Power Hungry Part 18

If they break a pact, we're free to start the battle again."

But Lessandra wasn't buying. She folded her arms 183 across her chest, her chin and whiskers jutting out pugnaciously. "Stross has led us halfway to h.e.l.l, and the rest of the route's a downhill slide.

He and the protectorate have to be swept from Thiopa. That's the only hope for our future, any future. I will do anything, even trade with the Nuarans, to rid Thiopa of Ruer Stross. We shall build an army strong enough to ride out of the Sa'drit and overwhelm Bareesh. We've sat out here in the sand long enough. It's time to take Thiopa back and restore the old ways before Stross destroys what's left of Mother World. Either we win or we weep."

The chill of the night made Riker's nose tingle, and the condensation of his breath collected on his mustache. A crescent moon rode high in the sky as he walked along the Stone City's front ledge with Mori. A few flickering torches moved along the canyon rim as sentries marched between the lookout posts on the outer ridges.

"Lessandra really hates Stross," he said.

"That is certain," Mori replied. She wrapped her collar scarf around her neck and chin and slipped her hands up under her arms.

"It sounds more than political. It sounds personal." "It is."

"Tell me about it."

"Her leg-that's how she lost it."

"What do you mean?"

"Back twenty years ago, she was Evain's deputy. At that time the Sojourners were picking up more and more followers. Stross wanted us controlled, and he wanted Evain stopped. That's when my father went into hiding."

"Your father?"

"Evain was-disis-my father." She saw Riker's eyebrows arch in surprise. "Stross told Lessandra the government was willing to negotiate.

They agreed on a neutral place. I think Stross was hoping my father would show up."

"Did he?"

She shook her head and raked a hand through her spikey hair. "He wanted to go, but Lessandra wouldn't let him. She was right, too.

They arrested her and took her to Kahdeen, the most notorious prison island on the planet."

"What did they do to her?"

"Tortured her ... beat her," Mori whispered, a s.h.i.+ver in her voice. "For two weeks. Without medical treatment."

"What did they want to know-where your father was?"

Mori nodded. "But she wouldn't tell them anything. They executed friends of hers right in front of her. But she still wouldn't talk. They broke both her legs, and when they finally let her go, they dumped her in the desert. By the time the Sojourners found her, one leg was so badly infected that it had to be amputated."

"What happened to your father?"

"He sent me to live with his friends, and he stayed on the run for a few more months. But Stross's men eventually found him. They tried him for treason, and of course they convicted him."

Riker's eyes were gentle, his voice soft.

"Did they ..."

"Execute him?" She shook her head. "They didn't want to create a Sojourner martyour."

She told Riker the 185 rest of the story-how the government sentenced Evain to life in Kahdeen Prison, how they said he had died of natural causes two years later, and how many prisoners insisted that Evain was still alive, being shunted from island to island in the penal system so that his survival could never be confirmed. "I know he's alive," Mori said. "I know it."

"So you don't believe anything the government said after they imprisoned him."

"Why should I? Would you?"

"No, I guess not." He took a deep breath of the brisk night air. "And I can understand why Lessandra hates Stross and his government."

"The strangest part is that Stross blamed my father for starting the attacks on the Endrayan mining operations. But they didn't start until after he went into hiding. Evain hated violence. Anybody who reads what he wrote about the Testaments would know that.

Lessandra's the one who ordered the attacks. But they blamed Evain anyway."

"Does anybody else think your father's still alive?"

Mori's shoulders flexed in a resigned shrug.

"Very few believe it, and n.o.body will come out and say it. They're afraid it will encourage me, get my hopes up, make me do something crazy to try to get him freed. I think Lessandra believes he died sometime during the last twenty years, even if it wasn't when the government says he died. Maybe Durren thinks he might be alive."

"It sounds pretty tenuous."

"I really want to know the truth." She shook her head slowly. "And I thought we could use you to find out, but n.o.body thinks it's important enough to include as part of any deal with your s.h.i.+p."

"Remember, there won't be any deal. You people either let me go or you're going to have a houseguest for a long time."

Mori shoved her hands deep into her pockets.

"It's time to go to sleep. I've been a.s.signed to guard you."

Riker nodded toward the moonlit badlands stretching infinitely around Sanctuary Canyon.

"Where could I possibly escape to?"

"Nowhere," Mori said grimly. "Don't forget it. You'd die out there before you got anywhere."

"Fine-you've convinced me."

"I'm still going to have to tie you up. Let's go."

She led him toward the lodge where her rooms were.

"Tell mewhere did the name "Sojourners' come from?"

"Our people believe we're just pa.s.sing through this place. Mother World lets us use her treasures, but we're just borrowing, not taking. The land doesn't belong to us; we belong to the land."

"Like caretakers?"

"Right. Mother World lets us use what she has while we're here. It's our responsibility to leave the land in as good or better condition than we found it."

"A little different from the government's att.i.tude, eh?"

"Yes."

"Sojourners' beliefs," Riker mused as they walked, "are not all that different from what my people believe in."

Most of the lodges they pa.s.sed were dark, but a few windows glowed with candlelight. Furnis.h.i.+ngs were similar to those in Lessandra's chambers, mostly blankets and pillows, with a few crude pieces made of wood or flat stones to serve as tables or seats. All the 187 occupants he could see were adults, with occasional teens on the cusp of adulthood. It dawned on Riker that there didn't seem to be any younger children here. He asked Mori about it.

"Some wanted the little ones to live here, too, but Lessandra and some of the other leaders decided it was too dangerous and too rough for children who weren't old enough to take care of themselves."

"Where do they live?"

"They stay with families back in the villages and on the farms."

"From what I saw in Crossroads, that's not an easy life, either."

"There is no easy life in this realm-not as long as we refuse to surrender to Fusion."

Mori's quarters were two rooms on the ground floor of a sandstone dwelling considerably smaller than Lessandra's. Riker glanced up at the daunting rock overhang rising high into the darkness, and he couldn't shake the uneasy feeling it gave him. Not that it was about to tumble down, but the way it vaulted overhead made him feel that he was in the belly of some impossibly huge beast. Primal dreads? he wondered.

Mori pushed back the blanket draped over her entryway, then stopped short with a gasp.

"What's wrong?"

"Cave spider." She cringed, her voice a dry whisper.

Riker rolled his eyes in disbelief. "You shoot down hoverjets without so much as flinching and yet a little spider petrifies you?"

She crept back as gingerly as if afraid of awakening 188 some fetid, fanged monster slumbering inside.

"It's not little."

"How big can it be?"

She stared at him peevishly. "You're so brave, see for yourself."

Riker pushed past her and swept open the drape.

His feet froze in midstride. "Well, well, that is a sizable spider."

And it was, with a leg span nearly the width of a man's forearm and a body the size of a melon coated with glistening brown fuzz. Three stalked eyes quivered as the creature clung to a thick web it had spun across the ceiling. "Uhh, do these things come to visit often?"

"Now and then. They think the buildings are caves because they're cool and dark. They don't like light.

If you leave a candle burning, that's usually enough to keep them out."

"But you've got a candle burning," Riker noted.

"Yes, but you have to leave them near the doors and windows to keep the spiders from going inside."

"How do you get them out once they're in ...

or do you just move to another town?"

Mori giggled at Riker's quip, in spite of her fear. "You scare them away with a light."

"You've done this before?"

"Sure ... lots of times. Do you want to try it?"

He sidestepped out of her way. "No, no . .

. I always defer to experience."

He did hold the blanket open for her as she scuttled in and ducked low, staying as far away from the spider as she could. She reached for the cut-stone candle holder, which was sitting on a slab, then held it high in 189 outstretched hands. "I'd stand back if I were you." As she edged the candle closer to the spider, it twitched nervously. Suddenly it dropped down on a st.u.r.dy strand of silk and launched itself toward the nearest escape route-right past Riker. It landed on its springy legs and scrabbled off into the darkness.

"You can come in now."

Riker remained skeptical. "How do you know that was the only one?" "They're very territorial. If two tried to come into a s.p.a.ce this size, they would have fought till one was dead ... or maybe both. So if there were two in here, one would be just mangled pulp."

"That's ... that's very comforting." Still, he entered while Mori set up two piles of pillows and blankets for sleeping. He watched her arrange things and then reach into an animal-hide pouch and take out a wooden box. She opened it carefully and pushed aside a soft cloth covering, revealing an exquisitely crafted doll. It was about the size of Mori's hand, made of ceramic with daintily painted Thiopan features and a colorful costume.

Mori set the doll on the stone slab next to her.

She seemed almost unaware that Riker was in the room.

"It's very pretty," he said.

She looked up with a start. "Oh ... thank you." Then she shrugged as if embarra.s.sed. "I don't know why I even keep it."

"It must be important to you."

"I guess."

"It looks old."

"It is." She cradled it in her palms and handed it to him. Riker held it gently. "How long have you had it?" 190 "As long as I can remember. My father gave it to me. It's supposed to bring luck. I used to have a whole collection of them back when we lived in a town in a regular house."

"Is this the only one you have left?"

She nodded. "Most of us had to give up most of what we had." She didn't sound happy about that sacrifice, as if she'd done it without question, but always wondered why. "I felt that I had to keep one, though."

"I know the-feeling. I took some of my favorite things from home when I joined Startleet."

She brightened with interest. "What kind of things?"

He smiled sheepishly. "You don't really want to know."

"I do."