Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3 (86 page)

CIMMA WAS UP at the peak camp on Kwaide, trying to make peace between the ex donor apprentices. The Kwaidian sycophants who had been donor apprentices on Valhai were unhappy that their Coriolan counterparts had come to visit. It was supposed to be a goodwill visit, but was turning out to be an exercise in jealousy and national interest. Cimma was struggling to remind them that they had, until recently, all been in the same situation, and that what was needed now was cooperation to mutual benefit of both planets. It was an uphill task, and she was smoothing over some ruffled feathers when a runner from the base camp came panting up to her.

“If you please, you are wanted immediately at the base camp. Ledin asks you to be expeditious.”

Cimma made her way down as fast as she possibly could, to find a strained Ledin pacing up and down outside her cabin.

“We have to go to Xiantha,” he said, without preamble. “They have captured Grace.”

Cimma felt a tremor start inside her abdomen and spread its chill throughout the rest of her body. “Who?”

“Atheron and Xenon. Who else?” Ledin had a worried furrow which ran right from one side of his forehead to the other, making him look much older than he was. “I am going to find her. Will you come?”

Cimma quivered to attention, like a hunting dog which had heard the call of the wild. Her eyes went far away for a second, and then refocused on the present and met Ledin’s with resolve. “Let’s go!” she said.

“We need to space shuttle up to the orbital station,” Ledin told her. “Arcan can’t transport us off Kwaide itself.”

Cimma nodded. “We will need a change of clothes.” She thought back to her previous travels on Xiantha. “And I will bring a few other things. Xiantha is a very different world to this.”

Ledin nodded. “We leave in ten minutes,” he warned. “You might not know your son, but I do, and I don’t think there is any doubt what his intentions are!”

Cimma felt a shaft of pain in her heart. “No.” She ran up the steps of her cabin to get the provisions they might need, and touched the magmite of her husband’s sarcophagus on the way out with all her fingertips. “So many things have happened,” she murmured. “How you would have hated the world we have now!” She looked around slowly. “Take care of Kwaide for me.” Then she was out of the door, and on her way.

THEY ARRIVED ON Xiantha just where Cimma had asked to be taken. The corrals of the canths at the canth farm.
 

As soon as he spotted the new arrivals, the man who kept canths came over. He examined both of his new visitors with some care, and then his face broke into a smile. “The Sellite 256th house!” he exclaimed. “This is a great honour, indeed. I was privileged to meet your daughter only a few days ago.”

“Canth keeper! It has been a very long time. I no longer belong to the 256th house of Sell. I am now known only as Cimma. I have no honours.”

The man bowed low. “As you prefer, Cimma, but I note your colours, and I think that you have very many honours in your present life. Your canth will be happy to see you again. You bring us multiple shades.” 

Then he noticed something hovering just to the right of his face, and jumped. “What in Sacras is that?”

Ledin looked around. “This is the visitor,” he told the man. “At least, this is a machine which represents the visitor. Err … it is complicated.”

“I wouldn’t even try to explain it,” said the video camera in disparaging tones. “He is clearly a low-level 3b and I don’t suppose he would understand.”

“A machine has no colour,” the Xianthan said darkly.

The machine suddenly disappeared, activating the blending mechanism. “Now I have no colour,” it said, the voice emanating from the empty space in front of them.
 

The canth keeper gasped. “This is powerful magic,” he said. “You are able to decolourize at will. You are a superior being.”

The sphere reappeared before them, and gave a crackle of pleasure. “I have to agree with you,” it said. “Although, since you yourself are so primitive, it is only to be expected.”

The scenery in front of them shimmered, and Arcan appeared, taking his usual outworld form of a diaphanous shape made of two bubbles. The canth keeper took a step back. “And what is th-this?” he stammered.

Ledin again found himself required to explain. Cimma was unresponsive, he saw, and seemed to be waiting for something to happen. “This is Arcan, the orthogel entity,” he told the man. “You may have heard of him.”

“Indeed I have.” The canth keeper bowed so low that his forelock touched the ground, while looking at the shimmering shape before him. “I discern a myriad of colours in your person. You honour us with your presence.”

“Of course he does!” the visitor whirred, through its hovering video camera. “And so do I, of course. We are both type 2 species.”

The man who kept canths seemed rather confused, but turned to Cimma and inclined his portly figure before her. “Would you like me to take you to find your canth?”

Cimma held up one hand. “That will not be necessary. It is coming, I think, and I believe it is not alone.”

The canth keeper’s eyebrows nearly shot out of the top of his skull as he heard the pounding of hooves. He almost ran to open one of the gates, and then stopped, amazed. He put his head onto one side, and then ran to another gate, leaving it open. Then he stopped and listened again, and with an expression of utter astonishment, a third.

They all watched and listened as the hooves came nearer. First a sorrel canth came jauntily up to one gate, and sidled over to Cimma, dancing on its toes, and looking delighted to see her. She lay her face against the animal’s, and was obviously equally pleased to see it again.

Then a canth approached the second gate. It was the colour of sand, with a black mane and tail, and black markings running up its legs. It walked directly up to Ledin, and lowered its neck in front of him. The Kwaidian looked disconcerted.

“This is a yellow dun,” the man who kept canths told him. “It has chosen you as its rider, and is now linked to you for your lifetime. You must have much colour in your life to attract such an animal.”

Ledin stroked the silky hair on its shoulder. The man who kept canths bustled to provide them with saddles and head straps. When he had finished, Ledin pulled himself onto his mount, following Cimma’s example.

A distant pounding of hooves could still be heard, coming closer, from the last gate.
 

“But who …? I don’t understand …” said the Xianthan. Then his voice dried up as he saw which animal was approaching. It was a huge specimen, pitch black from the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail, and it was walking with complete confidence through the gate. 

“I … I …” The canth keeper was speechless.

The animal came boldly through the gate, ignored both the other animals present, together with their riders, and walked right up to the diaphanous bubbles which were the orthogel entity. It went down on one knee in front of Arcan, and blew air softly out of its muzzle in a whicker of welcome.

“But … but how is this possible?” The canth keeper whispered. “No black has ever chosen a rider. How can this be?”

Cimma too, looked taken aback. “Arcan? You don’t need to ride, you can transport yourself wherever you wish to go. This is very strange.”

The figure that was Arcan scintillated with colour, which seemed to reflect on the glossy blackness of the canth’s coat, making it appear multi-coloured too. “I do not need to ride,” the orthogel entity said proudly, “but this animal is welcome to join me. It is an excellent specimen of its kind.”

“But Arcan will live for thousands of years,” Cimma told the Xianthan. “And adopted canths live for exactly as long as their riders. How can a canth live for so long?”

“I do not know. Perhaps it will not. We must not expect to understand all that occurs around us. Our own blinkers may prevent us from seeing the truth.”

“Then the black canth will go with us?”

“Undoubtedly. It has bonded with the orthogel entity, and it will accompany him until he leaves Xiantha. I have no doubt of that.”

“Then let it come. Perhaps its presence will turn out to have a meaning,” said Cimma.

“We have been waiting thousands of years to see a black adopt a rider,” said the man who kept canths. “It is a momentous day for Xiantha, and will be remembered for many generations.”

Ledin had only time to smile his thanks at the man before Arcan decided to move them all to the spaceport. The ground in front of them flickered momentarily, and then disappeared. The canth farm regained its usual tranquility as the whole group, including the man who kept canths, was transported over to the spaceport, the black canth seemingly unfased by the process, and the others following his lead, though tossing their heads.

ATHERON AND XENON drew up to the spaceport with dismay. There was no sign of either their own or Six’s space shuttle. They had no way to get off the planet.

Atheron looked around with a thundery expression. “The orthogel entity!” he snarled. “That means we will have to change our plans.”

“But you brought one of the old ones with you, didn’t you?” Xenon asked, in a worried tone.
 

Atheron pulled out an orange canister from his robes. “I certainly did,” he said. “But we will have to be very careful how we act.” He drummed his fingers against the console of the magsled. “Very careful.”

“But—”

“Be quiet, Xenon! I am thinking!”

“I was only going to—”

“I said, be quiet! You can have nothing important to say.”

Xenon did not agree with this last statement, but felt it would not be politic to say so. Since arriving on Xiantha his mentor seemed to have lost much of his superficial good humour, and it was not unknown for him to take drastic action if his orders were disobeyed. Xenon subsided into a resentful silence. He still needed Atheron’s support at the moment, but just wait until he was head of Sell. Then … then there would no longer be any need to kowtow to this, or any other, person. A grim smile crossed his face. He and Amanita would be back on Valhai, back where they belonged, back as leaders of the rest of Sell.

So he waited with some semblance of patience while his partner in crime came up with a new plan. He was good at waiting, he decided. Amanita had helped him with that. She had explained that it was a mistake to expect instantaneous rewards, that it was necessary to plan very carefully if one expects the fruits of one’s enterprise to drop neatly into one’s hands. She had drummed it into his head. He would not fail now. Not after so many sacrifices.

At last Atheron lifted his head, breathed a long breath out into the sunny air, and gave one of his deceptively sweet smiles. “Right!” he said.

“You have a plan?”

“Of course I have a plan!” The Sellite snapped, “My resourcefulness is legendary! Why, I even successfully planned to—”

“What?”

“—No. Nothing. I have forgotten what I was going to say. It is of no matter. Our next step is clear to me.”

“We run?”

“As you so succinctly put it, we run. But not just anywhere. We will run in a particular direction, to draw our opponents all to one place. Once we are there … well, we will put our little plan into operation. There need be no change to our original plan. It will simply be moved to a different venue. They will be forced to choose the path we want them to. And that will give us the chance to make this mission a complete success. Luckily I still have a canister of the first generation of orange compound with me, even if that alien
has
managed to remove the shuttles.” Atheron gazed around him, with a pleased expression.

“So where are we going?”

“The Xianthes, of course. Where else?” Atheron put his fingers to the controls, and entered in the new course. The magsled rose above the ground again, and began to accelerate towards the towering mass of rock to the north of their position. Xenon looked ahead of him eagerly. To the Xianthes, then. After all, they were said to be the greatest wonder of the binary system.