Chosen (HMCS Borealis Book 2) (18 page)

A blinking light slowly invaded his thoughts, and he looked at the bedside table where his datapad awaited him.
 
Green light:
 
waiting messages, but nothing urgent.
 
Quarter past eight in the morning, it said.

"Good morning Amba," he said to the blue hair.

The cool skin shifted, the weight moving as she stirred.
 
"…
'Nsal 'neth
."

"Pardon?"

He could feel her cheek move against his chest, as she took a deeper breath.
 
"I said…" she mumbled, her words a harmonic hum, "…something rude.
 
Go back to sleep, love."

"It's after eight.
 
You never sleep this late."

Amba sighed, slowly beginning to stretch her legs against his.
 
She didn't move her face.
 
"I never stay up this late, either."
 
She fell quiet again, and Dillon wondered if she'd fallen back to sleep.
 
"I want to stay right here, Feda."

Dillon reached up his hand, and began to run it through her hair.
 
"Your temperature got really high last night."

"Mmm.
 
Your fault."

"Where's your armband?" asked Dillon, looking to the table on her side of the bed.
 
"The medical one.
 
You get lethargic if you heat up without getting some thermoxyn."

"S'on the floor, Feda."
 
Her voice had reverted to a slurred mumble.

"You're all droopy," he said.

"No," she said, feigned petulance in her voice.
 
"I'm elegant."

Dillon tousled her hair, nodding toward her bedside table.
 
"Yellow message light for you, Amba.
 
You should probably check it."

He felt her body slowly become tense, starting with her toes and up her legs, as she unfurled into a long, full-body stretch.
 
Her hands reached above her head, trembling fingers messing his own hair before she clenched her fists.
 
Amba let out a moan that evolved into a long, deep sigh, as the length of her body relaxed all at once.
 
She rolled over toward him, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before rolling the other way, onto her side, one clumsy arm reaching toward the bedside table.

Dillon turned the other way, grunting as he heaved his legs over the side and shoved against the bed to stand up.
 
The evidence of the previous evening lay on the floor all around, and he surveyed it for a moment before stooping to pick up the matching white bathrobes.
 
They were the absurdly thick cotton robes only found in hotels, with embroidered logos and voluminous hoods.
 
Taking a moment to turn one the right way up, he put it on and tied the tasseled gold rope around his waist.
 
He yawned as he worked to straighten the other robe, walking around the foot of the bed to Amba's side.

She had retrieved her medical armband from the floor and was sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to wrap it around her wrist.
 
Her normally-graceful fingers fumbled with the clasps, and Dillon could see the lines of concentration etched into her brow, over the heavy-lidded eyes.
 
"Feda," she said, still trying to work the armband's closure.

Dillon draped the bathrobe around her shoulders, then sat on the bed beside her.
 
He put his hands on hers and steadied her weak, trembling fingers, closing the armband.
 
It gave a chirp, followed by the soft hiss of an administered injection.

"You're more lethargic than I thought," said Dillon.
 
"You mustn't let yourself heat up without the thermoxyn.
 
Palani blood just isn't efficient at high temperatures—"

"I know, Feda.
 
I know."
 
Amba squinted up at him with bleary blue eyes.
 
"Thank you."
 
She picked up her datapad from where it sat next to her on the bed.
 
"I glanced at this first message, and thought I was hallucinating.
 
It makes no sense."
 
Her hand, still unsteady, offered him the pad.

Dillon took the datapad and read the message, sent to the Tassali's naval account from an anonymous address.
 
He read the contents aloud.
 
"'Golden warrior, fifty-three.
 
Infinite gift, nine.
 
Flooded orchard, forty-two.'"
 
He looked up at her.
 
"Now I feel like I need some thermoxyn myself.
 
What the hell is this?"

Amba was sitting up a little straighter, the fingertips of one hand rubbing gently at her eyes.
 
"I don't know, Feda.
 
Something is familiar about it, but I don't know what."
 
She gestured at the datapad with her other hand.
 
"The message was sent yesterday morning.
 
The other message is from Naval Intelligence, apologising for holding the message for a day, and asking if I could explain any of it."
 
She shrugged.
 
"They're quite polite, at least."

Dillon studied the message details.
 
"It's definitely addressed to you."

"I don't understand, Feda.
 
Who would want to—"

"Oh," said Dillon, jerking his head up.
 
The sudden interruption made Amba stop and stare at him.
 
"What is it, Feda?"

"Who," he asked slowly, "would want to anonymously contact the only Palani living in human space?"

She shook her head.
 
"I can't think clearly, Feda.
 
I don't know…" Her eyes widened.
 
"Oh," she said.
 
"Maybe the only
other
Palani living in human space."

*
   
*
   
*

Three hours later, Dillon returned to the hotel.
 
He smiled at the front desk clerk as he walked by on his way to the elevators.
 
The attractive young woman gave a wide smile and a
 
wave.
 
Arriving at the elevators, one of the doors chirped and opened for him, then closed behind him after he entered.
 
The car started to ascend, and Dillon gazed out the transparent back of the elevator, at the space station's main ring dropping into the distance below.
 
Beyond was the familiar sphere of New Halifax, and by leaning to his left, he could see where
Borealis
was docked against the station's military ring.
 
Other ships were docked beside her:
 
her sisters
Winnipeg
and
Aurora
, plus a half-dozen destroyers in a row.
 
Beyond the smaller ships was the heavy cruiser
Bonaventure
.
 
Her truncated hull glittered with the light of welding lasers as shipyard robots continued to repair the big vessel.

With the ships so easily visible, secrecy was impossible, so the job of concealing the truth instead became one of deception.
 
Borealis
had made an early return to New Halifax for maintenance on her FTL engines.
 
While the work was being completed, the crew had been given the normal 48-hour leave, and Dillon had just made an inspection visit.
 
When done,
Borealis
would be leaving for Earth, for a routine show-the-flag event, where the crew would be able to enjoy a brief visit to humanity's homeworld.

Except, of course, it was all a pack of lies.
 
The
Borealis'
engines were fine; the friendly visit to Earth was so he and the Tassali could safely locate and extract the Palani prophet.

Unfortunately, it also meant they couldn't deviate from the normal schedule.
 
If maintenance rushed to let the
Borealis
get underway sooner, it would alert the nation's friends and rivals, causing suspicion.

They would be getting to Earth in four more days, to follow up on information that was already a week old.
 
He had a growing fear that this wasn't going to end well; there was no way the prophet would still be in the same place after all this time.
 

The elevator doors opened, and Dillon started the brief walk down the hallway.
 
There was an empty food tray outside the room he shared with Amba, and the 'do not disturb' indicator was lit on the door console.
 
He waved the keycard at the door, which unlocked and opened.

Inside, the room's previous disarray was gone.
 
No clothes on the floor, everything neatly folded and put away.
 
The bed was made, and sitting at its head was Amba, her knees folded up against her chest and her bare white feet flat on the bed.
 
She wore her robes, neatly gathered around her, and her hair and tiara were perfectly in place.
 
Several datapads were on the bed around her, and she was holding one in each hand.
 
Their soft amber glow lit her face.

Dillon quietly pushed the button to close and lock the door, while unbuttoning his uniform coat.
 
He draped the coat over the back of a chair and approached the bed.
 
Amba turned her face toward him, but her eyes didn't follow until he was standing next to her.
 
"Feda," she said, tilting her mouth up toward him.

"Hello there," he said, leaning in for a kiss.
 
"Ship's right where I left it.
 
They don't need me for anything, and if they do, they know where to reach me."

"I'm glad you're back, Feda," said Amba.
 
"Have you eaten?"

"I grabbed something on the way to the ship," he said, motioning back the way he'd come.
 
"There's a Tim's on the concourse.
 
So what have you found?"

Amba put down the datapad in her left hand, patting the mattress next to her.
 
"Sit here.
 
I worked on a — what would you call it — a hunch?
 
One of the phrases reminded me of a story in a Palani religious text.
 
'Golden Warrior', it said, which made me think of the story of Velanni."

Dillon had kicked off his boots, and was climbing onto the bed.
 
"Velanni?"

"Yes.
 
It is a very obscure text, no longer part of the main body of scripture.
 
It was edited out centuries ago."

"Huh," said Dillon, sliding sideways to sit next to Amba.
 
Her medical armband hissed as he leaned back against the headboard.
 
"What about the number part?"

"Fifty three," said Amba.
 
She held up the datapad in her right hand.
 
"Fifty-third verse of the book of Velanni.
 
It speaks of a priestess who left her tribe to join with the warrior-chief of a neighbouring tribe."

Dillon raised an eyebrow.
 
"Well, that sure as hell isn't a coincidence."

"I agree.
 
It cannot be random.
 
I therefore assumed whoever wrote the note was someone who knew obscure Palani religious texts very well."

"And they knew the person who read it would know the texts too," said Dillon.
 
"So, a letter from the prophet to you."

"So it seems."

"What are the other two verses?"

He saw Amba's nose crinkle in a hint of a frown.
 
She wasn't satisfied with what she'd found.
 
But no one else in all of human space had a chance of deciphering it.
 
Who the hell read their own scriptures any more, let alone the obscure edits?
 

"It does not translate clearly," said Amba.
 
She showed him the datapad, filled with neatly-lettered lines of Palani text.
 
"The 'infinite gift' probably refers to this verse."
 
She pointed to a specific line of text.
 
"The nearest translation would be 'the hill where time can be seen'."

"Parliament Hill," said Dillon without hesitation.
 
"In Ottawa, on Earth.
 
The ceremonial capital has the Peace Tower, with a huge mechanical clock."

"Oh," said Amba, looking back at the text.
 
"Good.
 
It makes sense, then."

"And the other part?"

"'Flooded orchard'.
 
I think it refers to the Seventh Vision of Pentarch Nifim."
 
She reached for another datapad, holding it up for him to see.
 
It was an image, a scan of an ancient hand-lettered page.
 
The middle third of the page was a drawn picture of an orchard, trees growing out of what looked like a lake.

"The verse," she said, "speaks of the moment when leaves begin to fall from the trees."

"The start of autumn?"

"Perhaps so."

Dillon pointed at one of the two datapads on the bed next to Amba's feet.
 
"May I?"

"Please do."

He scooped up the datapad, tapping at the display.
 
A search window, a few taps of typing.
 
"Here," he said, handing it back.
 
"This year, autumn begins in Ottawa at two-fifty-three in the morning, one week from tomorrow."

Amba's eyes went from Dillon to the datapad and back again.
 
He saw her uncertainty, and he felt it too.
 
A headache had started to form, and he reached up to massage his temples.
 
"This is ridiculous," he said after a moment.
 
He tried to think of how he could explain this to Admiral Clarke without sounding like he'd lost his mind.