Hellspark. Part 21

The wind picked up once again and with it the flashwood's noise. By the time they had clawed their way to the top of the small escarpment, rain was falling from the darkened sky. The sprookje had a fine sense of timing, there was no doubt about that. Tocohl, pausing while they caught their breaths from the climb, counted. The storm would be overhead in minutes. Already the lightning was close enough that she could scent burning vegetation on the wind after each strike.

To her right, low brush bent in the wind, aflame with its own internal light. Only a hundred yards beyond rose a second stand of lightning rods. The sprookje had already gone on. (It's sure we'll follow this time,) Tocohl commented, bit her lip at the silence that drowned out all of Flashfever's noise.

Follow they did, to the edge of the blackened patch that marked the stand's perimeter. Deep inside, the sprookje sat, waiting patiently for them to join it in shelter.

"Watch the ground and follow my lead," Buntec said; she reached to take Alfvaen's hand.

"No!" Alfvaen thrust her away with such force that Buntec stumbled two steps, three steps back- Buntec caught her balance just in time to avoid falling onto the hazardous ground beneath the lightning rods. Cursing, she started for the smaller woman, this time with worried caution.

Alfvaen cut harshly through the Jannisetti curses: "No, Buntec. You must not interfere. I will not let this so-called Tocohl Susumo harm us further."

Buntec froze in her tracks, cast a swift glance of bewilderment at Tocohl, then a look of deep concern at Alfvaen.

"Alfvaen?" said Om im. "What are you talking about?"

"I speak of"-Alfvaen sought the word in GalLing', spoke it bitterly-"sorcery." And with fury rising in her eyes, she swung to face Tocohl.

Tocohl had seen that intensity, that ferocity only once before-on the face of a Siveyn about to issue a death challenge. Lightning ripped the air, striking the lightning rods, to give livid illumination to Alfvaen's anger.

"Don't touch her!" Tocohl snapped to the others. "Get into the lightning rods and stay there!"

"She's hallucinating!" Om im shouted over the dying thunder.

"I know what she sees," Tocohl said sharply. "Now get back."

Alfvaen stepped toward Tocohl, fringe clinging sullenly as she raised her arm across her chest with stiff singleness of purpose.

A crawl of sensors along her arm told Tocohl that Om im was moving forward, not back, to blade right. Without taking her attention from Alfvaen, she shot a single word at him in Bluesippan, ordered him back by virtue of his blade service. The crawl of sensors told her he had obeyed.

"So, Haining Lefven!" The Siveyn took a second deliberate step forward, her green eyes fixed unwaveringly on Tocohl, and spoke again in cold, harsh tones, sharpening her native language to a gleaming point. "You spoke and spoke again, and each time your words were heard by earless folk. You danced before the sightless and they watched your every move. You drew sweet words from the speechless. But now there will be an end to magics-I, Tingling Alfvaen, offer you the justice of death."

Veschke's sparks, thought Tocohl, wouldn't Maggy love this! Straight out of the fictions the two of them were reading en route! And Tocohl chose her reply from the same fictions.

Stretching both arms before her, in the manner of a sleepwalker, Tocohl began, placatingly, "The sun shines on us both..." She turned her palms up. "The wind blows us both the scent of sea-jeme and sediji.

The earth pulses beneath our feet its rush of life. I, Susumo Tocohl, have no quarrel with another child of Siveyn."

She let her hands fall to her sides, slowly, slowly.

But Tingling Alfvaen did not lower her hands. Rigid still with the anger of her own imaginings, she said, "This is your only choice, child of no one."

Tocohl said, "Alfvaen, it's me: Tocohl. You and I have no quarrel-at least none that won't wait until the storm pa.s.ses. I vote the two of us get in out of the lightning before somebody gets fried."

"And I for life," said Alfvaen.

Veschke guide me, thought Tocohl, she's hearing the proper responses! What do I do now?Lightning struck the lightning rods again; in its violent illumination, as she fought for vision, Tocohl saw Alfvaen blink. She's hearing the responses, but she saw the lightning flash! Maybe, just maybe, she's seeing what's real!

And with infinite slowness, Tocohl turned her back to Tinling Alfvaen. She blanked Flashfever from her consciousness, with all of its noises and glittering lights, and focused all of her attention on the sensors in her 2nd skin, which gave gross but tangible indication of Alfvaen's position.

To turn your back on a challenge was a strong indication of guiltlessness, but a death-challenge might not be so easily turned away. The challenger's desire to duel may outweigh the social structures.

Tocohl's back crawled. Sweating, she waited out a heartbeat, then stepped aside-Alfvaen went headlong into the arabesque vines in front of which Tocohl had just been standing. Alfvaen turned swiftly.

Tocohl caught her by the kilt, heaved upward. The move misplaced a kick aimed at her heart; Tocohl took it stingingly in midchest, gasped, and kneed Alfvaen in the belly.

Not hard enough. Alfvaen, though twisted with pain, jabbed stiffened fingers sharply into Tocohl's side.

Still grasping the kilt, Tocohl swung Alfvaen bodily to the right, into a medium-sized zap-me. As the plant lashed with its several whips, Tocohl dropped the woman and threw a knuckle-blow, hard, at Alfvaen's temple. Alfvaen fell unconscious.

Tocohl dropped to her knees beside Alfvaen's still form. Her breath came in great rasps, aching through the injury to her side.

Had Alfvaen's reflexes not been crippled by her illness, or had Tocohl not taken advantage of Flashfever's traps-Tocohl shivered and blessed the pain in her side that confirmed her continued existence. Lightning and roaring thunder brought her to her senses. Rain poured down, drenching her.

Buntec pulled her gently erect, then bent to maneuver Alfvaen onto her broad shoulder. Om im slashed strips of arabesque vine. "We'll have to tie her up," he explained, "we can't risk that a second time."

Trailing vines, he led Tocohl to shelter, walking as slowly as she. She saw his concern, realized that she clutched at her side. "I think it's only a bruised rib. We'll find out when we get back to camp." She eased herself down on the blasted heath; letting the rain spill into her face, she began the quieting litany of Methven ritual against the counterpoint of thunder.

Buntec lay the unconscious Alfvaen beside her. Om im bound the Siveyn hand and foot.

"A waking nightmare," Tocohl said at last. "She didn't know what she was doing. Somehow, for some reason, she has sobered and her brain has a desperate need, waking or sleeping, for dreams."

"Then, if she sleeps, she'll be all right?" Buntec asked.

"She should be," Tocohl said, "once she's made up the lost dreaming."

"She may not," said Om im, a bitter tone to his voice that Tocohl had not previously heard. He brushed the blue fringe aside and laid a gentle hand on Alfvaen's back. "Look, Ish shan."

A flash of lightning showed them what he saw. Beneath the transparent 2nd skin, thin gray veining patterned Alfvaen's skin.

"Garbage plants," said Buntec, and her face paled. "No!"

Rain spattered them, but could not wash away the horror.

The storm had come up faster than expected, and Kejesli had ordered the searchers to return to base camp. They had worse news to report: the daisy-clipper had been found, some miles downriver.

Save for a school of Flashfever streampuppies, it was empty.

"It crashed in the water and they had to abandon it," Edge-of-Dark leaned forward in her chair, poised as if to leap at them.

Kejesli tapped the display: "Here."

"No bodies?" asked layli-layli calulan.

"No bodies," said Edge-of-Dark. "They may have been washed away by the storm surge."

With unexpected force, John the Smith slapped the tabletop and said, "No." Then, more calmly, he added, "Suppose they got out safely-a.s.sume they did! A storm was coming up. Where would you gofor shelter? Would you stay in the middle of a flashgra.s.s savannah? Of course not, you'd head for the nearest lightning rod grove."

Kejesli grasped the straw. "Yes! Veschke light my way, that's just what I'd do! We'll check every grove of lightning rods that can be seen from the abandoned daisy-clipper!"

"We'll have to start farther back along the river," said layli-layli. "The daisy-clipper was found here, but Buntec would have turned across land here"-she indicated the spot-"so the daisy-clipper must have been washed downstream-and we have no idea how far downstream."

"Your pardon, layli-layli calulan."

"Yes, Maggy?"

"May I be permitted to display my tapes? They may be of some service."

"Do it," said Kejesli, somewhat abruptly; and Maggy inserted the arachne's adaptor into the console.

A moment later, images of swift-Kalat's trip downriver flashed past, then froze, giving Kejesli an almost sickening jolt. The image expanded to show a detailed portion of the riverbank. The flashgra.s.s was strewn with uprooted, tattered waterweeds, with chunks of mud so large they had not yet been washed away by the heavy rains... all thrown onto the bank as if by great force.

Kejesli turned to swift-Kalat, who stared at the display hopefully. "Is there any animal that might make a mark like that?"

Swift-Kalat said, "Not to my knowledge. Maggy, can you pinpoint that spot on the map?"

The map reappeared instantly, but it was quite obviously Maggy's and not the display map. It was neatly marked with a series of bright red arrows, labeled, WRECKAGE OF DAISY-CLIPPER, BUNTEC'S TURN-OFF, and POINT OF IMPACT?

"Shall I enter it into your computer?" said the arachne.

Kejesli looked to the others for advice. Megeve said, "That machine collapsed twice on us. It is without doubt faulty, perhaps dangerously so. I strongly advise against relying on it."

But layli-layli calulan seemed to speak for the rest, and her verdict was "Yes."

Like every other h.e.l.lspark Kejesli had ever met, this one had no respect for authority either. Maggy did not wait for his permission but went about her task on layli-layli's word alone.

When layli-layli calulan withdrew to her cabin to wait out the storm, Maggy sent the arachne after her. Remembering her manners, she paused it on the threshold, tilting to observe layli-layli. "You may join me, maggy-maggy lynn," she said, "but I prefer silence for some moments. I must think."

"Me too," Maggy a.s.sured her. She stopped the arachne just inside the door, squatted it; she did not want it to drip on the shaman's ritual mat.

She had run the most extensive diagnostic available to her, first on the arachne, then on her own hardware. She had found nothing physically wrong with either. Yet she had lost contact with the arachne twice-the second time, shorter than the first, as they raced the thunderstorm to camp.

Spurred by the message layli-layli calulan had given her for Tocohl only, she moved on to the possibility of sabotage, despite its low probability.

The search was a long one. She had very little in the way of files on sabotage per se. Making a note in her active file to stock up as soon as possible, for future reference, she moved on to the only other source available: fiction.

And there she found references to a number of devices that had the characteristics she sought. Each would jam not only an implanted transceiver but also the aural-visual transceivers that were critical components of hand-held, 2nd skin, and arachne.

She settled down to a closer examination of each. The first was the best match but she found she had appended to the story Tocohl's comment: "Oh, he lies!!! I don't believe a word of it, Maggy. He didn't do his homework." So, one could lie in the context of fiction. Well, that also confirmed that one could tell the truth in the context of fiction. She went on.

The next two were the inventions of cultures that Maggy could find no nonfiction reference to; in fact, as described, both the jamming devices contravened the laws of physics. Very unlikely, Maggy concluded, and tagged each with a comment of her own, the rude noise Tocohl had so appreciated.

Moving on to the next, she found a description and sketchy explanation of a device called an Hayashijammer. The explanation was plausible, and the characteristics given were a very good match with those she sought. Did this author lie?

She cross-matched to nonfiction. There was indeed an Hayashi culture and much of what the fiction implied about it the nonfiction confirmed. So perhaps the Hayashi jammer exists, she decided. Now what?

Buntec had a.s.sumed that all the sprookjes' artifacts were biological, so she had suggested they look for grafts. And she had suggested that the sprookjes might have biological art as well. Tocohl had been willing to act on the a.s.sumption.

Right, Maggy told herself, sounding much like Tocohl to her inner ear, a.s.sume the Hayashi jammer exists. What follows logically?

Where is it? Not in camp, or she wouldn't have contact with the arachne at all. Not with the daisy-clipper. They had pa.s.sed within the stated range of the device on their trip back to camp and the arachne had not collapsed.

With Tocohl! What if it were with Tocohl?

She hastily called up the map she had displayed for Kejesli. On it she plotted those points at which she had lost and regained contact with the arachne.

The range fitted. The second lapse had been of shorter duration but tallied nicely with the greater speed of their return trip. Two points do not make a graph, but she reached a 0.05 probability that Tocohl herself carried the Hayashi jammer and was moving upstream toward the camp.

Was there any way to confirm such a thing? Had it been done? Could it be done? No one on the survey team was Hayashi but-the team's records might show something...

Layli-layli calulan was lighting a jievnal stick. Maggy hesitated to interrupt her thinking, but with Tocohl and three others in danger, she could not ignore even so low a probability.

She brought the arachne to its feet. "Please, I'm sorry to interrupt, but may I use your console?" It was not polite, she knew, but she had already started the arachne toward it.

"Yes," said layli-layli calulan, after what seemed to Maggy a very long pause.

Maggy thrust the arachne's adaptor into the console and searched for the team's personnel files. She met stubborn refusal. "As bad as Kejesli," she said. The computer was obviously keyed to hold certain information for authorized personnel only. She could break the coding but it would take time.

"What are you looking for, maggy-maggy?"

The question startled her, too much of her attention had been on the coding to notice that layli-layli calulan had moved to watch the display. Breaking codes on other computers was technically illegal.

Maggy had no idea what layli-layli would think of it, so instead of volunteering any information, she answered the question as strictly as it had been phrased: "Further information about Timosie Megeve."

Without comment, layli-layli calulan touched the keyboard, then spoke aloud, "Layli-layli calulan ." The records were obviously voice and fingerprint keyed. "It will oblige you now, Maggy."

"Thank you." The arachne touched the keyboard and watched the display, slowing it to human speed so that she did not offend layli-layli. The details of Megeve's training and employment inched by and probability took a jump upward: Megeve had trained in electronics on Hayashi.

"Will you help me to act on a probability of point-oh-six?"

"A hunch?" Layli-layli calulan knelt to look directly into the camera eye. "Yes-if you'll answer a question for me. Fair trade, h.e.l.lspark?"

"Fair trade," Maggy told her.

"Is there really a h.e.l.lspark ritual of change? The truth, maggy-maggy, in exchange for my help."

Now Maggy understood why Tocohl considered trading an art. That was a question she had not antic.i.p.ated. She couldn't lie, having declared a fair trade; yet to admit that she had lied... Layli-layli calulan had lied too-and there Maggy found a possible solution to the dilemma.

"There is now," Maggy said firmly. "The G.o.ds Hibok Hibok and Juffure have so decreed it."

Layli-layli calulan gave a shout of laughter. When she at last caught her breath, she said, "Now, tell me about your hunch, maggy-maggy."

Thunder jolted Tocohl to consciousness with a convulsive jerk that sent a searing pain through her side. She gasped and pressed a hand to the pain's source, pushed herself to a sitting position with her free hand. The pain did not ease. The moss cloak whipped about her. Grateful for the distraction, she tucked its edges firmly beneath her thighs.

Moss cloak? she wondered suddenly, fingering it.

"The sprookje returned it while you were pa.s.sed out," Om im shouted over the roar of rain. "Maybe Sunchild thinks the cloak is for injuries."