The Ship Who Won by Anne McCaffrey, Jody Lynn Nye Page A

had run
    hell-for-leather back toward their cavern, but Brannel was
    still only a few meters away from Keffs body. Carialle read
    his infrared signal and heartbeat: he was ten meters from
    Keifs body. She opened a voice-link through IT and
    routed it via the contact button.
    "Brannel," she called, amplifying the small speaker as
    much as she could without distortion. "Brannel, pick up
    Keff. Bring Keff home." The IT blanked on the word
    home. She spun through the vocabulary database looking
    for an equivalent. "Bring Keff to Keffs cave, Brannel!" Her
    voice rose toward hysteria. She flattened her tones and
    increased endorphins and proteins to her nutrients to
    counter the effects other agitation.
    "Mage Keff?" Brannel asked. He raised his head cautiously from the shelter of his hiding place, fearing another
    bolt from the mountains. "Keff speaks?"
    Keff lay in a heap on the ground, mouth agape, eyes half
    open with the white showing. Brannel, knowing that sometimes bolts continued to bum and crackle after the initial
    lightning, kept a respectful distance.
    "Bring Keff to Keffs cave," a disembodied voice
    pleaded. A females voice it was, coming from underneath
    the mages chin. Some kind of familiar spirit? Brannel
    rocked back and forth, struggling with ambivalent desires.
    Keff had been kind to him. He wanted to do the mages
    wishes. He also wasn't going to put himself in danger for
    the sake of one of Them whom the mage-bolts had struck
    down. Was Keff Klemays successor and that was why he
    had come to visit their farm holding? Only his right to succeed Klemay had just been challenged by the bolt.
    Across the field, the silver cylinder dropped its ramp,
    clearly awaiting the arrival of its master. Brannel looked
    from the prone body at his feet to the mysterious mobile
    stronghold. Stooping, he stared into Keffs eyes. A pulse
    twitched faintly there. The mage was still alive,
    if
    unconscious.
    "Bring Keff to Keffs cave," the voice said again, in a
    crisp but persuasive tone. "Come, Brannel. Bring Keff."
    "All right," Brannel said at last, his curiosity about the
    silver cylinder overpowering his sense of caution. This
    would be the first time he had been invited into a mages
    stronghold. Who knew what wonders would open up to
    him within Keffs tower?
    Drawing one of the limp arms over his shoulder, Brannel hefted Keff and stood up. After years of hard work,
    carrying the body of a man smaller than himself wasn't
    much of an effort. It was also the first time he'd laid hands
    on a mage. With a guilty thrill, he bore Keffs dead weight
    toward the silver tower.
    At the foot of the ramp, Brannel paused to watch the
    smooth door withdraw upward with a quiet hiss. He stared
    up at it, wondering what land of door opened without
    hands to push it.
    "Come, Brannel," the silky persuasive voice said from
    the weight on his back.
    Brannel obeyed. Under his rough, bare feet, the ramp
    boomed hollowly. The air smelled different inside. As he
    set foot over the threshold into the dim, narrow anteroom,
    lights went on. The walls were smooth, like the surface of
    unruffled water, meeting the ceiling and walls in perfect
    comers. Such ideal workmanship aroused Brannels admiration. But what else would one expect from a mage? he
    chided himself.
    In front of him was a corridor. Narrow bands of bluish
    light like the sun through clouds illuminated themselves.
    Along the walls at Brannels eye level, orange-red bands
    flickered into life, moving onward until they reached the
    walls' end. The colored lights returned to the beginning
    and waited.
    "I follow thee. Is that right?" Brannel asked in mage-speak, cautiously stepping into the corridor.
    "Come," the disembodied voice said in common Ozran
    and the sound echoed all around him. Mage Keffwas certainly a powerful wizard to have a house that talked.
    Carialle was relieved that Brannel hadn't been frightened by a disembodied voice or the sight of an
    interplanetary ship. He was cautious, but she