Conquest

  •••

  “We’ve lost contact with the cruiser,” the radio operator informed Sedulus.

  Sedulus could see that for himself. The red light blinked rapidly, indicating catastrophic damage. Only six white lights remained intact, and one of those vanished as the operator spoke. Sedulus remained outwardly calm. This was a disaster, but he could not allow his men to see him panic.

  “It was a trap,” said Beldyn. “The human lied.”

  “No, I don’t think he did,” said Sedulus. “He was simply lied to by someone cleverer than him. Recall the skimmer.”

  “And the Illyri and Galateans still on the ground?”

  “They’re dead,” said Sedulus. “They just don’t know it yet.”

  Now the radio operator spoke again.

  “Sir, we’ve lost a hunter orb.”

  “Are you insane?” said Sedulus. “We’ve just lost a cruiser!”

  “No, sir, not there. To the west. It deployed a dart, and then went down.”

  Sedulus stared at him.

  “Give me its last known location on the map.”

  Before him, a green light flashed into existence.

  “It’s them,” said Sedulus.

  “How can you be certain?” asked Beldyn.

  “I have to be,” said Sedulus. “If I’m wrong, then we’re all finished.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  A

  K seemed so small in death, so huddled and young. They had no time to bury him, no time to do anything except stare blankly at his remains until Ani—Ani, of all of them—began to cry.

  “I just . . . I could have been kinder to him,” she said.

  And there was nothing that anyone could say to console or contradict her, because it was true, just as it was true that AK could have been kinder to her in return. Syl thought that Ani had never looker sadder or older. Later, Ani would come to look back on that moment as one in which she experienced true adult regret for the first time, and something of her childhood was washed away in the mud and the blood and the rain.

  “We have to go,” said Fremd. “They’ll know they’ve lost a hunter drone, and they’ll come looking to see why.”

  But Ani did not seem to hear him. Instead, she dropped to her knees and brushed the damp hair away from AK’s face. Steven crouched beside her. His left hand hovered uncertainly over her, like a bird fearful of alighting, and then rested itself gently on her shoulder. Ani leaned into him, and their bodies shook in unison as he absorbed her grief. Alice joined them, stroking Ani’s hair.

  “Ani!” said Fremd. “I said we have to go.”

  “What’s the point?” said Ani. “I’m tired of running. We just keep running and running, and we never get anywhere. Let them take me back. I don’t care.”

  Fremd grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. Steven seemed about to intervene, but Paul restrained him.

  “Listen to me!” said Fremd, and he gave her a little shake. “They’re not going to take you back. Don’t you understand? They’re not interested in you. It’s Gradus they want. If you and Syl die out here, it will be easier for everyone. Once Gradus is secured, you’ll be killed. They’ll blame the Resistance, or crossfire, or whatever it takes, but the end result will be the same: you’ll end up like AK, dying in the dirt, but there’ll be no one to weep for you because we’ll all be dead too.”

  “You’re lying!” said Ani. “You don’t know that!”

  “I do. I know it because I know Sedulus. I know it because I was once like him.”

  Ani stopped struggling.

  “Tell us,” said Syl.

  “I will,” said Fremd. “I promise. We’re close to our destination. Just a couple of hours, and when we reach it I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.”

  The four youths exchanged glances, and a silent agreement was reached.

  “All right,” said Paul. “What about him?”

  He jerked a thumb at Gradus, who remained seated in the mud, his eyes like the eyes of the dead.

  “Get him to his feet.”

  “He’s slowing us down!” said Paul. “Without him, we’ll move three times as fast. Just let the Illyri have him.”

  “No,” said Fremd.

  “Why?”

  “Because if I’m right, he holds the secret to all of this.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “Then I’ll kill him myself before I hand him back. Now move. Move!”

  •••

  Syl thought she would surely collapse. Every muscle in her body ached, her legs most of all. They felt so heavy that she could barely put one foot in front of the other, dragging them through the mud. She was hot and clammy despite the cold, but she found herself shivering and her teeth chattered painfully in her mouth. Ani and Steven trudged ahead of her, their heads down, stumbling more than running. Paul was beside her, but he did not speak. Like the others, he barely had strength enough to keep himself going. He had precious little left to share, but he still found it in himself to take turns with Ani to carry Alice.

  Fremd forced the pace, leading Gradus on the rope. Sometimes the Grand Consul slipped and fell, and once he struck his head so hard in falling that he drew blood, but he made no sound. Each time, Paul and Steven helped Fremd to haul the heavy Illyri to his feet, and they moved on.

  All the time they waited for the sound of a skimmer breaching the clouds, for the roar of a cruiser, but none came. Yet as her fever increased, Syl grew more and more paranoid. She looked to the sky, trying to pierce the banks of gray and black. They were watching her, waiting for their chance to strike. They would swoop down and pluck her from the ground, and then they would hang her from the gates of the castle, her legs kicking at the air, the blood congesting in her face. She felt the rope tighten around her neck as she walked, and so real was the sensation that her hands rose to her throat and she clawed at her skin, raking it with her nails until Paul stopped her, gently forcing her arms down and holding them at her sides, pulling her to him and walking with her.

  “Almost there,” he said. “Almost there.”

  Now she saw Ritchie impaled on his bayonet, but he was still alive and somehow he forced himself from the blade, the metal separating from his flesh with a damp sucking sound. He came toward her through the rain, his hands outstretched before him, the palms facing up and colored red with his own blood.

  I killed you.

  I killed you, and I am glad.

  She saw Illyri warships passing through washes of illumination, and heard a baby cry as it left the womb. And she was that child, but now it was no longer simply a child but a collection of billions of atoms, and the light corrupted each and every one, altering them, mutating them.

  Mutating her.

  She was an alien, not simply to the people of Earth but to her own kind as well. She did not belong. She was different. Only Ani might understand, but even Ani was not like her. Ani could blur minds, making others see what she wanted them to see, but she did not take lives. Maybe she could if she tried hard enough, but Syl was not sure, and the fact remained that she was the one who had looked at a man and forced him to turn his weapon on himself. Again she remembered the look in Ritchie’s eyes before he positioned the blade to pierce his own chest: the terror, the desperation, the knowledge that a part of this alien girl had entered him and turned him against himself. In that final stare was a plea for her to save him, to spare him, and she had refused. Her own fear had been too great: her fear, and her rage.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, but even as she said the words they sounded hollow. No, she thought, I am not sorry. I am glad. He deserved to die, he and the one I struck with the rock, the one whose face I pressed into the water. Because she had done that too, she finally admitted to herself. Even as Ritchie was dying, she had felt the man in the stream trying to rise, but she had he
ld him down, willing the water to enter his lungs, willing him to suffer, just as he would have made her suffer had he been given the chance.

  “What am I?” she said. “Who am I?”

  And while Paul said her name over and over, trying to calm her, she thought that she was imagining things as she saw flashlights in the distance, and heard the voices of men and women. She saw a wall with battlements, and a castle keep rising above it. Gates opened in the wall, and she glimpsed people camped inside, and fires burning. She smelled smoke, and roasting meat, and heard the lowing of cattle. A small hand gripped hers, and she looked down to see Alice smiling up at her.

  “It’s okay, Syl,” said Alice. “We’re safe.”

  But it was not okay, thought Syl. They would never be safe again.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  T

  he castle was called Dundearg. It had been built during the reign of James II of England, and the same family, the Buchanans, had occupied it throughout its existence, but only one of their line remained. Her name was Maeve, and she was a short, dark woman in her early forties, most of her hair already turned to gray, yet still pretty and youthful. She looked on sternly as Syl, Ani, and Gradus were led into the huge fortified keep, watched by the hostile eyes of those who dwelt within the castle walls in makeshift dwellings, or containers that had been converted to homes. The inhabitants had created a narrow channel down which the new arrivals passed. Even with the protection of Fremd, they were still jostled, and someone spat in Ani’s face. Although Syl felt for her friend, she was glad that it had not been directed at her. Even in her fevered state, she saw herself turning on the offender and wishing harm upon them. The consequences of that might have been fatal for all concerned.

  “No,” said Fremd, and at first Syl thought he was talking to her, warning her not to react, until she realized that he was addressing the crowd. They obeyed him, and there was no more jostling, and no more spitting.

  At last they were safe within the walls of the keep, and the doors closed behind them. It was cold inside—but still warmer than it was outside, and at least it was dry. To their right, a great fire burned in a room filled with overstuffed chairs and couches.

  Syl did not know what to expect next, but it was not to see Maeve Buchanan take Fremd in her arms and kiss him full on the lips. She held him close to her, and breathed in the scent of him.

  “I smell,” he said.

  “You smell of mud and grass and sweat.”

  “And blood,” said Fremd. “We lost AK—young Alan.”

  Maeve’s eyes squeezed shut in pain.

  “His father and mother will have to be told,” she said. “They’re in Perth.”

  “It’ll be done, and gently.”

  “He was troubled, and angry, but he would have changed. I could see it in him.”

  “So could I.”

  Maeve disengaged herself from Fremd, and turned her attention to Syl and Ani.

  “My God, these young ones are frozen.” She touched her hand to Syl’s brow. “And this one has a fever.”

  She called out a name—“Kathleen!”—and a stout woman wearing carpet slippers and an apron appeared on the stairs above.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Bring towels, and warm clothes, and a basin of whatever hot water we have left.”

  She guided Syl and Ani to the fire.

  “Now get out of those clothes. All of them! You can wrap yourself in some of the furniture throws while you wait for Kathleen.”

  She began to close the door behind herself and Fremd in order to give Syl and Ani a little privacy, but Syl rose and stopped her.

  “Remember,” she said to Fremd. “You promised. You promised you’d tell us your story.”

  “And I will,” he said. “Get warm and dry first. When you’re done, come find us, for what is about to happen here concerns you as much as it does the rest of us. But if I’m right, my story, and what you may see in this castle, will just leave you with more questions, and you won’t be the only one.”

  Behind Fremd, two men she had not seen before were holding on tightly to Gradus’s arms. Maybe it was the comparative warmth of the castle, or a slow recognition that his situation had changed, but Gradus seemed to be coming out of himself. He was still dazed, but he was taking in his surroundings.

  “Clean him up, but keep him restrained,” Fremd ordered.

  “I’ll wake the technician,” said Maeve. “Everything is ready to go. We just need to prep the generator.”

  “Do it,” said Fremd. “We don’t have much time.”

  •••

  The woman named Kathleen, assisted by her two daughters, Marie and Jeanie, brought Syl and Ani not just towels, clean clothes, and basins of hot water, but huge mugs of broth thick with chicken and vegetables. She also fed Syl two small pills to help bring down her fever.

  Low cheers rose from outside their door. Syl opened it slightly and peered out to see Just Joe arrive, along with Logan and Aggie and Norris. Heather was there too, holding a delighted Alice in her arms. Maeve came to greet them.

  “Where are the others?” she asked, but Joe simply shook his head.

  “Dear AK’s gone too,” said Maeve.

  “Ah,” was all that Joe could say. “Ah.”

  Syl closed the door.

  •••

  The food and the change of clothes had made Syl feel a bit better, but she was still weak and her brow was hot to the touch. Nevertheless, she did not want to remain in the room. She needed to find Fremd.

  “Will you take us to him?” she asked Kathleen upon her return, and she and Ani were duly led into the bowels of the keep, where an infirmary had been established. One of the beds was now occupied by Norris, whose shoulder wound had become infected. He had been sedated while the wound was cleaned and dressed, and stared woozily at Syl and Ani, as though unsure of whether he was seeing or dreaming them.

  Finally they came to a smaller chamber, and Syl was surprised to see that it contained an array of both human and Illyri medical equipment, most of it new and apparently in perfect working order. The room vibrated with the hum of generators, and Fremd was methodically working with another Illyri—who looked barely older than Syl and Ani—to check the wiring and make sure that everything was in sync. Maeve watched over them, gnawing at her lower lip the way a dog might worry at a bone.

  “Okay,” said Fremd. “It looks like we’re ready.”

  He noticed Syl and Ani for the first time.

  “Ladies, let me introduce you to Lorac,” he said, and the young Illyri smiled uncertainly at them. “Lorac, this is Syl and Ani.”

  “Hello,” said Lorac, rising from a crouch to his full height. He was especially good-looking, even for an Illyri, but he gave the impression of being uncomfortable in his own skin, and he walked with a slight limp as he approached them. Syl saw that he was a little older than she had first thought, probably in his early twenties.

  “Are you hurt?” asked Ani.

  “It’s an old injury,” said Lorac.

  Fremd had gone to Maeve, his arm curled protectively around her waist.

  “Lorac made the same mistake that I did,” said Fremd. “He looked too long at a beautiful woman, and was lost.”

  Maeve slapped him gently on the chest, but the compliment still brought a blush to her cheeks. Ani looked slightly disappointed at the news that Lorac was taken by another. Syl was just glad that Steven wasn’t there to see her face.

  “You’ve met her,” said Lorac. “Jeanie, Kathleen’s daughter.”

  Ani seemed decidedly unimpressed, and even Syl was a little surprised. Jeanie was pretty enough, but not spectacularly so; Lorac had left his own people and thrown in his lot with the Resistance to be with her? Whether he was Military or Corps, desertion was punishable by a lifetime sentence on a prison world, and lifetimes on
prison worlds tended to be short and brutal, although Syl suspected that few deserters ever made it to the prisons and instead were simply killed by the Securitats. Truly, she thought, the ways of love were very strange indeed, but then, was she not also falling for Paul? What future was there for the two of them? Not for the first time, she felt that her life had become extremely complicated in a very short space of time.

  At the mention of her daughter, Kathleen straightened and glowed with pride. She had hardly spoken before except to fuss over Syl and Ani, but now she said, “You won’t find a better girl from here to Land’s End.”

  Ani appeared on the verge of disagreeing, but Syl carefully but forcefully stepped on her foot, just to make sure she didn’t end up with it in her mouth.

  Lorac tapped his right leg. “My comrades in arms found out about us. To discourage me, they shattered my foot with their rifle butts. I deserted that night, but my foot was so badly damaged that there was nothing to be done but to amputate it.”

  The words came to Syl’s mouth before she realized that she was speaking them, never mind thinking them.

  “Was it worth it?” she said.

  Lorac answered as if he was surprised that anyone could ask such a question. “Of course it was,” he said. “I love her. Haven’t you ever been in love?”

  Syl could see Ani grinning at her. This was all getting a bit personal, but having asked the original question, she felt duty bound to give some kind of answer.

  “Not like that,” she said. “At least, I don’t think so.”

  “You’ll know it when you are,” said Maeve. There was a skeptical expression on her face, and it struck Syl that the older woman did not believe the answer Syl had given. For that matter, Syl wasn’t sure that she quite believed it either. She was, after all, in this mess because of a young man. She had put her life on the line for a human male, just as Lorac had put his on the line for a human female. Syl wanted to tear her hair out; she felt like she was drowning in a vat of emotions. She turned to Fremd in the hope that he might yank her from it for a time.