Mitsu fled down the narrow green beach, the merciless white sun burning her pale skin and skeletal flek everywhere, grasping at her with chitinous dead-white fingers, their mad chitter the only sound left in her universe. She threw herself against a hillock of spiny gray grass hard enough to knock the air out of her lungs and lay there gasping. Where was the rest of her unit? Where were Benny and Sej and where—rot his soul—was Blackeagle? How could he just abandon her to die like this?
Beyond the hill, she heard the rustle of flek. If she didn't move on, they would sniff her out. She tried to take a deep breath so she could run, but the pain in her chest constricted her lungs. Standing, she tried to run anyway, but slipped and stumbled as the flek crept through the grass, reaching . . .
Someone was crying out in a raw, hoarse voice, but the sound was very far away . . . Moving restlessly, Mitsu longed for it to stop. Her head hurt so much already . . . A hand supported her neck; she felt cool water at her cracked lips and drank, but swallowing hurt her raw throat and did nothing to quench the burning that consumed her. She gagged and turned away. Water would not put out this fire. She needed a Med, but some distant part of her understood that in this terrible, unrelenting place of fur and claws and sand, there would be no such thing.
The so-called "room" was no better than an irregular hole scratched into the ground by a wounded animal. A scruffy, lop-eared servant gestured for them to enter and Heyoka dropped to his knees, reflecting it would've had to be a damned small animal at that. The air was musty down here; the only light was shed by a single guttering torch carried by the servant.
Despite the pulsing headache centered behind his eyes, he considered balking and fighting his way back out into the blessed open air, rather than allowing himself to be trapped. These Jhii were just noncoms, he told himself. They had nothing but brute force on their side, and the first duty of any prisoner was to escape, but Nisk was between him and the servant, and he had no room to maneuver in the narrow passageway.
He crawled in until his shoulder fetched up against a rough wall as Nisk followed him into the darkness without protest. Cursing, he turned and wedged himself in the corner. Anger swelled inside him. His leg ached and he found local politics utterly bewildering. Beshha's professed concerns were patently ridiculous. What did she think the two of them were going to do—ravish an entire hold of hrinnti females? He kneaded his aching forehead, still trying to plan a way out of this mess. "What is this level for?"
"It was probably constructed for early-culled servants who will never be fed enough to differentiate sexually, or grow to any size." Nisk squirmed around until he could poke his nose out the small doorway. "Bring us food and water," he ordered the servant squatting just outside.
A small buff-colored face appeared in the square of light. "Skett, she say naught of food."
"If this male does not eat, he will die!" Nisk's voice rang with authority. "If the Line Mother intends him no harm, you must bring food." The buff-colored nose quivered, then, ears waggling, the guard settled back into place. A growl rumbled in Nisk's chest.
Heyoka leaned over Nisk, his voice low. "Let's take it and get out now while we can."
"Do not be foolish." Nisk kneed him in the chest. He fell back and brought down a shower of dust from the ceiling that made them both cough. "If we leave now, every Jhii daughter and half-grown cubling will be on our trail within the flick of an ear." His black eyes glittered through the dimness. "And look at yourself—you're in no condition to fight. In fact, you will most likely die if you go on like you did this afternoon."
Heyoka settled his aching head against the dirt wall. "I've fought for days in much worse shape than this."
"Fool! You still have no grasp of this pattern," Nisk said irritably. "How do you expect to be in control unless you can see it for what it is?"
Patterns again. From language tapes, Heyoka knew Hrinnti religion did invoke "patterns" of some sort as a prophetic device, but their significance had not been clear. He sighed. How had he let things get so far out of hand? He'd just meant to accompany Nisk a short distance, then slip away. How had he wound up shut up in the bottom level of one of the Lines?
"Sleep while you can." Nisk's voice sounded distant. "I must try to work out what it is Beshha really wants, but I will wake you if they honor their obligations and bring food."
He did feel bone-weary and more than a little dizzy, but that was from too much action and no sleep in this higher gravity. He could go on, if he had to. As for food, he didn't think he could eat, even if something were brought. His throat was dry and food sounded, well, sickening. His eyelids felt like lead weights, but he had too much to . . .
With a start, he realized his muzzle had shifted down to his chest. He couldn't remember what it was he had to do, but it was important . . .
Caught in an outgoing tide of sleep, he drifted away.
Levv! Beshha kicked a fat purple cushion aside as she prowled the crowded confines of her chamber. Fur bristled along her shoulders and she could not help snarling under her breath. How could that name find a voice again after so many seasons?
Her direct-daughter, Syll, hung back in the doorway, watching her with enigmatic black eyes that were almost invisible in her black face. "I tried to tell you."
"Shut up!" Beshha whirled, but Syll held her ground even as Beshha's gold-dipped claws hovered within a whisper of her throat. The cant of her daughter's ears was a shade higher than this situation warranted, portending a coming confrontation. Beshha turned and preened the fine dark-brown fur along her throat. Violence and force had never been her way. Let others claw their way to the top; she had always found the subtle intricacies of stealth/in/intent a much more effective pattern than any of the more brutal ones which other Lines followed, as well as more likely to leave one's hide intact at the end of matters.
She settled back against her cushions. "They both have to die."
"The black one too?" Syll's tone bordered upon fearful. "What if he is—"
Beshha closed her fingers over a cedt nut. "You don't actually give any credence to that Black/on/black nonsense, do you? It's nothing but tales passed down by toothless old Tellers. No one has ever actually seen such a creature, and in case you didn't notice, he looked remarkably unwell tonight—for a legend."
"I will have Skett kill them then." Syll turned to go.
"It cannot been done here, you wet-ears!" Beshha cracked a nut thoughtfully between her back teeth. "That is just what we would need, for the whole hold to know we killed this pair against whom we had no legitimate grievance. Your idiocy would put us all at risk."
"But if it were an accident—"
Beshha dashed the empty shells in her daughter's face. "Fool! All of Jhii down to the scruffiest servant knows they are here. Claiming an accident would only bring to mind Levv's madness." She crunched the pale nutmeat, savoring its mellowness. "No, it must be done somewhere else, where no one can ever connect it to us."
Syll hunched in the doorway and watched Beshha crack another nut. Beshha found herself amused; she herself had never been allowed to taste anything as savory as a cedt nut until, with the help of the Outsider weapons, she had ambushed her predecessor, old Menn, and taken her place. Cedt bushes grew best on the other side of Kendd where the soil and moisture were just right. They were a delicacy here in the mountains.
She picked up another nut and rolled the rough shell between her thumbs. "Tomorrow, we will send them on their way. Have Skett and several of her trainees follow at a discrete distance until they leave Jhii land." She flung the uncracked nut at Syll's head, missing by only a hair. "Now, find Skett and see that everything is arranged for tomorrow."
Almost surreptitiously, Syll snatched up the nut from the carpet as she passed. Beshha's ears caught a sharp crack from the hall before Syll had gone three paces. A hint of satisfaction wrinkled her nose.
No, she told herself, it would never do to deprive her daughter as old Menn had once deprived her. Let Syll sample a few tidbits every now and again to blunt her hunger for the Line Mother's place. Syll was sharp-nosed enough to know it would come to her in time. In the meantime, Beshha meant to enjoy her days without having to watch for that sort of trouble nipping at her heels.
Vexk and the cubling made slow progress back from the caves. The youngster, pushed far beyond her limits, was stumbling from weariness. But Khea made no complaint, nor did Vexk expect any from a youngster born of such a rugged Line. Above, Ankt monitored them like a stern red eye, hovering just above the eastern horizon. By the time they reached the sprawling hold's outer doorway, the fire of its gaze played over her face; another scorching day was being made.
Cimmi met them in the shadow of the threshold, her muzzle creased with concern, her posture uncertain.
Vexk's breath caught. "It has not died?"
"No, but it is so—hot." Shame written in her eyes, Cimmi lowered her head. "I did all I could, but to no avail. I never knew flesh could burn so and still live."
Behind her, Khea sagged against the wall, ears limp as Vexk brushed her fingers along Cimmi's cheek. "I know you have done your best. It was at the point of death before it arrived."
Cimmi's uneasy eyes met hers again. "A message arrived by jik last night after you left. Vvok ordered the Outsider returned immediately—dead or alive, it does not matter which."
Khea straightened as though she had been struck, her jaws agape with surprise and Vexk felt an unaccustomed snarl rumbling in her throat. This made no sense. Where was the advantage in letting the creature die now, after guarantee of payment and constant attendance on her part? What bizarre pattern was Seska chasing after now? She bristled. "It matters to me!" She stalked past Cimmi in a fog of anger, fighting to regain control. Anger defiled the sacredness of harmony/through/balance, the great pattern that gave shape to her life and that of all Restorers.
The Outsider lay propped on a pile of cushions in a darkened room at the back of the upper level, which was reserved for those most ill. Vexk squatted beside the small, fever-wracked body and removed bandages soaked with healing herbs from the creature's damaged arm and side. The aromatic scent filled the air, overriding the foreign rankness. "I am pleased with your growing skill, young one," she said.
Cimmi bowed her head modestly, then knelt on the other side of the dying creature. Vexk heard a rustle near the door. "Enter," she said without looking at Khea, then closed her eyes and summoned the inner quiet required for Restoration, especially in this case. The power involved was going to be great and had an equal capacity for good and bad. It could easily destroy, rather than restore, so her control had to be perfect. She stretched her hands out above the frail body and felt the abnormal heat radiating from it. She stiffened; the creature's skin had not even been this hot last night and that had been the worst so far. Little time remained. Her eyes closed as she summoned the wordless, singing vibration of the Voice into her hands, then added the steaming strength of the sacred pool.
In her heightened state of awareness, the infection in the clawed arm and shoulder shone like a torch in the night. Spreading her fingers, she traced the first angry red line with sacred blue fire, controlling the flow with a concentration so intense that she was aware of little else. At her touch, the creature cried out and tried to rise. Cimmi scrambled to pin it down. After she had traced the length of each wound, Vexk rested, musing that a hrinn would have bitten its own tongue through rather than fight her, but then Outsiders were clearly another breed, with their own strengths and weaknesses.
The infection ran deep, so she retraced each claw trail with a measured discharge of power, attempting the impossibly delicate job of burning the infection out bit by bit without further damaging the creature's fragile skin and muscle. After a short struggle, the alien lay pale and limp as she went over each wound again and again. Dead or alive, indeed! Her lips curled away from her teeth in a fierce grimace. Strange though this creature was, it was still Life and, like every Restorer since the Beginning, she had forfeited her unborn in order to wield the sacred power to bind Life to this earth whenever possible.
When she had expended her last glimmer of power, Vexk hunched over the creature, gasping, her tongue lolling in what she knew was a most undignified fashion. The creature lay quiet now, its pallid, flat face still. Vexk touched its skin and found it cooler. Its breathing seemed easier too. She could sense no more infection lingering in the claw marks, although sometimes it hid deep within the body and came back later. Still, she had hollowed herself out with giving; never before had she used so much in a single session.
Khea crept forward, her ears trembling with fatigue. "Will it live?"
"Perhaps." Vexk ran a trembling hand back over her ears. "It has a chance now, if the shock has not been too much for it. Their bodies are not as sturdy as ours."
Cimmi gripped Vexk's shoulder. "Go and rest. I will keep watch."
Vexk thought longingly of her own pile of soft, gynth-stuffed cushions several levels below, but decided against leaving. "No, its condition is too uncertain. I will curl up here beside it."
"Is there a problem, Dr. Alvarez?" Allenby peered anxiously at her as Sanyha checked box labels in the storeroom.
Sanyha paused. "No, I just want to examine some of these garments for differences between the clothing of direct-daughters and other females in a Line."
The stores manager blinked nervously. "I have some unpacked specimens on the sorting tables in the back."
"Thanks, but—" She struggled with the catch on one likely looking box. "—I remember seeing nice specimens last month in the shipment we got in from Kendd and I have good charts on that Line." Breaking a fingernail, she sighed and turned to him. "I think they're in this box. Would you open it for me?"
A grimace crossed Allenby's thin face. "The Director wants these shipped on the next run. I can't break up the manifest."
"The ship won't be here for over two months." Sanyha watched his eyes. "I promise I'll pack everything back myself and double-check against the packing list. You won't have to lift a finger."
"Just let me ask the Director." Allenby sidled toward his com. "Then you can—"
"Allenby?" Eldrich's voice barked from the com before Allenby could touch it. "Any sign of that Jensen woman yet?"
The Adam's apple bobbed in Allenby's throat. "Not yet, sir."
"Well, keep an eye on the main door. She should be here any time now."
Sanyha moved toward the com. "How do you know that?"
"What was that, Allenby? Have you got someone there with you?"
"That's Dr. Alvarez, Director." Allenby glanced up at her. "She'd like permission to go through some of the packed shipment boxes for her research."
"Permission denied!" The com was silent for a moment. "We have enough work to do around here without undoing any of it." The com clicked off.
"Sorry, Doctor." Allenby didn't look at her. "Why don't you check some of these unprocessed specimens?"
"No, thanks." Sanyha drummed her fingers on the locked crate, thinking. "Is Sergeant Blackeagle bringing in the Jensen woman?"
"I don't know." Allenby walked to the back of the room toward the sorting tables. "You'll have to ask the—"
"—Director," Sanyha finished for him. There was no safer answer, she thought sourly. No one ever wanted to talk to the Director. "Never mind." She gathered up her notes. "I have something else to take care of first."
Like coding the defense system to buzz her when someone came in from the outside.
"Out! Out!"
A high-pitched voice in the outer passageway jerked Heyoka awake. He started and hit his head against the wall as a buff-colored muzzle thrust into the claustrophobic earthen chamber. "The Line Mother, she say go now!"
Ears ringing, Heyoka blinked in confusion at the dirt walls, unsure for the moment where he was. Somebody was between him and the faint light beyond. The air was stale, and his tongue felt three sizes too big for his head. "W-what?"
"Out now!" The servant jabbed his ribs with a sharpened stake. "Stay away from Jhii mothers and daughters!"
The stick tore through his already tattered robes and pierced the skin beneath. Anger blazed through Heyoka and he lunged at his tormenter, but Nisk grasped the stick and shoved the servant back out into the passageway. "Have care, nameless one!" His lips curled in a fierce grimace. "I doubt Beshha would miss a witless cull-face like you!"
The servant fell back into the far wall and squealed. Then it scrambled out of reach, wielding the stake. "Out! Out!"
Nisk gripped Heyoka's shoulder. "Once we leave, we will find something to eat."
Food? Heyoka shook his matted mane out of his eyes. That was absolutely the last thing he wanted. His insides felt like rats had been tunneling through them all night. He took a deep breath and then crawled after Nisk out into the passageway.
"Out!" The servant waved the stake at them. "Leave good Jhii mothers and daughters alone!"
"Gods!" Heyoka muttered to himself in Standard. "What I wouldn't give to have a blaster just long enough to blow this little bugger to atoms!" Lurching to his feet, he staggered after Nisk as they followed the sloping floor upward, lighted only by the servant's torch behind them.
The walls seemed out of focus to Heyoka as they walked the endless passageways, bearing right or left at each fork according to orders shouted from behind. He told himself they had to have been crazy to let themselves be trapped in a rabbit maze like this.
Finally, he sniffed fresh air again, but the fierce rush of accompanying smells turned his stomach. Sagging against the wall, he hung his head and waited for the wave of nausea to pass.
"Out!" The servant prodded him in the back with its stick. "Jhii daughters not want you here!"
The servant's angry face rippled as though seen underwater. Heyoka seized its wiry neck, but even as he tightened his fingers, he thought the hrinn had a curiously unreal feeling to it, as though he held nothing but air.
"Do not dirty your claws with that thing," Nisk said calmly from over his shoulder. "Jhii will reap the harvest of this disgraceful lack of propriety at the proper time."
Heyoka tried to let go, but his hands ignored him, as though they had become independent creatures with a will of their own, and went on with the business of throttling the servant while he merely looked on. Its handclaws gouged his chest as it struggled, but he felt—nothing.
Nisk grasped Heyoka's wrist and flexed his own handclaws into his forearm. "Do not soil your hands on this groveling, nameless thing, Black/on/black. Much as it deserves to die, killing it would take too much of your energy and we have far to go."
Under the sting of Nisk's claws, Heyoka could suddenly feel his hands again. He took a deep convulsive breath and loosened his grip, allowing the buff-colored servant to fall to the floor.
"Just what I would expect from a male!"
Heyoka turned around and saw the sharp-nosed face of the cub-trainer, Skett. She seemed both near and incredibly distant at the same time. The hallway slanted suddenly beneath his feet and he fell against Nisk.
Bracing him against the wall, Nisk glared at the cub-trainer. "What did you expect when you abused him like this? I sent for food and water last night, and yet he had none. You saw the manner in which he fought; you had to know he would require it, so do not speak to me of proprieties in this hold!"
Skett's ears flattened. "Get out and take this pile of Levv droppings with you."
"All debts will be reckoned in their proper time!" Nisk levered Heyoka past the cub-trainer. "A day will come when you have cause to remember this one's name."