Ancient Light
Page 52
‘I think it’s something we’re under an obligation to try … I’ll take one of the YV9s,’ I said, ‘there’ll be several other passengers.’
I keyed out contact, cutting off her questions. Using the Residence’s holotank made my back ache: couch-chairs aren’t designed the right height. I stood, rubbing at the small of my back; hearing Douggie in urbane conversation with Chandra and one of the other Company people.
Warm wind blew in through the open windows, rustling the bead-curtains. It isn’t having too little to do that produces that stasis, but having too much: not knowing where to start.
Mehmet Lutaya walked through from the next room, carrying a bowl of half-burned kuru meat. Through a mouthful, he said, ‘Tune into the WEB frequency, Representative. Be good to see what’s going on.’
‘I can tell you what’s going on and it isn’t good,’ I said, Cory’s update in mind. I keyed into the channel the WEBcasts would be on, going up to Security on the orbiter; and stopped when I saw a face I recognized:
‘I’m speaking to you from Northfast, the largest island of the Freeport settlement on the northern continent.’
The Visconti woman stood by a curving wall, shadowed by windvanes; Ortheans hurried past her, some in brown Wellhouse robes. She had that hunched look that comes from watching the sky; but she spoke clearly:
‘The situation here has deteriorated badly in the last two hours. Hostile jath-rai ships, remaining behind after the main fleet, cruise the channels between these islands. My attempts to establish contact with the attacking forces have failed. I have personally seen low-tech shots exchanged. This is a winchbow-bolt –’
She held out her hand. A metal dart lay on her palm, the point fluted: a black iron bolt.
‘– and this is the wound that it makes.’
The holo-image showed her stepping back, moving along the wall to where three or four Ortheans lay in its shelter. She squatted down by a fair-maned male. His back was towards the camera, splashed with blood like black paint. What I at first took to be torn flesh was the fletching of the bolt, buried deep a handsbreadth from his spine.
‘Nice shot,’ Lutaya said. He absently offered me the bowl of kuru. For some reason, I wasn’t hungry.
‘Approximately seventy miles to the east of where I am now, the main body of the Desert Coast fleet is coming together. Presumably, this is the preliminary to an attack; at worst to a full-scale invasion –’
‘That isn’t telling us anything we don’t know.’ I scanned the other transmissions.
‘Reckon to put something through every two hours,’ he said. ‘We’re not just sending FTL-blips back to the Home Worlds. Most of us are getting stuff out direct to the WEBs on Thierry and Parmiter and Aleph-Nine.’
And you think it’s worth your while hanging round the Company representative, and the government envoy … Well, who knows? I thought. You might be right. The next three or four hours are crucial.
Lutaya left, and I got through to Kumiel to make sure a YV9 shuttle was powered-up and ready. After I keyed out, I stood in that small, hot room – half human culture, and half Orthean: print-outs pinned up on the walls together with old ribbon-banners in the colours of Ahrentine telestre – and shook with cold; with a fear that made my hands icy and my stomach churn. Eight years ago, on Orthe, I rushed into things that make my heart stop now; rushed in with no perception of how final catastrophe can be. Max, I thought; suddenly guilty that he’d been absent from my mind for so long. Some things you don’t recover from. And then realized that I had had to reach for that feeling, was not overwhelmed by it, as before …
Not caring to analyse that too closely, I walked through into the other room, meaning to speak with Douggie, and Pathrey Shanataru, and, of course, Ruric.
‘I admire your telestre fighters,’ Pathrey said smoothly. I found him sitting with Douggie and Hal in the courtyard – it is, simply, where one is least likely to be overheard. The dark, sleek Harantish male, mane falling in untrimmed curls; the frail bird-like figure of Haltern Beth’ru-elen, with a becamil rug over his knees; and Douggie’s urbane poise – almost brothers, I thought. Different origins, but some unmistakable kinship between them.
‘Were this an equal fight, I think telestre numbers would have it …’ Pathrey paused and then added, ‘… eventually. There being a goodly number of us aboard the jath fleet.’
As I sat down beside him, Hal eyed the Harantish male with polite dislike. Old loyalties die hard: Pathrey is still born of Kel Harantish …
‘There is one thing more. We have s’aranthi weapons.’ Pathrey put both hands on the table before him, linking fingers, and stared down at them. His bravado vanished. ‘Perhaps more than s’aranthi weapons. I’ve spoken of this before. You gloat that we of Harantish have no past-memories, being Witchbreed-blooded. I do not envy you remembering the use of that weapon, that ancient light.’
‘Calil has this?’ Douggie pressed.
‘Sometimes I believe she does. Sometimes I believe nothing of it!’
‘You must have some belief,’ I said, ‘or you wouldn’t be here now.’
The edges of roofs and walls blurred with a faint sea mist, that through the arched entrance could be seen blotting out the harbour. It muffled the sounds of the city. Humid: sweat ran in patches. I watched the plump Orthean male, and saw on his face an aching regret.
‘I shouldn’t have left her. Half the bloodlines are vying for her ear now, all with dreams of Kel Harantish the new heart of Empire – but that’s not what she plans. I know her. No one knows her as I do.’
Douggie, letting him ramble self-pityingly, steered him back with the prompt: ‘What’s her intention?’
‘To strengthen her foothold in Rimnith and Keverilde, I imagine. And before many days,’ Pathrey Shanataru said, ‘she will say: I have that ancient weapon, that brought the fall of the Golden Empire. And if proofs required, she’ll try to prove it – and that may prove the end of us all; if she does have our ancestor’s science, that doesn’t mean she can control it. But if she can, she will then say: You are again under the rule of the Golden Empire … or else you are a land where nothing moves but silver dust and the cold wind …’
I said, ‘Is it a bluff?’
‘Shan’tai, all of it may be a bluff. There is something about her now, I hardly know her, I – if she by some mischance has the weapon that Santhendor’lin-sandru used, well, he used it, and she is as he was.’
A young l’ri-an came from the kitchens with siir-wine and bread, and the conversation paused. As I helped set out the bowls, I thought, Do I trust Pathrey? Do I even trust him to be a traitor? He was closest of all to Calil bel-Rioch … and this could be nothing more than propaganda to scare us.
‘Insanity, to hold that threat over our heads,’ Hal protested.
‘I’ve known other worlds that existed under just such a balance.’ Douggie’s unspoken addition was: if not for very long. He glanced at me. ‘At that point, Earth would intervene, and on such a scale –’
‘And with what results?’
Hal cupped his hands, raising the bowl of siir to his lips; and when he had drunk, wiped his neat, puckered mouth, and said, ‘Calil bel-Rioch cannot live forever.’
Pathrey’s protest came too quickly. ‘Others have lived her life, in our city. Others have had centuries of shunned persecution, of revilement; have dreamed of the past and the Empire and,’ he concluded, with undeniable truth, ‘there are others like her. This could not have happened if it were just my Calil alone.’
Knowing the Hundred Thousand (knowing Hal), there have been assassination attempts thought of. I filed that for future thought. My wristlink chimed, signalling the shuttle on Kumiel Island was ready.
‘Shan’tai Pathrey, if you’d like to come back to Kumiel with me now …’ Far safer to have him in Peace Force protective custody than left with telestre-Ortheans. I stood up, wondering where I’d find Pramila Ishida. ‘Douggie, what are you doing about this?’
‘I
think it is imperative that one of us stay here to coordinate government and Company affairs; it could, of course, be you,’ he said, steepling his fingers, and looking up at me.
‘No, I’ll go. If it looks too dangerous, I won’t make the contact. There’ll be other opportunities. The fleet has at least three days’ sailing before it gets near Melkathi.’
Hal turned his face to the misty sky. ‘I could wish for the weather to change. If She were kind, a summer tempest might solve this for us.’ He blinked, small eyes bright, and inclined his head in Pathrey’s direction. ‘No ill will to your people personally, t’an, you understand.’
‘I understand perfectly.’
Douggie’s amusement was visible only to someone who knew him. He stepped in smoothly and took Pathrey Shanataru’s arm, steering him towards the courtyard entrance, and a l’ri-an who stood waiting with a skurrai-carriage. As well as avoiding hostility, it would give the government envoy a last chance to speak to the Empress’s Voice – I smiled, thinking, Too many years on Orthe, Douggie; it’s taught you never to miss an advantage.
Haltern got to his feet. He shook out the folds of his becamil over-robe, that was stitched with green and gold thread; and gripped the hanelys cane in a thin, six-fingered hand. Droplets of sea mist swirled in the air. The honey-coloured stone of that courtyard seemed almost to glow, taking warmth from the hidden sun.
‘You have had knowledge of the Hexenmeister since when?’ he asked. ‘Since you and the t’an Clifford were in the Tower, these two months gone?’
‘I couldn’t tell you about her, Hal, I’m sorry.’
That round, bland face creased into a smile. Since he’d spoken with Ruric, a few hours ago, some indefinable tension had been released in him; and now he chuckled, and said, ‘S’aranth, we will have you in the takshiriye yet! The T’An Suthai-Telestre is most impressed … But I think it wiser none other knows that the exiled Orhlandis has returned. Or that she lives, and is Hexenmeister. Does she leave with you now?’
‘Yes –’ I answered before I properly thought; which is what one tends to do, prompted by Haltern n’ri n’suth Beth’ru-elen.
‘Be eloquent with the hiyeks,’ he said. ‘S’aranth, I am too old for such travelling, or I would come with you; and too old for travelling at all, therefore I shan’t return to Rimnith and Keverilde – but I shall stay here in the city, and do what I can.’
I grinned, knowing what webs of intrigue among T’Ans and s’ans are known to the Beth’ru-elen. ‘Modesty doesn’t become you, Hal.’
He signalled to a pale-maned l’ri-an, who ran out to the alley for another skurrai-jasin.
‘You’ll find me in the Citadel, when you return.’ And then he fixed watery blue eyes on me, the whiteless eyes of Ortheans; almost spoke, changed his mind, and at last said, ‘Christie, I don’t know why, after all these years, I should worry about you,’ and was across the courtyard and through the archway before I could think of a reply.
Sea fog hides the harbour, and the crowds at docked jath-ships; hides the upper slopes of Westhill, and its fortress that I have seen from this courtyard. Tathcaer, clustered full of blank-walled telestre-houses … still with the overgrown traces of eight years’ neglect: siir and ziku and kazsis-vine; and this is not the same city that I came to as envoy, and that old man is not the same Haltern Beth’ru-elen. All that remains constant is the bond still existing between us.
I went back upstairs, to find Pramila Ishida sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, and roused her; Kumiel station called in again to say a YV9 was in readiness for flight. Then I looked for Ruric Hexenmeister and was for frantic minutes convinced she’d gone as secretly as she’d arrived – until a masked woman slipped back through the telestre-house entrance from the city outside: amari Ruric Orhlandis come back from her city, Tathcaer; unrecognized, unknown.
The first jath-rai starred the sea four hundred seri to the west of Tathcaer. The Company officers crewing the YV9 shuttle regarded me with disapproval, but that didn’t bother me. At the moment I’m acting Company representative, I thought. While that lasts, I’ve got the authority to do this – if it lasts long enough, we’re home …
‘Take us down to eight hundred feet,’ I directed.
The coastline to the north of us was invisible in haze. We crossed the jath-rai’s wake, coming down low enough to see hiyek males and females rush to the ship’s metal rails and point up at us.
Pramila Ishida said, ‘That’s one of the mid-Coast hiyeks. Quarth area. Get the data-net on image analysis.’
The young male officer she addressed frowned, glancing away from the shabbily-dressed Pacifican girl; and I nodded, authorizing it. I don’t think Pramila noticed that rumours of her part in affairs were obviously circulating among Company staff – and you’re past caring about it, I realized.
Ruric leaned down, studying the image in the holotank. The light reflected back from her yellow eyes. When she spoke, it was in the language of the Tower, that she and I alone would comprehend: ‘The hiyek-families are not the most important thing now, S’aranth. Don’t forget: we must speak with Harantish Witchbreed.’
Outriders of the main fleet came into scan. Tall-masted jath, made of riveted sheets of metal, their steel sails at once too fragile and too heavy-seeming … First one jath, cutting a white line across the ocean; then another, then two more, then a dozen strung out in a wavering line – and there, the main fleet. I let the voices of the crew fade into the background, hearing them talk with Kumiel base and with Cory’s people at the Freeport; all of that gone, all I could see was the fleet of the hiyeks of the Coast.
Jath and jath-rai, all sizes of ship; some loaded down so that they wallowed in the swell. Sails set to catch the strong, steady wind … small boats tacking across the fleet’s main course. Sails bowing, rails crowded, males and females pointing and staring; and Carrick’s Star a sunburst on the water. Jath wakes crossing, fringes of foam on a jade-green sea …
The YV9’s power-discharge ruffled the sea as we came down lower. One jath-rai passed below us, its sails with patches riveted on, and the deck littered with bundles, with stoves, with sleeping ashiren, with covered objects twice the height of an Orthean. I spared a glance for instruments: no heat readings. Yet. And then the shuttle’s speed dropped again as we paralleled the fleet’s course, going down past them. Easy for Cory to say, ‘estimated seven hundred ships’. Now we passed small convoys and groups of ships, still flying west, still seeing no end to them; ships in groups that seemed to dot the sea out to northern and southern horizons – and we at last came on the trailing end of it. Two jath-rai wallowing without sail, furious repairs going on; one jath left abandoned; and on the western horizon, still the occasional speck of a following ship …
Ruric said, ‘Not an invasion. A migration.’
I straightened, rubbing the small of my back. ‘The data-net will have processed the images in a few seconds. Then we’ll have a contact.’ I turned to the pilot. ‘Take us back, please.’
Pramila Ishida had slumped down into one of the bucket seats. Now she leaned both filthy arms on the edge of the holotank and stared at the images of jath and jath-rai, as the YV9 swung round and flew back across the fleet. She smiled. It was an odd expression, one could speculate uneasily about what she’d had to go through, to feel that way.
‘A Company representative shouldn’t put herself in jeopardy,’ she remarked.
‘When I put a voicecast on narrowbeam, I’m going to make it clear we’re armed, and we’ll fire if necessary.’ And after Reshebet, I thought, they’ll believe me. Ironic, if what Cory did there proves a protection to me.
The YV9 shuttle switched to hover-mode, some five hundred feet above the sea. Holo-images showed a daystarred sky, streaked with high cloud, and a summer haze still shadowing the horizon. A vast circle of ocean, with innumerable small ships dotting it; white wakes all curving like an arrow’s flight to the east … Blue and gold; and I could almost feel the cool wind, taste the salt.
‘There are Anzhadi on at least three jath,’ Pramila said.
The cabin’s soft green illumination shone on the worn seats, the rim of the holotank; the faces of the Company crew – all four of them barely into their twenties, and not knowing which to regard with greater suspicion: the alien woman, the renegade Pacifican, or the lunatic Company representative. I grinned. When I turned back to the data-images, Ruric spoke from the shadows of the cabin:
‘Not Anzhadi, Christie. I’ll tell you what I’ve seen, and that’s Harantish Golden on every jath and jath-rai – a bare handful to a vessel, but is that all K’ai Calil needs?’ The dark Orthean woman stepped closer to the ’tank. Her long-fingered hand massaged the stump of her right arm, that after so many years still pained her. ‘We must speak with –’
The rim of the holotank hit me hard under the ribs, and I gasped for breath. A klaxon split the air. Darkness: either the illumination cut out, or I blacked out for a second. There was a sensation of plummeting, and then I heard urgent controlled voices: the shuttle soared upwards. The klaxon ceased: interior illumination returned.
‘– report fired on by hi-tech weaponry at 764.069.546; repeat 764.069.546. Damage report follows.’ The dark-haired young officer leaned back from the voice-record, grinned at me, and said, ‘We’re still flying, Representative. They’re not that good!’
‘Get me an image rerun. Now.’
Ruric’s hand was under my elbow, shoving me into one of the bucket seats. Her fingers probed the base of my ribs and I winced.
‘Bruised,’ she said. ‘You s’aranthi hurt easily.’
Adrenalin still pumped with every heartbeat, and I let it carry me forward: fear is a good fuel. The holotank showed a rerun image: from one jath below us bursts a star of light, analysed as a microbeam-pulse weapon. And there, on the deck, a battered GHD4.