Shadow Hunters (11 page)

Pleased, Jake turned his attention back to Rosemary. “It would be easier and more accurate to learn this directly from them. The protoss communicate telepathicaly; they don’t even have mouths. They know what they’re doing and they’re … good people. They won’t try to read your thoughts. Wil you let them talk to you?”

She kept her eyes straight ahead, at the approaching ruined city of twisted metal, melted glass, and blackened crystals. Her Cupid’s bow lips turned down in a slight frown. “It feels … weird, Jake.” There was no cocksureness in her voice, no condescension. She was talking to him calmly and honestly. He was surprised but knew better than to comment on it. “I don’t like it. You understand. You didn’t like it any better than me at first.”

“You’re right. I’ve gotten used to it, though. It’s a highly efficient method of communication.”

She stil didn’t look at him. He let her mul in silence. “Okay,” she said, finaly.

Jake felt a presence inside his head, pouring over his thoughts like warm honey.

“Thank you. We wil be better able to understand one another now.”

Beside him, he saw Rosemary jerk as if stung. She frowned slightly, an unguarded, completely natural gesture, then her normal mask descended. Jake thought that a shame. He turned to see one of the protoss clad in dinged golden armor gazing right at him. Jake smiled. The protoss inclined its head.

“I am Ladranix. I am the leader of one of the groups that remained. There is another, and I wil speak of it later. First I wil speak of what happened on those dark days.

The terror, the fear—it was al so unexpected. And then when the warp gate was disabled, there was no place to go. We were left behind—we, the zerg, and the ruination that was once a beautiful world.”

Jake got a vision, brief and tinged with sorrow like an old sepia photograph, of what Aiur had been like before it fel. Beautiful buildings reached skyward, sleek ships transported the inhabitants from one glorious city to another. The cityscapes were magnificent, incorporating nature and water and air and light, and the natural world was encroached upon only as needed. Jake’s heart ached. Then the vision was gone, as if Ladranix regretted how powerfuly the image had affected Jake and had drawn a curtain over it.

“I’ve heard about what the zerg can do—heck, I just had a demo. How is it that you’re alive at al to even be teling us this?” Jake queried.

“The warp gate was disabled, so that there was no way for the majority of the zerg to folow. Many brave protoss voluntarily stayed behind to protect it as it was closed.

They were accompanied by one of your own people, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey.”

Jake glanced at Rosemary, shocked. She too looked surprised.

“His name was James Raynor.” Again an image was shown to Jake, of a man with a shaved head that had begun to once again become dotted with stubble, of a close-cropped beard and mustache and eyes that he knew had once held laughter and now had seen too much. He was standing shoulder to shoulder with the protoss, obviously welcomed and accepted, obviously deeply concerned for their wel-being.

“It is because of Raynor that we recognized your craft as being a terran vessel—

possibly that of one who would be a friend. It is why when our observers spotted it, we came to your aid.”

“Heh,” said Rosemary, chuckling slightly. “If I ever meet this Raynor felow, I’m gonna shake his hand and thank him for being such a good ambassador.”

Jake shared her sentiment.

“We expected it to be a death sentence,” Ladranix continued. “We were prepared to fal to the zerg and die as the proud people we are. And do not mistake me—many, many of us did. The zerg were wel controled and deadly. But Executor Tassadar saved his people by destroying the Overmind that controled the zerg. It cost him his life, but he succeeded. The zerg were stil mad to kil—but they were no longer directed in that goal. They fel upon themselves as readily as upon us. It bought us some time.”

Jake recaled the attacks, unable to suppress a shiver of revulsion as he watched them unfold again in his mind. “But … they certainly seemed focused enough when they saw us.”

Ladranix nodded. “Yes. Something changed sometime after the gate was closed.

While the zerg no longer attacked quite so intently, nor with the same focus as they had while they were controled by the Overmind, they were no longer mindless creatures. Something had shifted, somewhere. Certainly they were stil dangerous.

And stil inteligent.”

Jake got the impression of a predator toying with its prey. Cat and mouse, he thought, and sent the image.

Ladranix sent back an affirmative. “Yes. Once, the absolute obliteration of every protoss was their main concern. Now they wander about; they are tools that, while stil functional, appear to have been largely discarded. Over the years we have managed to kil many zerg in this area, and as far as we can tel, no others have been bred to take their place. That gives us hope. Stil, the zerg certainly do attack when they see us. And we knew they would head straight for your vessel, to determine if you were any kind of threat.”

“Do you think they wil pursue us?” Jake felt a sudden chil, despite the oppressive heat of the place.

“Unlikely. Your ship is ruined, and it was mere accident that they came across you a second time. We anticipate that you wil become folded into our group, no more or no less a threat to them than we are. The weapons we recovered from your vessel wil be useful to us.”

Now they were navigating among what had been glorious spires and towers. Jake saw in his mind’s eye, superimposed over what his true eyes beheld, what this view had once been like. The little golden ship, a firefly of a vessel, moved gracefuly amid the ruins until it came to a blackened clearing. It looked like a bomb had gone off here once but that the area had now been at least somewhat reclaimed. To the north, he saw some debris that intrigued him, though he couldn’t make sense of the jumble.

The ship settled down easily, and the moment it alit, the protoss al rose in a movement timed so perfectly it might have been choreographed. The door opened and the elegant ramp extended, its delicacy at sharp odds with the ruination onto which it opened.

“Please, go first. You are expected.”

Jake and Rosemary nodded. Rosemary went first, moving with her head held high and a lithe, in-control stride. Jake folowed.

He immediately thought of a refugee camp. Dozens, maybe hundreds of protoss al turned as one to gaze at him. Large, lambent eyes looked him up and down, seemed to gaze into his very soul. The silence was the main thing that struck him. No cries of infants, no sobs or laughter, no murmurs of conversation—none of the things that one would expect of such a large gathering of people in one place. But then again, while the protoss were most certainly “people,” they were not humans. He knew that if Zamara had not been providing a buffer, his mind would be awash in thoughts that dwarfed human sounds in their detail, their richness, their depth and complexity and interconnection.

They had erected shelter as best they could, a strange amalgamation of items they had brought in from nature and things that had been taken from the city. A shiny metal beam held up a roof of woven leaves; a second smal atmospheric craft was protected by poles made from tree branches. Even in the starkness of their necessity, there was beauty. Doors were made of the fronds of different-colored plants, and the result was not merely functional but lovely. Some things had been painted, other things carved.

Attention quickly went from the newcomers to what they brought. The protoss who rescued Jake, Zamara, and R. M. placed what they had gotten from the now-defunct system runner on the black, uneven surface. The refugees scurried forward, elegant four-fingered hands taking up the weapons, the bedding, the tools, the precious medkit.

“They’re taking everything!” Rosemary snapped, and started to move forward.

“They saved our lives,” Jake reminded her. “A weapon in their hands can only help us. And others need medical supplies more than we do.” At that moment his head throbbed. “Wel, not al the supplies; they can’t take any oral medication.”

“Jake, listen, believe me when I say I’m delighted that we’re not inside a zerg’s bely at the moment. But this isn’t an archeological expedition here. We’ve got to find a way to get off this planet.” She was not looking at the protoss. She was looking at the wreckage that had once been a thriving city. She was looking for anything that might offer hope of a way out.

She’s right,
Jake thought to Zamara.

There may be a way. I must speak with the others first.

“Zamara’s working on it,” Jake said.

“Good.” Rosemary looked edgy, and he supposed he could understand why. She was extremely competent in her own environment, but now they were surrounded by aliens that they had never beheld until a few moments ago. The technology with which she was so familiar and a master at manipulating had been melted to a puddle of acidic ooze, and she’d come within centimeters of being melted right along with it.

They were stuck at the mercy of said aliens, on a strange planet. And she was watching her precious weaponry being examined and parceled out.

“It’s al right, Rosemary,” Jake said gently, feeling oddly protective. “I know you’re worried and you feel out of place here. But it could be a lot worse.”

She glared at him, blue eyes cold. “Reading my mind again, Professor? I thought we discussed that.”

There was a time when her words would have stung. This time, he felt only compassion for her. “No. I just read your face.”

She looked slightly embarrassed, then irritated, and then she turned away.

“We understand that humans need to feed upon plant and animal matter,” said Ladranix. “We do not, so at this moment we have nothing to offer you. But we do have clean water for sterilizing instruments and wil soon be able to provide you with what you require. Zamara has experienced … sharing a meal with you, Jacob. We wil do our best to emulate this food.”

“We brought rations with us,” Jake sent back to Ladranix, looking him ful in his glowing blue eyes. “We do not wish to inconvenience you any further than we already have.”

The protoss leader half closed his eyes and tilted his head in the way that Jake knew meant laughter. He knew it even before Ladranix’s warm mirth washed over him, coaxing his own lips to turn up at the corners in the human version of a smile.

“You bring us weapons and medicine. A few fruits from the trees and the flesh of beasts is nothing in comparison. You and Rosemary Dahl and Zamara are welcome here, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey. More than welcome.”

Jake felt, in a very strange but very real way, that, in a sense, he had come home.

THE WATER THEY WERE GIVEN WAS STALE AND warm, but it was wet, and Jake drank thirstily. He felt about as stale and warm and wet as the water. The heat coming off the ruins of the city as it baked underneath a sulen sun was almost unbearable. The pro-toss did not appear to be affected by it, but that was to be expected. They had evolved on this tropical world of sun and humidity. Jake’s and R.

M.’s discomfort was noticed and after a short discussion, they were led inward into a jumble of metal and some sort of concrete that provided at least a bit of relief from the heat. It looked strangely familiar to Jake. He glanced around, sipping a second gourdful of the water. Ladranix came to stand beside him.

“Do you recognize this place?” Ladranix asked quietly.

“Sort of. But it’s so damaged I can’t place it.” Jake walked up to the wreckage of a chair, ran his hand along it. Like everything else the protoss made, it had been beautiful once. So had this place been beautiful—and huge; he remembered seeing what looked like a shattered tower and the ruinations of a landscape atop a huge circular disc.

“There are places elsewhere in the city that are not habitable. We were fortunate to find this shelter as intact as it is. What you behold now is the ruin of what was once known as the Executor’s Citadel. Since before the time of Adun, the leaders of the templar dwelt here.”

Jake’s gut twisted. Superimposed on this pathetic wreckage was the image of Adun standing and looking down on Antioch. He had perhaps sat in this very chair. Jake found his hand tightening on the back of the chair, as if he could hold on to the past.

“We like to think that even now, Adun somehow is watching over us,” Ladranix said gently. He touched the broken remains of the chair with a long, four-fingered hand, seemed to recover himself from his emotions, and faced Jake.

“I have sent our best scouts to find you food,” Ladranix said. “It is not without risks, but we are more familiar with how to evade the zerg than you. Night wil fal soon.

While the heat wil not diminish greatly, the winds pick up at night. You wil find it cooler.”

“That sounds great,” Rosemary said. Perspiration sheened her face, and heat had reddened it. Jake thought back to when he had first met her, calm and in control in the shadow of the
Gray Tiger.
He thought of how stunning she had looked by candlelight in Ethan Stewart’s decadent enclave, her hair perfect, her dress cut down to
there
at the neck and up to
here
at the thigh. Right now she was grimy, sweaty, sunburned, and didn’t smel al that good. And she seemed more real, more …

human … than he’d ever seen her.

He felt a gentle mirth in his head and mentaly scowled. It was tiring having every thought of hunger, irritation, weakness, lust, or boredom being read. For a moment he wondered, if this “mission” of Zamara’s was successful and he indeed survived long enough to be a preserver, if al these thoughts would be available to every future preserver who cared to read them. It was an alarming concept and he quickly pushed it out of his mind.