WARP world (20 page)

A sheen of sweat covered her face and bare arms, mixed with flecks of blood she had not yet washed away. Manatu’s groans and the slap of water against the hall muted; the only audible sound was that of breathing, hers and his. Her eyes were a dark blue, he watched her pupils dilate; she made no attempt to pull away her gaze or her hands. The primal need for her he had experienced after the storm returned, more intensely now that he had killed to protect her.

A warning chirp from Manatu’s auto-med dispelled the momentary attention lapse; he looked away from her and busied himself with the remainder of the assembly.

“Help me get Manatu,” he said when he was done. “We’re going to place him before this opening.”

Assembly complete, the warp gate resembled a small, semi-circle resting on projecting conduit feet, designed to keep the unit stable even in muck and mud. This was the transmission matrix. Attached to that was the box-shaped generator unit, the warpgen, which held the power pack and vita cell. The metal framework could be raised high enough for even the tallest trooper to walk through or lowered right to ground level for delivering wounded back to the world. Such as now.

Manatu was muttering to himself and a dark stain of sweat spread out from where he lay. Ama placed her hand on his wide forehead, “Shhh, be still.”

Seg stepped over the profusion of gear on the floor and grunted as he strained to lift Manatu from the bed. The trooper was even heavier than he looked, his bulk comprised mostly of solid muscle. “Come…on,” he grunted, as they dragged Manatu toward the portal. “Smaller…bodyguard…next time,” he muttered.

They reached the edge of the machine and Seg stopped. Ama’s eyes moved between Seg and the warp gate. “I don’t understand,” she panted, “where can he go?”

“Home,” Seg said. He turned the control panel over and tapped the keys in a memorized sequence, which unlocked the warp gate for this usage. “Now.”

The air began to shimmer in the middle of the circle, shimmer and distort. As it shimmered, it began to opaque and prism, with colors that vibrated between the rings. The generator unit hummed and vibrated as the accumulator fed and converted the stored vita in the battery pack into the ghost of a warp gate connecting with the World.

As soon as the view behind the warp gate disappeared, Seg lifted Manatu’s arms and stuffed them through, then tugged at his torso.

“Help me move him!”

Ama was transfixed by the swirling colors, but the moans of the dying man refocused her attention.

On one side of Manatu, she grunted as she lifted him. Together, inch by leaden inch, they fed him into the center of the ring, the heat from the warpgen drawing even more sweat to the surface of their skin.

As they fed him through, Seg felt the handlers take the weight on the other side. Medical technicians would be on standby to assess and begin treatment even as the decontamination cycle was carried out. As soon as Manatu’s boots disappeared, Seg settled back on his rear and tapped the sequence to close the gate. The warp faded in the same way it came in, slowly shimmering away. He let out a long breath. One less concern.

“I come from another place,” he said. “Another world, like this one.”

Ama continued to stand. She moved to the other side of the warp gate and stared, then reached out a tentative hand and touched the metal frame.

“Did you come here through this?” Her voice was hushed, awed.

“Of course not, I came through a much larger one on the other side,” he said, his tongue running before his mind worked the question through. He was too tired; he needed another stim dose to stay functional. “But something like it, yes.”

He stared at the warp gate for a moment longer before shifting onto his knees to begin the process of disassembly.

Ama moved to assist him. “But…that doesn’t make any sense. If you can travel through this, why do you need my boat?”

“Because it costs too much. The Warp gate uses fuel like a fire uses wood, and burns it quickly. The fuel is expensive and difficult to obtain. It’s also the entire reason I’m here.”

“Fuel? That’s why you’re visiting the temples? Is it the Shasir? Are they keeping some kind of magic fuel there?”

He slid the pieces back into the kit, puzzling over the arrangement, as he considered an answer she might comprehend. “Let me start at the beginning. My People travel across the dimensions. There are worlds, next to each other, worlds beyond counting, and the barrier between them is like—like the separation between water and air. It is a different world below the waves, no? And these worlds, they have a fuel on them, we call it vita.”

“Vita,” Ama repeated. “And there’s vita at the temples?”

“Yes, at most places of religious observance. Places where people gather and believe and worship.” He stood, stumbled to his quarters and returned with his map disc, which he set on the deck. He pressed his finger to a button and smiled slightly at her gasp as a holographic map of S’orasa appeared, with the selected reconnaissance targets highlighted. “My people,” he explained, “are as far beyond the Shasir in development as the Shasir are beyond you and the Welf. And very soon, we will come to take the vita from them. When my People come, nothing will be able to stop them.”

“You’ll come and take this vita from the Shasir and then leave?” Ama asked, as she stared intently at the globe.

“More than that. They, we, will also take people, thousands of people, and any useful technology we can lay our hands on. I doubt there will be much technology to be found here, though samples will be taken of course. And the process will not be easy or peaceful. My People will come with fire and they will destroy anything that opposes them.”

Ama’s mouth came unhinged. Her head turned slowly and she stared at the spot where Manatu had disappeared. “I see,” she said, her voice hollow. “And you’re the leader of this…exploration?”

“Not precisely. More like the scout. I’m a Cultural Theorist; I’m here to find the vita, as part of a team. Manatu was my bodyguard, and now he is gone. That’s why I’m telling you about all this, because I need your help.”

“What about your team?” Ama asked, her tone guarded. “They can’t help you?”

“They have their own assignment.” He deactivated the map. “I want you to understand, the target assignment process has begun, the forces are being assembled, and the planning is going on right now. When my People come, it will be with skyships of metal far beyond anything the Shasir can field. Unstoppable, they will go where they please and take what they want. Even I can’t stop the process at this point, only guide it to the proper targets.”

“And you expect me to help you? To help you conquer my world?” Ama didn’t wait for a reply; she snapped around and thundered up the stairs.

“If you’ll calm down and listen, I’ll explain.” Seg jogged up behind her.

“Don’t bother,” Ama said, the morning wind lifting her hair. When she turned to Seg, her usually animated face was sober. “You’re going to tell me how helping you is for the good of my people.”

“It can be,” Seg said.

“I’ve heard that before. I believe it now as much as I did then.” The strain of the past twenty-four hours showed plainly in her eyes. She looked past Seg, to the horizon. “But I understand. Your magic is greater than ours, as your gods must also be. I would offer some resistance but…”

“You can’t.”

Ama’s expression was tired, defeated. The first beams of sunlight washed across the deck, shabby in comparison to the light of the warp. “The sun’s already up, we need to pull anchor and get moving if we’re going to make T’ueve before dark.” Her eyes moved from the bow to the stern, then back to Seg. “If I do as you ask, you have to promise you’ll protect my people, the Kenda.’

“You have my word, the Kenda will be spared.”

“Good,” she said, swallowed and nodded. “We’ve wasted too much daylight. We can talk more once we’re moving. I’ll extend the skins, you winch the anchor.”

At the bow, Seg cranked the handle of the winch to raise the anchor. All things considered, she had taken the revelation better than he had anticipated.

“In any event,” he said, after a pause, “the Shasir are much better targets, in general, than the Kenda; the Shasir and the Welf specifically—”

Something sharp, pressed into his lower back, stopped his words. Seg froze, his hands still on the crank.

“Get. Off. My. Boat.” The defeat and acquiescence were gone from Ama’s voice. She jabbed at him with the weapon. “OFF!”

The imminence of death gave him a strange clarity. He could see the individual ripples as the water waited to enclose him, suffocate him. “I saved your life.”

“That’s the only reason you’re still breathing.”

“I can’t swim.”

“You should have thought of that before you came to pirate my world.” She pressed the blade harder against him.

“Wait!” Seg shouted, as his upper body was forced further against the rail. “Kill me and the raid still happens. But let me live and I can direct the strikes away from your people.” He turned around slowly, hands held high.

“Just like the Shasir. Lots of promises. All lies.”

With a quick movement, she flicked the weapon, a gracefully curved blade at the end of a long staff, and slashed across Seg’s shoulder, then repositioned the tip of the blade under his chin. “You’ve already lied to me once. I may not be able to stop your people but I can warn mine. Now jump, or I’ll send you over in pieces.”

He winced at the cut and fought down the impulse to raise his hand to it. “Your warning won’t change anything. When the raid ends, your people will still be under the boots of the Shasir. I’m offering you a chance to topple their order, an opportunity for real freedom.”

Ama kept the pressure on the seft but at the last word she flinched noticeably.

“Freedom,” Seg repeated, seizing the word that had stalled her anger, “for all of the Kenda.”

“If I help you,” Ama said, her voice wary, “what do you want from me?”

“I need someone to assist me. Be my extra eyes. Help me transport my equipment while I pursue my targets. Once the information is collected,” he shrugged without thinking; the cut’s sting, heightened by the briny air, brought on a wince, “we won’t need you for the raid. Couldn’t use you anyway. Get low, stay away from the target areas, and then whatever comes after is the business of your people.”

“And if you change your mind? If you decide the Kenda would make good slaves after all?”

“I understand my word means nothing to you, but it’s all I have. You’ve spoken of your family, I know you care about them. Refuse my offer and you put them all in danger,” Seg said.

Ama’s eyes darkened. “Enough!” She spun the weapon and cracked him in the ribs with the handle.

The blow knocked the wind out him, he ducked forward to catch his breath. “Wait…” he wheezed, and raised a hand.

She dropped the weapon, lunged forward and shoved. He was a tall man with a high center of gravity; he went over the rail with barely an effort.

The world slowed for Seg as he dropped over the side. Over his head, he saw the water rush toward him, a giant, gaping mouth ready to swallow him whole. The water parted around him and shocked his entire body with cold. Wrapped in the cold water, he lost orientation. Up? Down? He had no way of knowing. He thrashed his arms and legs as he tried vainly to remember the basic elements of swim training he had received as a cadet–they hadn’t even actually gotten into water.

He had not caught a breath before he went in and inhaled his first burning gulp of seawater. Panicked, he increased the thrashing and somehow managed to surface. Water spewed from his mouth and he coughed uncontrollably as he struggled to stay aloft.

One sip of air was all he took in before he sunk under again.

From the rail above, Ama watched the water churn around Seg. She had seen men go overboard before, but not like this. He hadn’t lied about his inability to swim, at least. His arms flailed, wild and helpless–a cloud of blood spread from the cut on his shoulder.

She stepped away, as if to pull the anchor, then stopped.

You can’t trust him.

She turned back to the water and couldn’t see his head. He had gone under. She waited a second. Nothing.

You killed Uval; you can do the same again.

“Nen’s death,” she cursed, climbed up on the rail and dove overboard.

Her second eyelids flipped up as she went under and she spotted Seg, still thrashing beneath the water, hands clawing desperately for something to grasp. Careful to avoid a stray, panicked fist to the face, she hooked herself under him and lifted him to the surface.

“I’m going to regret this,” she said, as she swam them both toward the ladder–a difficult task given Seg’s size. As she made slow progress, Seg coughed and hacked.

Then, in the distance, she spotted a ripple in the water. A thin line of flesh broke surface, a tail. Along the tail, a row of spines glinted in the morning sunlight.

Drexla.

She kicked hard, aware that the vibration would only excite the predator. There was no way they could both make it out of the water in time. She reached for her knife realizing, too late, that it was still on the
Naida
. If she let go of Seg, left him to die, she could escape.

The ladder was a few strokes away but the beast was closing the distance fast. It would circle once or twice before striking, if only…

Ama’s free hand moved to Seg’s waist and groped for his blade. “When I get you to the ladder, get out of the water! Fast!” she yelled as they approached the bottom rung.

Though he couldn’t speak through his coughing, Seg nodded his agreement. He let himself be pulled by her, then lunged forward when the ladder came within reach.

Ama dove down, Seg’s knife clutched in her hand, as the long body of the drexla, carved through the water next to the ladder, it’s razor teeth clamping down just as Seg’s foot lifted out and away from of its grasp.

She was pinned under the boat now, the beast somewhere circling. If only she could sound it. As she kicked in the direction of the ladder, the drexla swerved by, blocking her escape.