Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [126]
Gottfried clacked his mandibles and gestured to the device Dietrich now held and the more schlampig device he had installed in its place. He spread his hands in a very human gesture, and tossed his head several times, by which Dietrich understood that Gottfried doubted the elektronikos would flow through the copper wires with the same efficacy as—light?—had once flowed through the hairlike fibers.
Having thus pantomimed his doubts, Gottfried made the sign of the cross and, bending once more to the task, dismissed Dietrich with a wave of his arm.
DIETRICH FOUND Hans outside, crouched with the other two Krenken behind some metal barrels. Hans seized Dietrich’s robe and pulled him too behind the barrels, where the sodden earth soaked his garments and chilled his limbs. The Krenken, he saw, were shivering, although the day was but moderately cool to Dietrich’s senses. He unfastened his cloak and hung it around Hans’s shoulders.
Hans cocked his head to look at Dietrich straight. Then, he handed the cloak to the Krenk squatting beside him. This one—Mechtilde, Dietrich thought—took it and wrapped it tightly around her, clenching it close about her throat. The third Krenk squatted partly upright, peering over the tops of the barrels. Where a man might scan the surroundings, he held his head so motionless as a gargoyle. The better to apprehend motion within the woods, Dietrich supposed. From time to time, the third Krenk absently fingered his neck.
The horse had stopped her whinnies, by which Dietrich thought the beast had fled—unless Gschert had slain it. He raised his head to look toward the woods and a sound like a bumblebee flew past him, followed a moment later by a sharp crack from the edge of the woods and the slap of a stone against the vessel behind him. Hans yanked Dietrich once more to the dirt and snapped his mandibles a thumb’s-length from his face. The message was clear: Make no sudden moves. Dietrich glanced at Friedrich and noticed that his left antenna had bent slightly to point toward a spot in the surrounding forest. Hans crossed his antennae and, ever so slowly, eased his pot de fer into position to sling a bullet at his attackers.
Hans raised a great clatter with his horny side-lips, and was answered by similar buzz from the concealing forest. Dietrich pulled the head-harness from his scrip and shook it at Hans before strapping it into place.
“I told him,” Hans announced when he too had donned the harness, “that his bullets would damage our only means of escape. But he worries less over our escape than over my obedience. When a man can accomplish nothing, such pride is all that is left him.”
Because his private canal had been interdicted, Hans had spoken on the common canal, no longer concerned with being overheard. Gschert answered, saying, “I command, heretic. Your place is to serve.”
“Truly, I was born to serve. But I serve all on this voyage, and not you alone. You so fear risking one of us, that you would lose all of us. If you command here, your command is that we die. You were our captain’s left hand, but without the head, the hand knows not what to grasp.”
In answer, another bullet was flung at them. This time, it made no slapping noise, but instead a sound like planting a foot into deep mud. Dietrich looked over his shoulder and gasped, for the Krenkish vessel glowed with a soft, internal, sourceless light, through which Dietrich could see the trees on the other side of the ship! Hastily, he crossed himself. Could the inanimate have ghosts? As he watched, the vessel seemed to shrink, as if it were moving away.
Hans and the others had seen as well. Friedrich and Mechtilde buzzed, and Hans said, as if to himself, “Take care, Gottfried … Keep it plumb …” Then, to Gschert: “Where is our pilot? He ought to be here to take the helm!”
“Your heresy has sundered the Web. Zachary would not come. Would you trust your life to such patchwork? Even should it drop