Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [30]
The humans had never discovered the indigenous life on their planet, because it all lived under the surface. Excess radiation from space had forced indigenous species to live and evolve underground. The Rampartians had neutralized the radiation with some simple filter-fields, but no indigenous life had as yet permanently returned to the surface (though over the last hundred years the haguya had developed a habit of making brief flights above ground, always hidden under cover of the darkest nights). And Rampartians didn’t venture below the surface, since their underground mining and tunneling was done by machines. On rare occasions when Rampartians accidentally wandered or fell into caves, any resultant memories of indigenous life would be classified as “fictional” by the mind-cleansing computers, and the memories would be deleted.
So now the one-eye went on its way undisturbed, following its mission profile: to find the enclave of the criminals.
Behind it, in the great cavern of the lake, a squad of CS men, newly arrived through a forced-open duct at the ore factory, awaited the results of the reconnaissance, and the signal for attack.
Their eye-rasters were working overtime, blocking out the pool-dwelling animals and the glowing light-stones. The computers assumed that these “fictions” were illusions created by the Dissenters, like cheap magic tricks.
They walked for hours along the same natural string of caverns, one swift-flowing stream.
At a certain point Troi noticed an artificial dam made from logs and piles of rock. Here the trail diverged from the stream.
After a bit more walking, Caliban stopped so suddenly that Troi almost ran into him. He was holding his light-stone against his body, leaving most of the surroundings in darkness.
The haguya alighted in front of them, and Rhiannon slid off its back. The adolescent girl whispered some words into the animal’s ear and it took off and disappeared into the darkness.
Rhiannon turned toward the cave wall nearest them and said, “Alastor.”
A voice from the other side of the wall answered, “Caer Sidi. What’s today’s word?”
“Minotaur.”
After a moment, there was a grinding sound, and a cleft opened up in the wall. Rhiannon climbed through, then Caliban pushed Troi through and climbed in after her.
Troi found herself in a large round cave-chamber filled with stalactites and stalagmites. Interspersed among the natural columns were statues, a whole forest of them. The stone figures were variously rough-hewn and finely worked, of many styles made by many different hands. Troi recognized some figures—Polynesian, African, Hindu, Greek. Light-stones, set along the walls, provided insufficient light for the large space, and the statues seemed wrapped in their own shadows.
A giant strongman big enough for a circus moved the door-stone back into position behind Troi, then sat down to chisel with makeshift tools at one of the statues.
Another figure approached.
Troi found his age hard to estimate. He was broad-shouldered and had striking blue eyes, but his beard was flecked with gray and his face was well-weathered. His knee-length tunic was ragged. He spoke to the two who brought Troi.
“Rhiannon, Caliban, give yourself a meal,” he said. “Call the Nummo twins to patrol outside.”
“I’ll wait so we can eat together,” Rhiannon said to Troi, in a charmingly bossy tone that indicated Troi had better fulfill the appointment. Then the girl and her soiled companion disappeared into the statue garden.
The bearded man examined Troi with a cool stare.
She could sense his circumspection and self-confidence. A commander of some kind, she guessed. Her mental feelers sensed an indomitable will or guiding principle, strong enough to hold dominion over everything else within him.
“I’m Odysseus,” he said.
He waited for her to speak.
“I’m Deanna,” she said, and strained to feel his most private emotional strata.
She found a shamed, suffering man.
She was reminded of an incident on Rastaban III. She had