The Reign of the Brown Magician. Lawrence Watt-Evans

seem we were mistaken. Ne’er did we promise.”

      For a moment, Pel just stared at the dog. Then he sighed. “I know you didn’t promise,” he said. “So you can’t do it, you don’t know how—but doesn’t anyone know? Shadow knew, right?”

      “Yes, it does…that is, rather, it did.” Athelstan stared at the dog as well.

      After a moment’s silence, the wizard bestirred himself and said, “Hark, then, Master—we know the theory of old, as we told you, handed down from master to apprentice since the earliest years of Shadow’s use of fetches. Our knowledge thereof must, we see, be deficient in some wise. Perchance, though, were we to study an ensample of the practice of necromantic art, understanding might be gained thereby.”

      Pel turned and looked at the wizard.

      “What?” he said.

      Athelstan blinked, then said, speaking slowly and clearly, “O Great One, had we the chance to study, and to test, perhaps to destruction, one that had in fact been resurrected from death, might we then gain the understanding we lack?”

      Pel stared at him.

      “Your fetches, Lord,” Athelstan explained, gesturing at the pair that stood guard by the door.

      Pel blinked, then glanced at his unmoving servants, then back at Athelstan.

      Something twinged, twitched, tickled at him somehow. He paused.

      Something felt odd, and slightly wrong, and he wasn’t sure what it was or where it was or even whether it was internal or external. Something was disturbed, somehow.

      It might have been somewhere out in the matrix, in the web of magical currents that covered this entire world—or it might have been in his head.

      Could it have been a twinge of guilt at the idea of destroying a fetch?

      After all, he supposed the fetches had been alive once, free people with their own souls and their own interests and their own rights—but they weren’t now; he could see that through the matrix, could see how their magical energies differed from those of real live human beings. Shadow hadn’t brought them back that far; she had left them mindless zombies. They were already dead, really; why should he feel guilty about dissecting one, or whatever Athelstan had in mind? He had already killed about a hundred of them himself, one way or another, and didn’t feel guilty about it. Letting the wizards kill one more was no problem, not really.

      If that was what he had felt, then his subconscious was being silly and unreasonable.

      If he’d felt something else, something out there in the network somewhere, it could wait. Bringing back his family took priority over anything else.

      “Sure,” he said. “Go to it.”

      * * * *

      Major Johnston took a final look around the yard, his gaze lingering on the silly-looking purple spaceship. “You’re sure no one could be hiding in that thing?” he called.

      “Sure as we can be, sir,” a lieutenant replied.

      Johnston nodded, glanced up at where the rope ladder had disappeared into thin air, then headed back around the side of the house, toward the waiting cars.

      There were four of them, lined up by the roadside; he hesitated for an instant, then marched up to the last one in line, an Air Force-blue sedan.

      Amy Jewell looked up at him through the closed window. She showed no sign of rolling it down, so he spoke loudly.

      “I’m sorry about this, Ms. Jewell,” he said. “I’m going to see if we can get you listed as a civilian consultant, and get you some compensation for your time—you and Ms. Thorpe both. We’ll provide alternate accommodations for you, if you’d rather not stay here for now. And I’m afraid we may want to buy your house, if these people are going to keep coming.”

      Amy shrugged, then nodded. “Thanks,” she called, her voice barely audible through the glass.

      He patted the side of the car, then straightened up.

      More cars were arriving, bringing more men—Air Police, so far; Johnston hoped they’d be enough.

      After all, next time the Galactic Empire might send an attack force, rather than scouts or diplomats. If he had had his way, he’d have had a fully-armed squad of Marines here, ready for anything—but he was Air Force, and didn’t have the authority to call in the jarheads. A request like that would have to work its way up through channels. He’d started the paperwork, but it would take time.

      APs he could do now.

      He no longer doubted the existence of the Galactic Empire; he had arrived just in time to see the rope ladder vanish into thin air. He wished he’d been able to reach the place in less than forty minutes; maybe he could have sent someone back up.

      But that might not have been safe. The Imperials had arrived in space suits, after all—genuine Buck Rogers space suits, bulky purple things with fishbowl helmets, straight out of “Destination Moon.” Maybe they’d needed them at the top of the ladder.

      They weren’t saying, though.

      He glanced at the two civilian cop cars that had been the first things he’d been able to get to the site. Each one had two men in back, space suits and equipment removed, but still in their silly-looking Imperial uniforms.

      He marched over to the closer one and peered in the open window. “Care to tell me anything?” he asked.

      “Lieutenant James Austin, Imperial Service, H-657-R-233-B-708,” the purple-uniformed man said, staring straight ahead without so much as glancing at Johnston.

      Johnston sighed. He slapped the car roof.

      “Take ’em away,” he said.

      * * * *

      Prossie sat motionless in the back of the groundcar, wishing she could know what the people around her were thinking. Sometimes her mental silence was a blessing, sometimes a curse; right now it was horrible.

      The Empire had sent more men—not an envoy this time, no telepaths, but a scouting team, probably, from their actions, Imperial Intelligence.

      She wasn’t as frightened of the Smarts as most of the people she had known; over the years she had read the minds of several of the dreaded Intelligence agents, and while they generally weren’t nice people, they were just people, not the fearsome, emotionless supermen they were reputed to be. She had even worked directly for Intelligence once or twice herself; all the telepaths, the entire Special Branch, were nominally under the joint jurisdiction of Intelligence and the Imperial Messenger Service, always available if the Smarts needed them.

      But still, any time Intelligence was involved, matters were serious. The situation was serious now.

      Especially since she didn’t know why they were here.

      Especially since one possibility was that they had been sent after her.

      She knew that the Empire would take a rogue telepath very seriously indeed. If they knew she was here, if they knew she had really, genuinely gone rogue…

      Otherwise it seemed like quite a coincidence, an Imperial team arriving directly behind the very house she was staying in.

      She knew that it wasn’t really as much of a coincidence as it first appeared; she had read from the minds of Imperial scientists that something about the shape of space itself made it easier to open a space-warp in the same place every time. If the Empire was going to open a warp to Earth anywhere, this would be the natural place; she was here herself because this was where the warp had come out before.

      Still, even if it wasn’t a coincidence, why were they here? What did they want? She knew, beyond question, that when she had left Base One with Colonel Carson and Raven and the rest, no one at Base One had had any plans for further contact with Earth, with the possible exception of sending Pel and Amy and the