Another grotesque laugh bubbled up from the Moolag’s stagnant tank. “Such a display. Come now, Gormy. Join me for a quick bite to eat before you run off to capture this boy.”
***
Within the hour, Gormy stood next to a battered, coverless hoverflyer just outside the Moolag’s energy fence. He was on the edge of the same cliff overlooking the giant ravine where General Nairom had stood earlier. The man’s footprints depressed the soft soil there. Gormy swiped a clawed foot through them. Although he was not a cybermancer himself, he was not without his own bag of tricks.
A small, thin, crystalline rod protruded from its power pack on the side of his flyer helmet. It wrapped around the front of his face at eye level. Small lasers shot out of two focused projectors and painted a virtual picture onto the lenses of his eyes. A link-up to one of the Moolag’s many orbiting spy satellites fed a three-dimensional virtual model of the landscape right into Gormy’s head. Despite the darkness of night enveloping him, the picture was quite clear.
It took him several minutes to switch between the various satellite feeds before he found what he was looking for. Three hundred and fifty miles to the south, Gormy could see where metal and fire had razed down a swath of trees in a thick patch of forest. In the midst of the felled, burning trees lay chunks of shattered freighter, spitting electricity and steam from broken seams.
He tracked farther south with the satellite-fed optical enhancer and discovered three figures moving away from the crash site several more miles away. He was able to zoom in close enough to make out their features. One had a nasty scar slicing his stone-featured face: a soldier. There was also a gleaming, jet-black mechanoid. Finally, there was the face of deceptive innocence in which the general had some vested interest.
Gormy wondered what this man had done to incur the wrath of a Protectorate general. He didn’t need to know that to capture him, though.
The Chibbi zoomed back out and tracked a little farther north. About sixty miles from the refugees’ ship, in the same direction they were heading, he could see the Protectorate’s only garrison town of at least several thousand troops, Abri Mor. Military engineers had driven a fog enshrouded docking tower directly into the center of the small metropolis. As usual, ships swarmed around it like insects on the stem of a sweet flower. It was here that the military shunted the merchant fleets, grudging them the use of the planet, but not the military installations in orbit.
Gormy flicked back the optical enhancer and squinted in the direction of the city, but with his eyes unaided, he couldn’t make it out. It would take about three hours to cover the distance at full speed. The Chibbi gun-for-hire threw himself into the flyer and kicked up a cloud of dirt and small rocks as the hoverjets shot him down the side of the cliff into the valley below.
CHAPTER 12
The Keazil shifted through the stalks of tall, dry grass. She moved like fluid. Four men tracked behind her, but all were soundless.
Battered pieces of ancient armor outfitted the five people. It was a motley assortment appropriated from the scrap heaps of occupation. They were durable carbon-composites, formed for eternity, from a time before the liquid-like armor of the Zenzani protected them. The Keazil’s armor covered her body like the shell of a hermit crab, loose in some places, cinched up in others, but it provided protection where there wouldn’t have been any.
The Keazil concentrated on her surroundings as she moved. She scanned the area before her with a pair of infrared lenses. The Zenzani officer who had surrendered them to her was long dead. They pierced the darkness and lit up the landscape with blotches of luminescent heat. In the distance, a shimmering aura illuminated the horizon. A hot fire burned in the night, but still far enough away that it couldn’t overload the lenses and blind her.
An explosion had hurled a vessel from orbit, which had screamed down destruction several miles from where her squad was patrolling. She watched as three globs of heat broke away from the glow and solidified into shapes. They were walking towards her, distinct figures criss-crossed by dark stripes of dry grass stalks.
Bright crimson coronas bathed two of them, one a bit brighter than the other. The third one glowed a dull red. A mechanoid sheathed in porous metal that cooling fluid constantly irrigated. She silently thanked Oromgol for what he had taught her. At least one of the other two could be Zenzani, since to her knowledge, no one from any of the ilud’hi had mechanoids. The brighter corona, a temperature common for her people, might be a prisoner of the other then.
The Keazil raised a calloused hand. Two fingers extended and then curled into a tight fist. The men trailing her dropped to the ground and swung their energy rifles forward to bear. They had been trained in endri hiliz, the sign language of their ilud. They used it for battle communication when there was danger of exposing themselves with shalal hiliz.
One of the men scurried up through the brush next to her. The halifi running along the line of his arm was dirty and taught from a clenched fist. He opened his palm to signal her, but she shook her head and hit the back of her hand with a fist, forbidding him to speak with her mind to mind. She motioned for him to move closer so she could whisper into his ear.
“One of them could be born of the five ilud’hi, though I can’t say whether friend or foe, so you can’t use shalal hiliz.”
“How many of them are there and how far away are they?” Oromgol whispered.
A flock of birds rustled and rose above the far trees, black dots against the background of still rising smoke, which spewed from the mysterious crash. Avian cries pierced through the prairie of dry grass in which they crouched. Oromgol’s finger tightened on the trigger of his weapon.
“Three. They’re about fifty feet ahead, standing maybe five feet apart, in a triangle. Two men at the back, another walking point.” The Keazil paused and turned to look at Oromgol. He had a face average people would call plain. It was blunt and harsh, but one that another soldier would recognize as honorable. He stared back at her and waited. An enormous smile spread across her face that ended in two large dimples, which when used to her advantage, gave her the kind of charisma that would convince her men to move mountains. “The one walking point, Oromgol, now try to remain calm, is a mechanoid.”
“Truth, Keazil?”
“Truth,” she nodded. Her eyes glowed dull brown under the infrared mode of the lenses.
Oromgol’s face transformed from the thoughtful mien of a soldier caught in the middle of a strategic decision into the delighted grin of a child who had just been told his hopes were about to come true. “Ever since my time in the labor camp at Ulara Kait, I’ve dreamt of getting my hands on one of those again.”
“I know old friend,” she said, “the entire ilud knows. Why do you think we chide you so much about your constant talk of machines and mechanical creatures?”
Oromgol pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes tight as if remembering something difficult. He was still smiling, though. “The life of a prisoner is not an easy thing. You take what chance you can to find joy. The Zenzani needed someone to dirty his hands on the camp mechanoids, and they were brainless enough to let me do it. Sometimes I wonder how they have conquered a universe when they make such strategic blunders.”
“As do I,” the Keazil laughed and shook her head. Her dimples deepened.
A few seconds later, Oromgol put the face of a soldier back on as she told him about the other two. “If one of them is a brother and a prisoner, we have a duty to free him.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
She focused her attention back on the three interlopers. Oromgol held out his hand and extended thumb and forefinger to signal that the enemy was ahead. His fingers moved in combination to expose their number and position to the other men crouching behind him. They were all versed in the tactics they would perform next. They would soundlessly fan out along the sides and flank their targets.
“You know, on second thought, I don’t know if you c
an handle this mechanoid, old friend. I can see some of its detail now. It looks sophisticated. It walks like a man and there are lights flickering all around its head.”
“Don’t be too quick to…”
“Wait,” she interrupted him, “they’re turning towards us. They’re bracing themselves for an attack, but neither of them has drawn a weapon.”
Oromgol shot out a command in shalal hiliz, a single thought broadcast to the minds of their men. Ba’al lutal! Move in and disarm!
Before the Keazil could stop him, Oromgol rocketed into a crouching run through the parched grass towards the three blobs of heat. She was furious, not just at his reckless rush towards a suspected enemy, but that he would risk using a mind-link when they still weren’t sure if one of the men belonged to the ilud’hi and where his loyalties may be. He could have heard Oromgol’s command through shalal hiliz as well.
The man in question was close enough now for her to recognize details using the zoom on her lenses. He was mouthing something to his companions. She cursed, bounded up, and followed in Oromgol’s wake. She swung her energy rifle out in front of her and swore to kill Oromgol herself if he had just led them running right into a trap.
She was so focused on the thought of her old friend’s execution that she almost ran head on into his back. She stopped herself just short of colliding with him as he planted himself in front of the mechanoid and brought up his rifle all in one fluid motion. Years of training had taken hold of his reflexes. Fortunately, they had taken hold of hers too.
Soldiers emerged from their cover and surrounded the three intruders. They stayed just beyond the range where the enemy could engage them hand-to-hand. The hum of energy weapons penetrated the air as they thumbed their charge buttons. They had waited until the last possible moment to activate their weapons, thus conserving as much precious power as they could.
At this close range, it was easy to see that the mechanoid was not standard military issue and that neither of the men was from any of the five ilud’hi. Their well-kept, foreign clothing, devoid of any insignia or affiliation, betrayed them as rahani hizat’hi, outworlders. One of them was a man in his mid years. His sun-leathered skin was a deep olive brown, his jaw square, his hair cropped close, and a scar writhed along the underside of his eye. Years of rough and tumble living had made him who he was. His very demeanor exuded command.
The other man was somewhat younger, no older than two standard decades. In contrast, he sported ragged hair, shaded in varying degrees from black to bronze, which framed a still unripe and eager face. Despite his youthful expression, the Keazil sensed something else hidden deep inside him that defied his unseasoned countenance, a reflection of something beyond his years. His eyes were stabbing like knives at everything they saw. He was chewing on the side of his lip and rubbing his forearm.
“I hope you can explain yourself,” she said to Oromgol. Her voice was neutral, but her face was still angry. Her own rifle was unslung, but she hadn’t thumbed the activator or taken aim.
“They knew we were here. We had to act before they could take the initiative.”
“And just how did they know we were here?”
“Look here, Keazil,” he pointed out the mechanoid’s cranial sensor band, “those swiveling lights are sophisticated sensor arrays. He knew we were here and reported it to his companions even before I sent our men out.”
“But why would you still risk using shalal hiliz?”
“It would have taken too much time to move around and signal each of our men. I had no idea how long they’d known we were here, or how prepared they might have been for us, so I moved first.”
“You were fortunate, Oromgol,” her face softened a bit, “but luck aside, I knew there was good reason to choose you as first-in-command. Now let’s see who we have caught.”
***
The woman took aim at Ballis and thumbed her rifle’s activator. It hummed to life. By the look of their weapons and body armor, Aiben could tell right away that these people weren’t Zenzani military and he suspected Ballis could too.
“You look like you might be in charge,” she said in accented Zenzani. “I am Neilemi’aaki Keazil. Who are you?”
“I’m Ballis Ceimor. These are my friends, Aiben and Lev-9.” He jammed his thumb back in the direction of the dissipating smoke clouds. “Our ship crashed here.” His voice remained deep and calm.
“But you speak some Zenzani?” she asked.
“I have learned enough of it to get by,” Ballis continued in broken Zenzani. “We’re not from Mora Bentia.”
“Mora Bentia?” The woman’s mouth curled around the words with a sour expression.
“This planet?” Ballis probed.
“I don’t know this name. This is Ilud’hi ai Rahan, or just Rahan in common speech.”
Ballis opened his mouth but stumbled over his response to her when she held up a hand and suddenly shifted her attention to Aiben.
Aiben’s thoughts had fastened on the woman’s words. Some of her language was Zenzani and understandable to him. He had learned the basics of it at the Citadel. Oand-ib had taught them to know the language of their enemy. Other words were decidedly not Zenzani and awakened recognition in him. Ilud’hi ai Rahan, the world of the clans. She had called herself Neilemi’aaki Keazil, the clan leader of Neilem’s followers.
He almost imagined that her accent, although a bit flat and skewed, made her sound as if she spoke a dialect of some language he already knew, but didn’t know he knew. They were words like Tulani’aak and Nograthi’aak, which had given him the same feeling in Oand-ib’s meditation chamber.
Right before Oand-ib had left him in the Citadel, the Hegirith had deposited a chunk of artificial knowledge into his head. He hadn’t chipped away enough of the perplexity surrounding that data to understand it yet. What more was there to who he was and what he needed to do to find im shalal? He only had a skeleton of the truth.
Now the twang in her voice and the strange, yet familiar words she spoke made him think even harder about that block of hidden information. In response, a flood of memories plowed into him. For a brief moment, he lost all sense of bearing, and then, he remembered the language to which those words belonged. They called it hiliz, and it was the language of the Haman.
Now he understood why in the last few moments before these soldiers had surrounded them, he had warned Ballis and Lev-9. He had heard the phrase ba’al lutal spoken in his head, which he had unconsciously recognized. Shalal hiliz had carried the words to him, although the experience had been more like the communication of the cybermancers than the vivid reality he had experienced with Oand-ib at the Citadel. Still, these people could link their minds like the Haman. They had thought communication without the aid of the hypernet!
Neilemi’aaki Keazil, is that what you called yourself? Aiben said to the woman in hiliz. He focused on her face, picking out his words carefully, still somewhat amazed that he could speak and understand this new language. He didn’t send his thoughts wide-broadcast, but just to the woman. Even though he wasn’t using a cyberlink, he found he could target her thoughts alone. He didn’t know how he did this, but the intrinsic knowledge and instincts in his head weren’t his own.
How is it you use shalal hiliz and speak the language of history? Only the ilud’hi speak such old words with their thoughts, the woman said. Wide, glowing brown eyes flashed towards Aiben. She spoke perfect hiliz as the Haman had spoken it and Aiben understood it. Can a rahani hizat have such abilities?
I don’t know, Aiben admitted in thought.
The woman’s face was serious and she wore a careful mask of neutrality. It was beautiful still, framed by shoulder-length black hair, and sculpted by the perfect smoothness of golden skin. A generous mouth blended in with the small slope of her nose and the prominence of her high cheekbones. Large brown almond-shaped eyes glowed softly.
On the inside of her left arm was the tattoo of a reddish-black design. Although irregular humps of armo
r covered her, Aiben could tell there was a well-muscled body underneath, coiled up tightly, ready for release at a moment’s notice.
“What’s going on here?” Ballis finally asked after what seemed like several seconds of silence.
The man next to her leveled the sights of his rifle on Ballis and grunted a warning, one soldier to another. The scar underneath Ballis’s eye twitched.
“Sorry, Ballis,” Aiben said. The man’s gun now swung towards him. “I interrupted her. They are called the Neilemi’aak. And she is their Keazil, their clan leader.”
“How do you know that? Is there something Oand-ib told you that you haven’t shared with us yet?”
“No, it’s because they’re able to communicate with their thoughts like cybermancers.”
Ballis nodded, but his brows furled.
The Keazil’s soldier gave another aggressive wave of his rifle. “The young one may speak a few of our words, Keazil, but surely these two are Zenzani sent here to spy us out.”
“No, I don’t think they’re spies, Oromgol,” she answered. “They are indeed rahani hizat’hi, though who they are, and why they are here, remains to be seen.”
“You see the fire from their ship burning on the horizon? Where do two ordinary men get a ship like that and a mechanoid?” Oromgol’s face screwed up. “Is that not suspicious?”
“It wasn’t a military ship. It was a civilian ship. We used it to get away from a Protectorate strike force on a planet called Besti,” Ballis said. He waved at Lev-9, “And the mechanoid escaped along with us.”
“Besti?” the woman asked. She cocked her head to one side. “Did you say you were from a world called Besti?”
“That’s right, do you know it?” Aiben asked.
The woman swung her rifle around to her back and advanced on him. Ballis moved to intercede, but Oromgol’s rifle glued him to the spot. His muscles corded and twitched with pent up energy, but Aiben shook his head and his friend yielded.