The Pearl Saga - Mistress of the Pearl Part 52

"Are you insane? Close the chamber door before-"

His voice was choked off as Sahor stepped into the goron-wave chamber. Sahor's entire life, everything he believed or ever would believe, was balanced on this one instant. Scientists-even technomages- were not supposed to use intuition. There was a scientific method, exacting, painstakingly worked out, that needed to be followed. Intuition took no known path, intuition relied on faith, and was therefore anathema to Gyrgon. And yet as Sahor's father had pointed out to him more than once, some of the most exciting discoveries had come from Gyrgon who had had the courage to take that leap of faith.

Sahor's father had taken the leap of faith himself. And Sahor, ever since he had set foot on Kundala, had in a very real sense been guided by his own heightened sense of intuition. In fact, it was his theory that Kundala itself had somehow been responsible for bringing his intuition to the surface, making it accessible to him. For that alone he would be eternally grateful to this place they had stumbled upon over a hundred years ago in the midst of their interstellar trek. Even if he were now to take his last breath inside the goron-wave chamber.

The instant Sahor set foot in the interior, Nith Na.s.sam slammed shut the access hatch behind him.

Sahor felt as if he had entered a dream. There was no up or down, no north, south, east, or west. He had entered a current, which encompa.s.sed Time, s.p.a.ce, the Beginning of All Things, the End of All Things.

All existed at once, superimposed, layer upon layer, like a hall of mirrors that kept showing you the same image in different ways. If he was being a.s.saulted by goron particles, he did not feel it. The beam pa.s.sed through him, doubled back, doubled again, bouncing off the different images of himself even as it revealed them.

And Sahor knew that he had been right, knew why he had been sent to Kundala. For Kundala was the key, it always had been, hanging in its remote section of the Cosmos, slowly spinning, waiting for him to arrive, waiting, in fact, for that very moment. For Sahor at last knew what he had suspected almost from the moment he had landed there. Kundala was alive in a way no other planet they had ever visited or had heard of was alive. Possibly, even, Kundala itself was Miina, the Great G.o.ddess.

He opened his eyes, blinked like a newborn, and looked down at himself. For a moment, he could see through his skin to his organs, through his organs to his bones, through his very bones to the marrow, where, spiraled in a continuing loop, was the hybrid DNA that had made all this possible.

He spun the wheel on the inside of the access hatch and it opened. He stepped out. While Nith Na.s.sam was still goggling at him, he raised his arm, sent a bolt of goron-based energy into him. The Gyrgon fell to his knees. His eyes lost focus, and his mouth worked spastically. Yellow powder dribbled out, all that was left of his teeth. Then, his eyes turned absolutely white, both pupils and irises obliterated by the dreadful radiation, and he fell over, dead.

Gul Aluf was still unconscious; she had seen nothing, and that was how he intended it to remain. Even knowing the danger she represented, it was difficult so close not to be filled up with her. Her haughty expression, her sense of owning him body and soul. How she used her expertise at genetic manipulation to coerce and control, how it gave her a sense of ent.i.tlement. Her allegiance to Nith Batox.x.x because she had created him, birthed him. He remembered also feverish nights with her, the pulse of l.u.s.t a taste neither could get enough of. How they broke Comrades.h.i.+p rules, together delinking from the Comrades.h.i.+p for short periods of time, alone together, able to bestride Kundala like colossi, drunk on their own l.u.s.t, becoming for a time demiG.o.ds capable of anything.

He could feel the goron charge dissipating like steam from a vent. Soon, it was gone altogether.

Would the next charge last longer, remain permanently, would it do so if he stayed longer inside the goron-wave chamber, if he were able somehow to amplify the wave? Those were all questions he wasdetermined to answer. But right then he had others, more pressing, that required his attention.

He had to take advantage of Gul Aluf's condition to extract all he could from Nith Batox.x.x's secret experiments. He reinserted the data blossom in its specially made slot, brought up the files. Quickly scanning them, he could see that Nith Batox.x.x had been obsessed with Stogggul Terrettt and Stogggul Kurgan. More data spiraled by, and a shock went through him. Could what it indicated be correct? Nith Batox.x.x had genetically manipulated Stogggul Terrettt. An experiment not fully thought out and unsupervised. Of course, it had gone wrong. But what had been his aim? What had he wanted to create?

"I see you have managed quite well without me."

Sahor turned, but he already knew, the voice so familiar to him. "Father," he said.

Nith Einon was looking at the fallen Nith Na.s.sam. How long had he been in the lab-orb before speaking? "Killed by goron particles. Fascinating." He appeared exactly as Sahor remembered him: long and lean, the violet eyes set in the sober scholar's deeply lined face. The artfully constructed latticework of tertium and germanium circuits at the crown of his head was perfectly intact.

"Gul Aluf did not tell me that she had resurrected you."

"She wanted to surprise you. I see that you are."

"I am wondering what she demanded of you in return."

Nith Einon frowned. "It's not that I didn't appreciate your keeping me alive. But the truth is, it got cramped inside the Teyj. Couldn't flex my muscles."

"You didn't answer my question."

"You are no longer Nith."

Sahor did not like the tenor of the conversation. Outside the same, nevertheless this Nith Einon seemed a stranger to him. "What did she do to you?"

"She gave me life, nothing more."

"I know her better than that."

Nith Einon used a hand to brush aside his son's words. "Believe what you will. You always have. My only concern is for stopping the Cen-tophennni."

"That is why she resurrected you. To be an ally."

"I am curious as to why it isn't your overriding concern."

"I love the Kundalan."

"At the expense of your own species. You love them too well." He had turned his attention to the holoimages Sahor had brought up. "So Nith Batox.x.x was experimenting on Stogggul Terrettt."

"Whatever he was doing to the ativar failed." Sahor pointed. "But look here. There seems to be a difference in Kurgan's ativar also."

"Not the same as Terrettt's. Perhaps with Kurgan he did not fail." Nith Einon clasped his hands behind his back, craned his neck. "Nith Batox.x.x trained Stogggul Kurgan from an early age. He must have had plans for him. Great plans."

"But what were they?"

"That is what I mean to find out."

Behind them both, Gul Aluf, having been brought to consciousness by Nith Einon the moment he entered the lab-orb, avidly listened to this conversation. Her hearts leapt when she saw the holoimages of Stogggul Kurgan's brain. So Nith Batox.x.x had succeeded, after all! Why had he not told her? Of course, the Kundalan archdaemon possessing him had interceded. She knew now what she had to do. As soon as she was alone she would Summon Stogggul Kurgan and she would finish the process her son had started.

Fleet-Admiral Pnin was staring at a skull. It was a Khagggun skull. He held it in the cupped palm of his hand. It was a lovely thing, really, symmetrical, smooth as a sea stone, the rich color of clotted cor cream. Its eyeholes were dark and hollow, absolutely devoid of life or even the echoes of life. No mark of the deathblow or any sign that it had ever been in battle marred its smooth, gently curved surface,familiar as his own reflection.

A sudden jolt of anxiety caused him to look around. Was he once again dreaming of the mountain of skulls? Yes, there it was beneath his b.u.t.tocks, but as he looked more closely he saw that all the skulls had been cracked open like so many nutsh.e.l.ls so that whatever anguished animus they had carried inside them was now gone. They lay still and quiescent, so much detritus waiting for the slow accretion of time to grind their empty husks into dust.

All save this one skull, cream-colored, glowing. It lay comfortably in his hand as if it belonged there, as if it had always been there. He lifted it until it was at eye level, peered intently at the eyeholes. Had he seen a flicker of a shadow there? A quick, darting movement. And then through the right eyehole slithered a serpent, black and oily with a head like a baby's fist. The head pulsed like a heart and, as it did so, Pnin clutched his own head. The old pain was back, racing through his brain into his neck. And with a start that jolted his hearts he knew why the skull looked so familiar. It was his own skull. And then he realized that the serpent was the tumor growing inside his brain, pus.h.i.+ng against delicate tissue and nerve bundles and . . .

He awoke with a start, jerking forward in the chair in which he had fallen asleep, gasping a little. He was in his villa, which smelled vaguely, unpleasantly, uncharacteristically, of exhaled breath and stale food. But then why not? It had been invaded, locked down tighter than a clai-wen's a.n.u.s.

The fumes of his nightmare still swirled like strong liquor, so real- more real than this forced incarceration, which, in no time at all, had come to seem to him a kind of interment, a sad and bitter end to a Khagggun's life. As he had once been haunted by the battlefield dead, he was haunted now by the loss of the smallest and simplest of freedoms-not to wander the streets and byways of Axis Tyr, not even to walk in his garden, which he could only look out upon and which more than anything else gave him the sense of being a prisoner-all denied him by Iin Mennus. Mennus had been clever to enisle him, for he found it all but unbearable.

There was a scent of ion leakage from the guards' weapons that had seeped into every nook and cranny of the villa, even his narrow Khagggun's bed. It was the first thing he smelled in the morning and the last thing he smelled at night. It was a familiar odor, one that had been a part of his life forever. In this context, he found it offensive. There was a flat, lifeless quality about it that, without the verve of battlefield blood, spoke of tyranny most repellent and egregious, and yet at the same time petty and self-serving.

He pressed thumbs against eyelids at the first telltale throbbing in his head. How long had it been since he had taken his last dose of da'ala? He could not recall, which was in itself a bad sign. Putting a hand to his forehead, he felt the cold sweat and was about to wipe it away when he noticed Iin Mennus standing in front of him. Mennus was holding out a cloth, and he took it, humiliated, as he wiped his skull dry.

Crumpling up the damp cloth, he held it against his temple, as if he could drive away the throbbing that was building into pain, the black serpent with the baby's fist head awake inside him. He knew all too well what would happen to him if he did not take da'ala soon, but he could do nothing as long as Mennus was there. He would die rather than reveal this fatal weakness to his nemesis.

But instead of leaving, Iin Mennus had settled into a chair. He sat facing Pnin and in an uncharacteristically expansive tone told Pnin that he had ordered dinner for both of them brought in from his favorite cafe.

"While we're waiting," he said, producing a photon exciter, "I thought I would show you the new composition of the high council."

Pnin grunted, unconsciously rubbing the biobandage that was healing his wounded hand. "What is this, a new form of torture? I am uninterested."

Iin Mennus shrugged his meaty shoulders. "You will look anyway, Little Admiral. I want you to see the shape of the future." He thumbed the tiny black hexahedron and a series of three-dimensional images popped into the room. One-two-three-four, there were the faces of the new high command. Pnin looked at them, curious despite what he had said. He didn't recognize any of them by name but he knew them just the same: young and ambitious, with death in their eyes and blood on their hands.

"Who are these Khagggun?" he asked. "Not Admirals, surely."

"No, indeed." Iin Mennus rubbed his hands together. "Former Pack-Commanders, all of them.""What?"

"That's right." Mennus leaned forward, his expression more lupine than ever. It was clear he was enjoying himself immensely. "I have hand-picked the best four under my command and promoted them to the rank of Fleet-Admiral."

"But that is absurd. It takes years to work your way up the chain of command. And for good reason.

A Fleet-Admiral must have experience at every level of command beneath him in order to control his troops effectively."

"That is the conventional wisdom, yes. But look where the conventional wisdom has gotten us. Stuck in a conservative, unimaginative rut. New blood, new ways of thinking, this is what is called for."

"No, no, no!" Pnin was shouting, which was a mistake, for it set his head to pounding even more deeply. "The conventional wisdom was set in place eons ago to ensure honor. Don't you understand, Mennus? Without honor, what are we?"

"What you must understand, my dear Little Admiral, is that honor- your dearest benchmark-is a hindrance to the acquisition of new experience. And new experience is the seed of knowledge, of moving boldly forward, of taking what by birthright is ours. The conventional wisdom-this honor of yours-makes us soft and stupid, and that I will not abide."

"You are insane."

"Really? If that is your a.s.sessment-"

"It is a condemnation. You are the personification of evil."

"If that is your a.s.sessment, Little Admiral, then I was wise to cull you from the Modality." Mennus hunched forward on the edge of his chair. "Your conventional wisdom has been around so long it digs into ground it has long ago depleted. Being old, it is considered good even if its value has vanished.

History tells us that whoever dares to overthrow existing custom, which may in fact be bad though it is considered otherwise, is at first condemned as evil. But later, when the existing custom is not reinstated, when it fades from memory, when the new custom is accepted, then this instigator is hailed, deemed of the deepest, truest good." He sat back. "And so it shall be with me."

Mennus' bit of philosophizing was all the more frightening because it had about it the strength of logic.

History is long, memory is short.

"You see how it is, Little Admiral," Mennus said smugly. "There are no truths, only interpretations."

Pnin's headache was worse than ever. He pressed the crumpled cloth against his right eye, which felt as if at any moment it would be spat out of its socket.

"And those, like our own misguided priests who continued to preach the gospel of the false G.o.d, Enlil, who hold such strong convictions, must be eradicated, for convictions are the pillars on which conventional wisdom is built, and are, therefore, inimical to new thinking."

A sharp knock on the front door, thankfully, spared Pnin any more of this deeply odious tirade.

"Ah, our dinner has arrived." Iin Mennus jumped up. "I don't know about you, Little Admiral, but I am famished."

He proceeded into the entryway to discover that the two guards outside had ushered in not dinner but Pack-Commander Dacce. Much to Mennus' surprise, he had with him Pnin's daughter, Leyytey.

Leyytey took in the scene all at once, with a warrior's eye to the details of stance, expression, visible weapons. But something else just as compelling drew her attention. She stared from Mennus to her father. She was frankly appalled at how he had treated her father. It had never until now occurred to her that her father was old. In his lined face, in the way he carried himself, she saw that age had dug its trembling fingers into him most deeply. He had always been to her a magnificent mountain of strength and canny ability, a powerful engine that had been turned on at birth and had never stopped. Perhaps she was reacting to the strange and frightening watery opaqueness of his eyes, or, more accurately, what lay behind it: the acknowledgment that he had relinquished his hold on life, that he had already sounded the retreat into death's cool embrace. Whatever it was, she knew that she had come not a moment too soon.

Dacce's face registered his own astonishment. "Star-Admiral, I did not expect you would be here."

Mennus pursed his lips. "What is the meaning of this, Pack-Commander Dacce, and why is my being here relevant?""Uh, I brought the Fleet-Admiral's daughter-"

"I'm not blind. Fleet-Admiral Pnin is allowed no visitors, including members of his family."

"Yes, of course," Dacce said. He was trying desperately to show the Star-Admiral the stump of his finger without letting Leyytey see what he was doing.

"Stop fidgeting and get her out of here," Mennus barked.

"Just a moment," Pnin said. He had risen stiffly from his chair and come padding silently into the entryway. "I had ordered a shock-sword remade to my specifications."

Mennus whirled on him. "A warning, Little Admiral. Retreat to your study and await dinner."

"I want to speak with my father," Leyytey said.

"You will speak only when asked a direct question," Iin Mennus snapped.

Leyytey picked up on her father's cue. "I cannot finish his new shock-sword without speaking to him."

"He has no need for any weapon now. You will leave instantly."

"I have a right to see him."

"You have no rights, least of all in my presence. You may think you do because you are a weapons smith, but you do not. You are Tusku-gggun. Nothing you do can change that."

"I do not care what you say," Leyytey persisted. "I am here. I will speak with him."

The Star-Admiral, cranky in any case because of his growling stomachs, had had enough of her insolence, and he signed for the guards to take her forcibly.

"Star-Admiral, there is no need for violence," Pnin said urgently.

But no one was listening to him. As Leyytey s.h.i.+fted her attention to the oncoming guards, Dacce whirled and slammed both fists into her chest.

Leyytey cried out, stumbled backward, and Dacce came after her. Pnin was himself on the move, unwilling to allow his daughter to be overwhelmed in an unfair fight. But Mennus signed to his guards, and they restrained Pnin, keeping him back from the fray.

Seeing Leyytey draw a shock-sword, Mennus called to Dacce, threw him his own hilt first. Dacce caught it, a feral look in his eye that warmed the Star-Admiral's hearts. If anyone was going kill the Little Admiral's daughter, let it be Dacce. It would serve as an excellent object lesson for both consort and father. What were Tuskugggun but trouble? He had always believed it, and she was the living proof.

Meanwhile, the combatants were circling each other, their knees bent, their backs slightly hunched.

Dacce's hearts raced. This was what he had always wanted but had lacked the courage to perform, a quick, peremptory strike to end it all-the lost resolve, the broken promises, the brilliant future he had envisioned for himself the first time he had bedded her. A stupid fantasy that had eaten at him through the years. Every time Leyytey made him go to the hingatta to see Miirlin-the bitter fruit of their joining-he was reminded all over again how the golden future had died stillborn. It was all he could do, in fact, not to strangle the curious child with the penetrating grey eyes and the preternatural mind. It was as if Miirlin knew every secret thought in his head. He could not admit to himself that he feared the child, so he despised him instead.

Their shock-swords clashed, sending showers of hyperexcited ions sparking toward the ceiling.

Leyytey was breathing easy for the first time since she had learned of her father's being put into "protective custody." She had inherited her father's penchant for action. Her hearts burned with the Khagggun's bloodl.u.s.t for battle. Not, however, against other races, but against the injustices heaped on her and her caste by her own race. The gene sequence that caused xenophobia programmed into all Khagggun by the Gyrgon was nowhere to be found in her DNA. Rather, she, like Marethyn, like most Tuskugggun had their society given them a chance, possessed the ability to see a situation from different sides and, therefore, come to a conclusion, a compromise, somewhere more or less in the middle.

However, there, at that moment, there was no room for compromise or common ground. There was only the thrust and parry of shock-swords, the panting of heated breath, the will to live. She had recognized from the moment Mennus had thrown his weapon to Dacce that the combat was life-or-death. At the end, one of them would be left standing. Only one.

She feinted to the right, went left. Dacce, canny as he was, did not take the bait. His blows rained down on her. Obviously, he had decided to take advantage of his superiority in strength, weight, andheight to beat her down. Again and again, he drove his shock-sword at her in short, powerful blows, discovering a rhythm, quick, brutal, relentless, that should bring him victory. All he needed, she knew, was to wait for her to make a mistake, to slip up on her defense. Even a small miscalculation in a parry would allow him inside her perimeter, and once there he could deliver the killing blow in the blink of an eye.

Back across the entryway he drove her until she was literally against the wall. She knew she could not let it go on like this. He was dictating both the pace and the manner of the combat. Her arm was growing weary. Already jolts of stray ions had caused three of her fingers to go numb. If the lack of feeling went any farther, she was done for.

She tried to change tactics, tried to go on the offensive, but he would not let her. His brute force, coming at her like an avalanche, gave her no opportunity to turn the tide. She could hear Mennus urging him on, and the two guards bickering over a wager because neither one wanted to bet on her.

A particularly vicious blow drove her to her knees. Dacce was grinning, an expression so familiar she felt despair flood her. Wasn't this what she had always wanted? A chance to prove herself the equal of any Khagggun in front of her father. And now that she had gotten what she so desperately craved, she was failing. Perhaps she had been wrong all along. Perhaps it was true what the males believed, that Tuskugggun had no place in their arena.

Another blow slammed her hard against the wall, the pain jarring up her spine. There was laughter among the guards, more wager negotiations. The odds must be getting long indeed.

And then, on the verge of defeat, she heard her father say to his guards, "I will take your bets. How much, how much?"

He was willing to wager on her! The knowledge ran through her body, banished her self-pity, galvanized her. In her mind, she saw an array of all her weapons, their careful manufacture, balance, and cutting capabilities. No V'ornn knew them better than she did.