"Keep moving! Keep moving!" The order came across his disk. Kelat forced his feet to keep going, forced his eyes to stay fixed on the shuttle pad that he could just now see between the colored backs of the other personnel.
Inside his glove, his regrown finger spasmed painfully.
Beware your own creations, Vitae, said a voice from childhood lessons inside his head. Beware your own creations.
We thought it was the human-derived artifacts we needed to tame. We thought the world was ours already. How do we fight the ground we're standing on? When it's ordered us away, what can we do to defy it?
Security was trying. A pair of them fired off an incendiary from a tripod-mounted launcher. It arced through the air and burst against one of the crystal fingers as it stretched toward a second transport. The crystal shriveled like a burning leaf. The sparks died quickly in the thin air. Another incendiary went up and the finger collapsed into ash.
The dust started to ripple. It hunched up under the security team's feet. A whip of silicate wrapped around the Beholden's ankles and dragged them down. More screams. Kelat's hand slapped his helmet over his ear. He wanted to shut them out. He didn't want to hear them die. They were dying. No question. They were being pulled under the dust and scrubbed to pieces, just like the equipment in the chamber. They'd be made into more dust for the Nameless Powers to use against the Vitae.
Perhaps it's right and proper, part of him wanted to laugh. Now they, too, are the work of the Ancestors. Dust coated the tips of his boots. He could feel it against his feet, working its way up his ankles. It lay against his skin, waiting for him to slow down. Waiting for him to ignore the orders he had been given to leave here.
Kelat stumbled across the edge of the shuttle pad. The ship waited like a gleaming haven. Dust crept across the edges of the pad and he bit down hard on his tongue to keep from screaming. It was coming for them. All of them. They weren't moving fast enough. They weren't moving well enough, just as they hadn't come in well enough. They were unworthy and the Ancestors would take them back to become part of the real work if they did not obey orders.
Security flanked the shuttle doors, bodily restraining anyone who panicked. That was good. That was right and proper. All proprieties had to be observed now. Kelat moved, quickly, calmly, just like all the evacuation drills dictated. He climbed up the ramp. He didn't push. He didn't cry. He found an empty seat and he sat. His finger twitched, but he did not. He would not. He was calm. He was not panicking. He was Vitae and a Contractor. He was in control although the world itself had gone mad. He had not. He would not.
The Engineer next to him had switched on the seat's terminal. The camera picked up the sight of two aircraft streaking overhead toward the World's Wall.
"Maybe they've found what's causing this," suggested the Engineer. "The bombs seem to have some effect."
"No." Kelat's voice was properly emotionless. "There's nothing they can do."
The aircraft faltered in their paths. Maybe the dust had found their navigation computers. Maybe some radiation or scrambling signal had reached them. They dived straight for the mountainside.
"You see?" Kelat said to the Engineer as the craft exploded in a puff of dust and fire. "This is the work of the Ancestors, and now, so are they."
Kelat turned his eyes straight forward and folded his hands on his lap. His new finger ticked in time with his steady heartbeat. He'd have to see about having it removed again, as soon as they returned home.
They are gone, said the Mind.
"Not far enough. They still orbit the sun. They still watch. We must…we must…"
You are exhausted. This is a task for a hundred, not for two. You must rest.
"We must order them away! We must speak to them all!"
I have no machinery I can use for this. I have no such transmitters left.
"You do. Its name is Adu. It should still be in range."
Barely. Reach out.
The Hand stretched with all its strength.
Yes, we can touch it.
The voice rang through every terminal, every disk in the shuttle. "I am Adudorias. I am Voice for the Realm of the Nameless Powers."
Kelat raised his eyes toward the shuttle's ceiling. He began tugging at his little finger.
"The Rhudolant Vitae have been declared Aunorante Sangh," said Adudorias. The voice of the Ancestors.
Kelat tightened his grip on his regrown finger. Tug, tug, tug.
"If you seek to contact the Realm and the People, you must do so in penance and peace."
Tug, tug, tug.
"Until then, when the Eyes see you, the Hands will move against you."
Tug, tug, tug.
"The Mind will accept no thought from you."
Tug, tug, tug.
"Leave."
Tug, tug, tug.
The Moderator's voice, the one voice all Vitae knew instantly, sounded over the public channels. She sounded not calm, but half-dead. "Withdraw, Vitae. Come home."
And that was all. Kelat tugged harder at his finger. Its joints began to strain.
With luck, he could have it off by the time they docked with the Grand Errand. He could feed it to the gel and dust that clung to his boots, and it would be satisfied. The Ancestors would be satisfied. They would not then call him to their work.
He would be safe then.
Kelat pulled harder.
Now they are gone. They are pulling their satellites and shuttles into their main ships. They are releasing their tethers.
"Not far enough. Not yet."
You are placing too much strain upon yourselves. I will not let you die. I cannot. You will return when you have rested. Then we will work. I will wait.
The Mind pushed. The Hand and the Eye lost their concentration and fell away.
The namestone thudded to the floor and Eric's hand dropped against Aria's. Aria couldn't hold her own hand up and it fell to her side. Her lips were cracked and dry. Her eyes could barely blink and every limb of her body felt like it was made of lead. She looked up at Eric. His skin had a grey pallor.
"What happened?" He slowly, painfully turned his face toward her.
"We won," Aria told him.
She collapsed into his arms and both of them slid to the floor.
Aria's first sensation was of a hard, unyielding surface under her right side. Her second was of a human hand lying heavily against her throat.
She forced her eyes open.
She was still in the chamber of the Mind. Her namestone lay on the floor about two yards away. She blinked at the table legs and the floor. The shadows still hung in their feathery net, watching her closely. Eric lay beside her, unconscious as a stone.
Her head ached. Her body ached. Thirst was a nagging itch at the back of her mind, along with hunger. She knew enough to know that that dull, persistent sensation meant she had been too hungry and too thirsty for too long.
With a grunt, she sat up. Eric's hand slid down her body and landed in her lap.
"Eric?" She rolled him onto his back and felt for his breathing. Heart was nowhere to be seen. "Eric!"
Eric's eyelids fluttered and pulled open. His mouth twitched and his hand lifted off the floor, reaching for the stone.
"No." Aria laid her own hand over his wrist. "No, Eric."
He licked his lips. There was blood on them. "I want…"
"No, you don't," she said, pressing down gently so that his palm touched the floor. "You want to stand up and help me get out of here."
His eyes searched her face, attempting to understand what she had just said.
Nameless Pow…Aria broke the thought off. What did he feel? I was barely ready for it, and I was used to the stones.