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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

In all, the tour took about three hours, moving from the lower storage levels to the food prep area to more storage areas. We continued upward through the building, again traveling along curved ramps. We were shown meditation rooms, game rooms, music and dance rooms, and conference rooms. Along the way we bypassed a number of closed doors, which Rozhuhu told us were sleeping rooms.

The place was big, well laid out, and elaborately decorated. But given the size of the common rooms and the number of bedrooms, it was clear that the place had been designed to hold and cater to a large population, a hundred or possibly more. The fact that the hallways and rooms were all but deserted laid a pall of sadness over the tour. Echoes of a glory long past, whether the current inhabitants realized it or not.

We were two and a half hours into the excursion, and I was trying to think up another way to ask where Selene was, when we were finally escorted into the room that made all the slogging through kitchens and conference rooms worthwhile. The room I’d been hoping for ever since I first saw the building from the middle of the river.

The library.

“This room is Imistio Tower’s Center of Knowledge,” Rozhuhu intoned as he and Third led the way into the high-ceilinged room. “The truth of the Ammei of Nexus Six is contained within these volumes.”

“Very impressive,” I said, looking around. The outside wall was a full expanse of south-facing, floor-to-ceiling windows, which on a sunny day would flood the room with light. Even today, with a low cloud cover, there was more than enough illumination to read by. In the center of the room were several chairs and couches, some facing low tables that had room for multiple books to be laid out for study or comparison. Near the windows were a group of six wide-topped desks for more focused study. There were also two consoles, one at either end of the room, that I tentatively tagged as index files.

Which would not just be useful, but utterly necessary…because the shelves on the curved wall opposite the windows were crammed with books. Each book looked to be twenty centimeters high by two thick, all of them bound with black metal. Hints of alien script traced curves along their spines, subtle enough that I could barely make it out.

Which was exactly what LH, the left-hand part of the portal directory that Selene had found on Meima, looked like. And if Rozhuhu was right—if this room really contained all the knowledge of the Ammei—then the RH counterpart we’d come here to find was sitting right here in front of me.

Not having to search the entire planet for our needle was a huge operational coup. Unfortunately, it was still way too early for a victory lap. My quick estimate put the number of volumes here somewhere between five and ten thousand. Even if I could identify the correct one from the writing on the spine—and I couldn’t—it could take hours just to sift through all of them. If I had to open each one in order to spot the distinctive colored squares of a portal directory, that task would stretch to days or weeks.

Third said something. “You are impressed by the depth of our truth?” Rozhuhu translated.

“I am indeed,” I said. “Selene of the Kadolians, too, treasures stores of knowledge. I would urge you to share this with her.”

“She shall see it soon,” Rozhuhu said. “Let us proceed. The Pools of Meditation and Grove of Reflection still await.”

* * *

The Pools of Meditation was a room full of glorified bathtubs on the north side of level four, some of them sized for individuals, others built like hotel and spa communal tubs that were large enough for small groups. The Grove of Reflection was on the south side of the same floor, a high-ceilinged room just above the Center of Knowledge with the same floor-to-ceiling windows. It contained clumps of bushes, flowers, and small saplings, with brick pathways winding through the foliage.

With the tour finally complete, Rozhuhu and Third took us to one of the level-two dining rooms we’d passed through earlier, where a light lunch had been laid out. I was hesitant about eating food I’d never had a chance to sample, but Huginn assured me that it was perfectly adequate in the nourishment department and at least made an attempt to be tasty. I tried a small sample of each dish, decided he was right on at least the last count, and dug in.

We’d been at it for a few minutes when Selene and Fourth of Three entered from a different door, accompanied by an Amme in an even fancier hat whom I assumed was our hitherto unseen Second of Three. Selene spotted us across the room, bowed to her two escorts and said something I couldn’t catch, then walked over to us.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Just peachy,” she said. “You?”

“Ducky,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Huginn’s small smile as he caught onto the earlier fruit and bird mystery. “Enjoy your tour?”

“I did.” She nodded toward the buffet. “Could you come show me which ones I’m most likely to like?”

“Sure,” I said, standing up. Clearly, she wanted a moment alone. “She has quirky taste buds,” I added to Huginn in explanation.

“I know what you mean,” he said. He looked pointedly at the three Iykams as they dug enthusiastically into what I’d personally found to be the least appetizing dish on the sideboard. “As long as you’re up, how about grabbing me another of those egg-roll things?”

“How about you send one of your Iykams or go get it yourself?” I countered. “I’m Selene’s minion, not yours.”

“I was just asking,” he said mildly.

I took Selene’s arm and we crossed toward the buffet. “That sounded a little harsh,” she said quietly.

“He didn’t want an egg roll,” I assured her. “He was just probing to see how badly we wanted privacy. Telling him to get it himself was a signal that we weren’t going to discuss anything we didn’t want him to overhear.”

“Unless he realized you were onto his plan.”

“Oh, I’m sure he did,” I said. “That’s the kind of game where you can go back and forth forever without really knowing where you stand. But as my father used to say, Even a pointless game is better than sitting in the stands being bored.

I glanced back as we reached the buffet table. Neither Huginn nor any of the Iykams had moved. “I presume you got a look at the library?” I asked as we each picked up a plate. “Rozhuhu said Second was going to show it to you.”

“Yes, we arrived shortly after you left,” she confirmed. “You saw that all those books were bound the same way as LH?”

“Except for the writing on the spine,” I said. “The ones I was close enough to see clearly all had different script patterns. Titles or descriptions or something. Did LH have anything like that? I don’t remember seeing anything there.”

“There was a bit of something on the spine,” she said. “But it was faint and completely illegible. Until I saw the books here I assumed it was just discoloration.”

“Not unreasonable, given the thing had been packed in dirt for ten thousand years,” I said. “Too bad. Might have been useful for sifting out RH if we’d been able to read it.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But unless the script on LH and RH are very similar to each other, knowing one wouldn’t help us find the other.”

“Point,” I conceded. Left and right were, after all, two entirely different English words, both in appearance and pronunciation. We could hardly expect the Icari language to have been designed for our personal convenience. “But at least we now have somewhere to start.”

“Yes.” She paused as she scooped a spoonful of something that looked like blue and green mashed potatoes onto her plate. “I gather from what Fourth said that I was getting the high-level tour while Third gave you the more menial servant version.”

“The positions of power and authority for you, Rozhuhu said, the rest for us so that we could prepare you for proper comfort,” I confirmed. “Why?”

“Because there were three places where our tours overlapped,” she said. “The Grove of Reflection, the ramp leading to the Tower’s Upper Rooms, and the Center of Knowledge.”

“Interesting,” I said, thinking back. The grove and library could be considered both royal and peon level, I supposed. But a ramp we didn’t climb to rooms we didn’t go into? “What are the Upper Rooms like?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Second of Three didn’t show me into any of them. He just said they were at the top of the ramp.”

“I don’t think Third said even that much about it,” I said. “In fact, I don’t think he said anything at all as he walked us past the ramp.”

“Maybe he thought you would ask where it went.”

“Maybe. Was there anything else?”

“Yes,” Selene said, an odd reluctance in her voice. “He said the Upper Rooms had been the living chambers of the Gold One when he was here, but that they hadn’t been used for many years.”

“Did he say who the Gold One was? Another of their Leaders With Fancy Hats?”

“He didn’t say anything specific.” She seemed to brace herself. “But from some of the things he did say,” she continued, lowering her voice even further, “I think the Gold Ones are the Icari.”

* * *

My first reaction was disappointment that the Ammei themselves weren’t the shadowy figures who’d created these incredible portals. Despite their lack of the long appendages that would make sense of the deck-inset portal controls, I’d still privately clung to the hope that we’d finally found the people who’d made our lives so interesting—and complicated and dangerous—for the past two years.

My second reaction was a cautious excitement.

There had actually once been Icari here?

“Did he say how many years since they were here?” I asked. “Five? Ten? A hundred?”

“He just said it was many years,” she said. “The odd thing…I still don’t have a baseline for these people. But when Second of Three was talking about the Gold Ones, his scent changed. And he was looking straight at me.”

An unpleasant tingle ran up my back. “Meaning?”

“I don’t know,” Selene said. She paused, her pupils going uncomfortable. “We’re not the Icari, Gregory. Really. We’re not.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, keeping my voice casual and hoping my scent was doing more or less likewise. “They supposedly left the scene ten thousand years ago, remember? Would the Kadolians have anything other than legends about themselves that far back? We humans certainly don’t.”

“I don’t know how far back we have a verifiable history,” Selene said. “But you’re forgetting what he said: that one of the Gold Ones was here. If he was a Kadolian, why didn’t they recognize me as being the same species?”

“Maybe they didn’t get a good look at him,” I said. “He could have worn a robe and hood or something equally obscuring. Maybe they didn’t get any pictures and there’s no one left who actually saw him.”

Selene shook her head. “Second of Three calls them the Gold Ones,” she reminded me. “There’s nothing golden about us.”

My eyes flicked to her pure white hair. “Not unless you count a pleasant personality,” I conceded. “You could certainly be called the Silver Ones, though.”

“We should get back to the table,” she said. “We don’t want Huginn wondering if we got lost.”

In other words, this particular conversation was shelved until later. “Yes, you know how he worries,” I agreed. “Final question. Back when Fourth of Three introduced himself, your pupils went quietly berserk. What was that all about?”

Her pupils went uncomfortable again. “It was probably nothing.”

“Glad to hear it. What flavor of nothing was it?”

She closed her eyes briefly. “It wasn’t about Fourth of Three or the others,” she said. “It was the name he gave this place.”

Imistio Tower? What about it?”

“It probably doesn’t mean anything,” she warned again. “But imistio is very close to the Kadolian word imistiu. I thought…you realize it’s probably just a coincidence.”

“Like the Kadolian and Patth names for private currencies—your cesmer and their cesmi—are coincidences?” I asked pointedly. “So what does imistiu mean?”

“Several things,” she said. “Point, arrowhead, spear.” She seemed to brace herself. “And needle.”

I felt something cold walk up my back. “Like Project Needle?”

“There’s no way the Ammei could know the Icarus Group’s name for our visit here,” she said quickly. “It has to be a coincidence.”

“Maybe,” I said grimly.

But in my mind’s eye I saw the rows of books in the Tower library. Did the Ammei know about the portal directory halves, too? Were they looking for the same needle in a haystack that Kinneman was?

Only now the search wasn’t a whole planet, but just a single big room. A room the Ammei had had plenty of time to search over the centuries.

So why hadn’t they already found it?

“Not a word about this to Huginn, of course,” I warned.

“I know.”

We took another moment to finish filling our plates and returned to the table. Huginn was talking to the Iykams in what sounded like the Patth language. He broke off and looked up as we approached. “You two have a nice chat?” he asked, switching back to English.

“Yes, we were discussing the weather,” I said as we sat down. “You?”

“The same,” he said. “Very nice for this time of year. Any idea about the afternoon’s agenda?”

“Second of Three said I would be meeting with the Dominants, who I gather are some kind of community leaders,” Selene told him. “It sounded like that would take place in one of the buildings in the ring that surrounds the Tower.”

My stomach tightened. Bad enough to have us split up for hours inside the same building. Now the Ammei wanted to put a hundred meters of open space between us, too? “Any chance you can persuade them to let your bodyguard tag along?”

“I’ve already asked,” she said. “He seemed very insistent that I stay with him and the rest of you stay with Third of Three.”

“Or at least that’s what Fourth said he said,” Huginn reminded her. “I’ve seen translators make mistakes before.”

“Or deliberately lie,” I added.

“I don’t think he lied,” Selene said. But her pupils didn’t look entirely convinced. “I’ll be all right.”

“Head’s up,” Huginn warned quietly, nodding microscopically over my shoulder.

I turned to look. Second was walking toward us, Fourth toddling along beside him. Behind them were Third and our translator Rozhuhu, trailing the other two at a respectful distance. The six armed Ammei who’d accompanied Selene on her tour had also appeared, but seemed content to wait by the door. “Definitely look like people on a mission,” I said. “Okay, I’m going to try something. Let’s see what I can shake loose.”

“Should we be ready to hit the deck?” Huginn asked ominously.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Just look casual.”

Second of Three reached our table and stopped, Fourth of Three stopping beside him. The fancy-hatted Amme spoke—“Selene of the Kadolians, it is the hour,” Fourth intoned. “The Dominants are assembled for the honor of your presence.”

“Thank you,” Selene said, standing up. “May I again request that my bodyguard accompany me?”

Fourth spoke, Second answered, and Fourth turned back to us. “That is impossible,” he said. “Roarke of the humans cannot accompany Second of Three. He can only accompany Third of Three.”

“Then let Third of Three and the rest of us accompany Second of Three and Selene of the Kadolians,” Huginn suggested. “Then the Dominants can meet all of us.”

“That is impossible,” Fourth repeated. “Your duties for the day are at an end, Huginn of the humans. You and Roarke of the humans will be shown to a place of rest until the evening meal.”

“If we can’t accompany you, perhaps we can watch over Selene of the Kadolians from here,” I said. “There must be rooms from which we may gaze down upon her and observe her travels.”

Rozhuhu murmured to Second. I flicked a glance at Selene out of the corner of my eye—“Perhaps a place such as the Upper Rooms,” I added.

I didn’t spot so much as a twitch in any of the Ammei facing us. But the answer came way too quickly. “The Upper Rooms are forbidden to you,” Rozhuhu said. “Third of Three will take you to a different resting place.”

“As you wish,” Selene said before I could answer. “I am ready to meet the Dominants. Roarke and Huginn of the humans and the Iykams await their resting place.”

Second spoke. “Come, then, Selene of the Kadolians,” Fourth said. “Second of Three is honored to guide you.”

On cue, Second turned and headed back toward the waiting guards. Selene gave me a quick look, offering me a view of the confirmation in her pupils, and followed. We all watched in silence as the three of them picked up their escort and the whole crowd disappeared through the door.

Third of Three and Rozhuhu turned back to us. “Come, servants of Selene of the Kadolians,” Rozhuhu said. “Your resting place awaits you.”

* * *

The resting place turned out to be a sort of combination lounge and entertainment center on the northeastern side of level six, the topmost of the two floors that comprised the Tower’s hexagonal tier. The windows were decently sized, though not as impressive as the floor-to-ceiling ones a couple of floors below us in the library and Grove of Reflection on the other side of the building. Standing by the window, I could see the ring of buildings we’d walked through earlier after our exit from the subway, as well as the ramp we’d taken to the surface. In the near distance I could see hints of some of the subway’s other exits between the outer building rings, and in the far distance I could see the ruined structures near the dock and, partially hidden by the riverside reeds, a bit of the dock itself.

At the very edge of my field of view, to the northwest, I got a glimpse of Selene and her Ammei escort as they went inside one of the larger structures on the inner ring of buildings.

“Pretty fast on the uptake, wasn’t he?” Huginn commented from behind me.

I watched the building another moment, as if by sheer willpower I’d be able to see what was going on inside, or if Selene was in trouble.

But she didn’t suddenly reappear, running for her life. As for seeing through solid walls, as my father used to say, Willpower and enthusiasm are no match for the laws of physics. “Way too fast,” I agreed, forcing myself to turn away from the window. Staring after Selene like a moon-sick teenager wouldn’t do anyone any good. Better to focus on a plan I could pitch to her when she emerged safe and sound. “I assume you also noted he didn’t have to run the double translation.”

“I did,” Huginn confirmed, eyeing me thoughtfully. “Which means he already knew you were going to ask about that. Why was he expecting it, and what are these Upper Rooms? If it’s not a secret.”

“Not at all,” I assured him. It might have been a secret, but there was no point playing coy now that he was already halfway to the answer. “Selene said there were three places that our two tours overlapped: the library, the Grove of Reflection, and the bottom of the ramp that led from the ninth floor to what Second called the Upper Rooms.”

“Really,” Huginn said, frowning. “How did she know where you and I had been?”

“She smelled us, of course,” I said, frowning back. Surely Huginn hadn’t forgotten about the Kadolian sense of smell.

“Obviously,” Huginn said. “I’m just noting that Selene and her escort left a good ten minutes before we did. How did we get ahead of her on the tour?”

I turned and looked back out at the building the others had disappeared into. That was a damn good question. “I assume you have an answer?”

“Obviously, the Ammei wanted her to know where we’d crossed paths,” Huginn said. “And, by extension, wanted us to know it, too.”

“They want to know why we’re here,” I murmured as the obvious answer popped into my head. “They think we’re looking for something and want to know what it is.”

“Or it’s an entrapment scheme,” Huginn suggested. “They want to lure us into going somewhere we shouldn’t.”

“Why bother?” I asked, frowning. “They don’t need to manufacture an excuse. This is their city and their planet. That makes them judge, jury, and possible executioner.”

“Does it?” Huginn countered. “Are you sure they don’t answer to a higher power?”

“Like who?” I asked. “The Icari?”

“The who?”

“The Icari,” I repeated. “The species who created the portals.”

“Who calls them that?”

“We do,” I said stiffly. The name had been Selene’s suggestion, and I was damned if I was going to let him be snide about it. “So does the Icarus Group. You have a problem with it?”

“You mean the Alien Portal Agency,” he corrected absently. “Interesting that we haven’t heard that term.”

“Nice to know we still have some secrets,” I said. “Why, what do the Patth call them? The Builders?”

“Actually, yes, we do.”

“Our name is classier.”

He flashed a sudden grin. “I agree,” he said. “The Patth are excellent engineers, but I’ll give humans the edge in wordplay any day.” The grin faded. “So what do they expect us to find in these Upper Rooms?”

“No idea,” I said. “All I know is that he told Selene one of ‘the Gold Ones’ had been in the Upper Rooms an unspecified number of years back.”

“And you think the Gold Ones are Icari?”

“Selene thinks they might be.”

“Thinks?”

“Yes, and right now that’s as solid an assessment as we’re going to get,” I conceded. “That being said, I’ll point out that a lot of Selene’s hunches turn out to be right.”

I readied myself for an argument, or at least some scornful eye-rolling. But Huginn just nodded. “Like human gut instinct,” he said thoughtfully. “A melding of marginal data and subconscious observation that leads to the right conclusion even if you don’t know how you got there.”

“Basically,” I said, nodding back. “I think probably every species has something of that ability.”

“Actually, I don’t think the Patth do,” Huginn said, still looking thoughtful. “Certainly not to the same extent as humans.”

“I never heard that before,” I said, frowning.

He shrugged. “It’s not really a secret. You should probably still keep it to yourself, though.”

“Of course,” I said. Especially since he could just be setting me up with an intriguing but false tidbit to see how inclined I was to blab about such things to others. “Is that why they recruit so many humans as Expediters?”

“Could be,” Huginn said. “Let’s assume Selene’s right.”

“About which part?”

“About all of it,” he said. “That the Gold Ones are Icari, that one of them recently dropped in on Nexus Six, and that he might still lurking around somewhere. What’s our plan?”

Our plan?”

He gave a theatrical sigh. “Okay; cards on the table,” he said. “First of all, I know you didn’t fly here from anyplace in the Spiral.”

“You’re welcome to believe that if you want,” I said as casually as I could. I’d expected him to see through my improvised story eventually, but not quite this soon. “But you of all people should know how many oddball places the Ruth goes in the course of our duties.”

“Absolutely,” he said. “And I know that Selene has a knack of sniffing out portal metal from the barest hint of a bioprobe sample. Unfortunately, I also know that as of three weeks ago your ship was still parked at the Passline Spaceport in Tupnotte on Xathru. I forget which landing slot.”

“Your information is out of date,” I told him.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said, his voice and expression showing not the least sliver of doubt. Clearly, the Patth had been keeping very good tabs on Selene and me. “And if you didn’t come in your own ship, you’d have come in an EarthGuard ship, and Kinneman would hardly have sent you in alone.”

“Who says we’re alone?” I countered, trying one more time.

“The point is that you came here via portal,” Huginn said, ignoring my question. “I don’t know which of the twelve out there you used—of the eleven, rather, since one of them is obviously ours—and right now I don’t care. What I do care about is that both of us are likely to be seeing backup sometime in the near future, and both our bosses aren’t going to be happy if all we did was get a tour of the places the Ammei wanted us to see and then sat around doing nothing.” He ran out of air and stopped.

“I’ll agree with that last part, anyway,” I said. “In fact, I’d take it a step further. If Sub-Director Nask sends in a crowd of Iykams”—I glanced at Huginn’s three gunmen, glowering together behind him just within hearing distance—“and Kinneman sends in a squad of EarthGuard Marines, there could be literal hell to pay. And I don’t mean just from each other.”

Huginn hissed out a curse. “Agreed,” he said reluctantly. “The last thing we want is open warfare with the Ammei before we even know what’s going on here. I assume you have some thoughts?”

“It’s probably too late to stop anyone from either of our teams from coming through,” I said. “Especially yours, given that you’ve been incommunicado for—how long since the Ammei grabbed you?”

Huginn pursed his lips. “They caught us four days ago,” he said. “But we’d been poking around for two days before that. That’s local days,” he added. “They’re around eighteen and a half hours long.”

I nodded. I’d noticed the day was chugging right along and been wondering how long it would turn out to be. “So you’ve been gone something like four and a half standard-issue days. Any idea how much longer before Nask sends in the cavalry?”

“Not really,” Huginn said. “Our mission was open-ended. But it could probably be any time. You?”

“The same,” I said. Though of course that didn’t depend so much on Kinneman’s patience but on if and when Alpha came back to life. Not that I was going to tell Huginn that. “So it seems to me that what we need right now is to scoop together enough information to keep both sides quiet long enough for everyone to assess the situation before going off half-cocked.”

“And then?”

“And then what?”

“And then who gets first dibs on the portals out there?”

I shrugged. “I’d like to think we could just divvy them up,” I said. “Half to you, half to us.”

“That would be nice,” Huginn said. “Very neat, very civilized. Can I have a show of hands from anyone who believes either side will go for that?”

“Okay, so it’s unlikely,” I conceded. “But we still don’t want anyone charging out, plasmics blazing. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Huginn said reluctantly. “Your turn.”

I frowned. “My turn for what?”

“Putting your cards on the table,” he said. “What got Selene all hot and bothered when Fourth of Three introduced himself?”

“Oh. That.” Luckily, I’d already figured out how I was going to answer that question when it came. “It was just the name Fourth gave to this place, Imistio Tower. The word’s similar to the Kadolian for point, arrowhead, or spear.”

“Interesting coincidence,” he said, eyeing me closely. “If it is coincidence.”

“It isn’t,” I said. “At least, we don’t think it is. She’d already caught some Kadolian echoes in earlier Ammei speech. Anyway, the point here was that it was the hint of military in the word that startled her.”

“She thinks this place might have been a fortress?”

“Or might still be,” I said. “We already know Third didn’t show us everything that’s in here.”

“We’ll probably want to rectify that somewhere down the line,” he said. “But we might as well start by checking out the places they went out of their way to underline in red for us. You want to take the library, grove, or Upper Rooms?”

“Right now? None of them,” I said. “As my father used to say, There are dumber things you can do than charge across a darkened room, but few of them give you the chance to face-plant quite so spectacularly.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I’d like a better feel for the lay of the land first,” I said, pulling out my notebook. “You took the same tour I did. Let’s see how you are at spatial memory and sense of scale.”



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