The Star Whorl (The Totality Cycles Book 1) (24 page)

     Until Ro-Becilo’Ran, who had
been silent about the whole thing for turns, finally got up the courage to say
something.

     “So, Krece...” his friend
opened, as they rode the transport in. Everyone around them quieted.

     “So, Becil,” he rejoined,
not opening his eyes. The glyphs and projections of avid interest were almost
sickening.

     “Oh ha, Krece, tell me what
happened!” Ro-Becilo’Ran said impatiently, shaking his shoulder, eliciting a
few laughs from those around them. “We’ve all been hungering after details, and
not one of you is forthcoming!”

     “About?” he said,
maddeningly, wanting to laugh angrily at the exasperation he did not need his
vuu’erio tennae to sense. The OSI was being enacted, here, practically around
them, exiling citizens, sending who knew how many off-world permanently, and
this was what they concerned themselves with?

     “About the inquest you had
to have gone to, because Hytiro’Vel attacked you in mate-fever!” Ro-Becilo’Ran
said bluntly. There were swiftly drawn breaths, but no one refuted the
assertion. Even the transport operation Proctor was listening. Gotra Pelani’Dun
was sitting far away from both him and Hytiro’Vel, and none of her friends said
anything to her.

     “They excused me without
reprisal,” he said placidly. “We left before they handed out judgment to
Hytiro’Vel and Pelani’Dun.”

     “And before you left?” his
friend pressed.

     “Before that, they asked us
what happened, and we told what happened,” he answered.

     “So Pelani’Dun admitted to
proto-mating Hytiro’Vel to send him into a rage after you?” someone asked,
incredulous. Eyes turned her way again, but she did not venture anything, only
hunched her shoulders and stared out the transport window.

     “I was excused before
anything like that was said,” he said to the anonymous voice, without looking.
“You’ll have to ask one of the others who remained. It was very unpleasant, and
I would like to forget about it as much as I can.”

     “Who all was there?” another
callous question flew, but he did not answer.

     “I heard that the Magistrar,
and two officials from the Gu’Anin Council and three Justicers were there,”
another voice said, and there was a pause, as if they were waiting for him to
corroborate or refute the information.

     “Krece?” Ro-Becilo’Ran
persisted.

     He sighed, moved his
elytra-pace. “All I know is that
I
was there, and I never want to be
there again,” he said irritably.

Whorl Seventy Four

     Pavtala Ralili’Bax was
sympathetic, and obligingly did not press him for details. Instead she kept up
a bright stream of meaningless chatter, when they were alone together. When he
drew her close, she pressed against him, willingly, and hungrily returned his
deep kisses. When she glomed, he responded.

     A five-turn after the
incident he asked her to go with him to one of the once-popular stargazing places.
Finally being off of restriction, he just wanted to be alone with her and his
own thoughts for a while. Their double-transport moved up and around a
relatively empty boulevard to an outer way, where the actual dark-turn sky was
somewhat visible. She seemed very sensitive to his mood, and said nothing, just
snuggled up to his side with her arms around him.

     When they reached a secluded
place, she changed the glyph of the transport to make the roof transparent, and
the double seat partially reclined. He drew her up and kissed her, ran his
hands over the velvet slickness of her elytra-pace. Then he leaned back and
gazed up at the stars, the great splash of the Star Whorl above them. It felt
as if nothing else existed but them, for a time, and he liked that just fine.

     “It was pretty horrible,” he
said after a while, feeling the words come, rising to the surface, glyphs of
his thoughts and feelings hovering between them and the stars. He felt her
tense a little, and got the impression glyph from her that she was not sure
what to do to help him talk about it, whether to stay silent, or to prompt him
with short questions.

     “Ask me what was horrible,”
he suggested.

     “What was horrible?” she
obliged, giving him a gentle squeeze.

     “His battle-scythes, coming
out of his arms,” he said, holding in a shudder. “They were so –
primitive
.
And they’re in me, all the time, just
waiting
, waiting for the right
kind of chemi-scent to turn me into some love-lorned fighting instrument! Imagine,
a part of you that is made purely for – for killing, for killing someone else,
and completely controlled by someone outside yourself!”

     Her chemi-scent surrounded
him, soothing, comforting. He took a deep breath and sighed it away.

     “I was within a breath of
going to Pelani’Dun, to be Gotrar-induced, so that I could fight him,” he
confessed, hating how close he had come to it. To be so controlled, by someone
else, and nearly betrayed by his own physiology...! The Pavtala-induction
wavered, went away, then he consciously let it return.

     “But you didn’t,” she
ventured. “You resisted. I’ve never seen provocation so strong, and you
resisted it!”

     He gestured assent. “I could
not stand the thought of crawling back to her, to be Gotrar-induced, just so I
could match him.”

     She did not say anything to
that, just squeezed him again.

     “They had already communicated
with my parents by the time I got home,” he changed the subject.

     She waited a short time,
then asked, “Were they angry?”

     He chuckled unpleasantly.
“Not yet. They were waiting, waiting to be angry or not angry, depending on my
part in all of it.” He recounted the whole thing to her, trusting that she
would not repeat any of it.

     “Oh ha,” she said, sounding awed.
“Your parents sound scary. I wouldn’t want to cross them.”

     He moved his shoulders.
“They have long been in the Ministries, and the Solidarim. They loathe overt
displays.”

     “Then why are you so warm,
and loving?” she asked, in a teasing, playful voice. But he stiffened inside, a
little, then relaxed again. His parents
were
cold, though not completely
unfeeling. She felt his unspoken censure at her implied criticism of his
parents, and did not say anything more. She even began to withdraw a little,
thinking she had offended him.

     “No,” he whispered, drawing
her close again and looking down at her. “I
am
different from them. I
don’t – want to be as closed off as they are. I know they feel, they just don’t
show it. I’m not so disciplined.”

     “Don’t – don’t ever be that
disciplined,” she whispered back, almost pleading. “The best part of you is
your warmth. Your loving nature – not even Pelani’Dun could damage it. Never
let anyone take it from you.”

     Her eyes were soft, shaped
in that pleading. He kissed her, and she was sweet, soft, wonderfully warm and
inviting. When he gathered her and shifted her so that she lay full along his
body, she did not resist.

    
Mate?
The desire was
there, in both of them. It was almost a glyph in itself, hovering above them. All
that stood between them and fully mating was the promise to wait and see what
their circumstances would be, after Secondus. And the reality was that those
circumstances were almost certainly set, and those circumstances would take
them farther and farther apart.

     “No,” she said, shaking her
head. “I couldn’t have that, have you, only to lose you? I couldn’t do that, I
can’t!” She gripped his shoulders, and a sob choked out of her.

     “We won’t be honest anymore,
this turn,” he said, stroking her hair, her elytra-pace, her back. “Let’s just
look at the stars, for a while, all right?”

     She gestured assent and
cuddled on him, closing her eyes. He gazed up at the stars, hating, though
what, exactly, he could not define. Life? Circumstance? The world?

    
All of it,
he
thought.

Whorl Seventy Five

     When he got back, after
escorting Pavtala Ralili’Bax home, he trudged past the salon to go up to his
suite.

     “Kreceno?” His mother
appeared from the salon, and stood gazing at him. “How is Ralili’Bax?”

     “She’s fine,” he said,
turning, trying to discipline his expression. He was angry, more angry than he
could remember being, ever.

     “There’s food in the prep
area, if you’re hungry,” she said, tilting her head.

     “Thank you, Mother,” he
replied, changing his steps to the food preparation room. She did not follow
him, but was still standing half in the entranceway to the salon when he came
out with the platter. He cast a glance at her – she was going to say something
more, he knew it. So he stopped and waited.

     “I can understand why you’re
upset,” she said, crossing her arms. “I can practically see the glyph of your
anger, hovering about you.”

    
Can you understand, in
truth?
he seethed, wanting to snarl.

     “No,” she answered, coming
forward and putting a hand on his shoulder. “I found the perfect mate for me,
and we were able to stay together, to true-mate, to have beautiful, brilliant
children. We have no objection to Pavtala Ralili’Bax. If you want to mate with
her... we would welcome her. She is smart, sweet, and creative, with an amusing
penchant for pushing the boundaries of law without actually crossing them. And
if you really wanted to be her mate, we couldn’t stop you. We wouldn’t. You’re
an adult, it’s up to you two, really.”

     Her words startled him out
of his anger, at least for the moment.

     “You don’t object to her?
What about Pelani’Dun?” he asked.

     The faintest shadow of an
expression of distaste came over her face. “We would have accepted Gotra
Pelani’Dun, also... but we know her famiya is grasping, overambitious and unscrupulous,
and would only be using you. But if she truly loved you... yes.” And the
implication was that they hoped he was smart enough to recognize the type of
person she was before he and she went all the way to mating.

     “But – she – Ralili – isn’t
going to Tertius!” he said, louder than he meant to. Actually, he had not meant
to say anything at all.

     Vespa Kareni’Tiv tilted her
head again, a silent question.

     “She’s going straight into a
Ministry apprenticeship with her mother, after Secondus!” He did not ask if he
were going to go to Tertius – it was their decision, and he had to successfully
finish Secondus, at any rate.

     His mother’s vuu’brows drew
down. “So it is not our disapproval that keeps you two apart, but your future
courses?”

    
That too,
he did not
say, or need to say, he knew she could read it in is glyph.

     “Do you – want to go to the
same Ministry?” she asked, touching his face.

    
No!
he cried out, and
tried to suppress it in his glyph.
Yes!
“I don’t know,” he said,
quietly. There were things he wanted to do, answers he needed to find, and he
would not find them in the Ministry of Preservation. He would not be able to
effect policy that held the OSI in place from there. He would be in one of the
Ministries, as a Magistrar or Justicer, though, unfortunately, not as a full
Solidarim Counselor. But as a Magistrar, he could still do
something.
He
had
to go to Tertius. But to keep Pavtala Ralili’Bax... it was almost
worth it, it
was
worth it, for her, to eschew his goals. His thoughts
tangled in a hopeless mass, warring drives equally claiming him.

     Vespa Kareni’Tiv squeezed
his shoulder, the impression of a glyph left in her wake as she turned away.

    
Enjoy each other while
you can. And if you should change your mind...

Whorl Seventy Six

     “Travel God,” a voice
squeaked.

     Pa-Kreceno’Tiv sat up with a
slight groan. He slipped on kwats and went to his view-glyphographic. When he
Nil-ized it, there was the face of the Heretian girl, Okon.

     “Okon,” he said, trying not
to sound too bleary, “what goes, are you all right? Do you need my help?”

     Her large brown eyes
blinked, then she gestured, and projected a negative. “No, Travel God, I am
fine. I – I wanted to thank you for helping me. I am learning a lot, and... I
understand much more, now. I just... wanted to free you of your pledge. I will
be fine.” She held up the chitin disk that his mother had glyph-conjured.

     He felt strange, felt as if
he ought to have done more for her. “No, keep it. You may not need my help now,
but who knows what the future holds. If you really need me – summon me, and I
will do what I can.”

     She blinked, then smiled,
showing more pointed teeth than not. “Maybe one turn, I will be a Travel God,
too,” she said. “And if you need
my
help, you have it. I – I asked your
name, and they tell me that it is Kreceno’Tiv.” She looked intently at him.
“You look different, though, not like you were.”

     He smiled. “Travel-Gods go
through changes, sometimes.”

     She gestured
non-comprehension, mixed with wry humor. “Who can understand the Gods? Rest
well, Travel-God Kreceno’Tiv. I will pray to you.”

    
Pray?
He felt a
strange sense of – falsehood, being dishonest.
I am not a god.
But he
just gestured a well-wishing, and she went away.

Whorl Seventy Seven

     The last third of the term
flew by, between lecture-work and Pavtala Ralili’Bax’s diversions, and before
Pa-Kreceno’Tiv realized it, they were studying for their exit examinations. It
was a nerve-wrenching time, for while his lessons came as facilely as they ever
had, he was worried about going to Tertius, and also his time with Pavtala
Ralili’Bax was, perhaps, coming to its end. The predations of the OSI were also
slowly working its way up the landforms, and tension was building in the
masses, though no overt action had been taken yet.