Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [125]
“Then Gschert does not yet know. The voice-canals falling under interdict forwarned us of trouble. And we had Gerd to bury and the wire to install.” Hans tossed his long arm. “It is cold here, but … I understand now what your people mean by ‘sacrifice.’ You went to the battlefield?”
“Your countrymen fought over your actions, and I thought to warn you. I feared you would return to imprisonment, or worse.” He hesitated. “The Herr said you forgave the man who killed Gerd.”
Hans tossed his arm. “We needed the wire, not his death. This wire, drawn by a true copper-smith, may prove meet to the task. No blame to the blessed Lorenz. Copper was not his duty. Come, let us return below. Remember, only Gottfried is with us in all things. Friedrich and Mechtilde have joined only from fear of the alchemist, not from next-love.”
DIETRICH WATCHED for a time as the four Krenken attached wires and touched them with sundry talismans—perhaps to bless them with some relic? Once or twice they seemed to argue, and consulted illuminated manuscripts of the “elektronik circuit.” He tried to discern which of the other two was Mechtilde, obviously a Krenkerin, but though he studied them closely, he could spy no marked difference.
Growing bored, he walked about within the vessel and came to the room that the Kratzer had once named the pilot room, though there was no window to show the pilot how the vessel lay, only panels of opaque glass, several of them darkened as if by fire. One of these flickered briefly to life, accompanied by a clatter of Krenkish voices from farther below.
A padded high-seat in the center marked the captain’s throne, from which he had issued orders to his lieutenants. Dietrich wondered what might have happened had that worthy survived. The captain might not have failed so badly as Gschert. Yet, being more competent than Gschert, might he not have, in typical Krenkish choler, rid himself of the risk of discovery by ridding himself of the discoverers?
God worked all things to an end. What purpose was served by the events that had so joined a reclusive scholarpriest with a bizarre creature that instructed talking heads?
Dietrich left the pilot’s room and went to the outer door, where he breathed the fresh air. A distant cry echoed through the surrounding trees, and he thought at first that it was a hawk. But it was too prolonged and insistent, and it suddenly came clear: the whinny of a terrified horse.
Dietrich spun about and ran to the stairwell, nearly tripping on his robe as he hurried down the steps. “Gschert comes!” he cried, but they looked at him not at all and he realized that a human voice was to them no more than a sound, as their chittering was to him. So he grabbed Hans by the forearm.
Reflexively, the Krenk slung him aside. Hans turned and Dietrich could think of nothing better than to point toward the stairwell and shout, “Gschert!” hoping that the creature had heard the name often enough to recognize it without translation.
It must have worked, for Hans froze for a moment before unleashing a stream of chatter at his comrades. Friedrich and Mechtilde put aside their tools and sprang for the stairwell, pulling pots de fer from their scrips as they did. Gottfried looked up from his work with the magic wand and, first waving away the vapors with his hand, made the tossing motion toward Hans. Hans waited a moment longer, then tilted his head as far back as he could before he, too, ran up the stairwell.
Dietrich found himself alone with Gottfried, his first convert—unless one counted the alchemist’s cryptic embrace of the words of Consecration. Gottfried continued to affix wires to the minute posts with his solidare-metal, but Dietrich thought him aware of being watched. Gottfried put the wand aside on a pad that appeared woven of metal fibers and, using a screw-twister, removed a small box from the “circuit.” This, he tossed to Dietrich, who perforce must catch it, and put in its place a somewhat larger device that appeared built from odds and ends. Examining the device removed, Dietrich saw