Refugee: Force Heretic II

by Sean Williams

  “You can believe me.” The penitent’s voice was little more than an expelled breath. “The gods have brought me this far, have they not?”

  Nom Anor pulled back slightly to stab his steely gaze into the penitent’s eyes. “We screen for infiltrators, not for piety.”

  Those eyes smiled back at Nom Anor. “I pass on both counts, then.”

  “Perhaps,” Nom Anor said. “But we are not so foolish as to believe that we will catch every spy that comes our way. They come in all shapes and sizes, and they present many different faces.”

  “You would know more about that than I, Nom Anor,” the penitent whispered. “That was your specialty, after all.”

  Nom Anor went cold, pushing the penitent away from him. “How—?”

  “I recognized you as soon as I saw you—even behind your ooglith masquer.” The eyes of the penitent didn’t leave his; they were filled with something approximating triumph, as though Nom Anor’s reaction had confirmed what had until that moment been only a guess. “It didn’t seem possible, at first; we’d been told you were dead. But the more I listened to you speak, the more sure I became that it was you. Audacity and surprise were always your hallmarks, Nom Anor. When Shimrra cast you out—”

  “Enough!” Nom Anor pushed her farther away, as he would repel something unclean. “I have heard enough!” He looked around desperately for Kunra and Shoon-mi. They had planned for such an eventuality; there were contingencies. They should have been sealing off the room and preparing for slaughter; there was no way he could allow anyone to leave this room now that his true name had been spoken.

  But they weren’t moving. They stood at the back by the door, looking puzzled. They hadn’t heard the penitent’s whisper! They didn’t know what was going on!

  The penitent was determined. “Wait,” she said, pushing forward, one gnarled hand reaching under her robes. “I have something for you.”

  Nom Anor reacted instinctively. There wasn’t time to think. Someone who recognized him was threat enough; the slightest suggestion that a weapon might be drawn on him was enough to make him act.

  Blood rushed to the muscles around his left eye socket. Pressure peaked where the eyeball had once been. He felt a short, sharp pain as his plaeryin bol exploded, spitting poisoned darts into the face of the penitent.

  With a harsh cry, his attacker fell backward onto the ground.

  The audience erupted. Nom Anor fell back against his throne, his muscles turned to jelly. He heard screaming, confusion, cries for order. Inside he felt only emptiness. He had come so close to death. The plaeryin bol where his left eye had once been had saved him, as he had always known it would, one day. But he also knew that the respite was only temporary. An assassin had been sent to destroy him, and he had come so close. Others would follow; he would never be safe again!

  He forced himself up, to think, to act. Kunra and Shoon-mi were getting the crowd in order, looking to him for instructions. At his feet, the penitent writhed as the paralyzing poison seared through her system. Nom Anor knelt beside her and pressed his claws on either side of the penitent’s nose, looking for the pressure point that would cause the ooglith masquer to release itself. He didn’t care if the creature took off half the spy’s face. He had to know who it was that Shimrra had sent; he had to look at the face of his would-be assassin.

  The ooglith masquer came away with a grotesque noise, like that of fabric tearing. Underneath was a face more familiar than Nom Anor had expected. It didn’t belong to a guard or a nameless servitor. Far from it.

  The penitent was Ngaaluh, a priestess of the deception sect. He knew of her from the sect’s attempts to infiltrate the infidels in the past. He had seen her in the company of Harrar, another priest rising in Shimrra’s court.

  “You?” Nom Anor frowned deeply. “Why you?”

  “I—” Ngaaluh’s eyes were wide and frightened, the bluish sacks beneath them almost invisible. The poison was sending fire through her nervous system, making breathing difficult. Soon her heart would stop, and it would all be over. Through the pain, she was trying to say something. She reached up, but Nom Anor flinched away.

  Then he looked again as something spilled out of the priestess’s failing three-fingered grasp. It wasn’t a weapon, as Nom Anor had suspected. It was a living unrik—a chunk of tissue excised from Ngaaluh’s body as a votive offering to her gods. Kept alive by biotechnology, the unrik served as a symbol of Ngaaluh’s servitude—and she had been offering it to Nom Anor!

  “You fool!” He knelt over Ngaaluh as the priestess’s body began to shake. There was an antidote to the plaeryin bol poison, but he had never expected to use it. The neural pathways were rusty, and he had to concentrate to stir the buried bioconstruct to life. The knuckle of his right thumb snapped straight with a click. He bit down on a gasp as a searing pain burned in the joint. A hair-thin needle extruded from under the claw. He slid it into Ngaaluh’s neck where the vein still throbbed. There was more pain as the antivenin shot into the priestess’s bloodstream, but it was nothing compared to that suffered by the female before him. Nom Anor held Ngaaluh down as every muscle went into spasm, burning energy in one final paroxysm of agony. A keening, hissing sound escaped the priestess’s clenched jaw, growing louder with each spasm.

  Then, suddenly, the priestess went limp. Fearing the worst, Nom Anor bent over her.

  “Yu’shaa …”

  The word was little more than a sigh, and with that, Ngaaluh’s eyes closed. Nom Anor pressed his hand to the spot on the priestess’s throat where he’d injected the antidote. Despite appearances to the contrary, the faint, lingering pulse was testimony to the priestess’s continuing existence in the world.

  He looked up. The members of the audience were staring at him in alarm and amazement. How much they understood of what had just taken place he didn’t know, but he doubted that any of them would come close to grasping its true import. The gods had provided the answer to Nom Anor’s prayers, in the form of the priestess—and he’d almost killed her!

  The unrik rested beside Ngaaluh’s unconscious form. Nom Anor picked it up. It was warm and pulsed gently in his grasp. Ngaaluh must have stolen it from the high priest’s sanctum sanctorum before coming to offer it to the new gods. How and why she had come to believe in them, Nom Anor couldn’t imagine. Nevertheless, he knew an opportunity when he saw one, and he did not intend to pass this one up.

  He indicated for Shoon-mi to come to him. His servant did so immediately, pushing his way through the agitated crowd. “Master, is everything well?”

  “This acolyte is to be given the best care we can offer.” Which wasn’t much, given their meager resources, but it was better than nothing at all. “She is important, Shoon-mi. Do you understand? Nothing is to happen to her.”

  Shoon-mi bowed. “It shall be so, Master.” The Shamed One scurried away to organize a stretcher.

  Nom Anor gestured for Kunra next. The ex-warrior came and knelt down beside him so he could whisper.

  “What has happened?” he asked. “Who is this female?”

  “She is a priestess, and close to Shimrra. I knew her before my fall. She named me, Kunra.” The ex-warrior’s eyes widened, and Nom Anor knew that he understood the significance of that fact. “But I think we can trust her. She has given me … assurances.” The slow throbbing of the unrik matched the pulse visible in the great vein in Ngaaluh’s neck.

  “She could be just what we need,” Kunra said.

  “Exactly. But first we have to make sure that no one overheard.” The members of the audience were growing more restless by the second, shuffling aimlessly and muttering among themselves.

  “I should take precautions, perhaps?”

  “No.” Nom Anor knew that Kunra would happily kill all the penitents to ensure their safety, but that wasn’t an optimal solution. Ngaaluh would wonder what had happened to them, and so would Shoon-mi. “We can’t afford to waste resources, or to provide fuel for rumors. If they all disappear, some w
ill be missed. Better to find out if my secret is safe and let them go. Who knows? Maybe it will work in our favor.”

  “Feeding the legend,” Kunra mused, then nodded once. “It shall be done.”

  Nom Anor stood to address the crowd. “This is an auspicious day!” he said dramatically, knowing that the truth was too dangerous to reveal. “I have survived an attack and am stronger for it. Go, now, and tell everyone! It will take more than this to keep us from the respect we deserve!”

  The crowd accepted this pronouncement with some uncertainty, but accept it they did. He had delivered the bulk of his message before Ngaaluh’s interrogation had thrown him off. They had heard everything they needed to hear. Once Kunra had satisfied himself that they hadn’t heard anything else, they would be allowed to leave to begin their missionary work.

  “Our time draws ever nearer,” he said to them as they began to file out. “And with the events of this day, it might come sooner than even I expected …”

  “I’m going to melt if it gets any hotter in here,” Tahiri said, wiping her brow with the back of her hand.

  “Adjust the ventilation controls,” Goure said, his muffled voice coming from within his own hostile environment suit. A super-strong exoskeleton a meter taller than he was, the HE-suit hid his face behind a collection of droid sensors and allowed him to use its superior strength for any manner of distasteful chores. Tahiri’s own suit was identical to his—painted a dull, metallic brown with scuffed ident markings on back and chest—and she watched the world through a bewildering array of views and senses. She felt as though she were wearing an ancient suit of armor. “Turn the thermostat down and you should start to feel better.”

  “It’s already down as far as it’ll go,” she said. They could have communicated by comlink, but Goure had said he didn’t want to take the risk of being overheard. The suits had external speakers and microphones and they did the job well enough—unlike her air-conditioning unit.

  She jabbed at the controls with her chin, trying to blink away the salty sweat stinging her eyes. Having grown up among the Sand People, she was used to being enclosed in hot environments—but this was ridiculous.

  Something thumped her from behind, followed by a distinct click. A flow of icy air instantly rushed through the suit, offering a relief that was so intense that Tahiri could only sigh her thanks.

  “Your coolant line was clogged,” said Arrizza, the Kurtzen sanitation worker who accompanied them on their long turbolift ride. Goure had described him as a part-time conspirator, but not part of the Ryn network. He had explored the inner workings of the Bakuran Senate Complex with no interest in taking it further. Having no political agenda, he was quite happy to help Goure get Tahiri in and out of the complex without being noticed.

  “I think you just saved my life,” Tahiri said only half jokingly, wriggling in her suit to help the cool air reach every centimeter of her sweat-soaked body. Her HE-suit—designed to take minuscule movements of her limbs and magnify them, giving her increased strength and flexibility—made odd half-stepping motions as she did so.

  “I once knew someone who died from overheating on the job,” was the Kurtzen’s reply. “You got to look out for each other down here.”

  She didn’t quite know what to say in the face of his gruff pragmatism. “Thanks,” she said after a moment. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  The turbolift clanked to a halt and the wide steel cage opened before them. Arrizza went first, his suit scruffier than Goure’s, if that was possible. The only real difference between them was a belt of leather pouches tied around its waist. Tools, Tahiri presumed—although she doubted the suit’s stubby fingers could handle anything so small with any precision.

  They walked in single file along the sub-basement access corridor. It was easily high and wide enough for the HE-suits, designed to accommodate all sorts of maintenance machines. None of them droids, of course, she reminded herself—not with Bakura’s distaste for automated machinery. If droids couldn’t do the dirty work, people had to. Hence the suits they were wearing.

  Arrizza was taking them to another turbolift that led directly under the main Senate chambers. There they could enter the complex itself, avoiding the tight security employed by the normal entrances. As part of a waste cleanup crew performing the usual morning rounds, they would be able to move unobserved—or at least unhindered—through the lower levels of the complex. They might not get into the Senate chamber itself, but they should be able to access the internal data networks with relative ease.

  “Do you have any idea what’s going on?” she asked.

  “No. Security has been on edge since Cundertol’s kidnapping. I haven’t worked out who was behind it, but I know it wasn’t Malinza Thanas. That’s not her style.”

  “Then who?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  After walking awhile in silence, Tahiri switched to a private channel and ventured another question.

  “You always get around in these things?” she asked as they trundled along, steel boots clomping heavily on the reinforced floor. “There must be easier ways to travel.”

  “Unfortunately the security scare has shut down my usual sources,” he said. “Especially with the arrival of the Keeramak and today’s ceremony. It’s crude, I know, but it’s all I have left for now. I just hope it doesn’t result in me getting caught and my activities being discovered.”

  “What would happen if you were discovered? Would you be replaced?”

  “Once word got out, then yes, another of my kind would be sent to replace me.”

  “But how would word get out? If communications are down like they are now, I can’t see how that could be possible.”

  “Well, the first thing we do when we arrive at our posts is set up plans to cover such emergencies. Those of my family don’t use the Force; nor do we rely on conventional communications. That, you see, is our strength. We get into places we’re not supposed to simply because we are ignored, not by virtue of arcane technology or powers, which people are always looking for. In the same way, who notices a note or two slipped into a cargo manifest? A whisper from a dock handler to a droid? Or a story innocently exchanged in a tavern? Even during communications embargoes, Bakura receives its fair share of freighters and traders. Everyone needs repulsors. I use the simplest and most universal techniques of spreading my word via those travelers. It may be slow at times, but it is effective.”

  Tahiri fumbled with the concept. “Are you telling me you’re sort of a pan-galactic gossipmonger?”

  “You make it sound like a bad thing. It’s actually very effective. If one of my regular messages fails to arrive at a certain place at a certain time every day, then a message will be sent to the next Ryn along the chain, who will request a replacement.”

  “Who from?” Tahiri was unable to suppress her curiosity about the Ryn network. Their existence had been completely unsuspected until Galantos, but their influence seemed to be as insidious as the Peace Brigaders had been.

  Goure chuckled softly. “I can’t tell you too much, Tahiri. A secret organization can only operate efficiently if its workings remain secret. Since you already know we exist, I can tell you that we Ryn don’t have a strictly hierarchal system like the Jedi. We do have, however, a leader who ultimately receives the information each of us supplies. It is he who makes all the major decisions.”

  “Does your leader have a name?”

  “Of course. But to reveal it would compromise his safety. Toward this end not even we know his real identity. We know that someone perceived the need for such a network of information seekers; it was that same someone who trained me—and many others like me—in the art of infiltration and sent us to our posts. Mark my words: a time will come when there will be songs sung about him, if they aren’t already.”

  Goure stopped as they reached the second turbolift. It was as battered and well used as everything else on this level. With a deep groan it slid open; when they were inside it lu
rched upward. Tahiri found her hands reaching for the sides to steady herself; every muscle tensed uneasily. She distracted herself with another question.

  “How can songs be sung about someone who has no name?”

  A noise like wheezing issued from Goure’s HE-suit speakers that, while it might not have particularly sounded like it, Tahiri knew nonetheless to be a laugh. “You’re so practical, aren’t you?” Before he could answer her question, however, Arrizza had raised a hand and waved the two of them to silence.

  “We’re almost there,” he said. “Remember the arrangement.”

  Tahiri nodded inside her all-encompassing helmet. From now on, they were to address each other only as Yon, Gaitzi, and Scod, members of an underground cleaning gang nicknamed the Tripod.

  The lift platform grated to a halt a second later, and the massive doors slid open again, revealing another service corridor that seemed little different from the one they’d left below—except this one terminated in a set of thick blast doors after only a few meters. Tahiri followed Arrizza as he approached it, imitating the heavy lope of his HE-suit in the hope of radiating the impression that she was as comfortable in the bulky outfit as she would have been in normal clothing.

  “Identify,” a voice blared from the other side of the door. Laser beams tracked the suits, reading ident codes painted in various reflective paints.

  “Tripod duty,” Arrizza said in a bored tone. After only a few seconds’ waiting, he added gruffly, “Come on, Schifil! Let us in, will you? I haven’t got all day.”

  “And so much important work to do, eh?” The double door slid open with a hydraulic hiss. “There’s a block in Compactor J earmarked for your attention, Yon. You must’ve been a bad boy last night.”

  Arrizza just grunted as he led them past the security checkpoint. Two guards in an open booth watched them pass, weapons slung across their laps and smirks on their faces. The HE-suits could have crushed them like bugs, but physical strength was no match for superior social status.

  Tahiri filed subserviently past, putting a hunched sway to her heavy lurch that she thought suitable for a low-grade worker. So focused was she on her performance that it took her a moment to realize that one of the guards was talking to her.