Chapter Eight

WHEN HE CAME TO, THE DIRECT-CONTROL CABLE WAS still in his hand, though he had not managed to plug himself in. He lay still for a moment, gathering his wits, looking about the cabin at the familiar tapestries and fur-covered walls he hadn't gotten around to changing from white. He idly turned them light blue and asked, "Where are we?"

"In low elliptical orbit around planet; no surface references available."

"Was the ship damaged in the landing?"

"Minor abrasion of hull occurred on impact; no other known damage."

"What about Teyzha?"

"Restate question."

"How much damage did the city receive?"

"Exact information unavailable. Estimate severe damage to central area, ten percent of area within walls; light or moderate damage to further twenty percent of area within walls. Probable enemy losses between one hundred and three thousand dead."

"That's a pretty damn wide range." He hoped that the lower end was more nearly correct. He noticed the direct-control cable he still held and fitted it into the back of his neck. "Play the tapes of the landing." He closed his eyes and waited.

He was tearing down through the sky toward Teyzha at an incredible speed; the tape had been made through a camera mounted below the nose of the ship, so that his vision was cut off at the top by an arc of metal but wide open below. The camera and tape were extreme wide-angle, wider than human vision, but for his convenience he was shown only the central portion in normal perspective, with the option of turning his view in any direction to the limits of the lens.

The city rushed up at him, hundreds of times faster than it had when he parachuted in; he felt a moment of vertigo. Then his plunge was slowing; a full-speed impact would have vaporized the ship and probably the entire city as well. Still, he flinched mentally as the image of the palace came up and seemed to smash into him.

There was something about the last few seconds that bothered him. "Back it up, then come forward at quarter speed," he ordered the computer.

Obediently, the view pulled back, so that he was again hanging in midair, approaching the city. This time the speed was much less, and he was able to make out more detail instead of just a blur. Something flickered at the bottom of his field of vision as he neared the city wall; then again.

"Stop a minute."

The computer obeyed; the forward motion stopped, and the flicker became a. short line of golden light, frozen immobile in the air over Teyzha's ramparts.

"I'd like some magnification; zoom in slowly."

He kept his gaze fixed on that yellow line as the image enlarged; it was tipped with silver. The silver tip was in turn tipped with glowing red.

It was a missile; the ship had gone in shooting, as well as providing covering fire on the ground.

"What is that?"

"Restate question."

"Identify that missile I'm looking at."

"Ordnance model MHE-fifteen, serial number one-one-seven-zero-one-five. High-explosive warhead, shrapnel-loaded, antipersonnel type. Impact fuse. Range—"

"That's enough. Why'd you fire it?"

"Enemy personnel on thoroughfare provided target of opportunity."

"Run the tape from the belly camera, one-quarter speed."

He was looking straight down, the ground sweeping by underneath, as the ship once more approached the city. He watched as a barrage of missiles ripped the city wall apart; that had been the first flicker. A string of antipersonnel missiles then laced the main avenue, and incendiaries sprayed into flame atop the surrounding buildings. Heavy lasers flashed across the streets, cutting through softer materials and igniting anything flammable.

He continued to watch as the plaza swept underneath and the shattered wall of the palace cut off vision upon impact; he switched back to the nose camera and watched as the blasters came into play. He wondered how much damage they would have done if they had a range of more than twenty meters.

Finally there came the sound of his own voice, the launch, and the ground falling away again.

"Shut it off." He opened his eyes and glared at the blue chameleon fur. "Why did you do so much damage?" He suspected that, if anything, the computer's damage estimate was low—perhaps very low. It assumed that buildings had steel frames rather than stone arches, and that people knew enough to take shelter—and had somewhere they could go to take shelter.

"Standard procedure for assault on enemy position."

"Why didn't you just nuke the city and have done with it?"

"Use of nuclear weapons would have aborted rescue of cyborg unit and resulted in termination of cyborg unit without justification."

"Well, that's something, anyway."

"Query: Advisability of resuming attack, using nuclear weapons."

"I don't think so. It'd be a waste of a warhead, and we haven't got very many. They can't do us any more harm. Besides, it would negate any propaganda value my warning had, and it's possible that we might want to try dealing with them again later, when they've had time to clean up." He was getting better at making up excuses for not killing people, he thought

"Affirmative."

An idea occurred to him. "Hey, did anything out of the ordinary happen during that attack? Any systems malfunction, or inexplicable diversions from course?"

"Negative. No resistance of any sort encountered."

Then the wizards hadn't been able to do anything against the starship. He wondered if they'd had the chance to try. "Not even small-arms fire?"

"Negative."

They hadn't even used his submachine gun. His ship had been shooting at completely defenseless people.

He was not at all happy about that The war was over; he shouldn't be killing anybody.

After a moment's consideration, he asked, "Now what? On to the next system?"

"Negative. Gravitational anomalies representing enemy weapons research not yet fully investigated."

That was what he had feared. "We can't go back to Teyzha for a while; I'd be killed on sight"

"Affirmative."

"Do we just wait here in orbit, then?"

"Negative. Other locations show similar levels of gravitational disturbance."

"Then why did you pick on Teyzha?"

"Level of gravitational disturbance was marginally higher."

"Oh." That was perfectly reasonable, actually. The computer had never said that there was anything special about Teyzha, and he hadn't asked; thinking back, he remembered that the little sparkles he had seen in the planet's gravitational field had been scattered all across its land area, not concentrated in Teyzha. "Wonderful. So we go somewhere else and try again?"

"Affirmative."

"Where?"

"Cyborg unit discretion permitted."

"I get to choose?"

"Affirmative."

The cable was still plugged into his neck; he closed his eyes and said, "Okay, give me a map."

The computer displayed in his mind a topographical map of the planet in cylindrical projection, with glowing red indicating areas of gravitational disturbance—concentrations of magic, presumably. Teyzha was marked with a yellow glow.

Slant picked a bright spot on the same continent as Teyzha, but far to the west, on the edge of a broad plain. "What about herer

"Acceptable."

"Let's go, then."

"Affirmative. Landing in twenty-three minutes."

"No, wait; let me take a nap and get myself organized first. I don't want to screw up again."

"Affirmative. Notify when ready to land."

"Right" Slant detached the cable from his neck and lay back on the couch; a moment later he was asleep.