A blood-curdling scream broke Heyoka out of a sound sleep. He leaped to his feet, rifle already in hand, ducking under the tent flap before he had come fully awake. He paused outside, the camp coming alive around him. The night was warm, the scent of night-blooming flowers strong in the air. His heart lurched into high gear as the two sentries, Visht and Onopa, darted into view.
Before he could question them, a second scream split the night. It was coming from Mitsu's tent, he realized, and peeled the flap back. Inside, Mitsu sat bolt upright on the cot, head clasped in her hands. "They're in my mind!" she said, her voice cracking. Tears streamed down her cheeks. "They won't leave me alone!"
Med-Tech Brascelli knelt beside her, scanner already at work. "She should be fine," she said in a daze. "I gave her a sedative to keep her down and let the stim knit her ribs. She should be out like a light until morning."
Heyoka waved a hand before Mitsu's staring eyes. "I think she still is," he said quietly. "She—had a bad time back on Anktan. The flek worked her over. There are memories buried in her subconscious that no one, human or hrinn, should ever have to experience. The sedative must have kept her under when she would normally have woken."
"Damn!" Brascelli took Mitsu's shaking shoulders and eased her back against the cot. "It's all right," she said to the unresponsive woman. "You're on Oleaaka with your squad. The flek are light-years away. It was just a bad dream."
Anger surged through Heyoka. "This isn't a field hospital! You should have checked her records back up on the ship before you treated her." Mitsu was mumbling now, but he couldn't make out the words.
"Her ribs are almost healed, at any rate," the med said. "I'll sit with her for a while. I could give her something else, but at this point, I think it's safer just to wait until she comes out of it. She'll be okay."
Dennehy squeezed into the small tent and stared down at Mitsu, whose eyes had now closed, though her lips still moved. "I want a full report when we get back to the ship."
"And you'll get it, sir," Brascelli said, her face flushed, "but if this soldier has such special medical needs, why is she training with a combat unit?"
And that, Heyoka thought, was yet another problem that traced back only to him.
Montrose studied the young hrinn across the cave as they guarded the great crystalline columns. Her fur was a rich golden brown shading to black on ears, muzzle, hands, and legs, very striking. She was barely taller than his six-foot-five frame, though, quite short for one of them.
"Tell me about your home," he said to pass the time. They had turned their coldlanterns off to conserve the energy packs and the rippling blue glow filled the chamber like an exotic gas.
"Anktan is no longer my home," the hrinn said. "I left all that behind when I joined the Corps."
Montrose prided himself on doing his homework and he'd always been intrigued by nonhostile aliens. He'd studied hrinnti culture after he'd gotten this posting and found the hrinn a fascinating species. "I've done a lot of reading about Anktan," he said. "Aren't there five Lines in your region?"
She fixed him with a heart-stopping black-eyed stare that made him look away. "Once there were six, then for a time, only five Lines continued. Now, since the Black/on/black came among us, there are six once more."
"`Black/on/black,'" he repeated. "That's your name for Sergeant Blackeagle, isn't it?"
"It is more than a name," she said, and he thought she bristled a bit. "It's who, and what, he is. We would all be dead now, if it were not for him. He found the center of the emerging pattern/in/progress and cleared the flek from our world."
That term had religious significance, he remembered, and decided to steer clear of the subject. "Which Line did you come from?" he said and shifted position to keep his circulation going. The cave was cool, the air much drier than outside. "Vvok? Jhii?"
"I was born of Kendd," she said, "but at the Final Gleaning, I was designated a late cull."
"Oh," he said, trying to remember what he'd read in the sociological notes about "culls." "Is that bad?"
Her ears flattened and a snarl rattled low in her throat. Bad choice of words, he told himself. "Hey, I was kicked out of two schools before I got my act together. I set fires, stole airhoppers. `Worst kid in three districts,' they said. My dad had to send me to military school."
"The male who sired you?" she said. "Why was he consulted?"
"Human fathers live with their families a good deal of the time," he said. "He was trying to train me up right, so, of course, he wanted me to behave."
Her ears pricked forward. "Did he beat you?"
"I got my share of drubbings," he said. "And you?"
Naxk parted the tawny fur on her throat with both hands. A fearsome jagged scar twisted from her left ear down across her throat. "I once lived through a beating from Yikan herself, Line Mother to all Kendd." Her muzzle rose proudly. "She nearly changed her mind about culling me. Few Kendd culls have ever been able to say that."
"I—see." The Adam's apple in his throat bobbed as he swallowed. "And how did you come to be recruited by Master Sergeant Blackeagle?"
Her black nose wrinkled and he glimpsed the wicked double rows of teeth. "I survived."
The light playing through the massive columns flickered, then rippled faster, as though the frequency had suddenly increased. Naxk pinned her ears back. "The sound has changed."
"I don't hear anything beyond a faint background hum," Montrose said. He snatched up his rifle from where he had propped it against the cavern wall. Across the chamber, the blue light bathed Naxk's tawny face so that she seemed to be standing underwater.
The hrinn backed away from the crystals, shaking her head. "The pitch is rising! Did you touch something?"
"No." He couldn't actually hear it, but he could feel the resonance in the bones of his inner ear. Though the frequency was too high for humans, hrinn, with their much more sensitive hearing, evidently detected it.
Naxk snarled and her wicked claws sprang free. She stared at him wildly. "Turn it off!"
"We can't!" Montrose said. "We don't dare touch anything." He fumbled for his com unit. "We have to report."
But no one answered, despite repeated attempts on his part. The grid must be interfering with transmissions. He turned back to Naxk, who was huddled against the wall, hands over her large, mobile ears. "Get back to camp!" he told her, shouting to make himself understood over noise he couldn't even hear. "Tell Blackeagle to send reinforcements, but no hrinn!"
She scrambled to her feet, swaying, her black eyes crazed.
"Do you understand me? Tell the hrinn not to come back down here!" He activated a coldlantern and pushed it into her hands.
Shaking, she fled the chamber, back toward the rope ladder and freedom from pain. He took up his stance braced against the wall, as far from the crystals as he could manage, rifle in hand, and grimly watched as the strobing effect of the bright blue light continued to quicken.
It seemed Heyoka had just settled back down to grab a few winks, as humans said, when more commotion disturbed the camp. He heard Onopa, the human sentry, call out in challenge. A hrinnti voice answered, and he thought he recognized Naxk.
Why had she left her post? He rolled back onto his feet, fumbled for his boots. His orders had been very specific and she wasn't due to be relieved for several more hours. Of course, measured time had always proved a tenuous concept for hrinn. He'd had more than one problem with that already.
He sealed the front of his shirt and ducked back out into the heavy, scented air. Insects sang in the night and the breeze soughed through the surrounding trees. It seemed very peaceful—everywhere else. "Private Naxk," he said testily, "who gave you permission to leave your post?"
The hrinnti female was wild-eyed, her fur standing on end. "It was the noise!" she cried. "A terrible hum! My ears were going to burst! I couldn't stay!" She fought for breath. Obviously, she'd half-killed herself to get here this quickly.
"What noise?" His ears flattened. "Where's Montrose?"
"Back in the cave." She leaned her head back, panting away the excess heat.
Major Dennehy and Med-Tech Brascelli appeared, their faces concerned. "What's going on?" Dennehy demanded.
"The crystals—started making a noise," Naxk said. "So loud, I thought my skull would explode!"
Cold fear washed over Heyoka. His handclaws flexed. "Did the lights change?"
"They got—" She snarled in frustration, searching for the right word in Standard, then switched to hrinnti. "—faster, like water rushing downhill, and there was a piercing, high-pitched noise!"
Heyoka's ears flattened. "Why didn't you call on the com?"
"Private Montrose tried, but it wouldn't function anymore. He said it was interference." She dropped her gaze. "He told me not to send any hrinn back down there."
But he had to go, Heyoka thought grimly. If the crystals had been reactivated after all these years, then the flek might indeed be coming through again. He had to inspect the installation for himself and then mount a defense.
"Ishara, Riordan, with me," he said. "The rest of you, stay with the camp and the major. See if you can raise the ship, while I'm gone. Tell them what's happening."
"Hold on, Blackeagle!" Dennehy said. "According to the private here, you won't be any use down there. I'll go."
"I'll bring ear protectors," Heyoka said. "I always carry a pair in my kit." He pulled on his combat vest, picked up a coil of synthetic fiber rope.
Dennehy blocked his path, head and shoulders shorter. "Stand down, mister, and that's an order."
A snarl rose in Heyoka's throat, but he managed to choke it back. Tear his audacious throat out, urged his savage other. He has not proven his right to rule over you! He fought to draw an even breath. "Major," he said as reasonably as he could manage under the circumstances, "this is my command."
"Not anymore," Dennehy said. "As of now, I'm taking over."
Angry voices rose and fell, rose again, outside Mitsu's tent. She sat up, then hunched over, holding her whirling head, which seemed about to float away. Had she tied one on last night, even on this All-Father-forsaken island? Evidently so. She and Blackeagle and the rest of the unit must have been celebrating something. She wondered blearily just exactly what it had been.
She swung her legs off the rickety cot, but it took two attempts before she found her balance and stood. In the dimness, she seemed to be still wearing her tan fatigues. She fingered the light weave. A bit ripe. A bath was in order, or maybe she should just soak her head, in cold water, if at all possible.
Running her fingers through her close cropped black hair, she pushed through the tent flaps out into the night air. Two of the squad were kitting up as though it was muster and paid her no attention. She squinted at them, trying to focus.
"What's the hurry?" she said. "Has Blackeagle called nighttime maneuvers?"
A red-haired kid, Riordan, she thought was his name, glanced up at her. "It's the flek crystals," he said briefly. "They've gone active."
It all came back, Kei leaving camp, her following, the ignominious fall into the cave. She turned back to her tent. "Wait!" she called over her shoulder. "I'm coming too!"
"No, you're not," Blackeagle said, looming tall and black suddenly at her side. "You're going to stay here until the med certifies you fit for duty. Where is Brascelli anyway? She was supposed to keep watch over you the rest of the night."
She glared up at him. "I'm fine!"
"And you'll stay fine, right here in camp," he said.
"You don't trust me," she said and thought she would burst if she weren't allowed to do her job. "You think I'll go flek again, given half a chance!"
"What I know is that you were injured today and need more rest before you return to duty," he said. "Anything else is just your imagination working overtime."
Her hands were clenched at her sides. She felt as though she couldn't move, as though her enduring humiliation were written across her face for everyone to see. "Did you ever think," she said slowly, "that it might have been better just to let me die back there on Anktan?"
"Yes," he said in his usual enigmatic fashion. His black eyes gleamed down at her, his massive frame outlined in starlight. "Now, get back to bed, and that's an order."
She managed the few steps back into her tent and then collapsed onto the cot, head spinning. Brascelli, carrying a coldlantern, eased in and raised an eyebrow. "I just stepped out for a few minutes." She gave Mitsu an appraising look. "You okay now?"
"Fine." Mitsu bit her lip and gazed down at her feet.
"Good." Brascelli pulled a medscanner out of her vest pocket and switched it on, then studied the readings. "You just had a bad reaction to the sedative, I guess. It happens once in a while, nothing to worry about."
"No problem," said Mitsu.
The med changed the settings, squinted at the readouts, then clicked the scanner off. "Looks okay to me, for now. I'll check you again in a few hours." She withdrew, presumably to do something more productive than baby-sit a crazed corporal.
Mitsu stared down at the dim whiteness of her hands in the gloom. Well, if she was going to lose her mind again, it would be nice to get it over with. One more trip to those crystals ought to tell the tale, one way or another. She picked up her holstered pistol, then her laser rifle, loosened the bottom of her tent and crawled out into the night.
Ninth Translator-at-large woke Fourteenth Coordinator before dawn. The other members of the coordinator's retinue roused from their floorbeds and reacted to this intrusion with shock.
"The breeders are extremely agitated," the translator said. "They insist they are being called!" Her forearms wove a pattern of distress. "They are singing their most violent songs and won't desist. Eldest Coordinator says we may have to put them down early this season."
"Before the Feast of Leavetaking?" Fourteenth Coordinator stiffened at the thought. Ritual soothed rougher transitions like Leavetaking and all the castes of course looked forward to playing their traditional roles. She sat up from her slingbed. "Should we perhaps move Leavetaking forward a few days?" she asked. "Would that take care of it?"
"No, you don't understand!" Ninth Translator danced before the shallow niche in her trepidation. "They have left their nest and gone to the heights—to that—place!" She broke off and turned her head aside, unable to bring herself to actually say its rightful name.
"They cannot have gone there!" Fourteenth Coordinator sat back, her hands opening in astonishment.
"Yes." Ninth's voice was a strangled whisper. "They actually pushed me aside and stampeded out into the night. No matter how I pleaded, I could not reason with them. It was like the old stories, from before."
"But they can't actually accomplish anything up there," Fourteenth Coordinator said. She felt a dithering fool. She should have anticipated something of this sort. That was her function, to weave the lives of the colony together into a harmonious whole. "The entrance was buried long ago. Nothing is left."
"It does not matter. Their bodies remember the way, and, if they keep themselves stirred up like this, they might also remember what they once were, what we all were," Ninth said. "Once that happens, they will no longer be satisfied with what little they are permitted now."
Heyoka checked on Mitsu after Dennehy left and found her missing—again, along with her rifle. Her scent still hung in the tent, mingled with canvas and plastic and the acrylic fibers of the cot. She couldn't have left more than a few minutes ago. He barked orders over his shoulder for Fletcher to take charge and call the ship every five minutes. Its orbit had taken it out of range for the moment, but it would be back in position soon.
He set off after his partner through the tangle of vines and trees, over scattered rocks. She was moving more slowly than he might have predicted and he thought she must be still groggy. He caught the scent of her hand on trunks and boulders more and more often as she steadied herself.
She should have stayed behind with the meds back on Emsell, he thought. They'd tried to tell him she wasn't ready and he saw that now, but he'd wanted so badly to believe she could recover. He would always feel what had happened to her on Anktan was his fault. She wouldn't have been there at all, except to cover his back.
Of course, she wouldn't have fallen into the hands of the damned flek, if she'd obeyed orders then either. Doing what she had been told had never been her strong suit, but she'd been a good enough soldier to make up for that. He grimaced and quickened his pace, using his hrinnti night sight to navigate where a human would have tripped and fallen a dozen times over.
He found her, flat on her face, breathing hard, close to the cave opening in the side of the hill. Her rifle lay beside her.
"Going somewhere?" He squatted beside her and his nose wrinkled at the coppery tang of human blood.
She heaved over on her back and cradled skinned hands against her chest. Her breathing was labored. "Crazy, I guess."
The fur on the back of his neck bristled. "That's not funny."
"Nothing is," she said. "That's the problem. I can't go anywhere, do anything, without everyone looking at me like I might break."
"When you pull stunts like this, it's no wonder!" He switched on his coldlantern. Her face was alabaster pale and her blue eyes stood out like sapphires.
"I just wanted to see them again, to find out if I could stand it." She sat up and rested her forehead on bent knees.
"The crystals?" he said.
"Yeah." She looked at the hole in the black rock with its rope ladder extending down into the darkness. "If I can't hold onto myself down there, then wash me out." She closed her eyes. "I don't want to endanger my squad."
"This isn't about you!" He stood up, threw back his head and loomed over her. "There's a war going on. We've got boots to train and you're lying out here, AWOL, feeling sorry for yourself!"
"But you don't know," she said.
"Don't know what?"
"What's inside my head," she said. "Despite everything, they're still there and it's all I can do to hold them back."
The flek, he thought numbly.
The small black com unit on his belt beeped. He punched it on. "Yes?"
"Dennehy here, down in the cave," it said, though the signal was thick with interference. "I escaped, then got far enough from the crystals to use the com, but the rest of the squad is pinned down by locals, at least five that I could see. They need evac, unless you want them to fight their way through a bunch of unarmed civilians."
"Locals—you mean laka?"
"Affirmative," said the major.
"Can you make it back to the ladder?"
Mitsu scrambled to her feet.
"I can, but the rest are trapped with no egress."
"Meet us above then," Heyoka said. "The laka have never been hostile, but I'll gather the rest of the squad and escort the rest out."
"Negative!" Dennehy barked. "The crystals are still activated. They're reached the point where even humans can hear them now. Montrose was right. A hrinn couldn't function down here."
"I'll go." Mitsu was breathing hard and her face looked gray. "I'm the ranking human in the squad. It has to be me."