Alien Chronicles 1 - The Golden One (40 page)

Conscious of everyone’s staring at her, Ampris bowed to this arrogant vi-adult in silent compliance, but her heart was boiling. Lameel would never take Israi’s place. Love could not be commanded.

Lameel flicked out her tongue and clapped her hands. “Kevarsh, what tricks can she do?”

Before the bowing steward could answer, Mashaal intervened. “My dear, your esteemed father did not purchase this expensive slave to be your pet. He bought her to serve our table when we entertain his business associates.”

Lameel’s rill extended, turning dark blue as it stiffened. “I want her, and she belongs to me!” she screamed.

The guests sat up wide-eyed, and Mashaal flicked her fingers at Kevarsh. “Take the Aaroun out,” she said.

The steward obeyed, shooing Ampris outside and closing the door on Lameel’s tantrum.

Ampris smiled slightly in memory. “She resembles the sri-Kaa in temper, if nothing else.”

Kevarsh hissed at her. “Silence! You will make no comparisons. You will do no boasting. There will be no dinner for you tonight. You may starve while you serve the family their meal. And if you drop one goblet or break one plate, I will have you flogged. Now go downstairs and resume your work.”

CHAPTER
•TWENTY-ONE

In the darkness of the sleeping house, Ampris crept shadowlike through the third-floor rooms. Holding her breath, the fur on her neck standing erect in fear, she listened a moment to the whistling snores coming from Lameel’s bed-chamber, then crept past it and the large nursery where the pair of chunen—five and three years out of the egg, respectively—slept curled together with an affection they never showed each other during their waking hours. Jenai, the chief nursemaid, was a Kelth who slept with one eye and both ears open, ever vigilant for a whimper or cry from the fretful hatchling.

Successfully passing the nursery, Ampris reached the end of the corridor and pressed herself against the wall outside the master’s office. Silently she counted seconds while the sensor beam on the door blinked its red light in warning.

It had taken her a month to figure out the security system in the house, which was activated only at night. A month of careful observation and spying without appearing to pay attention to anything save her duties.

Using the linkup in the vid room on the second floor had been her initial goal. But that linkup made only local calls within the city limits. In order to reach Vir, Ampris needed the linkup located in the master’s private office, a room kept locked and secured, a room annexed directly to his bedchamber.

The security sensor was programmed to monitor motion only, lacking the sophisticated monitors for heat detection and carbon dioxide emissions that would have sounded an alarm immediately. Furthermore, the motion detector was limited to its shortest distance setting, due to the office’s proximity to the nursery and the occasional tendency of the chunen to prowl in their sleep. The detector worked in twenty-second cycles. Therefore, all Ampris had to do was watch the blinking red light, count carefully, and match her movements to its timing.

She and Israi had learned these skills from the many pranks they had pulled over the years, bypassing guards, monitors, and individual body alarms to play tricks on hapless courtiers who thought themselves safe in their own beds.

But this was no prank, and Ampris could not begin to imagine the severity of her punishment if she were to get caught.

Her breathing grew shaky, and for a moment she lost count.

Then she pulled her wits together and forced herself to concentrate. This was no time to lose her nerve, not when she was so close.

The blinking light glowed steady, and Ampris slid forward, crouching beneath the device on the door and waiting for the blinking cycle to stop again. When it did, she shot upright, clamped her hand swiftly over the sensor, and flipped off the switch on the edge of the casing.

Only then did she let herself sag in relief, drawing in breath after breath, her heart still thudding too fast. A flicker of satisfaction came to life inside her.
Easy
.

But she knew she mustn’t gloat yet.

Carefully she turned the latch, and smiled to herself when it opened. So she was right in thinking the sensor automatically locked and unlocked the door. This was a very cheap security system indeed.

But that was to her advantage, and she could not waste time criticizing the miserly ways of her master.

Easing her way inside, she shut the door behind her and stood still to get her bearings.

A glimmer of moonlight shone through the window, and gradually her vision adjusted to the shapes and shadows around her. She had feared the passageway between the office and the master’s bedchamber would be open, but she discovered it closed.

She smiled to herself, letting hope off its leash. The gods were giving her luck with this. Surely success was meant to be hers.

With stealthy movements, she located the linkup and activated it. Light from its screen flickered over her face and hands. She put in the call to the imperial palace, keeping the voice link switched off, tapping in her message manually as slowly and as quietly as possible.

She directed it to Israi sri-Kaa only, encoding it as a personal message and using the special suffix digits reserved for the imperial family alone. That would allow the message to bypass the usual barricades in the main palace communications center and route it straight to Israi’s own linkup.

Ampris had spent many hours mentally composing her message. She kept her explanation simple, stripped to the essentials, and finished with an apology.
I am sorry for any trouble I have caused. Please let me come back to you, for it is at your side that I belong. Ampris
.

Then holding onto her amulet for luck, she pushed the control that would send the message across the world to Israi. And she prayed with all her heart that Israi would read her message and relent.

For three days she waited for a reply—cleaning, fetching, and serving; living on hope. Every sense was attuned to the slightest sound outside, sending her running to the window in certainty that an imperial skimmer had arrived to fetch her.

For six more days she waited, her hope growing thin, while she told herself Israi must be gone from the palace, perhaps on a tour with the Kaa. But the vidcasts mentioned nothing about the Kaa’s being on a journey. The court remained in Vir. The news carried standard clips on council meetings, envoys from other worlds, the economic status of the empire, an imperial banquet held in honor of some ambassador Ampris had never heard of.

For a month Ampris waited in daily expectation of a reply from Israi. But none came. She wept on her cot at night, where the darkness would not let her deny the brutal fact that Israi no longer wanted her.

Still, there might yet be an explanation for Israi’s silence. Perhaps she had not received the message. It was possible that Lady Lenith combed through even Israi’s personal messages. The sri-Kaa was screened from everything remotely upsetting or unpleasant. Ampris believed that Lady Lenith would put her in that category now.

She told herself she must give Israi one more chance. Which meant she must take an even bigger risk and somehow use the linkup during the daytime, when she could activate voice and vid lines and reach out to Israi with a stronger appeal.

Impatiently she bided her time until the opportunity came. On a hot afternoon when the master was working in the warehouse, the mistress and Lameel were out calling on friends, and Jenai and Hama were occupied with getting the three youngest Hahveens to the physician for their annual inoculations, Hama ordered Ampris to go upstairs and restore order to the nursery. She was to clean and straighten, putting everything in place before the mistress returned. Kevarsh was sleeping in his office, following his usual afternoon custom, and Hama saw no reason to disturb him with official permission to assign Ampris to this task.

Concealing her smile of delight, Ampris assured Hama that she needed no supervision and hurried upstairs into the deserted house as fast as she could run.

She opened the door of the nursery, put down her pail of cleaning equipment, and hurried to the master’s office without delay. She had already calculated the time difference between Malraaket and Vir. By now Israi would be finished with her siesta. The timing was perfect.

Hastily, Ampris switched on the linkup and pushed in the imperial code. She knew that by using it her calls were not recorded and would not show up on the master’s bills. The machine seemed to take forever to get through. She figured it must be a heavy calling hour, but finally the imperial seal appeared on the screen. Seconds later, Ampris found herself staring into the bored gaze of a Viis operator.

Gasping in surprise, Ampris spoke in Viis. “This is a direct call, on a private channel, to the sri-Kaa.”

The operator didn’t even blink. “A call from what party?”

Ampris backed her ears. “From me. I—I mean, from Ampris, former companion to the sri-Kaa. I must speak to her at once.”

“A direct call is not permitted.”

“But you must let me through,” Ampris protested. “I am calling on a private channel.”

The operator’s gaze dropped while she checked something. “Negative. This line is not private.”

“But I used the imperial codes—”

The operator’s eyes narrowed on Ampris. She leaned closer to the screen. “You, abiru trash, are in violation of communications laws, for which prosecution is swift. I have traced your call from—”

Ampris reared back and broke the link. Switching off the machine, she backed away from it and panted in growing panic. Only members of the imperial family or their designees could utilize the calling codes. Ampris realized her confession had been recorded. Moreover, her call had been traced here, to the master’s linkup. If she could have gotten through to Israi, this whole matter could have been cleared up easily. But now . . . what was she going to do?

Ampris battled her rising fear as she tried to think. She knew she could not afford to panic. It was vital to keep her wits. The first thing she had to do—

“What are you doing in here?” shrieked Kevarsh.

Startled, Ampris whirled around and saw him standing in the doorway. His rill stood up stiffly around his face, turning as dark a crimson as she had ever seen it. His eyes blazed at her in a mixture of shock and fury.

“In the master’s office,” he said, his tail lashing beneath the hem of his coat. “Spying into his business affairs. Stealing—”

“No!” Ampris cried, anxious to stop his accusations. Kevarsh was always willing to jump to conclusions, yet she knew it was forbidden for her to be in here. There was no explanation that could justify her presence. “I wasn’t stealing! I—I was told to clean—”

“Liar!” he shouted, rushing at her with his upraised baton. He swung it at her, and Ampris dodged out of reflex. Kevarsh shrieked in outrage. “You dare run from the beating you deserve? You
dare?
I will have you flogged in the courtyard for this. I will have the hide flayed from your back, you savage!”

He swung again, and Ampris blundered her way around the desk to evade him a second time. But his third swing whacked across her upper arm, wringing a howl of pain from her. He viciously struck her again and again, hitting her across muzzle and throat, aiming for her eyes, anywhere vulnerable.

And all the time he kept shouting accusations, railing at her, calling her the vilest names.

Something in Ampris snapped. Perhaps it was the weeks of hard work and inadequate food, the grueling discipline, her grief and pent-up resentments—but everything inside her came boiling up into a fury that erupted in a powerful, full-throated roar.

The noise drowned out Kevarsh’s shouting, and he paused in mid-swing as Ampris turned on him with bared fangs. She roared again, her rage like a fire in her veins. Her fear dropped away, and she lunged at him with claws and snapping teeth.

Kevarsh’s rill dropped limply onto his shoulders, and with an inarticulate squeak he bounded aside to put the desk between him and her. “Get back!” he shouted at her, slashing defensively with the baton. “It is forbidden to turn on your master.”

She grabbed the baton and tore it from his hands. Breaking it in half, she flung the pieces away. “You are not my master,” she growled. “You do not own me. You do not command me. I pray you will live long enough to catch the Dancing Death, you old fool.”

“And you are doomed to the labor camps!” he shouted back. “You’ll pay for this. You’ll crawl on your belly and cry out for death before they’re through with you. You’ll wish your heathen mother had killed you at birth rather than suffer the torture and degradation that every stinking abiru deserves.”

Shoving the desk aside with a strength she didn’t know she possessed, she came at him, knowing nothing but the desire to snap his scrawny neck in her jaws. She wanted to hear him squeal for mercy before she shook the life from him.

Backing up hastily, Kevarsh grabbed the nearest object off the desk and flung it at her. It struck Ampris in the shoulder, heavy enough to slow her. Kevarsh scrambled sideways and reached the linkup before Ampris could stop him. An alarm sounded, startling her.

“The patrollers will deal with you,” Kevarsh told her, his rill as red as his eyes were wild. He flicked out his tongue at her, laughing in triumph. “You fool, they will cut off your hands for stealing, and you will—”

Ampris tackled him with the full weight of her body, driving him down in a flailing tangle of limbs and tail. He hit the polished floor hard, his head thumping like a ripe melon, then lay still and crumpled beneath her.

The sudden silence beneath the whooping alarm drove back her anger. She blinked, gulping in air, and for a moment could not think of what to do. If she’d killed him, then her life was finished.

Fresh fear gripped her, shaking her from her daze. This was no time to sit here and shake. The patrollers would be arriving at any minute, and they would give her no chance to explain.

She’d committed how many crimes already? Using her master’s equipment without permission, calling the palace, striking a Viis, maybe killing a Viis. She knew the laws were harsh and absolute. Any abiru attack against a Viis, any instance of a slave’s turning against master, brought death. There was no appeal from such a penalty. The patrollers would probably shoot her on sight.