* * * * *
They made a dash before the Change was through. There was pain, but
nothing compared to what they had undergone. Grim saw Randolph on
the edge of the marker, howling with rage. He was quivering with the
eagerness to set out after them, but the Storm deterred him.
Inside a huge oval of red splashings that stretched as far as he could
see, the white-walled stables stood. Grim threw open the low oak doors
and ran inside. He hunted for the horses he wanted. He scanned their
back and chests, sought the not too muscular neck of the racing horse.
He went swiftly, making his eyes perform snap judgments.
He drew out a chestnut and a bay. He saddled them, helped Tlokine up.
Seizing a quirt from the stable wall, he drove the other horses ahead
of him, out beyond the red markers where the world of Stormland once
more brooded quietly, its landscape new and more spectacular than
before.
* * * * *
_The Thing that they called Kohonnes was dead. Its metal sides and
glassite screens were polished and bright. Moments before it had been
living, humming and glowing with the energy that fed it, bringing the
Storm and the Change across the world that held it._
_A man moved his hand on the last dial. Inside the machine something
clicked. The man turned away and went slowly down the marble steps...._
* * * * *
Crouched low on the withers of the bay, Grim rode for his life. A
little ahead of him, Tlokine pummeled her chestnut with sandalled
heels. Grim turned in the saddle and stared behind him. There was no
one in sight--yet.
Tlokine cried, "We could make better time if we knew when the storms
would come. Not knowing, we have to stay close to the islands, instead
of cutting across toward the Dark Temple."
"And Althaya--she knows! She can come straight for us. The warning
that she gets comes in time for her to go toward an island and make it
before the Change comes. Is that what you mean?"
Tlokine nodded. Grim muttered, "Our lead doesn't mean much, then.
They'll round up the horses we scattered. They'll catch us before we
can get to the Temple."
They urged their mounts to a faster pace. They clung to sweat-wet necks
and manes as the horses flashed their hocks above the roughly humped
ground. They went by one tall, metallic needle-tower after another. The
towers stood like rigid fingers against the horizon as they went on and
on.
Grim brooded above the whipping mane of his chestnut, "If the thing
that sends the change is a machine, then it would need the towers to
broadcast its force. It's limited in range, itself. The towers give it
a wide radius of effectiveness. Now the question is--what operates only
in a limited range?"
He thought of radio waves, but the ionized heaviside would throw
them around the planet. He shook his head, whispering, "Some sort of
wave-radio or energy."
Grim lifted his eyes to the next tower and scanned it. He growled, "If
I still had my disintegrator I'd try a potshot at those interlacing
wires on top of it. I bet that'd stop the Change. But without that--"
His mind raced as did the hooves of the chestnut. A scowl came and sat
on his face. Then, after a while, his eyes brightened. He whispered,
"It might work, at that--"
He reined in the chestnut; called to Tlokine, and headed for the
nearest tower. She stared at him as he swung down from the horses
and began to climb the tower, sliding fingers and toes into the tiny
slots between the interslanted metal beams. He went up and up until he
reached the round ribboned globe with the tiny wires inside it. It was
fastened to the tower by slotted bolts.
Using his belt-buckle as a screwdriver, he unthreaded the bolts, found
that the globe came away easily from the tower. It was composed of thin
alumisteel ribbons and wires of spiderweb thinness. He tucked it under
an arm and went backwards down the tower.
Tlokine said, "What are you doing?" when he knelt and fumbled at the
wiring setup.
He grinned, "This thing must broadcast vibrations of some sort. In some
manner, they cause the Change. If I could jam those vibrations in the
same way that a radio broadcast can be jammed--maybe there wouldn't
_be_ any Change to slow us down."
Tlokine looked back along the path they had come. She said, "Althaya
and her men will soon be here. You are wasting time, Grim Thorssen."
He shook his yellow-thatched head. "Not the way I figure it. Soldiers
marching in rhythmic steps across a bridge have been known to smash it.
That's why they break step all the time. It changes the pulse of the
vibration on the bridge. It jars--but does not destroy.
"Same way here. Ultrasonic vibrations can't be heard, but they can do
plenty of damage. They can kill frogs and tiny fishes. They can cause
heat and put out a flame--oh, and a hundred other things. But--if
the vibratory rate of those ultrasonic waves can be damped by other
wave-impulses--their usefulness is destroyed."
Tlokine didn't understand him, but she came closer and watched as
his agile fingers toyed with the thin wires. He smiled, "This globe
is tuned to the master vibrator. It picks up the waves and amplifies
them. I want it to do that--but to change the wave-pulse to a different
rhythm!"
Grim worked blindly, guessing. He knew his only chance for a real test
would come when the Change swept across the world. He couldn't wait for
that. Althaya and Black Randolph would have hunted them down by that
time.
Setting the globe across the pommel of his saddle, Grim held it
carefully as he thumped his heels into the horse's side. They rode
swiftly out across the plain.
And then, as Tlokine turned in her saddle, she saw them.
* * * * *
Althaya and Black Randolph rode before a dozen men, stooped low over
the necks of their straining mounts. They could hear the pirate's
bellowing, triumphant laughter.
"No use," whimpered Tlokine. "They'll catch us now."
But Grim saw Althaya point toward a needle-towered island, heard her
call out imperiously. The Viking jabbed his heels into the chestnut. He
yelled, "The Change! She senses that it's coming!"
"We're too far from the islands! It will catch us--kill the horses,
then us!"
Grim fiddled desperately with the wiring of the ribboned globe. He
whispered prayers as he recircuited.
It was no use.
The pain came and crumpled him up and toppled him from the saddle. He
struck the ground and rolled, but his hands held to the globe. Lying
flat on his belly, teeth drawing blood from his lips with the pain
that wracked him, he drove his fingers into the meshed wires and tugged
and rearranged them.
A hump of ground rose between his hands; flung the ribboned globe from
him, sent it rolling like a rubber ball on the trough of sea-waves.
Whimpering, Grim went after it, dragging himself along.