The Exalting

by Dan Allen

  He wasn’t quite sure what to do with a hug.

  “You can call me Sarah.” The High Councillor stepped back, keeping her hands on his arms as if drawing strength from muscles underneath his uniform. “I was the one who nominated you for first contact.”

  “Yeah, I guessed that.” He swallowed as he formed the question that had been chewing on him since he woke from cryo. “Why?”

  The girl turned and walked to a table with twelve glass stands. Nine had planetary models balanced on thin spires. Three were empty.

  “The Creator shows us very little—far less than we believe the Xahnans to be capable of seeing.” Sarah traced her finger over the model of Earth. “Long ago we humans, too, shared powerful spiritual gifts. But when the veil grew distant on Earth, that was when the human race truly awoke, seeking answers. No longer did the Creator offer wisdom through prophets and miracles on demand. We were alone, Jet. And alone we strove. Alone we sought. Alone we soared, reaching the stars, retracing the very steps of the Creator. Does it not thrill you?”

  Jet shrugged. He wasn’t a Believer because of religion. It was more because he hated ASP.

  “You haven’t seen beyond the Earth and stars,” she said. “And I cannot make you. But that does not change the fact that life is more than blood and bone.” She paused, then said softly. “I witnessed the ASP strike on Avalon many weeks before it happened. It came to me in a vision, a waking dream from which I could not escape. It was terrible.”

  Her eyes became distant and she shivered.

  “I warned the Believers. They fled by the thousands before the ASP fleet arrived to announce the extermination order.”

  “That’s . . . that’s really incredible.”

  Sarah nodded. “There are only two other seers on the Council—one from Capria and the aged grand patriarch of Rodor. Their gifts are largely dormant.”

  “So, you are the High Seer?”

  She nodded. “A well-guarded secret.”

  “Is that why you nominated me?” Jet asked. “Did you see a vision or . . . something?”

  Sarah gave him a playful shove. “Of course I did.”

  Jet was dumbstruck. “About me?”

  She nodded. “On Xahna.”

  Jet was intensely curious. The High Seer had seen a vision of him on the ninth planet. “Wh . . . what did you see?”

  “I saw you and a Xahnan girl.” Sarah’s voice trembled as her eyes unfocused. “And then I saw our ships falling from the sky. Then ASP cruisers in orbit. I saw their corporations landing, spreading wealth and technology—binding them with the chains of greed. I saw no other Believers.”

  The words seemed to squeeze his heart. Would it go so badly? Would this be the end? Was he on a doomed mission? “Why would—why would the Creator send you a vision like that?”

  “Perhaps,” her voice choked, “he does not see us gathering this planet. Perhaps it is not in his design.”

  “It has to be.”

  “You don’t understand the Creator’s mind. None of us do.”

  “If God wants a marine on this mission, then he wants no one left behind.”

  Sarah bit her lip. “I hope you’re right.” The locket on her necklace gave a small chirp. She touched it, and Decker’s voice sounded from a speaker in the wall. “Councillor Raman, this is Captain Decker. The Nautilus and our drag net are ready. Awaiting Corporal Naman.”

  “Jet will join you shortly.”

  “Acknowledged, Decker out.”

  The locket chirped again to signal the end of the transmission.

  Sarah turned up her hands. “I wish I could send you with something more than a broken vision and a dropship.”

  Jet waved his hand. “I’ve had worse briefings. It’s just the future of the Believers and an entire planet’s salvation and the Creator’s plans for the universe—I’ll figure something out.”

  She smiled. “Goodbye, Jet.”

  “See you on Xahna . . . Sister Sarah.”

  Jet stepped out of the conference room, then ran to the lift. The gate closed, and the lift accelerated down toward the shuttle bay.

  When it stopped, he waved to the security guard and hopped into the autoshuttle. “Nautilus, double time.”

  “You got it,” the AI pilot said.

  * * *

  Mirris’s metal-ringed bangs flew out as she turned to look to Dana. “You had better not even touch Ryke. He’s like our brother.”

  What had her so riled up about Ryke?

  Had he acted differently around her? What had they noticed?

  “I’ll keep it to a minimum,” Dana offered. She let Mirris’s jealous imagination chew on what that minimum might be.

  Right now, she had to talk to Ryke alone. He might know something about Korren as well. And maybe she would tell him about Sindar and the bloodstone.

  I need him on my side.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Dana slipped quickly out the curtain and ran straight into Ryke’s thornwood staff. Her forehead ricocheted off one of its polished thorn roots. Stars glinted around the edges of her vision as her legs lost strength.

  “That’s gonna . . . leave a . . .” scar. Dana slumped down with one hand clamped to her forehead, which she was sure would bleed famously all over the ground and her clothes and Ryke.

  Ryke’s hand caught her upper arm, which saved her from cracking the back of her head as she collapsed.

  “Oh, my. I’m so sorry—usually people come out the other side of the curtain.”

  “Left . . .” Dana groaned. “. . . handed.”

  Dana blinked and saw seven of Ryke. She blinked again and realized it was the rest of the young acolytes staring down at her.

  “What did you do to her?”

  “That wasn’t nice.”

  “Whatever it was, she probably deserved it.”

  “Mirris,” Kaia chided. “We do not judge. Judgment is reserved—”

  “For the ka,” Mirris echoed. “You were thinking it, too.”

  “How did you—I was not.”

  “Oh, would somebody please just get her a rag. That’s going to bleed everywhere.”

  A throb pounded from the front of Dana’s head where she had collided with a prominent bump on the staff. Dana had once spent a weekend polishing a thornwood branch with a coral. The wood was incredibly hard.

  “Oh, just go stick her head in the pool.” It was Mirris’s voice. “The sayathi will take care of it.”

  “You know that’s not allowed,” Kaia whispered.

  “Everyone does it.”

  “Not me.”

  “I guess,” Dana said wincing as the sound of her own voice sent more pain through her head. “I should make the blood sacrifice anyway.”

  “She hasn’t made the blood sacrifice?” Mirris stared at Dana, aghast. “How did she drink the water?”

  “Her relative was blood-sworn,” Kaia said in a guarded voice. She didn’t say it was Togata-ka.

  Ryke handed his staff to Mirris. “Don’t play with that.”

  Dana felt his arms cradling her back and knees as he lifted her and carried her down the tunnel toward the sayathi pool.

  Dana kept her hand pressed to her already painful forehead, trying to keep the bleeding of her split skull to a minimum. Dana had to shut her eyes as the blood trickled down.

  “You are really bleeding a lot—Kaia, she’s going to need stitches.”

  “Lovely,” Dana said. “A great big scar on my forehead.” She didn’t hide the irritation she felt at having been nearly knocked unconscious.

  Ryke lowered Dana to the edge of the pool.

  Dana put her hand on the sharp coral and leaned out over the water. She looked down at her reflection as heavy drops of blood drained into the pool, dispersing in a red plume beneath the surface. Ripples ran through the glowing reflection of Dana’s blood-streaked face.

  I look horrible.

  “How much more?” Dana asked.

  “Probably enough if you use what’s
already on your face,” Mirris said from just behind her. Dana was suddenly thrust underwater and held there. It was a few seconds before Dana could find safe leverage for her hands and push.

  But as soon as she did, Mirris pulled her head back up. “See. It’s working,” Mirris said. “That lump on her forehead is already glowing.”

  “So is the rest of her,” said another acolyte.

  Dana looked down and realized her entire body was glowing at least ten times as brightly as the woman at the Sayathi Sea had.

  “That’s not normal,” Mirris said.

  Dana looked down at her waist and realized that the bloodstone in the pouch had touched the water. With one hand she lifted the pouch clear of the pool, and the glowing faded slightly.

  Oops.

  Kaia pressed a cloth to Dana’s head. “We’re going to have to get those bloody clothes off you.”

  “Not while he’s here.”

  Ryke gestured to Mirris. “Did you want her to carry you?”

  Dana closed her eyes, wincing as the throbbing in her forehead became a thundering headache. “I’m going to be sick to my stomach.”

  Kaia knelt beside her and whispered quickly in her ear. “You must not throw up in the sacred—oh, she’s really going to throw up.”

  Dana choked down her gagging.

  “Thank you.” Kaia turned to the staring acolytes and spoke in a knowledgeable voice. “Do you all recognize the signs of shock?”

  Kaia reached inside a pocket of her apron and drew out a small bottle and what looked like a small bean bag. She poured a small amount of the liquid on the bean bag and then pressed it to Dana’s head.

  The bag was cool to the touch, quickly turning icy. “Wow. Is that alchemy?”

  “Of course, it is,” Mirris said. “Kaia formulated the angel’s kiss herself.”

  “She’s never seen my alchemy before,” Kaia explained to the younger acolytes. “Because she’s from Norr. But the sayathi recognize that portion of her grandfather’s blood that runs through her.” Kaia looked at Mirris. “Dana is your second cousin.”

  “But I don’t have any—wait,” Mirris knelt down and peered at Dana, as if looking in the mirror. “My grand uncle—the last ka—went north.”

  “You mean Togath,” Dana said, “my grandfather.”

  Mirris wrinkled her nose. “No wonder you look like my father—only with girl parts.”

  “Er . . . thanks.”

  “He’s not that good looking.”

  Kaia tried not to laugh as she bound the poultice to Dana’s forehead with a cloth. As the bandage cinched tightly around Dana’s head, amplifying the pounding, Kaia turned to Ryke. “Can you carry her back to the infirmary?”

  “Sure. I’ll just be a moment.”

  Kaia exchanged a look with Ryke that appeared to be laced with several hours’ worth of lecture.

  “I’ll have a look at it when the swelling is down,” Kaia said as she stood up. “The rest of you back to quarters.”

  The whispers of the departing children echoed through the tunnel.

  “Did you see how much she glowed?”

  “Is that some kind of sign? Is she going to be the next ka?”

  Ryke knelt down next to Dana. She hoped he didn’t notice the excessive glowing when the stone had touched the water.

  Take a note: don’t get the stone wet.

  “Are you okay?”

  “People only ask that when I look terrible,” Dana had meant to think it, but the words had just slipped out. “How bad is it?”

  Ryke winced. “I . . . got you pretty good. I was leaning against it, so it didn’t really give much.” He leaned closer. “I am sorry.”

  Now her head wasn’t throbbing, thanks to the angel’s kiss, but her heart beat more quickly, too. Something about attention and proximity.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Dana said. If she could figure out what do about the bloodstone, there was a long future ahead of her—a future with Ryke, Kaia, and her second cousin, who she could already tell was going to be a great friend.

  Ryke took in a breath and paused. “What you did . . . in the cave after we escaped . . . it’s not something I was expecting.”

  “You mean when I cried?” Dana gave a tight-lipped grin. “Yeah, I don’t usually do that.”

  “No.” His eyes met hers again.

  “Oh.” Dana glanced up the corridor. “The thank you?”

  “No.” Ryke looked down. “It is kind of nice being around someone who doesn’t treat me like a kind-deed-doing mechanodron. But I can’t accept thanks for hurting those men,” Ryke said. “I’ve prepared all my life to defend the innocent from the unrighteous.”

  “You finally got your chance,” Dana whispered.

  “But you were not innocent. Korren said you stole a greeder from Norr.”

  “Yeah, but—” Dana grabbed Ryke’s arm as wave of vertigo hit her. “Those men weren’t innocent either. They were trying to kill me—and you.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  I can trust him, Dana thought. I can tell him. Numbness had spread from the point where Kaia had applied the medicine down to her cheeks. She formed the words carefully, trying not to sound as impaired as she felt.

  “They wanted what I was bringing to Shoul Falls.”

  Ryke’s brow furrowed in thought. “They wanted you because you were powerful and unbound?”

  “Not me. The Vetas-kazen want—” Dana tried to form words, but the numbness kept spreading from the point on her forehead where Kaia had dripped the medicine. It ran over her face and down her arms and hands. She lost the ability to speak or move her arms.

  Maybe she used too much.

  But Kaia was apparently no amateur.

  “Great,” Ryke muttered as Dana’s head lolled to one side limply. “Always a side effect.”

  As she lay there paralyzed, Ryke picked up her body. Her lips were a half inch from Ryke’s neck, but she couldn’t so much as pucker her lips.

  Thank you for saving me, she thought. Thank you.

  Dana caught a glimpse of the pool as he turned to leave. The pink hue of her blood had begun to coalesce in one corner of the pool. By morning a new nodule would be there, a sayathenite crystal that would hold her blood sample.

  * * *

  Dana awoke in complete darkness and with a massive headache. She tried to move but failed. As feeling slowly spread into her fingers she realized with horror that the coin purse at her waist was gone.

  Oh no.

  The fact that she was also missing her hand-sewn wool jacket, shirt, and pants scarcely registered.

  The bloodstone was gone.

  Chapter 19

  Jet’s shuttle cleared the launch tube, and the Excalibur flew backward as if he were falling toward the engines. Then the shuttle oriented and engaged its thrusters to match the fleet’s deceleration. Spurts from lateral thrusters sent it drifting toward a massive fuel sphere suspended between twenty-some-odd tin can shuttles, each spewing a purple glow from their ion drives.

  In front of the fuel sphere, like an insect hanging off a fruit, was the Nautilus.

  The AI pilot zoomed the viewscreen on the class 3 dropship. “Is that your stop?”

  “Yep.”

  “Looks like an accident waiting to happen.”

  “I hope not.” But Jet had to agree with the AI’s candor. The idea had looked much better in his head. Jet toggled the radio. “Naman to Nautilus, requesting permission to come aboard.”

  “This is Decker. Get your butt on the ship. Those ASP punks have a two-week lead already.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The shuttle docked on the ventral port, a location Jet was more accustomed to being hurled out of in a wingjet frame.

  He was all too familiar with the compact class 3 dropship. Class 3 transported up to three squads of eight soldiers. It lacked a dedicated cryobay and had a lean crew of three: captain, copilot, and a multirole AI officer rated at six HE—human equivalent—as navigator/comm
s/defense/logistics specialist.

  Decker had gambled that he wouldn’t need the redundant copilot and chosen instead to use the extra the weight for food and supplies. Even so, it was going to be tight quarters on a ship designed solely for shuttling grunts to and from drop zones.

  “I’m in.” Jet cycled the airlock and stepped aboard to find Decker, Monique, Yaris, and Teea waiting for him in the launch bay.

  “I kept the dwarf in cryo like you asked.” Decker was two inches shorter than Jet and at least ten years older. “One paycheck will get you five if Dormit doesn’t knock you out cold the moment he’s coherent.” The captain wore an intriguing mustache that gave him a “dare you to call my bluff” look that better suited a poker player.

  “Not taking that one.”

  “Ever been hit by an iron-fisted dwarf?” Decker asked. He was one of the few captains in the fleet that wore a mustache. It was stylishly thin, though his eyebrows were bushy enough to make it look like he had three equal blond mustaches distributed on his face.

  “Hit by a dwarf? Yeah, plenty.”

  “You look it.”

  Monique snickered.

  “Small space, hot temper—better to let him ride this one out in the cooler. Besides, he eats too much.”

  “He’s gonna be ticked,” Monique said, arms folded.

  “Better than court-martialed.”

  “I just hope your drag net works,” Decker said as he grabbed a handle on the nearest bulkhead. “Or we’re going to be taking a short tour of the Xahnan system on our way out of the galaxy.”

  Jet hadn’t ever considered that particular way of dying.

  “Okay, everybody grab something.” Decker pressed a button on his wrist control. “Tiberius, kill the engines.”

  The ship’s AI responded with an assertive voice and a hint of a Russian accent. “Begin zero gravity protocol. Engines off.”

  Gravity suddenly vanished. A cheer sounded from down the corridor in the direction of the bridge. “We’re away!”

  A display showed the fleet blasting away. It was an illusion. The Nautilus was simply drifting while the fleet ships were aggressively slowing themselves from a quarter of light speed.