Artemis Invaded (37 page)

Julyan considered what he'd overheard. The only good thing about Alexander was that he liked to talk. From his monologues, Julyan had gathered that each of the Dane brothers was special in some way. Sometimes Alexander talked about himself and his siblings as if his parents had bred them like the Trainers did dogs, seeking for certain qualities to fill certain needs. The Dane brothers and sisters had been educated to bring out specific qualities as well.

Julyan gathered that the older Dane siblings had been trained to fulfill military roles. He was less certain about what the parents had intended for Griffin or even Alexander. They were more scholarly, though, as Julyan had learned to his detriment, even introspective Griffin could fight very well if pressed.

Alexander rarely mentioned Castor. He had said that Castor had been a twin, that Castor's twin, Pollux, was the only one of the Dane siblings to have died.

A fairly remarkable thing,
Julyan thought.
Given the sort of lives they lead.

He smiled slowly.
Maybe we of Artemis will take down a couple of them. I'd love to see their expression when they realize that what they took for worms are actually vipers—vipers with very sharp fangs and very deadly poison, indeed.

*   *   *

When Alexander came to the door of Griffin's cell, Griffin was flat on his back, reading from a hard copy book of verse that had been brought to him along with his midday meal by the very odd boy called Seamus. Seamus had apparently been given the job of general housekeeper and cook—if the term “cook” could be applied to doling out ration cubes and hot water for rehydration.

The verse was handwritten in the language of Artemis, but Griffin had yet to decide whether it had been written by an Artemesian or by one of the off-world residents of the facility. The subjects were bucolic and not very challenging. Nonetheless, piecing through them beat staring at the ceiling.

“Griffin! I have a surprise for you,” Alexander sang out as he opened the door. “Come along. He's waiting in the labs.”

Griffin put down the book and swung his feet to the floor. He tried to look slightly interested—something that was easier than it might have been, since Alexander had said “he.” That meant Adara and Sand Shadow remained at large. It was too bad that Kipper had been caught—he couldn't think what else would awaken that particular look of malicious glee in Alexander's eyes—but so far the prisoners had been treated well enough.

He was trying to decide which response would get the most out of Alexander, and had just about concluded that a mixture of astonishment and anger would certainly cause Alexander to start gloating, when they entered the main lab. There Griffin saw his brother Castor standing next to one of the consoles, looking about, an expression of mild interest on his thin features as he munched on a food cube.

Castor was only of average height, though so thin that he looked taller. His hair was such a brilliant orange that no one believed that the color was natural. His eyes were an equally impossible green: the wet, brilliant hue of melted peridots. The slight lump that showed on his chest under his coverall was a device that fed him highly concentrated calories. When Castor shifted to stuff the last of the food cube into his mouth so that he could offer a hand to Griffin, a tattoo beneath his floppy bangs was revealed. In the minimalistic script used for scientific notation in the Kyley Domain were the characters that spelled his name.

This had been viewed as necessary because, unlikely as it might seem, given Castor's appearance, once there had been two identical versions of him. Their parents had intended to have the tattoos erased when the boys were adults, but somehow no one had gotten around to it. When Pollux had died in an accident, the precise details of which Griffin still didn't know, Castor's grief had taken the form of the purest denial.

The twins were named for figures in a myth so ancient that it likely would have been lost, except that the names had been used for everything from constellations to a type of racing bike. In the myth, one twin was mortal, the other immortal. As Castor explained to anyone who would listen—and to many who did not—Pollux was the immortal twin. Therefore, Pollux could not be dead; therefore the tattooed name was still necessary.

Griffin did not know Castor well. Castor and Pollux had been fourth and fifth in the birth order—actually, they'd been “born” simultaneously, since their gestation had been within an artificial womb. Moreover, they had been raised in very controlled circumstances, meant to encourage them to develop the traits for which they had been bred.

Those early tests had been very promising. The theories that telepathy was more likely to develop between identical twins seemed to have some basis in truth. But when Pollux had died, Castor's abilities had vanished. Castor himself had nearly died, until he became convinced that Pollux still lived.

Now Griffin knew why Castor was here.

I was innocently searching for a mythical paradise with no greater goal than being able to say “Here it is!” It seems that others had far more complex motivations. Were Castor and Pollux created for the same reasons that the Old One—in a much cruder fashion—sought to breed the adapted back to some creature that could interface with the devices of the seegnur?

Griffin felt his skin crawl and the hairs along the back of his neck prickle. If so, the plans had been in place since long before his birth. Was his quest even of his own doing, as he had always imagined, or had he been steered to it as his brothers and sisters had been steered to their own professions?

Did our parents know or did they merely suspect, hope, dream? What lay at the end of those dreams?

He feared he knew, for the Danes had always been a warlike clan.

Griffin decided that playing dumb would do him no good. As he grasped Castor's proffered hand, feeling it just a little damp as it always was, he shaped his lips into a rueful smile.

“So they've brought their own test subject in,” he said, watching carefully to see how Castor would react.

Alexander intervened before Griffin could say anything more. “We've brought Castor down because we believe that we might have something he and Pollux have long desired. Come along.”

As he led the way to the bunker where the spaveks waited in the arms of their squires, Alexander expanded on his theory. “Ever since the accident, Pollux has been short a body. It occurred to me that if Castor put on one of the spaveks, Pollux might be able to—well, slide in—make himself at home.”

Griffin frowned. He remembered how the spavek had felt as if it had an intelligence of its own and guessed what Alexander was doing. He was trying to condition Castor so that when Castor put on the suit he would come to the conclusion that the suit's operating system was actually his long-lost brother. If he did so, then his psi powers—rumored to be quite potent—should become active once more, because he would be communicating with his lost twin.

The idea was diabolically clever—just the sort of thing Alexander would think of. Griffin knew their parents had tried to get Castor to interact with other proven psi talents, but the experiments had not worked because Castor was convinced that he and Pollux were more than simply twins; they were two parts of the same soul.

Alexander's offering Castor back his soul,
Griffin thought in despair.
If this works, then they'll be able to manipulate Castor. He'll do anything to keep his contact with Pollux. Up until now we've had a slight edge because we're the only ones who have had any luck working the spaveks. If Alexander's plan works, we will be increasingly expendable.

*   *   *

Kipper listened intently as Adara reported her meeting with Leto. When she finished, he shifted uneasily. “That's good, I guess. But Leto's not working against us is not the same as her working
for
us, if you know what I mean.”

Adara nodded gently, trying to adopt the posture Bruin always took when encouraging his young charges to speak out. It seemed to work because, after a moment, Kipper continued.

“There's just you and me, Sand Shadow and Honeychild. I don't think we can count the horses and Sam the Mule.”

“That's not precisely true,” Adara said. “Sam is proving a remarkably reliable guardian for our little horse herd. That means we don't need to waste one of us standing guard. Perhaps it will help us plan if we enumerate our other advantages, just as we would if planning a hunt.”

Kipper looked dubious, so Adara started. “First, Sand Shadow and my bond means that we have communication over distance. We don't have the same direct contact with Honeychild but, between her ability to talk to Sand Shadow and those written signs I taught you, we can do pretty well. Now, your turn.”

Clearly Kipper still had his doubts, but he also didn't want to disappoint her. After a few moments' thought he said, “Honeychild can communicate with Bruin. That means we can let them know when we're coming for them.”

“We can do more than that,” Adara added. “We might be able to work out a way to coordinate so that we can take advantage of some particular event—say when Ring is wearing the blue spavek or at least when they're all out of their cells.”

“That would be nice,” Kipper agreed. “My turn again. How about this? We know something of the layout of Leto's complex and can plan our attack to come from a couple different directions. There's the door into the meadow and the hidden one into that cavern. If Leto keeps her promise not to interfere, we might be able to lure them one way while our strength goes in another.”

Adara nodded approval. “Now you're thinking like a hunter! If foxes can come up with ways to lay a false trail, surely we can do the same. I wish I could have gotten Leto to work with us. She would have been very useful that way, but that's beyond us.”

Kipper beamed. “Foxes and false trails … What else? Wolves never go after the whole herd, they cut off their prey from the larger group. We might be able to manage something like that. There aren't all that many of them: Griffin's three brothers, the Old One, a boy, and that Julyan.”

“Four brothers, now,” Adara reminded him. “I think … I'm still trying to work out what Honeychild and Sand Shadow were saying. I'm certain there's a new arrival but, after that, it's uncertain. It's as if Bruin can't figure out how much of a threat this new fellow—he has red hair, so we'll call him ‘Red'—will be.”

“Brothers don't always get along,” Kipper said in a way that made Adara certain he was speaking from experience. “Maybe this Red won't like that the others locked Griffin up.”

“We can hope,” Adara agreed. “There is one problem, though, one we need to deal with before we go in.”

“What?” Kipper asked. His face fell as he remembered. “That Alexander and his ability to make the others do what he wants.”

Adara nodded. “That's right. Until we figure out a way to protect ourselves and the others we'd be as good as committing suicide.”

Interlude: Contrasts

We died

Then came resurrection

Given a second chance

She bides

Craving sure protection

Viewing risk askance

I decide

To choose action

Is this arrogance?

 

16

Reconfiguration

After only a few days, Julyan decided that Castor Dane was the most terrifying Dane brother yet. He'd thought nothing could frighten him more than Alexander's streak of barely concealed cruelty. That was before he confronted Castor's peculiar version of insanity.

During his time with the Old One, Julyan had encountered a fair number of crazies. Weirdness seemed to go with breeding for the sort of traits the Old One wanted. Ring was one example, Seamus another. However, in all the Old One's stable of weirdees, Julyan had never encountered someone who firmly believed he carried his dead brother around in his head.

As long as Castor wasn't challenged on that point, he was an amiable enough individual. He ate constantly, true, and wasn't always very tidy about his crumbs, but he was the first Dane brother to volunteer for a turn on guard duty. It was during one of these times Julyan witnessed the level of Castor's delusion.

Julyan was coming on watch, a bit more tired than usual. Following a frustrating day, Alexander had decided to work off his stress in Julyan's company. Perhaps as a sort of apology for leaving Julyan short of sleep, Alexander walked Julyan to his post, promising to bring him some of the spicy, bright blue drink that Falkner liked, because it let him skip sleeping when he was obsessively pursuing some bit of research.

“A mug of it will set you right in no time,” Alexander assured Julyan. “I don't recommend you drink it in the quantities Falkner does, though. That would probably send you into cardiac arrest.”

Castor rose and stretched when he heard their voices.

Alexander sang out in greeting. “Here's your relief, brother mine. Have too dull a time of it?”

Castor gave Alexander a pitying look. “I am never bored. Pollux and I played Go/Went. He won. He almost always does. Still, I gave him a good game. Didn't I?”

Alexander blinked. “Did you?”

“I wasn't talking to you, Alexander. I was talking to Pollux.”

Castor's reproof was very much that of older sibling to younger. Alexander didn't like being spoken to that way—especially in front of Julyan. Siegfried and Falkner treated Alexander as an integral member of their team. Castor, however, didn't hide that he thought Alexander was extraneous. Julyan had heard him ask Siegfried why he'd brought Alexander along, since they had been seeking Griffin, and Griffin was as good or better in matters of Artemesian history.

Alexander had overheard, and his scowl promised no good for anyone who crossed his path that day. On the other hand, if Castor thought Alexander was useless, Alexander regarded Castor much as the Old One did Seamus—an inferior, to be tolerated because he had some unique qualities.