Part 9 (1/2)

'It has. I know what to do.'

Tiaan spent all afternoon building an array of interlinked hexagons of wire and crystal that mimicked the amplimet's form and structure. It was set around a little gla.s.s doughnut she had taken from one of the many storerooms in Tirthrax. The amplimet lay at its heart, in the soapstone basket from the centre of the port-all. She now felt anxious about that. Every time she touched the amplimet, she mentally flinched. Using it was no longer a comfort but a threat.

Sitting on the operator's seat, she slipped her fingers in through the wires of the hexagons and touched the amplimet. It was warm. Stroking along its length, she closed her eyes.

The amplimet began to pulse; she could feel the light beating against her eyelids. Tiaan did not try to control the crystal this close to the great node of Tirthrax she was afraid to. She merely allowed the pulsation to wash over and through her, drifting with it until, finally, the field sprang into view. It was the greatest she had ever felt.

Tiaan traced the construct's aura into a black metal box whose contents she could not visualise. The aura came out the other end, twisted through the bowels of the machine and went up behind the green gla.s.s binnacle in front of her. There she lost it in murky tangles which she could not penetrate. It was like trying to make out a blueprint written in mist. Her eyes ached. The workings must be protected protected.

But a lock protects nothing if you have the key. She just had to decipher it. Feeling unusually tired, Tiaan rested her head on the gla.s.s. Was her obsession with her craft just a way to avoid other responsibilities, as Malien had implied? She did not want to think about that. Better keep going. She was terrified that the lyrinx would come back, and take the construct before she could understand it.

That black container in the bowels of the machine was another mystery. Putting her head through the lower hatch, she peered around, holding out one of Malien's glowing spheres. The box was up in the darkness at the front.

She was trying to sense its purpose when she felt an odd p.r.i.c.kle and the image of wires and crystals froze in her mind. It was so quiet that Tiaan could hear her heart thumping. Going up, she traced the aura on the green gla.s.s, but the gla.s.s lit up and a spiralling red line began to rotate.

Tiaan jumped. Other markings appeared on the surface: blue circles that shrank and expanded again, yellow lines arcing from one side of a rectangle to another, rows of characters that were undoubtedly some kind of writing.

The shapes and colours changed, the writing flowed endlessly, but nothing else happened. As she crouched beneath the binnacle, probing with her inner sight, an alarm shrieked in her ear; then something clamped around her forehead and began to squeeze.

It was a trap and she had fallen into it. Metal fingers gripped her skull. Tiaan tried to tear them off but received a shock that singed her fingers. Her arms flopped uselessly by her sides. She began to shake uncontrollably as echoes of the shock raced up and down her limbs.

Tiaan felt disconnected from her body. Her tongue expanded to fill her mouth, her eyes rolled down as far as they would go, and stuck. She could see her hands hanging like floppy spiders, but she could not move.

It was hours before a grinning Malien appeared and freed her hours of helpless terror that she would never move again. And hours of crystal dreams that she remembered all too clearly, for she was dreaming awake. She dreamed that she was trapped inside the amplimet, paralysed or frozen, and it was feeding upon her essence as a wasp feeds on a spider. And the whole time, she could see the amplimet in her mind's eye, the central light flas.h.i.+ng on and off like a signal lamp.

Her head felt fuzzy; it hurt to think. 'What's so funny?' she said curtly.

'The look on your face,' Malien chuckled. 'Next time, have the good sense to ask me for help. Did I not tell you that there could be traps?'

'I was worried that the enemy would get here first.'

'Better they they kill you than you do it yourself. How are you feeling?' kill you than you do it yourself. How are you feeling?'

Tiaan sat up. 'A bit shaky.'

Malien gave her a hand. 'We'd better get to work.'

'Yesterday you were lecturing me about working too hard.'

'The lyrinx weren't out there yesterday.'

'What?'

'I saw one this morning, circling high in the eastern sky. I wouldn't want them to get hold of a construct.'

By the evening, Tiaan felt that she understood most of the controls, though she had not discovered how to make the construct operate. 'There's still something missing,' she said.

'Like a key for a lock? I wonder ...'

'What?'

Malien touched an isolated b.u.t.ton at the base of the binnacle. A curved tube with hexagonal sides slid out from beneath. 'This leads to a cavity above that black box, low down. Can you sense what used to be in there?'

'I was trying to when it trapped me.'

'I think it's safe now.'

Tiaan sensed out the lingering aura. 'It held some kind of woken crystal.'

'What kind?'

'I can't tell. Do Aachim use crystals the way we do?'

'Not exactly, but I expect I can find a hedron or two, if that's what you're getting at.'

They spent half the night searching the storerooms, and found a number of woken crystals that would fit, though none had any effect on the construct.

'I can't do any more,' Tiaan said, when it was well after midnight.

'Wait a minute,' said Malien. 'Have you got the amplimet here?'

Tiaan took it from its pouch. Light streamed forth; steady light. 'What do you have in mind?'

'Putting it into that cavity.'

'But yesterday you said it would be too powerful to use.'

'I'll try to moderate it.'

Tiaan moved the amplimet from hand to hand, wondering if they might not be doing its its will. will.

'Put it into the tube, Tiaan. No, the other way round.'

Tiaan did so.

'Now, push the tube down, very carefully. I'll stand ready, just in case.'

When it had gone all the way, she heard a gentle click as the crystal settled into the cavity. They waited, holding their breath. The colours on the gla.s.s plate brightened.

'Close the cap,' said Malien.

Tiaan pushed it down. There came a metallic screech from below and the whole construct shuddered. Orange rays streamed from the open hatch. Something began to thump against the floor. Malien hit the b.u.t.ton; the amplimet shot out of the tube. Tiaan caught it and stuffed it into its pouch. The racket stopped. They looked at one another.

'It's too powerful.' Malien looked drawn. 'Let's go. I can't do any more tonight.'

'I'll stay for a while. I need to think.'

'Don't do anything foolish.'

'I won't,' Tiaan said absently, her mind on the problem.