How could that be?
Ignoring the roiling in her stomach, Gemini pushed into the back of her mind that she might have been duped by the pixie and Hanaway was right. Instead, she began to dismiss any border codes that were over twenty-four hours old (which was most of them) until she found herself staring at three likely candidates. All were routed for disparate areas of Terevell, far from Ilmaris. Two were merchant tankers, on charter for Yrin, no doubt to collect the famous Yrini wheat yields which were coveted as far as the Outer Rim. The other was a scientific vessel bound for Gorm and had something to do with soil analysis. This made sense, too. The composition of the Great Contamination in the northern hinterlands was still of great debate amongst the scientific community, especially it affected the World Tree. Either way, the tracker bearings had no relation to Ilmaris, and that was obviously a big stumbling block for Gemini.
Leaning back in her seat, Gemini chewed the inside of her lip, thinking. The pixie had said it had learnt of the dragon hunt through a forger who had manufactured border permits to grant it access to Thauno—a moon under dwarfish jurisdiction, and with its own strict landing policies. The dwarfs, while known for making any number of violations themselves in their lust for mining opportunities, were very particular about letting anyone across their own borders in recent years. Thus, forged permits had had to become increasingly sophisticated. Nevertheless, Kromor—the dwarf’s home planet—didn’t yet have anything as impressive as the Border Gates around Terevell, and so they were forced to rely on their own overstretched roving scouts to police any traffic crossing into their territory. This meant that forged permits bound for Kromor had never had to be particularly exceptional for a good chance of fooling scrutiny. On the other hand, a faked permit for Terevell was something else entirely. That would have to be top-notch work. Work that, until now, Gemini had never come across.
So, maybe the pixie had been lying about the forger?
It was possible. Upon leaving Genek IV, Gemini had taken some time to try and find out which of the very best counterfeiters were still at large. There weren’t that many. Just a couple of shapeshifters from Syrese who were still on the run. Otherwise, most had ended up in Icefall Prison. Still, Gemini had taken the liberty of contacting one—an imp by the name of Cyrio, who was serving three hundred standard years for forging credit codes on Thirinal—to try and work out how the subterfuge might be accomplished. He hadn’t been very encouraging, suggesting it was almost impossible to bypass the quantum cryptography the Border Gates employed.
“You’d have to have full access to the databases,” he’d croaked from the confines of the echoey communications booth. The line hadn’t been very good, as Icefall was so far away, and Gemini could hear angry shouting in the background. “And fundamentally change the code to get away with it. Even then, the code change would be subtle, probably linked to the triangulation points.”
“So, it would have to be an inside job?”
“What do you think? Now, you promise you can put in a good word with the Assembly to reduce my sentence. It’s freezing out here!”
Gemini leaned in again and considered the border codes and the vessels they were attached to. According to their trackers, all these ships had already landed in their designated locations. There had been no deviation from these paths. The border codes themselves didn’t show destinations, only that they had passed muster. Which prompted her to lift her eyes over her viewing panel to a porthole in the ceiling.
Perched just above the monstrous impenetrability of the Border Gate, she could just make out the small, illuminated chamber. This was where the cipher-golem sat, whose job it was to verify border codes and grant access to the surface. If Cyrio was right, and there was any anomaly between the tracker’s purported destination and the codes intended destination, that’s where she’d find it. And, according to the imp, it wouldn’t take a master forger to make changes to the code either—all they’d need is access to the source code. But Gemini had dismissed it initially because of the implications. Internal tampering of a tracker was not only a huge offence it could shake the very foundations of the Border Gates’ reason for existing.
Yet how else could the breach have occurred?
4
Caught off guard upon returning from his lunch break, Director Raabus Janik knuckled away a mustard spot from the corner of his mouth as he hastened after Border Guard Lito into the Hub. His heart was labouring hard. Now more than ever he wished he had committed to more exercise (or at least a few rounds in a weight loss tank) as he jerked down at the corner of his uniform to pull in his stomach. Too many long lunches had given him a belly that he hadn’t had three years ago. And carrying so much weight had concerned more than a few medics during his annual check-up. But Janik had long admitted to himself that he had a lazy streak. Which was probably why most everyone wondered how he had managed to reach the lofty heights of a Border Gate Supervisor in the first place. All except Janik. If he had one skill in the world, it was getting to know the right people. Or the wrong ones, depending on one’s perspective. Which was why when Border Guard Lito had come to tell him a ranger had arrived at the Border Gate, investigating a gate breach no less, he’d lurched out of his seat in alarm. And nor was his gathering panic quelled when he eventually arrived at booth where Lito professed to have plugged the ranger in.
It was empty.
Janik turned to Lito. “Well?” he demanded. “Where is she?”
Lito opened her mouth to answer, only for a young communications officer a few rows down to pipe up: “She left, sir. About fifteen minutes ago.”
Janik swung his attention to the young woman who was now struggling hurriedly from her seat.
“Left?” the supervisor snapped. “You mean, left the Command Post?”
“I don’t think so, sir. She was heading for the elevator to the cypher suites.”
Janik turned toward the elevator. He then looked up and followed the sky bridge across to the cypher-golem’s chamber only visible through the porthole that looked out onto the Border Gates. He could just see the golem’s silhouette behind the glass.
Janik felt his heart lurch again. He was also aware that he had started to sweat. Profusely.
“Alright,” he wheezed, and looked around the Hub until he located Border Guard Norvell. Thank God. He was still on duty, fielding traffic reports at his station. “Norvell!”
The Border Guard swung around, his bio-mech implants in his eyes caught in the faint light.
“Sir?”
“I need your assistance up at a Cypher Suit. Now.”
Norvell frowned. “Now? But sir, I…
“Now!”
Norvell started to attention. “Yes, sir.”
Then Janik noticed Lito was looking at him questioningly.
“You need me to come too, sir?” she asked. There was nothing in her demeanour to suggest she was suspicious, but these ex-military types rarely gave much away.
Janik swiped a finger under his nose, mopping up the beads of sweat. “No,” he said quickly. “No, you go back to your post. You’ve been most helpful already.”
“No problem, sir.”
“But Lito…”
“Yes sir?”
“If what you tell me is true, and this ranger is here to investigate a serious breach, this is not to be taken lightly. It could have far-reaching repercussions. Understand?”
“Of course, sir. I understand.”
Then Janik nodded and strode out to meet Norvell, all the while aware of the young guardswoman watching them as they headed toward the elevator.
5
By the time Raabus Janik had entered the cypher suite, Gemini was already approaching the Border Gate in her Chaser. Normally, after the kind of breach of security she had discovered in the golem’s data banks, she would have marched straight down to the Border Gate Supervisor and explained precisely what she had found. As it was, she knew that wouldn’t be a wise idea. It would soon become apparent she was a
t the Command Post without permission, and in light of the contravention of orders, once Hanaway was called, Gemini was sure she would be taken into custody pending a full investigation. It wouldn’t matter what she had discovered, and how explosive the revelations were, they’d hold her, pepper her with questions, and all the while the hunt would be going on its merry way.
Gemini was not prepared for that to happen. While the information she had discovered in the cypher golem suite proved she was right, that there had been an anomaly in the triangulation codes as Cyrio had suspected, any delay to her getting down to the surface was unacceptable. That’s why she had left the quick link drive containing almost everything she had discovered so far with the golem, partly encrypted to give her enough time to steal away. What she neglected to relay was precisely where she was headed.
After all, she now had the general location as to where the RV was really going. Not Gorm as was registered in the databases, but the Deep Forest of Ilmaris. Which was where she was now headed too. But if she gave away her destination, then there was a chance the Border Gate Supervisor might summon the Elven Overseers Commission and have them inform the High King to intercept her before she reached her destination.
Ahead of her, the Border Gate slowly began to open. As she looked up to the cypher-golem’s chamber, she noticed four tiny figures hastening across the sky bridge. It looked like Lito had relayed her message to her boss, and they were already on their way. But they would be too late to close the gate. A good job too. Time really was of the essence as she slowly eased down on her throttle, speeding the Chaser toward the vast opening, the surface of Terevell spreading out before her.
FOURTEEN
1
They walked in silence. Nyara had warned them all from the outset not to make any unnecessary noise unless they wanted to attract unwanted attention. And Blake knew why. For while he wasn’t that familiar with this particular region of Ilmaris, having spent most of his hunting days in the more mountainous regions, he knew enough about the great woodlands to guess at what kind of dangers lurked all around them. There were many too, from devil birds to hollow dwellers, dryads to wendigo, all lurking in the vast, tangled labyrinth of the forest. What’s more, these creatures had little fear of man or elf, and their innate knowledge of the terrain made them silent and deadly predators. In many ways, that’s why Blake preferred the mountains. He’d heard enough tales of skilled trappers and hunters who went into the Deep Forest never to return. The honed skills they had learnt in the higher wildernesses were next to useless when they were confronted with the terrors that stalked the trees.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Uldo Rorg grumbled when Nyara finally let everyone take a break. They had been trudging for a few hours since a hurried lunch a few hours before. Sticky from the closeness of the forest, they took a moment to paw away their sweat. “On Kromor, the forests are black pine: clean trees that stay green all year ‘round. Not like these shaggy, cloying giants. Everything here feels like its growing under your feet. Moving. Watching.”
“And so it is.” Nyara pulled free a ceramic flask from her pack. She unscrewed the lid and went to a huge plant with a bell-like, succulent flower. Carefully pulling at the stem, she tipped a reservoir of water into her bottle and immediately drank. When she was finished, she wiped her mouth and said: “Life is ever-moving on Terevell. Never more so than in Throgorolind.”
“Throgorolind? What’s that?”
“It is the elvish name for the Great Eastern Forest,” offered Cid in his deep, metallic voice.
“Well, I don’t like it,” Uldo spat, perching himself on a fallen log and reaching for a pipe he had tucked in his belt. “And Cid is the same. Isn’t that so, Cid?”
The metal golem’s single green eye swivelled toward the dwarf as he said, “The air here is bad for my joints.”
“There, you see?” The dwarf jammed the pipe in his mouth. But Blake quickly intervened.
“No smoking.”
Uldo lifted his head, his black goggles shining. “What?”
“It’s not a natural scent. Put it away.”
“Put it away!” Uldo puffed out his chest. “But we’re miles yet from the lair…”
“I said, put it away. The dragon’s not the only thing we have to worry about. There are things here that can smell smoke two klicks away. They’ll be on our trail in no time. You want to serve yourself up for dinner, be my guest. I don’t want to be dessert.”
“Is that so?” Uldo started to get to his feet, only for Maddox to step forward.
“Okay, Uldo, let’s do what the man says, alright? We agreed he was in charge. And he makes a valid point. Isn’t that so Nyara?”
Nyara shrugged. “There are dangers all around. And smoke attracts attention.”
“There, you see?” said Maddox. “And if she concurs, we should listen, yes? What do you say? Let’s just try and get along.”
Glowering at Blake fiercely, the dwarf squeezed the pipe in his fist. He even looked as though he might defy the advice and stick the pipe between his teeth anyway, just to be perverse. Instead, he relented, digging the pipe back in his belt. He hopped off the log. “Fine. I didn’t realise everyone was quite so timid around here. Fearful of a little smoke. Pah! Well, I’m not. And nor is Cid.” Then he heaved up his pack, swinging it onto his shoulder and started around the log. Cid swivelled his head to take in Blake and Nyara, as if assessing where his loyalties might lie. Then he started after the dwarf, slapping low hanging branches away with his huge hand as he disappeared down the rise.
“He’s just a bit irascible, is all,” Maddox apologised.
“Aren’t all dwarfs?” Nyara pushed her flask into her pack and picked it up. Soon she was following Uldo and Cid down the uneven path.
2
They walked for another few hours, the sun warm as it beat down through the trees. It was slow-going too, despite Nyara’s certain guidance, until eventually they came to a stop again on the edge of a sloping shelf of rock. Nyara climbed to its brink to assess the way forward and, pawing a trickle of sweat out of his eyes, Blake started up the rise to join her, leaving the others to talk softly amongst themselves.
Blake wrinkled his nose. There was the smell of a bog nearby: a fetid odour somewhere off to his right. They would have to be careful going forward lest they encounter a hidden quagmire. Even the biggest creatures in the forest sometimes fell afoul of these cesspits. For various reasons.
“There’s a mire,” Nyara said as Blake came to stand next to her. “We’ll have to go around.”
“Yeah, I know.” Blake kept his attention firmly ahead of him. “You have any idea how far off course it will take us?”
“Maybe an hour or two’s hike. But I suggest we give this place as wide a berth as possible. Mires attract predators.”
“You don’t say,” Blake muttered sarcastically. “They also have predators of their own too. Wisps to draw people in at night. Marsh Prowlers to drag you in. This isn’t my first game trail, you know.”
“Ah yes. I forgot. I’m in the company of a great hunter.” Nyara pointed westward. “That’s our way. If we make good time, we’ll be within striking distance of the river by tomorrow morning.”
Blake nodded. Then he looked back to the rest of the party at the bottom of the shelf. They were far enough away to be out of earshot, so Blake turned back to Nyara and said: “So…You going to tell me now what kind of business Maddox is involved in?”
Nyara looked at Blake and offered him a small, surprised smile. “Isn’t it a bit late to be worried about that, Mr McCord?”
“I’m just curious, okay? And I’d like to know as much as possible about my hunting partners before we reach the lair.” Blake raised his brows. “So?”
Nyara shrugged. “All I know is what he told me: that he’s a dealer of high-end exotic goods.”
“Which means he trades on the black market.”
“Is that a problem? Or would you have expected me to establish
contact with someone who has more legitimate business interests?”
“Look, it’s not a criticism, just an observation. Where did you meet him?”
“Syrese.”
“And he was the only one you talked to about this?”
“I was discrete, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
“Let’s hope so. Syrese is thick with undercover Ranger Patrol agents these days. And I should know. I’ve run enough charters out there for years. Besides, even if we manage to kill the dragon and get off Terevell, I need to know the hunt won’t lead to me.”
“It won’t.”
“Can you be so sure? What if the dwarf down there gets drunk one night and starts bragging about killing a great wyrm? Doesn’t that make you nervous?”
“Master Rorg has been paid enough to keep his mouth shut, Mr McCord. It would be in his best interests to do so, too. Dwarfs can just as easily end up in Icefall as humans.”
“And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“What if we’re successful? Where are you planning on going?”
“Why, nowhere, Mr McCord. I will stay on Terevell. I will guide you back to your ship, and I will remain.”
“That doesn’t sound very sensible.”
“What choice do I have? Exile is intolerable to an elf. Whatever my future holds, I would rather be here than an off-world fugitive.”
Blake grunted. “Well, I suppose talking about what we do afterwards is tempting fate. It’s just that in the old days I wouldn’t have even entertained the idea of a hunt like this without knowing precisely who I was dealing with.”
“And yet here you are.”
Blake lifted his eyes to the elf. He could hear the faintly mocking tone in her voice, and was about to muster a pithy response, when Uldo called up, “Hey! You two! What’s the hold up?”
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