Comet Fall (Wine of the Gods) (41 page)

"There are several options. The scariest one is waiting until the comet is close enough that we can try to push it. Since it is closing in on the World at about seventy-five thousand miles per hour that will give us about six hours to slow it and push it south enough to miss, assuming the witches can affect it from lunar distance, which is far from assured.

"The next option is to shield as much, and as many people as we can, like we did last time. And if we overdo it, like Arty, we risk not being released for a very long time.

"Then there's a trick Rustle and I came up with
—mainly Rustle, smart woman. She can open gates to very nearby Worlds. What we need to do is shanghai the Earth Astronomers and see if we can identify one of those Worlds that the Comet is going to miss, and move as many people as possible to that World.

"Or we ask the Earth people for help
—and you can bet it'll have a big price tag. And frankly they don't seem to be listening."

Havi bit his lip and looked around. "Can we do some of each? Shield some areas, move
some people to those other worlds, send some people to Earth, and still try to shift the Comet?"

The Auld Wulf blinked. "Of course. No need fo
r one option to exclude others. I think I'll go study their gate again. Maybe we can figure out how they steer it."

1375 Mid
Summer

Gate Camp, Asia

"
Never's report emphasized that most of the mechanism was on the far side, that this is just a 'stabilizer' or a 'location lock.' They call it an anchor." The Auld Wulf prowled around the big vertical ring of metal and ceramics. It was inside a thin building on the west side of the army camp. Today the doors were wide open. According to their usual schedule, the gate should be opening at any time.

Dydit nodded.
"Yes, we remember their adventures with the clarity of past terror. Wretched women."

Sparks ran across the
ring, and sucked down into a spiral that ignored the presence of the back of the building as it reached out and joined up with a violent, sucking tornado that reached for them.

Lefty
bumped the Auld Wulf over to the side as a colored streak compacted itself into a truck driving out of the hole. Five of them came through, and then two tanker trucks, an armored gyp and a normal gyp with a red flag. The out bound traffic drove into the whirlpool, stretching and twisting.

The god walked
around to the side. He stared at the back of the small building housing the stabilizer. "Look dimensionally, as if for bubbles, see the tunnel? Can you see where it goes? If we can locate Earth, we can sabotage their equipment if they attack again."

Dydit whispered back, "It goes too far and it . . squirms."

Lefty shook his head. "I can't see a thing. And I don't understand why you two can't see through to the other side. There's a street, people with flags directing traffic."

The Auld Wulf stared as it plunged away into the
sparkling, fizzy blueness. If he looked closer, the fizziness expanded and became dimensional bubbles, jiggling and rushing past. "I think Dydit and I can see the extra-dimensional structure of the connection, and it overwhelms the mere three dimensional visual input. I wonder if . . . " He touched a driver's mind, followed it . . .

" . . . worse than witches. Well, no, nothing's worse than witches, but you come close."

He was being carried over someone's shoulder. He twitched and tried to make a noise. He tilted, his feet hit the ground and he was held as he tried to keep his knees straight.

"And you weigh too damn much!" Dydit informed him. "If it weren't for Rustle wanting to keep you for a pet, I would have left you there. What did you do? Other than
keel over, loosing your light warp at an awkward moment when rather a lot of soldiers were looking our direction."

"I attached to a driver's mind and tried to follow it down there." He shook his head carefully. "I feel sort of numb and strange."

"That driver probably drove off with a piece of your mind. With any luck, he'll keep it."

The Auld Wulf grinned and looked around. "Stirred them up, didn't I?"

"Ambassador Benri is bound to be pissed, and we're going to have a hard time doing that again. Not that
I
want to do it again, mind you. But some people have no sense."

"Well, we'll
take some time to think over what we've already learned." He turned and slogged away from the camp. "I suppose they've got the Bank surrounded?"

"Oh yes.
Did
we learn anything?"

"Mostly that they come from so far away we can't see their world."
The Auld Wulf staggered around in a circle. "Lefty?"

"Leading them around on a wild goose chase."

"And he'll no doubt pick up information as he goes. Where can we get a good look at the bank? Oh, it's right there. Let's check their dispositions. Benri really ought to have a list of their transgressions when he speaks to them."

Dydit grabbed him as he tilted. "Oh no you don't I'm a goat, not a donkey. I can't carry you a whole lot further."

"Hmm, if I just had a saddle . . . "

"My horns are inconveniently placed for riders."

"True. Ah, there they are. Tum te tum te tum. Tsk tsk! Artillery, yet. Let's get closer. I want some details." The Auld Wulf reached carefully out and warped light around himself. He could feel Dydit shrink his area of effect and nodded as the soldiers failed to notice them standing there, a hundred feet away.

He checked out the number and probable strength of some really nice mobile lasers, some old fashioned chemical propellant artillery that made him feel homesick, and nothing that had much chance of getting through the shields he'd left in place. He admired the spots where they'd leaned sticks up against the physical shield where they could see them fall if the shield dropped. "Smart boys! Pity they don't know about doors and windows." He put out his hands and convinced his numb brain to open a hole he and Dydit could step through, then closed it behind them, and staggered up the steps and through the doors before releasing his light warp.

"Are you all right?" Benri hustled up to them. "What did you do?"

"Squirrled my brain a bit studying their gate." The Auld Wulf said. "Sorry about the unpleasant situation out there."

Benri snorted. "They'll be apologizing as soon as they get some civilians out here to mess up what the military thinks needs to be done. Are you planning anything else?"

"G
oing to catch some sleep before even thinking about anything else."

Dydit steered him back into the living quarters and aimed him at a bed.

"Dydit. Remember slow it down, push it south, in case . . . "

Gisele arrived thirty seconds later. "Tsk! Scaring the poor goat that badly! Drink this."

"Sorry, brain feels numb."

"And your hands are cold. Interesting."

He frowned. Did some division problems in his head. Recited the Gettysburg Address. Pictured Rustle. "Okay, everything seems to be working. What's the problem."

"Don't you know that when a doctor is flummoxed they call it psychological?"

"You're flummoxed?"

"Well, as far as I can see, you did something that may have duplicated the circumstances in which our brains got chewed up originally. Whether it was physically damaging or just a hideous reminder, it was enough to induce shock."

"So, keep warm, liquids and rest? I feel like a frail fainting flower of femininity."

A loud snort from outside the door.

"Actually your hands are warmer, so I'll just leave this with you. Remember to drink the rest of it. Dydit, if you can't stay awake and watch him, get somebody else to. If he's going die, someone ought to be awake to watch him do it."

Another snort. "Fortunately he looks pretty pathetic. Let me see what Rustle is up to."

Rustle trotted in a few minutes later. "You don't look quite as bad as Dad described, so I won't run away screaming like he was hoping."

"Just keep an eye on him, dear. If his hands get cold again, call me." Gisele disappeared.

Dydit hugged his daughter. "No carrying on. I will be in and out, keeping an eye on the situation out doors."

"Yes
, Dad."

The Auld Wulf scrunched up on his
side and against the wall to give her enough room to sit down next to him. She rubbed the muscles of his arm, and he drifted off toward sleep. It felt like his brain was throbbing. Rustle was wafting a gentle healing spell. Rustle. Mother of his son, his wonderful little god. Have to try a goddess next time . . . The witch and wizard genes together on one X chromosome, that had worked well for Xen . . . he could put a mage gene right by the witch gene on the other X chromosome . . . he could see just how to do it . . . substitute the power gene sequence for the don't-allow-male-sperm-in genes . . .

When he woke he was first aware of a bright glow beside his bed and turned his head that direction. Rustle
sat cross-legged on the floor, hands palm up on her thighs. The glow was all mental, magical.
So bright, so much power. Not to mention the brains. Did she really just sit down and make a transdimensional gate a few days ago? No machinery, just manipulating natural, so to speak, multidimensional phenomena? If we can survive this comet, the whole world is going to change again. The whole multiverse.

When he tried to follow what she was doing
, she bumped him back. :: Stay away from the gate. ::

He sat up stiffly. "Don't you go and get hurt. Your father is already pissed at me."

"Don't be silly," Dydit said from the door. "Why should a father be pissed about his lovely daughter falling in love with a man old enough to be her great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great . . . " he sighed. "Come and get breakfast. We've stirred up quite the hornets nest, back on Earth. They've got the locator here turned on full time. The gate opens about every other hour, with both soldiers and civilians driving in both directions. We are eavesdropping on everything possible."

Dydit led the way to what had been a conference room.
"This is now Magic Central."

Lefty was there, looking about in
exasperation. Had the poor man been put in charge of this mess of powerful civilians?

Nil and Justice were sitting together, eyes closed, two Triads of witches, about half the Rip Crossing Goat Boys, and Selano's Compass.

"Romeau tried to get a good look at the gate and collapsed just like you did. Well, not actually as badly, but I hadn't realized Lady Gisele knew words like that."

The Auld Wulf grinned. "Actually I always rather thought she'd invented some of them, al
though she claims it's medical Latin."

Lefty edged out and joined them. "Rufi figured further exploration of the ruins could wait, and he wanted a show of force—
at first we thought they'd attacked you."

"No, did it to myself."

"At any rate, we've got all the disciplines covered." Lefty shrugged. "Personally I think we ought to just kick them out and break their anchor. I've listened in to their private conversations. A bit different than what the diplomats say to Benri. They aren't going to help us, and if we're seriously weakened by the comet, they plan to move in and take over."

"How nice of them."
The Auld Wulf ground his teeth. "I'll talk to Rufi about kicking them out before the Comet, so we don't get stabbed in the back."

"Can I help do the kicking?" Benri's voice, from the next doorway.

"Cafeteria in here." Dydit shook his head. "Honestly, mages! We really shouldn't have called them in."

Oscar and Bran's harem girls, all seven
very
pregnant, appeared to have taken over the kitchen.