Survivors: Book 4 Circles of Light series (12 page)

It was only much later
that Singer understood how near to insanity his overwhelming grief
had taken him. He felt a loss within him that he couldn’t encompass
or deal with. In a stupor of uncomprehending pain, Singer had
followed the group of Ships and passively obeyed Kertiss’s
orders.

Star Dancer was one of
those Ships, older by far than Star Singer. She’d heard of the loss
of Mazan and she persisted in trying to talk to Singer. He hadn’t
answered her, or anyone else, for years, but slowly, slowly, Dancer
breached Singer’s pain and began to help him heal.

All the Ships sang in
flight and gradually Dancer persuaded and gently bullied until at
last Singer joined in. The Ships sang outwards: rarely did their
passengers hear their songs. The Ships sang for themselves, for the
freedom they might never have known, and they sang for the stars
they flew between.

Now with Kertiss still
shouting outside, Singer began to hum one of the thousands of
melodies he’d composed in his life as a Ship. Kertiss fell silent
then renewed his tirade.

‘You will answer me
Ship! If you can warble then you can speak. What did you tell those
ignorant fools I mistakenly allowed within this sacred
Dome?’

Singer allowed himself
to be baited while hoping to sidetrack Kertiss.

‘Sacred?’ he asked
thoughtfully. ‘This Dome is dedicated to a divinity, is holy, is
built for religious rites? I had no idea of that Kertiss. I thought
you disparaged such philosophical aberrations. Have you then
discovered the origins of the Dome’s construction at last? Do tell!
I find it fascinating.’

Beads of perspiration
shone on Kertiss’s brow. ‘Answer me Ship. Are you deliberately
blocking my communications with other Ships? If you are, I will
dismantle you piece by piece.’

Singer’s reply was
spoken meekly. ‘Kertiss, you have sealed the area above. I cannot
transmit beyond this Dome unless you retract the exclusion shields.
How can I block any incoming contacts?’

Kertiss scowled but
Singer continued. ‘Perhaps there has been some fluctuation in the
atmosphere which adversely affects wave transmission. You told me
the atmosphere on the other side of this planet is now totally
distorting any kind of surveillance beams.’

Kertiss let his breath
out in a gusting sigh. ‘You may be right but this loss of contact
with any other Ship is serious Singer. We are isolated enough in
this desert.’

‘But I thought you
ordered me to land here because it was isolated?’ Singer asked
innocently.

‘Such isolation suits
me and Orla – to a degree. I had not thought to lose contact with
all Ships.’

Orla emerged from one
of the passages.

‘The Ship was damaged
before we landed Kertiss. You know it was never normal. Leave the
damn thing and help me get through this interference. It seems to
be increasing on every frequency I use.’

Kertiss followed his
sister without another word to Singer.

Alone again, Singer
wept silently for a little while, then he remembered that wonderful
evening when those men had sat with him, telling him stories. And
that song the old one had sung! Pallin – that was his name. Oh how
they’d laughed as he sang. Singer chuckled at the memory: it had
been quite a rude song too.

Singer had memory cubes
encoding the record of the long journey to this world of Kel-Harat.
To pass the time, he occasionally studied some of those cubes. The
Ships had transferred from star system to star system, twitching
aside the curtain of Time to escape detection from any pursuers.
They had circled strange planets: gaseous giants on which
nonetheless were intelligent life forms. Such creatures fascinated
the Ships and many of their Captains. But a handful, like Kertiss,
refused to waste time surveying such worlds or trying to establish
contact with their inhabitants.

Singer found it mildly
amusing that it was Kertiss’s insistent plotting of one particular
Time Slip which took them backwards, into a known region of the
Cosmos. Unfortunately they had emerged almost directly in the path
of a scout ship of their Conglomeration enemies. After Time
Slipping, there was always a brief period of disorientation: Ships
and Captains checking that they were in fact where they had
intended to be. The scout ship used that hiatus to summon combat
ships and Singer learnt what real damage could be done with the
weaponry he and the other Ships carried.

Singer had never used
his weapons except in routine practice simulations and only now
fully understood the devastation they could wreak. With Kertiss
screaming at him, Singer instigated his own course and flipped into
the fabric of Time. To his immense relief, most of the other Ships
popped into existence around him, some by order of their Captains,
but others like himself, under their own volition.

The Ships drifted in
this pocket of Time, watching for any appearance of Conglomeration
combat ships which might have been fast enough to trace and follow
their course. When none appeared, Captain Namolos plotted a course
into the spiral arm of the Repsian Galaxy. There was a considerable
risk involved. It was a very long Time Slip and the positions of
the coordinated stars he was locking onto were only provisionally
confirmed in the sparsely marked star charts of the Repsian
region.

All the Ships loved
Star Dancer: she had been one of the first of these biological
Ships, and the others looked to her experience for guidance in most
matters. Through their devotion to Star Dancer they held her
Captain, Namolos, in great respect and also his wife Abesh and
their daughters Lemora and Gremara. Namolos and his family were
among many star travellers who had undergone extensive gene
sculpting with an emphasis on longevity, regeneration and increased
natural mind talents such as empathy and telepathy.

So the Ships didn’t
hesitate to follow Star Dancer although all were aware of the
danger in such a long Time Slip. They had burst into Real Time
above Kel-Harat and settled into orbit. Many Ships had suffered
varying degrees of damage in the skirmish with the combat ships and
knew that they would not survive any orbit to land descent. Others,
Dancer and Singer among them, decided they could survive a landing
but gave a very low estimate as to their abilities to escape the
planetary gravity once they were on the surface.

Singer hummed an air
from a Zeenolian opera and remembered the heaviness pulling at him
as he descended to the planet. After many orbits Ships and their
Captains had chosen various locations at which to land and Kertiss,
without reference to Singer, had chosen the vast desert in the
south of one of the land masses. He had found the long fertile
Valley secreted in its midst with the three domed structures.
Kertiss’s scanning of that area had revealed extensive underground
systems there and he ordered Singer to land as close to the Domes
as possible.

The inhabitants had no
technology capable of communicating with an interplanetary Ship and
the first they knew of Singer’s arrival was a booming thunder from
a clear sky and then a great grey shape manoeuvring down towards
them. People packed the open area around the Domes and to Singer’s
horror, he realised that Kertiss was activating the Ship’s weapons.
Singer overrode Kertiss’s commands, reporting vocally that there
was a fault in the relay. Singer hovered before touching down in
the lesser space amid the three interlocked Domes. Kertiss switched
on outer amplifiers.

‘I claim this land for
my people,’ he proclaimed to the throng outside.

Two males stepped
forward and spoke in response.

‘What’s the language,
Ship?’ Kertiss snapped.

‘It has a resemblance
to Repsian Common Tongue,’ Singer responded.

‘Tell them to clear
this whole area and to come no closer until I summon
them.’

Singer obeyed. He was
increasingly uncomfortable with Kertiss’s attitude and wanted no
one hurt if he could prevent it. One of the males spoke in
reply.

‘Well?’

‘He tells us to be
gone. This is a special place of great veneration to these people
and we pollute it by our presence.’

Singer was taken by
surprise by the speed with which Kertiss accessed the door and
emerged, a psionic disruptor in his hands.

‘Tell them once more to
get out of here,’ he called to Singer.

Again Singer obeyed,
urgency in his voice. But the males continued to stand there, a
crowd pressing close at their backs. Kertiss began firing. He
walked slowly and steadily forward, the firing button pressed to
continuous discharge. He stepped around the first two male bodies
and picked his way over those behind until he came out to the
larger area surrounding the Domes.

Singer could see, over
a mass of corpses, Kertiss coming to a halt and lowering the
disruptor at last. The remainder of the crowd was vanishing into
buildings far across the open area and Kertiss turned back to the
Ship. Orla, carrying another disruptor and a scanning communicator,
had already entered the largest Dome. By the time Kertiss had
returned to Singer, Orla re-emerged from the Dome, a grin on her
dark face.

‘They had technology at
some time in their distant past,’ she informed her brother. ‘They
probably think it’s magic nowadays – what’s left of it! There is
room for the Ship to enter easily and it would be better if it was
under shelter and close to us.’

She gave Kertiss a
meaningful look and he nodded, stepping back inside the
Ship.

‘You will transfer to
the Dome,’ he ordered.

Singer retracted his
wings and powered his external air circulation unit. He rose from
the dusty stone slabs upon which he’d landed and followed Orla,
floating on a cushion of air, to what would be for him, millennia
long seclusion.

Their camp site was by
no means luxurious but after the desert it seemed nearly so to Tika
and her friends. Rough grass covered the ground and was thicker and
lusher around the lake. The scrubby bushes that clung to the lower
cliffs grew fuller leafed and a little taller. In the distance,
along the lake, trees were visible – willows and ash Ren guessed as
he stared to the south. He and the four others the Dragons had
plucked from the desert had slept the day round. They’d eaten,
bathed in the lake and inspected Olam. He was being made to rest by
Pallin and Maressa, much against his wishes. Ren turned away from
the water and looked at their tiny camp.

Farn was close to Tika,
and Storm lay by the three gijan. Gan had told Ren that Grek would
repeat a message from Namolos shortly and then they would have to
decide what must be done. Ren had checked the gijan on his way to
the water’s edge and saw at once that they were seriously
ill.

Accordingly, the party
gathered around Olam, and Grek repeated the information Namolos had
given him. Silence gathered almost tangibly about them when Grek
fell silent.

‘May I ask why you wear
the pendant outside your shirt Tika? I think you have always worn
it hidden since I’ve known you. Is it to do with the gijan?’ Ren
asked quietly.

‘It got hot again.’
Tika’s green silvered eyes met his. ‘It has stayed at least warm
for two days now,’ she added more slowly.

‘You think there is a
connection?’ Maressa queried.

Ren shrugged. ‘I seem
to have lost the ability to make connections between anything, let
alone think, ever since I left the Menedula.’ He gave a lopsided
smile. ‘And it seems years since I was there.’

‘It is up to you Tika.’
Khosa was perched on Olam’s legs.

‘Why?’ Tika demanded
truculently. ‘All of you have seen the pictures from Namolos’s
mind. Why must I be the one to do this?’ She stared round at each
face, finally meeting Navan’s eyes.

‘I have only heard tell
of your great healing of Farn but I knew as I saw those visions
that it must be your hands that work upon the poor gijan,’ he
said.

‘Did you know that
Mayla taught me to read?’ Tika asked abruptly.

‘I suspected so. She
has taught other females through the cycles. My mother could read,
and had the power within her.’ Navan looked down at the grass
between his feet. ‘Hargon killed her – he said it was an accident.
She was in the pasture when unbroken koninas were released there
and was trampled. I was fourteen cycles, Hargon twelve cycles older
and already Lord.’ He met Tika’s gaze again. ‘She was only a
worthless female,’ he said very softly.

Equally softly Tika
asked: ‘Who led the patrol when I ran away? I should never have
been able to reach the mountains without capture. But I
did.’

Navan smiled. ‘I led
the patrol. We went further west than the route I guessed you would
surely take. You were only a worthless female – not worth injuring
valuable koninas on rough trails for.’

Tika gave him a
dazzling smile and got to her feet. ‘We will need lights Ren: can
you supply plenty of glow stones? Water, both warm and cold. There
is no chance of any ice here but there must still be some herbs
left that will slow bleeding Maressa?’

She went to where the
adult Dragons reclined and hugged each in turn.