«But Nungor won't let you?»
«No! He says those machines belong to his army, the foot soldiers. He says this, and Feragga lets him say it, even though she knows the foot fighters have no knowledge of such machines. They talked about making the machines live someday, but they do not know how. Meanwhile the machines sit dead, while we who could make them live are not allowed near them.» Her voice was getting shrill. «Nungor is like a dog who pisses on food he cannot eat himself.» She leaned against Blade's back, shaking with rage or perhaps grief for her city.
«I am not surprised to hear this,» said Blade quietly. «Nungor seems to be that sort of man. But maybe I can help you. Some of these machines might be like those I have used in England. If Nungor showed them to me, I might know how to make them live. After that, who could stop me from teaching the Seekers what I have learned? Not Nungor, certainly, and possibly not even Feragga.» He smiled. «Of course the Seekers could not be too proud to learn from a stranger, but that-«
Her laughter held a slight note of hysteria. «Proud? Blade, I myself would eat dung if it would give us all the knowledge we must have. There are others who would do the same. If you can see the machines, and learn to use them….» She sighed. «We will all be grateful.» She ran her hands down Blade's chest and across his belly to his groin. «I will be grateful.»
As Blade stood up, she peeled off her shirt and stood before him, naked to the waist. Her breasts were small but her nipples were large. As he soon discovered, they were also exquisitely sensitive. He used his fingers and lips on them until she was moaning happily even before they lay down together on a pile of clothing. Although she was small she lay down underneath, but his weight on top of her didn't keep her from thrashing wildly when she reached her climax.
Blade was glad he'd given her this much happiness, and with so little effort that he could keep half his thoughts on other matters. He didn't know what the other Oltec machines might be, but they certainly sounded worth investigating. They might even be the vehicles he and Kareena would need for a quick escape. He would still have to be careful not to teach Doimar too much. He would have to be even more careful in speaking to the ever-suspicious Nungor.
Blade turned back to the girl, and this time he gave their lovemaking all his attention.
Chapter 16
Blade wasn't surprised by Nungor's reaction to his request, and he wasn't disappointed by the Oltec vehicles.
«The Seekers must have bought you,» were Nungor's first words.
Blade shrugged. «You may say that if you wish. I will not take it as an insult, as I would have from a man of England. Yet I think you are not wise to say it, even though I will not have your blood for it.»
«Why?»
«If the Seekers get any advantage from this, it will be your fault more than mine.» Nungor's face set hard but Blade continued. «You did not say a single word to me about these vehicles. You left me ignorant until the Seekers chose to speak. If you had spoken first, I could have gone to see the vehicles with you many days ago. The Seekers would not have known anything until we finished our work and laid matters before Feragga. As it is, they will be watching and listening. This is your fault.»
There was silence, while Blade mentally crossed his fingers. A strong attack was often the best defense in a situation like this, but he might have pushed Nungor too far. Certainly the man's fingers were twitching, as if they yearned to grip the hilt of his sword.
Then Nungor gave a quick, jerky nod. «All right. You make sense. We haven't had any luck with getting the machines to live ourselves. So we don't have anything to lose.» He glared at Blade. «But don't breathe a word of how we failed to the Seekers. Otherwise Feragga herself won't be able to save you!»
«The Seekers will learn nothing from me,» said Blade smoothly. It was a small concession to make, considering that the Seekers already knew practically everything about how the infantry had failed to make the Oltec vehicles run.
«Good. We'll go to the machine rooms tomorrow.»
Each of the «machine rooms» was twice the size of the Seekers' training room for the waldoes. All three were filled with exotic military vehicles of at least twenty different kinds. They were parked in long rows on either side of wide aisles, which gave access to ramps leading to the surface at either end of the complex.
It looked like the vehicle park of an armored division whose vehicles were designed by madmen and assembled by drunks. Even the types of vehicles Blade could recognize at all were parodies of their Home Dimension counterparts. With others he couldn't even be sure what they were, let alone how they moved or how to operate them. Had the Tower Builders kept an experimental station in Doimar? Or had the last commander of the garrison before the war simply been part pack rat?
Trying to show more confidence than he felt, Blade lectured Nungor on the vehicles he thought he recognized or at least understood. The first one looked like the hull and turret of a small tank, but mounted on twelve stumpy articulated legs instead of on tracks.
«-not much use out of this unless there is ammunition for its weapon,» he concluded. He couldn't tell what the weapon was, although it didn't look like a gun, a laser, or a grenade launcher. «Also, you would need two or three men to make this one work in battle.»
«You have said that the war machines of England use four or five men,» Nungor pointed out. «Could you not teach the men of Doimar to do the same?»
«I could, if you gave me the time,» said Blade. «I would have to teach each man his work, then teach each crew to work together. It might take as much as half a year. Do we have that much time?»
Nungor hesitated for a moment, clearly reluctant to reveal such a vital part of Doimar's war plans. Then he shook his head. «No. I would not even want to ask for it. Feragga would refuse it and not think well of either of us for asking.»
«I thought so,» said Blade. «Well, then we'll have to look at something else.»
They spent the rest of a long day looking at one «something else» after another. Some vehicles Blade rejected because he couldn't even guess what they were, although he tried to hide his ignorance. One machine looked like a ferris wheel mounted on a tracked carriage twenty feet long and ten feet wide. Blade somehow doubted that the Tower Builders' army held carnivals for its men.
Blade rejected other machines because they were obviously no more than junk. Still, others he rejected because they would be quite useless in Doimar's wars. A lot of engineering equipment fell into that category. Doimar's army wasn't going to build pontoon bridges, dig ditches, lay down fuel lines, or do many other engineering jobs a Home Dimension mechanized army faced in war.
Blade rejected some vehicles because he not only recognized them but knew they would be far too useful to Doimar and far too dangerous to Kaldak. There were a dozen or so tracked vehicles which could be nothing but armored personnel carriers. These could carry raiding parties of Doimari infantry deep into enemy territory. They could also carry the Seekers' radios, making the waldoes far more effective. Used either way they could mean disaster for Kaldak in the coming war.
Blade had to be particularly careful in explaining the uselessness of the more useful vehicles. Nungor was no fool. Catching Blade in even a small lie might make him so suspicious that Blade's position-and Kareena's-would become impossible.
Fortunately Nungor's dislike of the Seekers did much of Blade's work for him. Most of the time Blade had only to mention that a certain vehicle might be useful to the infantry «-but would be far more useful to the Seekers, I'm afraid.» Then Nungor would immediately start talking about ways of hiding this fact from the Seekers.