Artemis Invaded (32 page)

“And hope,” said the Old One, coming over brushing more of the yellow and orange litter off his clothing, “that Griffin and his companions still remain. Might not the warning we were given have triggered an alarm elsewhere? If we delay, we might arrive only to find our quarry flown.”

“That would be a nuisance,” Siegfried agreed.

Falkner cut in. “Even if we don't find Griffin, consider what might be on the other side! We can't give up with taking a closer look. The walls are tougher than we can cut through, but any place made to open will be a system's weak point. I think I can get us through fairly quickly.”

“You opened several other doors,” Siegfried said. “I don't have a problem with giving you a chance at this one—but you do your work with the first door blocked open, understand? And you let us know before you trigger anything. Julyan and I got lucky last time. We're not going to trust to luck again.”

*   *   *

“This facility has been breached!” Leto's voice as she repeated the warning sounded very much like that of a frightened little girl.

“Where?” Griffin asked. He was already turning in the direction of their exit into the valley, when Ring broke into a ponderous run and vanished deeper into the facility, heading for a point where there were several very wide corridors. Griffin had wondered about these during their initial tour, since there seemed little reason for such so deep in the facility.

I dismissed them as relics of the original construction,
he thought as he ran after Ring,
especially since they faced into the mountain range. What if they weren't relics? What if they were for bringing in supplies from one of the landing areas? From Spirit Bay? The direction's right …

He wondered at his own shortsightedness, then decided to give himself a break. After all, their first encounter with Leto's facility had been one of horror—the place knee deep in the dead. Later, when the cleanup had been concluded and Leto had softened somewhat to them, they had discovered the spaveks and other wonders. Oversized corridors were minor puzzles by contrast.

Terrell was loping alongside him. “The Old One?”

“Who else?”

“He may have more allies than just Julyan,” Terrell said. “I wish Adara and Sand Shadow were here. We may well be seriously outnumbered—and if it's an attack group, they're going to be far better armed than we are.”

Ring had outdistanced them. Now they heard his voice speaking with the vibrant note that indicated he had sealed the helmet of the blue spavek. Griffin realized he was relaxing. Their enemies better armed? Terrell was forgetting …

“Halt,” Ring's voice boomed. “Go no further.”

The voice that replied was not the Old One's, but one Griffin knew all too well.

“Sweet lodun's balls! Working power armor!”

Griffin heard himself calling out before he knew he was speaking. “Falkner? Falkner!”

He ran forward, feeling Terrell's hand tug his sleeve as if the factotum had begun to hold him back, then refrained. He heard Falkner's voice, shouting in excitement.

“Griff! Griff! We
have
found you then.”

Behind Falkner's voices, others: Alexander? Siegfried? Griffin had no time to slow his charge forward when he recognized another: Julyan. And that other, soft and level, surely that was the Old One! The scene that met his gaze when he rounded a corner and came up alongside Ring was somehow incongruous, even though the voices had given him some warning.

The hall had opened into a large white chamber in which stood six people: three of his older brothers, the Old One, Julyan, and a boy little older than Kipper. They were mounted in pairs on three all-purpose travel scooters. These had their defense shields up, encompassing their riders behind protection that Griffin realized nothing but the weapons in the spaveks might penetrate—and he wasn't about to bet on that.

Falkner was beaming, genuinely happy to see Griffin, though his gaze kept drifting to the unknown element represented by Ring. Siegfried looked pleased, but his eyes were narrowed in what Griffin recognized as calculation. Alexander's face bore a feverish expression that someone who didn't know him might take for delight, but that made Griffin's blood chill. An overexcited Alexander could be extremely dangerous.

The Old One sat behind Siegfried, his features schooled to careful neutrality. Griffin had been his captive long enough to recognize that the Old One's apparent passivity was far more dangerous than it seemed. He wondered if Siegfried knew what sort of creature he had seated behind him.

Probably not, or he would never have let him inside his shield.

The boy's expression was slack, barely interested. He reminded Griffin of someone, someone he'd seen recently … He remembered then. Several of the captives they'd rescued from the Old One's breeding project had worn just such expressions, though whether they were the result of some birth defect or of their training he had not had opportunity to learn.

It took a moment for Griffin to realize that the white-haired man with the lined face who sat behind Alexander was Julyan, but the way that the handsome mouth pulled into a hungry smile gave him away. Julyan's dark-eyed gaze darted back and forth, searching for someone he did not find. Griffin was aware that Terrell and Bruin had joined them, of Kipper huddling near the back. That was all of them, other than Honeychild, Sam the Mule, and the horses, who then?

Adara! He's looking for Adara and for no good reason, either.

Suddenly, Griffin's pleasure at seeing his brothers again, at being found, melted into apprehension so severe he had to fight to keep his knees from shaking. Julyan with that expression on his face meant no good for his Artemesian friends—maybe not even for himself. He had assumed his brothers commanded this expedition, but perhaps the Old One was actually in charge?

Siegfried was speaking. “Do you command this?” He indicated Ring with a gesture.

Griffin looked at him. “Aren't you going to say hello, Siegfried?”

“Hello, Griffin. We had heard you were alive. Now, do you command this thing?”

“And if I do?”

Griffin was aware of motion behind him. Terrell strode up to stand next to him. Only someone who didn't know him as well as Griffin did would believe there was anything but innocent pleasure in the action.

“Griffin, are these your brothers? Surely they've found you far more quickly than you imagined possible. And the Old One! What a tremendous surprise … Or perhaps not so great a surprise at that. We all know he has a tendency to turn any circumstance to his advantage.”

Confusion flickered for a moment on Siegfried's face. The wicked merriment that lit Alexander's eyes brightened. Falkner suddenly looked wary. Julyan reached for a weapon, but halted in midmotion at some low voiced command from Alexander. Only the Old One and the dull-faced boy did not react.

Griffin took advantage of the diversion. “Yes. These are three of my brothers—Siegfried, Falkner, and Alexander. How did you three link up with my former kidnapper, anyhow?”

“Kidnapper?” It was Falkner, always the least scheming of the three, who spoke. “And who is this Old One? These are locals we encountered soon after we splashed down near the old landing facility and started looking for you.”

“Certainly, Julyan and the Old One didn't pretend they'd never heard of me,” Griffin countered. “Did they somehow leave out that the Old One kept me imprisoned until my friends broke me out? Did they fail to mention that at my last meeting with Julyan he was either trying to kill me or kidnap me once more?”

“They did, rather,” drawled Alexander, greatly amused. “Maxwell did say he had met you, but he gave a somewhat different version of your association. He said you came to him for help because he was squatting in the old landing facility on the mainland. He said that your lover, some warrior woman called Adara, got jealous. If he is to be believed, she kidnapped you—not the other way around.”

“Sorry to disenchant you. Here are a few facts you can confirm anywhere in Spirit Bay. The man you call Maxwell is more widely known as the Old One Who Is Young. It might interest you to know that he is several hundred years old at the very least—something that is not at all typical, even on Artemis where good health means the natives live much longer than is usual at such a low tech level.”

“Several hundred years old!” Siegfried scoffed. “Legend lore, not fact.”

“Fact,” said Bruin, hurrying up to join them. He'd stopped to put on a pair of pants. His quiver was slung over his bare chest, his bow was in his hand. “I am three score and more. I have known the Old One personally since I was a child. My parents knew him before that. Our family and my teachers knew him by reputation even longer. He has always looked the same: somewhere in his early to mid twenties, boyish, and slim. I should warn you—he's much stronger, much more dangerous than he appears. He taught me some interesting hand-to-hand fighting forty years ago, and I doubt he has let himself go stale.”

The Old One broke his silence. “I cannot deny what they have said, seegnur. I never lied to you. Maxwell is the name my parents gave me, so it is at least honestly my own.”

“And you are truly several centuries old?” That from Alexander.

“I am. When we first met, I told you I had devoted many years to studying the relics of the seegnur. You smiled and took that as a young man's boast, but I have given at least two hundred years to the task.”

“Are you one of these ‘seegnur'?” Alexander asked. “Have you lived since Artemis's fall?”

“Not that I know,” the Old One said. “My first memories are faint now, but I remember being a boy in a fishing village far from here. I grew up and took to the sea, as was the custom of those who had raised me. For a long time, I was unaware that once I became an adult, I was not aging as did other men.”

“How couldn't you have known?” Siegfried protested, twisting in the seat of the scooter to confront the man behind him. “Surely you would have been able to tell by the time you were in your forties!”

The Old One shrugged. “The sea is a harsh mistress. Like many sailors, I grew a beard to protect my face from the elements. My exposed skin was weathered by sun, salt, and wind. Although I am fair, I do tan and that also made it seem my skin was aging. My hair, already blond, bleached so that it might as well have been greying—the change from light gold to silver is subtle. Only after my wife's death, when I left the sea and roamed to ease my grief, did I realize that the side effects of my profession had masked what I had only then begun to realize. I had not aged significantly since my early twenties.”

“Incredible and fascinating,” Alexander said, “but aren't we getting away from what Siegfried asked? Griffin, do you control that thing? Is it a robot or a cyborg or simply a man wearing weird battle armor?”

Griffin's head swam as he tried to analyze everything he had learned, along with what Terrell's words had made him suspect. It wasn't chance that had brought his brothers so quickly. They had to have followed him from the Kyley system to Artemis. Why? Were they out to steal his glory or was there something more? Did they suspect what he had only just learned—that Artemis had her own dark secrets?

If so, he had just led them to a mother lode.

Falkner had been studying Ring's spavek. “Battle armor's my guess. Relatively recently refurbished. Not a model I recognize.“

Alexander interjected quickly. “And Griffin's not admitting he's in command. That's dangerous, especially with all the lies we've just had revealed.”

He spoke seven syllables, addressing them to the men in front of him. They sounded like nonsense to Griffin, but he felt Terrell stiffen and heard Bruin groan. Beside him, the spavek neither moved nor stirred.

“There,” Alexander said lightly. “Benjamin Bruin Hunter, Terrell the Factotum, and whoever it is in that blue battle armor, you will now obey my commands as spoken by a seegnur to residents of Artemis. My first command is that you await my next command before taking any other action, although, for now, you may speak freely—as long as you tell the truth.”

He looked at Griffin, his eyes flickering between tan and green as his lips twisted in triumph. “You were never interested enough in linguistics, brother mine. Pity. You may have found the planet, but I have found the means to control her inhabitants.”

Interlude: Project

Minute Mystery

Holding History

Fungal Nursery

Breeding Discovery

Such Imagery

Now is Reality

 

14

Push and Shove

Driven by increasing dread, Adara toiled up the final slope before the drop into the vale of Maiden's Tear. She had chosen this route because, although it was more arduous, it cut days off their journey. Even so, the return up the mountain had taken longer than she liked. The sense of urgency that had pressed at her from the moment she had learned about the fresh footprints in the Sanctum had grown more intense with each passing hour.

Something of Adara's urgency had transferred to Sand Shadow as well. When they reached the final stretch, the puma raced ahead, only to find the campsite deserted, every bit of equipment cleared away. An attempt had been made to conceal that anyone had camped there. The job was not the expert one either Bruin or Terrell could have managed, but Sand Shadow found no trace of alien scents among the mingled odors. That made it unlikely their friends had been arrested for trespassing in a prohibited area.

Did they all move inside Leto's facility for some reason? The weather hasn't been too bad. Why hide traces so carefully?

Adara was turning possibilities over in her mind, when she and Sand Shadow became aware that someone was moving toward them through the surrounding forest. The newcomer stepped quietly, but he came with the prevailing breeze at his back, announcing himself to the puma.