Rift in the Races (81 page)

“That’s it?” said the captain of the
Creed of Ganymede
. “A box of rocks?”

“It’s a big box of rocks, Captain,” assured Admiral Jefferies. “Very big.”

“Well, I’m impressed,” said Captain Hawthorne of the
Lima
upon observing the expressions of his comrades. “But what’s to keep them from losing atmosphere? Surely they don’t think stone will hold forever out here?”

“It’s encased in a solid crystal sphere,” said Altin, seated to the left of Captain Asad, “and infused with a spell called Polar Piton’s Perfect Parabolic Protection, which permeates the stone and maintains a constant atmosphere.”

“We should get one of those,” said one of the captains in a way that made most of them laugh.

“So now what?” asked Captain Eugene. “They’re out here. That’s great and all, but if I understand Altin right, and what the conduit said before he left, having them here doesn’t change anything.”

“They’ve brought one of their doctors,” said Captain Asad. “Altin claims they will get his arm right, and then we’ll see about whether magic ‘works’ out here or not.”

Altin just shook his head and looked to Admiral Jefferies, clearly annoyed.

For a time they all sat quietly watching the fortress, waiting to see what would happen next.

Suddenly an aura appeared around
Citadel
, the whole of the crystal sphere lighting up with a golden glow that shaped its outline brilliantly.

“Whoa,” muttered more than a few voices. Someone said, “Beautiful,” as well.

A moment later long spikes erupted from all over its surface, each pulsing gently with light.

“Whoa,” again from a few.

“It looks like a virus,” someone among them observed, and many agreed with nods and murmurs of appreciation.

“It looks like a glass Hostile to me,” said Captain Asad, unable to prevent himself from reverting to historical form.

“But it’s not,” said Admiral Jefferies, also looking annoyed.

“We’re about to see, aren’t we?” Captain Asad replied. He turned to Altin. “So there they are. Your people. Your ship. Here’s your chance to prove me wrong.”

“I have no interest in proving you wrong, Captain,” Altin said, his patience gone. “I only want to find Orli, find the particular object I need and be done with this entire Hostile affair.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest impatiently.

“You insist on keeping this ‘particular object’ a secret,” pressed Captain Asad.

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“Tytamon gave his life for it.”

“That seems like an argument for why you should share the information.”

“It’s not.”

Captain Asad shook his head and sent an exasperated look back at the admiral. The admiral could only shrug. What was he supposed to do? All of this was new to all of them, and he had no direct way of speaking to the Queen. At least not without the aid of her teleporters. Access to whom, now that the teleporters were on
Citadel
, he did not have. Only Altin remained in a position to help, and as the admiral was made to understand by Doctor Singh, Altin would be of no use for several weeks—unless they agreed to let him be taken to Prosperion, or at least to the healer on
Citadel
.

“Well, gentlemen,” the admiral said to divert attention from the ever-present tension that radiated from Captain Asad whenever Orli or her magician beau were in the room. “We should be hearing from them momentarily, once they are done with the light show. Let’s hold off on the other matter for now.”

Everyone stared at the blank quadrant of the wall monitor waiting for the link from
Citadel
. After a time, they began to turn one by one to the admiral who continued every few seconds to tap the control panel where, eventually, he’d be able to open the link. Finally he shrugged. He looked to Altin, who shrugged back.

“There’s no one there,” the admiral concluded after another minute or so.

“Of course they’re there,” said Colonel Pewter. Normally the sort to keep to himself in these meetings unless asked for advice, now, in the absence of his daughter, he was nearly at his wits’ end and no longer in typical character. He tried to activate the link himself. No better luck.

“I’m not getting anything,” the admiral concluded after making yet another try.

“It’s been a while since you did any real work,” chided one of the other officers good-naturedly. “Maybe you forgot how.”

“Unlikely.” The attempt at levity was wasted on the admiral. Something had happened.

After several more minutes, Altin felt the gentle probe in his mind from Aderbury. It came upon a wave of grief. In a matter of a few exchanges, Altin was filled in on all the sad details. He told the assembled captains what he had learned.

“There won’t be a video feed,” he said, the corners of his mouth drooping in a way that instantly conveyed something had gone terribly wrong. “There’s been an accident. Master Spadebreaker is dead, and all the communications equipment was destroyed.”

“What?” spat Captain Asad. The admiral’s echo of the question was nearly instantaneous.

Altin didn’t answer right away, his eyes were once more moving back and forth as if he were seeing something being written on the inside of his skull. It was the third repetition of Captain Asad’s question that prompted him to speak.

“They think the anti-magic spell has some unanticipated deficiencies. They’re looking into it, but it seems that when they teleported
Citadel
, everything went except the contents of the closet—which disastrously were Master Spadebreaker and your machine. Ilbei fell to his death the moment
Citadel
left Prosperion, left behind when it vacated the space.”

“We don’t need the communicator,” said Captain Asad. “We—”

“I’m very sorry for the loss of your crewman,” cut in the admiral, silencing whatever Captain Asad had been about to say with a narrow-eyed rebuke. “I did not meet him, but I was told he was a good man and extremely competent at his work.”

Altin nodded. He barely knew the miner either. It was an unfortunate loss, but all he could honestly think of was that, had Orli been in that chamber, it would be her they were talking about. She would have been the one killed. The look in Colonel Pewter’s eyes said that he was thinking much the same.

That’s when it occurred to Altin he might have an ally in helping him get off the ship.

Aderbury’s telepathic knock tapped on the surface of Altin’s mind again, which Altin opened reflexively as he welcomed the transmuter’s thoughts. “The Queen has asked that you get them to join her for a council of war,” Aderbury conveyed.

“Where?” Altin sent back.

“On
Citadel
. She is here now.”

“I’ll see if I can get them to agree.” He added on the heels of it, “Have your doctor waiting. I need my demon’s son of an arm finished.”

“She’s waiting for you. I already told her the nature of your condition. She’ll make a point of finding you.”

“Good. I’ll get them to come if I can. Tell the teleporters we’re all on the admiral’s ship. They’ll know which one.”

“See you soon.”

“Thank you.”

Altin stood, which immediately drew the attention of everyone in the room. “The Queen has called a council on
Citadel
. The teleporters are on their way.”

Several of the captains looked nervous.

“It’s no different than having it done to your ship as far as you are concerned.”

“Our ships need complete restart,” said Captain Eugene.

“Well, you won’t. I do it all the time.” Altin looked directly at Captain Asad and added, “When I have the full use of my arm.”

Captain Eugene still did not look convinced. “Yes, but perhaps there’s a difference between your bodies and ours. We’ve heard your bodies are not quite the same?”

“How so?”

“You have a different bit of brain. There may be other things.” A few of the other captains were nodding in agreement. They’d read the reports just as the
NTA II’s
captain had.

“I’ve been teleporting Orli since I met her, over a year now, and she’s never had a problem.”

“She nearly died the last time,” said Colonel Pewter. “She may have yet.”

Altin could not stop the guilty reflex that diminished him. He looked suddenly weathered and bent. He returned the colonel’s cold glare with nothing but desperate hope for her safety misting in his eyes. As he did, he saw his own pain echoed on the colonel’s face, a telling moment, for the colonel was not the sort to show emotion. Altin hung his head in shame. For a moment, anger flared hot in his chest, the instinct to lash out at Captain Asad for … for something, but the impulse died. The colonel was right. Altin could barely hold back the tears. They burned as he blinked at them, trying desperately to stem the tide. He did so with marginal success. When he looked back up at Orli’s father, his eyes were red. “I’ll get her back, sir. I know she is alive.”

The colonel nodded. He believed she was still alive as well. Hope is the hardest bit of humanity to snuff out.

Chapter 66

A
ltin paced back and forth in the pilothouse of the landing craft. Looking out the front windows infuriated him, seeing Prosperion right there, closer than if he’d been on the moon. He could easily get there, in an instant. Aderbury’s healer had fixed his arm up perfectly, and it would be little more than a blink of the eye to be standing on the surface again.

But he had no idea where Orli was. He wasn’t vain enough to think that his meager divination skills would find her when the Queen’s best could not. And Colonel Pewter insisted that he could find her in an instant—an instant after they restarted the ship.

The colonel worked furiously to restart the troop carrier’s systems with the help of his Marines, all busy in the back. All Altin could do was worry and watch. He stared out the window at Prosperion and then down at the portion of the control panel where the map was supposed to be, where it would be, the map that, according to the colonel, would show a red dot beeping precisely where Orli was the moment everything was operating properly again.

Neither of them spoke aloud their fear that the tracking chip would lead them to her body or, worse, the devoured remains of it, but both clung to the belief that she was alive. Both were also ready for the fight to get her, if need be. Altin had already sent a telepathic message to Taot to let him know he was back and might need the dragon’s help.

The dragon was unabashed in conveying that he had assumed Altin long dead. Altin rebuffed the notion and sent the dragon a feeling, the essence of himself orbiting the planet from space, a display of power and altitude that, while only on the most base level did the dragon understand, reminded the dragon of the worthiness of his long-lost friend. He would assist if called upon.

After several long hours, the lights came back on and the familiar hum and chirps of systems initializing filled the small space he and the colonel occupied.

This was a different sort of ship than any Altin had seen before. It was bigger than the shuttles that Roberto flew and shaped rather like a brick. It was an armored personnel carrier, and in a bay on the other side of the bulkhead behind him were several Marines in amazing armored suits. Each suit stood nearly half again as tall as Altin, gleaming metal machines jointed and ambulatory like men, with long articulated arms and legs, and mechanisms the colonel had referred to with untranslatable alien words like
hydraulic
,
gyro
and
fifty-cal
. Much like his conversation with Taot, Altin did not quite know what he’d been told, but he was still impressed. The giant mechanisms struck him as great feats of armor craft, hissing and whirring iron golems of spectacular engineering and design. Whether it was the orcs or someone else that had Orli, he couldn’t wait to see the fear inspired by these spectacular mechanical monstrosities.

Seventeen men had offered to accompany Colonel Pewter and Altin on their quest to retrieve Orli from harm—or to retrieve her body if that’s what fate decreed. They all would have come if the colonel had asked, which is why he did not. They came of their own accord, and they came without permission of either the admiral or the Queen. In fact, Colonel Pewter’s request to come had been flatly denied. “Not until we’ve dealt with the Hostile threat,” he was told. And so here he was, in defiance of orders, fully intent on bringing his daughter to safety, to hell with consequences.

Altin had also asked if he could return home, but the Queen forbade it, insisting that he finish the mission he had started when he began working on
Citadel
—her response nearly a perfect echo of the admiral’s. “Defeat the Hostiles, and then we’ll go find the girl,” she said. “Besides, Captain Andru is in the mountains, and I have … I have people working on the issue as well.” And while that last had struck him as odd, her tone strange and the statement itself awkward in its way, he was glad to know the Queen really was trying to find Orli. But that was not enough. Altin had to go. And so did the colonel. They’d both realized it the moment they’d locked eyes on one another on the admiral’s ship.