Born of Flame

by Oscar Steven Senn

  “But why does he want you?” Klimmit puzzled.

  Niral gazed away as though into a waiting darkness. He sighed. “I am the key for him. He has two of the third circle and another of the fourth under his control. With me in the second circle, there is enough leverage to rule the angle of the Great Valve. All we have to do is concentrate as he decrees, and any part of Marghool could be destroyed.”

  “I see,” Spacebread said grimly. “Korliss Quan could then return Marghool to a primitive condition so that no control other than the Korlann would be possible. And he would control the Korlann.”

  The figlet looked perplexed. “But, Niral, how could he expect you to do such a thing?”

  “I am his.” Niral sighed like wind through a cave. “He found me, nurtured my Ability, enriched my parents and made life pleasant for me. I have always had my way prepared for me by his magic hand. The finest education, the quickest advancement inside the Korlann. A villa in the mountains and great income from beneficial strangers.” Niral buzzed in a Margh laugh, a bitter one. “I thought it was all my doing, my talent, my due.

  “And then the day came a month ago when all his favors came due. He had been only a remote, kind uncle until then. I felt honored when he called me into his office.” Niral hung his head. “It took me a day to knuckle under to his threats. Oh, they were veiled, unthreatening, logical. But it was like a velvet noose. I could not stand to lose all my possessions and privileges as he hinted I would if I did not obey him. Besides, I too love the Korlann and its teachings and would not see its power eroded. I convinced myself Korliss Quan was right.”

  There was a long silence in which the figlet could feel Niral’s bones ache with remorse. Finally Spacebread said, “When was the overthrow to be?”

  “Tomorrow,” Niral answered hollowly. “I-I had second thoughts. I was confused, but there was nowhere on Marghool I could go to think without facing some reminder of Korliss Quan’s power over me. So I fled to Kiloo. You know the rest.”

  Spacebread smiled slowly. “Well, you are no longer under Quan’s power, my friend. You are aboard my ship. You have done nothing for which you should feel guilty. As a matter of fact, you have done an amazingly virtuous thing in escaping a hopeless situation, and with much skill, too. You know that if you had gone to the Korlann itself with your story, you would have failed.”

  “Yes.” Niral nodded. “He told me I would be discredited if I did. All my good luck would be made to appear bribery and coercion by my own hand. He had documents, witnesses. My story would seem born of jealousy. No one would have believed me.”

  Spacebread waved aside a question Klimmit was fidgeting to ask and asked it for herself, “I assume you can produce no hard proof of what you say?”

  “None. Only my testimony.”

  Spacebread paused thoughtfully. “Then I’m afraid I can help little. Even if I tried returning to Marghool and fighting Quan there, the Planetary Power might consider it interfering with the destiny of the planet, and I have just spent four year’s punishment for such an offense.”

  Niral looked up. “Excuse me, but I know little outside the lore of the Korlann. Planetary Power?”

  “It’s a current deep within large planets,” Klimmit answered, happy to know the answer to something. “In planets with advanced cultures, it’s intelligent. A big magnetic mind, sort of. It must be communicated with before strangers land on the planet. If they are landing in order to change the natural evolution of the planet, the Power can prevent it by creating a hurricane or a lightning storm.

  Spacebread and I offended the Planetary Power of the planet Ralph.”

  “I offended,” Spacebread corrected. “At any rate, I cannot invade Marghool even if there is a chance of success, which there isn’t. Quan has too much power there. I’m afraid you must choose exile on some other world or return to Marghool to disgrace.”

  Niral’s eyes saddened in a strange insect way. “Disgrace? It is a disgrace for a Korliss to leave Marghool without authority. For the crimes Quan would accuse me of, the punishment is … is to be thrown. into the Great Vent. But somehow that is not what I think would happen. Instead, I think I would somehow be forced to help Quan gain the control he wants.”

  “Then we must get you to neutral ground,” Spacebread said decisively. “You will be safe with us until we get to Kesterole. From there you can catch a commercial ship to some far world of your choosing.”

  Niral trembled. “Korliss Quan is a Margh of long memory. He has spent many years gathering control. There is no neutral ground from him. He will prevail on the Korlann as my protector not to censure me. He will make them let him search for me, with official orders to bring me back into the fold, all in benevolence. He has another three months until Abdication forces him from power and he loses his chance to take power. He will find me.”

  “It’s the best I can do.” Spacebread said firmly.

  “It is enough,” Niral replied as though it mattered little what befell him. From a pouch beneath his robes he produced a roll of papers. “Plembite certificates. I converted my funds into them before leaving. They are good anywhere in the Home Worlds. How many do you want?”

  “I’ll discuss it when you are ready to leave Kesterole,” Spacebread said. “I’m just sorry I can’t do more for you.”

  Niral gazed out a port at his receding home star. “It is not your quarrel. You have already freed my mind greatly.”

  “Star-well Ph2-A at starboard, milady,” Votal announced as the ship began slowing. “Shall I plot a course for Kesterole?”

  Klimmit turned to gloomy Niral. “You have never ridden through a star-well on a Foldover ship, have you?”

  Niral looked puzzled. “I don’t even know what that means.”

  The figlet laughed. “Oh, it’s fun. It would take years to travel between stars without wells. They’re sort of like holes through dimensions. One side of a well can open millions and millions of kilometers from the other side, but it takes only a second to pass through. If you have a Foldover box.”

  “Foldover box?” Niral could discuss philosophy for hours, but the mechanics of star flight baffled him.

  “Sure,” Klimmit explained gladly. “A Foldover box folds our reality through the star-well and unfolds it on the other side. You know the pack Spacebread wears, the one she got her sword out of? It has a tiny Foldover unit in it. That’s how she can keep such big stuff inside.”

  Niral nodded without really understanding. He allowed himself to be strapped into his flight nest once again, straining to see this star-well. But besides a slight twinkling of the stars beyond, it was invisible.

  Spacebread instructed Votal in the pre-jump procedure. Niral clenched himself into his nest, hating to feel the kind of acceleration that had lifted them off Kiloo. But when Spacebread gave the order and they passed through the well, there was no acceleration. There was only a jolting moment of blinding light, which seemed to last forever, as they fell between dimensions. Niral hated it just as much.

  Ph2-A was a class III warp, so it took them half the way to Kesterole in a moment. But they had to travel another two days past the vast remains of an exploded star to find the well that would take them the rest of the way to Kesterole, and since this distance had to be crossed by rocket power alone, it seemed slow going.

  Klimmit spent the time in great excitement. Recalling the proper Sanguakkoid Warrior chants occupied him for long hours when he was not watching the nova cloud below pass at a crawl. Spacebread gamed with Votal, playing Cosmos on the terminal screen in her cabin or matching wits at games of logic and information. She won nearly half the time. Niral divided his time between meditating in the old Korliss way, with a throaty hum, and staring listlessly out the port, as though it was his ruined life that floated by.

  Finally, they rounded the clouds of scorched gasses, and Votal located the new star-well. Everyone prepared to strap in for the jump.

  “Milady,” Votal interrupted, “I have detected an object fl
oating at the rim of the star-well. It is a lone anchor probe. Type JU-4?. Should I approach?”

  Spacebread watched as the small metal buoy drew closer. “It looks safe. Go ahead. It’s an ancient model, the ship that fired it was probably lost decades ago.”

  “What is it?” the figlet stopped strapping himself in to ask.

  “You know we fire an anchor field through the warp first, to anchor us to the space on the other side, sort of like a broadcast signal,” Spacebread explained. “Well, before anchor fields were developed, an actual metal probe had to go first, so the Foldover unit could home in on it. The probe goes through the well first, the ship follows. It looks like the ship that fired that probe never came out this side of the well. Lost, like … Klimmit, what is it?”

  The figlet had dropped his strap. He was staring at the approaching probe as if it were a ghost.

  “That mark,” he said in a low voice. “I know it. It’s carried on the bow of Scarvian slave ships; they’re all old and battered. The ship that fired that probe was loaded with lost souls. And it may not have been in there too long.”

  [4]

  Battle in the Betweeness

  “HARPIES?” Spacebread started. “Are you sure?”

  “Totally sure.” Klimmit nodded, still transfixed. “They wear it on their helmets, too.” He shuddered as he remembered the screeching raiders who had made him a slave. “Where is the ship that fired it?”

  “Still between dimensions, probably, with everyone dead, or else searching for the probe signal.”

  “We must find that ship,” Klimmit said certainly.

  “We can’t,” Spacebread replied. “It is very dangerous to stop in there. If Votal lost our anchor beam signal, we might become trapped in the betweeness just like the slave ship.”

  The figlet slid out of his straps and joined her in the control pod. “We have done dangerous things before, milady. How strong is the actual danger, Votal?”

  “I calculate a twenty percent chance of loss of signal for the first hour inside the warp, doubling each additional hour,” replied the computer.

  “Dangerous,” Spacebread repeated firmly.

  “There might be captives trapped in there, Spacebread,” Klimmit pleaded. “I was once a Scarvian captive. I can’t just pass by without doing something.”

  She looked questioningly at Niral.

  “If what he says is true,” the Korliss commented, “it would seem your duty to free them.”

  “My duty? I am not a priest, Niral.” Spacebread looked at the probe for a long moment as though wishing it would disappear, then at Klimmit. “You are willing to board that ship even at the risk of never seeing Kesterole again?”

  “There may be many people who will never see their home planets again if we don’t try.” He answered her gaze boldly.

  Spacebread saw that he was determined and knew that once his small green mind was set on a course, there was no holding him.

  “Strap yourself in, then.” She sighed. “Votal, square off the coordinates on that thing’s angle of exit, if you can. Lock the XR into it. Freeze the ship on our beam midway through the warp.” She grimly extended the ship’s weapon system as Votal did the necessary figuring.

  “Locked in, Milady.”

  “All right. Let’s go. Brace yourself, priest.”

  There was a slight hum as Votal fired the anchor beam through the invisible doorway ahead, a click as it locked into the space on the other side of the well, then a whirring when he engaged the Foldover box. The ship hurtled into betweeness. Niral croaked in fear. Blinding whiteness whipped past them, then the growling roar wound down to a whisper as they slowed and stopped. Outside, there was no space. Just empty, swirling colors against a background of oyster gray, seemingly inches from the ports. There was no pull of gravity or illusion of time.

  “The betweeness,” Spacebread announced. Then she followed Klimmit’s gaze and saw the ship.

  It was a slaver all right. Black and ugly with bulbous canopies and studded with turrets, it bore no identification other than the crimson mark on its hull. It appeared dead, tilted and silent. As it rolled slowly in the void a burned and gaping hole in its hull came into view. Debris floated around it like a halo.

  “Still want to check it out?” Spacebread said softly. “Looks like a malfunction blew out one of their fuel tanks. They’re likely all dead.” But Klimmit was insistent, as she had known he would be.

  She dreaded going blindly into that dead ship, not knowing who or what was roaming its corridors. Getting soft, she thought uncomfortably.

  “Klimmit, you and I will detach the control pod and try to dock with the slaver. Arm up. If there are any Scarvians left, there could be trouble. Niral, I will have to leave you alone for a while.”

  Niral’s glackules chittered in alarm. “But I must go with you. If anything were to happen to you I would be stranded here. And what if we were pursued by Quan? He could arrive while you are gone and take me back to Marghool. I will be defenseless.”

  Spacebread spun, annoyed. She would let Klimmit talk her into foolhardiness; he was her friend. But enough was enough. “Listen, my insecure Korliss, there is far more danger in coming with us than in staying here. Quan will not follow us. You said yourself the entire Korlann would have to give its permission for that, and there hasn’t been time. You will have to control your fear if you want to travel with me. You stay here.”

  “Yes. Of course,” Niral mumbled. He settled into his flight nest and tried to summon strength. He reminded himself of the many spiritual tests he had taken before becoming a full Korliss and the many fears he had known in the Catacombs and on the winter pilgrimages through the mountains of Warl. But those fears had been for his soul. Now he had to learn to deal with a different sort of fear.

  “Votal,” Spacebread commanded, “if you feel the slightest slack in the anchor beam, get out of here as fast as you can. Come back for us when all is secure. Got it?”

  “Aye-aye, milady.”

  Klimmit buzzed into the control pod and handed Spacebread her pistol belt. She turned to check on Niral, but he was deep in his battle for calmness, humming in desperate meditation. Perhaps his fight was the more difficult, she thought as she sealed off the pod from the rest of the ship. She tripped the ejection switch. The panel lights blinked for a second, then the two floated free. She checked the charge in her pistol with one hand while guiding the pod toward the rusty air lock revolving with the slave ship’s hull. The sickening falling feeling of being in between dimensions never left. It seemed a lifetime until the pod’s magnetic clamps found the universal rungs around the vault door. Spacebread glanced at Klimmit. His small face was set like flint. It was difficult to see, just then, the young and happy figlet she had once known.

  “Look’s like there’s full air pressure inside,” Spacebread said, reading a dial. “They must have sealed off this side of the ship. We won’t have to suit up.”

  She activated the air lock. Smoky atmosphere curled in, smelling of oil and fear. They paused at the door, one on each side with their guns ready, then Spacebread sprang the latch. The air lock door opened into the Scarvian ship. A dead birdlike creature with red plumage sprawled across the threshold with a spacesuit half on him. Klimmit gasped, the memories returning.

  Spacebread held her breath and dove into the corridor beyond, rolled, and ducked into an alcove. She covered Klimmit while he did the same, but the dim passages stretched away silently, a body scattered here and there. Then, from somewhere inside the vessel they heard rattling gunfire, dull and hollow. A screech echoed distantly. A harpy screech.

  The two companions glanced at each other. Were the Scarvians fighting among themselves, or was there a third armed force on the ship?

  They had gone only a few steps, cautiously, when a moan called them from an unnoticed opening. Spinning, Spacebread almost fired at the forms huddled there in blackness, but Klimmit’s cry at the last second held her. They were slaves, packed into a storag
e room with a charged field left to guard the door. Starving, they implored the two to feed them or shoot. Klimmit reached to cut off the guardian current, but Spacebread shook her head.

  “Later,” she whispered. “When we return.”

  Klimmit opened his mouth, but his speech was cut short by the hiss of an opening bulkhead. They barely had time to dive into a niche before a swarm of hysterical harpies erupted into the corridor. Screaming, shrieking, kicking, they were cut down by a barrage of electric pellets from behind. Only one stumbled on, without glancing at them. Klimmit growled and fired.

  “Look out!” Spacebread grabbed him, and they flattened themselves in a dark corner against the bulkhead.

  A second party fought through the opening, firing over their shoulders. A dozen made it through, hanging beside the door where the wall protected them. Some stayed and fired at their attacker, while the rest clambered down a ladder beyond, screeching about a lifeboat. None saw Spacebread or the figlet. A large harpy with a needlelike beak who seemed to be the leader squawked after those leaving.

  “Kraaaak! We’ll keep the little devil busy here! Just see that y’hold the bloody lifeboat till we come!”

  But he had turned his head to give that order, and whoever was driving the harpies out of their own ship shot off his beak. Screeching, he staggered back, firing, but the stream of pellets cut him short. The corridor filled with the smell of burning feathers. A hurricane of happy cursing came from his assassin, who was hidden in machinery beyond the doorway.

  Spacebread lost grip of the figlet, who hurtled out of the corner in a fury, his cryo-gun cracking. The surprised harpies turned. Spacebread had to leap to save him, picking off the harpies Klimmit had not hit. Then the corridor was filled with smoke and stench but was silent except for the thumping of the lifeboat crew below. Klimmit cautiously called through the portal to whoever was in charge of the rifle.