The Mandala Maneuver

by Christine Pope

  Without really meaning to, she glanced over at Lirzhan where he slept huddled against the boulder. That is, she assumed he was asleep. Impossible to say for certain with the way his hood dropped so low, hiding his face. How he was able to see past it, she had no idea, but obviously it hadn’t slowed him down any on the way here.

  Something in her was sorely tempted to creep over there, to push back the hood to see what it concealed. Of course such an action would be a horrible breach of protocol, and she would never actually do such a thing, but….

  It was difficult spending so much time with someone whose face she couldn’t see, whose expressions she couldn’t gauge. He might as well have been wearing a mask.

  That notion jogged a memory in her mind, of an old book she’d read years ago as a girl, when she had devoured numerous public domain works that didn’t require an outright purchase. God, what was that story? Something about a singer and a deformed genius….

  The Phantom of the Opera. That was it. Somehow she doubted that creeping up on Lirzhan and pushing back the hood would have a better outcome for her than it did for the hapless Christine Daaé when she sneaked up behind the Phantom and removed his mask. Better to quell her curiosity than risk an interplanetary incident.

  Still, she couldn’t help but wonder exactly what he was hiding under there. Speculation had been ongoing for the greater part of a hundred years, ever since the Gaians and the Zhore first crossed paths. If anyone had ever seen one of the secretive aliens, though, the information must have been immediately suppressed.

  She heard a screeching cry then and stiffened, eyes straining against the dark — well, actually, it wasn’t full dark anymore. The first gray light of dawn had come upon her while she was ruminating, and she hadn’t even noticed. Some lookout she was.

  But she could see well enough to make out a largish avian creature, a bit larger than a Gaian crow, dive for the stream and then fly off with something dangling from its beak or proboscis or whatever passed for such things in these parts.

  Even on Mandala the early bird gets the worm, she thought, and grinned a little. Or fish, as the case may be. Maybe those fish were edible, but they didn’t have the equipment to test them, even if they could somehow manage to catch one.

  “Another avian?” came Lirzhan’s deep voice from behind her.

  “Yes. It’s already gone. And the sun is starting to come up.”

  “Good.” He pushed away from the boulder and stood, brushing at his robes. Alexa thought she heard a few cracks of his joints, and almost shook her head at the incongruity of the sound. Sure, she’d heard a few of those coming from Trin as he got up in the morning to make a pot of tea, but somehow she hadn’t expected that a Zhore would be subject to the same early morning pops and creaks.

  A wash of pale light came over the hills to the east, and suddenly it was day again. She pushed away the blanket covering her legs but kept the one wrapped around her shoulders, then stood up to survey their surroundings. The wind had shifted direction slightly, seeming to come from the north now instead of the northwest. Alexa decided to take that as a good sign, since their destination lay due north from where they were currently encamped.

  “Wish I could offer you some coffee or tea, but the emergency kit wasn’t quite that civilized,” she remarked. “Can I interest you in half a veggie protein bar and some water?”

  Something that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle emerged from the hood. “That will have to do, I suppose.” He came over to her and took the bar she had just dug out of the emergency bag. As he did so, his gloved fingers brushed over hers, and she forced herself not to flinch. Stupid reaction, really, when she’d let him handle her bare foot just the night before.

  “So what’s the plan for today?” she inquired, her tone sounding too cheerful even to herself. Over-compensation, probably.

  He scanned the valley around them before answering. “The stream appears to cut more or less north and south through this canyon, so I believe we should follow it for as long as possible. It seems more sheltered down here, and the ground is smoother. We should be able to move more quickly, at least in the beginning.”

  That sounded like a good enough plan to her. But first….

  There really wasn’t a good way to take care of certain necessary functions while wandering through the wilderness, although the emergency kit did at least provide a packet of toilet paper and some disposable towels, along with disinfecting mouth wipes. Alexa excused herself, found a concealing rock, and did what was necessary. Afterward she went to the stream and splashed some water on her face, then performed an abbreviated version of what her university roommate had referred to as a “birdbath” — a quick cleaning of certain essential body parts — before putting her jacket back on and heading back to their makeshift campsite, where Lirzhan was already putting away her discarded blankets and stowing the empty protein bar packaging in a pocket of the emergency kit. Whether he’d attended to his own needs while she was otherwise occupied, she didn’t know and certainly wasn’t going to ask.

  She could only hope she wasn’t flushing too furiously when she asked, “Ready to go?”

  “Yes,” he said simply, and threw the emergency bag over his shoulder.

  That science station had better have a decent bathroom when we get there, she thought as she followed him up along the stream. Because after this I’m going to want to take a shower for at least a day or two.

  As he had hoped, the stream wound its way northward for a good ways, sheltering them in a canyon that did not seem to be inhabited by anything larger than the blue-winged avians who dove into the water at irregular intervals, clearly intent on the aquatic life that appeared to dwell in its depths. There seemed to be every chance that they would cover more kilometers today. Perhaps as many as twenty-five, if they were lucky.

  Alexa strode along behind him; if her foot still bothered her, she didn’t show it. She’d abandoned the tight knot of hair at the base of her neck and instead had it bound loosely with a piece of brown elastic. The golden-brown edges of her ponytail blew in the breeze, and between that and her lack of makeup, she looked curiously young and vulnerable.

  Appearances, he knew, were just that…appearances. Irzhaan help anyone who thought of Alexa Craig as vulnerable.

  After a while, he looked over his shoulder at her and inquired, “How is your foot?”

  She appeared surprised that he had inquired about it. “Fine. I hardly notice it. But thank you for asking.”

  Her tone was cool and casual. If only he could think of something to say that would break down her wall of reserve, but nothing came to mind. For an instant he almost wished they hadn’t made such good time so far today. At the rate they were going, they’d reach the science station without making any kind of a connection.

  Frankly, the entire situation rather flummoxed him. If the woman with whom he’d felt the sayara bond had been another Zhore, this would have been easy, for she would be experiencing the same sensations he was. But with a human? If he had not seen the reports of what had transpired on Lathvin IV, had not felt his own connection with Alexa, despite her apparent lack of interest, he would have believed such a thing was impossible.

  Still, he had to try. “I am glad to hear that your foot is doing well. But please tell me if it begins to give you any discomfort — we may need to change the wound dressing.”

  One of her well-arched brows lifted. “I will. I think I’m okay for now, though.”

  Her words had a tone of finality to them, as if she wanted to close down the conversation before it even got started. Very well. They still did have at least two more days to go after this, and that was only if all went well. He must not be impatient. He must —

  An odd whirring filled his ears, one that sounded too mechanical, too precise to have come from an as-yet-unknown avian creature. He glanced up, just as pale green pulse bolts rained down from overhead. His unbelieving eyes registered some sort of small atmospheric craft, although h
e did not recognize the type.

  “Run!” he cried, grabbing Alexa by the hand even as he tightened his grip on the emergency pack, then dashed away from the stream, down a narrow defile that branched off from the main canyon.

  At least she did not protest, but pounded alongside him, her face grim and her eyes filled with questions she didn’t have the breath to ask. In here the trees were not as thick as they had been along the stream, but they did provide some cover. Besides, the walls of the narrow ravine were not wide enough to accommodate the unknown machine, although that didn’t seem to prevent its pilot from raining down pulse bolts at the two of them.

  They crashed through the stunted, sun-deprived trees, Lirzhan attempting to zig and zag back and forth as much as possible and present a moving target that would be difficult to hit. He couldn’t stop to wonder who might be shooting at them, and why…although he guessed they must be connected in some way with whoever had been behind the attack on the shuttle.

  The ravine branched, and he took the northerly defile, hoping to keep them more or less on track. Here the trees and brush began to grow more thickly, and he felt Alexa stumble over a tree root and grip his hand tightly to keep from falling. He increased his own grasp on her fingers and propelled her forward, all the while praying that neither of them would suffer a real fall. That emergency kit did not contain anything that would help with setting bones.

  As quickly as it had attacked, the machine peeled off and headed back in the direction it had come, clearly unable to prosecute its assault with any real efficiency. Lirzhan would not take that as a signal to ease up, however, and kept moving forward, thinking it couldn’t hurt to put as much distance between them and their attackers as possible. True, their assailants could always fly ahead and wait for them to emerge from the other end of this ravine — wherever that might be — but going back certainly wasn’t an option.

  “Look!” Alexa called out, and pointed with her free hand. Ahead of them and partway up the cliff wall were a series of dark openings in the gray rock.

  A cave sounded like an excellent idea at the moment. He wouldn’t let himself stop to think what sort of inimical creatures might live in such an environment. Then again, most of the fauna they had encountered on Mandala so far had been relatively benign. Better to take their chances with a series of unknown creatures than face the ones who had already proved themselves to be more than hostile.

  “This way,” he said, after analyzing the rock formations ahead. There did seem to be a narrow natural path that zigzagged up the hill.

  She nodded grimly and followed him, this time seemingly content to let him take the lead and determine the best route over the treacherous ground. Once or twice her slick-soled boots slipped on the rock, and again she hung on to his hand for dear life, cursing under her breath. He tightened his fingers around hers and more or less dragged her up the last few feet before they slipped into the cool darkness of the cave, leaving the sunlight behind.

  Immediately she let go of his hand and cast a baleful glance over her shoulder at the now-empty skies above the canyon. “Just what the hell was that?”

  She should have known they’d be tracked. She’d let the relative ease of their journey so far lull her into thinking that all they had to do was sidestep a few alien birds and suffer a few uncomfortable bivouacs, and then they’d be at the science station and calling in the cavalry.

  Too bad the galaxy really didn’t work that way.

  Lirzhan stood silently watching her, as if he were afraid that if he said the wrong thing, she’d explode even worse than she already had. She took a deep breath, calming herself. He’d probably saved her life back there; his reflexes were a lot better than hers.

  Even that realization irritated her. Nothing in her training had prepared her for this, so logically she knew it really wasn’t her fault that she didn’t have the skills to wrest the pulse pistol from the Zhore and magically shoot their assailants out of the sky. She wasn’t a warrior. She was a diplomat. But she knew she’d better start thinking like a warrior if she wanted to survive this.

  On top of everything, her heel had begun to throb again. Probably the bandage had worked itself loose during their headlong flight down the gully. She couldn’t worry about that right now, though.

  Lirzhan had pulled out one of the lanterns from the emergency kit and had turned it down the passageway beyond them. That is, it looked like a corridor of some sort, although she knew it had to be a natural formation. It was very quiet. She could hear the angry beating of her own heart, and the slow drip of moisture somewhere down the passage.

  “Does it go through?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I am no Stacian, bred to know the underground ways. But the air smells fresh enough, and I can see no end to the opening. I am willing to risk it if you are — but there is always the chance that it does not go through, and we will end up trapped somewhere far under the surface.”

  “Well, the surface wasn’t too friendly, either,” she said, and let out a shaky laugh. “Maybe it goes through, and maybe it doesn’t, but if we disappear long enough, maybe our friends in the skimmer will give up and go home.”

  “Perhaps,” Lirzhan replied, although he did not sound particularly hopeful. He flashed the lantern down the passageway once more and added, “Stay close.”

  Like I need to be reminded. If someone had asked a few minutes ago, she would have said walking so close to the Zhore that she could practically feel his body heat was not high on her list of preferred activities, but now his presence was more than a little reassuring. That was twice he’d saved her life in the last forty-eight hours. Damn straight she was going to stick to him like iron filings to a magnet.

  “No worries,” she told him, and hoped he wouldn’t hear the edge of a tremor in her voice. “Just let me know if I step on your robes.”

  He actually chuckled. “I will.”

  Then he held the lantern at about shoulder level, and began walking forward, Alexa not half a step behind. She could even feel the brush of the heavy fabric of his garments against her sleeve or leg from time to time, but she found she didn’t mind so much. It meant he was there with her in the darkness, and she wasn’t alone.

  The passageway sloped slightly downward, and she wondered how deep they would have to go before it began to climb again. Thank God for the LED lanterns and their practically unlimited battery life. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about the light going out and leaving them here in the utter black of these caves, hundreds of feet underground. She sniffed the damp air, vaguely recalling horror stories of pockets of bad air or poisonous gas in the mines on Gaia back in the bad old days, but all she smelled was damp rock, and a faint woodsy scent she guessed must be coming from Lirzhan’s robes.

  Probably smells better than I do, she thought wryly, although the antiperspirant treatment she used was supposed to last up to a week. Then again, its manufacturers probably hadn’t counted on having to prevent the sort of flop sweat pure fear could produce.

  “It must have been when we came out into the open,” the Zhore said in quiet, musing tones. “For the first leg of our journey, we were in thick woods with abundant life, and perhaps our assailants did not have good enough trackers to locate our biological signatures. But once we camped, and then headed farther up the stream — well, then they had a chance to do more sweeps and find us.”

  This sounded plausible enough, and Alexa nodded. “That sounds about right. I recognized the ship — it’s a modded version of the skimmers the GEC uses for planetfall on its big exploration ships, since those stay in orbit. Good little craft, which is why a lot of mercs and other free agents buy up decommissioned versions and modify them for their own uses.”

  “Mercenaries,” Lirzhan repeated. “What would mercenaries want with us?”

  “I have no idea.” And truthfully, she didn’t. Her posting to the Council’s station in the Targus system was a big deal for her — and her career — but sh
e wasn’t self-centered enough to think that she couldn’t be replaced easily enough if she were taken out of commission. Maybe some individuals in the diplomatic service’s chain of command had been less than thrilled by her relationship with Trin, but shooting her out of the sky while on her way to a new post wasn’t the way they would have handled it. No, she would’ve been shuffled off to some backwater armpit like Iradia, and that would’ve been the end of her career. Message sent.

  Lirzhan was silent as they continued to walk through the corridor, ducking once or twice when the roof of the tunnel dipped low enough to interfere with his passage. His lack of further response unnerved Alexa, and she began to wonder if she wasn’t seeing the whole picture here, if he were concealing something he didn’t want her to know.

  “Or maybe,” she said, an edge to her words, “maybe they really didn’t care about Ambassador Alexa Craig, but I just happened to be in the way of their real target. You.”

  At that he stopped and stared down at her. “That is not the case.”

  “It isn’t? How can I know that for sure?”

  “Because I just told you it wasn’t.”

  “Oh, and the Zhore never lie.”

  “As a matter of fact, we don’t.”

  Since she couldn’t think of any real way to answer that, she began walking again. This time it was Lirzhan who made sure to come closer to her, to make certain too large a gap didn’t open up between the two of them.

  “Well, they had to be after something,” she said, after an uncomfortable interval of silence.

  “Obviously, but I do not know what it could be. Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless we were merely expendable pawns in a larger game.”

  She knew they needed to keep walking, so she didn’t stop, but rather slowed her steps so she could look up into the blackness of the Zhore’s hood. “I don’t follow.”