“Until now.” Haid turned to Disisto. “So what did you hit him with, anyway? Ferozac?”
“Diprodek-2, actually,” the security officer said, unable to hide a hint of satisfaction. “It was the fastest-acting neurotoxin we had in store, and we had an antidote. All we had to do was hit him with a blast, catch him when he fell, then clear out the poison before it did any serious damage. It worked, too. I was receiving updates before the scutter activated its engines—and afterward, too, through the feed your Box tapped into.”
Roche leaned forward. “What did you see?”
“Everything went as planned. The whole thing was handled by remote to ensure no one would get hurt. The scutter docked, and automatics attached the umbilical. When pressure equalized, the airlock opened. The clone warrior stepped through first to check things out, then he went back in to get your reave. They walked out together, and that’s when we hit them. Just prior to that, we shot your reave full of Xarodine to stop her picking anything up—”
“Why did you do that?” said Roche, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. “She couldn’t read anything. That’s why she was there, not to spy. It was Rufo who suggested we bring her in to see your medical team in the first place!”
“We had no way of knowing you were telling us the truth, Commander.”
Roche shook her head in disbelief. “And I don’t suppose you have any epsense adepts on Galine Four either, right?”
Disisto frowned. “None that I know of. Why?”
“Because Rufo told us you had some on board with similar problems.” She glanced over at Haid. “Another lie,” she said.
“Well, try to see it from his point of view,” said Disisto. “He’d been warned about you; he had to take some sort of action.”
“Why?” Haid asked. “We hadn’t done anything to him.”
“But for the sake of the station he had to assume that you might.”
“Oh, come on, Disisto!” Roche snapped. “He never intended to trust us, and you know it! Stop trying to defend him. He lured us to Galine Four with the sole intention of neutralizing Cane. He didn’t even give us a chance.”
Disisto didn’t deny it. “If that’s the case, then he was pressured into doing it. It’s not like the chief at all to take such risks.”
“What do you mean?” said Roche.
“Well, whether he’s in the system or not, we’d already managed to evade one clone warrior; we’re pushing our luck putting ourselves in direct contact with another. The chief knew that, and at any other time he would have simply let you go by and not take any risks. But he sent Mavalhin to contact you, knowing full well what you would bring with you. And I guess he lied about our epsense adepts to get Cane on board. It’s not an acceptable risk, in my opinion.”
“You blame Shak’ni?” said Haid.
“And whoever’s behind him, yes.”
“So why didn’t they do it themselves?” asked Roche.
“Shak’ni is a bigot,” said Haid, “like a lot of the hardcore Kesh. Maybe it amuses him to watch Pristines making trouble for each other.”
Disisto shrugged. “That’s possible. I don’t know, though. It bothers me that the chief isn’t acting his normal self, and hasn’t ever since we came here.”
Roche sighed. “Okay, so what happens to Cane now?”
“Nothing,” said Disisto. “He’s powerless, and the chief knows it’s best to keep him that way. Linegar may be under pressure at the moment, but he’s not stupid.”
Roche nodded. The idea of Cane bound in chains didn’t sit easily with her, but there was some consolation in what Disisto said. While Cane was incapacitated, he was safe. But it was the image of Maii, locked in the perpetual darkness of her own skull, that bothered Roche the most.
Again, determination to rescue the girl flooded through her. Too many people had let her down recently; she refused to do the same to anyone she knew. There was too much mistrust in the galaxy as it was.
“If Rufo’s so damned smart,” she said, “why can’t he see that we all want the same thing? Why are we fighting each other?”
Disisto met her gaze squarely. “Do we want the same thing?”
“I thought we did. Or hoped so, anyway.” Roche shook her head. “I need to work out what your boss is doing, and why. Will you help me do that?”
Disisto took a deep breath. “If it means betraying his confidence, no, I won’t.”
“Then we have nothing else to talk about. For now.”
* * *
Responding to a message from the autosurgeon via her implants, Roche stopped at the surgery on the way back to the bridge, sending Haid and Disisto ahead of her. By the time she arrived there, Myer’s unconscious body had been wrapped in a bioactive blanket and strapped to the plastic bed. His left shoulder, chest, and arm were completely encased in a thin layer of translucent bandages that allowed enough red through to indicate just how severe the damage had been. He seemed peaceful, however, and Roche was content to leave him there for the time being—until either the autosurgeon pronounced him fit enough to walk or she needed him on his feet regardless.
She had been there only a few minutes when another message came through her implants. This time it was from the bridge: Daybreak had received a tightbeam transmission encrypted in high-level COE code. She quickly left the surgery, instructing the autosurgeon to keep her posted on Myer’s progress.
She arrived on the bridge just as the courier’s AI completed deciphering the transmission.
Haid looked up from tying Disisto back into his crash-couch as she entered. “That’ll be the Box, I guess,” he said.
“I hope so.” She sat in the pilot’s seat and instructed the AI to play the message.
“Morgan,” said the Box, its voice brisk. “This message will reach you exactly three hours following our last communication. In that time, the Ana Vereine will have disengaged from Galine Four and headed in-system. We are currently leading a flotilla of seven pursuit vessels along a powered approach that will take us past Jagabis, through the Mattar Belt and close to Cartha’s Planet. At perihelion, in twelve hours, we will adopt a neutral camouflage and power at maximum thrust to a different orbit. If you wish to choose a rendezvous point, please indicate so in your reply, before the delay becomes too great.”
“We left a furious mess behind,” the recorded voice of Kajic broke in. “There are singleships buzzing around everywhere, looking for any trace of you. The Box self-destructed a drone, hoping they’d mistake the wreckage for Daybreak, but I don’t think they were fooled. It looks like they’re getting ready to move elsewhere, just in case you come back in a hurry.”
“I recommend strongly that you do not do that,” said the Box. “Daybreak is unarmed and poorly defended; any attempt to breach their security will surely fail. Better to wait until we join you and use the combined resources of the two ships.”
Roche nodded to herself; there was nothing she could do for Maii in a clapped-out courier.
As though reading Roche’s mind, the Box went on: “You might be interested to know that Cane and Maii are unharmed. I was able to install a leak via Disisto’s implants while I was connected to the secondary security shell of Galine Four, and through this leak, I have been monitoring their condition.”
Roche smiled. Thanks, Box, she thought to herself. Disisto appeared to be telling the truth on that score.
“They are currently being held in separate cells in the station’s outer levels,” the Box went on, “and are closely guarded. Preparations are being made to move them to the Hub, but where exactly I do not know at this stage. Chances are, however, that it will be to a zone I will not be able to penetrate, even with my improved access.
“Lastly, a drone was launched from Galine Four within fifteen minutes of our departure. I was able to track it as far as the orbit of Gatamin, at which point it was accelerating rapidly for the edge of the system. If you have not already interrogated Disisto on this matter, you should do so immed
iately. Any information he can provide, willingly or otherwise, will be to our benefit.”
Roche felt a brief flicker of self-satisfaction—Disisto had mentioned that they hadn’t sent any drones out of the system—but quelled it. Although it was good to have preempted the Box in one instance, to dwell on it was obsessive.
“That is all for now, Morgan,” it continued. “The drone following you is maintaining a fixed position with respect to Daybreak and will relay to me any message you send in return. It will be necessary for you to reply soon, though, for the delay between our communications will increase rapidly over the next twelve hours. Once we have a rendezvous point established, we can begin planning how best to use it to our advantage.
“Also, I will require you to perform a diagnostic check of Daybreak’s slow-jump drive. The result of that analysis will affect any plans we make. I will await your reply before taking further action.”
The message ended abruptly, catching Roche off guard for a moment.
After a while she said: “What do you think, Ameidio?”
Haid shook his head. “We haven’t got a lot of options, have we? It’s unlikely they’d even stumble upon us out here, so the sensible thing would be to stay put.”
“I agree.” Roche slipped into the pilot’s crash-couch and called up the communications systems. The tightbeam had come from a point in space not far behind them; she directed the systems to send her reply in that direction, once she had recorded it.
“But staying put is exactly what they’ll be expecting us to do,” she continued. “It’s too obvious, too predictable. And it wastes an opportunity to do something useful. Instead of heading straight back to rescue Maii and Cane, we’d be better off looking for answers.”
“Where from?”
“Kukumat and Murukan.” She called up a map of the outer system. “Twice, now, we’ve received signals from near the double-jovian; Rufo can’t or won’t explain them, and that makes me suspicious. It’s also the only obvious hiding place in the system we haven’t investigated. None of the drones we sent there ever reported back.”
“You think there might be survivors?”
“I don’t know what to think. I’d rather keep my options open until we arrive. Which should be”—she scanned a navigation chart and performed rough mental calculations—”about fourteen hours, if we go by Hintubet along the way. And if we do, that’ll keep our transmission times to the Box at a minimum.”
Haid nodded. “It also increases the chances of the pursuit ships seeing us.”
“Marginally. They’ll be tracking the Ana Vereine, not looking for us. By the time the Box loses them, we’ll be gone.”
Disisto had followed the exchange in silence up to that point. “What signals?” he asked. “I was told there was no one near the old base.”
Roche turned to face him. “If that’s what Rufo told you, then that makes me even more interested in having a look myself.”
“I agree,” said Haid. “It worries me what we might be heading into, but yes: I’m also curious to know what Rufo is up to. If he’s lying to his own security staff, then something serious must be going on.”
Before Disisto could respond, Roche turned back to the communications systems and began to record a reply for the Box. She had already checked the maintenance systems of the courier and determined that the slow-jump drive was dead; that was why the clone warrior had ditched it: after attempting to leave the Gauntlet and failing, destroying the drive in the process, he had had no use for the courier. It had become a liability, in fact, due to its inevitable association with him. He had abandoned it and gone elsewhere. Now she was hoping to find him in it; the irony was not lost on her.
But it did confirm one thing: he was in the system with them. Anyone who said otherwise was either wrong or lying.
She keyed their new course into the navigation systems. As the courier’s thrusters began a long, steady burn, she settled back into the crash-couch and let g-forces erase the worry from her mind. For now, there was nothing else she could do.
PART THREE:
MOK
INTERLUDE
The enigma dissolved into the background, obscured by the intensity and close proximity of the light.
He strained desperately to follow her; the Cruel One’s servant would be annoyed if he let her slip away. But he had no choice. He could either see her or he couldn’t, and within moments she had completely disappeared. He let her go with a feeling of apprehension mixed with something not unlike relief. He had enough to do as it was.
Bathed in the light of the Shining One, he examined his options.
One: he could do everything the Cruel One asked of him, where possible.
Two: he could do only those things that he felt comfortable doing and feign ignorance or lack of understanding with the others—although the Cruel One’s servant had an uncanny knack of recognizing his deceptions, and previous attempts had led to torture, both physical and mental.
Three: he could do nothing at all and endure the consequences.
Following the enigma was, already, one request with which he could not comply. Studying the Shining One was something he was happy to do, if he was able to. But neutralizing the abomination... Wasn’t he already doing that just by being here? What more could be asked of him?
He wanted nothing to do with the awful child and her piercing, painful mind. His people would have killed her had they known she existed—or at the very least extracted a terrible price from the Surin Agora for allowing her to exist. That in part was what the grayboots were for: to prevent such things from coming into being, to stamp them out when they did, and to keep all knowledge of their existence secret lest others try to replicate past experiments.
But he didn’t have the means to kill her, and he knew from the Cruel One’s servant’s mind that she was safe here in that respect. Her frail body was considered a threat by no one. It was her powers alone he was supposed to quash, as if that were possible. He was being asked to stop a wasp from stinging without damaging the stinger or the wasp. And the fact that this particular wasp was not even a natural creature only made the task that much more preposterous.
He could already feel her stirring, despite an intensive regimen of epsense-inhibitors. Xarodine worked on most Castes—including those possessing epsense naturally, like his own—but its efficacy decreased with extended use. The initial doses given to the girl would have worn off hours ago and been topped up several times since; her powers would be returning soon. They could keep her unconscious—perhaps—but nothing would stop her from dreaming. And even asleep she could be dangerous. Should she erupt, he might not be able to contain her, let alone neutralize her. Those nearby or linked to her in other ways would be in peril.
He briefly imagined what would happen to the Cruel One’s servant under such circumstances, but he dismissed the fantasy. That was why the servant had servants of his own. They stood between harm and the hearth; they bore the brunt of any such perils.
He said:
: SAFE
: SLEEPING
And that would have to do. The girl was probably harmless for a few hours yet. Eventually he would have to decide what to do with her, but for now...
The Shining One.
Its glow, he now realized, was a defensive measure designed to fool anyone encountering it into believing it to be evidence of profound epsense ability. As a camouflage it worked well; few people would penetrate its structure or decipher the giddying motion at its core. It was complex and amazing enough; why imagine that there would be more?
But there was. Behind the façade lay a much more interesting possibility, the same one he had suspected before but could not explain to the Cruel One’s servant. Behind the shine and scatter lay a speck of unfathomable black. The speck haunted him; he could hardly drag his attention away from it. Part of him was afraid it would not be there when he looked—afraid the blaze would cover it again, this time forever. He and the Shining One had something
in common, it seemed.
What that was, though, he still lacked the words to explain. No one had the words. Only a natural reave would understand.
Epsense theorists—some of them reaves, most of them not—likened a world empty of thought to a flat plain, in the same way that physicists described empty space-time as a rubber sheet. This plain they called “n-space.” The addition of a thinking being—an “n-body”—added a small spike to the flat landscape. Reaves were spikes surrounded by small mounds that spread across the surface of the plain, joining the spikes together.
On first inspection, the Shining One was a peak so high, its foothills buried all the n-bodies around it.
Races of natural reaves, like the Olmahoi, warped the surface of the plain itself, creating valleys and peaks and, sometimes, holes. He was one such hole; without him at its heart, and others like him before, the Grand Design of his people would have unraveled millennia ago. He depressed n-space, disconnected n-bodies from each other even if there were reaves present, absorbed stray thoughts no matter where they came from. That was why he’d been kidnapped and brought here: to gather data for the Cruel One’s servant. All things eventually found their way into the Olmahoi irikeii.
A closer look at the Shining One revealed the hole in its core—a hole so deep he could not find its measure. If it had a bottom, he never touched it.
He could sense it, though. And what he sensed both disturbed and fascinated him.
Something old.
Something that should not exist.
Something that seemed, impossibly, to be studying him back.
Yet through the eyes of those examining the Shining One, he saw just another Pristine Human, one of many hundreds of trillions scattered across the galaxy. Why would anyone go to so much trouble to bring such a thing into being and hide it in so ordinary a vessel—not just once, but several times? What could possibly be served by such a deception?
He saw in the minds of those around him—through the all-pervading nimbus of the Shining One—that some thought it a weapon made to wreak vengeance on Pristine Humanity. A weapon that could hide among its intended victims, striking with surprise and efficiency. That made sense, even though the evidence was tenuous at best, and sometimes outright misleading. And in the mind of the Cruel One’s servant he found a nagging doubt that nagged at him in turn. Could it be so simple?
The Dying Light Page 19
