Starfire Saga, page 87
My gaze flew to the MI Liaison, and she looked at me squarely. “The MIs have warned us that you and Jemeret Cavanaugh are in great danger, and that it is completely unlikely anyone will be able to help you avoid it.”
I felt a shiver run down my spine, freezing nerves already chilled from exhaustion. “How can they know a thing like that unless they intend to have a hand in it?” I asked tightly.
“I asked them where they got their data from,” Jara Deland said readily enough, “and I’m afraid I didn’t understand their answer. When I asked them to enlarge on it, they didn’t respond.”
“What was their answer?” I was surprised at how calm my voice sounded, and when Jara Deland hesitated, I repeated it in the same even voice.
At last Jara Deland said, “They said they had received some answers to their questions.”
I was electrified, and, almost unconsciously, my hand strayed to the thigh pouch of my jumpsuit, where the brow-crown lay hidden. The MI message that was so obscure to Jara Deland was entirely clear to me. Somehow, for whatever reason, the starfire had contacted the MIs, and we already knew that the starfire had ways of perceiving imminent peril. “Was there any kind of guidance about how we might avoid the danger?”
Pel Nostro said suddenly, “If you die, Ronica, I will resign my post as Com Counselor.”
The statement seemed completely illogical. “I don’t understand,” I said.
Jara Deland toyed with the stem of the wineglass in front of her. “The MIs will have no part in trying to save you, Ronica. They say they will not bring you harm, but they will not help. They say that you’ll understand.”
And in fact I did. The MIs had put together as much as they could and built a model on it—whether it was watching us, hearing scraps of conversation, analyzing the amount of time we’d spent bubbled, or knowing that Jemeret had been highly critical of them even before they’d killed the Macerates. Then the starfire, for reasons I had no way of guessing, told them we were in danger. Their model showed them that they were in danger as well, and from us. So they warned us that we had to be wary, and then they honestly admitted we were on our own.
I suppose it was reasonable to the MIs; I certainly grasped the logic of it. They had reached a compromise with whatever electronic ideals were built into them. They had spoken with Jara Deland rather than directly with me. Their very warning showed me that they would take no direct action against us, certainly for now. In many ways, that was not a human choice. The MIs could be quite different from the people who had created them. Human beings might not have warned us if they thought we were a danger to them. The MIs were telling me, through their normal intermediary, that they would not act against us on their own behalf as they had acted against the Macerates, ostensibly on talent’s behalf. Once again I was confronting the maxim that sentience was not sameness.
Pel Nostro and his wife were watching me closely.
I smiled at them. “They’re right, I do understand. After all, it isn’t like they rushed to my aid in the past.”
Jara Deland turned her face away.
I looked at the Com Counselor. “Pel, no matter what happens, you mustn’t resign. No one person has as much experience in running the government as you do, and whether we succeed in escaping the danger or we fail, the government won’t be the same.”
His expression demanded further explanation as he said, “The Com needs talent to function.”
“The Com has its own talent—we proved that with M’Cherys. The MIs know it. Mortel John knows it. You and Anok and Petra and Marga and Faucon will need to find ways of identifying and training it.” I rolled another seed cluster between my fingers. “You’ll have to learn what it takes for talent—most talent—to develop fully and healthily.”
“I would feel honor-bound to resign,” Pel Nostro insisted, but not particularly strongly, a politician’s insistence, paying lip service to honor while resting on expediency. “You are a government servant, and we have a duty to protect you.”
“Only so that you can use me,” I argued, “and I’m afraid I won’t be that useful to you any longer no matter what happens.”
Pel Nostro exchanged one long, meaningful look with Jara Deland, then rose and went to the comsole, which in this room was built into the wall. He keyed in a code, and a readout printed immediately. He came back to the table carrying it. “In that case,” he said, “I have prepared this for you, on my own authority. The Tribunal is not aware of it, but I believe they will make no effort to contravene it.” He folded the sheet in half.
“What is it?” I asked him.
The Com Counselor held the document out to me. “If we cannot protect you,” he said, “I see no way we can honorably hold you to your oath. I’ve taken the liberty of releasing you from it.”
I took the flimsy, wordlessly studied it, and almost laughed. Pel Nostro was the perfect political animal. Confronted by a situation in which he had no control, he arranged things so he would be absolved of the responsibility for having control. And yet, by giving me my release, he was making my ultimate choice much easier, since the Tribunal would have no legal ground to stand on if I wanted to leave. Provided, I added dryly to myself, I lived to make that choice.
“I assume this is registered?” I looked at him, admiring his skill in areas in which I had little competence and for which I had less patience.
“As of an hour ago,” he said. “You have no intention of challenging it, I gather.” The words had a faint note of inquiry attached to them.
“None,” I assured him, adding, “so you don’t have to worry about it coming back to haunt you.” I folded the readout and slid it into a pocket. “And I meant it when I said you shouldn’t resign if something happens to me. It’d be a grand gesture, but I don’t think the Tribunal would accept it anyway.”
What little appetite I might have had when I walked into their suite was largely gone, and I was very tired. I drank some more coffee and consumed two of the rolls out of politeness and to acknowledge their likely enormous expense, then excused myself, signaling to Keli. We escaped without having to listen to too many warnings to be careful.
As I learned immediately, however, there would have been no such thing as too many warnings.
We walked back into the courtyard of the precincts. It seemed unusually quiet, even though it was long enough past dawn for people to have been up and bustling around. I noticed the calm offhandedly, thinking I was tired and would welcome a chance to deep; thinking Jemeret would arrive, probably after nightfall the next day, and that I would have a lot of explaining to do; thinking it would be good to see Andriel again, as well as Coney and Sandalari.
Between one step and the next there was only darkness.
When I was in training for so long at the School for Talent, I was taught that decisions were conscious things. We explored them objectively, weighed alternatives, then chose. But the most important decisions, I discovered on Caryldon, have a tendency to come upon us while we’re preoccupied with other matters. So it was that I got to do a great thing while I was concentrating on doing a much smaller one. I was concerned first with staying alive, then with trying to emerge without succumbing to the will of my captor. I was thinking about me. What I got to do, not deliberately, the way a hero would, was buy the chance for talent to go on evolving. When I figured it out, it boggled my mind.
You can train forever, I suppose, but sooner or later it all comes down to who you are deep inside. And when it does, you make a commitment, unaware of the implications. At least, so it was for me.
XVIII. Strength and Power
One of the things I learned on Caryldon and haven’t thought about nearly as much as I should is the difference between strength and power. Power is what makes things happen or not happen; strength is enduring what happens. When I awoke in darkness, I was about to receive a practical lesson in that equation.
The darkness remained so complete that I had to be certain I’d actually opened my eyes. As when I’d first awakened on Caryldon, my initial inventory was of myself. My reserves were full, which I didn’t expect. I must have deeped for some time while I was unconscious. I gathered, beat back the stirrings of fear, and analyzed my sensory systems, because the oppressive darkness made me wonder if my eyesight had been ruined. My optic nerves and their cranial connections were fine; the necessary chemicals were in balance as well. With my eyes at their widest possible iris, the darkness was still profound. I was underground, then, because even in the bowels of something human-made, bits of light found their way, like water migrating around impermeable substances, patiently seeking the permeable.
It occurs to me now, thinking of those first moments in the solid darkness, that if I had remembered the brow-crown in my thigh pouch, I might have made my own light. But, thank the stars, I didn’t remember it. If I’d used it, Dolen T’Kelle would have taken it away from me. Since I didn’t recall it tucked away in my jumpsuit, he didn’t know it was there. I’m digressing. This is the part of the story I don’t want to tell.
In the formless darkness, I’d satisfied myself that my sight was unimpaired, if ineffective. I analyzed my hearing and became aware that, some distance away in what seemed to be a cavernous space, someone was breathing, rapidly and shallowly. Without worrying about whether it would be there when I reached for it, I used my sting to see who was in the darkness with me.
The moment I used the sting, I felt a cruel, gleeful presence leap at it, trying to grasp hold of it and follow it back to my brain. I yanked it away, in desperate self-preservation, perhaps with more strength than my attacker had credited me for, because it slid from the assaulting grasp despite a late, startled effort to hold on to it. I slammed up my shields at once and held them unbreakably in place. All the time that Jemeret had made me work to control them subtly had also developed my ability to hold them against an assault, even one stronger than I’d ever faced before. I knew at once what the evil force wanted; its purpose had to be to injure me sufficiently to render my sting useless, at least temporarily. I shuddered with the knowledge and drew in on myself, listening to the breathing as if afraid it would approach me.
After a time, I began to be aware that the breathing was not coming from the attacker, but from someone else. It had real elements of distress to it, as if the person doing it were unconscious and hurt.
I’d been lying on my back. Now I scrambled up onto my knees and laid my palms flat on the rough surface in front of me, pathfinding to ensure reasonably safe footing. The darkness could have concealed boulders, stalagmites, chasms, or other hazards. The place was large and sluggish in its response, but I kept my impatience down as I waited. Eventually I got the strong impression of a roughly ovoid chamber, made uneven by the ridges of natural bedding in the floor, walls, and ceiling. The bed edges were too sharp to have been worn naturally over time. This cavern was of human manufacture, crude and recent. One spot in the ceiling was different in texture from the rest of the chamber; it was probably the sole means of entering or exiting. It was at least eighteen meters over my head, and while Class A talents can do many things, we can’t levitate.
I began to make my way on my hands and knees toward the sound of the harsh breathing, since my fingers gave me faster passage than I could have accomplished edging forward on my feet. The roughness of the floor made me glad jumpsuit material doesn’t tear, for it would have shredded after a little of the progress, leaving my knees unprotected. The breathing was coming from Keli, who was lying on her shoulders and one hip, her body twisted awkwardly, almost as if she’d fallen in the midst of spinning. I didn’t believe that she’d been thrown in from the entrance, though, because the fall would certainly have killed her.
“Keli.” I touched and straightened her legs, then her arms. Her extremities didn’t appear to be broken, and there was no warm, wet slick that would have indicated bleeding. “Keli.” I felt her head, the short hair tangled but not matted. I wanted to probe her, so that I could assess structures and chemical balances, but I didn’t dare. One thing I was sure of now was that the malevolent force would be waiting for me to use my sting. I couldn’t use it idly. Perhaps I wouldn’t be able to use it at all. “Keli, wake up.”
She stirred under my fingertips, then slowly regained consciousness, function returning, first weakly, then with more strength. She coughed, clearing the harshness out of her breathing, moaned a little, raised a hand to her forehead, pushing my hand aside. “Am I blind?” she asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” I answered, hoping that she wasn’t. “I can’t see either. We’re underground, and there isn’t any light. Don’t strain your eyes trying to see.”
“Underground?” She struggled to sit up, and I slid my arm across her shoulders, partly to help support her and partly because I needed the close human contact. I hugged her against my chest as she blew the rest of the mistiness out of her brain. “Underground on Orokell?”
“Maybe,” I said, “but we can’t assume that.”
She drew in her breath suddenly, surprised, then groped for my hand and slid it down her side until I could feel the source of her astonishment. She was still wearing her blaster. I pathfound it instantly, found it still charged, and was immediately struck with the awareness of something I didn’t dare verbalize. It was clear that Keli and I had been abducted; it was equally clear that my sting had been attacked by what had to be another talent. Only one abductor would be bold enough, confident enough, to let us keep a loaded weapon, and that was one who either intended never to come back for us or knew he could keep us from using it.
“Keli, we need to disable it completely. And if we find any other weapons lying around here, we need to disable those.”
“What? Why?” I could feel her hand tightening on the blaster under mine.
“There’s every chance that someone might—compel you to use it on me.” I can’t imagine what my voice must have sounded like, emerging from total darkness, saying such a thing.
“I’d never—” she started to say in horrified denial, then cut it off. “You could stop them, couldn’t you? You could make certain I wouldn’t hurt you.”
“I’d try,” I said, “but I don’t know if I’d succeed.” I was speaking very slowly now, feeling the words, trying them on for size, for accuracy and the ring of truth.
Keli’s voice dropped to a whisper. “What are you saying?”
“Someone’s got us, Keli, and they know how to keep us. It takes talent to overcome talent.”
I felt her impulse to say the name, squeezed her hand quickly to discourage it, as if by not letting it be spoken, I could keep it from being true. And of course, if he never returned for us, it wouldn’t have to be true. But even as I thought that, I knew that Dolen T’Kelle had put us here because he meant to come back for us. Otherwise, we would be dead now, instead of in the dark. I took my hand off Keli’s as she drew the blaster, then listened to the noises as she efficiently disassembled it, even sightlessly, and crushed several of the vital components.
After a while we took our time and completely explored the floor of the chamber, inch by inch, on our hands and knees. Against one wall was a large container with packets of nutrient tabs and water in it, primitive, but effective both as a way to keep us alive and a way to deliver a message. We were presently not in any mortal danger; he didn’t want us to die.
She began to shake, and I groped for her shoulders and told her to calm down. “We need to keep our heads.” It was easy to say. A day later I understood just how hard it would be to do. My time sense, which was distorted by wary waiting and a complete lack of outside stimuli, told me that Keli and I had been awake for about twelve hours when Dolen T’Kelle joined us.
I soon discovered that he was stronger than I was by a factor of three, which meant he was at least half again as strong as Jemeret. His reserves must have been huge, and he had never been socialized into using his power for the good of anyone other than himself. How he’d developed the power, in the Com, without giving himself away, could only be attributed to the fact that, rather than prompting any splinter messianic movement, he had co-opted one of the recognized, legitimate religions. He was a clever man. He was also completely ruthless. His talent was entirely unfettered by morality. He proved it to us in short order.
He brought light with him when he came, lowering a force-lev tunnel through the opening I’d previously noticed in the ceiling and floating down to the floor bathed in a piercingly bright light from above. Keli shielded her face against it. I irised my eyes to pinpoints, watching the absurdly dramatic entrance and wondering if he expected us to worship him. He was wearing a sleeveless robe with the Macerate symbols on it over a jumpsuit, and he seemed to strike poses in it even as he descended. I thought it would be ridiculous to perceive him as an object of worship. Now I think it would have been preferable.
Almost at the floor of the chamber, he made a slight, mocking bow and said, “I hope you haven’t been too uncomfortable, Ronica McBride.”
I wanted to lash out, but I didn’t dare. “Why am I still alive?” I asked.
His feet touched the rock. He stayed at the edge of the force-lev field, smiling broadly and confidently at me. “You are a valuable commodity,” he answered. “The lives of the others weren’t worth much in the balance. The government believed it could do without them, so I was never tempted to try to preserve them.” He stressed the word “preserve” automatically, as any Macerate would have. “But now that all my followers have been eliminated, my need for bargaining power has become more of a priority.”
I almost told him that his key assumption was quite wrong, that the Com had released me from my oath, that the MIs had accepted the possibility of my death. Then I realized that would be the most stupid single thing I’d ever done. I asked, “What is it that you want to use me to bargain for?”
