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VII

Rebo, Marchwarden of Gilrigor, reined in his fastiga on the crest of Ensum Hill. One hand, in an iron-knobbed gauntlet, pointed down the long slope. "Aesca," he said.

David Falkayn squinted through the day-gloom. To him the city was only a blot athwart the river's metal gleam. But a starpoint caught his eye, and his heart sprang within him. "Our ship," he breathed. "We are there."

Rebo peered across kilometers of fields and orchards. "No armed forces are gathered," he said. "I think I see the townsfolk beginning to swarm out, but no guards. Yet undoubtedly the Sanctuary has had word about us. So it is plain they do not intend to resist."

"Did you expect that—really?"

"I was not sure. That is why I brought so large a detachment of my own warriors." The cuirassed figure straightened in the saddle. The tail switched. "They would have been the ones breaking the law, had they tried to fight, so we would have had no compunctions. Not only the Wardens have chafed at the Consecrate bridle. My troop will be almost sorry not to bloody a blade this day."

"Not I." Falkayn shivered.

"Well," Rebo said, "peaceful or no, you have done more harm to them than I ever could. The world will not be the same again. So simple a thing as wagons—less toil, more goods moving faster, the age-old balance upset. And I will use some of that released power to overrun the Kasunians, which means I will be one to reckon with in the councils of the realm. Ever will your people be welcome in Gilrigor."

Falkayn dropped his glance, guiltily. "I cannot lie to you, my friend," he stumbled. "There may never be any more of us coming here."

"I had heard that," said Rebo, "and ignored it. Perhaps I did not wish to believe. No matter now." Pride rang in his tones. "One day our ships will come to you."

He raised his ax in signal. His riders deployed and the huge wagon lumbered over the ridge, drawn by twenty fastigas. The generator and crane lashed atop it glowed under the red sun.

The driver lowered his drag brake, a flat log, so the vehicle wouldn't get away from him on the downhill stretch. Groaning, squealing, banging, and rattling, the thing rocked onward.

It moved on eight rollers. They revolved between planks, the forward pair of which was adjustable by square pegs to permit turning. There were bumpers fore and aft to prevent their escape on an incline. As each roller emerged from the rear, two hooks caught two of the oblong metal eyes which ringed the grooves cut near either end of the log. These hooks were shrunk onto a pair of cross-braced, counter-weighted arms mounted high on the wagon bed. The arms were held in place by leather straps within a frame that stopped sidewise motion and pivoted on shapeless leather pads atop their posts. A couple of workers hauled lustily. The arms swung high. At the limit of their permissible arc, the carefully shaped hooks slipped out of the eyes and the roller fell onto a wooden roof that slanted downward to the front. Two other natives, equipped with peavies, stood there to make certain of its alignment. It boomed quickly between its guideboards and dropped to the road behind the front bumper. The wagon passed over it, the arms dipped in time to catch the next log, and the cycle began anew.

Each roller had three curved sides.

Draw an equilateral triangle, ABC. Put the point of your compasses on A and draw the arc BC. Move to B and describe AC, then to C and describe AB. Round off the corners. The resulting figure has constant width. It will roll between two parallel lines tangent to it maintaining that tangency for the whole revolution.

As a matter of fact, the class of constant-width polygons is infinite. The circle is merely a limiting case.

To be sure, Falkayn thought, the rollers on this Goldberg of his would wear down in time, approach the forbidden cross section and have to be replaced. Or would they? Someone like Rebo could argue that this proved the circle was actually the least perfect of all shapes, the degenerate product of a higher-order form. As if the poor old Consecrates didn't have theological problems enough!

He clucked to his mount and rode on ahead of the wagon, toward his ship.

 

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Framed