Requiem for Anthi: Anthi - Book Two (23 page)

Slowly, slowly, my beloved. Do not fight so. Join with me. Breathe with me. Let thy heartbeat be as my own. Steady and sure
.

It felt as though the wound were in her own chest and back. The pain robbed her of breath. She felt the sucking weakness and struggled to push her mind beyond it. She must have control.

Slowly she gained it, aware of the fragility of the bond she formed. Even dying, Asan was stronger than she, yet she had to be the strongest. She forced his heart to slow, the blood to thicken, the vessels to contract. Her own heartbeat skipped painfully, and something seemed to be tearing inside her. She ignored it, ignored also the burning haze in her mind.

The wound gradually closed. Not the surface tissue damage, but the worst of the tears in arteries and veins. His heart jerked and increased its rate in spite of her, but already she could tell a difference. He was not yet safe, but at least he was no longer dying.

With a little sigh, she slumped. Someone caught her. She could not find the strength to open her eyes and see who.

“What are they?” asked Pared in awe. “Where do they come from?”

There was a roaring in her ears; she was sinking away. But faintly she heard the artificial voice:

“Have Saverson examine them both. Especially the brain cortex.”

And Zaula realized then in her last conscious moment that it would have been better for Asan to have died in battle than by the hand of sacrilege.

“It is not permitted to spread the blood of a Tlar leiil…” But her whisper was heard only in her mind.

From star to star, Anthi searched, her broadcast amplified by the power of Ruantl’s black hole.

“Asan. Asan. Asan.”

He dreamed he stood upon a molten sea of brass. A strong wind gusted in his face, sweeping back his hair and billowing his clothes. The sky blazed scarlet and amber against the enormous dirty gray cloud spreading across the horizon. He stood high above the world, supported by nothing tangible, and his line of vision went for a hundred miles in all directions. At his back lay the city that had been his capital, where the people now ran screaming for their lives that were already lost. Evacuations had been going on for months, yet far too many remained, unable to believe disaster could befall them until now when the cloud of fallout approached
.

He lifted his face to the sky and let the wind whip the tears from his cheeks. His world and his people were dying. There was nothing he could do except vow to someday bring the remnant back and reseed what had been a fair and graceful land
.

Something shook him.

He swam up to the edges of consciousness and retreated.

Something shook him again.

He resisted, afraid of leaving the gray mist around him. “I can’t,” he mumbled. “I can’t.”

It was a hand upon his shoulder. “Tobei?” said a hoarse voice so close to his ear that Asan felt the tickling warmth of breath.

“Come on, boy. Wake up. There ain’t much time.”

There was pain in reality and a great tiredness. Asan opened his eyes, saw only fuzzy outlines and a blinding light. He closed his eyes again.

“That’s it. Wake up, Tobei. Come on now.”

What had he been doing? Sitting in an old chair of orad wood during a council meeting, bored beyond recovery, and thinking about Synean dancing girls? So when had the roof fallen in?

“I should have paid more attention.” His tongue was swollen.

“Whatever you say, Tobei. Just wake up. Open those big blue eyes and look at me. That’s right.”

A face swam into focus slowly. Asan frowned and squinted. “Udge…”

A wide grin of discolored teeth rewarded him. “That’s right. Drink some of this.”

The rim of a cup was pressed to Asan’s lips. He swallowed a cool, sweet-tasting liquid and choked a little. His head began to clear and he remembered Martok gunning him down.

“Udge, what—”

“Don’t try to talk. There ain’t time. Can you sit up? Easy.”

The pain, which had been fairly quiescent, came throbbing back with a vengeance as Udge pulled Asan upright. Asan gasped, pressing a hand to his chest, and Udge’s arm tightened around him.

“Hell, you’re as big as a jellison tank. I’ll probably strain a gut tryin’ to get you out of here.”

Here was a clinical-looking room in sterile white with no windows and a bank of equipment and monitors. Asan was sitting on a metal table high enough off the ground for his legs to dangle. His legs did not seem to belong to him. He felt the dizziness coming back.

“Why—”

“If you can talk, you can walk. Ease off this table and lean on me. Careful! If you fall on me, I’ll be squashed for sure.”

Asan’s feet touched the floor, and his knees bent slightly to take his weight, then went on bending as weakly as reeds. Udge leaned against him to hold him up, sweating and cursing under his breath.

“Damn, I knew this wouldn’t work. Come on, Tobei,
try
. If we don’t clear out of here now, we’ll both be on the dissection table. Move your feet.”

Somehow they made it across the room. Asan frowned at the door. He seemed to be floating. Maybe Udge had an antigrav device on him. He reached out his hand, but it didn’t move in the direction he wanted it to. They blundered out the door and into a dark corridor. Asan was glad the light went away. His eyes stopped hurting.

“Tobei, get up on this. Pick up your foot and put it on the step. That’s right. Now the other one.”

Asan blinked at the hatchway and ducked through it without being told. He had no recollection of getting here. It looked like a shuttle, a very opulent one, but that made no sense. Why would a shuttle be down here?

Hands pushed him down onto a seat. He slumped, giving a little moan. It hurt to breathe, and he was so tired.

Udge sighed, helping him stretch out and strapping him in. The cushions were soft. Asan felt himself sinking into them.

“It’s gonna be a rough ride, Tobei. I ain’t never been much of a pilot, so you have to look out for yourself now.”

It took a tremendous effort to open his eyes. Asan frowned at Udge. “Why—”

“Hang tight. We’ll talk later.”

And Udge was gone.

It was too difficult to think. Asan let his head fall back and he closed his eyes. By the time Martok’s private shuttle lifted and arrowed into the dawn sky of Ghirdana, Asan was too far away to even feel the rough ride.

He was very young, and it was his first victory as a cintan. It was the first of what would be a stunning series of decisive victories in the Duoden Conflict; it was the first step toward achieving total surrender from the enemy
.

The summer sun blazed down upon Asan’s bare shoulders as he stood proudly in the skimmer transversing the broad avenue of the capital. People lined the street, cheering him. He was the youngest general to ever be given a triumph by the populace. Twelve trumpeteers marched ahead of his skimmer, and dancing maidens followed, throwing cighi blossoms and coins at the crowd
.

By tradition he showed his humility by wearing only the simple trousers of his infantry. But upon the alabaster steps of the Lea temple, the aging leiil decorated him with a broad collar of corybdium links, cool and heavy against his sun-warmed skin. The amethyst studs flashed in the sunlight as Asan straightened and accepted the tasseled baton of victory. He turned from the cool, appraising eyes upon him and faced the people with the baton raised high
.

A mighty cheer went up, and he thought, Someday I shall rule these people. Someday I shall be their leiil
.

Heavy vibrations brought him awake. He opened his eyes reluctantly. His eyelids weighed tons. But there was something wrong. The craft was shaking abnormally. Irritation filled him, and he lifted his head.

“Velocity and thrust are incompatible,” he said. He was lying across three seats. From this angle all he could see was another row of seats in front of him. “Udge? Adjust the variant ratio down to—”

“Hush, beloved,” said Zaula’s voice.

Suddenly she was beside him, her hands cool upon his hot face. She looked very tired. Her eyes were swollen.

He was glad to see her. “Zaula—”

“You mustn’t talk,” she said, laying a finger across his lips.

He kissed the smooth skin of her palm, then turned his head fretfully. The vibrations were getting worse. They made the pain resume in his chest.

“What is he doing? He can’t handle—”

“All is well, Asan. Lie back and rest. I will get you something to drink.”

It was very hot in the cabin. He felt suffocated by the seat cushions. They smelled of dust and chemical dyes and old perfume spills. He tried to unfasten the restraints around him, but his fingers fumbled weakly, and he had to close his eyes just a moment to rest.

When he opened them seemingly seconds later, the uncomfortable vibrations had stopped, and Zaula had done something different to her appearance. He thought about it a moment and decided she had discarded the sarong for a pair of coveralls and had pulled her dark hair back into a knot at the base of her neck. She looked very young as she knelt there beside him, her head lowered as though in meditation and her hand clasping his.

“Zaula?”

She glanced up with a start, and for a moment her dark eyes stared directly into his. The muted cabin lights caught the russet glints in her eyes. She smiled at him and lifted a cup of stale water to his lips.

“I am sorry. We haven’t any real supplies onboard,” she said. “There wasn’t time.”

He gulped thirstily, and when it was all gone he felt amazingly refreshed. Just the same, he was not fooled.

“You put something in it.”

“Yes, a sedative for the pain.” She met his gaze without apology. “You must rest all you can before we reach the base.”

“What is Udge doing? Why is he helping us?”

Her eyes grew veiled; she glanced away. “He is troubled. I think he has lost honor in selling your death for money. But you must ask him yourself later when you are stronger. Not now.”

“He never…had a conscience…before.”

Asan slurred the words. His eyes were growing heavy. He wished she had not drugged him. The dreams were too real already. It was because of the distort shifts about him, but if the distortions grew too wide he would slip through and never return. That was death, and he did not want to die. He reached out and grasped Zaula’s hand as though to hang on.

Blaise Omari stumbled through a stinking puddle and sloshed his way across to a low stone abutment. He crouched at the base of it, panting heavily. Perspiration stung his eyes under goggles that were fitted so tightly they cut into his face. His legs burned, and a stitch ran through his side with every breath
.

Thunder rumbled overhead, and another downpour opened up. The rain stung his skin through his shirt and pattered on the wide leather belt he wore slung across his chest and shoulder. He welcomed the rain; it made concealment easier
.

Except for signing on as a GSI crewer, this was the riskiest job he’d ever tried to pull for Martok. The old cyborg had better be satisfied this time and cut him some slack for a while. That is, if he got out of here at all. But he didn’t want to think about failure. And he didn’t want to think about the fact that Martok hadn’t actually asked for information on Institute black hole research
.

Everyone knew a couple of study ships had entered a few ergospheres and managed to come out almost in one piece. The rumor was that the GSI was now trying energy-harness experiments. If he got the facts to Martok in addition to his other contracted jobs, he might just become valuable enough to pull in
.

He had five more hours on his shore leave, and he was four hours at a hard run from the nearest transfer port. If the tip was correct and the vault locks really were on dianide circuits, then it would take him a minimum twenty minutes to get them open. He had to get inside now and fast, but he was still at the first perimeter
.

His thumb flipped a tiny switch on the side of his goggles, and his night vision shifted as infrared enhancement came on. An auto-focus in tandem with his eyes metered distances precisely for him. He took a deep breath, spotting the protection drone hovering silently less than fifty meters away, and pulled out a blunt-muzzled hand weapon. If he got close enough, it would stall the drone without doing circuit damage that would alert central Security
.

Now. He gathered his legs under him, curled one hand over the wet top of the wall, and moved
.

The voices were loud and angry.

“You’re crazy! I don’t owe you this kind of favor. Demos, Enster, you’ve got the nerve of a Vyarian.”

“You owe me plenty. You owe me so much I’m gonna blast a hole in you and let your guts mop the deck if you don’t take us aboard.”

“The whole base is on alert. If you’d had any sense you wouldn’t have come here in Martok’s own shuttle.”

“And where else would I go? Come on, Lu’ke. You’ve got the fastest smugglin’ ship in the quadrant. And I know for a fact that not even Martok knows about your hidden hold.”

“You know it,” said Lu’ke grimly. “So Martok knows it.”

“Naw, don’t be a bloatwit. He’d have hauled you in by now if he thought you were cheatin’ him.”

“You going to tell him if I don’t take you aboard?”

Udge laughed. “That’s right. You ain’t so stupid after all.”

Asan couldn’t quite surface from the drug Zaula had given him. He was fuzzily aware of being moved, not very gently, and Zaula’s voice upraised in anger. Then he was being crammed into a container of some kind that wasn’t really long enough for him. The air was very cold inside it, giving him a refreshing shock. He broke free of the drug then, just in time to see a lid slam down over him. Before he could panic, something pricked his arm, and he faded away once more.

It had been too long since regeneration. Asan’s bones ached. Even when he lay down for a couple of hours
’
sleep at night, he got no rest. His mind would not stop turning over alternatives, considering every detail until the images seemed grooved into his brain. It was like a puzzle where the solution could not be found. Yet he must find it and soon if the Tlar’n were to survive
.