It would be worth it just to see the look on Stewart’s smug face.
Of course, he thought, whatever happens after that is anybody’s guess. But it would still be worth it.
C H A P T E R 1 4
THE OVERSEERS, INTENT on their wounded in the infirmary, did not notice when the light panels began flashing to indicate a new shift cycle had begun. But Moodri noticed. This would be the shift cycle in which the ship reached its closest approach to the gravity-well sun. When that moment came, with the ship’s trajectory sufficiently altered and its normal-space kinetic energy at its highest level, the ship would translate back into the superluminal realm, hurtling it on onward to Terminus and to oblivion for the Tenctonese.
But it was also the shift in which the ship would make its closest approach to the third planet of that sun—the shift in which the rebellion’s plan would at last be enacted.
The light panels flashed, heralding the ship’s last hours.
But only if Melgil arrived as planned.
Moodri remained at Buck’s side, appearing to pay no attention to the nonstop traffic of Overseers, wounded and otherwise. In the past hour three more jabroka-enhanced workers had been thrown into the seething tank of salt water. Two other captured workers had been dissolved alive. From the Overseers’ tense exchanges Moodri knew that they suspected that the Tenctonese workers were following some organized plan—only that could account for the breakdown in routine aboard the ship, including the discovery of contraband jabroka. But so far the Overseers had not connected the seemingly unrelated acts of rebellion with the ship’s close approach to a planet capable of supporting Tenctonese life. To reach that planet would entail the cargo taking over the ship, and that was clearly unthinkable.
As if he were a simple Elder attending to a sick child, Moodri laid out divining crystals around Buck and told him stories of Old Tencton, relating how the Family: Heroes of Soren’tzahh had sailed across the Great Inland Sea to the Central Island, where so many secrets of the Tenctonese race were revealed in the ancient ruins of earlier, yet more advanced civilizations. He told Buck how the hidden strength of each Tenctonese was the body’s ability to adjust its genetic structure in response to outside environmental influences over the course of a single generation—perhaps the legacy of genetic engineering performed even before the settlements of the Central Island had been built. He gave Buck the gift of his history so the boy could set forth for the future—the old passing its wisdom to the young, just as Moodri had listened to the stories that his Elders had told on the tribal plains, among the blue fields filled with stars.
An Overseer intruded on them once. His uniform was torn, and his sweat smelled dank with panic as he summoned Cathy imperiously and told her that it was a waste of ship’s resources for the infirmary to treat cargo so young and so old as Buck and Moodri. He wanted to throw both of them into the recycler so there would be more room to treat the Overseers who were being injured in the sporadic fighting that was erupting in the service-access tunnels.
From the corner of his eye Moodri saw Buck take hold of a long crystal as if he intended to use it as a weapon. But Cathy told the Overseer that the boy was being treated by the authority of Coolock, and any change in the child’s status had to come from him.
The Overseer had retreated at once. Coolock had that much power. They had remained undisturbed since then.
After the shift lights flashed, Buck grew restless. “Isn’t it time, Uncle Moodri? Shouldn’t I be going to the bridge with my Watcher Group?”
Buck’s group would be assembling within the hour. But it would be useless for him to go without the circuitry key that would activate the stardrive.
“We must wait for the key,” Moodri said.
“Why can’t we go get it?”
“It has been carefully hidden for fifteen years, ever since we tested the design. We cannot go to it. We must wait for it to come to us.”
Then Melgil entered the infirmary, his large spots noticeably paler. He hobbled over to Moodri and Buck, cradling his right arm. “There are checkpoints everywhere,” he said, gasping for breath as if he had run through the corridors. “The Overseers have closed down the shift except for essential workers. The pressure doors are being closed.”
Moodri placed a hand on Melgil to calm him. “The pressure doors must be closed for our plan to work.”
But Melgil wasn’t calmed. “You don’t understand. The Overseers know!”
“The Overseers are confused,” Moodri said. “They may suspect many things, but they know nothing. There have been restless times on the ship before, moments of insurrection. Almost all of them following a heavy release of the gas. What they think is occurring now is nothing they have not experienced before.”
“But they found the assault squad. They found the cache of jabroka.”
“Did you think they would do otherwise?” Moodri drew his friend around so that their conversation would remain hidden from the Overseers still working with the injured on the infirmary’s other wall. “Jabroka touches something deep within our history. Something uncontrollable. It does not offer us the future, only the past.”
Melgil’s face was distorted in frustrated rage. “Now it offers us nothing. There is no one left who can force his way onto the bridge.”
Moodri held out a hand to his great-nephew. “Finiksa has an invitation.”
Melgil glared at the boy. “Finiksa would betray us to the Overseers for the sake of a black scarf.”
“No longer,” Buck said. He looked at Moodri with the peace of the goddess. “I am my father’s son, as he is his, back to the crossing of the Inland Sea.”
Melgil gazed at the child sharply, and Moodri knew the methods that the binnaum used to search within Buck’s mind and find the truth. And when Melgil had finished, Buck’s shoulders drew up square and proud. “Fear no more,” Melgil said, as if in a dream. He put his one good hand on Moodri’s arm. “Can it be done with so many of them around?”
“It must be done,” Moodri said.
Buck looked confused. “Can what be done?”
“The retrieval of the key,” Melgil answered, “from the one place no Overseer could ever search.”
The old binnaum began to pull back the white sleeve of his robe from his withered right arm. Buck’s eyes widened as he saw the network of old scars that ran across its dry and wrinkled flesh. “What the Overseers thought was an accident in the power plants,” Melgil explained. “Back before you were born. Fifteen years ago, when the key’s design was tested and the ship translated into normal space without warning. Surgery was necessary to reattach bones and muscles.”
“And to hide the key,” Moodri said. “I shall get Gelana.”
Since the shift change, the number of those entering and leaving the infirmary had noticeably lessened. There had been no further corpse disposals or executions, and the injured Overseers, once stable, had been carried out, presumably to better-equipped medical facilities in the Overseers’ section of the ship.
Two black-uniformed medics worked on one Overseer in a treatment harness. Another Overseer sprawled, dead, in a second harness. Other than that, Cathy and two other Cargo Specialists were the only people in the infirmary. They were cleaning up the discarded bandage wrappers and spilled blood.
Moodri went to Cathy. “It is time,” he said.
Cathy’s face was set in anger. “Not while Overseers remain here.”
“We have no choice.”
“They will close this infirmary.”
“The infirmary will no longer be needed.” Moodri leaned closer to her ear valley. “When you have completed the extraction, find some excuse to leave here. Gather as many children together as you can and prepare to go to the lower cargo bays when we have landed.”
Cathy stared at Moodri in a mixture of alarm and anguish. “Landed?” she said. “But . . . I thought . . .”
“That we would return to Tencton?” Moodri said kindly. He bowed his head. “Our home is
lost to us for now. Perhaps someday we will return, but not until we can face an entire fleet of ships. It is time for us to make a new home.”
“But where?”
“Its name I cannot tell you, but it waits for us, Gelana. As it has always waited for us since the day of the coming of the ships. And now, with your aid, this voyage will end and our new home will welcome us.” He held out his hand to her. “Come, it is time.”
Moodri returned to Buck’s sleeping platform. He had no doubt that Cathy would follow. And she did.
She carried a surgical kit in her hands and told Melgil to go over by the work station farthest from the Overseer medics and their patients. Melgil frowned. It was the work station closest to the recycling tank. But he went to it.
Buck tried to get up from his platform, but Moodri told him to stay in place. There could be no break in the routine as long as Overseers were present, and no action could be taken that would attract their attention. “Gelana is skilled. It will not take long. Tell me again what you are to do with the key once you reach the bridge.”
In a low voice Buck formally recited his assignment as both he and Moodri watched Cathy at work. “The Overseers in charge of the bridge functions will be working at the green consoles,” Buck said. “The stardrive consoles are behind them, painted blood-pink in warning.” Cathy prepared a three-needle injector and carefully slipped it into Melgil’s shoulder. “The Watcher Brigade will be led across the bridge to an observation area. We will pass between the green consoles and the pink consoles.” Cathy peeled the glittering wrap from a scalpel so thin that its blade seemed to disappear when she turned it sideways. “The control surfaces on the pink consoles will be locked to prevent the activation of any controls while we are in normal space.” She painted Melgil’s right forearm with a sparkling antiseptic liquid. “One control surface will remain accessible and will be marked with a flashing green light. It is the one that must be used to unlock the other controls. That is the port into which I will insert the circuitry key as I pass.” She held the scalpel over Melgil’s scarred skin.
“Then what will you do?” Moodri asked. It would only be a matter of moments before the key would be removed from its living hiding place. The goddess smiled.
“Alarms will immediately sound, and in the confusion I will run to the bridge-access tunnels and return to the cargo disk.”
Cathy made the first cut.
“How long will you have before the tunnels are sealed?”
“No more than fifty double beats.”
The infirmary door smashed open. A male Overseer staggered in, carrying the body of a female wearing a black uniform. Her head was almost severed from her body. Her spots were as pale as her skin.
“Help me!” the Overseer shouted.
The Overseer medics turned to him but would not leave their own patients. There was no help that could be given.
“You!” the Overseer yelled at Cathy. “Here! Now!”
Cathy hesitated. Melgil’s flesh was exposed beneath her scalpel, his arm cradled in a soft nest of bandages. Blood oozed from the careful incision she had made. And because of that situation she did not instantly respond to the Overseer’s order.
The Overseer reacted as if pure jabroka pulsed through his hearts. “Did you hear what I said?” he shrieked. “Now!”
Cathy laid down her scalpel and hurried to him and the body he carried. She looked at the ruin of the female’s neck. No blood pulsed from the torn arteries. Moodri could hear the fear in Cathy’s voice as she spoke. “I’m . . . I’m sorry, master, but . . . she has died.”
Moodri saw the Overseer’s arms sag. He felt the loss the Overseer felt as Cathy confirmed the truth the Overseer was afraid to admit to himself. The Overseer stumbled over to an empty treatment harness and laid the body of the female within it. Cathy stood in the middle of the infirmary, unsure of what she should do next. Melgil stared at the ceiling lights, eyes closed, his good hand clutched to the shoulder of his opened arm.
Moodri stood. It was risky, but Cathy needed instruction. She had to be told to return to Melgil and retrieve the key.
The Overseer cried out in anguish. He bowed his head against the female, and when he stood again his face was smeared with her blood. He turned to Cathy. His eyes glowed like mining beams. “Your fault,” he spat. “It is your fault!”
He lunged at Cathy. She had no place to run. His fist smashed against her face and knocked her to the deck. The other Overseers ignored the assault. It was nothing they hadn’t seen before, and they had all seen worse.
“I gave you an order, cargo!” The Overseer punctuated each word with a savage kick to Cathy’s ribs. “And you did not respond!”
Cathy’s breath exploded from her with each kick, Moodri turned away. There was nothing he could do. Not with so many of them in the infirmary. He saw Melgil pick up Cathy’s scalpel with trembling fingers. He knew how important it was to retrieve the key. He cut into his own flesh.
The Overseer turned to Melgil. “What are you doing here?” he screamed. “You filthy sta! You have no right to treatment when your betters are dying.” He threw himself at Melgil, leaving Cathy doubled over on the floor in a pod position, blood running from her mouth.
Melgil stepped back before the Overseer’s rage. His right arm was awash in blood. His left hand held the scalpel. The Overseer reacted as if Melgil intended to attack him with it.
“You dare?” the black-clad monster erupted in fury. “You dare attack me?” With a chekkah kick he knocked the scalpel from Melgil’s hand, and it clattered against the work station before falling to the deck. “Filth!” the Overseer cried, fueled by grief, by hatred, by the oppressiveness of the ship and the system that had stolen his hearts. “You have no right to be here! You have no right to live!”
He grabbed Melgil before the Elder could move another inch. He butted his head against Melgil’s, and the Elder’s legs instantly lost their strength.
“You have no right,” the Overseer snarled, and he lifted Melgil over his head as if the Elder were no more massive than the robes he wore.
Moodri touched his hearts.
Melgil whispered the name of the goddess.
And then the Overseer threw him into the recycling tank, and Melgil sank beneath the bubbling salt water.
C H A P T E R 1 5
“GROON-CHA! GROON-CHA!” The pulse of the power plants faded beneath the chanting of the crowd—a primal call for blood. Blood that brought back memories for George in the players’ cage. Memories of Ruhtra. Of running. Of escape . . .
George remembered running through the corridors, his younger brother, Ruhtra, at his side, small feet striking at the metal deck with the rhythm of the power plants, the pulse of the ship. He didn’t know how old he was in this memory, but since he and Ruhtra were together as children he knew it must be before his tenth birthday, before the Overseers came for him. Before he had seen his family for the last time, his mother’s hand reaching out to him, his father’s eyes so despairing, Ruhtra cradled between his parents, sobbing.
But now, in this memory, Ruhtra was panting, trying to keep up with his older brother’s rapid strides, yet never complaining. Their parents had seen to that. How could any child complain about inconsequential matters when so many of their kind lived in such hardship?
“There it is,” George rasped. He paused at the corner of the corridor. Ruhtra finally caught up to him. It was mid-shift. The ship was in deep space. The holy gas was at its lowest concentration. Yet the ship had translated. Something was going to happen.
“Did you look?” Ruhtra asked, gasping for breath.
“Of course I did,” George said with all the arrogance of an older brother to a younger. In fact he hadn’t, but he wasn’t about to admit it. The ship was more frightening than usual this close to the hull and the locked-off sectors.
“I bet you didn’t,” Ruhtra said, knowing his brother.
“Did too.”
“Prove it.”
&
nbsp; The argument stopped there. How could George prove he had seen what he hadn’t seen? “We’ll look together,” he said.
Each by himself would have lacked the courage to have come even halfway to the hull when they were supposed to be in the light bay soaking up UV. But together, each afraid of being laughed at by the other, the two brothers encouraged each other in the most foolhardy of pursuits.
Eyes wide, scarcely able to breathe, George and Ruhtra slowly crept forward to the corner’s edge and peered around it.
And were transfixed.
Fifty feet directly ahead of them was an enormous viewport—teardrop-shaped like all the others but easily four times the size of any they had seen before and filled with uncountable stars. Without a doubt that proved the bulkhead before them was part of the hull. And most incredible of all, just as the older children had told them, beside that viewport was a door.
George and Ruhtra held each other close as they stared at that door and thought about what it meant. A door that opened to the outside. An incredible concept.
In the day crèche the Elders had taught them that in space there was no air outside the ship. If the hull was breached, all the air inside would rush out. So why would there be a door in the hull, the children wondered, especially so far away from the cargo holds?
Without explanation the Elders had said that lesson would wait for another day.
And so a trip to the door to the outside had become a secret rite of passage for the children of the ship. Whispered about. Feared. And utterly fascinating. To make the furtive journey to the hull and gaze upon it was almost as important an event in a child’s growth to adulthood as the first opening of the lingpod flap in boys. But today George and Ruhtra were going to do more than just look at the door to the outside—they were going to join that small, select group of children whose spots were dark enough and hearts strong enough to cross the fifty feet of open hull corridor and actually touch it.
Alien Nation #1 - The Day of Descent Page 31