"I could have you removed by my security."
"Perhaps. No doubt several of these persons would die as well, and you might still not obtain cooperation from se Jackie. You are welcome to try, se Captain; I am ready."
Neither man nor zor spoke for several moments.
"Ch'k'te, put your chya away." It was Jackie's command voice. Dan looked past Ch'k'te to see her sitting up in bed. She had the bedclothes wrapped around her, but her gaze, though still haunted, was clear and steady. "Dan, back off. Nothing is accomplished by this scene."
Ch'k'te stepped back carefully to stand beside the bed, returning his chya to its scabbard. It made a final complaint as it was put away. His gaze never left Dan McReynolds as he moved.
"Jay," Dan began, "Jackie, I need to know what's going on."
"It's better if you don't know. By getting involved, you continue to risk the Fair Damsel. I can understand why you don't want to do it. You didn't agree to become a hero: I did."
"But you need—"
"I don't need anything else from you. Remember what you told me when we came aboard: how you'd given up two crewmembers to make room for us, how you didn't want to go out of your way for us—"
"That was before a member of my crew tried to flush another of my crew into jump. That was before someone tried to destroy my ship. Whatever you're trying to do, whoever is trying to stop you—it wasn't my problem. Now it is."
"Nothing has changed."
"Everything has changed. Now, tell me what's going on and tell me what I can do to help."
***
The door slid open. Jackie and Ch'k'te stepped into the room. Around the table sat several people: Dan, Raymond Li, Pyotr Ngo, the Fair Damsel's chief engineer Erin Peterson and Karla Bazadeh. Dan gestured them to chairs, and without preamble began to speak. "Activate security program six." The comp acknowledged.
"I've gathered you all here for a specific reason that includes, but isn't restricted to, the cargo-bay hull breach. This isn't a court of inquiry. There are no charges against anyone. If any thing, this is a consensus meeting of the Damsel's major share holders. The Sultan's on the bridge; he'll get briefed later."
He looked over at Karla, who looked somewhat uncomfortable. "You're here because I trust you," he said, smiling, "and Jackie has to trust you, too.
"There's been some speculation about what happened and about our two new crewmembers." He gestured to Jackie and Ch'k'te. "I won't address the scuttlebutt. Instead I'm going to take you into my confidence because you could all find out anyway. As part owners of this tub, you've got a right to know.
"The 'accident' that opened the cargo doors was no accident. Someone deliberately tried to kill Jackie, or at the very least drive her mad. This person, identity unknown, seems to have lured Ray and Karla off the deck, and then overrode security interlocks to open the doors.
"Whoever he or she is"—he looked at Jackie and then Ch'k'te pointedly, and continued—"he or she is an enemy of the zor High Nest, and it's the opinion of the High Nest that humanity is also in danger. Jackie and Ch'k'te are currently working for the High Nest, on detached service from His Majesty's Navy." Before any of the others could interject, he continued. "I'd like to introduce to you Jacqueline Laperriere, Commodore IN, and Commander Ch'k'te HeYen, also of the Imperial Navy."
Jackie looked from face to face. They all appeared angry or resentful. Among the Navy's duties was the regulation of piracy; that sometimes led to overzealous prosecution of legitimate commerce. Merchants and regular Navy were not the best of friends inside the Empire.
Of course, they weren't inside the Empire now.
"Captain?" Karla Bazadeh asked. "Can I make a comment?"
"Don't see why not."
She caught the glances of the officers. "We're all sitting here staring down these two people like they just slithered out of a nightmare. The Navy's supposed to be the good guys, no matter what we think of 'em. Shouldn't we hear them out?"
"No doubt," Pyotr Ngo said at last, "the captain had some reason for getting us entangled in the Navy's business. Perhaps he'd like to explain it to us."
"The High Nest paid us a healthy commission." He named a figure that drew appreciative noises from the others in the room. "They—and, interestingly, not the Navy—perceive a threat of some kind outside the Empire. For reasons I only barely understand, Jackie and Ch'k'te have been chosen to undertake a mission out there, and it was intended that they sneak out of the Empire without anyone knowing they were gone.
"Needless to say, someone knew—or found out. Now we have a choice: We can either drop them at Crossover, as originally agreed, or we can keep them on and help earn that commission. Unless you have objections, I'd like to hear them out."
"If it doesn't commit us to anything," Pyotr Ngo said.
"It doesn't so far. Ray?"
"I'm curious what all of this is about, though I have the same concern that Pyotr does."
"Noted." He toyed with a stylus, noting something on the comp before him. "Erin?"
"Two things. First, anyone who threatens the ship because she is aboard might well threaten it after she's gone. If we don't know what we're dealing with, we don't have much chance of fighting it. So much for pragmatism.
"My second point is that a member of our crew was attacked. Now, maybe the two of them"—she gestured toward Jackie and Ch'k'te—"maybe they came aboard under false pretenses, but they're crew now. We don't pick and choose who's protected by the radiation shielding or who gets to breathe the air. Crew is crew. Anybody who attacked one of us is the enemy of all of us."
"That's not a majority position."
"Tough. That's how I feel."
"All right; it's noted. Karla?"
"I get a vote?"
"You get a say."
"Okay. I don't—" She knotted her hands around one knee and drew her foot up into her lap and rested her chin on it. "Erin's right; we'd better know what's going on before another day passes, especially if the ship's at risk. But I think Pyotr's naive if he thinks we can sit and listen as if we're not already involved. By inviting them aboard, the captain's already committed us "
"How do you figure that?" Pyotr rounded on her. "We drop them at Crossover and sail off into the sunset. I don't see how we're already involved."
He glowered at Jackie, and she felt the unspoken message: If I were captain, that's what I'd do with the likes of you.
"If the enemy is as ruthless as I think it is," Jackie responded, "you'd never make it to jump."
"I don't see any enemy. You're asking us to risk the ship—" He glanced angrily about, landing his glance on Dan, then Karla, then back on Jackie herself. "You're suggesting that we've already been risking the ship—to an enemy I don't even know exists?"
"anGa'e'ren exists," Jackie answered, folding her hands in front of her. "There's an enemy out there; there's an enemy in here. The enemy controls Cicero, where I used to command."
"Cicero? The big naval base?"
"That's right. Cicero was taken by the enemy a few weeks ago and was abandoned on my orders."
Pyotr looked around the room again, then he leaned back and resettled himself in his chair, placing his hands on the table in front of him. "All right, Commodore. I'm listening."
Jackie swallowed and nodded. She'd reviewed the events of the last several weeks and knew that they'd begun to make a perverse sort of sense. Now she would have to clarify them for others. Dealing with subordinates at Cicero, or with a court-martial, had been easier than dealing with this crew; she knew that they might end up sympathetic, but they also might decide they had no stake and put Jackie and Ch'k'te ashore at the next opportunity.
"Things began to happen several months ago. Two exploratory vessels, based at Cicero Starbase, had gone missing while on charting expeditions. The two ships weren't unmanned probes or small advance scouts: they were fully armed and crewed starships, commanded by veteran pilots. These vessels regularly report their position and submit logs describing
their activities; in each case, the ship had last been recorded at the Sargasso system—what you call Crossover.
"The Navy sent Admiral Horace Tolliver, a desk officer, out to see what was going on. He was accompanied by an important representative of the High Nest: Sergei Torrijos, the Gyaryu'har, the holder of the Talon of State."
"Sonja's great-uncle," Ray Li said.
"Right. He was—is—the inheritor of whatever authority the High Nest vested in Admiral Marais after he completed his conquest of the zor eighty-five years ago. This authority apparently extends back millennia, all the way to the very first Gyaryu'har, a legendary zor hero named Qu'u. We'll get back to him in a moment.
"Admiral Tolliver decided to take direct command of some of my squadron and go to Sargasso—Crossover—to see what was really going on. The Gyaryu'har warned against it. I went on the record as opposed, but he did it anyway. Mr. Torrijos told me that the High Lord had begun to perceive that there was a malevolent force out beyond the border of the Empire. This was why he had been included in this inspection tour. The admiral brushed it all aside.
"Some days after this, one ship returned to Cicero, mostly wrecked, with every Sensitive aboard dead. They were killed by their fellow crewmembers." The people at the table were listening intently. "The survivors claimed the Sensitives had turned into 'monsters' . . . their words. According to them—including Admiral Tolliver—something attacked them out there, and those that escaped got out barely alive.
"As it turned out, my command had already been undermined by the enemy, an alien race with Sensitive capabilities far beyond anything we or the zor understand. Their powers include the ability to alter their perceived appearance. Only a very few Sensitives can pierce the illusion of one of these aliens; they can take the role of anyone. Several of my officers had been replaced—my own replacement was planned as well. I found out about this almost by accident, but with Ch'k'te's help I was able to regain control of Cicero long enough to get most of my people and my squadron to Adrianople. We were able to rescue the Gyaryu'har as well, but he was in a deep coma, apparently because the aliens had taken the gyaryu away.
"Let me clarify that point. The gyaryu is a sword like a zor warrior's chya. It gave Mr. Torrijos the ability to perceive the threat posed by the aliens and imparted certain other capabilities to him as well. I . . . don't know the full extent of its powers, but I know that it's very important to the High Nest. Having it in the hands of the aliens is a matter of concern at the highest levels.
"So. Aliens had seized control of Cicero, and I'd gotten away, taking as much as I could and almost all of my people. The Admiralty convened a court-martial out at Adrianople and sent some heavy hitters out to fit me for leg-irons. But here's where it became strange.
"A zor VIP, the High Chamberlain T'te'e HeYen, had come out to Adrianople as well. He claimed to be there to examine Ch'k'te about the alien contact. Ch'k'te asked me to stand with him in this examination and I accepted, but as soon as the trial had started, it became apparent to me that the purpose of this trial was to test me rather than Ch'k'te. The High Lord himself had directed that I be tested as a candidate to go out and fetch back the sword from the aliens."
"Why you?" Dan asked quietly. "I mean, it's not that you were a particularly bad choice, but you aren't a zor. Or a Sensitive, as I recall."
"The zor don't believe in coincidence. To put it another way, they move according to the patterns of the High Lord's dreaming. There is some evidence that the High Lord knew that I would make contact with the aliens, though he saw them as demons in zor mythology—the esGa'uYal, or servants of esGa'u the Deceiver. It also means that the disappearance of the ships was no accident."
"You mean that—" Dan rubbed his chin and frowned. "You're suggesting that the High Lord knew that it was all going to happen."
"That's what the High Chamberlain implied." She rubbed her hands together, then seemed to realize it and feel self-conscious. Instead she folded her hands again in front of her on the table. "What the High Chamberlain did in the trial was to introduce an esGa'uYe into the mental link. I found myself in mental combat with it.
"This servant was named Shrnu'u HeGa'u." The lights in the room dimmed again, just long enough for the people sitting around the table to notice. "He addressed me as Qu'u, the legendary zor hero, a turn of events that seemed to surprise no one but me. I defeated him somehow—and the High Chamberlain told me that the High Lord had foreseen even that. In fact, he explained that even the Gyaryu'har had known what was going to happen, and had agreed to go to Cicero to set it all in motion."
"Meaning—" Dan began.
"Meaning the High Nest had set up the whole play. Sergei Torrijos was sent out to Cicero to cause the esGa'uYal to show their hand, delivering the gyaryu into the hands of the enemy so that the situation would come about that Qu'u . . . that I . . . would surface to go and get it."
"They threw away this important artifact so that someone would turn up to go after it." Dan looked at her like he didn't believe it; Jackie held his gaze steadily.
"They did it so that Qu'u would turn up," she said at last.
"Why Qu'u?"
"It comes down to the legend. According to the story, Qu'u journeys to the Plain of Despite, a sort of cold hell where an eternal war is fought. Qu'u confronts the Deceiver and gets the sword from him; then he returns it to the High Lord A'alu. She unites the zor with it. The zor believe that right now this is a crucial point in history and that Qu'u is needed again.
"I'm following the quest now. Every major step of my journey corresponds to some part of the legend. Even the opening of the cargo-deck doors has an analog: there's a point in the story where Shrnu'u HeGa'u confronts Qu'u with anGa'e'ren—the Creeping Darkness. Before the doors were opened, I heard the voice of Shrnu'u HeGa'u in my mind.
"And that's where I'm at. I'm not an Imperial Navy secret agent; I'm not sure just what it is I am. I resent it and I'm angry that I've been manipulated along this line, but I believe there's no choice but to continue. I'm walking the Qu'u path now and I can't turn back. Behind me is a court-martial, and who the hell knows what else. Ahead of me is . . ."
She paused and looked around the room, ending at last on Ch'k'te. His wings were in a neutral position, as if he were hesitant to convey his feelings, even to her.
"How does the legend end?" Dan asked, and the tone of his voice didn't give assurance that he really wanted an answer.
"That's the last problem. Like everything else, I don't know whether everything is supposed to correspond. If I were a zor, rather than just playing one on 3-V . . . Well. At the end of the Qu'u story, he comes face-to-face with the Deceiver, and gets hold of the gyaryu—and the Deceiver kills him."
"He dies? What the hell good is that?"
"When the Deceiver blasts him to bits, the Lord esLi raises him from the Plain of Despite, sword and all, up to His Circle of Light. This thwarts the Deceiver. In the end, Qu'u is brave enough and honorable enough and—what?—suicidal enough to let himself be destroyed to prove a point. I don't know if I'm able to fulfill that particular aspect, but otherwise I think that I have to follow this to the end."
The conference room was quiet for several moments, as if everyone were groping for some pithy comment to make. Apparently there was none appropriate to the situation.
"I've got a question," Karla Bazadeh said at last, breaking the silence. "What happens next?"
"Next?"
"In the story. In the legend of Qu'u. What happens to him right after this demon confronts him with the darkness?"
"Qu'u and Hyos reach Ur'ta leHssa, the Valley of Lost Souls," Ch'k'te said, the first words he had spoken since entering the room. "This is the place where souls captured by the Deceiver are kept. The hero discovers that most of them do not even know that they're trapped."
"Damned souls," Dan offered.
"Your analogy implies free will," Ch'k'te continued. "Many of the Hssa are not in the Valley by choice; in fact, some of the
m simply were unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Deceiver is not bounded by the strictures of propriety or fairness, nor does he require willing cooperation of his victims."
"So it's the Valley of Lost Souls, and some of them are prisoners of conscience. I assume you've concluded that the valley corresponds to . . ."
"Crossover," Jackie said, as Dan let the sentence trail off. "Though what it means for us is anyone's guess."
"What does Qu'u do there?"
"In the Valley? He is shown the base of the Perilous Stair, the way to the Fortress of Despite. When he begins climbing the stair, he knows there is no turning back . . . there is no means of descent."
"And in the real world?"
"There's a clue at Crossover that will direct us toward where the gyaryu is being held—and toward the person, or being, who represents esGa'u the Deceiver."
"Who kills Qu'u," Dan said.
"I draw the line there. I refuse to go to the slaughter; as I said, I'm going because it's the only direction open."
"Like this 'Perilous Stair,' " Karla said quietly. "You've pretty much reached that stage already."
"I suppose you're right."
The room was quiet except for the hum of the ship's machinery. Jackie looked around at the familiar faces of strangers, now taken into her confidence, her upended life laid out for them.
"Do I need to summarize our options?" Dan asked, and when he got no answer, looked down at the notes he'd made during Jackie's exposition. "All right. Jackie's going to Crossover to find some clue that leads to finding the sword. We have two choices: to back her up or just to drop her off. It all comes down to one of those two directions. We're either in or out.
"Pyotr, you've heard her out. Are you still for tossing them ashore?"
"I'm not cut in the hero mold, Skip." Pyotr shifted in his seat, frowning. "I don't mean to be cruel, but if there's a gunfight going on, the last thing you do is stand up and wave a flag and shout, 'Come on, I'm over here, shoot me.' The enemy—her enemy—will go after her. I don't see as there's much we can do about it." He set his face in a grim expression. "Put 'em ashore."
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