“You have noticed, then?” Braan turned slightly and saw the suited outline of the big shipmaster. His tone was one of mild respect. “Most land people do not. It followed us to Tolis harbor, and now it trails us home. A shadow we do not need, not this late in the year. Storm coming.” A frown furled his face, and the man turned and walked back to the wheel. He had a heavy cargo, Braan thought—two Atares, two high-ranking off-worlders, and enough trinium to buy the Fewha confederation, no questions asked. The pirate trade was under control, but they still existed. And now a storm followed them from the north.
His mind rolled back to the previous night. Gid, the Atares and the warriors had pooled their wealth of knowledge, and the answer had surprised no one—Corymb easily controlled twenty-three percent of the floating mine stock, a clear majority among owners unrelated to the Atare clan. When the subject was trine gold, it was no longer merely clan business—it was Nualan business, for the trinium was the heritage of all Nualans. Everyone owned at least one piece of trine gold: the family crest, worn as a ring or earring. And everyone owned at least one stock certificate. Few Nualans felt the need to own more. The question was: what to do about Corymb? He owned vast corporations off-world, most of them legal. The synod could be tied up in courts for years in a futile attempt to prove Corymb knew of the purchases in his name. The man was too clever to be snared that way. The evidence of treason had brought forth one other interesting result. Lyte had confessed that he had originally thought the Nualan paranoia about off-worlder threats to be ridiculous. Now, with the evidence of off-world money backing Corymb’s wealth, he could no longer deny their problems.
Later, Tinyan had spoken of many things. Under her leadership Tolis had prospered, but it still fell short of what it should have been: an equal voice in the politics of Nuala. And although she never said it openly, the meaning was clear; it was time for Braan to retake what was his, a voice in the court, and to push for changes he knew were necessary and had ignored for six long years.
The warmth of the previous night dissolved into the waters of the archipelago, the ocean becoming sky before his eyes. For six years he had mourned his wife’s passing. If it was to be, then he swore to rejoice in the freedom of her soul after long suffering. The children would be relieved ... also possibly resentful, torn between wanting their father happy again and mistrusting other women. No more would the throne influence his decisions. He would leave Nuala if he had to, and force the hand of the Atare as an independent councilmember of the Axis Republican Council. A jumbling of thoughts ... He had a sculpture to finish.
“Mighty words,” he murmured aloud.
“Silent ones,” came Roe’s voice. She sat down next to him, her suit gone, and unfastened his helmet. “Smell the air of autumn on the sea and be grateful for the chance to feel it.” Her smile was warm and knowing. How much she guessed about the last two nights Braan did not know. He imagined she suspected everything. He smiled slightly and let her assist him in removing his suit.
oOo
The storm hit that night not long after they were in bed. It was typical of the sea’s winter storms, but early and violent for the time of High Festival. Half-way through the night the rudder snapped, and a lesser crew might not have made it. But Nova was a water-tight ship, and with her trinium proving to be the correct ballast, she made it to shore.
Lyte awoke at the silence. It was still dark. Nuala had long days and nights, too long for him; he could not get used to them. The ship was tilted crazily to one side, and Lyte realized they were no longer in water. The silence was appalling; he had to hear something! Not for the first time he missed Gid’s soft half snore. The Nualan would return to Amura after the festival ended. Lyte stood and, dressing quickly, carefully made his way up the ladder to the deck.
It was deserted. He heard the sounds of voices in the distance and saw a fire. Wishing for a blaster, a knife, anything, he started to climb off the ship.
At the fire he recognized Ronüviel, laughing and talking with several crew members and attempting to steal a biscuit from the cook’s tins. Lyte relaxed and came forward.
“So you finally noticed the storm! Only after it was over. Have a seat and try a biscuit; this man is a chef.” Lyte slipped thumb and finger into his shirt pocket and pulled out his pill. It was habit, especially after Tolis. Swallowing it, he quickly bit into a biscuit to kill the taste.
“Now try one without an anti-rav,” the cook advised, and laughed.
“Where is Moran?” Lyte asked after a plate of souffle was passed his way.
“Off with Braan, getting a pre-dawn tour. The crew and shipmaster are assessing the storm damage, and then we will start packing supplies. We should be gone before Kee reaches the top of that valley,” Roe answered, pointing to a distant crevice which was slowly growing lighter.
Lyte tried to see beyond it, but right now the Nualan star filled the lands eastward. “Gone? How bad was the storm damage?” He felt a bit guilty; apparently he had slept through a lot of excitement.
“We do not know yet. Bad—right now they are trying to decide if she will sail again.” Lyte digested the unspoken meaning while she continued. “If she will sail again, it will not be in time for us to return to our temple obligations, and you would probably miss your ship back. We are going overland, through the tip of the desert and the wadeyo forest. It will take, oh, a day and a half.”
“Walking?”
“I hope not. Or we shall never get back. I am not sure what kind of settlements are in the area—an aircar is unlikely this far from a major center ... and this close to the ciedär. If we can borrow hazelles, we will. When you are done, throw together your things.” She stood and walked to greet the dawn. Lyte watched her go and bent to his firstmeal.
In the meantime Moran and Braan had followed the shipmaster and were listening to the damage reports. The crew was solemn as the shipmaster’s chief engineer was pulled back over the stern onboard. At her signal, the rudder was hoisted up and onto the deck.
She pointed to the broken blades. “Cut.” Her voice was flat. “Almost completely in half. The stern protected it until the first big swell—cross currents snapped it like a twig.”
The shipmaster turned and gazed out over the water. “I wonder if they made it in....”
“Of course,” the engineer said dryly. “Their rudder was not cut.” She cursed softly under her breath in Nualan and stalked off down the deck.
Braan stepped up to the shipmaster. “Shipmaster Oh’nel, will you and your crew be all right?”
The man turned and met his gaze. “We will be fine. It is you I am concerned about, Seri. We could have gone down in that—no pirate wants to lose his prey. It is not my cargo he wants, it is my passengers. Do you want to take guaard? It is owed.”
“No,” Braan replied quickly. “You will need every hand if you are to be afloat within fourteenday. We do not want to attract attention. I have confidence in my companions and myself. I would like hazelles, though.”
“I will send my chief to the core settlement. Perhaps they sighted that stardancer. We shall spread the word; no skipper would aid any who threatened the crown, not knowingly; they are loyal around these parts.” Sobered by that thought, the small group walked back to the fire.
Lyte was waiting for them. He had changed into the loose robes of the northern desert dwellers, and looked uneasy.
“What is it?” Moran asked.
“I heard the ship was tampered with....”
“Yes, the steering mechanism was cut almost in half.”
Lyte turned away, looking quite disturbed.
“Would you care to confide in us, Second Officer?” Braan asked.
Moran glanced at the Nualan’s expressionless face. “Come on, Lyte, what is it? You’ve been on edge ever since we left the military wheel,” he said abruptly.
“Nothing. Nothing concrete, at least. I’d like to let it go for now. I need to think.” And plan, he continued silently. Braan stared at him a m
oment longer, and then walked away from the fire, a sailor following. Lyte suddenly saw that Braan was as suspicious of him as he was of the Nualan. The thought was perversely comforting. Moran flicked a finger at him, his irritation evident, and then started back to the ship. Feeling helpless in the face of their condemnation, Lyte sought Ronüviel.
She was standing by a small pile of bundles, helping a sailor fill water gourds. Dressing in a flowing white mandraia caftan, Roe looked like a sand spirit; not quite mortal, ready to vanish at any time. She handed him an empty gourd.
“We have to carry all your water. The only oasis on our trip has a pool with high rav content. Too high for you to drink from, at least at this stage of your acclimation. Another sevenday and you would be all right.” Lyte bent to the well, submerging the carrier. There was silence. The star rose from the mountain-tops.
“Such a wild, frightening land,” Lyte said suddenly. He did not know why he said it—the prairie that bordered the desert looked innocent enough. But it was a deceptive tranquility, as if something were waiting for them. Plants brought to life by the monsoons were blooming but had not yet seeded. He saw many of the fleshy bushes and tall, narrow trees he had seen near the palace. Faint, moving dots which Lyte suspected were wildlife intrigued him.
He was snapped from his thoughts by Roe’s question: “What do you fear?”
He glanced at the sailor, who seemed oblivious. Roe shook her head. Guaard? Lyte instantly chose. “I thought it was for Moran’s life. Now, I’m not so sure.” She looked steadily at him, making no move to interrupt. He let the words flow out. “I was practically ordered here, to guard against an attempt on Moran’s life. My superiors feared reprisals by xenophobic groups who objected to your relationship. But I cannot believe ...” He gestured helplessly. “Your security is too good for your people not to suspect trouble. How could this attack happen blind? And to Braan as well? Atares have always married off-worlders, and many were warriors. But this appears —”
“Internal.”
Lyte sat down on the well and looked at her. “Yes. But even so, it doesn’t make sense that way either! You and Braan are only third in line for Ragäree and Atare—to kill you is a wasted gesture. I’m supposed to be preventing a major incident between the Nualan system and Moran’s home system, yet they told me not to contact Jaac—not to contact the superior officer of the planet! If they suspected you were on the hit list—our intelligence is better than this! Why didn’t they cancel his furlough?” Lyte muttered the last, as he had so many times since he had received his orders.
Roe sat down next to him, slowly stoppering his gourd. “It is the gaps that disturb you,” she said finally. “What do you read in them, warrior?
“It’s what I feel in them,” he answered, watching as a yellow-robed figure he recognized as Moran left the ship. “It’s felt wrong from the beginning. Now I see little pieces coming together. I smell treachery. I don’t think there ever was an assassin. It would have been a professional, a suicider who would not have bothered with a whole ship. Then why send us both, and why tell me to get Moran off Nuala fourday early?”
Roe raised her head at this, her gaze sharp. “No explanation? And you accepted that?”
“I am a warrior. I exist to receive and follow orders. And I don’t always do that, so my status is at best shaky. I could be imprisoned for telling you all this.”
Roe reached over and gripped his arm. “The words stop here. But what do you suspect, if no assassin?”
“Something I can’t bear to believe.” He was staring up now, away from the star of morning to where the battleship Io should be. “We are pawns. Screens to hide something. To keep someone from looking deeper ...” He turned and faced her again. “All my life I have dismissed this planet as the home of a bunch of paranoid mutants. Tell me, paranoid mutant, if your paranoia is correct, can you defend yourself if the Axis turns on you? Or abandons you to the Fewhas?”
She did not answer. Lyte’s last words had been delivered in a whisper. When Roe finally spoke, her words were no less soft. “We can defend. We cannot win. The planet will win, in the end. Only Nualan ships can pass through the barrier. The crews may be off-world, but the shipmasters, the captains are Nualan, and they would turn pirate or destroy their crafts before they would let them be confiscated. It would be a hollow victory for any conqueror, Lyte ... only we make rav pills. Only we can cure rav radiation. It is not an oversight that the information never left this planet. For any other creatures Nuala is slow poison of the deadliest kind. Very slow ...”
Lyte did not answer, a chill passing through him. He stared out over the desert again, and the ghostly tendrils of a mirage came to his eyes. For a moment he saw a Durite death’s-head, symbol of the dreaded death cult of Dur, the skull rotting in the early rays of Kee. A smile spread over the teeth. Lyte shook off the spell with difficulty and went to get his small tackle bag.
Chapter Six
THE CIEDÄR
FOURHUNDRED THIRTYDAY, SEXT
Lyte reached up and wiped the sweat from his forehead. If winter was coming, this place did not know it. “I can see why Nualans live on the coast,” he said aloud. “You could roast here during the summer.”
“Many Nualans live in the desert,” Ronüviel answered.
Lyte looked over his shoulder. “Many?”
“The Ciedärlien, the sand-dwellers. Hundreds of tribes are scattered throughout the ciedär. It is a hard life, but they prosper. Their farming secrets make the desert fruitful.”
Nodding absently, Lyte riveted his gaze to the horns of the beast he straddled. He had to keep his seat; falling off would be too embarrassing for words. A hazelle had a crazy, staggering gait that was torturous to the amateur and blissful to the expert. Roe and Braan were clearly experts; he and Moran reeked of inexperience. The beast lurched, and a soft exclamation of pain slipped past his lips. Moran glanced over his shoulder at him.
“We shall rest the hazelles at the top,” Roe called forward. Lyte knew she knew and was trying to help them save face. He silently blessed her for that thoughtfulness.
The top of the gorge rose up before them—Moran’s hazelle slipped, scrambling, and the man threw his arms around its neck. Lyte had a flash of impending disaster and was suddenly flying sideways through the air. He landed in a barrelbush, the thick, oozing leaves cushioning his fall, and lay without moving. Anything was better than that poor excuse for transportation....
Roe leapt off her hazelle as she topped the rise. “Lyte! Are you all right? Do not move!” Her practiced hands quickly went over him, checking for broken bones. She looked relieved. “A few bruises—you will live.” Lyte groaned.
“I suggest we squeeze some bara and treat the blisters before they are infected,” Braan said, dismounting and dropping his reins. The beast moved to feed. Moran stiffly climbed down and let his hazelle follow suit.
While the others gathered broken pieces of the barrelbush and squeezed the juice into a cup, Lyte tried to sort through his daze. Starstroke? The hazelle floated above him, and the man studied it intently. The creature was a cross between a horse and a native Nualan animal, the tazelle. It still retained a horse’s sleek coat, round hooves and broad back and neck, but the head was more delicate, like a tazelle’s, and the two spiraling horns that grew up and out from the head looked like nothing Lyte had ever seen before. They were all the same color, dark brown, with a white blaze on their faces and long white tails; this one had white to its knees. Reaching out to touch the beast’s coat, he discovered the skin underneath was black. The hazelle lowered its head and regarded him with soft eyes. It was not as intelligent as a horse could be, but was more stoic, less skittish and less likely to run in fear of its own shadow.
Roe’s hand intruded into his vision, handing him the pure numbing agent. Lyte slowly sat up, nodding his thanks, and as the woman discreetly drew away he removed his joqurs and laved the blisters with sap. Immediately his legs began to cool. Lyte glanced up, looking for Mo
ran; he was waiting for the bara salve. Roe was standing next to Braan, who was staring toward the now-distant sea.
“Maybe we should stop for secondmeal?” Roe called. “That will give you time for the salve to take effect.”
“Fine. Let’s make it a cold meal, please,” Moran answered. She nodded and left Braan’s side, reaching for her hazelle’s pack. Braan continued to gaze back over the desert toward the sea, adjusting his viewing scope, watching the numerical distance finder.
“We are losing him,” he muttered.
“How far back to the oasis?” Lyte called, handing the cup of sap to Moran.
“Two, three hours,” Roe replied. She inspected the sky. Huge dark clouds had crept inland and were slowly overtaking them. “Do you think we can make the grotto before the monsoon?” she asked Braan. Her brother nodded.
Dressed once again, Lyte moved carefully to Ronüviel’s side. The smell of the cheese she was unpacking made his mouth water. He reached to unfasten the pocket containing his pills ... and found it empty.
Lyte looked up to find Roe watching him, a smile teasing her lips. “Welcome to Nuala. You have finished the series; you are one of us.”
Had he—? Of course. Ronüviel was a physican; she had kept a close eye on him. Still, it felt strange to take the sliver of native cheese from her hand, to bite into its smooth surface. He gently sat upon the ground and reached for a water gourd.
Braan folded up his viewing scope and approached them. “We must go faster. Eat and drink your fill, we shall not stop until starset.” He arranged his robes and sat down on a rock. “We are being followed.” Lyte winced, suddenly remorseful. Perhaps Braan should not have been so confident about commando abilities. The guaard had wanted to come ...
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