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"Yes," said the berserker in its flat voice. "What is programmed goes on,
regardless of any passage."
Before he could try to make any sense out of that, the machine jumped
precisely forward and grabbed him again. He struggled, which of course made no
difference. It tore strips from his coat, ripping the tough cloth with precise
and even sounds. With the strips it gagged him again and tied him hand and
foot tightly, but not so tightly that he felt no hope of ever working free. It
was not going to blunder into being responsible for a death here in the safety
zone.
After it had bound him, the machine paused for a moment, moving its cowled
head like a listening man, searching the area with senses far beyond the
human. And then it was gone down the ladder in utter silence, moving less like
a man than like a giant cat or an ape.
He could only strain desperately to get free, the gag choking back his curses.
A second group of peasants, from some village higher in the hills, had come
along the road to the cathedral. It was Brother Saile they met first; when
they learned that he was not the saint and miracle worker of whom the whole
countryside was talking, a brief glow of hope died from their faces, leaving
only bitter anxiety.
"Tell me, what is it you wish to see Brother Jovann about?" Saile inquired
magisterially, clasping his hands with dignity across his belly.
They clamored piteously, all at once, until he had to speak sharply to get
them to talk one at a time and make sense. Then he heard that, for several
days past, a great wolf had been terrorizing their little village. The
monstrous beast had killed cattle and even
they swore it! uprooted crops. The peasants were all talking at once
again, and
Saile was not sure if they said a child had been devoured, or if a herd boy
had fallen and broken his arm, trying to get away from the wolf. In any case,
the villagers were desperate. Men scarcely dared to work their fields. They
were isolated, and very poor, with no powerful patron to give them aid of any
kind, save only the Holy One Himself!
And now the saintly Jovann, who must and would do something!
They were utterly desperate!
Brother Saile nodded. In his manner there showed sympathy mixed with
reluctance.
"And you say your village is several miles distant? In the hills, yes. Well we
shall see. I
will do my best for you. Come with me and I will put your case before good
Brother
Jovann."
With a puzzled Will now walking beside him, Vincento entered the cathedral
once more and made the best speed that he could down the nave. Back at the
monastery, Rudd had chosen this time to bother him with warnings and
complaints about the scarcity of food for the beasts. And when he had
disentangled himself from that, his old legs had rebelled against climbing the
hill a second time, even with Will's help. Now as Vincento hurried, wheezing
for breath, back to his still-swinging pendulum, more than an hour had passed
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since he had first set the bob in motion.
For a few seconds he only stared in thoughtful silence at what had happened
since his departure. The tiny battlement of sand had been demolished by
continuous notches, up to the point where the pendulum's turning plane had
left it behind altogether. That plane had by now inched clockwise through ten
or twelve degrees of arc.
"Will, you've helped me in the workshop. Now this is another such case, where
you must follow my orders precisely."
"Aye, master."
"First, keep in mind that you are not to stop the swinging of this cable here
or disturb it in any way. Understood?"
"Aye."
"Good. Now I want you to climb; there seem to be ladders and platforms enough
for you to go up all the way. I want to discover how this swinging cable is
mounted, what holds it at the top. Look at it until you can make me a sketch.
You have a fair hand at drawing."
"Aye, I understand, sir." Will craned his neck unhappily. "It's a longish bit
o' climbin', though."
"Yes, yes, a coin for you when you're down. Another when you've given me a
good sketch. Take your time now, and use your eyes. And remember, do not
disturb the cable's swing."
Derron had made only moderate progress toward getting the bonds loosened from
his wrists when he heard clumsier feet than the berserker's climbing toward
him. Between the ladder's uprights, Will's honest face came into view, then
predictably registered shock.
"Bandit!" Derron spat, when his hands had been cut free and he could rid
himself of the gag. "Must've been hiding in here somewhere . . . forced me up
here and tied me up."
"Robbed ye, hey?" Will was awed. "Just one of'em?"
"Yes, just one. Uh ... I didn't have any valuables with me, really. Took the
wedge from around my neck."
"That's fearsome. One o' them lone rogues, hey?" Wondering and sympathetic,
Will shook his head. "Likely he'd a' slit your throat, sir, but didn't want to
do no real sacrilege.
Think he might still be hereabout?"
"No, no, I'm sure he was running away. Long gone by this time."
Will went on shaking his head. "Well. You'd better liven up your limbs, sir,
before you starts to climb down. I'm going on up, bit of a job to do for
master."
"Job?"
"Aye." Will was already climbing again, seemingly meaning to go right on up
into the spire.
Still on all fours, Derron peered down over the edge of the platform.
Vincento's ginger-
colored hair marked a toy figure more than a hundred feet below. Down there
the mysteriously moving cable ended in a dot, a ball of some kind that was
tracing back and forth with sedate regularity. Derron had seen a pendulum of
this size and shape before, somewhere. It had been used as a demonstration
of...
Derron's muscles locked, after a moment in which he had been near falling over
the platform's edge. He had suddenly realized what Vincento was looking at,
what Vincento doubtless had been studying for most of the time Derron had been
held captive. On old
Earth they had honored its earliest known inventor by naming it the Foucault
pendulum.
"Honorable Vincento!"
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Vincento looked around in surprise and annoyance to discover the young man,
Alzay or
Valzay or whatever his name was, hurrying toward him in obvious agitation,
having evidently just descended from the tiny coiled stair where Will had just [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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