‘We are different men,’ said Trahern.
‘Yes, you have different histories. That’s true. You have been more violent. You came through the Games, earned a place in the Guard - not without incident - and fought on the Rim and in the Passages. You rose to lead the Greys, a cadre known for its fierceness in battle and intense loyalty, traits you seemed to share.’ She slowed for effect. ‘You have killed more men and destroyed more Ships than anyone else now on Base. One would have to search records back to the days of the Mad Command to find a person as destructive.’ She paused to fix his eyes with her most intent stare. ‘Yet someone that cared for you and that you may have cared for was murdered brutally just days ago … and what have you done? No offer of help to those that investigate, no investigation of your own, no threats, no tears … no interest.’ She lifted all but the barest touch from the vest control. ‘No. I am wrong,’ she corrected. ‘You did do something. Today you nearly killed another woman. Why is that?’
His head turned away then slowly came back. His eyes looked dead, opaque, adamantine.
‘You have nothing to say,’ she continued. ‘Perhaps I can help you find an answer. There is a connection between the Box and Briodi’s death. The murder weapon is made of Box steel. The pattern of wounds on her body follow the figure of the six-rayed star, the Empty Cross of the Ardent, one of the fanatical disciplines that the Box tests for … and culls. She was killed by someone who was imprinted yet survived.’ She gave him time to think. Her next words fell into the silence like droplets of molten steel. She could hear them hiss in his heart. ‘It could be you Trahern. You might not even know yourself.’
Nothing. He sat as still as the stone that shown in his eyes. He turned from her to stare straight ahead. ‘No.’
He is sure, thought Celene. How could he be sure? I would not be, in his place. Her thoughts raced. Why does he believe he was immune to the madness of the Box? What could inure him so? She leaned back from the table. This is not working. Confrontation will not open him up. Think. Briodi. How would she have done this?
‘Please tell me what happened to you after the battle with the Ships.’ If her change in tone surprised him, he didn’t show it. They both knew the subject hadn’t changed.
‘I drifted, was picked up and returned.’
She resisted her urge to challenge him again. This is where he must elaborate. ‘Alone, in the deep. How could you face that after the loss of your cadre?’
Nothing. He did not answer. I am not Briodi, thought Celene. I do not have her care. That is what he responded to. He knows my cares are for the Guard, not him. Or does he? Does he suspect us all of plots and schemes? That is what he returned to.
‘There are too many unknowns hanging over you Trahern. Not all of us will accept unconditionally.’ She tipped her head to indicate Gati. ‘The Guard functions on trust. You do not have a place here without it.’ He must see this as fact, not as a threat. She locked the panel on her vest control and removed her hand. She placed both hands on the table and leaned forward. ‘Tell me what happened to you. After the Greys’ last battle.’
His words came slowly, nevertheless her mind had to race to encompass all he said. Memories locked away for nine years. Almost as new to him as they are to me, she thought. Alone in an emergency module; the marines, his cadremen, all dead. The last of the Greys. He had fused the engine to blast at the Ships. But the Ships did not accept his challenge. They pulled back, allowed him to pass through. Something that they had never done before. An honour, she suspected, not just for Trahern but for all of his Group. Yet it denied him a death with his comrades. The pain of that was fresh in his eyes.
The module had bulleted on, no manoeuvrability left without the engine. The trajectory took him back through the battle wreckage, along the dead zone and out into the empty reaches. The Passages were far to the side by the time he thought of living.
Transport modules were designed for a crew of five, with rations and gases compressed by plasma fields to support up to a year in space. The suits inside had their own supplies. Materials for a single man to survive for six years, maybe more with careful rationing, calculated Celene. But Trahern cut that short; venting oxygen in controlled bursts to modify the trajectory, to create an arc, eventually having to suit up when the module supplies were exhausted. Finally, he had abandoned the module, kicking off in a suit to take on a new path. How long he was in the suit, he didn’t say. He dragged the other suits with him, exchanging components when necessary. A suit rigged for deep space could last for more than three months. She suspected he might have gone close to two years in the suit. She had been in a suit for seven days in training. She doubted she could have faced another hour. How could he have done this? With the time in the module, four years, maybe more, drifting through the emptiness. The mechanics have been accounted for but not the man, thought Celene.
His slow words came to a halt. Before it was drift, pick up, return, she noted. Now he has stopped. This is where the problem lies. He is waiting for me to do my work. He is trusting me. It is what happened next that is significant. Take care now, she warned herself. Go back. Keep him talking.
‘When you arced the module, what was your aim then?’ she asked.
‘I was trying for the end of the Arm. I knew I had lost the Passages, the furthest out would have passed before the module could come around.’ His voice became steady. ‘All it left was the end of the Arm. Past that, nothing.’ He didn’t explain that he could not backtrack, not with the impetus he had. He knew she knew enough about space to know that.
We are talking mechanics again, that is why he continues, but at least he is going with me, thought Celene. Work with it. ‘But you left the module. The arc was not enough?’ she asked.
‘No, too much speed early on. Even if I had used all the air from the suits, I wouldn’t have been able to correct it. In a suit, I could shave a few more degrees, most from a kick off just like in training.’ A weak smile crossed his face. ‘It could work. Over the distance.’
‘The time though. So long in a suit. Did you know you could handle it?’ asked Celene.
He was slower to answer this time. ‘No, but it was the only chance.’
Chance not choice, she noted. Already his will had formed. He could have stayed in the module and sailed on to infinity, hoping for some miraculous rescue - most people would have. Or he could have simply dialled up the CO2 and gone to sleep, permanently. But he chose to live, depending on no one. Straight from the Games that. How to ease further into his mind?
‘In the suit, what did you feel?’ His hands clenched and his head went down. Back off. ‘When I did my seven days,’ she added quickly, ‘it was the hum of the converters and the contact of the inner suit with my skin that grew to discomfort me most. And the inability to touch my body. Regardless of how hard I pressed on the suit, it brought no feeling.’ She lost herself to her memories for a moment.
‘Putting your senses on the outside would allay those discomforts,’ she continued brusquely. ‘We will add that technique to training. Of course, not all personnel will be able to do it, but for some it will be a blessing.’ She laid a kinder glance on his bowed head. Maybe we expect too much of him. He has contributed greatly to the Guard already. Maybe this is his end. ‘Strange how the harshest circumstances can lead to improvements in the Guard. I believe the Rim has had similar effects upon the marines. Perhaps that is why it has been tolerated for so long.’ She was talking around her concern, looking for another approach.
‘As to the remainder of your advice, to stay connected to the universe, that must also be investigated. To sense the components of our world the way sensors do, must be astonishing. No wonder the scout stays connected. What would he be feeling now? Can you tell me?’
Again his answer was slow in coming but she was not alarmed. This time it was due to consideration.
‘Gravity and light, they are the strongest. He would have had to adapt, dampen them so he could feel other things,
otherwise he would be overwhelmed.’
He is talking from experience. We both know it. Maybe this will let us in.
‘When we hooked him up, we set the sensors’ feedback as low as we could,’ said the Grey. Trahern lifted his head and caught her eyes. ‘He has changed the settings. He is most comfortable out among the satellites and that is where he has focused, where he can feel the solar winds and the tugging of the fields.’
Another charge neglected, Celene admonished herself. Briodi would have followed up on his care; in her absence I have forgotten him. But the Grey remembered.
‘The winds and the fields. You felt them out in the dark reaches?’ As she asked it she had her answer. What else had he felt with his senses strained to the utmost, to detect the barest hint of light or the pull of a far distant current? What filled the rest of his existence?
Nothing, the immensity of the void, the great emptiness.
Not only alien to life but to all existence. How could a human cope with that?
His reaction to Briodi’s death was the key. He ignored it, shut it out completely. A discipline of will, learned in the Games, perfected in the deep, practiced even now. Her thoughts were quick. I can break him with that. Force him to react. No, his will is too strong. The more I press the stronger it will resist. He has to choose to do it. And he cannot face the void for it will destroy him.
Her sudden understanding and the sense of pity and futility that came with it ran down the channel of their locked gaze. The Grey’s eyes sparked to life in response, a terrifying mix of resolve and despair. Oh no! What have I done? thought Celene. No human mind could stand up to that great emptiness, experienced with perceptions so attuned. Those memories are there and they will overwhelm him if he opens himself to them. His mind will be taken away from us. Fear coursed through her. He is doing it now! She panicked. Stop! She shot her hand to her vest. Gati launched himself at her from the side. Her fingers touched the panel. The blue flash of the stun lit Gati’s hand coming for her throat. Everything slowed in the odd light.
Gati’s impetus will be enough, she thought sadly. You have won this contest, true friend. Please believe that I was trying to help, not harm.
As the stun drove the last faculty from her mind, she thought of Spence and he was there, in front of her.
CHAPTER 27: THE QUIET ONE’S COLORS
The lone figure hurried over the grey plain. There was much to be done this night yet the sense of urgency did not disrupt his calm and ordered mind. He did not suffer the compulsions as strongly as the others. He was not sure if this was because of something innate in him, or simply a factor of his distance from the Box. It did not matter. Fate had decreed it. And fate had blown on the coal of his soul today, not to flare it into the incandescence of the others, but to the dull red glow of purpose.
Purpose is what he had lacked before his conversion. So much so that it had sapped his being, bleed him daily until he became a hollow thing. All preparation, he knew now, so that he could be filled anew.
The last bubble of doubt had been forced out earlier this very day. The Specialist had presented herself to him, alone, to be taken to the Box in search of Donen. An incredible opportunity. There she could be exposed to the patterns and converted. If she did not prove to be suitable, she would be killed. That had been his plan for the young psych, Briodi, but the woman had run, awakening the bloodlust of his cohorts. He had not been present to control them. Her fear and her sex had spurred them on. Her final attempt to reason merely allowed the compulsions of their ritual to take over.
He knew that the death of the young psych would only provide respite for a few days. Nata’s investigation had already led to the Box, and the Specialist would crack Donen in minutes once she found him. He must buy more time, preserve his mad cohorts until the critical conversions were complete. The plan he had offered Colda was their only safe route. The Specialist would have anchored that action, alive or dead, a sacrifice or an offering, for the cause of the Ardent. But that opportunity had vanished with Nata’s request and her departure. So close.
There came his doubt. That events could be going against them. Not long after, though, he had been shown the foolishness of this fear in overwhelming fashion. He had taken his report to the PlanCon Commander at the beginning of the evening meal period as usual. It was Colda’s custom to delay his arrival in the Great Hall until all of his people were seated. It made for a grand entrance. It also provided an opportune time for Visco to make contact. In a private anteroom off the vestibule, he could pass on summaries from Command, updates and reports of actions carried out that day. It was also informal, in the sense that Colda’s advisors were not always present. This last was most important. Visco did not want to alert the tall aide to his schemes. That one could have the depth of knowledge necessary to recognise their cause.
This evening he had Colda to himself and the report had been lengthy. The murder weapon had been traced to the Box. Nata and the Inner Belt Scholar were vetting records in the Box eval room, looking for oddities and extremes. The Scholar had suffered a seizure of some sort but was now recovered. Something that they had uncovered had driven the Head Psych to confront the Grey in the Number 7 Mess, a confrontation that had ended in a full stun. All principals to this event were now in Med, the resolution unknown. On a greater scale, word had just come in from the Rim that the marine contingent had been attacked soon after their arrival, suffering great casualties and a near rout.
Any news of discomfiture to the Grey always pleased Colda but this evening he was especially content. In his good humour he leaned close and whispered, ‘They will not find me there.’
Visco could not keep the astonishment from his face when he realised Colda meant the Box, but his reaction only served to delight and incite the man further.
‘My abilities were not to be known so a substitution was made.’ Colda laughed low in his throat. ‘The commander of the Blues, who is so highly thought of by some, kindly took my place.’ His glee rose. ‘So now he is doubly exposed while I remain a mystery.’
So pleased was Colda that he had Visco accompany him to dinner and sit at his right hand.
The Great Hall seemed a fitting location to consider the implications of all Visco had learned. Fate had sent the Houses to Base to start their conquest of the stars, the one place in the heavens where an ember of the Heartless Cross laid waiting. Here, their petty schemes had all but handed their leaders over to the true cause.
Coltrane had officially entered the Box once. Colda’s boasts put him there a second time and hinted others of the Blues would be the same. Three times and they will be ours. Coltrane may be the leader we wait for, thought Visco. If he had not been constrained by the necessity of gaining Colda a moderate result, he may have assayed the whole of the Box. In any case, we will safely show him what he missed. Remove Colda and the leadership of the House faction falls to Coltrane. And when he commands Base, he can order the conversion of all. The Guard would form a dedicated core within the legions unleashed by the Houses. In the end, the universe would belong to the Ardent.
Those thoughts conceived in the Great Hall were no less grand here on the plain in the shadow of the Box. On the potential for leadership I must be obscure, he warned himself. I must insure the co-operation of my cohorts, for a while longer at least. Conversion would not be impossible without them but it would be difficult. Tonight’s revelations will assist me. He was not ashamed to use that part of their ceremony to give them purpose. Fate had kept his head clear for just such use. The others will be wearing their blooded rags and steel, thought Visco. He would keep them so attired, Donen into his care for ‘hiding’ and the rest to protect the Box. Donen would be sent away from the ceremony first. Once gone, his role in the night’s events would be revealed. Donen would be sacrificed on the roof of the wall to end the investigations. Several of the others were too paranoid to accept this kind of news after the fact. He had to tell them ahead or his own life would be in danger. Als
o, he needed to take some proof. The notebook would suffice. The young woman’s blood would be on Donen’s rags and likely detectable on the blade of his false arm. Caught in the act, with his latest victim’s blood splashed over the other, the weight of evidence would be great enough to shut even the most inquiring minds. Killed in the act, Visco corrected.
To keep the others busy he had invented a threat out here on the plain. They would require action of some sort and it was the only way to keep them out of the real bloodletting. A small group of Amazons planned to search the Box, organised by the head psych, he would tell them. He would stop the action if he could officially but if unsuccessful they were to eliminate them, quietly if possible, with blades. Screams would not reach the walls but weapon fire might. The remains to be blasted in an accidental explosion when all was done. The plan would appeal to them. They would skulk around the Box all night hoping for some blood. If things went bad on the wall they would also provide a contingency. He would sacrifice them all to the cause if need be.
He reached the entrance to their vault. The faint odour of wax reached his nostrils. The tang of old blood, a charnel smell, was there also. A sense of well being and commitment rose in him. The cause would be well served this night and he would be rewarded. He patted the blade hidden in his belt. Donen must finish her but the first cut on the Specialist would be his.
CHAPTER 28: QUIET NIGHT AT MED
Aesca walked her quiet corridors. She longed for Michael’s company but he was on duty also, readying the marines. She hoped he would get free soon. He knew where to find her.
The quiet was a welcome change from the noise and activity of the day. A hard day, full of consultations with marine medics from the Rim on returning casualties and the preparations that flowed from those communications. Then, in the early afternoon, marines and Amazons had flooded into her ward. Her own people had not been able to halt the inrush and were carried along like flotsam on the wave. Her first thoughts had been of an explosion or crash when she saw bodies held aloft.
The Return of the Grey Page 20
