Heart Thief (9 page)

Ailim made introductions. The women dipped barely polite curtsies, G'Uncle Ab inclined his head, and Uncle Pinwyd stared at Donax with protuberant eyes.

Ailim said to Donax, “I've placed all the ledgers in your room. The ResidenceLibrary has now memorized your voice, and will give you our financial information for the last three decades. If you've any other requests, please see me. I consider you a member of the Family during your stay, GreatSir.”

Her relatives mumbled imprecations under their breath and shot vitriolic glances at the young man.

“Merry meet!” caroled a voice.

They all turned. GreatLady Danith D'Ash smiled in the doorway. She was dressed in a blue commoncloth trous suit and held a tiny golden pup with curly hair.

Ailim suppressed her shock at the sight of Danith carrying the puppy. The GreatLady worked fast.

Danith's smile spread into a grin. “I brought you a gift; her name is Primrose.” Danith traipsed into the room, ignoring the others with a lack of self-consciousness Ailim envied.

“You are a friend of my niece?” Menzie's voice held brittle coldness at the sight of the young woman in middle-class clothing. Cona sniffed.

Danith stopped. When her stare met Menzie's, it was even more freezing. “I'm Danith D'Ash. You are?”

Menzie goggled at her title. Cona gave an unbeautiful squeak.

Turning back to Ailim, Danith smiled again.

It was as if the GreatLady had completely dismissed the tense, nasty emotions in the room as of no more importance than the people. An interesting trick. Ailim noted the woman's attitude and deportment as one Ailim could model in the future.

The puppy wriggled in Danith's hands, and Ailim knew they both were very aware of the strained atmosphere.

“A Family meeting, D'SilverFir? I'm sorry I interrupted, but the door was open. Here.” Danith set the puppy in the crook of Ailim's left arm. Primrose's tiny tongue darted out to dab at Ailim's face. Ailim shut her eyes and hung on to her composure.

When she opened her lashes, it was to see silky puppy ears and big, brown, liquid eyes.
Me love You. Yes. Only You
, the puppy murmured in her mind.

“I—” Ailim started.

“Good, you've bonded. Primrose's a teacup poodle. You'll find her a very loving Fam Companion. She's eight weeks old and only needs to be fed four times a day. I've sent a light-globe with other information. Please scry with any questions.”

“A puppy! From D'Ash!” squealed Cona, all her surface charm back in place for this important Lady. “The most prized gift one can have this season. Why, Earthpets are so scarce, particularly dogs. We're so honored.” She clapped, then clasped her hands, sending D'Ash a melting look. “Could I dare ask—”

Cuz Canadena whiffled and snuffled.

“The beast irritates Canadena's allergies. Ailim can't keep it,” Menzie said with satisfaction.

Primrose made a little growling noise. Ailim sensed her simple thoughts. The puppy wanted desperately to run around the room. The puppy needed desperately to gnaw at something smelly and tasty. Primrose eyed Uncle Pinwyd's natty shoes.

“Aunt Menzie,” Ailim said, “you know we're not a Family prone to allergies. Canadena is just upset, not suffering sinus problems. Perhaps she should receive a Fam, too. It would give her something to focus her attention on outside of herself.”

Danith looked at Ailim with raised brows.

Ailim nodded.

Moving to Canadena, Danith took her hands and stared into Canadena's sad slate-blue eyes. Canadena's lips trembled. “D'SilverFir canceled my Tranquility Treatments.” Her heartbroken whisper lilted through the room. She sniffed.

“I'll send you a kitten. It will soothe you and be Primrose's playmate,” Danith said. “They're at an age to accept each other.”

“A kitten!” Canadena gasped.

Danith dropped Canadena's hands, turned to Ailim, and inclined her head, one FirstFamily Lady to another, then left.

Danith made dealing with hostile people look easy. Of course, they weren't her relatives. Still, the GreatLady's secure self-confidence was something Ailim vowed to learn.

Want down. Down! DOWN!
Primrose insisted.

In a moment. Ailim cuddled her new Fam closer.

“A kitten.” Cuz Canadena drifted out the door.

“Cona, please show GreatSir Reed to his new suite in the northwest round tower,” Ailim said.

Cona glared at her. “You've not heard the last of this.” Cona pasted a smile on her face and simpered at Donax. He looked stunned at her liveliness.

Ailim sighed.

Primrose licked Ailim's chin.
Down!

Ailim placed the small energetic bundle of fur on the area rug. The puppy took off at a run. Cona sent it a repugnant glance and hastily moved away, her hand on Donax's arm.

“Awful thing!” Backbone stiff, Aunt Menzie marched away, trailing the men in her wake.

Primrose nipped at their heels, and they sped their retreat. The door slammed behind them.

Primrose sat on the floor facing Ailim, tongue lolling.
Love You
. The puppy's eyes filled with adoration. She puddled on the pine floor.

Ailim collapsed into her chair.

 
Before Ruis reached Eastgate, he took off his red silkeen
shirt and dragged it through dirt until no bright color showed.

He opened the arched door in the guard tower wall and ducked into the small building, crouching under the sill of the large window of the guardroom to his left. Due to his Nullness the spell-light wavered. The guard's snores hesitated. Ruis hurried through the tower to the door opening into the city. He sighed with relief as soon as he shut the portal silently behind him.

Druida had quieted into night's slower pace, but Ruis kept to the shadows. A fine tension imbued him, sharpening all his senses. Whispering, he sent Samba ahead to scout for any danger. Stealthily he followed.

A septhour later he walked into the large dim park at the southwest part of Druida. This was the last area before the cliffs. Leaving the nightpoles that framed the park on the city street behind him, he glided through tall trees, avoiding the crisp leaves underfoot. He strode past the Summer Pavilion. Samba bounded beside him.

Then he stopped and looked up and up and up at his new home.

It loomed above him, dark and massive, blotting out the starbright sky and even the radiant twinmoons' light. It blocked the horizon on both sides.

The only whole spaceship left.
Nuada's Sword
.

Four

Stretching six kilometers in length, two in width, and twenty-five stories high, it was too huge for the FirstFamilies to protect with shieldspells. By law no destruction or pilfering was allowed, and none had taken place.

Celtans were superstitious about the ship. The technology that had brought the colonists had long been superseded by the combination of psi power/technology developed by the Celtans. Preferred by the Celtans. Now the old mechanical and nanoelectron engineering systems were almost lost. The texts Ruis had managed to glean from T'Elder ResidenceLibrary and the public GreatLibrary were nearly impossible for him to understand.

Deep silence pervaded the night. No noise drifted from the city beyond Landing Park. Between midnight and dawn, nothing stirred here, except Samba.

She danced around his feet, traveled the few meters to the spaceship in leaps, and sniffed along a portion of its length, paying attention to the outline of the hatch.

A few rooms of the ship were open near the main landing ramp three kilometers away, but fewer and fewer Celtans visited the museum each year. The metal spaceship seemed alien to the descendants of the colonists, sterile when compared with the verdant Celta, claustrophobic to a people who still had most of a world to explore and tame. The chambers contained strange machines that didn't work with the common spellwords.

Lights flickered inside and out in strange patterns. There were rumors that if a Celtan stayed in the ship for more than a few hours, he or she would go insane. School groups hurried in and out of the museum rooms through the main landing portal.

Ruis had chosen his route and this door as the most inconspicuous.

Here? Our new home?
Samba's sounds rang like words. Ruis marveled again that he could understand her perfectly.

“Yes.”
Nuada's Sword
was still inside Druida. If he was found on her, he'd be executed. Yet everyone believed he'd left the city. A slow smile filled his face as he considered the nobles' shortsightedness. They didn't take care of the starship, thought of it as a lump on the horizon. But for Ruis, it was perfect. He would do what no one else on Celta had done—he'd attempt to restore the colonists' most important machine.

His new home.

His new life.

It must be better than the old. He'd work on the ship, master its systems. Even more important, he'd master his own anger. Most important of all, with care, he'd be able to see Ailim D'SilverFir again.

Going to the hatch, he watched as a tiny green light flickered, then shone steadily. He picked up Samba and positioned them both in front of a smooth, black glassy-looking plate, nothing like the faceted scrystones Celtans used at the entrances of their homes.

“Request permission to board the ship.” He said the odd-sounding words. He'd constructed the phrase from several sources, and learned the strange pronunciation through trial and error from ancient audios. The sentence was referred to once as “Standard Portal Acceptance Command for Entry.” A bright yellow light flashed from the plate and disappeared; clicks followed.

Samba pressed her nose to the plate and hummed.

“Feline. Some traces of sentience,” a mellow voice intoned.

“Her name is Samba,” Ruis said.

“Acknowledged. Status?” asked
Nuada's Sword
.

“She is a crew member.” Ruis held his breath, hoping his poring over tomes of archaic information would pay off.

The plate hummed. “An overabundance of rodents in the Greensward has been verified. Samba accepted provisionally, upon determination of the human male status.”

“Yesssssss,” said Samba.

Ruis shifted his grip. Samba's fur felt slick under his sweating palms. His heart thudded with anxious anticipation.

The ship rumbled, the light flickered from the plate and over him once more. “Human male primarily of the genetic code of Elder and Oak, with traces of the Houses of Comfrey, Rose . . .”

Ruis's mouth fell open; even he didn't know that.

“. . . some slight mutation as expected over time. Status?”

Ruis gulped. “Of Command Officer rank.”

Dead silence. Ruis stood, every muscle tense.

Samba rubbed her head against the underside of his chin and began a quiet, soothing, rumble-purr.

“It is noted that Our last Captain was an Elder. However, in accordance with Our programming, a sufficient time has elapsed that a new Captain may also be appointed from the genetic code Elder. Acknowledged and accepted. Welcome aboard, Captain.”

Captain? Ruis stood, stunned, as a square silver door rose upward with a quiet
whoosh
and a ramp angled out and down to his feet. He'd had no notion he could be named Captain, still the highest rank in all of Celta. The highest rank ever held by any ancestor. Captain.

Let's go play
. Samba wriggled in his arms.

He'd wanted to be of a Command Officer rank to access as much of the ship as he could. He'd thought he'd be a Lieutenant.

Ruis walked up the incline of the short ramp into a small spherical room. He looked around the tarnished metal interior as the ramp retracted and the door closed behind him. Then he followed the ship's directions to the omnivator and took the box to the Captain's Quarters. The metal wall beneath his fingers was warm to his touch. Too warm for regular metal, more as if it were truly alive. He curled his fingers and pulled them away.

Ruis squinted at the golden insignia on a gleaming wood door of the Captain's Quarters. “Too dim,” he murmured.

The light brightened.

Ruis shivered. He'd just been reminded that the colonists had come from a yellow-sunned, dimmer world.

The quiet was incredible. No night noise. No wind. No insects. No animals.

No people.

His ears strained to hear sounds other than his own breathing and Samba's. Nothing. He squared his shoulders. This was what he wanted.

“Request entry,” Ruis said.

Let's go IN!
demanded Samba.