Bringer of Light (Hidden Empire)

by Jaine Fenn

  ‘Any luck?’ he asked, thankful he didn’t need to spell out his question. It was painful enough without having to actually ask, Is Taro still alive?

  She gave him a wan smile. ‘He isn’t dead. I think I made contact, but it was fleeting – it might be due to distance, or maybe interference. This is a very crowded system.’

  ‘But you’re sure he’s out there somewhere?’

  ‘Yes. He is definitely alive.’

  ‘That’s something. Your premonition—?’ Jarek wasn’t sure what he was asking.

  ‘I believe that lying about our relationship saved Taro’s life. If those who kidnapped Taro had known of our link, then they would not just have claimed he was dead. They would have actually killed him to avoid their deception being uncovered.’

  ‘If he were dead, what would you do?’ he asked, curious. There was no point mincing words with Nual.

  ‘Not go on some foolish quest for vengeance, if that’s what you’re worried about. I would try to force the shift back to human-space without him. Assuming you would be willing to risk it.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, shall we?’ He checked the board; the ship had turned and they were now heading back in. ‘Right, we’ve got about ten hours before we’re back in the high-population area. Assuming we get that far in one piece, we need to decide what we’re going to say to the Consensus.’

  ‘I think we need to speak to Ain about that,’ Nual said after a moment.

  ‘She’s opened up to me a lot recently,’ Jarek said. ‘I’d say we can afford to be honest with her.’

  ‘That won’t stop me reading her.’

  ‘I’d expect nothing less.’

  Jarek stayed on the bridge, watching the busy lights of the ecliptic begin to fill the monitors. After the comp had registered a couple of attempts to ping them, he called the others.

  Ain sat next to Jarek on the folding stool he had used when he was training Taro to fly the ship. Nual waited silently at the back.

  As they dropped towards the inner system, there were more pings, and some com calls; Jarek ignored them all. Right now he was more worried about physical interception. As space got more crowded, they’d have to slow down to manoeuvre around the local domains, each of which had a fixed radius of space they claimed as their own. Ain told them about the temporary corridors of neutral space created when orbital mechanics brought two domains too close together; it was Jarek’s job to make sure they stuck to these corridors.

  ‘Any sign of the Egg yet?’ he asked Ain.

  Ain was monitoring the holocube. ‘I’m not sure. I am finding your tech a little confusing,’ she admitted.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Jarek, trying not to get annoyed, ‘just tell me what you think you’re seeing, and I’ll tell you what I’ve got on my readouts . . .’

  For the next couple of hours they deciphered the congested sensor readings together. The best tactic for picking out something in a polar orbit was to stand off a little and watch how everything moved, as they were mainly seeing domains in flat orbits round the sun, or ships under power. Even so, by the time he was sure they were closing in on their destination, four ships of various sizes and configurations were following them at a discreet distance and the coms board was lit solid. If only he could work out which messages – if any – came directly from the Consensus, he could answer them—

  —he nearly missed the hazard warning. The debris cloud between the Heart of Glass and the Egg initially showed only as a tell-tale in one corner of the screen, but Jarek reached for the nav-shield controls as soon as the alarm went off. A moment later the holocube and screens flickered. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ain open her mouth in surprise, but he raised his free hand and she stayed quiet.

  The ship gave a series of faint jolts.

  The jolts stopped. The readouts stabilised.

  They were through.

  ‘We just flew into a debris-cloud,’ he said, a little breathlessly. ‘It was all small stuff, but that would have been enough to hole the hull of a ship with inadequate shielding going too fast – which we weren’t, obviously. Looking at it, I’d guess someone dumped it there very recently, and I think we can assume it was specifically intended to do us some damage.’

  ‘The Consensus will not be pleased,’ Ain said shakily.

  ‘I should bloody well hope not.’ He made another check on local space. ‘Right, I’m going to broadcast a wide-frequency hail. We’re near enough that everyone must have worked out where we’re heading by now, but I prefer to ask for permission to dock before I get too close—’

  —especially since the Consensus’ habitat had the best weapons in the system, according to Ain – just in case any males were crazy enough to try and break the rules.

  His hail was answered at once, and a female voice very similar to Ain’s directed him to the main docking ring.

  ‘Almost there,’ he announced. ‘Time to get a proper look at our destination.’

  The vector plot in the cube was replaced by their first detailed image of the Egg. From behind him he heard Nual draw a sharp breath.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said over his shoulder to her, ‘it is, isn’t it? We probably should have seen that one coming.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Taro stared at the wall display. It had to be some sort of console – maybe it even controlled the ship – but he was fucked if he knew how it worked. There weren’t any screens, or sliders, or any of the shit he was used to, just the lights and traces covering the wall. And the shaking and humming were getting worse by the moment. He had to do something, but he had no idea what—

  A large red light near the top of the display expanded and brightened, then began to blink slowly and compellingly. Taro stared at it, mesmerised. Something pretty to look at while I wait to die . . .

  Was he imagining it, or was the shuddering easing off? Yep, things had definitely begun to calm down. That had to be a good thing.

  He looked away from the hypnotic light. The rest of the display didn’t look so frantic now, and the hum had died away. When he decided to risk standing on it, the floor just felt a bit unstable, though that could be him. Whatever the problem was, it looked like it’d sorted itself out – so maybe he wasn’t going to die after all.

  He went back to check on Vy. The damaged avatar was still alive, but out of it. He sat down next to him and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Was that another shudder? It felt kind of distant. His eyes began to close, and he felt himself falling forward . . .

  He caught himself just before he hit the floor. Damn fucking adrenalin comedown. He stayed where he was, collapsed beside the prone avatar, willing himself to stay alert, but nothing was happening, and nothing was boring, and boredom made him sleepy.

  He should try and get up, fly, go check the place out – but what was there to check out? They weren’t dead, and the ship hadn’t crashed. So, no immediate threat. And it’d be a lot easier to work out what to do next once he’d got some rest . . .

  He woke up sprawled across the floor, with no idea how long he’d been asleep. It didn’t feel like long enough, and now he was thirsty again. Something smelled a bit odd, though that could be him. He levered himself into a sitting position and looked down on Vy. The boy’s open eyes tracked him, and his mouth twitched.

  ‘Hey,’ murmured Taro, ‘how y’doing there?’

  ‘I’m dying,’ said Vy calmly.

  ‘Nah, you’ll be fine.’ Taro put all the conviction he could muster into his voice. ‘I’m gonna have a look around, see if I can find us a drink. You’ll feel better once you’ve had a drink.’

  Vy’s mouth turned up into a dreamy smile, but he didn’t say anything.

  Taro got up. He took a look at what’d been their cell from the doorway. The door was still open – or rather, missing – but he didn’t trust the fucking thing not to close again if he went inside. Anyway, the water and food from the tray was spilled all over the floor, and the mush, whatever
it was, had dried to a nasty crust, which might explain the smell.

  Next he tried the room he’d decided to call Device’s cabin. Device had talked about sorting human food, so maybe he’d done that in here – but none of the nodules, lumps and rough portions of wall responded to Taro’s touch. He wondered about moving Vy in here, onto the bed-thing, but when he touched the platform it wasn’t soft like the cell floor had been.

  He started at a noise from outside and called, ‘Vy? You feeling better?’ He walked over to the doorway.

  Vy was still lying on the floor. There were three other people in the room with him. They were even taller than Taro, and aside from some off-white things on their arms and ankles, they were naked. They all carried thin, white-tipped poles that looked suspiciously like weapons. Their skin was dark, or possibly just really dirty, and they had long tangled red-brown hair, with more stuff plaited into it. One was bending down over Device’s body. The other two stood next to Vy: one was leaning on his pole – yeah, those were definitely spears – and the other was just about to use his to prod Vy.

  ‘Hey!’ yelled Taro, ‘what the fuck d’you think you’re doing?’

  The three men started, then stared at Taro with odd, narrow-eyed expressions, like they were surprised, but couldn’t see him properly. The one about to poke Vy took a shaky step back. His companion put out an arm to steady him.

  The third one said something like, ‘Gloo tsah mahin!’ in a high, piping voice. All three started backing off, their eyes still screwed up. They moved clumsily, keeping their spears on the floor in front of them, almost like they were using them to push themselves backwards.

  ‘Listen, I could actually use some help here,’ said Taro, looking between them.

  The one who’d spoken said something else incomprehensible. He sounded scared, though it was hard to be sure with that funny voice.

  When they reached the door to the bridge the front two had a brief comedy moment trying to work out who was going through first. The winner had to bend over to get through, and he held onto the edge of the door like he expected to fall.

  ‘You don’t have to leave,’ said Taro. ‘We can talk about this.’ Assuming he could get them to understand. He pointed to his chest. ‘Friend,’ he said slowly and emphatically.

  They weren’t having any of it. The second one went through the door, eyes wide in his dark – no, it really was filthy – face as he backed away. Taro picked up Device’s useless gun, pointed it at the door and said firmly, ‘Wait right there, you.’ The remaining visitor looked scared, but he didn’t hang around either.

  Taro ran up to Vy and asked, ‘Did they hurt you?’

  ‘No,’ said Vy, who looked surprisingly content.

  ‘Good! Right, I’m going after these weird-looking fuckers. You, er, just stay there.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  Their brief chat had given the intruders time to get across the probably-bridge. As Taro came in the first one was just making his exit – through a door that most certainly hadn’t been there earlier. Taro decided against trying to stop them. They appeared more scared of him than he was of them, but they outnumbered him, and he wasn’t at his best right now.

  He waited until they’d made their way outside, then counted to ten and went over to the door. He peered through cautiously, wary of possible attack. It was very dark out there, the sky black, and star-filled.

  And it looked like he’d been wrong: the ship had landed – or possibly crashed, though the ship’s tech had done a good job of cushioning the impact. But whether it had landed or crashed, the ship had trashed the immediate area; it was sitting in the centre of a shallow crater. The place smelled funny, sort of like a mixture of farts and incense. That was the smell he’d noticed when he’d first woken up.

  Taro spotted movement and watched the three locals disappearing at a fast trot into a tunnel in the side of the crater, their feet kicking up puffs of dust.

  He had another look around the landing site, but he could see only the one tunnel. There were no other signs of life in the crater. He peered at the ground, two metres down, then stepped into the air and floated down slowly. His flight implants automatically adjusted to the local gravity, but he’d grown up in a low-grav environment – he realised that was why the locals had been having so much trouble on the ship. And the lack of light here wasn’t too much of a problem for him; the Undertow had also been a twilight world. He shivered as he thought of the parallels between his old home and this place; Khesh City was, after all, just another male Sidhe’s domain, even if no one who lived there knew it.

  He decided against landing and instead flew towards the tunnel, checking behind him to make sure he was alone before he stuck his head in the perfectly circular opening. The inside surface had been sealed with something that glistened faintly in the starlight. For amoment he considered going in, then decided against it; he didn’t want to leave Vy alone and undefended.

  Instead, he flew up towards the lip of the crater. The sky up there looked a bit fuzzy, and as he got closer he started to feel odd: his hair began to stand on end and nausea stirred in his guts. He stopped and hovered, thinking. He’d felt that before – there was a forceshield across the top of the crater. Some sort of automatic defence to stop the air leaking out? Whatever the reason, he wasn’t going any nearer.

  Before he went back inside the ship he examined the hull around the outside of the door, but there was no sign of any controls, inside or out. Well, looked like the door would be staying open for now. Device had obviously been controlling the ship directly with his mind. Jarek had told him about human ships that used neural-interface tech, though Jarek didn’t hold with them himself; he was leery of implants, probably due to his religious upbringing. Taro would happily get the neurolink mods given the chance, but they weren’t cheap. Device’s ship was the most hi-tech ship Taro had ever seen – in fact, all of Aleph’s tech was beyond anything Taro had come across in his admittedly limited travels. Jarek’d had a theory about that: he’d reckoned the female Sidhe secretly put the knackers on human progress, to make sure humanity didn’t get too advanced and hard to control. Taro preferred the less paranoid explanation: that humans just weren’t as smart as male Sidhe.

  Even if Device controlled most of the ship from his head, there was still the display wall. A lot of the lights and traces had gone out and those that were still lit weren’t moving much. That made sense: the ship would have powered down after its emergency landing. A human ship would have also sent out a distress call, but given how the males around here hated each other, he couldn’t rely on that.

  Taro had another go at working the wall out. He put out a hand towards an orange bar, ready to snatch it back; his hand passed through the light. He tried again, this time flying up to touch a pale mauve blob that was gently bouncing around near ceiling height. The blob stopped, pulsed twice in an annoyed sort of way, then carried on bouncing. He looked around, but nothing appeared to have changed. He tried touching a few more random lights; his hand went through them and they either remained unchanged or throbbed or twitched, then went back to doing whatever they’d been doing before.

  He decided he’d better check out the rest of the ship, just to make sure he hadn’t accidentally activated something by fiddling with the wall. He couldn’t see any changes.

  Vy was asleep when he got back. Taro, concerned about the avatar, especially with his talk of dying, crouched down and shook him gently awake.

  Vy’s eyes opened at once. ‘Did you find water?’ he asked.

  ‘No, sorry.’

  ‘There were people here, weren’t there?’

  ‘There were, but they’re gone now. Not sure if they’ll be back. You sound better.’

  ‘Not so crazy, you mean?’

  Yeah. Not so crazy.’

  ‘I’ve consolidated my remaining functions. Many of my irrelevant memories have been purged, but I will remain lucid within the necessary parameters for the remaining time
I have.’

  ‘Right.’ Taro wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. ‘Are you strong enough to stand up yet? You can’t be very comfy lying on the floor.’

  ‘This is as good a place as any for me to be.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s making my neck ache looking down at you. Tell you what, why don’t I help you over there to the wall and you can sit up.’

  Getting Vy to the wall turned out to be harder than Taro had expected. The avatar was as light as a human child, but the body already felt like dead meat. Vy kept smiling vaguely while Taro manhandled him until he was sitting up with his back against the wall.

  After that, Taro tried to drag Device’s body away so they wouldn’t have to look at it, but it was too heavy, and he quickly gave up.

  When he turned back, Vy had slid to one side and was bracing himself on one arm. His head was lolling over, like some life-sized boneless doll. ‘I have devoted some functionality to the physical task of keeping the body upright,’ he said primly.

  ‘Good,’ said Taro slowly.

  ‘You have to live, Taro.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s the plan.’ Or perhaps more the intention: to have a plan he’d need to have some idea of where the fuck they were and how the fuck they’d get back to the others. Especially Nual. Shit and blood, he’d been trying not to think about Nual. He shook his head to dispel the pain.

  ‘No, you really do,’ said Vy, possibly mistaking the gesture. He no longer sounded anything like the mad, petulant kid he’d been. ‘Because I can’t. Won’t. I acknowledge that now. Hence my choice to reprioritise. I will die, whatever happens.’

  ‘That’s bollocks, Vy – you’ll be fine. I won’t let anyone hurt you, and I’ll get us both home.’ Somehow.

  ‘This body no longer functions. And my mind . . . I now acknowledge that my original mission cannot succeed as planned.’