Rebellion (16 page)

What is it you want?" Skaara asked them in English. "I thought you'd speak our tongue," Draven said. "Your man who guided me last night was quite understandable." To Skaara, he sounded like one of the-merchants in the marketplace, flattering the customer before setting up a sale.

"You wanted to see me," he said.

"I came to see what it is you want." Draven smiled. "The company I represent is large and powerful, give you weapons. We could Ith, women-and power here on Abydos." The negotiator leaned forward. "So I ask again. What do you want?" Skaara gave him a whimsical smile. "I want the stars. Can you give them to me?" Draven was shocked out of his smooth manner. "What do you mean?" "You and the new soldiers-the greencoatscontrol the StarGate," Skaara said. "I want our scholar, Daniel, to have access to the gate. There are other worlds besides yours and mine out there. Our people have brothers still under the yoke of Ra. Shouldn't we at least try to search them out?" Draven was so taken aback, he sought time by pretending to consult with his companions. "The kid thinks big," Ballard whispered. "Who'd have thought he'd want to stake a claim on other worlds?" "We have a profitable setup now." Lockwood's voice was almost a whine of complaint. "Do we really want to waste time allowing Jackson to tinker with our lifeline? Every moment the StarGate is off-line means lost shipments of ore-or missed deliveries of supplies needed on this side."

"We're getting neither ore nor supplies unless we get a more complaisant government," Draven whispered. He sized Skaara up. Despite his idealistic pose, this young man might go for the breadand-butter pitch.

"I don't know if I can give you the stars," he said frankly. "Our wise men say it would be very difficult to find other worlds." Skaara nodded.

"That's what Daniel says. There are many combinations. But surely we might make some attempts." "Perhaps," Draven said smoothly. "What I can offer you is a better position here on Abydos. Supplies for your militia, uniforms ... weapons." He turned to Ballard. "Show him." The hired warrior unwrapped the bundle he'd carried. Inside was a rifle, longer than the sort Skaara was used to. Ballard took a clip of long bullets, slapping it into a hole in the belly of the weapon. With a klick-chak! he operated some sort of bolt atop the gun. Then he fired into one of the adobe walls, creating a huge pockmark. The blast was deafening, even in the large-sized room. Militia members came boiling in, fearing their leader was in danger. Ballard, carefully keeping the muzzle away from Skaara, operated the mechanism again and fired. "A fine weapon, isn't it?" Draven said. "it seems slower than the weapons we saved from Colonel O'Neil's camp," Skaara observed. "More to do before it can be fired . . . and the bullets are larger than the ones we use in our guns now." Draven's smiled curdled. Apparently, the UMC man hadn't expected him to notice these things. "The guns are of simple design because, well, things are simpler on this world. But they're also easier to repair. And if they don't fire so quickly, they also won't jam so easily in the sand." "All right. As you say, they seem to be fine weapons. How are we to earn them? Do you expect us to work in the mines for you?" "We'll give you the guns to help you take your rightful place here in Nagada. Use them to overthrow the old men who hold you-and your citydown. The mine can bring you riches. just send the people back to work for us." "So, we can have guns, and I can have riches, if only we will overthrow the old fools who rule us." Draven nodded eagerly. "I have advice for you, Mr. Draven." Skaara pointed at Lockwood. "Fire that man. He's been here for months, now, and he never discovered that I am the son of Kasuf, the head old fool." Draven aimed a lambent glare at the manager. Ballard began desperately manipulating the bolt on his rifle again. Skaara snatched up a long pole with what looked like a stylized lotus flower at its top. Draven had dismissed it as some sort of torch or decoration. Swinging the pole like a quarterstaff, the young man knocked the rifle from Ballard's hands. Then he worked some hidden control, and flanges sprang out at the head of the staff. Skaara aimed, and a bolt of energy leapt from the staff. The rifle's stock burned, the metal bolt vanished. The barrel melted. "I don't think we need your ... simple weapons, either." The young man was every inch the leader as he aimed the blast-lance at them. "Now go-be out of here before I show you how this works on flesh!"

To an exterior observer, the battleship Ra's Eye made the transition from stardrive to normal space in a soundless blaze of glory. Vacuum, of course, does not transmit sound. But it does convey light, and at the moment of its appearance, incandescent sheets of luminescence emanated from each face of the starship's pyramidal structure. On the bridge, Hathor felt the familiar queasy sensation of shifting from the unreal hyper-realm back to reality. Starship jumps were different from transiting the StarGates-they seemed curiously unfocused. One had a sense of rushing through the void with no destination. One of Ptah's technicians ran her hands over the lit panels that made up the navigation controls. A holographic screen flashed in front of her face.

"We have arrived in the star system Amentet," she announced, "precisely as calculated." Ptah himself roved the bridge, checking readouts at all stations. At Engineering, he activated the communications system.

"Engines! I'm reading a power fluctuation from the drive. Modulate!"

Hathor beckoned the engineer god over. "If you keep doing their jobs, they're never going to learn," she said in a whisper. His own voice was rough. "They're only trainees, with a surface indoctrination in shipboard systems. A skeleton crew able to move Ra's flying palace in small jumps-that's very different from handling this behemoth." Hathor knew all too well. Ra's ship, for all its apparent size and majesty, was a mere yacht, a toy, next to the grim bulk of the warship. In addition, most of the royal starcraft ran on automatic systems. That wasn't possible on a ship going into combat. Ra's ship had power in abundance. But even with the quartz wonder stone, power was precious, being juggled between the stardrive and the weapons systems. It didn't help that in spite of months of refurbishing, most of the power connections were millennia old. Hathor felt a sense of edginess as she paced. Feeling the bridge under her feet awoke uncomfortable memories-mere months old for her, but dating to the age of legend for almost everyone else aboard. She turned to Ptah, "How do you deal with it?" she asked. "With what?" her erstwhile husband returned. "How do you manage your status as legend? The reactions of today's ones to the fact that you lived in the First Time?" "Simple," he replied with a shrug. "I don't let them know." Ptah's solution wouldn't work for her, she thought. And it certainly wouldn't help her fit into what she considered a degenerate age. The engineering crew was not the only skeleton complement aboard Ra's Eye. Resources and manpower were being hoarded on godlings' distant fiefs. Even some of Ptah's technicians were being kept against their god commander's orders. Worst of all, however, was the shortage of warriors. The ground force attached to Ra's Eye was seriously under-strength. Far more than on Ombos, Hathor would have to depend on slashing attacks by the udajeets to project firepower. There simply weren't enough dependable warriors to use as foot soldiers, except as a tiny reserve. She even lacked warriors for the battleship's fire-control posts. Whole batteries had been slaved together and would be fired by conscripts from the ranks of Thoth's administrators. Still, the ship's shake-down cruise had taken them as far as the star system nearest to Tuat. Hathor remembered doing the same with her new fleet before moving to quell the Ombos rebellion. The Amentet system was barren of planets that could sustain life. But there was a sizable band of space debris where the third planet should have been. Hathor proposed to use the rocky asteroids for target practice. "Activate the system drive," she ordered her female navigation officer. "Set course for one of the thicker meteor swarms." The eerie glow of normal-space drive illuminated the base of the pyramid ship. It accelerated toward a collection of space junk. "Closing, Lady Captain," the nav officer reported. "Sensor nets at maximum gain!" Ptah called. The ceiling of the bridge disappeared as a holographic representation of nearby space appeared. A stylized pyramid in the center of the projection showed the location of the ship. Glowing multifaceted shapes depicted the asteroids. "Gunnery!" Hathor called, opening a new communications line.

"Secondary batteries, engage and fire!" In seconds, the holo-projection began showing the breakup, and in some cases disappearance, of the orbiting rocks. The margins of the representation began to crawl with hieroglyphic information scoring accuracy and fire-to-hit ratios.

"Satisfactory," Hathor said to Ptah. "It seems that time on the simulators imparted a fair degree of skill, even to Thoth's accountants." She turned to the Nav station. "Sensors, find me a good-sized chunk out there. Something about the order of Tuat-the-moon." A scan of nearby space turned up a piece of cosmic debris that an Earth astronomer would have classed as similar to Ceres.

The pyramid shape on the holographic projection shrank to represent the larger scale. Minor space junk appeared in dimmer shades. The worldlet became a glaring orange. "Gunnery! Main batteries target-and fire!" The designated target blazed brighter in the holographic view, expanding as if it were a cloud of gas, then vanishing. Which is pretty much what happened. Blastbolts of enormous energy had vaporized the planetoid.

During the Ombos campaign these batteries had obliterated entire cities from orbit. In the present, however, the single barrage led to disaster.

Instants after showing the devastation of the moonlet, the holographic projection winked out. So did most of the light on the bridge.

Essential stations were represented by the fox-fire glows of emergency illumination. Warning sirens howled. "Engines! What did I tell you about that fluctuation?" Ptah shouted in fury. "Lord, the energy drain for the main batteries caused a power cascade!" A panicked voice replied. "We are now trying-" Screams echoed over the communications link. "Report! Report, Ammit; cat you!" Ptah swore. Hathor aimed a glare that would have made the ship's main battery look like a birthday candle. "If your people strand us here, I swear I'll feed you to Ammit myself!" "I'm sorry, lord." The voice from the engine room sounded harassed but no longer panicked. "Some of the ancient circuitry could not handle the load. We'll have to bridge and reroute, but I assure you the drive will be on-line shortly. Life support is operational, and passive sensors show us to be in no danger." "I thought there was supposed to be redundant circuitry for all drive and navigation equipment," Hathor hissed at her husband. "In the normal course of events," Ptah said smoothly. "But in a rush job . . ." He shrugged.

"I suppose we should be glad we discovered the defect. My people will have to learn to be more careful." Hathor preferred not to know how long they drifted almost helplessly. At last, however, power returned. "Take us back to Tuat," she briefly ordered. She stood looking calm and unflappable asRa's Eye transited into stardrive. But the muscles in Hathor's stomach were clenched. They arrived at the edge of the system, and proceeded on systemic drive to Tuat-the-world. "I want a runthrough on a planetary landing," Hathor said to Ptah quietly. "Unless you think it's too ... dangerous." "No more hazardous than any of the other maneuvers we've undertaken," Ptah replied. The glow from the drive flared as the battleship swung majestically into the atmosphere of the derelict planet. With peculiar delicacy for all its bulk, Ra's Eye settled onto the ruinous docking station in the midst of a huge, decayed cityscape. "Launch the udajeets," Hathor commanded. "Our warriors come from six different factions. They have to learn how to fly-and fight-as a team." With a brusque gesture she then beckoned Ptah aside. "And while our fighters get themselves together, you will get every technician in or on Tuat and make absolutely positive that there will be no more embarrassing systems failures." Hathor glared. "If that had happened during a combat situation-" She throttled back her voice. "You would be the first casualty." "Are you so sure you'll be taking Ra's Eye into combat?" Ptah asked. "Ra's ship could have failed somehow between here and Tuat. He had no technicians aboard-just the children and a few warriors." "What has happened to the empire?" Hathor burst out. "You can't gather together enough technicians to refurbish one ship. Lack of warriors-they're little more than a ceremonial guard." "This isn't the First Days anymore," Ptah said. "The empire isn't expanding-we're no longer dealing with the active threat of revolt from the fellahin." "And the result is that our expedition to Abydos has been pared down to something more like a scouting mission," Hathor said bitterly. "And what if your scouting expedition discovers Ra?" Ptah asked. Hathor's face stiffened. "We will serve him, of course." The pallid flesh on Ptah's cyborg face twitched into a smile. "And if he turns out to be helpless?" Hathor remembered those uncannily glowing eyes that always seemed to know her thoughts. Whatever secrets she kept here, he would know. "You haven't answered my question," Ptah mocked. "And I don't intend to." Hathor strode off. "I'll be taking the shuttle up to Tuat-the-moon." Hathor elected to pilot the shuttle up to the royal palace by herself. She could operate the small spacecraft, and frankly, she wanted some time to herself. Her performance on the bridge of Ra's Eye had been more draining than she expected. Besides, she had flown shuttles and udajeets in the days of the First Time. And the controls hadn't changed. The shuttle itself had the same pyramidal construction that marked all spacegoing vehicles in Ra's empire. But it only accommodated ten people and a pilot. Its small, gleaming, golden-quartz contours added an incongruous note as it perched atop the cracked and weather-worn pyramid that housed the StarGate to Tuat-the-world.

Attempts had been made to patch the irregular stone bulk, but they were almost hidden under a coating of hardy lichen that had climbed almost to the apex of the pyramid. To a passing Earthling the docking station would have looked like a squat Christmas tree with but one ornament-the star at the top. For Hathor, the sad state of the spaceport seemed a metaphor for the slapdash attitude afflicting all of Ra's empire. In her day the pyramids had been flawlessly maintained, although the city they once served had already fallen into ruin. Two stations over, the bulk of Ra's Eye had settled, looking like a mountain of glassy gold.