Stardogs (45 page)

Juan felt both a tremendous satisfaction and vast emptiness, as he stood watching the crown sink away into the pedestal. He knew he would not be two vastly different entities within one body any more. Yet, equally he couldn’t just be Juan Biacasta, aged sixteen, (just) of Amritsar Station again. Part of !whistle paa!tch would be with him always, coloring his perceptions in alien shades which his human eyes could not see. !whistle paa!tch must have been the alien equivalent of sixteen once, but he had been much older when he’d been part of that last brave and desperate attempt to negotiate with the Sil. He had brought a huge leap in maturity and understanding to Juan. Not all of it had left with the crown. Juan looked down at the fingers entwined with his. He squeezed her hand gently. The old pre-crown Juan would have blushed and pulled his hand away. But the old pre-crown Juan hadn’t really understood how his father had felt about his step-mother-to-be either.

Then Central began speaking to them in English. In Stationer-accented English. With Juan’s voice. It was the only source material it had, but Juan found it disconcerting to hear himself calmly greeting them. It continued.

“I am what you would call a computer, however, what you think of is totally different in nature from myself, although we perform the same function. You are, the mnemonic input informs me, under some physiological stress. If you will collect the other members of your party, I will direct you to a small bio-botanical unit, where you may be able to find appropriate food for your species.”

It was the first time any of them had noticed that the two leaguesmen were missing. They went in search of them. Juan lagged behind with Una, thinking about what the computer with his voice had said. Somehow it didn’t ring true, although he didn’t know why. If he’d thought it through he’d have realized that it sounded just like himself, when he was evading a direct lie by skating around the truth.

They found the two leaguesman sitting very innocently on the cargo-transport. If they’d been a few minutes earlier they’d have found Kadar frantically searching for controls.

The Bio-botanical unit was indeed barely a flap or two away to the Denaari, but it took the party a good five minutes to walk to it. It was a smaller version of the pyramid they had encountered the frill-snake hydra in, but this one had no broken corners. A large panel slid aside, and allowed them into the cargo access. Soon they were walking along the immaculate corridors, shepherded along by the Juan-voiced Central. These bio-botanical units were not sealed as the animal cages had been. The party entered a park-like landscape recreation of the gentle world that humans called Tarsus. The dew-pear trees were full of luscious curved fruit. The place was soft with Sambar-lily scent.

Central faced a dilemma. The complex language, with more exceptions than rules had been, by comparison to the other problems, simple. Of course there were words and whole concepts which didn’t translate. The two species saw a different range of wave-length of light for starters. Each had names for colors that the other species could never see. Still, Central could make itself understood.

The aliens’ philosophy was something else entirely. Their society, their way of life, was strange… More Sil than Denaari. They considered themselves separate and superior to other living creatures. Yet, the affection felt by the crown-wearer for the small creature known as ‘Rat’ was deep and genuine. And they could communicate with Stardogs. Yet not all of them could… It imported data from bio-zoo unit 23. The society these specimens had come from was what the crown-wearer would have referred to as ‘ancient Egyptian’. There were several thousand years’ worth of observation records to analyze.

It would take a long time, by Central’s standards, to do so. Central decided to ship them off to the nearby Botanical unit for the fifteen or so minutes of computational time it needed to decide the fate of the castaways. If need be they could be imprisoned there, or should it be necessary, mercifully killed.

Another factor was worrying Central. It understood and approved of Rat’s transmitter system. The saboteur that the civil defense unit had tracked was of course harmless. But there was a spectrograph trace of Sil-typical metal alloy inside one of the humans. Could the enemy still survive, and wish to destroy even the memory of the Denaari? Were these humans’ stalking-horses for something far more sinister? Or were they innocent victims of the Sil too?

Memories are more frequently triggered by smell than all the other factors put together. Analyzing and associating smells was once the primary function of the brain, and perhaps we haven’t evolved as far we think we have. The scent from the hanging curtains of Sambar-lilies filled the Dagger of the Goddess with a terrible feeling of
Deja vu
. Was his life trapped in this cycle, until he did it right? He followed her through the hanging curtains of flowers between the trees.

Shari too had recognized the smell, and decided it was time to stop living with the fear that he would kill her… this time around. It had to be dealt with, like the situation they now found themselves in. She had also seen the implications of a Computer that could learn English in moments. She remembered what Juan had said about going home. She walked away from the others who were enjoying the buttery fruits, and pushed past the hanging curtains of lilies to a small glade where she hid from the rest of the party. She sat and waited, replaying her life. Thinking.

He came, almond eyed and silent.

“I suppose you have come to kill me.” There was no fear. That was good. For her whole life there had been some fear. Now there was only sadness. She stroked Otto gently.

He stopped. She was determined to break away from the script, to try and set him free from the cycle. “How are you going to manage a garrote with only one arm?”

He looked at his arms. At the sling he’d shaken off. At the crude splint. “It’s broken, Deo. I saw you break it. I strapped it up. That was only yesterday. Nobody heals in that short a time.”

“You are Princess Shari Tamar Alstenn-Wienan of the Imperial House and the Duchess of Arunachal?” he asked.

She could lie. He had taught her to lie so that the voice and body did not betray her. But she was damned if she would. “I am. And you are the Dagger of the Goddess. You have assumed the persona of one my servants, Amadeo Cerros, a man you despised and killed. You have come to harvest my soul for the Kali-Dewa for persecuting the holy church.”

“How do you know all of these things?” he had looped the garrote around her throat, showing no signs of having trouble with the broken arm.

“Because we have done all this before. Don’t you remember Otto?”

The dog thumped his tail at the assassin.

“I did not kill you…. I remember. I remember!”

“No. You didn’t kill me. Instead you killed those who had come to murder Otto and me. After that you protected me for eighteen years.”

“Which is why I must kill you now. I must do that which is right.”

“You did what was right. You aren’t a murderer, Deo. They trained you from before you could walk to be a fanatical killer. Yet you are not a murderer.”

“I have murdered many men and women.”

“You killed them, yes. But a knife is not guilty of murder. The person who holds and directs the blade is guilty. You were a knife, a human knife they conditioned and indoctrinated from earliest childhood. They made you their killer. They could not make you a murderer. They made you kill Sugahata, your only friend, although you tried not to strike. They tried to make you kill Dugra, your lover. But you loved her so much, even if she hated you for killing her brother, Sugahata, that you managed to defeat them, subtly, cleverly so that they did not know you had contrived her escape.”

He was silent. The wire was still taut. Tears streamed down his face, but the wire was still taut. “I am the loyal servant of the Dewa. I must do as she commands.”

“But the High Priests of the Holy Church of Arunachal are not loyal to the Dewa. They were the ones who ordered Sugahata’s death, not the Dewa. They sent you to kill him because they were afraid. But his death did not destroy his teachings. So instead they decided on a show of force. To show that the church was still strong they sent their best assassin to kill the daughter of the Emperor.” She knew that what she had said was heresy. She said it with all the conviction she could muster, because what she said, she was
sure
was true. He must read the truth from her words.

“You… you speak the truth.” His hands dropped. “But I have sworn to kill you.” The wire tightened again. “My head is so full of clouds, my Princess.”

Her heart leapt to hear him address her like that again. “Am I to be given a chance to pray?”

“It is honorable to allow the victim a last prayer to cleanse their soul and prepare it for a rebirth closer to the Dewa. But I remember you have nothing to beg forgiveness for. I remember!”

“But I do have something to confess… this time.”

He was silent, waiting.

“I confess to having loved you for a long time. I confess that I was never brave enough to tell you.”

Deo dropped the garrote.

“Pick it up Deo. You may need it. You see, I may need you to kill me, and all of the others.”

He started, nearly dropping the garrote again. “Why… My Princess?” The term itself was a caress. Inside his head the morning sun had come out and was burning away the confusion-mist. There were still gaps, things shadowy and frightening. But he remembered one thing clearly now: his moment of epiphany. She was indeed the Dewa. Or, at least, she was his personal Dewa. He could remember her beside him and leading him through his purgatory, through the demons and trials. He knew now that when the High Priest had called for her death, the priest himself had committed the ultimate heresy.

“Because dearest Deo, if there is a way of getting back to the Empire worlds we may destroy everything millions of people have lived and died for. If we return with a new Stardog, and a new world to colonize, we will give both the League and the Empire the lifeline they need. I can’t betray so many people’s dreams. I’d stay here or even die to stop that happening.

He nodded gravely. “I am yours to command. My life and theirs are in your hands, My Princess.”

She looked at him, long and steadily. “I warn you, if we don’t all have to die here, or go on living here forever, I intend to indeed become the scourge of the Holy Church on Arunachal. I will not rest until it is utterly destroyed.”

He was shaken yet again. “Why…”

“Call me Sugahata’s latest convert, if you like. I’ll destroy them for what they did to you. They will never turn a child into a murder weapon again.”