Reclamation (29 page)

Avir rose slowly. “Be very, very sure about what you are saying, Technician.” There was a tremor in her voice that sounded to Eric like eagerness.

“I am, Contractor,” said Uary with absolute finality. “Eric Born’s ancestors must have been engineered from Vitae DNA. If we know where his world is, it is likely we have found the Home Ground again. There is no question in my mind but that he is Aunorante Sangh.”

No.

“We will have to confirm …”

The Nameless sent their Servant, who saw a way to move the world
…

“… will authorize a probe …”

Funny-looking place, isn’t it? Out there on its own.

“I cannot at this time offer congratulations …”

It ain’t natural, but it works …

“No!” Eric shouted aloud.

It couldn’t be. The Realm could not really have been moved. It was not possible. There could not have really been Nameless Powers who walked the world and created their people. They could not have really sent their Servant, who understood how to move the world to get it away from … Eric stared at the robed figures in their bare silver room. To get it away from these people in their ships.

“If this is true, though, Technician,” the black-robed man with the mutilated hand was saying, “your name will be remembered in every chapel on every ship on every day of worship. You and Basq will have brought us home.”

It’s nothing! The Words are just lies and air and a way to maintain power! There were no Nameless! There can’t be! Because if there were …

If there were, I’ve sinned. I went over the World’s Wall and I led the V … the Aunorante Sangh back to the Realm …

Have to get out of here.

“Adu!” he called to the bridge. “Get us out, head anywhere, break the limits and go!”

“I can’t.”

“What!” Eric staggered down the corridor to the bridge. Adu sat motionless in its chair, watching the screens.

“This ship has been placed under a quarantine lock.”

“Quarantine lock?” Eric repeated, trying to force his mind to understand. He knew the term, but his mind wouldn’t define it for him.

“Standard precaution built into space traffic hardware and software, so that in case of a computer or biological virus the ship can be held in isolation. While the quarantine is active, the docking bolts will not release the
U-Kenai.”

They’d be coming for him. Now. At once. They were on their way. They’d been waiting for him.

“They won’t have me.”

And what am I going to do to stop them? I can barely stand up.

“They won’t have me,” he repeated through clenched teeth. “Adu, find a way to override the quarantine.”

“It will take …”

“I know. Release the beacon and get going on the lock.” Eric returned to the common room.

No time for hesitation. He was under siege. He had to buy all the time he could and worry about any damage he did if he survived that long. He hit the seal for the door and tore out the wires in the lock. Ignoring the sting on his palms, he jammed the manual bolt home. He dashed across the common room and sealed both cabin doors.

Make them hunt.

He lifted the hatch under the view wall and climbed down the ladder to the drive room. Dizziness made the walls sway drunkenly as he reached up to shut the hatch and slide the locking bolts shut.

Make them dig.

The drive room was sterile, brightly lit, and cramped. Most of the room was taken up by the curved, ceramic drive housings with their meters and input terminals and warning labels. Heat exhaust and fuel intake pipes ran fore and aft overhead, or rammed themselves into the floor like pillars. Anybody who wanted to take him here would practically have to get up close enough to lay hands on him. If they get that close … Eric flexed his hands. There was some strength left. Some. It’d be enough. The Vitae were little creatures. Sorry, pale, flabby little creatures.

The Vitae were the Aunorante Sangh, no matter what name they had bestowed on the People.

Nameless Powers preserve and forgive. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. How could I know?

He’d led them to the Realm. To the Temples and the Kings. To his family. To Lady Fire.

I didn’t know. I didn’t know.

The compartment walls were thick, shielded, insulated and shielded again. He couldn’t hear anything. He raised his hand to his translator disk to hail the bridge, but stopped. The Vitae could trace that signal straight to him. He pressed himself into the corner. No way out from here, but only one way in. When they came for him, he would see them before they saw him. It was his only advantage. It would have to be enough.

I am Teacher Hand. I am
dena
Enemy of the Aunorante Sangh. They will know that. They will not forget that.

I will not forget it again.

I didn’t know. I didn’t know.

Metal and ceramic snapped over head. Eric pressed his back against the smooth wall. The hatch lifted away from the ceiling. Boots lowered themselves through the hatch and a human form, completely encased in a scarlet vacuum suit, dropped to the floor, landing steadily on both feet. Eric saw his own reflection in the blackened faceplate as it moved aside so its partner could drop down beside it. He faced them both. They could see him perfectly. He could tell by the way his distorted face shone on their visors. They both carried dart guns in their gloved hands, he noticed. Tranquilizers, probably, but maybe poison if they were done using him.

“I deny you. I defy you. I stand against you as the sun stands against the Black Wall.” Every Teacher knew the words of resistance. They were told the Aunorante Sangh might return at any time, maybe even before the Nameless did. He held his hands up so that his palms reflected in their faceplates and braced himself against the wall.

Nameless Powers, grant me strength to fight for you. Grant me strength to live up to the name you have given me.

The first one raised its gun and fired. The dart sliced through the air straight toward the hands Eric offered up as targets. Eric released his gift and it felt like a fist squeezed his heart. The dart touched his palm, and fell to the floor at his feet.

Got to stay standing. Can’t let them know what it cost me. I am their enemy. Can’t let them know.

Hurry Adu!

The second one fired. Then the first fired again. The darts clattered to the floor and Eric’s breath came out in ragged gasps. They knew now. How could they not know? He saw his own bulging eyes and gaping mouth in their visors. One more volley and he was gone.

He screamed like a madman and lunged for the first of them. His arms and legs were weak as water, but he still outmassed the Vitae. They toppled onto the deck together. The fall loosened the Vitae’s grip on its gun just enough. Eric tore it from its fingers as the Vitae shoved him aside. Eric squeezed the trigger and shot his target in the torso, only because there was no way to miss.

The Vitae dropped onto the deck plates and Eric looked wildly around for the other one. Nothing. No one. Then, the drone of the engines died away into silence. The Vitae stepped out from behind the second level drive.

Eric fired and dropped. The Vitae fired and then it fell with Eric’s dart in its arm. Eric felt the sting and the shock as the dart drove its tip into his shoulder blade. Arms, legs, torso were all gone in an instant and his eyesight left him before he hit the deck.

The Vitae maneuvered the support capsule out of the airlock. Adu sat frozen in place on the bridge, doing nothing but absorbing the information about the
U-Kenai’s
status through Cam’s eyes. The quarantine lock was gone, but not through his doing. The Vitae had reported that the source of the contamination had been removed. The station had downgraded the alert.

The airlock door closed with a rush of canned air. Adu still didn’t move. Eric Born was gone. There was nothing left to tell him how to act. He opened all the instructions he carried in his makeup and examined them all minutely. Nothing there. Nothing to tell him what to do if the Vitae carried Eric Born away.

The comm board flickered and shifted again. Adu read the new status. The
U-Kenai,
formerly owned and commanded by Eric Born was now officially salvage, with ship and contents to be claimed by the Rhudolant Vitae.

Ship and contents. Adu’s attention froze on the phrase. Him.

The instruction sets were very clear regarding the Vitae. Interaction with them, unless supervised by Eric Born, was to be strictly avoided.

Adu pushed the android body into action. The quarantine lock had been lifted and only the normal security precautions held the ship in place. He had already established access to the security database. With less than a dozen key changes, he overwrote the holding order.

A regulatory override cycle kicked into play from Cam and Adu squashed it. The docking clamps lifted back and the
U-Kenai
fell away from the station.

Adu rolled himself to one side and prodded the Cam program forward to take charge of the flight calculations. As a precaution, he settled himself at the gateway between Cam’s flight instructions and the regulatory overrides. It wasn’t long before the alarm bells began ringing. The Vitae had already detected his ruse. The signals activated a swarm of overrides and cutoffs in Cam’s programming that charged toward the gate. Adu sat like a stone wall between the security programming and the flight programming. Cam continued measuring, calculating, and planning in a smooth, unbroken chain. Eight kilometers from the station, he lit the
U-Kenai’s
first level drive and shoved the ship toward the vacuum at its top speed.

No ships approached them, although Adu was certain the Vitae would be tracking them. He tripped another switch in Cam’s programming and although they were still too close to the station and all the security overrides battered at him, Cam cut in the third level drive and the
U-Kenai
leapt into the empty realm past the light barrier.

The security cutoffs fell back and Adu was able to move again. He threaded his way around behind Cam and made the android’s hands work the comm boards. The beacon was on its way to Perivar. The
U-Kenai
could overtake it and scoop it up on the way, and then the whole ship could fly toward this Perivar, who Eric said could get an undetected signal to Dorias. He could tell Dorias what had happened. Dorias had given him his original instructions. Dorias would give him more and they would be correct and they would erase the lingering image of Eric Born being removed in the support capsule, the image that hung inside Adu and would not go away.

The first and best occupation of the mind is to fight destiny. I do not mean run away. I do not mean trick it, or cheat it. I mean to face it on open ground, to raise whatever force is at one’s command, and to wage open, unflinching, and total war.

Zur-Ishen
ki
Maliad, from “Upon Leaving Kethre”

E
VRAN WAS BEGINNING TO GET
on Arla’s nerves. Most of the other students had adopted a normal speed for talking around her and had begun to assume she understood what they were saying unless she told them otherwise. Not Evran. He talked to her like he might to a three-year-old, and when she bothered to respond long enough to let him know she thought he was a fool, he’d smile indulgently and say she just didn’t understand yet.

He’d taken to following her around the lab, lecturing as he went. Right now he was leaning his buttocks against one of the unused analysis tables, delivering his unbroken stream of philosophy, or science, or whatever it was, and trying to touch her on her arm if she was stupid enough to get close to him. It was just about enough to drive her insane. Not because the tasks were particularly difficult, but because she was still learning how to read without help and she needed all her concentration to get the notes of new instructions that Zur-Iyal and the others had left for her.

She cast a longing glance out the window toward the fields and cattle pens and then a quick one at the clock. Two hours before her shift was over. Two more hours for this fool to sit there and yammer.

“… I know Allenden and the others are trying to tell you that your genetics, your body, you understand, Arla? are the final determination of your existence, I mean, that you’ve got no choice, you understand, because you were so carefully built, but in reality you’ve got more choice than we do, you understand, because …”

Arla bent more closely over her notepad display, trying to decipher the instructions Myra Lar
ki
Novish had left for her.

…
check the monitors on the B series protein cross sections. If any of them read over …
Her lips moved while she read on her own, a habit she was trying to break. Her free hand dropped down to her pouch of stones, as if just touching the leather could help her. She pulled her hand away.

“… You aren’t carrying the excess genetic baggage that the rest of us are, you understand? The survival instinct, the macrogenetic tribal survival instinct, I mean, it’s not natural for you to want to pass on exclusively your genes, I mean, you are not naturally inclined to warlike behavior the way we are, you understand?”

…
Sixteen to the twenty-third power, is that what that says? Nameless Powers preserve me from this idiot. Yes, that’s what that says … For the HT6E enzyme concentration, call me immediately. I’ll be on line at …

“… that means, Arla, that you aren’t motivated by, I mean, you understand, you don’t cling to irrational, instinctive behavior, like we do. You make your decisions exclusively, you know that word, right? On the basis of personal experience, and that means that …”

“If you’re going to try to corrupt impressionable young minds, Evran
ki
Kell, you really ought to do it in a lower tone of voice.”

Arla almost cried out in relief. Zur-Allenden
ki
Uvarimayanus strolled through the doorway. As usual, mud covered his boots and breeches. A smile glowed on his pointed face, but it didn’t reach his eyes while he looked over Evran. For reasons Arla hadn’t gone out of her way to understand, the pair regarded each other as Heretics and would avoid each other whenever possible.