Lost In Translation (33 page)

The room shook. The screaming stopped. The vidscreen went blank.

The Guildheart doors rattled but held . . . and thin rivulets of red ran beneath them onto the white stone floor, slowly forming a scarlet pool.

Karak found himself flat on his back, the watersuit's stabilization systems having been unable to cope with the sharp shock of the explosion. The Circle broke apart. His ears rang, and exhaustion gripped him like the deadly pressure of the ocean's black depths. But he could not rest yet. They had to check for wounded, remove the dead, restore communications. And then . . .

“Computer,” he said, climbing to his “feet” with a whirring of motors. “Record all images of the attack. Transmit to Commonwealth Central.” He looked around at the other Councilors. “If we're fortunate, Kitillikk just made her first mistake.”

 

Jarrikk looked around the circle of armed priests and said quickly to Kathryn, “Don't move.”

“I don't intend to,” she replied softly.

The fact they weren't dead already gave Jarrikk hope that these priests were not renegades, and might not even be aware that Akkanndikk was being held prisoner in the Temple. Although they'd find out soon enough: four of them pushed by Jarrikk and Kathryn and started back up the tunnel from which they'd just emerged.

The leader of the priestly party, a young male wearing a more ornate collar than the rest, snapped, “Bring them,” to his subordinates, and flew off toward the Great Tower.

Four large male priests spread their wings and leaped down to the Translators' level, while the remaining two stayed above with weapons ready. Prodded by firelances, the Translators clambered up the slippery river bank and, spattered with mud, trudged back toward the Temple they had just fled.

Kathryn glanced at Jarrikk, but he shook his head; no conversing would be permitted, and he didn't want to do anything to antagonize their guards, not until he'd had a chance to try to explain to the priests what had really happened in the room beneath the tower.

This time they entered the Temple through a door used only by the priests, in what he judged by the stonework to be the oldest part of the building, and climbed well-worn steps to a long corridor lit only by narrow slits on one side. They must be inside the defensive wall around the Temple, Jarrikk realized, approaching the thick, squat tower on its northeast corner: the dwelling of the High Priest—the same High Priest who earlier that day had been in space blessing the ships about to start the war against the humans that would destroy the Commonwealth.

The question Jarrikk was afraid he and Kathryn might die to answer was whether the High Priest had conspired with Kitillikk to trigger war by having a human kill the Supreme Flight Leader. Considering the fact that Jim had conveniently escaped before the priests arrived at the tunnel exit, that seemed a very real possibility.

The corridor ended in a strong wooden door and a strong armed guard. Jarrikk sensed her utter contempt as she opened the door to admit them to the chamber beyond.

There, in a circular room lit only by more of those narrow slits and a few flickering candles, the High Priest waited on her throne of stone, a shikk carved from a sacred rock the Hunter had spit down to S'sinndikk a millennium ago, blackened and scarred by the heat of His fiery breath. Or so Jarrikk remembered being told as a child. Whether the shikk was truly carved from a meteorite or not, it impressed with both its immense size and its great age. Even more impressive was what it portended: the High Priest considered the matter coming before her now to be of the utmost importance.

Jarrikk made the traditional bow of respect, but without the additional wing-spreading that signified submission. As a Translator, he would no more serve the High Priest than he served the Supreme Flight Leader. If he served anyone, now, it was the Guild and the Commonwealth.

Or maybe he served only himself and his own conscience. Maybe that was the way it should have been all along.

He felt certain the High Priest's piercing red gaze noted his lack of obeisance, but she said nothing about it, nor did any flicker of annoyance flare in the overall sense of grave determination he read from her. Instead she spoke to another S'sinn, the one who had led the party that had arrested them. “Recount the facts.”

“Yes, Your Eminence.” Jarrikk felt his eagerness—and, as he looked at Kathryn and Jarrikk, his hatred. “Yssiddrikk, an Acolyte of the Third Wing, reported to the Temple Guard shortly after noon that he had surprised an armed party of S'sinn and humans in High Tower. We sent a force there. On arrival, they killed a female human they found in the stairwell. Priest Skarridd died honorably seconds later at the hands of Pikkiro of the Supreme Flight, who was then slain in turn. We found four other dead S'sinn and a badly wounded S'sinn who died shortly thereafter.”

Good-bye, Ukkaddikk, old friend,
Jarrikk thought numbly.

“In addition, we found Supreme Flight Leader Akkanndikk, who is now undergoing medical treatment and for whom the prognosis remains guarded. Another S'sinn and a human were glimpsed fleeing down a tunnel, and accessing the Temple database revealed that it emerged under the Place of Flightless Sacrifice, although the database indicated the tunnel had been sealed. I took a force there, and captured this S'sinn and this human as they emerged.

“We have identified the dead S'sinn as the Priests Mikkarr, Dekkarriss, Kkillikki, and Akkarramm, all Acolytes of the Third Wing. The wounded S'sinn who died was the Commonwealth Translator Ukkaddikk. These two,” he gestured at Jarrikk and Kathryn, “our computer records identify as Translator Jarrikk and Translator Kathryn Bircher, who escaped from the human-crewed Guildship
Unity.
Acting Supreme Flight Leader Kitillikk has issued a standing order for their arrest, on the grounds of conspiring to assassinate the Supreme Flight Leader.”

The High Priest's eyes had never left Jarrikk's face during the recital. “And tell me, Hunter-Priest Rikkarrikk, what interpretation you place on these facts.”

“I think there can be only one,” Rikkarrikk replied. “Acting Supreme Flight Leader Kitillikk sequestered Supreme Flight Leader Akkanndikk here in secret because she feared there would be more attempts on the Supreme Flight Leader's life—and she was right. These so-called Translators, with the help of the traitorous Pikkiro, discovered the Supreme Flight Leader's whereabouts, escaped their Hunter-surrounded spaceship, and came here to finish the job they started. Our Acolytes surprised them and died trying to save the Supreme Flight Leader's life. Had Yssiddrikk not stumbled on the assassination party, the Supreme Flight Leader would now be dead.”

The High Priest already believed in just some version of events, Jarrikk could tell—but he could also detect, deeper within her, a shred of doubt. Would he have the opportunity to try to strengthen that doubt?

It appeared he would. The High Priest spoke to him, now. “And what have you to say, Translator Jarrikk? Do you admit your part in this attempt to kill the Supreme Flight Leader?”

“I do not,” Jarrikk said. “We had nothing to do with it.”

Rikkarrikk spun on him and lashed out with his claws, stinging his cheek. Jarrikk heard Kathryn gasp and felt her shock at the sudden violence. “How dare you lie to the High Priest!” Rikkarrikk hissed.

Jarrikk didn't even raise his hand to the spot, though he could feel the hot blood oozing through his fur. “I do not lie.”

Rikkarrikk lifted his claws again, but the High Priest stopped him. “Peace, Rikkarrikk. I will hear his interpretation as I heard yours.”

Rikkarrikk growled, but stepped aside. Jarrikk marshaled his thoughts. “High Priest, I do not deny that a human attempted to kill the Supreme Flight Leader, as Kitillikk has said. I do not even deny that that human was a Translator: to my horror, I have only just discovered the truth of that claim.

“Nor do I deny a conspiracy with roots in the Supreme Flight itself. But the details of that conspiracy are not as Hunter-Priest Rikkarrikk has interpreted them.” He took a deep breath. “Translator Jim Ornawka attempted to kill the Supreme Flight Leader. He acted with the help of, and in support of, Acting Supreme Flight Leader Kitillikk. He did so in order to trigger the war which we are even now on the verge of beginning.” The air in the chamber was thick with disbelief, including the High Priest's, but he pressed on. “The other Translators on S'sinndikk at the time of Kitillikk's coup did not know of Ornawka's involvement. We escaped from the spaceport with his help, and sheltered with Pikkiro of the Supreme Flight. Translator Ukkaddikk knew him to be a loyal supporter of the Supreme Flight Leader and hoped he would help us. Pikkiro had learned that the Supreme Flight Leader still lived, and was being held in the Temple by a small group of young priests who were fanatical supporters of Kitillikk. He hoped that if we rescued her, she could regain control of the Supreme Flight and call back the ships before the war began. Unfortunately, one of the renegade priests discovered us before we could rescue the Supreme Flight Leader. We made the attempt anyway. Several of the renegades died. In the confusion, Ornawka tried to kill the Supreme Flight Leader again, but Kathryn,” he indicated her, “stopped him. He escaped ahead of us down the tunnel. Rikkarrikk's force must have just missed him. The rest you know.” He stopped, meeting the High Priest's gaze squarely—and reading clearly that she did not believe him.

Nor did anyone else in the room, especially Rikkarrikk. “Give the word, Your Eminence, and they both die now, before you, like the dung-crawlers they are.”

“No,” the High Priest said. “All must be done as tradition demands—and the Supreme Flight must be involved in the final disposition of this matter. Skkarrissa . . .” She turned to an aide and began talking to her in a low voice.

Jarrikk looked at Kathryn, who looked back at him. Even though she couldn't have understood the words, the emotions in the room must tell her clearly how bleakly things stood. Unless they could make the High Priest believe . . .

The Link,
Jarrikk thought.
We need to Link with the High Priest, to show her the truth. But that's impossible . . .

Or was it?

Together he and Kathryn had already done the impossible: faked a Link, aborted war, Linked without the symbiote, achieved telepathy, read Ukkaddikk's mind without his awareness, sensed minds at an impossible distance. They both had some projective ability; Ukkaddikk had said so. Usually that meant some slight ability to influence another person's emotions—not much help when the emotions were as strong as those in this room.

But together, they weren't just empaths, they were telepaths. Did their projective ability extend to that? Could they, as Ukkaddikk had wondered and Jarrikk had denied, project their thoughts into another's mind?

Kathryn stood only a hand-span away. As inconspic uously as possible, he edged over to her. Rikkarrikk watched, but made no move to stop him. He knew they were both unarmed. What difference could it make if they touched?

A great deal, Jarrikk hoped.

His hand brushed Kathryn's. Everything that had just been said, and what he had just thought, flashed between them.

This time there could be no holding back. This time neither of them could conserve energy, or keep any part of themselves to themselves. This time, they had to Link as completely as they had ever done, and somehow they had to draw in the High Priest, as well.

The room dissolved around Jarrikk as he released his senses, plunging his mind into Kathryn's. The sensation was like falling, like that terrifying plunge into water and pain that had ruined his wings and set him on the path that had led, maybe inevitably, to this time and place—but this plunge didn't end in agony, but in a sudden explosion of new sight and sound and smell and taste. For a moment he
was
Kathryn, sensing every square centimeter of her inside and out, then he was himself, then he was Jarrikk/Kathryn, and his/ her mind looked around him/her to find the thoughts of every S'sinn in the room nakedly exposed—but only one mind of interest. The High Priest's mind beckoned like a fire on the other side of a black chasm. Jarrikk/Kathryn gathered his/her incorporeal muscles, and mind-in-mind, leaped into the flames.

From the moment she and Jarrikk emerged onto the river bank until they stood before the High Priest in the inner sanctum, Kathryn had to take her cue from Jarrikk. Obviously the priests who had captured them were not the renegades who had taken the Supreme Flight Leader prisoner, because they were still alive. But they didn't exactly seem friendly, either. It wasn't until Jarrikk touched her hand and explained in a telepathic flash what he wanted to try that she understood. She agreed instantly: they had everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Linked, they plunged into the High Priest's mind, brushing aside the barriers of shock and denial that rose before them and pouring into her brain the truth as they knew it to be, of Kitillikk's part in the assassination attempt on the Akkanndikk and her subsequent imprisonment.

The High Priest believed them. She had to: in the intimate embrace of the telepathic contact, there could be no lying. She felt that as clearly as they did.

And then, abruptly, the contact ended as Rikkarrikk, sensing something strange, seized Kathryn and pulled her away from Jarrikk. Her mind snapped back into itself like a released bit of elastic, and she staggered and slumped in Rikkarrikk's grasp from the shock, almost blacking out.

Jarrikk, with no one holding him up, dropped to his knees and then fell forward onto his hands, panting— and the High Priest gave a strange little sigh and fell sideways off of her shikk in a flutter of wings.