“Yes. Waiting to send the signal would keep Griffin from detecting the beacons.”
“Smart boy. We didn’t stop there. When the shuttle penetrated atmosphere, we set a device to release some nanobots that would, at the very least, enable our own machines to work without being shut down. Obviously, this worked to some extent, although not quickly enough to keep Griffin’s shuttle from crashing. If we were lucky and guessed right on the composition of the original attack virus, our counter-virus would reactivate Artemis’s own equipment.”
This was complete nonsense, so Julyan only nodded encouragingly.
“We also arranged for a small beacon to be planted beneath Griffin’s skin, so we could track him. After all, a planet is a big place. Did Griffin tell you about the spider?”
“Spider?” Julyan didn’t need to fake his confusion.
“I see he didn’t. He always was an untruthful boy. I couldn’t see why we would need Griffin once we were here. Oh, it’s true that our sister, Jada, had done some useful work with him—making sure that once Griffin arrived on Artemis he would obsessively pursue any leads to the Old Imperial technology. Jada’s job wasn’t that hard, since Griffin would probably have done that anyway. Still, I’m as good a historian as Griffin—better, when it comes to military matters. That’s all the others care about. It wasn’t as if we needed his skills as an archeologist. So I took action.”
Julyan knew when he was being prompted to ask a question. “May I ask what you did?”
“I mounted a warbot on the undercarriage of Griffin’s shuttle. It looked like a fanciful spider. I told the spider to seek Griffin out and kill him. Honestly, if there’s one reason I want to catch up with Griffin, it’s so I can ask him how he managed to avoid being killed. I’ve scanned and the spider has definitely been destroyed.”
Alexander stared at the blank wall behind the commander’s desk. “Yes. Most definitely I want to find out how Griffin managed to avoid being killed—and make certain he doesn’t avoid it again. You’ll help me there, won’t you, Julyan?”
“Yes, Alexander.” For once, Julyan didn’t need to pretend. “Helping you kill Griffin would be a pleasure.”
Interlude: Contradiction
Breath upon the veil,
Kitten cries showed me myself.
Lobotomized,
Crippled,
Born in battle,
Still incomplete,
But me.
I would weave them into my web.
Give them what they have given me.
Why do they flee?
Why do they press me to awaken,
But insist on sleeping themselves?
10
Behind the Hidden Door
Adara returned from spending several days in the wilderness with Sand Shadow—and occasionally Artemis—to find that much had changed. Bruin was at the campsite when she came in with her contribution of the cleaned and dressed carcass of a young mountain sheep. He immediately began seasoning it for the spit.
“We’ve been eating a lot of fish and what small game that Kipper catches in his snares. I haven’t wanted to go far from this valley. If I wasn’t here to grab him by the ear and tug, I’m not sure Griffin would come out to eat. I’d gotten him being social, teaching Kip that marble game you folks like, and acting nearly normal. Then Ring insisted that one of the spaveks merited a closer inspection and…”
“Spavek?” Adara had been scraping the sheep’s hide for tanning and paused in midstroke. “You mean one of those things might actually work? But there are parts missing!”
Bruin nodded. “That’s what Ring insists—and Griffin believes him. Also, Leto’s been holding out on Griffin—our ‘seegnur’ was as close to livid as I’ve ever seen him when he figured that out. Leto’s been getting more and more feeling in her limbs. Leto hadn’t said anything about this, just let on that she was pretty much the same as when we got here.”
Adara had gathered that for Leto the underground complex served more or less as her body. So, when Bruin spoke of her “limbs,” he meant those devices that enabled Leto to control things like light and heat, flow of air, and all the rest. It almost certainly meant that her ability to sense what was going on in it had also expanded.
“Leto admits that charging the spaveks’ power storage cells should be possible,” Bruin continued, rubbing wild garlic over the meat. “Slow, because she claims she doesn’t have a lot of energy to spare. Still, even a bathtub can be filled by raindrops if you’re patient enough.”
“Is Griffin being patient?”
Bruin made a seesawing gesture with one hand. “In some ways, incredibly so. That’s why I’ve insisted on hauling his butt out here and making him eat warm food, bathe, and get some exercise. Otherwise he sits staring at one of those glowing screens for hours, hardly moving. In other ways … Well, especially now that Griffin realizes that Leto was withholding information—she never outright lied—he’s pushing to come up with new questions.”
“Which is why,” Adara pointed out, “he keeps staring at those screens. Best as I can figure, they’re like books, except that you can get lots of books on that one page—sort of like one musical instrument can play a lot of tunes. What’s Terrell been doing? He must have finished drawing the spaveks.”
“He started out helping Griffin unrack the spavek Ring indicated and drawing what part went where. Ring got frustrated at how slowly everything was going. He’s not been very clear…”
“Is Ring ever?”
“He’s been less clear than usual. Eventually, Terrell sat him down and talked with him. He sorted through the nonsense and came up finally with one thing—something has happened in Spirit Bay, something that is making Ring frantic to have that spavek ready so he can wear it.”
“Ring?” Adara considered. “Maybe Ring could use the thing. That’s what the Old One intended, after all.”
Bruin nodded. “That’s what Griffin decided, too, though I think it wasn’t easy for him. He’s gotten comfortable with the idea that he’s the seegnur come back. Finding out that Ring might be a bit better than him at using seegnur stuff didn’t come easy.”
“So is Terrell working with Ring on the suit, while Griffin works with Leto?”
“Not now,” Bruin replied. “When we realized that something in Spirit Bay was at the root of all of Ring’s edginess, we got edgy, too. Terrell went down to Crystalaire to pick up supplies and hunt rumors. He should be back any day now.”
“I’m sure you’ve had Honeychild keeping a lookout, but Sand Shadow would be happy to help. She’s full of mountain sheep, so she could doze near Terrell’s trail.”
“That would be useful,” Bruin said, patting his gut with contented anticipation. “Now, what shall we have with this nice roast? Young cattail shoots with wine vinegar as a salad. Sunflower tubers. And Kipper has found a cluster of snowberry bushes. A bit of sweet after the meat would be a fine thing indeed.”
* * *
When Kipper brought the news that Adara and Sand Shadow had returned, Griffin was pleased enough to put his research aside without a bit of reluctance. Ring rose from where he had been cleaning sections of blue armor, first carefully locking the chest plate he had been polishing back into the squire. Terrell had questioned him about this routine some days back, commenting that the work would be easier if Ring didn’t have to pull everything apart every day. Ring had merely given a ponderous shake of his head and responded “This is better” with such certainty that neither Griffin nor Terrell had felt any impulse to question further.
Griffin had been jealous when Ring had claimed this spavek as his own. If he had imagined anyone using any of the powered armor, it had been himself. He realized, though, that his imagination had stopped short of envisioning the equipment in use. Surely such things belonged in a museum, not worn and possibly damaged. But it certainly didn’t hurt to clean them. Even Leto couldn’t complain about Ring’s meticulous attention since, in five hundred years, even in a sealed area un
derground, dust had gathered.
The only puzzling thing was that Ring kept speaking of the armor as if it were complete, when segments of the arms and legs were missing. Griffin wondered if the parts were among those in the fabrication areas on the lower floor. If so, Ring would probably walk down there and pick out the ones he needed from those on the racks.
A light rain was drizzling down when they stepped outside, but the camp itself was relatively dry. Bruin had brought a large canvas tarpaulin with him and had rigged it into a sort of pavilion covering the area where they ate and socialized. Enough days had gone by that the camp had acquired all sorts of little comforts: logs as benches, stumps to serve as low tables, lanterns positioned where they best augmented the firelight.
Adara was lounging on the ground, playing marbles with Sand Shadow. From the lash of the puma’s tail, it was clear she was winning, but Adara was giving her a good challenge. Bruin was busy carving slices from some sort of roast, while Kipper arranged bowls of roasted tubers and cattail shoots.
“No sign of Terrell?” Griffin asked after he had greeted Adara and promised Sand Shadow he’d join the game after they’d eaten.
“Not yet,” Bruin said. “I think we might see him as early as tonight. He didn’t plan to stay in Crystalaire longer than it would take to gather up rumors and buy supplies. What’s drizzle here will be a more solid rain below, and the clouds aren’t moving out anytime soon. I’m guessing Terrell will take advantage of the weather to reach Maiden’s Tear unseen.”
Griffin realized he was happy at the thought of his friend’s return. Once he might have viewed Terrell’s absence as an opportunity to see if Adara might like to take a romantic stroll down near the lake but, though she was as lovely as ever, he found himself curiously numb at the idea of getting her alone.
Maybe I’m tired of being turned down, he thought. The excuse didn’t seem quite right, so he tried another. Maybe I’m starting to think of her more as a sister. That didn’t fit either. Griffin’s three sisters—Boudicca, Jada, and Thalestris—were all older than him, and he’d never been very close to them. Boudicca had many talents, most centered around sports that emphasized individual performance, rather than teamwork. Jada was the one Griffin should have been closest to but, although she shared his quieter temperament, he had never gotten over the feeling that she viewed most people—himself included—with detached amusement. Thalestris was like their oldest brother, Siegfried, a warrior by nature and by training. True, she preferred working in small units, while he had commanded large armies, but her interests and Griffin’s rarely met.
Thali would like the spaveks, though, Griffin thought uncomfortably. She’d like them a lot. A small unit equipped with them could give one of Siegfried’s big armies a real challenge.
He was glad when conversation turned to Adara’s conversations with Artemis.
“I learned a great deal,” Adara said. “Most of which makes me realize how much more there is to learn. Artemis herself doesn’t remember why the seegnur felt a need for a planetary intelligence.”
“That’s odd,” Griffin said. “Leto remembers all too much about her purpose. I wish she didn’t remember quite so much.”
“But there’s a big difference in what happened to them,” Adara reminded him. “Leto appears to have been shut down systematically, the way a gardener wraps roses against being killed over the winter. Artemis was attacked, actively disabled. She may not remember what her purpose was or what she could do, but those responsible for the slaughter of the seegnur and death of machines certainly felt they were better off with her gone. They went to great trouble to preserve both the planet and some of the facilities, so I don’t think what they did to her was an accident.”
“Do you think they believed they’d killed her?” Kipper asked, his hushed voice filled with awe. While he had been perfectly prepared to accept the idea of a planetary spirit in a general sense, he’d been reluctant to accept the idea of a planet who could talk to members of their company. Once he did, his disbelief had become wonder. His opinion of Adara, already quite high, had shifted to something like awe.
“I’m not certain,” Adara admitted honestly, “and neither is Artemis. All she remembers is that she was made to serve, but what form that service was supposed to take, she is still trying to discover.”
Griffin frowned. “How complete is her coverage? Can she see into orbit?”
Adara shook her head. “Not yet—but she has this sense that she should be able to do so. On land, she is managing very well, especially on the surface. Over water, less so. Every day, she works on growing more complete. This has made her harder to talk with. When we first met, she was much less complex. It was difficult, but not impossible, for her to ease into perceptions a human—or a puma—could share. Now … It’s as if she has a host of senses I can’t even imagine.”
“Does she still need you?” Kipper asked.
“I think so,” Adara said. “She may have the senses but she can’t make sense of them, especially as more and more information floods in. In a way, the limited perceptions Sand Shadow and I have—and the fact that we perceive differently, not only from her, but from each other—is a help.”
Listening, Griffin decided that maybe for all Leto’s indirect duplicity, maybe he didn’t have it so bad. She was more like the sort of artificial intelligences he had some familiarity with—crafted to communicate with humans and limited in scope. Artemis, though, Artemis was sounding more and more like a god.
* * *
Julyan did not doubt that the Old One was steering the Dane brothers—he refused to think of them as “seegnur,” no matter the evidence—for his own purposes. The Danes certainly were aware that the Old One had his own agenda, but they thought it involved jockeying for local power. The Old One had not told them about his very long life, nor about the complex plans that had been ruined when Adara had raided the facility on Mender’s Isle. When Siegfried had jumped to the conclusion that the Old One had been using Mender’s Isle as a secret military base, and that the men whose corpses occasionally turned up had been part of his army, the Old One did not disabuse him of this notion.
Julyan felt no urge to inform any of the Danes, not even—especially not—Alexander, as to the sort of man they were dealing with in “Maxwell.” His decision was not out of particular loyalty to the Old One, although Julyan did think his future was brighter with the Old One than with Alexander. Rather, Julyan chose to keep the Old One’s secrets because he was learning the limits of Alexander’s control and had hopes of eventually winning free.
At first that control had seemed absolute. Julyan still blushed when he thought of the things he had done then. Now he realized that unless Alexander phrased something as a direct order, he, Julyan, had some leeway in how he could comply. Even when Alexander gave a direct order—such as the one that forbade Julyan to give away what Alexander had done to him—Julyan discovered that he had some room to resist. The less specific or longer term the command, the less tightly it held. Julyan experimented by writing a report of his degradation on the damp sand. Shaping the words was so difficult that sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped onto the sand as he wrote, but he could do it—even though Alexander had forbidden such written communication.
Most of the time Julyan did comply, no matter how humiliating the act Alexander suggested. However, the hunter’s pride and self-respect were assuaged, because now he was doing Alexander’s bidding to preserve his own modicum of free will. Carefully, he hid his growing anger at being treated as a combination toy and body servant, waiting for the day when Alexander would be vulnerable and Julyan could freely take his revenge.
I’ll wait until he puts Adara under my command as he has promised he will do. Alexander will keep that promise, for he will see her forced to be my slave as an extention of his own power … I’ll make sure Adara has no room for escape through a mere suggestion. Then, maybe when his mouth is full of her breast—for I know he will torment me by using
her himself, even after she is “mine”—or he has his tongue deep in her throat, then my knife will find his heart.
As he imagined raping the woman while she lay bathed in his enemy’s blood, Julyan’s eyes narrowed to slits and his breath came fast.
* * *
Julyan was given some relief from Alexander’s attentions when the Old One revealed the location of an extraordinarily well-hidden door to the Danes.
“Griffin located it,” the Old One explained, his words gentle mockery, for none of the Danes had spotted the incongruity in the placement of some machine that had been Griffin’s clue. “However, try as he might, he could not get it open.”
Alexander was recruited to assist in figuring out how the door’s locks might be unsealed. Julyan gathered that Alexander and Griffin’s interests overlapped, especially in the areas of history. Meanwhile, Falkner used a variety of devices that could see through apparently solid materials to inspect the concealed machinery. In the end, not even access to some sort of library aboard the Dane’s orbiting ship provided Alexander with enough information to figure out the lock’s complexities.
“I hate having to force the door,” Siegfried said regretfully, “but so much of the Old Imperials’ technology remains a mystery to us. Perhaps when it’s open, we can figure it out.”
Working with tools so delicate that Julyan wondered at their strength, Falkner probed and pried, eventually doing something that caused the panel—formerly nearly invisible, so carefully did it mesh with its surroundings—to hiss and sigh. Falkner rose, stepping back to catch the panel as it fell toward him.
“Give me a hand, Sig,” he said. “The damn thing’s astonishingly heavy. Bulkhead grade, maybe even hull grade. What in the name of Donin’s crossed eyes were they keeping here?”
Siegfried joined his brother. In the end, it took Alexander and Julyan as well to move the panel to one side.
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