Thieves of Light

CHAPTER FIVE

En route to the crew quarters, Jarvis learned that the ship was named Fraanic. Parcival explained that a fraanic was a small tree-living creature from a world in the Sadr system.

"It screams bloody murder when a predator comes near," Parcival said. "It makes a sound kind of like a cat being put in a blender tail-first."

"How would you know what that sounds like? Or maybe I shouldn't ask."

"It's just an analogy," Parcival said impatiently. "I like cats. Anyway, it makes a perfect name for a scoutship, don't you think?"

"You have bigger ships?"

"Oh, sure," was the cheerful reply. "The Alliance classes ships by the size of the fractional drive they carry. We're running under a one-mass-as small as they come. Our platoon's assault ship, the Zephyr, has a three-mass. The biggest ships we ever use run a six, though there're civilian freighters and general carriers out of Foppo that go as high as an eight."

"Seems like what you'd want to do is jack up a scout with an eight and get there that much faster."

Parcival shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. This ship is just as fast as a carrier with an eight-mass. The only difference favors this ship-its quicker, more agile."

"Because it's smaller?"

The youth started down a ladderway. "Because it has less mass," he called back over his shoulder. "Do you know any tensor calculus? If you do, I can explain it all to you in ten minutes."

Jarvis followed him down. "No. I barely passed Introduction to Trigonometry."

Waiting for him at the bottom, Parcival looked disappointed. "Oh, well. In that case, I couldn't explain it to you in ten years." He gestured at the new surroundings. "Are you lost yet?"

"Not quite."

"The layout of the ship is really pretty simple-unless you need to go into the tech crawl ways. The upper deck has the transporter chamber, the chart room, the bridge, the mapping and sensor stations. Downstairs there are all the personal areas-berths and galley and such. That's my quarters there," Parcival said, pointing at what looked like a blank wall.

"I think I've got it-except I have trouble spotting the doorways."

"Look for the touchplates. The doorways are always to the right."

"Must have been designed by lefties."

"As a matter of fact, the race that builds these is exclusively left-handed. You know, you're taking this all very well," Parcival said approvingly as he led Jarvis to the end of the corridor. "You wouldn't happen to be a science fiction fan, would you?"

"You mean, like, books?"

"Sure. Heinlein-Asimov-Silverberg-Doc Smith."

Jarvis shook his head. "No. I don't read much." Then he added, "But I've seen the Bud Light space station commercial a lot."

Parcival chortled and reached out to a touchplate on the right wall. "In here," he said as the doorway appeared.

The cabin was no larger than a walk-in closet even before Parcival showed Jarvis how to fold down the cot and unfold the collapsed storage bins. "Sergeant Li-hon couldn't turn around in here, much less relax," Jarvis said. "Are all the cabins this small?"

"Yes and no. The sergeant has a double-wide. And the cabins are modular-the shipwrights can customize the space to the species that are going to be aboard. This is a standard human berth. Mine's just like it."

"How many people are on this ship?"

" Fraanic can accommodate eight. But you've already seen everyone who's aboard."

"You and Li-hon are the whole crew?"

"You're thinking about this all wrong. You wouldn't say the family car had a crew, would you?"

"Do you mean flying this thing across the galaxy isn't any harder than driving the Buick to the grocery?"

"Actually, it's easier."

"Who's the pilot? Li-hon? Or you?"

"The ship is," Parcival said, edging toward the door. "Nothing personal, Chris, but you've played four matches today without a shower. Why don't you take some time to check out the washrooms and then come on back upstairs? There are fresh coveralls in the washroom locker. You can leave your Photon gear in the storeall there. You won't be needing it."

Jarvis frowned. "I'd like to watch us leave orbit. How long until we get under way?"

"We're already under way."

"But I didn't feel anything-"

"Why did you expect to? It's the fractional drive that's moving us, not a reaction engine. No rocket that's ever been invented would get us where we're going in less than a thousand years. And if anything faster had been invented, we'd be splattered over the aft bulkheads the first time we lit it up. We're not going to the moon, Chris-our destination's nineteen light-years away."

"Nineteen light-years," Jarvis repeated."I have no idea how far that is. How long will it take us to get there?"

Parcival smiled. "A little less than two days."

A distracted look came onto Jarvis's face, and he nodded in absent acknowledgment. Parcival turned away and slapped the touchplate familiarly.

"Parcival?"

The youth looked back.

"Why do you call me Chris, but he calls me Bhodi Li?"

"Because I understand that your Photon name is something you put on and take off with your gear. Because Bhodi Li happens to be a warrior name in his language. Why'd you pick that name, anyway? It doesn't mean anything in English."

"No. I made it up. I wanted something sort of exotic sounding, Oriental-like a kung fu name." He hesitated. "What does it mean to Li-hon?"

Parcival studied Jarvis for a long moment before answering. "Battle-child."

"Battle-child," he repeated. "Okay. I'll be up in a little while."

"Okay," Parcival said, turning away again.

"Parcival?"

"What?"

"I think maybe it'd be simpler if you called me Bhodi Li, too."

Parcival frowned disapprovingly, then shrugged. "If that's what you want-Bhodi Li."

The doorway contracted behind him, leaving Jarvis alone with the disquieting sense that Parcival understood something about him that he himself did not.

Why should he care what name I use? It doesn't mean anything either way -

But it did mean something. It had pleased him to hear the alien call him by his Photon name and pleased him even more to learn that chance had given that name appropriate meaning.

He knew that there was a clue in that which could tell him what had troubled the youth, but Bhodi Li could not read it. So he did what he had always done when understanding escaped him-he dismissed the matter from his mind. He wanted a shower, and then he wanted more answers-many more answers. The moratorium on questions had ended when he proclaimed his first refusal, and Bhodi Li intended to take full advantage of his freedom while it lasted.

It was the strangest shower Bhodi Li had ever taken. There was no shower head; when he touched the controls inside the bathing enclosure, droplets of lukewarm water began to fall from the entire surface of the ceiling as though he were standing outside in a drizzle. There was no way to shower and not wash one's hair at the same time; in fact, there was no place Bhodi Li could stand and not have water running down his face and into his eyes.

Further fiddling increased the intensity of the falling water to that of a summer squall, but if there were a way to alter the temperature, Bhodi Li never found it. Maybe that's the point, he thought. Maybe in the rest of the galaxy they only wash when it rains.

There were no towels and no obvious substitutes, like a blower or radiator. Bhodi Li eventually used one pair of coveralls to dry off before climbing into a second pair. The wet garment went with his fragrant arena clothes into a receptacle that Bhodi Li hoped was a hamper and not some other species' version of a toilet.

Returning to the upper deck, Bhodi Li made his way down the corridor compartment by compartment, less to look for the others than to cement his mental picture of the ship's plan. He understood little of what he saw but made himself remember enough to distinguish one room from another.

He found Li-hon and Parcival both in the relatively spacious arrowhead-shaped compartment at the end of the corridor. But he paid almost no attention to them. His attention was captured by the three broad rectangular windows-right, left and center-inset above the U-shaped bridge console.

The two side windows were pure black, telling Bhodi Li that they were not windows at all but some sort of video display. But the forward window was alive with streaks of reddish light radiating outward from a central focus; it looked as though Fraanic were diving through an exploding fireworks shell.

"What makes the stars look like that?" Bhodi Li asked, pointing.

"Those aren't the stars," Parcival said tolerantly. "We're traveling too fast to see anything but tachyons, except there turns out to be no such thing."

"Then what is that?"

"Harl-ben-qi-jaslan," Li-hon said. "The Female Wept Twice."

"What?"

"It's a poem Li-hon is working on," Parcival said. "One of his better ones, too."

"Flattery won't change your duty load," Li-hon said.

"A poem?" was Bhodi Li's skeptical reply. "A poem is 'How do I love thee?' or maybe 'There once was a lady from Kent-' "

"This is a color poem," Li-hon said. "Very popular on Bree-nech."

"But there's no words."

"It is meant to stimulate the mind directly," said Li-hon.

Bhodi Li watched the changing patterns for a few seconds. "I'm not getting anything."

"You have to learn how to open yourself," Li-hon said, unperturbed. "But if you never learn, don't worry. I write word poems, too."

Bhodi Li turned a quizzical look on the alien. "Isn't that a little strange, for someone who looks like you-a Guardian of the Light-to write poetry?"

"On your world, do warriors only know how to kill?"

"Well-no, I guess not. But they find other ways to spend their spare time."

"Cultivate the whole," Li-hon said, sounding like some sort of golden-oldie guru. "If you define yourself by what you do, you will lose sight of what you are."

"Sure," Bhodi Li said noncommittally. Silently, he was thinking, a kid warrior and a sergeant that spends his spare time writing poems you have to watch-the First Guardian must be harder up for good people than they're letting me think. Or maybe these are just the First Guardian's errand boys, and the front-line troops are cut from different cloth. "When are you going to tell me what this war is all about?"

"Are you ready for the Truth of Photon?" Li-hon asked.

"Sure."

"Then sit, Bhodi Li, and learn."

The lights dimmed on the bridge as the color poem vanished from the center window, leaving the compartment in darkness. "Before time, before light, before life, there was Photon," Li-hon said, and a swirling ball of blue-white light appeared behind him. "In simplicity and completeness, Photon contained all energy, embraced all of space, embodied all order. There was balance, but there was also stasis. So, to gift the universe with growth and change, Photon chose-"

"That thing's alive?" Bhodi Li said.

From Parcival, seated behind, came a harsh whisper: "Don't interrupt."

"— chose to spread its essence throughout creation. Order ended, and time began."

The ball of swirling light suddenly exploded, sending rocket like streamers out in every direction, filling all three windows with color. "Where the energy of Photon touched the new creation, stars and planets formed," Li-hon continued as the streamers of color evolved into a more familiar-looking starscape full of flaming suns and slow-spinning worlds. "In time, Photon light brought forth Photon life. Born from Photon, we held within us the truth of Photon, and so brought the light to other worlds."

The center window showed a pulsing many-faceted crystal resting on a black pedestal on the surface of a barren world. A Qeth warrior, perhaps Li-hon himself, fired a laser into the heart of the crystal, and it exploded into a furious mass of colored light reminiscent of the destruction of the primordial Photon energy ball. The streaming colored light transformed the barren world into a verdant paradise.

"But there was darkness in the new creation as well, and in time the darkness, too, gave birth to life," Li-hon continued. On the center screen, the new world of life faded and was replaced by a succession of shocking images of horrifying aliens-a four-armed monster with a deeply furrowed skull, a snarling beast with huge jaws and spiked tail, a brutish creature with a triangular head and great bulging compound eyes.

Bhodi Li swallowed hard. If they're the enemy, you can take me home now -

"The forces of darkness have united under the Warlord of Arr, and begun the battle that will decide the destiny of the universe. It is a battle for control of the remnants of Photon energy, and for the Photon crystals that bring light and life to empty worlds. Whoever radiates the crystal first aligns that world with light or darkness for the next hundred cycles. Should the forces of evil bring a crystal to one of the Alliance worlds-to my Bree-nech or your Earth or any world dear to life-it would mean the destruction of all."

On the left screen, an image of a great space station appeared against a backdrop of stars, its shape suggestive of a metallic flower perched at the top of its stalk. On the right screen, a radically different structure appeared against a black void, its shape like an A-bomb cloud frozen a moment after detonation, its surface battered and scarred like the moon. Tiny ships scurried from both bases to engage each other above the worlds displayed on the center screen.

"If the Alliance loses this conflict, it will be the end of light and life everywhere in the Universe," Li-hon said solemnly. "Do you understand now, Bhodi Li? We are Photon's warriors. We are the Guardians of the Light. We cannot let the darkness grow."

All three screens faded to black, and the bridge lights returned to their normal intensity. Bhodi Li stayed seated, his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze cast downward at the deck. How stupid does he think I am? he thought angrily. Balls of light deciding to explode-magic crystals that turn deserts into Eden — creatures of darkness — it's a fairy tale. It's a crock.

"Do you understand, Bhodi Li?" Li-hon repeated. Looking up, he saw an expectant gaze on the lizard's face. Parcival had circled around to stand beside his sergeant; curiously, his expression was harder to read.

"I thought you were going to be straight with me," Bhodi Li said, standing.

Suddenly wide-eyed, Parcival stepped back, taking himself beyond Li-hon's peripheral vision, and started frantically shaking his head.

"Every word I spoke was the truth," Li-hon said stiffly.

"Get real! You can't expect me to swallow-" Belatedly, Bhodi Li took note of Parcival's agitation. The youth now had one hand clapped over his mouth and was making cutting motions across his throat with the other.

What! Bhodi Li demanded silently with his eyes. What am I doing wrong? Then he remembered Parcival's earlier warning about offending a Photon Warrior and decided to swallow his objections for the moment. "You can't expect me to adjust right away to such a revelation," Bhodi Li said. "I need some time to absorb this."

Parcival closed his eyes and sighed in relief.

But Li-hon did not seem willing to be put off. "The truth was already within you," he said. "All you need do is learn its name to be empowered by it."

It was Parcival who came to his rescue. "I'll help him, Li-hon. Don't be impatient. It's difficult for us-you've seen it before. We don't hear with the heart. So it takes longer for us to find the light."

"I know," Li-hon said ominously. "I remember. Some never do."

Parcival left Li-hon's side and crossed the room, herding Bhodi Li ahead of him toward the doorway. "Bhodi will," he insisted. "The light shines."

"The light shines," echoed Li-hon. "I will be patient, Parcival-for a while."