The junior facilitator waved one hand to the side. “You may still accompany your escort to the meeting, Mister Riordan. The Senior Mentor will join you shortly.”
The escort gestured toward the slideway. “We should depart.”
Riordan glanced at Alnduul, watching for any sign of misgiving, but saw none, just resignation to the vagaries of bureaucracy. Caine followed his escort.
Riordan found his second ride on the slideway surprisingly dull. The sights and sounds were unchanged. Even a closer study of the local architecture did not reveal anything new. Every structure was a variation on one of three themes: disk-topped towers, hemispheres, or low mesas of alabaster and glass that resembled immense bunkers raised to an art form. The walkway was even less populated, and there was no sign of any more autonomous pets drawn from the Dornaani’s genetic bestiary of both extant and extinct creatures. Caine’s attempt to engage his escort in conversation met with polite monosyllabic responses.
Until, that is, they neared the concourse. Riordan’s escort gestured to the right: the path that would bring him to the same broom closet. “I have been informed that you are quite familiar with the route from here. I must complete another errand for the Arbiters.” He moved toward a smaller, central median of transfer disks that circulated between the two lanes of the slideway.
Riordan called after his escort. “So I can just go to the building and—?”
“You are expected,” he interrupted. “Enlightenment unto you.” And then he was on one of the disks, heading across to the other lane.
Riordan shook his head. I’m just lucky they don’t make me use the servant’s entrance. He moved to the other side of the slideway, stepped on to a waiting disk, and was rapidly conveyed to the right-hand concourse.
Stepping off, he set out for the tall tower to the left and was rewarded by the sight of one of the strange arachno-reptiles he had seen on his first visit. However, this one was alone and apparently in a hurry. Its legs did not cycle swiftly, but they were so long that each stride covered a startling amount of ground. Riordan slowed to watch, realized he was in the creature’s path, stepped aside. The creature altered course slightly.
In his direction. And it accelerated.
Riordan began backing away. For an instant, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The creature couldn’t be charging him, not here in the epicenter of Dornaani bureaucracy and intellectual aloofness. A tame creature suddenly gone wild, no warders in sight, endangering everyone?
Except it isn’t after everyone, Riordan noticed as he turned to run. A Dornaani exiting the tower had halted abruptly, shocked into motionlessness by the creature’s onslaught, only to watch the reptilian tent-pole legs go around, over, and past her. No, Riordan realized, this creature isn’t on the loose. It’s after me.
Sprinting, Riordan didn’t bother to sort the tactical observations that hit his consciousness as a single wave. I’m alone. It’s faster. It knows this city. I have no weapons or comm device. The only advantage he might have over the pursuing creature was agility, particularly the ability to maneuver in tighter spaces and change directions rapidly.
He gauged his surroundings. His sprint would not bring him to the slideway ahead of the creature and, even if it did, that didn’t guarantee his survival. Although the disks were made for bipeds, the creature would be able to run alongside the slideway. And judging from the length of its clawed arms…
Riordan swerved across the concourse, dodged into a narrow passage between two small domes. Behind, the creature’s claws clacked and clicked as, skittering, it changed direction to follow.
Before it could enter that narrow passage, Riordan scanned for and found an even narrower alley. It was cluttered by low, boxlike protrusions rising up from the ground. Were they seats, environmental subsystems, maybe weird art forms? Caine couldn’t tell and didn’t care. He slipped sideways between the first two protrusions, hoped he’d be out of the alley before the creature reached it.
No such luck. Within moments, the alien animal was already speed-stilting into the alley. But in that constricted space, Riordan was able to widen the gap: he sprinted hard, leaping over the protrusions as he headed for its other end. He didn’t take the time to look, but the awkward scratching and scraping sounds behind him seemed to confirm that these tight quarters were not congenial to the creature’s spindly legs. Caine darted around the corner at the alley’s other end…
…and almost split his head open, diving aside at the last moment to avoid—what? A dangling steel weather vane? Riordan caught himself on a post to keep from falling, discovered himself in a forest of metal tubes, glass ribbons, and fibrous arcs of—maybe—wood and coral. Disoriented, he pushed his way through the chaotic jungle, realizing that he was in the middle of a soaring synthesis of kinetic sculptures and primitive wind chimes. As he broke free of the last hanging obstacles, a still-rising cacophony marked his path for the creature that came skittering out of the alley.
Riordan’s first impulse was to continue running along this smaller concourse, but he steeled himself against that panicked reflex. You can’t make a plan if you don’t have information. So he spared a fraction of a second to take a mental snapshot of his surroundings.
Straight ahead, after fifty meters and two more kinetic sculpture chimes, the concourse terminated in a dead-end square. It was more trafficked than the larger concourse and had more buildings facing on it. Which meant multiple doors. And one of the closest doors was conventional, manual: the entry to an almost primitive hut. It was not too different from the ones he’d seen on Rooaioo’q. A historical recreation, maybe? He sprinted toward it.
Still, he wouldn’t have reached safety in time if a Dornaani had not exited that door just as Riordan came within arm’s reach of it. Caine raced in past the startled pedestrian who unwittingly obstructed the animal’s pursuit.
Riordan spun, slammed the door shut, braced his back against it, looked for a lock. It had two. One was a cleverly concealed magnetic lock used to secure the building. The other was a simple, ancient, and functional door bar.
Riordan reached over, tipped the bar; it fell into its bracket with a solid clunk. Panting, he studied the room: it was a museum display of prehistoric Dornaani life. The thatch-and-palisade walls were lined with nets, gaff poles, earthenware containers, short clubs for stunning or killing catch…
Silence. No hint of movement either inside or outside the pseudo-hut. Was the creature lying in wait? Was it seeking another point of ingress? Had it given up?
Riordan was beginning to debate whether he should risk taking a peek outside when there was a firm knock on the door. “Caine Riordan?” It was the voice of his escort.
“Yes?” Riordan kept himself propped firmly against the door.
“Please come with me.”
“Are you aware that one of your bioproxies just chased me through the streets? Would have killed me?”
“I am aware of the chase. However, it would not have killed you. Please, come with me or we shall be late.”
* * *
“So it was a unanimous decision to send that monster after me?”
“It was,” Nlastanl affirmed. “We determined to send the creature—a pess*kss—to intercept you after learning that your cognitive acuity would be enhanced if your body experienced the biochemical cascade that your physicians call the ‘fight-or-flight’ response—”
“What?!”
“—which would enable slightly longer conversations.”
Alnduul, who had arrived less than a minute after Riordan, surveyed the other Dornaani faces in the room. “So it seems that you are resolved to not only verbally attack my friend in this chamber, but to physically attack him before he reaches it.” Riordan had never heard Alnduul adopt a sarcastic tone before.
“Not invariably,” Suvtrush clarified with widened eyes. “In order to initiate and sustain the flight-fight cascade, the human must not know when and where such an incident might occur. And so, to deny him both assistan
ce and advance warning, you are hereby instructed not to accompany him on his subsequent visits.”
Alnduul’s eyes seemed to quiver in their large sockets. “You cannot supersede my orders to accompany our guest, to ensure his safety.”
“We have voted, as a body, to do just that. And with four Senior Arbiters in attendance, that confers the necessary authority to suspend your orders.”
“Does it? Those orders were issued unanimously by the Senior Assembly. So have the four Senior Arbiters now present both forgotten their own dictate and that it would take a majority vote to overturn it?”
Suvtrush trailed a pair of unconcerned fingers through the air. “Ultimately, your legal cavils are irrelevant. The human will not be at risk. Further commentary on this resolution is no longer welcome or permitted, Alnduul.”
Riordan scanned the alien faces, assessed the value of an aggressive bluff. He rose, waited until the room was silent. “I will not cooperate under these conditions.”
Suvtrush’s fingers trailed languidly. “That is your affair. We are resolved.”
Heethoo touched her index fingers together. “We must avoid such an impasse. I welcome any suggestion that might assist us in ameliorating the contentious trend of our discussions.”
Riordan nodded. “I have a suggestion. I suggest you take a day to reconsider excluding Alnduul from my visits. And while you’re at it, consider the benefits to be gained from deciding to treat me as an equal. Then, I might have something to say about the Lost Soldiers and their cryocells. Otherwise, we’re done. And I’ll be sure to report my treatment to the interested parties back on Earth.”
Alnduul led the way out of the broom closet. “I do not think they will relent.”
“Nor do I,” Riordan answered with a tight nod. “But I have a plan.”
* * *
“Be careful,” warned Alnduul early the next day, staring through the interface terminal’s transparent walls at the unchanging skyline of Glamqoozht.
“I will,” Riordan assured him, then exited the terminal. Because his hands were still shaking, he put them in his pockets. Hopefully the double dose of epinephrine would prove sufficient. but had Caine’s traveling medical locker included a dose of combat drug, he would have been sorely tempted to use that, too. He had foresworn such substances on general principles, but today he might need every edge he could get.
As soon as Riordan trotted off the slideway and scanned the concourse, he saw that the Dornaani had not relented. A hundred meters up the concourse, a pair of the pseudo-ungulate quadrupeds he’d seen on his first visit were meandering toward him. This time, he noticed a peculiar stiffness in their posture and movements to which he’d been blind when the pess*kss attacked him, but had recalled afterward. Probably a consequence of being under direct and unwelcome control. And whereas the tentacular extensions of their sensory clusters had originally bobbed and roved lazily, those prehensile members were now stretched out into erect fans.
Riordan had done his homework. When this creature, a yoomdai, was alarmed or defending its territory, its sensory polyps and tendrils extended into a living radar dish that not only conferred a more focused version of a bat’s sonar, but had secondary sensitivities across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Normally it was a shy herbivore that eluded its prey not only by virtue of its speed, but by its ability to change both the microscopic properties and the shape of its leg-end stumps.
The data in Olsloov’s brief computer entry listed one other tantalizing datum about the yoomdai’s world of origin, the other worlds on which it might be encountered, and the last confirmed sightings: all were listed as “unknown.” Another mystery which Alnduul had demurred answering until “later.”
Riordan walked briskly toward the same passage he’d used to quit the concourse at the start of the last attack. The two yoomdai, one of which was almost the size of a caribou, either didn’t immediately detect his change in speed or direction, or had not yet been informed that he was their target. But after three seconds, the larger one’s radar dish of trembling tendrils swung sharply in Riordan’s direction, collapsing into a tight cone. Probably getting better target resolution.
Caine ran for the mouth of the passage. The two yoomdai swerved after him.
By the time Caine reached the still narrower alley littered with boxlike protrusions, he was surprised to see that, despite his head start, the yoomdai were already closer than the pess*kss had been. They seemed to fly along the ground, incredibly sure of foot and pushing mightily into each bound as their feet kept altering to achieve optimal traction.
His heart pounding out hard, adrenal thumps, Riordan charged out of the alley and straight into the first mobile’s hanging garden of metal, glass, coral, and wood. He swung his arms as he went through it; the resulting clangor battered his ears. Emerging from the far side, he cut toward the hut and the many tools—which was to say, weapons—he knew to be inside.
The yoomdai emerged from the alley mouth, each leap a long, flying stretch, but then recoiled, averting their convulsively contracting sensor-fans from the cacophony produced by the sculpture’s madly swinging pieces.
Caine felt a sharp pulse of satisfaction. Hurt and blinded all at once. He reached the hut, grabbed the door handle, and yanked.
And almost dislocated his shoulder. It was not just shut; it was locked.
Shit.
Behind him, the yoomdai began widening their sensor clusters, probably to reduce the concentration of collected sound. They started moving uncertainly forward, giving the wind chimes from hell a wide berth.
Motionless, Caine watched them edge toward him, cautiously, hesitantly. Probably relying on their infrared-sensitive polyps, now. They were still half-blind, but if he couldn’t find a weapon, or just something to swing at them…
Riordan glanced at the sculpture, at the fibrous cords that connected the wood chimes to its whirling armatures, and sprinted back toward it.
The yoomdai flinched, startled, but followed quickly, the smaller one in the lead.
Caine didn’t slow as he got to the structure; he leaped. Grabbing one of the wooden tubes while still in midair, he yanked down with both hands as he dropped back to the ground.
The fiber cord connecting the tube to the overhead armature strained down and against the direction of the armature’s spin. It grew taut, groaned, snapped.
Dragging the tube low along the ground, Riordan stumbled through a swaying insanity of other objects. Having been yanked in yet another direction, their oscillations were now unpredictable, manic. He dodged a spinning wand of glass, ducked out past the rest of the erratic chimes, and, resisting the urge to run, moved quickly to the alley-facing side of the sculpture.
Sure enough, the freshly disoriented yoomdai were facing almost directly away from him, still scanning along his last known path: into the whirling pandemonium of tubes, bars, and slats.
Keeping a two-handed grasp on the tube, Riordan cocked it back over his right shoulder like an oversized baseball bat and charged.
The smaller of the yoomdai was the first to detect either Caine’s movement or heat signature, even though it was further away than its larger mate. It spun to face him, its front feet widening, flattening, transmogrifying with alarming speed. The bigger one was just starting to turn…
Guessing that its large body was highly resilient to blunt force blows, Caine aimed low. He swung the tube sharply, snapping his wrists over just before impact.
The tube split as it smashed into the large yoomdai’s left leg, just below its hock-analog. A surprisingly loud crack punctuated the creature’s staggering fall, but it did not make any sound of its own. Riordan swung the weakened tube around as quickly as his impact-numbed shoulders could roll.
But not in time. The smaller yoomdai, startlingly swift, was already in front of him, rising up on its hind legs, lashing out with—
Riordan had a brief impression of the new shape of its front feet—two small spades—right before they slashe
d at his abdomen.
* * *
The first words that Caine heard as he swam up out of unconsciousness were, “He is mad. Or suicidal. Or both.” The voice was Suvtrush’s.
Riordan kept his eyes closed, tried to assess if he was in pain, if any part of him was numb or missing, and—to the extent possible—determine if he was clearheaded. It seemed so, but…
Alnduul’s reply was quiet but sharp. “Do you not see that Caine Riordan is resolved to reject your attempts at inducing a flight-or-fight response? Which, by the way, would not produce the effects you seek. Nor would they persist beyond a few minutes.”
There was a long pause. Nlastanl’s voice asked in what, for a Dornaani, was a stern, almost arch, tone, “Laynshooz, is this true?”
“Our research was inconclusive on these points,” Laynshooz muttered.
“That is not possible. Our data on human physiology and pharmacokinetics are more detailed than their own.”
Riordan opened his eyes. “Of course,” he said, sitting up, “maybe it was just a simple oversight.” The Dornaani around him started. Despite a sharp pain in his abdomen, Caine continued. “On the other hand, maybe the oversight was intentional.” Nlastanl’s mouth opened…and then closed again as he stole an appraising glance at Laynshooz. Starting to wonder if your advisors have been telling you the truth about stimulating the poor, slow-witted human, Nlastanl? It’s about damn time.
The stabbing pain in Riordan’s abdomen had relented. “At any rate, I apologize for bleeding on your nice, clean concourse.” Riordan looked around. The curvature of the room was so pronounced that it seemed as though they were all inside an immense, sterile white egg. Almost no equipment, not even monitors or an IV drip. Okay, if I’m doing that well, maybe I can startle them a little more.
Caine swung his legs over the side of the low platform upon which he had been lying. The five Dornaani shrank back, Heethoo emitting a chirrup of either distress or worry.
Alnduul, who was closest, murmured. “Movement may not be wise. Although the lacerations were shallow, they were only closed thirty minutes ago. The fusings may not be—”
Marque of Caine Page 22
