This Alien Shore (72 page)

“All right.” It was Masada. “I've got the auxiliary systems freed up. That's a start.”

“So what? We dodge things we can't see?” The inpilot gestured toward the display. His forehead was beaded with sweat, and it dripped down the lines of his kaja, obscuring the design. “Do
you
know how to fly us out of this?”

I could do it,
Raven thought.
We could fly it together.

Yes,
Jamisia answered her,
and then I would die. This body would live, but I would be gone forever. No!

She could feel something coming up behind the ship again and she whirled around to look at the viewscreen. Colors boiled over one another with shadows swirling between them, a visual maelstrom in which it was impossible to focus on any one point for more than a second. Yet something was out there, she could feel it even if she couldn't see it. Something very hungry, very powerful, and very swift. She could feel it bearing down on them, licking at the human souls within the ship, tasting their substance—

“I can pilot,
” she whispered.

Only Phoenix heard her, and he didn't know enough about what was going on to understand. “That isn't what they need.” There was fear in his voice now, cold and shaking and not at all like the Phoenix she knew. He was used to dangers that came at him through a network of delicate circuits and threatened at most a handful of neurons, not invisible demons who hungered to rip his very soul from his flesh.

It was said to be the most horrible death a human being could know. Did she fear that more than she feared what was inside her? She drew in a deep breath and tried to not to let the fear resonate in her voice as she said it again, more loudly. “I can pilot.” Still no one responded to her, so she added, almost angrily, “I can
see
them, damn it!”

“You're a Terran,” the inpilot snapped.

Masada said, “You don't even know what that means.” Then he shut his eyes for a minute to concentrate on something internally. “Almost there....”

“
I know what it means,”
she said. When no one responded, she persisted with single-minded stubbornness, “It's a sickness. It lets you see the sana, but it destroys everything else in the mind. Right?”

The pilot turned and stared at her.

So did Masada.

The hunter was close, so close. She could feel it. There was no time left. Why couldn't these people understand? “
I have it,
” she told them. It infuriated her that now that she had finally decided to risk her very existence for them, they were too stupid to take her up on it.
“I have the disease. I can see them.
”

Finally Masada seemed to get the message. “Go,” he said, nodding dismissal to the guards. He pointed to Phoenix. “And take him with you.”

The hacker started to protest, but the guard who grabbed his arm would hear none of it. “You're not Guild,” Masada said as they dragged him out. “It's for your own protection.”

When the last guard had passed through the door, it hissed shut, leaving Jamisia, Masada and the inpilot alone.

There is no other way,
Raven whispered, and Verina agreed,
it's that or die.

We're with you,
Katlyn promised.

All of us,
Derik agreed.

All but one....

“How?” the inpilot demanded. “How can you do this?”

She met his eyes with a fierce but frightened gaze. “Does it matter? If I say I can see them, do you really care how?”

“This isn't the time to argue.” Masada's voice was cool and even, a perfect counterpoint to the inpilot's fear and her own incipient panic. “If what she says is true, then we stand a chance. If not, we die. And if we don't try anything ... we die.” The dark eyes focused on her. “There'll be time later to ask questions.”

“Of course,” she whispered.

Down, down into her soul she reached, down to that dark place where the youngest Others huddled, into those secret recesses where Others went to escape each other. Down past there, to places so secret she barely knew they existed.

Jamisia.
An icon appeared before her.
Use this.

She flashed a confirmation and saw data begin to scroll in her field of vision. Line after line after line of unknown code swam before her eyes, without a single icon for identification. “I don't know what this is—” she began to protest, but Raven's calm voice sounded in her brain.
I do. Pilot's code. Trust me.
Someone started to speak to her again, but she waved them to silence. “It's all right.” Raven was trained for this. Raven knew.

With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach she focused inwardly once more. She was vaguely aware that Raven was feeding instructions to the outship, allowing it to tie her into the helm control programs, but that seemed like it was a universe away. Another world, peopled by souls unconnected to her own.

The sky is black with storm clouds, and icy water beats down upon her. The wind is so powerful that it knocks her off her feet, and she lands heavily on the muddy earth. No! No, she has to keep going! She struggles to her feet again, mud dripping from her hands and knees. He's always been
here, every time she came to this place. He must be here now!

“They've come for me!” he burst out. He could see them now surrounding him, hiding behind the bursts of color, hunger burning red along their bodies, and one was moving in, gold light blazing along its path, sparks of shadowy hatred disguising its length—

“It's there!” he screamed. It was coming at them fast, so fast, why couldn't they see it? He could see all the colors drawing together in front of it, scattering in its wake, could feel the pressure of its mind on his own. More and more of the creature was becoming visible now, as his sight picked it out from the roiling background. Those blue shapes there, that was all part of it, and the gold part beneath was what gave it the power to move, and now there were more coming in from behind, each with its own color and form—

“Now! he screamed. “Go!”

—and all of it was alive, he saw, everything out there had its own consciousness, its own hunger. The vista that had seemed bizarre only moments before was now revealed for what it truly was, a jungle teeming with life, vicious and hungry life. How could anything human survive here? It was alien, too alien; human beings didn't belong in such a place.

He saw the navigational menu appear before him and then disappear.
She
was taking control of the ship now, the dark one. Translating his visions into motion. What if she got it wrong? What if she chose to feed him to the sana, to sate their hunger so they would leave her alone? There were two men on the bridge, what if they chose to throw him out the air lock to save themselves? He saw one taking a step toward him and backed away hurriedly; his back slammed into the emergency door. “Stay away!” he screamed. “Stay away from me!”

Where are they?
a voice in his head prompted.
Look!

The outship's programs fed the viewscreen images right into his head. He could see the dragons all around him now, layers upon layers of them, colors shifting and shapes evolving and hunger a red tongue that lashed out between clouds of hate. Beneath his feet the ship moved suddenly and he fell to his knees; the vision was jarred out of his head for an instant. Lost, lost, they were all lost! Did they think they could run from such creatures? The sana were everywhere, all but invisible, always hungry ... with a gasp he let the viewscreen's images fill his brain again so that he could seek them out. There, there was one, winding its way slowly toward the ship, shifting its colors as it went! Move away from it, quickly! And that one there—that could sense the grav web, so shut it down, shut it down!

They were gathering in a pack now, and he knew that they were intelligent, and they were aware of him, and they were focused on his destruction. The ship didn't even matter to them anymore; he, he was their enemy, the focus of all their malevolence. A pack of them came together off the rear of the outship and started to move in; he cried out a warning and felt the ship lurch in response. He could hear the dragon's laughter as they chased him, creatures of color and shadow placing bets on how long it would take them to catch him, exchanging plans of what they would do with his soul when they did. Speed, he needed more speed! Clouds of silver and scarlet parted to reveal creatures of silver and scarlet. One came toward the ship with a chromatic roar, the gold of pure hunger blazing from its surface as it lunged toward them. He ordered the ship into an evasive maneuver that left it lost in a boiling cloud of orange mist.

There, up ahead. What was that? A thin black line, almost hidden behind clouds of fire. What was it? Someone was saying something to him, but he could no longer understand their language. He had become something without speech, a creature of speed and fear and silent vision. Moments later words were placed in his head by her, the pilot, and because she was inside him he understood.
That's the ainniq. Follow it. You can't exit safely until we find a node.

Follow it? Didn't the dark one understand that the dragons knew where he wanted to go, that they were gathering at the ainniq, waiting for the outship to come to them? She must not be an ally of his after all, but some kind of servant of theirs. He'd been tricked, they'd all been tricked....

A cold tongue licked at his brain. Alien, malevolent. Hungry. With a gasp he fed instructions to the ship, trying to get away from it. The sana followed, its substance spread out across the miles, across a thousand hues of light. He could feel it in his head as he directed the ship, sharp teeth ripping at the substance of his mind, trying to yank it loose from his flesh.

Then: there it was. Straight ahead. A place where two of the ainniq converged, providing a sure landmark in this chaotic realm. He could feel the ship surge forward suddenly and he had to scream that no, no, there were sana waiting there, they couldn't come in straight! The sudden burst of speed threw off the one that had been following them. There, see that pack of hunters? Go around them. More speed. Put the grav web back on, it'll confuse them. Come around, straight into the intersection of space-black lines, the node—

He could hear the dragons screaming as they broke through into safespace. Rage, hot rage, followed them out through the fault, licking at their heels as they dove into the black night of safety. He had escaped them. This time. But they'd be waiting. They'd learn.

Now he had to escape the others.

The two men were watching him. They wore human bodies, but they were no less alien to him than the sana were. And no less dangerous. They'd want him to go back into the darkness again, the suffocating darkness where fears lurked hidden and unseen monsters crawled through his veins. He wasn't going back. He wasn't ever going back....

One of the men began to approach him. He screamed for him to get back. Two other men were coming into the chamber now with weapons drawn, so you see, he'd been right, he'd been right! They'd just used him to get past the dragons, and now they were going to get rid of him ... and they came at him and he struggled and fought for his life, gouging and clawing and struggling to get free ... but a medgun hissed against his neck and suddenly his strength was failing. “Bastards!” he screamed. “Bastards! I saved you! Bastards . . .”

Then the anger faded into darkness, and the fear into sleep. A drugged sleep, but it was a kind of peace. More than he had ever known before.

 

Masada stared down at the girl's body, now spotted with blood and foaming spittle from her wild struggle against her Gueran guards. The men backed off when they were sure she was out cold, leaving her as she had fallen.

Slowly, carefully, he reached down and gathered her up. She was slender, and so very light. How could anyone so frail-looking put up the kind of fight she did? The terror must have been great in her, to have lent her such unexpected strength.