Ice war, p.13
Ice War, page 13
No wonder he can hear now. He’s got an assistant for it. Too bad for him his eyes are going as well by now.
Savar leaned back.
“I am not certain what your arrival here means, Yajain Aksari. But my scouts say Dilinia’s relief fleet is still in Yugha Cluster.”
Yajain glanced at Mosam.
“I was with the fleet in the Shaull Cluster when Mosam’s disguise was found out. We encountered Tyrants after meeting Helle DiKandar’s Redocate. Mosam convinced us the aliens were the real reason for the rebels in the frontier expanses.” Yajain shook her head as she tried to think over all that had happened. “At Sifar…” She hesitated, remembering Ogidar’s death, so sudden.
Savar raised a hand.
“I know of the events on Sifar. But go on.”
“After we left the Shaull Cluster and were prevented from reaching Kerida by the tyrants, the fleet went to Yugha where we tried to make an alliance with the sorai there. We failed to get Csi Patla to send her fleet to attack down the corridor. Then Agan Pansar decided we would take an experimental ship called the Razor Crow and circle around to get to Kerida and find you, Doctor Savar.”
“I think I know the rest. Thank you Yajain.”
“It’s Doctor Aksari now. I may not be a member of the Harvest, but I’m not a child anymore either.”
Savar nodded. “As you wish, Doctor.” He turned to Mosam. “Is all she said true?”
“Yes, Master.”
“If this is the case, then we should contact the Razor Crow immediately if it is still out there.”
“I’m confident they survived the tyrant attack on the Forest Station,” said Mosam. “Yajain and I destroyed the only tyrant ship we saw.”
“I may have glimpsed them from the Gatehouse’s sensors at times.” Savar’s brow wrinkled even more. “But the movements of the vessel I think could be them are erratic. I doubt they know where you are now, and likely they think both of you dead.”
“Likely,” said Mosam.
Yajain swallowed. “I wish we could contact them.”
“There may be a way to do that,” said Savar. “Our gatehouse is equipped with excellent long ranged beamers. We need only ascertain their general position from here.”
Mosam put a fist to his bearded chin. He frowned.
“Master, where is the gatehouse?”
Savar smiled.
“Directly below us here. Follow me.”
He rose with the assistance of the lanky man who remained at his side. The man handed Savar a cane to support himself and they turned to a passageway leading further into the water cavern through the wall to one side of Savar’s chair.
Yajain raised her eyebrows at Mosam. He shrugged. They followed Savar and his assistant down the passage for perhaps twenty meters before arriving at a smooth metal wall, illuminated by the glow of pale lamps. Savar stopped beside the wall, pressed his palm to a slight imperfection in the surface and then pulled it back. The wall slid aside, revealing a circular metal chamber with a slightly depressed floor and rows of buttons on the far wall that resembled elevator controls.
“This is the upper entrance,” he said. “I’ve been keeping the gatehouse under Ambana Reef to help avoid detection.”
Yajain stared into the circular metal chamber. She and Mosam followed Savar and his assistant into the metallic cylinder. The door closed behind them.
They took the cylindrical elevator down what felt like at least fifty or sixty meters to the main body of the gatehouse. There, the cylinder became transparent and Yajain gazed at the brightly lit interior of a vast and mostly vacant dock. She spotted a few more harvest ships hanging in the launch bay, sleek and dark.
Bridges extended throughout the enormous circular chamber, passing empty ports and glimmering power conduits. At the center of the docking chamber, a glowing core as thick as that of a natural pillar ran parallel to the elevator, glowing, but not bright enough to dazzle.
The elevator descended, taking them to where one of the bridges crossed paths with another near a wall. There it stopped. Savar’s assistant hit the door control. A rush of cool air flowed into the elevator.
Yajain shivered, but her suit was too low on power to activate in the weak arc field provided by the gatehouse’s core. She, Mosam, and Savar stepped out of the elevator. Yajain blinked in the light as she realized the whole room was lit brighter than it appeared through the tinted elevator window.
Savar put on a dark visor.
“This way.” He motioned across the bridge to one end where a wall gleamed despite its dark steel.
Yajain activated her lifts experimentally and found the thin arc field. She swam after Savar and his assistant, catching up with them easily, and then continuing through the air. Yajain sailed free, turning over a few times as she moved. She landed on the bridge by a square door in the towering wall.
She turned as Mosam and Savar caught up on foot. The assistant trailed behind them, impassive as ever.
Mosam smiled.
“You always did like to fly,” he said.
Yajain flushed.
“I didn’t realize how much I missed it until right now.”
Savar raised an eyebrow.
“I know you have not been on the reef long. It’s important to remember that not everyone above has lifts or the skills to use them.”
“Master, I’m one of the people without the skills,” said Mosam.
“That you are, boy.” Savar grinned. “I remember when I first found you. Never used lifts right and lived on a ship your whole life. The entire crew thought you were a hilarious joke.”
Mosam’s face darkened.
“I must have seemed that way to them.”
Yajain folded her arms.
“You were just a kid. It wasn’t fair of them not to teach you.”
“You may be right.” Mosam shrugged. “Too late now, though.”
“Right you are.” Savar approached the door and opened it with a press of his palm. He led them into the boxy room on the other side. “This is a computer chamber. From here our we can access the core’s processing and the sensor and communications systems.” He walked to a terminal by a tinted window overlooking the core chamber between a pair of elevator tubes. “Let’s find that ship of yours, shall we?”
Yajain followed him to the terminal. The gatehouses had been built by a species older than human history, but the interface was remarkably like most of the technology humans used in the modern age. Savar hit a few keys and raised a microphone from the terminal. A hologram displayed an expanding spherical sensor region around the gatehouse, including the vastness of the reef directly above. As the map continued to expand Yajain guessed the sensors on the top of the gatehouse must be keyed to penetrate the reef’s layers without much disruption.
The map expanded and expanded. It filled the whole center of the room when Savar stopped it and pointed to a small speck hanging in the display. “There! Is that your lost ship?” He hit a few more keys and the speck fuzzed before enlarging to show the Razor Crow’s sleek shape cutting a blurry path through misty air.
“That’s it,” said Yajain.
“Let’s give them a call, shall we?” Savar’s grin wrinkled the creases around his eyes.
Mosam nodded.
Yajain took a deep breath.
“Let me speak to them, please.”
Savar’s grin slipped and his tone became serious.
“I trust you will not betray us?”
“I promise I won’t.”
“Good. You are welcome to say what you need to say.” He hit a few keys on the control pad, but then hesitated, his bent finger poised over the terminal. His eyes fixed on the hologram image. “This is a problem.”
Yajain and Mosam followed his gaze to the place where the Razor Crow’s tiny image flew in the white mist between pillars.
“What’s wrong?” Yajain asked.
“There,” said Savar. He pointed toward the side of one pillar some hundreds of meters below the Razor Crow. A sleek tyrant ship hovered just above the hottest zone of the Solna burning below.
It must have been hidden by the light and radiation at first. Yajain frowned as she thought of how much tyrants fought to avoid high temperatures. However horrible the creatures might be, she could admit the dedication of the alien pilot for putting himself through so much to achieve his ends.
Mosam walked toward the projected pillar, moving like a giant through the projected abyssal mists.
“There are more tyrant ships hidden near there.” He pointed to three other locations. “They don’t appear to have detected the Crow, but if we send a wave their way the tyrants will pick it up too.”
Yajain took a deep breath.
“We just have to hope Pansar knows the danger and evades.”
“The sensors on the Razor Crow are amazing by Dilinian standards.” Mosam stepped back from the hologram and met Yajain’s questioning glance. “They’ll be alright, Yajay.”
She nodded.
“We’ll have to wait to contact them.”
“Indeed,” said Savar. He tapped the silvery orb of his hearing aid with one finger. “I’ll keep their position monitored. Those tyrants clearly do not have an explorator in range of this place or they would have caught up with all of us already.”
Mosam sighed with relief.
“Small mercy.”
“Yes.” Savar turned to Mosam. “Mosam, please take Doctor Aksari to Adya’s chamber.”
“Master?”
“Yours and hers are still empty, but the rest have to be kept clear in case of a tyrant attack on the settlement above.” He turned to Yajain. “You and Mosam are a divine gift. I’ll need help from both of you to engineer our defense.”
“You mean?” Yajain frowned at him as her mind worked. “You think they’ll find us here?”
“They’ve scoured the rest of the reef for humans. We saved those we could by bringing them here. As far as I know, all the remaining humans who dwell on Ambana are dwelling just above us. This gatehouse cannot move without tyrants uncovering us for certain. This is where we must stand.”
Yajain turned her back on Savar.
“If you die here it will serve you right. But I’ll do my best to save everyone, even you.”
“I understand how you must feel,” said Savar. “I appreciate your help.”
Yajain nodded but offered him no other reply this time. Mosam walked to her side and touched her forearm. She looked at him.
“Let’s go.”
He nodded, and they walked back out of the room and into the bright light pouring over the bridge.
Adya’s chamber in the gatehouse surprised Yajain with its decoration. From what little she knew about the female Doctor of the Harvest she half-expected ballistic weapons and not much else. When Mosam showed her into the room she found a place far more accommodating than that.
The walls and floor were the same as the rest of the gatehouse. A few bright oil paintings hung on the walls. Thick rugs covered the floor where people would walk the most, leading from the door to the center of the room, then radiating outward like irregular spokes on a wheel.
In the center of the floor stood a double bed, beyond which a passage led to a bathroom.
The sheets on the bed were rumpled and covered in dust. How long has it been since anyone’s been in here? Not since Adya left, I suppose. Yajain couldn’t keep her mind from wandering to the thought that Mosam could have slept with Adya this place.
“You think you can handle it from here?” Mosam asked, not looking at Yajain.
“You tired of me already?” Yajain glanced at his face.
He shook his head, lips tight.
“What did I tell you, Yajay?”
“Before or after you blew up the armory and crippled my sister?”
His eyes darkened.
“Please, Yajay. I just…it’s this room.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Bad memories?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“But you wouldn’t.” Yajain stopped herself. “Forget it,” she said. “I’m fine here.”
Mosam nodded.
“I’m glad.” He turned and left the room.
Yajain found a closet with cold weather gear on the wall opposite the bed. She was a little tall to fit into Adya’s clothes, but the overcoat went on alright. Good, she thought, I’ve been cold too long.
The gatehouse trembled as it detached from the reef to float on its own. Light spilled into Yajain’s room from a window that had been pressed into the reef just seconds before. She looked from the craggy bottom of the reef to the vacant abyss lit in blue and yellow which mingled to green in the mist.
A small caphodel forest hovered in the arc field of the one pillar at the corner of Yajain’s vision. Small shapes flitted among the branches. After her time on the reef in winter, Yajain enjoyed the sight of the green leaves sprouting from the branches at the top and bottom of each tree. She sank and sat on the bed. All the while, her eyes sought the different species that dwelt within the forest, mammal, bird, reptile. She sighed as she mentally checked off the signs of each. If only people were so easy to read.
Ambana Reef's settlement above and Savar's gatehouse below gave Yajain an uncomfortable sense of asymmetry.
The asymmetry came from how the settlement above in the ice and snow appeared so simple, even pastoral as compared to the high, nonhuman technology of the gatehouse.
She descended through a water cavern then took the elevator into the gatehouse.
Through smooth walls of shaped metal, she walked past crates of supplies packed for movement but left when the shift ended. Her heat layer and a new, thicker, overcoat kept her warmer than any human should be in this place, given the plunging temperatures outside. Despite the chill that persisted into the gatehouse as well, Yajain knew all too well this place could heat up faster than anyone could survive if the tyrants discovered them.
Mosam had left her a note for her before she went to the surface for breakfast, telling her to meet him in the personal gate room early. She tried not to imagine why he felt the need for secrecy now, surrounded by Savar's people.
The personal gate room's vertical door slid open, vanishing into the seam above. She stepped inside and found Mosam by a raised platform under an archway that could have been polished bone based on its color and texture, but alive with orange power veins.
"Yajain," he said, looking up from a hunched position. "You made it."
"Out here, a Doctor of Harvest wants to meet, I meet."
"Is that it?" he said softly.
"Well, Savar maybe not. Maybe you're different."
"We've been through a lot, lately. I put you through more."
Yajain approached him, footfalls reverberating in the silence following his words.
"I know you wouldn't want to if you could help it."
"You joined that fleet because of me, even though you didn't know I was with it. You came all the way here—"
"Don't flatter yourself," she said, face flushing. "I didn't know what I was doing. I'll admit that."
"And the fact that you knew I was on the frontier didn't factor into your decision? Please, Yajain, don't leave me hanging here."
"If it was up to Lin I'd leave you falling."
"But it isn't up to her. You're the one I care about most."
Her face burned.
"Don't say that."
"How can I not? After so long, so much..." He shook his head. "Please listen."
She folded her arms.
"I'm listening."
"Regardless of what I've done to you and your sister, you're an incredible person. Even this, coming here, we made it because of you. I don't know if I'd ever have seen this gatehouse again if it wasn't for you joining the fleet. Thank you."
"Is that what you wanted to say?"
"I've said the rest already."
"Mosam...how am I supposed to respond to this?"
"Respond any way you have to," he said.
She gazed at his face with his sharp features and green eyes. Those eyes she once dreamed of gazed at her. She wanted to feel the way she once did. She sighed as their eyes met.
"I wish I could love you."
"What's stopping you?"
"You know. What happened back then—"
"That's the past. I'm not saying it was right, but Lin has legs. Lin has a life. I didn't destroy her. I don't want to destroy you either."
"You can't...you couldn't...you did."
Green eyes trembled but never moved from hers.
"I'm sorry. Yajay."
"I know. I just don't know if I can forgive you, after all the time I spent hating you, wondering about how you felt, how you could do what you did and then leave forever.”
"I had to run. Savar could have sacrificed me to so-called imperial justice. I wouldn't have talked. But he cared about me, so he took me when he flew away. I wish I could help you understand how much it hurt when I thought I'd never see you again."
He held out one arm, turned his palm up. He triggered the switch somewhere in his cybernetic system to open the biocompartment. The plate in his arm shifted slightly but remained covering whatever he'd stored in his arm.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Take it. You'll see."
Yajain reached gently, moving aside the cover of the compartment. She reached into Mosam's hollow arm and felt a cold piece of metal. Her thumb ran over smooth glass, the face of a wrist chronometer. Tears sprang to her eyes as she lifted the device, though scuffed and worn, clearly the same one she had given him when he graduated all those cycles ago.
"You kept it? I thought the authorities found this in the church on Kaga."
"They found one I left there, but this is the real one," he said. "I kept it because you gave it to me."
Her eyes streamed.
"It's just a timepiece."
"I'd always been a little late until you got that for me. It still works."
She shook her head. Clasping the chronometer in one hand, she wiped her eyes with the other.
"Mosam, I don't. You didn't have to."
"I won't say you're wrong, but I couldn't forget you."
