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and I don't like to use it." She undid her waist cincture and held it out to
Carialle.
Carialle had her image shake its head. "I'm not solid, sweetie." Instead, she
directed the artifact to Keff. Carialle turned on an intense spotlight in the
ceiling and aimed it so she and her brawn could have a better look. Keff
turned the belt over in his hands. Carialle zoomed in a camera eye to
microscopic focus.
The five indentations were there, as Chaumel had said, part of the original
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design. The buclde had been adapted for wear by some unknown metal smith at
least eight hun-
dred years ago, Carialle judged by a quick analysis. Braces and a tongue had
been welded to its sides. The whole thing comprised approximately ninety cubic
centimeters, and was plated with fine gold, which accounted for its retaining
a noncorroded surface over the centuries. Cari-
alle recorded all data in accessible memory.
"Can you teach me how to use it?" Keff asked, smiling hopefuUy at her.
Plennafrey seemed uneasy, but allowed herself to be persuaded by the fatal Von
Scoyk-Larsen charm.
"Well, all right," she said. "I'll trust you." Her expression said that she
didn't trust often or easily. Such behavior on this world, Carialle noted,
would not be a survival trait.
Plenna stood behind Keff and showed him how to place his fingers in the
depressions. "Do not push down, not...
solidly," she said.
"Physically," Keff corrected IT'S translation. He cradled the buckle in his
other hand, raising it to eye level.
"Correct," Plenna said, unaware of the box's simultane-
ous transmission as she spoke. "Imagine your fingers pressing deep into the
heart, where they will contact the
CoreofOzran."
"Is that why you wear the finger extensions?" Keff asked, after trying to fit
his hand into the depressions.
His thumb and little finger had to curve unnaturally to touch all five spots,
while Plenna, with her pinky prosthesis, could cover them without effort,
bending only her thumb.
"Yes. Most mages do not have fingers long enough. It is one way in which we
are inferior to the great Ancient Ones who left us these tools," Plenna said
with a trace of awe.
"Now, think hard. Do you feel the fire inside? It should run up inside your
arm to your heart."
"I feel something," Keff said after a while. "Now what?"
She looked around and pointed at me pedometer lying on the console. "Make that
box fly," she said.
Keff stared fixedly at the pedometer. His face turned red with effort. To
Carialles satisfaction, the device lifted a few centimeters before clattering
back to its resting place.
'There, you see?" she said. "Mechanics."
Plennafrey held out her hand for the belt, and Keff gave it back. "Now, here
is how I do it." Barely touching the five depressions, the magiwoman glanced
at the box. It shot up to dangle in midair. Keff walked over and tried to push
down on the hovering device. It didn't budge. He yanked at it with all his
strength.
"It's as if you fixed it there," Keff said, sweeping Plenna off her feet and
kissing her. "CariaUe, we're both right.
They do use machines, but it's more than that. I can't duplicate what she just
did. I nearly got a hernia raising the pedometer as far as I did. She set it
like a point plotted in a three-dimensional grid, and she's not even flushed."
The Lady Fair image didn't show the exasperation that
Carialle let creep into her voice.
"All right, so they have natural TK and psi abilities which are amplified by
the mechanism. Probably increased by selective breeding over centuries-you see
what they've done to the Noble Primitives."
"Sour grapes," Keff said cheerfully. "And this gizmo can work from anywhere on
the planet?" he asked Plennafrey.
"Yes," the magiwoman said, "but closer to the Core of
Ozran makes it easier."
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Keff nodded and sat down next to Plenna so he could examine the buckle once
again. "Chaumel mentioned that, but he wouldn't say what it is. Is that the
power source? Do you know how it works?"
"I do-or I think I do." Plennafreys eyes grew dreamy as she raised her hands
to sketch in the air. "It is a great, glowing heart of power, somewhere deep
beneath the sur-
face of Ozran. It was the Ancient Ones' greatest work." For a moment, die
young woman looked sheepish. "My power is weak compared with the others. I
have tried to figure out more about the Ancient Ones and the Core to try and
increase my power, though not . . . not in the way some did." She glanced
uneasily at Carialle.
"I know all about your father, Magess," Carialle said.
"Whatever Keff sees and hears, I do, too."
That reminded Plennafrey of what Carialle must have
seen and heard that morning, and she blushed from the roots other hair to her
neckline.
"Oh," she said. Carialle kindly tried to take the sting out of the revelation.
"I also agree with everything he said about your situ-
ation. You're very brave, Magess."
'Thank you. Hem! As I said, I wished to make my con-
nection to the Core greater with harm to none. I have some ancient documents
that I am sure hold the key to the power of the Core, but I cannot read them."
She appealed to both brain and brawn. "I dared not ask anyone for help, lest
they take away my small advantage. Perhaps you might help me?"
"Documents?" Keff perked up. He rose and paced around the cabin. "Documents
possibly written by the
Ancients? Will you let me see them? I'm a stranger; I have no reason to rob
you. I'm also very good with languages.
Will you trust me?" He stopped at Plennafreys chair and took her hand.
"All right," Plennafrey said. She looked lovingly up into his eyes. "There is
no one else I would rather trust."
"She's completely out other league in this game," Cari-
alle said .in Keffs ear. "What a pity there isn't a place on this nasty planet
for nice guys. ... We have one problem,"
she said aloud. "I can't lift tail from where I'm sitting, and at present,
there's a surveillance team of overgrown mar-
bles flying around my hull."
"Where are Chaumel and the others?" Keff asked.
Carialle consulted her monitors, reanimating the globe.
The enormous mass of purple had thinned away, leaving single points scattered
along the crisscrossing lines. "Eve-
ryone's gone home except a few who are hanging around
Chaumel's peak."
"I am sure they will be looking for me in my strong-
hold," Plenna said resignedly. "All is lost."
"We need a conspirator," Keff said. "And I know just the fellow."
"Who? I told you all the others would steal my docu-
ments, and then you will be forced to read for them."
Keffs eyes twinkled. "He's not a mage. Cari, can you get me out of here
unobserved through the cargo hatch? I'm going to go enlist Brannel."
"Who is Brannel?" Plenna asked, trailing behind Keff and Carialle as they
headed toward the cargo hold.
"He's one of the workers who lives in the cave out mere," Keff said, pointing
vaguely outward.
"A four-finger? You wish to entrust one of Klemays farmers with secrets of the
Core of Ozran?"
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"You don't know what's in your files," Carialle said.
"Might be a book of recipes from the Dark Ages. Listen, Magess." Carialle's
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