Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (5 page)

With the exception of his marks – all of whom he had quickly turned over to the Alliance military or local police – Logan had been alone for six years. But now everything was so different… Logan raked his fingers through his hair. It was still damp from the shower. A drop of water tickled its way down the back of his neck.

"I'm all set up. So, um… What exactly am I supposed to be looking for?" Gripper asked.

Logan looked up into the Arboran's wide face. "Anything strange in the news. Probably violent. Xartasia means to use those Devourers for something and I don't think it's planting a garden. We only need to look back nine weeks."

"Nine weeks? How come?"

"That's how long ago Gavriel summoned the Devourers."

"Oh," Gripper said unhappily. "Right."

He set to work using the parameters Logan had given him, typing delicately with his huge claws and muttering to himself. Gripper shook the computer a few times as his mainstream link froze.

"This is going to take a while. That's a lot of data," he said. "There's no search term for
strange
. Sorry."

Gripper delivered his apology with a cringe. Like he was afraid of being shot for the delay. Logan's right hand crept down to the Talon-9 on his hip. Without his license, there were many places he could no longer carry the weapon. Logan's jaw clenched so hard that his teeth throbbed.

"Fine," he said in a tight voice. "Just get the information. Download half of it to a datadex so I can look through it, too."

Gripper cringed again, misunderstanding Logan's anger. He fumbled a datadex – nearly as claw-scarred as his computer – from a huge, oil-stained pocket and began sending information to it. A tiny indicator light flashed green as the datadex received Gripper's data.

A waitress in a tight shirt and a very short skirt that showed off a great deal of slim, striped leg veered away from their table when she saw Logan and Gripper. Fine. Logan didn't want anything. Logan drummed impatient illonium fingertips on the table. The thick gray metal clanked loudly.

The Mirrans built their walls to keep danger out but trapped other, more subtle dangers inside. Mir was a coreworld. Last night, outside Maeve's window on the Blue Phoenix, Logan had seen a sky as full of stars as sand on a beach. On shining silver Axis, they shone brilliantly even in the middle of the day, filling the heavens from horizon to horizon with twinkling silver points. But Hanjirrah's morning sky was a uniform and flatly unattractive yellowish green. The Mirran walls trapped pollutants inside, making the air thick and fetid. It seemed to cling to his skin and made Logan want another shower. Mir was far warmer than his native Prianus, and more stable, less prone to icy storms and tectonic upheaval. But Logan suddenly found that he missed the mountains and black skies of his homeworld with an aching intensity.

Is this how Maeve… feels?
he wondered.
Xartasia?

The waitress in the tiny skirt was whispering nervously to her manager, a Lyran with black and white patchwork fur. His eyes and then muzzle turned toward Logan. The wolfin man nodded shortly to his waitress and started across the patio, ears flat against his narrow skull. Logan stood as he approached, cybernetic hand clenched.

"Is there a problem here?" he challenged.

"I hope not," said the Lyran. "But your friend needs to leave."

"Gripper?" Logan asked, surprised. The Prian was used to being the problem. He looked at the Arboran, who finally lifted his huge nose up out of his work. "Why?"

"He's frightening my customers," the Lyran told Logan. "I don't know what he is and I don't care, but I want him gone."

"Oh," said Gripper. His tone was that of a child all too accustomed to being reprimanded for someone else's petty crimes. "Yeah, sure. Just let me get my stuff–"

"No," Logan interrupted. "You haven't done anything wrong, Gripper. You don't have to go anywhere."

The Lyran did not actually snarl, but his furry chops peeled back from curved white fangs. The Lyra were
not
prey animals and never had been. The manager's brown eyes went to Logan's cybernetic left hand and narrowed.

"Look, you mutts," he growled low in his throat, "I want you out of my shop right now. You haven't even ordered, so just leave without a fuss."

"Come on, Freezer," Gripper said. "Let's just go."

Logan pulled out his wallet and threw one of his few remaining red hundred cenmark chips down on the tabletop. "Bring us something to eat. No meat for Gripper."

"Sir, I–" But the Lyran did not finish his objection. He scooped up the money and hurried away.

Gripper exhaled loudly as the manager left. "That was a lot of money," he said. "I… I could have just gone, you know."

Logan shrugged. "Why? He was being a xenophobic idiot. What did you find?"

"I'm not really sure." Gripper handed over the datadex.

The light on the bottom had gone from green to blue, indicating that the memory was full. "There's been loads of news over the past few weeks and I couldn't even narrow it down by planet."

Logan nodded and began thumbing through news stories. Unrest and rebellions on Arrideen when the CWA withdrew some funding, a mine collapsed on high-gravity Orin and another police raid on the Sipho underground that left seven dead. People died every day throughout the Alliance. Three weeks ago, there had been an outbreak of rughalla on Andris Gia. Twenty-nine dead. A high-speed NI train derailed on Varnum. Eighty-three dead.

The shop's Lyran manager returned with a pair of large sandwiches and two tall glasses of lemonade. Gripper finished his food in three huge mouthfuls and gulped down the lemonade in a single swallow. Logan pushed his glass across the table and Gripper drank it gratefully. The Lyran store manager hastily brought more.

Mir's thick heat was heavy in Logan's lungs and sweat dripped in crooked, itching tracks down the back of his neck. He kept reading. An industrial accident on Vii. Fifty-nine dead, more than three hundred injured. Seventeen crates of experimental fuel rods stolen from the nearby planet of Vii-Xa, where Starwind Enterprises kept and shipped most of their products.

Logan scanned the Vii-Xa story again and frowned. "Why did you include this one?" he asked, turning the datadex to face Gripper. "No one died or was even injured."

"Oh." Gripper looked embarrassed and Logan had to wait a moment for him to go on. "Well, I thought the Devourers might… you know… need stuff. They don't just eat people, right?"

That was true. Logan wolfed down a few bites of sandwich and returned his attention to the news. Gripper's idea was a good one. Whatever Xartasia and her Devourers had planned, they probably needed equipment or supplies. It was not much of a lead and actually expanded their search instead of restricting it, but Logan was determined not to fail Maeve again.

An unknown attack on one of Harukin's deep-space observatories. Logan scanned the headline again and brought up the story. Four weeks ago, the Sanford-Belson Observation Platform had gone silent. When authorities went to investigate, they found only a few pieces of debris. Of the rest of the satellite and the two hundred personnel, there was no sign.

Logan read the story again. It contained very few details, but there was a list of related stories at the bottom. Seven of them. Logan had Gripper pull all of them down from the mainstream. All seven were about missing space stations or starships in deep space. There had been no visible attacks, only sudden and absolute silence from their staff. In each case, there were few – if any – remains left behind to investigate.

"Sounds like the Devourers' style," Gripper said. "No leftovers. Do you think it's them?"

"There aren't many who could make entire space stations disappear," Logan said. "The ships, maybe, but the Harukin and Koji stations weren't small installations."

It was certainly within the Devourers' power. Logan remembered the brutal efficiency with which they had ruined his well-armed and armored Raptor. And he had been prepared. A space station taken by surprise would not stand a chance against the Devourers' superior weaponry and ruthless aggression.

"Now what do we do?" Gripper asked. "Do you know where to go yet?"

"Not yet," said Logan. "I usually know more about my mark than this, about their crimes and goals."

"But Xartasia was a Nihilist," Gripper protested. "You know all about them!"

"Xartasia was never a true Nihilist. She was using Gavriel and his followers to get what she wanted. Gavriel never really knew her, and neither do we."

Logan pushed his plate away and kept reading. Gripper swallowed hard and did the same.

________

Xartasia sat on her black throne, white skirts spread around her like the petals of a flower. The points of her glass crown glittered brightly under the lights. Dhozo stood behind her, arms crossed over his huge chest. His nanite armor swirled and billowed like smoke, deceptively delicate as the tiny machines gathered and transmitted a constant stream of information.

A group of Arcadians knelt at the foot of the dais. The knight in front wore shining glass armor. Calathan had long, braided blond hair and dark, intelligent blue eyes. He reminded Xartasia just enough of her beloved Anthem to make her rather fond of him.

Calathan's otherwise handsome face was marred by angry, puckered red scars left by a raging Lyran. The coreworlder was long dead, but the mark of his claws remained. And the anger that drove Calathan still. He had been a Nihilist, one of Gavriel's oldest converts from the cult's early days on Prianus. Even now, Calathan wore black and red scarves and wrappings beneath the glass platemail Xartasia had given him.

"We have the Devourers now, Your Majesty," Calathan said. "Yet we have passed by a dozen Alliance planets, attacking only the outlying fringes! You have at your wingtips the very definition of destruction, my queen. Why do you use it with such restraint?"

The scarred knight's tone was respectful, but there was a current of true and deep need beneath. Xartasia looked up at Dhozo, but the Devourer's face was hidden behind his swarming black armor. Still, she knew that the hulking monster felt much the same as Calathan. Maybe more… It was only by Xartasia's orders that the Devourers did not begin their feast with the growing number of Arcadians that followed her.

"I am not Gavriel," Xartasia said imperiously. "Our design is far greater than simple destruction. Restrain yourself, Sir Calathan."

The knight in black conferred quietly with the other Arcadians. When he turned back to Xartasia, his eyes were fever-bright. "But why, Your Majesty? What can there be for us anymore? Is death not all that remains?"

"Your glass-shelled morsel has a point, little queen," Dhozo rasped unpleasantly. "We could consume any of these planets in a matter of days."

Xartasia rose gracefully to her feet and spread her long white wings. "No," she told Calathan and Dhozo both. "What we have lost, we will regain. You want the secrets that your people have lost, Dhozo, the secrets of magic and the Waygates. And
we
shall have the White Kingdom, our home and heart, once again."

There was a rising scale of surprise from the knights. Calathan's scarred face lit up with almost childish delight. "The White Kingdom, my queen?" he asked. "We will return?"

"When our work is done. When your work is done, Sir Calathan."

"Yes, Your Highness." He swept one trembling wing across his chest. "What are your orders?"

________

"It sure looks like it could be them," Duaal said. He slid the datadex back across the table to Logan with a thought. "But it's still not proof. We can't take it to the Alliance."

"Unless we can figure out where they are going next," Maeve suggested. She sat beside Logan. Distractingly close. She smelled good. "Perhaps we can warn their next target and convince the CWAAF to intervene."

"We can't convince them to do anything," said Logan.

"That's why we're in this mess," Gripper agreed. "We've been trying since we got back to Tynerion two months ago."

"But if we can get to Xartasia's next target before her, we may be able to warn local law enforcement," Logan finished. He found himself unexpectedly nervous, hoping that Maeve would approve of the admittedly tenuous and desperate plan.

"Then, if we're at all lucky – which I wouldn't bet on – we'll have some witnesses that we can take to CWAAF," said Duaal. "Right?"

Logan nodded. "That's the plan. If we can figure out the Devourers' next hit."

"That's kind of where it all falls apart," Gripper admitted. "We don't know where they're going."

"We might be able to help with that," said Xia from the door.

She walked into the mess with Panna on her heels. Xia sat, but Panna bit her lip and paced. Maeve looked at the girl with concern plain on her pretty face. What was wrong? Was there something amiss with the Arcadians on Mir?

"What happened?" Maeve asked.

"We found some Arcadians just outside Hanjirrah," Xia told them. "They can't afford to live inside the wall, of course. They're cheap labor on the roads and electrical lines that run between the cities."

"But they left!" Panna interrupted breathlessly. "Not all, but a lot of them."