Redemption of Light (The Light Trilogy) (46 page)

Cole studied Woloc quizzically. The young lieutenant met his gaze squarely. “Why? Why would you tell me?”

Woloc twisted his hands atop his knees. “Because Amirah trusts you. And after the assassination attempt, I’m afraid not to. We’re going to be exiting vault in eight hours, Captain Tahn. Whatever we’re going to do, we’re going have to plan for it fast.”

Slothen stood in the darkness before the windows of his office, gazing out over the nighttime city of Naas. the triangular mirrored buildings reflected the sporadic rifle fire that lit the satellites. Fighters crisscrossed the skies, occasionally lancing the satellites when they could identify groups of Gamants. He twined the fingers of three of his hands together nervously.

“Do you see them?” Mastema asked from where he sat atop his antigrav gurney. “They’re massing.”

“I see them, and they’re doing it despite our capture of that little female leader.” Through his infrared vision, Slothen could make out a vast glowing crescent of human bodies ringing Satellites 4 and 6. “General Ornias’ spies say they’re waiting to attack.”

“Waiting for what?” Mastema spat irritably. In the starlight, his blue face glimmered like wet slate. “They’ve got Ornias’ soldiers bottled up tight within the military installation’s walls. Why wait at all?”

Slothen lifted his twined fingers and held them over his ruby red lips while he thought. “They say the Mashiah is coming. They’re waiting for him to lead them to victory.”

Mastema opened his mouth, obviously to say something bitter, but he slowly closed it and turned back to gaze out the window at a violent explosion that fired a point on Satellite 6. A slack, haunted expression possessed the Master Magistrate. Very quietly, he whispered, “I pray to Milcom that they’re wrong.”

Slothen glanced at Mastema from the corner of his eye. Hadn’t he heard that name before? Milcom … Milcom. … He methodically searched his tri-brain, trying to isolate the time and place. It had been years ago, more than a decade, hadn’t it? On some backward world at the edge of the galaxy …
Horeb.
Yes. Yes, of course, that wild prophet on Horeb twelve years ago had preached about Milcom. Adom Kemar Tartarus had been his name.

Slothen surreptitiously examined Mastema. “Mastema, where did you hear of—”

Mastema lifted a hand abruptly, demanding silence. A fighter swooped erratically over the city, swerving around buildings to dive in low and sail down a major street. It listed suddenly and the nose struck the ground. It burst into a ball of fire and tumbled into a residential section. A thunderous rumble shook the government headquarters.

Slothen grabbed the windowsill to steady himself. “I can’t believe … How could they have gotten weapons?”

Mastema turned his gurney around and somberly headed for the dark doorway where his guards waited. “How long until Tahn and Calas arrive, Slothen?”

“Six hours.”

Mastema hesitated in the doorway, swiveling around to gaze blindly out the window. As the station’s lighting deepened toward midnight, a gaping blackness swelled. Long stringers of light swirled down into the maw like silver threads. Ominously, Mastema whispered,
“Zohar.”
Then he waved a hand emphatically. “You must take special precautions, Slothen. I don’t care if you have to pull every soldier off the satellite battlefields to guard the spaceport on Palaia, we have to make certain that no one can rescue Tahn or Calas.” He gazed back at the spinning darkness that blotted half the heavens.
“No one.”

CHAPTER 49

Sybil woke and pushed up in her bed in the brig. Her shoulder continued to ache a little when she moved, but the severe pain had gone. She silently observed the line of beds where Mikael, Ari, and Yosef slept. They looked serene, unaware of the hordes of enemies surrounding them.

Jeremiel continued to pace anxiously before the door, hands propped on his hips. Sybil had seen him there every time she’d opened her eyes in the past few hours. Cole Tahn had been gone when she’d awakened two hours ago. He was still gone. She’d tried asking Jeremiel what had happened, but Baruch had simply shaken his head and glanced significantly at the monitors surveying every inch of the room.

Mikael sensed Sybil’s movements and rolled over on his side. He smiled drowsily at her, reaching out to grasp her arm and squeeze it.

“How are you?” he whispered. Black hair framed his pale face in a curly shroud, tangling in his beard.

“Mikael,” she said. “I know where Nathan is.”

He blinked his eyes open. “Where?”

She quietly told him of her dream and the names she’d heard mentioned. “The man with Nathan, Yeshwah, called the city
Yerushalaim.
It must be on a very backward planet. There was no technology at all, except for crude swords and horses for transportation. And the people were all dressed in coarse homespun robes.”

Mikael shook hair out of his face and his eyes darted over the room while he thought, then he leaned forward and whispered, “Sybil, do you remember the old stories about the Fathers of the Gamant people? Avram,
Yeshwah,
and Sinlayzan? Wasn’t Yeshwah killed in a city called Yershulim. You know how pronunciation changes over time, maybe it’s the same.”

“Maybe.” Sybil’s mind ran wild with images of the metallic green water and the men in long white robes. What had it been called… ? She struggled with her memory of the Old Stories her father used to tell her….
The shores of the Sea of Arabah?

Sybil reached out and gripped Mikael’s hand hard. “Old Earth?”

“Why would your mother take Nathan there?”

She started to answer, but halted when she saw Jeremiel stop pacing. He stood pensively, head tilted, listening to sounds coming from the hall beyond. He’d clenched his fists, as though on the verge of bursting through those light bars. And somewhere outside, Sybil heard Cole Tahn talking.

She quickly turned back to Mikael, trying to answer his question before the room burst to life again. “On the balcony, after the fight, Mama told me that she was
building the Kingdom of God.
I didn’t know what it meant, but—”

Tahn strode swiftly into the room and the guards turned the light bars back on—a vague hum sounded. Sybil watched fearfully as Tahn gave Baruch a severe look and walked past him to the table. Cole used the toe of his black boot to pull out a chair, then propped his foot in it. He turned to peer at Jeremiel wryly. “You know, the Magistrates are a bunch of
nahash
sonsabitches.’“

Baruch nodded and walked thoughtfully toward Tahn. “I’ve known that for a long time. ‘Snakes,’ every one of them.”

“Did you know that the word ‘Naas’ in Giclasian means snake? Fits, doesn’t it?”

Jeremiel’s steps faltered for the briefest of moments. “I didn’t know that, but it does fit. You’ve been gone for four hours, Cole. What did the nahash sonsabitches do to you?”

“Oh, I spent a little time with Jossel and Woloc, then the lieutenant took me down to the med lab and left me under a probe unit for a couple of hours.”

Baruch looked like he wanted to kill something. “Really? I thought—”

“She changed her mind. Just like a woman.” Cole glowered and waved it off. He couldn’t tell Jeremiel that Woloc had had no choice, that when he and the lieutenant had walked out of Amirah’s cabin and straight into the arms of the ship’s physician, Woloc had had to think fast.

Cole glanced around the room, surveying Mikael and Sybil’s taut faces and the curious looks coming from Funk and Calas. He gave Baruch a nonchalant shrug. “Anyway, I’m all right. Just a little sick to my stomach.”

“Well, sit down,” Jeremiel instructed. He pulled out a chair for Cole which he gratefully dropped into. “They’re snakes, all right.”

Baruch took a chair beside Cole and tipped it back on two legs. “You’ll find this interesting, Cole. There’s an ancient Gamant legend about snakes. It says that the first man and woman were created of Pure Light and lived on a lush garden world. Their names were Adom and Hava. They were deceived by a serpent into taking off their garments of Light and clothing themselves in the skins of serpents. When Epagael found out, he punished them by throwing them out of the garden and condemning them to live in metal mountains for eternity. Which Gamant zaddiks have always interpreted as spiritual darkness. It’s said that human beings will only awake from the darkness when the Holy Serpent descends into the Abyss and vanquishes it.”

Cole chuckled disdainfully. “Metal mountains, huh? Like space stations? Palaia is certainly a center of spiritual darkness, I’ll grant you that. But what the hell is a
holy
serpent? I thought all serpents were symbols of evil in Gamant mythology?”

“No.” Mikael walked forward to hunch over the table, his dark eyes searching, as though he’d picked up something of what Cole and Jeremiel were up to. “Not all serpents are bad. The story Jeremiel was telling continues by talking about how the Spiritual Woman, the Mother of Life, who represents the female aspect of the Kingdom of Light, transforms herself into a serpent and appears to the sleeping Adom to wake him—to give him back his garment of Light”

“Why does she appear as a serpent? I’d think a god could transform herself into something a lot less frightening.”

Baruch waggled a finger. “It’s a disguise, you see. That way, the serpents of the Abyss think she’s one of them and …”

Jason Woloc’s voice penetrated the room. Cole slowly turned to look at the young lieutenant. Woloc pretended ease as he chatted with the two corporals outside the door, but his right hand clutched his holstered pistol like a lifeboat.

The light bars vanished in a flash and one of the corporals hurried across the floor, pointing a gun at Cole’s face. He grimaced and got up.

“What’s this, Lieutenant?” he called belligerently to Woloc as he headed for the door. “Another torture session so soon?”

Woloc glowered and pulled his own pistol as Cole stepped into the corridor. “This way, Tahn. Your probe chair is still warm.”

Cole caught himself doing a double take. Woloc sounded utterly serious. “I’m well aware of that, Lieutenant.”

Woloc gestured down the hall with his pistol barrel. “You know the way to the tube, Captain.”

When they got around the corner and into the transport tube, Woloc seemed to wilt. He sagged against the tube wall and hit the patch for level twenty. “She’s waiting for you in the level twenty lounge, Tahn.”

“She came out of it all right?”

“Perfectly. As though nothing ever happened. She didn’t even remember …” Woloc stopped awkwardly. “Anything from last night.”

“Did she ask about it?”

“Yes. I told her in great detail. It scared me to death. I didn’t know what would happen to her when I got to the end of the holo story.”

“And?”

“She didn’t believe me at first. We talked. And she saw the laser hole in the chair. I think she believes it all now. She’s started putting things together. She’s deeply worried.”

“Understandably. Why the level twenty lounge?”

“I thought it would be too dangerous for her to meet you in her cabin again. Most of the engineering staff is in a division meeting in the 2010 conference room.”

“I assume that’s still at the other end of the deck?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

The tube stopped and Woloc got out and checked the passageway. “Clear, hurry.”

Cole broke into a trot, turning right at the intersecting corridor. When he got to the level twenty lounge, Woloc instructed, “It’s sealed. Back up, Tahn.”

Cole complied and Woloc input the code to open the door. When it whisked back, Woloc grabbed Cole’s arm to stop him from entering. He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Take it easy on her, Tahn. She’s still shaky. I don’t know how stable she is.”

“Thanks for the warning. I’ll take it easy. Thank you, Lieutenant,” Cole stepped into the lounge. The door snicked closed behind him and he noted the red flashing light on the patch which indicated the room had been sealed again. He couldn’t get out—unless someone with authority decided to be beneficent.

He stood for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the candlelit room. Odd, that he’d forgotten how pleasant the level twenty lounges on Magisterial cruisers were. Candlelight and violin music flitted over the small wooden tables that scattered the floor. Holos of different species of trees adorned the walls with green, red, and yellow splashes of color.

When he could finally see, he spotted Amirah. She sat alone in a booth on the far side of the lounge. A stack of ancient tattered books sat in front of her. Her form-fitting purple uniform glimmered with a brassy hue in the flickering gleam of the candles.

Jamming his hands in the pockets of his tan jumpsuit, Cole walked across the lounge and stood uneasily in front of the booth. Amirah’s oval face shone golden, splotched here and there by faint dots of freckles.

“I understand you’re feeling better.”

She looked up through unsettled eyes. “Depends on what you mean. Physically I’m fine. Jason told me what you did last night. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

With a trembling hand, she gestured to the opposite bench. “Please sit down, Captain. I’ve been doing some studying I thought you might find interesting.”

He slid in on the bench across from her and cocked his head. “About what?”

“Grandmama used to say, ‘Amirah, you must clasp the nightmare of your people’s exile to your breast or you’ll never be free.’“

Cole studied the way her mouth had pinched. “Sounds typically Gamant. What does it mean?”

She corraled the stack of old books with her hands and pushed them toward him. Faint remnants of gold lettering glittered on the bindings. “Ever seen these?”

He glanced speculatively at the volumes. “In your cabin, on the table. What are they?”

“Lieutenant Rad confiscated them from the old men who captured Engineering. He said he thought we ought to put them in stasis since they contained highly classified information.”

“On what?”

Amirah pulled one of the volumes out of the stack, flipped through the brittle pages to find her place and remarked, “On the history and construction of Palaia Station. Come look at this, Cole.”

The tightness in her voice made Tahn immediately rise and slide in on the bench next to her. She bent forward and pointed to something in the text. The strange diagrams on the ancient yellowed page shone starkly against the black tabletop.

He studied the symbols. “What are they?”

“These designs show the gradual development of the various structures of the sacred
Sefiroth.
My grandmother used to drill them into my head.”

“And what are
Sefiroth?”

“Spheres—vessels of light in the beginning—which burst to form the foundation of Creation. Together the Sefiroth create a realm of divinity which underlies all that we see and hear and touch; it’s active in all that exists. The ancient Gamant mystics maintained that salvation lay in gathering up all the dispersed sparks and returning them to God.”

Cole’s heart fluttered as though his body knew something his mind hadn’t quite put together yet. “Sparks?”

“In the context we’re about to discuss, let’s call them primordial black holes—which because of the evaporation rate appear to be white holes, correct?”

“Yes …
sparks.”
His heartbeat grew to a drumroll. “And how did these ancient mystics plan on gathering up all the sparks?”

“Through a complicated process known as
Tikkun,
which is where Baruch’s home planet gets its name. The process sought to return everything to its original root.”

“You mean the Big Bang?”

“No. Before. The mystics called it the Treasury of Light. It’s a … a primordial ocean of pure energy.”

Cole rubbed his chin. “Maybe I’d better take a closer look at these
Sefiroth
diagrams.”

She gestured for him to do so and Cole braced his hands on either side of the ancient paper volume. A series of thirteen geometric designs crowded the page. As he studied them, a suffocating sensation gripped him as if a hard fist had knocked the wind out of him. It all fell into place—the connected diamonds, the vertical orientation, the two event horizons inclined at forty-five degree angles. He whispered,
“Sefiroth,
huh?”

“Uh-huh.”

Their gazes held, hers severe, his astounded. “You know as well as I do that we’re looking at the space-time map for an electrically charged black hole. Crude, but that’s what it is.”

Amirah nodded. “And that’s only the beginning. Let me show you this other book.” She reached across the table and slid another out.