Find your own truth s-3

by Robert N. Charrette

  Sam could feel the eyes two large and six lesser-watching him. Unnerving, their jet gaze raised childhood fears. Sam's image was reflected in their depths as the totemic creature bobbed up and down. The multiple reflections jittered, their motion reflecting his feelings.

  This was not as it should be. "How have you come here?" he asked. Spider's voice was sweet, uncanny in its warmth. "How have you? Power calls to power, does it not? Out in the colorless world, you did me a service. For a time, you carried a small fragment that had been touched by my power. Through such trifling contact, I came to know you and your power. Now that you walk the realms where the totems dwell, how could I miss you? You shine like a beacon. The power cloaking your shoulders calls me to be near you."

  Sam didn't like the idea that Spider could follow him wherever he went. Did she already know of his plans? "What do you want?"

  "To help you." One of the great eyes seemed to wink at him. "I know many secrets."

  "For which the price is, no doubt, more than I care to pay."

  A shrug rippled through her battery of legs. "Cost is balanced by desire and need. I can be helpful."

  As could any totem, for they were inherently powerful. "You can be deadly as well. I've heard the stories."

  "You cite stories as a reason to distrust me? Fairy tales and myths? Who has told you of any personal dealings with me?"

  "No one," Sam answered honestly. "Then how can you know what it is like to deal with me? How can you know whether I am trustworthy or not? Where is your proof, your evidence? Do you condemn so blindly? Those who shutter their minds and hearts with fear of the unknown travel a perilous course. Have you not been maligned by those who oppose you? I, too, have been maligned by ignorant enemies. I am innocent of crime."

  Sam was confused. "If you're innocent, why did the elves lock you up?''

  "Did they tell you that they had?" Spider's amused laugh was a high-pitched chitter. When she continued speaking, her voice was full of indignation. "Such as they cannot chain me. They are petty flesh entities, moved by petty and foolish flesh desires. They do not understand my nature, and so they fear me. They turn their backs on the wisdom I offer."

  The shift in Spider's mood, from amusement to something that smelled of anger, made Sam think the elves had the right idea about Spider. "As do I."

  The scent of anger faded and was replaced by a sweeter, almost sexual odor. "Do not be hasty, Samuel Verner Twist. I am the holder of secrets and the crafter of power. I know many things that are mysteries to others. Many secrets are mine and mine alone. I share my secrets with a chosen few." Sam's head was getting light. "For what price?" "Small services."

  Rallying his resolve he said, "I'm not interested. I already have a patron in this place, and he doesn't like you."

  Spider dismissed his objection with the wave of a leg. "Jealousy only. Dog is young and I am old, older than your kind. And age brings wisdom, Samuel Verner Twist. Such wisdom could be yours to call upon. You could know secrets of many things. Much would be within your power. For example, your sister need not remain as she is."

  Sam felt the truth behind Spider's words, but sensed a lie as well. Both truth and lie were hidden in Spider's honeyed promises, but which was which? His head was spinning, and he couldn't sort out what he felt. The deep ache that was his hope to save Janice made him want to believe Spider. Was it only her frightful appearance that made him distrust her? Janice, too, appeared scary now, but he knew that her goodness still lived within. More than anything, he wanted to bring that goodness out. "That's what the Ghost Dance is for."

  "Now you attempt to deceive me," Spider chided gently. "Your dance raises power to change many things, but I know that you will focus it to do other things. You are not raising the power of the earth to help your sister. You have not the knowledge to apply the change magic to her." Sam feared she was right. "And you do?" "I know many secrets of metamorphosis. I can teach you, if you let me."

  He wanted to know, needed to know. For Janice's sake. "What do you want?"

  "Channel to me this power you raise, and she shall be changed. It is but a small matter for me to alter the intent. Let me guide you."

  Sam closed his eyes; there was too much input. He needed to think. Spider said that Janice would be restored. It was what he had been seeking ever since he had learned it might be possible. All he had to do was let Spider take the reigns of the power that was building in the Dance. It would not be hard.

  A brush of fur caressed his cheek. He thought of Inu, but the smell was wrong. He opened his eyes and saw the bristled surface of Spider's leg. Above him, another limb cradled a strand of silky white stuff. Sam turned and ran.

  Spider's laugh was mocking. "Run," she taunted, "but you can never get away from the truth."

  Near and far, the dancers moved in rhythm. Faster, ever faster, they flashed through the steps, raising the power that surged through Sam.

  He felt the dancers. Myriad images flashed through his head as though he could see everything the dancers saw. Castle towers. Trees. Curving, cramped walls. The sprouting tree. Dark tunnels. Shamans moving in a circle. The stone of earth, alive and rippling. Dog.

  Dog danced at Sam's side.

  "Contact, bearing forty-five relative," Rabo called out.

  ''Moving?" Ghost asked.

  "Negative. Location matches prediction near enough. I think it's Wichita. "

  "Take us in closer," Tsung ordered.

  Janice sat back, hugging her knees to her chest. It was a child's pose, but it helped her keep a grip on herself. She needed all the help she could get. Here in the confines of the submersible the scent of meat was strong, and hunger gnawed at her continuously. She was glad something would be happening soon. She had thought they would never find the lost submarine among the ridges of the shelf.

  Rabo's voice came again on the speaker. "I think we may have a problem.'' "What's the problem?" Ghost asked. "Can't you dock?" Tsung said. "Drek! Knew it," Kham snapped. "We're wasting our time."

  Rabo's detached voice continued, as though none of them had spoken. "Density scans are consistent with air in the hull."

  "What's unusual about that?" Tsung asked testily. "Hull down this long should have leaked out any air she held when she went down. Somebody's repressur-ized her.''

  "Any other craft around?" Ghost asked. "None showing, but I've got sounds on sonar and they're coming from the Wichita. There's somebody on board.''

  "Mechanical or organic sounds?" Ghost asked. "You ain't running a sim chip on de side, Rabo?" Kham growled.

  "Ain't done that since the Fuchi run. I learned my lesson. This is real, Kham. I don't know what the noise is, or what's making it, but it's real." There was silence for a few moments. "They'll know we're coming," Tsung said to Ghost. Ghost nodded. "Whoever they are." "Does it matter?" asked Fast Stag, the other norm. "It matters," Tsung said. "Minimal opposition was the spec. Price goes up if there's serious trouble."

  "What about an astral scout, then?" Fast Stag asked, looking at Tsung.

  "Already tried. There's a school of hexfish out there that picked me up as soon as I poked my head through the Searaven's hull. Those things hunt astrally as well as mundanely, and they're worse than piranha. Maybe you'd like to swim across?"

  While Fast Stag shook his head in an emphatic "no," Ghost said, "We'll have to dock without a re-con then."

  "Rabo!" Kham barked. "Any way ya can slide us in quiet?"

  "Negative," the rigger replied. "They're not using any active probes, but if they Ve got any of the Wich-ita's passive gear going, they'll hear us coming. No way to avoid it. Probably won't know what we are, though. The sub's databanks won't have specs for a submersible like the Searaven. They might not know we can dock.''

  "And can we dock?" Tsung asked. "Yeah. Didn't I tell you? The Wichita's aspect is almost perfect. There's a little fibrous debris around the forward hatch, but the approach is clear." "Let's get it over with," Janice said. The runners ignored her.

&
nbsp; "They'll hear the docking just through transmission of the vibrations," Tsung said. "It won't be a surprise."

  "Surprise is a tool, not an end in itself," Ghost observed. "We must neutralize the bombs. If those aboard the Wichita belong to the enemy, speed is now vital."

  Ghost's two tribesmen nodded their agreement. John Parker, the other ork, looked to Kham for his lead. Kham looked to Tsung. No one bothered to ask Janice for her opinion.

  "If we're going to party, we'd better get on with it," Tsung said. "Whoever's in the Wichita didn't get down here without help, and we don't want their taxi dropping in on us. This run's too straight-line as it is; weVe got no freedom to maneuver. I don't want anybody sitting on our line of retreat."

  Ghost gave the mage a sharp nod. "Rabo, take us in."

  "Won't be a surprise," the rigger said. "We have no choice," Ghost told him. The docking approach went smoothly. The Searaven settled forward of the sail at the one hatch capable of being opened from the outside. The taxi shuddered slightly when her connection collar contacted the hull of the Wichita. As soon as Rabo reported a full lock and transmission of the unlocking codes, Kham opened the internal hatch and crammed his bulk into the nar row docking passageway. Parker stood at the edge holding Kham's automatic rifle, ready to hand it down to his boss as soon as he cleared the way. Janice could hear Kham grunting with the eifort of freeing the emergency hatch releases on the Wichita.

  The ork's shoulders bulked back into view briefly as he swung the Wichita's hatch open. A strange, musky odor drifted up from the submarine, overpowering the briny smell of the water in the docking tube. Kham dropped out of sight almost immediately. Parker called a warning and dropped the rifle down the hole. Then he followed it down. Ghost was next through, then Sally and the other two Indians. No one called for Janice to follow, but she did. She didn't want to be alone in the echoing hollow of the Seamven's passenger compartment.

  The climb through the docking attachment and the Wichita's lock was short but intensely uncomfortable. The designers had never expected anyone of her size to use the space; she scraped off fur and skin on every projection. The wounds itched from the salt water coating all the surfaces around her, but they would heal soon enough. It was more the closeness and the damp that bothered her.

  These worries became minor when compared to what she felt once they reached the deck of the Wich-ita. The musky odor was stronger here, tinged now with a rank smell from the norms and orks. They were afraid. She wondered if they could smell her fear as easily as she did theirs. The light level was low, but more than enough to let her see. Dead fish and other sea creatures lay on the decking, and dense cobwebs hung in thick strands all around the runners. With every surface corroded and clogged by seaweed and barnacles, the compartment looked more like the undersea hideaway of the selkie prince from Carter's Queen of Sorcery than the warship it had once been.

  No one said anything; no one had to. Janice suspected they all had the same bad feeling she had.

  Somewhere aft of them, toward the main bridge, something skittered in the darkness, claws scraping on metal.

  The elf had said he could cripple the outer electronic defenses of Warlord Han's enclave, and he was as good as his word. As for Striper, her skills at physical penetration had proven to be as good as her boasts about them even better than his own. Neko's most likely scenario hadn't involved reaching the missile base without at least a minor confrontation with the warlord's forces. But they had. Of course, the brush fire that had sprung up at the far end of the valley was attracting much of the facility personnel's attention. He might have thought the fortuitous blaze a good omen, if he believed in such things.

  The base didn't look military, but then that was the purpose of camouflage. The maps he had obtained showed the warhead storage to be hidden in the shadows of a bank of grain silos. The warlord's people were only beginning to reactivate the base, and had not as yet armed any of the missiles with warheads. They had not even tested one, which was not surprising. If the warlord was as cautious as his reputation, he would never trust a nuclear weapon to an untried delivery system especially one that had been moth-balled for more than forty years. Neko was sure the arsenal would be as full as when Nightfall had revealed its location to her master.

  The ground floor of the building near the grain elevators looked much as one would expect an agricultural office to look. But then, would he really know if something were out of place? The press of a concealed panel turned what should have been the utility closet into an elevator. They took it down.

  The subterranean level abandoned pretense. The corridors were drab, with the austerity and severity of military architecture wherever he had encountered it. Only the uninitiated could think it fostered a zen serenity. The cold concrete would echo sounds in harsh clamor, but the halls were deserted. This was going to be easy.

  Neko located a computer station. He logged on with the code the elf had supplied, gratified when the system responded almost instantly. Calling up the requisite files, he saw that all the weapons were still logged in. He slipped a chip into the slot and sent the elf's knowbot on its way. It would enter an authorized admission for two into the secure area. That done, he led Striper toward the arsenal.

  AH the way there something nagged at Neko, making him uneasy. It was only later that he realized the console had one more light active when they left than when they arrived. That light meant their penetration had been discovered, but it wasn't until he and Striper had almost reached the arsenal that the enemy revealed themselves.

  They rounded a corner and were confronted by a grotesque vision. Tall and spindly-thin, the thing in the corridor looked more alien than human despite its two arms, two legs, and obvious head. Even more grotesque was the fact that it wore a uniform marked with the insignia of Han's personal guard. Seeing them, the creature clacked its mandibles, then began to speak in a hideously distorted voice. "Nightfall greets you. She bids me give you your deaths."

  For Neko, who had once fought a similar thing, the sight was frightening. He had nearly died in that encounter. For Striper, the shock of her first encounter with such a being seemed greater than his own had been. She stopped in her tracks and stared.

  Neko knew the thing's speed and potential; they could not afford hesitation. He sprang. At the apex of his leap, his foot lashed forward. He felt the shock as the edge of his foot connected with the creature's head. The rebound sent him backward past Striper, but he rolled as he landed and came up into a crouch. He had delivered enough kinetic energy to snap a troll's neck, but his opponent was still on its feet and beginning its advance.

  Neko's attack had succeeded hi one respect, however, for it gave Striper enough time to recover from her shock. As the clawed hands swept forward in an attempt to decapitate her, she dove clear of the thing's outstretched arms.

  A rush of footfalls in the corridor that had brought them here announced the arrival of reinforcements for the monstrous guard. Judging by the sound, Neko figured they were human, or near enough. He estimated four to six guards approaching, but two would have been more than enough to reinforce the monster. "Hostiles," Striper growled. "Go ahead, they're yours. I'll handle this." She vanished around the corner.

  Neko sidestepped the thing's first lunge, and hoped he hadn't signed his death warrant with his bravado. From around the corner he heard roars, howls, and gunfire.

  So much for stealth.

  A second flying kick cost him a rake along his side as the creature dodged, but it gave him some room. The extra space between him and the insectoid thing gave him time to draw his heavy gun. The Arisaka Sunset wasn't as powerful as Striper's Kang, but she didn't load explosive rounds. Neko blasted the thing with two quick bursts but he was too close the explosions tossed him backward, slamming him into the wall. The bruises would be worth it. Spattered as Neko was with bits of flesh, bone, and organ, it was because his opponent was no longer a threat. He picked himself up, but had to hold onto the wall until the corridor
stopped spinning.

  It took a long time for what was left of the thing to stop twitching. By then, it was quiet around the corner as well.

  An alarm klaxon began to howl, which meant the external security doors would be closing. Getting out was going to be harder than getting in. Or maybe he would be the only one trying to escape. Striper hadn't returned.

  "I assume you had a good reason for insisting I come here, Mr. Masamba," Sato said as he entered the suite. His position as kansayaku entitled him to commandeer the finest facilities in the Denver subsidiary office, and his agents had used that clout. Sato stalked across the deep pile carpet, barely conscious of the softness. He stared out the window at the distant mountains, waiting for the uncharacteristically reticent Masamba to respond.

  "There's magic, big magic, brewing out there.",

  "If it is a threat, that is your department. Deal with it."

  Masamba cleared his throat. "I don't think this is a Renraku matter.''

  Sato turned and stared at Masamba, gratified to see the mage flinch. Masamba looked to Akabo for support, but the samurai's rigid demeanor offered no more human sympathy than his chromed eyeshields. That the mage looked to the samurai meant the two had discussed the matter. Such sharing of concern meant the matter was serious, indeed.

  "Not a Renraku matter," Sato said. "What, then, is this problem?"

  "I don't know. Exactly." Masamba doffed his broad-brimmed slouch hat and began turning it round and round in his hands. "I can't investigate, because I can't get near the site astrally. There's too much interference. But I'm sure there's a major ritual coming down."

  "Which you believe involves me." Masamba nodded. "I think so, anyway. There's the faintest trace of that renegade shaman's aura about the magic. I thought that we'd seen the last of him after we snatched that stone and he hightailed it, but now I'm not so sure." "Can you erect a defense?" "Hey, sama. I'm big mojo. Give me time, nuyen, and few dozen assistants and I'll shield you from a squad of dragons."