The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [78]
Another pause followed. Despite the immense distances involved and the lesser Quasi-Dead’s ability to relay only words, she thought she could see her companion thinking.
“What is to be done?” Vaako asked finally.
Good. He was letting her take the lead. Also the leading risks, but that was fine with her. Given her current line of thought, she was in far more danger at that moment than he was on his ship in deep space.
“You do what your lord asks of you. Find and cleanse Riddick for him. In doing so, you prove your undying loyalty to him. Perhaps then, perhaps afterward . . .”
“He’ll finally let down his guard,” the Quasi whispered, repeating Vaako’s words verbatim.
She straightened above the slab. As she did so, the Quasi’s head lolled slowly to one side, the connection broken. “Until your return, my love,” she murmured to the otherwise empty chamber. Then she bent low and, with the most extreme and grisly delicacy imaginable, lightly brushed her mouth across the gray lips of the unable to respond Quasi-Dead.
Later that night, she happened to pass the Lord Marshal and his retinue. They were deep in conversation, no doubt on some topic involving the continued pursuit of a war of occupation that had proven more troublesome than expected. The surviving forces of the Helion military were proving awkward in their obduracy. That was not her concern.
What did concern her was that as he passed by seemingly without noticing her and she automatically dipped her head in deference, a second visage did turn to look in her direction. A wraithlike face of a sort possessed only by the most exalted and highly trained of her kind. The astral countenance regarded her coldly for a moment before vanishing inside the Lord Marshal’s skull like a ghost returning to its coffin.
She did not shiver, but it was a chilling reminder of the Lord Marshal’s vigilance and of the abilities that made him so powerful—and dangerous. He was not just one man.
He was one man—and something more.
On board the distant frigate, Vaako had terminated the connection at his own end, leaving the communicator Quasi to its chamber and to its rest. His thoughts were on the future. On its potential, that now as never before seemed as promising as it was confused. How fortunate he was to have a partner as devious and clever as she was beautiful and affectionate. No other commander could boast such a companion. Great things loomed on the horizon, he was sure, if only they chose the right route forward.
Lost in thought and much preoccupied by possibilities, he exited the chamber. As such, he did not notice the solitary figure that had stood concealed in shadows at its far end. Once the commander had departed, that figure stepped out of concealment and into the dim light. It eyed the recumbent, motionless figure of the Quasi for a long moment. Apparently reaching some silent, internal decision, it moved forward.
After a quick check to make certain there was no one to see him emerge, the Purifier walked out into the corridor and headed toward the front of the ship.
XIII
It was a green planet; shrouded in thick white cloud, lush with vegetation, fecund with life. It circled its unremarkable but benign star as it had for eons, out of the way and unnoticed, its distinctive denizens living out their lives in contentment and indifference to the rest of the universe.
And then, the hand came down.
A monstrous, slick-skinned apparition, it descended without warning, plunging through space, upper atmosphere, and clouds, to wreak a devastation that was as complete as it was merciless. Singly and in groups, young life-forms found themselves wrenched from their beds, their schools, their hiding places. Holding thousands at a time, the hand drew back, tiny children oozing from between its fingers. The latter moved, rubbing against