Thieves of Light

CHAPTER EIGHT

Stars. The first thing that Bhodi Li saw was thousands of stars. Three walls of the vast chamber to which he'd been brought were transparent, nine great windows offering a U-shaped panorama two stories high. The windows were tilted inward toward the twenty-foot-diameter hexagonal skylight, through which Bhodi could see the starless disk that was the nighttime face of the planet he still did not know the name of.

The chamber was like the great hall of a spacegoing castle, complete with a raised dias at one end that could easily have supported a throne for a king-or queen-of the stars. And surrounding Bhodi was the strangest retinue any monarch could have.

They were all there: Li-hon, Parcival, and his three opponents from the combat audition. All weapons were holstered; they stood and watched him silently, sizing him up, waiting for something.

He realized for the first time that they all wore variations of the Photon chest sensor and power belt. The girl's sensor pack was black and tapered, the wizard's integral with his chest armor, but nevertheless it provided some unity to contrast their wildly different physiques and combat gear.

He glanced down at the destroyed unit still dangling from his own neck. It was silly to keep wearing it. He tugged at the straps and let the unit slip to the floor.

"Welcome to the Sanctum, Bhodi Li," a voice said. It was a voice that was new and familiar at the same time. "And welcome back, Guardians of the Light."

As one, the others turned toward the dias. When Bhodi looked in that direction, he saw the figure of an older woman suspended in midair over the dias. Her hair respectably short, her face marked with smile lines. She looked maternal, even grandmotherly. That thought was enough to allow him to place the voice. It was the voice of the glowing Guide.

"I am the First Guardian for the Alliance of Light," she said. "On me has fallen the honor and duty of directing the warriors of the ninety worlds against the forces of evil and darkness that threaten us."

As she poke, Bhodi realized that, despite the detail and realism, the image was a projection. Whether the woman herself was real, safely secreted in some unknown location, he could not tell. The warriors treated the image as though she were both real and deserving of respect. That was his only clue.

"Bhodi Li, it is time for you to meet those who opposed you in your test on the surface of the world we call Rejia," the First Guardian continued. "I am grateful for their service, as I am grateful for the service of all who have answered the call."

"Lord Baethan of Celtar."

The wizard took one step forward, his face wearing the same cold and haughty expression it had during combat. But Bhodi realized belatedly that it was no mask. For there was no warrior under the armor; the armor was the warrior. Lord Baethan was a machine-perhaps a robot, perhaps a cyborg. Either way, he was both the most fascinating and the most imposing figure in the room.

"Tivia of the Empire of Women."

She raised her left arm in a closed-fist salute. Bhodi had taken her for human, but he saw now that she was not. Under her thigh armor, cross-laced leggings and arm wrap, and Photon combat gear, she wore a net body stocking that resembled his body screen. But her net extended up over her mouth and nose, as though she could not breath the air the others did without filtering.

"Ferthewillihan Pike of the Foppo Intersystem Union."

The alien winked in Bhodi Li's direction. It was still wearing its helmet, and Bhodi Li wondered if the wraparound visor was Pike's version of Tivia's filter net, modifying in some way the atmosphere that it was breathing. It seemed unlikely that species as different as the Fops, the Qeth, and Homo sapiens all grew up on worlds with identical oxygen-nitrogen atmospheres.

"And my warriors Parcival of Earth and Nar-lex-ko-li-hon of Qeth, who brought you into our company."

"Why are you dragging this out?" Bhodi asked impatiently. "Just tell me when I'm going home."

"Is that your choice?" Li-hon asked, surprised.

"How dense do you think I am? I flunked my audition," Bhodi said. "I don't need to wait for a report card to know that."

"Why do you think you failed, Bhodi Li?" asked the First Guardian.

"They had me on the run the whole time. The one shot I laid on target didn't so much as blister the paint on Baethan's armor. I never even scored a hit on the other two. Meanwhile they killed me about three times by my count. No, I flunked all right. Not that I ever had a chance. It wasn't a fair test."

"How was it not fair?" asked Lord Baethan. "It was you that had the screen and the full-force phaser. We were the ones at risk."

"Fair?" Bhodi said hotly. "Three against one, with you already hidden in the arena when I get there?" He turned to Li-hon. "I had no chance to scout the terrain, no chance to match one-on-one with any of them, no chance period. What's the point of a test nobody can pass?"

"What a fool and a child you are," Tivia said. "Do you think that the Arrians fight 'fair'? Do you expect them to give you a map of the battle zone and queue up to fight you one at a time-"

"Enough," the First Guardian said, and Tivia fell silent. "Bhodi Li. You are accustomed to victory. By the standards of the arena, you are an accomplished fighter. But by the standards of the Photon Force, you are a promising novice, nothing more. You were not expected to win."

"They why-"

"Be quiet and listen. As volunteers in a combat audition, your opponents had the option of fighting with screens. They chose not to, because to be defeated by you would have brought such great shame that death would be preferable. This is how vast the difference in your skills now is. I have little doubt that Tivia is annoyed that she failed to deliver a potentially killing blow against you."

Tivia scowled, confirming the First Guardian's supposition.

"All you're doing is telling me that it was even more unfair than I thought," Bhodi said. "What was the point? What could you learn?"

"It was not a test of skill," Li-hon said. "It was a test of heart. And you passed."

"I ran."

"You did not panic. You did not freeze. You fought as best you could with the skills and tools available to you."

Bhodi stared at Li-hon, then looked past him to the figure of the First Guardian. "I can stay?"

"If that is your choice," the First Guardian said. "Bhodi Li, you have earned on merit the right to challenge for a place among the Guardians of Light. Once you have been asked, and once you have refused. Now I ask you a second time: Will you give up your challenge?"

Bhodi looked slowly around him at the circle of warriors. Parcival's eyes were hopeful but his expression solemn. Behind her filter net, Tivia's mouth was twisted in disdain or lingering displeasure-Bhodi could not say which. Pike smiled a friendly smile. Lord Baethan and Li-hon were ciphers, their faces offering no clues to their emotions.

It doesn't get any better than this, Bhodi thought. If I go back, it's to biology class and cutting the lawn and poring through college catalogs. Chances like this don't come up back there -

Then he shifted slightly, and his foot brushed against the burned-out chest pack lying on the floor. One glance down at its blackened and melted face was enough to put a different shading on his thoughts. He remembered the pain and the hounded feeling and wondered how much worse the moment would have been if he had not known it was a test, an exercise, a game.

I died three times on Rejia. How long would it be before I died for real, and there's no one to send back to rescue my family and friends from the phantom timeline -

He looked around the circle again, and this time he saw five Photon Warriors, each quietly confident of his or her superiority, secure in the knowledge that they could defeat him. On Earth, Bhodi had climbed to the top of the ladder-only to catch the bottom rung of the next.

This isn't final, after all, he thought. I get one more chance to refuse. Let's play it out. I want to see how far up the ladder I can go.

"No," Bhodi said, loudly and clearly. "I won't give up my challenge."

"Very well, Bhodi Li," said the First Guardian as her image began to fade. "Let your training begin."

Tivia and Lord Baethan took the withdrawal of the First Guardian as their cue to leave the Sanctum. They did so without a word to Bhodi or any of the others, as though they disapproved of what had happened there.

In that same long moment, Parcival was breaking into an easy grin and throwing himself into a hug with Pike, though his arms barely reached halfway around the rotund alien.

Pike grinned and hugged back. "Just returned from a mission," he explained, noting Bhodi's curiosity. "Don't mind the others. Lord Baethan's never voted in favor of a candidate yet, and Tivia would never vote in favor of a male-especially one she failed to put in his place."

Pike released Parcival, who took a step back. As he did, a flashing movement of the alien's right hand knocked the youth's cap off his head, then caught it in midair and returned it to where it had been. Parcival laughed and reached under the cap to retrieve a small sharp-edged rock with blue and blue-green veining.

"Kyranilite?"

"From Maldea," Pike said. "That was one you were missing, wasn't it?"

"Thanks, Uncle Pike."

Bhodi's ears perked up with curiosity at Parcival's chosen form of address, but he said nothing about it. "It was a committee decision, then? Democracy in the ranks?"

"A platoon one," Li-hon said. "We will all have to fight alongside you, after all."

"And they don't much want to. Who did vote for me, then?"

"Look around you," Li-hon said.

"I did," Parcival added.

"So did I," Pike said cheerily. "But then, I've never voted against a candidate I had the pleasure of frying. I always like to give them another chance to return the favor."

"What Pike really enjoys is having a chance to make side bets with the station staff on who makes it through training and what breaks them if they don't," Li-hon interjected. "Did you have any action on the audition?"

"A little."

"How'd you come out?"

"The heavy money was on Lord Baethan to drop Bhodi," Pike said, beaming. "I did very nicely."

Li-hon shook his head. "Bhodi, tell me when you're ready to move into your quarters and I'll call a Guide. You'll be in the trainee barracks, called Section Yellow."

"No need for a Guide," Parcival said. "I'll take him down."

"Are you sure? I thought you'd want to get back to your lab as soon as you could."

"It's no problem."

A few minutes later they excused themselves and started down a long sloping corridor toward the central core of the station.

"What did you see?" Parcival asked eagerly when they were alone.

"What do you mean?"

"When you looked at the First Guardian. Describe her to me."

"Uh-a woman, middle-aged, I guess. Kind of plain and elegant looking at the same time. I thought she looked like somebody's mother."

"What color?"

"Huh?"

"Her skin," Parcival said impatiently. "What color was it?"

"Why, white-"

"Good-good! Did she look like your mother?"

"Um-a little bit. I guess. Same build-tall and slender. Maybe my mother plus ten years. She didn't sound like her, though."

"Oh," Parcival said, frowning disappointedly.

"I don't get it. Isn't that what you see?"

The boy shook his head. "No. I see a round-faced black woman, about thirty pounds overweight, twenty-eight or so. Li-hon sees a Qeth clutch keeper-six foot of mean mama lizard. Tivia sees a woman she describes as the Nivian High Priestess."

"Everybody see something different?"

"Yeah. I thought I had it figured out, but I guess I don't."

"What did you mean?"

"I was hoping that you would see your own mother. Then I would know that the woman I was seeing is mine."

Bhodi stopped short and stared. "You don't know what your mother looks like?"

Parcival shook his head. "Or her name, or why she didn't want to keep me."

He said it casually, but Bhodi knew there had to be pain somewhere inside, an irreducible knot of agony that could not be intellectualized away. Yet for all his empathy, Bhodi could find nothing but the mawkish and obvious to say. "You're an orphan?"

"I don't like that word," Parcival said, starting down the corridor once more. "I'm an abandoned child. As far as I know, I never lived with my mother or any of her family. She went out the front door of the hospital, and I went out the back."

"Do you know, I once tried to calculate the odds that I had already crossed paths with her and not known it. I was always looking at black women of the right age, trying to see myself in their faces. I might have been in the same shopping mall with her, or in the same subway."

Still he did not sound bitter, and Bhodi was puzzled. "Why bother? She didn't give you anything."

"She gave me life," Parcival said pointedly. "Look, I know it's hard to understand, but I don't hate her, whoever she is. I'm glad she took it as far as she did. I'm willing to believe it was as far as she could." He stopped abruptly and reached for a touchplate. "We're here."

The door irised open, but Bhodi made no move to enter. "So why was it important to know what she looked like?"

Parcival folded is arms over his chest as though he were hugging himself. His eyes were cast downward in the direction of Bhodi's feet. "I don't know. It just is. She gave me up. I guess I'd like to know why."

"You came out of it pretty well, though. Look at you. Smarter than anything, and a good enough fighter to become a Guardian."

Parcival looked up and tried to smile. "Thanks. I guess I did come out okay. But you know, I figured out a couple of months ago-one of the reasons is I'm always trying to prove that I would have been worth keeping."