by K. W. Jeter
C H A P T E R 1 2
TO KILL WAS a waste. Between warriors, it was enough to know the moment of killing had been reached. That a life was in one’s hands, and could be broken like a dry straw. Between Chekkah, in mock combat, the victory was symbolized by the slightest touch. A hand laid upon the vanquished’s Serdsos, the jewel’s inner light eclipsed as in death.
Ahpossno watched the contestants in the training circle; they bowed crisply to each other, then turned away, the small battle ended for now. The two had been well matched, each an expert in weaponless fighting. One had fought in the low, crouching style, taking advantage of the mother ship’s artificial gravity; the other had taken to the air with sweeping kicks and forearm slashes. This time the ground-hugging defensive mode had won, the patient, suffocating trap extinguishing the arc of fire. It could have gone either way; both styles had their strong points and weaknesses. But Ahpossno had been able to see the moment when the attack had hesitated, concentration and resolve wavering, the flaw of doubt. The match had been decided at that fraction of a second; all else was but the inevitable workings of the physical world.
At the side of the ring, past the observers, the two Serdsos lay within a few centimeters of each other. The victor set his hand upon his defeated opponent’s soul. He could squeeze his hand into a fist and shatter the glowing sphere; the dead shards would trickle from between his fingers. The vanquished kept his face hard and expressionless as he watched the ritual gesture. Inside his twin hearts, the defeat was already being transmuted into the steel of perfection. Against such stone the knife’s edge was sharpened. The next combat would be even fiercer and colder.
“That one is young . . .” A voice spoke next to Ahpossno. “There are a few things yet that he needs to learn.”
He turned away from the rail of the catwalk. In the open space below, the largest in the cramped quarters of the mother ship, another pair of Chekkah had entered the training ring and taken their stances. Beside him, his commanding officer continued to watch.
“There is always more to learn.” Ahpossno kept his own voice guarded, the formalities of respect. “But training has its limits. Some things are learned only in the reality of action.”
“Truth, son of blood.” The officer glanced at him. “Are you anticipating much education of that nature?”
“No . . .” A trap lay in the officer’s words. “Only for myself. I regret that this will not be a campaign of glory for my brothers. Resistance will be minimal. The habits of fear are not so readily forgotten.”
“I hope that is the case—for your sake.” The commanding officer’s gaze shifted, following the action in the circle below. “You argued that view most persuasively in council. And of course, there are those elders who have brought their own pressure to bear in this matter. To follow this course of action. If your efforts meet with success—” the officer’s gaze drew inward in contemplation “—I’m sure they’ll express their gratitude appropriately.”
The trap had been sidestepped, but not the threat. Ahpossno knew that the officer had wanted him to say that there would be glory enough for all to share; that implied a difficult operation, with possible losses of warriors and strategic materiel. Even if Ahpossno had believed that, he would not have been so easily tricked into admitting it.
But the threat; more of a warning, even a friendly reminder. That if the rewards for success were great, the punishment for failure would be of a similar magnitude. And Ahpossno, in arguing so forcefully for a one-man contact mission, had put himself in a vulnerable position. His backers, further up the Chekkah hierarchy, would be able to disavow him and his actions, and thus prevent the blame from spreading to themselves. And that would leave him naked and exposed to the retribution of the others, the council members whose courage and resolve had been impugned—with formal, veiled etiquette—by the cold fire of his words.
Military politics were just like the battlefield—Ahpossno had reflected on that old truism more than once. One rose by climbing upon the corpses of one’s enemies. And he had made enemies inside the brotherhood; it was impossible not to.
He turned away from the commanding officer and looked down toward the training circle. The two combatants had engaged, then drawn back, looking for openings in each other’s defenses; a vivid bruise spread across one’s shoulder, the mark of a blow that had landed with force. It was easier in the circle—another truism. There, at least, the attack came straight at you, and not in the darkness of lies and politely agreeable faces. Even in a blood-honor fight, where death was the only acceptable outcome—even then, you at least knew who your opponent was.
Ahpossno’s emotionless gaze went back to the officer. “Gratitude is not a warrior’s goal. The accomplishment of one’s mission is all that matters. A knife needs no name—no gratitude—to cut a slave’s throat.”
“Truth.” The commanding officer had stiffened, his hands tightening upon the catwalk rail. Ahpossno could see the anger inside him, provoked by these lines from the Chekkah’s first catechism. There were other infuriatingly basic lines he could have quoted—that wrath was a flaw in the armor of one’s soul, the same as any other emotion—but he refrained. If the officer had forgotten how to control himself, to keep the knife’s honed edge, then so much the better.
“I have tarried here long enough.” Ahpossno made the slightest bow, a mere tilt of the head, to the officer. “It is an indulgence on my part.”
“Such may be allowed, even to warriors.” The officer returned the gesture. “I have, perhaps, detained you; my apologies. I am aware that your shuttle craft has been prepared, and that your hour has come . . .”
Everyone aboard the mother ship knew. Ahpossno had caught the glances, wordless recognition, from those below and the ones he had passed on his way through the doorless spaces. They knew, and waited.
“I desired merely to wish you the success in battle that you so richly deserve.”
“It is not to be wished,” Ahpossno said coldly. “It is willed. By my will.”
“As you have spoken, son of blood.” The commanding officer turned away. The strike of his boots echoed against the steel bulkheads.
All preparations, the physical as well as the spiritual, had been made. Only a few minutes after this exchange of words, Ahpossno let himself be sealed into the shuttle. The mother ship’s technicians busied themselves disengaging the smaller craft’s umbilicus. Through the shuttle’s hull, he could hear the faint noises of the outer launch bay doors opening.
The target coordinates had been programmed. There would be time for his dark meditations. The knife’s steel would receive its final temper.
He turned his face toward the small window closest to him. Among the stars was a small blue-green gem. His will had already reached out and encompassed it. He could hold it in his hand, like the glowing sphere that was another’s soul. Hold it, and close his fist upon it.
The stars blurred with the shuttle’s sudden thrust. And then he was among them, falling.
He closed his eyes, shutting out the infinitely small universe. Time and its encumbrances would start again, when he had arrived at his destination.
C H A P T E R 1 3
THE NIGHT WRAPPED around the car. Sikes kept the accelerator pressed to the floor, barreling through red lights and stop signs, making a quick stab at the brakes only to cut around whatever traffic wouldn’t get out of his way.
Faces peered down at him from the city’s billboards. Through the corner of the windshield, he saw a Newcomer woman smiling coquettishly over her shoulder. He’d always hated that one, the stupid look on the magnified face. Big letters spelled out a pitch for Nu-Sheen Spot Enhancer.
The building with the sign on top whipped past. The medical center was practically on the other side of town. The Santa Monica freeway would have been a straight shot, but he knew it would be packed even at this hour. All the hours he’d spent in patrol cars had given him a working knowledge of the shortcuts across L.A.; the blocks and intersections still c
ouldn’t fly by fast enough.
Cathy sat next to him, looking out the side window. She didn’t seem perturbed by the speed of his driving, the squeal of tires around corners, and the bottoming out of the suspension into the road’s low spots. Sikes glanced over at her. He figured that she was concerned about what they’d find when they got there, with the Franciscos in the ICU and all. Though what she’d found up at his apartment, with Lorraine there and him with his shirt off, had probably gotten factored into the tense silence that filled the car.
She looked up at the stars, visible past the racing streetlights. “When we came here . . .” The words came slow and quiet, a window into her thoughts. “When we landed, all that time ago . . . we thought this world would be our salvation . . .”
They drove on in silence. The route swung through an industrial section, empty and shuttered; the car’s headlights swept across chain link fencing and sheet-metal gates. There were no streetlights here; the dark swallowed them like a cresting wave.
“Look . . .” Something had caught his eye. He leaned forward against the steering wheel, pointing up to it.
In the night sky, a sheet of pale radiance twisted and curled about itself.
“That’s the northern lights,” said Sikes. Even at a moment like this, the strange beauty, the discharge of electricity in the upper atmosphere, touched him.
Cathy gazed up through the windshield. “I didn’t know they came this far south.”
“It’s pretty rare. The only time I saw ’em before was when I went fishing up in Alaska. But people told me they’ve been seen all the way down in Mexico City.”
She sat back, silence and her dark thoughts claiming her again.
“Maybe it’s good luck.” The hopeful note in his voice sounded shallow and futile. “Like a shooting star . . . only better.”
She said nothing, but gazed straight ahead at the darkness.
A man could roll out on the desert. Roads like knife-cuts on the landscape, straight and sharp—you could punch that sucker, whatever Detroit iron or rice-rocket you might be running, and just let the miles pile up behind you.
That was why he lived out here. “Gimme the wi-yide open spaces . . .” He straightened his arms against the wheel and shouted to the Jimmy’s roof. Life was damn good: he had a feed lot with more dumb cows fattening up than his daddy had ever known existed, flash money in the butt pocket of his jeans, and a drained lizard in the buttoned crotch. His mouth tasted like a roadhouse queen’s lipstick, and there was still half a six-pack on the floorboards. He finished the can he’d been working on and pitched it out the side window. The dry brush all along this stretch of road was thick with empty cans, and a respectable percentage of them were his. “Uh-huh!”
The beer had put a fuzzy edge around his brain. Shouting like a fool wasn’t going to keep him awake, not all the way back to the ranch house. He switched on the pickup’s radio and punched a button, any button; they were all tuned to different talk stations. When you had to keep your eyes propped open, driving long distance, the last thing you needed was Reba singing sweet and sad in your ear, knocking you out with some Oklahoma lullaby. No, what was def-initely required at a time like this was the voice of some irascible transplanted New York jewboy, all caffeine and nicotine, leaning on the airwaves with some stuff you could get a righteous disagreement going with. Talking back to the mother right in the cab, without benefit of a telephone. It kept the blood pumping, at least.
A sharp-edged voice came over the dashboard speaker. “—what you’re saying, and let me see if I got this right, what you’re saying is that we should send them back?” The voice sounded incredulous. “Are you nuts? Where are we going to send them back to?”
“I didn’t say that.” Another voice, coming off a telephone. “I just said we should send them somewhere else . . .”
They were talking about those spot-head sonsabitches, the cantaloupe-domes you saw all over the place any time you had to go into the city. Newcomers were always a big topic on these radio shows. That, and why women thought all men were huge scumbags.
“Oh, yeah, right; that’s a hot idea.” Sarcasm oozed out of the radio. “I suppose we should dump ’em in the middle of the ocean. That’s what people like you would like to see, isn’t it?”
“Hah!” That made him laugh. He didn’t have anything against Newcomers—hell, he didn’t have to deal with them—but the picture of a planeload of them all going for a swim was pretty funny.
“Howie, I did not say that.” The guy phoning in was trying to be patient. “But there’s plenty of countries with lots more room than we got. And they are smart—”
“Smarter than you, that’s for sure!”
“Bicker, bicker, bicker.” The rancher was about ready to punch up another radio station, see if he could get some late sports scores, when he saw the glow on the horizon. Something bright—the long strip of the road was lit up blue, with big shadows twisting off the telephone poles. “Jumpin’ Jesus . . .”
The radio voices dissolved into a wash of static. The blue light pulsed, growing brighter, then dimming, then bright again.
He hit the brakes, gravel rattling against the wheel wells. The light was off to the side of the road, beyond the low sand dunes. The radiance flooded the truck cab, a skin of ice over his hands on the steering wheel.
“What the . . .”
The radio faded back in as the rancher pushed open the truck’s door. “. . . and if we can’t learn to live with these . . .”
“You tell ’em, Howie,” he muttered as he stepped down from the cab. The blue glow snapped off behind the dunes, plunging the area into darkness relieved only by the truck’s headlights. “Damn . . .” He mounted the running board, reached across the seat, and pulled out his flashlight from the glove compartment.
The flashlight’s beam swept across the dune. And caught two glinting points set close together, eyes staring back at the rancher.
“Shit!” Startled, he almost dropped the flashlight. He hadn’t been expecting anything living; coyotes out here in the middle of nowhere were smart enough to take off at the approach of anything that might be packing a rifle in a rear-window gun rack.
“Who’s there?” He held the beam steady.
A shadow like a human’s rolled across the top of the dune. But it wasn’t a human; it was one of those Newcomer fellows. The rancher had been able to see the hairless, earless skull, the pattern of spots starting above the brow. This was a big one, too; a male standing there a few yards away, arms folded across his chest, face impassively watching. The guy was as big as the rancher himself, and he’d played linebacker back in high school, and come within an ace of an athletic scholarship to Southern Methodist.
Plus, the fellow had on some kind of uniform that the rancher had never seen before. Obviously not some kind of fancy dress uniform, but field gear, with a close-fitting tunic that had insignia on the shoulders and one side of the chest, squiggly marks in that funny-looking Tenctonese alphabet.
The rancher walked toward the Newcomer. Tension had evaporated out of his spine, now that he knew this was all it was. He still wanted to know what the guy was doing out here in the empty desert.
“What’s going on? You lost or somethin’?”
He didn’t get an answer. The Newcomer’s cold, level gaze unnerved the rancher. Screw that, he thought, raising the beam up to the high-angled face. The eyes didn’t blink in the glare.
A hissing sound came from behind the dune, and a last fading glimmer of the blue radiance he’d seen from the truck. “Whatcha got back there?”
The Newcomer seemed to be studying him, taking the pieces apart in his hand and neatly sorting them out.
“You dumb slag, I asked you a question!”
He’d walked right up to the Newcomer, close enough that he was tempted to thunk him on the head with the flashlight, see if he could knock an answer loose out of him.
He didn’t get the chance.
The Newcomer’s hand
lashed out, faster than the rancher’s eye could follow. Before he could react, the Newcomer’s grip had closed around the rancher’s neck. As he gagged for breath, eyes straining from their sockets, the Newcomer lifted him off his feet. He gripped the Newcomer’s wrist with both hands, the soles of his boots dangling helplessly above the ground.
“Hey . . .” He could barely squeeze the words out. The suddenness had replaced every thought in his head with pure, desperate terror. “Lemme go . . . lemme go!”
The grip on his throat tightened a fraction of an inch. The Newcomer could crush his windpipe in a second. He froze, his struggling paralyzed by fear.
The Newcomer pulled him close, their faces almost touching. The cold gaze inspected him.
With his consciousness fading from lack of oxygen, the rancher realized something. He ain’t never seen a human before . . .
The thought flared and died away, like the sparks of a cigarette butt tossed out of his truck’s side window as he rolled down some empty highway, miles and miles from here.
He’d always hated the smell of hospitals. Even before he’d ever woken up in one, on a table in the emergency room, getting his head stitched up, or the gunshot wound he’d taken back when he’d been in patrol cars, a clean in-and-out puncture on the outside of his left thigh, which had hurt like a sonuvabitch when he’d finished cuffing the dopey perp who’d fired on him. The disinfectant reminded Sikes of watching his mother fade away beneath respirators hoses and heart-monitor wires.
He and Cathy walked fast down the medical center’s corridors, threading their way past the staff, humans and Newcomers alike, doctors and nurses in their green scrubs. The distant sound of a janitor running a floor-buffing machine drifted from the administration offices.
“They’ve put them in a security area,” said Cathy. “You’ll have to show your ID.”
At a set of swinging doors marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, Sikes flashed his badge to the guard; Cathy had her laminated photo card from the hospital. The guard waved them through.
