“Good. Now go. Tell Captain sus-Mevyan that I will be coming back aboard directly.”
The apprentice took a few steps backward, turned, and all but ran into the boarding tunnel. After he was gone, Arekhon dropped the clasp knife from Path-Lined-with-Flowers into the puddle of drying blood.
“Leave us in peace,” he whispered. “We never meant the harm that we did.”
35:
Year 1128 E. R.
ENTIBORAN SPACE: SWIFT PASSAGE FREIGHT CARRIER
NUMBER FORTY-TWO
ERAASI: HANILAT
The name of the Entiboran ship, Arekhon learned, was Swift Passage Freight Carrier Number Forty-two. He wondered what her builders had been thinking of, to give her a name like that, where any luck that came to it would have to be shared with forty-one sisters. Or maybe more … there was no telling when a forty-third might show up, or a hundredth.
All the removable contents of Rain-on-Dark-Water had been brought on board Forty-two, and room had been found for all the Rain’s surviving crew members. It was a tight fit, even with the reduction in numbers; Forty-two was as large as the Eraasian ship, but she ran with a fraction of the crew. Most of her extra space went to engines and cargo, and to mechanical devices that did the work of the missing people.
“They’ve got some kind of double-engine system,” Elaeli told him, soon after he came aboard. “One set for normal space and another for the Void … that’s how they get their speed, it looks like. The chief engineer is in love; he thinks we can retool the orbital yards to make something like that for ourselves and outrun every fleet-family in the homeworlds. If we can get a prototype home with us, that is.”
“Getting home is going to be a problem,” Arekhon agreed. He leaned wearily against a bulkhead in the space that until recently had served as Forty-two’s galley and dining hall and recreation space combined. Now it held rows of sleepsacks and bedrolls, most of them occupied by exhausted, slumbering bodies. “Have you figured out how to make our charts talk to their ship-minds yet?”
Elaeli ran her hands through her hair. “’Rekhe, we haven’t even figured out what makes their ship-minds work! Everything we’ve taken a peek at is inorganic, like the junk they used to make on Ayarat before they started buying good-quality components from us instead. You might as well try to hook up a side of meat to a sledgehammer—you’d get better results and you wouldn’t ruin the meat.”
“How about manual input?”
“Sure. Ten, fifteen years from now, when Garrod’s finished translating all of their manuals into Eraasian so we can understand them, and all our data into their lingo so we can punch it in. But hey, we’ve got the time.”
She closed her eyes and drew a deep, shaky breath. “I’m sorry, ’Rekhe. It’s just … I’m tired, and I don’t know what we’re going to do, short of calling on some of these strangers for help and getting ourselves hauled in for salvage. Us, the pride of the fleet!”
“We’re not quite that desperate,” Arekhon said. “At least, I don’t think so.”
He thought about the letter from Forty-two’s strongbox. Somebody on Entibor was expecting them—had even prepared the way for their arrival—somebody who claimed to be Garrod himself. Arekhon wished he knew whether he believed in the letter or not. The Garrod who had joined the Circle at the midpoint of the Rain’s journey had never mentioned planning such a thing, and the Garrod who had come back after the working had been incapable of speech or thought.
Sighing, Arekhon pushed himself away from the bulkhead. “I’ve got some work waiting to be taken care of,” he said to Elaeli, and went off to ask the prisoner about Forty-two’s Return Home navigational setting.
He found Iulan Vai standing guard outside the berthing compartment that was serving as a cell—it was locked, but there was no way of telling if the prisoner had access to some kind of emergency override. Vai had changed out of her Circle robes and was back in her plain black tunic and trousers. Her eyes had dark smudges under them, and like everyone else Arekhon had seen recently, she looked tired.
“I need to talk with the prisoner,” Arekhon said. “This is important.”
“Give me a minute, then.” Vai wrestled with the unfamiliar lock mechanism until the door swung open. “There. Go on in. If she tries to throttle you or something, give a yell and I’ll come charging to the rescue.”
The prisoner didn’t look to be up for throttling anybody at the moment. She lay on the cabin’s single bunk, hands flat beside her on the mattress, gazing up at the metal plates of the overhead. The arrival of a visitor brought no reaction on her part.
Arekhon pulled up the compartment’s only chair and sat in it. Then, speaking to the air somewhere above the bunk, he said in halting, careful Entiboran, “Who do you think we are?”
“Pirates,” she said. Her voice was a dull monotone, but the words were slow and clear. “Criminals. Thieves. Murderers. Scum and degraded seg-linry …”
“Yes. Where do you suppose we are from?”
“Does it matter? From Galcen or Khesat or farther, what difference does it make to me?”
“No one has told you?” he said. “We come from farther even than that.” Even though the place names she had given were unfamiliar to him, he hoped he was not lying. He waited for a reaction; when she said nothing, he went on. “Do you know about the gap between the stars—the dead plane, where there are no worlds?”
“No. I don’t care.”
“You should,” he told her. “There are people on the far side of that gap, and we’re them.”
This time she did react, turning her head on the pillow and regarding him with angry grey eyes. “Go back, then. And take your murdering ways with you.”
“We’re trying,” he said. “There’s nothing we want to do more. We came for trade, did you know that? All we wanted to do was trade.”
“You have a strange way of going about it.”
“I’m sorry. We’ll go back as soon as we can. But first I need to learn about the Return Home navigational setting.”
She gave a harsh laugh. “The Return Home will take us straight back to Entibor. Once you get arrive, you’ll be torn limb from limb and hair from hair. We don’t like pirates.”
“I thought you’d approve,” said Arekhon. “But I want to use it anyway.”
“Why should I trust murdering scum eru tarraquin lindeleos lindela latanque …” The invective trailed off into a string of terms that Garrod hadn’t bothered to include in his instructional vocabulary, or perhaps didn’t know himself.
“You will not need to trust anyone,” Arekhon said. “But my Captain trusts me, and I will trust you.”
Her eyes were puzzled now, instead of angry. “I don’t understand.” “A simple matter. I will trust you to press the Return Home setting, rather than the self-destruct.”
“Your ships have a self-destruct?”
He nodded. “Sometimes they damage themselves in chase-and-boarding, and it’s better to destroy them than to leave them adrift for salvage. We’ll be disposing of the Rain that way tomorrow—would you like to watch?”
A flicker of vindictive interest crossed the prisoner’s face, the first reaction that she had shown other than dull anger. “To see your pirate ship destroyed, yes.”
“Then I’ll arrange for you to be on the bridge with us tomorrow,” he said. “You can watch everything.”
Seyo Hannet had returned to Eraasi full of the satisfaction that comes from a piece of work neatly done. Now that a plausible amount of time had elapsed, he sat at a secured communications line in the Hanilat office of the League of Unallied Shippers and made ready to tackle the next item on his list.
He had already tied off one set of inconvenient loose ends at his employer’s behest. The people on the Ayaratan end of the conspiracy, with the exception of Jaf Otnal, had always been lukewarm in pursuit of its goals, as well as—in Hannet’s private opinion—insufficiently ruthless. With the game moving into a more active phase, the Ayaratans had
known too much for safety.
Their demise was only fair, was Hannet’s opinion. Those who were unwilling to take risks and act vigorously in a project’s early stages should not expect to see a reward at the end of it.
The next job was different. Some people were dangerous because of what they knew and whom they might tell; others were dangerous in and of themselves. Like knives, once those had done their cutting they had to be put away. Those who made luck could also destroy it, if their minds should change … but not even a luck-bringer could survive in the face of overwhelming force.
It was better, Hannet decided, not to inform Felan Diasul about this stage of the plan in advance. Family loyalty might prove stronger than ambition, in a direct contest between the two; and there was no point in forcing Diasul into a choice while he still had useful contributions to make to the greater project. How to carry out the present agenda, though … Hannet’s fingers tapped out quick, disjointed rhythms on the desktop while his mind considered methods and alternatives.
A stanza from an old song came to him, weaving through his thoughts on a fragment of music: O tell me should I slay this one, or should I slay them all, or should I take you from this place and burn this curséd hall?
He stopped tapping and called up the desk’s address book instead. A quick access code later, he was scanning the entries in a select roster.
That one—a mercenary outfit belonging to a prominent fleet-family, recently formed and now on training maneuvers in the hinterlands north and west of Hanilat. They would get a change in orders, for a live-fire exercise, coupled with an infusion of cash sufficient to quell any doubts in their minds about the ethical grey areas in what they were hired to do.
Hannet circled an area on a map of the Wide Hills district, labeled it “Free Fire,” and sealed it in a courier envelope along with a bearer bond convertible to securities anywhere, with no questions asked. He rang for a messenger, then turned his attention to the other matters.
Some hours later he heard—on a communications channel which he should not have been able to monitor—of how a ship of the sus-Peledaen, in response to certain atrocities committed in deep space, had struck against selected sites on the planet Ildaon. Hannet wondered if his employers had been among the multitude of casualties. After a few minutes’ thought, he dismissed the question as irrelevant.
By the time the shuttles and relays that allowed for communication between the worlds were able to bring him an answer, the current phase of operations would be long over.
The members of the Circle were quartered together in one of Forty-two’s pressurized cargo bays, surrounded by crates and containers marked in strange alphabets. Narin snored; Ty had nightmares; and the Entiboran night-cycle was shorter than the one the fleet-families used. Arekhon slept poorly, and woke up feeling disoriented and oppressed.
For an instant he couldn’t remember where he was, or why he should be in such heavy spirits. Then he remembered. He was aboard an alien ship, on the far side of the Edge from home, and today they were going to set free the Rain.
After putting on clean clothes, the best ones he had with him, and finding the nearest uffa pot, he felt somewhat better. An hour after ship’s-rising, he went to the prisoner’s cabin where Garrod, this time, was keeping watch.
“I promised her she could watch the self-destruct,” Arekhon said. “I’ll send down an apprentice from the bridge when everything’s ready.”
Garrod raised his eyebrows. “What does the Captain have to say about that idea?”
“She agreed when I told her it would raise the prisoner’s spirits.” And when he had told her about the Return Home device. Arekhon felt uneasy about keeping back part of the truth, but the letter that he still carried on his person, sealed in the inside pocket of his tunic, had been specific. Garrod should not know.
Arekhon continued on to the Forty-two’s bridge, where others of the crew—Elaeli and the Captain among them—were already watching the bank of flatscreens. In all of the displays the looming shape of Rain-on-Dark-Water, tied to the Entiboran ship by its boarding tunnel, hung black and silent. It wasn’t as good a view as would have been afforded at this range by proper bridge windows, but it was impressive nevertheless.
“Is it time yet?” he asked.
“Everything’s in place and armed,” sus-Mevyan said. She turned to the fleet-apprentice. “You can send for the prisoner now.”
The apprentice hurried off, and returned a few minutes later with Garrod and the prisoner. The Entiboran was glum and silent; she regarded the Rain’s hovering, enscreened image with undisguised hostility. Arekhon gave her a polite nod of greeting, but she didn’t respond.
Captain sus-Mevyan frowned at the unfamiliar console for a moment, then stabbed at one of the switches. Her action was rewarded by the faint crackle of an open communications line.
“Is everybody clear?” she asked.
The voice of the Chief Engineer came over the line. “All clear and ready, Captain.”
“Stand by to blow explosive bolts. Execute.”
The boarding tunnel fell clear and the two vessels separated.
“Stand by to fire distancing rockets. Execute.”
A twinkle of light exploded along the side of the Rain nearest them. In ponderous silence, the black ship drifted away, changing shape as it receded into the distance—from a flattened sphere to a disk to a pinpoint of light, shining at them in multiple images in the flatscreen displays.
Captain sus-Mevyan looked over at Arekhon. “You’re from the inner family. Would you do her the honor of giving the final word?”
Arekhon thought of protesting that he had no place in the fleet any longer, that he’d opted out of the family well before leaving Eraasi, but he knew that the legalities didn’t matter. He was a sus-Peledaen of the senior line—he had never denied his family or his ancestors—and he had used that position unashamedly to bring this voyage about. He stepped up to the console, into the range of the audio pickup.
“She was sus-Peledaen’s Rain-on-Dark-Water,” he said. “Now we release her from the family’s service and set her free.” The bridge was silent; he could hear the sound of his own breathing grow ragged for a moment before it steadied and he was able to continue. “Stand by to fire demo charges. Execute.”
A moment passed. The pinpoint of light grew larger. Like a bubble of metal with a yellow flame at its core it expanded. The flame faded to red, then went out. The bubble grew too faint to see.
“There,” Arekhon said to the prisoner. “You have seen; now, please, take us back to your world.”
“With pleasure,” she said. “And I hope they kill the lot of you.”
36:
Year 1128 E. R.
ERAASI: DEMAIZEN OLD HALL
ENTIBORAN SPACE, STANDARD ORBIT GG-12: SWIFT
PASSAGE FREIGHT CARRIER NUMBER FORTY-TWO
OCTAGON DIAMOND
Summertime at Demaizen Old Hall brought changeable weather. The sun that day had shone through most of the morning, but by mid-afternoon the sky had clouded over. Serazao cut sprigs of flowering tartgrass and put them in Garrod’s room, to give it cheer and a pleasant scent and color. Garrod’s state had not altered since coming back from the Void, though his body had dwindled through lack of action. Delath exercised him, moving his arms, helping him walk, but accomplished little more than slowing his steady decay.
Kief had been restless all day, walking to the door, then back to the workroom, scanning the empty hills. ’Rekhe and the rest of the Circle had been gone for over three years—far longer than anyone had anticipated, almost the limit of their supplies of fuel. Kief thought about the travelers often, remembering them in his workings and his private intentions, and feared for them, perhaps, more than did either Delath or Serazao. It was the fault of his stargazer’s training, he told himself, the cost of too much knowledge.
All the news these days was disturbing: Stories about the star-lords building warfleets, and men fighting battles in f
ar off places. The Hall had everything it needed, either from the supplies in the pantry, or from the gardens; when Delath said that they shouldn’t go into town unless it became absolutely necessary, Kief and Serazao agreed. Kief remembered his brother in his workings, and asked the others to keep his intentions in mind as well, but even that much effort seemed pointless and tending to nothing.
Toward evening the sun dipped below the edge of the clouds, casting golden light on the peaks of the roof and adding a luster to the deep green of the trees along the walk. Kief was standing under the archway of the main door when he heard a growling sound coming from the distant highway. At first it seemed a like a far-off echo of thunder, though the clouds were wrong for a thunderstorm, but it kept up too long.
I don’t like this, not even a little, he thought.
He backed up, turned, and walked into the hall, not quite running. He found Del in the kitchen, making soup—not as good as Narin’s, but good enough with condensed stock from the pantry and fresh vegetables from the garden.
Del looked up from chopping lorchen stalks and regarded Kief with a worried expression. “What’s the problem?”
“Something bad is coming. I can feel it.”
“I meditated today,” Del said thoughtfully. “I didn’t see anything like that. Only the patterns, growing brighter.”
Kief shrugged. “I’m worrying too much, maybe. It’s probably just the weather.”
“Or maybe not.” It was Serazao, just entering from the upper hall. “Garrod’s been restless all day too. Sometimes I think he’s on the verge of coming out of it and talking to me—I know he wants to talk. He’s asleep now, though, so I thought I’d slip away.”
The sun dipped behind the low clouds, and the kitchen grew darker. Rain began to patter against the windows.
“Ah,” said Kief. “It was the weather. That’s all.”
The Stars Asunder: A New Novel of the Mageworlds Page 30