Fire in the Sky

3

“Why didn’t somebody know those vegheads don’t trigger alarms? Why was it such a big surprise that three veg kits-Kits!-could waltz right past the guards and not even get a wiggle out of the sensors?” Hunnar slammed his fist on a corner of the desk, went back to pacing.

Meloach killed because I sit here useless. Meloach hurting them like this. Babies. Wallowing in self-disgust, Ilaцrn sat huddled in his corner, his fingers moving automatically through the soft nothing-music that sat like wallpaper around the talkers while he watched the Ykkuval rampage back and forth while the Memur Tryben sat stolid and unresponsive in his pulochair waiting for the storm to pass over.

“Well?”

“I’ve had Chozmek put his techs on an analysis of sensor data from last night. Used your name for it otherwise he wouldn’t have cooperated. No reports yet on what went wrong.”

“They didn’t notice at the Farm that the vegheads don’t register?”

“O Ykkuval, you only authorized two men to handle business at the Veg Farm. And one of those is a Drudge. They haven’t had time for anything more than getting the veggies moved in.”

Hunnar swore and flung himself into his chair. “I’ve got a promise of more personnel, but that waits the next ship from home.”

Tryben lifted a hand, let it fall. “Which is still two weeks off and, I don’t need to remind you, brings trouble in the form of Jindar ni Koroumak.” He cleared his throat. “There’s something else.”

“You’ve found the target these weeds were after.”

“Yes. The flier stack. None of them are flyable at the moment. Not one. The weeds contaminated them with those miserable spores; they’re dust fine and once they’re established it’s like every surface they touch grows a crop of hair. The mech techs will have to take the drive systems apart and clean them. And three guards are in sickbay. Some kind of borer worm. They were spread on the seat, the guards we sent to go after the intruders got in and sat down without checking. Their… hm… organs are very seriously compromised.”

Hunnar shuddered. “What a foul…”

A sudden terror put a lump of ice in Ilaцrn’s gut. What if Hunnar decided to question him? If he were put under the probe, they’d know… He glanced at his sleeve. The packets didn’t show. It was heavy Chav cloth and the Drudge who’d made it for him was clumsy with the shears; there was room for two inside that tent. Dй’s Silver Cups, if he didn’t do it now… Kitsek’s daring wasted… that child dead…

“Grubbers have no honor.” Tryben’s voice was weary, flat. He was going to go on when a bong from the screen interrupted him. “That may be the techs working on the kephalos. I told them to call me here if they came up with something, no matter what.”

Hunnar tapped a sensor and a section of the screen woke to show a weary, worried face, inner eyelids drooping out of their folds, ears drawn small.

Tryben leaned forward. “Well?”

“O Memur, we have something. An anomaly, or rather a series of them.”

“Show me.”

“I can’t. I told you, we’re all right on the hardware, but for this sort of thing you need someone who knows the running ware inside and around. Kephalos smooths out the blips as soon as they appear and we can’t get it to leave them alone. It seems to be interpreting them as errors and suppressing them whenever they surface. You have to be here to see them and, O Memur, the Ykkuval is the only one who can authorize entry for major changes in the security ware.”

“And what do you think they represent?”

“I can’t say. All I know is it’s the only indication we’ve found. You need to see for yourself, maybe you can come up with something.”

Memur Tryben turned to Hunnar.

The Ykkuval got to his feet. “We’ll both go. Tech, be ready to show us what you’ve got.” He tapped the sensor and the screen went dark, tapped another and the lift door opened.

Holding his breath, keeping his eyes down, his mind blank, Ilaцrn got to his feet, slipped the harp’s carry strap over his shoulder and moved after them, expecting at any moment that Hunnar would notice him and order him back.

The two Chave paid no attention to him at all, even when he brushed past Tryben to stand at the back of the lift. It was an odd feeling, to be invisible like that. After a moment he was angry, an anger with a base of chill desperation.

Don’t think about it, he told himself. Just do it. Don’t try waiting for the RIGHT moment. You know what you are. Just pick a moment and do it.

The lift door opened and he followed them into a vaulted chamber set deep in the earth. The air was so hot and dry he could feel the inside of his nose drying and cracks starting across his lips. The center of the chamber was filled with a mass of metal. He stopped to stare at the thing. It was like nothing he’d seen before, like an enormous junkheap with faint light halos here and there, small screens like glowing eyes-and he could swear he heard the thing breathing.

He edged closer.

Hunnar and Tryben stood with the two techs watching one of the larger screen with enigmatic shapes flickering across it. Ilaцrn didn’t understand any of that and the continual repetition of the pattern irritated him. He examined the monstrosity carefully, looking for breathing holes. He didn’t want to waste his spores. He shifted about, feeling for currents of air, moving very slowly, careful not to attract attention.

“Hakh. I think I’ve got it. Let me have the board, tech.” Tryben settled himself before a sensor paten, blanked the screen, and ran his fingers over the finger squares, calling up another pattern. He touched a square, another, ran the pattern through a few permutations until he had one he was satisfied with, wiped it, repeated the process twice more, pulled up the first two patterns and merged them with the third, enlarging the result until it filled the whole screen.

“You know it better than I do, tech. Take a look.”

“I can’t say for sure, but seems to me it’s a lot like the anomaly.”

Ilaцrn stopped his fidgeting a moment and smiled at the sullen resentment in the tech’s voice.

“O Ykkuval, if you will permit, an eyeprint will authorize adding this pattern to the Library. Then we’ll see if the anomalies remain.”

“Do it.”

Them watched with interest as a curious helmet was brought from a locked cupboard, clamped on Hunnar’s head, a lead plugged into the kephalos. Now, he thought. Do it now.

He slipped the strap of the harp off his shoulder, set the instrument on the floor. Chel Dй bless, old friend. After a last caress on the smooth live wood, he took the spore packets from his sleeve and tore them open. Holding the packets between little finger and fourth finger, he slipped the sheaths off the air-gun darts.

Expelling the breath he’d been holding, he cast the spores in the face of the kephalos, leaped forward, drove one dart into Hunnar’s neck and the second into his own.

19. Fire in the Sky