Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3 (33 page)

The End.

That is the end of
Valha
i, Book One in the Ammonite Galaxy series.

This Omnibus edition continues with
Kwaide
...

KWAIDE

BOOK TWO IN THE AMMONITE GALAXY SERIES

BY

GILLIAN ANDREWS

This book is dedicated to Johnny, who loves to disappear inside a book.

“WHY DO WE call Arcan ‘he’?” asked Diva 

Six looked at her, “What do you mean?” he said. “Of course Arcan is a ‘he’. What else could he be?”

“A girl?”

Six’s jaw dropped open. “A girl?” he echoed, “of course he isn’t a girl. He can do all sorts of things. As if a girl could transport us all instantaneously from one planet to another!”

“Why not?” Diva put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes.

“Well, I mean! Arcan is mega-intelligent, and ancient, and alien, and well …!” He was outraged at the suggestion.

“And that means he has to be masculine, I take it?”

“Yes,” Six was relieved she had understood. “Of course.” Sometimes he found it hard to figure out just how Diva’s thought processes worked. Girls!

“It hasn’t occurred to that Kwaidian mini-brain of yours that he might be an ‘it’ or a ‘she’?”

“No!”

Diva nodded. “Just to get this straight, you associate intelligence with being male?”

“Err … not exactly … no.” He looked at her sideways.

“How exactly then?”

“Girls can be bright too.” Six offered unconvincingly.

“Thank you. So kind.” Diva swiveled quickly on one heel and brought the blunt dagger she had been practicing with up against his throat. “Take it back, nomus!”

“Hey!” Six protested, and then shrugged, “all right - girls can’t be bright then.”

The dagger pressed more insistently against his neck. “That,” she said through gritted teeth, “is not what I meant.”

“Well, really, Diva! You should say what you mean. How am I supposed to guess what you are going on about all the time? And we were just practicing. It isn’t fair to jump me like that.”

“Now what are you two fighting about?” They were interrupted by a deep voice, which came out of nowhere.

“Arcan, tell Diva you are male, please.”

“Arcan, this Kwaidian seems to think you couldn’t be female.”

They heard a long sigh. “Well, I don’t reproduce like you have to. Individual cells live and die and divide, and that is how I procreate. So I suppose I am neither female nor male.”

“An ‘it’ then!” said Diva, pleased.

“No.” Arcan was definite. “I do not like the impersonal tone of ‘it’. I prefer to be thought of as ‘he’.”

“See, Diva? I told you!”

“Fine!” snapped Diva, withdrawing the copy of her Coriolan dagger and slipping it deftly into the scabbard she wore around her waist. “Just fine!” She glared around her at the walls of the 21
^st
floor of the 256
^th
skyrise and then marched out.

“Did I say something wrong Six?” asked Arcan.

“Nah. Girls are just like that. Don’t worry about it.”

“Then I am happy not to be a girl.”

“Well you would be, wouldn’t you? I mean … stands to reason,” Six shook his head. “Females!”

“Now how do you think you are going to practice?” Cimma’s voice cut in, reminding Six that he was supposed to be in a class of self-defense. He looked down at the floor and shuffled his feet. “And it is no good pretending that none of it was your fault. I was here, listening to every word.”

“But, Cimma—” the Kwaidian began.

“But, Cimma, nothing.” Grace’s mother frowned. “You know how important these classes are. You, at least, should be happy to spend some time learning to fight better.” The Sellite woman shifted her weight on the orthosupport she was using to help her stand, and took a couple of steps towards Six, who looked at her warily.

“Now, Cimma,” he said. “I’ll get Diva back, I promise. Hang on a moment! Just having a bit of fun, is all.”

“My classes are not supposed to be fun.” Grace’s mother lifted her chin.

Six muttered under his breath.

“Did you say something?” She took a step forward, which caused Six to take a step back.

“Nothing. Arcan, can you ask Diva to come back, please? Tell her I am sorry or whatever. Tell her we have to finish the class.”

“She is coming,” Arcan said, after a brief pause. “She seems a bit cross though.”

“Terrific! Two cross … err, I mean … that will make the fight all the more enjoyable.” And I thought Atheron’s classes were the worst thing you could possibly have! He looked at the Sellite woman out of the corner of his eye. She was still recovering from the wounds received when the Sellites had attacked, and needed constant support. Luckily, Arcan had been able to mould her firstly an orthogel chair, and now an orthogel supportive column. Even though a full month had passed since the attack, the bruises along her face were still clearly visible. She had decided to appoint herself fitness and fight instructor, and nobody dared gainsay her.

At last Diva reappeared, and they began to weave to and fro in the training ritual Cimma insisted upon. Diva had a particularly bloodthirsty look on her face, and Six was hard-pressed to avoid being marked by the blunted blades they used in these training sessions. Diva’s dagger couldn’t slice him up like her real one could, but he knew from past experience that it could give him some very nasty bruises. Soon he was gasping for breath, and Diva was grinning at him in a distinctly maniacal way.

“Now, nomus, do you still think women are stupid?” she asked, panting but still taking good care to move her feet in the prescribed way. Cimma was a hard taskmaster.

“I never said they were!” said Six, indignant. “In fact; I believe I said they weren’t!”

“I know what you were thinking!”

“You can read thoughts now, your ladyship?” he asked.

“I can read yours! The few you have, that is.”

Six smiled into her face, and then executed a particularly intricate foot manoeuvre, causing Diva to tumble onto her knees. In a second the blunted version of his Kwaidian kris was at her throat. He gave a wicked grin. “I seem to have won the fight,” he said. “Now who would have believed that?”

“You took advantage of me!” she cried.

“And quite right too,” Cimma said. “That is what fights are all about.”

“Let me stand up, no-name. I want to have a rematch!”

“Why? So that I can beat you again?”

“You and whose army?”

“Yeah, yeah. Scary!” He rolled his eyes. “Why can’t you ever admit it when you lose?”

There was a distinct sound of tooth grating against tooth. “Take your position!” she ordered.

Six gave a theatrical sigh, but obeyed. He knew he would have a hard fight to catch her off her guard again. They were well-matched as adversaries – his wiry toughness almost making up for Diva’s superior skill. He had been lucky to break through, but he wasn’t about to admit it.

Under Cimma’s scrutiny, they began to square off again. This time Cimma stopped them several times, correcting their foot positions until she was entirely satisfied. Neither had the satisfaction of beating the other, for the class came to an end before either gave in. As they walked out of the chamber Six put a hand on Diva’s arm. “I have to get back to Kwaide. Will you come with me?”

“You want to rescue your sister from the birth shelter?”

Six nodded. “I can’t leave her there any longer. Not knowing how she is – what is happening to her – is eating away at me. Will you come?”

Diva gave a slow nod. “Sure. On one condition though—”

Six raised a cautious eyebrow, but waved a hand to invite her to go on.

“—that you come with me to Xiantha.”

“Xiantha? What in the world do you want to go to that Sacras-forgotten planet for? The little I know about it is enough to keep me away from it for life!”

Diva scowled. “I would have thought riding the Xianthes would have been just up your street, Kwaidian.”

“There is that, of course.” Six cheered up. “Even if there is nothing else on that wretched Cian moon.”

Diva smiled. “You’ll come?”

“What’s the point of the visit though? You don’t know anyone on Xiantha.”

The smile faded. “That is where you are wrong. I have an … extended family on Xiantha.”

Six suddenly caught on. “Oh, sure, Diva, I’m really sorry. I had forgotten about … at least, not forgotten, just … err …”

She sighed. “It doesn’t matter, Six. I haven’t forgotten, and that’s the important thing.”

“You want to find out what happened to your … err …”

“Oocytes,” Diva supplied. “However decimillion of them there are. Yes. I want to find out what happened to them. And then, when I do, I am going to bring them back here.”

“All of them?” Six stared at her. “Where are you planning to put them?”

She shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“I should just think it does!” Six was appalled. “I mean, they might have been turned into babies by now. We could be talking of up to two hundred thousand babies. You can’t just stash them in an orthobubble!”

Diva bit her lip. “No, I suppose you’re right. It may not be a practical solution. But it doesn’t matter … I have to go anyway. I need to find out what is happening to them all.”

“No problem. We can go to both Kwaide and Xiantha as soon as Arcan can transport us there. What about Grace?”

“I don’t know. She might want to stay with Arcan.”

“In any case we will have to wait at least until after this big meeting of all the heads of the binary system. We can’t leave Valhai until Arcan has presented his case.”

“That’s next week isn’t it? Well, I guess we can wait that long.”

Six looked up as a shadow crossed the doorway. “This is a fine time to arrive for practice, Grace!”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that I went up to the 48
^th
floor to pick up some things, and I forgot we were supposed to be here.”

“You forgot practice?” Cimma was shocked.

“Magestra, I said I am sorry.”

Diva looked at her friend closely. “Are you all right, Grace?”

Grace moved uncomfortably. “Of course,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s just that you look a bit … I don’t know … down?”

Grace smiled. “I’m fine. How did practice go?”

Six gave a snort. “I beat Diva.”

“Once!” snapped Diva.

“And how many times did you beat me, my lady?” said Six. “Oh yeah, that’s right. None.”

Grace found herself grinning again at Diva’s cross face. “It must have been your lucky day, Six,” she said. “By the way, Vion was on the interscreen.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing much.” Grace took Six’s wooden kris out of his hand and tested its weight before making a couple of fake passes with it. “He says Atheron is ingratiating himself with Mandalon.”

“That can’t be good,” said Six, giving a shudder as he thought of the educational head of house and remembered the interminable hours of his classes. “If the devious Atheron gets involved with the running of Sell he’s bound to cause trouble. Surely Mandalon will tell him to get lost? Why would he need the educational head of house to help him take decisions? ”

Grace shook her head. “I don’t know, but I gather Atheron has been seen making several non-virtual visits to the 1
^st
skyrise.”

“Perhaps he is tutoring Mandalon’s son in the arts of being head of all Sell,” said Cimma. “This Mandalon is 49
^th
generation, so Mandalon 50 must be nine or ten now?”

“Let’s hope that’s it,” said Diva. “Although I wouldn’t wish Atheron’s teaching on anybody!” She brandished her dagger in front of her menacingly.

Grace immediately began to spar with her, lunging and parrying with Six’s kris. “Oh,” she told them, apparently as an afterthought, “I forgot to tell you. Vion said he may be going to move to Coriolis.”

Diva faltered, which gave Grace the unheard-of opportunity to break through her guard. “What? Coriolis?
My
Coriolis?”

“Your Coriolis?” echoed Six. “Excuse
me
, your majesty, but last time I checked you weren’t too welcome on
your
Coriolis. You know. Banished. Almost thrown in the wild animal pit. Little things like that.”