Dance of Destinies (The Galactic Mage Series Book 5) (11 page)

“How did you do it if they had bigger guns and better technology?” Black Sander was genuinely intrigued.

“Our people were already on the inside, thanks to the Great Cartels. They were the visionaries who beat the arrogant people at their own game. When the corrupt government of the United States made deals with one cartel against the next, that cartel sank its fangs deeper into their country. So it went for nearly a century before the world collapsed. By the time the famines were everywhere, the government of the United States was stretched too far and wide. Their greed and corruption broke their economy, and the whole world nearly died for a time. Three hundred years, there was nothing but war and destruction. Pockets of civilization fortified and struggled to just survive. Disease flourished. Science declined.

“But we never lost sight of what we wanted for ourselves, our honor. We only had to walk in and reclaim what was ours. Some of it was easy. The western, coastal part of the old United States was soft. They had allowed their government to disarm them, so they rolled over like dogs. This city, San Francisco, was the crown jewel of them all. This compound was the first my forefathers built in the land we took back from them. It is a place of great history.

“Other parts of the old United States were more difficult. Not all the citizens in the middle parts of the country were unarmed. They rallied together, formed militias, and we fought for centuries. That was when the cartels came together under Rafael Francisco Arellano-Muñoz, who is an ancestor of the president and my ancestor too. Together they created what you see now, the new Mexico, three hundred years after the world came out of the dark ages again. We are strong and proud. But there is one part of our country still left to take.”

“Which part is that?”

“Texas,” Jefe said. “The Republic of Texas is the last. Their pride made them separate from the remaining parts of the United States. That was what allowed the NTA to crack the safes of the planet again. The same families who had controlled the world for a thousand years started again there. But we will take Texas. When we reclaim it, then we will be whole. Then we will look to the stars.”

Black Sander nodded, an appreciative thing. “I wish you all success with your campaign. I should think you and my employer have more in common than I thought.”

“I will want to meet your employer one day,” he said. “But for now, they can keep their secrets. You come from a world where people read minds. I do not want my mind filled with secrets that can be stolen. That could jeopardize our new friendship. I am satisfied with mystery. For now.”

Black Sander inclined his head. “Thank you. Things will go more smoothly that way.” His expression was a little flatter than it might have been due to the way Jefe had pronounced that last bit. But not much. Such was the way with men like that. They couldn’t help themselves. The marchioness would have said it too. If not with her lips, with her eyes.

He wanted to ask how, precisely, Jefe planned on using magic to retake the lost territory called Texas, but he suspected he’d probably milked enough information for now. So he changed the subject entirely.

“I’ll get you another wizard to study and a few more animals to replace what was lost by the end of the week,” he said. “I’m sure my employer will appreciate some portion of the agreed-upon payment as a show that the incident has not marred our relationship.”

Jefe said something to El Segador in Spanish again, and then smiled easily. The crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes lengthened considerably. “No, amigo. You will be paid in full. I know that you will do as you have promised.”

“Good,” Black Sander said, carefully concealing his relief. He did not want to have to listen to the marchioness’ complaints, and the whole thing was already awkward enough. “I will have a few of my men sent down to help clean up the mess. As soon as the basement is clear, we will send smaller crates back down the moment our additional teleporter arrives.”

“Do not worry about sending people. My men will clean the mess. You have your man with the far seeing just watch down there. When we are done, we will turn out the lights, all but the one near the stairs, just as we did last time. There is no reason to put your men at risk moving across all that space.”

“Well, it’s not normally a risk,” Black Sander said. “Though I admit, there is perhaps a bit more risk than is strictly necessary, as we are not the TGS.”

“One day, we will be,” Jefe said. “You will see.”

Chapter 12

O
rli tried to mark the descent of Altin’s helmet after it fell through the grate, but it was gone. A few bounces on the next two grates, and then it was lost in the mist. The way it moved when it fell through each grate suggested the winds changed directions in each subsequent layer, which meant by the time it reached the bottom, it could have been blown anywhere. She’d never find it now. But that was all right. They had their fast-cast amulets. She’d get to him and break the gems. That would get them home. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d resorted to it.

She climbed to her feet, careful to brace against the wind, and stared back up toward the bright light and the three-pronged machine with the bulbs of black glass. She knew what they were and what the aliens were doing. They were examining him. Like some specimen. It infuriated her. They were just as bad as … well, as bad as her own people had been to him when they first encountered the Prosperion sorcerer.

It occurred to her that the whole universe might be filled up with inquisitive, thoughtless assholes. She hoped she was wrong, but it sure was shaping up that way. Again.

She had to get Altin off that table. She had to get up there someway. Which meant she needed some way to climb. She’d already ruled out the lengths of tubing leading into Altin’s suit, though they hung down the side of the machine like the inviting vines of some old-fashioned lover’s fairy tale. She could be the hero and rescue him from the tower. But she wouldn’t chance it. Pulling them out could be the end of him—assuming the loss of his helmet hadn’t already been.

She turned and traced the length of the three lines running out of the back of her own spacesuit instead. Perhaps where they led, there would be more like them. Maybe she could figure out what they did, figure out a way to take them out, and turn her suit’s power back on. Assuming the power packs weren’t simply drained. There was no telling how long they’d been in that yellow jelly stuff.

Orli tried to remember how much she’d seen since being in it, how much she’d witnessed since that light had reached down over the edge of the ramp when Roberto called. But she couldn’t recall anything after that. She didn’t remember coming into the ship. She didn’t remember being put up on the grate. There were no memories of these hoses being attached or any aliens doing anything to them at all.

She must have lost some time. But how much?

She followed the three hoses to another massive bit of alien equipment not too far away. This machine—and that’s what it was, she was sure, a machine—stood at least forty yards tall. The tubes from her suit, at most three inches in diameter, jutted from the side of it, some sixty yards up. She looked behind her and saw that Altin’s hoses were also attached to this machine, for she could follow them around to the other side.

She walked all the way around it, hoping there might be another set. If it could serve two captive humans, perhaps it could serve more.

No such luck.

She decided to go to the next machine down the line. Maybe it would have something she could use. It didn’t. It was just a big green box. A few lights high above. A smaller version of the oblong tanks on the other side of Altin’s examination machine bulged out from one side, different but not unlike the ones sitting in the nests of coiled hoses.

Maybe she could use that nest stuff. It looked like it was woven together pretty tightly, but it was worth a try. She started across the grate for the nearest of those tanks, hoping that the translucent seaweed-colored tubes wouldn’t be too heavy to move. The fact that she was able to drag around as much as the three tubes attached to her suit gave her some measure of hope, though the farther she went, the more she had to lean against their weight. Perhaps the other stuff was an even lighter material. She doubted it, but it wasn’t like she had much else she could do.

She was downwind of Altin by perhaps forty yards, and she thought she heard him call her name. She stopped and looked back at him. She still couldn’t see him yet, not even from the angle this distance afforded her. She saw the aliens flashing images of him and flashing patterns back and forth. She wondered how long it was going to take them to figure out that she was just wandering around. She wondered if they were that unafraid of her, of all humans. They certainly had charged right on down onto a Hostile world and started digging with no hesitation at all, so they clearly had no fear of either Hostile or human as evidenced by that. But still, you’d think they wouldn’t want her to get away, being as they’d gone to the trouble to capture her. Unless they were that confident in their ability to catch her again. She looked down through the grate and shook her head. Or else they just knew she was too tiny to do much or go anywhere.

Three steps closer to the tank and she realized why they weren’t too concerned with her escape. She couldn’t drag the hoses anymore. It was simply too much to pull. She turned back and yanked on one of the tubes. She could barely drag it half a foot.

She yanked harder. So what if it broke or came loose from the machine. If they wanted their specimens alive, they’d better be ready for accidents. Especially if they left them free to roam around. She hauled back on the tube with all her might.

Nothing.

“Damn it!”

She looked back down through the grate. Then realized she was an idiot.

She felt around her waist, and sure enough, there was her Higgs prism, still attached to her belt. Right where she’d put it. “Idiot,” she breathed aloud. “Get it together, for crying out loud.” She sounded like Roberto.

She pulled the small device free of its pocket on her belt. She was about to set it to zero, but paused. The damn wind was going to make this difficult. She looked up again to where Altin was. One of the aliens had pulled him out of the light and was waving him around in the air. She barely had time to shape the question in her mind, when the alien shot out its parachute billow from an opening in the top of its long, narrow body. The wind filled it instantly with a pop that was so loud Orli heard it from that distance, through the wind and through the helmet glass. The next thing she knew, Altin was flying right over her head. The tentacle holding him drooped so low she could almost touch him as he went past.

“Altin!” she screamed, but it was too late. He was gone, the glimmering of the alien fading into the darkness, growing dim.

“Fuck that,” she said. She set the controls to zero and jumped into the wind. She flew out after him for some thirty yards, then,
BAM
, hit the end of her tether like a steel wall.

She bounced and waggled in the wind, bobbing up and down in the wind like a damn kite. One gust drove her down to the grate, where she hit hard and bounced back up again. A little bit harder and she’d have broken her leg. A little bit left and she’d have gone down through the opening in the grate. She fumbled with the control on her Higgs prism, and, waiting until she drifted directly over a beam, she set herself down again. She stood there trembling. She looked up into the darkness where Altin had been.

He was gone.

The tears began to burn in her eyes, frustration quivering her lips. Then a tentacle grabbed her and wound her up tight.

She tried to fight it off. She thrashed and wriggled in its grips. “Let me go, asshole,” she shouted. But the alien had her in its clutches.

It had had to let out some length in the tentacles it was using to anchor itself between the grates, and she absently noticed that it retracted the tentacles to drag her back into place. It clearly had no issue with the weight of the tiny Earth creature or the three tubes in her suit.

She was placed on top of the machine where Altin had been. She could see a huge patch of smooth material like glass. She assumed that was where the light came from.

The creature reached up another tentacle, which fluttered near her helmet glass. She felt the pop of a latch as much as she heard it.

“Oh shit,” she said, as the second one popped. Then the third. Then the last. The air hissed out of it. So it had still been pressurized. That was interesting. She heard the helmet bounce across the tabletop and then heard it no more.

The creature mashed her down on the flat glass, rolled her onto her back. Lying that way was beyond uncomfortable because her back bent over the bottom edge of the suit’s bulky dorsal unit. The light behind her glared.

The contraption with the cylindrical prongs began lowering toward her. It rotated with a whirring and clicking sound, and a larger bulb was brought to bear on her. She knew it was examining her somehow. She hoped it wasn’t gamma radiation or something worse to barbecue her guts. She didn’t feel anything. It moved closer. More whirring. Then the first prong, with the smaller black glass dome, rotated back. It lowered all the way down to within an inch of her face.

“Fuck you,” she snarled. She spat on the glass. The black semisphere remained there for a while. She saw the creature’s color shift to various patterns, most of them the color of peach flesh, with the faintest hint of red. She could hear the bulk of the machine whirring above her.