Ceremony

Chapter Forty-Five

I

Marika sensed a darkship approaching. She ignored it. She continued guiding three young Mistresses through maneuvers. They were doing well in their ghost-fencing.

She was old and feeling it, and thinking of recording all she had learned, all that had made her first among silth. All that had made her the most terrible silth of all time. She was considering revealing all her secrets. She thought such a document might illuminate a pathway, might betray the pitfalls and long ways around that she had encountered.

What might she have become had she lived in another time, free of constant strife? What might she not have done?

Mistress?

Yes, Henahpla?

The last route has been closed.

I suspected as much. Excellent move, Flagis! The youngest Mistress had used the Up-and-Over to seize a position of advantage. You have the makings of a strategist. She fended Flagis's ghosts deftly. From the summit of age each probe seemed entirely predictable. Practice among yourselves now. Exercise restraint. I will tolerate no accidents. The young occasionally let pride carry them away and began trading blows seriously.

Marika brought her darkship beside Henahpla's. Rude wood beside finely machined titanium. But the witch signs attached to Henahpla's darkship were as old as time, crafted and blessed in the ancient ways.

My voidship has more character, Marika thought. More style.

The human senior is concerned.

Then we must ease her mind. Marika slipped into the Up-and-Over. She was inside the derelict before Henahpla reached orbit.

Jackson did seem rattled. "What is it?" Marika asked.

"A darkship returned from the human side of the cloud."

"Bad news?"

"There was a big battle. My people were not victorious."

"But still no message direct?"

"No. They've forgotten us."

"What might this defeat mean?"

"That depends on the magnitude of the disaster. The rebels are outnumbered. They were never likely to succeed. The aftershocks will be more political than military."

Marika nodded an understanding she did not quite possess. She guided Commander Jackson to the situation room and pointed out the fact that the last route to the meth homeworld had been closed. "The last route they know," she added softly. "I can get there if I have to."

Jackson sucked spittle between her teeth. The habit irritated Marika. The creatures possessed no self-discipline. "Will you flank them, then?"

"No. I'll wait."

"I wonder."

"What?"

"I can see that you want them to come to you. But that might not be wise. You are not familiar with our warships."

"We shall see who distresses whom." She foresaw no difficulty dealing with human ships if it came to that. She was silth, darkwalker, strongest Mistress of the ages. The void was hers to command.

Those who had put the stopper into the bottle lost patience when she did not try to break out. Ten days after they closed the last route they invaded Marika's star system.

Alarms howled in ship-night. Mistresses and bath scrambled from their quarters, raced to their darkships. Calmly, Marika strode to the situation room. Commander Jackson arrived before her. Already the human end, bustling, had adjusted to local scale.

It was real! Not the false alarm Marika had expected. But ...

"One ship," Jackson told her. "Destroyer size. Already deploying riders. We'll have singleships in our hair in an hour. I hope it's just a recon pass." She indicated dots radiating from a common origin. "I have to get my ships out of orbit."

Marika was irked. Why hadn't her patrols warned her? They should have done so long before the humans detected the arrivals. She hurled anger outsystem, though her pickets were too distant to receive a general touch. "They're going to run?" she asked.

"I have to protect my people." The human scientists were evacuating the derelict hurriedly. "We can't do much more than get killed if they attack."

Baffled, Marika shook her head. She examined the situation, wheeled, stamped away to her wooden darkship. She cut the bath's ceremonies short, drove into the void toward the incoming raiders.

A picket's touch found her then, reporting the arrival with overtones of bewilderment. The Mistress had detected nothing until a small human ship almost overran her.

Marika shivered with a chill that penetrated her golden shield. The aliens did not touch. The touch's absence rendered them invisible to Mistresses less talented than she. She should have realized.

She deployed her companion Mistresses.

Ghosts flung outward discovered an inward-bound formation of six small ships. Behind them, more sedately, came a second formation of one large ship, two a third its size, and four more small ships. Marika did not understand. Commander Jackson had spoken of one ship, a "destroyer," arriving.

Go!

Darkships vanished into the Up-and-Over.

Marika emerged into fiery confusion. Webs of light clawed the void. Missiles were everywhere. The smaller human ships were almost as nimble as darkships. She drove toward the biggest ship. A moment later she felt the touch-screams of dying silth.

The size of the main enemy ship awed her. It was long and lean and cruel, like some monster ocean predator. Its mass had to be several times that of Jackson's biggest ship.

A small ship exploded.

Another darkship died.

She had underestimated them. Terribly.

She flung a wild touch across the void, grabbed the system's great black, yanked. This was no time for finesse.

A medium ship turned her way, accelerated incredibly. How had it detected her so easily? She grabbed the Up-and-Over, skipped, regained control of the great black. The ship found her again and closed swiftly, but the great black came too. Marika skipped again, flung the great black.

A strange screaming filled the void.

These humans touched when they died!

Their screams went on and on and on as their ship began breaking up.

Why so long?

Their dying tore at her nerves, distracted her from the broader struggle ... Crewed by the dying, the disintegrating human ship ripped past, drives accelerating still, carrying the remains outsystem.

A bolt of light stabbed so close Marika imagined crisping heat. She tore her attention from her victim.

A small ship was almost atop her. She ducked reflexively, fired her rifle as it screamed past, and only then thought to fling the great black.

Tortured screams flooded the touch.

That was the last small ship of the main force. Marika probed for the leading group. It too had been hard hit. Three survivors were streaking back toward their dam ship.

Victory. But at a terrible price. She could not find half a dozen Mistresses.

The main force turned. Marika ordered pursuit abandoned. She wanted no more losses.

She trailed the enemy's withdrawal, watched him recover his surviving rider, then his singleships. The smaller vessels all nestled into recesses in the larger's flanks.

She tried for the main ship's drives, but it kept her too busy evading fire to concentrate.

Riders recovered, the destroyer pulled away. Marika found its acceleration astounding. Such power!

The starship vanished. Like a darkship leaping into the Up-and-Over, yet with a twist that seemed to rend the fabric of the void itself. Marika shuddered to a shock that recalled nearby thunder. But there was no sound out there in the dark.

II "They got whipped, but they'll be back," Commander Jackson prophesied. "They learned what they wanted to know."

"Uhm." Marika conversed in monosyllables, gruffly concealing her uncertainty. Seldom had she been so uncertain of her capacity to cope. The incredible, powerful technology behind that killing machine!

"They'll come ready to fight, Marika. I wish I had orders."

"Why did the smaller ships cling to the large one?"

"Economy. Military grade hyperdrives are costly and bulky. So each hypership carries riders equipped only with cheaper, less massive system drives. Military grade system drives. A Main Battle carries riders on its riders."

Marika sighed. Despair began worming its way deep into her soul.

The destroyer had been gone four days. A ragtag fleet of voidships dropped from the Up-and-Over, badly mauled. Marika hustled her Mistresses out to meet them.

"They're from my homeworld," she told Jackson. "All who were able to fight their way through." They were, in fact, the last star-faring silth save a few crews exploring and not yet aware that the beast was afoot.

"The voidship Starstalker has returned to home space. Accompanied by your enemies." The news the touch carried was almost too grim to bear. "Silth talents have been of little value against alien technology in fighting on the surface." The Communities were struggling bravely and desperately, but with scant hope. The general populace was giving no help. Even the long loyal brethren faction was making only token efforts at resisting.

Marika cursed the All within the shadows of her heart. She, the rebel within silthdom, had been by time and circumstance hammered into a symbol of everything silth. She had become the adhesive bonding harried silthdom together. How had she come to this?

She knew the message borne by the homeworld Mistresses. The Communities were struggling on in hopes she could, once again, stay the jaws of doom.

What was the point? The All seemed determined to see an end to the silth ideal.

She took the wooden darkship into the void alone, beyond the touch of those waiting aboard the derelict. The ashes of Grauel and Barlog rested at the axis. She faced the urns.

Grauel. Barlog. We are returned to where we began. Savages surround us. And this time there is no Akard to send help.

There is a difference, Marika. They war upon silth alone.

True. But without us what would meth be? And how long will it be silth alone?

Silence.

She cruised the dark till exhaustion turned her homeward, not once finding an answer she wanted. There were options, possibilities, and some things that had to be attempted whatever befell, but all outcomes depended upon Jackson's people.

She strode down the arm of the voidship, poised over the last of her pack.

There was no choice. She had promised. She had to take them home.

Jackson told her, "It's insane," after Marika dismissed the assembled Mistresses. "Your silth sorcery won't mean a thing against a rebel fleet. Please wait."

"Your people have shown no interest in what is happening here. There is no point in waiting."

"They must be hard-pressed. It's hard to defend everything when marauders ... "

"Take the struggle to the marauder. That is what I have done all my life. To the sorrow of thousands. No. No, my human friend. This I must do, though it means my end. I have my obligations. To my huntresses who have fallen, to my Community that is no more, to all meth and silth still living. I was created by the All to act. If I achieve no greater victory, I must break through and scatter these ashes before I rejoin the All." None of the Mistresses had questioned that. They understood.

"What you call kalerhag is an obligation?"

Marika eyed Jackson warily. Even the humans? "What makes you mention kalerhag? It is a forgotten rite."

"I doubt that. I cannot speak your language, but I can follow conversations. Kalerhag is a growing theme. The bath especially are talking mass suicide if your mission fails."

Was it engraved on the genes? Kalerhag had been out of vogue for ages, and most recently discredited by Serke behavior in the face of absolute defeat. Yet it became attractive in the face of the terrors borne by these aliens. "It could be," she murmured in her own language. "Should honor and the need of the race demand."

Forget that. That was not a good way to think when there was a strike to mount. She dared think of nothing but conflict. The voidships were poised. The best of the best Mistresses, Henahpla, Cherish, and Satter, were ready to launch the first phase, down interdicted voidpaths, behind a trio of great blacks. Soon horror would stalk the stars.

Marika's own approach would pursue a starway only she knew, only she had the strength to fly.

"Where there is life there is hope. An old saying among my people."

"We meth are fatalists and mystics. Symbol is always more important than substance."

"But suicide ...

"Not suicide. Kalerhag. Sometimes to defy, deny, even defeat fate, one must rob it of its prey."

Jackson shrugged. "Perhaps. Some of our ancestors venerated such gestures."

Marika grunted, withdrew. She assembled her crew, including redundant bath and a back-up Mistress, in the sanctity of a small compartment set aside for ritual. Soon most of the silth aboard had crowded in or were watching from beyond the hatchway. The humans respected that time and stayed away.

Henahpla, Cherish, and Satter were long gone. The principal follow-up forces had departed. The passageways aboard the derelict were naked of silth. Only a few old brethren researchers maintained a meth presence. Marika was about to leave.

She did not expect to return.

Jackson's messenger caught her at the lock, about to share golden liquid. "Mistress, the Commander must see you before you leave."

"Must I?" She did not need her despair reinforced by Jackson's negativity.

"It's critical."

Marika found the Commander in Communications. She sensed bad news immediately.

"My superiors have spoken at last, Marika."

"Sending bad news, of course." She had ignored the arrival of the courier drone.

"It's not good. There has been a change of government." Government was a concept Marika still did not understand. "General orders to the Fleet Arm are to undertake no hostile action till the State stabilizes and determines policy. I am able to defend myself. Nothing more."

"It could have been worse."

Jackson lifted an eyebrow.

"You could have been ordered to turn on us." She strode out, using old drills to calm herself as she hastened to rejoin her bath.

Alone.

In the void there would be little time to worry about betrayal. III Marika drove the darkship as hard as ever she had, hastily scouting the strike points assigned Henahpla, Cherish, and Satter. Each had employed her great black properly. A dead ridership drifted off each rest world, still tainted by last touch-screams. She snarled, an ice-hearted Ponath huntress with the blood of foes upon her fangs. The last weapon.

She grabbed the Up-and-Over, racing along the secret pathway to the homeworld, satisfied that her strategy was sound.

She should arrive first, armed with a great black dragged in from another system. Henahpla and Cherish should appear shortly afterward, armed with great blacks of their own. Satter would grab control of the home system's own black. Four of those monsters ought to be able to overwhelm everything in their way.

She drove hard. Her bath protested. She rested when she must, and resented every minute. Later, she rested one jump from home, after neutralizing a ridership.

All was timing now. The others had to be in position. If they were delayed, her next move would prove disastrous.

The time came.

Nervousness fled during the passage. She maintained an iron grip on her great black. Elation grew. The wait was at an end.

She paused on the brink of the home system briefly, wishing she dared make certain of the others. But the Serke aboard Starstalker were certain to sense the new great black.

Into the Up-and-Over, her mind fixed on Biter. She would use the moon for cover. Out of the Up-and-Over.

She almost lost the black in her astonishment.

The void was aswarm with aliens. Several of their ships were as dreadful as Commander Jackson had promised.

An electromagnetic storm exploded. Her appearance had been detected.

She hurled the great black.

She eased nearer Biter till she hovered in shadow just yards above its barren surface. Spears of light stabbed the night, coming nowhere near her. Beyond the moon, Starstalker flung panicky signals at its allies. The voidship began to move.

Terror and agony flooded the otherworld as a huge alien ship died. Thousands aboard, Marika reflected. The agony of their dying seemed to touch other humans elsewhere on a subconscious level. Their reactions were slow, tentative. She yanked the great black and hurled it at Starstalker.

Panic filled the otherworld.

The Serke voidship vanished. Marika was astonished. She had not thought those old witches possessed the nerve to take the Up-and-Over so close in.

She threw the great black at the largest alien she sensed.

Fire erupted upon Biter's face. Light lances dragged drunken scarlet feet across the monochromatic moonscape. Glowing balls welled by the dozen, yielded by missiles unable to target the wooden darkship.

Marika shifted her attack to a third warship.

A beam struck close by, followed by another. They might be guessing, but they were guessing well.

Out on the margin of touch she sensed another great black. One of her point Mistresses had arrived.

Where was Starstalker?

A beam seared the void only yards away. A missile boiled Biter's face close enough for the fringe gases to buffet her. All through nearby space small attack vessels were closing in.

She flung the great black once more, then gathered smaller ghosts and darted into the Up-and-Over. A missile erupted close by as she went, disturbing her concentration. She lost the great black. It fled before she stabilized her darkship and reached for it again. She cursed, moving nearer the surface of Chaser.

She sensed two great blacks under control out on the lip of the system. Soon, now.

Still no evidence of Starstalker.

She captured a large ghost and flung it into the drive of a medium-size alien hustling toward Biter. It went drifting toward the homeworid, unable to alter course.

She turned to another, again ruined a drive.

The crowd around Biter began turning her way. She ruined a third drive, aboard a ship headed toward her, then grabbed for the Up-and-Over, darting well inside the orbits of the smallest moons. That far in she would be unable to take the Up-and-Over again.

She started down. Best deliver the ashes while the alien remained distracted and confused.

Her latest victim bored into Chaser, igniting a geyser of fire.

Alien ships darted around, trying to locate her. Angry radio blasts filled the ether. Marika continued to marvel at their numbers and sizes. The damage she had done amounted to nothing. Everything they had must be here.

She felt Starstalker return, felt Serke minds questing. And in the same second two great blacks arrived among the foe. A third appeared only two minutes later. One set upon Starstalker. Terrified, the Serke fled again.

The rest of the starfarers should arrive soon.

Marika had no time to follow the struggle. She was going down as fast as she dared, yet not fast enough. The touch of a weary surface silth reached her, warned her that ground-based aircraft were being prepared to intercept her.

She raced toward the sea east of the New Continent, holding that touch with the surface.

The news from below was not good. Only a pawful of silth survived. Most were in hiding, scattered among the populace, pretending to be displaced workers. The alien was in complete control and looked likely to break faith with his Serke allies.

Perfidious males.

Marika felt the approach of the enemy aircraft while she was yet two hundred thousand feet up. She hurled ghosts. Aircraft dropped. How arrogant of them! Not one of their starships or aircraft was equipped with suppressors.

Maybe they did not know. Maybe the Serke were exercising duplicity of their own, counting upon her to batter the alien, and the alien to destroy her, leaving them to pick up the pieces.

She reached the surface unscathed and raced over gray waves edged with fire. One of the ships she had injured was coming down, trailing thunder.

The action beyond the sky was brisk. Three great blacks had ruined the alien's confidence. And now the main forces of darkships were arriving.

But their ships, all their ships, were titanium. IV The shore cliffline reared ahead, giants wearing boots of foam. Beyond, the land betrayed patches of green. Marika was pleased. Here the ice had lain fifty feet thick the last time she had come by. For all that had happened, the mirrors remained active.

She was a long way from the Ponath. Fast as she rushed along, the night was faster. It overtook her before she reached her ancestral territory. There in moonlight the land yet lay skeletal, not all the ice gone, but enough so the heads of hills and bones of dead forests had begun to show through. She slowed, searched for the packstead.

Again and again aircraft came to challenge. None of those that detected her ever came within eyeshot.

The ice had changed the land. Little seemed familiar, though the hills above the Ponath reared naked above the remaining ice. Bald heads where once had stood impenetrable forests. She slowed, uncertain she had reached the right country.

She had flown too far west, for she came upon the promontory where Akard had stood. The ice had left no trace of the fortress. She turned eastward, thinking how puny were the works of meth in the face of the slow fury of nature.

She found the packstead easily, then, for something turned within her, connecting with the land of her birth. Her life there rushed through her mind, a torrent. How did that pup become the hard, cruel bitch riding the night above?

She summoned her backup and ordered her to take over as Mistress, to drift slowly above the site, fifty feet up. Marika went to the axis and collected the urns containing Grauel and Barlog.

Holding those urns, she gazed at the sky. The continuing struggle scarred the outer darkness. She opened, allowed the touch to overwhelm her.

Half her Mistresses had been destroyed. Satter was among those lost. No other Mistress had been able to take control of the system's great black. But the survivors battled on.

The alien had suffered as heavily. A score of crewless starships drifted aimlessly, complicating the battle situation. The struggle remained close despite the technology and numbers ranged against the silth. Henahpla and Cherish, recalling what Commander Jackson had told them about warships, were trying to intimidate the enemy by concentrating on vessels capable of carrying riders away.

Perhaps that was not the wisest tactic, Marika reflected. But she let them continue, with just a light touch to let them know she would be back among them soon.

She opened the urns and sang an ill-remembered memorial chant. The breeze around the darkship wafted bits of meth dust. She continued on into rites of Mourning for the entire Degnan pack, which she had owed for so long.

"I kept my promise, as you kept yours," Marika whispered to the spirits of the huntresses. "We kept faith. Fare you well wherever, and I pray we meet in another life, to hunt the same trails."

Fighter aircraft were coming up from the south and in from the west. Another flight circled over the distant sea, hoping she would flee that way. Up in orbit others were thinking of her too. Starstalker was keeping close track.

She scattered the last ashes, sped one final farewell, then resumed her place at the tip of the dagger, well satisfied that she had fulfilled her principal obligation. Now she could join the rest of silthdom in death.

She had the golden bowl passed, for she felt a need of renewed strength. She had begun to feel her years. And she could not convince herself that self-sacrifice was the only remaining answer.

Ready?

Her crew responded affirmatively. Some even seemed eager to fling themselves into the jaws of the All. There were no doubts in their minds. They would die here, heroically, or later, if vanquished but unslain, in some grand and foolish ceremony.

Marika hurled ghosts wherever aircraft were approaching, scattering wreckage over land and sea. Then she climbed rapidly, calling on her backup to assume the Mistress's duties again.

She stretched herself to the system's bounds, searching for her old dark ally. The great black fought her angrily. She refused to acknowledge its desire to be left alone. She dragged it toward her.

Then she opened to the battle.

It was even no longer. Henahpla had been slain. Cherish had but two bath remaining and could not manage her black while struggling to control her voidship. Several fainthearts had fled for the derelict.

The outcome was no longer in doubt if one were silth enough to read it.

Starstalker began guiding alien warships to intercept Marika.

She whipped the great black in on the Serke voidship. They shrieked and jumped away, but not without having smelled the rotton breath of death. Not distracted by having to manage the darkship, Marika kept watch. She hurled the black the instant she sensed Starstalker returning from the Up-and-Over. Again she got her blow in. Then again, and again, and the fifth time Starstalker did not gather ghosts fast enough to escape.

Marika brushed the Serke voidship once more to make sure it would not recover, then let be. Let them think, and worry, and wonder if their allies would save them or let them die, adrift a few thousand miles from the homeworld they had come so close to recapturing.

The warships above were sniping at the wooden darkship, though Cherish valiantly strove to distract them. Rather than assume control of the darkship, Marika began flinging the great black among those who awaited her. Her hammer blows caught them off guard. In minutes they began to scatter.

Despite the evidence that the struggle would end in their favor, alien ships began leaving the inner orbits. A quick scan told Marika they were removing their jump ships from danger. The riderships would have to carry the brunt.

She might die here. She might be defeated. But already she had won a great victory for Commander Jackson's people. If they took advantage.

She reached orbital altitude despite all that could be thrown her way, though she lost two bath and had to resume control of the voidship before she wanted. She clawed her way into the shadow of one of the smaller moons, dodged from it to another farther out, part of her mind wielding the great black, part seeking ghosts with which to take the Up-and-Over. She wanted to get into open space now, to steal maneuvering room.

Ghosts were scarce. Most of the surviving Mistresses had fled, stripping the surrounding void. She would have to wait till more drifted in.

She pranced around the little moons, among the wrecks of alien ships, at times pretending to be debris. She sent a dozen ridership crews to whatever those creatures recognized as their maker. Always she inched away from the homeworld. Always the All stalked with her, though she was so weary she thought she would collapse any moment.

Cherish died, her soul parting from her flesh with a last scream of touch encouraging Marika to fly away, to regain the derelict and thence mount another offensive. There were a few Mistresses among the stars, wandering. She could bring them in, train them to the great blacks, and finish the massacre begun here.

Marika returned a gentle, thankful touch as Cherish melded into the All. There was one silth who, like herself, never yielded.

She gathered ghosts.

She was alone in the home system, the only darkship still in action. The aliens were closing in. Even those vessels that had withdrawn were returning to taste the kill.

She threw the great black one last time, then jumped, dragging the monster with her a hundred million miles outward.

She waited.

They did not come. They had lost touch.

She had the senior bath pass the golden liquid again. And then she jumped inward again, dropping not four miles from Starstalker and a bevy of small alien attendants.

Good-bye, old witches. Old enemies. You lose again. She loosed the great black and took pleasure in the screams of the dying till enemy fire came so near one of her bath complained of scorched fur.

She skipped into the Up-and-Over, reversing the route she had used to approach the homeworld.