Fire in the Sky tst-1

by Jo Clayton

  “Feeling sorry for yourself, are you? Hmp. You’ll be fine once we get you in the ottodoc at the ’Clave.”

  He smiled up at her. “And we can be sure the Goлs will come for us. We’ve got his proof.”

  “Sorry and cynical.” She chuckled. “And very right. Brace yourself. I’m going to have to slide you along on the blanket and it won’t be comfortable.”

  2

  “I am a Scholar with a Scholar’s constraints. And while I sympathize deeply, your people are not my people, this is not a fight I have any business joining.” Aslan spoke slowly, with a weightiness that made her cringe a little; but she wanted no mistakes about what she was saying. “I can suggest this, treat with the Goлs Koraka hoeh Dexios. He will probably provide transport and medical services-but the price he’ll ask for these is something that you might not want to pay. He will not sell you weapons.”

  They were in a sun-filled tree-shaded patio with Eolt graspers on the eaves and a fountain playing gently in the center, water from a hotspring below the blai shooting at intervals into high jets but mostly bubbling up, then dripping musically from bowl to bowl and into a small stream that vanished under a wall. Aslan found the humid heat uncomfortable, but the Eolt and the Denchok who’d come to talk with her seemed cozy enough.

  Daizil Voice for the Earth leaned into the speaking tentacle of Bladechel Voice for the Air. After a moment, xe sighed and straightened. “Why? We fight the same enemy.”

  “The Goлs is not a warrior, he’s a trader. He takes the long view. Which is that what you use to defeat the enemy will be turned on him once the enemy is gone.”

  Again the two Voices consulted, then Daizil said, “Ard Danor implied that if the Chandavasi triumph, they will be harvesting Eolt on Banikoлh also. Do you think this is likely?”

  “Once this is a sealed world, yes. There will be no place for Eolt or any other Bйluchar to hide from them?’

  “And there will be no help from outside. They take what they want.”

  “There will be protests from University, but yes. Without witnesses to raise their voices in protest and start a campaign against the Chandavasi, essentially no help.”

  “And you?”

  “The Chave are not likely to leave witnesses from outside, especially those who know how to make their stories heard. This is a world visited by smugglers and free traders. There would always be a chance one of us might escape.”

  “I see. So your fate depends on our deeds.”

  “To some extent, yes.”

  “And still you’re unwilling to do more than advise.”

  “To be a credible witness-which will be of greater use to you than my own inadequate fighting skills, I can do no more.”

  “There is no chance of talking with the Chandavasi?”

  “I would never say don’t talk. I would also say that their history as I know it doesn’t indicate a willingness to listen.”

  “I see. Would you use your communicators to speak to the Goлs for us, should we decide that is what we will do?”

  “Yes. You must do your own bargaining, however.”

  “That is understood.” Daizil smiled at her. “We know traders, Scholar. We have many of our own.”

  3

  The sound shook the building, a great deep note that resonated in Aslan’s bones. She’d been stretched out on the bed, eyes closed to facilitate memory, sub-vocalizing a report to herself, getting down impressions, questions she needed to ask and anything else that occurred to her. She sat up, startled, removed the throatmike and went outside to see what was happening.

  The sky was thick with Eolt, swirling in a wide golden vortex, singing as they circled higher and higher to join the streams heading east. The flow seemed endless, more Eolt arriving every moment, coming from all directions.

  “Scholar.” Daizil joined her and stood looking up, xe’s mouth set, a sad droop to his eyes.

  “Voice. What’s this about?”

  “The Eolt have decided. There will be no bargaining. Whatever the cost to them, the Chave must be destroyed.”

  4

  “You’d best keep a close watch on him. He’s tried to kill himself, twice.”

  The Goлs smiled grimly, his mouth open to show the tearing canines. “I thank you for the warning, Harper. We have some potions that will take his mind off his troubles.” He contemplated her a moment, eyes like chocolate ice, then he smiled again, this time the closed-mouth pleasure smile. “Bringing the Scholar and her team was one of my better ideas,” he murmured. “Will you join me for a glass of cha or something stronger, Shadowsong?”

  “Of course, Goлs Koraka. I would like to be kept posted on Aide Ola’s progress, though. He is a man to be valued.” She glanced at the procession leading the spy away, met his eyes and felt a chill lance through her. Even the creepy Ginny Seyirshi had never treated her to so intensely personal a hatred.

  The Goлs noted that. “Yes. We’ll make very sure he’s kept chemically restrained, Shadowsong.”

  He poured the cha from an elegant white pot into a small drinking bowl. “Will you have citra or glemm? And I believe there is some toz in that pot.”

  “Nothing, please. What cha is it?”

  “Smoky sill from the highlands of Molot.”

  “Ah. A favorite of mine.” She smiled. “I see we share the same smuggler.”

  He chuckled. “An odd little man with interesting connections, by name Arel.”

  “Mm.” She sipped at the cha, relishing the clean tang of the liquid and the silky texture of the bowl. The she sighed and set the bowl on its saucer with a small decisive click. “Reluctant as I am to disturb the peace of the moment, how far have you got on the repairs to the splitcom?”

  “We captured one of the Chave sats, Dulman be blessed that the shuttle was not linked into the system when it went down, and we’re attempting to cobble up something with those parts that we can use to hook into another of the sats and go from there. Chave thought patterns are not all that complex and we’ve managed to work out the codes. With a bit of luck and some hard work we’ll get word out within the next tenday. Which should take some of the…” He looked up, frowning as a phora came in without knocking. “What?”

  “Something you have to see, Goлs Koraka. We don’t know what it means.”

  The sky was filled with golden bells blowing east on the high airstreams-first a scattering, one, two, half a dozen, the sun shining through their translucent veils, then rank upon rank of Eolt, turning the western sky bright amber with their numbers.

  “You don’t think about there being so many of them,” Shadith said. “A world’s a big place and they get lost among the clouds.”

  They stood in the middle of the Enclave, looking, caught by the beauty of this strange migration. Shadith heard the scrape of a foot behind her, looked around to see Marrin standing there, his face filled with wonder as he stared up at the Eolt.

  The Goлs shook himself free from his astonishment. “What are they doing? This against us? Where are they going?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say they’re going to attack the… what do they call it… the Kushayt.”

  “Yes.” Marrin’s voice vibrated with conviction. “And they’re going to die at it. So much glory lost…” He turned to the Goлs. “You’ve got to do something. You’ve got to help them.”

  The Goлs contemplated him a moment. “We’ll discuss this inside.” He turned his head. “Thofor, inform me immediately of any alteration in their progress.”

  Koraka laced his long fingers together, stared at them a moment, then lifted his head and smiled wearily at Marrin, his threat teeth hidden. “If you mean, Aide, that we should provide weapons to the locals, you should think again.”

  “Of course I don’t mean that.” Marrin leaned forward in his chair, his dark eyes intense. “Send guards with them. Send me, if there’s no one else you can spare. A flier and the strongest firepower you have. At least it would be something.”

  K
oraka’s ears came forward. “You, Aide? Aren’t you forbidden armed assault by University bylaws or something like that?”

  “I don’t consider this assault, but self-defense. When the Chave put a price on my head, they gave me that right.”

  “Yes, that’s an argument that has a good chance of floating. Now explain to me why a pacific Scholar from University would be a help rather than a hindrance.”

  “I was fifth male heir to the Baron Ineca of Picabral and I survived past puberty.”

  “Ah. Succinct and convincing. Also rather astonishing, considering your present circumstances. Very well. I don’t see any problem with supplying your needs. A matter of public service, as it were. If the ottodoc certifies you. You came out of there in a very short time. As to guards, I don’t think I’m able to spare any. I’m expecting an attack from the Chave any day now. Rude and crude as they are, we’re considerably outnumbered and outmuscled by that lot. I wouldn’t want to face them outside these walls. Or inside, as the case may be.”

  “Pinched nerve and ruptured disk. Few more this and thats. Didn’t take much fixing.”

  “I’ll still require a formal analysis, a thorough work-up. I’m sure you understand why.”

  Shadith sat looking at her hands. There wasn’t really any point in picking at her deficiencies. If this business had taught her anything it was that if she wanted to be fully alive, to feel passionately about anything, she was going to have to spend a lot of time walking the edge. Might as well get a start at it. “I’ll be going along also,” she said. “You’ll need me, Marrin, I have credibility with the Eolt. They’re strong and dangerous, though I admit I find what I know to be true hard to believe when I look at them.”

  “Dangerous?” The Goлs frowned. “How?”

  “Stings. Capable of killing a man. Probably other defenses, but no one spoke of those.”

  “Interesting.”

  “They understand quite well their vulnerability so I doubt you’ll have any problems.” She stood. “I’ll take your offer of a bath and a nap, Goлs Koraka. And you, Marrin, you get to have your body cells assayed. Shall we say leave in three hours?”

  5

  The Eolt sang as they swept across the land toward the Bakuhl Sea, great crashing chords of sound that filled the sky and had a practical purpose as well since the air sucked in and expelled drove them even faster toward the killing field of Melitoлh. They flew high and swift, like golden leucocytes in the air veins of the world, swelling with the sunlight. A thousand and a thousand Eolt in the Bйluchar way of saying many beyond counting, filling the sky to the horizon and beyond.

  When the flikit rose from the Enclave to join the flight, Eolt began converging on it, like birds mobbing an intruder-until Shadith stood. Hands clutching the top of the windshield, she sang, her voice soaring, yet tiny against the great organ beats of the Eolt. It was enough. They knew her and went back to their single-minded surge toward the water.

  Shadith fell back into her seat, reached for the water bottle, sucked greedily at the nipple.

  Marvin shivered. “Spooky.” He slapped the accelerod in all the way, and the small dark flikit leaped ahead, racing to catch up with the Eolt, then pass the front ranks of the throng.

  6

  Ceam stretched out on the limb, managed to focus the ocular without falling off. He scanned the mesuch fort, looking for anything that would give him a clue about the seethe of activity inside. After the firing of Dordan-that-was and the crippling of the airwagons, Tech and Drudge had been called behind the walls. The crawlers sat empty and dead in the mountains; the Keteng prison was abandoned. Maybe Ilaцrn had pulled off the coup after all. No way of telling. Except…

  Three of the guards came trotting along the wall and positioned themselves behind slotted shields beside the gate. A small section of the Gate swung open and four male Drudges stumped out, one in an improvised harness linked to a crude sledge which bumped along behind him. Two guards came with them, clanking in armor, heads enclosed in glass, heavy dark weapons cradled in their arms with the tenderness of men cuddling their first bores.

  One of the guards grunted something, Ceam couldn’t make out the word, but the Drudge in the harness dropped to a squat and the other three stood hipshot and shoulders rounded while the guard moved to a large kerre, burned through the trunk with his cutter.

  Ceam folded the ocular, eased it down inside his shirt, lay very still, watching the mesuch.

  The second guard prowled about, head turning nervously, weapon in his hand. When he heard a rustle as some bitty nose twitcher scurried through the leaves, he spun round, dropped into a crouch and sent a burning beam cutting through the brush. There was a smell of roasted meat and burned hair. He went over, kicked the charred carcass and cursed it, then went back to his prowling.

  The cut was so quick and clean, the tree shivered a little, but didn’t fall over until one of the Drudges slammed his fist into it. The guard cut the tree in chunks and the Drudges stacked the chunks on the sledge until they had a tall pile of green, sappy wood.

  The other Drudges attached lines to the sledge and with the first leaning into his harness, they dragged the piled wood back to the road and into the mesuch fort.

  With a grin that threatened his ears, Ceam wriggled backward along the limb, went dropping down the tree and ran toward the Fen, the bearer of the best news he could imagine. If the mesuch had to use wood for heat and cooking and muscle to drag the sledge, Ilaцrn had done the job. He’d killed the fort.

  7

  “Cursed clear day.” Marrin started into a wide circle round the Kushayt. I suppose they’d know we’re here anyway, the flikit screams at scanners.”

  Shadith shifted the viewfield of the binocs along the top of the eight-sided wall. “Marrin, at least thirty guards on patrol down there and they’re all armored. Visors shut. What’s going on?”

  He looked nervously around. The first Eolt were arriving, moving into a pattern much like his, rising and falling to find the proper windstreams, their membranes pulsing as they fed air through their speaking sphincters and milled in a thickening circle about the kushayt. “Don’t know, but the slaughter is fixing to start, so I’m going down. Shadow, set the stunner on widecast, we won’t get the armored Chave this pass, but the others…”

  “Tail on fire, Marrin, remember their reflexes. Let’s go.”

  Fast as he could take it, Marrin sent the flikit into a stuttering, twisting pass over the Kushayt, recalling the running tactics he’d learned as a boy to get him away from the near lethal teasing of his older relatives. The moves were ground into his bones and nerves.

  As soon as the Chave saw him coming at them, they started shooting; pellets from the heavy duty projectors whined past or grazed the flanks of the flikit, exploding the instant they touched.

  Screech of tortured metal. Fingernails on slate-board tearing.

  Blams. Ears ringing.

  Beams from heavy-duty cutters swept past, easier to avoid, but more lethal if they touched. As the flikit tumbled wildly after an explosion from one of the pellets, half the rear end went to a beam that missed the main lifter by a hair.

  Flare. Searing. Heat.

  Whine of laboring lifters.

  Jolting, torsion, thrown against crashwebs. “Marrin! Get us out of here. It’s not working. Out!” He didn’t bother to answer, just sent the flikit in a wavery sweep toward the trees.

  Deafening blast.

  Flikit cartwheeling down and down.

  Roar of emergency rockets, a gasp of steadier flight, then the flikit was plowing into the trees, crashing, bouncing.

  Final jolting stop.

  Silence almost painful.

  The flikit was upside down and in a steep tilt, the nose crumpled against the trunk of the large tree whose branches were supporting it. Shadith was hanging head down and, due to the tilt, higher than Marrin. She fumbled for the catch on the crash web, swore when her fingers touched hot, twisted composite, swore again when she h
eard Marrin’s catch open with that crisp bright click of finely machined parts.

  Marrin chuckled. “Stuck?” He was clinging to the loosened web so he wouldn’t fall out of the wreck before he was ready to leave it.

  “Definitely. You’ll have to cut me loose.” She sighed as she watched him swing his body so he could get a foothold on the side of the flikit and reach the storage bins. She started wriggling around to see if she could find a way to get out of the web without waiting for Marrin and his cutter, but adding her movements to his made the limbs the flikit rested on creak alarmingly and the flikit itself began to wobble so she stopped that.

  “Hah. Got it.”

  She heard the creak as he started pulling a bin door open.

  “Pissssgattt!”

  The flikit rocked wildly as he swung back into sight, pushed off again. She heard the clatter and rattle as the bin emptied itself, and the cutters, ropes, mealpacs and other objects hit the limbs below, then the ground.

  The quality of the light was starting to change, going a deep amber. The main force of the Eolt had arrived.

  Marrin got the second bin open and started throwing things out of it in what sounded like a barely controlled panic. When he was finished, the flikit rocked again as he swung back. He grabbed the web, pushed a cutter through it, then swung away, dropping from limb to limb, using them to slow him a little, but not much. As she pushed the web away from her to get a shot at cutting it, she could hear the pound of his feet as he ran off.

  She chuckled. “Not one of your conventional heroes, him.”

  By the time she’d cut herself loose and got to the ground, he was not only out of sight, but out of hearing.