The pain inside his head grew stronger. He wasn’t alone on the starship; but the others, the living ones whose presence he could feel if he reached out far enough, all thought in strange patterns and odd symbol-sets. He couldn’t understand them, and they made his head hurt in a way that had nothing to do with physical harm.
Then, abruptly, his will and his energy both failed him. His knees buckled and he slid down the bulkhead until he was sitting propped against it, his arms clasped around his updrawn legs.
Exhaustion claimed him; his head dropped forward and he slept. When he opened his eyes again, he found that the light, while still alien, was not so painful. He stood up, moving more easily this time, and walked around the perimeter of his cell—exploring, as best he could, the limits of his confinement.
The room had two obvious doors. One was locked. The other led to a waste-reclamation site and water source: a refresher cubicle, though not designed as he was accustomed. He caught some of the flowing water in his cupped hands and drank as much as he thought his uncertain stomach would tolerate.
The side of his head was tender where Master Guislen had struck him down. He put his head under the cold water, and ran his fingers through his hair to loosen the clumps of dried blood. When he was done, he returned to the other room.
Where the cell had been empty, now a tray of food rested on the floor. The tray was made of something light and soft: even broken, it wouldn’t take an edge, and it wasn’t heavy enough to be used as a bludgeon. Out of hunger, Errec tried the food. It didn’t taste bad, and it didn’t poison him. When the tray was empty, he lay back on the deck and fell asleep.
How long things went on in this manner, Errec couldn’t be sure. The room didn’t change in any way, not even by dividing the time into periods of light and dark. He was certain that he was being spied upon, both by electronic devices and by less physical means. The trained defenses in his mind felt a tickling probe of contact from time to time, whenever someone attempted to find out what he was thinking.
But he wasn’t weak. Not that way. He resisted. And he watched—searching the currents of Power for the workings of those other minds, memorizing the traces that their workings left behind.
Meanwhile, the food continued to come at irregular intervals. It only arrived when he was in the second, smaller room, the one with the water. Once he stayed awake in the main room until his throat was parched and he began to hallucinate from dehydration and lack of sleep. Not until he lost the last fragments of his resolve and stumbled to take a drink—he was only gone a moment—did a new tray of food arrive.
When his strength returned after the failed experiment, he went back to searching the minds around him. The structure of their thoughts was alien at first, very alien. But he had been taught how to deal with that. He hadn’t liked what he had learned from the Adepts on Galcen—he’d stayed with it only because the masters at Amalind had thought that his skills might someday be needed—but now, in his captivity, he made that training serve his own need.
He remained in the outer darkness, gathering impressions, determining how the minds around him thought and what the alien symbols portrayed. Then he pushed in deeper, and deeper again.
He was an interrogator. He would ask them the question. Sooner or later, they would answer.
XIV. GALCENIAN DATING 976 A.F.
ENTIBORAN REGNAL YEAR 3 PERADA
AFTER SEEING what passed for a spaceport on Maraghai, Gala wasn’t sure what to expect by way of domestic architecture. The aircar had been commonplace enough—a bit outsized in its dimensions and unfamiliar in its outlines, but nothing more unsettling than that. At length the craft settled down in what seemed to be nothing more than a forest clearing. Immense trees, their gnarled and furrowed trunks each one bigger around than the joined hands of the ’Hammer’s crew could have encircled, thrust upward on all sides.
It took Gala several minutes to realize that not all the massive pillars in the shadow of the forest canopy were living trees. Some of them were the columns and corner posts of a house built on the same towering scale as everything else on-planet. From the air it had been invisible, its shapes and colors blending seamlessly into the tree-covered mountainside.
There didn’t appear to be any sort of hangar for the aircar. Gala wondered if the Selvaurs had designed the vehicle on purpose to stay out in all weathers.
I’ll have to take a closer look, she decided. If that’s the case, maybe we can learn a few things from these people even if they are green and scaly and never start fights.
She picked up her carrybag and left the passenger compartment with the rest of the ’Hammer’s crew. General Metadi and the Selvaur were talking about something. She heard the Selvaur, Ferrda or whatever his name was, make one of his hooting noises and saw him point toward a small tree on the edge of the clearing.
A second glance, and she saw that the tree wasn’t a tree at all, but a wooden framework from which hung the bloody and gutted body of a monstrous beast. Stretched out so, with its forelimbs dangling downward, it was almost twice as long as Gala was tall—not counting the head, which lay on the ground nearby, propped up so that the sweeping, serrated horns wouldn’t fall against anything and break.
Metadi caught her gazing at the barbaric display and gave a cheerful grin. “Fanghorn,” he said. “Herbivore, believe it or not—they come down from the upper slopes to browse in the wetlands at dawn and dusk.”
“Herbivore,” said Gala thoughtfully. She moved in for a closer examination of the rack of horns, each flat tine edged like a tiny saw. “What do the predators around here look like?”
The General jerked a thumb at Ferrda. “Him.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t worry. I told him you were a hunter too.”
“I do my best,” said Gala, “but I never brought home anything like that.”
This time Metadi chuckled. “Mage warships will do just as well. Only drawback is, you can’t cook ’em. That fanghorn, on the other hand, is going to be the guest of honor at this evening’s party. Put on your fancy clothes, if you brought any; we’re all invited.”
“I’ll stick with the uniform,” Gala said. “It’s the fanciest thing I’ve got.”
Several hours later, as the evening worked its way toward its height, she was beginning to regret her decision. The great atrium of the house under the trees was full of Selvaurs in garish body paint, some of them with crested skulls and some without, and all of them growling and roaring in animated conversation. The handful of humans in the crowd—honored members of the thin-skinned community on Maraghai, or so the General had said—looked small and fragile in a setting built to the huge saurians’ own scale.
Some of the guests were dancing, singly or in small groups. The music, mostly drums and horns, came from two or three sides of the atrium at once, and none of the musicians appeared to pay any attention to what the others were playing. The confusion of tunes and rhythms didn’t appear to bother the dancers at all, or anyone else either. A few of the guests were singing songs in languages that Gala didn’t recognize.
An open fire burned high in the stone-lined pit at the center of the atrium, and tables loaded with food flanked the pit on either side. It was the food, especially, that was causing Gala to have second thoughts about her dress uniform. She’d always considered herself to have a fairly cosmopolitan appetite—she’d eaten hedgeprickles baked in clay at a barbecue on Tanpaleyn, and she knew how to take apart an Immering Isle tree-crab without needing to use either the tweezers or the mallet—but this was the first time she’d ever had to confront an appetizer that seemed determined to crawl off her plate before she could eat it.
“Is it going to offend our host if I don’t eat some of this?” she asked Tillijen under her breath.
“It depends,” the gunner said unhelpfully. “If he caught all of those flybynights himself instead of trading for them, he might be a bit put out to have them ignored.”
Gala swallowed hard and reache
d for the bone-handled knife that had come with her plate—a courtesy to thin-skins, Metadi had said, because they lacked anything serviceable by way of fangs and claws. The flybynight scrabbled ineffectually in its pool of sauce.
Now or never, she thought.
“It’s not really alive,” said Errec Ransome’s quiet voice in her other ear. “Not anymore. It just doesn’t have a nervous system that’s bright enough to get the message.”
“I suppose it’s wiggling around out of habit?”
“Well, yes.” After a brief pause, he added, “Put the knife in right behind the head. That’ll discourage it. And you might try washing it down with something.”
“Stick to water,” Tillijen said. She refilled her mug as she spoke—she was drinking something red and foamy that came in wooden kegs. “Unless you’ve trained to drink like a spacer.”
The last sentence came out in accentless, if slightly tipsy, Court Entiboran. Gala looked at the other woman for a moment, then speared the flybynight behind the head with one jab of her knife and bit it in half. It kicked a little going down, but not much.
“I’ll show you a spacer,” she said, also in Court Entiboran, and took a long swallow of the liquid in her own mug. It was pale brown and sharp-flavored, with a serious kick to it. “I’ve spent more hours in hyper than you have alive.”
The other gunner—the dark-haired one who came from who-knew-where—chortled with delight. “Oh, a challenge!”
She picked up a stone jug and a couple of turned-wood goblets from the table and poured out two equal tots of a thick green liquid. It had an oily sheen to it, and a bitter, medicinal smell. “Here you go—let’s see which of you gets to high orbit first.”
“You’re on,” Gala said, and picked up a goblet.
Festen Aringher and the young man from the vintners’ guild made a leisurely progress through the colonnaded lobby of the Mount Kelpen Lodge and thence to the main garage. Aringher kept up a stream of chatter about the salubrious quality of the mountain air, the early onset of this year’s autumn, and the probable quality of the brittlestem harvest, and the young man responded in kind. Not until they were in Aringher’s hovercar and speeding down through the foothills toward the Wippeldon plain did another subject arise.
“I must admit,” the vintner said as they drew near the outskirts of the city, “that I have a favor to ask of you.”
“I’m all ears,” said Aringher. “Well, actually not … it would look distinctly odd if I were … but I’m always glad to help out a fellow-creature in distress. Within the limits of my abilities, of course.”
“Of course.” The hovercar swung around a curve and past a landscaped shopping arcade before the young man spoke again. “I understand that you’ve met the Domina.”
Aringher was silent for a few moments in his turn. “On a couple of occasions,” he said finally. “I doubt she’d remember me, though—one face at a reception is much like another.”
“I suppose you’re right. But the other occasion was much less formal, or so my sources tell me.” The vintner looked amused. “I’m sure that Her Dignity will remember the curtain cords, for instance.”
“I’m sure. Though why you think that experience would encourage her to listen to whatever message I’m supposed to carry, I can’t imagine.”
The vintner didn’t reply. Aringher steered the hovercar across traffic and into the sprawling lot of the shopping arcade.
“There’s a travel office here that I always recommend highly,” he said as the car sank to a halt. He opened his door and got out, leaving the vintner no choice but to do likewise. “They have a direct linkup with the port.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” The young man didn’t say anything more until they were both walking through the crowded arcade. Then he said, “You’re a part of the Domina’s social circle—”
“You exaggerate, I’m afraid.”
“Maybe. But if you ask at the palace for an audience, they aren’t going to show you around to the servants’ entrance.”
“I suppose not.” Aringher paused at a news kiosk and put a half-octime coin in the slot for a quick printout of the hour’s top stories. The presence of a Galcenian ship at the Wippeldon landing field hadn’t yet made it onto the nets, but it was only a matter of time—of minutes, by now, rather than hours—before the word got out. “But if you want to send the Domina a message, there’s a public comm link right here. If you need change for an octime …”
“This isn’t a matter for jesting,” said the vintner. “You are well known at home, and have the complete trust of a number of people. They believe in both your discretion and your reliability.”
“Such touching faith,” Aringher said.
“Nevertheless, you come highly recommended.”
“I suppose I ought to be flattered. What exactly do our friends at home think that I’m suited to do?”
“Merely this: take a place in the court of Entibor, where speaking directly to the Domina is possible, and await instructions.”
“My, my. That’s all?”
The vintner didn’t smile. “It’s quite enough, I think.”
“Well then,” said Aringher. “In what form will the instructions come?”
“With this.” The vintner passed over a flat package. “A textcomm. With a personal key, and the highest security.”
Aringher tucked the package into the inside pocket of his coat. “If I recall correctly, this toy only works with a direct line of sight to a relay source.”
“Don’t worry. Such sources will be in-system soon.”
“Quite. Thank you for telling me, and for telling the Minister of Internal. Security. He’ll have a transcript of this conversation within the half hour, if he doesn’t already have it—and the minister, I have no doubt, will report it to the Domina. His loyalty, like mine, is complete.”
As he spoke, he could see belated realization spreading across the features of the young man from the vintners’ guild like an embarrassing puddle. With a smile, Aringher handed over his folded newsprint, entertainment section uppermost. “In the meantime, I’d suggest you take in this revival of The Uncouth Stratagem at the Festival Playhouse. I think you’ll find it … appropriate.”
Errec Ransome wasn’t surprised when Tillijen and Fleet Admiral Lachiel embarked on what looked like being an epic contest. The two women had been regarding each other uneasily ever since Warhammer left Entibor, and the tension was bound to come to a head somehow—better Nannla’s way than some other. At a Selvauran party, nobody was going to care.
The process was likely to take a while, however. Galaret Lachiel had tipped back her goblet of urraggh like a pro, and already a small crowd of spectators, human and Selvauran alike, was gathering around that end of the buffet table. Errec effaced himself and moved away. He liked Selvaurs, finding their thoughts admirably self-contained and unobtrusive, but their physical presence could be overwhelming. As for Tilly and Lachiel, with the green fire of the urraggh running through them their minds were wide-open enough to feel almost indecent.
The table on the other side of the fire pit was all but deserted, and Errec found a fresh platter of roasted barkbeetles going nearly untouched. He picked out a good-looking one and stripped off its legs—Ferrda claimed the legs were the best part, but as far as Errec was concerned they had too much shell and not enough substance—then popped the beetle into his mouth. A burst of hot liquid filled his mouth as the carapace cracked under his teeth.
He picked up another beetle and started to work on it, considering as he did so whether or not to have another mug of the Selvauran ale. Regretfully, he decided against the idea. Ale and urraggh might work to dim unwanted perceptions, but in this convivial crowd they were likely to relax him first, and he couldn’t afford what might happen then.
He ate another barkbeetle and tried not to wonder too hard about what might be going on at the far end of the atrium. Jos Metadi and a handful of Selvaurs sat in a close group at the edge of the
firelight, all of them laughing uproariously and eating as if a ten-year famine had been announced for tomorrow at 0900 Galcen Standard time. Errec had never tried to look into Jos’s mind—there were some things he had promised himself he would never do—but the temptation was growing stronger. Whenever he swatted the thought away, it came circling back again like a persistent insect.
To distract himself, he went over to where the skinned and dressed-out fanghorn was hanging above the open flames, close enough to roast the carcass on one side but far enough away that part of the flesh remained blood-raw. Selvaurs liked their meat both ways, and a good host would see to it that the cooking, or lack of it, suited all tastes. Errec used his banqueting-knife to pull off a strip from the half-roasted portion, then ladled some of the herbs-and-blood dipping sauce into a small bowl.
Sauce in one hand and rasher of fanghorn in the other, he went out onto the wide porch that ran all around Ferrda’s immense, sprawling house. Maraghai’s moon—a twin planet, really, streaked with bands of vaporous color—was up and filling an enormous portion of the night sky. The clearing where Ferrda had landed the aircar was full of thin, watery light, and the shadows under the great trees were almost blue-black in their intensity.
Out of sight of the crowd, and insulated by distance from its perils, Errec was able to relax. He sat down on the porch railing, with his back against one of the fat wooden posts that supported the overhanging roof, and settled in to eat his share of Ferrda’s roasted fanghorn in peace and solitude.
He’d finished the meat, and was sitting quietly in the darkness doing nothing in particular, when the door to the atrium swung open. A burst of noise spilled out onto the night air and a human figure stood backlit for a moment by the firelight before the door closed again. Galaret Lachiel, moving like someone with a profound need for fresh air, crossed the porch and leaned on the broad railing.
While Errec watched, the fleet admiral groped unhandily for something in the pocket of her uniform. He heard the faint ripping sound of a foil packet being torn open, and a muffled curse as Lachiel almost dropped the contents onto the floor of the porch. Then there was only a brief swallowing noise, and then silence.
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