SEVENTEEN
IF KLATH HAD been female it would never have seen the shooting star. The females were all gathered in the birthing hut to do some secret female thing which involved incantations and offerings, and that probably would have seemed more important than staring at the night sky.
If Klath had been male it would never have seen the shooting star. The males were involved in some pre-Festival testing of strength that involved fire and spears, and no one without fully developed male genitals was permitted to watch. If Klath had been male it would have been doing that, in the hopes of winning a prime place in the Festival and thus having a shot at the best mates, hunting grounds, and wealth-songs.
If Klath had even been a child still—a child!—there would have been duties to see to, for Festival time had duties for every age group, even the youngest.
But for the istali—the Uncommitted—nothing.
And so Klath spent the night beneath the night stars, and searched for craters on the two moons that were visible that night, and saw the great star fall from the sky.
What a whoosh it made as it came through the atmosphere—a whisper at first, the kind that you know is much louder at its point of origin, a distant roar muted by miles of darkness. It blazed across the sky brighter than anything Klath had ever seen, and as it fell to earth the istal imagined it could feel the ground beneath it tremble. Not that the males would notice, for all their drums and fires. Not that the females would notice, for all their incantation and dancing.
Only the lone istal lying on its back on the mountain top, staring out across distant valleys.
After the star struck the earth there was a faint glowing in the distance for a while, and Klath wondered if some sort of fire was going to start. But they were in the middle of the rainy season and things were wet enough that a real wildfire would be hard pressed to get going. After a while the glow died down and there was no more visible evidence that anything unusual had happened.
The wise ones said such stars were gifts of the gods, sent to earth for people to find. Klath could use a gift. Something to shock its mind and body into commitment, perhaps, so that it would no longer be stuck in this genderless limbo: neither male nor female nor child proper, neither sexed nor unsexed, simply . . . waiting. That was what the ancient word meant, istal—waiting.
Waiting could drive you crazy.
Klath stood up, wiping the clinging wet leaves from off its tunic as it did so. It hadn’t been able to see the exact spot where the star landed, but it had a pretty good idea of roughly where it had gone. Right over the next mountain ridge . . . out of sight of the village. Which meant that if any of Klath’s people had seen it coming down, they would have no idea where it went. And in Festival time everyone had better things to do than to search out curiosities in the brush, for gods must be satisfied and births arranged and matings celebrated and children taught . . . yes, everyone had something to do in this time, better and more important than heading out to the next ridge to see what had fallen from the sky in the middle of the night.
Everyone except istali, that was.
Istali had no better purpose than anything.
The grass was wet around Klath’s ankles as it started walking. Not back toward the village, with its bonfires and godsongs. Away. Down the mountain ridge, into the valley, across to places where there were no villages. In the wet season there would be enough things to eat on the way that it wouldn’t starve, and the warm days and temperate nights were perfect for travelling. What more did an istali need? Surely nothing from the pantries of its household, whose keeper would demand to know why it was packing supplies. And then when it answered her, telling her about the star, someone else would be sent to accompany Klath across the valley, or perhaps even take its place entirely. After all, when your body couldn’t even decide what gender it wanted to be, why should people trust you to do anything right?
A day’s journey, Klath estimated. There and back. Maybe there’d be some fabulous mystery at the other end, or a discovery that could inspire istali flesh to sex itself at last. Wasn’t it said that the gods used such stars for transport? Or maybe it was a piece of the heavens that had fallen, jostled loose by the passing of the moons. Or maybe just . . . something mundane, that burned the trees and shook the earth and was gone before any of the sexed ones would notice.
Did it matter? It wasn’t like Klath was needed here. It wasn’t like a single lonely istal would be missed.
As it began to hike down the mountain ridge, picking its way with care, it wondered how long it would be before anyone would even notice it was gone.
Zara could feel it when the Braxin woke up.
The first warning was a shooting pain across her back, three stripes of it. Sharper than the day before, when the poisoned claws had first scored him; infected perhaps, despite the best of her efforts. Then there was a hazy disorientation, strong enough that she had to grab hold of a rock to keep from losing her balance in the swift-running stream. Then: Surprise. Recognition. Memory, returning in battered fragments from a battle fought eons ago.
No fear, she noted. Many things in him, many dark and terrible emotions, but no fear.
She could sense him pulling himself to his feet, cursing his injured flesh, and she struggled to return awareness to her own body. Never had another soul drawn her in like that before. Was her power so much greater now than it had been when last she had tested it? Had fear and deprivation stripped down her last inner defenses, so that she could no longer shut out any stranger? Or had their strange relationship, born in an atmosphere of terror and violence, provided a bond that increased her sensitivity?
A bond with a Braxin. Gods forbid.
Hurredly she left the stream where she had been bathing and went to put her outer clothing back on. She’d never taken the underwear off. That wasn’t something you did on an alien world where you didn’t know who or what might come along . . . and where the threat you had brought with you was more frightening than half the possibilities Nature might provide. Her clothes weren’t dry yet, either, though most of the bloodstains had washed out of them. The result was wet layers of permacloth sloshing against each other, making it almost impossible to get everything in place by the time he wandered downhill in search of her.
She could feel the sunlight wash over his skin as he broke through the tree line and came into the clearing, and shook her head to get rid of the feeling. He looked . . . he looked . . . damn, he looked good. It was the first time she’d seen him in good light, at least standing up, and even bruised across his face and back, limping lightly, and stained with the dirt and sweat of their travels, he was an impressive figure. The animal intensity she had sensed in him when they met on the ship was ten times stronger when she could see him moving. Hypnotic. Disconcerting. She tried to focus on his face, and the details that weren’t Braxin. Dark hair allowed to grow, wild now in its disarray. Strong jawline, marked with stubble where a precisely edged beard had once been cultivated, then removed, now was reasserting its ancient rights. Piercing eyes that made her feel weak inside, confused as to whether she should be feeling fear, or . . . something else.
He blinked as he looked around the clearing, taking it all in with a kind of dazed curiosity, as if he hadn’t put it all together yet. Then he looked at her, and a finger rose to the band of cloth wrapped around his chest. “You did this?”
It was easier when they talked; his feelings faded from her head when she could focus on spoken words. “Med kit was lost in the crash. It was the only thing I knew how to do without it.”
“Crash.” He said the word as if tasting it. Then he looked around at the surrounding trees, the water . . . and her. “Well,” he said at last, “it’s not a sun.”
She remembered the main screen blazing with solar fire and shuddered. That had been a close call, for sure. The ship had managed a course correction, but barely, and now there wasn’t much of it left. Enough to get them to the only planet in the system with signs of life and then smash itself into debris trying to land. If not for the personal fields they’d had on for the deceleration they’d have been scattered across the landscape along with the smoking remnants of the small ship and its contents.
Long steps, couched in pain, brought the Braxin to the edge of the stream; she kept a wary distance. He turned to her then, to take her measure. He had green eyes, deep green, the color of forests and evening shadows, a startling color. “You’re all right?”
It was such a mundane question that for a moment she didn’t know how to respond. “I’m alive,” she said at last. “Nothing’s hurt that won’t heal. You?”
He nodded. A dry smile played across his lips as he did so, that set off his features to such advantage it made something female inside her tighten up. “Anything left?”
It took her a minute to realize he meant the ship. “Not worth saving. It was a pretty rough trip.” She nodded back the way he had come. “Right over the ridge, if you want to take a look. Still smoldering, last I looked.”
“You carried me here?”
“Ah.” She turned away. The green gaze was far too penetrating. “Kind of . . . dragged you, actually. It was still burning at the time, I thought it best to get some distance . . .”
Silence fell, at least of the human sort. Animals chirruped in the shadows.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last.
“What? For the crash? Ship was on automatic, it did the best it could—”
“That I threw you at them.”
A flush rose to her face as she remembered. “Oh. That. It’s . . . it’s . . . I understand.”
“Three to one. No other option.”
Yes, an inner voice chided. Be grateful for small favors. Here you are, alone on this unknown planet with a Braxin, for who knows how long . . . but he didn’t throw you into the arms of enemies to hurt you. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?
“I know,” she said softly. She shrugged. A spear of pain shot through her shoulder, reminding her just how hard she’d hit the floor back then. “So we’re alive, right? That’s a start.”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “A start.” His voice was steady but the lie of it blazed about him, a blinding corona of rage. Whoever he was, whatever he wanted, he needed to be somewhere else, and soon. Even death would have been preferable to being marooned indefinitely on a benign planet. Being alive was not enough.
We could be here for the rest of our lives, she thought. It was a frightening enough concept in its own right; she shook to think of what this Braxin would be like when it became clear that was their only option. Didn’t they have some ritual of rage in which they killed whoever had sparked their anger?
He looked at her again. The gaze was as steady and even as before, but the emotion behind it was so strong this time it hit her full in the face. Powerful feelings, all fused together, sheathed in a shell of red-hot rage. She cried out and staggered back, raising her hand up instinctively to shield her face.
“Zara—”
“Not your fault,” she gasped. Tears of pain squeezed out of her eyes as she struggled to concentrate on something else. When had she given him her name? Hearing him speak it gave the onslaught mental focus, gave it power. “It just . . . comes on like that sometimes . . .”
He said nothing. There was an animal quality to his stillness, a preternatural alertness that was both predatory and cautious. Minutes passed. The assault eased . . . or maybe she just figured out how to absorb it. Slowly his emotions slid into the dark places of her mind, allowing her own thoughts to surface again.
Oh, gods. She’d never survive this. The day he understood what she really was he’d surely kill her. How long could she wait for that moment, that time bomb to explode?
The green eyes were watching her. Unreadable.
Waiting will only make the fear worse.
At last she said, in a whisper, “Your kind kills psychics.”
His eyes narrowed briefly. She feared a new onslaught of emotion, but none came.
“Your kind kills Braxins,” he said quietly.
He took a step down toward the stream. She could see the back of his shirt now, scored and bloody, the homemade bandage peeking out from parallel slashes in the fabric. Grateful to be free from his penetrating gaze at last, she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.
“So. The ship is gone.” He muttered something under his breath in his native tongue, probably a curse. No, that wasn’t right. The Braxins considered the active involvement of gods a bad thing and regarded a blessing as ill fortune, didn’t they? He was probably blessing their luck, with the same ill will. “No communications equipment either, I take it.”
“Burned to a crisp.”
“Supplies?”
She said nothing.
“So . . . alive in the middle of nowhere, with nothing except the clothes on our back and . . . whatever’s on this planet.” His face tightened, and again she could feel the waves of incipient rage battering at her psyche, a flood tide about to be loosed. “Any sentient life?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
His eyes narrowed. “Can’t you . . .” The words trailed off.
She bit her lip. “What? Scout them out?”
“You sense things, don’t you? From other minds?”
The green eyes were fixed on her. Forest eyes, shadow eyes. If she wasn’t so afraid of what might be behind them she could lose herself in their depths completely. Just swallowed up and obliterated by all his Braxin energy, and then she would never have to hurt again.
“I sense emotions,” she said quietly, looking away. Anywhere else but his eyes. “Sometimes.” She laughed dryly, a sound that turned into coughing as it left her throat. “Seems to have just gotten me into trouble, so far.”
He managed a dry smile. It was for her benefit, she sensed; he didn’t feel like smiling.
“Can’t control it, then?”
She could taste the edge in the question. “No.” Would that set off the anger inside him? She might lie, if she knew what lies were safe with him. “I can’t control it. Or even make much sense of it, sometimes. It just . . . it just comes.”
“I would have thought they’d have ways to control it . . .”
“They?”
“Psychics.”
She shrugged stiffly. “Maybe they do. I don’t.”
She could taste how much he wanted to ask more questions. Go ahead, she thought, I’ve got damned little to tell you about. No lifetime spent studying strange powers, no shadowy empire behind me with secrets for you to learn, nothing but a mentally battered Mediator who just wishes she knew how this damned mental floodgate was opened in the first place, so she could shut it tight again.
Exhaustion and fear had been warring within her for too many days now and she was near the breaking point. Maybe he could sense it. Maybe that’s why he turned away instead of asking her more questions—or maybe he simply guessed that she had no answers for him yet. He walked down to the edge of the water. “Safe?” he asked, indicating the placid surface.
“As much as anything ever is, on an unknown planet.”
With a slight wince of pain he loosened his shirt and let the bloody tatters slide from his shoulders. “Then at least one thing can be dealt with.” Before she even realized what he was doing he was out of his nether garments as well, sliding free of them like an animal might slip free of a discarded skin. Her face flushed as she turned away, but not before the sunlit silhouette of his body etched itself into her mind. Lean, hard muscle, skin so pale it could have been carved from marble, sinews that flexed not like human sinews at all, but like the toughened cords of a predator . . . she hadn’t seen all that in the half-darkness when she had bound the bandages around him . . . or perhaps she hadn’t wanted to see. Now, as he walked down into the water, she could not help but be drawn back to gaze at him, grateful that at least now the water covered the more sensitive parts of his anatomy. What happened to the much-vaunted sartorial conservatism for which the Braxins were famous? The lords of the Void who wouldn’t even take off their gloves in public, much less their pants? That’s the Braxaná, she corrected herself. I guess not the others. What was this creature, so like and unlike all the stories she’d been told? She gazed in wonder as he splashed water over his torso, noting the long red bruises that marked his flesh here and there, souvenirs of their desperate landing. Probably most of them were her fault, dragging him through the brush.
Then she realized he was looking back at her. Her face flushed even hotter as she suddenly focused on the ground by her feet.
“I took a few blows in the fight on the ship,” he told her. His amusement washed over her, as if he could sense her thoughts, her inappropriate guilt. Warm amusement, sweet and inviting, that promised respite from uncertainty and fear. Come to me, his essence beckoned. Drink me in. Drown in my presence. It was more terrifying than his anger. Physical trials she could deal with, but this . . . this was a whole new class of danger.
Wordlessly she did the only thing she could, and left the clearing. Letting the cool shadows of the forest beyond veil his presence in deep green shadow . . . which even like his eyes, continued to watch her.
She could hear him chuckling softly as she left.
Tathas waited until she was asleep before he let the rage come and take him.
You are Viak’im. You have a destiny. You will NOT live out your life marooned on some back Void planet while the Kaim’eri mock your failure before all the Kesserit.
In fury he struck at the ground beside him, hard enough to make a small crater. His knuckles hit rock and bled. Hot blood, warrior’s blood. Wasted here on this vile planet.
But what could he do?
Think, Tathas, think. Either there is a ship on this planet or there isn’t. If there is, you must find it. If there isn’t, then there must be a way to contact the interstellar community. Freelancers are always looking for signs of life on these back Void planets; send out a signal one of them can trace and someone will come looking. Right?
And if the inhabitants of the planet didn’t have the technology to send out such a signal?
Then I will do what I must. And if that means dragging some primitive culture into the modern age, until they learn the technology I need them to have, so be it.
And if there were no sentients at all to work with? What, would he build a transmitter from rocks and tree branches, and power it with wind?
With a snort of rage he curled his fists into the alien dirt, driving it under his fingernails.
I will NOT be stranded here!
He looked at the sleeping woman. So peaceful now. She was almost a different person when she slept, the fears and tensions of her waking life peeling back from her like the coarse skin of some armored fruit. For a moment, in reflex, he almost reached out to her, driven by a need to vent his tension in purely physical relief . . . but no, she wouldn’t understand that for what it was. Azean culture had gotten sex all tangled up with weak emotions somewhere in its history, and lost sight of the fact that the act was one of primal tension and release in its own right. No matter what he did, no matter how he approached her, she’d be reading all sorts of things into the effort that he hadn’t intended, and if those imaginings were upsetting enough it could push her over the edge. And he needed her sane too much to risk pushing her over the edge right now.
She would sense my hunger, he thought. She would know.
It was a strangely erotic thought. And a disturbing one. Was the psychic bond stronger when the bounds of physical intimacy had been breached? Might the power flow back into him, if that happened, so that his mind was violated by her emotions, the way hers seemed to be invaded by his?
A cold chill ran up his spine. No wonder my people fear this thing.
Sleep was long in coming, beneath a sky of unnamed stars, and brought with it dreams better not remembered.
The gods came from the stars, Klath knew that much. The istal even knew a few words in the Divine Speech because the priests taught all the younglings that much as soon as they could speak. Klath knew what the gods were called and it knew how to greet them, and most important it knew how to tell false gods from true. For the world was full of demons and devils that masqueraded as gods, and unless you knew the right names and applied them correctly they would devour your soul and steal your children away to be slaves in a place so terrible that no starlight shone there, ever. Ratuarr they called it—the Great Emptiness.
Thus far its journey had not been difficult. The valley floor was lush and damp and there were colored mosses the istal remembered from its childhood, fragrant and edible. It followed a stream for a while and drank deeply before leaving its banks behind, knowing the thick dew of morning would provide it with refreshment again come sunrise. The night was comfortably chill and it found an embankment of reeds so thick that, mashed beneath its body, they felt like bedding.
No one came looking for it. No alarm trumpets sounded in the distance. No voices carried on the wind, crying out its name in hope and fear. There was no sign that anyone noticed it was gone.
Had it expected anything different?
On the second day it began to climb again. The ridge was steep and rocky, with few handholds, but its agile fingers wrapped themselves around tree stumps and it pulled itself upward. Soon it reached the crest of the ridge, and it stretched itself in the early morning sun, looking for signs of whatever had fallen from the sky. It was not hard to find. The land was scored as if by some black knife, beginning just behind the crest of the ridge and continuing down into the next valley. Black rocks could be seen scattered along the path, with some dark mass at the head of it.
Fear caught in its throat for the first time since it had left home. If this truly was a thing of the heavens, who could say what power might lay close about it? It had heard tales of strange rocks which fell from the sky, that drew other rocks toward them like lovers. But after a moment Klath swallowed hard and continued its journey toward the strange gash in the land. If this was a thing of the gods, then clearly it had been sent here for people to find it. Maybe just for him!
The noonday sun was warm as it reached the black streak, and the mists withdrew obligingly. Klath spread its shalorri to drink in the sunlight as it stepped warily along the trail of the fallen star. The black streak was earth and moss seared as if by heat, with small half-melted bits of . . . things . . . along it. Klath picked one of them up warily, not so certain it wasn’t going to harm it. It looked like a piece of parchment folded and then half-melted, and it crumbled in its hand as it touched it. Some of the pieces looked like they too had been burned, or at least melted. Some were of such odd shape and substance that it was afraid to touch them. If the gods sent down their magic to earth, and it arrived like this, how did you know which pieces you were supposed to collect? It chose a handful of the most interesting and put them in its pack. Maybe one would prove of value enough that the village would praise it for collecting it. Maybe the priests would read meaning into these odd pieces and the gods would look with favor upon the poor istal who had collected them. Maybe their magic would inspire istali flesh to commit itself at last, so that it might join the Rain Festival dancers in their celebration of the village’s newest genderlings. . . .
It was then it saw the trail.
Its heart almost stopped as it recognized footprints. They were not like those of any animal it knew, pressed into the charred moss. One creature, on two feet, dragging something heavy . . . larger than its own people, judging from the size, but also bipedal. Not an animal then, but a Person.
Tales of angels and demons raced through its head. All the names and warnings and incantations it was supposed to remember were suddenly gone. There was no doubt about it now, it was tracking some creature that might well embody ancient legends . . . and equally ancient threats.
Shalorri quivering, Klath edged its way along the sides of the alien trail. Its ear-hoods were pricked to catch even the slightest sound, and the hairs on its skin noted every miniscule shifting of the breeze. It knew that it should go back to the village and get one of the wise ones, a priest perhaps . . . but then this would become a priestly matter, and the males and females would aid them, and a lone istal would be of no interest or use to anyone.
Teeth gritted in determination, it moved on.
The trail led down into the valley, to the side of a stream. Now it could hear sounds. Strange sounds, like and unlike speech. The voices of angels? Or demons? Its shalorri trembled, but it forged ahead. Wary now, like a prey-animal, pressing its way through brush and trees slowly, hoping its motion would pass for that of some beast’s casual passage, or perhaps the wind.
And then it saw. In a clearing.
People. And not People. Something else, that walked on two legs like People, and had eyes and mouths like People, but were not creatures of this world. Something so terrible that for a moment Klath was frozen in fear, recognizing in an instant just what it was that had fallen to its planet. And in that moment, while it was frozen, they saw it. Small, dark eyes in a stony face fixed on Klath; the istal could feel their power. The mouth of one shaped some kind of sound, but did not voice it. The shorter one knelt a bit, and seemed to grow smaller. That would be the slave race of the demons, Klath guessed. The other . . . the other had skin as pale as the petals of the frondaa, with dark fur along the head like a beast, marking its face in dark stripes. Klath knew the pattern of those markings from its childhood lessons.
They did not move, for a moment. The clearing was so still Klath could have heard the breeze in the leaves, if not for the pounding of its heart. Finally, its courage girdled in desperation, Klath voiced the Challenge of Demons, in the ancient tongue which the priests had preserved. There was power in such words, he knew, and a true demon would be forced to answer him, and to identify itself.
Do you come from the Stars or from the Fires? he demanded.
Both creatures seemed startled by its words. Perhaps they did not expect a mere istali to know the Words of Power.
Then: From the Fires, the pale one answered, in that same tongue.
Fear gripped its heart. Klath turned and ran. Tearing through the shrubbery as if it was made of spider-knitting, not caring if there were thorns to tear its skin or stones to cut its feet. Not daring to look back, to see if the demons were following it. Probably they weren’t. Probably they thought a mere istal was no threat to them, and would let it go.
Klath had to get to its people. It had to tell them the truth . . . that the demons had come at last, and if all the people of this world did not rise up to destroy them utterly, then the whole world would be given over to demons, and the precious light of the gods extinguished forever.
“Something’s out there.”
Tathas watched her as she leaned into the breeze, senses strained to the utmost. “Human?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “Not sure.” A pause. “Coming this way. Quickly.”
The Kesserit drew himself up, loosening the knife in its sheath. It was the only thing left from the crash that still worked as a weapon and it wasn’t balanced for throwing. He doubted the woman could fight, so right now that was all he had. He glanced about for cover but there was no time, for just then the thing that she had sensed approaching broke through the brush at the far end of the clearing and stared at them.
It was Scattered Races, he judged instantly, body true to the symmetrical, bipedal blueprint of the type. But there the similarity ended. Skin hung in lizardlike folds over an awkward, skeletal frame; large eyes set in ball sockets moved independently of one another, taking in all corners of the clearing.
For a moment none of them moved. Some of the folds along the creature’s back stirred, fanning out slightly as if testing the wind. Zara moved slightly, shifting her position, but said nothing, and made no move forward.
Then it spoke. Garbled words, filtered through a speech apparatus not well suited to the language it was struggling to pronounce. Tathas could hear the psychic’s gasp of surprise as she made out the words, and his own knife suddenly seemed a million miles away.
“Are you of the ones they call Braxin?” the creature asked Tathas.
In his own language. His own dialect. The creature spoke his native tongue!
“Yes,” he told it. “I am Braxin.”
Without warning, then, the creature bolted. Tathas might have taken off in pursuit had not the woman fallen at the same moment, letting out a scream of pain. Torn between the two, he lost those precious seconds he might have needed to overtake the alien.
“What is it?” he asked, kneeling by her side. “What is it?”
“Danger,” she whispered. “Danger danger DANGER . . .” A fit of trembling overtook her, and her eyes seemed to roll upward in her head as she whispered fiercely, “Not that name, not demon-names, no, no, tell the priests! Kill the Fireborn . . .”
He wanted to chase the creature down, but he knew he couldn’t leave the woman alone. Especially not now that they knew there was a threat out there in the woods. She was hardly in a state to defend herself with alien thoughts pounding through her head, tears of pain pouring down her face as she struggled to absorb them. What if there were others like that, who came for her while he was gone?
But as soon as she was capable of moving they needed to move. Quickly now. That thing would be back, maybe with other things like it. And based on Zara’s fevered mutterings he was willing to bet the reception would not be a good one.
He spoke Braxin. . . . ?
At least that meant someone had made contact with this blessed back Void planet. Contact meant communications. Communications meant starships.
So why didn’t he find that comforting?
Klath crashed through the woods, sliding down the hills of rubble in its rush, nearly twisting its ankle as it stumbled down to the valley floor. Its incantations would hold the demons at bay, but not for long. It had to get back to its people, it had to warn them!
For generations now tales had been told of the first great Invasion, when the Pale Ones had risen up from the fires of Hell and swarmed across the surface of the planet. The stories were horrific, of atrocities performed upon living flesh and living souls both, so terrible that Klath had only heard whispers of them, for they were deemed too terrible for children or weakling istali. But it knew the prayers which the village voiced every turning of the moon, begging the gods for help in fighting the demons the next time they arose.
And now here they were, the demons arisen again. And it, Klath, was the only one who knew!
Klath ran. Its weak istal frame wasn’t made for running—it lacked the hardened muscle and fortified joints of fully sexed males and females—but it ran anyway. Across the valley floor, its heels spewing up wads of moss as it pounded across the earth. Until its breath wheezed through its small lungs in pain, and all the world began to spin before it. It ran. To do otherwise was to fail its people, to grant the demons victory. And it knew from the tales of its people just what that would mean.
Night was falling by the time it stumbled over his home ridge. Scattering the stones from the campsite where it had watched the star fall—so long ago!—it tried to catch its breath as it sighted the lights of its village, at last. Grasping a nearby tree it doubled over, coughing up phlegm that was speckled with blood. Its feet burned like fire and red-stained footprints led back in a trail from the place in the valley where it had cut them open on a bed of sharp rock. Its shalorri fluttered helplessly in the growing darkness, unable to dull the pain. But. It had made it this far. And from here the journey was all downhill, and surely this close to the village the gods would be watching over it.
Stumbling through the woods, then across cleared earth, at last through the neatly manicured farmlands with their rows of spiked bushes bearing armored fruits, Klath muttered prayers under its breath as it approached the great meeting hut. It was Festival time now and both males and females would be inside, dancing and laughing and sharing the feast. Almost too far away to reach. Klath wanted nothing more than to lay down for a moment and catch its breath. It seemed its whole body was on fire now—even his shalorri felt like red-hot knives were playing along it—and its limbs felt like they were about to explode. But. The istal kept going. Stumbling now, not running. He had no more strength for running. Muttering the prayers that would protect him in a voice that grew steadily weaker—
—And then it threw open the door to the meeting hut. At first no one noticed it, but then, one by one, all eyes turned its way. Music stopped, eating stopped, and all grew silent. What a sight the istal was, standing in the doorway, covered in the blood and debris of its desperate journey! A few younglings began to chatter but their mothers shushed them quickly.
Klath tried to speak, but found its voice had left it. With one last effort of sheer will it forced its body to make the sounds, its mouth to shape them.
“The demons have come!” The name of the dreaded creatures hung heavy in the smoky air. When no one responded Klath coughed and cried out, “I have seen them!”
The room was still, utterly still. Did no one hear it? Or was it simply that no one believed it? It was only istal, after all. With a cry of despair Klath fell to its knees. You must understand! You must believe me!
At last one of the priests came forward. An ancient, withered hand took hold of Klath’s own. “How do you know this?”
Pain ran in hot flashes along Klath’s shalorri as it tried to force out more words, to make them understand. “I saw . . . a star fell . . . on the far ridge. I went to find it. They were there. Two of them, one demon, one slave . . . just like the priests describe them. I spoke the Greeting to him and he answered me. He answered me!”
And it repeated the demon-greeting then and there, so that the priest might know it had gotten the words right.
The grip on its arm tightened.
“You are sure? He said that?”
Klath nodded weakly. Couldn’t they see that the room was spinning? Couldn’t they feel the heat that was searing its skin? Its throat was burning, it could hardly draw in breath. “Yes. He gave the Answer. They’re here, do you understand? He was only the first . . .”
The priest stood. His shalorri spread out about him, a glorious hood of crimson and gold that proclaimed masculinity and power. Klath felt envy lodge in his throat like a red-hot coal.
“My people . . .” the priest began. He waited until all eyes were upon him, all whispering silenced, before speaking the next words. The words they all feared the most. “As it is said . . . they shall come to you in your time of joy and in your time of forgetfulness, when you have no thought for history. They shall come to you when you celebrate life and loving, and have no thought for darkness. They shall come to you when you believe they shall come no more, and have set your weapons aside. They shall come to you when children run free in the night, no longer fearing those who might feast upon their souls . . .”
He looked out over the assembled. His shalorri quivered, bright with authority.
“Festival is over,” he said quietly. “Arm yourselves. We begin the Hunt come dawn.”
Night. Darkness. The primal dishonesty of an evening’s quiet, right before a storm.
“What is it?”
Zara shook her head, and drew her arms closer about her huddled form, legs folded into them. “I don’t know. Something new . . . something . . . violent, very violent. Hungry.”
“Headed this way?”
She nodded miserably. “That seems to be when the feelings are the strongest, when something is focused on me. Or in this case, on us.” She looked up at the Braxin, then quickly away. “I’m sorry I can’t do better,” she whispered.
It had been a day since the alien had fled their company. Tathas had tried to track it, but his Central skills were hardly suited to such terrain, and he’d soon lost all sign of it. It was travelling in a straight line, though, which seemed to imply it was running toward something, blindly enough that it wasn’t taking time to complicate its trail. Ten to one any trouble which came would come from that direction.
And yes, trouble was coming. The woman was sure of it. Now that she was less terrified of him than of the dangers surrounding, she was more willing to speak of her visions.
It was a good thing he hadn’t used her that night, he mused. She might not be as cooperative if he had. Now . . . there were two of them alone here, and an unknown planet, and the woman sensed that trouble was coming. Human political differences had suddenly become a very small issue.
“Can’t focus more?”
She bit her lip. “It’s directed at us, or I probably wouldn’t be picking it up at all. Someone’s intentions, violent, bloody . . . isn’t that enough?”
He paced off the dimensions of the small clearing, drawing mental clarity from the motion.
“Shouldn’t we be getting out of here?” she whispered.
“Run away?”
“Well . . . yes.”
He shook his head, studying the terrain.
“Seems kind of rational to me,” she offered.
“Azeans run,” he snapped.
“Not Braxins?”
“Not Kesserit.” He dropped into a crouch and picked up a handful of earth, testing its consistency with his fingers. “Not when there’s something they want here, that they are not going to leave behind.”
“What can you want here that’s worth the risk of facing . . . that?” She gestured weakly toward the east, where the worst premonitions seemed to be coming from. Right now she wanted nothing more than to be headed in a different direction.
The green eyes met hers. There was hatred in those eyes, and anger, and a storm that swirled in the depths of his soul, threatening to engulf anyone who so much as looked at him wrong. If any of that was directed at her she would have been blinded by the force of it . . . but it wasn’t. She was pretty sure of that by now. Whatever rage burned inside him, she was only peripherally connected to it.
He said it quietly. “They spoke Braxin.”
“And so . . .”
“My people have been here.”
“You sound surprised.”
“This far out? We’ve waged no war here, sent no explorers, no traders, not even scouts. Braxi isn’t due to come into this region until—”
He stopped suddenly.
“Until?”
“It’s very far away from the Holding,” he muttered. “And there’s an arm of the Star Empire between home and here, which would stress supply lines beyond tolerance. There would be no point to it now—not even to sending scouts out to explore the place. Braxi doesn’t invest exploration teams in planets that are this inaccessible.”
What a strange, incomprehensible creature he was. Did he think she didn’t know about the Schedule of Conquest? Didn’t know that eons ago Braxi had crafted a master plan for domination of the entire galaxy, with a timetable for every region?
Your people weren’t due out here yet, she thought. Yet someone came. “There are independents, aren’t there? Mercenaries, scouts . . . people who might take off on their own, looking for . . . something of profit?”
“Sure there are. They come in, make maps, get samples, maybe grab up a few natives to show off back home . . . and leave.” He hissed softly; the spear of his frustration lanced into her battered brain like a red-hot brand. “They don’t stay around long enough to teach the natives their language. They certainly don’t set up a blessed reception committee for the next round of visitors.”
“So what do you think happened here?”
“Don’t know.” He drew in a deep breath and shut his eyes for a moment; she could taste in her mouth how hard he was working to keep his emotions under control. For her sake? “But they were here. Come and gone. Whatever vessel brought them here may still be on this planet. If not . . . they may have had some communications equipment that’s still around. Or the makings of such. Can we afford to leave that behind?”
“Are you so sure they’re gone?” she said softly.
“The ship picked up no interstellar-level communication on the way in. Braxins would still be using their gear, if they were present. Aliens . . . aliens might not know what it was. They certainly wouldn’t have anyone out there in the interstellar community to talk to.” He shook his head in frustration. “If only we knew more about them.”
“The natives?”
He nodded.
She smiled weakly. “Well, to start with, I’m not sure I agree with you that they’re human in origin. The Scattered Races are primarily predatory in their somatotype, while the creature we saw had sensory apparatus associated with prey as well. My guess would be an adaptable, omnivorous creature, that at one time in its evolution was hunted by life-forms as large and as dangerous as it was. That said, it is tool-using, social, and probably organized into reasonably complex communities. Visual display is extremely important and probably plays a part in social hierarchy.” She paused, going over the memory of that telling moment in her mind, when the alien had first appeared. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think that one ranks very high. None of the physical appendages that might have been used to establish rank seemed very well-developed. Size matters to it, of course, but that’s not a big surprise. It may have spoken to you instead of me because you were larger. If so, then by observing more of them we might get a good sense of rank.” Again she paused. “Not a very muscular creature, given its structural potential. If it’s a typical specimen, then I would guess we’re dealing with a food-production culture, rather than hunter-gatherer. Of course it could be very young, and that would explain a lot also. Not yet fully developed.”
He stared at her for a moment, before finding his voice. “All that from that one brief appearance? Your abilities are . . . impressive.”
She laughed shortly; it was a strange sound to be making, after so many days of living in fear. “Not my ‘abilities,’ Tathas. Just a Mediator’s training. Anyone can do it, if they learn the signs.”
“Others would not have their training bolstered by psychic sensitivity.”
She shook her head emphatically. “That’s not relevant here—”
Or was it? She had spent her whole lifetime training to “read” alien cultures. Who was to say that some latent psychic ability hadn’t played its part in that process, feeding her knowledge on a level she wasn’t consciously aware of?
Even the Mediators hadn’t known what she truly was, she thought.
I have never known what I am.
As if he sensed her thoughts—and didn’t want her lost in them—he prompted, “Anything else?”
She shook her head and tried to focus. “It wasn’t carrying weapons. That means no major predators in the vicinity, and no hostile or unpredictable neighbors.”
“Or some natural means of defense.”
“Possibly. But even alien species who have such tend to arm themselves in dangerous territory. It’s one of the key differences between full-sentient species and mere animals. Animals are happy to have fangs and claws. Humans want a rock to throw before anyone gets close enough to test such things.”
“They are arming now,” he said quietly. A question.
She shut her eyes. “I don’t know, Tathas.” A weary hand lifted up to rub the space between her eyes, as if that could shut out all the errant thoughts that were assailing her. “I feel the hostility out there, somewhere . . . I’m guessing it’s focused on us, if it’s that strong . . . whether it’s natives with guns or a thousand field mice who are irked because we’re sitting on top of their warrens . . . that’s beyond me. This is all too new, too unknown. . . . I’m guessing in the dark.” She sighed deeply, then looked up at him again. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
“And here I thought all psychics were omnipotent,” he said. There was a dry humor to the remark that startled her. Not a tone she would have expected from one of them. His mouth even curled a bit when he said it, into something that was almost a smile . . . such a jarring change from the angry shadows of his usual expression that her breath caught in her throat for a moment.
“This one’s not,” she said, looking quickly away. It scared the hells out of her, those rare moments when she was attracted to him. What kind of fool felt sexual desire for a Braxin?
It’s just the circumstances, she told herself. Perfectly understandable. He saved your life, now you depend upon him . . . purely human instinct, to feel a bond . . . survival mechanism. Nothing more.
Was it?
They set up camp in a place he said would be defensible. She wasn’t a warrior, but she trusted his instincts. More and more she had the sense that whatever was focused on them was way beyond such defenses in scope, but when she suggested that he just shrugged it off. She wasn’t yet sure if she should admire him for his self-confidence or curse him for his foolishness. Ditto that for when he went off trekking through the woods alone, promising her that his actions had purpose and would pay off in the morning.
All she knew was that as the night wore on and the hostile thoughts in the distance grew more and more intense, the distant mountains were looking very good to her.
Dawn: a searing white glare over misted mountains, beneath a harsh blue sky bereft of clouds.
The High Priest cast five white birds into the sky and watched the pattern of their flight for a few moments, shading his eyes against the rising sun, while the people of the village gathered around him. Males, females, younglings, even istali; no one was going to miss this occasion for so mundane a thing as sleep.
“All is well,” he announced at last. “The gods favor our enterprise.”
The sixth bird was sacrificed and its blood used to adorn the warriors. So would the favor of the gods be carried into battle.
They had never fought full-sentient creatures before, of their own species or any other. But they knew the ways of fighting. Their ancestors had decreed that each generation must be ready and able to repel the armies of demons that would surely come, and they had been faithful to that teaching. Fire-hardened spears were at hand, unblooded but sharp. Young males practiced kick-blows in the muddy street. Shalorri rippled like the wind, fans of colored skin that increased the visible mass of the small army tenfold. The incense of War filled the muddy streets with its noxious but stimulating fumes.
And the drums beat. How they pounded! Warrior fists on taut skin surfaces, beating out the rhythm of Holy War with all the force of thunder. Soon the sound would reach neighboring valleys, where other villages stood. Soon the wild drumbeats would wake up the males in distant places and alert them to the threat that now stood upon their world in the form of a two-legged creature, like and unlike themselves. Demons! the drumbeats cried out. Wartime! Arm yourselves and prepare!
Runners had been sent out the night before to mobilize neighboring villages, but there was no way to know yet if they had reached them or not. How many demons were there out there in the woods, how many traps had been set against just such a contingency? The warriors paused in their beating and waited; the morning was so silent one could hear the wings of the sacred birds fanning softly, in their wicker cages. Then . . .
War! A distant beat resounded, echoing over valley and vale, mirroring their own. We hear! We come!
From the sidelines, where it huddled alongside the younglings, Klath watched the warriors gather. It ached to be standing among them, or even among the females who were seeing them off. And it ached with physical pain besides. The heat that had taken root in its flesh last night had not been banished by the dawn, but spread; now it was like a fire itching at the insides of Klath’s skin, that no motion or ointment seemed to quell.
No good alerting the nurse-females. They had other things to do now, besides scratch an istal’s back.
No use complaining aloud at all. Istal problems? No time for them.
Dawn. He’d already erased all signs of their camp, but not well. Her protests had gone unheard.
“They’ll know we were here. It’ll give them a starting point for tracking us.”
“That’s fine.”
Was this some quirk of Braxin logic, or was he simply insane? She stared at him in amazement as he studied the campsite one last time, then put his hands to his mouth, turned to the east . . . and yelled. Whooped, really. It was a loud sound, inarticulate, that carried over the woods in the crisp morning air and must have been audible for miles.
He listened for a moment, then did it again. A different sound this time, ululating. Then a third one. Finally, satisfied, he lowered his hands and just listened for a moment.
“What in the human hells was that?” she asked. “Braxin war cry?”
“Unexplained noise,” he said. A faint smile that was either self-confidence or utter lunacy creased his lips. “Come on, time to move.”
“They’ll come here, they’ll find this site in no time, they’ll be on our trail. . . .”
“Of course they will,” he said evenly. “That was the point.”
She blinked. Utter lunacy. She was stranded with a madman.
“You coming, or you going to sit here and wait for them?”
Shaking her head, she got to her feet and followed him into the underbrush, along a trail he’d broken sometime during the night. They moved quickly, quietly, but she was sure it wasn’t quiet enough, not for life-forms raised in this environment.
The trail brought them to a stream, quick-running and deep. “This,” Tathas said, “is where it gets interesting.” He glanced behind him. “Not much time. I suggest we move quickly.”
She followed him into the icy water, flinching as it rose about her thighs. Followed him as he turned into the direction of the current and bade her to follow, slipping and sliding along the rocky bottom. They moved quickly, but not without effort, and when they stopped at last some distance upstream to catch their breaths it was a good minute before she could speak.
“That was a Braxin war cry, wasn’t it?”
The green eyes met hers. Something that was not quite a smile flitted across his face.
“Far to go still,” he said quietly. “Let’s get moving.”
The howl resounded across the mountains, over the valley, into the village. A horrific unnatural screech, that seemed to have demons laughing in its wake.
The warriors froze, their shalorri stiffening instinctively into combat-posture.
Another cry answered. Not from the same source. A weird, high-pitched cry that made Klath’s skin crawl.
“Those are the two,” the priest said. He didn’t sound very sure of himself.
Then came the third.
Silence reigned after that. The whole village straining for another strange cry from the throat of a fourth creature . . . but there were none.
“There are more than two,” someone muttered.
“Maybe,” said Yaltah. He was the one who was leading the warriors. “Who knows the way of demons?”
“An army perhaps,” another muttered.
Both his eyes turned toward the speaker, narrowing to slits as their hoods darkened ominously. “You are afraid? Stay home with the younglings.”
“I’m not afraid!” a youngling cried. “I’ll go fight the demons!”
A female reached past Klath to cuff the child into silence. It was a soft blow, affectionate, bespeaking her pride in the youngling’s spirit even as it admonished him. Klath felt an ache inside its soul, for the days when such affection might have been directed at it.
I would go if you would let me. Just to prove myself useful. Maybe I would even die in battle and then you would know I was worth something, even without a gender.
There were so many warriors he could hardly count them. Youths and fathers and grandfathers and even a few priests . . . all had turned out for the hunt. The females would stay behind and pray with the younglings, offering birds to the gods while their mates and sons braved danger on behalf of the village.
No. On behalf of the world.
“We know where they are now,” a warrior offered, pointing in the direction of the strange cries. He was a young male who normally helped clean up after the sacred birds. “Their mistake, yes?”
“Or a trap,” a more seasoned elder cautioned.
“Their cries are to strike fear into our hearts,” a priest pronounced. “Therefore resist that fear, and the gods will protect you.”
Drums beat in the distance, resounding across the valley. Warriors were being sent to aid them from another village, the drums said, but would not arrive until nightfall.
“All right,” Yaltah said. “Trackers first. Let’s move out.”
He turned in Klath’s direction, and for one giddy moment Klath thought they were going to invite it to come along. After all, the istal had seen the demons, and no one else had. But he merely waved to someone past Klath and then turned back to his troops, barked a few rough orders, and led them into the fields, toward the distant woods.
Sick with envy, Klath watched them go.
“Something’s coming,” she whispered. “So sharp, so sharp, it hurts . . .”
“New direction? New intent?”
She was huddled on the ground, arms wrapped about her knees, shaking. “I don’t know. It’s . . . different. Not like what I’ve been getting up until now.” How could she describe it to him? The hostility of the locals had been painful, discordant, unnerving . . . but not like this. This was cold, precise, a sleek blade to their crude bludgeon. One single mind, she guessed, focusing on her with such intensity that she could taste it. “I don’t think it’s the locals, Tathas. It doesn’t feel like them.”
His eyes narrowed. “Another life-form?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” Tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes as she tried to concentrate.
“Hostile?”
Was it? No dark images accompanied this one, like it did with the other natives. No sense of intent at all. “I don’t know,” she whispered at last. “But it’s hunting us. I can feel it.”
“Then we’d best get moving,” he said quietly.
She nodded weakly and let him help her up to her feet. She could feel his Braxin essence thrumming just beneath his skin, restless and angry as always. Compared to what was assaulting her brain it was almost familiar, oddly comforting. She resisted the instinct to lean against him for a moment, to draw strength from his closeness. Not something you did with one of them . . . but gods, how tempting it was.
“Come on.”
I know where you are, she heard whispering in her brain. Voice without words, intent without identity. I will find you!
Shivering, she followed the Braxin back into the brush, and toward the village beyond.
“Ayyyyah!”
The triumphant cry of Yaltah shattered the midday air. Even before they could see what he was yelling about, his troops knew that something of importance had been discovered.
Quickly, anxiously, the column of warriors spilled into the clearing. It was wide enough to contain them all, and in the center of it was a mound of dirt surrounded by scuff-marks, which the trackers were studying.
“They were here,” one said. “Many hours.”
“Until dawn,” the other offered.
Down on all fours, they sniffed the ground. Wrinkled noses told what they thought of the demons’ smell. One of them huffed about the edges of the clearing and then snorted. “Piss,” he said.
“You sure?” Yaltah asked.
The other tracker came to the spot, sniffed it, and nodded. “Piss.”
Yaltah looked at the priest, who nodded his understanding. Bodily functions meant that the flesh the demons wore was real, not merely some kind of metaphysical shell that looked like flesh. Creatures that pissed had to eat and drink. They could be wounded. They could die.
“All right,” he said, gripping his spear tightly. “Let’s find them.”
There was a trail; the trackers had no trouble finding it. Whoever these demons were, they hadn’t taken the time to obscure their passage. Following them through the brush was painfully easy, not even as challenging as hunting. Animals had instincts, and knew how to walk without disturbing the earth. These demons appeared to have none.
After a short while the trail led to a stream, deep and swift-running. Yaltah ordered his trackers to search both sides, and soon they picked up the trail again on the far side of the water, almost directly across. A narrower trail this time, as if the demons were being more careful. Maybe at this point they had sensed someone was coming after them.
Fleeing. That was good. That meant they were afraid.
The brush gave way to open ground. The trail was harder to follow now, and sometimes they lost it along a rocky stretch, but it always picked up again.
Once more they smelled the creature’s odd urine.
Once, on the branches of a thorny bush, they found a few threads of fiber. The color and texture matched up with the story the istal had told, of how the demon was dressed. There was a small spot of red on one of the fragments. Blood? The priest said it was a sign from the gods.
And then they came to the end of the trail. The end of the part they could follow, anyway. Footsteps scuffed along a granite ridge led to the edge of a precipice. There was nothing beyond that, save a nearly sheer drop down to the valley floor below. Jagged granite spars and crevices stood out in sharp relief in the midday sun, promising a treacherous descent.
“Search,” Yaltah said quietly.
The trackers searched. There were no other trails, they reported. Nothing leading away from the granite flats, save the one trail which had brought them there.
One of them crouched down on all fours and gingerly, warily, leaned over the edge. He had to wait a few seconds until the breeze shifted, before he could pick up currents from the valley floor; when he did he breathed in deeply, his nasal flaps shivering wetly.
“Down there,” he confirmed. “I can smell them.”
His companion, following a more immediate scent, discovered other signs. A few drops of blood on the edge of a sharp outcropping. A shred of fabric torn and lost when something wearing fabric had let itself down over the edge.
So. They had gone down to the valley floor. Scaling the jagged rock face with care, hoping no one would follow them. Yaltah studied the land to both sides of the area with a practiced eye. There was an easier descent possible to the north, a long hike from where they were. Nothing better to the south.
You are crafty, Demons, but not crafty enough. You do not count upon our dedication to track you down and destroy you at any cost, or our understanding that if we do not, the very world we live in is at risk.
“We have ropes?” he asked quietly.
The one in charge of supplies huffed and nodded.
“Then we follow. Quickly.”
He looked out over the valley—ostensibly so peaceful, but now made a haven for fearful things—and added, “I want their heads by nightfall.”
WE KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, the alien voice screamed in Zara’s head. WE WILL FIND YOU.
The source of it was closer, now. She was sure of that. Even as the natives moved farther away, following the false trail Tathas had laid in the middle of the night, this other . . . thing . . . was closing in on them.
In the distance she could see the village. It was a small thing, housing maybe four dozen families at most. There were a handful of larger buildings, no doubt meant for public gatherings—perhaps ritual use of some kind—but the smaller living huts were indistinguishable from one another, with no signs of wealth, armament, or magical significance lending any one or another greater importance than their fellows.
“Tribal,” she whispered. “Rule by consensus, most likely. Religion probably nature-linked.”
“Shh.”
In the silence of the hot afternoon, hiding prone in a bed of high grass, beneath the white alien sun, they studied the village. A faint sound came and went with the breeze: alien voices chanting in unison, singsong, just loud enough to hear. It seemed to be coming from one of the larger huts.
“Remind me why we want to be here?” she whispered.
“Aside from the fact that it is the last place they will come looking for us . . . because I want to see what’s here.” He shifted position, parting a clump of seeded grass to get a better view of the largest hut. “If there are any relics or records of interstellar visitation, they will be here. Somewhere.”
Relics. That meant communications equipment. A means of getting off this planet, before all the hostile minds that were searching for them caught up to them. That sounded good.
A native shuffled in the doorway of one of the smaller huts, dragging one foot as though it had been injured. It was hard to see it in the shadows, but Zara thought its eye-hoods had been painted. She stored that tidbit along with all the other data she had observed as the creature disappeared again, fitting it into the cultural whole like a piece into a jigsaw puzzle. Gods willing she wouldn’t be on this planet long enough to finish the job.
WE ARE COMING FOR YOU!
Tathas was close enough to feel her flinch. The green eyes fixed on her with concern . . . both for her and for their mission. “Zara?”
“That same one. The new one. It’s so strong. Almost like words in my head.”
“You think it’s coming from the village?”
Startled, she considered that thought. She was so used to thinking of herself as being pursued, it hadn’t even occurred to her she might be heading toward the mysterious presence.
“I don’t know,” she said at last. Her whispered voice was shaking. “But it’s aware of us, and the others aren’t . . . that scares the hells out of me.”
He nodded grimly. “Humans have evolved psychic ability. There’s no reason to assume aliens can’t as well.” She could see the tension along the line of his jaw as he said it, could feel the rush of fear along his skin. Zara was one thing; he had gotten used to her. But alien psychics, with unknown powers, linked to a group that was already flooding the air with hostile intentions . . . that was bad even if you weren’t Braxin, and hadn’t been taught from childhood to fear all things psychic.
And he was, and had been.
Which meant that whatever confrontation they were heading toward, she might be the only one able to confront it.
He hasn’t failed you yet, she reminded herself.
Sleek, silent, he shouldered his way forward along the ground, randomizing his motion so that the grasses which parted for him seemed to be shifting in the wind, no more. She tried to do the same. Where his pale skin showed through his shirt there were now bands of sunburned flesh, crusted with the last remnants of protective mud he had applied to it hours ago. Where recent wounds crossed those bands they were livid red, bloody in appearance.
Whatever environment his ancestors had evolved in, she thought, it sure as all hells wasn’t tropical.
The chanting was clearer now, if that’s what it was: many voices in unison, a strange harmony of efforts. They steered clear of the hut it seemed to be coming from and made their way to one of the other communal buildings. If there was any sign of interstellar contact, Tathas whispered, it would probably be there, in a place where tribal possessions were stored.
She admired his courage, even if his optimism was downright insane.
The source of the strange voice inside her was close now, very close. More than once she whipped about suddenly, as if to surprise something that was creeping up behind her . . . but there was nothing there.
Yet.
They managed to get to the nearest communal building unseen. Outside of the one injured native in his hut, there seemed to be no one moving about. Tathas took in the hut’s decorative support poles, topped with bird-shaped finials and hung with talismans that probably had magical significance, and then slipped inside. She glanced about one last time to make sure no one was watching, then joined him.
WE ARE HERE, the voice proclaimed.
The inside of the hut was shadowy, cool. The walls were lined with animal skins painted in complex, mostly abstract designs. Her Mediator’s mind started automatically classifying them according to accepted categories: form, materials, possible purpose. Richly woven mats on the ground at one end implied an audience chamber of some kind, perhaps for a priest or seer. The building smelled of strange herbs and distant smoke, perhaps some narcotic mixture.
Tathas was studying the designs on the walls intently. “Anything useful?” she asked.
He shook his head; his expression was grim. “Nothing.” By the base of each support post was a sizable carving, mostly of birds; he crouched down and studied the talismans strung around their necks. “Blood sacrifice,” he said quietly, fingering a crusted brown blade that hung on a beaded cord.
But nothing Braxin. Nothing interstellar. Nothing of even moderate technological complexity, or any sign that such had existed, in their history or elsewhere. She could taste his frustration.
She was about to say something encouraging when a sound at the entrance of the hut made her whirl about. Tathas rose to his feet with a warrior’s fluid grace and had his knife in hand before she had finished the turn.
It was an alien.
The alien.
Zara had only seen it for a moment the last time, but she was sure it was the same one which had come to their camp. In this light it seemed to have more color to its skin, but the shape and proportion were the same, as well as the wary way its eyes came about, each one independently, to fix upon them with bifocal intensity.
There was a moment of silence. It seemed as if the entire world had ceased to move, as the three of them stared at one another.
Then it screamed.
It was a horrible piercing sound that made Tathas’ “war cries” seem like whispers by comparison. It rang through the hut and the village and the fields and mountains beyond, probably as far as the distant armies that were searching for them. Certainly as far as the next hut away, where the chanting suddenly ceased.
Oh, shit, she thought. This is not good.
Tathas was the first to move. With almost preternatural speed he launched himself across the hut toward the alien. For a moment she thought he was going to kill it, but then she saw that he hadn’t pulled his knife. Instead he had swept up one of the bird carvings, and with a jingle of talismans he swung it into the side of the alien’s head. The creature went limp almost immediately, his eyes drooping in opposite directions as he fell.
Tathas threw the bird aside, grabbed her by the arm, and ran.
They could hear others coming now, from whatever communal hut or hiding place they had been chanting in. There was no telling how many were in the village, but judging from the ruckus they were making it was not going to be good. Zara stumbled as he pulled her beside him, trying to match his pace; if not for his grip on her wrist she would surely have been left behind.
Then they saw them. A dozen of the aliens—no, more—all larger than the first one they had seen, with giant hoods of flesh about their shoulders and heads that added to their bulk twice over. Blood-red markings ran down their sides in streaks and across their faces, a fearsome display. Natural coloring, or the marks of some sacrifice? The Mediator in Zara struggled to make sense of it even as the frightened animal she had become gave all its strength to running.
They were larger than Zara, larger even than Tathas. Their limbs were longer. They were sure to be faster than the humans . . . and they were sure to be angry.
I told you this was a bad idea!
Across the cultivated fields they ran, vaulting over spiney fruit-bushes in a desperate attempt to reach the higher brush beyond. If they got that far there might be hope. Zara didn’t look back; she didn’t need to. Her mind could feel the presence of their pursuers, and gage their progress with oddly clinical precision. Two rows behind them were the leaders of the group, with slower members fanning out behind. Now one row behind. She could feel the sharp leaves scraping against alien flesh even as it scored her own legs in bloody stripes. Hands were reaching out to her, alien hands, meaning to rend her limb from limb in their rage that their sacred places had been invaded. She cried out and Tathas understood; he sprinted faster as the trees grew ever nearer, almost pulling her off her feet to force her to keep pace.
And then—
And then—
The world shook. The ground trembled. The heavens spun dizzily above them, and though Zara struggled to stay on her feet—though she knew that her very life depended upon staying on her feet—she fell.
I HAVE FOUND YOU.
Force-waves of numbing power pounded in her head. Not internal this time, but something being applied to her from the outside. With effort she managed to focus her vision enough to look about her . . . and saw a field strewn with fallen aliens. Their hoods were crumpled now, and they lay between the cultivated rows, twitching helplessly in the grips of that numbing power.
She looked over to Tathas. He seemed to be in the same shape she was, disoriented but conscious, and in much more control of himself than the natives. Once she was sure he was all right she looked up, struggling to focus upon whatever might be the source of the terrible assault.
And she saw it.
Her.
She saw herself.
The figure was tall, lean and dressed in tight black garments made out of some kind of leather. Her skin was paler than Zara’s own, but of the same Chandran hue. Her hair was cut short, in a crown of short spikes, but of the same color. Her features were as familiar to her as the image in a mirror.
—eyes staring at her, like and unlike her own—
Zara felt the world grow dizzy about her as the stranger came toward her. A strong hand closed about her shoulder.
“Sister.”
She looked up into that face. So familiar, yet so alien. She tried to speak, but whatever weapon had brought her down had robbed her of the capacity to make coherent sounds . . . or so it seemed.
“Come,” the twin said. Her accent was strange, a thing not of cities and empires but of open reaches and illegal spaces, where dialects mingled in their own unique patterns. “The effect will wear off them soon; I need to get you out of here.”
And in her brain she heard, as clear as day, and marked with wonder, I have found you at last.
She let the strange mirror-image draw her to her feet. She was dimly aware of other humans standing nearby, similarly dressed. ~It’s all right, one of them said. The words appeared in her brain as clearly and as precisely as spoken language. ~You’re with us now.
They started to move away, clearly meaning for her to follow . . . but they had not moved toward Tathas. She stopped where she was and tried to reach back to the Braxin, to help him to his feet so he could escape this place as well.
Hatred was a red-hot spike in her brain. A strong hand fell on her arm, preventing the motion. “No.”
“He’s with me,” she managed.
“No.”
She looked at the mirror-image (your sister, call her your sister!) and stared at her without comprehension.
“He’s Braxin.” The name was spat out, like some noxious venom. “Let him go.”
“He saved my life!”
“Then he wanted you for something. Do you think he’d care otherwise?”
She could see Tathas struggling to his feet on his own, defying the lingering power of the field stun. Not far away, the aliens were also struggling to recover.
“I don’t care why he did it.” She tried to make her voice as strong and as determined as she could, to match the other’s unspoken challenge. “And I don’t care what he is. I’m not leaving him here.”
A brief pause. Silence, but not silence. She could sense thoughts flitting back and forth between the newcomers like angry insects.
At last one said to her, ~You see what we are. He can’t come with us.
She answered in equal silence, not knowing if they would hear her words, That’s his choice to make. Not yours.
The first of the aliens rose to its feet. The flaps of skin on its back flexed, stretched, and began to take on solid mass once more.
“We have no time for this,” her sister growled. She turned to Tathas, a weapon in her hand.
Zara stiffened. “You kill him, sister, and you’ll have more trouble on your hands than one wounded Braxin, I promise you.” The weapon did not waver. “Don’t start us out this way, please.”
A finger flicked across the controls of the stun. One setting exchanged for another. “Very well,” she growled. “We’ll argue about this on the ship.” Zara could sense the hatred inside her, a veritable firestorm. The tenor of it reminded her of Tathas. “So sorry, Braxin, but I won’t have you disturbing the myths here.”
And she fired. The Braxin’s innate strength was evident for the one second in which he resisted the force of the blow; then the stun shut down his muscular responses and he fell to the ground in a heap. Two of the newcomers grabbed him up quickly, carelessly, like one might haul a bag of garbage, and one of them threw him over his shoulder. Zara bit back her instinct to argue with them about it; this was not the place or time. The aliens were on their feet now, though they were no longer moving forward. Gods alone knew how long their fear of the seemingly magical weapon would hold them at bay. They needed to get out of there.
“Come,” her sister said, in a tone that said this time there would be no delay. That was fine with Zara. Glancing back one last time to make sure the aliens were still motionless—and they were, as if the weapon had stunned them too—she matched the quick gait of her rescuers, following them into the shadows of the forest, and toward whatever vehicle had brought them here . . . and safety.
Tales are told of the night the star fell, the night the demons came to earth. They are told in the female song-tongue, for it was the females who saw the final battle, when the slaves of the demons rose up against their masters and struck the Pale One down. It was the females who whispered prayers as the slaves withdrew, carrying the demon’s body away in triumph. It is they who sing the tales today.
Tales are told of the istal Klath, who braved the demon’s wrath to protect the sacred relics of the tribe, and for that was granted the one thing it desired most. Brave it was then, the istal Klath, whose voice gave warning of the coming of demons. Brave he is now, the warrior Klath, who leads bands of males in patrols along the ridges. For when the demons come again—as they surely will—he and his comrades will be ready.
Thus they have sworn to the gods, who watch over all things.
Thus it shall be.
Deception is not merely a tool to a Kaim’era. It is an art form.
Understand that, and you will have taken your first step toward understanding our government.
—Zatar the Magnificent
