Artemis Invaded (23 page)

“They are here,” he said with a gusty sigh. “This one…” He pointed to a suit tinted a dark, primary blue. “This one. It will, may, could, help. If I clean it, can you make it live?”

For Ring, this was as direct as communication ever became. Ignoring Leto's sputtering, Griffin went to inspect the suit Ring had indicated. It seemed more complete than many, although several leg and arm pieces were missing. He was inspecting it, working out its probable capacities, when Terrell shambled in, rubbing his beard stubble and looking bemused. He'd stayed back in camp, probably to talk to Bruin about Adara, while he packed something for their lunch.

“What're you doing?” he asked. “And why's Leto so upset?”

“Ring asked me to inspect this spavek,” Griffin said. “He wanted to know if I could ‘make it live.'”

Terrell came to take a closer look. “I'd say you'd have a better chance with this one than with many others. When I was drawing it, I noticed some indications it had been in use. Look, here … and here…”

He hunkered down and pointed to a place where the blue coating showed darker, another where the material that made up a knee covering was scuffed. “My guess is that they'd tested this one, maybe even in a firefight.” Terrell had learned the term from Griffin and, once he realized it had to do with fighting with fire, rather than fighting fire, he had seized on it. “This isn't one of the larger combat units, but it has energy weapons.”

He pointed. “If you look by the knee, you'll see that there was some sort of fluid leak. My guess is that the joint was damaged by ‘fire' and then repaired, but they didn't bother to clean it up all the way because they were going to test it again.”

“And never had a chance,” Griffin said softly. “I wonder if we can activate it?”

“Why not ask your girlfriend how to go about it?”

Griffin listened to Leto's sputtering, which was full of terms like “restricted,” “off-limits,” “unauthorized,” and “prohibited.”

He sighed. “It may come to that, but I'd like to see what we can figure out on our own. Maybe it's as simple as making sure the power unit is connected. From what I've been able to tell, protocol here was to disconnect the power from any prototype not actually being worked on to eliminate the chance of accidents.”

Terrell rose. “What good would making it ‘live' do? None of us know how to sail—no, pilot—one of these. If there's one thing I learned from Helena the Equestrian, it's know your animal before you swing astride.”

“I've piloted a wide variety of craft,” Griffin objected. “I've even worn power armor a time or two. I could handle it.”

Terrell slowly shook his head. “You can ride Molly, too, pretty well by now. I'd chance you on Midnight or Tarnish in an emergency, but Sam would have you off and trampled.”

“This isn't a mule,” Griffin protested. “It's a machine.”

Terrell kept shaking his head. “Not a machine as you know them. You're the one who told me that the seegnur's machines were meant to mesh with the minds of their pilots. How do you know that this suit wouldn't decide you're not the rider for it and throw you—or worse? What if it burns out your brain because you're unauthorized?”

Griffin was about to protest further when Ring's deep voice spoke with that curious lack of inflection that somehow managed to hold the attention more than any amount of argument.

“Not Griffin. Me. It will let me ride it. First, though, we must make it live.”

*   *   *

Julyan rapidly learned that the hitch in Alexander's gallop wasn't sex, as such, but control. He used sex—or rather the threat of sex—to control Julyan. If Julyan was obedient, Alexander kept his hands to himself. If Julyan was not obedient—even when the control words were not in use—then Julyan found himself doing things he wouldn't have done to any of his “mares.” Worse, Alexander told him to enjoy it and so he did. The memory of that enjoyment haunted him, waking and sleeping.

After a time or two in which Alexander proved to Julyan that those seven simple syllables would permit him to make Julyan do anything he desired, Alexander preferred the threat to the act. He still acted, just often enough and erratically enough so that Julyan lived in a constant state of tension whenever he was alone with the man but, as time went on, Alexander preferred to exercise his power in other ways.

One of these was making Julyan his unwilling confidant. Julyan quickly gathered that while Alexander was in accord with his brothers on many things, he had his own agenda—and that he deeply and sincerely hated Griffin.

“Maxwell doesn't seem to wonder how we arrived here so quickly,” Alexander gloated. “Or how we found the region Griffin had gone to with a whole world to choose from. Do you?”

He and Julyan were alone in the commander's quarters on what had been the residential side of the Sanctum. This area, it turned out, had been closed and sealed when the Old One had released his flood, and so could be explored as soon as the central area was drained. Unhappily, for Julyan, rows of dormitory rooms and the like held little interest for the two more warlike Dane brothers. Exploration had been turned over to Alexander, who was, ostensibly, trying to find out if the commander's data storage units could be accessed.

“You told us that Griffin had not hidden his trail as well as he thought,” Julyan said obediently.

“Ah … He didn't, but not as we implied. Griffin actually did an excellent job hiding his trail. We took precautions so we could track him.”

Julyan made an interested noise.

“Falkner and Gaius tampered with Griffin's shuttle. First, it was to set beacons that would show us the direction in which Griffin went. Since the shuttle was mounted on the outside of the main vessel, that was no problem at all. When Griffin reached Artemis, a final beacon was dropped that would activate the others so we'd know it was time to follow. The signal took a while to backtrack but, even so, I think we were very clever.”

“Yes. Waiting to send the signal would keep Griffin from detecting the beacons.”

“Smart boy. We didn't stop there. When the shuttle penetrated atmosphere, we set a device to release some nanobots that would, at the very least, enable our own machines to work without being shut down. Obviously, this worked to some extent, although not quickly enough to keep Griffin's shuttle from crashing. If we were lucky and guessed right on the composition of the original attack virus, our counter-virus would reactivate Artemis's own equipment.”

This was complete nonsense, so Julyan only nodded encouragingly.

“We also arranged for a small beacon to be planted beneath Griffin's skin, so we could track him. After all, a planet is a big place. Did Griffin tell you about the spider?”

“Spider?” Julyan didn't need to fake his confusion.

“I see he didn't. He always was an untruthful boy. I couldn't see why we would need Griffin once we were here. Oh, it's true that our sister, Jada, had done some useful work with him—making sure that once Griffin arrived on Artemis he would obsessively pursue any leads to the Old Imperial technology. Jada's job wasn't that hard, since Griffin would probably have done that anyway. Still, I'm as good a historian as Griffin—better, when it comes to military matters. That's all the others care about. It wasn't as if we needed his skills as an archeologist. So I took action.”

Julyan knew when he was being prompted to ask a question. “May I ask what you did?”

“I mounted a warbot on the undercarriage of Griffin's shuttle. It looked like a fanciful spider. I told the spider to seek Griffin out and kill him. Honestly, if there's one reason I want to catch up with Griffin, it's so I can ask him how he managed to avoid being killed. I've scanned and the spider has definitely been destroyed.”

Alexander stared at the blank wall behind the commander's desk. “Yes. Most definitely I want to find out how Griffin managed to avoid being killed—and make certain he doesn't avoid it again. You'll help me there, won't you, Julyan?”

“Yes, Alexander.” For once, Julyan didn't need to pretend. “Helping you kill Griffin would be a pleasure.”

Interlude: Contradiction

Breath upon the veil,

Kitten cries showed me myself.

Lobotomized,

Crippled,

Born in battle,

                  Still incomplete,

                        But me.

I would weave them into my web.

Give them what they have given me.

Why do they flee?

Why do they press me to awaken,

But insist on sleeping themselves?

 

10

Behind the Hidden Door

Adara returned from spending several days in the wilderness with Sand Shadow—and occasionally Artemis—to find that much had changed. Bruin was at the campsite when she came in with her contribution of the cleaned and dressed carcass of a young mountain sheep. He immediately began seasoning it for the spit.

“We've been eating a lot of fish and what small game that Kipper catches in his snares. I haven't wanted to go far from this valley. If I wasn't here to grab him by the ear and tug, I'm not sure Griffin would come out to eat. I'd gotten him being social, teaching Kip that marble game you folks like, and acting nearly normal. Then Ring insisted that one of the spaveks merited a closer inspection and…”

“Spavek?” Adara had been scraping the sheep's hide for tanning and paused in midstroke. “You mean one of those things might actually work? But there are parts missing!”

Bruin nodded. “That's what Ring insists—and Griffin believes him. Also, Leto's been holding out on Griffin—our ‘seegnur' was as close to livid as I've ever seen him when he figured that out. Leto's been getting more and more feeling in her limbs. Leto hadn't said anything about this, just let on that she was pretty much the same as when we got here.”

Adara had gathered that for Leto the underground complex served more or less as her body. So, when Bruin spoke of her “limbs,” he meant those devices that enabled Leto to control things like light and heat, flow of air, and all the rest. It almost certainly meant that her ability to sense what was going on in it had also expanded.

“Leto admits that charging the spaveks' power storage cells should be possible,” Bruin continued, rubbing wild garlic over the meat. “Slow, because she claims she doesn't have a lot of energy to spare. Still, even a bathtub can be filled by raindrops if you're patient enough.”

“Is Griffin being patient?”

Bruin made a seesawing gesture with one hand. “In some ways, incredibly so. That's why I've insisted on hauling his butt out here and making him eat warm food, bathe, and get some exercise. Otherwise he sits staring at one of those glowing screens for hours, hardly moving. In other ways … Well, especially now that Griffin realizes that Leto was withholding information—she never outright lied—he's pushing to come up with new questions.”

“Which is why,” Adara pointed out, “he keeps staring at those screens. Best as I can figure, they're like books, except that you can get lots of books on that one page—sort of like one musical instrument can play a lot of tunes. What's Terrell been doing? He must have finished drawing the spaveks.”

“He started out helping Griffin unrack the spavek Ring indicated and drawing what part went where. Ring got frustrated at how slowly everything was going. He's not been very clear…”

“Is Ring ever?”

“He's been less clear than usual. Eventually, Terrell sat him down and talked with him. He sorted through the nonsense and came up finally with one thing—something has happened in Spirit Bay, something that is making Ring frantic to have that spavek ready so he can wear it.”

“Ring?” Adara considered. “Maybe Ring
could
use the thing. That's what the Old One intended, after all.”

Bruin nodded. “That's what Griffin decided, too, though I think it wasn't easy for him. He's gotten comfortable with the idea that he's the seegnur come back. Finding out that Ring might be a bit better than him at using seegnur stuff didn't come easy.”

“So is Terrell working with Ring on the suit, while Griffin works with Leto?”

“Not now,” Bruin replied. “When we realized that something in Spirit Bay was at the root of all of Ring's edginess, we got edgy, too. Terrell went down to Crystalaire to pick up supplies and hunt rumors. He should be back any day now.”

“I'm sure you've had Honeychild keeping a lookout, but Sand Shadow would be happy to help. She's full of mountain sheep, so she could doze near Terrell's trail.”

“That would be useful,” Bruin said, patting his gut with contented anticipation. “Now, what shall we have with this nice roast? Young cattail shoots with wine vinegar as a salad. Sunflower tubers. And Kipper has found a cluster of snowberry bushes. A bit of sweet after the meat would be a fine thing indeed.”

*   *   *

When Kipper brought the news that Adara and Sand Shadow had returned, Griffin was pleased enough to put his research aside without a bit of reluctance. Ring rose from where he had been cleaning sections of blue armor, first carefully locking the chest plate he had been polishing back into the squire. Terrell had questioned him about this routine some days back, commenting that the work would be easier if Ring didn't have to pull everything apart every day. Ring had merely given a ponderous shake of his head and responded “This is better” with such certainty that neither Griffin nor Terrell had felt any impulse to question further.

Griffin had been jealous when Ring had claimed this spavek as his own. If he had imagined anyone using any of the powered armor, it had been himself. He realized, though, that his imagination had stopped short of envisioning the equipment in use. Surely such things belonged in a museum, not worn and possibly damaged. But it certainly didn't hurt to clean them. Even Leto couldn't complain about Ring's meticulous attention since, in five hundred years, even in a sealed area underground, dust had gathered.