Exile (29 page)

This time, it rose into her thoughts and stayed. Instantly the calling came to her.

It came to the others, also. A light-year to her left, Pel Front stopped his task; and a hundred light-years beyond him, Mel Sent did the same. Without living bodies to inhabit, they became merely particles frozen in space. It was more a silence through their being than an outer silence here, where there was no sound.

As always, everything was lifted away from Kay Free: All thought and awareness were gone; she was freed of everything save being itself.

Without thinking or speaking, she said, "Yes, my Life."

Blissful nothingness filled her, drowned her doubts, washed her clean.

"Yes, my Life," she repeated.

As instantly as it had come, the moment of calling went away.

Kay Free sensed in her companions, also, a removal of doubt and a cleansing.

No longer did she wish for a living thing to inhabit, in order to produce tears. There was still a sadness but with it now, making it whole, was understanding.

In a little while they were finished.

In the gathering place, they pushed their chosen fragments off into the appropriate orbit.

Kay Free once again thought of harvest; the chunks of ice, planetary detritus, had been selected with care from the farm that the Kuiper Belt was; they had been pulled out of their rows, ripe and fat, and now they would perform their appointed task.

One after another, the fragments, some as large as ten kilometers, were flung in a precise arc, dropped out of their farm and downward. Soon the warmth of the star would warm them, and they would grow tails. Some of the ice and gases on their surfaces would melt away behind them, making them beautiful for a while to behold.

They would become comets.

And, when they reached their destination, something else.

W
rath-Pei's ship was the biggest Dalin had ever seen. In the brief glimpse he'd had of it before being transported from the ground shuttle which had brought him to orbit, he estimated its length at at least one kilometer. Perhaps more.

It was a veritable city inside—though Dalin saw little of it, save the "cutting room," as Wrath-Pei called it, to which he was immediately transported. The room was identical to the one on Titan in which Wrath-Pei had cut off Dalin's eyelids; there was an identical gyro chair, silver and menacing, the sight of which brought acidic fear up from Dalin's stomach.

But he was not bound to the chair for another operation. Instead, two of Wrath-Pei's black-suited henchmen, this pair possessing all their fingers but walking with a curious, clubfooted gait produced by the absence of most of their toes, soon appeared, bearing a thermal garment and a reentry suit into which Dalin was forced.

In the middle of this procedure Wrath-Pei ap
peared, the faint whir of his chair audible before it appeared in the doorway, a slight and cruel smile, as always, on his lips.

"You will find it uncomfortable, to be sure," Wrath-Pei said as the two black-suited men lowered the quartz-plated helmet over Dalin's head. Already he felt the cramp of the tight outfit; he knew that once the helmet was in place, he would look like an Egyptian sarcophagus with a porthole over his face.

Wrath-Pei scowled. "They really should do something about the style of these things," he said. "But I suppose function comes before form, in this case. Ah, well."

He stayed to watch while one of the henchmen activated the suit's pressure system and attached an oxygen line.

Inside the suit, flat on the floor, Dalin felt even more uncomfortable; despite the tightness, he now felt itchy all over.

Wrath-Pei grinned. "Oh, yes, it will be quite uncomfortable. But it won't be for long. Out of—" he yawned, "mercy, I'll see that we get to our destination as soon as possible.-I've had your body functions slowed down, so you should nap through the entire trip. And lest you find the thermal garment too warm—trust me, you'll thank me for it later. Try to be patient."

And then Wrath-Pei was gone; and so were the two henchmen, turning out the lights as they clubfooted their way out of the room.

To his relief, Dalin found that he could sleep—though his eyes remained, as ever, opened.

And then mercies continued, and they were at their destination.

Dalin had not eaten, but the suit's reduction of his metabolism had ensured that he didn't need sustenance. His skin, though, felt like it was crawling with cold things. He felt sluggish and dull, yet what he really wanted to do was tear the thick metal suit off with his bare hands and scratch the bottom of his right foot.

Just at the height of his discomfort, when he felt that he could no longer stand it, the two henchmen reappeared.

Dalin's oxygen line was removed; he heard the hiss of the suit's internal supply tank taking over. Gradually his body functions were brought back up to normal—which only made the itching worse.

He was placed on a flat gurney and transported to one of the ship's airlock chambers, where Wrath-Pei waited for him.

"Splendid!" Wrath-Pei said, giving the suit a rap with his fist, stopping it before him. He leaned over in his gyro chair and looked through the thick quartz faceplate.

"Just wanted to say farewell, King Shar!"

Dalin's wide, lidless eyes stared up at him.

Wrath-Pei said, "I also wanted to tell you that it may be a bit irritating on the way down, since I've had your suit adjusted just a wee bit from normal.

You may feel a bit of heat. But not to worry—you'll survive. And if you get hot . . ." he chuckled, "you'll cool off, soon enough." He rapped on the suit again, making a dull faraway clang to Dalin's ears. "Farewell!"

Without another word, Dalin was put into the airlock; and after a moment the outer door was opened and he was propelled into space.

His body was rammed violently inside the tight confines of the suit by the ejection. Then he was floating free. He felt both weightless and helpless. His eyes filled with a splash of bright stars.

Then the tiny retrorockets on the reentry suit fired and he was moving.

The suit angled around, blurring the stars like a fast-rotating night—and then froze in place.

His sight was filled with what looked like a bright, compact star off to one side. Partially eclipsing it, and nearly filling his sight directly in front of him, was a dull blue world, like a cracked, ugly glass marble.

The rockets fired again, like two quick kicks on his back.

He began to fall.

He screamed. And yet his terror was nearly subsumed by fascination. The blue marble gradually widened beyond his vision; but before doing so, he saw at its limb the faintest of atmospheres backlit by a light source on the far side.

The light source was SunOne.

The planet was Pluto.

He fell faster now.

And then the heat began.

The edges of the quartz faceplate reddened. Heat seemed to leak in around it, like a filament slowly warming, until he felt as if he were being cooked alive.

And still he fell faster. Through the porthole, he watched Pluto grow larger and more menacing. Details began to resolve. He saw below him a chain of icy mountains, bordered by a massive, vicious chasm, as if an ax had been taken to the world.

Inside, the suit pressure built and now threatened to overwhelm both his fright and the heat. He fought to move his lungs, screaming in bursts to make himself breathe. Now the quadruple forces of burning alive, unbelievable pressure, boundless panic, and lack of oxygen nearly made him burst from within.

Just as he felt he could take no more, a marvelous sight rode briefly by his faceplate: a city of lights and ice that tore away from him in the distance.

And then there was a popping sound behind him, even as the blue icy world rushed up to slap him, followed by a jerk. The parachute had opened.

The heat was gone. The reddened faceplate cooled as he drifted down. It was as if he were on a cloud. He beheld wonders: the thick fingers of mountains pointing up at him—and, directly below, a flattened plateau, edged out over a shallow canyon, all covered with swirling snow.

He dropped into a squall of ice crystals, which beat against his faceplate like tapping fingernails. He could see nothing. Again he felt claustrophobia try to take him—but then there was a blow of wind, clearing his vision.

He saw the place he would land.

An ice shelf, a hundred meters from the edge of the cliff, pushed up at him.

He hit the planet.

Again ice crystals gathered around him as the reentry suit fell by design over onto its back. Dalin heard snaps and clicks of mechanisms working.

And now the suit opened; the top rose away from him on hinges, like a coffin, and the cold reached him—

Assaulted him.

Freezing, he tried to pull the reentry suit back down around him. It would not budge. Shivering, he scrambled from its confines and stood up. The thermal suit Wrath-Pei had provided for him was bare protection; already the sting of ice crystals cut his face. He pulled the hood tighter around him, but it was scant help.

There was a constant low moan of wind.

As if on cue, it stopped snowing. And now the planet spread out around him in true icy splendor. A cliff of ice blocked his view to the east and south; to the north, a hammered plain of blue-white spread out flat like a plate, melding gradually into the mountain ranges westward. The sky above was inky black, mutely lit by the glow of SunOne, just edging
below the horizon; trailing it was Charon, Pluto's moon, a dark circle of shadow.

And in the midst of overhead stars, Dalin saw the impossibly far away Sun, barely a star, and then, to the east, something blue.

At first he thought it was Earth. A pang went through him; it seemed as if he had been forever torn from the place he belonged. A flood of memory and longing rushed through him. He saw Minister Faulkner, and felt his own father lift him high into the air, calling him Little Prince; and then he abruptly smelled roses, thick and sweet, and he was back in the gardens of his palace, under the unimaginably bright sun, its gentle warmth like a gift on his skin.

Tabrel was there, kissing him, telling him, "Forever ...

But the blue world, he realized, was only Neptune, Pluto's nearest neighbor..

Earth was somewhere far distant, a tiny unseen dot.

Dalin Shar, king of a world, cried out, hearing a faint echo of his own anguish against the distant ice come back to him. He was more alone than he had ever been; more alone than he could imagine being. He might as well be Charon, or any other rock floating in space—he was now truly torn from everything he loved or had ever known.

Shivering, teeth chattering, he fell to his knees, beating his hands in the snow; and then he turned his lidless eyes to the heavens and uttered a vow:

"I am Dalin Shar, king of a world! I will get back everything that is mine!"

He clenched his fists and held them up to the heavens. For a moment the stars twinkled, and he thought of portents. He shouted again, in anguish and resolve.

But it was only the thin clouds regathering overhead into another weak storm.

Soon it began to snow again and Dalin could not see his own hand in front of his face.

The cold assaulted him.

On all fours, he crawled until he found the shelter of the open reentry suit. But it was half filled with snow and would not close to protect him.

Fighting with it, Dalin began to lose his battle with the snow and biting wind.

"Damnation!"

Shivering uncontrollably, he lay in the open suit, curled like a puppy.

Perhaps, he though, he would be better off if the cold took him.

His sight dimmed.

A huge shadow loomed over him.

Shivering, barely conscious, Dalin stared up weakly into an unseen face. He tried to speak but could not. He was easily lifted, felt himself pressed against warm fur.

Again he tried to speak, but his body, on the verge of surrender, would not let him.

He tumbled down into unconsciousness.

stream (the image of cold made Dalin wince), it was nevertheless just flat enough to be almost painful.

Dalin wanted to beg the voice to stop singing.

The blinding white hurt his sight.

He tried to move, but found himself still too weak to so much as lift his hand to shield his lidless eyes.

But he was warm—surrounded by white warmth.

"Ah!" the deep singing voice said, ending his singing on a particularly flat note. "Our king awakens!"

Slowly,' Dalin turned his head even as the singer's face hove into view: a huge face to go with the huge voice, bright eyes, reddened, hearty cheeks—and the fiercest, fullest, richest beard Dalin had ever seen on a man.

Weakly, Dalin said, "How did you know... I am a king?"

"You said so yourself, out in the blasted snow! King Dalin, of Earth!" The beard split into a grin. "You vow with the best of them!"