The Dark Path

by Walter H Hunt

  "Do you like the plan so far?"

  "There are some elements that need clearing up," Th'an'ya said at last, her voice sounding thin and melodic pronouncing words in the human tongue. "I can sense . . . a sort of amusement, se Jackie, even though it is clear that you take this affair seriously. Am I missing some vital aspect of your exposition?"

  "It is called 'sarcasm,' " Ch'k'te replied, as Jackie covered a smile and then a laugh with her hand. "She is joking about—That is to say, she is laughing in the face of . . ."

  He finally gave up, settling his wings in some position that was significant to the two zor but that escaped her. By this time she had totally collapsed into laughter, the tension and resentment of the past several days rushing out of her in fits and starts, until she at last regained some semblance of composure. All the time, Ch'k'te and Th'an'ya's image waited patiently, looking from Jackie to each other.

  "As a mere tool of esLi's will," Th'an'ya said at last, "it is beyond me to fully understand how He could have condemned us to life after allowing a race such as humanity to conquer us. le Ch'k'te, you show great adeptness and depth in understanding to be able to cooperate with se Jackie."

  "I'm sorry," Jackie said after a moment. "It just . . . The whole plan seemed so absurd that I couldn't help it." She looked from Ch'k'te to Th'an'ya, who were waiting patiently for her to continue.

  "We apparently have a role for you in this little comic-opera, Th'an'ya, though I suppose you knew it already. You're supposed to be the spirit-guide for Qu'u and his companions. Is that what you envisioned?"

  "I expect to be such, yes. With my skills and your own inner strength, you should be able to resist casual invasion of your mind by the esGa'uYal, just as E're'a was the protector of mighty Qu'u. But you still do not seem convinced that this is the proper course."

  "No, I don't. I still feel as if I'm walking into this blind and unprepared, waiting for things to happen to me rather than taking charge of the situation."

  "It does not fit with your Academy training, se Jackie?"

  "What the hell do you mean by that?"

  For a moment the image of Th'an'ya wavered and Jackie cursed under her breath, realizing that her anger was interfering. She willed herself to be calm.

  "The People have a different view on the matter of 'destiny' than humans. We believe that things will be as esLi wills them to be, and that the Eight Winds will blow where they will, regardless of our desires. Still, the wise person tastes the direction of the wind, and turns his wings to the best advantage.

  "If we are to sense what direction to take, it is important for us to understand what esLi intends for us to do. This analysis will be most familiar to you, se Jackie—for correctly discerning the right course may make the difference between life and death."

  "And all we have to go on is the legend of Qu'u."

  "It is the basis for this endeavor."

  "From what I've read, he sort of stumbles his way along until he reaches the underground passage to the Plain of Despite, and only then realizes that he's on the enemy's playing field and that any mistake will be his last."

  "And then," said Th'an'ya, "he must prove to himself just what kind of warrior he truly is."

  ***

  After the incident at the bar there was a different dream. Owen was aboard the alien ship again, but this time he was lying in a chamber, on the same spongy, slightly concave floor. He couldn't move, and his head was pounding. He knew why: the aliens had been probing his mind, gathering information.

  What light there was came from no apparent source; it was bluish and dim. Still, it hurt his eyes to look around so he kept them hooded, squinting at the curved walls and ceiling. On one wall he saw a luminous oval pattern that shifted frequently, like a malfunctioning 3-V. He guessed he was being watched.

  If he had given them everything they wanted, he reasoned, they'd have fed him to the lions by now. So that hadn't happened, at least. But if they were having trouble extracting information, what did that mean? He wasn't a Sensitive; he was no more resistant to mind control than . . . than—

  Than Devra Sidra or Aaron Schoenfeld, Gary Cox, Steve Leung or Anne Khalid. They'd had no chance; the aliens had made them attack each other. They'd all died in Cicero System; all except him.

  "he will do," a voice said from somewhere. Across from him, a red band of light appeared on the wall, shimmering and wavering.

  "the other will learn from him," another voice said. This time it was a violet band of color. As Owen watched, four other colored bands appeared between them: orange, yellow, green, blue.

  "HE WILL PROVIDE INSTRUCTION." Yellow this time.

  "THE OTHER WILL MAKE GOOD USE OF HIS SKILLS." Orange.

  "THE DESIRED RESULT WILL BE OBTAINED." Blue.

  "THE EXPECTED OUTCOME WILL NOT BE AVOIDED." Green. "THEIR PATHS WILL CROSS."

  "THEY WILL NOT AVOID MEETING." Blue again. "THE AGENT WILL DIRECT THIS."

  "What are you talking about?" Owen said, feeling for his pistol, which was missing, of course. "What paths? What—"

  "CONVEY HIM," said Red.

  "CONVEY HIM," the others repeated.

  There was a flash of light, and suddenly there was a path across the floor of the room consisting of six colored stripes—each extending from one of the bands on the wall Owen reached out and touched the floor under him; he found it smooth, as if whatever composed the surface had been sanded flat. The nearest wall felt the same way.

  "this path will lead you from this vessel," Blue's voice said from everywhere at once, "walk upon it. do not step off."

  "Not till I get some answers," Owen said. He didn't really expect to get any, but thought it was worth a shot. "The aliens wouldn't tell me anything, but maybe you will. Who are you?"

  "BLUE," the voice said. The blue band undulated, "AND THE ANSWER TO THE NEXT QUESTION IS 'NO.' "

  "Are you working for or against the aliens?" He asked it any way, and tried to piece together what the answer meant.

  "YOU HAVE VERY LITTLE TIME," Red said,"LEAVE THIS PLACE. DO NOT STEP OFF THE PATH."

  "And if I don't?"

  "YOU WILL DIE HERE." Green, "WE WILL FIND ANOTHER.''

  "To do what?" He didn't want to stay; he stood up and reached a foot out toward the rainbow path. He could see it leading beyond the confines of the chamber into darkness beyond.

  "YOU WILL TEACH," the six colors said all at once.

  "TEACH," they repeated as he took a few steps and watched the alien ship recede behind him.

  "TEACH," they said again as the darkness of jump surrounded him.

  ***

  " 'Teach.' " Damien Abbas looked Owen Garrett in the eye.

  "This is a pretty big stretch, Garrett. You're telling me that you walked off the alien ship on a rainbow bridge—walked all the way here? And that you're supposed to see something to—Some 'other'? Teach what?"

  "Well . . ." Owen pointed to his eyes with his thumb and index finger. "I can see them, can't I? We had one drop dead on us, and I've marked two or three others since then. Maybe I'm supposed to teach that."

  "Well, teach it to me, then. If the aliens decide to come and take you away, there'll be no one to do what you can do."

  "I wish I could. But I don't know how. I don't even know how this works—but now I know why. And I know one other thing."

  "What's that?"

  "There's something out there that isn't on the same side as the bugs—in fact, it's more powerful than they are. I don't think it's any friend of ours, either, but it did get me off that ship and to this planet for a reason. If I were to guess, it would be because the rest of you are here.

  "I think I was brought here to help you. We need to get off this world, and I've been given some talent that will help us do it and some powerful allies to help make it possible."

  "What do you have in mind?"

  "I think we should steal the Negri Sembilan."

  "Are you crazy? Something that big would be impossible to take.
Besides, the Overlords can read minds."

  "Only if they get close enough." Owen pointed to his eyes again. "They're not going to get close—and they can't control all of us at once. I think they're counting on blending in, Captain. That's just not going to happen."

  Chapter 18

  THE LEGEND OF QU'U (continued)

  . . . QU'U AND HIS COMPANION TRAVELED MANY DAYS AND NIGHTS

  FROM THE FOREST OF THE HERMIT.

  THEY FOLLOWED HIS DIRECTIONS AS [BURDEN OF DAY]

  BEST THEY COULD. BY DAY, FATHER SUN'S HEAT BEAT

  DOWN UPON THEM AS THEY FLEW OVER EVER-ROCKIER

  LANDS. BY NIGHT THE MOONS SILVERED THEIR

  WINGS AS THEY FLEW EVER NORTHWARD.

  QU'U FELT THE HOT BREATH OF PURSUIT, AND COULD [Approaching Danger]

  SCARCELY BRING HIMSELF TO STOP HIS PROGRESS UNTIL

  HIS FATIGUE OVERWHELMED HIM.

  QU'U WAS YET YOUNG: HE WAS BOTH UNCHANGED BY

  THE EVENTS THAT WERE TO COME AND UNTROUBLED [Cloak of Defense]

  BY THE RESPONSIBILITIES THAT WOULD COME LATER.

  STILL, HE HAD NEVER FELT AS DRIVEN. HE KNEW THAT

  THE SERVANTS OF ESGA'U WERE ABROAD AND HE

  BELIEVED THAT THEY HAD TO KNOW HIS DESTINATION.

  NO MATTER HOW MUCH HE FEARED IT, HOWEVER, THIS

  COULD NOT DETER HIM—AND HE DID FEAR IT,

  THOUGH HE COULD NOT [Duty of the Warrior]

  COMMUNICATE THIS TO HIS COMPANION, HYOS,

  WHO FOLLOWED HIM DEVOTEDLY. ALL THE WHILE, THE

  PRESENCE OF E'RE'A REASSURED HIM THAT HE AND

  HYOS DID NOT TRAVEL ALONE . . .

  [Protection of esLi]

  BUT ALSO THAT HIS LIFE HAD BEEN IRREVOCABLY

  CHANGED BY THE NEW MISSION THAT THE LORD ESLI

  HAD LAID OUT FOR HIM.

  AS QU'U AND HYOS CONTINUED NORTHWARD, THEY

  COULD SEE MOUNTAINS CLIMBING HIGHER OVER THE HORIZON

  UNTIL THEY [confronting the icewall]

  CROUCHED, MALIGNANTLY, ACROSS THEIR ENTIRE

  FIELD OF VIEW. AS THEY TRAVELED, THE WEATHER

  GREW EVER COLDER. WHILE IN FLIGHT, THERE WAS NO

  DEFENSE AGAINST THE BITING WINDS AND CRUEL

  RAINS, BUT WHEN THEY WERE AFOOT THEY COULD

  WRAP THEMSELVES IN CLOAKS AND MOVE LIKE ARTHA,

  GHOSTLIKE AND SHROUDED.

  AT LAST, ON A COLD AND STORMY DAY, THEY CAME IN

  SIGHT OF THE LONG CANYON THAT HAD BEEN

  DESCRIBED TO THEM. THEY PERCHED FOR SEVERAL

  MOMENTS, LISTENING TO THE [Winds of Despite]

  SCREAMING GALES THAT WHIRLED AROUND THE PLACE

  AND WATCHING AS THE CLOUDS SCUDDED ACROSS THE

  SKY, QUICKLY FORMING AND UNFORMING HORRIFIC

  PATTERNS, QU'U GATHERED [The Drawn Chya]

  HIS COURAGE AT LAST AND FLEW DOWNWARD TOWARD

  THE FAR END OF THE CANYON, WHERE HIS FATE AWAITED.

  For three days Jackie waited for S'reth to summon her back to his presence. His first instructional session after their initial meeting had been—in a word—uninformative. S'reth was even more obtuse and full of anecdotes than the average zor—not that she had any real basis for comparison. She felt the overwhelming need to be patient and careful; it made her even more frustrated with the situation, and particularly with herself and her own lack of control over it.

  With no choice but to let the situation control her, she relaxed as best she could and allowed it to happen. Let the Eight Winds blow you where they will, as Th'an'ya would say. Still, regardless of her unique position and the burden of the mission, she was still an outsider.

  She had begun to occasionally register impressions from the zor in whose society she moved. She tried her best to work with Ch'k'te and especially Th'an'ya to order her mind to deal with these impressions, but it was difficult at best. Still, she received mostly insulting comments such as, "Here comes the artha"; it conjured up the image of a four-legged furry creature moving furtively through the mist. It was more of an expression of pity than of contempt, but it beckoned back to a more frightening memory, a sensation from the Dsen'yen'ch'a.

  . . . chained to the ground, wingless . . .

  Such a pity.

  She was something of a celebrity on Cle'eru, or more properly a cause célèbre: the human population, several hundred diplomats and merchants, were a society apart. They were ground-bound and uninvolved . . . uninformed. Few among them spoke more than a few words of the Highspeech. This was by choice rather than by design, or so it seemed. The humans on this mostly-zor world had a desire to be somewhere else, where the sun wasn't as red, the commerce of human society so distant or the majority of the population so removed, high above them in their own eyries. They didn't seem to hide their contempt very well.

  Jackie's arrival on Cle'eru was an occasion; her continued association with the zor was something of a marvel, to be gossiped about in astonishment and with a rather vague horror. Even with allowances being made for her status as an officer in His Majesty's Navy, it was remarkable that she had somehow crossed the line.

  Every day when she returned from exercising or touring or some other diversion, her hotel-room comp would be clogged with messages. They were mostly invitations, but sometimes they were obsequious requests for favors or assistance. Disdaining the former was almost as easy as ignoring the latter; but she did desire human companionship. She finally accepted an opportunity to dine at the house of an influential merchant factor on the same night the Imperial consul would be present.

  Though not an official occasion, she discarded the idea of evening dress in favor of her own commodore's uniform. She wasn't sure whether she should be wearing it as a member of the zor naval service, but it was clear to her there wasn't a soul on Cle'eru who would gainsay her the right. Thus attired, and armored with the confidence that every flag officer possesses in full dress, she set off alone around the dinner hour to the factor's residence in the human-occupied section of the capital city or, as the zor called it colloquially (and insultingly), Hu'uren—"Lowtown."

  ***

  "Commodore, so good to have you with us." As Sir Johannes Xavier Sharpe extended his hand to shake hers, a servant hovered nearby to take her cap and gloves. Jackie took the offered hand: it was ice-cold, in keeping with the chill temperature of the house. She could hear the soft whir of an overworked air circulator, setting her teeth even more on edge. "Thank you, Mr. Sharpe. It's a pl—"

  "Hansie, please. Call me Hansie; everyone does. May I call you Jacqueline? Such a beautiful name," he hurried on, before she could tell him what she thought of the idea. Sharpe was a short, mousy-looking man with darting eyes; she realized she'd taken an instant dislike to him.

  "French, isn't it? We've worked so hard at homogeneity these past few centuries it's hard to recall our ancestors' cultural identities. My many-times-great-grandfather"—he waved airily toward a strikingly ugly portrait—"Sir Francis Xavier Sharpe, was English, while I am named for my great-uncle Johann, who was, as you might imagine, a German. One was France's friend in past centuries, the other her deadly enemy. What does that make us, do you suppose?" He smiled, baring his teeth like some pathetic carnivore.

  Total strangers, she was inspired to say. "England and Germany were both friend and enemy to France in times past," she replied, as she let him lead her toward the drawing-room, from which random bits of conversation swirled. "I'm actually from Dieron, Mr. Sh—Hansie. So I think we could start from square one."

  "Splendid! Well put." He clapped his hands and smiled again. "Well put indeed, madam. Your reputation scarcely does you justice. Allow me to introduce you to the consul. Excuse me," he added before she could follow up his last remark. With a swish of protosilk and a gesture to a tall fair-haired woman in a gown with an unobtrusive emblem over the left breast, he disappeared into the crowd.

  As Jackie stood for a moment stranded in the middle of the room, the consul filled up the awkward gap by walking up to her. "
Commodore? I'm Ann Sorenson. I represent the Emperor here on Cle'eru." The two women shook hands. "Our host has a fairly limited attention span, I'm afraid."

  "I've noticed."

  "I'm actually a bit surprised to see you here. I've been trying to reach you since you arrived on Cle'eru, but they seem to keep you isolated up there."

  "My schedule has been very busy."

  "I can imagine. You're really quite a celebrity down here, you know." They walked further into the drawing-room, dimly lit with flickering light. To one side a table was laid with a sumptuous array of delicacies, many of which Jackie couldn't even identify.

  "I didn't know. Please tell me about it."

  Sorenson glanced at her. "Don't you find it difficult working with them?"

  "The zor, I assume you mean."

  "Yes, that's right." Her nose wrinkled as if she smelled something bad.

  "It's a challenge, no question, but they are as dependable and as competent as humans. I don't dwell on it much."

  "So I've been told."

  "By whom?"

  "In this line of work, one hears from all sources . . . besides, there are officers in His Majesty's Navy who won't willingly work with a zor—and you seem to have one as an exec."

  "Your attitude is a bit curious for a consul to a zor world, if I may say so," Jackie remarked.

  "Commodore." Ann Sorenson smiled knowingly. "Look around this room: there are no zor here. This is sovereign territory of the Solar Empire. There is no need to deal in platitudes. If you're to be posted here for any length of time, you'll realize that our society is fairly insular; we don't bother much with what goes on up there. Humans are humans and zor are zor; we only need enough contact to get our business transacted."

  "I'm afraid I don't share your opinions, Madam Consul. I don't know what purpose your bias serves, but I have worked with zor and will continue to do so."

  "I'm not surprised. Excuse me," the consul said with a half-sincere smile, and turned away to walk across the room.

  Jackie watched her go, then shrugged her shoulders and turned back to the delicacies. As she stood, alone, for several seconds, a 'bot-tender floated over behind the table and said in a low, throaty voice, "How can I serve you?"