Fire in the Sky

2

Ilaцrn dreamed.

He sat in the sunshine, tuning-in a new harp as Eolt Imuл drifted over him singing the pleasures of the late summer day. The songs of other Eolt came distantly into the small meadow, mixing with the rustle of leaves and the whistles of the angles fluttering from nest to ground to scratch among the spores and budlings under the kerre trees. Drawn by the plucking of the harpstrings, an angi whirred over to him, settled on an oim bush, its shimmering wings folded against a green and gold carapace, its soft charcoal eyes fixed on his hands as he set the intervals of the strings in the bul mode he preferred. The angi’s broad blunt beak quivered as it sang to hint.

Then it stopped singing, lifted its head; with a harsh scream of alarm it darted into the trees.

Ilaцrn stilled his hands, listened. A buzzing… no… a whine… both… a strange sound, not one he’d heard before. “Sioll Imuл, what is that? Can you see it?”

*I see a strange thing, sioll Ilaцrn. It is dark and hard like a nagal the size of a rebou, but it flies without wings. And very fast. I think we should leave here, sioll. Quickly. *

The Eolt expanded and began xe’s rise, searching the tiers for a layer that would blow xe quickly away. Ilaцrn slung the harp’s carry strap over his shoulder and moved into the shadow under the trees. Curiosity kept him close, though. He wanted to see this strange thing for himself. Besides, his joints were stiff from sitting and he was reluctant to go running off if there was no need.

Eolt Imuл’s membranes had also grown stiff with age and xe’s climb was labored and slow. Ilaцrn watched and winced with his sioll. We are old, he thought. Could be we should return to the Sleeping Ground. He sighed. We’ll have to talk when this thing has passed.

The strange nagal whipped past Imuл, circled back. It was a wagon that rode air instead of wheels and there was glass across the front. He saw figures behind that glass, misshapen, trollish figures, and he thought he heard them laugh as the wash of their airwagon sent Eolt Imuл tumbling, though that was probably a trick of his mind. The airwagon turned again, a spear of light sprang from beneath it. The light touched Imuл and xe was a column of fire flaring to meet the sun…

Ilaцrn woke sweating and shaking. He swung his feet over the edge of the cot and sat with his hands dangling between his knees. Light from the security beams atop the garden wall filtered through the c’hau cloth curtains pulled across the window and the cracks in the wall where the green boards had split and pulled apart.

He was exhausted, but he wasn’t going to sleep any more, not tonight. If he tried, the dream would replay. Over and over. He should have died when Imuл burned, but the mesuch caught him before he had a chance to follow his sioll. Nor could he escape into madness, the Chave measured his blood, all his fluids, and played their games with his flesh. No madness for him. He was the Ykkuval Hunnar’s pet native, his source for truth and trouble.

They put a crown on his head and tore his language from him, force-fed him theirs, then they changed crowns and stole his memories.

He thrust his hand in his mouth and bit down hard as he thought of those sessions with the probe. The pain, the helplessness… the pleasure… the horrible pleasure that brought a spending that went on and on until he was a sack of skin that held only the ashes of orgasm.

It was another chain on him, and Ykkuval Hunnar ni Jilet soyad Kroumak held the free end. These days when he went under the probe, it was usually just the two of them there-no techs, no guards, just them. A kind of sex though neither touched the other nor spoke of what was happening.

Ilaцrn rose with painful stiffness, his knees complaining, his stomach knotting, acid in his mouth. He pulled on his shirt; it was long enough to cover him so he didn’t bother with pants. He lifted the hook from its eye, pushed the door open, and went out.

The sygyas were flying, tiny points of pulsing white light darting from the stream to the flowering trees. Squatting by the door, he watched them, their random patterns-soothing, restful. He hummed, no sound, just a vibration of the throat, as his mind spun a melody from the intervals. His fingers twitched, responding to the cues; he’d not made music with his hands since Imuл burned, but two centuries was a long habit to break.

How much time passed he was never sure, but sometime after he’d left his room, Hunnar came from the Keep and trotted across the garden, sliding into the bush plantings along the high stone wall his iron slaves had built for him. Ilaцrn drew his hand across his eyes, frowning at the place where the Chav had vanished.

He’d never tried holding back under the probe, he’d never tried answering the letter of the question and betraying the spirit. He’d been afraid to try because if that failed, there was nothing left. He started shaking; his eyes blurred as tears gathered in them, spilled over, and dripped down his face. If he discovered too much that he wasn’t supposed to know, Hunnar would have him killed; the terror laid into his mind told him to go inside, pull the blankets over his head and forget what he’d seen. And yet…

He forced himself to his feet.

Blood roaring in his ears, his legs shaking so badly he could only shuffle, he edged away from the work-shed and pushed through the bushes until his hand was flat against the stones. Despite his struggle with his body, he moved silently through the darkness until he came to an opening where he knew there’d been solid stone yesterday. He slipped through, moved along the wall in the pool of shadow at the base, and stopped when he reached a corner in the eight-sided Kushayt wall and heard a low whistle just ahead.

He flattened himself on the ground and crawled forward to peer around the corner.

The watchtower was lit, the landing area bright with light tubes. The brightness dazzled his eyes; he rubbed at them and when they cleared, saw a flier down on the white porcelain surface of the pad, a strange flier, delicate and angular, poised like an angi on a pebble. He crawled a bit closer, keeping behind some bushy stinkweeds that had grown up since the wall was finished.

Unlike the heavy dark things the Chave flew, this airwagon was a two seater that looked fast as thought even when it sat without moving. A cloaked form swung down from it as Ilaцrn watched, trotted to a jag in the Kushayt wall where the shadow was conveniently dense, starting to talk when he came close enough to see Hunnar waiting. “… pay me more, I was as near getting nipped this time… or give me a window.”

“Kirg! You take me for a fool? Nothing written, nothing in the air. That was the bargain. You want Koraka humiliated and yourself off this world, you play the game my way.”

Hunnar and his visitor kept their voices low, but the light breeze blowing into Ilaцrn’s face carried their words farther than they knew. The visitor pushed back the cowl to his cloak as he moved into the shadow, the movement hasty, abrupt, echoing the irritation in his high, light voice. His voice had youth in it, petulance and a lilt to the words that Ilaцrn did not recognize. He was taller and wispier than a Chav, round ears set high on a furry head, a short sleek pelt like one of the stambs that swam in the Bakuhl Sea.

Has to be one of the mesuch on Banikoлh. Yaraka. A spy! Bribed to work against his own. Darin shuddered, his eyes blurring, blood pounding in his ears-dangerous knowledge, death in it. Or worse…

When he could see and hear again, he found himself facedown in the dirt, one hand dug knuckle-deep into the dry earth, the other cramped around the stem of a bush, the stink of its crushed membrane nauseating. He freed his hands, moving so cautiously his arms were shaking and his knees on fire by the time he’d gotten himself together again.

The spy was still talking.

“… the bitch from University has rolled him over like he was some ‘k’trin gynnis with his tongue out. Turned the stinking little brats loose without so much as a stick laid across their backsides. She and her lot are out in the local village sucking up to the locals, getting a house set up. He’s sent ‘bots out to set locks and work security like he doesn’t care a scorp about expense. That harp player she has along, she’s really got to the jellies, give the bitch that. You let those Xenos keep working and no way you’re going to pull hoeh Dexios loose.”

Hunnar made an impatient sound deep in his throat; Ilaцrn could imagine the inner lids corning down and his eyes starting to shine with anger.

“Let it go. That isn’t what I’m paying you for. Do you have the enclave plans and the lockwords?”

“On this flake.” The spy’s voice was muffled. Ilaцrn thought he sounded disappointed, almost cheated-as if he’d expected more from Hunnar… appreciation, some sense of shared anger… something like that.

Hunnar had heard it, too; his voice turned mellow, his impatience vanished. “Good work. We’ll deal with the Xenos when the time’s right. I tell you what. We’ll make things safer for you. One of my agents brought back some locals from near your place. One’s a young woman. Juicy young thing, tender and pliant; you might find she has her attractions and she’ll be willing enough once we’ve finished with her. Even if she doesn’t suit you as playmate-you wouldn’t be the first to have a taste for local beasts-you can use her as a drop. Leave your reports, pick up the registered receipts of the cash deposits on Helvetia. Which you will, of course, check over and burn immediately. You know what we want.”

“Yes. Shipments, the Goлs’ deployment plans, reports from the University team, notations as to their movements. How long will this drag out?”

“We have to be sure to cut all links to the outside and erase the team; that takes some maneuvering, but I’d say we’ll have you a hero before the year’s out.” Hunnar’s voice went honey sweet again. “Look at this.”

The spy took a small thing like a game chip, looked down at it, and sucked in his breath. “This is…”

“A bonus. Yours if you agree to one more small thing. It has its dangers, but I’m sure you’re clever enough you can contrive to lay suspicion on someone else.”

The mesuch’s hand closed round the chip. Ilaцrn could almost smell the greed and spite in the creature.

Hunnar held out another small dark object. “There’s a virus on this. If you can get it introduced into the com system, it will shut it down and your enclave with be completely isolated. When our arrangements are complete, we’ll arrange a story of your fortunate escape from a vicious native attack and see that a free trader picks you up. You’ll be a very rich man and there’ll be no suspicion.”

“Good.” The spy turned his head. Ilaцrn could see the flow of light over the golden fur, the darkness of the fur mask over the mesuch’s eyes. “That tower, the guard. You’re sure of him?”

“Of course. Goлs Koraka may have found cracks in my security as we have in his, but Pismek in the Tower is my man to the bottom of his warty soul.”

The spy pulled the cloak’s cowl up over his head and ran for the flier.

Hunnar stepped out of the shadow and stood watching it dart away with the whippiness its shape had promised. “What a cinser. Not enough there to be worth wringing his neck,” he said, contempt icing the words. “Taner bless all younger sons with greedy fists and empty heads.”