Alien Chronicles 3 - The Crystal Eye (40 page)

“What is this place?” she asked in wonder. “Where are the archivists, the brothers? And what are you doing here? If I am not dreaming you, then how did you get here? How did I get here? How did all this come about?”

“Hey, slow down,” he said, putting away the emptied bowl. “Guess you be feeling better if you can fire off questions.”

“I was in prison,” she said, trying to remember. “I was being loaded into a transport for execution.”

Elrabin suddenly looked very grim. “Heading off for the death camps.”

“Yes.”

“When we got into the city,” he said, “it took us a while to get our bearings. My old contacts be mostly long gone, see? But I finally dug up some folk that knew what was what. That’s when we found out you’d been arrested by the Bureau.”

She shivered, feeling a wave of weakness pass through her.

“Hey,” he said softly, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Maybe I better let you lie back again.”

“No,” she said. “Go on. My friends, the archivists. Did the Bureau get them too?”

“No, they got shook up good by the patrollers. Some of ’em got sold somewhere for hard labor. Supposed to be executed, but you know how corrupt the patrollers are—they’ll sell anyone they can get their hands on and take a juicy kickback from the slavers to boot. A dry old stick named Quiesl’s still around though. And someone named, uh, Non?”

She closed her eyes, grateful for Quiesl and Non’s survival, already grieving for the fate of the others.

“I didn’t know what to do when I found out you’d been arrested,” Elrabin admitted, swiveling back his ears. “Been worried sick about you, knowing what you were going through at the hands of those—”

He stopped, and stood silent, his eyes dark and murderous.

“My sons,” she prompted him. “I dreamed I saw my sons.”

“Yeah, they be here,” he said with a blink. “We all came.”

“I was afraid you would.”

“Couldn’t be helped, Goldie. Course now that they’re here, they ain’t so happy about it. Velia’s afraid of her own shadow. Tantha hates the place. Luax would howl if she knew how. She says the Rejects here live worse than the abiru workers.” He grinned. “Even sour old Frenshala’s done lost her zeal for seeing the big city. Some folk just got to learn the hard way.”

“I wish they had not come. I wish Foloth and Nashmarl were safe.”

“Goldie, you could tie those two cubs to a tree and they still wouldn’t be safe.”

“Have they been much trouble?” she asked, knowing from his expression that they had. “I am sorry.”

He squeezed her hand. “You ain’t sorry for nothing. In a few days you’ll be up and around, putting me in charge of them again. I know you.”

She smiled, feeling very tired now. “But what is this place?”

“This be Jobul’s home,” Elrabin said. “Nice, ain’t it?”

“Yes.”

“He does all right for a Myal. Gets paid a better wage than usual, and he grows a garden on his roof, so he ain’t spending all his credits on Quixlix—not that it’s safe to eat that stuff these days. He found you, Goldie. You were unconscious in the street. He recognized you from some vidcast being spread around and brought you here. Then he notified the underground, and by then we’d linked up with them and we all ended up here.”

Backing her ears, she thought over what he said, trying to remember.

“You know how you got away?” he asked softly. “You must have put up one heroic fight.”

“No,” she said and reached for her Eye of Clarity. Her hands were still unsteady, and he helped fit the stone into the curl of her palm. “The Eye saved me.”

His ears pricked forward and skepticism filled his eyes. “Don’t go softheaded on me now. Ain’t no—”

“It did. I had a vision. I saw Ruu-one-one-three,” she said. “Oh, Elrabin, it is so beautiful and unspoiled. That is where we must take the abiru people when we are free. It is perfect for us. We can start over. We can make a wonderful place for—”

“Sure,” he said softly but without a gram of belief in his voice. “Sure we can. Someday. You better rest now.”

“No, I have to tell you this. We have to get busy.”

“No busy for you,” he said firmly, tucking the blanket tight around her. “You got to rest.”

“Elrabin,” she said, and her tone made him stop fussing with the tattered blanket and look at her. “The Eye took me there. When I walked into its vision, I left the Bureau of Security. I don’t know how it worked, but it did. Maybe the patrollers couldn’t see me while I was in the light of the Eye, but I believe that what I saw was real. I smelled the air and grass. I drank the water. It’s not as though I imagined it. I was really there, as though somehow the Eye transported me through time and space. I was in the prison courtyard, and then I wasn’t. I can’t explain it.”

His eyes were troubled. He patted her hand. “Okay, Goldie. You got out of there somehow, even if no one ever gets away from the Bureau. They weren’t much to talk about when I was a lit running around these streets, but things be different now. The folk say the Bureau has grown as powerful as the Kaa. I figured you were gone for good.”

She curled her fingers around his. “I know how we can defeat the Viis.”

“Hey, now. Wait right there,” he said in alarm. “Don’t you start working yourself into nothing like that. We can’t fight the Viis, Goldie. When you get to feeling better, you going to remember that. We got no weapons, and we ain’t likely to get any.”

“Elrabin,” she said, “we don’t need weapons. We have knowledge, and that is more dangerous than any side-arm.”

“Goldie, don’t get into this,” he said, making it a plea.

“We are already in it,” she said. “I was spared so I could finish what I have to do. When will the others come back?”

“Tonight. I don’t know where the cubs are. Tantha’s in charge of them today. They been pretty good lately.”

“Can you get a message to Luthien or Harval?”

His eyes widened. “Harval the dust runner?”

“Yes.”

“Goldie, you don’t want that kind of riffraff around.”

“Someone in their groups betrayed the archivists. That’s how I was arrested, but they’re still important contacts,” Ampris said. “I was named the leader of the resistance. I need to meet with everyone. As soon as it can be arranged.”

“Why? So they can betray you again?” he asked fiercely. “I’ll take out Harval’s throat if he sold you to the Bureau!”

“Is he who you worked for when you were a lit?” she asked.

“No. Rival gang, but they all be bad, Goldie. You can’t trust any of them.”

“And who
do
I trust?” she asked. “The Viis? No, Elrabin. Spread the word. We will meet tonight.”

She fell asleep for the rest of the day, but by evening she felt stronger and more alert.

Foloth and Nashmarl joined her, coming to stand awkwardly beside her bed. She smiled up at them. As always, it delighted her to see their faces, to inhale their scent, to stretch out her hands and clasp theirs.

“My sons,” she said happily, pleased to see them looking well. “I have missed you so much.”

Nashmarl stared at her with a mixture of longing and confusion in his eyes.

Foloth squeezed her hand. “Elrabin says you will get well, Mother. I’m glad. I’ve been worried.”

Ampris smiled at him. “Do not worry about me.”

“Why did you stay away so long?” Nashmarl burst out as though he couldn’t hold back his questions. “Weren’t you ever coming back for us?”

“Hush, you fool!” Foloth snapped at him, and Nashmarl drew back with a scowl.

“Do not quarrel,” Ampris pleaded. “Please. Not now.”

“I’m sorry, Mother,” Foloth said and glared at his brother. “Keep quiet, Nashmarl. We’re not supposed to upset her.”

Nashmarl glowered at the floor, saying nothing. Ampris tugged gently at his hand until finally he glanced at her.

Tears of apology were blurring her vision. “I could never abandon you, Nashmarl. Never. I was coming back for you when injury and arrest prevented me—”

“You’re tiring her and making her cry,” Foloth interrupted, still glaring at Nashmarl. His gaze shifted to Ampris. “Don’t apologize, Mother. We understand what kept you here.”

Hearing a trace of judgment in his tone, Ampris sighed. “Do you really?” she asked him. “I hope so. My thoughts have been with you every day we were apart. You’ve grown taller, both of you. Did you realize that?”

“We’re nearly adults now,” Foloth said, squaring his shoulders. “Not cubs. We should have a vote in the meetings.”

“Elrabin already said no,” Nashmarl told him spitefully. “He said not to pester her about it.”

Closing her eyes a moment, Ampris let her grip slacken on their hands. Abruptly their bickering ceased.

Nashmarl touched her face. “Mother?” he asked, his voice shrill. “You aren’t going to die, are you?”

She forced open her eyes, blinking away her tears and summoning a smile. “No, I promise you that I am much better. It just makes me sad when you two quarrel. You are brothers. You must learn to help each other in this cruel world.”

Nashmarl’s mouth quivered. “I’m sorry.”

She looked at her elder son. “Foloth?”

“I’m sorry also, Mother.”

Satisfied, she took their hands again, lifting one then the other to her muzzle in a brief caress. Silence fell over them as they shared this moment of togetherness. Ampris’s heart filled with gratitude for peace among her family, however brief it might prove to be. Later, she told herself, she would try to talk longer with them about their recent experiences. She understood that more must have happened to them than she’d been told about thus far.

“Hey, uh, Goldie?” Elrabin said, coming up to them. “Hate to interrupt, but it’s time to go.”

Ampris lifted her head, eager to embrace the future. “I am ready.”

The abiru conspirators met in the basement of an abandoned building, to avoid compromising Jobul’s home. The Myal medic was young and very kind. He changed her medication patches and mixed up a potion for her to swallow that left her feeling clear-headed and able to endure being carried to the meeting place. With her cubs flanking her, quiet and subdued for once, both pressed close, Ampris sat in a chair, propped up with cushions, and faced the assembly.

She’d been filled in on events and knew that warnings had been leaked to the abiru folk outside the city walls. Yet more were arriving from the countryside every day. Patrollers had started sweeping the streets of Vir regularly, picking up anyone not on a work detail. It was safer to stay home and hide.

But Ampris knew they were past the point of playing it safe.

Luthien came to her first, in front of everyone, and confessed that one of his nephews had betrayed her. “I be ashamed of him,” the one-eyed Kelth declared. “I had no part in that, Ampris. I swear it on my own blood.”

Angry mutters filled the room, but Ampris raised her hand and they quieted. She met Luthien’s fierce glare and believed him. “There will be other betrayals as long as people are forced to live in fear,” she said. “I do not blame you.”

Again voices were raised in anger, but Ampris ignored them. Luthien glanced around, then ducked his head in awkward thanks. “The nephew done been found in the sewers with his throat cut, Ampris. He won’t betray anyone ever again.”

She backed her ears, hoping Luthien himself had not murdered the nephew but knowing he probably had. “We are here to
save
the abiru folk, not kill each other,” she said at last.

Luthien went back to his place, and the people next to him shifted away as though his presence was a contaminant.

“We have a place to go,” she said to them all. Her voice was weak but clear. They stayed silent and respectful, listening to every word. The atmosphere of this meeting was very different from that of the last one. Ampris supposed it had something to do with the fact that she’d been tortured by the Bureau and survived. It was a hard way to gain respect.

“Ruu-one-one-three will be our new home. It’s clean, unpolluted, unspoiled.”

“Ain’t no such place,” someone said.

Elrabin glared at the speaker. “Hey, shut up. She ain’t done talking.”

“It does exist,” Ampris said. “The Viis thought it would be their promised land, but it never will. The Zrheli believe this planet is sacred. They have guarded it from Viis spoilage and exploitation by closing the jump gate on Shrazhak Ohr. But this planet can be our new home.”

“How?” Harval asked her, unable to keep quiet any longer. He rose to his feet, looking big and bulky in his striped vest and strange, brimless cap. “Another planet? How do we get to it? You give us visions, Ampris, but we got to deal with the practical.”

“Hear me!” Ampris called out. She leaned back against her cushions for a moment, letting a wave of weakness pass.

Looking worried, Nashmarl put his hand on her wrist. She smiled at him and continued, “My plan is no fable, no wish that cannot be achieved, Harval. There are hundreds of cargo ships orbiting Viisymel right now, empty and unused because the economy of this world is bankrupt. Israi Kaa cannot afford to send the ships out to collect the colony exports. If she could, the people of Viisymel would not now be going hungry. Those empty ships are our way off this dying world.”

Commotion broke out, with several people talking at once. Ampris leaned back and let the hubbub go as long as it wanted. She was growing tired, and she had to conserve her strength.

“You’re feeling worse,” Nashmarl whispered to her worriedly. He stroked the fur on her head. “We’d better take you back now.”

She smiled up at him, grateful for the concern in his green eyes. Nashmarl looked so quiet, so troubled. She reminded herself to find time to talk to him about all that was bothering him.

She sighed. “I mustn’t leave yet. I have them listening. Now I must make them agree.”

“You’re losing their respect,” Foloth said, his voice sharp with a far different kind of concern. “I thought they would follow you anywhere, but already you’ve lost them.”

She looked at him, struck anew by how tall he’d grown during their separation. He appeared to be healthy and well, despite the gash now healing to a pink scar on his forehead, but he remained far too impatient. He had yet to learn so many things. “Wait and see,” she said to him.