Knight Read online

  A few minutes later they arrived at the arena door. The Wisp stopped and stepped to one side, looking expectant. “Thank you,” Nicole said, turning and again backing into its embrace. Do you have the code to open it?

  No.

  Does the Caretaker have it?

  The Fyrantha has it.

  Can you or the Caretaker get it for me from the ship?

  No.

  So it was going to be the inhaler again. Terrific. Please alert the Caretaker that I’m going to ask the ship for the code.

  A pause. I have done so.

  Thank you, Nicole said. Release me.

  The Wisp opened its arms and Nicole stepped to the door, pulling out her inhaler. This had better not take more than one whiff. “Caretaker? I’m going to take this. Have the Fyrantha give me the Q2 arena door code. Please,” she added belatedly.

  No answer. Bracing herself, she held the inhaler to her mouth and sent a blast into her lungs. She coughed once—

  Enter the arena with the code two zero zero four four three two.

  “Thanks,” Nicole said. She put the inhaler away and punched in the code. The lock snicked, and she grabbed the handle. Kahkitah took hold above her hands, and together they swung back the door.

  The Q4 arena had been a diverse collection of hills, plains, trees, and creeks. The Q3 version had been flat grassland and a single winding river.

  The Q2 arena was an impenetrable jungle.

  Nicole felt her mouth drop open at the sight. Fifty feet from the door was a wall of close-packed trees, bushes, and thick bamboo-looking sorts of grass. The trees got bigger as they went back from the door, and the few hills she could see past the first line of trees also seemed to be covered with the same sorts of plants. There was a light breeze moving through the jungle, making the trees crackle like a fire in a fireplace as they swayed. The wind died and then shifted direction, bringing with it a sweet, flowery aroma.

  Kahkitah gave a deep, untranslatable whistle. “Are Jeff and the others in there?”

  “I don’t know,” Nicole said, a prickling sensation on the back of her neck. It had been bad enough trying to dodge the alien fighters in Q4, where there were only small sections of forest where they could hide. Here, she could walk straight into a spear before she even knew it was there.

  “We must look for them,” Kahkitah said firmly. “Which path should we follow?”

  Nicole frowned. Overwhelmed by the view, she’d completely missed the fact that there were a pair of trails that started at the open area where they were standing and curved in opposite directions into the jungle. With trees on all sides of the paths it was hard to judge their size, but she guessed they were probably wide enough for even Kahkitah to pass without brushing the grass or bushes on either side.

  Not that that was much comfort. Wide enough for a Ghorf didn’t mean it was too wide for a spear. “I suppose—”

  She broke off as a sudden series of doglike barks burst from the jungle, sounding like a whole angry pack was coming at them. She tensed, her eyes darting back and forth, but she couldn’t see anything. “Are you our enemies?” a voice demanded in her brain.

  A Ghorf bird whistle mixed in with the barks. “There,” Kahkitah said, pointing up.

  Nicole followed his finger. Clutching the top of one of the trees in the nearest bunch was a brown-and-gray creature that looked like a combination of a hockey goalie and a squirrel, with pale pink rose petals attached to its head and shoulders. Three of its four limbs were wrapped around the tree, gripping the bark with long, thin claws.

  The fourth paw was clutching a gun.

  Not like the gun Bungie had brought aboard with him. Definitely not like one of the greenfire weapons that had nearly killed Jeff. This was more like a long-nosed paintball gun, complete with a transparent tube hanging down in front of the trigger that held a lot of small yellow balls.

  Up until this morning’s encounter with the Thii and Ponngs, Nicole would have assumed that, whatever the gun fired, it was certainly deadly. Now, having seen the flimsy arrows and swords those other aliens had been given, she wasn’t nearly so certain.

  “Are you our enemies?” the creature demanded again. “We were told to expect enemies.”

  “Well, it’s not us,” Nicole said firmly. “So point that thing somewhere else.”

  The alien hesitated, then lowered his aim a little. “We were told to expect enemies,” he repeated, sounding grumpy.

  “Yeah, we heard,” Nicole said. “A little tip: when they come, they won’t come through this door. They’ll come from across the arena from your hive.”

  “Our hive?”

  “The place where your people are living,” Nicole said. “Big metal rooms, laid out around a central area.”

  The gun snapped up to point at her again. “So you are our enemies,” he snapped. “How else but by ploys and stratagems could you have learned of our home of exile?”

  “Because we work for the ship,” Nicole said with a sigh. “That’s why we’re wearing these.” She gestured to her and Kahkitah’s jumpsuits. “While we’re at it, weren’t you told that people wearing clothes like this were supposed to be left alone?”

  The gun wavered, then lowered again. “We were told many things,” he muttered, his dog barks changing to something that sounded more like a whimpering puppy. “We don’t believe all of them.”

  “Yet you believe you have enemies aboard,” Kahkitah reminded him. “Did the Masters tell you a reason for this?”

  “Our enemies will try to take our food,” the creature said, its whimpers changing to growls. “We must stop them if we’re to survive. To do that, we must kill them.”

  “Obtaining food doesn’t require killing,” Kahkitah said, sounding confused. “Not aboard the Fyrantha.”

  “It does in some places,” Nicole said sourly. So whoever the squirrel-people were, they’d apparently gotten here before whoever the Shipmasters were bringing in for them to fight.

  Unless their opponents were already there, and the squirrel-people just didn’t realize it. If the whole arena looked like this, there could be a small army hiding in there.

  “That doesn’t seem right,” Kahkitah protested. “Why should one need to fight for food? Tell me, friend, who are you?”

  The alien hesitated, then let go of the tree with its other upper limb and made some strange hand gesture. “We are the Ejbofs,” he said, finishing the gesture and taking hold of the tree again.

  “I’m Kahkitah,” Kahkitah introduced himself. “My people are the Ghorfs. This is—”

  “I’m the Sibyl,” Nicole cut him off before he could say her name. Probably useless to hide her identity now that the Shipmasters had her pegged, she knew. Still, the habits of the Philadelphia streets would always be a part of her. “I’m a human. What’s your name?”

  The Ejbof snarled. “Do you mock me?” he demanded.

  Kahkitah sent a startled look at Nicole, then looked up at the Ejbof. “Excuse me?” he asked,

  “I asked if you mocked me,” the alien said, sounding even angrier. “You know full well that I have no name.”

  “I do?” Kahkitah asked, sounding thoroughly confused now.

  “No, actually, we don’t,” Nicole said. The Micawnwi did something similar with their children, she remembered, not giving them names until their fourth birthday. But the creature waving a gun at them sure didn’t look or sound like a three-year-old. “Explain it to us.”

  For another moment the Ejbof glared at her, as if trying to decide if this was just another instance of mocking. “Our names were stripped from us when we were brought here,” he said at last. “We must earn them back before we leave or face eternal shame and loss.”

  “Ah,” Nicole said. That didn’t make a single bit of sense to her—how could anyone call to someone else if they didn’t have names? But she’d seen stranger things aboard this ship. “So what do they call you?”

  “They don’t call me,” he said. “Nor will they.”r />
  “Fine,” Nicole said with a sigh. She’d seen dissing games in Philadelphia, too, and they came off as just as stupid there. “Well, we don’t want to keep you—you never know when some enemies will drop by. But really, they’re going to come from the other direction. Trust me.” She gestured to Kahkitah and started to turn back toward the door.

  There was a snarling yip. “Stop!” the translation came. “I didn’t give you permission to leave.”

  “We didn’t ask for it,” Nicole countered, turning back to glare up at him. “I’m the Sibyl, and you’ve been ordered to leave us alone. And we’re leaving.” She turned again—

  And jerked as something slapped into the back of her right shoulder.

  A piercing whistle split the air as she regained her balance. “Nicole!” Kahkitah screamed, and there was a sudden rustling of leaves and branches. Nicole turned around.

  To find herself facing an extraordinary sight. Kahkitah had shoved his way through the undergrowth to the Ejbof’s tree, wrapped his massive hands around it, and was shaking it for all he was worth.

  It was a tall, thick tree, and Kahkitah was just one Ghorf, and there was no way he could possibly bring it down. But even as Nicole reached over her shoulder with her left hand she realized that wasn’t what he was up to. At the top of the tree, where the swaying was the worst, the Ejbof was holding on for dear life, his gun all but forgotten as he clung to the bark. He gave a plaintive yip—“Stop!” the translation came.

  “Drop the gun first,” Nicole ordered. She let go of her shoulder, wondering if she was bleeding, and brought her hand around to where she could see it.

  It was wet, all right, but not with blood. Smeared across her palm was a band of bright yellow.

  She’d been right the first time. The damn thing was a paintball gun.

  A second later she jerked back as something crossed her peripheral vision. But it was only the paintball gun, tumbling through the air as she’d ordered. For a second it paused in its flight as its shoulder strap hung up briefly on one of the tree branches, then it freed itself and fell the rest of the way to the ground. “All right, Kahkitah, that’s enough,” she said. “I’m okay—it’s just paint.”

  “Paint?” Kahkitah repeated, frowning back at her over his shoulder as he slowed his shaking.

  “Like marker dyes,” she explained, looking up. With his gun hand now freed, the Ejbof was gripping the tree with all four limbs. “I don’t know why the Shipmasters gave them that kind of weapon,” she added to forestall the inevitable next question.

  “They’re for us to mark our opponents for easier sight,” the Ejbof growled. He still sounded angry, but the anger was colored by more than a little caution. Clearly, he hadn’t realized that Ghorfs could do that.

  Actually, Nicole had been rather surprised by Kahkitah’s action as well. Not that he could do something like that—she knew how strong he was—but that he would do it.

  And especially that he’d take such a risk for her. After all, when he’d first charged in they hadn’t known the Ejbof’s weapon wasn’t lethal.

  “You’d better hope your enemies are more easily scared than we are,” she growled back. “We’re leaving now. Got it?”

  “Yes.” He hesitated. “Will you leave me the weapon?”

  Nicole considered. She was hardly in the mood to do him any favors. But on the other hand, there didn’t seem any point in going out of her way to be nasty.

  Besides, getting caught with a gun would be the exact wrong message to send the Shipmasters. “This time, yes,” she said. “You can come down and get it after we’re gone.” She pointed a finger at him. “But the next time you shoot at someone in a colored jumpsuit, I’ll make you eat it.”

  He cocked his head to the side, and it occurred to Nicole that maybe that threat might not have translated accurately. But he seemed to get the idea. “Yes,” he said. “We won’t harm you again.”

  “Good for you,” Nicole said. “Come on, Kahkitah.”

  And besides, she reminded herself soberly as she and the Ghorf sealed the arena door behind them, the Ejbofs were about to find themselves in a fight for their lives. Adding to their troubles would be childish.

  “He seemed very fierce,” Kahkitah commented. “His people should be formidable in battle.”

  “Maybe,” Nicole said. “But I’ve seen plenty of guys who were all big talk until stuff went down. Then they melted like slush.”

  “I see,” Kahkitah said, his whistling going quiet and thoughtful. “You think he may be that type?”

  “No idea,” Nicole said. “But that’s his problem, not ours.”

  “I see,” Kahkitah said again. “What of our problem? Where do we go next?”

  Nicole pursed her lips, trying to work it through. So Jeff and the crew weren’t in Q2 or Q3. She hadn’t gone into the Q4 arena since that last battle between the Micawnwi and Cluufes, and there might have been enough time since then for the Shipmasters to have sent both alien groups home and rigged the arena for a new war game. They could have put Jeff in there.

  But Nicole and Jeff were both familiar with the Q4 setup, and the Shipmasters knew that. If they were trying to figure out what humans were capable of, they probably wouldn’t want them having any kind of home-court advantage.

  In Q4 and Q2 Nicole had a certain level of authority, at least regarding control of the Wisps in those sections. In Q3 she didn’t seem to have any control at all, but maybe that was just the lack of politeness. Anyway, she’d already checked out the arena there.

  That left Q1.

  Ushkai had warned her the Shipmasters had control over the Fyrantha’s main functions. If all of that stuff was located in Q1, it was a good bet that they would have full authority over the Wisps there, as well.

  Which made the Q1 arena the perfect place for Fievj to set up his experiment.

  “We’ve got one more place to check out,” she told Kahkitah with a sigh. “Come on.”

  * * *

  From the arena door, it was just a short trip toward the Fyrantha’s midline and the wide heat-transfer duct that marked the boundary with Q1. The Q2 Wisps again came at Nicole’s call, though she didn’t have the nerve to try summoning them without saying please. A minute later, they were standing beside the duct just inside the edge of Q1. Nicole ordered the Wisps to wait, and she and Kahkitah headed off.

  Once again, as with the Q3 and Q4 arrangement, the Q1 arena wasn’t directly across from its Q2 counterpart. If this was the same arrangement as with those two, she and Kahkitah needed to head toward the back of the ship.

  The corridor that ran along the midline would be the simplest and probably the straightest. But it also might be a little too obvious if the Shipmasters came looking for them. Instead, she led Kahkitah two corridors farther in, to a somewhat more-twisty hallway, and headed toward the rear of the ship.

  Once, back in Philadelphia, Trake had sent her and Bungie on a supply run across another gang’s territory. Bungie had been super excited about the job, figuring it was his chance to show Trake that he should be getting more jobs and a bigger cut of the pie. Nicole had been a lot less thrilled, figuring it was mostly her chance to get herself killed. In the end it had worked out okay, but there’d been a couple of tense moments. The whole experience had left her with two nights of drinking her fears away and a promise to herself to never again invade someone else’s territory.

  So now, here she was, walking in on the worst and most dangerous gang she could ever dream of.

  “Where are we going?” Kahkitah asked as they walked down the silent corridors.

  “Not so loud,” Nicole growled, wincing. This part of the ship was as silent as Q4 had been. But if this was where the Shipmasters hung out, there probably weren’t any work crews here. At least no human ones.

  And anyone the Shipmasters liked hanging out with was someone Nicole definitely didn’t want to bump into.

  “Sorry,” Kahkitah apologized, his whistling sinking to the Ghorf vers
ion of a whisper.

  “It’s okay,” Nicole said. “We’re heading to the arena on this side.”

  “To find Jeff?”

  “Yeah,” Nicole said. Hopefully, she thought.

  There was a hint of movement at one of the cross-corridors ahead, a faint suggestion of shifting shadow. Nicole tensed, fighting back the urge to run back to where they’d left the Q2 Wisps—

  From the cross-corridor a Wisp appeared.

  Nicole felt herself wilt a little with relief. The Wisps here probably wouldn’t obey her, but at least it wasn’t Fievj or one of the other Shipmasters. The Wisp rounded the corner and glided toward them.

  “It’s coming toward us,” Kahkitah murmured. “Will it obey you?”

  Nicole shook her head. “Probably no—”

  Right in the middle of the word a pair of arms slipped around her shoulders from behind and locked themselves across her chest.

  And once again, she found herself completely paralyzed.

  Stupid, she snarled silently at herself. She knew how quietly the Wisps traveled. She should have kept an eye behind them for just this sort of ambush.

  Only she hadn’t. And now she was going to pay the price for her distraction. So far the Shipmasters had handled her like a gang handled a cop—not with any friendliness, but knowing not to push the line too far. But here in their probable stronghold, cut off from Wisps and maybe even Ushkai, who knew what they might be willing to risk? They could interrogate her, order her to back off, maybe even lock her up somewhere. Now that the Wisp had her helpless, it would be a simple matter of the creature turning to the right and taking Nicole down whatever corridors led to the Shipmasters’ hive or headquarters or whatever.

  Only the Wisp didn’t turn to Nicole’s right. Instead, it turned to her left.

  Nicole tried to frown. To her left? But there was nothing in that direction. Nothing but the midline, and the Q2 areas beyond it.

  And the heat-transfer duct.

  And suddenly, she understood what was going to happen.

  The Shipmasters weren’t simply going to lock her up. They’d decided to go with a more permanent solution.