Modesitt, L.E. - Hammer of Darkness

VIP免费
2024-12-13 1 0 373.16KB 142 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
Part I
The Planet of Eternal Light
I
In toward Galactic Center, the myth implies, there is a star so hot it is a
mere (lot in the sky of that planet where the God of Darkness and the Lady of
Light live- Just as this sun has only one planet, so is there only one God,
the God of Darkness.
In fact, stars that hot, FO or hotter, don't have planets. And if they did,
the star wouldn't last long enough to allow planetary development of a
terrestrial environment.
Even if such a god existed and if he could build a planet from scratch, why
would he be humanoid or interested in humanity?
-- Lectures on Pan-Humanoid Myths
Prester Smythe Kinsel
University of New Augusta
1211 A.O.E.
II
The young woman sits on the edge of the ornate bed where she is being watched.
“Everyone watches the Duke's daughter,” she says in a low voice. Even the
Duke's security force. More since the accident, she suspects. She cannot
remember much of what she knows she should know.
The Duchess was solicitous, and her father the Duke growled. Yet he cares.
She frowns and leans forward, letting her long black hair flood over the
shoulders of her pale blue travel suit.
Why should her memories be so cloudy? She can remember everything since she
returned so clearly, but the people around her, the rooms, they all have a
clarity that the past does not have.
Yet she belongs. The well-thumbed holobook in her father's study shows images
of her growing up, standing at her father's knee, holding his hand.
Perhaps her studies at the Institute will help. Perhaps time will remove the
awkwardness of relearning her past. Perhaps...
“Back into the fishbulb,” she says out loud, crossing the room that would have
held five of the single sleeping room she had occupied at Lady Persis'.
Somehow, the long row of garments hanging in the wardrobing room does not
surprise her, although she has not remembered them. She walks through the
wardrobe to the tiles and direct light of the bath. Neither does she remember
its luxury. Half shrugging, she catches sight of herself in one of the full-
length mirrors.
“Disheveled,” she observes, looking at her hair. Something is right about it,
for the first time in a long while, and something is not, nagging feelings she
cannot place.
She squints until her eyes close. She opens them again. Her reflection awaits
her.
III
“I don't understand, Martin. You're not registered ...”
Not registered . . . a Query on your name . . , blocked even from the Duke's
code , . .
Kryn's words are clipped, and even without the underlying concern he can
sense, Martin knows of her unrest from the shortened speech.
The courtyard, the one where they always meet, is chill, as chill as the
weather controls ever allow on the Planet of the Prince Regent of the Empire
of Man. The little winds shuffle the small needles from the miniature cone-
pines back and forth along the interior walls. No shadows, for the overcast is
heavy enough to block the winter sun, and the climatizers have not succeeded
in dispersing the clouds.
Kryn shivers, and the blue-clad guard involuntarily steps forward out of the
corner, then back into the columns.
Always the guards. Martin reflects, always the trappings of power.
His eyes flicker over the communit bracelet that links her into the Regency
data system, the blue leather overtunic that costs more than his total
tuition, the sunpearls on her ring fingers. He clears his throat.
“It's not that simple, Kryn.” Not simple at all. He cannot register for
further grad study, not with the Query stamped against his name.
No reason is given, and the junior registrar with whom he'd managed to get a
face-to-face appointment had not known anything ..,. nothing except a few
vague thought fragments unvoiced to Martin.
. . . has to be dangerous . . . deadly . . . not even Darin will meet him . .
. why me? , . . Darin's ex'Marine . . . afraid of a student . . . why me?
“The real reason?” Martin had pressed. “Imperial Security, Citizen MarteL That
is all the University is told.” Her smooth dark brow and open thoughts had
revealed nothing else, even when he had probed deeply. And no one wanted to
talk to him.
That had been it. Someone, somehow, had fed the results of the damned paracomm
tests to Imperial Security, and he was out of grad school and on his way to
the mines or the Marines . . - the only employment open to someone who was
Queried.
“Why not?” snaps Kryn, her cold words bringing him back from his thoughts into
the chill of the Commannex courtyard.
“Because I can't get a job, any job, on Karnak. With no credits, I can't free-
lance. If I could, no one could hire my services. So it's either off Kamak, or
the Marines and off Kamak shortly. That's the choice.”
“There has to be another one.' Her voice is matter-of-fact. So are her
feelings, Martin can tell and she is as calm as her mother, the Iron Duchess,
in telling a subject he is mistaken. Kryn will be Duchess, or more, Martin
knows.
“If you could be so kind. Lady Kryn Kirsten, as to suggest another alternative
for your obedient subject, Martin Martel, I would be most deeply obliged.
Particularly since my student status will be terminated rather shortly.”
“How soon?”
“Tomorrow ... today ... perhaps three days. The term is over, and the minimum
guarantees of the Regency toward a Free Scholar have been met.”
He looks down at the flat white of the marble pavement, then lifts his eyes to
watch the dust devil in the far corner scatter a small heap of cone needles.
The sunlight floods abruptly into the courtyard. “The climatizers succeed
again,” the ex-Scholar remarks, “bringing light into darkness, except for a
few of us.”
“Martin!”
He realizes that she wants to stamp her foot but refrains because the action
would be unladylike.
He chuckles, and the low sound eddies through the columns. The guard in the
shadows, now that there are shadows with the full winter sunlight beaming
down, edges forward.
“What will you do?” Her question comes almost as a dismissal, an acceptance.
“I don't look forward to spending five years in the ore mines . . . and I
don't have the heroic build of the successful Imperial Marine. So I'm somewhat
limited.”
“You aren't answering the question.”
“I know. You don't want to hear the answer.”
“You could leave the Empire . ..”
“I could. If I had the creds for passage. But no one can hire me to pay my
way, except an outsider, and outsiders aren't allowed to downport here. And I
don't have passage to the orbitport.”
“I could help.”
“I've already made arrangements.”
“You didn't!”
'The Brotherhood is looking for comm specialists, so . . .”
“But” -- her voice sharpens -- ”that's treason.”
“Not unless the Regent changes the law.” He ought to. Brotherhood is nothing
but trouble. “Perhaps he will,” Martin supplies the follow-on to her thought.
“But they do pay, and will clear me from Imperial space, if necessary.”
“Why?”
“Because, Lady Kryn Kirsten,” Martin answers the ques' tion she meant, “I came
off the dole, and I will not spend five years at slave labor in the hope that
a black mark will be lifted from my name.”
“May be Da -- , the Duke, I mean, could take care of that.” Martin refrains
from trying to read her thoughts. “I doubt that even the Duke could remove the
Prince Regent's Query. And why would he? For a penniless scholar who's
attracted to the very daughter he's planning to marry into the Royal Family?”
“Martin Martel! That's totally uncalled for.” How did he know? Never said . .
. paracomm?
“Realistic,” he says in a clipped tone, trying to allay her suspicions. “Duke
of Kirsten holds the most powerful House on Kamak next to the Regent. What
else?” So obvious, so obvious even to poor sweet Martin. He cannot keep the
wince from his face.
“Martin ... what, how do you know?” He reads thoughts, I know he does. How
long? What does he really know?
“Nothing that the gossip tabs haven't already spread. Nothing every student in
the Commannex hasn't speculated.”
Sweat, dampness, runs down Martin's back, with the perception that the guard
is drawing his stunner, edging the setting beyond the stun range toward
lethal.
Martin concentrates on the energy flows in the stunner, puzzling how to divert
them, to distract Kryn from her iron-cold purpose, to just leave without
raising any more fear and suspicion.
Aware of his sleeve wiping perspiration off his forehead, strange itself in
the courtyard chill, he stammers.
“Nothing . . , nothing more to be said. Lady Kryn, time to depart . . .
fulfill my contract to the Brotherhood . , , and then if you hear of a newsie
named Martel on a far planet ... think about corel”
No .., no! Treason? Corel. Romance and flowers to the last. But a Duchess is
as a Duchess does.
Her hands touch the Stud on her wide belt, the stud that screams “emergency”
to the guard. The tight-faced man in blue aims the stunner.
Zinnnng! The strum of the weapon fills the courtyard. “I wish you hadn't,
Kryn. Wish you hadn't,” mumbles Martin, knowing that he has bent the focus of
the beam around him, knowing that such is impossible.
The guard knows it also, looks stupidly down at the stunner, then raises it
again, only to find that the blackclad student has disappeared, and that tears
stream down the cheeks of the Lady Kryn Kirsten.
Along the courtyard wall, behind the black marble bench, lit by the slanting
ray of the afternoon sun, the dust devil restacks the pile of cone needles.
IV
Aurore
No shadows has the noon; no darkness has the night, And no man wears a shade
in that eternal light.
The night has not a star; the sky has not a sun, Nor is there dusk nor dawn to
which a man can nm.
No breakers crash at night, nor fall on sand unlit. No lightning flares the
dark where coming years might fit.
No dawn will break like thunder; no eve will crash like surf, No shadows seep
from tombs to mark its golden turf.
And if that's so, then why does darkness stalk the sky, And only one god cast
a shade to those who die, And only one god cast a shade for those who die?
v
The overhead is pale yellow. The color is the first thing he notices. That,
and that he is on his back, stretched out on a railed bed of some sort.
The second observation is that he wears a loose yellow robe, nothing more,
that is hitched up close to his knees.
There is no pillow, no sheeting, just a yielding surface on which he lies. He
lifts his head, which aches with the pain he associates with stunners. Kryn's
guard had missed, but not Boreas.
“You'd think you'd learn, Martin,” he mutters. You'd think you'd learn, Martel
He scans the room. No one else is present. The portal is shut. A single red
light on the panel next to the portal is lit. The unlit light, he presumes, is
green.
The railing lowers with the touch of a lever, and Martin swings his legs over
the edge and eases himself into a sitting position. Rubbing his forehead with
his left hand, he continues the survey of his quarters. “Wonder if I'm being
monitored.” Wonder if I'm being monitored.
Besides the bed, there are two chairs, a low table rising out of the flooring
between them, a higher bedside table, an opaqued window screen, and a closet.
The sliding doors of the wardrobe/closet are half open, and Martin can see
that his few belongings have been laid out on the shelves or hung up. The
travelbag is folded flat on the top shelf, '
He shakes his head, winces at the additional pain the movement generates, and
studies the room silently.
No speakers, no inconsistencies in the walls that could conceal something.
As he lowers himself to the floor the room wavers in front of his eyes.
“Not again!” He recalls the paratest that led to his confinement, that test
which seems so distant, even though just days past.
Not again! The echo pounds into his skull. Slow step by slow step, he covers
the meter or so from his bed to the wardrobe, putting each foot down
carefully, unsure of his perceptions and his footing. By the time he puts out
a hand to lean on the wall edge of the wardrobe, he is dripping sweat. He
shivers.
The robe, which had felt almost silky when he awoke, grits against his skin
like sandpaper. Martin fingers the cuff, but the material still feels smooth
to his fingertips.
He shivers again, but ignores the chill to concentrate on the personal
belongings laid out on the chest-level recessed wardrobe shelf.
Two items leap to his eye. The first is the solidio cube of Kryn, which glows
with a new inner light. The second is the Regent's Scholar belt clasp. Before,
it had been a dull maroon. Now it glowers at him with a crimson malevolence.
One hand against the wall, stilt propping himself up, the former scholar and
present fugitive/prisoner checks the garments. The robes provided by the
Brotherhood have all been replaced with simple pale yellow tunics and
trousers, three sets, and two new pairs of soft brown formboots lie on the
floor.
After wiping his forehead with the back of his cuff, still looking silky and
feeling gritty, he checks through the underclothes and folded personal items.
Most are missing . . . anything that might have linked him to the Brotherhood
or to his time as a Regent's Scholar, “But why leave the clasp?” But why leave
the clasp? . . . leave the clasp . . . . . . leave the clasp . . .
The room twists upside down, then right-side up, then upside down.
Martin closes his eyes. The brochure he'd been studying before Boreas had
stunned him had mentioned disorientation. But this wasn't disorientation. It
verges on torture.
He opens his right eye. The room is right-side up. He opens his left eye, and
the room jumps to the left and stays in the same place, all at once, so that
Martin sees doubled images.
He concentrates on fixing the images into one, just that, keeping his visions
of things firmly in place. The images merge.
The sweat streams from his forehead again. Suddenly the floor looms in front
of his face, and pain like fire screams from his nose. And darkness ...
The overhead is still pale yellow, and his head still aches. So do his nose
and a spot on his forearm.
Again he is flat on his back on that same pallet, in the same hospital, if
that is what it is. “Flame!” he mutters without moving his head. Flame!
He closes his eyes and tries to think. He must be on Aurore. So why is it so
painful? Aurore is a vacation spot, a wonderful place to visit, where
sensuality has its social delights and where some people gain extra powers. So
why is one Martin Martel having such difficulty?
Too aware! The idea flashes into his thoughts. For whatever reason, his body
is more sensitive to the environment.
Eyes still closed, he begins to let his thoughts, his perceptions, check out
his body, starting with his toes, trying somehow to dampen the
ultrasensitivity, to dull that edge, to convince himself that such perceptions
should be voluntary, not involuntary.
He can feel the sweat again pour down his forehead, scented with fear, fear
that he will not be able to regain control of his own body.
Others do it, he thinks, suppressing the urge to talk aloud. The headache and
the soreness in his nose and neck retreat-Martin opens his eyes. The room is a
shade darker now, and yet the light levels from the walls have not changed, he
realizes.
He lifts his head slowly, turns on his side, and fingers the rail release.
After a time, he again sits up, legs dangling over the edge of the bed, heels
touching the cold metal of the lowered rail.
He wills his vision to lighten the room. Nothing havens, He relaxes the iron
control on his perceptions, The room wavers; his back itches; the soreness
across the bridge of his nose throbs, the light intensifies. Martin clamps
down on his control. Not a matter of will, but of control. Of perception. He
experiments, trying to isolate one sense after another, until the room begins
to waver. He lies down, lets himself drift into a sweating sleep. He dreams.
Knows he dreams.
He is on a narrow path, except there are no edges, no walls, and the path arcs
through golden skies. In front of him is Kryn. Her golden eyes are cold, and
her mouth is tight-lipped.
Martin does not care, and yet he does. He takes a step toward Kryn, and
another one. With each step he takes, she is farther away, though she has not
moved.
Soon he is running toward her, and she dwindles into the distance....
He sleeps and, presently, dreams. Again. Martin watches a mountain spire,
covered with ice, which thrusts up from a floor of fleece-white clouds. A part
of his mind insists that he watches a meteorological impossibility, but he
watches.
In the thin air above the peak, from nowhere appears a black cloud, modeled
after the Minotaur. Across from the bull-cloud stands a god, male, heroic,
clad in sandals and a short tunic. His crown is made of sunbeams, and it hurts
Martin's eyes to look at his perfect face.
Between the two arrives another, a full-bearded barbarian who carries a gray
stone hammer, red-haired, bulky, fur cape flowing back over his shoulders. He
sports leg greaves and a breastplate, both of bronze.
Above the peak hovers another figure, which is present, but not. Martin
strains to see, and after a time penetrates the ghostly details. She is
slender, golden-haired, golden-eyed, and glitters. Beyond these details he
cannot see, and his attention is distracted by the appearance of another god,
also ghostly.
Where the goddess is golden, the latecomer is black-shadowed.
Unwanted, as well, because the three older golds strike. The barbarian throws
his hammer; the sun-god Apollo casts a light spear; and the bull-god sends
forth a black mist of menace.
Precog? questions someone, somewhere, Perhaps.
Martin loses his dream, drops into darkness. . . . . , and wakes screaming!
The scream dies as he moves his head, discovers he is on his side, holding the
railing of the bed. Discovers his fingers are sore. He releases his grasp, and
knows he should be surprised. He is not.
The metal is crushed, with eight finger impressions and two thumb holes
clearly visible.
Martin scrambles to his knees, ignoring the wavering effect, to study his
handiwork. He grabs the railing in a new place, farther toward the foot of the
bed, squeezes with all the force he can muster.
His palms and fingers protest, but the metal does not yield. He lets go. Tears
well up, sorrow and frustration. “Mad, I'm mad. Crazier than Faroh.” Mad, I'm
mad, mad, mad. Crazier, crazier, than, than, Faroh, Faroh.
He closes his eyes, presses balled fists against them to shut out the double
echo, and the incredible flare of light that accompanies it.
“You'll get used to it,” a calm voice comments. Martin hops around on his
knees, feels awkward, embarrassed, and almost pitches over the side of the bed
as the nausea strikes him in the pit of his stomach. The glare dies with the
closing of the portal. The speaker looks like the sun-god of his dreams, with
short and curly blond hair, even features, cleft chin, piercing green eyes,
heroic body structure, wide shoulders and narrow waist, under a gold tunic and
trousers. Martin nods for the man to continue. “You're going to have more
trouble than the others. There are two reasons for that. The first is that
you're an untrained, full-range esper, and fully masked. The second is that
you have, shall we say, a certain potential.”
The golden man clears his throat, and even that sounds oddly musical, matching
the light baritone of his clear voice.
“During the times ahead, for a while you'll know you're going mad, Martel. At
times you will be. You have a great deal to learn. A great deal.”
The speech bothers Martin, but he cannot pin down why. “Who are you?” Who are
you? Martin winces.
“You can either sync your thoughts to your speech or put a damper on them to
eliminate the echo. The resonance makes any long conversations impossible, not
to mention the headaches, until you get your thoughts under control. That's a
function of the field, it tends to amplify stray thoughts and reflect them.
Really only a nuisance, but without controls you could upset the norms and the
tourists pretty strongly.”
Norms? Dampers? Field? And what about the glare from outside?
He settles on the simplest question, trying to block his own thoughts at the
same time. “Is it that bright outside all the time?”
“No. it isn't bright at all. Normally the intensity is about that of early
morning on Karnak. Bright, but nothing to worry about.”
“But. .. when you came in?”
The golden man smiles. “It only seems bright to you. You don't see me at all.
You're perceiving paranormally, and any light hurts your eyes. Except for the
solidio cube, the belt clasp, and the port light, your room is totally dark.
We've even screened out the glittermotes.” Martin gulps.
“I'll put it another way. Off Aurore, you have to make a conscious effort to
use esp. Here, you have to make a conscious effort not to. As 1 mentioned a
moment ago, when you really weren't paying attention, you are a full-range
esper, one of a double handful in the entire Empire. That's fortunate in ways
I'll not explain, and unfortunate in others. Unfortunate because the Empire
would want you dead off Aurore, and because your adjustment to Aurore will be
difficult at best, assuming you do make it.”
The golden man is lying. Martin cannot explain which statement is wrong,
decides to let it go, and tries to keep his doubts about the man buried.
“You're doubtful, Martel?”
“Why do you keep calling me Martel?”
“Because that's your real identification. Subconsciously you think of yourself
as Martel, and not as Martin. I would advise you to cut some of the confusion
short and go with Martel. That's an easy problem to solve,”
When the other makes no move to leave, with the silence drawing out,
Martin/Martel clears his throat.
“Call me Apollo, i'm here because 1 can't resist danger, however removed, and
because someday you might decide to help me.”
Not exactly the most helpful answer, reflects Martin/ Martel, but it rings
true.
“What sort of help?”
“I'd rather not say. You'll find out.” Another true statement, according to
Martel's internal lie detector.
There are too many fragments. Norms, glittermotes.
strength he doesn't have, but has. Seeing in total darkness. . . He closes his
eyes but wills himself to see. The room does not change, is still visible
through closed eyelids. As he realizes he can see behind the half-closed doors
of the wardrobe, he begins to itemize the small personal trinkets. He stops,
half bemused, half frightened, when he realizes that Apollo has gone and that
the portal had not opened. The ceiling begins to glow, shedding a real light.
“Flame. Just beginning to tell the difference.” Just make it habit. The
thought comes from far away.
Apollo?
A low note chimes, and the green light above the portal illuminates. Martel
braces himself for the glare, but with his eyes slit, the increase is
bearable. A thin older woman carries a small tray into the room. The mental
static that surrounds her announces that she has some sort of shield or
screen. She does not look at him. “Good morning. Is it morning?” Her face
narrows. The frown, her black hair, and her thin eyebrows all combine to form
a disapproving look. Martel studies her, decides she is younger than he
thought. “It's morning. How do you feel?” Despite the mental screen, Martel
can sense her puzzlement. “Confused,” he admits. “How long have 1 been here?
Asleep?”
“Two standard months. Not always asleep.” She puts down the tray and steps
back, eyes taking in the bent metal railing.
“What do you mean, not always asleep?” She backs farther away. “That's
something the doctors need to discuss with you. I will see what can be done.
You're not scheduled yet.” Martel frowns to himself. Not scheduled? Scheduled
for what? Two months? From a stunner? Has he been here ever since Boreas
stunned him?
She drops a folder on the low table and scuttles for the portal.
“If you read that, it will give the right perspective.” She darts out. The
door irises shut, and the amber light replaces the green, but the ceiling glow
remains, Apollo had said that using paranorm powers was easy. Martel reaches
for the folder with his thoughts and is still surprised when it floats up from
the table into his hands.
The folder is not what he expected. Rather than a general brief, it is an
excerpt from a technical article: “Dealing with Fullphase, Full Awakening of
Paranormals in an Ultrastimulatory Environment,” selections from the full and
uncompleted works of one Sevir Corwin, S. B„ P. D„ M. D..
S. P. N. P., etc. There is one introductory paragraph that catches Martel.
Inasmuch as Dr. Corwin did not live to complete his work, and could not be
consulted on the selections, the editor has attempted to include those
portions most likely to help clinical personnel working in high-risk
situations.
Martel studies the folder. Cheap reproduction, right from an ordinary copy
unit. More questions.
He reads the entire folder. Twice, despite the odd turn of technical phrases,
while he eats the fruit and the protein bar and the flat pastry that the aide
has brought. Phrases ring in his thoughts.
Ultrastimulatory environments can be dangerous for newly aroused paranorms. .
. transition under sedation. , . subconscious realization. . . LR, for
intervenors during I.P., . . . de facto ban on paranorm transfer to ultrastim
(read Aurore) . . .
He leans back on the pallet, closes his eyes, tries to list what he knows,
tries to get it in some sequence, something that makes sense.
item: He is considered paranorm.
item: Paranorms arriving on Aurore are dangerous as flame, to themselves and
to those around them.
Item: Boreas has stunned him en route, under Brotherhood orders.
Item: The Brotherhood definitely wants him on Aurore-item: For two months he
has been out of his mind. Item: While dreaming, he had literally crushed a
heavy steel railing.
item: Apollo isn't afraid of Martel, item: The woman is. item: He is getting
sleepy. Item:
His last thought on the listing is Don't you ever team, Martel?
Again, the dreams ,, , but more confused, this time, these times.
He is floating above the same ice peak, but no one is around him, and there
are no clouds, but the upper levels of the mountain are still in shadow.
He turns to move closer to the peak, but from his left a golden thunderbolt
blasts in front of him. On his right, a dark thundercloud materializes. He
contemplates the needlepeak, waiting. . . ... and finds himself sitting at a
table, across from a golden-eyed and golden-haired woman. She is speaking, but
he cannot understand the words; though each is a word he knows, her sentences
form a pattern and a puzzle he cannot assemble, and as he wrestles with each
word the next catches him by surprise.
Finally he nods, and looks past her over the railing toward the golden sands
that slope down to the sea. He touches the beaker by his left hand. Jasolite.
A jasolite beaker. Jasolite, jasolite... . . LIGHT! . . .
.. . and he is strapped down on a cold metal table, under the pinpoint of a
telescope. The telescope is gathering starlight, and that light is coming out
of the pinpoint needle just above his forehead.
He twists, but the heavy straps and metal bands do not bend.
The light coming from the instrument bums his skin, and he wrenches his left
hand free, then his right, and cups them under the enormous telescope to catch
the torrent of light. But his hands overflow, and the burning light cascades
over his palms and blisters his forehead.
Finally he throws the light back into the telescope, which melts, collapsing
away from him. Then he curls up on the metal table, and sleeps ... , . . and
wakes in a lounge chair. For a long time, he is not certain if he is awake. A
woman is stretched in the chair next to him, but he cannot turn his head.
Perhaps he does not want to.
He is near the sea. The salt tells him so, and the slow crashes of the
breakers do not confuse him, not the way the words the unseen woman speaks do.
She speaks slowly, and the words are in order, he knows. But some he hears
twice, and some he loses because of those he hears twice.
“. . . you, you, understand, stand, sedated, sedated. , . if, if . . .
remember, remember. . . dream, . , dream. . .”
The strain of pursuing the words presses him back into the lounge, and he lets
himself float on the vibrations of the incoming breakers.
“. . . god, god, you, you. . . forget, get, . .” The urgency of her tone
chains him, whips across his cheeks like a blizzard wind, and he drowns in the
sounds, drifting into a darkness. Thoughts boom like drums in the darkness,
out of the black.
This one troubles me. As welt he should. That upstart? Boom! Boom-boom! Each
letter of each verbal thought brands his brain, and he screams, and screams
...
He wakes. The clarity of his surroundings announces that he does not dream,
and may not be drugged.
Although his eyes focus on the pale yellow overhead, someone waits. Another
woman. He knows without looking. Instead of sitting up and reacting, he
remains motion-
less, thinking. Deciding if he can sort out what he has dreamed from what he
experienced under the sedation. Deciding that sorting can wait, and filing the
memories in a corner of his mind for more scrutiny. His thoughts scan the
room.
The woman wears a mental screen. Both a laser and a full-range stunner are
focused on him from the ceiling, and the thickness of the walls argues for a
prison rather than a hospital. Idly Martel lets his perceptions change a few
circuits in the laser and stunner to remove their immediate threat. Then he
stretches, slowly, and begins to sit up. The woman is red-haired, and radiates
friendliness. Martel notes that she has appeared in his dreams, and files the
note. He senses that her friendliness is genuine, and lets himself smile.
“I'm Rathe Firien, and I'd like to welcome you formally to Aurore. 1 suspect
you know you've already been here for some time.”
“Delighted,” responds Martel, with a twitch of his mouth preventing a full
smile. “How long?”
“Five standard months.”
“Wonderful.”
He puts his feet over the edge of the bed, lets them dangle, lets his mind
range through the room again. The room is not the same one, but built like a
Marine bunker, meter-thick plate behind the walls, and ferroplast behind that.
He shakes his head.
“Something the matter?” She is concerned. “No. Just a little amazed. Do you go
to this extent for all paranorms?” She hesitates.
“Special instructions, huh? From the Brotherhood?”
“Brotherhood?” Confusion there. “Apollo?” he pursues. Fear, but validation. He
decides to change the subject. “What's next on the agenda?”
“For you?” Martel nods. “1 suppose you could get dressed. . .” She grins.
“1 meant ,.. in general terms.”
“Once you're dressed” -- -and she grins again, and Martel cannot resist
smiling back -- ”we'll get you out of here. Then we'll go over the things you
need to do to get settled in.”
Martel wraps the one-piece robe around him as he realizes that it has started
to fall open, then relaxes. Obviously, the woman knows all about him. He
shakes his head. “Does it always take this long?”
“What?”
“Getting adjusted, or whatever this process is called.”
“For a paranorm it varies.”
So many questions ... He gives up, and decides to work on one thing at a time.
He stands up, feeling fit, stretches, and sees Rathe's mouth in an 0,
suppressing a laugh. He suspects he has grown somehow, until he discovers he
is floating a good ten centimeters off the floor, and lets himself down.
“Sorry. Not used to this.”
“I'll meet you outside. The fresher's next to the wardrobe. Touch the plates
next to the portals to open them.” She leaves.
Martel discovers that he does want a shower. After cleaning up, he pulls on
one of the yellow tunic/trouser outfits and a pair of the formboots.
He doesn't like the yellow. When he can, he will have to replace the clothes
selected for him.
Wonder of wonders, the outer portal opens at his touch, and Rathe Firien is
waiting.
Outside the portal is a balcony, and from it Martel can see a town spreading
down a gentle incline toward the silver/green/ gold expanse that has to be the
ocean.
He still must squint against the unaccustomed strength of the light, indirect
and unfocused as it is.
A light breeze ruffles his hair, and he notes that it is neither warm nor
cool, but bears a faint scent of pine.
He is conscious of Rathe Firien, who has stepped back as he moves to take hold
of the black iron railing.
The roofs of Sybernal are white. Some sparkle; some merely are white.
A wide dark swath of trees halfway between him and the sea breaks the
intermittent pattern of roofs and foliage. Must be some sort of park. . . .
some sort of park. . .
He shakes his head, trying to remember to hang on to his control.
“is something wrong?” asks the woman. “No.” He pauses. “The dark stretch
there?” He points. “That's the Greenbelt It surrounds the coastal highway
where it cuts through Sybernal.”
“ 'Coastal, ' and not on the coast?”
“it is, except in Sybernal. You can walk the Petrified Boardwalk there. You'll
see.” Martel supposes he will.
He studies the grounds beneath the balcony. The grass is nearly emerald-
colored and short. Roughly half the trees are deciduous, which seems wrong.
Why?
He knows it is “wrong,” but also knows he is not thinking clearly enough yet
to pose the question correctly, much less answer it.
The streets are little more than paved lanes, suitable for walking and for the
electrobikes he sees under a covered porch at the far end of the building.
The square paved space in the middle of the lawn, he assumes, is a flitter
pad, which would make sense for a hospital, or whatever institution he is
confined in. “What's next?” he asks, “I've called a flitter.”
“For what?”
“So you can leave.”
“Just like that?”
“Do you want to stay?” She favors him with a half-smile, one that reminds him
of the friendliness she radiates.
“1 can't say that 1 do, but that's not the question. Don't 1 have to check
out? Or see someone? Or sign something?”
“That's been taken care of. You're ready to leave.” Taken care of. Right,
You've been taken care of. And how! What's next? A quiet little trip to
another secluded hideaway?
“Just a flaming instant! Just what other little tricks do you all have
planned? if I'd been hospitalized, or institutionalized, anywhere for this
long, 1 couldn't possibly be let go the minute I woke up and the first pretty
nurse to come along said, 'You. All right. You can leave now. ' “ He takes a
deep breath.
Rathe Firien just waits for him to continue. Her smile is even more amused.
“Here I am, drugged, doped, and dreaming for months on end, and now -- snap,
bang, yes, sir, Mr. Martel, time to check out and get on with your business.
Of course, we haven't told you where you are, why you've been here, how long
摘要：

PartIThePlanetofEternalLightIIntowardGalacticCenter,themythimplies,thereisastarsohotitisamere(lotintheskyofthatplanetwheretheGodofDarknessandtheLadyofLightlive-Justasthissunhasonlyoneplanet,soisthereonlyoneGod,theGodofDarkness.Infact,starsthathot,FOorhotter,don'thaveplanets.Andiftheydid,thestarwould...

展开>> 收起<<
Modesitt, L.E. - Hammer of Darkness.pdf

共142页,预览29页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：142 页 大小：373.16KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-13

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

高考理综 人际关系 配电装置 动力学连接体 力的合成 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 142
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注