Lords of the Seventh Swarm (24 page)
Read Lords of the Seventh Swarm Online
Authors: David Farland
“Yes, but such people lose their humanity,” Gallen said. “In time they forget how to feel, how to relate to other humans.”
“So they end up going to Bothor,” Orick said, “where they don’t have to deal with regular folks. We’ve been there.”
“Well,” Maggie said, “some theorists say we can’t travel to other dimensions in our physical bodies, but we could create artificial bodies in another dimension, then download our personalities into those new bodies. It wouldn’t be much different from being an android.”
“No,” Felph said. “You’ve got the analogy right, but you’ve just missed it. If I understand the Qualeewoohs, they consider this life to be the experiment. They say they existed as dim matter before this world, and they’ve come here to gain experience in our dimension. Their goal is to take that experience back to the dim worlds. There are lessons they can learn here in mortality they can’t learn elsewhere.”
“Such as?” Orick asked.
Felph shrugged. “I don’t really care. It has to do with self-testing, preparation for greater knowledge. Qualeewooh mumbo jumbo.”
“If the Qualeewoohs are telling the truth,” Maggie said, “have you considered the possibility that they really are creatures who’ve somehow traveled to this dimension? That the ‘Waters of Strength’ might just be the ticket home?”
“Odd as it sounds, I’ve considered that,” Felph said, “but it appears to me that they evolved here. I can’t credit that theory.”
“But you’re convinced the Qualeewoohs have learned to transport their consciousness between dimensions?” Maggie asked.
“I … am persuaded that they’ve done something,” Felph said. “What that is, I can’t guess. But when I wear a Qualeewooh spirit mask to bed at night … You know, the Qualeewoohs have never revealed the secrets to making those masks. The masks seem to be made of nothing special—skin, metals, a few plant fibers and paints,” Felph’s voice grew silent, and he bit back his words as if afraid to speak them. Still, he spoke, and his voice was both frightened and respectful, “but even using the same materials, I cannot duplicate the effect. There is something about a Qualeewooh having worn the mask that makes it viable, that makes it receptive to messages. It’s almost as if … by communicating from one Qualeewooh to another, the mask itself becomes a living thing, an ear that still hears, though its master has passed on.”
Zeus had been watching this whole exchange, but as Felph fell into his reverie, Zeus got a chill down his back. He knew people who used the masks. Several local hermits would not steep at night without the masks on their faces, for they said the voices of the Qualeewooh Masters soothed them, even though they did not always understand the words spoken.
Yet in the past, Lord Felph had refused to let Zeus wear a mask. Like many other things, he considered it to be dangerous. The masks often had mind-altering effects on people. Zeus considered.
I should wear one tonight
.
Lord Felph suddenly looked up, just as a fireball crossed the sky, lighting the heavens. “You know,” Felph said, “it’s damnably late. Why isn’t Herm here?”
Hera, who had kept her hand on Zeus’s knee for the past few minutes, suddenly moved it higher up Zeus’s thigh. “I asked some of the droids to find him and invite him here for dinner,” Hera said. “But that was hours ago.”
Felph glanced at the servant Dooring, who’d just come to bring dessert. “Dooring, what did Herm say when you invited him to dinner?”
“The droids couldn’t find him,” Dooring answered. “As far as I can tell, he isn’t in the palace.”
Felph raised a brow. “Has he left the grounds?”
“The perimeter droids didn’t record it,” Dooring answered. “We are searching the palace grounds.”
Lord Felph looked about at the group, and Zeus could tell by his mannerisms, by the minor trembling in his jaw, that Felph was worried. He looked pointedly to Zeus. “You don’t have anything to do with this, do you? Did you have a fight with him?”
“No!” Zeus said too loudly, surprised at the accusation in Felph’s voice. “No!”
Felph half leapt from his chair. “Look me in the eye and tell me. If you killed him by accident, in a fit of passion, that is one thing. But if you murdered him in cold blood—”
“I swear,” Zeus said. “I had nothing to do with this!”
“He’s telling the truth,” Arachne told Felph. “He had nothing to do with this.” Felph took her defense of Zeus at face value, making no more accusations.
“Last I saw him,” Zeus said, “he had a gun, for hunting skogs.”
Felph tensed. Hunting skogs was dangerous. He ordered the droids, “Use fliers. Search the tangle.”
Chapter 23
It didn’t take Felph’s droids long to find Herm. In an hour, the droids retrieved the corpse from the canopy of the tangle, where it lay in plain view.
A droid bore it to the garden. Athena took a glow globe from her pack to inspect the remains.
Maggie wasn’t prepared for the horror. Herm’s head was lopped off. Gone the handsome green eyes, the aquiline nose, the perpetual, secretive smile. Gone the glorious mane of dark hair. Gone, too, his left wing and lower leg. They’d been eaten—along with certain organs. Blood smeared everywhere. The corpse smelled no better than it looked.
If Maggie felt unprepared for Herm’s demise, she felt equally unprepared for others’ reactions. Athena remained stoic, stared at the body as if imagining every detail of how he had died.
Hera sobbed, falling to the ground, seeming unable to move, muttering Herm’s name. Zeus raged, shaking fists, crying for vengeance. Yet rather than running into the wild, searching for Herm’s killer, he held Hera tenderly. Zeus seemed in shock, on the verge of collapse, yet he helped Hera back to their room.
Maggie wondered if she should help Zeus and Hera. They had never faced death before. Born with the promise of immortality, they faced death with all the profound comprehension of adults, coupled with the complete emotional naiveté of toddlers. Maggie felt astonished at the debilitating combination.
But the most astonishing reaction came not from Felph’s children, but from Felph himself. He went to the headless corpse, sprawled on the lawn, and lifted the remains, cradling them as if Herm were a child.
The image of Felph, face pale in horror, eyes wide in shock, on his knees, cradling Herm’s corpse in the ethereal light of the glow globe would stay with Maggie the rest of her life.
“Herm!” Felph sobbed. “Herm! My beloved! What’s happened? What?” He spoke to the corpse as if it might answer. Felph’s shock, more than his children’s, surprised Maggie.
You killed him
, Maggie wanted to say.
You wiped his memories from your Al, destroyed his clones. If not for you, he’d be alive.
Maggie dared not speak such hard truths. Nor did she reprimand Felph when his shock turned to rage, and he shouted at Gallen. “You’re the Lord Protector! How could you let this happen? What … what … I demand an answer!”
Gallen said, “I was gone. Remember, we were in the tangle.”
Lord Felph looked away, struggling, as if he could not recall. “But, but my son!” he said with supreme tenderness. However harsh Felph might seem, Maggie heard love in his voice.
Felph gazed down at the corpse, as if for the first time. “Oh,” he said, like a little boy in surprise. “Did you see this?” He reached into Herm’s chest cavity and pulled out a feather, short and gray at the base, dark green at its tips.
“What is it?” Gallen asked.
“A Qualeewooh feather,” Felph said.
Felph lifted the neck of the corpse, looked at the stump. “
Loolooahooke
,” he whispered, “the ancient art of decapitation. See how clean the cut is? A southern Qualeewooh did this. A wild one, out of the great wastes.”
Felph suddenly looked up, focusing on Gallen. “A murder has been committed. My son is dead. I demand vengeance. You will hunt this Qualeewooh, and bring him for punishment.”
Gallen bit his lip. “There must be thousands of Qualeewoohs,” Gallen said. “How will we find it?”
“It should be easy,” Felph said. “We are in a vast waste—no water or food for hundreds of kilometers. The killing took place today. Unless the Qualeewooh is hiding in the fields, it must be flying over the wastes. Finding it should not be hard.”
Gallen said softly. “You say this is the work of a wild Qualeewooh. Does it understand our law?”
“What does that matter?” Felph asked. “Herm is dead!”
“It matters,” Gallen said, leaning close. “I enforce the law, but you want vengeance. I won’t deliver this Qualeewooh simply so you can slaughter it.”
“I
am
the law on Ruin!” Felph shouted, tossing Herm’s corpse to the ground. He strode to Gallen, saffron robes stained with dark blood. “I make the laws here. I’ll have vengeance, with or without you! There are plenty of Qualeewooh poachers on this rock! I could hire a dozen of them. They’d be glad of the pay!”
Gallen stared into Felph’s face. Gallen’s eyes became hard, impassive. Maggie thought he would argue, that he’d turn away and quit this job forever. Instead he simply nodded. “Okay, I’m your man. I’ll find them. But I demand pay.”
“Pay?” Felph said. “I’ve already offered you half of all I own!”
“To find the Waters of Strength. You’ve offered me nothing for the Qualeewooh. If you’re willing to pay poachers, you should be willing to pay me.”
“All right,” Felph said. “Ten thousand credits, if you bring me the Qualeewooh.”
Gallen shook his head. “Too low.”
“It’s a generous offer,” Felph argued. “I could hire five men for the price.”
“It’s not money I want,” Gallen said.
“What then?”
“A fair trial,” Gallen offered. “I want a fair trial for the Qualeewooh.”
Felph’s eyes blazed, and he thrust his jaw forward. He was beside himself with rage at Herm’s death, and Maggie could see that he was in no mood to be generous. Yet he reconsidered. “Define fair.”
“A download. We will download the Qualeewooh’s memories into both you and me, then we can judge the creature based upon its thoughts and intents. No sentence will be handed down unless we both concur that the sentence is fair.”
Felph shook with anger. He could hardly refuse such an offer, not without seeming churlish. Indeed, perhaps he sensed that if he did not concede, if he merely took vengeance, he would damage his own soul. Yet by the hardness in his eyes, Maggie could tell that he did not trust Gallen. He feared Gallen would not agree to a sentence, regardless of the crime.
“You will agree to death?” Felph said. “If you find it justified?”
Gallen whispered coldly, “I’ve killed men before, dozens of them. A Qualeewooh is the same.”
Felph sighed deeply, as if his anger suddenly abated. “Very well, then.”
Gallen turned to Maggie. “I want to be certain we get the right Qualeewooh. I won’t slaughter innocents. Maggie, can you rig up a scent detector on an antigrav sled—like the Seekers the dronon send after us? It should be able to match the scent on that feather, tell us if we find the right Qualeewooh.”
Maggie hesitated, thinking. “I’d need some sophisticated olfactory sensors.”
Felph said, “The perfumery in Hera’s sleeping chamber. It has a scent detector subtle enough to do what you require. I can provide everything.” Felph turned to address the droids, commanding them to bring the provisions.
“What else will we need?” Maggie asked.
“Nothing,” Gallen said. “It shouldn’t take more than a day. I’ve still got food and weapons on ship.”
“And Zeus,” Felph added, addressing Gallen. “Take Zeus with you. He should be there to help avenge his brother. Otherwise, he’ll always regret this.” The hesitation in Felph’s voice said more than words. He still didn’t trust Gallen. He wanted to make certain Gallen returned with his prize. So Felph would send his son to ensure that Galle returned.
“Do you think it wise?” Gallen asked. “He’s pretty torn up.”
“All the more reason for him to go,” Felph said. “The deeper the pain, the greater the need for action. I insist on this.”
Gallen nodded, none too quickly. “All right. Zeus comes, too. Is it likely the Qualeewooh will be flying at night?”
“Not hardly,” Felph said. “It will sleep after such a heavy meal.”
Gallen stood, thoughtful. “Maggie will need some time to put together a Seeker.” He addressed her, “Can I leave at dawn?”
Maggie considered. Even she wasn’t certain of Gallen’s intent. Perhaps he wanted them all on the ship together, the easier to leave this world once and for all. “I can throw a Seeker together, but I think I should come in case it needs adjusting or if it falls apart.”
Chapter 24
Cooharah could not sleep, though his full belly weighed on him, making his thoughts sluggish. He and Aaw slept in the open, on a small pile of rocks. It was not dangerous to sleep so, this far from the tangle. His only fear in the desert was that thin, translucent glass snakes might crawl from their sandy burrows and slip quietly up to drink some blood as Cooharah slept. The snakes drank little, but Cooharah and Aaw might be days from water. They couldn’t afford the blood loss.
Yet fear of glass snakes is not what kept Cooharah awake, gazing at stars that burned so steadily tonight, blazing in the heavens. No, not glass snakes. It was voices whispering in his head, the reproach of his ancestors. “Blood debt,” they whispered. “You owe the oomas a blood debt.”
Cooharah envisioned a Qualeewooh composed of light, beating its wings among the stars. It stared at Cooharah accusingly.
The voice of his ancestor came clear tonight, of all nights, when it bore a message Cooharah didn’t want to hear. The onus of a blood debt was heavy. If Cooharah had stolen food from another Qualeewooh, he owed food. Twice the amount taken.
With a creature as large as the one they’d killed, Cooharah could not pay the debt with less than six skogs. Probably eight. Of course the skogs could not be killed on the oomas’ territory. They must come from land near Cooharah’s own aerie.
But Cooharah and Aaw had no aerie, no territory to hunt. Their oasis had gone dry. The Qualeewoohs lived only on hope, thin as it was. Rain would come soon. The oases would be watered anew. Rivers would flow—a few months from now. But presently Cooharah and Aaw had no hunting territory.
“Even if we owe the oomas,” Cooharah said to his ancestor, “we cannot pay now. Their oasis is far from others. If I kill a skog, I won’t be able to take it to them. I will die.”
“Blood debt. You owe a blood debt,” the ancestor whispered. “Double payment. Food for food, chick for chick. Turn back.”
“Negative to the third degree,” Cooharah trilled. “I owe no blood debt. I—how do I know it was an animal the oomas owned? It could have been a predator the humans are well rid of!”
The green ancestor flapped its wings. Its eyes blazed like twin suns. “Blood debt,” it whispered. “You owe a debt.”
Cooharah knew he owed a blood debt. He’d never heard of any predators brought by the humans that used projectile weapons. This beast must have been a pet, perhaps a guardian. The humans had given it a weapon.
Cooharah could not bear the accusation in the ancestor’s voice. If he could have removed his spirit mask, he would have. He would have clawed it from his face with his tiny paws; pried it, tearing flesh from bone. Yet to do so was suicide. Cooharah could not deprive Aaw of a mate, someone to hunt for her and her chick in the new land. No, the spirit mask was part of him. His parents had painted it to his face at adulthood, and it would remain a part of him till he died and his own chicks used it to line the walls of some aerie.
Cooharah closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind, trying to deny the voice. commanding him to return to human lands. “Not now,” he screamed silently, prying at his mask with the thin fingers at the apex of his wings, clawing till blood ran down his jaws, soaking his feathers. “Not now. Someday. Someday I will pay!”
