David: Savakerrva, Book 1

by L. Brown

  Garth’s heart skipped. “Back?”

  “My decision is made,” Dahkaa replied. “We must.”

  “Must what,” Garth pressed. “Must take me back home, is that what you mean?”

  “Granted,” Dahkaa continued, still addressing Logaht, “he’s not what we expected, but if he’s anything like his father—”

  “And what if he is,” Logaht interrupted. “Does the blood of a king carry some spell, will this boy use magic to stop the J’kel?”

  “I trust not in magic,” Dahkaa replied, “but the Promise foretold.”

  “And I trust in facts, in what he’s already proven himself to be. But if you think he can prevail—”

  “He’ll prevail because he must!” yelled Dahkaa. “Because if he doesn’t, then the Promise was a lie, and that—” Unable to finish such an unthinkable thought, Dahkaa paced a little, shook off the chill. “Now, how he does it? That’s up to fate and — who knows, perhaps even the Tribes.”

  Logaht sighed at this, at the suggestion unworthy of a response.

  “Well, why not?” pressed Dahkaa. “Could the Tribes not have secrets, some last, final plan? Or perhaps they have a weapon, something new; could there not be truth to their rumor of glass?”

  Wind howled, whipped the wrappings on Logaht’s face. Then, “Your faith is your own,” Logaht replied. “But facts are for all, and no plan or weapon, no secret possessed by Clan or Tribe will ever defeat the J’kel, and in the end, this boy will fail and your world will die.”

  His icy opinion cutting and clear, Logaht re-entered the cave.

  Now Dahkaa sighed. Then turning east, he eyed the pale dawn.

  “Okay,” said Garth, trying to strike a tone between cheerful and doomed. “So we’re ready, all packed, time to take me home?”

  Dahkaa didn’t move, just stared at the last few stars. “Destiny, David; it’s time.”

  “It’s time to go home, alright? I live here, not out there!”

  “Out there — is why you were born,” said Dahkaa. “And now, why you will fight, why we must kill the J’kel and stop the G’mach and then — face their leader, a being who lives on the same vile light that powers their craft. And with power like that? I tell you, he walks as a god.”

  Nothing else required, Garth knew who he meant, and as the memory of chains returned, the surreal descent with the long, crooked stick, just one questioned remained. “He — has a name?”

  “He did. But according to Logaht—”

  A heap of polar bear pelt sailed from the cave and thumped at Garth’s feet.

  “When you progress to the chains,” Dahkaa continued, stepping to the pelt, “a G’mach loses what he was and becomes something else.”

  “Which is?” asked Garth.

  “Which is,” Dahkaa replied, now gathering the fur, “a Ninth Progress G’mach. But as for his name? That, I believe, comes from Logaht’s world, the myth of a man who thought himself a god. But though he tried to create, he could only destroy, so his name — they call him Atta Ra.”

  Hearing it named, the Wraith of his dreams, Garth shuddered, felt weak. But as he leaned against a snowbank and pretended to be fine, as Dahkaa went quiet and hauled off the pelt, he heard a low hum. Strange, the sound. Yet stranger still was the sight, how the azure glow of the tall glass tube now flickered and sparked with progressively brighter flash.

  “But whatever they call him—” Not looking back, Dahkaa lugged the pelt onto the ramp. “Ninth Progress or not, he’s still no god. But if Atta Ra succeeds, finds what he seeks—?”

  A metallic shriek interrupted, scared Garth back from the tall glass tube. Creaking and quivering and fluorescing within, its soft, soothing blues dazzled into pyrotechnic reds.

  “Hey!” Garth shouted, the only word that came.

  But for Logaht, that was enough, and summoned by the shout and creak, he leapt from the cave and eyed the quiver and flash.

  “It’s him?” shouted Dahkaa, standing on the ramp. “Did he track us, is he here?”

  Answering without hesitation or doubt, the tube blew in a shattering flash.

  Chapter 7

  Accelerations

  A sonic-boom trailed the blur, a glacier-skimming haze triggering not just avalanches, but a show, a chorus line of peaks tossing up their skirts.

  Australia to Greenland in just a sub-orbital wink, the gunship arrived. Yet despite the raucous entrance, the ship’s command bridge exuded all the fervor of a morgue. Dark and cold with a hive-ish hum, no life stirred, none but one.

  Atta Ra descended, floated down from his perch. He could have stayed put, just monitored the intercept through the wire to his mind, but this target intrigued, was worthy of touch. And that’s why they emerged, two wooden stocks.

  Rifle stocks, their original purpose; and as the weathered wood and tarnished brass locked into place, Atta Ra admired them, their fittings and triggers and screws. For unlike the rest of his command bridge, the strands of light webbing the dark, these stocks were relics, throwbacks to a simpler, ten-fingered time. Yet though they lacked barrels, no longer shot shells, each mated to the ship’s fire control center, a nervous array of unsettled displays hinting at weapons built not just to fight, but annihilate.

  Two mesh-gloved hands gripped the stocks. Savoring the feel, the warmth of the wood and cool of the brass, Atta Ra wrapped a finger around each trigger, three per stock, then lifted his gaze to the tracking display. Triangular in shape, it highlighted a ghostly contrail, a small craft’s gravity track that led to a peak.

  “Start!” Logaht brayed, charging across the translucent ramp. “Cold start!”

  Logaht vanished into the invisible craft. But though Garth chased, he stopped short of the ramp. Unable to commit, to bridge the gap to the craft, he questioned the outcome, what awaited if he actually crossed. Would Dahkaa honor his word, would they take me home?

  Knocked from behind, Garth lurched onto the ramp. Something was pushing, driving him on, and before he could stop, the lynx-faced, squid-legged vaalik plowed him through the gossamer outline of the entry hatch. But ignorant of the interior, Garth tripped on a step, then tumbled into the V-shaped craft, into a tight corridor rumbled with coils of indigo light.

  “Down!” ordered Dahkaa, grabbing Garth by the boots. Then with a pull, he yanked Garth below, dropped him into a cramped cockpit devoid of comfort and wailed with alarms.

  “Closing,” warned Logaht. Strained but not panicked, like he’s done this before, the G’mach slid into the pilot’s spot, a shallow pit sweat-stained and torn. “And already in range, he sees.”

  “Sees what!” snapped Dahkaa, sliding into the adjacent pit. “Our ship?”

  “For now, just our track,” said Logaht. Kinetic projections now shimmered into view, and as curves and lines and baffling text encircled his pit and glimmered his eye, Logaht’s Fifth Progress mind strained to keep up. “But if we cold-start our engine, begin powered flight—”

  Logaht paused, considered what he just said, then glanced at Dahkaa; who pondered, by his look, the same suicidal thought.

  “Dahkaa!” shouted Garth. Reeling from the lights and alarms, wedged inside a claustrophobic craft that — except for its panoramic windscreen, had all the futuristic gleam of an old U-boat — he asked the only question that mattered. “Are we really going to fly?”

  “If we do, he’ll see us!” yelled Dahkaa, unlocking an overhead lever. “So first, we’ll fall.” Then glancing left — “Now!” Logaht barked — Dahkaa slammed the lever back.

  Reminded of an elevator, its cable just cut, Garth felt the craft plummet straight down.

  Atta Ra nearly smiled. Subtle curves warping his metal-mesh face, he focused on the targeting screen, on the gravity trail dead-ending at the cave.

  Time to shoot, but certainly not to kill. He’d waited fourteen years for this boy who, knowingly or not, might hold the secrets to the Quest, so first he would warn, deliver a message of ‘surrender or else.’ Applying faint pressure, th
e Ninth Progress G’mach now squeezed his antique triggers until, relishing the tactile click, he raked the peak with blazing green light.

  Message delivered via pulsing discharge, the strike both vaporized snow and shattered the rock, a thousand-ton rain hurtling toward the glacial floor.

  Garth sprawled on the forward windscreen. Bewildered by the view, the uprush of snow, he knew it was over, they would die in a crash.

  “Power!” shouted Dahkaa, still gripping the overhead lever. “We need to fly!”

  “Fly too soon, we’ll be seen,” Logaht replied, steady but strained. “We wait.”

  “Wait for what,” pressed Dahkaa, “how close will you go!”

  “We’ll power up in seconds, call it—” The yellow eye twitched. “Twenty-one.”

  “Are you crazy?” Garth shrieked. “We’re going to crash!”

  “If we do,” muttered Dahkaa, “you’ll survive, David, you have to—?”

  Cut short by impact, an errant boulder slammed from above and pitched their craft, a violent excursion launching Dahkaa into a bulkhead. Yelping in horror, the vaalik grabbed its master and wrapped him tight, but Dahkaa made no movement or sound.

  “Boy!” roared Logaht.

  Shouted from his shock, Garth watched Logaht stretch toward Dahkaa’s control pit, the overhead lever just out of reach. “The lever, push!”

  Garth wanted to move, perhaps even tried, but his fear had weight, piled and pinned like stones.

  “Now!” Logaht bellowed, and grabbing Garth’s ankle, he yanked him to Dahkaa’s pit.

  Roused by Logaht’s seven-fingered grip, Garth snagged the overhead lever and pushed.

  Stuck, the lever didn’t budge.

  Death coming, rising up fast, Garth barely heard it, Logaht’s unintelligible command. But whatever he said, it both launched the vaalik to Garth and impelled it to wrap his arm. Amazed by its strength, an astonishing assist, Garth banged the lever to its forward stop.

  Engine rumble spiked, alarms resumed all flash and wail, and Logaht hauled back on a well-worn control yoke. But as Garth watched the windscreen go white, he knew the glacier wouldn’t let them escape, wouldn’t let them live with just a skimming near-miss.

  Fate’s vote finally cast, the small V-ship crashed.

  Eight-thousand feet up, Atta Ra hovered his gunship toward the peak, toward the cave now swirled with steam. But as the mist cleared, no one emerged, no son of a king appeared. And quite unexpected, he detected no sign of their craft, at least up here.

  Expanding his search, he looked farther down. And though he first detected just ice, rock, and snow, he now saw movement, a V-shaped craft bursting from a glacial floor of drifts.

  Peering ahead just dumbstruck amazed, Garth watched the snow scatter, fly to both sides as if flung by a plow. No answer explained this vision of reprieve, but recalling the strange force that first tugged him off the cliff, he wondered if the artificial gravity that propelled this craft also repelled, pushed back against impacts, even a crash.

  “Boy!” shouted Logaht, now weaving the craft. “Help Dahkaa, is he alive?”

  Still marveling at the result, at surviving an eight-thousand-foot fall, Garth pushed himself to move.

  “Hey!” Garth shouted, grabbing Dahkaa’s arm. “You okay?”

  “If he’s not,” growled Logaht, “the fault is yours, we should never have come!”

  “Exactly, I agree!” retorted Garth. “You think I wanted any of this, did I ask to be found?”

  “But you were,” mumbled Dahkaa, wincing upright. “And by the feel of it, Atta Ra’s found us all. He’s close?”

  “Close enough, but—” Logaht glanced between virtual screens. “Given our current evasion profile, our tracks quickly fade. You suffered no damage, old friend?”

  “I’ve had worse,” Dahkaa grunted. Then looking at Garth, he eyed the bloody cut on the boy’s chin. “Destiny, David; it’s going to hurt.”

  “Or perhaps,” Logaht mumbled, “his destiny ends here.” Checking his control pit gages, cryptic symbols flickering fast, the one-eyed G’mach summarized the result. “This evasion takes fuel, we’re using too much — and if we want to ascend, we need to stop, Dahkaa, we need to hide.”

  “Then hide us, Logaht, whatever it takes; we need to ascend and we must return!”

  Mulling their exchange, the possible meanings of ascend and return, Garth now flinched from a windscreen flash, a slashing green light probing ahead.

  “Turn!” Dahkaa yelled, but Logaht already had. Racking hard left to dodge the slash, the maneuver tumbled Garth into Dahkaa’s control pit. A place, to Garth’s disbelief, free of all pressure or force, for despite Logaht’s rapid evasions, rolls and reversals and whip-cracking swerves, he felt little change in direction or speed. A haven of near-perfect equilibrium, the control pit reduced a bone-crushing turn to a gentle push in a swing.

  “Search pattern condensing,” Logaht announced, “he’s getting close.” His blighted fingers fretting the control yoke, Logaht knitted dives, climbs, and turns into a desperate, dizzying weave. “Fuel, Dahkaa, we’re using too much, another thirty seconds and—”

  “There!” Dahkaa interrupted, pointing ahead. “Out there, David! Is that ice?”

  Following his point, Garth perceived a slate-gray ocean and, farther out, jagged white peaks. “I don’t know, maybe, does it matter?”

  Dazzled by a just-ahead blast of light, Garth gasped not from pain, but the result, for in that jagged flash of an instant, he lost his sight.

  Atta Ra’s target screen lit with a near-hit. Closing fast, he would soon ferret them out, and though the craft he chased was designed to evade, they were short on options, likely also fuel, so with every new maneuver, their probability of escape edged toward nil. True, he could destroy them with a miles-wide burst, but he came for a reason, and it wasn’t to kill.

  At least not yet. And first came the capture, so linking again to his gunship, he worked the solution, where the craft was and how best to disable its drive. A consuming process, yet he couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop pondering the mystery, those ancient secrets held, by legend, in the last Savakerrva’s mind.

  Momentarily distracted, he now noted an unexpected turn, the V-shaped craft fled toward open sea. A mistake? Maybe, for no large-mass reflection, no glacier or peak would now obscure their gravitational track. So, had they had panicked, were they just overwhelmed? Plausible, but when Atta Ra looked farther out, when he eyed the horizon and perceived the miles-long floes, he reached again for the triggers, the brass and wood in his hands.

  Squinting and blinking, Garth rubbed out the glare, the near-missing flash that had, momentarily, stolen his sight. Vision still blurred, but he regained enough to see what came next, the rocks and ice of Greenland’s shore. Already passing, blurring beneath, they left nothing but a view of frigid gray swells and, thirty seconds ahead, the great train of ice.

  “Here!” Dahkaa shouted. “Descend!”

  The word jolted, slapped Garth cold. Descend?

  “Descend now—” Fingers on the control yoke, face wrap dappled with sweat, Logaht maintained. “We’ll waste fuel, we’re still too far.”

  “But he’s gaining our track, I hear the alarm!”

  And Garth heard a swarm, but Logaht held fast, just flew toward the icebergs ahead.

  “Now, Logaht!” raged Dahkaa. “His next shot will find us, he—?”

  A loud braap interrupted.

  “He has our track!”

  Raking in from ahead, blazing green rays boiled the waves. About to be hit, the situation sliding from desperate to lost, Logaht pitched the craft forward and slammed into sea.

  Elsewhere in the depths, many miles east and thirty fathoms down, a Russian sonar man flinched from a burst of noise.

  “Now, what,” yawned a voice behind. “A school of shrimp, a mermaid giving birth?” Half-lidded with fatigue, submarine 1st-Class Captain Alexi Lenko stirred the last of his tea.

  “Captain, I �
� heard impact,” the sonar man reported, “a heavy splash.”

  The Captain stopped his stir. “Location?”

  “Best estimate—” The sonar man gestured to a chart. “Greenland, just off shore.”

  Lenko stared a moment, but after thirty-three hours awake, he couldn’t help it, he answered first with another yawn. “I’m going to sleep now, and I’m going to sleep well. Do you know why?”

  “Sir, I — no, Captain, but—”

  “Because after twenty-six years on patrol, I can tell you nothing splashes the Greenland shore except walrus and ice. But if anything did crash? In that water, trust me, they’re already dead.”

  Air bubbles tickled the outer windscreen. Watching them rise, waiting for the craft to crush-up like a can, Garth gaped at the sea’s changing complexion, a slide from bleak to black.

  “Still tracking?” asked Dahkaa, peering through a small porthole above.

  “He’s trying,” Logaht replied, now scanning gages snuffed of all squawk and alarm. “Trying quite hard, actually, he’s extending his search.”

  “But—?” Trying to reconcile their dry banter within with the wet brine without, Garth discerned something through the windscreen, a glint in the murk. “We’re sinking!”

  “Actually,” Logaht corrected, “we’re traveling through an artificially induced gravitational well. But for those overwhelmed by algebra and French — relax, boy, enjoy the view.”

  Detecting an insult, too wired to care, Garth watched a walrus swim with a cod.

  “Mm,” Dahkaa sighed. “And a beautiful view it is.”

  Following Dahkaa’s gaze through the porthole above, Garth spied the storied ninety-percent, the mountainous bulk of an iceberg’s underwater mass.

  “It confuses,” Dahkaa explained. “Ice confounds his search.”

  “Not entirely,” replied Logaht, now steering between exotic convolutions of ice. “But yes, the thicker it gets, the less effective his arrays. And given the outsize mass now just above—”

  “We’re safe?” pressed Dahkaa.