by Shannah Jay
Praying that Nim would obey, Quinna gave a low whistle. The foliage rustled and a large tawny head stared out at them. Nim's eyes were wary. She’d got used to people during their few months' stay in Outpost, but was still loathe to approach strangers.
'Brother, look down!' The exclamation was involuntary, but the man's knife hand jerked as he realised what he’d said.
Quinna allowed a slow grin to steal across her face. 'Friend, that's the best thing I've heard anyone say in days. I serve our Brother, too.'
'Oh, yes?' The knife didn’t move away and he was still taut and ready to strike.
'I'm of the Kindred of the God.'
'Kindred of the God? Never heard of them.'
'You know the Sisterhood.'
'Of course I do!'
'Well, in this time of trouble, others are being called to serve our Brother, and men are being chosen as well as women. We call ourselves the Kindred now. Herra of Tenebrak leads us.'
'The Elder Sister of Temple Tenebrak?' There was awe in his voice and the knife hand dropped.
Nim decided that there was no danger from this human and strolled forward, yawning hugely. One of her paws was streaked with blood from some recent prey, and she looked pleased with herself.
With a quick movement, the man pushed Quinna away and took a couple of steps backwards. She made no attempt to reach for her weapon, but spread her arms wide. 'Friend, I need some help.' She bent and stroked Nim's head almost absently. 'We're lost. Can you tell me where we are?'
'Near Jeddiak.'
'In what claim?'
'Dyandra.'
She frowned. 'That's in the north, isn't it?'
Suspicion deepened on his face. 'How can you not know that?'
'Because I'm not of the Twelve Claims. I come from a settlement beyond the mountains. We've long lost touch with the Twelve Claims.' She waved vaguely towards the east, then paused as a certain smell wafted towards them through the trees. She drew in a long breath and closed her eyes to savour the aroma better.
'You wouldn't be cooking your dinner, would you, friend? My guts are as empty as a black cave and I haven't tasted meat for two days.'
He looked at her for another minute or so. 'Call truce?'
Quinna immediately made a quick sign with both hands.
'I may be a fool, but you have an honest face, stranger or no,' he said, then held out his hand, 'and you know our signs. Give me your sword and follow me.'
She shook her head. 'I don't give my sword to anyone except a friend, and even then, it has to be a very close friend.'
'You sound as if you need to make some new friends quickly, then.' His hand was still outstretched. 'You'll have to trust me. No sword, no dinner.'
Quinna frowned and still made no move, then grinned. 'How about a trade? Your dagger for my sword?'
A reluctant smile crept across his face. 'You're a bold one.' He flipped his dagger to rest point inwards in his fingers' grasp. 'I could have spitted you several times already, you know,' he added cheerfully. 'Here you are. A trade. But if you do anything to damage the blade, I'll stick it into your throat myself.'
'And if you do anything to damage my Bold Lady, I'll sharpen her in your guts,' she countered, holding out her sword, hilt first.
'I think, swordswoman, that we both speak the same language. Come and eat with us. But keep your furry friend in check.' He led Quinna further into the forest, and although the going wasn’t difficult, they followed no trail that she could see.
As they approached the encampment, someone whistled. By the time they reached the clearing, they had an escort of two grim-faced men, who kept their eyes as much on Nim as on Quinna. When they came to a halt near the fire, several more men drifted out of the shadows of the trees to form a circle round them. Nim growled in her throat and Quinna put a hand on the cliff cat's head to quieten her.
'Where did you find this one?' A short man with a beard stood staring at Quinna, with suspicion writ large on his plump features.
'Found her in the forest, spying on the town.'
'Why, in the name of our Brother, did you bring her back here, then?'
'Because she too used the name of our Brother. And because she knows someone from the Hashite Guild, and is a close enough friend for him to teach her the strangers' code.' He eyed Quinna. 'I think she's all right.
Though we'll watch her carefully till we're certain of that.'
'You can't possibly know,' said a young man, whose nervousness showed in every twitch and gesture. 'You shouldn't have risked bringing her here. And what in the names of all the Manifestations is that thing with her?'
'Shut your face, boy,' said Quinna, who had taken an instant dislike to the fellow. 'That thing is a close friend of mine. Her name is Nim and she's a cliff cat, and if you insult her any more, I'll turn her free to nibble your balls. If you have any, that is!'
There was a chuckle from the men standing around them and the young fellow flushed scarlet.
'My name's Bon,' said the old man who had brought Quinna there. He held out a hand. 'Here's your sword.'
'My name's Quinna. And here's your dagger. I think you'll find the blade undamaged.' She put her sword back into its leather scabbard and folded her arms. 'Is that food nearly ready? I'd kill for a few mouthfuls of meat. Nuts and fruit are poor fodder for a fighter.'
'What sort of woman are you, to carry a sword?' one of the men asked.
'I come from a distant settlement. We've kept away from the Twelve Claims for a few generations. And why shouldn’t I carry a sword? You are.'
'I'm not a woman.'
'Where I come from, men and women fight together.'
'Care to prove that?'
Quinna raised one eyebrow at Bon.
'Might as well,' he said. 'We have some wooden practice swords and dinner isn't ready yet.'
She shrugged. Clearly she had to prove herself with this group, as a stranger would’ve had to do with her own people in the Sandrims. And she was never one to back away from a fight. 'All right. Let's look at these practice swords of yours.'
Two minutes later, the man who’d taunted her was lying on the ground, bruised and shocked rigid that a woman could best him so easily.
'Careless,' said Quinna. 'If that's the best you can do, you'd better hope you never have to fight for your lives.'
Another man stepped forward, frowning. 'He's not our best fighter, just the one with the biggest mouth.
Try a bout with me, swordswoman?'
Already, she noted with satisfaction, he was speaking to her with more respect. 'Certainly, friend.' She cast a longing look at the big cauldron on the fire. 'And maybe after that we can eat?'
It took a little longer to dispose of the dark-haired man, who had better skills but wasn't nearly as good as Quinna. By the time the fight was over, Bon declared the food to be ready.
Just as she was finishing her third bowl of stew, a grey-haired man strode into the clearing.
Bon put his bowl down and hurried forward to greet him. 'Dennil! What are you doing here in the daytime?'
'I've come to summon you all. The time has come to make a move. We either defeat Those of the Serpent or die trying.'
There was a long exhalation of pleasure from the group of men.
'I wondered how long you'd be able to play it meek,' said Bon, with a tight smile of anticipation. 'What made you decide to move now?'
'Shammaz tried to poison my grandson.'
'Little Yeldo? What a filthy sod your brother is! Are you sure your mother didn't play your father false when she begot him?'
'It makes you wonder,' agreed Dennil. 'Shammaz favours no one from the family that I've ever seen.'
'Is Yeldo all right?'
'For the moment. Lellia is keeping an eye on things at home, but we'll have to act quickly if we're to take the snake-lovers by surprise. How many men can you get together by nightfall, Bon?'
'Fifty or so. We're not the only group to sicken of the killings. There are ot
hers living in the forests, men and women both.'
'Count me in on that, as well, friends!' said Quinna briskly, stepping forward. 'I haven't had a good fight for months. And I purely dislike Those of the Serpent.' Beside her Nim growled and Quinna patted the big head.
'My friend says she agrees. She'd make a good diversion, don't you think? How are you thinking of starting your little fight?'
CHAPTER 3 MAK'S LANDING
Months before Katia and her companions fell through Quequere's portal, Mak and Soo had followed their friend Davred’s example and fled from the satellite to seek refuge on the planet which Those of the Galactic Confederation had christened Sunrise. As Exec, Robler made the decision to try to drag them back, but thanks to a few judicious engineering modifications made by Soo before their hurried departure, his efforts to seize their transcaps in a tractor beam merely caused that beam to malfunction.
Unfortunately for Soo and Mak, it still managed to separate the two small transcaps, which went skimming out of control across the sky above the claims before eventually crashing to the ground.
Soo's transcap landed in a lake in the north of Setheron and was discovered by a family of traders travelling towards Fen-Halani on one of the big trading circuits. She found refuge with them, sharing the dangers they faced travelling across a land ruled by Those of the Serpent, protected by the cunning of Giff, the leader of the group, until such time as she could find a way to reach Davred and the Kindred.
After a wild journey across the sky, Mak's transcap crashed into a clump of trees, at first lodging precariously in the thick leafy canopy, then, as its weight caused branches to snap off, dropping down towards the ground in a series of shuddering jerks.
When he regained consciousness, Mak groaned and looked round, not immediately understanding where he was. Then he sucked in his breath sharply and whispered, 'The transcap! I'm down on Sunrise.' He fumbled for the com-unit controls and, regardless of whether Robler was listening or not, tried to contact his wife. 'Soo! Soo, are you all right? Soo! Answer me!' But there wasn't even a crackle of response to show that the com-unit in his wife's transcap was still functioning.
Up on the satellite, Robler was indeed listening, still seething with fury that Soo and Mak had escaped down to the planet. When he heard Mak's frantic calls, he gave a mirthless laugh, but he didn’t bother to answer. 'They've crashed!' he said aloud. 'Someone get me a better fix than this on their locations! I'll get Soo back here to the satellite, if it's the last thing I do!'
'You know how hard it is to get an exact fix on those small tracers, Exec, especially if they're not switched to liaison mode,' Met said. 'And the reception from this one's even worse than usual.'
'That bitch must have tampered with that as well as the tractor beams!' Robler thumped the nearest surface. 'She might be a good com-engineer, but she's run mad lately. She needs treatment.'
Some of the other Confex officers exchanged glances. Robler was acting irrationally, and recently there had been a strange light in his eyes, which made them feel uneasy. It made him look - well, primitive - savage even.
That thought made them feel uneasy. They were from an advanced civilisation, shouldn’t have thoughts like that. But maybe, as one or two of them admitted to one another, they'd been on this satellite for too long, trapped there by unrest in this sector.
'Those metal walls seem to close in on me sometimes,' Meera said to Lizan one day. 'And why couldn't Confex make this place more beautiful? Everywhere you look, there are bumps and bulges in the walls, and plasteel isn't exactly the prettiest material for flooring.' She glanced down at her garish-coloured coveralls and flicked one finger at the material disparagingly. 'Even the clothes are ugly. I know these body-suits are practical, and the fluoro finish is a safety factor, but what I wouldn't give for a flowing robe in a soft pale colour, a starlit night and a restaurant floater hovering over a lake.'
Lizan laughed, 'And a handsome man in it, making love to you, no doubt.'
Meera joined in the laughter, but spoilt the more relaxed mood by adding 'Well, you certainly wouldn't want our dear Exec out with you for a night of pleasure, would you?' She shivered as she said that.
Lizan shrugged. 'Oh, he's not too bad. I wouldn't like to be in his shoes at the moment. And you know Confex makes the other areas of the satellites ultra-utilitarian so that we can have our own quarters and rec-area. Satellites aren't all that big and I think they work wonders with the design, considering.'
'Well, they needn't have the lighting so harsh and bright, need they?' Meera muttered, but let the matter drop.
As the days passed, Robler's unreasoning obsession with getting Soo back and his abandonment of Mak only confirmed some of the crew's suspicions that he was behaving irrationally, that he was the one who needed medical attention, not Soo and Mak, as he claimed. But they did nothing about it. He was the duly appointed Exec Officer, after all. They’d have to have a better case than just suspicions and feelings to justify a rebellion against his authority to Confex Central.
Other members of the satellite's crew, however, were in complete agreement with Robler that the two offenders should be brought back, forcibly if necessary, and strongly reprimanded for breaking all the rules about non-contact with indigenes, not to mention being charged with deserting their posts in a time of emergency. These officers became Robler's trusted lieutenants in his continuing efforts to track Soo down.
They also helped him to establish a new, more authoritarian way of running the satellite.
Now that they were completely cut off from contact with their sector base, he’d declared a state of emergency and every crew member was required to obey his orders un questioningly. All projects were now to be checked with him before implementation, and wouldn’t be permitted unless he saw some value in them.
That was the only way to survive until help came, he told everyone firmly, as it would in the end. Confex always looked after its own.
Down on the planet, Mak was panic-stricken as the transcap cylinder jerked downwards. He couldn’t see what was happening outside, but could sense he was in danger. He threw off the safety harness, which restricted his movements, then groaned aloud as he realised he’d hurt his shoulder and couldn’t move normally. There was also something the matter with his hand, which was covered in red. It took him several moments to realise that the redness was blood.
He lay back then, his breath rasping harshly in his throat. His head was throbbing, his vision kept blurring and it was hard to think straight. 'I must be - concussed,' he said aloud, the medic in him automatically taking over. 'But I still can't - stay here. Got to get out. Got to find Soo.'
With his uninjured left hand, he fumbled again for the controls. The transcap top opened part way, then jammed, with a protesting screech. It would neither close again nor open further. Beyond the narrow opening, Mak could see dense foliage, and beyond that a few tiny glimpses of blue sky as the leaves rustled and the smaller branches waved to and fro in a light breeze. The air smelled of resin and hot plasteel, of his own sweat, of something burning, of crushed leaves and a dozen other odours he couldn’t even begin to recognise.
He covered his eyes with his uninjured hand and moaned aloud. Where was he?
After a while, he tried again to get the top of the transcap open, but whatever he did, however hard he pushed, it would only move a couple of fingerspans in either direction. His efforts left him sobbing aloud with both pain and impatience. Nothing in his well-ordered life on Delta Macros, one of the most highly organised planets in the Confederation, had prepared him for the realities of such a situation.
And though he kept the com-band open and called every few minutes, there was no response from Soo.
Nothing. Not a single word.
Robler didn’t bother to answer any of Mak's calls, but kept the com-unit switched on and smiled each time he heard Mak trying to contact Soo. It’d suit Robler's purpose best if their interfering medic-scientist simply disappeared. Very sad
, but these things happened sometimes. They could manage perfectly well without him on the satellite, after all. The computer had an emergency medical function which could handle all physical ills, and anyway, the crew had been selected for their excellent health. They didn’t really need a medic; it was just regulation to have one on board.
If Mak didn’t return, Soo wouldn’t be able cling to him when she was brought back, wouldn’t be able to claim a husband's protection against the mental incompetence charges Robler intended to bring against her, charges which would give him complete control over her.
As the hours passed, however, Robler's exultation faded and he started to get seriously worried about Soo.
There hadn’t been the slightest sound from her for some time. What had happened to her when her transcap crashed? The com-unit was indicating her presence only approximately and nothing they did gave them a more precise fix on it. Great Daxos! She must have modified the units! The tracers were hard enough to locate at the best of times, but not normally this bad. This damned planet kept tossing up surprises and anomalies.
He declined to join the others for a meal and stayed in the com-room, brooding. Surely Soo couldn’t be dead? Those transcaps were carefully designed to preserve life in the most hazardous situations, even to a miniature stasis unit that would switch itself on if the passenger's life signs stopped. It was a pity he couldn’t switch that on from the satellite. That would hold her until he could pick her up. But the transcaps weren’t very sophisticated in design. They were designed for only the one trip down to a planet, and weren’t normally used at all during the observation phase of a new planet, since the natives might be upset by them.
If it came out that Robler had used them several times, then he’d undoubtedly be reprimanded. If Confex ever took charge here again.
He growled in his throat. What he'd really like would be to get hold of Davred and send him back to Confex Central in stasis. The man had run mad. Stasis was used to restrain dangerous criminals, to stop rioting mobs, to preserve a newly-dead body for resuscitation, or to shorten subjective time on long journeys for personnel of the far-flung Galactic Confederation. All the temples of the Sisterhood down there on Sunrise were now protected by major stasis fields, thanks to Davred Hollunby's interference.