by Peter David
“Too late,” Kalinda said. Her eyes were still shut tightly. Her voice sounded hollow. In the distance, Soleta could have sworn that the vortex of the sky was whirling even faster.
“That's right, before it's too late for your precious little girl here.”
“Not for me,” said Kalinda to the Dog, her eyes still squeezed shut.. “For you. It is too late ... for you. They have come. They are here. They know you ... all of you. And they are very . . . very . . . Quiet.”
“What is the girl blathering about?” demanded Zoran.
Kalinda's eyes snapped open.
Her pupils were gone. Instead, against the whites of her eyes, there was a tempestuous swirling image akin to the clouds from on high.
Rier saw the bizarreness of her eyes and reflexively released his hold on her, took a step back and gaped in confusion.
“You killed me,” whispered Kalinda. Her voice echoed, reverberated in itself, as if many of her were speaking at once.
“I didn't!” said Rier. “You're alive! You're . . . you're right here! What sort of?—”
“You killed us . . . and us . . .” Kalinda's voice tripled, quadrupled in its resonance. It sounded as if a mob were speaking through her in unison. “You all did . . .”
“Kally,” Si Cwan called to her.
Kalinda's body began to tremble, her arms spread wide. Her eyes were beyond frightening. When she spoke, it was almost deafening. “We died screaming. We died sobbing. We died begging. All of us, from all over . . . we died as loudly as we could. And then we came here, to his place of quiet, in order to seek the silence in death that we could not have at the end of our lives. And you ... all of you ... were responsible for sending us here. You had your reasons. You thought them good. You have killed, or helped others to kill, or served with those who sent us here, and we welcome you and you will stay here forever, with us, and in that way have the immortality you so richly deserve. For you took our lives, and in doing so, you took all our hopes, and our love, and our hatred. We will never love again, never feel again, and we have you to thank for that. Welcome to the Quiet Place. Stay . . . forever . . .”
XV.
YOU SEE THEM SOMETIMES.
They're just out of the corner of your eye, when you're not expecting them, and sometimes if you close your eyes very, very tightly, and then open them quickly, there will be a quick flash of them behind your eyelids before they dissipate.
They are the echoes of déjà vu, they are the regrets that are fleeting, they are that which you didn't know you missed . . .
They are everywhere and nowhere, and they have come to the Quiet Place, and they are quiet no longer . . .
“Atik! We're losing all sensor trace of the planet!”
Atik sat forward, confused. “How is that possible?”
“The nebula is thickening around the world. Obscuring it further.”
“Try to raise Rier on communications link. Let him know ... and distance ourselves from the planet. If something goes too wrong, we don't want to be sitting on top of it when it happens.”
Rier didn't know where to look first.
They were coming from everywhere, from all around, and they were screaming his name and screeching their fury. The Dogs drew together, confused, terrified.
From all over, they were attacking, and their eyes were missing, their arms were torn out, their intestines were trailing behind them, blood fountaining from hundreds of wounds. Everyone the Dogs had ever attacked and tortured and tormented, all of their victims, everyone who had suffered at their claws—all screaming, all screaming in fury, protesting their fate. They were pouring from the girl, they were arcing toward the skies and descending towards the Dogs, tearing at their fur, howling at them, and the smell of blood and fear was thick in the air ...
And the Dogs screamed.
Xyon didn't know where to look first.
There was the Dog of War he had killed, coming right at him, except it didn't quite look like him, it was a shade of him, twisted and distorted, but him, and there was Foutz, whom he had killed with his bare hands, and there were others, so many others, and he tried to explain, tried to tell them that he had been trying to help others, or just defending himself, and he had never been happy over anything that he had done, but it had been necessary, and please, don't rip his soul from him, don't punish him, leave him, leave him, take the others, take the Federation people, take the girl, just leave him . . .
And Xyon screamed . . .
Zoran and Si Cwan didn't know where to look first . . .
All the victims of the Thallonian Empire, swirling towards them, permeating them, and they felt cold in their bones, crushing them, turning their muscles to jelly, turning their souls to small, blackened husks that would stay in the Quiet Place forever, to join the other tortured, shrieking beings who screamed quietly unto eternity . . .
The Thallonian Empire, which had destroyed so many in order to maintain its hold, that had ruled oppressively, and there was to be suffering and punishment for eternity . . .
And Zoran and Si Cwan screamed . . .
Zak Kebron knew exactly where to look first. . . .
He saw shades coming at him, the howling images of people he had killed. People whose heads he had crushed, people whose guts he had personally removed . . .
He looked through them. He ignored them.
They screeched at him. They howled at him. Their screams permeated to his innermost being.
He pushed them away with an annoyed grunt and, unsure of how long he could maintain his sanity, started toward Kalinda with the intention of breaking her in half.
Soleta didn't know where to look first.
At the screaming Dogs.
At the screaming Xyon.
At the screaming Si Cwan and Zoran.
At the unscreaming, but implacable Zak Kebron who was striding towards the screaming Kalinda.
She felt something pushing in at the outermost edges of her consciousness, but her mental shields easily blocked it. Other than that, however, there was nothing particularly inconvenient for her.
She looked at her tricorder, stared at the readings. She was detecting some sort of huge outpouring of psionic energy, but she couldn't lock onto the source. One moment it seemed to be Kalinda herself, and the next, it appeared to be coming from all around her. The one thing she was certain of, however, was that everyone else was seeing something that she wasn't. She supposed she should have felt a bit left out.
Then it fully dawned on her that Kebron was not about to pull punches with Kalinda. Holstering her tricorder, she darted towards him and interposed herself between the quivering body of Kalinda and Kebron's considerable bulk. “Don't touch her, Zak,” she warned.
“She's causing this,” Kebron said over the shrieking of the confused creatures he heard around her. He spoke thickly, as if concentrating on forming the words.
“Perhaps. Or the planet is. We don't know.”
“Won't wait ... to find out.”
And Kebron lunged at Kalinda.
And Krul and Xyon slammed into each other and went down, Krul's outrage and terror pouring from him as he tried to silence his brother's howling by slaying the slayer ...
And Si Cwan and Zoran slammed into each other and went down, the two friends-turned-enemies trying to settle old scores, moved and tormented by the souls around them demanding blood vengeance . . .
And Rier and Omon slammed into each other and went down, the latter blaming the former for every death he'd ordered, every grisly raid, and the souls wanted them to join them . . .
And Vacu, for no particular reason, slammed repeatedly into the ground, like a blazing person trying to extinguish the fire . . .
Soleta knew she had absolutely no hope of blocking Kebron. So instead she grabbed Kalinda by the arm, yanked her out of Kebron's path. Kebron, not exactly built to turn on a dime, charged past her, and then Soleta lost her footing on the spongy ground and fell, and Kalinda fell on top of her . . .
. . . and their minds merged, and suddenly Soleta saw it all, knew it all, felt the psychic assault from all sides, all of the creatures of the damned whipping past her . . .
. . . and, struggling to her feet, Soleta half pulled, half dragged Kalinda toward Xyon's ship. As she did so, she shoved her mind into Kalinda's, envisioning a fortress, erecting barriers, and she felt something, somethings, battering against them, trying to tear them down, but she wouldn't let them. The howling was everywhere, and over and over, Soleta kept saying firmly, I do not believe, this is unscientific, fear comes from lack of knowledge, that is all, and once something is understood, there is no need to fear it, and someday I shall understand what is happening here, and when I do, there will be nothing to fear, nothing to fear, nothing to fear . . .
She hammered that concept over and over into Kalinda's mind . . . Kalinda, the conduit, Kalinda, the receiver of the Summons . . .
And Xyon suddenly saw Krul clearly above him. Moving entirely on instinct, he coiled his legs under Krul's chest and thrust upwards with all his strength. Krul tumbled back and off him, and Xyon scrambled to his feet . . .
And Si Cwan suddenly saw Zoran below him. His hatred for his greatest enemy abruptly seemed inconsequential, a trivial thing, for his sister was there, right there, being hauled away by Soleta. Her safety was all that mattered. Si Cwan drew back a fist and delivered a crushing blow to the side of Zoran's head, stunning him momentarily, and that was all he needed to leap clear of the Thallonian and dash after Soleta . . .
And Rier suddenly saw Omon with his teeth at his throat, and he saw Vacu rolling about like an idiot. He shoved Omon off him, pointed and shouted, “There! Over there!”
The Federation people were heading towards the ship that had been cloaked. Rier charged at full speed. He was doing everything he could to focus, his mind still scrambled over the images that had been barraging him moments before.
He was within a few feet of Xyon and, confident that the human couldn't produce a weapon and shoot at him, he leaped through the air, a howl of fury torn from his throat.
Xyon spun and Rier only had a second to see the gleaming blade, one of Atik's long fangs, in Xyon's hand, and then the blade was through Rier's chest. Rier clawed at it, confused and stunned, and Xyon yanked the blade back, blood spraying.
“Play dead,” he said, and darted into his ship.
The other dogs clustered around as the door irised shut. The ship lifted off quickly and smoothly . . . and silently, as if its engine noise was being absorbed into the eerie silence that was all around. Within seconds, the ship had faded out, consumed by the cloaking device.
“Get . . . after them,” gasped Rier. “We still . . . the riches . . . immortality . . . it's . . . it's all around us ... we can . . . we can touch it . . .”
“We'll get them . . . we'll get it, Rier . . . I promise,” said Vacu. The big Dog who had been virtually impossible to hurt felt nothing but pain as he looked upon his fallen leader. He scooped up Rier's body and, jaw set, repeated, “I promise. We'll get them. All of them.” He drew himself up and in a voice of surprising command, said, “Let's go!”
They started towards their ship, which was sitting a short distance away.
Something crushed it.
They gasped collectively as the top of the shuttle craft caved in, as if a gigantic weight had slammed down upon it. Within seconds, the shuttle had been reduced to little more than scrap.
“The ship! The invisible ship! They did this!” shouted Omon, but by that point it was too late to do anything about it. The Dogs were stranded.
They turned towards Zoran. The Thallonian was sitting there, staring off into nothing. Omon went to him quickly, grabbed him by the throat and snarled, “Your ship. Where is it? Get us off this damned place.”
Zoran laughed.
“What's so damned funny!”
“My ship?” chuckled Zoran. “You mean the one that your vessel crippled? I crashed here, you idiots. I'm as stranded as you!” And then he laughed very, very loudly.
“No. You're not stranded here. Not anymore,” said Omon, and his teeth flashed.
The Lyla tore up and out of the planet's atmosphere, calling on all its power to slam through the nebula. Xyon was piloting entirely on instinct, determined that nothing was going to stop them from breaking free after all they had been through. He heard Si Cwan murmuring Kalinda's name as he held Riella (Kalinda, damn it!) tight against him.
Kebron was now at Xyon's side. “Can this get us out of here?”
“Absolutely,” Xyon said, sounding confident, feeling less so. Then he frowned. “Do you—?”
“Yes. I see it.”
The nebula seemed to be getting thicker and thicker around them. It was as if they were piloting through increasingly thick fog . . . fog that pounded at them, fighting their every effort to get through. They were flying completely blind. “Lyla! Can you be of any help here?” shouted Xyon.
“Yes. Of course.”
Music promptly filtered through the ship. A woman's lilting voice crooned a song.
“Lyla! What the hell is that?”
“It's a jazz rendition of a song called ‘Namely You.’ ”
“I mean, why are you playing it?!”
“You seem upset. Music tends to calm down one's nerves.”
“Well, it's not helping!”
“Perhaps an instrumental then . . . how about ‘Nearer My God to Thee’?” Violin strains poured out of the speaker.
Before Xyon could tell her to shut it off, the nebula suddenly cleared in front of them . . .
. . . and the Dog warship hovered bare kilometers away, dead ahead.
With a yelp Xyon angled the ship as fast as he could. Fortunately, Lyla was aiding him, and consequently the ship managed to avoid collision . . . albeit barely. Safely under cloak, the smaller ship hurtled away without detection.
Xyon let out an unsteady breath. “I wasn't expecting that,” he said.
“Frankly,” muttered Soleta, as “Nearer My God to Thee” played, “I was expecting an iceberg.”
“What was it? What was down there? You're a scientist. You tell me. I mean . . . it couldn't have been ghosts. That couldn't be . . . could it?”
“The Pilgrims who settled America would have taken one look at me and burned me as a demon creature,” Soleta said coolly. “A supernatural mystery one day is scientific explanation the next. One never truly knows, or understands, everything.”
“I don't accept that. That's no answer. Do you truly believe that could have been what . . . what we thought it was?”
Soleta pursed her lips, and then said, “There is a university on earth, called Yale. I was there once, in its theater building, which had been renovated many times during its existence. I was visiting a Mend who was an actor there. One day, while I was waiting for her to come offstage, I noticed someone just out of the corner of my eye. A woman, a fleeting image, running up a flight of stairs. She was dressed in a costume replete with a high collar and odd frills. Obviously period garb. It was not remotely in keeping with the play that was being performed at that moment. My friend came offstage and I asked her who that person had been. My friend looked at me very oddly, and then smiled and said, ‘Congratulations. You've just seen the Yale ghost.’ According to local legend, several centuries earlier, the wife of a drama professor had been struck and killed by a vehicle while crossing the street. She had been on her way to the theater where she was rushing to make her curtain; she was acting in a production of a play by a 20th Century Russian writer named Anton Chekhov. I saw her wearing the costume she had been wearing in the play.”
“So you imagined it,” said Xyon skeptically. “So what?”
“But I didn't know of the legend before she told me.”
“Oh.”
“Have you no legends or tales of that which you do not understand in your homeworld?”
“A few,” he admitted. “Places where visions of the future can supposedly b
e seen. That sort of thing. But I never . . .” He sighed. “I guess I'm going to have to give this some thought.”
“That's all that anyone can ever do,” replied Soleta. “That's all.”
Xyon then blinked in confusion and checked the long-range scanners. “I don't believe this.”
“What is it?”
“The planet. The one with the Quiet Place. It's . . .”
“It's gone? That's impossible.”
Atik got out of the command chair and crossed quickly to the sensor array. It was difficult to believe ... but it was true. As untrustworthy as the sensors had been, they had at least enabled them to detect something earlier. But now there was no sign of it. The nebulae, having become thicker in the area of the planet, had now thinned once more . . . and there was no sign of the world at all.
And then, before anyone on the bridge could say anything, Atik suddenly gasped. His hands went to his throat and he collapsed. The other Dogs gathered around him, whimpering in confusion, and then Atik whispered words that chilled them.
“Xant . . . “he said. ”Xant . . . the Great God Xant . . . the Redeemers . . . were right . . . I see him, so clearly ... Xant is light . . . we are darkness ...”
Then he passed out.
XVI.
THE OVERLORD WAS QUITE PLEASED.
The Dogs of War had been a consistent irritant for the Redeemers. Constant.
But they could be saved. Anyone could be saved. They simply needed a lesson.
So when Atik, who aspired to become leader of the Dogs of War, had quietly approached the Overlord with his own ambitions, possibilities had presented themselves. Ambitious as he was, Atik had been perfectly candid that he did not wish to go head-to-head with Rier, or Rier's inner circle of supporters. He claimed that it would not have been honorable. The odds were that he was just concerned, not without cause, that he would lose.
The Quiet Place had been a logical, elegant solution to the problem. The Quiet Place, feared even by the Redeemers. Sought after by Rier and the Dogs. The Quiet Place where, if everything went perfectly, Rier and his ilk would find and never return from again.
