by Peter David
"Wait a minute," said Soleta. "Wait . . . wait a minute. Maybe we've been looking at this wrong. Computer: Attach sound attribution to seismic track.
Feed available readings at continuous loop and accelerate by ninety percent."
"Nature of sound to be attributed?" the computer inquired.
"You want it to sound like something?" asked Lefler, clearly confused. "Like what? Bells, whistles, breaking glass . . . ?"
"Heartbeat," said Soleta. "Humanoid heartbeat."
Immediately the sound echoed within the room—quick, steady, and rapid.
"You've got to be kidding," Lefler said slowly.
"Whenever you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Your words, as I recall."
"But this is impossible, too! You're saying that the seismic pulse we picked up—"
"—is just that, yes. A pulse."
"Aw, come on! You're not telling me the planet's alive?!"
"No, I'm not. Nor do I think it is. But what I think is that there is something alive beneath the surface. Something huge. That's what's causing the quakes, which are occurring with greater frequency and intensity all the time. My guess is that the energy of the planet was 'seeded' somehow, like a farmer, planting a sort of living crop. But the energy is all gone, and whatever was inside is presumably fully developed . . . and trying to get out. And when it does, whoever is still on that world is going to die."
RYJAAN
X.
THE MOUNTAINS OF THALLON were not especially similar to those of Xenex . . . but they weren't terribly dissimilar, either. This was something that Calhoun took a small measure of comfort in.
"The more things change," he muttered as he clambered up the side of a small hill to try and get a better overview of the terrain. He reached a plateau, pulled himself up onto it, and crept slowly toward the edge. The purple skies matched the color of his eyes.
The region for the Final Challenge had been selected by Ryjaan. When Calhoun had returned to the People's Meeting Hall, no one looked more surprised than the offended party, but he had wasted no time in selecting the area of the showdown. But as Ryjaan had been doing the talking—including a healthy helping of boasting and chest-beating—Calhoun had never stopped looking at D'ndai.
He passed within earshot of D'ndai as he was led past him, and in a voice just loud enough for D'ndai to hear, he said, "I have no brother."
D'ndai merely smiled. Clearly he was looking forward to having no brother in the immediate future as well.
Calhoun kept the sword gripped comfortably but firmly in his right hand as he crouched on the plateau. He listened carefully all around him, remembering that Ryjaan's father had managed to get the drop on him twenty years ago. He was not anxious to allow a repeat performance . . . although, granted, when Falkar had performed that rather considerable achievement, there had been a fairly major sandstorm going on at the time. But in this case, everything was relatively calm. . . .
And the ground tore open beneath his feet.
Just like that, the plateau that he'd been situated upon was gone, crumbling into rock beneath him as the entire area shook more violently than ever before. He had absolutely nothing to grab on to. The sword flew out of his hand, swallowed by the cascade of rock, and Calhoun plummeted, rolling and tumbling down the mountainside. He lunged desperately, twisting in midair, and his desperate fingers found some purchase that slowed his fall ever so briefly. Then he lost his grip once more and hit the ground, rolling into a ball and covering his head desperately as rock and rubble rained down around him.
And from a short distance away, Ryjaan saw it all. Ryjaan, under whose feet the ground had suddenly shifted, jutting upward. He had clutched on to it, scrambling upward to avoid sliding into the newly created crevice, and had just barely escaped. But now he saw Calhoun, weaponless, with an avalanche crumbling upon him. It was as if the planet itself had risen up to smite him.
And Ryjaan, gripping his own sword grimly, waited until the trembling subsided and then advanced upon the buried Calhoun to finish the job.
"Evacuate?" Yoz said skeptically. "Because of some earthquakes?"
On the viewscreen, Soleta was speaking with forcefulness and urgency. "This is not merely earthquakes. You have spacegoing vessels that you use for exploration and travel. Use everything. Everything you've got. Get off the planet. We will bring up as many as we can as well. Fortunately enough, most of your population has already left ever since the collapse of—"
"We are not in collapse!" Yoz said angrily. "We will rebuild! We will be great again!"
And then Si Cwan stepped into view on the screen, and said, "No. You will be dead."
"Are we to listen to you then, 'Lord' Si Cwan? Traitor! Coward!"
"Save your name-calling, Yoz. It's nothing compared to the immediate necessity of saving our people. If you truly believe that you are acting in their best interests, you will make known to them Soleta's advice and offer. And you will do so quickly."
"You cannot tell me what to do—"
"I am not telling you what to do. I am asking you. Begging you, if that's what you want." Then a thought seemed to strike him and his tone changed into a slightly wheedling voice. "If you wish, look at it this way: This is an opportunity to make me look foolish to the people of Thallon. A nattering doomsday prophet, trying to convince them of an end-oftheworld scenario that is merely demented fiction. Those who believe and wish to leave . . . well, what use would they be to you anyway? They're faint of heart, and they clearly embrace the old ways. But those who stay with you, Yoz . . . they will be the core of the new empire that you would rebuild. They will know me to be a fraud. They will know you to be resolute and unmovable. I'm handing you the opportunity, Yoz, once and for all, to be the leader you know yourself to be."
Slowly, Yoz smiled. "Si Cwan . . . you had a knack for being persuasive as a prince. Even in disgrace . . . you have a turn of phrase. I shall consider it."
"Consider it quickly, Yoz. Because, whether you believe me or not, I am convinced by this woman's words. You do not have much time left."
Ryjaan felt a brief aftershock as he made his way toward the rubble, but it only staggered him slightly. Nothing was keeping the bronze-skinned Danteri from his goal.
He made it to the area where he'd seen Calhoun go down. The rocks appeared undisturbed. It was entirely possible that Calhoun was already dead, which would have upset Ryjaan no end. He wanted to be the one who ended Calhoun's life. He, and no other. But he realized that he might have to settle for whatever justice nature had chosen to mete out.
He scrambled over to the rock pile and started digging around. He thrust his hands deep into the rubble, searching, probing, trying desperately to find some hint or trace of where Mackenzie Calhoun was beneath the avalanche. Then he felt something, but it wasn't vaguely living matter. Instead it was hardedged, rough. He grimaced a moment, for his arm was thrust in all the way up to his shoulder, and then with a grunt he pulled it out.
He held up the sword of his father. It glittered in the twilight of Thallon.
And then he was struck from the side. He went down, the sword flying from his hand, and Calhoun caught it. "Thank you," he said.
Ryjaan, his head ringing, looked around in confusion. "Where . . . ?"
"Dug myself out and hid, and waited for you. Ryjaan . . . now that it's just the two of us," said Calhoun almost conversationally, "I am asking you not to do this thing. It won't bring your father back. All it will do is cost you your life."
"Aren't we the overconfident one," sneered Ryjaan, scrambling to his feet, waving his sword.
"No. No, we're not. Just . . . confident enough." And he added silently, I hope.
"For honor!" shouted Ryjaan, and he charged.
And damn if he wasn't fast. Faster than Calhoun anticipated. Ryjaan's sword moved quickly, a flashing blur, and Calhoun suddenly discovered that he was backing up. Faster, farther, and suddenly there was a cut on his a
rm, and then a slash across his chest, and he wasn't even fully aware of how they had gotten there.
The son was faster than the father.
Or else Calhoun was slower.
Yes. Yes, that was the hell of it.
Twenty years ago, he had been something. He had been something great, something grand. He had reached the pinnacle of his life. And every activity in which he had engaged since then was a constant denial of that simple fact. He had been great once, once upon a time, at a time when—deep in his heart—he wouldn't have given himself any odds on the likelihood that he would reach age twenty. But now he felt old. Even though he was "merely" forty, he was old, not what he was. Not what he was at all. A mere shadow of the fighter he was.
Despair loomed over him . . . . . . and there was a slash to the left side of his face. The cut was not as deep as the one which had created the scar, but it was deep enough as blood welled from it.
Ryjaan laughed derisively, sneered triumph at Calhoun, taunted him for not even giving him a decent battle.
And something within Calhoun snapped. Blew away the despair, burned it off like dew incinerated by a nova.
And Calhoun tossed the sword down into the ground, point first. It stuck there, wavering back and forth. "Come on!" shouted Calhoun. "Come on!" and he gestured defiantly, his fury building with every passing moment.
For a split second, Ryjaan wondered if Calhoun expected him to throw his own sword away. To leap into hand-to-hand combat, voluntarily tossing aside his advantage. Well, if that was the case, then Calhoun was going to be sorely disappointed, at least for the brief seconds of life that he had left to him. With a roar of triumph, Ryjaan lunged forward, his blade a blur.
Calhoun couldn't get out of the way fast enough. But he half-turned and the blade, instead of piercing his chest, skewered his right arm, going all the way through, the hilt up to the bone.
And Calhoun said nothing. Did not cry out, did not make the slightest sound even though Ryjaan knew the pain must have been agonizing. Ryjaan tried to yank the sword out.
It was stuck.
Calhoun brought his left fist around, caught Ryjaan on the point of his jaw, and staggered him. Then his foot lashed out, nailing Ryjaan's stomach, doubling him over. As Ryjaan reeled, Calhoun gripped the hilt and snapped it off the blade. He then reached around, gripped the sword on the other side of his arm, and pulled it the rest of the way through. He was biting down so hard on his lip to contain the scream that blood was trickling down his chin. As he dropped the broken blade to the ground, he flexed his right arm desperately to try and keep it functional, and then shouted, "Come on, Ryjaan! Still have the stomach for vengeance? Had enough?"
Ryjaan didn't say anything beyond an inarticulate scream of fury, and then he charged. Calhoun took a swing at him with his left arm, but the semi-dead right arm threw him off balance and he missed clean. Ryjaan plowed into him and the two of them went down, tumbling across the craggy surface of Thallon.
All around them were new quakes as the ground began to crack beneath them. But they didn't care, so focused were they on the battle at hand. Ryjaan intent on putting an end to his father's killer, and Calhoun . . .
Calhoun was looking beyond Ryjaan. Fury poured from him, savagery as intense as anything he'd ever felt, and it was like the return of an old and welcome friend. Suddenly new strength flowed into his right arm, seized him and drove him, and he lifted Ryjaan clear off his feet, tossing him a good ten feet. Ryjaan crashed to the ground and Calhoun charged toward him. The Danteri swung his legs around just as Calhoun got within range, knocking him off his feet, and the Starfleet officer was down as Ryjaan pounced upon him, grabbing him and trying to get his fingers around Calhoun's throat.
Calhoun twisted his head around and sank his teeth into Ryjaan's arm. Ryjaan howled, his blood trickling between Calhoun's jaws, and Calhoun tore loose of Ryjaan's grip. He slammed a fist into Ryjaan's face, heard the satisfying crack of Ryjaan's nose breaking. Ryjaan was dazed and Calhoun shoved Ryjaan back, leaped to his feet, and now he was atop Ryjaan, driving a knee into his chest, and he let out a roar as he drove blow after blow into Ryjaan's head. He was completely out of control, and part of him cried out in joy for it.
And then it seemed as if the ground all around them exploded.
Chancellor Yoz appeared on the screen of the Excalibur, and there was an air of controlled frenzy about him. "I am ... a man of my word," he said with no preamble. "I have relayed your message to the people of Thallon and . . ."
Suddenly he staggered as the ground shifted under him. The picture wavered, and then snapped back as Yoz—acting for all the world as if nothing had just happened—continued, "And some of them have decided to take you up on your offer. They are gathering in the Great Square . . . Si Cwan, you recall the location?"
"Yes, I do." Immediately he headed over to Robin Lefler's station, describing the location in relation to the People's Meeting Hall so that she could feed the coordinates into the ship's computers.
Yoz continued, "Then you may direct your vessel's transporter beams to start bringing people up. Others are leaving by their own transports. You," and he began to grow angry, his pointing finger trembling. "You have frightened them, Si Cwan! I had hoped that they would be made of sterner stuff, but you . . . you have filled them with nightmare fears and they flee! They flee for no reason!"
"All transporter rooms, this is Kebron," the Brikar security chief was saying briskly. "Coordinate with Lieutenant Lefler and commence immediate beam-up of Thallonians at the coordinates she is specifying."
"Yoz, we'll bring you up, too," said Si Cwan. "For all that has passed between us, nonetheless this is your opportunity to save your life—"
"My life is not imperiled!" shouted Yoz. "I will not fall for your trickery, or for you—"
And then something sounding like an explosion roared through the palace. The last sight they had of Yoz was his still declaring his disbelief, even as the roof collapsed upon him.
The ground around them fragmented, tilted, and then oozing from between the cracks Calhoun saw—to his shock—magma bubbling up beneath them. It was as if something was cracking through to the very molten core of the planet. The ground continued to crack beneath them, like ice floes becoming sliced up by an arctic sea . . . except that, in this case, the sea was capable of incinerating them.
Calhoun and Ryjaan were several feet away from each other, and then the ground cracked between them, heaving upward. The ground beneath Calhoun was suddenly tilting at a seventydegree angle. Calhoun, flat on his belly, scrambled for purchase and then he saw, just a few feet away, his sword. It skidded past him and he thrust out a desperate hand, snagged it, and jammed it into the ground.
It momentarily halted his tumble, but the impact tore loose his comm badge. Before he could grab it with his free hand, it tumbled down and away and vanished into a bubbling pool of lava.
The gap between Ryjaan and Calhoun widened, and Ryjaan took several steps back, ran, and leaped. He vaulted the distance and landed several feet above Calhoun. He shouted in triumph even as he pulled a dagger from the upper part of his boot. He started to clamber toward Calhoun . . .
. . . and suddenly the ground shifted beneath them once more, thrusting forward onto the lip of another chunk of land. Just that quickly, the land they were on was now twenty feet in the air. There was an outcropping from another mountain that was within range of a jump, and it would be a more tenable position than Calhoun's present one, provided he could get to it.
Ryjaan started to get to his feet, to come after Calhoun across the momentarily semi-level surface—and suddenly the ground jolted once more. The cracks radiated as far as the eye could see, as if the landscape of Thallon had transformed into a massive jigsaw puzzle. In the distance, the great city of Thai—once the center of commerce, the seat of power, of the Thallonian Empire—was crumbling, the mighty towers plunging to the ground.
The jostling sent Ryjaan off balance, and he was tossed tow
ard the edge of the precipice . . . toward it and over. With a screech he tumbled, and the only thing that prevented him from going over completely was a frantic, one-handed grip that he managed to snag on the edge. A short drop below him, lava seethed, almost as if it were calling to him. He tried to haul himself up, cursing, growling . . .
. . . and then Calhoun was there, fury in his eyes, and he was poised over Ryjaan. It would take but a single punch to send Ryjaan tumbling down into the lava. To put an end to him. The savage within Calhoun wanted to, begged him to. And he knew that there was absolutely no reason whatsoever to save Ryjaan . . .
. . . and he grabbed Ryjaan's wrist. "Hold on!" he shouted down to Ryjaan. "Come on! I'll pull you up!"
Ryjaan looked up at him with eyes that were filled with twenty years' worth of hatred.
And then he spat at him. "Go to hell," he said, and pulled loose from Calhoun's grip. Calhoun cried out, but it was no use as Ryjaan plunged down, down into the lava which swallowed him greedily.
Calhoun staggered to his feet, then grabbed up his sword and prepared to jump to relative safety on the outcropping nearby.
And then there was another explosion, even more deafening than the previous ones, and Calhoun was blown backward. This time he held on to his sword, for all the good it was going to do him. He was airborne, flailing around, unable to stop his motion, nothing for him to grab on to except air. Below him the lava lapped upward, and in his imaginings he thought he could hear Ryjaan screaming triumphantly at him, for it was only a matter of seconds as gravity took its inevitable grip and pulled the falling Calhoun into the magma.
Then something banged into him in midair, and he heard a voice shout, "Emergency beam-up!"
His mind didn't even have time to fully register that it was Shelby's voice before Thallon dematerialized around him, and the next thing he knew they were falling to the floor of the transporter room. He looked around in confusion and there was Shelby, dusting herself off and looking somewhat haggard. "Nice work, Polly." Watson tossed off a quick, acknowledging salute.
