Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) (62 page)

He listened to them halfheartedly, wondering what Jeremiel would be doing right now? Trying to jettison refugees and Magisterial soldiers as fast as he could so he could escape conflict with the
Jataka?
Probably. And Rudy was nearby. He knew it because he felt Kopal’s presence in the very marrow of his bones.

“Dannon?” Millhyser called roughly.

He refused to look up. He studied his hands, curiously lifting them to the bluish light.
Remember, Rudy? Remember when I saved your life with these?
He smiled. They’d been crawling on their bellies through the steaming jungles of Gerona. A platoon of government soldiers had cornered them. Rudy had fought like an Orillian tiger, but….

“Dannon!”

He slowly lowered his hands to his lap. “What do you want?”

The ugly blonde strode up to loom over him. Her mouth puckered disdainfully. She’d confiscated his weapons, leaving him defenseless again. “Get up, Dannon. We’ve got to figure out what to do with you.”

“What do you mean
do
with me?”

“Baruch’s move caught us off guard. Our numbers are critically depleted. We need every hand. That means I can’t spare anyone to guard you.” She folded her arms, glaring. “Be of some use. Think up a safe location where we can stash you until the fighting is over.”

He laughed bitterly. “Just give me a vacuum suit, Lieutenant. I’ll take care of myself.”

“As an officer in the Magisterial fleet, I’m obliged to protect you—not throw you to the dogs. Try to think for a change, Dannon. Where—”

“Shut your mouth! I’ll do better alone than with you, Lieutenant. I give your people six hours against Baruch’s forces—poorly trained or not.” He lifted a hand and waved it dismissively. “Get away from me!
I don’t need you!
”

Millhyser gave him a cold smile. Over her shoulder, she called, “Faniels? Bring Dannon a vacuum suit. We’re going to leave him on his own. He doesn’t
need
us”

Faniels trotted over and threw it at Neil. Then, like a school of fish at a thrown rock, the Magisterial soldiers vanished into the nooks and crannies of the ship.

Neil toyed with the suit, fastening and unfastening the pockets. Finally, he stood up and started to walk away.

A pistol whined shrilly, the purple arc panning erratically through the niche. A console exploded in a charcoal flash of shrapnel. Dannon hit the floor on his belly, scrambling for cover. When he got halfway across the niche, he dove behind a stack of crates—and came face-to-face with a dark barrel. He lifted his gaze without moving a muscle. A tall old man with a mop of gray hair stood grinning. “I got him!” he called.

From around the crates a short pudgy elder wearing spectacles low on his nose emerged, panting, running on unsteady legs. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get out of here!”

“Who are you?” Neil demanded. But he already knew they were Gamants from their accents.

The tall man said, “I’m Funk. He’s Calas.”

Dannon’s brow furrowed. “Yosef Calas? Zadok’s brother?”

Calas looked forlorn, mouth pursed as though against some regrettable duty. “Get up Mister Dannon,” he said gently. “We must be going.”

Neil searched the surroundings for Millhyser. Where the hell had she gone to so quickly? “But wait, I don’t—”

“Why do you want to take him somewhere?” Funk demanded. “I say we put the grease on the rat-fuck sonofabitch right now!”

Calas squinted disbelievingly and shoved Funk hard, kicking him in the ankles until he got in the proper place behind Neil.

“All right! All right!” Funk yielded. “Quit it!”

Neil glanced from one to the other. Good God, they were nothing but old men with delusions of grandeur. But both had pistols. He’d have to wait for the right opportunity to take them.

Funk whispered, maliciously, “Don’t get any ideas, brain boy. I’ve never had a conscience and I’m too old to grow one now. I’ll kill you pretty quick if you so much as lift your hand too fast. Get up!”

Neil slowly got to his feet, standing stiffly, waiting for instructions. “Where are you taking me?”

Calas hobbled forward as though in pain. “Oh, we’ll figure that out as we go along.”

Funk prodded Neil in the shoulders and sides with his pistol barrel, forcing him to follow Calas.

Baruch led Tahn through a maze of rushing people on level twenty, so many that his anxiety level soared to dangerous levels. He wanted to run, to break away and find out what the hell was happening! Baruch stopped briefly at the landing bay door to speak to Janowitz.

Tahn studied their changing facial expressions, the glances Janowitz shot in his direction. Something in their still postures, their low interchange of words, gripped Tahn like the fists of doom. Finally, Baruch walked back toward him, gesturing to the door with his pistol.

“You know how to pilot shuttles, don’t you, Tahn?”

“I’m a little rusty, but I’ll manage.”

“Good. Move.”

Tahn headed into the bay and toward the shuttle
Eugnostos.
Baruch eased around him, going to open the side door. Cole stepped inside and gazed around the cramped white interior. Composed of two compartments, the crew area was clean. Benches lined the walls. Tahn strode forward into the command cabin.

“I assume you want me to take the pilot’s seat, is that right?”

“Good guess.”

Tahn stepped around the floor storage cabinet and went to the appropriate chair. Leaning back, he glanced sideways at Baruch. The Underground leader’s pistol aimed unambiguously at his head.
Not a pretty sight.
The purple and gray uniform Baruch had adopted grated on his nerves like sandpaper on bare fingertips. He ached to get his hands around Baruch’s throat. Obviously, fate wasn’t going to grant him the favor for a while. Morosely, the reached forward to the control console….

“Just a minute, Tahn,” Baruch ordered sternly. Hitting the EM restraints, he snugged back in the copilot’s seat, brown hair and mustache shimmering in the bright command cabin.

“I thought you were in a hurry to get to Tikkun?”

“Not that much of a hurry. We need to have a brief discussion about the special alterations I’ve made in the operation of this shuttle.”

“I didn’t think you’d leave me control of the weapons, Baruch, not even with the incentive of your pistol pointed at my ear.”

Baruch leaned forward to tap four screens in the tri-level com display. “Not only that, Captain. Take note that all other major controls have also been shifted to the copilot’s console, including life systems and emergency operations. You can’t initiate any functions for ejection, internal atmosphere or heat control, vertical or horizontal stabilization, or flight modulation beyond steady-state flying, basic navigation and landing—among other things which I’m sure you can see. And I have override veto on those.”

Tahn checked each com screen in detail, nothing specifically what other functions had been removed from his control. He heaved a disgruntled sigh and nodded. “Pretty thorough.”

“Damned thorough.”

With exaggerated politeness, Tahn inquired, “Would you like me to initiate takeoff now?”

“I would. And remember,” Baruch said, conspicuously gripping his pistol tighter. “I can kill you and still have no trouble flying this ship alone.”

“I can see that from the control reprogramming, Baruch. No need to be brazen.”

“I just wanted to make sure we understood each other.” Baruch reached forward, without taking his eyes from Tahn, to strike the patch that opened the landing bay doors.

Tahn watched the white panels pull back and gazed anxiously out at the heavens. Their orbit had taken them around to the morning side of Tikkun. The atmosphere glittered like a tawny aura of sunlit dust around the planet. Hundreds of miles below, the continent of Amman rotated. Major geological features stood out starkly against the background of vast deserts and forests. A central band of volcanoes stained the land mass like a lumpy charcoal blanket carelessly tossed over an interlocking weave of green and brown farms. With interest, Tahn noted that Baruch’s refugee shuttles were descending toward one of the densest, most inaccessible forest regions. A curious choice on his part. And yet another thing Dannon had assessed incorrectly.

He initiated takeoff and they gently eased out of the bay into space. Behind them, he saw the
Hoyer
hanging silently, her hull gleaming silver, edges tinged with the palest of golds, and his heart ached. At this very moment, Millhyser’s computer virus would be ensnarling every fundamental program except life and singularity maintenance systems, but it would be another hour before his crew initiated their attack. Would he be back in time to orchestrate it? Probably not. It didn’t matter. With just five key players, the strategy could be implemented. He’d taken great care to assure that if Baruch caught on and killed ninety-nine percent of his people, he could still take his ship back. And Baruch’s green crew would sure as hell fare worse without their commander than Tahn’s seasoned soldiers would without him.

He nosed the shuttle downward toward the far deserts outside the capital city of Derow. As they turned, he noticed the shuttle wings gleaming. In the sunlight, they burned with a fringe of opalescent fire. He glanced sideways at Baruch. The man sat calmly, one boot propped unprofessionally against the forward bulkhead camera. Not that they’d need it, but it looked bad.

Tahn irritably demanded, “What specific coordinates did Lichtner transmit?”

“Eleven-seventeen-nine by ten-five-two. That sounded particularly hostile. Are you upset about something?”

He pursed his lips incredulously. “Get your goddamned boot off the camera.”

“What for?”

“It would improve my mood.”

Baruch leaned back in his seat to prop his other boot blasphemously alongside the first. He rested his pistol on his knee. The camera almost seemed to groan beneath the treatment.

Tahn ground his teeth. “Will you tell me something?”

“I might. What?”

“How does the Underground survive when its people abuse essential equipment?”

“We don’t abuse our own.”

“Ah, then you’ve accepted the fact that this shuttle will never be yours?”

Baruch frowned contemplatively and removed his boots, stretching his long legs across the floor. “Clever point.”

“I thought you’d appreciate that one. Now, let’s discuss Block 10. Obviously it’s in the middle of the Yaguthian Desert. What is it? And what do you expect to find there?”

“I’m not sure. The data available on the project are fragmented at best. I haven’t been able to—”

“Fragmented?” Truth or a good lie? It could be a dattran error, but if not the implications bespoke a major undertaking of questionable ethics. He frowned out the side portal. “You think the government’s initiated an incoherency cover-up?”

“Looks like it.”

He shifted positions uncomfortably. “Well, that explains why they’d put Lichtner in charge. The project must be so iffy Slothen’s afraid to get someone in there who might have a shred of morality.”

Baruch eyed him curiously. “I didn’t know the government had any employees with a shred of morality.”

“Didn’t you? I’m relieved. That means you don’t know Carey nearly as well as it appeared on the bridge.”

Baruch made no comment He merely exhaled a deep breath, as though thinking long and hard.

“That’s an interesting look, Baruch,” Tahn taunted. “You’re not in love with my second in command, are you?”

Baruch casually lifted his pistol, clicking off the safety. “Shall I help you out with your suicidal tendencies?”

Tahn’s gut crawled. That cool threat hadn’t been idle. He blinked and looked back at the com console, studying the navigational readings. Obviously Carey had affected Baruch’s emotional foundations. But how much?

They sat in silence, each occasionally glancing speculatively at the other. When they could see the spiny ridges of Yaguth shining maroon in the slanting rays of sunrise, Tahn leaned forward to peer out the portal. A transparent veil of smoky pink lay over the desert. Drifting clouds glowed like shredded rose petals. Below, a photon shield formed a mustard colored bubble beside a towering cliff.

Baruch gave Tahn a sidelong look. “Set her down easy, Captain.”

“Affirmative.”

He made a gentle, sweeping turn, circling the complex, noting the number of ships and men stationed outside the walls. It looked like a goddamned prisoner-of-war camp. The words stung. An involuntary shiver went up his back. Images of Old Earth reared in his memories. The cathedral of Notre Dame and the shining bars of his light cage seeped through his recently regained shell of protection. Baruch, he noticed, had started to breathe shallowly, hand threateningly caressing the pistol in his lap.

“This the first time you’ve been home in years, isn’t it?” Tahn asked.

“It is.”

“How does it feel?”

Baruch turned slowly, a dull taciturn glitter in his eyes. “Bad, Captain. Very bad. Land in front of the main gate.”

“I was planning on it.”