Warp World (64 page)

Sweat poured out of him. Viren raised his canteen, tempted to guzzle the contents, but then stilled his hand. Since the moment they had fled the warehouse, the lieutenant had drilled the importance of water rationing into them.

“Oh, father Nen,” Viren said, staring down into the canteen, “how have I offended you?”

Prow snorted. “How
haven’t
you offended him?”

“How hasn’t he offended anyone?” Swinson slapped Viren on the back.

“Ah, there goes my lady love.” Viren pointed skyward as the rider blasted by overhead.

“Speaking of those he’s offended,” Swinson said.

“Least he’s stopped annoying the lieutenant since she’s been back,” Keer said. “Every time he gets mad at Viren he takes it out on us, too.”

The men nodded in agreement as they took measured drinks and wiped sweat from their faces.

“Look sharp, deckies, here comes our friend, Pirate Jind.” Swinson jerked his head toward the approaching figure. “Reckons himself the little Lieutenant, doesn’t he?”

“He’s second in command.” Viren lowered his voice as Cerd drew nearer. “Good reason to make sure nothing ever happens to Lieutenant Dismal.”

Cerd stepped in front of the band and folded his arms. “Anything going on in your sector, Viren?”

Viren looked around at the rocks and sand. “All clear … Mascom.”

Prow and Swinson snickered.

“Good.” Cerd turned to Prow. “Your squad ready?”

“For what?”

“Something besides pleasuring themselves,” Cerd said.

Prow stepped forward until he was inches from Cerd. “Calling me out?”

Viren watched the exchange with new interest. There had been no love lost between his squad and Cerd
’s
since the moment they had all stepped into this new world. After Lieutenant Korth’s warning, he had made an effort to control his outbursts, though the feud had continued in a quieter fashion. But this moment was different somehow; Cerd wasn’t reacting to an insult, he was provoking Prow, deliberately.

Cerd squinted at Prow. “I’m asking for the status of your squad, Squad Leader. Are they ready to move? To fight? To do their job?”

“Always, Mascom.
Always
ready for a fight,” Prow said. The men behind him gathered closer—standing taller, circling Cerd.

“Good.” Cerd stepped around Prow, forcing the others to move aside or be shoved out the way. “All of you, ready for a fight then? Any fight, any time?” He looked around him, meeting every unfriendly gaze.

No one backed down, but none made a move. The wind picked up, the air filled with a static buzz, just like the night the Storm had come to Old Town.

They’re waiting for me, and Cerd knows it.

Viren pushed off the boulder. “You’re looking for a fight, Mascom?”

“That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?” Cerd asked.

All heads turned to Viren. He couldn’t have hated Cerd more than he did at that moment. It all came down to this.
You take away unity and you might as well shoot every one of your deckies in the head right now,
Lieutenant Korth had warned. If he raised his fists now, unity would be shattered, he knew that. But bow to a pirate? The blood in his ears thundered at the thought and an image of his father filled his head. He glared at the dark-haired man before him.

Cerd took a step back, clearing himself from the circle. “I don’t care if you hate me, all of you. Say what you want about me here, but when the time comes, we all fight. I think you’re a boy in a man’s body, Viren, but I’ll kill for you.”

“Filthy traitor,” Prow said. “What do you know about—”

“Compose, Squad Leader.” Viren shot a look at Prow to silence him. “When the time comes, every man here is our brother. The enemy is behind the walls of the Keep, not here. Understood?”

Through the shock clearly written on their faces, the men managed to nod and mutter their agreement.

“Blood for water,” Cerd said.

“Blood for water, Mascom,” Viren muttered at the departing man.

Nen take you
, he cursed, silently.
You’ve made me a traitor, too.

Prow looked at Viren and the air exploded with a sonic boom. He jerked, then glanced up as the rider flew by, going so fast it was already nothing but a speck.

The men had instinctively ducked and reached for their weapons but were slowly realizing there was no threat. Tirnich jogged over, beaming. “Did you hear that?”

Viren chuckled and inserted a finger into his ear. “Our ancestors back home in their graves heard that, Tirnich.”

The rider flew back more slowly, sweeping low before touching down in a cloud of dust.

“You see?” Viren gestured to the rider. “She can’t stay away from me. Smitten.”

“Field active units, board the rider!” Fismar’s shout rang through their ear comms. “MOVE!”

The awestruck troops sprang into action, grabbing their gear as they raced to the waiting rider.

“I’ve got a canister of that sweet stuff that says Keer’s the first to lose his lunch,” Viren said, already at a jog.

“An extra water ration says he isn’t,” Rikker said.

“My water’s on Keer, I’ve seen him in a squall.” Swinson slapped Keer on the shoulder as he trotted past. “Sorry, deckie.”

Night had settled over the wasteland, though the glow of the distant shield prevented the dark from consuming everything. Ama walked around the
Defiant
, running through the post-flight checks as Shan had instructed. She kept one hand on the rider at all times, her face lit with a small smile.

“That’s my girl,
Defiant.
” She tapped her digipad. “Nozzles all clear. Time for a rest.”

She yawned, the effects of the stim dose finally waning. Her hand trembled uncontrollably.

“Night off, copie,” Shan said. She ran a sonic cleanser through her sweat-matted hair, shaking out the wild locks. “Wind down and get your sl—”

She goggled over Ama’s shoulder.

“Where in the Storm is he going in such a hurry?”

Ama turned to see Seg running, occasionally stumbling, across the rocky field.

“I’ve got it!” he announced to no one in particular. “Fismar, I need that uplink to Cathind!”

Head cocked, she shifted her gaze to the direction from which Seg had come. Without a word to Shan, she retraced his path, down a slight embankment, into the small, natural basin. It was darker in the basin than above, but that dark was broken by a glow. As she moved closer and her eyes adjusted, Ama could see that the glow came from digipads and digifilms, at least seven or eight of each. They were all suspended or perched along the rock wall.

Stepping closer to the eerie display, she made out familiar images—those she and Shan had taken of Julewa Keep. The images had been enlarged and the films and pads were laid out in sequence, as if Seg had been trying to reconstruct the Keep here in this rocky hollow.

“What …” Ama pointed at one of the images. Several of the screens showed banners or small statues, all hung or erected on the upper reaches of the Keep’s structure.

She walked from one to another, studying. Her Cultural Theory lessons might not have taken her far, but she knew this much: Seg’s People didn’t worship anything. No flags, no idols, no symbols of worship. That was for primitive cultures. Savages.

Moving closer still, she saw symbols, either woven into or painted on the banners. At fist glance, the symbol like some kind of flower but, peering closer still, Ama could see it was a faint outline of a human heart wrapped with chain.

Seg had said that the people who lived in that Keep, the Etiphars, had come from his people. She stepped back to look at the entire display, and remembered the Shasir of her own world, their banners and symbols. The glow bathed her body, and she turned her head in the direction of the real Julewa Keep.

Whoever waited behind those walls, they were not People. Not anymore.

Inside the tiny command post, Ama was wedged between Shan and Cerd. Seg faced them, gesturing to an array of films and pads, each of which displayed the same symbol.

“That,” he said. “That, that, that, and that. It’s recurrent iconography.”

“You might want to explain the significance of
that
, Theorist,” Fismar said.

“It’s an icon of devotion. Faith,” Seg said.

Ama understood from the force of his hand motions that this was something serious. Something significant.

“The Etis got religion?” Shan asked. “Out here?”

“Rediscovered religion, or perhaps never quite lost it,” Seg said. He stepped away from the displays and elbowed his way out into the open, where he gazed into the distance. “These symbols belong to an old People’s religion. Fismar, Shan, you two probably don’t know anything about it—the last organized religious entities on the World petered out four hundred years ago, and by two hundred years ago no visible remnants of cults or sects remained.
Old Faiths
is a single unit course at the Guild Academy, with only a brief overview of our dead superstitions.”

“So the Eti
s
worship bones or rocks or entities in the sky,” Fismar said. “Does this give us an edge?”

Seg whirled toward the group. “Yes, Lieutenant, yes it does. That symbol is the Unbroken Chain of the Humble Heart and it may give us a vehicle for introducing something into the Keep, a means of infiltration. I need an uplink to Cathind so I can access the Guild files on the Humble Heart, and we’ll need to put direct eyes on the Keep.”

“Introduce something
?
” Fismar said. “Oh. Oh! Clever.”

“What?” Ama looked at Shan, but she just shook her head. She looked back at Seg. “What are you saying? We’re going to take something to the Etiphars? But—”

“Anything we want,” Fismar said. “We could drop a terminator virus in there; wipe out the whole population—if we had a terminator virus. More likely, though …” He glanced at Seg: “Electronic?” Seg nodded and Fismar clapped his hands together. “We can get our grabber in there, control their systems, and karg them sideways. You’ll want Tirnich’s squad for recon on the Keep, kid’s a natural sneak. You can tell ’em what to look for and—”

“No,” Seg said. “I have to be along for the recon. This is Theorist work.”

Fismar’s face shifted as his eyes settled back on Seg. Ama watched him turn instantly, and deliberately, impassive. “Theorist, this is an exposure that I would not recommend to the overall commander of our force.”

“I know, but I’m not a charter commander, I’m a Theorist,
” Seg said. “
Eyes on the situation, that’s my work. I need to see the Etiphars for myself.”

“Understood. Is Tirnich’s squad acceptable as support, Theorist?”

“Yes, it is.”

“I still don’t understand,” Ama said. “Whatever you’re planning to use against the Etiphars, how will you get it inside the Keep? Don’t they kill anyone who comes near them?”

“She’s got a point,” Shan said. “They didn’t exactly welcome us with humble hearts.”

“The Humble Heart was a gift-based, exchange-economy religion,” Seg said. “They had numerous ridiculous notions about supporting unviable populations that could not be held together in the face of the Storm, which was a source of their decline. The Humble Heart devotees had a ritualistic exchange system that we may well be able to exploit. We have to see if the Etiphars practice commerce with their neighbors in the wastelands at all.”

“The Gift of the Cloud Ship,” Cerd said.

“Of course.” Ama nodded and, at the looks from the others, she added, “One of the rare victories of the old Kenda resistance against the Shasir.”

“The Kenda gave the Shasir a boat, a big one. A token of peace and good faith.” Cerd inclined his head. “Guess you can figure what was hidden aboard. Sounds like the same kind of plan, Theorist.”

Seg’s face broke into a tight smile. “Exactly! That’s how we’re going to take Julewa.”

“So, we sneak in a surprise or two, assuming they take the bait, and assuming they don’t de-pop whoever brings it to ’em without waiting for the sales pitch,” Shan said. “Then what?”

“Theorist is thinking we can take control of their systems,” Fismar said. “Julewa’s got an old-style system of architecture, and if it’s at all maintained, we’ll be able to control doors, sensors, ventilation—” Fismar gave the group a predatory grin. “We can own their home.”