Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

THE BURNING HEART OF NIGHT

IVAN CAT

Also by Ivan Cat:

THE EYES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

www.ivancat.com

DAW BOOKS, INC.

DONALD A. WOLLHEIM. FOUNDER

375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIM

SHEILA E. GILBERT

PUBLISHERS www.dawbooks.com

Copyright © 2002 by Ivan Cat

All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by Jim Burns.

DAW Book Collectors No. 1228

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Putnam Inc.

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

First printing, July 2002 123456789 10

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

U.S. PAT.OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

? MARCA REGISTRADA.

HECHO EN U.S.A.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Most grateful thanks to everyone who assisted me with this book. Particular thanks to my scientist friends Garry Garrett and Randall Matthews, who took precious time out of their lives to answer many weird questions concerning the biology of Fugue, Scourge, and the entire New Ascension ecosphere.

Thanks also to Steve Collins of the way cool Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to John W. Thomas for his inspired and inventive help concerning the use of Latin, to Peter Löfwenberg for his meteorological advice, and to dive master Bill Feller USN for explaining the intricacies of the Emergency Escape Assent and other underwater perils. Any mistakes in this manuscript are my fault and not theirs.

In the category of exhibiting patience well above and beyond the call of duty, the awards go to my editor Betsy Wollheim and my fiancée Marti Livingston.

And lastly, but definitely not leastly, my thanks to Ernie Sheldon, Jr., who is always willing to listen to a nutty idea.

THE BURNING HEART OF NIGHT

No change without fear,

No destiny without dreams,

No wisdom without suffering,

No dark times without hope...

? Feral aphorism

PART ONE:

SACRAMENT AND FUGUE

I

Enclave of the Body Pure

Planet New Ascension

4615 A.D.

The little girl fled across the vast floating island, the ground rolling under her feet like broad ocean waves. Shooting-star palms swayed in time to the undulating root mass, their sour smelling streamers silhouetted against a storm-churned night, and noble sailtrees bent, turning sheet-leaves into the oncoming fury with a crack and a snap.

Jenette Helena Tesla was the girl's name. She was six years old, slight of body and blonde of hair, but she was strong on determination? and she was angry? very, very angry.

Her daddy was mean.

Lights flickered and bobbed in the distance behind Jenette. Strobing red streaks and sweeping yellow beams flashed through the swaying trees. She must not let them catch her. She did not know where she was going, but she knew where she was not going: back to her daddy.

Her daddy did mean things to her friends.

Her daddy made her friends go to Sacrament. He said it was because of the sickness that killed all the grownups, but Jenette didn't care about mean grownups. She only cared about her friends.

That was why she was running away and taking her friends with her. Of course, no other human but Jenette could have seen her friends just then. Her friends were too good at hiding and nearly invisible in the dark. Only Jenette knew they were nearby.

Leaves rustled and brainturf squished in the jungle around her and not from the impacts of her own feet.

Jenette stumbled onto a heap of swollen puff sacks. A cloud of archerbush spines exploded. She fell.

The spines didn't penetrate her olive-gray colonist's daysuit, but her exposed face and hands burned from a thousand pinpricks. Right away shadowy forms converged. She felt velvety muzzles nosing her back to her feet.

Her friends cared about her.

Not like her daddy.

Her friends were always nice to her. The heat of their bodies around her felt good that night. Jenette wanted to thank them, but she knew she must not talk, and she certainly must not cry out from the pain of the archerbush stings. If she or her friends made too much noise, they would be caught.

Jenette looked back. The lights were closing. Red patches and yellow beams spilled over the crest of

a land wave and then disappeared into the depths of a following trough. The wind carried snatches of urgent, howling voices.

"Where? Where? There!"

They were getting too close. Jenette turned and splashed through a stretch of sinkhole bog. Its surface splattered from the passage of many four-legged shadows following her. Across the bog, Jenette dropped and squirmed under a thicket of iron-brambles. "Hide!" she whispered, unnecessarily; the pitter-patter of following feet had already ceased. Through the spiky brambles Jenette saw the hunting lights circle, confused, and then head off in the wrong direction. Jenette scrambled out of the thicket and ran the other way, her friends rustling along behind.

"We fooled them!" she hissed.

But not all of the lights had been fooled. One of the red patches had slipped away from the others, dim and invisible at first, then growing stronger as it sprinted nearer and became more distinct. The baleful red glow did not radiate from a human searchbeam or a torch, but shone from the body of a half-seen alien predator. It flashed like a glow-in-the-dark chameleon, racing four-legged along hook grass and then bounding over sweeping sailtree buttresses. Angry red and black patterns cascaded across its lethal form, like little avalanches of red hot coal.

Claws scraped and plant fronds crackled as the hunting form darted around ahead of Jenette. Leaves parted as the monster burst into view. Low and wide it was, like the legendary Terran wolverine, but it had no tail and it was much larger. The creature weighed more than four hundred pounds and stood over four feet tall at its massive, hunched shoulders. Leathery hide thickened into armor plate at its outer flanks, limbs, and back; on that hide and armor patterns of light glittered from thousands of tiny flashbuds.

A bullet-shaped head hung low from the creature's neck. Black spheroid eyes glistened maliciously.

This was a Khafra, alien, ferocious, intelligent. It growled, aiming its ring of prehensile teeth at Jenette.

"Bad Jenette, bad Jenette."

In response, dozens of patches of light flared into view around Jenette? where sophisticated camouflage patterns had been hiding her friend's moments before. Each was a miniature version of the large Khafra, but with the gangly legs, oversized heads and eyes, and fat bodies common to young creatures on all planets. Arching their backs, they bared tiny teeth and growled at the older alien in small, shrill voices.

"Rrrrrrr, rrrrrr-grrrrrr, grrrrrr!"

The larger alien growled louder. "RRRRRRRRRR!"

Jenette stepped forward and bopped the large Khafra in the center of its forehead. "I'm not bad!" she said defiantly. "You're the one that's bad!"

The creature blinked its orb eyes deep into its head in surprise. "Urrr... Tarkas bad?"

"Yes, Tarkas bad!" Jenette said angrily. "I'm taking my friends back to their mommies and you're not helping!" This was why Jenette had broken the Khafra kits out of the Enclave nursery. Jenette didn't have a mommy. Jenette's mommy had died when Jenette was just one and a half years old. Jenette could cry all she wanted, but Jenette knew her mommy wasn't coming back, but the kits had mommies, somewhere, and she was going to take them back to their mommies before her daddy did any more mean things to them. "I thought you were my friend!" she accused the large alien.