Between Darkness and Light (121 page)

Get her to take the collar off! They've turned it up so you can't feel your father,
sent Vartra.
He's dying, Shaidan! Only you can save him!

“My collar! Take it off!” he yelled, reaching up and trying to pull it free. “Take it off!”

Zayshul was at his side in seconds, M'kou not far behind her. “What's wrong?” she demanded, reaching through Vartra to pick him up.

“Take the collar off!” he shrieked, struggling free. “He says you turned it up so I couldn't feel my father! He needs me, take it off now!”

M'kou reached out and scooped him up. “I'd do it,” he said as the cub struggled vainly against him.

“Is it wise under the circumstances?” she asked. “Shaidan, calm down. There's only us here.”

“He's only going to get more worked up if you don't.”

“The Sholan by the bed told me,” said Shaidan, pushing against M'kou's good arm. “It's urgent, he says.”

“Stop struggling, Shaidan,” she said, glancing over to the bed before reaching up to undo the collar. “Put him down, M'kou.”

Shaidan collapsed into a heap on the floor, keening loudly in grief as a buzzer sounded.

M'kou froze, then grabbed hold of Zayshul. “Get to the assembly hall now! Kusac needs medical assistance!”

“What?” Zayshul couldn't quite take in what he was saying.

M'kou dragged her to the door, reaching down behind his chair to pull out a large medical kit. “Go!” he said, thrusting it into her arms, thumbing the door open, and pushing her through it. “I'll stay with Shaidan!”

She ran.

 

“He's dead,” said Q'almo, shocked, looking at the display. “No pulse, no heartbeat. Nothing.”

“He can't be,” said M'zynal, reaching into the booth and placing his hand on Kusac's throat. “Burn it!” he swore. “There's no reason for this to happen! It doesn't make sense!”

 

M'kou watched in shock as Shaidan was lifted into the air by some invisible force and shaken till he stopped keening.

“I can do that!” said Shaidan, rubbing furiously at his tear-wet cheeks. “Put me down.”

He blinked, staring at the cub as he was returned to the floor, trying to see the—something—that was capable of lifting him and talking to him. As he stared, he saw a faint darkness, like a shadow between him and the cub.

Shaidan hunkered down on the floor and closed his eyes.

 

His father's mind was still and silent, but he knew a last glowing spark still remained. It was fading fast, and buried so deep that it scared him to think of going there.
Don't think,
he muttered, and reaching out for the spark, he let go of himself.

Darkness rushed in, surrounding him; he shrieked, clutching for the spark, begging for help, incoherent with terror. The spark flared, pulsing once, igniting something buried and forgotten. Seeing it, Shaidan clutched it, too, filling it with his terror-fueled energy.

 

That energy surged through Kusac, searing and burning him.

“Wait! I think I felt a heartbeat!” said M'zynal as he heard the General running across to them.

 

On the
Couana,
Carrie fought against the enveloping darkness, trying desperately to breathe and cry out as her struggles became weaker and weaker. Suddenly the nightmare snapped, freeing her. She gave a hoarse cry as a terror not her own flooded through her.

“Carrie, for Vartra's sake, come back to me!” Kaid loomed over her, his hands on her shoulders, shaking her.

She reached a trembling hand up to touch his cheek, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light in their bedroom. The look of fear on his face frightened her.

“What happened? You suddenly disappeared from my mind,” he said, settling down onto his haunches, still astride her. “It's our Link day, this shouldn't happen.”

Before she could answer, it came again. This time Kaid was with her as the terror pulsed through them both, dragging them deep into the other mind, linking all three of them together.

 

“And another,” M'zynal was saying as Kezule came to a stop beside them.

“I can see it on the monitor,” confirmed Q'almo. “All the readings are rising, pulse and heartbeat steadying.”

M'zynal sighed and stood back from the booth. “He's fine,” he said to Kezule. “I don't know what the hell that was, but it looks like it's over.”

“You're sure?”

M'zynal nodded. “See for yourself, General. He is unconscious, though.”

Kezule stepped forward, pressing his fingertips against Kusac's throat. Beneath them his pulse beat slowly but steadily. Then he looked at the dressing. It needed changing already. He frowned. This wound was healing far faster than he'd expected. It could be his imagination, but unfortunately, unless he had one of the other Sholans look at it, no one apart from himself had any experience of energy weapon wounds.

 

Kusac gasped again as pain and energy exploded in and around him, forcing him to expand. Briefly he felt the touch of gestalt, the three minds merging with his, then it was gone. Around him, the sparks were relighting in an ever-expanding outward cascade, each one a memory that demanded he not give it up.

You have to heal, Father,
a small thought reminded him. Shaidan. He reached for his son, and the glands, and this time, he had the strength and more to spare.

 

Kezule met Zayshul as she ran into the hall. “He's fine,” he said, taking her by the arm and attempting to steer her out again.

“I want to see for myself,” she said.

“No. Trust me, Zayshul, he is fine.”

She searched his face then relaxed and nodded and let him take her next door into the briefing room.

“What happened?” she asked, sitting down at the table.

“He stopped breathing briefly,” said Kezule, pouring her a bowl of water and handing it to her.

She took it gratefully. “You're not having one?”

He shook his head, sitting back down in his own seat. “When this is over,” he said.

“End it now, Kezule,” she said quietly. “Let him be taken to the sick bay.”

“I can't,” he said, rubbing his hand tiredly across his eyes. “Believe me, I can't take him out of the booth. He's unconscious, he won't be aware of the tape. This punishment has to be seen through to the end. Check on the cub, Zayshul, then you can come back here and sit with me if you want.”

“Shaidan!” she exclaimed, jumping up. “I forgot about him! He knows when something is wrong with his father. They seem to be linked in some way. He was hysterical just before the alarm went off!”

“Go and see to him,” said Kezule.

 

M'kou was just pulling the covers over the cub, having placed him in the nearest bed.

“He's fine,” he said hurriedly, seeing her anxious look. “I take it his father is too.”

She nodded, coming into the room. “What did he do after I left?”

M'kou stood up, a puzzled look on his face. “You wouldn't believe me if I told you,” he said.

“Try me.”

“Well, something almost invisible picked him up and shook him as he got hysterical. Not exactly invisible,” he added, “I did catch sight of a sort of shadow. Anyway, after that he sat on the floor for several minutes before falling over, apparently asleep. I'd just taken him over to the bed when you arrived.”

“His father briefly stopped breathing,” she said quietly. “They are linked somehow.”

“That wouldn't surprise me,” M'kou said, sitting down on the chair so he could keep an eye on the sleeping cub while she checked on him. “We know nothing at all about Sholan children, and even less about these hybrids. And they were all programmed on how to use their abilities with a sleep tape made from the Captain's mind.”

“Would you mind watching Shaidan?” she asked. “I want to go back to the briefing room where the General is keeping a watch on the Captain.”

“I can manage here,” said M'kou.

“What the hell was that?” Kaid asked hoarsely as he lifted his head up from the bed where he'd fallen beside Carrie.

“The gestalt,” she said, sitting up. “Did you feel him?” she asked. “Was it Kusac?”

He shook his head, reaching up to draw her back down beside him. “I'd like to say I did, but I honestly didn't. There was a third mind, though, and it felt a lot like him ...”

“But wasn't, I know.” She sighed. “Then who triggered it? And why such terror?”

“Doubtless we'll find out soon,” he said, nuzzling against her neck. “The terror stopped as soon as we merged. It could have been his son, you know. It felt immature. Maybe he was just having a nightmare. Is the gestalt likely to happen again?”

“No, it uses up a great amount of energy. Don't you feel drained? I do.”

Kaid yawned, hardly able to keep his eyes open. “Now you come to mention it,” he murmured. “You know something else? I'm not worried about Kusac anymore.”

“His vital signs are so low they're hardly there,” said M'zynal as he followed Kezule into the cell. “They've been falling steadily since we began taking them after his punishment ended yesterday.”

“But they are there,” said Kezule, going down on one knee beside the still form lying on the floor.

“Yes,” agreed M'zynal. “Ghidd'ah looked at the readings. She said he was in a coma and we should contact you.”

The pulse was there, and though the rate was almost negligible, the beat when it came was strong. Moving slightly, he pulled back the covers and looked at the dressing. It had been changed after the punishment session, and again when they'd come to give him his evening meal. Once more it was saturated and the mess draining from it was seeping down his leg and onto the covers beneath him. He glanced toward the tray. The meal and the water were untouched. He looked back at Kusac, noting how much thinner he looked.

All the signs were there, the slow body rhythms, the comalike state, the weight loss and the advanced state of healing. He thought back to the first time he'd gone into laalgo. It had scared him almost to death as it had involved, literally, a near death experience. The trance was so deep it came within a whisper of actual death and it was easy for those new to it to slip the wrong way. He'd been lucky, there had been an experienced officer there to look after him.

He no longer had any doubt that the Sholan was in their equivalent of a laalgo trance, how, he didn't know. Nothing he'd ever come across had suggested they were capable of this.