Denner_s Wreck

Before Imp could snap at him, Geste added hastily, “But I'll think of something. Let's see if we can do anything useful with any of the weapons."

Imp nodded, and turned toward the house, Geste close behind.

Bredon watched them go, but stayed where he was. He knew that he could be of no use with the weapons; he simply did not know enough about the technology involved, despite his high-speed training. He sat back in his floating chair to contemplate the scenery and the situation. The gaseous lights drifted overhead, and peacocks still stalked the lawns, but the music had departed with its mistress.

Precisely three hours after the image of Thaddeus had vanished a bright red floater, egg-shaped and glowing and perhaps half a meter long, sailed up across the star-flecked black sky. It turned and skimmed over the side of the Skyland, and came whistling across the lawn toward the terrace.

Bredon was there waiting for it. The Skyler had not been seen since she stalked off the terrace and into her personal chambers. Geste and Imp were also somewhere in the house, presumably still improvising gadgetry and schemes.

“Hello!” Bredon called.

The floater ignored him. It swept in about a meter above the dark stone pavement, emitting a variety of low beeps and whistles, then turned and cruised along the perimeter of the terrace.

“Hello,” Bredon called again, waving.

The floater continued to ignore him. When it had completed a full circuit it spiralled inward from the edges, slowing steadily, until it came to a stop hovering above the center of the terrace.

Seeing that this machine would not acknowledge his existence, Bredon shrugged and called, “Skyland, tell Geste and Imp that the floater is here."

“I have already done so, sir, and they are on their way,” the Skyland replied, in a calm, imperturbable tone that struck Bredon as being a little too smug.

“Thank you,” he said, wondering what the Skyland thought of the situation. It did not seem to have the same sort of awareness and personality that Gamesmaster did, but surely, he thought, it must have an opinion.

Before he could ask anything, Imp emerged from the house, her long hair drifting about her in an uneven auburn cloud as she strode onto the terrace. She had changed her clothes, and now wore a black velvet garment that Bredon had no name for. He stared, forgetting all about the Skyland's opinions.

The fabric covered her shoulders, breasts, and belly smoothly and tightly, as if stretched into place, while leaving most of her upper body bare. From the waist down it flared out into a flowing, voluminous skirt that moved as if with a life of its own, sometimes wrapping and coiling itself about her hips and legs, other times drifting out in a cloud of cloth that seemed indistinct about the edges, as if the material were dissolving into the air.

Bredon found this garb both startling and devastatingly attractive. He stared, and forced himself to remember that he wanted Lady Sunlight, not Imp.

His body still responded in its own way, undaunted by any message from the conscious mind.

Imp did not notice. She did not look at him at all, but hurried to the floater. She reached out to pat the machine, but it shied away.

She turned and called, “Hurry up, Geste! We don't want to keep him waiting!"

Bredon wondered whether she meant Thaddeus or Aulden.

Geste appeared almost before Imp had finished her sentence, his flying platform gliding at his heels. “All right,” he said. “Let's go."

“The platform may not come,” the red egg a

“Three?” Geste asked. “Not four?"

“Three,” the floater repeated.

Geste threw Imp a worried glance. “Maybe Thaddeus did eavesdrop, if he knows the Skyler isn't coming."

Reluctantly, Bredon suggested, “I don't think that's it. I think he didn't want me along."

“Oh,” the Trickster said, momentarily looking foolish. “Oh, of course."

Imp looked at Bredon with interest. “I think you're right. I don't think Thaddeus thinks of you as human at all. He probably sees you as Geste's pet."

Bredon grimaced. “I'm not a Power,” he acknowledged.

“Thaddeus may think Bredon's an android or some sort of Trojan horse,” Imp said, turning to Geste.

“He may indeed,” Geste agreed. “It's too bad we didn't think to make him one.” He asked the floater, “Did your master tell you which three humans you were to bring?"

“The three humans to be found on this terrace,” the machine answered.

“No further description?” Geste persisted.

“No further description,” the machine replied.

“Well, here are three humans, then. Let's go."

“Acknowledged.” Something extruded from the underside of the egg, something as red and gleaming as the egg itself. At first it was a slim cylinder, but a few centimeters above the stone pavement the cylinder stopped. Its lower end transformed into a disk, which expanded swiftly and silently.

To Bredon, it looked as if the egg were spilling blood, pouring it in a steady stream into a circular puddle, a pool spreading across an invisible barrier three centimeters above the terrace.

When the red disk was almost three meters in diameter the expansion abruptly stopped. Imp and Geste stepped forward, and up onto the disk.

Bredon was more hesitant; he had trouble believing that the disk could actually hold him. The egg had seemingly created it from thin air, and although he knew from his crash course in modern technology that the necessary material might have been retrieved from bent-space storage, or synthesized out of the air itself, his years of experience in his own society left him emotionally convinced that it had to be an illusion.

Cautiously, he forced himself to put a foot on the disk.

It seemed as firm and solid as the terrace itself. Reluctantly, Bredon lifted his other foot and stepped forward.

Immediately, the disk material began spreading again, but this time the outer edge grew vertically instead of horizontally, rising up to form a cylinder around the three humans. At a height of about a meter and a half it curved inward, forming a dome.

Even as it grew, the floater was moving; as the Skyler's home vanished behind the rising walls it was already receding. By the time the dome had closed overhead, Bredon knew they were off the Skyland entirely.

As with all the tranportation the immortals used, however, there was no sensation of movement. It was as if the three of them had stood on the motionless disk while the Skyland sped away from them.

When the dome was complete, the last circle of blue sky closed away, they were left without any point of reference at all. The original egg glowed warmly, providing them with light, and a soft, musical hum emanated from floor, but they had nothing to see except the egg, the blank red walls, and each other. They stood in uneasy silence.

Bredon wanted to ask what plans Geste had come up with, but he knew Thaddeus was listening, so he carefully said nothing. He turned his eyes away from Geste to avoid temptation.

After roaming aimlessly along the featureless red dome for a time, his eyes seemed to settle somewhere of their own volition. He found himself staring at Imp, and once again felt his body responding involuntarily to the extravagant sexual advertisement of her clothing. He forced himself to look away.

Geste's gaze wandered from the egg to Imp to Bredon, then around the dome and back to the egg, and Bredon had the impression that he was thinking hard about something while trying to look casual.

Imp simply stared blindly into space, oblivious to the others.

Bredon finally settled on staring at the egg, trying to guess just what it was capable of. This was ultimately pointless, since he could not tell, by visual inspection, whether it had a bent-space extension, and if it did have one, then it could be capable of anything. Studying the floater did, however, keep his eyes and mind off his companions.