Rift in the Sky

by Julie E. Czerneda

  As if, Aryl thought, dry-mouthed, he’d remembered a dream too.

  “I’ll be fine,” Weth di Teerac protested, white hair straining its net. The blindfold across her tan face was no hindrance; a Looker could move effortlessly using her visual memory of a place. Which was the problem. Like all the M’hiray, Weth remembered the Buried Theater as it had been. To one with her Talent, the change from the memory of the locate was too sudden. Her hands clenched her belt to stop their trembling, but she fooled no one. She’d need time to recover.

  “We’ve enough scouts,” Haxel repeated, from her tone expecting no argument. “I want you ready when we all go.”

  For someone of so little Power, Aryl thought with admiration, the First Scout managed a fine air of authority over those who did.

  Twenty groups of scouts waited, each containing one or more with Power sufficient to reach through the M’hir to the rest, all able to ’port back here to safety in need. The groups were small in number, none more than ten. They were to learn what they could about the city Naryn claimed lay above them. And find a way out for those who’d wait here.

  To Aryl’s surprise, she’d been one of the five Haxel selected to accompany Naryn, who would go first. Not a surprise, her Chosen stood nearby, clearly intending to be the sixth. Which he wouldn’t be, she decided with exasperation, if he continued to poke his finger between the small bars to annoy those inside. “They probably bite,” she warned him under her breath. Again.

  “Haven’t yet,” he replied, bending in a vain effort to see what moved within the shadows. The stacks on the flat area had turned out to be full of something alive. Many small and lumpy somethings, that rattled when disturbed.

  As they were now. Enris!

  It got me! He sprang violently back, clutching his right hand, then held up only three fingers. When she gasped, he grinned at her and lifted the fourth, wiggling all of them. “See?”

  “I see I’ll have two children to raise,” Aryl snapped back, but the corners of her mouth twitched. “You’re as bad as . . .” The vague sense of a name slipped away. “Bad,” she finished and pretended to pay more attention to the creatures than her Chosen.

  They entertained Enris; they disturbed her. It wasn’t the potent smell, or potential to lose her Chosen’s fingers, but what the crates meant. The right height and no higher, they’d been designed for this use, with slots for air and light too narrow to allow the rattlers to escape. Each crate was wider than her outstretched arms, twice that in length, and every one full of moving little lumps.

  Seventeen stacks, each ten crates high. A large number of still-vigorous creatures, with no sign of food or water. Left with a small light.

  They hadn’t been here long, Aryl said to herself, growing alert. They wouldn’t be left for long either. “Haxel.”

  The First Scout looked her way.

  Aryl nodded to the nearest stack. “Someone’s going to come for these.”

  “Naryn?”

  The Chosen gestured apology to the other Councillors before she walked over to Haxel. “What is it?”

  “These.” Haxel jerked her thumb at the rattlers. “Someone’s property. Aryl thinks this is temporary storage and I agree. The owners will be back.”

  Naryn’s nose wrinkled. “Offworld vermin.”

  “ ‘Offworld?’ ”

  “Not native to Stonerim III,” the other clarified. “From another world.”

  “Like us.” Enris looked inordinately pleased. “We’re offworlders.”

  As if they didn’t belong anywhere.

  Aryl decided to ignore words she didn’t like. “Only one door,” she said. Something else she didn’t like. Hundreds of M’hiray, presently waiting more or less patiently with their families, sharing the supplies they’d brought, the crude sanitation of a deep hole surrounded by a blanket, a hole from its stench, used by others for the same purpose.

  To get their people out on foot would be time-consuming. To ’port out, they must have a locate.

  Another reason to scout quickly.

  Another reason doubt shivered down her spine.

  Why come here, to such an unsuitable place? Not even their Council could explain it.

  “We can’t delay any longer.” Haxel looked at Naryn. “You know it.”

  “I know. My fellow Councillors have a great many questions.” For the first time, Naryn looked weary. “More than I have answers.” Her hand sought the swelling beneath her tunic, as if for comfort.

  Maybe she could hear her baby. Aryl’s was a still-silent presence, a sparkling glow in the M’hir. “Seru said our babies are fine.”

  “Yes. She did.” Naryn’s eyes met Aryl’s. For a heartbeat, there was such aching loss in their depths Aryl instinctively reached for the other, only to be rebuffed by impenetrable shields. Then it was gone. A lifted eyebrow. “I’ll tell Council questions can wait.”

  “We go up?” Enris countered Haxel’s quelling scowl with his boldest grin. Aryl shook her head. The First Scout might as well surrender.

  Coming to the same conclusion, Haxel curved her lips in what wasn’t necessarily a smile.

  “We go up.”

  Aryl ran curious fingers over the dusty stone, freed a chunk of lighter crumbly stuff to toss thoughtfully into a corner. This jagged tear in one wall wasn’t the entrance intended by the long-dead builders of the Buried Theater, but Naryn remembered nothing else. They’d seen no sign of another passage.

  There were, however, abundant and troubling signs this one was in regular use, putting Syb and Haxel in the lead, despite Naryn’s knowledge. She came next, with Enris, while Aryl and Veca followed behind.

  Veca wasn’t happy. “No side corridors.”

  “None yet,” Aryl replied, feeling the same. No way to avoid a confrontation—or slip aside and strike from behind.

  Though why she’d thought of that strategy . . . Aryl shook her head.

  Bright enough. Naryn had pressed a sequence of numbers into a box jammed between two stones, activating a series of small lights, themselves stuck in cracks or hanging from wires. The passage itself was hard packed dirt, with dirt and stone walls, and a ceiling that, though propped up by supports, showered dirt and dust at random.

  Not the way to build things, Aryl decided, glad when Haxel picked up the pace.

  They hadn’t gone far when the passage made a sharp turn. Beyond were none of the small lights, but after a moment, Aryl’s eyes adjusted and she could make out a rectangular glow ahead. They eased forward until they stood under what was the outline of a door.

  In the ceiling.

  Anyone bring a ladder?

  Syb chuckled at Enris’ plaintive sending. We brought you.

  Sending instead of speech. Aryl approved. A closed door could hide any number of surprises, most likely unpleasant ones.

  But this, Naryn remembered. “It’s a lift,” she informed them calmly. Silhouetted against the lights from the first portion of the passage, she slipped her hand inside the wall—Aryl rubbed her eyes—then grimaced as she felt around. “Substandard piece of—” Naryn muttered confusingly, then stood back with an exclamation of pleasure. “There.”

  The outlined section of ceiling lowered itself, spilling light and dust everywhere, and came to rest at their feet.

  Haxel, who’d leaped aside, muttered something of her own as she returned to squint upward. “Good place for an ambush. Veca, wait here. Now, how do—” She fell silent as Naryn walked onto the piece of ceiling and gestured they should do the same.

  Enris stepped on, grinning happily. One of them, Aryl thought grimly, should put sense ahead of adventure, but she followed her Chosen. Haxel and Syb drew their longknives as they did the same.

  “Up,” Naryn said.

  And the section of ceiling rose into the air, carrying five M’hiray—one large—without effort. Aryl glanced down at Ve ca’s dimly lit face, disappearing below, then resolutely faced where they were going.

  The ceiling became floor, leaving t
hem standing somewhere so different from the passage below, from anywhere she could imagine, that Aryl could hardly believe her eyes.

  If not for the ceiling above, they might have stood out in the open, so vast was the space. The floor stretched, smooth and flat, away from the wall behind them. Wall? It was more like the slanted side of a huge buttress root, but what could be above to need such support?

  Root?

  Aryl shook away the confusing image.

  More isolated sections of slanted wall connected the floor and ceiling as far as she could see. Between, everywhere, immense pipes writhed like growths. White ones. Red ones. Black. Some narrow, some oval. Some looped up to a distant ceiling. Others flopped along the floor and headed in either direction as far as the eye could see.

  They could see, Aryl realized, because one kind of pipe glowed. She stepped closer. The pipe was clear-sided; what produced the changeable bluish light was inside. And moving. Aryl averted her eyes quickly. What flowed within was more disturbing than this place.

  “Maintenance Layer,” Naryn informed them, and pointed left. “The next lift is over there.”

  “This one’s the only access below?”

  “To the theater, yes.”

  Haxel looked to have as many questions as she did, Aryl thought, but merely nodded. “Aryl. Call Karne, Galen, Bula, Josel, and Imi.”

  She nodded. An instant’s concentration to send those names into the M’hir, less to find the five, and their groups, standing beside them. They looked around in awe, then focused on Haxel. “We’re going that way,” she pointed. “The rest of you fan out, look for a way to the next level. Naryn?”

  Naryn used her hands to mark out a square. “Lifts are marked by a panel, this size. On a wall, or in the floor. Press it and the lift shows itself. You speak your command, up or down, to control it.”

  The others nodded.

  “When you find one,” Haxel took over, “check the next level. If it’s promising, send for your next three groups and have them fan out. If not, keep going up on your own till you find something worth exploring. Understood? I don’t want M’hiray scampering over each other or worse, being noticed. We need to see as much as we can, not take risks. Don’t ’port where you could be seen. By anything.”

  Several looked uneasy at this. Karne d’sud Witthun among them. “What do you mean, ‘anything’?”

  “Stonerim III is more Commonwealth than Trade Pact,” Naryn answered, making, in Aryl’s opinion, no sense at all. “Most of the beings you’ll encounter above will be Human.

  They look like M’hiray. But you’ll see those who don’t. Avoid conversations with either.”

  Haxel’s scar gleamed white. “I’ll want reports. Often.”

  Agreement. The scouts turned and left.

  “Syb?” The First Scout turned to the grizzled Chosen. “Picked your spot?”

  “Up there.” His nod indicated a shadowed rise of gray pipe. He’d have a perfect view of anyone approaching the lift.

  “Good.”

  Aryl nodded to herself. Haxel knew her people. If Veca and Syb couldn’t stop would-be intruders—unlikely, but most of what was around them was unlikely—from here, they could ’port back to the others to deliver a warning and share the locate to this layer.

  While she, Enris, and Naryn would receive the scout reports. Good news, she hoped.

  Their own quiet footsteps were swallowed by the gurgle and thump of the pipes as Naryn led them across the floor to another slanted wall.

  “Maintenance Layer,” Enris commented. “So these carry water, heat, whatever’s needed above us. Makes me wonder.”

  Aryl glanced at him. “Go on.”

  “What’s above that could need so much?”

  He didn’t expect an answer.

  Aryl wasn’t sure she wanted one.

  When they reached their destination, Naryn ran her hands over the featureless smooth wall, and gave a helpless shrug. “There should be a lift here. I thought there was. This is all—it didn’t matter,” with an odd desperation. “Only the theater mattered.”

  Aryl understood Haxel’s somber expression, the grim that leaked through her shields. None of the other groups had found a lift yet. If Naryn’s memory couldn’t guide them . . .

  “We’ll split up here. You try that way,” the First Scout ordered, waving Enris right, Aryl left. “Make it quick,” she added.

  And careful, Aryl sent to her Chosen, who grinned back at her.

  You, too.

  Quick suited her. Aryl ran along the wall, eyes searching for a panel. When the wall ended, rather than follow it around, she sped to the next section, doing her best to ignore the sudden drafts of cold or blasts of heat when she passed under different pipes, listening for danger past the gurgle and occasionally loud thunks coming from the same source. Not a place for living things, she decided.

  But living things were what she found.

  Voices, ahead.

  Avoiding one of the glowing pipes, Aryl veered into the shadow of a black one and crept closer. Closer. After a cautionary touch to be sure the metal wasn’t of the too hot or too cold variety, she found a seam and eased herself on top.

  There.

  She grinned. Perfect.

  Who needed a lift, when there were stairs?

  Stairs currently in use by a raggedly dressed assortment of beings, some M’hiray-like—Human—others definitely not. The arrangement of poles and steps appeared solid, if clumsily built.

  And not, she guessed, supposed to be here.

  The beings had attached a cluster of small tubes to a yellow pipe’s lower loop using some kind of disk. The tubes led to a droning machine that spewed forth a white liquid the beings were collecting in a variety of containers with every indication of delighted greed. Full containers were being carried up the stairs, while others carried down what Aryl presumed were empty ones to fill.

  One tripped, its container spilling on the floor.

  “That’s outta your share!” shouted a Human near the machine.

  The sloppy individual lifted its container. “Lemme refill. There’s plenty.”

  “Get greedy and you’ll get gone, my friend. Think this is a perm-tap? Them as work for Grandies will be down sooner than not. We’ll all be locked then, won’t we.”

  “I’ve a family—”

  “Who don’t need juice? Ack. Take your due and hurry it. All a’you.” This as others on the stairs slowed to watch. “We need to wrap this.”

  The mess was ignored; the sloppy one refilled its container and ran up the stairs.

  Good, Aryl decided. The sooner they finished their theft, the sooner they’d leave the staircase and the opening to the layer above they’d made through the wall at its top.

  No reason not to encourage them.

  Smiling to herself, Aryl slipped her hand through her metal bracelet and tapped it sharply on the pipe.

  She might have poked her finger in a rattlers’ crate. Everyone scrambled. Most threw away their containers and ran—or tried to run—up the stairs, disappearing through the opening. One fell—she winced—from near the top, to land with a sodden thud. It didn’t move again.

  The two nearest the machine dropped down behind it, which she hadn’t anticipated. One leaned from that cover to point a small device in her direction. The other shouted in protest then leaped up as if running for shelter.

  Aryl slid down, using the pipe as protection.

  A snap, a flash of light and . . .

  BOOM!

  As explosions went, Aryl told herself, that hadn’t been much, but when she cautiously looked past the pipe, she saw it had been sufficient.

  The puddles of white burned. The machine was in scorched pieces—as were those who’d been near it.

  The staircase, however, was intact. Mostly.

  I’ve found a way up, Aryl sent to Enris, Naryn, and Haxel.

  You aren’t serious.

  Aryl blinked at Enris. “It’s perfectly safe.”


  “A part just fell off,” Naryn pointed out, her face pale. “How is that safe?”

  The First Scout shrugged. “Wait here, then.” She went to the staircase and began to climb, using the supports rather than the steps themselves.

  As Aryl went to do the same, Enris protested. “Haxel can send a locate once she’s reached the top. If she does.”

  Though made from scraps of metal and fastened with everything from rope to elaborate clamps, the stairs were solid. After all, they’d carried a multitude of beings and outlasted an explosion. They’d most certainly hold two M’hiray. He should know that.

  How did she? The question distracted . . . the answer eluded . . . “Wait if you want,” Aryl said more tersely than she intended. Turning temper to action, she swarmed up behind Haxel, quickly catching up.

  Aryl!

  Warned by Haxel’s sending, she leaped through the opening at the top.

  To find herself staring into golden eyes the size of her fist.

  Chapter 2

  ARYL WASN’T SURE WHICH of them shouted first, but she knew which took off at a run. She was giving chase before Haxel’s exhortation to “Get it!”

  Something in her responded to the speed, to following a target. She grinned as she hit the right pace, arms and legs pumping smoothly, focus narrowed to the figure ahead. Her surroundings mattered only when they presented obstacle or hazard.

  Like the aircars filling this tunnel. Aryl stayed close to the curved wall, avoiding that traffic as it whizzed alongside. Not aircars, she noted absently. Most were the same size, and a featureless gray. ’Bots. Machines that could fly on their own. Moving too quickly to avoid, in both directions. At least some had lights on their sides so she could see.

  One zipped across her path, aiming for the wall. Aryl dove and rolled, feeling her clothing lift in the wind left by the machine. There wasn’t a collision. The wall simply opened a circle to receive the machine and then closed again.

  Aryl!?

  Interesting layer, she sent, breaking into a run again.

  The one she chased kept looking over its shoulder, huge eyes reflecting the lights of the ’bots. Hardly wise, Aryl thought. Not only did it slow by a stride each time, but exiting ’bots were a constant threat. A shame if one of those killed the creature before she caught it. They needed a guide.