Dear Syl Hellais, it read, old-fashioned in its formality.
Soon I shall be leaving here, and I thank you for your kindness to me. I know your consideration did not make you any friends, but it meant much to one such as myself.
At the risk of stretching the boundaries of our acquaintance, may I request of you one final kindness?
I entreat you to safeguard the enclosed amulet and, as soon as you are able, to deliver it to my mother. Her image is engraved on the piece. Her name is Berlot Mallori, and she resides in Lower Tannis. I beg of you not to entrust the amulet to another. My mother values it highly.
I am most grateful.
I wish you a long life, Syl Hellais.
Sincerely yours,
Elda Mallori
Elda’s disappearance remained unexplained, but any questions about her possible whereabouts were discouraged by Oriel and the other full Sisters. Some Novices whispered that she had been quietly returned to her family on Illyr because of her unsuitability for the Sisterhood. Now, if the contents of the letter were to be believed, it seemed that Elda had indeed somehow managed to leave the Marque, but clearly not to return to her family on Illyr. Syl reread the note, perplexed, then shook the contents of the package into her palm. A very ordinary locket fell out, lackluster and brown, fastened onto a thong of thin, hard leather.
What a strange, ugly piece of jewelry it was, though, flat and cold and completely lacking in ornamentation or notable craftsmanship. Laser-carved on the dull metal surface was an engraving of a woman, presumably Elda’s mother, sharp-faced and angry-eyed. The engraving was nothing special, nothing that any half-baked jeweler couldn’t have made using an existing image and dated computer technology. Frowning, Syl slipped her fingernail into the slit that opened the locket, sure that its true worth would be revealed inside, but it opened easily like a clam on a hinge, and gave her nothing except smooth, brown metal. There wasn’t as much as a memento, lock of hair, image, or love carving. Syl shut it again, and turned the piece over in her hand. There were several scratchings on the back. She held the glowstick closer.
“A-R-C-H . . . arch what? Archaeon? Well, that means absolutely nothing,” she muttered to herself.
But then neither did any of this. Yet there had to be some reason why Elda wanted to get this cheap, unattractive trinket back to her mother so desperately. Such a weird girl.
None the wiser, Syl popped Elda’s note and the amulet back into the envelope, dressed, towel-dried her hair, slid the slim parcel into her pocket, and headed back to her rooms.
• • •
Tanit and her crew appeared to have left at last and only Ani remained, humming cheerfully to herself as she tidied up the glasses and threw the cushions back on the couch. She smiled pleasantly as her friend came in.
“Thank you so much, Syl. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you letting Tanit and the others visit. I know they appreciate it too.”
“Really?” Syl laughed, and dumped her damp towel on the table, waving a hand dismissively. “No worries, Ani—it’s nothing. But something much more curious has come up.”
Ani looked at her guardedly, then raised a finger to her lips. Syl frowned and Ani gestured toward the bathroom. Immediately Syl understood.
“So what has come up, Syl?” said Ani brightly, her voice singsong and false, all the while looking at the closed door.
“Oh, um, nothing actually.”
There was a rustling from within the bathroom, then the lock turned quickly and Tanit appeared. She studied the pair of them for several long seconds, taking in Syl’s water-marked robe and dripping tangle of hair, and clucked her tongue.
“My darling Ani, you sweet creature,” she said, though it was Syl at whom she stared, gauging the impact of her words. “I believe your continuing loyalty to your friend demonstrates your own goodness, but enough is enough. She is not like us, and I fear she is going to be your downfall. You are destined to progress higher in the ranks of the Sisterhood than she can ever hope to and you will be forced to leave her behind sooner or later. Better to do it now than to drag it out. Think of it as doing her a favor.”
“Oh, drop dead, Tanit,” said Syl before she could stop herself, yet immediately she regretted it, for something like triumph briefly flowered in the older girl’s face. Then she merely smiled sympathetically at Ani, and with a farewell twiddle of her graceful fingers, she took her leave. Ani looked after her mournfully before turning to Syl, clearly irritated.
“Drop dead? Really? You told the most important Novice in this place to drop dead? You’re just making things worse.” She shook her head in disappointment and frustration. “Anyway, what was it you wanted to tell me? And where’ve you been—and why are you all wet?”
Syl stared at Ani for a few moments, contemplating her options while Elda’s amulet burned hot in her pocket.
“It’s nothing that matters,” she said finally. “I’m wrecking your life anyway, remember?”
“Oh, Syl, I’m sorry, she shouldn’t have said that,” said Ani. “Seriously. I’m sorry. Tell me what you were going to say. Please.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It can’t be nothing.”
Syl thought about the cheap piece of jewelry and what it told her, or hadn’t told her. Archaeon: it sounded like a promise.
“Well, I just went swimming, that’s all,” she said, irritated. “It reminded me of Scotland. It reminded me of that time we went swimming in the loch. With our friends. Do you remember our friends at all? Anyway, I don’t care. I’m tired. I’m going to bed. Sleep well, Ani.”
She left, closing her door firmly before putting the envelope containing Elda’s locket and letter at the bottom of her drawer, rearranging the mess so that it was hidden from the casual snooper. The last thing she needed was another link yoking her to Elda to become general knowledge.
• • •
Ani watched as Syl went into her little bedroom, her hair gleaming like knots of copper wire, her shoulders straight and unyielding, and she found herself torn and twisted inside, full of frustration and angry love. How could Syl even think Ani had forgotten what had gone before? But they were no longer on Earth, and they might never see the blue planet again. Quite simply, they had to make the most of where they were.
And hadn’t Ani begged Syl to try harder? Now here it was, Ani’s second major breakthrough. It was an occasion that should surely be one of joy and celebration—and Tanit in particular had made Ani feel like a queen following her success, embracing her, kissing her forehead like a blessing—and yet Syl, her oldest friend, had cast a pall over it. Somehow Syl had made it all about her.
“Bloody typical,” muttered Ani, and she went to her own bed determined not to cry.
CHAPTER 28
In the darkness above Torma, the wormhole bloomed.
The ship that emerged was many times larger than the two vessels that had pursued Tiray, but similarly disguised, like a rich man dressed in a poor man’s clothes. It entered orbit above Torma, and dispatched from its underside a trio of spherical drones, two of which immediately descended to the surface of the planet while the third commenced a scan of the floating debris that was too far away to have been drawn in by its gravitational pull. The drone found metals, glass, bodies, details of which it transmitted back to the mothership before returning.
Meanwhile its two cousins soared above the Tormic landscape, searching, scanning. They found what was left of the Envion scattered across the sands, and farther away the remains of a second vessel that was more advanced in construction. Now the drones slowed their progress and began calling electronically—signaling, listening, signaling again. Finally, from beneath a dune in which lay buried a fragment of hull, came the response they were seeking. One drone landed and began to dig, and a casual observer might almost have thought that it gestured in triumph when one of its claws
emerged from the sand holding a block of shining metal the size of a cigarette packet.
It had found the flight recorder from the Nomad ship.
• • •
The drone headed back to the mothership, the recorder stored carefully inside its main compartment, but the last drone continued its exploration of Torma. It located the former site of the drilling platform, now just a massive crater in the ground that was already filling with drifting sand. It commenced a methodical exploration of the surrounding area, covering it grid by grid, until it came at last to the great rock—half natural formation, half ancient construct—that rose up from the dunes. There the drone picked up the burn marks from a shuttle’s engines. It paused before the face of the rock and scanned it from top to base, then hovered, as though awaiting instructions. A signal was transmitted to the drone’s mainframe, the last that it would ever receive, and just as its fellow drone had radiated a sense of triumph at its unearthing of the flight recorder, so too it seemed that this one moved slowly, perhaps reluctantly, to fulfill its final command. It entered through an oval in the rock face, its red signal lights blinking forlornly in the darkness, until they, and it, were lost from sight.
Seconds later, the drone exploded, and the great stone column was no more.
CHAPTER 29
Illyri biology was a class that was always of particular interest to the Earthborn girls, for while they recognized some of the better-known creatures from the homeworld, there was so much that was new and awe-inspiring to be discovered. The Sisterhood prided itself on the quality of its lectures, and so biology occasionally meant an animal that had once walked or swum or flown on Illyr, and then died there, would be transported all the way from the planet below. It would then be brought into the laboratories for the dissecting pleasure and education of the elite young Illyri who hoped one day to be accepted into the order.
Today, the biology tutor, Amera, stood before the Novices looking most pleased with herself. She was a youthful Nairene, her dyed hair chopped short just as full Sisters preferred it, sprouting artlessly like pink frosting from her scalp. She wore a red laboratory jumpsuit fitted with all manner of equipment and sensors, which she wielded deftly and with great enthusiasm. Amera was a firm favorite with most of the Novices, for there was something eminently likable about her, and even Syl couldn’t help but warm to her.
“Little Sisters,” Amera said, for that was her term of endearment for the youngsters whom she taught. “On this day I have a great treat for you—great and yet terrifying.”
She gave a mock shiver and the class laughed as she waved a scalpel toward the bench in front of her. Upon it rested a lumpen heap roughly the size of a sheep, all swaddled in plastic sheeting.
“Oh, do hush,” Amera said. “Don’t you wake it now. But what might it be? Who would like to do the honors?”
She looked around and several students jostled for her attention, anxious to please. She pointed at Mila, chuckling, and said: “Disrobe our subject, please.”
Mila bustled forward and cast the sheeting to one side, but she wasn’t fast or cool enough to prevent the horrified “Oh!” that escaped from her lips. She stepped back quickly, going a little pale, for on the table lay the intact remains of what appeared to be an impossibly large, obscenely ugly arthropod, complete with razor-sharp pincers and a wide, gaping jaw. It looked like a great centipede, but infinitely more terrifying.
“You don’t like it?” teased Amera. “It’s only a little baby cascid; one of the unique creatures found right here, right outside our own door on dear old Avila Minor.”
“It’s disgusting,” someone said.
Amera whirled round, affronted.
“That,” she said, “is lazy thinking. Do you not understand the significance of this beast? You should be grateful that the cascid lives, for its very existence was crucial to the survival of the Marque on this moon in the early years, and to this day its fearsome reputation, its unrivaled adaptation, and its insatiable carnivorous appetite keep at bay those who would come here and undermine us. This, little Sisters, is our own formidable guard dog: it doesn’t bark but it has a very, very nasty bite.”
She pointed out its outsized mandibles, its knobbled, chitinlike armor plating, its jointed, insectile legs, and the brush of incongruously delicate feelers across its head.
“The cascid cannot see. Why is this?”
“Because it feeds at night,” said one Novice.
“Precisely. As we know, nothing feeds by daylight on our barren rock. Any creature venturing out into that heat would burn up and die. No, the cascid is highly evolved to survive in inhospitable terrain in the impenetrable blackness of night.”
She spoke passionately of its other evolutionary features, pointing admiringly at various quirks of its anatomy, opening its mouth, lifting its legs to expose its softer underbelly and its excretory organs, and gradually her students drew nearer, repulsion turning to fascination.
“But most amazing of all, the cascid has no known natural lifespan. Some of those on Avila Minor are believed to predate the creation of the Marque. Indeed, it is presumed that several of the older cascids walking beyond our walls to this very day include those that inadvertently protected the First Five when they escaped here.”
This caused a flurry of excited chatter. Amera smiled, clearly in her element. She allowed them to babble for a few moments then held up her hands, and the students quietened down.
“Study of the organism in its habitat has understandably been curtailed by the harshness of its home, and its tendency to eat anyone foolish enough to get within reach of its jaws. It is rare, too, that one is found expired and still whole, for its own kind would usually quickly consume the remains. Yet this one was found dead near one of our service doors; dead, yet untouched. That, little Sisters, is why we are so blessed today, for we have been granted special permission to dissect this remarkable cascid right here, right now, and due to the rarity of such an occurrence, we are to be graced by the presence of the Half-Sisters.”
On cue, the door opened and Half-Sisters flooded into the room, a swirling wave of sea-green robes and superiority, smiling graciously at the young Novices. Among them Syl noted a handful with twinkling blue piping on their gowns, and she wondered if this meant that some of the Half-Sisters also had psychic abilities, if they too were among the Gifted. As if to confirm her suspicions, these select few were allowed to slip unchallenged into prime position, even when that meant a smaller Illyri’s view was blocked, or a slippered toe was trodden on, a squawk of complaint stifled. The older of the blue-robed Novices—Tanit, Sarea, Nemein, and Dessa—pushed closer to their higher ilk, and the Half-Sisters who stood nearby stepped aside almost indulgently, allowing the younger Gifted to join the others. Gradually everyone reshuffled and then settled, though many of the yellow-robed Novices kept glancing covertly at the serene Half-Sisters in what could only be described as awe.
“Welcome, Half-Sisters,” said Amera, smiling warmly. “It seems like only yesterday I had you in my class, and here you are again, on the cusp of full Sisterhood. I could not be prouder. I know the Novices feel deeply honored to have you among us. Now, let us proceed. We are here to dissect this noble cascid and perhaps ascertain the cause of its untimely demise.”
With brute force and rather a lot of grunting, Amera turned the cascid onto its back, its legs in the air like a stranded beetle. One by one, Novices were selected and invited forward to make various cuts into its body: through its joints, into its sinewy heart, its reproductive parts.
“It’s a boy!” cried Amera, and they all laughed.
Syl was allowed to breach the creature’s breathing apparatus, which released a foul puff of fetid gas into her face. This was greeted by nasty sniggers, and she looked accusingly at Amera, sure she’d been selected for the task on purpose, but the tutor looked appalled.
“I’m so terribly sor
ry, child. I did not anticipate that,” said Amera, and she put her arm around Syl.
“What is your name? Syl, you say?” Vague recognition flickered in her eyes, but she seemed undeterred. “Ah yes, one of the Earthborn. Come, stand here beside me. Have a front-row position for your troubles.”
Gradually the cascid was dismembered until its bloated, blackened gut could be seen, swollen and hard as a large balloon.
“Aha! It is as I thought,” said Amera, prodding the stomach with her gloved finger. “Look at that distension, that dark coloring. I suspect this poor fellow ate something that he shouldn’t have, and poisoned himself. Usually cascids are smarter than that: they only consume the parts of their kills that are safe to eat and leave the toxic residue for bacterial organisms to dispose of. Isn’t biology just so clever? Not this cascid though, apparently. And poisoning would be precisely why he wasn’t consumed by scavengers, for cascids have a strong sense of self-preservation, and would be averse to ingesting toxic matter.”
She nodded happily, and reached for a mask.
“You may want to take a step back, my dears. I shall make the next incision myself, for I anticipate putrefaction with its associated odors and discharge. Ready?”
Syl shuffled to the side as Amera made a clean incision into the cascid’s belly, clearly relishing the task. Yellow slime, black jelly, and unidentifiable chunks of organic matter spilled across the table, kept from slopping to the floor by the deep reservoir of the metal workbench. A collective shudder of distaste went around the room, but Amera was unperturbed, now sticking her hand into the fissure, grasping around for the source of the poisoning.
“Got it,” she said, slowly extracting her gloved hand again, but then something stuck within the beast and she was forced to give a final hard yank to release whatever it was she’d found. Her arm shot upward with the effort, and there was a moment’s shocked silence. Then the screaming started, for what Amera had pulled out was undeniably, unmistakably an Illyri hand, ending in the mangled stump of a lower arm. Its fingers flopped loosely as if the phalangeal bones had somehow been destroyed, but its skin was otherwise unblemished and smoothly perfect, save for a coating of clear ooze, which only seemed to magnify the horror of it all.