Braxi-Azea - In Conquest Born Part 46

Yes, he thought, the only problem with that is that only one small group in the history of man has ever managed to keep secrets, and that is the Braxana.

He looked at the man. His image had collapsed and he knew it; it felt strangely naked to be merely human, a creature rendered helpless by surprise like everyone else. True, it took something on this scale to break the image down-but it had been broken, and that had been witnessed.

"I have to kill you," he said, almost apologetically.

The man was clearly terrified, but he nodded and slowly dropped to his knees.

He had expected this-they all had. There was no way this discovery could have elicited any other reaction, and no way the Pri'tiera could allow a commoner to live who had seen him so taken aback, so vulnerable, even for an instant. This a.s.signment had been his death sentence.

He waited.

"You could have run," Zatar said quietly. "Or protested."

"I know the custom." The man's voice was barely a whisper. "Should I defy the Master of the Holding?"

He had strange feelings, new feelings, feelings that were not wholly welcome.

"You have family?"

"Three sons, my Lord. One of them is my own offspring."

"The site director can reach them?"

He nodded, confused.

Without looking Zatar drew his sword. The man's eyes were locked on his, also refusing to look at the deadly steel.

"Your family," Zatar said quietly, "will be taken into my House."

Startled, he managed, "Thank you. My Lord-may I ask. . . ."

"Anything. Right now, you're the only man in the Holding who can hear the answers."

"What will you do?" he whispered.

Zatar shut his eyes. Isn't that the question? "I don't know."

"But something?"

"Preserve the painting. Make it generally available. It will take some time before we can remove it safely, more to restore it to its original condition . . . it belongs to the Holding."

"That isn't what I meant," the man ventured.

"I know. And I can't answer you." He looked back at the painting, and shook his head in wonder. "I don't know myself, right now."

The man bowed his head.

-And the sword was a crescent of light through his neck, cleanly separating head from shoulder and leaving both halves to drop to the dusty floor.

Without resheathing the blade, Zatar turned back to the painting.

"Hasha . . ."he whispered softly.

It was a long while before he left.

Harkur: A man does not truly understand his limitations until he has tested them.

Twenty-Four.

In the velvet black of s.p.a.ce the station was like a jewel, its sunward side gleaming with the mirrored surfaces of luminal collectors and a thousand needle- fine stars.h.i.+ps radiating out from its protective center like sparks of light glinting off its surface. In the darkness around it a protective field glowed softly, and its amber warmth added l.u.s.ter to the star-like display.

The thousand s.h.i.+ps turned slowly about their watchful center, streamlined lengths of polished pseudometal with the barest hint of dormant energy fields woven into their hulls. They were children, waiting to be set loose in the world- Starbirds, close by their silver nest, longing for freedom. Their wings lay folded against their sides, fitted carefully into the smooth, slim length that could cut an atmosphere without effort, and fully half of their bulk was filled with the genera- tors of travel: s.h.i.+psh.e.l.l field, strong and resilient; gravitic compensation and interlocked accelerator; three fully operational defense fields whose combined deflective power could turn aside the wrath of a wars.h.i.+p. They were creatures of speed, strength, and beauty, and they needed only the hand of man to send them into flight.

Inside the global station, guards were quiet but watchful. Only a fool would seek to breach that amber glow but fools there were in plenty, and so they watched.

"s.h.i.+p coming out of Lurien orbit." The report was made in the calm voice of one who never expects trouble.

The station captain glanced briefly at the scanner display to see that everything was in order. Lurien was densly populated and it was not unusual for interstellar traffic to pa.s.s their way. "Too close," he commented. "Clearance?"

"Military. StarControl priority one-wars.h.i.+p in for repairs, from the Active Zone. This is its shuttle."

The captain nodded. Lurien was the capital of the Empire's technical expertise, and those same qualities which had a.s.sured the Luriens of contracting the construction of the Starbirds also meant that from time to time military s.h.i.+ps came by for repairs and updating. He checked the broadcast codes; everything seemed proper. "Slow," he commented.

"Deliberate minimal velocity until clearing this station, they explained."

"All right." He stared at the screens a moment longer, looking for trouble. There was none. "Let it pa.s.s."

He was somewhat psychic and, as a security officer, painstakingly thorough. For a moment he stilled his body and reached out with his special sensitivity, searching the sphere in his keeping. Nothing greeted his touch which spoke of life or sentience, and no intent from farther away speared his searching mind with focused malevolence.

"Feels good," he told them. "But keep on standard surveillance."

The small s.h.i.+p drew near to them; he double-checked its ID and found it appropriate. From the Conqueror, eh? It had been many years since that s.h.i.+p had last been to Lurien. -Come to think of it, wasn't there a repair station closer to its sector?

"Watch it anyway," he muttered. Charts displayed its speed-constant, and its course-close but nonintersecting, as it slowly pa.s.sed them by. Not until it was out of scanner range did the captain fully relax. "All right," he said. "Wish they wouldn't come so d.a.m.ned close, though."

In the darkness of s.p.a.ce, a single figure floated. Immersed in an ancient and bulky vacuum suit it gave no hint of form or s.e.x, and the supportive field woven into its suitsh.e.l.l was so minimal as to barely register on the station's screens.

It tensed as a thought came questing in its direction, then turned the inquiry aside. Nothing is out here, the intruder thought aloud. And it inserted that thought into the station captain's mind with a skill that few could manage.

The figure waited, floating.

When all inquiry had pa.s.sed it by, it reached one bloated arm in an insulated glove to a control panel built into the suit's chest region. The control panel and its forecefield had been added; the long umbilical tubes of primitive s.p.a.ce travel had been removed. Tanks supplied air by strictly mechanical means and the insulation was sufficient to support human life for a short period of time without a heat generator or dehumidifier.

It was an artificial skin, and in it a man might face the stars unprotected by the focused energy of human science. For ten thousand years no man had chosen to do so; when a human might swim naked in the darkness with only a special forcefield for cover and a minimal generator to support the living functions, why immerse one's body in this monstrosity of early technology? But it was clear that one person, at least, had the motivation necessary, for the hand pressed down against the heavy switch and turned the suit's generators off.

Then there was silence; not the hum of a recycler, nor the steady vibration of a forcefield generator. For the first time in millennia a human being faced the cold of s.p.a.ce with nothing but matter for protection, and it was only with difficulty that this pioneer restrained her enthusiasm to the tight proximity of her own padded body.

Now, she thought.

A touch to one panel brought the portable accelerators briefly into play, and for an instant there was the forward thrust of their action. Afterward she floated, again lost in the silence of nonpower. In all her plans there was only that one weakness, that the station might pick up her minimal output and deduce her intent. But from the guardians of the Starbirds there was nothing, neither probing fields nor pangs of mental concern. The computers attributed her motion to the residue of her shuttle, which had left a faint trail in its wake. Such power as they detected was not sufficient to support life, fire a weapon, maintain a computer or even fix a navigational probe; hence it was meaningless, and mechanical reasoning a.s.signed it to the most logical nearby source.

Slowly the figure approached the amber forcefield, which shone like gla.s.s in the starlight. Much like a diver, propelled by a momentary burst of minimal force, the figure breached station security and pa.s.sed through the amber wall. Slowly, like a meteor might; lifeless, because life requires generators to exist in the Void. It was not aimed at a s.h.i.+p and could not be a threat; the computers let it pa.s.s, consigning it to the realm of insignificant data. The captain didn't notice it; the others never would.

Still guarding against involuntary thought-broadcasting, the stardiver chose an objective and turned, with one tiny burst of power, to approach it. Then she checked: she was unnoticed, at least as far as the minds in the station were concerned. Good. She could easily blanket the station in a cloud of non- awareness, but she doubted she could hold so many minds against the distractions and alarms of their security equipment. Besides, there was a psychic present, trained to recognize the same techniques she had mastered, and that meant still another variable.

So she strove for silence, both mechanical and mental, as she approached her chosen stars.h.i.+p and slowed, coming to its surface.

Nearly motionless, she touched the silver s.h.i.+psh.e.l.l. She worked swiftly; the station hadn't detected her yet, but that didn't mean there wasn't a power-sweep operating which would catch her when she split the Starbird's field. With certain fingers she sought out the access panel and cracked it open; the emergency override switch, hidden so well that no one could find it who hadn't studied the s.h.i.+p's carefully guarded plans, locked easily in the desired position. Slowly the s.h.i.+psh.e.l.l field drew back from the vessel's portal, and a moment later the seamless silver surface divided, permitting entrance.

Agile despite the hindrance of her primitive s.p.a.cesuit, the trespa.s.ser entered the lock quickly and sealed shut door and field behind her. Responding automatically to her presence, both s.h.i.+p and lock filled swiftly with air and the lights of the interior came on. A few minutes after she had entered, the inner door slid open.

She went inside.

It was not hard to find the control panels, nor to decipher their meaning; she had served as a consultant during their design. Three motions sufficed to prepare the generators for action, one to check on life-support and a last to lock in the gravitic compensation.

Now there was only one thing left to do, and then she would be free. Letting her mind reach forth from its bonds.

leaning on the nearest panel for physical support, she sent out a bolt of mindforce to the station, focused on the most receptive man within. In an instant she tapped his vision and knew where he was, and where she wanted him to be.

The attack was so sudden that by the time he had ascertained its existence he was entirely overwhelmed by it; a mental convulsion so powerful that it blotted out his consciousness and threw him violently against the far wall, jamming his arm into a line of controls-one control in particular-prepared for emergency use.

Blood dribbled from his head and from the corner of his mouth and he fell. Yet still his body twitched, caught in the grip of something far stronger than he had ever been prepared to fight. a.s.sistants ran to his side and his feet, checked where he had been standing, discussed the possibility of power leakage, and in general sought to a.n.a.lyze the unknown force that had struck him down. In that momentary chaos (which she deftly encouraged, even while urging the Starbird forward) no one thought that perhaps he had been thrown against one switch in particular. And by the time they did notice, it was too late.

"The field's down!"

They brought it up again, quickly, but by then they knew their loss. One of the silver needles was gone, thrust magnificently forward by man's finest accelerative achievement and lost forever in the darkness beyond Lurien. They reported the theft, but they knew that nothing could be done. The Starbirds had been designed to outrun anything; no one doubted that this one could do so now.

In the depths of s.p.a.ce, freed at last from the bonds of law and servitude, the figure unfastened its bulky helmet and pulled the globe free from its moorings.

Rich red hair, bloodblack and magenta, poured down her back as she laughed her triumph, and she set her course with eager fingers.

One last rendezvous with the Conqueror, to collect those who shared her dream.

I'm sorry, Torzha. She turned toward the wars.h.i.+p-no longer hers, no longer important. The true warrior will not be disarmed.

One last stop, and then freedom.

Feran tried to still his nervousness as he approached the House of Zatar. Thus his hand was almost steady as he put it to the door's black plate, and his stride, as he pa.s.sed the portal guard and walked the length of the forehall, was almost confident. But it was a sham, and the Pri'tiera would be quick to see through it.

Zatar had a skill that was almost psychic-and perhaps in Feran's case, where continued psychic contact was part of their relations.h.i.+p, the power might indeed be developing.

Was that possible? Might the Probe be acting as catalyst for a latent, as-yet- undiscovered talent? Feran s.h.i.+vered. The thought of Zatar with all the options of telepathic mastery allied to the force of his personality was a terrifying one. But even if the Pri'tiera did have the proper genetic prerequisites- which Feran half- believed, despite evidence to the contrary-it would take more than a handful of surface-mind exercises to bring them into play. It would take . . . what? A Probe's talent, he decided, and a Probe's willingness to rework the very foundations of thought. If it could be done at all.

B'Salos willing, no one would ever try.

As he approached Zatar's private chambers, the feeling that had been nagging at him since he left his home became even stronger. Something was different this time. Zatar hadn't called him here for a discussion of psychic priviledge, nor to explore the limitations of that special skill. Today his concern was something else, something . . . frightening. Feran had felt it all the way from his own House, halfway across Kurat, and he tensed as he tapped on the heavy wooden door, announcing his arrival.

"Enter."

He took his place before the Pri'tiera and knelt, as befit his station. There was a strange comfort in it.

"I have a job for you." Zatar's voice was cold and his surface thoughts made it clear: You won't like this.

"I am the Pri'tiera's servant."

"Of course." He waited a moment, letting the fact of their relations.h.i.+p sink in.

"Come with me," he said at last. "I have something to show you."

Feran rose and followed him, into a section of the House given over to workrooms. Here was Zatar's armory, and a room devoted to the upkeep of the building's mechanical intelligence. Here there was a whole room full of books, real fabric-and-paper books, awaiting restoration, and fragments of primitive artwork, painstakingly preserved. Everywhere workmen labored, most of them were busy with archeological finds. Zatar's interest in Berros was clearly paying off.

"In here." The Pri'tiera indicated a pair of metal-and-wood doors, which slid open at their approach. Inside three men were laboring over something-a painting, perhaps?-but the natural gloss of the item's surface, combined with the angle of the lighting, prevented Feran from making out what it was.

"Go," Zatar told the men; they obeyed him without word, leaving the two Braxana alone.

He closed the doors and locked them, then set the soundproofing. "This was found in the dining hall of a hunting palace, on what was once Harkur's estate.

The preservation is remarkable, given the painting's age; we can thank the dryness of the Berros'n air for that. I'm having a molecular restoration done to save it." He looked at the painting, then at Feran. Tension radiated from his body but his voice, as always, was steady. "Look at it, Feran."

He approached it slowly, wondering at Zatar's behavior. In all the time he had known him, he had never tasted tension in him as strongly as now. It was even evident in his body language, if one knew how to look-and that was unheard of.

Walking along the side of the worktable, Feran sought a position that would allow him to view the glossy surface without interference from the lighting. He found it at last, by the side of the portrait, and gazed down upon a work of art which the centuries had buried.

And he trembled.

"You see," the Pri'tiera said.

"Hasha. . . ." Feran reached out a finger to touch the ancient paint, on the section which the workmen had finished. It was real. If it was the truth. . . .

"Forgery?" he managed.

"I checked. The age is right, the molecular compostion of the materials, the condition of the sealed room I found it in, everything. What you see was actually created over ten millennia ago-although it was in considerably worse condition when my men first found it than it is now." He paused. "My guess was correct, then; the alien figure in the painting is Azean."

It took him a moment to find his voice again. "Many millennia ago, before the race was Standardized, this was what they looked like. With great variation in pigmentation, of course; that was the point of Standardization." He looked at the figure's warm brown skin, guessed at the secrets it had housed, and shuddered.

"The structure of the face gives it away. But what I don't understand is how this happened. There couldn't have been contact that early. Azea had no superluminal travel before Standardization; Braxi never expanded past Lugast-"

"History is an inexact science at best. What we understood of the past was evidently inaccurate. Certainly both our peoples have reason enough to pretend that there was no peaceful contact between them."