Rift in the Sky (61 page)

Even when rumors had indeed spread into the news, linking Bowman's name to more words she didn't like: collusion, treachery, greed. Not that there was proof. But proof didn't seem necessary. The mysterious death of several researchers. The confiscated goods of one. A now-sealed world. More than enough to condemn the innocent.

Wrong.

Aryl smoothed the blue silk that covered their bundle with one hand. The other held the image disk.

She looked up eagerly.

Careful.
From his mind; nothing but welcome showed on his face as Enris d'sud Sarc graciously bowed the first non-M'hiray to set foot in the House of Sarc through the door.

Warned, Aryl stayed where she was, and schooled the smile from her face.

Young, this Human, and not. Her eyes were old. They didn't acknowledge the luxury of a Lynn Tower, or the magnificent view that encompassed the horizon. They locked on her and waited with a hard patience.

What had Maynard told her was waiting, Aryl wondered desperately, that she looked so angry?

“I'll wait up top,” Enris said easily, and strode up the ramp. He saw no threat, then. The caution hadn't been for her sake, but for the Human's. Aryl waited until his footsteps faded.

“You're Karina Bowman.”

“You want to run my code, too?”

Aryl ignored what she didn't understand. “Please, have a seat.” There were more stools.

“I won't be here that long.”

“For the sake of my neck,” Aryl suggested gently. “You're tall.” Like her mother. With the same red hair, though Karina's scalp was shaved with the exception of a single long strand that fell behind her left ear. Beads were tied through its length.

Aryl's hair lifted in protest, and she pushed it back.

“Quite the trick.” With all the disdain of someone who couldn't afford new clothes, let alone the kind of ornamentation Grandies preferred.

“Trust me, it gets annoying,” she replied calmly.

Something in her tone eased the defensive stance. The Human grabbed one of the stools and moved it, then sat.

Graceful. Lean. Worn. That was it. Worn.

A sudden tilt of the head—curiosity. The movement was ach ingly familiar. Aryl blinked before tears filled her eyes. “I have something of yours, Karina.”

“Kari. I go by Kari.”

“And I by Aryl.” This old-child made her feel like Husni. “It's a message from your father.” She held out the disk.

The laugh was harsh and bitter. “What is it? An apology? A ‘sorry I abandoned you as a baby' or ‘sorry I made sure to ruin your life'?”

“I don't know.”

“Then what do you know?” The Human sprang to her feet again with such violence Aryl had to fight not to react. “Are you the ones he stole for? Did he pay for all this?”

“Yes.” It felt as though she'd plunged a knife into her own heart.

Karina hadn't expected an answer—or that answer. For the first time, there was something vulnerable on her face. Then it was gone again. “So what now? Are you going to give me creds?”

“ ‘Creds?' ”

“Set me up or shut me up.”

“The House of Sarc will always include you and yours,” Aryl said. And it would. She would see to it that this debt was never forgotten. The child had no conception of the resources that had been waiting for her arrival. Funds, in the right amount and no more, from sources above suspicion. Human sources. A suitable home. An education. The protection of the M'hiray, that always. “But that isn't why you're here.”

She pressed her fingers to both surfaces of the disk as Yao had shown her. First the image of the family, then . . .

His face gazed at them, bruised and worn.

“My name is . . . Marcus Bowman. This . . . device contains my . . . final message for my . . . daughter. Karina Bowman . . . Norval, Stonerim III . . . Anyone who finds . . . this. Please take . . . it to the nearest . . . offworld authority . . . Make sure she . . . hears this. Please.”

Karina didn't move. Didn't seem to breathe.

“The message for you is encrypted. No one else has heard it.” Aryl rose and put the image disk in Karina's unresisting hand. “I trust Marcus to have made it possible for you to access it. I'll be waiting, inside, when you're done. Take your time.”

A hand, broken-nailed and callused, fastened on her wrist.

Aryl strengthened her shields, unsurprised. “What is it?”

Karina stared at the disk. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because your father was my friend,” Aryl told her. “His loss was the hardest of them all.”

And then, as if a wind had blown through her mind and taken with it all the mist and confusion,

“I could never forget him.”

A
RYL FOUND ENRIS, sitting on the roof's edge, dangling his bare feet over the air. “I thought you didn't like it up here.” She used his shoulder to ease down beside him.

“I'm getting used to it.”

She leaned against his comforting bulk.
I remember now. Not all of it. Not most. But Marcus. I remember Marcus.

And felt light inside, for the first time.

“I'll want you to show me,” he said, putting his arm around her. “But first, I have something to tell you. I've thought of a name for our daughter.”

Aryl smiled to herself. “Not ‘Bundle'?”

“What do you think of Taisal? It's your mother's name.”

“I know.” They'd all looked at the parches, hunting connections to the past.

As Karina did now, Aryl realized, listening to her father's voice.

Unlike Marcus, the name brought no resonance of meaning or emotion. Still . . . she hesitated.

Enris stopped smiling. “We don't have to—”

Aryl put her fingers over his lips.
Taisal she'll be. Thank you.

Then, as if she'd been waiting, Taisal di Sarc chose that moment to announce she was ready to be born.

T
HE WATCHERS WERE A PALPABLE, disconcerting
presence.
Others, more tangible and equally impatient, at least waited outside the door. Mirim di Sarc pressed her sweat-soaked face into her pillow, wishing she could hide from both.

Not that they cared about her. They awaited the one she carried. Her grandmother Naryn hadn't approved Council's candidate for her Choice; was this why? Impossible to ask the dead. Impossible to defy the living. Mirim moved fretfully, glad of the unfashionable net that bound her hair, the one trace of
before
she could claim as her own. Before. Before. Before.

Her hands sought her swollen abdomen, felt the band of muscle grown tight and strong, the slight movement beneath.
Peace,
she sent, in no hurry to give her daughter to them.

For Mirim could taste
change.
That was her Talent, her only strength of worth.

Change
would begin with this birth, more profound and far-reaching than anything a M'hiray could imagine.
I warned them.

The impatient fools told her they knew better. That what she sensed was Power. Power they'd control.

She knew better.

Sira di Sarc would change everything.

Caraat

Friesen

Mendolar

Parth

S'udlaat

Sarc

Serona

 

 

Brocheuse (Dancer,
Doc's Dive
, Human)

Cindy Bowman (Sister of Marcus, Human)

Gene Maynard (Norval Constabulary, Human)

Gurdo Wymratoo'kk (Bartender,
Doc's Dive
, Carasian)

Howard Bowman (Brother of Karina, Human)

KaeCee Britain (Antiquities Dealer, Human)

Karina Bowman (Sister of Howard, Human)

Kelly Bowman (Mother of Karina and Howard, Human)

Lawren Louli (Owner,
Doc's Dive
, Assembler)

Marcus Bowman (Triad First, Analyst, Father of Howard and Karina, Human)

Yirs (Server,
Doc's Dive,
Undetermined)

Rift in the Sky
concludes the story of Aryl di Sarc and her Om'ray. It begins that of the M'hiray, the Clan, forced to live within the alien conglomeration known as the Trade Pact. The next installment of the
Clan Chronicles
concerns Aryl's great granddaughter, Sira di Sarc. (
The Trade Pact
trilogy:
A Thousand Words for Stranger, Ties of Power,
and
To Trade the Stars.
)

But all good stories have an end. This one comes in the
Reunification
trilogy, where Sira and the M'hiray rediscover their past and claim a heritage no one could have foreseen.

Except me, of course. That's my job and I love it.

I hope you enjoy the first six books of the
Clan Chronicles
. Once you have, I hope you paid attention and have questions.

Because I promise . . .

Julie Czerneda