An Abyss of Light (The Light Trilogy) (72 page)

Jeremiel glared. “In a half hour, this planet will be a molten ball.
Get on your pan-city screens and tell the people!”

“Are you giving me orders, Baruch?”

“Looks like somebody’s got to.”

“Don’t be presumptuous.”

“Ah, I see. You’re afraid the people will riot and make a dash for the
samaels,
shoving you out of the way in the panic. Hear that, men?” Jeremiel smiled at the guards. “How many of you do you think he plans on taking with him? What about your families?”

The guards eyed each other in abrupt uncertainty, shifting back and forth.

Ornias’ eyes hardened. “I’ll take every loyal member of my staff and their families. These men know that.”

“They think you’re
reliable?”
He laughed deprecatingly. “So you haven’t told them you killed Zadok Calas? Or that by selling me to the Magistrates, the Underground Movement will go through a reshuffling of leadership and
thousands
of Gamants will probably die during the interim?”

“Your lies will get you nowhere, Baruch. My people are loyal. I’ve always rewarded them for …”

In the hallway, pounding boots sounded and the door slammed open, violet lances of light shredding the room. Jeremiel hit the floor rolling. Screams echoed in his ears as he slithered for cover.

“Put down your weapons!” someone shouted.

Jeremiel looked up to see Harper and his team of assassins spreading out over the room, turning over dead guards, searching those still alive. Ornias leaned unsteadily against the far wall, hands high over his head. Behind Harper, Funk peered anxiously through the door, gray hair sticking out at odd angles.

“Harper!” Jeremiel ordered, sitting up. “Quickly, get these cuffs off me.”

The tall black monk ran across the room, slicing the iron bands with two pistol shots. “Good to see you’re in one piece. We’d feared—”

“Later.
Tahn’s expecting to transport me to his ship in about ten minutes. Then he’s going to scorch Horeb.”

Harper’s mahogany face slackened in terror. “So it’s happened. I guess that means Operation Abba is in effect.”

“I’m afraid so.” Jeremiel lurched to his feet, rubbing his wrists to get the circulation flowing again. He met Harper’s dark eyes with frantic seriousness. “The first thing we have to do is get a
samael
to your caves. Put Calas and Funk in it, pick up Sybil and anybody else you can fit—”

“Janowitz,” Harper ordered sharply. The blond monk looked up. “Get on the Councilman’s com unit and find out how many ships our forces have captured, then immediately dispatch two to the caves.”

“Contact those
samaels
over the polar cap, too,” Jeremiel added. “Counteract all previous orders. Tell them if they can find Rachel Eloel to pick her up
unharmed.
And if not, to get out to orbit within thirty minutes.”

“Got it.” Janowitz ran for the com on the far table.

Harper turned back to Jeremiel, chest rising and falling quickly. “And after that?”

“Have Janowitz get on the screens and tell the people of Seir. Get them moving for the spaceport. We won’t be able to save everybody, but—”

“Jeremiel, Horeb … It’s lost, isn’t it?”

“Not necessarily.” He gave the monk a smile, that insane feeling of hope that always accompanied desperation flooding him. “I’ve always had the insane urge to
try
Operation Abba. Rudy, my second in command, had a lunatic belief in it.”

Harper shifted uncomfortably. “Has anyone ever tried it before?”

“No. At this point, it’s pure theory. Listen, now. Tahn will be expecting me to transport in the company of guards—to insure the councilman’s investment, of course. Pick two of your best people and get ready.”

He ran across the room, jerking a gun from a dead guard’s warm hand.

Rachel woke bitterly cold, unable to move her legs. Ice covered her weather-suit. She tried to flex her fingers, but found them too stiff. Leaning her head back against the icy wall, she gazed upward through frost-encrusted lashes. The blue glow of the
Mea
had dimmed to nothingness—a gate locked.

“I’m d-dying.”
The empty sound of her voice frightened her. She sucked in a breath of the glacial air, feeling it bite in her lungs. She just wanted to sleep.

She closed her eyes.

A soothing voice penetrated her numbness.
“Ah, there you are.”

Weakly, she blinked. A dark shadow undulated over the irregularities in the walls. Then a brilliant flash fired the ice cave and a man of crystalline beauty appeared. Terror ravaged her as she looked into the face of a frescoed god come to life. He stared down at her with heartrending sorrow in his amber eyes. Throwing back his blue velvet hood, he knelt, gaze going over her concernedly.

“Who … who are you?”

He bowed his head. “Adom knew me as Milcom. But you know my real name is Aktariel.”

She forced her head to nod. Frosty black waves cascaded over her shoulder. She rested her head against the wall again, meeting his eyes. Odd, the warmth, the hurt there, made her feel as though she’d known him all her life, as though they shared a pain too deep for words.

“Ep—Epagael …”

“Yes, I’m sorry I had to put you through that. Forgive me. I had no choice. Only by facing Him could you understand my desperation.”

Rachel’s gaze drifted aimlessly over the cave. In the soft golden light cast by his body, the icy walls sparkled like a million diamonds.

“Rachel, please, let me hold you? I know you’re frightened of me, but—”

“You killed Adom.”

Tears glistened in his eyes. “Not I. Epagael.”

“He …” A sob shook her. “God doesn’t—care—about us.”

“No. But I do.”

He reached out and pulled her against him, cradling her tenderly. Warmth seeped into her extremities, tingling painfully in her toes and fingers. She shuddered and he nuzzled his cheek against hers. The overwhelming need to sleep rolled over her. Unwillingly she sank deeper into the warm blanket of his arms.

“Sleep, Rachel,” she heard him say soothingly, as he gently stroked her hair. “The moment you wake, the universe changes. Sleep all you can.”

His voice seemed to echo in the frigid stillness. “And don’t worry. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Not even God.”

Darkness shrouded the caves, dust splashing into Sybil’s eyes as the
samael
landed. A huge black beetle, it hissed like a serpent. Monks ran headlong for it, pushing each other and whispering frantically.

“Hurry, Sybil!” Petran shouted, shoving her toward the ship.

“Are we going to find my mommy?”

“Blast you, child! This planet’s going to be a molten ball in a few minutes. Move!”

He tried to grab her but she dodged his hand. “If the Magistrates are going to scorch us, somebody has to find my mommy! Where is she? She was going with the Mashiah—”

“We don’t have time to fight, Sybil!”

He jerked her up, twisting her hand so hard it ached, and carried her beneath his arm for the ship. Sybil sank her teeth into his thumb. He cried out, dropping her and she ran across the dark rocky plateau. In the distance, fires still dotted Seir, smoke billowing to blot the stars.

“Get her!” Petran shouted.

From all sides, monks closed in, surrounding her.

She clenched her fists, shouting at the top of her lungs,
“Where’s my mommy?”

Two monks lunged for her, clutching her arms and hauling her up the steps and into the waiting
samael.

Harper stood stiffly beside Jeremiel at the spaceport, eyes going over the charred rubble of Seir. The third moon rose over jagged peaks, flooding the city with milky light. Apartment buildings loomed black in silhouette, shattered walls leaning precariously. People crowded the streets, clubs or stolen rifles clutched in their hands. Here and there a filthy bandage wrapped an arm or leg. And all shoved violently toward the ships that were loading just beyond the fence.

An awesome panic had gripped Horeb. Near the gate, Janowitz and Uriah stood, hands on pistols.

Jeremiel wet his lips and bent down, drawing pictures in the dirt. Sweat stained the arms of his black jumpsuit, but a curious vitality invaded his eyes, as though the life and death tightrope that stretched before him only hardened his resolve to win.

Harper sighed. Gamants. They’d suffered crushing misfortunes for millennia, yet they’d never succumbed to the crashing of empires, the brutality and confiscation of arrogant conquerors. Fate had broken their backs, but never their spirits. Ghostly ancestors seemed to move quietly in the moonlit shadows around him. Men and women who’d seen the worst life could offer and who’d struggled from the mire to shake bloody fists at defeat. They hadn’t bemoaned fortune, they’d fought back.

He looked contemplatively at Jeremiel. In the past few minutes, an unsettling calm had gripped the Underground leader.

“Come here, Avel. I want to make sure you understand this.”

“You mean the ship’s design?”

“Yes. One more time. This is the transportation center on Tahn’s ship. This is the closest transport tube. Remember?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“We’ll take the shuttle first. The hard part comes when we hit Tahn’s landing bay. I’ll go for him. You’ll—”

“What makes you think he’ll be there?”

Jeremiel’s eyes glittered as hard and brilliant as sapphires. “Oh, he’ll be there—just as I would were the situation reversed.”

“Uh-huh.” He blinked anxiously. “You know, even though the element of surprise will be on our side, this is insane.”

“Of course.” Jeremiel gave Harper a broad, flashing smile. “You don’t think we should give up just because it’ll be four against three thousand, do you?”

“If we had a choice—”

“We don’t. Not if we want to save Horeb. Besides, this isn’t nearly as insane as the stunt I pulled in the Scholem system. We were outnumbered a thousand to one. Tahn had us boxed tight in a—”

“You’ve been in worse situations.”

“Oh, much worse.”

Overhead, a hum broke the silence,
Hoyer
’s shuttle diving from the dark star-limned skies like a deadly lance.

Baruch stood, slapping red dirt from his jumpsuit as he watched the craft descend. He turned, gazing confidently at Harper, a glint of amusement in his eyes. A slow smile curled his lips. “Ready?”

Avel massaged his brow, a desperate laugh bubbling up. “Let’s go.”

Ornias put his feet up on the white control console of the ship, gazing out the window at the spiny ridges of Horeb so far below. A bottle of Kayan sherry sat beside him. He watched as the planet rolled from light to dark. The lights of Seir passed beneath him. He chuckled and uncorked the bottle.

“How long to Palaia Station, Corporal?” he asked the brown haired boy at the controls.

“About three days, sir.”

He smiled and poured his glass full, then lifted the crystal goblet to the battle cruiser floating in the black depths beyond. “A toast to your efficiency, Tahn. I hope you can hold him.”

CHAPTER 46

Tahn uneasily paced the gray carpet in Transportation. The room was small, twenty by thirty feet, with stark white walls and a single com terminal. The security team hadn’t arrived yet and he felt so tense he wanted to scream. Preferably at somebody—anybody.

Halloway took a deep breath and braced a shoulder against the wall. Her gaze followed his every movement.

He stopped pacing and glowered at her. “You got something to say to me?
Say it!
”

She fixed him with one of those superior looks. “What good would it do?”

“What is it!”

She ground her teeth a moment. “Cole, after we scorch Horeb, are you going to deliver Baruch to a neurophysiology center?”

“I’ll follow orders, whatever they are.”

“Even if it means destroying one of the most brilliant military minds in the galaxy?”

“Damn it, Carey!” He slammed a fist into the white wall. His nerves hummed, strung tight as catgut fiddle, and she damn well knew it! “What do you want me to do? Set Baruch
free?
Let him go back and lead his Underground against us again? How many friends have you lost to his
brilliance?”

She didn’t look like she was breathing, but she gave him look for look. “Too many, but—”

“That’s answer enough.”

“No, it’s not. What’s past is past. You could intervene on his behalf. Plead his case to the Magistrates. If you—”

“You want me to put
my
career on the line for a man who’s been my enemy for over fifteen years? What the hell’s the matter with you?”

Hostilely she folded her arms. “Not a damn thing a new job wouldn’t fix. Just think about taking the chance, Cole. Turning Baruch into a vegetable will be a loss for all of us. The Magistrates won’t reprimand you for bringing up the possibility of saving him. And you know I’ll back you till kingdom come if it’s necessary.”