The Crystal Variation (62 page)

“Scholar, you are,” the other said, her voice hoarse. “However, I must make you aware of certain budget constraints. Those whose work brings largesse or, or patrons to the Tower, those scholars receive—”

The wand came up so quickly the grudent flinched.

“My work,” Maelyn tay’Nordif said, each word as hard and as cold as a stone, “is paramount, Grudent. I do not allow the dabblings of any other scholar in this department to have precedence. You have heard what I require in order to pursue my work, and you will procure it, by what method I neither know nor care. Steal it, if you must. But you will provide everything I require. Have you understood me, Grudent?”

“Yes, Scholar,” the grudent whispered.

“Good. Begin by removing that table.”

“Yes, Scholar,” the grudent whispered again, then, slightly stronger. “I will return in a moment with a cart.”

“That is well. I will instruct the door to admit you.”

The grudent left; the scholar turned back to her screen, fingers busy on the chording wand. Jela stood and waited.

In the box, the orange cat, which had slept soundly throughout all the preceding ruckus, abruptly sprang up, ears swiveling. Its wide amber gaze fell on Jela; it sat down and began to groom its shoulder.

Time, not very much of it, passed.

The door chimed and opened simultaneously, admitting the grudent with the promised cart. She paused on the threshold, frowning at the problem, and took note, apparently for the first time, of himself. Her eyes—brown and slightly protuberant—widened, but unlike the cat, she failed to transfer her consternation to a more useful activity.

“Don’t,” Scholar tay’Nordif said, her eyes on the screen, “mind Jela, Grudent. If you require assistance with heavy lifting, enlist its aid. Jela! Assist the grudent at her request.”

The grudent swallowed; her lips parted but no sound emerged. Finally, she just turned her back on him and began to gather up the various odds and ends on the table and move them, all a-jumble, into the cart. She did show what Jela considered to be proper prudence in the matter of the
poison
canisters, and also took the necessary time to be sure that there was nothing in the fission chamber and that the power-source was disconnected. That done, she turned her attention to the box, and the cat inside the box, which had suspended its bath and was watching her with interest.

The grudent extended a hand which was trembling too much to be authoritative. The cat swung a paw, negligently, and the grudent jumped back, putting her bloodied finger to her mouth.

The cat yawned.

The grudent set her lips, groped ‘round her belt and came forward with a pair of stained work gloves. She pulled one over the wounded hand—

“Leave it,” Scholar tay’Nordif said from the back corner. The grudent blinked.

“Scholar?”

“The cat,” the scholar snapped, clearly in no mood to tolerate stupidity. “Leave it.”

The grudent lifted her eyes to Jela’s face. Finding nothing there, she looked back to the cat.

“The box, too, Scholar?”

“If you must. Jela! Pick up the box. Pick up the cat—
gently
. Bring the box and the cat—
gently
—here to me now.”

He moved, deliberately; the grudent dropped back, thoughtfully pulling the cart out of his path. The cat in the box watched his approach with interest, ears cocked forward. As near as Jela could tell from its body language, it was at rest, unaggressive—exactly as it had appeared in the heartbeat before it mauled the grudent.

The grudent, however, had approached the cat directly. Fortunately for him, he was a kobold, and just about smart enough to follow his orders by the one-two.

He took hold of the box with one hand, catching the cat neatly with the other as it hopped out, and tucking it—gently—between his arm and his side. It stiffened, but if it used its claws, they were neither long enough nor fierce enough to pierce the leather shirt. Jela kept moving, banged the table out of his way with a casual kick, and approached the terminal.

The scholar put the chording wand down on the rickety desk, extended a hand, caught the cat by the loose skin at the back of its neck and transferred it to her opposite arm, keeping a firm grip on the scruff. She jerked her chin at the empty shelf over the terminal.

“Put the box up there, Jela.
Gently
.”

It was an easy one-handed toss, and not too much clatter when it landed. The scholar sighed.

“Grudent tel’Ashon,” she snapped, turning to address that worthy, who was busily shoving the last of the bits and bobs from the table onto her cart. At the scholar’s hail, she looked up, eyes wide and throat working.

“Scholar?”

“This previous scholar—ser’Dinther? What was the nature of his work? Briefly.”

The grudent bit her lip. “As far as a mere grudent may understand a scholar’s work, I believe he sought—that is, he had proven the existence of adjacent lines of causality.”

“Had he? A pity his proof did not stand rigorous testing.” The scholar nodded at the feline on her arm. “What role had the cat in these proofs?”

“I . . . It was the scholar’s intention to provide a practical demonstration. His work led him to believe that a base creature in peril of its life might, certain conditions being met, shift to an, to a situation in which the peril was non-existent.” She moved her hand in a shapeless gesture that was perhaps meant to encompass the table and the clutter it had supported. “He had at first worked with the mun—with the Tower servitors. However, experimentation revealed that their nature, though base, was yet too elevated for the state shift to be a matter of instinct. Thus, the cats.”

“I see. And the experiment?”

“A cat would be placed into the box, which would then be sealed, excepting the delivery tube for the poison gas. The trigger was a single radioactive nucleus which, in the causality we and the cat co-inhabit, has a fifty percent chance of decaying within a specified time. If it decays, the gas is released.”

“Killing the cat,” the scholar said drily. “A singularly one-sided experiment.”

“According to Scholar ser’Dinther’s proof,” the grudent said, leaning forward, real interest showing in her face. “The cat does not die, but escapes to an adjacent line of causality. When we who are continuing along
this
line of causality open the box to learn what has transpired, we see a dead cat, because it is what experience has trained us to see.” She gasped, as if suddenly recalling herself, and settled back, her hands twisting together.

“Scholar ser’Dinther was engaged in perfecting an apparatus which would capture and distill the moment of transition. He was—his proof failed before he had completed that aspect of his work.”

There was a small pause before the scholar, who had been stroking the cat between its ears, murmured. “I see. And this cat here is the last left alive.” She looked up and sent a sharp glance to the grudent. “In this particular causality, of course.”

The grudent hesitated, hands twisting ‘round themselves with a will.

“That cat,” she said—carefully, Jela thought. “That cat, Scholar, was in the box many times. Never once did the nucleus decay.”

“A feline of extraordinary luck, I see. Well.” She chucked the animal under the chin and moved her shoulders. “I have a kindness for cats. As this one is no longer required for experimental purposes, I shall keep it.”

The grudent bowed hastily. “Yes, Scholar. Of course.”

“Jela!” the scholar snapped. “Take the chair in the corner behind you to the grudent.”

He turned, clumsily, and located the chair, a rickety item missing a quarter of its back and half of one leg. Hefting it casually, he took it to the grudent as ordered, and stood holding it out in one hand, while she blinked at him stupidly.

“It won’t fit on the cart like that,” she said.

“Jela!” Scholar tay’Nordif ordered from the rear. “Break the chair over your knee and place the pieces on the cart.”

No trouble there, he thought and did as ordered, taking a brief, savage joy in the minor destruction. The grudent shrank back with a gasp, and watched with wide eyes as he dropped the bits into the cart, then gathered her courage and stood tall, taking a grip on the handle.

“I will dispose of this and be back for the table at once, Scholar,” she said.

“Jela will carry the table,” the scholar snapped. “Perhaps I failed to make plain my necessity that this office be habitable before the Mercy Bell sounds?”

The grudent was seen to choke slightly, but she stiffened her spine once more and sent what was probably meant to be a stern look into Jela’s face.

“You. Jela,” she said, voice shaking only a little. “Pick up the table and follow me.”

The table was much too wide to fit through the doorway. Which was precisely the sort of esoteric detail a kobold would fail to note.

The grudent pushed the cart out the door. Jela stumped forward, hefted the table, and started after, one end striking the shelving with a will and scoring the wa—

“Jela!” Scholar tay’Nordif said sharply. “Stop!”

He stopped, and stood, table in hand, awaiting amended orders.

“Put the table down, Jela,” the scholar said, and raised her voice. “Grudent tel’Ashon!”

Immediately, the grudent was in the doorway, eyes and mouth wide. “Scholar? I—”

“Silence! If you are to serve me, you will learn to think logically and to give clear, unambiguous orders. Perhaps the Tower’s servitors are more able to reason, but a kobold is only able to follow what directions it is given. Thus, its service is only as good as your instructions. Observe, now.

“Jela! Press the switch on the table top. When the table has folded itself, pick it up and follow Grudent tel’Ashon. Obey her instructions until she returns you to me.”

Deliberately, he looked over the table top, discovering the bright blue button set flush to the surface in due time. He pushed it and stood stoically by as the table folded itself into neat quarters, tucked the resultant rectangle under his arm and headed for the door. Grudent tel’Ashon gave way hastily before him. He followed her, and then followed her some more as she pushed the remains of the late Scholar ser’Dinther’s experiments down the hall.

The cart went noiselessly on its cushion of air; the grudent went quietly in her soft-soled slippers. Jela walked as lightly as he dared while maintaining the illusion of clumsy bulk.

Ahead, there were voices, perhaps not yet discernible to the grudent, but clearly audible to Jela’s enhanced hearing.

“. . . gone to the Governors!” The first voice was light—possibly a woman—and clearly agitated.

“So, you have not made your exception to his work known?” The second voice was unmistakably masculine, pleasantly in the mid-range, calm—and instantly recognizable as belonging to Scholar tay’Welford, he who of the too-knowing smile.

“How could I?” the first voice responded. “But, the Governors! What does it mean?”

“Only that he gone to report the arrival of our newest sister in scholarship. It has been quite some time, as vel’Anbrek noted last eve, since we have seen one of the Master’s students, and the Governors must surely be—”

The cart angled to the right, and a door noisily gave way before it. Jela dutifully marched after the grudent, straining his ears, but the remainder of the scholars’ discussion was lost to him.

Eight

EIGHT

Osabei Tower

Landomist

JELA PICKED THE CHAIR UP
and followed Grudent tel’Ashon out into the hallway.

The past few hours had given him a respect for the grudent he had not expected to acquire. She had been tireless in the pursuit of her orders; displaying a subtle creativity that won, if not his heart, certainly his admiration. Realizing early in the endeavor that she would sometimes have need of him elsewhere in the hall, she had . . . acquired . . . a pass-tile from an office, the door of which bore the glowing name
Den Vir tel’Elyd
. This she had attached to the collar of his leather shirt, with a small grim smile, and a muttered, “Lackluster research and pedestrian results, was it?” He was then free to roam—on her orders, of course—an arrangement he approved of in the strongest possible terms.

The work had broken down neatly into brain and brawn. It fell to the grudent, as the self-identified brain, to gimmick the doors of offices she considered likely to contain those things required to make Scholar tay’Nordif’s life more comfortable. After a quick reconnoiter, she would point out those items she deemed worthy, and direct him to carry them to the scholar’s office, while she continued on to the next target. It was a system which had worked admirably in rapidly attaining for Maelyn tay’Nordif all the trappings of a scholar who had by her wit and her intellect captured a seat in Osabei Tower.

In Jela’s estimation, the grudent had tarried a bit too long in the selection of the chair which he now carried, but it was hardly his place to criticize—especially as the protracted search had netted what appeared to be a brand new chair of the first order of craftsmanship. There had been no name on the door of the office from which this last item had been pilfered, but the appropriation had seemed to give Grudent tel’Ashon almost as much satisfaction as purloining the pass-tile. In Jela’s opinion, she had done well by her scholar. Not that his opinion mattered.

Half-a-dozen steps ahead of him, the grudent abruptly swung close to the wall, sending a sharp look over her shoulder and waving at him to do the same. Not at all a good kobold order, but in light of the man walking toward them, Jela decided it was prudent to obey anyway.

The approaching scholar was, judging by the strands of silver glinting in the dark back-swept hair, in his middle years. His square face was creased, and at some point his nose had been broken. The sleeves of his robe were pushed up, revealing strong forearms, veins like blue wire running tight beneath the skin. In addition to the sheathed truth-blade and smart-gloves, a tile tablet adorned with many fobs and seals hung from his sash. He walked like a man who had recently taken a moderate wound—and who was earnestly trying to conceal that fact.