“Good. He doesn’t want war. According to him, he can wipe us out in one attack. But that would also destroy his profit. He has the Kublai mesmerized into a treaty with him; probably it guarantees the Kublai’s safety in exchange for a certain quota of bodies every year. Hosahkt intends to use Tith as a hostage to blackmail Zethia into cooperation. He also claims he has Playworld, and you know that through us he can reach any other head of state who happens to be vacationing—”
“Yes.”
“He also wants Settle. As a special breeding ground.” She swallowed, revulsion leaving a sour taste in her mouth. “He claims the radiation there makes Ranger flesh a real delicacy. Do you understand?”
Haufren closed his eyes. “The defense keys.”
“Yes! He expects me to get them from you.”
A ghost of a laugh lifted from Haufren’s throat. “Don’t sound so grim. It’s all a lie.”
“What is?”
“Settle radiation. Your Hosahkt’s no fool. He knows that no matter how many key planets he coerces, the Rangers will never surrender.” Haufren frowned. “By Demos, we’d destroy worlds to keep from surrendering! So that’s why they were probing me so thoroughly. I’m sure they would like the defense keys. Wouldn’t that make eliminating the Rangers easy?”
“Haufren, we may have to give them to him.”
“Never!’
“Haufren, we need time enough to get out of here. Until he has something, Hosahkt will have us watched every moment. We—”
“And once he has the information he wants, he’ll just throw us back to the Omcris.”
“Maybe not,” she said urgently, angry that he was refusing to trust her judgment yet again. “Listen! We must use anything we have to get out of here. Your commander can always change the keys if we can reach him with sufficient warning.”
Smiling in what was more a grimace, Haufren grasped her arm and shook his head.
“Damn you, Haufren! Have you got a better idea?”
“No.” He coughed. “It would work. But, Demos, slinny, I don’t know the keys.”
Chapter Sixteen
“What?” Stunned, at first she could only stare at him. Then rage engulfed her. Did he have to go on playing games? Couldn’t he trust her just once? “What do you mean you don’t know them? That’s flin, Major! Of course you know them! How do you get home?”
“We pass through a pick-up security scan, just like everybody else. You have an ID grid implant. We have something similar. The defense keys are too vital to be entrusted to field operatives.”
She sighed, her shoulders sagging in defeat. “Then what do we do?”
His eyes met hers with a faint grin. “It may look hopeless to you, but this is common for us. We call it Situation B or Imprisoned in a Tough Spot. Situation C is Tortured in a Tough Spot.”
She looked up, supposing she should be grateful for his attempt to cheer her. “And what is Situation A?”
“Lost.”
She smiled, then sobered quickly as she gazed at the stone walls surrounding them. “That may apply, too. I remember the way back to the transender here. But if it’s just a link to the last planet I was on, then I—”
“Don’t worry. Silta has an unerring sense of direction. If we can find him, we’ll be—oh, Demos. You said he is insane.” Haufren rubbed his eyes wearily. “And Tith? I should never have brought him into this. Where is he?”
“I last saw him with Hosahkt.”
“What about the other man? Duval?”
“Deactivated,” she said, her voice choking. “And so is Commander Janal. I don’t know how we are going to get them out.” Despair made her voice shrill, and she hastily lowered it in shame. “You should not have come in after me.”
His eyes met hers, but appalled by what she had just said, she jumped up before he could speak.
“I am a fool!” she said bitterly. “Of course you did not…you came to destroy the transender access points and—”
“We could have come back with a full contingent of Rangers and shock troops,” he broke in with a quietness that cut through the self-pity strangling her.
“What?” Startled, she turned back to face him.
“Captain Silta made strong recommendations against this move. I overrode him in favor of rescue. Costa…” Haufren’s blue eyes burned into hers. “Rangers don’t leave their people behind.”
A sob half broke from her. She forced it back, only now realizing how frightened and exhausted she was, and how desperately she wanted someone else to take charge. “Thank you,” she managed, dropping her eyes in the old, ever-burning disappointment that even his kindness could not quench. “But I am not a Ranger.”
His lean strong hand grasped hers hard. “Costa,” he said, the authority in his voice forcing her to meet his eyes. “Get us, all of us, out of here and back to Settle, and you’ll have your commission as a buck cadet in the corps.”
Astonishment drove the weariness away. She gasped, laughing in disbelief. “What?”
“And if you manage to also destroy the transender access points, you’ll enter at your present rank.” He gave her hand a shake. “Take grip, Lieutenant! There isn’t much time. Do we have a deal?”
Her eyes glowed warm gold, and her heart came close to bursting with every beat. A chance! No matter how overwhelming the odds might seem now, at last she had a chance! Then doubt crept in, and she frowned, dropping his hand.
“My contract. The Directors won’t release me.”
Haufren’s eyes chilled, and her heart seemed to shrink.
“Slinny,” he said with some of the old scorn. “You aren’t on Playworld now. If you don’t go back, what authority can they hold over you?”
“I’m not a fool! You know the legal entanglements!” she snapped. “Or you should. I am an adapt. I cost them a lot of money to develop and train. They don’t want adapts free and attracting the attention of GSI.”
He frowned, looking angry, and started to retort only to cough and spit blood. She reached for him, but he waved her back.
“I’m sorry,” she said, not knowing how to explain. “I’ll still do it. Somehow.” She swallowed hard, her vision blurring with the old pain. “There just won’t be any reward. Your recommendation, Major, won’t be good enough.”
Sagging, he closed his eyes. She drew in an unsteady breath against the hurt. For a moment he had been friendly; she had been accepted for the first time. Now she was the outsider again. Well, she would get him out; she would get them all out. She would show Major Haufren IV that the Rangers weren’t the only corps to have pride. She would show him what a provincial planet patroller could do.
“Where are you going?” he asked weakly as she reached the door of the cell.
She paused but did not glance back. “To locate a weapon. Try to pull yourself together and be ready. If you can, move left along this passageway and wait at the main intersection.”
“Costa—”
But she left without waiting to listen.
In the passageway she shoved her burning emotions down, trying to think as hard and quickly as she could. Hunger, thirst, and the grinding pain in her side must be ignored. Haufren had said they did not have much time, and whether he meant that was because of Hosahkt’s plans or the fact that he was dying made little difference at the moment. She must hurry.
But how? What was she to do?
Create confusion, she thought, making sure her feet made no sound as she passed the cells. Again she felt as though she were being watched, and she expected an Omcri to return and take charge of her at any moment. Oh, Moii! Was there no way to destroy those devil-things? Logic dictated that since they had been created, they could be destroyed. She must not believe them invincible.
“Well, subject?”
As though from nowhere, Ephemeron suddenly stood before her, blocking the passageway. His scarlet robes billowed lightly in the parched air, and vaguely disturbing patterns pulsed rapidly beneath the cowl. Although several m
eters still lay between them, she could feel intense eagerness radiating from the Omcri.
She paused where she was, not wishing to close the distance yet. “Well, Ephemeron?”
“We shall probe your pitiable mind for our answers!”
It took all the willpower she possessed not to flinch back from that threat but she held her ground and even managed to shrug in apparent unconcern. Attack, she thought. Give him the unexpected.
“The Kublai has made a deal of cooperation with you. Do you, er, does Hosahkt expect the Directors of Playworld to do the same, or does he intend to simply have them possessed?”
“You waste time! These questions are irrelevant!”
“No, they aren’t. I have coordinates, mind-slasher. You don’t—Wait!” she said, holding up a hand as a slight stir from the Omcri warned her she was about to be probed. “I am an adapt, remember? Not the usual kind of human you are used to dealing with. Probe me, and you won’t get what you expect.” And that was certainly the truth, she thought wryly. For the first time in her life she began to see the force of certain arguments in favor of mental techniques. She still believed that telepathy was wrong, that to invade another’s mind did more than destroy privacy, but to bury oneself on a planet where its practice was forbidden by law and expect that law to protect one was foolish and definitely naive. If she survived this and ever got out of here, she vowed to find out if she had at least enough talent to learn how to shield herself.
“Very well,” said Ephemeron angrily, and she tried to hold back a sigh of relief. “But do not delay. Relate them!”
“I want to make a deal.”
“You are not—”
“Hosahkt wants what I know, doesn’t he?” she broke in, showing her teeth. “And he is growing impatient. I, however, do not want to be meat for some piece of flin here. I want out. And I want continued protection when I do get out. That, in exchange for Settle.”
There was a long silence. “You dare a great deal, subject.”
She shrugged. “Go on. Go and ask Hosahkt. I’m sure he thinks the defense keys are the important issue here. And I’m hardly being greedy.”
“We have observed your pattern,” said Ephemeron. “You ask now for your safety, but next you will demand the same for other subjects.”
“No,” she said coolly. “I don’t think so. One Ranger is dying; the other is mad. My friends from Playworld are deactivated. There is no hope for any of them. I am intact, though, and want to stay that way.” While she was speaking she had been moving by imperceptible degrees to the wall. She reached out and scratched her wrist on the stone hard enough to leave a drop of blood. The scent would bring her back to this place should she need to find it.
“It is not the time when approach is permitted to Hosahkt,” said Ephemeron. “Yet he has commanded implementation. You dare much, subject.”
She said nothing, hiding her smile. She had him now, and they both knew it.
“Go into that cell behind you and wait,” commanded Ephemeron.
She obeyed, though not without reluctance. “I want a strifer,” she said. “When you send me back to the jungle on Playworld, I must have a weapon to survive.”
Amusement radiated from Ephemeron. “That is your concern, subject, not mine. Wait.”
But she did not wait. As soon as Ephemeron disappeared, she expected something to arrive to guard the door. But not even one of the lesser Omcris came. Costa frowned in astonishment. Were they truly so complacent in their own power they believed she would obey without enforcement? Had they perhaps become so used to dealing with possessed individuals held under the power of activation they forgot she was different? It seemed so, and she thanked their carelessness fervently.
Leaving the cell, she hastened down the passageway, stepping over a serpent without much attention. Then she paused, frowning over the dig of an instinct she dared not ignore. She whirled and pounced in a swift leap, coming down with one bootheel upon the serpent’s head and the other on its neck. It writhed violently, lashing its tail about her ankle, but she had heard the snap of its spine and after a moment she stepped away, leaving it in its death throes. So much for one spy, she thought grimly, and took down a torch from its sconce. Flame was an effective weapon against certain things. She felt better with the knobbed twist of burning wood in her hand, scorching her arm and face as she hurried on with it brandished before her.
She met nothing else, and began to feel the temptation to gather the men and break for escape. But she fought it back, knowing better. The Omcris would stop them before they got to the transender. No, she had to go on the offensive. The best way to create confusion would be to destroy Hosahkt.
Something large hissed at her from the shadows, and she flinched aside, hastening on with her heart thudding. Rubble littered the way ahead of her, and she could hear the furtive scratching of claws and the faint rasp of scales over stone. She wished suddenly she had not yet formed that thought about killing Hosahkt. Her mind was wide open to anyone who desired to read it. She must be careful.
“Stop.”
Startled by that double-timbred voice which seemed to come from nowhere, Costa jerked to a halt and whirled in a half-crouch. The fire of the torch roared and crackled, shooting up sparks as her eyes jabbed here, there, seeking the Omcri.
Suddenly it was before her, less than an arm’s length away, floating, sinister in its black robes, faceless. “Area unauthorized. Intrusion denied. Return to cell of assignment.”
Costa thought of being herded back to the cell by this Omcri and held there while time and the advantage of surprise ran out. With an inarticulate cry, she sprang at the Omcri and plunged her torch straight through its center.
It was an action done purely on reflex. She had no hope of fire being any more effective than strifer bolts. And when she heard the muffled pop that signified the torch had been extinguished completely, her heart sank like a stone. It would attack her now. It would kill her.
She backed away as the Omcri raised its arms. But instead of rushing at her, the creature suddenly whipped as though jerked on an invisible string and screamed with an agony that pierced her as no death cry ever had. Harsh pain lanced through her poisoned arm, making her cry out and stagger to one knee. But even as she rocked back and forth, clutching her arm to her middle, triumph laughed within her. She had destroyed it! The shadows pressing around her did not frighten her now. She had found their first weak point.
As soon as the pain eased in her arm and she could catch her breath again, she reached out gingerly to the crumpled robe on the floor and drew forth the Omcri’s wand. She grinned to herself in the gloom, snapping open her innermost eyelids. Now she had a real weapon.
Soundlessly, exulting in her warrior’s heart, she ran on until she came to the next torch, which she also took down. She left her mark of wrist blood at selected points, understanding now why Ephemeron had mentioned a maze. She did not remember so many twisting passages before, but she refused to be daunted. She had a hunter’s instincts, and she followed them.
When she reached the area where the Kublai dreamed contentedly in whatever fantasies the serpents provided for him, she paused to catch her breath, ducking out of sight as two massive, armor-plated quadrupeds with tiny heads no larger than her fist rumbled past. She had her bearings finally. Without hesitation she turned toward Hosahkt’s audience chamber. Haufren had to get himself this far. She did not think there would be a chance to go all the way back for him. Swiftly she examined the Omcri’s wand to be sure she knew how to fire it. Then she slipped it out of sight in her sleeve where she usually carried the knife Duval had taken from her.
Anger, unbidden, rose within her. If only he had listened the first time! And then she remembered that if he hadn’t felt guilty enough to come with Haufren, he would not now be something neither living nor dead.
She shoved the thoughts away. She had to go on. She had to concentrate on boldness. She had to make sure Hosahkt and his slithering spies did not
sense the death in her true purpose. The range of an Omcri weapon was fairly extensive, but she had to get close. She had to make sure nothing intercepted her aim.
“Disobedient fool!”
Ephemeron blocked her path, glowing fierce green beneath his cowl. He was flanked by a smaller, black-robed Omcri pointing a wand at her.
“You have strayed from your cell. A messenger Omcri has been reabsorbed. You are d—”
Costa jerked the wand from her sleeve and fired two brief bursts of precise death. Again agony shot jaggedly up her arm as the Omcris died, but this time she had braced herself to withstand it. Grimacing, she staggered past their remains, pausing only to take another wand, and pushed herself into a run. She had to hurry now. She must give Hosahkt no further warning.
But the decayed chamber of reptiles waited ahead of her, and entry was blocked by the two gigantic quadrupeds which roared at the sight of her. The whole passageway shook, and little splatters of dust rained down from overhead. Costa fired, then threw herself flat as the deadly energy ricocheted off their armored hides. One stamped forward, roaring loudly enough to deafen her. She still held the guttering torch in her other hand. Fighting off the blindness of terror, she made herself stand her ground, crouching on the floor until the thing was nearly upon her. One thrust of its enormous stubby foot could crush her into a stain upon the dust, but she waited, making herself face those tiny, red-maddened eyes until the grotesque mouth opened, giving her the chance to ram the torch down its throat.
Its roar of rage shrilled to one of agony. Shaking itself madly from side to side, it knocked her into the wall and blundered on, amok now and gaining speed until it ran into the wall where the passageway turned. It stood there hammering itself into the stone.
Costa lay limp, barely conscious from the force of impact, and tried to bring herself around. She sat up, gasped for the breath her flattened lungs could not provide, and fell back. But as soon as she got some air, she pushed herself up, clawing at the wall for support. Where was the other one? She had to get on her feet before it charged her.
The Omcri Matrix Page 21