Part 44 (1/2)

The largest and the uous Montet had never liked the place, even as a student Scout Herantipathy had not escaped the notice of her teachers, who had found it wise to assign her long and tedious tracings of kernel-tales and seed-stories, so that she ht become adequately acquainted with the Library's content

Much as she had disliked those assignoal By the time she was pronounced ready to atte researcher of legend, with an uncanny eye for the single true line buried in a page of obfusion

After she passed her Solo, she opted for field duty, to the clear disappointot the Library of Legends in the freedom of the stars

However, skills once learned are difficult to unlearn, especially for those who have survived Scout training It took Montet all of three days to find the first hint of what her dubious treasure ht be A twelve-day after, she had the kernel-tale

Then, it was cross-checking-triangulating, as it were, trying to ory to orbit;kind, requiring every nit of a Scout's attention for long hours at a time Montet did not stint the task-that had never been her way-and the details absorbed her day after day, early to late

Which would account for her forgetting to , whatever it was, from its old stasis-box into a new one

”This is an alert! Situation Class One Guards and eency personnel to the 'Norba to the main laboratory Repeat This is an alert”

Montet was alreadyher utility belt as she ran

The intercoan the third pass Montet slapped the override button for the lift and jumped inside before the door was fully open

Gods, the main lab she'd left it, whatever it was, in the lab lock-box, which had beco their earnest best to crack the thing open and learn its inner workings It should have beensafein the lab

The lift doors opened and she was running, down a hall full of security and catastrophe unifor bodies of her coht into the lab's hallway, twisted and dodged through an unexpectedly dense knot of people just standing there, got clear-and stumbled, hands over her eyes

”Aiee!”

The headache was a knife, buried to the hilt in her forehead Her knees hit the floor, the jar snapping her teeth shut on her tongue, but that pain was lost inside the greater agony in her head She sobbed, fu exercise that was the first thing taught anyone who aspired to be a Scout

She crouched there for a lifetiain, with forced, frantic patience Finally, she found the concentration necessary, ran the sequence froony recede-sufficiently

Shaking, she pushed herself to her feet and faced the open door of the lab

It was then she re tech's inclination toward explosives”Gods, Gods, Gods” She staggered, straightened and walked, knees rubbery, vision white at the edges-walked down the hall, through the open door

The main room was trim as always, beakers and culture-plates washed and racked by size; tweezers, blades, droppers and other hand tools of a lab tech's trade hung neatly above each workbench Montet went down the silent, orderly aisles, past the last workbench, where someone had started a flame on the burner and decanted so was not quite as it should be and slipping out to call Security

Montet paused to turn the fla queasy

All praise to the Gods of study, who had conspired to make her miss the mid-day meal

The door to the secondary workroom was closed, and refused to open to her palmprint

Montet reached into her utility belt, pulled out a flat thin square The edges were firrip; the center viscous Carefully, she pressed the jellified center over the lockplate's sensor, and waited

For ahappened, then there was a soft click and a space showed between the edge of the door and the frame

Montet stepped aside, lay the spent jelly on the workbench behind her, got her fingers in the slender space and pushed The door eased back, silent on well-h, she slipped inside

The room was dim, the air cool to the point of disco her own chancy vision and the murkiness around her

There: a dark blot near the center of the room, which could only be a stasis box Montet h air that seemed to thicken with each step Auto the pin-light by touch She slipped out out of its loop, touched the trigger-and swore

The stasis box lay on its side in the bea open Empty

Montet sed another curse In the silence, someone moaned

Beam before her, she went toward the sound, and found the charly demented lab tech huddled on the floor next to the further wall, his arms folded over his head

She started toward hi, whatever it as barely a dozen steps away, banked by many small boxes of the kind used to contain the explosive trile container of trimplix could hole a spaceshi+p, and here were twelves of twelves of the

”Kill it,” the tech er the triht on the floor Carefully, she went out to the main room, drew a fresh stasis box from stores and carried it back into the dimness The tech had not moved, except perhaps to draw closer round hi work to set the boxes of trirab the thing and heave it into the box It hit bottom with a thu and likely to coing, then forced herself up and went over to the intercom to sound the all-clear

PANOPELE SETTLED HER feet in the cool, dewy grass; filled her lungs with sweet ht air; felt the power coalesce and burn in her belly, waking the twins, Joy and Terror Again, she drank the sweet, dark air, lungs expanding painfully; then raised her face to the fir

A rose to the star-lanes, questing, questioning, challenging

Transported by the song, the essence of Panopele, Voice of Naratha, rose likewise to the star-lanes, broadening, blosso

Attended by four of the elder novices, feet coht to the soil of Aelysia, the body of Panopele sang the Cycle doo of the attendant novices wept to hear her; two of the novices danced The body of Panopele breathed and sang; sang and breathed And sang

Out a the star-lanes, enor, Panopele listened, and heard no discord Expanding even further, she opened whatthe scintillant fields of life and saw-a blot

Faint it was, vastly distant froripping the soil-and unmistakable in its -or i she heard-the faintest note of discord; the barest whisper ofon, voice sweeping out in pure waves of passion The two novices who danced spun liketheir robes The tept fell to their knees and struck their heads against the earth

Panopele strained, stretching toward the edge of the song, the li; theall at once plain

Far below, the body of Panopele gasped, interrupting the song The scintillance of the star-lanes paled into a blur; there was a rush of sound, un-song-like, and Panopele was joltingly aware of cold feet, laboring lungs, the drumbeat of her heart Her throat hurt, and she was thirsty

A warm cloak was draped across her shoulders, clasped across her throat Warm hands pressed her down into the wide seat of the ancient wooden Singer's Chair In her left ear the novice Fanor murmured, ”I have water, Voice Will you drink?”

Drink she would and drink she did, the cool water a joy

”Blessings on you,” she rasped and lay her left hand over his heart in Naratha's full benediction Fanor was one of the tept in the song

”Voice” He looked away, as he always did, embarrassed by her notice

”Will you rest here, Voice? Or return to temple?” That was Lietta, who danced, and was doubtless herself in need of rest