The Crystal Eye

by Deborah Chester

  It was time to run as she had intended to earlier. Or else to give in and release the abiru from Vir. She hoped they all died of their accursed fever. She wanted no more to do with them, ever.

  Opening her mouth to give the order for their release, Israi was interrupted by Nalsk, who turned away from the screen momentarily to accept something handed to him.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  He frowned at the message as though he had not heard her question, then at last looked up. “Forgive me, majesty. Another call by link just came in from Ampris, wanting to know if your majesty had seen the Reject corpse yet. We did not channel this call to you. It was very short and came in over a scrambled line. Her equipment is getting more sophisticated. That means she has gained help from—”

  “Never mind who she’s gained help from!” Israi screamed. “Did she ask that we release the slaves?”

  “Yes.” He flicked out his tongue. “Actually she demanded it. She is a bold Aaroun. I find it a pleasant challenge to—”

  “Silence!” Israi snapped, losing her temper with him. “This is not a game, Lord Nalsk! She is playing with our lives.”

  His eyes turned cold and flat. “I’m well aware of it, majesty.”

  “Then do something!” Israi ordered. “Find her. Kill her!”

  “Will you meet her terms, majesty?”

  “Her terms?” Israi laughed a bit too shrilly. “She is not our equal, to demand and order us. We are Kaa, and we will not be beaten by an Aaroun nobody.”

  “What are your majesty’s orders?” he asked.

  Israi did not hesitate. “Shoot all infected abiru on sight and burn their bodies.”

  This time the attack from the patrollers came through the ghetto swiftly and without warning. With the abiru slaves removed from the palace, the rebellion’s best informants were gone. Ampris had no idea people were being gunned down until Foloth came running inside with blood on his jerkin and his eyes wild.

  “Foloth!” she said in alarm. “What’s happened?”

  “Shooting!” he said, out of breath. “Shooting everyone. Barely got away.”

  “You’re hurt.” she said, going to him.

  But he pulled free of her grasp. “No, someone fell on me, knocked me down. I didn’t get shot. Mother, they’re shooting from shuttles. Just flying over people and mowing them down.”

  Her eyes widened with horror, and for once she wished they had broken into the armories and stolen weapons. Then they could shoot back, defend themselves from this wholesale butchery.

  Another fear occurred to her. “Where is your brother?”

  “I don’t know,” Foloth said. He dropped onto a stool and gasped for breath. “I haven’t seen him all afternoon.”

  She wanted to run outside and search for Nashmarl, but she knew that would be foolish. She did not have the least idea of where to start.

  Picking up the hand-link, she called Elrabin and got him, over terrible static.

  “Can’t hear good,” he said. “Got sniffers and scanners all over us. They . . . channels blocked and . . .” Static covered his voice, fading it out.

  “Can you come back?” she asked.

  “Not now. Pinned down while they’re shooting.”

  She thought of him concealed somewhere on a street, at the mercy of anyone flying overhead. “Are they shooting at you from shuttles?”

  “No.”

  “Then be careful. That’s going on too.”

  “. . . right. Will try . . .” More static obscured what he was saying.

  Ampris shook her hand-link in frustration. “Is Nashmarl with you?”

  “Mother,” Foloth whispered, touching her arm. “No names over the link.”

  She ignored his warning, straining to decipher what Elrabin was saying. “I didn’t get that. Is he with you?”

  “. . . get back soon. Tell . . .”

  “Can you warn the others?” she asked, her heart sinking.

  Static fuzzed the rest of the transmission. They must be right over him, she thought. She stood there, frozen with worry, until Foloth took the hand-link and turned it off.

  “They had to be right there, or the static wouldn’t be so bad,” he said. “I’m sorry, Mother. I hope he gets back all right.”

  She barely listened. She kept thinking of the worst, kept asking herself what had gone wrong. She’d been so sure the Reject corpse would tip the scales in their favor. But Israi wasn’t going to relent. This, clearly, was her answer.

  “She’s mad,” Ampris muttered. “She must be.”

  “Mother, you should sit down,” Foloth said to her.

  At last she registered what he was saying, and turned on him with a growl. “Sit down?” she echoed. “And do what? Look at my thumbs while people are dying? This was my idea, Foloth. I got them all into it. I have to go help.”

  He jumped in her path, blocking her way. “No, you can’t go outside. You’ll only get hurt.”

  Gently but powerfully, she swept him aside with her arm and limped toward the stairs leading down to the access tunnel.

  “Tantha!” Foloth yelled. “Help me stop Mother from going out!”

  The spotted Aaroun came running, with two of her small cubs bouncing in her wake. She looked back and snarled at them, and they sat down abruptly in surprise. One of them started to wail, but Tantha ignored them to plant her bulk in Ampris’s way.

  Ampris glared at her. “Move aside.”

  “No,” Tantha said. “Foloth is right. I can hear shooting outside. Not good for you to go.”

  “I can’t just stay in here!” Ampris said in frustration. “You don’t understand!”

  “Yes I do,” Tantha said harshly. “You be leader. This hard work—waiting, being safe, while others die.”

  Ampris growled, but Tantha didn’t back down.

  “No, Ampris,” she said, baring her teeth. “You need to fight, you fight me, right here, right now.”

  “Tantha, no,” Foloth said anxiously, but both adults ignored him.

  “Get out of my way,” Ampris said. She tried to push past Tantha, but the spotted Aaroun shoved her back.

  Growling, Ampris gripped Tantha’s arm and spun her off balance. She shoved the spotted Aaroun down and hopped over her awkwardly, moving as fast as the brace would permit.

  But Tantha sprang up with a roar and caught her from behind. Tackling Ampris, she knocked her to the ground, then landed on top of her and pinned her there.

  “Tantha!” Foloth said in shock. “Be careful!”

  With the air smashed from her lungs, Ampris began to wheeze. Fury drummed in her ears, but a cold part of her brain knew how little formal combat training Tantha had, and was busy calculating.

  Ampris waited until she felt Tantha’s weight shift. Clearly Tantha thought the fight over and was relaxing. At that instant, Ampris heaved herself to her hands and knees, sending the Aaroun sprawling. She kicked out hard and expertly, and Tantha screamed as something popped in her knee.

  With Tantha writhing on the floor, Ampris scrambled out of reach and went limping down the stairs into the tunnel.

  “Stop her!” Foloth yelled, his voice echoing ahead of her. “Mother, come back!”

  Grimly Ampris kept going until she reached the Kelth-guarded checkpoint. These two members of Luthien’s gang looked ratty and disreputable, but they had proved to be capable guards.

  Ampris eyed their illegal stickers and side-arms. “There’s shooting outside. I want weapons,” she said.

  The Kelths looked up at her. They must have seen the controlled rage in her eyes, for one of them handed over his side-arm without hesitation.

  “You know how to work that?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I’m better with a blade, but I know which end shoots plasma.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t get too cocky. It ain’t got much charge left.”

  She nodded and strode on, pausing only to glance back once. “Don’t let Foloth leave.”

  The Kelths gave
her a sloppy salute. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  Exiting the building, Ampris climbed out into the bright sunshine, to find a scene of carnage. The Kelth lits that usually played in the street in the afternoons now lay sprawled in blood. An adult female Kelth, who must have run outside to save them, lay on the steps where she’d fallen.

  At the corner there was more of the same. The patrollers had struck during a shift change when workers were either going in or coming home. Ampris stepped over bodies, twisted and heaped together.

  Across the street, a blood-stained Kelth female was crouched next to a dead loved one, howling her grief. A few frightened faces peered out through the shattered windows of a shop.

  In the distance, Ampris heard the blare of a siren and the sound of gunfire. Rage rumbled in her throat, and she hobbled in that direction, cursing her leg brace with every step.

  Before she reached the next intersection, she saw a transport lumbering along a cross street. It was swaying from side to side. Patrollers stood on top of it with a flamethrower mounted on the roof.

  While Ampris paused in her tracks, staring in disbelief, the patrollers opened up the device, and flames shot along the street, igniting the corpses. The air filled with smoke and the stench of burning fur and flesh.

  Gagging and coughing, Ampris retreated and took cover in a recessed doorway. The transport rumbled past her, flying slowly as the flames swept from side to side in front of it. Holding her breath, Ampris watched it go past. A patroller looked in her direction, but his gaze moved on. Apparently he had failed to see her inside the doorway’s shadow.

  As the transport moved on, she emerged and aimed her side-arm. Plasma shot out, straight and true, and hit the back of the patroller operating the flamethrower.

  Flames suddenly went sideways and raked up the side of a building as the patroller screamed and fell against his companion. Both of them went rolling off the top of the transport, falling to the street below. The third patroller whirled around and fired at Ampris.

  She ducked and the shot missed, but the plasma slug melted brick, dripping hot slag onto her arm.

  The pain was like fire, smoking her fur and branding her hide. She grimaced, holding back a cry, and fired again.

  She missed him, but her shot crossed his and spoiled it. Instead of hitting her, his shot hit the top of the doorway. It collapsed in a shower of bricks, cascading down on top of her. She fell back, throwing herself against the door with all her might. At the last second its weak lock gave beneath her strength. The door opened, and she tumbled backward while the front of the building collapsed in on top of where she’d been only moments before.

  CHAPTER•TWENTY-ONE

  Eventually Ampris worked her way free of the rubble, which had nearly crushed her to death, but by then the attack was over.

  She went limping home, feeling wrenched and empty with the futility of it all. Charred corpses lay where the patrollers had left them, males, females, and little ones alike. It was ruthless carnage, merciless, and the sight of it left her stunned.

  In the darkness, it was Elrabin who found her wandering along their street like someone lost, smeared with soot and grime, tears running down her muzzle, the emptied side-arm still clutched in her hand.

  He brought her inside, wrapped her in a blanket, and forced her to drink a mug of thick soup. Her teeth chattered on the rim. Everything she swallowed threatened to come up again.

  Finally, however, she began to recover. She looked at him, standing sadly over her, and gripped his wrist. “You’re alive,” she said, relieved.

  He nodded wearily. The fur was singed on one side of his face, but he looked unharmed otherwise.

  “Nashmarl,” she said, gazing dully around the meeting room. Members of their organization were slowly arriving, the survivors of the bloodbath. Reeking of smoke, bloodstained, dull-eyed, they came inside. Some accepted the soup. Others stared at it as though they did not know what it was. She saw Foloth, staying apart from everyone in a corner by the recording equipment, his dark eyes wide with alarm. She didn’t see Nashmarl.

  Fear flooded her heart. She began to weep and would have dropped her mug of soup if Elrabin hadn’t caught it.

  “Hey,” he said softly. “Slack the tears, Goldie. You be fine, see? There’s more folk coming in all the time.”

  “Not Nashmarl,” she whispered.

  “He’s fine,” Elrabin said. “He was down in the sewers, trying to catch himself a baby Skek to play with, when this all went down.”

  She gasped, still caught somewhere between tears and relief. “He’s not hurt?”

  “No. I saw him around here someplace,” Elrabin said, glancing to his right and left. “Hey! Over there. See?”

  He pointed across the room, and Ampris looked in that direction. She saw Nashmarl talking to one of the Kelths, safe and sound.

  Ampris made a tiny noise in the back of her throat. Closing her eyes a moment, she offered up a quick, intense prayer of gratitude for his safety.

  Elrabin tapped her shoulder. “Stop that worrying now. He’s fine. They both are.”

  “Yes,” she said, drawing in several deep breaths, and trying to smile.

  Elrabin frowned at her. “Is that why you were out there, looking for him?”

  “I—I went out to help,” she said, still feeling shaken. “To fight back. But I only killed one patroller.”

  His fingers tightened on her shoulders. “That’s one less than before.”

  She growled, backing her ears. “Not enough. I should have—”

  Suddenly Harval showed up, his striped jerkin hanging in black strips on his back. Luthien was missing. So was Harthril. Quiesl was dragged inside unconscious, covered in blood.

  Slowly, as the evening wore on, things were sorted out. People were fed and counted. The missing were totaled up. Half their organization was missing, presumed dead. They tried listening to the vidcast for statistics on how bad the total strike had been, but no news was running tonight on any channel.

  “Big mistake,” Harval muttered, picking at his singed fur. “Big mistake, listening to her.”

  Heads lifted and conversations stopped.

  “We done risked our necks, and for what?” he asked, agony clear in his voice.

  Elrabin rose to his feet, baring his teeth. “You shut up, Harval.”

  Velia reached for her mate. “No, Elrabin, don’t speak up for her,” she said, casting a dirty look at Ampris.

  “The big plan for freedom’s done backfired,” Harval said. “Right on us. Right on those lits lying out there in little bits of black bone. All ’cause we listened to her!” He pointed at Ampris, who sat huddled on her stool.

  “What was that big speech. Ampris?” he asked. “That big speech about no violence, eh? What was that about volunteers? You wouldn’t choose who would die? You’d let people make their own choice? Well, what about this? Which of us chose this? You tell me that, Ampris. You explain that to me.”

  A Kelth farther back stood up. “We’re all in danger now. Our families. Innocents who don’t even know about us. They struck at everyone they could.”

  Nashmarl stepped forward, his green eyes shocked and angry. “The Kaa won’t let us go. After all this, she’ll never let us go, Mother. You’ve risked our lives for nothing.”

  Foloth joined him. “You showed us to her like we were things. You said you knew her. You said you could persuade her to give folks their freedom. You were wrong.”

  Velia rose to her feet, her eyes filled with anger. “You’ve stayed here, safe, while everyone else takes terrible risks. Are you planning to be the Kaa of the abiru?”

  “Velia, hush,” Elrabin said sharply.

  “I won’t hush,” Velia retorted. “I have the right to speak too. What kind of crazy idea was this, talking folks into poisoning themselves, into dying of the fever, just so she could scare the Viis.”

  “She scared them, all right,” Harval rumbled. “Right into a massacre.”

  �
��They been slaughtering abiru anyway,” Elrabin said fiercely. “Only you ain’t been seeing it. What about the deportations to the death camps? Only difference today is they let us see the killings.”

  Harval snarled at him and started to answer, but Ampris rose to her feet and faced the angry assembly.

  The room slowly quieted to let her speak. She looked at their angry, resentful faces, and her heart ached for them.

  “You have every right to be angry and afraid,” she said. “This has been a horrible retaliation, something I hoped would not happen.”

  “She hoped it wouldn’t happen,” someone muttered. “Now I feel much better.”

  Nashmarl scowled at Ampris and turned away sharply.

  Ampris tried to ignore the criticism. “It doesn’t surprise me, though,” she said, making her voice carry clearly to every corner of the large room. “We all know what the Viis are capable of doing. We went into this knowing there would be risks, terrible risks. I warned you that freedom is not easy to achieve.”

  “Looks like it’s impossible!” yelled the Kelth in the back.

  Ampris looked right at him. “You swore to die if necessary.”

  Nashmarl glared at her. “And what about you, Mother? You must be a coward, because you haven’t risked anything. You haven’t been out there, fighting. You haven’t—”

  Elrabin gripped his arm and pulled him away from her. “Shut up, cub!” he said while everyone else stared at Nashmarl in shocked silence. “Your mother was a champion. Don’t you talk to her like that.”

  Wounded by Nashmarl’s accusation, Ampris closed her eyes a moment. She had thought her relationship with Nashmarl was improving lately, but now she realized their apparent progress was just illusion.

  “The Crimson Claw ain’t never been no coward,” someone said.

  Ampris stood there, trying to remember what else she’d been about to say to these people. But her words of encouragement and solace had dried up in her throat. She found herself unable to continue.