The Faded Sun Trilogy (105 page)

“We have not come to go away at your bidding. If we fight, we will begin here.”

The old she’pan’s lips trembled. After a moment she rose up, and the mother-second and the Husband with her. She made a move of her hand; elee opened farther doors, and Niun gazed in amazement at a machine like and
unlike that of An-ehon . . . . like, for it had the same form; and unlike, for it was almost lost in ornament, in precious metal embellishments, in glass, in jewels.

“Come,” said Melein to the few of the Sen who had come with them; they walked alone into that place, and the she’pan of the elee sought to follow.

“No,” said Niun quickly, gestured, and kel’anthein moved at once to sweep their own contingents this way and that about the hall of the she’pan of the elee, setting their own bodies and their weapons, between the elee and the machine that was Ele’et.

“It will kill you,” Abotai cried. “Our machine does not speak the hal’ari.”

Melein turned, small and white against that metal complexity, walked back within the doorway. “Will it? Then you remind me of something even I had forgotten, Mother-of-elee: that elee know how to lie.”

There was silence.

“Let her come,” Melein said. “You may all come.”

Niun hesitated, made a slight sign to the others, walked with Duncan and Hlil and Ras into that place; with Kalis and Mada and Rhian keeping close guard upon what elee strayed in and others holding the room behind.

Melein stepped within the white area of the floor, bathed at once in light that set her robes agleam; and Niun’s heart clenched in him at the meaningless words that came.

“Na mri,” she answered it, and again: “Le’a’haen! An-ehon! Zohain! Tho’e’i-shai!” Banks began to light, all but one. “A’on! Ti’a’ma-ka! Kha’o!” More flared into life, and there was an outcry of consternation from the elee present. Melein’s voice continued, a roll call which set banks alight from one end to the other of the vast hall . . . the cities, Niun realized with a stirring of the hair at his nape: she was summoning the minds of the cities all about the world, names he had heard her name and names he had not—dead witnesses, the past springing to life about them, the guardians of the World.

And with every bank but two alight, with the thunder of machinery working, Melein spun in a swirl of white robes and pointed the finger at the she’pan Abotai with the blaze of triumph in her eyes.

“
Ai,
tell me now, Mother-of-elee, that I have no claim, tell me now that this place is yours, Mother of wars,
Devourer of life! Now take the machine from me, elee!”

The elee stepped forward, stopped, at the edge of the light, her white face and white mane and metal robes agleam with it.

“The machines,” Melein continued, her arm outstretched, “hold what I have given them, assume the pattern I built, as it was, as it
was,
elee she’pan. It holds the past of Kutath and the past of my own kindred, not, elee she’pan, not of Kutath; the Mysteries of those-who-went-out are within the net as well, my working; and it speaks the hal’ari, elee she’pan.”

“Ele’et!” the elee cried.

“I am here,” the machine responded, but it answered in the hal’ari, and the elee seemed shaken by that.

“Duncan,” Melein said.

There was silence then, save for the machines. “Sov-kela,” Niun murmured, touched Duncan’s arm, received a distressed look, to which he nodded, indicating, the circle to which he was summoned. “Leave the dus, sov-kela, for its sake.”

Duncan entered the circle, and the dus stayed. “I am here,” he said.

“This is the shadow-who-sits-at-our-door,” the machine answered. “An-ehon remembers.”

“Kel Duncan,” Melein said. “Are you mine?”

“Yes, she’pan.”

“I have need of a ship, kel’en. From here, it would be possible for you to contact humans. Do you think they will come to your request?”

“To take it?”

“That you will do for me too.”

There was a moment’s silence. There were five of them who felt that pain; and Niun swallowed heavily, trying to remain in contact. Duncan nodded assent; Melein reached to the board nearest and made some adjustment, looked back again.

“You have only to speak,” she said. “An-ehon, give kel Duncan access for a transmission.”

“He has access.”

There was a moment when Duncan stood still, as if paralyzed; dus-sense purged itself, grew clear.

“SurTac Sten Duncan code Phoenix to any human ship, please respond.”

He had spoken the human tongue. Niun understood; Melein would; there were no others, and the Kel and the elee shifted nervously. Duncan repeated his message, again and again.

“Flower
here,
” a human voice returned.
“Duncan, we copy; what’s your location?”

And another voice, supplanting it, female:
“Duncan, this is Boaz. Where are you?”

Duncan looked at Melein; she nodded slightly.

“Shuttle one, this is
Flower.” It was a different voice, older.
“Boz, don’t jeopardize your position: keep silence. You may draw fire.”

“Tell them otherwise,” Melein said.

“This is Duncan. The cities will not fire, if you do not provoke it. I can give you my location. Boaz, is a shuttle out?”

“We have two. Galey’s down here; you know him, Sten. We’ll come in if you’ll let us. No firing. Where are you?”

“Terms,”
the voice from
Flower
cut in.
“What guarantee of safety? Duncan, are you speaking under threat?”

“Your name is Emil Luiz, sir, and if I were under threat I would not give you a correct answer. —Boz, from the ruins nearest
Flower,
southeast to some low hills; you’ll see pillars, Boz, and a city within the rocks. Do you know that site?”

“We can find it. We’ll be there, Duncan. Be patient with us.”

“Understood, Boz. You’ll be safe to land. You only.”

“Cease,” said Melein.

“Transmission ceased,” the machine echoed.

“Aliens,” Abotai hissed. “You deal with aliens.”

Duncan pulled his veil aside, and there was a void in the dus-sense; a cry went up from the elee, for it was the face of the image. He seemed not to regard it, but looked at Melein. “Is there else,” he asked, “she’pan?”

“When they come,” she answered.

“Aye,” Duncan said, and the void persisted, a gap and a darkness where Duncan had been. A touch fell on Niun’s shoulder; it was Hlil. He felt all of them, Ras, Rhian, Taz. Only Duncan was not there, for all that Duncan returned to him, and looked nakedly into his eyes, and stood among them.

“Veil yourself,” Niun said, “sov-kela.”

Duncan did so, and he and his beast went aside, into the other room, among the others who waited.

*   *   *

They rested . . . must, finally. Galey sucked in great breaths from the mask, bowed over, uninterested in the rations the others passed among them. A drink of water, that he took, and bowed down with his head against his arms. His knees ached and his temples pounded. He rubbed at eyes which ran tears that never stopped.

More such to go: the city of the mri dead . . . that one next, he reckoned.

“Sir,” Kadarin said. And when he responded lethargically:
“Sir . . .”

He looked up, rose, as the others scrambled to their feet. There was a ship coming. He stared at it, blank, and terrified; and there was no place to go, no concealment in the vast flat: it was coming low.

One of their own. He blinked, no less disquieted, heard the same realization on the lips of Magee and Kadarin.

It was coming for them, coming in fast.

*   *   *

“Treachery,” Nagn hissed, her color gone white around the nostrils.

Suth sat still, his hearts quite out of phase, stared at the screens on which shuttles and
Santiago
were moving dots, all his calculations amiss.

“Bai,” Morkhug pleaded.

Suth faced his sled about. His attendant crouched in the corner, attempting invisibility. Suth considered, regarding his mates who looked to him for decision . . . suddenly keyed in the control center, where a contact to
Saber
-com was maintained continuously.

“Bai Koch,” he requested of his own younglings, and slowly calmed his breathing, suppressed the racing heartbeats with reason. The human face suddenly filled his screen: Koch, indeed: Suth knew him by the ruddiness and white, clipped hair.

“Bai Suth?” the human bai asked.

“You are undertaking operations without consultation, bai, contrary to agreement.”

“No operations; maneuver. As you have an observer near the world, as you have received transmission, as we have. We are moving more reliable monitoring into position. We confess surprise, bai Suth; we are not yet ready to address policy.”

“What action are you taking, bai?”

“Meditating on the matter, bai Suth.”

“What is your installation onworld doing?”

A hesitation. “What is yours doing?”

“We are not in contact. They are pursuing previous instruction. Doubtless they will not act beyond those instructions.”

“Ours likewise, bai Suth.”

Suth sucked air. “Is your intention to accept this offered contact, reverend ally?”

There was a second hesitation. “Yes,” Koch said.

Suth’s hearts left synch again. “We . . . urge the bai to enter urgent consultations with us.”

“Most assuredly. You are welcome aboard.”

“We also . . . must contact our onworld mission.”

Koch’s face remained impassive. There was a slight flaring of his nostrils; what this meant in a human was
disputable.

“We advise you,” Koch said, “to stay clear of Kutath; we do not mean to have lives endangered. We should take very seriously any approach to Kutath, bai Suth.”

“We wish to send a shuttle to your ship.”

“I have said that you are welcome.”

“I am entering arrangements. Favor, bai Koch, maintain a full flow of data to our offices.”

“Agreed.”

“Favor.”

“Favor,” Koch murmured in turn, and faded.

Suth sucked a deep breath, puffed it out with a flutter of his nostrils. “They wish me aboard.”

“Bai?” Tiag mourned, visibly disturbed.

“Secure ship,” Suth said. And when they delayed in confusion: “Leave onworld to onworld; secure the ship.
Saber
 . . . is
here.
”

*   *   *

“Enough,” said Melek in horror; Magd killed the message which played over and over in the recorder. There was the thump of the pumps in the silence, the furtive scratching of some night-wandering crawler at the plastic dome.

They were alone, they two, senior. They had killed their assistants, a grim matter of economics. They hungered almost constantly in their terror; and Magd looked on Melek with continual fear. It was next, when it came to seniority.

“There is a way out,” said Melek.

“I am listening.” Magd’s belly hurt. It really existed on short rations, pampering Melek, beginning to die slowly in the hope of living longer. Its skin flaked; its joints were whitening. More than anything it desired to please; its thoughts were nightmare, of hunger on the one hand, being refused survival by the elder Suth if it dared leave its post; of slaughter at Melek’s hand, merciful and more immediate. It could not think. It wanted life, clung
to hope, scrabbled after this one, that Melek itself offered.

“Orders,” Melek said, “require we observe and find this youngling Duncan. That we stir up the mri and destroy this youngling if we find it. This is our way out. Listen . . . 
listen,
youngest! Will this message have gone out and
Shirug
not know? Is not our time shortened here? They will send us orders; we finish here; we
finish.
Then we can come back; then Eldest will welcome us and make us favorites, feed us of his own cup. Both . . . both of us. If we do this for him. If we finish.”

Magd had no inner confidence. Magd’s hearts labored and its mouth was dry, its tongue sticking to the membranes, so that water and soi were the only coherent desires. Magd knew the trap: that yielding food to Melek, Magd was no longer strong enough to resist, no longer keen-witted.

“Yes,” it said, desperate, paid anxious attention as Melek brought up charts on their screens.

“Here,” Melek said, indicating a place near hills. “This is the place. We must be ready; we must work out all the details. You will lead in, youngest.”

“Yes,” it said again.

It would have agreed to any instruction.

It was an hour for sleeping. Perhaps some within the elee city did so, but none within the hall of the elee she’pan, nor anywhere about it. Niun sat still, at the feet of Melein, his dus and his companions by him, while certain kel’ein, mostly hao’nath and ja’ari, walked the corridors of the city, wandering by twos and by threes, to observe the things which passed among the elee. None offered them violence. None challenged them, or alarm would have been raised in the halls of Ele’et, and blood would have flowed: it did not; and the most part of the Kel sat quietly in attendance on the she’pan.

“You must call them back,” said Abotai of the kel’ein who ranged the city corridors. “They must not—must not harm Ele’et.”

“They do not,” Melein said softly, and stilled any protest of Sen or Kel with an uplifted and gently lowered hand. “And we go where we will.”

“Understand . . .” Abotai’s lips trembled, and she held the hand of the Husband who sat beside her. “More than lives . . . these precious things, she’pan of the mri.”

“What things?”

Abotai gestured about her, at the hall full of carved stones, flowers in jade, ornate work over every exposed finger’s-length of surface, works in glass, statues in the likeness of elee and mri and lost races and beasts long forgotten, whether myth or truth. “Of all Kutath has made, of beauty, of eternal things . . . they are here. Look—look, mri she’pan.” Abotai slipped from her ornate robes a pin, passed it to the youth Illatai, who sat in a chair near her. He leaped up to bring it, but Niun gestured abruptly and intercepted it. It was a translucent green stone, the likeness of a flower even to veins within the leaves, and a drop of moisture on a petal. He handled it most
carefully, and passed it to Melein.