Reclamation

18—Station Thirty-seven, Section Eighteen, Division Nine, The Home Ground, 11:20:19, Settlement Time

“CONTRACTOR!”

Kelat tore his gaze away from the monitors on the artifact’s holding tank. Behind him, the Bio-tech Beholden had moved back from the bulge in the wall they had designated tank 4B. Although it had no seams or joints, a space had opened in the bulge and a shadow crawled out into the light.

It was a crablike thing, all legs and shell and no visible eyes. It made Kelat think of cleaning drones. Its body glistened with some gelatin-like substance, giving it a steely sheen. It skittered over the edge of the tank and the Beholden crowded away from it. Kelat took a step forward. It smelled like fresh soil and blood. It scuttled between the equipment racks and the holding tank without pausing. Kelat counted ten double-jointed legs protruding from the ocher shell as it passed him.

“Any change in the artifact’s condition?” Kelat turned one eye to the Bio-tech Holrosh. The crab had reached the communications terminal. It extended its front four legs and touched the casing below the boards.

“No, Contractor,” murmured the Bio-tech. His eyes had gone wide watching the crab cross the chamber.

Kelat felt a burst of hope and fear simultaneously. Has Jahidh won? Has he found the key to this place?

The crab drew its legs away, leaving tiny blobs of gel on the terminal. Kelat mentally shook himself. Until he knew for sure that this was Jahidh’s doing, he had to observe the proprieties. As the crab steadied itself upon its four back legs, Kelat touched his torque. “I require a Witness in Station thirty-seven, immediately,” he said, not taking his eyes off the crab.

“Contractor?” said one of the Engineers.

Kelat glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Another crab emerged from 4B.

“Seal that,” he ordered, not caring who obeyed. Observe the proprieties, go through the motions, he told himself. This has got to be Jahidh. Why didn’t that fool boy get a message to me first?

Maybe because it’s not Jahidh, whispered a treacherous thought in the back of his mind.

The new crab jumped to the floor and scampered for the chamber’s entranceway, which was sealed by an airtight membrane.

“Blood of my ancestors!” cried someone.

The first crab was scraping the casing off the comm terminal. It scrabbled six of its legs against the metallic panels. A shower of silver dust fell to the floor and, in a few seconds, it created a five-centimeter-wide hole that bared the first layer of fiber optics.

“No Witnesses are available,” said a voice through Kelat’s disk. “The settlement is experiencing a security emergency.” So are we, thought Kelat ridiculously. “Orders will be rel…” A Beholden thrust his hands into a pair of sterile gloves and reached for the crab at the comm terminal.

“No!” shouted Kelat, but the Beholden had already lifted the thing up. Its legs flailed helplessly in the air as he carried it toward 4B. The Engineers had a layer of polymer film almost stretched across it.

“Blood!” Bio-tech Holrosh pointed toward the entrance, and Kelat looked almost involuntarily. The second crab had pressed itself against the threshold and hooked its legs into the membrane.

“Suits!” Kelat snatched his helmet off the rack by the wall. A crab scuttled by his feet, heading straight for the comm terminal. Jahidh, you are overreaching yourself…

Someone screamed. Kelat slammed his helmet over his head and closed the seal, just soon enough to see the Beholden who’d picked up the crab engulfed by a blur of blue-grey gel.

“Val!” cried another Beholden, reaching toward him. The gel writhed for a moment and then, slowly, relentlessly, began sinking back into the floor.

Kelat grabbed the Beholden’s hands and forced them down.

“Suits!” he bawled straight at the Beholden’s face. Kelat grabbed a helmet off the rack and shoved it against the Beholden’s chest, backing him away from his lost colleague. He kept picking up helmets and tossing them to whoever was closest, regardless of rank. The membrane over the entrance was supposed to be self-repairing, but the crab had made a hole in it that was already big enough for Kelat to hear the hiss of escaping air.

A lifetime of training was getting the Beholden into their helmets and gloves. A third crab climbed straight through the polymer seal over the 4B tank. The ragged edges of the film fluttered into the tank. The polymer disappeared into the gel like the Beholden had disappeared into the floor.

The first crab was back at the comm terminal, scraping away at the casing again. No dust piled up on the floor.

Kelat locked the seals on his suit and pressed the emergency call button on his wrist terminal. Even if this was Jahidh’s doing, it was still Kelat’s job to get his team out of harm’s way. It was not part of the Imperialists’ plans to take more Vitae lives than necessary. “This is Station thirty-seven, we have an…”

“Station thirty-seven, report your personnel complement and make your way to Shuttle Pad eighteen,” came the response. “Do not, under any circumstances, touch the bio-artifacts.”

“Understood.” A rush of relief filled him. The team could get out of here. Not one of them was an Imperialist known to him. He couldn’t relay orders to Jahidh and the others in front of them. “We are a complement of eight Beholden, one Bio-tech, two Engineers, and myself.” He rattled off their names as fast as he could. As soon as he received the acknowledgment, he opened the general lines to his team. “We’re under orders to evacuate. Shuttle Pad eighteen. Walk quickly. Don’t touch the bio-artifacts.”

The Beholden grabbed hands, partnering up like they’d all been taught as children. In a quick march they stepped through the doorway. The crab ignored them. It kept tearing at the membrane. A third and fourth crab had found the air processor and had their claws into the hoses. The holes grew as if eaten by acid. A fifth crab hopped out of the tank and hurried to help chew away at the comm terminal.

The Engineers snatched up their personal terminals and dived out through the tattered membrane.

The Bio-tech hadn’t moved.

“Evacuate, Holrosh,” said Kelat. “Let’s go.’”

“The artifact,” he replied doggedly. “We can’t leave it.” His hands danced across the tank’s control boards. “Help me get it into the support capsule.”

“We will get another.” A sixth crab had emerged from the tank. It scrambled straight toward the analysis pads that the Engineers had laid against the chamber’s far wall.

“I’m sure that’s what the Ancestors said.” Holrosh watched his monitors intently. “Now help me, Contractor!”

Kelat palmed the control on the gurney that held the support capsule. It hummed as it came to life and he shoved it toward Holrosh.

“They’re taking Broken Trail!”

“We have to let them. We cannot leave her there.”

She is an Eye. I will keep her safe. If the Hand will reach and the Eye will see, there are still ways to fetch her back to you. I will keep this Eye safe as I kept you safe.

“Stop!” ordered a voice in the Proper tongue.

Kelat and Holrosh froze. The voice came from the walls, it came from the ceiling and the floor.

“You will not remove her,” it said. It was neither a man’s voice, nor a woman’s. “She is not yours.”

The crabs had paused in their work like single-phase statues, or like drones suddenly switched off.

Kelat touched his suit’s wrist controls and opened the helmet’s speaker. “Who are you?”

“We are the Nameless Powers. This is our Realm. You will leave it now and leave the People alone.”

“No,” said Holrosh stolidly. “This is the Home Ground. This is our world stolen from our Ancestors.”

Kelat glanced down. “Holrosh.” He gestured to the floor. The entire surface gleamed with gel, the same blue-grey stuff that had swallowed the Beholden whole. “Holrosh, leave it. We need to get out of here, now. I hold your name,” he reminded the Bio-tech, committing a gross impropriety in doing so. “Walk out of here.”

Holrosh saw the layer of gel covering the floor. His hands fell away from the tank controls. He walked toward the entranceway, picking his steps carefully so he wouldn’t fall on the slick surface. The crabs returned to their work, scraping away the products of Vitae technology as if all the metal and polymer and silicate was as insubstantial as sand.

Holrosh vanished through what was left of the membrane. Kelat glanced at the pressure monitor on his wrist. There was no air left in the chamber. The gel had not receded into the floor.

“Jahidh?” he said, trying to force a measure of stern assurance into his tone.

“No,” said the voice.

Kelat’s heart slammed once against his ribs. “The artifacts,” he whispered. It had to be, that was the only other answer.

“The world,” the voice told him.

Kelat felt the littlest finger on his right hand, the one he’d had regrown, try to curl up. “This is our world,” he said. “This is the work of our Ancestors. It is ours to claim. You are ours.”

“Never yours. Three thousand years have passed and you still don’t understand that. Leave here now, Aunorante Sangh, or never leave at all.

“Leave.”

Kelat turned and fled. Shame followed fast on his heels. Holrosh was right. This was the Home Ground. This was what the Imperialists, what the whole of the Vitae, sought to claim. This was the war the Ancestors had left for them to fight and he was running like a child from a nightmare.

The world had ordered him to leave, though. The work of the Ancestors had ordered him. How could he defy the work of the Ancestors? How could any of them? His ears rang with the memory of the voice that had surrounded him like the walls of the chamber did.

How can we defy the Home Ground itself if it does not want us back?

He crossed the decimated threshold and kept on going. He joined a stream of Beholden and full-ranks. Even Witness’s green suits flashed in the flood as they all tried to remember how to evacuate calmly. They followed the lines of lights toward the shaft that had been rigged with a ladder, which was supposed to be a temporary measure until the Engineers designed a practical mechanical lift.

When Kelat reached the ladder, he climbed as fast as he could grip the rungs. A thin film of gel still clung to the bottoms of his boots. He felt the soles of his feet begin to itch, as if the gel had reached them already. His wrist terminal said his suit was sound and sealed, but the itching did not go away.

“Who are these new ones?”

These are their security personnel.

“What’s that they’re carrying?”

“Solvents, incendiaries, glues. Can we defend against them?”

Easily.

Kelat climbed out of the hatchway and onto the remains of a rained building’s main floor. Past the foundations, the Home Ground’s surface was alive. No crabs crawled through the near-vacuum. Instead, smooth, crystalline fingers as thick as a human torso thrust themselves out of the ground. A trio of living silicate vines wrapped around a transport and squeezed down. Kelat’s disk vibrated from the screams. A scarlet-suited security team launched themselves at the fingers, spraying solvents or glues from tanks on their backs. The fingers ignored them and continued to squeeze. The Vitae inside continued to scream.

“Keep moving! Keep moving!” The order came across his disk. Kelat forced his feet to keep going, forced his eyes to stay fixed on the shuttle pad that he could just now see between the colored backs of the other personnel.

Inside his glove, his regrown finger spasmed painfully.

Beware your own creations, Vitae, said a voice from childhood lessons inside his head. Beware your own creations.

We thought it was the human-derived artifacts we needed to tame. We thought the world was ours already. How do we fight the ground we’re standing on? When it’s ordered us away, what can we do to defy it?

Security was trying. A pair of them fired off an incendiary from a tripod-mounted launcher. It arced through the air and burst against one of the crystal fingers as it stretched toward a second transport. The crystal shriveled like a burning leaf. The sparks died quickly in the thin air. Another incendiary went up and the finger collapsed into ash.

The dust started to ripple. It hunched up under the security team’s feet. A whip of silicate wrapped around the Beholden’s ankles and dragged them down. More screams. Kelat’s hand slapped his helmet over his ear. He wanted to shut them out. He didn’t want to hear them die. They were dying. No question. They were being pulled under the dust and scrubbed to pieces, just like the equipment in the chamber. They’d be made into more dust for the Nameless Powers to use against the Vitae.

Perhaps it’s right and proper, part of him wanted to laugh. Now they, too, are the work of the Ancestors. Dust coated the tips of his boots. He could feel it against his feet, working its way up his ankles. It lay against his skin, waiting for him to slow down. Waiting for him to ignore the orders he had been given to leave here.

Kelat stumbled across the edge of the shuttle pad. The ship waited like a gleaming haven. Dust crept across the edges of the pad and he bit down hard on his tongue to keep from screaming. It was coming for them. All of them. They weren’t moving fast enough. They weren’t moving well enough, just as they hadn’t come in well enough. They were unworthy and the Ancestors would take them back to become part of the real work if they did not obey orders.

Security flanked the shuttle doors, bodily restraining anyone who panicked. That was good. That was right and proper. All proprieties had to be observed now. Kelat moved, quickly, calmly, just like all the evacuation drills dictated. He climbed up the ramp. He didn’t push. He didn’t cry. He found an empty seat and he sat. His finger twitched, but he did not. He would not. He was calm. He was not panicking. He was Vitae and a Contractor. He was in control although the world itself had gone mad. He had not. He would not.

The Engineer next to him had switched on the seat’s terminal. The camera picked up the sight of two aircraft streaking overhead toward the World’s Wall.

“Maybe they’ve found what’s causing this,” suggested the Engineer. “The bombs seem to have some effect.”

“No.” Kelat’s voice was properly emotionless. “There’s nothing they can do.”

The aircraft faltered in their paths. Maybe the dust had found their navigation computers. Maybe some radiation or scrambling signal had reached them. They dived straight for the mountainside.

“You see?” Kelat said to the Engineer as the craft exploded in a puff of dust and fire. “This is the work of the Ancestors, and now, so are they.”

Kelat turned his eyes straight forward and folded his hands on his lap. His new finger ticked in time with his steady heartbeat. He’d have to see about having it removed again, as soon as they returned home.

They are gone, said the Mind.

“Not far enough. They still orbit the sun. They still watch. We must…we must…”

You are exhausted. This is a task for a hundred, not for two. You must rest.

“We must order them away! We must speak to them all!”

I have no machinery I can use for this. I have no such transmitters left.

“You do. Its name is Adu. It should still be in range.”

Barely. Reach out.

The Hand stretched with all its strength.

Yes, we can touch it.

The voice rang through every terminal, every disk in the shuttle. “I am Adudorias. I am Voice for the Realm of the Nameless Powers.”

Kelat raised his eyes toward the shuttle’s ceiling. He began tugging at his little finger.

“The Rhudolant Vitae have been declared Aunorante Sangh,” said Adudorias. The voice of the Ancestors.

Kelat tightened his grip on his regrown finger. Tug, tug, tug.

“If you seek to contact the Realm and the People, you must do so in penance and peace.”

Tug, tug, tug.

“Until then, when the Eyes see you, the Hands will move against you.”

Tug, tug, tug.

“The Mind will accept no thought from you.”

Tug, tug, tug.

“Leave.”

Tug, tug, tug.

The Moderator’s voice, the one voice all Vitae knew instantly, sounded over the public channels. She sounded not calm, but half-dead. “Withdraw, Vitae. Come home.”

And that was all. Kelat tugged harder at his finger. Its joints began to strain.

With luck, he could have it off by the time they docked with the Grand Errand. He could feed it to the gel and dust that clung to his boots, and it would be satisfied. The Ancestors would be satisfied. They would not then call him to their work.

He would be safe then.

Kelat pulled harder.

Now they are gone. They are pulling their satellites and shuttles into their main ships. They are releasing their tethers.

“Not far enough. Not yet.”

You are placing too much strain upon yourselves. I will not let you die. I cannot. You will return when you have rested. Then we will work. I will wait.

The Mind pushed. The Hand and the Eye lost their concentration and fell away.

The namestone thudded to the floor and Eric’s hand dropped against Aria’s. Aria couldn’t hold her own hand up and it fell to her side. Her lips were cracked and dry. Her eyes could barely blink and every limb of her body felt like it was made of lead. She looked up at Eric. His skin had a grey pallor.

“What happened?” He slowly, painfully turned his face toward her.

“We won,” Aria told him.

She collapsed into his arms and both of them slid to the floor.

Aria’s first sensation was of a hard, unyielding surface under her right side. Her second was of a human hand lying heavily against her throat.

She forced her eyes open.

She was still in the chamber of the Mind. Her namestone lay on the floor about two yards away. She blinked at the table legs and the floor. The shadows still hung in their feathery net, watching her closely. Eric lay beside her, unconscious as a stone.

Her head ached. Her body ached. Thirst was a nagging itch at the back of her mind, along with hunger. She knew enough to know that that dull, persistent sensation meant she had been too hungry and too thirsty for too long.

With a grunt, she sat up. Eric’s hand slid down her body and landed in her lap.

“Eric?” She rolled him onto his back and felt for his breathing. Heart was nowhere to be seen. “Eric!”

Eric’s eyelids fluttered and pulled open. His mouth twitched and his hand lifted off the floor, reaching for the stone.

“No.” Aria laid her own hand over his wrist. “No, Eric.”

He licked his lips. There was blood on them. “I want…”

“No, you don’t,” she said, pressing down gently so that his palm touched the floor. “You want to stand up and help me get out of here.”

His eyes searched her face, attempting to understand what she had just said.

Nameless Pow…Aria broke the thought off. What did he feel? I was barely ready for it, and I was used to the stones.

Eric’s eyes had closed again. Two tears trickled down his cheeks.

“Eric?” she said again. “Eric, come on. We have to get out of here. We have to get into the dome. Maybe we can find some rations, or some water.”

“I can’t…” he whispered.

“You will.” Aria dug her hands under his shoulder blades and with all the strength she had left, she forced him into a sitting position. “My Lord Teacher will not let this despised one down, not now that she knows who he is.”

He looked toward her namestone where it lay. “I am a slave,” he said. “I want to go back. I want to go back now so badly I’m only sitting here because I’m too weak to move. Garismit’s Eyes, they did a good job on us, didn’t they?”

“Not good enough.” Aria looked toward the bank of stones and remembered the Mind begging them not to make it work against the masters, not again. “Come on, get up.” She hoisted herself to her feet and was pleased to find she had the strength to stay there.

Eric looked up at her. “How can you be so calm?”

“Because I’m less afraid of trying to climb those ladders than I am of staying here,” she told him. “Can you get up?”

“Does nothing touch you?” he whispered. “We are…we were…this world is…”

“We are as we were born. We are the Nameless Powers.” Her shoulders sagged. “You were right about what we’d find down here. Now, please, Eric.” Her knees began to tremble. “Help me get out of here.”

Eric shook badly, but he stood. They leaned against each other, gripping each other’s arms for support and stumbled toward the archway. A blur of scarlet markings caught Aria’s eye and she stopped in her tracks. Someone had painted a pattern across the tabletop.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Eric looked at her incredulously. “You can’t read?”

Aria giggled. “Only Skyman’s languages. There’s a fine irony for you.”

Eric gave a dry chuckle. “It’s a message from Heart. He’s gone for help.”

“Good.” Aria managed to straighten up an extra inch. “Let’s make sure he can find us, then.”

They staggered out into the corridor. Weaving and tottering as if they were a pair of drunkards, they made it to the first shaft.

Aria looked up the ladder. “Do you think you can climb that?” she asked.

“I don’t think we have to.” Eric laid his hand against the wall. Overhead, the frozen platform began to sink toward them until it was level with Aria’s waist. She crawled onto it and sat hunched in the center. Eric collapsed beside her and pressed his hands fiat against the platform.

Some vague echo of her connection to the Mind let her feel his power gift reach inside the platform and set it into motion. It rose steadily to the top of the shaft and then glided sideways down the corridor to the second shaft. Even then it didn’t stop. The walls held on to it as it rose again. Aria lifted her hands to shelter her head as they reached the hatchway. The momentum of the platform pushed it away.

When the platform was level with the top of the shaft, it stopped. Eric didn’t move.

“Come on, Teacher,” Aria said. The dome was a shambles. Everything had been overturned. Great rents in the fabric walls let in the fresh, warm wind. It was daylight again. Aria inhaled a lungful of air and felt her head begin to clear.

Eric still hadn’t moved.

Aria left him on the platform and staggered through the room, searching the stew of debris. After a little bit, she found a packet of ration squares and a can of some kind of beverage. She tore the packet open and gobbled one of the squares. Then she took the other and the can over to the platform. She sat in Eric’s line of vision.

“Eat.” She held up the square.

Eric crawled to her and clutched the square with both hands. He ate it in four bites. Aria pulled the top of the can open and took a swig of the juice. It was too sweet and there wasn’t enough, but it was better than nothing. She passed the can to Eric and he drank deeply.

When he lowered the can from his lips, his eyes were less wild.

“Thank you,” he said. After a moment, he added, “Do you think you will ever get tired of rescuing me?”

“I hope not.” She felt herself smile. “You need to be rescued so often.”

“Yes, I do, don’t I?” he swirled the dregs of the juice around. “Why do you suppose that is?”

“I would say it’s because my Lord Teacher spends too much time thinking about what he’s supposed to be and not enough time dealing with what he is.”

He looked out through one of the rents in the dome. “I thought we could leave when this was done,” he said. “I thought we could get the Unifiers to get us all out of here.”

Aria had no answer for him, so she let them both sit in silence and tried to just enjoy the feeling of some of her strength returning to her.

"It’s all still out there,” he said eventually. “The Realm, and the laws of the Nameless, and the Teachers, and the Vitae. The whole Quarter Galaxy is still out there. And you’re still a Notouch and I’m still a Teacher.” He handed her the can of juice. “You finish that.” He paused. “Your sister is still on the other side of the World’s Wall."

"We’ll get her back. The Mind is looking after her.” She swallowed the last drops. “Then we’re going to need to get those arias out of the Temple vaults and see if the Mind has a way to identify who they belong to. Then we have to find those people and see if they’re willing to learn how to be Eyes. I think that should be my job, and Trail’s when we get her back.” She cocked an eyebrow at him. “So, Eric Born kenu Teacher Hand kenu Lord Hand on the Seablade dena Enemy of the Aunorante Sangh, what will you do about all this?” She waved toward the dome’s tattered wall. “About what is still out there?"

He didn’t say anything for a long while. Aria waited. He looked down at his naked hands. They trembled slightly and she knew he wanted to reach for the Mind again. She did too. Parts of her soul were still down there, rejoicing in the freedom of her power.

She couldn’t do anything for him if he decided to give in to that false joy.

Eric looked her straight in the eyes. “When my brother-in-law gets back, I’ll help get us all to First City. My parents are not averse to getting themselves a little extra power. They won’t mind that their son is heir to the Servant and can prove it. I’ll help you find your children again. I’ll get to the U-Kenai and get a message to Dorias, and the Unifiers, and the Shessel and Kethran Colony. We’re going to need friends, Aria Stone, and they’re going to need to know who we are, and who the Vitae are.

"Will that be enough?"

"It’ll be a good start.” She nodded. “What will you do about yourself?"

"I will learn what I can from you.” He took her hand. “I will try to deal with what I am.” His hand tightened a little. “With what we are."

She laid her scarred hand over his power-gifted one. “That is an even better start."

After a while they picked themselves up out of the dome’s wreckage and, climbing carefully over the debris, made their way out into the daylight.

About the Author

Sarah Anne Zettel was born in Sacramento, California. She began writing stories in the fourth grade and never stopped. Her interest in writing has followed her through ten cities, four states, two countries, and one college, where she earned a BA in Communications.

A professional technical writer, Sarah’s short fiction has been nationally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact and Realms of Fantasy. Her second science fiction novel is scheduled to appear from Warner Aspect in April 1997. When not actually writing, Sarah sings, dances, and plays the hammered dulcimer, although not all at once.