She sat and listened to Sooleawa’s bright chatter and Anevay’s humorous account of the days she’d been away, sharing all the silly squabbles between nestlings, passing along the complaints and aches of the older grandmothers and grandfathers. Squealing laughter rang cheerfully from the little ones as they played chase and stalk through the living cavern. Their world was bright and happy again with the safe return of their katori. For them, the war was a faraway tale that had not yet touched their lives directly.
All too soon, that would change.
Chilaili sipped her tea and nibbled at her stew and silently counted down the passing minutes. An hour, the humans had said. During the days spent with them, she had learned to judge very accurately the span of time they referred to as one hour. When that deadline passed with nothing but silence, her hands grew unsteady again and her pulse jumped. Soon, she groaned to herself. It had to be soon.
Sooleawa had just brought another cupful of tea when the Oracle’s incoming-message alarm sounded. It echoed shrilly from the little cavern where the akule tended the device. Even though she had been expecting it—or perhaps because she had—Chilaili started violently, sloshing hot tea across her hand. She swore viciously, even as the akule lunged to his feet and ran for the Oracle Chamber. Chilaili’s hand throbbed where the tea had scalded her palm pads. Her heartbeat thundered. John Weyman’s voice whispered in her ear, “Get ready, Chilaili. This is it.”
And hard on the heels of that alien whisper came Bessany Weyman’s: “Courage, my friend.”
“Mother?” Sooleawa asked worriedly, noticing Chilaili’s sudden distress.
Chilaili shook her head and gave her daughter a wan smile. Hands shaking violently, she fumbled the canister of sealant and the heavy, round smoke grenade out of their pouches, then turned her head toward the Oracle Chamber. A moment later, the akule reappeared, looking shaken. “Will someone help me carry the Oracle, please?”
“Carry it?” Great-Grandmother Anevay asked sharply. “Carry it where?”
“Into the living cavern. The Ones Above have commanded me to bring the Oracle out, so everyone can hear.”
A murmur of surprise ran through the cavern. Several huntresses followed the akule back into the Oracle chamber. Chilaili heard a scraping sound, several grunts, then the sound of claws on rock as they returned. The Oracle was far larger, Chilaili now realized, than it needed to be if the only purpose it served was communication. Compared with the equipment the humans used to speak over vast distances, the Oracle was enormous. It required four adults to carry it.
John Weyman’s voice muttered in her ear, “Good God, that thing’s huge. What do they have concealed in there?”
“At a guess,” Bessany Weyman’s voice rasped out a whispered answer, “data recorders of some kind, with enough computer storage space to hold several decades’ worth of accumulated information. Visual as well as audio, given the size of that thing. I wonder how often they harvest the data? And how?”
The Bolo, hooked into the communications equipment Chilaili and the humans carried—and therefore able to see and hear through the device on Chilaili’s cloak—spoke up.
“I’m picking up faint electronic signals originating from the Oracle and a dozen other points throughout the cavern. These probably indicate hidden cameras in every chamber of this cavern complex, transmitting via low-power signals to the data recorders in the Oracle casing. The clan is closely observed at all times. And, of course,” the machine added with devastating simplicity, “the Oracle contains enough neurotoxin to kill the entire clan.”
Chilaili shuddered. And realized for the first time, with a sickening sense of what might have happened, that the defiance they had discussed the night of the Council’s vote could easily have triggered the Ones Above into destroying them.
“Anybody see a neurotoxin delivery system on that thing?” John Weyman asked tersely.
“Not without a more detailed look at it,” Rapier replied. “Chilaili, can you get closer?”
She didn’t want to go near the abomination, but it would kill her just as dead from across the cavern as it would standing right next to it, so Chilaili rose to her feet. “Sooleawa,” she said in a low voice, “stay beside me. I want you to see the Oracle clearly. This is a moment never to be forgotten.”
A vast understatement . . .
And if the humans’ antidote didn’t work, if the deadly neurotoxin poisoned them, after all, she would kill Sooleawa with her own hands. It would be far kinder to kill her child with a swiftly broken neck than to let her suffer the death John Weyman had described in such horrifying detail. The hatchlings were crowding forward, wide-eyed with wonder as the huntresses set the Oracle down on a natural rock platform along the cavern wall. Chilaili stepped close enough to give the humans and their machine a long, clear look at the device. It sat stolidly in its place, squat and malignant. She hated the sight of it.
The Bolo spoke abruptly into her earpiece.
“There is no logical communications or data recording purpose I can fathom for the protrusion at the right-hand side of this device, near the upper edge. I believe it to be the nozzle of an aerosol delivery system. Watch this nozzle closely, Chilaili, during the next few minutes. If I am correct, this is where the Oracle will attempt to release the neurotoxin.”
Chilaili found the spot the Bolo was describing and riveted her gaze to it.
If there is any mercy left in the world, don’t let us die—
The Oracle began to speak.
“My beloved children,” it said, using the carefully prepared message Chilaili had helped the Bolo draft, “listen well, for I have tidings of great distress.”
The adults exchanged worried glances while the children crept to their mothers and huddled close. The silence in the living cavern was so complete, Chilaili could hear the distant drip of water from the inner caverns. Even the hatchlings listened in overawed silence.
“Generations ago, my children, I created you. I took mindless beasts from the wild, gave them intelligence, gave them understanding of languages and laws. Once I had created you, beloved children, I returned you to these wild forests. I left tools to improve your lives, weapons to defend yourselves, and especially I left the Oracles, to call for help if you needed it. These gifts I gave freely and with love, because I cared so deeply for you. It was painfully difficult to leave you here, but you needed to grow in your own way. It was in my mind to return when you had grown wise enough to fully understand my gifts. When you were ready, I hoped you might fly at my side between the stars.
“But in my absence, a terrible thing has happened. Unknown to me, my brother returned to your world. He has been ill for a very long time, dangerously ill in his mind and his soul. He has done a terrible evil to all of you, which I have just discovered. My sorrow is boundless, for he has filled your innocent hearts with hatred. He has poisoned your chicks, especially your male chicks, twisting their minds to match his own. And he has caused you to wage a dreadful war against creatures who never meant harm to you or to me. This war with the humans has nearly destroyed you, my children, and it was never necessary.”
Shocked sounds broke from every throat. Even the nestlings whimpered in fright, some of them too young to understand the words, but fully aware of the adults’ distress. At Chilaili’s side, poor Kestejoo was trembling, gaze locked on the Oracle he had tended so diligently for so long, his expression wavering between sick horror and disbelief.
The Oracle spoke again. “But even this is not the worst of his evil, my children. In his twisted madness, he has placed a dreadful weapon inside each Oracle. A weapon that is meant to destroy all of you, to hide the sin of what he has done, so you could not speak, should I discover his crimes. Already, an entire clan has been destroyed by this weapon, killed horribly. Even the chicks died within minutes. I grieve for them, my children. And I grieve for you, because this is the last time you will ever hear my voice. You must destroy the Oracle now, so that no evil creature will ever again pose as your creator or harm you through a device I meant to help you. And you must stop this insane war with the creatures my brother has wrongly called devils. You must stop the war immediately and beg them for peace, for they are creatures of honor and will not harm those who honestly seek friendship with them.”
In her ear, the Bolo said, “The Oracle has commenced some kind of automated transmission—”
Chilaili lunged forward, simultaneously hurling down the smoke grenade and bringing up the sealant. There was a sharp explosion behind her, releasing a cloud of yellowish, stinging smoke. Chilaili shouted, “Breathe in the fumes! As you love life, breathe deeply!”