Beyond the Sky: Chapter 23
Shadow Debt
Velli took the early-morning watch, by the shack above-ground. The fire in the main cavern below was long-extinguished, no camp could risk leaving one burning at night, visible from the sky. She dared not walk, for fear of falling in, so she sat and stared.
A glitter of stars hung amid the zodiacal light, a white arch brightest near the horizon and fading away at its zenith. Probably no one inhabited their worlds, Captain Benson said only the nearest stars were visible with the unaided eye. But beyond? Some species had yet to invent fire, while others lived like those old tales, with swords and castles. Still others, like humans, built spaceships and levitator-shuttles.
Nor were all worlds alike, either. He’d shown her the humans’, covered with so much water its sundered into several chunks, and she wondered why they were not an aquatic people like the Deep Ones. It had a—and here he used a word for which there was no translation. A sub-planet of some kind, circling it like those of the gas giants. Her schoolteacher said no such configuration could exist for a smaller, inner planet. The aliens, clearly, knew better.
And yet, they thought a world of multiple species impossible. One of the many things keeping her from calling this a very complex delusion.
A chill went up her spine. The Shadow Presence, but faint. Maybe only one—there, in the grass! She saw it rustle and shift, as a short creature stopped crawling an armspan or two away.
What to say? It wasn’t being sneaky; it knew she knew it was there. Did it want food? Shadowstalkers usually took their offerings from the back doors of houses.
It broke her indecision and said, in a whispery voice equally chilling as the Presence, “You oppose your commander’s plan for the atom bombs?”
Velli’s head snapped to face it, an indistinguishable form amid darkness. “How do you know about that?”
“The Burrowers tolerate our presence, if we keep to ourselves.”
“Do you know who kidnapped them?”
“It was done with gas, pumped in from outside,” the Shadowstalker remarked, almost offhandedly. “We grew sick, but to them it did...something else. We helped their project, before that.”
“The bombs. Do you know where they went?”
“Perhaps. But you will get them back, and tell your commander to proceed with his plan.”
“Why?” She gritted her teeth.
The Shadowstalker scrawled in the dirt with its finger. “The Clan spared you, once. Now, you must do something for us.”
“Support the plan to destroy Mespreth.” She searched for a way out. “It won’t work.”
“Are you sure? Mespreth has had forty years to grow arrogant, and the Amalgamation with it.”
“Even if it did, we would be destroyed in turn. The whole world, as well!”
“Then the reign of the Day People will end, and the Age of Shadows rise at last.”
Velli gulped. “I can’t.”
“You refuse the Shadow Debt?” the creature hissed.
“No, it’s not that. It’s a bad idea, I’m certain of it.”
“Why? What have you learned?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I said.”
“So you have secrets, Velli of Three Trees Town. As well you should, if you’d been taken by the Black Triangle and lived.”
“How—” she sputtered.
“You think a single thing occurs in our lands and we do not know it? We are not savages, living in caves! Who are they?”
“I can’t say. They forbade me to tell anyone. If you want your debt, perhaps you should take it up with them.”
The Shadowstalker made a growl like it saw a human and did not enjoy being reminded.
“I can explain, eventually,” Velli continued. “I just need time—and those bombs. Nothing can happen unless we get them back. Nothing good, at least.”
“You got this from where?” Udan almost spat out his morning-brew as he stood around a table with Velli and the others.
“He worked with the Burrowers,” Velli replied. “Someone said they saw Shadowstalker tracks in there.”
“That was me,” an older fighter answered.
“Still, taking intel from Shadowstalkers is a new low for the Front,” Udan said.
“They’d not steer us wrong intentionally,” Hinven said. “Of all the units in Pars Revek, we’ve got the best relations with them.”
“Which isn’t saying much,” Teliv added.
“I am of the Shadow Friends, let me talk to him.”
“He’s gone, now. Everything he said makes sense—Elacmagolintec’s the only slaver who could take an entire Burrower colony, and that gas has got to be some Occupation toy.”
“Or he could be working for the slavers, feeding us right into their hands,” replied Teliv.
Hinven objected, “Nonsense! Shadowstalkers hate slavers just as much as we do!”
“But no one actually enslaves them.” Too good at escaping, they were. Velli knew of no slaver who even tried.
“Yes, they just kill them instead. They’re as much against the Occupation and its toadies as us.”
“We ought at least give it a try,” the Trinn mercenary, Dobok, said.
Udan considered for a moment. “Agreed.”
He stopped Velli on the way to the armory chamber. “My office. Now.”
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