Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) (51 page)

“For which group?”

“The Tartarus Believers.”

“You want to isolate them, you mean.”

Harper shrugged. “Might not be a bad idea for a few years. That’ll give them a chance to work out the specifics of their belief system and stabilize their social structure.”

Jeremiel pulled out a chair and propped a boot on it as he considered. The Samran Four Islands had a lush, tropical environment with hundreds of native food resources, mostly vegetable, though. Horebians accustomed to a largely meat diet would have to make a substantial shift of emphasis—but they’d have plenty of food, and he could arrange a staff of teachers from Tikkun’s Underground University to help them the first few years. A malevolent voice in his mind taunted that he ought to just let them all die, that that was what they deserved after the horrors wrought by their belief system on Horeb and the murders they’d committed on the ship. But they were Gamants—despite their fanatical attachment to curious new philosophies. Zadok had once told him it was that ability to change, to adapt the religion to new times and strange places, that kept Gamant culture alive.

“All right. The Samran Four for Tartarus’ Believers. How about the others?”

Harper lifted his brows and folded his arms. “You tell me. We need a safe place where the Old Believers will be among similar religious rigorists.”

Jeremiel reached over to the control panel on the table and hit the appropriate button to set the globe spinning. Continents rotated slowly, flashing alternately in amber and green. Much of the rest of the planet consisted of empty ocean, but a few ancient communities thrived on distant islands, holding diligently to the Old Ways. Their daily lives swelled with mystical precepts based on the magical papyrii found in cubbyholes around the galaxy—allegedly they’d originally come from Old Earth, pirated during the Middoth Exile.

“I suppose the most deeply religious communities exist off the continent of Yihud.” He stood and went to the holo, indicating a clump of islands known locally as the Sacla Seven. Filled with high volcanic peaks and rich soil, a wealth of bird and fish life provided the major dietary element. Nut trees abounded as well.

“How exclusivistic are they? Will they accept a new horde of sibling believers?”

“I suspect they’ll welcome them with open arms. Saclans have a reputation for being charitable to a fault. They adopt strangers—people they consider true seekers—almost immediately, making them part of respected families in an elaborate ceremony of anointing. Old Believers will have no problem fitting in.”

Harper nodded. In the flashes of rotating gold and green, his dark skin gleamed like polished mahogany. He tugged absently at the collar of his robe. “It sounds good. Do you have any reservations about either of those locations?”

“No. We’ll just have to assure ourselves that no Magisterial programs have been initiated which might harm the refugees’ ability to assimilate the new environment.”

“Agreed.” He stood up and glanced again at the whirling globe. “Well, I’ll see to the organization of the shuttles. I think I’ll dispatch the Tartarus Believers first, if that sounds all right. There are more of them.”

“Yes. Good. That will also leave the trainees in place on board until the last minute.”

“True, that way we’ll have a reserve of talent in case we need them. Speaking of which, before I left my cabin, I got a message from Halloway. She says her duties trying to keep the crew together preclude her from meeting with you personally on a regular basis anymore. She requests you assign an intermediary to operate between you.”

Jeremiel’s brows lowered, a sudden hollowness pounding in his chest. It fueled an angry fire that had been building for days. Sharply, he ordered, “Negative. I’ve no intention of giving her more time to complete her plots with Tahn. Deny the request. No … no, I’ll talk to her myself.”

“Affirmative. Before I go, do you want to discuss Plans A and B more? I think I have contingencies C and D staffed out, but—”

“Janowitz and Rachel are key players. Do they understand their roles?”

Harper nodded with certainty. “Yes. As a matter of fact, Chris has been foaming at the mouth to begin the isolation process.”

“And Rachel? Is she ready for her role with Tahn?”

“I think so. She balked when I first told her she’d be his only guard during the battle, but she seems to have accepted….”

He stopped as the door to the conference snicked open. In the brilliant white light that flooded the room from the corridor, Rachel stood tall, black hair cascading in thick waves around her shoulders. Her brown jumpsuit showed dirt around the cuffs.

Jeremiel frowned. Her face glowed an unnatural ashen shade. “Come in, Rachel.”

She stepped inside and the door closed, leaving them in the yellow glare of the holo. She glanced at Harper. “Hello, Avel.”

“How are you, Rachel?”

“Fine, thanks. Would you mind if I speak to Jeremiel?” Obviously, she meant alone.

“Not at all,” Harper responded, bowing obligingly. “I think I’ll start working on the passenger lists for each shuttle.”

“Thank you, Avel. Let me know your final arrangements.”

“I will.” He strode for the door, nodding pleasantly to Rachel before he exited. She barely seemed to notice. Her huge eyes were riveted on the globe spinning over the table.

In a clipped voice, she said, “That’s Tikkun, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s the Yaguthian Desert?”

He cocked his head curiously, but turned around, drawing a rough circle around the dark basin east of Derow. “About here. Why?”

She seemed to be watching him breathlessly, like a tiger stalking a gazelle, waiting for
the
movement before making her own. It made the hair at the back of his neck prickle.

“Is something wrong, Rachel?”

“Yes. Charles Lichtner is the current military governor of Tikkun and he’s confined a number of people to that desert region. I don’t know why.”

He felt like she’d just kicked out his guts. Syene’s voice filled his mind. He leaned heavily back against the table, gripping the edge with hard hands.
“Lichtner… ?
How do you know?”

“I was going through some classified security files and found his name listed.”

A sharp pain pounded in his head, like flashes of electrical arcs trying to connect up with his throat to form a cry of agony. He rubbed a hand over his flushed face. “Which files? I’ll want to review them.”

“They’re under the heading of Neurophysiological Experiments. Nineteen-one-one-eight.”

“Neuro
…” Sterilization … relocation…. Brain experiments? Stunned, he didn’t even think to ask how she’d accessed a file he’d never have thought to. “I’ll check it immediately.”

She slowly walked around to lean next to him against the table and he felt her unspoken words like a brisk slap. His face stung with a rush of blood.

“Is there something else, Rachel?”

She wet her lips, letting her hand rest on the butt of her holstered pistol. Her fingers clutched the gray petrolon like a child’s security blanket. Green from the holo flashed in her black eyes, then gold. She didn’t look like she wanted to tell him. He kept quiet, observing numbly the struggle on her beautiful face. “Jeremiel, do you know what a Laced Star maneuver is?”

“Yes.” He pinned her dark eyes with his own and fear crept like a deadly virus through him. “Why?”

“Those five ships that Slothen dispatched? They’re converging on Tikkun from different directions and they already have us located on their….”

He lurched away from the table, staring at her in terrified disbelief, lungs heaving. Lord in heaven, did she have the remotest idea what she’d just said? The Laced Star was nearly impossible to defeat if a commander fell into the trap. Being caught in the midst of the maneuver was a death sentence!

“How do you know that?”

She gazed up at the holo. Black hair glistened like a curtain of spun silk around her shoulders. Tikkun rotated, its motion now appearing labored, turning in a slow agonizing roll of anticipation. “I beg you to trust me and not ask.”

He shook his head violently.
“What?Tell
me!”

“Jeremiel, I—I can’t.”

“We’re not discussing more of your dreams, are we? Because if so, I’ve got no time for—”

“I’m telling you the truth! Listen to me!”

“And how do you know something that neither I nor any of my top communications staff have….”

The air went out of his lungs. For an awful moment, his life floated in a timeless void of distrust. Old aches surfaced, seizing his mind, twisting it into new and horrifying patterns. Like a clock ticking off distinct known sequences and their relationships, his mind correlated, correlated. The hot fire that seared his veins burned all the way to his bones. Calmly, he said, “Janowitz told me you’ve been spending a lot of time with Tahn—
alone.”

“That’s not true. I’ve seen him twice.”

“Why?”

She shook her head in confusion, searching his stern face. “To talk. He’s helped me with some physics problems I’ve been studying. And other things. I have the right to a personal life, too. Don’t I?”

He straightened slowly, memories swirling, seeing Syene’s tormented face, hearing his own insistent voice,
“He has a personal life, too. Leave it be. I trust him.”
Goddamn it, how could Rachel have said that so blithely, knowing as she did about Dannon and Syene? Had Tahn confided in her? Bought her off? Seduced her? A feeling of bottomless dread swallowed his objectivity.

“No, Rachel. You don’t have the right to a personal life. Not when it involves the enemies of Gamant civilization. What the hell are you doing?
Trading information?''”
In a flood of angry despair, he shook both fists. “Rachel, I’m sorry. Forgive me. It’s just that—I must know. Where did you hear that information?”

“Jeremiel….” her voice faltered. As though immersed in a subjective world of nightmare, her eyes took on a faraway look. Then, insistently, she responded, “You know I would never hurt you or Gamant civilization. Can’t you just accept on faith that I—”

“No! The game is too desperate for me to alter my carefully laid plans based upon
faith.
I
need facts.
And if you’re right about the Laced Star, I’d damned well better start making new plans or we’ll all be dead! Did Tahn tell you about it?”

She shook her head.

Almost tangibly, like the foul breath of a dying beast, he felt a presence swelling in the dark corners of the room. It grew to monstrous proportions in only a few moments. His mind went back in guarded terror to the desperate days on Kayan after Zadok’s death, to the shadowy creature that had attacked and stolen the last
Mea
from Sarah Calas’ very hands. A vague ripple touched the darkness, moving toward Rachel.

In a velvet smooth movement, Jeremiel drew his pistol. “Rachel, get back!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t you see it?”

“What?” Her gaze searched the blackness.

“I don’t know. Some …
shadow.
Like the one we both saw in the caves of the Desert Fathers!” He backed up, fingering the trigger of his gun.

Rachel took a step toward him and a sudden flash of brilliant blue lit the room. Startled, he jerked around. The light pulsed from beneath the brown fabric of her jumpsuit.

“Rachel… ?”

“Oh,” she murmured in a choking voice. “No! Aktariel? Not Jeremiel. NO!”

Aktariel?

As though in pain, she groaned, “Oh, no. It burns. It
burns.!”
A small cry of agony escaped her lips as she gripped the chain around her neck and pulled a
Mea
over her head. She threw it on the table. The gold chain curled around the sacred globe like a living serpent.

For a time, they simply stared at it, both breathing hard. Then Jeremiel cautiously reached out and grasped the chain. The
Mea
flared more brilliantly in his hand, casting a cerulean blaze over the room. “I thought every
Mea
in the universe had vanished. Where did you get this?”

“Adorn.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you had it?” The longer he held the sacred device, the warmer the chain grew against his palm. He could feel the heat rolling off the globe. All his anxieties about Rachel seemed to increase. Had she traveled through the gate to the Veil of God where all the preexisting events of creation were recorded? Was that how she knew so much about the future? He’d never really believed in the sacred journey to the Veil.

“I thought it was useless,” she defended. “The glow had died.”

“Indeed. It seems to be fine now. Was it dead when Adom gave it to you?”

“No. It died….” Words tumbled end over end in a flood, as though she feared if she didn’t spout them all at once, her courage would fail. “Jeremiel, when I was at the pole, I—I dreamed I went to talk to Epagael. We argued about suffering and I called him a monster for allowing it to exist. That’s when the light in the
Mea
went out. And Aktariel told me later that it was dead, that Epagael had locked the gate to me.”