by Ann Maxwell
Ilfn did not add that she thought it was foolish to the point of insanity that Kirtn and Rheba were on the planet alone. Nor did she need to. Her last sentences had been in Bre’n, a language that conducted emotions as inevitably as copper conducted electricity. She also did not need to say that she understood the jealousy that had goaded Kirtn into being so foolish. That, too, was conducted by her whistle.
“How is the ship handling the downside power conversions?” he asked.
“No problems yet. The spaceport must be better equipped than it looks.”
“How long before we have the power to travel and take care of our passengers?”
“Several hours.”
“Hours! I thought you said the spaceport is better equipped than it looks.”
“It looks,” whistled Ilfn crisply, “as if they’re still banging rocks together to get fire.”
Kirtn glanced around at the time-rounded, lumpy stone buildings and silently agreed. “Let me know as soon as we’re thirty minutes from full power.”
“Of course. And Kirtn?”
“Yes?”
“Your dancer is older than you think.”
Kirtn’s answer was harsh and off-key, loud enough to carry to Rheba. She looked away from Daemen to the intimidating lines of an angry Bre’n face. “Is something wrong on the ship?” she asked quickly.
“Nothing the J/taals can’t handle.”
“Is that why you made them stay on board?”
Kirtn had left the J/taals behind as a precaution. On a strange planet, it was smart to keep a force in reserve. But he was not going to say that to Rheba. She was so taken by Daemen’s charm that she would not believe his people might pose a danger to her. “Someone had to protect Ilfn and Lheket,” he said neutrally.
Rheba made a noncommittal sound. Ilfn needed about as much protection as a steel fern. She was Bre’n, and Bre’ns were strong. Lheket, however, was a child. Like Daemen. She looked covertly at The Luck walking alongside her. Not precisely a child, but certainly not a man, either. Somewhere between Lheket and Kirtn, neither child nor yet man. Like Lheket, Daemen still needed protection. She wondered why Kirtn could not see that, why he was not drawn to Daemen’s vulnerability as she was.
Seur Tric stopped to confer with the four men who had come with them from the spaceport. For the first time, Kirtn realized that one, perhaps two men had been left behind. He swore silently at his carelessness. He had been so absorbed in jealousy that he had not noticed there were two less of the skeletal Seurs escorting them. He took a grim satisfaction in the knowledge that M/dere and her mercenaries would not be similarly blind.
“What happened to the rest of the group?” Kirtn asked Daemen.
The young man glanced around. “Is someone missing?”
“One man. Maybe more.” Kirtn looked over his shoulder, but the corner of a building cut off his view of the spaceport. “Do you always leave guards on off-planet ships?”
“Guards?” Daemen laughed. “What could you guard with a plastic knife? If anyone dropped back, it was probably sheer fascination. Show a Seur a machine that works and you’ll never get him away from it! I’m surprised Tric didn’t demand a tour of every cupboard and relay on the Devalon.”
Daemen’s explanation failed to reassure Kirtn. The last person who had been that fascinated by the Devalon was Trader Jal. That fascination had cost Rheba and Kirtn their freedom and Jal his life.
Kirtn murmured instructions into the transceiver. Behind him, out of sight, the Devalon closed into a seamless whole, impervious to any method of attack short of nuclear annihilation. The only connection the ship retained with downside was through his transceiver—and the downside power draw. He would not shut that off until an actual attack was mounted.
Then he told himself he was being foolish. The planet had no technology on it superior to the Devalon’s armaments. The people he had seen on the streets were lethargic, obviously on the edge of starvation. He doubted if they had one good fight left in them. And even if they did, what could plastic knives do against lightguns?
Yet he could not help glancing back over his shoulder, unable to shake the feeling that he had overlooked something.
X
The Central Installation, called Centrins by the natives, was huge. It was created from a single multihued material that seemed to sway gracefully, like flowers blooming beneath a clear river. Neither cracks nor stains marred the flowing walls and arched ceilings where colors called to each other in voices undimmed by time.
And much time had passed, more time than any man should have to sense, much less to live among its colored shadows. Kirtn felt time like an indefinable weight on his shoulders, a thickness in the very air he breathed.
Rheba leaned against his arm, reflexively seeking the comfort he could give her. She, too, sensed time like an immense entity brooding over Centrins. She drew Kirtn’s presence around her, warming herself against the distant intimations of eternity pouring by, a chilling concept to entities for whom a handful of centuries spelled the whole of life.
Yet Centrins itself looked just born, sleek with newness. It glowed warmly, inviting human presence.
Even on closer inspection, the compound preserved its pristine appearance. The ground around Centrins might look old, the stone walls thrown up by later, more barbaric men might be worn to sand, but Centrins itself was untouched.
“Stasis?” asked Rheba, using Senyas because she could not bear to describe Centrins with emotional Bre’n.
“Did you feel any energy shift when we entered the compound?”
“No.”
“Then it’s not stasis,” said Kirtn flatly. “Even the Zaarain Cycle was stuck with the same physical laws we are. Where energy exists, perfect stasis doesn’t.”
“Zaarain?” asked Rheba. Then, “Of course. It has to be. No other Cycle had the ability to preserve its artifacts so well.”
“Too bad they weren’t as good with cultures.”
“People aren’t as amenable as matter/energy equations.”
He wondered if she was alluding to him. He stroked her arm and was rewarded with a smile that made him ache.
“At least this is as beautiful as I remembered it,” said Daemen, drawing Rheba away from Kirtn. The young man pointed to a museum that opened off the great hall they had entered. “That was where I first learned to recognize the Cycles by their artifacts. Seur Tric”—he smiled at his uncle—“was my best teacher.”
Seur Tric’s smile was small and fleeting, showing cracked teeth of several colors. He hurried on down the hall despite Daemen’s obvious desire to poke through the Seur museum.
Kirtn lingered, staring at the cases and pedestals holding objects that cried out to be seen and understood. Rheba, too, looked into the room, curious about Cycles she had heard of only in myths. Then she turned abruptly and hurried after Tric. Kirtn did not need to touch her to know what she was thinking: Deva had no museums, no monuments, no students eager for her past.
With one last, long look around the room where time was labeled and enclosed, Kirtn followed the retreating figures of Daemen, Rheba and Tric. No one else was around. The men who had followed them from the spaceport had vanished soundlessly into Centrins’ multicolored recesses. He looked again, then murmured into the transceiver.
“Any problems there?” he asked.
“None. The outputs showed a flux in energy a few minutes ago.” Ilfn’s voice was disembodied yet very clear. “We stopped drawing power through the downside connectors. Then we started up again. Must have been a surge in the downside power core, or whatever this primitive place uses for energy.”
Malaise prickled like heat over Kirtn’s body. “You’re sure we’re still drawing power?”
“Yes. Five hours to optimum capacity.”
“Five? I thought—”
“So did I. But the ship cut back on its downside draw after the surge. Shall I override?”
“No. Not yet. The Devalon knows its needs better
than I do. Anything else?”
“Lheket wants Rheba back,” Ilfn said dryly. “He’s in love with her electric hair.”
Kirtn laughed shortly. Lheket was blind and a child, but apparently not impervious to Rheba’s charm. It was just as well. Lheket would be the father of her children as soon as he was old enough.
That, at least, was one liaison the Bre’n would support. Just as Rheba called Ilfn sister because she carried Kirtn’s unborn children, he would call Lheket brother when Rheba was pregnant with a new race of Senyas. It was the way Bre’n and Senyas had survived in the past. It would be the way they survived in the future.
If they had a future . . . two Bre’ns, two Senyasi. So few. But there must be more who had survived Deva’s death. There must be others scattered through the galaxy, seeking more of their own kind just as Rheba and Kirtn were. They had tracked the rumor of Lheket to the slave planet Loo. And then they had freed Lheket and his Bre’n. Where two had been found, there might be others. Not on Loo, but somewhere.
“Kirtn?”
Rheba’s call startled Kirtn out of his thoughts.
“Anything wrong?” she whistled, the sound like pure color floating through the ancient hall.
“I was just thinking about the . . . others.” He did not need to elaborate. His whistle carried enough sorrow and speculation for a long Senyas speech.
She left Daemen and ran back down the hall to her Bre’n. “We’ll find them,” she said fiercely. “First we’ll take the slaves to their homes and then we’ll be free to look again. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even find some of our people on the way.”
He rubbed his fingers through her crackling hair. “Maybe we will, little dancer. Maybe we will. But not here,” he added sourly. “This place isn’t exactly the crossroads of the universe.”
“Rheba?” Daemen’s concerned voice preceded him up the hall. “What’s wrong?”
Tersely, she explained her planet’s death and their quest for others of their own kind.
“I didn’t know,” said Daemen softly. “You must have thought it terrible when I complained of being the only survivor of my family. You’ve lost an entire world.”
“I didn’t lose everyone,” she said, rubbing her palm over Kirtn’s arm.
Daemen and Kirtn exchanged a long look, but Rheba did not notice.
A peculiar tenor bell rang throughout Centrins. From the end of the hall, Seur Tric called in rapid Daemenite.
“We’re coming,” answered Daemen. “Uncle’s worried,” he said, turning back to Rheba. “That’s the dinner bell. The dining room serves food only to occupied chairs. If we’re not there, we don’t eat until the next time the room feels like making a meal.”
She blinked, not sure she had heard correctly. When she looked at Kirtn, he shrugged. Neither one of them understood, but Tric’s impatience was apparent. They hurried down the hall to catch up with him. As they did, a tenor bell again rang sweetly through the building.
“Uh oh,” said Daemen, breaking into a run. “If we don’t hurry, I’ll miss my first home meal in years.”
The four of them raced down the hall, skidding at a final sharp turn. The location of the dining room was obvious. Seurs and their families were jammed into a wide doorway, struggling for passage. No one noticed the strangers, because everyone wore costumes of wildly varying cut and color. The people were as varied as their costumes. Combinations of skin, fur, height and color were not repeated. The only thing Daemenites seemed to have in common was an almost skeletal thinness.
Once in the room, everyone raced for a seat. If there was order or precedence, it was not apparent. Hunger was, however.
“Make sure your chair is lit,” yelled Daemen over the hubbub. “'The dark ones don’t work.”
Kirtn made a sound of disgust. He had seen cherfs use better manners at the trough. “Up!” he said to Rheba. He swung her into his arms, above the worst of the jostling. When his sheer strength was not enough to clear a path, her discreet jolts of electricity were.
The tenor bell sang again. Whatever dignity might have remained was trampled in a rush for seating. Kirtn slid Rheba into a chair, sat next to her, and watched the final scramble with blank astonishment. A disheveled Seur Tric popped out of the crowd and threw himself into a chair across from Kirtn.
Daemen was right behind, laughing with delight. He was the only Daemenite who seemed amused by the frantic race to food. But then, he was the only Daemenite who had flesh on his bones.
“That’s what I hated most about Loo,” said Daemen as he vaulted into a chair next to Rheba. “The meals were so boring. On Daemen, we know how to get the juices flowing before we sit down to eat.”
The tenor bell sang a fourth time. All empty chairs went dark. There were groans and curses from people who had not found a chair. Some threw themselves at chairs even though they knew their reflexes were not capable of outrunning the machine’s sensors. A rude, fruity sound issued from the chairs that had been occupied too late.
“What was that?” said Rheba, peering around.
“The cook,” said Daemen.
“The cook?” she repeated.
“It’s laughing at the people who missed dinner.”
“It? Is the cook a machine?”
“Of course.” He smiled and touched her chin with the tip of his finger. “Didn’t you have cooks on Deva?”
“Machines don’t laugh at people,” she said impatiently.
“Maybe they didn’t on Deva. They do here.” He ran his hands over the seamless tabletop. “What’s for dinner, uncle?”
Seur Tric looked unhappy. “I don’t know. We may not even get any food.”
“Oh no!” groaned Daemen. “Don’t tell me the cook is eccentric too?”
“Sometimes,” conceded Tric grimly. “Last week, it called us to table twice. All it did was—”
Brrraaaacck! The sound came from Tric’s chair.
With a pained look, Tric shut up.
Kirtn whistled softly. “Can you sense any energy, dancer?”
Rheba’s hair stirred and slid strand over strand with a silky whisper. Her eyes changed, currents of gold turning in amber depths. Her answering whistle was vague, almost dreamy. “Yes. Everywhere. The whole room, the building, all of Centrins. Currents flowing . . . but not smoothly, not everywhere. Gaps and darkness, sudden cold.”
A cataract of energy slammed into her.
Reflexively she threw away the energy before it could burn her to ash. The ceiling flared whitely. Every chair in the room lit like flash strips in a darkened ship.
The tenor bell screamed.
The room burst into confused cries as Seurs leaped out of their chairs. Only Kirtn had noticed the akhenet lines coalesce beneath Rheba’s skin until she burned more hotly than any natural fire. Now her eyes were blank, veined with the same incandescence as her hands. He drained energy out of her with a touch, calling her back from her contemplation of the core’s compelling currents.
She blinked. Slowly her eyes focused on him. “What happened?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. Are you all right?”
She sighed and stretched. “Yes. Just tired, as though you’d been teaching me a particularly hard lesson.”
Kirtn remembered the pouring energies. “Did that machine—or whoever is running it!—attack you?”
She covered a yawn beneath a hand that was slowly fading back to its normal tan color. “I don’t think so. Probably I just tripped a feeder or scrambled some commands.”
“It could have killed you,” said Kirtn flatly.
“Maybe. It was just a light touch, though. It has a lot more energy in reserve.” She stilled her lashing hair with a shake of her head. “It wasn’t as bad as the Equality Rangers’ lightguns.”
The tables in front of them changed. Dinner appeared, as colorful as the walls. Unfortunately, it smelled more like fertilizer than food. After a moment, though, the odor changed to something more appetizing.
With a sil
ent sigh of relief, Rheba picked up a pointed instrument that had appeared with the food. She stabbed a morsel and chewed tentatively. She was not worried about being poisoned. Fourth People might find each other’s food unappetizing—even vile—but if it would not kill a Daemenite, it would not kill a Senyas or Bre’n.
Kirtn watched her for a moment, then picked up his eating tool with less enthusiasm than she had shown. Bre’ns were notoriously discriminating about flavors. He took a tentative bite. The food was not as bad as he had expected. It was merely bad rather than dreadful.
Around Kirtn rose satisfied murmurs and lip smackings. The Daemenites fell upon their food as though it were the last meal they ever expected to eat. Even Seur Tric’s sour expression lightened. He ate rapidly, belched immodestly, and continued stabbing bright food as fast as he could manipulate his eating tool.
Tric looked up, saw Kirtn watching, and waved his arm expansively. “Eat! It’s not often the cook is in a good mood, especially not lately.”
Kirtn looked toward Daemen. The Luck was eating as fast as he could get food into his mouth. He, too, belched often and loudly. Kirtn concealed his distaste. The slave compounds of Loo probably had not taught the boy much about good food.
Rheba leaned over and whispered a Senyas phrase in Kirtn’s ear. “Burp.”
“What?”
“Burp,” she repeated. “Fssa says that we should burp. Apparently it’s some kind of communication.”
Kirtn muttered something clinical in Senyas. Rheba frowned. He swore and gulped air until he gave up a mighty belch. Nearby Daemenites looked over approvingly. Kirtn stabbed more food and chewed unhappily. Among Bre’ns, belching was not only bad manners, it was a sign of bad food. Among Senyasi it was worse. Senyasi only burped as a prelude to vomiting. He hoped no one would notice Rheba’s silence.
She squirmed uncomfortably, muttering to herself. Kirtn guessed that she was arguing with Fssa, explaining to him why she could not be polite and burp. The argument became heated. When she offered to throw up to prove her point, Fssa subsided.
Then, apparently from Rheba’s mouth, came an epic belch.
As one, the Daemenites stopped eating. They banged their eating instruments approvingly against the tables. Both Daemen and Tric looked as gratified as parents whose offspring has just done something particularly clever. Kirtn strangled his laughter and hoped that no one had noticed Rheba’s hair blowing out with the force of Fssa’s gassy cry.
