A Thousand Words For Stranger (10th Anniversary Edition) (29 page)

Even more gently, he said, “Sira, I understand why you want to forget what happened.”

Something gave way, and I was fiercely angry, though I wasn’t sure at whom. “Do you, Captain Morgan?” I demanded bitterly. “Do you understand how I feel when each day I’m being turned into someone I don’t know? Someone who’s bought and sold by pirates; someone with a past known only to the dead? And now you want me to accept hearing voices in my head?”

“Voices?” Morgan repeated, quick alarm creasing his forehead, sharpening intent blue eyes. “Who else have you heard?”

I stopped on the brink of an answer, unable to form words. Mutely, I made a helpless gesture. “I don’t know why I said that. It was just a nightmare.”

Morgan approached, reached out swiftly to capture my hands. I felt myself being drawn into clear blue depths as our gazes met and held. There was no sensation beyond a feeling of lassitude, of relaxation. Then he released me. His eyes returned to normal, no longer engulfing pools, in a face showing considerable strain. Released from the spell, I recoiled from him. “How dare you—”

“Sit.” A harsh command. Startled, I obeyed, watching wide-eyed as Morgan strode over to a wall-com and called Huido to meet us in the control room.

“What is it?” There was something dreadful in Morgan’s face, and he didn’t answer me, merely beckoned me to follow. I glared at his back, then hurried down the hall after him, on second thought shoving the bottle of painkiller into a pocket of my robe.

We rounded the last bend and Morgan stopped short of the control room door, putting out a hand to hold me back. I’d seen what alarmed him. The floor ahead was marked with a line of even dark red spots, each slightly rounded. The spots led through the open door.

Just then, Huido pounded up from the opposite direction, mumbling and rattling for all the world like a badly-tuned servo. So much for the element of surprise, though who or what we were to surprise I couldn’t tell. Huido clattered to a stop when he saw Morgan and me. “What?”

Without bothering to answer, Morgan leaped forward, rushing into the control room. I couldn’t have said why I was right on his heels. Huido rumbled behind me.

Our grand entrance was wasted on the person busy at work on the control panel—or what was left of it. Morgan cursed and grabbed a seemingly deaf Gistries away from the wreckage. She didn’t struggle, just stood peacefully in his hold. Blood dripped from cuts on her hands, from her wounds, and from the ruined ends of the medconnectors she must have ripped loose to escape the cocoon. Med-gel coated her skin and hair, turning her into a statue of blood-marbled gray.

Leaving Morgan to deal with the pirate, Huido found an extinguisher and sprayed its foam over the flames where broken wiring and insulation had ignited small fires. The alarms were silent, but the ventilation system had already begun scrubbing the smoke from the air.

“We should get her back to bed,” I said, shaking off my paralysis. Laying my fingers on Morgan’s arm, I was shocked by its rigidity—it was like steel. The pounding of his heart hammered against mine. Yet Gistries wasn’t trying to break free.

No, Gistries wasn’t. I met her eyes and my breath caught in my throat. Gistries’ eyes? No. Someone else was there, staring at me,
knowing
me. Yihtor. Behind her eyes, what was Gistries threw herself against bars, a captive, pitiful thing.

And Morgan fought for her. I felt his struggle coursing through my hands on his arm. He fought, and his efforts were scorned by the stranger in Gistries’ face.

Immediately, without knowing how or what I did, I gave Morgan strength, sent energy surging through our contact. Gistries’ body slumped suddenly in Morgan’s arms.

He eased her to the deck, propping her against his shoulder. I bent down beside her, smoothing the gel-streaked hair from her face. Under the gray, her skin was deathly pale. Most of her blood must be on the floor. There was some on my hands. I braced myself when her eyelids rose again. But this time, the eyes looking at me were Human and full of pain.

“Thanks,” Gistries said. Her head rolled on Morgan’s arm to face him. “Time, Captain. Space clean.” A tremor ran through her body that I felt through Morgan.

Morgan laid her down on the deck, careful not to jar the tubes protruding like darts from her neck. I looked at him in surprise. Morgan deftly twisted free a handweapon from those hanging on Huido. The Carasian stood stoically, looking down meaningfully at Gistries.

“What are you doing?” I said, unwilling to understand. “She needs to go back to bed—”

Gistries looked up at me, her face wrinkling in an attempt to smile. “Captain knows what I need, little one.” Her voice faltered, then firmed. “No need to leave parts to claim, Captain. I’ve no kin. Don’t let that mindcrawling Yihtor use me again . . . never again. . . .” This last was a plea so infused with fear that I shivered even as Morgan nodded and fired.

Chapter 18

I KNEW Morgan was back before the murmurs of his voice and Huido’s came indistinctly through my closed door. In my distress, the sense of a wider awareness, of the opening of another type of eye, was so pronounced I merely accepted the knowledge without question. I was dressed in a dead person’s clothes and sitting on a dead person’s chair when he entered.

Morgan stopped just inside the doorway. “Sira—”

“Why did you have to kill her?”

Morgan passed his hand over his face, exhaustion written there. I stood, one hand on the desk for support. “Tell me,” I insisted. “Tell me what happened to Gistries. I don’t know. And I must.”

Morgan took the chair and sat heavily. He looked the way I felt. “How much could you sense?”

I didn’t like remembering. “Someone else. Which meant it wasn’t Gistries’ fault!”

“No.” Morgan’s lips twisted into a bitter line. “It was mine.” His gaze burned into mine, almost as tormented as Gistries’ had been. “Gistries knew. She’d been used as a gate by him before. Sooner or later, Yihtor would have crawled back inside her. Even with your help, I was barely able to thrust him away. I couldn’t keep him out. I couldn’t protect her.”

“Yihtor.” As I said the name, Gistries’ face filled my mind: the pain in her eyes, her smile of release as Morgan fired. Sometime in the remembering, I found myself cradling Morgan’s head and shoulders against me. I wasn’t sure which of us cried first.

 
Morgan brought a tight fist down slowly, resting it on the ruined panel. “I’ve checked the two in the hold. One’s from Goth and the other pirate’s half-Tidik; neither are susceptible to mental invasion. Huido’s doubled the locks anyway.”

I hated being in the control room. The blood was gone, but Gistries’ pain wasn’t. I paced; it was more useful than screaming. “What happens now? Can you fix this?”

Huido poked a clawtip into a still-soft runnel of melted plas. “You haven’t lost your sense of humor,” he rumbled.

“Yihtor didn’t leave us stranded. We’re going somewhere,” Morgan said. “The
Torquad
has a course set and engines at maximum. A course we can’t change.”

I walked over to the controls, my feet moving slowly, and gazed down at the congealed metal. “We’re going to Acranam. Yihtor is using the
Torquad
to bring me to him.” I whirled on Morgan. “Will Yihtor crawl behind my eyes next? Or is he there already, hiding in my dreams, reading my thoughts, controlling what I do?” My voice rose to a shout that echoed in the now-useless control room. I shook my head as Morgan moved nearer. “I’m not hysterical.” As a reassurance, it rang hollow in my own ears, yet eased some of the tension from his face.

“I’ll know if he tries to attack you.” Morgan appeared to recognize this was less than helpful. “You said you knew his name. What else do you remember?”

I made the effort to reply calmly, aware that Huido’s eyes were gathering like a storm cloud aimed in my direction. I knew he was less convinced I wasn’t about to act the puppet.

“Yihtor’s name was familiar when Gistries mentioned him before we left Plexis, that’s all. No, wait,” I caught an errant thought. “When I heard his name, I saw a face, his face. It was angry.” I added slowly, “A face I hoped never to see again.”

“This is too much for her, Morgan,” Huido broke in, the implied pity bringing heat to my cheeks. “If we must continue, let’s do it where we can sit and have a drink. We’re not needed here.” A click at the destroyed panels said it all.

“Go ahead, we’ll be with you in a moment,” Morgan agreed almost absently. After Huido left, the control room seemed much larger. I could feel Morgan’s thoughtful gaze resting on me.

“That’s all I know,” I told him after a heavy pause, thinking that was the next question, looking up at his face.

“I know a bit more.”

Sensing his reluctance to continue, I stepped forward impatiently. “Tell me.”

“Rumors, mostly. Rumors of a powerful Clan outcast who sells his abilities to whoever can afford him. A base on Acranam would fit. That space is full of runners and pirates.”

“And he wants me.” Time stood still. Morgan’s compassionate yet grim face swam before my eyes. The Clan again. “Why? What does Sira Morgan mean to Yihtor, to Barac, to any of them?”

“It’s Sira di Sarc they’re after,” he reminded me.

I was silent. The name was strange yet familiar. I wasn’t fond of it.

Morgan went on softly: “You’re related to a wealthy, prominent politician. That meant something to Roraqk, at least. I don’t know about Yihtor.”

“Jarad is my father.” I hesitated; Morgan deserved more. “He brought me to Auord.”

“Yes, I know.”

I stared at Morgan, oddly comforted by the thought of my experience safely stored behind those now gentle blue eyes. It was as if he’d been with me, had shared my past instead of just remembering it. “Why did he leave me?” I wondered out loud.

“Maybe Jarad was injured in the attack,” he paused. “Or, I’m sorry to say, killed. We have only Barac’s version of what happened.”

I contemplated that night on Auord—explosions, compulsions, fear. My father’s face didn’t belong in it. “He wasn’t there,” I concluded. “But why would he leave me if there was something wrong?”
With me,
I added to myself.

Morgan sighed wearily, running one hand through his hair. “Sira, your father has managed to carve out a commercial and political empire in Camos Cluster without acknowledging your existence in any way that Roraqk could find. To hide you so successfully took currency and purpose. To keep you hidden meant that prison you remember.”

“Why?”

His mouth tightened. “Why? People hide or imprison what they want to protect. Or what they fear.”

The Clansman on Plexis had feared me. “I was someone else,” I said carefully, sinking down onto the same bench where I’d been made to wait for Roraqk’s next move. “When her memories were blocked, Sira di Sarc was gone, flushed down an Auordian sewer with the rain. Why do they still care about her?”

“We’re going at this backward,” Morgan said abruptly, as if fired by an idea. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like it. He sat beside me, face intent. “Maybe it wasn’t
who
you were that mattered, but
what
you knew. If you knew some secret, something important about the Clan. . . .”

I tapped my head suggestively. “The body’s buried here? Great. So whoever blocked my memories wanted Sira di Sarc to die. And let me guess: Yihtor and the rest want Sira
Morgan
to die so Sira di Sarc can come back to life and answer their questions. Any guesses as to who else wants something?”

“I know what I want.” Morgan tweaked a loose lock of my hair. “I want you to be happy.”

“Which me?” I arched one eyebrow at him.

“You won’t stay two people forever, Sira. The block isn’t permanent.”

I twisted around to look right at Morgan. Despite his light tone of voice, his mouth was set and tight. “I’m going to start remembering everything?” I asked, and wondered at the lack of enthusiasm in my voice.

“I didn’t say that,” he corrected quickly. “What I found in your mind was a series of blocks, imposed one after another—all carefully linked. It would have been much easier to erase your memories altogether. Why bother with something so complicated and fragile? I’d say the blocks are meant to be removed.”

“Can you?”

“No.” His disappointment in himself was plain.

“Jason,” I said very softly, putting my hand on his. “What will happen to me if these blocks are removed?”

“You’ll remember your past.”

I searched his face. “No. What happens to this me? What happens to—” I tightened my grip, allowing my sense of him to expand until his heart was all I could hear. Then I drew back.

Morgan sighed. His eyes were dark and troubled. “You’ve been Sira Morgan so short a time.” He lifted my fingers to his lips before releasing them. Then his mouth worked itself into a smile. “And look at the effect you’ve had on people. Sira di Sarc can’t be that different.”

I found an answering smile somewhere. It was probably as transparent as his. “We’ll face that when and if it comes.” Knowing it was futile, I couldn’t help wishing I’d found another ship on Plexis, left Morgan as I’d planned. Gistries and all those lost would be alive. We wouldn’t be imprisoned in this ship. And Morgan would have his
Fox.

I shook off the what ifs. Time to worry about the now. “Can you teach me how to protect myself from Yihtor?”

“Maybe.” Morgan spread his hands wide. “I won’t lie to you, Sira. It may not be possible. We don’t know how strong you are—or were.”

So.
My mouth dried, but my heart beat steadily. I held Morgan’s gaze with my own, reaching one hand to tap the weapon in his belt. “Then I expect as much kindness as you gave Gistries,” I said. “Your word, Captain.”

Morgan’s blue eyes met mine directly and calmly, though his face lost all color. “I will never let Yihtor or anyone else control you, Sira. I swear it.”