I know I may be running to my own death, yet I cannot in good conscience remain and aid in the deaths of others. There are some darknesses not to be borne, and some roads that are unspeakable.
I have taken the jewel, and if I must die for it, then die I shall; but it will not light the galaxy on fire with missionary zeal. I cannot allow the Khi brotherhood to hold it hostage.
Signed this year, daymonth 4, Standard Time Reckoning 8.30
Nekare of Dava, Consort of High Priest Breyn Al'aharev
I put down the scribe and tablet, and arranged them neatly on the desk where I was sure somebody would find them. There was a kind of release in finishing the note, short as it had been: a feeling that now the die was cast in earnest, and I could no longer go back or change my mind. I had done the thing, and now I would have to fly.
It had all been different in the beginning, of course. There had been no talk of galactic theocracy; Khi was still a nascent religion when I had joined Breyn on his quest to enlighten the unenlightened. Together we had worked to bring food to the hungry, weapons to the defenceless, clothes to the naked. The weapons perhaps were not such a good idea in hindsight, but at the time we were sure we were doing the right thing.
Everything changed when Khi took over the planet Dava, and instead of being a priest, Breyn had become something like an Emperor. It made him foolish and greedy, where perhaps a greater man would have ruled wisely; he decided that he would be sung of in history for bringing the Khi faith to the entire galaxy, and to hells with anyone who disagreed. I watched as he descended further and further into megalomania, but when the Janus amulet fell into his grasp, he went beyond my aid. Breyn had never been particularly good at listening, but now he didn't even try; he knew exactly what to use the Amulet for, and no one was going to tell him any different. The Amulet had been lost for centuries, but the records of its crystalline structure and powers had been passed down through the years; it was a legend when I first heard of it, and even now—in my hand, warm with my own warmth—it felt too powerful to be touched by living hands.
I stood still by the desk, turning it over and over in my palm: two great blue-stone cabochons set back to back in a ring of bright silver, clear except where the light hit them just right and struck flares of deep indigo from their depths. It looked like a small gemstone planet circled with a silver band, hanging from a chain as fine as a hair. A funny thing to have ruined so many lives, and to now almost end so many more…
I shook myself and hung the Amulet around my neck, tucking the stones down under the collar of my flight suit, and hurried out. The suit fit perfectly, blast-armor plates notwithstanding: I had ordered it almost a year ago, using a credit account Breyn didn't know I still had, back when all of his plans became clear to me, and I knew I would have to leave. The ship itself had been ordered shortly thereafter, a modified Z-95 Headhunter, stripped down to the basics and fitted for long-haul single occupancy with a complicated autopilot and a tiny bay for supplies. I could fly it in my sleep, which I hoped would never become necessary. That was another thing Breyn did not know about me, and had never bothered to find out: I had been trained to fly starfighters, many years ago, back on the nothing world of Cordea's Hope, before ever I came to the administrative planet Amaranth and encountered Breyn for the first time.
I made my way out of the Temple complex, looking like any other offworld messenger with a schedule to follow, and managed not to slip into the ritual bow of a priestess when two Third-Level adepts passed me by. The helmet helped, of course; inside the helmet, I was utterly anonymous and not particularly interesting. I kept my pace steady and unconcerned until I reached the lower-level bays where incoming craft were docked, and there I came face to face with Breyn.
Looking back on it I really don't know what I saw in him; I suppose I was trying to get the hells off Cordea's Hope and find a new life somewhere exciting, and when I met him on Amaranth I was still young enough to believe what he told me. I think maybe back then he even believed it himself. He is tall, running to fat now, with the pasty skin and sagging muscle tone of one who is rich enough to avoid labor but too lazy to undergo the myostim treatments that hone and polish the body; his skull is white, clean-shaven as befits a High Priest of Khi, tattooed with the blue spirals of his rank; his eyes are an interesting shade of green I haven't seen often, and I can't deny their beauty. Here, outside of the inner sanctum, he wore the long ceremonial violet cloak of the High Priest, spattered with blue stones sewn in spirals. He looked hot and impatient and slightly as if he had a headache. I felt the roots of my hair stiffen, trying to stand up, even though it was tied and pinned ruthlessly under the helmet.
I gave him the salute everyone gave his rank, making myself do it slightly wrong, as an offworlder might. He acknowledged it with a hurried nod, and swept past me; I was just beginning to breathe again when he turned and stared over his shoulder, eyes narrowed, as if he could see through the duraflex flight-suit and the blast armor I wore over it, as if the Janus amulet was hanging in plain sight around my neck. My heart flickered in my chest, banging against my ribs. I was sure he could hear it.
"You. Messenger. Come here," he ordered me. I swallowed and obeyed, absolutely sure he could see through the black visor of my helmet to my guilty face beneath. He put his hands in the small of his back and stretched, as if weary. "Messenger, go up to the Consort's quarters and let her women know that I will be unable to join her for the banquet tonight. Something has come up."
The relief was overwhelming; my knees threatened to buckle. I saluted him again and hurried off in the direction he had indicated, stopping only when I rounded the corner and was out of his sight. My disguise, such as it was, could fool people; I felt strangely vindicated, as if the encounter had been further proof that I was doing the right thing.
I gave Breyn ten minutes, and then slipped back into the docking bays, hurrying for my ship. Two days ago I had given the order for the Z-95 to be brought out of storage and parked at the Temple complex in one of the offworld bays, and I was glad to see that the ID code marked on the curving hull had been changed as I requested. It was, then, no longer registered to Nekare of Dava: the ID profile should now tell anyone who accessed it that the ship belonged to Audax Vinca of the planet Sestun, halfway across the galaxy, and had never been modified at all.
I tapped in the access code—another way to make sure it was difficult to trace; instead of using a retinal or thumbprint scan, which could belong to only one individual, I used a code which anyone could have found out, if they'd had several years' worth of experience in cryptography. The Z-95 let me in with a soft hiss of machinery, and I slipped into the pilot's chair with considerable relief.
Lifting off from Dava is never fun, especially with the winter storms at their peak; clouds had been building all day, and I guided the Headhunter up through them blind, buffeted about by the turbulence. Slowly the ride got smoother as I brought my ship up through the atmosphere and the air thinned; then we were through, and the black void of space replaced the churning pink of a Davan winter. There were still the magnetic belts to pass through before I found myself in open space—an additional hazard that strangers to Dava found themselves faced with on their way down. Some people couldn't cross the belts at all. They caused violent nausea and disorientation in about twelve percent of sentient species, and all ships crossing the belts had to protect their electronics—and whatever sensitive cargo they might be carrying—with shielding material. My Z-95 was fully equipped to pass through the belts, though. That had been one of the first modifications I had indicated when I ordered the ship. I knew I was going to need it.
Out beyond the belts, in free space, I set the coordinates for the jump to hyperspace and let the Headhunter bear me, and my stolen property, away.