‘You might change your tune when you see what you’ll be operating,’ Nish said. He led them to the side yard where the thapter stood, ready to depart.
The operators’ eyes stuck out like toadstools. ‘Not sure I could operate one of them alien craft,’ said Gorm. The small bald man, Zyphus, looked equally askance. ‘Used to clankers, we are.’
Nish cursed under his breath. Operators couldn’t be forced. They had to be cajoled, and if there was no bond with the machine they would not be successful. ‘We don’t have any clankers. What about piloting an air-floater?’ He needed three more air-floater pilots, plus reserves.
‘Don’t know,’ said Gorm, rasping at the wiry bristles on his chin.
‘It’s an air-floater or nothing,’ said Nish.
‘Used to watch them soaring above us at Snizort,’ said Zyphus. His skin broke out in goosepimples. ‘Always fancied one of those. Come on, Gorm, you’ll love it.’
‘Expect I won’t,’ said Gorm, ‘but it’ll be better than nothing.’
That was Nish’s feeling too, so he took them on and Irisis began to tailor two of the Nennifer controllers to them. That afternoon, Nish was sitting head in hands at his bench, despairing of ever finding anyone to become thapter operators, when there came a tentative knock at the shed door.
‘Enter,’ he said. Again the knock. ‘Come in,’ he roared, and a small, sweetly pretty girl who looked about thirteen put her head and shoulder through the crack.
Her straw-coloured hair was done in dozens of small plaits, her cheeks were red from the wind and her frosty grey eyes had a liquid shine. Unusual eyes around here; where had he seen their like before?
‘Please, surr,’ she said in a whispery little voice, ‘Lord Yggur sent us.’
‘Did he?’ said Nish. ‘What for?’
‘Operators, surr.’
Nish almost laughed aloud, but restrained himself. Yggur was not known to be a joker. ‘Really? Come inside. Put this on your head and tell me what you see.’ He held out a contraption of wires and crystals, like a jewelled skullcap, that Irisis had made up for him. With such a device, even a no-talent like Nish could identify people who might become operators.
She pressed it onto her head and immediately cried out, her eyes as wide as her charming bow-shaped mouth. ‘Oh, surr, it’s like all the rainbows in the world, spinning round and round. Surr, you must see.’ She held out the device to him.
‘I don’t have the talent,’ he said gruffly. ‘All right, that’s enough.’
Her lower lip wobbled. ‘Am I no good, surr? I thought you would at least …’
‘You’ll do,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Kattiloe, surr.’ She made a clumsy but fetching attempt at a curtsy.
Nish smiled behind his hand. ‘And where do you come from, Kattiloe?’
‘Old Hripton, surr.’
‘I’m sure we’ll make an operator of you. Now, all I need is another twenty-nine.’
‘My big sister Kimli is outside, surr.’
‘Is she?’ Sometimes the talent ran in families. ‘Send her in.’
In she came. Kimli was minutely taller and nearly as pretty as Kattiloe, though her hair was an ashy brown. Her eyes were also that familiar frosty grey, and she too had the talent, though not as strongly as her sister. ‘Two!’ said Nish. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any more sisters?’
‘There’s seven of us,’ said Kattiloe, curtsying again. ‘Not counting the twins, of course, but they’re only fourteen.’
‘How old are you, Kattiloe?’
‘Twenty, surr.’
‘Are you really?’ Nish felt middle-aged, though he wasn’t much older. ‘Well, tell them to come and see me.’
They all possessed the talent of seeing the field, and most had it strongly. Chissmoul, a black-eyed, sturdy young woman of twenty-three, was so shy that it took hours to coax her into taking the test, though she turned out to have the strongest aptitude of all. Nish took on the lot, even the twins, who might have been fourteen but looked about ten. He suppressed his anxiety about using such young girls. Boys that age were dying in battle all the time.
‘Any brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins?’ he said hopefully.
The sisters turned out to be equipped with relatives of all sizes, shapes and ages. Most had those penetrating grey eyes. Yggur’s eyes! The old hypocrite.
Nish recruited thirty-seven of them, mostly young women and girls, before he’d exhausted the family tree, and then consulted the expert, Irisis. The majority had the talent so strongly that they probably would make operators, so he abandoned the search for more. Now all he had to do was work out how to train them. It wasn’t going to be easy – Nish knew no more about using a controller than he did about childbirth. But it must be done so, with the aid of his two trained operators, and Tiaan and Irisis, he would get it done.
Only after their flight controllers were tuned to them, and the operators had completed the lengthy process of familiarising themselves with them, could the real training begin. But of course they did not have flight controllers for thapters yet, and Malien’s machine was soon to take Flydd on his embassy to the east coast. Nish planned for his prentices to begin practising with Yggur’s little beetle flier, all too conscious of its inadequacies. Would he have the courage to get into a thapter flown by someone who had only practised with a toy?
The evening before Malien and Flydd were due to leave, Inouye’s air-floater touched down in the yard and Klarm scrambled out. Nish looked out the door of his shed and saw Flydd waiting on the steps outside the front door. The two scrutators held a hurried conference in the middle of the yard, Klarm handed Flydd a sealed packet which he slipped inside his cloak, they shook hands and Klarm scuttled back to the air-floater. It lifted at once and rotored off in the direction of Old Hripton.
The front door opened and Yggur came out. ‘Was that our peripatetic head of intelligence, favouring us with another of his flying visits?’
‘It was Klarm,’ said Flydd, turning to pass him by.
Yggur caught him by the arm. Nish stopped in the shadows, hoping to hear some news. Yggur and Flydd had been even more tight-mouthed than usual, lately.
‘What news from Borgistry?’ said Yggur.
‘I haven’t read his dispatches yet.’ Flydd was trying to pull free.
Yggur did not let go. ‘So Klarm has actually done some work this time?’
‘He’s been frantic, though I don’t propose to discuss it on the front porch.’
‘As far as I can see, all he’s done is spend my gold as though it flows down the river like water, drink himself witless night after night, and cavort with women half his age and twice his size, though why any woman would want –’
‘Klarm is the closest friend I have left,’ Flydd said coolly, breaking away and heading up the steps, ‘so be careful what you say about him. Spying on the enemy takes rivers of gold. Besides, most of the coin he spends came from the treasury at Nennifer.’
Yggur spun around. ‘I wasn’t aware that it had been found!’
‘It must have slipped my mind,’ Flydd said smoothly.
‘There’s still the matter of his general debauchery. I don’t see why we should fund –’
‘Klarm is a man of lusty appetites,’ sighed Flydd. ‘I was that way myself before the knife –’ He gave another sigh. ‘In his case, take away the appetites and you destroy the man. He’s doing good work, the very best, and that makes up for the other.’
‘Then why am I being kept in the dark?’
‘You’re not,’ Flydd said. ‘Come inside and we’ll go over his dispatches.’
‘All of them,’ said Yggur, ‘or just the ones he’s prepared for my consumption?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Flydd. ‘We’re all in this together.’
‘Are we?’ Yggur turned to the door. ‘How does he do it, anyway?’