Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) (43 page)

“With these new weapons, who couldn’t?”

“
I
couldn’t,” Toca said mildly.

“And I doubt you could, you old blowhard!” Aunt Sekan challenged. Pounding a fork on the table, she instructed,
“Let’s eat.
I don’t want to talk about any more foolishness tonight!”

Grandpa gave her the evil eye, but smiled when he got a whiff of the steaming lamb. “Okay. You’d probably make me go hungry if I tried, so I surrender.” He held out his hands for the platter. Sekan handed it across the table.

Pavel waited his turn, hugging Yael, then took the plate of meat his father handed him and forked out three pieces for himself and one for Yael. She prodded it suspiciously with her knife before picking it up in her fingers and munching it like a long strand of spaghetti. A small transgression, he didn’t try to stop her. No one cared and it gave Yael great pleasure. He passed the plate back to Aunt Sekan and reached for the salad bowl, shoveling his plate full. The vinaigrette dressing smelled spicy and sour compared to the sweetness of the lamb.

“You remember Moche Oyar, Pavel?” Toca asked.

“Loren’s son. Yes, a gangly boy. Isn’t he thirteen or fourteen now? He used to play with Yael when she was little.”

“Fourteen. I’ve been teaching him the Merkabah.” Toca cut a piece of lamb and chewed thoughtfully. “He’s a very good student.”

“Is he? He’d make you a better son than me, then. I could never keep all the secret names of God straight, let alone memorize all the guardian angels I was supposed to recite them to. The seven heavens were too complicated for my mind.”

“You were more interested in climbing trees.”

He laughed. “Guilty as charged. I liked to study the leaves. That’s where my first motivation to study botany came—”

“Let’s get back to business,” Jasper said gruffly, now that his plate was heaped with food. “If Baruch is in the government’s hands—we haven’t got a leg to stand on to piss!”

Sekan gasped, but Toca just heaved a disgruntled sigh. “Jasper, this is Shabbat. Please.”

Grandpa waved his willowy arms wildly. “You think God never heard the word
piss?”

“Grandpa?” Yael whispered, sitting up straighter in her chair. Her dark eyes gleamed. “What does that mean, ‘piss?’ I like that word.”

Jasper’s stern face softened and an indulgent smile creased his withered lips. He reached across the narrow table to pinch her cheek. “Never mind, pretty girl. It’s a grown-up word.”

“Will you tell me when I get older?”

“Sure.”

“Papa,” Pavel said. “Grandpa’s right about Baruch. If he’s—”

A loud siren blared outside. They all whirled, hearts in their throats. Lights flashed through the candlelit house.

“What’s happening now?” Jasper demanded.

“Gamants,” a voice called in intergalactic lingua. “Prepare to be searched. All artifacts made of precious metals are to be confiscated. Anyone who attempts to hide such belongings will be immediately taken to the prison colony on Tertullian.”

Pavel got up quickly and went to the window, pulling back the drapes a slit. A huge ovoid ship hovered over the street, blotting out the stars. Below it, a hundred armed soldiers stood, apparently awaiting instructions.

“They’ve brought muscle to force us,” he said.

He heard Aunt Sekan grabbing silverware, it clanged in the foreboding silence. “They’re not getting my great-great-grandmother’s silver,” she said in a shaky voice. “It came from Old Earth. I won’t let them take it!”

Karyn’s hushed voice cut the night. “They’re afraid we’re manufacturing weapons in the city. Our instructors told us last week this might happen.”

Pavel let the curtain drop closed and turned to stare hollowly at his family. “Papa, what should we do?”

Boots pounded the pavement outside, the click-clop thundering through the dining room. Toca drummed trembling fingers on the table. “Cooperate. It’s all we can do.”

“No!” Sekan cried, hugging the silver to her ample bosom. “I won’t! They can’t have—”

“Sekan!”
Toca reprimanded in the hardest voice Pavel had ever heard him use. Sweat beaded on his father’s broad nose. Did he know more than he’d been saying? Had he been expecting this? Had Lichtner told him? “They’ll be here any second. You don’t want to take the chance they’ll kill one of us, do you? Over a bunch of forks and knives?”

Before she could respond, a fist knocked insistently at the door. “Jacoby? Open up!”

Toca got up from his seat and went to the door, unlocking it with fumbling fingers. A cold gush of wind swept inside, fluttering the drapes and white linen tablecloth.

“Yes, officer. Please, come in. We’ll give you no trouble.”

The tall brown-haired sergeant in a purple uniform pushed past him, throwing Toca off-balance so that he stumbled into Pavel’s arms.

“No trouble?” the sergeant said disbelievingly. “You Gamants are all liars. You’re born troublemakers.”

He motioned to his men and ten soldiers thrust through the door. One corporal grabbed the tablecloth and jerked it hard, pulling it off and onto the floor. Yael screamed, hands pleading to be taken. Pavel started forward, but in a flash, Karyn was on her feet and had Yael in her arms. They backed up against the far wall. Grandpa sat sternly still, eyeing the soldiers as though they were pond slime. Pavel could see the splashes of wine and gravy on the old man’s white shirt.

Liquid seeped through the linen as the corporal started to draw up the corners, securing all the silver that Sekan hadn’t yet collected.

Pavel looked pitifully at his aunt. She stood shuddering, tears running down her plump cheeks. Several precious forks and spoons were still clutched to her breast. The corporal spied them. “Give me those!”

She took a step backward, mouth quivering. “Let me keep them. They belonged to my grand—”

“I said give them to me!”

“Sekan,”
Toca pleaded. “Do as he says.”

When she hesitated, the private pulled his pistol from his holster and aimed at her pudgy stomach. “You Gamants think you can disrupt every quadrant of space and the government will do nothing. People in my home sector are starving because of you and your filthy Underground! Well, you’ve just begun to feel the wrath of the Magistrates. Hand them over!”

Sobbing, Sekan walked forward and gently added the silver to the dirty pile in the tablecloth. Her wrenching cries filled the room, an underlying current of sound that made Pavel’s throat go dust dry. He’d seen that silver set the table for every holiday he could remember.

The marines turned over tables, pulled out drawers, shoved cabinets facedown to see if any metal objects were hidden behind them. It took only a little more than fifteen minutes, yet Pavel felt each ticking of the clock as hours.

Finally, the sergeant lifted his chin, glaring at Toca. “Be here,
all of you,
tomorrow morning at six.”

“Of course, officer. Why? What’s—”

“We’re emptying out this nest of rebellion. Everyone will be transported out of the city, street by street.”

Toca cocked his head incredulously. “There are over two hundred thousand people in Derow. Where will you take us? What will we do?”

A cruel smile lit the sergeant’s face. “Something productive for a change. You’ll have the honor of serving the Magistrates.”

“But I—I don’t understand. We have jobs here. What—”

“Don’t ask questions, old man!
Just pack your bags and be ready to go.”

The sergeant spun on his heel and left; his men followed in single file. When Toca closed the door again and turned to meet each of their gazes, tears shimmered in his eyes.

“Come on,” he said softly. “We have a lot to do. Pavel, go downstairs and fetch the eggs. We’ll boil five dozen and take them with us. Sekan? Sekan, darling, don’t cry. We haven’t time now for grief. Can you bake some bread? We’ll need as much as you can cook over the night.”

“Yes, I—I’ll get started.” Sobbing, she squared her shoulders and trotted from the dining room into the kitchen.

When Pavel looked over, he found Grandpa futilely wiping at his good shirt with a napkin he’d dipped in water. The wine stains grew, spreading across his bony chest like pale blood. After a moment, Jasper glanced up and met his gaze. His eyes glimmered with hate, but his voice was so quiet he could have been giving a blessing. “They’re going to kill us. You know that, don’t you, Pavel? You’re smart enough to see that.”

The question froze his tongue. He stared a moment, transfixed, then ran for the basement, slowing only long enough to stroke Yael’s cheek as he passed.

CHAPTER 33

Rachel walked up and down the dimly lit level four corridors, talking briefly with each security officer she passed. They’d pared the staff on the level down to five, three stood strategically at the intersecting corridors around Tahn and Halloway’s cabins. Rachel monitored Tahn’s door, a job that left her on her own much of the time, which she appreciated. She needed to think.

The silence seemed to thrum—like her nerves. Dread swelled so violently in her chest, she thought she’d explode. Even though Aktariel had specifically told her to talk to Tahn, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She’d tried to see Jeremiel instead, to ask him about Lichtner, but he’d been in urgent consultations with Harper over the refugees. An epidemic had broken out on level fourteen and the children and elderly afflicted with the virus were dying with stunning swiftness.

Desperate to understand
anything
Aktariel had told her, she pulled the sheet of equations from her pocket and glanced at them as she walked. Inverted triangles, strange foreign letters and parallel lines met her gaze. When she reached Tahn’s cabin, she slumped against the wall and vented a brusque exhalation.

“I don’t know what any of this means. None of it!”

She crumpled the sheet in her hand. Her entire body burned with the need to understand. She’d go mad if she didn’t talk to someone soon.

Reluctantly, she looked at Tahn’s door.

“No. No, not yet.”

Tahn paced his cabin like a caged lion, nervous, anxious to be at somebody’s throat. Baruch hadn’t been lying. The
Hoyer’s
records left open the question of fault. He felt combative and ill. He’d showered twice so far today, just to ease some of his tension. His fresh uniform hung in crisp lines, accentuating his broad shoulders and trim waist. His brown hair still clung damply to his temples and forehead.

“Damn it.”

Carey had been in three times in as many hours, but every time they’d spoken she seemed more antagonistic, berating his ideas for no apparent reason.

“Stop it,” he chastised himself. “She’s just on edge. She’s carrying the double burden of maintaining crew morale and dealing with Baruch.”

He felt trapped—a pawn in a deadly game. He ran a hand through his hair and stared imploringly at the floor.

“Captain Tahn?” a deep feminine voice called through his door com.

He put his hands on his hips, frowning. “Yes?”

“I’m on Commander Baruch’s security staff. May I see you for a moment?”

Probably another frisk session. What did they think he did, manufacture weapons out of the goddamned air?

“Enter.”

The door slipped open and a tall woman stood silhouetted against the nighttime corridor. Dressed in a brown formfitting jumpsuit, long black hair hung in lustrous waves to her waist. He couldn’t recall her name, but he remembered their original “meeting” when Baruch had bodily hauled him to the bridge.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said.

“I wasn’t exactly busy. Come in.”

She entered and the door closed behind her. She fumbled nervously with a crystal sheet, crumpling it in one fist then the other. Just watching her obvious discomfort made him uneasy.

“I suspected you wanted in for a reason,” Tahn challenged. “Was I wrong?”

“No. I’m sorry, I’m just very nervous about disturbing you.”

“What was your name?”

“Rachel Eloel. I’m in charge of security for your cabin.”

“Ah, you’re my jailer. I wondered what your specific job was. Well, it’s good to finally meet you. What may I do for you?”

She stepped forward boldly, feverishly asking, “Who’s Major Lichtner?”

Taken completely aback, he shook his head in confusion, but a hot fire blazed in his soul, igniting old hatreds. “Why do you want to know?”

“He’s important.”

“Well, if he’s that important, you’d better ask Baruch.”

She took another step forward to stand no more than two feet from him. She fixed him with a look so hard his shoulder muscles contracted. Her eyes blazed. “Tell me.”

He kept silent. Some undercurrent of emotion roiled in the depths of her eyes. He couldn’t quite figure out the source. Was she in love with Baruch? Is that why she cared about Lichtner? He scrutinized her posture, her face. No, that didn’t seem to be the root. It was something else. What?

She clenched her hands into tight fists. “Why won’t you tell me? Is it something so terrible that even you—”