A Prison Unsought (76 page)

Canyons of light rose
around her, triggering memory of the death fast approaching in real-time. She
dismissed it. That was outside, unreal now.

Tat flew down,
following the argus as it scuttled past node after node of data. The systems of
the Samedi tangled chaotically: the ship was well over four hundred years old
and the computer had never been flushed. She ignored the mess, flitting past
code-tangles that would have mired her instantly had she touched them, intent
on tracking her opponent, the Bori who was not a Bori.

The neuraimai sat on
her shoulder, chattering in her ears like a demented simian. Ahead, the argus
slowed, then screamed in agony as a phage-worm darted out and impaled it. Tat
raised her arm and flung a dart of code at the intruder. It shriveled and fell
away, too late. The argus vanished in a burst of color and a bad smell.

No matter; it had
taken her most of the way. Vast obelisks of light rose around her, like a valley
of monuments to the dead, inscribed with words. Some she could read, others
were garbled, out of focus, or impossible to even look at.

The neuraimai leapt
into the air, flinging itself on glutinous wings toward a distant pylon glowing
a virulent shade of pustulant green with veins of red running through it. The
obelisk abruptly opened a fanged mouth, and a glittering tongue of diamond
lashed out, wrapped itself in brittle splendor around the little code-beast,
and drew it in. The mouth snapped shut. It masticated hideously, groaning with
delight as it crushed the life out of the neuraimai, not noticing that two of
the words on its surface now glowed clearly.

SKULEMAM.
SEERASINATCH.

Tat raised the book of
Bori history and threw it into the air. Its covers transformed into leathery
wings, the words within sprouting from the pages into a plethora of teeth like
crystal growth from a supersaturated medium. It lunged at the pylon, now
shrinking away, and tore at its surface. Blobs of ichor spurted forth, transformed
in their flight into more words.

KVLESMAM.
NATSARREESITCH. LESMAMKUL. ATCHSEERISAN. MAMSELUK. TCHANISARIS. MAMELUKS.

A trumpet blared,
mutating into a brassy voice echoing around her. “Ancient Anglic terms for
mercenaries become rulers in medieval Lost Earth. Mamelukes. Janissaries.”

The Dol’jharians had
been mercenaries to the Bori, until the stone-bones released the Red Plague and
conquered their onetime masters.

The words fell into
her hands, and became a pair of heavy bronze keys. She plunged them into the
madly glaring eyes of the obelisk and twisted; it screamed in agony and
collapsed into a seething pool of slime that rapidly evaporated. Other pylons,
close and far, tottered and fell. Tat flung out a web of steel and took
command, welding code-space to her will. The clangor of metal stuttered around
her.

Then, slowly, the air
began to congeal—her time was running out, her strength failing. She looked
around. Some pylons still stood, mostly environmental functions; she judged
them unimportant. She spoke the words of dismissal and spiraled back to
real-time.

Tat turned away from the console, retching uncontrollably.
As soon as the spasm subsided she tapped a command with trembling hands. The
Samedi
was in lockdown, the Dol’jharian
section now a prison rather than a fortress, and Morrighon no longer had any
foothold in the computer. “Captain, the ship is yours. The Dol’jharians are
locked up.”

She didn’t hear his reply as blackness overwhelmed her and
she slid out of her chair onto the floor.

“Let’s get out of here,” Fasthand
shouted. “Lassa, take us out of orbit. Head in-system. It’s cleaner. We’ll veer
off once we’re past the primary. And push it. I don’t care if we do
ablate—check with Lar for what we can handle and how long. Creote, tell the
cruiser the Panarch’s down on the surface. Maybe they won’t come after us.”

“Can’t get through the ion storm
till they decelerate,” Creote protested.

“Spool every repeater we’ve got, piss-head,
and launch ’em!” Fasthand slapped his compad, trying to control the shaking of
his hands. “Security! Mount heavy jacs at all the hatches into the enemy
section. Burn down anyone who comes through. We’ll relay some eyes to you.”

He glared at Lar, busy at Damage Control. “Give me eyes in
there! Relay it to the jac teams. We gotta see what they’re up to.”

Several subsidiary screens lit up with views of corridors
and rooms, switching rapidly. Some were blank; no one was visible. “They’ve
blasted some of the imagers.”

“Then that’s where they are.
Security, keep a sharp watch. Let me know if you see anything. Lar, open the
heavy section to space.” He laughed, feeling hysteria nibble at the edge of his
mind. “That’ll slow ’em down.”

Lar tapped at his console. “Can’t. That function’s still
locked out.”

“Then boost their gees to max.”

“Can’t do that, either.”

“Tat, you chatzer!” Fasthand
shouted. There was no answer. “Then cut them out! Can’t get much momentum in
null-gee.”

“Done.”

On the main screen the planet swung away and dwindled
rapidly.

“Knot’s holding,” said Moob. “So
far.” She cocked her head at the Urian hyperwave near the communications
console. “What’re you gonna tell Eusabian?”

“I’ll worry about that when we get
away from that cruiser,” Fasthand snapped.

“You better,” Moob snarled. “I’d
almost rather face a ruptor than the Lord of Vengeance if you zap his heir. And
you’re gonna have to, you know.”

Fasthand stared at her, then slammed his fist down on the
compad again. “Engineering! Engage start-up on the engines. We may need them.”

“That’ll take a good twenty hours,”
came the reply from old Daug. “They’re stone-cold.”

“Just do it.” He cut the
connection.

Twenty hours to being able to cut and run, away from this
chatzing war, away from Dol’jhar.
I’ll
take us so far out on the Fringes that nobody’ll ever hear of us again.
It
was a good thing he’d kept the fuel pods topped up.

He looked up at one of the secondary screens, at the flaring
energy of the Knot and the deadly star waxing in the center.

Just let me outrun
that cruiser,
Fasthand thought, wondering at the same time whom he was
talking to.

Anyone that could get him out of this, he decided.
Anyone.

Napier Ur’Comori knelt before Londri Ironqueen and offered
her his sword. She took it from him and raised it up, savoring the moment. His
eyes followed the steel.

Londri smiled and tossed the sword in the air, catching it
by the blade in one gauntleted hand and presenting it back to him. “I am
pleased,” she said, “that it is truly steel this time.”

He rose to his feet in a fluid movement and sheathed the
sword. She could see in his quick sideward glances that he was mindful of the
massive form of Gath-Boru standing nearby, glaring at him.

Napier bowed. “I am deeply sorry for the distress I have
caused House Ferric and its noble scion.”

Londri waved her hand. “That is past.” She motioned toward
the hill that concealed the landing site of the flying machine. “What lies
ahead is far more important, to you, to me, and to all upon this world.”

She started pacing, partially aware of how her polished
leather armor gleamed blood red in the glaring, dappled shade of a tall,
spreading twist-needle. “Our task now is twofold: to capture the sky-machine
and to hold off the Tasuroi.” She paused when Napier grinned. “Yes, my lord
Comori?”

“I almost forgot, Your Majesty. I
have a gift for you.”

He motioned to an aide, who came forward with a leather bag.
Napier took it and withdrew the still-dripping head of a Tasuroi highborn, its
nose fetish bedraggled and soaked in blood.

“One of the strongest arguments on
the side of your generous offer of alliance was the pleasure of killing this
disgusting creature.”

“Your thoughtful gift is most
agreeable,” said Londri, wrinkling her nose. They both burst out laughing. She
turned to one of her aides. “Take this to Vre’Ktash and have him load it into
one of the catapults. It will make a fitting gesture when we open our attack.”
The aide saluted and ran off with the head.

A scout ran up then. “Majesty, Tlaloc of Aztlan reports his
forces in position, and begs your permission to remain there.”

Londri nodded, turning to Gath-Boru. “General, are we
ready?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” He waved
toward the hill. “I ordered preparation of an observation point that Stepan
believes will be safe from the vessel’s weapons.”

They made their way up the shallow incline to a redoubt
carefully dug into the brow of the hill. Peering through the vertical slit
carved in the heavy, claylike soil, Londri could see the machine still sitting
in the clearing, blurring as flames crackled on the periphery, sending a
thick smoke drifting. Soon greasy rolls of sooty smoke from damped oil-brush
fires obscured all but the general outline of the ship.

A few minutes later, a horn call rang out, followed by the
squeal-thump of the catapults.

She inhaled sharply in amazement, then sneezed as smoke
seared her nose. As the first rock hit the vessel, its wall glowed, and the
rock flew off at right angles, leaving not a dint in the metal. Likewise with a
bolt laden with never-quench; it, too, flew off at right angles to its line of
flight and splashed in fiery ruin, kindling a blaze in the dry grass.

“That is what I told you about,
Your Majesty.”

She twisted on her side. Stepan crouched a few paces back.

“The teslas twist space so that the
momentum of any projectile is deflected at ninety degrees. It is near-perfect
armor.”

Londri struggled with the concept of twisted emptiness.

“Near perfect?”

“It doesn’t deflect heat or light, and very slow-moving
things, spore-tox for instance, may get through.” He shook his head. “They are
no doubt sealed against our air now, with all the smoke. But if their engines
were damaged, they may be low on power, in which case, if we hit the shields
with enough heavy projectiles, it may be possible to break through and force
their surrender. In addition, I would recommend throwing bundles of oil-brush
and never-quench as close to the hull as possible. It will be difficult for
them to dissipate the heat.”

“Make it so,” she said to
Gath-Boru. He saluted and crawled away from the scooped-out bunker and ran
crouching down the hill.

Stepan crawled forward and peered past her at the ship. “I
wonder who they are, and what happened.”

“Perhaps you will have a chance to
ask them,” Londri said.

Stepan nodded slowly. “Perhaps I will.”

Morrighon clamped his teeth hard in his lower lip, hoping
the pain would prevent another eruption of his stomach. Not that there was
anything left to come up. This was his first experience of null-gee, and, he
hoped fervently, his last.

Nearby, Anaris floated relaxed in midair, watching as three
Tarkans labored to anchor themselves on each side of a hatch, readying the
assault they would shortly endeavor. The heir held one of Morrighon’s
communicators, speaking into it occasionally as he coordinated the efforts of
his forces to break out of the trap that had been sprung on them.

He lowered the com and turned to regard Morrighon, whose
stomach fluttered anew. Anaris’s expression was mild, the worst sign possible.

“It was the Bori woman who did
this, you said?”

“Yes, lord,” Morrighon offered no exculpation;
it would do no good.

“And you cannot undo her efforts?”

“Not within the time limit you
specified, lord.”

Anaris nodded thoughtfully. “It would have gone far worse
for us had they more environmental control.”

Morrighon seized the opportunity gratefully. “I had that
hardwired, lord.”

“It is well that you did,” his lord
commented, then glanced back down the corridor. “She is quite good, isn’t she?”

“Yes, lord,” Morrighon said.
“Possibly the best noderunner I have ever encountered. Perhaps even Ferrasin’s
superior.”

“Then we will take her with us,”
said Anaris. “The Rifters will not be able to evade the cruiser. I do not wish
them to. They will serve my purpose one more time.”

“She will not come without her
cousins,” Morrighon ventured. It appeared that he would not suffer the
consequences of his failure this time.

“I leave that to you,” Anaris
replied, pushing off from the wall and launching himself across the corridor,
through a hatch. His voice echoed out of the compartment. “The assault is about
to begin. The corridor will not be safe.”

Morrighon followed him clumsily, his stomach roiling again.
Anaris touched lightly on the opposite wall, then twisted about as he spoke a
command into the communicator.

The blast of shaped charges opened to the hissing roar of
jacs, which in turn nearly obscured the frenzied yells of the Tarkans, mixed
with horrified screams from the Rifters outside the hatch.

“And, Morrighon,” Anaris continued,
as though nothing was happening, “do not fail me again.”

On the bridge, Larghior Alac-lu-Ombric watched as Emmet
Fasthand slumped in defeat and tabbed the hatch open. The Tarkans rushed in,
spreading out efficiently, menacing the bridge crew with their jacs.

No one moved.

Two of the Tarkans advanced on Moob and yanked her out of
her pod, one pinioning her while the other roughly relieved her of her knives.
Lar was mildly astonished at the quantity of weapons she managed to conceal despite
her skin-tight clothing.

When their search was finished, the Tarkan slammed her back
in her pod and moved away. She snarled at him wordlessly, but her heart
obviously wasn’t in it.