Escape (39 page)

Kieran's mind began to buzz with a sudden, bloody hatred for the old man standing in front of him. Before he even realized what he was doing, he'd raised his fist and was about to make old man Deswin pay for his comment. He was so incensed, that he didn't even notice the multiple warning
clicks
from the rifles the blue robes in the corridor were training on him.

Jilly caught Kieran's arm, restraining him just in time. She whispered: “Aggression is one of the symptoms
.
 
.
 
.
 
.
”

The old man looked unconcerned. “So you see it is true. You've all been changed.”

“Man, what is all this shakra about changing and changers?” Ferrel asked.

“Be careful,” Kieran spoke through gritted teeth, “What you say about my father.”

“I'm sorry if I offended you.”

“How would you know what my father was? You didn't even know him!”

“No, I didn't, but I know someone who did. One of our order was working undercover on the Origins Project. He knew your father well. In fact, he was the one who dropped you on the planet's surface. And I now fear he, too, has been changed.”

Kieran's brow furrowed in a quick frown. “Brathus?”

Old man Deswin raised his snowy eyebrows. “Who?”

“He was the one who stole the ship from us.”

“I don't know any Brathus. The man who left you with me goes by the name of Praxis. He was a prime in the order. You, however, would have recognized him as a captain of UBER.”

“A captain?” Ferrel asked sharply. “What did he look like?”

“Short, bald, skinny
—
”

“Captain Creepy,” Ferrel said.

“Who?” Jilly asked, sounding thoroughly confused.

Kieran gave his head a quick shake. “You didn't meet him. He was the one who gave us our ship
—
Ferrel, that's not possible. We parted ways with him at the Corollary, remember?”

Ferrel smoothed this long, greasy hair back into a ponytail, and then let it spring back into place. “I don't know, maybe he stowed away.”

“Then what happened to Brathus?”

Jilly pinched the bridge of her nose, as if to ward off a sudden headache. “We can discuss this later,” she said. “Right now we need to get to the nearest city. I need to quantify this. To see exactly what's happening to us. With the right equipment, I might be able to develop a cure, or a vaccine, or something.”

“I will take you to Crater City,” Lystra Deswin said. “Under the circumstances, I think it would be better if we do not waste any more time here than we need to.”

“Is it contagious?” Jilly asked.

“The texts would seem to say so, yes, so if you can find a cure, it is likely that all of those here will soon need it.”

“We are not changers,” Segurion interrupted from the entrance of the cavern. “We have the protection of the Elementals. I'm surprised to hear you speak so reverently of the changers' heresy,
Keeper
Deswin. Perhaps your time among them has addled your mind.”

Lystra turned to give Segurion a bleak look. “I fear our order no longer has a purpose, Segurion. You may delude yourself otherwise, but we have failed, and those of our order on Da Shon will be among the first to be changed.”

“You truly are a heretic!” Segurion spat.

“Perhaps, but at least I am not a fool.”

Segurion's face flushed red, and Lystra turned from him to face Kieran. “Do you know the way back?”

Kieran nodded. “I do.”

“Good. I'll meet you at the entrance of the temple in a few minutes. We'll leave immediately from there.” The old man started for the entrance of the cavern, but Kieran caught his arm to stop him.

“We could use a change of clothes and something to eat.”

Lystra Deswin's eyes flicked up and down Kieran's tattered flight suit, and he nodded. “I will bring some spare tunics. You can eat along the way.”

On his way out of the chamber Lystra Deswin ordered the men in blue robes to stand down, and they lowered their rifles, which had until then been aimed at Kieran. As Kieran, Jilly, and Ferrel followed the old man from the cavern, Jilly thought at Kieran:

Just like that? We're going to trust him? After he tried to kill us?

Something tells me that it's harder for him to trust us, than it is for us to trust him,
Kieran replied.

In the entrance of the corridor leading back from the cavern, they shouldered past an infuriated Segurion, and came upon the two blue-robed men who had been carrying Dimmi. They had her seated between them, her back propped against the wall of the corridor.

“What are we going to do about her?” Kieran asked.

Lystra Deswin replied without turning as he hurried down the corridor. “You will have to explain the situation to her when she wakes up. For now, count your blessings that she is unconscious. Her case is the most advanced. It will not be easy to make her see reason.”

* * *

Outside the entrance of the old mine which was a temple, Kieran and the others waited for Lystra Deswin. Segurion and his blue-robed guardians had followed them back through the corridors of the temple, and had their rifles at the ready, if not precisely aimed. The old, rusty door to the temple lay open, with Segurion and his guards blocking the way, as if Kieran and his party might try to force their way back in. The two who had carried Dimmi had dumped her roughly on the floor of the cave, and the pack of Wolvins who'd led them to the temple were gone, having left not a scrap of the rancid meat which had been their reward for delivery to mar the gravel-strewn floor of the cave.

Kieran's felt gooseflesh prickle his exposed skin and shivered emphatically. The tunnels inside the temple had been somehow warmer, perhaps from all the flaming torches.

“We will be glad to be rid of you changers,” Segurion said from the open door.

Kieran turned from surveying the cave to address Segurion: “And we'll be glad to be on our way.” He smiled thinly, and was about to add something more acerbic to that, when he saw Lystra Deswin appear over Segurion's shoulder. Lystra shouldered past Segurion and two men in brown tunics followed, each carrying a pair of heavy green satchels. Lystra carried a satchel of his own on one shoulder and had his rifle slung over the other.

Jilly eyed Lystra suspiciously but said nothing.

Ferrel, however, was not content with silence: “You know, old wrinkle face
—
” Lystra turned from taking one of the satchels from a man in a brown tunic and looked curiousy at Ferrel as he passed the satchel to Kieran. “
—
yeah, you,” Ferrel confirmed. “I'm wondering why in the glit-sniffing infernal we should follow you anywhere. You might just be leading us to a more certain death than the last time.”

Lystra turned silently back to the man in the brown tunic who had passed him Kieran's satchel. He took the other satchel from his helper and tossed it to Ferrel.

Ferrel caught it easily, not even stumbling with it's weight, though it looked as though it should have send him sprawling.

“Open it,” the old man said.

Ferrel frowned, but did as he was told. The satchel was crudely sealed with a pair of drawstrings. He unknotted them and peered into the pack. Sitting on top of a bundle of coarse brown cloth was a slightly-dated neutron pistol. Ferrel withdrew it from the bag and held it up wonderingly. “I thought you nutbags hated technology. Where did you get this?”

“From other changers such as yourselves. When they accept our way of life, we don't discard their belongings, but keep them in storage. Occasionally we need to send agents out among changers, and they must have all that which is required to blend with their surroundings if their missions are to succeed.”

Kieran withdrew another pistol from his satchel, and frowned unhappily at the weapon's signature barrel which ended in a broad, alloy-frame dish that pulsed faintly blue. “Great! An EMP weapon. What am I supposed to do with this?” He held it up to show Lystra Deswin, but the old man merely shrugged. Kieran turned away in disgust. Electro magnetic pulse weapons were designed to counter automata, not living flesh, but the gun would at least deliver a powerful electric shock. That was something. Out of curiosity he checked the weapon's charge and found it to be nearly full. Perhaps if he emptied the entire energy cell he might be able to incapacitate something
—
asumming it was old, and had a heart condition.

Out of the corner of his eye Kieran noticed that the guards in the open door of the temple had stiffened and their rifles were aimed. No doubt they'd noticed that the hated “changers” were now armed.

Lystra handed another pack to Jilly, and kept the final one for himself, slinging it over the shoulder opposite to his own pack. It was no doubt intended for Dimmi, but she could hardly carry it while she was unconscious.

Jilly had her own satchel open now and withdrew a neural disruptor from it. She nodded approvingly and tucked it into her belt. Lyrstra dismissed his helpers, who gratefully retreated into the temple.

“You may leave now, Segurion,” Lystra said.

Segurion's face flashed with anger and he looked about to say something, but then gave the men in blue robes a quick hand signal and they all took a few steps back. The door appeared to swing shut of its own accord, and a they heard a heavy bolt clank into place.

With that, Lystra turned to them in the sudden frigid silence and said, “There are fresh clothes in your satchels. Please change quickly so we can be on our way.”

They each did as they were told and withdrew heavy brown tunics from their satchels. Ferrel and Jilly began to undress from their tattered, blood-stained rags, and but both found their crude bandages in the way. Bracing herself for what she would find, Jilly began tugging at hers. The bandage fell away and puddled at her feet. Beneath it was a gaping, bloody hole in her flight suit. The wound was heavily crusted with blood, so it was hard to see the extent of her injuries, but from the amount of blood, she could guess. Yet there was almost no pain from it. That worried her. Perhaps the wolvin that had attacked her had struck a nerve?

Jilly looked up from examining the wound in her side, and fixed Lystra with an accusing look. “You should have let us clean our wounds! Do you realize how easily they could get infected?”

The old man smiled thinly at her, then reached a hand into Dimmi's pack. He withdrew a rag, a jar, and a flask of water. Walking up to her, he held the articles out. “If you are worried, use these, but as I said before, I suspect you will find that your injuries do not need cleaning.”

“Yeah, I doubt that.” Jilly snatched the items from Lystra and sat on the gravel floor of the cave to begin washing her wound.

Kieran looked on with a wincing frown. He'd seen her injury right after it had been inflicted: if she cleaned it now, she'd likely do little more than reopen the wound and start bleeding profusely.

Jilly opened the jar that Lystra had given her, sniffed the contents experimentally, and recoiled with a wrinkled nose. Sulfur. As an antiseptic it would do.

Kieran watched Jilly gently scraping away the crusted blood on her side
—

Revealing clean, unblemished skin beneath. Kieran blinked in shock, unable to believe what he was seeing. Apparently Jilly couldn't believe it either, because she stopped wiping her wound with such care and began scrubbing it furiously. The dried blood crumbled away, leaving a clean, reddened patch of skin beneath.

“I told you,” Lystra said. “Please finish getting changed quickly. It is a long way from here to Crater City, even on wolvinback.”

Jilly looked up from her wound that wasn't a wound with an expression of awe that quickly faded to alarm. “Wait, did you just say
wolvinback?
Surely you don't mean that we'll be
—
”

“Riding the wolvins? Yes. It is the fastest way to travel, without using your changers' flying machines.”

“Kefick,” Ferrel said, pausing awkwardly in the process of getting out of his flight suit, one leg in, one leg out.

Chapter 21

F
leet Commander Mathos Sereki stood in the tactical center aboard his
paragon
-class leviathan, gazing down upon a holomap of the galaxy. A brilliant spiral was hovering in midair above his holo table's projector. Thousands upon thousands of stars glittered with untapped promise. Each star was a place-marker for an entire solar system in the 3D model of the galaxy. The known and explored quadrant was more brightly lit, while the remaining three quarters lay in comparatively dim, gray obscurity.

The commander gestured for the holo projection to zoom in on the so-called
civilized
quadrant of space. Hey then keyed the table to display a political overlay. The glittering stars changed colors. Union-occupied systems glowed blue, nuetral terrirories white, and systems with mixed ownership became yellow. The vast majority were blue, but great gulfs of dull gray lay between the flecks of color, denoting systems where no planetary or stellar resources had been found to justify colonization. The fleet commander keyed the table to display a new overlay and suddenly 20 previously blue territories glowed blood red. The red star which represented his ship's current location appeared much larger than the other stars.