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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.
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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
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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.
After a while he would always remember that this was hardly possible, as long
as Feragga was sympathetic to the Seekers. Then he would finish with more or
less the same words: "We'd better keep quiet about this one for a while."
Nungor might not be willing to see Doimar defeated rather than let the Seekers
get the credit for a victory. But he was certainly willing to risk many things
to reduce the Seekers' share of glory, including the lives of his own men.
Blade was perfectly happy to encourage this desire. It not only made his own
job of sabotaging Doimar's war effort a great deal easier, it made it
considerably safer as well. If the
Seekers and the infantry ever got together and compared notes on what Blade
was telling them, he'd be finished. Thanks to Nungor's stubborn prejudices,
that meeting would probably never take place.
They were halfway through the last room when Blade's eyes widened. The next [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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