Rebel Ice by S. L. Viehl Page B

hour, no resin bubbled through the stony grain of the stick that had been exposed on the other side of the seam. That meant that the outside air temperature had dropped enough to damage unprotected derma and lung tissue, a night when no sane man would venture far from warmth and shelter.
    From his weapons cache Teulon took a long slender spear and his seven-bladed sword. He was not sure why he kept crossing the ice to visit a small, abandoned ice cave. He had found it, and the thing that haunted it, purely by accident. He could not say if the spirit of the cave was real or something his mind had invented. It never spoke. He had never brought anyone to the cave to learn if others could see the ghost.
    Instead, Teulon went there regularly. Illusion or ghost, whatever inhabited the cave comforted him simply by being something that defied explanation.
    Outside the shelter, the sky was a remote, dark hand holding back the vicious kvinka. Across it lay faint, many-colored light streams, made of starlight refracted and distorted by the upper atmosphere. Bsak lay waiting—like Teulon, the cat needed little sleep—and rose on all six feet when he saw the Raktar.
    "Patrol."
    The jlorra released air in a short, compressed exhalation—the only sound it was capable of making—and came to Teulon's side. He had tried leaving the cat behind in camp when he went on his solitary treks, but the animal always caught up with him before he traveled half a kim.
    Teulon moved through the shelters, automatically inspecting rigging and cover as he went. The men had become adept at securing and concealing their bivouac, but he never took that for granted. Low grunting, the sound of Iisleg intimacy, made him pause by a skim pilot's shelter.
    Men do not sleep alone in the cold.
    Teulon used the end of his spear to make a slash mark on the outside flap of the shelter. In the hour before dawn, when the rebels collapsed the shelters and moved the camp, the pilot would see the mark and know that he had been heard. He would reinforce the walls of the shelter until they were soundproofed, or abandon it and share another's. Teulon's men had responded instantly to the silent discipline; he never had to make a second slash mark. He turned away, but not before he heard a softer sigh from within the shelter.
    I fear for you.
    Teulon and the cat walked out of the camp and into the cold night, where the winds scoured away all sound and blended together to become the birth wail of a new world.
    Chapter Six
    "You make my ears ache with your ceaseless chatter, Terran."
    Reever glanced at Aledver, the weapons trader Orjakis had sent to accompany him on his search. He had not, in fact, said a word to the young Toskald since boarding, despite the fact that Aledver had made several humorous remarks to illustrate his affability.
    "I wish not to die of boredom," Aledver said as he powered up the launch's engines. "Forgive me, but I usually deal with species who are nonverbal or interested only in obtaining the best of a deal." His expression changed to one of amused tolerance. "You might have made a better bargain with the Kangal, you know. Perhaps in the future, I might advise you on how to achieve such."
    There was another provocative remark, the logical response to which would be to ask Aledver's advice or confide in him.
    "Thank you for the offer." Persuasive charisma seemed to be requisite among the Kangal's lackeys, Reever thought. Aledver, however, had the eyes of a man who would use other, less palatable means when his charm failed. Not a courtier, but adept at playing one . "How long have you served the Kangal?"
    "Of which do you speak? I have served the Kangal Present, the Kangal Before, and the Kangal Once Before." The trader disengaged the docking mechanisms and slowly guided the ship out into the calm corridor of air immediately surrounding Skjonn. "I know what you are thinking."
    Reever observed the maneuver, silently completing his calculations for the