by Sharon Lee
"As I thought, Gardener—entirely usable. If you will help me with the access panel, we will let the Arachnid within to do such cleaning and preventive work as may be necessary and I'll be on my way." He sent a bright glance at Finchet's face. "Unless you would prefer not to be left alone with the Arachnid?"
Finchet laughed. "Gods love you—I'd only rather not see it—I've no fear of it!" He sobered. "Beside that, the little tyke will be here, won't he, to supervise?"
Gem smiled and stood, heading for the access hatch set low in the corner of the wall. "Indeed he will, Gardener. No fear for that." He turned suddenly.
"You have the training, do you, Finchet? Who is your second?"
The old man bent to the hatch, twisting the holding nuts with strong fingers. "I've had the drills," he said calmly. "Practice them once a seven-shift since the day I came nine. As for co-pilot—I'll have young Veln, if you're willing. He's as close as I have to a 'prentice in these days when we're thin of children."
Together, they lifted the hatch aside and stood back to let the Arachnid enter the service tunnel. Gem nodded and turned to go.
"Veln it is," he said. "I'll send him to you now and have you keep him here, if there's room. Drill him—and start him on learning the Book."
"He's had some of that," said Finchet, walking with him to the door. "I'll move him more serious, if that's your wish. And there's plenty of room. Blanket roll in the closet there—Veln thinks it an adventure to sleep out on the grass."
Gem stepped into the glade and glanced around him, drawing in a deep breath of wood-tanged air. "Lucky Veln," he said softly and nodded to the old man. "Take good care."
"Yourself as well, lad," Finchet said, and stood at the door, watching, until the path turned and his Captain was lost from view.
Chapter Fifty-Four
It was a slow shift on the InRing.
Milt Jinkins sighed and stretched, leaning far back in the contoured chair. Before him the scan ran, tirelessly, endlessly, filling dials and screens with infinite bits of information, building a second-by-second picture of Spangiln System that invariably showed empty, empty, empty.
Not strictly true, Milt told himself, settling more comfortably in his chair. There were five more Combine blockade ships within sublight scan; a dozen more inside bounce-scan range; twice that within so-called "shouting distance." Though it did, Milt thought, get a tad tedious talking to the Outriders. Lagtime tended to make a hash out of any extended conversation, unless you were an old-timer and fluent in doubletalk.
Milt had only been riding blockade for a Standard Year. His partner, Ria, had been an Outrider for six times that long and before that, when she was Milt's age—but faster, so she said—a hyperspace pilot for The Combine. Ria spouted doubletalk effortlessly and had the trick of keeping two independent conversations going at the same time so ingrained that she spoke that way realtime, to Milt's initial confusion and frustration.
It was growing on him, though. Milt thought that in another six months he'd be good enough at doubletalk to try it out on the Outrider circuit. Maybe even—
"What the shit is that?" He demanded, eyes bugging at the forward screen in the instant before he slapped the warning toggle, opened up the spill-line and sent the image and the zany readings to the next ship in line. He had just zipped and fired the same information to the Big Ship, far beyond the Outriders' ring, when Ria hit the assistant's chair, fingers dancing over the comm keys, twitching, tuning—searching. And all the while, her eyes were on the image in the forward screen.
"GenShip," she said, not looking at Milt. "Comm lines'll be old system. Saw another once. Radio, maybe. It was dead. This one, too—no."
No, Milt echoed silently. Static sputtered over their line, blaring as Ria missed the match, then astonishingly clear as she found it and locked.
"Attention, all hands," the woman's voice was cold, efficient. "This is not a drill. All Crew will prepare to abandon ship. Technical staff, initiate system shutdown. Pilots, engage lifeships. This is not a drill. Crew assigned to Level Seven will report to Bays One, Three, Five. This is not a drill. Level Six evacuation commences in fifteen minutes. Level Seven pilots signal readiness. All Crew, all Crew. This is not a—"
"Drill." Ria touched the tuner and skipped to the next band, this one a chaos of voices that reminded Milt of an Outrider conversation. "Techs," Ria said, and, "Sounds bad."
It did sound bad. Milt's half-trained ear picked out grim-sounding phrases: ". . . mother system down . . . lost contact . . . Engineering . . . main computer sluggish . . ." And, abruptly, one whole, telling sentence: ". . . power shunt, damn you! I want everything you've got on those Bay doors!"
Ria made adjustments; touched a speak-stud. "This is Combine Ship three-three-six in blockade of Spangiln System. This system is interdicted. Repeat, this system is under Combine interdiction. Touch down at your peril."
"I've peril enough!" That was the cold-voiced woman, shockingly plain. "We're abandoning Ship, Grounder, do you understand that? Talk to me of peril when my folk are safe."
Ria nodded, as if she'd expected nothing else, and twitched the dial again. The evacuation instructions murmured on as background, just loud enough to tweak attention, if an important phrase were spoken. Ria fiddled with the auxiliary line; pegged the techs and let that one run, too. Milt frowned. Could the woman really follow that many conversations at once?
"Well," said the woman, "we gave 'em their warning. You zipped a bag for the big ship?" That wasn't really a question, Milt knew, so he kept quiet, listening to her talk to herself.
"Outriders'll scan the lifepods; us'll scan the worlds." She leaned back in her chair and finally looked at him, the lines of her face snagging shadows. "Lot of salvage," she said, "in a GenShip."
Milt blinked at her. "Salvage?"
"Ours by right," said Ria; "shared equal with the rest of the InRing. Tapes'll show who saw her first. Might be us; I didn't hear any shadow chatter—" another old spacer's trick; one Milt felt uncomfortable believing in. "If we pegged her first, we get an extra share." She showed her teeth in a grin. "Kill fee."
"Salvage," he repeated, looking at the screen, seeing the sheer size of the ship, adding up the profit in the metal alone, not to mention whatever system components there were, weapons—He started.
"First pod's out!" he snapped; then, "Second! Third! I—those are lifepods? They're almost as big as us!"
"GenShips," said Ria wisely, twiddling various dials, picking up and losing the voices of pilots, calm and businesslike, talking coordinates and vector and relative mass.
"Looking to go out-system," Ria said. "Good. No trouble for us. Just wait 'til they're gone, then latch the ship, set our beacons . . ."
"What if it blows up?"
She looked at him pityingly. "You've got a grab-board," she said. "Ride it."
Irritably, he called up his remote-scans, broke a moment to acknowledged receipt of ancillary information from Syn, passed by voice-link from halfway 'round the InRing, then swore as the GenShip's codes kept breaking.
"GenShip codes'll be old," Ria said softly and he bit his lip to keep the swearing inside, went all the way down the scale to the edge of tech—and matched, all systems.
He was still riding the scanners when the second wave of lifepods broke loose and fled the mother ship, pilot voices reiterating transition coords and rendezvous points.
Just before the fourth wave went, he pulled out of the scan and leaned back, looked over to find Ria fielding skip-calls and voice-link.
"Aye," she said, to one of them, fingers flickering across the controls. "Coded and sent. Three-three-six out. Dez, we got another wave going out. Far as we scan, they're all for outsystem. My partner's on the grab-scan—Yeah? Okay. We trade when he finishes up. Five ticks. Out." She leaned back and grinned at him. "What find?"
Milt moved his shoulders. "Massive systems failure, as far as I can tell. Engines are banked. Life support's a mess. Shielding leaks. Something funny
in the drives—like the translation engine went out."
"Old," said Ria, and grinned again. "We have salvage right Okayed by the big ship. Tapes show we get the kill fee. Dez wants to swap grab-scan data. Whenever you're ready."
"Sure," he said, and leaned back over the board.
Chapter Fifty-Five
"Will they take the bait?" Corbinye demanded as Hyacinth tumbled free of the Ship.
Anjemalti glanced over from the co-pilot's chair. "A fortune in salvage, hanging, empty, before them?"
"Empty . . ." she sighed.
"Regrets, Corbinye?"
She toyed with the trajectory setting, frowned at the counter. "We're coming to the first mark," she said, instead of an answer, for the piloting took precedence. Anjemalti nodded and took over his end of the business and together they wove Hyacinth through the tricksy bit of piloting and skimmed her clean and sweet into the shadow of the third planet and out from Combine scrutiny.
"Unless," Corbinye muttered, "they have eyes to see through the planet image and pick us out. . .."
"And guns to blow us apart, or beams to capture us," Anjemalti finished mockingly. He glanced up as she turned the chair, and caught her eyes with his. "Needless worry. The Combine will not see us."
"You sound very certain. Do I believe The Combine blind, deaf and stupid?"
He shrugged. "Sufficient to believe in spiders. And Arachnids."
"And in Anjemalti," Corbinye said resignedly, "who always will be tinkering among the gadgets. . .."
Unexpectedly, he laughed, eyes bright with delight. "Finchet knows what to do?"
She looked sour. "So he says. If his Book is written by the same prescient who foretold yourself—"
"Then the universe looks to being changed in substance," he concluded, working with this and that on his side of the board. "Which brings us around to the Witness' view of things. Refreshing, when prophecies align."
"Well for you to say so," she said irritably. "Excepting only that the Tomorrow Log foretold you would return the Crew to greatness! Instead, we have the lifeboats spilling out in all direction; Grounders looking to take the Ship for salvage—" She bit her lip. "What is the Crew without a Ship, Anjemalti? What sort of Captain, foretold or elect, leaves his folk alone in such a venture, while he hares off to solve the problems of those who are no kin to him, who are Grounders—and mad beside!"
There was no laughter in the blue eyes now. "Madness, as Edreth taught me, is a relative term. If the Bindalche seem mad to the Crew, how much more demented must the Crew seem to the Bindalche? Ask the Witness. If you dare. As for aiding folk who are none of mine—who is? Edreth is dead. Shilban is dead. Linzer is dead." He closed his eyes in a grimace almost of pain and Corbinye bit her lip, found her hand stretching toward his and snatched it back.
"I have set things in motion—ill deeds have been spawned from my actions," Anjemalti said slowly. "I strive to amend that which I have put awry. The Trident is restored to potency. I will return it and the Witness to the Bindalche, who will then be able to choose a new champion and—gods willing—vanquish the Vornet." He opened his eyes, and Corbinye's heart quailed at the depth of weariness in them.
"Of the other—the Ship was killing the Crew, and they have been encouraged to leave—to gamble for life rather than bending their necks to death. What more would you have me do for the Crew, when I find them as strange and as mad as you find the Witness?"
She had no idea what she meant to answer him; only knew that she had begun to speak.
The bell rang, signaling the second mark, and they spun their chairs at the same moment, fingers snapping toggles, minds on the necessities of piloting, and all the words they spoke for some time had to do with that.
* * *
Witness for the Telios sat in the Smiter's Center, his eyes half-closed and dreamy, his secret heart quiescent, his mind ablaze with trance.
Into the trance She came—Slayer of God, Mother of the Bindalche, Trident Bearer—terrible and holy. With Her hands, She raised him up and carried him out, beyond the pitiful walls of metal. Out into the blackness of the void She bore him, the stars about Her feet like dust, Her body enclosing worlds. Onto one such world She set him and he stood upon the pinnacle of Brother Mountain and looked out over the world of his birth.
But it was not, after all, the world as he had left it, the world as he had always known it—withered, sand-dry, gasping. No. This land that stretched out from horizon to horizon was green and moist and wholesome, with the silvery threads of rivers, the mirroring of ponds and lakes, glittering here and there within the tapestry. The smell of growing things came into his nostrils and his mouth tasted of young leaf.
Witness for the Telios stared out over this green and luscious land and knew that he was seeing future, not Memory. He fell to his knees on the rocks of Brother Mountain and stretched out his arms to the sky.
Mother, he cried. What has happened to my land?
The Goddess laughed and the mountain trembled and Witness for the Telios was afraid.
Mother, he cried again. I am commanded to Witness fully, to recall rightly. You yourself chose this work for me and took my name in surety. Is it meet that you laugh at my questions?
IMPERTINENCE. Her voice went through his head like needles and he closed his eyes in agony. TELL MY PRESENT LOVER HE PLEASES ME WELL. TELL HIM: EVENT TREMBLES.
And that was all, except the searing blast of blackness and the sickening spin of stars and the scrape of metal as he plummeted through the ship's hull and smashed back into his body.
He lay flat on his back on the cold metal floor, lungs laboring, tasting sweat—or blood—on his lips, smelling the stink of his own fear. His private heart was wailing, there in its solitude, shamed to find such terror in one long named a man. He had pity on that man, now nameless, and brought up a Memory of an earlier Witness, one of those most revered by the Telios. Upon returning from a sojourn with the Goddess, that one had bit and clawed until it became necessary to forcibly restrain her from harming herself and others. She was thus restrained for a period of days, until the madness passed and she recalled herself and her duties.
To speak to the Goddess is no easy thing, Witness for the Telios told his private heart. No shame can be attached to fear, when the very eldest of the Telios tremble and hide themselves from Her face.
His secret heart somewhat soothed, Witness came stiffly to his feet. In its Center, Shlorba's Smiter gleamed and vibrated illusions of What If. Witness bowed before it, fingers touching eyes, ears, mouth, breast. He straightened, aching in every joint, and looked down at himself. The knees of his buckskins were muddy and scuffed, smeared with grass stains. The palms of his hands were scored, as if he had fallen, and caught himself against rock.
He bowed again to the Smiter. "Mother," he murmured and went back to his place of watching, where he sat and composed himself for duty.
Chapter Fifty-Six
It was dim in the grotto and Saxony Belaconto took a deep breath of warm air. The walk from the ship across the strip of baking earth had parched her; the hint of moisture within the grotto soothed abused nose and throat membranes.
She blinked several times to clear her vision, then turned her head to frown at the man beside her.
"You'd better be convincing this time."
The heat had not treated Jarge Menlin kindly. Nor had the Vornet, in the days he been in custody. Who could have known, Saxony Belaconto thought, not for the first time, that Jarge had such a skill at hiding? For more than a week he had eluded the Vornet's best efforts, while Saxony Belaconto's patience, already frayed, frazzled and finally tore.
When even the noisy capture of his overindulged mistress had failed to bring Jarge to heel, Belaconto had begun to believe him mastermind of an elaborate plot in which Gem ser Edreth was merely a pawn—a vehicle for the deliverance of her death.
Except that she had not died, though others had done so, and still others come close. It would have been enough, if Jarge h
ad moved quickly, decisively—but the second, killing, blow did not come. Instead, Jarge went into hiding and Gem ser Edreth fled the planet, with Trident and operator and barbarian cousin.
And, eventually, Jarge Menlin was found.
"How the hell," he said now, "am I supposed to be convincing, when it's the Trident they want, and not me?" He mopped a dangerously red face with a soiled white kerchief and glared at her, small eyes half-mad with desperation. "Didn't you listen to what the chief said?" he demanded. "They don't care about me, or you, or the damn' thief. All they care about is the Trident and the guy who watches it."
"Then they will at least learn to care about me," she snapped, "and about the power of that ship out there."
Menlin sighed gustily and then hastily bowed, groaning with the effort it caused him.
The aged, sticklike figure in faded green robes did not bow. It merely stood in an attitude of patient attentiveness until Jarge Menlin had straightened once more.
"Good sun," it said then, its voice soft and sexless. "Who comes to the Grotto of the Telios?"
"Jarge Menlin," he said huskily and cleared his throat, "Trident-bearer. And Saxony Belaconto."
"Where is the Trident, O Seeker?" the Gatekeeper questioned, with neither mockery nor heat. As if, thought Saxony Belaconto, they had not stood here for three consecutive days, going through exactly the same routine.
"Safely kept," Jarge returned, as he always did. "Is it possible to speak with the Telios?"
"Many things are possible, O Seeker."
Jarge gritted his teeth. "I want to see the Telios," he said, voice suddenly harsh. "Now. No more fooling around."
This was a slight departure from the script. If the Gatekeeper noticed, it gave no sign; certainly it did not deviate from its own lines.
"I will carry your message within. Please await me."
What would follow now—based on the experience of the last three days—was the return of the Gatekeeper, regretting in monotone that the Seeker could not be conducted within. They would be invited to return when their petition had reached fullness. Whatever that meant.