. . . his two companions at his side, laden with as much food and water as they dared carry, creeping out of the least-used entrance to the Hive and heading north beneath the open night sky, running and running, covering themselves at dawn with red-gray gravel, crouching all day at the bottom of the dry gulch . . .
. . . the knife had been sharpened against a grinding stone. It must never touch base metal.
The chief of the warriors, bending low over the boy strapped to the table until the eyes were visible, glittering through the eye slits, red reflections of the torchlights . . .
". . . a life wholly dedicated to the service of the Great King, the body of the new Supplier must be prepared . . ."
The line of Royal Suppliers sat nodding in their endless dreams, pale and motionless. They were fed constantly, Strine synthetics spooned into soft, red-lipped mouths dwarfed by vast cheeks and bloated jowls. The mouths smiled, on and on.
. . . the knife coming slowly down, the serving women standing by.
. . . the three were staggering along, water supply close to gone, food running low, longing looks at the precious seedcorn. They passed a hundred old settlements, derelict buildings, rubble of houses long since plundered for glass, wood, and metal, rank grass growing along old streets, missile defenses all crumbled and useless. Onward . . . seeking the hidden place, the legendary land of plenty that lay beyond the farthest Hive, location and distance known not even to the Hive-Lord . . . peering again and again through dust-blurred eyes, scanning hopelessly the northern horizon . . .
A shower of rain, unexpected and life-saving, sent flash floods rushing dangerously through the gravel-bottomed arroyos. Drinking to capacity, filling every water bottle, walking on to meet the Pole Star . . .
". . . drink deep, and repeat these words . . ."
The service of dedication was almost over; the final cup was being held to the boy's lips as he lay silent on the table. His place among the Suppliers had already been prepared, a new padded dais designed to accommodate endlessly increasing bulk, tap lines ready to be inserted at spleen and pancreas and running to the fungal growth vats.
. . . the first sight of the valley, its springing wild greenery, the astonishing sight of the ancient rocket launcher, rusted and menacing on the south end of the valley floor . . .
The knife was sweeping down with a ceremonial flourish, down to the naked belly of the youth, closing with the flesh. The drink had been drugged, but not enough. The cry when the knife sliced into his scrotum and removed his testicles was weak and high pitched, quivering through the quiet chamber. The woman bent to cauterize the wound with smoking pitch . . . the scream became full throated and agonized. The boy was carried fainting to his place in the line of Suppliers . . .
This was to be Gregor, to be me . . .
Mikal was writhing on the table, and Lucia Asparian was shaking. She jerked the terminals from her head and walked blindly through to the rear cabin of the Trader craft.
* * *
The woman had gone, leaving him alone and still strapped to the bunk. For a few moments Mikal lay shivering. The old memories were so strong; a year had done nothing to dim them, and the woman's questions had brought them again into full focus. Now, suddenly, he knew that Gregor and Pallast would never be coming back.
Ever since his two friends were taken he had kept things going in their valley home in makeshift fashion, marking time, hoping, doing little more than surviving, waiting for some new event. Now that was over. Talking to the big woman had finally taught him the truth: they were gone, gone forever. He had to act on his own.
Mikal craned his head up, peering toward the rear cabin. He could hear voices, but could not see anyone through the narrow doorway.
What were they going to do with him? Surely they would return him to the Hive. The chief of the warriors had told him that was his destiny, to be a Supplier to the Hive-Lord. He imagined again the placid line of Royal Suppliers, and the whole room seemed to shake and shiver around him. He began to struggle with the bonds that held him down.
This time he was more systematic. The straps had been designed to restrain a semiconscious man, not to imprison a thin-limbed and determined boy. In a few seconds he had worked one wrist free. At once he reached up and yanked off the thin snakes of wire that led to terminals and headset. He wriggled free of the other straps, working in total silence. His own breath sounded loud enough to alert his capturers in the next room.
Mikal eased off the bunk and stood for a moment on the room's swaying floor. He sniffed at his hand and forearm. It made him uneasy. Instead of his own comforting and familiar smell, he was covered with a flowery, musky scent, like the perfume of a Hive-Lord serving maiden. Now he realized that the man who had caught him and the big woman who talked to him had smelled the same.
He stole across to the cabin door. If he could open it quietly enough and find a hiding-place before they knew he had gone . . .
With his hand touching the door, he stopped. He could see out of the window, and now he understood why the room had seemed to be shaking around him. The whole cabin had risen high into the air. Looking down, he could see the whole valley stretched out below, as though he sat at the top of an incredibly high and steep hill. There was nothing but air beneath them, nothing for hundreds and hundreds of yards.
Mikal pulled back from the chasm, aware of an endless drop just beneath his bare feet. He grabbed for the support of a bunk. At the edge of panic, he remembered Pallast's lesson, drilled into him as they struggled across the Lostlands.
When you are in trouble, blind fear will never get you out. You have to think, use whatever tools you have.
Logic imposed itself. The man and the woman were still there; he could hear voices. They would not expose themselves to great danger. This was a flying machine, fully controlled, rising or falling as they wanted it to. He was not in immediate danger.
But how could he possibly escape when they flew high in the air?
Again, logic told him the answer: he could not escape, not until they returned to the ground. What could he do?
Mikal sat down on the bunk. The woman had said they were not Hivers. He believed her. They did not look like Hivers, and he had never seen a Hiver woman so tall. But that did not mean that he was not in terrible trouble. He covered his eyes with hands that felt oddly soft and smooth. What could he do?
Listen; watch; wait. He could do that, and until they landed, that was all he could do. Very well. Mikal fought the butterflies in his stomach, stood up, and stole quietly back toward the rear cabin.
They were still talking. There might be one thing more that he could do. It was hard to explain, but he did not feel frightened of the big woman. She spoke Hiver, and her voice had been warm and gentle. He would do what she asked and try to make her a friend. If only he had not bitten the man! But it was too late to do anything about that.
Mikal crouched down by the door and peeped past it to the other cabin.
* * *
Lyle Connery was busy preparing food, but he stood up at once when he saw her face. "Lucia! What happened in there—you look terrible."
"I feel terrible." She sat down abruptly. "Lyle, go back in there and untie him. And let's get out of here."
"But what about him?"
"He's going with us. I'm not leaving him behind. Poor little devil, he's survived in this place for a full year, all alone. Now he's friendless and hopeless—he's even
nameless.
We have to take him with us."
"But we—"
"No arguments."
"Did you discuss it with Daddy-O?" Connery could see her intensity, but not the reason for it. "For Shannon's sake, Lucia, he might be dangerous—we still don't know how he was able to throw that missile at us, single-handed. And we're supposed to go on to Orklan and discuss Hiver secretions with the Strines! You know the rules. We can't do that with a passenger present—a complete stranger who doesn't know the first thing about being a Trader."
"I don't care. We're taking him." Lucia Asparian stood up again. "You stay here and carry on with the meal. I'll go back and untie him myself. And damn what Daddy-O says. If I have to, I'll invoke Prime Rule. We're human beings first, and Traders second."
"The invoking of Prime Rule will be unnecessary."
Daddy-O had been monitoring with interest the activities in both cabins, especially the actions of the captive.
"A low-probability event has occurred. You have found exactly what I hoped might be there. Proceed to Orklan. A Trader vehicle will be on hand to transport your captive to the Azores."
"What are you going to do with him?" Lucia Asparian was still defiant and defensive. "He's not to be harmed, or turned back to the Hivers."
"We will do to him no worse than was done to you, Lucia Asparian."
There was simulated amusement in the electronic voice.
"First he will be given a name—and plenty of food. He is twenty kilos below optimum weight. Then he will begin to learn to speak standard Trader."
"And then?"
"Can you not guess for yourself?"
Daddy-O was diverting resources to other areas, ready to close off the connection.
"Once he is fully healthy, he will be tested for his potential—as a Trader trainee."
The computer's voice circuits could not in principle synthesize a pleased tone, nor could Daddy-O feel such an emotion as pleasure, but something in those final words had an undeniable ring of self-satisfaction.
Nothing in the universe offered more promise of interesting complexity than a low-probability event.
CHAPTER 3
During the night the wind had veered to the southwest, bringing with it moister and milder weather. Hard showers of rain were mixed with bright, gusty spells.
The classrooms were a good way up the hilly slopes of Pico Mountain, a few hundred meters higher than the sea-level dormitories and dining rooms. The trainees had watched the squalls whipping in from the sea and tried to time their run from the dining room to coincide with one of the sunny patches. As class time came closer the weather worsened. By five minutes to eight a mixed crowd of damp and dry trainees stood looking out of the classroom windows, jeering and cheering a last group running desperately uphill in a squall of warm, driving rain.
The last person in was a tall youth, fair haired and thick limbed. The eight o'clock siren was ringing out across Pico Island when he reached the gentler entrance slope. He sprinted the final thirty yards and arrived gasping, face gleaming with rainwater. Two others were waiting for him at the door as the siren ceased.
"We thought you weren't going to make it." The speaker was a pink-cheeked young woman, a blond teenager plump in her arms and legs. "Come on, Cesar, hurry up. Me and Jake saved you a place."
"Why'd you leave it so late?" asked the dark-skinned, angry-looking youth leading the way in front of her. "Today's the worst day—you could lose points before you've even started."
Cesar Famares had run half a mile uphill in less than three minutes. He was too winded to reply. He allowed himself to be steered through the long ranks of desks to his place, then leaned forward across the desk, panting hard and dripping water from his hair onto the smooth gray surface. "Tell you later, Jake," he said at last. "Found out a lot from my brother. Bad news."
"Are we going to be assigned to separate groups?" the girl asked.
"No. Worse than that, Melly."
"I don't see how anything could be—"
The girl received a hard nudge from the other youth before she could finish the sentence. "Melinda! Shhh." She dropped into her chair and spun around to face the front of the classroom.
A tall, broad man wearing the sleeveless tunic of a senior instructor had appeared from the inner classroom and was standing in front of the central control panel. By his side, dominating the room, was a great Earth-globe. It was nearly six feet across and slowly rotating. Every five minutes the continents swept by, each one marked by bright points of illumination on the surface of the sphere.
For a couple of minutes the man did not speak. As his gaze ran along the ranks of trainees, the sound level in the room gradually faded. He waited until all the coughs and shuffling of feet had ended.
"Good morning," he said at last. "And welcome to the Azores' training camp. You are going to see a lot of me in the next couple of years—if you're lucky—so let me introduce myself. My name is Lyle Connery. I will be the main instructor for this group, until you either qualify for Final Trial, or flunk out. Previous statistics show you have about a fifty-fifty chance of making it. I'm going to talk to you for one hour or so now, and then we'll have a short break. When that break time comes, I want you all to get up from your seats and take a look at the side walls of this room." He lifted a muscular arm and waved to left and right. "You'll find pictures there of the most successful Traders in our history. And when the going here gets rough—and you have my word for it, it's going to get rough—I have one piece of advice for all of you to fix in your heads. Just remember, everyone on those walls, including the Master Traders, was once sitting right where you are. They didn't know any more about being a Trader than you do."
He stared at the ranks of young people in front of him and allowed himself a trace of a smile. "Or maybe they knew a bit
less
, and maybe that helped. When I was in your shoes, ten years ago, I found it wasn't the things I didn't know that got in my way. It was all the things I knew about the Traders and the regions that weren't so. I'm sure that some of you have brothers and sisters and parents who've been through this course." To Cesar Famares, Jake Kallario, and Melinda Turak, Connery's eyes seemed to pick them out and focus on them exclusively. "I'm sure they've told you all sorts of things, and you've picked up all sorts of others from the rumor mills on your way here. Well, early on we're going to
unlearn
most of what you think you know. First, though, we'll have a roll call. There are forty-four of you. If you want to know how good a Trader you are—today, without training—then try to remember everyone's name as you hear it. I know, it sounds impossible. But you'll have to be able to do that—and a lot more—before you'll pass Trader training." He pointed. "From the far right. First name, last name."