THE YNGLING AND THE CIRCLE OF POWER by John Dalmas

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no ground duties whatever. When the time came to choose a third person to stay behind and work with them, Baver had been one of the volunteers, and they’d chosen him.

He’d been great on exams, and enthusiastic when deal­ing with hypothetical situations. But on the ground, among the Northmen, he’d become a different person, fearful and wooden, unable to relate. By the time they realized this, the Phaeacia had left. So they’d given him a job he could do: recording, getting everything possible on cubes. They’d hoped he might adjust after awhile, loosen up. And he had, a bit, but still . . .

Yet now he’d left with Nils Järnhann, for where one could only guess.

“I’ll record a message loop,” Matthew said, “set the computer to signal when he calls, and sleep aboard Alpha tonight. We’ll see what he has to say.”

“What if he doesn’t? Call, that is?”

Matthew Kumalo pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Then I supposed we’d better go out and see if we can find him.” He shook his head. “It’s the least we can do. And the most we can do. And if that doesn’t work—” He shrugged. “We’ll just have to hope he knows what he’s doing, and that hell get back okay. He is with Nils, after all.”

SIX

It had gotten hillier. They’d been crossing a narrow valley, riding through grass higher than the saddle. Baver almost didn t see it, might not have if Nils’s hadn’t turned to watch. The pinnace was passing to the south, not too far off, visible just above a hill crest. At once Baver stood in his stirrups, waving and shouting.

The pinnace passed out of sight. Quickly, desperately he dug his radio out of his saddlebag and spoke into it. Shouted. And got no answer. It was then he noticed that the radio’s power-on light wasn’t lit. Had it been before when he’d tried to use it? He wasn’t sure, hadn’t noticed.

His face burned. How could he fail to notice some­thing so basic?

Nils turned his horse and led them up the nearest slope into shorter grass, then on to the crest, where they sat awhile and waited. They’d be much easier to see there.

But the pinnace didn’t return. Somehow Baver knew it wouldn’t, not even if they waited there till nightfall. He also knew now that his radio was inoperable, and he had neither the tools nor the knowledge to fix it.

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He knew little about technical matters. It was the sort of thing he’d relied on Matthew for; Matthew knew equipment.

After a while, Nils nudged his horse with callused heels and started northeastward again. Baver rode up beside him. If he’s actually telepathic, Baver thought, as people claim, and as he seems to be, he must know what I’m thinking. But the big Northman barely glanced at him till he spoke.

“Nils, I want you to take me back.”

“That would take six days or more. Then six to get here again.”

“I—can make it worth your while.” Even as he said it, Baver knew he couldn’t. He had nothing the Northman wanted. Nils could have gone with the ship to New Home; Ram had even urged him to. Ilse, his wife had gone, the strange rawboned German woman who’d so impressed everyone. But Nils had refused.

“You can easily go back by yourself,” Nils said. “You can follow our trail.”

Baver shook his head. “I’d get lost. I don’t know how to tell our trail from cattle trails.”

The Northman raised a long muscular arm and pointed to the Carpathian Mountains lying dark with forest to the north. “Then ride with the mountains off your right shoulder. After a few days they will curve, and you must too, keeping them off your right shoulder. In time you will come to the Danube near where we crossed it. From there you’ll have no trouble finding a village of the Peo­ple. Someone will take you to the Salmon Clan.”

Not the Salmon Clan, Baver thought. No. Once he got back, he’d insist on staying with Matt and Nikko, going with them when they traveled. He shook his head. “I’d get lost,” he insisted. “I need you to take me.”

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