True Son (4 page)

The detonator. If he could find the detonator that the Nau were using to trigger the explosives, he could disable that. But neither of the soldiers seemed to be holding it.

Taking a huge gamble, Gevri took a step forward.

“Watch it!” one of the soldiers yelled, while the other reacted by moving one hand to his hip.

Ah, the detonator is in his pocket
.

Gevri needed to see the detonator to determine what type it was. Without that information, he wouldn’t be able to disable it. Idiot Nau! Why couldn’t he have clipped it to his belt like a normal soldier?

Okay, think
, Gevri told himself. He couldn’t disable the guns or the detonator. He could grab the guns and fling them out the nearest window, but then the soldier could simply detonate the explosives.

“You two Republikites, step over to that wall,” the Nau soldier said. “Good and slow.”

Gevri inched sideways. The only way to get out of this mess was to find the explosives themselves, and only Wendomer could do that.
Have you found them?

Gevri didn’t dare look directly at Wendomer, but he caught the tiniest of nods in his peripheral vision.

It was time for the next gamble. If — and this was a big if —
if
Wendomer held a strong enough image in her head, Gevri would be able to read it. It wouldn’t enable him to use telekinesis to move the explosives — he’d still need to see them for himself — but if Wendomer could show him where to look, he just might succeed.

As he took slow backward steps toward the wall, Gevri tried to connect with Wendomer’s thoughts. At first, he wasn’t getting anything. Then it came to him clear as church chimes: an image of blue explosive putty, two bricks of it, wedged underneath a huge yellow metal box. And if Gevri guessed right, it was the same huge yellow metal box that he and Wendomer were being led toward. It made perfect sense. The soldiers meant to tie them up near the explosives, then run out of the building and trigger the detonator.

Gevri looked over his shoulder under pretense of watching where he was going and spied a corner of the blue putty. That was all he needed to see.

Gently, so gently, he used dominion to loosen the two bricks of putty from under the yellow box, keeping their wirings intact. A few more easy nudges, and Gevri had the explosives floating under the generator toward the soldiers, slowly so that they wouldn’t see.

Now the explosive putty, still wired up, hovered behind the soldiers’ backs, just over their heads.

Wendomer chuckled softly.

Gevri brought the explosive putty down in front of the soldiers’ faces and watched their eyes nearly drop out of their sockets.

“One for you,” Gevri said, using dominion to mold one brick of putty around each of the soldiers’ guns. “And one for you.”

The soldier with the detonator turned to the other with a look of panic, and Gevri spied a corner of the detonator peeking out of his pocket. Just a peek was all Gevri needed. With dominion, he easily slid the device out of the soldier’s pocket. Now Gevri held the detonator. One of the soldiers glared and tried to throw his gun down, but Gevri caught it before it hit the floor. “You probably want to be careful with these,” he warned.

He sent a message to Jix.
A little help in here?

Jix came trotting into the room and let loose a rumbling growl. One soldier turned to run, but Jix pounced and slammed him up against the wall. Gevri heard a sick thud but refused to feel sorry for the Nau soldier who, one minute ago, had been planning Gevri’s and Wendomer’s deaths. Jix paced in front of the remaining soldier as Gevri took a moment to completely disarm the explosives, pull apart the wiring, and disassemble the detonation device. He moved the explosives, now mere blobs of blue putty, to a shelf until the commander could send someone to dispose of them properly. And the guns he handed to Wendomer. “Find the safety latch on these.”

Cindahad came running out from behind the generator.

Gevri stepped forward and put his arm around her shoulders. “You okay?”

The girl’s shoulders started to shake.

“Everything’s okay now,” Gevri whispered.

Cindahad broke into a braying laugh. “I saw the whole thing! The looks on their faces!”

“ ‘One for you, and one for you,’ ” Wendomer said, imitating Gevri’s voice. That sent them both into fits of snorting laughter.

And that was enough to make Gevri laugh, too.

Two hours later, the reinforcements from the Republikite army had arrived at Ohandai, and Gevri’s strike force was honorably relieved from duty. They had completed their mission with commendation, which put everyone in the mood to celebrate. The whole strike force was in the mess hall, gathered around a huge platter of fried gosta and chits.

Berliott was telling her version of the story. She’d watched Gevri and Wendomer with remote viewing. “And then you know what she said? ‘The fat pig is squealing!’”

Another chorus of laughter echoed around the table.

Pik was the only quiet one. He had only recently woken up and heard what had happened. “I missed all the fun.”

Gevri gave him a pat on the back. “That was my fault, not yours.”

“You owe me some fun, then,” Pik said.

“Agreed,” said Gevri. “As soon as I have any fun, I’ll give it to you.”

Laughter rang out again, then stopped abruptly.

“What?” Gevri asked, but when he saw his strike force standing up, each with a stiff palm-outward salute, he knew a superior officer had walked up behind him. That was the trouble with superior officers: they never let anybody relax.

Gevri pushed his chair back, turned to face the officer, and assumed the proper stance. He stiffened that pose even more when he saw his father staring back at him. Why hadn’t anyone told him the general was coming?

“General Sarin, sir,” Gevri said with a crisp salute.

“Lieutenant Sarin, your strike force is earning quite a reputation,” the general said curtly.

“Yes, sir.” Gevri wished his father hadn’t picked such an undignified moment to show up. “We’ve just completed a difficult mission, and the soldiers are letting off a little steam. I . . . I didn’t realize you would be here, sir.”

“I came along with the reinforcements. I wanted to be the one to give you the news.” He paused, which was his way of heightening tension, waiting until the whole room would beg for the next word from his mouth if they had the guts to speak in his presence.

Before, when he and his father argued constantly, this would have annoyed the spit out of Gevri, and he would have made some ugly comment to take the wind out of his father’s sails. But now Gevri understood his father’s need to create a moment. Gevri even played into it, letting the pause have its desired effect before he spoke up. “News? What news?”

“The Archon Special Strike Force has been awarded the Medallion of Honor.”

A cheer erupted in the mess hall. Gevri had never felt prouder of his little squadron. They had earned this. Even more important than the medallion were the cheers from the regular troops. Clearly the archons were beginning to gain the respect they deserved.

After a few seconds, General Sarin raised both hands as a signal for quiet. “That’s not all. Lieutenant, your strike force has surpassed all expectations. Your training is complete. The Archon Special Strike Force has been officially reassigned to the Kanjai Outpost.”

It took a few seconds for Gevri to realize what his father was saying. “You mean —?”

“Yes.” The general smiled, which was a rare sight. “It’s time to prepare for the attack on Deliverance.”

“What? What do you want me to see?” Taemon asked.

“I can’t tell you. You just have to see it.” Amma led him through the streets to a neighborhood close to where he had grown up.

Taemon had to dodge through the crowd to keep up with Amma. Why were so many people on the streets at this hour? It was nearly sunset on a workday, and usually the streets in this neighborhood were fairly quiet.

The crowd grew denser. Amma grabbed his hand and pulled him past the people who were standing around. When they came to the fountain, he knew what the fuss was about.

Water.

Running water.

For the first time since The Fall, water ran through the city pipes in Deliverance.

Amma stood next to him, watching his reaction.

“I wish you could have seen this fountain before The Fall,” Taemon said. “It was a sight to behold. All these streams of water flowing in graceful arcs.” Taemon tried to make the motion with his hands. “When I was little, I used to think that the water was jumping and playing a game with its friends.”

“It’s still beautiful,” Amma said. “In a different way. People are learning to do things with their hands. They’re starting to accept that psi is gone. This is a big step toward what we’ve hoped for.”

“A very big step.” The expressions of pride and awe on the faces in the crowd told him as much.

A long line of people waited for their turn at the spout, carrying all manner of buckets and containers. No bucket in Deliverance had ever had a handle, but now people had added makeshift handles from rope, twine, or twisted fabric. The man at the spout was filling several crystal vases with water, then carefully arranging them in a fabric-lined garbage can that he strapped around his shoulders. The next woman stepped up to the spout with a silver bowl that had a braided rope handle woven through the loopy decorative trim.

The odd mix of old and new, elegant and crude, smooth and rough was inspiring. It represented transition. Change. Acceptance. It was beautiful, as Amma said.

Taemon looked over the line of people waiting. They were laughing and chatting with their neighbors. One woman was explaining to another how she had made her bucket, and when she was done, the other woman explained her own technique. They were sharing ideas, working together, and celebrating success. Small children had taken their shoes off so they could splash and play in the puddles that collected on the floor of the fountain’s basin. This never would have been allowed before The Fall. It made his heart swell with hope.

The words of the Heart of the Earth came back to him:
Your work is not finished. You will yet act on behalf of the people of Deliverance
.

A spray of water startled Taemon out of his thoughts. Amma had bent down over one of the puddles and splashed him.

“You look so serious! This is a happy day.” She splashed him again. “Remember the
Sea Flea
? That was fun.”

“I remember you made me be the captain,” Taemon said. “And I fell in the water.”

“You were a good captain,” she said. “And you had fun.”

“And I had fun.” He stomped on a puddle and splashed Amma’s legs. She laughed and started to splash him back, but stopped suddenly. Her smile fell as she squinted at something behind Taemon.

“Amma. Taemon. I thought that was you,” a timid voice said.

Taemon turned to see a girl with her hair tied back with a string. “Vangie?”

She lowered her head, fidgeting with her hair and looking away. “So many times I thought about coming to find you at the colony. You know, to apologize. I just couldn’t quite . . . I don’t know.”

Taemon had no idea what to say to her. He remembered the awful feeling of betrayal when he learned that Vangie had stolen the sketches in his journal and used them as a bartering tool with Elder Naseph. The next day, Naseph and Yens had come and taken all the books from Amma’s family’s secret library — books that would make them nearly invincible. But now all of that seemed like ages ago. All the things that had happened since then — the struggle against Naseph and Yens at the temple, The Fall, the trip to Kanjai — all of that seemed necessary somehow. Fated.

But Taemon wasn’t sure Amma saw it that way. The loss of those books still weighed heavily on her conscience. He watched Amma’s reactions carefully. She stood stiffly, her hands clenched, but he could see no anger in her eyes. Just . . . sadness.

“Did you have any idea?” Amma whispered. “Any idea at all of what you were doing?”

Vangie’s eyebrows lifted, and she finally looked Amma in the eye. “No. No. I swear to you, I didn’t know they were planning to take the books. I didn’t even know what they were looking for. I had talked to Elder Othaniel a few times — my cousin arranged the meetings. Skies, my parents would have died if they knew. All he said was to look for anything unusual. Secret passageways, hidden places, things like that. And that door — when Taemon pointed it out, I started wondering. Then I found those sketches, and I thought finally I would get to go live in the city. I swear, I had no idea . . .” Her words started to sound a little squeaky, and she paused, pressing her lips together to keep from crying. “I’m so sorry.”

Amma stepped forward and hugged Vangie. Taemon saw the girl’s shoulders shaking.

“It’s all right,” he heard Amma whisper. “All of us made some bad choices then.”

Elder Othaniel. That name was familiar to Taemon. If he remembered right, he was one of the high priests who worked for Elder Naseph. Most of the priests had been lying low since The Fall. They weren’t seen in public very much. Rumors were that many of them had left the church and returned to their families.