“She invited you, didn’t she?”
“Yes, but I’ve never heard of the hostess violating her own rule before. Not without some reason.”
“Could there be something different going on because we’re not sorai?”
Mosam turned his shadow wreathed head to look around the room as they danced. Then he tugged her close to him. He spoke into her ear.
“Forget what else is going on now. We’re here.”
His lips brushed her neck just above the temperature suit’s collar. She maneuvered back from him, hands still locked with his.
“Mosam, I don’t think I can.”
“Why not? Can you still not forgive me?”
“I don’t know if I ever can.”
He released her right hand and felt for her cheek within the illusion.
“You certainly can. If you choose to.”
Should I?
“Don’t push me now. We’re here.”
His hand moved down to her neck.
“But you’re not really, are you? Don’t think about Lin.”
She moved faster than she processed mentally. Her fist slammed into Mosam’s stomach and he staggered back and fell to one knee, shadows whirling, hand releasing hers. She fell into a defensive stance, ready to activate the temperature suit’s arc lifts with the ring in her palms if needed. He looked up at her, no malevolence in his green eyes, instead, surprise. Hurt.
“I can’t take back what I did Yajain.”
“Then don’t pretend you didn’t do it!” Yajain’s fist clenched and unclenched. “Do you know the real reason I joined the rescue fleet?”
His eyes narrowed, slits of light in a mask of darkness.
“Tell me.”
“I wanted revenge.” Yajain felt tears in her eyes. “I wanted revenge on you.”
“Then why don’t you take it.” Mosam put a hand to his chest. The shadows flickered and faded as he deactivated his hologram field. His hand remained pressed over his heart. “Punish me.”
The dancers around them stopped. Yajain stared down at Mosam. He deserves punishment. He begs for it. She drew herself up.
“This is not the time.”
“Fine. Dangle me on a string,” Mosam said. “I’m used to it by now.”
A figure broke through the circle of frozen dancing couples. He had a powerful build and his field covered him in mist from which beams of light issued in the breaks. “What is the meaning of this violence?” he said.
“This man’s advances were unwanted.” Yajain turned toward him. “Sorry for the scene.”
“I don’t know if this has ever happened at one my parties before,” said the man hidden in light and cloud.
“Your party?” Yajain said. “I thought Elder Patla hosted these.”
“I do,” said the man. “I’m Csi Patla.”
Yajain stared as the man bowed his head.
“At your service, Yajain Aksari.”
“We just met Csi. She’s a woman.”
“Can you be sure any of us are anything?” said a woman with the illusory head of a spider, from behind the clouded man.
Yajain turned to the woman.
“You mean?”
“I also, am Csi Patla,” said the spider-headed woman.
Mosam was at Yajain’s side.
“What’s the meaning of this?”
“A test, doctor,” said the voice of the man hidden in clouds. “For your perceptions.”
Mosam glanced at Yajain and their eyes locked, but only for an instant. Yajain turned to the man shaped mound of clouds.
“Where is the real elder?”
“You may be allies of Helle DiKandar,” said the clouded man. “But Elder Patla will not fight a war for Dilinia’s sake.”
Could she be under the control of a tyrant?
Everyone had seemed so certain she would help when they changed course.
Clouds parted and light spilled over Yajain and Mosam.
“If you can find her, she may be willing to speak with you.”
“Is this some kind of joke?” Mosam stepped past Yajain, glaring into the light.
The cloud reverberated with laughter, beaming light. All around them the other disguised guests began to dance again. How are we supposed to find Patla? Neither of us has any way of knowing where to start.
Mosam tore his eyes from the light and clouds, blinking. Yajain turned to him.
“That’s why we don’t stare at Solnas either,” she said.
“Fine.” He pressed a palm over his eyes. “Now what do we do?”
“I have no idea, but we have to find Patla herself or the fleet is in danger.”
“We agree about that,” Mosam said. “But it’s not just the fleet. It’s the human race, and I don’t think that’s overstating things.”
Music began to play, a tinkling of bells mixed with the pounding of a bass. Yajain frowned.
“Where is that coming from all of a sudden?” She craned her neck and looked around the room, but saw no sign of a band.
“It’s probably a recording.” Mosam looked over Yajain’s head to the area under the balcony. “But there must be clues somewhere. If this is a test then that implies there is a way to solve it.”
“Right.” Yajain scanned the bizarre shifting forms of the dancers and guards.
The great room was vast, but near the smooth walls were tables with hologram disguised waiters where platters of food and large glass or transplastic bowls of drink had been set. Behind those tables, ramps ran up to the balcony.
“Let’s get a different angle on this situation.”
She activated her lifts, felt the usual solidity of air and pushed off, sailing through the air cloaked in illusions and skirt flaring out around her legs.
She landed at the midpoint of the ramp leading up to the balcony. Mosam landed beside her. The deactivated their lifts. He grimaced.
“I have no idea what you’re thinking.”
“As always,” said Yajain.
Mosam’s lips curved up at one end.
“Possibly true.”
She looked out over the crowded great room. No one seemed to be paying attention to them now.
“The guests may just be scenery.”
A guest masked in what appeared to be drizzling blue rain and with bristling, back-curving spines on his arms drank from a large transplastic cup. His dance partner, a woman with a mask of illusory whip-like cords stood with her arms folded, foot tapping impatiently.
“They’re real people.”
But they all look equally bizarre.
“What do you mean?” asked Mosam.
“They’re all acting the same.” She pointed to the clouded man, who had picked a lightning-dressed and shadow-masked partner and started dancing. “Even that one is taking part.”
“And the woman with the banner bird’s head?”
Yajain looked around the room.
“I don’t see her. But she could have gone up to the balcony.”
“We’d better find out what’s up there.”
She nodded.
Mosam led the way up to the ramp to the balcony. More hologram disguised people danced above, swirls of colors and patterns could hurt the eye. Yajain looked around for the woman with the green bird’s head but saw her nowhere.
“Mosam, can these disguises change form?”
“Probably. I don’t know much about wearable holograms.”
“Great. That makes two of us.” Yajain went back to scanning the balcony for signs of anything off about the dancers.
Through the dancers on the balconies, she spied a lanky form a head taller than most of the others. The towering figure was swathed in pale blue and shiny silver diamond shapes that changed positions over a field of black. And he wasn’t dancing but strode among the others as if looking for something. His mask had no face and no way to distinguish front or back. Yajain frowned at the giant. He’s big, too big, but
the way he moves I’d guess his height isn’t part of the illusion.
“Mosam,” she said. “Look at that one.” She pointed at the tall man as he stepped into full view on the far side of the room.
He followed her finger.
“The tall one?”
“Yeah. He’s not dancing. Let’s introduce ourselves.”
“They already know who we are.”
“But there has to be a clue somewhere if this challenge can be solved.”
“Point taken.” Mosam stared at the figure, a scowl on his face. He activated his lifts with a press of a palm. “Let’s go.”
He took off, Yajain right behind him on her lifts. As they sailed over the balcony the dancers began to spiral into the air on lifts, swimming gracefully. They filled the space over the balcony and blocked Yajain’s view of the tall, faceless man.
The swarm of dancing, whirling figures darted together and apart. The dazzling variations drove Yajain to focus tight on where she last glimpsed the diamond pattern. She darted through a gap between two dancers, too close for comfort.
Her dress caught on one of them and tugged her off balance. She evened out her flight and angled down to the floor the balcony where the tall man had been.
Mosam landed beside her.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m tired of you asking me that.”
“If you stop getting in collisions, metaphorical and otherwise, I’ll stop.”
Yajain shot a glare at him, then shook her head.
“That man’s the key. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be hiding him.”
“Maybe. But I’m not sure it’s so simple.”
“What kind of show of friendship is this, anyway?” Yajain said.
“She’s testing us. Could be she’s not eager to fight alongside Dilinia.”
“Could be.” Yajain took a deep breath. “Mosam, if these disguises can shift, finding him could be tough.”
“But he’s tall. Stands out like a sore thumb.”
As Mosam spoke, Yajain’s eyes fixed on a figure on the lower level behind the tables where refreshments were set up. His mask had changed to green and gold in spiral patterns, but he still had no face and he was still tall. Yajain put a hand on Mosam’s arm.
“Don’t make a sound,” she whispered and gave a tilt of her head toward the tall form.
He followed her gesture, then nodded. They activated their lifts and kicked out over the center of the room. Nobody moved to block them from below. Being quiet helped. Yajain hit the floor hard right next to the tall figure where he loitered at the base of the wall side ramp.
“Hey, you!”
The man turned, colors on his disguise shifting. He bolted up the curved slope. Yajain charged after him but fell behind on the climb until Mosam landed ahead of them. The man collided with Mosam, who fell with a yelp. Yajain caught up and grabbed the tall man by the side of his sleek, shifting collar.
“Got you,” she said. “I guess you’re a little nervous around guests.”
“There is but one clue,” said the masked man, wheezing from his fall. “Look for an exit.”
Yajain released his collar in surprise. The man rolled off the edgeless ramp and kicked into the air on arc lifts. He floated to the ramp on the other side of the room. Yajain offered Mosam her hand and helped him up.
“Good job,” she said.
“You’re welcome.” He winced. “Guy that big…I may have broken something.”
“But you heard the clue.”
“Right. Look for an exit.”
Yajain looked around the room of flickering colors and whirling bodies. Here and there guards waited by doors, only distinguishable by their lack of movement and the long weapon each of them carried. They guarded the doors on the inside. Yajain frowned.
“Looks like the guards are here to keep us in.”
“I doubt it. We won’t be any use as prisoners, Yajain.”
“Maybe not. But this game of Patla’s has rules. I’m betting one of them is that we can’t go any further into the pillar. At least not through the doors in this room.”
She looked at the door to the terrace where they had entered. There were no guards by the curtained doorway in the wall of transparent steel, though there had been when they’d come in. Yajain furrowed her brow.
“Only one door isn’t guarded.”
Mosam grinned.
“I like the way you think. There was another terrace a few hundred meters up from this one. I saw it on the way in.”
Yajain shook her head.
“So she wants us to go outside again? After all this trouble and getting us to dress up?”
“From what I heard Csi Patla is eccentric.”
“No kidding.”
Yajain activated her lifts. She swam down to the floor by the outer wall and landed. Mosam was right behind her.
He tried the door leading out and it opened. She glanced at him, then took a deep breath. She stepped through the curtain onto the hive-lit terrace. She shielded her eyes with one hand.
The hive left prickles of heat on her face even this far away. Mosam stood at her side, turned and looked up, eyes searching in the baleful glare of the exposed piece of Edrid’s hive core. He pointed.
“I see it, straight up.”
“What are we waiting for?” Yajain asked.
Hot wind blew from Edrid to break on Haxos Mirror. Yajain turned from it to shield her face. The breeze continued. Yajain glanced windward and glimpsed dark clouds in the distance beyond Edrid.
“A storm is on its way.”
Mosam squinted at her. “We have to tell Patla what we know quickly then. There could be tyrants in those clouds.”
Yajain took a deep breath. Flying in arc outside a pillar could be easy but with this wind and heat, they could be blown off course or even out of the arc field with ease. Outside the arc, the abyss extended for fifty kilometers at least. The next nearest pillar was too hot to survive on, regardless. Yajain looked but couldn’t see the terrace in the glaring light.
“Where did you say it was?”
“Straight above us.”
She activated her lifts.
“Let’s go.”
They kicked and bobbed and swam up the side of the pillar. Wind blew them toward the shell wall, deep brown stone stained with black burns above the arched window covered by its dark curtains. Yajain’s back ached from fighting the wind. Hitting the wall would disrupt flight, maybe even enough for her to fall.
Mosam appeared to have an easier time of it, despite his awkward flying style, without a dress to catch gusts of wind. The shape of a terrace came into view above them. Yajain kicked harder. She angled out at the last second and caught the narrow edge with both hands. Mosam swam past her and dropped onto the terrace above. His hand found hers and he pulled her up.
“You could have deactivated your hologram first,” he said. “That wasn’t easy.”
“Why, what do I look like?”
“You change a lot.” Mosam straightened his back and looked Yajain up and down. “But at the moment I’d say you’re just not the girl I remember from Kaga.”
She grimaced.
“I meant, my hologram.”
“I can’t put my finger on that exactly. It keeps shifting so much. That’s why I had trouble finding your hand.”
“Whatever.” She turned to face the Pillar’s wall. The terrace they stood on was narrow, little more than ledge before a transparent steel pane, but here there were no curtains. Beyond the window a small figure sat, gazing out at Edrid Hive from behind tinted spectacles.
Yajain and Mosam exchanged glances.
A door in the window swung open, but no one stepped out. Yajain’s hand flew to her hologram projector. She pressured it and it deactivated with faint muttering sound. Mosam stared at the doorway.
“After you.”
“You’re later than I expected,” said a reedy voi
ce.
Yajain and Mosam stopped side by side as the door closed behind them. In the molten light of Edrid Hive, the small form of an old woman sat in a floating arc chair, alone in an empty room of dark iron colored tiles. Her hands lay on a reading pad sitting on a simple tray over her lap, and she wore a simple gray dress that went down to her ankles. The spectacles that covered her eyes gleamed with gold at the edges.
“Are you really Elder Patla?” Mosam asked.
“I am.” The old woman turned her lined face toward them. She motioned toward Edrid’s glare. “You are Doctor Coe of the Harvest. But introduce your companion.”
“Doctor Yajain Aksari,” she said. “Not of the Harvest.”
Patla raised her eyebrows with languid slowness.
“Of course you are. Approach me, child.”
Yajain looked to Mosam. He nodded, mouth set in a thin line. Yajain walked to Patla’s side. She came close enough to make out the glittering tubes that carried white and black fluid flowing from a tank on the back of the arc chair. The tubes reached to the tray that crossed the arms of the chair over Patla’s lap. At the center of the tray sat a bowl with an egg-shaped lid, lined with vertical slits. From the slits issued nearly imperceptible wisps of chemical smoke. Yajain held her breath.
Patla inhaled the smoke. A gentle, distant smile spread across her lips. She turned and met Yajain’s eyes with her tinted gaze.
“You’ve come a long way. But now you’re not certain what drove you here.”
Her wrinkled fingers reached for Yajain’s hand. Yajain tried to jerk it back, but the elder’s arm feeler extended and wrapped around her wrist. Patla’s leathery fingers pressed into Yajain’s skin.
“Breathe, child.”
“But it’s poison.”
“In its raw form. The smoke is not powerful. It will not harm you.”
Yajain frowned, dizzy from lack of air.
“Breathe,” said Patla.
Yajain inhaled, not given any other choice. Mosam stepped forward.
Patla said something that stopped him, but her voice seemed disjointed from Yajain’s world. She breathed evenly, inhaling the smoke of order and chaos.
“Why?” she said. But she knew. The smoke revealed the motives of those who took it. She could speak no lies to the elder now.
Flame Wind Page 16