Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) (31 page)

Jasper’s mouth puckered wickedly as the boy frowned up at him. “Boy, hell. He’s a little wild animal. Why didn’t you raise a human being?”

The fat woman’s mouth dropped open. “How dare—”

“Don’t dare me. You’d regret it.”

“You old lout! Get out of my way!” She jerked her basket backward, forcing Jasper to move, then hurried toward another checkout. Her son stuck his tongue out at Jasper in a final coup.

He sniggered. The woman in front of him was just finishing paying for her food. He pushed his basket forward as she grabbed her bag and left.

“Good morning, Mr. Jacoby,” the dark-haired boy behind the counter greeted. Eighteen, with a heavy brow and hooked nose, Smuel looked like a primitive caveman.

“Hi, Smuel. How’s your father’s gout?”

“Oh, he’s much better, thanks. That new doctor gave him some pink pills and he’s on his feet again.”

“Glad to hear it. He needs to be to keep running from Mildred Slone.
I know.”

Smuel suppressed a smile and pulled Jasper’s basket into his checkout niche. Looking up pleasantly, he held out a hand. “May I see your ration card, Mr. Jacoby?”

“My
what?”

“Your ration card. That’s the yellow card they gave you when you registered.”

“I didn’t register!”

Smuel’s face paled. He glanced uneasily at the people in line behind Jasper, lowering his voice. “I’m sorry, sir, but I can only sell food to people with ration cards.”

“What? You mean my money’s no good in your store?”

“Money’s not the issue. Nobody in Derow can sell you food without seeing your ration card. The Magistrates have declared a death penalty for all food vendors who disobey.”

Jasper grabbed the counter hard to steady himself.
So that’s the way they’re working it. If you don’t register, you don’t eat.
Rage flared. “What are you going to do, eh?” he shouted at Smuel. “Let your relatives starve because they won’t knuckle under to the Magistrates?”

A crowd had gathered, whispering behind Jasper’s back, pointing rudely. He spun on his heel, waving his arms. “Quit that! Get away from me! You over there? Did you register?”

The little old man in the worn brown derby timidly raised a yellow card.

“You imbecile! When they come to get you, I hope you remember some of us resisted! And you could have and didn’t!”

Gruffly, Jasper shoved his basket into Smuel’s stomach and strode from the store.

Rain fell outside, a drenching shower that turned the gray day into a nightmare of tears. He could have walked beneath the canopies of the shops lining the busy street, but he walked in the open, letting the rain soak him through—hoping the cold would ease some of the qualm of terror that blazed in his chest.

Penzer Gorgon glanced at the three hundred and sixty degree monitors that encircled the bridge. Everything looked ready.

“Take one final deep breath everybody,” he said softly. “After we exit light vault, we’re not going to have another one for hours.”

He dropped back into his command chair and gripped the armrests. Around the broad oval bridge of the
Hecate,
officers sat deathly still in their niches, as though walking a knife’s edge over a fiery apocalypse. The entire spectrum splashed his forward screen, waves of purple and yellow eddying around the edges. He was a short man with pale blue eyes and sparse gray hair; the gold braid on Gorgon’s shoulders gleamed like strands of spun sunlight beneath the harsh lusterglobes.

“Meursault,” he called to his skinny brown-haired navigation officer. “What’s our status?”

The boy answered without turning. “So far as we know, sir, we’re still in formation with the other twelve ships in the fleet. We should all exit vault at exactly the same time and take the Underground cruisers by complete surprise.”

Gorgon nodded, pursing his lips tightly. “Delaney? Ready?”

“Aye, sir.” Blonde with green eyes, she leaned forward over her console. “Weapons powered up, sir.”

“Good. Since we’re the lead ship, target the first enemy vessel you see. We’ll initiate the attack in approximately thirty seconds. Meursault…”

His voice died as the lights dimmed. Gorgon lurched from his chair. “Goddamn it, is that a power fluctuation? Get me Engineer Horner before I—”

Delaney screamed, arm stretched out toward the back wall. A huge dark shadow undulated across the bridge. The faces of his crew twisted in terror, people lunging out of their seats.

Gorgon stumbled backward. “What the hell is that?
What is that?”
he shouted.

“Exiting vault, sir!” Meursault yelled. “Enemy vessels on screen!”

Aktariel quietly observed.

Martin Qak barely had time to whirl to see the brilliant streaks of cruisers dropping out of the blackness of space. The twelve men and women on his bridge went white. His dark eyes widened in shock. “Oh, my God … Nunes! Get us the hell out of here! Weslan, shields on full. Get us—”

Aktariel winced, closing his eyes as Gorgon’s first shot lanced out of the blackness. The bridge of the
Khezr
vaporized, hull breaching. Atmosphere and bodies boiled into the blackness of space around Abulafia.

Aktariel clutched the blue velvet over his heart and closed his eyes against it. Quietly, he drifted to level sixteen, walking the long white halls in silence. His cloak billowed out behind him. People in black battlesuits rushed by, panting, some whimpering.

“Oh God, oh God,” a woman with blonde hair prayed. She knelt in the hallway beside him and jerked a cover from the wall, then frantically began inputting a series of commands into a computer unit. “Please, Epagael. Just one more time, let us get out of this and I’ll do anything you say. Oh, Jeremiel, Jeremiel, I wish you were here. You’d get us out of this. I know …”

A shrill sucking sound deafened Aktariel. He put his hands over his ears.

“No!” the woman screamed. “No, no, God!
Please!”

She clawed at a doorway as the oxygen vanished. Her lungs burst, eyes popping from her skull, then her body slithered down the corridor toward an open hatch.

Aktariel bowed his head.

He descended to level fourteen, into a crew cabin where the forces of decompression worked more slowly. A young man writhed on the floor. No more than twenty, he groped frantically for the vacuum suit lying just out of his reach. The boy rolled over and his eyes widened.

“Help …”

Aktariel blinked in surprise. This one had blood from the House of Ephraim. A curious find. Only a handful remained in the universe. He’d made certain of that. “I can’t.”

The boy stretched out a hand.
“Please?”

“I’m sorry. This must be—for all of us.” He knelt, tenderly stroking the corporal’s brow. “Forgive me. If I could save you, I would.”

When the last of the air vanished, blood trickled from the boy’s nose and his eyes went vacant.

Aktariel stood, listening to the pounding of his heart, studying the corpse. The boy’s face had contorted. His horror and disbelief reflected starkly in the glaring white lusterglobes.

The ship went black, power gone.

Aktariel looked up, seeing beyond the thin veil of metal to the dark star-strewn skies. All around him, ships flared and died. The screams of thousands burst forth, borne silently on the solar winds, spreading out eternally. One Underground cruiser veered off from the rest, hurtling wildly through space, picking up speed for the vault. It vanished.

Aktariel absently watched six Magisterial cruisers disappear in pursuit. He extended his senses, searching beyond the battle, searching for some residue of understanding or pity that might have penetrated the fabric between the Treasury of Light and the Abyss. But he found nothing.

He bowed his head and faintly, ever so faintly, he heard a tiny childish voice call to him—a boy’s voice filled with tears.

It called. And called again.

Wearily, he pulled his
Mea
from his cloak and lifted a hand to the darkness that engulfed the dead starship.

CHAPTER 23

Jeremiel leaned a shoulder against the wall of his cabin, sipping his taza. Dressed casually in a charcoal gray shirt and black pants, he looked at Rachel with an intensity that made her spine stiffen. She hunched over the table, impatiently playing with her own cup. Perspiration glued her brown jumpsuit to her sides.

“So these dreams come over you without warning?”

“Yes,” she responded, evading his eyes. “I don’t understand it.”

Steam whirled around his handsome face as he lifted his cup again, taking a long drink of the rich earthy brew. “Prophetic dreams are pretty common among Gamants. Have you had them all your life?”

“No. Just recently.”

“How do you feel otherwise?” His eyes glittered.

“Fine. Why?”

“No symptoms of sleeplessness, tendencies toward violent behavior, unjustified nervousness?”

She examined him severely. “Oh, I get it. You’re psychoanalyzing me. All right. In the current context, define ‘unjustified’ nervousness?”

The corners of his mouth curved in a reluctant smile. “You’re feeling perfectly normal, I take it, other than for the dreams?”

“Perfectly normal.”

“You haven’t seen Aktariel physically again since you left Horeb?”

“No.”

He nodded. “Good.” Relief eased the hard set of his face. “Then let’s discuss the ship and your duties. We’ve thoroughly searched the duct systems and sealed levels seven through the bridge and levels twelve through twenty. You should be safe alone on any of those—but
don’t
set foot on the others. I’m fairly certain we’ve weeded out the old Omias devotees, but not positive. If they’re still alive, that’s where they’ll be, in among the wounded waiting for treatment.” He took a drink of his taza. “There are also a few special things I want you to do with the level four security, even though they’ll sound … unusual.”

“For example?”

“Tahn continually disconnects the monitors in his cabin. I want you to check them periodically, and reconnect them,
but let Tahn finish talking to Halloway each time before you do so.”

She studied him curiously. “I don’t understand. Why?”

“Let’s just say I want him to feel comfortable. You will also notice that the air duct in Tahn’s cabin is open. Leave it that way. It currently leads nowhere.”

“Currently?”

“Yes. Don’t worry about it.”

She lifted dark graceful brows. “I didn’t realize you liked Tahn so much.”

“Don’t.” His lips smiled, but his eyes remained stony. “And I want you to give Halloway free access to him—any time she wants.”

Rachel shook her head as though she hadn’t heard right. Long black waves fell over her shoulders. “I’d think you’d want exactly the opposite, to separate them to keep them from plotting behind your back.”

He pushed away from the wall and strolled lazily to stand by the table, gazing down at her seriously. “They’ll be plotting anyway. There’s absolutely no way I can prevent it unless I kill them.”

Rachel held his gaze. What possible reason could he have for giving them the chance to get their crew organized? “Why
don’t
you kill them? It would seem to me—

“Bear with me, Rachel. Let’s say I’m playing a hunch. As soon as I know more about how the Magisterial forces are operating, I’ll explain my bizarre orders.”

“I’ll bear with you. You’re usually right.” She finished her taza and stood up. “Incidentally, I’ve had some other interesting nightmares.”

His brow wrinkled. “Indeed?”

“Yes. My worst fears made manifest. Try not to make them come true. I don’t know how we’d survive without you, Jeremiel.”

He tightened his arms over his chest and gave her a fleeting smile. “Don’t worry. I don’t have time to die.”

Sybil dashed across her cabin past the table and chairs near the entry, giggling wildly. In her long silver robe she looked like a tiny splinter of moonlight. Ari crept across the floor, eyes squinted. “Now I’ve got you!”

“No, Ari! No!” Sybil yelled, laughing shrilly. She scrambled to hide behind the bunk beds. They’d been playing war for over an hour. She’d kicked and bitten him just about every place she could. “It’s not fair. That’s not in the rules!”

“Lesson number twelve,” Ari said wickedly. “When it comes down to you against them, forget the rules.”

“Ah!” Sybil shrieked as Ari dove at her, picking her up and swinging her over his head. She laughed, arms flailing. Grabbing handfuls of his gray hair, she jerked.

“Hey!” Ari growled. “Wait a minute!”

Sybil gritted her teeth so hard her head shook. She jerked harder, throwing all of her strength into it. “Yeow!” Ari swung her over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes and dumped her on the floor. He glared down at her.

“You little wildcat!”

Sybil lay prostrate, grinning. “‘Member that one, Ari? Lesson number four: Honorable people play by rules. If they don’t, you can kick them wherever you want.”