Knight

by Timothy Zahn

  “The food,” Nicole said, frowning. Hadn’t he been paying attention? “The reason the Shipmasters want you to fight the blue group. There’s another dispenser that you can get to when the ocean goes away—”

  “We’re not going to fight over food,” Bungie cut her off. “What gave you that idea? The ship’s got lots of food.”

  “I know,” Nicole said, thoroughly lost now. “Then what— I mean, how did the Shipmasters talk you into this?”

  “How do you think?” Bungie said with strained patience. “If we wipe out your side, they’ll send us home.”

  A horrible feeling bubbled into Nicole’s gut. “You mean back to the hive?” she asked carefully.

  “I mean home,” Bungie said, jabbing a forefinger toward the floor at his feet. “Real home.

  “Earth.”

  ten

  Nicole stared at him, her mind spinning like that park merry-go-round that had once made her sick. Was that possible? Plato had said it wasn’t. He’d said so over and over. But Plato had lied about a lot of things.

  After all this time, was it possible to go back home?

  Once—a lifetime ago—she would have refused an offer like that. Life aboard the Fyrantha had been so much simpler and safer than the Philadelphia streets, and she’d actually begun to enjoy it.

  But that was before she learned how she was being poisoned, and before the Fyrantha decided she was its Protector and saddled her with the job of taking the ship back from Fievj and his friends. Now, if she was offered the chance to go home, would she take it?

  And then, she took a second look at Bungie’s face. At his earnest, gleeful, smarmy, eager expression. Fievj had told him he could go home, and Bungie really, truly believed it, right to the center of his heart.

  Only Nicole knew his record of believing things people told him, especially things that looked like they were going to bring him something he wanted. And she knew how seldom those offers and promises turned out to be true.

  No, there was no going home. Plato had been right. The Shipmasters needed humans to repair the ship, and they weren’t simply going to let them leave. A half-remembered image flashed through her mind: something involving Israelis and Egyptian pyramids and someone named Moses …

  “What the hell did you get into?” Bungie broke into her thoughts.

  Nicole blinked, the image of half-built pyramids vanishing. “What?”

  “That,” Bungie said, pointing to her shoulder. “What is that stuff?”

  Nicole craned her neck. With her jumpsuit drying out, it was starting to change color back from black to its normal blue. As it did, the yellow of the Ejbof’s paintball shot was also becoming visible. “It’s nothing,” she said, looking back at Bungie and that painfully eager expression. Fievj had simply figured out what Bungie wanted most, and fed him the right line of bull to get him to do what they needed. “Look—”

  “Bungie!” A distant voice drifted out to them from the hive.

  Nicole caught her breath. She knew that voice: it was the Oracle, the name the Shipmasters used when they talked to the people in the arenas. “Bungie! Speak to me!”

  “Yeah, keep your shorts on!” Bungie called back. He swept a hand around the four other men, exactly the same way Trake used to pick out people for some job. “Watch her. I’ll be right back.”

  He headed into the hive, hurrying even while he tried not to look like he was. The Oracle had summoned him, but he couldn’t afford to let his men think he was being bossed around. Another of Trake’s little quirks.

  Mentally, Nicole shook her head. Trake had made this leadership stuff look so easy.

  “Never seen anything like this,” Gregor commented, stepping closer to Nicole. He peered at her shoulder, then ran a finger gently across it. “Sure not a lubricant. Some kind of sealant?”

  “I thought all the sealants were transparent,” one of the other men said.

  “They are in our section,” Gregor agreed. “Who knows what they’ve got over here?”

  Bungie had reached the dispenser room, and Nicole watched as he disappeared inside. “They’re lying to you,” Nicole said urgently to her companions, keeping an eye on the door. This might be her only chance to talk sense into them before Bungie came back and yelled or bullied them back onto his side. “There’s no way back. Even if there was, they need us too much to let any of us leave.”

  “They’re not going to let everyone go,” another of the men said with Bungie’s same strained patience. “Just the winners.”

  “To let any of us leave,” Nicole repeated, leaning on the word. “You’re being set up. We’re all being set up. The Shipmasters—they like watching people fight,” she said, switching explanations at the last second. The real truth would take too long, and this was close enough.

  “Well, they should get a great show, then,” Gregor growled. “That twerp—what’s his name? Right—Carp. I still owe him for the time he shut down Ezana’s music and threw us out of the dining room. Looking forward to taking that evening out of his hide.”

  “You’re not listening,” Nicole gritted out. “You can’t fight. We can’t fight. If we do … it’ll be bad. Trust me, it’ll be very, very bad. For everyone.”

  “Only for your side,” Gregor said. “Bungie’s told us some of the stuff he pulled in Philadelphia. With him in charge, we’re gonna run over you like mice over cheese.”

  “I wouldn’t believe everything Bungie says if I were you,” Nicole growled. “He was more on the getting end than the giving end. Look, you’ve got to believe me. If we fight we all lose—”

  “We’re on!” Bungie’s voice boomed. A second later he reappeared from the dispenser room, striding back toward them like he owned the whole ship. “Finally—they’re gonna give us some weapons. Some real ones, not these damn stick things. Gregor, Bellic”—he pointed at Gregor and one of the others—“come with me. Cole, Fauke, you stay with her. And don’t let her go—the Oracle said they’re sending someone to pick her up. Come on—let’s see what they’ve got for us.”

  Bungie and the other two headed off through the grass and trees, aiming toward the big door leading from the arena to the rest of the ship.

  “Hope it’s something good,” one of Nicole’s guards said. “Maybe one of those laser guns Bungie told us about.”

  “Dream on, Cole,” the other—Fauke—said sourly. “I wouldn’t trust most of us with even sharp knives.” He raised his eyebrows toward Nicole. “Or was Bungie lying about that, too?”

  Nicole braced herself, pushing back the reflexive annoyance. Why couldn’t she get them to understand?

  But this was her chance. Maybe her last chance. With only two of them here, and with Bungie gone, she might be able to get through. Once Bungie had weapons, especially if they were really good weapons, he’d be able to use threats as well as promises to get the green group to follow him down this road to hell.

  And if she was going to shock them back to reality, she needed to tell them exactly what that reality was. “Okay,” she said. “Here it is—”

  She broke off. In the distance behind Cole and Fauke, moving into view from the sandy part of the arena, were a pair of Wisps.

  Heading straight toward them.

  Reflexively, she eased backward. “Hold it,” Cole growled, taking a quick step toward her in response. “Bungie said you’re to stay put.”

  Nicole clenched her teeth. Bungie had said that the Oracle was sending someone to pick her up. But she’d assumed that meant Fievj or another Shipmaster would be clanking his way in. Were the Wisps the ones who got jobs like that in this part of the Fyrantha?

  Or were the Wisps running completely on their own?

  And that was a very nasty thought. Ushkai had said that the ship was broken, with four separate parts where there should have been only one. He’d defined those parts as controlling the Wisps, the guidance system, the Sibyls, and Ushkai himself.

  But maybe it wasn’t quite as simple as that. Nicole had assum
ed that the Wisps in Q1 were under Shipmaster control, despite what Ushkai had said … but what if there was a broken part of the Fyrantha itself that was running them? In that case, it might not be the Shipmasters who wanted her dead, but this part of the Fyrantha.

  She was barely staying ahead of Fievj. How in hell could she stay ahead of Fievj and a whole quarter of the Fyrantha?

  Maybe she was jumping at noisy rats. Maybe all of Q1 wasn’t against her, and those Wisps coming toward her were just following Fievj’s orders.

  But however it untangled, the fact was that they were coming for her, and she had damn well better be somewhere else when they got here.

  And that was looking more and more like it wasn’t going to happen. Even if she could figure out where to run, Cole and Fauke were big, strong men, and they were watching her like hawks.

  Watching her like hawks.

  Keeping her eyes focused on people in front of her while at the same time watching what was going on in the background was a trick she’d mastered early in life. Casually, she took a step to her right.

  “Hey,” Cole warned.

  “Look, I’m not kidding,” Nicole said. Sure enough, both Wisps had shifted direction in response to her movement. Not much, but enough to show that they were definitely aiming for her.

  Now came the tricky part. “The Shipmasters want to see us kill each other,” she said, easing her way back a bit to the left. “And just because Bungie makes it through okay doesn’t mean you two will.” She eased a little more to the left, watching the Wisps again shift in response.

  “What did I just tell you?” Cole growled. He took a step toward her and grabbed her wrist. “Stay put, damn it.”

  “Do you really not get it?” Nicole demanded. The Wisps were almost on top of them, the faint sound as they brushed a couple of the reeds covered up by the roar of the ocean in the distance behind them. One of them had pulled slightly into the lead as the other fell back a bit. Maybe the Shipmasters or whoever was running Q1 had seen Kahkitah’s maneuver and didn’t want the Wisps to get knocked around with a single attack. “Bungie’s just fine with getting the rest of you killed as long as he gets what he wants.”

  “Yeah, that’s kind of what we figured,” Fauke said. “He’s already talking about hanging back—like a real general, he says—while we do all the fighting.”

  “Like we’re going to let him do that,” Cole added.

  Fifteen feet to go. The Wisps raised their arms, getting ready to wrap them around Nicole and freeze her where she stood.

  “Good luck with that,” Nicole said. She took a small step to her right to line up the lead Wisp with Cole, making sure she didn’t put any pressure on the hand loosely holding her wrist. The last thing she could afford was for Cole to think she was trying to pull away and tighten his grip. “In fact, good luck with everything—”

  On that last word, with the lead Wisp’s hands now two feet behind Cole, she twisted her arm up and against Cole’s thumb, wrenching her wrist out of his hold.

  He snarled something and lunged toward her—

  And froze as the outstretched Wisp arms, aiming for Nicole, wrapped instead around the man standing in its path.

  The other Wisp was still on the move. Nicole darted toward Fauke, who was staring wide-eyed in stunned disbelief at his friend and the Wisp, then ducked around his left side to put him between her and the other attacker. Fauke broke his paralysis in time to make a lunge for her.

  And locked up in that position, the stunned expression likewise stuck midway on its way to anger, as the second Wisp grabbed him.

  Nicole had no idea how long it would take for the Wisps, the Shipmasters, or the Fyrantha itself to recognize the mistake. She also had no intention of hanging around long enough to find out. The Wisp had barely settled into its grip on Fauke when she ducked around him and sprinted as fast as she could through the sand toward the ocean.

  Toward the ocean, but not to it. There might be more of the green team in her way, and even if there weren’t there might be more Wisps over on Jeff’s side of the river. What she needed was a place to go to ground for a while and hope that the chase would die down.

  And there was only one place she could think of that might offer her that chance.

  She forced herself to pass the first trail that led up into the hills. The lure of a quick way out of sight was achingly strong, but she knew Bungie would think the same way and she had to at least try to throw him a curve or two. Fortunately, she reached the second trail without being spotted. Ducking between the two bushes flanking the path, she crouched low and headed up. Five seconds later, she passed the first curve and disappeared from sight.

  At least she was no longer visible from the beach. Whether the Shipmasters watching from their sky perch could see her as she ducked under and around the trees she didn’t know. But at least here among the trees, rock stacks, and other obstacles she would have a chance of dodging any new Wisps that Fievj might send after her.

  Though dodging and quick maneuvering were starting to get more and more iffy. The terrain was getting harder as she continued upward. Some of the trees had branches at the bases of their trunks that edged onto the path, while the rock stacks along the trail were also becoming less firm, with chips and broken pieces of stone scattered across the ground and path. The noise from the river ahead was getting louder, rivaling and then completely masking the more rhythmic roar of the ocean, and Nicole was starting to feel occasional patches of cool mist against her face.

  She remembered one of her teachers talking about how flowing or splashing water could break down rocks, sometimes hitting hard enough to turn them into sand. Maybe that was what was happening to the rock stacks here.

  The noise was getting louder, and the path was getting steeper and rockier. The trees were crowding around her, making it difficult to walk, but at the same time providing plenty of branches she could use to pull herself up the slope. Above, the leaves on the intertwined branches were almost completely blocking the sky and, hopefully, the Shipmasters’ view. Ahead, the path seemed to dip out of sight—

  And suddenly, she was there.

  For a long moment she just hung on to her last two branches, gazing down at the churning white water. She’d seen pictures of rivers like this in school, and some movies had had them, but she’d never seen one herself. Not up close. The roar in her ears—the spray of water on her face and hands—the violence of water being ripped apart by the rocks or whatever else was underneath the surface—it was fascinating and awesome and terrifying all at the same time.

  Slowly, she raised her eyes from the roiling water to the opposite side. To the riverbank she had to get to if she was going to escape from Bungie.

  The riverbank that was a good fifteen feet away.

  Jeff had said the river couldn’t be crossed. But he’d also said that he hadn’t confirmed that for himself. Nicole, for her part, had assumed—or maybe just hoped—that the spot where the river emptied into the ocean would be its widest part.

  Jeff had been right. She’d been wrong.

  She couldn’t see through the foam how deep the river was. But it hardly mattered. She could see how fast it was flowing, and unless it was no more than ankle deep there was no way she could wade through it without getting her feet knocked out from under her and falling in.

  Her earlier ocean crossing had been bad enough. Getting dragged down the hills by thundering white water would be terrifying. If there were any kind of sharp rocks hidden under the surface, it might also be fatal.

  She looked around, hoping there might be a cave or burrow or someplace where she could do some quick camouflage and disappear while she thought up a new plan. But it was all just trees and rocks and steep ground, good for ducking and dodging but not for hiding.

  She clenched her teeth, looking at the river again. If it was deep enough, could she hide beneath the surface? But no. She’d need something solid to hold on to to keep from getting swept downstream to the ocean
. There might be some rocks under the surface she could use to brace her feet, but there was no way to know where they might be without getting in.

  Besides, there weren’t any hollow reeds nearby, like people in movies always used to breathe through when they were hiding underwater.

  But she couldn’t give up. Not with an angry Bungie somewhere down there tearing up his side of the arena looking for her. Certainly not with Wisps who were probably already on their way.

  If she couldn’t cross here, maybe there was another spot where the river was narrower. Down by the bluffs near the ocean, maybe, where she and Jeff had guessed there might be a bridge?

  Better yet, maybe up where the river came through the arena wall. There might be a spot either on the inlet pipe or on the wall itself where she could work her way across.

  She peered that direction. The ground sloped upward at even more of an angle than she’d faced in order to get to the river in the first place, and the sight alone sent a fresh ache through tired arms and legs. No wonder the water was rushing as fast as it was.

  But there was nothing else to try. Resettling her fingers on the branches she was gripping, wondering how close she dared get to the edge of the river before she risked slipping on a wet rock and falling in, she started upward.

  She’d gotten three steps when a distant birdlike whistle seemed to weave its way through the roar of the water.

  She paused, peering up the slope. Were there birds in here? She hadn’t noticed any earlier. She looked downslope behind her, still not seeing anything.

  And abruptly it clicked. Birdlike? She spun back around toward the opposite riverbank.

  There they were: Kahkitah, Carp, and Duncan, standing well back from the river’s edge, holding tree branches and waving their arms to try to get her attention.

  Nicole waved back, a flood of relief flowing over her.

  A relief that just as quickly disappeared. She was on this side, they were on that side, and there was an impassible river between them.

  She was trying to figure out how to tell them that when Kahkitah reached his arm over his shoulder and threw something toward her.