Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) (32 page)

He scratched his head briskly. “I’ve been teaching you too much about strategy. Before I know it, you’ll be as sneaky as the Magistrates.”

Sybil’s smile faded. She blinked and pulled her eyes away to stare at her hair and the way it shimmered against the gray carpet. Biting her lip, she kept quiet for a little while, thinking.

Ari frowned at her. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?”

“Ari? Have you ever heard of a man named Captain Erinyes?”

Ari put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Can’t say that I have. Who is he?”

Sybil frowned and heaved a sigh. Ari cocked his head curiously. He didn’t understand it, but she seemed so much older now than when they’d met—as though some eerie power had invaded her body and stimulated her mental growth. But the same could be said of Mikael. In the six days they’d been aboard the
Hoyer,
he’d seen Mikael four times and each time, the boy seemed more mature. Stress, probably. Even protected children felt it. But… it struck him as odd. Both Sybil and Mikael acted more like ten- or eleven-year-olds now.

He gazed back at Sybil. She looked vaguely frightened—like she thought he might laugh at her, but she said, “I don’t know who Captain Erinyes is. But he’s a bad man, Ari.”

“What does he look like?”

She stretched her arms over her head. “He’s tall and has a mean face with a hooked nose like a stone eagle.”

“Hmm.” Grunting, Ari slowly lowered himself to sit on the floor beside her. He folded his wrinkled hands in his lap. “Where’d you hear about him?”

“Well, I don’t know if I should tell you.”

“What? Who can you tell if not me? Huh? I thought we were friends.” He formed his mouth into a fine pout.

“Yeah. We are.” She smiled and extended a hand, grabbing his sleeve and tugging it affectionately. Then her gaze fell. “But people make fun of me sometimes, Ari. I don’t like that.”

“I’m not going to do that. Tell me.”

She heaved an uncertain breath and looked at him suspiciously, as though weighing his trustworthiness. “Well—I have
funny
dreams.”

Ari’s bushy gray brows drew together over his nose. “You mean like dreams that scare you or—”

“No,” she said in a small voice, embarrassed. “Do you promise not to tell anybody, Ari? It would make me mad if you did.”

“I won’t tell. What?”

“I have dreams that… that come true.” She looked up apprehensively.

“Oh, I see.” He nodded in grave understanding. “And you had one of these dreams about this Captain Erinyes?”

She nodded, curls bouncing against the carpet. Breathlessly, she waited for him to say something.

Ari picked lint from his green robe and dropped it on the floor. “So—what happened in your dream? With this Erinyes?”

Sybil opened her mouth, then closed it—obviously holding back.

“Look,” said Ari. He stretched out full-length beside her, so their faces would be on the same level. He gazed seriously into her eyes. “I’m going to tell you something, but you can’t tell either, okay?”

“Sure. What?”

He reached out and gently pulled one of her curls, straightening it out. She watched his face intently. “I know somebody else who has ‘feelings’ that come true. When something’s wrong, he just knows it.” Ari tapped his chest. “He feels it in his heart. If your dreams are like his ‘feelings,’ you should tell somebody. That way we can prepare for whatever’s going to happen.”

She bit her lip again. “Yeah. I guess. Who’s this other person, Ari?”

“Yosef.”

Her eyes widened, as though that fact lent more credence to her own dreams, “He does?”

“He does. The legends of our people say that everybody with blood from the House of Ephraim has the sight of a prophet. So, tell me about this Erinyes? Who is he?”

“The House of Ephraim?”

“The House the final Mashiah is going to come from.”

“Sure. That’s right. I remember from school. Okay, Ari, here goes. Erinyes is the captain of a big ship. It has a purple sign on it.”

“The shield insignia of the Magistrates. Go on. Is his ship shaped like this one? A battle cruiser?”

“Yeah. Just like this one.” In a violent burst, she threw out her arms, whistling shrilly. “And other ships come. Bad purple light shoots out from them and hits this one. And … and … me and Mikael?”

“What? What about you and Mikael?” A tiny flicker of horror built in Ari’s breast. His old heart pounded painfully.

“Well, I don’t really get it, but me and Mikael go with Captain Erinyes. And we’re both real scared and Mikael cries a little.”

The flicker grew into a devouring flame. Ari swallowed hard and pushed up on one elbow. “When does this happen?”

“I don’t know. But I …” She tilted her head as though seeing the dream images again. Her soft brown eyes took on a faraway look. “I think it’s soon.”

Ari reached out and dragged her across the carpet, pulling her against his bony chest. “What happens after that? Did your dream say?”

She shook her head. “Nope. But sometimes they come back and are longer. Maybe next time I’ll see.”

Ari couldn’t keep the dire quality from his voice. “If it does, I want you to come tell me. I don’t care what time it is.
You come tell me.”

Sybil nodded. “Okay. Ari? Thanks for not making fun of me. It hurts when people do that.”

“I won’t ever make fun of you, Sybil. You’re my best girl.”

“Thanks, Ari.”

In a swift, expert motion, she lunged for his stomach, digging her fingers in and tickling ruthlessly.

“Good God!” Ari blurted, trying to grab her lightning fast hands. “Quit that! What do you think you’re—”

“Lesson one: Get them before they get you!”

He squirmed away and Sybil leaped to her feet, braced for combat. An eerie glitter lit her eyes. She circled him like a hawk spying a juicy grasshopper. He distracted her by looking suddenly over by her bed. When she whirled to look, too, he dove for her legs. Her bright giggles filled the room.

CHAPTER 24

Jeremiel stood behind Halloway in Engineering, watching her teach Janowitz the principles of navigation. They’d been working sixteen hours straight and all felt a little numb. Work crews had thoroughly cleaned the tri-level round chamber, dragging out the bodies and scrubbing blood from the walls. The wire duty cages now contained a handful of Gamant specialists manning the critical consoles In front of Halloway and Janowitz, seven computer screens displayed calculations in red, gold, and green. She pointed at the middle screen, eyes glowing darkly as she talked to Chris. He frowned in determination, blond hair hanging in damp strands over his ears. Most of it he didn’t understand, but he was trying very hard.

“Not quite,” she said patiently, “the Belk solution to this empty space field equation is asymptotically flat. I mean by that the value of the Reimann-Christoffel tensor goes to zero as the coordinate
r
approaches infinity and also the physical …”

“Lieutenant.” Janowitz licked his lips anxiously. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying. I’m sorry. Could you tell me why this is important?”

She blinked, obviously unnerved by the question.

Jeremiel leaned forward, bracing his hands on their chair backs, gently interjecting. “He’s been raised and taught on a backward planet at the edge of the galaxy, Halloway. Singularities aren’t common topics of discussion in the schools.”

She turned to look incredulously up at him. “Why not?”

“Because they don’t directly relate to the procurement of food and shelter—those are the primary concerns on places like Horeb.”

She heaved a tired sigh. “Well, let’s take it from the top, Janowitz.” She swiveled her chair back around and squinted at the screen as though trying to focus, then leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes a moment.

“Things starting to get blurry?” Jeremiel asked sympathetically. He’d been pushing her hard, deliberately.

“Afraid so.”

“Chris, why don’t you take a break and come back in an hour or so.”

Janowitz vented a disgruntled breath and nodded. “Aye, Jeremiel, I could use a sandwich—and some time to clear my head.” Getting up from his chair, he eagerly left.

Jeremiel smiled at Halloway. She looked dead tired, dark circles forming beneath her eyes. “Can I buy you a cup of taza? Coffee?”

She ran a hand through her damp hair and exhaled wearily. “Are there any computer screens where we’re going? If so, I’ll decline.”

“There aren’t. My people just finished cleaning the level twenty lounge.”

“Then I accept.”

He led the way out of Engineering and down the long white hall in silence. They passed several Gamant guards and a few technicians. When they came to room 2012, he input the entry sequence and ushered her inside, then sealed the room. He didn’t want to have to worry about security tonight.

He almost breathed an audible sigh of relief. This was his favorite cruiser lounge, soft, sensuous. Real, inefficient candles lit the hardwood tables; it had fifteen small wooden booths lining the walls and a series of magnificent holograms of exotic architecture on the walls. The soft music came from the Arctur Colonies, but its mournful lilting notes took him back to early twentieth century Earth and the jazz era. His one off-duty passion consisted of collecting every scrap of music ever recorded by Billie Holiday. Not an easy task these days.

A circular marbleloid dance floor adorned the center of the room, shining like a mother-of-pearl pool in the candlelight.

Halloway nodded admiringly. “Good job. Your people did more than clean. This place sparkles.”

“An architect from Horeb, originally born on Jumes, took charge of the effort.”

Neither looked at the other. He knew the woman had fled from Jumes just before Tahn’s scorch attack. Halloway would suspect as much.

He put a hand lightly against her back and guided her to a far booth. They took opposite sides of the table and Jeremiel turned to the dispenser built into the wall.

“What can I get you?”

She gave him a tired smile. “How about a glass of sweet Silanian sherry?”

He keyed in for two. The honey-flavored liquor came out in fine crystal goblets. He handed her one, watching the way the light refracted through the glass to cast beautiful geometric designs across the tabletop.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

She leaned back against the booth and exhaled slowly. The rich wood made her auburn hair seem redder, her alabaster complexion more like smooth cream.

He sipped his drink and braced his elbows on the table. “Thanks for being so patient. You’ve done a superb job teaching today.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t realize it would be so difficult. Janowitz is very bright, but his last question made me cringe. Anyone who could ask why understanding singularities is important to navigation knows absolutely nothing about gravitation.”

He turned his glass between his hands. “I know. It’s one of the constant battles in the Underground. Training takes a very long time. People have to work their way up through the ranks a step at a time.”

“But it’s insane. Why aren’t basic physics courses taught in the schools?”

“Because, my dear Lieutenant, they’re not important.”

“Really? When Janowitz flies you edge-on into a singularity, you’ll think differently.”

“Space is your environment, not theirs. What I mean is that on wilderness worlds where most Gamant communities have taken refuge, it’s far more critical to teach children about native plant and animal species—which are dangerous, which are safe. It’s more important that they learn how to use stone to construct stable dwellings, how to till the soil to plant crops. Basic survival is all they have time for. Sophisticated sciences are the supreme luxury.”

She shifted positions, pushing back against the wall and bringing her feet up onto the seat. She propped her glass on her drawn up knees. From this side view she seemed all the more slender, almost frail. It touched something inside him, some illogical masculine need—as if this highly decorated officer in the Magisterial fleet needed anybody’s protection. Nonetheless, it softened his guarded responses to her.

“Baruch, tell me something?”

He lifted his brows, expecting something unpleasant. “Are we going to talk business?”

“Only in an offhand way.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

“Why is it Gamants fight like panthers to keep living in medieval squalor? The government could significantly improve the lives of people on isolated planets like Horeb.”

“Cost, Lieutenant. It’s the price that bothers my people.” He took another sip of his sherry and listened to the lilting strains of the violin that tenderly caressed his ears. If he let himself, he could almost feel as though he’d stepped backward in time a few thousand years to a more civilized galaxy. A galaxy where officers were simply humans who could understand each other.

“Cost?”

“Yes, the government demands a price for helping struggling worlds. First, they’d want to establish a Right School—to insure our children thought correctly—and we’ve already discussed the problems with that. Next, they’d order the planet to allow the establishment of military installations. And then, if the planet ever objected to
any
policy implemented by the government, in the schools or otherwise, the Magistrates would have the military muscle on site to enforce their will. Which they do constantly.” He took a deep breath. “We can’t afford the government’s help.”

“Some planets have accepted, though.”

“Yes, like Tikkun. I remember when the first Right School was established. My father hid me in the basement to keep me from having to attend, thank God.”

In a graceful, ballerinalike motion, she made a sweeping gesture at the ship. “So, you owe all this to your father? And you’re grateful?”

He lightly stroked the fine grain of the wooden table. “I’m grateful. He taught me that a whole healthy mind is the most precious possession of any human being. He taught me self-reliance, self-respect, and the importance of never knuckling under to anyone who isn’t
right.”
He fixed her with a harsh look and her beautiful face clouded.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to offend you. Those are all important lessons every soldier must learn, and the earlier, the better. Your father clearly did a superb job. You’re a brilliant commander.”

The words soothed some of his inner sting. In the candles’ glow, the usually coppery glints in her hair shaded golden, as though a glistening web of real summer sunlight netted her head. He fumbled with his glass, suppressing the ache for familiarity, for the scents of wet dirt and wildflowers, the rustling of wind through pines. Something about her made him want to let himself be vulnerable.

“Sorry, Halloway. I didn’t mean to sound so defensive.”

“You should be defensive. The Magistrates have pushed your people around for a long time.”

He looked at her curiously. She took a healthy drink of her sherry, evading his eyes. He wanted to call her on what she meant. How, if she knew that, she could fight so hard to kill so many of his people—but he refrained—adopting a different tack. “That almost sounded friendly.”

“Did it? I must be more tired than I thought. But I’m not blind, Baruch. My general angle of vision is just different from yours. I’ve seen the government do a lot of good, too.”

“It’s hard for me to put that in perspective, given Gamant realities.”

She contemplatively pleated the purple fabric over her knee. “You know why they target Gamants for abuse, don’t you?”

“Pretty much. But I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts on the matter.”

She looked up briefly, as though unsure how he’d receive what she wanted to say. “Your people are untamed. Nobody ever broke you to harness. That makes you damned difficult to fit into any social system.”

“Uh-huh. Are you familiar with the old adage that the first sheep to get an original idea is the first to go into the pot?”

“What’s a sheep?”

“A domestic animal from Old Earth. There aren’t any smart ones left. All the intelligence was deliberately bred out of them—so they’d be easier to handle in the pens, you see. No fence-jumpers were allowed.” She squinted and he smiled. “What I mean is that we don’t want to fit into your society; it requires us to give up too much that we consider precious.”

“You mean you’re all fence-jumpers?”

“Exactly. And we like it that way. In fact, we encourage nonconformity, believing it strengthens, rather than weakens, our culture.”

“That makes you stumbling blocks to every move the Magistrates try for galactic unification.”

“For example?”

“Take programs for communal redistribution. The philosophy is that the entire galaxy is a community—we pool our resources at Palaia and the government redistributes those goods where they’re needed most. Everyone has enough to eat, everyone’s warm. We all benefit from each other and take care of each other. Except Gamants, who refuse the goods offered and insist on charging for their own, or—”

“Lieutenant, I know a little about Magisterial history, do you know anything about Gamant history?”

“I’m an expert in your religion, remember?”

He smiled. “I meant profane history.”

“I know some details.”

Thoughtfully, he shoved his almost empty goblet across the table to his opposite hand, then shoved it back again, playing it between his palms. “Do you know about the diasporas?”

“I know about the Exile and Edom Middoth, where your people were hauled off to slave camps. There were others?”

“Many, many others. Every time my people got settled into a nice comfortable society and became productive members of the system, something went wrong. They ended up running for their lives. Our philosophy of isolationism comes from the fact that those marvelous communal economic systems can shut off goods any time they damn well please. Government officials are rarely saints. And food is the greatest of all tools for manipulation.”

“True.” She finished her sherry and set the goblet on the table where it glittered wildly. She put a hand to her mouth, covering a yawn.

“Am I boring you?” he asked.

“No, it’s not you. I just don’t think I’ve been this tired in my entire life.”

“Shall we cut this short? I’ll cancel Janowitz’s next lesson. That way you can go back to your cabin and get some rest.”

He started to get up from the table, but she reached a hand across to touch his sleeve. He could feel the chill of her delicate white fingers through his shirt.

“I’d rather talk with you, if you don’t mind,” she said.

He lowered himself back to the seat. “I don’t… so long as we abandon the business of culture conflict. I can’t bear much more right now.”

“All right. Let’s let the trumpets sing truce for an hour.”

“Gladly.”

“Can I get personal?”

He lifted a shoulder noncommittally. “Probably. What do you want to know?”

“Only things that don’t matter. Tell me …” She inhaled a deep breath and shrugged. “Tell me your favorite food?”

He smiled and saw the lines around her eyes crinkle softly in return. “A dish so spicy almost no one but me can eat it. It’s called Luzin Jamboli, from the Kaj Colonies on Bedford. What’s yours?”

She returned his smile, a true gesture, not one of those carefully contrived to ease tension. It made him feel better. “A crazy dish made with green sea monsters that have ten legs.”

“Sounds wretched. Where’s it from?”

“Harvest Moon.”

He leaned forward over the table, hands laced. “I’ll have to try it the next time I’m there.”

“Do. I think you’ll like it.”

They fell silent, gazing across the table at the other, smiling genuinely for a time. A small connection of warmth grew between them, like a strengthening current of electricity. When he started to feel it so clearly that a tingle began in all the wrong places, he dropped his gaze to the wood grain on the table.

A long silence stretched.

“Halloway …” He pressed his lips tightly together. “I’m sorry that all this—”

“You did what you had to, Baruch, and with disarming efficiency, I might add. Just as I’m trying to do now.”

He watched the brassy splashes of light cast over the table by their glasses. They fell irregularly, like diamond-shaped puzzle pieces of the finest gold.

“As Cole says, we just have to do our jobs.” A gentleness foreign to her usually gruff manner suffused her voice. It made Jeremiel feel desperate. Oh, how he’d love to be able to drop his defenses and speak to her honestly, just one human being to another.

He roughly shoved his glass around the table. “You sound like you’d rather not do your job.”

“Sometimes. But I don’t see any viable alternatives out there.”

“You’re not looking very hard.” He contemplatively caressed his beard, then gave her a sudden brash grin. “There
are
other sides to fight for.”

She lifted a brow and laughed softly. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re doomed.”

“Another hope dashed. We could use you.”

“Thanks anyway, I’m not that frantic yet. But I’m intrigued by your faith in the future.”

“You mean that we’ll both be around to make such decisions? You’re right, that is presumptuous. The offer, however, still stands.”

She laughed again and shook her head as though she doubted his sincerity. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Good. I’m serious.”

Something about the softness of her expression touched him deeply, building a warmth in his heart. It worried him. He wanted to stay, to drink another sherry and talk more with her, but he couldn’t let himself. This was much too pleasant.

He slid out from behind the table and shoved his fists deep into the pockets of his white pants. “I’ll walk you to the end of the hall and have a security team escort you back to your cabin.”

As she started to slide out, he instinctively offered her a hand. She leaned forward and put her fingers into his. He clutched them tightly as he helped her to her feet. When she stood and looked up at him, time seemed to stop. Conflicting emotions danced across her beautiful face: a magnetic attraction to him, fear, desperation. They stood side by side, the physical contact lasting for fifteen seconds, then thirty. The longer he touched her, the more loudly blood rushed in his ears.

Finally, Carey gently pulled her hand back.

“Let me walk you to the security station,” he said.

“Thank you.”