Voice of a Distant God

Chapter 1. Home is a Room

Is Daast your home? Jessup Grill had dark deep-set eyes under heavy eyebrows. His face was moon round like his body; but his hands were strangely long and delicate. Right now he was an annoyance to Gray who wanted only to be left to his own memories.

On and off. Gray tried staring intently out the window beside him. The view of the planet they were dropping down on was a vivid palette of swirling colors. Once they hit the gravity well and slowed down for the tourists, the triple rainbows of Daast's upper atmosphere would perform their eternal and very popular display.

Jessup was about to try for conversation again when Gray headed him off. Say, this is your first trip to Daast. Why not sit here by the window and watch the storms as we settle in? I've seen it a hundred times.

Jessup's mouth closed in astonishment. But he opened it quickly enough. Are you sure? I mean, that's very kind of you, I accept. Of course he would, the window seats were twice as expensive, a small concession to Gray for shipping out with a sister company to Royal Shuttle Lines. He got to ride the downlink shuttles in first class.

They switched seats in the low gravity right after the Elegant passed the marker satellites and entered the well. From here on the ride was smooth and certain and also very slow. Unlike the freight drops where they legally could just sink like a boulder until three-quarters down, the tourist shuttles sedately settled with a sense of near motionless all the way to a docking pad.

Gray matched the frown from the stewardess up the aisle with a wink and a smile. He eased into the couch and stretched his legs. The security system buzzed at him and heads began to turn. He sighed and allowed the contraption to engage by moving his arm from the tiny servo extension that pulled the net-strap past his shoulder. He had no affinity for being strapped in according to someone else's rules. He also didn't care much for Mirror City or any part of Sector Eight; but this is where the work was, and the few people he could call friends.

The seat trade worked. Jessup quietly ogled the natural wonders of Daast and Gray continued his analysis of this last trip and the recurring dreams of Sayon that troubled him. Thirteen years ago he was ordered to leave his home, his lover and his tribe. And he had to do it secretly, because it was illegal for an Asin-We, especially an Asinji warrior, to leave the planet Sayon without the permission of the Supreme Council of the Confederated Empire.

Sayon was interdicted for a hundred years by ConEmp for restriction of trade and planetary aggression, which meant simply resisting confederation. It was a closed planet, all trade and communications controlled by ConEmp battle stations that orbited the mostly agricultural and pastoral land of the ancient Asin-We race.

That was all history. So why was he dreaming of Sayon every night? The answer was in a small, near silent nudge that he tried to ignore. It had to do with his mission. As one of the elite warriors of the Asin-We, Gray was required to go on a personal quest, a quest to hear the esoteric sound of Sharmad, to hear the Voice of a distant God.

His parents were not Asin-We, were in fact, monitors of the ConEmp, who fell in love and mated outside the rules. He was taken in by Lilga Bok, Mayor of Haa-Et and a trainer of the Asin-ji. Gray knew his natural parents only as Gane and Margaret. When they received transfer orders no bribery or influence would get their one year old son off planet. Rather than see him become a ward of ConEmp, they asked a friend, Lilga Bok, to take him as his son. Since Gane and Margaret lived in Haa-Et with the Asin-We his birth was hidden and never officially recorded so it was not a difficult thing. For Gray it was dim in his memory, having been less than two years when it happened.

Because Gray was not born of Asin-We, he had to go on his quest off-planet, rather than in the Forbidden Range mountains where all Asin-ji went. He left Sayon with an extra suit of clothes, some exchange credits because of contact with traders to Sayon, and his Yalot, the power tool of every Asin-ji. He also left with a sense of loss, a bitterness that he should be singled out this way and a determination not to trust in anything other than his own powers. None of these was much help toward the inner hearing. And he chose not to care.

The Asin-ji had a peculiar connection with their trainers, especially the senior trainers and the Asin-We Master. Learning the remarkable speed-trance of the warrior depended on an inner connection with the trainer's image. In Gray's case that was Lilga Bok, his adopted father. But after a time the inner image became second nature and was no longer visioned as the trainer. So Gray's remarkable abilities, which he went to great pains to conceal, even when he had to use them, seemed to be disconnected with his past.

The dreams denied it. His thinking processes and observational skills were rooted in Sayon and in the Asin-We approach to life. Even the word Asin-ji, the root of every warrior, meant ` truth seeker.'

Gray shrugged off the thoughts. He didn't want to remember Sayon. His life was usually a blend of activity and occasional danger and, since connecting with Seela's service in Mirror City, economic stability. He wanted to get back to his room, his private space.

Chapter 2. Prisoner

Gray walked the night black streets with a fluid grace, the product of years of discipline. The Asin-We discipline respected the invisible side of life and tonight there was an inner alarm, a wrongness at the periphery of Gray’s consciousness. He knew to listen, to be alert for something, but not what that something would be.

The sky was lightless, an exact mimic of the sky above the planet, covered with storm clouds so dense no star light could penetrate to the surface below. At this time of night the holographic illusion of mountains above the city streets, even the hint of mountains was off, only the emptiness of dark remained, with street lights and office lights to reveal humanity, mostly humanity, late at work. He was headed for his two-room, not in a residential area, but in one of the commercial districts where hotels offered every service that the minds of sentient beings could imagine.

Gray knew that 200 feet above him, just a few feet beyond the false sky, there was a floor filled with a maze of maintenance equipment and administration offices. Each unseen level monitored air, water and resources for the city level above it. Thirty huge cities were layered like pancakes with levels 4 through 1 being the most exclusive wonderlands of distance and holographic miracles, all that money could buy, and at those lofty levels it took a lot of money to buy anything. Mirror City was the largest building in the known universe. Gray called this vast labyrinth of humanity his home for the last 12 years.

After a long voyage his first day on land had a dull edge to it. There was no one to come home to, few friends and those not always trustworthy. The uneasiness that worried at him was something that he typically paid attention to and looked for ways to resolve. He should just go to his two-room and settle down with a good holo or book. Instead he decided to wander a bit and search for the source of the premonition, the sense of impending threat at the fringe of his thoughts.

Gray strolled through a dismal area dotted with warehouses and a few small shops. Somewhere ahead he could hear the murmur of a large mass of people. It sounded like buzzing insects. Abruptly, a man with frantic eyes and a torn coat ran around the corner and Gray stepped aside to avoid a collision. The man was Gray’s height but dirty and wild looking and he shouted for anyone to hear. Gray felt this message was delivered to him and it was his decision to act in response to it or go on his way.

Hey, hey there’s a whipping going on. Right up here, a whipping.

Gray despised public whippings, but he shrugged them off. What society was not tainted with madness? The cruiser patrols could punish anyone provided a ConEmp government representative, a G-Man, was on board.

Gray turned the corner toward the spectacle being conducted in a park and was strangely elated. There was something here for him, much as he avoided these human tragedies, he felt the coming event as though it was a palpable creature with fangs and claws waiting to test him and see if he was worthy to walk in its territory.

Secure in the darkness of the street, the crowd inhaled as one large animal at every swing of the sonic lash. The high-pitch whine ended with screams from the victims. Gray barely glanced at the three naked people hanging from a lamppost. The scene was lit by two spotlights on top of the patrol cruiser. That was the focus of the event. The patrol cruiser is what he was here for. Approaching a patrol cruiser was always a dangerous proposition. Patrollers were trained into a state of constant suspicion. Like any well controlled gang, police considered everyone a potential enemy unless the person wore their colors. They obeyed orders in a military style even if they knew the orders were violating the law. Everyone was an enemy except another patroller. This was the patroller code.

He strolled toward it from the rear. It’s twin nacelles were guarded by a patroller who would rather be watching the show. The guard stood at rest to the left of these most vulnerable openings on the craft when it was down, its atomic demons banked into a lazy hum.

Along the right side the port door was secured open, high as the arc of a bird’s wing. A patroller stood beside it, this was the preferred guard position. This guard had seniority. From here he could watch the victims of justice writhing under torture, which was what he was doing.

Moving casually, Gray came up beside the guard and looked into the cruiser. It was a simple affair with two chambers, the rear sectioned off by a wall with a sliding door. The door was open. In the back section a dark shape shifted on the floor. They had a prisoner.

Gray felt the rush of adrenaline, then the calming power of his Asin-ji training kicked in. This is why he came. He had found the nagging sense of something impending.

The patroller turned, startled to see Gray beside him, gazing into his cruiser.

Time to get un-nosy, grubber. He whipped his stun stick at Gray’s head even as he muttered the words. He was only slightly off balance when the stick somehow missed.

The miss took a fraction of a second. For an Asin-ji warrior the move was in extreme slow motion and the gap between them closed.

Instead of a painful shock for a curious grub, the guard found himself slipping eerily into a zone of dimness. A light touch on his neck kept him there until blackness settled over his thoughts.

The people around the ship were of no concern, caught up in the mob consciousness, unable to act or think of anything but the circus provided by their government. Before the guard could flop unconscious to the ground Gray slipped an arm under the man’s shoulder and appeared to shift and walk with him into the dark interior of the cab. He settled the guard into the control seat and moved close to belt him in. Now who was this prisoner?

She had rust-brown hair and was familiar. This was the stewardess on the ship that carried him down from orbit. Instead of the Royal Shuttle Line’s uniform she wore the brief tunic of a prisoner. Over the skin tape on her mouth, her blue eyes rolled with panic. He signaled her to stop struggling. Her wrists were magna cuffed to a waist high railing and her ankles strapped together with plastic, tucked up against bare buttocks.

Gray slipped his yalot from under his left arm, activated it with the thought patterns that were a part of him since childhood, and cut the magnetic current keyed to the cuffs. He slit the strap on her ankles and poised on one knee beside her looked into her eyes as he pulled the tape from her mouth.

Gray sensed the spirit of this woman as though he gazed into a window of her heart. He was stunned. The visions of a homeland long gone from his life flooded back in a moment, astonishing in their brightness and clarity. So many of the Asin-ji techniques were second nature, based on consciousness and inner strength. In that brief second he realized the truth behind every remarkable thing he could do. None of it could be separated from the years of training. His rejection of the society that turned him out never separated him from the Asin-We Path, a path that offered the highest potential to every warrior.

He turned to the task at hand, holding his hands on her ankles, he pulsed an energy into them that would overcome the nerve patterns of immobility then abruptly pulled her to her feet. With an arm over her shoulder and his long cape pulled around her they melted into the crowd away from the remaining guard and the G-Man busily flailing his victims.

What trouble had he gotten himself into? He mentally counted up the charges against him as he checked their back trail. Illegal curiosity was a misdemeanor; trespassing, a definite felony; aiding a prisoner’s escape, a felony; and attacking a cruiser patrolman, a class one crime. He chuckled inwardly. Even though it was self-defense, a corrupt court system would convict him for attacking a uniformed officer. Tyranny always protected its power. The sentence for class 1 crimes was automatic and terminal.

He smiled as they settled into an empty tube car on its perpetual rounds beneath level 18. This had the makings of a good day after all. He was no longer tired or bored

Chapter 3. It Must Say You Are Mine

The pressurized, high speed train hissed past empty platforms, a missile in the underbelly of level 18. The swishing sound of the train on its magnetic tracks was background music for the girl’s labored breathing. A shutter like effect of station lights accompanied the faint cave-like whistling of the wind across every empty station on their journey.

Her name was Elaine and she cried softly as he held her in his arms. Sitting close against his side she looked up at him in the light. He could see the classic beauty that entranced him on his shuttle trip down to the surface earlier in the day, the high cheekbones and magnificent blue eyes with a tint of green like the misty mornings on Charya Lake.

Here, with this woman came a deeper connection to the Asin-We. Her presence opened long closed doors in his consciousness. But was it this time... or this woman? Her hair was fashioned in a swirl to the left of her face and it tumbled over the left shoulder down to her breasts. Her legs were firm and athletic and the prison garb bunched around her waist concealed nothing. She shifted to pull the short garb over her hips.

She coughed and looked into his eyes for the first time. There were times when Gray would look at a stranger in such a manner, especially someone he had commerce with. It was the can I see who you are in there look.

Thank you. Thank you very much. She scanned his face reaching for the memory of him before the last shocking hours. You came down with the shuttle. I remember you changing seats with the heavy man. That’s illegal you know. She had a sense of humor, even after her experience. It revealed to him a level of self-control that many would lack in her present circumstance. Perhaps she did not know what the situation was. He had only a little grasp of why she would be imprisoned by the police.

Not on my planet, it isn’t. Where are you from?

Henna. She pulled his cloak around her body. My Father owns a business there.

The new Henna?

The one the Torrs couldn’t leave alone. Yes, that Henna, Henna II.

Do you want to tell me what happened?

She nodded. Yes, yes because I never believed something like this could happen to me. She took a gulp of air. I left port with my roommates. They wanted to go and party. I was tired and told them I was going back to our place. Nanta called me a travel flit while I signed us out.

I took the flitter, Golden Cab, the ones with the rainbow on the side. Everything was fine until we pulled out past the elevators and onto 14. The driver found an emergency slip, slowed and turned into it. He stopped and opened my door. I was angry and told him I wouldn’t pay him and would report him to the company. I started to argue with him on the side of the road.

Then the cruiser pulled up behind us. Two patrollers came over and told him to move along. They offered to take me to a flitter station. She shivered and Gray pulled her close again. When I stepped in the cruiser one of them touched my neck. The next thing I know I’m on the floor where you found me. I was there for three hours by the clock on the wall. They talked about taking me someplace when the patrol call came in. They answered it and left the car. They are such angry men, so much violence and hatred. Then you came.

Her story confirmed his suspicion. As to the anger, most police patrollers were recruited from ConEmp harvest camps, raised in rigid conformity to serve the Empire. Gray had some sympathy for them and was surprised when he met one that functioned rationally at all.

Gray took her right hand in his and turned it over. He inspected her fingers, then looked at the left hand. Your fingerprints have been removed chemically. We must get off this train quickly.

They intended to slave me?

I’ve heard of it, but never personally seen it. The G-men take a likely citizen, not for personal use, just to slave them and market them through the servant’s unions.

Gray stood in the center of the tube car. His hand seemed to move past his left shoulder and the yalot appeared in it as if transported there. He moved the yalot slowly and evenly along the ceiling of the car. For seconds he stood immobile, then quickly snapped his arm back and slid the flat gray tool in its pouch under his left arm. This was the single secret weapon developed by the Asin-We over centuries. It magnified psychic energy, a tool that only someone trained as Asin-ji could use to the fullest extent. The higher stages of training required giving up the yalot. But Gray could not imagine facing danger without it.

The swishing stopped and their car slowed then settled down smoothly on the track bumpers.

Let’s go. He tapped the wall beside the door with his hand, recently energized by use of the yalot, and it slid open. There was barely space for them to ease out and press flat against the rounded tunnel. The cars lifted and silently sped away, leaving them in the silent tube dimly lit by a faint overhead strip.

"I don’t know how you did it and I don’t care; but I have to know why we’re doing this. I’ve got to call my Father.

You’ve probably been blooded, technically referred to as a surveillance mark. They inject a radioactive dye into your blood. It emits a frequency that marks you whenever you’re in range of sensors placed in locations around Mirror City. They use the system to keep track of their patrollers and G-Men. In their case it’s for protection. In your case it’s to prevent escape. I’m certain you’re listed as a bonded servant already. Gray stepped into the center of the tunnel.

No. It can’t be. It can’t. I don’t believe it. She stepped in front of him. Under the pale green strips overhead their faces were cut of odd shadows that made them appear grim and foreboding.

I’ll call my Father. He’ll send someone to get me off planet. Better yet, I can call Bayard Wilks. He owns Royal shuttle and he’s a personal friend. Her voice was strong but had an edge of panic. It echoed strangely down the silent tubeways.

Listen and listen carefully. Officially you have no father, officially you have no friends and have never worked for Royal Shuttle. You were born whenever they injected the die into your system and removed your prints. Your retinal pattern records and DNA profile have been reassigned to a slave with whatever designation they have given you. It is your only name and we don’t know what that is. Every public and most private phones in the city are detector phones. They are used for credit transactions and for patrol monitoring. That’s the system and at this moment you are on the wrong side of it.

What about a genetic check. I have a bank account.

Slaves can have bank accounts. Your bank records may not be modified, but your transactions will probably be monitored even though status isn’t listed with the bank. To the bank you are a name and number.

They stood silently for a while and she looked at him closely again, trying to determine if she should trust him.

I’ll reserve judgment on what you say until I can prove it to myself. But I have to know. Why are you helping me?

Chalk it up to a love of trouble and no love for the ConEmp, and because of a strangely shaped wooden flute called a Bento. Gray surprised himself. He mentioned the Bento only to Twig in his thirteen years of wandering.

They began walking, his yalot would not keep a bullet train from crushing them in the tube.

The travel tubes were between city levels, rapid transport where private vehicles were at a premium and strictly licensed. There were frequent service ports into the tunnels, and it was one of these that Gray searched for and found. He felt the concave surface of the tubeway until his fingers detected the minutely raised surface and hairline crack that marked a service entrance.

With his yalot he intensified his body’s magnetic field to match the electronic key. The vibrations meshed and Gray unconsciously extended a minute surge of energy, again magnified thousands of times, to open the service way.

The covering slid aside like a vertical eyelid. They stepped through and it sealed behind them. At Central 18 it registered in the computer, logged into an electronic journal; but no one monitored the small section of board where their departure route blinked briefly. It might be discovered, but too long after they were gone for it to mean anything.

On the street, Gray