“It will have to be some form of makeup that will not leave a detectable scent,” Veriasse said. “At least nothing the dronon can smell. And it must match her skin color precisely.”
“I don’t know,” Jagget said. “That will be a hard order to fill on such short notice.”
Everynne turned over, looked at Gallen for a moment, considering her options. “Please, do what you can,” she said to Jagget. “I must challenge the Lords of the Swarm quickly.”
“Are you sure?” Jagget asked.
“Yes,” Everynne said.
Jagget nodded. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”
Gallen lay down on the floor, weary to the bone, thankful for a few minutes’ rest.
A moment later, the door opened again. Gallen did not bother looking up, thinking that one of the Jaggets had entered the room. Suddenly Orick was beside him, licking Gallen’s face. “Top of the morning,” Orick grinned. “I see you ignored my warning and blundered right into the trap anyway.”
“Orick!” Everynne shouted, rousing up in her bed. Gallen threw his arms around the bear. There was a white bandage on Orick’s shoulder, a look of pain in his eyes.
“We thought you were dead,” Gallen said. “We found bones by the roadside.”
“A friend,” Orick said soberly. “I left my message and was on my way home, dodging vanquisher patrols. My friend, Panta, stopped to pick me up on the highway, and the vanquishers caught us. She lost her wits and ran for cover. I was too weak to follow. Afterward, they brought me here for questioning, then left me with the Jaggets.”
Gallen could tell that there was more than casual friendship involved with this she-bear. He could hear the hurt in Orick’s voice. “I’m sorry, my old friend,” Gallen offered. Orick limped over to Everynne, gave her a hug. They sat and talked quietly.
Two soldiers brought in some plates of food. Gallen and Everynne sat on the bed and had a bite to eat. Veriasse paced, looking at the wall clock as he waited for Jagget.
Minutes later, two Jaggets came into the room, escorting Maggie. She looked tired, worn, but she smiled in relief to see Gallen. She hugged him and whispered, “I am glad you’re well.”
One of the Jaggets, an older man, was better dressed than the others Gallen had seen. Captain Jagget introduced him with great flourish as Primary Jagget.
Veriasse stood in deference and said, “Primary Jagget, I thought you were dead.” Gallen could not miss the tone of respect in Veriasse’s voice. Veriasse glanced at Gallen and explained. “Primary Jagget is one of the great Lord Protectors of our time. He was a Lord Protector three thousand years before I was born.”
Primary Jagget said softly, “I was a Lord Protector, Veriasse. Now, the dronon have conquered my world, taken my title and position. I have worn out my flesh and been forced to download myself into an artifice. The dronon would not even have allowed that, but for my clones. They have retained enough power to force an uneasy truce.”
Primary Jagget clapped a hand on Veriasse’s shoulder. “I regret having detained you and your friends, and I regret the harm I’ve caused here. What I have done, I have done in order to protect my world and my people. I had to be sure of your intent.”
Veriasse hesitated a moment. “I suspect that I would have done the same in your position.”
Gallen sensed that much was being left unsaid between the two men, and he wondered what kind of relationship they had. They were both Lord Protectors, and though their interests ran afoul of each other, they shared a mutual respect.
Primary Jagget begged them to be at ease, then knelt over Everynne, applied a flesh-colored salve to her neck, and rubbed it in until Gallen could hardly see the scar. When he finished, he stepped back and looked at Everynne admiringly, then bowed. “You are the exact image of your mother Semarritte. I had to come see you for myself. May you grow in power and grace and beauty. I wish you could stay and enjoy my hospitality, but I am afraid that I have just started a war in your behalf, and it will not be safe for you to remain.”
“A war?” Veriasse asked.
“The vanquishers must have learned you are here. They began moving in just moments ago. I’ve ordered my men to wipe out every vanquisher within three hundred kilometers,” Primary Jagget answered. “It has long been rumored that you built a gate to Dronon. I know the location of every gate on the planet. Tell me where you must travel, and I will clear a path for you.”
“North, sixty kilometers,” Veriasse said.
Primary Jagget raised a brow. “There isn’t a gate in that region.”
“I disguised it so that it does not look like a regular gate,” Veriasse said. He glanced at Everynne. “We must go now.”
“Wait a moment more,” Primary Jagget said. He reached into a fold of his brown jacket, pulled out a mantle. “This is the mantle I wore as a Lord Protector,” Jagget said. “I do not want it to fall into enemy hands. I would like you to take it. You have long been a Lord Protector yourself, and I doubt that there is much it could teach you. Still, when you battle the Lords of the Swarm, I would ask that you wear it. Perhaps it could be of help.”
Veriasse took the gift. It was an ancient thing of black metal, not nearly so elegant as the mantle Veriasse had given to Gallen. Still, Veriasse took it for what it was, a symbol of hope.
Chapter 18
Primary Jagget took a quick survey of the room at the inn, as if he were checking to be sure he didn’t leave something when he departed. “We must hurry,” he said. “Are you ready to go?”
“Five minutes,” Veriasse answered. “When we jump out of the gate, we will be on Dronon. Everynne should be dressed appropriately.”
“A couple more minutes, then,” Primary Jagget said. “But hurry. Time is of the essence.”
Everyone left the room but Veriasse and Everynne. Veriasse opened his pack, unfolded Everynne’s golden attire. The metallic robe was made of a flowing material that felt cool, almost watery under his touch. It had an odd sheen to it and was peculiarly heavy, as if it were actually made of microscopic ringlets of pure gold.
Veriasse let his fingers play over the robe. It seemed somehow appropriate that Everynne should wear it this day. She truly was golden, the human equivalent of the dronon’s great queen. He had seen it in people’s eyes a thousand times: they would look at Everynne and respond with adoration. And though there were physiological reasons for their devotion, something in his bones whispered to Veriasse that mere science could not explain Everynne’s power over him. Everynne was sublime. Some said that she was perfect in figure, that the proportions of each bone in her body were designed to conform to some racial dream, an image of perfection shared by all. Others claimed that it was only a combination of scents that she exuded, a carefully selected range of pheromones that turned men into mindless creatures, willing to sacrifice themselves at her feet.
But Everynne’s beauty seemed to him to be more than perfect. When she touched him, he shivered in ecstasy. When she spoke, something in her voice demanded attention, so that the softest words whispered in a noisy room would hold him riveted. Everynne transcended the hopes of the scientists who had created her, and in his weaker moments, Veriasse would have admitted that he believed she was supernatural. There was something mystical in the way she moved him, something holy in the way she could transform a man.
And so, today she would wear gold, an appropriate color for the last Tharrin alive on the conquered worlds, the sole child of a race dead in this sector of the galaxy. When all was ready, he left the room. Everynne dressed quickly in her golden robes, boots, and gloves, then put on her mantle of golden ringlets. Though she was a woman, and fully as beautiful as any of her previous incarnations, Veriasse looked at her and thought that there was something special about this incarnation of Semarritte. Perhaps it was only her youthfulness. By having been force grown in the vats, she had attained the appearance of being twenty years old by the time she was two. Perhaps that was part of it: there was an innocence, a freshness to this incarnation that had been missing in the previous generations.