by Debra Doyle
Jens looked from his cousin to Gentlesir Huool's redheaded intern. "Then I say we trust him," he said.
He turned to the man whose real name was probably not Guislen. "You said you could find us a ship. Let's go."
Guislen led the way out of the rotunda and back down the hall to the main staircase. The great building was empty now; the men and women who had guarded the long corridor were gone, and only the lit glowcubes remained to show where they had stood.
The atrium was dark and full of shadows. The planet's small, fast-moving moon shone down through the skylight, making odd-shaped patches of illumination on the hanging metal slabs and the crystal floor. Jens wished that the sheets of metal wouldn't brush and slide against each other so much; their faint, musical sound was too much like voices whispering all around him in the dark.
He was glad when they passed through the atrium and out onto the grassy plain. The sky overhead was clear, and outside the building the moonlight cast sharper, blacker shadows than it had within. The forest was a deeper darkness ahead of them at the far edge of the plain.
"Which way is the ship?" Jens asked.
Guislen pointed at the forest. "That way."
"Are you talking about another trading ship like the Dusty?" Faral demanded. "Or one of those wrecks out there in the jungle?"
"Not a wreck," said Guislen. "An antique, in good condition. And one of you knows how to handle such things."
"Pleasure craft, limited," Miza said hastily. "That's not the same as knowing how to operate a commercial starship."
"It will be enough," Guislen told her. "I can help you with the hard parts."
Miza didn't look reassured, and Jens didn't blame her. She was still frowning when they reached the forest. After that, the darkness around them was too deep for her expression to matter. Only the occasional shaft of moonlight came down through the tangle of vines and tree branches to illuminate their way. The forest had a nighttime smell to it that was different from the scent it had by day—a sweeter, heavier smell, almost the sweetness of decay, as if some carrion-fed flower had opened its blossoms with the coming of night.
They had been walking for some time when Faral said, in a low tone, "Someone's following us."
"You're sure?" Miza's voice was commendably level, Jens thought, but she moved, almost involuntarily, a little closer to his cousin as she spoke.
"I wouldn't have said so if I wasn't," Faral said.
Jens pulled out the blaster he had tucked in his waistband. He'd carried the stolen weapon this far without incident— unless you counted target-firing it during the dull parts of the transit from Ophel—but now he felt better for having it ready.
"You can trust Faral," he said to Miza. "He's good at that sort of thing."
Guislen said only, "We have to hurry," and quickened his pace. "I fear…"
"Fear what?" asked Miza. She got no reply.
At last they came to a part of the forest where the moonlight filtered down through the leaves to reveal a single isolated spaceship. The vessel was small, and covered with a thick mat of vines and creepers, but it stood balanced on its landing legs with its nose pointed high. Its doors were sealed shut at the top of a roll away ramp.
"We won't need nullgravs to lift this one," Guislen said. "She's a Gyfferan Class Elevener—one of the old straight-up designs."
"Someone's standing beside the ramp," Jens said.
But the dim figure, glimpsed only for a moment, had vanished again into the shadows before he finished speaking.
Faral said, "I don't see anyone."
Jens shook his head to clear it. "I must be seeing things. It's not there now." He gave an unsteady laugh. "What do you suppose we were breathing, back there at the passport office?"
"Strong stuff," Miza said. "I'm not surprised that the Mages trade here for medicinals, if that's what a bunch of backslid primitives can do with the local resources."
"Not all that primitive," Faral said. "They've got a good racket going in the passport-and-ID business. All the imported technology they want, no questions asked… I think we got some kind of special treatment."
"We're wasting time," said Guislen. "It isn't safe to delay outside here much longer."
"All right, but how do we get in?" Faral eyed the grounded spacecraft. "Violence is out if we want the thing to be airtight afterward. Assuming that it's airtight now."
Jens became aware that the others were watching him expectantly—even Guislen, which disturbed him somewhat. For some reason, it had become his responsibility to take the next step, whatever it was. He looked at the ship. Nothing new came out of the dark between the trees to stand in the patchy moonlight beside the landing legs. One beam of pale silver-grey, coming down unbroken through the leaves overhead, touched the ramp like a pointer.
I don't want to do this, Jens thought. But he was already walking up the ramp, breaking away a tangled net of vines and branches as he did so. His boots rang out on the slanted metal, sounding unnaturally loud and drumlike in the quiet of the forest.
There was a lockplate beside the sealed door at the top of the ramp—an old-fashioned model, square and bulky. He wondered if the standby power had trickled away in the years since the Biochem Plagues. Nothing for it but to try, he thought, and laid his hand against the scanner. Maybe it was the lingering residue of the Sapnish incense affecting his perceptions, but it seemed to him that he could feel the circuitry inside, waiting for the proper touch to open it.
But his touch wasn't the one that the silent circuits required. He was aware, without quite knowing how, that the door had tested him and found him wanting.
"Some things require practice," Guislen said. He was standing beside Jens, and so quiet had been his approach, or so intent had Jens been on the door, that Jens had been unaware that he was coming. "Let me see what I can do."
Guislen laid his hand beside Jens's on the scanner. Jens felt again the flow of electrons in their concealed ways—but this time they clicked the circuits over, accepting the new directions in which they had been sent.
"There's a trick to it," Guislen said, "and if you have the knack it's easy. I can show you later."
A red light glowed briefly within the depths of the scanner as the door came to life and began to cycle. Clinging tendrils of vine tore free as the door sighed open, its smooth, corrosionless metal withdrawing into slots on either side of the hatch.
"Permasteel construction throughout," said Guislen. "The Eleveners were tough little ships."
Jens didn't answer. A wave of foul air had come cascading out as the door opened, making his gorge rise and his head spin. Choking, he retreated down the ramp.
"Good job," Faral said as Jens staggered up to him. "If that works, maybe the rest of it—hey, what's the matter with you?"
"I feel wretched," Jens said. He sat down abruptly on the ground and let his head hang in between his knees while he willed his queasiness to subside.
"Don't feel wretched for any longer than you can help." That was Miza, sounding scared. "Because there's a light moving out in the woods. It's hanging away from us, but it's there. I've been catching it out of the side of my eye."
"Could be one of our friends from the port-control building," Faral said. "I think they were the ones who were following us."
"Maybe they just wanted us to open a ship so they could loot it," Miza said.
"No," Jens said. He pushed himself up onto his feet. "It isn't the locals. None of the ships we saw this morning had been touched."
He looked back at the ship. Guislen was waiting at the top of the ramp by the open door. Jens drew a deep breath of the forest air. Even heavy as it was with the cloying scent of the night-blooming flowers, it was better than what waited for him.
"I'm going aboard," he said to Miza and Faral. "See what's there… maybe get the vent system running." He pulled the blaster out of his waistband and handed it to Faral. "Here. In case I'm wrong about the locals."
Miza was scrambling inside her b
elt pouch. After pulling out a coin purse, two flatchips, and a hairbrush, she came up with a small, rattling object—keycards strung on a loop of plastic cord, and along with the keys a miniature glowcube, no bigger than a thumbnail.
"The light's not good for much except finding lockslots in the dark," she said. "But you'll need something to see by once you're inside."
"Thanks," Jens said. There didn't seem to be much else left to talk about, and there was no point in waiting. "Be careful," he added finally, and started back up the ramp into the derelict ship.
The worst of the foul air had dissipated by the time Jens made it back to the top of the ramp. Only a faint, persistent trace remained, an underlying stateness and corruption that was almost more a taste in the back of the mouth than a smell.
Guislen was waiting for him. "Come. Let's see what this ship has for us."
Together they went through the open door, with Guislen a little in the lead. Inside the ship, everything was black; the light from outside extended only a few feet beyond the threshold. Jens fumbled with Miza's key loop until he found the activation stud on the miniature glowcube, and pressed it with his fingernail. The cube flickered into a pallid life—it was an old one, and weak to boot—and the interior of the derelict Gyfferan Elevener saw light for the first time since the plague days.
Reflections danced back at him from deck and bulkheads. The Elevener was bright permasteel within as well as without, and whoever her masters had been they had kept her in good order.
"A trim kittle ship," said Guislen. "A bit short on cargo space for some people's taste, but that shouldn't matter."
Jens turned toward his companion. At first glance he thought that Guislen was holding up a glowcube like his own, only larger and brighter than Miza's key loop pendant. Then he saw that Guislen held nothing at all in his upraised hand except for the light itself, pure white and apparently sourceless.
"You're an Adept, aren't you?" Jens said finally.
"Yes," Guislen replied after a moment. "I was an Adept once. I suppose that I still am one, of a sort."
"If you're an Adept, what happened to your staff? I remember you having one before, when I was young."
"I gave it away," said Guislen, "to someone who needed it more than I did. And after that I followed other paths."
"Which led you here."
Guislen smiled. "Yes—and now that we are here, we should see what the rest of the ship holds for us."
He led the way forward and up into the body of the ship by interior ladders, taking the steep metal rungs nimbly like a man accustomed to shipboard life, with the brilliant immaterial light following him obediently all the while. They climbed past the realspace engines and the hyperdrives, and up into what Jens supposed would be the engine control room. Unlit monitors and blank readouts filled the gleaming steel walls, along with dials and gauges of antique design.
Guislen stopped before a covered control panel. The housing had words embossed on it in a script that Jens didn't recognize. Other objects in the room had similar labels.
"What language is that?" Jens asked, pointing.
"Ilarnan," Guislen replied. "It says this is the vent-control system. Open the cover and let's see what's what."
Jens pulled, and the cover came open on hinges, exposing an array of switches, knobs, and toggles.
"The captain took good care to shut the ship down in an orderly fashion," Guislen said. "Look there. The third switch from the top. That's external filter and vents. Rotate it to the right The bottom switch is for the internal airways. Slide that one all the way to the right, too."
As Jens followed the instructions, the green telltale lights beneath each switch winked on. All around him, in the bulkheads and the deckplates, he could hear the distant sound of machinery coming to life. The air inside the ship began to move, stirring the fine hairs on his neck and arms, and the scent of foulness and decay came back full force.
He swallowed. "It's going to take a while for all the air to cycle through the exchangers. Why don't we go back outside while that's happening?"
"Can you find your own way out?" Guislen asked. "I want to explore things a bit further."
"It might not be a good idea to split up," Jens said. The bad air was worse when it was moving; it made his head ache and swim at the same time. On top of the disorientation caused by the Sapnish incense, the effect was distinctly unpleasant.
"I'll be fine," Guislen said. "Go join your friends, and I'll come for you when everything's ready."
Jens didn't feel like arguing. He turned and left the way he had come, going down the ladders to the outside. The air of the landing field, when he reached it, smelled even sweeter than before, and he could almost feel the oxygen reaching his blood again. He sagged against one of the ship's landing legs and closed his eyes.
"What a smell," Faral's voice said. "It's even better than the sewers."
"Get used to it, coz; we'll be living in it When we reach Khesat, you can buy a whole new wardrobe."
"Considering that we left Ophel in the clothes we stood up in," said Miza, "we're going to have buy a new wardrobe anyway." She paused, and Jens could hear her breath catch as if something had startled her. When she spoke again, it was in a lower voice. "That light's moving around out there in the trees again, and this time it's coming closer."
Jens lifted his head. Miza was right: a bluish-white light was bobbing along the forest trail toward them.
Faral moved up beside him and lifted the blaster. In the weak illumination of Miza's tiny glowcube, his face looked set and determined. Miza stood close by him. Faral glanced down at her.
"Don't worry," he said. "I haven't seen anything truly dangerous around here yet."
Jens watched the light moving steadily among the trees. "Better switch off the safety on that blaster. Your experience may be about to change."
The light flickered and came closer. There was movement in the underbrush—movement but no sound that Jens could detect—and a man stepped forward into the open ground. He wore a black cloak, and a deep hood concealed his features. The light in the woods had come from the Adept's staff he carried. Power clung to the staff like a cold white flame, making the faint light of the miniature glowcube seem grey and pale.
"Hello!" Faral called out.
His cousin sounded relieved, Jens thought. Nobody had ever said there were Adepts working on Sapne, but members of the Guild could turn up anywhere. They had their own goals, and their own reasons for pursuing them.
But the newcomer didn't answer Faral's greeting, and made no further move. Miza edged closer and said in an undertone, "What do we do now?"
"Wait until we find out what he wants," Jens said. "This may not have anything to do with us at all."
"Do you really believe that?" said Faral. "I don't."
Miza gave a visible shiver. "You're scaring me."
"I'm scared myself. Getting involved in the private affairs of Adepts isn't healthy—I'd sooner fight a slam of rockhogs."
"And you the son and nephew of Adepts." Jens pushed himself off from the support of the Elevener's landing leg. "Ah, well. If you don't want to wait…"
He stepped away from the ship and toward the Adept, taking care not to block the clear line between the stranger and the energy weapon in Faral's hand. "Do you have business with us? Show us your face and we can talk."
As he walked forward, Jens noticed that in spite of the stillness of the night air, the folds of the Adept's cloak moved as if whipped by a silent but rising wind.
"Show us your face," Jens said again. He spoke in Standard Galcenian—most Adepts had it at least as a second or third language—but the man didn't answer.
Jens switched languages. "Do you speak Khesatan?" he asked in that tongue. "If you do, then let us know who you are."
He repeated the question in all the other languages he knew enough of to let him form the words: Maraghai Trade-talk, Old Court Entiboran, even Gyfferan.
No reply came to any of th
em, and the hooded Adept didn't move. The glow of power from the staff he carried cast a harsh white light onto his cloak, and onto his one visible arm in its long black sleeve. With an inward shudder, Jens saw that the pale hand gripping the staff was little more than dry skin stretched over bone. The flesh had cracked and split across the knuckles, but it didn't bleed. Sinews and tendons showed through the gaps like string.
This can't all be the fault of that smoke back at the passport office, Jens thought. He began to walk backward, keeping his eyes fixed on the mummified hand. He didn't want to look at the pale blur that was the stranger's face.
"Jens, what is it?" Faral called out.
Does he see something funny too? Jens wondered. And is that better or worse than not having anyone see it but me?
He took another step backward—not straight back toward the ship, but leading away at a slight angle. If Faral ever decided to use the blaster. Jens felt the vines and undergrowth behind him catching at his knees as he stepped back, but he didn't dare turn around to see where he was going.
The stranger moved to follow, narrowing the distance between them. Time seemed to slow. Now they were close enough for Jens to see a gleam of white underneath the deep hood of the stranger's cloak. He couldn't make out exactly what it was, but he didn't like it. The insects had stopped singing. In spite of the tropic night, Jens felt cold.
Then he felt even colder as he realized what had happened to make visible that flash of white. The Adept's glowing staff was in motion and swinging toward him.
Chapter XIII.
Sapne; Hyperspace; Khesat
« ^ »
Jens flung himself backward, barely avoiding the staff as it passed horizontally through the air where his head had been. He hit the ground hard and rolled away to one side—a second later, the other end of the staff smashed into the leafmould beside him. He kept on rolling. The rattle and sway of the underbrush around him would betray his passage, but to keep still would be death.
He heard a high-pitched sizzling noise, like water on hot metal, and a blaster bolt passed through the air above his head. Two more bolts, glowing a dark blue with ionizing energy, followed the first. All three of them hit the cloaked figure straight on. White smoke curled up in the darkness after each impact. But the stranger—surely no Adept, Jens thought—never staggered, and the glowing staff was swinging down again.