Star Song and Other Stories Part 13

or five weeks ago. A thank-you gift for my sending him a revised copy of our Sagtt'a report. Why, is there a problem?"

I looked at him, and the guards, and the calix. Then, as if moving in a dream, I.

walked over to the desk. Devaro had ordered me not to touch any of the three new calices on my way back from Quibsh, and I hadn't. But I'd had four days to study them en route, and I had.

Goribeldi was right. This was indeed one of them.

I turned back to face him, feeling vaguely light-headed. "But why?" I asked.

"Why would he do this? It's a weapon."

Goribeldi shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I don't follow you."

"A weapon," I repeated. "It's programmed-programmed by touch. Whenever you hold it, it starts affecting you. It turns you from human into something else."

The guards took a step toward me. "Sir?" one of them murmured.

"No, no, it's all right," Goribeldi said, waving them back. "I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion, Mr. Markand, but you have it precisely backwards.

The calix doesn't affect you. You affect it."

I stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"It's your presence that changes the calix, not the other way around," he said.

"Your touch and voice affect the wood and crystal, altering the sculpture into a sort of echo of your own personality. A beautifully unique art form, far more individual than anything else you could possibly-"

"Wait a minute," I interrupted him, fighting hard to keep my balance as the universe seemed to tilt sideways beneath me. "You know this for a fact? I mean, it's been proven?"

"Of course," Goribeldi said. "The scientists in our delegation studied it thoroughly. In fact, 'calix' was actually the priestians' name for it, coming from an old term for the Cup of Communion. Holding a reflection of your soul, as it were. I hadn't realized the Sagtt'ans had picked up on the name."

I looked back at the calix. "I'm sorry, your Ministri," I said, my face warm with a thoroughly unpleasant mixture of embarra.s.sment and confusion. "I guess I-" I broke off, shaking my head. "I'm sorry."

"That's all right," Goribeldi said, waving the guards back to their posts.

Apparently, he'd decided I wasn't crazy. Me, I wasn't so sure. "Come, let me show you the priestians' report."

I still wasn't sure half an hour later when he escorted me back to the anteroom and thanked me for coming. One thing I was sure of, though: the calices did indeed seem to behave exactly as he had said they did.

Which meant they weren't the weapons that Convocant Devaro had thought they were. Surely if he'd read the Church's report he already knew that.

But he'd had that report at least a month ago. If he had read it, why was he still subjecting me to weekly brainscans?

Unless he still wasn't convinced the calices were harmless. But in that case, why would he risk giving a potentially dangerous weapon to First Ministri Goribeldi?

I puzzled over it as I headed down the street toward the magtrans station. I was still puzzling, in fact, right up to the point where the two large men cameup on either side of me and effortlessly stuffed me into a waiting car. There was the tingle of a stunner at my side, and the world went dark.

I awoke aboard a half-wing already driving through s.p.a.ce. The two men who'd kidnapped me were aboard as well, the three of us apparently the only pa.s.sengers. As jailers they initially seemed rather amateurish; aside from the control areas and their two cabins I had complete freedom of the s.h.i.+p. But after two days of searching for weapons or escape routes or even information, I came to realize they weren't so much amateurish as just casually efficient. They completely ignored my questions and occasional frustrated demands, and only spoke to each other in clipped sentences of a language I didn't recognize.

Finally, three days of flight, we came alongside an unmarked military-style full-wing floating quietly in s.p.a.ce. A transfer tunnel was set up and I was sent through, where I was met by a pair of hard-faced men in SkyForce uniforms. No chattier than my jailers had been, they escorted me silently to the command observation balcony above and behind the bridge.

Waiting for me there, as I'd rather expected, was Convocant Devaro.

"So," he said without preamble. "Here you are."

"Yes, sir," I said. "Here we both are."

For a moment he studied my face. "You've figured it out, haven't you?" he said at last. "Something the priestians at the Ponte Empyreal said to you."

I looked past his shoulder through the balcony's twin-sectioned canopy.

Directly ahead, the view over the bow of the full-wing showed that we were coming in toward a planetary darkside; ahead and below, I could see down into the bridge and the SkyForce officers and crewmen at their stations. "I saw the calix you gave to First Ministri Goribeldi," I said. "He told me it wasn't a weapon." I looked back at Devaro. "He was wrong, wasn't he."

Devaro shrugged. " 'Weapon' is an unfairly loaded term," he said. "I prefer to think of it as a tool."

"A tool which you're using to invade other people's privacy," I accused him.

"Giving someone a calix is really no different than doing a brainscan on him.

Except that he doesn't know it's been done. All you have to do is give the wood fibers enough time to adapt to his personality, then take your five-micron core samples and read his personality matrix right off them."

Devaro laughed, a short animal-like bark. "You make it sound so easy. You have no idea how much time and sweat went into developing the proper chemo-mathematical transforms to use."

"I think I have some idea," I said stiffly. "After all, I was your guinea pig in the whole thing. If you hadn't had my weekly brainscans to compare with the calix's chemical changes you'd never have been able to work out your precious transforms."

He shrugged carelessly. "Oh, we'd have managed. It just would have taken longer, and required us to get hold of a calix on our own. Your providential return from Quibsh merely made it simpler.""Well, enjoy it while you can," I bit out. "When we get back to Earth, I'll see you in prison."

He lifted his eyebrows. "On what grounds? You signed a legal authorization before each of those brainscans."

"What about the calix you gave First Ministri Goribeldi?" I countered.

"A thank-you gift. Perfectly legal."

"Except when the gift's part of an illegal brainscan."

"What illegal brainscan?" Devaro countered calmly. "A brainscan is performed with a Politayne-Chu neural mapmaker or the equivalent. There's no such device in a calix."

"You're splitting hairs."

"I'm staying precisely within the letter of the law," Devaro corrected.

"That's all that counts."

I glared at him. But even as I did so, I could feel my position eroding out from under my feet like loose sand. I had no idea how the brainscan laws were worded, but I had no doubt that Devaro had studied them thoroughly. "So where within the letter of the law does destruction of the Church come?" I demanded. "I presume you are planning its destruction?"

"Eventually," Devaro said off-handedly. "But that's a long way in the future.

There are other more urgent matters that need to be attended to first."

"Such as?"

"Such as the threat posed to the UnEthHu by the Kailthaermil Empire," he said, his voice suddenly hard. "And our moral responsibility to protect fellow human beings wherever they might be found."

I blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"Your verlorens of course," he said. "Conquered and enslaved by the Kailth, along with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other races. The UnEthHu has stood by idly for ten years now. It's time we took a stand against such tyranny."

I glanced at the dark planetary surface now rolling by beneath us, a dark suspicion digging into my stomach. "This is Quibsh, isn't it?" I said.

"You're going to attack Quibsh."

"We're not attacking anyone," Devaro said. "We're liberating a human colony from alien overlords."

"And while you're liberating them, you'll also liberate their collection of calices?"

"The calices are evidence of their enslavement," Devaro said evenly.

"Fabulous works of art, routinely and ruthlessly stolen from them by their alien overlords."

"Which you'll no doubt be giving to other high-ranking UnEthHu and Church officials," I said, a bitter taste in my mouth. "And senior SkyForce officers-"

I stopped short, suddenly remembering where we were. On an unmarked military full-wing with SkyForce personnel aboard... "You used a calix to blackmail the SkyForce?"

"Don't be absurd," Devaro sniffed. "A Supreme Convocant hardly needs to stoop to anything as crude as blackmail. Let's just say that when I presented myrequest to Admiral Gates, I knew the right words to use to persuade him to my point of view."

"Yes, I suppose you did," I said, thinking back over all the conversations I'd had with Devaro during the past few weeks. How he had always somehow managed to say just the right things to keep my suspicions of Tawni alive, even against the evidence of my own eyes and heart. At times, usually late at night, I'd wondered at my inability to make my own decisions and stick to them. Now, too late, I understood what he'd done to me.

The intercom twittered. "We're approaching the target site, Convocant," a voice said.

"I'll be right there," Devaro said. "You're welcome to stay here," he added to me as he stepped over to the lift plate leading to the bridge below.

"This could start a war," I warned quietly. Trying, I suppose, one last time.

"Are a few calices worth that much to you?"

"The calices are power," he said simply. "If you haven't already figured out what that means, you're either too naive or too stupid for me to explain it to you now." He shrugged. "Besides, I've already told you that war with the Kailth is inevitable. If it starts here, so be it."

He touched the control and dropped away through the floor. The opening sealed again, and I was alone.

I walked over to the canopy, a hundred painful thoughts and useless plans and bitter self-recriminations chasing themselves through my mind. Devaro was on the move, with his long sought-after seat on the Dynad in his sights. Only now he had a secret weapon that might just get it for him.

And I'd been the one who'd given it to him. That was what galled the most.

Not only had my brainscans provided the key to his scheme, but I'd even trotted obediently out to Quibsh and gotten him the extra calices he wanted.

He'd used one of them to talk a SkyForce admiral out of a military full-wing and crew. Another was waiting like a hidden time bomb for an eventual attack against the unwanted moral criticisms of the Church. I was afraid to wonder whom he'd given the third one to.

I stepped up to the canopy. We were approaching the terminator now, the hazy line marking dawn on the planet below. Just into the lighted area I could see the familiar chain of volcanoes that bordered the little group of verloren villages.

A motion below me caught my attention, and I looked down into the bridge.

Devaro and two of the officers were gazing to the right; even as I watched, one of them shoved the Convocant into one of the chairs. Frowning, wondering what they were looking at, I leaned my head against the canopy and peered in that direction- And was slammed bodily against the curved plastic as the full-wing abruptly skidded into a hard right-hand turn.

I peeled myself off the canopy and dived toward one of the balcony's chairs, grabbing the safety straps and pulling myself into it. Ahead now I could see what had gotten everyone so riled up: a pair of aircraft heading our way. I tried to figure out if the direction was right for them to be coming from one of the Kailth bases, but I was so turned around now I didn't know which way was which. I threw another glance down at the bridge- And flinched back as, at the edge of my vision, a burst of fire flashed out from the full-wing's bow.

I looked up again. The missile was heading straight toward the incoming aircraft, its drive blazing like a miniature sun against the lightening sky.

I.

held my breath, thinking of those awesome Kailth weapons, and waited for the aircraft to return the fire.

But they didn't. Instead, they merely broke formation, veering off sharply to either side. The missile split in response, one half targeting each of them, and the race for survival was on. One of the aircraft vanished into the darkness behind us as our full-wing swung back around toward the terminator line ahead.

The other aircraft was driving directly away from us toward the rising sun, the missile rapidly overtaking it. I scanned the ground ahead, trying to reorient myself- And suddenly I jabbed at the chair's intercom switch. "Convocant Devaro! That aircraft-it's heading straight for the group of villages!"

The only verbal response was a curse; but abruptly the full-wing leaped forward, driving hard toward the doomed aircraft. A laser flashed out, sweeping dizzyingly as the gunner tried to lock onto the missile.

But it was too far away. And it was too late. The two exhausts coalesced into one; and with a surprisingly small flash of blue-white fire the aircraft disintegrated.

I watched helplessly, hands clenched around the safety straps. The full-wing, down to treetop level now, was driving swiftly toward the impact point. I could see a reddish glow ahead, mixing with the dawn light.

And suddenly we were there, swinging around again and sweeping over the area.

I.

could see the string of villages now, with a scattering of burning debris from the aircraft strewn around and among the buildings.

But that wasn't where the red glow I'd seen was coming from. The main body of the aircraft had slammed into the cone of the nearest volcano, and just below the point of impact a new lava vent had opened up.

I reached for the intercom again, but Devaro beat me to it. "Markand, is that the volcano where they keep the calices?" he snapped.

"Yes," I confirmed. "That lava flow-it's headed toward Tawni's village-"

The intercom cut off. But I didn't need to hear Devaro's instructions to the captain to know what he was going to do next. The aircraft's crash had clearly shaken up the whole unstable region; plumes of smoke were beginning to appear from several of the other nearby volcanoes. If Devaro wanted the calices, he would have to get them now.

Even if it meant abandoning Tawni and her people to burn.

The full-wing was coming around back toward the volcano as I threw the bright red lever that opened the balcony's emergency drop-tube door. I dove inside, spun around and hit the "eject" plate. The door closed, the stasis webbing wrapped around me, and with a stomach-churning lurch I dropped free.

Ten seconds later I was down, the tube toppling delicately onto its side and popping open. I scrambled to my feet and looked around, trying to figure out where exactly I was. I couldn't see the light from the lava flow, but the wind was acrid with the smell of burning vegetation, so I knew it had to be somewhere close. A three-meter-high ridge of basalt cut across in front of me; unmindful of what the sharp rock might do to my hands, I slung the tube's survival pack over one shoulder and scrambled my way to the top.

There, no more than a hundred meters away, was the lava flow, making its slow but inexorable way down toward the sleeping villages below. At the top of the cone, its edges glowing a fiery red with reflected light, the full-wing was easing downward. Devaro, apparently unwilling to waste even a second, was taking the entire s.h.i.+p into the crater.

And then, even as I watched, a second source of light suddenly flickered from the full-wing's edges. A glow coming from inside the crater itself.