Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3 (42 page)

“He wants to rule Valhai,” said Six. “He wants Mandalon’s job.”

Diva thought for a moment. “Then any power he can grab will be attractive to him. If we can offer him a way out of this that will make him more powerful he should leap at the chance.”

“He already has all the details I know about the rebels,” said Six. He told them about the interrogation with quenera root.

Grace nodded. “That may be enough to give him a considerable advantage if he can get back to Valhai. He will know the value of information.”

“Then I say we wake him up as soon as we know if we can fix this obsolete wreck and keep it flying long enough to be useful!”

ATHERON CAME OUT of stasis with no ill effects, somewhat to Six’s disappointment. The whitebeard looked around himself with interest. He seemed unfased by the varying changes in his circumstances, although he looked wary when he spotted the menacing way in which Six was holding his kris.

“Yes?” he said, as he took in the fixed way the three friends were staring at him.

Six took a step towards the man, and then stopped, making a clear effort to hold himself under control. They had agreed that Grace was the one to lead the negotiations.

Grace explained what they wanted. It was immediately apparent that Atheron would have sold Valhai itself in exchange for his own freedom, although the Sellite tried to cover up his relief. Grace enumerated the things they wanted, and saw that the Sellite was already considering how to put the agreement to his own advantage. He began to make counteroffers, to save face.

Both Six and Diva became bored by the positioning, and left to spar with each other on the upper deck. Grace was by far the best of the three at this sort of thing.

They attacked and counterattacked, parried and practiced. Since there were no wooden imitations, they were forced to use proper weapons, which had the advantage of making the sport really dangerous. Diva’s dagger could slit a jugular in one swift swipe, and Six’s kris with its jagged blade and carved steel handle was equally lethal.

“I am out of practice,” admitted Six, as Diva managed to slice an infinitesimal piece of skin off his right forearm. “Ouch! That hurt!”

“Yes. When we get back to Kwaide you need to take a few classes from Cimma. She will soon get you into shape again.”

“How is she?”

“In her element. They all call her ‘Magestra Cimma’ now. She bullies them mercilessly. They adore her.”

“And what do they call you?” He found himself panting as she forced him all around the deck.

Diva laughed. “The firstcomers told them that I am a
Valhai
, so now they all call me
Valhai
Diva!”

“And me?” He waved to her to stop, and sat down on the nearest stool to rest. She circled around him, harrying him with the point of her dagger, unwilling to pause.

“They wanted to make you a general in the army, but Cimma wouldn’t let them.”

“Why not? I would make a superb general.”

“She didn’t think it was suitable—”

“Well, thanks Cimma! Huh! General Six – sounds great!”

“—so they decided to name you First Six instead.”

He pulled a face. “First Six? – First Six? What kind of a name is that? It is still just numbers.”

“Yes, but now you are both ordinal and cardinal.”

“It’s a cardinal sin, if you ask me!”

“Very funny,” she said. “Perhaps they recognize you as a first class idiot!” She stabbed at him again, getting a bit too close for comfort and making him snap at her.

“Leave over, will you, Diva?”

GRACE FINALLY HAD all the details down on paper. And she knew where Six’s sister was being held. Atheron wanted immediate transportation to Valhai by Arcan, and she had been forced to concede in the end, but the Kwaide revolution could count two spaceships amongst its arsenal. They could safely head back to Kwaide now in the starships. But she knew that Six would not stay. When he heard where Eight was he would be asking Arcan for immediate transport. She sighed. She could see that she was going to end up taking the two space traders back to Kwaide on her own. It seemed she was always in for the lonely option these days.

She went up the metallic stairs to the observation platform. The other two looked towards her expectantly.

“It went well,” she said. “Eight is in Benefice. She is staying with Jalana.”

There was a stunned pause.

“You mean to tell me,” spluttered Six, “that all the time I have been worrying my head off about Eight she has been living with Seven – or Jalana, or whatever she calls herself now – in a nice comfortable apartment?”

“
I
wouldn’t call that apartment comfortable,” said Diva.

“Not up to your usual standards, your ladyship? No facilities, perhaps? Not enough gold plating on the taps?”

“It was built for half a dwarf.”

“No doubt it would fit into your bathtub back on Coriolis?”

“Actually it would. Our batht—”

“—The point is, that I have been worrying that she was ill, and it turns out she has been living it up in Benefice!”

“Isn’t that a contradiction? Living it up and Benefice in the same sentence?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Sure. Champagne and sweetfruits all day, no doubt.”

“She might even have fallen for some … some … Elder!”

“A fate worse than death,” agreed Diva.

“I mean it!”

“I can see you are overjoyed to hear that she is not being coerced,” said Diva dryly.

“Damn you Diva!” Six stood up and strode up and down the metal plates.

“Now it’s all my fault!” Diva threw up her hands in despair.

“I probably have to call in advance to make an appointment,” he grumbled.

“Well, I wouldn’t do that,” Grace said. “The Elders would no doubt turn out in force to detain you. You are the most wanted unmentionable on the planet.”

“She doesn’t need me.” He kicked out at the shiny hull plating.

“Ask her yourself,” Grace told him.

He looked up quickly at that.

Grace and Diva exchanged glances. “Arcan can take you directly into that flat,” Grace said. “We have all been there, he can ‘see’ it through us. And he can maintain a bubble around you while you are there. It should be safe enough.”

“Arcan!” Six looked around, trying to gauge if the entity was there, was listening. Sometimes it was hard to tell just where Arcan was, whether he was listening or not.

“I can take you there now if you want,” the voice came back.

Diva sheathed her precious Coriolan dagger and stood up. “I will come with you,” she said. “If Grace will be all right here – on her own.”

“Would you like me to transport you with the two space traders to Kwaide?” Arcan asked Grace.

“They would be very heavy for you, surely?”

Arcan shimmered, his equivalent of a laugh. “Hardly!”

“But I thought you said you weren’t to be used as a pack mule?”

“I will always make an exception for you.”

Grace thought about it. It would be great to have some instantaneous transport back to Kwaide, but it would be even better to have some trained pilots for those spaceships when they got to the orbital platform. She realized that this was an opportunity that they simply couldn’t pass by.

“I will be fine,” replied Grace. “Just send me some trainee pilots from amongst the refugees, will you, Six? Arcan can bring them back. I’ll use the trip back as a training exercise.”

“Sure.” Six went out.

“That’s a great idea.” Diva told her. The two girls looked at each other and the Coriolan girl shrugged. “I don’t know what it will take to make Six see that his sister betrayed him,” she told Grace. “but none of us will be safe until he does.”

“He isn’t going to like it.”

Diva sighed. “No, he isn’t.”

SIX AND DIVA materialized in the middle of Calab’s sitting room in the dull apartment on Benefice. There were four occupants of the room, all of whom leapt up at the arrival of a bubble with two visitors, all speaking together.

“Six!”

“How dare you appear out of the blue in my sitting-room!”

“It
is
you!”

“This must be the long-lost brother!”

Six looked around at them all as Diva checked out the rest of the apartment to see if there were any guards. She found none inside, but two burly sycophants were standing on the outside of the only entrance to the flat. She stationed herself at the door, dagger in hand, and turned to look at the others.

The sister she already knew, Jalana, had moved close to Six. Her eyes glittered.

“You HAD to start a revolution, didn’t you, Six? Now that I am an Elder, and could enjoy life for a bit you had to come along and spoil it. Does it make you happy to know your nephew will probably never rule Kwaide now? DOES it?”

Six took a step back, “But …” he began.

“As if it were any of OUR business who rules Kwaide. What more is it to you? Why couldn’t you just leave things alone? You have spoilt everything now. I HATE you!”

Six looked across at the other girl in the room, supplicating.

“Eight?” It was a question, asked in a small voice. “Please tell me you didn’t—”

The other girl shook her head. “You didn’t come and save
me
,” she said. “But you managed to find the time to save all those others.”

“No. NO! Eight … I … I—”

“I suppose
they
mean more to you than I ever did. Found new friends did you? – After all those years?”

“How can you think—?”

“Bit busy to come and save
me
, were we? Just another
no-name
, was I?”

Six had gone absolutely white. He shook his head.

“Because I nearly DIED in that birth shelter while you were living it up on some fancy planet or other. DIED, you hear?”

Six looked carved in stone.

“Well you might like to know that I have found somebody to look after me, no thanks to you.” The girl indicated the Elder to her right. “This is Jeddeneth. We are going to be married. And you needn’t bother called me Eight anymore, because my new name is Samaliya.”

Six didn’t move his head, didn’t seem able to, but his eyes tracked over to Diva and she read the entreaty in them. ‘Get us out of here, Arcan’, she signed on her bracelet of orthogel. ‘Get us out, please.’

The last that Six saw of his two sisters were their open mouths, vitriolically vying with each other to have the last, most hurtful word.

ARCAN TOOK THEM back to the base camp on Kwaide, depositing them lightly in front of a worried Cimma.

“And about ti—” She took one look at Six and closed her mouth. Diva signaled her to leave them alone, and took a non-responsive Six by the arm, but he shook her off.

“Not now, Diva,” he told her. “I need some space.”

He walked straight through the camp, totally oblivious to the refugees who parted to let him pass, staring after him with perplexed expressions. Then he disappeared into the Kwaidian undergrowth, vanishing in the direction of the scarred crag, heading east into the badlands.

He didn’t come back for a week. Cimma scolded him worriedly when he finally walked back into the camp one morning, outwardly calm, but unsmiling.

“Don’t do that again,” she told him, “I need to know where you are at all times.”

“Yeah. Like I’m
such
an important person!”

“You are the First Six!”

“I am the last person anybody needs around them.”

“Feeling sorry for ourselves, are we?” Diva’s dulcet tones sounded from behind them both. She was standing, hands on her hips, eyes flashing.

“You had no right to disappear for a week!” she said. “You can’t just start a revolution and then vanish! You owe these refugees more than that!”

“They are better off without me.” He looked mutinous.

“This is exactly what happened to Grace, and
she
didn’t go crawling off to lick her wounds for days on end,” Diva informed him. “Not everybody is going to think you are a saviour. Get used to it.”

“I let them down,” he snarled, referring to his sisters.

She shook him by both shoulders. “You had no choice!” she insisted. “You taught your sisters too well, that’s all.”

He looked up at that. “What do you mean?”

“They are born survivors. They are both going to make a life for themselves. You should be happy for them.”

He gave the ghost of a laugh. “Happy!”

“Yes, happy. Why not?”

He stared at her. “You heard what they said.”

“And what were your plans for them?” she demanded.

“My plans? Well, I was going to take them to Valhai … and …”

“You would have asked them to live on a strange planet, with no Kwaidians nearby, nobody to go out with, and they would have rattled around the skyrise on their own, unable even to go outside without a full bodywrap and mask packs! Great life!”

“It wouldn’t have been that bad!” He was getting cross now.

“Can’t you see that they are not you? That they need a different sort of life? That they would have felt entombed in magmite if you had taken them to Valhai?”

“DAMN you Diva! Eight betrayed me.”

“Yes, that’s what really hurts, isn’t it? But can’t you see – as far as she is concerned, you are the one who betrayed her!”

“I was taken away against my will!”

“So was she!”

“But I have not joined forces with the enemy …”

“You taught her to survive. You can’t complain now that she did just that. They probably told her a load of lies about you – who knows? You have to move on. She betrayed you. You escaped. It’s over.”

“You are insufferable!”

“That’s more like it! Now let’s go and have a sparring session. I am bound to beat you.”

“You wish!” But his voice was dull, and she could see his heart was not in it.

After that Diva seemed to go to great pains to provoke him as much as possible. Six found himself forcibly teased out of the black gloom which had taken hold of him. She was incessant in her taunts, picking and picking away at him until he was compelled to retaliate and proffer insults in return.

Cimma kept her silence on the matter, limiting her contribution to making sure that Six got enough sustenance down him, but she couldn’t help admiring Diva’s absolute lack of sympathy for the Kwaidian.

“He’s hurt,” she told Diva.

“His pride is hurt!”

“It will take time to heal.”

“Oh per-lease! Why should he care what those two no-brains do with their lives? He just wanted to play hero, is all.”

“He looked after them for years when they were little.”

“So he should have known better than anybody that they would survive at all costs. They have. They are happy. End of story.”

“You are too harsh, Diva.”

“They are just dumb Kwaidian girls. I can’t see what all the fuss is about!”

“Just because they aren’t like you there is no need to belittle them.”

“I was not belittling them. Just stating a fact.”

“They may not be like you—”

“Tskk! Those two couldn’t be like me if you left them on Lumina without a ship to toughen up! They are totally selfish!”

“They must have had a very difficult time …”

“And we haven’t, I suppose?” Diva glowered. “You don’t catch me blaming all and sundry for the things that happened to me!”

“It’s not the same.”

“Well, I don’t see why not!” And the Coriolan girl stumped off to gather together her band of outlaws, ready for another incursion into the flatlands.

GRACE WANTED TO tell Arcan the news in person, wanted to see the whole reaction of the lake, rather than tell it to a diaphanous bubble. Ever since she had transferred back to Valhai after delivering the two ships she had spent all day every day checking the Sellite records. She pulled on a bodywrap, donned a mask pack once she reached the ground floor of the skyrise, and made her way out onto the surface of Valhai once again.

The livid blackness overhead was waiting for her, unchanged. She stopped for a moment to take in the immensity of space – she felt so insignificant when she stepped bare planet. It was easy to see that her short life would leave little imprint on the universe. She gazed at some of the distant dots of bright light and wondered if there were living beings on any of them, looking back at her. It would be quite something to visit other systems, she thought.

Arcan showed how glad he was of the visit by treating her to another show of multi-coloured lights and fountains. Grace sat herself down on the shore to watch the display, clapping her body-wrapped hands together to show her appreciation.

Finally the ortholake subsided, becoming simply a shimmering silvery black against the slate background. Grace began to speak, knowing that her words could not be heard through the mask pack, but that Arcan would understand them anyway.

“I think I have found proof that Valhai came from outside the system,” she told the entity. “And I think I know its origin!”

The entire lake shivered with a rainbow of colours, showing its delight in the news.

“Where? Which direction?” Arcan asked her.

Grace looked up at the sky, found the Giant Crab Constellation, and pointed.

“There. From one of the oldest multiple stars in the constellation, Pictoris.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because although the Coriolans are not an industrial society, they have always had excellent archeologists. Some years ago they found evidence that Xiantha was scratched by a rogue planet. That is what left the Xianthes, tearing a huge slice of the crust up into the peaks we know today. Because it was a side collision, they were able to extrapolate the marks backwards, and determine the path of the planet. They say that there are only three stars it could have originated from. All of them belong to the Pictoris system.”

“How far away?”

“About thirty thousand light years now – of course it would have been much closer millions of years ago.”

The lake darkened. “That is too far,” it said.

“I know,” said Grace, “but the other great news is that they took samples, of course, and the analyses are on record. They found miniscule traces of instellite – and the only other place that instellite has ever been found is on Valhai! It hasn’t been published yet, because the scribes on Coriolis are notoriously loath to share information with anybody else, but the information is sound, and I don’t think it can be refuted.”

“That is good,” Arcan said. “You have done very well, Grace.”

Grace gave the lake an ironic curtsey, which was difficult when dressed in full bodywrap. The lake shimmered in return.

“But they may say that this is only proof of a collision between Xiantha and Valhai,” he pointed out. “They may not accept the extra-system origin of Valhai.”

“Instellite is found nowhere else in the system,” pointed out Grace.

“Even so, it is not irrefutable proof.”

“And how could we get such proof?”

The lake clouded over. “We can’t,” it said. “The only way would be to travel to the origin of the planet, and take samples there. If we could find instellite in abundance on a system in Pictoris that would be a very powerful argument.”

“Maybe you could discover how to transport there?”

The lake glittered. “You know that I can’t transport to places I can’t ‘see’,” it said dispiritedly. “Even so, you have done extraordinarily well, Grace. I thank you very much.”

“My pleasure Arcan. You are doing so much for all of us, it is great to be able to give something back. Actually, it all started when I was taking the spaceships back to Kwaide. We had to stop off in Coriolis to refuel, and it was when I was on the orbital station there that I fell into conversation with an archeologist of theirs who was returning from a five-year visit to Xiantha. It was pure luck. I would never have known where to look otherwise.”