by T. F. Grant
***
When Tai and the others docked the Damnfine and exited onto the station, Tai wondered what the commotion was about. To his left the other Markesian scuttlers had docked by their flagship. The two bone-white chitinous Markesian leaders stood to one side, gripping two humans by their neck, the humans’ feet dangling off the floor while Haggard and three heavily armed enforcers held a gang of six thugs to the wall. Haggard’s voice boomed out their crimes and lack of rights before his men and women shackled them and dragged them away.
Not wanting to be left out of a good bit of gossip, Tai approached Haggard. “Hags, what’s going on, man?”
Not addressing him, Haggard approached Chitaan and Catheraine, the Markesian leaders, and ordered them to put down the scumbags. “They’ll face our justice,” he said. “What you do to Aleatra and the others is your business, but I’m standing witness here, and I cannot allow you to take the law into your own hands.”
Tai followed him to hear what the situation was.
Catheraine threw her thug to the floor with such ferocity the dark-haired, shifty-looking human male’s head hit the deck with a sharp crack. He didn’t move after that. Haggard sighed and looked toward Chitaan, an expression of resignation on his face as the Markesian pulled the human in his claw up while a prehensile stinger arced up over his back and jabbed the man in the throat. The thug’s face swelled and his body shook violently as the poison set to work.
Within a few seconds the human was dead and a pile of smoldering goo on the floor.
Dylan put his hand on Tai’s shoulder from behind and whispered into his ear, “And that’s why they’re not our friends.”
Tai grinned. “It’s certainly not endearing.”
The two Markesians turned to face Tai and Dylan as Sara and Kina joined them. Sara’s face hardened when she saw the two dead men. “What the hell’s going on?” she demanded.
Tai put his hand up to stop her. “Just wait.” Turning to face them, Tai bowed slightly before saying, “I just wanted to thank you on all of our behalf for saving our asses out there. Without your help, I doubt we would have made it back.”
The sincerity took some of the fury away from Chitaan as he stepped forward, his stinger now thankfully back behind him and hidden away beneath his exoskeleton. In his strange clicking articulation, the Markesian replied, “We’ve fought the void hornets before; it was clear you hadn’t.” Tai didn’t think there was any antagonism in that despite the way Sara huffed.
“We appreciate it. You fought with a great deal of skill. I’m sure Jhang—the dragon—is thankful too. But onto more interesting matters, what’s happening with this lot?” he asked both the Markesians and Haggard—the latter writing up notes in his notebook.
“You don’t know about this?” Catheraine said, twitching her head slightly to one side to gauge Tai’s response.
“I don’t even know what this is. You saw us; we were kinda busy.” Dylan stepped out from behind Tai and knelt down to inspect the two men.
“Blackmarks,” he said. “I recognize them.”
“How?” Sara asked.
Dylan looked up at her with empty, almost fearful eyes. “I just do.”
“Yeah,” Haggard added. “They’re Blackmarks. Chitaan and Catheraine here caught them stripping the superconductors from their flagship. But the idiots had a little trouble. It’s all in hand.”
“Not just Blackmarks,” Chitaan clicked. “Aleatra! Traitorous human scum waited for us to leave before trying to sabotage our ship. He’s missing, but we have trackers looking for him and his sniveling retinue.”
“Retinue?” Sara asked. “As in DeLaney, Margo and Murlowe?”
“Yes,” Catheraine added. “Our scouts saw them leave our level shortly after we came to your aid. They were spotted disappearing into the dark levels with more of these.” She pointed a hand to the dead Blackmarks.
Stepping forward, Chitaan reached out his hand to Sara. “Sara Lorelle, I am sorry for what happened to your ship and your people. I am sorry for our association with the Crown and Aleatra. Our decisions were naïve and flawed, and for this, I pledge to you with all the resources of the Markesian rebel group that we will bring President Aleatra and his cohorts to justice—for both of our peoples.”
Sara stared at the alien’s hand hovering in the air in front of her, her face a mixture of hatred, resignation, worry and something else… relief? Tai mentally urged her to take the alien’s hand. It would make their lives much easier having such a potent ally. Not to mention their technology for when they finished up here and made their way down to the surface of the planet.
After what seemed like a dozen long cycles, Sara reached out her hand and shook Chitaan’s. “I accept your apology and offer of alliance,” Sara said. “Aleatra must die.”
“On that, we agree, Sara Lorelle.”
“Well, now that’s all sorted, I want you to clean up the mess here; otherwise I’m fining you for littering in the dock area,” Haggard said as he shook his head and made his way to the elevator.
Turning to the others, Tai said, “Right, then, let’s go hand in our finds and claim our freedom.” He’d consider the day a success if it weren’t for losing Lofreal in the Old Station. He’d grown fond of her over the years, and he knew it would hit Scaroze hard to lose his mate, and Tooize had lost a sister, but they had a grieving ritual for that. He would do his usual: buy a private booth in the Gear and Sprocket and get blind drunk in her honor.
“Any day we don’t die at the whims of void hornets is a good one,” Kina added.
“True that, sister, true that.”
THIRTY-SIX
The same warm golden sunlight, changed from the harsh light of Hollow Space by the filtering portholes and mirrors of the kronac levels, flooded through the jungle. Sara looked up and saw a solemn group of them watching from the trees above. Tooize and Scaroze clasped all four of their hands together and raised them above their heads in an impossible display of flexibility. Standing tall and straight, they towered over Kina and Sara.
A strange trilling sound issued from their mouths.
In one fluid motion the watching kronacs returned the gesture and the cry.
Kina clasped her hands above her head, stood tall and sang out, “Lofreal has fallen. Lofreal has fallen. Lofreal has fallen”
Sara glanced from Kina to the trilling kronacs and back again. She lifted her arms, clasped her hands, and sang, with her sweet soprano voice, “Lofreal has fallen.” Repeating the words three times as Kina had done.
The words echoed into the trees. The trilling cries were picked up by other groups in the jungle and repeated, amplified, until the whole level reverberated with the sounds of Lofreal’s true kronac name called out in homage to one who had fallen.
Kronacs swarmed down out of the trees. Hundreds of them stretched their arms wide and bowed their heads before racing off through the dense foliage.
“They will guard the entrances and exits,” Tooize whistled. “We must leave our clothing and our weapons here.” He pointed at a group of adolescents. “They will protect them.”
Sara did not hesitate. Even if Tai and Dylan had been there, she would not have hesitated. This was all to honor Lofreal, who had given up her life for Sara’s.
A small pile of weapons grew at Kina’s feet. Daggers of all sizes, a couple of tiny one-shot pistols, garroting wire, knuckle-dusters, and two short sticks that Kina tapped against her palm. They telescoped into fighting batons.
“I like to be prepared,” she said, hanging her gun belt over a handy tree branch.
Tooize whistled a laugh. “Lofreal always said you were the most prepared human she had ever met.”
“Prepared for mayhem,” Scaroze agreed. “Ah, my wife.” He dropped his head.
Tooize hugged Scaroze close. “We will celebrate life, husband of my sister.”
“We will celebrate life,” Scaroze said, “but I will always miss her.”
“As will all who knew
her.”
“Your sister?” Sara, as naked as the others, said. “Lofreal was your sister?”
“Yes, Sara Lorelle, she was my younger sister.”
Sara felt tears leak from her eyes. “Oh, Tooize, I’m so sorry.”
“She gave her life for yours,” Tooize said. “As you would have given your life for hers. It is good that you live, for you will always remember her.”
“I will.” Sara didn’t know what else to say.
“And now we honor her memory by celebrating the life we still live,” Scaroze said.
Sara, as naked as they others, walked away from her possessions through the jungle. The warmth of the sun caressed her skin. She tried to keep her gaze on the path ahead, but the mighty forms of Tooize and Scaroze kept attracting her attention. Without their clothing, with their feathers fluttering in the breeze, they looked completely unworldly, truly alien.
She pulled her gaze away only to catch sight of the scars on Kina’s compact form. So many scars covered her back and legs. The puckered holes of several bullet wounds, the raised ridges of old knife wounds badly stitched, and other better healed scars scattered over her body, mingling with several tattoos.
Kina noticed her gaze and blushed, her golden skin glowing red between her breasts. “Hollow Space is a hard place to grow up.”
“You look magnificent,” Sara said and realized that she meant it.
Kina smiled.
“We approach the temple.” Scaroze pointed up into the trees.
“We give thanks for life,” Tooize whistled.
“For the life she gave up for us.” Scaroze stretched. “It is not far now.”
The temple was a stand of massive trees, gnarled and old, rising from the jungle and disappearing into the mist gathered against the deck above. Without a word, Tooize and Scaroze gathered up Kina and Sara and climbed with astonishing speed. It was like rising in an elevator and equally as smooth.
They entered the mist. It cooled Sara’s skin as they continued to climb through the mist and into the level above. They arrived at a platform of glistening wood laid out in the crowns of the trees, where a number of kronacs of all ages and sizes waited for them.
“Now we mourn her loss,” Tooize said as he placed Sara upon the edge of the platform. The long drop below them made Sara’s head dizzy. The fall would be at least a hundred meters to the floor. “And tell of her life,” Tooize added.
Sara took Kina’s hand in hers and walked toward the kronacs with Tooize and Scaroze on either side.
***
Dylan wished he was anywhere but in the great library of Haven—his prison lined with books. He was a slave of the Drifts, they could do with him whatever they wanted—and had done.
His mind crawled at the memory of Sethan’s personality overlaid upon his own. He could remember the knife blade slicing through Loas’s neck, the blood spurting, the head coming free. Slick with blood, sick with disgust, he had fought with Sethan’s personality in his own mind, fought the need he had felt to torture Vekan slowly to death and the anger of Sethan’s personality when he had cut the vul’s throat and ended her pain quickly.
“Put it there,” Tai said, pointing at a desk in the center of the library. The dalgef porters propped the trunk of the dead Drift against the desk and waited for payment from Tai before leaving.
With a rustle of leaves, Sharp-Thorn swept into view. “You have it, human. You have it.”
“I have it,” Tai said. “Now pay me.”
Sharp-Thorn ignored him and approached the dead trunk. Tendrils flashed out of the Drift’s body and slipped into the bark. Dylan shuddered, remembering those tendrils sliding into his own body, through his skin, and into his brain. He had become Sethan because of those tendrils. His hand closed upon the dagger at his waist.
Kill the frecking shrub; kill it now, the voice called from the back of his mind.
Kill it.
Tai’s hand closed around his arm. “You okay, Dylan, my man?”
Dylan blinked and took his hand away from the dagger hilt. “Yeah.” He shook his head to clear it. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a memory.” He licked his lips. “Just a memory,” he whispered.
Sharp-Thorn was rocking back and forth. A strange keening sound rose from his form. More tendrils slid into the trunk of the dead Drift. Sliding deeper, they bound the two plants closer and closer together.
“This feels”—Tai grimaced—“indecent.”
“Maybe we should leave them alone,” Dylan said.
“Not until I get paid,” Tai said.
“Damn, they should get a room.”
Old-Leaf and Sweet-Sap swished across the library floor.
“What is this?” Old-Leaf cried. “What is this?”
Dylan had the distinct impression that the Drifts were chattering at each other in a language he could not hear. It was in the way they moved, in the way that Sharp-Thorn slowly disentangled himself from the trunk of the dead Drift, and in the way he quivered and bristled his leaves as the other two surrounded him.
Sweet-Sap extended a single tendril, gingerly touching the dead trunk before whipping the tendril away. “He has made a clone of himself,” Sweet-Sap said. “Forbidden. It’s forbidden!”
“I have the knowledge now,” Sharp-Thorn exulted. “I have the knowledge.”
“You are an aberration. A madness has grown inside you,” Old-Leaf said. “To do this… to split yourself in two? To send one out there to die and then to drink of those dead memories… Madness. An aberration. Forbidden.”
“I know what this place is.” Sharp-Thorn changed before Dylan’s wide eyes. Growing taller, its branches thickened and leaves reddened. “I am complete once more, with the knowledge of the Xantonians. I am complete.”
“Heresy,” Sweet-Sap said. “We do not do this anymore. This is what destroyed our world.”
“You do not have the knowledge,” Sharp-Thorn exulted. “You do not know what I know now.”
Old-Leaf bristled but said nothing.
Tai spoke into the silence. “So you got your knowledge, how about you pay up?”
“Silence, human,” Sharp-Thorn said.
“I lost crew on that job,” Tai snarled. “Lofreal died on that job. So frecking pay me now, shrub.”
A vine lashed out from Sharp-Thorn’s leaves, but Old-Leaf extended a vine of his own to catch it in the air. The two Drifts struggled, fighting for control and dominance.
Tai leapt back out of the way of the struggle. “Never seen that before,” he commented. He turned to Sweet-Sap. “You know the deal. I brought back what was asked. I need to be paid.”
Dylan could not take his eyes from the fighting Drifts. Vines lashed at each other. They rocked to and fro. Then other Drifts rushed out of the shadows of the library and subdued Sharp-Thorn, binding him with vines and holding him quiet.
Sweet-Sap studied the bindings on Sharp-Thorn. Again Dylan thought he could just sense some sort of discussion, but he fancied that it was just his imagination.
“He is bound,” Sweet-Sap said with satisfaction. He turned to Dylan. “The book, do you have it?”
“Yeah.” Dylan produced the enzyme book. “I have it.”
Sharp-Thorn shook violently in his bonds, but he couldn’t even speak.
“Good.” Sweet-Sap picked up the book and slipped it away into his leaves. “You will be paid,” he said to Tai.
“Now,” Tai said.
“Yes.” Sweet-Sap rustled, and a chit appeared. “This is payment in full, Tairon Cauder, and will pay off your debt to your mother, even after your expenses are taken into account. How does it feel to be free?”
“Ask me after I see her face.”
***
Malcolm was again operating the private elevator to the Gear and Sprocket. “Been busy again, Tai? Never boring when you’re on the charge, old son.”
“She in there?”
“Oh yeah, she’s there all right. Spitting curses all the way up.” Malcolm shrugged. “He
la did mention I shouldn’t tell you that.” He smirked and shrugged his shoulders. “But I’m an operator on the G&S line, and she can go stuff herself. She didn’t pay for silence, so she don’t get it.” He glanced at Dylan. “You’re still alive, then.”
“What’s it to you?” Dylan lunged forward, his eyes glaring into Malcolm through the steel-glass of his protection. “You got something to say, lift jockey? Something you operators are muttering about?”
Tai reached out and grabbed Dylan’s shoulder. “Whoa there, Dylan, calm down. He’s just talking.”
Dylan spun to face Tai. His blue eyes narrowed behind his spectacles in an indescribable rage. His hands clenched into tight fists. He didn’t even look like Dylan. He looked like some kind of raging maniac. Then he blinked and relaxed, and shook his head.
“Shit,” he said. “I’m sorry. I… It’s been a hard few days.”
“You need to watch this one, Tai,” Malcolm said. “Something ain’t right here.”
“You want a tip, then stop talking,” Tai snapped. “The man saved my life more times than I care to remember. He’s a friend. He’s a comrade. He’s not someone you talk about—to anyone. You got that?” He pushed a twenty-credit note through the slot. “Paid for, keep it buttoned. Read me, Malcolm?”
“I read you.” Malcolm took the note.
“Thanks, Malcolm.” Tai added another five. “For the ride.” That was a good tip, and they both knew it.
“No problems, Tai. Good to see you all got back safe.”
Tai shrugged. Kept his voice harsh. “Lofreal didn’t make it.”
“Oh damn, man, I’m sorry. She was bronze, pure bronze. How?”
“Void hornets. Sara tried to save her, but Lofreal pushed her away, let herself fall, to save us all.”
“I’ll pass the word. She’ll not be forgotten.”
“Appreciated.” The elevator doors opened. “Come on, Dylan.”
Once they were on the deep carpet of the Gear and Sprocket, Tai grabbed his arm. “What the freck was all that about?”
Dylan worked his mouth. “I… I can’t… Don’t ask, Tai. Just don’t ask. It… Those frecking Drifts, they own me, body and soul.”