Comet Fall (Wine of the Gods) Read online

  The Auld Wulf and Dydit waited until they'd been spotted—almost immediately—and an officer had been fetched, any necessary appeals to authority taken care of, and then sauntered down to the camp.

  The officer who came to meet them was a stranger. He looked tough and experienced, but also curious.

  "If you cross this line, you enter the jurisdiction of Earth, and are subject to our laws."

  The Auld Wulf halted at the line. "We do not recognize your ownership of a square millimeter of our World. We allow you to remain, as we can better keep track of your movements this way. We are here today on an information gathering mission. Possibly to pass information along to you.

  "Are you aware that in another five months a close pass of Comet Horse may result in another disaster here?" He paused. "I see that this is not news. As you have a rather nice observatory, we were wondering if you were interested in selling information."

  "Selling? Why should we sell you anything?"

  "Our brief encounter with your civilization showed that it is aggressively expansionist with little regard for the rights of the people of other worlds, interested only in exploiting economic opportunity. I understand that gold is a valuable commodity in your World." He shrugged. "Name your price. We'll be back in eight days."

  "I think you should remain here for eight days." The officer placed his hand on the handle of his pistol.

  The Auld Wulf sighed. "If you step over this line, within which we have, so far, allowed your illegal occupation of our World, you place yourself under the writ of our laws."

  "What? The two of you against a hundred of us?"

  "The odds are a bit worse than seven years ago, when thirteen of us defeated four hundred of your troops. How is Colonel Elton, these days?" Dydit asked.

  The officer glowered. No doubt he'd gotten the whole briefing before he was posted out here.

  "So why don't you simply carry the message? If you have detailed information, we're willing to buy. Nice and simple." The Auld Wulf nodded politely and traveled them back to the deep gully where their observers were based, and he'd installed a multidimensional corridor to Karista. They stepped through to the Army base outside of Karista, then he travelled them three quarters of the way to their eventual destination.

  Rufi had come to meet them. Probably as an excuse to avoid another meeting with half-panicked people who wanted information he didn't have. He looked at the neglected but otherwise intact Temple of Ba'al. "Must you come and go from here?"

  "Our residences are, umm, unique and easily identifiable, which makes them easy to find from a distance." The Auld Wulf looked around and shook his head. "I'd recommend using this as a temporary headquarters, but Pax can also come whenever he wishes."

  "I'll get in bed with him if it'd help." Rufi said. "Hell, I'll go kick that damned statue and see if it'll come to life if it'll help."

  "Last time, we had over five thousand wizards, witches and mages."

  Rufi hesitated. "Umm."

  "Might scrape up a hundred."

  "I knew there was a reason to be afraid to ask."

  "There are over fifty youngsters in Ash who will be old enough, and hopefully strong enough, in eight years, to assist with the big comet. Gisele held a good sized town in Scoone with six witches, a mage and a wizard, last time." The Auld Wulf shot an amused glance at Dydit. "The mage was the first Duke of Hightop and his adopted wizard son, who became the second Duke of Hightop. Dydit and Never, working together can do anything a god can do. Justice and Nil likewise. Call them the equivalent of two new gods. Plus at least four genuine old gods. And Chance is out there somewhere. And Barry, if we are really, truly desperate. That leaves six of us unaccounted for."

  "Chance?"

  "The God of Bad Luck." Dydit growled.

  "All luck, good and bad, statistics, coincidence, math. He travels around randomly, and can be devilishly hard to find, let alone pin down and get a commitment from. In general he's a nice person."

  Dydit growled.

  "Scoone birding habits are not the fault of the gods, individually or collectively. Generally speaking, we're the victims."

  "I just got a report from my people in Auralia. Peace has been preaching gloom and doom for years, and six months ago–before we knew–he started talking about another comet fall."

  "Before?" Dydit frowned. "What do they have in the way of observatories?"

  "Damn all. But the One World hasn't ever quite given up, down there. I suspect that's where Pax gets his information."

  "We've never gotten any information about that 'One World', the other advanced World with dimensional gates." Dydit paced and rubbed his head as if missing horns.

  Rufi shook his head. Gods and Goats. "In any case, I've lined up some eager young bureaucrats and attached them to Benri Hask. He says being an Ambassador to another dimension will cap off his diplomatic career nicely. They'll be ready to go in eight days."

  "Good, we'll have the building ready."

  ***

  It had started life as a bank. Small, but with ornate columns. No doubt the builder had envisioned wings, or possibly a larger addition looming over it and making it more of an entry than a bank in and of itself. But the bank had failed and the company that had backed their loan had foreclosed on it. The Auld Wulf looked at it with fourteen-hundred-year old eyes and grinned. "It fits the magic trope perfectly, there's enough offices to use some for living quarters. We've done things to the plumbing that no sensible Westerner would allow in his home, but that was common a long time ago on possibly that Earth."

  Benri Hask grimaced. "It's a bit disgusting, but if it might help relations we'll allow toilets in the house and not think about our water sources."

  "There's no back flow. Ever. Honest."

  The diplomat just shuddered.

  The Auld Wulf glanced up at the sky. "It's an hour after dawn, there. Ready to go?"

  "As ready as I'll ever be." He whistled in a very undiplomatic fashion and his staff came at the run. "Last headcount. Everyone here?" he turned back to the god and nodded. "We're ready."

  "Something with this much dead weight, I have to take in small steps. So it won't be the instantaneous transition it looks like to the Earthers. Right. Mr. Ambassador, if you'll all stay inside and fairly still . . . " He stepped out and grabbed a bubble as it floated by. It wasn't, strictly speaking, in this dimension at all, but he could manipulate it, toss it over the whole building, and stick it to his arm. He wasn't at all sure about teleporting with something so large, so he caught a cab to the Army base and stepped through the corridor to Asia. He hiked around the Earthers' camp, light warped around himself so he couldn't be seen. It was obvious from the soldiers running about that he'd set off some sort of detectors. He picked a spot to the northeast of the Earther's gate. Placed the bubble carefully and ripped it open. "There you are, Ambassador." The bubbles experienced time differently than the real world, unless deliberately adjusted. He'd left this one at its natural ten-thousand to one dilation. So his passengers had experienced, essentially, no time at all.

  "Old Gods! We're here!" The Ambassador gulped and waved his staff to order. "Stay here, I'll walk down and introduce myself to the officer in charge, be right back."

  The Ambassador's clothing was subtly different than Karista's standard, a combination of Never's and Question's observations on the other side of the gate, and more recent observations here and input from the gods. Moderately loose slacks with a crease. A white shirt with a stiff low collar. No lace, no frills. His jacket was in the Karista style, but of the same conservative fine wool as the slacks. A combination that what Harry, Gisele and Romeau had judged would make the right impression.

  They strolled down the hill, to the Captain's line, and arrived at about the same time as that officer.

  This time the Aulf Wulf kept quiet, as he stopped a step back and gave the ambassador a respectful nod.

  "I am Ambassador Benri Hask. King Rebo of Western has sent me to handle any negotia
tions that are needed. As his majesty's representative, I give you and your people permission to come and go from our local headquarters, so long as they remain peaceful and carry only personal weapons."

  The officer stiffened, but his glance kept flicking up to the entire building that had popped out of nowhere moments before.

  "I understand that your usual gate operations won't take place for another two hours. I will leave you to those tasks, Officer." Benri turned and walked away, and the Auld Wulf followed.

  "Goodness, didn't even let him introduce himself, did you?"

  "Oh, if he'd wanted, he could have managed." Benri grinned. "But since he was so busy being stiff necked, I figured I could make him feel either ill mannered or so unimportant I didn't care if he had a name."

  The Auld Wulf nodded. "On the other hand, there are some people sneaking around the other direction in an amazingly amateur fashion. Why don't we let them in the back door and see who they are?"

  ***

  Tim had gotten used to being short. After all, a hundred and sixty centimeters was taller than half of all women, so, no problem, right?

  But the man who let him in the back door of the building was ridiculously tall. Tim's uncle was two meters tall, and this guy was both taller, broader and had a way of moving, like a gymnast or something, that just screamed competence. At least he didn't have a hulking big sword or anything.

  "We, umm, err." Tim fumbled uncertainly with his portable.

  "We heard you were looking for information about the comet." Milt sounded like he was hyper-ventilating a bit.

  "Ah, you want to sell information?"

  Tim flushed. "Actually we were going to give it away. It's, it's . . . bad."

  "I apologize for insulting you. Our first encounters with your people have been quite . . . negative. We realize we're staring a disaster in the face. We're, umm, looking for details to save our collective asses." The tall man gestured at a desk. "Show us."

  Tim sat and activated the portable, the screen uncurled and he started the program. "This comet, umm, there are dozens of them . . . "

  "We call them the four year comets." The big man said. "That one we call the Lamb. And this leading one, the Horse."

  "Right, this is the orbit of our fourth largest asteroid, we call it Hygiea. Here, in this world, it got hit by something that broke it up and altered the orbit of the debris. There's tons of arguments about what the heck could have done it. Well, at any rate, we think it started as four large chunks with very slight orbital differences, and a cloud of debris, then the chunks broke up. So you've got four 'families' of asteroid/comets. All with various members spread out a bit, but still basically clustered in sections of their almost identical orbits."

  "Right." The huge man nodded. "We've got them grouped as well. The three you see in the early mornings are the Royal group. King, Queen and Grandmother, plus two more that don't have much ice left. That was Small and Captain, there are four more with them that are now out of ice. That's the Army group, they're moving away from our winter perihelion, so they aren't dangerous any more. The River group comes around every fourth fall. The Farmer's group is just starting winter perihelions. Sorry for the lecture. By all means keep your own designations, but you're not telling us anything new."

  Tim gulped. "How many actual strikes do you have records of?" This guy was so calm, did he understand what a comet strike could do?

  "One regionally disastrous impact. Then the big one a thousand years ago–also a Farmer's group comet–knocked our population down so far that regional ones didn't even get counted for a while; none of them hit our regions. Since the big one, there have been three with global climactic affects lasting more than ten years."

  "Wow." Tim said blankly. "Umm, well this Lamb comet is big and it's about ninety percent certain it's going to hit in a bit over eight years. Right now, well, five months from now, this little one on the leading edge of the group, is ninety-nine point nine nine percent going to hit." He glanced up suddenly, did they do decimals?

  "What we need to know is as close to an exact date and time as possible, a location if possible, and in case we decide on trying to move it—whether we should slow it down or speed it up. Move it north or south."

  Tim blinked. Cued up the details.

  "Here's where the little comet crosses Earth's orbital path coming in, misses by a good three hours, whips past perihelion and whamo. Hits going out bound. Right about noon, where it hits, three days before the Solstice.

  "Okay, these ovals are the range of errors. We're close to 100% sure it'll be that close. It doesn't center on the planet, it's to the south a bit, and the time error . . . if it was a bit faster it wouldn't hit. It would have to slow down a lot to miss the other way.

  "Looking at this map, this strip is where it'll hit. The big deciding factor will be the thickness of the very high atmosphere when it hits. The higher the pressure –which is also the higher the effective top of the atmosphere—the further west it will hit. It's two hundred meters in diameter, a near hit on any city will flatten it, if it hits the ocean, tsunamis, guaranteed."

  The big man studied the map. "The southern continent, our Africa equivalent, and across the ocean to barely touch the far southwest of Auralia."

  "You call it Auralia? Wow, it's like, the equivalent of South Merica." Tim blinked and studied the map. "I guess all of these big islands are Australia?"

  Milt leaned in. "I'll bet it took a direct hit from something big. Three way spreading ridge developed, lots of volcanoes."

  "Probably before we got here." The big man said.

  "Uh?"

  He grinned. "I suppose the Powers That Be have not talked much about us. We're the descendants of a large group exiled after World War five. We've little communication with you, so we haven't actually pinned down if we came from your World or one extremely similar. We've been here almost fourteen hundred years."

  "We placed the Hygiea breakup about sixteen thousand years ago." Milt nodded. "So there was probably fourteen thousand years of bombardment to partially clean up the neighborhood before you arrived. A big collision might account for why your days are four and a half minutes longer than Earth's."

  Tim blinked. "And the air's thinner."

  A young man knocked and looked in "Ambassador. Time."

  "Ah." The tall man straightened, "if you'll excuse us, we've got to get ready for the official visitors. Do you need assistance getting out and back?"

  Tim gulped, "We left our floater about six kilometers east, we'll go back to it, circle back to where we usually approach from."

  The tall man stared into space for a moment. "They are watching the building very closely now. May I give you a ride six kilometers east? Not getting you into trouble is the least I can do for your assistance."

  Milt nodded uncertainly, and Tim rolled up his portable. The man touched their shoulders and Tim staggered a bit and looked around at the green grass. He could hear Milt hyperventilating.

  "Thank you for your assistance. My name is Wolfgang Oldham, better known as the Old Wolf. If you need help, ask for me."

  Tim straightened. "Tim Jameson and Milt Howser, sir. I hope we have been of help."

  The man shrugged. "Speed it up, push it south. We'll try, whether we succeed." He shrugged again and disappeared.

  "Cup your hands and breath into them, Milt. I'll climb that hill and see if I can spot the floater."

  "I didn't feel a thing. No momentum shift, nothing!" Milt wheezed. "He dropped us about two inches, so we didn't overlap the grass or something."

  Tim spotted the run of the creek and a clump of willows that looked familiar and led him off to the south. "Yeah. It's enough to make you believe in magic, isn't it?"

  Chapter Three

  1367 Summer

  Ash, a small village in the Kingdom of the West

  Rustle could tell that Havi was up on the hills on the far side of Ash, with his friends. Three miles away from the winery, easy to speak to, mentall
y. Telepathy, the old books called it. Of course, they also said their tests disproved the theory. Earth must have been a very strange world, without magic of any sort.

  :: The comets are mostly water, we ought to get the mages involved. ::

  :: Yes. If the light is just reflected sunlight, the wizards aren't going to be able to do much either. :: Havi was the strongest of the young wizards in the village. He sounded like he was frowning.

  :: The books say they've got sand and dust and chunks of rock all through them, so maybe the witches can feel them. :: Rustle thought dubiously. :: I can see rocks about half a mile away, surely a Dark Crescent can see further. ::

  :: Probably, but this is a little different than pulling rocks out of the fields before plowing. ::

  :: Yeah. :: Rustle shelved the latest book with the rest of the space books, lingered to pull out the book with the rockets . . . She took it to the Auld Wulf's desk and wrote a quick note. Can rockets be steered magically? Can we build one? Would blowing up the comet be useful?

  And a second note. Comets are mostly ice, sublimating. Can Mages handle them better than the rest of us?

  Not that the mages necessarily would. One of the only three mages to survive the Auralian War had been killed while under the Auld Wulf's command. He'd been either father or grandfather to most of the rest of the mages. The mage compass had minimized their relationship with the god ever since.

  Jerks. Should have had sense enough to at least blame the Earth people. She picked up the next two books in the stack. History and Chemistry. The history shelf was full. Time to shift books again.

  ***

  But books and talk couldn't change anything.

  Two days before the Winter Solstice, the children of the village were placed in protective bubbles, a few mothers with their babies. All the other witches packed for a few days of camping in the wilderness. The mages mostly discounted the whole panic, and only a few broke ranks with Beck Butcher and accompanied the other magic users to Africa.