This is a fan translation of Fighters of Danwait (Бойцы Данвейта) by Mikhail Akhmanov, currently only available in Russian and, because of the author's passing in 2019, unlikely to ever be published in English. This is the third book in a six-book series called Arrivals from the Dark (Пришедшие из мрака), which also has a six-book spin-off series called Trevelyan's Mission (Миссия Тревельяна).
I claim no rights to the contents herein.
Epilogue
Kullat, the Lo'ona Aeo homeworld
A bird was bursting into song somewhere. Its clear, ringing voice did not awaken any memories: there were no such songbirds on Danwait, Harra, or Tintakh. Was he on Earth? Lying on a soft bed by an open window with his eyes closed, breathing in the air with pine aromas, and listening to trill of a nightingale or another siskin from the continent that lived in fields and forests… But his astronaut's instincts told him that it was not Earth: the gravity was weaker, the pine scent was unusually sweet, and the bird's voice also seemed unfamiliar, almost human and so tender, as if a young girl was singing a song with no words.
He spent some time wondering if he would be able to move or even open his eyes. It felt as if a gentle but unyielding force was constraining his movements; he felt his arms and legs, the air current, and the warmth of the sun on his face, the surface of the bed under his back and buttocks, but not a single finger or toe, not one muscle wanted to move. Maybe he wasn't forceful enough? Maybe, all he had to do was make an effort and…
The thought left him, being replaced by another, more important one: the singer was definitely a girl and not a bird. He tried to picture her, and a familiar dear image appeared to him: a tall clear forehead, blonde hair in the style of a helmet, a face with a small, firmly outlined chin and an elegant nose, bright lips, shadows on the temples, and gray eyes with bluish eyelids. The face, woven out of turquoise skies, rainbow, and the morning fog, that appears pink over the water in the first rays of the sun… What was this beauty's name? His treacherous mind told him the answer: Inga.
Inga Sokolova, his T'haran! Of course he could never forget her, their love, their unborn child! Her and her child had been in danger, and he had fought… With whom? This memory continued to evade him; his consciousness kept showing him an annihilator's dark maw, a powerful explosion, a flame reaching out to his tiny ship with its long, searing tongue. The phantom flame caught him, he groaned, not hearing his own voice, only the singing of the bird-girl and the rustling of the leaves. These sounds were real, chasing away the memory of that moment when he had been turned to dust. He should have been, but it looked like he had escaped death…
Listening to the high tender trills, he again summoned the girl's features. They glittered like a star in atmospheric currents, and he suddenly realized that he was seeing two images, two different faces, as if two overlaid holograms: the eyes were alternating between gray and blue, the hair turned from a golden sheen to flax-like blonde, the nose was either upturned and covered in freckles or was a graceful straight shape. Then the images of the girls split, and their names floated up from his memory: the gray-eyed one was Inga Sokolova, a T'haran, while the one with the blue eyes was a Lo'ona Aeo female named Zantoo, the one he had defended… Zantoo and their baby… maybe, from a human standpoint, the child was not his, but he thought of it as his child… There'd been a battle with the Haptors, Atigem and Cro had left the ship, he had also ejected, but too late… An explosion… The explosion he could not have survived…
Sergey Valdez now remembered everything and opened his eyes.
His bed was hovering among tree canopies that surrounded a long ledge that came out a tower-topped wall. The wall was made up of ancient hexagonal stones and was reminiscent of a black-and-white photo of a honeycomb, with an entrance arch. The trees, probably very tall ones, with clumps of flexible needles instead of leaves, were giving off a resinous smell, and, somewhere in their branches, an unseen bird was singing and twittering. Above the trees and the wall, above the towers and the hill that were discernible in the distance, the sky could be seen, not of Earth and not of Danwait, but also very pleasant, pink like the feathers of a flamingo. Five paces away from Valdez's bed, a construct of thin tubes and checkered fabric was floating in mid-air, either a chair or something like it. There was a Lo'ona Aeo sitting in the strange chair, who was elderly and also strange, hawk-faced, with dark eyes and hair, which this race did not possess. He was sitting, shaking his leg, and looking at Valdez with a smile.
"Cro?" It came off like a question. He looked closer and repeated, with confidence this time. "Cro!"
"So you recognize me?" Lightwater spread out his hands, both of them intact with no prosthetics. "I had to slightly adjust my appearance to avoid making the Masters nervous… Although I don't see them much. Just the Servs here."
"Where are we?"
"On Kullat. It's a great honor for mercenaries, but we did save one beauty and her progeny… Do you recall?"
"Yes," Valdez said, "yes. I remember everything, Cro. Is Atigem here as well?"
"Atigem? Why on earth would he be here? There's not a scratch or a bruise on Stepan and no reason to heal him. He went back to Danwait. But you… you were in bad shape when the guys on the Yoshitsune picked us up. You'd never have made it without a hibernator." The Chief rocked in his chair back and forth and started to list the injuries off calmly, "Burns on seventy percent of the skin… extensive contusion from the blast wave impact…burst capillaries of the fundus and the kidneys, actually, pretty much all small blood vessels… naturally, cerebral hemorrhage and cervical spine injury… And, well, other little things, like broken limbs and ribs, a wound in the abdomen. Also asphyxiation, since the pod and the cocoon depressurized."
Valdez was listening to him with interest. Then he noted.
"Why don't you just tell me what parts of me remained intact?"
"Nothing, really. The hair… strange, but your hair was fine."
"That's something, at least." After a moment, he asked. "And how am I doing now?"
"In mind condition. You can sit up and check."
Valdez did so: he sat up, lowered his legs off the bed, and started to check. There was no trace of the burns and the wounds, no scars, no marks, his limbs and the neck were not hurting, he could see and hear just fine. He did feel weak, though, but he came to terms with that, remembering the long list of his injuries. Any one of them could have sent him to the Great Emptiness.
"They delivered me to Kullat?"
"To one of Kullat's astroids, where the local clinic is located. Kullat was closer than Arza or Fayo. Your girl… she…" The Chief paused briefly. "In short, she was very worried. She ordered them to fly here also because Kullat's air has healing properties. At least that's what the Lo'ona Aeo believe; it's their homeworld, after all. By the way, their medicine!.." Cro clicked his tongue in admiration. "On the level, I must say. Had you been sent home, they'd never have pulled you out, but here, they carried you from the cryogenic chamber to a regeneration pod and put you in a bioplasma jelly… that was it… I told them I'd stay with you, and they accepted it with understanding."
"Were you injured too?"
"Me? Well, in a way… Let's just say it wasn't fatal."
"And they healed you too?"
Lightwater smiled.
"They didn't even try. Don't forget, Sergey, I'm a Mzani. Usually, I self-heal and very quickly."
For a second, his face regained the old features, and this happened so suddenly that Valdez shuddered. Then he asked, "Are you also like a Lo'ona Aeo inside? I mean your genetic code, organs or their lack, and so forth. I see you have four fingers…"
"It's not difficult." Cro looked at his hand. "But the changes are only external. Inside, as you put it, I'm human and will always be human. It's a habit, what are you going to do! Besides, it might be difficult for me become a Lo'ona Aeo." He glanced at Valdez. "Do you want to ask why?"
"No. I respect personal secrets."
"That's good. I'd rather not get into the details."
They stayed silent for a while. The bird continued to trill in the branches, scarlet clouds were floating through the pink sky, and, high above them, barely visible in the bright light of day, an enormous band of pearl-like astroids was glittering. On two or three nearby hills, which Valdez could now see fairly clearly, there were green groves and tall castles. Not like the ones on Danwait, not made of crystal or silver, but ancient stone structures. But the design was similar: a central tower, surrounded by smaller towers.
"So they patched me up on the astroid and sent me to the planet," Valdez said. "What for?"
He wanted to ask something else, but something kept him from doing that; maybe it was Cro's unfamiliar face or the landscapes of this world, quiet, peaceful, and sad. They seemed to urge him to submit to his fate and accept its will without argument.
"Because," Cro said, "you're in recovery. And the singing of the marrisi bird and the smell of the rinuf trees help promote it. We've been given an ancient castle, a dozen Servs, and an unlimited amount of healing air. Listen to the birds, look, breathe, and don't think of what can never happen."
"I won't," Valdez agreed and, suddenly, lowering his voice, as if someone could hear them, muttered, "Have you seen her? Where is she? Did she fly away to Fayo, to Anat? Did they let her back in? Cancelled her punishment? What did she ask you to pass on? She couldn't leave without a word, without…"
Lightwater stood up, walked to Valdez, and put a four-fingered hand on his shoulder.
"Lie down, Sergey, you're still weak. As for our girl…" A smile appeared on his lips. "She's in her astroid and, as far as I know, doing pretty well. While you were in the hibernator, she came into the cargo hold several times to say goodbye and was always whispering something. I'd move away to avoid scaring her, but you know that my hearing is excellent. She wanted you to be happy, with her, the other girl you love. You do, don't try to deny it! She understood that, and so do I… she and I are almost telepaths, after all… and you don't need to be a telepath to…"
Valdez fell asleep to his grumbling, and this time he saw Inga. Just Inga, only Inga.
Several days later, he was sitting with Cro Lightwater on the same ledge that seemed to be something of a balcony that stretched into the grove of the rinuf pine trees. The marrisi bird had flown away without ever showing itself; it must have decided that Valdez was well enough not to require its healing trills. Instead, there was a bird-of-prey with dove-colored plumage circling high up under the scarlet clouds.
Valdez took a closer look and could not believe his eyes.
"A falcon! Cro, it's a falcon! How did an Earth falcon get here?"
"From Earth, I should think," the Chief answered reasonably and summoned a Serv.
The biorobot had only vague notions of fauna and of birds in particular, but, after contacting the information service, he reported that falcons had been purchased a century ago, as well as other terrestrial animals, selected by the Masters from films and holo-images. The story did not mention any compensation; quite possibly, the birds and the beasts had been contraband, so the particulars of the deal were being kept secret. Valdez and Cro decided that there was no need to get into details. The passion of the Lo'ona Aeo for various rarities, both living and artificial, was forgivable; after all, they did not rob, they did not steal, honestly paying for the goods. Although, the price, in some cases, was very alluring.
They spent the next quarter of an hour watching the bird fly, glide over the hills, the castles, and the groves. Then Valdez turned to the Serv and asked about the number of falcons on Kullat.
"No exact data available, Defender. The estimate is…" After making the appropriate query, the robot responded with a number equal to about seven and a half thousand.
"A sizable amount!" Valdez spoke with a thoughtful expression.
Ten minute after that, when a pair of falcons was now circling in the sky, he inquired if he could get a bird like that, or, better yet, two: a male and a female. This request horrified the Serv; he started muttering that everything on Kullat, the hills and the castles, the rocks and the trees, the birds and the beasts, basically, everything was the property of the Masters, that their property was sacred, and that only those in an astroid knew what to do about it.
"Well then, contact an astroid," Valdez said. "While you're doing that, remind them of my accomplishments and that I'm shell-shocked and am suffering from nostalgia. I hope the terrestrial birds can help heal it."
The Serv departed, hurrying to fulfill the task. Cro, who had been listening to the conversation quietly but with an obvious interest, said, "By the way, I've seen giraffes here. They're grazing on a plain beyond the hills… Do you need a giraffe?"
"No." Valdez shook his head. "I need a falcon. A pair of falcons, young and beautiful ones. And I'll get them."
"You want to hunt with them on Danwait?"
"I want to give these birds to someone, and their owner can then decide what they're good for. Maybe, she'll use them to hunt on Danwait, or, maybe, she'll take them back to T'har."
Along with me, he added silently, but this thought did not escape Lightwater. He raised an eyebrow, grunted approvingly, and reached into his pocket.
"Speaking of gifts… When they'd removed those burned rags off you, this thing was in them. Something memorable, isn't it? I saved it."
His hand held a coin, a platinum piece of eight with a unicorn. The heat that singed Valdez hadn't harmed it — metal was stronger than human flesh. It was gleaming like new, and, taking it into his hands, feeling its weight, touching the stamped image, he suddenly saw a gazebo over a ghostly sea and a fragile blue-eyed girl with a halo of golden hair. She turned to him with a smile, stretched out her hand, as if trying to touch his cheek, and whispered, "I am glad to look into your eyes, Sergey Valdez of Earth."
And Valdez, clenching the silvery coin in his fist, answered her, "I am glad to meet your gaze, Zantoo."
