Shadow Hunters

by Christie Golden

  “—and then set out to find us,” Jake said, relaying what Zamara had told him.

  “I see. Hope they brought my tool kit—I might be able to fix the Pig.”

  “I hope so, too. Let’s take a seat and get out of here before more zerg start sniffing around.”

  There were eight individual seats and a curved bench for the pilots. Jake and Rosemary eased into the chairs and Jake found his comfortable, if a bit large for his smaller human frame. Two protoss moved to the front bench and the rest took their seats, eerily motionless once they were settled. Jake knew that their minds were as perfectly still as their bodies. He wondered if this was part of the military training the templar underwent, that deep, profound stillness.

  Most of those you see here are khalai, not templar. The only “training” they have had has been that which was necessitated by their situation here on Aiur, Zamara answered him. Think of what you know of us already, Jake. The discipline that enables us to stay unstirring, in mind and in body, and then leap from that place into swift motion and thought kept us alive for many eons.

  In poetic contrast to the others, the two protoss pilots exchanged glances and gestures, although they kept their thoughts from Jake. Rosemary watched them keenly, as their long, four-fingered hands moved fluidly over a console. They did not actually touch anything; it seemed the motions alone were sufficient.

  “Wonder if terrans could learn how to pilot these things,” R. M. said softly. “This is one sweet little vessel.”

  Jake grimaced slightly. In the midst of all this awesome discovery, and, he admitted, sheer terror, Rosemary was thinking only about herself and what plunder she could take. Even as the thought brushed his mind, he chastised himself for it. He’d known Rosemary Dahl in the most intimate way possible—for a few brief moments, he’d been her. He knew why she was the way she was, what had shaped her. Like the ancient weapons Valerian so loved, she’d been tempered by the fires of experience. The anger dissipated, and all he could do was feel sorry for her that she was missing the real heart of what was happening around her.

  There were no windows in the golden vessel except for the single large circular one in front of the pilots. Through this, Jake watched as the vessel climbed skyward so he could barely even feel it. The ship skimmed smoothly over first the thick, green canopy of the rain forest and then blackened, burned, and dead earth, heading toward a blackened, burned, and dead husk of a city. As they traveled, Zamara told Jake what had transpired here four short years ago. The preserver had relayed R. M.’s desire to keep her thoughts to herself and the other protoss had agreed, so Jake had to tell R. M. the old-fashoined way—with verbal speech.

  “When the zerg attacked Aiur four years ago,” Jake told Rosemary, “it was absolute chaos. Hundreds of thousands were killed as all tried to get to the warp gate on the surface. The zerg were everywhere. You saw what they did to the planet.”

  “Yeah, that’s why when Zamara said there weren’t any protoss here I believed her. No offense or anything, but I figured that anyone who didn’t make it off-planet didn’t make it at all.” Rosemary gestured to the ugly landscape over which they were flying.

  He smiled a bit, at her, at Zamara, at the protoss who’d just saved their skins. “You underestimate them. They are survivors. Even the ones who aren’t trained to be.”

  She scowled at him. “I don’t know why you’re so happy, Jake. This is a nice little ship, granted, but unless there’s a nice big ship tucked away somewhere, we’re stranded on this zerg-infested rock.”

  “We’re alive. We’ve got friends. We’ll be all right. Anyway, some of them weren’t able to make it through the warp gate before the protoss disabled it.”

  She threw him a sharp glance. “Why the hell would they want to disable it?”

  “Because it would take the zerg straight to the only haven the protoss really had left. And if enough zerg came through there, that would be the end of the pro-toss. All of them. Not just their world, and not those who had the bad luck to get left behind.” He gestured to the protoss, who sat statuelike around them. “They understand that. Any of them—all of them—would gladly have died to protect their race.”

  The words were true, so far as they went, but Jake knew how inadequate those words were to the task of describing the protoss’s love for their homeland and their people. It made any kind of terran nationalism seem trivial and petty. His head started aching again.

  Zamara, this translating from thoughts to speech and back is getting tiresome. If I can convince Rosemary that the conversation will only go one way, can we let the protoss talk to us?

  She hesitated.

  Come on, I’m not that bad at this.

  Very well.

  Pleased, Jake turned his attention back to Rosemary. “It would be easier and more accurate to learn this directly from them. The protoss communicate telepathically; they don’t even have mouths. They know what they’re doing and they’re … good people. They won’t try to read your thoughts. Will you let them talk to you?”

  She kept her eyes straight ahead, at the approaching ruined city of twisted metal, melted glass, and blackened crystals. Her Cupid’s bow lips turned down in a slight frown. “It feels … weird, Jake.” There was no cocksureness in her voice, no condescension. She was talking to him calmly and honestly. He was surprised but knew better than to comment on it. “I don’t like it. You understand. You didn’t like it any better than me at first.”

  “You’re right. I’ve gotten used to it, though. It’s a highly efficient method of communication.”

  She still didn’t look at him. He let her mull in silence. “Okay,” she said, finally.

  Jake felt a presence inside his head, pouring over his thoughts like warm honey. “Thank you. We will be better able to understand one another now.”

  Beside him, he saw Rosemary jerk as if stung. She frowned slightly, an unguarded, completely natural gesture, then her normal mask descended. Jake thought that a shame. He turned to see one of the protoss clad in dinged golden armor gazing right at him. Jake smiled. The protoss inclined its head.

  “I am Ladranix. I am the leader of one of the groups that remained. There is another, and I will speak of it later. First I will speak of what happened on those dark days. The terror, the fear—it was all so unexpected. And then when the warp gate was disabled, there was no place to go. We were left behind—we, the zerg, and the ruination that was once a beautiful world.”

  Jake got a vision, brief and tinged with sorrow like an old sepia photograph, of what Aiur had been like before it fell. Beautiful buildings reached skyward, sleek ships transported the inhabitants from one glorious city to another. The cityscapes were magnificent, incorporating nature and water and air and light, and the natural world was encroached upon only as needed. Jake’s heart ached. Then the vision was gone, as if Ladranix regretted how powerfully the image had affected Jake and had drawn a curtain over it.

  “I’ve heard about what the zerg can do—heck, I just had a demo. How is it that you’re alive at all to even be telling us this?” Jake queried.

  “The warp gate was disabled, so that there was no way for the majority of the zerg to follow. Many brave protoss voluntarily stayed behind to protect it as it was closed. They were accompanied by one of your own people, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey.”

  Jake glanced at Rosemary, shocked. She too looked surprised.

  “His name was James Raynor.” Again an image was shown to Jake, of a man with a shaved head that had begun to once again become dotted with stubble, of a close-cropped beard and mustache and eyes that he knew had once held laughter and now had seen too much. He was standing shoulder to shoulder with the protoss, obviously welcomed and accepted, obviously deeply concerned for their well-being.

  “It is because of Raynor that we recognized your craft as being a terran vessel—possibly that of one who would be a friend. It is why when our observers spotted it, we came to your aid.”

  “Heh,” said Rosemar
y, chuckling slightly. “If I ever meet this Raynor fellow, I’m gonna shake his hand and thank him for being such a good ambassador.”

  Jake shared her sentiment.

  “We expected it to be a death sentence,” Ladranix continued. “We were prepared to fall to the zerg and die as the proud people we are. And do not mistake me—many, many of us did. The zerg were well controlled and deadly. But Executor Tassadar saved his people by destroying the Overmind that controlled the zerg. It cost him his life, but he succeeded. The zerg were still mad to kill—but they were no longer directed in that goal. They fell upon themselves as readily as upon us. It bought us some time.”

  Jake recalled the attacks, unable to suppress a shiver of revulsion as he watched them unfold again in his mind. “But … they certainly seemed focused enough when they saw us.”

  Ladranix nodded. “Yes. Something changed sometime after the gate was closed. While the zerg no longer attacked quite so intently, nor with the same focus as they had while they were controlled by the Overmind, they were no longer mindless creatures. Something had shifted, somewhere. Certainly they were still dangerous. And still intelligent.”

  Jake got the impression of a predator toying with its prey. Cat and mouse, he thought, and sent the image.

  Ladranix sent back an affirmative. “Yes. Once, the absolute obliteration of every protoss was their main concern. Now they wander about; they are tools that, while still functional, appear to have been largely discarded. Over the years we have managed to kill many zerg in this area, and as far as we can tell, no others have been bred to take their place. That gives us hope. Still, the zerg certainly do attack when they see us. And we knew they would head straight for your vessel, to determine if you were any kind of threat.”

  “Do you think they will pursue us?” Jake felt a sudden chill, despite the oppressive heat of the place.

  “Unlikely. Your ship is ruined, and it was mere accident that they came across you a second time. We anticipate that you will become folded into our group, no more or no less a threat to them than we are. The weapons we recovered from your vessel will be useful to us.”

  Now they were navigating among what had been glorious spires and towers. Jake saw in his mind’s eye, superimposed over what his true eyes beheld, what this view had once been like. The little golden ship, a firefly of a vessel, moved gracefully amid the ruins until it came to a blackened clearing. It looked like a bomb had gone off here once but that the area had now been at least somewhat reclaimed. To the north, he saw some debris that intrigued him, though he couldn’t make sense of the jumble. The ship settled down easily, and the moment it alit, the protoss all rose in a movement timed so perfectly it might have been choreographed. The door opened and the elegant ramp extended, its delicacy at sharp odds with the ruination onto which it opened.

  “Please, go first. You are expected.”

  Jake and Rosemary nodded. Rosemary went first, moving with her head held high and a lithe, in-control stride. Jake followed.

  He immediately thought of a refugee camp. Dozens, maybe hundreds of protoss all turned as one to gaze at him. Large, lambent eyes looked him up and down, seemed to gaze into his very soul. The silence was the main thing that struck him. No cries of infants, no sobs or laughter, no murmurs of conversation—none of the things that one would expect of such a large gathering of people in one place. But then again, while the protoss were most certainly “people,” they were not humans. He knew that if Zamara had not been providing a buffer, his mind would be awash in thoughts that dwarfed human sounds in their detail, their richness, their depth and complexity and interconnection.

  They had erected shelter as best they could, a strange amalgamation of items they had brought in from nature and things that had been taken from the city. A shiny metal beam held up a roof of woven leaves; a second small atmospheric craft was protected by poles made from tree branches. Even in the starkness of their necessity, there was beauty. Doors were made of the fronds of different-colored plants, and the result was not merely functional but lovely. Some things had been painted, other things carved.

  Attention quickly went from the newcomers to what they brought. The protoss who rescued Jake, Zamara, and R. M. placed what they had gotten from the now-defunct system runner on the black, uneven surface. The refugees scurried forward, elegant four-fingered hands taking up the weapons, the bedding, the tools, the precious medkit.

  “They’re taking everything!” Rosemary snapped, and started to move forward.

  “They saved our lives,” Jake reminded her. “A weapon in their hands can only help us. And others need medical supplies more than we do.” At that moment his head throbbed. “Well, not all the supplies; they can’t take any oral medication.”

  “Jake, listen, believe me when I say I’m delighted that we’re not inside a zerg’s belly at the moment. But this isn’t an archeological expedition here. We’ve got to find a way to get off this planet.” She was not looking at the protoss. She was looking at the wreckage that had once been a thriving city. She was looking for anything that might offer hope of a way out.

  She’s right, Jake thought to Zamara.

  There may be a way. I must speak with the others first.

  “Zamara’s working on it,” Jake said.

  “Good.” Rosemary looked edgy, and he supposed he could understand why. She was extremely competent in her own environment, but now they were surrounded by aliens that they had never beheld until a few moments ago. The technology with which she was so familiar and a master at manipulating had been melted to a puddle of acidic ooze, and she’d come within centimeters of being melted right along with it. They were stuck at the mercy of said aliens, on a strange planet. And she was watching her precious weaponry being examined and parceled out.

  “It’s all right, Rosemary,” Jake said gently, feeling oddly protective. “I know you’re worried and you feel out of place here. But it could be a lot worse.”

  She glared at him, blue eyes cold. “Reading my mind again, Professor? I thought we discussed that.”

  There was a time when her words would have stung. This time, he felt only compassion for her. “No. I just read your face.”

  She looked slightly embarrassed, then irritated, and then she turned away.

  “We understand that humans need to feed upon plant and animal matter,” said Ladranix. “We do not, so at this moment we have nothing to offer you. But we do have clean water for sterilizing instruments and will soon be able to provide you with what you require. Zamara has experienced … sharing a meal with you, Jacob. We will do our best to emulate this food.”

  “We brought rations with us,” Jake sent back to Ladranix, looking him full in his glowing blue eyes. “We do not wish to inconvenience you any further than we already have.”

  The protoss leader half closed his eyes and tilted his head in the way that Jake knew meant laughter. He knew it even before Ladranix’s warm mirth washed over him, coaxing his own lips to turn up at the corners in the human version of a smile.

  “You bring us weapons and medicine. A few fruits from the trees and the flesh of beasts is nothing in comparison. You and Rosemary Dahl and Zamara are welcome here, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey. More than welcome.”

  Jake felt, in a very strange but very real way, that, in a sense, he had come home.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE WATER THEY WERE GIVEN WAS STALE AND warm, but it was wet, and Jake drank thirstily. He felt about as stale and warm and wet as the water. The heat coming off the ruins of the city as it baked underneath a sullen sun was almost unbearable. The pro-toss did not appear to be affected by it, but that was to be expected. They had evolved on this tropical world of sun and humidity. Jake’s and R. M.’s discomfort was noticed and after a short discussion, they were led inward into a jumble of metal and some sort of concrete that provided at least a bit of relief from the heat. It looked strangely familiar to Jake. He glanced around, sipping a second gourdful of the water. Ladranix came to stan
d beside him.

  “Do you recognize this place?” Ladranix asked quietly.

  “Sort of. But it’s so damaged I can’t place it.” Jake walked up to the wreckage of a chair, ran his hand along it. Like everything else the protoss made, it had been beautiful once. So had this place been beautiful—and huge; he remembered seeing what looked like a shattered tower and the ruinations of a landscape atop a huge circular disc.

  “There are places elsewhere in the city that are not habitable. We were fortunate to find this shelter as intact as it is. What you behold now is the ruin of what was once known as the Executor’s Citadel. Since before the time of Adun, the leaders of the templar dwelt here.”

  Jake’s gut twisted. Superimposed on this pathetic wreckage was the image of Adun standing and looking down on Antioch. He had perhaps sat in this very chair. Jake found his hand tightening on the back of the chair, as if he could hold on to the past.

  “We like to think that even now, Adun somehow is watching over us,” Ladranix said gently. He touched the broken remains of the chair with a long, four-fingered hand, seemed to recover himself from his emotions, and faced Jake.

  “I have sent our best scouts to find you food,” Ladranix said. “It is not without risks, but we are more familiar with how to evade the zerg than you. Night will fall soon. While the heat will not diminish greatly, the winds pick up at night. You will find it cooler.”

  “That sounds great,” Rosemary said. Perspiration sheened her face, and heat had reddened it. Jake thought back to when he had first met her, calm and in control in the shadow of the Gray Tiger. He thought of how stunning she had looked by candlelight in Ethan Stewart’s decadent enclave, her hair perfect, her dress cut down to there at the neck and up to here at the thigh. Right now she was grimy, sweaty, sunburned, and didn’t smell all that good. And she seemed more real, more … human … than he’d ever seen her.