T Southwell - Prophecy

"The people I know don't lie."

"Of course, the Atlanteans. Damn, but they're a stuck-up, self-righteous lot. Never did like them." He rose and came around the table to loom over her. "Let's get this over with, shall we? I'll take you to the hangar, where you can meet your ship."

"I haven't agreed to your condition," she pointed out as she stood up to face him.

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter. You won't find me next time."

"What if I need your help?"

The Shrike turned and went to the door, where he waited for her to join him before leading her down the corridor. He set a brisk pace, which made it difficult to talk, so she followed him in silence. To her surprise, he took her back to her apartment and pointed at a black one-piece suit draped over the back of a chair.

"Put that on. And to answer your previous question, why the hell should I help you any more than I already have?"

She glanced at the clothes. "Why must I wear that?"

"Because, in case you haven't noticed, my people think you're a slaver, come to do business with me. They don't like rival slavers, which is why I had to have you guarded. My rivals visit me rarely, and when they do, they don't wander about the station, not even in my company. It makes my people angry. So put on the suit."

The Shrike stepped back, and the door shut in her face. She picked up the suit with its hawk-like emblem and went into the bedroom to change. He was becoming more and more confusing, this strange man, and she could not figure him out at all. When she had been afraid, he had been gentle and kind, but firm and mysterious too. Now he was harsher, brisk, suspicious, and downright rude.

When she had changed, she found Tarke waiting outside, and followed him back down the corridor that led to the hangars. The guards were absent, so apparently he had dismissed them outside her apartment. They marched through the room with the glass-walled office and into the next hangar, where she had seen the black ship before. It was still there, or perhaps it had returned, and she gazed up at it with a thrill of awe.

"This one?"

He nodded. "Its name is Shadowen. It's the same ship you travelled in to Octovar One."

"I thought it was your special ship?"

"It was, but I've built a new one, slightly better, but basically this one's twin. I even cloned the bio-crystalline brain. They're almost identical. Shadowen is twenty years old, which is not young by a ship's standards. It was due for an overhaul and a refit, which it's had now, since the new one's been in service. I had planned to use them both, but I don't really need two."

Rayne gazed at the ship. "She's beautiful."

"I wouldn't call Shadowen a 'she', if I was you. It's a moot point, but the brain prefers a masculine title. I'm assuming your guide had one of my companion ships in mind when he told you to ask me for a ship, since they're my best, far superior to anything Atlan has. They're faster, and able to withstand more stress than a bigger ship, like a battle cruiser. But it has a good deal of firepower and an excellent Net link, which is a ship's most important asset.

"As long as it's linked to the Net, this ship can hold its own in battle with a cruiser the size of Vengeance. Not only does it have a number of fore and aft energy weapons, it also has one-way stress screens, which the Atlanteans don't. Their ships have to lower their screens for an instant to fire their weapons, this one doesn't."

He headed for an almost invisible door in the sleek hull. "By the way, if you try to hand this ship over to the Atlanteans, it will return to me, and you won't be received so cordially if you come here again."

"I wouldn't."

He stopped beside the door. "But they might try to take it. They'd love to get their hands on one of my ships and study it. Shadowen won't allow that either."

Rayne nodded. "If necessary, I'll stay away from Atlan."

"Where else would you go?"

"I don't know. I want to visit Endrix's world. He said I could, but if the Atlanteans try to take the ship, I'll have to find somewhere else to wait for the Envoy to appear."

Tarke faced her in silence for several seconds, as if trying to decide what to make of her, then turned to the ship. The door opened with a hiss, and two steps floated out to hang suspended on antigravity fields. He walked up them, vanishing within. Rayne followed him into a dim bridge, where tiny crystals glowed and a soft background hum sent faint vibrations under her feet.

"Hello, Tarke." A bland, sexless voice, which she assumed was the ship, spoke out of the gloom.

"Shadowen, this is Rayne," the Shrike said. "I'm loaning you to her for a while. She has a mission. When she's completed it, you'll return to me."

A pregnant silence fell, and she could have sworn she sensed the ship's confusion and dismay, but that was impossible, since it was a machine. It said, "Very well."

"You'll have to be linked to her biorhythms for the duration."

"I understand."

Dark turned to her. "My companion ships are linked to my biorhythms, so if I die they self-destruct. I can't leave him linked to me, in case something happens to me, but he has to be linked to someone."

She nodded. "Okay."

He faced a console, and a slot opened on it. It looked like a neural net sensor pad, and she shot him an enquiring glance.

"It is a neural net slot, I'm afraid," he answered her thoughts. "Shadowen requires a brief link, to learn your particular patterns and rhythms. It will only take a moment."

With a slight grimace, she slid her hand into the slot and shut her eyes as the data stream swept through her brain. Far more information appeared than she had experienced on the scout ship. The river of knowledge was too deep to plumb, and was not meant to be. She sensed that anyone who tried to control this ship through the neural net would be driven mad in moments by the sheer mass and complexity of the information within it.

Emotions were mixed with the flood of words and numbers, as if she read a person's mind, which made her uncomfortable. Mercifully, the link only last a few seconds, then the grey nothingness of the no-place filled her mind, and she pulled her hand out, staggering a little as emptiness flooded her brain on the heels of the neural net's occupation.

Tarke gripped her arm and guided her to the solitary, form-fitting seat that faced the screens, and she sank into it. The Shrike stood beside her, his gloved hands clasped before him.

"Now you have a ship. One that won't allow a stranger to enter without your permission or any harm come to you, if he can possibly stop it. His loyalty will cause him to sacrifice himself, if necessary, to save you. He does not require a neural link during flight. He's quite capable of dealing with almost any situation, and if he can't, he'll tell you. You can tell him where to go, then go and sleep, if you want. It's like having a pilot, only this one's part of the ship."

"He's amazing," she murmured.

"Thank you," the ship replied. "It's good to be appreciated."

"Will he still be loyal to you as well?"

Dark nodded. "I'm afraid so. No chance of stealing him. He'll always obey me, but then, I won't be around."

Her face grew hot, and she was glad of the gloom. "I wasn't thinking of stealing him. I just wondered."

"He could have told you that himself."

A sudden thought made her smile. "I daresay I could learn a lot from him. He must even know what you look like."

"Well, that's an unpleasant fact, isn't it? Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm afraid he won't oblige." His voice was hard, and he swung away, striding to the door.

Rayne hurried after him, catching up as he marched past the glass office. "Tarke…"

He ignored her, and she followed him back to her apartment, where he turned to face her, making no effort to hide his anger. "Is that what this is all about? Are you just an Atlantean spy with a great way of tricking me into revealing my secrets?"