Alien Chronicles 1 - The Golden One (14 page)

Being cheap, dust lay within the reach of every laborer, every miner, every ship’s crew member, every mechanic. One sampling of dust created an instant addict, and the habit was nearly impossible to kick. Because it proved futile to prosecute the users, patrollers worked instead to trap and catch the vast network of suppliers. Laws were simple and harsh: the sentence for dealing dust was death; the sentence for delivering dust was death.

The day he came to live with Cuvein, Elrabin was offered a taste. Terrified, he refused. Cuvein had never offered it to him again. They got along by not discussing it. When Cuvein was high, Elrabin tried to stay out of his way. Now he looked at his father, feeling both disappointed and resentful, and wanted to leave him here.

But first he had to get what he’d come for. “Cuvein,” he said, trying to get his da’s attention. “Let me talk with you.”

Cuvein flicked his ears and ignored Elrabin. Pointing at the diagram, he stared at Tiff, who was sitting gravely next to him, a big old spotted Aaroun run to fat, with sleepy brown eyes that hid a brain like a steel trap.

“So the game is played like this,” Cuvein said, tracing a dotted line on the diagram. “Piece one goes this way. Piece two here.”

“You make the swap with piece three,” Tiff said. His voice was husky and very deep. He glanced at Elrabin and jerked his head in invitation. “You come look. You should learn this too.”

Intrigued, Elrabin joined them at the table. Tiff explained the game again, and Elrabin caught on quickly.

“I see,” he said with excitement. “You palm the piece as you move it—”

“No!” Cuvein said sharply, glaring at him. “Palm it when it goes up to the next level.”

“Like this,” Tiff said patiently, showing him again.

“I’ve got it,” Elrabin said.

“You sure?”

He met his da’s vague eyes with confidence. “I said I’ve got it. I’ll try it tomorrow on—”

“No,” Tiff said in warning. “This game is illegal. Betting on it will get you fined.”

Elrabin scratched his ear. “Betting on a lot of things is illegal. So?”

“So you take heed where you set this up.”

Tiff had more to say, but Elrabin stopped listening. He could feel his skull from the inside out. Impatient, he stood up. “Cuvein, we need to go.”

“You go,” Cuvein said without looking at him. “I’m busy.”

“Then give me the combination—”

Without warning, Cuvein kicked the stool Elrabin had just vacated, sending it crashing hard into Elrabin’s leg. “Get out!”

Cutting off a yip of pain, Elrabin dodged a second kick and gripped his aching thigh. He glared at his da, his temper flaring, and wrinkled his muzzle in a snarl.

Tiff coughed gruffly, catching his attention. Just for an unwilling instant, Elrabin shot his gaze to Tiff’s. Silently, the Aaroun tapped his nostrils.

Understanding his meaning, Elrabin felt his temper fade as fast as it had come. He nodded to Tiff. If he didn’t argue, Cuvein’s temper would settle down. Maybe in a few minutes he would be happy and singing. In that mood, he might give Elrabin what he needed.

But right now, Cuvein stared at Elrabin defiantly, slyly, meanly, his ears twitching for sounds Elrabin didn’t hear. “No combination,” he said shrilly. “Get out.”

“Maybe you better go,” Tiff said. “Wait in the galley with—”

“Thanks, Tiff,” Elrabin broke in politely, beginning to pant from the urgency he could no longer control. He was running out of time, and today time was important. “But I need a pill.” Usually he didn’t discuss it openly. No one, not even a friend, was supposed to know he was wanted by Viis authorities. Rewards for turning in petty criminals were collected every day.
Don’t throw temptation in someone’s
way
, Cuvein always said when he was sober.

“It’s wearing off,” Elrabin said. As he spoke, he refused to glance at Tiff, who probably now thought he was addicted to something that would shoot him straight to the gutter.

Stiff-spined and bristling, Elrabin tried to hold his da’s gaze. “I need it.”

“Go home,” Cuvein said without interest. His eyes shifted in the lamplight, and he swayed slightly on his stool. “Wait it out like usual.”

Elrabin glared at him, trying to break through the dust to the reason in his da’s brain. “I need it,” he said, his voice low and almost a growl. “I got work in an hour. I got to be out. If you ain’t got any pills on you, then I want the combination—”

“No!” Cuvein jumped up, staggered, and nearly lost his balance. Catching himself against the table, he lowered his head and fumbled in his pocket. “No combination. Rule number one.”

Elrabin mouthed the words, echoing him silently. Rule number one meant Cuvein was in charge. Cuvein guarded the combination to their tiny safe as his most prized possession. He kept everything important inside it: his payment cards and credit vouchers, his loaded tri-dice, his lockpicks, a vial of the tiny red Dlexyline pills, and his stash of dust. It was stupid of him not to trust Elrabin, who would never betray him. Stupid when he was starting to have memory lapses and blackouts. Stupid when sometimes he wandered off and couldn’t be found for days. Rule number one had been established the day Elrabin persuaded his da to take him in. It said that Cuvein made the rules. Rule number two was Elrabin did whatever Cuvein ordered. Rule number three was Elrabin earned his own keep, but Cuvein kept control of the money.

“It’s wearing off,” Elrabin said, trying to keep his voice steady. “You didn’t come home last night. I couldn’t take—”

“I’ll come home when I please!” Cuvein shouted. He pulled his dust pouch from his pocket and dropped it on the table. “Get out.”

“But—”

Tiff came around the table and put his hand on Elrabin’s chest, gently pushing him back. “I’ll handle him. He’ll be more reasonable in a moment.”

Anger was burning in Elrabin’s eyes. “He just took some of that. He don’t need more. Don’t let him take more.”

“Hush, now,” Tiff said, still pushing him backward. “Don’t watch it. This batch is bad dust. Cheap. Poorly cut. He’ll be better in a moment. I’ll ask him then. You go to the galley and get some food.”

“But—”

Elsewhere in the house came the shrill frizzing sound of a security field on overload. Both Elrabin and Tiff froze. The Aaroun’s hand tightened into a fist around the front of Elrabin’s coat. He growled.

Elrabin heard a loud pop, and the lights went out. A second later they came back on, but less brightly than before. There was the sound of a door being slammed open and the rapid clump of booted feet.

Elrabin and Tiff looked at each other, realization dawning in their eyes.

“Min deith el,”
Tiff swore in Aaroun. “It’s a raid.”

The prostitutes jumped up from their tables and ran past Elrabin in silence, leaving a waft of perfume in their wake.

Before Elrabin could respond, Tiff shoved him backward through the doorway and slammed it shut. Elrabin sprang to it, but he heard the locks activate, and a force field shimmered across the door’s surface, repelling his hands.

In the distance, Oma roared something Elrabin could not make out. He whirled around and saw six patrollers in helmets and black uniforms crowding into the short hallway. Each held his stun-stick drawn and charged.

The prostitutes had already vanished upstairs.

Elrabin swallowed hard. He felt sick at his stomach, and his knees nearly buckled. A terrible rush of hot weakness passed through his body. He stood frozen for a split second longer, his mind racing in all directions.

He’d broken no laws today. He was carrying no contraband. He had no tri-dice in his pockets. But he was wanted for petty thievery, with a ten-year count of arrest evasion, and he had Dlexyline in his system. One scan over his body, and he would be hanging in a net faster than he could howl.

Just then he figured the wisest course of action would be to cooperate with the patrollers, not resist arrest, stand quietly, hope for leniency, and maybe talk his way into a reduced sentence. He had nothing but that one small offense on his record sheet. He looked reputable enough. He could, in a pinch, claim he had legal employment, and it might be believed.

Over two meters tall, their black uniforms padded with body armor, crimson stripes of rank on their collars and sleeves, the patrollers approached him grimly. Their Viis faces were concealed by the dark tinting in their helmet visors. The hum of their activated stun-sticks buzzed through Elrabin’s hearing.

He stood there frozen, unable to think, unable to act. Yes, stay calm, he told himself. Act wise. Cooperate.

Yeah, right.

Panting hard, he whirled away from them and bolted upstairs as fast as his feet would carry him.

CHAPTER
•EIGHT

Darkness held her in its icy fingers, gripping tight, and would not let go. Trembling, too terrified to scream, Ampris tried to pull free of the sticky, invisible force which held her, and could not.

A terrible wailing rose in the distance, chilling her blood. Her heart lurched and seemed to stop. Still pinned so she could not run, she opened her mouth and panted hard.

“Go away! Go away!” she whispered, unable even to clamp her ears flat to her skull to close out the anguished wails and moans.

“Ampris?” a voice called. “Ampris!”

She gasped aloud, terrified to realize that they knew her name. She understood now that they were searching for her, getting steadily closer because she could not run.

“Get back!” she shouted. “Get away from me!”

As though her voice gave them direction, pale, wraithlike forms appeared suddenly before her. They surrounded her on all sides, pressing closer and closer.

They were the ghosts of dead Aarouns, some of them carrying their severed heads beneath their arms. Their dark eyes held centuries of suffering as they shuffled closer, moaning.

With a howl, she pushed through them, and ran. But this part of the palace was strange to her. No matter which passage she took, it always turned into a dead end. And the headless Aarouns kept hunting her, following her through the many rooms and passages.

Softly, their haunting voices continued to call her name.

“Ampris,” came their unworldly cries. “Restore us. Give us back our lives. Avenge our mutilations. Restore us, Ampris. Only you can bring us life.”

Again she cowered away from them, holding her hands over her muzzle, her ears clamped flat. “I can’t,” she said, sobbing. “I don’t know what you want.”

“Avenge us . . .”

“No!”

“Ampris.”

She could not bear their coming closer. They were suffocating her, so many of them, all horrible to see. She cringed back from them, screaming.

“Ampris! Ampris!
Ampris
!”

Blinking, Ampris opened her eyes to find herself being shaken hard. Illumination filled the room. Israi was gripping her by the arms, shaking her, and someone was knocking on the door.

Panting hard, still trembling, Ampris turned her head right and left. The dead Aarouns no longer filled the room.

She gulped in air and pulled free of Israi’s grip. It was only a dream, she realized.

Relieved, she buried her muzzle in her shaking hands.

Israi climbed off Ampris’s cot, making it creak. “Go away,” she said to the person inquiring at the door. “Subi attends me. I do not require your attendance.”

The knocking at the door stopped. From the adjoining bathchamber Subi emerged with a cup of water.

The slave would have handed it to Ampris, but Israi took the cup and held it to Ampris’s mouth.

“Lap this,” she said kindly. “Nightmares always make me thirsty. It will help.”

Ampris drank rapidly, her heart still pounding. Israi was right—the cool water did help. She found herself able to breathe more normally. The horror of the dream faded. She looked around at the room, seeing the disarray of her blankets thrown on the floor, the nesting pillows on Israi’s large round bed scattered and the silk coverlet thrown aside, the lamps burning bright, the disapproving impatience on Subi’s face, the kind concern in Israi’s eyes.

Israi sat next to her and gave her a hug. “My poor, poor Ampris,” she said as Subi took the emptied cup away. “You mustn’t let things upset you so much. Were you dreaming the same dream?”

Shame overtook Ampris. She found herself on the verge of sobbing, and fought for self-control. “Yes,” she admitted, unable to lift her gaze. “The same.”

“Silly,” Israi chided her. “The ghosts can’t get you. Put them from your mind.”

“I’m trying,” Ampris said. “I thought I had. But every night they come back.”

Subi came stumping back through the room and began smoothing the covers on Israi’s bed. Her muzzle was gray and her fur dull. She had a hip growing stiff with age, and her tall upright ears twitched constantly. Everyone considered her too old and too ugly to continue in service, yet Israi refused to dismiss her. Subi was grumpy for a Kelth, always grumbling beneath her breath, but she adored Israi and was fiercely loyal to her charge. Anything that made Israi happy, she approved of. Anything that brought even a frown to Israi’s face, Subi was ready to destroy immediately.

She scowled now at Ampris as she plumped a pillow. “Night terrors, hmpf,” she said. “Keep your nose where it belongs from now on, won’t you?”

“Don’t scold her,” Israi said, rubbing Ampris between her ears. “She’s had a bad enough shock as punishment.”

“Needs more punishment if the sri-Kaa she awakens every night,” Subi grumbled.

Israi straightened, dropping her hand from Ampris’s head. “She sat up with me every night for a week when I had the sniffing fever. This is the least I can do in return.”

Subi plumped another pillow, with even more vigor than before. “Prowling in the trophy room where she don’t belong. Hah. She’ll end up on exhibit there if her ways aren’t mended soon.”

“Subi!” Israi cried in distress. “Don’t even
say
such a horrid thing. You may go.”

Subi stopped her work and bowed low in obedience, but cast a swift, stern glare at Ampris and bared her teeth before she left.

Israi climbed back in her bed and rearranged the pillows to suit herself. Pausing, she listened a moment, then smiled at Ampris and patted the covers in invitation.