Atheron was looking out at the northern lights with little interest.
“We will wait,” he told Xenon, “until we are in the lightning zone, once we have crowned the summit. It would be quite natural that a particularly fierce bolt of lightning should cause the door to the cage to swing open, and who could wonder at it if one of the occupants should be … most unfortunately … unable to stop herself from plummeting to the ground.”
Xenon nodded. “And it is such a long way down,” he agreed. “There would be no chance at all of surviving such a fall.”
Atheron was almost cheery. “None at all,” he agreed. “The chances of being struck by lightning must be very high, and if the person falling were to escape that, then the lack of air would kill them, or the cold, of course.” He looked satisfied. “And in any case they would impact upon the ground at a large velocity, which would probably serve to make the actual cause of death totally unknowable.”
Grace felt her blood turn to ice at the thought of what was going to happen to her. She felt faint, and had to close her eyes tightly to stop herself from slumping into unconsciousness. It looked horribly as if Arcan and the others were simply not going to make it in time. She thought about the people she would never see again, and one tear tracked down her cheek. She began to shiver with terror, an unwelcome reaction, but one she found herself unable to stop.
Atheron’s fingers went to a small satchel he was carrying, and he opened it. Grace’s eyes widened even more as she saw him draw out a slim canister. He did something to the top of it, and then paused.
“They will be waiting at one of the stops,” he said calmly. “Either here, at the Blue Ray platform or at the Summit, or at Lightning Corner. We must be ready to act at all three.”
Xenon slid his eyes furtively in the direction of his sister, and then looked just as quickly away again. “True,” he agreed. “—If we want the other part of the plan to work.”
“Of course it will. They won’t have even considered our motives. The orthogel entity is too naïve, and the others are too hasty. They will have no thought of anything except saving their friend. Once they realize that we have another agenda, it will be far too late for them to do anything about it!”
Grace gave an audible moan, causing the two Sellites to look at her again.
“Moan all you like,” her brother told her, “you will only help our cause!” And they laughed together, the white beard of Atheron twitching with amusement. Grace felt sick to her stomach, and as cold as a north wind on Kwaide.
THEY HEARD THE noise of the cage as it gradually came to a halt on the platform. Arcan drifted forward, slightly in front of the others, to protect them from the Sellites. He wanted to be in a position to see everything, to be able to transport his friends instantly out of danger if they needed it. His shape swelled and darkened slightly as the cage came to a smooth halt, and the doors opened. He could see that this cage was occupied, and that it contained the people they had been waiting for.
“Arcan,” Diva made to push him aside. “Let me go first!”
Six was not to be left behind. Both he and Ledin tried to push past the orthogel entity too.
Arcan grew even larger, and more menacing. “Stay back!” he told them. “I can deal with this. All I have to do is transport the two Sellites back to—”
At that moment they all saw a strong orange flash. Arcan’s voice, heard in their thoughts, trailed to an abrupt stop, and his shape failed, the resultant orthogel mass congealing into a patch of jelly on the floor of the platform.
Six, Ledin and Diva leapt forward, weapons at the ready, trying to avoid stepping on the mass which only a moment ago had been Arcan. “Come and fight, Atheron!” shrieked Diva, absolutely beside herself with fury.
But there was only a dry laugh from the Sellite white beard. He had already pushed an override button to close the rexelene doors in front of him, and at the same time those of the outer cage. “And what are you planning to do?” he jeered dryly. “Hack your way through steel with that knife? Good luck with that one!”
The three friends gazed at each other in dismay. Grace was in front of them, in plain view, yet they were unable to do anything about it. Six caught hold of the iron bars which made up the gate, and shook them roughly, as if brute force would be able to open them.
Inside Xenon smiled coldly at them. “Did you really think we would make so many mistakes? How very shortsighted of all of you. Really, it never pays to underestimate your enemy, you know!” Then he walked over to the bound figure of his sister, and jerked her head back to make sure that she was staring right into the eyes of all her friends. “Say goodbye, Grace!” He dropped his sister, and spread his hands wide. “These journeys around the Xianthes are very dangerous, you know. Sometimes, even if all precautions have been taken, accidents will happen!”
Ledin found himself staring at Grace, whose eyes met his for a long moment. He felt his own heart falter, draining the strength out of his muscles. “Grace!” he whispered. “Grace!” Tears of frustration sprang into his eyes, but he did nothing to remove them. He saw, distorted through a thin film, the one person he had ever fallen in love with accept that no help would come, and it broke his heart. Grace was trying to smile through the gag which bound her mouth, but all she could do was stare at them all. Everything seemed to pass in slow motion.
Six grabbed Diva by the hand as they stared uselessly at Grace. He thought back to the young girl who had saved both of them from certain death, who had taken on the whole of her planet on their behalf, and he froze where he was, unable to drag his eyes away from the scene in front of him.
Diva felt Six’s hand in hers, but it hardly impinged on her thoughts. Her brain was whizzing wildly in an attempt to think of something they could do to get her out of there, but there was nothing. Any moment now the cage would resume its ride to the top of the Xianthe, and they would never see Grace again. She willed her recalcitrant brain to make some sense of things, to come up with a solution, to find a loophole in Atheron’s plans, to bring the Sellite down. Nothing. She stared at Grace in absolute horror, her brain unable to accept that this would be the way she would have to remember her friend for ever, that she would never see her again.
Cimma had put one hand up to the cage, and the other covered her mouth. She was trying to tell her daughter how much she loved her, but no sound was coming out. She tried to smile, to transmit her feelings to Grace, but all she could do was sob. She was seeing everything through a mist of such pain as she had never felt before. Her body shuddered as it stood there, threatening to fail her now. She rather wished it would, that she might die before her daughter was murdered by her son. Still she stood, staring and weeping. She swayed again, and then brought both hands to the bars of the cage, spreading them out in the Sellite salute. May the heavenly triangle protect you, she willed with all her strength. May Almagest go with you!
Ten frozen minutes stuttered past so slowly that it almost felt as if time had stopped. The Xianthan, the man who kept canths, watched sadly at the sights in front of him. He saw feelings melt from anger to blind impotence. He saw a dreaded acceptance creep into the soul. He saw absolute sorrow and utter despair.
Finally the cage gave an almost imperceptible shake, and began to accelerate away from the platform. Six rattled the doors of the platform desperately and shouted, but it made no difference. Ledin shook his head, his own heart far too heavy to speak.
Before their horrified eyes, Grace was carried away, up towards the summit, and then to certain death.
GRACE FELT NOTHING. In those few moments she had seen her fate reflected in the people she loved, and had seen Arcan’s defeat at the hands of Atheron. She closed her eyes again, a prickling feeling behind them warning her of more tears, but the rest of her was in suspended animation. She no longer felt cold, or miserable, or unwilling. She had progressed into some sort of superior place where none of this was in the least little bit important.
She was looking d
own at everything that was happening from some great distance, and was about to see one tiny flame snuffed out, one insignificant life cease to exist. It was supremely inconsequent. She was nothing more than a mote of dust in a massive universe, and she could look down and see the total irrelevance of her short life, all too soon to be over.
The irony of the sights outside the cage was sharp. To see the majesty of the Xianthes, and then to have your life extinguished in front of such beauty! There was a certain kind of inevitability about that, a certain kind of aptness. It was almost seductive, poetical.
But looking down on the cage showed its two other occupants. They would get away with her murder, she realized in a detached sort of way. It did seem a pity that wrong would conquer right. It didn’t seem very fair. But who could expect fair? The hundreds of donor apprentices who were buried back on Valhai? Perhaps she was meant to atone for the Sellite indifference to those lives. Yes, surely that was true. Atonement. That felt fair.
From her vantage point above she could tell that the heart pumping blood around her body was failing, that the blood pressure had plummeted. She felt like laughing. Perhaps they wouldn’t have to push her out of the cage, after all? Then she sternly told her heart to do its work. She would NOT do their dirty work for them, and die before they played out their little plan. That would spoil everything. How could she face the dead donor apprentices then?
Xenon looked around at his sister, and wondered what she was thinking. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed at peace with herself. She almost looked as she had when she had been a little girl, and they had played together in the 256th skyrise. He frowned suddenly, and stopped himself thinking about that. She deserved everything she got, and more. It was, after all, all her fault! If she hadn’t interfered with the donor apprentices everything would have gone just as it should have, and he would be richer by now, able to enjoy a semi-retirement. All her own fault. No question of that.
Atheron was picturing the day he would be accepted back as head of Sell. It was a pleasant picture, and he was smiling to himself.
BACK ON THE Blue Ray Platform, the others dropped to their knees to try to help Arcan.
“Is he dead?” asked the Xianthan.
Diva bit her lip. “I don’t know. It is possible that this part of him is, although this is only a tiny part of Arcan. The rest of him is still on Valhai, so he should be all right. I don’t know if these cells can regenerate and revive or not. Six?”
Six shook his head. “No idea.”
Their only hope was to somehow revive him, but it was not looking a viable solution. The orthogel entity – at least that part of him which was on this planet – was far beyond reaction. And there was no way to contact the other Arcan, so far away. The visitor was many miles below them, unable to be of assistance, and the space shuttle high in orbit, also out of reach. They looked at each other disconsolately.
“We must take the following cage,” The canth keeper told them.
“NO!” They all spoke together.
“It is the only thing to do,” he insisted. “Staying here is pointless. We must get what is left of your friend into a cage, and carry him down to the base of the Xianthe. Maybe we can get help for him there. And the only way we have to do that is to take a cage. If we are lucky enough to find the next cage unoccupied, then we should take it. Or do you intend to stay here forever?”
Diva caught Cimma’s eye, then gave a reluctant nod. “He is right,” she said at last. “What is the use of staying here? We should move Arcan. He is our friend too, and he needs our help too. G-G-Grace is … b-beyond our help now.” She stopped to take a ragged breath, before managing to finish what she was saying. “We are going to have to consider Arcan.”
Ledin and Six dispiritedly gave a nod, and began to scrape up armfuls of orthogel. “Where shall we put him?” asked Six tonelessly.
The Xianthan hurried forward, pulling open a cupboard to the back of the platform. “There must be something here,” he said. “There are always emergency supplies in case something goes wrong and visitors are stranded up here for some time.”
He rummaged around inside the cupboard, until he pulled out a strong box, made of polished wood. “Here, put him in here.”
They hurried to oblige. They had thirty minutes before the next cage was due, but there was a lot to do.
Chapter 15
AS THE CAGE she was in reached the Summit Platform, Grace felt herself float down and rejoin her body. Instantly she became aware again of the supreme discomfort she was feeling, the cold, the damp, the biting gag in her mouth, the difficulty breathing through it. She opened her eyes and looked out, outwards from the rexelene container, from the metal cage, out into the black sky and the stars.
For they were almost above the stratosphere now. The northern lights were still visible, especially the red Elves, but they were looking down onto them. The sky in front was black, outer space, and dotted with an infinity of stars and galaxies.
Grace caught sight momentarily of the Pictoris, in the Giant Crab Constellation, all those light years away. She remembered the avifauna – Six’s booby birds – and felt a wave of sadness that she would never have the chance to visit them again. Her eyes took in the huge orb of Cian, much bigger than it had ever been on Valhai, and the crescent of Cesis with a red Almagest glowing brightly behind it. Valhai wasn’t visible, at least from her position, and that saddened her too. She would have liked to see it one last time. She grimly blocked the thought of the people who might miss her and wondered what Diva would do in this situation – not that Diva would ever be stupid enough to get herself into a situation like this! Finally she made herself stare as defiantly as she could at Atheron. There was no other way to fight back. Even Diva would have found no better weapon.
The Sellite caught her fierce glare, and laughed. “Do you really think I care if you look at me?” he gloated, making Xenon turn around in surprise from his own contemplation of space. “As if I care for one small girl! You are simply an impediment. Nothing more.”
Grace kept her eyes fixed on his, and tried not to blink, not to break that fragile connection for even a split second. She had no particular goal, no particular plan, but it made her feel that at least she was doing something to help herself. A very little thing, true, but it was something. She endeavoured to transmit how very much she despised him, how she thought him a traitor to his world, how she hated what he had become.
Finally Atheron walked over to her, and ripped the gag off. “What?” he demanded. “What is it that you want to say to me, girl?”
Grace was gulping in great gasps of air gratefully, and found at first that when she tried to speak she couldn’t. Her tongue had furred over and swollen up inside her mouth. It took her almost a minute before she could vocalize any words at all.
“Your plan won’t work!” she told him.
“Of course it will work! I have thought of everything.” The head of the education house stroked his beard. “It is true that it would have been easier if we had been able to get you into to one of the space shuttles, and up to the trader waiting in orbit, but – all in all – things have worked out pretty well. Your great friend Arcan is out of action—”
“Only temporarily.”
“Rubbish. You saw what happened to him! He literally turned to jelly!” Atheron laughed, showing his exultance.
Grace shook her head. “Arcan is still whole, on Valhai,” she insisted. “You have only put a tiny part of him out of action. And for how long? You don’t know, do you?”
“I have already arranged for the orthogel entity to be taken care of, on Valhai. It will be long enough, believe me, to give me time for what I have in mind. And your … your precious Arcan is now powerless to stop me. Sell will belong to the Sellites again by the time I have finished, and Xenon and I will be ruling the whole binary system! All I have to do is expose him to the new orange compound before the alien recovers. That is why we have been producing more.”
&nbs
p; “Arcan will find it! He knows what you are doing now, and he will stop you. There is nowhere on Valhai you can hide from him!”
“Oh? And who said we were producing it on Valhai?”
“Arcan will be able to protect himself!”
“Yes. We have just seen exactly how protected he is!” And Atheron smiled at Xenon, inviting him to share the joke.
“He has melted into insignificance,” quipped Xenon.
“Ha ha! Very good, Xenon. Hadn’t thought of that one!” They both roared with laughter at the joke.
“So you are producing the orange compound on Cesis,” Grace hazarded, trying to get him to talk. If he were talking he would be less likely to put that horrible gag back in her mouth.
“You think you know so much!” jeered Xenon. “You know nothing, you hear? Nothing at all.”
Atheron had held up his hand, but it was too late. Grace knew her brother very well, and had already guessed the answer. “No,” she said. “You have been making it here, on Xiantha! You have brought your death and destruction to this beautiful planet. How could you?”
“None of your business, Grace. You already put that sharp nose of yours into one pie too many,” Xenon snapped.
“Where are you making it? Here, near the Xianthes?” Grace was watching her brother carefully now, trying to see by the tiny facial movements he made whether she could guess the answers. She caught a faint smile of disdain. “No. No, you would take it somewhere away from prying eyes, wouldn’t you? Somewhere even Arcan couldn’t find it. Somewhere nobody has been likely to visit.”
Xenon dropped his eyes, and Grace knew she was right. But she was given no chance to find out any further information. Atheron strode over to her and angrily tied the gag around her mouth again. He looked furious, and Grace felt a pinprick of satisfaction. At least she had got something out of it. She just wished she had a way to let the others know. They had to stop Atheron, and they would have no idea that he was fabricating the new orange compound here on Xiantha. That was terrible news.
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