Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) (49 page)

He gazed down the street at opaque botanical domes and apartment buildings, then pointed. “There. The one in the center. They’re on the third floor.”

Tahn held his pistol pointed at the sky. “Let’s go.”

Two sergeants grabbed Neil’s arms, protecting him as they half-ran down the sidewalk, stopping frequently to duck into shadowed doorways to wait until fleeing Gamant civilians passed. Already the attack had ripped the city wide and desperate people sought escape. Several women dragging suitcases by long straps swept by, one weeping fearfully when she saw them.

Neil wet his lips, imagining the fire play in the dark heavens where battle cruisers hurled violet lances at each other.

“Hurry!” Tahn blurted, and they ran again.

The Aklba oaks lining the street hunched like old men under the heavy mantle of snow, branches drooping to touch the frosted grass.

Tahn’s security team encircled him as they dashed for the peak-roofed building. The lead lieutenant, a burly man with a bald head, slammed a boot into the front door and hit the foyer rolling, coming up with his rifle pointed.

Tahn darted through the entry and charged the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. In a bunched file they ascended, breathing raggedly by the time they reached the third-floor landing. “Dannon?”

“Last door on the right.”

Tahn hesitated, then motioned with his pistol barrel. “You go first. In case Baruch’s been here before us.”

“All right.” He swallowed convulsively and walked ahead. Before he got to the door, he heard the raucous laughter and throttled female cries. He grimaced, not understanding.

Sliding against the wall, he extended a fist and banged the door. “Syene?”

“Oh, God! Neil? Neil, get away! Don’t—“

He saw Tahn and the security team hugging the walls, waiting for him to give the all clear. Tahn was too cautious for his own good. Just because he’d never met Lichtner didn’t mean they weren’t on the same side. He shoved open the door and entered.

The living room looked as though a bomb had blasted it. Furniture lay overturned, broken glass shimmering like diamonds across the pale green carpet. Blood splashed the far corner in an irregular oval. She must have fought like a wildcat when she realized the true nature of the situation. They’d set her up to believe she’d be bargaining with Lichtner, buying him off so he’d pull his troops out of the Gamant section of town and leave it safe at the critical moment when the Underground cruisers combined fire to blast all the Magisterial military installations on Silmar. In reality, she’d be bait to lure Jeremiel’s forces into a huge net where they couldn’t maneuver.

A final resting place for the Underground fleet.

Dannon had personally guaranteed Lichtner that Jeremiel wouldn’t leave Syene, no matter how hot the fighting got, until too late—until he couldn’t escape anymore.

He sprinted past the kitchen and down a long white hall to the rear bedroom where he knew Lichtner had set up his ambush. Bursting through the door, his legs suddenly went wobbly at the sight that met his eyes.

“Neil!”
Syene sobbed. “Neil… oh, Neil….”

She lay naked on the bed, her beautiful olive skin drenched in sweat and blood. Four marines held her arms and legs spread-eagled. Another man, a corporal by his uniform, crawled off her when Dannon entered, and proceeded to tuck himself into his pants and fasten his fly. Down the insides of Syene’s thighs, whitish fluid trickled. Some spots appeared long dried. Had they all taken turns?

He stared, too stunned to speak.

Trembling all over, Syene’s lungs heaved as the men released her. She curled into a ball on her side and looked up at Neil through eyes stark with pain and terror—half insane.

Tahn and his security team raced down the hall, dodging into the room to line the walls like purple pillars. Lichtner’s people briefly studied the
Hoyer
insignia on - their shoulders and lowered their weapons.

“Neil?” Syene mewled pathetically, as though he were her only reference point for sanity. She held a hand out to him. “Neil… help?”

His throat tightened as tears rose to choke him. He turned away in shock and walked toward the bedroom door where he dropped to the floor. Why hadn’t he realized Lichtner would do something like this? Guilt tightened like a rope around his throat. Anger and hurt jumbled inside him so wildly, he vomited in the corner.

Through tear-blurred eyes, he saw Tahn’s jaw harden. Meticulously and quickly the captain took in the scene. Syene weakly pulled a sheet up to cover her nakedness and Tahn turned away, toward the major who leaned so superciliously against the wall, smiling, a cigarette in his right hand.

“Are you Lichtner?” Tahn asked in an unsettlingly calm voice—like the hush that falls before the hurricane strikes.

Lichtner stepped forward, grinning proudly. “Yes, I deserve full credit for this capture, Captain. I hope your report will reflect—”

“Tell your men to get out.”

Lichtner blinked. “What? Why?”

“Do it!”

Lichtner took a step back, ordering, “Terengi, take your men and guard the front entrance.”

Glancing at each other, they filed out, striding past Neil and closing the bedroom door behind them. The scent of Syene’s perfume clung to them, sweet, cloying.

Tahn’s face went livid. Eyes on Syene, he stood so still, so quiet, that Lichtner fidgeted nervously.

“Captain, thank you for heeding our call for assistance so quickly. We’d not anticipated—”

Tahn swung around and slammed a devastating right into Lichtner’s stomach, then brought up his knee and struck the man agonizingly in the groin. The major sank to his knees, gasping.

Tahn hissed, “You damned fool! What the hell did you think you were doing? If I didn’t need you, you’d be dead. Get up! Tell me what information you’ve gleaned about Baruch’s plans for Silmar?”

Lichtner gripped the back of a chair and staggered to his feet, shaking. “You struck—an officer! I’ll have you strung up from the highest—”

Tahn grabbed him bv the front of his uniform and threw him brutally against the wall.
“What information!”

“N-none,” Lichtner stuttered, glaring at Syene.

Her long brown hair spread across the pillow like damp silk. Through huge eyes filled with the certainty of death, she watched, shoulders heaving with silent sobs.

“What do you mean
none?”

“She’s told us nothing! We tried everything, but she—”

“You kept her here as your private toy and learned
nothing?
Goddamn you! If you’d turned her over to us, we’d have long ago gained that information through mind probing!”

“As planetary commander, I outrank you, Captain! You take
my
orders!”

“The hell I do!” Tahn backhanded Lichtner with lightning speed, sending him toppling over a chair to land hard against the wall. Lichtner got to his feet and bellowed like an enraged bull, rushing insanely. Tahn’s kick caught him in the chest.

But Dannon’s eyes shifted, watching Syene. The fracas seemed to have shaken her so badly that a glimmer of sanity had returned. She edged toward the window, fingers crawling spiderlike until she could grip the sill.

‘She’s getting away!” Lichtner shouted from where he lay sprawled over the floor.

Syene dove, trying to escape, but Tahn lunged for her bare legs, dragging her halfway back inside just as a shot drowned out everything. The purple flash blinded him for a second.

From below, Lichtner’s guards shouted,
“They’re here! Run! Baruch’s forces.
…”

Neil’s heart seemed to stop.
Here?
He sprinted for the window, and saw Jeremiel running toward the apartment building, Rudy close behind. But closer movements took all his attention. Tahn gently released Syene and pushed up from the bed. His uniform bore spatters of her blood.

Neil saw Syene’s beautiful chest blasted wide. The shot had been a glancing blow but had ripped a lethal gash.

Lichtner still held his pistol high, eyes gleaming. “She was getting away!” he explained, seeing Tahn’s clenched fists and enraged face. “I didn’t mean to kill her! I just wanted to stop her!”

“Simons, go!” Tahn shouted to his security chief, frantically waving at his men. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here. If that’s Baruch down there, his forces are surely behind him and this whole damn section of town is about to go up in a ball of fire!”

Dannon got to his feet and stumbled back against the wall, watching men race by. Everyone filed out, leaving him alone. The sudden silence fell over him like a leaden sheet. For the last time, his gaze took in the overturned furniture, the blood.

“Syene,” he murmured miserably. “I didn’t know he’d do this. I swear.”

Faintly, almost inaudibly, he heard a voice plead,
“Neil?”

He fell back against the wall, breaking into sobs.
She was alive!
He took a fumbling step toward her, then blindly turned and ran. As he neared the end of the hall, he heard Rudy’s urgent shouting below, “They’re coming fast, Jeremiel.
Hurry!”

Boots pounded violently on the stairs and Neil lunged for the nearest apartment, ducking inside and locking the door. He pressed his ear against the wall, hearing Jeremiel’s agonized shout,
“Syene?”

Wildly, frantically, Neil ran to the rear of the apartment, trying to enter the circle of Tahn’s protection before….

The sudden loud whir of a cooling unit kicking on brought him bolt upright from where he’d slumped across the floor.

“Oh.” His voice quaked. “Just—just a—dream.”

Shuddering as though from deadly cold, he folded his arms tightly over his aching stomach. Breath rushed in and out of his lungs in huge desperate gulps.

“Oh … God, oh God, ohGod.”

He wiped soaked hair from his brow and leaned his head back against the chill metal, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling fifteen feet over his head. Shadows wavered, monstrous against the stark lustreglobe-dyed walls.

People walked. Second shift? Or morning? He hadn’t the strength to rise and ask. Soft voices echoed around the rows of machinery and he could see two soldiers in purple uniforms wandering aimlessly through the niche. He clenched his fists. Like severed nerves shocked by a laser’s edge, his despair, despair he’d carried for four months and twenty-two days, reawakened and his agony returned.

The abyss in his soul yawned wider.

The 14th of Tishri.

Autumn’s dusty breathless heat choked the streets of Derow, adding a leaden weight to anxious hearts.

After a day and a half of standing, Pavel’s injured back ached as though demons with hot pokers prodded it. He straightened painfully, gazing around the ominously quiet crowd that packed the long street. Children stretched out across the pavement, mothers protectively holding their heads in their laps. Several of the elderly had formed a group beneath the shade of a crimson leafed tree. Yet no one moved, no one spoke—he wondered if they even breathed for fear the marines would hear and tear them to pieces.

Dozens of ships waited above them, hovering like still black beetles against the brilliant azure sky. Armed guards patrolled the boundaries of the gathering, rifles held threateningly.

Pavel bowed his head and looked at Yael. She slept at his feet, her young face serene and innocent. A balmy warmth caressed the air, redolent with the scents of ripe fields of barley and freshly harvested alfalfa. Along the road, golden masses of ivy bordered lawns, climbed trellises, and wound over rooftops. He exhaled painfully. On beautiful fall days like this, he and Yael usually spent the afternoon leaning with their arms on the sill of an open window, drinking in Tikkun’s beauty, talking about things that interested her: cats and oxen, colors and grass.

“How do you feel?” Grandpa asked. He sat next to Yael, ancient knees drawn up. His withered face had taken on a hard, hateful set.

“Sore, but all right. Where did Aunt Sekan go?”

“Patlica Urbikeit begged her to come and talk. Her heart is broken.”

Pavel swallowed hard and nodded. Tears stung his eyes, but he sucked in a deep breath, forestalling the emotional tide. Toca’s absence weighed heavily on all of them—a great black blanket that smothered their strength.

“How are you, Grandpa? Do you need some water? There’s a canteen tied to that bag behind you.”

Jasper reached around and unfastened it. The petrolon made a harsh scritching sound as he dragged it across the pavement and handed it up to Pavel.

He gingerly sat down beside Yael. His spine felt worse when he sat than when he stood or lay down. He twisted so he rested on his right hip. Uncorking the canteen, he took a long drink and gave it back to Grandpa.

Jasper sipped a little. “As for how I am, fine so far, but I’m not expecting miracles.”

“What do you think they’re going to do with us?”

“Work us until they kill us. You’ve heard the rumors about the camps they set up on Jumes before they scorched it. I suspect we’re in for the same thing.”