Broken Circle (38 page)

Zo took the lead, calling out, “Is anyone alive in there?”

“They might not be able to hear you through the hull,” Tul remarked.

Zo ducked under the vehicle's fuselage, feeling heat pouring off it, and came to the hatchway. He reached out to it—

But the hatch opened on its own; a ladder extruded, and a coughing Sangheili half climbed, half fell down onto the deck, followed by a wisp of smoke. He was armed with a blade of a sort Zo had never seen. He wore a pressure suit—a rather antique one, more cumbersome than anything Zo knew, but he'd taken off his helmet.

The stranger turned, wiping his eyes, and then stared at Zo as if he weren't sure he was seeing correctly.

“Ah, yes, I suspect you may never have seen a San'Shyuum in person,” said Zo. He lowered his weapon. “I am Zo Resken, once called the Prophet of Clarity. We mean you no harm, if you in turn mean us none.”

The Sangheili gaped—then looked, blinking, at Tul and G'torik. The stranger spoke, but Zo couldn't quite decipher the dialect. Something about the gods . . . ?

“Did you understand that?” Zo asked, looking at G'torik and Tul.

“Somewhat,” said Tul ruefully. “It sounds like Old Sangheili. Words I don't know, strange accents. But I think he was asking if you were one of the gods.”

“Speak slowly to him, as well as you can, and tell him I am merely a friend to the Sangheili. Tell him we mean him no harm.”

Tul conveyed the message, and the stranger signified understanding.

“Prophet!”
called D'ero, on the comm system.

Zo didn't bother to correct him on such a point anymore; could he be a prophet if the prophecies he once held sacred were proven false? “What is it?”

“That craft—get away from it! The ship says it's highly unstable. Get out of there! I must eject it from the air lock—now!”

“Everyone out!” Zo called, hurrying toward the door.

Tul spoke to the newcomer, and they all rushed toward the hatch. In moments they were through it and G'torik slammed it shut. “Decompress and eject, D'ero!” he shouted.

Zo rushed up the ramp to the corridor and the bridge. He felt the ship shiver as the small craft was released, and hurried to the holomonitor that tracked it out into space. He saw the vessel, in miniature in the holo, spinning away in the void before it exploded. The flames were there only a split second, snuffed out by the vacuum. A few seconds later the hull clattered, some of the fragments striking it.

“Any breach in the hull?” Zo asked.

“Nothing broke through,” D'ero reported, looking at his instruments. He turned to take a long suspicious look at the stranger, who was gawking around the bridge. “Prophet . . . you think he could have deliberately caused that craft to explode? Perhaps it was a trap.”

“I do not think so,” Zo said. “I think he is but a dazed, lost Sangheili. We will attach translators; give one to him, and with those and the language we have in common, we can hope to understand one another.”

The translator devices were small disks that affixed to the skin above hearing membranes. Once they were affixed, with the ship providing cybernetic input, Tul introduced everyone on the bridge to the stranger. He replied, speaking slowly. “My name . . . that by
which you call me . . . it is V'ornik ‘Gred. I am living there—” He pointed at the colony section visible in a holoviewer. “This. The Refuge.”

“Ussa ‘Xellus—this is his colony?” Zo asked, speaking slowly.

“Yes. Ussa colony. You? Where are you from?”

Zo sighed. Where indeed was he from? Nowhere, now. “I grew up in High Charity. You likely don't know what I'm talking about. D'ero ‘S'bud—he is from Sanghelios itself.”

V'ornik's eyes widened. “Not possible.”

“Oh, but it is,” said D'ero. “I grew up in Zolam, a state in the southern parts of the continent of Qivro. I ranged the hills hunting
maegophet
and
doarmir
—and I have even killed a
helioskrill
with a spear, in the ancient way.”

V'ornik stepped a little closer to D'ero, reached out a trembling hand . . . and D'ero suffered his shoulder to be touched.

“Yes,” said D'ero. “I am real; a mortal being . . . from Sanghelios.”

“You will . . . take us there? Sanghelios?”

“Now, that I suppose is a larger question. We have to know we can trust you first.”

Zo turned to D'ero. “You are captain of this vessel. I wish for us to move closer to the colony—and I wish to take our own maintenance craft there. Will you permit this? And stay nearby, as long as you can wait for me?”

“You are thinking this one here can get you into the colony safely?”

“I am going to attempt just that. If he is willing. I have to make contact with these people. This discovery . . . you don't realize what this means to me. I must go to the colony.”

“You are not going alone, Prophet.” D'ero looked at G'torik. “You must go with this fool, if he is so insistent.”

“Then you think me such a fool, too?” G'torik asked. “Your supposition is right. So I
am
.”

“Here is one more fool, then,” said Tul, tapping his own chest.

Then the Huragok came in, drifting over the floor, snaking its head curiously toward the stranger. It stretched tentacles out to him, signaling a desire to repair his pressure suit.

V'ornik scrambled backward from Sluggish Drifter, snarling, snapping mandibles, raising his weapon.

“No!” Tul said, stepping between them. “He serves us. Repairs what is broken.”

V'ornik seemed repelled by the Huragok. He clearly had never seen one.

“Yes,” said Zo, struck by a thought. “Sluggish Drifter repairs things, V'ornik. Is there much that needs repairing on your colony?”

V'ornik looked at him. “Yes. Very much. So very much. That . . . thing can repair our world?”

“Much of it. Yes. Things you cannot repair, often the Huragok can.”

“Then . . . we will go. All of us.”

The Refuge, the Ussan Colony

Primary Refuge

2553 CE

The Age of Reclamation

“What?” Xelq blurted.
“Me?”

“Yes. He chose you to wear this.”

Xelq had stepped into the hallway from the colony control center, looking for the kaidon. Qerspa ‘Tel meanwhile had just
arrived, looking for Xelq. Qerspa put the necklace of rank around Xelq ‘Tylk's neck. It signified that he spoke for the kaidon in Bal'Tol's absence. “He seemed to think that if the vessel that has approached is a danger to us, you are the best one to deal with it in his absence. Your experience with zero gravity, I presume. You are ‘acting kaidon.' But do not excite yourself—I am sure Bal'Tol will return and you will be a mere technology supervisor once more.”

“He is not really going to the Combat Section now, is he? Already? He believes this nonsense about the gods judging the contest?”

“He must. ‘Kinsa has been pressured by his followers to accept the challenge. He is there with his chosen ten already. But this is no floatfight—not truly. It is a chance for each side to kill the other's leaders. That's the truth of it.”

“And the kaidon's orders for me?”

“You are to communicate with the aliens in the vessel, if it is possible. If they seem dangerous, use what weaponry we have to keep them at bay until he returns. If they can give us aid, then use your own judgment.”

Xelq groaned. “I should be there with him! I am good in zero gravity. And I was once a good floatfighter—”

“Who is there? Kaidon?”
The voice came from behind Xelq. He turned and realized it was coming from the near-space receiver.
“This is V'ornik!”

Xelq recognized the voice and hurried to the transmitter. “It's Xelq here, V'ornik. Where are you? We thought you dead!”

“I am alive, and I am on a ship with a Sangheili. He has come here from Sanghelios! And stranger things yet! Adjust the repellent field—we are coming in another maintenance craft. Let us in!”

“Are you Blood Sick? You are speaking madness! We are already under attack!”

“They are mostly Sangheili—from Sanghelios itself!”

“What? And you believe this?”

“I do. And they can repair things we cannot, Xelq! Let me speak to the kaidon—let
them
speak to him!”

“He is not here . . . I am in charge for the moment but . . . I cannot allow such a thing!”

“You have always thought me a fool, Xelq, but this time you must trust me! They are here to help us! Just this once—trust me!”

The Refuge, the Ussan Colony

Combat Section

2553 CE

The Age of Reclamation

Bal'Tol was fitted with the chest armor and helmet allowed to floatfighters; he had a quartermoon blade in one hand and a spiked cudgel in the other. He floated close to the push boards, beside the cables of the netting. With him was Z'nick ‘Berda, the best available floatfighter, and eight other Sangheili with some experience at it, most of them patrollers—colony security—with some experience in combat.

V'urm ‘Kerdeck, the one-eyed hero of floatfighting, was poised across the zero-gravity arena, floating in place, tugging on a spiked glove. Even half blind, he was the most dangerous opponent here. There were nine others beside him, ‘Kinsa adherents readying themselves. But it was V'urm who held Bal'Tol's gaze.

“Z'nick,” Bal'Tol said. “Beware—there is no protective grid for the helmets.” He added dryly, “V'urm ‘Kerdeck himself is here.”

“Just stay behind me, my Kaidon—I will deal with V'urm. He is even older than I am.”

The priest—in truth a pseudopriest, since he represented a false faith—was harnessed to a wall bracket behind the net. He had a burnblade in his hand, and held it near C'tenz, who was bound, head to foot, himself tied to a bracket.

Bal'Tol watched and saw C'tenz squirm in his bonds. “Where is ‘Kinsa?”

“There!” Z'nick said, pointing.

‘Kinsa was coming through the open metal doors in the curved metal wall behind his fighters, lined up raggedly as they bobbed in the gravity-free arena.

‘Kinsa had a mec-missile launcher in his hand.

“ ‘Kinsa makes eleven,” Z'nick observed. “It is supposed to be ten on ten. And he has a weapon that is not traditional here. Quite dangerous.”

“Perhaps that was why he pushed for doing this so quickly. We have no choice. And we have a chance, despite that there are no rules here—his adherents may buckle if he dies.”

The champion was the first to leap into space, but the others followed almost immediately, pushing off and twisting, angling, swinging one another about in practiced moves that would get them where they wanted. The stretch-lines pulled taut between floor and ceiling, passed through the space of the room here and there, to be used as additional propellant bases.

I'll have to take on ‘Kinsa's champion,
Bal'Tol thought,
because he is coming right for me. Kill him. Then get to C'tenz and free him. And kill ‘Kinsa if I get the chance . . .

Bal'Tol positioned himself to push off from the wall, but Z'nick had already launched himself on a trajectory to intersect V'urm.

Cursing under his breath, Bal'Tol pushed off, his stomach whirling as he rocketed through zero gravity, thinking he would end up overshooting V'urm. But V'urm was already engaging with
Z'nick, slashing with one hand, crunching with the spiked fist of the other, cracking Z'nick in the helmet so that he spun in the air. Z'nick tumbled and rolled to slide out of reach, avoiding the slash that would have disemboweled him if it had connected.

Then Bal'Tol was there, but awkwardly positioned, and could only passingly clout V'urm with his cudgel, making the floatfight hero's helmet ring and knocking him out of reach.

Flying past, Bal'Tol glimpsed V'urm grabbing a stretch-line, spinning on it, coming back.

Bal'Tol suddenly felt an instinctive warning, and turned to see a mec-missile coming at him. He twisted left, so the arrowlike bolt of metal slashed by, scraping along his neck.

He saw ‘Kinsa in the distance cranking another mec-missile into place. So the bolt that nearly skewered his throat had come from ‘Kinsa.

Bal'Tol grabbed a stretch-line and spun, so that the next bolt missed as well. One of ‘Kinsa's followers was there, suddenly, roaring as he flew at Bal'Tol, slashing with a burnblade. Bal'Tol blocked it hard with his own blade, and the impact knocked his adversary askew, giving Bal'Tol a chance to bring the cudgel into play. He smashed it underhand into his enemy's knee and felt bone shatter. Shrieking and bent double with pain, he was within reach of Bal'Tol, who then stabbed his blade into his mouth.

Another bolt flashed past Bal'Tol, reminding him that ‘Kinsa was somewhere on the perimeters. If he could find ‘Kinsa and kill him, then this savage fight for the colony might come to some resolution.

His view of ‘Kinsa was blocked by a cluster of three Sangheili—two of Bal'Tol's patrollers and a very large adherent, all tangled up with one another as they struggled.

Airborne puddles of purplish Sangheili blood were spreading
in the zero-grav environment. Three patrollers floated by limply, clearly dead. One was almost decapitated, his head just hanging on to his neck by a strip of skin.

Bal'Tol pushed off from a stretch-line, and rocketed over the cluster of three fighters. One of his own was dead and the other was being choked in the spiked grip of the large follower, who was luridly webbed with the marks of Blood Sickness. Bal'Tol was well positioned above the strangler, and stabbed down hard on the back of the enemy's exposed neck, severing the spine. The impact stopped Bal'Tol, making him wrench about in space as he tried to hold on to his weapon, so that he was swung through a floating cloud of Sangheili blood. He had to spit some from his mouth, and lost his grip on the wet, slick sword hilt.