The Gate to Futures Past (11 page)

Shields or not, Morgan could read me like a vid. His fingers moved.
Steady.

And knew my mind—who better? Relieved, I gave the tiniest of nods.

“Council, are we to permit this?” Hap rasped. “Your hands with mine if so.” Hers lifted and Ruis bowed her head in appreciation.

Nik raised her hand, followed by Odon, Ghos, and Kunthea. Tle's rose, albeit slowly, and Degal's, ever one to wait for the rest.

“Wait.” Teris frowned, the ends of her white hair coiled with tension. “How deep a scan?”

A person with a secret, or what she viewed as one. Trade Pact thinking, I chided myself. Who here wouldn't protect their private thoughts?

Again, it was Ruis who answered, Morgan who watched, his blue eyes intent. “Slight. We will look for effort where there should be none, the sign a mind unknowingly struggles with itself. This warns us the cause is present. We learned from the di Kessa'ats this effort leaves its mark upon the link between Chosen—a strain. By scanning one, we gauge the health of both.” She shared a quiet, reassuring
confidence.
“Remember, only if that struggle is lost does the mind become afflicted. We've healed with success. Retain full shields if you wish; we will touch nothing of your active mind or memory.”

“‘We,'” echoed Degal, hand lowering as though pulled by a weight.

Hair, a thick twist of it, slithered over my shoulder and curled, the tip flicking back and forth. Fully in accord, I pretended not to see.

No.

I pretended not to see that, either. How dare the fool reject my—

“I'd hate to work on this old stick myself.” Ghos smacked Degal on the knee, much to that worthy's shock. “Ruis, you take him,
along with Hap, Teris, and our Chooser. Over by them,” he ordered Degal, the formidable Clansman scrambling to obey before he'd the chance to realize he'd just been “dealt with” as if a child. Teris smoothed the moment by inviting him to stand by her side. Something about that pairing made me uneasy, but I shook it off. I wanted the Om'ray to accept us, didn't I? Ghos finished, “The rest of us acceptable to you, Jason?”

Morgan bowed. “At your service.”

Destin stepped around the bench to join Teris, her face unreadable. No outward reaction from Odon, but I couldn't imagine he'd be pleased. Politics, history—I neither knew nor cared which had the First Scout align with one member of her former Council over the other.

But when Barac moved to sit beside Ghos, a deliberately charming smile on his handsome face, I didn't care who felt my
approval.

“Let us begin,” Ruis said, resting her palm over Destin's forehead, for the scout had put herself where she would be first. Destin's eyes closed.

Wisps of the Healer's hair drifted forward to be met—greeted?—by the First Scout's. The delicate, fleeting almost-touch was like nothing I'd seen or heard of before.

Certainly my hair did its painful best to avoid contact with any other Chosen Clanswoman's. I tucked away the sight to share with Aryl when she awoke.

Ruis straightened, looked at Morgan, then wordlessly moved to stand in front of Teris.

While my Chosen took his place in front of Odon.

Much as I'd have liked to see if Teris' hair responded in the same way to Ruis', I wasn't about to look away from Morgan. To my intense embarrassment, the instant my Human's palm covered Odon's high forehead, I was blinded by hair boiling around my head.

Outwardly, Morgan ignored me and my misbehaving hair, but I felt a touch of
amusement.
Done, he took away his hand, exchanging another look with Ruis. If they signaled one another, it was beyond me to know how—or what they communicated. Some
Healers-of-mind trick, I thought, slightly insulted. It was like being in a roomful of Drapsk, with their feathery antennae and drafts for coms.

Drapsk did teach patience, among many other lessons, especially when it came to caring for one's tribe. They might take that to an extreme—a ship's company able to clear a bar filled with other species simply by walking in the door—but I missed the little things.

Would we encounter other aliens? Find those who were like us or mysteriously not, those with complex life cycles or merely messy? The dangerous who nonetheless shared common interests—

My people hoped for the simplicity of a world of Clan and nothing more.

They'd get at least one alien.

This was what I'd drawn Jason Morgan into, I thought as I watched him move from Clan to Clan. To be utterly alone.

Will
closed any distance along our link; my Chosen, as usual, deciding when and which rules applied.
Not so, Witchling. You owed me a new world, remember? I intend to collect.
Almost
fierce
, that, as if nothing mattered more than I believe him.

And I did.
We'll explore it together,
I promised.

While in the realm of what breathed air and flew within a starship, my Human stood away from Barac, saying, “And we're done.”

T
HE WATCHER WAITED, almost within
reach
of the Great Ones, where AllThereIs sank and rose along their elliptical dance, having form at times . . .

Or none.

The endless beauty of the dance could distract a Watcher from her duty, had not protecting that beauty been her duty.

And worth any sacrifice.

She hadn't moved. What had caught her attention had come closer, moving Between, if not yet close enough. The
substance
of it
,
if substance there was, remained unclear. Faint, that sense of
tearing.
A wound?

She couldn't be certain, not yet. Others, small flickers of
intention
and
hunger
, gathered around it, coming closer as well, adding their
taste
to what she felt.
Feeders
. Opportunists who'd scatter as soon as they sensed her
interest
.

Beautiful, in their own way. AllThereIs encompassed them as well, whether they understood such things or not. These had been less before the breach. More, she remembered, many more afterward.

Having
feasted.

They were less again. Others, more. Such weavings enriched song and story, even as the dance moved with the Great Ones and AllThereIs changed with the journey.

While she would wait, here.

And Watch.

W
HILE RUIS AND MORGAN conversed, heads together and away from the rest, I pointedly watched a large white something-or-other plop its way among the colorful streaks of stars across the ceiling, making it clear I would not be part of any discussion before we heard their results.

A point lost on Tle di Parth. I saw her approach out of the corner of my eye, saw when she moved Barac—who'd had the same idea—from her path with an absent flick of her right hand.

Silencing my impulse to call my cousin over first.

Instinct and, in Tle's case, tedious practice kept a Chooser's right hand away from possible contact. Choice was offered with the right hand; a Joining could only be attempted with the physical connection between the right hands of Chooser and Candidate.

She might not have noticed doing it, but even if I hadn't once been a Chooser, I'd been taught to pay close attention to such involuntary acts—most memorably the time Morgan had me watch for purple excretions from some Nrusans who'd appeared uninterested, said excretions a sign of desperate longing for our goods—

What mattered here and now was Tle's state of mind. Nyso had hidden; I'd no hope Tle's break with reality would be so peaceful.
We'd five, soon to be seven, eligible unChosen aboard and nowhere to hide them if she lost control. I wasn't the only one amazed she, Jacqui di Mendolar, and the Om'ray's sole Chooser, Alet di Uruus, continued to exhibit such unusual restraint.

So far.

I offered my hand, palm up. With Council momentarily adjourned, and members busy communing in seeming silence, the rules didn't apply.

Tle's dark eyes gleamed as she put her left hand overtop. Cool, damp, with long elegant fingers. I braced, ready for her to test her Power against mine, the preliminaries being important to M'hiray, particularly this one.

Instead, words formed, soft and slow.
I have this madness.

Ruis told you?

A dismissive curl of her lip.
The Om'ray didn't find it. Her scan was pitifully shallow.
Tle held herself straight, well aware she was an imposing figure, even unChosen, tall and with the striking green eyes of her Parth heritage.
You could.

Go deep into a mind that believed itself mad? Hardly worse than going into a sane Tle, as far as I was concerned.
I'm no Healer—

He is.

RAGE
surged across our link before I could think to stop it. I did, somehow.

Pain whitened lines at her eyes and mouth, but Tle's hand didn't budge.
I don't ask for myself, Sira. If I am mad, Asdny's at risk. I know no one believes we will Join—

Because Asdny would die, but I couldn't interrupt. This wasn't the Tle I knew.

—
and that may be true.
A staggering admission.
But he is ever in my thoughts and heart. I fear if I succumb I won't be able to keep myself from—from spreading this to him. No one should face such horrible things in their dreams. No one.

I sent
calm,
buying time. ‘Horrible things?' I'd faced what would fit that description in my dreams, as a Chooser.

They'd been real: monstrous forms in the M'hir that fed on the unbalance caused by the Power-of-Choice. They'd found me
thanks to the dear little Drapsk. I'd survived them, in part, because of the Rugherans.

The M'hir, I sighed to myself, used to seem so simple.

I pulled forth a memory, careful to keep it small and quick, then
shared
it with Tle.

She gasped and stumbled back. “You're mad, too!”

HUSH!
I snapped, hoping no one else had paid attention. I reached out and caught her hands, pulling her toward me.
Neither of us are, if that's what you've dreamed. Such creatures are real. They exist in the M'hir. You saw the images the Drapsk machine showed us.

She frowned, but no longer resisted.
None like this memory—like my dream. None with such teeth.

The dear little Drapsk had edited what they'd provided.
These are only attracted to Choosers of great Power.
It wasn't flattery; I needed her confidence to return.
Asdny's safe from them, and they can't hurt you unless you linger in the M'hir.

If she did, they'd fasten what weren't mouths and drain her Power, leaving her to die there. A detail for another conversation. I trusted Tle's instinct for self-preservation.

She glanced toward Morgan and then back to me.
Are those things in the M'hir why I've lost the urge to Call?

They hadn't stopped mine, another bit of information Tle didn't need at present.
It's just as well, isn't it?
I said to Tle, proud to keep a straight face when hers wrinkled first with confusion.

Then dismay.
What if they don't go away? What if I can never Call?

I released her hands. “One problem at a time,” I said brightly. A motto to live by, that was. “Let's hear what our Healers-of-minds have to say about us first.”

It didn't satisfy her, but only Choice would at this stage in her life. I'd need to talk with Eand and Moyla about our other Choosers, not to mention monsters, the M'hir, and restraint.

To my surprise, Tle bowed. “Agreed, Sira. I look forward to the education of this Council—” a tight little smile, “—in the ways of a certain Human.”

As did I, I thought, seeing Morgan and Ruis come toward the rest.

So long as there wasn't shouting.

There wasn't shouting.

I hadn't realized stunned silence could be worse.

Nik slowly rose to her feet. “Half, you say.”

“Yes.” Ruis' face was as pale as Morgan's was grim. “Better than we'd feared.”

“Better?! If that proportion carries across the ship's population, close to a hundred could be on the verge of this—this affliction!”

“Whom among us?” Odon looked around the room. “We should know.”

“You do; you just haven't realized it.” Morgan's gaze touched one after another. “Have you been afraid to fall asleep because of nightmares—or because you can't be sure you'll wake up again?” Calm, relentless, like a tide. “Do you believe you survived by mistake? That others judge you less worthy than those they lost? Is facing each day harder than imagining being buried alive by the Oud or attacked by Assemblers—”

STOP!
From more than one.

My Chosen didn't flinch, but his voice softened. “These feelings are normal, however terrible and powerful, and they can leave wounds; I believe that's what we're seeing here. Most would heal on their own, with time. We don't have any. This—” he lifted one hand to our surroundings, encompassing the uncertainty of our lives, “—only makes it harder.”

“There will be some,” Ruis elaborated, “whose wounds go too deep for time alone. They'll need our help.”

If I had to guess who wouldn't need any, I'd pick Sona's tough First Scout, busy assessing the rest, her eyes narrowed in speculation.

One who would? Hap. Despite her outward strength, something about her concerned me, not that I was a Healer-of-minds.

“You talk of wounds. A ‘cause' inside us.” Degal repeated Morgan's gesture. “What if that cause is here?”

Ruis frowned at him. “‘Here?' What do you mean?”

“The ship.” The M'hiray Councilor looked around for support. “It meddled with us once. Implanted memories. Altered us.”

Had he not been listening?

Support came from the last person I'd expect. “A valid point, Degal,” Morgan acknowledged with every evidence of sincerity. “Keeper?”

Another silence; all eyes turned to me.

It wasn't a “valid” point at all. What was he thinking? Why, I thought darkly, waste time on this?

“Give us a moment,” I requested, trying not to glower. Sona
, have you been inside our heads again?

>I am in your head, Keeper, and no other. That is what a Keeper is.<

Shipbrain. “The answer's no,” I relayed.

Ruis gestured agreement. “Of course it's not the ship. To use the Maker,” she said carefully, “a Keeper must Dream.”

Meaning nothing so innocent as a nightmare. The Dream Chamber had been so-named because hidden within it was an apparatus to physically connect the Keeper's sleeping mind—mine—with the ship's.

A connection unlike any I'd experienced with a living mind: invasive, intrusive and, for all my supposed Power, disconcertingly more under the ship's control than mine.

“I haven't Dreamed,” I confirmed. And had no intention of doing so again. Having
Sona
establish a comlink in my head? Enough for a lifetime, thank you.

“Thank you, Keeper.” Ruis turned her attention to Council. “I assure you, what confronts us is not the Maker's doing.”

“What matters is dealing with it,” Ghos said. “Let me be the first to ask your aid, Healers-of-minds.” His mouth twisted. “No need to name names, Morgan. I'm among those who cannot sleep, for fear of what awaits me there.”

“As am I.” Hap, barely a whisper.

Degal gave a short nod, before putting his face in his hands.

The rest remained silent.

“We will heal everyone afflicted.” Ruis' hair strained against its net. “But we ask your patience. Any of our Healers can scan for
the cause, but only Morgan and I have the necessary Talent to deal with the damage. Healing Eloe and the di Kessa'ats drained us both. We must rest before we deal with any more.”

“At that rate, it could take—” Nik stopped short, her expression grave. “Do we have that long?”

“No. If matters remain as they are, I fear most of our afflicted will fail before we can help them.” Having pronounced what seemed our doom, Ruis lifted a hand toward my Human. “Which is why we have brought a proposal for Council. Morgan?”

Did anyone else remark how he adjusted his balance, ever-so-slightly, setting his body as if to prepare for—what?

Here it was, his endgame. I braced myself, too, for all the good it would do.

Morgan bowed to Ruis, then the Council. He rose, his face expressionless. “Let's use the Maker to repair everyone at once.”

I shot to my feet, the others doing the same, and I'd no doubt the look on my face held the shock on theirs.
There has to be another way.
If there was a pain-dealing
SNAP
to it, I was in no mood to apologize.

Morgan met my disapproving glare, his blue eyes sober, shields lowered.
The backlash of their memories almost trapped us both.
His
dread
filled me until I could hardly breathe.
Memories and emotion can't affect a machine like the Maker. Its function, properly targeted, could be the answer.

Aware we consulted—no doubt also well aware of my
outrage
—the others waited.

Consulted being the key, here. I wished for Aryl's council, then stopped before I disturbed her. Aryl wasn't who I needed.

I swallowed my abhorrence. I trusted Morgan. That didn't mean jumping right into a Dream, not if I could help it.
I can ask questions, for a start.

A fleeting hint of
warmth. Good. Let's test a hypothetical, Witchling. The designers of the Maker should have installed a protocol for passengers distressed during the journey. Ask if it can help someone afraid of enclosed spaces. If yes, ask how.

I swallowed, doing my utmost to sound as though about to
request new blankets and not the rebuilding of our minds, again. “Your pardon. Give me a moment to communicate with the ship.”

They sat down without protest, though Barac looked as uneasy as I felt.

Sona,
can you help someone afraid of enclosed spaces?

The answer was immediate: >
Yes.<

How?

>Such fear can be removed.<

That sounded promising. Almost. I shared the ship's response with Morgan.
How would it help someone who has suffered a traumatic loss?

I dutifully relayed the question.

Immediate. >
What is a “traumatic loss?”<

Save me from servo brains. I thought hastily.
An event that leaves a disturbing memory.

>A memory can be removed.<

As if our minds were full of bits and pieces to be discarded at random. We were made of our memories; something I knew better than most. Though I sensed Morgan ready to twitch, I couldn't let this pass.
What if the memory is important?

For the first time, a delay. I looked at my Chosen, raised a brow. Lips tight, he nodded.

Finally, >
The disturbing quality of a memory can only be moderated. The disturbance cannot be eliminated while the memory itself remains. A memory can be removed.<

As if trying to talk me out of an imperfect procedure.

Sira?
Beneath my name,
caution.
Morgan, fussing.