Reclamation

Cor knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to touch the crying women to comfort them with a friendly hand and kind words. He also knew what would happen. They'd flinch and cower and try to get away. They didn't know how else to act. They were Notouch.

And if the gods know what else they are…

"You'd better see this, too." Jay took two hesitant steps toward Chamber One's "back door," another threshold leading to a tunnel that was indistinguishable from the one they came down, except for the sign Jay had painted over it saying NOT THIS WAY.

Cor leaned into the corridor. Instantly, a flash of ruby light dazzled her eyes. She blinked hard. Another flash bounced off the tunnel walls, and another.

"Gods in Earth and Hell," she whispered. "What's doing that?"

"I haven't had the guts to go look," said Lu. "I've got a feeling those cables we found got switched on, too."

Jay slammed both fists against an empty table. "We don't have time for this!"

Startled, Lu jerked his head up. "What's with him?"

"First City broke the diplomatic truce," said Cor. "The war's going on in Narroways' streets now." She gazed around at the arias in their control boards and the creeping things in their transluscent tanks and the shifting, meaningless shadows on the walls.

Lu'd spent days, weeks, recording and cataloging every feature of Chamber One. They'd all spent months entertaining themselves with speculation about what it all meant, and not once did they even come close to understanding it. Then, a superstitious, enslaved woman touched a stone and this room of shadows and riddles lit up like morning itself.

I wish I was Lu, she thought suddenly. I wish the important things were wires and generators and transmitters and keeping everything up and running. I wish I thought people were all basically the same and that if they weren't acting like it, they would as soon as they had things properly explained to them. I wish I didn't think we were in way, way over our heads.

"Hey, Diajo-Cor." Lu made her name into the Averand diminutive. "Are you all right?" He wrapped a skinny, cord-muscled arm around her shoulders and she thought she felt him relax for simply having someone he could touch without panicking them.

She squeezed his hand. "Yeah. Yeah."

Except that I'm too tired for this. I'm too cold, and all the gods come to my aid, I am too scared.

She walked out from under Lu's arm and stood over Trail and Cups. Trail's sobbing had quieted to a hoarse, intermittent noise.

"Notouch," said Cor. "Get up that ladder into the white room. You can sleep by the fire until she's well enough to talk. Get out of here."

"As you command, this despised one shall do," said Cups and there was no mistaking the relief in her voice. Trail moved, jerkily, reflexively, but at least she moved. A lifetime of following whatever orders she was given got her to her feet so she could walk out into the dark tunnel behind her cousin.

Lu watched them leave. "I don't know for sure what happened to her, but she didn't like it and I don't think she's going to do it again."

"She's going to have to," said Jay.

Cor felt a cold flare of anger go through her. She remembered the sound of gunfire and the sight of blood. "I don't care who you think you are, Jay, but you can't make this decision without orders from May 16."

Jay stabbed a finger down the tunnel. "If King Silver can't hold Narroways, we're going to lose any chance of creating a coherent power base before the Vitae arrive. The only other thing we can do is get control of this place." He leaned forward and Cor saw his jaw shake. "If we don't, we're lost. Everything is lost!"

The force of his blunt statement took Cor back. "We have to get the go-ahead. We don't know what we're dealing with—"

"We're dealing with the Vitae." Jay cut her off. "Listen to me, Cor. Listen hard. Do you know what they're going to do? They're going to come in here, round everybody up, sort out the useful ones, and pen them up. While they're doing that, they'll be analyzing everything they can get their hands on down here. When they're done with that they'll put the two together and see what happens. They'll measure and they'll record and they'll study until they understand it all. Then, while the Unifiers are flailing around out there trying to make political hay in this particular patch of sunshine, they will bring what they've learned out into the Quarter Galaxy and do whatever they please!"