“Yes,” the Old One replied. “We are going to be pushing them hard.”
* * *
“Who are you? Speak rightly or be prepared to die.”
Griffin glanced around wildly, seeking the source of the voice which seemed to come from all directions at once. Then his perspective adjusted and he was back where voices often came from nowhere. Judging from the expressions on Adara and Terrell’s faces, they were frightened. Without a word they had moved so that each faced an opposite direction, covering all angles of approach.
“Who are you?” repeated the voice, speaking in an accent that was like, but not quite like, the speech of the Artemesians.
Griffin spoke. “Griffin Dane, of Sierra in the Kyley System. These are my companions, Adara the Huntress and Terrell the Factotum, both of Artemis.”
“None of you are on my list of authorized visitors.”
Despite the precision of the answer, Griffin caught a note of confusion in the voice.
“When was your list last updated?”
A slight pause, then the voice gave a date—a date five hundred years in the past.
“Your list is out of date,” Griffin said confidently. “The current date is…”
He recited it in three different formats, beginning with the one that most historians agreed had been used by the Old Imperials. “If you doubt me, check the stellar alignment. You can do that, correct?”
He was guessing wildly, but if this place had been created by the seegnur then surely there would have been a means of assessing in-system traffic.
“I can,” the voice said, then, “I should … I could … I cannot! Malfunction detected. Uplink reports repeated failures!”
“Wait then,” Griffin said. “Shortly, the sky will darken and you can check manually. You have the capacity?”
“I do … Did … What has … I am remembering … What has happened?”
“What do you last remember?”
Terrell murmured, “Griffin, who are you talking to?”
Griffin held a finger to his lips. Terrell obeyed, but his gaze continued to rove nervously over the corridor, resting repeatedly on the heap of ruined battle armor. Adara was superficially calmer but, when Griffin started speaking, she had padded back to the door into the cavern and now leaned against one edge, assuring herself that their exit remained open.
“What I remember … I remember you are not authorized!”
“Wait until nightfall if you wish,” Griffin suggested. “After you check the stars, I think you will agree with me that it is unlikely that anyone authorized remains. Will you tell me what you remember or shall we wait until you check the stars?”
“I must wait.” The voice sounded distinctly unhappy. “I have no choice. I will wait. I must request that you do not attempt to penetrate further into this facility until I have confirmed the current date. Will you comply?”
Griffin looked at the others. “I hate to say this, but I think we’d better do as this person suggests.”
Adara shrugged. “We came here because you so desired, seegnur. I will be guided by your wisdom.”
Terrell nodded agreement, then motioned to the line of armor. “It’s several hours until full dark. I’m not sure I want to wait here with these.”
“And I’m hungry,” Adara added.
Griffin was astonished by their new calm. Then he understood that they were following his lead, trying to act as if this was all some variation on normal.
He spoke to the air. “Shall we return an hour or two after full dark?”
“You have the access keys…” The voice considered. “You may return after full dark. Telescopic sights are active, but orbital relays seem nonfunctional.”
“Very good. We have the access keys. Remember that.”
Without another word, they left, retrieving the oval key when they passed through the door into the cavern. Griffin was aware that he was holding his shoulders very stiff and straight, awaiting a shot that never came. When they were outside of the cavern, Adara held a finger to her lips, then led them some distance away, beyond, Griffin realized after a moment, the area within which Artemis had been “blind.”
“I think we should be able to talk freely here,” Adara said, sinking onto the grass and leaning back against a tree. “Sand Shadow is bringing dinner. She warns you that it is not her fault that it will be cold.”
“I’m not really hungry,” Terrell admitted.
“I am,” Adara said, “and you should be. Bruin always said it was foolishness to hunt on an empty stomach.”
Terrell nodded. “Bruin is a wise old bear. I’ll eat, but I’m still not hungry. I’ve seen fragments of that sort of armor. Do you know what it takes to punch a hole in it? Let me give you the short version … Nothing we have can do it: not arrows, not swords, not spears. Drop a boulder on it and this stuff is as likely to bend as not. Sink it in the sea for five years or ten or a hundred and it comes up needing a wash, that’s it. Put it in a fire and it gets sooty, but doesn’t burn. Not even forge heat does much damage. Yet something punched holes in that stuff so fast that not one person in that line had time to turn around.”
Griffin nodded. “I saw that, too. The boots were aligned pretty much as they would have been if the soldiers fell all at once. “
He didn’t add that similar materials were still in use in the Kyley Domain and other systems as well. Much of the Old Imperial technology had been lost, but if the base materials could be found—something that was not always possible—their creation was a problem of fabrication. Entire fortunes had been made by reverse engineering Old Imperial technology.
“So who were you talking to?” Adara asked. “Not a person. Was it a machine? The lore said that the seegnur had machines that could talk, but that such were forbidden on Artemis except in the gravest circumstances.”
“Forbidden,” Griffin repeated, “just as Maiden’s Tear was forbidden. Yes. I think it’s possible that we were talking to a machine or perhaps a creation like Artemis herself—a neural network, specific to this one place, rather than meant to embrace the entire planet.”
“The maiden,” Terrell said suddenly, “who was separated from her sister and wept so copiously that the lake was formed. No wonder the legend never said why they were parted.”
“It’s as good an answer as any,” Griffin said. “Here’s what I think happened. When Artemis was invaded, the advanced technology in this facility suffered the same fate as elsewhere. That explains our friend’s memory lapse. Eventually, the invaders found the place and wiped out everyone inside. I’m hoping that whatever they found was at least as interesting as the landing facility, because then they won’t have destroyed everything. And then I’ll have a chance of finding something I can reactivate and use to get in touch with my orbiter.”
“We won’t know until we look,” Adara said, “and we won’t know if we can look until we return.”
Griffin hesitated, then thought he might as well ask. “Does Artemis have any thoughts on the matter?”
Adara laughed without humor. “Am I a seegnur to command a planet? I tell you, Griffin, Artemis speaks to me when she wills. She does not come at my command. Neither Sand Shadow nor I have heard anything for many days … She seems to be avoiding us.”
* * *
When Griffin asked about Artemis, Adara did not add that both she and Sand Shadow had felt uneasiness prowling their dreams. After all, how could she be certain this came from Artemis and did not simply mirror their own feelings about this very strange hunt in which they were involved? Griffin could not understand how difficult it was to know that one was violating a prohibition. Perhaps Terrell—bonded as he was to Griffin, and as a factotum trained to let another’s will override his own—did not feel the sense of wrongness as strongly as Adara did. Hunters were perhaps the most independent of all the professions and, because they needed to be able to make their own decisions, were expected to know right from wrong.
And who is to say thi
s is wrong? Adara thought. Griffin must be a seegnur of some sort or Terrell would not have bonded to him. If Griffin is a seegnur, the prohibitions do not apply to him. Our first commandment is to obey the seegnur, and our seegnur wishes to explore this place.
But she still felt uneasy. She wanted to go back to those days when her greatest worry was whether or not to marry Terrell. Or the days when she worried about the mockery of the village maidens. Or about who might notice the odd appearance of her eyes …
Might as well wish myself unborn, she thought wryly. For all we humans imagine otherwise, life moves only in one direction until death puts an ending to all motion.
Sand Shadow arrived as dusk was darkening the sky. When they had been visiting Adara’s family, Griffin had suggested that they alter a small set of saddlebags so that Sand Shadow could use them if she wished to carry larger burdens. The puma still lacked the dexterity to work a buckle, but she was getting very good at knots.
Although she griped about acting as a pack animal, Sand Shadow actually took considerable pleasure in being able to expand her abilities. Of course, her idea of what made a balanced meal was a bit odd, but she had remembered meat and journey cakes. Terrell foraged and found some wild greens growing along a nearby stream and Adara contributed wild strawberries.
After, they all napped or at least pretended to do so. When full dark came, they were all up and ready to go with a rapidity that suggested rest had not been very deep. Letting Sand Shadow—who had departed to check on the horses and Sam the Mule—know what they were about, Adara led the way back into the cavern.
They’d been concerned that the waters would have returned, but the path remained open—although the drying mud reeked as things long sealed beneath the surface began to rot. When they found the huge double doors had closed again, Griffin momentarily panicked, but the topaz oval key worked as before.
This time, when the doors slid apart, there was no pale blue light. Instead, the brighter yellow light rose as if in greeting. When they had advanced a few paces into the corridor, the voice spoke again. Although the manner in which it framed sentences was still odd, there was much more emotion. Perhaps because of Terrell’s reminder of the maiden for whom the lake had been named, Adara now heard the voice as that of a girl the same age as her sister Elektra.
“The stars have turned,” it said. “I have cross-referenced and the patterns match projections for five hundred years into the future. All my friends are gone. I am filled with bodies far gone into death.”
“What do you last remember?” Griffin asked gently.
“I remember…” There was a pause, then, “You have the keys.”
“All four,” Griffin reassured her.
“The keys authorize unauthorized entry, especially in extreme circumstances,” said the voice.
“These are extreme circumstances,” Griffin replied. “I say that other than complete destruction, the circumstances don’t get much more extreme.”
“I am shamed. I remember almost nothing. Last I remember, there was much excitement. We expected visitors. There was to be a tour of inspection and we would reveal new developments. Everything was readied. Wise O’Rahilly was gravely excited. So were the rest of the staff. Then we all felt the thunder that was not thunder. I alone felt the fire that was the rain. After that, a swirl of color, a thousand small battles fought, each lost in an instant. I died. Perhaps I only slept? I was gone out until I began to dream. The opening of the emergency access door awoke me.”
Terrell chanted softly. “So speaks the lore. The attackers broke through the heavens with a thunder so loud that the ears of many who heard it bled. Rain fell. Where it touched, the hidden devices of the seegnur were rendered useless. Then came death, swift and ruthless, and with it the end of the seegnur’s time upon Artemis. So it shall be until the seegnur come again and the rain falls cool, bringing life again to all that was not flesh and blood. So says the lore.”
Adara bent her head in respect. “So says the lore. Now, seegnur, what do you command?”
* * *
Griffin nodded, acknowledging that from this point he must lead. He had to tread carefully. At this moment, the entity to whom they spoke was confused. Apparently, it had been taken out in the earliest stages of the attack on Artemis. It had only been reactivated for a few hours. He didn’t know how similar it was in construction to Artemis but, from what Adara and Sand Shadow had gathered, it seemed as if the planetary neural network had been damaged as well as disabled. The same could be true of this entity.
“What shall we call you?” he asked.
“I was called Leto,” the voice said.
“Leto, you have told us what you remember of the attack. Thank you. I think you can also help us understand better what happened here after you went to sleep. We need to understand so we can put this facility into order.”
“Operations have been derailed. Full level of damage has not yet been assessed.”
Leto sounded distressed. Griffin was not surprised. All the evidence indicated that Leto had been created to coordinate activity within an area so encapsulated from the rest of the planet that Artemis had not even been aware it existed.
“Let us begin with these bodies,” Griffin said, indicating the crumpled suits of armor. “What can you tell me of them?”
“I can tell nothing. They do not belong to this facility. The style of the armor is wrong. Although it bears similarities to various types I hold in my memory, it is not any of our models.”
“Well, that’s interesting,” Terrell said. “The lore has always held that the seegnur did not recognize their attackers.”
Adara spoke in the cadence reserved for reciting from the lore. “And the seegnur cried out in dismay, ‘Who are these who seek our lives?’”
Griffin was fascinated. Since Artemis had been lost to history soon after the battle which had taken place on her surface, he knew little of what had taken place. He restrained an urge to ask for more details and returned his attention to Leto.
“Did this facility have defenders?”
“It did. Anticipating your query, I have been searching. I believe I have accounted for all the suits of battle armor. I would say I am seventy-five percent certain I have located them all.” The girlish voice turned apologetic. “The error factor is due to the fact that several suits are so badly damaged I need to extrapolate the entire from what remains.”
“Are any of the suits we’ve seen in working order?”
“Unlikely. The damage was severe.”
“I would like to tour the facility,” Griffin said boldly. He sensed, although he didn’t know why or how, that Leto was holding something back.
He expected rejection or at least another delay, but Leto merely replied with evident sadness. “You may do so. Little, I fear, is as it was when we prepared it for inspection. I wish you could see it as it was then, so bright, so shining, so full of excitement. Much has been damaged, perhaps beyond repair.”
Yet, despite the damage, within a few hours the facility’s purpose was clear beyond a shadow of a doubt. They departed, taking with them the oval key and promising Leto they would return.
In their conversation they had learned that Leto’s perception currently did not extend beyond the facility itself. Even before the facility had been so severely damaged, Leto’s perception outside it had been limited. She could see and hear anything in the cavern, but in the meadow beyond she could not perceive without specific commands. The temple, it turned out, was the central point for that external perception. Therefore, as they walked back to their camp, they talked freely.
“Of course,” Terrell said, “Leto could be lying, but I don’t think she was. There is a directness even to her suspicions.”
Adara nodded. “And what if she is? I don’t doubt that in her day she could probably have held off armies, but now? The destruction was terrible. I don’t think I ever grasped what the seegnur were capable of … It’s one thing to hear tales and see occasion
al damaged structures—like the place I showed you in the mountains, Griffin. It’s another to see what we did today. I know I’ll have nightmares.”
Terrell grinned at her, teeth flashing within the darkness of his facial hair. “I’ll volunteer to give you good thoughts to hold off the nightmares—or at least leave you too tired to dream, except maybe of me.”
Griffin bit back a growl. Surely this was not the time or place! To his relief, Adara ignored Terrell’s words as if they hadn’t been spoken.
“Griffin, that place … It was for making weapons, wasn’t it?”
“It was. Not only weapons but weapons above and beyond what what we believed even the Old Imperials possessed.” Darkness made it easier for Griffin to talk about things he had never mentioned before—never mentioned because on some level he was ashamed of them. “My interest in history comes honestly. My family has long been interested in what happened before the Old Empire fell. However, much as I hate to admit it, their interest, going back to my father’s father and even earlier, was very specialized. Because our family rose to wealth and power through the wars that eventually led to the establishment of the Kyley Domain, military history held a great fascination.”
Terrell said, “Because within that history there might be the secrets to greater power? So it is with many who become loremasters. There are those who wish to know the lore because they believe it will lead them to understand incomprehensible issues. However, many hope to find something that will make them a power.”
“Like the Old One,” Adara said.
“I despise the Old One,” Terrell said, any trace of flirtation gone from his voice, “but there is an honesty to him. I think he believed what he told Griffin—that he seeks knowledge to draw Artemis back into a unity of law and purpose, such as we had in the days of the seegnur. Many of those I met during my training had no goal beyond being a power within their own immediate sphere.”
They had reached the camp and Griffin eyed his bedroll with longing. However, in the flickering light of the fire Sand Shadow had stirred up in anticipation of their arrival, he could see that his Artemesian friends were uneasy. He settled for sitting on the folded bedding and unlacing his boots to free feet he was suddenly aware ached after hours walking on the unyielding floors of the facility.
Artemis Invaded Page 9
