She didn’t reply immediately. Jake took that as a good sign and continued. “Zamara has an eidetic memory. We can sketch out a detailed map of the inside of the chambers. Zamara knows exactly where you need to go.”
A muscle worked in Rosemary’s jaw. Zamara began to speak again, calmly laying out her plan and providing logical reasons that Rosemary should attempt the endeavor. Jake stayed silent. Zamara paused, and he sensed her confusion and irritation, then understanding as she read his thoughts before he could even form them into words.
Rosemary would have the final word on this. And her decision would not come from persuasion, or logic, or sound plans. If she agreed, then all those things would come into play, of course, and would be vital to the success of the mission. But first, Rosemary Dahl, assassin, black marketer, victim and victimizer, would have to make the decision to put herself in a position of vulnerability for the good of all of them.
That choice had to come from her. And so Jake waited.
“I go in well armed,” she said at last. “And at the first sign of trouble I either open fire or turn tail. I’m not going to be a hero for you.”
Jake felt the smile spreading across his face. “Do what you have to do to get back safely.”
Her eyes flitted to his, and she nodded. “All right. So, let’s get cracking on this map.”
Like Temlaa and Savassan before them, Zamara and Jake had to rely on nontraditional materials to draw the map. With their finely honed mental communication abilities, the protoss had had no need recently to write anything down. Each day was about simple survival. Gone for the most part were the luxuries of art and records and literature. There had been some attempt to make this makeshift refugee camp a place of beauty amid the ruins, but no one had any writing instruments of any sort. That night, a small party ventured forth into the closest forested area in search of wood for fires and beasts for food for the humans. Rosemary and Jake went with them. Ladranix had been reluctant to permit Jake to accompany them, hesitant to risk the precious preserver he bore, but Jake had insisted.
They took a small vessel and navigated to an area that was relatively clear of zerg. The protoss disembarked in silence, their eyes glowing in the darkness, their movements lithe as Temlaa’s on the hunt but with a more elegant bearing, carrying terran rifles instead of spears. Ladranix and the other templar in particular Jake found compelling to watch. Their telepathy enabled them to hunt in almost total silence as they spread out in groups of two, searching for traces of kal-taar or the more obvious burrows of the lombads. They employed technology, but also their ancient senses of sound and smell and sight and telepathy, and after about an hour it became apparent that there were no prey animals readily available.
They turned their attention to gathering wood, moving deep beneath the canopy to find pockets that were still dry. Quickly they found the dead trees and began to hack off dry limbs.
One of the females suddenly started. “Zerg,” she said.
Jake knew what she knew—a small band of zerg, eight of them, their thoughts manic and bestial, were milling about a short way away. “They do not seem to have noticed us,” she said, “but we should go. Now.”
Jake thought about the two encounters he’d had with the things and agreed wholeheartedly. They hurried back the way they had come, their scout monitoring the erratic thoughts of the beast the whole time. Suddenly she shouted in his mind.
“They have sensed us.”
Rosemary swore under her breath and broke into a dead run. The protoss swiftly outpaced the humans, but Ladranix hung back, guarding them, ready to die for the preserver he so revered. They raced out onto the flat, charred surface, out from under the canopy, and Jake saw the beautiful, golden craft floating to the ground. He thought he’d never seen anything so gorgeous, and as the ramp extended, he raced aboard. Three seconds later everyone was in and the ship took off.
They’d made it. This time.
Jake didn’t know how the protoss managed to stay so damn serene.
An hour later, after he’d rested and gotten a good fire going, Jake felt almost spooked as he did exactly what Temlaa had done over two millennia ago—took a slender stick and held it into the fire until it charred; and then, on a piece of gleaming metal that had once been part of a beautiful building, he began to draw the map.
The protoss crowded around him, having no difficulty seeing. Jake wished that he’d been gifted with an eidetic memory ere now—it was a damn handy thing to have. The night wore on, with Jake grimly and intricately drawing a detailed map of the subterranean caverns, telling the awestruck protoss what was located where.
“So much … right here … literally beneath our feet. And we did not know,” breathed Ladranix.
“Yeah,” said Rosemary. “Makes me wonder what the Tal’darim have found in there. Found to use against the zerg—or against us.” She was sitting next to Jake, her thigh pressing against his, leaning in to look at the map. Her bobbed black hair swung forward to frame her face, once porcelain-pale and now reddened from the sun. He found her terribly distracting and forced himself to concentrate on the excellent point she had raised rather than the curve of her lips, pursed now in a pensive gesture.
“I think if they had found anything particularly unusual or dangerous, we would have seen evidence of it by this point,” Ladranix said. “We would have seen what happened to the zerg remains.”
Rosemary tilted her head to give him an arch look. “Would we? I’m guessing the zerg eat their fallen comrades. Fresh meat’s fresh meat, I would think.”
“They do,” Ladranix agreed, “but there would be evidence. Residual radiation perhaps, or strange energy fluctuations, or marks on nearby vegetation or rocks.”
Rosemary nodded in a yeah-I-get-that gesture. “Fair enough.” Jake noticed that despite her initial reluctance to get involved, she seemed to have stepped up to the task with enthusiasm. He’d even have gone so far as to say “excitement.” She’d assumed the role of leader and planner, and Zamara had gracefully yielded that position to her.
Jake couldn’t even pretend to know why Rosemary was so apparently pleased to be doing this. Once her worries about thought violation had been assuaged, she’d plunged in with gusto. Perhaps it was a chance to do something instead of sitting around waiting. Perhaps it was a chance to help instead of harm. Perhaps it was a chance to—
“The technology in there might give us a way to get off this damn rock,” Rosemary said. Turning to Ladranix, she said, “No offense, but that’s really all it is now.”
“I do not disagree with you,” Ladranix said. “It is not the nurturing homeland it once was. Shakuras is our new home now—if we can ever get there.”
When this is over, and we have what we have come for, I will ask them to take me to the gate. It is possible I can repair it. Zamara’s voice was cool and clear in Jake’s mind.
What—you—why don’t we do it now?
We do not have what we need. And I do not wish to plant false hope. Right now, we need one thing from the chambers, and then we will be able to investigate this opportunity. If I cannot repair the warp gate, we will be forced to revisit the chambers. We will then have to attack our brethren, a prospect I do not relish. That must be a last resort. I do not like turning against my own, nor do I like jeopardizing the mission. But I will if I must. For now, the less risk incurred, the better.
“That’s a possibility,” Jake heard himself saying. “But let’s take it one step at a time.”
Rosemary narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, as if she knew he knew something she did not, then she nodded. “So I’ve got a good idea of what the inside of this place looks like. I go in, scout around, and don’t get caught. I come back and report on what I see, and we plan the next step.”
Jake sighed. She made it sound so easy.
Rosemary was impatient to be off, but dawn was approaching. “Like us, the Tal’darim will be inside during the day. They come out at night for nourishment,” Ladrani
x said.
“Aren’t the zerg active at night as well?” Jake asked.
Ladranix turned to him. “They have no set periods of inactivity. They are organic beings, yes, who need to eat and sleep, but they do not require extended hours of rest. Night or day is equally dangerous.”
“Great,” said Rosemary.
Jake did not sleep well. For one thing, it was almost as if the zerg knew something was afoot. He heard their cries in the night, something he had not heard before. He wondered if they were really the unorganized creatures Ladranix claimed, or if they were just waiting until the Shel’na Kryhas got complacent. Or—and this thought kept him awake for hours—what if the Tal’darim had found a way to control them? He muttered to himself and rolled over, kicking the blanket off, steaming to doneness in the humid heat. Zamara did not give him any more memories wrapped in the blanket of a dream, and the sleep he did get was fitful. He was already awake by the time Ladranix and several others gently shook him.
Rosemary was up and already prepared. She looked more like the woman he remembered from their initial encounter: poised, cool, with weapons hanging from her slim hips. Moonlight was good to Rosemary Dahl, casting highlights on her seal-sleek black hair and illuminating her pale face. She was a creature used to the darkness, after all; not an eagle, hunting in the golden sun, but a panther, a shadow hunter, who viewed stealth and silence as weapons just like any other.
Towering over her were three protoss clad in gleaming armor. It made for an odd picture. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, frowning. There was something wrong about it—
There used to be another templar, Zamara said. Sorrow and a hint of judgment was in her mental voice.
… Yeah, there was. She was the one who deserted then?
It would appear so.
Jake looked around. There were now only three trained warriors in this entire encampment of hundreds. The rest of them were khalai—craftsmen, artists, scientists. He felt slightly sick.
How could a templar abandon them?
I do not know. You would have to ask her.
Disheartened, Jake got to his feet and moved to join Rosemary. She glanced up at him. Jake wanted to say something, tell her he realized how dangerous this was, how he admired her for being willing to go. But he knew she’d shrug off the words or else make fun of them, so he merely smiled at her. She grinned back, her eyes sparkling. She was more than ready for anything that lay ahead.
“I feel sorry for the Tal’darim if they run into you,” he said.
“Me too,” she replied, finding a fresh ammo clip and sliding it into place. “Let’s do this thing.”
Jake and Rosemary accompanied Ladranix and two others into the small scouting vessel that had ferried them here. Again he marveled at the beauty and grace of the little craft. As they rose slowly and moved carefully out of the obstacle course that was the ruination of a city, a question occurred to Jake.
“I know some of the zerg can fly, and some of them can even travel in space. Are there no flying ones here?”
“We targeted them first,” Ladranix said. “They were by far the greatest nearby threat. Not only could they attack from the air, they would be able to direct other, land-confined zerg to us. Fortunately, there seem to be no spawning sites in the vicinity to create more.”
That was a break, then. At least this part of Aiur would be free of zerg flyers. No hideous, nightmare-based creature spewing acid or launching tiny little symbiotic things at them while they flew. Jake wondered how many protoss had given their lives to eradicate the airborne zerg. The thought gave him a headache.
Absently he rubbed his temple, peering out as the planet surface unfolded beneath them. He saw kilometer after kilometer of scorched earth, of twisted and melted cities, offset by the life-affirming sign of areas of undamaged rain forest still managing to hang on. Nature was tough to defeat, though the zerg had tried. It still made him sick to think about the violations that had been visited upon this poor world.
Would they even be able to find what Zamara so desperately wanted? What if the crystals had been destroyed somehow? Or uprooted and carted away by the Tal’darim?
Then we will find another alternative, Zamara soothed inside him. We know this is where the technology is secreted away. That is the important thing.
Yeah, but “another alternative” would be protoss-onprotoss violence, and no one here wants that.
Of course not.
But … you’d advocate that if it was necessary, wouldn’t you?
… I would, yes. For this information … many of them would gladly sacrifice their lives.
Jake placed his aching head in his hands for a moment. He thought about his friends, dying in the icy cold of space aboard the Gray Tiger at the hands of a madman he’d been used to unleash. He thought of the woman Leeza who’d tried to double-cross them in the rough town of Paradise, and how her face exploded right in front of his eyes as Rosemary fired at her. He thought of watching from inside his own body as Zamara used it to kill Phillip Randall.
I’ve had so much of death already, Zamara.
Her response was more tender than any he had had from her, and he felt a brush of pain and worry. I know this, Jacob.
“We are approaching the area you showed us, Jacob,” Ladranix said. Jake sat up, tensing. This was it then.
The earth had fallen away from the entrance, after more than two thousand years. It looked almost burrowlike, and he wondered if perhaps the huge, burrowing marsupials known as lombads had been responsible for uncovering the great chambers of the xel’naga. Even so, it was a nondescript hole in the earth, and nothing about it hinted at the secrets it contained. Perhaps indeed the Tal’darim had found nothing of import at all.
The small craft began its descent, slowly drifting downward to settle on the uneven, rocky surface. Even though it was an uninviting place, the fact that it had not been melted by blaster fire or covered with creep made it seem positively beautiful to Jake’s eyes. They disembarked, and Jake felt a shiver of anticipation run through him. The protoss who moved up behind him looked around, their gestures betraying their unease.
Rosemary was the last to step beside Jake. “Any sign of the Tal’darim or zerg?” she asked.
“No,” Ladranix said. “Varloris will let me know immediately if they appear.” Ladranix nodded to the comparatively small khalai, who straightened proudly under his leader’s acknowledgment and bowed deeply. “We would have time to depart before we would be sensed.” He turned to Jake, half closing his eyes and tilting his head just so in a smile.
“Okay,” said Rosemary, breaking the spell. “Glad you guys are monitoring, but the sooner I get in there, the sooner I’m out.” She double-checked her weapons, the invaluable Pig she had indeed been able to repair, and one of the walkie-talkies they’d found in the system runner. Jake had the other one. No one was certain if they would be able to stay in touch once she entered the chambers; it was possible there was something that could dampen communications. But it was the best chance they had. She turned to Jake.
“Okay, Prof—have Zamara do her whammy on me. I don’t like her poking around in my head, but it’s better than having a bunch of hostile protoss doing it.”
Jake nodded and moved toward her. He held out his hand. She hesitated, then took it. Not for the first time, he marveled at how small her hands were, to do the things they did. He didn’t need to be touching her to enable Zamara to make mental contact, but he wanted to—not just because he found he liked the feel of her hand in his, but because he wanted to reassure her with that most ancient of comforts, the human touch.
Zamara was in and out of Rosemary’s mind so quickly the two terrans barely had time to register anything. Rosemary blinked.
“That it?”
It is accomplished, Zamara replied. Her presence is effectively blocked.
Rosemary nodded. “I might just have you keep it up, Zamara,” she said, looking into Jake’s eyes but speaking not to him, but t
o the alien intelligence that had taken up residence there.
“Just to go over the plan,” Jake began. She interrupted him.
“I got it, Prof. I go in, have a look around, you all meet me back here tomorrow night at this same time. If I get into any trouble I’ll contact you.” Without further ado she turned and began to stride into the gaping hole in the earth.
“Be careful,” Jake added impulsively, and winced at how worried he sounded.
Rosemary Dahl paused. She looked back at him, a slow grin spreading over her face.
“I’m always careful, Professor,” she said, and gave him a wink before her small form was swallowed entirely by the darkness.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE DARKNESS INCREASED AS ROSEMARY MOVED steadily, stealthily, downward. She had come prepared for that; infrared goggles and the Pig would keep her well clear of any of the troublesome Tal’darim. She hoped.
Actually, she was rather relieved to be clear of the protoss in general. Shel’na Kryhas or Tal’darim, it didn’t matter much to her—she felt uncomfortable around all of them. She hadn’t liked the idea of Zamara’s tinkering around with her brain, but everything else about this little plan suited her ideally.
It was good to be on her own again. Rosemary functioned best by herself, second best as leader of a well-trained and trusted team. This new role she’d been forced to adopt, a tag-along on some epic “mission” that Zamara didn’t see fit to tell even Jake about—it wasn’t at all what she was used to.
And yet—part of her was enjoying it, she mused as she stepped forward carefully. She’d had a bad moment when she had realized that Ethan was planning on turning her over to Valerian. But she’d recovered. Blowing a hole in the center of her former lover had cheered her greatly, and she’d been riding an adrenaline high through most of the rest of what had happened. True, Rosemary was indeed more or less along for the ride, but Jake and the protoss inside him had definitely needed her. She’d helped Jake off the Gray Tiger before the nut job Jake had turned loose on it had decided to have them for dinner. She’d gotten him to Ethan, which had seemed safe, and then away from Ethan, which had actually been safe. While Jake had done something—she still wasn’t sure what—involving a sort of human version of the Khala to allow them to escape Valerian at the last minute, it had been Rosemary who’d fixed the battered ship after the bad jump.
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