An Abyss of Light (The Light Trilogy) (44 page)

“Macey?” he called to the skinny redheaded com officer who hunched over his terminal on the lower level.

“Yes, sir?”

“What’s that latest message from Magistrate Slothen?” He grimaced a little as he mentioned the name. He’d met the creature once, and had yet to overcome the revulsion and horror he’d felt. The monstrous blue-skinned Giclasian politician had a puckered blood-red mouth and hair that squirmed like a tangle of snakes when his sophisticated brain worked.

“It was a simple acknowledgment of our former message on the status of Horebian politics, sir. But if you’d like to read it, I can pull it up.”

“No, for God’s sake,” he grumbled more sharply than he’d intended. Dealing with Gamants did that to him, made him irritable. “I read fifteen billion computer screens a day.
Talk to me.
Tell me what it says.”

“Just a moment, please, sir.” He hit a series of buttons on his console and the electromagnetic com aura glowed golden around his head, feeding his brain the data.

While Tahn waited, he studied the quiet industry on the bridge. Officers bent over their terminals, monitoring the latest data on movements across the surface of Horeb and collating incoming information on other Gamant activities across the galaxy. He sighed gruffly. He’d missed midday mess and his stomach tied itself in knots to remind him. He gently patted the organ, silently promising:
soon.

Behind him, the door snicked back and Lieutenant Carey Halloway entered, expertly surveying the bridge. In charge of navigation, she had a practiced ease of movement, a perfect body rippling with toned muscles beneath her formfitting purple uniform. Her auburn hair hung straight over her brows and fell to her shoulders, accenting the emerald green of her eyes and her pearlescent complexion. Strikingly beautiful, she also possessed one of the most abrasive personalities onboard. He liked her.

“Sir,” Macey said and the com aura died. “Magistrate Slothen responded:
Am in receipt of your transmission regarding overtures from Horeb. Tell the councilman that as soon as he can guarantee delivery of our payload, we will certainly negotiate. Inform him we have ample largess on standby.

“What the hell do they think?” Halloway spat, putting hands on her shapely hips. “That we’re stupid? How many times do they have to tell us that?”

Tahn smiled at her appraising. “You know how the Magistrates are. They assume all humans need to be told the same thing at least three times or we’ll miss their point.”

“Morons,” she said under her breath and cursed, striding to her chair at the navigation center.

“What’s the status on our next mission? Have we received course corrections yet?” he requested hopefully.

“Don’t you like it here? Orbiting this barren ball of sand?” she asked.

“Are you being funny?”

“Not very, I guess.”

He relented, chastising himself for taking out his frustrations on his crew. “Sorry, lieutenant.”

“No apologies necessary, Captain. We all feel like we’re walking a tightrope over a pit of insanity.”

“Gamant
insanity.”

“Yes, sir.”

Spewing a disgruntled exhale, he leaned back in his chair and let his mind fill with images of lush forests, scantily-clad females and quaint candlelit taverns. “I was thinking maybe we’d stop off at Lopsen for a week or so before our next mission.”

“A little R and R? The crew would throw themselves at your feet. Especially after the past eight months straight of riding herd on these fanatics.”

“Maybe in atonement for causing us so many headaches, that blasted Gamant god will condemn all their hell-raising souls to the pit. That would make me feel better.”

Halloway gave him a quick look over her shoulder as she fiddled with the screen on her console. “I hear this new Mashiah preaches there is no metaphysical pit of darkness—that hell is being in the universe.”

“What are you doing? Reading Gamant propaganda?”

“Reading it and finding it quite intriguing, sir.”

“Well, stop it. I couldn’t endure a convert on my ship.”

“I didn’t say I’d lost my mind, Captain. Only that I found it intriguing. Their system of belief has very little logic but a fascinating experiential basis.”

He felt himself recoil at the very thought of discussing anything Gamant, but grudgingly asked, “What are you talking about?”

She swiveled in her chair to give him a cold-eyed challenging look. “It’s based on the mystical presupposition that God is accessible.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that their leader has a device, known as a
Mea Shearim,
that supposedly serves as a direct gateway to the throne of the divine.”

“So they slip through the gate and go talk to God, is that it?”

“Apparently.”

“What is the device? Some sort of drug?”

“No. At least not so far as those of the religious studies experts who’ve researched it have been able to determine.”

“Gamants allow study of holy artifacts?”

“Certainly not. But some academicians have gone in undercover, nonetheless.”

“Well, what is it?”

“No one’s sure. Though the effect of the
Mea
has characteristics similar to drug or mind probe imprint catatonia. For example, the person whose soul is traveling to God appears to be lifeless. Rumor has it that during the last Gamant Revolt, old Zadok stayed absent from his body for over a month. His military troops nearly went mad with worry. Some, apparently, really thought he was dead.”

“But he returned, obviously.
Damn him.”

“Returned and led them to a crushing victory over Magisterial forces on the plains of Lysomia.”

“I remember the history lesson, lieutenant. No need to repeat it.”

“Calas claimed God had shown him the strategy to use.”

“Every fanatic claims divine authority. Mohammed, the Crusaders, Pleros of Antares, Kilne of Giclas Three—”

“Sure, a lot of leaders make their followers feel safer by claiming such guidance, but this
Mea
business is a little different.”

“How so?”

She stood and paced contemplatively before him, tapping a laser pen against one palm. He tried to keep his mind off the sensations her lithe form stirred. Damn, when he started seriously thinking about his crew, he’d been locked in his ship too long.

“One rogue religious studies professor who managed to sink deeper into the Gamant structure than any other, claimed the
Mea
had null singularity qualities.”

He laughed softly, squeezing the bridge of his nose.
“What?”

“Oh, yes. His name was Kessler, and he was quite serious. I have the documents, if you’d like—”

“No, I wouldn’t,” he responded severely and glared.

“All right, but the implications are rather staggering.”

He was rapidly losing interest in this preposterous conversation, but forced himself to ask, “Tell me the implications.”

“Well,” she threw her straight auburn hair over her shoulders and adopted an at ease position before him. He hated it when she did that. The posture accentuated the swell of her breasts and the flatness of her stomach and he had trouble concentrating on what she was saying. “Consider that we use primordial holes for power generation and time dilation, but it would certainly be feasible to construct a crude weapon.”

“They don’t have the technology.”

“Maybe not, but they could get it. Raiding a Magisterial science colony would—”

“You think they’d blow up their gateway to God just to get us?”

“Given their personalities, sir, I’d say that’s not too farfetched.”

He squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. He’d seen Baruch do some things he thought no sane commander would do, like endangering his entire fleet by rushing a heavily armed prison planet to rescue
two
of his soldiers. Or the time they’d had him boxed tight in an asteroid belt around Antares Minor, outnumbered five to one. Rather than surrendering like any smart commander who knows he’s lost, Baruch stationed four of his ships in strategic locations, evacuated his crews, then set his matter-antimatter engines on timedelay for merge and ran the rest of his fleet like bats out of hell for the light vault. They’d shot three of the bats out of the sky before they realized the stationary ships were decoys. The entire asteroid belt, including fifteen Magisterial vessels, vanished in the explosions. The man wasted six quality ships and two crews to get a remaining six out … and kill fifty thousand government soldiers. No one sane could predict what he’d do.

“Actually,” Halloway interrupted his thoughts. “I don’t think they’d destroy their only
Mea,
but let’s say, for the sake of argument, that they have a spare. Maybe they’d use it for a bomb, tapping the mass and sending the temperature soaring until the hole gave up the remainder of its mass in one final catastrophic burst of gamma rays.” She looked up and frowned. “Placed properly, such a device would pulverize Palaia Station. The Magistrates—”

“Would be scattered far and wide across the Giclasian system.” He twisted at the tendril of satisfaction he got from the thought.

“But a bomb is rather wasteful when you consider the long-term potential of a singularity cannon. Just one primordial black hole of minimum size, say a few billion tons, could be easily concealed and would produce 10 MeV of energy. That’s a concentrated burst of power equal to six old-style nuclear power plants.”

“A weapon. Sure. Why is it that the concept of a benevolent God sets so many ignorant hearts on the path of murder?”

“It provides comfort during times of stress.” She smiled sweetly.

“Uh-huh.”

“Although the Gamant god is a rather capricious character. He’s left them out in the cold every time they’ve needed him in the past few thousand years.”

“All gods do that.
You can’t expect fuzzy illusions to be reliable.”

“Fuzzy? Like the Heisenberg Principle, the Lamb Shift, the—”

“I get your meaning, lieutenant.” He narrowed his eyes and glared at her. She grinned in return, striding back to sit at her console.

“Insubordination,” he grumbled in a low voice. “I have to put up with lunatic Gamants and disrespectful officers.”

“Though for the life of me,” she said, ignoring his comment. “I can’t understand why they continue to believe in Epagael after he’s abandoned them so many times. Perhaps that’s why this new Mashiah is striking such a chord across Gamant civilization.”

“Probably.”

“Incidentally, Captain …” She hesitated a moment, glancing sideways at Macey, then remarked, “Have you heard the dattran scuttlebutt about Silbersay and Kayan?”

Macey whirled in his chair, brow furrowed, as though she’d infringed on his area of expertise. Red crept up his freckled cheeks. “That’s not confirmed,” he pointed out indignantly.

“I wasn’t usurping your position, Rich. I just wanted to know if anyone had informed the captain?”

“We’ve had no official confirmation on any of those fragments of hearsay! Things like that come across the tran all the time. I didn’t feel the captain needed to be bothered until we knew for certain.”

“I know, Richy,” she sighed disgustedly and lifted a brow. “By the Book every time.

“How dare—”

“What
is
it?” Tahn demanded sternly, looking from Macey’s offended blue eyes to Halloway’s cool green ones. As anyone with experience knew, in a galaxy where information ran the gamut of controls before release, rumor often stood as the single warning beacon that something rotten stirred among the stars.

Carey gallantly gestured for Macey to give the response.

He answered tersely, “Sir, we’re getting a number of conflicting reports from the Kayan region on low frequencies. Most discuss Colonel Silbersay’s recent cannon attacks on obscure villages. Others speculate on when he
will
attack. And still others laud his nonviolent handling of Gamant affairs there. It’s a confusing mess, sir. Not worthy of your attention at this time. Silbersay has sent no reports of punitive actions being taken.”

Carey lounged lazily back, an arm draped unprofessionally over her chair back, a look of quizzical distaste on her lovely face. “And …?”

“And?”

“Oh, come on, Rich. The captain wants to know, and since it might involve us, don’t you think you ought to tell him?”

Tahn leaned forward in his command chair, that familiar clenching up of his stomach muscles tormenting him. “What do you mean ‘involve’ us?”

Macey threw Halloway a rough sideways glance. “Sir, there is
unverified
gossip that speculates Silbersay is on the verge of calling in a scorch attack. Since we’re the nearest Magisterial battle cruiser, that would necessitate our—”

“What?” he breathed. A bad taste rose in his mouth. He swallowed it, feeling queasy. God damn, he couldn’t bear to carry out another such order so soon. The waste and devastation sent something inside him reeling with revulsion. “Why? What could a planet of scattered vagabonds have done to warrant such terminal action?”