CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I’d been mostly joking about the combat suit. I should have known better.
The outfit Muninn presented me with was similar to the one Nask’s previous Expediters had poured me into two years ago when they were about to send me into the Firefall portal. It was textured in mottled gray for maximum visual stealth, flexible and surprisingly light, and loaded with a matrix of strategically placed armor inserts that would provide good protection while still allowing a decent range of motion.
The helmet for that older suit, I remembered, had been a bit heavy with a tendency to fog up. This newer model seemed to have eliminated both problems.
My weaponry consisted of a long knife, a shorter push knife, and a sidearm that was a variant of a standard police stunner. It fired a pair of electrodes into a target, delivering a jolt that should cause nearly instantaneous unconsciousness. Unlike the Commonwealth version, Muninn told me, once the current had been delivered to the target there was a sharp follow-up voltage spike on the Patth model that vaporized the leads, thus eliminating any problems with tangling. The gun was semiauto, with a six-cartridge magazine, and I had two spare mags ready on my belt.
Nask had wanted me to leave Pax with him, arguing that the potential chaos of a battle could prove fatal to the little outrider. I argued back that if things started teetering the wrong direction a Kalix lurking in the rubble was our one and only hole card, and that Pax was the only one who could quickly bring him up to speed on our assault plan.
In the end Nask gave in, though he clearly wasn’t happy about it. He did make sure to deliver the outrider to me inside a sealed, opaque box.
Under other circumstances I would have privately labeled Nask a paranoid. But given that Kinneman would undoubtedly have done the exact same thing, I resisted the temptation.
The rest of the assault squad was waiting when Muninn and I returned to the portal: sixteen Iykams dressed in their version of my combat suit. Along with stunners, they also carried their favored corona weapons. As we rolled one by one through the receiver module hatchway, I saw that Nask had also set another six Iykams armed with heavy lasers in the inside hull, clumped together so that they could target anyone coming through without catching each other in a cross fire. If we failed in our mission, he was making damn sure that no Ammei force got farther than right here.
“My crew and I will go first,” Muninn told me as he led the way into the launch module. “While you’re coming in I’ll go up top, check things out, then come back in and send a group out to deal with the portal sentries. When they’re finished, they’ll come in with an all-clear, and we’ll head for the Tower on our assigned vectors. Questions?”
“No,” I said. Actually, I had a whole stack of questions, starting with how we would find Selene and the others and get them back safely to the Patth base, and ending with where and how Nask expected me to find the damn portal plans. But since none of those could be answered until we were on Nexus Six, there wasn’t much point in asking them. “Let’s do it.”
He nodded. “First crew: Go.”
He and eight of the Iykams grabbed hold of the extension arm and floated up. The other eight gathered around me, poised with hands hovering near the arm. The first group hit the gray section and vanished, and the nine of us got our own grips and followed. We reached the top, and two seconds later were in the Nexus Six receiver module.
The first crew were still floating their way downward. Briefly, I wondered if the sound of eighteen pairs of boots thudding onto the deck would be audible to the Ammei guards, decided there was nothing I could do about it if they did, and concentrated on making sure the square meter of metal I was headed for wasn’t already claimed by someone else.
The first crew landed with only a small thud. Muninn and four Iykams immediately headed for the blackout tent at the top of the dome. My crew was still on our way as he disappeared inside, and we were just landing as he reemerged and gestured his Iykams into the tent. He looked around the sphere, spotted me, and pointed to the other tent. I nodded back and headed that direction.
My crew and I were gathered around the tent, and I was straining my ears for any sounds coming from outside, when the tent flap opened and an Iykam popped his head in. “Clear,” he said, then popped back out again. I gave Muninn a thumbs-up and headed into the tent.
A minute later we were gathered outside the portal. The four Ammei guards were sprawled unmoving on the ground, and for a moment I wondered whether Nask had kept his promise about using nonlethal weapons where possible. But while there was a slight odor of singed clothing there was none of the overpowering stench that came from a corona weapon victim. “That the place?” Muninn asked, nodding toward the Tower.
“That’s it,” I confirmed, frowning as a sudden thought occurred to me. On our other previous nights on Nexus Six, at least the ones I’d been here for, Second and Fourth had taken Selene to one of the inner ring houses to sleep instead of bunking her with Huginn and me in the Tower.
Had they done the same thing this evening? After all, when Rozhuhu left me chained in the Upper Rooms, he and First had would assume I was out of the equation for the night. That could have led them to opt for business as usual. Equally important, if I did somehow get loose, I would have the whole Tower to go through before I headed out into the rest of the city to search for her. That was a good enough reason all by itself to tuck her away elsewhere.
“Change of plans,” I told Muninn. “You take both crews to the Tower and find the Expediters and Conciliators. I need to check out one of the houses in the inner ring first.”
“That’s not the job,” Muninn growled.
“It’s part of my job,” I countered. “You heard the deal I made with Sub-Director Nask.”
He looked back at the Tower, probably wondering why the Ammei would put the portal plans in an unsecured house when they had a big heavily guarded building available. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll all go and check it on the way.”
“It’ll take a few minutes,” I warned. “More minutes than we might have. I don’t know how long before someone sounds an alarm, but this grace period won’t last forever.”
Muninn muttered something I didn’t catch. “Have your look,” he rumbled. “But then catch up.”
“I will,” I promised. “Remember that there will probably be guards on whatever door you pick to go in. You have something to take them out from a distance?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. He lifted his arm and gave a rapid pattern of hand signals. “Watch yourself.”
“You too.”
He headed toward the Tower, the Iykams fanning out into an approach formation around him. I angled off their path, heading for the house I’d first seen Selene taken into on that first visit with the town’s Elders. If she was there, I needed to get in quietly, eliminate any opposition, then get us both out equally quietly.
If she wasn’t there, things were going to get a lot more complicated.
I reached the outermost ring of houses and paused for a long look around. None of the buildings nearby were showing any lights, but that didn’t mean everyone was tucked away in their beds. Nighttime sentries loved watching their assigned territories from darkened rooms, and without knowing which houses had been pressed into service there was no point in doing a crouch-and-skulk underneath one house’s windows when I would be perfectly visible from the one next door.
But as my father used to say, When you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be, act like you’ve got the deed to the place in your pocket and are dying to show it to someone. Taking a deep breath, I straightened up and started walking.
No one appeared, called to me, or tried to stop me. I kept going, passing the outer three rings of houses and heading toward the fancier ones across from the Tower. I slowed as I approached, trying to figure out which was the one they’d taken Selene to. The view from here on the ground was a lot different than the one from the Tower, and the fact that the dim starlight was muting all the colors and patterns wasn’t helping. All I had to go on was roof shapes, the patterns of some of the walkways, and the distribution of decorative plants surrounding the houses.
The plants.
I pulled off my helmet and took a deep breath. Sure enough, there was a hint of almost-lavender wafting through the air. I headed toward the house I’d tentatively tagged, sniffing as I tried to follow the scent. It seemed to be getting stronger, but I couldn’t be sure. The house I was after had a door facing the Tower, I knew, and as I got closer I saw there was another door on the opposite side. I put my helmet back on, headed around to that side, and slipped through the gloom to the door. Notching up my auditory enhancements, I pressed the side of my helmet against the panel.
Nothing. If there was anyone inside, they were being very quiet.
But if Selene couldn’t say anything, maybe she’d at been able to leave me a message. Keying down the helmet’s auditories and keying up its opticals, I moved along the side to the front corner of the house and studied the dirt and plants at the front. Given that she’d made a point about the interesting fragrance of the dirt, that was probably where she would try to leave a clue. I looked across the soil, rocks, and plants of this house, then shifted my attention to the next building over.
I frowned, cranking the magnification up a notch. Was that…?
It was. Barely visible, but definitely there, was a fifteen-centimeter-long stick in the dirt with a pair of thirty-degree arcs coming off the two halves in opposite directions.
I smiled grimly, visualizing the scene. Selene had paused with her foot planted on the middle of the stick, then turned partway back toward the Tower as if looking for someone or something, swiveling her foot thirty degrees in the process and dragging the stick to carve out the distinctive mark I was looking at.
And of course she would have done all of that it in front of the house they were taking her to.
I crossed the empty patch of ground to my new target house and pressed my helmet against the wall near the corner. The Ammei inside were being quiet, but at full power my audios were able to pick up the sounds of movement and quiet conversation. I keyed the volume back down and crossed to the rear door. Working off my left glove, hoping fervently that Selene was still awake, I pressed my helmet to the wall and my finger against the crack beneath the door.
For about half a minute nothing happened. I keyed my audios a bit higher and pressed my finger more tightly into the gap. Sooner or later Selene was bound to catch my scent, but under the current circumstances it had better be sooner.
Then, to my relief, I heard a faint gasp. “Danger,” Selene’s voice came faintly. “The First of Three is in danger. Do you hear me? Do you understand me? First Dominant Yiuliob? Do you hear me?”
“I hear you, Selene of the Kadolians,” an Ammei voice I hadn’t heard before grated out in accented English. “But I listen not. You speak confusion and trustless words.”
“I speak truth,” Selene insisted. “Surely you haven’t forgotten the awesome powers of the Kadolians.”
“The powers of the Kadolians are well-known,” Yiuliob retorted. “Their strengths and their limits both. Imistio Tower is distant and sealed. How do you claim to smell danger to the First of Three?”
“So you have forgotten,” Selene said, and I could visualize contempt in her pupils. “Our senses are not merely of the body. They are also of the mind.”
“You speak trustless words.”
“Then the future will be upon your head,” Selene said. “I have given the warning. I now point to the danger. See if you will. Deny if you will. But the truth will come at you very quickly.”
I didn’t wait to hear more. Pulling back from the door, I put my glove back on and drew my stunner. As my father used to say—and as I’d quoted to Selene on occasion—Beware of any truth that comes to you at a high rate of speed. However she was planning to get away from her handlers, it was clear from her warning that she would use this door or come out the front and around one of the corners. Pressing my back against the wall to be ready for either possibility, I pulled a spare stunner magazine from its holder with my free hand and got ready. A sudden group of subtle vibrations rumbled through the wall at my back, feeling like a minor groundquake or running footsteps—
The door beside me slammed open and Selene sprinted out into the darkness, her hands chained together in front of her, a trio of Ammei guards on her heels. The nearest of them caught the back of her shirt and yanked, breaking her stride. She flailed, fighting to break free and hold onto her balance.
A second later, she was fighting equally hard to keep from toppling forward as my stunner blast broke the Amme’s grip and sent him sprawling on the ground. The other two pursuers didn’t even have time to turn around before joining their friend in unconsciousness.
“Behind me,” Selene gasped out a warning as she stumbled to a stop.
Fortunately, for once I was already ahead of the game. Even as I zapped the third Ammei I’d spun around into the open doorway, eyes and weapon trained inward. Two more Ammei were charging toward me, their faces showing sudden surprise at the armored intruder unexpectedly facing them down. Two more stunner shots, and they were down and skidding along the floor. I quick-stepped backward as the one in the lead came partially over the threshold, ejected the stunner’s mag, and popped in the fresh one. I spotted two more shadowy figures standing farther back in the house, both of them belatedly aware of the threat and trying to dodge out of the line of fire.
Too late. I dropped both of them and hurried inside. A quick search of the ground floor came up empty. I considered heading up to the second floor, decided we didn’t have time, and went back outside.
Selene was kneeling by the second guard I’d stunned, working a key out of one of his tunic pockets. “How is he?” she asked as I knelt beside her.
I had a split-second question of whether she meant Muninn or Nask, both of whom she could smell on my combat suit. But of course there was no reason she would worry about the Expediter’s health. “Much better,” I told her, taking the key and trying to figure out how it worked. “Walking slowly, but on his own and without help. I don’t suppose your friend First Dominant Yiuliob had any interesting books in there?”
“There were several,” she said, a sort of unenthusiastic understanding in her pupils. “Which one does he want?”
I hesitated. This would not be well received. “The plans for the portal the Ammei are building in the Tower,” I said. “That was the price for freeing you.”
She didn’t answer. I finally figured out the key and got her chains off. “If it’s not here, I’ll have to go back to the Tower,” I said, standing up and offering her a helping hand. “I’d really rather not do that.”
There was a sudden muted flash from one of the Tower’s windows. “Especially since Muninn’s team seems to be drawing fire,” I added, feeling my stomach tighten. I’d hoped Nask’s team would get farther inside before that happened. “Either way, we’re getting you out of here. You want Nask or Kinneman?”
“Neither,” she said. She looked at the Tower, then back at me, and I saw sudden thoughtfulness in her pupils. “I did see the plans once,” she said. “Or at least I think I did. But Second of Three took them to the Tower.”
“I hope there’s a but coming?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, some of the thoughtfulness fading. “Second of Three and Yiuliob were talking, and I think Yiuliob said he wanted to keep the other book on Juniper until the portal was ready.”
“Really,” I said, wincing as another pair of flashes came from the Tower. “So the Icari split up the plans like they did the address book?”
“Maybe,” Selene said. “It could also be that the schematic books run sequentially instead of with the address book’s left/right split. Maybe what he said was that he wanted to hold onto one set until this part of the portal is ready.”
“Maybe.” Or maybe, I reminded myself, he said nothing of the kind and Selene’s efforts at reading the Ammei language through the filter of Kadolian had gone completely off the tracks.
But if it came to hopping over to Juniper for a quick look or strolling my way into a major firefight, there wasn’t any need for a coin toss. “It’s worth a look, anyway,” I said. “Any idea which portal is Juniper’s?”
“The ten o’clock one,” Selene said, pointing across the greenery surrounding the Tower.
“Terrific,” I muttered. And if anyone in the Tower happened to be looking in that direction, we would be instantly spotted and probably almost instantly fired at.
The only option to the open ground would be to circle through the inhabited section of the city. But while that would partly shield us from Tower snipers, it would us leave us wide open to observation from the Ammei who lived in those houses. Not to mention it would be a longer path.
“Let’s hope they still don’t want to risk hurting you,” I said, heading toward the corner of the house. “At least not until they have Tirano in hand.”
“I think they probably know by now that’s not going to happen,” she pointed out.
“Hope springs eternal,” I said. “Besides, even with Nask fully alert there are ways the Ammei could breach the Alainn portal. Especially if First doesn’t mind sacrificing some of his own in the process.”
Selene shivered. “I don’t think he would mind at all.”
“Neither do I,” I agreed, looking around. I didn’t see any sign of Pix or Pax, but that didn’t mean they weren’t lurking out there somewhere. “Ixil, if you get this message, we’re heading for the ten o’clock portal, and then will come back to the four o’clock one back to Nask. If you can provide any cover along the way, we’d appreciate it.”
I took a deep breath and gave Selene’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Okay. Let’s go.”