Floating Castles

I had her taken away to a detention cell. A few moments served to prove that her information about the "stuns" was truthful. I called for volunteers, and there were several, since Swinfermo was beginning to come around. But any trepidation they might have felt was for nothing; no matter how we pushed the button, no light came forth.

Nefrete watched the whole encounter, her dark eyes narrowed, wide mouth compressed. "You should have killed it," she said. "I had a vision. In it you were fastened to a stake with a golden chain, naked. A great stiletto vine surrounded you on all sides, and as I dreamed, it bloomed, great white blooms smelling of old death. Then it grew closer around you, the thorns pricking trickles of blood from your body, no matter how you twisted, no matter how you struggled. The vine bloomed and stabbed, bloomed and stabbed, until it had drunk you up and there was nothing left but a dry husk caught among the thorns." When she finished, her eyes were wide and her mouth trembled.

I drew back from her; I could not help it. "A strange vision," I said.

Then I went to look at the vehicle. Oh, it was magnificent! It had taken the shape of a great metal sunbat. Its dull-black wings drooped gracefully; the cockpit sat atop the vulpine head, the forward windscreen like a great crystal eye. I sent a man to pound on the air lock set in one vast scaly flank. Though he went unmolested, he could not open it, even with the help of a large fire-ax.

I HAD THE trader brought forth an hour after dusk. "I see nothing," I said, indicating the pale expanse of moonlit Square. She pointed up. The smaller moon rode high, a tiny, lumpy ovoid. A moment passed; then the moon, by some process that my eyes did not record, became a small glowing cloud. She smiled, and the glow faded.

She was in constant communication with her ship. Her demonstration, so perfectly timed, proved it. I looked at her. The problem required further thought, and I had her returned to the cell.

The destruction of the moon saddened me. It was only a small and ugly moon, compared to the one that remains. But it lent a subtlety to the night's shadows that I have missed each night since then.

"I have the solution," I told her the next day. "I cannot kill you and take what I want. So I'll torture you until you give it to me."

"What do you want?" She was, as ever, inhumanly calm.

I did not know. In my ignorance, I might trade for trinkets and gim-cracks, and cheat myself and my heirs. I had seen only one pangalac thing that was indisputably valuable. "The vehicle."

"The neomach? Out of the question! It's too dangerous. Believe me, that's the last thing you want, Taladin."

I thought of the small moon, and kept a firm grip on my passions. "Why not?" I asked. "Is it a weapon?"

"No, but dangerous. Like a monkey with a bomb."

***

I put her to the torture, instructing the professor to use the small, red-hot irons. She screamed with almost cheerful abandon when the metal touched her, but after, her eyes were placid.

As she was being carried out, she called to me. "This may work. But remember, if you make life too painful for me, I might just call down the ship anyway."

I tried to walk that line carefully. I admonished the professor to use more care with the trader than he might with a child. I pointed out that the trader seemed as frail as an infant of our race.

The professor that year was a tall, thin man from the Heatlands. His nose and brows were thick with blue keratin, which gave him a look of earnest ferocity. A day later he told me, "I'm not sure, Lord, but the star creature might be tougher than it seems. Of course, it has no strength in its ligaments, and it screeches lustily enough. But I have the impression that the pain doesn't really touch it, somehow."

I watched the next session, and I wondered. But we were wrong. That night I was informed that she had capitulated.

The marks of torture were hidden beneath her clothing, and she wore that same bland smile. I have put many to the question, and afterward, in the faces of even the strongest, there is some change, some crumbling. But I was too eager to get my hands on the neomach, and so I dismissed my suspicions.

"I cannot trust you," she said, with no trace of accusation in her voice. "The exchange must be on my terms. First I make certain warnings."

"You threaten me?" I was so startled, I could not be angry.

"No. My warnings relate to the neomach. Recall that I said it was dangerous. It will never hurt you, if you are its bonded owner, but there are dangers."

"Continue."

"First. You must always be a kind master. This machine is nothing like the simple ones you build. This machine has a voice and a mind. It is not terribly bright, but its nature is friendly and loyal, unless it is abused. As I said, it will never hurt you, but it may become sullen, and too withdrawn to be useful. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," I said, though at the time I thought she was mad.