They set to with a will, and, as they fought, Diva felt the annoyance of the head of station’s treatment of her slip away. Because Six had got better. He was more than holding his own against her now. When had he got so strong? Diva was forced to fall back.
He crowed. “Sure you can’t remember?” he demanded. “Sure you don’t remember saying you wouldn’t touch my hand if you were drowning in a sea of Xianthan crocodiles?”
She matched him, stroke for stroke. “I never said that. You made it up!”
“And I suppose you don’t remember calling me ‘boy’, either?”
“I might have. I mean, you were a boy then.” She prepared to strike.
He parried her dagger thrust, and she suddenly found his kris at her throat.
Diva looked thunderously cross. She absolutely hated to be beaten. Her eyes were flashing like stars turning supernova.
Six dropped his sword. “Your last thrust was dangerous. That was practice with real swords, you know.”
Diva ground her teeth. “I had noticed.”
“Just saying,” he said coolly. “—In case it had slipped your attention.” He preened. “Feeling a bit under the weather, Diva? Because I seem to have beaten you quite easily.”
He received a deep-throated growl for a reply.
He grinned. “No? Well, never mind. I expect your memory will come back one day.” And then he sauntered out of the cell, sheathing his kris. Diva stared after him. When had he got so cavalier?
She frowned around at the cell walls. She remembered every word she had said in here, but it would take more than a knife at her throat to make her admit it.
LATER THAT DAY the station supervisor called them to the bridge of his orbital station. He stared at Diva with cold black eyes, and addressed his words to a spot somewhere above her head.
The Coriolian told them that the coupling had been completed, but his expression was scathing, and his words clipped. His nose twitched with distaste, as if he had noticed a particularly bad smell. Diva seethed, holding biting words back with some difficulty.
Six examined the man in front of him closely. If this bureaucrat was an example of the influence Tartalus was having on the Coriolan meritocracy, it was unlikely that Raven would ever be allowed to rule the planet. He rather thought that Tartalus would be planning on taking over himself, and wondered idly how the man intended to accomplish that. It was something they needed to think about, he decided.
Diva stared right through the officious supervisor. She was remembering savagely how, in other times, he would have been fed to the Tattula cats merely for omitting the mandatory obeisance to her. The thought of personally offering pieces of him as tidbits to the felines was enabling her to listen with apparent calmness, through a brain surging with outrage. She hadn’t realized quite how quickly her cousin would begin to spread poison against her, how quickly some of the inhabitants of her planet would react, nor how difficult she would find their defection. It was a bitter pill to swallow. She realized that Coriolis was heading towards great instability, and looked sideways at Six.
He was to blame, of course. This had all started when he rescued Tallen and Petra from being entombed alive in the rexelene museum. If he hadn’t done that ...
She gave a mental shake. She was glad he had. It was time to change those hidebound, barbaric customs which her own family still permitted. No, there could be no doubt. Coriolis had to change.
The supervisor was now looking directly at her, and seemed to have finished speaking. Diva blinked, and came out of her reverie. She raised her chin and straightened her shoulders.
“Thank you. Your team has been most efficient.”
The man’s eyes flickered. “I was merely doing my duty.” He stared back at Diva with an insolent expression clear for all to see.
Six nodded to the man with deceptive amiability, and put his hand on Diva’s shoulder to turn her back towards the ship. He was aware of a slight resistance, and exerted more pressure.
“I would love to scatter him around the galaxy in knife-sized bites,” he whispered to her. “But that might not be the most intelligent way to rule Coriolis.”
Diva nodded. She had no idea how he had known what she was thinking, but was glad that he had. Of course such a thing was impossible; she knew that. With an answering smile, she followed him to the access tube where the New Independence was moored. She would be glad to get off this orbital station.
They busied themselves silently in the preflight checks which were necessary, even though Arcan was to transport them over to their mysterious destination, rather than the trader’s own engines.
When they had completed all the checks, and made sure that the new coupling of the freight shuttle was failsafe, Six turned to Arcan. “Do you know where you have to take us?”
Arcan consulted with the canths, and a shimmer of surprise spread through him. “Yes, but—”
“No buts, Arcan. Just take us there!”
The sunny morning of Xiantha disappeared, and so did Arcan. The New Independence had been transported out, away from the binary system, away from any known planets, and deep into the heart of the galaxy.
Six found himself seated at the main console of the bridge on the Independence. His eyes opened as wide as dinner plates as he looked out of the rexelene observation visor in front of him.
“What on Sacras ...!” His voice trailed off in astonishment.
THERE WERE NO words at all for the sight which lay before them. He peered through the observation visor, and gaped. Diva was in much the same state.
“Six! Isn’t that ...? Surely that must be ...?” She fell uncharacteristically silent too.
Before them was the most unusual sight they had ever seen. They could see stars, but these were only visible around the edges of a round dark circle of nothingness, which took up much of the horizon. The circle of darkness was ringed by ethereal smudges of light of different colours: blue, gold and some white. The stars which they could see beyond this seemed duplicated on either side of the circle of emptiness. The edges of the aura showed strong aberrations; as they watched the stars seemed to grow and then shrink again as if a pulse of energy had swept over them.
“That is the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Ammonite Galaxy ...” Six leapt for the console, and started to push buttons frantically, “... and I just hope we are nowhere near the event horizon.”
“Arcan wouldn’t have left us here if we were.”
Tallen’s harsh voice sounded interested. “So that is the Great Magnet, is it?” He gave a whistle. “How come there are so many stars in such a small area? It is almost like being in half-light, they are so close.”
Diva nodded as she examined the sky herself. “There must be hundreds, maybe even thousands of stars in a couple of light years!”
Six spent a few moments examining the data and then sat back with a short sigh. “Well, we are still in the green zone, but all the same, the event horizon is pretty close. We are going to have to be careful how we manoeuvre.” He pushed some buttons to edge the New Independence a little further out of the influence of the tidal distortion.
Diva pursed her lips. “No wonder the canths said it was dangerous. Perhaps that is why the trimorph twins couldn’t get back?”
She walked over to the intercommunicators on one wall of the bridge and rang down to the cargo hold where the canths and the canth keeper were. “Can the canths feel the trimorphs now?”
“They say they are close, but that there is too much interference for them to be able to triangulate their position very accurately. They say to turn around and head behind us, that they are getting the impression of a nearby planet.”
Diva looked over at Six, who turned the space trader around with great care, and began to examine the instruments again.
“Yes, they may be right. There does seem to be a planet close to us, but—” he rechecked his facts, and then looked up in astonishment, “—it is traveling at nearly 2 million miles per hour on a tr
ajectory around the singularity; that makes it a hypervelocity planet, bound to the singularity.”
“It can’t be! Surely it would have been torn apart?”
Six rechecked the data on the console, then sat back. “No, no mistake. I guess its star was torn away by the tidal forces, and probably expelled from the influence of the black hole. That means the planet could literally be billions of years old! Planets die because their stars evolve, you know. A planet without a star could theoretically live forever, although it would undergo changes, of course.” His jaw dropped. “It is now orbiting the black hole once every eight years, though! Phew! The Great Magnet must be ripping it apart, especially at periapsis. We are still awfully close to the singularity.”
“Do you think any life could survive for long?”
Six shook his head. “According to the data here, every time it passes closest to the black hole tidal heating accumulates, and the complete disintegration of the planet is more and more possible. The forces tearing the planet apart are tremendous. If there is anything still alive on the surface, it won’t remain that way for long.”
Bennel nodded. “Then we must make haste to find the trimorphs.”
Diva looked around, to stare at the omnipresent circular lack of everything which was the black hole. “Are you quite sure that we are outside the event horizon of that thing?”
Six grinned. “Getting worried, my lady?”
“Dream on, no-name, I was only wondering.”
“Well, if we are inside the horizon there isn’t much we can do about it, is there?”
“Great!”
He decided to stop teasing. “No, we are well out of the way of the thing. But where we are going won’t be exactly safe, either. Getting the Independence into a stable orbit around a hypervelocity planet is going to be a nightmare.”
“Yes, but at least a planet can’t engulf us, like the black hole could.”
“No, just flatten us!”
She grinned. “No problem, then!”
“That thing is magnificent, isn’t it?”
Diva nodded. “It is hard to look away.”
“That sort of flutter around the edge, where the stars seem to be suffering waves of different magnifications – that is the bit that I find fascinating. That’s the gravitational lensing due to the enormous pull of the black hole.”
“It makes our worlds look tiny, doesn’t it? How many stars do you think it has swallowed?”
Six considered. “I remember reading that the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Ammonite Galaxy was somewhere around a billion times Sacras.”
“That thing has already eaten a billion suns?” Her eyes widened.
Six was cautious. “Maybe it already had a lot of mass when it formed. But many millions, certainly.”
“Ugh! It is the ultimate destruction machine.”
Six gave a half nod. “Put like that ...”
“Just keep us clear of it, will you?”
“Don’t worry. I have no intention of getting trapped inside the event horizon.”
“Valhai Six will know how to avoid falling past the point of no return.” Tallen’s voice rebuked Diva, and she heard his continual dislike of her reflected in his tone.
Then Six shook his head slowly in disbelieving awe. “—To have had the chance to see the central black hole, close up! That is amazing. I am taking film of this so that we can take something back to show the others. Ledin will never believe me if I don’t!”
“Of course he will. You two are as thick as thieves.”
“Talking of thieves, have you realized that the most likely group to be a valuable ally on Coriolis is the Namuri? If we can’t do much about it by ourselves, I mean; if the reforms are voted unconstitutional, and if the Tartalus faction gets even stronger.”
Tallen looked much-struck with the idea, but Diva was less keen. “The Namuri?” Her tone was imperious, causing Tallen to bridle.
Six hadn’t finished. “The clans are the only groups who are trying to take any stand at all. They may only believe in civil disobedience right now, but – having seen how Tallen and Petra feel about the meritocrats – I wouldn’t bet on that continuing in the future.”
Tallen’s eyes flickered to Diva, and he looked as if he would have been happy to eliminate her there and then.
Six went on, “Just an idea. Only it does look as if the Tartalus faction is gaining ground. And he is not a fit person to run anything.”
Tallen’s dark eyes flashed. “He is the sworn enemy of the Namuri. He organizes ambushes with his men.”
Six’s eyes widened. “Ambushes?”
The boy dropped his head. “They lie in wait for the Namuri.”
Diva gasped, and turned to look at the boy. “They waylay them?” She could hardly believe her ears.
Tallen met her gaze. “Yes, Meritocrat, they do,” he said in a tone of dislike. “They seem to find it fun. They bring their guards and their weapons, and they make an outing of it.” His eyes challenged hers until he saw the stark disbelief, when he looked away again. “Though they hardly ever catch any of us. We are too fast for them across the marshes, and we know the secret ways to safety. In any case, we can smell a meritocrat a mile away, so most of us can escape. They occasionally get lucky, if it is raining hard, or if their guards are able to position themselves well downwind. Children sometimes aren’t fast enough.”
Diva’s mouth was still open. “Children?” she repeated, sickly.
“You didn’t know?”
She shook her head.
“I thought they were doing it on the orders of the Elders.”
She stared. Was it possible that her own father had authorized such things?
Tallen seemed to be more forthcoming now. “They usually only catch the youngest of us,” he told them. “The smallest ones who can’t run so fast.”
Diva thought she might vomit. “What ... what do they do with them?” she asked.
The Namuri boy met her eyes, unblinking. “What do you think, Meritocrat?”
She shrugged. She didn’t want to think.
“You are a member of the ruling family. Shouldn’t you know what they do to them? Or don’t you care?”
Bennel took a step forwards, but Six motioned him away with a glance, and put himself quietly between them, a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You tell us what he does to them.”
“There is one place in the marshes where Tartalus and his men are not afraid to go. They know the safe trails for that small area. They take their captives to that part of the marsh. Then they give the Namuri a choice. They can have their hands amputated, and go free, or they can walk into the quickmire. Either way, Tartalus delights in telling each of them, they will never steal from a meritocrat.”
Six looked horrified. “What do they do?”
Tallen smiled. “What would you choose, Valhai Six? To be dismembered and left as a burden to your family members or to die in the sacred marshes of the Namuri? They walk into the quickmire, of course.”
The skin across Diva’s face seemed taut. “They choose to die?”
“We are Namuri. Even as children, we are not afraid to die. To be buried in the quickmire is an honour, to a clan member. They walk to their deaths gladly.” Tallen gave a scornful laugh. “They hold their heads up high and pray to the namura stone as they are drawn under. They stand proud in front of the jeering meritocrats. We, the Namuri, are the winners, for they cannot make us cringe and cower.”
Diva was the colour of ivory. “I didn’t know,” she said.
Tallen examined her face closely. “I see that you didn’t. Then the man has been acting independently?”
Six had put one arm around Diva, who was still looking devastated. “I think we can assume that he has been acting alone. Although no one can deny that he seems to be increasing his influence in the court. How long has he been killing your people?”
Tallen’s voice grated. “Since I was little.”
Six nodded sol
emnly. “I am sorry. We must stop that.”
Diva straightened her back until it was almost possible to see her rigid predecessors ranged behind her. “That is ... that is not ... acceptable.” She turned to stare again at the voracious black hole. “We have to stop Tartalus. I have to stop Tartalus.” She shivered, as if somebody had walked over her own grave. “I will stop him!”
Six turned to Diva. “Your mother has been a good administrator, and I am sure she saw the value of your suggestions, but I don’t think this recent decision has anything to do with her. Unfortunately I think that somehow Tartalus has managed to convince other important Coriolans that the status quo must be preserved, and that because of him she is losing her influence amongst the meritocrats. Your father seems to be back in the driving seat now, and that is part of the problem. I don’t think it will be long before she heads back to Mount Palestron.” He turned to Diva. “With her guards to take care of her, of course.”
Diva gave him a look.
He took no notice. “Just bear in mind that you might, one day, need some allies on Coriolis. And the Namuri could well be your best bet.”
Diva stiffened. “I can’t see a Namuri like Tallen doing any better!”
Tallen gave a snort. Bennel nodded his agreement with Diva, which caused the Namuri to direct an irate glance at him, too.
Six ignored him. “Maybe, maybe not. But there are the former donor apprentices too.”
“—They were ready to stay on Valhai!” Her tone was disparaging.
Six nodded. “But they have made themselves very useful since then. They may be in a position to help too.”
“W-e-ell.” Diva didn’t sound convinced.
“We can wait and see. But sometime in the future people like the Namuri may be the best option that Coriolis has.”
Tallen seemed gratified.
Diva stared. “Over my dead body!”
Tallen looked as if he would be happy to arrange that.
Diva lowered her voice. “Tallen is abominable. He insults me whenever he can.”
Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5 Page 38
