Dream Called Time (21 page)

I staggered back. “Stay away from me.”

“Cherijo.” He stood there beaming like a benevolent demon. “Is that any way to speak to your father?”

Reever caught me from behind and clamped an arm around my waist as he initiated a link.
That is not Joseph Grey Veil,
he told me firmly.
We watched him die on Terra. He is a shape-shifter trying to frighten you. All of these men are shape-shifters.

“Your theory, while admirable, is flawed by your ignorance,” the Odnallak said to my husband. “The Joseph Grey Veil you witnessed being murdered on Terra was simply a clone. I have employed many over time.”

“He read your thoughts.” I watched him stroll over to the other Odnallak, who engaged him in what sounded like a loud, furious argument. “How could he do that?”

“He is telepathic,” Maggie advised me. “And not like the others. He is very old. They are not shape-shifters, Cherijo.”

“What else do you know about them, Maggie?” Reever asked.

“They have changed since we put them here. They bred with some of the others before they killed them to have new ones.” She frowned at the group of arguing men. “The undesirables wish to hurt us and kill us, but the old one does not.”

“He’s not Joseph.” I didn’t sound convincing, even to my own ears. “Joseph is dead.”

Reever didn’t look at him, but focused his attention on me. “It doesn’t matter who he is, or who these people are. They mean nothing to us. Do you understand me?”

I nodded tightly, and wrapped my arms around my waist.

The Odnallak wearing my creator’s face returned to us. “If you wish to avoid pointless torture and painful death, you will come with me now.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Very well.” He gestured toward the men. “They are very curious about the Hsktskt and the oKiaf, as they have never seen their species. I imagine they will be the first to be dissected.”

“We agreed to come here to be questioned,” Reever said.

“My ancestors have lied to you, dear boy. When they have carved you up and harvested what they want from your bodies, they’ll signal the ship and tell them to send another group, and threaten to execute you if they do not. It will take a few weeks, but eventually they’ll collect the entire crew that way.”

Shon stepped between us. “We will go with you.”

“Excellent.” Joseph beamed at us and gestured toward another chamber. “This way, please.”

We followed him into a complex industrial center where hundreds of Odnallak were working. The group that had argued with him followed behind us, still bickering among themselves, so there was no chance for us to escape. We walked across alloy bridges suspended above massive pits where enormous machines operated.

“Those are this city’s air and water purifiers,” Joseph mentioned as he noticed my interest. “As you observed outside, my ancestors have thoroughly poisoned the atmosphere and razed the planet in their efforts to make it hospitable.”

“It did not look like this when you were brought here,” Maggie remarked. “It was cold and there was much ice, but there was also much life.”

His smile faded. “My people were accustomed to being warm, well fed, and comfortable. What they did here was merely in an effort to reclaim what you stole from them.”

“We stole nothing. We made you leave our world.” Maggie gestured toward the equipment. “Had we permitted you to stay, you would have done this to it.”

“We’ll never know, will we?” He pointed to a passage leading from the industrial center. “In there, if you would.”

We walked into a storage facility where the Odnallak had filled launch-sized bins with towering piles of ore and minerals. In the center of the facility were a complex array of equipment and wide tanks filled with molten liquid.

“This is where they have been rendering the native ores to power their city and provide fuel for their vessels.” Joseph led us into the equipment complex and pointed to a series of archways spanning circular platforms. “Stand on the alloy circles, please. Everyone but you, my dear.” He nodded at Maggie.

I didn’t move. “What are you going to do to her?”

“The Jxin and I have much to discuss.” He gave me a push toward the archways. “If you do not wish to be fired upon by my impatient brethren, you will stand on the circles now.”

Reever took my arm. “Do as he says.”

My husband led me over to one of the circles and positioned me on it before stepping onto one beside me. ChoVa and Shon did the same. Joseph waved one of his hands over a console, and dark liquid streamed down over us.

“I would suggest you hold very still,” he advised as ChoVa thrashed her tail and I ducked my head to keep the liquid out of my face. “The matrix hardens on contact.”

The liquid turned ice-cold, solidifying over our bodies while at the same time sending out thin tendrils that connected to the inside of the archway. A moment later we were all trapped in dark gray webs of oily-looking crystal.

“It is a crude form of life native to this world, and quite unbreakable,” Joseph advised as ChoVa cursed and writhed. “It is also reactive to movement. The more you struggle, the tighter it will contract.”

He retrieved a device and brought it over to me. “From you, dear daughter, I need some blood.”

“I’m not your daughter.” I hissed in a breath as he stabbed the device into my arm and used it to draw out several vials of blood. “What are you going to do with it?”

“It’s a gift for our friends.” He handed it over to one of the waiting Odnallak, and then strode over to Maggie, who was watching everything with visible boredom. “Now, I think some scans are in order.”

The Odnallak who had taken the vials of my blood quickly left, but the others took up positions around us. I soon discovered that Joseph’s claims were true, and had to force myself to be still to keep the crystal matrix from tightening around my throat and cutting off my air.

After Joseph had performed several scans of Maggie, he handed his scanner to one of the Odnallak, who studied it and uttered several sharp words.

“It seems that my ancestors want very much to boil you alive in one of their mineral vats,” he told Maggie.

She didn’t look alarmed at all. “That will not harm me.”

“They know. It is more a symbolic act, to show their contempt for you and the rest of the Jxin.” He walked around her. “Why did you accompany the primitives here?”

“Unlike you, they interest me.” She walked over to me. “This one is unlike any of the others. Her mind is simple, but she is unique. She was able to operate one of our collectors.”

“Ah, yes. That is because you tampered with her many millions of years from now. I was very displeased when I discovered your meddling in my experiments. But I am not one to hold a grudge.” Joseph smiled at me. “Over time she has proven to be most entertaining.”

“Go to hell,” I told him.

“There is no hell,” Maggie advised me before turning to Joseph. “How long will you keep them like this?”

“Indefinitely, unless you answer my questions.”

“I do not want to stay here. I want to return to the ship.” Maggie moved down to ChoVa, who was having difficulty breathing. “Loosen this one’s bonds, or she will expire.”

Joseph passed his hand over ChoVa’s web, and the tendril wrapped around her neck eased away. Immediately she began to curse him, until he caused another to wrap around her muzzle.

“There, all better. Now, your people have been devoting themselves to ascending to the next level,” he said to Maggie. “How close are you to attainment?”

She thought for a moment. “Within the solar year the eldest will acquire perfection and ascend.”

He inclined his head. “My people are also very close to attainment.”

“You cannot ascend.” She made a negligent gesture. “You are impure.”

“My people have already discovered the equations, and acquired enough power necessary to make the transition,” Joseph informed her. “In fact, their entire civilization has been quite devoted to that end. Their intentions are to ascend before the Jxin.”

“They cannot. They are still flawed.” Maggie frowned at the other Odnallak. “They have already sickened themselves with the things they have put in their bodies. They would never survive exposing their flesh.”

“On the contrary, they can and will, as soon as they collect the last element they require.” He grinned at her. “Where is the infinity crystal?”

“Maggie, don’t tell him,” I shouted.

“It is inside the Jxin,” she told him. To me she said, “You need not shout. He must know that he and the other undesirables cannot take it from us.”

“We are not interested in what you have used for your own selfish purposes,” Joseph said. “What we wish to know is, where is the source?”

Maggie moved her shoulders. “It came to Jxinok long ago. Some of it left. We do not care where it went.”

“But you do know where it is now.”

She pointed up. “It protects the vessel you attacked.”

Joseph turned to the other Odnallak and spoke quickly to them. They lowered their weapons and immediately left the facility.

“What are they doing?” I demanded.

“They will be launching drones to collect the crystal from the
Sunlace
. Hopefully your captain has finished his repairs to it.” He took Maggie’s arm. “We’re through here now, my dear. Come with me.”

“Where are we going?” I heard her ask as Joseph led her away, but I couldn’t hear his response.

He was probably going to drop her into one of those molten-ore vats. “Reever, we have to get out of here and warn the ship.”

“I can’t free myself.”

“I can,” Shon said, and out of the corner of my eye I saw an intense white glow. “Close your eyes.”

Minutes passed as the light enveloped us, and the gray crystal began to tighten. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink, and a scream rose in my throat as the matrix contracted and began grinding into my bones. Just when the pain grew unbearable, the tendrils encasing me began to crack and then break apart. Shards of the ruined web pelted the alloy circle and the floor all around me as I struggled to free myself of the remnants.

By the time I’d worked my way out of the web, Reever and Shon were free. ChoVa was the last to stumble out of the archway, and shook herself, flinging the shattered crystal all around her.

“If we try to leave the way we came, the Odnallak working in that industrial center will see us,” I said, looking around until I spotted a small vehicle of some kind. “Shon, can you pilot that?”

He went over and looked inside the cockpit. “Yes.”

The vehicle turned out to be a multipurpose transport, which could be operated on the ground as well as in the air. As Shon activated the controls, I checked the interior and tossed out some equipment to make room for the four of us.

“We have to find Maggie, get off this planet and transition the
Sunlace
out of here before they can get the protocrystal they need from the hull,” I told him. “They’re not going to be happy about it.”

“I was a combat pilot,” he said. “I know what to expect. Duncan, take the copilot’s seat. ChoVa, you and Cherijo get into those harnesses.”

By the time we were strapped in, Shon had engaged the engines and tested the craft’s controls. “It’s fast, which we’ll need. Hold on.”

With a maneuver that upended the craft and rolled it in a complete three sixty, Shon flew the craft across the storage facility and into the industrial complex.

Below us everything was in chaos, with smoke belching from the equipment and several small fires burning. On one of the walkways I saw Maggie standing and looking down at Joseph, who was sprawled in the bottom of one of the pits.

“There she is.” I reached up and pointed. “Can you land there?”

“No, but I can hover close enough for someone to grab her.” Shon changed direction and headed for the walkway.

As he descended, Maggie beamed and waved at us, squinting as the engine’s backwash blasted over her.

I opened the back compartment door and turned to ChoVa. “Hold my legs.”

The Hsktskt wrapped four limbs around me as I pushed the upper part of my body out of the compartment and reached down to Maggie. “Grab on to me.”

She jumped up, seized my hands, and hung dangling from my grip. “You freed yourselves. I was just coming to do that.”

I turned my head and yelled to ChoVa, “I have her.”

The Hsktskt jerked me inside, but I lost my grip on one of Maggie’s hands. She clasped my arm with her free hand and began climbing up me with ease, until she was inside. At the same time, some of the Odnallak beneath us opened fire.

I hauled Maggie over my lap and slammed the compartment door shut. “She’s in,” I told Shon. “Go.”

“Cherijo, that was very unexpected.” Maggie struggled into an upright position. “How did you free yourselves? Were you able to operate the undesirables’ machines? You are not angry with me again, are you?” She glanced at ChoVa. “You wish me to shut up now.”

“That would be nice,” I said.

We didn’t escape the industrial complex unscathed; the Odnallak hit us with a barrage of ground fire, damaging the hull and taking out one of the engines. Still Shon somehow managed to evade the worst of it and emerge on the other side, where we had been brought in from the tram.

I saw why he had put the craft into a stationary hover. “It’s too big to fit through those chambers.”

Reever put his hands on two spheres set in the console, turning them until they glowed. When he pressed in on the top of the spheres, twin energy blasts shot out of the front of the craft and blew an enormous hole through the air locks.

“Now it’s not,” he said.

Shon flew through the ragged gap and up to the rail transport station, where I saw innumerable trams coming to a stop and a horde of armed Odnallak pouring out of them. But rather than fly over the rails, Shon darted the craft under them.

There wasn’t more than a few feet of space on either side of us as he flew beneath the elevated rails, turning the craft sideways here and there to squeeze through even narrower spaces between the support struts.

I looked back and saw several other craft in pursuit. “We’ve got company, coming up fast.” I winced as one pilot misjudged his distance, clipped a strut, and slammed into the ground, exploding on impact. Then I glanced ahead and saw we were headed straight for some kind of blockade of other craft. “Shon.”