Part 42 (1/2)

He shook his head. A moment later, he realized what she meant, that she meant from the air above, from the heavens. ”Then you come from the G.o.ds' lands?”

”No. We aren't G.o.ds, nothing like. We're human like you, Aleksi. Never doubt that. We come from the stars. From a world like this world, except its sun is one of those stars.”

She could be mad. But he examined her carefully, and he could see no trace of madness in her. The doctor had always seemed to him one of the sanest people he had ever met. And as strange as it all sounded, it might well be true.

”But. But how can Tess's brother be the prince of Jeds, then? If he-” Aleksi broke off. ”May I see that thing again? Does it show other spirits besides Bakhtiian's?”

”So much for the d.a.m.ned quarantine,” muttered the doctor.

”What are we going to tell them?” Tess asked. She straightened up. Tears streaked her face, but she was no longer crying. ”When they come in and see him like this? How long, Cara? How long will he stay this way?”

”I can't know. Tess, I promise you, I will not leave him. But I'll need some kind of monitoring system. I'll have to set up the scan-bed in here, under him, disguise it somehow. I'll need Ursula.” She glanced at Aleksi. ”And h.e.l.l, we've got him now.

With the four of us, we can keep the equipment a secret. I think. Unless you want the whole d.a.m.ned camp to know.''

”No!” Tess stood up and walked to the back wall and back again, and knelt beside her husband, and stroked his slack face. ”No,” she repeated, less violently. ”Of course not. I just-” She looked at Aleksi. He saw how tormented she was, how terrified, how remorseful. ”Aleksi.” Her voice dropped. ”You do believe that I didn't mean for this to happen. That I'm trying to help-oh, G.o.d.”

She was pleading with him. Tess needed him. ”But I trust you, Tess. You know that. You would never hurt him.”

She sighed, sinking back onto her heels. Her face cleared. However slightly, she looked relieved of some portion of her burden. And he had done it. It was almost sharp, the satisfaction of knowing he had helped her.

”But what will we tell the rest of the jaran?” the doctor asked. ”I hope I needn't remind you, Aleksi, that anything you've seen in here must be kept a secret. Must be.”

”Will his spirit come back?” Aleksi asked.

”It will,” said Tess fiercely.

”I don't know,” said the doctor.

Aleksi rose. He shrugged. ”Habakar witchcraft. They're saying it already.”

The doctor grimaced. ”I don't like it.”

”What choice do we have?” asked Tess bitterly.

”Well.” The doctor rose, brus.h.i.+ng her hands together briskly. ”There's no use just sitting here. Aleksi, can you go fetch Ursula? Then meet me at my wagons.”

He nodded and ducked outside. A faint pink glow rose in the east. The wind was dying. Up, bright in the heavens, the morning star shone, luminous against the graying sky. Could it be? That they came from-? Aleksi shook his head. How could it be? How could they ride across the air, along the wind, up into the heavens? And yet. And yet.

His tent flap stirred. Raysia ducked outside, dressed and booted. She saw him and started. ”Oh, there you are. Is something wrong?”

”Habakar witchcraft,” he said, knowing that the sooner he let the rumor spread, the more quickly Tess and Dr. Hierakis could hide their own witchcraft. Their own machines. ”The Habakar priests have put a curse on Bakhtiian.”

”G.o.ds,” said Raysia. ”I'd better run back and tell my uncle.” She glanced all around and, seeing that no one yet stirred in the predawn stillness, she kissed him right there in the open. ”I'd better go.” She hurried off.

So it begins. He paused at the outcropping. The land was a sheet of darkness below, black except for a lambent glow flickering and building: Sakhalin had fired the city.

ACT THREE.

”He, who the sword of heaven will bear Should be as holy as severe”

-Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE.

David ben Unbutu sat and stared at blank white wall. He sat cross-legged, with the demimodeler placed squarely in front of him, its corners paralleling the corners of the plain white room. He s.h.i.+vered because it was cold. The scan unit was on, but all the image showed him was the dimensions of the rectangular room, white, featureless, blank.

A footstep scuffed the ground behind him. ”Anything?” Maggie asked.

He shook his head. The beads bound into his name braids made a snackling sound that was audible because of the deep stillness surrounding them. ”Our scan can't penetrate these walls, and neither can we. It's got to be here. It has to be, but we can't find the entrance.”

”Or the entrance won't open for us.” She sank down on her haunches beside him.

The heat of her body drifted out to him, and he s.h.i.+fted closer to her, as to a flame.

”Thirty-two days it took me, Mags, to survey this d.a.m.ned place and the grounds.

Every way I turn it, the only s.p.a.ce I can't account for is right there.” He did not point.

They all knew where it was, behind the far wall whose blankness seemed more and more like a mockery of their efforts. ”That's got to be the control room, the computer banks.”

”The place Tess got the cylinder. This matches the description she gave Charles.

So what's he going to do?”

David blew on his hands to warm them. Maggie laid a hand on his. Just as the white wall emphasized the rich coffee brown of his skin, it lent hers more pallor, so that the contrast seemed heightened, dark and pale. ”We're not Chapalii. Tess didn't find her way in by herself. She had a Chapalii guide. If Rajiv can't crack the entrance, then there's no human who can.”

”Well.” She released his hand and unwound from her crouch, standing up. ”You may as well come eat. It's almost dusk.” She offered him a hand and he took it and rose as well, bending back down to switch off the modeler and tuck it under his arm before he straightened to stand beside her. She grinned down at him. ”I hear you're the current favorite of the spitfire.”

”d.a.m.n you.” David laughed. ”You're trying to embarra.s.s me. I think she just wanted to see how far the melanin extends.”

”I hope her curiosity was suitably satisfied.”

”Why don't you ask her?”

”Oh, don't worry. I did, and it was.” She laughed in her turn. ”You're blus.h.i.+ng.

You're such an easy target, David.”

”I would have thought there wouldn't be any challenge in it, then. You're a heartless woman, Mags.”

They crossed to the door and slid the panel aside to let themselves out.

Immediately, warmth enveloped them although it stayed cooler inside the palace in contrast to the hot summer days pa.s.sing outside. The ebony floors of this chamber gleamed, and networks of light pulsed in their depths, as if the flooring concealed a delicate web of machinery. Maggie broke away from David and paced out the meter- wide counter that stood in the room. It extended in an unbroken, hollow rectangle within the larger rectanglar chamber; she slid up onto it and climbed over to the smaller counter, a half meter wide but also unbroken, that stood within it, and then hopped that one as well to stand in the very center of the room. The two counters separated her from David. She looked at him, and he at her.