Alien Honor (A Fenris Novel) (36 page)

“You must have a way of escape from this place. Otherwise, why did you send for me?”

The Reacher faced him. “There is a vessel, yes, a tiny one. You will need the Vomag’s help to reach it. I had thought you were a new path, but I see now I’m wrong. Perhaps… perhaps you are the Tracker. None of our own people has shown an aptitude for it. Ah, if you were the Tracker, yes, then the Dreams would still make sense. The road to freedom will still be a long one. Perhaps all isn’t lost, though. Yes, you must go to Jassac.”

“Do you mind telling me what the heck you’re talking about?” Cyrus asked.

The Reacher smiled bleakly. “Many must die in order to mask your escape. There is no other way.”

“Look. I don’t think you realize what’s really going on. We came in a ship that moves faster than light.”

“That is impossible.”

“It used to be impossible,” Cyrus said. “We found a way to do it. The cyborgs know the way, too. Otherwise, they couldn’t be out here this fast. What we can’t allow is for the Kresh to figure out how to travel faster than light. We have to destroy our ship, the Sol ship, I mean, the Teleship.”

“We cannot do that now. Perhaps once you find the Anointed One it will be possible.”

“What Anointed One?” Cyrus asked.

“He is the one who will lead the rebellion, who will shake off the Kresh yoke.”

“Who is he?”

“The Dreamer saw him, but she is long dead, slain in the Grand Agonizer many years ago. But she did not tell the Kresh enough to reveal the great hope.”

“Who did she tell, or what did she tell?”

The Reacher smiled sadly. “As I said, you are the Tracker. You must find him and help him however you can.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and even if I did, how would any of this help destroy the Teleship?”

“I lead the Resisters on High Station 3. You say the Kresh might use your ship and learn this way of faster than light travel. If they find such a drive, surely they will go to Earth and defeat humanity at its core. I believe they hunger
for more human genetic material to help fashion better and newer soldiers against the Chirr.”

Cyrus thought about all the colonists in stasis aboard
Discovery
. The Kresh would use their DNA.

“We must stop the Kresh,” the Reacher was saying. “The Resisters are too weak here. Instead, you must find the Anointed One. He can help both Earth and us here to defeat the Kresh.”

“How can he do that?” Cyrus asked.

“I have no idea, but I think he will. You must find him and help him.”

“Mister, you’re crazy. Do you see me helping anyone?”

“I told you. I am the Reacher, not the Dreamer. I cannot see. I can only reach out and join the needed links.”

“Sure,” Cyrus said. The psi-master and the Dreamer… they were beginning to sound like lunatics.

The old man moved to the table and rummaged around. Finally, he handed Cyrus a crystal. “You must put this in a psi-reader later aboard the vessel.”

“Uh… what vessel?” asked Cyrus.

“The Vomag and several Resister fighters will help you reach our hidden ship. With it, you must go to Jassac and find the Anointed One.”

“Where’s Jassac?”

“It is an Earth-viable moon orbiting Pulsar. That is the gas giant High Station 3 orbits.”

“Okay. That I can understand. You also said something about many dying. What’s that all about?”

A gong sounded from outside.

The Reacher’s long features twisted with fear. “Our time is up. Guardians are in the Maze. The Kresh must know you entered. You must leave now. I wish you well, Tracker. Remember me.”

“I will, and thanks.”

“Show me your gratitude by freeing humanity from the Kresh.”

“Sure,” Cyrus said. The old man was crazy, but maybe hope was all he’d had left these many years hiding from the Kresh. What a miserable existence.

“Come,” the Reacher said. “I must tell the Vomag what he needs to do.”

8

Cyrus realized how exhausted he’d become as he followed Skar through the corridors. His legs were like lead and his mind was stuffy with fatigue.

Three gunmen from the Crab Palace had joined them along with the bald, red-eyed woman. Everyone wore synthi-leather jackets, following the protector Cast through the corridors.

The Reacher had spoken tersely with Skar, but the Vomag had brightened considerably.

“We have a mission,” he told Cyrus, as if that was the greatest thing in the world. Maybe for a Vomag it was.

Cyrus was bone tired, but he tried to piece together what he’d just heard. The Dreamer, the Reacher, the Tracker, and the Anointed One—it sounded like a bad holo-vid from Milan, the ones he’d spent too much time watching as a kid. He’d loved the fantasy shows, with swordsmen, sorcerers, and vile monsters. The Reacher—the psi-masters in general—seemed like sorcerers to him. They wielded powers no one else possessed. Maybe the psi-talents caused them to act that way.

They could have called Venice “the Dreamer” for her clairvoyant warning. Yeah, maybe this Dreamer had been a clairvoyant. It wasn’t anything crazy, just more psi-talents. The Kresh had tinkered with their humans. Maybe their scientists had discovered which genes caused the talents. Then it would have simply been a matter of flooding their lab creatures with the needed chromosomes.

Sure. Once upon a time, Earth scientists had warped normal people into the Highborn. Why couldn’t the reptilian bastards have screwed with people enough to make the long-headed psi-masters? He had a small talent. Venice and Jasper had bigger talents and it had changed them. These psi-masters must think like holo-vid sorcerers. That’s why they called people the Dreamer, the Reacher, and the Tracker.

I’m the Tracker, huh? I’m supposed to find the Anointed One on Jassac, a freaking Earth-sized moon. This is nuts
.

At least he had allies. Maybe this Anointed One could help him free Jasper, Argon, Dr. Wexx, and the others. Maybe, if he could help stir up a system-wide rebellion, there would be a chance of recapturing
Discovery
. That meant he might be able to get back to Earth someday.

Would that be impossible? Probably, but it was a thousand times better than dying in the Grand Agonizer or sitting in the alien shuttle on the hard cot. He had purpose and he had friends, even if they were a strange band.

His friends might not be as friendly as he’d like, though. The Reacher had tried a psi-attack there at the end. The old man figured he could just bowl over the Earth lad.

“Not today, Reacher, not today.”

“Did you speak?” Skar asked.

They climbed up pipes and large tubes, and everything around them thrummed. A few of the pipes had been hot, and one of the gunmen had badly burned his hand.

Cyrus looked down. He felt dizzy at the depth. Way down there the gunman with the burned hand looked all alone as he stood guard.

“Isn’t there an easier way than this?” Cyrus asked.

“Climb,” the red-eyed woman called down.

Cyrus climbed. This had to be the largest monkey-bar set in existence. He used pipes, hauling himself to another one, a second, a third and then he balanced precariously on a larger tube. Liquid surged through it. He felt it through the soles of his tight boots. Was it waste or water? He had no idea, but it reminded him of the algae plants in Level 40. He kept climbing, following Skar, who followed Cast, who followed the red-eyed woman. No one had told Cyrus her name. Maybe it was Climber.

After a time, Cyrus said, “Wait. I have to rest.” His arms shook and he found it hard to grip the pipes anymore.

The red-eyed woman climbed down to him. The original floor had long ago faded into a bottomless pit. The top—it was nowhere in existence.

“You mustn’t rest,” she told him. “The Guardians are coming.”

“If I keep climbing, I’m going to slip and fall off.”

“Look into my eyes,” she said.

He did, and it almost worked, her trick. He felt himself in his mind, falling, falling…

He turned his head. “Are you a psi-master, too?” he asked bitterly.

“I am a Null.”

That piqued something in him. “What did you say?”

“I can hide from the Bo Taw, from their seekers.”

“Can you show me how you do that?”

“Look into my eyes.”

Cyrus wrapped his arms around a pipe, interlocking the fingers of both hands, and he leaned his back against a tube. “Okay, Lady. I hope this isn’t a freaking trick.”

He felt the falling feeling in his mind, and in a moment, he saw what she did to hide from psi-seekers. Her shield was different than his was; hers was camouflage.

You can do it, too. I sensed this in you. That is what I attempted to do
.

Soon, Cyrus became aware of his surroundings again. “I don’t feel any stronger.”

“You’re not,” she said.

“I thought you were going to give me an energy boost, along with what you showed me,” Cyrus said.

“The Reacher believed I should show you my ability,” she said. “Since you needed to rest here, I decided this was as good a place as any for you to learn my secret.”

“You aren’t going with us to find the Anointed One?”

“We will see,” she said. “I may join the quest.”

“Did you help keep the Reacher hidden all these years with your null power?”

“Can you climb now?” she asked. “Have you rested long enough? The Guardians will be hunting and they do not wait for anyone.”

Cyrus took a deep breath. “Yeah, sure, let’s keep going.”

Maybe ten minutes later, a distant cry drifted up.

“Guardians,” Cast said, with fear making his eyes bulge. “It sounds like they killed Darter.”

“You two,” the woman said, “must stay here and fight the Guardians.”

Cast looked as if he wanted to say something, but he nodded. “I hate the Kresh,” he whispered.

The red-eyed woman grinned viciously. “I hate the Kresh.” She turned to Skar. “We have little time left. Can you make him climb faster?”

Skar eased down beside Cyrus.

“I heard her,” Cyrus said. “What’s our goal anyway?”

“The outer hatch is near,” the woman said. “We will use it to escape High Station 3.”

“My hands don’t have any strength left, but what the heck,” Cyrus said. “Let’s do this.”

He climbed, and he looked down once and saw a silvery thing floating up. Shortly thereafter, the heat guns sizzled.

“They are useless against a Guardian,” the woman said. “But it will—”

A dismal cry sounded, followed by a second, choking gurgle.

“Cast and Diebold are dead,” the woman said. “The Guardian comes.”

Fear gave Cyrus a burst of strength. He climbed, and he looked down into the depths of the pipe-tube monkey bars set. Then he saw it, the floating, fighting machine he’d seen in the tele-chamber. It was oval and it floated faster.

“There!” the red-eyed woman said. “We’ve reached the hatch. Quickly, don the suits and head aside.”

“Where’s the vessel?” Cyrus asked. “You’ll have to show us.”

“The Vomag knows. The Reacher told him.”

“We can’t let you face that thing alone,” Cyrus said.

“You are the Tracker!” the woman shouted. “You are our last hope. You must find the one who will free humanity from the Kresh! Go, I beg you.”

Cyrus’s heart hammered and he chewed his lower lip in indecision. He’d faced a Guardian before and he’d defeated it, but with telekinetic power. He shook his head. He had nothing of the sort left to beat one now. But if he ran, he’d feel like a coward.

“Go!” the woman said. “Do not make our lives futile.”

With a pang of shame, Cyrus climbed, heading for the hatch. Skar hurried ahead of him. “I never asked for this,” Cyrus hissed.

He looked back. The Guardian shot a milky beam at the woman. The white ray stopped short centimeters from her body.

She can shield herself? I wish she’d shown me how to do that.

Cyrus might have stayed to look longer. Skar pulled him up to a platform and they dived through a hatch.

“It’ll just follow us,” Cyrus said. A muffled scream sounded through the closed hatch. “Now it’s our turn, eh?”

“Quick,” Skar said. “Put this on.”

It was a space suit, a simple one. They stood in a small chamber with many suits hanging on the wall. There were kits and helmets, too.

Skar went to the hatch’s control unit and smashed it with his fist until it began to hiss and smoke.

“Hurry!” Skar cried.

Although he was drunk with fatigue, Cyrus slid his feet into a space suit. He used magnetic clamps to close it. As he picked up a bubble helmet, something heavy clanged against the hatch.

Cyrus shouted and dropped his helmet so it hit the deck plates.

“I will stay back and fight it,” Skar said.

“Wrong,” Cyrus said. “We live or die together. Are you ready?”

Skar put on his helmet. Cyrus did likewise, and the Guardian slammed against the hatch again, obviously trying to beat it down. The Vomag slapped a switch on his suit and then on Cyrus’s. He heard air hiss around him.

They opened the outer hatch, entered a tiny compression chamber, and pressed a switch. The hatch closed and a second later, another hatch opened to the stars.

A vast gas giant moved before them.

Skar clunked his helmet against Cyrus’s helmet. “Turn on your boots.” He didn’t use a radio, but let the sound move through the plastic of their two helmets. It made Skar’s voice sound far away.

Ah. Cyrus turned on his boots because he understood what he saw. The gas giant—Pulsar—moved before them because High Station 3 rotated to provide centrifugal force: pseudogravity to the occupants of the habitat. Once they
walked on the outside, the centrifugal force would send them hurtling out into space. They needed their magnetic boots to anchor them.

Cyrus lifted one boot at a time. As it neared the space station’s surface, the boot clanged down hard against the metal. He followed Skar, and the Vomag kept turning back around.

So did Cyrus. He saw it first. The Guardian floated out of the hatch. As it did, the fighting machine whipped outward because the surface moved and it didn’t. Spray blew out of nozzles, slowing its movement away.

At that moment, the surface Cyrus stood on shuddered horribly. He began to shake and sway.