Alone against the deepest night on Maratha, Anton and thirty-seven frightened Ildirans attempted to keep the lights burning long enough to survive.
Engineer Nur’of strung together the remaining intact power cells, squeezing out enough energy to maintain the domed city’s vital systems. Despite the Maratha Designate’s demands that all illumination be restored, there simply wasn’t enough power remaining for more than a few days.
“Secda may offer safety, but these people are fearful of traversing the darkness,” Rememberer Vao’sh told Anton. “There is danger outside the dome, and we have barely enough Ildirans here to form a splinter.”
“There’s danger here, too, Vao’sh, and we’re all going to have to leave, sooner or later. We may as well do it under our own terms.” Anton managed a wan smile. “If it helps, I could come up with a few Earth parables that warn against procrastination.”
Once Designate Avi’h was finally convinced that no rescuers would come, he asked his bureaucrat assistant to arrange for their departure. Anton accompanied Bhali’v and the lens kithman Ilure’l, carrying a dazzling spot blazer outside to the vehicle hangars. The three men suited up in reflective skinfilms primarily designed to guard against the overpowering heat and sunlight of the dazzling day season; now the layers of synthetic fabric offered insulation against the deepening cold of the long night.
As they trudged across the dark ground, Anton noticed that the hangar door looked damaged. More malicious sabotage, or simply poor maintenance? But the door opened, and Bhali’v scurried over to the three fast surface flyers housed inside.
When Anton, Vao’sh, and a group of Ildiran volunteers had visited the night-side Secda construction site, they’d flown one of these vessels. After night descended on Maratha Prime, the fast surface flyers had been placed into storage until the next day season. Now they were the only craft that could take the skeleton crew over to the sunlit side, and safety.
Ilure’l looked jumpy and anxious. He still seemed to believe that the Shana Rei from Vao’sh’s story were waiting to prey upon them, that they might be hiding in any shadow. Anton remained ever vigilant for the mysterious saboteurs. The real ones.
The bureaucrat inspected each of the three craft, following a checklist and making notations on a diamond-crystal slate. “All appear functional enough to take us to the Secda site, where the robots have agreed to welcome us. I will divide our personnel into three groups accordingly.”
Returning to the Ildirans huddled in the lighted portion of the dome, Bhali’v also drew up a plan that distributed stockpiled food and supplies into each craft. Though the fast surface flyers would accomplish the long trek in only half a day, the refugees did not know how long they might need to wait for rescue once they reached the construction site.
Anton continued to be pleasantly surprised by how well he was dealing with the tense situation—coolheaded and sensible, finding strength and courage that he hadn’t known he possessed. Maybe he wasn’t just an armchair adventurer after all; maybe he had actually learned something from all those tales he had studied. From his repertoire, he told stories of individual valor and resolve in order to keep the skeleton crew from panicking. The Ildirans, and especially Vao’sh, particularly liked the tale of the Dutch boy who had used his finger to plug a leaking dike. Though it was a simple story, it had a legendary quality worthy of events in the Saga of Seven Suns.
When Engineer Nur’of announced that the fast surface flyers were stocked and fueled, Designate Avi’h announced with exaggerated satisfaction, “I have once again communicated with the Klikiss robots in Maratha Secda. They await our arrival.”
“Then we’d better go,” Anton said with forced cheer, “before the power goes out again.” Though he had intended it as a joke, the comment proved to be all the incentive the members of the skeleton crew needed.
They suited up and, carrying personal emergency blazers, left the lighted dome. The Designate held up the brightest spot blazer and led the way under dazzling stars that seemed much too far away. Even the brief march across the compound grounds to the hangar seemed nearly beyond the limits of the Ildirans, but Avi’h, claiming to draw strength through the thism from his brother the Mage-Imperator, moved at a brisk pace that was just short of a full-out run.
Anton and the Ildirans separated into their assigned groups and hurried to the brightly lit interiors of the individual flyers. He and Vao’sh would ride with the Maratha Designate and his bureaucratic deputy, along with the lens kithman, Nur’of, and several agricultural kithmen, diggers, and technicians.
Though Designate Avi’h was anxious to leave, Vao’sh pointed out quietly that it would be more heroic for him to see that the others departed first. “Bear in mind, Designate—we are participating in events that will be documented in the Saga of Seven Suns. How do you wish to be remembered?”
Bhali’v agreed. “You are our leader, Designate. You are our connection to the Mage-Imperator, and through him, the Lightsource.” Always pragmatic, the bureaucratic deputy added, “By departing in the third vessel, you allow the first two to prepare the way and secure your reception.”
Mollified, Avi’h gave the order. The engines of the first surface flyer fired up, and Anton felt an indefinable sense of relief when the craft rose and departed, accelerating as it skimmed over the ground toward the far-off, unseen light of day.
The engines of the second flyer began to roar as Anton settled into his seat beside Vao’sh. Engineer Nur’of was already going over plans he had brought along. While he waited for all the passengers to strap in, he compiled a projected inventory of the supply and equipment vessels available at the Secda construction site, since the Designate had urged him to find a way to get off of the planet once they all reached temporary safety.
Anton checked through the notes he had retrieved from his personal quarters in Maratha Prime to make sure he had everything. For months he had been translating and analyzing portions of the Saga. Of all the human scholars who had filed requests, Anton Colicos was the only person ever approved to study with an Ildiran rememberer. It had been an intellectual and academic coup that none of his fellow scholars could match. His time living among the aliens, his friendship with Vao’sh, and now this unexpected ordeal—not to mention learning that his father was dead, his mother missing—gave him a great deal to assess and digest, far beyond his original goal of translating Ildiran myths and legends.
He looked over at the rememberer. “Are you glad to have a chance to practice what you preach, Vao’sh—to become a legendary figure instead of just talking about them?”
A sunrise of hues and tones flushed through his friend’s facial lobes. “No, Rememberer Anton. Given the choice, I prefer just to tell the stories, not to experience them.”
By now the second craft had flown away. Finally, their flyer lifted off the ground. Since he was the most qualified, Nur’of served as pilot. Bhali’v sat at the communications console, making regular contact with the other two craft. They raced across the landscape, skimming low over uneven ground that appeared bare, rough, and lifeless. While Anton gazed out the dark window, the other Ildirans faced inward toward the flyer’s lights and each other. The shadowy ground slithered by under them.
With every moment they moved closer to the distant line of daylight. Speeding along, the first flyer was by now far ahead of them and out of sight around the curve of the planet. The blazing engines of the second vehicle were only a pinpoint of orange in the distance.
Suddenly, Bhali’v frowned as he checked and rechecked his console. “We have just lost all contact with the first surface flyer.” He looked behind him to the Maratha Designate. “Their transmissions cut off abruptly. The pilot had time only to say that he had discovered an unusual reading, a spike—and then the signal cut off.”
“What about the second flyer?” Designate Avi’h asked.
Anton leaned forward, suspicions already churning in his mind. The bureaucrat kithman sent his inquiry signal. “Nothing unusual so far. . . . Wait—”
Far ahead of them, the brilliant orange dot of the flyer’s afterburners suddenly bloomed into a dazzling flower of incandescent light.
The Ildirans were astonished. “Kllar bekh! It just . . . exploded,” Nur’of said, immediately checking his own readings.
Anton leaped up from his seat. “Shut everything down, Nur’of! Land! You’ve got to put us down here and now.”
“But there is nothing out here,” Designate Avi’h sputtered.
Anton cut him off. “Two flyers in a row? That can’t be a coincidence! We’re only a few minutes behind them, so we don’t have long.”
The engineer decelerated drastically until their hull and landing gear scraped along the rough, barren ground. Anton speculated: “I don’t know if it was sabotage or just a flaw in these ships, but it could be a timed explosive that was activated as soon as we took off. We’ve got to get out of here now.”
As the flyer screeched to a halt, he opened the hatch, exposing them to the empty night and the cold air. “Grab your blazers if you must, but get out. Now!”
Rememberer Vao’sh scooped up one of the portable lights and rushed after the human scholar, fleeing the still groaning and humming flyer. Nur’of helped the two agricultural kithmen, Mhas’k and Syl’k, out of the hatch.
Anton shouted, “If I’m wrong, we can always come back—but if I’m right, we’ll know in less than a minute.” He sprinted across the cold darkness, not needing a light of his own. “Run!”
Thoroughly motivated to protect his own life, Designate Avi’h scrambled away, dragging his bureaucratic assistant along with him.
Engineer Nur’of was the last one out. “Perhaps the engines were overheating,” he suggested. “By landing in time, we may have avoided the problem.”
Anton motioned them all to hurry. “Or maybe the danger was caused by something else entirely. Come on!” At the moment, his best guess was that their mysterious saboteurs had reconfigured the flyer engines so they would fail catastrophically while being used. The countdown kept ticking at the back of his mind.
The air was very cold, and the night sky seemed penetratingly dark. Here, far from Prime and still a long distance from Secda, even Anton felt isolated and vulnerable. He could imagine how terrified the Ildirans themselves must be. When the group came to a halt, panting and anxious, they held their emergency blazers high, looking like a cluster of fireflies.
Designate Avi’h turned to Anton, his panic manifesting as anger and blame. “Now you can see that you have overreacted. Was it necessary to listen to—”
Behind him, the third and last flyer erupted in a timed explosion that ignited the fuel tanks, ruined the engines, and blasted shrapnel and supplies into the sky. The pieces continued to burn, arcing high and then crashing down like flaming meteors. The bright fires were like beacons in the darkness, but the horrified Ildirans took no comfort or strength from the crackling light.
Vao’sh spoke first, shaping their immediate response. “Rememberer Anton and Engineer Nur’of have saved our lives.”
“But we are lost in the middle of nowhere,” Ilure’l moaned. “We are vulnerable to the darkness and the shadows . . . and whatever else lives here.”
“And only twelve of us have survived—and one human,” Bhali’v said. “The others are dead. That’s not nearly enough for a splinter.”
Anton knew he would have to hold them together somehow. “There’s still hope. Even though the other two shuttles were destroyed, we’ve thwarted whoever is trying to kill us. We can make it.” Sensing their despair, understanding that the Ildirans were more terrified of the loneliness and the dark night than of faceless killers, he tried to sound optimistic. “We’re still alive, but we have to help ourselves. We can’t just sit here and wait for rescue.” He pointed in the direction of dawn, where he tried to convince himself he could see the barest smear of haze on the horizon. “There’s only one thing to do—start walking.” He took Vao’sh by the arm and bravely headed out.
In a low voice, the rememberer said, “Our story in the Saga just got more interesting—if any of us survives to tell the tale.”