Absence of Blade Read online

  The Terrans up front had been driving at least a couple of hours without passing out of the Dursh-Kren. The air coming in through the aperture still held the same acidic tinge as the terrain around Shomoro’s home. She closed her eyes on the window. She was exhausted—not from physical strain, but from being thrust into this set of unknown circumstances so quickly. And from the knowledge, somewhere in the back of her brain, that whatever this was was just beginning.

  The Terrans had been ruthlessly efficient. As soon as Shomoro confirmed her identity, the larger of the two had yanked her out of her nest and pressed her face to the floor, holding her there with his own body weight. The smaller Terran stood point, his own rifle drawn, as the larger soldier pulled her arms roughly behind her back, careful of the blade sheaths underneath each forearm. He’d sprayed some sort of quick-congealing gel over the sheath openings; it felt warm and sticky before it stiffened into a hard scale and sealed them off. Then she’d felt him press a small metal orb to the bare skin of her wrists. The sphere exploded on contact, ensnaring her arms in an embrace of flexible, steel-hard tendrils.

  Having rendered Shomoro harmless, the two soldiers had marched her through the pristine rooms of her lab complex to the cruiser waiting behind the large blast doors of the main entrance. The soldiers had not blasted their way in: the edges of the two metal doors still sat in their frames, but a large smoking hole had eaten its way through the thick steel in the center. Stepping out between her captors, Shomoro had noticed the telltale scatter of gray dust from the one-shot nanite swarm they must have used to penetrate. The irony was almost enough to make her laugh. Then the two Terrans had shoved her rudely inside the hovering cruiser, slammed the doors, and set off without another word.

  And here she was, lying trussed and naked in the back of an enemy cruiser without a hope of escaping or knowledge of where she was being taken. She had been caught without even a fight or enemy casualties to mark the occasion. Netted like one of the river worms that spilled by the thousands down clefts in Oskaran’s oceanside cliffs to their spawning grounds in the sea.

  All of Shomoro’s anger at how her captors had deigned to treat her—an upstanding citizen of Oskaran and member of the Fleet; she whose discoveries would not only have won them Olios 3 but made her Surarch of it—evaporated in that realization. She had been all those things . . . but not anymore. Capture changed everything.

  Her career as a scientist and one of the Blademaster’s noble sephs was over.

  5

  After what felt like many hours, the cruiser lurched to a stop, jerking Shomoro awake. She’d been dozing fitfully the last couple of hours, and winced at the pain and tingling that went through her bound arms as she tried to flex them. The warm, vibrating metal under her bare flesh went still and cold as the engines powered down. There was a metallic clunk, and the narrow viewing port in the cruiser’s hull darkened as the craft glided into an interior space.

  The decking jumped under her as the cruiser sank to the floor of the bay. There was noise all around: chatter in a jumble of languages; the muted roar of other craft as they dropped down into exhaust-shielded cradles; the scuff of soldiers’ boots on the floor; and a strange hollow ticking she could make no sense of.

  Shomoro could hear her two captors talking and joking in boisterous English. A third voice, also male but older, gave a reply too low for her to hear. Though quiet and reserved, the new voice spoke in the clipped tones of authority—of a leader of the Universal Church.

  Shomoro realized she was holding her entire body rigid: her legs had drawn up to protect her entrails as she clenched her sharp teeth, arms straining against the restraints. The knowledge that one of those child-murdering, genocidal, self-proclaimed enemies of her people stood just beyond those doors, talking calmly, coursed through her blood like hot lead. She would rip . . .

  Slowing her furious breathing, she forced her muscles to unwind. She was in no position to enact a seph’s justice on whoever was outside. Maybe later, but not now. Now it was to her to remain calm and learn as much as she could of her new circumstances.

  The three-way conversation outside ended with a terse order from the Church leader: “Clear the bay.”

  The chatter and activity outside drained away, overlaid by the sounds of many feet marching or shuffling out of the docking bay. The cruiser’s cargo doors opened with a whisper, harsh white light spilling between them and casting her two Terran captors in silhouette.

  Shomoro narrowed her eyes to slits against the glare as the burlier of the two grabbed her bound arms and pulled her out of the cruiser. She blinked against the light, stumbling in disorientation as her bare feet hit the polished white floor. The bigger soldier grabbed her shoulder to steady her in a motion so abrupt it almost knocked her down.

  The deserted docking bay was long and rectangular with opaque white walls. It was deliberately plain, devoid of almost any features save the shielded cradles where cruisers came to dock. Most of the ports were currently filled with dull gray craft, all decorated with a pair of white stripes running down each side. Beyond the cruisers, she caught a glimpse of blue sky through a low, wide access shaft that had been bored through the crust of the Dursh-Kren. The bay and whatever complex it attached to were sunk partially underground, not unlike her own lab.

  At the far end of the row of parking cradles, a blank white door led out of the bay. With a firm shove, the Terran gripping her arms got Shomoro moving, marching her through the docking bay and down a long ivory corridor beyond the door.

  At first it seemed as if the tunnel would snake on forever, neither ending nor leading anywhere save for the endless banks of white doors that branched off it. But the hall did end, at another white door emblazoned with the Sol System logo of CoG and another, more detailed version of the equilateral triangle of the Universal Church. Bold black strokes outlined the triangle’s thick white lines against the white of the door. In its center hung a pale sphere like a white dwarf sun, which shot forth thousands of tiny outlined rays to touch the inner edges of the triangle.

  The tense boredom Shomoro had fallen into on the march washed away in a wave of icy trepidation. Once more, minute tremors began to race over her body, making her skin pucker with dread. She knew little and understood less of the beliefs represented in that symbol with its trinity of sides. She’d heard once, from a Fleet courier who ferried news from Za to the Osk enclave on Aival, that the white sphere within represented some hidden knowledge about the universe, which formed the basis of their faith. To Shomoro it meant only power, blinding power—and the will to use it as they had in Diego Two. Though she supposed that kind of power could be basis enough for a Terran religion.

  The door slid upward, revealing a spacious room whose elegant details blurred as the two Terran soldiers propelled Shomoro forward. They made her stand on four red circles inscribed on a patch of gray metal in the center of the floor. Dizzy, Shomoro swayed on the spot. She looked down and saw dark gray tendrils snake out of the red circles and twine around her ankles, anchoring her to the floor. From the corner of her eye, she saw her guards back away and exit by the same door.

  “Shomoro Lacharoksa?” A deep voice snapped her attention forward. She took in the room’s details in a second: it was broad and deep, a high-ranking Terran official’s office or reception hall. The walls were paneled with dark polished wood, a welcome change after the hostile white of the bay and corridor. Except where Shomoro stood, the floor was covered in a rich, ornate carpet in hues of gold, crimson, and verdure which complemented the walls. A massive mahogany desk crouched at the front of the room.

  The man seated behind it addressed Shomoro again.

  “Come on, now,” he said, rising to his feet. “It’s no use giving me the silent treatment. We know who you are. The White Arrows do not make mistakes.”

  The White Arrows. The paladin arm of the Universal Church. Missionaries ostensibly, dedicated to
spreading their beliefs to worlds beyond the Front of Terran space—peacefully, though they claimed the hostility of some worlds necessitated the military training and equipment their members received.

  The Osk knew better.

  As the man walked toward her, the other two occupants of the room stepped out from behind the wings of his desk. A taller race would have been standing in plain sight, but the Urd were a short species. Shomoro kept an eye on the saurian creatures as they followed the Terran, their golden eyes fixed warily on her.

  Each Urd was only about a meter tall but almost three meters long from blunt toothy head to whipping, spine-ridged tail. Their lean, predatory bodies were covered in leathery skin mottled in rusty reds and yellows; bold brown stripes streaked in vertical bars down their heads to the lips of their toothy jaws. Behind the yellow eyes in their bony sockets, the Urd’s skulls split into two horny, triangular wedges. Both Urd wore tough leather vests around their torsos, with holes to admit their limbs. Their bent-back legs ended in two long toes sporting vicious talons that ticked hollowly against the floor as they advanced. The claws sprouting from their two-fingered hands looked almost as cruel. One of the Urd was visibly larger than the other, its movements more self-assured and aggressive. A dominant female, at a guess.

  So, Shomoro thought as the three came closer, I’d heard the Terran alliance with the Urd continues; I never imagined I would receive this kind of corporeal proof.

  She wondered with distant curiosity if there might be Arashal serving under the White Arrows as well. Where there were Urd, their millennial slaves were never far behind. Shomoro found herself thinking of them almost with pity. Though the Arashal were impressive creatures in their own right, they were also naturally meek. It was easy to see how they’d been subjugated by the Urd for so long.

  The Terran halted a body length from Shomoro, his two Urd guards flanking him. He was an unremarkable specimen: average height for an adult male, pale-skinned with nearly colorless hair thinning at the top of his skull. His eyes were shallow gray pools that gave away nothing as they met hers. He wore a plain dark business suit under his Church robe of office: a voluminous white shroud trimmed in gold, with the equilateral triangle picked out in gold thread on the left breast.

  “Do you know why you’re here?” he asked in English.

  “To be killed, I suppose. What else do you do with threats to your suns-cursed hegemony?” Shomoro used an obscure dialect spoke only by oldsters on Oskaran, determined not to make this easy for him. She also hoped it would mask the shaking in her voice.

  The bigger Urd snarled through her teeth, “Show Berkyavik-leader some respect, insolent worm!” Shomoro winced as the Urd mangled the O’o Nezz words on her thick tongue. She hadn’t known it was possible to insult a language merely by attempting to speak it.

  The Terran placed his arm between Shomoro and the Urd. “Stand down, Grelshk. You may yet get your chance with this one, but I have business with her first.” He turned his pale eyes toward Shomoro again.

  “What makes you think we’re going to kill you?” the Terran called Berkyavik asked mildly. “You don’t even know who we are.”

  A premonition of the unexpected shivered down her spine, but Shomoro pressed it down. “I know that this entire base is being operated by the White Arrows, and that you are visibly the director of this operation.” She jabbed her snout forward as much as the ankle restraints would safely permit, indicating the triangle sewn on Berkyavik’s robe. “Why would I expect anything other than death from the White Arrows? You established your intentions toward us quite clearly on Aival.”

  The White Arrow leader crossed his robed arms and cocked an eyebrow. “There is a difference,” he said dryly, “between a non-Terran enclave presenting its grievances through legitimate channels and one starting an insurgency on a peaceful world.”

  Inside, Shomoro flinched. According to the law of Oskaran, the Chii Ril enclave had acted within legitimate channels, with the sanction and support of House and Monarch. But the enclave had misjudged the Terran reaction to its campaign, a misunderstanding that had started the war. Yet she had to defend them; if not for their mistake, then for what came after.

  “And there is a difference,” she spat back, “Between defending your leaders—corrupt and unjust as they are—and bringing retribution such as you did to Chii Ril.”

  His pale eyes narrowed. “They brought that on themselves,” Berkyavik answered coldly. The anger rippled over his face for a second before he resumed his bland expression. “But we didn’t bring you all this way to discuss history.” Then, after a pause so small she might have imagined it, he added, “Nor to kill you.”

  Shomoro’s muscles felt weak with tension; his oblique nonanswers were worse than the vilest threats would have been. “Then why?”

  “To learn from you.” The Terran’s white robe billowed outward as he glided forward and suddenly stroked her cheek, the backs of two fingers sliding down her skin.

  Shomoro twisted away, turning her upper body as far from him as the restraints would let her. She waited, rigid, for him to repeat the insult—but after a moment came the scuff of shoes on the carpet as Berkyavik took a step back. Shomoro turned forward again, trying to calm her roughened breathing as she met the man’s blank gray eyes.

  “We know so little about you Osk,” said Berkyavik, as though the tense moment had not occurred. He began to pace around the spot where she stood tethered, his Urd shadowing him. “How long have Osk and Terrans even known the other existed? Only a handful of decades, since that unfortunate business on Rreluush-Tren; barely enough for us to scratch the surface of what you are.”

  “Are you . . .” She swallowed and tried again. “Are you planning on experimenting on me?”

  “A few samples may be taken.” His flippant answer came from behind her, making Shomoro’s skin crawl. She rolled her eyes vainly, trying to catch sight of the Terran. “But mostly, I intend to have you talk to us.” He reappeared on her left. “Your knowledge, Shomoro, is what interests us: everything there is to know about your planet, your society, biology, military strategy—it’s all in there.” He pointed a languid index finger at her forehead.

  “Why would I tell you anything?”

  Berkyavik tented his shoulders in a Terran shrug. “We are hoping—I am hoping—that you will volunteer whatever you know freely. Our Father built the Universal Church on a spirit of sharing, after all. But if you resist us, we have certain methods that can be brought to bear. Techniques of conversation I imagine you would find unpleasant.”

  Shomoro’s stomach roiled, dark avenues of imagination opening up behind his bland words. When she found her voice again, it was soft and strained—hardly the voice of a seph, but it was all she had. “You wouldn’t dare. The Surarchy of Za will be combing the Dursh-Kren once they know I’m gone. They will find this base and they will overrun you. They will kill you all!” She hissed the last words through her teeth, a low and deadly sound.

  “To retrieve a mere seph who’d gotten herself captured?” Berkyavik asked, examining his fingernails. Shomoro clenched her jaw, realizing too late that in her defiance she had given him something.

  “Ah, but then you’re not a mere seph, are you? You see, the White Arrows already know you quite well, Shomoro Lacharoksa. We knew that you were a scientist as well as a seph, and thus of high value to the war effort. And we knew that you had not based your operations within Za, but somewhere in the Plains . . . though we could not act until we knew precisely where.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you know. You won’t get to learn any more. Za will rescue me first.”

  “No,” he said, plucking at the gold thread around one sleeve. “I don’t think they will.”

  Shomoro felt the dread gather again, thicker than before. For the first time in her life, she regretted the self-imposed isolation she’d put herself under on Olios 3.

&n
bsp; “Two days ago, we discovered your location. It was stored, along with a number of other interesting facts, in your file.” He let the pause grow. “In Za’s mainframe.”

  Shomoro was shocked. “Impossible!” she objected, hissing through clenched teeth. “Za’s mainframe is impenetrable. The only way to get in is if there was an entire system shutdown . . .” She trailed off.

  “You’re just as perceptive as your file said you would be, Shomoro Lacharoksa. That is exactly what happened. It shut down of its own accord, as it’s programmed to do in the wake of a major disaster in order to protect the information inside. When our technicians rebooted it afterward, they used the ten-second window as it restarted to hack into the system.”

  “A major disaster?” Shomoro asked, feeling lightheaded. “What sort of disaster?”

  “Oh, I think you know,” Berkyavik replied, a sly tone edging his words. “After all, you were making ventures into that field when we took you.”

  “Nanotech.” She exhaled the word, feeling it bubble to the surface of her dread on a flutter of air.

  He nodded. “Nanotech, indeed. Let me fill you in on the details: for the past year and a half, Nheris has been secretly developing a nanovirus, codenamed Fate’s Shears. Quite an elegant thing, really; do you want to know how it works?”

  “I can guess,” she said dully. “It attacks the atmospheric conversion net inside our lungs.”

  “Correct. Specifically, the reconstruction nodes within them, leaving the affected Osk to suffocate in Olios 3’s oxygen-rich atmosphere. About two weeks ago, it was perfected. Launched into Za from a low orbit. All the Osk stationed planetside succumbed to Fate’s Shears a few days after it went live. Nheris’ last survey two days ago showed no sign of life. Za colony has fallen.”

  Shomoro rocked back in place as if Berkyavik had reached out and slapped her. In a way, he had: it was incredible how information could strike so much harder than any physical blow. As the shock settled over her, Shomoro swayed forward and felt her center of balance tilt too far, threatening to drag her into a fall that would be punishing even to an Osk’s flexible joints. Tethered to the floor as she was, it might even be crippling. That distant part of her whose utmost concern would always be survival began to flood her with stress hormones; she tensed her body for a futile grab at equilibrium.