The Golden Queen

Chapter 9

Gallen watched Everynne and Veriasse glide off through the forest in their magcar. Orick grumbled and pawed the ground, raking leaves as if he were frustrated. “What now?” he asked. “Do you have a plan to save Maggie?”

Gallen considered. He had few resources: a couple of knives, a key to unlock the Maze of Worlds. A few days before, he’d told Everynne that imagination was the measure of a man, but now he wondered if that were true.

“You heard Veriasse,” Gallen said. “If we try to rescue her, the Guide will warn Karthenor. Our only hope is to take her without her or her Guide knowing of it.”

“Can we trick the Guide?”

“I doubt it,” Gallen said. “It’s probably smarter than we are. But I may be able to figure out some way to lure Maggie out of the city at Karthenor’s request, so that the other Guides can’t hear her talk.”

“Och, this sounds like a grand plan!” Orick said. “Why, it’s no plan at all, that’s what it is.”

Orick was right, at least for the moment. “We’ll have to find a way to disable the Guide,” Gallen said. “I’ll have to find a Guide-maker.”

“So, what are you going to do,” Orick asked, “walk right into a shop and ask the fellow, ‘By the way, how can I break one of those things?’ and then hope he answers you square?”

“No,” Gallen said. He knew the means had to be close by. He thought, If you were the most creative bodyguard in the world, Gallen O’Day, what would you do? He waited for a moment, and a familiar thrill coursed through him. He knew the answer. “I’m going to go speak to a past employee of the company that makes the Guides. A dead employee, to be precise.”

“What?” Orick shouted.

“When we first went into town, and I was wandering around on my own, I met a merchant who sells a machine that lets you talk to the dead, so long as they’re properly embalmed and haven’t rotted too much.”

“And what if you can’t find a dead employee handy?” Orick said. “What then?”

“Well, then I’d stick a knife in an employee and make him dead!” Gallen shouted, furious at Orick’s exasperating mood.

“Fine!” Orick growled. “That’s fine. I was just asking.”

It was early morning. Kiss-me-quick birds sang in the trees, hopping from bush to bush, their green wings flashing.

“I think I’ll go ask about this now, in fact,” Gallen answered.

“What about me?” Orick asked. “You can’t leave me here again.”

“And I can’t take you with me. Orick, there are some things we’ll need-food, shelter, clothing, weapons. You’re in charge of finding them and setting up a proper camp. We might be stuck here awhile.”

“Right,” Orick said.

Gallen hunched his shoulders. His muscles were tight from the tension, and suddenly he longed to be back home in Tihrglas, guarding some merchant’s wagon. Hell, on any day of the week, he’d rather take on ten highwaymen single-handed. Ah, for the good old days.

He ambled back to Toohkansay and made his way to the merchant quarters. There, he sold the shillings from his purse along with a bead necklace to a dealer in exotic alien artifacts.

Then he went to the merchant who sold “Bereavement Hoods,” and began to haggle. Gallen didn’t have enough money to buy the thing. The hoods were designed for those who wanted to “Share those last precious thoughts with the recently departed.” Gallen cried and put on a show, talking about his dear sister who had died, until he finally convinced the merchant to rent him a hood.

“Now you understand,” the merchant warned, “that your sister is dead. She’ll know who you are, and she’ll be able to talk through the speaker in the hood, but she won’t gain any new memories. If you visit her once, she’ll forget all about it, even if you return five minutes later.”

Gallen nodded, but the merchant drove the point home until Gallen finally asked, “What are you really telling me?”

“Well,” the merchant finally admitted, “it’s just that the dead are always surprised and happy to be visited, and they’ll tell you about the same fond memories time and again. They tend to get … repetitive.”

“So they get boring,” Gallen accused.

“Most of them, yes,” the merchant admitted reluctantly.

When Gallen finished, he went to the pidc, accessed the public records to find out who in Toohkansay made Guides, and found that they were made under the auspices of a Lord Pallatine. Gallen accessed Pallatine’s files, got a list of his workers for the past ten years. By checking vital statistics for each worker, he found that sure enough, a fellow named Brevin Mackalrey had been a corpse for less than three months, and poor Brevin was down deep in the crypts under the city, kept in cold storage so that his widow could speak to him on occasion.

Gallen hurried down a long series of subterranean corridors to pay a visit to poor old Brevin. The crypt was a dark, desolate place, with only a few visitors. Corpses were stacked in long rows, sleeping in glass coffins that could be pulled out for display. The temperature in the crypt was near freezing, and perhaps that tended to keep the mourners’ visits short. The bodies were stored for a year before final interment. Still, Gallen was surprised to see hundreds of bodies and only five people visiting them. Gallen searched alphabetically until he found Brevin Mackalrey, pulled the man out.

The glass coffin was fogged; icy crystals shaped like fern leaves had built up under the glass lid. Gallen opened the lid. Mr. Mackalrey did not look so good. His face was purple and swollen. He wore only a pair of white shorts. He had dark hair, a scraggly beard, and legs that were knobby and bowed. Gallen decided that this particular fellow probably hadn’t looked so good even when he was alive.

Gallen pulled up the fellow’s near-frozen head and placed the hood on. The hood was made of some metallic cloth, and electromagnetic waves from the hood stimulated the brain cells of the dead. As the dead man tried to speak, the cloth registered the attempted stimulation of the cerebral cortex and translated the dead man’s thoughts into words. The words were then spoken in a dull monotone from a small speaker.

Gallen activated the hood, waited for a few moments, then said, “Brevin, Brevin, can you hear me, man?”

“I hear you,” the speaker said. “But I can’t see you. Who are you?”

“My name’s Gallen O’Day, and I came to ask your help on a small matter. My sister has a Guide on, and she can’t get it off. I was wondering if you could tell me how to get one of them buggers off.”

“She’s wearing a Guide?” Brevin asked. A mourner passed Gallen, heading down the aisle of coffins.

“Aye, that’s what I said,” Gallen whispered, hunching low. “Is there any way to get it off?”

“Is it a slave Guide?” Brevin asked.

“Of course it’s a slave Guide,” Gallen hissed. “Otherwise, we’d be able to get it off.”

“If she’s a slave, it would be wrong for me to help you. I could get into trouble.”

“Well,” Gallen drawled, “how much trouble can you get into? You’re already dead!”

“Dead? How did I die?”

“You fell off a horse, I think,” Gallen said. “Either that, or you choked on a chicken bone.”

“Oh,” Brevin said. “I can’t help you. I would be penalized.”

“Who would know that you’d told me?” Gallen said.

“Go away, or I’ll call the authorities,” Brevin’s microphone yelped.

“How are you going to call the authorities?” Gallen asked. “You’re dead, I tell you.”

Brevin went silent for several moments, and Gallen said, “Come on, answer me you damned corpse! How do I get the Guide off?”

Brevin didn’t answer, and Gallen began looking about, wondering what kind of barter chip he might use. He whispered, “You’re dead, do you understand me, Brevin? You’re dead. You got no more worries, no more fears. If there was one thing in the world I could give you, what would you want?”

“I’m cold. Go away,” Brevin retorted.

“I’ll give you that,” Gallen said. “I’m going away. But first I want you to tell me how to take a Guide off of someone without setting off any alarms.”

Brevin didn’t answer, and Gallen decided to bully him into it. “Look,” he said. “I hate to have to do this to you, but you’ve got to answer me.”

Gallen took the dead man’s pinky finger and bent it back at an excruciating angle until he feared it might snap. “There now,” Gallen said. “How does that feel?”

“How does what feel?” Brevin asked.

Gallen saw that torture was no use. The dead man couldn’t feel a thing. Gallen scratched his head, decided on another tact. “All right, you’ve pushed me too far. I didn’t want to have to tell you this, but the reason you’re so damned cold is because you’re lying in this coffin naked. Did you know that?”

“Naked?” Brevin asked, dismayed.

“Yes,” Gallen assured him. “You’re bare-assed naked. At this very moment, I’m looking at your penis, and I’ve got to tell you that it’s not a pretty sight. You were never well-endowed in the first place, but now you’re all shriveled down to the size of a pinhead. Did you know that?”

Brevin emitted a low moan, and Gallen continued. “Now, not only are you bare-assed naked,” Gallen said, “but I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to drag your naked carcass upstairs and leave you in a hallway tonight, and every person who walks by is going to see what a shamefully inadequate organ you have. It will be an embarrassment to your whole family, I’m telling you. Everyone in Toohkansay will see your shrunken pud, and when they do, they’ll look at your wife and smile in a knowing way, and wonder, ‘How could she have stayed with that fellow all those years, what with him being so sorrowfully lacking?’ So tell me, my friend, what do you think of that?”

“No,” Brevin said. “Please!”

“You know what you have to do,” Gallen said. “Just a few small words is all I’m asking. Give me those words, and I’ll put your pants on and leave you with your dignity intact. What do you say? You do me a favor, and I’ll do you a favor.”

Brevin seemed to think for a moment. “A universal Guide extractor can take off the Guide. Simply point the rod at the slave in question and press the blue button. Lord Pallatine has three of them locked in the security vault.”

“Tell me about this vault,” Gallen said. “How would I get into it?”

“You can’t. Lord Pallatine has an electronic key, but the vault is equipped with a personal intelligence that will only open when it recognizes that Pallatine alone has come to open it.”

“So I don’t have access to all that fancy equipment,” Gallen said. “I just want to free my sister, quick and easy, and I don’t want to get caught. Surely you know how to do it.”

Brevin’s stomach muscles twitched, and for a moment Gallen feared that he would sit up, even though he was stiff as a twig. But the dead man said quickly, “First, you will need to catch her unawares. You should take her when she’s asleep. If you can’t take her in her sleep, you need to immobilize her so the Guide can’t fight you. It will take control of her body at the first sign of danger. If you can, perform the abduction in a room that has metal walls to block any transmissions the Guide might send. Then insert a knife at the back of the Guide near the base of the skull. You will have to cut through two small wires. This will sever the Guide’s neural connection to the victim. When you’re done, destroy the Guide.”

“What do you mean destroy it?”

“Put it in acid, or crush it, or burn it. It must be thoroughly pulverized on the atomic level.”

“What if the Guide isn’t thoroughly destroyed?” Gallen asked, half certain of the answer.

“If the Guide is retrieved, its memory will identify you.”

“Thank you, Brevin. May you rest in eternal peace. I’ve already got your pants back on you, and all your secrets are safe with me,” Gallen said. He sat back and thought. He knew where Karthenor’s aberlains slept, in apartments near the cantina with windows over the river. He would have to work quickly-get in through the window and remove the Guide before the vanquishers responded to the alarm from the motion detectors at the window. Afterward, a simple toss could send the Guide off into the muddy deep. It would take the vanquishers some time to retrieve the Guide from the water. By then, Gallen imagined he could be well away from Toohkansay, on the trail to another gate and a new world.

He removed the bereavement hood, closed Brevin’s coffin, and shoved it back into its chamber. He knew that he couldn’t leave poor little Maggie any longer than necessary. He stared at the black bereavement hood. Its metallic cloth was of a heavy weave. Perhaps not as thick as the walls of a room, but it might block radio transmissions from a Guide.

Gallen could only hope.

The road from Toohkansay to the Cyannesse gate was clear most of the way, yet Everynne drove with a heavy heart, a sinking feeling of guilt. She had left nine ardent supporters dead behind her and had left Gallen, Orick, and Maggie to fend for themselves in matters beyond their understanding. Yet she drove on. Everynne skirted two smaller towns in an hour, barely slowing the magcar. When she was four hundred and eighty-one kilometers north of Toohkansay, the land began turning to desert, a sandy plain where only a few volcanic flows marred the surface.

This gate, unlike most, was in open view of the highway. Perhaps ten thousand years earlier, when the gate was built, the landscape had been different. The gate may have been hidden in a forest or swamp, but now it was in open view of the road. Even though the road was nearly empty of traffic, Everynne did not relish the idea of entering from a place where she would be in view of prospective witnesses.

She began to slow the magcar, but Veriasse waved his hand and whispered, “Keep going! Keep going! Don’t stop. Don’t even slow!”

She engaged the thruster to speed up, and on her rearview display saw six giant humanoid figures rise up from some camouflaged pit out near the gate. Vanquishers had been hiding, and now were watching them pass, perhaps wondering if they should give chase. If six of them were secluded there, many more would also be hiding.

“How did you spot them?” Everynne asked when they were far down the road.

“I didn’t,” Veriasse said. “I just felt uncomfortable. If Maggie was captured three days ago, then the authorities may have been expecting us. They’ve had plenty of time to seal off the gates and prevent our escape. In another hour, they will simply receive confirmation of our escape from Tihrglas, and matters will be worse.”

“What will we do?” Everynne asked. She looked over to Veriasse. He had been her mother’s protector for six thousand years. He was used to intrigue and danger in a way that she hoped she never would have to be.

“We will need to form some new allies here. We won’t get through that gate without an armed conflict.” He sighed. “I’d say that the city of Guianne is our best hope. It’s about five hundred kilometers south and ninety kilometers east of here.”

“Where Mother was killed?” Everynne asked.

Veriasse nodded slightly. “There is a shrine to her memory. We shall go and see if anyone tends it. Perhaps our allies will make themselves known to us.”

Everynne swallowed hard, trying not to cry. She had never seen her mother’s resting place. Of all the worlds they. had visited, Everynne had harbored only one secret wish: to see her mother’s tomb. And if Everynne died on this journey, as long as she saw her mother’s tomb first, then she would feel that she had accomplished at least one significant act.

“I know where three allies are,” Everynne said. “They’re right on our way, and at this moment, they need our help.”

Veriasse sighed deeply. “You are right, of course. We’ll stop and get them. But I won’t let you put yourself in jeopardy. If they are in trouble, I will try to rescue them. And if I fail, you must promise to go on without me.”

“I promise.” Everynne’s heart leapt. She had not felt right about leaving Maggie in captivity. She turned the magcar around, and as she soared over the highway toward Toohkansay, she felt light and free.

Two hours later, Veriasse crept over the hill to Gallen’s camp. The early afternoon sunlight slanting through the trees dappled the leaves in purple and scarlet. Veriasse had pulled the magcar off the highway, hidden it in the brush. He was skilled at moving quietly. In his cloak of concealment, wearing a specially designed scent from the planet Jowlaith that neutralized his body odors, Veriasse could pass through the woods unnoticed by all but the most wary forest animals.

Thus he came upon Orick unawares. The bear had retired to a glade, and there he had been busy making a small shelter by leaning broken pine branches up against a tree. The shelter was finished, and now the bear sat beside it, engaged in fervent prayer. “Holy Father,” Orick grumbled, shaking like a cub, “spare Maggie and Gallen. Bring them alive and safe from the realm of these damned sidhe. They are innocent of everything, innocent of any desires to do evil. I brought them here by accident, because there was no other way to save their lives, and I did not mean to break your commandments in doing so. If we have sinned ignorantly, I pray that the sins will be upon my head, and that Maggie and Gallen will be found guiltless-”

“I am sure that your friends will be found guiltless,” Veriasse said, startling Orick. The bear tried to stand, and twisted around so fiercely in his panic that he fell over.

“You!” he roared accusingly. “What are you doing here?”

“The gate we sought was guarded by vanquishers,” Veriasse said. “We have been forced to make new plans. I came to see if I could be of any help to you and your friends.”

The bear gazed from left to right, scanning the woods behind Veriasse. “We don’t need your help. Gallen will handle things.”

“So, you don’t need the help of any ‘damned sidhe’?” Veriasse smiled. “Your friend Gallen may be a fine man, but he is a stranger to our world. I doubt that he will be able to bring your friend out.”

“Ah, keep your misgivings to yourself,” Orick grunted. “Gallen got himself a bit of book learning. He knows plenty.”

“At the very least, I can expedite his plans,” Veriasse offered. “What were his plans?”

“I’m not sure he has any,” Orick said. “Gallen doesn’t work that way.”

Veriasse considered. “I’ll leave Everynne to your care. Right now, she is down by the road. I want you to take her deeper into the woods, then come back here shortly after dawn. I don’t want you here to meet Gallen if he comes back.”

“Why?”

“Because if he is captured by the vanquishers, then he will lead them here.”

“Gallen would never do that!”

“If they put a Guide on him, then he will have no choice,” Veriasse countered. “Please, take her with you, and I will see what I can do for Gallen and Maggie.”

Veriasse watched Orick head down the valley toward the road. He rummaged through his pack, put on a mantle as a disguise, then walked to Toohkansay. Since he was already dressed and masked as a lord of Fale, no one challenged him. Even if they had, they would find that Veriasse, Lord of Information Managers, was registered as a citizen of the world. His forged records included computerized documentation that detailed much of a fictional life, down to his bathing schedule and the content of meals purchased during the past seventy years.

Veriasse went to the northwest quadrant of the city where the aberlains worked. He found the place to be heavily guarded. Green-skinned vanquishers on roving patrols were a sure sign that dronon guards resided within. In some places, he found that the living walls of the city were blackened by fire. Obviously, resistance bombers had been at work here within the past few weeks, and Veriasse suddenly became very concerned about Maggie.

He had worried before about her treatment by the dronon and her lord, but he had not considered the very real possibility that her greatest threat came not from her captors but from the local freedom fighters. Before, when he’d heard that Maggie was captured, he’d wondered why Karthenor had made such a poor choice of worker, but now he saw that indeed Maggie might have been exactly what the lord needed-someone who was alone in the city, someone who would not be missed. By taking slaves who were well tied to the community, Karthenor would only have earned further resentment.

Veriasse cursed himself, wondering if he might be able to get in touch with some of these freedom fighters. But he had to find Gallen first.

As he had imagined, the exterior of the compound was well secured. In sensitive areas, the dronon had installed heavy doors that would resist bombing.

Veriasse finished his scouting expedition and went down to the pidc. There he requested to view all documents that Gallen had studied. The teacher gave him the information, and Veriasse was impressed. Gallen had tried to retrieve data on Maggie’s rooming situation, but the computer had not given him such sensitive information, nor would it supply a map of the interior of the compound. So Gallen had requested information on all areas where the aberlain compound did not extend, and had thus retrieved a negative image of the compound. By requesting maps of the laundry chutes which went through the floors below, he had been able to decipher the location of the living quarters for the aberlain workers. Veriasse studied the map, saw that most of the rooms had exterior exits. But Gallen went one step farther. He had requested computerized readouts on the electrical output for each room. One of the apartments had been left idle for three days, then suddenly recorded a tenant who turned on the lights each evening for a moment before retiring.

Gallen had taken his questioning one final step. The room had a southern exposure, and Gallen had asked the city computer to study the temperature records for the room and then determine whether the occupant left the windows open at night. The computer responded by showing that for the past two nights, the windows were left open, but the computer shut them when the temperature dropped below a certain threshold.

Veriasse smiled, impressed that some rustic could negotiate through the city’s information system so smoothly. At the same time, Gallen showed some gaping holes in his education. For one thing, the boy didn’t know that he’d left a data trail that would indict him. Veriasse asked the computer to run a credit check on Gallen, found that the boy was attempting to purchase clothing, ropes, and air exchangers-items he would need for his rescue attempt. Yet Gallen was broke. Veriasse used his credentials as a Lord of Information Managers to have the computer transfer credits from his personal account into Gallen’s account, then he ran a security-delete on most files that mentioned Gallen’s name.

He sat for a moment, thinking. Before Gallen tried to climb in that open window, he would need to neutralize the motion detectors. One could build a simple jammer that would disable any warning the motion detectors might send.

Veriasse would have to work fast, if he were to complete the jammer before Gallen tried to rescue Maggie.

Maggie tried to sleep, but after Avik left her, her lust kept her awake. Near dawn, her Guide quit stimulating her sexual appetites, and Maggie was free to dream: she dreamed of Tlitkani, of the dronon, and in her dream Maggie’s heart stirred with passion. The queen walked across a plaza of white stone, and her chitin flashed gold in the sunlight. She was perfect in every respect-without a flaw or blemish, not so much as a nick in her exoskeleton, and all around her was a great celebration. Dronon warriors with their heavy front battle arms knelt at her feet, battle arms crossed and extended in a sign of reverence. Tan dronon technicians with thin little segmented hands stood by to adore her, too, along with the small white workers. But among the insect hordes were many humans in all manner of clothing and attire, worlds of them, dancing and capering about, gazing at with adoration shining from their eyes. Little human children had made garlands of flowers and strewn them at her feet, and a song rose up from humans and dronons alike, their voices raspy with fervor, praising the Golden Queen.

In her dream, Maggie felt such a profound respect for the golden one that tears streamed from her eyes. To simply gaze upon her caused a height of religious feeling unparalleled in all Maggie’s life.

Maggie woke, eyes still streaming with tears, and her Guide whispered to her, “This is a vision I have given you of the future you shall help bring to pass. When a dronon looks upon its Golden Queen, it feels the ineffable sense of awe and wonder I have shared with you. We shall insert the genes that cause this condition into the fetuses of your children, so that they will no longer view the dronon as aliens, but will see them as brothers. Today you begin laboring within the inner sanctum of our compound, and you will help in the great work of bringing to pass the Adoration.”

Having said this, the Guide had Maggie rise from bed, shower, and go down to eat. She was dead on her feet with fatigue, and after breakfast, the Guide had her walk into a part of the aberlains’ working compound that she had not visited before. On her previous days, Maggie had worked only at the reproduction labs, but far more of the aberlains’ labors were spent here in the research department, the inner sanctum of the aberlains’ lair.

Here, she joined Avik’s research team, which was supervised directly by Lord Karthenor. Here, Karthenor engaged in decoding dronon DNA so that the genes that carried Adoration might be discovered. To work here was a great honor, and the Guide stimulated Maggie’s emotions so that she approached her task with a proper sense of reverence.

The research department was dark and warm, with dim red lights to simulate conditions on the planet Dronon itself. Black-carapaced dronon vanquishers patrolled the corridors while dronon technicians worked side by side with humans in their sterile white coats.

Maggie was put to work on a gene scanner, dyeing and scrutinizing dronon DNA. Thousands of healthy dronon specimens had given tissue samples over the past six years, and all of these were well catalogued. Now, Maggie and the aberlains studied samples from unhealthy dronon.

So it was that Maggie spent her day encoding the DNA of dronons who were born with lung defects. Genetic aberrations that led to weaknesses were never tolerated in dronon society. The congenitally insane, retarded, and deformed were always killed when their abnormalities were discovered. So Maggie found herself working with tissue from dronon infants. The workers who had shipped the specimens from Dronon had not taken great care to clean and prepare the tissues. Instead, they had shipped crates filled with pieces of the dead. The whiplike sensors had been ripped off the young dronon mouths. The feelers were then placed in refrigerated boxes and labeled according to deformity.

Maggie’s job was to carefully unwrap the feelers, remove small samples from each and label them according to specimen, then place each in a gene decoder. Computers would then store information on the mutant DNA, match identical genetic structures from different samples of mutants, and thus by defining the areas of aberration, learn which genes controlled which functions.

Maggie worked at her grisly task all morning. For days she had been fighting her Guide as it attempted to stimulate her emotions. When she was angry or frightened, the Guide continually sought to calm her, send feelings of bliss. Maggie had found herself nursing her anger, trying to overwhelm the Guide. But now she was so weary that she could not fight it any longer. If not for the Guide, she would have collapsed from exhaustion. But the Guide kept her awake.

The Guide carried her about the room, fed her comfort and information. She knew that her work was important, and Maggie found herself wishing that she could do more, hoping she would discover the actual genes that led to Adoration.

But the most important work was left to others, to aberlains with greater skill. They worked with tissues from the criminally insane, decoding genes from those few dronons who did not adore the Golden Queen.

Few such specimens had ever been born in dronon history, and they had been completely eradicated. Since the dronon used their own dead to fertilize their fields, the tissue samples of these insane individuals were rarely available. Still, a great search of the dronon worlds would eventually turn up a few new individuals. Maggie could only hope that when such samples became available, they would be sent here to the laboratories on Fale, so that she might have the honor of decoding them.

The tissue samples that Maggie used came from dronons who were born with a disorder that caused the chitin around their breathing orifices to form scarred nodules that could block the air passages. The breathing orifices on a dronon consisted of a row of nine holes located on the back upper hips of the dronon’s hind legs. The orifices led to small lung sacks between the inner wall of the exoskeleton on the hip, and the hip muscles themselves. The dronon could not properly be said to have hearts. Instead, a rhythmic movement of the back legs caused the hip muscles to pump oxygen through the lungs and oxygenated blood through the rest of the body. For this reason, a dronon actually pumped blood more efficiently when it walked or ran. When it stopped walking, it would be forced to crouch and rhythmically bob up and down to keep its circulation going.

By evening, Maggie’s work allowed her to isolate a defective gene and thus learn the gene’s purpose in the great act of controlling the development of dronons.

The dronon technicians congratulated her and rewarded her by letting her work late. Her Guide fed her a sense of rapture, and she felt thrilled to be engaged in such a great and noble cause. Thus it was that she finally stumbled to her cubicle.

She opened the window, smelled the fresh night air, listened to the sound of the river lapping against the living walls of the city. A hundred thousand stars filled the night sky like white sand, and she looked up at a great swirling galaxy, wondering at its beauty.

She set the temperature of her bed higher, took a quick shower, then put on a thin robe and lay down to sleep. Out in the hall, she could hear the comforting sound of a dronon vanquisher’s feet clicking as it patrolled the hallways of her sleeping quarters.

In the middle of the night, Maggie woke to a consuming lust that rolled over her in waves. She knew Avik was coming, and she did not think she could fight the Guide’s commands anymore.

She was lying on her stomach, and the air stirred behind her. She realized that Avik must already have entered the room; the light did not go on, but she felt the weight of his body as he climbed on the bed. He moved quickly. She could hear his heavy breathing, and feel his weight as he straddled her back.

She whimpered softly. He pulled at the Guide on her head, thrust what felt like a chisel against the base of her neck. There was a searing pain, and hot blood spurted down her neck, and suddenly she was free from the Guide.

Maggie’s only thought was that Avik had decided to kill her. She screamed, twisted to her side so that she could wrestle the knife away.

Gallen sat atop her, knife in hand, lit only by the starlight shining from the window. He thrust the Guide in a sack, then hit the sack sharply against the wall so that it made a sickly crunching sound, like breaking bones.

Maggie’s head was reeling from fatigue, from a sudden overwhelming sadness. She couldn’t think what was happening. “Get out,” she whispered. “Avik is coming.”

“Who is Avik?” Gallen whispered.

“A rapist,” Maggie said, and behind Gallen the door whispered open. Light from the corridor shone in. Gallen surged from the bed so quickly that Maggie hardly saw him move. He seemed almost to fly across the room, a black shadow in his robes, a gleaming silver knife in his hand.

Gallen’s knife fell just as Avik began to cry out. Gallen tossed the body to the floor with a thud.

In the corridor outside her door, the dronon guard shouted and scrabbled to come to Maggie’s rescue.

Gallen slammed the door and locked it, saying, “Quick! Out the window! Jump in the water!”

Maggie staggered off the bed; horror overwhelmed her-not just horror at the thought of the dronon guard racing to the door, but a horror at all that had happened here.

In one instant, she realized what kind of work she had been engaged in, and an image flashed in her mind-a vision of the bloated sacklike mothers she had helped engineer, the remembered smell of dronon body parts stacked like cordwood in bins.

Her hands felt filthy; her entire skin felt filthy, and Maggie dropped to her knees and simultaneously cried from the core of her soul and tried to keep from retching up her dinner.

With a squeal of rending metal, the dronon guard hit the door, peeled it back with one chitinous claw, tearing it from its hinges. It held its black incendiary rod forward, pushed it through the door, and Maggie could see the wicked serrated edges on its forward battle arms. Gallen and the beast were dancing shadows in the light thrown from the corridor. As Gallen rushed to the torn door, the dronon’s wings buzzed in anticipation.

Gallen grabbed the dronon’s incendiary rod, twisted it away and spun, firing through the rent door. He was far too close to shoot the weapon, and Maggie hoped that the thin metal door would shield them from the heat.

The chitinous black flesh of the guard squealed as its body temperature rose above boiling, and smoke roiled from its carapace and crawled along the ceiling. It became a blazing pillar of white fire. Intense heat filled the room, and the broken door caught flame. Gallen threw up his arms and staggered back to her.

Somewhere in the building, an alarm sounded. Gallen threw his robe over Maggie’s face. She struggled up, thinking that they would die any moment, but Gallen scooped her into his arms and staggered to the window.

“I can’t …” Maggie cried, weeping bitterly.

Gallen pushed her out. The building was sloped, and for a moment she slid out in the darkness through air that felt pleasantly icy, then hit the black water. It was far colder than she would have guessed. She thrashed vigorously and floundered for a moment, found herself underwater. She bobbed to the surface again and called for help. She looked up. Gallen was clinging precariously to the windowsill like a spider, and she wondered if he had somehow gotten stuck, then he splashed into the water ten feet away. Maggie thrashed her legs, went under again. A moment later, Gallen grasped her neck.

He pulled her to the surface, holding her head up from behind. She kept struggling and tried to spin, grab him. “Help! I can’t swim!”

“Can’t swim?” Gallen asked. “Your father and brothers all drowned. I’d think you’d learn to swim.”

Maggie gasped, part from the cold, part from the fear that she would slip under again. Gallen reached around, put something in her mouth. It felt like the mouthpiece to a flute, but it was attached to two small bottles.

“Breath in and out through this,” Gallen panted. “It’s an oxygen exchanger. It recycles air. As long as you breathe through this, it doesn’t matter if your head goes underwater. In a minute, I’ll start pulling you to shore. We will have to dive underwater. Don’t fight me.” Maggie tried breathing through the machine. She had to exert extra force to inhale, as if she were breathing through heavy cloth.

Gallen fumbled to put on his own oxygen exchanger, then dove and began pulling her toward shore. He did not try to hurry, just made a leisurely swim of it, so that by the time they came up, they were far downstream from Toohkansay and had rounded a bend in the river. The lights from the city gleamed over the water, and a lighted barge sailed past them, heading downriver. Gallen swam to the mouth of a small creek, and they waded upstream till they reached a bridge that arched above them darkly, shutting out the powdered light of the stars.

Under the bridge, Gallen stepped from the water, pulling Maggie after him. He bent and opened a cloth sack that was lying in some tall grass, pulled out a single blanket. Maggie was shivering vigorously, shaking from more than the chill night air. Everything that had happened to her over the past few days slammed into her like a giant fist.

“I’m sorry,” she cried, feeling ill to the core of her soul. “I’m so sorry.” She wanted to explain why she was so sorry but did not know where to begin. She was so cold, she could not feel her fingers. Gallen wrapped the blanket around her; he was shivering violently. She wrapped her arms around him so they could share the blanket.

“You-you had this planned?” she asked between chattering teeth. His golden hair gleamed in the starlight, and she could make out little of his features. The brackish odor of the river was heavy on them both.

“Aye,” Gallen said. “I’ve got some food in the pack, dry clothes. I found a trail along this creek. We can follow it up into the hills, then circle back north of town to where Orick and I set camp. I think we should stay off the road.”

The blackness still hung over Maggie, and every few moments the images of her work over the past few days would flash in her mind. The demented gleam in Avik’s eye. Sorting the tagged feelers of the dead dronons, the images of the twisted people she had built.

There were no signs of pursuit, but she was sure that the dronons would come after them soon.

The cold, the fear, the darkness of it all was too much for Maggie, and she sank to her knees. Wild vetch grew in a tangled mass here in the shadow of the bridge.

Gallen knelt, hugging her to keep her warm.

“Everynne?” Maggie stammered, and it seemed to her that her thoughts were now unnaturally clear, bright and well-defined, like the chemical fire from an incendiary rifle.

“We found her this morning,” Gallen said. “She was heading north for another gate. The dronons were on her trail. She plans to fight them. She asked us to come with her, but …”

Maggie looked up, studied his face. It caught only the slightest touch of starlight, and she could not see his eyes. But one thing was clear: he could have gone with Everynne, but Gallen had chosen to stay and rescue Maggie.

She leaned her shivering body against Gallen, felt the firm muscles beneath his wet shirt. His breath warmed her neck. She realized he’d planned the escape in every detail: two sets of dry clothes, two oxygen exchangers. But only one blanket. He’d planned to share this moment with her.

The residual emotions stimulated by the Guide were still affecting her somewhat. The night before, she’d staved off Avik’s advances by fantasizing about Gallen, and now she found that an edge of lust still lingered.

Maggie was painfully aware of her thin nightgown, her nipples tight, protruding against the hairs of Gallen’s chest. He shivered. She wrapped both hands around his neck, kissed him firmly on the mouth. Gallen pulled away slightly, gasped as if surprised by her action.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, aware that he was shaking harder. She recognized it for what it was. He was shaking with desire. “Don’t you want this?”

“You’re still too young,” Gallen said, his voice husky.

She grew so angry, she wanted to hit him. “We don’t all age at the same rate, and some things make you old before your time,” she said. “Watching your family die, that ages you! Working-working day and night just to stay alive, that ages you. Wearing a Guide-hell, Gallen, I, I can’t even begin to tell you what that thing did to me. It’s like a vice, crushing you. It teaches you and it rapes you all at the same time, because the things it teaches you shatter all of your deepest hopes-and if it didn’t play games with you and make you feel like you were in heaven, you would gladly cut your own head off to be rid of it!”

Maggie began sobbing and trembling. She imagined that she could feel the dronons’ black sensor whips on her arms, cold and rough like cornstalks, fouling her. “Gallen, you don’t even begin to understand what kind of place we live in-”

“I know-” Gallen said. “I put on a teaching machine in the city. It taught me.”

“Did it teach you about the dronon, about their plans?”

“No,” Gallen admitted. “The teacher only showed me how the dronon conquered this world.”

“In other words, this teacher taught you only what the dronon want you to know!”

Maggie was shivering and angry. Gallen put his arm around her, and she desperately wanted to be loved, to be comforted, for at that moment, it seemed that love was the only token that could be put on the scale that might balance out all the pain and despair that threatened to overwhelm her. Even then, she wasn’t certain that love would be quite enough.

At that moment, something touched her back, and Maggie realized that Gallen held something long and hard in his hand. She reached around with her palm and touched the incendiary rod. Amazingly, he had managed to carry both it and her through the water.

And in that moment, she knew what else she needed to balance out her pain. Revenge.

“You said Everynne plans to overthrow the dronon,” Maggie whispered. “Do you have any idea what her plans are?”

“No,” Gallen admitted, “but I know where her gate is.”

Maggie nodded softly and whispered, “Let’s go.”

But at that moment, a great circle of light shone on the bridge above them. The bridge rumbled and shook, so that bits of dirt rained down.

In horror, Galled clapped a hand over Maggie’s mouth. She could think only one thing: they found us!

Overhead, a voice sounded from the sky. “You there: put up your hands!”