Empire: Book 2, The Chronicles of the Invaders (The Chronicles of the Invaders Trilogy) (25 page)

CHAPTER 46

T
he following morning, Syl made her way to the top of the dual staircases once more and, without hesitating, down she went.

This second staircase was shorter, and definitely seemed brighter as Syl descended. The steps widened at the bottom into a corridor similar to the one she’d been in the day before, only this was certainly much cleaner, without the dusty, scuffed floors or the stale smell of the other. And it was in use, of that there was no doubt, for cleaning equipment had been left along the wall, and rags and mops hung from makeshift hooks. A tap stuck out of the rock face, dripping gently into a bucket placed beneath it to catch the droplets. Syl took a few tentative steps away from the stairwell, and realized the air really did smell different here—familiar even, but in a good way. She breathed deeply, trying to place it, for it was a fragrance she knew. That was it: laundry. It smelled like detergent, and as she walked onward the smell became stronger until she stood outside what was clearly a washing hub, wide and whirring, stacked with shiny machinery that buzzed and clicked as it cleaned and dried its multiple loads, red silk flashing within. She didn’t go inside, for several Service Sisters buzzed around too, busy and efficient, folding piles of vivid red robes.

The closest Illyri looked up and saw Syl, and confusion clouded her face.

“Excuse me, but who are you?” she said, and the others stopped what they were doing and stared at her. Plastering on her most winning smile, Syl immediately started her inner mantra again.

We are the same. I am one of you. I. One of you. The same.

“Never mind,” said the Sister, shaking her head, befuddled, as Syl
turned and walked away as fast as she could without looking too conspicuous.

She passed rooms stacked with chairs, and piled with folded bedding. One was stocked with bedsteads, and another was filled to the ceiling with drum upon drum of fresh water. There were stores of soap and chemicals, and heaps of crisp towels, and several neat supply rooms lined with tools of the sort a handyman might put on his belt, only far sleeker and slighter, made for precision work.

Clearly the secrets of the Nairene Sisterhood were not going to be down here with the scullery maids and washerwomen of the order, so Syl quickened her pace, sticking to what appeared to be the main route upward, passing chutes in the wall and service trolleys, and even what were apparently the lowliest of sleeping quarters, windowless, gray, and grimly lit.

Onward she went, understanding that she was probably losing her bearings, but she felt relatively secure in her white robes as she brushed deferentially past red Nairenes, more and more of them the farther she ascended, and yet they paid her no heed. She was swept along on occasional waves of Service Sisters too, and no one questioned her, or even looked at her. She tried to keep to routes that the Red Sisters favored, for surely it was along these that the truth of the order would be found. And yet she could not help but stare in wonder at all she saw.

Libraries as cavernous as any cathedral soared off to either side, so very many libraries, and there were Scriptoriums reaching several stories high, where Sisters squinted and scribbled or tapped earnestly on screens, many wearing white gloves to protect the rare and precious volumes they transcribed and translated. There were dining halls and gymnasiums, and giant greenhouses flourishing with life, and chambers full of silvery mirrors and lights. She saw a small orchestra practicing, picking on ethereal string instruments, and she found the zoological department she thought had been a figment of some Novice’s imagination. Through one window she thought she briefly glimpsed a unicorn.

Strangest of all, however, was the stone-walled grotto she stumbled
into at the point where several corridors came together in a star shape. It was dim in the grotto, while being unusually cold for the Marque, and candles glimmered on rough-hewn shelves and in crevices. At the heart of the space were four plinths of rock upon which rested a large, flat boulder, pockmarked and jagged at the edges, but otherwise resembling a medieval banqueting table. But the boulder itself wasn’t particularly strange; what was odd was that it was protected from curious hands by a large glass dome and, odder yet, as Sisters skirted around it, without fail they would kiss their fingertips, and then press them to the dome. A Service Sister was on hand, regularly stepping forward to rub away the smears they left on the clear surface. Just to be safe, Syl kissed her own fingers too, then trailed them curiously along the glass, but she didn’t dare stop to investigate, for the rock was at a busy juncture and Sisters scurried by like ants, absently dropping their kisses as they went about their business.

As Syl left the grotto, there came a low, sweet chiming, growing louder and more insistent, and gradually the Sisters finished what they were doing and drifted in the direction of the numerous dining halls. What? It was already lunchtime?

Syl knew she shouldn’t stretch her luck by tarrying any longer, but frankly, she was now spectacularly lost.

•  •  •

“Excuse me, Sister, but I seem to have lost my bearings. What Realm is this?” said Syl, awkwardly approaching a young Illyri in white robes just like her own.

We are the same
, she thought.
The same
.

“Oh, I know, it’s so easy to do. This is the Ninth. Where are you trying to get to?”

“The Twelfth Realm.”

“Really? You’d think after training there you’d remember that much at least, wouldn’t you, but I still get confused too. Have you not got your cartograph?”

Syl looked at her feet, a little frightened. What was a cartograph?

I am one of you.

“No. I forgot it.”

We are the same
.

The Sister chuckled. “You’re having quite a day! Well, here, look at mine. My name’s Lista, by the way. I’m from the Eighth. Who are you?”

“I’m, uh, Tanit. From the Seventh.”

“Really?” said Lista. “I didn’t know there were any of us in the Seventh.”

“No.” Syl laughed a little too hard. “I mean that’s where I just came from. I live in the Fifteenth.”

I am like you.

“Right. Okay, then.”

Lista pulled her lanyard from under her robes. Attached to it, next to her keys, was a small black card. She squeezed the edge between her thumb and forefinger and immediately a labyrinth of lines spread across the surface. A blue light flashed in the center. She held it in front of Syl, who did her best not to look surprised.

“So you’re here,” she said, pointing at the blue light, “and you need to be here.”

She spread her thumb and forefinger, and the image zoomed out.

“So if you just follow this route here—”

But Syl didn’t hear what Lista said. Instead she stared at the card, overcome with longing. Why, it was a map, a map to the entire Marque! She had to have it. She watched Lista closely as the girl babbled on.

I am like you. We are the same.

“Lista, dearest, please may I borrow it? Just for a bit. I’m dreadfully late, and I’ll be in terrible trouble if I get lost again. I’m all panicked, you see . . .”

Lista hesitated.

“But you know it’s not allowed.”

Syl stared at her, smiling what she hoped was reassuringly while she manipulated Lista’s thoughts. The girl looked at the card for a few moments, then shrugged.

“Well, if you promise you’ll get it back to me as soon as you’re finished with it.”

“Of course I will. Thank you, Lista.”

“Please, don’t forget. I’m in the Eighth, remember.”

She handed over the cartograph.

“Good luck,” Lista said. “See you later, Tanit.”

Syl froze, then realized Lista was talking to her.

“Yes, of course. See you later,” she managed.

•  •  •

In the privacy of a small side tunnel, Syl studied the cartograph. The blue light in the middle clearly showed the whereabouts of the card itself, for the shining dot remained static while the lines moved around it depending on which direction she faced. She could zoom in or zoom out, showing either greater or lesser detail accordingly. As Illyri technology went, it was quite primitive, but also rather effective, like much of the electronics on the Marque.

Very soon, Syl had figured out where she was, for she was surprisingly close to the pathway she’d intended taking earlier. She’d gone through what appeared to be the old Third Realm, after veering briefly into the Second—the tumbledown section where she’d seen the garniad the previous day—and she’d walked across the Fifteenth, where the laundries were housed, to end up here, in the Ninth. The route she’d followed curved back around on itself, but without the cartograph she’d never have guessed it. It was like those stories of explorers lost in the desert, walking in never-ending circles only minutes from an oasis until they fell down and died.

Only now, thought Syl as she headed back toward the Twelfth Realm, she was an explorer who had a map.

CHAPTER 47

S
teven had killed the thrusters, so the ship remained stationary before the phenomenon. The wormhole appeared as a slightly elongated area of distortion, a fractured lens. The sight of a wormhole always made Paul nervous. He’d been through enough of them by now for the novelty to have worn off, but not the fear. He wondered if it was similar to claustrophobia, that reluctance to be trapped in an enclosed space, especially one with the potential for collapse. Illyri research into wormholes had concluded that they degraded over time, becoming less stable as they grew older. Unfortunately, while the wormhole map detailed the location of each one, it did not offer an estimate of age or stability. They could only conclude that, if a wormhole was included on the map, it was because it was safe to use.

Alis magnified a section of the cockpit display.

“This is our route,” she said as a series of wormholes were illuminated in red. “Once we’re through this one, the next is just a few hours away. As long as we don’t encounter any problems, it should take us six boosts to get to the Archaeon system.”

“How long altogether?” asked Paul.

“Arrival approximately seventy-eight hours since our departure from Torma.”

Paul, who had been leaning against the bulkhead, instinctively found himself running the fingers of his right hand along the interior of the
Nomad
, as though reassuring himself of its strength.

Will the ship be able to take six boosts? he wondered.

Even the strongest vessels in the Illyri fleet rarely made more than two boosts in succession without running a full system and mainte
nance diagnostic afterwards, and the
Nomad
had already made a least one boost to get to Torma. But there was no choice.

“Check all hatches and storage,” said Paul. “I want everything tied down and sealed away.”

They were all used to the procedures: nobody wanted to have a limb broken or a skull fractured by a falling piece of equipment during a difficult jump. When Paul was satisfied that all was secure, he ordered everyone to take position, and finally strapped himself into the lead chair directly behind Steven and Alis.

“Okay,” he said, and his voice quavered ever so slightly. “Take us in.”

After all the preparations and precautions, it was one of the easiest boosts that Paul could recall. He had a vague sense of stars elongating, creating lines of light in which spectrums danced; of an intense pressure against his temples that felt as though his eyeballs were being squeezed from his skull; and of a tingling at his fingertips and toes that verged on, but did not quite become, pain.

“Emerging,” said Steven. “Boost complete.”

“Starting emergence procedures,” said Alis.

The most dangerous aspect of boosting was not moving through the wormhole itself, although that could be risky enough. No, it was in leaving the wormhole that the greatest threats often lay. Regularly trafficked wormholes had automated monitoring stations installed at their mouths, so that in the event of a problem—asteroids, for example—a warning drone could be sent through to advise against boosts until the danger had passed. But the last thing they wanted was for news of an unscheduled boost to reach the Illyri, so Steven and Alis had made adjustments to their route in order to avoid any such stations.

The trick in emerging from an unmonitored wormhole was to halt the ship at the very periphery of its mouth, and then slip back into the hole if any obstacle was present, a solution that was far from foolproof. Paul gritted his teeth and dug his fingers into the armrest of his chair, only relaxing when Alis gave the all-clear moments later. And then it was over, and they emerged into an area of space that looked not entirely dissimilar to the one they had just left.

Paul checked over his shoulder to make sure that everyone was
okay. Thula slowly opened his left eye, then his right, as though unconvinced that he could still be in one piece. Thula hated jumps.

“Was it just me,” he said, “or was that not as horrible as usual?”

“It’s the ship,” said Steven. He couldn’t keep the admiration and excitement from his voice. “A wormhole could be collapsing around us, and we wouldn’t even notice.”

Paul didn’t particularly want to test that theory, but it gave him some reassurance about the boosts to come.

“All credit to the pilots too,” he said. “Well done.”

A burst of only semi-ironic applause came from Thula and Rizzo, who suggested that Paul should start awarding medals with his own face on them. Paul ignored her, and signaled to Peris that he wished to speak with him. Tiray stood to join them, but Paul was growing tired of Tiray assuming that he could automatically include himself in any conversation he chose.

“No, you can stay where you are, Councillor,” said Paul. “I’d like to speak with Peris alone.”

Tiray didn’t look happy about this, but remained in his seat. Peris followed Paul to the captain’s quarters. He said nothing, but he was increasingly impressed by Paul’s assumption of command. It was a good thing that he was no longer involved with the Resistance on Earth, for he would have become a powerful enemy. On the other hand, Peris was also aware that, while one could take the man out of the Resistance, one could not take the Resistance out of the man. Paul Kerr was still no friend to the Illyri, and the issue of the weapons in the hold remained.

“You don’t like Tiray much, do you?” said Peris.

“I don’t like or dislike him. I don’t even know him well enough to care if something were to happen to him.”

“But?”

“I don’t trust him. He hasn’t told us everything that he knows.”

“He’s a politician. He probably hasn’t even told himself everything that he knows. So, what’s on your mind, Lieutenant?”

“This ship.”

“Yes?”

“Do you think it has a flight recorder? We called them black boxes back on Earth.”

“Actually, the technical human term for them is
cockpit voice recorders.
Ours are a little more advanced, but, yes, this ship will have one.”

“Can it be turned off?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it can. The ship’s systems have been programmed to erase all traces of its past, so the recorder might also have been deactivated. My guess, though, is that it probably wasn’t. It would be more sensible simply to secure the recorder. Everything about this ship suggests secrecy, but also a degree of complacency, such as the absence of security codes on its main operating systems, and of DNA locks on that weaponry you found. The erasing of its flight records was designed to discourage only a casual search. In reality, whoever designed this ship and sent it on its mission never anticipated that it might be boarded or, even if it was, that it wouldn’t be retaken almost immediately.”

“And the recorder would start up at what point?”

“Well, from the ship’s first activation, I should think.”

“So if we found the recorder, we could learn where it was built?”

Oh, you bright young man.

“Yes, I believe so. But, as I said, if anything on this ship is going to be properly secured, it will be the recorder, and I don’t have the kind of expertise or intelligence to get past its firewalls. And, with absolute respect, neither do you.”

“But Alis does.”

“Alis works for Tiray.”

“Actually,” said Paul, “I don’t think that’s entirely true. Alis’s true loyalties lie elsewhere.”

“With the Mechs?”

“Yes. I think I can persuade her to access the recorder without necessarily informing Tiray of what she might find.”

“And why would she do that?”

“This ship is like the Mechs: where there’s one, there can be two, and then many more than two. This kind of technology could change the course of a war.”

Peris considered what Paul had said.

“You’re suggesting that this ship, and the one we destroyed, are part of a fleet?”

“Don’t pretend that you haven’t considered the possibility. Why build just two ships when you have half the wealth of an empire to spend, and investing in a fleet might just win you the other half as well? Unless we’re all very much mistaken, forces aligned with the Diplomatic Corps created this ship. The Corps wants to rule the Empire. To do that, it needs to wipe out the Military. At the moment, the Military’s firepower outweighs the Corps’, but not by much. Enough ships like this could tip the balance.”

“But you still haven’t explained why Alis might be willing to keep secrets from Tiray.”

“It’s only a matter of time before the Corps finds out about the Mechs. Meia is the weak link. She was exposed at Dundearg, and people will be talking. Five thousand powerful, self-aware machines who know that one hundred thousand more like them were destroyed on the orders of the Diplomatic Corps won’t be allowed to survive once the Corps takes over the Illyri Empire.

“You told me yourself: Tiray is a politician. Right now, the Corps is after him because they know he’s curious about Archaeon, but the fact that they didn’t just blow his ship to pieces means they don’t necessarily regard him as an enemy, not yet. Suppose Tiray gets to Archaeon, discovers whatever the Corps and its allies may be hiding there, and decides that it might be in his best interests, and those of the Civilians, to side with them against the Military? All politicians have one aim: to survive. I’m pretty sure Alis is well aware of that. She’s not just working with Tiray. She’s watching him.”

“You’re very cynical for one so young,” said Peris.

“You may be rubbing off on me.”

Peris acknowledged the gibe with a laugh.

“And where do you fit into all this?” he asked.

“Personally, I’d be quite happy to see the Illyri Empire tear itself apart in another civil war,” Paul replied. “If you’re killing one another, then you’re doing humanity a favor, and saving us the trouble of kill
ing you instead. But if the Corps were to win, an already bad situation for humanity would become much worse.”

“You’re talking about that thing found in Gradus’s head, and the experiments Meia saw?”

Paul nodded. “None of it suggests the Corps’ plans for humankind are gentle,” he said. “I’ve also been wondering if that organism might be linked to the technology used to build this ship?”

“In what way? By imparting knowledge?”

“Or enhancing brain functions, maybe. It’s all just guesswork and speculation, but it makes a kind of sense.”

“So the Corps provides hosts for these life-forms, whatever they might be, and in return the Diplomats get smarter,” said Peris. “But what’s in it for the organism?”

Bodies split open like bags of fertilizer. Host animals on Earth torn apart in the process of failed implantations.

Paul made the final leaps before replying. An advanced species is found—humanity—that is potentially capable of acting as host for the organism, just as the Illyri were, but for some reason the implantation doesn’t take, like a body rejecting a transplant organ. Humans are just different enough from the Illyri to make them unsuitable as hosts. And if human beings are no good as hosts, then what other function can they usefully serve?

Bodies split open. Fertilizer.

“Humanity,” said Paul, and his mouth dried up on the word. “The Corps is going to give them the earth.”