Requiem for Anthi: Anthi - Book Two

by Deborah Chester

  “That ain’t fair!” said Udge in alarm. “I helped you out. Now you return the favor. I don’t want no part of your war.”

  “I am fighting the GSI,” said Asan, but even as he spoke a part of him turned over in fresh despair. How could he fight with no crew and an old smuggler ship? He didn’t stand a chance.

  “I’m not anti-GSI like you and Martok. Speakin’ of whom, boy, you’d better watch your back from now on. I aim to dig me a hole so deep Martok will never find me.”

  “He can’t reach you on Ruantl.”

  Udge snorted. “Don’t be naive. Martok’s plannin’ on takin’ over your small dustball as soon as the Institute has whipped it into shape.”

  “He can try, but it is mine. And my people’s.”

  “Sure, whatever you say.” Udge lifted his palms. “Just drop me off, like I said and—”

  “No, Udge.”

  There was a beat of silence, then Udge ducked his bald head and grinned a little.

  “I guess you figure I’ll run straight back to Martok with details of where to find you?”

  A reluctant smile tugged at Asan’s lips. “Perhaps. You’re in my army now, Udge. You might as well get used to the fact.”

  “I don’t like to be on the losin’ side.”

  “We won’t lose.”

  “That’s what you say, boy. Looks to me like you’ve lost already.”

  Asan hesitated. Then he started to draw the black carbyx ring off his finger.

  “I hope your finger itches and you’re just scratchin’ it,” said Udge, glaring at him. “I hope you ain’t about to insult me in some way. ’Cause if you are, then you can forget it. Seems to me that when one scrawny little bloatwit manages to luck out and finally make it big, then no one ought to take it away from him. Unless he’s just a fool, and you never were.”

  Asan’s throat tightened. For a moment he had no words. “Thank you doesn’t seem to be enough.”

  “Aw, hell, don’t act soap-brained. Since I’m out of a job, you might offer me one. General is a nice startin’ position.”

  Asan laughed. “Yes, I think that can be managed.”

  “Just don’t give me any stupid orders. If I try real hard, I can almost forget the snot-nosed punk you used to be. If I try. But don’t push me.”

  “I’ll push you just as hard as I can,” said Asan, grinning. “And I’ll pay you so much you won’t care.”

  “Yeah, payment.” Udge nodded at the ring and wiggled his fingers. “Now an advance on salary wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it, boy?”

  “You must learn to address him as noble leiil,” said Zaula with a frown.

  “Oh, no!” said Asan, tossing the ring to Udge. “His job is to keep me humble when we run the GSI off like the shin-nicked fleeters they really are. Without Udge around, I might go back to drinking wine and watching dancing Henan women all day.”

  Zaula gasped. “You never did such things.”

  “Not even when I was just the usurper?”

  Her cheeks darkened, and at once he sobered.

  “Just teasing, beloved,” he said, putting his arm around her. “We must laugh now in order not to be afraid. There is a hard fight ahead of us.”

  She sighed and turned up her palm. “Can we not take this ship and search for another place? I know you said Tlartantla is gone. But is there no other home for us so that we do not have to fight?”

  “Zaula.” Serious now, he grasped her by the shoulders. “Ruantl and Tlartantla are the same world.”

  She flinched back, shocked. “No!”

  “Yes. I am sorry for what I told you earlier, but it is time you knew the whole truth.”

  “It cannot be! Tlartantla is—was—very beautiful. Ruantl is ugly. And why did you tell me—”

  “I destroyed the beauty of Tlartantla,” he said quietly, feeling the ancient guilt roll out from the deeper memories. “I was too stubborn to surrender. I refused to stop fighting until we had nothing left.”

  “No, it cannot be true. Ruantl is just a colony world, a place of exile for the ancestors of the Bban’n. Nothing more. It can’t be our home.”

  He frowned, searching for the right words. “In existence, Zaula, there are parallels. Exact inverses to what we are and see. Ruantl is the inverse to Tlartantla. When we were facing annihilation, ships went out carrying the lineages that exist on Ruantl today, the men, the families, the servants, the possessions. They went through the black hole, through the reverse of time, and came out to what we call Ruantl. The scarred, slowly recovering remains of Tlartantla.”

  She began to cry and pulled away from him. “Your words are hard. They take away all hope and promise.”

  “It was the only way to survive,” he said helplessly. “After all of this, I cannot now let the humans take it from us.”

  “No,” she breathed. “No.”

  Across the flight deck, Udge glanced up. He said, “Humans. You no longer consider yourself one?”

  Asan’s gaze snapped up, and in him was anger at being asked to justify himself. “It was necessary,” he said. “It doesn’t do any good to ask myself if I would go back. I can’t.”

  Silence stretched around all of them, then Udge stretched himself, making one of his bulging vest pockets pop open.

  “So,” he said, “how long is it till we get to this dustball of yours?”

  Asan told him.

  “Your course trajectory going by the Stestos system?”

  “Why?”

  Udge met his gaze with a wicked little grin. “I’m a general, remember? If we stop off there long enough to sell the zine bales hidden in our hold, we can buy a tidy cache of munitions.”

  Asan slowly began to grin back. “Illegal ones?”

  “Sure. What else? You want the GSI to win or something?”

  “I’ll make the course change now.”

  Twenty-six hours short of Ruantl, Asan aroused himself from the lightest of meditations and glanced briefly around the tiny cabin as though seeing it for the first time in several days. He had purposely cloistered himself away, even from Zaula.

  Her expression had grown pinched and pale, and in her eyes came a cloud of worry. She knew all too well the role of the Tlar leiil in battle. She knew the demands of stringent personal preparation and made none of her own.

  Her rings burned about him. He lifted a hand and rubbed his gritty eyes. Over and over again he had drilled himself in the mental exercises, angry to find himself so out of practice. That carelessness might prove to be a fatal mistake. Still, he knew what had to be done now, and he meant to carry it through.

  Inside his cabin he had a bunk, a facility, and a vid-screen. He could stand in the center of the room and extend his arms to touch the walls on either side. The ceiling brushed the top of his head.

  He sat down on the bunk that was too short and narrow for him, broke open a ration bar, devoured it in two bites, and opened a case stashed beneath the bunk. From it he drew a leadweave cloak, mask, and gauntlets which he’d had manufactured during their stop in Stestos. All were in bronze, the color of his supreme rank, and his mask was inlaid with the symbols of his house, most ancient and honored of all the Tlar bloodlines. He donned trousers, boots, and tunic. The decorations won during the terrible Duoden Conflict had not been worn since the day of victory. The old Asan had not wished to boast further in the faces of his defeated enemy.

  The present Asan had no such compunctions. He put the decorations on, and they shone against his tunic. He belted on a strifer which felt small and awkward in his palm.

  Unlocking a second case also pulled from beneath the bunk, he withdrew a jen-knife and held it a moment to let the light gleam along its blade.

  It was not fashioned from corybdium with a hilt bound in gold wire. No one would manufacture a weapon from such precious metals, at least not on Stestos. Frustrated at first, Asan had reached into the deeper memories of life on Tlartantla and found that the original jen-knives were carried on ceremonial occasi
ons only and were made of a white alloy of now-extinct metals.

  The knife Asan held resembled the originals. Its blade was burnished hull steel, harder even than corybdium and capable of holding a sharper, tempered edge. The hilt was wrapped in bronze wire. Etched into the blade was the star emblem of Tlartantla.

  The second object in the case was more archaic. He drew out the sword from its scabbard.

  During season when he had sat huddled in the Tchsco stronghold with nothing to do but watch the men play kri-gri and tell stories, he had heard descriptions of his battle with the tyrant Hihuan recounted again and again with elaborate detail. He had no direct memory of the battle, for the consciousness of the man whose name and body he now wore had fought it instead.

  But swords were even more legendary and ceremonial than the jen-knives. They had not been seriously used since the days of his youth, when he was only an unknown member of the jen forces and undistinguished. Although most Bban warriors carried them out of a lack of anything more sophisticated, among the present Tlar’n only a Tlar leiil had the right to carry such a weapon.

  He balanced the weapon in his hand, frowned, and sent blue fire rolling down the blade to the point. It gleamed there, then disappeared.

  Feeling slightly self-conscious in his armory, Asan slid the sword into the scabbard and buckled it on. He wondered if he would clank when he walked. He would have had he been wearing battle shielding, but in the days of Asan’s youth, the greatest warriors scorned wearing shielding, saying it was for cowards and the feeble. He wanted to reappear on Ruantl looking as much like the legendary Asan as possible.

  Udge bellowed with laughter a few minutes later when Asan entered the flight deck cloaked and gauntleted, his sword banging on one hip, his strifer on the other, and his jen mask tucked under his left elbow.

  “Demos, Tobei! Why are you foolin’ with all that junk? One max .28 jambolt would save you a lot of weight.”

  Then he saw Asan’s expression and quickly sobered.

  “All right. All right. No jokes today. But isn’t it a little early for the costume?”

  Asan tossed his mask down in a chair and seated himself at the navigations console. “Are we still on course? Any GSI craft on our scanners yet?”

  “Only one blip at maximum range. It’s that damned black hole that bothers me.” Udge spat. The whole flight deck stank from his chew. “It’s a lot closer than you said it would be.”

  Asan frowned. “Almost time for season again. Its elliptical orbit around the other sun creates periodic havoc with Ruantl’s climate.”

  “As long as it doesn’t pull the planet into its gravitational sphere. What about us?”

  Asan activated the viewscreen. The vast, terrifying nothingness of the black sun filled it. He squinted against the dreadful radiance that hurt his eyes despite the screen’s filters. All those deadly X rays were bombarding them; in spite of a dozen checks to determine if they had adequate shielding, he still worried. At the far edges of his vision blazed the corona, too terrifying to look at, yet mesmerizing. Its extreme danger made it almost beautiful.

  “Shut it off,” said Udge. “I get nightmares.”

  Asan flicked a switch and the screen blanked. Udge shuddered.

  “We’re too close to the ergosphere. This ole crate ain’t got a chance in hell of pullin’ out of something like that.”

  “We’re fine. It’s a tight fit, but if we try anything fancier on our approach we’re likely to scare out some of the patrol ships I know have to be here. They’re probably hiding in among the other two planets.”

  “Yeah, but I still get nervous.”

  “Just be thankful it isn’t a Schwarzschild. Then you could get nervous.”

  “Eighty-five-niner clear,” came a voice over the crackle of an outside communications line.

  Startled, Asan jumped and whirled on Udge, who shrugged and turned down the volume.

  “Just listenin’. Most of it’s been subspace chatter up till now. You know, the kind of stuff that’s probably just an old-fashioned radio signal from a primitive planet wantin’ to know if anyone is out there. But this sounds local.”

  “I think it is,” said Asan. “Keep it on.”

  “Eighty-five-niner. This is Moonskimmer reporting in. Full orbital sweep. No enemy craft at maximum scanning range.”

  “Look again, flin-face,” muttered Udge. “We’ve got better range on them, but not by much.”

  “They won’t be expecting anyone from this trajectory, but keep a close eye on them.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Why do I feel worried? Three people and one ole tub flyin’ right into a whole nest of GSI. Sure we can slip in under their noses. Sure we can.”

  Asan grinned at him. “Getting edgy, Udge? You’re a general now, remember. Or in the local lingo, a cintan.”

  “General sounds better.” Udge scowled at the scanners. “And I think I want a raise. I must really be under a brain-twist. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be within parsecs of this place.”

  Then he glanced up straight at Asan and said, “Go back to your cabin, take off that weird gear, and get some sleep. You look like hell. When we’re ready to make an orbit, I’ll call you ’cause I don’t know how to do that.”

  Asan grinned self-consciously and stood up. “That bad?”

  “Your nerves are hangin’ out all over the place. Flake down. We got nothin’ to worry about against these bloatwits.”

  It was stupid to argue. Asan sighed and left the flight deck. But as he made his way back to the claustrophobic confines of his cabin, he knew Udge was wrong. They had plenty to worry about. Not just from the GSI occupational forces, but from everyone else as well. So far, he hadn’t figured out a way to tell Udge that most of Ruantl wouldn’t be on their side.

  Chapter 17

  The shuttle climbed slowly, gaining just enough altitude to skim the ascending ridges that became foothills and then the jagged peaks of the Tchscos themselves.

  Asan held the controls although he could barely wedge his long body into the cockpit. He was sweating heavily behind his mask, and his tunic was damp against his skin. The shuttle’s climate controls were set as low as they would go, but the interior of the cabin remained too warm for leadweave clothing.

  Behind him, Zaula in her cloak and mask and Udge in his gear suit sweltered in silence. Now that they were actually going in, there seemed to be nothing to say.

  Glancing down through the small port on his left, Asan saw a lake gleaming in the narrow folds of a valley. Borlorls surfaced, blew, and dived under again with powerful thrusts of their hind flippers. He smiled, remembering the first time he had seen that lake. He had been dying, and Giaa had sat beside him, talking about the wildlife to distract him from his pain and fear. Now he was the one who must be strong.

  “Cockpit to cabin,” he said over the com. “Approaching stronghold at E.T.A. forty-five seconds. Brace yourselves for possible attack.”

  There was a muffled acknowledgment from Udge, then almost without warning the shuttle sailed over a crest, and there were the burned-out remains of the transport pad below.

  Attempts had obviously been made to clear away the blackened debris from the Bban assault. Functional transports looking battered and shell-pocked were parked in the midst of wrecked hulks blasted apart by explosives.

  Men ran across the pad as Asan flew over, and there was a flurry of activity as some archaic artillery pieces cobbled together struggled to set aim.

  He landed fast, squatting the shuttle straight down almost on top of them before they could fire. As a precaution, he flipped a toggle and ran out starboard and port gunnery. The men scattered, abandoning their posts.

  Asan drew in a deep breath, checking his mask to make certain it was secure. Then he cut main engine power, and the loud roar became a decreasing whine. The cabin depressurized rapidly, hurting his ears. He unbuckled his harness and eased himself out of the cramped cockpit.

  There could be no doubts now, no second guessing his dec
isions. If he were still Tlar leiil, he would soon find out. If not, he would probably die as soon as the hatch opened.

  With strifer in hand, he headed back toward the hatch. Udge was already beside it. Zaula stood out of the way, knowing better than to interfere.

  Udge’s face was only a shadow behind the polarized face plate. “This is stupid,” he said. “Your boys don’t act too friendly toward us. They’ll pick us off the minute we step out there.”

  “What do you expect? We’re in a human craft. As soon as they see me, they’ll hold fire.”

  “You hope,” said Udge.

  Asan hit the switch, and the hatch locks sprang open. The steps lowered into the thin, slanting rays of Ruantl sunshine.

  Pitching his voice in command tone, Asan shouted, “Hu’t, kai! Choi’heirat el da-uun. Asan walks with you once again. Victory is ours!”

  Udge, pressed out of sight on the other side of the hatch, spat and said, “Modest, ain’t you?”

  “Shut up.”

  Asan waited a moment, his heart hammering as he gave them time to pass the word. Now he had to gamble. Slowly, holding his breath, he moved into sight and stood there framed in the hatchway long enough for the hidden warriors to have a good long look.

  No one fired, and he managed to start breathing again. It was still tempting to raise his force field, but he held back. He went down the steps and stood free of the shuttle. Not a warrior was in sight. Silence ringed him except for the harsh cry of a pyr flying overhead. Wind, bitter cold, plucked at his cloak, pulling it back so that the decorations were revealed on his chest.

  When nothing happened, nothing at all, Asan frowned inside his mask. Had the Tlar’n already surrendered to the GSI? Was there nothing to save? He felt suddenly ridiculous.

  “Well?” said Udge.

  “Stay out of sight, damn you!”

  “You ain’t gonna go in there alone.”

  Asan pointed at Udge without looking at him. “Stay.”

  He started forward, walking as a Tlar leiil must walk, head high and strides long. His cloak billowed and whipped around him in the mountain cross-currents. His sword hung heavy upon his hip. The strifer, awkward and ill-fitting in his palm, was held out in plain sight ready to shoot the first one who tried to jump him.