The Dragon Circle

by Irene Radford

  “A confluence of ley lines coming right up!” Kim laughed to cover his trembling voice. A neat clearing, almost perfectly circular came into view. He drank in the sight, knowing he had come home.

  Tambootie trees filled the nearby woods.

  CHAPTER 33

  KONNER GUIDED the king stone into a hole a meter and a half deeper than he was tall. He and his brothers had used the laser pulse from Rover to define the hole. Then counter-grav equipment purloined from the IMP lander lifted the chunk of dirt in a solid heap. It lay to the side of the hole, ready for deposit around the king stone once Konner had the stone anchored in position.

  Now Loki held the shuttle in a tight hover directly above the center of the hole. Kim kept the cables wrapped around the crystal from tangling. At least he tried. His movements seemed clumsier than usual. The blue crystal spun frequently and Loki had to raise the stone higher while Kim untangled it.

  Kat sat at the edge of the clearing, worrying her force bracelets. A frown drew deep lines beside her mouth and between her brows.

  “A little to the left, Konner,” Kat called out.

  “Quiet. I can see where it has to go,” Konner spat back at her. But he edged the cable a little to the left.

  The crystal ceased dropping. “Another meter, Kim.”

  “We’re out of cable,” he called back, over the roar of VTOL jets Loki used to keep the shuttle in place.

  “Damn!” Konner jumped down into the hole. He wrapped his arms around the stone. The weight of the thing shook his balance.

  “I need your help, Kat.”

  “Not on your life, O’Hara.”

  “I’ll take the bracelets off you.”

  “Promise?” She stood up and crossed the distance at a near run. Her face brightened.

  “No, Konner. Keep her restrained. I’ll come down.” Kim looked as if he’d jump the eight meters from the shuttle to the ground.

  ”Kim, you’ll break your neck. Where will she go if she tries to escape? She’d need a week or more to get back to the village on foot.

  Just then, the stone jerked upward out of his arms. Kim waved frantically. The shuttle’s nose jerked up and so did the king stone.

  Konner stumbled. His nose crashed into the packed dirt on the side of the hole. Then the rest of his face followed.

  “One of my last memories of you is with grime smudged all over your face from the fire at the household compound. You haven’t grown up much in the last twenty years,” Kat chuckled. She winced as she braced herself to jump into the hole beside him.

  Once on his level she sobered. “You smiled at me and took my hand as we ran away from the noise and confusion. Your teeth showed bright against the dirt. I thought that everything would be all right just because you smiled for me, Konner. You don’t smile enough.”

  “You pulled your hand out of mine, Katie. Why? I followed you, but lost you in the darkness. Why, Katie? We could have both gotten away if you’d just stayed with me.”

  She looked away a moment while she fished a handkerchief out of her front pocket. Her movements were awkward. The pain must have been incredible.

  “I forgot Kim’s teddy bear. I knew he wouldn’t sleep without it.” She swiped at the dirt on his face with the handkerchief. It came away filthy.

  “Let me get those bracelets off you.” He avoided the emotional moment by retrieving the electronic key from his inside vest pocket. He slapped both pockets. Both were flat and empty.

  “Looking for this?” Kat held up the black remote.

  “Yes.” Konner grabbed it back. “How?” he asked as he pointed the gadget at the electrode between her wrists. A brief buzz from the bracelets and the wrist circles snapped open at the electrode.

  “I picked your pocket between wiping your face and distracting you with poignant memories.” Her half smile came back.

  Konner returned it. Then he waved at Kim.

  The shuttle lowered once more, and with it the king stone.

  Konner wrapped his arms about the giant crystal. Kat did the same on the opposite size. Together they balanced it while Kim cut the cable from above. With feet braced, they both lowered the crystal until it rested firmly in the depression filled with fiber optics at the bottom of the hole.

  The flat bottom nestled into the dirt as if coming home. For the first time in hours the strident wail of the crystal separated from its family shifted to a more harmonious note.

  “It’s happy here,” Kat said. She looked surprised.

  “It will be happier when I restore the array.” Konner kicked some additional dirt against the base of the stone and stamped it down.

  “Why do I think it won’t move, even without bracing?” Kat did not assist in planting the crystal.

  “Because your psychic talent is kicking in and you can hear it sing.”

  She shook her head and clambered out of the hole.

  Konner followed her. They watched as Loki lifted the pile of dirt with the counter-grav and dumped it back into the hole. It mounded slightly. Konner wondered if he should tamp it down, make the excavation less visible.

  Kat moved to board Rover the moment Loki settled the shuttle on the far side of the clearing.

  “Now where?” she asked.

  “You stay here.” Konner left the mound of dirt. Rain would settle it better than he could and a storm was building off to the east. He smelled the cold moisture.

  Both Kat and Kim looked surprised.

  “I have to go to Dalleena.” Konner took a deep breath to control the anxiety that had not left him since seeing his lover carried into the hut by the IMPs. Limp. Unresponsive. Bleeding.

  “Kim, you and Loki need to start removing the central array of driver and directional crystals from Jupiter. I’m going after Dalleena. Taking Kat with us is too risky. She’ll have too many opportunities to reveal our plans to the IMPs. We can’t take a chance on anyone finding this place before I finish the confusion field or all personnel are evacuated and the landers deactivated.”

  “I have a wife, too, Konner. I need to check that Hestiia is okay.”

  “You’d know if she wasn’t.” The two brothers stared at each other in a moment of understanding. “The last we heard she was whole and hale. Dalleena isn’t.”

  “We’ll need help with the crystals. Hestiia, Raaskan, and a few others, I think,” Kim replied hastily. “We stop long enough to pick them up.”

  Konner nodded and boarded the shuttle, pushing Kat aside.

  She tumbled onto her backside. “And what am I supposed to do while you are gone?” Kat asked. She hadn’t gotten up from her ignominious position. “I’ll be all alone! I might be attacked by wild animals. Or wilder natives. I’ll get cold and hungry. I’ll be alone!”

  Konner flipped a serviceable iron knife so that the blade tip embedded in the ground half a meter from her hand. A blade he’d forged and polished himself. He’d even bound it with strips of sinew to a section of deer antler for a hilt. Kat would never understand what a precious gift he gave her.

  “Learn to use this for defense. For cutting bracken for a bed. For digging roots to eat. I recommend the bulb of the yellow flowering plant beside the creek. Fire is optional, if you can figure out how to start one by striking sparks off the knife blade with a rock. Use the knife for cutting branches to build a lean-to. Vines make very good twine. The presence of the king stone will probably protect you from wild animals bigger than you are. I’d advise you not to leave the clearing until one of us returns for you, though. There are bandits in these hills, Gypsies, too—the locals call them Rovers. They don’t have the same sense of honor as we do.”

  “You’re abandoning me again. I should have known.”

  “Stranding for a few hours. Not abandoning,” Kim clarified for her. “We’ll be back. We keep our promises.”

  “You didn’t twenty years ago.”

  “You’ll never know how much trouble we went through to go back for you and find you gone. Presumed dead,” Konner said bi
tterly.

  “And what am I supposed to do while you go off adventuring?”

  “Think about circles.” Konner slapped the hatch control. It irised shut slowly. He did not turn away from her penetrating gaze until several layers of cerama /metal separated them. Still he felt the green fire sparking from her eyes, stripping him to his soul, and finding him wanting.

  Guilt slammed him in his face. In his worry for Dalleena and the fate of the planet he had forgotten his primary goal: to gain custody of his son.

  Time leaked away from everything he held dear.

  Kim gathered Hestiia into his arms the moment he cleared the hatch of Rover. He clung to her a long time while Loki and Konner barked orders to the villagers. His wife fit tightly against him, her dark curls just reaching his chin.

  “Beloved,” Hestiia whispered. She tried to draw away from him. He tucked her closer. “Beloved, I have dire news.”

  “It does not matter. I have you in my arms. All is well,” he replied, trying to believe his own words.

  “Taneeo has betrayed us.”

  Kim stilled in diappointment. “I guessed he would, but I did not want to believe it. He is our friend. We saved him from Hanassa. I thought he was stronger,” he said sadly. Lumbird bumps rose on his skin. A sour taste began in the back of his throat.

  “Taneeo led two dozen men, some from our village, some from Yaaccob’s village. They returned weapons and comm units to the Others,” Raaskan added. Carefully he related what he had seen.

  A chill ran up Kim’s spine.

  “Taneeo is not Taneeo,” Pryth said as she surged through the crowd toward Kim and his brothers.

  “I agree, he’s not been himself since . . . But I thought he had overcome Hanassa’s pressure. I thought his will was stronger.”

  “Another is now Taneeo.” The old woman turned and parted a way through the crowd as a ship through water. Hardened warriors, children, and matriarchs shifted to allow her easy passage.

  “At least we know who now hosts Hanassa,” Konner said quietly.

  As one, the villagers crossed their wrists, right over left, and flapped their hands.

  Silence hung over them like a heavy cloud.

  “We don’t have time to deal with this,” Loki said. He began pacing in front of Rover’s hatch. “We need to get the crystals from Jupiter and get back to Kat before she finds a way to escape.”

  “After dark I will take a group of females to rescue our people from the Others.” Hestiia straightened away from Kim. “We will deal with their treachery.” A hard glint came into her eyes.

  Her fierceness almost frightened Kim.

  “I sure would not like to be Taneeo at about sunset,” Konner muttered.

  His brothers nodded.

  “Let Pryth lead the women. I want you with me,” Kim insisted to his wife. “I do not want to take a chance that you might be captured,” he said more quietly, for her ears alone.

  “It is my place as the wife of a Stargod to lead . . .”

  Kim stopped her protest with a finger across her lips. “I need you with me. I trust you to help. Not all of our people have the . . . ability to assist us.” Many of the villagers would be so frightened of flying in Rover they would be useless in retrieving the crystals.

  “Right,” Loki said. “Raaskan, Poolie, you two come with us.” He pointed to several others who had proved themselves more adaptable to change than others.

  “I’m staying here. I’ll see to Dalleena,” Konner said firmly.

  “Fine. Whatever.” Loki jumped aboard Rover, ushering half a dozen villagers into the cabin.

  “Loki, Konner, are we sure we want to do this?”

  Kim hesitated to move to the lander. The sight of his wife, their friends, all they had to lose could not soothe his conscience. “We are going to strand three hundred people on this planet. Separate them from their friends and families, put an end to all of their hopes and dreams.”

  “It’s not the same, Kim,” Loki barked. His face flushed with anger. Or was it guilt?

  “It is the same. We are going to imprison these people against their will.”

  “They would do the same to us,” Konner reminded him.

  “Does that make it right?” Kim began to shake.

  “No.” Konner said. “It does not make it right. But we have to weigh the welfare of our people against what would happen if we do not do this.”

  “They are invaders,” Loki insisted. “Humans resisted the Kree when they invaded Earth. We have the same right here on our home.”

  “I go on the record as having serious reservations against this.” Kim clenched his teeth to keep his chin from trembling.

  “Fine. You record it later. Let’s get this show on the road!” Loki dismissed the problem by marching forward to Rover’s cockpit.

  “We will find a way to make it right, Kim,” Hestiia whispered. “After we ensure the safety of our people.”

  “I certainly hope so.” Kim reluctantly climbed into the lander.

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAOS. LANDERS, shuttles, jolly boats, and fighters fled Jupiter’s launch bay and scattered in all directions. Some headed for the ocean directly beneath the ship’s decaying orbit. Others sought a more hospitable landing place.

  At least some of the scout ships must be seeking the king stone. Loki did not believe they would find it.

  He slid Rover into the loading bay just as the doors began their slow slide closed. Kim squeezed in behind him with the lander.

  Waiting for bay doors to close, force fields to reestablish, and atmosphere to fill seemed to take forever.

  In the meantime, lines of IMP personnel formed in the corridor beyond. Their strident voices leaked through the sealed hatch. Fists pounded upon the bulkhead demanding entrance. Tension crawled along Loki’s spine like a thousand itching bugs.

  “Why the panic exodus?” Kim asked over the comm. “The orbit should not be decaying yet.”

  “Did you notice some slowing in the spin?” Loki replied. “Something other than normal gravitational pull is already affecting this ship. At this rate, they’ll be lucky to get everyone off, even using escape pods. The fact that we have one of the landers and Konner ditched another means more trips back and forth, using up more fuel, and twice the panic.”

  And military discipline had broken down. Severely. Why wasn’t the infamous Commander Amanda Leonard commanding an orderly escape? Where was the captain of Jupiter anyway?

  “While they run to and fro without thinking, we can move in with minimal interference.” Kim sounded defeated already. His guilty conscience must really be bothering him.

  Or was it the Tambootie he had stuffed in his pockets before liftoff? The kid definitely needed a long treatment with gamma blockers.

  Loki did not have the luxury of a conscience or an addiction. As the eldest, he was responsible for the family’s safety and their success.

  “Let the droids refuel,” Loki told Raaskan. “After that, no one but us gets aboard these two ships. And keep an eye on Kim. Don’t let him do too much. Think about his orders before you do anything.”

  “I shall lead the foraging party for the red crystals,” Raaskan said quietly. “I have memorized the plans. Stargod Kim should remain here to help guard the ships.”

  Loki nodded agreement. Under the influence of so much Tambootie, Kim might bond with the directional crystals and take off on some lumbird-brained excursion of his own.

  “What about the people pounding on the doors?” Hestiia asked. She looked as if she wanted to throw the hatch open, or maybe grab a spear and run all of the IMPs through.

  Part of Loki wanted to give in to the pleas of the people waiting outside the doors and give them a ride back to the planet. He did not dare. They had other means of escape. Jupiter should not crash for several weeks yet. Possibly months or even years. Plenty of time to strip the ship of everything usable.

  Except the spin had already begun to slow. Momentum should have kept it
going for weeks. Why weren’t the techs making corrections manually?

  Raaskan relayed the orders to his small band of warriors. Each was armed with iron knives, clubs, and/or iron tipped spears. They looked a fearsome bunch. More fearsome than fearful, he hoped. Bringing them along had been a calculated risk. They’d never encountered null g before. They’d never seen a spaceship.

  But they were survivors one and all. And they obeyed the Stargods with unflinching loyalty.

  Kim grabbed two antigrav cargo sleds from the racks along the bulkhead. Raaskan relieved him of the burden. Hestiia and Poolie each grabbed two more. Loki took the last two and parceled them out among the villagers. That left four men, including the two brawny blacksmith apprentices to guard the shuttle and the lander. And Kim. Enough.

  Gravity remained here in the outer section of the ship, not as heavy as the last trip. Enough to make the antigrav sleds necessary.

  Kim directed four men from his crew to begin loading the sleds with the small red directional crystals from the nearest rabbit hole. One hundred forty-four of the small red stones would take time to load, but should offer no great challenge.

  “I’ll stay here and supervise. Can you get the drivers?” Kim asked. His eyes looked bloodshot and he moved sluggishly.

  “Twelve greens shouldn’t present a problem. Getting from here to the crystal room and back again will be the problem. Konner insisted we need the drivers from the midship array. They are a fraction bigger than the aft and bow circles. How do we keep the evacuees from breaking in here and stopping us?”

  “Give me two minutes at the sensor terminal.”

  Kim grinned, more sarcastic than humorous. He nibbled on a leaf of the Tambootie. Then he nearly skipped toward the computer terminal near the hatch into the corridor as if no more than normal g pressed upon him.

  Loki shook his head at the immediate change in his brother. He vowed to himself that as soon as they returned dirtside, he’d get Kim those gamma blockers.

  “Can you hack your way into bridge controls from here?” Loki asked Kim. Meant for recording quartermaster manifests, the terminal had limited access to the primary systems.