"Eric!" shouted Aria. "Stop!"
Eric froze. With her distant eyes, Aria watched the gel pull itself back down into the floor, into herself.
There was nothing left behind.
"What did you do?" Aria asked the Mind softly.
I have maintenance functions that I can operate without aHand. I used one of those. The voice was miserable, tiny and lost. What will we do now?
"Aria?" called Eric down the corridor.
"In here!" Slowly, she drew back, bringing her whole self back to her body.
No! cried the Mind. Don't go!
"I'll be back, I swear. Tell me how I can bring a Hand with me."
And she knew, had always known, would always know.
She lifted her hand away from the stone and staggered from the weight of the sudden, appalling loneliness.
"What is this place?"
Eric's voice startled her, because she couldn't see him. She turned carefully around, holding herself up by sheer force of will. Her knees seemed to have turned to rubber, and her eyes did not want to focus.
"I think," she said, with difficulty, "it's where the Servant brought my ancestress."
Heart pushed his way into the room beside Eric, only to stop and stare at what he saw. His gaze moved around the chamber in short, sharp jerks until it finally rested on Aria. "Where is Jay?"
"I don't know," she said. I don't really want to know.
"Are you all right?" Eric moved to her side and laid a cool hand on her cheek.
"Mostly." She lifted his hand away. "I've found out what the Vitae's Ancestors left behind, though, and I think we can use it to fight them back again." She raised her eyes to his. "It'll take both of us, though. It needs a Hand and an Eye."
Eric's breath caught in his throat. "What is it?"
"I don't think I can explain." She gestured toward the control banks. "It's a kind of computer, or an AI. It calls itself the Mind, and it needs us to move, and to see. It's…I don't know what it is."
Eric licked his lips and eyed the stones. "What do I have to do?"
Aria fished one of her remaining namestones from her pouch and set it into the empty socket next to the first one. She took the third stone in her left hand. "Lay your hand on
RECLAMATION 437
this stone and that one." She held it out. "I'm not sure what's going to happen."
Eric gave a soft chuckle. "You say this like it's a new thing, Aria."
"Hand on the Seablade!" Heart waved his hand at the room and all its strangeness. "Have you lost your mind? What is this? You wanted to get the Notouch, you've got her, let's leave here!"
Eric shook his head. "And you claim to know the apocrypha. Didn't the Servant and the Notouch walk into the earth? And didn't they speak to the Realm?"
Heart folded his arms. "This is no time to debate philosophy…"
"I agree," said Eric wearily. "So be quiet and watch our backs."
He laid his hand on the stone she held and Aria felt its warmth flow straight into her. Together, they pressed their palms against the namestones in the bank.
The Mind opened for them. No shock. No reaching. No readjustment. Easy as breathing. Pure. Whole. Alive. Free.
No fear. No consequence. No limit. No barrier. No binding. No stopping. No time, distance, exhaustion, or end.
Freedom.
The Vitae called themselves the Nameless Powers! Aria crowed and she knew Eric heard her. He was with her, of her, around her, like thought and breath and light. That title belongs to us!
Shall we teach them that? His thought came back to her. All the delight he felt, she savored and returned. It doubled and came back, and came back again. Delight. Fury. Power. Freedom.
Revenge.
Oh, yes!
No, said the Mind, but there was no force to the plea, just a minor tug of the conscience. Don't make me do this. Not again.
But the heat of the task and the joy of their freedom ran through them. It spread out into the Mind.
The blood of the World began to quicken.
18—Station Thirty-seven, Section Eighteen, Division Nine, The Home Ground, 11:20:19, Settlement Time
"This is what the Aunorante Sangh cannot understand. Life cannot be controlled. Trying to keep your grip on it will break your own hand."
—Fragment from The Apocrypha, Anonymous
"CONTRACTOR!"
Kelat tore his gaze away from the monitors on the artifact's holding tank. Behind him, the Bio-tech Beholden had moved back from the bulge in the wall they had designated tank 4B. Although it had no seams or joints, a space had opened in the bulge and a shadow crawled out into the light.
It was a crablike thing, all legs and shell and no visible eyes. It made Kelat think of cleaning drones. Its body glistened with some gelatin-like substance, giving it a steely sheen. It skittered over the edge of the tank and the Beholden crowded away from it. Kelat took a step forward. It smelled like fresh soil and blood. It scuttled between the equipment racks and the holding tank without pausing. Kelat counted ten double-jointed legs protruding from the ocher shell as it passed him.
"Any change in the artifact's condition?" Kelat turned one eye to the Bio-tech Holrosh. The crab had reached the communications terminal. It extended its front four legs and touched the casing below the boards.
"No, Contractor," murmured the Bio-tech. His eyes had gone wide watching the crab cross the chamber.
Kelat felt a burst of hope and fear simultaneously. Has Jahidh won? Has he found the key to this place?
The crab drew its legs away, leaving tiny blobs of gel on the terminal. Kelat mentally shook himself. Until he knew for sure that this was Jahidh's doing, he had to observe the proprieties. As the crab steadied itself upon its four back legs, Kelat touched his torque. "I require a Witness in Station thirty-seven, immediately," he said, not taking his eyes off the crab.
"Contractor?" said one of the Engineers.
Kelat glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Another crab emerged from 4B.
"Seal that," he ordered, not caring who obeyed. Observe the proprieties, go through the motions, he told himself. This has got to be Jahidh. Why didn't that fool boy get a message to me first?
Maybe because it's not Jahidh, whispered a treacherous thought in the back of his mind.
The new crab jumped to the floor and scampered for the chamber's entranceway, which was sealed by an airtight membrane.
"Blood of my ancestors!" cried someone.
The first crab was scraping the casing off the comm terminal. It scrabbled six of its legs against the metallic panels. A shower of silver dust fell to the floor and, in a few seconds, it created a five-centimeter-wide hole that bared the first layer of fiber optics.
"No Witnesses are available," said a voice through Kelat's disk. "The settlement is experiencing a security emergency." So are we, thought Kelat ridiculously. "Orders will be rel…" A Beholden thrust his hands into a pair of sterile gloves and reached for the crab at the comm terminal.
"No!" shouted Kelat, but the Beholden had already lifted the thing up. Its legs flailed helplessly in the air as he carried it toward 4B. The Engineers had a layer of polymer film almost stretched across it.
"Blood!" Bio-tech Holrosh pointed toward the entrance, and Kelat looked almost involuntarily. The second crab had pressed itself against the threshold and hooked its legs into the membrane.
"Suits!" Kelat snatched his helmet off the rack by the wall. A crab scuttled by his feet, heading straight for the comm terminal. Jahidh, you are overreaching yourself…