"Okay, then—let's go," Cris said.
"Cris." Tattie was very much concerned. "Are you fit to travel?"
"I'm okay, darling."
"What does this mean, darling?"
Cris, struck by the question, hesitated, so Capek provided the answer. "Darling, it is a term of endearment, a person for whom one feels love or deep affection, a sweetheart. In the Geldneth: Cenon, in the old tongue, Am Eca or Am Eci."
"I am pleased," Tattie said, "that you are okay, Am Eka."
"Am Eka?” Cris asked. "I've heard that before."
"Yes—you have, my love. Now, let us go."
As they turned to leave, red lights began to illuminate on control panels all over the engine and the surrounding walls. And then an alarm sounded.
The hatch to this room, as were all the hatches aboard, was round. Capek had to again open the door. The hallway beyond was yet quiet, but they knew it would not be for long. The passage had four flat walls, and there were rails in each corner running the length of the hallway to facilitate movement in zero gravity.
Recalling the schematic Capek had shared with him, and feeling better now, Cris said, “Follow me, and hurry.”
Tattie was right behind him. Each had brought their pistol with them and now brought them to the ready. All except Capek, who had only the more powerful rifle.
As the five moved down the hallway, several of the doors they passed opened automatically by means of proximity sensors. They had followed the hallway for about a hundred meters when the sound of a group approaching from another hallway forced them to duck through one of those doors.
The room they entered was dark and silent, but out in the hall, the sound of at least a dozen excited voices passed. The last person to pass came close enough to their door that it slid open, he looked inside and saw Tattie's face.
"Hey, Geldneth are not allowed in this ship," he stammered. Then he saw the massive hand that Tarnus shoved at him and he screamed. The others in his group stopped and turned just in time to see their colleague being pulled into the room. One of them pressed a button on a communications device strapped to his wrist and alarms seemed to sound all through the ship. Cris jerked himself by the doorframe out into the hall and took aim at the men who had sounded the alarm. They were all Portigalweg, all were technicians, and all were unarmed. Cris allowed them to escape.
Cris beckoned to the others. "Tarnus, take point; Capek, you and Epney cover our six."
"Cover your what?" asked Epney.
Capek, for some reason that Cris was going to have to delve into, knew a lot of Earth terms. "The term is widely used by the military on Earth, it means directly behind you. It is a designation of direction based on the instrument used to tell time called a watch or clock, where twelve is directly in front of you, three is to your right, nine is to your left and of course—"
"I think he's got it, Capek, old boy."
"Too verbose again?"
"Yeah."
"Sorry."
"Capek, if they start coming in behind us, you have to stop them."
"I understand."
"Let's move."
Tarnus went first with Cris directly behind him, next came Tattie, then Epney and Capek at the rear.
They pulled themselves along the railings and down the corridor as fast as they could. Cris knew that another few meters ahead there would be a shaft that would allow them to descend. They had to get down five floors to be on the level with the escape pods.
"Capek," Cris shouted, "any idea how much time we have?"
"No, I'm sorry, I was not provided a timeline, and nothing about what transpired correlates to anything in my experience. I would suggest a presumption of less than more."
Suddenly, several projectiles and a few balls of light slammed into the bulkhead near Tarnus. Around the corner, several of Caval Du Mal's soldiers had laid in wait. Thankfully, they had initiated their ambush too soon. Though a piece of the dislodged wall had sliced through his cheek, Tarnus remained completely in control. With one hand, he stopped the advance of Tattie and the others, and with the other he returned fire within the same instant.
Capek now shouted above the din, "I have fifteen contacts moving up on our six." Then he fired two rounds at the far end of the corridor behind them, a High Explosive, and HE Anti-personnel round. This stopped the enemy's advance for the moment.
"It's the old anvil and hammer," Cris said aloud.
"The old what?" Tattie asked.
"Capek!" Cris floated over to him and pointed to a spot on the floor in front of him about three meters. "Blast me a hole in the floor right there, now."
Capek indexed another HE round into his rifle, waited for his companions to brace themselves, aimed at the spot, and pulled the trigger. The resulting explosion was horrendous, but a hole now appeared in the floor.
Cris examined the hole for a split second, then turned and shouted, "Down here, fast!"
After Epney, Tattie, and Capek had floated down, Tarnus fired several more rounds down the hallway, then leapt backward, turned upside down, kicked off the ceiling, and flew through the hole. As the last man, Cris fired a couple of shots in the direction the hammer had been coming, then he, too, pulled himself down.
They kept heading toward the shaft. Why, Cris asked himself, hadn’t they set that ambush up at the shaft rather than at that connecting hall?
The shaft was only nine meters away now, but they had another connecting corridor to get past. Cris stopped everyone, then reached back and grabbed Capek's rifle. "As soon as I open fire, you all bolt for the shaft!" He then leaned carefully around the corner and fired several High Explosive rounds down the passage. The projectiles slammed into the bulkhead about halfway down and exploded in a blinding light and a spray of metal wall shards. At least two pistols returned fire through the choking smoke, so Cris fired another round. All made it safely past the intersection.
Arriving at the shaft, Cris shouted, "Okay, here we go, we have to descend four floors, and then head back the way we came, toward the stern. Follow me." Cris took Tattie's hand and pushed off the ceiling and into the shaft. This conduit was one of countless designed as an expedient method to get between floors on this interplanetary metropolis. In other locations, there were trains and elevators that traveled on both the X and Y axes of the ship.
Cris and Tattie had descended only two floors when they stopped and looked back to ensure the others were following. From the opening on their right, which led to the floor, a net appeared out of nowhere, grabbed them, and pulled them through the open doorway. They were taken completely by surprise. Once on the floor, they saw that perhaps twenty soldiers were pointing weapons at them. Tattie grabbed Cris's wrist, the one gripping the rifle to prevent him from acting. They were caught, and she knew it.
○O○
Tarnus and Capek reacted first to what they saw below them. Both pushed off the wall and headed quickly down, their weapons at the ready. Less than a meter away from the opening, a massive blast door slammed shut. Tarnus, Capek, and Epney were now separated from Cris and Tattie.
Tarnus slammed his fist hard against the door and swore an oath "Peareant este!"
"They are just beyond the door," Capek observed, "one point five meters. Cris retains my homing device I gave him at Kurat Vara, and sadly, my rifle, which would have allowed us to blast through the floor above and reach them below."
"What do we do now?" Epney asked.
"We get them back," Tarnus declared, the steel of his determination audible in his voice and visible on his face.
○O○
Cris and Tattie were freed from the net and relieved of their weapons, satchels, and the bladder of Geldneth Nordthok. Their hands were bound, and they were roughly pulled and pushed down the hallway, each treated like a ball being bounced by children in zero gravity.
Cris looked at the faces of his captors. They were no different than men of Earth, their eyes, their skin, and their hair. Some time back, when in the Cave
of the Dark Moon, Tattie had explained about the Portigalweg. They were the original inhabitants of Nazer, but most disappeared from the planet, and only a few million remained.
They were pushed into a much larger area of the ship. Here, hundreds of Portigalweg crewmembers were scurrying about in the area, and the sight of the armed guards and their prisoners caused them to back off a considerable distance. All eyes seemed to fall on Cris. He heard comments from the crowd, "Is that him?"
"It's true, he's with a Geldneth woman!"
"He despoils the blood!"
"He is from the colony and ignorant."
"Then educate him in our ways before—"
"Quiet!" One of their guards shouted at the crowd. "He understands you."
The guards commandeered a train and forced everyone out. They spoke briefly with the driver and the train silently set out. It very quickly attained a surprising speed, then plunged into a tunnel. They passed several more of those large, spacious areas, then slowed. The train followed a track to the right, then slowly moved into a section of tube that was brightly lit, and stopped. There came a slight jerky movement and Cris could feel they were rising up—they were in an elevator.
The elevator must have risen dozens of floors before it stopped and the door before them opened. The train moved out, but did not attain the speed it had before. When it stopped again, they entered a small room illuminated entirely in red light.
Exiting the train, they headed toward the far end of the chamber, where a metal door opened revealing a passageway inclined at about a forty-five-degree angle. There was, of course, no need for steps. They floated up one floor. At the top, another metal door, mounted on the ceiling, slid open, allowing them to emerge into a room illuminated in normal light.
This room was lavish. There were fine hand-woven tapestries on all six walls. There being no gravity, they perceived no floor or ceiling—they all appeared to be walls. To Cris, it seemed they were drifting up a long, vertical shaft. These walls were painted in several different colors that seemed to flow around the room. There were works of art mounted to the walls, paintings in oil, watercolor, charcoal, as well as three-dimensional holographic works. Statues of stone and metal stood scattered about the room without any particular order or regard to "up." One picture might be mounted up to one observer and the next appeared upside down or sideways; statues sprung from every wall.
They now entered a t-shaped room where, oddly, what looked like small beds or "fainting benches" were placed all around and at different levels above the floor, and held in place by long shafts. The benches were gathered in circles of seven or eight each. Cris was just wondering why this furniture was here when he noticed Tattie looking above her head. Cris followed her gaze to discover that the entire ceiling was an immense window. The benches allowed the occupants to behold the vast beauty of space while secured in a comfortable position.
There was yet another ornament that did not escape Cris's attention in this chamber: by his count, there were thirty-three gun turrets mounted throughout. There was not a place in this room not covered by one of these guns.
At the far end, where they were being led, a set of six steps in a semi-circle led up to a set of gold and white ornate doors. It occurred to Cris that the steps were useless in a weightless environment other than to provide orientation so someone approaching would be able to discern which was the bottom of the door. As they floated over the steps, the doors opened out toward them. Beyond these doors, they entered a huge, round, domed room with walls a light gray color and completely unadorned, unlike the previous room. There was a definite up and down in this chamber, thus the steps at the door. The floor was a highly polished black mirror-like surface. Along the peripheral of the space were hundreds of two-meter-tall white pillars, each supporting a vase containing plants—not green plants, these were all purple and blue in color.
At the opposite end of the dome from the entrance, on an elevated dais, was an elaborate chair that Cris could only describe as a throne, and seated upon that throne was a man. He was dressed in one of those Revolutionary War era uniforms, very much like the one he saw on the body of the pilot of the ship that crashed at Gala.
The guards stopped them a distance from the center of the room. Cris understood why. The man on the throne was about forty-five years of age with a full, bushy head of dark hair. He was fit and trim, and appeared to be about Cris's height. He sat quite square and ridged on the throne and with a stern look upon his face. This then, was Caval Du Mal.
They floated in silence for what seemed several minutes.
Tattie whispered, "Say something."
"Shhhh—" was all Cris responded with.
Cris noticed Caval Du Mal's eyes glance to the man standing behind him. Just then the butt of the guard’s rifle slammed into Cris's kidney. The pain would have brought Cris to his knees had he been standing on the planet. Here, he arched his back, then assumed the fetal position involuntarily. Looking over his shoulder at the guard, he said, "You son of a—"
Chapter 26
Caval Du Mal
"That will do," Caval Du Mal said, his voice booming due to the dome, "Cristóbal Salazar, you've been here long enough to know that the superior never speaks first. I accept your oath as that acknowledgment."
"You take it any way you want," Cris spat out the words.
"Wonderful, I am so pleased you are not a coward. It is so much more enjoyable watching a brave man plead for death…you always expect it from a coward."
"What was that?" Cris asked. "I can't hear you very well with all this reverberation."
Caval Du Mal pressed a button on the arm of his throne and dampened the sound in the room.
"Is that better—Cris?"
"Yeah, thanks—Mal."
"Caval is actually my first name."
"Whatever."
"Whatever—indeed, interesting choice of words, Cris. You see, whatever quite accurately describes me—for whatever I want is mine. If I want you dead, that man behind you will vaporize your head without hesitation. If I want to take your girlfriend, here, I will have her."
"So…you think you are all powerful?" Cris asked, grinning.
"What else would you call it?" Caval Du Mal responded with the least trace of levity in his voice.
"Try to take her love, Mal—try that."
"I don't need her love to take her body."
"I see what you're doing. If you can't get what you want, you decide you just don't need it, is that it?"
"Verbal games—how very…American."
At this statement, Cris raised an eyebrow. How would this guy know my nationality? Even if Caval Du Mal had noticed the flag he had attached to his new uniform, it would not have provided him the word “American”.
Caval Du Mal continued. "Let's get on with matters, shall we? You killed my son. For that, you shall die. And because all Nazer rose to your defense, they, too, shall suffer my fury."
"It was an accident. I was crashing, falling uncontrolled from the sky, and we collided."
Caval Du Mal sat mute and unmoving for several seconds, considering Cris's words.
"I have seen Philho Du Caval Mal's flight recordings. I have seen images captured from the walled city of Kalak Mal. Your craft tumbled as it fell from the back of one of my cargo ships. In short, I believe you.
"Now let me explain the situation to you. In the weeks after Philho Du Caval Mal's death, while I was still gripped with the madness brought on by my grief, I expended a lot of resources seeking you out. The entire system knows of my burning desire to capture you. Many have died horrible deaths as I sought your blood. How would it look, Cris, I ask you, if I were to free you after so long and bloody a search? It would be tantamount to admitting I was wrong. And, Cris—I am never wrong."
"The people would admire a man who admits his mistakes and shows mercy!" Tattie said.
"This may be true, Tattie Bogle. But I prefer their fear to their admiration. So here is what is going to happ
en. The two of you shall watch as I destroy every Geldneth village and hamlet in the realm of Geldneth. Then I will send troops down to the planet to launch a war of genocide against them and remove them from the memory of the planet.
"Next, all the leaders and elders of the Parenmer shall be eradicated; the remainder, I shall keep as slaves. What Portigalweg remain on the planet will be given the opportunity to join me. Those who do not will become slaves. As for the Avory, I shall burn every forest on the planet from orbit. I shall not be opposed by vegetation.
"Granted, the planet will resemble a burnt ember when I'm done, but then, what do slaves need with a lush, green, living world?
"And as all this takes place, I shall remind every living being in the system that this is what comes of aiding even a single man who defies me."
"You're a monster," Cris said.
"Monster," Caval Du Mal again paused to consider, he tapped his chin a moment. "Hmm—a monster is a fearsome creature out of the nightmares of children. I like that, yes. Monster. You see me as a two-dimensional figure, don't you, Cris? I'm the bad guy from your late-night movie. You're a soldier, are you not?"
"Air Force officer."
"Same difference, you just fight in the sky. Why do you fight, Cris?"
"To see monsters destroyed."
"All right, semantics aside, to what end? What happens when all the monsters are dead?"
"What?"
"What does your world benefit from the result of all these wars?"
"Peace."
"Ah—now we get to it. Peace. But on Earth there is always another war to fight, one every generation, is that not so?"
"What's your point?"
Caval Du Mal smiled, then sat forward in his seat. "What if, Cris, there could be one last war that would bring perpetual peace to your people? Would that be worth fighting for? I have started that war here, in my home system, with my victory will come an end to all war. I wish Tattie's teaoh were here; he could tell you of the many wars that have been fought, not just on Nazer, but throughout our stellar system—for he has fought in many."
Across a Sea of Stars Page 35
