The corridor eventually swelled into a wide chamber hosting one of the few transit tubes in the tower. She jerked her head at the simple-seeming alcove as they passed. “That is a transit tube. It will take you all the way down to the Concourse if you wish, and alter your gravitic orientation automatically during your journey. That is how most people travel in Penumbra, if they are not resorting to shuttles or other personal craft.”
Marcus and Justin stared at the tube as they walked past, and so were not watching the corridor ahead of them when a large being emerged from around one of the armored corners and came to an abrupt halt before Angara.
She felt a chill shiver down her spine as she saw who it was.
There was no mistaking the sleek grey form of an Aijian, hovering in the shimmering hydro-field that kept the creature moist. Its personal gravitics kept its massive marine body afloat, allowing it to move as if it were swimming through the waters of its homeworld. The expressive black eyes took her in and an almost-smile stretched across its beak-like snout. And then her two companions attracted its attention with startled gasps, and the shock of cold shot from her spine to her heart.
The black eyes narrowed. “Angara Ksaka.” Her implants translated his voice into a pleasant baritone, although the sounds of his native language were squeaking and buzzing just beneath. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
Angara gave a shallow bow. “Warder Alab Oo’juto, I could say the same.” She glanced back at the two Humans, and saw with relief that their hoods were safely in place. “I actually have a great deal to discuss with you, if you would allow me to call upon you later today?”
The immense being floating before them seemed to nod its neckless, bullet head. Its eyes however, continued to return to the shrouded forms behind her. “That will be pleasant, I have no doubt.” He looked back at her. “Tell me, is there any word of Administrator Virri? I come from the control center, and I must say that Iphini Bha was less than forthcoming. I hope that Uduta has not gotten himself into a difficulty?”
She pushed the guilt down and forced a smile onto her face. She hoped it was not as sickly as it felt. “You know him, Warder.”
She reached back and dragged the two Humans forward, pushing them past the Aijian. “If you’ll excuse us, Warder Oo’juto, the deputy needed to speak to these two as soon as possible.”
Again, the warder dipped its head in a bow. “Of course. Duty first, as in all things.” There was the typical Aijian nip of sarcasm in the translated tone, but she ignored it with a smile.
“I shall look forward to seeing you again soon.” She bowed, and began to move around the creature’s bulk.
“And I you.” He replied as she walked past. “And may time embrace your two companions within its waters.”
She almost tripped. She had not thought to school the Humans on even the most basic of galactic greetings. Her throat tightened and her stomach clenched, but Marcus stepped forward and bowed deeply, making some sort of sweeping, circular gesture with a hand still concealed within the sleeve of his robe.
Oo’jutu reared back at this, then his head shifted slightly to the side, and then his smile returned. The sharp faces of the Aijians seemed built for smiling, which made it very hard to tell when they were genuinely happy, or concealing some other emotion behind the expression.
With a flick of his flat tail, the warder shot down the corridor, around the corner, and was gone.
“Holy shit!” Marcus reached out to a near wall for support, his eyes wide with disbelief. “That was a God damned dolphin!”
Justin stood stiff and unmoving, his eyes fixed on the corner behind them. He shook his head in stunned disbelief. “It sure looked like it.”
He turned his dark eyes to Angara. “Well? Was that a dolphin? And if so … What the hell?”
She could feel her shoulders slumping. There was so much they did not know, it was hard to decide what to tell them and when. And she was nearly shaking, knowing they were so close to their final destination, when she could be relieved of at least a small measure of this burden. She looked up and down the corridor. Things seemed to be quiet for the moment.
She looked at them both, and shrugged. “What you know of as dolphins are, in fact, Aijians, like Warder Alab Oo’juto.” She nodded back down the narrow corridor. “They’ve got a—”
Marcus put a hand up with a sour look on his face. “Don’t tell me. They’ve got a low opinion of Humans.”
She nodded, her head tilted to one side. “With more right than most, I might say.”
She saw him think about it for a moment, then have the decency to blush. “Why do they stay on Earth?”
She had avoided several topics with the Humans as they traveled, and this would open several of those up she would rather not have alone, in the middle of a corridor where any sentient could, any moment, stumble upon them.
She shook her head. “We need to get moving. Iphini will be thinking that something has gone wrong.”
It was clear they both had more questions. Oo’juto’s appearance could not have been more poorly timed. And meanwhile, as she shepherded these creatures toward Bha, what was the Aijian thinking? Had he seen something that might alert him to the true identities of her robed charges? No one in Penumbra would be more likely to see through her little ruse, or be more offended by it.
“We need to get out of the corridors.” She started to walk, turning to call over her shoulder. “We need to get out of the corridors now, in case he decides to come back.”
She maintained a pace that was hardly conducive to leisurely conversation, and the two Humans hurried after her, clearly deciding they would rather not be abandoned for the sake of petulant questioning.
The blast doors that could be dropped to seal off the control center were open, and she quickly gestured for the two Humans to precede her in. They stopped as they entered the quietly bustling room, took in the banks of communications stations, the viewing fields showing reports, images of various areas of the city, and scrolling information panels that took up most of the walls. Several of the stations were currently dedicated to tracking what was occurring down in the docking bay. She nodded to Agha-pa as he rose from the command throne, looking at her with a look she recognized as suspicion in his small, pink eyes.
Iphini Bha was waiting just inside the doorway, the pallor of her skin beneath the stark black lines adding to the impression of terrified near-panic that moved just behind her eyes. Angara hoped she was only interpreting the Iwa’Bantu’s expression that way because she knew what was really happening. In fact, even Bha didn’t know what was really happening. So she probably was not panicking. She was probably nervous; or maybe frustrated at being kept in the dark. Or maybe, Angara realized, she was mourning Uduta Virri.
Bha gestured for them to follow her, the ever-present stylus glittering dully in one hand, and led the three of them through the room, past lines of curious faces of various colors and shapes, and into the back office of the administrator.
As the door closed behind Justin, the last to enter, the pale-faced female spun on them, unmistakable anger flaring in her eyes. She took in a gusting breath, about to say something undoubtedly acerbic, when she came up short, staring at Marcus as he reached up for his hood.
Angara lunged for him, words of warning crashing together in an incoherent jumble.
The hood came down, Marcus looked around the room with curious eyes.
And Iphini Bha screamed in pure terror.
Chapter 9
The strange woman Angara had called Iphini Bha fell over backward, tripping on a small stool and catching herself on a large desk-like piece of furniture in the corner. Some metal pen-like object flew from her hands. She was screaming the whole way, her blanched skin writhing with lines that looked like fine cracks. Her eyes, a strange pale blue, were wide with terror.
“No!” Angara reached out with one hand, trying to catch the frail-seeming woman. But she slapped the offered hand aside even as she fel
l, her feet scrambling for purchase. Soon she was braced behind the desk, crouched down staring at Marcus with those odd, alien eyes.
Marcus staggered back, not knowing quite what to make of this reaction. The high-pitched shrieks of the pale woman disoriented him even more than he had been. He was in a chamber that looked very much like a small conference room, with a table down the middle surrounded by strange constructions that must have been chairs. The large desk dominated one end, and there seemed to be some kind of tub or trough behind it.
At first he thought the walls had been decorated with mundane, if abstract, paintings. They had appeared to be gentle studies in pastel clouds when he first saw them, before the wailing began. He had lost interest in the artwork after the woman had her fit, but now, trying to put a little distance between them, he saw that the paintings were moving. They were shifting within the frames, the colors churning together, changing as he watched. And it wasn’t uniform, either. Those closer to the distraught woman were now dominated with jagged red slashes and splashes of black, while those at his end of the room remained somewhat peaceful; although the images were changing there as well.
He thought he could see a face emerging from the swirl of colors; a face he thought he should know. And then he realized that he did recognize it. It was a face that had been haunting him since before they had left for their little getaway weekend to the backwoods of Connecticut.
Clarissa.
It was still abstract, with the colors blending with light and shadow, but she was in there. It was a less-than-calming effect, all things considered.
He was staring in wonder at the nearest painting, the anxiety of an alien woman less pressing than it had been a moment before. He was vaguely aware, however, of Justin moving toward the woman, open hands outstretched. He turned to watch. If she shrieked at him, she should have a similarly heart-warming reaction to Justin as well. It would do his soul good to see someone else shrieked at, after the way Angara had been treating him.
But as the hood slid away from Justin’s bald, dark head, the woman, her eyes fixed on Marcus, barely registered him. She flicked a glance in his direction and then went back to staring at Marcus as if afraid he was going to leap across the room and try to eat her.
“Iphini, calm down!” Angara was standing on the opposite side of the big desk, her hands flat on the surface. “Everything is fine! I promise.”
The woman looked to Angara, then back to Marcus, her eyes still wild. “Fine? Fine?!?” The huge eyes narrowed, and she pointed one long finger at him. “Did he kill him? Did he kill Virri?”
“What?” Angara looked genuinely confused for a moment, and then put up her hands again. “No! Iphini, honestly, they didn’t kill Virri! They had nothing to do with it!”
The pale-skinned woman deflated somewhat at that. Her eyes flicked from Marcus to the dark-skinned woman with sad, wide eyes. “How did it happen, Angara? How did Virri die?”
The bodyguard’s eyes darted away. There was embarrassment there, but sadness as well. Marcus watched, fascinated. It was easy to forget that he was here because of the death of another person. Any reminder, especially involving the administrator’s bodyguard, was compelling.
“I can’t talk about it now, Iphini. There was an accident.” She looked back at the smaller woman. “I promise, I’ll tell you everything. Right now, we need to address the difficulties at hand. But you have my word: they had nothing to do with it.”
“They?” That seemed to stop the woman. She looked confused, and then turned to Justin, her eyes narrowed further, and her face twisted once more into horror. “Oh no. Another one? He’s another one?!? You brought two Humans to Penumbra!?!”
That brought a little satisfaction. Although, even in the moment, Marcus had the presence of mind to wonder why the woman hadn’t realized there were two Humans in the room the moment Justin’s hood fell, revealing his eyes.
“Iphini, you’ve got to calm down, or we’re all dead.” Angara’s voice was quiet, but there was an edge of steel in it that Marcus heard loud and clear through the bugs in his head.
The porcelain-skinned woman’s face screwed up at that, her eyes narrowed, and she stood a little taller. “What is that supposed to mean?” She looked back at Marcus and Justin, then her eyes widened. “No.”
The word carried such clear disbelief, Marcus desperately wanted to know what she thought was happening, and why it was so terrible.
Angara nodded. “Yes, but you have to listen to me.”
The woman shook her head, and again, Marcus had to wonder about the universality of gestures in the wider galaxy. Iphini Bha was definitely giving an emphatic ‘no’ with her entire body.
But Angara was equally as forceful. “Iphini, we have no choice. And you have to listen.” She fetched the pen from the floor and gave it to the strange little woman who took it absentmindedly.
Bha looked from Marcus to Justin again, her lip twisted as if she had tasted something rotten. “A Human? You’re going to trust a Human?”
“That’s enough!” Marcus stepped toward them, trying not to feel terrible when the slighter woman shied away. “What the hell’s so bad about being Human?”
That seemed to strike Bha as hilarious despite her shocked and terrified state, and she gave a bark of high pitched noise that he could, with a squint, call a laugh.
When she turned back to Angara, the little woman’s outrage was clear. “You cannot mean to place a Human as administrator of Penumbra. The city won’t stand for it!”
Angara shook her head. “Not permanently, I promise. But you have to understand, Uduta Virri gave them the Skorahn! It is bonded to this Human more deeply than I have ever heard or seen it bonded to anyone before!”
Again with the shaking of the pale, bald head. “Virri would have never given that medallion away. He knew what it was worth.”
“It was worth a lifetime of luxury and sloth, and to a Rayabell like Virri, that was a great treasure indeed.” Angara agreed. “But he gave it away all the time, and you know it. It was one of his standard ploys, knowing that primitives would sense its worth without understanding why. He used it as collateral for half a hundred ruses, and every time he did, he would get it back with equal facility.” She jerked her head at Marcus. “Until now.”
Marcus was getting sick of seeing the blue expanse of this woman’s eyes. “That one?” Bha dropped to her knees behind the desk, letting her head fall into her long-fingered hands. “Why did it have to be that one?”
“Okay, that’s it!” Marcus slapped the table with the flat of his hand and both women stopped, turning to look at him. “What’s so bad about me, eh? How come he keeps getting a pass?” He jerked his thumb at his dark-skinned friend. Justin, for his part, looked just as confused and curious.
But if he thought he was going to get his questions answered just then, he was mistaken. “There would be riots throughout the towers, Ksaka, and you know it.” Bha flung a gesture at Marcus. “No one will stand for it.” Her expressive eyes rolled. “And what about Taurani? It wouldn’t matter what ancient treaties and agreements keep them off our backs for now. If the Council knew there were Humans here, never mind one in charge of the city, they would send everything they have to destroy us!”
Angara sunk into one of the chairs, her shoulders sagging, with a nod. “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, Iphini.” Her violet eyes were pleading, shadowed by the fall of her white hair. “I’m saying we don’t have a choice.”
The bodyguard turned to Marcus and gestured him forward. “You need to see the Skorahn. Maybe then you’ll understand why it has to be this way.”
Marcus moved forward, pulling the medallion out from the neck of his robe. He had taken to wearing it as a necklace on the Yud’ahm Na’uka. It seemed proper.
Iphini Bha watched him approach as if she was seeing a monster stalk toward her through a jungle. She peered at the medallion as he took it off and held it out for her to see. A ghostly image was floating withi
n the central stone. It had been forming since before Angara had performed her little test back on the ship. Now it seemed to float even closer to the surface. It looked like a letter or a symbol of some kind, but of a design that he didn’t recognize.
She didn’t appear to be able to read it either, but its very presence seemed to frighten to her, and she backed away. The little woman, supposedly the deputy to the man … thing … alien that had commanded the entire city, looked up at him in awe.
“It cannot be.” Her voice was low and soft. Her grip on the pen tightened.
Angara nodded. “It is. It is bonded more closely to him than it has been to anyone from the records I have found in my time here.”
Iphini Bha’s face went from frightened to despondent. “Then there really is no hope for us.” Her words were bleak. “We will all either die as the city shuts down around us, or we will die when the Council decides we are more trouble than we are worth.”
Angara shook her head and reached across the desk to take the woman’s hands. “No, Iphini. Marcus Wells will only be administrator for a very brief time. We can find another more suitable being to replace him.” She looked back to him and her face was pleading. “He wants to leave. Do you not want to return to your home, Marcus Wells?”
He nodded without thinking, ignoring Justin’s face. “I do.”
That set Bha into another fit of laughter. “He wants to return to Earth? To Earth?”
“Iphini, please, you have to relax and believe me.” Angara leaned down again. “Marcus Wells will be leaving here. He will be surrendering the Skorahn. We need only find a suitable replacement.”
The laughter trailed off, much to Marcus’s relief. And Bha stood, still wary, still keeping an eye on him as if he might attack at any second. And still, he noticed with a bitter twist to his mouth, not tracking Justin at all. But now her eyes were thoughtful, and her lips pursed in an unmistakable expression of reflection.
“It could be something genetic. A match might require some amount of compatibility.” She flexed up on her toes, and then lowered herself down again. “An Aijian?”
Legacy of Shadow Page 14