Don’t let them see the possible danger, Griffin warned himself. They’re aware they can use us as hostages against each other. Look calm. Look interested. Act like a Dane.
How easily Seamus accepted the green spavek was interesting, but the boy showed no sign that he was at all aware of the potential weapon he held. He surrendered the suit as readily as he had donned it. Griffin was impressed, even a little jealous, at how easily Castor adapted. Then Castor began to yell.
“Pollux? What’s wrong? Pollux? What are you? Where are you? Are you going? Going! Pollux!”
Castor’s tone was so anguished that Griffin half expected the helmet’s demon mask to contort with pain. Castor spun wildly about, searching for his lost illusion. Ring—the only person who stood a chance of restraining him—stepped back a few paces. Siegfried and Falkner automatically reached for weapons. Alexander’s fists were clenched in frustration. He possessed no easy commands to control a brother.
Castor’s panic was reaching a dangerous level when aid came from an unexpected source.
“Castor, it’s all right. I’m here.”
The speaker was the boy Seamus. His usually slack features were animated, the expression on them somehow adult and just a bit cynical. He looked, Griffin realized with shock, very much like Pollux. There was nothing physical in the resemblance—it was pure body language. Stance. Angle of the head. The slight narrowing of the eyes that had always meant Pollux was working his way through a complicated problem. There were dozens of little things, but Griffin was certain he was not imagining them.
Castor dropped to his knees in front of the boy and released the helmet’s faceplate. The stylized demon features were replaced by a visage far more tormented.
“Pollux! Pollux!”
Castor grabbed Seamus by the shoulders and started shaking him. His brilliant green eyes held panic, yet Griffin recognized it for a panic born of hope. Confronted with Castor’s violent reaction, Seamus’s momentary lucidity vanished. His head snapped back and forth on his thin neck as Castor shook him.
A commotion broke out. Falkner yelled, “Castor! Stop it!” Siegfried pulled out his nerve burner, but didn’t seem to know precisely who he wanted to shoot. Alexander was less uncertain. Griffin had only just realized that Alexander was taking careful aim at Seamus when Bruin exploded forward, putting himself between the weapon and the boy.
Or does Bruin see “boys”? Griffin wondered. Castor looks at least as vulnerable.
Griffin didn’t wait. With Terrell at his side, he surged toward Alexander. Terrell threw himself into a low dive, wrapping himself around Alexander’s ankles and knocking him off balance. When Alexander’s hand flew up in an automatic attempt to regain his balance, Griffin kicked the nerve burner from his grip.
With that, the immediate crisis was averted. Castor had let go of Seamus, and now stood weeping, his head bent limply forward. Bruin was inspecting Seamus’s bare upper arm where bruises were forming. Alexander picked himself off the floor, cursing all and sundry—but most especially Ring.
“He did this! He set this up! He’s trying to drive Castor crazy!”
“And who,” Griffin asked coldly, “did you plan to shoot? Seamus or Castor?” He held up the nerve burner, so Siegfried and Falkner could see that it was set for high energy, not the lower setting that would frazzle the subject’s nervous system but leave him alive. “It seems to me that the one who’s acting crazy is you, Alexander.”
Siegfried’s indecision had vanished and he still held a weapon. Griffin had no illusions that they were evenly matched. Siegfried could use a nerve burner with surgical precision. Griffin settled for keeping hold of Alexander’s weapon, hoping it would give him an edge.
“Crazy or not,” Siegfried said, “we need to figure out what’s happened. Everyone over there, against the wall. We’re going to get this resolved.”
He aimed his nerve burner at Bruin, then glowered at Ring. “That includes you, Ring. Get out of that armor and join the rest or I’ll start persuading you by burning holes in your friends. You wouldn’t like that, would you? In case you don’t think I’m serious…”
Siegfried played the energy beam along the side of Bruin’s face. The big man dropped to the floor, writhing and screaming.
* * *
Although Adara felt comforted by Artemis’s promise, Sand Shadow’s uncertainty remained so powerful that Adara had to struggle to keep the puma’s panic from becoming her own. She could not reject Sand Shadow’s emotions—they were too close to her own. Instead, she rechanneled them, trying to show Sand Shadow Artemis’s reassurance that their new closeness was a protection, not a threat. Sand Shadow was not convinced, but neither did she reject Adara’s comfort.
They might have probed more deeply into this new understanding but, at that moment, Honeychild exploded into the glen. Usually, Honeychild was such a mild soul that it was easy to forget just how dangerous the bear could be. Now, with her body stretched lean and tight, she looked every ounce the lethal predator she was. She barreled up to Adara, head jerking frantically toward where Sand Shadow still clung. She reared and shook the tree trunk with the intensity of her need.
Adara understood. Honeychild had something complicated to communicate, but Sand Shadow’s mind remained awash with the confused sensations from their recent ordeal. Adara didn’t waste any time trying to explain what they’d been through—that would have been difficult enough even if they’d shared a language. Instead, she grabbed the bear’s ears in her hands and forced the great head around to face her.
“Is it Bruin? Is something wrong with Bruin?”
Honeychild shook from long nose to short tail, and then nodded. Shaking loose of Adara’s grip, she reared onto her haunches, pointing in the direction of Leto’s complex. Dropping down, the bear used her claws to scrape the sign for danger, following it with the one that indicated an event current and immediate. Again she pointed toward Leto’s complex. Then, her patience for this laborious form of communication spent, the bear dropped onto all fours.
Adara didn’t wait for the bear to lope off. She called to Sand Shadow. “I hope you’re coming. We could really use you. Come on, Kipper!”
They ran full tilt toward Leto’s complex, Honeychild following now that she was assured of assistance.
“Aren’t we going in that way?” Kipper asked, pointing toward the entrance they’d been using.
Not pausing in her long-legged stride, Adara shook her head. “That goes directly into the lab. Even before Griffin’s brothers arrived, that was rarely unoccupied. We’re going in through the cavern.”
“Isn’t the cavern flooded?” Kipper asked. Although he was smaller, he had a boy’s overwhelming energy and easily kept pace with her. “And locked?”
“I have the keys,” Adara said. “Even if I did not, I suspect Leto would open the way for us.”
“What about Honeychild?”
“If she doesn’t want to swim, she can make her way around on the ledge like Sand Shadow did. Bears are much more nimble than humans think,” Adara replied. “You’ll know that after you’ve lived with Bruin longer.”
“Will I?”
The words were spoken in a very small voice. Reaching out, Adara gently buffeted the boy’s head.
“Of course you will. Bruin and Honeychild will make sure you do. We’re going to get Bruin and the rest out of there, so you’ll have plenty of lessons.”
Kipper brightened, leaping in midstride like a young deer. “We will! Of course we will!”
“I’ll tow you in like I did Terrell and Griffin. You have some ability to see in the dark, don’t you?”
“Not as much as you and Bruin.”
“But enough,” Adara said, “that we won’t need to show a light. That’s good.”
She’d spoken of Sand Shadow joining them with a confidence she didn’t feel. The puma was still deeply unsettled by what had happened when they had breathed in Artemis’s spores. Nonetheless, Adara was aware that the puma was
following at a distance, sorting through the confused impulses surging through her system.
Adara grinned to herself. There’s something to be said for being human. I spend a lot of time sorting through confusion. Sand Shadow’s usually the confident one. She’s going to need time.
Because a canoeist on the teardrop lake could have been noticed by someone on the surrounding elevations, the canoe had not been much in use. A few times, Adara had taken it out after dark. Otherwise, she had stored it in the cavern. The makeshift raft she’d used to tow Griffin and Terrell was there as well. Smaller, lighter Kipper would stay much dryer than the men had. He’d also be easier to pull—and less nervous, since he’d be able to see where they were going.
As Adara readied canoe and raft, she considered how often she overlooked the courage shown by Terrell and Griffin, each often pressed to limits for which their lives had not prepared them.
So have we all, she thought, dipping paddle into the dark waters. Maybe the definition of living a full life is embracing the unknown.
“Ready, Kipper?”
“Ready!”
* * *
Julyan was shocked to realize that Siegfried’s command included him but, when Siegfried growled at him, he dropped his nerve burner and scuttled to join the others. Ring stood methodically removing his armor. Terrell and Griffin were inspecting Bruin’s wound.
Staring at Siegfried in a manner that defied his brother to protest, Falkner slid a first-aid kit across to them. Bruin’s moans quieted as soon as Griffin sprayed something over the nasty burn that plowed through the beard that covered the side of his face, but he still shook from pain.
Julyan’s astonishment mounted when he realized that Castor had grabbed Seamus by the hand and now stood with the prisoners. Seeking direction, the hunter looked about for the Old One and didn’t find him. Siegfried noticed at the same moment.
“Where’s Maxwell?” When no one answered, he called, “Maxwell? Leto, where’s Maxwell?”
Leto’s little girl voice sounded innocently smug. “He left your group soon after Castor started shaking Seamus. He entered the tunnel toward the valley and began running as soon as he was clear of the labs. He is now out of my sensing range.”
“You didn’t say anything?”
“You never asked me to keep track of Maxwell’s comings and goings. Maxwell did not take anything with him, not even a canteen or blanket. He might return.”
But they all knew he would not. Oddly enough, Julyan didn’t feel in the least betrayed. Instead, he had to swallow an impulse to laugh. No wonder the Old One had lived for lifetimes. His sense of self-preservation was as perfectly honed as that of any wild animal.
Siegfried turned his attention from the Old One to Ring. “What’s going on here?”
Ring paused in the act of unfastening one of his arm guards and smiled faintly. “Too much for me to see. Too much for me to know. Many streams, not one river, flow.”
“I think I hate it when I understand him,” Siegfried grumbled. “Castor, get over here.”
Castor shook his head. He was gently stroking where his armored fingers had bruised Seamus’s arm. The boy had changed somehow. The vagueness that had usually characterized his features had been replaced by erratic pulsing. Emotions rippled across his features, looking for a place to anchor.
“Castor! Get over here!”
“Will you shoot me, too, if I don’t obey?” Castor said. His lips twisted in a wry grin. “What would Father and Mother say? I don’t care if you kill all these others, except for Seamus. Well, perhaps I would care if you killed Griffin. So would Mother and Father. I do not think you will harm Seamus, not until you know what has happened. How will you force me to obey you, big brother?”
Siegfried looked at Alexander. “Can you do anything?”
Alexander shrugged, then snapped out, “Seamus, come here!”
Seamus didn’t move except to ironically smile. The expression was not one Julyan had ever seen on his face before. It seemed to unsettle the brothers Dane.
“What,” Falkner said plaintively, “is going on here?”
Griffin said, “I have a guess, but first I’ve got something to say to you, Siegfried. Castor’s right. Whatever else, I don’t think Mother and Father would approve if you killed me or even if you seriously hurt me. That takes some of the bite out of your taking hostages. What you did to Bruin was unconscionable. Try something like that again, and you’re going to find out just how tight your choke chain is. Got it?”
He didn’t give Siegfried a chance to reply, but turned to Castor. “Based on what happened to me when I wore the blue spavek, here’s what I think happened. First, the spavek tries to establish a psychic link with the wearer. I’m guessing that when that happened, you felt Pollux slipping away. Is that right?”
Castor nodded stiffly.
“So you looked for him, right? Again, based upon my experience, the suit amplifies the abilities the wearer already has. I didn’t have much, so all I felt was disorientation. You, though, you’ve always had psionic abilities, but what you had was associated with Pollux, right?”
Again the stiff nod.
“Now,” Griffin continued, “I’m speculating. You’ve always claimed Pollux’s mind survived the death of his body by taking up residence in your mind. The person who wore the suit before you was Seamus. I’m guessing some trace of Seamus was left in the suit. I haven’t had a lot of interaction with him, but he’s one of the Old One’s experiments, and one of the qualities I know the Old One was trying to develop was telepathy.”
Julyan stirred and Griffin’s attention snapped to him. “Julyan, am I right? Is Seamus telepathic?”
Julyan didn’t see what he had to gain by hiding what he knew. The Old One had fled. Alexander was not the man Julyan would choose as an ally. He didn’t think Griffin would hire him, but it didn’t hurt to create some good will.
“He is. It’s limited, though. The Old One worked really hard and all he got was the ability to use Seamus as a sort of speaking tube.”
Falkner frowned. “Did Maxwell have psionic abilities after all?”
Julyan shook his head. “Not that I ever saw or he ever admitted. Seamus had the ability. The Old One just figured out how to use it.”
Terrell, tense and silent to this point, nodded. “Just because a rider straddles a horse, it doesn’t mean he can gallop.”
“Yeah, like that,” Julyan agreed.
Griffin looked pleased. “That fits my thesis better than I had imagined. Seamus was accustomed to being the passive recipient of another’s will. The suit already knew the pattern of his mind. When Pollux was amplified by the suit, I’m guessing he sensed Seamus, sensed that here was either an available body or a mind that would not be as crowded as Castor’s. Either way, this was his chance to have a body that more or less would be his own. He took it. How does that fit?”
To whom Griffin’s final question was addressed was unclear, but it was Seamus who answered.
“You’re close enough, Griffin. Mother and Father always said you were smarter than we older siblings realized. It happened much as you said. When Castor put on the suit, our natural telepathy was enhanced. When the spavek checked for the ‘Seamus pattern,’ I sensed a match with someone close by.”
Alexander said, his voice incredulous, “And you pounced on him? Took him over?”
“Not quite,” Seamus said. “Seamus is here, but whatever Maxwell—you might be interested in knowing that Seamus thinks of him merely as ‘The Voice’—did to him has left Seamus with very little in the way of his own thoughts. He has some memories, mostly of sensations, especially related to survival skills. I have observed Ring, and I think Seamus’s problem is similar. Ring was bred to recognize probabilities. However, the ability to sort through and assess those probabilities is unformed. Therefore, Ring is frequently overwhelmed. Seamus is a powerful telepathic receiver. Early on he received such a great quantity of others’ thoughts—I wouldn’t doubt tha
t the influx began in utero—that it all became white noise, burning out a great deal of his own ability to think and judge.”
Siegfried said, “So, Seamus, you think you’re Pollux, now?”
Seamus shook his head. “I am Pollux.“
Castor nodded and put his arms protectively around the boy. “He is. I know Pollux’s mind. I have since we were unborn together. He is Pollux.”
“Great!” Siegfried looked exasperated. “Well, let’s just say I’m not nearly as certain as you are, all right? Alexander, Falkner, we’ve got to talk.”
Still keeping an eye on their opponents, the three Dane brothers drew together and began talking in a language Julyan didn’t know. Griffin looked exasperated.
“They’ve activated a scrambler,” he said. “Still, I think we can guess what they’re trying to figure out.”
“Whether they can get away with killing us,” Castor said tranquilly. He turned his attention to the Artemesians. “You may think it’s odd that grown men like ourselves are worried about what our parents think. I mean, Siegfried is over a century old. The fact is, you don’t know our parents. They remain a force to be reckoned with.”
Terrell said, “A century? Did I hear you right?”
“Certainly. Longevity runs in the family. All of us were engineered to enhance that trait.”
Terrell looked at Griffin. “How old are you, then?”
“Fifty-four.” Griffin looked irritated. “Can we leave this for later? We may not have long to talk. It’s completely possible that Siegfried will decide to check if Castor and I really will resist if our allies are attacked.”
Bruin raised a hand to one cheek. “Even his warnings are very painful. Fine. What do you want to know?”
“How tight a control does Alexander have on each of you? We can try using that putty, but we might not have time. We’d better know the worst.”
Griffin clearly included Julyan in his question, so in the spirit of cultivating good will—and wondering about putty—Julyan answered promptly.
“Not as tight as he thinks. However, if he gives a direct order, it’s hard to resist. If he gives an order that’s, well, something I don’t mind doing, then it’s even harder. Alexander doesn’t know, though, that I can resist him at all. It’s seemed worthwhile to hold back until I really needed to break his hold.”
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