Artemis Invaded (31 page)

Kipper was watching, his large brown eyes wide with something between wonder and fear. “Will I get to try?” he asked.

Griffin looked at Ring. “You're the expert. What do you think?”

Ring shook his head. “Until squirrels speak, the fish best swims without a shell.”

Bruin had been stripping. He paused, shirt half-off over his head. “Now, does that mean never or something else?”

“I cannot say,” Ring said, “lest what I say make the saying moot.”

“I don't envy you your head, friend,” Bruin said, returning to his disrobing. “Not a wit.”

Terrell was present to witness the test. Although Griffin could feel the disapproval radiating from him, he was grateful for the factotum's presence. Since their argument, Terrell hadn't been avoiding Leto's complex, but he had made a point of refusing to have anything further to do with the lab. Instead, he had spent his time working through the residential areas, following the protocols they had established when working with the Old One in the Sanctum. Since Bruin had been busy with Ring and Griffin, Terrell had also taken over some of the camp duties, so Kipper could concentrate on hunting and foraging.

From what they could tell from exterior inspection, Bruin's spavek was less heavily armed than the one Ring had chosen for himself. It was equipped with energy weapons, but lacked the missile-firing capacity. It had other gear that more than made up for the destructive power—at least from Bruin's point of view. For someone with Griffin's background, long-range vision was nothing remarkable, but for Bruin, whose experience with such had been limited to primitive telescopes and even more primitive binoculars, the idea that he should be able to change his range of vision with, literally, nothing more than a thought, was miraculous. Unsurprisingly, given Bruin's own natural night vision, he didn't find the suit's ability to permit the wearer to see in low light or by thermal signatures as interesting, but he admitted that for the unadapted that would be useful.

“I think your suit was meant for a scout,” Griffin said.

“A scout?” Bruin was dubious. “The skies aren't precisely orange and white. Were the seegnur so powerful that they could proclaim their presence to those they spied upon?”

Leto's little girl voice chimed in. “All the suits were equipped with camouflage. It's an option in the protective energy shield.”

That did impress Bruin. “Now I see why the ability to detect body heat would be useful. I wonder if the shield can be made to mask that as well.”

Griffin was surprised by the man's quick grasp of tactical considerations, then he remembered that a hunter would be more aware than most how survival relies upon a continual cycle of creating defenses to counter another's attacks. He said as much and Bruin nodded.

“Nature gives a fawn spots so it will blend into the dappling of leaf duff and sunlight. However, she will not let her hunting children starve, so she gives them a keen sense of smell. Lest the threat to the fawn become too great, Nature now grants the fawn a time when it has almost no scent at all. Each changes in response to the other. Why should the tools used by humankind be any different?”

He turned to Ring. “When I get this on, I'd like to learn if I can find your suit with my own vision, even if the camouflage is activated. From what the Old One told Griffin, he believed that adaptations were as much a matter of the mind as the body. It would be good to learn if the power of my mind can overcome the barriers set up by the suit.”

Ring nodded. He seemed oddly detached, even for him. Griffin was about to ask if Ring needed a break from wearing the armor when Leto's startled voice rang out. “The door that isn't there has been opened. This facility has been breached!”

*   *   *

Julyan couldn't follow half of what Falkner did to get the massive door unlocked and prompt it to open. Once again, he found himself very glad that the long-ago seegnur had a mania for backup systems. Otherwise, even if the door was unlocked, he didn't think they could have budged it. But Falkner found a system of cables and pulleys hidden behind a wall panel. He had to splice one the of the cables but, once that was done, Siegfried—muscles straining—could open the door without assistance.

Alexander and Falkner were standing by with weapons drawn, but all they encountered on the other side was another chamber. It was smaller than the one that had ended the tunnel, but still large enough to hold all of them and the three scooters. Walls, ceiling, and floor alike were such a brilliant white that Julyan felt profoundly uneasy. It wasn't natural for a place to be so clean. The only interruption in the white was a thin line bisecting the opposite wall. This seemed to indicate another door.

Siegfried mounted his scooter, put the defensive shield up, and glided through the opening. When he came to the wall with the door in it, he extended his still shielded hand to poke at what Julyan now saw was a pressure plate, such as those that they had used to open other doors in the seegnur's facilities.

A female voice, light but still authoritative, made most of them jump. “All doors must be closed before the facility door will open. Please close the corridor door and press the plate again.”

Siegfried swiveled around. “Maxwell and I could go through, check things out, come back for you.”

Alexander shook his head. “We've already seen that our scooters' communication units have trouble penetrating the hull metal. If you got into trouble, you'd have no way to call for help.”

“But if this room is trapped,” Siegfried said, “the entire group could be taken out.”

Alexander acknowledged this with a reluctant nod. “How about this? You go in as you said, with Maxwell, with the shields on your scooter on full. Once the door is open, you block it and open the door on this side to let us through. No gallivanting off on your own.”

When Siegfried looked as if he might balk, Falkner added, “Alexander's right. My only suggestion is that you take Julyan rather than Maxwell. Julyan's proven himself a good fighter already. No offense, Maxwell, but you just don't seem to have the skills.”

The Old One gave a thin, slightly embarrassed smile. “I fear I have been more a scholar than a fighter of late.”

The statement was absolutely true, but Julyan—who had seen how fast and vicious the Old One could be in a fight—wondered that the others could swallow the lie so easily. Surely they could see how those grey eyes saw everything, the power in that deceptively slim body. Still, warmed as he was by Falkner's phrase, Julyan felt no desire to comment.

He swung up behind Siegfried, gripping his long knife—almost a short sword.

Alexander called, “Don't disappoint me, Julyan. Bring my big brother back safe and sound.”

The words held the force of a command, but Julyan wouldn't have done otherwise. He had nothing against Siegfried Dane. Keeping him alive would be a pleasure.

And the enemies of my enemies are almost my friends,
he thought.
This time, what Alexander and I want is the same. Our hunt brings me closer to where Adara may be. How could I want more?

“Before I close the door from out here,” Falkner called, “do you see a release there?”

“I do,” Siegfried called. “There's a matching panel. Probably opens to the same mechanism.”

“Good luck!”

The hull metal door slid shut with a ponderously final thud. When nothing could be seen behind them other than a thin dark line that matched the one on the door in front of them, Siegfried again punched the pressure plate. The female voice spoke with even precision.

“Password requested. Speak clearly or enter the characters into the associated tablet.”

Something bright shimmered into being against the whiteness of the wall alongside the pressure plate. Siegfried cursed softly.

“Speak clearly,” the female voice repeated. “That last did not transmit to the audio receptors.”

Siegfried looked frustrated. Then, moving his fingers rapidly, he touched a series of glowing characters. Julyan could read, but this was no alphabet he knew. He wondered if Siegfried did or if he was only guessing.

“Incorrect password,” the voice said with definite disapproval. “One final attempt is permitted before counter-intruder actions will be taken. Timer activated, now!”

A new picture appeared on the wall. Julyan couldn't read the characters on this one either, but a brilliant green line rapidly decreasing in length left no doubt as to what was indicated.

Without bothering to turn the scooter around, Siegfried thrust it into reverse, backing with incredible speed and force. Only the trust Julyan had learned to put in the protective force shield kept him from screaming in protest or trying to jump clear before they hit the door.

As they hit, the female voice spoke with dispassionate clarity. “Instituting counter-intruder measures.”

A hissing noise filled the air. Julyan felt his ears pop. Cursing, Siegfried slammed the scooter back again into the door with no effect. Julyan's jaw snapped shut and blood streamed into his mouth from where he'd bitten the inside of his cheek. His ears popped again and he began to feel light-headed. Blood was running from his nose. He wondered when he'd hit it.

“Damn! They're voiding the air!”

Siegfried swung off the scooter and staggered over to the wall that hid the manual door lock. Spitting blood onto the floor, his spinning thoughts making peculiarly significant patterns from the brilliant red against the icy white, Julyan forced himself to join Siegfried. Together, the two big men tried to pry the panel loose, but either this mechanism worked differently or the counter-intruder measures included locking the panel in place.

Sensible …
Julyan thought, his knees buckling. Consciousness was swaying in and out of focus when with a loud slam, the door behind them burst open. Air swooshed into the room. There were shouts of alarm.

He recognized Alexander's voice, shrilly excited. “We've gotten to them in time! They're both alive.”

Then a low hiss in his ear. “Didn't I tell you to take care of my big brother?”

*   *   *

When Julyan's head cleared, Seamus was sponging the blood off his face and the three Dane brothers were talking all at once in their own language. When Seamus said with flat disinterest, “Julyan is coming around, seegnur,” the chatter switched to the language of Artemis.

Alexander must have forgotten his anger, for he was the first to come over to Julyan.

“You passed out from a combination of blood loss and lack of air. Suck this. It will help with the pain and speed healing. You took a nasty bite out of your cheek.”

Julyan, his spinning head mingling this order with others, began to refuse. Then he realized that Alexander was holding out a small, flat tablet. It smelled faintly of some sort of berry. Alexander smiled when Julyan took it.

“Good. We've already given you something for the blood loss. You'll be in fighting form in no time.”

Alexander stepped back to make way for Siegfried, who sank down next to Julyan, waving Seamus away. Siegfried had blood on his coverall but, from the splatter pattern, Julyan guessed not all of it was his own. The deliberation of his movements showed that Siegfried, too, was recovering from their ordeal.

“Good job in there, man. I'm sorry about not warning you before I slammed the scooter. I felt the change in the air and thought they might be pumping in some sort of gas. Wanted to try and bust us out before we couldn't do anything.”

“Instead,” Falkner called from a short distance away, “it looks as if the mechanism was designed to remove the air from the chamber so that any intruders would pass out. It wouldn't have been a complete vacuum, but very unpleasant. Wouldn't work against anyone wearing an environmental suit, but against a wandering tourist or local, very neat indeed.”

“So we can't get through?” Julyan asked. His mouth felt thick, but speaking wasn't impossible.

“Actually,” Siegfried replied, “I think we can. Alex and Falkner took a look around. Five hundred years dried out the insulation and sealant. The pressure shifts during the attempt to remove the air pulled a lot of it loose. Falkner, Maxwell, and Alexander are clearing enough away that if the same trick is tried we might feel a pressure shift, but that's about it.”

“The woman?” Julyan spoke very carefully, all too aware he might bite his numbed tongue or lips. “Who spoke. She's not complaining?”

Siegfried looked puzzled, then smiled. “It wasn't a real person. It was a recording—similar to the sort you've seen us make on our datapads or that the scooter uses to provide piloting updates.”

Julyan nodded. He was feeling stronger with every breath. One advantage to working with these off-planet seegnur was that their medicines were very good and they were liberal about sharing them.

“So you're not worried about her not liking things being pulled apart.”

Alexander, his coverall now dusty and littered with bits of pale yellow and burnt orange stuff, rejoined them. He held out one hand to show them a small device cradled in a gloved palm. Julyan had no idea what it was, but he didn't figure the charred black hole near the center had been part of the original design.

“We've found several of these or things like it,” Alexander said. “Guess?”

Siegfried looked annoyed, as he often did with Alexander's little games, but he played along nonetheless. After inspecting the bit of machinery, he said, “The air voiding system was only one of several anti-intruder measures. Someone came through here and disabled the ones that would do the most damage, but left the one—probably the least fatal—activated just in case.”

“That's what we think,” Alexander agreed.

Falkner wandered over, holding more charred pieces of equipment. “The walls, on the other hand, would take an industrial-strength construction beam to cut through—and that's if there's not another layer of something even tougher sandwiched between where I can't get a look at it. If we're going through, it's through this door or back down the tunnel to Spirit Bay and overland to Maiden's Tear—and then hope we can find a way in.”