Survivors: Book 4 Circles of Light series (54 page)

She heard the sound of
running feet, the slap of leather sandals against the stone floor,
and she looked towards the Dome’s main entrance. Momentarily she
wondered if she should stay, but her hand rested on the butt of her
personal psionic disrupter which she’d taken to wearing constantly
over the last days. Three figures appeared opposite Orla, three
Keepers, who continued to run towards her. She waited until they
arrived, breathless, to bow before her.

‘Monsters, Lady
Survivor,’ one of the Keepers gasped, careful even in his
distraught state to keep his eyes lowered.

‘Monsters?’ Orla
allowed amusement to colour her tone.

All three Keepers
nodded vigorously. Another glanced nervously at the empty plinth
beside Orla.

‘The statues – they
were alive. They have killed many in the Ring Complex, Lady
Survivor.’

‘The statues were
alive,’ Orla repeated, her disbelief plain to hear. ‘Even should
that be true, why would they kill anyone?’

The third Keeper, who
had remained bent over in an attempt to regain some breath,
straightened. ‘They seemed to be hunting the gijan
Lady.’

‘Gijan?’ Orla
remembered some experiments she’d run on the strange little
animals. They all died extremely quickly, so she’d abandoned them.
But why would anyone want the gijan? She didn’t believe for one
moment that the statues had come alive – such superstitious
nonsense these primitives believed!

‘Never mind,’ she said
to the three Keepers. ‘Go and see if any are still here – gijan I
mean. Any you find, bring them to me.’

She lifted a hand in
dismissal and the Keepers bowed again before turning to trudge back
across the vast Dome. Orla waited until they disappeared and moved
to the ramp to return below. She would consider this. It was
evident to her that someone had planned and executed the theft of
the Ship and the statues, arranging some sort of disturbance in the
Ring Complex to distract any attention from what was happening in
the Dome.

Something caught her
eye as she began to descend the ramp. She retraced her steps and
bent to pick up the object half hidden behind the plinth. It was a
feather, sooty black and as long as her arm. She drew it between
her fingers and smiled. Very clever. Whoever had stolen the Ship
and the statues was indeed thorough in their planning, executing
and laying of false clues. But they would be no match for her.
Carrying the feather, she went swiftly down the ramp, closing it
behind her. Without a glance at the space the Ship had occupied for
so long, she went through the corridors to one of her laboratories
and put the feather on the work surface. Orla switched on the power
to various units and then sat at the work surface, giving the
feather a close visual examination.

It looked like a normal
feather but from what bird? The largest birds she had worked on
here on Kel-Harat were the huge carrion birds of the desert. Some
of the water birds in the valley had large wings, but as far as she
could recall, none were black. She dropped a tiny spot of a
solution onto a section of the feather and waited. The colour was
natural: there was no reaction such as would indicate the use of a
dye. Orla cut two small sections and placed them inside the units.
She nodded to herself and placed the feather in a drawer. She would
go through to the Dome of Knowledge and frighten the students while
the units analysed and quantified the sections.

When the Lady Survivor
appeared in the Dome of Knowledge the students working there froze
in their places. The Survivors appeared once a year when students
gathered in the Dome of Assembly, and they were regarded with
terrified awe. To have one of them suddenly in their midst was
frightening and shocking. Who knew what happened to some of the
students who were called to work in the Survivors secret quarters
under the Great Dome? A few returned to the Ring Complex, mindless
and docile. Most were never seen again.

Hezwa glanced up as the
usual low murmur ceased all through the Dome. Her eyes met Orla’s
and her spine felt filled with ice. She refused to show her fear,
rising from her chair beside a student and moving across the floor
of the Dome to bow to the Lady Survivor.

‘Lady, this is an
unexpected honour. How may I serve?’

Orla merely glanced at
the Keeper of Lore. She had no idea of her name; she rarely
bothered with such trivialities.

‘I would like to see
any texts concerning the statues in the Great Dome,’ she replied
calmly.

Hezwa bowed again and
called across to a senior student to fetch several volumes she
named for him. He hurried to do her bidding and she turned back to
find Orla studying her more closely.

‘I heard there was a
disturbance in the Ring Complex last night.’ Orla watched Hezwa’s
reaction as clinically as she would observe one of her laboratory
specimens.

Hezwa struggled, and
succeeded, in maintaining a calm relaxed composure. ‘Indeed there
was Lady. I heard that some drunken tribesmen ran amok. There were
several deaths I understand, including Keepers. No students were
involved; the tribesmen were unable to penetrate the Ring as far as
their dormitories.’

‘And you witnessed this
– drunken brawl?’

‘No Lady. I was
visiting a friend in the city. I returned here at dawn and it was
only then that I heard what had happened.’

Orla strolled to one of
the desks and stared absently over a student’s shoulder. Hezwa
could see the boy trembling even from where she stood. Orla
wandered back.

‘I would see the bodies
of the dead,’ she announced. ‘Tell one of your students to escort
me to where they are.’

The students within
hearing lost even more colour. Hezwa bowed.

‘I will take you Lady.
The dead are in the mortuary, the wounded in the
infirmary.’

‘Wounded?’ Orla asked
sharply. Hezwa spread her hands. ‘I heard there were two still
living Lady, but that there was little hope of their
recovering.’

‘You will take me to
the infirmary at once.’

Hezwa nodded, exchanged
a quick glance with another Keeper who had prudently stayed half
hidden by a book stack, and led the Lady Survivor down to the
tunnel leading beneath the Sanctuary. Orla was mildly intrigued:
she hadn’t been this far from the Great Dome in centuries she
realised, not since this system had been excavated in fact. The two
women, one native to Kel-Harat and in her fifties, the other from a
planet galaxies distant and, thanks to regeneration treatment
allied with genetic modification, near the end of her second
millennium, were of similar height and build, and now they matched
strides along the passages.

Hezwa had seen some
examples of Survivor technology and had a healthy respect for their
system of spying throughout the Sanctuary. But she was also fully
aware that neither Orla nor Kertiss had the slightest talent for,
or belief in the mental powers known to exist in this world. Her
father had told her there was once a tradition of men and women
strong in such gifts, and held in high regard by the Valley people
and the surrounding nomadic tribes. Since a time before the
appearance of the strange Ship and the two Survivors, such talents
were hidden though, and taught secretly within families. Hezwa had
been born to such a family and she had recognised instantly that of
the party of visitors shown round the Domes a while back, three of
them at least were also strong in mental powers.

They reached a junction
where three other tunnels met in a circular space and Hezwa chose
the one on the right. The floor rose and they emerged into a
corridor busy with younger students moving to different classes who
paused, staring at the woman with Keeper Hezwa. One whispered to
another and word quickly spread that a Survivor was within the Ring
Complex. Hezwa strode on, ignoring the way the whispers swept
around them and students pressed away from her and her companion.
She was glad to leave the students behind as they reached a quieter
section where the infirmary was situated. Hezwa led Orla up a wide
flight of stairs and into an airy sick room. Many tall narrow
windows opened onto the Sanctuary and the three Domes in its
centre.

Three of the twelve
beds were occupied by apparently sleeping patients but a healer
rose from a table and came towards the visitors. Hezwa touched his
mind, warning him to remain as calm and impassive as he could. He
bowed to Orla.

‘I wish to see those
injured in last night’s troubles,’ she said coldly.

He bowed again and led
her away from the large room to a smaller one along the landing.
The door opened as they approached and two young men came out,
carrying a stretcher with a shrouded figure upon it. They passed
Orla without a glance and she followed the healer and Hezwa into
the room. Several healers were bent over a body on a high bed. The
scene resembled a butcher’s stall rather than a place of healing.
As Orla drew near, a man shook his head and stepped
away.

‘No good,’ he said.
‘He’s gone.’

He saw Orla standing at
the foot of the bed and could only stare. Hezwa introduced Shiro,
the most senior healer in the City, to the Lady Survivor. Shiro
didn’t look at Hezwa, simply waited for the Survivor to
speak.

‘I would see what
injuries your patient received,’ she said.

Shiro gestured to a
young woman to remove the sheet that had been drawn up over the
body. Orla flinched inwardly although outwardly she was like stone.
A very young man lay naked on the bed. Four lines ran down from his
shoulders to his groin. Orla could see his lungs through the
smashed ribs, coils of intestines on his thighs. Her mind went back
to the gijan: four digits on hands and feet, with talons for nails.
But gijan were scarcely as tall as her waist – they could not have
inflicted this damage. She lifted her gaze from the corpse to
Shiro’s face.

‘What did this?’ she
asked. ‘I have yet to see weapons cause injuries like
this.’

Shiro regarded her
steadily. ‘I didn’t see the attack. All those who did claim to
witness it, describe giant humans with wings, like to the statues
within the Dome of the Singer.’ He did not add that many had also
seen a great shape rising from the courtyard partly enclosed by the
Domes, rising and then moving silently to the south east, blotting
out stars as it passed.

Orla’s mind raced: how
could the statues have done such a thing – were they mechanical,
from some long lost technological past of this world? She gave
Shiro a brusque nod and turned on her heel. Hezwa hastened to
escort the Lady Survivor back beneath the Sanctuary. Waiting
nervously near the entrance to the Dome of Knowledge stood the
student Hezwa had directed to fetch the books Orla required. Hezwa
took them from his arms and continued walking to the restricted
area which ended at the Survivors’ quarters. The student fled,
grateful not to have been expected to attend the Lady Survivor any
further.

Hezwa had never been
this far into the Survivors’ territory and when they turned a
corner to see a solid door blocking the way, she slowed to a halt.
She had no more desire than her students to go further, the glowing
lights on a panel beside the door made her very afraid. Her people,
the Vintavoy, who had lived within the Valley since before the
desert was made, had seen the Survivors use their little flashing
boxes and their oddly shaped machines to wreak havoc on human
bodies. They had no understanding of what they were or how they
functioned, only in what they could do. Hezwa held out the pile of
books and Orla, taken by surprise, automatically accepted them.
Hezwa bowed and turned away, striding back round the corner before
Orla could order her to stay.

Orla was well aware of
the fear she inspired in the natives and rather enjoyed the
sensation. She smiled as she palmed the side panel and the door
swung silently open. Orla spent most of the day studying the books
Hezwa had given her and had to admit to a faint sense of unease.
The books told the history of the final battle of the Elder Races
and the description of the gijan Elders undoubtedly matched the
statues that had stood in the Great Dome.

But she could not
comprehend such a thing as a statue suddenly coming to life. She
understood the practice of cryogenics, but that was accomplished
only with the use of complicated technology: these statues had been
free standing, nothing connecting them to any form of life support
systems. She picked at some food left ready for her by one of the
students who had become vacant minded menials and worked for her
and Kertiss as domestic droids would have done at home.

She lay down, her
thoughts circling round and round, and as she’d expected, and
hoped, she dreamed. To begin with, her sleeping body trembled: he
was so angry! The man she dreamed of was the most handsome
creature, male or female, that she’d ever seen. His skin was darker
than her own and his eyes usually shone with loving kindness when
he gazed at her. But he saw the thoughts in her mind, of the Elder
statues, and how she was trying to understand the meaning of their
disappearance. The loss of the Ship was insignificant – he had
never seemed to appreciate exactly of what importance the Ship
might be. His rage tore at her mind and she sobbed in her sleep.
When his fury became more controlled he spoke less harshly to Orla,
suggesting what she might do. In her relief and gratitude she
promised to follow his every wish.