Hostiles (The Galactic Mage series) (24 page)

Altin agreed with his assessment, mostly in conciliatory fashion, and then refreshed the purpose of their trip. With all this about odor, the point was for the dragon to find Orli’s scent. He sent this idea to the dragon, along with images of her. Taot recognized her immediately and was actually grateful to have something worthwhile to search for in the cacophony of alien smells.

To help, Altin put the image from Ocelot’s scratch into Taot’s mind again, letting him know that the divined version matched what they saw with their own eyes. He tried to hide the fact that he couldn’t even begin to direct the dragon where to go from there, for as predicted, the whole place appeared to be almost all the same beneath them. If anything even began to seem like a unique construct, like a landmark standing out from the buildings and structures around it, a few moments looking would reveal others identical to it somewhere nearby. It was like spotting weeds amongst tall grass, at first one would appear, then another not too far away, and more and more until there were lots of them dotting off into the distance in every direction with such regularity he’d wonder how he hadn’t noticed them all along. It was confounding, but Taot sent back that he understood, and for the first time since appearing above Earth, the dragon’s movements were sure. The sweep of his wings became strong and purposeful, and he carried them down toward the massive monotony of the fortress below.

As they flew toward the rooftops, they had to veer from time to time to avoid crossing the paths of the various aircraft flying past or that rose up out of square or hexagonal holes that slowly opened in the surface of the city. Some of the vessels were similar in appearance to the small ships Orli’s people had brought to Little Earth, long boxy things, built for function more than for speed, but others looked far more sinister. There were several varieties that were all black, flat and smooth, with rigid wings sweeping back from their noses like arrowheads. These flew with bright lights that roared from their back ends and with precision to the shape of the flames that suggested something far different than dragon’s fire. He thought briefly of the first time he’d encountered the long, clumsy-seeming Earth starships in space, trying to stand their ground in close combat with the slippery movements of the Hostile orbs. Out there, that fire seemed absurdly inefficient, but here, it gave these vessels frightening speed. He watched as they flitted about like enormous armored hummingbirds, their movements almost as unlikely as the Hostiles. He found himself suddenly very self-conscious about the efficacy of his enchantment spells. If one of those things spotted them, he did not think that he and Taot could get away. And he wasn’t quite sure what he would do about fighting them. If they had the red-light lasers that he knew they most likely did, he doubted he’d have time to do anything about it. Should one of them see through his enchantment spells, likely that would be the end. Which meant he needed to find Orli fast.

He directed Taot down low, seeking to get out of the flight paths of so many roaring sky vessels and down into the cover of the buildings and their endless monotony. Soon they were flying between the shining structures, soaring above the avenues formed by the rows upon rows of them. From this vantage, Altin could see that upon these lanes were small vehicles, appearing not a great deal larger than wagons back home, though many were obviously immense. They moved along in endless caravans, parallel lines of them, one going in each direction, the lot of them making their way to and fro around the blocks of the black-glass buildings.

He nudged Taot closer to one of the buildings with his knees and looked inside as they flew past, peering through the dark windows of those that were lit from within to see the small figures of men and women going about their daily lives. Most appeared to be in uniform, just like the fleet officers and crew he’d come to know since his first encounter with people from planet Earth, and he couldn’t help wondering if theirs was an entirely military society. He hadn’t seen any other cities, so he couldn’t know for sure, but from the vastness of this one, it certainly seemed so. He marveled that Orli’s people were so dedicated to war. The scale of this city, this fortress, made the War Queen’s city seem an amusement park, a place of fanciful magic and lovely gardens all around. Oh yes, there was a vast military complex near the Palace, massive walls all around, but nothing like this sprawling martial uniformity.

On and on they flew, sweeping and gliding around spindly towers that seemed to have no other purpose than to hold up a lone blinking light, hundreds of spans high. They flew through venting plumes of steam and down into long dark alleys between rows of buildings that were occasionally larger than the rest. All the while Taot’s nostrils worked steadily, the low huffs of his sniffing sounding like steam blowing through geysers hidden at the back of some dark cave.

For hours they swept back and forth, Altin continually refreshing the image and the essence of the Orli he knew into Taot’s mind, always confirmed, always sent back perfectly by the dragon, verifying that he understood. They wheeled around buildings, still dodging aircraft now and again, and Altin’s began to grow panicked with the lack of progress and loss of time. He began to fear for her, began to fear the discovery that he had been too late. He saw visions of the dragon catching the scent, only to swoop down and discover her in one of the large metal bins these people kept filled with stinking refuse in the alleyways, her body rotting away, maggots crawling, burrowing in beautiful flesh turned blue and gray.

Altin Love lives.

Blue Fire’s thought struck him powerfully, and he realized by the shock of it that he’d started to drift off again, like he had while researching the cold enchantment spells. He hadn’t slept but those two hours in days. He was exhausted. He could imagine sleeping somewhere. Even just laying there in the garbage next to Orli’s body. Her soft bosom a pillow.

No,
came the thought, a mental shout like a gong. It was so abrupt it startled him. He blinked out of the sleep that had nearly taken him again. He drew in a deep breath of the chemical-heavy Earth air.
Seek. Altin Love lives. No sleep.

He shook himself and squinted into the wind of Taot’s flight. Another few moments like that and he might have slipped off and fallen to his death. He would have been the one found rotting and decayed, probably not for a week or more either, not until the illusions concealing him wore off on their own. Or until someone tripped over him, of course.

Find Altin Love.
It came with such a rush of urgency, as if he were about to drown, as if he were at the edge of having to take that breath of water that would end him. He nearly panicked. Which woke him up some.

Still a little groggy, he sent back to Blue Fire, “I thought I blocked you. You lied. How are you in my head?”

Blue Fire silence.

“I should have known I couldn’t keep you out.”

Rainbow web. Now
. Altin’s mind filled then with images of Orli lying in a bed with several cords attached to her arms, similar to the wires and tubes he had seen Doctor Singh use on patients in the
Aspect
’s sick bay. He then saw a clear image of Ocelot and heard her say, “Venom,” in his mind. Blue Fire had activated that memory.
Rainbow web. Now
.

Altin was fully awake then, the horror of the revelation filling him with a chill. “It’s happening now?” he both spoke aloud and sent to Blue Fire across all that space.

Now. Must speed.

“Where? Where is she? Gods-be-damned, can’t you show me where?”

He saw an image of Earth in his mind.

Altin’s exasperation made him cry out in frustrated agony. Of course she was on Earth. To Taot he sent the sense of urgency. “Lower,” he shouted. “Go down closer to the streets.”

The dragon responded to the thought Altin sent, and they plunged down to only just above the movements of the rumbling vehicles. Taot rumbled in response, a growl in his throat at the fumes coming from them, the ionized quality of their exhaust and even the black material of their wheels giving off odor from simply rolling across the ground. He rumbled, but he flew. He banked sharply around corners, the speed of their flight blurring the glass panels of the buildings into one long smudge in Altin’s eyes.

Finally, an agonizing span of minutes more, Taot let out a roar. He pulled up so sharply that Altin would have slid down his back and tumbled off his tail had he not grabbed hold with all his strength to one of the dragon’s large scales. The dragon turned back in a steep powerful arc, twisting as he banked, nearly inverted for a time and diving down as if upon newfound prey.

He pulled up sharply again, only this time to stop, and with three powerful sweeps of his wings, brought them to the ground. Even with the braking movements of his wings, they hit the ground so hard Altin tumbled off anyway, spared injury only by having bounced once off a wing as it was folding in.

Altin wasted no time thinking of such things. He merely righted himself and sent Taot a single thought:
Where is she?

Taot’s sinewy neck snaked down, and he lay his big head upon a metal grate set into the ground. He gave a long, audible sniff, then blew a little puff of smoke out of his nose over it. The gray wisps of it were carried instantly up and away by air currents coming through the grate.

“She’s in there? Down there?”

Taot rumbled again, the sound accompanied by the mental essence of the dragon’s carnal understanding of Altin and Orli’s relationship.

That was good enough. With no warning for the dragon at all and only the barest glimpse of sight into his cave, Altin sent Taot home. Hardly a heartbeat passed after, and Altin’s seeing spell was cast again, this time his vision plunging down into the grate and chasing hope through every twist and curve of ductwork at speeds that more than rivaled dragon flight.

Chapter 20

“I
don’t want your stupid meal,” Orli spat at the corporal as she twisted in the grip of the two men holding her down on her bunk. “Fuck you. I hope you and your whole goddamn family die in agony from Hostile disease.”

While executions were rare, the corporal charged with seeing the process through was a seasoned enough prison guard to be used to that sort of remark, so he didn’t let it bother him. “You don’t have to eat,” he said. “It’s up to you if you want something fancy or not. I’m just supposed to ask.”

“Ask yourself why you’re such a worthless piece of shit.” She hated him as much as all the rest despite his attempts at kindness. She hated him because he didn’t believe her story about Blue Fire’s innocence and that there was another Hostile world. He’d only smiled politely and done his job, every time she tried to tell him, meal after meal.

“I’ll put you down for whatever they’ve got made,” he said. He nodded to the two men with him, and the biggest of the two put the gag back in Orli’s mouth. She mumbled and drooled a series of unintelligible profanities at them as they left.

When they were gone, she slumped back against the wall of the cell bunk and fumed. She had to channel her panting fury through her nose, which made her eyes water and threatened to gag her by the backpressure of it. She had to mellow herself out. This wouldn’t be any better than crying, she knew, and she’d done enough of that during the night, crying and all the rest, the fits of fury, defiance, terror, sorrow and regret, all going round and round. Doing most of that was miserable with the damn gag blocking everything.

She wished she knew what time it was. She had no frame of reference. Only the meals. There had been four since her court martial. And since they’d just asked her what she wanted, the one they’d just offered her would obviously be her last.

A knock on the door was followed by its opening to allow her attorney, Angela, inside. The youthful lawyer looked down at Orli with her splotchy red face and the glistening stripe of drool running down her neck and shook her head. “You look like shit,” she said. She immediately stepped near and removed the headgear with the ball gag.

“What difference does it make?” Orli said after taking a long, deep breath. “They’re going to kill me now. I’m pretty sure I just got offered my last meal.”

“You did.”

“I’m surprised they let you back in here.”

“So am I. I had to make a pretty big stink. Plus, I think they felt bad at how grotesquely obvious their denials of all my appeal applications were.”

“I don’t suppose you got any help from your uncle in Reno, did you?”

“Not yet. They’ve had a spate of desertions out there. I guess there are quite a few people who aren’t as happy about their enlistments now that there is a war on as they were when they were traveling the system on the NTA’s tab and hanging out in base bars looking for hookups.”

“Oh, well that’s definitely more important than this. Heaven forbid some eighteen-year-olds decide they’re suddenly afraid to die. We definitely want to get right on that. I appreciate your uncle’s ability to prioritize.”

“Ensign Pewter, I’m doing everything I can. I’m trying. I swear I am.” The dark circles under the woman’s eyes verified it. Endless frustrations and conspicuous roadblocks to her attempts to file for appeal had worn her down considerably, and she hadn’t gotten any sleep at all.

Orli laughed, more a breath than a sound, a pulse of air through her nose as she shook her head. Twenty, she thought as she watched her attorney fighting with guilt and fatigue. They shouldn’t have sent such a bright young mind to do this. They were probably just going to traumatize the poor thing for having failed so miserably in her first assignment. Better they had just let Orli die alone. The charade of a defense wasn’t going to mean anything. Except for the official record obviously. It was important for posterity that no one discover how crooked and desperately afraid they all were. They could make up a story about the initial hearings, of course; all of that had happened on the
Aspect
, the records would say. Or on some ship that had been destroyed. Nothing left for evidence. “Such a shame, but these things happen” and all of that.