Knight

by Timothy Zahn

  There was a moment of silence. One of the Koffren started trying to pull free, stopped as Jeff put a warning foot on the back of his neck beneath the edge of his helmet.

  There was a rustle of bushes from behind them, and Nicole turned to see an armored centaur emerge from the trees.

  She scowled. Jeff had been right. The Shipmasters had had someone on the ground back there to mess with them. “I am Fievj,” the centaur said. “What do you wish?”

  “Your experiment is over,” Nicole said. “We didn’t fight. We don’t fight. Do you finally get that?”

  “We understand now,” Fievj said.

  “Good,” Nicole said. “So you’ll return all the humans to Q4 and give up this nonsense?”

  “We will.”

  “I expect to see them back in their hives within the hour,” Nicole warned.

  There was a short pause. Possibly he was wondering if he should ask what she intended to do if they weren’t returned that promptly.

  But he passed on the question. “They will be,” he said instead.

  “Good.” Nicole nodded at the spread-eagled Koffren. “Once they’ve been returned you can come and get your soldiers. One other thing.”

  She braced herself. Probably this was a waste of time. But she still had to try. “The Koffren have committed murder against the people of the Fyrantha,” she said. “I expect you to punish them for their crime.”

  This time the pause was longer. Probably, Nicole thought darkly, Fievj was wondering how stupid or naïve she was.

  But again, he passed up on the obvious comment. “We’ll deal with them,” was all he said.

  “Good,” Nicole said again. “Then we’re done.” She turned to Jeff. “Can you take the Ponngs and Thii back to the Q3 arena? I want to make sure they get back to their people all right—”

  “Their people are gone,” Fievj said.

  Nicole turned back. “What?” she asked carefully.

  “Their people are gone,” Fievj repeated. “They’ve been returned to their worlds.”

  “When exactly did this happen?”

  “Thirty minutes after you left the arena.”

  “Really,” Jeff said, his voice unnaturally calm. “How very convenient for someone.”

  “The transport was already scheduled,” Fievj said. “It was unrelated to your own activities.”

  “Of course it was,” Jeff said. “I guess the Wisps will just have to make a couple of extra trips.”

  “Impossible,” Fievj said.

  “No, I think you’ll find it’s not,” Jeff said quietly. “You made a deal with them: they fight, then they get to go home.”

  “These six weren’t in place when the time came,” Fievj said. “They will therefore not be transported home.”

  “That is unacceptable—” Nicole began.

  “It’s all right, Sibyl,” Moile said.

  Nicole turned to him. He and Teika had come up behind her, their backs stiff, their faces as usual unreadable. Behind them the four Thii stood silently together, their postures much the same as the Ponngs’. “We can’t let them get away with this,” she said.

  “Can you force them to obey you?” Moile asked.

  Nicole looked at Jeff. But there was no answer in his eyes. “No,” she admitted.

  “It will be all right,” Moile said. “The Ponngs have often been pressed and beaten down. But we’ve survived. We’ll survive this, as well.”

  “Moile and I offered ourselves as your slaves,” Teika added. “We’re bound by honor to continue in your service, if you wish it.”

  Nicole unclenched her jaw. Great; except she didn’t wish it. She had enough trouble taking care of herself without having a pair of aliens underfoot. On top of which, the whole concept of slavery made her skin crawl.

  And even if she found a way to force Fievj to send them home, what then? Had the Shipmasters already sold the Ponng world to some warmonger? If so, would Moile and Teika really be better off there than they would be aboard the Fyrantha?

  She focused on the Thii. “Misgk?” she asked. “What does a commander of the Thii say?”

  “We wish very much to return home,” Misgk said. “But Moile of the Ponng speaks reason.” He made a double popping noise. “And I dare say that if the Ponngs can survive captivity aboard this vessel, so can the Thii.”

  Moile half turned and bowed to him. “We accept your challenge.”

  Misgk returned the bow. “Very good.”

  “Hold it,” Nicole said, some of the challenges she’d seen within Trake’s group flashing through her memory. Most of those challenges had ended in pain or injury. A few had ended in blood. “We’re not doing challenges here.”

  “Yet we’re as yet ill-equipped to function alone aboard this vessel,” Misgk continued, ignoring her comment. “We would therefore ask to be permitted to accompany you until such time as we can manage our own lives and activities.”

  Nicole made a face. So now it wasn’t just two aliens underfoot, but six. Terrific. “Jeff? What do you think?”

  “I don’t see what else we can do right now,” he said. “But I think we’ll walk back to Q3 first, just to make sure Fievj isn’t lying about everyone else being gone.”

  “Good idea,” Nicole said, eyeing Fievj and wondering if he would protest the implied insult. But he remained silent. “Everyone all right with that?”

  “We are,” Moile said.

  “We are,” Misgk added.

  “All right,” Nicole said with a sigh. “Take Kahkitah with you. Just in case you need some muscle.”

  “No problem,” Jeff said. “Where do you want to meet afterward? Our Q4 hive?”

  Nicole looked back at the beach. Four Wisps had appeared from somewhere and gathered around Bennett’s body. As she watched, they lifted him gently in their arms and glided across the sand toward the far arena wall. “Yes, take them to the hive,” she said. “And then … gather everyone together, or everyone who wants to come. Kahkitah can show you the way.”

  “The way to what?”

  Nicole swallowed hard. “The place where Bennett will be laid to rest.”

  twenty-one

  The Q2 memorial area was smaller than the one Nicole had seen at the bottom of the ship in Q1. But it was just as somber, and carried the same weight of remembrances, and of loss, and of sorrow.

  Or maybe it carried more. Nicole had never known any of the people whose lives were recorded in Q1. But she’d known Bennett. Others of their little group had probably known more of the people here.

  “I’d always wondered what happened to people who died aboard ship,” Levi murmured to her as they stood in a loose group by the narrow cylinder with Bennett’s face floating above it. “But Plato would never talk about it. So this is where everyone’s buried?”

  “Yes,” Nicole said. It wasn’t entirely true, but it was close enough. Certainly everyone Levi had known was here.

  Including Plato himself. Briefly, she wondered if she dared try to find his cylinder.

  Probably not. Aside from the painful memories it would bring back, his biography might also mention the fact that Nicole was the one who’d killed him.

  “I suppose you noticed Tomas didn’t come,” Levi went on.

  Nicole nodded. She’d headed here straight from Q1, without going to the Q4 hive first. Part of that was wanting to give the blue team enough time for the Setting Sun drug to wear off, part of it was to make sure the Wisps had Bennett’s pillar set up properly before everyone else arrived.

  It had also given her a lot of quiet time to think. By the time the rest of the blue team arrived, three hours later, she’d come to a decision.

  “I don’t think he blames you,” Levi continued. “Not completely. But … you know.”

  “Yeah,” Nicole said. “How much … I mean, could you…?”

  “How much did we know about what was happening?” Levi shrugged. “Pretty much all of it. We could see and hear everything, but we couldn’t really do much.
For me, it was like I was sitting back watching someone else working my body. Someone who didn’t know what he was doing and didn’t much care.”

  “And maybe easily distracted?” Nicole suggested. “I saw some of the green team staring at the rock pattern in the river bluff.”

  “Yeah, I got a little of that, too,” Levi agreed. “Though I could usually drag myself back when I noticed what was happening. I couldn’t feel much, either. Carp sliced his arm on a thornbush—he told me afterward that he saw it and knew he’d hurt himself but he couldn’t feel any pain. Weird stuff.”

  Nicole nodded. Which fit pretty well with the idea that Setting Sun had been used at the end of someone’s life. Easing the pain, while still allowing him or her to say good-bye to friends or family.

  If there had been families. She really didn’t know how things had worked back then.

  But really, why not? Maybe once the Fyrantha had been more like a big city than a collection of slave groups.

  “I think he’ll come around,” Levi continued. “But right now, he’s hurting. You don’t make many friends here—you know that as well as I do. But Tomas and Bennett got along pretty well.”

  “I’m sorry it happened,” Nicole said. “I wish there was something I could do. Wish there was something I could have done.”

  “I know,” Levi said. “We all do.”

  “So how bad is it?” Nicole asked. Having watched Tomas’s moods over the months she’d been aboard the Fyrantha, she was pretty sure she knew the answer to this one. But she still had to ask. “Does he want me dead?”

  “He’s … mostly right now it’s the pain talking,” Levi hedged.

  “So he does.”

  Levi shrugged uncomfortably. “If it helps, he wants Bungie dead more.”

  “Is that why you’re over here talking to me right now?” Nicole asked. “Does he want you to find out from me where Bungie’s hiding?”

  Levi huffed out a sigh. “Yeah, pretty much. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Nicole assured him. “I don’t really blame him. To be honest, if Bungie walked outside the ship right now I wouldn’t shed any tears, either.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  Nicole shook her head. “The Shipmasters took him along with the Koffren. I don’t know what they did with him after that.”

  “Nothing good, you can bet on that,” Levi growled. “Maybe we should have killed him when we had the chance. Him and the damn Koffren.”

  “We were trying to prove humans don’t fight or kill.”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Levi said. “Did it work?”

  Nicole shrugged. “The whole battle was carried out by the Ponngs and Thii, who the Shipmasters already knew could fight. Speaking of whom, are you and the others going to be able to accept them as our guests for a while?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Levi said. “They didn’t do anything to us that anyone can be mad about. And it’s not like we don’t have acres of room and tons of food. We’ll barely even have to look at each other if we don’t want to.”

  “Good,” Nicole said. “We’ll try to get them their own areas as soon as they’re up to speed.”

  “No problem.” Levi touched Nicole tentatively on the shoulder. “Anyway … thanks for setting this up. This memorial, I mean. Bennett was important to all of us.”

  “I know,” Nicole said. “You’re welcome.”

  “At least he didn’t die for nothing,” Levi said. “He’d be pleased to know that at least Earth is safe now.”

  He nodded a farewell and walked over to where Carp and Duncan were talking quietly together. Nicole watched him go, an ache in her stomach. At least Earth is safe now. Levi believed that. Probably the rest believed it, too. And Nicole had no intention of saying anything to the contrary.

  She’d already decided that the truth wouldn’t gain them anything.

  There was a movement of air against the back of her neck, and Jeff stepped to her side. “How are you doing?” he asked quietly.

  “Tired,” she said. “Sad. Relieved.” She hesitated. “Angry.”

  “Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around,” Jeff conceded. “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can let your anger churn around and tear you up inside,” Jeff said. “We need to watch Tomas and make sure he doesn’t go that route. Or you can channel it into action.”

  “Any action in particular you have in mind?”

  “No.” Jeff peered closely at her. “But it looks like you do.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “To me. Probably not to anyone else.”

  “I’ve got a couple of ideas. I was going to follow up on them once everyone else was back in the hive.”

  “Sounds good,” Jeff said. “Speaking of the hive, I’ve got the Ponngs and Thii settled in. I also picked up samples of the food they were getting in Q3 to make sure we can feed them something safe here.”

  “Oh,” Nicole said, feeling her face warm with embarrassment. “Sorry—that never even occurred to me. Wouldn’t have done to bring them over just so they could starve to death. Thanks.”

  “No problem,” Jeff said. “Just because you’re in charge doesn’t mean you have to think of everything personally. That’s what you have staff for.”

  Nicole raised her eyebrows. “‘Staff’?”

  “Maybe more aide-de-camp,” he said with a shrug. “Titles don’t matter much here. I don’t suppose I get a cool uniform?”

  “Afraid a blue jumpsuit’s the best I can do.”

  “In that case, never mind—I’ve already got one of those. So where do we start?”

  “We start with someone called the Caretaker,” Nicole said. “And some very important questions.”

  * * *

  Jeff had never been to the animal treatment room before. Nicole found herself watching his face out of the corner of her eye as the two of them walked down the wide corridor between the cages, Kahkitah lumbering along behind them. Probably Jeff was thinking the same thing she and Kahkitah had their first times here, that the treatment areas were the Fyrantha’s version of prison cells.

  But while he looked back and forth between them as they walked—and looked up and down, as well—he made no comment. For the moment, anyway, he seemed content to follow her lead, and to let her do things her way.

  Though there’d been a moment down below, when the Wisps were heading toward them with outstretched arms, that she thought he was going to bail right there and then. At that point, it was only her reassurances that had made the difference.

  Or possibly it was the fact that Kahkitah had stepped into the Wisp’s embrace without any hesitation. Nicole didn’t see Jeff as the type who would do something purely so as not to be shown up by someone else, but with guys that was always possible. But right now the why of it didn’t matter. He was here, and that was what she needed.

  Back at Bennett’s memorial, she’d let Levi believe a lie. Unlike him, and unlike the others in the hive far below, she needed Jeff to know the truth.

  Ushkai was waiting at his usual spot as they approached. “Greetings, Protector,” he called.

  “Hello, Caretaker Ushkai,” Nicole called back. “I have some questions.”

  “Certainly,” Ushkai said. “Speak them.”

  “So who is this again?” Jeff murmured.

  “He’s a hologram of someone who used to be aboard the Fyrantha,” Nicole said. “He’s sort of like the ship talking, or at least this part of the ship.”

  “Which part? Q4?”

  “It’s a little more complicated,” Nicole said. “There’s the part that controls him, the part that controls the Wisps, the part that talks to the Sibyls, and the part the Shipmasters control.”

  “Which I’m guessing is most of Q1?”

  “Not sure how big their area is,” Nicole said evasively. “Ushkai told me that they fly the ship and run the daily functions. It looks like they’ve als
o taken control of the Q1 Wisps, and maybe partial control of the ones in Q2 and Q3.”

  “But this Ushkai is his own section?”

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “So you can trust that when he talks he’s telling you the truth?”

  Nicole felt her throat tighten. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

  They reached the hologram and stopped a few feet away. “Speak your questions, Protector,” Ushkai invited.

  “Let’s start with a simple one,” Nicole said. “How much of the Fyrantha do the Shipmasters control right now?”

  “Most of the Number One section,” Ushkai said. “That includes—”

  “You mean the Q1 section?” Nicole asked. “The forward-left quadrant?”

  “We may designate that as Q1 if you wish,” Ushkai said. “That area includes the flight controls and the day-to-day functions for most of the Fyrantha.”

  “How about the Wisps?” Nicole asked. “You told me once they were run by a different part of the ship.”

  “For the most part they are,” Ushkai said. “But those in Q1 are subject to the Shipmasters’ commands.”

  “How about the ones in Q2 and Q3? They were afraid to go into areas they weren’t assigned to.”

  “The Wisps are simple creatures,” Ushkai said. “Such fear is perhaps understandable.”

  “Perhaps,” Nicole said, keeping her voice steady.

  “But fear should not interfere with their function,” Ushkai continued. “Did they refuse to obey your commands?”

  “There were some problems,” Nicole said. “You said the Shipmasters mostly run the ship’s functions. Does that mean they can see and hear everywhere on the ship?”

  “No.”

  “Can you see and hear everything?”

  There was just the slightest hesitation. “I can see many things.”

  “Can you see into Q1?”

  Another hesitation. “I can see parts of that quadrant.”

  “So what do the Shipmasters say about what happened in Q1?” Nicole asked. “Have they decided Earth and humans are useless to them?”

  “Yes.”

  Nicole closed her eyes, a sort of numbness creeping over her mind. She’d hoped that wouldn’t be Ushkai’s answer. She’d hoped it desperately.