“They weren’t just trying to kill you,” Thomas suggested. “Perhaps the saboteur wanted to do more than kill you. He wanted to send a message.”
“Of course,” Gallen said. “Whoever put the flower there believed that killing Maggie would be pointless. Her memories could just be downloaded into a clone. So the flower was a message from her enemies.”
“But what does it mean?” Orick asked.
The medic who was attending Thomas’s wound looked up. “Beware of beautiful appearances,” he said, with almost too much certainty. “Things are not as they seem.”
“Are they warning us away from the Tharrin?” Gallen asked. “Lady Everynne?”
“That may be. Not all people trust the Tharrin. Though they are beautiful, they are not truly human. On the other hand, perhaps the rose was not meant as a message to you,” the medic said. “Perhaps it was a message to the rest of the world. This weapon was intended to kill Maggie, and she too is beautiful. Perhaps the killers were trying to warn the people of Fale away from her.”
“You’re talking gibberish, man,” Orick said, certain the medic was on the wrong track. Maggie was not a leader on Fale. No, the rose had to signify the Tharrin, but Orick knew the Lady Everynne well. The Tharrin were good folks, and only a person with a warped mind would fear otherwise.
The medic shrugged. “I’m only making wild guesses. The only person who really knows what the message meant is out there somewhere.” He waved toward the city.
He applied some nanodocs to the wound, then bandaged it, and left.
When they were alone, Gallen took an object from his robe-a white metal triangle with a lens set at each corner. “You’ve a message?” Maggie said, taking the contraption from his hand. “The mayor gave it to me earlier. It’s from Everynne.” Maggie set the thing on the floor, and asked the room to lower the lights. “Everynne,” she called softly, and suddenly the image of Everynne appeared in the room, her dark hair gleaming, resplendent in a pale blue gown. Thomas gasped at her beauty, and Orick studied the fine bones of her jaw, the keen intellect behind her eyes. In the brief weeks since Orick had last seen her, he found that time had blurred her image, so he tried to burn the Tharrin woman into his memory.
“I had suspected that you would call me, Gallen,” the holoimage said, “and I will give you what little help I can. I need you to go to Tremonthin, a world like yours where mankind has rejected most technologies, with one exception: in the City of Life the Lords of Tremonthin have dedicated themselves to developing life-extending technologies. There they download memories into clones of those worthy for immortality. There, they fight disease and suffering. And for twenty millennia the world has had but one export-children who are engineered to live on worlds that other humans cannot inhabit, or who are engineered to fulfill roles that other humans cannot. Many of these altered people live on Tremonthin still, for the Lords of that world do not force their creations into exile but give them their choice of staying or leaving.
“My ancestors, the Tharrin, were created on Tremonthin eighteen thousand years ago to be judges and rulers of mankind, and for this reason Tremonthin was one of the first worlds that the dronon sought to conquer. It appears that they murdered all of the Tharrin there, but one survived with the help of technicians from the City of Life. And she has been hunted by a thing called the Inhuman.
“I have no information on the Inhuman. It seems to be a secret society, formed by the descendants of genetically upgraded people. We lost ansible contact with Tremonthin years ago, but rebels working on a ship that visited the City of Life in the past three months were able to smuggle out the small recording that I sent you, along with a request that the rebellion send a Lord Protector. They must have known that Veriasse and I were traveling between the world gates, for the message says that someone will meet you at the gate.
“Gallen, this will be no easy task. Those who are genetically upgraded and who choose to remain on Tremonthin are often banished from human lands, and in those lands the fiercest variations of mankind thrive.
“I would come with you if I could, Gallen,” Everynne said, and her voice caught a little as she said it. “Since I don’t know the dimensions of this problem, I fear the worst. Certainly, the rebels on Tremonthin were desperate, for they sent their plea knowing that the dronon would almost certainly discover the recording. Still, they hoped that one Lord Protector, alone, could handle their problems-as I also hope.
“Be strong, but be wise,” Everynne said. “Come back to us alive.” The message ended, and Gallen stood looking at the holograph thoughtfully.
“Well, we’d better get going,” Orick offered after a moment of silence, hoping to prod the others into immediate action. It would feel good to be back in Everynne’s service, to be doing something important.
“The mayor spoke with me earlier,” Gallen said. “He’d readied a flier. We can leave in the morning.”
“But folks are waiting for us!” Orick said.
“They’ve been waiting for months,” Gallen countered. “We’ll need our rest. They can wait one night longer.”
Thomas had been sitting quietly, watching the holograph, and he cleared his throat. He was waxing the tips of his moustache, twirling them thoughtfully. “Gallen, Orick, Maggie-you may do as you please. But I’ll be staying.”
“No you won’t,” Gallen said. “There are only four people on this planet who know where Maggie and I are going-and all of them are in this room. And sometime in the next few weeks, at least one dronon hive queen will come hunting for Maggie, and I’ll have to be at her side to protect her. I’d rather they didn’t find us, so I can’t leave any witnesses behind. So, you see, sir, that I can’t let you stay!”
Gallen’s jaw was set, his eyes stony. Orick knew that look. It was the same look that hill robbers always saw just before Gallen pulled his knives and gutted them.
“I’ll not have you talking down to me in that tone,” Thomas said. “I’ve got my own dreams in life, my own path to take, and I don’t fancy that running off with you will get me where I want to go. It appears to me that you three are just targets for trouble: you bring it down on yourselves wherever you go, and I’m not a fighting man. If I stay long in your presence, I’m sure to get killed.”
Thomas quit twirling his moustache and tentatively held his bandaged wrist, clenching and unclenching his fingers experimentally. “You’ll be under my protection,” Gallen said forcefully. “I’ve never lost someone who was under my protection.”
“Well, it’s mighty convenient that you weren’t hired by that fellow who is lying dead out in the hall, isn’t it?” Thomas grumbled. “We wouldn’t want to ruin your reputation.”
Gallen frowned at the haughty tone in Thomas’s voice.
Orick realized that this argument was beginning to escalate. As a bear studying for the priesthood, he felt it his duty to calm these folks.
He rose up on his hind feet, catching their attention. “I’m sure that Thomas is no coward, Gallen. After all, he’s smarted off to every mayor and usurer in Tihrglas for forty years. So, if he doesn’t want to come, he must have his reasons.”
“I know what he’s after-” Gallen said, “he’s after a comfortable retirement!”
“I’m sure you misjudge the man.…” Orick soothed, but Thomas began laughing, deep and hearty.
“Oh, Orick, Gallen has judged the man right! I’ve earned my rest. The food here is good, the people gracious.…”-he flexed his fingers experimentally-“for the most part. And, frankly, I’m a paying customer. I paid to come here-not to go to someplace worse off than Tihrglas!”