Eeal Eldrich slid a compact laser pistol in his pocket, then checked his watch: thirty more seconds. He allowed himself a glimmer of satisfaction. The explosion in the motor pool would solve two problems at once, thus conserving energy. Matters were coming together nicely.
A muffled boom shook the station and he stepped out into the corridor. A smile tugged at his lips, but he dismissed it. It would not do to manifest an inappropriate response at this late stage. It grew more difficult every day to maintain his pretense. Soon, though, his kind would own this miserably frigid rock of a planet and then they would dispense altogether with the humans that infested this station. His job would be at an end and he could go back to his people. He smoothed the bulge in his pocket and set off toward Sickbay, two intersections away.
Off-duty personnel raced past him in answer to the alarm. Keeping his head down, Eldrich quickened his pace until he reached the door and slipped inside. No sign of Dr. Alvarez. This time he did allow himself to smile.
The Jensen woman was sitting up in bed, her eyes on a screen filled with emergency instructions. He punched the console off. "Feeling better, Ms. Jensen?"
"Corporal Jensen." Her bruised face stared back at him from under a tangled mop of short black hair. "What's going on?"
Nasty stuff—hair, Eldrich thought. Fortunately, the body he now wore had little. Why didn't humans just depilate their whole bodies? "Only a small mishap." He edged closer to the bed. "Matters are already in hand."
Her unsettling blue eyes were fixed on him. Eldrich had always thought eyes were humans' most disgusting feature, so small and such a myriad of bizarre colors. No wonder his kind would never consent to live in the same universe with this loathsome looking lot. He was going to take great pleasure in annihilating this particular hive himself.
"Have you had any word on Blackeagle?" Her tone was low, tense.
The status board above the bed revealed that her heartbeat was accelerating. He made his voice soothing. "As a matter of fact, yes. He's in my office, being debriefed."
She blinked, then leaned forward. "That's great! Is he okay?"
"None the worse for wear, as they say. I'll send him to visit you as soon as the staff has finished questioning him. They're beside themselves with excitement. He's gained a wealth of information, so it may be several more hours, even longer, unless . . ." He paused. ". . . unless you feel up to coming along yourself."
"Of course I do." She slid her feet out of the bed, then swayed as she tried to stand. A bead of sweat broke out on her forehead. She brushed it away and pushed herself onto her feet. "I need some clothes."
"Oh, just slip on a robe." He waved his hand at the garment lying across the foot of her bed. "No need to be formal. Everyone here understands what you've been through."
She picked up the robe, then hesitated. "It would only take a minute for me to get dressed."
The skin between Eldrich's shoulders crawled. He had to get this miserable female out of the medical facility before casualties from the explosion began to arrive, and the stupid hiveless body which he was trapped inside could hardly carry her fast enough, if he was forced to subdue her, not to mention the attention that would likely attract. "Well, if you're not up to it—"
Her face drawn and pale, she sighed, then gingerly slid her bandaged arm through the loose blue robe. "No, I'm fine."
"Very well." He palmed the door. "If you're sure."
Flek! Just thinking of his old enemy made Heyoka's heartbeat quicken with years of ingrained battle reflexes. Flek remade the worlds they took with a vicious thoroughness so that the atmosphere became poisonous and nothing of the native ecosystem survived. From the beginning, they had ignored all efforts of other species to communicate with them, whether to parley, negotiate, or compromise. If there was even the slightest chance they had invaded Anktan, he had to know.
Bunching his shaky muscles, he heaved halfway out of the warm embrace of the water and lay there gasping like a beached fish on the black rock, fur plastered to his skin. The backwash lapped against the sides of the thermal pool and the warm, sulfurous smell intensified. After a moment, he summoned the strength to draw his legs out of the water too, then lay on the rock, dripping and exhausted. He felt burned somehow, as though fire had swept through his brain and left in its wake only ashes.
Muffled voices came from around the bend in the wall, then Kei reappeared, carrying an armful of brown cloth. His eyes glittered angrily in the torchlight. "I told you to stay in the pool!"
Bracing a hand against the wall, Heyoka levered himself onto his feet. "I have to know what happened to your face."
Kei bristled. "That is not your concern, coward."
"I did not run away!" Heyoka met Kei's feral gaze, finding nothing of himself in those hot black eyes, nothing he could relate to, or understand. Kei would obviously like nothing better than to tear his throat out, and his own instincts were advising the same, but he had no idea why. Both outcast, related by blood and similar in size and coloration, shouldn't they be allies?
Kei flung the garments he carried at Heyoka's chest, then stalked out of the chamber, fury written into every line of his body.
Heyoka unrolled a brown overtunic and tugged it over his wet shoulders. The fabric was coarse, but sturdy, and the warmth steadied him so that he was able to straggle after Kei through a series of irregularly shaped chambers until he emerged outside. Kei, his claws ready, his lip curled in a snarl, whirled upon him. He fell automatically into a defensive stance, his own ears flattened. Attack! the other insisted inside his head. See how he brazenly stares you in the eye, bares his claws, shows his fangs—tear his throat out before he rends the flesh from your bones!
They stood there, locked in each other's gaze. The red sun hung low in the western sky and the shadows were long and jagged. The breeze stirred, filled with the scents of sun-baked earth and stone, leaves crushed beneath their feet. A row of spears stood against the rock entrance. He longed to snatch one and thrust it deep into Kei's belly.
The bushes to the right crackled, then Nisk appeared, several small limp game animals tied at the feet and thrown over his shoulder. He gazed inquiringly at the two of them.
His heart racing, Heyoka pointed at Kei. "Look at his face!"
Nisk studied the thick scar twisting from eye to jaw. "An Outsider weapon?"
"Yes, but Outsiders are not all the same." His voice was strained. "That scar was made by a weapon used by only one kind of Outsiders, the kind I have fought against for most of my adult life."
Kei dropped his gaze and rubbed the scar self-consciously. "Why would Outsiders shelter you, if you fought them?"
Heyoka's legs threatened to buckle. He needed to sit down, but sensed he would lose what little credibility he had left, if he did. "I lived among humans, the Outsiders of the drylands. Your face was scarred by a flek weapon, the same kind that injured my leg. Flek don't study other lifeforms, as humans do. They simply take whatever they want and kill whoever gets in their way."
"Outsiders are Outsiders! Sometimes they are foolish enough to dare our mountains, but we always kill them all!" Kei picked up one of the spears and thrust it toward the slate-gray crags stretching above them.
Cold, gelid as the naked vacuum of space, swept over Heyoka. "Outsiders come into these mountains?"
"From the other side. There are many, more than I can count." Kei's nose wrinkled in disgust, then he bared his double rows of strong white teeth. "Let them come back a thousand times—we will kill them all!"
"If there are flek on Anktan, then all the hrinn on this planet together could not kill them." Heyoka ran a hand back over his sagging ears. Bone-deep weariness dragged at him until he couldn't think straight. "I must see these Outsiders for myself."
Kei's ears flattened at the implied order in his voice and for a second it seemed he would spring, but then he turned aside. "Tonight." He spat the word in a half-snarl. "We will go when Ankt sleeps."
The gray-and-white cubling whimpered and Vexk returned to her side. She had dosed Khea with a sleeping potion, but apparently not enough; the youngling's sleep was shallow and troubled. Vexk wondered again exactly what had taken place when Fitila and Khea had returned to Vvok. Why had Seska disciplined this cubling so severely? Was she at fault for demanding the youngster in payment, or was something larger at work here, some pattern for which she had no reference?
Khea's eyes flew open and she stared around the dimly lit chamber.
"You are safe here." Vexk made her voice low and soothing. "Go back to sleep."
"But the Outsider!" Khea's gaze was wide and fixed. "They will kill it!"
Vexk's ears flattened. Did this center around that poor weak creature?
Khea blinked as the herbs in her system began to take effect again and drag her back into sleep. "It—it does not even have claws." Her eyelids sagged.
Vexk pressed her back into the soft pile of cushions and the cubling lacked the strength to resist. "Who will kill it?"
"Fitila," Khea mumbled, ". . . and the Line Mother. They . . . they . . ."
"What, youngling?"
"Light . . . light that . . . burns." Khea's eyelids fluttered. "The Outsiders brought light that . . . burns. I saw it."
A weapon of some sort? She touched Khea's shoulder. "Why did the Outsiders bring the light that burns? Was it to wrest the Outsider from Vvok?"
"Fitila . . . took the light." Khea's head tossed on the pillows. "Burned . . ." Her voice trailed off into senseless mumbling.
Disturbed, Vexk soaked the cloth again in the herbal infusion and squeezed a few more drops into the cubling's mouth. Perhaps now she would rest more peacefully. For herself though, there would be no sleep tonight. If she understood even a little of what Khea had seen, something was definitely out of balance.
The Outsiders had always been very careful with their weapons. She had heard of lights-that-kill, but in all the time since Outsiders had been a presence on this world, they had steadfastly refused to share them with the hrinn. Yet now Khea had seen Fitila with one. A new pattern was arising, something dark and furtive, full of teeth and claws and death. She feared to see the shape of it complete.
Someone had tossed a branch of gynth leaves onto the fire just inside the cave. Nisk savored the soothing scent as he studied the Black/on/black, outlined against the early evening darkness near the cave entrance, head bowed. His limp was more pronounced and he had obviously lost weight from his ordeal.
The males and females of Levv, coming and going from the cave, passed him without comment, but Nisk saw the way they looked at him, the unspoken deference written into their posture. He himself had difficulty approaching Heyoka now, which irritated him, but it was one thing to speculate that a figure out of legend had reappeared to join an emerging pattern and quite another to actually witness him accomplishing feats no hrinn should be able to even attempt, much less survive. The only one who seemed unaffected by the implications was Kei.
In the ordinary way of things, those who could absorb enough old power to attain blueshift speed could sustain it only for brief bursts, the length of a fight, perhaps, or a hunt, at most part of a day; but the Black/on/Black had gone on in that manner for nearly two days without drawing power first, or replenishing it after. He was more than other hrinn, as the legends had promised, however little he appeared to understand such things himself.
Kei emerged from the cave and handed Nisk a huge curving longbow. He fingered the smooth length of polished wood, noting the careful work down to the protective glyphs carved into the grip, then drew the string and sighted along his arm at the dark outline of a tree. The balance was true. "A fine weapon."
"It belonged to Seill, one of those who renounced his males' house and came back to us after Levv was destroyed." Kei sank to his haunches on the grass and stared out into the night sky. His black eyes reflected the starlight. "We were only a few frightened cublings in the days after. We didn't know where to go, what to do. Without them, we would have died."
Nisk had known Seill, a raw-boned dark-gray from the Inner Mountains Males' House. "He is dead?"
"All those who came back died in the first battle we fought in the valley against the Outsiders. I smelled death that day myself." Kei touched his scarred muzzle. "Since then, I have been oldest, so I have had to decide everything."
"What of the females?"
Kei's eyes narrowed. "I decide for them too."
Nisk shifted uneasily. "Grown males do not concern themselves with such things."
"The oldest surviving female, Missa, was an early cull, hardly better than an unnamed servant." Kei stared into the darkness. "We can trust her to do little more than tell ridiculous tales and watch after the youngest cublings."
Males and females living together as one big hold! Nisk's nose twitched with indignation. "It isn't proper for grown males to live with females."
Taking out a bit of rough brown cloth, Kei took the bow back and began to rub an aromatic herbal paste into the dark wood. The scent filled the air. "Do not speak to me of things that are proper!" His voice was gruff. "Was it proper for the Lines to slaughter females and cublings who had never committed any wrong?"
Nisk glanced uneasily at the big black-furred male. What choice had been left to this ragged bunch of survivors, he asked himself, except to live as they could? But still—! He couldn't imagine how Kei managed such an odd and unhealthy arrangement. He must help them sort themselves out as soon as possible. The madness had been declared to run through the female line, after all, not the male, so perhaps he could sponsor Kei and some of the more promising others and get them accepted into a males' house where they could learn how to conduct themselves.
"What would you have had me do?" Kei kept his eyes on his hands as he polished the beautiful old bow. "Go off, as was `proper,' and leave the females in the care of a witless, half-crazy old servant?"
Nisk kept silent, remembering the tawny striped Line Mother who had ruled Kendd in his far behind cubhood, stern Satta, whose claws had been quick but fair. He tried to imagine an early cull in her place and failed.
Kei handed the longbow back to him and stood, his well-muscled body tall and straight as the trees on this hillside. Nisk felt a surge of respect for this indomitable young male. He was rough at the edges, and clearly knew nothing of the accommodations between males which allowed them to interact without tearing each other's throats out, such as the subtle dropping of gaze, or giving way without seeming to notice the other's presence, but he had faced unimaginable disaster and made far more of it than anyone would have ever expected.
"We will go now." Kei glanced over at the silent Black/on/black.
Nisk slung the bow over his shoulder, then accepted a leather pouch full of arrows. The Black/on/black fell in behind them as Kei led, as silent and impenetrable as the night itself. The path leading up to the pass wound above them, long and steep. Kei ghosted ahead in the darkness, seeming to touch nothing as he passed, leaving no sign. Behind, Nisk could hear the Black/on/black's uneven gait as he trudged wearily after them, favoring his weak leg.
Suddenly Kei froze, looking above them into the sky. Nisk gazed up too and sighted a strangely bright light, no bigger than the tip of a claw, moving as though it had purpose, as no proper star could. The Black/on/black threw his head back and watched, ears flattened, hackles bristling, until Kei moved on into the darkness and they had to follow, trying to keep their footing on the loose chaff that had eroded down from the pass up ahead. When the angle became too steep, Nisk followed Kei's example and dropped to all fours, digging in with his claws to keep from slipping.
The Black/on/black fell further and further behind, unable to match their pace with only one sound leg. Pebbles rattled back down the slope as Kei surged up to the opening between the crags first, then wedged himself there, waiting silently until Nisk joined him. Even though the night air was cool and sweet, he detected a faint, nose-burning stench as he scrabbled up the last body-length of bare rock. The wind sang against his face as he balanced on the knife-thin edge and gazed down upon an immense array of intersecting curves of light, white and gold and pink and green and blue, stretched out over the plains like the claws of a great slumbering beast. His throat closed—it was true then. He realized he had not really credited the Black/on/black's fears until now.
The jagged rock bit into his legs and he shifted to a more comfortable position. "Why did the plains hrinn allow Outsiders to build here?"
Kei's ears flattened. "The Outsiders burned them to ashes, along with the trees and the grasses and the kikinti they followed. We used to mate with the plains hrinn, who had no opinion about the fitness of Levv to exist, so cublings would be born and the Line would continue," Kei answered. "But then one season, when the time of Gathering arrived, we found only blackened husks lying scattered around the beginnings of this thing instead. When we got too close, Outsiders poured out and drove us back into the mountains with their terrible burning lights. The older males held them off long enough for the rest of us to escape, then died screaming as we ran." He turned his head as something scritched behind them in the darkness, but it was only the claws of the climbing Black/on/black.
Nisk reached down for his wrist and a blue spark jumped between them, as though, in spite of everything, he still held so much power, he couldn't contain it. Bracing himself against Nisk's weight, Heyoka swung up and settled heavily between the two of them. His head swiveled as he took in long curving tubes of light stretched over the dark floor of the valley, the smaller colored lights dancing back and forth, the unnerving stench which had grown stronger with a shift in the wind. Faint sounds reached them too, squeals, pounding, grinding. The creatures below, whatever they were, seemed very busy, even though it was dark. The Black/on/black's eyes were wide, his breathing rapid. He said something in that other, slippery language, shook his head and switched to Hrinnti. "This is much worse than I thought."
The bubble of light they had seen before in the sky descended to the ground with a shrill whine that carried back up into the mountains. Kei unlooped the longbow from over his shoulder and reached for an arrow. "You have fought these creatures before, so you know how to kill them. They are almost impossible to approach. Teach us how to drive them away."
"They cannot be stopped with a bow, or a spear, or claws." The Black/on/black fell silent, ears flattened in thought. "That thing down there is a transfer grid which will bring thousands and thousands of them here."
Kei snarled. "Why do they not stay in their own place?"
"It is not their nature." The Black/on/black stared down at the plains as the small light leaped up into the sky again. "We must go to the Outsiders on the other side of the river and get help as soon as possible. The grid looks almost complete, and once it is, no one will be able to save this world."