Stealing Light Read Online Free Page B

They swam on together, progressing in the direction of the Dreamers.
    ‘There you are!’ cried the General with forced joviality. ‘Trader-In-Faecal-Matter-Of-Animals, eh?’ His manipulators rattled together with a series of clicking sounds, the Shoal equivalent of raucous laughter.
    Trader suffered a momentary frisson of panic. Could the approaching priest-geneticists be fully trusted in their imminent dealings with the General? They were all, supposedly, insiders, loyal to Desire-For-Violent-Rendering’s decision to suppress the unpalatable truth from the likes of General Squat.
    But what if Desire had in fact already betrayed Trader? What if Desire’s warning about Trader’s working methods had really been a kind of ultimatum?
    What if? What if?
    Trader scolded himself even for such a momentary lapse of faith. If death came this day, he would die with the knowledge he had served the Shoal Hegemony far longer than most. There was grace and nobility in that thought for, after all, the notion of dying a natural death seemed preposterous.
    And if not this day, then he would die on another. So be it.
    Trader ceased his worrying. He cast a sideways glance at Squat, noting what an ugly brute the General was, his scaly hide scarred and weather-beaten. One eye—albeit easily repairable—was milky-white and blind, with a visible rent in its surface. A formidable opponent indeed, but Trader had faced worse.
    General Squat rammed his field bubble into Trader’s, and the water around them boiled as their energies clashed. Trader rapidly skipped his protective field away from the General, taking a moment to realize Squat was not in fact attempting to kill him.
    ‘General—’
    ‘Caught you there, eh?’ The General came rushing back up, ancillary mouth snapping and tentacles writhing. ‘Need to stay sharp! Never know when you might get a knife between the fins.’
    ‘And you, General’—Trader was regaining some of his composure—‘what brings you to the Deep Dreamers?’
    ‘Well, you see, the future’s been rather on my mind of late too,’ Squat replied.
    At this comment, Trader kept his tentacles noncommittally bundled.
    Something very like a human shrug rippled across the General’s scarred exterior. ‘There are rumours . . . very dark rumours, my friend.’
    ‘I had no idea,’ Trader replied.
    ‘I hate to listen to unfounded gossip, but you’d be amazed the things that are presently being muttered in some very high-ranking circles.’
    ‘Such as?’
    Trader looked askance at his companion. They were close enough now to the Dreamers to see the sheer scale of the beasts; each tentacle-sucker could easily consume a hundred Shoal-members all at once. They were deep within the Dreamer’s influence now, caught in the eddying tide of the very near future, even as it prepared to crash into the present.
    ‘Well, I wouldn’t care to elaborate,’ Squat replied in a conspiratorial tone. ‘And if I did, I might subsequently be forced to kill you.’ The General’s tentacles swirled around with humourless mirth.
    ‘I have heard rumours myself,’ Trader replied, ‘that the Dreamers all predict a war is coming.’
    ‘Yes!’ The General seized upon this. ‘Now don’t get me wrong, war is a wonderful thing—in the right context, with the right enemy, and as long as you win. But these rumours, they concern an unwinnable war, as preposterous as that notion seems. Unwinnable?’
    ‘Perhaps some of our associates have been talking too freely, General. It really wouldn’t do to frighten the ordinary population.’
    ‘Indeed,’ the General replied.
    Trader glanced ahead and noticed the priest-geneticists were almost upon them.
    ‘Have you heard about old Rigor-Mortis?’ asked Squat. ‘Dead, I’m afraid.’
    ‘Is that so?’
    Trader failed to conceal his surprise. Rigor-Mortis had long been a prime mover among those who, like Trader, were privy to the Great Secret.
    ‘Yes. Rigor gave himself to the