Fire Dancer Page 8

  Then four people walked around from the far side of the well. Two men and two women. Loos. They wore clothing and an air of utter assurance.

  Kirtn watched them, measuring the obstacle between him and water. His reflexes were slowed by thirst, hunger and drug residue. His body was bruised and scraped and sported crusts of blood barely concealed by his brief copper plush. The pain he felt was attenuated, a distant cry held at bay by discipline and a Bre’n heritage that would not be ruled by pain short of death.

  Beside him Rheba gathered energy once again. Her hair crackled, random noise that told the Bre’n his protégé was dangerously tired. Several times on Deva he had pushed her to this point, pushed her until her mind reacted rather than reflected. The result could be a breakthrough to a new level of fire dancer achievement, or it could be fiery disaster. He was too tired now to safely control her energy. She was a threat to everything around her, most of all to herself.

  Rheba’s hair twitched, spitting static. She did not seem to notice. Gold lines pulsed unevenly from her fingertips to her in shoulders in intricate designs.

  “Do you understand Universal?” asked one woman, looking at Rheba.

  “Yes,” said Kirtn, not wanting Rheba to break her concentration to speak.

  “I was talking to the human,” said the woman.

  Rheba whistled a savage retort in the Bre’n language. Kirtn touched her arm warningly and received a hard shock. Startled, he looked at her. He was even more disturbed to realize that she had allowed the energy to escape without intending to or even noticing it.

  “We’re both human,” said Rheba in Universal.

  “Maybe you were where you come from, but you’re on Loo now.” She watched Rheba with impersonal interest. “We are the Four. We represent the Divine Twins.”

  Rheba waited, weaving power that leaked away almost as quickly as she could gather it.

  “You two,” continued the woman, “must have been strong, quick and lucky to have come this far.”

  “And human?” suggested Rheba acidly.

  The woman ignored her. “Now you have to prove that you’re also smart. Listen and learn. There are three classes of life on Loo. The Loo divinity is highest, ruled by the Loo-chim. Humans are second. Animals are third. If it wears fur, it’s an animal.” The woman’s voice was impersonal. She was relating facts, not insults.

  “Do ‘animals’ get to drink?” asked Kirtn.

  “Animals drink on the white side,” said the woman to Rheba, answering Kirtn’s question without acknowledging its source. “Animals get food and water so long as they obey their keepers.”

  “What about clothes?” asked Rheba, shivering in the increasing chill.

  “Animals don’t need clothes. They were born with fur. That’s why they’re animals.”

  Anger blazed visibly along Rheba’s arms. Her hair slithered over itself disturbingly. Fssa stirred, but did not reveal himself. He remained invisible, his body as gold as her hair.

  “It’s not worth fighting about,” said Kirtn in rapid Senyas, “as long as they let me eat and drink.”

  Her only answer was a crackle of leaking energy. Kirtn gave a whistle so high that it was felt more than heard. She flinched at his demand for her attention. The whistle slid low, coaxing and beguiling her. She fought its power, then gave in. She hugged him hard.

  “We could take them,” she whispered in Senyas. “They’re only four.”

  “They’re too confident,” he replied. “They know something we don’t—like that mob where the trail divided.”

  Reluctantly, she admitted that he was right. She had also been bothered by the Four’s total confidence. “I’ll drink on the white side with you.”

  “No. We’ll follow Loo’s diagram until we learn more about its social machinery.”

  “All I want to know is the best place to pour in the sand.”

  Fssa laughed softly, a sound that went no farther than her ear. But Kirtn’s sudden, savage smile brought the Four to attention. They watched very closely as the Bre’n walked to the white side of the well and drank. Rheba followed, but kept to the blue side as she had agreed to do.

  While they drank, the woman continued her spare instructions in the same impersonal voice. If she was pleased, repelled or unmoved by their obedience, she did not show it She pointed to various white or blue stations as she spoke. “Water there, food there, clothing there. If you stay inside the circles you’ll be safe. You have been counted.”

  The Four winked out of existence.

  “Illusion?” asked Kirtn in perplexed Senyas.

  “I don’t think so,” said Rheba. “When they left, the ceiling funneled down where they stood.” She waved a hand at the seething energy that acted as a lid on the compound. “It must be some kind of transfer system.”

  “Is it controlled from here?” asked Kirtn, looking around with sudden eagerness.

  “No. It called them. They didn’t call it.”

  “Outside the wall,” he sighed, not surprised. It would have been careless of their jailers to leave keys inside the cell. The Loos did not seem to be a careless people. “You’re shivering,” he said, turning his attention back to her. “Get some clothes.”

  “If you can’t wear clothes,” she said tightly, “I won’t”

  “I’m not cold. You are.”

  The Bre’n’s pragmatism was unanswerable. Without further argument, she went to the clothing station. A beam of energy appeared and traced her outlines. Seamless, stretchy clothes extruded from the slit.

  She pulled on the clothes, shivering uncontrollably with cold. She hurried over to the place where Kirtn had made a bed out of grasses while she was measured for clothes. His arms opened, wrapping around her, warmth and comfort and safety. She curled against him and slept, too exhausted to care if Jal and the Four had lied about the sanctuary of the inner circle.

  Kirtn tried to stay awake, distrusting any safety promised by the Loo-chim Fold. Despite his efforts, exhaustion claimed him. He slumped next to Rheba, sliding deeper into sleep with each breath.

  Fssa slid partway out of Rheba’s hair, formed himself into a scanning mode, and took over guard duty. It was little enough to do for the two beings who had called him beautiful.

  VIII

  Kirtn awoke in a rush, called out of sleep by an alien sound. His eyes opened narrowly. His body remained motionless. Nothing moved in the dull gloaming that was the Fold’s version of night. He listened intently, but heard only Rheba’s slow breaths as she slept curled against his warmth. Then, at the corner of his vision, he sensed movement like another shade of darkness.

  Slowly, he turned his head a few degrees toward the area of movement. He saw nothing. He eased away from Rheba and came to his feet in a soundless rush. He crept forward until he recognized one of Fssa’s many shapes silhouetted against the soft glow of the well. While he watched, the snake shifted again, unfolding a structure that looked like a hand-sized dish. Quasi-metallic scales rubbed over each other with eerie, musical whispers. Kirtn relaxed, recognizing the sound that had awakened him. Overhead the sky/ceiling changed, presaging dawn. He stretched quietly, too alert to return to sleep.

  “Kirtn?” The snake’s whistle was barely more than a breath, but very pure.

  “There’s something out there. Something sneaky. More than one. Many.”

  “Close?”

  Fssa’s dish turned slowly, scanning. The dish hesitated, backtracked a few degrees, then held. “Beyond the sanctuary lines,” he whistled, referring to the twin blue tile strips that encircled the well and food stations. “They’re moving off now. Scavengers, most likely. Wild slaves.”

  Kirtn listened, but heard nothing except his own heartbeat. “You have sensitive hearing.”

  “Yes.” There was a subdued sparkle of scales as the dish folded in upon itself. “On my home planet, discriminating among faint sound waves was necessary for survival.” Fssa seemed to look upward, questing with the two opalescent “eyes” that
concentrated energy bouncing back from solid substances. He sighed very humanly. “The sky reminds me of my home.”

  Kirtn looked overhead where muddy orange sky seethed, nearly opaque. “Where is your home?” he asked, responding to the tenor of longing in the snake’s soft Bre’n whistle.

  “Out there.” Fssa sighed again. “Somewhere.”

  “How did you get to Loo?”

  “My people were brought here long, long ago. We’re the Fssireeme—Communicators.” He fluted sad laughter. “We’re debris of the Twelfth Expansion. I think that’s the Makatxoy Cycle in Universal. In Senyas, it would translate as the Machinists Cycle.”

  “Do you mean that you’re a machine?” asked Kirtn, whistling loudly in surprise.

  Fssa did not answer.

  Rheba murmured sleepily, then became quiet again. Even after Loo’s long night, her body was still trying to make up for the demands that had been made on it since the Black Whole. Kirtn watched her. He was careful to make no sound until he was sure that she was asleep again. He wished he could teach her how to restore herself with energy stolen from the sun, but he did not know how, only that it was possible. He did know that it required complex, subcellular adjustments. It was much more demanding—and dangerous—than merely channeling energy. Only the most advanced fire dancers could weave light into food.

  Quasi-metallic scales rustled musically. Kirtn looked up as Fssa scanned a quadrant for sound. Dawn rippled over the unorthodox snake, making him glitter like a gem sculpture.

  “You’re beautiful, snake,” whispered the Bre’n. “Machine or not, you’re beautiful. Thank you for guarding our sleep.”

  Fssa changed shape again with a subdued sparkle of metal colors. “I’m not a machine. Not quite. My people evolved on a huge gas planet—a failed star called Ssimmi. Its gravity was much heavier than Loo’s. The atmosphere was thick. It was wonderful, a rich soup of heat and life that transmitted the least quiver of sound . . .” His tone was wistful. “Not like this thin, cold, pale world. At least, that’s what my guardian told me at my imprinting. I’ve only been to Ssimmi in my dreams.”

  Kirtn waited, curious, but afraid to offend the sensitive snake by asking questions. Fssa, however, was not reluctant to talk about his home and history. It had been a long time since anyone had listened.

  “Am I keeping you awake?” asked Fssa.

  Kirtn smiled and stretched. “No. Tell me more about your home.”

  “It’s uncivilized, even by the Yhelle Equality’s standards. We aren’t builders. We’re . . . we just live, I guess. If we’re lucky. There are lots of predators. My people became illusionists in order to survive at all.”

  “Illusionists? But you’re blind!”

  “You see better than you hear, don’t you?” asked Fssa.

  “Yes. Much better.”

  “I thought so. Most of the Fourth People are like that. We Fssireeme use sound the way you use light. Our illusions are aural. They’re the only kind that matter on Ssimmi. Light and heatwaves are useless in our soupy atmosphere. The predators are blind.”

  “They hunt with soundwaves, like sonar?”

  “Sort of. It’s more complicated though. They use different wavelengths to find different things. Whenever we hear a predator coming, we send out sound constructs that make the predator believe we’re its own mate. If we’re good enough, we eat its warmth. If not, we get eaten. Life on Ssimmi is very . . . simple.”

  “If you weren’t builders, how did you get off the planet?”

  “By the time the Twelfth Expansion found Ssimmi, we were galactic-class mimics with just enough brains to realize that we couldn’t fool the invaders. They had hands, and machines, and legs.” Fssa was silent for a long moment “When they finished sorting out our genes, we were intelligent, organic translators. Less bulky and far more efficient than the boxes they had before or the bodies we had used originally. We aren’t machines, Kirtn, but they used us as if we were.”

  “A lot of races have been enslaved and genetically modified,” he whistled gently. “Most of them outlived—and outshone—their conquerors.”

  “Yessss.” Scales rubbed musically over each other. “It happened so long ago that it hardly matters now. Only one thing matters. I want to swim the skies of Ssimmi before I die.”

  Kirtn’s body tensed in response to the longing carried by the snake’s Bre’n whistle. “I understand,” whistled Kirtn in return. “I’d give my life to see my planet blue and silver again.”

  “Maybe we’ll both get our wish,” whistled Fssa, misunderstanding Kirtn’s meaning.

  “I won’t,” said the Bre’n, speaking unemotional Senyas. “Deva is a scorched rock orbiting a voracious sun.”

  Fssa’s whistle was like a cry of pain. “I’m sorry!”

  “It’s in the past,” Kirtn said, his voice flat, almost brutal. “But if we escape Loo, I’ll take you to Ssimmi. I promise you that, Fssa. Everyone should have a home to go back to.”

  “Thank you,” softly, “but I don’t know where Ssimmi is.”

  “How long ago did you leave?”

  “My people left thousands and thousands of years ago. But that doesn’t change our dream of swimming Ssimmi’s skies. We have perfect memories, perfectly passed on. Guardians imprint the history of the race on their child. Their memories are ours, right back to the first guardian to leave the gene labs wrapped around the wrist of an Expansionist trader. Before that . . .” Scales rustled as the snake shifted. “Before that there is only the Long Memory . . . swimming the ocean skies of Ssimmi.”

  Suddenly the snake seemed to explode. Quills and vanes fanned out from his long body, combing the air for sound waves. Kirtn froze, trying not to breathe or make any movement that would distract the snake. “New slaves,” sighed Fssa after a moment.

  “How can you tell?”

  “The rhythm of their walk is erratic, as though they’re tired or injured.”

  “Probably both.”

  “Yes.”

  Fssa sparkled, showing a sudden increase in copper color as he switched the angle of his attention back toward the well. Faintly, Kirtn heard the sounds of high, shrill voices coming from a nearby grove of trees. There were many such groves within the sanctuary. He remembered seeing a family there at dusk, three adults and five children. He had wondered how the adults had managed to bring such young children unharmed into the center of the Fold.

  In the growing light, children darted in and out of the grove. They moved with surprising speed, chasing and catching and losing each other in a bewildering game of tag. Casually, four tackled one. The result was a squealing, squirming, bruising pile. An adult emerged from the grove, watched the brawl for a moment, then walked back to the darkness beneath the trees. Fssa laughed sibilantly. Kirtn made an appalled sound.

  “They’re Gells,” whistled Fssa. “To hurt one, you have to drop it off a high cliff on a six-gravity planet. Twice.”

  “That explains how they got this far.”

  “They lost one adult and three children. The Gell family unit is usually four and eight.”

  Kirtn looked at Fssa. The snake seemed unaware of him as he scanned the heaving pile of Gell children.

  “Do you know a lot about the Yhelle Equality and its peoples? Trader Jal didn’t have time to tell us much before he dumped us in the Fold.”

  “Whatever my guardians back to the Twelfth Expansion labs knew, I know, plus whatever I’ve experienced since my guardian died. I’ve been in the Fold for a long time, but I haven’t learned much. It’s so cold. I dreamed most of the time. If people came too near, I frightened them off with my Darkzoi sounds.” The snake’s coppery quills shivered and turned to gold as he faced away from the Gell children and shifted his attention to the sanctuary’s perimeter again. “We didn’t learn much from our owners. They thought of us as machines. Machines don’t need to be educated, much less entertained. We dreamed a lot, the slow dreams of hibernation. And we went crazy from time to time.” The quills stre
tched and thinned, fanning out with a rich metallic glitter. “So I don’t know much and I talk too much. It’s been very lonely.”

  “You don’t talk too much, snake. And you’re beautiful.”

  Fssa whistled with pleasure, but the sound was lost in the angry shrieks of Gell children. One of them had tripped over a rock and was digging it out of the dirt with the obvious intention of smashing the rock to pieces. The rock was head-sized and irregular, almost spiky. Where dirt had been dug away, the rock glinted with pure, primary colors. The sudden display of color caught the rest of the children. Immediately, each child was determined to own the rock. They began to fight in earnest under the indulgent eyes of an adult.

  Fssa’s sharp whistle called Kirtn’s attention back to the area beyond the curving blue lines dividing safe from unsafe territory. The whistle woke Rheba. Slowly she sat up, stretching and scratching the new lines on her lower arms, looking at the new slaves in the distance.

  There were seven people, three furred, four unfurred. All of them walked slowly although at that distance Rheba could not see any injuries. All of the people were of medium height with compact, sinewy bodies. Despite their labored steps, there was a suggestion of muscular suppleness in each person’s body.

  “Do you know their race?” asked Kirtn.

  Fssa did not answer. His whole body shifted and seethed with his efforts to scan the sounds arid shapes of the new people. Kirtn looked back at the group. They were at least five minutes away from sanctuary. As he watched, one of the furred ones staggered and fell.

  Kirtn started forward, only to be stopped by Fssa’s urgent warning. “No! Look!”

  From the bushes just beyond the lines, figures began to emerge. There were three, then five, then nine, ill-assorted races like those Kirtn and Rheba had met near the trap of the First People. The nine made no move to attack. They simply watched the new slaves limp toward safety, supporting the woman who had fallen.