Beyond the Gate

Chapter 29

Where should we go?” Maggie asked again, staring hard at Ceravanne, but Ceravanne was still thinking, unsure if hers was the right course.

“If I judge right,” Ceravanne said, “we cannot just go straight into Moree in this vehicle. We will have to set down outside the city. Is that right?” Gallen nodded curtly.

“And I have seen the dronon aircars streak across the sky like meteors,” Ceravanne said, “so that a journey of a thousand kilometers takes but an hour.”

“More like six minutes in this car,” Maggie said. “We need rest and food before we go into Moree, and a place of safety,” Ceravanne continued. “Could we go back to Northland for one day, to the Vale of the Bock on Starbourne Mountain?”

Maggie and Orick both dropped their jaws. They had been struggling so hard to reach Moree that both of them thought only in terms of that small goal, and so they had imagined landing as close as possible to that place.

“It might not be a bad idea,” Maggie said. “When this aircar doesn’t return on schedule, the Tekkar at Moree are going to become suspicious. They’ll close the gates tight, and start looking for us. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to stay away for a while.”

Gallen stared out the window, considering. “But every moment we waste only allows the Inhuman’s agents to get stronger. They’ve already got the Dronon hive cities, and now they are building armed and armored air transports. I think we should go in immediately.”

“It is hours till dawn,” Ceravanne said. “The Tekkar are awake, but most of them will be sleeping by morning. We should wait to infiltrate the city by daylight.”

Gallen nodded in acquiescence, and Maggie told the aircar to take them to Northland, to Starbourne Mountain. The aircar did not know the coordinates, so Ceravanne gave it an approximation, and the transport rose in the air and swept away. Ceravanne looked out her window and saw the small campfires and lights of villages down in the cities below, and she watched the clouds, like floating sheets of ice on a swollen winter river, sliding away beneath her. She had never been in an aircar before. Though the thing sounded noisy from the outside, there was absolute quiet within the vehicle, and this seemed somehow wondrous to her.

Gallen sighed, then said, “With all of their military buildup, I don’t understand why the hosts of the Inhuman haven’t attacked Northland yet.”

“Perhaps they are afraid that Northland is stronger than they know,” Ceravanne said. “In the City of Life, we have long allowed our guards to carry weapons that are restricted elsewhere on the planet, and our resistance fighters became expert at using those weapons on the dronon, and at sabotaging the dronon walking hive cities.”

“Even with that,” Gallen said, raising a brow, “I suspect that the Inhuman has amassed enough weaponry to wipe out your people. Something else is holding it back.”

There was a long moment of silence, and at last Ceravanne said, “Could it be compassion?”

Gallen studied her a moment, wondering. “Why would you say that?”

Ceravanne shrugged a little. “It was something the Tekkar said when Orick told him that I was the Swallow. He said that the Swallow had already returned to Moree, and had gathered her armies.”

Gallen whispered, “And she was set to harvest the stars?”

Ceravanne nodded. Gallen had been so convinced that the Harvester was a machine that for a moment he did not understand what she implied.

“Could it be that the dronon have set up an imposter?” Maggie asked Ceravanne. “Someone who could take advantage of your reputation.”

Gallen blurted out, “Why would they bother, when they could have the real thing? They would only need to clone Ceravanne and fill her with the Inhuman’s memories-and they’d have their Harvester.” He spoke the thought as quickly as it came to him. And finally, she saw that Gallen understood.

Orick gasped, and Maggie looked crestfallen as together they saw the simplicity of it. Ceravanne turned away, for she could not face them.

Gallen looked into Ceravanne’s eyes and said more gently, perhaps only realizing the truth now, “And that is why you insisted on coming with us, isn’t it? You knew that the Harvester is not a machine. You came to face your darker self?”

Ceravanne hesitated to speak, and Maggie shook her head in denial. “Certainly the dronon couldn’t turn a Tharrin-even with the Inhuman’s conditioning. It wasn’t able to turn me!”

Ceravanne wondered, as she had wondered on countless nights, just how susceptible she herself might be to the Inhuman’s persuasion. The Inhuman had come after her again and again with such persistence, and always she’d managed to kill herself to avoid being taken. But she had not been able to defend her dead body. The dronon had had countless opportunities to recover her genome, create a clone, and fill it with whatever thoughts or memories they desired.

Ceravanne looked into Maggie’s dark eyes. The young woman had been losing weight due to the rigors of their journey, and for the first time Ceravanne really noticed how this was wearing at her. “I have never wanted to talk to you about these things until now,” Ceravanne said. “I didn’t want to betray how much I knew of the Inhuman, nor did I want to betray my plans on how to deal with it once we reach Moree. You see, there was always the possibility that one of you could be turned. But now Orick and I are the only ones who have not received the Inhuman’s Word, and Maggie, you and Gallen will need to continue my battle without me, should I die.”

Ceravanne looked deep into Maggie’s eyes, took a deep breath, and said, “Maggie, you are wrong if you think we Tharrin can withstand the Inhuman’s Word. The sad truth is that the Inhuman’s Word, as a weapon, has proven to be more effective against my people than any others. It was designed to persuade us to join the dronon’s cause. It is almost by accident that the Word has also worked so well against the Tekkar and other races.”

“Oh, Ceravanne,” Maggie said, and she crossed the hull of the ship, took Ceravanne in her arms, and for one sweet moment, Ceravanne wept and let Maggie embrace her.

“We are our bodies,” Ceravanne whispered close to Maggie’s ear. “You see, the Tharrin were made to serve mankind, and men, by their very nature, are predispositioned to serve us in return. The dronon knew that if they could control us, we Tharrin might hold the key to controlling mankind. None of us can escape what we are. And in some cases, we cannot escape what we feel, what we must do.”

Ceravanne wiped her eyes, leaned back, and looked at Maggie. “The Inhuman argues for greater compassion, and to the Tharrin its arguments seem persuasive, for the Tharrin have always sought to rule with compassion above all else. And so the dronon use our most basic needs to undermine us. But the Inhuman’s Word does more to us than that-it seeks to manipulate its victims subconsciously. It convinces them that only by surrendering their individual freedom can they hope to serve mankind with total compassion-”

Gallen and Maggie both said at once, “By best serving the state, we best serve mankind.” They looked into each other’s eyes, recognizing that the idea they’d spoken had not been their own, but had been planted in them by the Inhuman.

“Exactly,” Ceravanne said. “But of course when the state becomes supreme, it inevitably becomes corrupt, catering to some indefinable mass rather than to the individual. By trying to serve everyone, ultimately it serves no one well. You’ve seen how ruthless the Tekkar are, yet even they believe that their ruthlessness toward others is in fact a compassionate service to the state.

“The dronon do not care about this flaw in their system, for they are hopelessly enthralled by their Golden Queen, and they have no ideals beyond serving her. But we Tharrin agonize over the problem. We are trained to consistently review our actions so that we leave humans as much individual ability to make choices as they desire-”

“But you can never leave us totally free,” Maggie said. “You always have the desire to manipulate us. I’ve seen it in the way that you treat Gallen.”

“I was wrong to try to control him,” Ceravanne said. “If I had not felt that my own world was at stake, I would not have done it. I … was so afraid, that I was not thinking well. What I did was contemptible. Please forgive me.”

Maggie watched her, and though her expression showed only compassion, there was a hardness in her eyes. She might forgive Ceravanne, but she no longer trusted her completely; and she would not forget what Ceravanne had done.

“Sometimes I wonder,” Maggie said. “How do I know you are not trying to manipulate me now?”

Ceravanne studied Maggie and considered how she might best address this question. She could have said something to placate the woman, but she did not want to frost the hard facts with sweet-tasting half-truths. “I am trying to manipulate you, of course,” Ceravanne said. “I have shown you my world’s need, and I have asked you to enlist with me and risk your lives in my cause. But I have not tried to deceive you about the dangers involved. I ask you to come willingly.

“But of course,” Ceravanne continued, “on the larger scale we must also consider your biological needs, your inborn desire to serve your fellow man. That is what motivates you now. And in fact, Maggie, I suspect that whether I am a Tharrin or not makes little difference at the moment. If I were a Derrit leading you on this quest, you would still follow me, despite my odor and ungainly appearance.

“But as to the larger question as to whether you are free, of course we cannot lead men who are totally free, because none of us is free of the basic human desires that define what we are. So, ultimately, none of us are free, and all must share responsibility for our group acts.

“Perhaps only if you were a Tharrin could you understand completely how dependent we are upon one another-and how much responsibility a leader has for the group: if I call a man into battle, and we win, I must always wonder if I’ve done the right thing, if my enemies deserved death. But if we lose the fight, and the man I’ve called into battle dies, then I have to wonder if I’m responsible.” Ceravanne took Maggie’s hand and squeezed it. Maggie sat down beside her on the soft, green bench. “I can ask myself, Did the man die because our enemies were too strong? Did the man die because he was too weak or too unprepared? Or did the man die because I failed to resolve the conflict peacefully long before that?

“It may be that in any given defeat, I am totally at fault. It may be that the man died because of all my failures. And so when we resort to battle, we Tharrin always count ourselves as having lost the conflict, for we are ill prepared to tolerate such guilt.

“For this reason, we prefer never to resolve conflicts through violence. Often we accept the responsibilities of leadership only so long as they do not lead into battle.

“This resolve is so strong that when my people here on Tremonthin saw what the Inhuman could do, most of my brothers and sisters removed the records of their genome and their memories from the City of Life, then destroyed themselves outright in order to avoid capture. We had to avoid becoming pawns in the dronon’s game.”

Orick had been sitting quietly on the floor, resting, but he perked his head up, raised his nose questioningly in the air. “But you said earlier that the dronon had killed your people?”

“I’ve never said ‘killed.’ They destroyed my people,” Ceravanne corrected. “Those that they did convert became … monsters, creatures that we Tharrin find reprehensible. And so they were no longer Tharrin. And by forcing upon us this conflict, others of my people were forced to seek oblivion. I did not lie when I said they destroyed us.”

“How many Tharrin are under the Inhuman’s domination?” Gallen said.

“The Resistance killed the others. As for the Harvester-I am still not even certain that she is Tharrin,” Ceravanne said, “though I have greatly suspected that my sister is there … But if they do have my clone, it is just one.”

Gallen’s focus turned inward for a moment, and he rocked in his seat. The flier was equipped with benches with thick green cushions that were very comfortable, and he leaned back casually and said, “When we first met, you suspected that you wanted me to kill your dark sister?”

Ceravanne nodded. She knew that to their eyes, she still looked very much like a child of fourteen. She’d thought that by keeping a younger body, it might afford her some protection, provide something of a disguise. Adults in power tended to discount youth. And yet she had also felt the need to try to attract Gallen sexually. “I knew when we met that you might have to fight off the influence of the Inhuman, and that you might be forced to kill my dark twin. I wanted your commitment for those things only.”

She did not admit that she wanted him because she’d known immediately that he was the clone of her beloved Belorian, and that she was in love with the image of the man she remembered, and that she hoped that Gallen might become that man still. Perhaps both he and Maggie might recall her reasons, but Ceravanne spared reminding them of this sad fact. She spared reminding them most of all because as she looked at Gallen, saw how faithful he’d remained to Maggie, he reminded her more than ever of Belorian. Indeed, he had been reborn both in body and spirit, but had given himself to another, and Ceravanne could not seek his affection in good conscience, though the pain of being so dose to him tore at her heart. And so she was resolved that she would leave them gracefully, with a lie.

“So,” Gallen said, “Maggie and I have tasted the persuasions of the Inhuman, but you, Ceravanne, still seem to know our enemy better than either of us can. What is the Harvester’s next step?”

“I’m not certain. I cannot guess what memories my done might have, and those memories could turn her on paths that I might not anticipate,” Ceravanne said. “But I fear that she may have all of my memories, along with those of the Inhuman. But even if she doesn’t, as the Bock were fond of reminding me, we are our bodies. I know what she feels. I may know how she thinks. And so I imagine myself in her place … If I were the Harvester, I would try to minimize the amount of force needed for the operation. I would seek converts, not corpses.”

“And how would you do that?” Gallen asked.

“I would seek to indoctrinate every man and woman on the planet by supplying them with the Word. If a person remains neutral after indoctrination, I would accept this. But if they actively tried to fight after their indoctrination, I would do nothing … just let the Tekkar handle it, as-to my shame-I let my people handle the Rodim ages ago. And all of the evidence leads me to believe that this is precisely the path that the Harvester is taking.”

“So you don’t believe the Harvester will go to war?” Gallen asked. “I can only guess,” Ceravanne said. “And I imagine not. Yet we in Northland can’t not prepare for that eventuality.”

The deep voice of the ship’s AI sounded-”Approaching destination”-and Ceravanne herself was forced to go to the front and describe how to reach the Vale of the Bock.

The aircar settled down then in a valley at the foot of the mountains, and Ceravanne looked out the windows. Snow was on the ground on the mountain peaks, silver in the moonlight. And in the Vale of the Bock, a single teardrop-shaped pool also glowed silver, its water unrippled. It gave off only a thin mist, which was odd, for at this time of year the hot springs here often fogged the cold air. Which suggested that it was an unusually warm evening, almost summer weather.

All around the pool, the Bock stood with arms raised, looking for all the world like twisted stumps. On a gentle hill above the vale, a temple made of white stone glowed yellow in the night because of the fires burning at the twin beacons beside each temple door. The gentle Riallna devotees who tended the Bock were already locked in for the night. Yet Ceravanne was concerned that the air transport landing so near the temple would frighten the Riallna, so she decided to let them know that it was she who had come.

She ran out into the evening air, using Gallen’s glow globe for light, and hurried up to the temple, knocked at the door. In a moment, to Ceravanne’s surprise, a Riallna devotee actually opened her door just a crack and peeked out, terrified. The devotee was a plump woman of middle age for her species, a woman named Alna, and Ceravanne had known her for a hundred years.

“Do not be afraid,” Ceravanne whispered. “I’ve been to Moree, and we captured an aircar. I’ve come back tonight to speak to the Bock. We will sleep in our car, and leave in the morning.”

The dear Alna gazed out at her in surprise, unconcerned about the possibility that Ceravanne might be Inhuman. “You’ll do no such thing. You’ll have a good dinner and some music by the fire, and sleep with us tonight,” and then she opened the door wide and gave Ceravanne a hug.

“Oh, thank you,” Ceravanne said.

“But first,” Alna said, reconsidering, “I think that you and your friends should bathe, while we fix your dinner.” The tone of her voice clearly let Ceravanne know that a bath was not optional, it was required. Ceravanne went back into the main cabin of the transport and found Gallen and Maggie searching through the food stores.

Ceravanne said, “I’ve been informed by the priestess of the temple that if we would like a nice dinner and a warm bed tonight, we need only to take a bath and wash out our clothes. The night is warm, and the pools here are heated by hot springs, which is why the Bock winter in this valley. Would anyone care to join me?”

It had been so long since they’d had a chance to bathe in anything but an icy river, that Ceravanne was not surprised when the others eagerly came out and enjoyed the luxury together, swimming naked in the moonlight. Orick the bear began slapping water at Ceravanne, and she splashed him back, and soon they were chasing one another around the pool and having a great time.

Afterward, they returned to the transport to get their packs, and in the darkness, Gallen said, “Ceravanne, when we first met, you asked me not to question you about your plans. You asked me to simply trust you, and till now I have. But we’ll be going into Moree tomorrow. I came with the idea of destroying the Inhuman, dismantling the artificial intelligence that drives it. But you obviously hope to reclaim the Harvester. Is that your plan?”

“If I can reason with her,” Ceravanne said, ‘‘yes, I think I can reclaim her. But there is much more that I hope to do.”

Ceravanne went to her pack. It was a small pack made of brown leather, and she’d carried it a long way without anyone becoming suspicious of its contents. It held but one change of dirty clothes and a comb, and in all these past weeks, she had never given the others a clue as to what else might be inside it.

She pulled out a small but heavy parcel wrapped in fine leather and laid it out on the floor, then began to unfold it. The thin golden chains that formed it tinkled as she worked, and the memory crystals woven into it glittered like diamonds. When it was all laid out on the floor, the huge mantle looked like the treasure of some ancient king. “This is what the Inhuman looks like,” Ceravanne said. “This is an exact replica. Over the past two years, we gleaned information from all of the technicians who worked on it. In the City of Life, our technicians are not well versed in making such things, and so it was a great task. But we were able to learn whose lives are stored within the Inhuman, and so we went to our archives and retrieved those lives, whole and unedited, and placed them in this mantle. We could not get them all, for the dronon were careless, and so some of those people’s memories were lost forever. And in those cases, we replaced the lost crystals with new ones, showing the lives of those who were successful in obtaining rebirth.

“And our technicians created a program that will nullify the subliminal teachings that the Inhuman tries to plant in its victims.”

“You mean you are going to fight the Inhuman’s indoctrination?” Maggie asked, for like Gallen, she had assumed that the destruction of the Inhuman was their ultimate goal.

“We will do what we can,” Ceravanne said. “If we can only destroy the Inhuman, burn it forever, then much will have been accomplished. But I fear that if that were to happen, our world would continue in civil war. You’ve seen the weapons that the dronon left: if it comes to war, this world will yet be destroyed. But even that is better than letting the Inhuman’s influence spread to the stars.

“Better still, the Council of Immortals in the City of Life hopes to diminish its influence. We hope to combat it on its own terms, counter its lies by telling the truth.”

“But,” Orick growled, “you’ll be little better than they are. You’ll have your own Word burrowing into Maggie’s skull!”

Ceravanne shook her head violently. “I do not understand a great deal about how this technology works,” she said. “But I know this: everyone who has ever been affected by the Word already has a built-in receiver, and this mantle can send to the Inhuman’s frequencies. But our mantle isn’t fully operational. If it were, we could send our message out now and be done with it.”

“What more do you need?” Maggie asked. “Maybe my mantle can help you make it?”

“We need the key to the Inhuman,” Ceravanne said. “When a Word burrows into its victim, it sends a coded message telling the Inhuman to begin sending information. The memories are then sent, but they are only readable by the Word that requested them.”

“So this ‘key’ contains an encryption program?” Maggie asked. She sounded so much like one of the technicians in the City of Life that her question startled Ceravanne.

“Yes, that is what the technicians called it.”

“And they couldn’t just break the encryption program?”

Ceravanne shook her head. “The key was made by the dronon, using their own technologies. Our people cannot duplicate it. But I do know that if you take the key off the mantle, the Inhuman will cease to function, for the key also bears the power source for the memory crystals on the mantle.”

“And so in the most favorable scenario,” Gallen said, “you would capture this key intact. Is that what you imagine?” Ceravanne nodded. “If I can speak to the Harvester, I hope she will give it to me. If not, you may have to kill her and take the Inhuman’s key.”

Gallen rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Perhaps he had imagined rushing into a room, killing everyone and everything there, considering that the job would be finished. But Ceravanne had come to see that it could not be done so easily. She had imagined that the journey into Moree itself would be an easy walk, with only minor elements of intrigue-not a constant mad dash for her life. And now she saw that stealing the key to the Inhuman would be no small feat. Obviously, by the way that Maggie and Gallen furrowed their brows, they were thinking along the same lines.

Gallen got up, paced in the darkness, gazed off south toward Moree. The windows in the aircar showed only the mountains. He rubbed his hands together as if to warm them with the friction. “Moree is a hive worse than the city of Indallian, and its keepers are more fearsome than any tribe of Derrits. Do we even have an idea where to find the Harvester in that maze?”

Ceravanne went to her pack again. “Traders have been to Moree often enough, and some of them have been to the old king’s throne room. It is well defended, and we believe that the Harvester is there. I have some intelligence on the place.” She brought out a large map on thick gray paper. It showed three routes into the city, and from each route it displayed the number of doorways and chambers to the Harvester’s throne room.

Gallen studied it for a moment, and his brow furrowed in dismay. Much of the map consisted of blank spaces, unknowable regions of the city that could easily house warriors. But what the map did show was that with each route, there were several guarded entrances, fortified gates. The Tekkar were a fierce race, created for a harsh world where survival seemed improbable, and their inborn need for a strong defense showed in the design of their city. It made for an impossible journey through the warrens of the Tekkar.

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