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Two: Now
When he stepped off the fighter, they greeted him with weapons.
Four projectile arms, with connectors woven into the nervous systems of the
Eldking’s personal guards. Not the best welcome. He—it was difficult to think
of himself as Bryan Landry, though he knew that had been his name—felt the
first flutter of terror as their minds brushed his. These were the elite of the
Overseers. Brightminds, each and every one of them, with every sense of self
obliterated by their chosen duty. Their thoughts burned harsh as the light of a
burning star. They could flay his mind down to its basest form, uncover all his
secrets, and plant whatever poisoned seeds they chose. He was powerless before
them.
And yet his mind turned to those thoughts like a flower to the sun. He
had avoided his own kind too long. He wanted their community. Damn his traitor
body, he longed for it. He’d been human, once. He even remembered it for brief
and fleeting moments. That was not true anymore, no matter how much he and
others might wish it. He was theirs. Their blood, their mind, their kin, and
every part of him knew it. His consciousness recoiled from the invasion of
thought; the rest of him leaned towards it like the embrace of a brother.
The battle to keep his secrets hidden was already half lost.
Faces pale as the skin of a silver moon, the other Overseers watched him.
Behind the four were perhaps twenty Lowminds. Bowed and bent with coiled
energy, their four eyes avid only with hunger, they watched him warily. Each of
them was like a dark hole waiting to be filled by a greater, brighter mind.
That was the way of the Overseer. The stronger filled the weaker, and in
filling they obliterated. The Lowmind feared the Highmind, and feared the
Brightmind more. They feared the Brightest Mind most of all.
It seemed they could also spare a little fear for Bryan Landry. Cold
comfort, that.
The Homeship curled around them. Black carapace was blue washed by
organic lights. It was brighter here than it would be in the living quarters. A
hanger bay was always designed to be a shooting gallery of sorts, easy to guard
and impossible to invade. But compared to human society these open spaces were
cool as twilight in the lee of a great stone. After so many days of sunlight,
Bryan welcomed the dimness. Power conduits and organelles blinked in organic
support pillars. Powerpack hearts fluxed as read-screens projected their
information onto delicate membranes, the unimportant things that life-engineers
didn’t want continually projected into their already cluttered thoughts. The
Homeship pulsed against his feet, the selfless void of its computations rested
patiently against his mind.
It was like coming to hell.
It was like coming home.
“What do you come for?” one of the Guard asked. The Kind were psychic.
Speaking aloud rather than mind-to-mind was an insult.
Bryan squelched the immediate rage. Not here, not now. This was not the
time to pick a fight. “I come to see the Eldking.”
-You come for the woman, I
think.- The mind behind this thought was not present. Distance hadn’t muted the
volume. Those words were like a shaft of bright sunlight, a star gone nova.
It had confused him when he realized humans liked the glow and heat of
starlight. It burned the eye and skin, dried out the lungs and made existence a
misery. Better the cool dimness of a sheltered place, soft moisture on the air.
Light drove these places out, as the invasion of a Brightmind erased one’s own
identity.
It took all his strength, but he did not respond.
“He gives you the honor of his thought, Nameless One.” The nearest Guard
whispered.
Bryan growled, fists clenched. He had
a name. He had won it from his own traitor memory. The Guard’s mind
attacked his, searching for a crack in his defenses, a way to infect him with
their own eagerness for battle. It didn’t work. He did not give in to anger and
throw the blow. The Guards’ mind rippled with the deep burgundy of disappointment.
He smiled and forced the surface of his thought to be placid, colorless. Battle
was a release. Denying it…well, that might be the only satisfaction he would
have in these coming hours.
-Bring him.- The great thought slammed through all their minds, and the
Brightmind’s assent radiated back in return.
The urge to run was overwhelming. He had denied himself every pleasure to
escape the Eldking’s presence the first time. Now he risked losing even his
freedom, just to rescue one human female.
Just one.
He closed his eyes. Somewhere in these comfortable halls was a woman,
dark eyes, red hair, a smile he had seen perhaps three times in this alien life
of his. Her touch was gentle. How much gentleness was there in this universe?
He walked forward unassisted.
The Guards’ amusement burned like acid. To the Overseer, a human was
fragile, a thing made to die. Did it matter how they perished when their lives
were so brief? In answer, he focused on the woman’s face. The alternative would
have been fatal.
He had come here to rescue her, yes, but he had a second purpose. He had
a plan, he and Bob Harris did. Cobbled together in a tiny human ship not even
twenty four hours ago. The Eldking’s flagship had never been so exposed, or so
close to a human world. The human war-fleet could take advantage of this. His
job was to arrange—
Interest peaked around him. Damn. The greatest problem with the mind: you
cannot tell yourself not to think about something without thinking about it.
You can’t even lie. Just obfuscate. Confuse. Omit.
When the first probing thought touched his, he quickly focused on his
ship.
It was small, a fighter that humans called a Fang. He’d stolen it from
the Eldking’s own hold four months ago, and many of its parts were disastrously
old. The engine emissions alone would have given him away, were it not for the
cloak.
No. I must keep this secret. I
must, he thought.
The Guards’ mind became even more focused. The Guard were unique; if you
faced one Guard within a ship you faced them all. Their mind was like water
from a thousand sources all poured into the same bowl. One of them would be
relaying Bryan’s every gesture, word and surface thought to the Eldking
himself. Another would be standing in the most distant part of the ship, and he
would know everything that was done here. That mind was frightening and it was
terribly hungry. More minds, more bodies, more secrets. More. He thought the
Guard would consume the universe if the Eldking did not keep it in check. They
walked down a gold-lit hall—not a common area, but a work hall—and the Guard’s
probe lanced deeper.
-What is the cloak?- The Guard
demanded.
It slipped from his mind like sand through fingers. It was a device of
his own invention, conceived within the Homeship, developed on the planet
Dorofey and finally grown on the world below. It sat within his ship, between
the computer and the primary power coil. The surface armor of a Fang reflected
Overseer radar like a mirror. Fangs couldn’t hide in the deep void of space.
The cloak poisoned the ship, forced the surface to soften and fuzz. Overseers
did not have viewports in their ships. They used their instrumentations
exclusively. The cloak turned its ship into a hole in space.
The only downside was how much that poison weakened the armor. It could
heal in a handful of seconds, but while the cloak was active even a slow
meteorite could puncture the outer carapace. But Bryan had already proven how
well the cloak worked. He’d made it through the Cold Faction without incident,
and the entire Faction had been looking for him. They wanted to trade him to
the Eldking for the right to invade Golden Dragon, and he had made it through
their patrols, through their finest battalions, using a device no bigger than a
human heart. Proof of concept. The cloak worked.
Satisfaction colored the Guards’ mind. This was followed immediately by
the Eldking’s command. –Remove the device from the fighter. Destroy the
fighter. Study the device.-
And Bryan was released.
Keeping the relief from blowing it was a titanic struggle. Thoughts and
emotions were like the pages of a book; you could only read what lay on the
uppermost page. Probes were done to force the victim to think of what they most
wished to hide. They couldn’t actually find something not in your conscious thoughts.
But deception could not be done the human way. A lie could not be conceived and
exploited because the uppermost thought would be this is a lie. For an Overseer, deception was a pyrrhic victory. You
had to sacrifice the truth, one piece at a time, and pray you never had to
expose a vital piece.
But there was one small advantage. They called it the Echo, an intuitive
sense as vital as scent, sight or hearing. An Overseer always knew what their
words and actions will do. An insult can be counted upon to incite rage because
you know, sure as stars shine, that your words will have that effect. It was
like holding a stone above a pond and knowing where the ripples would
eventually fall, should you let go.
The Echo whispered to him now. The cloak was a stone. His presence here
was a stone. The ripples were spreading out. He had suggested to Bob that they
could force the Overseers to fight one another; crippling the Homeship was the
suspended bolder they needed. The ripples here would soon become waves.
Unless he blew it.
The Echo told him that was more likely than success.
His left palm itched as if a small rock had lodged on the inner lip of
the ust’ye, the feeding organ. He
could not scratch. That “stone” would cause unsatisfactory ripples. It was the
small black subspace tracker Bob Harris had given him. Bob had intended it
simply as a way to extract Bryan and Adry Parker, once he found her. Bryan had
radioed back a different plan.
Very different.
Activation would have rather explosive consequences.
If they find it, they will take it
away. They will study it, realize that it is a homing device. They will watch
me that much more carefully. And I cannot afford to spend too much time here. I
cannot lose the cloak device. I cannot afford to be contained.
And especially, I cannot let this
damned thing turn on if I am still aboard this ship.
He walked through the last set of blast doors, and the Homeship welcomed
him home.
Home. How could any place this wicked feel so very safe? How could a
place so comfortable chill the blood in the very same moment?
His kind—Overseers, humans named them. The nadziratelya. Humans were so free with names—did not hold their
breath in fear. No shivering or trembling while the gut turned cold. They
became still and alert. Only the scent of fear remained, thick, heavy and
unmistakable. The musk of fear was his ever-present companion now, and he could
feel the Guards’ unspoken contempt.
-So scared we would find your surprise?- one of them thought, and laughed
aloud. Then they refocused on him, tighter, more intently. –Have you tested it
on human systems yet?-
Answering was as easy as thinking. Bryan let his thoughts wander.
Fooling human systems would be trickier. Yes, humans used radar and
computer analysis, but their primary detection system was their own eyes. Once
they spotted you, they’d find a way to circumvent the cloak. Especially if they
were looking for it.
He’d told the Human Resistance on Golden Dragon all about it, in as much
detail as possible. He’d also told Bob Harris. Both fleets would certainly be
watching.
And if he hadn’t? There were other humans in the universe.
Well, they would be deceived at first. Possibly for even longer, if you
were a canny pilot and kept out of visual range. For a while, he’d believed
they would continue to be deceived even at close range, that their assumptions
were as unchanging as the Overseers’ own. But working with the Resistance on
Golden Dragon had told him they would not make the same error twice. And humans
used visual confirmation far more frequently in combat. The cloak would work
for one battle. Two, at most. Then the Humans would have a counter-measure in
play.
Disappointment as the Guard’s mind withdrew. What use was a cloak if it
could not hide the Kind from the humans?
Bryan’s pulse increased. No fear, no nerves, not a ripple to trouble the
mind. He had made it through the Cold Faction, had he not? This knife was best
wielded against enemies of like purpose, not the cattle they had come to
butcher.
Silence as they walked through halls lit with gold, with amber, with a
dull swamp green. It reminded Bryan of Dorofey, and of Adry, and he banned that
memory before it went any further. Along with the nervy, jittery urge to will, swallow it, swallow it, swallow it whole.
A shudder passed through the guard. And then a thought from the Brightest
Mind. –We shall study it more. Continue.-
The bait had been taken.
Bryan didn’t let the satisfaction exist for more than a heartbeat. The
tracker rubbed against the soft flesh inside his ust’ye, and the Guard brought him deeper into the ship.
Humans named all things. Overseers had to earn theirs, through great
deeds, high ranks, magnificent inventions…or through their own crushing
failure. Names were a thing either of pride or of shame, but not something one
was entitled to. Often one’s rank was the only identity you had. Brightmind of
a great ship, Engineer of this great section. Shipsoul—this word had first been
translated as ‘god’ by those who studied such things. Loss of rank meant a loss
of self.
Only the Guard seemed content to that path. They had surrendered whatever
Names they earned and titles they bore, and the sanctity of their own privacy
to become the Eldking’s own servants. They belonged to him. They kept him
alive.
Bryan shuddered as he followed their gold-cloaked backs.
The ship had a quality, a sort of overmind, that was like water rushing
over stones. It caressed and soothed. It agitated until aggression was all you
could think of. The subconscious was filled by a thousand surrogate selves. The
Lowmind was overwhelmed by it; they could submerge in the pleasure of instinct
and desire and never come up for air. The Brightminds could control the
overmind, slip into the thoughts of another being like a hand into a glove. The
Highminds were the beings lost between; too resilient to wallow in a mire of
subconscious revelry, too weak to fight off the imposed commands of a greater
mind. Bryan had hated it before, and he despised it now. It wanted to envelop
him, consume him whole.
It’d been easier to stay out of the Cold Faction’s overmind. The deep
division did not welcome newcomers, and their inward war helped him stay aloof.
But here things were placid, as near to peace as Overseers ever came. The
soothing hand of Shipsoul was even visible, keeping disagreements at a low
boil, soothing the unquiet mind. He had belonged here once before. He could lie
here and never rise again.
Being conscious of it dispelled the overmind’s hold. He listened to it
consciously, letting its attraction pale.
-fresh parts-
-new wings for hull design-
-hunger satisfied. Pity. Good human good worker-
He swallowed against that last thought. Somewhere in this ship were many
humans, their minds mute and silent, their eyes too weak to see in the corridors
of the Homeship. This population would wane as time progressed, sacrificed to
sate the hunger of creatures they saw as monsters. The Overseer could live only
by consuming those beneath him.
And Adrienne Parker was here, among them. If he surrendered to the
overmind, she would die.
There were no doors in the corridors now, save those that lead to labs
and private quarters. Airlocks weren’t installed this deep. Individual rooms
could be sealed, but this was the ship’s very heart. If that were wounded, the
ship itself was lost.
Humans would have installed airlocks, he thought.
He’d been with humans too long. Their light was blinding, the heat and
dry air exhausting, and the hunger a constant reminder. But here the light was
cool and illuminated, its burn restrained by bulb and membrane. The air was
sweet to breathe. Decks vibrated underfoot, computers reached for any mind able
to hear, and he could feel the promise of buds waiting to become true
ship-parts, the irresistible promise of what they could become in his hands.
The Overseer knew when to bare his throat and surrender.
Humans did not have the Echo. They fought until they died.
The light increased the deeper they walked, though it never became truly unbearable.
Membranes rippled, the few plants that could live without light grew riot in
peach-tinted light. Phosphorescent flowers bloomed amid the blinking organelles
and harsh carapace forms. And they came to the final set of doors at last. Dark
gemstones glittered in organic curves, a light dusting of gold shimmered on the
upper ridges. Here was the entrance to the Eldking’s throne, the beating heart
of the entire Overseer race.
The Eldking’s own did not walk through these doors. They were a symbol of
division. Only those apart from him, or those he had some grievance against,
were made to use these outer doors.
Bryan walked through them, head held high.
The light here was bright to the point of pain. The Eldking's throne room
was not a comfortable place. The seat of power ran from darkened floor to
shadowed ceiling. Rippling steps of black carapace were inset with lights. Rays
of bright blue scattered at Bryan's feet. The Eldking himself looked smaller
seated; great age pressed down onto his frame. He wore a cape of gold etched chain
mail, enough to protect his back, his arms, his hands and feet, but
intentionally left open to the front. His life was in the hands of his guards,
and in the wits of his enemies. If you were smart enough and bright enough to
avoid his probing thought, strong-willed enough to bring your weapon to bear,
skilled enough to avoid his guards and his own attempt on your life, you had
earned the right to kill him.
No one ever had.
The guard brought Bryan into the Eldking’s view, and the Brightest mind
reached out to all like a golden sun. Bright thoughts burned against the safe
darkness of privacy, erased it and filled the space left behind with the
presence of another. In his presence you lost your very self within his tidal
pull.
Bryan dropped to his knees with the rest of the guard, only realizing the
titanic pressure brought against him when the Eldking relented.
-My own-
There were overtones of great possession in this thought, as if Bryan
were part of his body, an extension of his power. A possession, not a person.
Bryan said nothing. Obedience, he could not deny. Response, though, that
he could withhold.
“We greet our heir,” the Eldking said, aloud. Hushed whispers were
accompanied by an explosive sort of gloating among the younger minds present.
There was some resentment that they had
not been chosen as Bryan had. To become part of the Kind, to be converted by
the Eldking himself…this was the greatest honor possible any human. And to be
denied the soft mind-language of the Overseer, the nadziratelya, that was the worst insult imaginable. What a feast
for the cruel-minded this moment must be.
Bryan rose to his feet as if unbroken. He said nothing. He waited.
I have no standing here, he
thought. Humans did not understand how important that was. Reading the Echo.
Knowing where your standing lay. That you could command him, that you must obey
him, and that this one was your equal and, most likely, your rival—this was as
critical to life as breathing. The cells knew their place in the body; the
Overseer knew his place in the Kindred. And he knew when that place could be
improved.
There was room for a lot of improvement now.
But I choose to be outside that. I
am not a part of the Kind anymore. No force can make me kneel.
-Truly?- The Eldking’s question was soft, gentle, like the kiss of mute
light on closed lids. Gone, as soon as given, and heard by no other. Aloud, he
continued. “You have returned to us on the eve of battle, one that was to be
your ransom. Why?”
His ransom? A war for an ungrateful heir? Why even bother? He started to
ask this question aloud, but he caught a brief face in the Eldking’s mind.
Pale, human, short brown hair, soft jaw, brown eyes, and an expression like
steel…an impression that she belonged to Bryan.
Damn. They didn’t just have her. They’d taken her on purpose.
The Echo also worked on plans, and plots. His, it seemed, had just taken
a major blow.
It wasn’t over. He clung to this. He had not lost his chance yet. But the
first move must be careful. He must not make his play from the heart. Not yet.
For the first time Bryan met the
Eldking’s eyes. He sat on the throne, hands wound into yellow-gold circuitry.
From here he controlled the Homeship entire; it was almost an extension of his
person. The smaller chair beside him was empty. His companion wasn’t there.
He spoke the first thing on his mind that was not Adrienne Parker.
“I would speak for the world,” Bryan said. “The Cold Faction seeks to
violate your law and take another human world for its own. Without—” he paused.
Damn. What would the Eldking care about? Mercy for humans, protection of the
innocent, justice, these things did not matter to the Kind. They thought only
of the sweet taste of human lives when taken at the rise of hunger. “—without
thought for the preservation of supply. Or—” he fumbled, desperate. What could
possibly persuade these monsters?
“—Or thought for the children of blood.” A new voice rang out. Bryan
turned sharply as a figure stepped into view.
This had once been a human female, and she had chosen to retain her
femininity long after gender became irrelevant. Her mind was bright, surface
thoughts unspoiled by instinctive hungers...but it also had a softness, a
discrete comfort. It was not so penetrating as the others. She had found her
place and her strength, and she was willing to let the others be. Shipsoul was
her title. Bryan would have called her Advocate.
She wheeled on their leader. “They have not asked of our own plans, nor
given us time to save what we can. There was sense in surrendering the planet
for your heir, but you have him now. There is no reason to turn our future over
to the Cold Faction's beasts. Don’t cost us this.”
Her words echoed, as Overseer voices rarely did. Still harsh and hoarse,
passion gave her volume. Even, he supposed, beauty. And yet there was something
stale in her argument’s reception. The Echo was confused…but…had he stepped
into an old argument? Yes. Yes, he was sure he had. He didn’t understand the
first thing about it, but he sensed understanding wouldn’t matter.
“Does the human fleet know of us?” The Eldking turned on Bryan.
Damn again. Now he had to lie without actually thinking of a lie…or
betraying Bob and Holton Fleet. Golden Dragon had a fleet visible from here.
He’d even caught a glimpse of it in the Resistance offices during his time with
them. Because the government placated the Overseer forces, this fleet was
mostly small, untrained boys with large toys, not men who knew war. He thought
of them, and of the Resistance, and then of Adrienne’s face, and then of
nothing at all.
It is harder to lie with the mind. He couldn’t even hold his breath in
anticipation.
“Perhaps,” The Eldking answered his own question. “Or perhaps not. Your
attempts at prevarication are only partially successful, child. Perhaps we
should try this later. After you have put your hunger to rest.” The command
echoed through all minds present: bring food.
This had been coming all along. But perhaps the offered would not
be…unbearable. At best, it would be someone already fed upon, drained of
personality and living only by the thinnest definition of the word. Still
murder, but it would not be his hand that ended the life.
There was a whisper as the
witnesses parted. He knew they had brought her long before she was dragged into
the light.
Nothing in this life would ever be
easy.
Adrienne. Limp and unconscious in the arms of a Lowmind. He growled as
they came near. This one had remembered nearly all of its old life—a rarity
with one so ridden by instinct—and it clung restlessly to the bad parts. He
prayed they were old fantasies. Surely it had put no human woman through that. Surely even this creature had once lived
with limitations. Surely the Eldking would destroy any monster actually guilty
of those crimes. It met his eyes, and then it thought of Adrienne. Fed upon,
lank hair dangling over a slave’s dead eyes. And then dead, a body of paper
skin on bone, her blood streaming off skin.
It dropped her in an unceremonious heap at Bryan’s feet and returned to
the shadows. The hunger those thoughts had awakened within him was almost
overwhelming.
“Slake the thirst that burns
within you, and we shall speak of your future.” The Eldking stood and began to
walk down the long steps to the floor.
He took her into his arms gently. There were no bruises on her temple,
her breath came slow and regular, and the soft, bird like flutter of her
mind—too indistinct for him to understand, all emotion and impression and
fleeting like frost on glass—did not feel drugged. He was touching her, and it
was more than he'd ever dared hope for.
-What if I refuse?- the thought spilled from his mind unbidden.
The Eldking glared down, then shrugged.
- Starve, then. But it is best for her that she die.-
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