The Dark Ascent

by Walter H Hunt

  Jonathan Durant was angry with the First Drone, with the situation he was in, and with the fact that neither he nor Arlen was likely to walk out of this room alive.

  At least I served my emperor in the end, he thought to himself. All you can do is kill me now.

  "Explain this to me, Commodore," H'mr said, leaning slightly forward toward Durant. "I have viewed the comp records and consulted with the Ór. Several Standard days ago, you surrendered this station and your command because the Ór was . . . using its k'th's's power to terminate your fellow meat-creature." He gestured past Durant to Arlen Mustafa, whose eyes flashed with anger at the last phrase. "Yet now you are insolent and willing to toss both lives away. What has changed about the situation?"

  "Timing."

  "Please clarify."

  "I wasn't prepared to have you kill Arlen then. I wasn't prepared to spend lives then. But it's become clear to me—if that's all you've got to threaten us with, it's a pretty meaningless threat. If you kill me, you take my place. Correct?"

  "Essentially so."

  "And since I'm just a . . . 'meat-creature' . . . you can do that anyway, whether I cooperate or not—it won't keep you awake nights."

  H'mr frowned at that, trying to parse the expression.

  "If you want something, you should just go ahead and take it."

  H'mr's face composed itself. Durant clenched his fists; he felt a slight pressure on his mind which began to grow. Behind him he heard a sharp intake of breath, but he willed himself not to turn around.

  H'mr frowned.

  "Losing your touch?" Durant asked, gritting his teeth. The pressure was significant now. Durant wanted to drop to his knees; he resisted the urge to bring his hands to his forehead. Something was happening here, but he wasn't sure what it was.

  Suddenly H'mr turned away and walked behind the desk.

  The probing of his mind stopped; Durant gasped for breath, grabbing the chair with both hands.

  "The flight of Trebizond doesn't matter," H'mr said. "Of course, there are Drones aboard. When it reaches a safe haven, they will be able to pursue useful missions among your people."

  Durant tried not to let his shoulders sag. "You're saying that you let it get away."

  "I'm saying that it isn't worth the effort to make you tell me its destination. The jump-echo showed that it was bound for the refueling station at Brady Point. That location is already under our control."

  "So what will happen to Trebizond?"

  H'mr waved his hand. He didn't even look up at Durant. "It depends on what they do, but ultimately I expect they will be digested."

  The word "digested" echoed ominously in the office; Jonathan Durant couldn't think of a single thing to say in reply.

  "This interview is done," H'mr said finally.

  Durant looked at H'tt, who seemed unsure of himself. The commodore felt a certain amount of perverse pleasure.

  Sucks to be you, Durant thought. I'm already dead, but you might be, too, you slimy little bastard.

  Without another word Durant turned his back and beckoned to Arlen. They left the office, feeling H'tt's stare as they turned the corner and out of sight.

  A hundred meters away, Arlen began to ask a question, but Durant held up his hand. When they were in the lift and halfway down to the main deck of the inner ring, Durant nodded.

  "What just happened?" Arlen asked.

  "I don't know. I called their bluff. I'm sorry, I just couldn't stand it anymore."

  "Why didn't they—"

  "Kill us?"

  "Right."

  "I don't know that, either. If I didn't know better, I'd almost say that the First Drone wasn't able to do it."

  "Mercy?"

  "Like hell. Something . . . Something prevented him. Something stopped him. I know that's crazy, but it's the only explanation."

  "What about Trebizond?"

  "I have to assume he was telling the truth." The lift reached bottom and they stepped out as three station officers stepped in, saluting Durant and Mustafa before ascending. Durant waited until they were a dozen meters up and out of earshot before continuing. "Wherever he is, Rich Abramowicz is in deep trouble. But so are we."

  He walked away from Mustafa, heading back to the repair site he'd left. Arlen Mustafa watched him go, new respect for his commander in his eyes, still wondering why either of them was still alive.

  Before leaving Zor'a System, Jackie received one more visitor. She was in the viewing lounge aboard the orbital station, looking out at the stars. The Fair Damsel was preparing to leave for Sol System; Georg had detailed the merchanter for Jackie's use—and Dan had voiced no objection.

  Owen Garrett didn't have any trouble finding her; both humans and zor had been avoiding her since she'd arrived on-station. He wasn't someone she'd known well: Owen had been posted to Duc d'Enghien a few years into Jackie's tenure as commander at Cicero; she'd only met him in person during Emperor's Birthday celebrations at Cicero Down. (On inspection visits to Duc he'd been one more pilot in dress blues standing at attention with the rest of Green Squadron.) Still, seeing him again across the viewing lounge was a thrill.

  Here's one we got back, she thought.

  She assumed there was a new Green Squadron aboard Barbara MacEwan's carrier now. The rest of the shift that had strayed too near the alien ship was dead—they'd killed each other while Jackie watched. The only survivor now stood across the lounge from her, offering a salute. Physically, he looked the same, except in his eyes—they held some reserve of anger she could almost feel.

  "Commander," she said, "I understand that your new rank is well deserved."

  "Thank you, ma'am," he answered, dropping his salute. He walked across to the viewport. "I'd rather not have had to earn it—I want to be flying again."

  "So would I." She led him to a pair of armchairs and they sat down. "I got promoted, too, and never got into action again. But there are other ways to help the war effort—maybe Admiral Hsien will post you to Negri, if you're interested."

  "Thank you," he repeated. "I'd like that—it'd be worlds better than . . ."

  "Sanctuary?"

  "I don't mean to complain, but I . . . I'm not a Sensitive. I don't belong up there—they want to test my 'ability,' see what makes it tick." He looked from her face to the sword at her belt and then back. "But I think they're looking for something that isn't there."

  "What makes you say that, Commander?"

  "Ma'am." He looked at the sword again, his face frowning and intense, his hands on his knees. "They want to find other talents. They want me to be a Sensitive or something. I can't. I've tried, but I can't."

  "I said the same thing."

  "Commodore," he said, not looking away from the gyaryu, "I've been working on it for three days. Master Byar couldn't get me past First Talon—I just couldn't do it."

  "But you can do this one thing. You can see through the vuhls' disguise—what is that, if not a Sensitive talent?"

  "Sensitive talent is . . . I don't know, like flying a fighter. Anybody can train to fly one—to work the attitude control so he doesn't crash into the dock; to shoot at a target without hitting the carrier instead. But to be any good at it, you start out with some innate talent . . . No, please, let me finish," he said, as Jackie began to object. "Ma'am, I have a pilot's knack, I think. I trained to be a good one—but this ability, this thing I can do, is because the bands of light gave it to me. They pulled me off the bug ship, they put me on Center, they gave me this ability.

  "It's a setup. I'm being set up, ma'am."

  "We both are. We all are. I was pulled off Center by the same people. Things. Whatever . . . Except they talked to you, I understand."

  He shuddered. "Yeah. They talked to me."

  "What did they say? Can you remember their exact words?"

  He closed his eyes and frowned. "'He will provide instruction,' it said. "'He will . . .' I'm sorry, ma'am, I don't remember the exact words. Something like, 'He will teach the other. Their pa
ths will cross.'"

  "'The other.' Did they mean me, do you think?"

  "Commodore, I'd be happy to teach you, if I could figure out how. If there was a way . . ."

  "If there's a way, Master Byar will find it."

  "He hasn't so far."

  "Three or four days is all he's had, isn't that right?"

  ". . . Well, yes, ma'am, but—"

  "The People—the zor—are a very patient race, Commander. They take a long time to decide about things, and three days is like half an hour to them. I think you have to give it a fair chance." She held up her hand. "I know, you don't feel as if anything is happening . . . but not everybody gets the magic sword." She smiled and put her hand on the hilt of the gyaryu. "Of course, not everybody gets sent on the universe's biggest wild-goose chase, either."

  "Are you ordering me back to Sanctuary, Commodore?"

  "You're not part of my command anymore, Commander—Owen." She smiled again and seemed to relax a bit when she addressed him by his first name. "The High Nest wants to give you . . . a sort of test. Something called 'the Ordeal of Experience.' The Dsen'yen'ch'a. I'll be there when I come back to Zor'a; it won't happen until then. You have a right to have someone stand with you, and I've volunteered . . . if you'll have me."

  "I'd be honored, but I was hoping to get back to active duty, Commodore."

  "Not until after the Ordeal. That's not an order—it's a request. Whatever this power is, I'm willing to bet that it's crucial to our chances to win this war."

  Owen's shoulders sagged. "That's not quite the answer I'd hoped for, ma'am."

  "I have no say in this, Owen. I realize that you want to go shoot at the enemy, but this duty should come first. I promise I'll stand by you during the Ordeal of Experience."

  He considered this for several moments and then said, "Aye-aye, ma'am."

  At the gate of Sanctuary, in the mountains that overlooked the valley of esYen, S'reth son of S'tlin repeated the necessary formula and held his wings in the Posture of Obeisance to the Circle of esLi. The eight-sided doors slid aside to admit him.

  Byar HeShri, Master of Sanctuary, was not among the few People in the inner courtyard who clustered around S'reth as he began to make his way toward the House of Teachers. He arrived shortly afterward with a towel clutched in his left talons, sweating profusely.

  "se S'reth," he said, wiping his face with the towel. "If you had told me you were coming, I would have been here to greet you."

  "Younger Brother," S'reth said, stopping in his slow walk. "We all follow the path that the Lord esLi has laid out for us." A few of the students standing nearby could not conceal the amusement in their wings at the old zor addressing the Master as "Younger Brother." "I did not know until this sun that I would be coming here."

  "Is there something I could help you with, Honored One?"

  S'reth's wings showed a configuration tinged with humor, perhaps recognizing that Byar intended to match his informality with the excessive honorific. "I must use the library, se Byar. And I have need of your counsel."

  "I am happy to help."

  S'reth set his valise down on the cobblestones of the courtyard and looked around, as if seeing his surroundings for the first time. "It is not how I remember it."

  Byar HeShri stood on the window-perch, the bright- orange sun streaming past him and casting a shadow on the tiled floor of his sitting-room. S'reth had taken up a position in front of a comp display and seemed lost in thought. It was the Hour of Contemplation; Sanctuary was quiet, with only the occasional buzz of hsth-flies and the sighing of the soft breeze to interrupt it.

  "Tell me, se Byar," S'reth said, looking up at last. "What do you think of se Jackie?"

  "That is an unusual question. Perhaps it is one that should not be asked."

  "Is it? What is wrong with asking it?"

  "She is already the Gyaryu'har, you old artha. Perhaps it does not matter to you that this question might offend the High Nest. I choose not to offend."

  "Ah. I see. I do not question her position, my old friend; I merely wondered what you thought of her."

  "She seems capable," Byar answered, his wings set in a protective stance. "She has proven herself worthy."

  "We know many naZora'i, some inside the Empire and some outside. Would you have chosen her if it were your choice? Would you have chosen one from among the exiles?"

  "esLi chose her."

  "Or we did," S'reth responded. "After all, it was you and I and ha T'te'e who opened the shaGa'uYa to allow Shrnu'u HeGa'u into the Ordeal."

  "se S'reth," Byar said, placing his wings in a patient posture, "this is an old flight. It was chosen and reviewed many times. We knew that the Shroud would be pulled aside at Cicero; we knew it would involve Younger Brother si Ch'k'te. si Th'an'ya knew it; you knew it; I knew it. We have reached this point because we chose that flight more than eleven turns ago. We cast the Ka'eLi sticks and followed the fortune that esLi revealed to hi'i Ke'erl. Now we have a Gyaryu'har. It cannot be undone." He changed his wings to the Posture of Polite Annoyance. "I had believed you thought highly of se Jackie."

  "I do," S'reth answered. "Very highly. But she came to the gyaryu through manipulation."

  "A necessary pattern, as we believed at the time—"

  "No, no, se Byar. I am not speaking of the manipulation by the High Nest, though that, too, was clearly a problem. I refer to manipulation of the High Nest itself by unknown forces, for unknown reasons."

  "You have drunk too much egeneh. What is your point?"

  "What do you know of seLi'e'Yan?"

  Byar was clearly annoyed now; somewhere within, he knew the old teacher was trying to create a sSurch 'a—a sudden revelation through an intuitive leap—but he wanted S'reth to get to the point and not just fly around the edges, pecking here and there.

  Byar did not reply but instead held his wings in the Stance of Patient Expectation.

  "I came all the way up here to examine old texts, se Byar. Sanctuary has the oldest extant copy of The Legend of Qu'u, from the loremaster Shthe'e HeChri, your most honored Nest-father—"

  Byar's wings altered to a posture of respect.

  "—who was, I believe, a contemporary of the great hero Qu'u. All the epics ultimately draw upon the account of si Shthe'e.

  "When I was a student here at Sanctuary, when we were still at war with esHu'ur, I took a particularly keen interest in si Shthe'e's work. Did you know that?"

  "Your monographs are still in our library, se S'reth," Byar said. "We require students to read them every turn." He let his wings fall into a stance of polite admiration. The scholarship of the old sage was hardly in doubt; but S'reth still had not gotten to the point of his exposition.

  "Qu'u." S'reth began to idly draw patterns in the air with one of his left talons. "The great hero Qu'u is chosen, as you know, from clan e'Yen by the Servant of esLi. He must leave behind all he knows and journey within Zor'a to the Plain of Despite, to regain the gyaryu—or, rather, the sword that will become the gyaryu. 'Regain,' se Byar. A most important distinction: not 'find,' not 'create,' but to regain."

  "That is not the traditional reading." Byar closed his eyes and recited: "'You must travel to the Plain of Despite and find the sword that will become the gyaryu, the Talon of esLi.' And I still do not see what this has to do with seLi'e'Yan."

  "Compare it to si Shthe'e's account, se Byar. Let me see . . ." He gestured to the comp before him and it retreated to a point he had marked earlier. "'And the Servant said to him, "You must journey within the world to regain the lost sword that shall be transformed into the Talon of esLi."' The verb form is anSa'e—'to regain.' And he specifically says 'lost sword.'

  "We do not recognize these phrases or these words as part of The Legend of Qu'u. They are missing from the later recensions. This is the basis of the legend of Qu'u, the cornerstone of the epics, the motivation for everything we have done to prepare for the coming of the esGa'uYal during the last several turns . . . yet we have overlooked
this crucial transformation.

  "If the loremaster's original account is correct, se Byar, it means that Qu'u went to the Plain of Despite to recover the sword . . . But why? Why did esLi, in His wisdom, base the unification of the Nests on a talon drawn from the heart of the Deceiver?

  "Why did He go to all of that trouble?"

  "I would not seek to question the Lord esLi's wisdom," Byar said, and began to place his wings in the Posture of Reverence to esLi.

  More suddenly and more quickly than Byar would have expected, S'reth flew across the room and took up a position on the same perch, grasping Byar by the shoulders, preventing his wings from elevating to that position.

  The old one's grasp was strong and firm; his eyes were deep and filled with emotion.

  And there was something Byar—long skilled as a teacher and guide to young Sensitives—simply could not read.

  Outside, the light seemed to fade, as if a cloud had passed in front of the sun. The vermillion cast of Antares seemed to retreat to a pallid yellow-gray, reinforcing the skeletal features of the old one before Byar.

  "What is this, S'reth?" His surprise was so great that he could not come up with an appropriate prenomen. "What enGa'e'li is this?"

  "It is not, se Byar—Younger Brother, Master of Sanctuary, old friend. There is nothing of esLi's Golden Circle in this, not even the Lord esLi's Strength of Madness. It is a terrible realization, a saShrne'e—pulling aside the Shroud.

  "You will not question the Lord esLi's wisdom, se Byar. But I must. I am scarcely a wingspan from flying to rejoin the Golden Light. There is something greater working here, something that spans the flight—from your honored ancestor, through the war with the naZora'i, up to the present.

  "Think, my friend. Do as you teach." S'reth relaxed his grip slightly, but still held firm. "Question yourself: Who first commanded us to fight the humans?"

  "The—the Lord esLi."

  "Are you sure?"

  "The High Lord received a dream. The High Lord was commanded to pursue the flight of eradicating the naZora'i, and it was not until esHu'ur—"

  "—who was also esTli'ir'," S'reth interrupted, his speech suddenly coming more rapidly than Byar had ever known. "It was not until esHu'ur changed our flight and condemned us to life. I know, se Byar, I was there. I was alive then, a Sensitive here at Sanctuary. I am among the last few of the People whose wings have flown from that time to this.