“So, you don’t need the help of any ‘damned sidhe’?” Veriasse smiled. “Your friend Gallen may be a fine man, but he is a stranger to our world. I doubt that he will be able to bring your friend out.”
“Ah, keep your misgivings to yourself,” Orick grunted. “Gallen got himself a bit of book learning. He knows plenty.”
“At the very least, I can expedite his plans,” Veriasse offered. “What were his plans?”
“I’m not sure he has any,” Orick said. “Gallen doesn’t work that way.”
Veriasse considered. “I’ll leave Everynne to your care. Right now, she is down by the road. I want you to take her deeper into the woods, then come back here shortly after dawn. I don’t want you here to meet Gallen if he comes back.”
“Why?”
“Because if he is captured by the vanquishers, then he will lead them here.”
“Gallen would never do that!”
“If they put a Guide on him, then he will have no choice,” Veriasse countered. “Please, take her with you, and I will see what I can do for Gallen and Maggie.”
Veriasse watched Orick head down the valley toward the road. He rummaged through his pack, put on a mantle as a disguise, then walked to Toohkansay. Since he was already dressed and masked as a lord of Fale, no one challenged him. Even if they had, they would find that Veriasse, Lord of Information Managers, was registered as a citizen of the world. His forged records included computerized documentation that detailed much of a fictional life, down to his bathing schedule and the content of meals purchased during the past seventy years.
Veriasse went to the northwest quadrant of the city where the aberlains worked. He found the place to be heavily guarded. Green-skinned vanquishers on roving patrols were a sure sign that dronon guards resided within. In some places, he found that the living walls of the city were blackened by fire. Obviously, resistance bombers had been at work here within the past few weeks, and Veriasse suddenly became very concerned about Maggie.
He had worried before about her treatment by the dronon and her lord, but he had not considered the very real possibility that her greatest threat came not from her captors but from the local freedom fighters. Before, when he’d heard that Maggie was captured, he’d wondered why Karthenor had made such a poor choice of worker, but now he saw that indeed Maggie might have been exactly what the lord needed-someone who was alone in the city, someone who would not be missed. By taking slaves who were well tied to the community, Karthenor would only have earned further resentment.
Veriasse cursed himself, wondering if he might be able to get in touch with some of these freedom fighters. But he had to find Gallen first.
As he had imagined, the exterior of the compound was well secured. In sensitive areas, the dronon had installed heavy doors that would resist bombing.
Veriasse finished his scouting expedition and went down to the pidc. There he requested to view all documents that Gallen had studied. The teacher gave him the information, and Veriasse was impressed. Gallen had tried to retrieve data on Maggie’s rooming situation, but the computer had not given him such sensitive information, nor would it supply a map of the interior of the compound. So Gallen had requested information on all areas where the aberlain compound did not extend, and had thus retrieved a negative image of the compound. By requesting maps of the laundry chutes which went through the floors below, he had been able to decipher the location of the living quarters for the aberlain workers. Veriasse studied the map, saw that most of the rooms had exterior exits. But Gallen went one step farther. He had requested computerized readouts on the electrical output for each room. One of the apartments had been left idle for three days, then suddenly recorded a tenant who turned on the lights each evening for a moment before retiring.
Gallen had taken his questioning one final step. The room had a southern exposure, and Gallen had asked the city computer to study the temperature records for the room and then determine whether the occupant left the windows open at night. The computer responded by showing that for the past two nights, the windows were left open, but the computer shut them when the temperature dropped below a certain threshold.
Veriasse smiled, impressed that some rustic could negotiate through the city’s information system so smoothly. At the same time, Gallen showed some gaping holes in his education. For one thing, the boy didn’t know that he’d left a data trail that would indict him. Veriasse asked the computer to run a credit check on Gallen, found that the boy was attempting to purchase clothing, ropes, and air exchangers-items he would need for his rescue attempt. Yet Gallen was broke. Veriasse used his credentials as a Lord of Information Managers to have the computer transfer credits from his personal account into Gallen’s account, then he ran a security-delete on most files that mentioned Gallen’s name.
He sat for a moment, thinking. Before Gallen tried to climb in that open window, he would need to neutralize the motion detectors. One could build a simple jammer that would disable any warning the motion detectors might send.
Veriasse would have to work fast, if he were to complete the jammer before Gallen tried to rescue Maggie.
Maggie tried to sleep, but after Avik left her, her lust kept her awake. Near dawn, her Guide quit stimulating her sexual appetites, and Maggie was free to dream: she dreamed of Tlitkani, of the dronon, and in her dream Maggie’s heart stirred with passion. The queen walked across a plaza of white stone, and her chitin flashed gold in the sunlight. She was perfect in every respect-without a flaw or blemish, not so much as a nick in her exoskeleton, and all around her was a great celebration. Dronon warriors with their heavy front battle arms knelt at her feet, battle arms crossed and extended in a sign of reverence. Tan dronon technicians with thin little segmented hands stood by to adore her, too, along with the small white workers. But among the insect hordes were many humans in all manner of clothing and attire, worlds of them, dancing and capering about, gazing at with adoration shining from their eyes. Little human children had made garlands of flowers and strewn them at her feet, and a song rose up from humans and dronons alike, their voices raspy with fervor, praising the Golden Queen.
In her dream, Maggie felt such a profound respect for the golden one that tears streamed from her eyes. To simply gaze upon her caused a height of religious feeling unparalleled in all Maggie’s life.
Maggie woke, eyes still streaming with tears, and her Guide whispered to her, “This is a vision I have given you of the future you shall help bring to pass. When a dronon looks upon its Golden Queen, it feels the ineffable sense of awe and wonder I have shared with you. We shall insert the genes that cause this condition into the fetuses of your children, so that they will no longer view the dronon as aliens, but will see them as brothers. Today you begin laboring within the inner sanctum of our compound, and you will help in the great work of bringing to pass the Adoration.”
Having said this, the Guide had Maggie rise from bed, shower, and go down to eat. She was dead on her feet with fatigue, and after breakfast, the Guide had her walk into a part of the aberlains’ working compound that she had not visited before. On her previous days, Maggie had worked only at the reproduction labs, but far more of the aberlains’ labors were spent here in the research department, the inner sanctum of the aberlains’ lair.
Here, she joined Avik’s research team, which was supervised directly by Lord Karthenor. Here, Karthenor engaged in decoding dronon DNA so that the genes that carried Adoration might be discovered. To work here was a great honor, and the Guide stimulated Maggie’s emotions so that she approached her task with a proper sense of reverence.
The research department was dark and warm, with dim red lights to simulate conditions on the planet Dronon itself. Black-carapaced dronon vanquishers patrolled the corridors while dronon technicians worked side by side with humans in their sterile white coats.