“But the captain . . . !” Krisha protested.
“He’s a smart man and a survivor,” Modra consoled her. “He doesn’t need to read minds to figure out things and maybe figure where we’re moving to. We’ll still keep in sight of here.”
The priestess was reluctant, but finally moved. The sensation of additional, powerful presences—many of them— was impossible to ignore.
They found an alleyway between two buildings on a small street that opened into the common. With a little risk of exposure they could check on the area, but they weren’t otherwise visible from anywhere unless somebody was on the correct floor in the buildings on either side.
“This is crazy,” Krisha protested. “You don’t seriously think that we could hide from them, do you?”
“Not if they wanted to find us or much cared,” Jimmy agreed. “But I would suspect that they’re no different than we are when it comes to talents. They’ll block most of their abilities until needed. Your captain was right—we even chanced upon what, from its general utilitarian appearance, just had to be a public toilet. Just as age doesn’t necessarily mean wisdom, so, too, power, even on their scale, doesn’t mean omnipotence. And, if their reputation amongst my own people is any guide, as it has been, these fellows are very jealous of their own individuality and not very good team players unless somebody stronger is over them with a whip, as it were. This’11 be a maintenance crew, to check over the city and see that everything’s operating properly and everything’s turned on and ready and waiting. It’ll be hell to pay in more ways than one of we run into one, but we’re not done yet.”
“Surely, though, they’ve been told we’re here,” Modra noted.
He nodded. “Most likely they have instructions to pen us up or something until the boss gets back, but they’re not going to be very concerned about us in our present state. They aren’t even very concerned with us if we’re wearing
full environment suits with fully charged weapons. A race that can stand the heat and naturally filter the gases from that volcanic land we went through isn’t one to be bothered by the likes of us. Amused, perhaps, but we’re little more than domestic animals to them.” He paused. “Have care but check the common,” he told Krisha.
She nodded, crept to the end of the alley and looked out. For a moment she saw nothing, but then she spotted the great slug-like shape of Tobrush well across the common against the buildings on the other side.
“The Mycohlians are over there!” she hissed to them.
“Damn!” Jimmy swore. “I figured they’d be brighter than that. The power plant for all this is under that temple, as well as our food supply. The Quintara here will be there first and foremost.” He thought a moment. “Tobrush is a born telepath. Do a quick contact, burst mode. Tell them to work their way around to here and that we found the station. If they want to argue, we’ll do it their way. Short duration’s the key.”
Krisha nodded. “I wish we could do this with the captain.”
“He’s safer than any of us. They have no bloody way at all to figure out where he is, and he’s wary enough to not come straight in. Go! Do it, lass, before we miss the chance!”
Krisha went forward once more, and Modra frowned and turned, to Jimmy. “Burst mode?”
“Don’t try it. Takes a lot of practice unless you grow up telepathic. Line of sight telepathy travels at the speed of light. If you know how, you can bring up a packet of information and transmit it in one shot and receive almost as fast. Trouble is, the brain’s not fast enough, so you just get the lob and then a return.”
“But they’re blocked! Won’t the result be that the Quintara hear it but not them?”
“Oh, Josef’s not practiced enough to be totally blocked, nor are you. We’re at the common, though, which causes interference, and doing line of sight, which is highly directional. If that Julki is any good at all, it’ll sense the burst and take it.”
After a very short interval, Krisha returned to them. “No reply, but I think they’re moving this way. I didn’t sense any unusual or powerful probes after, so I don’t think it was particularly noticed.”
“Good girl!” he enthused. “We’ll wait unless this place gets hot or we get a distress message from them.”
Modra wasn’t totally happy to have the Mycohl coming their way again, and for a different reason than Krisha’s natural aversion. “Jimmy—do you think we can trust them?”
He frowned. “Huh? What do you mean?”
“Well, their culture’s more like what the Quintara would feel right at home in, right? And their trooper did do the final deed and go over. This is a truce, remember, not an alliance. I wouldn’t put it past either one of them to just figure the odds and go over and try and make a deal. That Josef—he has rape in his brain every time he’s within eyesight of me. He’s just a cold enough customer to keep it in check so long as his neck’s also in the noose.”
McCray nodded. “Yes, a violent, calculating man. The Julki, too, I suspect, although, as for rape, you’re hardly its type. That type’s probably the only sort that survives and prospers in Mycohl society. Still, they’re essential allies and we need one or both of them. He’s under no illusions that he has any special status among the Quintara, and those two are more likely to suffer than we are because they’re Mycohl—representatives of the ones who betrayed the Quintara—and, far from having an ally on the other side, that girl did what she did as much out of hatred for him as for her own ambition. If the Quintara have the usual reactions, as I think they do, the Mycohl in general will be the ultimate enemy, the ones to revenge themselves against. They know, too, that the Mycohl Empire will be the toughest to crack and the nastiest to conquer. It’ll be bloody as hell. There’s a far greater risk to the Exchange and the Mizlaplan right off.”
“The Mizlaplan will never go to them!” Krisha spat. “The society is too cohesive, the Inquisition, Holy Angels, and the gods will make us an impenetrable wall!”
“Nonsense!” Jimmy scoffed. “I’ve studied some of your
religion—it’s always good to know the competition—and seen the pictures and read the speculation on your Holy Angels. They’re almost all brain—their bodies have pretty well atrophied. They can levitate to a degree but really must be carried from place to place, even fed by a monastic order of high priest devoted to nothing but their care.”
He felt her growing rage and moved to counter it, lest it bring the Quintara right to them.
“Easy, lass! I mean no blasphemy! But in my cosmology the devils are but fallen angels who rebelled against Heaven and were made ugly and tossed out. They were known to gang up on angels and beat them, too, until angelic reinforcements arrived.”
Her anger subsided, overcome in part by curiosity, but she still didn’t like the tack he was taking, as if the Holy Angels were mere other beings, like the Quintara. “What’s your point?”
“On most of your worlds, you’ve got only a single Holy Angel. None but the priesthood ever sees him or converses with him, and edicts to everyone in the hierarchy are conveyed by priests in the temples. A bevy of Quintara could neutralize a single Angel and take control of the intermediaries. Who would know? They don’t even have to fight their betters—just keep them cut off. That one act would put the Quintara in place of the Angel and nobody but nobody would know. I’m no spy or military man, but I was trained in logic, and it’s the obvious weak point in your whole society. Ours is even more vulnerable, since nobody even knows who or what a Guardian is and most folks aren’t even sure any exist. Just tap into the master computers and you’re in command. Even the cymols wouldn’t be much of a problem. If a relatively minor demon can read out a cymol’s entire memory by mere touch in a very emotional moment, how much easier would it be for a coldly calculating demon to reprogram them? The system stinks. Both systems stink, from the vantage point of anyone facing the Quintara. You watch. A quiet alliance, and both the Mizlaplanian and Exchange forces attack the Mycohl on two fronts.”
“You really think that’s possible?” Modra asked him, aghast at the picture he drew.
“Unless they’re a lot more incompetent than a single failed former parish priest. Or even trickier, which is a strong possibility.”
“What makes you believe they would not simply join with the Mycohl and take us apart one at a time?” Krisha asked him.
“Well, for one thing, the Mycohl masters are a colony of over-educated germs. Parasites. So long as one of ’em is loose with an injector you can’t wipe ’em out. Unlike the other two, they’re active. They live in their host bodies and they move about, so they won’t be so easy to pin down. Their society’s based upon dog-eat-dog, so even if the Quintara took over the Lords they’d still be targets on an individual basis, and holding the middle bosses without controlling the top isn’t practical. And, of course, if you’d once had an alliance with the little buggers and then they’d betrayed you, would you make another deal with them? Would they dare make one with you?”
“I see your point,” Modra told him. “But, surely, there must be a ton of scientists and military people crawling all over that camp and that expedition ship, and the scientists must have been sent by the Guardians and reported to them. The Guardians, at least, must know that the Quintara are loose. Surely they’ve already taken every precaution they could!”
“You’d think so,” Jimmy agreed. “If the Guardians are still around, and if they have full memories and records of the Quintara, and if they’re still able to act after all this time. I’m sure that the demons have taken that into consideration as well. We can’t know unless—until—we can get there and report. And neither the Mizlaplan nor the Mycohl are going to really know anything for sure unless some of their own come back and confirm their intelligence.” He looked at Krisha. “That’s why you are going to have to come with us and get out of here. Getting you back is among our most vital tasks, since you’re the only hope of warning your Holy Angels.”
“Me and the captain, you mean.”
He shook his head. “In this case, the captain’s irrelevant. They won’t be able to confirm and fully read out his memories of all this as they can with you. He can back you up, but you are the only one who can even get an audience with one of your Holy Ones, and the only one whose credibility is beyond suspicion. I understood this, and so did Chin. That’s why we’ve been filling you with everything we know and suspect and guess. You’re our messenger, too.” She seemed startled by that. “I see.” Modra understood. “You don’t want to leave without him,” she said as gently as possible. “We’ll give him all the time we can, but if the Quintara are here, now, it’s already chancy. We can’t wait too long—and you cannot stay. You see why now, I hope.”
At that moment, Josef came around the corner and flattened against the wall as if something was chasing him. They tensed, suddenly aware of the narrowness of the alley and the single back exit it provided. About twenty seconds later, Tobrush, too, made it to the shadows. “Trouble?” Jimmy asked nervously. “That’s hardly the word for it,” the burly man responded, still a bit out of breath. “We almost ran smack into a pair of them!”
“Did they see you?”
“I think they knew we were close by. One of them turned as if ready to come after us, but the other one said something and pulled him back. Their natural speech sounds like the growls of monsters.”
“That just means they had something more pressing right then,” Jimmy commented. “It won’t be long until enough of them are here to have checked out all the systems and have some time to kill.”
“But the demon prince said we were not to be harmed until he himself returned,” Krisha reminded him.
Jimmy McCray sighed. “First of all, they lie for the fun of it, so we can’t take that as a guarantee. Second, he could show up any time. Third, these creatures don’t have a good reputation for following orders when the boss isn’t around. And, finally, there’s lots of unpleasant stuff they can do just for amusement without really making the old boy mad. It’s
going to be tough enough just getting into that station without running into them as it is.”
“You found one, then?” Josef asked, hope rising.
McCray nodded. “It’s probably sure death to use it, but it’s better than staying here and doing nothing.”
Josef looked around. “Still no sign of the old captain?”
Krisha shook her head sadly. “No. And I’ve just had a lecture on why I cannot wait for him.”
The Mycohl leader sighed. “Too bad. He’s a smart old man who’d be running things if he were in the Mycohl. All right, then, we have to go without him.” He pointed to Grysta, who’d been uncharacteristically silent through most of this, as if realizing only now some of the implications of what she’d done. “I’d prefer we didn’t have that baggage along, though. I don’t know who or what she is, but she belongs with them, not us, just like Kalia.”
“She comes,” Jimmy responded sharply. “If she’s with them, we want her where we can keep an eye on her. If not, I don’t want to give them any presents, including knowledge of everything we’ve talked about and done.”
“I wasn’t thinking of letting her loose,” Josef said menacingly.
“Maybe we could kill her—I’m not sure about what it takes to do in a syn—but the empathic waves would draw them irresistibly to us, particularly a death,” Jimmy noted. “No, she’s my responsibility, and my burden.”
“Gee, thanks a lot, Jimmy,” Grysta said sourly.
Now Tobrush, who had to use telepathy to speak with the others, chose its words carefully and allowed the near-absolute telepathic shield to drop for only a moment.
<You all must let me touch you, > the Julki told them. </ can make the marks.> To demonstrate, a trio of incredibly thin, wiry tentacles extended from its back, curved around, and, guided by the stalked eyes looking back at itself, they oozed some thick, black substance and drew three perfect vertical lines there.
“Is that stuff safe?” Modra asked worriedly.
Jimmy shrugged. “There’s not much else around here to do it with. I just hope it comes off.”
The tendrils felt like wet twine, and Tobrush had drawn
the theoretical safety marks on Josef, Jimmy, Modra, and even Grysta. Only Krisha shied away from the tendrils at first, almost causing a real mess on her forehead, but she finally relaxed enough to get it done.
Jimmy was as satisfied as he could be that they were ready, and looked at Krisha. “Take one more look for the captain. A good look. Then we have to go. There’s no way around it.”
She nodded, went to the end of the alley, and, after her normal and paranormal senses told her that nothing was in the immediate area of the common, she stepped out, deliberately exposing herself for close to thirty seconds. Finally Josef ran up to her and, seizing an arm, pulled her back with a violent jerk.
“That’s enough!” he growled. “More than enough. Betray yourself if you want but leave the rest of us out of it!”
She was furious at him and tempted to take him on, although his size and violent nature showed he’d be no easy match, but Modra got to them before either could do much more than glare at one another.
“Enough of this!” Jimmy McCray snapped. “We’re as good as dead anyway without a miracle! If we start that up again even miracles will be impossible! The greatest weapon these creatures have, far more than even their powers, is our own disunity!”
They both relaxed a bit, the crisis past for the moment, but nobody had to be an empath to realize that the resentment between the pair still smoldered. Still, Jimmy’s point was well taken and they knew it.
The route down to the station level was convoluted, and several times they had to either stop or veer away as they felt or saw Quintara in the area. The sights and sounds of creatures working hard were all around them; unsuspected panels in some streets were now off, and large machines of various shapes and sizes and unknown purposes littered some of the other walkways and side streets. In a way, it was reassuring to see such things; they reinforced Gun Roh Chin’s admonition that the Quintara were, after all, flesh and blood creatures like themselves, and that their true
power came from evolution and superior technology, not some vast supernatural force.
Still, it was unnerving to go down the final ramps and discover that this ancient capital of some past demon empire appeared floating on nothing at all; the station suspended seemingly from the underside of the entire vast plate that supported the city.
Although clearly not designed for any sort of commuting traffic, the station was nonetheless vast in size; a great oval-shaped common flanked on both sides by seemingly endless numbers of giant crystal openings. While no living creatures were in sight, it was clear from more dislodged floor panels and various equipment scattered about that a technical team was either working here or expected to shortly, increasing their sense of urgency.
“But which one, if any, is the way out of here?” Modra asked, open-minded at the choices. “They could lead anywhere!”
“There don’t seem to be any signs,” Jimmy agreed. “Still, I think we pick one and see what happens. Either that, or each of us takes a different one in hopes at least one of us gets back.”