Reclamation (27 page)

Eric opened the line to Dorias.

“All ready, Dorias.” Eric stood back.

“Eric,” said Dorias’s voice. “I am not happy about this. I have not had time to fine-tune the copy. There may be flaws …”

“Dorias, I can’t wait. Please,” he added softly.

There was a measurable pause. “Sending,” said Dorias.

Eric waited. The only sound on the bridge was the vague hum of machinery. Then Cam turned its head toward Eric and blinked twice.

“Hello. I have been sent by Dorias to help you retrieve the data from the Vitae system.” For the first time, Eric heard intonation in Cam’s voice. The android held out one smooth hand.

Eric stared at it for a minute, before he reached out and shook its hand. “I am honored to meet you …” he stopped. “Dorias, what’s its name?”

“I hadn’t thought of one,” said Dorias. “That is part of your ceremonial role, isn’t it? I thought you’d give it one.”

Eric considered the android for a moment and then took the hand he had shaken between both of his and spoke in the language of the Realm. “I speak for the Nameless Powers. I see for the Servant Garismit. In so doing I name you. Your name is Adudorias.”

“Adudorias.” The android nodded. “Does it mean something?”

“Just ‘Son of Dorias.’” Eric tilted his head. “Is it all right with you?”

“I find it quite appropriate,” said the android. “My parent informs me that ’Abassyd Station would be an optimal site for our endeavors. You will be able to open a direct line to a communications terminal that has a hardware connection to a Vitae junction box.” Adudorias reached across to the comm board. “Excuse me,” it said as it unfastened the cable.

“Nice manners,” Eric remarked toward the comm board, feeling a bit strange. Dorias he was used to, but polite phrases coming from Cam were unsettling. “Thank you, Dorias. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He reached for the shutoff key.

“Eric?”

“Yes?” Eric pulled his hand back from the board.

Dorias hesitated. “I think it would be better if you did not trust anyone else more than necessary. You are right. A war is brewing.”

Eric felt his eyes narrow. “I’ll remember that. Good-bye, Dorias.” Eric closed the channel down and eyed the android sitting in the pilot’s chair. Cam had been the one fixture in Eric’s life since Perivar had left. Cam didn’t move unless it was ordered to. Cam didn’t quest or question. Cam did exactly as it was ordered to and no more.

Adudorias ran Cam’s hands across the pilot boards, checking their layout and display sequences. It scanned the bridge, taking it all in with something that appeared to be interest.

“Adu,” said Eric. “We need to get going. Can you head us out for ’Abassyd Station?”

“As soon as we’re clear,” it answered.

Eric went into the common room and laid himself down in the landfall alcove. He felt a twinge of obscure remorse inside.

How was I to know I’d miss a nonsentient machine?
He set his jaw and stared at the wall.
Garismit’s Eyes.
He rubbed his hands together.
I will be glad when this is over.
Shaking the thoughts away, he fastened the webbing over his torso. He’d left the view wall on and through it he could see the nighttime stealing in its strange, slow way over the City of Alliances. A few stars were visible over the tops of the distant cliffs.

He couldn’t stop part of his mind from wondering if one of them belonged to the Realm.

It does not matter if you know the enemy when you see him, but you must be certain that you will fight the enemy when you know him.

From “The Words of the Nameless Powers,” translated by Hands to the Sky for all who follow.

C
ONTRACTOR KELAT LOOKED
down at his hand and flexed the newly grown finger. He smiled and felt his chest swell. He had never really believed he would be able to have it regrown. He had never believed he would really walk on the Home Ground.

He looked about him. And he had certainly never dreamed it would be like this.

They had had to seal the building, if four walls of patched cement with a polymer sheet for a roof could be called a building, and install an atmosphere-processing plant. The Beholden and the Engineers worked with zeal and the whole process took only a few hours. The inside was a wreck. Everything was preserved, certainly, but it was also vacuum welded and corroded by dust and radiation. There had been liquid in a lot of the mechanisms that had evaporated centuries ago, allowing the circuitry to collapse into incomprehensible jumbles.

So much gone. So much stolen.

But so much left, he reminded himself. So much that can be done. Outside, the thin atmosphere just barely carried the rumble of the excavation machinery. The Engineers were carefully digging down around the base of the pillar Baiel had found. The Engineers’ scans indicated it was a part of a network that extended … everywhere. Kelat allowed himself a smile at the bewildered look the Engineer gave him.

Kelat glanced toward where he knew the mountain range lay and wished, fervently and irrationally, that Jahidh would signal with more news of the artifact he had found. If the theories were correct, they were holding two halves of the Ancestors’ system, the human-derived and the mechanically derived, and until they could bring them together, they would never understand how the Ancestors’ world worked.

What bothered Kelat was that there did not seem to be any obvious interface between the two. There were control boards and readouts and other input-output sources that were perfectly comprehensible to the Historians and Engineers, but there was nothing that seemed to justify the enormous effort it would have taken to breed human-derived artifacts. Kelat could not bring himself to believe the Ancestors had created them to no definite purpose, not with the cost their creation had entailed.

“Contractor?” One of the contract apprentices made obeisance. “There is a message for you from the artifact reclamation subcommittee, 196.”

Kelat made his way over to the portable board and sat on the stool in front of it. He was ashamed to admit it, but he was looking forward to having a few more trappings of civilization installed.

The touch of his fingertips on the screen opened the channel. Caril’s face appeared against the grey background.

Kelat glanced sharply left and right. No Witness was in the room. They were occupied watching the activity outside, not the administrative details. His mind began the First Grace in thankfulness.

“What news?” he asked.

“The
Grand Errand
is being moved to the encampment in orbit around Kethran Colony,” said Caril. “Stone in the Wall has been located there, in one of their gene-tailoring facilities.”

The work of the Ancestors in the hands of outsiders!
Kelat was aghast. He hoped it did not show. Caril was easily impressed or repulsed by appearances.

“What do we know about her circumstances?”

“Basq’s committee is expecting difficulties and has requested to be put on the Assembly docket to authorize a bribe for the colony officials to recover her. Kethran feeling is hostile to the Vitae presence and her contract is being held by a member of one of their first families. We may offer to withdraw. The projections show that if we did, the local government would request our return within fifteen years. The trade-off will probably be deemed acceptable.”

Kelat’s newly grown finger began to twitch. He stilled it. “Is there any way we might recover her first?”

“Paral is reconstructing an activity trail. Outside the Amaiar Gardens, she appears to only have had brief contact with a Shessel-held communications firm.”

Kelat thought. “Would you say it is a safe prediction that if the artifact felt threatened, she would attempt to run away?”

“That is certainly her observed behavior.”

“Then our course of action seems clear.” As he spoke, a measure of calm returned to him. “We induce her to run. Have we any of our own people on Kethran?”

Caril paused, considering. “A few. It will be possible for me to send Paral down to coordinate.”

“Paral …” Kelat hesitated. “He’s very young, Caril.”

“He is dedicated. He will do what is necessary.”

As
does Jahidh, but that does not mean an efficient operation.
Kelat tried to see alternatives, but could not. “Just impress upon Paral that he is to do no more than necessary, Caril.

“What about Eric Born?”

“He was seen on May 16, but his ship left orbit before any movement could be coordinated to recover him. Basq’s network traces have been put in place, and we are waiting.”

The hum from the excavation changed pitch and Kelat made an abrupt decision. “If you are forced to make a choice, Caril, the female artifact has priority over the male.”

“Understood, Contractor.”

“And let me contact you next time. The Witnesses here have no fixed posts. Bad timing could see us added to the Memory prematurely.”

“Also understood.” With that, she closed the line and the screen went black.

Kelat sat watching the blank screen for a long moment. His new finger twitched spasmodically against his thigh.

This was bad, this was wrong. There were too many factors too far out of control. But what could be done? The Imperialists were committed. The dependence on service could not continue. The power in the Quarter Galaxy was shifting with the rise of the Unifiers and the discovery of the Shessel. The Vitae were in danger of losing their footing. The rule had to become open and firmly established. The artifacts and the Home Ground were the keys to the Imperialist success. They had to be recovered and understood.

Kelat bowed his head and began reciting all six Graces.

There was nothing else to do.

’Abassyd Station was so new, even the Vitae hadn’t had a chance to get themselves organized on it. No comet-branded ships waited in its docks. Its personnel roles had only half a dozen Vitae designations listed. The construction records showed the Vitae’s private area was yet to be built.

But they were in there. Eric leaned forward in the copilot’s seat and stared at the view screen showing the station’s skin. Its cylindrical modules gleamed silver and gold in the light of a distant sun. The Vitae were under there, supervising, devising, scheming.

It had taken 172 hours to get here from May 16. The
U-Kenai
had been hanging from the docking clamps for an additional eight hours, and so far, nothing had happened. If the Vitae had noticed that his little ship didn’t match the transmission that described it, they weren’t making an audible fuss about it. He glanced at the comm board. There hadn’t been a twitch or flicker since the initial recorded docking message.

Eric stared at his fingertips where they rested against the board’s edge.

What are you waiting for, Teacher? Permission from the Nameless? Or just from the Rhudolant Vitae?

During the flight time, he’d arranged a small shipment of microchips and equipment for himself. It wasn’t due to arrive at the station for another forty-eight hours. Ostensibly to save money, he’d listed his decision with the dockmaster to bunk in his ship rather than rent a room. Right now, Adu was linking the ship’s computers into the station’s communications network so that he could catch up on the news and be notified as soon as his shipment arrived.

The Rhudolant Vitae were also hooked into the network.

“Time to go swimming,” he muttered as he stood up.

“What do you need me to do?” asked Adu.

Eric started and stared at the android. “Sorry. I’m used to Cam. He never volunteered information if it wasn’t an emergency.”

“Understood.” Adu puckered the android’s mouth in a gesture that Eric guessed was meant to be a smile. “But what do you need me to do?”

“Wait,” said Eric. “And when the information starts coming in, make sure it gets into the datastores. I’m not going to be able to be very discriminating about how I shovel in what I get. When the data comes in, I’m going to need you to siphon out the useful segments, any references to MG49 sub 1 or the Realm of the Nameless Powers, Eric Born or Stone in the Wall. And keep Cam’s security programs up and running.” He stopped. “You might also make sure the emergency beacon is primed to send a message to Yul Gan Perivar in the Amaiar Division on Kethran Colony. If something happens, Perivar should be told.” Adu was looking at him with a disturbing steadiness. “He’s a communications professional.

If the Vitae are watching us, he’ll be able to get a message through to Dorias with a lot less risk than we could.”

“Do you think … something will happen?”

The tone in Adu’s voice was soft, almost like a child’s fear. With an odd twinge, Eric realized that was exactly what it was. He gave Adu the smile he reserved for hand-marking days.

“Not really, but I want to be on the safe side.”

“Also understood.” The android turned back to its work and Eric retreated to the common room’s work station. Tapping the line from the common room would leave Adu more room on the bridge to work.

Eric sat in front of the work station just as the green light blinked on above the main board. The line to ’Abassyd Station was open and clear, waiting for his signal. Eric stared at the board for a long moment, trying to find the nerve to begin his task. If this did not work … if this did not work …

The Nameless speak of this deed.
The words of consecration surfaced in his mind, startling him, but he let them continue.
Their Words give it substance. It is true and cannot be denied. The Servant watches this deed. His eyes see my path. It is true and cannot be denied.

He swiveled the comm chair around so the board was at his right side. Then he lifted his hand and laid it on the keys.

Once, he’d heard Perivar and Tasa Ad trying to find words to fit the power gift into the way they saw the universe. They had eventually settled on something like “resonance fields which manipulated quantum effects.”

Kessa, on the other hand, had said, “It ain’t natural, but it works, what more do you need?”

Kessa had a very direct approach.