by John Shirley
“Xelq! Switch on the visual!” Bal’Tol commanded.
A moment, and then the image flickered to life in another monitor, the feed from Torren’s helmet. “I am receiving only Torren so far!”
Bal’Tol stared and saw, from the point of view of the visual recorder on Torren’s helmet, a glass-helmeted face grimacing in hatred, a face with the red webmarks of the Blood Sickness. One of ‘Kinsa’s, wearing a pressure suit. “They must have been aware of the intrusion for a while now,” Bal’Tol said, his pulse thumping. And then there was a blurred motion, and an ax smashed into Torren’s faceplate, Sangheili blue blood splashing on it, covering the gleeful face of the attacker, the sound of Torren screaming in pain.
“I have C’tenz,” Xelq muttered.
And the monitor image changed. It was the visual on C’tenz’s helmet as he looked at the Blood Sick adherent who’d murdered Torren, straightening up with the bloody ax, turning, lunging, the weapon raised, howling at C’tenz.
Five flashes as C’tenz quickly fired his plasma rifle . . . there might have been a sixth, but there was a clicking that informed Bal’Tol the rifle had malfunctioned after the final shot. Many of the colony’s weapons were breaking down.
He saw the enemy still staggering at C’tenz, then C’tenz’s rifle smashing the damaged lunatic’s helmet, as he swung like a hammer—his foe collapsed, but then five more rushed at C’tenz, dragging him down, their faces crowding the monitor . . .
Which quickly went black.
“What—where is he?” Bal’Tol asked breathlessly.
“I—they damaged his recorder—”
“Try switching to V’ornik!” Bal’Tol shouted.
“I can’t pick up his transmission.”
“Then use the scout-eye, Xelq!”
A flicker and the monitor switched to the view of the scout-eye, maintaining the orb’s position near the arachnoid maintenance craft. There, V’ornik in his pressure suit was jumping, in the area of low gravity, out through the gap cut in the hull. A spurt of energy or a projectile—it went by too fast for Bal-Tol to be sure—zipped up past V’ornik as he scrambled to the hatch of the small vessel. He vanished inside, and the hatch closed.
The vehicle quickly lifted off—but one enemy, in a pressure suit, was emerging from the hull gap, and then another, the two of them firing sidearms at the eight-legged maintenance vehicle, scoring its sides with black marks, one shot finding its way into the repulsor tube.
A blue-white flare vented from the repulsor tube, and the vehicle went spinning off into the void, its engine damaged.
Bal’Tol stared, feeling weak from grief in one instant and energized with fury the next. “I will call every soldier, every able Sangheili we have! If they have murdered C’tenz, I will do whatever I must to extinguish this blight from the colony.”
There was a crackling from a monitor—and then suddenly it showed the face of ‘Kinsa himself, up close. He was using the helmet taken from C’tenz.
“Bal’Tol—are you there?” ‘Kinsa demanded, leering.
“Transmit my voice, Xelq!” Bal’Tol said hoarsely. “ ‘Kinsa—can you hear me?”
“Ah, there is the kaidon! But I am the kaidon now—you are the false kaidon! The Forgotten Gods call to you. Submit yourself to the outer emptiness, Bal’Tol. Do that within, and your precious C’tenz will not die!” ‘Kinsa’s face was marked with the red mesh of the Blood Sickness, but there was a trembling insistent control in him. He seemed to be right on the edge of losing control—yet always in cunning command. “He is well known to be your favorite—will you keep him alive, Bal’Tol? Then surrender to me!”
Bal’Tol’s eyes had swung to another monitor. Something was there—and an idea formed . . .
“Suppose that we let the Forgotten Gods decide, ‘Kinsa? Any gods you like. Let them decide. Your people against mine in the Combat Section. Floatfight, ‘Kinsa! I will be there—as will you. Ten against ten! That will be the way of it! All surveillance nodes will be trained on the fight; everyone will see. What do you say? If we lose—all of our fates are in your hands.”
“The Combat Section . . . ?” ‘Kinsa drew back. Behind him were several figures, two carrying weapons. C’tenz was there, bound with wires, lying on the floor. The figure moved—C’tenz was still alive. “The floatfight has never before been used in that way. Why should we do it?”
“You can demonstrate for all to see that the gods are truly on your side. And it will all be over shortly. If you are afraid of me . . . if you have not the honor to meet me in Combat Section . . . everyone will soon know of it.”
A priestly figure armored with a patchy cuirass stepped into view. “We should speak of this. I hear the Forgotten Gods sing of it. Forerunner Sun and Forerunner Moon would make you the conqueror, ‘Kinsa!”
“I will . . . consider the offer,” ‘Kinsa said reluctantly, and switched off the monitor.
Xelq stared at Bal’Tol as if he were the one gone insane with Blood Sickness. “But what if it goes against you, Kaidon?”
“I cannot attack the sections directly without killing everyone in them, including the innocent. All that we need to repair the colony would be lost in the battle. And C’tenz would die. This way . . . we bring ‘Kinsa out in the open. And we’ll finally have a chance to finish him.”
“The Blood Sickness might prompt them to accept . . . it makes them yearn for confrontation.”
“Yes—such a challenge is innate to their madness,” Bal’Tol said. “I believe he will accept. It is the only way to save C’tenz and end this conflict once and for all.”
The Journey’s Sustenance, a Supply Ship for the Fleet of Blessed Veneration
Ussan System
2553 CE
The Age of Reclamation
“You are correct,” D’ero declared. “There is a battle raging there—and a damaged craft. Something for exterior hull work.”
D’ero, Tul, G’torik, and Zo Resken were on the bridge of the Journey’s Sustenance, gazing raptly at their holographic imaging tracker. They could see the slowly spinning eight-legged maintenance vehicle, moving away from the enormous, geometrically odd artifact. Possibly some form of colony.
“This could be an opportunity,” Zo said. “D’ero, will you be guided by me?”
“I do not know what else to do, in the face of all this, other than be guided by you.”
“Then get as close as you safely can to that small vessel. Keep out of probable firing range from the colony there, if that’s truly what it is . . .”
“It will be done.”
The small, tumbling vehicle, like an arachnid blown on the wind, spun slowly through the void—closer and closer as D’ero approached.
“Will the tugfield have enough power to stop it?” Zo asked.
“Possibly. You wish to bring it into the freight hold?”
“I do, if there are no signs that it is near destruction.”
“I will scan it, but cannot offer surety that the object is stable.”
They took the risk and tugged it into the freight air lock. A clunk was felt all through Journey’s Sustenance as the artificial gravity and pressurization were returned to the freight hold and the small vehicle banged down onto the deck. They could see it on the ship’s internal monitors; it had landed on its leglike struts, but one of them was badly damaged and the vessel was tilted askew, giving off smoke.
Great Ones, if you are the gods I once believed you to be, please don’t let my actions kill us all, Zo thought as he and G’torik and Tul armed themselves with carbines and rushed to the ramp that would take them down to the freight hold hatchway.
Zo took a long breath and then opened the hatch, stepping through. The air was acrid with a metallic burning smell. Smoke was coiled near the ceiling.
Zo took the lead, calling out, “Is anyone alive in there?”
“They might not be able to hear you through the hull,” Tul remarked.
Zo ducked under the vehicle’s fuselage, f
eeling heat pouring off it, and came to the hatchway. He reached out to it—
But the hatch opened on its own; a ladder extruded, and a coughing Sangheili half climbed, half fell down onto the deck, followed by a wisp of smoke. He was armed with a blade of a sort Zo had never seen. He wore a pressure suit—a rather antique one, more cumbersome than anything Zo knew, but he’d taken off his helmet.
The stranger turned, wiping his eyes, and then stared at Zo as if he weren’t sure he was seeing correctly.
“Ah, yes, I suspect you may never have seen a San’Shyuum in person,” said Zo. He lowered his weapon. “I am Zo Resken, once called the Prophet of Clarity. We mean you no harm, if you in turn mean us none.”
The Sangheili gaped—then looked, blinking, at Tul and G’torik. The stranger spoke, but Zo couldn’t quite decipher the dialect. Something about the gods . . . ?
“Did you understand that?” Zo asked, looking at G’torik and Tul.
“Somewhat,” said Tul ruefully. “It sounds like Old Sangheili. Words I don’t know, strange accents. But I think he was asking if you were one of the gods.”
“Speak slowly to him, as well as you can, and tell him I am merely a friend to the Sangheili. Tell him we mean him no harm.”
Tul conveyed the message, and the stranger signified understanding.
“Prophet!” called D’ero, on the comm system.
Zo didn’t bother to correct him on such a point anymore; could he be a prophet if the prophecies he once held sacred were proven false? “What is it?”
“That craft—get away from it! The ship says it’s highly unstable. Get out of there! I must eject it from the air lock—now!”
“Everyone out!” Zo called, hurrying toward the door.
Tul spoke to the newcomer, and they all rushed toward the hatch. In moments they were through it and G’torik slammed it shut. “Decompress and eject, D’ero!” he shouted.
Zo rushed up the ramp to the corridor and the bridge. He felt the ship shiver as the small craft was released, and hurried to the holomonitor that tracked it out into space. He saw the vessel, in miniature in the holo, spinning away in the void before it exploded. The flames were there only a split second, snuffed out by the vacuum. A few seconds later the hull clattered, some of the fragments striking it.
“Any breach in the hull?” Zo asked.
“Nothing broke through,” D’ero reported, looking at his instruments. He turned to take a long suspicious look at the stranger, who was gawking around the bridge. “Prophet . . . you think he could have deliberately caused that craft to explode? Perhaps it was a trap.”
“I do not think so,” Zo said. “I think he is but a dazed, lost Sangheili. We will attach translators; give one to him, and with those and the language we have in common, we can hope to understand one another.”
The translator devices were small disks that affixed to the skin above hearing membranes. Once they were affixed, with the ship providing cybernetic input, Tul introduced everyone on the bridge to the stranger. He replied, speaking slowly. “My name . . . that by which you call me . . . it is V’ornik ‘Gred. I am living there—” He pointed at the colony section visible in a holoviewer. “This. The Refuge.”
“Ussa ‘Xellus—this is his colony?” Zo asked, speaking slowly.
“Yes. Ussa colony. You? Where are you from?”
Zo sighed. Where indeed was he from? Nowhere, now. “I grew up in High Charity. You likely don’t know what I’m talking about. D’ero ‘S’bud—he is from Sanghelios itself.”
V’ornik’s eyes widened. “Not possible.”
“Oh, but it is,” said D’ero. “I grew up in Zolam, a state in the southern parts of the continent of Qivro. I ranged the hills hunting maegophet and doarmir—and I have even killed a helioskrill with a spear, in the ancient way.”
V’ornik stepped a little closer to D’ero, reached out a trembling hand . . . and D’ero suffered his shoulder to be touched.
“Yes,” said D’ero. “I am real; a mortal being . . . from Sanghelios.”
“You will . . . take us there? Sanghelios?”
“Now, that I suppose is a larger question. We have to know we can trust you first.”
Zo turned to D’ero. “You are captain of this vessel. I wish for us to move closer to the colony—and I wish to take our own maintenance craft there. Will you permit this? And stay nearby, as long as you can wait for me?”
“You are thinking this one here can get you into the colony safely?”
“I am going to attempt just that. If he is willing. I have to make contact with these people. This discovery . . . you don’t realize what this means to me. I must go to the colony.”
“You are not going alone, Prophet.” D’ero looked at G’torik. “You must go with this fool, if he is so insistent.”
“Then you think me such a fool, too?” G’torik asked. “Your supposition is right. So I am.”
“Here is one more fool, then,” said Tul, tapping his own chest.
Then the Huragok came in, drifting over the floor, snaking its head curiously toward the stranger. It stretched tentacles out to him, signaling a desire to repair his pressure suit.
V’ornik scrambled backward from Sluggish Drifter, snarling, snapping mandibles, raising his weapon.
“No!” Tul said, stepping between them. “He serves us. Repairs what is broken.”
V’ornik seemed repelled by the Huragok. He clearly had never seen one.
“Yes,” said Zo, struck by a thought. “Sluggish Drifter repairs things, V’ornik. Is there much that needs repairing on your colony?”
V’ornik looked at him. “Yes. Very much. So very much. That . . . thing can repair our world?”
“Much of it. Yes. Things you cannot repair, often the Huragok can.”
“Then . . . we will go. All of us.”
The Refuge, the Ussan Colony
Primary Refuge
2553 CE
The Age of Reclamation
“What?” Xelq blurted. “Me?”
“Yes. He chose you to wear this.”
Xelq had stepped into the hallway from the colony control center, looking for the kaidon. Qerspa ‘Tel meanwhile had just arrived, looking for Xelq. Qerspa put the necklace of rank around Xelq ‘Tylk’s neck. It signified that he spoke for the kaidon in Bal’Tol’s absence. “He seemed to think that if the vessel that has approached is a danger to us, you are the best one to deal with it in his absence. Your experience with zero gravity, I presume. You are ‘acting kaidon.’ But do not excite yourself—I am sure Bal’Tol will return and you will be a mere technology supervisor once more.”
“He is not really going to the Combat Section now, is he? Already? He believes this nonsense about the gods judging the contest?”
“He must. ‘Kinsa has been pressured by his followers to accept the challenge. He is there with his chosen ten already. But this is no floatfight—not truly. It is a chance for each side to kill the other’s leaders. That’s the truth of it.”
“And the kaidon’s orders for me?”
“You are to communicate with the aliens in the vessel, if it is possible. If they seem dangerous, use what weaponry we have to keep them at bay until he returns. If they can give us aid, then use your own judgment.”
Xelq groaned. “I should be there with him! I am good in zero gravity. And I was once a good floatfighter—”
“Who is there? Kaidon?” The voice came from behind Xelq. He turned and realized it was coming from the near-space receiver. “This is V’ornik!”
Xelq recognized the voice and hurried to the transmitter. “It’s Xelq here, V’ornik. Where are you? We thought you dead!”
“I am alive, and I am on a ship with a Sangheili. He has come here from Sanghelios! And stranger things yet! Adjust the repellent field—we are coming in another maintenance craft. Let us in!”
“Are you Blood Sick? You are speaking madness! We are already under attack!”
“They are mostly Sangheili—from
Sanghelios itself!”
“What? And you believe this?”
“I do. And they can repair things we cannot, Xelq! Let me speak to the kaidon—let them speak to him!”
“He is not here . . . I am in charge for the moment but . . . I cannot allow such a thing!”
“You have always thought me a fool, Xelq, but this time you must trust me! They are here to help us! Just this once—trust me!”
The Refuge, the Ussan Colony
Combat Section
2553 CE
The Age of Reclamation
Bal’Tol was fitted with the chest armor and helmet allowed to floatfighters; he had a quartermoon blade in one hand and a spiked cudgel in the other. He floated close to the push boards, beside the cables of the netting. With him was Z’nick ‘Berda, the best available floatfighter, and eight other Sangheili with some experience at it, most of them patrollers—colony security—with some experience in combat.
V’urm ‘Kerdeck, the one-eyed hero of floatfighting, was poised across the zero-gravity arena, floating in place, tugging on a spiked glove. Even half blind, he was the most dangerous opponent here. There were nine others beside him, ‘Kinsa adherents readying themselves. But it was V’urm who held Bal’Tol’s gaze.
“Z’nick,” Bal’Tol said. “Beware—there is no protective grid for the helmets.” He added dryly, “V’urm ‘Kerdeck himself is here.”
“Just stay behind me, my Kaidon—I will deal with V’urm. He is even older than I am.”
The priest—in truth a pseudopriest, since he represented a false faith—was harnessed to a wall bracket behind the net. He had a burnblade in his hand, and held it near C’tenz, who was bound, head to foot, himself tied to a bracket.
Bal’Tol watched and saw C’tenz squirm in his bonds. “Where is ‘Kinsa?”
“There!” Z’nick said, pointing.
‘Kinsa was coming through the open metal doors in the curved metal wall behind his fighters, lined up raggedly as they bobbed in the gravity-free arena.
‘Kinsa had a mec-missile launcher in his hand.
“ ‘Kinsa makes eleven,” Z’nick observed. “It is supposed to be ten on ten. And he has a weapon that is not traditional here. Quite dangerous.”
