Nairom’s concentration drifted even farther from the back and forth of the two characters. He had used another group of nanomechs to connect himself to the Zenzani military net and was now drilling into the garrison’s security logs. He had accessed their files partly because he was bored, partly because he liked to know who he was dealing with. Details about the base’s operations on Mora Bentia scrolled in the bottom right-hand corner of his vision, superimposing Corag-mar’s face, which twisted at something Gormy had just said.
There were thousands of terabytes of information logged on the Moolag’s organization, most of it the usual stores of espionage info and communications. As the data records spooled through his line of sight, Nairom caught a glimpse of someone’s name they had in lock-up, which he thought he recognized. He backed up and read the list until he hit the name he had recognized: Achanei Feillion.
What is she doing here?
Nairom knew the woman was one of the halath’hi who Oand-ib had trained at the Citadel on Besti about year ago. He hadn’t ever met her. She had arrived there after he had left, but he had learned about her from Oand-ib. He knew Aiben had grown very close to her. He pulled up her data sheet and noticed that she had been there for the past two days and that someone had brought her to Mora Bentia from the battle on Besti.
He wondered why she would have been brought here of all places? That couldn’t be coincidence. Just as soon as the thought finished forming in his head, the answer plowed into him. She was there to trap Aiben! No one else other than Nairom knew he would be on Mora Bentia. No one else except for Selat!
It was a horrifying thought at first because it spoke volumes about how thick all sides had heaped up the plot of betrayal. If Selat knew about Aiben and Achanei’s relationship, then he already knew more about Aiben than Nairom had ever told him. That meant Magron’s fetid dog knew information from Nairom’s private communiqués with Oand-ib. That might also mean Selat knew of Nairom’s planned betrayal as well.
Still, Nairom found himself less surprised by these thought than he would have expected. Why shouldn’t Selat have assumed Nairom’s treachery and prepared for it? Nairom wasn’t naive enough to believe that Selat wasn’t planning to stab him in the back once they had im shalal.
Corag-mar and Gormy finally agreed on the arrangements and price and Nairom filed away the pertinent details: when and from where they planned to leave and how much time he had to contact Corag-mar first. The Golani’aaki Keazil hadn’t divulged the exact location of the Neilemi’aak to Gormy, of course. He was smart enough to know that it ensured his usefulness and kept him alive. Nairom would just have to follow the two of them now, just as he had been doing with Gormy since leaving the Moolag’s residence.
Nairom relegated Gormy’s visual input to the corner of his vision and turned down the sound in his head so it wouldn’t disturbed him as the ratty’s voice exchanged guarded pleasantries with Corag-mar’s guards and left the Keazil’s office.
Although the Cybermancer Guild had trained Nairom since childhood, Hezit had taught him secrets beyond those the Guild taught, ways to break into secure systems, and he had become very proficient in this area. He used these skills now as he expanded the military data stream into full view and started to dig deeper, cracking through the security with his military access codes where possible, hacking in where they didn’t let him see the information he needed.
He cross-referenced the data on Achanei with every other related bit of information until he came across a communiqué between Selat and the Moolag. Selat had cast his dirty frayed cowl about his shoulders, exposing the putrid flesh of his face. Since the Moolag had recorded the transmission on his side, Nairom couldn’t see the view Selat had of the corpulent aquatic being floating in his stale tank.
“The cybermancer who escaped Besti is on his way to Mora Bentia now.” Selat’s nose twitched with each word, as if he could smell the creature over the hyperchannel. “Are your men ready, Moolag, to act their part?”
“We received a dispatch from General Nairom to let the renegade’s ship make planet-fall unharmed,” The Moolag’s voice vibrated from off-screen. “But don’t worry, Commander Gorontol can be a forgetful man when he is compensated for it. We will capture the cybermancer for you.”
“No, you won’t capture that ship or anyone aboard it for now!” Selat’s face twisted angrily. Nairom heard the Moolag slosh in his soiled tank. “Follow General Nairom’s orders.” Now a grin of sheer ugliness spread across his face. “But by all means, make those renegades think that you want to capture them.”
Nairom remembered having said something similar about Raatha’s ship as it shot towards Besti’s hyperportal.
“I don’t understand,” the Moolag’s voice hesitated.
“Yes, I’m sure you don’t. You see, General Nairom is in pursuit of some sensitive matters aboard that ship and I’m eager to know if any attempt on your part to interfere will uncover betrayal on his part. Will the general come to their aid to keep them alive for his purposes or mine? Will he still honor our agreement to capture one of those passengers and bring him to me? Or will his compassion for his fellow cybermancer be wrenching enough for him to help the boy escape my grasp? If Nairom reveals he would rather be disloyal, you will send your best men to kill the General. Can you do this Moolag?”
“I can do it. And my payment for dirtying my hands in your schemes, where is Achanei Feillion?” Hick-ups of churning water mixed in with the Moolag’s voice.
“She will be at Mora Bentia’s port within the hour. Nevertheless, you cannot issue your ransom to House Feillion until I am sure Nairom doesn’t turn on me. In that case, I will need her as bait to lure the boy to me instead. Only then can you have her, understood?”
“Agreed, and might I say that I like your deviance,” the Moolag said.
Selat was quiet for a tense moment, his eyes twitching now instead of his nose, and then a long stuttering hiss of amusement issued forth from between blistered lips. A gurgling eruption of laughter followed from the Moolag.
Selat chopped off the laughter and hardened his face. “Do your job, Moolag, or that water tank of yours will quench my thirst for revenge.” He abruptly ended the transmission and the vision sizzled away from Nairom.
The rogue cybermancer’s anger boiled up inside him and he slammed a fist into the wall, leaving a dent of crumbling plaster. Nairom’s part in Selat’s plan had been very specific. He was supposed to wait until Aiben had im shalal, incapacitate him, and bring the device to Selat with a sample of his friend’s genetic code. That’s what Nairom had promised to do and exactly what he would do, just maybe not in the way Selat expected it.
Still, it seemed the creature was determined to test his loyalty. There was no doubt in Nairom’s mind now that his true battle for control of the Protectorate would be with Selat and anyone else who got in the way would be a casualty of war.
Before Nairom disconnected his nanomechs from the security net, he made sure to cover his tracks and leave himself a back door. He would need to get back in later.
CHAPTER 20
Ballis looked at the food sitting on the coarse woven mat in front of him. The bowl containing it was fashioned from the shell of a large, reddish-brown nut. Some tool had halved and hollowed it out, but left it still covered on the outside by a fibrous husk of fine yellow and green hairs.
In the bottom of the bowl was a warm, thick grey liquid streaked by deep maroon. Pieces of segmented meat wiggled into a clump as Ballis dipped his spoon into the stew. The sharp smell of the bowl’s contents seared his nostrils with forgotten memories of exotic meals in strange locales on nameless alien worlds.
Ballis looked around for someone else who was just as reluctant as he was to eat what they had placed in front of him. Oromgol had been there to meet Ballis and Lev-9 when they had arrived. The soldier was now scooping up his food along with the other Neilemi’aak. They ate vigorously, a virtue born of the need to survive harsh cir
cumstances. Lev-9 didn’t offer any help either; the mechanoid didn’t need to eat to sustain himself. He stood against a wall, his optical sensors tracking back and forth, leaving fleeting rays of light on the faces of their hosts as they ate in the dim light of the cavern.
Ballis was starving after the events of the past two days. Admittedly, he had eaten his share of strange food while serving in the Expeditionary Guild, but that was a lifetime ago. It was with some effort now that he ladled up a squirming gob of meat. As he maneuvered the morsel to his mouth, the groan of an old door opening halted its advance. When Ballis saw who was coming into the room, he dropped the uneaten spoonful back into the noxious bowl of soup with a sigh of relief.
“Aiben, your timing is impeccable.” Ballis rose off the floor mat. Joints cracked as he unfolded himself. He winced more from the sound than any discomfort it gave him. Lev-9 came to life and joined him.
Aiben smiled at his friends, but looked a little uneasy. The Keazil came into the room behind him. The entire group of Neilemi’aak stopped eating and clamored to their feet amid the sounds of clattering spoons and clacking armor. There was a sense of some importance in the air and everyone felt it.
“I’m glad to see you’re still alive and well,” Ballis said.
Aiben nodded. Ballis had let Aiben go with the Keazil only because he knew there were things going on an old soldier didn’t understand, and because Aiben was old enough to take care of himself. Ballis hadn’t made any promises to anyone regarding the boy’s safety. No one, except maybe himself.
Looking into Aiben’s face sometimes brought back that echo of pain fed by the memories of Nor Joon. Ballis thought he had buried those memories long ago, but he was beginning to fear that if Aiben had to commit his life to this mission, he might not be able to permit it. How could he let someone so young and inexperienced die on his watch again?
You’re not responsible for him, Ballis told himself. He could feel his face tighten into a frown. You can’t be blamed for the outcome of some adventure an old man has cooked up.
Nevertheless, Ballis couldn’t shake the feeling of responsibility. Could he let Aiben give up his life for a cause that might mean the chance to defeat Magron Orcris?
He had already dedicated several years to teaching Aiben how to strip down a thruster and put it back together again with his eyes closed. If he wasn’t going to let that investment go to waste, after all, he had better start teaching Aiben how to survive this undertaking Oand-ib had thrown them into. Aiben’s training at the Citadel should have already done that, but Ballis knew better. There would be many situations ahead where Aiben would benefit from his actual experiences in the wilds of human space.
“Keazil, Iniri’ki Hegirith shom ke’alish? Shelez ashalik hazmel?” Oromgol interrupted Ballis’s thoughts. His voice was raspy.
The excitement struggling to burst from behind the Keazil’s soft brown eyes was obvious, but she held her face firm and impassive. She gave Oromgol a quick nod. “Shelez ashalik hazmel.”
Upon hearing this, the Neilemi’aak in the room fell to the ground. The crash of armored knees hitting stone ricocheted from wall to wall. They stretched out their arms as if to clasp Aiben. Dropping their heads, eyes closed, they began to chant.
“Ashalik! Ashalik! Ashalik!”
This abrupt reaction took Ballis by complete surprise. Even Oromgol, who he thought seemed like a sensible soldier, had taken up the posture of chanting subordination.
“Kelez-yol!” Aiben commanded. “Look up! I don’t deserve that kind of reverence.” He crouched down, sank back on his heels and folded his hands across his knees. “You might think of me as your Iniri’ki Hegirith, but in truth, I’m just a halath from another world. I’ve been thrust into circumstances I have no control over. Please, look up.”
The Mora Bentians were slow to obey. Oromgol was the first to lift his eyes, but he was looking at Jerekiel instead of Aiben. It was clear Aiben hadn’t said what they had been expecting to hear. Ballis wondered if they had even understood him. He had only heard a few of the Neilemi’aak speak in Zenzani.
“Don’t look to me for answers, Oromgol,” Jerekiel said. “I may be the clan leader, but he is the Iniri’ki Hegirith. It’s his right to say whatever he wants to about himself.”
Aiben shot a look at Jerekiel. His jaw clenched in the usual manner, eyebrow poised to twitch, but just for an instant. Ballis recognized the feeling well enough the young man’s look betrayed. It was the frustration you felt when someone tried to twist your words around. Aiben’s demeanor quickly changed, though. Instead, a strange smile wiped away his look of consternation. There was an intimate connection between the two, which hadn’t been there before. Aiben was no longer the same young man with whom Ballis had left Besti.
“Earlier, you spoke the code word we were given to remember. Has the Shelezar confirmed you are the one we’ve been waiting for?” Oromgol now asked Aiben.
Ballis couldn’t take being in the dark any longer. “What is going on here exactly? Would someone please like to explain it to those of us that don’t know?”
“You really don’t know, friend?” Oromgol’s voice was full of genuine wonder. “You’ve accompanied the Iniri’ki Hegirith to Ilud’hi ai Rahan, but you don’t know who he is or why he’s here?”
“Educate me,” Ballis managed, reigning in his growing temper for the moment.
Oromgol looked at Aiben once again. They stared at one another as if there were unspoken words between them. Ballis shifted his gaze from one man to the other, waiting, starting to lose his patience. Suddenly, all the Neilemi’aak sat back down together. Even Lev-9 lowered himself onto the woven floor mats they had been sitting on for their meal.
“It’s OK, Ballis, let me explain everything to you,” Aiben said. He sat down on the mats next to Jerekiel where he could see everyone in the room. Aiben’s ragged locks and stubbled cheeks stood out in contrast to the new air of responsibility that hovered around him. He looked up at Ballis. “You might want to sit down too. This will take some time.”
Ballis looked around the room at the expectant faces of the Neilemi’aak before he took his place again behind his bowl of murky soup. It was cold now and a strange odor emanated from it and curled into his nostrils. It smelled like parched grass stalks. His mind caught hold of the odor and conjured up the memory of their first encounter with the Neilemi’aak that morning. Ballis remembered that these people were like cybermancers. Aiben must have been speaking mind to mind with them. Even Lev-9 seemed to know what Aiben was thinking.
“OK, start from the beginning,” Ballis said.
Aiben gave the account of the Haman up to the point where Yoren-dal and the original Jerekiel had left their homeworld with im shalal and the genetic code that would activate it. As he told the story, some of the Neilemi’aak nodded and expressed their agreement at certain points, indicating they had heard it before. At other times, they looked on with childlike wonder, hearing things they had not known until now.
Realization was slowly dawning on Ballis as the tale unfolded, and even before Aiben told him, he made the connection with the name Jerekiel. It explained how these people already knew what Aiben was telling them.
“Let me guess, the original Jerekiel ended up here on Mora Bentia with this weapon we’re looking for, right?” Ballis folded his arms across his broad chest. He cocked his head slightly, his cobalt eyes searching.
“Yes,” the present Jerekiel answered. She pursed her lips. “She was my great grandmother many generations back. All of the ilud’hi are her direct descendants or descendants of those who left homeworld with her. We are all that is left of the Tulani’aak.”
“What happened then?” Ballis was intrigued now, his impatience buried by curiosity. “I thought the Haman had technology far beyond the Protectorate or the Seven Guilds. No offense, but I don’t see a lot of evidence to support who you say you are.”
Jerekiel continued unshaken. She recited her next words in a sing
song-like voice, almost as if she had memorized them. “Yoren-dal and Jerekiel left the Haman homeworld, going their separate ways, but agreeing they would rendezvous with each other once the mind battle was over. Jerekiel took twelve others with her, trusted aides, friends, and family. However, there were complications and they were never able to meet with Yoren-dal as planned. They never knew what happened to him. They hoped, at least, he’d escaped before all was lost.”
“What kind of complications?” Ballis prodded.
“Jerekiel and her people delayed their departure from homeworld for too long. They didn’t know the Nograthi’aak had sabotaged the hyperportal in the first few moments leading up to the final conflict. The shearing forces of an uncharted hypertransit damaged their ship and when they broke free from the destructive grip of hyperspace, it forced them to crash here on Rahan where fate had seen fit to release them. Most of their technology was destroyed in the crash.”
“More detrimental, was the discovery that they could no longer govern the world around them with their minds,” Aiben interjected. Jerekiel motioned for Aiben to continue. Ballis caught her eyes dropped ever so slightly. “They could still speak to one another by thought, what they called shalal hiliz, but the power of the Haman Consciousness was no longer behind it. Because of that, they knew their entire race had been destroyed. Their ancestors had to learn how to survive in a new world without being able to control it.”
“Were they able to keep the weapon safe that Tulan gave them?” Ballis tried not to sound too unmoved by the plight of people dead for centuries. He was more concerned with their present circumstances.
“Within a year, Jerekiel died from wounds she sustained during the crash,” Jerekiel said. “They hadn’t been able to heal her physical damage without the Consciousness. With their Hegirith gone, the survivors became the five ilud’hi. They split along the family lines that formed from the surviving eleven members of the group. The ilud’hi divided up the responsibility for guarding im shalal until Tulan could come to reclaim it.”
“But he never came, and an entire culture has sprung up based on the hope for his return,” Aiben said. He suddenly looked pale, even in the light of the dim cavern.