Redemption of Light (The Light Trilogy) (8 page)

CHAPTER 8

Lights flashed, green and red. They came close in a rush, then dissolved into wisps of nothingness before abruptly flaring again. The foul odor of alien sweat filled the stark room so powerfully that it was suffocating. Carey Halloway fought to keep from vomiting.

“Now, Lieutenant,” someone said in a bland mechanical voice. “You’re feeling better, aren’t you? Does your chest still ache?”

She whispered, “No.” Vague memories of pain and battle and med units welled. Her last memory of Kiskanu was hearing Cole frantically shout her name.

“Good. Very good. See if you can concentrate on what I’m saying. We know you committed treason over the planet of Tikkun. We found that out from the loyal soldiers you abandoned on the planet’s surface. Answer my question. Where is Cole Tahn?”

Carey fought to open her eyes. Her lids fluttered.
Good.
She still had partial control of her voluntary muscles. She glimpsed her reflection in the silver helmet suspended over her head. Drenched strands of auburn hair clung to her temples and cheeks. Her skin gleamed as whitely as eiderdown in the sun.

“Go to … hell,” she managed thickly. Her tongue didn’t quite work. In the dark recesses of her mind, she remembered that the anesthesia they gave before neuro work slowly paralyzed the body and confused the mind while it was being absorbed. Once it had fully entered her system, her brain would work perfectly. The knowledge brought panic. How long could she hold out against them?

“We’ll find him whether you help us or not, Lieutenant, but the longer you fight us, the more pain you’ll suffer. Do you understand what I’m saying? You don’t want us to hurt you, do you?”

She laughed, but the sound came out a gravelly moan. Her mind spun images of all the loyal crew she and Cole had safely put down on Tikkun. So they’d lived? Were they still all right? Her heart fluttered.
“Hoyer …
crew,” she asked. “Status?”

The voices dropped to whispers. Someone said, “She wants to know what happened to her crew.” Another voice responded, “I don’t see any harm in telling her. In fact, it might help her memory.”

“But I don’t think that’s wise. She might …” The words faded into an incomprehensible drone.

Carey seemed to float, rising out of the cold white chair to drift aimlesly through the air. To her right, she saw a long table laid out with instruments. Three Giclasians prowled the corners, their six-legged bodies writhing like bright blue snakes as they talked. Two wore white coats. One had on a strange uniform—deep purple with gold tassels across the front. On the far wall, a com screen flared in amber, ready to visually project whatever memories the probes touched.

“All right. Lieutenant.” The harsh tone brought her back with a jerk. “I’ve been authorized to tell you about your crew. They’re dead. We had no choice but to probe them thoroughly to find out what happened over Tikkun. The neuro work damaged critical centers of their brains. Euthanasia was mercifully administered six weeks after their rescue.”

Rescue?
They’d murdered the
Hoyer’s
crew.
If Cole ever found out, it would kill him. He’d taken every precaution to insure his crew wouldn’t be tainted by his treasonous actions.

Carey groaned in rage and lunged forward, fingers feebly groping for the Giclasian killers. For a split second, she saw a ruby red mouth gape to show needle-sharp teeth, then someone shouted, “Put her down! Give her more anesthesia! Quickly!”

“She’s human, Mundus! It’s dangerous to give her more.”

“I don’t care, I said
do it.”

Her fingers still groped, arms wavering unsteadily as she tried to grip Mundus’ throat. Feet padded softly across the floor. She heard the ring of metal clashing against metal. Then the horrifying scent of chemicals stung Carey’s nostrils, and a moment later she felt as though her very blood was on fire. She gasped desperately, writhing in her chair. Then, suddenly, her body went cold and still.

But her mind seemed to instantly grow clear—crystalline in its perceptions. Her eyes had frozen open. The silver helmet suspended over her head looked immensely large, the probes inside insidiously pointed. She heard the erratic breathing of the doctors, the low hum of the machinery. Somewhere far away, the shrill clacking of alien laughter sounded. Down the hall? Or in an observation room next door?

A chair squealed as Mundus dragged it across the floor to sit down beside her. His balloon-shaped head glimmered a ghastly azure in the light. He leaned over, lowering the probe helmet onto her head. A terrifying nightmare of smothering threatened to overwhelm her.

She battled the sensation, forcing it down by analyzing it. She tried to trace its source down the infinitely complex neural circuitry. When had she felt this way before? Years ago, in another life. Horin 3. They’d been called in to aid the local planetary forces in suppressing a civil war. Carey’s ground troops had been ambushed. The clarity of the memories transfixed her. She could see and feel everything. Her fighter had been hit, the entire tail section slashed off. She’d crashed into the winter dense forests. She’d been lying facedown in the wreckage. A cascade of debris along with the dead body of Sem Nunes had fallen on top of her, his two hundred pounds pressing the air out of her lungs. Blood dripped from his wounds to soak her uniform with hot stickiness. She’d struggled to get up, but couldn’t. Her broken ribs ached as though afire, and she couldn’t catch her breath. Smoke had rolled through the command module and she’d heard the crackle of the flames coming closer, closer.

“Carey?”
Cole’s voice exploded in her memories. Metal squealed as he shoved it out of the way. He’d rolled Nunes off and knelt, his handsome face wild with fear as he got his arms under her shoulders and knees. She could hear the fear in his voice as he shouted, “Carey, can you grab onto me?” She’d gripped his sleeves like a lifeline and he’d thrown all of his strength into dragging her from beneath the debris, then he’d carried her out of the burning wreckage into the glacially cold starlit night. Cole … always Cole … encouraging, soothing her fears. Her captain—and her friend. Warm feelings of love and respect flooded through her mind.

Someone spoke quietly in the far corner, barely audibly, but it resounded like cannon fire in her ears. “Don’t be an idiot.
We
trained the woman in how to resist mind probes. We can’t—”

“We just need to override that conditioning. It’ll take time, perhaps weeks, but eventually we’ll wear her down. Just like we did the
Hoyer
crew. We’ll get the information, I assure you.”

“We don’t have time, Doctor. Slothen
wants
Tahn. He’s waiting right now, and he hasn’t much patience. For that matter, neither do I.”

“Interrogation takes time, Councillor. We’ll work as fast as we can. You don’t want us to kill our source, do you?”

Councillor? Carey struggled to look at the man. A member of the Magistrates’ military advisory council? Fear returned. Why such a bigwig? And why did they want Cole so badly? After all these years….

A violent shudder attacked Carey’s limbs as the new flood of drugs seeped into her body. The lustreglobes on the ceiling seemed to move toward her, growing huge in her field of vision, like a dozen falling moons, tumbling, tumbling down on her. She fought not to cry out.

“Relax, Lieutenant Halloway. You’re all right. How are you feeling?”

She said nothing.

“Come, come, Lieutenant.
Carey,
we’re your friends. You can talk to us. Tahn is fighting with the Gamant Underground. Isn’t that correct?”

“Dead,” she lied. “He’s … dead.”

“Please, don’t make me hurt you. I don’t like hurting my patients.”

“Lying bastard,” she managed to whisper. “Filthy goddamned … bastards.”

The doctor shifted positions. His chair creaked. Carey felt a prickle like electricity crawling over her body. Then the probes descended deeper, eating into her brain like the tiny teeth of a million ants.

Memories welled as the probes stimulated the neural circuitry. She saw her mother’s round face, white and delicate, smiling at her as she sorted fruits from their own orchards, green apples and mono-strawberries. The sweet fragrance of orange blossoms filled the air. Other scenes flashed, mostly battles, filled with mortar blasts and anguished cries. Blood spattered her mental screen. She jerked in her chair, wondering about Horeb. Were Cole and Jeremiel there yet? Had they rescued Mikael and Sybil? Then Jeremiel’s face formed and her fears faded. Tall and handsome, his blond hair shimmered in the slanting rays of afternoon light that dappled through the trees on Garotman 2. The look of love in his blue eyes warmed her. She smiled at him, noting the slightly different color of his eyes. A dozen years before, on Tikkun, he’d been tortured, his right eye burned out. After Rudy and the remnants of the Underground fleet had rescued them, Jeremiel had undergone a painful transplant. Only she could tell the slightly darker color of his left eye. Carey let herself drown in the gentleness of her husband’s touch. They’d been stretched out in a meadow of wildflowers, talking, laughing with each other. The feel of his hand entwined with hers fulfilled some deep need in her. She rubbed his calloused palm affectionately over her cheek.

An excited voice intruded,
“There.
Yes, that’s it, Lieutenant. Very good. Tell us about Commander Baruch. Where is he now?”

Terror wrenched her. She threw all of her strength into lurching forward in her chair and screaming,
“NO!”

CHAPTER 9

Yosef Calas, a short, pudgy old man with a round face and soft brown eyes, glanced down at the yellowed map in his hands. The herringbone lines indicated dozens of libraries on this level. The ancient Kings of Edom apparently had a passion for books. Yosef pushed up the spectacles on his nose and scrutinized the jumbled clutter in the corridor in front of him. Red dirt and massive slabs of debris clogged all the halls on level eleven, making it difficult to know precisely where they were at any given moment. The place looked like a caved-in bomb shelter. They’d already passed hundreds of numbered rooms, and a honeycomb of adjacent passageways jutted off from this main one. If they lived a thousand years, they’d never be able to check every possible
genizah.
Yosef tilted his head to examine the warped ceiling. It could tumble down and squash them flat with only mild provocation.

Ari Funk came up behind him and peered quizzically at the map. “What are we stopping for?” An extremely tall old man, Ari’s thick gray hair draped around his head like an abused mop. He had a withered triangular face with hollow cheeks and a crooked nose—the remnant of too many well-deserved blows.

“Ari, do you think—”

“Shh!” Funk hissed, casting a worried glance at the roofing.

Yosef’s mouth puckered. “It’s wooden—
just like your brain.
It can’t hear us.”

“You’ve always been a skeptic.” Ari accused, grimacing at the ceiling.

Yosef looked Ari up and down disparagingly. Tipping the map sideways so his friend could see, he asked, “Do you think we’re in the right place?”

“We must be.” Ari draped an arm over Yosef’s shoulder to tap the ancient crystal sheet. “Remember, we passed room 600 about ten minutes ago.”

“All right, let’s go on, then.”

They trudged forward, passing room 613. Yosef’s steps slowed. A curious tingle climbed his spine as he gazed at the ancient scripted numbers. Most of the other doors had lost their identification long ago, casualties of Omias’ numerous attacks on the polar chambers. Only dust-imprinted substitutes remained to taunt the inquiring. But this room seemed miraculously untouched. He glanced down at the map. The square for this room had been darkened in. From years of experience, he knew that meant this chamber had once been sealed.

Ari demanded, “What’s wrong?” as he poked Yosef in the kidney with a skeletal finger.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Apparently this room was sealed just after King Edom first moved into the polar chambers over a thousand years ago. But it doesn’t have the bricked up surface that the other sealed rooms did. Remember?”

“I remember. So maybe Edom opened it up again for some reason. Does the map say it was a library?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Then let’s go on. Room 703 is the next square marked ‘library.’“

But Yosef continued to study the door, unable to pull his eyes away. The lamp Ari carried trembled so badly that he couldn’t get a good look at the edges to see if they’d ever been cemented shut. The wavering flame cast the two men’s shadows like drunken sailors over the dusty white walls. Yosef turned and lifted a bushy gray brow. Funk might well set them afire before the roof had a chance at them.

“Will you hold that thing steady,” Yosef chastised. “I’m starting to feel like I’m being followed by an army of ghosts.”

Ari lazily examined the multiple images. “That’s because you’re senile. The vision center of your brain’s dead.”

“Give me that lamp,” Yosef ordered. “You take the map.”

He shoved the map at Ari’s bony chest and they made an awkward switch. Yosef clamped both hands around the base of the lamp and waddled forward again. Chunks of blasted walls towered around them like gargantuan sentinels.

“Wait a minute.” Ari turned the map upside down and blinked curiously. “Did you see this?”

“See what?”

“Right here. The writing is terribly faded, but this looks like … like it lists this whole area as King Edom’s private chambers.”

“Let me see.” Yosef squinted at the letters Ari underlined with a dirty finger. “Might be. What difference would it make?”

“What difference? You are senile. Don’t you remember Rachel saying the library she found when she was here with Adom was just down the hall from Edom’s bedchamber?”

Yosef blinked, trying to remember. He did forget things too often these days, but at the age of 327 memory had become a prerogative, not a necessity. His thoughts drifted to Adom, Horeb’s former Mashiah, and a forlorn smile curled his lips. The gangly good-looking boy had been the kindest, purest soul he’d ever met. Yosef exhaled hard. Adom had been a casualty of the planet’s violent civil war—killed by Rachel Eloel to take the heart out of his followers. Adom and Rachel had taken refuge in the polar chambers just before the war began. And, yes, now he recalled. Rachel had said that was when she’d found the rare books on galactic history that Mikael and Sybil still searched for—just down the hall from Edom’s bedchamber.

“Of course,
I remember,” Yosef admonished indignantly. He waved an arm to accent his certainty.

“Well, then, let’s get going. Maybe seven-oh-three is the place.”

Yosef gingerly slid around a precariously tilted slab that blocked half the forward passageway. His protruding belly skimmed the grime off the salb. The red dirt made a ghastly slash across the tan robe covering his navel. He brushed at it halfheartedly. They’d been searching this level for days, ever since Sybil had left on the food mission. By now, both of them looked like they’d been crawling through muddy ditches.

Ari ducked and came through the opening after Yosef. Blackness met their searching gazes. Yosef lifted his lamp higher and walked forward a short distance. A massive spiky array of boards and rocks completely cut off the route, stabbing at them like defensive swords. A more narrow corridor opened to their left.

“Well, what are we going to do now?” Ari asked, disgruntled.

“Can we get to seven-oh-three by going down this corridor and around?” He held his light up for Ari to study the map.

“The lines are so faded, I can’t tell. But it looks like we don’t have any choice.”

Yosef started slowly down the narrow passage, placing his feet cautiously. Almost no debris cluttered this hall, though a fine mist of gravel and sand covered the floor like a gauze shawl. Yosef’s boots squealed as he walked.

“Yosef—stop.”

He turned. Ari had crouched on the floor to gently blow dust away from a splotch on the dirty white tiles. Yosef went to investigate, hovering over his oldest friend. “What is it?”

Ari shook his head. “I don’t know, but it looks like—like blood.”

Yosef bent down and touched the reddish-brown smear. It flaked off on his fingers. Queasily, Yosef wiped it on the hem of his robe. Looking around, he spotted two more splotches. He quickly turned to follow them out.

“Ari, come look at these. See the spacing? How regular it is?”

Ari bent low to see better. “Yes, almost as though someone stepped in a pool of blood and then ran when their boots were still wet.”

A sick pang lanced Yosef’s breast. He looked up at Ari and they exchanged a glance of silent dread. Yosef continued down the hall. More crimson stains marred the tiles, weaving as they neared the door on the far left—as though the perpetrator had raced away on unsteady feet.

“Yosef, wait a minute. Let’s look in here first.”

Ari had stopped before the first door on the right. Yosef brought the lamp back and held it up while Ari jarred the door open with a loud shriek. They both stepped inside and Yosef’s eyes widened in amazement.

The large room must have measured thirty by forty feet. Magnificently embroidered tapestries covered the walls. Colors of jade and rose dominated the forest scenes. Strange, foreign animals pranced playfully across the weaves. High-backed chairs adorned one side, carved of brilliant ruby-red wood. And straight ahead a broad bed nestled against the wall. Its pink velvet canopy gleamed with a saffron hue in the flickering light of the candle flame. Tousled quilts and pillows lay in a rumpled mass over the sheets—as though slept in only yesterday. The faint fragrance of sandalwood clung to the room. And beside the bed, on the left, a small pack lay open, revealing lacy feminine undergarments.

Yosef’s knees went weak, as though the soles of his feet felt the rhythmic pounding of other boots walking this quiet ghostly room. “Ari, this place feels
familiar.
As though I’ve been here before. Maybe in my dreams.”

“More like nightmares,” Ari corrected. He took the lamp from Yosef’s hand and bravely stepped forward, going to gaze reflectively at the bed. “You think this is the place?”

Yosef wiped the perspiration from his deeply wrinkled brow. “You mean where Rachel and Adorn spent their last night together? Yes. I-I think so.”

Funk bent over the bed, throwing back the blankets to examine the sheets with an experienced eye. After several seconds, he leaned closer, going over every inch of the fabric. Finally, one of his silver brows arched. “No, can’t be.”

Yosef bunked. “Why not?”

“No
‘evidence.’
You know on their last night they’d have—”

“What’s the matter with you?” Yosef shook a fist. “Is that
all
you think about? Come on, you imbecile! If this is the king’s bedchamber, then we can’t be far from the
genizah.
Hurry!”

Ari tried to walk away from the bed without losing sight of the sheets. In defeat, he grumped under his breath and gave up, striding for the door. Yosef gripped his arm and shoved him outside.

“You’re an old lech, do you know that?” Yosef accused, glaring hostilely.

“You’ve never been scientific.”

“I don’t know why I continue to associate with you. You embarrass me every day of my life!”

Ari grinned slyly. “You’ve been associating with me for over three hundred years. Habits are hard to break.”

“Especially bad ones. Give me that lamp!” He tried to take it from Ari’s hand, but Funk fought belligerently. At last, Yosef jerked with all his might, tugging it from Ari’s protesting fingers. The candle wavered so violently, it almost went out. “Let’s go,” Yosef ordered as he stamped away down the hall.

“Where are we going?”

“You’re the one with the map. You tell me. Are any of these rooms listed as possible libraries?”

“No,” Ari responded morosely. “But maybe we ought to check them all, just to be sure. Sometimes things aren’t listed on maps.”

Yosef stopped before the first door on the left and opened it. A bare chamber met his gaze. Four white walls and no furniture. “Well, this isn’t it. This one’s empty.”

Ari walked ahead, to the second door on the left and shoved it ajar. A small frightened gasp escaped his lips. “Oh, Yosef …”

“What is it?” He hurried forward as fast as his ancient legs would carry him.

Ari pushed the door back and stood aside, anguish on his withered face. Yosef passed by and almost reeled from the sight. He fell back against the door frame, panting, his stomach threatening to empty itself. A huge gray screen curved two-thirds of the way around the small room. Below it, lying on his side, the corpse of a man sprawled in a long-dried pool of blood. He’d been dead for years. The flesh of his skull had shrunken miserably, pulling tight across the mouth to reveal every tooth; and the eyes … the eyes had desiccated, leaving shriveled pits in the orbs. Straggles of long blond hair clung to the scalp. They shimmered a pale gold in the flickering candlelight. Yosef’s gaze riveted to the man’s chest. A knife still protruded from it, wedged between the ribs. Blood spattered the corpse’s torn ivory robe in a rich crimson starburst. Yosef stared in horror.
Adorn.

“Let’s go, Yosef,” Ari murmured softly. “There’s no reason to stay here.”

“Wait,” Yosef whispered miserably. The boy had been so gentle, so innocent. Everyone had loved Adorn. That had been his downfall. Ornias, then acting as Horeb’s High Councilman, had used the masses’ adoration for Tartarus like a finely honed blade to slice out a place of wealth and power for himself. He’d begun a massive campaign to slaughter Old Believers and institute Adom’s God, Milcom, as the one True God. Not that Ornias cared about God. He’d done it to lure Jeremiel Baruch to Horeb so that he could capture him and turn him over the Magistrates for five billion notes. The plot had soured in the end. Tahn had scorched about ten percent of the planet before Jeremiel stopped the attack. The fire storms set off by the attack had ravaged nearly the entire surface of Horeb. None of it had been Adom’s fault. The poor boy.

Yosef pushed his elderly legs forward and knelt. Taking his finger, he drew the Gamant triangle over Adom’s heart and then formed his hands into the same sacred gesture. Quietly, he prayed, “Epagael, full of mercy, who dwelleth on high, cause the soul of Adorn Kemar Tartarus which has gone to its rest to find repose on the wings of the Shekhinah, among the souls of those as holy and pure as the firmament of the skies. May his soul enjoy eternal life with the souls of Avram, Yeshwah and Sinlayzan, Sarah, Jekutiel and Rachel, and the rest of the righteous men and women who are in Paradise.

“Amayne.” Yosef squeezed his eyes closed. How strange that another Rachel, Rachel Eloel, had killed Adorn. The celestial Rachel had been the protective mother of the People. Some even speculated that she was the feminine element of Epagael Himself. But others said just the opposite, that her essence twined eternally with the wicked Aktanel’s—the prince of the pit of darkness.