“Never,” he said softly. And the two smiles that earned him made even the mist seem lighter.
“We know—”
“Because you—”
“Are ours now.”
As if to prove it, Lux reached out and took his hand, while Nyx nodded solemnly. It took him a moment to breathe again.
“And you are mine,” he said, and with a sudden blast of recognition he realized what this feeling was that he had when he was with them. It was simply a variation of what he felt for Lana. Whether it was because they were a part of her, or for their own, unique, troublesome, clever, amazing selves, he was not certain. It did not matter anyway.
“We are—”
“Almost there,” they said.
“Will you—”
“Close your eyes—”
“And trust us?”
He did it without hesitation. They led him carefully forward. Nyx directed him to step up and guided his feet. He felt an odd sensation, as if the air had warmed in even those few feet. And then Lux told him to turn to his right.
“Now look!” they chorused.
He opened his eyes. And looked around in wonder. He had not seen the sun of any world in a long time. But he was in sunlight now, and it poured over him as if in welcome. And before him was a long line of jagged peaks, jabbing up through the mist as if reaching for that light and warmth. He had been flown over these mountains before, but seeing it all like this was entirely different. Compelling. Awe-inspiring.
And he suddenly understood what it was like to have a place, a world, and people who mattered to you above all others.
Chapter 60
“WHAT?”
Caze stared at the people gathered in the Raider’s map room. He’d felt at home the moment he’d walked in for the first time; this was the room of a commander, a leader, a warrior. His attention had been caught that first time he’d come in by the huge map that adorned one wall. It was not printed but painted, on what appeared to be heavy canvas. Painted in exquisite detail, with a fine and sure hand.
He’d spun around then to look at the woman who had painted the portrait of Iolana Davorin.
“He got there quick,” Kalon had said, looking at his cousin with a grin.
But, now, Caze was stunned into immobility by Drake’s explanation of his plan. It was the most insane thing he’d ever heard, and given these past weeks, that was amazing in itself. But to purposely, intentionally sabotage the single thing that kept the Coalition from destroying this nuisance of a place?
His gaze shifted from person to person, the artist turned cartographer, to the engineer turned gambler, to the woman who had any creature at her beck and call, to the one-time taproom keeper turned warrior who had waged an impossibly successful battle against a force so much bigger, it defied logic to think he was even still alive.
He gave a sharp shake of his head. He was still wrestling with finding room for all these new, strange sensations and at the same time thinking clearly. Slowly he said, “You intend to mix these two elements that must never be mixed, in the hope that sometime, somewhere, everything built of it will crumble?”
“Not in hope,” said Brander. “It will.”
And at last he turned to look at the woman who had, in her way, brought them all together here. And when he spoke, he heard the baffled tone in his own voice. “I do not understand. You know what the Coalition does with worlds they have no further use for. You have ever said Ziemites value individual life above all else. And yet you are seriously considering intentionally doing this?”
She looked back at him with a calm that seemed uncanny given the subject.
“Worried about dying here?” Drake asked, as casually as if they were discussing the time of day.
He was surprised they were discussing anything strategic in front of him, but this was so outlandish perhaps it was a feint, a false front put up to test his loyalty. His gaze shifted to the Raider, for he was indeed that once more, in air of command if nothing else. “I spent long enough wishing for death not to fear it,” he said. “But I would like to understand why.”
“Because,” Lana said softly, “they must be stopped.”
“And you assume,” Brander said, “that they will understand what we’ve done.”
“I certainly do not, for such a thing is outside their ken. It is outside mine,” Caze said. “You are willing to risk this, in the hopes of a victory that even if it comes, you may never see? How do your beloved people feel about it?”
“They prefer,” Lana said, “to go down fighting. And so they voted.”
His amazement grew. “They chose this?”
“This is not a decision any one person could make,” the Raider said. “And the alternative is to destroy the mines ourselves.”
“That is no alternative, for the Coalition would surely destroy Ziem in an instant.”
“So we assumed. Which is why we chose this course.”
“Which may well end the same. Your people were all willing to die for this?”
“To try and kill the cancer that infects a galaxy,” Lana said softly. He felt a knot tightening in his gut. He knew now it was worry, concern, for he had learned of these feelings, and he’d accepted that these people could inspire it in him. But at this moment he could not decide if they were epically heroic, or simply insane.
He had thought he had learned to understand these people. He had come to admire much about them, and as their acceptance, and even kindness, toward him had grown, he had grown to care about them in turn. But now he was no longer certain he understood anything.
For a moment he just stood there, but finally he remembered the Raider had called him here to ask him something.
“What is it you wished to know?” he asked.
“How likely are they to believe the planium was intentionally contaminated?” It was the first time the artist—for he could not truly think of her otherwise—had spoken. He tried to put his mind back in the Coalition shackles, tried to think as they thought, as he once had thought.
“I . . .” He felt Lana’s hand on his arm, and suddenly he was steadier. “I’m not certain it will even occur to them as a possibility. I know how foreign the idea seems to me, even after I have come to know the truth about Ziem and her people.” Caze thought for a moment. “But there was a hand weapon powered by the two combined,” he began again, but stopped when Kalon grinned.
“We know,” he said, sounding much like the twins. His one-time chaser opponent reached behind him and picked up what looked like the shell of a weapon from a shelf. “This was on its way to you when it conveniently fell in our path.”
He took the large handheld device, studied it for a moment. Saw the insignia that indicated it had come from the laboratory on Lustros. He looked at that for a moment as he searched his mind for reaction to this symbol of his planet of origin. He found only repulsion.
“We call it the obliterator,” Brander said. “Because that’s what it does.”
Caze’s head came up. “I know,” he said. Then, ruefully, “I had to account for its disappearance.”
“So we know they know what mixing the two does, in essence.”
“Yes. But High Command found the combination for that weapon was too dangerous to attempt in sufficient quantity to power a larger version. It tended to explode rather than fire the weapon, so they halted that experiment.” His mouth twisted. “I think they didn’t like the . . . cleanliness of it, either. The Coalition prefers to leave visible rubble in its wake, as a warning of the cost of resisting them.”
“And rubble brings me to the real question I have for you,” the Raider said. “What is the tipping point? What decides the Coalition on whether to destroy a world, or simply abandon it?”
“Whether they feel it is worth the effort
of destruction,” Caze answered flatly. “And if they come to believe this was intentional, they will count the insult well worth the effort to avenge.”
“And if not?”
“They would still likely bomb the mines, to prevent anyone else from accessing the planium. I would guess that your remoteness might save you. It is no small task to transport the weapon that can destroy a planet. But that is only a guess. And it is still a terrible risk, for if they take it in mind, they will slaughter everyone before they leave.”
“Worlds are gained with risk,” Iolana said. “Perhaps this one can be saved the same way.”
CAZE SAT ON THE rocky outcrop, staring at the mist, wondering yet again what quirk of biology or genetics allowed the Ziemites to see through it. He thought of the pilots who complained unceasingly about being reduced to flying by instrument only, relying on locators and terrain scanners because they could not see to fly normally.
He kept his mind on that small puzzle to avoid the bigger one. The fact that these people they had classified as simple, slow, and soft had turned out to be clever, quick, and tough enough to make an impossible decision. To risk total annihilation for the chance to do some serious damage to the Coalition.
How many other worlds, worlds he had helped conquer, had in truth held similar people? People dismissed by the Coalition establishment, deemed useless, or useful only as slaves? How many brilliant warriors like the Raider had they not found, how many people of ingenious thought like Kalon? He could barely stand to dwell on how many people of what the Coalition would term lesser talents, the artist for example, and lesser still the woman who commanded the lowly creatures, they had wiped out without thought.
And how many of wondrous powers like Lana? And if they had discovered her, had realized her talents—No. That did not bear thinking about at all. For he well knew what would have happened to her, as he knew what would have happened to the twins.
But the most difficult part of all was knowing how he had been an integral part of it all, that he had been the vanguard of Coalition action in so many places. . . .
I had to forgive myself for what I did when I was mired in despair. Forgiving someone trapped as you were, crippled by the Coalition and with much less choice than I had, is much easier.
For a moment he wondered if perhaps that was why he’d been unforgivably good at what he did, for the choices of strategy, of tactics, were the only choices he had ever truly had.
“You are sad.”
He’d heard them approaching, although Lux’s words were not what he might have expected.
“We don’t like—”
“To see you sad.”
“Are you not—”
“Happy here?”
He turned to look at two sets of curious and concerned eyes. And he smiled at them. It had become a habit; just the sight of them seemed to make him smile.
“Before I came here,” he answered honestly, “I did not even know what happiness was.”
That made them smile. And they seemed so relieved, he was, he realized, flattered. For this was not the false unctuousness of the Coalition; this was the honest response of two children affected, but untainted, by that world.
“So you will—”
“Stay? With our—”
“Mother and—”
“Us?”
“As long as I am welcome,” he said cautiously. He was ever wary that there were some who still did not trust the change in him, and he did not blame them.
“When you—”
“Pledge with—”
“Our mother—”
“No one—”
“Will doubt you.”
He stared at them. Lana had never even mentioned this, at least not to him, and yet these two were speaking as if it were a given. Did she want this? Or was this simply the assumption of someone born into and raised in this culture?
Not long ago the idea of pledging oneself, mind, body, and soul to one person for life would have been laughable to him. But now that the twins had put it into words, with such casual confidence that it would happen, he thought of the other side, what it would be like to have someone pledge the same to him.
What it would be like to have a woman like Iolana Davorin pledge mind, body, and soul to him.
It took his breath away.
“Are you—”
“All right?”
They were still looking at him in concern.
“You have made me feel . . . better,” he said, hoping they would leave it at that, for he did not think he could explain further. Thankfully they did, and were soon chattering away about some new project of Brander’s. He thought of the clever inventor that way now, the man having insisted upon the familiarity. If we’re going to be connected, the formality is a bit much.
Abruptly it struck him, in light of the twins’ assumption, what Brander had meant. If we’re going to be connected . . .
Brander was pledged to Lana’s daughter. Which would connect them, if . . . he assumed, as the twins did, that he and Lana . . .
He felt an ache welling up inside him that was almost physical. For a moment he thought he was suddenly taken ill, before he identified it as one of those emotions he was still learning to deal with. There were times when he missed the cool, dispassionate man he’d once been, but they were quickly overwhelmed by vast richness of his life now.
It is like an equation, Caze. Cool, rational logic is only part of it. Without the heart, it is a pointless existence. Just as the heart without rationality leads to disaster. It takes both, to make life what it should be.
“—watch it with us.”
He blinked, suddenly tuning back in to the twins’ chatter.
“What?”
“You should—”
“Watch the stories—”
“With us.”
“The stories?” he asked.
“Brander has fixed—”
“The old holoprojector—”
“And projects them—”
“Right onto—”
“The mist.”
Was there nothing the man couldn’t fix or invent or adapt? Coalition engineers were skilled, but there wasn’t an ounce of imagination in any of them. Likely because it had been crushed out of them like everything else. They could repair existing things, or occasionally improve on them, but leaps of intellect such as Brander’s were beyond them.
If our locator goes bad, we’ll end up bombing our own compound. . . .
He wasn’t sure why the old pilot’s complaint popped into his head just then. But it set off a cascade of thoughts, wild, disconnected thoughts . . . or were they so disconnected? He wasn’t sure he knew any longer. He suspected he had lost the ability to wall off such crazed ideas when he had surrendered to what Lana had given him.
And that, he’d decided long ago, was a tiny price to pay.
Chapter 61
THE THOUGHTS continued to batter at Caze, leaving him restless for days on end. He took to his old habits of walking, marveling at the secrets this mountain held. He had at first, when Lana had explained, been wary of their chosen location, but she had assured him she would know if the mountain was about remind them all it still lived. And he trusted that. For he trusted her, as he had trusted no one in his life.
And they trusted him. Were the positions reversed, he thought he would have been much more hesitant than the Raider to give him such freedom, the freedom to wander at will, provided he kept out of sight from below. But then, the Raider had a weapon no one in the Coalition could even conceive of. Lana, who could wipe his mind, his very self, as she had with Jakel.
It would succeed where Halfhead failed, Caze, were I to ever have to do that to you. It would destroy me.
He shivered at the memory, and vow
ed anew that she would never face that task. Not that it truly took a vow; he had been seduced, utterly captured by this place and these people. And the joy he found every day in the simplest of things hammered the lesson home until he knew he could never, ever go back, for it would destroy him in turn.
He heard a light, warbling sound that made him smile. He looked around just in time to see the pale-gray bird in the moment before it landed upon his shoulder. He had been surprised when Eirlys had asked him to let her train one of her creatures to come to him, but she had said simply, “It might be necessary some day.”
He spoke quietly to the messenger as he removed the curled paper from the tiny tube fastened to its leg. It was an invitation, and one he would not refuse. He sent the bird back with a single word written on the back of the original message. Yes.
He thought he was familiar enough with the mountain now to make his way directly rather than go back to his starting point and begin anew. But there were parts that were a scramble, though he did not mind. Instead he took more joy from the fact that he could do it without pain or fear. It took more focus than just meandering, but he found himself enjoying that, too, the calculations of the best approach to a climb. He nearly slipped once, and sent a cascade of rocks downslope. He turned to see where he had misjudged, just as one of the tumbling rocks hit another and exploded into fragments. He—
He stopped dead. As often happened for him, as he was focused on something else, another problem came together. He thought of the weight of that Lustros-born device in his hand, of what it did. How applying a flash of fire to that combination of planium and what he now knew as quisalt had generated a power that was explosive in any larger quantity than the small coils that had powered the hand weapon.
We’ll end up bombing our own compound. . . .
The words continued to nag at him as he made the rest of the journey. He was still turning the idea that had come to him over in his mind when he arrived at the unexpectedly beautiful spot near a pool of clear, deep water, the source of the supply that drained down into the main cavern. What he saw there took his breath away, and he stopped before they saw him.
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