Inherit the Stars Page 8

  Above the terminal, an image flickered and coalesced into a three-dimensional figure of Zhhl. Dunaar straightened his glittering outer robe.

  “Prophet of Meh Sat, this frequency irritates my body.” The Sarrhdtuu’s voice sounded grainy through the speaker.

  “My followers cannot be allowed to hear our conversation. I assure you, our plan is still intact.”

  The image went awry with static. “Kivita Vondir touched the jewels taken from Xeh’s Crown. She has touched the Juxj Star, for we know the vault on the planet below is now empty. We must have her.”

  Dunaar frowned. “My scanners have picked up a strong signal. A Vim—”

  “It is known, Prophet of Meh Sat. Kivita Vondir is our payment for any war with the Aldaakians. They will also desire her now.” Zhhl’s sibilant voice thickened.

  “The Aldaakians have Terredyn Narbas.” Dunaar gripped the Scepter in both hands. “It is more likely the Thedes have Kivita now; Sar Redryll’s ship has left the system. You shall have her once we find them.”

  “The Thede ship has been predicted to arrive near an ally.”

  “Oh?” Dunaar tried to keep his voice indifferent. “Then it would seem you already have Kivita Vondir in your grasp.” He gripped the Scepter harder. Zhhl wasn’t telling him everything it knew.

  “This ally has agreed to bring her to the Tejuit system, Prophet of Meh Sat,” Zhhl said.

  Dunaar grinned with all his teeth. “That is the very system I have chosen to gather my fleets. The Aldaakians will have no idea what bears down upon them. You will have your own fleet there?”

  Zhhl didn’t reply, as the holographic image disappeared with squealing pops.

  What was that jelly-filled monstrosity keeping to itself? Had he overlooked something about Kivita?

  Dunaar informed Captain Stiego of their destination, then entered the chamber where former prophets resided. The sleeping faces all seemed to beseech him for another chance at rulership. He keyed in one pod’s revival-code sequence. Only the current Rector could converse with the sainted frozen.

  Cryofrost fell away and the pod opened. Inside, the wrinkled form of Rector Broujel stirred as a tube squirted pseudoadrine into his crusted mouth. A musty aroma of sweat and stale air drifted from the pod.

  “I have need of your council, Rector Broujel.” Dunaar waited while the old man righted himself and opened his eyes.

  “By the Vim . . . such a dream.” Broujel’s weak voice had an old, feudal accent. “Who? . . .”

  “I am the current Rector, Dunaar Thev. I have awakened you for a question.”

  Broujel’s cough shook his frail liver-spotted body. The man must have been near death when frozen. Dunaar would live to see the Vim on his own two feet, not frozen in stasis like this.

  “Ah . . . I remember you, Thev. You asked me about the . . . the moons near Tejuit Seven—”

  “What do you know of Savants?” Dunaar said. “Ones who could transmit data over great distances?”

  Broujel scowled and coughed. “The Omni-Savants? Those were reined in and outlawed. All traces . . . eradicated.”

  Dunaar leaned forward. “What makes these Omni-Savants so special?”

  “Special?” Broujel entered a coughing fit. Dunaar winced as the older man’s lungs rattled. “They are an abomination! An Omni absorbs datacore knowledge and can transmit it to others . . . even through space. Their electrical brain pulses act as radio signals. Why, in my time, we executed at least three. I imprisoned all other Savants, one of them my own daughter . . . bred through the . . . Oath of Propagation . . .”

  As he leaned back, a shiver of fear sliced through Dunaar’s heart. If Bredine was correct, then letting Kivita fall into Thede hands constituted a great strategic blunder.

  “The Sarrhdtuu are searching for one,” Dunaar said. “A human woman. They want her as payment, in exchange for their aid against—”

  “It is sacrilege to barter Savants, Thev! All your ancestors have struggled for . . .” Broujel coughed and spat up mucus. “You’re making the same mistake Rector Cyanev did with that wretched Susuron queen, Terredyn Narbas. Her banner, a sword with a flaring star, blighted several Inheritor worlds before she kissed the executioner’s blade. . . .”

  While Broujel coughed, Dunaar tried to breathe. Terredyn Narbas . . . it was the name of Kivita’s ship, and that symbol was on its outer hull . . . her talent . . .

  Before the Thedes discovered such things, he needed to act with extreme haste. Zhhl must already know. . . . But were they not the Vim’s allies? Sweat ran down Dunaar’s face, stinging his eyes and lips.

  “Why is this not in the records? As Rector, I should know everything!” Dunaar raised the Scepter and loomed over Broujel.

  “I told you . . . all traces were . . . destroyed. Only the prophets can be allowed to spread knowledge. Savants can be controlled, contained. Omni-Savants . . . cannot. The Narbas line would have destroyed us, had the queen lived. Why ask me this? What has happened?” Broujel tried to leave the cryopod, coughing anew.

  “I thank you for your wisdom, Rector Broujel. May the Vim illuminate our paths.” Dunaar slammed the pod shut and mashed the stasis button. Inside, Broujel banged against the transparent hatch with weakening strikes. The old man finally drifted into cryostasis, lips curled in frustration.

  Zhhl wanting Kivita was even more suspicious—but Dunaar needed Sarrhdtuu firepower to tip the balance in his favor. Just one of their battleships could annihilate an entire fleet.

  As Dunaar hurried into his private chamber, Zhara avoided his scowl. He motioned in two Proselytes from the corridor. “Watch this Ascali wench at all times. Do not let her out your sight.”

  • • •

  The blue sun blinded Kivita, though the one-hundred-foot-tall viewport was tinted to full power. The star’s brilliance bathed its orbiting planets with life-giving energy as well as refueling her ship. In the surrounding void, thousands of similar systems shone back at her.

  “Khaasis.” The star name she’d almost said on Vstrunn.

  Something warm touched her left shoulder.

  Kivita inhaled as the blue star and gigantic viewport became a huge chamber filled with rows of cryopods. She stood, dressed in a yellow insulated suit, on a catwalk above them. The sterile scent of bleach solvent stung her nose. Kivita tried to count the pods, but the rows extended into distant cryofog.

  The warmth moved up her shoulder and lay across her neck.

  Crushed debris floated around Kivita over a reddish-brown nebula. The wreckage extended for miles in all directions. Thrusters, bulkheads, rigid bodies. Her faceplate frosted over as her air ran out.

  “No,” she murmured. The warmth traveled up her neck and rested on her cheek.

  Kivita tried to turn away as a white-tiled room surrounded her. The hum and whir of machinery droned in her ears. In transparent tubes around her, humanoid creatures floated in yellow-green ichor. Kivita neared one tube. The occupant looked human, but fine hair covered its body, like that of an Ascali.

  Shivering, she groaned as her temples throbbed.

  “Don’t pay heed to those Inheritor prophets, Kiv,” her father said as they stood outside Terredyn Narbas. “You’ll find something special out there someday. Just gotta keep looking for it.” The yellow sun rose over Haldon Prime, warming Kivita’s face. Rhyer Vondir towered over her, attired in his brown flight fatigues. His kind smile didn’t dispel an eerie notion in her mind: Kivita had grown into a woman now; she almost told him so.

  Moaning, she scooted toward the source of warmth. It touched her knees, her breasts.

  She turned to tell her father about this gem she’d found, but he was gone. Now the Vim derelict from Xeh’s Crown filled her vision instead. Globs of dried green jelly littered the decks, and rows of stone columns housed Vim datacores. Hundred-foot-high viewports showed the trinary super–r
ed giants outside in hellish shades. A band of Kith watched her.

  “Sar!” she cried, hoping he’d be there to help her again.

  Stinging liquid filled her mouth and she coughed. The warmth contracted around her; then someone cursed into her hair. Kivita forced her eyes open.

  Sar’s green-brown orbs stared right back, inches from her face.

  A cryopod hatch opened above them as he retracted his arm from around her. The source of warmth now revealed, Kivita recoiled, her skin tingling. The Juxj Star lay between them. It glowed once and dulled.

  “What in the . . . ?” Kivita wiped pseudoadrine from her lips. Sar rose beside her, still in his gray bodyglove.

  “Easy, sweetness. You almost crushed me trying to snuggle close.” He yawned and stretched his arms.

  Kivita sat up and snatched the Juxj Star. “You were groping me like a spacer who’s been in orbit too long.” Not looking at him, she lurched from the cryopod. Her cheeks burned so much, she feared they’d ignite.

  Cheseia exited the cryopod on her left, stretching her supple form. The Ascali’s near nudity made her cheeks hotter, and Kivita checked her own body. Blue medical tape covered the cut on her left leg, and the burns on her back only stung now.

  “Move aside.” Cheseia took up the beam rifle and aimed it at the third cryopod.

  On Kivita’s right, a hatch opened and frost crystals puffed into the air. An Aldaakian female wearing a tight uniform exited and regarded them all with caution. She stretched, then ran in place. Her defined, muscular litheness didn’t jiggle as she exercised.

  Sar pushed past Kivita and stood on the floor. Frevyx’s gravity had already activated, but the heating system had yet to raise the temperature fast enough. Though Kivita shivered, the Aldaakian seemed unaffected as she balanced on one foot and stretched again.

  “Seems like you’ve got a harem here, Sar. Why couldn’t you have shared her pod?” She gestured at Cheseia. “And what the hell is this one doing here?” She pointed at the Aldaakian.

  Sar glowered at Kivita, then looked at the Aldaakian. “I’m setting you off where we’re headed. Remember, Seul—I have an offer to make you.”

  “Seul?” Kivita snorted. “So you’re on first-name terms with one who tried to kill us?”

  Seul stopped stretching and looked straight at Kivita. “Too many Aldaakians have died to retrieve that gem. It’s the right color. The shade of blood.”

  Cheseia hefted the rifle. “I will guard Seul. Surely a check on our location might be advisable, rather than this measly arguing?”

  Sar muttered under his breath, then smirked at Kivita. “Better play nice, sweetness. Don’t have too many clothes on board that will fit you. Can’t let you go out like that.” He exited the chamber.

  “Damn him.” Kivita shoved the Juxj Star into her pouch. Why had Sar let her keep it? “So, where are we supposed to be? You seem to be on the uptake more than the rest of us, Cheseia.”

  The Ascali remained focused on Seul. “The Ecrol system.”

  “Ecrol? But that means we were in cryo for another year! I have a contract with the Rector of the Inheritors himself!”

  To hell with the Rector, too. As soon as she could, Kivita would escape and sell the Juxj Star to whomever. Sar didn’t need to know that, though. Let him squirm afterward.

  Sar neared the doorway, buckling on a polycuirass. Polygreaves and vambraces protected his shins and forearms. “Hate to end your whining, Kiv, but time’s short. I found some things you can wear. They’re in the toilet. You get first use of the mist ionizer.”

  “You certainly do reek.” Cheseia grinned without humor.

  Kivita stormed from the cryopod chamber. Terredyn Narbas had been stolen, maybe even towed to one of those cold Aldaakian worlds. Rector Thev might null her contract or even execute her, like Sar claimed. Aldaakian warships had appeared over Vstrunn, and Sar had offered to pay double for the gem.

  Oh, but he hated to end her whining? What a jerk.

  Once inside the toilet, Kivita shut the door. Like Frevyx’s other cabins, the walls, floor, and bathing pod were well maintained. A pile of clothes lay on the counter. Three full-length mirrors displayed an alter ego who made her frown: dirty hair, smudged face, ripped bodyglove.

  “Shit the cryopod. I do stink.”

  Kivita stripped and entered the bathing pod. Collection vents opened above; drains below. Five sprinklers misted her with hot water, while three vaporizers extended from the ceiling. The mist became steam. Scrubbing herself with a pumice sponge, she sighed with relief.

  So, options for escaping? Cheseia could fight, and so could Sar. Seul was a prisoner, too, no matter what Sar mentioned about some offer. Maybe they could escape together. . . . Sar wouldn’t be the only one to make the albino woman a proposal.

  A gradual throb rose in her forehead.

  Eyes closed, her thoughts shifted to a world with green soil. Steam geysers shot hundreds of feet into an orange sky. She stood on an observation deck, holding a stone staff. Dozens of Kith worked below, arranging rock columns, metal spires, and crystal geodes into a square structure.

  “Huh . . . ?” Strength left her legs for a second, and she bumped into the pod wall. In her mind, the square structure resembled the tower on Vstrunn. Millions of colors stabbed into her eyes from the glare of crystal spires. . . .

  The mist ionizer shut off as the vision left her mind.

  Steadying herself against the pod’s transparent wall, Kivita glanced at the pouch on the counter. A yearning for Sar to tell her what it all meant, for him to hold her again, overcame the thin wall around her heart. How easy it would be to call for him. She slumped to her knees and fought back tears.

  “No,” Kivita whispered. Strength welled in her heart. She set her jaw, wiped her eyes.

  “Not this time, Sar Redryll. I told you you’d found something out there in me. You should never have let me go.” She sniffed and exited the bathing pod.

  Kivita smirked as she studied her clean nudity and fluffed tresses in the mirrors. There was no Ascali fur on her, but her legs were still nice, and those boring workouts kept her stomach flat. Yeah, let Sar gawk at what he’d been missing.

  The smirk vanished as she examined the clothes he’d left her: a blue breechcloth, ply chaps, and a blue top that wouldn’t extend past her navel. The copper-meld brassiere, complete with Tejuit love chains to be tied behind the neck, made her cheeks burn anew.

  “Damn him,” Kivita said.

  At least she still had her polyboots.

  • • •

  Seul maintained a calm composure as Sar approached her with the flexi cables. “You’ll not require those. My superior will have already docked me from the Effectives List.”

  “You’ll be freed once we’re planetside. I just want you to hear me out.”

  Seul doubted she could handle them both, and she couldn’t pilot the ship even if she defeated all three. They’d treated her well, considering the circumstances. Perhaps her Troopers would be alive if she’d not fired first. She hoped Kael was safe.

  “I am listening.” She tried to keep her tone neutral.

  “Good.” Sar looped the flexi around her wrists anyway. Cheseia kept the beam rifle aimed on her.

  “Is a human’s word as strong as an Aldaakian’s?” Seul asked. “Bring me no harm and release me after we disembark, and you’ve my word I won’t cause strife.”

  “I still want these on your wrists,” Sar replied. “Hold out your arms, close together.”

  Seul’s cryoports squeezed, but she did as he asked. As soon as possible, she’d find a way to rejoin her race. Excitement over the Vim signal still left her awed. Everything she’d dreamt about could happen, and now she was a prisoner? Not for long.

  After Sar finished trussing Seul’s wrists, Cheseia spoke. “Truly, why have Shock Troopers tried to take the Ju
xj Star? If it is a datacore, you surely cannot read it.”

  Despite her revulsion regarding the Ascali’s hirsute body, Seul liked Cheseia’s voice. It reminded her of the flutes human refugees played in the hive ships around Tejuit Seven.

  “Datacores can be scanned by running electrical current through them, but little information is learned,” Seul replied. “We try to keep datacores from the hands of our enemies.”

  Sar’s eyes narrowed. “Never heard that before. Keep talking.”

  Seul’s cryoports tightened as she struggled with their searching stares. “The ship I boarded was suspicious due to its Sarrhdtuu beacon.”

  “This wasn’t just about Kiv’s ship. What else?” Sar’s hands remained on her wrists.

  “The tower sent out a signal to wherever the Vim are now. My people have waited for this signal a long time.” Seul struggled to keep her voice emotionless.

  Sar released her, his eyes worried. “Frevyx never picked up such a signal.”

  “Human scanners lack the proper configuration, though the Sarrhdtuu will have also detected the signal. Now do you understand my mission? Do you regret the Aldaakian blood you’ve shed?” Seul’s cryoports gave an audible snap.

  Exchanging a look with Cheseia, Sar nodded. “I’m regretting lots of things here lately.”

  Seul studied Sar’s swarthy face. Handsome, despite those nasty shocks of hair on his head. But something in his eyes spoke truth. “What is your offer?”

  “The Inheritors are both our enemies,” Sar replied. “Whatever Dunaar wants that gem for means trouble for my friends and yours. Then you tell me about this Vim signal. Seems we have common cause here.”

  “You suggest an alliance?” Seul tried not to laugh. “What are your weapons? Where are your fleets? Words cannot defeat both Sarrhdtuu and Inheritor starships.”

  “Your people have the weapons, the ships. My people, the knowledge. You’ve been fighting the Inheritors a long time and you haven’t won yet. My friends operate right under their noses.” Sar arched an eyebrow.

  She wanted to believe this human. Though the loss of her fellow Troopers still festered in her heart, Seul knew her people needed help to win this long, awful war. The quicker it ended, the closer she came to her daughter.