Planet X - Michael Jan Friedman [31]
Then she turned her back on them and started down the barren slope—headed in the opposite direction from Verdeen. The wind plastered her garments to her, as if giving her a helping hand.
At first, no one responded to Seevyn’s speech. All they did was cast uncertain glances at one another. Then two of the transformed—the four-armed man and a woman who could draw energy from things around her—separated themselves from the group. As the sunset painted a wash of fire across the sky, they followed the illusion-maker down the mountain.
It seemed to Erid that others might leave as well. In fact, he was beginning to wonder if it might not be a bad idea himself … when he saw Rahatan point a finger at Seevyn and the others.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.
Seevyn and her companions stopped and looked back at him. “Wherever we want,” she called back, the wind snatching at her words. “We’re free, aren’t we? Isn’t that what our escape was all about?”
“You’re fools, all three of you!” Rahatan bellowed, his voice echoing savagely down the mountainside.
The illusion-maker didn’t answer him. Neither did the other two. She just turned again and kept going, and her companions went with her.
“Fools!” the earthmover roared at the top of his lungs.
Then, without warning, his hands clenched into fists—and the ground seemed to open like a hungry maw under Seevyn’s feet. She screamed and looked back over her shoulder, and Erid saw something big and dark and fearful come flying at Rahatan.
But the thing shivered into nothingness before it could reach him, as if it had never existed in the first place—as if it were only an illusion. And when Erid looked back to see what had happened to Seevyn, he couldn’t find her. All he could see was the ground coming together again.
The sight made Erid want to retch. The illusion-maker had been swallowed whole by the mountainside. For the love of the ancients, Rahatan had buried her alive.
The two transformed who had followed Seevyn scrambled away frantically from her burial place. Their eyes were wide with horror at what they had seen—and with fear that Rahatan might not be done yet.
But their fears were unfounded. Slowly, Rahatan let his fists fall to his sides. Then he turned to Erid and the other transformed, a guilty expression on his face.
“Seevyn was a cancer among us,” he explained in a strangely reasonable voice. “She had to be removed, before it was too late.”
No one replied. With Paldul one of Rahatan’s staunchest supporters, no one even dared to think.
“You all understand that, don’t you?” asked the earthmover.
“Ofcourse,” said Corba, though she sounded less than certain.
“You had no choice,” added the youth with the luminous eyes.
Rahatan smiled a haunting smile. “I’m glad you see it the way I do,” he said. “Now let’s go. Verdeen is waiting for us.”
As if nothing had happened, as if Seevyn’s death had never taken place, he made his way down the slope. And with what seemed like little choice in the matter, the others followed—Erid among them.
Numbly, he wondered if the story about Seevyn concealing her ugliness was true, or if she was really as beautiful as she appeared to be. At that point, it shouldn’t have mattered anymore.
But somehow, it mattered a lot.
Lt. Sovar stopped outside his friend’s door and pressed the pad set into the bulkhead beside it. A moment later, the duranium panel slid aside, revealing Robinson’s neatly furnished quarters.
Unfortunately, Robinson herself wasn’t anywhere in sight. “I’ll be just a minute,” she called from the next room.
Sovar nodded. “Take your time,” he said, depositing himself on the transporter operator’s couch.
He looked around at the artwork displayed on the walls. One piece in particular caught his eye.
“This is new,” he observed out loud.
His friend poked her head in from the next room. “What is?”
Sovar pointed to a striking montage of welded metals hanging above Robinson’s workstation. “It