Stealing the Sun: Books 4-6, page 42
When the medicine was administered, the nurse rose and got out of the room.
Torrance lay back on the bed.
He felt lost.
He wanted to learn more about this place. Now that he knew he could survive, he wanted to see the land. Wanted to know what was going on here.
Between these thoughts, Torrance found his mind wandering to his old job, to Marisa and the girls, Thomas Kitchell, and, of course, his time on Icarus. He thought about the message he had received from Kitchell that had confirmed an intelligent presence in signals from Eden. He imagined Kitchell, direct-wired into interstellar listening posts and madly deciphering codes and wave forms, dealing with signal-to-noise issues and frequency amplifiers, and running the signals through multiordered filters or other data cleansing routines.
The signal had come from Eden, and it was done in some form of language.
He was sure of it now.
If it was true, it meant these aliens had transmitters, which then meant that if Torrance could find one he could send more messages. And if Kitchell was still listening, maybe the kid could use the message along with the ones Torrance had sent from the shuttle and get a rescue mission launched.
Probably not, he supposed.
Even if such a mission happened, he would probably be dead by the time it arrived.
But he had thought that before, and here he was.
One problem at a time, right? Could he get another message to the Solar System from here?
He got up and paced. All these thoughts made him feel even more powerless.
They made him grit his teeth and consider things he might do the next time the door opened. Where should he start? He glanced to the lock. Could he get away? Could he fight them if he needed to?
Maybe he could fashion a weapon out of his blankets or pillows?
Did the aliens breathe as he did? If he covered their mouths and nose for long enough, would one of these things expire, or did they have other parts to their respiratory systems?
He didn’t know.
To be honest, he also didn’t know if he could bring himself to kill one of these aliens. They hadn’t done anything to harm him so far, anyway. In fact, it seemed to be just the opposite. They had him in lockdown, but they had also brought him back to health.
All he could say for sure was that after all this time wondering about life on this planet, being a prisoner here on Eden made him feel like the entire universe was having one gigantic laugh at his expense.
He damned well didn’t like it.
CHAPTER 27
The woman visited him again later that day.
Woman, Torrance quickly decided, was the proper label.
She seemed to be a female where others appeared to be male. Or at least hers was definitely of the smaller of the species’ two body types. Rightly or wrongly, he considered that to be female. And since she was definitely older than others, he thought woman would be her correct descriptor.
As she entered the chamber, he sat up and pulled the robe over his chest.
His exertion from earlier had knocked him down a peg, and he had been dozing. It took a moment for his mind to snap completely back.
She was dressed in a flowing tunic and a pair of loose-fitting pants that made a scratching noise as she walked. Her footwear was a pair of cross-knit sandals made of some kind of animal skin. She looked as sharp as he remembered from earlier, and her movements were controlled and precise as she came to him.
Another of the aliens brought a stool into the room, which she sat on.
“Hello,” he said, perking up even further when he noted she was carrying a dark green drawing slate and a bowl of waxy, chalklike writing utensils.
She clicked in return, then got straight to business.
On the slate, she drew a circle, then a stick figure standing on top of the circle.
As she worked, Torrance marveled at her fingers. They were long and graceful despite their weathered appearance against the smoothness of the chalk. When she finished, she motioned to the figure, then herself.
“That’s you,” Torrance said.
Then she pointed at the circle, and the ground.
“That’s you and the planet,” Torrance said, repeating the motions.
The alien drew a second stick figure on the circle, then pointed at Torrance.
“That’s me.” He put his hand on his chest.
She made two more circles higher up on the slate, one considerably bigger than the other. “Eldoro,” she said, pointing at the larger. “Katon,” at the smaller.
Torrance grimaced. Did she mean the suns?
“Alpha Cen A and B?” he said, also using his finger to suggest movement.
“Eldoro,” she replied with a confirming click as she pointed at them. “Katon.”
He nodded, then picked up another chalk stick and placed a small dot where he thought Proxima might be. “Proxima,” he said, pointing at it. “Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B, and Proxima.”
“Eterdane,” she replied, pointing to the third. Perhaps he was wrong, but he thought he heard a bit of respect coming through her voice. “Eldoro, Katon, Eterdane.”
Torrance couldn’t help but grin.
They were communicating. Truly sharing.
Then she drew a line from Torrance’s stick figure to Eldoro, and spoke a phrase that also included a raised ridge above her biggest eye.
It’s a question, he thought. She wants to know if I’m from Alpha Centauri A.
“No,” he replied aloud, “I’m not from there.”
He drew a line from his stick figure out past the edge of the slate. “I’m from a long, long way out there,” he said.
Her eyes grew wide, and she whispered a phrase under her breath, then she clicked and cocked her head to one side as if she was thinking to herself.
Slowly, she stood up.
The assistant took her seat away.
She clicked at Torrance one more time, then turned to the assistant and made a word. The assistant seemed to either defer or agree in some fashion.
A moment later, she was gone.
CHAPTER 28
The air was cold as Baraq entered Esgarat City.
Stars scintillated as he stepped silently from shadow to shadow, and down alleys toward the Waganat compound. Back when the skies first began to clear and the stars had originally appeared, he had often stood outside with Crissandr and Brada, staring at them, pointing upward and wondering what they were. Then Louratna explained her theory that each was another world, and it suddenly made sense. Even knowing the other secrets they shared, however, the idea had stunned him.
Yes, he had fully absorbed the idea that the Taranth Stone had come from another world, so the idea made sense.
But so many new worlds?
The thought that each tiny dot could house other places like Esgarat had made him feel suddenly very big. It helped him understand there was a future, and that working to make his city viable was the most valuable thing he could do, which in turn made it so much more possible to bear the pressures of being an agent under his father’s dictatorship.
Back then, though, Baraq and little Brada had made games of creating pictures with those stars: Jah and pax, and, once, an imaginary creature that only the child could see.
Baraq didn’t even notice them now.
Instead, he focused on the scent of smoke and burning fires that settled over the city, the smell of dead bodies massed in corners, waiting their turn to be removed. Freed from social pretense now, and given the opportunity to flex their strength unmitigated, the Esgarat Families would make the entire area a different place.
He was worn now.
It had taken four complete heats and much of a fifth to make it from the mountain home of Louratna’s complex on foot, a path he had taken with poor preparation. If the distance had been even a heat longer, he may not have made it. His body was parched and beaten, and his legs felt nothing but the ache of the dead as he made his way through the dark allies of Esgarat City. His fingertips were torn and scabbed from climbing, his knees bruised. The chill of the nighttime made the heatburn of his skin that much worse.
He wondered if he might grow the dark spots and die like many so others had when exposed too long.
Stupid, really, but he no longer cared.
If he was still alive when Eldoro rose next heat he would teach himself to be more cautious with his wanderings. Maybe he would chase down Karshi Fael or some other free-ranger to teach him proper survival in the deserts. It could be done, he supposed. Even at his advanced age he could become a free-ranger.
If he lived, anyway.
He reached to his belt and retrieved the Tegra revolver that he had kept hidden away for so long after his father forced him to be rid of it. Of course, rather than dispose of it, he had merely hidden it away in case a day like this came. Now he found its existence ironic. It was a weapon he once kept under the counter of his shop at the urgings of his father, Ranya Waganat, who made his living out of being cautious and who, when Baraq argued that no quadar in their right mind would take from a Waganat shop, commanded Baraq to be silent and do as he was told. “Enterprising quadars will stay away from Waganat shops specifically because they will understand that all Waganat shops will exact their own justice,” his father said.
Tonight, that would finally come true.
The weapon felt heavy as Baraq hefted it. It absorbed nighttime heat in a way that made it appear to be a void in his central.
It felt ugly, but ugly in a way that made him feel good.
Baraq would kill his father tonight.
He would kill his father, and he would kill his brother, Tierra, who had directed the attack on his son’s gathering. But first he would kill Jee.
Then, one way or another, he would leave the city behind him forever.
CHAPTER 29
From that point on the woman visited often, staying longer as Torrance grew stronger.
Their ability to communicate got better.
Torrance picked up phrases from her, and she from him. Perhaps a linguist could have moved faster, but he was pleased. He looked forward to her visits.
Her name was Louratna.
When he taught her his name, she repeated it until it came out almost right.
Something in the alien’s tongue didn’t allow her to get the soft hiss sound of the “ce” quite right, but the sound of his name on her lips grew on him. After that, the aliens all called him something that sounded like “Torranze,” a fact he found more pleasing than he thought it should. She also taught him the term quadar, which he was happy for because he didn’t like thinking of this species as “aliens.”
The sweet root that now made up a part of his diet was called havra.
Beasts that he could sometimes barely hear howling someplace outside were neantha.
The fruit he loved so much was janga, and grew on ranches that were west of mountains such that they got the morning shade.
He explained “human being.”
She seemed to appreciate that.
Torrance drew an image of the wormhole pod similar to the one the quadar he had met in the city before had drawn for him.
Louratna paused. Her two outside eyes drew to points, and she seemed to debate something insider her own mind. Her answer was noncommittal, or at least he didn’t understand it. She moved on from there, though.
Over the next few sessions they shared more math and picked up a few more words.
She understood geometry and trigonometry best, but there was clearly more there.
Progress was slow, though, and Louratna seemed more comfortable speaking in the symbols of mathematics than in language. So, for the most part, that is what they did. On the whole, the whole process felt a lot like his work in the ambassadorial field, a profession where frustration came from the fact that every conversation between people from different places had been filled with linguistic noise, where words were contorted with different things among human beings of different tribes. It made him consider how languages, even among those on the same space station, often served to separate people rather than connect them.
“I want to get out of here,” Torrance said after a session.
He wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was time to push. He didn’t seem to be a prisoner so much as someone in some form of protective custody. He wanted to find out how far he could go.
Louratna looked across the tablet with the expression he had come to know meant she was uncertain about what he was saying.
“I feel good.” He flexed his leg carefully, searching for words that seemed to have positive connotations. “Mata,” he said, using the creature’s word that seemed to be positive. “I feel mata.”
She smiled. “Mata.”
He pointed to the hallway, then himself, and hoped his gaze had a glimmer of expectation rather than demand. “Outside,” he said.
“Mata,” she said, scratching her shoulder. In a louder voice Louratna spoke a stream of language that included several clicks and guttural sounds.
“Woah,” he said, raising his hands against the current and trying to take it in.
But the lock to his door opened and another quadar stepped in.
Louratna exchanged conversation with the guard for a moment, then turned to Torrance.
“Adiago nar,” she said. It was the phrase she had been using for something he thought was next iteration, in their other discussions.
He smiled.
“Yes, adiago nar. Tomorrow should be fine.”
The next time Louratna came, she was accompanied by two males and a female.
Standing up, Torrance looked instinctively to the door behind them. They left it open this time. The idea of escape hit him like a sledgehammer. Could he make it?
The flesh around Louratna’s eyes relaxed as if she was sympathetic to his situation.
She spoke, but he couldn’t interpret any of it.
She turned, though, and motioned to him to follow. Torrance hesitated, his heart racing. The others parted for him. He took a step and Louratna led him out into the hallway, which was pitch dark and where the chill in the air felt suddenly hostile.
He stopped and put a hand on his head on pure instinct.
“I can’t go on,” he said.
So much for escaping.
A crack came from beside him, and the second female was suddenly handing him a chemical glowstick of some kind. When he was settled, they proceeded to follow a path ahead.
The muscles in his legs were weak, so he nearly stumbled but still it felt good to move like this, with long and uninterrupted steps forward. He followed them, half by voice and half by the vision of their shadowed forms reflected in the green light of the glowstick.
It wasn’t long before they came to where a beam of natural sunlight sliced down from above with enough power that he blinked back tears of both pain and joy.
The mere idea of sunlight stole his breath.
He squinted as they passed by.
The air in the cave soon grew warm, almost too hot. His movements worked up a sweat, and his breathing became labored.
Where were they taking him?
Then, almost without warning, the cave opened to a view of rugged terrain outside the mountain that took his breath away.
The land before them was full of sweeping browns and oranges, dusty grays and hardy greens. It was huge and expansive, higher up than he had seen it from before. To his left, the mountain chain seemed to go on forever. Straight ahead and to his right, rocky land sprawled into the distance with some patches of ground covered in some kind of hardy growth, others just cracked spans of rock. Formations rose up here and there, and a spiderwebbed series of cracks ran through the ground in the distance.
Far away, a patch of rain was falling.
After he had been caged for so long, the view was the most magnificent thing Torrance had ever seen. Even though the cave mouth was protected from the direct sun, the air here was almost too hot to breathe, though.
As he stood there, Louratna spoke to the other female, then returned the way they had come. He recognized the passing of command.
The new quadar came to Torrance’s side, then sat on the ground, lifting her robes to let them settle over her crossed legs.
Not knowing what else to do, he joined her, sitting lotus style to look out over the landscape. The quadar was impassive beside him. Or perhaps resigned was a better word. She seemed unworldly silent, the sighs of her breathing coming in heavy gasps on more than one occasion.
They were showing him this for a reason, he thought.
Were they telling him he wasn’t a prisoner?
Or maybe that the lock and key were for his own good?
They sat there for a long time.
Eventually, his legs began to hurt. He stood, ready to get away.
That was apparently the signal to take him back to his chamber, which was fine with Torrance. The air was too hot and too dry to be comfortable.
Ten minutes later, he was back in the cave, totally exhausted, and washing down a meal of fruit and roots with a bowl of water.
CHAPTER 30
It was still dark when Baraq used his key to slip through the compound gate and slink first into the gardens, then around sentry buildings. The Family’s takeover of Esgarat City was days old, long enough that the edge was off the guard. Baraq knew their assignments. Understood where they would be. He took his time, feeling a sense of greater destiny come over him the further he progressed.
The image of Brada’s face loomed before him.
His whelp’s smiling expression gave him a sense of sadness deeper than he could express.
In a short while, he arrived at Jee’s cottage and pressed himself against its rounded wall to stay as covered in the shadows as he could. The sky was still full of stars, but it wouldn’t be long before Eldoro would lighten the horizon. The night chill was sharp. A slight wind was the only sound.
