Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) (21 page)

“Registration?”
Jasper whispered to himself. Long-forgotten memories rose to choke him. The Magistrates had done the same thing before the last Revolt. He remembered. All Gamants had been required to update their whereabouts daily. A chill climbed his spine. He looked fearfully at Toca. “What for?”

Toca blinked, a little taken aback by his vehemence. “They say they’re afraid Baruch’s forces might be going to attack Tikkun and they want to be able to evacuate the populace efficiently if the time comes.”

Pavel groused, “Jeremiel would never attack civilians! Instead, they should be evacuating their military installations.”

“What does it matter?” Toca asked. “So we go somewhere and put our names down in a book? What’s so terrible about that?”

Jasper’s face contorted in anger. He exchanged a deeply disturbing look with Pavel and stabbed a finger into Toca’s chest. “I’ll tell you what’s so terrible. They can find us any time they want, day or night, that’s what.”

“So?”

“For the sake of God!” Jasper shouted, leaning forward to stare nose to nose with Toca. “Are you brain-dead? The Magistrates just killed another Gamant planet. They’re burning our businesses to ashes and now they’re demanding we register and you can’t see the danger?”

Toca leaned back in defense. “What are you talking about? Another Gamant planet?”

“Losacko told me days ago that Kayan got scorched.”

“I don’t believe it. He misunderstood the message.”

“The hell he did! The Magistrates are out to kill all of us and it will damn sure make it easier if they know where we are every moment of the day and night. I won’t register!”

In the silence, Jasper glared out the window. People leisurely strolled by on the street, some laughing, others holding the hands of children and talking. The crimson leaves of the trees suddenly seemed forebodingly red. He felt acutely the warm wind that brushed the back of his neck like a warning hand.

Toca’s thick gray brows lowered. “You have to register. If you don’t, they won’t let you—”

“I won’t!”

CHAPTER 15

Carey Halloway brushed auburn hair behind her ears and braced her elbows on her desk. The utter darkness of her cabin wrapped around her like a silken burial gown.

“I’ve got to do something.”

All the moments in her life when she’d ever been ill with fear came back to her, their horror magnified a thousand times. Her com screen flared in blue, the flashing cursor sending a spurt of color over her five times a second. The title page of the file read,
“Pegasus Invasion:
Annum
Incident Inquiry.”
Her eyes rested on Cole’s name and the charges against him. For a timeless moment, she just sat still, feeling the wintry chill of her cabin against her bare arms. Every tiny sound seemed louder, the shhh of air from the cooling vent, the hammering of her heart, the barely audible male voices in the hall outside.

Finally, when she could bear it no longer, she shoved her chair back and got to her feet, circumnavigating her cabin like a dazed sleepwalker.

It had happened twenty years ago. Cole had been a rookie lieutenant, just out of Academy, graduating number two in a class of over four thousand. His specialty: singularity engineering. His first assignment had been aboard the starcruiser,
Annum.
Less than a year after shipping out, the
Annum
had been frantically redirected to Old Earth to protect the planet from Pegasan invaders who sought to enslave the native population to operate the lethal and highly profitable neuro-gas wells on the planet of Lad.

The fighting had been insane, cruisers dying by the dozens. During the seventh month, the
Annum
had been hit hard—the ship virtually cut in half. Communications between halves had ceased. Cole had been stationed in Engineering, fighting to contain the reaction in the old style singularity tapper engines. His report claimed the heat gauges showing the status of the primordial black holes had climbed to level five: “extreme danger,” singularities on the verge of complete evaporation. He’d signaled Top Alert and ordered his crew into the nearest pod. He tried for another hour, alone, to contain the mass deterioration. Then he’d climbed into that pod with his crew and jettisoned, hurling through space to land in the midst of hot fighting in France. He’d been immediately recruited to command a ground unit and performed “with superior valor.” A year later, he was captured.

Moments after he’d jettisoned, however, a Pegasan special forces team had boarded the
Annum,
killing the captain and taking the ship. The engines, apparently, were not as threatened as Cole had thought. The war had lasted for another two years, until Magisterial forces crushed the invasion and the surviving remnants of the
Annum’s
crew were returned. The Magistrates immediately set up a board of inquiry to determine whose negligence had resulted in the loss of the
Annum.
First Lieutenant Glatzer, second in command, had charged that Tahn’s assessment of the engines was in error and his abandonment of the ship had left it defenseless, unable to access the weaponry, directly resulting in the takeover. Cole had defended himself vehemently, reciting the sequence of events in excruciating detail, claiming there must have been a computer malfunction. His crew had supported him to the last man. Though Slothen’s report termed him a “brilliant young hothead,” he’d declined to prosecute, citing Cole’s valiant performance in France as evidence of the youth’s competence and value to the service.

A week later, the rest of the
Annum
’s crew had been marched to the nearest neurophysiology center and spent weeks undergoing intense mind probing to find out what really happened, who made errors and why.
No definitive conclusions were ever arrived at, but the crew came out of it irreparably damaged, critical centers of their brains destroyed. The government had housed them in institutions until they mercifully died.

Carey stood rooted, bare feet tingling from cold, staring blindly at the magnificent holo of the Teton Mountains on Old Earth that covered half the wall by her door. The towering snow-capped peaks shimmered coral in the first rays of dawn. Above them, a battle cruiser gleamed like a polished silver triangle. The holo had a presence, a power—just like the
Hoyer
and her captain.

The Annum
had been the last ship in the Magisterial fleet to succumb to enemy takeover—the last before the
Hoyer.
No telling what Slothen would do to them when he discovered their predicament. Would he reconsider his verdict of Cole’s innocence in the
Annum
Incident? He might, and that fact had to be tormenting Cole at this very moment. Slothen would demand to know where they’d blundered, what went wrong, who they’d underestimated, and why. What if the ship’s log didn’t give it to them?
The
Annum
’s log hadn’t.

“Don’t jump to conclusions!” she raged at herself. “Things are different now. The
Annum
didn’t have our sophisticated computer recording system. Our logs
will
tell the Magistrates most of what they need to know. They won’t have to do any deep probing.”

And if they do it anyway
—
as punishment?

She tucked her freezing fingers beneath her arms as she paced, frowning hard at the gray carpet. She wished she could access the com security system to see for herself what Slothen would find, but Baruch had cut it off. Thank God he hadn’t seen any threat in the supplementary personnel files or she’d have never been able to access the data on the
Annum.

“Damn it.
Damn it!”

The only way to make sure the crew, including herself, stayed healthy was to win back their ship. Otherwise, the instant Baruch put them groundside, the Magistrates would pick them up, order an inquiry … and haul them kicking and screaming to the nearest neuro center. At least, she’d go kicking.

If they could regain the ship before the Magistrates got wise to their current predicament, Baruch would make a superb prize to appease any dismay they might experience after they discovered what had happened.

But how the hell could they defeat Baruch? Tahn’s mental state still reeled precariously, though he seemed better, able to hold longer conversations. She couldn’t rely on him yet. Which meant she’d have to handle the major burden of planning the assault herself. It left her nauseous.

“Where are your weaknesses. Baruch? Do you have any? Goddamn it, do you?”

She wandered her cabin for another two hours, laying out one line of attack, then another, then backtracking and redefining the first. None of it worked—Baruch would guess her strategy before she’d completed the first maneuvers.

Glaring at the dark ceiling panels, she clenched her fists. What in the name of God could she do to incapacitate … A hot flush of adrenaline rushed through her as her thoughts shifted. “Oh…. Maybe. Just maybe.”

She ran back across the room, dropping heavily into her desk chair. The cursor pounded in time with her heartbeat. “Computer, correlate all known data on Syene Pleroma. Highlight personal habits and emotional traits. I want to know
everything:
what her laugh sounded like, her perfume, the way she walked.”

A picture of a beautiful, athletic woman filled her screen. Long brown hair was pulled back behind her ears, draping in luxurious waves down the front of her black battlesuit. Carey’s eyes riveted on the woman’s expression; it was as frail and fine as a porcelain doll, eyes wide with vulnerability.

Gen Abruzzi glared at the forward screen. They’d slipped out from behind the sun and had gotten a faint picture of the
Hoyer.
It gleamed like a winged silver bird as it circled Horeb. Even from their distant location, Abruzzi could tell Tahn hadn’t completed his scorch attack.

He ran a hand beneath the woolly gray hair at the base of his skull, massaging the taut muscles. “Tenon, you’re sure those ships coming up from the surface of the planet aren’t ours?”

“From the mass readings, some of them are. But most are too small to be of Magisterial construction.”

“Planetary ships?
Doing what?”

Tenon got out of her chair and walked slowly up to stand beside him. Her flaxen skin and short black hair shone silken in the bright light. Together they studied the faraway images. Horeb blazed with a marmalade sheen beneath the fires of the midday sun. “The only thing I can imagine that would take so many trips is if they’re shuttling refugees.”

He swallowed down a parched throat. His dark palms had gone clammy. “Blast. We might need help. See if you can contact Erinyes, but let me do the talking. We’ll play this one close to the chest.”

“And Palaia? I don’t think Slothen will take kindly to our going maverick and intervening without orders.”

He breathed a long exhale, nodding reluctantly. “Tran Palaia. Request guidance on our next course of action.”

“Aye, sir.” She nodded to Jylo Weri, the communications officer.

Abruzzi bounced anxiously on his toes while he waited for the reply.

CHAPTER 16

Rachel moaned softly in her sleep, trying to rise, to run, but she seemed to be wrapped in a straitjacket of nightmare. Adom’s handsome face hung above the rest, watching, forgiving, as dozens of other scenes flashed. All the people she’d fought against on Horeb, the men who’d murdered her husband and tried to murder her and Sybil, now walked the corridors of the
Hoyer.
And they still wanted to kill her. But now, in space, she had no vast empty desert to run to for shelter. She tried to turn over but couldn’t move. What could she do? Where could she go to escape? Her stomach knotted so agonizingly she could think of nothing but the pain.

In a swirling wash of warmth, a hazy void enveloped her, glittering like gold dust, curling around her dreams in a lover’s strong embrace. Tears of relief traced down her cheeks. For an indefinable time, she simply floated on the undulating waves of warmth, letting them soothe her inner aches and the persistent fear that tore her apart. Then Ornias’ tanned face appeared and her body went rigid. A cruel smile lit his …

A gentle voice penetrated her terror, bright and soft as eiderdown shining in the sun. “You’re safe, Rachel. Sleep. Just sleep. We’ll talk in an hour or so.”

She fought to wake. Her soaked blanket pressed coarsely against her chest. She struggled, fighting to find a way out of the peace and warmth. Her arms and legs went numb. Terror began to beat a thrumming chorus in her heart. It lasted until she felt dizzy.

“Just go away.”

“I can’t. I have something important to tell you. But it doesn’t have to be now. I can wait until—”

“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say!”

“Not even if it means saving a quarter of a million Gamant lives?”

Indecision twisted like a knife in her stomach. She strained against the warmth of the glittering void, wanting it, hating it. All the while, the rhythmic movements caressed her tormented soul like a huge tender hand.

“What do you want?”
she demanded.

“Tikkun is in trouble. In a matter of days, the Magistrates will be dispatching five cruisers to aid in suppression efforts there. Jeremiel needs to know so he can think about it. Mention the long-range link to him. He’ll need to monitor—”