Alien Chronicles 3 - The Crystal Eye (41 page)

Elrabin and Harval shouted for silence until at last the uproar died down. Slowly the crowd resumed their seats, but Harval remained standing.

“No one can say you ain’t got bold ideas, Ampris,” he told her. “But we got no transportation and no weapons. How we going to get to those ships? The Viis ain’t going to let us leave. They need us too much, even if right now they’d rather kill us than give us food.”

“That’s right!” a slim Kelth shouted from the back of the room.

“You’re talking
everyone,
Ampris,” Harval went on. “I know we outnumber the Viis, at least here in this city, and that’s a lot of folk.”

“There are enough ships,” she said. “The cargo ships won’t be comfortable, but they’re big.”

“But—”

She raised her hand. “My plan is very bold. It is risky. But if we stick together we can do it.”

“Even if we could break into the armories, we couldn’t—”

“Harval,” she said, “stop thinking like a Viis. We cannot go to war with them. That is not our way. Anytime the abiru folk have tried to fight their way to freedom, they have failed. We must use guile and cunning. We are going to let the Viis defeat themselves.”

Harval backed his ears, looking baffled. “That don’t make sense.”

“We are going to keep them off balance, play to their worst fears, and distract them until they do not care what we do.” Ampris lifted her head and let her gaze sweep the room. “We are going to deceive the Viis, as once they deceived us. We are going to strike where they are most vulnerable. When we are finished, they will
make
us go.”

Another Aaroun, as equally skeptical as Harval, rose to her feet. “And how do we do this?”

“We are going to ask the Rejects to come out of hiding,” Ampris said.

She saw ears going back; the murmurs rose again.

“Hear me!” she called over the noise, and they quieted reluctantly. Foloth stirred beside her, but Ampris ignored him. “No more will the Rejects stay out of sight in order to avoid bringing offense to the Viis citizens,” Ampris said. “No more will the Rejects be content to accept charity. I’m going to ask them to assert their rights and demand equality with their more fortunate brethren.”

“What good will that do?” demanded Luthien, his one eye blinking rapidly. “That ain’t no kind of plan.”

“The Rejects are a reminder of the Dancing Death!” Ampris said, raising her voice again to be heard. She felt breathless and pain began to stir beneath her medication, but she never let her gaze waver. “That disease crippled the Viis Empire. It drove them into becoming the venal, lazy, inefficient creatures they are today. They pretend they do not worry about their dwindling population, but they worry all the time. The Viis live in fear, fear that the plague will come back. Every time they see a Reject, they relive a time in their past when they were defeated by a biological enemy unseen and unstoppable.”

“This will torment them,” Harval said. “But it will not do more than that.”

“They must be prepared psychologically,” Ampris said. “The recent defeat of the mighty Viis flotilla has them unsettled. Now the Rejects will continue to upset them. Because, my friends, we are going to bring back the Dancing Death.”

Cheers went up from half the room. The others remained seated in skepticism. “How?” Harval asked.

“How?” Luthien asked.

“How?” someone else asked.

Ampris smiled, and it was a cold, grim smile. “I am acquainted with a Viis scientist named Ehssk.”

“Ehssk the Butcher!” came a shout.

“Yes,” she said. “Ehssk the Butcher. He has been trying for many years to create an antidote for the virus, but he has failed.”

“So?” Luthien said.

“He keeps vials of the virus sealed in his laboratory,” Ampris said. “You are thieves, many of you. How hard is it to break in and take what we need?”

Luthien rose to his feet, his eye staring in astonishment. Harval’s mouth hung open. One by one the rest stood up.

“The Crimson Claw!” came a shout from the back.

It was echoed around the room until the roar was thunderous. “The Crimson Claw! The Crimson Claw!”

“Freedom!” Foloth shouted back.

They took up the chant immediately. “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!”

Elrabin came over to Ampris’s chair and bent over her. “You look tired, Goldie, but you got a mind as devious and twisted as the Kaa’s.”

She smiled back, letting the cheers wash over her. “Thank you.”

“They’re yours now. They’ll do it,” he said in admiration. “It be a bold plan, though.”

Her smile faded. “It is a very dangerous plan, Elrabin. For us, the real risks are just beginning.”

His ears drooped. “No other way?”

“No other way.” She gripped his hand, wanting him to have faith too. “But worth it, Elrabin. Worth it!”

The next day Ampris set to work. Still too weak to get about, she met with Luax, Harthril, and four other Rejects from her bed in Jobul’s house.

One of the Rejects from Vir was the dwarf who’d been at her first resistance meeting in the Archives. Today she learned that his name was Mahradin. It was immediately clear that he was the chosen voice of the Reject population in the city.

“We hear,” he said as soon as the perfunctory greetings were over, “that you want us to offend the citizens.”

“Yes,” Ampris replied. “To show yourselves in public, to cause disturbances—”

“Why should we?” he asked. Although she was lying propped on cushions and he was standing, he still had to look up at her. With his full-sized head, large rill, and shrunken body, he looked top-heavy. “We have rules, Ampris. We stay out of sight. We cause no trouble. We do nothing to remind the citizens that we exist. In exchange, each Viis household donates food and clothing to our distribution centers. Why should we risk what we have? We are not slaves. We have our freedom.”

“Are you free?” she asked. “Free to do as you please? Free to go where you please? Have you ever been to a public concert, Mahradin? Have you ever been to the arena to watch fighting? Can you stroll down the famous floating walkways of the Zehava shopping district? No, you are not free. You live bound by the rules of those who will not accept you. You are chained by your dependency on their charity.”

“At least we don’t starve,” he muttered.

She looked him right in the eye. “Is the charity as generous as it used to be?”

The dwarf’s rill stiffened. He glared at her, but did not answer. They both knew there were shortages. As Viis citizens had come to feel the economic squeeze, their pockets had grown more shallow.

“We struggle,” Mahradin admitted finally. “But you would see us cut off.”

“You’re going to be cut off anyway,” Ampris told him. “I know there are only five distribution centers in Vir now; there used to be twenty. When they can no longer feed the slaves, why should they feed you?”

“Because we are still Viis,” Mahradin said proudly.

Ampris sighed. That opinion was exactly what she had to change. “Yes, you are Viis,” she said in agreement. “Every bit as Viis as the citizens. Yet you are shunned. Even your own families will have nothing to do with you. Why? Because you look different from them. What reason is that?”

His rill was turning red. “Why do you pretend such ignorance? You lived with the Viis once. You were pet of the sri-Kaa.”

“Yes, I know that the Viis abhor anything ugly,” she said, choosing to be blunt. “But beauty should be judged by many standards, not just one. Tell me, Mahradin: What do
you
consider beautiful?”

He flicked out his tongue, his eyes darting around the room. No one else said anything to help him out, however.

Finally he brought his gaze back to Ampris. “I see beauty in someone whole,” he admitted. “In long, straight legs. A body that fits together proportionately.”

“Yes, that is natural,” she said gently, aware that he had hurt his pride in order to admit so much. “Look at Luax. Her limbs are straight. Do you consider her beautiful?”

Harthril stiffened his rill and started to speak, but Ampris gestured for him to be quiet. She watched Mahradin closely, observing the struggles in his face.

“She has a straight body,” Mahradin said finally. “Yes, she has beauty.”

“Yet Luax is a Reject,” Ampris said.

Luax’s eyes filled with hurt. She bowed her head, and Harthril put his arm around her.

Mahradin raised his clenched fists. “You have no right to preach to us about our own beliefs.”

“No, but I think you bind yourself too hard to something that has no foundation,” she answered. “In all honesty, when you are as intelligent and as capable as a citizen, how do you make yourself accept second-class standing?”

“We are not even second-class,” muttered another Reject, a thin blue-skinned female with two rills layered on top of each other. “We are no class.”

“I know you don’t want to trust me,” Ampris said softly. “I am abiru and you’re Viis.”

“Not Viis!” the blue-skinned female said fiercely. “Reject.”

“You are Viis,” Ampris said firmly. “The term ‘Reject’ is an insult. They do not want you, no matter whether they supply you with food or not. They do not want you. That must hurt.”

Harthril muttered angrily to himself and moved away. Luax watched him pace about and would not look at Ampris.

“I know I am saying things that upset all of you,” Ampris admitted. “I’m sorry. You have seen my own sons. You know that I can sympathize with your situation. Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps the Viis government won’t turn against you. But I have personally seen the blighted stelf crops. I have seen patrollers burning the fields. I know the food stores are running low, and that the cargo ships have not gone to the colonies to bring back more. The food will run out. And when it comes down to a choice between the accepted Viis families and you, well—”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Mahradin flicked out his tongue. “We see the threat. Or we would not be here at all.”

Ampris held back her own impatience, wishing they could have reached this point sooner.

“You ask much of us,” Mahradin said. “But what do we get for risking our food? When the Viis drive you away, will they not remember the trouble we caused them and punish us?”

“You’ll come with us,” Ampris said. “To Ruu-one-one-three. How ironic that your people should inherit those beautiful lands instead of your flawless Viis counterparts.”

Mahradin swung around and exchanged glances with the other Rejects. “And we would have our own ship?”

“Yes,” Ampris said. It was so easy to promise what she did not as yet have.

“You would accept us? Not torment us?”

“Yes.”

“You would give us our own land, not make slaves of us?”

“We are putting an end to slavery!” Ampris said heatedly. “Not taking it with us.”

Mahradin fell silent.

After a moment, Ampris backed her ears. “I don’t know what else to say to convince you. Only that we need your help. Without you, we cannot succeed.”

“Flattery is an evil thing.”

“Truth is truth,” she said shortly.

At last he flicked out his tongue and nodded. “Very well. We will cooperate. But do not forget your promise, Ampris. We make bad enemies.”

“I want no enemies,” Ampris replied. “I will not forget. When can you begin?”

He blinked at her eagerness. The others looked disconcerted.

“It is not easy to change the habits of a lifetime,” Mahradin began.

“You must start tomorrow,” she said. “Today if possible. Not just in Vir. Can you persuade Rejects in the other cities to go along? The more widespread the trouble is, the better.”

“We will see what can be done,” Mahradin said reluctantly. “But take care, Ampris. You are setting something very frightening in motion.”

She no longer allowed herself second thoughts. Clutching her Eye of Clarity, she said, “I know.”

That night it began, the first phase of Ampris’s plan. The Rejects might have been wary and suspicious, but they did not delay. On the evening vidcast, a report showed up about Rejects forcing their way into a fashionable restaurant and showing their features. Patrons had been upset. Many had departed immediately, in the middle of their meals. The proprietor had gotten the Rejects to leave, but he was distraught at the loss of the evening’s usual revenues.

Elrabin laughed and tapped Ampris on the arm. “Get ’em in their pockets, see?” he said with glee while Velia sat curled up against him. “That’s brilliant.”

At first the Rejects were peaceful, as Ampris had requested. They simply turned up at any and every public event, making their heretofore-invisible presence known. Viis citizens apparently had no idea just how large the Reject population had grown in recent years. Now they never knew when they were going to be accosted by a Reject claiming to be a relative and asking to move in.

Soon, an incident of violence was reported. Then another and another.

“No!” Ampris said angrily. “No bloodshed!”

But the Viis grew more violent in repudiating the Rejects. And despite Ampris’s advice, the Rejects retaliated in kind. Suddenly there were riots, break-ins, and looting.

“Mahradin,” Ampris said during another hastily called meeting. “You must put some kind of control on this. Rejects are getting hurt. If the riots don’t stop, the government will do something terrible to your people.”

Mahradin looked up at her fearlessly. In the past few weeks, something had changed in his eyes. She saw it in other Reject eyes as well—a new pride, a new fierceness. “The government has done nothing,” he said with confidence. “Oh, sometimes the patrollers come in and break things up. There have been some looters arrested. But no one wants to look at us long enough to put restraints on us.”

“Take care,” Ampris warned him. “If you push too far. the Kaa will order—”

“What?” he replied. “Many of us carry aristocratic, even imperial blood, you know. We may live in poverty, but our lineages are proud.”

“I see,” she said, understanding at last why the government was being so patient. “But take care. The Viis have never been very good at coping with moral dilemmas.”

Mahradin smiled and flicked out his tongue. “That is exactly what we count on. Have you seen the latest vid-casts? Debates over the Reject problem on almost every channel. The patrollers can’t be everywhere at once.”