by Kathryn Hoff
Jamila covered her eyes with her fingers, as if to block out the sight. “It was completely senseless. Balan was still weak and raving about the relic. As soon as we could, we sent him to the nearest medical facility, on Santerro.”
“And you took the relic!” Balan cried.
Jamila snapped, “Of course I did! It’s an incredible archeological find. It has to be studied.”
Balan half rose from his chair. “You are lying. You are stealing it for yourself, to sell it to outlaws!”
“Sit down.” Kojo waved the stunner and Balan subsided.
“What I want to know,” Grim asked, “is what that Neanderthal is doing here? We were careful. We chose a ship that was listed as having a Terran captain and a Terran crew.” He stared pointedly at me.
“He stowed away,” I answered. “We didn’t know he was on the ship until after we were underway. He said he was a runaway slave.” I realized I was touching my injured graft and put my hand down.
“And you believed him?”
I shrugged. “Worn clothes, calloused hands. He told a plausible story.”
Kojo slapped the table. “Enough! What none of you have explained is why the Corridor Patrol is looking for you.”
Balan replied stiffly. “I am no thief. As soon as I could, I reported the find of the artifact to my superior in the College of Religion.”
Jamila tapped her fingers nervously. “You mean Lyden?”
“Of course. I sent her images of the relic and the inscriptions. No doubt, when she spoke to the Terrans on the site, she learned that Professor Patil had absconded with the relic. Mzee Lyden must have enlisted the Corridor Patrol’s aid to recover it.” Balan smirked at Jamila. “You will have to answer for your crime.”
I rubbed my forehead. This was getting complicated. If Jamila and Balan were the fugitives the Corridor Patrol was looking for, then the “treasure” stolen from a “temple” must be the tablet. The Cartel must have jumbled the facts: If a Gav priestess was looking for the relic, they’d naturally assumed it must have been stolen from a Sage temple.
But that left more questions. “Balan, why did the alert name you as a thief along with her? And why were you pretending to be a runaway?”
Balan glowered. “I was recovering in the medical center when I realized the relic was being taken through Santerro’s port. Weak though I was, I left my bed and followed Professor Patil. I saw your captain take the bag with the relic into your ship. There was no time to tell Mzee Lyden what had happened. I hid on the dock, looking for a way to get on the ship, when I saw your strange engineer. Everyone knows Terrans will assist slaves to betray their masters, so I presented myself to him as a runaway.” He sneered. “He is a simpleton, easy to fool.”
I sneered back. “At least he’s not a liar.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Grim said. “Balan’s probably trying to steal it himself. He’s hiding something—how could you know we were on Santerro? How did you know the relic was in the locker?”
Balan looked at Grim with disdain. “It calls me,” he said. “I hear it in my dreams, and when I am awake. It has fed on my blood. It knows me. It calls me. It needs me.”
Home.
I felt cold. “Needs you for what?”
He answered as if it were the most reasonable thing possible. “To take it to Nakana. There we will find a beautiful new home, filled with peace and joy. It is the will of the blessed Sages.”
“The man’s a lunatic,” Grim said.
I tried to tamp down panic. Home? Peace and joy? Was the tablet causing me to have the same sort of hallucination? Was I going as mad as Balan?
Balan turned to Kojo. “I assure you, Captain, I am perfectly sane. You need only contact the Corridor Patrol. They will verify my identity and take these criminals into custody.”
Kojo snapped, “Good idea. As of now, all three of you are under ship’s arrest. I’m turning you over to the Corridor Patrol at the first opportunity.” A bluff—the last thing we wanted was the Patrol rooting through our cargo hold.
Balan smiled. He placed a hand on the metal case as if claiming it.
Jamila pulled the case out of Balan’s reach. “Captain, you mustn’t let the Patrol have it. That could be terribly dangerous.”
“Dangerous how? And try to make it the truth this time.”
“Gavorans,” Jamila said. “Something in the artifact affects their sanity.”
My stomach took a dive. “That’s ridiculous,” I said, maybe a little too fast.
Kojo eyed me sidelong.
“Through touch,” Jamila clarified, glancing at me. “It seems to work in part through touch. I’ve handled it without ill effect, but you can see that Balan…I’d better tell you from the beginning. But first, please put the artifact back in my stateroom. I’m afraid, with a Gavoran so near…”
Kojo nodded to me. “Vault.”
The case felt heavier than before, as I took it down the aft steps to the vault in the cargo hold.
Home!
“Not now,” I mumbled, lashing the case between crates of premium brandy. Silly of me to talk to a rock. Maybe I was cracking up.
CHAPTER 8
Blood and madness
When I got back to the salon, Jamila had begun her story. “…but there were no Gavorans on site until this season. Balan and Deprata’s focus was the temple, to study the Cazar’s connection with the Sages. I had no idea they were being drawn into some mystical obsession—not until we found them, half-dead at the bottom of the crypt.” She grimaced. “It was terrible, blood everywhere. Of course, our first concern was to give them medical help.”
“We told them the relic spoke to us,” Balan said, “but Terrans are blind to all but the most base of the senses. They thought us insane.”
Like Kojo, who never really believed in my visions of Papa.
I’d heard the relic speak, but only a little whining to go home, not any strange bloodlust. Did my half-Terran blood make me so different from Balan?
Jamila searched our faces for understanding. “While Deprata and Balan raved about blood and finding Nakana, I was worrying about disease vectors and food contaminants. After all, it seemed mad to think the stone would speak to them. Then Deprata died by her own hand before we could transfer them to Santerro.” She looked with sympathy to Balan. “I am sorry, Balan. I know you cared for her.”
He nodded with dignity.
“We sent Balan to Santerro that day,” Jamila said. “It was only then I was able to pay attention to the artifact and the inscriptions on the crypt. As soon as I examined it, I realized the tablet was not made by the Cazar—it’s from another culture entirely. It may already have been ancient when it came to the Cazar city, rather like the Caesars in ancient Rome on Earth collecting even more ancient Egyptian art.”
“It is a gift from the Sages,” Balan said.
Jamila bit her lip, then nodded. “It’s possible. The Cazar were Sage allies, that’s why the Gavorans were with us. The inscriptions describe the artifact as a gift from the Cazar deity—something both sacred and dangerous. They called it the bloodstone. According to the inscriptions, from time to time the artifact demanded to be fed and the Cazar would open the crypt with great ceremony and provide the artifact with blood from a living being.”
I kept my face blank.
Jamila looked at us, as if expecting a reaction. “Well! That changed things, don’t you see? The fact that Balan and Deprata had experienced a call for blood—so similar to that described in the inscription—suggested the artifact itself was psychoactive. Somehow, Deprata and Balan had been caught in the artifact’s blood cult. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed possible there was something about the bloodstone that affects the Gavorans, as it did the Cazar, but not Terrans.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Gavorans are Neanderthals from Earth, practically cousins to Terrans. How could the tablet tell the difference?”
“It is obvious,” Balan said. “The sacre
d relic can distinguish ally from enemy. The Cazar and the Gavorans were allies of the blessed Sages, chosen to exercise dominion over lesser races. Terrans are the dregs, the ones the Sages deemed unworthy when they delivered our ancestors from Earth.”
Grim murmured, “Dregs, huh? Thanks, buddy.”
Jamila shook her head. “Balan has a point. Sage technology is the common factor between the Cazar and the Gavorans. The Sages were advanced enough to terraform planets and to seed Neanderthals onto Gavora. Perhaps the bloodstone was programmed to issue a telepathic message—and could somehow distinguish allies from non-allies even if they were closely related. Something genetic, or tuned into brain waves, maybe. I don’t know how—that’s one of the reasons we need to study the artifact.”
I rubbed my forehead, trying to follow this mix of science and mythology. I knew, of course, the tale about the Sages rescuing the peaceful Neanderthals from the hell that Earth must have been. In doing so, the Sages no doubt saved them from the Terrans’ aggressive ancestors who were spreading over the planet, crowding out all competitors, driving even large carnivores to extinction.
“So,” I said, “you took the tablet because…?”
“Because it drove both Deprata and Balan to madness, and Deprata to her death. The only safe, responsible thing to do was to get it to Terran scientists as soon as possible. I would never have set foot on this ship if I’d known Balan was aboard, or that a member of the crew was part Gavoran. Patch, you haven’t been hearing voices, have you?”
“Of course not,” I lied. At least, I wasn’t feeling any urge to sacrifice my lifeblood to a stone relic.
“Thank the stars for that. So you see, it could be disastrous if the artifact fell into Gavoran hands—whether the Corridor Patrol, the College of Religion or any other Gavoran agency.”
Grim added, “And it’s true that some Selkid collector had heard about it—the sort who doesn’t care about archeology. He just wants it because it’s a one-of-a-kind object.”
“Unacceptable,” Balan said. “This is a gift from the Sages to the Gavoran people.”
It didn’t sound like much of a gift to me. “Balan, is the stone still asking you for blood?” I absently scratched my arm.
“No. My blood, and Deprata’s, has sated it for now.”
That was a relief.
Jamila listened with a worried frown. “The inscription said it needed to be fed periodically, but I was unable to translate the time references. Who knows when it might activate again?”
Damn. We might as well be sailing with an armed grenade in the vault.
Jamila continued, “The temple inscriptions suggest the crypt was somehow protective, so I used some of the metal from the crypt to line the case, hoping it would act as an insulator. My goal was, and still is, to get the artifact to a place where Terran scientists can study it without endangering any more lives.”
“You could just destroy it,” Kojo said. “In fact, we could dump it right now.”
“No!” For once, Jamila, Balan, and Grimbold were united.
I felt the same. “As long as that raider and the Patrol are looking for it,” I said, “jettisoning it won’t protect us.”
“It would keep anybody else from going crazy over it,” Kojo snapped. “Jamila, you’re an archeologist. It makes sense that you want it, or some collector. And if the Gavs think a Terran is pilfering some sacred object, it makes sense that they want it, and set the Corridor Patrol to looking for it. But what I really want to know is, who was shooting at us? No Selkid collector is that obsessed.”
Jamila looked troubled. “Surely it was just some outlaw who happened upon us?”
I shook my head. “That raider targeted Sparrowhawk specifically, called us out by name. And they took a huge chance by accosting us in Selkid sectors—the Cartel is very touchy about poachers.”
“We’ve got to land somewhere soon,” Kojo said. “We need to know who’s after us.”
“Maybe you’ve got enemies,” Grim said. “Could be nothing to do with us at all.”
Kojo’s hands tightened into fists. “Except they knew where to find us.” Kojo loomed over the table, smiling wolfishly at Jamila, Balan, and Grimbold in turn. “So, which of you told someone we’d be traveling off-corridor to Oakdale?”
Grim laughed. “That’s ridiculous! Why would any of us do that? We’d be risking our own lives!”
I glanced at Balan. “Gavorans risk their lives for something they think is right.”
“It was not I,” Balan said. “I would have reported your destination to Mzee Lyden if I had known of it, but I had no chance.”
Jamila pointed at Grim. “It had to be you. Balan would have told the Gavorans—only you would go to some pirate.”
Grim looked around but saw only hostile faces. He straightened, chin firm. “They’re not pirates. They’re agents for Rampart Militech.”
Kojo’s eyebrows went up. “Rampart? The mercenaries?”
“Patriots,” Grimbold snapped. “Defenders of Terran interests. All Rampart wants is the artifact. If you’d stopped when they hailed you, Captain, everything would have been fine. My friends would have boarded the ship, paid us off, and left quietly. But when you skedaddled…maybe they thought I was double-crossing them. They’re suspicious people.”
Kojo ran a hand through his hair. “Of course we ran! In Selkid sectors, if a ship doesn’t show a Cartel signal, you assume the worst.”
Grim spread his hands, in a why-can’t-we-all-get-along gesture. “It’s not too late. Why should we let her sell it to Galactic rather than people who put Terran interests first?”
I turned to Jamila. “You’re selling it to Galactic? You said you were taking it to the university to be studied.”
She waved a hand. “Indirectly. But I couldn’t trust the university—Gavorans control Evergreen’s directorate. Galactic has some rights as the dig’s sponsor, and it’s strong enough to resist any Gavoran demands.”
Balan sniffed. “Fools.”
Kojo shook his head, his expression confused. “But why would Galactic or Rampart care so much about an old stone?”
“Are you kidding?” Grim pointed at Balan. “Something that psychologically affects them but not us? Any Terran military force would pay a fortune for it.”
“Is that what you told them? This is a weapon?” Jamila frowned in disgust. “You’re an idiot.”
As far as I was concerned, Jamila and Grim deserved each other.
I stood. “If this tablet is a weapon for Terrans to use against Gavorans, it’s going out the airlock right now.” Kojo looked thoughtful, but nodded once.
Balan stepped in front of me, fists clenched. “No!”
I looked at Balan. “Why not? You should be the first to want to see it destroyed.”
Jamila touched Balan’s arm. “Tell them. You raved about it for days on Santerro.”
Balan’s lips compressed into a thin line. “The relic is much more than this fool imagines. The relic is a map. A map to Nakana.”
Kojo narrowed his eyes. “So? Nice for the religious folks, I guess.”
Jamila leaned forward, eyes alight. “Religious value, of course, and tremendous archeological value. But what about the technology? The Sages invented the beacons and the jump gates and all the terraforming technology we have today. If this artifact shows the way to the Sage homeworld, think of what else they might have left behind, just waiting for someone to uncover it.”
“Oh.” A cold chill crept over me, as I finally understood.
Grim glared at Balan. “The damn Gavs have kept Terrans in line for centuries, hoarding the bits of terraforming tech the Sages left behind, technology even they don’t understand. They dole it out in drips to other races and keep the best for themselves. Out of every ten promising new worlds, the burzing Settlement Authority lets Gavs develop eight for themselves.”
Balan glared back. “We protect the civilized systems from Terrans’ unbridled greed. The Sages left the star corrido
rs in our care, and their technology under our dominion. It is our sacred duty to see it is used wisely.”
“And we have to stand for it,” Grim said, “because otherwise the gorillas will close the jump gates to us. But now—now we’ve got a shot at grabbing some of that tech for ourselves.”
It was true. The Sages had left in Gavoran hands all the hydroverters, microbial synthreactors, and other tech needed to change a barren moon or planet to a habitable one. In theory, all the space-capable species were represented when the Settlement Authority handed out terraforming technology, but everyone knew it was the Gavs who dominated, using their control over the jump gates as leverage.
Kojo whistled. “An ancient Sage colony, maybe with tech to unscramble? That would be worth a lot.”
Worth enough to kill for.
Kojo and I exchanged a look.
“We need to hide,” I said.
CHAPTER 9
Change course and lie low
The salon’s viewscreens showed only the star corridor’s monotony of muddy ether swirls.
I brought the charts onto the screen, checking the systems that could be accessed from the next jump gate.
Home!
I shook my head at the tablet’s annoying intrusion. “Do you know where Nakana is, Balan?”
“I have seen the system in my visions. I believe I can find it, with guidance from the relic. But I will not tell you.”
Kojo frowned. “You saw a map in a vision? Sounds like a fairy tale.”
Jamila bit her lip. “Not a fairy tale. While he and Deprata were ill, Balan mentioned certain facts and places, things that have puzzled archeologists for years. An undiscovered Sage colony would make sense of those anomalies.”
“All right,” Kojo said, “maybe we don’t dump it out the airlock, but I don’t want Grim’s friends at Rampart to get hold of it, either.”
Balan sniffed. “You have been duped into helping these criminals. The only reasonable course is to surrender to the Corridor Patrol as soon as possible.”
“Even if it means endangering your people?” Jamila turned desperate eyes to Kojo. “If I can get to some Terran colony, I can contact Galactic Conglomerate and turn the tablet over to them. I’m sure they’ll be generous to anyone who assists me.” She glanced at Balan. “They have the means to finance an expedition and I will make it a condition that they include participation from responsible Gavoran interests.”