Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) (36 page)

When she neared the white beach, she turned, gazing back at the hill where they’d sat. He was gone. Only an empty grove of swaying trees stood tall and quiet. “Why do you torment me, Aktariel? What have I done that I deserve such attention from you?”

Rachel took off her sandals and ran out onto the shimmering sands. The afternoon sunlight brushed her cheeks with warmth. She took her time, picking up each shell she passed, turning it over and over in her palm, feeling its texture, smelling the salty scents of fish and kelp that clung to it. She struggled to keep her mind off anything important. All she wanted was to play for a few blessed hours.

Her running steps left pockmarks across glimmering white grains.

On a distant hill, Aktariel braced his arm against a fig tree, watching Rachel on the shore below. She raced childlike down the beach, running for a short distance, then stopping and lifting her arms to whirl like a dervish in the glorious sea breezes. Even from here, he could feel the joy in her heart, as though a long aching wound had at last been salved.

He pressed a fist to his mouth and shook his head at himself. He
wanted
her to feel that. For too long, he’d been forced to watch her suffer, to feel her despair from afar—all the while knowing her essence had been created for greater things. He could endure the sight of starving millions, the bloodied corpses of innocent children, but to see Rachel miserable broke his heart. He’d rather have endured the holocaust in the square himself than to have witnessed her horror.

Yet… she had to experience that herself.

He folded his arms tightly over his breast and leaned a shoulder against the cool trunk of the tree. He had urgent business to take care of, but he couldn’t leave. He hadn’t wanted to tell Rachel she couldn’t get back to her own universe without him. That would have frightened her even more. He’d wait, watching from afar until she seemed to have satiated her need for earth and wind and sun. Then he’d take her home.

He ran a hand through his blond hair. An ache had grown in his chest, pressing painfully against his heart. “You’re a fool,” he whispered harshly. “A damned fool.”

CHAPTER 27

Dannon lay prone in a narrow power tunnel, trying to catch an hour of sleep. His shredded black robe had grown grimy in the past twenty-four hours while he struggled to get close enough to contact a Magisterial officer on level seven.

In the darkness behind his closed eyes, memories flooded out. The massive numbers of injured and dying Gamants mixed with the silent questions and pain he’d seen in Jeremiel’s eyes. A hornet’s nest of emotions hummed inside him. Neil’s thoughts kept returning to the candlelit saloon on Vensyl. He and Jeremiel had slouched in one of the outside booths, gazing up at the magnificently jagged mountain peaks which pierced the full moon. Light penetrated the soughing trees, carelessly throwing moonglow like silver coins over the veranda where they sat. He remembered so clearly, so very clearly, the pine-sharp winds that ruffled their sleeves, the strong handclasps they’d shared.

When had it all gone wrong? He searched his memories. He couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact moment, but sometime, somewhere, the Underground had stopped being a rescue organization for Gamants in distress and had become a full-scale war machine. Blind. Desperate. Hitting hard and running fast.

He’d pleaded with Jeremiel to stop and take a good look at what they’d become. But he never did—couldn’t, he said. Even now, he could hear Jeremiel’s deep voice: “The whirlwind has caught us up and twisted us around so much, Neil, the only way out I can see is to fly into the storm.”

“But Jeremiel
…”

The hands over Dannon’s face trembled. He dug his fingers into his flesh to still the nervous attack. How many innocent people had died while they spouted Gamant righteousness?
An eye for an eye.

For a while it had escalated to five eyes for one—making up for past Magisterial murders, they’d justified. Then ten for one … twenty for one.

And Neil couldn’t bear it anymore. When they’d been planning the Silmar attack, he’d shriveled in upon himself, so staggered by the anticipated casualty figures, he could no longer turn his head.

When he’d gotten up from the strategy table, he’d been sick, sick to death with the horror, the screams that filled his dreams, the terrified faces of little children running, running through streets devastated by cannon fire.

“Jeremiel,” he’d begged, “let’s go have a beer. I need to talk to you.
Let me talk to you?”

Baruch had frowned contemplatively, eyes distant—already lost in the battle, mind weaving the strategy he devised so well. He’d warmly grabbed Dannon’s shoulder and murmured, “I promised to meet with Rudy. He’s coordinating ballistics. Later, huh? Maybe tomorrow after we’ve …”

But there’d been no tomorrow. Neil had made his decision that instant. Then the Magistrates had started hitting back and entire Gamant planets had died in a flood of vengeance.

He groaned softly to himself. “Why wouldn’t you listen, Jeremiel?
I begged you.”

He brought up his knees and curled into a ball. Tendrils of the love he’d tried so desperately to kill rose, twining up from his unconscious to wrap themselves around his heart. He hurt as though he’d been bludgeoned. The faces of the dying children in the hallways haunted him….

“Why wouldn’t you talk to me, Jeremiel?”

Cole Tahn lay sleeping soundly, dreaming of the pleasant lazy days of his youth in Academy. The sweet pungent scent of Giclasian apple blossoms wafted through the scene. He and Maggie Zander lay side by side beneath a huge tree, her beautiful face dappled with soft shadows, golden hair streaming around her shoulders. She gave him a reproachful look.

“I mean,
“she said, “you’re so brilliant at physics, how could you fail that simple Intergalactic lingua test?”

He laughed. “I’m only good at useless accomplishments. Singularity drives and—”

“Be serious. You’ll never get out of Academy if you don’t study harder about things you find uninteresting.”

He smiled and took her hand, pressing it tenderly to his lips. “My dear Maggie, don’t worry about me. If I have to, I’ll stay up all night before finals and get it straight in my head.”

“Yes, unfortunately, you probably will. Most people have to study all semester long. I think it’s bad to be so brilliant. Things come too easily. You’ll regret that some day.”

“Will I? Why?”

“Because eventually it’s going to make you over confident, which means you’ll make mistakes at exactly the wrong moment. That is, if your classmates don’t kill you in jealousy first. Except me, of course. I’m fool enough to love you.”

She laughed teasingly. It reminded him of warm winds through autumn-brittle aspen leaves. He cherished it, engraving it in his memory to hear again and again when he thought he could bear no more of the horrors of war or the futility of command. In the farthest regions of his memory, scenes of her death struggled to rise, flitting like butterfly wings through the dream. Forcefully, he pushed them down.

“Maggie,” he said with an urgent gentleness. “I love you, too. I wish we could …”

Faintly, he heard faraway sounds. The door to his cabin snicked open. He fought against it, not wanting to wake up. A dozen booted feet rushed in.

“Get up, Tahn!”

In a swift trained motion, he rolled off his bed and to his feet, crouching ready for combat, panting from the shock. In the dim green light cast by his com unit, he made out five men. One he recognized.

“What the hell do you want, Baruch?”

“You.”

The tall blond’s jaw was clamped so hard, his entire face seemed skewed. It sent a frigid wave through Tahn. He girded himself for war, straightening slowly. “What for?”

“Magistrate Slothen is on com. He requests visual contact with you.”

Tahn breathed a small sigh of relief, straightening up. “Let me get dressed.”

Baruch used the barrel of his pistol to motion to the uniform draped carelessly over the desk chair. “Hurry. We haven’t much time.”

“I’m hurrying. Don’t get nervous.” He slipped on his pants and tucked in his shirt, then sat on the edge of his bed to pull on his black boots. All the while, Baruch stood rigidly, eyes glued to his every movement. In the rectangle of light streaming in from the corridor, Baruch’s blond hair shimmered platinum. A beautiful woman Cole had never seen before stood behind Baruch, a rifle held expertly in her arms. Tall, she had long, wavy black hair and intense midnight eyes.

“What com should I take?”

“I want you on the bridge where everything will look perfectly normal.”

“All right.” Tahn started walking, exiting into the long white hall. Ten other Gamant guards greeted him, rifles aimed unambiguously at every conceivable part of his anatomy.

Baruch came up to walk beside him, eyeing him gravely. “Let’s discuss your conduct.”

“I think I know how to act before Slothen.”

“My people have just sealed off level seven. One wrong word, one suspicious move—if you blink too quickly, Tahn, I’ll gas the entire deck. Do we understand each other?”

Rage flared, but he controlled it. “We do.” He stepped into the tube, accompanied by six Gamants, and looked at Baruch. Their gazes locked, each taking the other’s measure. A silent tug-of-war ensued. The tube smoothly ascended, level numbers flashing in blue on the wall panel as they passed.

“I want you to ask Slothen one question for me.”

Tahn squinted suspiciously. “What is it?”

“Ask him where my fleet is.”

“You mean you don’t know?” He laughed. “And to think I’ve been worrying about—”

Baruch’s muscular arm slammed him painfully against the tube wall. He stared Cole hard in the face.
“Just ask him.”

“Affirmative,” Cole responded mildly. A seed of hope lodged in his breast, quickening his breathing. If Baruch didn’t know, they could be a month away. He studied the Underground leader. Baruch fidgeted like his nerves were strung tight as an ancient cat-gut fiddle.

The tube halted and four of the guards stepped out first, securing the bridge. His crew responded with practiced ease, as though for the thousandth time. Baruch gripped him by the arm and shoved him out in front, a pistol stabbed uncomfortably into his kidney. He winced as Baruch forced him to walk to his command chair where he shoved him into the seat and glared down through fiery eyes.

“Don’t forget, there are five hundred people depending on you.”

“I’m aware of that, Baruch.”

The Gamants moved back, out of visual range, to cling like shadows against the walls. Tahn studied his bridge crew. They looked at him breathlessly, awaiting instructions. Some were obviously worried sick that he couldn’t handle the situation. It made his gut ache. Halloway’s hard eyes assessed the Gamants and flicked to him. She gave him a fleeting smile. Damn, he ought to be reassuring her, not the reverse. But he appreciated it.

“Relax people,” Tahn said in the calmest tone he could muster. “We’ll proceed just as though this were a casual conversation with Palaia. No heroics. Our friend Baruch has level seven sealed with the intent of murdering the entire techno-science division if we so much as breathe wrong.”

A sharp gasp followed by a soft whimper drew his attention to Shelly Ronan. Her husband, Juno, served as a chemist. She pressed a hand to her trembling mouth as tears filled her eyes.

“Shelly,” he said softly, forcing a confident smile. “Why don’t you wait in the tube. We don’t need you here for this.”

“Yes, sir.” She got to her feet and quickly ran off the bridge. A Gamant guard followed. The door snicked closed behind them.

“Good work, Tahn,” Baruch praised, caressing the trigger of his pistol as he looked around. “Anybody else here who might get his friends killed by breaking at the wrong moment?”

Cole eyed each of his crew in turn. Those he might have suspected bucked up beneath his gaze. Pride warmed him. “No. Everybody else will hold up fine.”

“All right.” Taking one last deep breath, Baruch turned toward Halloway. “Lieutenant, reroute control of communications to your console. I want you handling the dattran. And remember, this pistol is pointed at your head.”

“That would be hard to forget, Baruch.” She hit the necessary keys, acutely conscious that Baruch’s eyes monitored her every movement. “Rerouted.”

“You ready, Tahn?” Baruch asked in a strained voice.

“As ready as I ever am when I have to talk to Slothen.”

A small round of nervous laughter went through his officers, just as he’d intended. They all knew how much he hated conversations with Palaia. Giclasians gave him the fidgets.

“All right, Halloway,” Baruch ordered. “Narrow visual, focused solely on Tahn. Go.”

The forward screen flared to life. The familiar lavender room with the gorgeous background of Palaia Station appeared. Fluffy clouds drifted through the magnificent lemon skies. Slothen bowed his blue head in greeting. “Greetings, Captain Tahn.”

“Greetings, Magistrate. What can we do for you this fine day?”