"Are we losing a bearing on the disk drive?" asked Wiz. He bent and pressed his ear to the case. "No, I don’t think it’s coming from there."
By now the whine was louder.
"I think it’s coming from outside," Jerry said and all four of them moved to the window.
There was a flash and the window blew in with a roar.
Pieces of glass the size and shape of knives scythed toward them in a glittering rain. But they shattered or bounced off when they struck the four immobile figures. Clouds of dust from the explosion roiled through the empty window frames. But not one of the four moved so much as a muscle.
They stood still and silent as the doors to the computer room flew open and three hulking robots marched in, tracking mud behind them.
Then came Craig in a suit of power armor and lastly Mikey wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
"What’s wrong with them?" Craig’s voice was tinny through the battle armor’s speaker.
"They were like that when I came in." Mikey looked them up and down and smiled nastily. "It’s a spell of some sort." He turned his back on the group and went to the computer console. The screen still showed the weaving blue form of the key.
"Son of a bitch," Mikey said, open-mouthed.
Craig stomped up to peer over Mikey’s shoulder. "What is it?"
"Something that makes this whole business worthwhile. Something that gives us just what we need."
Mikey smiled. Not one of his half-sneers or tight little mouth quirks, but a big broad smile like a child on Christmas Day.
He left the console and went around in front of the impromptu sculpture garden where he could stare directly into Wiz’s eyes.
"Thanks for the computer. It will save us a lot of trouble."
He turned to Craig. "Have the robots pack all this up and load it on the ship. Then search the place and grab anything else that looks useful."
"What about them?"
Mikey looked at the frozen group. "Finish them."
Craig raised his arm and pointed the laser in his suit’s right forearm at the group. A brilliant beam of red light shot out and played across Wiz and his friends. The wall behind them smoked and scorched but the four statues were unaffected.
"What the hell?" Craig raised both arms and two laser beams converged in a spot of blinding incandescence that moved over the forms. The concrete wall behind them pocked and spalled and the aluminum window frame with its remaining shards of glass melted and ran. But still Wiz and his friends were unharmed.
"Oh shit, just leave them," Mikey said. "Later we’ll see how well that spell stands up to a nuclear fireball. If that doesn’t work we’ll just drop them in the Sun. But get the computer on board first."
With one last look at the object on the screen, he left the computer room.
Quickly Craig brought the system down, cursing the clumsiness of his armor’s steel fingers on the keyboard. For a space there was no sound save the clicking of the keyboard. Neither the programmers nor the robots stirred.
Gradually the room began to fill with dense black smoke from a fire elsewhere in the Mousehole. Craig, protected by his armor, barely noticed.
After several minutes the system blinked and died. Craig ordered the robots to begin dismantling and removing the computer. Then he went over to stand in front of the four motionless figures.
"Greatest wizard in the world, huh?" he said to Wiz. "Man, you were easy." Wiz did not twitch. Not even the look in his eyes changed.
Craig turned from one to the other, savoring the moment. So this was what it felt like to be a winner, a real winner. He tried to burn the feeling into his memory so he could relive it over and over for the rest of his life.
But why have just a memory? Why not a souvenir to help keep the memory fresh. In fact, why not four souvenirs?
As the robots returned from moving the computer, Craig gave them new orders.
Outside the Mousehole was a ship, a golden cigar shape lying on its side and pressing into the earth. One by one the robots carried their burdens up the gangway and carefully stowed them in one of the holds.
"Okay," Mikey said as he came back into what had been the computer center. "Let’s get going. Hey! Where’s Zumwalt and the others?"
"On the ship. I’m gonna build a trophy room and they’re going to be my first trophies."
Mikey snorted and shook his head.
"Have it your way. Just make damn sure they stay frozen. Now have you got everything? Then let’s haul ass."
As soon as they were aboard the gangway withdrew into their ship and the airlock doors swung shut. With an ear-piercing whine the golden craft rocked slightly and then rose straight up.
In the cockpit, Craig and Mikey lounged back in their acceleration couches and watched the ground fall away. Once they were high above the valley, Mikey used the mouse to line the crosshairs up on the now-deserted Mousehole. Then he pressed the left button quickly three times.
"Bombs awaaaay," he called as three dots detached themselves from the ship and plummeted to Earth.
Three blinding, shattering explosions came as one, making the ship’s screens darken for an instant and filling the world below them with boiling, churning dust. The ship rose and fell slightly in the blast wave and then sailed serenely out of the billowing mushroom cloud, made a right-angle turn and headed north.
The cloud of smoke rose high in the air behind them.
From the hillside where he lay, Glandurg cursed as the airship vanished in the distance. "Balked again!" Then he straightened. "Come. We must follow these strangers to their lair."
"Don’t see why," Snorri grumbled. "Seems like this Sparrow is bloody well finished."
"He was alive when he was taken from his abode."
"Didn’t look none too healthy," Thorfin said. "All stiff like that."
"But he was alive. To fulfill the quest we must kill him ourselves or make certain of his death."
"Lot of extra work, if you ask me," Snorri said.
Glandurg turned on him, red-faced. "Who’s leading this quest, you or me?"
"Oh you are," Snorri said sullenly. The other dwarves stood in a silence Glandurg chose to interpret as assent.
"Too right I am! And I say we track the wizard down."
"How far do you reckon they’ll take him?"
"That’s immaterial. We will follow our prey to the ends of the World."
"We’re a good bit beyond those already," Thorfin muttered.
Glandurg ignored the remark. "Besides, I doubt these newcomers will have their lair ensorcelled against us. We should be able to penetrate easily."
"Does this mean griffins again?" Gimli asked plaintively.
"We would be too easy to see. No, we shall follow on foot. Now quickly." He looked down at the cloud of smoke roiling out of the valley. "There is nothing left here for us."