biss snorted. “Lot o’ good
that’ll
do.”

Dennis was getting dizzy with all the references to things he didn’t understand. Who were the
L’Toff
? And what in the world was a
practicer
?

As for the story of the boy’s father being arrested, Dennis could see how a farmer’s pride might get him in trouble with the local strongman, but why would Stivyung Sigel be seized for being “built just like” his overlord? Was that a crime here?

“Is Tomosh all right?”

“Yah. He wants to tell you good-bye before you go.”

“Go,” Dennis repeated. He had sort of been hoping for some down-home hospitality, including a real bed and some trial conversation, before he tackled a larger settlement. Things didn’t sound too peaceful hereabouts. He wanted to find out who made the marvelous hi-tech items and head
straight for that element in society, avoiding the Baron Kremers of this world.

Aunt Biss nodded firmly. “We got no room at my place. An’ my husban’ Bim is locking up this stockade tomorrow. If you want work, you’ll find it in Zuslik.”

Dennis stared down at the bowl. Suddenly he did not want to face another night in the wilderness. Even the clucking chickens made him feel homesick.

Aunt Biss was silent for a moment, then she sighed. “Oh, wha’ the hey. Tomosh thinks you’re a genuine pilgrim an’ not one of those layabouts we sometimes get in from th’ east. I don’t suppose it’ll do any harm to let you sleep th’ night in th’ barn. So long as you behave an’ promise to go peaceful in th’ mornin’.”

Dennis nodded quickly. “Perhaps there are some chores I can help with …?”

Biss thought about it. She turned and picked up the flint-headed ax from the porch rack. “I don’ expect it’ll do any good, but you might as well chop some firewood.”

Dennis took the crude ax dubiously.

“Well … I guess I could try …” He glanced over at the beautiful gemstone ax by the door.

“Use
this
one,” Biss emphasized. “We’ll want to sell it off quick, now that Stivyung’s gone. There’s a pile o’ logs aroun’ back.

“Good practice to you.” She nodded and turned to go inside.

There was that word again. Dennis felt sure he was missing something important. But he judged it would be best not to ask Aunt Biss any more questions.

First things first, then. He finished the stew and licked the bowl clean. It felt like the kind of unbreakable dinnerware found in homes all over Earth. But on closer examination he realized that the bowl was made of
wood
, fashioned wafer thin and varnished to perfection.

If I ever get the zievatron fixed, and if we ever start trading with this culture, they’ll be able to sell us millions of these! Their factories will be working overtime!

Then he remembered draft animals pulling sledges that slid noiselessly through the night.

What’s going
on
here
?

Casting a wistful glance at the beautiful gemstone ax near the door, he resignedly picked up the caveman special and walked around to the woodpile in back of the house.

The town of Zuslik lay at the bottom of a wide valley, where low hills on both sides crowded close to a broad, sluggish river. The land was heavily wooded, with cultivated fields evenly scattered among thick patches of forest. The riverside town sat at the junction of several roads.

From a slope west of Zuslik, Dennis could see that the walled settlement was built around a hill overlooking a bend in the river. Atop this eminence, towering above the town, stood a dark, squat tower, built in a series of flat layers like a dark, brooding wedding cake.

Through his Sahara Tech monocular, Dennis could make out antlike columns of men marching in the yards surrounding the fortress. Sunlight occasionally flashed from ranks of upheld weapons. Pennants riffled from the high tower, blown by the breeze that swept up the valley.

There was no mistaking the home of the chief honcho. Dennis hoped his search wouldn’t require that he go there. Not after what he had heard about the man.

The evening before last, while Dennis settled into the hayloft of the Sigels’ farm, the little boy Tomosh had come out to the barn. Ostensibly it was to wish the visitor good night, but Dennis realized that the young fellow actually had come for sympathy and comfort. He didn’t imagine Tomosh got much of it from his cool aunt.

Tomosh had wound up staying for a couple of hours, exchanging stories with Dennis. It had been a fair trade.
Dennis had a chance to practice his accent—familiarizing himself with the muddy, strange Coylian version of English—and Tomosh, much to his delight, learned a great deal about the ways of Brer Rabbit and of flying elephants.

Dennis didn’t find out much about Coylian technology—he hadn’t expected to, talking with a small boy. But he listened attentively as Tomosh told “scary” stories about “Bleckers” and other fabled bogeymen, and about ancient, kindly dragons that let people ride them through the sky. Dennis filed away the tales in his memory, for one never knew what would turn out to be useful information.

More relevant, he imagined, were the tidbits Tomosh told about Baron Kremer, whose grandfather had led a tribe of hillmen out of the north to take Zuslik from the old Duke a generation ago. Kremer sounded like a good man to stay away from, according to Tomosh, especially after what the fellow had done to the boy’s family.

Much as he wanted to learn more, Dennis knew Baron Kremer wasn’t the best topic to dwell on. He distracted the boy from his troubles with an old camp song that soon had him laughing and clapping. By the time Tomosh fell asleep on the hay nearby, the boy had forgotten about the day’s traumas.

It left Dennis feeling as if he had done a good deed. He only wished he could have done more for the little tyke.

Aunt Biss, taciturn to the end, gave Dennis a cloth-wrapped lunch of cheese and bread for his departure early the next morning. Tomosh manfully rubbed back tears when he said farewell. It had taken only a day and another morning to hike here from the farmhouse.

On the trek to town Dennis had kept a lookout for a small pinkish creature with bright green eyes. But the pixolet never showed up. It looked like the little creature really had abandoned him this time.

Dennis examined Zuslik from the bluff outside of town. Somewhere in that citadel, the boy’s father was being held for mysterious crimes Dennis still didn’t understand … because he was “built just like” his overlord and was good with tools.… Dennis was relieved to find out that
he
, at least, didn’t resemble the warlord at all.

He decided he wouldn’t learn any more about Zuslik by
studying it from a distance. He got up and started putting on his pack.

Just then he caught a flicker of motion in his peripheral vision. He turned to look … and saw something huge, black, and
fast
come swooping straight down on him over the treetops!

Dennis flung himself to the grassy slope as the giant flying thing shot by just overhead. Its shadow was huge, and a flapping, whistling sound sent chills of expectant disaster up his back as he burrowed into the turf.

The moment of terror passed. When nothing disastrous appeared to happen, he finally raised his head, looking around frantically for the monster. But the thing was gone!

Last night Tomosh had spoken of dragons—great ferocious creatures that had once supposedly defended mankind on Tatir against deadly enemies. But Dennis had been under the impression they were of the distant past, where the fanciful creatures of children’s fairy tales belonged!

He scanned the horizon and finally found the black shape. It was settling down toward the town. His throat was still dry as he pulled out the monocular and managed to focus it on the castle grounds.

Dennis blinked. It took a moment for him to realize—somewhat to his relief—that it was no “dragon” after all. His ebony monster was a
flying machine
. Small figures ran to the aircraft from a line of sheds in the castle’s yard as the craft drifted to rest, light as a feather. Two small figures—presumably the pilots—dismounted and strode quickly toward the castle without looking back.

Dennis lowered the ocular. He felt a little foolish for coming to overly dramatic conclusions when there was another, simpler explanation. It wasn’t really so surprising the locals had flight, was it? There had been plenty of signs of high technology.

Still, the aircraft had hardly made a sound as it passed overhead. There were no growling engine noises. It was puzzling. Perhaps antigravity merited another consideration.

There was only one way to find out more. He got up and brushed himself off, then shouldered his pack and headed down to town.

The market outside the city wall was like almost any small riverfront bazaar on Earth. There were shouts and calls and sudden gangs of running boys obviously up to no good. Shops and warehouses gave off pungent aromas, from rich food to the high musk of the grunting draft animals.

He entered the bazaar with what he hoped was an expression of somebody going confidently about his business. By the variety of clothing he saw, Dennis didn’t feel outlandishly dressed. Boots, shirt, and trousers seemed to be conventional attire here. Some people even carried burdens on their backs, as he did.