36 - Your Main Target

“Your main target should be the surdeniliarch and His Radiance,” Shashi said.  “Normally you understand I’d put Lainz first, but we’ve got a political situation developing here that the Milar need their war master for.”

“Endarken.” Dukir searched his thoughts for a moment.   

“Something to do with the Rumon?”

“Everything always happens at once, you always said.”

She looked tired and it wasn’t just the new mother tiredness.  Even with all the zardukar behind her, maintaining the four in code was wearing.

“What does the konsiliarch sound like?”

“Concerned that she hasn’t heard from Ilax in a few days.  Says, somewhat tartly, that this lin was supposed to make communication between our countries possible not cut it off all together.”

“Let her know that it’s to do with Xanadu and the Owner.”

“You’ll be out with them before I write to her next, surely.”

Dukir settled himself on his couch, checked that he had the stinger firmly set in his cheek, smiled at his daughter.  “Of course.”

**

The stinger, from Diryish, was a gold button that stung like bakon shit when it activated. *owner permissions confirmed. Temporary access granted.*

The code land became apparent to him slowly, as if a fog were thinning in front of his eyes, layers of code, like an onion, layers of access. Each layer... if he entered it, would probably open up to him as if he were stepping into a complete land.  No wonder you never showed me this, Diryish. He wanted to swear but it was just overwhelming to see.

I can’t make sense of it all, in just this one trip.  But I know what I’m looking for.  I’m not too proud to follow a ferret.  And I’m never going to let the boys forget that, once I get the lot of them out of that level.

The trick was not to try and go inside, and find a code from there, but let it spin and whirl like a soap bubble unpopped.  You could see all the way to the core, the owner’s core, if you were patient and had the strength.  All Dukir needed to do was follow that simple streak of white fur that marked the ferret’s passage.

That level. That segment. Ahah! Bees.  A honey tree full of bees.  That’s my boys.

All I need to do is dig my line in here... outside these levels... reach my hand in... He caught a bee in his reaching hand and it dug into his palm as if he were home.  He didn’t flinch, but reached right into the image of the tree, grabbed a branch, felt the grasp of palm and then the sword-callused hand grabbing for and latching onto his wrist.

Then wait.  Wait for every far flung bee to gather together, here, before he yanked both of these idiot young men out of the owner’s control. *D...ukir?* it was Kyrus, His Radiance.   

*Dukir! Oh, Light and Dark! Ilax! You aren’t a hive of bees... I’m not a tree!  We cannot play the owner’s games here, he caught us!  Ilax!*

*I’m here. Spymaster.* Ilax’s voice grew stronger as the hive of bees gathered. *I’m almost together and have information.  Wait for that last dozen of bees...*

*Security! We’ve got to... what the fak... Tizrav!*

The ferret leapt straight into a security dragon’s face, grabbed it by the nostrils like a snake and shook her body like a whip-crack.  The program dissolved in a sparkle of subroutines as the honey tree and the hive reformatted their shapes into Ilax and Kyrus.

*Get us out of here!*

The distant thunder, as more programs realized there was a virus in their system, rolled toward them.  Dukir took a mental breath and heaved.  He hadn’t let go the moment he’d laid a hand on them and Kyrus hadn’t let go his wrist in turn.  It seemed as though they jumped and then it was like pulling someone out of waist-deep sand. Fak it was like pulling an old warbird out of neck deep sand. The ferret sneezed and jumped away, into the bush, making it clear she could find her own way home.

Dukir felt like he was being torn in two but the membrane between that reality and this one stretched and stretched, Ilax and Kyrus pressing out against it. Then it popped as they followed the hole his hand had made, sending them tumbling out of code entirely, and sealed behind them.

The whole world went from silent to chaos.  Zardukar cheering, laughing. One or two just weeping.  The hive roared up away from everyone but Hara and Kyrus the younger. Rasheem came clashing in to make sure everyone was safe. Ilax sat up creakily slowly on his couch, coughing, and Kyrus rolled right off onto the floor, catching himself on his forearms before his forehead smacked into the floor.  “Ow.” Babies, startled out of sleep whimpered or cried and were soothed or nursed into a happier, at least quieter, state.

Dukir sat up rather more quickly, since he’d just dipped into and then out of code.  He ran his tongue over the raw patch on his inner cheek where the stinger had dissolved.   

“Welcome back, Radiance and Surdeniliarch. You have to leave this project for a time, there’s political situations brewing.  I hope the owner hasn’t noticed all this ‘poking holes’ in his country.”

Voice raw, Ilax coughed again and accepted the propolis from one of the zardukar and people quieted down to hear what he had to say.  “I... see.  The owner’s codes are a mish mash of good and bad and they don’t all work well together.  One reason we could hide so well was that his security dragons tend to cycle to a certain point, then freeze and reset and they aren’t set up to cover this hole, so I don’t think he’ll notice.” His eyes went over to his daughter’s still form, her eyes flickering back and forth under her eyelids, but he addressed Mother Thriti, even as he levered himself up to go to her.  “Inamour, are you all right?  Are you all here? What political situation?  How long have we been under? Why are they in the code?”

“You were lost long enough for them to try and get you out,” Dukir said. Ilax nearly stumbled to the seat between Ky and Hara’s couches.  “That’s why I’m so weak?”

“Are you all right, deovar?” Kyrus’s voice came from where they’d helped him up and sat him back down on his couch.   

“We’ve been in the code for days.”

“Endarkened.”