The Golden Queen (15 page)

“How fast will it work?” Everynne asked.

The crimson lady’s mask showed sadness. “The Terrors reproduce at an explosive rate. We designed them to seek out carbon molecules and form graphite. On a living planet, every animal, every plant, the atmosphere itself will be destroyed. Only the Terrors will survive for more than a day. They will appear as a blue shimmering cloud, moving outward through the sky at two thousand kilometers per hour. On the ground and in the sea, they move somewhat faster. The Terrors would destroy most worlds within a matter of twelve to eighteen hours.”

Everynne watched the woman’s face. The crimson lady was old, centuries old, and in that time she had probably learned to control her emotions exquisitely, yet her voice cracked as she spoke of the machine’s capacity for genocide.

“And how fast could this destroy Dronon?” Veriasse asked. “Will the Terrors be slowed significantly by being forced to reproduce on such a dry, desolate world?”

Even as Veriasse asked the question, Everynne cringed. The thought that the weapon might actually be used disturbed her. Time and again, she had begged Veriasse not to fashion such a weapon, to create only a simulated Terror. If the glass case broke, an entire planet would be destroyed. But Veriasse would not hear her arguments. He planned to take the Terror to the planet Dronon itself. He wanted to fear him, and the only way he could arouse such fear was if the dronon knew that a working Terror lay hidden on their world.

But sometimes at night, Everynne wondered if he had a hidden agenda. If refused to concede to his demands, she wondered, would Veriasse hesitate to lay the planet Dronon to waste?

“Dronon’s atmosphere is heavier in carbon dioxide than most. The Terrors will find it to their taste.”

Another of the masked lords smiled cruelly and said, “I designed the package with Dronon in mind. The planet can be terminated in six hours and fourteen minutes. Just make sure that you are near the imperial lair when you set it off.”

Everynne was disturbed by the man’s maleficent air. It pained her to see her people given over to such hatred. Though she knew that the dronons had killed her own mother, Everynne did not hate them. She understood them too well, understood their need for order at any cost, their instinctive desire to expand their territories and control their environment. “Let us have no more talk of genocide,” Everynne said. “Even if we tried to fight the dronon on such terms, they would be forced to retaliate. In such a war, there can be no victors.”

“Of course, Our Lady,” the crimson lords agreed, and almost as one they breathed a sigh of relief. They had spoken treasonous words and had not been arrested. Everynne could feel the clouds of doubt and fear lifting from her. For a long moment, they all sat and simply looked at one another around the table. For five years the crimson lords had worked, and now their part was done. Everynne watched them relax and wanted only to relax with them, take one last rest before her part in the great work began.

“We must go now,” Veriasse said. Everynne knew he was right. They had left Tihrglas only an hour ago. The vanquishers could transmit news of their escape over tachyon waves. Within another few hours, word of their escape would reach Fale, and the vanquishers would seek to block all of Everynne’s escape routes.

“Wait, please,” the crimson lady begged. “I have one last favor to ask before you leave.”

“Which is?” Everynne said.

“Your face,” the crimson lady asked. “Once, before you leave, I want to see your face.”

On Fale, the lords never went unmasked in public. It was a tradition millennia old. The crimson lady would never have asked such a favor of one of her own neighbors. Everynne had little time to spare, but these people had risked so much for her that she could not resist.

She peeled off her pale blue mask, and the lords stared at her in awe for a moment. “You are truly a queen among the Tharrin,” the crimson lady said. Everynne felt sick at the words. After all, what was a queen among the Tharrin but a specific set of genetic codes given to those who were born to be leaders? It was nothing she had done, nothing she had earned. Her genetic makeup gave her a certain sculpted beauty, a regal air, a measure of charisma and wit that probably would never have been duplicated in nature. Yet Everynne saw all of this as a sham. It was simply a station she was born to. Her flesh was the clothing she wore.

The crimson lady peeled off her own mask, showed herself to be a handsome, aging woman with penetrating gray eyes. “My name is Atheremis, and it has been my pleasure to serve you. I will never betray you,” she said.

One by one, the other crimson lords around the room also peeled back their masks, spoke their names and their gratitude.

That is when Everynne knew for sure that they would kill themselves. If they had not been planning suicide, Everynne was sure that they would not have revealed themselves. But one of their number was missing, so they were choosing to die now by their own hands rather than risk that they might be captured and forced to reveal damning evidence.

The crimson lady cried; tears rolled down her cheeks. Everynne wanted to stay with them a little longer, hoping to keep them alive. If looking into her face gave them pleasure, then she would stand here for hours. But Veriasse took her elbow, and whispered, “Come, we must hurry.”

Together they walked from the darkened chamber and headed down a long green corridor past the shops and apartments of Toohkansay. Only Everynne’s mask hid the fact that she was sobbing inside.

They had hardly gone a hundred meters when a blinding flash of light erupted behind them, and the blast from the explosion buffeted their robes like a strong wind. Sirens began to wail, and citizens of the city rushed toward the blast, searching for victims. The living walls of the city did not catch fire, but the distinctive smell of cooked vegetable matter filled the smoking hallways.

They hurried to a cantina on the edge of town where the scent of food beguiled them. Everynne had not eaten for nearly twenty hours, so they went through the dispensary line and grabbed some rolls, then hurried out to a waiting shuttle, a beat up old magcar that would not draw undue attention.

They hopped over the doors, and Veriasse unfolded a thin map and pushed a button until
Fale
appeared on the legend of the world. The map showed them at the edge of Toohkansay, and a three-dimensional image showed the land around them for hundreds of kilometers. There were three gates within that range, but only Veriasse had traveled the Maze of Worlds enough to know which planet each gate would lead to. “This gate here,” Veriasse said, pointing to the most distant of the three, “leads to Cyannesse. We will be safe there.”

Everynne took the stick and gunned the thrusters. The car raised several inches on a magnetic wave, and she piloted the vehicle slowly at first, fearing that foot travelers might be on the road so close to Toohkansay.

For ten minutes they drove past the yawning farms that sprawled along the calm river. Huge, spiderlike harvesters were at work, cultivating the fields. They turned a wide bend, and Everynne was just ready to raise the windshields so that she could speed up when she saw a bear ahead. It leapt from the road into the woods.

“That’s Orick!” she said, reversing thrusters.

“It can’t be,” Veriasse said. “It’s just a bear.”

“I’m sure of it.” The magcar slowed and idled beside the trees. She gazed into the woods, up a slight rise where white rocks lay in a jumble. There was no sign of Orick—only prints among the fallen leaves that the bear had made as it bowled through the trees. Everynne wondered if it had been a trick of her imagination, yet she let the magcar hover on the road. Uphill, the nose of a bear poked cautiously over some bushes to watch her.

“You’re right,” she said, distracted. She had last seen Orick only slightly more than an hour ago on a planet nearly six hundred light-years away. Somehow, that recent image must have burned into her subconscious so that she imagined that this bear looked just like Orick.

She gunned the thrusters and the magcar rose and began to move forward slowly. She glanced back, and the bear stood up on its hind legs, sniffing the air.

It yelled, “Everynne? Is that you?”

She slammed on the reverse thrusters.

“Orick?” Veriasse called. The bear dropped to all fours and ran toward them with astonishing speed.

“It’s you!” Orick shouted. “Where have you been? I’ve been searching for you everywhere! It’s been days!”

Veriasse and Everynne looked at each other. “What do you mean, ‘days’?” Everynne asked. “We left Tihrglas less than two hours ago. How did you get here?”

“Gallen stole a key from the dronon. He was afraid they would use it to catch you. When we got here, we couldn’t find any sign of you. Maggie’s been kidnapped, and we can’t get her back. Gallen and I have been here for nearly four days!”

“The dronon tried to make a key?” Veriasse asked, incredulous. “Only a great fool—or a very desperate person—would try to make his own key to the Maze of Worlds. That explains how you got here before us. Your key is flawed.”

“You mean to say we got here four days early because of a busted key?”

“Of course,” Everynne said realizing what had happened. “The gates move us from one planet to another faster than the speed of light—but any method of locomotion that can do that can also be used to send things into the past, or the future.”

“Still,” Veriasse said, “it’s a wonder that they broke our access codes at all. We will have to re-tool the gates.” Veriasse looked down at the chronometer on the magcar. “We have to go, Everynne.”

“Wait a moment,” Everynne said. “They need our help.”

Anger flashed in Veriasse’s eyes. “Many people need your help. You cannot risk staying in enemy territory for
these
.”

Everynne looked at Orick. The bear was dirty, had lost a little weight. The whites of his eyes were wide. “I was born to be the Servant of All,” she said. “I will take care of these three now, because they need me now.”

“Nine people just sacrificed their lives for you back in town!” Veriasse countered. “You can’t stay here and risk making that sacrifice invalid. Leave these three. What’s the difference? It is an acceptable loss.”

“Acceptable to who? To you, perhaps, but not to me. Those nine gave their lives voluntarily for something they understood—” Everynne answered. “These three want to live, and they serve us with innocent hearts. We must give them a little time—fifteen minutes.”

Everynne turned to Orick. “Where is Gallen?”

“Hiding in the woods,” Orick answered. “I’ll get him.” He spun and galloped uphill.

“We don’t have time for this,” Veriasse told Everynne after Orick hurried into the brush. “Every second of delay places you in greater jeopardy. Can’t you feel the worlds slipping from your grasp?”

“Right thoughts. Right words. Right actions. Isn’t that the credo you taught me?” Everynne said. “Right actions. Always do what is right. That’s what I’m trying to do now.”

“I know,” Veriasse said more softly. “When we win back your inheritance, you will truly be worthy of the title Servant of All. But think: at this moment, you must choose between two goods. The right action is to choose the greater good.”

Everynne closed her eyes. “No, you cannot prove to me that fifteen minutes will make a difference. I’ll serve my friends here to the best of my ability, and afterward I’ll serve the rest of humanity.

“Veriasse, if not for Gallen stealing that key, we would have jumped out of the gate and found the whole planet mobilized against us. We must help them—you must help them. See, here comes Gallen now.”

Gallen and Orick raced through the trees. The young man was dressed in the swirling greens and blues of a merchant of Fale, yet his garments were stained from the camp and his hair was unkempt. He breathed hard as he rushed up to the magcar.

“Orick says that Maggie has been kidnapped,” Everynne said. “Do you know who took her?”

“A man named Karthenor, Lord of the Aberlains,” Gallen panted. “I’ve scouted the city. I plan to get her back.”

Everynne marveled that such a simple man could have so much faith in himself.

“If Maggie has been taken by Karthenor,” Veriasse said, “she is in the hands of a most unscrupulous man. For enough money, he might sell her back to you—or he might become curious and send you to his interrogators to find out why you want her. With the right equipment, you could free her from her Guide and steal her back, but that would be very dangerous to attempt. Both plans carry their risks, and it seems to me that in any event you are likely to fail.”

Everynne hesitated to tell them the most logical course of action. She wetted her lips with her tongue. “Gallen, Orick,” she said slowly, “would you be willing to leave Maggie behind, come away with me through the Maze of Worlds?”

“What?” Gallen asked, incredulous.

Everynne tried to phrase her argument as succinctly as possible. “I am going to try to overthrow the dronons. If I succeed, then we can rescue Maggie. If, on the other hand, I do not succeed, she will become a valuable member of dronon society, and in the long run she will be better off where she is. So, I ask you again: do you two want to come with me?”

Gallen and Orick looked at each other. “No,” Gallen said. “We can’t do that. We’ll stay and see what we can do to get Maggie free.”

Everynne nodded. “I understand,” she said heavily. “Then we will both do what we must, even though it takes us on different paths.” She turned to Veriasse. “Do you have allies here that might help him?”

“I had few allies here,” Veriasse said. “And all of them are dead now. Gallen must forge ahead on his own. The first thing he should do is go learn all that he can about our world.”

“I’ve already been to the pidc,” Gallen said. Everynne looked into his eyes, saw that it was true. There was a burden in his eyes, as if he knew too much.

“The pidc can teach you many things, but it is still under dronon control,” Veriasse said. “Much of our technology is kept secret. Gallen, if you want to free Maggie, you will have to do it without her knowledge. The Guide sees through her eyes, hears with her ears, and it can transmit messages to other Guides. It will be your greatest enemy, and since it controls Maggie, she will fight you herself if you try to rescue her while she’s still connected to the Guide. You will need the help of a Guide-maker to learn how to dismantle the thing.