The Namura Stone

by Andrews, Gillian

  “Come on, Six! Can’t you go any faster?” muttered the visitor, surreptitiously looking behind him to see whether the Dessites had figured out where the noise was coming from yet.

  “No I can’t!” snapped Six. “A bit of help would be nice.”

  The visitor glistened. “I AM helping,” he pointed out. “I am telling you what to do, aren’t I?”

  “Thanks.”

  The sarcasm went undetected. “That’s all right.”

  Six sighed and moved on to the next valve. “Is anything happening yet?”

  “Definitely. If you can just manage to open that next valve fully, we can leave him here for fifteen or twenty minutes. He will warm up nicely.”

  Six continued to crank the lever. Sweat poured down his brow, but he persisted for a good three minutes. “How is that?”

  “Nearly there. That gives us an inflow of normal temperature water. The vat needs to be left now. If we attempt to raise the temperature too much, we could damage him permanently.”

  “That would be a tragedy,” said Six, in a neutral tone, managing to finish opening the valve, and securing it so that it could not close.

  “Indeed it would.” The visitor seemed gratified. “After all, he might stave off war. That would be a reason for all of Dessia to remember his name.”

  “I doubt it.” Six dusted his hands off, and then jumped down onto the floor of the chamber, pulling out his sword and turning to face the incoming Dessites, those who had been trapped in the vault with them..

  Standing there, so small in front of the barreling aliens, The Kwaidian looked almost ethereal. Except for his eyes. There was a certain anger simmering just under his brows that would have made more astute beings experience a jolt of fear. These did not. For them, he was merely a small blur in their almost spherical lenses. Indeed, when he was standing still, they couldn’t see him at all.

  Luckily for them, he was not standing still. Instead, he was charging towards them, light glinting off a piece of sharp metal which he held high in one hand, and a loud cry which the Dessites couldn’t hear coming out of his mouth.

  The Dessites stopped, and their membranes automatically stiffened out at right angles to their bodies. The glands at the base of the membranes activated, and there was an emanation of liquid all around Six. To the Dessites, he suddenly became violently visible.

  It didn’t stop him; he charged forward as if he were quite happy to meet his maker, lifting his sword arm high as he came close to the four huge bodies in front of him.

  Then he stopped dead, confused. All five of the Dessites had vanished. Six looked around, cross.

  “Arcan? What have you done with my Dessites? I was nearly on top of them.”

  “I have transported them out of this chamber. It seemed to be the wisest thing to do.”

  “What do you mean? Why would you do that? They were mine!” Six still looked hostile.

  “It occurred to me that, if we are planning to negotiate with them, it might be a good idea to avoid harming any of them.”

  Six was breathing heavily. The anticipation of a fight had caused adrenalin to surge through his body, and now he was feeling the effects.

  Ledin came running up. “Have you killed them all, Six?”

  Six gave a disgruntled snort. “Arcan took them away.”

  “Pity.” Ledin sheathed his own sword. “I was ready for a good fight.”

  “So was I.” Six examined his kris. “It has been a while since I got to use this in anything but practice.”

  “I do not kill if I can possibly avoid it,” said Arcan, sternly. “That is not the answer. We must and will negotiate with these aliens.”

  “Yeah, well, good luck with that. They don’t seem to be very keen on talking so far, do they? Remember what they did to the avifauna and to the amorphs on Pictoria? And Grace? They won’t be happy until we are all under their mental control.”

  “Grace was being controlled by the Ammonites, not the Dessites.”

  “Same difference.”

  “Both the trimorphs and the canths are immune to the Dessites. Because of that, we can limit their power. Can’t you feel the canths?”

  “Of course I can! But, even though the canths are blocking them for us, I am aware of the mental wall in the background. They are very dangerous, Arcan!”

  “I know that. But I will not kill, unless it is to save someone from being killed. We should be more than that. More than they are. Let’s see if we can reason with them first.”

  “Whatever. But who is watching our backs?”

  “Diva.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Six crossed his arms and stared at the vat. “How long will it take for your ancestor to cook, Visitor?”

  “Two hours, more or less.”

  “Two hours? I could roast a warthog in that time.”

  Ledin looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Six hurried to rectify. “Not that I would, of course.”

  Ledin nodded. “I don’t think a Kwaidian ambassador should go around talking about roasting warthogs.”

  Six opened his eyes. “Well, of all the …! It was only because you turned it down that I was lumbered with that job, as you know very well. And don’t think I have forgotten about that, because I haven’t. I had to sit through two international meetings last month, and nearly fell asleep at both of them. You’re a fine person to talk!”

  “Yes, ambassador.” Ledin tugged at an imaginary forelock.

  Six gave his friend a push. “Take that back!”

  “Won’t. You are an ambassador. Why should I take it back?”

  “Because I have every intention of making you.” Six flung himself on his friend and they tussled amicably, ending up rolling over and over on the floor as each tried to get a wrestle hold on the other.

  “Marvelous!” said the visitor. “Can’t you two prehistoric beings think of anything else to do?”

  Six grinned up at him. “Not really, no. Anyway, Arcan took our Dessites away, but left us with all the adrenaline. It is his fault. He knows how worried we are about Diva and Grace. What else is there to do?” He turned back to Ledin, and they began to grapple together again. The visitor moved away, slightly spiky at the edges.

  Chapter 21

  BACK ON ENARA, Diva made her move. There was no time to waste. Her friends on Xiantha were in trouble. She had to break the mental attack that was raining down on both the canths and the others from the crystal cavern, and do whatever she could to break up the astrand. Even though she didn’t know how she was going to do it, there was nothing to be gained by waiting, and everything to be lost. It was time to put herself in the centre of the Ammonites.

  Once she had made up her mind, she wasted no time. It was a moment to float up above the astrand, where she maintained her position for a few seconds, peering down on the assembled Ammonite minds and waiting for her psyche to see through the faint aura and perceive the diamond of diamonds clearly again, to see the individual minds which fitted so effortlessly together into this shining mental shape.

  She thought of Six, who would be helping Arcan on Dessia by this time, and smiled to herself. Trust a Kwaidian to be always in the thick of things. She felt her heart lurch just a little as she thought of him, and wondered how a non-existent heart could still lurch. Was it like a phantom limb, which hurt amputees even after a severely damaged leg or arm had been surgically removed? Or was it all a figment of her memory, small threads of moments in the past which occasionally filtered down to her new consciousness? Whatever it was, it still felt real to her, and she had to take a moment or two to calm herself down. It was no good trying to stop the astrand with only half her mind on the job; she would need all of her faculties with her, and even then, it would be an almost impossible feat. There was, after all, only one of her, and thousands of
the Ammonites forming the astrand.

  She let her mind hover above the diamond of diamonds until she felt calmer, and then closed her eyes, allowing herself to drop slowly into the beautiful geometric structure, to float down inside the boundaries of the diamond star, beginning a slow spin with her physical body as she did.

  Immediately, she was electrified by the huge amounts of energy that buffeted her from one side to another. The astrand was humming with power. She felt the increased temperature inside the formation and let herself drift further and further inside it. As she did, the heat rose even further.

  And that gave her the answer. She could use second sound to dampen the action of the astrand. All she had to do was transmit this energy out of the diamond of diamonds and away from the astrand. Then it would no longer be able to function, at least not at the strength it was achieving now.

  She found herself examining the structure of the astrand from inside and was immediately aware that the canths should also be able to form an astrand. They must simply have forgotten how to do that.

  Each individual mind had a place in the mental latticework. She was able to see exactly where each piece fit in, and where the joins between minds had vanished to form a new whole. It was quite remarkable. Because it really had a lower potential than the larger diamond shape which the canths used; it was more energy efficient.

  Diva could see how the shape had been formed, starting with one particular joint which instead of continuing horizontally had taken a vertical slant. She felt amazed at the simplicity of the framework for the astrand; it was so obvious now that she had seen the formation that she couldn’t see how the lost animas inside the canths had ever managed to forget it.

  She closed her eyes further and delved deeper into the minds surrounding her. They were like a patchwork, a sea of individuals who fitted together perfectly. Between them all was the buzz of pure energy which flashed in the mindmerge.

  Diva concentrated on this flash, spinning more now, trying to redirect all that energy, take it away from the astrand. Her own shape was becoming more and more electrified and was swelling out with so much light. She could feel the mindmerge of the Ammonites burning through her, singeing her own stability, threatening her very existence. Still she persevered, determined to block the astrand, to stop the Ammonites in their attack on the binary system.

  She felt their surprise and then their consternation. The diamond of diamonds trembled and then re-formed. She concentrated harder, aware now that her act of dissipating all this energy in second sound was focusing it in a different direction. She could feel wave after wave of heat flowing away from the centre of the astrand, out into the crystal cavern, out into the hot rock which surrounded them. The temperature nearby in the cavern had already gone up substantially.

  Diva was suddenly aware that the Ammonites knew there was an intruder in their midst. She felt a sharp thrust of anger, sufficiently strong to vapourize her, and was only able to avoid it at the very last minute. The link she had with the assembled minds cracked, the astrand crumbled into its individual parts, and, as they broke free, the Ammonites came to their senses again in their original wispy bodies and flung themselves at her, furious at the intrusion, determined to seek revenge for the violation of their most sacred right.

  Diva flashed. She was immune to the wrath of their minds, but not to their physical presence, and she was aware that hundreds of Ammonite animas were dropping out of the mental merge in the cavern and were hurling themselves at her with no thought to their own safety.

  Diva instantly raced out of the cavern, taking the tunnels she had found earlier and heading for the landmark she had noticed when they had first dropped into orbit around Enara, when they had first introduced the Ammonites to the planet that was to be their new home: the Eye of Enara. She hurtled towards the deep crater which they had seen from space and searched desperately for somewhere to hide. She was careful not to transport; she didn’t want to lose them altogether. The longer she could keep the Ammonites centred on her, instead of the binary system and Dessia, the better, she thought.

  Diva looked around the Eye of Enara, which she knew was an eroded geologic dome. It was clear that nothing had changed in this landscape for years, and it looked as if it expected to remain undisturbed for another century at least. She could see no signs of life. That was not surprising. The bowl of the crater was made of a clear shining greenish magmite of some sort. This formed circles between ridges of harder rock, which glistened with violet tones under the Enaran sun. It was a stunning place, almost as impressive as the crystal cavern she had just come from, but it was not exactly hospitable.

  She sped across the expanse of shining magmite, amazed that it had not become covered by sand. There was no place to hide here; she was more exposed than a temaris tree in the Great Plain. Exactly what she wanted; this would draw them all after her. She fled over the shining green rock formation, heading towards the mauve-coloured ridges.

  She could feel hundreds of Ammonites behind her, and was exultant. While they were chasing her they couldn’t possibly be attacking the binary system or aiding the Dessites in any way. And she knew that the canths would helping Ledin, Six and the visitor over on Dessia. This was great! She felt euphoric and was enjoying the chase. She knew she could transport away whenever she wanted; which made it a little tamer than she would ideally have liked, but it was still fun to be the quarry in this game of hide and seek. She hadn’t been in action since her transformation into a firemorph, and it quite felt like old times.

  She bent neatly in and out of the purple rock promontories, with half the population of Enara in angry pursuit. It was exhilarating to lead them such a dance; she flashed between the sharp jutting rocks so fast that she could hardly be detected.

  “Come on, then, Ammonites! Come on, Animas of Enara. Catch me if you can! I bet you won’t be able to!”

  The Ammonites clearly didn’t agree. They were closing in on her from all sides now, and Diva wondered how long it would take them to surround her completely.

  Not long. Soon she was completely blocked. Her followers had formed a sphere all around her, until the sky was dark, and she could no longer see the Eye of Enara below her.

  Diva began to spin. “Now let’s see how you fight, shall we?”

  ON THE BEACH of the Emerald Lake, Grace suddenly stopped her struggles and lay gasping, looking confused.

  “W-what happened?” she asked.

  Tallen tried to grin. “Diva did it!” He signaled to Sanjai, and they both struggled up from her prostrate figure. Tallen made a sign to Sanjai, who nodded that he would stay with Grace. Tallen took off at a run for the tree line, and for Quenna.

  Sanjai managed a smile. “How do you feel?”

  Grace tried to sit up and then winced. “Did somebody beat me up?”

  “You did quite a good job yourself.”

  She groaned. “What did I do? Did I hurt anybody else?”

  Sanjai shook his head. “Get your breath back. Can you wait here while I check out how Bennel is?”

  She nodded, still feeling dizzy. Sanjai waded out into the water, to where Lannie was still holding his father’s head above the surface of the lake.

  “Any change?”

  She shook her head. “He still hasn’t come round.”

  Sanjai bent down and, with great difficulty, began to haul the unconscious man towards the shore. “Let’s take him out of the water, closer to Grace. She has come round, so I think Diva must have succeeded in breaking the astrand. He should be all right now.” The Coriolan boy staggered, his feet sinking deep into the damp sand at the edge of the lake. Then, with Lannie’s help, he managed to tug Bennel a few steps onto the beach before dropping him as gently as he could on the ground.

  “There! He should be all right now.”

  Lannie and her son looked down
at the two people on the ground, and then their eyes tracked over to where Tallen had reached the tall trees. Lannie looked up to where her daughter was crushing Raven into the tree trunk, and went white.

  “Oh, no!” She closed her own eyes. “She is frozen with fear; she will never get down.”

  But Sanjai shook his own head. “Don’t you worry about Raven and Quenna. Tallen will make sure they are all right. It is up to us to take care of Grace and my father. Leave the Namuri to get the two girls down. He will, you know.”

  “But look! He is dragging that leg again! He must have opened up that old wound!” Lannie clicked her tongue.

  “That won’t bother him! Now, come on, Mother. We have things to do.”

  As he sped over the sand, Tallen checked his own injuries mentally. He didn’t think anything was broken. The only thing he was really worried about was the damage to his bad leg. He hoped there was nothing serious. At least he was able to force his muscles to work, even though they felt stiff and unyielding.

  He reached for the first rung of the tree and called up to Quenna.

  “I’m coming! Stay still!”

  “She has stopped struggling, but I can’t move!”

  “I know. Don’t worry; I am on my way.”

  He swarmed up the tree as if an army was at his back, ignoring the pain in his leg completely. In fact, he barely noticed it; he was desperate to get to the two girls.

  As he reached Quenna he put up one hand to steady her. “I am here. It is all going to be all right.”