Kovnate of Tomboram, a kingdom in Pandahem.
“You may stake out a ponsho for a leem,” I said, somewhat heavily. “That does not prevent the leem from eating you after he has finished the ponsho.”
Seg at my elbow quaffed off his Gremivoh. I knew what he was thinking: by the time the leem was halfway through crunching up the ponsho Seg’s superb longbow would have feathered the devil of a leem like a pincushion. But they all took my meaning. I was finding the importance of talking at an oblique angle to the direct statement, in dealing with these people around the Emperor. As a one-time first lieutenant of a seventy-four on the oceans of Earth I had been used to belting out my orders and seeing that the hands jumped to it, or there’d be a few red-checked shirts at the gratings. Now, as I had discovered, the soft approach often worked better at this level of statecraft. Not that either Lykon Crimahan or Natyzha Famphreon much cared for the soft approach; they employed it in the same fashion I did.
These two eyed the Emperor. They no doubt fancied themselves laboring under the enormous disadvantage of not being related to the Emperor or his daughter, whereas I was the old devil’s son-in-law. Little did they know of the true situation at that time if they thought my marriage to his daughter had softened him to me! He tolerated me — was indeed more than a little afraid of me, as I well knew — yet the affection he could give was stunted and could only flower where his grandchildren were involved.
There was a great deal of further conversation, in which I caught the anger against me more clearly than ever. The fact that I was a barbarian clansman from the Great Plains of Segesthes, as well as being Lord of Strombor, was held against me with as much venom as my marriage to the Emperor’s daughter and my schemes to create friendship with Pandahem. Crimahan and the dowager Kovneva argued vehemently against squandering money on my crazy fliers. Since Hamal had begun her war against Pandahem they had refused to sell us vollers. Hyrklana was even selling vollers to Hamal. Queen Fahia of Hyrklana, that fat and evil lady, had trouble with her flier factories, and I knew there were men in Hyrklana who burned her manufactories and sought to topple her from the throne. Yet Hamal insisted she sell to them. No, we had to go on as I had planned. The only nit in the fleece was this puzzling attitude of San Evold. What in the name of Zair was he up to?
The answer came like a thunderbolt when I got him alone in the laboratory after all the others went back to the Chavonth Chamber to carry on the drinking and the discussions.
“My Prince! I am desolate!”
I saw — or thought I saw.
“You fixed it, Evold! The squish steam was not true cayferm so you used another silver box — a genuine one from Hamal!”
He shook his head, holding out his hands, palm up, and then he sneezed. Spluttering, he said, “Not so, Prince, not so.”
“Well, spit it out, Evold!”
“When the steam condensed I began to wonder if the water could have anything to do with the secret at all. What was left in the box apart from water? Air!”
“Ordinary air, from this damned laboratory of yours.”
He beckoned me over to an apparatus on a low lenken table.
Ornol, his assistant, hobbled in. Ornol had fallen into a Valkan canal and before they’d fished him out he’d drunk some of the canal water. He had not died, but he’d never be able to walk properly again. His left leg, in some mysterious reaction to the poison in the canal water, had shrunk and become almost useless. Now Ornol, a cheerful fellow with a shock of lank yellow hair that was pulled back from his forehead and streamed down over his shoulders, limped forward and set up the amphora, boxes, and tubing.
“See, Prince! With this tube I draw off what was left in the box after the steam condensed . . .”
I knew of this strange non-substance called vacuum, but I hesitated to mention
“You may stake out a ponsho for a leem,” I said, somewhat heavily. “That does not prevent the leem from eating you after he has finished the ponsho.”
Seg at my elbow quaffed off his Gremivoh. I knew what he was thinking: by the time the leem was halfway through crunching up the ponsho Seg’s superb longbow would have feathered the devil of a leem like a pincushion. But they all took my meaning. I was finding the importance of talking at an oblique angle to the direct statement, in dealing with these people around the Emperor. As a one-time first lieutenant of a seventy-four on the oceans of Earth I had been used to belting out my orders and seeing that the hands jumped to it, or there’d be a few red-checked shirts at the gratings. Now, as I had discovered, the soft approach often worked better at this level of statecraft. Not that either Lykon Crimahan or Natyzha Famphreon much cared for the soft approach; they employed it in the same fashion I did.
These two eyed the Emperor. They no doubt fancied themselves laboring under the enormous disadvantage of not being related to the Emperor or his daughter, whereas I was the old devil’s son-in-law. Little did they know of the true situation at that time if they thought my marriage to his daughter had softened him to me! He tolerated me — was indeed more than a little afraid of me, as I well knew — yet the affection he could give was stunted and could only flower where his grandchildren were involved.
There was a great deal of further conversation, in which I caught the anger against me more clearly than ever. The fact that I was a barbarian clansman from the Great Plains of Segesthes, as well as being Lord of Strombor, was held against me with as much venom as my marriage to the Emperor’s daughter and my schemes to create friendship with Pandahem. Crimahan and the dowager Kovneva argued vehemently against squandering money on my crazy fliers. Since Hamal had begun her war against Pandahem they had refused to sell us vollers. Hyrklana was even selling vollers to Hamal. Queen Fahia of Hyrklana, that fat and evil lady, had trouble with her flier factories, and I knew there were men in Hyrklana who burned her manufactories and sought to topple her from the throne. Yet Hamal insisted she sell to them. No, we had to go on as I had planned. The only nit in the fleece was this puzzling attitude of San Evold. What in the name of Zair was he up to?
The answer came like a thunderbolt when I got him alone in the laboratory after all the others went back to the Chavonth Chamber to carry on the drinking and the discussions.
“My Prince! I am desolate!”
I saw — or thought I saw.
“You fixed it, Evold! The squish steam was not true cayferm so you used another silver box — a genuine one from Hamal!”
He shook his head, holding out his hands, palm up, and then he sneezed. Spluttering, he said, “Not so, Prince, not so.”
“Well, spit it out, Evold!”
“When the steam condensed I began to wonder if the water could have anything to do with the secret at all. What was left in the box apart from water? Air!”
“Ordinary air, from this damned laboratory of yours.”
He beckoned me over to an apparatus on a low lenken table.
Ornol, his assistant, hobbled in. Ornol had fallen into a Valkan canal and before they’d fished him out he’d drunk some of the canal water. He had not died, but he’d never be able to walk properly again. His left leg, in some mysterious reaction to the poison in the canal water, had shrunk and become almost useless. Now Ornol, a cheerful fellow with a shock of lank yellow hair that was pulled back from his forehead and streamed down over his shoulders, limped forward and set up the amphora, boxes, and tubing.
“See, Prince! With this tube I draw off what was left in the box after the steam condensed . . .”
I knew of this strange non-substance called vacuum, but I hesitated to mention
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