Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3 (53 page)

GRACE LET HERSELF into the 256
^th
skyrise, and breathed a sigh of relief. At least she would be able to find some more mask packs – she had left it a bit close this time. The little sphere buzzed around her head worriedly.

“What are you going to do?” it asked her.

“What are
we
going to do, you mean. Arcan definitely needs your help now. You have been telling us how superior you are – now might be a good time to prove it!”

It whirred. “I don’t know what we
can
do.”

Grace gave it an exasperated look. “Don’t know what all those brain cells are doing up there, then. They don’t seem to be much good for anything.”

“There is nothing to be done in this situation. Logic tells us that Arcan will either recover or not, and that must determine the outcome.”

Grace gazed at the orb in disgust. “Terrific,” she said, “and while we are sitting around waiting to see if Arcan recovers, Diva will be taken to some secret place and we may never see her again. Dream on!”

“I am fully awake!”

“Well it doesn’t seem like it!”

The little globe maintained a dignified silence, and Grace considered her options. Then she stood up.

“I am going to get Diva out,” she told the video camera. “I think it is best to make an attempt now. The orthotubes and ortholifts are out, which means that they can’t move her anywhere else right now. She must still be in the Valhai Voting Dome.” She picked up ten mask packs and began packing them in a back pack. She added a spare bodywrap for Diva, in case hers had been damaged, and then turned to the video camera. “Coming?”

It gave an uncomfortable whine. “Your chances of success are minimal.”

“They are zero if I don’t even attempt it.”

“I am obliged to go with you. You will be assured of failure if I do not accompany you.”

Grace smiled. “I am going – with or without you.”

“But I am only authorized to help Arcan, not you.”

“I will not ask you for help,” Grace promised. “You could accompany me merely to document the trip.”

“In that case, I will come with you.”

Grace let herself out onto the terrace and made her way silently down the rexelene blocks onto bare planet. It would take her at least an hour to reach the Valhai Voting Dome, so she set up a brisk pace. This time she hardly noticed her surroundings: she was too worried about the others.

Then she thought of something. “You travel much faster than me, don’t you?” she said.

“Naturally. A snail could travel faster than you,” it informed her.

“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind going to the lake and checking out whether Arcan’s colour is all right. That might give us an idea if he is going to recover or not. It almost seems as if he has been knocked out by chemical agent, or a pulse of some sort. It must have been that orange glow you told me about. We need to know what it is that the Sellites have invented.”

“I will go and check the lake,” agreed the machine, disappearing so fast that she couldn’t track it with her eyes. She trudged on across the thick sand, glad to have a few moments to herself.

It was back shortly before she reached the Dome.

“The lake looks fine,” it told her. “I can’t detect any change in colour. I think he has only been temporarily knocked out. But he didn’t talk to me.”

Grace nodded. “That is a relief.” She told it about the last time that Arcan was ill, how the lake had become muddied with trails of dead scum on the surface.

“Then the prognosis is better on this occasion,” the voice behind the machine told her.

She nodded. “I think so. It sounds as if they have somehow disabled his way of communication – the quantum part of things. I don’t know how they could have done that? Hopefully he will recover on his own. The thing is; it sounds as if they have Diva attached to something which will make it impossible for Arcan to transport her, even if he does ‘come to’ on his own.”

“Then your strategy is the most correct. You are Diva’s only hope of rescue.”

“Yes. So I have to succeed.”

THEY FINALLY ARRIVED at the entrance to the Valhai Voting Dome. It was a simple matter to get in: the machine was able to give Grace the passwords. Once inside, the machine explained where Grace would find Diva – if she hadn’t been moved.

Grace pulled off her mask pack, and hid it and the back pack behind a nearby column, under one of the tridi screens. She took a rather shaky breath. She was feeling slightly sick.

“Your body is weak,” observed the machine.

“I was just resting for a moment!”

“Your pulse is racing, and your skin is cold and clammy. You are scared.”

Grace glared at the machine. “I am not!” She put her chin up. “I am not scared of anything,” she said mendaciously. “I was simply catching my breath!”

The machine gave a crackle. “If you say so.”

“I certainly do!”

“It seems my data banks are wrong,” it said. Then it gave a scratch of static. Grace looked at it suspiciously.

“Are you laughing?” she asked it.

The machine whirred. “I am speaking to you through a video recording device,” it told her. “How could a machine laugh?”

“No-o-o, I suppose you are right,” she agreed, “but—”

“Hush. I detect movement on the other side of this chamber.”

Grace froze. The machine activated the blending device and disappeared from sight. Grace hoped that it had gone to find out where Diva was, and how many guards she had. It could at least make itself useful, she thought.

Suddenly she heard the familiar metallic voice very close to her left ear.

“There are two guards at the entrance to the vault. But once you get past them, there is nobody else. Diva has not been moved yet, so once you get through you will be all right. I can find nobody else in the Voting Chamber.”

Grace gave a quick nod to show that she understood, but she was trembling. Two guards! How on Almagest was she going to get past two guards? Both of them would be twice her size! Think, Grace, think! How can you get rid of two burly guards?

Well, she certainly couldn’t overcome them by force, which meant that she would simply have to be smarter than they were. She needed them to leave their posts—

“Are you still there?” she hissed at the machine.

“Yes, of course I am,” it hissed back.

“Would it be against your principles to move first over there,” she indicated the far right of the chamber, “and then over there,” this time she pointed to the far left, “and howl like a sick Cesan catumba falling off a cliff?”

“It might not …” said the machine cautiously, “if I knew what a Cesan catumba was …”

“I want a horrible, long-drawn out squeal that will curdle their blood.”

The video camera examined the two Sellite guards dispassionately.

“They don’t look as if they are very prone to having their blood curdled,” it decided. “It would have to be an extremely harrowing howl.”

“The worst you can come up with,” she agreed. “Can you do it?”

“You wish me to distract the guards by moving quickly around the room, making disturbing sounds, while you sneak past them down the corridor into the vault?”

“Exactly.”

“And how do you propose to get out again?”

Grace spread her hands apart. “I will have Diva with me,” she told him, surprised he couldn’t see the obvious. “She will get both of us out.”

“You deposit much faith in your friend.”

“You don’t know Diva. She can do anything.”

The machine gave a faint chirrup of doubt. “I hope I don’t regret this,” it said, “but here goes.”

A few seconds later the most ghastly sound came from Grace’s right. She jumped, even though she was expecting it. Both guards turned and took a few steps in that direction. Grace sneaked one column nearer to the entrance to the vault.

The next howl came from her left. It was indeed a harrowing howl, because it set off a shiver which ran all the way down her spine and then all the way back up again. She made it two columns nearer to the vault.

Although the guards took care not to move too far from the corridor, they couldn’t help but look around, try to see what was causing the noise. She smiled. One more and she would be through.

The noise this time was even more nerve-wracking, a caterwaul that would have instilled pure terror in the legendary sabre-toothed tiger from Xiantha. Without waiting to see the result, she raced across the remaining few metres and flung herself down the corridor which descended abruptly to the vault. She didn’t look back.

DIVA WAS AWAKE, and her eyes shone as she caught sight of Grace. She was tied to the magnetic plate by four big shackles, and Grace’s face fell.

“Don’t worry. You
can
get me out of here, Grace,” Diva told her. “All you have to do is give each of these clasps a hard sharp blow on the button on top of the clasp, and they will open. I saw them do it with one that was closed. It’s only a mechanical self-locking clasp.”

Grace took the hilt of her catana, and gave the shackle at Diva’s wrist a sharp blow. The sound resonated around the room, and she winced. The guards would be bound to hear.

Quickly, she hit the other wrist shackle and it sprang open. But before she could open the leg shackles she heard a great roar and the two Sellite guards erupted into the vault.

In one swift movement, Grace gave a dive for the nearest table. She saw that they had disarmed Diva – the Coriolan girl’s dagger had been placed on the table. As ran past she snatched up the blade and threw it, hilt first, towards Diva. The Coriolan girl managed to catch it and gave her a cheery sign. Grace plunged behind the table and waited for the inevitable.

There were two sharp and almost simultaneous blows and then she saw Diva disappear behind the magnetic plate. The guards divided, one coming for Grace, and the other heading for Diva.

Diva stormed out from behind the magnetic plate and pounced upon her guard, dagger at the ready and with a fearsome battle-cry. The Sellite cringed back for a split second, surprised by the violence of the girl’s onslaught. Then he reacted, and parried her blade. They began to fight in earnest.

Grace took a huge breath, took a firm grip of her catana, and then with a silent prayer to Almagest, launched herself upon her own attacker. He loomed up in front of, something approaching the size of Mount Palestron, she found herself thinking. She opened her mouth and tried to emit her own battle cry. It came out as a cross between a squeak and a sob, but she didn’t stop. With her catana held high, she launched herself at the Sellite.

He was so surprised that her blade connected with his arm, forcing him to drop the laser gun he was carrying. It flopped onto the table, did a lazy cartwheel onto the floor, and lay there for a moment before Grace threw herself upon it, and moved the switch to turn it into a stun gun. He had nearly reached her when she turned around and fired directly into the broad chest. He went down like a temaris tree under the axe, and she was forced to twist nimbly to avoid being squashed flat.

Panting hard, she wheeled around to Diva’s fight. Diva was giving as good as she got, Grace saw. Although the Sellite was far bigger, Diva was much more pliant, able to execute her trademark nimble footwork, which gave her the advantage of surprise.

Grace waited until the Sellite’s broad back was towards her, and then fired the stun gun firmly. The guard, caught in mid step, plummeted to the ground, bounced once, and then lay still. Diva glanced up at Grace and glared.

“What did you have to do that for?” she demanded. “He was mine!”

“They might have alerted more Sellites,” Grace told her. “I thought we had better get out of here.”