Vontaura

by James C. Dunn

  ‘We need one.’ Kramer looked down. ‘Untie me?’

  Vagrida untied him. ‘Now, will you help?’

  ‘Tell me something first. How are Titan’s defences?’

  ‘Stronger than ever. We have drastically updated the protective boundaries and turrets. No missile or energy beam has a chance of reaching us. We are protected.’

  ‘But not enough, I worry, to stop the approaching beacon.’

  ‘Then you recognise it?’

  Kramer nodded. ‘I recognise it, yes.’

  ‘Then you can help.’

  ‘I can. Doesn’t mean I will.’

  Kramer observed a bead of sweat seep down Vagrida’s forehead. ‘What do I have to offer you?’ he asked.

  ‘A discussion would be meaningless at this point, General. I imagine it’s an expedition you’re planning?’

  ‘Communication has been lost, with both Crilshar and any world or fleet past that beacon. I read the reports. You and Lesper knew about all of this.’

  ‘I’ll be adding a few clauses to this agreement myself . . . if I go.’

  Vagrida pursed his lips. ‘Name them.’

  ‘My covering. My face covering. I want it back.’ The General nodded. ‘Avéne Ketrass is to go free. Release her from her cell.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘The Titanese captain as well. Diego Ferranti.’

  ‘You go too far, Kramer. He is sentenced to death. Any day now.’

  Kramer sat back. ‘If that beacon is what I think it is, then all of our days are numbered. If you won’t release him, have him come with me. He will accompany us on our trip.’

  ‘Is that everything?’

  ‘Just one more thing, General. If I’m going, I’m to lead the expedition. You will make me captain.’

  Vagrida burst into hysterical laughter. ‘Is it any wonder they say you’re mad?!’ Kramer’s face didn’t change. He was deadly serious. ‘You will have a mutiny within hours, minutes even, once they realise you’re only . . . half Crilshan.’ He struggled saying it.

  ‘Then they mustn’t find out.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘Give me back my face covering, General, and I will do what you ask.’

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  BEFORE SHE COULD grasp what was happening, Avéne Ketrass was wrenched from her sleep by cold hands and dragged from the bright cell into the dark-filled corridor. This was it. They were going to kill her at last. Free her from hell. Kramer and Ferranti must be dead too by now. And she was next. It was going to be over at last. She could almost feel the smile spread across her throbbing mouth. She could taste the blood from her cut lip. Soon to be over. Finally.

  Thrown into a small, dimly-lit holding room, she burst into tears. And then somebody entered the room. She stood, wiping her eyes.

  ‘It is time?’ she asked.

  He looked her up and down. ‘Come with me,’ Gordian said.

  She sat in the back of his armoured vehicle as it moved along Titan’s silent streets, paved with darkness and drenched in a faint, silver gleam like that of a lone moon. Gordian felt familiar. He felt warm. Yet he was going to be her killer. It was almost poetic.

  In minutes they arrived in a rundown corner of the central city. Out into the street and it was hard to see. Gordian took her hand and guided her through, though he didn’t speak, and she did not ask where they were going. She didn’t care.

  Gordian’s strict pace brought them both quickly to a halt. In the silent dark not even the top of the dome could be seen. Had everybody forgotten about Titan? Were they really alone? A shiver pulsed along her spine and through her quivering legs.

  ‘This way,’ he said, and pulled her along a pitch-black alley, descending lower than street level. At the bottom, the path opened up and there stood waiting half-a-dozen Crilshan men, all gathered around an open fire feeding from a large metal drum in the centre of the courtyard.

  Ketrass guessed why they were here. ‘No,’ she pleaded. ‘Please. You don’t have to. No.’

  But Gordian gripped her hand tighter, and despite her best efforts to pull herself free he lugged her down and through, past the lurking group and their haunting eyes and into a dark corridor.

  The thumping in her throat stopped her from speaking. Her muscles were sore, her whole body weak from hunger and exhaustion. She prayed that, whatever he was going to do, he’d do it quick. But as he led her along the creaking corridor and into a room at its end, her fear waned and confusion took its place.

  ‘You’re not going to kill me?’ she asked.

  Gordian double-locked the door behind them. All went dark. He crossed the room and switched on a lamp. Ketrass remained on her knees and looked about her. Gordian stood in the corner of the small room, which was filled with electronic equipment. A large armchair stood behind her, and the sweaty smell which filled her nostrils no doubt came from the makeshift bed upon which the Crilshan now sat.

  She repeated, ‘You’re not going to kill me?’

  His head lolled wearily. ‘It is no crime to kill one of you. I could have done it in the middle of the street and suffered no consequence.’

  A rush of relief filled her body, joined only by a lingering sadness. Death would have been a welcome reprieve after what she’d considered doing to herself in that cage. Who knew how safe she was here?

  ‘I want to know what’s happening,’ she said. ‘I want to you to tell me. Where’s Kramer, and why am I here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t know the answer to which?’

  ‘Both.’

  Ketrass clambered up into the tall, red chair behind her. ‘Liar.’

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘You weren’t told to kill me. Then why did you bring me here?’

  ‘Your professor arranged for you to be released.’ Gordian slowly removed his belt and placed the spiked, coiled blade on the ground before him. ‘I brought you here because it is safer. Out there is too dangerous. I thought—’

  ‘Yes, well you thought wrong,’ she said, standing. ‘I don’t need you to look after me. Like some . . . some . . . pet!’

  Cross-legged, and without looking up, the Crilshan said, ‘Then go. You are free to wander the streets of Titan all you want. Go on.’

  She gulped, grasping why she was actually here. She had nowhere to go. Those men out there would chase her down and do whatever they wanted before slitting her throat if she stepped out of that door. She shivered, watching him carefully. He looked like the rest of them: just as brutal and eerie and dark. Only, there was something different in his posture. Perhaps in the way he spoke. Something not quite the same in his eyes.

  Maybe Kramer was right. Maybe not all Crilshans were the same. After all, Gordian had brought her here to protect her, hadn’t he? She’d certainly never believed selflessness to be a trait widely held by the Dark Race. But then, in these black days, she’d given up pretending she knew anything anymore.

  She sat down, silently curling up in the armchair, and closed her eyes.

  When she woke, all was dark. Gruff voices could be heard down the corridor. Ketrass moved to the end of the bed in which Gordian had placed her. She pushed open the unlocked door. The firelight coming from the nearby courtyard provided enough light to make out three silhouettes. One was tall, another chubby, and the third must have been Gordian; his muscled form blocked the way of the other two. They attempted to get past him. To get to her. She shuddered. Gordian pushed one back and ordered them away. They wouldn’t budge.

  Rather than wait to be seen – and unable to understand a word of what she was hearing – she pushed the door closed, retreated back into the bed, and tucked herself up tight. A moment later Gordian returned. He bolted the door and sat in the chair. ‘You can turn the light on if you want to,’ he said.

  Obviously he could see her watching him, she realised.

  As she leant across to turn it on, the bright light sending her retreating under the covers, Gordian sa
id, ‘They’re going to take you from me.’

  ‘What?’ she breathed, bolting back up.

  ‘They’re not happy that I have you. They’re contesting my ownership.’ He kept his eyes shut, head bowed down. ‘I’m sorry, Avéne. I can’t protect you.’

  Ketrass pulled herself out of the pile of sheets and moved across the room. She took the Crilshan’s hand. It was surprisingly warm. His heartbeat pulsed through her; and as she raised his hand to place it on her cold cheek the steady beating grew. He looked up to her, the red of his eyes dancing like live flame.

  ‘Comfort me,’ she said.

  Silence. Gordian continued to watch her.

  ‘Comfort me tonight . . . Gordian.’

  He stood slowly and gazed down at her. His hand on her cheek, the other on her neck. He leaned in and kissed her. She pushed him back, breathed out, and pulled him over to the bed. Ketrass forced him onto his back and climbed on top of him. She kissed him again, breath deep and sudden. For a moment, she hesitated.

  ‘When?’ she asked.

  Gordian’s thumb stroked her cheek as he sighed. ‘Tomorrow.’

  FIFTY-NINE

  A PUNGENT ODOUR assaulted Diego Ferranti’s senses. He refused to open his eyes, but he could hear talking all around him. Crilshan speech. The stench of sweat fused with the apprehension in their voices. He was not in solitary anymore.

  Movement behind him. He opened his eyes and looked down at his hands, which were strapped to the seat near the pinnacle of the Crilshan vessel’s viewing centre.

  A hand closed down over his shoulder. A familiar voice spoke.

  ‘They tell me you enjoyed your dinner.’

  Ferranti smiled. ‘You arranged the steak? As last dinners go, it was first rate.’

  Xerin Kramer knelt down before him. ‘Good. I thought you’d like it.’

  ‘Kramer?’

  ‘You’ve not gone blind then.’

  He couldn’t believe what was happening. The former professor was fully clad in Crilshan attire, shaven and well-groomed. His face-covering had been placed back on. Unlike the Titanese captain, he was not a prisoner here.

  The Crilshan viewing centre was enormous. Twice as large as his own on the Stellarstream. Along a rail-less bridge separating the captain’s platform from the rest, a Crilshan crewman approached them. He saluted Kramer and ignored Ferranti. The two spoke quietly.

  ‘Yes, that’ll do for now,’ Kramer said. ‘Return to your post.’

  ‘Yes, Captain.’

  Ferranti’s mouth dropped, awestruck. ‘Did they just say captain?’

  The crewman brought the back of his hand into Ferranti’s face. It stung like hell.

  ‘You’ll speak when spoken to, khulul,’ Kramer said.

  Ferranti laughed and was struck again. He was used to beatings now. This didn’t bother him even slightly.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Kramer told the crewman. ‘Leave us.’

  The crewman skulked away, loitering near the next control station.

  Ferranti laughed again. ‘What in Saturn’s name—’

  ‘That’ll be enough from you, Diego, unless you fancy a walk out the airlock.’

  ‘How the hell did you manage this?’

  Kramer turned his head and motioned to his silver face covering, which was now set in reverse on the opposite side of his face, covering the non-Crilshan eye.

  ‘Impressive.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They think you’re one of them?’

  ‘I have no clue what you’re getting at.’

  ‘We’re on a Crilshan barrage. That’s an ultimatt path out there,’ Ferranti said. ‘So what’s the plan?’

  ‘At this moment? Remaining alive.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Not dying.’

  ‘You appear to have regained a sense of humour with that covering. Now tell me. Where are we going?’

  ‘The Crilshans are calling it the Beacon.’

  ‘And what do you call it?’

  ‘Our end.’

  Ferranti was silent for a moment. ‘It’s Erebus, isn’t it?’

  Kramer nodded. ‘I think so.’

  On the level below them, three Crilshan soldiers stood watching. Kramer stood, hand behind his back. Ferranti recognised one from the regular beatings in their shared cell.

  ‘How did he end up on here?’ Kramer muttered to himself.

  ‘How far from this Beacon are we?’ Ferranti asked.

  ‘Not far. We are somewhere within the boundary of Proxima.’

  ‘There was never a plan, was there?’

  Kramer snorted. ‘Heavens, no. You’re welcome, by the way.’

  ‘Welcome? For what?’

  ‘For saving your life.’

  ‘And just how is it you saved my life?’ Ferranti whispered.

  ‘They didn’t tell you?’ Kramer faced forward, lips hardly moving.

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘You were to be executed.’

  ‘Oh, I know.’

  ‘You know? How do you know?’ he hissed.

  ‘Gordian.’

  ‘Gordian?’

  ‘The assassin-turned-saint!’

  Kramer feigned a smile. ‘Shhh!’

  ‘No. Executed how?’

  ‘Cruelly, Captain. Before all of Titan.’ Another Crilshan walked past the platform. Kramer waited to finish. ‘No need for thanks.’

  ‘Good, because you’re not getting any. I would rather die a hero’s death in front of everyone than be a coward and flee.’

  ‘A hero? What use is the word or the thought if you’re not around to help those that need you, when they need you?’

  ‘And be a coward like you, Professor?’

  ‘If it meant living to fight another day, yes. If it meant swallowing your pride and beating your enemy, hell yes.’

  Ferranti shot Kramer a fleeting look. ‘Let’s beg to differ, shall we?’

  Before he could answer, one of the ship’s navigators appeared at Kramer’s side. ‘We’re on course, Captain. Reverse velocity has been activated. One hour until contact.’

  SIXTY

  MISTRESS SUDANA OPENED her eyes.

  The ancient light of the silver-streaked moon shone ill-omened through the empty skies as her craft descended toward planet Earth. The Thanatus perceived an outline of the radiant sphere, glowing bright upon the horizon but enclosed in shadow beneath.

  Sudana moved to the rear egress and awaited the call from her captain, checking her reflection and adjusting her veil as she did. Within minutes the trembling beneath her feet had halted. All movement ceased. She descended the lengthening ramp to be greeted by a dark-robed form.

  ‘Mistress,’ spoke Lord Malizar.

  She bowed. ‘My lord.’

  ‘It has begun then.’

  ‘Pardon me. What has begun?’

  ‘The end,’ he said.

  She stopped moving. ‘What?’

  ‘You returned when you heard the Beacon.’

  ‘It’s from Erebus, isn’t it? I’ve been there. I felt it.’

  ‘You wish to know the truth?’

  ‘You would not tell me before.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you sent a team to Tempest-Beta once we lost contact, surely.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Erebus was gone.’

  Sudana’s jaw plummeted. ‘No. No, it couldn’t . . .’

  ‘I assure you, my mistress, the asteroid Erebus was not where it once was. And there is more. Neither was Tempest-Beta. The lightning world was gone. I have seen the evidence for myself.’

  ‘Then where is Erebus?’

  He peered down upon her. ‘You know where.’

  ‘Impossible.’ Her stomach turned, twisted. She felt nauseous. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘We have been doing it. What do you think your task upon Titan was for? You were creating the army we need, as our Crilshan cohorts have been doing with the captured Alignment worlds. Earth
forces will not be enough.’

  ‘So the signal I heard. The screaming. The noise. It was—’

  ‘Erebus, I believe. The very finest in the field have reported to me that the readings match closely those taken from the base we had within it. Where it has been all this time, I do not know. But now it is coming, Sudana. It is coming here.’

  He began to walk again, down a flight of steps and onto a cold balcony overlooking the city below.

  ‘How long do we have?’

  ‘Days, maybe. Certainly no more than a week.’

  ‘Can’t we flee?’

  ‘Flee? Flee where?’

  She opened her mouth, but knew he was right.

  ‘We will face that when it comes to it,’ he said. ‘We control the Alignment. It has bled, and what is left is strong. But we cannot take Earth in the same way. We do not control Earth Forces yet, and the greater number of the people of Earth, the Seven Rivers in particular, reject war in any form. We will control Earth in time. However, even there we have a quandary I want quickly resolved.’

  ‘What it is?’

  ‘We must discover who is behind this.’ He motioned toward the nearest screen and a news broadcast appeared. A building was burning. But as Sudana looked closer she realised only part was ablaze. An enormous ‘L’ shape, carven like the old languages of the Rivers, smouldered and smoked.

  ‘This, Sudana, is the emblem of the Laxiad.’

  ‘Ridiculous. There must be some mistake.’

  ‘I assure you there is no mistake, mistress. This is the image of the Laxiad, once contenders for the position of Von during the last great appointment three centuries past. And I believe I know who is responsible.’

  ‘Whom?’ she asked. ‘Is it possible the Laxiad could have returned? Returned to challenge the Von?’

  ‘Anything is possible.’

  ‘But we know who it was that began the Laxiad.’

  ‘You have never let me down, Sudana. You are sure you’re correct about the fate of Peter Marx?’

  ‘I watched him die – they watched him die.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘They watched him fall. Far. Buried. Hopeless.’

  ‘He is not dead.’

  ‘Impossible!’

  ‘We have only just established that anything is possible. Anything. Even the worst.’

  ‘Aside from the possibility that Peter Marx is back from the dead, rebuilding his forces, and reuniting the old Laxiad Order to challenge your position as Vontaura, what other possibilities are there?’ When Malizar did not reply she cleared her throat and said, ‘I am sorry to be blunt, but the time for delicate words has long gone.’