Gretchen beheld the air unfolding, molecules twisting, unraveling, shedding photons in a brilliant cascade. Shimmering waves of solid light belled up from her equipment, from the cables, haloing the unknowing technicians, swirled around the comp in her hand. A single golden tone – a deep, encompassing note – sustained, held captured in the shape of the curving fronds, in the arc of the tree.
The heart of the black arc split, revealing a green void filled with boiling, half-seen movement. Countless cilia unfurled from the top of the arc into a winged, sharply edged star. An even more brilliant glow began to emanate from the cluster. Anderssen felt herself recoil from a sensation of emptiness, a moment of annihilation, an unfolding which would leave her exposed, her self – her mind – her thoughts – her core – inverted and extended into…
Something sighed and the fuel-cell generator popped loudly. Smoke hissed from its metal housing. The technicians looked up, puzzled, and the vault was filled with their hissing and hooting.
Gretchen jerked back, dizzy, and fell into Malakar's arms. Everything was spinning. Her fingers were numb. The comp clattered to the ground. A strange, half-familiar sensation fled as she tried to grasp what had happened. For a moment – just the time between two breaths – she thought she was surrounded by Jehanan in ragged, carbon-scored metallic armor. They seemed grimly pleased, as though they'd won through to a desperate victory. The wooden scaffolding was absent, replaced by huge green-tinted floods hanging from cranes. Power saws roared, cutting away the sides of an enormous obsidian box. The sides toppled, crashing to a rough limestone floor. The outline of the fane was already present as a vault of stone ribs, but unfinished, lacking the smooth marble facing. Inside the box a shape was revealed, heavily padded with shockfoam. A Jehanan technician stepped forward, spraying dissolver from a pressurized canister. The pinkish-white encasement sluiced away to spill across the rough floor. A black curved shape was revealed, fronds folded back to make a twisted, ropy arc…
The floodlights shone hot in her eyes. Anderssen blinked away tears and tried to sit up. Her limbs were trembling as if she'd run clear to the postal station at Dumfries and back again without stopping.
Malakar dragged her back into the darkness, but not fast enough to keep one of the Jehanan soldiers milling around in the vault from catching sight of movement out of the corner of his eye. Curious, the soldier moved along the wall, long feet slapping on marble, and then saw the opening. He crouched down, drawing a modern-looking pistol, and crawled inside.
Behind him, a spirited discussion began between the durbar commanding the detachment of soldiers and the lead technician. After a few moments of hooting and hissing, the dead generator was pushed aside by four brawny Jehanan corporals and the second one rolled forward.
The durbar, disgusted at the fragility of the Imperial equipment, snarled at his underlings. Time pressed and he kept checking his chrono. Somewhere outside, the kujen of Takshila was counting on them to invoke the power of the dusty old machine. "Clean up all this mess – there are work tools and cables and cutting equipment everywhere!"
The kalpataru remained quiescent, pressing into the marble floor with the weight of ages.
Parker clattered down the last flight of steps and out into the courtyard at the center of the apartment building. He was draped in a long rain poncho, a broadbrimmed, waxed field hat on his head and an umbrella tucked under his arm. The thirty-third floor weather service reported rain and more rain in the offing. The pilot turned right, strode along a dim, sour-smelling arcade and pushed open a door made of interleaved wooden slats.
Then his pace slowed and he looked back curiously at the empty arcade. Rain was drumming on ancient, cracked concrete in the courtyard.
There's always a whole crowd of grandmas down here, the pilot thought. Selling ornaments and scale-polishing cream and claw-sharpeners. Where'd they go?
Cautious, he moved quietly down the hallway to the front lobby. Everything was very quiet, which made Parker nervous. Like the courtyard, the lobby was empty. Even the little green felted tables where the diviners consulted their oracular bones had been packed up and taken away. Parker licked his lips, wished he had a tabac, and eyed the street outside.
A single runner-cart rolled past, a wiry Jehanan bent between the wooden poles, powerful legs loping along the glassy surface of the boulevard. The pilot blinked, noticed the shops across the street were all closed and shuttered, and then frowned at a reflection in the front windows of the akh-noodle cafeteria on the corner.
That is a lot of riding lizards, he realized, and a lot of big Jehanan with guns and spears. What are they…
"Oh, bleeding hell!" Parker bolted back down the passage, through the wooden door and then up the stairs as fast as he could go. After three flights of steps he was wheezing and feeling faint. "Come on, David," he cursed at himself, poking at his medband. "Only thirty-two more to go… Oh, Xochipilli, Lord of Flowers, why did I ever taste your bitter smoke?"
Pale in the face, he hauled himself up another flight, slewed around the turn and then gasped up another. Finally, he remembered to tap on his comm. "Thirty more…only thirty…huuuugh! Magdalena! Can hear you hear me?"
Gretchen's head cracked against the stone floor, sending a bolt of pain through her skull. Malakar dragged her along the passage, heedless of the human's flailing limbs.
"Malakar," she managed to croak out. "Stop!"
The gardener turned, her face livid with scars, dull crimson battle-armor still scorched with particle-beam impacts, one eye a glassy white where shrapnel had torn into the socket. The kujen 's guardsmen clustered around her, armor and weapons equally worn. Most of them were barely adult, though not one soldier remained young.
"We must go back," Anderssen said, using the wall to help her up. Icy fear rolled along her arms and back. "They are trying to wake up the kalpataru. I have to stop them. It must be destroyed."
"Are you mad?" White-Eye bellowed, her voice booming with anguish. Claws clenched the hilts of her force-blade. "We've not heard from homeworld in sixteen years – with that device we can reopen the communications network, send for reinforcements, send for our families! My scientists are sure they can restore the linkage and bring up the planetary net in only hours."
Malakar's face interleaved for an instant with the crippled Queen. Gretchen swayed, clutching at the wall. "No, no, we mustn't do that!" Her voice boomed strangely and Anderssen felt a wrenching sensation, as if other voices were forcing themselves through her mouth. "The Jeweled-Kings attacked us and seized the device because it's horribly dangerous -"
"No more of these child's superstitions," the scarred Jehanan screamed, blade flaring sun-bright in her hand. Gretchen flinched back and Malakar lunged forward, stabbing with the length of shattered lohaja taken from the wall cavity.
"We've paid dearly to reclaim the kalpa' and by HГєnd's name, I'll invoke its power mysel -"
Anderssen hurled herself away from the blow – saw the jagged end of the board smash into the face of a Jehanan soldier bulking in the corridor – and everything popped back into reference. The soldier squealed, snout bleeding, and knocked the board aside. Gretchen surged up, throwing the point of her shoulder into the thick, armored chest. The Jehanan slammed into the wall.