Mixing with the rising steam and hot air from below, the cool, descending wind greeted Riddick as he made his way back up to the prison’s middle tiers. He stopped outside a cell that had opened early. To no surprise, it belonged to the Guv, who was not above defying prison regulations if only to show that he could. But though he might look longingly at the gap between the underside of the control room and the rock rim that marked the beginnings of the actual surface, the other man made no move to ascend in its direction. He knew all too well that what awaited outside was not freedom but only a different kind of hell. He did not look in the newcomer’s direction as Riddick approached, but he knew the newcomer was there.
Riddick followed the older convict’s gaze. “So they do go topside—to swap out air.” He was nodding to himself, thinking hard. “‘Lot simpler and cheaper than installing full-term recyclers.”
“That ain’t the only reason,” the Guv told him dourly. “See, they wanna make room for more.” His expression twisted. “This place has a reputation to maintain. The one slam nobody escapes from. Not even the dead.”
Up on the surface, being careful where they stepped, a group of guards bore the bodies of the two inmates who had been unlucky enough to be caught outside their cells during the last cull. The unfortunate pair would soon have company, though. Their bodies were unceremoniously dumped on the pile of dust and lingering bones reserved for those not holding a ticket off Crematoria. Unlike with their previous burden, a fellow guard, this time no one suggested taking the time to sprinkle words over the remains.
The terminator passed quickly. Inside the control room, relevant instrumentation signified that a full air exchange had been accomplished. Without waiting to double-check the validity of the claim, technicians swiftly adjusted controls and issued orders. A computer could have done it faster, and easier. But software was prone to glitches, computers to breakdowns. Crematoria was one place where the reliability of hand-operated, old-fashioned mechanics was more than prized: it was deemed essential to continued survival. So levers were pulled and buttons pushed, while advanced voice-operated instrumentation was reserved for preparing food, providing entertainment, and prison operations less critical to the business of surviving another day.
Vents began to close and seal as it grew lighter out on the surface. Exchangers shut down and locked in position. As rapidly as it had ascended, the control room began to lower on its support screws. Through the ports, the sun-shattered terrain outside began to vanish from sight, giving way to smooth-sided walls of solid rock. Moments later, there came a slight jolt as the room docked in its home position. Latches secured room and screws. Their work done for another day, unseen engines and their backups went dormant. Having followed the entire procedure with interest, Toombs nodded appreciatively.
“One way to clean house . . .”
He eyed the largest of the temperature gauges. The control room had only been docked for minutes when the readout broke two hundred and kept rising. It would level out somewhere around four hundred F, he knew. Anything more than that, and atmosphere would boil off into space. Satisfied he had acquired another fragment of potentially useful knowledge, he and his team members turned to leave.
A sound made them halt. It started as a low vibration in the soles of their boots, rising steadily until they could hear it clearly even within the sealed confines of the control room. Continuing to increase in intensity, it made the pilot think of a runaway drive on a long-range starship. The mercenaries stood as if frozen. Though there was no reason to think anything dangerous was passing above them, they eyed the ceiling instinctively. A sound as of a million hoofed animals stampeding in panic directly over their heads caused the pilot to flinch.
Toombs and the copilot thought to recheck the temperature readout. The number was an even three hundred F and still rising.
Raising her voice in order to make herself heard, the dazed copilot bawled aloud, “Jesus—what is that?”
No one answered her. Maybe, despite her effort, no one heard. Or maybe, despite their familiarity with the incredible winds driven by the pressure differential between the hot side and dark side, none of the guard techs wanted to take the time to look up from their instruments. Not until it had passed.
Though not nearly as frightening since it was diminished by distance and rock, the topside roaring could be heard down on the tiers as well. With the refresh completed, inmates knew they could safely emerge from their cells and hiding places. For a little while, at least, the atmosphere within the prison would be a tolerable mix of fresh air and human stench. Then the rising steam and sputtering sulfur vents would slowly corrupt it again, leaving it stinking and barely breathable until the next refresh— fifty-two hours hence.
Tracking Riddick, Kyra had followed his progress upward. Now as she approached she saw that he and the Guv were deep in discussion, with several other convicts paying close attention to what was being said. As was appropriate, she did not try to inject herself into the conversation; she merely halted off to one side, listened (which was permitted unless otherwise declared), and waited.
Taking note of her arrival, Riddick turned slightly. “When it happens, it’ll happen fast. You can either stay here for the rest of your unnatural life, or be on my leg when I cut fence.”
At his words, Kyra’s expression turned hopeful— until she realized he had been speaking to the Guv. Or had he? Unsure whether to reflect optimism or despair, her expression went blank. Riddick did nothing to ease her concern.
One of the convicts grunted a common mantra. “Nobody outs from this place. Not alive. Never has happened, never will happen. Ain’t no place to out, to.”
Riddick let his gaze drift ceilingward. Toward the distant control room. “I ain’t nobody.” With that, he wandered off, tracked by a dozen intent, curious eyes. The Guv’s were among them. His expression, Kyra decided, was full of uncertainty—and longing. It disgusted her. They didn’t know Riddick, his lies, his phony promises, his falsely comforting words. They hadn’t been abandoned by him.
“Go ahead,” she snapped bitterly. “Listen to him. Eat it up. Fall for it. You won’t be the first.” Turning sharply, she stalked away.
XII
At first glance there appeared to be nothing at the nexus of all the chains. Links and barbs, hooks and bells, the elaborate metal conglomeration seemed to clank and jangle its way down the ceremonial steps of the Basilica without any visible driving force behind it. It was only on close inspection that trained eyes could make out a single figure secured in the middle. That figure appeared to fade in and out of reality, like an unstable vision induced by a hallucinogenic overdose.
Trailing metal, Aereon carefully made her way down the stairs in the company of an escort composed of Necromonger elite troops. Under their guidance she found herself steered toward a waiting warrior ship. She did not waste time and energy protesting her condition and treatment to those who obviously could not alter it.
Once secured in a room deep within the transport, her chains were removed. The interior was dimly lit, a condition favored by the Necromongers. As she began to come to grips with her new surroundings, a figure emerged from the darkness.
“Doesn’t it strike you odd?” Dame Vaako offered conversationally as she approached. She was smiling pleasantly, as did many carnivores before beginning to feed.
Aereon did not bother to respond. More aware than the majority of their species of the steady passing of time, Elementals were not inclined to waste it on games.
Her silence did not trouble Dame Vaako, who halted nearby. “I tell you, it’s quite interesting, some of the things that are happening. We do live in intriguing times. Here we have the current lord marshal engaged in the methodic slaughter and ruination of entire societies, the better to advance the faith. This demanding activity he directs without hesitation and with admirable thoroughness.” Her eyes locked on those of the other woman.
“Yet he cannot bring himself to kill one stranded Eleme
ntal. Afflicted as I am with something of a curious nature, I find myself asking: why not?” This time, when no response was forthcoming, she seemed disappointed. Not that she had really expected a willing and forthright explanation. So she changed the subject, at least for now.
“You don’t pray to our God. That is hardly a surprise. You pray to no God, I hear. That is not especially a surprise, either. My curiosity picking at me again, I suppose. What do you do instead? With what do you fill that void in human speculation?”
Aereon finally chose to respond. “Elementals—we calculate.”
Dame Vaako struggled to repress a smile. “Oh, don’t we all.”
Grasping the irony, the other woman took a moment to clarify. “Please be certain you understand what I am saying. We calculate the odds of future scenarios. Different ways in which the universe might balance itself. We are doing this constantly. But we always do so with a neutral eye. Given our historical position, it would be wrong to involve ourselves in the day-to-day affairs of others. We believe in letting the rest of humankind work out its own intersocietal relationships.” Her gaze met that of the much younger woman. “It would be immoral to impose ourselves and any opinions we might hold on other societies.”
Dame Vaako could repress her rising amusement but not her deeper feelings. Sarcasm bubbled up within her like oil in a polluted spring.
“Spare me any lofty protestations of principled indifference. You have as much interest in what is going on in the civilized portions of the galaxy as the governing council on the most populated world or the members of a miners’ cooperative on the most out-of-the-way moon. It is well-known that Elementals have their own agenda, their own design. Elementals don’t believe in God because they hope to be God.”
Their eyes locked. Neither blinked, neither looked away—but for a moment something new passed between them. Something kindred, perhaps, on a personal if not necessarily philosophical level.
It prompted Aereon’s curious query. “And what of you, Dame Vaako? Companion to the noted military commander Vaako himself. What do you hope to be? What are your wishes for the future? Not as a member of Necromonger society, but as an individual? What, for example, do you hope to be when the current lord marshal is gone? For will that not affect you on a personal level, and also as a dutiful member of your social order? Do you not, despite your individual devotion to your cause, have desires that extend beyond it? It would be unnatural if you did not.” Her expression shifted slightly. “You would not be human if you did not.”
“Treasonous talk, Aereon. I like you already.”
“Not treasonous for me,” the Elemental replied. “I cannot speak treason against a society to which I do not belong. I am only making casual observations in response to your various inquiries.”
Dame Vaako eyed her perceptively. “Calculating?”
Aereon did not exactly shrug. It was more a slight readjustment of her upper body. “As I have said, we are always calculating.”
With a nod of acknowledgment, Dame Vaako turned to the pilot nearby. With a deepening hum, the transport rose from the ground. Conversation turned to the petty and inconsequential as Dame Vaako and her “guest” moved across the floor.
“This is all very interesting,” she finally told the Elemental. “It is also a waste of time. There are many things I can spare, but time is not one of them. Not now. I look forward to pursuing our discussion of individual philosophies and personal motivations at some future date.” Her voice darkened slightly. “I hope that will be possible. It would be regrettable if adverse circumstances were to intervene.” She halted.
“As you may already have calculated,” she continued, with just the right touch of mockery, “there are other, more important matters that require attention. Let us have first things first.” Her words came faster now; clipped and demanding. “What of the individual known as Riddick? Where can he be found?”
Aereon did not hesitate. “In truth, I don’t know where he went. We Elementals know many things, but we are not omniscient.”
Dame Vaako stepped back. “In truth, I’m more interested in where he came from.”
This time the Elemental hesitated. Dame Vaako responded, not with another query, but by operating a nearby control. A door opened beneath the other woman, forcing her to back up toward her host.
“Watch your step.” Dame Vaako did not grin.
Beneath them, the devastated rooftops of the capital swam into view: ruined apartment complexes, individual residences, office buildings, commercial centers, government facilities, all reduced in perspective by the transport’s slow ascent. The view was a reminder of, among other things, Necromonger prowess and power. Wind howled as the warmer air within the ship mixed with the cooler atmosphere outside. At a signal from Dame Vaako, the transport stopped its climb. It remained at the chosen altitude, hovering, as its operators waited for further instructions.
Dame Vaako eyed her guest, whose attention was directed downward. “In truth, still no recollection of the Riddick’s origins?” Her voice turned coaxing. “No memory at all of his home world, his lineage, how and why he came to find himself on Helion Prime at this crucial time—or how we came to find him here?” She paused, allowing the Elemental a moment for reflection. Not only on the inquiry, but on their present relative position.
“Still nothing?” she finally pressed. “You say that your people are good at calculations. Do me a favor. Assuming your continued refusal to answer my questions, calculate the odds of your getting off this planet alive.”
With a sharp gesture, she borrowed a long ceremonial blade from a watching soldier. After admiring the glint of the metal and the skill of the craftsman who had enhanced it, she promptly placed it across the width of Aereon’s back. The Elemental’s range of movement was now seriously restricted: razor-sharp edge behind and two-hundred meter drop in front.
“Done calculating?” she inquired politely. “Good.” The long blade pressed a little more firmly against flesh and fabric. “Now cut those odds in half.”
Though attentive, it was clear that the Elemental was not afraid. She proceeded to say as much. “Save your threats, Necromonger.”
To Dame Vaako’s shock, Aereon moved—straight ahead and across the gaping portal in the floor. Once across the opening, she turned to regard her host. And smiled.
“I am quite happy to tell you for the asking. I only hesitated because my thoughts were momentarily directed elsewhere. Though I am at present your ‘guest,’ that does not mean you occupy all my thoughts.” She paused a moment before continuing in a more declamatory tone, as if delivering a lecture whose importance she did not want to be misunderstood.
“It has to do with a fore-telling. A supposed prediction now more than thirty years old. As the tale tells it, a young soldier once consulted—call the person a ‘seer,’ of sorts. Or the individual in question might have been nothing more than a raving maniac imbued with a desire to instill uncertainty in a tormentor. There are many views on whether it is possible to predict the future. Or any future.” She gathered herself.
“Regardless of how one views the scientific validity of such things, this person told the soldier that a child would be born on the planet Furya. A male child, who would someday cause the soldier’s downfall.”
When Dame Vaako had heard it all, she had heard enough. Ordering the transport to return to the Basilica, she remanded the Elemental to the respectful custody from which she had been borrowed, with a warning not to speak of the encounter to anyone (most especially the Lord Marshal). That accomplished, she then busied herself with a sufficiency of minor tasks to put off anyone who might have been assigned to keep tabs on her whereabouts.
It was later that evening when she made her way to a communications chamber. It boasted no advanced equipment, no glimmering electronics. There were only the appropriate decorations, dim lighting, and on the single slab before her, a lesser Quasi-Dead. By speaking to it, a Necromonger could speak through it, to anothe
r of its kind residing— elsewhere.
The receiving Quasi, to whom her words were relayed, was lying on a similar slab in a very dissimilar place—on board Vaako’s frigate. For contact to be made it was only necessary for the Quasi whose abilities she was utilizing to “think” at its counterpart deep in space. Sharing similar minds, they shared a similar mental place—and time frame.
Wasting little time on pleasantries that did not extend beyond constructive flattery, it did not take her long to repeat the entire tale that had been told to her by the obliging Elemental. As she spoke, she could see the lips of the pale gray creature sprawled on the slab before her moving in responsive repetition.
“. . . a downfall,” she eventually finished, “that would result in the soldier’s untimely death.”
A response was forthcoming almost immediately. This time, when the mouth of the Quasi moved, she could hear the voice of her unimaginably distant companion.
“‘Furya’?” Even across the parsecs, and even though the words were being mouthed not by Vaako but by the communicator Quasi in front of her, she could make out the bemusement in her companion’s voice. “I recall little mention of it. No reason to. A ruin of a world, with no remaining sentient life to speak of.”
“For good reason,” she told him through her Quasi. “The young soldier who participated in the attack that devastated Furya killed all the young males he could find, even personally strangling some with their birth-cords. An ‘artful’ fatal stroke, wouldn’t you say?” In the absence of an immediate reply she could not resist adding, “Who do we know who favors the selected application of aesthetics to mass killing?”
The Quasi’s lips moved hypnotically. “So this ‘soldier,’” Vaako was saying to her from the depths of his distant ship, “the one who tried to pre-empt the prediction, would later become—”