Scattered Suns (61 page)

Chapter 132—MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

The myriad enemy battleships hung in the open air like all the stars in the Horizon Cluster. As leader of the Ildiran Empire, Jora’h would face the hydrogues alone.

Because they had not attacked, Jora’h guessed that Osira’h must have communicated with them somehow, accomplished her mission. The girl had succeeded in opening the Ildiran soul to the alien mind-set of the hydrogues. She had brought the hydrogues here, exactly as so many previous Mage-Imperators had hoped. Now it would be up to him.

He suddenly realized that strangers were witnessing this spectacle as well. Sullivan Gold, his green priest, all of the Hansa skyminers, even the human scholar Anton Colicos. Though he despised himself for the thought, Jora’h knew he could never allow them to pass this information along to the Terran Hanseatic League. No one could reveal that hydrogues had come to the Ildiran Empire. Jora’h had to prevent that from happening at all costs.

He stopped at the passage that would take him to the highest platform and spoke quietly to Yazra’h. “Have your guards take custody of all our human guests. They cannot be allowed to return to the Hansa. They have seen too much already.”

“Yes, Liege.” Yazra’h immediately saw to his instructions.

I am becoming more like my scheming father every day!

He sent his guards away and ascended to the high platform above the Prism Palace’s main sphere. No one, not even the entire Solar Navy, could protect him if the deep-core aliens decided to open fire. At the pinnacle of the crystalline structure, Jora’h stood in full view of the hydrogues. His fine robes hung loosely on him, drifting in the breezes. He waited, feeling a sense of impending fate.

All across the city, Ildirans stared into the sky with fear. After the Hyrillka rebellion, their leader had rewoven the strands of
thism
and made them feel whole again. Now, through his command of the soul-threads, he tried to keep his people calm.

Jora’h faced the armada of silent hydrogue ships. A small bubble emerged like a dewdrop from the side of the nearest warglobe. He could sense Osira’h through the
thism
as soon as she drifted free from the high-pressure turmoil within the warglobe.

When the crystalline bubble came to a gentle rest before him on the high platform, he saw his young daughter inside. She appeared tense and exhausted, but unharmed. Her grave expression was far too serious for a little girl.

Jora’h drew another breath to calm himself. Oddly changed, seeming simultaneously strengthened and broken, Osira’h stepped into the bright light and breathed the open air, but she did not smile at her return to freedom.

“The hydrogues have agreed to communicate with you.” Each word sounded like a death sentence instead of a cause for celebration. “They may agree to an alliance, but they will impose conditions. If you do not agree, Father, none of us will survive.”

Jora’h wanted nothing more than to embrace his daughter, but he did not move as he addressed the hydrogue enemy in the sky. “In exchange for no further aggression against the Ildiran Empire, what do you want?”

When she relayed the answer, Osira’h would not meet her father’s eyes. “They require that we help them destroy the humans.”

Chapter 133—DOBRO DESIGNATE UDRU’H

No longer needing to keep his secret, Designate Udru’h flew with a group of companions down to Dobro’s southern continent. The transport pilot quickly found the isolated island where Nira Khali had been hidden for many months.

The Dobro Designate spoke little, but he was glad not to make this journey alone, as he had done on all previous occasions. Daro’h accompanied him; the young Designate-in-waiting had been an apt student and had managed the colony well enough while Udru’h dealt with his brother Rusa’h. Two guards rode along in the transport, as well as a lens kithman, a bureaucrat representative from the Prism Palace, and a medical kithman to ensure that the female green priest received immediate attention if she needed it.

Wrapped in his own thoughts, Udru’h stared out the craft’s window as they flew across the terrain approaching the vast lake. Before, he’d had to do everything himself, his thoughts walled off, unable to let anyone else in on the secret. Now the Mage-Imperator knew the truth.

Beside him, Daro’h gazed around with questioning eyes, not sure how to support his uncle. The young man guessed that Udru’h had done something unpleasant, perhaps even unforgivable. He had heard only sketchy details, but soon everything would be explained, once they recovered the green priest.

Though ready to make amends to the Mage-Imperator, Udru’h did not regret what he had done. Even after he delivered Nira to the Mage-Imperator, he knew that
she
would never forgive him. But he didn’t want or need her forgiveness. He had done this for his own reasons.

“We are approaching the island, Designate,” the pilot said.

Udru’h looked across the expanse of calm water toward the spot of land and its thick vegetation. The green priest had everything she needed there: sunlight, water, and the company of plants. Everything except contact with other people.

Now her exile was over. Udru’h would bring her back. If Osira’h had completed her mission, then the half-breed girl had made all those centuries of experiments worthwhile. Nira would not ever understand that, but she was not required to.

The transport craft landed on the long, tan beach. Udru’h sniffed the air and listened. Daro’h followed his uncle out onto the packed sand, staring into the bright tropical sky and at the dense thickets. He didn’t seem to be sure why he was here.

Udru’h waited, but the woman did not appear. Surely Nira had heard the craft arrive. There was no point in her hiding; the island wasn’t large. Perhaps she was afraid. She had always hated when Udru’h came to see her, to taunt her with her situation. But she had always shown herself.

“Fan out and search the island. She cannot have gone far.”

The other Ildirans forged through the undergrowth, calling Nira’s name. Udru’h wandered to where she had made a crude shelter out of branches and fallen foliage. Uneasiness swept through his mind when he saw that the lean-to had collapsed into disrepair. It looked as if no one had been there for a long time.

“Where did she go? Where could she go?”

It took less than an hour for them to cover every patch of land and then search again. Udru’h stood reeling. What would the Mage-Imperator say?

The island was empty, and the green priest woman was gone.

Chapter 134—RLINDA KETT

I’ve been trapped in worse places and with worse people,” Rlinda said to BeBob, waving a hand around to indicate the cavern beneath the frozen crust of Plumas. “Even so, I wish we had something to do. Maybe we should learn the water-mining business.”

“And try some sabotage, you mean?” Clearly suspicious, Caleb Tamblyn looked up from where he was tinkering with a pumping generator. He blew on his cold fingers, scowled at her, then went back to work. “This is a war, not a holiday. Put up with it.”

“It’s not any kind of war I can understand—and I don’t think you do, either.” She had never carried any grudge against the Roamers, except when Rand Sorengaard preyed upon her company’s ships.

“May I please have another pair of gloves?” BeBob sauntered up, rubbing his hands together. “It’s always cold down here.”

“We’re on an ice moon—it’s supposed to be cold.” Scowling again, Caleb picked up his tools. When he stood, his knees cracked audibly. “You’ll get used to it. Besides, I’m sure you have better conditions than all the Roamer POWs the Eddies took in their raids.”

“I’m skeptical of people who describe how good you have it by dredging up something even worse,” Rlinda said. BeBob sat beside her on a blocky piece of equipment, but stood up as soon as the metal’s chill penetrated his thin trousers.

Seeing the casual way the Tamblyns ran the water mines, Rlinda didn’t doubt that she and BeBob could find a way to break free, maybe steal her own
Curiosity
back if Denn Peroni and the Tamblyn brothers hadn’t damaged it too much in “fixing” it. For the time being, though, they weren’t desperate enough; besides, the EDF would still be after them. They would stay together here and see how things played out.

In the evenings, Rlinda and BeBob had little to do except cuddle in their shared hut, play a few games, and learn some forms of gambling that were popular among the Roamers. During the days, they bundled up and walked along the small ice shelf that butted up against the underground sea.

It was clear that the Tamblyn brothers didn’t know what to do with their hostages. Taking prisoners and seizing the damaged
Curiosity
must have seemed like a good idea to them at the time, but now they were stuck with the consequences.

She and BeBob cobbled together enough warm clothes to keep themselves comfortable. Scrawny BeBob was easy to fit. He could borrow old jumpsuits and embroidered shirts from any number of the water miners. Few Roamers were as large as Rlinda, however. She made do with her own captain’s clothes, voluminous wraps, and some of her private wardrobe that she had bullied the Tamblyns into letting her remove from the
Curiosity
.

As a businesswoman, she took interest in the large-scale operations on Plumas. The engineering and water distribution followed a reasonable model, and the Roamers had apparently been successful here for several generations, though no one in the Hansa had ever heard of the place.

She and BeBob walked around the complex, crunching over the frozen ground, and looked across the subterranean sea. The two of them stopped in front of a woman who seemed to be carved out of a solid block of ice. She stood upright, locked in place like a statue, but apparently this was a real woman frozen years ago in an accident and now left on display like an ice sculpture. None of the Roamers explained how the frozen woman had gotten here or what they intended to do with her.

As Rlinda watched, lights began to sparkle through the icy coating, as if the woman was gradually melting from the inside out. She and BeBob could see the features of Karla Tamblyn, her skin pale and waxen beneath the glacial placenta. A pool of warmed water began to spread out like a base around her feet.

“Hey!” Rlinda shouted. “Anybody want to take a look at this?”

Some eerie form of internal energy was working through the woman’s frozen tissues, a spark that turned the icy cocoon transparent. Slowly, like a snake shedding its skin, the water slid off, one thin layer at a time.

“Maybe she’ll want a thermal blanket once she wakes up,” BeBob said. “Or some hot tea.”

“If you want my bet, she’d rather have a shot of something strong.”

The twin brothers Wynn and Torin came out to stand beside Rlinda and BeBob. “She’s changed a lot in the past day,” Wynn said to his brother, as if inspecting a cargo box. “I just wish Jess had told us what we’re supposed to do with her...or what to expect.”

“Something’s happening, that’s for sure,” Torin said.

BeBob wrapped his arms around his chest. “It’s so cold down here I don’t see how she can be melting.”

Rlinda looked at the dead woman’s face, saw delicate features, strong cheekbones, and a noble forehead. Her eyes were strangely open and staring through the frozen sheath.

Wynn saw the two prisoners’ curiosity and let out a sigh. “Ah, Karla and Bram had quite a romance, you know. Not that my brother was the easiest man to get along with, but Karla was smart. Bram could complain like no one else, but it never bothered Karla. She simply ignored him when he was being irrational, or she made him feel foolish for pointing out the deficiencies in everyone and everything but himself.”

“That’s why I never got married,” Torin said, standing close to his twin. “Seeing an example like that, I decided I just didn’t need all that grief.”

Wynn scowled at him. “Then you didn’t see all the love they had too. Better to have a few lows along with the highs than just live on a flat line, like you do.”

“I’ll remind you of that the next time you go grumbling—”

The thin ice surrounding Karla’s body cracked and splintered. The twins stopped their banter and drew a simultaneous breath. Spiderweb fractures crazed the frozen shell covering the woman’s body. The cracks grew wider with a sound like twisting bones. Torin shouted.

Behind them, an administrative hut popped open and Andrew, the other brother, stepped out, looking around.

“She’s thawing,” Wynn called.

Karla’s arms were spread, bent at odd angles, and now one arm slowly straightened. The ice cracked and peeled off, falling in chunks to the slushy pool that surrounded her on the ice shelf. The Tamblyn brothers yelped simultaneously in excitement and fear.

Rlinda took BeBob’s arm and pulled him back a step. “Let’s...give the lady a little bit of room.”

The remainder of the ice fractured and fell like hail onto the ground. Karla swiveled her head, and small frozen shards dropped out of her stiff hair. Filmy debris peeled like scales off her clinging uniform. Her skin had a strange luminous quality, and her hair, though damp, began to twitch and writhe like Medusa strands. With a sound like glaciers slamming together, Karla’s chest expanded.

Without bothering to throw on a thermal jacket, Andrew sprinted across the ice shelf, unable to believe what he saw.

Glowing, Karla lifted one foot, broke it free from where it had been fused to the ground, and took a step forward. Her movements were clumsy and wooden, but as she moved and gained balance, the phosphorescent energy within her swelled, filling her garments, her flesh, and her hair.

“Karla, do you know us?” Wynn stepped tentatively forward. He was searching for something, hoping for a glint of recognition. “Jess brought you here, but he didn’t tell us what else to do.”

“She’s not going to come with an instruction sheet!” Caleb snapped.

The woman turned but did not acknowledge them. She took another step.

Andrew came skidding up next to them. “She’s alive! Karla, you’ve come back.”

Crackling with secondhand wental power, she plodded along. With each step, energy shimmered out of her like cold flames, sending tiny cracks and shivers through the solid ice of the ground. Steam began to curl up around her.

Rlinda looked at BeBob. “I don’t like this very much. Seems like an awfully chilly reception...no pun intended.”

“Karla, why won’t you say anything? Don’t you remember us?” Andrew stepped into her slow but relentless path. He reached out to grab Karla’s upper arms to make her look at him.

But as soon as his fingers touched the ice-woman’s crackling skin, Andrew screamed, caught in a sudden discharge that flowed from her body into his like a power surge. In a dismissive gesture, Karla swung her hand and knocked him aside, as if he were no more than a lightweight piece of garbage. Spasming in silence, Andrew tumbled in a broken heap on the ice.

Rlinda could tell with a glance that the younger man was dead—either burned or electrocuted.

The reanimated woman stopped and swiveled her head. Her eyes were black, bottomless, empty depths. Steam continued to rise around her like a faint fog. Seeing what she had done, Karla flexed her hand, raised it up so she could stare at her own fingers. Then she looked back at the body of murdered Andrew. Her pale lips curved upward in a satisfied smile.