Tatja Grimm's World

Svir walked to the entrance of the maze. It certainly wasn’t very convincing. The ceiling of the passage was purple sky. Company sailors were to simulate the Royal Guards of the Keep. They didn’t seem too certain of just what was expected of them.

Tatja reached past Svir’s shoulder to pet Ancho. “We want Ancho to make these ‘Guards’ hallucinate. It’s going to take some practice, but I want him to convince whoever he points those pretty ears at that you constitute an authority figure.”

Svir tried to break the news gently: “I doubt if that’s possible. Dorfoxes aren’t very bright. It seems to me that in order to generate a detailed illusion, Ancho would have to be humanly bright.” Tatja shook her pretty head. “Nope. The intelligence of the victim provides all the background detail. I’ve spent some time on Dorfox Island, and I know things like that are possible. C’mon, let’s start, or we’ll still be at it when we pull into Bayfast.”

Ancho was usually sluggish at night, but he perked up noticeably when Tatja had a large bowl of rehydrated klig leaves brought on deck. He strained to push his nose past the bowl’s cover, but it was securely fastened. The dorfox would have to earn his treats. Svir’s father had often played games like this with Ancho, and had managed to teach him a number of tricks.

Svir stepped back from the klig leaves and put Ancho on his shoulder. The “Royal Guards” had assumed their posts in the passageway. He saw Cor Ascuasenya standing at the far end of the mock- up.

Tatja stood behind Svir. In this position she could watch what happened with relative impunity, since Ancho was not likely to turn around and broadcast in her direction. “All right, Svir, give it a try. Let’s see if Ancho will give us a demonstration.”

Svir walked slowly through the mock-up. Everything seemed quite normal. But then, Ancho rarely aimed his illusions at his master…

When he was through, Tatja asked the first sailor what he had seen.

The fellow looked at her a little blankly. “What do you mean? When are you going to start the test?” The others were similarly confused. None of them had been conscious of Svir or Ancho as they walked down the hall. Tatja unfastened the lid on the klig bowl.

“That was a good performance ,” she said. “Ancho managed to scan every person as you walked past. Now we have to make him try other effects, till he produces exactly what we re looking for.” She fed Ancho two leaves. The little mammal sucked on them greedily, momentarily enraptured. When he was done he reached out for more, but Tatja had already relocked the basket.

Svir petted Ancho, who appeared to enjoy the game. “You know, Tatja, Ancho is really dependable with that I’m-not-here signal. And he can scan a lot of people at once. Why can’t you settle for that?”

“Being invisible isn’t enough. You’ll be going all the way to the center of the Keep—to the vault where the most precious sacrifices are kept. With Ancho’s I’m-not-here, you probably could steal the Guards’ keys. But what if some of the doors have combination locks? You need more than the Guards’ passive acceptance. They must actively help you. And there are more than five thousand volumes in the Fantasie collection. That comes to at least two tons. You’ll need help getting them out.” She picked up her noteboard and pen. “Let’s try it again.”

And again. And again.

Ancho soon learned that anything he tried would earn him some reward, but that if he repeated a previous performance, the prize was smaller. So he tried to come up with a new effect on each try. They soon exhausted the natural dorfox responses, the projections which served so well on the dorfox’s native island. Some of these could drive away predators or dull their senses. Others attracted insects and lulled their suspicions.

Ancho also tried the tricks he had been taught since arriving in civilization. On one pass all the crewmen in the passage broke into fits of hysterical laughter. Cor Ascuasenya had the giggles for fifteen minutes after Ancho came by. What they saw was hilariously funny, though they couldn’t explain to Tatja and Svir just why.

Each trial was a little different than the last. Tatja had innumerable variations to suggest. But after the first half hour, the project was awfully boring. For the sailors it was also uncomfortable. Ancho had put them through an emotional wringer. In one twenty-minute period he made them laugh and cry. He had responded eagerly to all the attention showered upon him, but now was beginning to lose interest. And he had yet to display any behavior Svir had not seen previously. What Tatja was asking of Ancho was quite unrealistic. A half-guilty feeling of relief grew in Hedrigs. He really wanted to help Tarulle Company with the rescue. Even more, he wanted to help Tatja. But it was beginning to look as though he would not have to risk his life, after all. He wasn’t exactly eager to stick his nose into the business of Tar Benesh.

For the hundredth time, Svir started down the mock passageway. He was still surprised by the respect and obedience these sailors showed Tatja. She must have more authority on the barge than her title indicated. When she made a suggestion in her low, pleasant voice, people hustled. It was evidence of how the best people rose to the top in any organization. What had he done to deserve her?

“Damn it, man, stand up straight when you walk!” It took Svir an astonished second to realize that Tatja was speaking to him. “Come back and start over. How can you expect the dorfox to cast an illusion of authority if you drag about like an addled tri-form student?”

Svir bit back a sharp reply. He walked to the beginning and started over. He almost swaggered down the passageway, imitating the gait of a Crownesse bureaucrat he had once seen at a university dinner in Krirsarque. The effect was subtle. Suddenly he was no longer pretending. He actually felt important and powerful, the way he had always imagined politicians and generals must feel. It seemed only natural that the sailors should snap to attention as he passed them. He returned their brace with an informal salute. The feeling of power disappeared when he came to the end of the passage.

Tatja smiled. “Wow! Cor, what did you see when Svir walked by you?”

Ascuasenya looked confused. She glanced from Tatja to Svir and back again. “When I first looked at him coming down the hall, I could swear it was my father—but my family is in the Llerenito Archipelagate! Closer, I saw that it was Captain Maccioso. I mean, I knew it was Svir—it had to be. But it was Ked Maccioso at the same time. Even now when I look at him, I see Maccioso—and yet I see Svir, too.” Svir glanced at Ancho’s ears. They weren’t pointing at Cor. The illusion persisted even after the dorfox stopped radiating.

Tatja didn’t say anything for a second. She made a note in her book and looked up. “Can you see Ancho sitting on Svir’s shoulder?”

Cor squinted. “No. All I see is that queer double image I just described.”

The others had similar reactions. About half saw Svir as Tatja. These people were especially confused, since they were seeing two Tatja Grimms. Every one of them realized that Ancho’s trickery was involved, and all but two could see Svir behind the illusion.

Svir was amazed. Even Gran’ther Betrog had never mentioned anything like this. But what practical use was it? A half-baked illusion that wasn’t even uniform. It would never fool the Royal Guards.

But Tatja seemed to feel otherwise. She finished writing in the notebook and looked up, smiling. “Well, we’ve done it. The illusion is one of the strongest I’ve ever seen. It persists even in the face of contradiction-to-fact situations. See, Svir, all you have to do is act confident. Ancho knows you and will radiate the same thing. I really didn’t mean to jump on you.”

Svir nodded, still blushing from the unexpected attack. Her technique worked, but it was shocking.

Tatja continued, “We’d better knock off now. Ancho’s losing interest; by now he’s crammed full of klig leaves. And most of you look pretty dragged out. Let’s have another session after lunch.”

During the rest of the voyage they had three hours of practice in every wake period. Toward the end, Ancho was able to broadcast the authority signal even better than he could the i’m-not-here. He also grew fat on the klig leaves, assuming an almost spherical form. Tatja had him perform his new trick under every conceivable condition—even in the dark, down in one of the holds. They found that if a single authority figure were suggested to all the “victims,” then they all saw that same person. It took Ancho only a fraction of a second to set up the illusion in the human mind, and it persisted without booster treatment for almost ten minutes. Ancho could detect people hiding behind bulkheads, and could even project the illusion through many feet of stone.

One experiment was a mystery to Svir. Tatja produced a flat balsir box and strapped it to Ancho’s back. He didn’t seem to mind; the box was light and apparently the straps didn’t chafe. The contraption looked vaguely like an oversize cookie cutter—its profile was an irregular set of semicircles and lines.