"It's redlining," Keff shouted, tapping the glass with a fingernail. The indicator didn't budge. "Listen to those hesitations! These generators sound like they could go at any moment. We didn't get here any too soon."

"The sound is still rising," Plenna said, her voice constricted to a squeak. She put out her hands and concentrated, then recoiled horrified as the turbines increased their speed slightly in response. "My power comes from here," she said, alarmed. "I'm just making it worse."

The frogs became very excited, bumping their cases against the humans' knees.

"Shut it down," Tall commanded, sweeping his big hands emphatically at Keff. "Shut it down!"

"I would if I could," he said, then repeated it in sign language. "Where is the OFF switch?"

"Is it that?" Chaumel asked, pointing to a large, heavy switch close to the floor.

Keff followed the circuit back to where it joined the rest of the mechanism. "It's a breaker," he said. "If I cut this, it'll stop everything at once. It might destroy the generators altogether. We have to slow it down gradually, not stop it. This is impossible without a technical manual!" he shouted, frustrated, pounding his fist on his knee. "We could be at ground zero for a planet-shattering explosion. And there's nothing we could do about it. Why isn't there a fail-safe? Engineers who were advanced enough to invent something like this must have built one in to keep it from running in the red."

"Perhaps the Old Ones turned it off?" Chaumel suggested. "Or even our poor, deceived ancestors?"

"Off?" Plennafrey tapped him on the shoulder and shouted above the din. "Couldn't Carialle turn off every item of power?"

"Good idea, Plenna! Cari, implement!"

"Yes, sir!" the efficient voice crackled in his ear. "Now, watch the circuits as I lock them out one at a time. The magifolk won't notice-they'll think it's another power failure. You and the globe-frogs should be able to trace down where the transformer steps kick in. See if you can make a permanent lower level adjustment."

The turbines began to slow down gradually as the power demands lessened. The Frog Prince and his assistants were already at the consoles. As the only one with his hands outside a plastic globe, the leader had to monitor the shut-downs and incorporate the readings his assistants took through the controls. His long fingers flicked switches one after another and poked recessed buttons in a sequence that seemed to have meaning to him. The whining of the turbos died down slowly. In a while, the amphibioid raised his big hand over his head with his fingers forming a circle and blinked at Keff in a self-satisfied manner.

"You're in control of it now," Keff signed.

"I am now understanding the lessons handed down," the alien replied, his small face showing pleasure as he signed. "'To the right, on; to the left, off,' it was said. 'The big down is for peril, the small downs like stairs, to your hands comes the power.' Now I control it like this." He held up Plennafrey's belt buckle. His long fingers slid into the depressions. "This one is in much better condition than the single we have, which has done service for our whole population for all these many years."

Tall glanced toward the controls. The switches pressed themselves, dials and levers moved without a hand touching them. The great engines stilled to a barely perceptible hum.

"At last," he gestured, "after five hundred generations we have our property back. We can come forward once again."

He seemed less enthusiastic once the extent of the damage began to emerge. Series of lights showed that several of the turbines were running at half efficiency or less. Some were not functioning at all. At one time, some unknown engineer had tied together a handful of the generators under a single control, but the generators in question were nowhere near one another on the cave floor.

"It'll take a lot of fixing," Keff said, examining the mechanism with the frogs crowded in around him. The indicators in some of the dials hadn't moved in so long they had corroded to their pins. He snapped his fingernail at one of them, trying to jar it loose. "We'll have to figure out if any of the repair parts can be made out of components I have on hand. If they're too esoteric, you might need to send off for them, providing they're still making them on your home planet."

"Home?" one of the globe-frogs signed back, with the fillip that meant an interrogative.

"If you have the coordinates, we have your transportation," Keff offered happily, signing away to the oops, eeps, oops, eeps, and and ops ops of IT's shorthand dictation. "Our job is to make contact with other races, and we're very pleased to meet of IT's shorthand dictation. "Our job is to make contact with other races, and we're very pleased to meet you. you. My government would be delighted to open communications with yours." My government would be delighted to open communications with yours."

"That is all well, Keff," Chaumel asked, "but do not forget about us. What of the mages? They will be wondering what happened to their items of power. Blackouts normally last only a few moments. There will be pandemonium."

"And what for the future?" Plenna asked.

"Your folk will have to realize that you now coexist with the globe-frogs," Keff said thoughtfully. "And, Tall, she's right. You are going to have to do something about the mages. They're dependent upon the system to a certain extent. Can we negotiate some kind of share agreement?"

"They can have it all," Tall said, with a scornful gesture toward the jury-rigged control board. "All this is ruined. Ruined! You come from the stars. Why do you not take my people back to our homeworld? We are effectively dispossessed. We've been ignored since the day we were robbed by the Flat Ones. No one will notice our absence. Let the thieves who have used our machinery have it and the husk that remains of this planet."

"We'd be happy to do that," Keff said, carefully, "but forgive me, Tall, you won't have much in common with the people of your homeworld anymore, will you? You were born here. Five hundred generations of your people have been native Ozrans. Just when it could start to get better, do you really want to leave?"

"Hear, hear," said Carialle.

One of the amphibioids looked sad and made a gesture that threw the idea away. The Frog Prince looked at him. "I guess we do not. Truth, I I do not, but what to do?" do not, but what to do?"

"What was your people's mission? Why did you come here?"

"To grow things on this green and fertile planet," Tall signed, almost a dance of graceful gestures, as if repeating a well-learned lesson. He stopped. "But nothing is green and fertile anymore like in the old stories. It is dry, dusty, cold."

"Don't you want to try and bring the planet back to a healthy state?"

"How?"

Keff touched the small amphibioid gently on the back and drew Chaumel closer with the other arm. "The know-how is obviously still in your people's oral tradition. Why not fulfill your ancestors' hopes and dreams? Work together with the humans. Share with with them. You can fix the machinery. I agree that you should make contact with your homeworld, and we'll help with that, but don't go back to stay. Ask them for technical support and communication. They'll be thrilled to know that any of the colonists are still alive." them. You can fix the machinery. I agree that you should make contact with your homeworld, and we'll help with that, but don't go back to stay. Ask them for technical support and communication. They'll be thrilled to know that any of the colonists are still alive."

The sad frog looked much happier. "Leader, yes!" he signed enthusiastically.

"Help us," Keff urged, raising his hands high. "We'll try to establish mutual respect among the species. If it fails, Carialle and I can always take you back once we've fixed the system here."

Chaumel cleared his throat and spoke, mixing sign language with the spoken linga esoterka. "You have much in common with our lower class," he said. "You'll find much sympathy among the farmers and workers."

"We know them," Tall signed scornfully. "They kick us."

Keff signaled for peace.

"Once they know you're intelligent, that will change. The human civilization on this planet has slid backward to a subsistence farming culture. Only with your help can Ozran join the confederation of intelligent races as a voting member."

"That's a slippery slope you're negotiating there, Keff," Carialle warned, noticing Plenna's shocked expression. Chaumel, on the other hand, was nodding and concealing a grin. He approved of Keff's eliding the truth for the sake of diplomacy.

"For mutual respect and an equal place we might stay," the Frog Prince signed after conferring with his fellows.

"You won't regret it," Keff assured him. "You'll be able to say to your offspring that it was your generation, allied with another great and intelligent race, who completed your ancestors' tasks."

"To go from nothing to everything," the Frog Prince signed, his pop eyes going very wide, which Keff interpreted as a sign of pleasure. "The ages may not have been wasted after all."

"Only if we can keep this planet from blowing up," Carialle reminded them. Keff relayed her statement to the others.

"But what needs to be done to bring the system back to a healthy balance?" Chaumel asked.

"Stop using it," Keff said simply. "Or at least, stop draining the system so profligately as you have been doing. The mages will have to be limited in future to what power remains after the legitimate functions have been supplied: weather control, water conservation, and whatever it takes to stabilize the environment. That's what those devices were originally designed to do. Only the most vital uses should be made of what power's left over. And until the frogs get the system repaired, that's going to be precious little. You saw how much colder and drier Ozran has become over the time human beings have been here. It won't be long until this planet is uninhabitable, and you have nowhere else to go."

"I understand perfectly," Chaumel said. "But the others are not going to like it."

"They must see for themselves." Plenna spoke up unexpectedly. "Let them come here."

"Your girlfriend has a good idea," Carialle told Keff. "Show them this place. The globe-frogs can keep everyone on short power rations. Give them enough to fly their chariots here, but not enough to start a world war."

"Just enough," Keff stressed as the Frog Prince went to make the adjustment, "so they don't feel strangled, but let's make it clear that the days of making it snow firecrackers are over." enough," Keff stressed as the Frog Prince went to make the adjustment, "so they don't feel strangled, but let's make it clear that the days of making it snow firecrackers are over."

"Hah!" Chaumel said. "What would impress them most is if you could make it snow snow snow! Everyone will have to see it for themselves, or they will not believe. The meeting must be called at once."

The Frog Prince and his companions paddled back to Keff. "We will stay here to feel out the machinery and learn what is broken."

Keff stood up, stamping to work circulation back into his legs.

"And I'll stay here, too. Since there is no manual or blueprints, Carialle and I will plot schematics of the mechanism, and see what we can help fix. Cari?"

"I'll be there with tools and components before you can say alakazam, Sir Galahad," she replied.

"I had better stay, too, then," Plenna said. "Someone needs to keep others from entering if the silver tower leaves the plain. She attracts too much curiosity."

"Good thinking. Bring Brannel, too," Keff told Carialle. "He deserves to see the end of all his hard work. This will either make or break the accord."

"It will be either the end or the beginning of our world," Chaumel agreed, settling into the silver chair. It lifted off from the platform and skimmed away toward the distant light.

Chapter Fourteen.

The vast cavern swallowed up the few hundred mages like gnats in a garden. Each high mage was surrounded by underlings spread out and upward in a wedge to the rim of an imaginary bowl with Keff, Chaumel, Plenna, Brannel, and the three globe-frogs at its center on the platform. All the newcomers were staring down at the machinery on the cave floor and gazing at the high platform with expressions of awe. The Noble Primitive gawked around him at the gathering of the greatest people in his world. All of them were looking at him. Keff aimed a companionable slap at the worker's shoulders and winked up at him.

"You're perfectly safe," he assured Brannel.

"I do not feel safe," Brannel whispered. "I wish they could not see me."

"Whether or not they realize it, they owe you a debt of gratitude. You've been helping them, and you deserve recognition. In a way, this is your reward."

"I would rather not be recognized," Brannel said definitely. "No one will shoot fire at a target that cannot be seen."

"No one is going to shoot fire," Keff said. "There isn't enough power left out there to light a match."

"What is going on here?" Ilnir roared, projecting his voice over the hubbub of voices and the hum of machinery. "I am not accustomed to being summoned, nor to waiting while peasants confer!"

"Why has the silver tower been moved to this place?" a mage called out. "Doesn't it belong to the East?"

"Why will my items of power not function?" a lesser magess of Zolaika's contingent complained. "Chaumel, are you to blame for all this?"

"High Ones, mages and magesses," the silver magiman said smoothly. "Events over the past weeks have culminated in this meeting today. Ozran is changing. You may perhaps be disappointed in some of the changes, but I assure you they are for the better-in fact, they are inexorable, so your liking them will not much matter in the long run. My friend Keff will explain." He turned a hand toward the Central Worlder.

"We have brought you here today to see this," Keff said, pitching his voice to carry to the outermost ranks of mages. "This"-he patted the nearest upthrust piece of conduit-"is the Core of Ozran."

"Ridiculous!" Lacia shouted down at him from well up in the eastern contingent. "The Core is not this thing. This is a toy that makes noise."

"Do not dismiss this toy too quickly, Magess," Chaumel called. "Without it you'd have had to walk here. None of you have ever seen it before, but it has been here, working beneath the crust of Ozran for thousands of years. It is the source of our power, and it is on the edge of breaking down."

"You've been misusing it," Keff said, then raised his hands to still the outcry. "It was never meant to maintain the needs of a mass social order of wizards. It was intended"-he had to shout to be heard over the rising murmurs-"as a weather control device! It's supposed to control the patterns of wind, rain, and sunshine over your fields. We have asked you here so you will understand why you're being asked to stop using your items of power. If you don't, the Core will drain this planet of life faster and faster, and finally blow up, taking at least a third of the planetary surface with it. You'll all die!"

"We're barely using it now," Omri shouted. "We need more than this trickle." A chorus of voices agreed with him.

"This is the time, when everyone can see the direct results, to give up power and save your world. Chaumel has talked to each one of you, shown you pictures. You've all had time to think about it. Now you know the consequences. It isn't whether or not the Core will explode. It's when when!"

"But how will we govern?" the piping voice of Zolaika asked. The room quieted immediately when she spoke. "How will we keep the farms going? If the workers don't have us in charge of everything they won't work."

"They don't need you in charge of everything, Magess. Stop using the docility drugs and you'll find that you won't need to herd them like sheep," Keff said. "They'll become innovators, and Ozran will see the birth of a civilization like it has never known. You're dumbing down potential sculptors, architects, scientists, doctors, teachers. The only thing you'll have to concentrate on," Keff said with a smile, "is to teach them to cook for themselves. Maybe you can send out some of your kitchen staff, after you build them stoves-geothermal energy is available under every one of those home caverns. You could have communal kitchens in each one of the farmsteads in a week. After that, you can discontinue all the energy you use in food distribution."

Keff urged Brannel to center stage. "Speak up. Go on. You wanted to, before."

"Magess," Brannel began shyly, then bawled louder when several of the mages complained they couldn't hear him. "Magess, we need more rain! We workers could grow more food, bigger, if we have more rain, and if you do not have battles so often." At the angry murmuring, he was frightened and started to retreat, but Keff eased him back to his place.

"Listen to him!" Nokias roared. Brannel swallowed, but continued bravely.

"I...the life goes out of the plants when you use much magic near us. We care for the soil, we till it gently and water with much effort, but when magic happens, the plants die."

"Do you understand?" Keff said, letting Brannel retreat at last. The Noble Primitive huddled nervously against an upright of the control platform, and Plennafrey patted his arm. "Your farmers know what's good for the planet-and you're preventing their best efforts from having any results by continuing your petty battles. Let them have more responsibility and more support, and less interference with the energy flow, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the results."

"You go on and on about the peasants," Asedow shouted. "We've heard all about the peasants. But what are they they doing here?" The green-clad magiman pointed at the frogs. doing here?" The green-clad magiman pointed at the frogs.

Keff smiled.

"This is the most important discovery we've made since we started to investigate the problems with the Core. When Carialle and I arrived on Ozran, we hoped to find a sentient species the equal of our own, with superior technological ability. We were disappointed to find that you mages weren't it." He raised his voice above the expected plaint. "No, not that you're backward! We discovered that you are human human like us. We're the same species. We've found in you a long-lost branch of our own race." like us. We're the same species. We've found in you a long-lost branch of our own race."

"You are Ozran?"

"No! You You are Central Worlders. Your people came to Ozran a thousand years ago aboard a ship called the are Central Worlders. Your people came to Ozran a thousand years ago aboard a ship called the Bigelow. Bigelow. That's the reason why I could translate the tapes and papers they left behind. The language is an ancient version of my own. No, Carialle and I still managed to achieve our goal. We have found our equal race." That's the reason why I could translate the tapes and papers they left behind. The language is an ancient version of my own. No, Carialle and I still managed to achieve our goal. We have found our equal race."

"Where?" someone shouted. Keff held up his hands.

"You know all about the Ancient Ones and the Old Ones. You know what the Old Ones looked like. There are images of them in many of your strongholds. Your grandparents told you horror stories, and you've seen the holographs Chaumel had me play for you from the record tapes saved by your ancestors. But you've never seen the Ancient Ones. You know they built the Core of Ozran and founded the system on which your power has been based for ten centuries. These," he said, with a triumphant flourish toward the Frog Prince and his assistants, "are the Ancient Ones."

"Never!" Ferngal cried, his red face drawn into a furious mask.

Over shouts of disbelief, Keff blasted from the bottom of his bull-like chest: "These people have been right here under your nose for ten centuries. These are the Ancient Ones who invented the Core and all the items of power."

The murmuring died away. For a moment there was complete silence, then hysterical laughter built until it filled the vast cavern. Keff maintained a polite expression, not smiling. He gestured to the Frog Prince.

The amphibioid stepped forward and began to sign the discourse he had prepared with Keff's help. It was eloquent, asking for recognition and promising cooperation. The mages recognized the ancient signs, their eyes widening in disbelief. Gradually, the merriment died down. Every face in the circle showed shock. They stared from Tall Eyebrow to Keff.

"You're not serious, are you?" Nokias asked. Keff nodded. "These are the Ancient Ones?" are the Ancient Ones?"

"I am perfectly serious. Chaumel will tell you. They helped me-directed me-on how to make temporary repairs to the Core. It was overheating badly. It'll take a long time to get it so it won't blow up if overused. I couldn't do it by myself. I've never seen some of these components before. Friends, this machine is brilliant. Human technology has yet to find a system that can pull electrical energy out of the solid matter around it without creating nuclear waste. What you see here at my side is the descendant of some of the dandiest scientists and engineers in the galaxy, and they've been living in the marshes like animals since before your people came here." me-on how to make temporary repairs to the Core. It was overheating badly. It'll take a long time to get it so it won't blow up if overused. I couldn't do it by myself. I've never seen some of these components before. Friends, this machine is brilliant. Human technology has yet to find a system that can pull electrical energy out of the solid matter around it without creating nuclear waste. What you see here at my side is the descendant of some of the dandiest scientists and engineers in the galaxy, and they've been living in the marshes like animals since before your people came here."

"But they are are animals," Potria spat. animals," Potria spat.

"They're not," Keff said patiently. "They've just been forced to live that way. When the Old Ones moved to the mountains you call your strongholds, they robbed the frog-folk of access to their own machinery and reduced them to subsistence living. They are are advanced beings. They're willing to help you fix the system so it works the way it was intended to work. You've all seen the holo-tapes of the way Ozran was when your ancestors came. Ozran can become a lush, green paradise again, the way it was before the Old Ones appropriated their power devices and made magic items out of them. They passed them on to you, and you expanded the system beyond its capacity to cope and control the weather. It's not your fault. You didn't know, but you have to help make it right now. Your own lives depend upon it." advanced beings. They're willing to help you fix the system so it works the way it was intended to work. You've all seen the holo-tapes of the way Ozran was when your ancestors came. Ozran can become a lush, green paradise again, the way it was before the Old Ones appropriated their power devices and made magic items out of them. They passed them on to you, and you expanded the system beyond its capacity to cope and control the weather. It's not your fault. You didn't know, but you have to help make it right now. Your own lives depend upon it."

"Hah! You cannot trick me into believing that these trained marsh-slime are the Ancient Ones!" Potria laughed, a harsh sound edged with hysteria. "Its a poor joke and I have had enough of it." She turned to the others. "Do you believe this tale?"