Delphi Promised (Targon Tales Book 4)

by Chris Reher

  “No, they didn’t. But I need you to know. Now. In case I don’t get that chance again.”

  “Shh, let’s pretend we’re not lost in the Badlands.” She reached up to smooth his furrowed brow. “Should have listened to me years ago.”

  “You were a child years ago.” He grinned. “And so was I. Tychon would certainly have had none of it. I could almost hear him grumble.” He sent her a mental impression of the elder Delphian, exaggerated in playful detail. “Son, you’re barely fifty years old. Grow your braid a little longer before you come courting my only daughter.”

  Cyann stifled her laughter. “And then you go and cut it off.”

  His smile faded when he bent to kiss her, gently, taking his time until, suddenly, he froze.

  “What is it?” she said when he looked over her shoulder to the door. She turned. “Uh, hello.”

  One of the smaller Jur stood in the opening, regarding them silently.

  How long has that one been standing there?

  Jovan flipped on his translator. “Please visit,” he said, copying some of the Jur guide’s words.

  “Come with me,” the Jur said, using perfectly understandable Delphian. “Hurry.”

  “What the...” Cyann pulled out of Jovan’s embrace and came to her feet. This one was considerably smaller than their guide and dressed in what were little more than rags. Something about the Jur’s presence, as amorphous and formless as the others, seemed feminine. “Why? Can you open that door for us?”

  “Not allowed. My name is Tik. Come with me.” Her speech was high-pitched and accompanied by a melodious trilling deep in her throat.

  “This is about Kiran,” Cyann guessed. “You were sent by him.”

  “Yes.”

  “Anders,” Jovan said into his microphone. “Are you there?”

  It took a few moments but Nigel’s voice finally reached them. “Anders went to lie down. He’s feeling woozy. Might upchuck, too.”

  Jovan crouched before the little Jur. “Will we be able to return to the ship soon? Are we prisoners?”

  “I don’t know. Come with me.” The Jur’s luminous colors flickered red and purple, seemingly in agitation.

  “Nigel, we may have made contact with Kiran. Going to check it out. Get Anders to stay still and run another scan. Check for bruises or bleeding around his brain. We’ll return to the ship as soon as we’re able.”

  “How do you know they’ll let you?” Nigel said. “So far they haven’t been too generous with the facts.”

  “Neither have we,” Cyann replied. “But this one speaks Delphian.”

  “Come!” the Jur said and this time the urgency in her voice was clear. “Hurry.” She stepped into the passage.

  Jovan and Cyann followed her through a series of empty bubble spaces that by now seemed almost familiar. But soon the spaces narrowed and became darker. Some of the walls were unevenly formed, even crumbled in places. The Jur led them on a steady downward path, taking countless turns and ducking through more of the narrow tunnels.

  “Nigel, are you tracking us?” Jovan said.

  “You’re circling but moving downward. Signal is fading, though.”

  “Fading?”

  “Yeah, you’re entering that blurred area I noticed before. I can’t scan into it. Not precisely shielded. Just a lot of interference. Something’s in this rock that our sensors can’t get through.”

  Cyann halted to peer through a gap in the wall. A vast hollow area lay beyond, filled with row upon row of stone walls of some sort. The air was humid here and warmer than above. Thick mats of purplish-brown growth draped over the stone rows, dripping with water. A number of Jur were moving among these, carrying bundles of the fibrous material away into the side passages. “Look. Food source maybe.”

  Jovan peered over her shoulder. “Algae? Looks like seaweed.”

  “The color is a lot like the stuff they’re wearing.”

  “Come,” Tik said. She reached up to tug on Jovan’s hand. “Don’t let them see you. They may tell the guides.”

  The trio continued onward, still moving lower into the hollowed crater. When Jovan tried again he was no longer able to reach Nigel. Worse, the khamal he shared with Cyann was also fading. Can you feel me? I’m barely able to maintain the link.

  I don’t like this.

  Tik stopped near another opening into a narrow tunnel made of metal. “You will slide a bit but you won’t fall. Lie down in there.” She seemed to notice their great reluctance to squeeze their larger bodies into the chute. “It’s safe. The guides don’t come this way. Only some of the engineers sometimes.”

  Cyann sighed. “We’re putting a lot of faith into you, Little One.”

  “Tik,” the Jur corrected.

  These people have no sense of humor, Cyann sent to Jovan.

  He grinned. I’ll go first.

  Stop treating me like a baby. You’ve lost that privilege now. She shifted her air tank from her back and followed the Jur’s direction to enter the tunnel feet first by grasping a chipped ledge above the entrance. Sliding awkwardly and hampered by her loose coveralls, she began to regret her impulse to prove her toughness to Jovan. The walls of the tunnel were cold enough to engage her suit’s temperature controls. “Gods, we’re either very close to the ice core or that little alien has taken us outside the asteroid.”

  “I was trying not to think that,” he replied from somewhere above her.

  Cyann exhaled a tense breath when the tunnel ended only a short distance below her and she was able to wriggle out of the space and onto relatively solid ground.

  “Yes, we were outside the big rock,” Tik said. “Three of these conduits connect to the... bean.”

  “Bean?”

  “Shaped like that. I think you call it bean.”

  Cyann looked around. Again, this chamber was rounded, if not as spherical as the hollowed spaces on the main asteroid. “Why is this here? That big rock is massive.”

  “The ice is here. We live here to bring it to the domes. For air and water. They give us food for it.”

  “So that’s your job?”

  “It was. Now I tend to Kiran. Come.” She slipped into a side passage and they hurried to keep up, barely able to squeeze through the cleft. Now more of her people passed them but this time they stopped to study them and did not duck out of sight at their approach. They were all of Tik’s size, perhaps chosen for the work in these small spaces because of it.

  I think social status goes by size here, Cyann sent to Jovan but felt only blankness there now. She turned and saw by his expression that he had no luck, either. Then the mental connection between them severed entirely and she no longer felt his presence inside her head.

  “At least we know now why you’re having such trouble holding on to Kiran’s thoughts.”

  She nodded. “I wonder what he’s doing down here.”

  “Hiding,” Tik said. She turned a corner into a larger space. Several of her kindred turned upon their arrival and Cyann had a peculiar impression of guards at the door. Ahead of them another opening led into a more brightly lit hollow. Tik stopped them. “He said to tell you it’s all right. That you won’t like this. I don’t know why. But he is not like you. He is not...” she stopped to grapple with something but her unmovable face revealed nothing. “He’s not still.”

  “Why is he hiding?”

  “Because they think he’s dead. They will kill him if they knew he was here. Then all is lost.” She paused again. “Maybe it is already.”

  Cyann actually shivered, so much more because of the Jur’s hopeless words than the cold that was creeping into her suit despite its well-designed technology. “Let me see him,” she whispered.

  Tik took Cyann’s wrist and tugged her along. The space they now entered was larger than any they had traversed on this asteroid piece and illuminated by lamps that they actually recognized. Still, it took a moment to discern the tall, slender shape pressed into a natural curve in the rock wall.

&
nbsp; Impossibly thin, not due to starvation but through long exposure to reduced gravity, the Delphian stared back at them as if they were figures come alive out of a story book. He was dressed in a collection of rags combined with some of the Jur’s rough cloth and, like them, barefoot in spite of the cold. The blue hair hung in unheeded strands to his waist. The pale Delphian skin showed a blue hue usually seen only on the very ill or old among their people. He seemed accustomed to the air here and breathed without a respirator.

  She took a step closer. “Kiran?”

  He regarded her silently.

  She glanced at Jovan. “It’s me, Cyann,” she said, feeling silly for stating the obvious, but there was nothing in his expression to show them how he felt about this meeting. “We’ve come for you.”

  He stepped away from the wall. She gasped when his face moved out of the shadows. The gaunt features were so very much like Tychon’s that no doubt remained of who they had found here among these strange people. His pale blue eyes moved from her to Jovan and then back again. “Cyann,” he said as if tasting the word.

  She dared not breathe when he raised a blue-nailed hand to touch her face, barely making contact with her skin. “Cyann,” he repeated after a while, whispering. “You came. You heard me. I’ve been trying for so long.”

  She smiled. “Of course I came. I’ve been hearing you always. I didn’t know it was you.”

  “Such a difficult link,” he said. “But I felt your pain. That’s when I found my way to you. You’re so beautiful,” he marveled.

  She raised her arms to embrace him, moving carefully until he did the same. She winced when she felt the slight body that, although he was far taller than she, seemed without substance. “I can’t believe we found you.”

  “Yes.” He looked at Jovan. “Got any food?”

  Cyann blinked and stepped back. “Huh?”

  Kiran turned abruptly to walk to the far end of the space only to turn around and stride back again. “Food. Sweets would be nice. The stuff we have to eat here is terrible! Terrible!”

  Jovan dug an emergency kit from one of his pockets. Cyann watched him, startled by the oddity of the moment. “You’ve missed much, then,” she stammered.

  “Yes! These people don’t even smile! Smile for me, Cyann. Someone please smile!” He stared at them as if expecting some sort of magic trick. “Or sneer. A good sneer would be fine, too. Anything but these blank faces.”

  Jovan handed a few ration packets to Kiran. “That one is sweet, sort of,” he said.

  Kiran wandered off again, peeling the top from the package. “That’s your mate, little sister? A Delphian, huh?” He came back with a mouth full of whatever he had chosen. “Humans not good?” He pointed at Jovan. “Where’s your hair, Delphi?”

  “What’s happened to you?” Cyann said, stunned.

  He laughed harshly. “Trying to save your asses, I am,” he said. “So where’s Tychon?”

  Jovan turned to Tik. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Tik did not reply. She went to where Kiran stood now facing away from them, mumbling into his food. She reached up to touch him, like a child asking to be lifted into a grown-up’s arms. He looked down at her and said something. When she replied he nodded and patted her head.

  Kiran turned back to them. “Spent years on this rock,” he said. “Years! That can make a man a little...” he gestured vaguely. “Eccentric! So Tychon did not come?”

  “No,” Cyann said. “He is guarding the keyhole. Do you know what’s happened?”

  “Of course I know. Twenty years to bring them there and it’s all for nothing. I failed. I failed! Should have killed me when they could, back there on Shaddallam. Now we’re all dead. It’s too late. You’re too late. Where’s Tychon? We need Tychon if this is going to work.” He drummed his fingers on his chest and looked very thoughtful for a moment. Then his eyes wandered back to Cyann and he smiled broadly. “Isn’t she beautiful?” he said, taking her arm to turn her toward Jovan. “I made her, you know? Switched things around a bit for Nova. And here she is, pretty baby.” He leaned conspiratorially closer to Jovan. “I ought to lecture on this. Much easier to muck about mommy’s DNA than try to alter things later.” He jerked his head toward Tik.

  Jovan nodded. “We suspected that’s what happened.”

  “Suspect? Suspect they did!” Kiran threw his hands up and paced away from them. Cyann saw a ladder of thin scars on his forearms, too deliberate to be anything but the result of lonely hours spent in battle with his own tortured mind.

  “Jovan, can you do anything for him?” she said, close to tears. This was the mighty Tughan Wai? This was the boy whose loss had haunted not just Tychon but most of Delphi’s Shantirate for all these years?

  Kiran’s eyes snapped to Jovan. “You’re a Shantir? The ones that made me? And all you can do is suspect? Brilliant! I don’t think I ever thanked you. I’ll have to remember to do that.” He shook his head. “Shantir with a gun. Why do you need a gun, Shantir?”

  “Please, Kiran,” Cyann said. “He might be able to help you.”

  “No, Little Blue,” Kiran said. He tapped his forehead. “No, no, no. Dangerous. Tughan is very dangerous. Mustn’t touch.”

  Jovan took a deep breath and stepped forward before Kiran had a chance to react. He gripped a frail arm in one hand and placed the other along the side of Kiran’s head. The two men stood in silence until Jovan’s hand began to shake as if he had to strain to keep it on Kiran. Or as if he was trying and unable to tear it away. He groaned.

  “Jovie!” Cyann braced a foot against a nearby wall and shoved him away from Kiran. She overestimated the asteroid’s gravity and he slammed into the opposite wall and then fell to the floor. She rushed to him.

  “You didn’t mean that I’m sure,” Kiran said.

  “What did you do to him?”

  “Answered some questions,” Kiran returned his attention to his food.

  “Jovan?” She helped him sit up. “Are you all right?”

  He nodded, breathing in harsh gasps.

  “What happened? What did you see?”

  “The Shantirs were right. The Tughan cannot be contained by one person. He’s... he’s taken too many. He’s become too many.”

  Kiran came to crouch beside them. “He means I’ve gone crazy, I think. Do you have any more of this?”

  Numbly, Cyann reached for her own emergency pack and handed it to him.

  “The Jur guide was also right,” Jovan said, running a hand over his eyes. “There was a huge destruction on their world. Kiran helped them escape and create these habitats here. He knew the asteroid was heading for Trans-Targon.”

  Kiran shook his head. “Genesis Cloud,” he corrected.

  “You knew?”

  “Yes. Wasn’t poisoned then, though. Would have sailed through without bothering anyone much. As long as you don’t do something stupid like fly into the plasma spikes!” He laughed. “So it makes a fine space ship, doesn’t it? The Jur don’t have the mental to span sub-space. I hoped they would make it to Katra Four. There is a moon there that’ll fit them nicely. Is this thornberry? From Magra?”

  She peered at the package in his hand. “Yes. You meant to save them? By bringing them to Trans-Targon?”

  “Nothing for them out here.” He rose to show the berry paste to Tik.

  “He didn’t mean to stay with them,” Jovan said. “The asteroid will get there on its own. The design of those drop pods is workable.”

  “Of course it is,” Kiran said. “Designed by Air Command’s finest engineers. I ate two of them. Engineers, not pods.” He reflected on this. “No, three, I think. They weren’t happy about it.”

  “Ate?”

  “Absorbed their mental processes, memories, knowledge,” Jovan said. “What the Tughan was designed to do.”

  “Wasn’t designed to kill, though, was it?” Kiran said.”Was it!”

  “No.”

  “Did, though. And now everyone is sorry.”

&
nbsp; “Yes,” Cyann said impatiently. “Everyone is sorry. But it can’t be undone. Can we get back to the asteroid?”

  “We are on the asteroid,” Kiran said with a disquieting giggle. “Floating right into that keyhole. Nothing Nova can do. Nothing Tychon can do. It’ll kill everybody.” He sat on the floor against a wall and rested his elbows on his knees. “You tell her. I’m very busy.”

  “His plan was to help them settle here and drift into Trans-Targon. They’ve already made two jumps without much damage. But the asteroid’s trajectory hasn’t come by any useful planets. So Trans-Targon is their best chance. He figured that someone there would understand what was happening and assist them.”

  “She knows that part! Tell her about the comet.”

  “Yes. The asteroid passed through a comet tail a few years ago. Some of the dust and ice impacted and the virus mutated in the atmosphere outside, living on those extremophiles we found in the pod. They don’t affect the Jur’s food source, grown below the surface.”

  “But they will in Trans-Targon,” Cyann said.

  “The most densely populated sector I’ve encountered,” Kiran said. “And I’ve been traveling out here since I was but a lad.”

  “Kiran came back a while ago to see how the Jur were doing. They are suffering on this rock but they’re surviving. Barely. When he realized what happened with the comet he decided to stay and change the asteroid field’s trajectory away from Trans-Targon.”

  “And that didn’t work?”

  “He never got to try. The Jur got angry when he told them of his plan. They can think of nothing but reaching Trans-Targon, the promised new home world. Even if that means bringing harm to other worlds. They destroyed his ship so that he could not use his abilities to divert the asteroid field away from the keyhole. He tried to convince some of the others. The... non-guides. Workers. Breeders. When the guides tried to kill him he fled into the lower levels.” Jovan gestured at Tik. “He made some friends.”

  “Can’t do it from here,” Kiran explained. “Too much wrong energy here for me, for the Shantir. Trapped, like you are now. All lost.”

  “So that’s when you started to call for help? To send those messages to me?”