The corridor ended in a strong wooden door and a strong armed guard. Jarrikk sensed her utter contempt as she opened the door to admit them to the chamber beyond.
There, in a circular room lit only by more of those narrow slits and a few flickering candles, the High Priest waited on her throne of stone, a shikk carved from a sacred rock the Hunter had spit down to S’sinndikk a millennium ago, blackened and scarred by the heat of His fiery breath. Or so Jarrikk remembered being told as a child. Whether the shikk was truly carved from a meteorite or not, it impressed with both its immense size and its great age. Even more impressive was what it portended: the High Priest considered the matter coming before her now to be of the utmost importance.
Jarrikk made the traditional bow of respect, but without the additional wing-spreading that signified submission. As a Translator, he would no more serve the High Priest than he served the Supreme Flight Leader. If he served anyone, now, it was the Guild and the Commonwealth.
Or maybe he served only himself and his own conscience. Maybe that was the way it should have been all along.
He felt certain the High Priest’s piercing red gaze noted his lack of obeisance, but she said nothing about it, nor did any flicker of annoyance flare in the overall sense of grave determination he read from her. Instead she spoke to another S’sinn, the one who had led the party that had arrested them. “Recount the facts.”
“Yes, Your Eminence.” Jarrikk felt his eagerness—and, as he looked at Kathryn and Jarrikk, his hatred. “Yssiddrikk, an Acolyte of the Third Wing, reported to the Temple Guard shortly after noon that he had surprised an armed party of S’sinn and humans in High Tower. We sent a force there. On arrival, they killed a female human they found in the stairwell. Priest Skarridd died honorably seconds later at the hands of Pikkiro of the Supreme Flight, who was then slain in turn. We found four other dead S’sinn and a badly wounded S’sinn who died shortly thereafter.”
Good-bye, Ukkaddikk, old friend, Jarrikk thought numbly.
“In addition, we found Supreme Flight Leader Akkanndikk, who is now undergoing medical treatment and for whom the prognosis remains guarded. Another S’sinn and a human were glimpsed fleeing down a tunnel, and accessing the Temple database revealed that it emerged under the Place of Flightless Sacrifice, although the database indicated the tunnel had been sealed. I took a force there, and captured this S’sinn and this human as they emerged.
“We have identified the dead S’sinn as the Priests Mikkarr, Dekkarriss, Kkillikki, and Akkarramm, all Acolytes of the Third Wing. The wounded S’sinn who died was the Commonwealth Translator Ukkaddikk. These two,” he gestured at Jarrikk and Kathryn, “our computer records identify as Translator Jarrikk and Translator Kathryn Bircher, who escaped from the human-crewed Guildship Unity. Acting Supreme Flight Leader Kitillikk has issued a standing order for their arrest, on the grounds of conspiring to assassinate the Supreme Flight Leader.”
The High Priest’s eyes had never left Jarrikk’s face during the recital. “And tell me, Hunter-Priest Rikkarrikk, what interpretation you place on these facts.”
“I think there can be only one,” Rikkarrikk replied. “Acting Supreme Flight Leader Kitillikk sequestered Supreme Flight Leader Akkanndikk here in secret because she feared there would be more attempts on the Supreme Flight Leader’s life—and she was right. These so-called Translators, with the help of the traitorous Pikkiro, discovered the Supreme Flight Leader’s whereabouts, escaped their Hunter-surrounded spaceship, and came here to finish the job they started. Our Acolytes surprised them and died trying to save the Supreme Flight Leader’s life. Had Yssiddrikk not stumbled on the assassination party, the Supreme Flight Leader would now be dead.”
The High Priest already believed in just some version of events, Jarrikk could tell—but he could also detect, deeper within her, a shred of doubt. Would he have the opportunity to try to strengthen that doubt?
It appeared he would. The High Priest spoke to him, now. “And what have you to say, Translator Jarrikk? Do you admit your part in this attempt to kill the Supreme Flight Leader?”
“I do not,” Jarrikk said. “We had nothing to do with it.”
Rikkarrikk spun on him and lashed out with his claws, stinging his cheek. Jarrikk heard Kathryn gasp and felt her shock at the sudden violence. “How dare you lie to the High Priest!” Rikkarrikk hissed.
Jarrikk didn’t even raise his hand to the spot, though he could feel the hot blood oozing through his fur. “I do not lie.”
Rikkarrikk lifted his claws again, but the High Priest stopped him. “Peace, Rikkarrikk. I will hear his interpretation as I heard yours.”
Rikkarrikk growled, but stepped aside. Jarrikk marshaled his thoughts. “High Priest, I do not deny that a human attempted to kill the Supreme Flight Leader, as Kitillikk has said. I do not even deny that that human was a Translator: to my horror, I have only just discovered the truth of that claim.
“Nor do I deny a conspiracy with roots in the Supreme Flight itself. But the details of that conspiracy are not as Hunter-Priest Rikkarrikk has interpreted them.” He took a deep breath. “Translator Jim Ornawka attempted to kill the Supreme Flight Leader. He acted with the help of, and in support of, Acting Supreme Flight Leader Kitillikk. He did so in order to trigger the war which we are even now on the verge of beginning.” The air in the chamber was thick with disbelief, including the High Priest’s, but he pressed on. “The other Translators on S’sinndikk at the time of Kitillikk’s coup did not know of Ornawka’s involvement. We escaped from the spaceport with his help, and sheltered with Pikkiro of the Supreme Flight. Translator Ukkaddikk knew him to be a loyal supporter of the Supreme Flight Leader and hoped he would help us. Pikkiro had learned that the Supreme Flight Leader still lived, and was being held in the Temple by a small group of young priests who were fanatical supporters of Kitillikk. He hoped that if we rescued her, she could regain control of the Supreme Flight and call back the ships before the war began. Unfortunately, one of the renegade priests discovered us before we could rescue the Supreme Flight Leader. We made the attempt anyway. Several of the renegades died. In the confusion, Ornawka tried to kill the Supreme Flight Leader again, but Kathryn,” he indicated her, “stopped him. He escaped ahead of us down the tunnel. Rikkarrikk’s force must have just missed him. The rest you know.” He stopped, meeting the High Priest’s gaze squarely—and reading clearly that she did not believe him.
Nor did anyone else in the room, especially Rikkarrikk. “Give the word, Your Eminence, and they both die now, before you, like the dung-crawlers they are.”
“No,” the High Priest said. “All must be done as tradition demands—and the Supreme Flight must be involved in the final disposition of this matter. Skkarrissa . . .” She turned to an aide and began talking to her in a low voice.
Jarrikk looked at Kathryn, who looked back at him. Even though she couldn’t have understood the words, the emotions in the room must tell her clearly how bleakly things stood. Unless they could make the High Priest believe . . .
The Link, Jarrikk thought. We need to Link with the High Priest, to show her the truth. But that’s impossible . . .
Or was it?
Together he and Kathryn had already done the impossible: faked a Link, aborted war, Linked without the symbiote, achieved telepathy, read Ukkaddikk’s mind without his awareness, sensed minds at an impossible distance. They both had some projective ability; Ukkaddikk had said so. Usually that meant some slight ability to influence another person’s emotions—not much help when the emotions were as strong as those in this room.
But together, they weren’t just empaths, they were telepaths. Did their projective ability extend to that? Could they, as Ukkaddikk had wondered and Jarrikk had denied, project their thoughts into another’s mind?
Only one way to find out . . .
Kathryn stood only a hand-span away. As inconspic uously as possible, he edged over to her. Rikkarrikk watched, but made no move to stop him. He knew they were bot
h unarmed. What difference could it make if they touched?
A great deal, Jarrikk hoped.
His hand brushed Kathryn’s. Everything that had just been said, and what he had just thought, flashed between them.
This time there could be no holding back. This time neither of them could conserve energy, or keep any part of themselves to themselves. This time, they had to Link as completely as they had ever done, and somehow they had to draw in the High Priest, as well.
The room dissolved around Jarrikk as he released his senses, plunging his mind into Kathryn’s. The sensation was like falling, like that terrifying plunge into water and pain that had ruined his wings and set him on the path that had led, maybe inevitably, to this time and place—but this plunge didn’t end in agony, but in a sudden explosion of new sight and sound and smell and taste. For a moment he was Kathryn, sensing every square centimeter of her inside and out, then he was himself, then he was Jarrikk/Kathryn, and his/ her mind looked around him/her to find the thoughts of every S’sinn in the room nakedly exposed—but only one mind of interest. The High Priest’s mind beckoned like a fire on the other side of a black chasm. Jarrikk/Kathryn gathered his/her incorporeal muscles, and mind-in-mind, leaped into the flames.
Chapter 20
From the moment she and Jarrikk emerged onto the river bank until they stood before the High Priest in the inner sanctum, Kathryn had to take her cue from Jarrikk. Obviously the priests who had captured them were not the renegades who had taken the Supreme Flight Leader prisoner, because they were still alive. But they didn’t exactly seem friendly, either. It wasn’t until Jarrikk touched her hand and explained in a telepathic flash what he wanted to try that she understood. She agreed instantly: they had everything to gain and nothing to lose.
Linked, they plunged into the High Priest’s mind, brushing aside the barriers of shock and denial that rose before them and pouring into her brain the truth as they knew it to be, of Kitillikk’s part in the assassination attempt on the Akkanndikk and her subsequent imprisonment.
The High Priest believed them. She had to: in the intimate embrace of the telepathic contact, there could be no lying. She felt that as clearly as they did.
And then, abruptly, the contact ended as Rikkarrikk, sensing something strange, seized Kathryn and pulled her away from Jarrikk. Her mind snapped back into itself like a released bit of elastic, and she staggered and slumped in Rikkarrikk’s grasp from the shock, almost blacking out.
Jarrikk, with no one holding him up, dropped to his knees and then fell forward onto his hands, panting— and the High Priest gave a strange little sigh and fell sideways off of her shikk in a flutter of wings.
Pandemonium ensued as priests rushed to her. Rikkarrikk roared something and tossed Kathryn to one side, where another priest seized her roughly, claws leaving fiery, bloody welts on her arms, the fury that filled him stunning her further. They think we’ve killed her, Kathryn thought numbly, looking at the still figure of the High Priest. Maybe we have.
Jarrikk climbed slowly to his feet, looked at the High Priest, then glanced at Kathryn. But nothing of the telepathic link remained. She could sense weariness that matched her own, and concern for the High Priest, and that was all.
Rikkarrikk straightened abruptly, and she half-expected him to turn around and execute them on the spot. But in his emotions she read fury giving way to surprise. He glanced in their direction, then turned back to the High Priest, and Kathryn realized that the High Priest had said something to him. She lived, then: and it seemed Kathryn and Jarrikk would continue to, as well, because Rikkarrikk suddenly turned and snapped an order, and the priest holding her, after a moment’s surprise as great as Rikkarrikk’s had been, released her reluctantly.
Kathryn went to Jarrikk and took his hand. Keep holding on, he said telepathically. I’ll translate.
What did she say to him?
She told him to release us, that we are not their enemies. I don’t think he believes her.
Kathryn leaned gratefully against Jarrikk’s warm flank. Why was every building on S’sinndikk so cold, cold, cold? Sensing her discomfort, he enveloped her shoulders with his wing while continuing to hold her hand, and she was momentarily reminded of her father putting his arm around her when she was a little girl—but remembering her father led inevitably to other memories she didn’t want to recall just now.
The High Priest straightened and spoke. Through Jarrikk, Kathryn understood her—and sensed her growing anger, no longer directed at them, but at a most unexpected target.
“Kitillikk,” the High Priest said. “Kitillikk has used us. Kitillikk arranged the assassination attempt against the Supreme Flight Leader to further her own ambition. Kitillikk swayed some of our own brothers and sisters to keep the Supreme Flight Leader imprisoned here so she might have free reign. Kitillikk lied to us about Akkanndikk being dead.”
“Your Eminence,” Rikkarrikk said, “I don’t understand why you have suddenly decided to believe these two—” he gestured at Jarrikk and Kathryn.
“Are you questioning me, Hunter-Priest?”
Rikkarrikk drew himself up straighter. “It is my duty to do so if I believe you err, Your Eminence. And so I believe.”
The S’sinn in the room exchanged uneasy glances, and Kathryn sensed them shifting position: through her Link with Jarrikk, could almost see the battle lines being drawn between Rikkarrikk and his Hunter-Priests and the priests surrounding the High Priest. For a moment she thought violence would erupt then and there, but the High Priest had a better idea.
“Translator Jarrikk,” she said. “I think it would be most expedient if you would simply explain matters to Rikkarrikk as you explained them to me.”
“Yes, Your Eminence.”
Jarrikk squeezed Kathryn’s hand by way of preparation. She closed her eyes, and this time the linkage came at once, much more easily, so easily that Kathryn/ Jarrikk realized that it would never be difficult again, that they could call on this melding whenever they needed it. They made the projective leap into Rikkarrikk’s mind, pushed down his barriers, showed him what they knew, and leaped out again cleanly, this time ending the Link on their own. Simultaneously drawing deep breaths, they opened their eyes to see Rikkarrikk staring at them, looking dazed. “How . . .” he whispered.
“You were saying, Hunter-Priest?” the High Priest said dryly.
Rikkarrikk growled deep in his throat. “Kitillikk must pay for this outrage.”
“Indeed she must. But she is momentarily out of our reach. S’sinndikk, however, is not. Her rule here must end at once. Contact Central Communications. Tell them I wish to address the people of S’sinndikk, within two thousand beats. Skkarrissa,” she continued, turning to the aide by her side once more, “arrange a preliminary broadcast to all our Temples. All priests to listen and attend. Ikkillikk . . .”
The High Priest’s orders went on for several more minutes, but Kathryn quit listening. She snuggled close to Jarrikk, her head against the kitten-soft fur of his flank, the slow throbbing of his right-side heart filling her ear, and all-but-dozed until Jarrikk suddenly stiffened and she straightened up herself, confused until she realized the High Priest had called his name.
“Your Eminence,” he replied.
“Rikkarrikk will accompany you to the Guildship Unity. You are free to go. I leave to you and your companion,” she almost managed to hide her distaste for Kathryn, “dealings with your Guild and the Commonwealth. Report to them what you must; let them take what action they will.”
“Your Eminence, what about the Hunter Fleet?”
“I can do nothing to stop them.”
“But if you contacted—”
“I will do nothing to stop them.” The High Priest looked steadily at Jarrikk. “Kitillikk has done wrong. Akkanndikk must be restored to her rightful position. If she chooses to call back the fleet, that is her choice. But it would not be mine.”
“But—”
“It would not be mine, Translato
r.”
Kathryn felt Jarrikk’s anger, and understood. The High Priest would end Kitillikk’s rule, because Kitillikk had transgressed against the Law. But she would do nothing to prevent the war Kitillikk had sought to trigger, because she wanted it, too. And the Supreme Flight Leader might not regain consciousness for days—if she ever did.
We’ve got to get in touch with Karak, Kathryn urged Jarrikk. Immediately. We’ve done all we can.
She hasn’t, Jarrikk thought, but out loud he said stiffly, “Thank you, Your Eminence.”
Rikkarrikk and two other Hunter-Priests moved up beside them. “This way, Translators,” Rikkarrikk said, and though this time he served as honor guard rather than prison guard, all Kathryn sensed from him as he led them through the Temple was the same old hatred.
Karak stood on a balcony high up on the central tower of the Guildhall, the same tower through which the S’sinn terrorists had entered two days before, and looked across the gray roofs that lapped like waves at the Guildhall walls to Commonwealth Central’s huge main spaceport. Another transport, fat and shiny like a dead, bloated fish, rode white fire into the sky—the fourth in the last twenty rotational degrees, and at least the tenth since the sun had risen that morning, and Karak’s dawn flotation-meditation had been interrupted by the raucous signal of his comm.
He’d grown so used to bad news that it had been something of a shock to hear what the Translator who served as the Guild’s Ambassador to Commonwealth Central had to report. “It worked,” Translator Shakik, a fellow Ithkarite, said, the high pitch of his voice betraying his excitement. Karak had chosen another Ithkarite as Ambassador precisely so that, for once, he wouldn’t have to guess the emotional state of someone on the other end of the commlink. “The attack had precisely the opposite effect to what Kitillikk intended. The delegates—not to mention the people they represent, thanks to that video you sent out—suddenly realized, when they saw the Guild attacked, what it would really mean to allow the Commonwealth to splinter over this human/S’sinn question. They agreed that the Commonwealth must end this war before it begins. Orders have gone out; the Fleet is being mobilized.”
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