The Darkness of God: Book Three of the Shadow Warrior Trilogy (11 page)

“Of
course
this Great Lumina would give anyone who touched it superpowers,” Fordyce said cynically. “Such things always seem to have a reputation like that.”

“That’s the story,” Cisco said reluctantly. “Supposedly this woman who bossed Rogan’s World, who was called Alicia Comer, but who was in fact a deserter from the Federation Navy named Token Aubyn, had possession of this Lumina, and used it to carve her way upward.” Cisco told Fordyce as much of Aubyn’s history as he’d been able to get from Naval and FI records.

“Interesting,” Fordyce said, lacing his fingers on his desk. “I still view the whole matter skeptically. Now let me return your question to you: What do you want to do about Wolfe, assuming that he has possession of this ruddy great chunk of colored glass? Put out an all-Federation hue and cry? That’ll certainly attract attention, particularly with the rather strange happenings these days.”

“No, sir. But I’d like to let word slip out at a high level that FI’s very interested in talking to him. Alive only. Anyone who can provide his services to us will be appropriately, if quietly, rewarded.”

“That seems a viable alternative,” Fordyce said. “I assume you can do it through the usual conduits — old boys and such?”

“I can.” Cisco started to rise. Fordyce held out a hand.

“A few minutes ago, I referred to the current level of excitement. Have you been following events?”

“Not really, sir. Since I got out of the hospital from the gassing, I’ve been concentrating on Wolfe.”

“Things have been a little unusual of late. Quite some time ago, we lost one of our spyships. The
Trinquier,
which was operating under civilian cover as an exploration vessel, vanished. Then an investigative team — straightforward scientific chaps — on one of the Al’ar homeworlds disappeared, after making some very aberrant screams for help. We had to make some threats in the scholarly community to keep that silent. Finally, we sent out a task force — six ships, including the
Styrbjorn —
seven weeks ago, to investigate along the
Trinquier
’s
p
rojected mission plan. The entire task force has fallen out of communication. We’re presuming all six ships are lost, with no explanation whatever.”

Cisco sat down heavily. “The
Styrbjorn
? I used that ship a few times. Sharp crew. Good captain. There’s no way they could be surprised — or get into an accident.”

“Unusual, isn’t it?” Fordyce said. “I’m starting to get a very strange feeling. We may be in for
extremely
interesting times.”

“So it’s just like the old-fashioned romances. Logic — common sense — probability are discarded, and one man defeats an entire kingdom,” Kristin said. “You have the Lumina, and we Chitet have nothing.” She sighed, got up from the control chair, and went to Wolfe. “I suppose you’d better hold true to the romance and kiss the princess you’ve won.”

“That I can do.”

After a while, she pulled back. “Although I’m not much of a princess.”

“You’re more of one than I’m a prince,” Joshua said.

“So you have me to do with what you will. What do you will?”

“Let us see,” Joshua said, twirling nonexistent mustachios. “First I shall remove all your clothes except your space boots. Then slather you with freshly made tartar sauce. I’ll wake the six furry creatures I have back in cold storage …”

Kristin laughed. “I never realized you had a sense of humor before.”

“I generally don’t, when somebody’s got a gun on me.”

“No, seriously, what …”

The ship jolted, went in and out of N-space. Wolfe’s stomach crawled. Kristin slid out of his lap as he came out of the chair. “Not good,” he said. “Ships aren’t supposed to do that without giving hints. Let’s go see the worst.” He started for the engine spaces.

Four hours later, they knew the worst.

“Less than sixty drive-hours and this drive’ll make a good ship anchor,” Wolfe said. “Damn these bargain-basement yachts.”

He called up a gazetteer onscreen and opened a voice sensor.

“Nearest inhabited planet,” he said.

The screen blinked twice, then an entry scrolled:

Figures scrolled.

“Two jumps,” Wolfe said. “Not good. Then a goodish chug on secondary. And it’s a bit chilly. I’m not considering hollering for help.”

“Is there any other choice?” Kristin asked.

“Surely. Press on regardless for real civilization and hope my mechanical diagnostic abilities are pessimistic.”

“Could they be?”

“No.”

“I just realized I always wanted to visit this Am-Kechat.”

“Gesundheit. But it’s Ak-Mechat.”

• • •

Kristin quietly slid open the hatch to the small freight compartment. The space was empty, except for the Great Lumina. It hung in midair, fluorescing colors. She heard, over the increasingly shrill hum of the ship’s drive, deep, slow breathing, coming from nowhere. She heard the clank of metal; she saw a thin piece of alloy steel lift, stand on end, then bend in an invisible vise. The steel clanged to the deck and Joshua appeared. He was naked, drenched in sweat. For an instant Kristin didn’t register. “You did that,” she said.

Wolfe took several more breaths before he nodded. “I still don’t quite have full control. I wanted the metal to bend, and then fall slowly to the deck.”

“When you do — what then?”

Wolfe shook his head. “I can’t tell you. And I doubt if you’d believe me, anyway.”

“I just read, in one of your books, about a queen who believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Try me.”

“All right. I want to use the Lumina to close a door, or maybe seal a door. Something that I think’s here, with us in this spacetime, has to be either destroyed or put on the other side. And then the door must be sealed.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Joshua picked up a towel from the deck, wiped his forehead. “Neither do I, most times. Forget about it. I’m for a shower, anyway.”

“Need your back scrubbed?”

“Always.”

• • •

Kristin rolled her head back and screamed as Wolfe drove within her, holding her knees crooked in his elbows, forearms pulling her against him.

She came back to herself, was aware of hot water needling her face, her breasts. Wolfe set her down. She managed a smile. “I was somewhere else,” she said.

“So was I,” Joshua said. He kissed her, eased her feet to the deck.

“What are you going to do about me?” she asked.

“Not sure,” Wolfe said, picking up the soap from the deck. “I guess I’ll turn you around and scrub your back. Like this.”

“Mmmh. No. Stop for a minute. I meant — you aren’t going to let me come with you.”

Wolfe’s hand stopped for a time, then continued, rubbing in a small circle. “Lady,” he said slowly, “I don’t think you want to come with me.”

“Why not? I’m not going back to the Chitet.”

“My turn to ask why not,” Wolfe said.

“I’m not sure yet,” Kristin said. “But — something died. Changed, anyway, when Master Speaker Athelstan got killed.” She was silent for some time. “No,” she said softly. “I’m lying. Things changed some time before that. After — after we started making love.”

“Sex shouldn’t change what you believe,” Joshua said. “Or the way you live.”

“No,” she said softly. “No, it shouldn’t.”

Again there was a long silence. Joshua leaned close, whispered in her ear.

She giggled, bent forward a little, hands on her upper thighs. “Like this?”

She gasped.

“Like that,” Joshua managed.

• • •

They came out of N-space on the fringes of the Ak-Mechat system. Wolfe went back to the drive chamber, ran a diagnostic program, and returned to the bridge. “That drive is about as defunct as it’s possible to get without going bang or maybe even thud,” he announced. “I can’t chance an in-system jump. So it’s a long, hard drive for planetfall. Get out a good book.”

• • •

Kristin slept, her breathing a gentle bubbling.

Joshua lay beside her,
feeling
out. He
felt
the red, the burn, the soundless buzzing insect roar of the life-form that had destroyed the Al’ar’s universe and was reaching into his own. He pulled back from the searing pain as it built.

He
felt
the red presence, the “virus” far closer now than before.

• • •

Joshua read in a calm, even voice:

He paused.

“I’m not sure I follow,” Kristin said slowly. “I assume this Eliot of yours wasn’t writing about the Lumina.”

“Not by some more than a thousand years.”

“Go ahead.”

“Stanza Ten,” Joshua continued.

Wolfe took the ship in slowly, making two transpolar orbits of Ak-Mechat VII as he killed speed and altitude. “They weren’t being funny about the field being unmanned,” he said. “All I’m getting from down there is a navbeeper. Guess if anybody’s got any incoming cargo they make private arrangements. We’ll land next time around.”

But the
Eryx
didn’t make it. Minutes short of the field, holding at about three hundred miles per hour, fire spurted out the drive tubes and the secondary drive went silent. Wolfe looked at Kristin, who was double-strapped into a control chair. “This one might be tough. I’m gonna try to porpoise it in.”

He brought the ship down, down, until it hurtled barely twenty-five feet above rocky outcroppings. “Last time around I thought I saw moors around about here,” he muttered. “Come on, Heathcliff.”

He felt the controls getting sloppy, vague in his hands. They were fifteen feet above gray rocky death.

“Gimp one for the winner,” he prayed, flaring external foils, and the
Eryx
climbed briefly, shuddered, near stalling. He pushed the nose down, and the rocks were gone. Wolfe saw the many-shaded browns of water and land.

He yanked the main stick hard back. The
Eryx
tried to climb again, reached vertical, then stalled, toppled, and fell, pancaking onto the dark moor of Ak-Mechat VII.

• • •

Wolfe forced the fuzzing blur from his brain and pushed his eyelids up. The control room was a murky skew of wiring, screens, and instruments that’d popped from their housings. Kristin sagged in her chair, a bit of blood seeping from her nostrils.

The antigrav was gone, and the deck was at a twenty-five-degree angle. Wolfe unsnapped his safety belts and got up. His body was battered, bruised.

He staggered to Kristin and unfastened her. He started feeling for damage; her eyes came open. She coughed, then sat up quickly and vomited.

“I’m all right,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve. “That
was
a hard one.”

“I think we’d best see about leaving,” Joshua said, as the ship rolled back until the deck was almost level. “I don’t think we’re on any kind of firmness.”

He made his way to the lock, where there were three packs made from cut-apart crew coveralls. Two held supplies, the third the Lumina.

Wolfe manually cycled the inner lock, went through the chamber, peered through the tiny bull’s-eye, then opened the outer lock door.

The
Eryx
was half-buried in mire that was pulling the ship deeper second by second.

“Come on, lady. All ashore that’s going ashore,” he shouted, grabbing the packs and muscling them to the lock. He chose a patch of muck that looked a bit more solid than the rest, and tossed one pack onto it. It didn’t sink.

“Now you,” he said, and half threw Kristin after the pack. She landed half on the solid place, nearly slipped into the mud, but recovered.

Wolfe threw the other pack and the Lumina to her, poised, and jumped. He looked around. Close mountains rose gray against gray overcast, lighter gray clouds that looked like rain. Behind him were the foothills they’d almost crashed in. All around was the moor, stretching empty and brown, with dark waters ribboning through the land.

Beside them the
Eryx
rolled once more, and this time its open lock went under. Air gouted in bubbles, and the
Eryx
sank deeper and vanished. A single muddy bubble broke with a
glop.

“At least we’re not leaving footprints,” Wolfe said. He put the tied-together trouser legs of the pack holding the Lumina over his neck and tied the other, more unwieldy pack behind. He waved toward the mountains.

“Let’s go find some civilization. I need a drink.”

• • •

They moved quickly, in spite of bruises and the swampy land. Joshua
felt
ahead, and went surefootedly from solid hummock to matted tuft, slowly heading toward the mountains where the gazetteer had said the mines were. He hoped they’d find the field first, and that it wouldn’t be completely unmanned.

They’d made several miles when thunder growled, and they looked for shelter. A hilltop rose ahead, and they made for it. There were two large boulders with a patch of soft mosslike growth between, sloping down to a stretch of black, open water. Wolfe took Kristin’s pack, unzipped it, and took out a rolled section of plas. He secured the plas to the boulders with paracord, then spread insul blankets under the shelter.

“A garden of unearthly delights, madam.”

Kristin looked about them. “Actually, this
is
beautiful,” she said. “Look at the way the moor goes on forever and ever, and the little flowers in the moss here.” She eyed the pool of water nearby. “Would there be monsters in that?”