The Pearl Saga - Mistress of the Pearl Part 61

"You see, when you unlocked Nith Batox.x.x's files you obviated the need for your reluctant services,"

Nith Immmon said.

"They grew tired of your reluctance, bored by your arguments," Nith Einon said. "Quite frankly, so did I.".

"This is a mistake, Father. A terrible miscalculation on your part."

"I no longer know who you are, Sahor. I am fearful for you. To be honest, there are those in the Comrades.h.i.+p who think you mad. They argued for incarceration in Receiving Spirit."

"Nith Einon talked them out of it," Nith Immmon said. "But from this day forward you are banished from the Temple of Mnemonics, enjoined from having any contact with Gyrgon."

"Especially Gul Aluf."

"Why especially her?"The two Niths were silent and unyielding. Sahor was in a state of shock. He could accept-even halfway expect-such treachery from any Gyrgon save his father.

"Neither of us knows the other," he said. "How did that happen?" "The equation is a simple one, really." Nith Einon had never looked so imposing or threatening. "You chose the Kundalan over us, Sahor.

Your fate and theirs are one. And, really, isn't that what you wanted all along?"

Darkness was Ba.s.se's friend, despite the fact that he was not equipped with the benefits of a Khagggun helm. He had been born into darkness, it seemed, and in darkness he found comfort. Though his night vision was excellent, he used the full range of his other senses to guide him.

His nostrils flared. He scented the Khagggun just as if he were an animal. He judged him to be not more than a hundred meters north by northwest of his present position. He was standing still. His helm turned from side to side as he decided which way to go next.

Ba.s.se waited until he had made his choice, then circled around, wanting to come at him on the oblique, not quite from the rear and not from the side. Something in between. That way, he judged, he would be able to get in close and slit the Khagggun's throat before he had a chance to react. No good using the ion cannon. Majja had failed to take out Hannn Mennus. He did not want to give his position away.

The Khagggun paused and, with him, Ba.s.se. They stood still and tense, almost like mirror images.

Ba.s.se, one eye on the enemy, listened to what the forest was telling him. It was unnaturally quiet. Those who made the forest their home knew when death was stalking. They were hidden away now, safe in warrens, high branches, beneath piles of fallen needles, slipping into sleep. There was something wrong, Ba.s.se could feel it, something was missing that had been there moments before, a void that made him want to retch. Perhaps it was his own death. He wiped his face, thinking of an open grave, and returned to stalking the enemy.

As the Khagggun moved so did Ba.s.se, pacing him, turning as he turned, always on the oblique angle he desired. Closer and closer. There were only fifteen meters left between them when the Khagggun stopped beside a tree. Ba.s.se's ears p.r.i.c.ked up when he heard the sound of water running briefly.

Smiling. He had the moment he had been waiting for.

But even as he began his run he knew something was wrong. Too late now to break it off, he was committed. His shock-sword was at the ready, vibrating points held higher than the hilt. He filled his other hand with a dagger, saw the shadow moving at him at the same oblique angle he had on the Khagggun.

He recognized Hannn Mennus at the moment Mennus barreled into him.

Thrown off stride, he spun to one knee. Mennus came at him with his own shock-sword. The Khagggun against the tree turned. His armor gaped open, and, with a deft twist of his wrist, Ba.s.se threw the dagger, an underhand motion, a flat trajectory, powerful and true, he had practiced since he was six.

The dagger buried itself to the hilt. But now it was too late to avoid Mennus' blow, which came whistling down in a trajectory to cleave Ba.s.se's skull.

Livid blue-white light exploded, the percussion burst sending Ba.s.se tumbling head-over-heels backward. He shook his head, rose on one knee. Hannn Mennus stood, weaving slightly. There was a ragged hole in his chest plate. He was looking at a figure in Khagggun armor advancing on him.

"Who . . . who are you, traitor?" Mennus managed.

The helm came off, revealing Marethyn's face. Mennus cursed mightily. His arm came up, the ion cannon in it, and Marethyn fired at the same exact place she had hit him the first time. Blood fountained, and Mennus was blown backward, arms thrown wide.

Ba.s.se got to his feet, started walking. He saw Marethyn stalking over to Mennus. He was not yet dead, a tough V'ornn even by Khagggun standards.

"I curse you to every level of N'Luuura," Mennus whispered through b.l.o.o.d.y teeth. He began to gurgle, drowning in his own blood."Don't die," Marethyn said. "Not yet." She took out her shock-sword and, with a slow, deliberate stroke, severed his head from his neck. The extremities jerked and spasmed to be subjected to such gross insult. The sphincter let go, and foulness rose into the air.

She plucked the severed head off the ground, tucked it under one arm.

"We must find Majja," Ba.s.se growled, "and remove ourselves from this cesspit."

They set out in a tight spiral from the place where they had launched the initial attack. They went together, cautious and tense. Moving across a hummock, she stumbled over a huge root. She looked down. No, not a root. Something else, and she held Ba.s.se back. Then her heart seemed to stop beating.

An arm, the elbow c.o.c.ked, rising like a pale fern. She signed to Ba.s.se, who knelt with her. They saw the body, wetness all around, as if she had stopped to drink her fill of rainwater.

No, Marethyn thought. No1.

Ba.s.se turned the body over, made a small noise, put his head down.

Marethyn touched Majja's face, wiped the blood out of her eyes and nose. She put her ear to Majja's chest. No pulse, no beat. This was a mistake. Surely she was only grievously wounded, shock must have caused them to miss the signs. She sat up, slammed her fist into Majja's sternum, began to pump with the heels of her hands, making a steady rhythm.

"Come on, come on," she chanted.

"What are you doing?" Ba.s.se looking at her.

She kept up the pump, what else was there to do? If there was even one iota of a chance that she could bring Majja back . . .

"She's dead." Ba.s.se lifted her pallid hand. "Feel her. Cool as stone."

Marethyn, ignoring him, gripped by desperation. Pumping away.

"She's lost too much blood."

"Stop it!"

All at once Marethyn's teeth were chattering. She sat back on her haunches, closed her eyes. Majja couldn't be dead, she couldn't. She had grown up with a sister who despised her. It was only now she realized how much she had come to rely on Majja, how much of a buffer between her and Ba.s.se-all the Resistance members who feared and distrusted her-she had been. Like an older sister she had looked out for Marethyn. Like an older sister she had accepted the differences in Marethyn and had loved her just the same. What was she going to do without her?

Rain began to patter down. Leaves dipping, dripping. Slippery needles. The fecund smell of fungi.

Ba.s.se looking on, expressionless, as she wept.

After Sahor had gone, after they had been a.s.sured of his exit from the Temple grounds, the two Niths made their way to Nith Ba-tox.x.x's lab-orb. Nith Einon keyed open the access panel, and they proceeded inside.

Nith Einon identified a false orangesweet blossom, plucked it off the vine. They were trembling, for they both felt the tide of history pulling them onto the sh.o.r.e of great discovery. It had been thus when Nith Glous had discovered the multiverse, when Nith Hunnn had perfected the grav drive that allowed V'ornn s.h.i.+ps to "fall" between multiverse layers, travel thousands of light-years in the s.p.a.ce of a triple heartsbeat. Now, on the verge of discovering a way to save themselves from annihilation by the Centophennni, they felt the same electric exhilaration those genius Niths, all the others in the Catalogue of Greatness must have felt. Their connection to the accomplishments of the past filled their veins with a tingling, and their chests felt tight with sudden pressure.

They exchanged a meaningful glance as Nith Einon held for a moment the data blossom above the slot. "This is worth everything," he said.

"It is a shame Nith Sahor does not share your dedication to our continued survival."

"My son is not himself, it is true. He has become self-hating. Like Eleusis Ashera, he has allowed the Kundalan to infect him.""Is he mad, then?" Nith Immmon fidgeted by his side. "Were the others right to want him incarcerated and under constant surveillance?"

"My suspicion is rather more benign, though no less sad. I think he has become deluded. I believe that he thinks of himself as something of a mystic. Mysticism, as I have no need to remind you, has no place in our world. Equation after equation has proved its invalidity."

"Ah, I see. Mysticism is the cornerstone of the Kundalan worldview."

"That is as may be. But as for me, I cannot fathom what fascination they could possibly hold. Forget the Kundalan. Forget Sahor."

So saying, he placed the stem of Nith Batox.x.x's data blossom into its slot. Two sets of Nith eyes were focused on the holoscreen as the longed-for data came up in a series of whorls. They had just started to read it when it was wiped out, leaving a black screen hanging in front of them like a starless sky.

Nith Immmon turned to Nith Einon. "What happened? What did you do?"

"I did not do anything." Nith Einon's fingers were working the controls. "One moment the data was there, the next it was gone."

"Where did it go?"

"It is nowhere in the databank."

"Well, download it again from the blossom."

"I have already tried that." Nith Einon's voice had turned sharp. "The data blossom is dead."

"What do you mean, dead?"

"It is useless. The data inside it is gone."

Nith Immmon plucked another one from the vine. "Here. Try another."

In fact, they tried three more blossoms with no result, including the original one Nith Sahor had inserted in the slot.

"It's a virus," Nith Einon said.

"What?"

Nith Einon was grinding his teeth in fury. "My son inserted a virus into this system."

"Get it out of there."

"Too late." Nith Einon slammed his fist into the control panel. "It has infected the data blossoms. It has eaten every bit of data that was ever in there."

Nith Immmon went searching through the orangesweet vine on the wall. "What about other data blossoms? There must be more here."

In fact, there was only one. He held it up triumphantly.

"What would you do with it?" Nith Einon asked him rhetorically. "It was made to fit this system and no other."

"I know my son too well." Nith Einon took it from him, examined the "petals." "You see here? It is sabotaged. Were we successful in solving the riddle of this system, were we to build another slot for the stem, the data blossom would self-destruct instantaneously."

"d.a.m.n him to every level of Argedddian purgatory!"

Nith Einon placed the data blossom in Nith Immmon's hand. "Wear it as a badge. It is of no other practical use."

Marethyn and Ba.s.se had been trudging through the forest for close to six hours without a single word having pa.s.sed between them. If asked, Marethyn would not have been able to say what was on her mind. But no one did ask, and, in any case, she was thinking of Majja.

Burying her had been difficult for both of them. Neither of them had wanted to let her go. What she had meant to Ba.s.se was yet another mystery. Had he loved her all the while he was fighting beside her?

For all Marethyn knew of them they were blood sister and brother, though she doubted it because the Resistance frowned on more than one family member inside a single cell. From his face, his demeanor,she could tell nothing. Whatever he might be feeling occurred so deep inside him not a trace of it reached the surface.

Consequently, Marethyn traveled with a degree of unease. Possibly, this was his intent. He had made his prejudices known. As far as he was concerned, no matter what she did, she was first, last, and always V'ornn. Not to be trusted. And yet, following the burial he had made no sign of breaking away from her, going his own way. By a kind of unspoken agreement, they had begun to circle back toward the last known position of what was left of the late, unlamented Hannn Men-nus' Wing. What they would do when they came upon them was unclear. They were exhausted both physically and emotionally from their long and wrenching ordeal. What they needed most now was several days of hot meals and uninterrupted sleep. Neither, however, harbored any illusions. Time enough for rest when the war was won.

Long, thin clouds raked the sky like claws, scudding south, as if fleeing the Djenn Marre. The head of Hannn Mennus, grim and silent, was darkening, the skin going from bronze to charcoal grey. Also, it had begun to stink. Ba.s.se had stuffed the neck with dry Marre pine needles and that had helped. Strangely, they now loved the head, as if inside it the last of Majja still lived and breathed, as if keeping it close would keep her near them.

Chirruping night clutched them to its bosom, and at last they realized that they could go no farther without eating or sleeping. They roasted meat stripped from a qwawd they caught. The juices ran over their fingers as they pulled the meat from the fire. Soon enough their mouths were coated with grease.

Still, they had not spoken. Ba.s.se barely looked at her, stared instead into the filmed-over eyes of Hannn Mennus, thought his inscrutable thoughts. Slept like the dead, while Hannn Mennus stared infinity in the face.

At first light, on Marethyn's watch, she saw movement in the misty forest. She swung her ion cannon and called softly to Ba.s.se. He awoke, as was his wont, completely out of a deep sleep, got to his feet, saw that they were no longer alone.

Figures appeared out of the mist, silent, their weapons at their side, pointing to the ground. Until they were standing in a rough semicircle around them: what appeared to be an entire brigade of Resistance.

One of the males stepped forward. He had a face like a rock, battered by time or circ.u.mstance, grizzled with moss. His clothes, like the others', was in tatters. Here and there, you could see muscle or the curve of bone beneath sun-bronzed skin. He addressed Ba.s.se in a deep voice. "I am Dunna."

"I am Ba.s.se and this is Marethyn." He and Marethyn stood side by side. "Are you leader of this brigade?"

"Hardly a brigade, Ba.s.se. We are the remnants of many cells, all that is left from Hannn Mennus'

relentless attacks." He licked his lips. "We have heard tales, seen evidence with our own eyes. We have been searching for you. We want to join you."

Marethyn said nothing. She was aware of some of the Resistance fighters looking at her out of the corner of the eyes, but as for Dunna, it seemed as if she did not exist at all. She knew what would happen here if Majja were still with them. But Majja was dead, and there was only Ba.s.se. Angry, enigmatic Ba.s.se. Her hearts were in her throat, knowing that her fate was in his hands. If he denounced her-though the accusation be false-she could see that they would fall on her, rend her limb from limb.

Their sunken eyes were dark-rimmed with too many defeats. They were desperate for leaders.h.i.+p, desperate for hope, desperate to partic.i.p.ate again in victory.

Dunna moving from one foot to another, impatience intruding on his deference. "So, what do you say?"

"I say nothing." Ba.s.se hooked a thumb at Marethyn. "My Commander makes all the decisions."

"Your Commander?" Dunna goggled. "This Tuskugggun?"

"My Commander created the Black Guard, conceived of its tactics. You have seen the victorious results with your own eyes. And there is more. Hannn Mennus' Wing is demoralized, in disarray." Ba.s.se picked up Hannn Mennus' head, held it high up for them to see. "As for the feared Hannn Mennus himself, here he is. My Commander killed him." He shook the head, a shower of blood-clotted pine straw falling. "I follow her wherever she leads. If you wish to join the Black Guard, you will give her yourstrong arm, your brave heart, your absolute loyalty, as I do. Nothing less will suffice. The Black Guard accepts only elite warriors. You will have to prove yourself worthy to Commander Marethyn."

At length, Dunna turned to her. "Is this true, Commander? Did you in fact kill Hannn Mennus?"

Marethyn was understandably stunned. She wanted to make eye contact with Ba.s.se, possibly to make sure he hadn't lost his mind or, worse still, was joking. The only thing that stopped her was that she knew Ba.s.se did not joke. Still, she had the presence of mind to address Dunna directly. Taking her cue from Ba.s.se, she said, "You have been told it is by a member of the Black Guard. If you need confirmation, if you doubt what he has told you, then you have no business being with us."

"I meant no offense, Commander. It is just that..."

"Yes?" Pulling herself up to her full height. She could feel the black cloth of her blouse fluttering against her ribs.

"Nothing." To his credit, he met her eye. "I speak for all of us, Commander, when I say that we fervently wish to become members of the Black Guard."

"You may walk with us, Dunna. You may fight with us in our next battle. If you follow orders, if you are found worthy by Ba.s.se and me, then will your clothes be dyed black like ours."

"That is fair, Commander. We thank you for this kindness."

As he turned to address his ragtag compatriots, Marethyn shot Ba.s.se a look. Their eyes locked, she gave him a small nod, and a grin broke out on his face. Not that it lasted long, not that it needed to. It was unmistakable and indelible, and when she grinned back she was flooded with a fierce pride.