by Ann Maxwell
Even Kirtn could not argue with Daemen’s pragmatism. “Where are we going?”
“Centrins’ core,” said Daemen, leading them out of the room. “We’ll try Rainbow’s key crystals there and see what happens.”
“But if Rainbow really is a machine, or quasi-machine,” Kirtn amended hastily when Fssa hissed hot disagreement, “you might unbalance all of Centrins.”
“Yes,” serenely, “that’s where The Luck comes in.”
Kirtn stared at Daemen’s retreating back. Daemenites were either the most courageous or most stupid people in the Yhelle Equality.
Installation control was a small room, hardly big enough for the twenty people who crowded into it. The Seurs squeezed aside just enough to permit Daemen, Rheba and Kirtn to stand next to Tric. Kirtn did not like turning his back on the Seurs but did not see a way to avoid it.
Tric made a curt gesture, demanding silence. He took a finger-sized crystal from the chain around his neck, inserted the crystal into a hole in the wall, and waited.
The wall slid soundlessly aside, revealing a fabulous conglomeration of crystals. They looked as though they had grown there spontaneously, with neither pattern nor intelligence to guide them. Light slid over carved surfaces as quickly as thought, uniting the crystals in a lambent energy field.
Rainbow flared in multicolored glory, reflecting the light of the larger Zaarain construct.
Seur Tric turned and regarded his nephew sourly. “You know your duty.”
The Luck took Rainbow from his neck and stood for long seconds with crystals hanging scintillant from his fingers. Without warning, he tossed Rainbow toward the machine.
The chain of crystals hung in the air for a moment, probed by energies only Rheba could sense. She screamed, clutching her head. Rainbow spun frantically, throwing off painful shards of light. Rheba screamed again and again, mindless with agony. She crumpled and began to fall.
Rainbow dropped into the machine.
All light vanished.
It was like being hurled into midnight. Kirtn grabbed for Rheba, felt a sharp pain and blacked out. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.
XII
Kirtn awoke with his head in his fire dancer’s lap and a Fssireeme keening softly into his ear. Rheba was stroking his face, calling his name in a low voice, but it was her fear for his life that called his mind out of the drugged darkness into which the Seurs had sent him.
He tried to sit up. Rainbow swung and moved against his chest in subdued crystal chimes. The world spun horribly. For an endless time he was afraid he was going to be sick, then currents of dancer energy soothed his outraged nerves.
Fssa whistled gentle greetings and wove himself invisibly back into Rheba’s hair.
“Don’t sit up yet,” said Rheba, kissing Kirtn’s cheek, her relief like wine in his mind. “Whatever they gave you passes quickly, if you just lie still.”
He stifled a curse but took her advice about lying still. “Is this the local equivalent of jail?”
It was Daemen, not Rheba, who answered. “Seurs don’t believe in jails.”
This time the Bre’n cursed aloud. “The only people I’ve known who didn’t believe in jails didn’t need to. They killed their criminals.”
“Oh no,” said Daemen. “We’re not barbarians.”
“Neither were they,” said Kirtn sourly. “Just pragmatists.”
The room lurched and rolled slightly.
Despite Rheba’s urgings, Kirtn sat up partway. “What—?” He looked around wildly. There were windows everywhere. The floor was transparent. Lounges of a peculiar sunset color were strewn the length of the long room. An incredibly bleak landscape poured by on all sides. Spectacular ruins came and went in the space of seconds. In between ruins was nothing but rock and blue-black sky glittering with a billion stars. “What in all the names of Fire is going on?” asked Kirtn.
“We are,” said Rheba tiredly. “Going, that is. To First Square, Square One, or whatever in ashes the natives call it.”
Daemen winced at the malice in her voice when she said “natives.” Obviously he did not wish to be lumped with them.
Kirtn smiled and began to feel better immediately. Perhaps Daemen’s charm was losing its appeal for Rheba. On the other hand, exile was a high price to pay for her awakening.
Kirtn sat up completely, bracing himself on the clear, curved wall. The room continued to move but it no longer disturbed him. Movers, after all, were built to move. “All right, Daemen.” He sighed. “Tell us about it.”
The young man’s eyes met Kirtn’s, then slid away, then returned. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Everywhere,” said Kirtn, gesturing to the red and gold rocks pouring by on each side, to the blue-black sky, much darker than it had been over the city. “We have lots of time, don’t we?”
“Ahh . . . yes, I’m afraid so. A lifetime, unless I get very lucky. But I will, you know. I am The Luck.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Kirtn said sarcastically.
Rheba touched her Bre’n, silently pleading with him to be gentle with Daemen. She sensed a lightning stroke of anger at her defense of the young man, then Kirtn’s mind closed to her. Hurt, she withdrew her touch, only to have him take her hand and put it back on his arm.
Daemen watched, withdrawing more into himself with each second that passed. “Every Daemen has to test his or her Luck,” he said at last. “Normally we do that by going to the Zaarain ruins—or any of the technologically advanced ruins—and looking for artifacts that will improve our lives.” His full lips twisted, showing pain as his voice did not. His laugh was too old for his unlined face. “I understand so much more now. Too late. Mother was right, and wrong, by The Luck she was wrong!”
Kirtn and Rheba waited, knowing it was very difficult for Daemen to speak.
“Mother always believed that her Luck was good, even when it got us thrown off Daemen, lost all our money on Onan, and sent us to the slave pits of Loo. She kept on believing that it would work out for the best, that somewhere on Loo was the answer to our planet’s needs and she was the chosen Luck, the one who would bring a renaissance back to her people.”
A subdued, flatulent sound wafted out of Rheba’s hair, Fssireeme commentary on the willful stupidity of some Fourth People. Rheba whistled a curt admonishment to the snake, who subsided instantly. Daemen did not notice, too deeply caught in his past to hear anything of his present.
“Naturally,” continued Daemen, “I believed, too. I was her son. I couldn’t even think that her luck might be . . . bad. I’m still not sure it was.”
Rheba’s hair stirred with Fssa’s incredulous comment, but it went no farther than her ears. Kirtn agreed with the Fssireeme but saw no point in saying so. It would just make Rheba more eager in the handsome Daemenite’s defense.
“Anyway,” said Daemen, “when I saw Rainbow I remembered what Mother believed. I thought that she was right, except that I would be The Daemen to bring home the renaissance.”
Kirtn waited while silence and the bleak landscape filled the moving room. When he could wait no longer, he leaned toward the younger man. Rainbow swung out from Kirtn’s chest, catching light and dividing it into shards of pure color. Daemen looked, shuddered, and closed his eyes.
“What happened?” asked Kirtn, his gold eyes catching and holding Daemen like twin force fields.
Daemen tried to smile, and failed. “I . . .” His voice died. He cleared his throat and tried again. “How much do you remember?”
“You chucked Rainbow into the machine. There was an explosion of light. Rheba screamed and kept on screaming. Before I could help her, somebody knocked me out.”
Daemen’s eyes slid away from contact, then returned with a steadiness that Kirtn could not help but admire. There were few beings who could meet an angry Bre’n’s glance.
“The lights went out,” said Daemen simply.
“I know,” snapped Kirtn, then realized that Daemen was no
t referring to the fact that the Bre’n had been drugged into unconsciousness. “No, I don’t know. Tell me.”
“Rainbow did something to Centrins’ core. It stopped working. That’s all I know. They knocked me out, too.”
“Fssa.” Kirtn’s voice was controlled, but the Fssireeme appeared instantly. “What did you sense?”
The question was in Senyas, very precise. The answer was the same. “The machine communicated with Rainbow, causing Rheba’s pain. I couldn’t follow more than a thousandth of the exchange.” Admiration and frustration tinged the Fssireeme’s voice. “Such compression—incredible!”
Kirtn’s lips twisted into a silent snarl. “No doubt. But what in ice and ashes did they say to each other?”
“I don’t know. But after the lights went out, when the three of you were unconscious, Rainbow and the machine parted company. Or, at least, most of the machine parted company with all of Rainbow.”
“I don’t understand,” snapped Kirtn, “and Senyas is a very precise language.”
“Rainbow is bigger now.”
Kirtn grabbed the long chain of crystal around his neck. He examined the colorful quasi-life carefully, then gave up the attempt. Rainbow could, and did, rearrange itself according to whim or need. What had started as a double handful of crystals could become a crown, a necklace, or a random conglomeration of facets. “You’re sure? It feels about the same.”
“Its energy pattern is quite different. Besides, Rainbow is like me in some ways. Its force fields can make it weigh more or less, depending on need, so weight isn’t a very reliable index of Rainbow’s mass at any given moment.”
Kirtn frowned, but did not question Fssa further. If the Fssireeme said that Rainbow’s energy pattern had changed, then it had changed. Period. “Then . . . Rainbow stole part of Centrins’ core?”
Fssa sighed very humanly and rested his chin on Rheba’s shoulder. “I don’t know,” he whistled, switching to the greater emotional complexities of Bre’n. “Is it stealing when you take something that was once part of you?”
“Do you mean that Rainbow was once part of Centrins’ core?” demanded Rheba before Kirtn could speak.
“Perhaps, but most probably not. The Zaarains grew many machines,” explained Fssa. “The core of most of them was identical. The machine and Rainbow shared certain similarities. And you know how fanatic Rainbow is about recovering lost parts of itself. I think it saw some usable crystals, snapped them up . . . and the lights went out.”
Kirtn groaned. Daemen looked from Fssireeme to fire dancer and back to Bre’n. The Luck did not understand either of the languages they spoke, but knew that the subject was Rainbow.
“What’s he saying?” demanded Daemen finally.
Kirtn and Rheba exchanged a glance, wondering how much to tell Daemen. Quickly, before she could, the Bre’n spoke. “He doesn’t know much more than we do.”
Daemen looked skeptical, but said nothing.
“Did you wake up first?” asked Kirtn.
“Yes. Either they gave both of you a bigger dose, or you’re more susceptible to the drug.” Daemen looked apologetically at the Bre’n. “How do you feel now?”
“I’ll survive.”
Daemen sighed. It was apparent that Kirtn’s hostility toward him had not abated. “Rheba woke up after the mover reached full speed.”
Kirtn looked out of the window-walls and said nothing. The landscape was whipping by at a speed that blurred all but distant rock formations. “Where are we going?” asked the Bre’n, turning back to Daemen.
Daemen hesitated, obviously reluctant. “Square One,” he said.
“Wasn’t that where your mother wanted to go, but the Seurs wouldn’t let her?” asked Rheba.
“Yes.”
“Why not?”
There was a long silence while Daemen searched for the right words.
“Why not?” repeated Rheba.
“People don’t come back from Square One,” said Daemen finally.
“Why?” asked Kirtn and Rheba together.
“We don’t know. Maybe it’s the mover,” he added with obvious reluctance.
“The mover,” prodded Kirtn. “What about the mover?” he asked, looking around at the bullet-shaped, transparent room hurtling along an invisible track toward an unseen destination.
“I don’t think . . .” began Daemen. His voice sighed away. “I’m not sure that the mover goes all the way to Square One. There’s a break in the power somewhere beneath the mountains.”
Kirtn’s slanted eyes seemed to grow within his gold mask. “A break.” He shrugged. “So we’ll walk the rest of the way.”
“Part of the way . . . but not very far,” said Daemen softly.
“Why not?”
“There’s no air.”
“What?” said Rheba and Kirtn together.
As one, they turned and looked out the windows where remnants of unnamed Installations were divided by sterile tracts of stone. It was Kirtn who realized first what the blue-black sky meant.
“It’s not night!” His glance went to the quadrant of the mover that was opaque, shielding its occupants from the distant sun’s radiations. “The sky is dark because there isn’t any atmosphere.''
“Yes,” said Daemen, his voice miserable. “Only the Installations have air. Oh, there’s some atmosphere out there, but not enough for anything bigger than bacteria.”
“But—but,” stammered Rheba, stunned by a planet almost as desolate as a burned-out world, “how do you grow food?”
“Grow?” Daemen looked puzzled. “The Installations give us all the food we need.” Then, remembering Seur Tric’s complaints, he added, “Most of the time, anyway. Didn’t machines feed you on your world?”
“No,” said Rheba with a shudder. The idea of being so wholly at the mercy of inanimate matter disturbed her.
Kirtn simply looked shocked, then thoughtful. His eyes measured the landscape with new awareness. Planets like this were common, much more common than the warm, moist worlds where life was easily sustained. If the Zaarains had found Daemen useful because of its location on a natural replacement route, they would have colonized it. Their technology was more than adequate to the task. But either the Zaarains did not remake the planet in their own image, or the machines that remade it had fallen into disrepair. In either case, the result was the same.
“Even the air you breathe is manufactured and held in place by machines and forces your people can’t name, much less duplicate or service,” murmured Kirtn, his tone both shocked and wondering.
“Of course,” said Daemen matter-of-factly. “It’s been that way for hundreds of thousands of years. It will be that way as long as our Luck holds.”
“As long as your luck holds . . .” Rheba said no more, but her horror was as clear as the akhenet lines pulsing over her arms.
“That’s why the Seurs shipped out your family,” said Kirtn slowly, his voice neutral. “The planet couldn’t afford anything but the best of Luck anymore. Your machines are getting too old.”
Daemen made a gesture of sorrow and resignation. He had aged since the moment the lights had gone out in Centrins. He no longer believed reflexively in the quality of his own Luck, much less his mother’s. “I could,” he whispered, thinking aloud, “even be . . . other.”
Kirtn and Rheba both wanted to disagree, vehemently, but could not.
“I’m surprised the Seurs didn’t just kill you,” said the Bre’n finally.
The Luck’s laughter was both sad and angry. “That would be the worst thing they could do. If they murder me, whatever other Luck I carried with me would stay loose in Center Square until the end of time.”
“Why didn’t they let us take you off planet?” asked Rheba.
“Seur Tric wanted to,” said Daemen. “But the others said that I’d come back again, carrying even worse Luck with me. Then the lights came back on in Centrins. Not as bright and not as many, but better than darkness.
“That’s
when the Seurs decided that I might do better going back to Square One as my mother wanted to.” He hesitated, then continued. “If my Luck is good, I’ll make it there and back. And if it isn’t, my Luck won’t be hanging around their Installation. I mean, it wouldn’t be as though they murdered me,” he said defensively, not looking at the sterile vistas sweeping by on all sides. “Square One exists. Its Installation registers on ours. They’re not sending me to certain death.”
Neither Kirtn nor Rheba knew what to say.
Fssa’s sad sigh filled the transparent room. If being stranded in that desolation was not certain death, the Fssireeme did not know what it was. He might possibly survive, but his Fourth People friends would surely die.
Mountains swept down on them from the distance, mountains whose peaks blotted out half the stars.
Rheba and Kirtn watched in horrified fascination, waiting for a rending crash as the mover’s irresistible force met the immovable mountain mass. Then their stomachs quivered as the bottom dropped out of the world. Stars and mountain peaks vanished as the mover plunged into an opening in the earth. The world shifted again, telling them that the mover had resumed a course parallel to but beneath the planet’s surface.
Silence and darkness stretched unbearably. Despite their knowledge that the mover was making fantastic speed beneath the mountain mass, each person felt as though the mover had stalled in the endless center of midnight.
“Where’s the break?” asked Kirtn finally, his voice casual.
“At the edge of Square One,” Daemen said tightly. “We’re not there yet. We’re still moving.”
“How can you tell?” asked Rheba.
“We still have air. When the mover stops, it dissolves, and so does the air.”
As though in response to Daemen’s words, the mover vanished. With it vanished warmth and the odd lounges that had supported the passengers.
Between one breath and the next, they were dumped onto the tunnel’s cold stone floor.
XIII
Kirtn held his breath reflexively, trying to hoard all of the precious air he could even though he knew it was futile. At the same instant, Rheba burst into flame, shaping energy into a shield that would hold in the dissolved mover’s air. It was a reflex as strong and futile as Kirtn’s. Her fire guttered and died out. There was no energy source to draw on other than the human bodies around her. That would bring death as surely as asphyxiation.