Born of Flame

by Oscar Steven Senn

  Over a meal of steamed fish, Spacebread too began noticing Niral’s interest. He was an odd sort, she thought, young to be a priest of the famous Korlann. She didn’t like the way he flinched and glanced about in thinly veiled fear. And she wondered why his alien eyes fell on her as though she were his last chance for salvation. What was he summoning the courage to say?

  Finally the words found their way out. “Mr. BarKloof tells me you own a private rocket, milady.” He gulped. “And that you are acquainted with risk.”

  She smiled. “Quite true. But I am on Kiloo for pleasure after a long time away from such comforts, and if you are looking for—”

  A muscular striped cat interrupted by climbing to the level of their pedestal and introducing himself. “Balcap, milady, of Gostor’s Cluster. You danced most fetchingly tonight. Please accept this partial reward. As for the rest, might I have the honor to call on you at your inn and show you some of Kiloo’s less public wonders?”

  Spacebread took the offered bouquet and sneezed happily. “Catnip! I thank you, sir. But, though I regret it, my calendar is crowded. Some other occasion, perhaps? Good night.” She cut him in half with a smile. Dazed and rejected, he wandered off.

  Returning to Niral, Spacebread waved the flowers under her nose and said, “You are a high priest of Marghool, I take it?”

  Niral’s bony head inclined. “The Korlann is the most sacred group on Marghool. It is very old and very powerful. I am a junior member, yes.”

  Spacebread’s smile wavered, she fixed him firmly with her yellow eyes. “Then why would an influential priest such as you need to ask about rockets and risks so close to home?”

  But before he could answer, Niral was startled by two more feline heads edging over the pedestal. They were trying to elbow each other aside as they introduced themselves.

  “Spacebread, my lady! I am Drashno, a peer of …” muttered the yellow one before his hold on the grips was broken and he tumbled to the floor.

  “I am Wodil Barketree.” The sly victor, who was a dusty gray, grinned. “And I admired your form on the vines more than the rest. Here, please take this ring as a token of my affection to the most beautiful cat in the Home Worlds. I shall call at your accommodations tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps we could …”

  That was all Wodil Barketree managed before a gruff Drashno dragged him away from the edge. Niral heard hissing and a muffled curse, then the sounds of struggle. He shuddered and turned away. Spacebread frowned, annoyed. It was plain she was not in the market for a lover. She tossed the gaudy rings to one of the Margh waiters as they threw the suitors out.

  The figlet snorted. “What gall! What arrogance these Festival cats have! Why, I’ve a mind to throw the next one out myself.”

  Spacebread chuckled. “Try not to be too jealous, Klimmit. Spirits run high during the Festival. Still, I’ve had quite enough attention for one day. Perhaps we should be getting back to the hotel.”

  Klimmit folded his arms in disgust, silenced for the moment.

  The scuffle had reawakened Niral’s caution, and again he glanced at the door. He seemed to reconsider what he was about to say, then sighed and continued as though resigned. “You seem to be as honest as you are strong, milady. I will be honest with you. I have fled to Kiloo without permission of the Korlann. I am afraid. If you are willing to get me away from this system, I could reward you well.”

  “I thought priests were poor.” Spacebread sniffed over the catnip, then her eyes brightened. “But no, tell me first—what is it you fear?”

  The figlet leaned close, his sap pulsing with interest. At last, after years of idleness, he could smell adventure. Even through his helmet.

  Niral tightened, folding all four of his arms close in his dark red robe. “Another Korliss. A Margh older and shrewder than all the others. I have fallen into his power, and now that I would escape …” his hard eyes darted “… I am in grave danger. I have betrayed Korliss Quan.”

  A quiver swept him as he said the name. All he could feel was his guilt and dishonor in confessing to this white warrior. “Help me.”

  Spacebread looked at Klimmit, who could hardly contain his expectation. She sighed, full of misgivings, and was about to answer the priest when something at the edge of the pedestal caught her eye.

  It was not a face this time. It was a golden leaf that wavered and grew until it was an entire golden branch. Then a mottled brown hand laid it at her feet. The Branch of Bastu. Suddenly the bearer of the branch leaped in a high arc and landed on his knees before her. Niral flinched violently.

  “Dundee!” she exclaimed.

  “The same.” He grinned, and bowed a bit. His face, like the rest of him, was a crazy quilt of brown, tan, and black, but there was a cloth patch over one eye and the look of steel in his dancer’s muscles. “This branch, though you don’t claim it, is yours. As much for your honesty as for your performance. All Kiloo knows it. You were never lovelier, Spacebread.”

  Spacebread frowned at the interruption. She tossed the catnip over her shoulder. “And you would like to see me tomorrow, eh? To discuss a business proposal?”

  Dundee’s eyebrows went up. “Nay, tonight, I thought. It’s early yet. Your priestly friend and the young figlet should be retiring soon.”

  Klimmit couldn’t stand it. He buzzed between the two cats angrily. “Listen, you! My mistress has important matters of business to discuss, and she has hardly time to dally with ruffians from every corner of the galaxy who only want … who only want …”

  Dundee shrugged and thumped Klimmit right on his helmet, sending him spinning. He turned to Spacebread with a wry smile in time to receive a light kick beneath the chin, which, in the weak gravity of Kiloo, bowled him off the pedestal and across the floor. He sat up just as the golden Branch of Bastu caught him between his eyes. The pavilion erupted in a private shower of stars for Dundee.

  A moment later he had recovered enough to let a waiter help him up. With his blurred single eye he made out the shapes of Spacebread and the figlet as they left the hall with their strange dinner guest. Dundee shook some of the stars away and glanced at the golden branch in his hand. He grinned, and then his grin became a laugh and his laugh became a bounding roar.

  “For the second time tonight,” he chuckled between bellows, “you have bested me, my white friend. My quest may have begun as business but you have made it very personal indeed. And I will win, in the end.”

  [2]

  Of Risk and Rockets

  THE CITY was alive with Festival. From the tips of the spires along the canyon rim to the terraces ranked down both sides came the sounds of celebration. Every four years Kiloo filled with irrepressible cats, and the stable population of insect folk from Marghool kept to their homes shyly for the week. In memory of their legendary hero Bastu, jubilant cats pranced, leaped, soared in thick screeching masses through Kindarh’s narrow streets. Some wore masks and some wore gaudy tail decorations made of plumes and tinsel, some played sistrums and cymbals, others the melodic lyrtyl, and some sang. But all celebrated, loudly and vigorously, the fact that they were cats and had never been dominated by another people.

  Spacebread, Klimmit the figlet, and a quivering Korliss Niral made their way from the pavilion with difficulty. The flow of celebration seemed to be against them, though Spacebread at the lead swam through ably, cheering and bouncing with the crowd. Klimmit buzzed overhead, where he encountered only an occasional balloon to hinder him.

  Niral clutched his top pair of hands around his hearing organs. “Sssstt! We are in the den of the damned! Never have I seen such disorder. How far must we go to get out of it?”

  Spacebread laughed as she slapped an adventurous paw away from her tail. “Only half a kilometer, to my hotel on the other side of the canyon. We can continue our talk there. We will have to walk, though. It would be folly to take a cab—even the tubes across the canyon are jammed. No harm will come to you from the crowd, though.”

  Niral knew that was a lie. He
knew he would be ripped to shreds by happy cats at any moment. And if that did not happen, the black fear lingered in him that in such a throng he would not be able to scent Quan’s drones before they stepped out of the darkness to smear him with some vile poison. His glackules chattered in dread.

  The figlet, however, bubbled with delight. After all those years in the asteroids and among lonely frontier planets it seemed the cats were celebrating for him and Spacebread. And now an adventure, with treasure and danger. Delight!

  Nearly an hour passed before they pushed into one of the dozens of clear plasteel tubes linking the canyon banks. It too was clotted with festivity. Niral glanced down and nearly collapsed, for the tube base was as clear as the rest. He could see blue vines stretching forever downward into the abyss. He shut his eyes tightly and held desperately onto Spacebread’s cape. With her aid, and his acute Margh sensitivity to odor to guide him, he stumbled along.

  Perhaps that was just the edge that allowed Niral to sense the danger. In such a crowd, the odors were even thicker than the people, but a few stray molecules different from the rest triggered his alarm. His orange eyes flashed wide.

  “Drones!” he hissed, clutching Spacebread’s arm.

  She looked in the direction he pointed and noted a stark stony head jutting above the crowd at the exit they struggled toward. Glancing the way they had come, she now saw two more entering the tunnel.

  “How can you be sure they’re Quan’s drones?” she called over the noise.

  Niral fought against panic. “They are uncollared, fed on Form Two foods. The pheromones that they exude, their smells, are different.”

  Klimmit, who had gone ahead without noticing that the others had stopped, returned. He and Spacebread evaluated the danger and grinned at each other.

  “It is forbidden to use weapons in Kindarh,” she warned Niral. “But likely Klimmit and I could handle them if it comes to it. That would, however, involve the sheriff—Kindarh is a tight town. Do you want that?”

  Niral shook his head violently. Just when hope had come in the form of a white cat, he thought, despair returned. His composure crumbled like a weak wall. “The authorities would call Quan. Go. There is nothing you can do. His hand is everywhere. Leave me to them.”

  Spacebread glared at him in disgust. “Nonsense.”

  The white cat unbuckled her cape. Niral had not noticed that she carried a flat leather bag like a pack underneath it. This she reached into, her arm disappearing in an alarming blackness. When she drew it out, a great gleaming sword, so long it could not possibly have fit in the bag, came with it. She shoved a quick space in the crowd, lifted the blade with both hands like a dagger over her head and gathered her resolve. Then she drove the sword like a lightning bolt into the floor. Thunder cracked. Now the crowd was only too happy to dance out of her way. The sword had pierced the clear shell. She threw herself against it with a mighty effort, twisting the hilt. Again she lifted and drove until only a sliver held a rough circle of plasteel to the hole she had cut. Niral’s pupils widened in astonishment. Here was more resourcefulness and daring than he had ever prayed for.

  In a moment Spacebread had bent the circle back like a hatch. Klimmit buzzed through it at her instruction. Then she motioned for Niral to do the same, glancing at the approaching drones.

  He knew there was no resistance he could muster against her will. Though fear gripped him, he climbed with childlike obedience through the hole. His leg-hooks groped beneath and at last caught in one of the many vines below, which grew out from the far wall of the abyss. A frond bore his weight well, though he still clung to the stalk. He thought briefly of using his Ability to propel himself, but the Korlann forbade such light use of it. Spacebread dropped onto another fine cluster. Her cape and bag were now on her back.

  “Quick, Klimmit, seal it. And seal it well,” she called.

  The gawking crowd circled to watch the figlet light a torch on his helmet rim and bond the piece back to the tube. By the time he finished, the drones were overhead, very disappointed. Klimmit joined Spacebread and the priest as they climbed onto a nearby terrace, on the side of the canyon to which they had been traveling.

  “I did not know your peril was quite so close,” Spacebread said to Niral as she pushed through the startled onlookers to the street.

  “I have been watched for years,” he answered. “I thought I was eluding them by going to the spaceport on Marghool to greet an official and boarding a flight for Kiloo instead. I thought I might catch a liner from here, since it is such a tourist moon.”

  Spacebread glanced over her shoulder. “But you found the liners were watched?”

  “Everything,” said Niral hollowly. “The freighters, shuttles, everything. I did not know he had agents here. I was foolish.”

  Spacebread’s feline curiosity was now fully aroused. As they made their way through thinning swarms of cats, she wondered just what sort of trouble this priest was in. He had angered another powerful priest, that much was clear. And that priest wanted Niral alive. And neither wanted the authorities involved. Spacebread decided they had best get off Kiloo as soon as possible. She could sort it all out later.

  They neared their hotel, and here they met fewer and fewer celebrants, for the Festival was centered on the canyon. They hurried on, without running headlong, to avoid further notice.

  “Around back.” Spacebread nodded to Klimmit. “The alley. The hotel’s front door might be watched now that they know where we’re headed.”

  They passed down a side street into an ill lit courtyard. It seemed filled with silence, quite heavy with the atmosphere of desertion. They slowed, now aware of their loud footfalls. Warily Spacebread edged into the alley leading to the rear entrance of the hotel. Her sword pointed the way. The figlet buzzed ahead carefully.

  But not carefully enough. Something suddenly struck his helmet with a loud crack. Before Spacebread could lift her sword, a figure bounded from the darkness to grapple with her, slamming her against a doorway. The sword rattled onto the pavement. She hissed and slashed claws across a bony face. Niral felt strong pairs of arms clamp around him and folded in a heap of terror. Spacebread kicked her attacker away and spun to meet the next two. But the alley was close, and each blow in the faint gravity spun her into a wall. In a moment, she was held fast like the Korliss. Another drone held the stunned figlet.

  “Release them,” Niral chattered weakly. “They are none of this!”

  “I am now,” Spacebread snarled, licking blood from her nose. “By Bastu, I am now.” She chided herself privately for allowing her instincts to rust. Too long in the boondocks. She had underestimated how badly this Quan creature wanted Korliss Niral. But why?

  The drones dragged them toward the alley opening without discussion. A sky car waited beyond, a hooded, heavily robed figure sat in darkness at its wheel. Some sort of insignia marked its side. Spacebread did not resist much, just enough to delay her captor until she could gather her balance. That projecting sewer lid ahead would give a good foothold …

  Suddenly a light flashed behind them. The drones spun and blinked, nose slits sniffing for identity. A familiar voice said, “Now, now, let’s not play rough. I’ll thank you fellows to unhand my friends. Right now.”

  A drone buzzed angrily. It waved its antennae.

  “My stunner is tuned for your nervous systems,” the voice smiled. “And if you do not release them all, I will give you a terrible headache. Now!

  Spacebread felt the two pairs of hands slacken, and she slipped away with the others to where Dundee held the light. Her eyes flashed.

  “See how handy I can be to have around?” Dundee saluted. “I couldn’t help but follow you, milady.”

  “I could have handled things myself,” Spacebread said indignantly, her eyes narrowing. “I’m beginning to wonder just why you’re so interested in my affairs.”

  Suddenly an irritated voice called from the air car, “What’s holding you? Come on. It’s cold in this alley.”
The figure paused when there was no answer. Spacebread caught the glitter of an eye.

  Suddenly the air car’s engine growled to life. Dundee aimed between the drones and fired an invisible beam. The driver moaned, the engine faltered. The car door sprang open and he fled, stooped below vision, only the flapping of his garments marking his exit.

  Spacebread glanced at Dundee as she picked up her sword. “I could have done it myself, but I gratefully leave the problem to your solution. May we never meet again.”

  Klimmit had meanwhile come to, trying to determine what had happened.

  “Quickly, Klimmit,” she said as she picked him up. “Fly up and get our luggage. And be careful.”

  She helped Niral strap into the air car while the figlet was gone. The starter code was still punched in, and she restarted the car.

  “It must be Quan’s car,” Niral said, trying to recover his nerves.

  “It’s his all right,” Spacebread replied. “Only governments and temples can operate air cars in Kindarh. You can explain all this to me when we reach the spaceport. If Quan’s as powerful as you say, he can likely have the authorities detain us unless we get to neutral space quickly.”

  Niral shook his narrow head. “No. I should not have involved you. I wish for you to give me up. It is too late to try to escape. When the driver tells Quan what has happened, he will send more drones to the spaceport. I will give myself to them.”

  “Not until I understand your situation. Quickly, Klimmit! Throw that stuff in back.”

  The figlet sailed into the car with their luggage just as Spacebread fired it into the air and over a row of houses. Dundee’s surprised voice sounded below. He had thought she was waiting for him while he tied up the drones. When the ship stopped accelerating, Klimmit threw Spacebread a plasma pistol from the trunk and located his own cryo-gun. Niral watched him feel along the top of his helmet for the hairline crack in his clear helmet caused by the drone’s fist. He found it and pointed the tip of the cryo-gun at it. A blue mist crackled in the air, lacing the crack with a pattern of ice. Klimmit patted the sealed line and grinned securely at Niral.