The Goda War

by Deborah Chester

  Brock rubbed the scar on his cheek, feeling unspeakably depressed.

  Closing his eyes, Brock settled himself down into the old patterns of moving from one point of Discipline to another, taking comfort in the earliest lessons of childhood, so worn, so old and familiar now. And as he did so, he felt himself drift slightly out of time sequence, as he had not done since the injury to his atrox. Startled, Brock opened his eyes. Was it possible he was healing?

  But even as the thought flashed through him he felt the gentle touch of Ellisne’s fingers upon his and the warmth of her conscious merging into his. Disappointment pierced him, but he layered it hastily in the secret recesses of his mind so that she would not be troubled. Why did he keep hoping for what was gone forever? What he had felt was only the soft eddies of Ellisne’s thoughts becoming his.

  What is wrong, my dearest? she asked him, her concern spilling over him like the soft fall of heated water. You’re troubled still.

  He gave himself a little shake. It is nothing, I have been a fool.

  You tried to do what you thought right. We all face choices and change. I do not regret mine.

  He looked into her eyes, so trusting, so completely his, and forgot his worries in the fresh thrill of passion. And as the shuttle turned in a slow arc down through the scudding clouds of Amul, tarnished lightly by the setting sun, they drifted together, one to another, and shared until an abrupt tap on Brock’s shoulder disturbed them.

  Falmah-Al was standing by his seat, her dark eyes impatient. “We’ve landed, ghost. If you’ve given us the correct coordinates we should be sitting directly over the spot. Come on!”

  13

  Amul was a barren, hostile world with a thin atmosphere and no sentient life. The rock-strewn valley in which they had landed along with a second shuttle containing Falmah-Al’s excited technicians was hardly more than a slit carved between jutting mountains. The sun was setting with a last feeble blaze of gold crowning the horizon, and a cold wind swept the desolate cliffs hanging above them as they gathered between the shuttles. The Colonids and Rho wore light atmosphere masks; Brock and Ellisne required no environmental assistance. Falmah-Al’s shoulders were shivering beneath the slash of wind, but Brock threw back his head in a deep rush of pleasure. The air was so dry, so thin, so cold; how easy it was to breathe after the thick, humidified soup on Darjahl Imperial.

  A disruptor poked him in the ribs.

  “Get on with it,” said Millen. “We don’t want to be standing out here in the dark.”

  “Give me a moment to concentrate,” said Brock slowly. He was reluctant to begin. He still felt that he had failed the suprin. But Ellisne’s eyes were upon him, shining with encouragement. At her nod, he grasped the goda band tightly and closed his eyes as he opened his mind to the instructions imparted to him by the suprin.

  At first he understood nothing. The patterns were so old, so faded. They had been handed down through generations, passed from one dying suprin to his successor countless times until they almost ceased to have any meaning. Brock narrowed his search, fastening upon one symbol at a time so that the rapid progression of patterns was slowed. His body swayed slightly from side to side as the goda band seemed to grow warmer upon his flesh. Opening his eyes, he did not see the intent faces ringed about him. Instead his eyes sought the cliffs, examining each against the symbol held in his mind until he found the right one.

  “There.” He pointed due north at the crag towering above the end of the valley. “See the cuts in the side? The elements have almost worn them away.”

  “Where? I see nothing.” Falmah-Al was at his shoulder, crowding him as she sought to follow where he was pointing.

  “About halfway up.”

  “Gazal, it’s too dark. Tirza, lights!”

  The female deputy sprang to action with a swift command. Seconds later a powerful spotlight stabbed at the mountain from one of the shuttles.

  “I see it,” said Millen.

  “Aha!” said Falmah-Al triumphantly. “At last! Father Im is with us. Come!”

  Millen caught her arm, his Varlax eyes hooded by the gathering shadows. “It’s too dark to climb up there now. We should wait until morning.”

  “No!” Falmah-Al jerked free. Her chiseled face was fired by impatience. “I have waited too long for this. We are going now. Rig out plenty of torches.”

  “Formation!” bawled Tirza.

  Falmah-Al and Millen took the lead in the trek up the long slope, with Brock, Ellisne, and Rho in the center of the technicians, and the guards bringing up the rear. The going was treacherous with loose stones and uncertain footing, but the climb itself was not steep enough to be difficult. Rho moved lightly along ahead of Brock and Ellisne, his eyes fixed on the night sky spread out above them. A bright steady planet hung just to the right of the mountain peak.

  “What a lovely evening star,” said Ellisne.

  “It is Slath,” replied Rho. “On a spring night like this the young males are flying across the path of the moon to vie for the favors of the ones they love. And the little mar sans are giving their low cry in the river reeds by the thousands. Beneath the citadel, the village lights of the cluster are shining out from cliffs such as these.”

  Brock heard the longing in Rho’s words. “When were you last home?” he asked.

  “Many years.”

  “Do you miss it? Do you wish you were there now?” asked Brock.

  Rho’s orange eyes met his. “Yes,” he said simply. “But it would not be the same.”

  For a while there was only the sound of labored breathing muffled by masks and the ring and clatter of boots over stones. Then one of the technicians up ahead who was talking earnestly to Millen slipped on loose shale with a sudden cry. His torch flew up end over end as it was thrown into the air. Arms windmilling wildly, he almost regained his balance and Millen made a grab at him but missed as the man came tumbling down straight at Ellisne, who stood frozen in his path.

  “Ellisne!” shouted Brock, but it was Rho who was the closest to her. He leapt at her, knocking her to one side out of the way.

  “Catch him! Someone catch him!” shouted Falmah-Al. “He’s going over the edge!”

  The technician just behind Brock grunted and scrambled forward in a futile attempt to check his colleague’s progress, but he was too slow. He’d never catch the man in time. Brock hesitated only an instant before throwing himself at the edge of the trail. He might not be able to flick, but he could still move faster than any Colonid alive, and he felt the old familiar blur as his muscles bunched and snapped out.

  “Brock, no!” screamed Ellisne, but his outstretched hands were already reaching out to the technician’s jacket and grasping hard on the tough cloth.

  He felt the unyielding impact with earth, the sharp grunt as the breath was knocked from his lungs, the tear at his shoulder and back muscles as the technician rolled over the edge and shot out into the air, slowed only by the drag of Brock’s weight. There was the metallic taste of dirt in his mouth, and the raw sting of a stone scraping his cheek. But their wild impetus was slowing as Brock dug his boot toes into the ground, and then they were stopped, with Brock hanging off the edge all the way to his waist and the man sobbing below him in his grasp.

  “Get them!”

  There was a rush, and hands grabbed at Brock’s legs, dragging him and the technician back to safety. Brock got to his feet, breathing hard, and pulled the technician upright beside him.

  “Are you hurt?” Brock asked.

  The man’s trouser leg was shredded, he was trembling all over, and he could barely stand on his own from the shock.

  “Egel!” blurted out someone else, shining his torch mercilessly into the man’s face. “Are you all right? Say something.”

  “Gazal,” muttered one of the guards in disgust. “Our best technician. Stand back from him, ghost.”

  “Have you ever seen anyone move that fast? I haven’t,” said someone else. “Truly, Egel, Im was watching out fo
r you.”

  “Yes,” said Egel shakily. His eyes, wide and still full of stark terror, stabbed only briefly into Brock’s before he yanked himself away.

  Millen came down with a reckless slide of dirt and shale. “Is he all right?”

  Egel nodded and tugged at his jacket to straighten it. Brock stepped back and slapped the dust from his clothes, angered as much by the lack of thanks as by his own involuntary eagerness to save a Colonid life.

  Millen glanced at Brock and seemed about to say something to him, then shrugged and turned away. “Let’s move on,” he said.

  The earlier excitement faded, to be replaced by an ever-tightening constriction of tension. If I were human, thought Brock, trudging on up the slope, I would be weeping. He lifted his face to the cold slice of wind, letting unfamiliar smells fill his nostrils. That he was following the killer of Mabruk so docilely shamed him. Had the end of the Held truly been on the day of defeat, or was it now at this moment when he walked up to deactivate the Held’s last hope? He had never suspected that all the struggles of his life would culminate in such humiliation. Already he could see how it would be played. As soon as Falmah-Al finished celebrating the end of this goda, she would demand the others.

  Brock bowed his head as he fitted his foot into a niche and boosted himself up over a boulder after an agile Ellisne. A broken dam began with a tiny crack. Once he gave in to Falmah-Al here, he could not keep her from the others.

  But shame on another level also burned him. What was wrong with him that he mourned the end of the godas? Did he crave power so strongly? Had he become that corrupted by the ways of the Held? His memories played over the words of the suprin naming him the successor instead Tregher. Was he fighting for his own ambitions?

  He was afraid to look into himself for the answers. After all, why should he? The war was over. He had his life and he had Ellisne. That was enough.

  Reaching up to scramble over another series of boulders rolled together like a child’s set of balls, Brock was startled when he found his wrist seized in a powerful grip. Millen dragged him up and onto the ledge just under the scored marks now illuminated by at least a dozen torches.

  The Colonids parted as Brock walked up to the wall of stone and ran his hands over the cold, gritty surface to find the activation points. One of the codes in his mind surfaced abruptly, and he was speaking it aloud almost before he realized it.

  There was an answering rumble from within the mountain that made the Colonids start uneasily and reach for their weapons. But the scored stone slid into a hidden recess with a slowness that marked the extreme age of the door. Blackness yawned at them, absorbing the torchlight shone at it.

  “Steps,” said Falmah-Al, and her voice rang out like a huntress. She thrust a torch into Brock’s hand. “Lead, Dire-lord.”

  On impulse he started counting the steps as he went, but after a thousand he ceased the exercise. The steps, all evenly cut and unworn, led straight down without any turns or landings. Walls rose up on either side so narrowly Brock’s shoulders seemed almost to brush them as he descended with Falmah-Al right on his heels. He held the torch steadily before him, and kept his free hand running along the wall on his right. By the thousandth step he was conscious of atmospheric changes in the air, changes in temperature and pressure. There was a slight buzzing in his ears, and those behind him were panting audibly. His fingers stiffened as they touched a slick, highly polished surface very different from the roughly hewn stone they had been following. He stopped abruptly to catch his breath, and only Falmah-Al’s quickness saved her from bumping into him.

  “Go on!” she ordered, poking him in the back with her torch. “What’s wrong?”

  “Ungstan carbonix,” he said beneath his breath, a little frightened now. It was an organic metal highly dangerous to Sedkethrans. They could flick into it, but coming out was unlikely. He shuddered, remembering the boy in his barracks who had recklessly accepted a dare to stick his hand into the wall surrounding the Temple of the Writings. The boy’s screams were still as sharp and terrifying as on the day the tragedy had occurred. Brock could still remember the whine of the scalpel as a grim-faced healer performed an emergency amputation.

  Falmah-Al poked him again. “What did you say? Ungstan what?”

  “Nothing.” Brock shook off his fear. The metal was simply here to serve as insulation for the control room when the goda was activated. As long as he did not touch it he would not be harmed. Sending a warning to Ellisne, he drew his hand close to his side and continued on more slowly. They must be nearly there.

  But the steps continued endlessly downward until even he was short of breath. The muscles in his legs burned and trembled. He paused again to rest.

  “Don’t stop!” said Falmah-Al raggedly. “It can’t be much farther. Unless you have tricked us.”

  “No tricks,” said Brock, gulping for air that was nearly nonexistent down here. They were going too deep. It was not safe to go so deep. He could hear the others muttering among themselves. Hope lifted in his chest. Perhaps they would give up and turn back.

  Falmah-Al poked him sharply in the back, nearly making him lose his balance. “Go on.”

  “Colonel,” said Millen but as they started moving again he did not finish his protest.

  Ten steps farther down, just when Brock’s lungs seemed to be collapsing and his head was becoming light and dizzy, the steps ended. It was a tiny space; barely enough room had been hewn out of the mountain for the door blocking Brock’s path to swing open. Someone whooped, and they came clattering down the steps after him, crowding him as they all tried to see.

  “Stand back!” barked one of the officers, and the Colonids quietened.

  Brock waited until they were silent, then he spoke the second code. Nothing happened.

  “Gazal-ma!” swore Falmah-Al. The muzzle of her disruptor jammed under Brock’s right shoulder blade. “Open it!”

  “Quiet!” he snapped back, his nerves nearly as frazzled as hers. Even the careful shielding of the Disciplines could not forever withstand the turbulent emotions of the Colonids. They weren’t telepathic. They had never learned the necessity of keeping themselves under control.

  Carefully he ran through the sequences again. He had the correct code, but the age of this machinery was immense almost beyond comprehension. None of it might function now.

  He spoke the code again, giving it perfect Chaimu inflection. There was a pause, during which the disruptor in his back seemed to grow enormous, and then slowly, ever so slowly the door grated open.

  There was a puff of old air in his face, warmed to the correct temperature for Chaimu comfort, and recycled at the correct rate to avoid staleness. Brock inhaled it gratefully and stepped through into a chamber approximately the size of a standard cruiser’s bridge. Sensors did not register him, but Falmah-Al’s entrance made lights blink on in dazzling illumination. The colonel froze at the low sound of a hum.

  “We have activated it,” she said in an appalled whisper.

  Brock smiled. “No, that is merely life support systems kicking on automatically to full operational levels. Despite what you may have heard about the Chaimu love of luxury, they are not wasteful, Colonel. Whenever they are absent from a place they close energy levels down to standby.”

  Falmah-Al’s eyes snapped to his, but instead of looking angered by his insolence she almost smiled back. “I see,” she said quite mildly. “Explain everything to me.”

  Brock glanced about at the complex control banks. Everything had been covered with dust shields. Everything was shut down. He expected there to be a response along with the kick on of support systems, but nothing else had come on. An ironical urge to laugh surged through him.

  “It’s dead,” he said aloud, grinning at the colonel. “After all of your years of terror, there’s nothing to fear after all. And after all of my guilty soul-searching, there’s nothing here at all.”

  “What?” Falmah-Al frowned at him as though he had gone mad.
“What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that we have been pursuing a cloud, a phantom, an illusion. There’s no goda here any more.”

  “Impossible!”

  “Look." He pulled off a dust shield and recklessly slapped at a panel of controls with the flat of his hand. Someone gasped. “Nothing! See? It must have died long ago. Age finally conquered the best of Chaimu technology.”

  Rho closed his eyes and mumbled something, but Millen brushed roughly past him as he came up to join Falmah-Al.

  “Did you hear, Major?” she said.

  “Yes, I heard.” He looked grim. “Egel!” he shouted. “Get your crew working to check out the power sources.”

  “It can’t be,” whispered Falmah-Al, her face white and drained. She stared slowly about the control room as though unable to believe what her eyes told her. “After so long. To finally be here and find nothing…”

  Brock shook his head, his eyes meeting Ellisne’s relieved ones briefly. All of that self-torment for nothing. He did not realize until now just how much he had dreaded making a decision in this room. And now he was spared all of it.

  “Perhaps we are going to be able to make peace as you have hoped,” he said formally to Falmah-Al.

  She slowly turned her head around to face him, and only the fury burning in her eyes gave him a split-second’s worth of warning before her disruptor struck him across the mouth and sent him sprawling to the floor.

  “Peace!” she spat as though the word were filth. “What do I want with peace, Held scum? I want an operational goda. And I want it now! I know you can activate this one. You are lying to us, trying to trick us. But I know you must key in a special code. Get up!”

  Slowly, under the menace of her aimed disruptor, Brock hauled himself to his feet and straightened, ignoring the desire to press his hand to his cut and swelling lip. He tasted the sour sting of blood, colorless and bitter, and spat some of it out of his mouth.

  “Brock—” said Ellisne, starting toward him, but Millen swiftly blocked her path with a drawn weapon. “Stay back,” he said harshly. “You aren’t going to vanish with the dire-lord this time.”