~*~
They located Milton easily enough. He was standing at the fence, going from one orc to another and talking to them.
"Hi, Milton," Lisa said. "Inspecting your new workforce?"
"Oh, Hello, Commander Chang. Yes, kind of. We tried to make them as respectable as possible for the king. We're planning to standardize the uniform into something more distinctive. Then we can provide something like rank insignia and stuff for them, kind of like what Gorbo has on."
The orc held out a sleeve, which displayed a row of chevrons like a soldier's stripes.
"Mari sewed them on," Gorbo said. "She says it means I'm top orc."
"That's right. He's my assistant," Milton said. "Actually, the uniforms were his idea, sort of. He asked me who the orc chiefs were and how everyone would know. Orcs are very sensitive to group hierarchies, you know, and since we're going to need team leaders among them anyway, uniforms and rank insignia seemed like a good idea. The tunics were the best we could do on short notice, and I still haven't selected all the team leaders. That's one of the things I'm working on now."
"Team leaders?" Lisa asked. This struck her as a relatively modern business concept that seemed out of place in a medieval setting like this. It further proved to her that this world was not a distortion of history but some kind of realization of fantasy fiction as seen through the eyes of people of her own time. Milton's next statement made the case all the stronger.
"Yes. I can't directly oversee every orc here, so I figured we'd have team leaders who we could make responsible for the orcs under them, and maybe build up a whole management structure with higher level supervisors, eventually. So far, I've discovered that there are three different orc clans here, so their chiefs will be a good place to start, but we'll have at least twenty work teams. I figure I'll need to select that many team leaders."
He turned to speak to the closest orc behind the fence. "What's your name?" he asked in the high-pitched, suspiciously friendly voice people often use with small children they aren't entirely comfortable around but don't wish to frighten.
The orc lifted his eyes to peer past his brow ridge and said, "Buzzoff."
Gorbo reached past Milton and gave the orc a backhanded slap. "You're civilized now. Show respect. This is your new boss. Tell him your name."
"Gorbo has been a lot of help," Milton whispered to Lisa. "He definitely has a certain rapport with them."
The slapped orc cowered. "My name is B'uzzoff, but I can change it if the new boss don't like it."
"No, no. That's all right," Milton said. "I'm sure Gorbo just misunderstood. So, tell me, B'uzzoff, how have the soldiers been treating you?"
B'uzzoff shrugged his broad shoulders and cocked his head. "Okay. They fed us. Good stuff, too. We got chicken guts last night. Cooked and everything. They were hardly rancid at all."
"Chicken guts?" Lisa said, turning to Milton. "You fed them chicken guts?"
"All kinds of guts, actually," he answered. "We weren't really prepared for this, so we had to scrounge to find enough food for them. We eventually collected scraps from butchers who had more than they needed for sausages."
"They put animal guts in sausages?
"They put everything in sausages. That's what makes them sausages. They all end up tasting pretty much the same when you add the spices and salt and stuff. That's what sausage means, you know—stuff that's full of salt."
Lisa could hear Sandra suppressing a gag behind her, but Brax laughed. "It sounds like yours are full of all kinds of—"
Sandra recovered quickly and slapped him. "If you can't control what comes out of your mouth, I'm going to have to tape it closed."
"I was going to say gizzards," Brax said sheepishly.
"No you weren't."
He scuffed his foot in the dirt. "Well, Okay, I wasn't. But they sound really offal."
"Better, but too late."
Lisa turned and saw the ship's communications officer rolling her eyes and shaking her head at the grinning pilot. Doc simply smiled as he watched the interplay between them.
Turning her attention back to the orcs, and seeing them standing there dull-eyed and submissive, brought to mind dogs in an animal shelter—scared but eager to please—just nowhere near as cute. She felt sorry for them, but she also knew that dogs could bite. She hoped the orcs wouldn't, metaphorically or otherwise. The plan to integrate them into the city would fail if they did, and both the people here and the orcs would lose. She truly believed that everyone would benefit if they all just learned to get along, but she also realized that her belief derived from her twenty-second century culture. Here and now—wherever and whenever that might be—life was, as Doc said, comparatively nasty, brutish, and short.
She walked up to the orc Milton had been talking with. "So, how do you feel about working with the people here?"
B'uzzoff shrugged again. "Kind of dull so far. They don't let us do nothin', and there's nothin' much to watch, but it's gotta be better than the brain eater. He was one bad boss."
The orc next to him gave him a nudge. "And these guys beat him."
"Uh, yeah. I forgot that." B'uzzoff's face adopted the expression of a puppy by a puddle in the living room. Lisa found it somehow ingratiating. "I'm really going to like working with these people." He looked at her with frightened, pleading eyes. "You're not going to eat our brains, are you?"
Lisa smiled benignly. "I can assure you that the thought never entered my mind."
A sudden change in the atmosphere of the crowd drew her attention. People murmured and several heads turned toward the direction of the city gate.
"What's going on?" Lisa asked Milton.
"I think the king is coming. We'd better get to the platform."
They weren't far away from it and got there in time to see a black carriage pulled by four horses roll up. A military escort of officers and men in clean uniforms and shining armor marched on either side of it. General Sevritas led them. A somewhat less orderly group of well-dressed city dwellers, including a few in distinctive magician's robes, followed behind. People cheered. Perhaps Sandra was right. These people really were starved for entertainment.
The driver stopped the carriage alongside the platform, and General Sevritas opened the door. King Genrex stepped out if full royal regalia, wearing long purple robes trimmed in fur, which gave them a somewhat barbaric touch. Lisa had always associated fur with cavemen, although she knew people had continued to wear fur and animal skins up until the last century.
He paused, waved regally, and smiled at the crowd, which cheered louder. Lisa didn't and wondered what everyone found so entertaining. All the king had done was wave.
"Come on," Milton told her. "You'll go on stage after the king speaks."
He made it sound as if King Genrex was the introductory act and she was the star of the show. At least she had a script of sorts this time.
She stepped up to the edge of the platform, and the soldiers surrounding it moved aside to let her pass. She glanced back at the ship. Sims should be monitoring everything. She certainly hoped it was.
"Commander Chang," the king said. "Please, join me. You have accomplished a great deal."
"All we did was get rid of the mind flayer."
"Well, that too, but I meant how you've turned traditional enemies into allies."
"You mean the orcs."
"Actually, no, but I'm sure that's all well and good. I was referring to the guilds. You've really energized our Guild of Magicians, as well as several others. The guilds are actually working cooperatively rather than trying to undermine each other, which is what they always spent much of their effort doing before. This new attitude is somewhat refreshing. The strange idea you gave them may actually work. If it does, we'll be the most envied city in the land."
"It should work, Your Majesty, provided your subjects treat the orcs well."
Her world had never experienced the situation the people here would face. There was only one complex language and
tool-using species on Earth—humans—and she wasn't sure that they would not have exploited another one if it had existed. They had certainly exploited one another throughout history. Still, this solution seemed better than having the humans and the orcs continue to fight. At least they could attempt to coexist peacefully now.
She stepped onto the platform to another cheer from the crowd. She had been concerned that her 'spell' would be a dud, but if the locals were this easily entertained, she'd be a hit.
King Genrex silenced the crowd with a wave of his hand. "Today begins a new age of peace and prosperity for Bardasium," he began.
Lisa paid little attention. Hers was a world where such speeches were common. They came from the mouths of politicians and advertisers with various levels of truth and sincerity, and invariably uttered with more confidence than their messages warranted. She immediately recognized the tone as the one used by people trying to sell something, and she protected herself by ignoring it. She wasn't the intended customer in this case, anyway. She was the expert who would back up the claims he was making, not unlike the doctor brought on to verify that a particular miracle drug really works, or a guy in a lab coat hired to say that a little bit of lead or some extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a good thing. Fortunately for her self-respect, she believed in the product he was selling.
Another round of applause and cheering announced when he was done. He smiled at the crowd.
"Is your Obedience spell ready?" he asked her softly through his beard.
She feigned a confident smile of her own. "It's all set to cast, Your Majesty." She really hoped Sims was prepared.
She stepped forward and the king stepped back as far as the small platform allowed, as if trying to get out of range of any possible unpleasant magical side effects. A bit of hesitant applause emerged from the crowd, and she looked out at a sea of dirty faces and their wide eyes of curiosity and anticipation. Yes, she was definitely the main act, and she had the audience's attention. She would do her best to put on a good show for them. Their future depended on it.
"People of Bardasium. Orcs of the three clans. You have been given a rare opportunity," she announced, projecting her voice as much as she could. They had decided against amplifying it through the ship because it might confuse people who had no concept of speakers. They might think the ship was talking. "You can make a brighter future for yourselves and for your children by working together. Chances like the one you have now don't come often. You may never have another. I will do one last thing to help, but it is ultimately up to you to succeed or fail."
She swept what she hoped was a commanding gaze across the crowd, waiting until she felt sure they were all watching to see what she would do next. Turning her attention to the orcs, she glared a moment longer, snapped out her arms as if pulling power from the sky, and began her 'spell'.
Orcs! You must harken and hear what I say.
You were downtrodden and once led astray.
I hereby change you to everyone's gain.
You are no longer the bringers of pain.
You are no longer the lurkers in night.
You are no longer the beasts who fear light.
You have new masters with whom to comply.
You must obey them to live or else die.
You are now useful. You build, not destroy.
Do these things well and life you'll enjoy.
It was more of a children's rhyme than a spell, but she delivered it with as much mystic gravitas as she could. She was an engineer, not a poet, and certainly not a sorceress, but it was the perception of the listeners that mattered. She didn't like including the implied threat, but Brax said it should be there. He claimed that an Obedience spell was like a contract. It must have an 'or else' clause.
As her final word reached the ears of those at the rear of the crowd, her hair frizzed and she felt a tingling, as if ants were crawling under her clothes. Everyone else apparently felt the same thing, because several jumped in alarm, and some of the orcs fell to their knees. Even she was impressed, and she knew what caused it. Sims had sent an electrostatic discharge through the ship's hull. Doc suggested the idea, and Brax agreed it might add veracity to her 'magic'.
She heard King Genrex gasp behind her, but he recovered quickly.
"Very impressive. Very impressive indeed," he said to her as he smoothed down his beard, which had fluffed out like an angry cat because of the static electricity.
He stepped to the front of the platform. "I declare this festival open!" he announced. The crowd around the stage roared approval and began to disperse. Guards and a few young magic users were already leading the orcs away.
"Excuse me, Your Majesty," Lisa said before the king could step off the platform. "About our boon…."
"Oh, yes, of course. I have given those details into the care of Master Ferman. He'll handle the exchange—your promised boon for a portion of the mind flayer's treasure, if I'm not mistaken. I am quite sure he's around here somewhere." He dismissed her and any further thought of those 'details' from his mind with a regal wave of his hand before boarding his coach.
Scanning the crowd from the vantage point of the stage, she located Ferman wandering near the departing orcs. Milton, Gorbo, and a small group of other magicians were with him. She raced down the platform's steps, but Sandra, Doc, and Brax intercepted her as soon as she cleared them.
"That was pretty good," Sandra said. "I didn't know you could act on stage that well."
"Neither did I," she said, not stopping. "But I don't want to do it anymore. We have to get to Ferman. Apparently he has our palladium."
"I was wondering about that," Brax said.
"I was worried about it," Sandra admitted. "As fun as this has been, it's time to go."
The crew members of the Brane Child followed Lisa to the orc pen where they found Ferman in discussion with three other magic users. Milton was apparently running interference.
"They're talking about the orcs and the project," the young apprentice told them. There are still a lot of things to work out." He exhaled an overburdened sigh. "And the way things are going, I'm going to end up doing a lot of them."
"Sorry about that," Lisa said, attempting to maneuver around him. "But we need to talk to him about the palladium—the boon we were promised. The king told me he had it."
She pushed past him, interrupting the magic users' peripatetic conference. "Master Ferman, the king says you have the palladium he promised us."
He turned, apparently surprised to see her. "What? Oh, yes. I almost forgot about that. So much to do, you know." He dug in the folds of his robes and produced a black cube about the size of his palm.
"The palladium is in there?" Lisa asked.
"Yes—well, in a manner of speaking."
"What manner would that be?" She cocked an incredulous eyebrow and prepared to fire a volley of verbal abuse if she did not like the answer.
He took a step back. "Well, in magical potential, as it were. Milton can explain it all, I'm sure." He quickly handed the box to his apprentice. "I know he can arrange everything to your satisfaction. He's proven quite competent, but I need to see to other matters right now. I don't think I've ever been so busy. There is so much to arrange." He turned to re-engage with his fellow magic users.
She glared at the exploited apprentice. "What's going on, Milton? Do we get our palladium or not?"
"Um, well, yes, of course. All we need to do is take the Black Box to the thing that needs fixing, and it will magically produce whatever's needed."
"Magic? You know how I feel about magic, Milton."
"Well, yes. Ours tends to be somewhat less than reliable, so I understand your hesitation. But I'm sure this will work just as well as yours always does. It's… well, it's a Black Box. What's inside can't be determined until you open it and look, but since the observer is part of the process, it provides exactly what you need every time. It's a very primal form of magic. Very basic. Very—"
"Quantum
?"
"I was going to say 'ancient'."
Great! All they needed was a small chunk of naturally occurring metal, and what they got was a magic box. She heard what Milton said it could do, but nothing could rearrange subatomic particles the way this thing would have to in order to do what he claimed—not without an explosion like a stellar nova being part of the process, in any case.
She did a quick estimate of the probability of it working and came up with a lot of zeroes before hitting a one to the far right of the decimal point. Unfortunately, this still made it their best option. If it did somehow tap into a kind of observer-dependent quantum effect, the odds might be significantly greater for some observers than others in this bizarre alternate reality.
"Right, ancient. Well, I'm sure that makes sense," she lied. "Brax, take Milton to the ship and see to the…manifestation of the part we need. The rest of us are going to stay out here and—"
"Enjoy the festivities," Doc finished for her.
"Exactly," Lisa agreed. "I haven't been to a renaissance fair in years. We'll go see—"
"Minstrels," Sandra said. "And maybe a jester, or whatever. I'm sure it will be—"
"Interesting," Lisa said at the same time Doc said, "Fascinating."
Lisa watched Milton and the Brane Child's pilot disappear into the ship, leaving Gorbo outside at the end of the ramp.
"Do you think it will work?" she asked the two crew members who remained behind with her.
"I don't see how it could," Sandra said. "But that doesn't seem to matter here as much as it does back home. What about you, Doc?"
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he watched the people wandering about the stalls and booths set up in and around the courtyard.
"Have you ever heard of Terry Pratchett?" he eventually asked.
"You mentioned him once before, but I'm not sure I know who he is." Lisa said.
"He was a fantasy writer of the late twentieth/early twenty-first century. He had a truly unique talent for creating a fantasy world that readers could not possibly believe was real, which allowed them to suspend disbelief so that they could enjoy the fantasy without their brains' logic filters kicking in."
"I've read a few fantasy stories from that time," Sandra said. "They all seemed to try to make zombies and vampires seem like they were real. They were supposed to be scary, but I thought they were stupid."
"Pratchett's were different—funny, but far from stupid. I bring him up because he sometimes mentions a thing he called 'narrativium', which is a force within a story that guides it to a satisfying conclusion—a kind of narrative causality. Our world doesn't have anything like that. People star in their own stories, but most lead uneventful lives. Things happen, but very few endeavors tie up all the loose ends or conclude the way one might believe they should. This universe isn't like ours, though. It seems to have some basis in fantasy, and if something like Pratchett's narrativium is operating, then—"
"The Black Box should work?" Lisa said.
"I don't know, Doc," Sandra objected. "We're talking about a magic box. The odds of that working are—what?—one in a million?"
Doc smiled. "One corollary of Pratchett's law of narrativium is that one-in-a-million chances succeed nine times out of ten."
~Chapter 19~