He was on his own. So Rudy gently pulled his hand free and used it to point to each of the objects. “A weapon against Kearn’s Monster and S’kal-ru’s plan to establish a House.”
“Bravo!” She seemed as pleased as if he’d been one of her own, not a for-hire. “I knew you’d figure it out. There was another I’d had in mind for this in the beginning. Well-motivated, highly recommended. You know her, I believe. Janet Chase? Had issues with being this close to the Fringe—something about a price on her head. You, on the other hand, have all that lovely respectability. Arriving on a Commonwealth ship, no less. I chose well.”
“Compliments don’t pay my fee, Sybil,” Rudy commented.
“Very true. Don’t worry. I’ve already transferred a very handsome amount to an account under the name Rudy Leslie on Urgia Prime. If it’s not enough—well, you are most welcome to come and see me for more. In the meantime,” Sybil gathered up the book as if it were treasure, “this stays with me. Insurance, you might say, against further surprises. While this,” Sybil nudged the weapon toward him, “is for you.”
Rudy didn’t bother hiding his surprise. “Why?”
“To finish your assignment. You didn’t think I’d waste your talent, do you? I expect you to kill her for me.”
“Kearn’s Monster?”
“Mine. S’kal-ru. Oh, surely you knew. You put all the rest together—and so easily, too.” Sybil leaned forward, her eyes glittering and dark. “S’kal-ru—and Esolesy Ki, Kearn’s Esen. So much more than they seem. Creatures of mystery and power, playing games with the rest of us. How long? How long have we been their pawns, Rudy? S’kal-ru cheated my ancestor 343 years ago and looks younger than I. How much older can she be?”
Rudy didn’t touch the weapon. “You are entitled to your beliefs, Sybil. I for one have a problem wrapping my head around the idea of shapeshifting beings that live for hundreds of years—”
“What if it’s thousands of years. Tens of thousands. What if they’ve toyed with us all along? Kearn found legends older than our first steps offworld. How old are they?”
She’d found his nightmare and brought it to the surface, held it out to him as if in offering. Rudy couldn’t stop the shiver that ran along his spine. He knew the Kraal saw it and understood. It was in her smile.
And next words. “You saw the stairs. Come. See the rest.”
“The Ganthor—”
“Are not attacking yet. Come, Rudy, and see the truth.”
He couldn’t stop himself from following, despite feeling as though every step might take him farther from Esen and closer to something else. Something terrifying.
House? The humble entrance and kitchen had been a lie. Huge portions of the mountain had been hollowed out. There was a wide corridor behind one door, punching back into the rock, but Sybil first led him to each side of it, through layers of curved rooms, only the first still scorched and damaged. Behind those were others, their contents a mix of still-intact furniture. Only some pieces were suited to a humanoid form, and even those varied in age and style as if an unorganized antique collector had used the rooms for storage. There were closets bursting with fabrics, some fashioned into recognizable clothing, some styles he’d never seen.
Like Esen’s secret closet on Minas XII.
Then, back into the corridor, where Sybil waved him ahead through a large, wide doorway. “We’ve used part for our work here. The rest is as we found it.”
Rudy squinted as he entered, surprised by brightness in what was, after all, a cave. The vaultlike expanse stretched as far as he could see. To his immediate right, a group of Kraal ignored his presence, tending a cluster of machines. Above, light beamed down from a combination of fixtures and through what appeared to be inset gems. They were what they appeared, Rudy realized as he saw other Kraal on ladders, busy prying loose the treasure.
Ahead and to the left, stone had been coaxed into a confusion of platforms and channels, interconnected, solid as the mountain itself. He walked forward, running his hand along the unfinished rock, trying to puzzle it out. The platforms ranged from knee-to-shoulder height, none shading another. Then Rudy’s fingers touched softness. He looked down and saw the platform beside him was filled with dust-dry soil, coated in a layer of desiccated leaves. They all were, he saw.
A greenhouse. Like Esen’s.
Complete with a prosaic jumble of pots and tools by the doorway.
“One last thing, my dear Rudy.” Sybil was standing near the machines. “A surprise the mountain itself had for us.” She nodded toward a pile of rock. “We’ve found a substance within the surface strata of the peak. My scientists have no explanation for its existence and are only beginning to discover its properties. They tell me,” this with an almost bored sigh, “it could be a previously unknown form of matter, with great potential. I let them deal with such things.”
She gestured to one of her affiliates, who brought over a flask of brilliant blue. Rudy started and almost backed away. He knew the color. Like Esen’s, the flash of blue he’d learned to watch for as she cycled.
Sybil stepped close to him. Her fingers, tipped with death, captured his collar to hold him still as she brought her lips to his ear. Her breath was hot. “Familiar, Rudy? I, too, have seen this color. As it ripped apart my ships.”
Rudy had enough presence of mind left to keep silent. Paul. He had to talk to Paul. Esen’s Human face was slipping away from him . . .
“We are the ones who know the truth, Rudy. We’re the ones who have to act.”
Sybil released her hold. Handing the flask back to her affiliate, she led the way back to the outer room, her boots making crisp sounds on the stone. Once there, she sat and he sank slowly into the other chair.
“There are two of these beings who have made themselves part of our affairs,” Sybil said without preamble, her voice sharp and brisk as though this had become a briefing. “My feud is with S’kal-ru. She, in turn, has been battling with the other, Kearn’s Esen. The attacks on Minas XII, the affair with the Tly and Feneden—I see you know of what I speak.” This, as Rudy’s head shot up and he felt himself flush with the memory of shame and anger. The Tly had used truth drugs to expose what he knew, how he hunted for Paul; they’d tortured his cousin almost to death.
“Those were her doing?” he demanded.
“In part. She professed herself ‘interested’ in how Esen would react.”
Rudy slapped his hand down on the table, rattling the porcelain. “’Interested!’”
Sybil smiled faintly. “I would seek direct affiliation with Esen if I could. She would be a formidable ally. Perhaps S’kal-ru fears this and has already dealt with her rival once and for all. It was her intent to execute Paul Ragem and put Esen in a position where she would have to reveal valuable secrets. They were able to escape the first trap. I have received no word yet if they escaped the second.” Her smile widened. “But it may not matter.”
“How can you—”
“Because we have S’kal-ru. She’s on the ship I sent to bring her here, docked to this mountain, awaiting only my invitation to join us. She will be looking for a threat from me. You, on the other hand, are the starred piece, the random element in our game. Are you ready, Rudy Lefebvre, to meet her for yourself?”
Rudy’s fingers closed over the weapon on the table.
“Yes.”
30: Mountainside Afternoon
“YOUR elbow’s in my eye.”
“Shush! No, it isn’t.”
As I should be the one to know, being bottommost of this tangle of limbs and ejection gear, I thought it highly unreasonable of Paul to argue. As I started to protest further, his elbow disappeared and his hand took its place. Over my mouth.
He tasted of grit and sweat. I didn’t care, frozen into a heart-thudding caution. Had we been seen?
I’d always hated Skalet’s plans. Today, more than ever. Jump from the scoutship, indeed.
Still, the jumping part had been more fun than I’d expected.
The ship had swung low and wide on its approach, passing over the Edianti Valley. I’d gazed down, feeling unexpectedly moved. Then we’d been tossed out the door.
The Kraal, predictably, had developed remarkable technology for getting personnel—usually armed to the teeth—into dangerous territory. The packs they’d strapped to our backs boasted preset thrusters, programmed with the desired landing coordinates. In case there were any issues concerning altitude, elevation, and the competency of the programmer, the packs also contained an antigrav unit. Ours kicked on at about the moment I was sure there were such issues to worry about. The rest of the descent was a gentle fall.
Until Paul had slipped and rolled down the slope, taking my legs out from under me and propelling the two of us into this fortunately shallow crevice.
His hand lifted away slowly. “We’re clear.” My heart settled in my chest.
My Human climbed out first. I didn’t bothering complaining that my shoulder wasn’t a step, too busy following behind. My Human-self was quite good at rock climbing, or rather boulder scrabbling, I realized as Paul helped me to my feet.
We’d landed on a scree of uniformly small and loose fragments.
Mine tailings.
I bent down and touched the rock with my fingertips, moisture clouding my vision. Ersh.
“Esen. We have to move.” As he spoke, Paul tugged the ejection pack from my shoulders, then tossed it into the crevice to join his.
I blinked, rubbing the tears from my cheeks and managing to smear a good amount of dust over my face in the process. This form had its disadvantages. Not that I had much choice until I found a source of living mass.
“This way,” I said, pointing upslope. With the exception of the loose rock, I knew every part of this terrain as well as I knew the lines on these fingers. Well, I thought practically, running my eyes over what remained familiar, at least those parts that hadn’t seen a moonquake for fifty years.
We clung to shadows I knew, slipping up shortcuts that felt oddly different to Human feet. Steeper, higher. Perhaps paws were bouncier. I could tell Paul was impressed, if not surprised, by my ability to sneak around my own home. I didn’t think he needed to know most of my practice had been hiding from Skalet.
The move with the Ganthor had served my web-kin well. The crew of the Octos Ra were hers now, beyond doubt. They wouldn’t reveal Paul’s and my presence—or absence. More significantly, their switch in affiliation priority could potentially spread through the ranks of Mocktap’s elite troops, especially if Mocktap herself could be publicly disgraced. That part of Skalet’s plan made some sense. The part that had Paul and I leaping out of the Octos Ra and trying to avoid Kraal traps and armed guards lacked something important, in my opinion. Our safety.
So far, so good, however. Which I supposed would make Skalet insufferably proud of her scheming.
We were about halfway to our goal when I held up my hand to stop Paul. “Wait,” I told him, straining to make sense of a shadow where I didn’t remember one. Then, most alarmingly, it moved. But not toward us. Up the slope.
With a regrettable lack of consultation, my Human was moving, too, in pursuit. I wasn’t sure if he’d seen more of the figure than I, or feared we’d been discovered. I hesitated, unsure if it was more dangerous to attempt to help or to stay where I was, my hands gripping the cold hardness of unforgiving rock.
Ersh.
As if the thought of her had been a trigger, I found myself helpless under a surge of memory that wasn’t mine . . .
... so alone. Always alone. Guilt the keeper; shame the prison. Safety is in hiding. Should have remembered.
Climb. Must climb the slope. Caution.
Pain! Shocks into fire with every step and slip. Fire burns in emptiness, fire remembers the shape of an arm and a hand, four fingers and a thumb. Lost forever.
Like the children. The chimes of distress and confusion from the gentle ones had drawn Ersh down the mountain. The calls of those who had never needed to defend their own, who had never seen those of flesh. Who had not known what to do.
Follow the Rules. Match form to form. Safety is being the same. Cycle to Human-form. Steal the children back, while the poachers are numb with drink and sleep.
Caught! Trapped! Attacked! Run for safety. Pain! Pain! Hold form . . . hold form . . . hold form. Mustn’t be seen as different. Pain!
Safety was being hidden. The knowledge makes movement possible, imperative. No one follows. She’s left confusion and guilt behind, carries her own. The Tumbler children are scattered again, glittering in the harsh light of Eclipse.
Pain! Cradle the ruined end, seared closed. The emptiness remembers fire. It always will . . .
... I gasped clear of the past, finding myself cradling my right arm as though mine had been amputated by blaster fire, not Ersh’s, weeping with her anguish, her anger for the Tumblers.
“Esen! What’s happened? Are you hurt?” Urgent questions, yet from a distance. Footsteps and the rattle of stone. I shook my head to reassure my worried Human, although Ersh-memory still burned along my nerves.
The sounds of someone falling brought me fully into the here-and-now. I focused my eyes on Paul as he hauled that someone up and back from me, to his feet. “Answer me, Esen!” Paul panted.
“It wasn’t my arm,” I assured us both. “Yes. I’m fine. But who—?”
Paul jerked his captive around to face me. “Look who I found spying for the Kraal,” he said, in that voice I could never recognize as his, the one promising dark and deadly things.
“Lionel?” The battered and very worried-looking Human blinked owlishly at me, semi-suspended in a grip I suspected was much tighter than it needed to be. “Paul, let him go.” When Paul simply stared at me as though I’d lost my mind, I scrambled up beside them both and tugged at his arm. It felt like metal. “Let him go. You’re hurting him.”
“That’s the general idea,” Paul growled. “Stop it, Bess.”
Ersh. “It’s Lionel, not the Kraal. He’s here to help us. Aren’t you, Lionel?”
“Esen?” Kearn croaked. “Is this you?”
I ignored the now-apoplectic expression on Paul’s face. “Of course this is me. What do you think?” I did a quick pirouette, careful not to trip.
“Thank g-goodness, you’re all right. And you’re—this you—why, I never dreamed you’d be—c-cute.” This with quite commendable enthusiasm, under the circumstances.
Paul let out a string of highly expressive, if implausible adjectives—none of which included “cute”—ending with my name and a profound sigh. Then: “What have you been up to now?”
Lionel craned his head to look at Paul. I smiled, knowing there would be dimples. Cute dimples. “Making friends, Paul.”
I was reasonably sure being this happy with frenzied Ganthor above and my untrustworthy web-kin ahead—not to mention everything else Kearn told us in hurried, desperate bursts as we climbed—was likely to call down the notice of the Cosmic Gods. But I didn’t care.
I’d restored part of Paul’s Web.
And, from the look of him, Lionel Kearn had restored himself. Each time I glanced around, he was keeping up—not easy on a steep slope scored by cracks and tumbled with rock. Even more surprising was the strength in his voice as he talked about difficult and dangerous things.
Those things should have wiped the smile from my face and joy from my heart, but couldn’t. There was a rightness to seeing the two Humans together, even if they’d never been friends. Kearn knew Paul Ragem and that knowing linked Paul to his past, his real past, again.
And Rudy was here!
I could be forgiven for skipping a bit.
“Careful, Es.” Paul’s admonishment from behind was hushed but kind. He hadn’t said anything to Kearn that wasn’t a prompt for information or demand for more detail. I thought it likely both Humans had too much they wanted to say, and knew it would have to wait.
The only good news was that Rudy Lefebvre was on Picco’s Moon. Paul mig
ht worry about his cousin being in harm’s way, but not about his ability to cause some of his own. My grin faded slightly. I wasn’t looking forward to trying to explain Skalet’s recent behavior to the hot-tempered Human. It was something I might leave to Paul, who seemed to have reached his own accommodation with the nature of my web-kin.
Rudy was here, now, meeting Mocktap—explaining why Paul had caught Kearn on the mountainside. Kearn had been too worried, in the end, to let Rudy come alone. He’d followed the Kraal aircar, counting on their preoccupation with Rudy and the Ganthor overhead to let him approach safely. It was probably, I decided with pride, the dumbest and bravest thing Lionel had ever done in his life.
Paul had been silent for a moment after hearing this. Then he’d put his hand on Kearn’s shoulder. Perhaps, I’d thought smugly, he’d start to regret some of those colorful adjectives he’d used for me.
What hadn’t been good news, in any way, were the stakes. Joel Largas had followed us, on one of many ships crewed by friends. Worse, the Largas Legend was already fin-down. With Tomas and Luara.
Of those who lived here? I knew Paul thought about Phonse and Maggie; he cherished their friendship. I hadn’t met Alphonsus Lundrigan myself, having been reluctant to come back here for many reasons, but knew he was another of those guarding my secret. Now, he was guarding this tiny world.
I lost the urge to skip. Add to the total all of the other innocents trapped here, with their friendships and family.
“Here.” I told them at last. “Here” was the spot I knew Skalet had had in mind. It had a view of the landing pad and front of the house, but was conveniently shielded from any window by boulders. Unless one had attractive but inconveniently tall ears.
The Kraal presence became suddenly and sickeningly obvious, from the nine armored figures stationed around the broad ledge, to the aircar, to the tracks their machines had scored in the stone, to and from the doorway.
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