The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [103]
The Lord Marshal stopped directly in front of her. She could have turned away, but chose not to. She could have protested her treatment, but chose not to. Aereon was the very embodiment of the patience for which the Elementals were famed.
Unlike her, her visitor, however, was far less inclined to waste time in idle contemplation of his immediate surroundings.
“Tell me the report is true. Vaako was very confident. That is not the same thing as being utterly positive. Tell me the Furyan is gone and I can close this campaign without hearing his bootsteps.”
“Let me see.” Just the faintest hint of mockery tinged her response. “If he is dead, I sense I’m not far from the same fate, being of no further use to you. So, as a matter of self-preservation, shouldn’t I tell you that Riddick is still alive?”
Elementals and their elliptical responses were a pain to all who were forced to endure them, he thought. “Don’t try me, Aereon. I can plow you under with the rest of Helion Prime. Push me the wrong way and I’ll bury you so deep your precious air will never reach you.”
“Dear me,” she replied, her tone unchanged. “Then I’d best mind what I say, hadn’t I?” The mocking tone vanished and she became quite serious. “No one really knows the future. What people call clairvoyance is in reality nothing more than acute intuitive insight. Or a lucky guess. It is certainly not the infallible talent some claim. Inerrancy, Lord Marshal, is a fallacy to which only fools aspire.”
If she was speaking of those claiming to be clairvoyants, then she was answering his question. If she was using the subject under discussion to deliver a veiled warning, he ought to have her killed for insolence. Since he couldn’t be sure of either, he forbore from ordering the latter.
He tried another tack. “Very well. If you cannot foresee what is to come, and insist no one else can, either, then tell me the odds that Vaako met with success. That I’ll now be the one to carry my people across the Threshold and into the UnderVerse where they can begin True Life.” He smiled unpleasantly. “Surely you can do that for me, Aereon. Since, as you say, you people are always calculating. Tell me what I want to hear—and maybe I’ll save your home world. For last.”
Somewhat to his surprise, she didn’t hesitate. Nor did she attempt to dance around his query any longer. Eyeing him without flinching, or even without ran-cor, she murmured, “The odds are good.”
“‘The odds are good,’” he repeated irritably. “The odds are good—for what?”
“That you’ll reach the UnderVerse soon.”
He nodded understandingly and, apparently satisfied, turned to leave. He was partway down the access corridor when the alternate import of her response struck him. Turning, he glanced back the way he had come. Nothing was drifting down the corridor toward him, and the shadowed alcoves of the walkway remained devoid of flickering, dancing shapes. Only the shadows mocked him. Since he could not order their arrest and execution, he had no choice but to continue on, more unnerved than he would have cared to admit.
Having no equal, he was forced to debate with himself what to do. Helion Prime had not yet been completely subjugated. But it was badly weakened, and unlikely to offer serious resistance if attacked afresh. Vaako had been so certain, but still, still . . .
Standing at the railing allowed him a sweeping view over Necropolis. Now he turned abruptly, so abruptly that his move startled the officer standing behind him.
“Ascension protocol. Now. Relay the order throughout the fleet and to all ground units.”
Caught off guard by both the speed of the Lord Marshal’s turn and the nature of his request, the officer blinked uncertainly. “We still have numbers out there, Lord Marshal. Sweep teams, recon ships, mop-up squads that—”
Another man might have yelled in the officer’s face. Lord Marshal’s astral self snapped out furiously, slamming the unlucky officer across the room and into a wall, smashing his bones. The hesitant officer crumpled