The binnaum-ta stepped away. George rubbed at his throat.
“Not your dormitory,” the old female said.
“It is important I find Ruhtra,” George told her.
“If Ruhtra hides from the Overseers, you’ll not find him soon.”
“I must,” George said.
The old female leaned closely against George, making him lower an ear valley to her lips. “Go back to where you belong,” she whispered hoarsely. “There is not much time.”
George stared at the faint pattern her faded spots made. He looked again at the binnaum-ta. Binnaum spots were hard to read—they were larger, more melted together in the blending of the other two sexes. But the similarities to the old female’s pattern was clear.
George dropped his own voice to a whisper. “Are these your children?” Both binnuam-ta were clearly older than George. By rights they should be nowhere near their mother.
A smile flickered on the old female’s face. She leaned forward again. “Gather the children,” she said softly. “That is what we were told, that is what you should be doing as well. Don’t look for your brother. Look for your children.”
George felt his spots pucker. Had some order gone out on a network he had no knowledge of? Gather the children? Why? Unless . . . of course, he thought, the rebellion is beginning. The rebels have sent out word that we are to gather our children around us. But how will everyone know where their children are?
“How is this possible?” George asked.
But the old female held her fingers to cover her lips. “Keer’chatlas,” she whispered. Then she returned to her platform, and her binnaum-ta stepped in front of it, thick arms folded over muscular chests, standing guard.
Unsettled by the encounter, George pushed his way through the crowd that had gathered, leaving the dormitory-corridor segments from a direction different from the one by which he had arrived. If the Overseers were searching for Ruhtra, then he wasn’t sure why he himself hadn’t been stopped at any of the Overseer checkpoints he had passed. Certainly his spots were similar enough that if the Overseers had been shown Ruhtra’s spot pattern, then George would have been just as likely to have been recognized. No matter how invincible he felt, George wasn’t keen to trust the Overseers to make the same mistake twice.
Five sectors away from Ruhtra’s dormitory George fell in with a group of scavengers walking listlessly on patrol. He edged his way into the middle of the group and walked with them for cover, trying to use the time to focus his thoughts. If he felt he had the time, he could go back to the hull access zone, reclaim his molecular probe, and hunt for another Overseer. Enough time might have passed that a request for the location of Finiksa might not appear to be related to the earlier request for Ruhtra’s location. But as he recalled the look on the old female’s face, George felt sure that there was no time even for that.
Gather the children. Gather the children. The phrase kept running through George’s mind. For the rebellion leaders to have put out such a command to be passed on to everyone, they must have been convinced that the origin of the command could not be traced back to them by the Overseers. And since the Overseers had the ability to make any victim reveal his or her or binn secrets, the leaders must have determined that the Overseers would no longer have time to question enough Tenctons.
It was going to happen soon, George knew. Whatever was to happen, it would happen within a crayg, perhaps even a shift. Something was going to happen.
He stayed with the scavenger patrol, his mind churning with indecision. Should he return to Susan? No. She was on a work shift, and he would never be able to gain entrance to her station. Should he return to the hull and retrieve his probe to have as a weapon? No, that seemed wrong as well. If the rebels were going to gain control of the ship, then it would likely have to undergo a translation back into its superluminal mode shortly after so it could begin the long voyage back to Tencton. The hull would not be the place to be during that translation.
There was only one thing that George felt he could do—the first thing he had set out to do. Find Ruhtra. And, George realized, he knew just where he would find him.
George made his way back to the service tunnels. He returned to the hidden entrance near his own dormitory, then slipped inside when the corridor was clear. If Ruhtra was part of the rebellion and hiding from the Overseers, then he would be hiding in these tunnels. George was certain of it.
He retraced the route he had taken with Susan on the crayg they had seen Buck in the water hub. Ruhtra had taken them to an intersection of eight tunnels then, George remembered. Perhaps that was a meeting place. Perhaps that was where Ruhtra hid now. No matter; it would be where George would begin his search.
He moved through the half-height tunnels with confidence. He had killed an Overseer. He had confirmed that the rebellion was nearing its moment of truth. And he was aware of a whole new environment in the ship that not even the Overseers seemed to know about.
He found the intersection where Ruhtra had talked with him. He stopped and looked around carefully. All eight lights glowed by the alien signs beside each tunnel entrance. In the multiple shadows the lights cast, George looked to see if any supplies had been hidden, anything at all that might indicate that someone hid here. But there was nothing.
George noticed a twist of cables in the center of the intersection and sat down upon it. From this vantage point he could look into each tunnel entering the intersection. Ruhtra wasn’t here now, but surely someone must come through eventually. And sooner rather than later, given that the rebellion was so close.
George sat very still, breathing deeply, feeling his hearts calm. It felt so good to be doing something at last. So good to be—
“Stangya?”
The word was a hissed whisper. George couldn’t be certain he had heard it.
He stood up as best he could in the low-ceilinged space. “I am Stangya,” he said in a marginally louder whisper.
A shadow moved between two tunnel entrances, and Ruhtra emerged from between two large vertical pipes. The space between them was deeper than George had realized.
George picked his way across the wires and pipes that snaked across the floor of the intersection and hugged his brother.
But Ruhtra kept his own arms at his side. “You are mad to have come here,” he said.
“No,” George said. “I have joined the rebellion.” His hands gripped Ruhtra’s shoulders. “Ruhtra, I have killed an Overseer.”
Ruhtra’s spots blanched, even in the pale tunnel lights. “Leave here at once. The Overseers will be looking for you.”
George grinned, swollen full of new purpose. “No, they won’t. The rebellion is almost here, Ruhtra. This is our crayg of freedom.”
Ruhtra pulled away from his brother and held his hand to his eyes. He seemed to shrink with weariness. “You were never supposed to be part of it,” he said.
George didn’t understand Ruhtra’s reaction. “But I am now,” George said. “I want to be part of it.”
“It’s not that simple.” Ruhtra collapsed back on a coil of cables. “The rest of us have had years of training. Learning how to keep the Overseers from infiltrating.”
George shrugged. “How hard can that be? Their wrists give them away.”
Ruhtra shook his head. “They have machines that can remove the tattoos, Stangya. They have devices you’re not aware of, devices we’ve never dreamed of. Not even the Elders understand all of them.”
“You don’t understand, Ruhtra. I killed one. I am part of this, part of you. Part of our people’s fight.”
But Ruhtra shared no part of George’s joy. He only stared at his brother. “I’m so tired, Stangya.”
“Then let me fight with you.”
Ruhtra closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. “You won’t be fighting, Stangya. You killed an Overseer. They’ve probably been tracking you ever since.”
George felt a sudden chill trickle through him. “No. You are wrong. How
could that be possible?”
Ruhtra looked away from George into the distance. It was like talking to an Elder close to death. “Do you think that in more than a century of this . . . this lesh that you are the only one of us to have attacked and killed an Overseer? Do you not remember the stories? The rebellion against the mining controllers on Tromus IV? The battle with the rogue ship?”
George lowered his head in confusion. “I have heard . . . none of those.”
Ruhtra looked at his brother in despair. “Because this was not your battle! This was not your war! You were to be free of it to raise your children and honor your wife and carry our line forward!”
George froze as Ruhtra’s words echoed through all the tunnels. His voice cracked. “Are you . . . are you not afraid that they will hear you?”
Ruhtra only stared at him. A sudden blue flare erupted against one vertical wall section. Sparks flew. Then another flare, and another. George jerked back and forth, trying to find a place free from the blue fire and sparks that filled the air. But there was no place to go.
The intersection was being sliced open by small mining beams like the one used by the Overseers in the water hub.
“Noooo!” George cried, his voice lost in the howl of the spitting fire.
But Ruhtra did not cry out or move from his position. His face flashed and flickered with blue light, but he showed no fear. He was beyond any reaction. George cried out for the both of them.
The first opening was kicked through in seconds. The edge of the metal hole glowed red. A black shape appeared behind it, then stepped through, one black boot after another.
It was Coolock. A beam weapon in his hand. A communications device around his head.
The Overseer cupped a hand to his ear valley. “Call off the search. We have traced both of them.” He grinned in an evil way at George. “Thank you, Stangya. Mighty killer of Overseers.” He stepped closer. “Did you really think you could use our own communications to locate your brother?” He swung the beam weapon high and hit George in the ribs, making him drop to one knee, gasping for breath. “Do you think all our checkpoints looked the other way by accident?” He kicked George in the stomach. George fell against the pipes and cables, choking on vomit.
Coolock squatted down by George and lifted his head by the neck of his tunic. “But do not think that you will be executed for your crimes, cargo. That is not going to happen.” He slammed George’s head against the intersection floor, then lifted it again. “You will wish it to happen, but it won’t. Unless you are much luckier than you are now.”
George stared at the Overseer through blood-flooded eyes.
“You see,” Coolock said with a smile, “I’m not going to punish you. I’m going to play with you.” He let go of George’s tunic, and George’s head fell to the deck again. The last thing George saw was Coolock cupping his hand to his ear valley again. And the last words he heard were Coolock saying, “Tell them we have two more players for the Game.”
Then oblivion claimed him.
C H A P T E R 1 2
ALL LIVING CREATURES had two hearts, but the ship had dozens. Moodri could recognize the pulse of each.
The power plants sent their subtle vibration through every atom of deck and bulkhead, infiltrating even the dreams of those who slept within their web of infinite energies.
Huge masses of air circulated up against the outer hull to endlessly drift down again from the uppermost levels, through the cleansing ’ponic jungles, and down to the bottom cargo-loading decks, becoming more fetid and stale with each level they descended.
Water thrummed through hidden pipes—hot water, cold water, scalding steam, waste for the treatment plants, salt water for disposal.
Wires crackled with transmitted energy and the exchange of information only machines could read.
Light sped through tubes that could be bent to any shape to flood out through the overhead banks.
The hull crawlers thundered over the outside of the ship like heavy, slow parasites overwhelming a corpse.
And other sounds, perhaps from machines and creatures and cargoes uncounted, resonated dimly from the hidden sectors of the cargo disk and the cut-off bulk of the distant main hull that housed the stardrive and long-forgotten secrets.
Moodri knew them all. And on this crayg, as he walked the corridors, head kept low, he heard them all and was heartened because all these sounds, all these pulses were unchanged.
The ship continued, which meant that so close to its destruction, after millennia of plying the dark ranges, it did not sense what fate approached it.
Moodri walked with a strength that belied his years. For more than a century he had fought against the shifting gravity fields of this ship. He had worked at forced labor on more planets than he could easily remember. And he had dreamed of the precise hour when the nightmare would stop. A dream that was close to fulfillment, except for the blindness of those on the council who had once shared his dream with him.
Moodri still could not believe what Yondmac and Melgil had told him. How Buck’s task had been handed to a jabroka-transformed squad of twenty howling throwbacks to a legacy of Tencton that should never have been revived.
The council’s new plan was useless. Moodri did not even have to bother asking the goddess for insight in this matter. Only Buck could bring about the dream of freedom. And Moodri was the only one who could send Buck on his way.
Moodri walked on, his head bent in prayer, concealed by his white robe’s hood. He heard a commotion up ahead, near the intersection that led to the infirmary where Buck was being treated. But Moodri did not look up. His own plan was well laid, and he would not deviate from it.
An Overseer slammed him against the corridor wall ten feet further on. It was a female, large of spot and snarling with rage.
“On your way to the recycler, you Tencton sta?” she shouted at him.
Moodri did not have to pretend to be startled or frightened. He bowed his head as if unable to speak.
He felt the female’s coarse hands search against his robes, looking for contraband. She found nothing. Then she cupped Moodri’s chin and made him look up at her.
“What’s your pattern, sta?”
Moodri made no move to pull back his hood.
The Overseer bared her teeth. “Good,” she breathed. “I like cargo with something to hide.” She reached out and ripped away the cloth that covered Moodri’s scalp, then twisted his head back and forth to examine his pattern. She laughed scornfully at him. “You must be sleepwalking.” She pushed his head against the wall in dismissal.
In his mind Moodri sought the peace of the goddess. On his body he arranged an expression of confusion. It went well with the camouflage he had painted on his head.
Spot enhancement was nothing new among the two primary sexes of the Tenctonese. Binnaum-ta, always functional, were another matter as always. But when males wished to recapture their appearance of youthful virility, when females wished to disguise how close they might be to the end of their cycles, it was not unknown for members of either sex to darken their spots with dyes and powders. And though the tonal choices were not as extensive on the ship as they had been on Tencton, the powders ground from the dried roots of certain ’ponics plants and fixed in place with subtle creams and lotions were enough to take years off the age of any male or female. Or, in Moodri’s case, to add them.
Almost all of Moodri’s scalp was pale and spotless pink. Here and there an indistinct mottling of tan showed through, but it was only a faint shadow of what had been—the mark of an Elder who slept most of his days, losing more of his vitality with each unconscious moment until the day his spots would fade completely and his life would end.
Beneath the powders and lotions on Moodri’s scalp the proud trident of Family: Heroes of Soren’tzahh and the bold crest stroke of Family: Third Star’s Ocean were nowhere to be seen. The female Overseer had no interest in him, and she shoved him out of her way. The recycling squads could deal w
ith him.
Moodri stumbled forward a few steps, replaced his hood, then continued on, head bowed again in seeming prayer. But his eyes searched ahead for the reason for the confusion before him.
Five Overseers stood together. Each held a prod. But where they stood was not an ordinary doorway or corridor intersection. Moodri crossed to the opposite side of the corridor and kept well away from the Overseers. He glanced into the jagged opening and saw with concern that the opening had been cut into the corridor wall by beams of coherent energy. He did not have to see what lay beyond to know that a service tunnel intersection had been exposed. The five Overseers were part of an invasion squad that was going into the tunnels through the new opening one at a time.
Almost imperceptibly Moodri picked up his pace. For years the Overseers had ignored the tunnels except for occasional scheduled sweeps, thinking that they controlled or had sealed all access hatches. But for them to have cut their way into the system here, Moodri knew, meant that they had finally discovered that the tunnels were in use. And depending on whom they had pulled from those tunnels, they might even have learned that the time of the rebellion was near.
Moodri offered up a prayer to the goddess that all had not been lost. If the Overseers had discovered the planned event of rebellion, then they could not help but realize that any such action undertaken before the ship was to translate back into superluminal space must have as its goal the landing of the cargo disk on one of this system’s planets. If the Overseers managed to send out a fleet warning message to that effect, then other ships would be certain to arrive in this system within two Tencton years, if not sooner.
But Moodri had been cast aside by the council, and there was no one he could seek out to learn why the Overseers had cut into the tunnels here, no way he could learn who had been captured. Only by closely observing what the Overseers did in the next shift would he have a chance to guess what actual harm might have been done.
I pray it was only children playing that attracted the Overseers’ attention, Moodri thought, Just as I and the others did when we first came aboard.
Alien Nation #1 - The Day of Descent Page 28
