Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra (14 page)

Thinking about it made her tired. She yawned and lay back against the pillows she had piled in the middle of the bed. She closed her eyes and gave herself to the cozy warmth of sleep, feeling safe and secure: a child in her father's home once again.

The
moment he opened his eyes. Pizzle reached out to release his safety harness. It was gone. He pulled back his hand and wondered what had made him do that. Even as he tried to think about it, the thought evaporated.

For a moment he had the impression that he would remember something very important, that if he only concentrated hard enough it would come to him. But concentration eluded him; random thoughts drifted in and out of his head, and he forgot why he was concentrating in the first place.

He yawned, slid out of bed, and stretched, pulling his arms over his head and bending at the waist. It felt good to stretch; he'd been sleeping too long.

Pizzle slipped his yos over his head and tightened the sash at his side, blousing up the folds properly so that the hem reached midthigh. He stopped and looked at his hands. Where had he learned to arrange a yos?

Hadn't he always known? Wasn't it a thing everyone knew?

For a moment he experienced a strange sense of reversed
deja vu
—of doing for the first time things he had been doing all his life.

Oh well, it was probably nothing. Nothing at all.

Sirin Rohee, Supreme Director
of the Threl, stared around the ring at his grim companions. Worry stretched his normally pouty expression into a deep, oppressive frown. Everyone in the darkened, heavily-draped room felt the full weight of that frown; it was like gravity—pulling all attention toward itself.

At last he spoke. His voice warbled slightly, a clue to his advancing age; but his hands were steady as he clasped his ceremonial bhuj. “The threat, though very great, has been averted, Directors. We have managed to isolate the intruders, and amnesiants have been administered.”

“There was no trouble?” Kavan asked, averting his eyes briefly. The Supreme Director waved the bhuj to his left; the polished blade flashed in the light.

“None,” replied Hladik. “They were but a small force; our own Invisibles subdued them easily.”

“Weapons?” Cejka spoke in a raw whisper.

Hladik regarded him frankly from beneath his heavy brows and answered, “We found no weapons.”

“But,” added Rohee quickly, “there is no doubt that the intent of their mission was to discredit our security. Therefore, you will describe weapons of undetermined origin. Our official statement will be that we have, owing to tireless vigilance, thwarted a plot by Fieri spies.”

Tvrdy, the sly, practical Director of Tanais, leaned forward in his seat, cleared his throat, and said, “What of this vehicle of theirs? I understand the spies possessed a spacecraft.”

Saecaraz Subdirector Jamrog answered without waiting for a nod from his superior. “Obviously the vehicle must have been a decoy.”

“Oh?” said Tvrdy. “I had not heard this.” He glanced at Cejka, and then continued. “What would be the use of a decoy?”

“Deception,” said Jamrog. “The Fieri are deviously clever. They hope to make us believe that they have achieved space travel. We know this is impossible.”

“Should not this decoy craft be mentioned in our statement? The people are certain to hear about it.”

“You will make no mention of the decoy craft. It does not exist.”

“Where is it now?” asked Tvrdy. “I would like to have it studied. It may be that it hides some clues to Fieri magic.”

“It has been removed,” Jamrog replied tightly.

“Yes. So I would expect. And where is it being kept? I wish to send Tanais magicians to study it.”

“You will be notified when that becomes possible,” said Jamrog.

“I see. And what prevents me from seeing it now?”

“I say when—” began Jamrog angrily.

Hladik, Director of Nilokerus, raised a hand and cut him off. “You will see the vehicle in due time, Tvrdy. I realize both you and Jamrog will have keen interest in the craft—even though it is but an elaborate toy. However, the Supreme Director asked me to make absolutely certain the machine poses no security threat.”

“Of course.” Tvrdy smiled. “I was merely curious, you understand.” He nodded toward Jamrog. “I am sorry if my request upset you.”

Piipo, the long-faced, taciturn Director of Hyrgo Hage, twisted uncomfortably in his seat and spoke up. “Supreme Director, if I may return to other matters, you said the spies have been isolated. Am I to believe they are being held in the reorientation section?”

“Allow me, Supreme Director,” said Hladik as the Threl leader glanced toward him. “The force was small—only four. Since their presence was certain to be discovered by the Dhogs if they were placed in adjustment cells, I thought it best that they be introduced unobtrusively into suitable Hages. Of course they will remain under close surveillance until the effect of the psilobe is rendered permanent.”

“You don't think they would pose an even greater threat loose among the populace? They could conceivably make contact with Dhogs who are sure to recognize them.”

“Of course,” replied Hladik equably, “such a thing is possible. But in their present condition they would be in no position to help their comrades.” The Nilokerus leader smiled broadly. “Besides, as I have said, their movements will be monitored very closely. Any attempt to contact the Fieri underground within Empyrion would compromise their organization. We would strike instantly and crush them once and for all.”

Supreme Director Rohee raised the bhuj and rapped the gold-plated staff sharply on the floor. “The session is at an end, Directors. You will assure your Hagemen that we have dealt our treacherous enemies a decisive blow; we are now very close to smashing their network and ridding Empyrion of their hated presence forever.”

With that, supported by Jamrog who held his elbow, he stood slowly, turned, and shuffled from the circular chamber. The seven remaining Threl watched him go in silence.

As
the others filed past, led away by their waiting guides, Tvrdy stepped from the procession and walked to the terrace rim. He put his hands on the smooth surface of the breastwork and looked out over the Hage. The undulating arcs of a thousand terrace rims, falling away in sweeping stairsteps on every side, descending to teeming tangles of warrens and cells below, met his gaze.

There was much that had not been said in session about this so-called invasion of spies. What were the spies doing
outside
the dome? Why were they not simply terminated upon capture— standard policy for Fieri agents and Dhogs? Why had their spacecraft been hidden? Why was there no preliminary report from Saecaraz magicians? Which Hages had been selected for hiding the alleged spies?

“You look but do not see,” remarked a withered voice behind him. Tvrdy nodded and turned to meet Cejka.

“I see too much that I do not like. But you are a Rumon; you must see even more than I.” Tvrdy leaned against the terrace rim once again, turning so that a lipreader would not be able to observe their speech. Cejka joined him, and both men gazed out over the man-made hills and valleys of the colony's interior.

“I see that Jamrog and his puppet Hladik have been busy obscuring the facts. But one thing is clear—there is much they are not telling about these alleged Fieri spies. Therefore, they are afraid.”

“Where are they, do you think?”

“I don't know, but I will find out. Rumon rumor messengers are already at work, and our agents have been alerted; you can be sure we will find out very soon.”

“And then?”

“And then we will talk. Kavan, you, and I—also Piipo, if he will come.”

“You trust him?”

“Yes. We have had opportunity for much informal discussion of late. He may not join us, but he will not betray us. He can be trusted.”

“What of Dey? Should we try him?”

Cejka groaned. “The Chryse are in bed with the Saecaraz. We have lost Dey, I am afraid. No matter. Hyrgo is more important anyway, and it's true they have no love for Jamrog. Eee!” Cejka shuddered. “The prospect of Jamrog as Supreme Director … it's abhorrent… unthinkable!”

Tvrdy nodded absently. “I wonder if it could be true … do you think? Could the intruders really be Travelers?”

Cejka's shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Who knows? Stranger things are possible, I suppose. Though I think we will find that the Fieri are perhaps becoming unusually bold—that is more likely.”

“I have heard that one of them invoked the ancient name … Cynetics.” Tvrdy glanced sharply at his friend.

“Yes, very puzzling. I don't know what to make of it. It is said the Dhogs still worship Cynetics.” He shrugged. “Well, we will find out—a Rumon always finds out.” Cejka looked around him; across the terrace several people were milling aimlessly. He leaned close to Tvrdy and said, “We had better leave now. We are beginning to attract attention. I think I recognize one of Hladik's so-called Invisibles over there.”

“Yes. Well, contact me as soon as you find out the intruders' whereabouts. We must work quickly if we want to save the information; otherwise the psilobe will destroy it.”

“Of course,” said Cejka, moving off along the rim, signaling for his guides to lead him away. “I'll contact you as soon as we have found them.”

Tvrdy remained gazing out over the colony's terraces for a time—until his own guides approached to lead him back to Tanais Hage.

“Where are you from,
Hageman?” The man working beside him straightened, pushing back the brown hood to reveal a thin face twitching with curiosity.

“What?” Pizzle straightened too, feeling sharp stabs of pain in his lower back. They had been working for hours in the stinking muck, raking the thickened crust over to let the air get at the still-wet sludge beneath. “Ow!” He dropped his rake and rubbed his back.

“I've not seen you here before,” the man said. “You're new to the Hage?”

Pizzle stared blankly at his co-worker. Other brown-hooded workers gathered around, staring and mumbling, eyes bright with questions. They waited for him to say something. He dragged a sleeve across his forehead, wondering what to say to them.

Fields of dun-colored sludge, arranged in rice-paddy style—in terraces, one above another—surrounded him on every side. Above, so high above as to form a sparkling, crystalline sky, the dome stretched its inconceivable canopy over them, its dark-veined facets glinting as the sun struck their surface. How many times had he watched the glimmer of sun rays play across the planes of the dome?

All his life, apparently.

“He makes no answer, Nendl. Why?” asked a worker, poking the man next to him. “Too proud to work the night soil?”

This caused a murmur among the others. Some nodded and others remained leaning on their wide rakes, staring at him, trying to make up their minds about him. Nendl shrugged and said, “It makes no difference. He wears the brown hood of the Jamuna. Wherever he comes from, he is one of us now. We will accept him and his pride.” The thin-faced man took up his rake once more. “This field must be finished before allotment. I would not have the priests angry with us—my stomach suffers enough.”

Pizzle watched this exchange and, strangely, understood what had taken place, though the words spoken were unfamiliar. Not a foreign language, exactly—the cadence and sound patterns he understood. But the words themselves were blurred, just slightly twisted so that clarity remained elusive.

He pondered this as the others turned away and went back to work, then stopped to retrieve his rake, pulling its handle from the mire and wiping his hands on his rump. He drew the tool over the crusted muck, thinking, trying to remember what had happened to him.

He had awakened after a sleep—long or short he could not tell—and had dressed himself. A red-hooded man had come for him then, and after a long journey through many winding tunnels he had been handed over to a man in a yos like his own, black with a brown hood and a wide brown stripe at the hem. He had been led out from the small, featureless room, through a low tunnel that curved as it went down. They had emerged from the tunnel onto tiers of fields. A rake had been pushed into his hand, and he had followed the other workers out into the field.

At first the acrid fumes rising from the fields of sludge had almost choked him. But he had gradually become numb to the stench, and as he watched the others he remembered what to do with the rake in his hands. Then he had fallen into the rhythm of raking, walking, raking, walking …

That was all he could remember. Had he always lived among the Jamuna? Where had that word come from? Oh yes, Nendl had said it. The Jamuna, yes.

Thinking about these things, the effort to remember, made his head hurt. Remembering is important, a voice deep inside told him. Yes, perhaps. Perhaps remembering was important, but it was hard work and it hurt. Forgetting was painless, and it was easier—easier to let the fuzziness that wrapped his mind in its gentle fog take away all memory.

The
plaza was surrounded on three sides by brightly-colored stalls, and on the fourth by a low, ridgelike hump of grass. Beyond the plaza, stacked terraces rose up on every side, their broad, curving arcs stepping away into the distance to tower above the tall, finger-thin trees ringing the square.