“The Eye has opened,” said Kakkakit. “We know it is because of your blasphemies. It is our slaughter of your hideous clan and all of the others that has caused it to close again. When the last of you is dead, the Eye will sleep.”
“Your disgusting clan and all your sisters will be larvae food before the Daystar rises again,” said Tik’ik. “That will please Erykon. This creature is a gift to us for carrying out your destruction.”
“Don’t be foolish,” said Kakkakit. “Think: If we can eat it, then we know it is just some animal. If it is something sent by the Maker to test us, as you say, or if it is some gift, the Maker will not let us eat it.”
Tik’ik thought about it, chewing the idea as if it were a small and succulent mammal. “All right,” she said at last. “We will try your plan.”
Each soldier had a long-handled serrated blade strapped to her back that they now withdrew from their respective sheaths.
Taking positions at either end of Modan’s body, they raised the blades, which resembled machetes. Before they could bring them down again, twin beams of destructive energy lanced out at them from what seemed to the soldiers like empty air. The machetes dissolved to nothing in their talons, and both soldiers were thrown to the ground.
They were up again in a flash, this time with guns in hand, firing small metal projectiles in the direction of the beams’ origin. Plants shredded, crystals exploded in every direction while the soldiers continued their lethal barrage.
Tik’ik was empty first, the nose of her weapon so hot that smoke wafted up from the hole in a lazy undulation. She leaped over to the place she and Kakkakit had just destroyed, hoping to find a body in the broken turf or a blood trail at least.
There was nothing.
“What was it?” said Kakkakit. “Is it dead?”
There was nothing.
“You see?” Tik’ik said thoughtfully. “It is Erykon’s will that this creature must not be harmed.”
“This is some trick of your clan’s, I think,” said Kakkakit, slowly and quietly replacing her gun’s empty packet of projectiles with a fresh one. “I will kill you and this creature and eat both your-”
She never finished. Tik’ik’s clan blade, the small one she kept hidden in the broken part of her carapace, had pierced Kakkakit through the thorax, spewing her juice on the ground and sending the rest of her to Erykon.
When Tik’ik had retrieved her blade and assured herself that Kakkakit was dead by eating one of her eyes, she stood and said, “I know you are here. I can taste your aura.” When there was no response she continued. “I know this creature belongs to Erykon. I have protected it from harm. It is my wish to know if Erykon desires further service from me.”
Jaza regarded the creature from the protection of the isolation suit. He had only narrowly escaped death by diving clear when the warriors had opened fire.
It had been instinct that told him to leap, an animal’s need to continue living, but now that he had done it, now that he had heard the request of this lethally pious creature, he wondered. Why had he not just stood there and allowed their bullets to shred him along with the landscape? Would that not have fulfilled the Prophets’ vision?
The only answer was that he had to protect Modan, to get her back to the shuttle alive, to make their escape.
But there was now the problem of Tik’ik.
She stood there, all innocence despite her skill with murder, waiting for any word from her god as to what she must do next. She reminded him of himself, he realized, and in a fashion that was less than flattering.
She was a puppet, unable to act in any way beyond what she deemed to be the wishes of Erykon. She was empty of motive, of desire, of anything but the automatic need to follow. Was that truly piety, or had she simply made herself an organic automaton, no more awake to the universe than a screwdriver or a calculator?
The Prophets do not want us as their toys, his father had told him as a child. They want us to fulfill our lives, to expand our minds and knowledge as far as they can go.
All right, he thought as realization washed over him. I think I understand.
“Pick it up,” he said, and watched the little shiver that ran through the startled soldier. Tik’ik did as she was told, hefting Modan’s body with surprising grace up into the cradle of her four arms.
“Follow,” he said, and she did. Apparently the isolation suit’s scent-masking properties needed work.
Modan woke about a minute into her stay on the shuttle’s medical table. The lacerations and breaks she’d sustained fending off the two soldiers were uglier than Jaza’s had been but also less severe. She healed fast under normal conditions and even faster under the restorative beams.
She rose to her elbows to see what he was up to and found him bent over the computer and the sensor controls. Sensing her motion, he turned to her and held his finger to his lips.
She rolled quietly onto her feet and joined him at the console. He was inputting massive amounts of code into several systems. Some she understood to be navigational algorithms, but the rest were incomprehensible, even to her cryptographer’s eyes. She could tell the math was incredibly complex, but that was all.
Motioning again for her to stay still and silent, he reactivated the stealth harness, disappearing from her sight. Presently the rear access hatch opened and closed again.
Modan activated the exterior monitor and saw, to her surprise, one of her attackers standing just outside, engaged in conversation with the empty air. Jaza was talking to the creature.
Presently the Orishan soldier prostrated itself briefly and then disappeared into the jungle.
The rear access hatch opened again, and when it was closed and secure, Jaza reappeared. He had the queerest expression on his face, and she wasn’t sure it was one she liked.
“Najem,” she said.
“Najem,” he repeated slowly, as if tasting it for the first time. “Yes. Please say that. I think I’d like to hear someone say my name for a little longer.”
She watched as he began selecting items from various storage lockers-the class-two medical kit, the remaining stealth harnesses, two phasers with replacement power packs, the poison analyzer, and various other survival equipment that was designed for extended stays in hostile locales.
“Najem,” she said. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sending you back, Y’lira,” he said. Then, turning on her with that same unsettling expression, “And I’m staying.”
She stared at him, uncomprehending, as her mind failed to process what he had said.
“You will have to explain that,” she said eventually.
In response he leaned past her, activating the astrometrics station. A schematic of a rotating, undulating globe appeared on the monitor.
“That’s the Eye,” he said. “At least, it’s the part of it that exists here. I mapped it while you were healing. With a little bit of luck, you can use the sub-x-11 vertex there to slide back to our era.”
“I can?”
“Yes, Ensign,” he said. “I’d say it will put you within a few days of Titan’s arrival. Hopefully a few days before rather than after.”
“I’m sorry,” said Modan, staring at the construct on the screen. “What?”
“And you have to go fairly soon, I think,” he said, making a minor adjustment to the figures on the screen. “I’m not sure how stable that thing is.”
“I failed to return with the flux regulators, Najem,” she said. “I don’t think the shuttle is going anywhere.”
“Not a problem,” he said, plugging a tricorder into the download cradle. All Titan’s accumulated data about Orishan history and culture began to transfer itself into the smaller device.
The proximity alarm pinged, automatically activating the external viewers. The Orishan soldier was back, carrying both of the flux regulators that Modan had dropped during her attack. She watched as the creature set the components down on the turf outside the shuttle. It knelt again in that same abbreviated way and then disappeared once more between the leaves and vines.