THE BURNING HEART OF NIGHT Read online

  THE BURNING HEART OF NIGHT

  Ivan Cat

  Also by Ivan Cat:

  THE EYES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

  www.ivancat.com

  DAW BOOKS, INC.

  DONALD A. WOLLHEIM. FOUNDER

  375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIM

  SHEILA E. GILBERT

  PUBLISHERS www.dawbooks.com

  Copyright © 2002 by Ivan Cat

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Jim Burns.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1228

  DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Putnam Inc.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

  First printing, July 2002 123456789 10

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT.OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA.

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Most grateful thanks to everyone who assisted me with this book. Particular thanks to my scientist friends Garry Garrett and Randall Matthews, who took precious time out of their lives to answer many weird questions concerning the biology of Fugue, Scourge, and the entire New Ascension ecosphere. Thanks also to Steve Collins of the way cool Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to John W. Thomas for his inspired and inventive help concerning the use of Latin, to Peter Löfwenberg for his meteorological advice, and to dive master Bill Feller USN for explaining the intricacies of the Emergency Escape Assent and other underwater perils. Any mistakes in this manuscript are my fault and not theirs.

  In the category of exhibiting patience well above and beyond the call of duty, the awards go to my editor Betsy Wollheim and my fiancée Marti Livingston.

  And lastly, but definitely not leastly, my thanks to Ernie Sheldon, Jr., who is always willing to listen to a nutty idea.

  THE BURNING HEART OF NIGHT

  No change without fear,

  No destiny without dreams,

  No wisdom without suffering,

  No dark times without hope...

  —Feral aphorism

  PART ONE:

  Sacrament and Fugue

  I

  Enclave of the Body Pure

  Planet New Ascension

  4615 A.D.

  The little girl fled across the vast floating island, the ground rolling under her feet like broad ocean waves. Shooting-star palms swayed in time to the undulating root mass, their sour smelling streamers silhouetted against a storm-churned night, and noble sailtrees bent, turning sheet-leaves into the oncoming fury with a crack and a snap.

  Jenette Helena Tesla was the girl's name. She was six years old, slight of body and blonde of hair, but she was strong on determination—and she was angry—very, very angry.

  Her daddy was mean.

  Lights flickered and bobbed in the distance behind Jenette. Strobing red streaks and sweeping yellow beams flashed through the swaying trees. She must not let them catch her. She did not know where she was going, but she knew where she was not going: back to her daddy.

  Her daddy did mean things to her friends.

  Her daddy made her friends go to Sacrament. He said it was because of the sickness that killed all the grownups, but Jenette didn't care about mean grownups. She only cared about her friends.

  That was why she was running away and taking her friends with her. Of course, no other human but Jenette could have seen her friends just then. Her friends were too good at hiding and nearly invisible in the dark. Only Jenette knew they were nearby.

  Leaves rustled and brainturf squished in the jungle around her and not from the impacts of her own feet.

  Jenette stumbled onto a heap of swollen puff sacks. A cloud of archerbush spines exploded. She fell. The spines didn't penetrate her olive-gray colonist's daysuit, but her exposed face and hands burned from a thousand pinpricks. Right away shadowy forms converged. She felt velvety muzzles nosing her back to her feet.

  Her friends cared about her.

  Not like her daddy.

  Her friends were always nice to her. The heat of their bodies around her felt good that night. Jenette wanted to thank them, but she knew she must not talk, and she certainly must not cry out from the pain of the archerbush stings. If she or her friends made too much noise, they would be caught.

  Jenette looked back. The lights were closing. Red patches and yellow beams spilled over the crest of a land wave and then disappeared into the depths of a following trough. The wind carried snatches of urgent, howling voices.

  "Where? Where? There!"

  They were getting too close. Jenette turned and splashed through a stretch of sinkhole bog. Its surface splattered from the passage of many four-legged shadows following her. Across the bog, Jenette dropped and squirmed under a thicket of iron-brambles. "Hide!" she whispered, unnecessarily; the pitter-patter of following feet had already ceased. Through the spiky brambles Jenette saw the hunting lights circle, confused, and then head off in the wrong direction. Jenette scrambled out of the thicket and ran the other way, her friends rustling along behind.

  "We fooled them!" she hissed.

  But not all of the lights had been fooled. One of the red patches had slipped away from the others, dim and invisible at first, then growing stronger as it sprinted nearer and became more distinct. The baleful red glow did not radiate from a human searchbeam or a torch, but shone from the body of a half-seen alien predator. It flashed like a glow-in-the-dark chameleon, racing four-legged along hook grass and then bounding over sweeping sailtree buttresses. Angry red and black patterns cascaded across its lethal form, like little avalanches of red hot coal.

  Claws scraped and plant fronds crackled as the hunting form darted around ahead of Jenette. Leaves parted as the monster burst into view. Low and wide it was, like the legendary Terran wolverine, but it had no tail and it was much larger. The creature weighed more than four hundred pounds and stood over four feet tall at its massive, hunched shoulders. Leathery hide thickened into armor plate at its outer flanks, limbs, and back; on that hide and armor patterns of light glittered from thousands of tiny flashbuds. A bullet-shaped head hung low from the creature's neck. Black spheroid eyes glistened maliciously.

  This was a Khafra, alien, ferocious, intelligent. It growled, aiming its ring of prehensile teeth at Jenette. "Bad Jenette, bad Jenette."

  In response, dozens of patches of light flared into view around Jenette—where sophisticated camouflage patterns had been hiding her friend's moments before. Each was a miniature version of the large Khafra, but with the gangly legs, oversized heads and eyes, and fat bodies common to young creatures on all planets. Arching their backs, they bared tiny teeth and growled at the older alien in small, shrill voices.

  "Rrrrrrr, rrrrrr-grrrrrr, grrrrrr!"

  The larger alien growled louder. "RRRRRRRRRR!"

  Jenette stepped forward and bopped the large Khafra in the center of its forehead. "I'm not bad!" she said defiantly. "You're the one that's bad!"

  The creature blinked its orb eyes deep into its head in surprise. "Urrr... Tarkas bad?"

  "Yes, Tarkas bad!" Jenette said angrily. "I'm taking my friends back to their mommies and you're not helping!" This was why Jenette had broken the Khafra kits out of the Enclave nursery. Jenette didn't have a mommy. Jenette's mommy had died when Jenette was just one and a half years old. Jenette could cry all she wanted, but Jenette knew her mommy wasn't coming back, but the kits had mommies, somewhere, and she was going to take them back to their mommies before her daddy did any more mean things to them. "I thought you were my friend!" she accused the large alien.

  "Am Jenette friend," the alien replied, hu
rt, "but Jenette must go back to Enclave. Tarkas must take."

  "I'm not going back."

  "But Enclave safe. Enclave good."

  "No, it's not!" Jenette said fiercely, "and you know it because my daddy does mean things to you too!"

  Tarkas hung his head, conflicted. "Yes, but... long time back, Jenette mother said for Tarkas to take care of Jenette. Tarkas promised."

  Now Tarkas looked sad. That made Jenette sad. Tarkas was the closest thing she had to a mommy now that her real one was gone. He took care of her, not like her busy daddy who never had any time. For a moment on that cold, dark, and miserable night, she wanted to give Tarkas a hug. She wanted to cry and she wished for all the bad things that were happening to go away, but even at six years old, Jenette knew that wanting and wishing almost never made things come true. "My mommy wouldn't make me go back," Jenette sniffled. "You told me she always said to do the right thing."

  Tarkas clattered his teeth in consternation, looking from the kits to the stormy sky, and then to Jenette.

  "Are you going to help or not?" Jenette demanded.

  "Urrkurrkurrk." The colors on Tarkas' flashbuds froze in a troubled pattern. The alien had made up his mind. "Hnrrrph..." he rumbled, "Tarkas, Jenette, and Jenette's friends must run away together."

  Boom... boom, came thunder from ahead where the island ended.

  Jenette ran with her iridescent friends, struggling to maintain her balance on the rippling ground. One moment they were deep in a trough, cut off from the rest of the world, the next they were high on a wave crest. Sheets of rain fell. It was hard to breathe. Her chest hurt. Her legs hurt. She needed to rest. But they could not stop running. They had to escape.

  Boom... boom.

  Jenette burst out of a waxy thicket onto a cliff top where the island ended. A wall of spray caught her and the aliens in the face. Salt water stung their eyes as a great black shape rose and fell a few yards away.

  Boom... boom.

  The thundering mass was another floating island, driven too close to Jenette's by wind and sea. Boom... boom. The two islands crashed together, thousands of tons grinding mercilessly. Showers of ghutzu—the gnarled, interlocking root that made up the islands' structure—splintered and fell into a frothing, platinum-colored sea.

  Wherever that nutrient-rich water splashed, plant shoots and tendrils grew so fast that Jenette could see them move, like worms. To her this was natural—she had never seen the blue-green ocean that her mother had sung about in lullabies from another faraway planet—but the fury of the storm and the islands smashing together scared her nevertheless. And it scared the kits, too.

  "What now, what now?" they trilled, huddling around her.

  Jenette did not know. All she had thought about was running away from her mean daddy. She did not have a plan. She did not know where to go now.

  Tarkas watched the rise and fall of the colliding islands. "That Feral island," he said, looking across the rift. "Ferals live there."

  By Ferals, Tarkas meant Feral Khafra. Tarkas was a domestic Khafra, stolen from the wild when he was young, like Jenette's friends the kits, and raised in cages by Jenette's daddy and the other Enclave humans.

  "Are Ferals nice?" Jenette asked, hugging the nearest kits for warmth and courage.

  The large Khafra shook his head sadly. "Tarkas does not remember."

  Jenette squinted at the other island, shielding her eyes from salt spray with one petite hand. "Are there Feral mommies there?"

  "Urrr, Tarkas thinks so. Yes."

  "Then we have to go there," Jenette decided. "How do we get across?"

  "Jump," the adult Khafra said after some thought. "Tarkas takes Jenette and kits on back."

  "Okay," Jenette agreed.

  Tarkas wanted to take Jenette first, but Jenette made him take the kits first, three at a time. They scrambled onto his leathery back and clung tightly to his neck as he timed the rise and fall of the two islands. His strong rear legs coiled up as the Enclave Island surged up. At its apex, he leapt, springing high through rain and spray. Jenette lost sight of him for a second. She tensed with the remaining kits. Had he fallen? He would be crushed! But then she spotted Tarkas, safely depositing the kits on the other side. Another carefully timed leap and he was back on her side.

  "Jenette goes now?"

  "No, not now. Later."

  Tarkas loaded up another three kits and leapt again.

  Tarkas made many leaps taking kits across. Soon most of the kits were across, but Tarkas was getting tired—and the searching lights were picking up Jenette's trail, getting closer again.

  "There! There! Track! Follow track!" howled the hunting voices.

  "Jenette goes now?" Tarkas huffed worriedly.

  "Not now! Keep going!" Jenette urged the last three kits onto the large Khafra's back. With a last look at Jenette and the closing lights, he reluctantly leapt, but he mistimed his launch and arched through the air, thudding against the side of the far cliff.

  "Hang on! Hang on!" Jenette cried as Tarkas scrambled with the claws on all four of his legs, trying to grip the crumbling root face. One of the kits on his back slipped. A wall of spray blocked Jenette's view as the older Khafra shot a forearm down to grab the youngling.

  The pursuing lights homed in on Jenette. Eight large, domestic Khafra bounded out of the jungle and formed a semicircle around her and the cliff. They edged closer.

  Jenette scrambled as close as she could to the cliff. She tottered, windmilling her arms for balance. Pieces of ghutzu broke free under her small boots and tumbled into the chasm.

  "Not jump, not jump!" the domestic Khafra howled.

  "Stop!" boomed the voice of a man.

  The domestics froze. Jenette froze. A man strode out from the undergrowth, a great, bullish man, thick-boned with brutally short hair and eyes like cold iron. He towered over the domestics and the six-year-old human girl. One scowling glance sized up the situation. Meaty hands clenched a pulse-rifle.

  This was Olin Tesla, Jenette's father.

  Jenette froze as his voice boomed. "Jinny get away from the cliff!"

  "No!" said Jenette, still searching for Tarkas.

  "It's okay," her father said. "Daddy's not going to punish you. Daddy just wants you to be safe."

  "Go away! I hate you!"

  The large man's face flinched as the rain and spray abated for a moment. Jenette spotted Tarkas, safely atop the cliff; he had not lost any kits.

  "Run! Run! Get away!" she yelled. "Get away!"

  The kits hesitated on the other side. They did not want to leave her.

  "Go! Find your mommies! Go!"

  Finally, the kits turned away, but not Tarkas. He saw the other domestics and the grim featured human, but his legs still coiled for another leap.

  Frowning, Olin Tesla cocked his pulse-rifle. "No!" Jenette yelled.

  "No, Tarkas! Stay! Don't jump! Run away!"

  Unable to imagine abandoning Jenette, let alone doing it, Tarkas sprang. The alien arched through the air as Tesla methodically raised his pulse-rifle and led his target.

  Jenette loosed a shriek of utter, forlorn terror. "Don't hurt him, daddy!"

  Tesla pulled the trigger. The weapon's shot-torque was set perfectly. There was no splatter of blood, no explosion of bone; Tarkas' skull cracked like a super-heated stone. His body cartwheeled, his flashbuds flaring and fading to black. Four hundred pounds of lifeless Khafra crumpled on the cliff beside Jenette. Jenette's mean daddy was quite satisfied—that is, until she lost her balance and tumbled over the precipice.

  "No!" Olin Tesla cried, running to grab his daughter.

  His two human legs were far too slow to carry him to the edge in time, but his domestics leapt after the little girl. Stinging spray obscured his vision as the vast islands pulled apart and slammed back together.

  Boom! Boom!

  Surely there was no hope. Numb horror swept over Tesla. What had he done?

  But then paws, each with two pairs of opposed thumbs
and no fingers, scrambled into view. The domestics pulled themselves back up. The fabric of his daughter's daysuit was pinched in then-teeth. Tesla hurried over. A huff of fear shook his heavy frame as he checked the biosentry sewn into her garment. "Blessed be the Body Pure," he prayed, fumbling to activate the tiny display. "All contamination it purges. All faithful it protects...."

  The display blinked green.

  Alive! His precious Jinnybug was alive! He hugged her to his chest.

  Jenette did not struggle, did not fight, but hung limp, tears streaming from her eyes. "I hate you. I hate you," she wept.

  The domestics flushed crimson, nosing Tarkas' inert form. They shone accusing colors at Tesla.

  "Hunter man."

  "Killer man."

  They pulsed in time. Two heartbeats on, two heartbeats off. The grisly scene strobed.

  "Chaos man!"

  "Quiet!" barked Tesla. "Quiet damn you, beasts!"

  Blood pounded in Tesla's head. This was the disaster of weakness. It was all his fault. He knew what his daughter was like. He should have known. She was his flesh and blood, his responsibility. She was the last trace of his beloved wife Helena.

  "Howaroooooooooo!" the aliens grieved.

  "I said quiet!"

  Tesla swiped wetness from his eyes. More weakness. He had been fond of the traitorous Tarkas. But he could not afford the luxury of grief. His feelings for what had been lost did not matter. He must be strong for that which remained.

  The woods rustled behind Tesla.

  The other colonists had caught up. They hung back, ghostly shadows in the night. Tesla tensed. What would be their judgment? Would they condemn or embrace?

  As one, the colonists bowed their heads, stacking and kissing balled up fists. "The Body must be Pure," they murmured.

  Another huff of breath shook Tesla's form, this one of relief. Without letting go of Jenette, he bowed his own head and kissed his own balled-up fist. "The Body must be Pure," he repeated.

  Of course, there had never been a choice for the colonists of New Ascension. Not for him, not for them, not for his beloved Jinnybug; not since they had set foot on this new planet. Anything less than fighting tooth and nail to survive betrayed the Body Pure. They might succeed or they might fail, but they would fight.