Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) (66 page)

“Baruch?”
Lichtner’s voice penetrated his haze.

An instant later, rifle fire slashed the ward, and Tahn saw Baruch running, fighting to get away, but Manstein’s shot took him in the shoulder, hurling him to the floor. The Underground leader writhed, trying to drag himself to the door. A wide trail of blood stained the stone floor. Four guards surrounded him, pistols aimed at his head and chest. Weakly, Tahn pushed up on his elbows. Two guards lay dead, blown in half.

“Take him to the mind-probe room,” Lichtner ordered his guards.

“No!” Baruch shouted.
“Tahn! Tell them no!”

But the guards dragged him from the room. Lichtner strolled lazily to stand over Tahn. An exultant smile lit his square face. “Well, you may not have been able to capture Baruch, Captain, but I have. I suspected his identity earlier.”

Tahn felt dizzy, weak with trembling, but he gingerly got to his feet. “No mind probes,” he ordered with as much harshness as he could muster. He stabbed a finger into Lichtner’s chest. “You got that, Major?
No probes!”

Lichtner stiffened, glancing down at his chest as though Tahn’s touch had soiled him. “All right. No probes. Now get back to your ship, Tahn.
I’m
in charge in Block 10.”

Lichtner left the room. Tahn wiped sweat from his brow and propped hands on his hips, lungs heaving as his thoughts whirled. Why hadn’t Baruch killed him when he had the chance? If he’d pulled his weapon in the initial stages, he could have killed every Magisterial soldier in the room and gotten clean away. Why hadn’t he?

Shaking, Tahn headed for the door, forcing his eyes to stay riveted to the floor, but a stray image of blonde waves twisted his stomach. He groped for the wall, steadying himself as he vomited.

Forcing his weak knees to move, he ran for his shuttle.

CHAPTER 49

Sybil and Mikael lay underneath his bed, holding each other’s hand tightly, watching the lights of his cabin flicker on and on irregularly. They’d been playing checkers to try and forget the scary things going on around them. The drink dispenser didn’t work anymore—or when it did it shot out nasty smelling things, so they’d Stopped using it.

Mikael looked over at Sybil. Her dark eyes glittered like shiny brown rocks underwater. She didn’t look scared, but he was. His heart clip-clopped like a running horse in his chest.

“Don’t worry, Mikael,” Sybil said confidently, patting his hand. “Avel’s coming. He wouldn’t leave us by ourselves.”

Mikael jerked a nod, but he wasn’t sure he believed it. He didn’t want to tell Sybil that maybe Avel couldn’t come, that maybe Avel was dead like everybody in his family except his Uncle Yosef. “Sure. I know that.”

“He probably just got held up somewhere. It happens.” She brushed brown curls out of her eyes and gazed at him seriously. “When I was on Horeb, Avel put me in this cave to keep me safe. It had a bunch of books and food and lots of candles and water. I cried for a while because it scared me to be alone in there and I didn’t think he was coming back. But finally, when it was safe, Avel came to get me again. He’ll come get us, too.”

They both jumped when a bunch of loud screeches blared through his door com—like bursts of rifle fire in the corridor outside. Mikael grabbed Sybil’s arm and dragged her farther under his bed, until they both pressed against the back wall, breathing hard.

Sybil reached forward and pulled his blanket down so that it touched the floor, forming a gray curtain in front of them. Nobody would be able to see them if they came into the cabin. Mikael felt better. He gazed around their dark hiding place. Only the foot of his bed let light through—that scary on and off light. He smiled at Sybil.

“Thanks, Sybil. I’d have never thought of that.”

She grabbed his hand again, holding it tight. He could see her cheeks moving while she ground her teeth. Her forehead had wrinkles in it, like she was thinking hard.

“Sybil?” he asked timidly. “When do you think Captain Erinyes is going to come get us?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I guess sometime before the ship gets attacked.”

“Do we need to take anything with us?”

“I don’t think so. But that dream never came back, so I’m not sure.”

Mikael bit his lower lip. He felt so worried his fingers had gone cold and numb. He and Sybil had put on their best clothes because they knew they’d be going somewhere pretty soon. He studied the tiny silver threads shimmering in Sybil’s red robe, then looked at his own black robe, embroidered on the sleeves and hem with light blue swirls. He guessed they looked all right.

Sybil patted his hand again. “Are you cold, Mikael?”

“Just a little.”

“Yeah, I bet. I think maybe whatever’s going wrong with the ship made our thermostat weird, too.” Sybil pulled the sleeve of her robe down to cover both their hands, then breathed on his fingers.

A chill went up his back; it felt good. He slid closer to her and put his free arm over her shoulders. “Sybil? Thanks for being my friend. I feel lots better with you close to me.”

She smiled brightly and he felt as good as he used to when the first flowers of springtime came out to dot the mountains of Kayan. He leaned his head against her shoulder and stroked her other arm.

In a brilliant flare of purple, their locked door burst inward, petrolon fragments smashing the walls like a thousand thrown rocks. Sybil screamed and dove to cover Mikael. He lay still, whimpering, feeling her warm body pressing down on him.

“Mikael Calas?” a strange voice called.

A sob of fear caught in his throat, choking him. He tried to swallow it, but it didn’t quite work. “Who is it?”

“My name’s Sergeant Jason West, son. Come on out from there.”

Mikael twisted his head to look up at Sybil and saw her dark eyes darting with thought. Finally, Sybil nodded and slid off him. They both crawled out from under the bed. A tall man with light-brown hair and a skinny nose stood in the blasted doorway, a rifle in his hands.

Mikael stood up and helped Sybil. “What do you want, sir?”

West smiled in a kindly way. “I’m going to take you to a safe place. Captain Tahn’s orders. He didn’t want to take any chances you might get hurt in the fight for the ship.”

Mikael’s eyes filled with tears. He didn’t know whether he should trust this soldier or not. He looked pleadingly at Sybil.

Her dark eyes narrowed. “Mister West,” she said, “we want to stay with our people.”

“I’m truly sorry, little lady, but I can’t let you do that. It would be very dangerous.”

Sybil licked her lips and swallowed hard. She looked back at Mikael. “I guess we’d better go with him,” she said, then lowered her voice to a faint whisper. “It’s probably part of the plan anyway.”

Mikael rubbed a fist in his tear-filled eyes. “Okay.”

He took a step forward, then ran across his cabin, grabbing the stamps the captain had given him. He tucked them in his pocket, before running back to grab Sybil’s hand.

Bogomil strode briskly out of the transport tube and onto the bridge of the
Jataka.
He’d showered and gotten a full eight hours of sleep. He felt almost human again. The braid on his purple uniform shimmered like chains of gold. Around the bridge, a blue alert flashed. On the forward screen, the entire spectrum wavered, ripples of purple and yellow glimmering around the edges.

“Lieutenant Dharon,” he called as he stepped over to stand beside his command chair. “How long until we exit vault?”

She leaned forward to check the chronometer on her console. Her salt and pepper hair hung in damp strands around her square face. “About twenty seconds, sir.”

“Good. If everything has gone correctly, we should all be exiting within minutes of each other.”

“Aye, sir.”

Bogomil dropped into his chair and drummed his fingers on his leg.
Relax. You still have hours to complete battle strategy.
They’d enter the Lysomian system from five different directions, hurtling toward Tikkun where they’d form up into the Star at the last minute. He had a good three hours before he had to worry about bringing his weapons to full power.

“Scipio
on screen, sir.” Winnow announced. She sat stiffly at her com console, on edge, dark hair fluffing around her shoulders. “Abruzzi is sending an ‘all’s well’ message.”

Bogomil looked up, seeing the light appear on the high-range magnification screen. “Fine. Right on time.” Two other lights streaked in around the edges.

“Which ships are those, Dharon?”

“Aratus
and …
Leimon.”

Bogomil ground his teeth, frowning at the screen, waiting. His bridge crew, he noticed, did the same. Their eyes were frozen on the shimmering tubes of light that cut across the black background of space.

Winnow looked at him over her shoulder. “I have all three captains on line, sir. Shall I wait longer for
Klewe?”

He shifted uncomfortably, rubbing his chin. He hesitated for several more minutes before muttering under his breath, “Blast you, Joel.”

Dharon spun around in her chair to give him a disgruntled look. “Where the hell’s Erinyes, Brent? If that sonofabitch—”

“Easy,” he said. “Leave it to me. If this is some political ploy, I’ll wring his neck myself.”

“Fine. You take Joel baby. I’ll take Uncle Nafred.”

He gave her a look of mock severity. “That’s enough. We don’t know for certain—”

“Sir?” Winnow interrupted. “Captain Abruzzi is requesting visual.”

“Put him on. No. Put them all on—simultaneously.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

As the faces formed on the monitors around him, Bogomil sat up nervously.

Avel Harper gripped his rifle and peered around the corner. He watched Janowitz through the annoying flashing of the overhead panels. The erratic lights washed out the scene, making it seem a slow-motion run of an ancient black and white film. Chris had stationed six people along the walls outside of access tunnel twelve on level seven. Four more guarded the immediately adjacent halls, rifles held in tight fists. Sweat drenched every face. Avel turned to check the positioning of his own people. They each stood guard over an intersecting corridor.

He braced a shoulder against the wall and sucked in a deep breath. Was this all a ruse? They’d seen no sign at all of Magisterial forces and they’d been waiting over an hour. An eternity.

Avel massaged the back of his neck, wondering where Jeremiel was and what he’d discovered on Tikkun. Per instructions, Harper had already laid plans for evacuating those same refugees if Jeremiel found anything unpleasant on the surface.
If we can escape before those cruisers get here.

He saw Janowitz stand up and trot back toward him. His blond hair shone silver in the fluctuating lights.

“Avel, listen,” Chris said, mouth pinched. “I think this is a diversion for something else. Maybe you’d better take your people and go guard something more critical.”

“Where? We’ve got most of our people stationed in Engineering and Life Systems.”

Chris shook his head. “I don’t know, but I think this is a waste of all our energies. Maybe you should go take care of Mikael and Sybil after all.”

Harper put hands on his hips and expelled a long exhale. “All right. I have to check on operations on level twenty before I can go pick up Mikael and Sybil. I’ll be there if you need me. If nothing happens in the next half hour, maybe you ought to call off this vigil completely.”

“No,” Chris shook his head. “I think I’ll leave a small contingency force just in case.”

“Do whatever you think is best. But let’s try to stick to the original plans. I’ll meet you in wardroom twenty-fourteen at 0:1200.”

Chris nodded. “If I’m able, I’ll be there.” He gave Avel a wry smile and backed away, trotting to crouch again outside the access tunnel.

Harper waved harshly to his people, gathering them up and heading purposefully down the hall.

Chris Janowitz shifted positions to ease the strain in his cramped legs. He glanced around at the people beside him. A good crew, one and all—if only half-trained. He smiled faintly to himself. When they’d been on Horeb, each of these men had spent their days going about monastic duties—striving diligently to keep their souls pure for God. Images of their angelic, calm faces in the caves of the Desert Fathers flitted through his mind, overlaid with the faces that currently studied him through granite hard eyes.

Chris leaned his head back against the wall, staring at the floor. If they didn’t get out of here soon, the flashing lights would drive them all madder than hatters. He sucked in a deep breath, vaguely perceiving the slight, very slight trace of sweetness in the air.

“Marcus?” he called to the brown-haired boy at the end of the hall. “What time you got?” The wall chronometers had long ago ceased to make sense.

“09:00 hours, Chris. Don’t tell me you’re itching to get out of here?”

A round of laughter echoed through the hall. Chris smiled. “Me? Hell, no. You?”

“I figured the lot of us would spend the night here.”