That done, Milo addressed Gil. A11 right, you ride my charger and get a pack animal for your gear.” He turned back to his huge mount “Very well, my dear, you may help me aboard.”
“So the guard,” Thoheeks Mahvros continued, “hearing her shout in some unknown tongue, came into the tent and found her crouching before this device. Exactly what happened then, no one knows, not even the guard, who can only say that he fended her off with the butt of bis spear, then ran. He thought her a witch, you see.”
“And he may not have been too far off the mark,” thought Milo. “Not if she was what I suspect.”
“When Lord Grahvos and I and the rest came in, she was stretched on the floor here.” Mahvros indicated a spot on the carpet, stiff and crusty with dried blood.
-“The left side of her skull was cracked, just above and behind the ear, and she no longer was breathing.
“The device spoke in a man’s voice, but none of us could understand the words, though some later said they thought to have once heard a similar language. None could recall where or when or what it was called. The voice but spoke a short time, then Lord Grahvos examined it and persuaded others of us to do so. It made various noises for a while. Then suddenly they ended and it has not been touched since.”
Milo squatted before the odd chest and lifted the mike, then studied the various dials and knobs and switches adorning the exposed face. Turning to King Zenos, Thoheeks Grimnos, and the rest, he said, “This, gentlemen, is what the people who lived seven hundred years ago called a ‘radio.’ It was used to transmit spoken messages long distances. There is nothing of witchcraft about it, although I think that the purposes of the men and women who constructed this one and used it are as sinister as any wizard and warlock who ever took breath.”
A closer examination revealed why the noises had so suddenly ceased. The cord that had been connected to a second chest had been somehow disconnected. Milo reconnected it and the resultant spark brought starts to the other men. As the instrument warmed up, it first emitted a low hum, then a faint static.
“Is anyone receiving my transmission?” Milo spoke into the mike. He said it again, then grinned ruefully and switched from Ehleenokos to what he hoped, after all these years, was twentieth-century American usage.
There was a louder crackling, then a voice answered in the same language. “Yes, your transmission is being received. Who are you? Where is Lily … uh, Dr. Lillian Landor?”
“If you mean the woman who last used this radio, she’s dead,” answered Milo shortly. “As for me, I’m Milo Morai, High-Lord of Kehnooryos Ehlahs. With whom am I speaking?”
The voice became agitated. “Yon . . . you’re the mutant, the one who’s lived in a single body since the war?”
“Okay, you know who I am!” snapped Milo. “Now, who the hell are you?”
But a second voice cut in to answer him, a smooth, polished, unruffled voice. “Mr. Morai, I am Dr. Stern-heimer, the Senior Director of the J. & R. Kennedy Memorial Center. We would very much like to meet with you, at your convenience, of course. We can pick you up and fly you down from anywhere within a two-hundred mile radius of the Center.”
Milo’s laugh was harsh and humorless. “Oh, yes, I’ll just bet you types would very much like to get your claws into me. And I can imagine why, too! So you can dig out of my flesh whatever it is that makes us more or less immortal. No, thank you, Dr. Sternheimer. I don’t care to be the subject in a vivisection!”
“Please, wait, you don’t understand, Mr. Morai . . .” Sternheimer began.
But Milo cut him off. “No, I don’t understand, Doctor; I don’t understand why you creeps continue to embroil yourselves in the affairs of the Ehleens. What can you hope to gain? Are you running low on bodies?”
He was answered with a question. “Mr. Morai, are you an American citizen?”