Soft laughter hissed from Mose. You’re not the only one sitting out there on the edge of the game board anymore, Gau. Apparently you never were.
And if the Project had foiled her attempt to recruit Vorl, she had still made at least one seph ally. Mose had known Daikar Shurinezz before the fall of Za, though he hadn’t thought of him in the present tense in fifteen years. Yet now it seemed he’d not only survived, but escaped Project Intelligence’s net and found his way to stand beside Mose’s latest—no, his last—target.
In his newly awoken haze, the half-formed thought finally crystallized that Shomoro was working with the Ril Surarchy.
Though the High Council may have sanctioned her immigration to Teluk, he couldn’t imagine them taking an interest in the project of recovering Za’s sephs. But the Surarchy would.
And how many others might the Project have missed?
When he finally located Shomoro, would he find an army awaiting him?
He turned his mind from that idea. Better to focus on the information he had. Illuminating as they were, Mose was still fuzzy on the objective the dream schemas were building toward. It was clear they were trying to convey the counternarrative about Rosetta that Pri and the other Drevl Char had discovered at the cost of their world. But he didn’t know yet what they expected him to do with it. Now that Shomoro had entered the memories, he hoped he would get some answers.
Perhaps in the next sleep cycle—
“Mose Attarrish? Have you awoken?” The flat voice of a translator drew him from his thoughts. Brushing grass from his chest and arms, Mose oozed out of the alcove. The Veert in the larger tunnel cocked their disc-shaped head. Their lithe trunk was a plain beige. It was Sand, come to fetch him. “You had a pleasant rest?”
“Pleasant enough.” Mose became aware of a pressure in his lower belly. He excused himself to make water over the wastage pit in the alcove. Looking down as the pressure eased, he startled—his urine was black. After a half second of nerve-prickling alarm, Mose let out his breath. He knew what the dark color meant: His body was flushing a large quantity of secondary metabolites, the inert byproducts of a nanite swarm that had deactivated itself. The first time he’d seen the phenomenon was after Vernsky had given him a nanobooster shot. He’d almost fallen over himself getting back to the lab then. Now he stood over the pit for what felt like half an hour, pissing the dregs of Pri and Shomoro’s nanoswarm out of him. It seemed there would be no more dreams then—no more answers would come from that source.
Drained, Mose was abruptly ravenous. “Let’s start with breakfast,” he said to Sand. “Then I’ll want to talk some things over with Shell before I leave.”
In the cafeteria, Mose hunched over a low stone table and gratefully devoured the mush of crab and other seafood which a Veert provided him. He scanned the cafeteria as he ate, but the amount of Veerten traffic seemed unchanged from before.
It was impossible to tell the time of day; even the aquamarine lighting looked the same. Mose spotted two Veert undulating toward him, the trunk of one marked with dappled blue. He shoveled the last of the seafood mush into his mouth and rose to meet them.
At his approach, Sand and Shell closed their tendrils around their heads, then let them blossom open. The gesture of welcome was clear. “Did you receive sufficient rest and food, Mose Attarrish?” Shell asked.
“I did,” he said. “And I am—eager to begin my reconnaissance of this city.”
“This way,” Shell started down a tributary corridor. “We have made some preparations to help you in your reconnaissance of Anmerresh.”
Mose was unsurprised when Shell led him to the same antechamber he’d entered with Sand. Only this time there was something waiting for them.
A wheeled conveyance shaped like a flat-topped obelisk hunkered on the stone floor. The entire hull was enameled in a colorful profusion of abstract swirls and geometric patterns. There were no visible windows. If it was anything like the models Mose remembered, an interior visual display would be connected to pinhole cameras embedded in the hull, lost to visibility underneath the bright enamel.
Mose was surprised at the feeling of nostalgia that welled up in him at the sight of the Baskar palanquin. He’d often seen them roving the city in his youth, part of the backdrop of Teluk life that he’d taken for granted.
“I arranged this for you,” Shell waved a head tendril toward the palanquin. “You may have considered the difficulties of remaining undetected by the High Council’s planetwide security apparatus while you’re here.”
“Indeed.” Mose jabbed at the palanquin. “An elegant solution, to have me hide in plain sight.” The flashy conveyances weren’t uncommon among a certain set of Baskar; for those who liked to display opulence and retain their privacy at one stroke, such as prominent members of the trading cartel that called itself the Directive, such palanquins were the vehicle of choice.
“Precisely.” Shell stroked a spiral of navy blue on the palanquin’s side, and the hairline crack of a hatch appeared where the Veert touched the release point. The nearly invisible door swung open to reveal a coppery interior. An adjustable pilot’s cradle squatted inside, complete with an attached control panel and oversized levers meant for Baskar claws. The interior wall facing the cradle flashed with the dull sheen of holofoil circuits.
Mose gripped the sides of the hatch and dipped his head inside for a better look.
“The controls are quite simple,” Shell leaned their brachiate head into the doorway beside Mose. “On land, this lever controls forward movement, and this one reverse. You can turn by swiveling these toggles. In the water, this button activates the propellers, and this dial adjusts the ballast.” They accompanied each instruction with a brief jab at the relevant component.
He withdrew his head. “Everything seems clear enough. I’m fairly sure I’ve piloted pleasure subs with more complex controls.” He looked at Shell and Sand in turn. “So, is there someplace I should start in Anmerresh? Have you gained any intel on Shomoro Lacharoksa?”
“We have,” Sand said after a pause. “Lacharoksa’s activities in Anmerresh are well known to those with sufficient security clearance. She directs a special research project under the auspices of the High Council.”
Thanks to the dream, Mose could guess what kind. He suppressed another flash of nausea. The Veert wouldn’t know he knew. “What kind of research project?”
Shell answered. “Applied nanotechnology. Specifically, anti-nanotech for incorporation into Teluk’s existing orbital and surface defenses.”
Mose let out a measured breath. Anti- nanotech. The tightness in his belly eased as though a spring had been loosened inside. She was not making nanotech weapons, as he’d automatically assumed. Quite the opposite, if Shell was right. “If her research is classified, how did you come by it?”
“By the same channels by which we contacted a Terran paramilitary organization without the Council’s knowledge,” Sand said. They volunteered no more, but Mose didn’t expect them to. Instead, they tapped the palanquin’s hull in a different place, and a slim dataport opened in its side. Sand removed a data sliver from the pouch they wore and slid it into the aperture. “The sliver contains the information we’ve been able to gather on Lacharoksa. Her schedule, known associates, and possible district of residence.”
“I suppose an exact address is too much to ask,” Mose said.
“Her home address is classified above our capability to extract,” Shell said shortly. “Likewise the location of her research lab. At least, if we wish to remain undetected.”
Mose inclined his head. “Understood. This is more than enough to start with.” He found the hairline crack Sand had pressed and opened the palanquin’s hatch.
“There’s one more thing,” Sand said. “When you finally go after her, you’re going to need protection.”
“Protection?” Mose asked. He almost added that he knew Shomoro was a seph as well as a scientist, and that if they knew what he was, they wouldn�
��t be worried about his ability to handle a target with the same skillset and training. That he’d done so—how many times? Enough that he had to think about the number.
“Shomoro Lacharoksa is working on anti-nanotech defenses,” Shell said slowly, as though explaining a rudimentary concept Mose should have already grasped. “It follows that any enhancements in that area the Project may have given you may prove useless, and may even be a liability.”
Enhancements in that area . . . like the nanotech swarm that kept him alive? And Shomoro’s research focused on nanotech—on disabling it—or on reprogramming it?
The gentle brush of a tendril startled Mose out of the cascade of inferences that had rushed over him.
“Mose Attarrish?” Sand asked gently, withdrawing their tendril.
Mose realized he’d been silent for at least two seconds and surfaced enough to say, “Forgive me. I’m assuming you have alternatives to suggest?” He carefully kept his outward attention on the Veert, but below the surface his mind was still churning.
The fake enthusiasm to be on his way had been replaced with the real thing. He longed to ask them more about Shomoro’s associates, to confirm Pri was among them and ask where she might be found, but he didn’t dare reveal what he already knew.
“We can do better than suggest,” Shell said. “The data sliver contains a rendezvous point where you can meet one of our associates. They will verify their identity by sending an encrypted key that matches one on the data sliver. Our associate will then outfit you with the necessary equipment, should you elect to use it.”
“How will I find them?” Mose asked.
“Your palanquin has a tracker. They’ll find you.”
Mose bowed, braced a foot on the hatchway, and levered himself into the palanquin. The cradle’s spars adjusted themselves under his belly to provide comfortable support. A tap on the start button to one side of the keyboard brought the beast to life: The engine under the deck hummed, making the control panel’s buttons and levers shiver.
Shell clasped their tendrils around their head and returned the bow. “May your waters remain unclouded, Mose Attarrish, until we meet again.”
“The same to you,” he said. Mose keyed the door shut, and it sealed with a satisfied hiss. Holofoil coruscated with white static, then a view of the inside of the cavern coalesced on the screens. The high-definition image made it seem like he was out in the open, merely sitting on a pedestal of exposed machinery. A few feet away, Sand bent their stalk and turned the wheel on the waterlock sunk into the floor; it opened on a dark sheen of still water. Shell slid open a hidden panel on the wall and manipulated some controls. A cylindrical elevator cage rose on tracks out of the waterlock, its circumference just big enough to accommodate his palanquin. Its door swung open in invitation.
Mose stared down that dark throat of water for the space of three breaths, his hands motionless on the levers that would motor the palanquin forward. The journey ahead was an unwelcome reminder of the capsule craft. Once he descended into the tunnel, he would be ensconced again in darkness and machinery. But the answers to his questions were on the other end . . . and, just maybe, the answer to the question his life had become. He drove the palanquin into the elevator cage and swiveled to face the door as it shut, and the elevator began to descend.
Water surrounded him in a vertical greenish blue column; then the waterlock’s hatch shut and darkness filled the cockpit.
He blinked as too-bright lighting activated in the palanquin’s ceiling. After finding the switch to dial it down, he located the external lights and thumbed them on in time to see the elevator settle to the bottom of the shaft. A murky stone tunnel stretched in front of him.
Mose realized he had no idea how to get to the rendezvous point Shell had spoken of. Without a map, he could probably wander this underground canal for days. Then he thought to access the data sliver: sure enough, it included a path-finding program. Its map of the underground layers of Anmerresh was simplified to the point of being unusable as a means of discovering the Veert’s hideout. Mose guessed the program would scrub its path taken to prevent tracebacks as well.
A surface access point on the map had been marked with a circle; Mose tapped it, and the pathfinder program took over navigation. The elevator door opened, and with a muted whine of propellers the palanquin eased itself into the long stone throat that would lead him back to the city he knew.
Chapter Twenty
A new specter of fear stalked Diego Two’s streets. A caul of death had settled over the Universal Church, casting even the ivory spire of the Arrow in its shadow. It haunted the dreams of those few important or unlucky enough to know about it, setting them to discussing in hushed tones that the old days were back—the days before the war for Olios 3, when an unknown foe had reached out from beyond the Thicket to wrap the human heart of the city in coils of terror.
Yet everyone in the know admitted that this time was different.
There had been no demands, no manifestos, no bloody public defiance. Just killing: a silent, methodical extermination. In the last three standard months, five of the White Arrow bases in the city had been broken into and wiped out.
Robert Engel had flown in to investigate the fifth.
He leaned back in his padded seat and listened to the hum of the aircar as it made its descent. The passenger compartment was an elongated teardrop, with a U-shaped couch lining the curved stern wall. Wide tinted windows to either side colored the spires of the city a deep yellow, as though they’d been carved from gold. Despite the relatively minuscule size of the towers, the scene reminded him of the final approach to Church headquarters in Jericho, Rosetta, the white and golden spires rising up all around him as the shuttle slid smoothly into its final descent.
Of course, this effect was an illusion, however lovely. He was not coming home, and it would likely be weeks before he saw the Church tower that contained his gardens and cozy apartments.
A pang caressed Engel’s heart for Isaac and Abraham; he’d left his two Arashal charges behind in the care of attendants.
It was for their own safety. The Arashal had grown used to accompanying him, but he wouldn’t take them into this dragon’s den. For the city below was not Jericho, with its promise of paradise to be realized, but Diego Two, where souls were bought and sold like kindling.
To Carthage then I came, where a cauldron of unholy loves sang all about mine ears. The fragment of St. Augustine swirled around his mind, as unmoored as his own thoughts had been since he’d received the hyperwave call, three months ago and a thousand light-years away. By the very nature of the call, Engel had known the news would be urgent: On the short list of people who had a direct line to his chambers, none ranked lower than a grand minister. Yet even that foreknowledge wasn’t enough to prepare him for the tidings of Aival’s minister. And the pictures he’d sent . . .
“Sir?” A human voice over the intercom interrupted his thoughts. “We’re on final descent. Best strap yourself in.”
“Of course. Thank you, Riley.” He sipped the last of the water from his crystal tumbler and set the glass down on the arm of the couch. The armrest enfolded the glass like tar, sucking it away into the bowels of the ship to be cleaned and restocked in its cabinet. Engel pulled the simple nylon straps from the couch back and buckled himself in, adjusting his lapels once he was sure the straps were secure.
There was a bump as the shuttle contacted the landing pad. Engel was up from his seat before the seatbelt light turned off.
A quarter of the shuttle’s wall behind the windows folded down, disgorging Engel into a bright Diego Two day. A breeze whipped his face with moist heat, making him grateful he had not worn his robe of office for this trip.
The landing pad jutted from the side of a skyscraper that was a geometric silver spike accreted with more landing pads farther up. The windows were slivers narrow as blades slashed into the building’s metal skin. It made him think of something a minimalist painter might create i
n a drug-addled fugue. Engel frowned as he stared up at its jagged height and quickly made his way across the tarmac toward the elevator. It slid open as he reached it, and he was surprised to find he knew the man inside.
“Enkidu! This is a surprise. I thought you would already be at ground zero.” He reached through the open elevator door and shook the other man’s hand. To his credit, Grand Minister Gomambwe didn’t miss a beat, sliding his hand from under his white and gold robe to grip Engel’s.
“Hello, Father. I’m glad you could make it.” He made room for Engel in the elevator car. “I was at ground zero, but I came up to make sure you were . . . prepared.”
Engel stepped in beside Gomambwe, who pushed the button to descend.
As the car clanked to a start, Engel said, “I am prepared. I assure you, in the three months I’ve been in transit, I’ve done little but prepare for what I would find here.”
They descended in silence after that, except for their breathing. The absence of his Arashal wards felt even more acute in the small space: Engel kept expecting to smell their familiar musty scent, hear the saw of their breathing amplified by the nearby walls. He’d grown so used to sharing his space with them that sometimes he felt like a farmer being followed around by two docile, reptilian cows.
Not cows , Engel corrected himself. They may have been as gentle as those beasts of Earth, but the similarity ended there—for Arashal had souls. He could no more compare them to cows than he could a human to a statue.
He thought again of the ransacked Arrow bases, documented in the file accompanying Gomambwe’s distressed call: the bodies lying butchered in reception halls and barracks, left to rot in rooms soaked with putrid blood. Most of the victims had been either human or Urd, though there were Arashal in a few shots—employed as attendants and cut down by the unknown assassins as callously as the rest. His heart ached for the Arashal: all that simple goodness, all that potential extinguished in a wash of yellow gore.
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