Born of Flame

by Oscar Steven Senn

  “It fires a freezing beam,” he explained. “Recrystallizes the plasteel for a while. My people are experts in cryogenics—freezing things.”

  Niral preferred observing the figlet to looking out the window. Roofs and domes flashed by below. Spacebread pulled very low over them, and sometimes even dashed between to avoid detection.

  She activated the car’s communicator and spoke a code to the tower at Kindarh’s spaceport. A connection was made. In a moment a mild male voice, slightly metallic, crackled in the speaker.

  “I am awake, milady. You return early. Is all well.?”

  “I haven’t time to explain, Votal,” she replied, dodging a tree. “Prepare for lift-off. Clear it with the tower first.”

  “Aye-aye. Where to, milady?” “Anywhere outside Marghool’s territory. Space. End transmission.”

  “You have an ally?” Niral puzzled. “On your rocket?”

  “It is the rocket,” Klimmit replied. “The ship’s computer, Votal.”

  They neared the outskirts of the city now and the buildings had become more modest. There was little traffic, and Spacebread used the main streets with no difficulty. Suddenly the communicator sputtered again.

  “Kindarh Flight Control calling Korlann Air Car 17. Report your position at once.”

  The same instruction was given again with the same response from Spacebread: silence. Finally she disengaged the sound.

  “Well, they’re onto us,” she said. “I’ll have to jump the gate.”

  The port lay ahead, its pattern of lights blazing signals to the sky. The control complex was at the other end of the field from the place where her rocket was parked. Spacebread hoped this meant the port security officers had not yet reached it.

  “Hold on,” Spacebread warned. “Klimmit, I want no gunfire if the cops reach us. Let’s do this legally.”

  The port’s fence whipped past as she eased the air car up. Niral shut his leathery lids tightly. She wove masterfully between the rows of private schooners, dipping low again. The field was like a forest of rockets, in for the Festival, and they hid the car until finally it pulled to a grinding stop at the very last row.

  Niral looked up at the ship that towered over them, a beat up personal cruiser built of several bygone models. It poised like a giant on three folded legs, intricate with vanes and hinges. He had never been this close to a starcraft.

  “Quickly,” Spacebread called, diving for the ship’s ladder, “before they know we’re here!”

  Too late. As they climbed, a spaceport car sizzled to a stop beneath, doors slamming. A bright light pinpointed them, and a powerful, lean voice commanded them to halt.

  Niral sagged on the ladder. “It’s him! He has come himself!”

  Spacebread grabbed the Korliss by his collar and hauled him up to the top of the ladder. Once inside, they would be beyond the power of local authorities, and the Inter-System Police would have to be called in. But suddenly something whished overhead and slammed across the portal like a forbidding hand. Spacebread blinked at a huge, brown sheet of metal, which hung as if it were magnetically tied in her path. She hissed in frustration and, peeling back a corner of the obstacle, pulled Niral through the port by his robe. The figlet whizzed past.

  “Welcome aboard, milady,” Votal the computer saluted. “I regret to inform you that the tower has immobilized my flight control. We are grounded by Margh flight rule 43-59921C.”

  “Curse!” Spacebread said as she shoved Niral aside and climbed toward the control pod.

  But before she could call the tower the sheet rattled away from the portal, which now framed only night. Niral, agonized, turned to stare into the darkness.

  Quan came slowly.

  His pale, knobby head floated into view, tight-skinned and narrow. Then his flowing cloak, then his feet rose into sight. All suspended, floating. Whatever force held him eased him into the portal and set him to stand with his eyes faintly glowing and four hands crossed gently on his chest. Korliss Quan was tall and bore the long twisted tusks of the adult Margh. As soon as he was inside, Niral flung himself face down on the floor in submission.

  Quan’s thin reed-like voice said, “Aliens, release the Margh.” It was a voice accustomed to obedience. Spacebread turned to face her new foe. Klimmit’s small hand itched above his pistol, but her look stilled him. She replied firmly, “The interior of my ship is under Space Law by registration. Korliss Niral is here voluntarily. He stays.”

  Quan did not move. His eyes barely flickered. “I invoke the fearful power of the High Korlann, visitor, and it commands even this space. Give him to me!”

  Spacebread paused, her mind racing for a way out. Suddenly, the light behind Korliss Quan’s eyes flared. Various articles about the cabin bounced into the air—tins, cables, baggage. They hung, spinning slowly and eerily near the tall, pale priest. The figlet gasped. Quan floated to the very lip of the portal and gestured out.

  “Come, Korliss,” he whispered to Mural’s prone figure.

  Now Niral rose without stirring, held up by the same strange force, face still down, trembling. His body moved toward the door as though drawn by the hot light of Korliss Quan’s eyes. Time itself seemed to hover.

  “Activate prime locomotion, Votal!” Spacebread suddenly ordered. “Tripedal hops out of port—NOW!”

  Quan whirled. The power carrying Niral lost its grip, and he fell to the floor with the other articles. Quan snarled and started toward Spacebread, but without warning the ship gave a massive, sickening lurch. He tottered in the port, fighting for balance, but before he could gain it, the ship heaved again in a great vibration. With a ghastly cry, Korliss Quan tumbled outside.

  “Close port!” Spacebread screamed; and before the thud of the door sounded, she was in the control pod.

  Klimmit lifted Niral and tried to move him toward the flight nests. The terrified Margh wailed with each shuddering step the ship took.

  “It’s all right!” Klimmit squealed. “The ship’s legs are hinged, with knees. Votal’s walking us out of port!”

  Now the force that had raised Niral began a savage pounding on the outside of the ship. From every section came angry hammering, as if a thousand demons were searching for a way in.

  “PerCru 2748 to tower!” Spacebread called, strapping in. “Am leaving the field via prime locomotion. The ship has been damaged in transit and is in danger of exploding. Sound the field warning! In order to protect lives, I must enter orbit by emergency lift-off. I must sign off!”

  Spacebread turned off the communicator when the tower began screaming at her in the native Margh tongue. A last rolling lurch crashed them through the spaceport fence and beyond the range of the tower’s control.

  “Good speed, Votal!” Spacebread grinned. “Let’s go!”

  “Aye-aye, milady.”

  Klimmit gulped and snapped the last harness line on the shuddering Korliss as engines roared. Pumps pounded in the walls, drowning out the demon thumps. The figlet made it into his own nest just as lift-off came.

  The spaceport’s emergency howler was muffled by the noise of Votal taking off. Also overpowered by the sound was the angry, reedy voice of Korliss Quan cajoling a security officer for the use of a fighter craft, and the patient but forceful reply of the officer that the Korlann’s priestly authority had reached its limits when the flickering fire that was Votal found an end to Kiloo’s atmosphere.

  [3]

  The Lost Probe

  THE SHIP was out of the territory of Margh police in thirty seconds. In thirty minutes they had passed the final borders, thinly patrolled by the Planetary Guard. The system’s blue sun gleamed smaller and smaller behind them until it was only another point of light lost in the endless night of space.

  “That’s that.” Spacebread sighed, as she pushed away from the console. Her heart had been thumping wildly with the excitement of the escape, but now it slowed. She smiled at herself. There was a time when such an escape would not even have stirred her pulse.
<
br />   She was sorry it was over, in a way. She needed a new adventure to get her back in shape.

  She stood and stretched lazily, preening the fur on her arm with her tongue, then pulled the armaments handle to withdraw some of the nastier weapons from defense positions. “You can take over now, Votal,” she said. “You did quite well back at port. Glad I had your modules resurfaced at the beginning of the week.”

  “Thank you, milady. But I’m afraid you should have had the legs serviced, too. Our keel leg is losing fluid at the rate of .27 liters a day.”

  “Any danger?”

  “Not unless we have to land quickly on rough terrain. Where should I take us, milady?”

  “Oh, the nearest star-well will do. No rush.”

  “Aye-aye.”

  The figlet had been tinkering with his helmet since launch and now had the slow leak repaired. He looked up at the mention of their destination, then zoomed to meet Spacebread as she floated down weightlessly from the control pad.

  “Where’s our passenger?” she asked.

  “In one of the alien-form flight nests.” Klimmit chuckled. “He’s out. Since lift-off. Must not be used to planet jumping.”

  Spacebread smiled. “Not our kind of planet jumping, at any rate.”

  “Where are we taking him?”

  Spacebread glanced over the supply list glowing on a wall terminal. “Out of danger. Any world will do. I don’t think he has done any great wrong, though his conscience seems to be torturing him. He’s too interested in honor to be a criminal. Probably just a quarrel between factions. His only sin so far as I can see is cutting Festival a bit short for us. But I was wearying of it anyway.”

  The figlet pretended to read the inventory also. “But where exactly are we going next?”

  Spacebread looked at the figlet sideways. “Kiloo was our first stop after banishment only because of the Festival. I remember my promises, Klimmit.”

  The figlet’s eyes brightened. “Kesterole? We are really going to Kesterole now? !”

  Spacebread’s smile broadened. “I know how these five years away from your home world must have pained you, Klimmit. I am grateful to you that you stayed with me through the banishment even though it was none of your crime. The loneliness would have been terrible without you. And you knew you could leave at any time.”

  The figlet’s tiny chest swelled. “Leave? I began as your slave, Spacebread, but I continue with you because of something much greater. Besides, I need you to report my deeds to the priests, so that I can become a Warrior First Class!”

  Spacebread bowed curtly. “Of course. But I would think the priests would consider your surviving a Scarvian slave ship valor enough.”

  “Warriorhood does not come cheap on Kesterole.” Klimmit puffed. “How long will it be ‘til we arrive?”

  “Two point five space-days,” replied Votal casually. “Providing the star-well has not healed over.”

  Before they could comment, the computer whirred again. “I have a call coming in, milady. On the emergency channel. The ISP.”

  An image appeared on the terminal without Votal’s control. It was the Marghool Bureau Chief of the Inter-System Police, a man named Wearvane.

  “I have a report of an emergency blast-off following a disturbance at Kindarh spaceport,” he said slowly. “You are the ship involved.”

  Spacebread smiled innocently. “The malfunction is repaired, thank Bastu. Kind of you to ask. Such a pity to alarm everyone and leave so abruptly, but these things can’t be helped. When a fuel gasket’s gotta break, it’s gotta break.”

  Wearvane seemed to lose his train of thought. He cleared his throat. “What is your destination, madam?”

  “We’re going to Sharn to visit some relatives,” Spacebread said idly, glancing murderously at Klimmit when he started to protest.

  “Oh. Very well,” Wearvane muttered. “I’ll alert the spaceport there to have emergency functions ready, just in case.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Spacebread grinned.

  Wearvane raised an eyebrow. “Just one more thing. We have report of brigands in Z7 sector. No word as to their origin. Be on the lookout if you head that way. And let us know if you see anything.”

  He signed off without waiting for her reply. Spacebread frowned.

  “What did you lie for?” Klimmit wondered.

  “For protection. I don’t like the ISP prying. There’s something fishy about that call. Why is the ISP so interested in my affairs? The ISP doesn’t fool with silly incidents like that. It’s possible that man could have been working for Quan.”

  “Do you expect him to follow us?”

  A moan distracted them before Spacebread could answer. Niral struggled weakly against his elastic bonds until Klimmit could free him. His brittle skin-plates were pale, and there was the sweet Margh odor of fatigue about him. They walked him to the galley where he slowly sipped Margh broth synthesized by Votal. Sallow color crept back into his features. Spacebread and the figlet waited for him to speak first.

  “It was a mistake,” he hissed, trembling. “I should have stayed to face justice instead of fleeing with alien adventurers. Now I will die in space, and none will know the truth.”

  “Wait a second, good priest,” Spacebread interrupted. “You hired me for an unspecified quantity of money to help you escape from Kiloo. This is a business trip. What is this vital truth of yours, anyway?”

  “I have sinned greatly,” Niral chattered, then fell silent. The openings of his thorny eye-hoods shrank to their limits as his gaze turned inward.

  Spacebread leaned back in the cubicle and ordered a meal from Votal quietly. The figlet had absorbed enough nutrients and sunlight on Kiloo to last him a month, so he merely watched her dine on meat pudding and wine while they waited for Niral to either go mad or recover his senses. Presently, his pupils widened, and the two companions thought they detected a low humming deep within his throat, like a distant cicada’s call.

  “Can you speak now of your plight?” Spacebread asked, quietly and firmly. “I need to know more before I can help.”

  Niral nodded steadily, his eyes wide, as if he were facing a bleak landscape.

  “On Marghool, the Korlann is the foundation of society. It created our civilization and is older than our writing or art. It is like the stone of the planet itself. It is the most holy office a non-drone can hold. I was trained from the time I was a larva, when the extent of my Ability was discovered.”

  Spacebread sniffed. “Ability? You mean the force that Korliss Quan used to block our way and to float things in the cabin?”

  “Yes,” Niral said. “Psychokinesis, you aliens call it. We know it by many other names, and divisions, and ranks. All adult non-drones have it to some degree. Behold.”

  He stared intently downward for a moment. His broth cup clicked off its magnetic holder and tumbled upward, then stopped and inserted its nozzle into Niral’s mouth. Klimmit gasped. The Margh’s hands remained crossed over his thorax throughout. The cup returned.

  “I do this only to show you,” Niral said. “The Ability should not be used for trivial tasks. It may seem a small thing, but it is the reason life exists in Marghool.”

  Spacebread looked at him quizzically.

  “I don’t understand,” Klimmit said boldly.

  “The core of the planet Marghool is unstable,” Niral explained. “The imbalance of its forces would long ago have exploded the planet into asteroids or reduced it to a heavy cinder. But before the dawn of our civilization, when wandering hives fled every day from new volcanic eruptions, it was discovered that if the eruptions could be controlled, limited, they would not spread or move. No one knows how this was learned, but the Korlann tradition states that it was a gift from the WingGod. In three places across the planet, the unstable forces were allowed to find vent. They form tremendous fields of mountains, which burn and collapse eternally in fountains of fire. But now the other portions of the planet are safe for cities and life. Since our sun has
begun to dim in the last thousand cycles, the vents have also been used to pump heat to the cold areas. The vents preserve our culture in a thousand ways. And they are controlled by the Korlann.”

  “But how?” The figlet gaped, awed.

  “With our Ability,” Niral replied. “A great valve was fashioned of the densest stone ages ago by powerful Korli. This valve allows just enough pressure to be released to keep three areas devastated and no more. The Korlann holds this stone valve in place deep in an underground temple. In four circles around the Great Valve we sit, in order of Ability. I am in the second circle. At all times there are forty of us Korli surrounding the valve, regulating it and sustaining the world with our Ability.”

  Spacebread sipped thoughtfully at her wine. “That’s a great deal of power for so few people, isn’t it? I would think you would have replaced such a procedure with a system of plasma pumps once you had the technical skill.”

  “Perhaps it should have been,” Niral whispered, as though the thought were a burden to him. “I can only tell you it was deemed fitting to place the pulse of the planet in control of the wise and holy ones who saved it. The Korlann has served us well until now.”

  “And now?” Spacebread prodded.

  “And now there is a debate. Many of our planet think that a mechanical backup system should be installed. Many Korli disagree. They think it would be sacrilege to give their holy duty to a machine, and they have many supporters in the simple drones and also adults who believe in the old ways.”

  “And Quan wants sole control to lie with the Korlann?” Spacebread asked.

  “Korliss Quan wants to control the Korlann, and through it, our entire system,” Niral replied hollowly. “He is to reach Abdication age soon, the time when a Korliss must retire to the least powerful circle, and before that happens he wants to rule the Korlann.”