Shadow Hunters

by Christie Golden

  How are you doing in there, Zamara?

  He caught a brush of amusement, but Zamara seemed a bit distracted. Well enough, Jacob. Thank you for inquiring.

  Everything okay?

  I am simply considering what to do next.

  “So Jake,” Rosemary continued as he fished around for a bandage. “That … experience … before we jumped—what the hell did Zamara do to all of us? I’ve done a lot of drugs in my day and that was, by far, the strangest and best trip I’ve ever been on.”

  There was a time when both Jake and Zamara would have bridled at the thought of something as profound and sacred as union within the Khala being compared to a drug trip. But now that both of their minds had blended, even briefly, with Rosemary’s, now that both had had a hint of what it had been like to be her, the condemnation was cursory and halfhearted. R. M. was using terms she knew to try to describe something far beyond what any human had ever experienced. No disrespect was intended.

  “I’ve told you about the Khala, the Path of Ascension,” he said. He found a bottle of plastiscab and gingerly applied a layer over the cut. It warmed up almost immediately, and he winced a little. He disliked the stuff, but it worked. The layer of plastic that would form in a few seconds would protect the cut quite efficiently, although sometimes removal of the plastic bandage led to reopening the wound; someone hadn’t thought things through very well. He replaced the bottle and put the kit back on the shelf. Making his way to the cockpit, he continued. “It’s how the protoss were able to come together again and rebuild their society after the Aeon of Strife.”

  R. M. had found a tool kit and was now lying underneath the console, unscrewing a panel. A cluster of wires dropped down a few centimeters, and there was a soft glow of chips in their tangled center. Briefly, Jake had a flash of another memory Zamara had shared with him—that of a strange chamber created by beings known as the xel’naga, the benefactors and teachers of the protoss. Jake had relived the memories of a protoss named Temlaa. Temlaa had beheld the bizarre and terrifying sight of writhing cables emerging from walls to fasten onto his friend Savassan. Though the outcome had been wholly positive, it had deeply disturbed Temlaa and, through that long-ago protoss, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey in the here and now.

  His head suddenly hurt again.

  “Yeah,” Rosemary said. “Go on.”

  “Well … it didn’t look like we were going to be able to escape Valerian and Ethan’s ships.”

  “No kidding,” R. M. snorted. “Five Wraiths and a Valkyrie from Val plus whatever Ethan wanted to throw at us.”

  Rosemary’s voice was completely calm as she mentioned Ethan Stewart’s name. It was as if he were a stranger to her, and after Ethan had betrayed R. M. so badly, Jake supposed she thought of him that way. Nevertheless, even if someone had betrayed him—as indeed, the woman lying in front of him busily rerouting wiring had—he couldn’t have done what Rosemary had—fired a rifle at point-blank range into the chest of a former lover. Ethan had dropped like a stone, blood blossoming like a crimson flower across his white shirt.

  Jake looked away. He was grateful for Rosemary’s coldheartedness in a way. It’d saved his life and Zamara’s more than once.

  I told you we would need her, Zamara reminded him.

  Yes. You did.

  “So?” Rosemary prompted, her eyes on her work.

  Jake continued. “Well … I knew what had happened to the protoss when they first were exposed to the Khala. And I thought, what if I shared that feeling with everyone in the surrounding area?”

  Rosemary fixed him with intense blue eyes. As always, Jake felt something flutter inside him at that gaze. “You linked everyone in the Khala, Jake?” Anger and a hint of fear flitted across her face. He didn’t have to read her thoughts to know what she was thinking—was she going to have her brain rewired, as his had been?

  “No, no,” he said. “That’s not possible. We’re not protoss, for one thing. Our brains can’t handle something like that directly. And even the protoss needed to touch the khaydarin crystals to experience it, at least at first. Not sure about it now; Zamara hasn’t taken me that far yet. What I did was share the memory of how it felt, and for a brief moment I opened your minds to each other. You all—we all—did the rest.”

  She regarded him for a few seconds, then shook her dark head. “Wow” was all she said, but it was heartfelt.

  “Yeah,” Jake replied, his monosyllabic comment equally sincere. He wondered, as he had right before they had made the jump, if something more lasting than his immediate escape would come of that instant when, for the first time, nearly a thousand humans had had the briefest, palest hint of what it was like to have minds and hearts joined as one.

  He hoped so.

  Rosemary swore. “I thought as much. Rot in hell, Ethan.”

  “What’s wrong?” Jake asked worriedly.

  “He’s got a tracking device integrated into the navigation system. He—”

  —sticks it in there, a tiny little thing, easy to miss if you didn’t know what you were looking for and if you didn’t know the bastard’s little trick of—

  “Hey!” Rosemary’s voice cracked like a whip, and the anger that rolled off her was a one-two punch. Jake blinked. She was out from under the console and jabbing a finger in his face so fast he’d barely seen her move. “Get the hell out of my head! Don’t you dare do that again without asking me. Do you understand?”

  She was angry out of all proportion to what she was thinking, but Jake knew that wasn’t the point. She had very recently been through a profound experience that she was still trying to integrate. And besides, although he was getting used to the idea of his thoughts being known by another as they popped into his mind, Jake well remembered the outrage he himself had felt when it started to happen.

  The color was high in her cheeks, and her blue eyes sparkled. Jake winced. “Sorry,” he said. “I just was anxious to know what had happened and I didn’t even think about it. It won’t happen again.”

  That is not a safe promise to make, Jacob, came Zamara’s warning voice. There may be a time when we need to violate it.

  She’s proven herself amply, in my opinion. You’re so used to doing this casually, as part of who you are. For humans, it’s much more an invasion of privacy.

  Rosemary does have difficulty trusting others, Zamara agreed.

  That’s the understatement of the year.

  Rosemary searched his gaze and then nodded. She took a deep breath, composed herself, and returned to her task. “This is an old trick of Ethan’s. He integrates the tracking device completely into the navigation system, so that every adjustment and every coordinate goes right back to the source. You don’t just know where this ship is, you know where it’s been. It’s also impossible to remove.”

  Jake blanched, and he felt Zamara’s concern as well. “What does that mean?”

  “It means we need to get an entirely new nav system.”

  He stared at her. “How are we going to do that? We’re on the run in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “I have a good idea where we can start looking safely. But first, I want to have a look at the damage. I’ll suit up and check it out. You and Zamara … don’t touch anything.”

  She scooted out from under the console and got lithely to her feet. Purposefully, she strode toward the locker and began to suit up for a space walk.

  She is deliberately withholding information. She will not tell us where she intends to go.

  Let her cool off, Jake replied to Zamara. She’s mad, and I don’t blame her a bit. That was a stupid thing to do. I guess that bump on the head rattled me more than I thought.

  If an alien consciousness inside one’s mind could sigh, Zamara did. When this is all taken care of and the vessel is repaired, our destination must be Aiur.

  Jake thought about the homeworld of the protoss. Lush, verdant, tropical. Rich with vegetation and animal life, dotted with heart-stoppingly gorgeous relics of the xel’na
ga in their strange, twining, mysterious beauty. He smiled softly.

  Rosemary, now encased in a suit that would enable her to move around in the cold darkness of space, threw him a glance and scowled a little. “See that light?” She pointed to the console. He looked where she indicated and saw a small button, currently dark. He nodded. “Once I get outside and the doors seal shut again, it’s going to turn green. It’ll stay green the whole time I’m out there. If it turns red and an alarm starts sounding, I’m in trouble. At that point I will give you permission to read my mind so that you can get me safely back inside. Got that?”

  “Yes,” he said. He understood what she was saying. She was putting her life in his hands.

  “Okay then.” She moved to the back of the cabin and touched a button. A door irised open and she stepped through without a backward glance. A few seconds later, the button came to life, glowing green just as R. M. had said. He sighed. His head was still hurting.

  We will head for the underground chambers that Temlaa and Savassan discovered. There is great technology there. It will help me to complete my mission and keep my people safe.

  Jake asked excitedly, “The chambers? That underground city?” Zamara had given him only the briefest tantalizing glimpse of the vastness that comprised the hidden city of the xel’naga. Most of Temlaa’s memories concerned a few very specific places, one of which was a chamber in which the desiccated protoss bodies had been stored. He wanted to close his eyes and relive that memory, now that Zamara had informed him that was their destination, but he had a duty. Rosemary had entrusted him with her safety.

  I will watch over her. You may revisit the chambers if you wish.

  Jake nodded, trusting Zamara, and closed his eyes.

  There was the memory, first Temlaa’s, then Zamara’s, and now his: as pure and perfect as if it were actually unfolding before him rather than being recollected.

  In the center, hovering and slowly moving up and down as it had no doubt done for millennia, was the largest, most perfect crystal Jake had ever seen. It pulsated as it moved languidly, and Jake realized that this was the source of the heartbeat sound he and Savassan had been hearing for some time now. For a long moment he forgot his fear and simply gazed raptly at the object, seduced by its radiant beauty and perfection of form.

  In all the memories I hold, Zamara said, all the things I have beheld and touched and known—there is nothing like this crystal, Jacob. Nothing.

  He sensed her awe and shared it. He thought he caught a fleeting tinge of hope so intense that he might even have called it “desperate.” Jake began to query Zamara, but at that moment the door irised opened and Hurricane Rosemary stormed in. He blinked, suddenly realizing that about twenty minutes had passed without his even being aware of it.

  “This is why you never jump without proper preparation,” she said as she removed her helmet. “We’d have had to replace quite a bit even without Ethan’s little tracking device.”

  “All right,” Jake said. “If we have to, we have to. But we need to do it quickly. I’ve been talking with Zamara, and she thinks we need to get to Aiur.”

  Shedding the rest of her suit and hanging it back up in the locker, Rosemary turned to him. “Aiur? Why?”

  “Remember those caverns beneath the surface I told you about?”

  “Yeah … some kind of underground city.” Rosemary’s anger was now directed at the damage the ship had taken rather than at Jake. She actually looked interested in his comments. “We’re going to get to see that place then?”

  “Looks like. Zamara thinks there’s some technology there that can help her. Help us.”

  Rosemary was regarding him thoughtfully. “You know, Professor, if there actually is ancient, advanced technology sitting quietly forgotten beneath the surface of Aiur … that really could help us.”

  “Rosemary—”

  “Jake, listen. We’re being hunted by the son of the emperor, for God’s sake. We had to fight our way to get where we are right this minute and we’ll have to keep fighting unless we do something about that. Look—I’ve cast my lot in with you. We’ve got to trust each other. I’m not going to rat you out, but this is a big net that’s been cast for us. We might be able to make a trade with Valerian: our lives for whatever technology we can give him.”

  Out of the question.

  I’m not telling her that, Zamara. She makes a good point.

  This is my people’s heritage we are discussing, Jacob. Our legacy. Protoss knowledge belongs to the protoss, not a terran emperor who will exploit it and use it for harm.

  You killed a lot of terrans for protoss knowledge. And now Rosemary and I are on the line for it too. If this gets Rosemary and me out of danger, I’m all for it.

  There was silence from the alien inside his head, and Jake realized that Rosemary was looking at him expectantly.

  “Well?”

  “Uh—well, Zamara’s not too keen on the idea,” Jake said truthfully. “But we can talk about it when we get there.”

  R. M. nodded. “We’re not going to get there at all unless we haul ass and effect repairs pronto.” She moved past him and slid into the seat. He took the chair beside her, although he knew nothing about the dozens of lights, buttons, and switches in front of him.

  “Now let me see…. Good! I was right in my hunch about where we are. So that means that …” She punched a few more buttons and a star chart came up. Rosemary nodded, pleased. “Excellent.” She laid in a course.

  “So where are we going?”

  She gave him a grin. “Back in time, Jake. Back in time.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  IN THE DARKNESS, THERE WAS HARMONY.

  Unified, single-minded of purpose, seven beings were one. Each contributed to the whole, was present and yet subsumed, the magnificent, powerful, deadly one greater than the individuals who comprised it.

  It … he … moved languidly now, but could move almost at the speed of thought when roused to action. Radiant at his center, his glow was shadow.

  He stirred as the ripples of something brushed his mind. Something familiar. Something he wanted destroyed. Something that threatened him and his task.

  Preserver, a part of him named the loathed quarry.

  How can this be? A preserver, in such a place? wondered another part.

  And there is something else. It is not pure protoss mental energy. It has been tainted—or augmented. It is difficult to know which.

  How and why, tainted or pure, it does not matter. It must be found and stopped. Like all preservers. Other parts, once individuals, now fractions of the whole, murmured their discontent.

  Preservers were a dire threat, perhaps the only true one this being, naming itself in his multiple consciousness Ulrezaj after the most powerful individual that comprised him, had ever discovered. Preservers knew too much. And so Ulrezaj had been attentive to any signs of them, tracking them down one by one and snuffing out their fragile little lives until soon there would be none left. There were only a handful as it were, and they had never been many. It was a foolish way to carry information, inside a mortal shell that was so easily crushed.

  The seven-who-were-one turned their formidable mental powers toward this strange sensation, this ripple in a dark, still pond.

  Ulrezaj would find the renegade preserver. He would find it, he would destroy it, and the threat the protoss posed would be no more.

  And then Ulrezaj would continue in his glorious work.

  Valerian wielded his sword like all the demons of hell were attacking him.

  Parry, stroke, whirl, slice, impale—the imaginary foes attacking him from all sides at once fell before him. He leaped up as a nonexistent sword sliced at his knees, lunged forward, turned, and blocked a fictitious attack. Tucking his sword, he ducked, rolled forward, and came up fighting. Sweat plastered his fair hair to his forehead, dappled his upper lip, slicked his chest. His heart thundered in his ears and despite all his training his breath was coming in little gasps. He
had never practiced with such focused intensity before in his life, and he craved the peace he knew would come after such exertion.

  He finished the routine, twirled the sword expertly over his head, sheathed it, and bowed. Valerian never forgot to bow, no matter what. To bow was to remember one’s opponent. And Valerian always, always remembered who he was fighting.

  There came a tentative knock on the door. “Come in, Charles,” Valerian called, pouring himself a glass of water and drinking thirstily.

  While Whittier always looked as if something was wrong, this time the distress on his face was more pronounced than usual. “Sir,” Whittier said, “it’s His Excellency. He wishes to speak with you at once.”

  Valerian’s stomach tensed, but years of practice at hiding his emotions enabled him to respond calmly. “Thank you, Charles. Tell him I will be there in a moment.”

  Whittier gulped. “Sir, he’s pretty impatient.”

  Valerian turned cool gray eyes upon his assistant. “I will be there in a moment, Charles,” he repeated in a soft voice.

  “Of course, sir.” Whittier closed the door.

  Valerian wiped his face with a cloth, composing himself. After the debacle at Stewart’s compound, he’d known he’d be hearing from his father soon. Off the beaten track the planet might have been, but word of zerg in terran space would have gotten to Arcturus at light speed. He finished his glass of water, changed his shirt, and went into Whittier’s office.

  Whittier jumped at the sound of the opening door. Valerian sighed. Whittier was an extremely capable assistant and Valerian relied upon him a great deal, but the man had the constitution of a rabbit.

  “Thank you, Charles, put him through,” Valerian said. He returned to his training room and went to the small vidsys that was set up in a curtained-off area. Steeling himself for the confrontation—for he knew such the conversation would be—he touched a button.

  The visage of Arcturus Mengsk appeared. Mengsk was a big man, and managed to convey that even on a small screen. His hair was thick, if more salt than pepper these days, as was his mustache. Piercing gray eyes met those of his son.