Battleground (47 page)

The landing field had been scythed almost to the dirt—Kwek had done a good job in spite of her objections, or others had worked with her—and the dirt had turned to mud. Hanna's feet sank into it until she got to the edge, where the ground cover was thicker. Her clothes were plastered to her body, but there was one advantage: people who were dripping wet did not look so much like threats.

She supposed she would find Nakeekt in the same warren as before, the building in which she and Gabriel had slept, and paused to get her bearings. It did not matter how long she stood in the rain. She was already sodden. In the stillness she opened her mind and heard dreams. Oh, there was plenty of dreaming here!—and Soldiers' dreams were as absurd as humans'.

Wox poked her again. She was two meters away before she knew she had moved. He took a step toward her and she hissed, “Don't
do
that! Don't touch me again!”

Something had ignited inside her, but he could not tell that from her face or her voice. He said, “You were not moving. You are to go to Nakeekt.”

She thought of the knife again. Wondered, if she cracked a vial of the stimulant next to one of those breathing tubes, would the gas affect him, knock him out, something—

H'ana.

Bella. Calming.

“Leave me,” she started to say aloud, but Wox would think she spoke to him and he would argue, or just hit her.

Leave me. Don't distract me.

Bella knew evasion when she felt it.
You're not talking about distraction—you mean you're doing something you want to conceal! What, H'ana? It can't be good!

It's something I have to do. Leave me, I said!

Wox's long finger reached out again. She stumbled backward, almost losing her balance on the slippery ground. She wanted to kill him.

ghost, you never worried about weakness before!

that was before we went to

gadrah. i know

Hanna turned and started walking. Attacking Wox would be futile, and she had a low opinion of blind courage. She was convinced Michael Kristofik would be alive if he had not been without fear. If he had had the sense to be afraid they would never have gone to Gadrah in the first place.

H'ana, you are not thinking straight—

Get out of me! Get out!

She felt Bella leave, with the lingering impression of a hand—gentle, soothing—laid softly on her head. There might have been tears in her eyes. She could not be sure because they were full of rain. The adults who reared her had done that when she was a child, she would do it for Mickey if only she were there, let him go through a storm of anger and tears and wait patiently until he was calm and could accept love again. Especially if he had done something wrong.

She did not seem to be walking any more. She seemed to stand on a strip of grass and it carried her through the rain to the warren where Nakeekt lived, and then she seemed to stand on ramps that carried her up. Somewhere along the way she remembered to seek a light control. She knew where Nakeekt's chamber was. It was near the one where she had briefly slept, and the Soldier who escorted her past it had not so much thought of it explicitly as been aware of Nakeekt's door. The walls of the warren closed in, like the walls of underground Wektt, like
Endeavor
's,
like Jameson's dominance, Earth's restrictions. All choice seemed to have been suspended.

Kill Kwoort. The solution.

not hard. i don't even like him

are you sure

i don't

you don't like Metra either. would you kill her

well why not

The ghost seemed to be considering this. Hanna left her to it.

She was at Nakeekt's door. The sense of being conveyed had been illusory; her legs felt ready to give way. She put a hand on the wall to steady herself. She had caught a peripheral image from Bella of Kwek knocking, knocking at a door behind which no one waited. Nakeekt was behind this one.

Her own knock was tentative. Wox gave her a look, lifted his fist—Hanna flinched at that—and banged. Nakeekt opened the door almost at once. When she saw Hanna all her features changed, the great ears stood out for a moment and then wrapped tightly to the head, fast, and the breathing tubes swelled with a great intake of air.

“What,” said Nakeekt, “what are you doing here? Who is this?” and Hanna felt the Warrior's impulse to shout for reinforcements.

“Kakrekt sent me,” Hanna said; she leaned against the doorframe in exhaustion, holding out the sealed message. “Kwoort is Holy Man in Wektt now, and he is standing in Kakrekt's way. She wants to kill him.”

Absolute silence. There must have been a murmur of rain from the room beyond Nakeekt but Nakeekt's astonishment, and Wox's, outweighed it. So Wox had not known Kakrekt's purpose—

Only seconds passed, perhaps, seeming longer. The rain became audible.

Presently Nakeekt said, “Come to my workplace.” She wheeled and went to a coverall hung from a peg on the wall. She threw off a robe and stepped into the coverall. She was back at the door in seconds, sealing the front of the garment, pushed past Hanna and headed toward the ramps and down, moving fast. Hanna tried to hurry, and felt Wox shove her and shove her again. Then he gave up and almost carried her the rest of the way, talking to Nakeekt, explaining his role as guardian or captor, and they came to a room where Nakeekt stopped and when Wox let go, Hanna slid to the floor. The two Soldiers were talking and she could not understand what they said, but the translator was not at fault. She was losing comprehension along with strength.

Her hand fumbled at a pocket, nightmare-slow. She nearly dropped the vial of stimulant, and hardly had the strength to break it open. Something seemed to say this was a bad idea, but what else could she do? She got the thing cracked, and started to inhale.

The only advantage you have . . .

T
HE ROOM CAME INTO FOCUS.
Desks, benches, writing materials: a human would call it an office. The twisted halves of the vial lay where Hanna had thrown them, as far away as her weak arm could manage. Nakeekt and Wo
x stared at her.

“What was that?” Nakeekt said.

“Something for my well-being.”

She hoped she had not absorbed more than a few molecules of the vapor before coming to her senses and hurling the vial away. She waited for the
thrum . . .

Nothing.

There were more vials. If she got desperate enough she would have to use them. But not yet. Adrenaline, from the surge of fear at what she had almost done, made her alert, however briefly.

“Can you get the substance Kakrekt requires quickly?” she asked. “Will the wait be long?”

Silence. All Nakeekt's eyes were open. So, surprisingly, were Wox's.

“What is it?” Hanna said as the silence went on. “Is there a reason why you delay?”

Nakeekt said, “Kwoort has cooperated with This Place to the highest degree.”

Wox said, “Kakrekt Commander would assassinate the Holy Man?”

Hanna looked from one to the other and thought,
Oops.

•   •   •

Nakeekt didn't want Hanna, but she wanted Wox. She assumed, perhaps correctly, that if left to herself Hanna would make a run for the pod and disappear. Not that Hanna could have moved fast enough to escape if she did run; but
Nakeekt did not know that. So Hanna was thrust into what evidently was a closet, which was without a lock and would have been crammed with heavy objects if Nakeekt and Wox had not taken them out and piled them against the door to keep her in.

Hanna had been shut up in worse places. Only, after she sank to the floor, feeling dust under her hands, feeling a patch of damp that argued for a crack in a wall somewhere, waiting for her eyes to adjust—the space was not sealed, there was light at the edge of the door—she missed something. She put her hands to her ears, touched her mouth. She had not even felt the slight tug when Nakeekt, knowing what it was, jerked the translator away just as the door closed on Hanna. She ran her hands over the tangles of her hair, last chance, maybe the transparent web that held the parts together had gotten caught in it.

No.

She sagged against the wall, shivering with relief that she had not breathed in the stimulant. The hypothetical question posed months ago had been prescient:
Suppose they take your translator away and you need to know what they're going to do to you . . .

She could listen to alien minds, any minds, with a better chance of concealment in trance, and she had entered trance in worse places, too. So she thought of it, but rejected it. It would drain her body's resources just as if she had used the stimulant; drain them too far, and it would only mean a quicker death.

Concealment without it might not be possible, but she had to know what was happening around her. She risked discovery, and sought Nakeekt.

•   •   •

Nakeekt did not trust Wox any more than she trusted the not-Soldier female, what was her name, Haknt? Wox might let her out, or rummage through the workplace and make it untidy. Nakeekt did not like disorder. So she took Wox with her.

She collected Pritk.
No, do not speak now, we will all talk—

On to Genkt's billet. The u
nusually persistent rains were a nuisance (and a worry
—
how much crop will we lose?) but Wox at least bore it like a Soldier, not like the ever-complaining Kwek—

This was the second time that not-Soldier, that Haknt, had arrived bringing an uninvited, uninvestigated Soldier.
Is she doing it to annoy me—

This is Wox, he came from Wektt, come with us, no, wait, go and get—

She sent Genkt for the others and jogged back to her own warren with Wox and Pritk. Best not to leave Haknt on her own too long, who knew what not-Soldiers could do, perhaps she could burst out by herself—

Kwek, Kwek has had dealings with these not-Soldiers, here is Xext, you, Xext, go and get Kwek.

It was a good thing they had not executed Kwek yet—

Nakeekt's head hurt. This happened frequently; she thought something might be growing inside her head.

(Hanna thought the headache might be hers; it kept getting worse, slowly filling up her skull. Starvation, or Wox's blow? She tried to see why Nakeekt thought of killing Kwek, but it just made Nakeekt's head ache more. Hanna desisted.)

How can I explain this, should I wait for Xext? No. Listen.

Strong personalities. Stronger than she remembered, except for Nakeekt, but on the first visit to That Place she had been focused on Nakeekt and had not paid much attention to the others. Wox might as well not be present. A little uneasiness in him; he had heard of assassination, but it had never made much of an impression. Certainly he had never expected to personally confront a question of loyalty. And loyalty was not the issue for Nakeekt and her band. It was—how very humanlike—the survival of That Place.

Does Kakrekt mean to become the Holy One, and who will become High Commander, who would she put in her place?

Nakeekt asked Wox, but Wox knew nothing.

•   •   •

There was the sound of heavy objects being thrown about. The door opened, Hanna was dragged from the closet, the translator was shoved into her hands and she dropped it. Nakeekt made a sound of impatience and picked it up and closed Hanna's hands around it, shouting unintelligible words, though Hanna knew she cried,
Utili
ze it! Make it work!
She fumbled with it, clumsy. Her fingers did not want to work. The beings crowded around her, jostling. Then the filmy net did not want to fit over the tangled mess that had once been her shining hair and she mashed it down and adjusted the parts and suddenly it functioned. She heard Nakeekt say, “Why does Kakrekt want to do this thing?”

Hanna hesitated. She thought she saw Wox start to raise a fist, and winced reflexively, but no one had told him to hit her, and he had hardly moved.

“Kakrekt wants change,” Hanna said finally. “She wants an end to war. She wants to learn about—to learn everything about Soldiers and where they came from. She thinks, she thinks someone else made them, other not-Soldiers. Kwoort does not think Soldiers ought to learn these things, and Kakrekt does not want to wait for his natural death.”

“Kakrekt's brain is malfunctioning, then,” Nakeekt said.

“You want to learn about what came before, too. You try to do it here.”

“Here. In this small space. Because we are hidden, because we are known only to a few. We can do it because we do other things which are forbidden. They cannot be done everywhere. They cannot even be known.”

“Why not!”
The translator did not convey Hanna's tone and Soldiers could not read her expression, but she made up for it in volume. “I don't understand! Why can't all of them just stop, if you can do it here?”

Stop breeding,
was what she meant, but some subconscious instinct for self-preservation stopped her. If she said it aloud she would never leave the room alive, and if Wox heard it he would not either.

The room swayed. Something crushing approached—nothing material, and it approached only Hanna. She recognized despair when she saw it; she had known it before, but this time it was different. The woman who talked to aliens, who understood them, who at least had never failed in that before, looked at failure.

•   •   •

There was a jumbled hour that Hanna could not, later, remember with clarity. Kwek missing from her billet. Of course.
Find her!
Nakeekt ordered, and more Soldiers were roused to search. A memory that insinuated itself and brought a half-life to Hanna's reluctant muscles; dogged by Wox, she made her way to the billet where
Gabriel had slept. He had carried something to it because—
We might be here a little longer than I thought,
she had commented, and when they brought supplies from the pod for the first meal in Nakeekt's warren, Gabriel, the good planner, had brought . . .

Meal tabs for another day. You could dissolve them in water or swallow them whole. She could still think clearly enough to be cautious, and begged a tumbler of water from one of Nakeekt's lieutenants. No one tried to stop her from dropping in a tab; she sipped carefully at the brew. For a long time every cell in her body was focused on it.
Sip.
Low voices that seemed to come from a great distance, talking of poison.
Sip.
Kwek could not be found.
Sip.
So tired, she wanted only to sleep, but presently something was different, it was not so much that she was stronger but that she had stopped losing strength.
Sip. Sip.

Nakeekt began to wonder aloud if it was worth searching for Kwek any more tonight. The not-Soldier seemed to have said everything she was going to say and sat quietly in the corner, drinking something she said was nourishing, apparently not interested in anything else.
Maybe Kwek has stumbled into the tides and drowned, one less task—

Hanna drifted into half-sleep, but not so far that she lost her hold on the precious nutrients. She thought idly of Kwek, who would die tomorrow in any case—

Sopping wet, exhausted, dragging herself miserably here and there, with no idea where the settlement lay. Cold, too. And unaware that tomorrow she would—

•   •   •

Die?

Kwek stopped. For a moment she was too startled to be cold. She was not going to
die
, it was not
that
cold, and if she could not find her way back she was sure Nakeekt would send Soldiers to find her in the morning. Nakeekt wanted to see her in the morning, she had said so.

That is because they are going to kill you in the morning. Why are they going to do that, Kwek?

She looked suspiciously at the communicator pulled tight on her slender wrist. The words had not come from it. But it wasn't Arkt, either.

It is Haknt. I have listened to Nakeekt's mind. You will be killed tomorrow.

The speaking-to-the-mind left no space for doubt. Kwek began to run again. The night was not impenetrable to her Soldier's eyes and she did not bump into anything. She still felt Haknt in her mind, but now there was a dim sense of another presence she did not know and then another that she knew.

“Kwek,” said the communicator, and kept repeating her name. Finally she slowed and stopped and leaned against an eat-anything plant. It would be sluggish in the rain, and Pritk had told her that in any case an animal the size of a grown Soldier could escape it easily enough.

“Who is talking to me?” she said.

“This is Arkt. Haknt said she told you what is going to happen tomorrow.”

“She said, she said—” Kwek couldn't repeat it. “Why would they want to do that? I know they are not satisfied with me but there are others who don't work even as hard as I do, and nothing happens to them!”

“What is different about you? Never mind now,” Arkt added quickly. “We would like to remove you from That Place. Will you come?”

“Yes, yes, if they are going to—to do that to me!”

“You know where Haknt's aircraft is? On the landing field?”

“Yes, but I'm lost, I don't—”

“Listen to me, listen, listen.”

Now he spoke to her mind, just as he had on the spacecraft. He was calm and certain. He knew where the aircraft was. He knew where Kwek was, too, because of the com unit. He could guide her to the aircraft. The hatch was open and she could go into it and hide there, and then when Haknt returned, go with her.

The rain came down harder. Kwek slapped away a questing tongue, pushed off from the eat-anything plant, and set off, following Arkt's directions.

•   •   •

This is a complication,
Hanna said to Bella. Nakeekt and her Soldiers had eventually come to some decision and two of them had gone to get something that Hanna thought was the poison Kakrekt desired. They would not return immediately. They would have to make it, or mix it, or something. Kwek's predicament had made Hanna more alert, but she had been too distracted by it to pay attention to the discussion going on around her.

It is a complication, but you don't want to leave Kwek to die, either, or you wouldn't have broken silence. What's the silence about, anyway?
Bella asked, trying to be crafty, and Hanna shot a barrier into place. Her reflexes were slow and Bella got a glimpse beyond it first, but it was not enough to tell her any more than the telepaths already knew.

Wox will not want to take Kwek along,
Hanna said, closing the door firmly on her reason for being at That Place.

Kwek will not want to go with Wox!
Bella said, and showed her Kwek's reaction to the prospect of the “Demon's Soldier's” arrival.

Hanna finished the last drops of her drink.

Tell me about Gabriel.

Asleep. Not really unconscious. Somewhere in between.

I found meal tabs.

So that's why you're better.

Better. Not good.

She felt for the reassuring lumps of the meal tabs in a pocket. Someday, when there was time, she might sit down and weep with gratitude for Gabriel's forethought. There were five tabs left. Three had to be saved for Gabriel; at least three. Wait, or swallow another one now?

She thought of the likely scene when not only she, but Wox as well, got into the pod with Kwek.

She asked for more water.