Schism: Part One of Triad (18 page)

ISC had improved the design since then, but surely they also improved their techniques for neutralizing it. They had to find Shannon. The boy was off in his own world too much to plan such a trip properly. He could end up lost or fallen down a cliff or starved.

As for himself, it frightened Eldrinson that no one had come for him. They had to know he was missing. Denric had expected to meet him yesterday and they were supposed to check in with Roca and Brad regularly. Was Denric all right?

Foreboding grew within him. For Vitarex to remain undetected here, he needed equipment far more sophisticated than the small jammer Shannon had stolen. The Aristo’s shroud probably covered a far wider area, possibly even extending into the mountains. ISC could counter their own equipment, but they had less knowledge of Aristo technology. And Shannon could be anywhere. If he was within range of Vitarex’s shroud, ISC might not find the boy even if he turned off his jammer.

Eldrinson became aware someone had spoken. He realized his eyes had unfocused, blurring the room. He turned his attention outward to find the woman watching him with concern.

“Goodman?” she said. “Can you hear me?”

He shook his head, though he heard her now. He couldn’t keep his body upright anymore. With a sigh he lay down on the carpet that covered the floor of the tent.

The woman rose and padded out of view. He closed his eyes, content to lie still, so relieved to stretch out that he could almost ignore how much he hurt. Her footsteps rustled as she returned, and she laid a rug over him, warming his body. He tried to thank her, but he didn’t have enough energy to speak.

Eldrinson slipped into the welcoming oblivion of sleep.

M

Blue Dales

he Dieshan Military Academy had stood in the foothills of the Red Mountains for over two centuries. Desert bordered it to the north and south, and in the east the towers of HQ City lifted into the red sky. Soz and Althor strode up the wide, white walkway to me academy entrance, to those famous soaring arches supported by columns three stories high. Its crenellated watehtowers reminded Soz of home, though on Lyshriol they fought with bows and arrows instead of intelligent missiles and antimatter beams.

The stark white stone glittered, accented by black marble borders on the windows in the face of the building. The age and grandeur of the place felt tangible. She had seen it in ho-los, memorized every detail, read all she could, but none of that seemed real now. This was no holo. She had reached the academy.

Althor walked at her side dressed in his Jagernaut blacks, the trousers, pullover, and boots of their everyday uniform. The cadet’s insignia flashed on his shoulders.

He caught her looking at him and grinned, his teeth a flash of white in his gold face. “So what do you think?”

“It’s incredible.” The words hardly did justice to what she felt. She paused as they reached the bottom of the stairs that led up to the colonnade. The steps stretched out on either side of them all the way down the building, white and brilliant in the harsh sunlight. Fifty people could have walked these stairs abreast. She and Althor started up, crossing a threshold that existed as much in her mind as in the real world.

They entered the academy through a massive pair of arched doors that swung slowly inward in response to Al-thor’s slight push. Although the doors looked antique, wood and stone with no visible mechanism, they swung far too easily to be moving purely on their own momentum. Soz thought she heard the hum of an engine, but it was almost inaudible.

Inside, a few meters on the left, a woman in Jagernaut blacks stood behind a white console-podium. She was speaking with a young woman about Soz’s age, taking ID it looked like. This was the second time Soz had noticed a human touch in the automated city, both cases dealing with military personnel. It bemused her; she had always thought of soldiers as the tougher side of humanity, making their way in less humanized, less hospitable areas than the loved ones they protected. That certainly described warfare on Lyshriol.

Here in HQC, though, the reverse seemed to be true; the more deeply involved a person was with the military, the

more humanized their treatment. Perhaps it was an attempt to keep a balance, to account for the inhuman conditions of the war they fought. The definition of “less hospitable” changed in space, describing combat fought by machines at accelerations that would obliterate unprotected humans. Battles spread across vast areas of space and throughout the shadowy information universes created by the meshes that spanned the stars.

Althor waited with Soz behind a glowing white line to the left of the entrance. When me woman behind me console finished with the other girl, she sent her on into the building and motioned to Soz and Althor.

As Soz and Althor walked forward, Soz inhaled deeply. Even the air here seemed laden with history and tradition. Actually, it was rather dusty. She bit her lip. What if they had no records for her? Tahota said DMA had approved her admission, but in Soz’s experience nothing ever happened among her mother’s people without endless and onerous documentation, none of which she had even begun, let alone sent to Diesha.

When they reached the podium, the woman spoke briskly. “One at a time, please.” She nodded to Soz. “You can wait behind the line.”

“We’re togemer,” Althor said. It apparently wasn’t a typical response, given the way me woman frowned at him. Before she could say more, he clicked a small disk out of his gauntlet and handed it to her.

Wim an impatient huff, the woman scowled at him. When he just met her gaze, she shook her head. But she did snap me disk into a slot on her console. The flat holoscreen in front of her glimmered and holos appeared, flowing through the air, going by at the wrong angle for Soz to make out details. They looked like hieroglyphics in Skolian Flag, a structured language developed as a common tongue by the many and varied peoples of the Imperialate. Then a set of more elegant glyphs appeared. Those she recognized: Iotic. It was spoken as a first language only by the noble Houses and Ruby Dynasty.

The woman stared at the holos, her mouth opening, her face flushed. When die display faded, she looked up again. Her frown had vanished. She spoke in a subdued voice. “You may proceed.” She made no attempt to verify their identities. No questions, no checks, nothing.

Althor nodded, seeming subdued himself. He took the chip she handed to him and clicked it into his gauntlet. “Thank you.” To Soz he said, “Come on. Let’s go.”

Soz wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she doubted it was routine. She hurried to catch up with her long-legged brother as he strode out into a huge lobby. Its domed ceiling curved so far overhead, their entire house at Dalvador could have fit inside here, even its towers. Fluted columns bordered the lobby. White tiles patterned the floor, and also the insignia of the Skolian Imperialate in blue and gold, several meters across, the silhouette of an exploding sun within a circle.

“Wow.” Soz gaped at the place as they walked. “It’s even more impressive in real life.”

“It’s supposed to be.” Although Althor laughed, his voice had an odd, edgy quality.

Soz stopped gawking. “What’s wrong?”

“That disk had our identities on it.” After a moment he added, “Including that we were Kurj’s heirs.”

Gods. “No wonder she let us through so fast.”

“I don’t want special consideration.”

Soz agreed. Their dynastic family name was Skolia, but she wouldn’t use it here. She would loathe having people believe she gained admission through nepotism rather than merit. No one would recognize the Valdoria name. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“I don’t.” He lifted his hands and then dropped them. “It doesn’t help. He comes to the academy sometimes. As soon as we’re together, everyone knows we’re related.”

Soz could see what he meant. It wasn’t only that he and Kurj looked so much like each other, but also that they looked like no one else. Their kin ties were obvious. The same wasn’t true in her case. She didn’t resemble Kurj at all. Perhaps no one would guess the relation.

“Has it caused you problems?” she asked.

“People are more careful around me than they should be.” He tapped his finger on his gauntlet. “I won’t use that chip again.”

“Neither will I.”

Her brother grinned. “You can’t. I have it.” When she glared, he smirked. “I’m older, Soz. Got seniority.”

She crossed her arms and turned her head away rather than deign to accept that answer.

Althor laughed. “You’re too easy to bait.”

“Pah.”

“Soz, look.”

Curious despite her intent to be aloof, she looked. An archway stood ahead of them, leading out of the lobby. “What about it?”

“That’s where new cadets go.”

A thrill went through her, followed by alarm. “Me.”

“Yes.” His teasing smile faded. “I have to use another entrance.” He drew her to a stop. “From here on, you’re on your own.”

Suddenly she wasn’t annoyed at him anymore. “Thank you for coming with me. And for being my support”

“I don’t know, Soz.” Although he tried to appear dour, mischief danced in his gaze. “DMA might not thank me, after you whip through here like an exploding antimatter plasma.”

She laughed and grabbed him in a hug. He embraced her, laying his cheek on top of her head. They stood that way for several moments and then released each other.

Althor gave a self-conscious grin. “Good luck, eh?”

“You, too.” She glanced toward her entrance, feeling as if an invisible cable were pulling her.

“Go on,” Althor said. “I’ll see you.”

Softly she said, “And I you, my brother.”

They went on then, each to their own doorway into the universe of ISC, the massive interstellar machine that someday one of them—and only one—would command.

“Come on. Drink.” The voice ran over Shannon like liquid, with such a lilt and so many chimes, he barely understood the words. “Drink,” it coaxed. Cool, smooth pottery touched his lips.

He tried to swallow. It didn’t work. He tried again, and a trickle of water ran down his throat. Relief spread through him, and a certain satisfaction.

Opening his eyes, he looked up into the silver irises of a man with a pale, almost translucent skin. White-gold hair framed the man’s face. He looked like a—

Blue Dale Archer.

“Hai!” Shannon sat up with a jerk and knocked the man’s arm. The glazed jug spun out of his grip, splattering water as it flipped through the air and thunked into a drift of old glitter.

“Ah, no!” Mortified, Shannon grabbed for the jug. Or tried to grab. His arm just barely lifted, sluggish and heavy, and then dropped back again. Dizziness swept over him and he swayed. Before he embarrassed himself by toppling over, though, someone grabbed him and eased him to the ground.

The man with the white-gold hair moved aside. Another took his place, exactly like the first, except he had longer hair, down to his waist. A third appeared, his face next to the second. He could almost have been a twin to the first two, except somehow he looked like a girl. He—she?—had a small nose and a fey quality about her face. Her eyes slanted upward, fringed with long lashes. The other two crouched behind her, studying him.

Shannon squinted at them all. He was fairly certain the first two were men, but they were smaller than he was and less muscled. For the first time in his life he experienced what his brothers must feel all the time, being larger, heavier, and less graceful than the people around him. It was an odd experience. Pleasant, though.

He tried once more to sit, struggling to pull himself upright. The Archers moved closer, nudging him back, pushing on his arms, his shoulders, his legs.

It took all three of them to hold him down. Bewildered, he closed his eyes, too tired to fight. Then he opened them again. The Archers remained.

“You’re real.” Shannon’s voice came out in a rasping whisper. He was lucky these people had found him; otherwise, he might have died. Except he had never believed in luck. He wet his lips and spoke again. “You’ve been following me, yes?”

They spoke among themselves in low tones, their melodic voices flowing over him like sparkling water. He barely understood their dialect, though he felt certain that if he could listen a little harder, a little longer, it would become clear. He tried sitting up yet again, and this time he resisted their attempts to stop him, even weakened as he was by lack of food and water. He picked up the blue-glazed jug and peered inside. It still had water. Holding it up, he turned a questioning look toward the Archers.

“Drink,” the man with long hair said, his voice chiming]

Relieved, Shannon put the jug to his lips and tilted back bis head. The water went down his throat smooth and cool, a blissful respite from his thirst. He drained every drop. When he finished, he lowered the jug and took a deep breath. His fascinated audience watched, kneeling around him, staring with their tilted silver eyes.

“My greetings,” Shannon said. His voice cracked. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He had dreamed all his life of finding the Blue Dale Archers, but he had never believed it would happen. Yet here they were. Whether or not they would accept him was another question altogether.

The second man, the one with waist-length hair, spoke slowly. “Why are you here?”

“Searching for you,” Shannon said.

“Why?” That came from the first man.

‘To find my own kind.”

“You are not one of us,” the second man said.

“You are too big,” the first one added.

The third Archer spoke. “Your eyes are wrong.” She touched her eyelashes.

“They glitter.”

“They do?” That surprised Shannon. His siblings had metallic eyelashes, inherited from their mother; in comparison, his hardly glittered at all. Compared to these people, though, he supposed his were unusual.

“Is that why you hid from me?” Shannon asked. If he hadn’t gone into a trance, making them think he was dying, he suspected they would have remained hidden.

“You are a stranger,” the second Archer said.