Artemis Invaded (36 page)

Then, during one of their armor cleaning sessions, Bruin passed on a scrap of news that made Griffin's soul sing a chorus of mingled hope and fear.

Taking advantage of a blind spot created by the heaped parts, Bruin dipped his finger into his glass of water and drew a quick sketch on the table. A cat's head, a woman's body. A bear. A long-bodied cat.

“Give that polish
here
,” he said, tapping one finger for emphasis. “I want to get this scuff
out
, but I need to figure out
how
the polish will work.”

That Terrell also understood Bruin's message that Adara had returned and was trying to figure out how to free them was evident from the joy that lit his shadowed eyes.

Terrell shoved the jar of polish to Bruin. “Careful. It would be terrible if something was damaged.”

Bruin nodded. “I couldn't
bear
that. I don't need you to
tell
me to
be careful
.”

Griffin nodded. “I second that. Don't try anything if you're not sure.”

“I can't promise,” Bruin said. “But I'll try.”

Griffin interpreted the stressed words. “Bear tell be careful.” That confirmed that Bruin was getting his news through Honeychild, also that he'd passed on their desire that the others not act until they felt certain of success.

Why don't I feel happier about this?
Griffin asked himself.
I should be thrilled, looking for ways to find information that Bruin can pass on. Instead I feel so frustrated, so angry. Am I afraid for Adara? For the risks she and the others must take?

As he dipped polish onto a tiny brush and brightened some contact points, the truth hit him with such abrupt force that he nearly dropped the piece of armor he was holding.

It's fear, yes, but more … I'm frustrated at having to be rescued—again. I don't want to be rescued. I want to get myself and the others out of here on my own … I want to retake this facility and show my brothers I'm not some worthless kid.

And I'm realizing that in feeling that way, I'm letting my pride get in the way. I'm proving just how much a kid I am.

*   *   *

Adara felt a certain amount of hope as she crept through the maze of rock that hid the meadow door. She knew Leto's perceptions extended to the area surrounding the entrances into the valley and for some short distance into the valley itself. Although Leto didn't seem to feel proprietary about the valley in the same way she did the complex, Adara hoped it was significant that Leto hadn't called guards out after them when Adara and Sand Shadow had rigged their deadfall and a few other traps. Nonetheless, the huntress waited for the slight advantage full dark gave her before making her approach. The curved shape of the crystal key hung on a cord about her neck, but she didn't need it. The door opened to her touch.

“Leto?” Adara whispered, her voice soft in contrast to the pounding of her heart.

No response. Adara took a step inside, then wedged a short, thick log to keep the door open. She didn't know if this would work—perhaps a door made by seegnur could close with sufficient force to break even the stout chunk she'd used—but she felt better for the effort. She'd have to hope that the night remained summer still, so that motion in the air wouldn't alert the lab's occupants that someone had opened a door.

As she padded silently down the corridor, Adara's mind swirled with what she'd learned from Kipper about how a few syllables from Alexander Dane had turned Terrell, Bruin, and Ring instantly obedient. She was terrified that the same might be done to her. Only her greater terror as to what might be happening to her friends had brought her to this place.

“Leto?” A few more steps, straining to listen. Had the corridor always been so long? It hadn't seemed so when she had freely passed along it, intent on her destination. “Leto?”

In the far distance, Adara's keen hearing caught sound: a person moving about or a bit of deep-voiced conversation. It might even have been some sort of machinery at work. She couldn't go much closer to the lab without risking discovery.

“Leto?”

She paused, hesitant as to whether to risk a few more steps, when a little girl's voice whispered, “Why are you here?”

Adara's heart leapt. She had to fight down an urge to yelp in panic. Disembodied voices were not something she had grown accustomed to.

An image in her head. Sand Shadow sending a detailed picture of a talking toadstool.

All right. So how is this different from voices in my head? Courage, Adara. Didn't you come here to talk to Leto?

The huntress registered for the first time that Leto had been whispering. Surely that was encouraging. If she had meant to turn Adara over to the Dane brothers, why whisper? That didn't mean Adara was safe. It meant she had a chance to win an ally.

“I came,” Adara replied, every nerve wildly alert, “to learn if you would help me free Griffin, Terrell, Bruin, and Ring. I know they're prisoners.”

“Why should I help you?” Leto sounded petulant. “I don't like you.”

“But you like Griffin,” Adara said. She eased herself a few feet closer to the exit. “I thought you liked Terrell and Ring, too. Kipper says you didn't mind Bruin experimenting with one of the spaveks.”

“That's true…” The voice remained childish. “I do like
them
.”

The stress on the final word was meant to sting. Adara was embarrassed that it did. Why should she care if a person who might not even be a person liked her or not?

Think about Terrell and Griffin and Bruin and poor Ring …

“And are they happy as they are now?”

“Sometimes Terrell and Bruin are quite happy,” lilted the childish voice, “especially when Alexander tells them to be but, no, I don't think that any of them are really, truly happy.”

“I want to set them free,” Adara said. “Will you help them?”

“Well…” Leto's voice stretched the one short syllable into two very long ones. “If I set them free, they'll go away and I'll be all alone again.”

“Do you really think the newcomers mean to stay?” Adara asked. “And when they go, do you think they'll leave Griffin and the rest?”

“No…” Leto paused thoughtfully. “I don't think they
do
mean to stay. That Siegfried has been in contact with a Gaius. They talk about what they can move. But I don't think they're going for a long time, yet. They want to figure out the spaveks. I've been hiding the research files. I was going to show the files to Griffin, but I won't show them! I don't like them.”

She sounded triumphant, like a child who has secreted away a torn frock and expects to escape punishment.

Adara shook her head as she might have at one of Bruin's younger students caught cheating. Then she remembered that it was possible Leto couldn't see her.

“Do you think you can hide forever and ever? These off-worlders have some funny ideas. What if they figure out a way to control you like they can control Terrell and Bruin? I bet there's a way…”

Adara was guessing, but thought she must be right. The seegnur would not have left themselves without a way to get around Leto, especially if she had been as stubborn with them. The length of Leto's pause made Adara think she was right, especially when Leto didn't directly answer her question.

“That Falkner has been poking in my private areas,” Leto said primly. “I shocked him once, but he's persistent. He has no respect.”

Fleetingly, Adara thought it was interesting how—for lack of a better word—“human” Leto seemed, especially in contrast to Artemis. Especially here in the dark, she could forget she was talking to a building or burrow or whatever this complex was, and think she was talking to an intelligent, if rather spoiled, child. She never made that mistake with Artemis.

Adara forced herself to focus, knowing she had to push the point. “So, will you set Griffin and the others free? I bet they'd help you to get rid of those others…”

Leto made a hissing sound. “The others have real weapons. They have defensive shields. Their machines aren't models I know, so I can't deactivate them—though I think I could damp them, some. But how could any of you—even Griffin—defeat them with your knives and bows?”

Based on what she'd heard about the spaveks, Adara had some idea of what Leto meant by “real” weapons and energy shields. They were terrifying, but she felt confident that they could be gotten around.

“These are still humans,” Adara said, “and that means they can be defeated. Will you help us?”

Only the persistence of a faint hissing let Adara know that Leto hadn't “left.” At long last, the voice spoke, sounding very young and childlike indeed.

“I can't risk helping. What if you lose? Then they'll be after me, too, and you'll all be dead and not able to help me.”

That actually made sense. Adara didn't blame Leto for being afraid. She'd seen how horribly damaged Leto's complex had been. As with Artemis, the events of five hundred years ago were as fresh as yesterday.

“How about this, Leto?” Adara offered. “You don't help us, but you don't help them either. You don't lock anything extra. You don't offer warnings. You don't turn out the lights or stop the air circulating.”

“What if they guess?”

“Tell them that their poking around messed something up so you couldn't sense as you usually can.”

“I could do that…” Leto's voice held a note of malice. “I haven't been talking to them much anyhow. They act as if they can order me around like I'm no smarter than one of their scooters.”

“So get quieter,” Adara suggested. “If they do talk to you and you feel you need to answer, act dumb. Don't do anything that could be taken as acting against them—you're right, that's too much risk for you to take. Just don't help them.”

“Or you,” Leto said. “I still don't like you, much, though maybe I do a little better than before. Do you think that if you get Griffin free he'll come back?”

Adara laughed soundlessly, the way Sand Shadow laughed. “Oh, I think nothing will keep him away. Maybe once he's free to move around, he'll find a way to beat his brothers and take control.”

But, remembering Leto's words about real weapons and energy shields, remembering that Terrell, Bruin, and Ring could not be counted on to act of their own accord—and might even turn against Griffin—she thought this was a very thin chance indeed.

*   *   *

Julyan was half-dozing at his post when he heard Falkner and Siegfried coming along the corridor. After they'd been in the complex a few days, the Danes had decided that sleeping in the labs and manufacturing areas was unnecessary hardship. Instead, they'd adopted quarters in the residential areas. Leto had made this easier by supplying running water and sanitary facilities. She'd even gotten a machine that did laundry working, so they all had fresh bedding and towels.

The prisoners were being kept at the outer edge of the residential area, in rooms that Alexander speculated might have been offices or parlors, rather than living quarters. The original furnishings in these rooms had been reduced to ash so, until someone figured out how to make Leto give them detailed facility plans, the rooms' original purpose was a matter of guesswork.

The Dane brothers had chosen suites of rooms, each with enough space to accommodate an entire family where Julyan had been born. He wondered if the Artemesians of olden days had realized that the approved home designs had been deliberately quaint, rather than meant for the comfort of the residents. He wondered if they would have cared.

Siegfried and Falkner were deeply absorbed in their conversation—it sounded as if it was on the verge of becoming an argument—and had forgotten that their voices would carry to where Julyan sat.

They probably don't care. The prisoners are locked up and sound doesn't carry into their cells unless the door is open. Me? I'm just good old Julyan, faithful retainer, and Alexander's little pet.

He ground his teeth, but his frustration didn't keep him from listening carefully. Anything that could get Falkner and Siegfried sounding so agitated was worth noting.

“I still think it's too soon,” Falkner was saying. “We have only the slightest idea of how those suits work. The one thing we do know—and I don't think Griffin is lying about this—is that they play tricks with the wearer's mind. Castor is unstable enough without that.”

Siegfried retorted, “Castor is unstable, I give you that, but he is also the only one of us we know is definitely, absolutely, without a doubt psychic. That makes him the best candidate to try one of the suits. We cannot trust the natives. We can, however, trust Castor.”

“True…” Falkner's voice was fading with distance. “But why now? Why not wait a few weeks? We have plenty of supplies. There's no rush, and Castor's in the sleep. Once we wake him, we won't be able to put him down again for months. You know he doesn't handle the sleep drugs well.”

“We brought him,” Siegfried said, “because of the theories that Old Imperial technology relied on psionics. Using him might be a shortcut to what we want to know.”

Their voices were so faint that Julyan couldn't make out the words, but from the inflection he guessed that Falkner was asking once again why this need for rush.

Julyan laughed to himself. The need for rush was exactly what made Siegfried the leader of the Dane brothers. He was a man of action and decision. This was useful in combat, but could be a handicap in times like this. Julyan suspected that Siegfried could be perfectly patient if working toward a specific goal—say during a siege or during the early phases of an elaborate attack—but the unspecificity of their current action was making him restless.