“One decision may alter all probable futures. And those are unstable, shifting and changing—no man can know the future with any certainty. But it’s possible to see dangers, sometimes, and prepare for them—though that may mean facing a worse peril later on. Wait—”
In the pool a ripple took form at the impact of a reflection and began to spread. It showed the picture of a shifting, cloudy mass moving against the translucent water—but moving with a directive purpose, Miller thought. The background took form. He saw himself and Orelle in miniature with the cloud no longer shifting but swooping purposively above them.
Another ripple collided violently with the first and the picture vanished in a burst of bubbles. But it took shape again in the next moment, though different now, with a shift in background. The ripples raced over that image and washed it out with another, like a not-quite-identical copy. Then he saw the castle in which he stood and it was, he thought, collapsing into ruins.
That changed. He saw himself in tiny reflections, facing Tsi—And then a ripple washed across the pool in which he saw his own face and Slade’s and there was something inexplicably terrible about both.
Shaken, he asked Llesi a mental question. Llesi answered him briefly.
“If part of what you just saw happens, other parts can’t happen. But you saw that cloudy pillar? It appeared too often against too many backgrounds to be very far off in space or time. Brann is sending a warrior against us. Not a human warrior. I think we can expect the cloudy thing we saw quite soon, in one or another of the versions we’ve been watching.”
“But what is it?”
“I don’t know. Something dangerous—that much you can be sure of. I think we can defeat it, once we discover what it is. So far we’ve always been able to defeat Brann’s warriors, no matter what form they had.”
“So far?” Miller asked. “And then someday—what?”
Mentally Llesi shrugged. “Who knows? I, who read the future, realize better than most men that I have no way of guessing what is to come. I can see the possibilities here in the pool, I can foresee the worst dangers and prepare against them—but beyond that I can’t go. No. I don’t know what the outcome will be between Brann and me.”
Miller said with abrupt decision, “You’ve looked too long in the Time Pool! You’ve been depending on what you see there to tell you what to do. Why not take the future into your own hands?”
There was a curious stillness in his brain at that, as if Llesi were suddenly wary and watchful. Finally the voice that shared his mind spoke cautiously.
“What do you suggest?”
“Someday, if I understand you, Brann may succeed at last in creating a kind of warrior you can’t overcome. I saw this castle falling in one of those pictures in the pool, so I know it’s possible—no, even probable, that this thing he’s sending, or maybe the one after it, will be the one to destroy you. It that right?”
Still caution and distrust ruled Llesi’s mind, but there was reluctant interest in the mental voice that said, “Go on. What are you thinking about?”
“Brann wants one thing—the Power. Is that right?”
“The Power and yourself, now. Yes,” Llesi answered.
“So he’ll keep on attacking until he gets one or both. Why haven’t you attacked him first?”
“Do you think we haven’t tried? Brann’s castle is invulnerable. We’ve failed and failed and failed again to force any entry by any means we know. But Brann’s failed, too, against us. It’s stalemate.”
“It needn’t be. I have an idea.” Miller hesitated. “I won’t tell you now. You wouldn’t accept it. Later on, if things go wrong, maybe you’ll be willing to listen. Maybe—”
From across the Time Pool, in the dimness of the garden, Orelle’s mental voice said clearly, “Don’t go on, Miller. Or are you really Brann?”
Miller had the curious sensation in his brain that both he and Llesi had actually moved in the center of his skull, as he spun toward the dark tree where she stood watching.
“How long have you been here, child?” Llesi said.
“Long enough. I saw the cloudy thing coming in the Pool. I know what we’ve got to face—but not with treachery to make it even worse than it is. Oh, Llesi, won’t you let me kill him?”
“Not yet,” Llesi said with a deadly sort of practicality. “Not yet, because you need me in the fight, and I’m helpless without this man. Nor am I wholly sure he can’t be trusted, Orelle.”
“I heard what he was trying to suggest. Something treacherous—some way to help Brann win at last. Llesi, I’m afraid! This isn’t safe. I—”
A flash of soundless white light without warning illumined the garden and the whole castle around it, so that every figure stood out in abrupt silhouette against the whiteness. As suddenly as it came, it went out, leaving momentary blindness behind it.
Orelle caught her breath and said, “The signal! Llesi—hurry! Whatever it is, it must be almost here!”
VI
Invasion
They saw it first far off on the plain, moving toward them through the clear darkness. At first it seemed only a mist that drifted with the wind but, when the wind shifted, the grey fog came on. Its heart was thicker and dimly the eye could glimpse intricate matrices of light far inside the cloud, glittering patterns like diamond cobwebs arranged in lattice formations.
Miller and Orelle, with Llesi a bodiless awareness beside them, stood at a glass wall looking out over the plain toward Brann’s castle.
Llesi breathed softly. “I know that pattern. It’s a bad one. The thing’s brain and control and energy-source are in the bright matrix you see. Watch now.”
The lattices shifted into new geometric formations and out of the cloud rippling, soft grey tentacles thrust, thickening as they moved.
“That would be stronger than iron once it took shape,” Llesi was saying. “The pseudopod principle, of
