Death's Bright Day Page 9

  That said, Cinnabar agents meddling in a region which was clearly within the Alliance’s sphere of influence constituted a cause of war also. Sand wanted Krychek’s plotting to fail, but not if that meant the Republic’s obvious involvement. She must be hoping that a corvette in private registry—and her crew—would not be enough to catch the attention of Pleasaunce.

  Grozhinski set an eight by four inch case on the table; it was less than two inches wide. “These are the log chips of a hundred and thirty ships trading in what is now Alliance space,” he said. “My father said you collect such things, so you might like them. The oldest is that of the Wideawake, which is pre-Hiatus.”

  Adele set her wands down and opened the case. The chips were of varying sizes and appearance. The case must have been purpose-built, as each pocket precisely fitted the log in it.

  “These aren’t copies,” Adele said.

  “Father returned copies to the archives,” Grozhinski said. “But yes, these are the originals.”

  He cleared his throat. “There is additional material—the background on matters we discussed here—at the end of the Wideawake log,” he said.

  Adele closed the case, then put her personal data unit away. “Thank you,” she said, “and thank your father. I do indeed like them.”

  She swung toward the door, then stopped and met Grozhinski’s eyes again. “If I may ask,” Adele said. “What is it you expect us—Captain Leary and I and the Princess Cecile—to do?”

  “I haven’t the faintest notion,” Grozhinski said. “And if my father does, he’s kept it from me. What he said—”

  Again the young man’s voice became careful.

  “—is that though he has no idea of what can be done, he has seen ample evidence of Lady Mundy’s resourcefulness and that of her naval friend.”

  Adele sniffed as she went out. A mare’s nest, she thought.

  But a flattering appraisal nonetheless.

  CHAPTER 7

  DaSaenz Estate on Jardin

  DaSaenz flew the aircar well. That was a relief to Daniel, though it hadn’t crossed his mind before they took off.

  He’d ridden with some very bad drivers without worrying particularly about it. An aircar ride, even with Hogg driving, didn’t make the top ten most dangerous experiences of Daniel’s normal life. Miranda was sitting beside him this time, however.

  “Would you like the top up?” daSaenz called over his shoulder.

  Daniel looked at Miranda. “No, I like the breeze,” she said.

  After a moment she added, “This is a wonderful way to see the country. I’ve, well, I’ve never ridden in an aircar before.”

  Daniel squeezed her hand. He hadn’t realized that, though it shouldn’t have surprised him. Miranda and her mother had lived in Xenos where trams made personal transport unnecessary and flight was banned save for emergency vehicles. Daniel didn’t own or drive an aircar, so he and Miranda had always taken the monorail when they visited Bantry.

  They were swinging around the hill above Cuvier. DaSaenz stayed about three hundred feet up and kept his speed down to fifty miles an hour, though the car was obviously capable of going much faster—especially with the top up to smooth the airflow.

  “That house on the peak is where you live?” Daniel said, leaning closer to the driver. They got only occasional glimpses of the building’s buttresses through the tops of the native trees. The foliage grew from a base of filaments which rose in a slender cone over a hundred feet above the ground. The road at the bottom of the valley was the only other human construction now that they had left Cuvier behind.

  “Yes, we just call it the manor,” daSaenz said. “It’s Starscape Manor in town, I’m told. There’s an elevator down from the house, but we’ll enter at the bottom and go up to mother when you’ve seen the caves.”

  Ahead was a twenty-foot high rock face too sheer for vegetation to take root. In front of it was a gravelled parking area onto which daSaenz sent the car in a descending arc. A sturdy kiosk was built against the cliff. Nearby a metal door was built into the rockface.

  “That’s the entrance to the caves?” Miranda said. “It looks like the door of a bank vault.”

  “Supposedly my ancestor Captain daSaenz had the door made from the colony ship’s sheathing,” daSaenz said. He flared the aircar neatly, hovered an instant, and settled the last six inches to the ground in front of the entrance. “The caves are dangerous to people without an experienced guide.”

  He shut off the fans and turned in his seat. “I suppose there was a certain amount of pride of ownership too, of course,” he said. “And initially I don’t believe the colonists realized that the glowworms were confined to this cave system. At least in seven hundred years, no other occurrence has been found.”

  Close up, what Daniel had thought of as a kiosk looked more like a pillbox. The walls were of closely fitted stone; the windows were small and now covered with armored glass which appeared to have replaced the original bars, as the slits in the masonry had been widened slightly. The door on one side was of the same heavy metal as that of the cave entrance.

  DaSaenz was coming around to Miranda’s side of the car before Daniel could get there. She hopped out on her own and smiled at their host. Miranda still practiced with school hockey teams to keep fit—which she certainly was.

  The kiosk’s door opened. A middle-aged man got out and bowed. His uniform was the same shade of red as the aircar, and it was piped with gold.

  “Good evening, sir,” he said. The guard didn’t have a gun, but the baton hanging from his belt was a meter long. “How may I help you, sir?”

  “Open the cave for me and my guests, then close it after we’ve gone in,” daSaenz said. “We’ll leave through the manor. Oh—and we’ll need one of the lanterns.”

  The guard trotted obediently back into the kiosk. The cave door—it was four inches thick—began to open with the high-pitched whine of a hydraulic pump.

  A moment later the guard returned with a flat six-inch lens of yellow crystal. It had a loop handle on top, but there was also a strap which daSaenz hung around his neck. The power supply must be part of the backing plate.

  “I’ll lead,” daSaenz said to Daniel. He completely ignored the guard who was waiting for further orders. “Keep with me. That shouldn’t be difficult since I’ll have the light.”

  Daniel and Miranda could have walked abreast through the cave entrance, but he took the lead so that he was between her and their guide. The worst you could really say about daSaenz was that he was brusque, as aristocrats by birth often are.

  Daniel smiled faintly. As I have been in my time, particularly if I’ve been drinking. I still don’t like daSaenz.

  The entrance started as a tunnel, clearly artificial. It was high enough that Daniel could walk upright but daSaenz ducked slightly. He probably would have cleared the ceiling also, but his caution was an instinctive response.

  “According to legend there was just a narrow fissure here,” daSaenz said. “A boy, one of my distant ancestors, crawled in. When he came back with stories about the lights—the glowworms, of course—his father blasted the rock wide enough that he could get in himself. The present entrance was built within that first generation.”

  The outer door closed and blocked the final leakage of sunshine, daSaenz switched on the lantern he carried. Its deep yellow light flooded the tunnel ahead—they had almost reached the end—and spilled out into a much larger chamber beyond.

  DaSaenz stepped aside so that the others could join him. “Why is the light this color?” Miranda asked.

  “It doesn’t harm your night vision,” daSaenz said. “And it doesn’t seem to affect the glowworms either—ultraviolet is fatal to them. But I’ll turn this out in a moment after you’ve had a chance to view the cave itself.”

  The chamber was a hollow spire rather than a dome, reaching higher than the lantern could illuminate even when daSaenz pointed it straight up. The base was a near oval measuring seventy feet
by a hundred at an eyeball estimate.

  Lowering the lantern again, daSaenz tapped an object with the toe of his boot. “Notice this?” he said. “It was a plastic food container. And that—”

  He tapped a wrinkled rectangle about eight inches square.

  “—was a piece of paper, a wrapper I think. Though there may have been writing on the upper side, which of course can’t be viewed now.”

  Daniel squatted and tapped the second item with his fingernail. It was a sheet of metal, just as he had thought from its gleam in the lantern light.

  “Look at the bottom,” daSaenz said.

  Daniel raised the piece between his thumb and forefinger and turned it over. The underside was paper. The top had been plated with metal.

  “There are other bits of human trash here,” daSaenz said, gesturing toward the cave floor. “These are enough to show you what happens. Now I’ll show you how it happens.”

  He switched out the light. Daniel grabbed daSaenz’ arm by reflex; his other fist was cocked for a memory-guided punch to their guide’s belly.

  Before Daniel swung, his eyes noticed irregular pastel blotches all around. The larger blurs contained scatterings of bright points.

  “It’s what Daddy described,” Miranda said quietly. “Like being in the Matrix, surrounded by stars.”

  It’s nothing like the Matrix! Daniel thought, but Miranda’s hand touched his hip. He quickly released daSaenz and edged toward Miranda.

  “Sorry,” he said to their guide, embarrassed at his reaction. “I was startled.”

  The glowworms ranged in size from the pad of his thumb to a few that were the size of his palm. There had been no sign of them before daSaenz turned out the lantern. A number clustered close by on the floor, including a pale blue patch under Daniel’s right boot. In fact—

  He jerked his foot back. The blotch came with it.

  “It’s on my foot!” Daniel said, hoping he didn’t sound as panicked as he felt. He bent to release the closures and kick the boot away. Could he hop back to the entrance without stepping on another with his bare skin?

  “Glowworms are quite harmless on your clothing,” daSaenz said. The scorn Daniel heard in his tone was probably not just imagination. “Here, I’ll see if I can coax it on to the lantern. Hold still.”

  DaSaenz bent at Daniel’s feet; Daniel felt the lantern case pressing against the toe of his boot. The glow had stopped where it was; in fact Daniel had never seen it move, just realized that there was a blob of light on his foot. By effort of will he kept from kicking out violently.

  “Are they amoebas?” Miranda said, holding Daniel’s hand firmly. She was changing the subject, bless her heart.

  She’s afraid I’m going to turn her childhood dream into something unpleasant, Daniel realized. Aloud he said, “They’re true multi-celled animals, dear. They eat sulfur from the limestone and give off light.”

  “There!” said daSaenz, rising. The smear of light had transferred onto the back of the lantern; it seemed to have contracted into a brighter version of itself at half its previous inch diameter. “It seems to me that if you know that, Leary, you should also have learned that the glowworms are harmless.”

  “I accept that they’re harmless,” Daniel said, keeping his tone pleasant for Miranda’s sake. “I was just surprised to find something crawling on me when I hadn’t seen it until you turned the light out.”

  “They etch the rock with mild acid,” daSaenz said. “I suppose a glowworm could burn your bare skin slightly, though I don’t recall hearing of that happening.”

  DaSaenz waggled the lantern, visible for the glow, then let it hang back against his chest. “Daylight kills them, turns them to fine dust. I’ll leave the lantern in the sun when we return.”

  The glowworms didn’t illuminate the chamber, but Daniel saw daSaenz’ silhouette turn toward Miranda as he said, “Your husband isn’t quite correct, mistress. There’s no sulfur in limestone, but there are inclusions of iron pyrites, fool’s gold, in this bed. The glowworms ingest the pyrites, separate the sulfur from the iron in the crystals, and excrete the iron on objects which contain no sulfur themselves. I’ve forestalled—”

  He gestured again with the lantern.

  “—this one from plating the toe of Leary’s boots, since he was concerned about it.”

  Daniel said nothing. He knew very little chemistry.

  “They give off light when they crack the sulfur out of the fool’s gold,” daSaenz said. “One of my great-uncles had read geology. He told my father that he thought more of the cave is a result of the glowworms eating away the stone than just rainwater like most caves. From photographs the chamber has continued to grow in the past 700 years, despite the manor being built on top and blocking further drainage.”

  “Don’t you worry that the house is going to fall in?” Daniel said. He immediately felt like a fool.

  “No, I don’t, Leary,” daSaenz said. “But if you’re concerned about your safety, you’re welcome to return to the entrance and wait for us.”

  “Sorry,” Daniel muttered. He was making a fool of himself in front of Miranda. This young pup is making a fool of me!

  He gave himself up to the moment. The worms, so called, must be only a few cell layers thick. Daniel had seen no sign of the creatures in the lantern light, even though he must have been standing on the one which then crawled on his boot.

  Because their glow was faint even in absolute darkness, Daniel couldn’t judge how near they were. Some of them seemed infinitely far away, though he’d seen the cave walls in the lantern and knew that the farthest were within a hundred feet of where he stood.

  “They’re beautiful,” Miranda said. “They’re wonderful. Thank you, Daniel, for bringing me here. And thank you, Master daSaenz.”

  “This is the least that my family can do for such important people,” daSaenz said. “A famous Cinnabar captain, and the daughter of Midshipman Dorst. Who was well-known here on Jardin even if not so famous on his own world.”

  “My father is known here?” Miranda said, her grip on Daniel’s wrist tightening. “Known for what, please?”

  “I’m sure my mother can give you all the details when you speak with her,” daSaenz said. “Midshipman Dorst visited in my grandfather’s time, of course, so I have only scraps of knowledge.”

  He coughed and said, “This was a little thing, as I said. This is the ante-room where the public is allowed. Now I’ll show you a portion of the caves that very few even of my family have seen.”

  DaSaenz switched on the lantern. Daniel turned his head and found that he could still see ghosts of the glowworms on the back wall and floor of the chamber behind him, opposite the broad cone of light. The yellow hue had spared his night vision.

  “Unless perhaps you’re afraid, Leary?” daSaenz said.

  “No,” said Daniel. Though he kept his voice calm, he was clenching his right fist behind his back. “But Miranda may not—”

  “I’d like to go on, Daniel,” she said. “If that’s all right with you?”

  “Lead on, daSaenz,” Daniel said, his voice raspy. “Anywhere you go, I’ll keep up. We will.”

  DaSaenz walked toward the end of the chamber opposite the entrance tunnel, his lantern spreading a broad fan of yellow on the floor ahead. Even knowing they were there, Daniel saw no sign of the glowworms. What had looked like a shadowed fold in the rock became a narrow passage about five feet high when they approached it.

  DaSaenz turned sideways and pulled the lantern out on its strap to move it from his chesk. He slipped into the passage, sending flickers of lanternlight back to those in the chamber.

  Daniel thought quickly. “I’ll lead,” he said, following their guide before Miranda could. He half-knelt to give his waist more room in the triangular passage. It was awkward and uncomfortable and extremely embarrassing, but he did it.

  Five feet into the crack, Daniel came out into a tunnel with squared walls and a six-foot ceiling. A metal door was inset
in the sidewall.

  DaSaenz waited beside it until Miranda sidled into the tunnel with less difficulty than Daniel had had. “This is the elevator to the manor,” daSaenz said, tapping the panel. “We’ll be going up in a moment. But if you’re still willing and able, Leary? It’s going to be quite narrow at the beginning.”

  “I’ll manage,” said Daniel. His voice was gruff. Even if I’ve got to strip and rub my skin off on the rock.

  The rock had been carved out only in front of the elevator. The crack leading to the next chamber must have been left unimproved to deter visitors. It continued out the far end of the elevator landing. DaSaenz squirmed into it.

  “Go ahead,” Daniel said, gesturing Miranda on. If he got stuck, he would back out and decide what to do next. He didn’t want to force her to back out also, And he didn’t want anybody, even Miranda, to be staring at him as he made up his mind about what to do next.

  He’d beat it, one way or another. He wouldn’t have been so successful had he not kept clear in his mind the number of ways things could go wrong with a plan, though.

  “Are there other openings in the anteroom, Master daSaenz?” Miranda said. Her voice was muffled by her own body.

  Daniel got down on all fours and squeezed himself into the passage. His upper shoulder blade—the right one—brushed repeatedly against the rock. The fabric was supposed to be tough, though he didn’t care if this jaunt converted his outfit to wiping rags.

  “Eighteen,” said their guide. Daniel could barely hear him. “Most of them are just cracks, but you can crawl a distance into four of them.”

  Daniel was in complete darkness. He assumed daSaenz had kept the lantern on, but none of the light leaked back past the two bodies ahead of Daniel and the kinks in the passage. At least it didn’t seem to be narrowing.

  DaSaenz said something. Miranda paused and Daniel’s left hand touched her foot.

  “Daniel,” she said. Her head must be turned, though Daniel couldn’t see even the foot he was touching. “It’s going to get tight in a moment, but it’s just a short place. Will you be all right?”