I stared at her with more respect. Ever since mankind found how to degauss the ruinous effects of cold iron, and the goetic age began, the world has needed some pretty bold people. Apparently she was one of them.
Abrams brought in two plates of rations. He looked wistful, and I would have invited him to join us except that our mission was secret and we had to thresh out the details.
Captain Graylock `chanted the coffee into martinis?not quite dry enough?and the dog food into steaks‑a turn too well done; but you can’t expect the finer sensibilities in a woman, and it was the best chow I’d had in a month. She relaxed a bit over the brandy, and I learned that her repellent crispness was simply armor against the slick types she dealt with, and we found out that our first names were Steven and Virginia. But then dusk had become dark outside, and we must be going.
III
YOU MAY THINK‑ it was sheer lunacy, sending two people, one of them a woman, into an enemy division on a task like this. It would seem to call for a Ranger brigade, at least. But present‑day science has transformed war as well as industry, medicine, and ordinary life. Our mission was desperate in any event, and we wouldn’t have gained enough by numbers to make reinforcements worthwhile.
You see, while practically anyone can learn a few simple cantrips, to operate a presensitized broomstick or vacuum cleaner or turret lathe or whatever, only a small minority of the human race can qualify as adepts. Besides years of study and practice, that takes inborn talent. It’s kind of like therianthropy: if you’re one of the rare persons with chromosomes for that, you can change into your characteristic animal almost by instinct; otherwise you need a transformation performed on you by powerful outside forces.
My scientific friends tell me that the Art involves regarding the universe as a set of Cantorian infinities. Within any given class, the part is equal to the whole and so on. One good witch could do all the runing we were likely to need; a larger party would simply be more liable to detection, and would risk valuable personnel. So Vanbrugh had very rightly sent us two alone.
The trouble with sound military principles is that sometimes you personally get caught in them.
Virginia and I turned our backs on each other while we changed clothes. She got into an outfit of slacks and combat jacket, I into the elastic knit garment which would fit me as well in wolf‑shape. We put on our helmets, hung our equipment around us, and turned about. Even in the baggy green battle garb she looked good.
“Well,” I said tonelessly, “shall we go?”
I wasn’t afraid, of course. Every recruit is immunized against fear when they put the geas on him. But I didn’t like the prospect.
“The sooner the better, I suppose,” she answered. Stepping to the entrance, she whistled.
Her stick swooped down and landed just outside. It had been stripped of the fancy chrome, but was still a neat job. The foam‑rubber seats had good shock absorbers and well‑designed back rests, unlike Army transport. Her familiar was a gigantic tomcat, black as a furry midnight, with two malevolent yellow eyes. He arched his back and spat indignantly. The weatherproofing spell kept rain off him, but be didn’t like this damp air.
Virginia chucked him under the chin. “Oh, so, Svartalf,” she murmured. “Good cat, rare sprite, prince of darkness, if we outlive this night you shall sleep on cloudy cushions and lap cream from a golden bowl.” He cocked his ears and raced his motor.
I climbed into the rear seat, snugged my feet in the stirrups, and leaned back. The woman mounted in front of me and crooned to the stick. It swished upward, the ground fell away and the camp was hidden in gloom. Both of us had been given witch‑sight?infra‑red vision, actually?so we didn’t need lights.
When we got above the clouds, we saw a giant vault of stars overhead and a swirling dim whiteness below.
I also glimpsed a couple of P‑56 s circling on patrol, fast jobs with six brooms each to lift their weight of armor and machine guns. We left them behind and streaked northward. I rested the BAR on my lap and sat listening to the air whine past. Underneath us, in the rough‑edged murk of the hills, I spied occasional flashes, an artillery duel. So far no one had been able to cast a spell fast enough to turn or implode a shell. I’d heard rumors that General Electric was developing a gadget which could recite the formula in microseconds, but meanwhile the big guns went on talking.