The Galactic Mage Page 3

  With his bearings settled on the newest seeing stone, Altin took another enchanted river rock and began once more to chant. He followed the same procedure as before, but this time aimed the string of mana precisely at the newest stone, guided by and linking to its trail. He summoned the mana necessary to send this seeing stone up to where the last one was, and then let it go, intent on hopping this one off the first and doubling the distance with almost no more effort than he’d used for the last attempt. He felt the stone leave his hands and the reverberation in his mythothalamus as the new stone streaked up the mana trail and skipped off the other one, whipping right on by and taking Altin’s quest another step further into the night. Then came a second mental jolt, solid like that sense transferred up a croquet mallet when one’s ball has been precisely struck. The stone had reached its final resting point. Altin tried not to allow himself any undue optimism as he opened his eyes and moved over to the scrying basin for a look.

  Still nothing.

  He had to make an effort not to become angry, just as he’d had to curb his hope. This was the dance of his every night. He took another stone and began again.

  And again.

  And again.

  For six hours he hurled stones into the night, and for six hours he still made no progress. Each spell, always targeting an unknown place, took a hundred times the mana that it ordinarily should. Perhaps a thousand times more. The ambiguity by its very nature made such things impossible to know. But each attempt sapped a portion of his strength, the cumulative effect like rubbing one’s soul against coarse carpet, over and over for far too long, allowing friction to build and heat to grow until the outer parts begin to chafe and burn, and finally it begins to tear through to the tender places beneath the surface where discomfort gives way to frustration, and frustration to anger, and sometimes, when the pain is great, to fits of rage.

  Just the thing to kill a Six.

  With all of his anger teeming, boiling like a cauldron in a fire, Altin prepped the last stone in the box. He was going to be goddamned sure this infernal stone got to Luria if it was the last blasted thing he ever did. He closed his eyes and reached out into the night, seeking the mana. His rage was further frustrated by the lack of mana; he’d tapped most of it from the region with so many attempts tonight. His patience was gone, and he was not about to wait for mana to flow back into the sky. He found himself absently cursing Tytamon for likely having used some mana too. A thought flickered across his mind then; somewhere deep inside, he heard the alarm go off. He’d lost his focus. But he caught himself in time.

  He cursed silently and let the wisps of mana slip past him without drawing any more in. He shook his head. Definitely just in time. One does not draw mana in without having a use for it. That was a great way to blind one’s mythothalamus forever and never cast again. He let out a long breath, chasing the mana back into the night, then opened his eyes and slumped to the floor against the parapet wall. Discipline. At least he had that. But by the gods it was so damnably frustrating.

  He took several moments just to catch his breath. He was exhausted. He hadn’t slept long enough today. Rather doggedly, he raised his head and stared back up at Luria with defiance in his eyes. “You’ll see,” he rasped. “One day you’ll see.”

  But it wouldn’t be tonight.

  Chapter 3

  The meadow was vast and verdant, as level as any surface back on the ship, and the enormity of it allowed Ensign Orli Pewter to run more freely than she’d ever run before. She was jubilant, even ecstatic, as she ran. The sunshine was warm upon her face, caressing her pale skin, ghostly white after ten years trapped beneath the fluorescent lights of an interstellar ship, and it touched her with golden rays of honest radiance. A breeze blew through the meadow, bending the shiny stalks of grass in shimmering waves as she ran against it, adding her own speed to the velocity of the floral scented air. Touched with hyacinth, sage and wondrous varieties she’d not yet catalogued, the fragrant wind drove tears of joy from the corners of her eyes as she sped along, salty rivulets blown over her temples to mix with the sheen of perspiration that cooled her alabaster flesh. There was so much space down here, on this planet, on Andalia, so much room to run. Andalia was a real world, a world of soil and trees and grass. A world of bugs and birds and temperatures above and below sixty-eight degrees. Andalia was freedom. It was paradise.

  Except, it hadn’t always been. The truth of the matter was, Andalia was the scene of a great and mysterious tragedy. Andalia was a world that had been populated only a few scant decades in the past, and not just sort of populated by animals and bugs, but completely populated, with people. Humans. Just like back on Earth. Andalia had been filled with people and dotted with cities that glowed brightly on its surface like a phosphorescent skin, thousands of cities, their electric lights shining into space. Orli had seen the images a hundred times before. But they were images taken by satellites that no longer orbited this world. Images of lights that no longer shone. The Andalian people were gone, and their cities were as well. In fact, this very meadow where she ran was supposedly the site of a large Andalian city called Persepiece. But there was no city here, and no trace that there ever had been one; there was only this vast, suspiciously level meadow where Persepiece should have been. At least if the maps were right.

  And the maps were the most vexing thing of all, and what became so troubling to the fleet. There were no ruins here either. There were no ruins anywhere. There were no bodies. There were no wasted towns or lines of decimated vehicles marking the last desperate attempt of a fleeing populace. There were no burnt-out villages, no mangled skeletons of downed skyscrapers, not even any scattered human bones. There was nothing. Only wilderness. It was as if there had never been any humans on Andalia at all.

  The fact that there had been humans on this planet, a discovery made some thirty years in the past, was odd enough. The first radio signals, and subsequent video feeds, had been startling to the people of both worlds, even unfathomable to some. Who would have thought the same species could have evolved on two completely separate worlds? Even more confounding was to think that such parallel evolution took place at roughly the same time. But none of that mattered now, at least not exactly. As strange as simultaneous evolution might seem, the Earth ships were here now, here based on belief, and, after traveling ten years, come to see and come to save. And now there was no trace of any humanity at all. The strange coincidence had become a tragic mystery.

  When the fleet left Earth, they’d known they might find decimation when they arrived, even allowed for the possibility of annihilation; the last message from Andalia after all—a flickering video image of an Andalian astronaut, his frantic message garbled and unintelligible except for one word, “hostile”—had been warning enough that something was amiss. No other communication ever came after that. But they certainly hadn’t expected this, hadn’t expected nothing.

  And so it was that Orli found herself here now, part of the fleet sent from Earth to discover the nature of the threat that had brought twenty years of interplanetary correspondence abruptly to an end. The fleet was assembled quickly, the technology barely tested; its mission was not only to bring aid if there was anyone left to help, but also to intercept anything “hostile” that might be coming for Earth next —an “anything” that had been formally deemed Hostile in memory of that astronaut’s presumably dying words.

  However, while Orli was here on Andalia and officially part of the fleet, she hadn’t come out of any great curiosity or need to avenge some lost Andalian space-chat friend as many others had. No, she’d been far too young to be concerned with Andalia when she was brought aboard the ship. At twelve years old, she’d been more interested in playing soccer and having sleepovers with her friends. The death of her mother and the knee-jerk reaction to that loss by her father, Colonel Pewter, in volunteering for the fleet had taken her entirely by surprise. And frankly, she resented being here. One personal tragedy had led to another, longe
r one. She felt trapped by fate and unable to escape, which is why she liked to run. Running made her feel like she could get herself somewhere, even if it was only on a treadmill or on the little track around her gardens aboard ship.

  And then there was running down here. It was amazing to run down here. Here she had this meadow to run across, and there was even a stream to leap if she ran down at the meadow’s southern edge. So what if there were no Andalians to be found? No Persepiece. It wasn’t like she’d known any of them anyway. She knew that thinking like that was heartless, but, for now she was just happy that she had somewhere real to be. Somewhere besides the ship.

  She ran through the meadow for the bulk of an hour. Just running, straight as a laser for mile after mile, the only obstacles an occasional tree, young elms mostly, some fledgling oaks and two varieties she’d never seen. Her sinuous legs stretched to their fullest as she ran, happily unfettered as it seemed she’d never been before. She sprinted in hundred yard spurts, and for the first time in her adult life, she got to feel how fast she could really go. It was exhilarating, and nothing could slow her down.

  Nothing, except for Captain Asad.

  “Pewter, what are you doing out there? All quadrants have already been checked.”

  She stopped abruptly, panting, and reached up to tap the com badge pinned to the collar of her uniform. “I’m…,” she paused, still panting and needing a moment to think. “I’m getting one last specimen,” she said, “something I saw when we made the last sweep.” She scanned the ground furtively and picked the first small weed she spotted near her feet—in case he was watching her through the sensor feed from their ship, the Aspect, orbiting above.

  “You have enough of that shit already. Get back here, we’re about to leave.”

  Ugh. What a horrible thought. She didn’t ever want to go back to the ship. Not now. She wanted to stay here forever. This place was a botanist’s delight, filled with new species to discover, things only Captain Asad could think of as “shit.” And there were animals and sunshine and weather of every kind. Imagine: rain and sleet and snow! She could see the snow on the mountain peaks far off to the east, and she wanted to go see it, to touch it with her hands, to taste it and feel how cold and wet it was. But she hadn’t been allowed. Check the city sites, and that’s it. The admiral’s orders. In, out, back to the ships. That was the mission. But there was so much more to see.

  “Pewter, you have your sample. Now get back here immediately.”

  So he was watching her. She growled. He was right that she had enough samples already, but, given that she was under surveillance, she rotated her belt pack around from behind her back and opened up the pouch. She tucked the scrawny weed—it was an odd looking little thing—into a sample bag and zipped it safely back inside the pouch. No sense giving Captain Asad reason to call her bluff. He may have hated the fact that fleet protocol had forced him to, as he’d put it, “waste a spot in the landing team on a botanist,” but his disregard for her particular discipline also made him ignorant of it as well. He wouldn’t know a good specimen from a bad one if she fed it to him on a fork. She slid the pouch around behind her back again, and, satisfied that she’d sold the lie, she straightened and turned back towards base camp. At least she’d get to run.

  And run she did. She was quite breathless by the time she returned, renewed inside despite her body’s fatigue. She trotted into camp, planning to get a bite to eat before crews took the mess tent down, but Captain Asad intercepted her before she made it there.

  “Pewter, you had orders not to leave the camp. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t have charges drawn up.”

  “I had to get a sample,” she said. “I already told you that. It’s a very rare specimen; one I’ve never seen.” She reached behind her, intending to retrieve the scraggly little weed to make her point.

  “Spare me,” he said. “You’re the first botanist ever to be field trained in the vacuum of space. Everything is a species you’ve never seen.”

  She groaned, rolling her eyes. Why was he such an asshole all the time? She turned and headed for the mess tent. He’d already ruined everything the run had done for her.

  He grabbed her by the arm and spun her back around. “You’re not dismissed, Pewter. You disregarded a standing order. And now you’re adding insubordination to the list.”

  “Take your hands off of me or I will tell my father you’ve crossed the line.” Her voice was even, and she enunciated every word.

  His dark eyes met her icy blue ones, returning her defiance with venom of his own. But he did release her arm. He hated when she pulled the daddy-stunt on him, and she knew it. He knew she knew it too, and it really pissed him off. She was glad. She loved pissing him off. He was the outlet for everything she despised about her life in space. He spun and walked away.

  She snorted and resumed her course for the mess tent. Inside, she immediately spotted her long time friend and surrogate brother, Ensign Roberto Levi. He saw her as she came in and made room for her to sit once she’d gotten a tray of food.

  “Eww, you’re all sweaty,” he remarked, pinching up his face and feigning disgust as she settled in next to him.

  “Hey,” was all she said, a mutter. She was too annoyed to acknowledge his artificially effeminate display.

  Noting her demeanor, he relented immediately. “What’s up?” He could tease her about something else later anyway.

  “Nothing,” she said as she stabbed at her plate, oblivious to the food. “And everything.” She let the fork fall into the tray. “Asad is such an ass.”

  “It’s true,” Roberto agreed, not bothering to finish what he was chewing before he spoke. “But he’s supposed to be a great military mind. Maybe assness comes with the package.” He pressed a tawny fingertip to a few of the larger crumbs that had tumbled from his mouth, then reclaimed them with a slurp.

  “Asininity,” she said.

  “What?”

  “The word is ‘asininity’ not ‘assness.’”

  He grunted. “Whatever. You knew what I meant.”

  She retrieved her fork and resumed prodding at her food. It was a rare moment when she didn’t take an opportunity to follow up on one of her little literacy jabs, and Roberto had known her long enough to recognize it as a warning sign when she did not. So they sat in silence for a while.

  Finally she spoke again. “I don’t want to leave.”

  Roberto nodded, but remained silent. They’d covered this topic every day since landing a week ago, ever since Orli had had her first run through real air and endless meadow grass.

  “Maybe the Hostiles, or whoever it was, were just passing through,” she went on. “Maybe this whole thing was just like some horrible galactic drive-by, and now they’re gone.”

  “Sure,” he said. “All gone. They were probably just passing through.” He took another bite. “But I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

  “I would.” She looked completely earnest. “I mean, come on. We haven’t seen anything to suggest the Hostiles are still around, right? So why leave? It seems so stupid to waste a perfectly good planet like this, to just pack up and go.”

  “You’re thinking with your heart again.”

  “So what if I am? Changes nothing. Look at the facts. There’s nothing here. Nothing. Andalian or Hostile. It’s stupid to leave.”

  Roberto, more inclined to the majority trend towards caution, silently acquiesced. She was intractable when she got like this. Diversion was the only way. “I know. How about we leave you down here first? Just, you know, for a few years to test your theory out.”

  “Fine with me,” she said, but she sighed anyway, resigned. He was right even though he hadn’t said what he really meant. Whining wasn’t going to change the facts.

  “You can say ‘hey’ for me if the Hostiles show back up though,” Roberto pressed, intent on cheering her up. “Tell them I got caught in traffic but really wanted to be here for them. You know, because I care.”

  She all
owed herself the vestige of a smile. “You mean you’d really leave me? You wouldn’t stay and be my brave protector in case they did come back?”

  He feigned horror. “With you? Look at you, all sweaty and hair blown everywhere. You look like crap! Besides, what am I supposed to do against aliens that take out whole planets? I mean, I’m badass like that, but still, even I have my limits.” He drew his sidearm and gave it a gunslinger’s spin.

  Orli groaned and her eyes darted about, fearing the captain would catch him messing around with his gun. “Stop it!” she hissed.

  Roberto holstered the weapon, grinning. “Besides,” he said, “we already figured out a long time ago you and I ain’t compatible romantically, remember? And since that’s out, what am I supposed to do while we wait? I mean, a man of my particular attractiveness will better serve humanity up there with the fleet. The women need me.”

  She wrinkled up her face. “The blind ones, maybe.”

  At least she was smiling. “You see, it’s that attitude right there that’s going to get you stuck on a planet alone some day.”

  She laughed. They both did. But Orli knew his larger point was right: it was foolish to stay, or at least it was until they figured out what was going on. Deep down inside she knew that it was true. It was logical. But oh how she hated logic sometimes. Logic was cold and sterile, like the ship; it was white and clean and smelled of disinfectant and filtered air. It was not like a grubby world filled with dirt and mud and bugs that bit and stung. That’s how life was supposed to be. Who wanted to be sterile all the time? She sighed and slowly began to eat.