INTERLUDE

 

 

He woke in a panic: someone was talking to him!

At first he thought it was one of the attendants in the Shadow Place. But the voice was cold and slippery, sharp as a hypodermic needle and as flexible as wire. It slid through his defenses and pierced his brain like a fishhook.

He struggled for a reference point. When he found none—only void—he remembered where he was.

The abomination!

<Can you hear me?>

He tried desperately to think. When had he fallen asleep? How had he allowed himself to become so vulnerable?

: HELP

He felt the technician start at the voice issuing from his monitors. <I thought I’d knocked you out cold. Ungrateful sod. Don’t you want to rest?>

: HELP

: ME

<What’s wrong?>

: ABOMINATION

<What?>

: HERE

<What the hell are you talking about? There’s no one here but you and me.>

He gave up, defeated yet again by spatial coordinates. And anyway the voice had gone, faded into some dark recess like a bad dream. Maybe he had dreamt it...

<Can anyone hear me?>

His body jackknifed in shock, its epsense organ flailing from the back of his skull like an electric eel in a thunderstorm; every cell in his body screamed at the insidious touch of that voice. An alarm sounded somewhere, heard and felt secondhand through the technician. What was this? Fear for his well-being? Or fear he might be trying to escape? He couldn’t tell which. Perhaps it was both.

<I feel something—I feel you! Who are you? Where am I?>

: KILL

<Kill who? Who are you talking to?>

: HER

<Wait. It’s clearing. I can see you better now. You’re the one who’s been soaking up all the thoughts in the system!>

: HELP

<What are you? Olmahoi? What does irikeii mean?>

: ME

<All these names... The Cruel One and her servant... The enigma and the Shining One... the...>

The voice ceased. He waited breathlessly, hardly daring to believe that he had rid himself of her so easily.

<Abomination? Damn you! Who are you to judge me?>

Sharp-tipped tendrils encircled his mind. He relaxed minutely. If this was how attack would come, he was safe.

The tentacles slipped; their tips failed to find purchase. <I can’t—how do you do that?>

Deep within him, he fashioned a private place in which he could think, a shelter not even she could reach. The Cruel One’s servant had underestimated her threat, and he lacked the skills to warn him. Fear flooded through him. The abomination could not hurt him directly, but she could still do him harm. For him, death’s sting was none the worse for being someone else’s. Indeed, his own might come as something of a relief if she were to break completely free.

Still, there was hope. She was only a child. Without the mind of an adult to direct it, her raw talent was mostly wasted. With luck she would never realize exactly what she was capable of—as long as he kept the thought buried deep, away from her prying mind.

He had no idea what to do next, but he knew he would accomplish little hidden in his private space. He had to come out eventually to do the bidding of the Cruel One’s servant. If he didn’t come out, the abomination would only try all the harder to smash her way in....

<What are you frightened of? I don’t want to hurt you, really. Just don’t go thinking any more thoughts about killing me, okay?>

He wondered why he should enter into a bargain with someone like her.

<Because I can help you. You’re trapped here too. They’re using you. We could help each other escape.>

There was nowhere to escape to.

<The Ana Vereine has a working slow-jump drive. We can leave here any time we want.>

So why didn’t she?

<Because we haven’t finished what we came here to do. Here, look.>

The abomination thrust an unwieldy slab of thought at him, and he recoiled automatically.

: NO

<What is it? Do I revolt you that much?>

He didn’t answer. The technician was examining him more closely now. His odd twitches and utterances were not going unnoticed. He needed to be careful lest someone think he was up to something.

<Well, you are hiding something.>

Of course he was. More things than she would ever know.

<Don’t be pompous. Something about Rufo. And Cane. I thought you were Cane when I first touched you. No one would be able to get through this fog, except maybe him. Or so I thought.>

In his private place, he realized that she too had been fooled by the Shining One’s camouflage. That was something. She wasn’t as perceptive as he had feared.

<Why can’t I touch anyone else? Where is Morgan?> He recognized the name from the abomination’s own mind, but had no idea where the enigma had got to. The proximity of the Shining One obscured the rest of the system from his sight.

<So Rufo doesn’t know, either?>

That wasn’t necessarily so. The Cruel One’s servant had numerous sensors and singleship scouts on the lookout for the two fugitive vessels. It was only a matter of time before one of them turned up.

<Still, it’s a point in her favor, right? It’ll be easier for her to sneak back here, when she’s ready.>

He reacted with surprise to the certainty in the abomination’s mental voice. Come back? The enigma would be insane to do such a thing!

<Trust me, she’ll come.>

The abomination’s thoughts slid across each other like shining metal sheets, polished by friction. Her screen was good, but not perfect. Occasional insights slipped through the gaps, and he gathered them up, hoping to learn as much as he could about her. Leverage might come in handy, later.

<Why do you call me an abomination?>

The question surprised him. The Surin bred for epsense; they were not without experience in the field. Surely she knew that minds like hers should not exist?

<Who says?>

He supposed she was too young to understand. Long-term maintenance of epsense ability required either built-in genetic disposition or intense discipline. If she had been made and raised around others like her, or around natural reaves who lacked the proper training—

<Pompous and patronizing.>

Abominations like her were prone to self-destruction. There was no place for them in the galaxy; they never fit in. It wasn’t that they were rejected, more that they could not be accepted. In time, they always disintegrated.

<Oh, really?>

He felt perversely sorry for her; after all, it wasn’t her fault she’d been made this way. But he could not—and would not—allow feelings of sympathy to intrude on what he had to do.

There had to be a way.

<I guess our battle lines are drawn,> she said. <If the only way I can talk to anyone else is by getting rid of you, Olmahoi, irikeii, whatever you are, then so be it. The chances of us ever reaching agreement are pretty damn slim.>

Nonexistent, he would’ve thought.

<Well, then. Will you tell me what you’re hiding or do I have to wring it from you drop by drop?>

For a moment, in his private retreat, he was tempted to accept her challenge. Not that there was any risk of her getting what she wanted that way. No matter how strong she was, he would not fall to a direct assault; his very nature forbade it. He was more like a channel than a vessel; the hole in the fabric of n-space that was his mind could be filled and overflow, but that would not harm him directly. It would simply spill onto those around him, including the one attacking him, and thereby neutralize the threat.

No, he decided, letting his thoughts rise back to the surface. It would be more interesting to give her what she wanted. That would get her off his back, temporarily, and perhaps enable him to see what she made of it into the bargain.

<Don’t expect me to tell you anything.>

Dialogue was possible even between enemies, especially when the conflict was not diametrically polarized. If they both perceived a common foe, mightn’t it seem sensible to exchange information?

<If we do, yes. But you’ll have to convince me of that, first.>

He opened his mind. Not totally, and not all at once. And not, he had to admit, without doubt—for all he had learned was necessarily colored by the minds that had given it to him. But he himself did not add anything. He offered her no deceptions.

He showed her his home. He showed her how he had come to be snatched from it and brought here. He showed her the Cruel One. He showed her the complex web of intrigue and machinations woven around him. He showed her why it was unlikely he would ever be allowed to return to his people.

Then he showed her the dark hole at the heart of the Shining One. He showed her the secret fear breeding in the Cruel One’s servant’s mind. He showed her the difference between what the enigma thought to be true, and what he had garnered from those closer to the heart of the matter.

Mostly what he hoped to show her was her ignorance....

<No.>

The abomination’s voice was strained.

<That’s impossible. You’re lying!>

He assured her that he wasn’t—but she was already gone. She had fled rather than endure the truth.

He barely had time to feel satisfaction when—

Pain!

He struggled to orient himself. Agony tore through every nerve in his body. What had gone wrong?

<Hey! Pay attention! Why the hell didn’t you warn us?>

His mind strained. Wider, wider. Desperate to stop the pain.

: SLEEPING

: DREAMING

<Well look now, damn you! There’s a fleet bearing down on us! We need to know numbers. And we want to know if the other clone warrior’s behind them!>

He looked; it was true. He could see them now rising out of the mist of the Shining One, numerous minds all focused on one place, one challenge.

: MANY

<How many?>

: MANY

: COMING

He peered closer, harder, through the light, at another.

: SHINING

: RESONANCE

And there, at the forefront, he saw it. He didn’t know why he was surprised, and perhaps even a little relieved. He knew the Cruel One’s servant would feel very differently. But at least now he would be able to keep an eye on her.

Just as the abomination had said, the enigma had returned...