The Darkness at the Edge of Noon: a Thalassia novel

by Patrick McClafferty

  Logan winked. “I didn’t think so.” He turned back to the fuming administrator. “Now, how soon do you think you can get that main passage sealed off?” His voice was calm and reasonable.

  “Are you insane?” The Councilor shrieked. “We will never close that exit. It’s too important to us.”

  “As important as your survival? What will you do the next time those creatures attack?”

  “That was just a fluke. It won’t happen again, my experts all agree. We’ve added ten men to the city guard.”

  Logan leaned on the desk, his armored gloves raising twists of wood from the shining desktop. The Councilor radiated fear. “And you lost more than thirty men fighting them. If you do not close that passage, then I will.”

  The administrator’s mud colored eyes seemed to bug out of his head. “And how will you do that? My city guards will be here soon and you all will be thrown in jail. How will you close the tunnel then?”

  Logan touched the medallion on his chest. “Goddess Rhiannon, I could really use your help right about now.” He smiled up into the thin air, and spoke softly. “It didn’t take me long to figure out that these medallions are probably a lot more than just a one way communication or transport device.”

  “Rhiannon?” The High Councilor scoffed. “She’s been dead for years, and her worship has been forbidden by city law. It disrupts the simpleminded...”

  “REALLY?” Rhiannon was standing at Logan’s side, dressed in flowing white. Her arms were crossed under her breasts, and there was fire in her eyes.

  All the members of the squad wore almost identical proud smiles on their faces, while a white faced Councilor quailed and the two young city guards began to edge slowly toward the door. Logan caught Megan’s eye, then glanced at the retreating guards. She nodded briefly before she took two smooth steps, placing herself between the guards and the doorway. She simply put one hand on her sword hilt and shook her head slightly. The boys sagged.

  “Let me tell you that you look simply ravishing, for a dead goddess.” Logan smirked. “Actually, you look ravishing, period.”

  Rhiannon gave him a coquettish smile. “Thank you, dear one. Now, what did you intend?”

  “Could you collapse the main tunnel leading into this place?”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “If we destroy the entrance, it will take them at least six months to dig it out, and that will buy us time to solve certain other problems. For those six months they’ll be safe. They only have one other emergency exit, and that will only handle one person at a time. They should be able to defend that, I would think, even with their shoddy military.”

  “Now, now.” She patted his cheek. “Not everyone is a Marine, and can reach Marine standards. I can collapse the main tunnel with no problem.” Her violet eyes gave Logan a level stare. “But I won’t.”

  “But...”

  “You will.”

  “Say again?”

  “You will be the one to collapse the tunnel. I’ll show you how.”

  “You can’t collapse that tunnel! I forbid...”

  Faster than thought, Aileen’s short sword sank into the desktop, just in front of the incredulous, sweating Councilor. “Speak when spoken to, or lose the ability to speak at all.” The medic’s voice was as cold as a week-old corpse.

  “Look at the floor.” The goddess commanded Logan. When he looked down he frowned. It was like looking down outside, from very high up. If he looked carefully he could even see the entrance tunnel and the tiny forms of the engineers and soldiers. Rhiannon took his sword and carefully drove it into the floor, two or three inches back from the entrance. “Step there, very hard.”

  “That’s all?” Logan asked, with a sense of wonder.

  “That’s all.”

  Logan lifted his right foot, and stamped with all his might on the small depression left by the sword tip on the floor.

  The floor jumped and the walls shook. Dust sifted down from the ceiling, and in the distance they could hear screams. Logan sneezed. Rhiannon looked satisfied. “There. I told you that you could do it.”

  “And what, exactly, did I do?”

  “Look at the floor, Logan.” There was an imprint of his foot in the dirt between the entrance and the caves within. “If you were to float in the air a half mile high and look down, this is what you would see outside. You simply crushed the tunnel.”

  Around the entrance Logan could see scurrying figures of the engineers and leftover soldiers. “I think they will have a long walk back to the emergency entrance.”

  “They should be safe enough.” The goddess turned to the High Councilor, with a look of disgust on her face. She held her slender hand in front of his face, and slowly brought the thumb and index finger together, in a pinching movement. “Remember to open my temples, or worse will happen to you.” Her face became hard, and her hand twisted. The Councilor let out a thin scream, grabbed his crotch and fell unconscious out of his chair. Rhiannon wiped her hands together, as if they were dirty. “There. That should take care of his little sex problem. He won’t be lusting after young girls anymore.”

  Logan glanced at a pale Grady, then back to the goddess. “You’re a hard woman, Rhiannon.”

  “You do what you have to do, dear one.” She glanced at the man on the floor. “THAT one was a slime ball. His mother should have strangled him with his own umbilical cord.”

  “Rhiannon!” Logan was shocked, and the goddess looked a little chagrined. “Well, maybe not that far, but he was so nasty it made my teeth itch.”

  “Your fangs are showing a bit, dear.”

  Nan blessed him with a radiant smile. “It’s the first time you’ve called me that.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Goddess.” Logan quickly apologized.

  “No, no. I like it.” She smiled and took his arm. “You can use it more, if you will.”

  “Well, I...”

  “Shall we go home?”

  “I would love to. Bring along those two young men by the door, if you will.”

  “Collecting?”

  “Recruiting. I’d like to eventually bring our numbers up to company strength.”

  “ Hmmm. One hundred Marines. It’s a good number. You can do a lot with a hundred Marines.” Rhiannon was thoughtful as the air flickered. They were back home.

  “So, where are we, exactly?” Max asked in a shaken voice. The boys were clearly out of their depth. One moment they had been having a grand time in the High Councilor’s office, and the next second they were somewhere else, with the squad of Marines suddenly relaxed and stripping off their armor.

  “How liberal is your point of view?” Logan replied, coming at the subject from another direction.

  “Pretty liberal.” Max replied dubiously.

  “We’re on Medin, the storm moon. Home of the Goddess Rhiannon.” Logan chuckled as he unbuckled his own armor. “Our employer.”

  “Yeah, right.” Lucas remarked sourly. His youthful face was set in a disbelieving frown - right up until he saw the glowing crescent medallion set into Logan’s chest. He elbowed his brother.

  “Holy shit!” Max’s eyes got big. “What the frozen hells is that?”

  “That’s his rank, or badge of office, if you will.” Aileen commented as she walked up. It hadn’t taken her long to change from her armor into her soft white robe, and her own crescent hung about her neck, half silver and half blue, to represent her dual affiliation to both goddesses. She turned to face the squad, and began pointing. “Megan and Ryanne are both private first class, Bel and Tiana are corporals and damn fine scouts, Grady is a lance corporal and I am a sergeant.”

  “What’s Logan?”

  “You should learn the proper form of address when you talk to people. As a private, you will always begin and end any sentence with ‘Sir.’ Am I clear?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Lucas mumbled.

  “WHAT DID YOU SAY?” Aileen bellowed in a parade ground voice she must have kept packed away
in a hope chest, for special uses. They probably heard her on the planet below.

  Both boys snapped to attention in a clatter of armor. “Sir! You are very clear, sir.” The medic gave Logan a wink. “Logan was our gunnery sergeant. A gunnery sergeant is two steps above me. When we came to work for the Goddess Rhiannon he received a promotion. He is now a Cleric of Rhiannon.”

  “A Cleric?” The boys chimed in unison.

  “A CLERIC??” Logan rubbed his head. “THAT wasn’t in the contract. Why that sneaky, no good ...” He paused to catch his breath. “Rhiannon!” He shouted to the open air, as he stormed from the room.

  “They sound like an old married couple I met once.” Max mused. “They were married a long time. Ten years I think.” He glanced at Aileen. “Are they married, ah, sir?”

  The medic gave him a level look, and said nothing.

  “You sure run a funny place here, sir.”

  “You won’t think it’s so funny tomorrow, when we start our physical training program.” From across the room Grady groaned.

  “Ballinasloe has been secured, for the moment.” Logan looked across the table at the two goddesses, and two pairs of violet eyes returned unreadable expressions. “I think that we should do the same thing with Stirling.” He glanced into the air for a moment, lost in thought as he remembered his old home. “We could probably collapse those ruins easily enough, but could the Zzzkntti dig them out anyway?” He looked up.

  “Probably, given enough time.” Rhiannon replied in a resigned voice. “What do you think, Jade?”

  Logan sat back and let his K’Dreex reply through his mouth. It was an odd sensation, one that he didn’t particularly like. “The Zzzkntti have shown a remarkable ability to use and create both weapons and tools. Their society is progressing by leaps and bounds as they recall more and more of their past military and technical advances, without the tempering influence of morality or religion. If they aren’t stopped soon they will destroy not only the humans living on Cloch Dabhiolla and Reachrainn, but also the human civilization that lies further east. I can see them advancing to very fast large ships, very quickly; possibly within the year, if something isn’t done.”

  Selene looked angry. “I’ve worked too hard to see MY humans ground to dog meat by the Zzzkntti.” Violet eyes blazed at Logan, as if he were responsible. A soft and also protective hand came to rest on his shoulder.

  “Peace, sister. It wasn’t Logan’s fault.” Rhiannon stepped between the two, into air that crackled with tension.

  Logan had his own problems.

  He almost heard an echo in the empty corridors that once held the other entity.

  He was amazed that he actually heard Selene’s voice in his mind. A soft blue glow floated on the inside of his closed eyelids, and then spun away, at impossible angles. He followed doggedly. The wisp stopped in front of a silver sphere. Logan had no idea as to the size because he had no frame of reference—not even a body.

  He grumbled in return.

  He felt lips brush his cheek, somewhere.

 

  Silence.

  Logan slipped through the silver walls of the sphere, to stand in a small room, no more than the width and breadth of a single bed. A shadowy form of a girl was curled up on the bed, facing the wall. Logan was amazed that this was how his mind saw Jade, and interpreted her looks. He touched her shoulder, and she flinched away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  She rolled over to look at him, and he could feel her probe his memories. Her reply was sullen, pouty.

  Logan put his hand on a dull gray wall. Distantly he could feel Selene feeding him information. He ran a finger over the wall and a window casing appeared. Outside the window the sun was shining, and the dark shadows of a soothing forest lay just a short walk away. He opened the window a crack, and a cool crisp breeze came in, heavy with the scent of new-mown grass and fresh rain. Jade looked mildly interested. There was a hard accusation in her tone. He shrugged.

 

  The shadow girl swung her feet to the floor, and Logan could have sworn that he heard a sigh.

  He went to reply and then stopped. The wall with the window had moved back at least four feet and a large overstuffed chair sat in the corner next to the bed. The walls had morphed into a light, robin’s egg blue. He glanced at Jade and raised an eyebrow. She replied with a single twitch on the corner of her lips that might, just might, have been the beginning of a smile.

  He sat down in the chair and crossed his legs. His smile was wry. Animation returned to her face, her eyes widened a bit, and Logan was sure that he saw the beginnings of a blush.

 

  She stood up and gave herself a close scrutiny, turning round and round, of course, to give Logan a clear view of EVERY angle. The shadowy girl appeared to be seventeen or eighteen, just in the first blush of womanhood, her curves just ripening toward maturity.

  He managed to gasp, a flush rising up his own face. There was no question about it now. Jade was definitely smiling.

  was all she said.

  Logan took a deep breath. He shrugged. Jade stood up, smoothed the fabric of her blue dress, and opened the French door where the window had once been that led out onto a small, canopied patio. A small table sat there, under a brightly striped canopy, with two wicker chairs. On the table was spread a map of the known world. The ellipse that covered the drawing was mostly blank, however, on the left side, halfway between the center of the map and the top, there was a cluster of small looking islands. Each of the islands had a tiny, finely written name under it: Cloch Dabhiolla, Sverd I Fjell and Reachrainn. He pointed to the northernmost island.

  Jade studied the map, dubiously.

 

  She sat down at a low slung wicker chair and crossed her legs, in a motion totally human and sensuous. Her eyes were sad as they turned his way.

  The man started in surprise.

  any friends die around you, Logan. I can see the signs. You unconsciously wish you could join them, so you take on the most desperate, hair-brained missions you can, in the hopes that you will die an honorable death.>

  It was Logan’s mental equivalent of a shout.

  She sounded gloomy.

  Logan replied in a small voice. He was quiet for several minutes. He let out a long mental sigh.

  Jade was quiet for some time. Her shadowy hand reached out and he took it, feeling a faint flush of warmth from her tenuous grip.

 

  Logan studied the map with a frown. Jade tucked her legs under her and picked up a steaming tea cup from the now empty table.

 

  It was Logan’s turn to chuckle.

  She murmured primly. She gave him a sidelong look. Logan stared at her back as she turned and left the patio. Had that been a risqué suggestion? He watched the sway of her hips under the thin blue dress. She was picking up human mannerisms all too fast for his comfort. All too fast.