Horizon Storms (63 page)

When Engineer Nur’of announced that the fast surface flyers were stocked and fueled, Designate Avi’h announced with exaggerated satisfaction, “I have once again communicated with the Klikiss robots in Maratha Secda. They await our arrival.”

“Then we’d better go,” Anton said with forced cheer, “before the power goes out again.” Though he had intended it as a joke, the comment proved to be all the incentive the members of the skeleton crew needed.

They suited up and, carrying personal emergency blazers, left the lighted dome. The Designate held up the brightest spot blazer and led the way under dazzling stars that seemed much too far away. Even the brief march across the compound grounds to the hangar seemed nearly beyond the limits of the Ildirans, but Avi’h, claiming to draw strength through the thism from his brother the Mage-Imperator, moved at a brisk pace that was just short of a full-out run.

Anton and the Ildirans separated into their assigned groups and hurried to the brightly lit interiors of the individual flyers. He and Vao’sh would ride with the Maratha Designate and his bureaucratic deputy, along with the lens kithman, Nur’of, and several agricultural kithmen, diggers, and technicians.

Though Designate Avi’h was anxious to leave, Vao’sh pointed out quietly that it would be more heroic for him to see that the others departed first. “Bear in mind, Designate—we are participating in events that will be documented in the Saga of Seven Suns. How do you wish to be remembered?”

Bhali’v agreed. “You are our leader, Designate. You are our connection to the Mage-Imperator, and through him, the Lightsource.” Always prag-matic, the bureaucratic deputy added, “By departing in the third vessel, you allow the first two to prepare the way and secure your reception.”

Mollified, Avi’h gave the order. The engines of the first surface flyer fired up, and Anton felt an indefinable sense of relief when the craft rose and departed, accelerating as it skimmed over the ground toward the far-off, unseen light of day.

The engines of the second flyer began to roar as Anton settled into his seat beside Vao’sh. Engineer Nur’of was already going over plans he had brought along. While he waited for all the passengers to strap in, he compiled a projected inventory of the supply and equipment vessels available at the Secda construction site, since the Designate had urged him to find a way to get off of the planet once they all reached temporary safety.

Anton checked through the notes he had retrieved from his personal quarters in Maratha Prime to make sure he had everything. For months he had been translating and analyzing portions of the Saga. Of all the human scholars who had filed requests, Anton Colicos was the only person ever approved to study with an Ildiran rememberer. It had been an intellectual and academic coup that none of his fellow scholars could match. His time living among the aliens, his friendship with Vao’sh, and now this unexpected ordeal—not to mention learning that his father was dead, his mother missing—gave him a great deal to assess and digest, far beyond his original goal of translating Ildiran myths and legends.

He looked over at the rememberer. “Are you glad to have a chance to 400

practice what you preach, Vao’sh—to become a legendary figure instead of just talking about them?”

A sunrise of hues and tones flushed through his friend’s facial lobes.

“No, Rememberer Anton. Given the choice, I prefer just to tell the stories, not to experience them.”

By now the second craft had flown away. Finally, their flyer lifted off the ground. Since he was the most qualified, Nur’of served as pilot.

Bhali’v sat at the communications console, making regular contact with the other two craft. They raced across the landscape, skimming low over uneven ground that appeared bare, rough, and lifeless. While Anton gazed out the dark window, the other Ildirans faced inward toward the flyer’s lights and each other. The shadowy ground slithered by under them.

With every moment they moved closer to the distant line of daylight.

Speeding along, the first flyer was by now far ahead of them and out of sight around the curve of the planet. The blazing engines of the second vehicle were only a pinpoint of orange in the distance.

Suddenly, Bhali’v frowned as he checked and rechecked his console.

“We have just lost all contact with the first surface flyer.” He looked behind him to the Maratha Designate. “Their transmissions cut off abruptly. The pilot had time only to say that he had discovered an unusual reading, a spike—and then the signal cut off.”

“What about the second flyer?” Designate Avi’h asked.

Anton leaned forward, suspicions already churning in his mind. The bureaucrat kithman sent his inquiry signal. “Nothing unusual so far. . . .

Wait—”

Far ahead of them, the brilliant orange dot of the flyer’s afterburners suddenly bloomed into a dazzling flower of incandescent light.

The Ildirans were astonished. “Kllar bekh! It just . . . exploded,” Nur’of said, immediately checking his own readings.

Anton leaped up from his seat. “Shut everything down, Nur’of! Land!

You’ve got to put us down here and now.”

“But there is nothing out here,” Designate Avi’h sputtered.

Anton cut him off. “Two flyers in a row? That can’t be a coincidence!

We’re only a few minutes behind them, so we don’t have long.”

The engineer decelerated drastically until their hull and landing gear scraped along the rough, barren ground. Anton speculated: “I don’t know

if it was sabotage or just a flaw in these ships, but it could be a timed explosive that was activated as soon as we took off. We’ve got to get out of here now.”

As the flyer screeched to a halt, he opened the hatch, exposing them to the empty night and the cold air. “Grab your blazers if you must, but get out. Now!”

Rememberer Vao’sh scooped up one of the portable lights and rushed after the human scholar, fleeing the still groaning and humming flyer.

Nur’of helped the two agricultural kithmen, Mhas’k and Syl’k, out of the hatch.

Anton shouted, “If I’m wrong, we can always come back—but if I’m right, we’ll know in less than a minute.” He sprinted across the cold darkness, not needing a light of his own. “Run!”

Thoroughly motivated to protect his own life, Designate Avi’h scrambled away, dragging his bureaucratic assistant along with him.

Engineer Nur’of was the last one out. “Perhaps the engines were over-heating,” he suggested. “By landing in time, we may have avoided the problem.”

Anton motioned them all to hurry. “Or maybe the danger was caused by something else entirely. Come on!” At the moment, his best guess was that their mysterious saboteurs had reconfigured the flyer engines so they would fail catastrophically while being used. The countdown kept ticking at the back of his mind.

The air was very cold, and the night sky seemed penetratingly dark.

Here, far from Prime and still a long distance from Secda, even Anton felt isolated and vulnerable. He could imagine how terrified the Ildirans themselves must be. When the group came to a halt, panting and anxious, they held their emergency blazers high, looking like a cluster of fireflies.

Designate Avi’h turned to Anton, his panic manifesting as anger and blame. “Now you can see that you have overreacted. Was it necessary to listen to—”

Behind him, the third and last flyer erupted in a timed explosion that ignited the fuel tanks, ruined the engines, and blasted shrapnel and supplies into the sky. The pieces continued to burn, arcing high and then crashing down like flaming meteors. The bright fires were like beacons in 402

the darkness, but the horrified Ildirans took no comfort or strength from the crackling light.

Vao’sh spoke first, shaping their immediate response. “Rememberer Anton and Engineer Nur’of have saved our lives.”

“But we are lost in the middle of nowhere,” Ilure’l moaned. “We are vulnerable to the darkness and the shadows . . . and whatever else lives here.”

“And only twelve of us have survived—and one human,” Bhali’v said.

“The others are dead. That’s not nearly enough for a splinter.”

Anton knew he would have to hold them together somehow. “There’s still hope. Even though the other two shuttles were destroyed, we’ve thwarted whoever is trying to kill us. We can make it.” Sensing their despair, understanding that the Ildirans were more terrified of the loneliness and the dark night than of faceless killers, he tried to sound optimistic.

“We’re still alive, but we have to help ourselves. We can’t just sit here and wait for rescue.” He pointed in the direction of dawn, where he tried to convince himself he could see the barest smear of haze on the horizon.

“There’s only one thing to do—start walking.” He took Vao’sh by the arm and bravely headed out.

In a low voice, the rememberer said, “Our story in the Saga just got more interesting—if any of us survives to tell the tale.”

1085CHIEF SCIENTIST

H O WA R D PA L AW u

During night on Rheindic Co, after the colonist volunteers went to sleep in their gathered tents near the base of the Klikiss cliff city, the frenetic pace of the transportal hub died down just enough for Howard Palawu to do his work.

As the Chief Scientist studied the circuits and machinery left behind by the vanished alien race, he input notes and conjectures into the old datascreen he had kept for so many years. He still didn’t understand how the transportal network functioned, and with each detail he learned, his conclusions shifted back and forth. Ideas and hypotheses were part of the scientific method, and Palawu did not regret the detours and blind alleys.

It was the same with his life. While he might wish he could have changed a few decisions or behaved differently, Palawu didn’t consider his missteps to be “mistakes.” Every action was part of the process of living, for good or bad.

Having a few more years with his wife would have been nice. During their best times, he regretted not spending enough days just enjoying her company, relaxing with her, going to the hot springs she loved so well because her body ached. Now that the Chief Scientist was alone and had all the time in the universe to spend on his investigations, he would have preferred just to take an afternoon off and walk through the canyons of Rheindic Co with her. But she was gone now. . . .

One of the technicians, bleary-eyed and exhausted from hustling people through the trapezoidal gateway all day long, remained on duty to perform bookkeeping chores, though she clearly had no love for the task.

Aladdia had a narrow face, bronze skin, and long blue-black hair. As she went about her tedious paperwork, ignoring him, she ate an evening snack that filled the small control room with the pungent odors of curry and gar-

404

lic. Palawu couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, but Aladdia didn’t offer to share. He was not impolite enough to ask.

Her control board brightened, and the trapezoidal stone window grew blurry. “It’s about time,” she muttered, more to herself than to Palawu.

He looked up and saw a shadow appear. A tall man stepped through.

He had tousled black hair and wore a dusty but comfortable-looking expedition jumpsuit. His lightweight pack contained the requisite scanning and documentation apparatus, as well as a conservative supply of survival rations.

The explorer unslung his pack and handed her the results and images he had gathered. “Another decent world, a bit colder than the others, but the ground is rich in rare metals. A keeper.”

Aladdia scanned the data pack, then nodded. “Good. We’ll add it to the roster.”

“Right now, I’m getting a shower, some food, and a long nap.” The transportal explorer left his equipment behind and walked briskly into the tunnels.

Over the past month, Palawu had often seen explorers return from their expeditions to undeciphered destination tiles. He’d always been intrigued by their daring adventures. He said to the technician, “So many of the tiles remain untried. Who knows what we might find if we traveled through to those worlds?”

“Yes, who knows? If you figure out how the transportals work, we’ll get a lot more answers.” Apparently, the explorer’s scheduled return was all she’d been waiting for. Wrapping up the remains of her snack, Aladdia signed off her log and called it a night. “The system is yours, Dr. Palawu. I hope you find something worthwhile tonight.”

Pacing the room after she left, he stared at the big stone window through which the man had just returned. Palawu had already passed through the transportal network many times in order to study the apparatus on other already proven Klikiss worlds. But the thought of so many blank holes in the data bothered him on a fundamental level. As the Hansa’s Chief Scientist, it was his job to find answers about the whole alien transportation system.

He scanned the mysterious Klikiss hieroglyphics, exotic letters or nu-merals assigned to the worlds their lost civilization had claimed. Palawu

could choose from among hundreds that had never been investigated, never been seen by human eyes. The very idea intrigued him.

He had his scientific curiosity, after all, and he had watched so many colonists pass harmlessly through the transportal. Palawu had already left his mark in many ways: his technical papers and scientific accomplishments, his work analyzing the Klikiss robot Jorax, dozens of fundamental breakthroughs that ranged from the wildly profitable to the unbelievably esoteric.

Knowing the symbol coordinate tile that would return him to Rheindic Co, he could always find his way back. He had nothing left to prove . . .

but why not achieve something else? In reality, he had nothing to lose.

With the meticulous care he had learned from his first job as a lab assistant, Palawu carefully documented what he intended to do, leaving a full explanation and tidying up the reports he had so far compiled about the transportal system. Then he chose one of the still-unknown tiles, recording its symbol on the records he would leave behind.