They were on the southeast flank of the mountain the Humans had named Carmel, overlooking a length of rocky slope to the south, pitted, Rhys could now see, with several geysers. That registered as nothing but a landmark—a key segment. But ahead...
He started down the road again, across a shadowy gap toward the trees. At the bottom of the gap, something happened. Pausing, frowning, he turned to look at Javar.
“The melody changed.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why?”
Javar closed his eyes and contemplated that briefly. “I’m not sure, unless...” He glanced around at the steep inclines to either side of them—at the road falling and rising. “We are between two mountains. Perhaps this melody is about the second Sister.”
“Or the first,” Rhys murmured. “We’ve no proof that Carmel is the first of the Three Sisters.”
“No, but it does seem logical.”
Rhys had to agree with that, and quickly returned his attention to the trail. The cool of the mountain pass was beyond cool, the heat of its sunny flanks beyond warmth. He leaned into the upslope, listening to the new melody Javar’s mind played to him. A peculiar, tonal wind-sough joined the solo instrument, making Rhys eager to reach the trees. He set his eyes on them, willing them to pull into focus.
He was puzzled, though, because the scents didn’t seem right. The trees produced a tangy, dry fragrance—he could smell it from the Key Holder—but the perfume he was receiving from Keere was moist, cool, shady. He opened his mouth and took a tentative sip of air. Didn’t taste right either.
His steps came slower and slower, now. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t the path. This—
He stopped in mid-trail, his attention arrested by a wedge-shaped canyon that ascended away from them to the northeast, slicing through earth and stone. Its floor was a mad jumble of fallen rock; its walls were topped by thick brush and twisted trees that grasped the meager soil with desperate roots as they leaned out over the precipice.
The wind whistled down the canyon, singing against the sheer walls. The sound echoed back, hollow, flute-like. Rhys took several steps to the edge of the road, then moved off it toward the tumble of rocky debris. The wind carried more than a song—it carried the moist, chill scent of wet rock and humid earth.
“This way!” Rhys called behind him, and began moving briskly up the defile. He had just reached the bottom of the cut and settled on a suitable track to take when he heard Yoshi shouting for him.
He turned to see her scrambling madly toward him, holding her comlink headset out in front of her.
“Sir! It’s Ms. Price! She has a message from the Admiral!”
o0o
“I wasn’t sure if it was significant, sir. That’s why I was so long in coming. I was afraid I was being paranoid.” Sergeant Greg Lederman stood at rest before Governor Bekwe’s desk, unsure whether he should direct his comments there or to the huge ColSec Admiral glowering several feet away.
“It sounds as if it might be very important,” said Sanchez. “And better paranoid than sorry. He only threw away the one piece?”
“Yes, sir. All the others ended up on the floor. I just thought it was kind of odd he should be so neat with that one.”
Joseph Bekwe stirred himself to ask the question he did not want to ask. “Who brought him the flimsy, Officer?”
“Um. Your secretary, sir—Ms. Cody.” He shrugged and looked both apologetic and apprehensive. “I didn’t think to question her, sir. I suppose I should have. I just assumed—”
Joseph shook his head feeling, if possible, more exhausted than he had the moment before. “Not your fault, Officer.” He glanced at Sanchez. “I think the next thing we should do is search the trash bins.”
Sanchez nodded. “Thoroughly.”
“Officer Lederman, if you would be so good as to lead a security team in a search of the trash bins?”
“Yes, sir. Immediately, sir.” He turned smartly and was gone, relief flowing palpably in his wake.
Joseph Bekwe rose and moved away from his desk, wishing momentarily that he could lock his responsibility for the colony in one of the drawers and walk away.
Sanchez followed him with his eyes. “How well do you know your secretary?”
“Very well, I’d thought. She’s worked for me for five years. I thought she was trustworthy.”
“Values, Governor. Priorities. She set hers, you set yours... I think it’s her ability to trust that failed. Would you like me to question her? If it would be difficult for you —”
A bleat from the comlink interrupted. Sanchez, closer to the console, answered it, and a man in Colonial Security blues appeared, looking startled to see a ColSec Admiral instead of Governor Bekwe.
“Uh! Excuse me, sir!” He was clearly unsure whether he should salute. “Where is Governor Bekwe, sir?”
“Here, Officer.” Joseph moved to where the Colonial could see him. “What is it?”
“Sir, we’ve had a break-in at the armory. Someone’s taken off with a roomful of ordinance.”
Color drained from Joseph’s face. “Any idea who it could have been?”
“None, but whoever they were, they knew what they were doing. They dealt with the alarms and the surveillance scanners at the system level.”
“How—dealt with them?”
“They patched into the system and overrode the alarms, then froze the scanner in the corridor so it was projecting a static image. The officers at the monitor station never had a clue that anything was wrong.”
Sanchez stepped back into the projection area. “What kind of weapons are we talking about, Officer?”
“Mostly small arms, sir. Although, they took a shoulder-mount laser cannon—anti-heavy-armor issue.”
“In working condition?”
“Well, it was right off the factory floor, sir; we’d never used or tested it.”
Sanchez scowled and moved out of the projection area. Joseph gave the officer orders to continue his investigation, then turned to watch Sanchez pace.
“It’s inconceivable that anyone could damage a ship with anti-armor laser fire.” The Admiral seemed to be speaking to himself. “And the Tsong Zee aren’t likely to put any ships in range of another surface attack. I can only assume the target is something or someone else.”
“The Tsong Zee ambassadors?”
“That would be my first hunch. Governor, will you put some of your Colonials at my disposal?”
“Of course, Admiral. What do you have in mind?”
“I want to send some men quietly up the mountain to keep an eye on Llewellyn and company. This nutty professor of yours may have bitten off a good deal more than he can chew. Right now he and his Tsong Zee delegation are a bigger threat to BeneCon interests than the OROB fleet. And they’d be a much easier target.” He turned to Bekwe. “I want to view the security record from Beneton’s cell. Maybe we can see something Sergeant Lederman missed.”
Joseph nodded and reached for his comlink. “Done.”
“And we’ll need to contact Llewellyn—let him know we’re going to put a tail on him. I don’t think it would be wise for me to try to contact him from here, or to contact Ms. Price either... We’ll go to the Med Center ourselves,” he decided. “Work from there. Dump that security record on a wafer and we’ll look at it en route.”
Joseph nodded. “I can’t help but wonder how long a jump Beneton’s people have on us.”
“Pray it’s not long enough. If it is, and something happens to that Tsong Zee delegation, we may have a war on our hands.”
o0o
“Are you sure Beneton’s sent people after us?” Rhys was half concentrating on the long, steep, broken slope before him, wondering when the next key sequence would begin to take hold of his imagination. The tension orbiting Velvet and festering in Haifa was abstracted almost to the surreal.
“Professor, I’m not one hundred percent sure of anything. We know the governor’s secretary passed information about
your excursion to Harris Beneton. She claims that was the extent of her commitment to BeneCon—to get information out of the governor’s office to Beneton, personally. She claims she had no idea what he was doing with it. She claims not to know who else is involved. Beneton evidently contacted his cronies himself.”
“From an e-cell?”
“Scanner record shows he spent a great deal of time doodling on flimsies the secretary brought him—making a nice little mess for maintenance to clean up. Except that he tossed one of them down a refuse chute and when security checked, there was nothing in the bin.”
“What was on it—any idea?”
“The officer on duty at the time remembers pyramids, a woman’s face and a lightning bolt. Oh, and a stick figure of some sort. Nothing that made any sense to him at the time. It makes sense to me, though. Beneton was leaking your whereabouts to someone on the outside in such a way that a casual observer wouldn’t remark on it.”
“You’ve no idea who?”
“We can guess. His business associates have completely disappeared. Their offices are empty. Shut down and everyone sent home. His flat is vacant. Then there’s the other bad news. A Colonial armory is now missing a number of hand weapons and a shoulder-mounted laser. I’m convinced Beneton is gunning for the Tsong Zee.”
Rhys swore. “If they intercept us —”
“We’ll try to keep that from happening. Right now, you’re up a tree. If you try to come back, you may fall into an ambush. My best advice is to keep going. As quickly as possible.”
“But cautiously, eh, Admiral?”
“To hell with caution. Keep moving.”
He signed off then, and Rhys buried himself in the canyon path, trying to ignore the impulse to glance over his shoulder every five seconds.
o0o
Tomin B-nath Yan could have kicked himself. As it was, he muttered self-deprecating epithets and wondered how he might retrieve the situation. If only he had been more attentive during their last maneuver, if only he had been able to imagine how threatening that maneuver looked to the Human adversary, if only...
Yes, yes, he thought sharply, if only wishes were time engines, I might go back and undo my error. But he could not undo it. He had moved his “battle flock” too close, too fast and now they were face to face with the Human host.
Tomin B-nath Yan watched the facing wing of Human war vessels with trepidation. They were much smaller than his ship, the Shadayan, but so much more deadly and so much more abundant. Of course, their Human masters didn’t know that. From where they hung, thousands of kilometers away, the Tsong Zee “fleet” looked immense.
Tomin tucked a strand of his long, pale yellow hair into the corner of his mouth and chewed it ruminatively. What would those fellows think if they knew they were facing four glorified freighters? Freighters armed with nothing more dangerous than a singularly powerful tractor/repulsor beam?
He took a glance at the time-keeper above the helm. It was time for his “battle flock” to make its appointed move to a new quadrant. The Human vessels had not attacked. Perhaps he could retrieve the situation. He turned and gave the order to the helmswoman.
“Modify our course to take us over the Shadamela and into a synchronous orbit over...” His eyes flicked to the relief map of Tson. “Over the Kafsour Sea. Carefully, Munira.”
“Done, sir,” she responded, her hands already moving on the controls.
He would be glad, he thought, when this was over. One way or another. It so complicated things to come home, only to find someone else already living there. He studied the vari-colored ball rotating slowly in the port display and thought how beautiful it was.
Beautiful, yes. But was it worth this?
He had no real memories of Tson. No one did. But every Tsong Zee man, woman and child had memories provided for them by the Tsadrat—the great Speaker of the Gondayan. And for some Tsong Zee, those memories seemed to have a life of their own. They guided every act, every thought, every desire. He had thought he was one of those so possessed—possessed by memories of a world he had never seen. He knew his Speaker, Brasn, was such a one. Now, as his vessel navigated the ship-spangled firmament above Tson, he was not so sure about his own possession.
“Commander!” Munira’s voice was sharp with agitation. “Commander, alien ships are moving to intercept us! Shall I take evasive action?”
Tomin B-nath’s eyes were on the main external display, struggling to comprehend what he was seeing. Munira was correct, certainly. A number of the Human war vessels were bearing down on them, grouped in a precise circle. He hesitated. He was not a warrior. There hadn’t been warriors among the Tsong Zee for centuries. He was the captain of an ark, a refugee ship, not a battle wagon. Yet, that was the aliens’ perception of him.
“Zafa! Warn them off. Eject a convex spread of webbing at them—damping configuration. On my mark.”
The young web-tech straightened in his seat, his fingers hovering over the pair of globes that controlled the power, properties, and contours of the tractor webbing.
“Commander,” whispered Munira, “the hologram.”
He had nearly forgotten. If the Shadayan fired, every ship in her faery fleet would fire with her, and the aliens would know the depth of their falsehood. He spoke over his shoulder to the hologram technician. “Tsad, freeze the hologram. Project static image.”
“Done, sir.”
Tomin B-nath brought his eyes back to the external display. The Human warships continued toward them. The Shadamela was beneath now, and a bit astern. He wondered if he should suggest that she flee.
“Deploy web,” he said.
“Web deployed.”
It sailed away from them like a glorious cup of light, spreading as it neared the Human ships. They fired at it. A completely futile thing to do, since the web’s fibers absorbed whatever energy was thrown at it. Their weapons were interesting—sabers of light that slashed at the gleaming fabric but failed to cut its threads. A beautiful display.
The web touched the dozen or so ships, then, and brushed through them like the little wisps of sheer lace woven by Kamorg’s tiny wind-riders. Their running lights dimmed, flickered, then winked out altogether, and Tomin B-nath grew tense, hoping the power loss would have no adverse affects on their life-support systems.
“Time to power restoration,” he asked Tsad.
“Five chimes... four... three... two... one... zero.”
The lights flickered back on. Tomin heaved a sigh of relief.
Munira shrieked. A saber of intense light cut across the Shadayan’s bows, all but blinding her bridge crew.
“Dive!” yelled Tomin B-nath. “Twenty beams negative!”
The ship dropped like a stone, falling away from the alien fire. Again, Tomin knew relief; they had missed Shadamela by less than thirteen beams.
o0o
“My God!”
Commander Fremont’s stomach plummeted with the alien ships. It took only a heartbeat for him to realize that several of them would collide with ships from the wing below, only a breath to register than they had collided, only a blink to notice that they had collided without disintegrating.
Fremont gaped, as his entire bridge crew gaped. At least five of those ships had dropped right through their fellows without so much as a piece going missing. And that, as any armchair physicist would tell you, was impossible.
Eight
The sheer rock wall climbed straight up out of a jumble of boulders, brush and mountain ferns. Rhys Llewellyn stood below and blinked at it, barely aware of the buzz of voices behind and below him. All the sensations had been right, every single one. And yet, here they were, winded, aching, and stitch-ribbed, staring at an unbroken face of solid stone.
In a moment, Rhys told himself, he would get his wind back and climb the last seven or eight feet. To what purpose, he wasn’t quite sure. He felt movement at his shoulder and knew it was Javar who stood there. The recognition brought with it a strange, savory sense of kinsh
ip, as if he and the Tsong Zee were cut from the same internal mold, as if their common bond had nothing to do with modern gadgetry.
“A rock slide, perhaps?” suggested Javar.
Rhys shook his head. “That’d be some slide. But of course, it had to have been. Ah, I guess even an Avatar can’t foresee everything.”
Javar glanced from Rhys to the wall and back, his lips twisted thoughtfully. “I am not so sure of that. There is a poem attributed to the Tsadrat which says, in part, ‘And if I have dropped my offering bowl and it has broken, I shall mend it. Ah, but how shall it be mended with a missing shard? Who shall find the piece and set it, and of what substance shall the glue be made?’”
Rhys’s heart insinuated itself into his throat, fluttering tightly there—a butterfly on a rope. “Do you think... Do you think he meant the Tsong Zee would be missing a piece of their puzzle—that he foresaw the loss of the Walkers and this?” He gestured at the motley group scattered among the rocks.
“I am continually surprised by circumstance,” Javar replied.
Rhys turned his gaze back to the rock face. All right, he thought. Let’s suppose the Avatar—the Tsadrat—did foresee the rockfall. If it was a rock fall.
His eyes moved up and over the sheer rock. It was curving, concave, and smooth—almost too smooth to be natural. He raked his eyes across the boulders strewn just above them, at the branches and fronds of greenery bobbing in the breeze.
He locked eyes on one tall fern at the same time Javar did. Their active link recorded and broadcast both bursts, creating a bizarre reinforcement in Rhys’s mind—a slap-back echo of sensation. They began to scramble toward the fern in unison, reached it in breathless harmony.
Cool, dank air hit them full in the face.
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