"I meant, where are . . . were you living? What have you . . . were you doing ... all this time?" she stammered. Rubbing the heel of her hand in her eyes, she dragged it across her nose, sniffing.
"Still the same as when you were young," Platus said, smiling sadly, fondly. "Never a handkerchief. What was the name of that captain friend of yours who used to carry a spare for you in his uniform—"
"Don't start, brother!" Maigrey whispered, her eyes on the ground at her feet. "I can't bear it. Not now."
"I lived on a planet named Syrac Seven. Stavros, Danha, and I chose it because it was on a major trade route with good channels of communication and there are large portions of it that remain undeveloped. It was easy for me to lose myself there—with him," he added in wistful tones. "Danha and Stavros left me, and went their separate ways. You know, I suppose, what happened?"
Maigrey glanced at him unhappily. "I know about Stavros," she said, a catch in her throat. "But . . . not Danha, too?"
"Five years ago. And others before. One by one, Maigrey, Sagan tracked them down, broke them, forced them to betray their fellows. And so the end came, inexorably."
"And so it will come to me. I've made my decision."
"Your decision is the wrong one. You know it, Maigrey. Seventeen years ago you fought for your life—"
"Did I?" she demanded, turning suddenly to confront him. "Did I? Or did I betray us? Seventeen years ago, did I betray my king?"
"Maigrey"—Platus appeared confused—"I don't understand! What do you mean, did you betray us? Of course, you didn't! You led the fight against Sagan!"
"Perhaps that was all part of his plan! Don't you see? I must have known!" Maigrey cried, twisting the leather bag in her hands. "He must have told me in advance! He told me everything! I knew him, better than anyone! We were mind-linked! How could I not have known?"
"Maigrey, this is . . . irrational! Because of you, we escaped him! Don't you remember?"
"No, I don't remember!" Her clenched fists pressed her forehead. "I remember only fragments of what happened that night! The doctors said I might never remember."
"Maigrey, I can tell you what happened—" She shook her head impatiently. "I know what happened! I've been told what happened! In the hospital, when I was recovering, I saw them look at me. I saw them thinking, 'Why you? Why did you survive when so many others died?' Don't you see, Platus?" She stared at him, beseeching him to understand. "He let me live! There had to be some reason! That's why I ran away. I didn't want to hear him say, 'Let us congratulate ourselves, my lady. Our plan worked. None of them suspect.'"
"No! No, I don't believe it, Maigrey. You were wild, willful. But you were always honorable. A true daughter of our father. My God," Platus continued in a low voice, "don't you remember that time our father made us watch when he tortured that man? The one who had betrayed a friend—"
"And Sagan was my friend! No matter what choice I made, I ended up betraying somebody!" Her laughter cracked and she gritted her teeth, fighting not to lose control. "But that is all past. The mind-link is reforged. He is coming to seize me and you say that he should find me alive? You know the danger. He will use me to locate the boy."
"No, sister. You will use him."
Maigrey looked at her brother, puzzled. He did not explain, and she shook her head. "Riddles! You haven't changed," she muttered, regarding Platus with the same impatience and frustration she had felt around him seventeen years ago.
When his spirit had first appeared to her in the hut, she saw him as she had known him earlier—the older brother, the scholarly genius, whose sensitive, expressive face no amount of armor or military training could mold into the hard, cold face of a warrior. The spirit seemed to age, though, when he spoke of his past, and Maigrey saw Platus as he must have looked when he died—a man in his late forties with the mild face and vacant eyes of one who had taken to gazing far away in search of a reality that is close at hand. You will use him. Suddenly, she understood.
"Oh, no!" she protested.
"I am sorry, Maigrey," Platus answered, the thin, shimmering shoulders slumping in defeat. "I failed. You see, the boy has no idea of ... of anything."
Maigrey regarded him silently, impassively. "Nothing?"
Platus shook his head. "I hoped they'd forget about him. I hoped they would never find out. I love Dion, Maigrey. I love him as I have loved nothing in this life! All I wanted was that Dion be—" Platus drew a soft breath—"ordinary."
If a spirit could have wept, this one would have. But tears are a comfort the dead are denied.
"You still don't understand, do you, brother?" Maigrey said, wearily dragging her sweat-damp hair back from her face. Walking to the door of the hut, she stood there, letting the evening breeze dry her fevered skin. Her gaze went to the stars, burning coldly above. She hadn't looked at them for a long, long time and now her heart ached with memories. "We are born to be what we are. We can't escape it. The boy can't escape it!" Turning to face her brother, she asked impatiently, "Surely he must have wondered. Didn't he ever question? Around other people, didn't he—"
"He was never around other people. I raised him . . . isolated, alone. We didn't need other people. We had our studies, our music. He was happy, Maigrey. He truly was! And so was I. These last seventeen years of peace were the blessing of my life."
"Yes, I can imagine," Maigrey answered, looking around at her own peaceful surroundings. The two stood silently, their thoughts on the boy—one recalling pleasant memories, one trying desperately to recall any memories at all.
"Who does ... he look like, Platus?"
"He takes after his father's side. Anyone who knew the Starfires will recognize him instantly—the cobalt blue eyes, the red-golden hair that gave them their name."
"What is there of . . . Semele?" This question was so low, the spirit could not have heard it spoken had he not heard it first in his heart.
"Her spirit. The boy has strength, resolve, firmness of purpose. In that, he is not like his father."
"Thank the Creator," Maigrey muttered.
"Thank Him? For what?" Platus retorted. "I did everything possible to protect the boy, to save him . . . but it was all wrong, it seems. Even my death was meaningless, since it revealed you to our enemy. Now Dion is out there alone, with no knowledge of who he is, no understanding. You must find him, Maigrey. You must try to warn him, to ... to tell him. To ... to do something!"
"But if I find him, Sagan finds him! And how long do you think Derek will let me live after that?"
" 'Two must walk the paths of darkness to reach the light . . ."' Platus murmured.
"Don't ever speak that, brother . . . ever! I fulfilled their damned prophecy! I walked the paths of darkness! For seventeen years, I've walked them! How could you understand? You were always weak, Platus. You wanted to save the boy, you say. Save him from what? Himself? From being one of us? Ordinary! Yes, yOu fought all your life to be ordinary! And that's the reason you've been doomed to living death! Because in life you refused to accept what you were!"
"And I would do it all over again," Platus returned with quiet dignity. "I came because I thought you could help, Maigrey. I hoped time had changed you. But now I wonder if I did right. When you find Dion, sister, look at him, look at him closely. You will see a gentle, sensitive, caring young man. Hold that image of him in your heart, because it will not be there long. You and Sagan, between you, will corrupt him." The spirit's face became anguished, his voice broke with the tears he could not shed. "May the Creator grant that my spirit finds rest before I see that happen!"
The incorporeal body began to fade.
"Platus!" Maigrey stretched forth her hand as though she could grasp the ephemeral being and hold it fast. "I'm sorry! Don't leave me. I'm frightened! I can't face this alone!"
"Who is it that you fear, sister? 'Know your enemy.' Wasn't that what our commander always told us? Do you know the enemy, Maigrey? The true enemy?"
The voice died away on the fragr
ant winds; the presence of the spirit died in Maigrey's heart. But the words remained, rankling, like a barbed arrow that could not be removed without drawing life's blood with it.
Know your enemy. . . . Who is it that you fear?
Slowly, the leather pouch slipped from Maigrey's hand and fell, unnoticed, to the floor. Her gaze was focused on a metal trunk that stood—had stood for seventeen years—at the foot of her cot.
Seventeen years ago, she had hauled it from her damaged plane. She had never, until now, opened it.
Kneeling down, she fumbled at the crude lock. The combination was easy to remember—the anniversary of her birth, the anniversary of her mother's death. The hinges had rusted in the damp tropical climate; they screeched shrilly as she prized the lid open. Only two objects were inside the trunk. One was a worn, green, canvas flight bag. The other, a shapeless bundle of stained cloth. Her hand went to the cloth bundle, her fingers gently touching the reddish brown splotches. She started to draw back the cloth, uncover the object wrapped in the blood-splattered shroud.
Maigrey hesitated, then dropped the bundle and picked up the flight bag. She held it in her lap, running her hand over the rough fabric, her fingers toying with the rusted buckles. Undoing the straps with a trembling hand, Maigrey lifted the flap and dumped the contents of the bag onto the dirt floor.
There wasn't much—just what she had been able to lay hold of in the darkness the night she'd escaped. She hadn't been thinking clearly. They'd given her drugs, but that hadn't eased the pain. Nothing short of death itself could have eased that pain!
A bar of hospital soap, still in its wrapper. A small bottle of shampoo, a washrag, and a towel. Odd, how the mind will run on little things, the small wheels keeping the larger turning. She had packed as if going on weekend leave. A hairbrush, strands of pale hair caught in it. A small rosewood box. Maigrey's hand lingered on this box; the smooth wood always seemed alive to her touch.
But, like the bloodstained bundle, she did not pick up the box either. Her hand went instead to another object. She raised it up and, for the first time in seventeen years, Maigrey looked at herself in a mirror.
The face was older, more solemn than the face of the twenty-four-year-old young woman who—in a half-drugged, wholly despairing state—had thrown these random articles into a flight bag. Long, pale hair fell from a center part down around her face, cascaded over her shoulders. The pain returned, burning, throbbing.
Raising her hand, Maigrey touched the terrible, disfiguring scar—a jagged slash of white that ran from her right temple down her cheek, brushed past the corner of her lip, and ended at the chin.
A voice came to her, repeating the phrase. This time, it wasn't her brother's. It was her commander's.
Know your enemy.
"I do, Sagan," Maigrey said, her hand tracing the scar, flinching with pain as though the fingers were the blade of the sword that inflicted it.
She lay down wearily on the floor of the hut, her head pillowed on the flight bag. Reaching out, she touched the face in the mirror.
"I know my enemy. And I fear her more than death!"
Chapter Eight
History—a distillation of rumor.
Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution
Tusk awoke with a start. Rolling out of his chair, he cracked his shin on something and groped about in the darkness, cursing fluently beneath his breath.
"Lights!" he hissed, massaging his bruised leg.
The lights on the bridge flashed on with a brightness and suddenness that caused Tusk to move his hand from his leg to his eyes. "Damn!" he swore. "Turn 'em down!"
The lights dimmed. "Too much jump-juice," XJ commented.
"Shut up. I did not. Now be quiet. Listen—"
The computer was silent.
Blinking his eyes, Tusk leaned forward, waiting for the sound that had awakened him from his nap.
"I don't—"
"Shhhh!" Tusk gave the computer a thump that caused it to whir in irritation. "There it is!" he said, cocking his head. His brow furrowed. "What the deuce is it? I've heard this ship make a lot of weird noises before, but I can't place that. Maybe it's the coupling on the—"
A sound vaguely reminiscent of an asthmatic, laughing monkey came from the computer.
"What's so funny?" Tusk growled. "If it is the coupling you won't be laughing long because—"
"You're juiced. It's a syntharp."
"Sinwhat?"
"Harp. Syntharp. Definition: 'An electronic musical instrument with beams of light spanning an open, triangular frame. When the light beams are broken by the passage of the fingers across them—'"
"I know what it is," Tusk snapped, rubbing his injured leg again. "Just why the hell is it?"
"Kid's got it. Go take a look. I was going to wake you, anyway. We're coming to the end of the Lane in twenty-nine minutes and fifteen seconds. I need to know what course to set."
"Harp," Tusk repeated gloomily. Limping across the deck, he caught hold of the ladder and cautiously and quietly pulled himself up far enough so that he could see through the hatch to the living quarters above.
It was dark, and Tusk could barely make out the kid, lying propped up in his hammock, the glowing instrument in his hands. Dion's blue eyes, glinting in light reflected from the syntharp's "strings," stared out into a pain-filled landscape with a fierce, rapt intensity that made the boy appear spellbound. His music ached with the pain of his vision, and made Tusk feel suddenly very much alone. Bitter memories came to mind: his father's hand grasping his in agony, refusing the easeful drugs until Danha had heard his son swear to fulfill his dying request . . . the last, shuddering gasps for breath.
Mad at the boy and mad at himself for being mad, Tusk swung back down the ladder, landing on the deck with a thud.
"Hush," XJ said. "You'll disturb the kid."
"Hell!" Tusk snorted, returning to his seat. "I could blow the rivets out of this mother and the kid'd never miss a note. He's off in some other universe, which is where he's going as soon as we can find someplace to unload him."
Muttering to himself, Tusk glanced at the half-full bottle sitting snugly in its compartment within arm's reach of his chair. XJ saw the look. The lights on the bridge flickered.
"All right, lay off. I'm going to work," Tusk fluttered, adding a few other colorful phrases beneath his breath. "Course change." Sitting forward, he began punching up star charts on the computer screen and stared at them, bleary-eyed. "God, I'm half-asleep! Must be that blasted music. Give me our location. How close are we to Dagot?" Tusk rubbed his eyes and studied the coordinates. "That's good. Real good. Look up the name of that city on Dagot where old Sykes has his military academy, will you? We'll deposit the kid there. Sykes owes me his life. He'll take good care of him."
Tusk leaned back comfortably in his seat and reached for the bottle. The harp music had changed. Still sad, it was peaceful now. Death was riot the end. There was a greater good. Tusk heard the prayer spoken over his father's body during the funeral—a funeral that had been held in secret in the middle of the night by a priest who had himself been in fear of his life.
The clamp that held the bottle in place during flight refused to unlock.
"Hey, let go!" Tusk commanded the computer. He glared at XJ. "Say, didn't I give you a course change? Let's see those lights flash. Let's hear that disk whir—"
"I like the kid," XJ said.
"Son of the Creator!" Tusk swore in profound astonishment. "That's impossible. You're not programmed to like anyone."
"Liking is an emotional state, therefore it is supposedly an attribute of so-called intelligent life-forms. But you underestimate me. I like the boy for logical, unemotional reasons based solely on his future worth."
"Hah! A kid who doesn't even know his own name, and you're talking future worth? Besides, from what I've seen, people who hang around him don't have a future!"
Tusk gave the bottle another, surreptitious tug, just to see if the computer had forgo
tten. It hadn't.
"I've been thinking about this," he continued, hoping to distract XJ, "and there's a lot about this kid that doesn't add up. At first, I figured he was the son of some Guardian, trying to escape the Warlord. But I'm the son of a Guardian. They tortured and murdered my father and you don't see Lord Sagan taking any wild personal interest in me, do you?"
"Not up until now," returned the computer in ominous tones.
Tusk grunted, scowling, and propped his feet up on the control panel.
"Then I decided the kid must be Sagan's son. I discarded that, though. I've seen custody fights over kids before and they get pretty messy sometimes, but we're talking swords and fancy armor here, not to mention the disruption of an entire planet."
"Not to mention the rumors floating around the service to the effect that Lord Sagan doesn't like women."
"He's not discriminatory. He doesn't like men either. He doesn't like anyone, in fact. And quit interrupting me. Where was I? Oh, yeah. I tell you, XJ, this kid is special to someone or maybe a whole bunch of someones. And I don't even like to think who they might be. The sooner we get rid of him, the better. For all of us. The kid included."
"I find that very interesting," XJ mused. "It never ceases to amaze me how you humans come up with intelligent ideas following the most chaotic thought processes. Kid special to someone. We know who at least one someone is. I'll search my files and see if there's anything that ties together the boy and the Warlord. Despite what you say, Sagan's human, after all. Although much superior to most, I might add. Still, in a moment of weakness, he might have made a tiny little mistake. How old is the boy? Seventeen? Born the year of the revolution. That's interesting."
"Is it? Check on the couple of hundred million other kids born that year while you're at it," Tusk commented, yawning.
XJ ignored him, its lights flashing in a subdued, studious manner.
"Hey! What about the course change?" Tusk asked, thumping the computer's terminal.
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