Slave Empire - The Crystal Ship

by Southwell, T C

  “Hold me,” she whispered, sensing his slight start at her strange request. He obeyed, and she revelled in the comfort of his arms around her. She sighed, and he chuckled.

  “Does this have anything to do with saving the Ship?”

  “Yes, of course it does. I need your strength and comfort. Such things are very important to a healer. Did you think it was some bloody stupid romantic idea?”

  He chuckled again. “No, I wouldn’t expect that from you.”

  “Good.”

  He released her when she pulled away, sitting back.

  She reached for his mask, hooking her fingers around its edge. “What about your promise?”

  “Not here, and not now.”

  She tugged at the mask, then turned to the shimmering walls. “Scrysalza, what have you done?”

  Wary of the ice-smooth floor, she crawled to the wall and laid her hands on it, caressing the flawless surface. Within it, the facets reflected light into a million colours, shining like a billion stars trapped in glass. She rested her cheek against its coldness and closed her eyes, yearning for the touch of the gentle alien mind.

  Tarke mourned the crystal beast. He had known grief in all its forms during his long life, for his family, his friends, himself, even strangers, and for dumb creatures that could not even protest their fate. Perhaps theirs was the most poignant, being wordless, and therefore so much acuter.

  As he gazed at Rayne in the light of the beauty around her, he knew that as soon as this was over he must put light years between them, and fast. He could not keep his promise. It was impossible, and it had served its purpose. She would never find him to rebuke him for lying to her, and he would never see her again. He hoped in time she would understand, and forgive him. His thoughts were jerked back to reality as he noticed that the wall around Rayne was alive with glowing sparkles, gathering to her like a swarm of multi-coloured fireflies. She smiled, her expression peaceful. A twinge of unease made him frown. A little too peaceful.

  Tarke gripped her arm and pulled her away. She was limp, and, after checking that she still breathed, he laid her on the floor and faced the wall, where the sparkles faded.

  Raising his fists, he pounded the crystal, shouting, “No! Live, Scrysalza! Damn you! If you die, so will we! She doesn’t see it, but I know! We’ll be trapped! She can’t command dead flesh!”

  The Ship’s mind brushed his, so faint that he hardly sensed its concern and sadness. Rayne was happy for it to leave, it whispered; she understood that it made no difference now. Scrysalza was so close to crossing into the peaceful zone that to come back was more painful than to carry on.

  He thumped the crystal. “Scrysalza! You know where we are. We’ll die too if you leave us here. You must live, so we can. We tried to save you from the parasite. Help us now.”

  The Ship’s distress touched him with a gossamer thought of sorrow for its friends, not wanting to cause harm to others. If he wanted its help, it could not deny him; he was its friend. The Ship’s sentience vanished, and he wondered if its sentiments were only regrets. He patted Rayne’s cheek until she brushed at his hand and frowned, opening her eyes.

  “How could you?” he demanded.

  “How could I what?”

  “The Ship! You let it go.”

  “Oh, yes.” She sighed. “It wanted to. It had almost crossed over into the peaceful zone. It seemed such a nice place. I almost wanted to go with it. It’s more dead than alive, so I told it to go. It seemed cruel to make it come back from so far.”

  “You bloody idiot! You might have got us killed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He gestured to the walls. “Do you see any tunnels leading out of here? Once it’s dead, you can’t get us out.”

  “Who needs tunnels? We can use the transfer Net.”

  “The transfer Net!” He laughed. “Brilliant!”

  She looked confused, clearly unsure of whether he was serious or being sarcastic. “What’s wrong with the transfer Net?”

  “Nothing, if it would work in here.”

  “Why won’t it?”

  “Who taught you about the transfer Net?”

  She shrugged. “I taught myself a little, from the Atlantean library.”

  “A little is right; just enough to make bad mistakes. Sometimes a little knowledge is more dangerous than none. What do you know about locator beams?”

  “They’re particle beams. They pass through anything, and they’re used to map unknown destinations.”

  “They pass through anything except facetted diamonds.” He indicated the walls again. “That’s not crystal; it’s solid diamond; compressed carbon, actually, and several metres thick. The vast majority of this ship is crystal, but this is the real thing. Particle beams are split and bent by facetted diamond. There’s no way this room can be mapped, and if a locator beam can’t find us, we can’t transfer out.”

  The horror of their predicament made Rayne’s stomach knot. Turning to the wall beside her, she placed her hands upon it and tried to send her mind into it. The stone prevented her from reaching the living flesh beyond, and after a few moments she realised that it was hopeless. A healer’s power could not penetrate inanimate matter as thick and dense as the diamond that sheathed the chamber.

  She looked at Tarke. “We’re trapped anyway, even while the Ship’s alive. I can’t reach the flesh through the stone. From the outside I could open the stone, but it doesn’t work this way.”

  “Then only the Ship can release us.”

  “I’ll try to call it back. Maybe it can still hear me.”

  “Don’t bother. I already told it about our problem; it just remains to be seen whether or not it cares enough about us to help us.” He leant closer. “And you damned near followed it into the peaceful zone, you bloody fool. If I hadn’t pulled you away, you’d be dead now.”

  “Did I? I thought I was dreaming. It seemed so tempting to leave all the tiredness and pain behind, like the Ship was doing.”

  “There’s nothing tempting about death, in my opinion. It’s only an escape when life’s unbearable, and I wouldn’t describe your life as that. You’ve got nothing to escape from but a few aches and pains.”

  She sighed. “I know. I just fell asleep, that’s all.”

  Tarke snorted and turned away. She remembered the sweet seduction of the soft arms of oblivion. Her tiredness had pushed her into them, for they were deeper than sleep and offered endless rest. Scrysalza had invited her to join it; the Ship had already spanned the gap between life and death, so large was its sentience that it was able to, dying in stages as it seeped away. That was why it took so long for a crystal ship to die. It had to release the masses of energy that formed its mind. It did this slowly, in streams, as gently as it did everything else.

  At the moment, its mind’s energy was still passing outwards through its flesh, and she hoped it was not too late for it to return. If it was, she and Tarke would probably die in here, unless a way could be found to release them. Men with high-tech tools might be able to burrow their way in eventually, but probably not before they died of thirst. She had allowed exhaustion to overwhelm her, fallen asleep while talking to the Ship, and almost drifted away with it. It had not been a conscious choice, just a moment of weakness, and now Tarke thought she was an idiot.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  Tarke let his head fall back against the wall with a dull thud. She wondered what he was thinking, wishing, for the umpteenth time, that she could see his face. His expressions would at least give her some insight into his emotions, since he did not reveal much with his words or actions. He might have been concerned for her, but then again, he might only have been thinking of his survival. Perhaps she could find out more while they waited.

  “It’s nice to know you’re concerned about me.”

  He turned his head towards her. “Am I? You would have slipped away into peaceful oblivion. I would have died of thirst in here.”

  She gritted
her teeth to stem the hot words that leapt onto her tongue. “We still might.”

  “True.”

  “When will you keep your promise?”

  “When I decide to.”

  “What, in about five hundred years’ time?” she demanded.

  “Maybe.”

  “That’s not good enough. You said when the Envoy was dead, and he is.”

  “And he’ll still be, in five hundred years’ time.”

  She leant closer. “If I can figure out how to get it off, will you let me?”

  “No. Why don’t you go to sleep? I thought you were tired.”

  Rayne sighed, her eyelids drooping at the mention of sleep. Her exhaustion was so profound that even their dire situation could not keep her alert. Her mind was raw, her psychic energy utterly depleted, and her head seemed to be stuffed with cotton wool. She fought the lethargy, gazing at him with deep disappointment, then yawned. Turning away, she curled up next to the wall and pillowed her cheek on her arms. Almost as soon as her eyes closed, she was swept into sleep’s gentle embrace.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tarke studied the seamless diamond walls with growing despondency. He had walked around the chamber twice, searching for a flaw, but had found none. Not that he had really expected to; it had been a vague hope, nothing more. He could not blame the girl for their predicament; he had urged her to tunnel into this room, and they would not have been able to enter it any other way, as it turned out. They might have been able to contact Scrysalza’s fading sentience from the outside, however, which would have been a lot safer.

  For two hours now, nothing had changed. The blood beasts still sent a vague pink glow into the chamber, making him hope the Ship still clung to life, if only to release them from this prison. Then again, if it had been able to, surely it would have done so by now. Perhaps it needed to gather power, and was occupied with this. He sighed and scratched the mask’s hood, the dried fluid making his scalp itch. If he got out of this, he was going to have a long hot bath back on Scimarin.

  A soft swish made him swing around as something fell from the roof and landed in the centre of the chamber. He went over to see what it was. A length of blue ganglion lay on the floor, its severed end bubbling as if it had been seared through with a laser. He looked up at where it must have hung from the roof, intruding into Scrysalza’s brain like a cancerous growth, controlling it with pain. Why had it dropped off now? Was the Envoy’s flesh rotting so quickly?

  A whisper of telepathic joy touched his mind. The walls were coming alive with light, filling with bright sparkles at an incredible speed, becoming a mass of shimmering, multi-coloured brilliance. The Ship had returned, and its energy flooded back into the chamber. Already he could sense the static charge rising in the air. Streams of sparkling energy swirled around the room, the beginnings of the vast, powerful mind that would soon fill it. His disquiet grew as the implications became horrible conclusions.

  “Oh, shit.”

  Tarke ran to the sleeping girl, slipping on the glassy floor. Skidding to a stop, he fell to his knees and shook her. She opened her eyes with a groan, then gasped and sat up, looking around in confusion. Realisation dawned on her sleep-fogged mind, and she grinned.

  “It’s alive!”

  “Yes, and it’s going to kill us if it doesn’t let us out.”

  “Oh.” Her smile faded, and her eyes glazed as she communed with the Ship.

  Already the light around them was difficult to look at, its hard brilliance stabbing Tarke’s eyes. His hair rose under the hood, itching like crazy. Static discharges snapped and crackled from the roof as the air filled with more and more power.

  Rayne called to the Ship, finding it preoccupied. It had returned from the brink of oblivion, at great cost to itself, and some pain, but now that it was back, it rejoiced. It revelled in its newfound freedom, and its power surged back into it, reviving it. Its link with the first dimension fed it vast amounts of energy, replacing that which it had lost in the third dimension, and the rest, which it had shed prior to its near death.

  Scrysalza filled itself again, and enjoyed the resurgence. Gone was its apathy and resignation; now it was glad to be alive. She tried to get it to stay still long enough to explain their predicament, but it gambolled around her mind like a frolicsome foal testing unsteady legs. For several minutes she despaired of getting through to it, then her insistence made it pause long enough for her to ask it to release them.

  Scrysalza was surprised and amused, assuring her that they were in no danger. It would be hours before the energy levels within its brain became dangerous. Also, it had not forgotten its friends; after all, that was why it had returned. It needed to gather a little more power before it could move them, it explained, and she slumped with relief.

  Rayne became aware of the sparkling maelstrom in which she now stood. A blizzard of glittering motes of fire whirled around them, and she had never seen anything so beautiful. Static discharges illuminated the storm with sporadic flashes of blue or green, and the light from the diamond walls was almost blinding.

  “It’s going to move us soon,” she said, sensing the storm twitch at her words.

  Tarke nodded, and then light enveloped her, forcing her to shut her eyes. The hot brilliance faded, and she staggered a little in a far weaker gravity. Shaking her head to clear the dancing spots from her eyes, she squinted and peered around. Tarke appeared less affected than her, and she guessed that the mask’s tinted visor filtered out the more dangerous light. She sat on the ground and rubbed her eyes.

  They were in the bizarre fantasy land of one of Scrysalza’s air chambers. The scenery was the sort of thing a child might dream up, with frothy green moss and weird growths sprouting from a landscape that travelled up the walls. Mist hid the distances, and warm winds blew from nearby tunnels, carrying musty scents of damp and rot. Vapour settled on Tarke, dewing his clothes with tiny pearls of water. Rayne stood up and pulled off the shirt he had given her.

  He held out his hand for the garment. “Where are we now?”

  “In one of its breathing chambers.” She held the shirt behind her back. “You look better in what you’re wearing.”

  Tarke glanced down at his form-hugging tunic, which revealed every well-defined contour of his torso. “This is underwear.”

  Rayne giggled at his indignant tone, her mood buoyant, her worries vanished with the danger. The last of her aches and pains had healed in her sleep, which had also lessened her fatigue, and the Ship’s miraculous recovery lifted her spirits. A nagging emptiness still plagued her, but she was becoming used to it, and the touch of the Ship’s mind had infected her with its child-like delight. Most of all, she was aware that her time with the Shrike was running out, and soon they would go their separate ways. In a desperate bid to forget that, she dared to flirt with him.

  “You’re a prude,” she said. “Don’t you want to wash off this dried gunk? There’s a lake further up this chamber, full of clean water.”

  “I prefer the privacy of my ship, and hot water.”

  “You’ve got a thing about privacy, don’t you? Scrysalza is still gathering its power. I doubt it’s going to send us back to our ships until it has. In the meantime, we might as well enjoy this place. There may be no food, but we can drink the water, and I can heal your wounds.” She motioned to the dried blood on his trousers.

  “I’m okay, and I’m sure the Ship will send us back if we ask it to.”

  “I’m in no hurry. Are you going to ask it?”

  “If I must,” he said.

  “Then I’ll ask it not to. I was its friend before you. Who do you think it’s going to listen to?”

  “You’re being silly.”

  “And you’re being a grump.” She walked away, gaily waving his shirt.

  Tarke followed her after a moment. Two flashes of light nearby made her jump, and she turned to find his sword and the fighting blade lying on the moss. Scrysalza was cleaning house, it seemed, and she did not
doubt that its clean-up crews were even now dissecting the Envoy’s remains while its soldiers dispatched the females. Tarke picked up the weapons, sheathed his sword and hung the fighting blade over his shoulder by its straps.

  Rayne sat beside a clear, sparkling lake and scooped up handfuls to slake her thirst. He squatted nearby and did the same, studying the weird scenery. In the distance, a strange, crab-like creature trundled along the wall, a bunch of something brown in its claws.

  She said, “I’m going to have a bath. Care to join me?”

  “No. I’ll just have my shirt back.”

  She flung the garment into the lake. “Fetch!” The shirt sank, and he jumped up when she started to undo her suit. She giggled at his reaction. “Are you going to watch?”

  “No.” Tarke spun on his heel and walked away.

  Rayne watched him leave with regret and puzzlement, longing to run after him. She wanted a bath quite desperately, however, her hair stiff with dried slime, her skin and clothes coated in it. Although it had no smell, it itched. She stripped and waded into the tepid water, diving under to soak her hair. The lake was quite shallow, and she scrubbed her clothes as well, emerging refreshed.

  Tarke sat with his back to a column of pink crystal topped with a bright yellow flower-like cup.

  She flopped down next to him and held out his wet shirt. “I washed it.”

  He took it and pulled it on. “Thank you.”

  “You’re not normal, are you?”

  “What’s normal?”

  “You know...”

  His head turned towards her briefly. “You mean I don’t react to your flirting. No. But then, I’m not human. If you knew more about my people, you wouldn’t act like that.”

  “You mean they were all prudes?”

  “Yes; absolutely.”

  “Did I offend you?”

  He shook his head. “I just wouldn’t advise you to act like that around human or Atlantean men.”

  She plucked a handful of moss and dissected it. “You said I could stay with you if I had a good enough reason. What would you call a good enough reason?”