Pawn

by Timothy Zahn

  Nicole frowned. At the hands of their allies? Weren’t allies the ones who were supposed to be on your side?

  “Your sarcasm is wasted,” Fievj said stiffly. “Those were suppliers, not allies. They also have a history of turning on customers they believe to be weak. We of course anticipated their attack and repulsed it.”

  “You repulsed it? You ran like frightened herbivores when the shooting started.”

  “Only because the starboard-aft shields failed to fully activate,” Fievj said. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

  “Crews have been working on the skinshield grid for the past several months,” the Caretaker said. “Perhaps one of the repairs was incomplete.”

  “No, I think it was that one of the shield cross-links failed,” Fievj said. “This cross-link, as a matter of fact.”

  “We were on our way here to fix it,” Ryit added. “Fortunately for your precious Fyrantha, someone got here first.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d have any idea who that person or persons might be?” Fievj asked.

  “Of course,” the Caretaker said. “It was the Caretaker.”

  There was a moment of silence. “The Caretaker,” Fievj repeated, his voice oddly flat.

  “Not me, of course,” the Caretaker said. “I mean another Caretaker.”

  “There aren’t other Caretakers,” Ryit insisted. “You said so yourself when we first came aboard.”

  “When you first came aboard, there weren’t,” the Caretaker confirmed. “But the Fyrantha has been long in consideration, and has chosen a new Caretaker.”

  Nicole felt her eyes narrow. The Wisp had called her a Protector. Now this whoever-he-was was talking about a Caretaker.

  Were they talking about her?

  But that was crazy. She didn’t even know what a Caretaker was. She certainly didn’t want the job.

  “Bungie,” Ryit murmured, his voice suddenly dark.

  “What about him?” Fievj asked.

  “He and his team’s Sibyl went into Number Four a few days ago,” Ryit said. “Twice, in fact. The Sibyl may have gone in a third time.” He gave a derisive-sounding snort. “Unfortunately, Teqel has lost track of her. Very sloppy.”

  “Work crews have penetrated the arenas before,” Fievj said. “There’s nothing anyone can do in there that can affect the rest of the ship. Not even a Sibyl.”

  “I’m not worried about her,” Ryit said. “My concern is with this Bungie. It seems he’s gone missing, and not into the arena. I’m wondering if he might have done this.”

  Nicole felt her lip twist. Right. Bungie, being helpful. Especially being helpful with electronics repair, which he’d spent the past few weeks actively ignoring. Besides, she knew for a fact that she was the one who had fixed that console.

  Or had she?

  She frowned. She’d replaced a few components, yes. But to be perfectly honest, she had no idea what had restarted the console.

  Could it have been someone else? Not Bungie, of course, but maybe these other people Fievj had suggested might be hiding aboard?

  “Well, Caretaker?” Fievj challenged. “Is this human Bungie the Fyrantha’s new Caretaker?”

  “I have no name to offer you,” the Caretaker said. “Merely the truth I’ve already spoken.”

  “Location, then,” Fievj persisted. “Where can we find him? Or the Caretaker?”

  “I have no more truth to offer you,” the Caretaker repeated.

  “As helpful as always,” Ryit said acidly.

  “I warned you,” Fievj reminded him. “Come—there’s nothing more to be done here. Maybe our intruder left a trail we can follow.”

  There were more quiet footsteps on the soft flooring, and then louder ones as the two aliens climbed the three steps to the walkway. Struck by a sudden impulse to see whether Ryit was the armored emissary who’d been walking around the arena, Nicole moved to the edge of the console and eased an eye around the edge.

  It was all she could do to keep from gasping. Ryit wasn’t wearing any armor. Neither was Fievj.

  Only Fievj wasn’t the centaurlike creature that his armor had implied. He and Ryit were both just normal, human-shaped beings, with tall, thin bodies, almost skeletal arms and legs, pale skin, and wispy tendrils of hair flowing down their heads and shoulders. Instead of armor, they wore exquisitely textured and decorated knee-length kimono-style robes, with wide black belts and colorful patches on their shoulders and just below the neck. She couldn’t see their faces, but from the clothing she could almost imagine that they were nice elderly men, like the mall Santa her grandmother had taken her to see once.

  Or at least she could have imagined that if both of the wide black belts hadn’t also included wide black holsters with large guns inside them.

  She waited, holding very still, until both aliens had disappeared down the stairway. Then, as Trake had always warned her to do, she counted to three hundred to make sure they weren’t lurking out of sight waiting for her to come out of hiding.

  The seconds ticked off into minutes. She was still counting them, wondering how much longer she should wait and how she was going to find her way back to the arena or the hive, when she caught a flicker of shadow rising up the stairway.

  Instantly, she ducked back around the pillar, again pulling her elbows in tightly. The steps were fainter than either Fievj’s or Ryit’s, but that didn’t mean anything. Most people could move very quietly when they wanted to.

  She was still sitting there, her throat tight, when a Wisp came around the side of the console.

  Nicole huffed out a relieved sigh. “Time to go?” she asked.

  The Wisp pointed to the stairs. Nicole got to her feet, and together they crossed the room and walked down the stairs. As they approached the landing where they’d first arrived, the wall opened, and once again a blast of hot air washed over them. The Wisp wrapped its arms around her, unfurled its wings, and stepped into the opening.

  The shaft was just as dark as it had been the first time, and the air rushing up at them just as hot. But this time, without the terrifying newness fogging her brain, Nicole found the trip not nearly as unpleasant. In fact, by the time the big sliding door opened to reveal the trees and hills of the arena, she discovered to her mild surprise that she was almost sorry it was over. She’d always dreamed of being able to fly, and this was probably as close to it as she would ever get.

  The Wisp set her down a few feet from the door. Then, it backed again into the shaft, and as the wall closed Nicole caught a final glimpse of the creature as it floated downward.

  She turned back, listening hard. There were no sounds of battle that she could hear. Not surprising, given that Amrew was only supposed to keep the Cluufes occupied for ten to fifteen minutes and she’d been gone nearly an hour. Hopefully, Jeff and Mispacch had also long since made it back to the Micawnwi side with their stolen food.

  Which left only the question of whether the Cluufes had settled back into their spots in the hive and the stone building, or whether they were still moving back and forth between the two locations.

  Only one way to find out. Moving as silently as she could, she eased through the undergrowth toward the stone path.

  She was approaching the last line of trees when something sharp suddenly poked hard into her back. She jumped forward, twisting around.

  It was Hunter, his halberd leveled toward her, his mouth half-open to reveal a set of clenched teeth. “Oh, hello,” Nicole said, instinctively dropping into innocent mode. “You startled me.”

  “You’ll come with me,” Hunter said, his voice sounding as clenched as his teeth. “You’ll return our food dispenser to our use.

  “Or I will personally slaughter your companion before your eyes.”

  fifteen

  Nicole’s first impulse was to turn and get the hell out of there as fast as she could.

  But Hunter had a weapon, and he was faster than she was. More importantly, if he was on the alert so
were the rest of the Cluufes.

  So instead, she turned around and walked through the trees to the path and let him take her back to the Cluufes’ hive.

  Hunter’s threat had implied that only one of her fellow intruders had been caught, and all the way down the path Nicole wondered whether the prisoner was Jeff or Mispacch. Probably the latter, she finally decided.

  She was wrong. Sitting in a corner of the food dispenser room, surrounded by four leveled halberds, was Jeff.

  They’d taken his tool and food vests away from him, and his jumpsuit looked rumpled. Had they roughed him up? “Hey,” she said as casually as she could.

  “Hey,” Jeff replied. His voice was also casual, but Nicole could see the tension lines in his face. “What happened to you?”

  And now, as she looked more closely, she could see that there were bruises starting to form on his cheeks and jaw. They were faint, but she’d been hit in the face enough times over the years to know what it looked like. The Cluufes had roughed him up, all right. “Sorry,” she apologized. “I was suddenly needed elsewhere.”

  He gave her a faint smile. “You probably should have said no.”

  “Wasn’t really an option.”

  “Yeah,” Jeff said in a tone that probably meant he didn’t believe her. “Listen, you wouldn’t happen to still have the dispenser code for the Cluufe food profile, would you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I would,” Nicole said, looking over her shoulder at Hunter. “It was never our intention to leave your people without food.”

  “You will set it right,” Hunter said. “Now.”

  “And Jeff?”

  “Your companion stays where he is.”

  Nicole shook her head. “Sorry, but I need his help with the machine.” She gestured to the wall. “We’ll also need this wall section opened up—the handholds are down there and there. My guess is that it’s going to take all four of your friends here.”

  Hunter seemed to measure her with his eyes. Then, stepping forward, he rested the sharp tip of his halberd against Nicole’s stomach. “Open it,” he ordered.

  The Cluufes weren’t nearly as strong as the Micawnwi, and it did indeed take all four guards to wrestle the wall section open. At Hunter’s instruction three of them then held it up while the fourth set two of the halberds in bracing positions between the open section and the back wall.

  Nicole winced, remembering her attempt to brace a similar wall section with a rounded chair. But the halberds were sturdy enough, and the Cluufes had placed them correctly, and the section stayed open. “Now,” Hunter said, stepping back as his men collected the other two halberds and moved back to guard the doorway. “Fix it.”

  It had taken Jeff about four minutes to reprogram the dispenser for Micawnwi food. It took the same four minutes to put it back again. Nicole double-checked the final settings, confirmed he’d done it right, then waited while Hunter cautiously sampled the result.

  Ten minutes later, with neither nausea nor death having ensued, he declared himself satisfied. At his direction, the guards lowered the wall section and retrieved their halberds.

  “Excellent,” Hunter said. He gestured to his men.

  And suddenly the four halberds were once again pressed against Jeff’s torso. “Your final task,” Hunter told Nicole calmly. “You’re going to get me a weapon.”

  Nicole felt her stomach tighten. “You already have weapons.”

  “Primitive toys of generations past,” Hunter said contemptuously. “I want one of the flash-flickers that took us to victory before the Masters spirited them away.”

  “You mean the greenfire guns?”

  “Is that what the Masters call them?”

  “It’s what I call them,” Nicole said. “Where do you expect me to find something like that?”

  “I don’t know,” Hunter said. “Nor do I care.” He pointed at Jeff. “But he cares. He cares very much.”

  Nicole looked at Jeff. His throat was tight, but he was clearly trying not to show his tension. “That’s not fair,” she protested. “We did what you asked. We gave you back your food.”

  “Besides, you don’t need any other weapons,” Jeff added. “From what I saw—” He broke off as one of the Cluufes shifted his halberd from Jeff’s torso to rest against his throat.

  “I want a flash-flicker,” Hunter said, his voice gone deathly cold. “This meager space is little more than a prison. But it is ours, and our enemies will be taught to respect it.”

  “They won’t return,” Nicole said quickly. Unfortunately, she knew, that was probably the truth. There was certainly no chance Amrew could use this same trick again. “I promise.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Hunter said flatly. “Even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. They have to be taught a lesson.”

  “But why?” Nicole pleaded. The thought of the Micawnwi at the wrong end of a greenfire gun, with only halberds to protect themselves … “You’ve got all the food you need, and they won’t be back.”

  Hunter made a contemptuous noise. “I pity you, Sibyl. Do you truly believe that food is all a being needs to live?”

  “He’s talking about honor,” Jeff said quietly.

  “No, he’s talking about pigheaded pride,” Nicole retorted. “I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen someone get killed over that.”

  “And you’ll soon see it again,” Hunter said. “But it won’t be our blood that will pour out across these worthless plants. Now go and bring me something worthy of combat.”

  “If I refuse?”

  “Then your companion had best prepare himself for more pain,” Hunter said calmly. “If you don’t bring me the weapon by the time the light dims this evening, I’ll begin taking his toes and fingers.”

  Nicole stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Deadly serious,” Hunter assured her. “Once the light dims I’ll remove one digit per hour until you arrive.”

  “You mean you want it tonight?” Nicole shook her head, a twitchy, jerky movement. “That’s only six or seven hours away. I can’t possibly find that kind of weapon that fast.”

  “I believe you can,” Hunter said. “Which of us will prove correct, I wonder?”

  “This is ridiculous,” Nicole insisted, trying one last time to talk him down. But without leverage she was just stalling. “Why do you need it that fast?”

  “Because the enemy is now relaxing in the warmth of their victory,” Hunter said. “If we move tonight, we can take them by surprise.”

  Nicole clenched her teeth. He was probably right, too. By tomorrow the Micawnwi would be on the alert again. Tonight, maybe not so much. “Fine,” she said. “If I get you this weapon, do you swear on your honor and the pride of the Cluufes that you’ll let us go? Both of us?”

  “I do so swear,” Hunter said without hesitation. “We were never tasked with your defeat. There’s no honor to be had in your destruction.”

  Nicole frowned. We were never tasked with your defeat? What was that supposed to mean? “But cutting us up is all right?”

  Hunter lifted his halberd point toward the ceiling and stepped out of her way. “Go. Time is passing.”

  * * *

  Nicole hadn’t dared ask Jeff what had happened to Mispacch, not with Hunter standing there listening. The only other way to find out would be to go to the Micawnwi end of the arena, and she couldn’t waste time doing that. Not with the image of the Cluufes hacking away at Jeff’s body frozen into her mind like the ghostly image on her grandmother’s old TV screen. She had to either get Hunter his gun, or else find a way to get Jeff out of there. The whole thing was making her sick to her stomach.

  Especially since it was all her fault.

  She could rationalize all she wanted to about the Wisp not giving her a choice before it snatched her. But the fact was she had had a choice. In fact, she’d had lots of choices. She could have stayed with Jeff and Mispacch instead of going off alone to check out the thumping noise. Or, if she’d deci
ded it absolutely had to be checked out, she could have left her notepad with Jeff so that he could reset the dispenser. Or she could have backed away from the Wisp instead of just standing there and letting it grab her.

  But she hadn’t done any of those things. At every point along the way she’d made the wrong decision.

  And to make it worse, not only was Jeff in danger, but so were the Micawnwi. If she got Hunter his weapon, they would die quickly, fried by whatever the hell greenfire guns fired. If she didn’t, they would still die, only slower from starvation.

  Let them die, Plato had told her. In fact, he’d insisted on it. In hindsight, she knew now that he’d been right.

  They were going to die anyway. What difference did it make how fast or how slow they did it?

  But Plato hadn’t looked into their eyes, or seen the children’s faces light up at his approach. Nicole couldn’t simply abandon them.

  Only it looked like she was going to have to.

  It was just as well, she decided bitterly as she passed beneath the cold stares of the Cluufes guarding the stone building, that she didn’t have time to go see Mispacch. She couldn’t have faced the woman anyway, knowing she was going to betray them.

  So, naturally, given the way her luck was running today, Mispacch was waiting for her at the Micawnwi end of the plain.

  “Sibyl!” she called, hurrying out from concealment behind a tree. “I was so worried about you. About you both.” Abruptly, her lumbering jog slowed as she peered back the way Nicole had come. “Where’s your companion?”

  “Not here,” Nicole bit out.

  And was instantly ashamed of herself. None of this was Mispacch’s fault. “What happened back there?” she asked, forcing a softer tone.

  “We couldn’t find you,” Mispacch said, waving vaguely back toward the Cluufe hive. “Jeff waited as long as he could, then ordered me to return with the food while he searched further.”

  Nicole nodded. That was Jeff, all right.

  And he would have stayed there, dodging Cluufe searchers and hunting fruitlessly for her, until Hunter eventually ran him to ground. “Did you at least get the food back?” she asked.