The Vitae were the Aunorante Sangh, no matter what name they had bestowed on the People.
Nameless Powers preserve and forgive. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. How could I know?
He’d led them to the Realm. To the Temples and the Kings. To his family. To Lady Fire.
I didn’t know. I didn’t know.
The compartment walls were thick, shielded, insulated and shielded again. He couldn’t hear anything. He raised his hand to his translator disk to hail the bridge, but stopped. The Vitae could trace that signal straight to him. He pressed himself into the corner. No way out from here, but only one way in. When they came for him, he would see them before they saw him. It was his only advantage. It would have to be enough.
I am Teacher Hand. I am dena Enemy of the Aunorante Sangh. They will know that. They will not forget that.
I will not forget it again.
I didn’t know. I didn’t know.
Metal and ceramic snapped over head. Eric pressed his back against the smooth wall. The hatch lifted away from the ceiling. Boots lowered themselves through the hatch and a human form, completely encased in a scarlet vacuum suit, dropped to the floor, landing steadily on both feet. Eric saw his own reflection in the blackened faceplate as it moved aside so its partner could drop down beside it. He faced them both. They could see him perfectly. He could tell by the way his distorted face shone on their visors. They both carried dart guns in their gloved hands, he noticed. Tranquilizers, probably, but maybe poison if they were done using him.
“I deny you. I defy you. I stand against you as the sun stands against the Black Wall.” Every Teacher knew the words of resistance. They were told the Aunorante Sangh might return at any time, maybe even before the Nameless did. He held his hands up so that his palms reflected in their faceplates and braced himself against the wall.
Nameless Powers, grant me strength to fight for you. Grant me strength to live up to the name you have given me.
The first one raised its gun and fired. The dart sliced through the air straight toward the hands Eric offered up as targets. Eric released his gift and it felt like a fist squeezed his heart. The dart touched his palm, and fell to the floor at his feet.
Got to stay standing. Can’t let them know what it cost me. I am their enemy. Can’t let them know.
Hurry Adu!
The second one fired. Then the first fired again. The darts clattered to the floor and Eric’s breath came out in ragged gasps. They knew now. How could they not know? He saw his own bulging eyes and gaping mouth in their visors. One more volley and he was gone.
He screamed like a madman and lunged for the first of them. His arms and legs were weak as water, but he still outmassed the Vitae. They toppled onto the deck together. The fall loosened the Vitae’s grip on its gun just enough. Eric tore it from its fingers as the Vitae shoved him aside. Eric squeezed the trigger and shot his target in the torso, only because there was no way to miss.
The Vitae dropped onto the deck plates and Eric looked wildly around for the other one. Nothing. No one. Then, the drone of the engines died away into silence. The Vitae stepped out from behind the second level drive.
Eric fired and dropped. The Vitae fired and then it fell with Eric’s dart in its arm. Eric felt the sting and the shock as the dart drove its tip into his shoulder blade. Arms, legs, torso were all gone in an instant and his eyesight left him before he hit the deck.
The Vitae maneuvered the support capsule out of the airlock. Adu sat frozen in place on the bridge, doing nothing but absorbing the information about the U-Kenai’s status through Cam’s eyes. The quarantine lock was gone, but not through his doing. The Vitae had reported that the source of the contamination had been removed. The station had downgraded the alert.
The airlock door closed with a rush of canned air. Adu still didn’t move. Eric Born was gone. There was nothing left to tell him how to act. He opened all the instructions he carried in his makeup and examined them all minutely. Nothing there. Nothing to tell him what to do if the Vitae carried Eric Born away.
The comm board flickered and shifted again. Adu read the new status. The U-Kenai, formerly owned and commanded by Eric Born was now officially salvage, with ship and contents to be claimed by the Rhudolant Vitae.
Ship and contents. Adu’s attention froze on the phrase. Him.
The instruction sets were very clear regarding the Vitae. Interaction with them, unless supervised by Eric Born, was to be strictly avoided.
Adu pushed the android body into action. The quarantine lock had been lifted and only the normal security precautions held the ship in place. He had already established access to the security database. With less than a dozen key changes, he overwrote the holding order.
A regulatory override cycle kicked into play from Cam and Adu squashed it. The docking clamps lifted back and the U-Kenai fell away from the station.
Adu rolled himself to one side and prodded the Cam program forward to take charge of the flight calculations. As a precaution, he settled himself at the gateway between Cam’s flight instructions and the regulatory overrides. It wasn’t long before the alarm bells began ringing. The Vitae had already detected his ruse. The signals activated a swarm of overrides and cutoffs in Cam’s programming that charged toward the gate. Adu sat like a stone wall between the security programming and the flight programming. Cam continued measuring, calculating, and planning in a smooth, unbroken chain. Eight kilometers from the station, he lit the U-Kenai’s first level drive and shoved the ship toward the vacuum at its top speed.
No ships approached them, although Adu was certain the Vitae would be tracking them. He tripped another switch in Cam’s programming and although they were still too close to the station and all the security overrides battered at him, Cam cut in the third level drive and the U-Kenai leapt into the empty realm past the light barrier.
The security cutoffs fell back and Adu was able to move again. He threaded his way around behind Cam and made the android’s hands work the comm boards. The beacon was on its way to Perivar. The U-Kenai could overtake it and scoop it up on the way, and then the whole ship could fly toward this Perivar, who Eric said could get an undetected signal to Dorias. He could tell Dorias what had happened. Dorias had given him his original instructions. Dorias would give him more and they would be correct and they would erase the lingering image of Eric Born being removed in the support capsule, the image that hung inside Adu and would not go away.
8—Amaiar Gardens, Kethran Colony, Hour 05:12:36, City Time
The first and best occupation of the mind is to fight destiny. I do not mean run away. I do not mean trick it, or cheat it. I mean to face it on open ground, to raise whatever force is at one’s command, and to wage open, unflinching, and total war.
Evran was beginning to get on Aria’s nerves. Most of the other students had adopted a normal speed for talking around her and had begun to assume she understood what they were saying unless she told them otherwise. Not Evran. He talked to her like he might to a three-year-old, and when she bothered to respond long enough to let him know she thought he was a fool, he’d smile indulgently and say she just didn’t understand yet.