Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome (5 page)

A moment later the Saecaraz appeared, followed by three Nilokerus with weapons drawn. They slipped through the huge doors and raced toward the next one ahead. Treet waited, holding his breath and praying none of them would glance back and see him standing there playing chameleon. None did; all five, hurrying to get to the Archives, pounded straight ahead.

Treet inched his way to the door and slipped through. He waited until the corridor was empty and then sealed the door he'd just exited. Then, listening carefully, he made his way to the next set of doors, which he also sealed behind him. No one seemed to be following him. They would not know he had evaded them until they conferred with the others inside the Archives; that would give him a minute or two before they came racing back after him. The doors would stop them only momentarily as they re-entered the code at the lock, but every second counted.

He was thinking about how best to lose himself in Hage as he burst through the last set of doors—which is why he failed to see the Nilokerus guard waiting for him on the other side.

Nilokerus
Director Hladik was reclining in his suspension bed, stroking the soft flank of his Hagemate as she fed him cherimoyas from a silver bowl, when a chime sounded in the next room. A moment later his guide came silently into the sleep chamber.

“I told you I was not to be disturbed,” Hladik said.

“Forgive my intrusion, Hage Leader,” said the guide tentatively, his fingers sifting the air, eye sockets staring emptily into space. “It is from Supreme Director Jamrog.”

Hladik sighed and lifted his deeply creased face. “Since Jamrog has become Supreme Director, I have not had one moment to myself. Well, what is it, Bremot?”

“The messenger did not say. You are to go to Threl High Chambers at once. Jamrog is waiting for you there.”

Eyeing his bedmate hungrily, he said, “I must go, Moira, but wait for me and I will return soon.” She yawned as he kissed her neck, then pulled a sheet over her body and went to sleep.

Hladik pulled off his hagerobe, donned a yos, and strode into the next room where Bremot stood waiting. “I hope Jamrog is brief this morning. I wish to return as soon as possible.”

The blind guide led his master through Nilokerus Hage to a lift. They rode the tube down to Greengrass level and entered a guarded corridor where an em stood waiting. At the sight of their Director, the two Nilokerus snapped to attention. Hladik frowned, but passed by without a word, too much in a hurry and too preoccupied to offer the obligatory reprimand.

Under Bremot's precise control, the em sped along the empty corridor as it bent around and down, dipping below Kyan and coming up on the other side in Saecaraz Hage. The corridor had been constructed well before Sirin Rohee's time, and had served many Nilokerus Directors, providing a well-used shortcut to Threl High Chambers.

At one time Hladik had dreamed of becoming Supreme Director. But he feared Jamrog, and in that he showed wisdom. Jamrog's ambition was fiercer than his own; he knew Jamrog would ruthlessly remove any rivals to his claim. So, in those early years of Rohee's reign when the Directors were still vying for position and favor in his regime, Hladik had tipped his hand—a risk, certainly, but a very small risk—and let it be known that he considered himself successor material. Jamrog, still assembling his power base then, had been in no position to challenge him since Jamrog himself was a Subdirector and, technically, wielded an authority inferior to Hladik's.

This had forced Jamrog into the position of having to win Hladik over through gifts and favors. And Hladik allowed himself to be won, selling his ambition for the Supreme Director's kraam, but at a very fine price. He had never regretted his choice—except now, when Jamrog interrupted his intimate affairs for trifles.

Eventually Bremot brought the em to a stop and led them to another lift. They rode to the upper levels of Threl High Chambers. “Wait here,” said Hladik as he stepped from the compartment. “This will not take long.” Bremot nodded and remained in the lift.

“I suppose you don't know anything about this,” Jamrog cried as he entered the Threl meeting room. No one else was in attendance, save Opinski, Jamrog's guide, standing quietly in a far corner of the room.

Hladik glanced at the flimsy yellow communique fluttering in Jamrog's hand and said, “Of course not, Supreme Director—seeing as how you have not yet shown it to me.”

“Read!” Jamrog threw the sheet in Hladik's face.

Hladik took the transcript and read it, “Yes, I see.”

“That's all you have to say? I see?” Jamrog fumed.

“I see, yes. I see no reason for you to be upset by this—” He snapped the sheet with a finger, “—this routine report.”

“Your own guards caught someone in the Archives, and you call it routine.”

“A Dhog, Supreme Director. What else?”

“A Dhog in the Archives. On the day before Rohee's funeral?”

“Coincidence. What else could it be?”

Hladik shrugged, outwardly trying to remain unconcerned. Inwardly he seethed. Why had those idiots allowed the Saecaraz to be contacted first? The communication should have been sent directly to him if Nilokerus guards were involved. Or perhaps Jamrog had intercepted it? “What do you suggest, Supreme Director? I fail to see—”

“You fail to see a great many things these days, Hageman,” Jamrog barked, then dismissed Hladik's hurt expression with an impatient flick of his hand. “All right, I may be oversensitive just now, but it's only because I am concerned that nothing interfere with Rohee's funeral. Everything must take place precisely as I have planned. The people must witness a glorious spectacle. There must be no distraction.”

“What could go wrong?”

Jamrog dropped into the Supreme Director's thronelike chair and passed a hand over his eyes. “I have not slept for two days, Hladik. I'm tired.”

Hladik approached and sat down next to him. He waved Jamrog's guide away. Opinski withdrew discreetly. “Now, suppose you tell me what's really troubling you, Jamrog. I know there is some other reason you sent for me.”

Jamrog stared upward and then closed his eyes. “I'm so tired.”

“Rest then. Rest now so that you can enjoy your triumph tomorrow all the more.”

“How can I rest when Tvrdy plots against me? He is out there even now, scheming with that Cabal of his to steal the bhuj from me and I have not even been installed yet.”

“That is but a tiresome formality—it gives the priests something to do. No one, not even the ridiculous Tvrdy, doubts that you are Supreme Director now. Besides, you have worn Tvrdy down. His power is gone; the Cabal you speak of is smashed. There is nothing left. He has no choice but to accept defeat gracefully if he would save his skin.”

“You do not know Tvrdy at all if you believe I have won so easily. He will resist me to his last breath.”

“Forget him. He's nothing.”

“What if he is behind this incident in the Archives?”

“Well, what if he is? He will have discovered nothing. His agent was caught before he could make a report. There is nothing to worry about. If you wish, I will have the man brought to the tank and questioned and—” He hesitated.

“Yes? I'm listening. Go on.”

“I was about to suggest having him conditioned after questioning and returned to his master. That way, if he is one of Tvrdy's men, we will have eyes and ears inside Tvrdy's network.”

Jamrog's eyes narrowed with cunning. “Sometimes I underestimate your resourcefulness, Hladik. Yes, have the man conditioned and then allow him to escape.”

Hladik forced a laugh. “Think of it! We will have an agent inside Tvrdy's network.”

“Not an agent, Hladik,” Jamrog said, his eyes narrowing to slits. “I want a weapon.”

“It will be all
right, Asquith, you'll see. You wanted to go to the concert and since I cannot go with you, I asked my friend to take you.” Jaire was pulling a reluctant Pizzle along the upper gallery of Liamoge to the receiving hall. “She'll be here any moment.”

“It won't be the same,” complained Pizzle in his nasal whine. “I'd rather not go if I can't be with you.”

“You'd miss a good concert—they're doing the
Naravell
tonight. You said you wanted to learn all about our ways, and I promised to introduce you to people who could teach you. My friend is much more knowledgeable about music than I am, and she'd be disappointed if she couldn't meet you.”

“She would?” Pizzle asked suspiciously, not at all certain he wanted to meet anyone who wanted to meet him. That, in his experience, always betokened disaster at the hands of someone even less socially acceptable than he was.

They came to the wide, curving stairway and descended. “She's here!” said Jaire, giving Pizzle's arm a squeeze. They were only halfway down the stairs, and Pizzle didn't see anyone in the hall. Jaire propelled him down the stairs and out the doors to the curving drive outside. A sleek blue two-passenger evee was just pulling up to the entrance.

Pizzle saw only the single occupant sitting in the center of the passenger seat and purposefully turned his head away so that he didn't see her clearly. He heard the evee door open and, eyes on the ground now, saw two buff-booted feet come to stand in front of him. Jaire embraced her friend and they exchanged greetings, which Pizzle ignored.

Jaire said, “Asquith, I want you to meet my friend Starla.”

Pizzle sighed and looked up. He'd heard of people claiming they'd been shot by Cupid's arrow. For him, it was as if he'd been impaled on the pudgy little love cherub's spear. He stared, transfixed by the vision before him: a young woman clothed all in white with buff-colored accents, her fine, platinum hair swept back by the light evening breeze, looking at him with pleasure and excitement mingled in her large, dark, oak-brown eyes. She was half-a-head shorter than he was and wore a silver bracelet on each wrist; her arms, bare in a sleeveless jacket, were tanned and smooth, as was her elegant, graceful neck.

An impartial observer might have said that her eyes were too big and perhaps too wide set, her chin too small and her nose a little thin. Certainly, her lower lip protruded when she was not smiling. But in Pizzle's eyes, she was, if possible, even more beautiful than Jaire—his fantasies made flesh.

“Starla,” he said, repeating her name. And again, “Starla.”

“I'm pleased to meet you—” She hesitated.

“Pizzy,” he said, and embarrassed himself when he realized he'd just given her the least favorite of his many objectionable diminutives. “Just call me ... Pizzy. Everyone does.”

Starla laughed lightly. Pizzle reconciled himself to the name in that instant; it was worth all the years of misery and embarrassment if that name could evoke such a sound from one so lovely. “I'm pleased to meet you, Pizzy. Jaire told me you liked music ...” She paused again because Pizzle was staring at her. Glancing at Jaire, who nodded toward the vehicle, she said, “Mmm, shall we go?”

Jaire took Pizzle by the arm and pushed him forward, saying, “Yes, you'd better hurry or you'll miss the best seats. I'm sure you'll both have a wonderful time.” She took Starla's hand, placed it in Pizzle's, and bundled them both into the evee. Starla leaned forward and pressed their destination into the console; the car rolled silently away. Pizzle did not look back to see Jaire smiling in smug satisfaction.

Stepping
into the forest was like stepping into a cathedral. Enormous trees with smooth trunks stood like huge pillars, holding up a dense, blue-green layer of leaves, a vaulted roof a hundred meters above the forest floor. In fact, there were, Crocker noticed at once, two forests: the older, taller forest formed a towering leaf roof over a younger forest of slender trees and squat, fleshy shrubs all sewn together with innumerable vines and creepers. Around the massive smooth columns of the supporting trees, braided pathways wound and converged and split, only to join and rejoin again.

The light filtering down from the leaf ceiling was bronze-green and soft, melting into the humid, water-drenched air. Vaporous wisps snaked along the forest byways, curling upward like tendrils of a growing plant to evaporate on unseen currents. And everywhere beneath the forest roof there was the rich, heady smell of damp, fecund soil and vegetation run riot—odors as palpable as the chitterings, clicks, and chirrups of the host of insects hidden in the foliage.

Higher in the leaf canopy, the shrill, chattering calls of birds and jarring whoops of mammalian tree dwellers—along with all sorts of murmurings, cooings, blarings, gruntings, yawpings, toatings, and gugglings—let Crocker know that the forest brimmed with unseen life, even as the heavy air reverberated with its raucous music.

The Blue Forest was a world unto itself, and Crocker felt secure here. As he walked further into its majestic fastness, the oppression of the open spaces fell away. He took the thick closeness of the forest and wrapped it around himself like a robe. He would be safe here among the creatures of the forest; he would become like them, and like them he would survive.

He struck along a path wide enough for the robot to follow and began moving deeper into the interior, the last glimpses of blue sky and green hills disappearing as the forest closed behind him. He walked along silently, moving with caution and stealth, adapting himself to the ways of the forest.

Like an animal, Crocker wandered the soft pathways, pausing now and again to sift the air for scent and sound of water. It had been exhausting work burrowing through the brushline to the forest, and he was thirsty. Eventually he came to a place where a small brook lapped around the gigantic roots of one of the forest pillars. He knelt down, cupped his hands, and drank.

The water was warm and had a distinctly earthy taste. He sipped and swallowed and spat the rest out. To get clean water he'd have to find a deeper source. Without thinking about it he moved off along the little brook, following it as it made its way over and around the roots of the giant trees and through stands of rushes with large lacy fan-shaped leaves. The brook took him deeper into the forest, deeper into the living green solitude.