Don Wismer - Warrior Planet.pdf - Don Wismer - widez2

WARRiOR PLANET

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed In this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

260 Fifth Avenue

New York, N.Y. 10001

First printing, May 1987

ISBN: 0-671-65642-2

Cover art by A.C. Farley

Printed in the United States of America

Distributed by

SIMON & SCHUSTER

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, N.Y. 10020

Prologue

There was the faintest whisper of sound behind him. He whirled on the ball of his foot.

The animal was in the air, In mid-leap from a housesized boulder that he had just passed. it was

steersized, sixlegged, with a mouth hinged like a shark’s, green and spotted with blotches like sun

patches on sward. Detail merged into horror; he saw a confused swirl of claws and teeth.

In panic, he threw up his bands, arms rigid, palms at a ninety-degree angle toward the beast.

Green flame wrapped around his wrists and focused. Fire shot out at the beast.

Even as he did it, he knew that it was a mistake.

The October One looked at him from the height of her ornamented chair. Two powerful Adepts

held him, one by each arm, standing in front of her, just behind the yellow line. His head hung; he could

not look her in the eyes.

“You killed an animal,” she said In her gravelly, flat voice. He made no answer, could think of

none.

“You used your Skill in a way visible to all, in fire and smoke and flame. You. . .

There was desperation in him. He thought he was about to die.

“There was no time!” he cried, his body trembling, looking at the floor.

“Nonsense!” she thundered. Her black hair seemed to swirl with a life of its own. Her face,

ageless, expressionless, held two glowing yellow eyes, which he dared not look upon.

Her downward slash of a mouth opened. Her voice came again. “We were watching; it was The

Test. You could have taken one step aside and placed yourself in Shadow. You could have. . .“ She

paused. There were several other ways, none that would have attracted the attention of anyone nearby.

There were even ways he could have killed without notice, without sound.

But killing was not the issue here.

He waited for the judgment that he knew was coming. He was eighteen years old, and there was

nothing in him but fear.

He glanced desperately at the man on his right. Cor-Reed, his teacher for seven years, stared

unmovingly ahead, gnarled face set In its habitual frown, streaked hair thin and half gone on a glistening

scalp, lips turned forever down in impatience with the universe, almost sneering. No help would he found

here. When he had failed with the animal, he had failed Cor-Reed most of all.

The hand on his arm tightened, until he could feel the pain.

“Enough!” the woman grated. Her voice was so low that it was almost a whisper. Asher gasped,

and the pressure eased. “Judgment and punishment are mine. You, Cor-Reed, might defend this boy.

You might tell me of his training, of the flaw that you and other Guild teachers have worked on for the

seven years, of the hope you had in the promise of his other attributes, his aptitude toward the Skill.”

She breathed. The boy had not heard any intake of breath from her since he had come to her

chamber almost eight minutes ago, and he was attuned to such things, For the first time now, she

breathed. “Enough.” She passed her hand over her eyes, closing them for a moment. The boy could feel

the weakness in her. But then she hissed, and he could feel the strength. “The Law of October is plain.

‘Six years, and no more than seven, shall an Apprentice labor, whereupon the Apprentice will he tested,

one Test and one alone.’ This one has been tested.

“Look at me, Asher Tye.” There was finality, grim and hard, in her inhuman voice. The boy’s

head drew up, and his eyes looked into hers. He did not want to, resisted with all his strength, but she

had the Power in its full measure. He was but a failed student of it.

Hazel eyes met yellow. She used no further force, merely looked into him.

“You have failed the Test,” she said. “The Test beyond which there is no appeal. In accordance

with our Law, I decree that you will he erased, expelled from the Guild, and sent back to your home

world. Without Skill. Without Power. Without the Guild.”

Erased. , . The taking of his mind. The message of the words, the force of the yellow eyes, hit

him like a nail-studded club. Violent emotion, fear, terror, a sob coming out of the lower depths of his

body without his volition. . . His head shook as the frustration came into him, beating against the other

emotions that were brimming to the surface and drowning him.

The woman saw it, and he knew that she saw it, and so he understood exactly when she

whispered: “The flaw.”

She needed to say no more. Then, in a movement of creamy fluidity, she stood. The black, gold-edged

robes of the October Guild fell around her gaunt, unseen body. Her black hair writhed silently. Within it,

there was the occasional tiny, bright flicker of static electricity.

“Cor-Reed, Dan-Gheel,” she spoke to the two men who held Asher Tye. “The Judgment is

finished. You will take him to the Probe.”

The men inclined their heads a fraction, the closest to a bow that the Guild ever allowed. The

hands tightened around the boy’s anns, and he felt himself turning and walking out of the chamber.

Walking toward the Mind Probe.

Terror overflowed altogether then, and he struggled, kicking the shin of Dan-Gheel, trying to tear

away from Cor-Reed.

But they placed a Calmness on him which he could not resist. Yet the Calmness was external;

controlling his body alone. He raged inside.

The Mind Probe would erase all the Skill out of his mind—cleanse seven years out of him, and

leave him as he had been when he had come here.

An eleven-year-old child—in an eighteen-year-old body.

Part I - Flight

Chapter 1

He had asked the wrist computer what day and time and year it was, and whatever the computer

had replied, only one thing seemed to echo in his brain, back and forth like a steel ball. September had

ended only moments before; the computer had switched to October in mid-sentence.

Across the bubble, with all the colors of the rainbow, the stars streamed past in lines like a

thousand claws, scratching across the luxglass of the observation port, red and yellow, yellow like eyes,

and green and purple... Purple, like light, exactly the same shade as... as claws and purple light and

yellow eyes.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a nose-shaped alien scuttle out of the room, and he

remembered.

He sat suddenly upright in the lounge chair in which he had been lying. A few of the other

passengers looked at him in surprise.

He remembered! The October One. Cor-Reed. The beast from the rock.

And the Skill!

He stood up abruptly. He was on the observation deck of a starship, watching, with some of the

other passengers, the stars as they fled by in lines, while the ship bore through interspace. Several other

passengers turned to look at him, to divine the reason for his sudden movement.

Almost trembling, he made a slight motion with his left hand, and pointed to the viewport with his

right. The heads looked that way and forgot about him.

it was the Cloak of Unnotice, part of the Skill. In all the minds that had been looking his way, the

image of the brown-haired boy was diffused and tinged with a deep unimportance. The eyes had seen,

and if they looked his way again, they would see again. But the minds would not notice, as long as he

kept the Cloak in active force around him.

He’d been on the ship two standard days. He remembered coming aboard with the wonder of an

eleven year old, gaping at the immense ship In orbit around the October World as his shuttle drew close.

He had spent most of the two days right here on the observation deck, watching as the ship pulled out of

orbit, watching as the red October World dwindled behind them until it popped out of view as they

entered interspace and the lining of the stars began.

He had felt no special emotion, other than a child’s wonder. He had felt no separation, no regret,

no sadness at leaving a world that had been his home for seven years, at leaving an opportunity that

would have made him great in his own mind.

All he had felt was the awe of a child looking at the universe.

Now his mind reeled with sadness and regret, but also with surprise and joy and hope. Memory!

Skill! it was as if someone had given him a mouthful of medicine that had tripled his knowledge all at

once.

He sank slowly onto the edge of the lounge chair, trying to grasp what had happened.

He remembered entering the Probe chamber. There Cor-Reed had pushed him away, not hard,

with a kind of studied contempt. Asher had wept hysterically and clawed after him, too late to follow him

through the closing door. Then he had been alone in the chamber. The lights had turned violet, and

become so bright that,..

That was when the forgetfulness had begun. After a while two men had come in to him, men that

he did not recognize at the time, but now knew were Dan-Gheel and Cor-Reed. The latter had looked at

him with hatred, and Asher had wondered why. He had felt fine. He had wondered where he was, but

that was all.

The men had taken him to a room, where they dressed him and handed him a suitcase. He was

on his way home, they explained. He had felt happy about that. His parents must be waiting.

But what about the training? Somehow he had known that he was in this place for training of

some kind. No, they had said, he had not been able to start the training. He had failed some kind of

aptitude test.

That had puzzled him. He hadn’t remembered any test. Never mind, they had assured him. He

did have a great aptitude in robotic logic. They were sure that the Robot Guild would be the place for

him.

So they had bundled him aboard the starship. As the shuttle had neared it, he had seen its name

in metallic mosaic on its angular hull. The Pride of Caldott. Caldott was a planet near the Core, an

important place of commerce and finance.

His own planet, he had recalled, was Barnard’s Refuge, in the outer swirl of one of the galactic

arms. That meant that this world he was leaving was even further out from the galactic core; it must he

truly one of the fringe worlds, on the very rim of the galaxy.

He remembered now that he had sat in a sort of hazy stupor for the two days, going to his

cubicle only for sleep, and to the common dining room for meals. He had spoken to very few people,

and to no aliens at all. At one point, a matronly woman in the company of a Digger, an ugly little alien

that buzzed instead of laughed, had struck up a conversation about inconsequentials, until Asher, even in

his eleven-year-old naivete, had wished they’d go away. He hadn’t liked the Digger, whose snout

reminded him of a mouthful of worms.

Another time a teenage girl, bored with the travel, had tried to make his acquaintance, and had

become first puzzled and then fearful at his boyish babbling. An attractive girl, he thought with regretful

irritation.

Looking around now, he saw neither the woman and alien nor the teenage girl, not that he

wanted the company of any of them. Instead, he...

A man was looking at him. Asher looked back with fear welling up inside.

The man was dark-haired, shorter than average, with liquid black eyes. He was staring directly at

Asher, directly through the Cloak of Unnotice.

Asher looked away, trying to seem casual. He had seen the man before, he knew, without takng

any special notice. The man had often eaten at the same time Asher had on the ship, and he always

seemed to he on the observation deck whenever Asher was.

What if the man were an Adept? Would he notice the Cloak?

Of course he would. And if he were in fact an Adept, he would have Skill beyond anything Asher

could command.

The man was starting toward him. Asher could see him out of the corner of his eyes. What did it

mean?

His mind whirled frantically, but he could think of only one way to account for this man’s

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