Read A Working of Stars Online
Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald
A Working of Stars (31 page)
“Not one of our own,” the captain said. “It’s part of our deal with Aulwikh. We send them our guardships to chase off pirates, and the Aulwikhi Circles handle everything to do with tending the luck.”
“And whose bright idea was that?” Hussav asked. “A Circle down on the planet somewhere—and not even a sus-Peledaen Circle at that!—isn’t going to give a damn about Lord Natelth’s married life.”
“That bright idea was probably the price of our ship-loan treaty with Aulwikh,” Egelt said. “Which means that without it we’d be trying to stop the
Fire
’s entry into the Void with nothing but an unarmed fast-runner. So we make do.”
Fire
’s entry into the Void with nothing but an unarmed fast-runner. So we make do.”
Zeri and the two Mages were strapped down on the acceleration couches in the
Fire
’s passenger pod when Len’s voice came crackling over the intraship speakers.
Fire
’s passenger pod when Len’s voice came crackling over the intraship speakers.
“People, we have a problem. There are guardships hanging around our jump point.”
“Whose?” Zeri had to speak loudly enough for the pod’s audio pickups to catch her words; she considered it an accomplishment, under the circumstance, that her voice remained steady and free of obvious panic.
“You need to ask? His.”
“Somebody,” said Iulan Vai thoughtfully, “has been a very clever boy. Or girl, of course, but not if I remember who’s who in Lord Natelth’s security service.”
“Grif Egelt,” said Herin. “And he’s certainly no fool. If he’s taking a personal interest in this project, we have our work cut out for us.”
“When it’s all over you can send him a card and flowers,” Zeri said. To the audio pickups, she added, “How are we going to get out of this?”
“Good luck and clever maneuvering,” came Len’s reply. “I’ll supply the maneuvering; tell your cousin and Syr Vai it’s their job to handle the luck.”
“They hear you,” she said.
“Good,” Len said. “Get ready. We’re building speed for entry into the Void.”
“Matching course and speed,”
Cold-Heart-of Morning
’s captain said to Egelt. “Looks like
Watch-where-the-Wind-Blows
has him.”
Cold-Heart-of Morning
’s captain said to Egelt. “Looks like
Watch-where-the-Wind-Blows
has him.”
“Maneuver to where they’ll be when they come dead in space,” Egelt said.
“Take me a minute to figure the course,” the captain said.
“Damn!” Len’s voice crackled again over the intraship speakers.
“They’re alongside us now.”
“Shoot them!” Zeri ordered.
“With happiness, my lady, but we’re unarmed. Merchant, remember?”
“Damn,” said Zeri in her turn. In a quieter voice, she said, “Herin?”
For a moment there was no answer; then he answered her in a voice that sounded distracted and far away. “Yes, cousin?”
“I don’t want to be captured and taken back to Lord Natelth,” she said. “It would humiliate me and disgrace whatever was left of the family. Don’t let it happen.”
“We’re working on it, Zeri.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking that you probably know how to—well, to put a quick end to someone.”
“Yes. That too.”
“Don’t do anything stupid quite yet,” Len said. Over his voice came the metallic sound, echoing through the bulkheads, of magnetic grapnels attaching to the courier ship’s hull. “I’m still working on being clever.”
“Be very clever,” said Zeri. “And do it now.”
“Portside forward thrusters, fire,” Len said. “After starboard thrusters, fire.” Abruptly
Fire-on-the-Hilltops
began to spin around the point where the magnetic grapnels had attached. “Reverse thrusters.” The spin stopped, making Zeri’s head slew around despite the safety webbing. “Engines, fire, full.”
Fire-on-the-Hilltops
began to spin around the point where the magnetic grapnels had attached. “Reverse thrusters.” The spin stopped, making Zeri’s head slew around despite the safety webbing. “Engines, fire, full.”
“Just got the word,” the
Cold-Heart
’s captain said. “We’ve caught him. The grapnels are all in place and he’s cut his main engines.”
Cold-Heart
’s captain said. “We’ve caught him. The grapnels are all in place and he’s cut his main engines.”
“Head toward him,” Egelt ordered.
“Heading toward him, aye,” the captain said. Then, in tones of incredulity, “What the fuck? The slippery bastard isn’t slowing down. He’s rotating.”
“They can’t do that!” exclaimed Hussav. He sounded as though the
Fire
’s maneuver was a personal affront.
Fire
’s maneuver was a personal affront.
“They’re doing it,” Egelt said. “For a contract-captain in an obsolete ship, our man has got a definite venturesome streak.”
“He’s accelerating,” said the
Cold-Heart
’s captain.
Cold-Heart
’s captain.
“Match him,” Egelt ordered. “Follow him. Get ahead of him. Hell, ram him if you have to—just don’t let him get away.”
“Watch-where-the-Wind-Blows
reports that the grapnels have broken free,” the
Cold-Heart
’s communications officer reported.
reports that the grapnels have broken free,” the
Cold-Heart
’s communications officer reported.
“He’s venting atmosphere to space,” the captain said. “He’s torn the skin and he’s holed and leaking.”
“We’ve got him,” Hussav said. “He can’t go far that way.”
“Make sure he goes no farther.” Egelt leaned back against the
Cold-Heart
’s bulkhead and rubbed his forehead. He was beginning to get a headache. “Do not disappoint me, Captain.”
Cold-Heart
’s bulkhead and rubbed his forehead. He was beginning to get a headache. “Do not disappoint me, Captain.”
“We’re the only ship headed in the proper direction right now,” the captain said. “It’s us or no one.”
“Then it’s us,” Egelt said.
In the
Fire
’s passenger pod, the loss-of-pressure alarms whooped.
Fire
’s passenger pod, the loss-of-pressure alarms whooped.
“Don’t panic,” Len said over the speakers. “We’re okay as long as we stay in here and the internal airtight bulkheads hold.”
“What are you doing?” Zeri asked.
“Just following your instructions,” he said. “One way or another, we aren’t going to be taken alive. That’s what you wanted, right?”
“Right,” Zeri said. “Do what you have to do.”
“He’s approaching the necessary speed for Void-translation,” the
Cold-Heart
’s captain said.
Cold-Heart
’s captain said.
Egelt snapped, “Make sure he doesn’t get in.”
“I don’t know—”
“I said,
make sure.”
make sure.”
There was a brief moment of silence, and then the
Cold-Heart
’s Pilot-Principal said to the captain, “He’s in.”
Cold-Heart
’s Pilot-Principal said to the captain, “He’s in.”
“What was his heading?”
“Nowhere,” said the Pilot-Principal. “That wasn’t a standard translation point. There’s nothing out that way.”
“Did you mark the position?” Egelt asked him.
“Yes.”
“Then make our translation the same way, in the same place. Wherever he’s gone, we’re going to follow.”
The
Cold-Heart
’s captain paled. “That’s suicide!”
Cold-Heart
’s captain paled. “That’s suicide!”
“No more than telling Lord Natelth that we’ve failed again,” Egelt told him. “Make your translation.”
“I didn’t want my pension anyway,” the captain said, and took the ship through.
Arekhon and Maraganha were walking through a tunnel cut in the rock, the muted green glow of their staves the only light. The tunnel was a labyrinth of forks and curves; Maraganha picked right or left each time without hesitation.
“How do you know where we’re going?” Arekhon asked her, after she’d made the choice for the fifth time.
“I don’t,” she said. “Not in the usual sense of the word.”
“In what sense of the word
do
you know it, then?”
do
you know it, then?”
Even in the dim light, he could see that Maraganha looked amused. “I didn’t think all that deference and respect would last very long—not in a great Magelord and the First of a famous Circle. I’m looking for marks at the turnings.”
“Marks. At the turnings.” He looked harder, and found that he could see them after all—faint pinpricks of white light, not so much on the stone as somewhere inside it. “Like Void-marks, only quite a bit smaller?”
“Yes.”
“Somebody was here before,” he said, after a moment’s thought.
“And they left a trail for the rest of us.”
“A lot of people have been through here,” Maraganha told him.
“Sometimes you’ll find yourself following your own marks even though you haven’t left them yet.”
“I don’t think these are mine.” His own marks, he was convinced, would have a different feel to them—he remembered the blaze of white light when the Ophelan Void-mark set. “Are they yours?”
“Not mine. Maybe a friend’s, though. If I’m reading them properly, they lead upward and out, not deeper in.”
He hoped she was in fact reading them properly. If she was wrong, the two of them would be heading into the core of whatever this place was. He decided not to dwell on that aspect of their journey any longer; too much thought along those lines only served to make him hot and sweaty and oppressed by a conviction that the walls were closing in.
They hiked on in silence for some time, until they came to the first door. It was made of heavy wood bound with iron, like a door out of legend, and it blocked the whole passage.
“We could go back,” Arekhon said. “Maybe we took a wrong turn somewhere a few junctions ago.”
Maraganha shook her head. “No. The marks on it are clear.”
Arekhon gave it a push. The door was hard and unyielding; he thought it might be locked in some fashion on the other side. “It’s not going to budge.”
“Then we go through it.”
“How?”
“Very carefully,” Maraganha said. “Relax, keep your eyes on the marks, and let them guide you as you slip through.”
Suiting her action to her words, she stepped up to the door, then passed through it and out of sight. Arekhon was alone in the labyrinth.
“Right,” he said under his breath. “Relax.”
He looked for the marks, and as before he saw them inside the wood of the door—sparkling like a string of jewels, leading him through. He took a deep breath and walked forward to touch the first mark. As soon as he reached it, the second mark flared up like a nova, farther in. Then the third, then the fourth, and he was standing with Maraganha on the other side of the door.
The tunnel here looked much the same as before, only now it was illuminated by a dim, sourceless light. Maraganha had dampened the glow of her staff in response; he did the same, and was able to see how the marks continued on this side. Maraganha gestured at the marks with the tip of her staff.
“See?” she said. “I was right, by the way. They’re leading up.”
She moved on, and Arekhon followed her. The walls of the tunnel became smoother and smoother as they progressed, until at length the tunnel wasn’t cavelike at all anymore, but even-surfaced both underfoot and overhead, in a manner reminiscent of passageways on the fleet-family vessels of his youth. But those corridors had been made of metal and glass and hard plastic, not of stone, and he found the resemblance not so much comfortable as oddly disquieting.
There were doors again, suddenly—not blocking the passage, but appearing along it to either side at irregular intervals. This time he saw no marks lighting the way.
“Now what?” he asked.
“This is your journey, Arekhon
etaze.
Choose a door.”
etaze.
Choose a door.”
He stood in the middle of the passageway, looking at doors stretching out ahead to the limits of his vision. Doors upon doors, and all of them the same—and at the same time, he knew that picking the right one was vital, that things bad beyond imagining lay behind all of the others. He could have chosen, but he had nothing left to guide him in the choice. The marks were gone, and looking for the
eiran
in the Void was a pointless exercise.
eiran
in the Void was a pointless exercise.
But the passageway wasn’t the Void, or at least it wasn’t the un-living no-place, no-time of grey mist without substance that he had always thought the Void to be. This place was other. He looked again, searching now for traces of the
eiran
—and he saw them, looping and coiling along the corridor walls and lacing themselves in a familiar pattern across the surface of a particular door.
eiran
—and he saw them, looping and coiling along the corridor walls and lacing themselves in a familiar pattern across the surface of a particular door.
“That one,” he said.
He opened it with a touch—it slid open; it wasn’t even locked—and stepped through before he could lose his nerve. Maraganha followed close behind him.
They were standing on an observation platform, a bare room that was mostly floor and a half-dome of ceiling, opening up above them to show clear glass and a view of the surrounding stars. Other lights were winking into being out in the darkness as he watched—they were still too distant for detail, but in his heart he knew already what they were.
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