Artemis Invaded (41 page)

As Adara readied canoe and raft, she considered how often she overlooked the courage shown by Terrell and Griffin, each often pressed to limits for which their lives had not prepared them.

So have we all,
she thought, dipping paddle into the dark waters.
Maybe the definition of living a full life is embracing the unknown.

“Ready, Kipper?”

“Ready!”

*   *   *

Julyan was shocked to realize that Siegfried's command included him but, when Siegfried growled at him, he dropped his nerve burner and scuttled to join the others. Ring stood methodically removing his armor. Terrell and Griffin were inspecting Bruin's wound.

Staring at Siegfried in a manner that defied his brother to protest, Falkner slid a first-aid kit across to them. Bruin's moans quieted as soon as Griffin sprayed something over the nasty burn that plowed through the beard that covered the side of his face, but he still shook from pain.

Julyan's astonishment mounted when he realized that Castor had grabbed Seamus by the hand and now stood with the prisoners. Seeking direction, the hunter looked about for the Old One and didn't find him. Siegfried noticed at the same moment.

“Where's Maxwell?” When no one answered, he called, “Maxwell? Leto, where's Maxwell?”

Leto's little girl voice sounded innocently smug. “He left your group soon after Castor started shaking Seamus. He entered the tunnel toward the valley and began running as soon as he was clear of the labs. He is now out of my sensing range.”

“You didn't say anything?”

“You never asked me to keep track of Maxwell's comings and goings. Maxwell did not take anything with him, not even a canteen or blanket. He might return.”

But they all knew he would not. Oddly enough, Julyan didn't feel in the least betrayed. Instead, he had to swallow an impulse to laugh. No wonder the Old One had lived for lifetimes. His sense of self-preservation was as perfectly honed as that of any wild animal.

Siegfried turned his attention from the Old One to Ring. “What's going on here?”

Ring paused in the act of unfastening one of his arm guards and smiled faintly. “Too much for me to see. Too much for me to know. Many streams, not one river, flow.”

“I think I hate it when I understand him,” Siegfried grumbled. “Castor, get over here.”

Castor shook his head. He was gently stroking where his armored fingers had bruised Seamus's arm. The boy had changed somehow. The vagueness that had usually characterized his features had been replaced by erratic pulsing. Emotions rippled across his features, looking for a place to anchor.

“Castor! Get over here!”

“Will you shoot me, too, if I don't obey?” Castor said. His lips twisted in a wry grin. “What would Father and Mother say? I don't care if you kill all these others, except for Seamus. Well, perhaps I would care if you killed Griffin. So would Mother and Father. I do not think you will harm Seamus, not until you know what has happened. How will you force me to obey you, big brother?”

Siegfried looked at Alexander. “Can you do anything?”

Alexander shrugged, then snapped out, “Seamus, come here!”

Seamus didn't move except to ironically smile. The expression was not one Julyan had ever seen on his face before. It seemed to unsettle the brothers Dane.

“What,” Falkner said plaintively, “is going on here?”

Griffin said, “I have a guess, but first I've got something to say to you, Siegfried. Castor's right. Whatever else, I don't think Mother and Father would approve if you killed me or even if you seriously hurt me. That takes some of the bite out of your taking hostages. What you did to Bruin was unconscionable. Try something like that again, and you're going to find out just how tight your choke chain is. Got it?”

He didn't give Siegfried a chance to reply, but turned to Castor. “Based on what happened to me when I wore the blue spavek, here's what I think happened. First, the spavek tries to establish a psychic link with the wearer. I'm guessing that when that happened, you felt Pollux slipping away. Is that right?”

Castor nodded stiffly.

“So you looked for him, right? Again, based upon my experience, the suit amplifies the abilities the wearer already has. I didn't have much, so all I felt was disorientation. You, though, you've always had psionic abilities, but what you had was associated with Pollux, right?”

Again the stiff nod.

“Now,” Griffin continued, “I'm speculating. You've always claimed Pollux's mind survived the death of his body by taking up residence in your mind. The person who wore the suit before you was Seamus. I'm guessing some trace of Seamus was left in the suit. I haven't had a lot of interaction with him, but he's one of the Old One's experiments, and one of the qualities I know the Old One was trying to develop was telepathy.”

Julyan stirred and Griffin's attention snapped to him. “Julyan, am I right? Is Seamus telepathic?”

Julyan didn't see what he had to gain by hiding what he knew. The Old One had fled. Alexander was not the man Julyan would choose as an ally. He didn't think Griffin would hire him, but it didn't hurt to create some good will.

“He is. It's limited, though. The Old One worked really hard and all he got was the ability to use Seamus as a sort of speaking tube.”

Falkner frowned. “Did Maxwell have psionic abilities after all?”

Julyan shook his head. “Not that I ever saw or he ever admitted. Seamus had the ability. The Old One just figured out how to use it.”

Terrell, tense and silent to this point, nodded. “Just because a rider straddles a horse, it doesn't mean he can gallop.”

“Yeah, like that,” Julyan agreed.

Griffin looked pleased. “That fits my thesis better than I had imagined. Seamus was accustomed to being the passive recipient of another's will. The suit already knew the pattern of his mind. When Pollux was amplified by the suit, I'm guessing he sensed Seamus, sensed that here was either an available body or a mind that would not be as crowded as Castor's. Either way, this was his chance to have a body that more or less would be his own. He took it. How does that fit?”

To whom Griffin's final question was addressed was unclear, but it was Seamus who answered.

“You're close enough, Griffin. Mother and Father always said you were smarter than we older siblings realized. It happened much as you said. When Castor put on the suit, our natural telepathy was enhanced. When the spavek checked for the ‘Seamus pattern,' I sensed a match with someone close by.”

Alexander said, his voice incredulous, “And you pounced on him? Took him over?”

“Not quite,” Seamus said. “Seamus is here, but whatever Maxwell—you might be interested in knowing that Seamus thinks of him merely as ‘The Voice'—did to him has left Seamus with very little in the way of his own thoughts. He has some memories, mostly of sensations, especially related to survival skills. I have observed Ring, and I think Seamus's problem is similar. Ring was bred to recognize probabilities. However, the ability to sort through and assess those probabilities is unformed. Therefore, Ring is frequently overwhelmed. Seamus is a powerful telepathic receiver. Early on he received such a great quantity of others' thoughts—I wouldn't doubt that the influx began in utero—that it all became white noise, burning out a great deal of his own ability to think and judge.”

Siegfried said, “So, Seamus, you think you're Pollux, now?”

Seamus shook his head. “I am Pollux.“

Castor nodded and put his arms protectively around the boy. “He is. I know Pollux's mind. I have since we were unborn together. He is Pollux.”

“Great!” Siegfried looked exasperated. “Well, let's just say I'm not nearly as certain as you are, all right? Alexander, Falkner, we've got to talk.”

Still keeping an eye on their opponents, the three Dane brothers drew together and began talking in a language Julyan didn't know. Griffin looked exasperated.

“They've activated a scrambler,” he said. “Still, I think we can guess what they're trying to figure out.”

“Whether they can get away with killing us,” Castor said tranquilly. He turned his attention to the Artemesians. “You may think it's odd that grown men like ourselves are worried about what our parents think. I mean, Siegfried is over a century old. The fact is, you don't know our parents. They remain a force to be reckoned with.”

Terrell said, “A century? Did I hear you right?”

“Certainly. Longevity runs in the family. All of us were engineered to enhance that trait.”

Terrell looked at Griffin. “How old are you, then?”

“Fifty-four.” Griffin looked irritated. “Can we leave this for later? We may not have long to talk. It's completely possible that Siegfried will decide to check if Castor and I really will resist if our allies are attacked.”

Bruin raised a hand to one cheek. “Even his warnings are very painful. Fine. What do you want to know?”

“How tight a control does Alexander have on each of you? We can try using that putty, but we might not have time. We'd better know the worst.”

Griffin clearly included Julyan in his question, so in the spirit of cultivating good will—and wondering about putty—Julyan answered promptly.

“Not as tight as he thinks. However, if he gives a direct order, it's hard to resist. If he gives an order that's, well, something I don't mind doing, then it's even harder. Alexander doesn't know, though, that I can resist him at all. It's seemed worthwhile to hold back until I really needed to break his hold.”

Griffin's eyes narrowed as he considered the implications of Julyan's words, then he turned to the others. “Terrell?”

“About what Julyan said. I think that if Alexander ordered me to injure you or one of the others, I could resist, although I might not be good for anything except resisting.”

“Bruin?”

“Same as Terrell.” The hunter hesitated, touched his injured cheek again. “I might not be as good at resisting an order that didn't involve causing harm. Siegfried scared me. I hate to admit it, but if I was given the choice of, say, locking myself up again or risking feeling that burn … I just might go to my cell.”

“Seamus?”

“Pollux,” the other insisted. “Before Seamus could be easily controlled, but now that I'm with him, Alexander will have no hold on either of us. If he tries to institute a command on me, he'll find it doesn't work, any more than he can work his mojo on you or Castor. For all I'm in this boy's body, my mind and soul are not Artemesian.”

“Ring?”

“Hold on me, he never had. That I foresaw and avoided.”

“But a new hold?”

“He needs to say many sounds, clearly heard. I refuse to listen.”

“Wait!” Terrell interrupted, eyes narrowing as he realized what the other had said. “Ring, if you weren't being controlled, why didn't you get us out of our cells? You could have attacked one of those times they had you testing the suit. The energy weapons work and the armor would have protected you.”

Ring's expression turned inexpressively sad. Julyan didn't usually feel much pity for anyone other than himself, but at that moment he really pitied Ring.

“I traveled down the twisting ways,” Ring said, “and saw that for greater good, much bad must be permitted to happen. I am very sorry.”

Terrell's lips thinned into a snarl. “You should be. You let a monster torment people you could have saved.”

“Saved to die a horrible death,” Ring said. “Believe me.”

Bruin put a hand on Terrell's arm. “Terrell, I suspect anything we suffered, Ring suffered as well—and we at least had the comfort of knowing we didn't have a choice. Think about it.”

Terrell did and his eyes widened, anger replaced by horror. “Ring, I apologize. I wouldn't be you for all the world.”

“We each,” Ring said, “must be ourselves, for this world and all upon it.”

A startled silence met this statement.

“So we can fight back,” Griffin said, “at least to a limited extent. Castor, do you have any feeling as to the capacities of that suit?”

Whatever Castor might have said was cut off by the conclusion of the conclave between the three Dane brothers. Siegfried and Alexander turned, their nerve burners leveled. Falkner had stepped into the doorway and was working the device that would remotely summon the scooters. Julyan guessed that once the Danes were safely inside the protective field, they planned to imprison the rest until they figured out what best to do. He wondered if he could convince them to take him on as a retainer or if he should throw in his lot with Griffin and his allies.

He was still working through the options when a horrible roaring echoed down the corridor, followed by the sound of metal and plastic breaking. Falkner reeled back from his place in the doorway, blood spouting from where a grey feathered arrow had appeared in his shoulder. The controller for the scooters fell to the floor and was kicked out into the lab by a foot booted in soft brown leather.

Adara stepped through the doorway, her bow drawn and ready. Julyan thought he had never before seen her looking so confident, nor so deadly. Motion behind her indicated she was not alone.

In a clear, strong voice, Adara called, “Want to bet I can get another arrow into him before he can pull his weapon or get off a shot, even if you fire? It's your call. Even if I miss, I bet the others won't. Drop your weapons. Otherwise, this man is dead.”

Interlude: Separable

Lion's heart, hunter's will

Gone, but I am with them still

I cannot touch, nor hear, nor see

No matter. Trust links us irrevocably

 

18

Departure

“Adara!”