Artemis Invaded

Bruin did not seem unduly worried about Adara’s absence. “She said she was going to firmly establish contact with Artemis before coming back into this dead zone. Otherwise, her efforts might be for nothing. If she’s gone seven or eight days without sending a message, then I’ll go looking for her. Meanwhile, I’ll mind your camp on one condition. You all need to come out at least once a day and help with some of the chores. I’m an old man and Kipper is just a boy.”

Griffin didn’t need to see the twinkle in the old bear’s eyes to know that Bruin was perfectly capable of taking care of everything to do with feeding them and caring for their mounts and camp, even without Kipper’s aid. He knew a price was being exacted for the hunter’s services and did his best not to resent it. As he carried a dirty pot down to the stream, Griffin realized how easily he had slipped back into the privileged mindset in which he had been reared. During his travels with Adara and Terrell, he’d taken pride in doing his best to contribute, even if that meant doing nothing more sophisticated than grooming the horses (Sam the Mule would only accept Terrell) or turning the spit over the fire.

Is it because I’m almost back in my element, back where the skills I spent a lifetime acquiring are actually useful? Something similar happened when we first moved into the Old One’s Sanctum. Last time it took a puma insisting I play marbles to shake me out of it. Now I get gently slapped by an old bear.

He felt distinctly unsettled, as if there was something he was missing. Unable to pinpoint it, he resisted the pull of his researches and turned to Kipper.

“Want me to show you a marble game from my home world? We played it a lot on the road. Maybe we can start playing again for a bit in the evenings, as a break.”

Kipper’s face brightened, and Griffin didn’t miss Terrell’s expression of pleasure as the factotum turned to find his own bag of marbles.

Good, he thought, starting to draw circles in the soft dirt of their camp. Time enough for research later. Surely, there will be time enough.

As if in reward for his balancing work and play, over the next several days, Griffin found additional information that helped refine his ideas about what the researchers in Leto’s facility had been working toward.

“Power,” he said to Terrell, “was a definite limiting factor, one the Old Imperials were working hard to get around. They had some amazing fuel cells, but the problem was that the elements they used to generate power had some nasty side effects.”

Terrell nodded. “I remember you telling me about that—cold heat that burns far more deeply and dangerously than fire. If you hadn’t reassured me that Leto’s complex was certainly sealed against such damage, I don’t think even my friendship with you could have gotten me back in here.”

Griffin nodded. He felt fairly certain that Leto’s complex was safe. He’d been to a lot of Old Empire ruins; there trace radiation was always due to the weapons used. The Imperials had apparently safeguarded their domestic power sources—some specialists speculated that they had been engineered to deactivate if breached.

“My respect for their technology blinded me to the serious challenges in making miniature high-powered fuel cells,” Griffin admitted. “I’ve shown you how the battle armor contained its own power unit or units. The more powerful the weapons, the larger the power unit. However, the larger the unit, the more radiation it generated, so that, in turn, the amount of shielding also increased.”

Terrell nodded. “Basically, there seems to be a point after which adding further refinements to a suit—whether flight capacity or weapons or some other function—wasn’t worth trying because power demands made the suit too cumbersome.”

“Precisely. Hold on to that thought for a moment. I need to go off on a tangent, but I promise you, it will make sense in the end.”

Griffin made a rude gesture Terrell had taught him. “Remember when we talked about how long-distance space travel is accomplished by use of machines that fold space? And how the Old Imperials had some sort of technology that enabled their pilots to further refine that folding process?”

“I’ve been looking at ship plans in one of Leto’s data banks. It took me a while to figure out the schematics because the designers were allowing for factors alien to those we use. Eventually, I realized that one series of emblems indicated a form of shielding similar but different from that used to block radiation. Earlier today, I was staring at the plans and … Have you ever had your brain shift on you, so that suddenly you see a problem differently?”

“Well, that’s what happened to me. I realized that this particular shielding always separated the piloting area and various related sensor arrays from the rest of the ship. I’m guessing—and only guessing—that the mind pilots needed to be free from interference by other minds if they were to be able to find their way through space.”

“And the shielding,” Terrell said, “let them do their job in a ship that carried passengers.”

“Exactly!” Griffin agreed. “Now for the next part … A spaceship needs a great deal of power, but the elements the seegnur used to generate energy are dangerous to the human body. In ship designs, the engines were always placed so that the radiation would not penetrate the ship—common sense. If mind pilots also required separate areas, ships carrying large numbers of people would need to be enormous. Well and good. Useful. Efficient. But not very stealthy.”

“Which wouldn’t matter,” Terrell said taking up the thread, “if you were sending the equivalent of a cargo ship or even a passenger vessel—but it would matter a great deal if you were bringing in an army and didn’t want your enemies to know.”

“I’ve been doing nothing for days upon days but draw the various models of the armored suits we’ve found here,” Terrell said, too interested to pay any attention to Griffin’s annoyance.

Griffin let excitement wash over him again. “What would they need so much more power for? I think they were designing armored suits with enough power to enable individual soldiers to move between planets, maybe even between systems. That’s the difference between the armored suits they already had and what Leto calls ‘spaveks.’”

“That would be a huge advantage,” Terrell said, “especially given how much damage one of those armored suits can cause.”

Griffin nodded. “I feel certain that large troop carriers would have been detected. Even today, most planets are ringed with satellites meant to track approaching traffic. “

“But why spaveks?” Terrell asked. “Why not just make small ships? Even a small ship would permit the power cells to be placed some distance from the pilots. Then they wouldn’t need to wear such a massive amount of power on their backs.”

“I think the designers explored that option,” Griffin said, “based on some of the material I’ve found in the data banks. There certainly were advantages, but even a small ship is bulky compared to a suit. Bulk means mass—and when in a gravity well—weight.”

He paused, wondering if he should make sure Terrell remembered what a gravity well was, but Terrell waved him on. “I’m following you … Go on.”

“Anyhow, both additional mass and additional weight would mean that additional power would be needed to move them.”

“So,” Terrell said, “that puts us back to that first problem—the more power you need, the more potent the fuel cell. The more potent the fuel cell, the more radiation needs to be shielded. The more shielding, the more bulk.”

“Right! So, I think that one of the projects—maybe the main project—being researched here on Artemis was coming up with an armored suit that would enable a mind pilot to jump right inside the enemy’s defenses. Most defenses would have been designed with battle cruisers in mind. Something as small as an armored human could slip in as easily as minnows through a mesh meant to catch whales.”

Terrell nodded. “I agree. Another advantage of more efficient fuel cells would be that any weapons built into the suits would be tremendously more powerful.”

“I see where you’re coming from,” Griffin said. “Once the transition was complete, the power demands for movement would be comparatively minimal. That would free up energy for weapons. The suits would be able to move faster, too. This is fascinating!”

Terrell gave him a funny look. “You may find it fascinating. I find it frightening. I hope they were stuck on the fuel cell problem and hadn’t started refining weapons and whatever they used for flight.”

“Because,” he said slowly, “while we don’t understand what the mind pilots did that refined the ability to fold space, we do understand—all too well—both how to use weapons, and how to fly both space and atmospheric craft. Those new technologies could be put into use as soon as they could be manufactured.”

“And from what you have said,” Terrell added, “the example of how the seegnur destroyed themselves and much of what they had achieved has done nothing to keep the surviving fragments of their empire from pursuing war.”

“All too true,” Griffin agreed. He forced a smile. “Aren’t you glad I haven’t sent a message to my family? Months, probably years, will pass before anyone comes after me. First they need to miss me, then they need to figure out where I went—something that won’t be easy, since I very carefully hid all my research notes. After that, they’d need to get here and locate me—or at least the significant areas on the planet. As I told you, from orbit, even your biggest cities are hard to find.”

Terrell nodded. “Still, even with the danger involved, I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’ll give this up as a bad job? Maybe there was a good reason Maiden’s Tear was prohibited.”

Griffin understood the sense of what Terrell said, but he couldn’t believe there really was any risk involved. It was likely the researchers had still been working on the fuel cell problem. The other armored suits—the ones worn by Leto’s defenders and those worn by her attackers—were in very bad shape. Reconstructing their weaponry wouldn’t be at all easy.

“I’d like to keep looking,” he said, knowing he was taking advantage of Terrell’s training, “for a bit longer. This place is a dream come true.”

From the look on Terrell’s face, Griffin knew that the factotum thought that Leto’s complex and all it represented was a horrible and pervasive nightmare.

In the days that followed, Julyan had little time alone with the Old One—or Maxwell, as he must be careful to call him now. Seamus had been retrieved, represented to the Dane brothers as Julyan’s idiot cousin, and pretty much left on his own as long as he stayed near the base camp. Occasionally, the Old One would send messages to Julyan through Seamus, but these were simple, more to establish a protocol for private communication than holding any significant content.

Work was under way to clear the underwater passage between Mender’s Isle and the Sanctum—work complicated because the subterranean complex on Mender’s Isle was still mostly underwater and had to be drained first

“We have an advantage Griffin did not,” Siegfried said one evening. “He told you that he carried with him packets of nanobots that would hopefully reverse the damage done five hundred years ago.”

“That’s right,” the Old One replied. “However, he said that these had been buried with his shuttle. We both thought that in time some of these would leak into the planet’s system and slowly reactivate dormant technology, but that the process might take years.”

“Little,” growled Falkner, who had spent a good portion of the day rebuilding a pump because some key mechanism had refused to function.

“Little,” corrected Siegfried with a sigh, “difficulty using the equipment we brought with us. True, we did our best to seal our gear from contamination, but we also brought with us our own antivirus. We’ve run a few tests and feel confident that in a far shorter time than you imagine, it may be possible to reactivate some of the equipment on the mainland.”

“There’s a considerable amount of water there,” the Old One said, “more than was here. Will your pumps be able to handle that?”

Falkner shrugged. “I think so. I don’t want to promise until I see the place myself, but surely the original construction contained some sort of drains. My guess is that these were closed when the place was sealed. Since you didn’t know to look for them, you didn’t open them. Once we get them working for us, the pumps will be able to do the rest.”

Julyan didn’t think the Old One was particularly pleased by this casual dismissal of his competence, a feeling that was confirmed when a look of fear flashed across Seamus’s face, but he doubted the Dane brothers suspected anything. Although in many ways they seemed more sophisticated than Griffin, they were less sensitive to the responses of others, more unconsciously arrogant.

Perhaps Griffin would have been the same if he hadn’t crashed his shuttle and needed help, Julyan thought. These men have arrived with their abilities unhampered. We are convenient to them, but not necessary.

At that moment, Alexander, the youngest of the three brothers, pushed a restless hand through his bronze curls and turned to the Old One.

“Would you mind if I borrowed Julyan for a few hours? I’m weary of ship’s supplies. Perhaps we could catch some fresh fish or gather some berries or something.”

The Old One bowed, hands pressed against his thighs in the traditional fashion. “I would be happy to have him accompany you, seegnur. Julyan is a trained hunter and I’m sure he feels quite caged in these close quarters.”

“Wonderful!” Alexander tapped a small unit he wore on his left wrist. “Call me if you need me, brothers.”

Once they had left the subterranean complex, Julyan led the way to a cove that faced away from the town of Spirit Bay. Automatically, he scanned the waters outside of the artificial reef that protected the islands from any ships. As he expected, there were none, for the main channel used by vessels going into Spirit Bay was on the opposite side of the Haunted Islands. The cove itself was well sheltered from casual observation, one of the reasons Julyan had favored it.

“Lovely,” Alexander said when they arrived. “A perfect summer picnic spot. I suppose the fishing is good?”

“Usually is,” Julyan said, putting down his pack and removing hooks and lines. Next, he cut and trimmed slender saplings to use as rods. Alexander let him do all the work, but Julyan didn’t mind. He liked showing off his competence, something he had been given far too little opportunity to do of late.

Alexander waited until Julyan had put his knife away and was attaching the line to the rod before rising from the grassy knoll upon which he had been lounging. “You are very competent, Julyan Hunter. I hope when we need to recruit other assistants they will be as good.”

Julyan paused in the act of baiting his hook. “Other assistants? Won’t your machines and devices serve better than humans?”

“For many things,” Alexander agreed. “However, for some things only living beings will do.”

He accepted the rod Julyan handed to him, then said, his voice so deliberately casual that Julyan felt alarmed, “Before we do our recruiting, I need to test my own research. Siegfried and Falkner have their doubts, but I think…”

The next phrase Alexander spoke meant nothing and yet everything to Julyan. It wasn’t very long, perhaps seven clipped syllables, but the effect was instantaneous. Julyan felt as if a new sense had awoken in him, simultaneously making him more alert and yet curiously without volition.

“Of course,” Julyan said. He continued preparing his fishing line, but knew without a doubt that if Alexander told him to stop, he would without question or pause. “Does the seegnur still care to fish?”

“You may do so, but listen carefully to me. I have a few instructions. The first is that you may not tell anyone at all in any form or fashion, whether in words or sounds or writing or even through the actions of your body, what has passed and will pass between us this day. We came here. We fished. That is all. Do you understand?”

Julyan pushed off the bank into the water, fishing rod still in his hand. He began to sink, wondered if it was permissible to swim. While he was so wondering, he felt a strong hand grasp his hair—he had worn it in a braid that day—and pull his head above the water.

“Swim!” Alexander commanded. “Let go of the fishing rod and swim. I forbid you to drown.”

Julyan did as he was told, though he felt a trace of regret for his lost fishing gear. He could have successfully kept from drowning without dropping it. Unaware of Julyan’s dismay, Alexander was laughing in wild delight.

“Get out of the water,” he said. “Strip off those wet clothes. It would not do for you to catch cold.”

Julyan stripped, meticulously removing every item of clothing. Since Alexander did not command him to do otherwise, he carefully placed the wet items on a large rock in the sunlight, where they would have a chance to dry. Then he rose, uncertain if he should return to fishing. Perhaps he should ask permission to retrieve his rod.

He was still laughing. Julyan thought he should feel happy that the seegnur was so pleased but, in truth, his skin crawled. He’d always liked Alexander best of the three Dane brothers. Siegfried was too much like the Old One. Falkner seemed to care more for his machines than for any person. Alexander had been the one who was easy to talk with, the least likely to condescend.

“I’ve found it!” Alexander exulted. “Julyan, does your lore contain hints that the seegnur could control the people of Artemis if they wished?”

Julyan considered. “Less the lore than some tales within the lore. It is implied, rather than stated.”

“My family,” Alexander said, “has reason to believe that biologically we are the heirs to your seegnur. My mother has gone out of her way to assure this lineage remains pure and strong, as have others before her. You should be pleased. Your response to the phrase I spoke confirms our belief.”

Julyan was pleased for Alexander. At the same time, he was fully aware of how uncomfortable he was standing wet and naked. Even though the summer air was warm, he did not particularly like how he felt. He wanted to dry off before the brackish bay water stiffened on his skin. He felt oddly vulnerable, something he did not care for one bit. However, he had been specifically told to await Alexander’s pleasure, so wait he must.

“Not all the seegnur knew this trick,” Alexander explained. “It would have taken too much fun out of the game, you see. However, with so few seegnur and so many Artemesians, protective measures were necessary. I’m sure you understand.”

He walked a slow circle around Julyan, then extended one hand and gently ran the tips of his nails over the skin of Julyan’s right flank, extending up and over his rib cage.

Alexander smiled a slow, cruel smile. “How you feel doesn’t matter one bit to me, just as I suspect the feelings of others haven’t mattered much to you. How do you feel about that?”

Honesty forced its way from Julyan’s lips, although he fought to say anything else or at least keep silent. “I am frightened.”

“Good.” Alexander faced Julyan, then ran both hands over Julyan’s torso, down his flanks, then up again and across the front of his body, caressing in a manner lewd and lingering. “I like that you’re afraid. Now, do as I say. Await my pleasure.”

Adara was learning that being a world was a whole lot more complicated than she’d imagined. When she’d first realized what the strange entity invading both her dreams and her communication with Sand Shadow had to be—a gut-level revelation, rather than something coolly understood—Adara had thought of Artemis as the brain, the world her body, the whole basically an oversize variation of life as she knew it.

However, as Adara was learning, for Artemis brain and body were much more intertwined. Artemis had not simply been shut down, she had been both lobotomized and crippled. When Griffin’s crash had released into the planetary ecosystem a countermeasure to the destructive nanobots, Artemis had slowly begun to awaken to self-awareness once more. Then, upon awakening, the planet had immediately found herself battling for control of herself.

“You think your attacker was something left behind from the slaughter of the seegnur and death of machines?” Adara asked.

“Unknown, unknowable. That which was not even yet I had not the eyes to see, ears to hear, self to know. Barely born, immersed in battle, I found this self I am in the process of preservation.”

“Maybe Griffin can explain what happened,” Adara suggested, speaking aloud as had become her habit if no one else was around.

The huntress immediately sensed that Artemis was uneasy. Artemis was still incomplete. Adara could understand why, having been attacked twice in recent memory—for to Artemis, events of five hundred years ago seemed to have happened only a few months before—the planetary intelligence felt unwilling to let anyone know how vulnerable she remained.

“I won’t ask directly,” Adara assured her. “Griffin’s always eager to talk about his discoveries regarding the seegnur’s technology. I’ll ask as if I’m wondering about what we could do if something tried to take Leto over.”

The emotions coming from Artemis became more complex. Uncertainty remained, mingled with other elements. Artemis didn’t like Leto, yet, at the same time, she felt highly protective of her, even possessive.

“I’ll be careful,” Adara promised. “But if you’ve been attacked once, next time you might not be so lucky. It’s possible that whatever attacked you was as weak as you were yourself. As you grow stronger, so might it.”

Adara wished the planetary intelligence would go back to talking, but often these days, Artemis resisted words as a very imprecise form of communication. Even though frustrated, Adara understood. How often had she struggled to find the words to communicate a complicated emotional state—such as her own feelings about Terrell or about Griffin? Nonetheless, Adara often found Artemis’s idea/emotion combinations difficult to sort out.

The problem was a variation of what Adara had dealt with when learning to communicate with Sand Shadow. Especially when a kitten, the puma had seen every object as unique. Each tree was its own thing. There was no general class of objects called “tree.” Each animal, again, a unique entity. Only with experience had the puma learned group classifications.

Artemis had her own ideas as to how they could solve the communication problem. Her own neural network was anchored in a wide variety of mycelia—not only in the more visible mushrooms and fungi, but in tiny spores and invisible living threads. She wanted Adara and Sand Shadow to accept some of her spores into themselves. Both human and puma, accustomed as they were to thinking of fungi as agents of decay and deterioration, had balked.

In time, Adara thought uneasily, Artemis will surely come around. She’s still reacting to her realization of how very incomplete her perceptions are. Even when she’s “with” me and Sand Shadow, she’s in hundreds, even thousands, of places, strengthening and expanding her net.

Over the last several days, Adara had learned just how incomplete that net was. When Artemis had discovered the gigantic hole that was Leto, Adara had believed that Artemis’s linked strands of perception were much more extensive than they actually were. She had imagined a tightly woven net, girdling the globe. That was how Artemis had been designed to be. That awareness of her essential design had colored Artemis’s earlier explanations.

In reality, the net’s mesh was wide and loose. When Artemis communicated within herself, it was—as best Adara could comprehend—as if she stood upon various strands and called to herself. Those calls provided temporary connections but, when Artemis let them drop, the gap returned. What made Leto so disturbing was that her area was a gap too wide for Artemis to call across.

I wonder, Adara thought, if in the days of the seegnur, Artemis had more strands, perhaps reaching up into the skies. Then she would have called across Leto without even realizing Leto was not there. I wonder if Artemis is even more uneasy because she wonders what other gaps there might be and if she’ll learn about them before they become a danger to her?

Yes. Being a world was far more difficult than Adara had ever imagined. Nonetheless, she was drawn into the experience, knotted tightly to Artemis—she and Sand Shadow both. The question was, would they expand as the net grew or would they tangle in the meshes and drown?

Some days after Adara and Sand Shadow departed for who knew where, Griffin arrived in Leto’s complex to find the resident intelligence very agitated and Ring behaving oddly indeed.

The big man had opened one of the enormous bunkers in which various spaveks hung inert in their “squires”—complex racks that not only contained a variety of diagnostic machinery, but also would have helped a wearer to put on the complex machines.

“He arrived here shortly after dawn,” Leto said, her voice that of a petulant little girl. “I warned him off, but he opened the bunker and has been going up and down, examining the spaveks and muttering nonsense to himself. Had he actually touched a suit, I would have taken prohibitive action, but since you have let him come into the complex, I felt I must forebear.”

In truth, Griffin had no desire to bother Ring, for he had no doubt of the man’s good intentions. Ring had proven repeatedly that his motivations were too complex to be easily grasped. Therefore, if Ring wanted to stare at the prototypes, then Griffin was inclined to let him do so.

To Griffin’s relief, Ring slowly turned to face him, eliminating the need for open confrontation. This time, he did not cover his eyes as he so often did, but forced his slightly unfocused gaze to meet Griffin’s own.

“They are here,” he said with a gusty sigh. “This one…” He pointed to a suit tinted a dark, primary blue. “This one. It will, may, could, help. If I clean it, can you make it live?”

For Ring, this was as direct as communication ever became. Ignoring Leto’s sputtering, Griffin went to inspect the suit Ring had indicated. It seemed more complete than many, although several leg and arm pieces were missing. He was inspecting it, working out its probable capacities, when Terrell shambled in, rubbing his beard stubble and looking bemused. He’d stayed back in camp, probably to talk to Bruin about Adara, while he packed something for their lunch.

“Ring asked me to inspect this spavek,” Griffin said. “He wanted to know if I could ‘make it live.’”

Terrell came to take a closer look. “I’d say you’d have a better chance with this one than with many others. When I was drawing it, I noticed some indications it had been in use. Look, here … and here…”

He hunkered down and pointed to a place where the blue coating showed darker, another where the material that made up a knee covering was scuffed. “My guess is that they’d tested this one, maybe even in a firefight.” Terrell had learned the term from Griffin and, once he realized it had to do with fighting with fire, rather than fighting fire, he had seized on it. “This isn’t one of the larger combat units, but it has energy weapons.”

He pointed. “If you look by the knee, you’ll see that there was some sort of fluid leak. My guess is that the joint was damaged by ‘fire’ and then repaired, but they didn’t bother to clean it up all the way because they were going to test it again.”

“And never had a chance,” Griffin said softly. “I wonder if we can activate it?”

Griffin listened to Leto’s sputtering, which was full of terms like “restricted,” “off-limits,” “unauthorized,” and “prohibited.”

He sighed. “It may come to that, but I’d like to see what we can figure out on our own. Maybe it’s as simple as making sure the power unit is connected. From what I’ve been able to tell, protocol here was to disconnect the power from any prototype not actually being worked on to eliminate the chance of accidents.”

Terrell rose. “What good would making it ‘live’ do? None of us know how to sail—no, pilot—one of these. If there’s one thing I learned from Helena the Equestrian, it’s know your animal before you swing astride.”

“I’ve piloted a wide variety of craft,” Griffin objected. “I’ve even worn power armor a time or two. I could handle it.”

Terrell slowly shook his head. “You can ride Molly, too, pretty well by now. I’d chance you on Midnight or Tarnish in an emergency, but Sam would have you off and trampled.”

Terrell kept shaking his head. “Not a machine as you know them. You’re the one who told me that the seegnur’s machines were meant to mesh with the minds of their pilots. How do you know that this suit wouldn’t decide you’re not the rider for it and throw you—or worse? What if it burns out your brain because you’re unauthorized?”

Griffin was about to protest further when Ring’s deep voice spoke with that curious lack of inflection that somehow managed to hold the attention more than any amount of argument.

“Not Griffin. Me. It will let me ride it. First, though, we must make it live.”

Julyan rapidly learned that the hitch in Alexander’s gallop wasn’t sex, as such, but control. He used sex—or rather the threat of sex—to control Julyan. If Julyan was obedient, Alexander kept his hands to himself. If Julyan was not obedient—even when the control words were not in use—then Julyan found himself doing things he wouldn’t have done to any of his “mares.” Worse, Alexander told him to enjoy it and so he did. The memory of that enjoyment haunted him, waking and sleeping.

After a time or two in which Alexander proved to Julyan that those seven simple syllables would permit him to make Julyan do anything he desired, Alexander preferred the threat to the act. He still acted, just often enough and erratically enough so that Julyan lived in a constant state of tension whenever he was alone with the man but, as time went on, Alexander preferred to exercise his power in other ways.

One of these was making Julyan his unwilling confidant. Julyan quickly gathered that while Alexander was in accord with his brothers on many things, he had his own agenda—and that he deeply and sincerely hated Griffin.

“Maxwell doesn’t seem to wonder how we arrived here so quickly,” Alexander gloated. “Or how we found the region Griffin had gone to with a whole world to choose from. Do you?”

He and Julyan were alone in the commander’s quarters on what had been the residential side of the Sanctum. This area, it turned out, had been closed and sealed when the Old One had released his flood, and so could be explored as soon as the central area was drained. Unhappily, for Julyan, rows of dormitory rooms and the like held little interest for the two more warlike Dane brothers. Exploration had been turned over to Alexander, who was, ostensibly, trying to find out if the commander’s data storage units could be accessed.

“You told us that Griffin had not hidden his trail as well as he thought,” Julyan said obediently.

“Ah … He didn’t, but not as we implied. Griffin actually did an excellent job hiding his trail. We took precautions so we could track him.”

“Falkner and Gaius tampered with Griffin’s shuttle. First, it was to set beacons that would show us the direction in which Griffin went. Since the shuttle was mounted on the outside of the main vessel, that was no problem at all. When Griffin reached Artemis, a final beacon was dropped that would activate the others so we’d know it was time to follow. The signal took a while to backtrack but, even so, I think we were very clever.”

“Yes. Waiting to send the signal would keep Griffin from detecting the beacons.”

“Smart boy. We didn’t stop there. When the shuttle penetrated atmosphere, we set a device to release some nanobots that would, at the very least, enable our own machines to work without being shut down. Obviously, this worked to some extent, although not quickly enough to keep Griffin’s shuttle from crashing. If we were lucky and guessed right on the composition of the original attack virus, our counter-virus would reactivate Artemis’s own equipment.”

“We also arranged for a small beacon to be planted beneath Griffin’s skin, so we could track him. After all, a planet is a big place. Did Griffin tell you about the spider?”

“I see he didn’t. He always was an untruthful boy. I couldn’t see why we would need Griffin once we were here. Oh, it’s true that our sister, Jada, had done some useful work with him—making sure that once Griffin arrived on Artemis he would obsessively pursue any leads to the Old Imperial technology. Jada’s job wasn’t that hard, since Griffin would probably have done that anyway. Still, I’m as good a historian as Griffin—better, when it comes to military matters. That’s all the others care about. It wasn’t as if we needed his skills as an archeologist. So I took action.”

Julyan knew when he was being prompted to ask a question. “May I ask what you did?”

“I mounted a warbot on the undercarriage of Griffin’s shuttle. It looked like a fanciful spider. I told the spider to seek Griffin out and kill him. Honestly, if there’s one reason I want to catch up with Griffin, it’s so I can ask him how he managed to avoid being killed. I’ve scanned and the spider has definitely been destroyed.”

Alexander stared at the blank wall behind the commander’s desk. “Yes. Most definitely I want to find out how Griffin managed to avoid being killed—and make certain he doesn’t avoid it again. You’ll help me there, won’t you, Julyan?”

“Yes, Alexander.” For once, Julyan didn’t need to pretend. “Helping you kill Griffin would be a pleasure.”

Lobotomized,

Crippled,

Born in battle,

Still incomplete,

But me.

I would weave them into my web.

Give them what they have given me.

Why do they flee?

Why do they press me to awaken,

But insist on sleeping themselves?