This Gulf of Time and Stars (18 page)

Eyes dropped. I could hear everyone breathing; nothing more. Mirim took a slow sip of wine, the only one to move.

What had I said? “Where we, the M'hiray, came from,” I explained. “What can you tell me about it?”

“The Origin?” Andi smiled happily and turned to her parents. “We haven't reached it yet, have we, Father? But we're very very close—”

HUSH!

Was this promising or not? “Please explain.” I did my best to speak quietly, but my hair lashed my shoulders. “Mother?”

She gave me a considering look, then nodded. “There's no more need for secrecy. Show Sira the orbs.”

Mirim's command sent the young brothers rushing to a cupboard. They removed a box as long as my arm, a costly thing of wood and precious inlay, and brought it to the table. Others made room for it in front of me.

I might have been sitting at a trader table, trying to make sense of another species. Which I'd done before, I reminded myself. I went to open it.

“Don't touch it. You're pregnant!” Having frozen me in place with that sharp rebuke, Deni carefully undid the closures, one requiring the press of his thumb, and lifted the lid.

The inside of the box was divided into lined compartments. Slightly more than half of those were filled with oval crystals. Very familiar crystals. A couple were chipped, but most were in as fine a shape as the one in my pocket.

I bent to look closer. They were empty—or solid, I thought suddenly.

“We've had no way to test them,” Mirim told me. She picked one up, holding it in the palm of her hand.

About to ask “What do you think they are?” I hesitated. Their serious expressions implied these were anything but simple hunks of rock; they'd the tech to know. “What are they?”

“They are repositories,” Holl di Licor answered. “Meant to keep dying minds safe from the Great Darkness.” Her strong dappled fingers rested on the lid. “We don't know if they've been used—if there are minds inside. The technique's been lost.”

To their plain disappointment and my relief. I'd been in stasis, trapped within my body. To be trapped forever in stone? In no sense was that better than flowing away into the M'hir.

“We do know—I mean, we've postulated,” Holl corrected at Deni's cautioning look “—that such minds could be retrieved.”

And would be insane, I told myself, none too sure at the moment about the state of my hosts' minds. “Why would you want to?”

The others looked startled. My mother merely nodded. “These are pre-Stratification.”

Staggered by the implications, as she'd intended, I let out a slow breath. “You think you—you want to talk to our Ancestors.”

“They'll tell us how to reach the Origin,” Andi said happily. “The best place in the universe!”

If this was how they'd been searching for our home planet all these years, I'd be better off trying for sense out of the Watchers.

>here<

Staying wasn't going to—I stopped, holding my breath, trying to listen. But it wasn't in my ears. It wasn't me.

“What is it?” Mirim sat, her eyes searching my face.

“I don't know,” I said, suddenly terrified I did.

Not looking away from my mother, taking strength from my sense of her, of what was real and believable, I pulled out the crystal from the Hall of Ancestors and set it on the table.

All but my mother rose to their feet. Parents gathered their children close. The Chosen held onto one another, Orry moved back, and Tle di Parth . . .

. . . had disappeared.

Mirim's gaze dropped to the crystal. Reluctantly, I let mine follow.

The precious scrap of fabric had vanished. In its place, filling the crystal, was white smoke.

I'd 'ported with it before. It had been fine on the
Fox.
As if the thing might bring me badly needed luck, I'd slipped it in my pocket the way Auordians braided beads in their hair. I hadn't looked at it till now.

My hair drifted down. Curious. Attracted.

>Here<

H
ARD
WORK
, evading that questing, nosy mind in the M'hir. Almost as difficult as avoiding those foul creatures. It took Power.

Power she had. That the di Caraats had always had. So much, those jealous fools had ruled to excise her family's name.

Fools now dead or running, while she, Wys di Caraat, First Chosen of that potent House, remained. The future was bright indeed.

If she could find those she sought. Wys gave up, pulling free. The Watchers' continued
din
helped and hindered. Hiding her, yes, but also her quarry.

The opening of her eyes brought forward servants, one to offer a steaming cup, the other to kneel and rub the cramps from her feet. The Clanswoman accepted their ministrations without thought, her attention on what she hadn't expected to see. “What are you doing in my cabin?”

The Scat dipped its snout, regarding her out of one eye. They didn't like her or her kind.

She didn't care. “Well?”

“Your mate is-sss less-ss than content. He makes-ss noissse.”

As if others among the pirate's less willing passengers didn't scream.

Wys dismissed her servants with an irritated gesture. “Put him in stasis if he's a nuisance.” Would her Chosen ever stop being a burden? He'd protested their settlement on Acranam, protested leaving that overheated excuse for a world.

And would be dead now, if she'd listened.

Even now, Erad
pushed
at her shield. Doubtless wanting to complain about his treatment. He gave her nightmares when he could.

She'd tolerated his nonsense for the glorious child they'd produced, only to have Sira di Sarc destroy her son at the cusp of his ascension over all other Clan. The very cusp!

“S—stasssis-ss comes-ss with ris-ssk.”

Wys glared at the Scat, the greedy creature well aware its final, and larger, payment required both Clan being alive and whole.

Was nothing easy? A shame she hadn't had Yihtor erase his father's mind and make him something useful. “Deal with him. Without damage—” she cautioned.

It chittered with pleasure, thin black tongue collecting foam from between its fangs, and left.

Wys snapped her fingers and the mindless Chosen pair who served her resumed their duties.

She'd lost a son and been disgraced. Things were different now. Opportunity unfolded like blossoms with every death of those who'd once opposed her.

She closed her eyes, going back to her careful, cautious
search
.

Acranam's Clan had believed they would one day rule over all their kind. That they themselves determined their own fate.

They never had been free—

And never would be.

Those who'd been offworld, who'd survived?

Were
hers.

>
H
ERE<

I stood and stumbled away as my hair went mad, stretching out longing tendrils, snapping those back at my face. I fought it with both hands.

Others joined mine, strong and sure. Together we twisted the locks into a heaving mass at the back of my head, holding it there, until, suddenly, it subsided. Warily, I let go, feeling the other hands do the same. As if it had never been anything but mannerly, my hair fell limp down my back.

I looked around, wiping tears from my eyes and not a little blood from my cheeks, to find Mirim there. “I don't suppose you have another of those nets, do you?” My hair gave a last little quiver, as if to apologize. I wasn't ready to forgive it.

“What happened?” my mother demanded.

About to ask her the same question, I gave a helpless shrug. “I don't know.” The crystal, white and mysterious, sat on the table. The rest of the Clan kept their distance, their eyes shifting from it to me and back. “It didn't look like this before.” I
shared
the crystal's original appearance with them all, impatient with words. “And it's talking.”

“‘Talking'?” She said it in wonder, not disbelief. “Can it be? Leesems?”

“We supposed a Presence would make itself known at the—ah—appropriate moment,” he answered promptly, though his face had gone sickly pale. I sympathized. “How was a mystery. There is the other—ah—requirement.”

“For what?” I asked, doing my best to sound reasonable. “What ‘Presence'?” Though that there was one, I no longer doubted.

>Here<

“It's true. I know it is.” Andi tugged her hand from her father's and ran to me. She looked up, her gray-green eyes as serious as any adult's, and said what chilled my blood. “You carry a Vessel.”

Vessel. What did it say, that this cold, hard word satisfied something in me, when “baby” did not?

I slammed tight my link to Morgan.

Her parents followed, putting protective hands on Andi's shoulders but not moving her away. “Our daughter has several Talents.” The mother, with pride.

Birth Watcher among them. On impulse, I offered the child my hand. Little fingertips rested on my palm for an instant, their touch light and cool. A delighted smile dimpled her soft cheeks. “I feel her.” Her eyes rose to mine. “She's strong.”

As if they'd waited for the news, the others crowded close, reaching out to brush their fingers against mine, smiling. I made myself endure it,
sensing
nothing but goodwill and happiness.

Or else I was afraid of moving. Both, I thought stupidly, applied. A Presence, clearly aware. A Vessel, empty.

Waiting.

>Here<

Stay away from me, I told it, horrified. Stay away from mine.

My revulsion wasn't shared by my mother's group, busy murmuring with joy. “I never thought to see this day.” “We're saved.” “At last.”

None of which eased my mind or helped me understand what was happening or stop it, but I nodded to keep them happy.

My mother, of course, stayed apart.

While that thing's
>Here . . . here<
crawled under my skin.

Deni sud Kessa'at put the crystal in a plas box, handling it with a pair of wooden spoons. Irrational, to be relieved to have the thing out of sight—

Especially as the
>here . . . here<
continued unabated, scratching, digging—

But it was an improvement.

More, the group lost their reticence, treating me as though I'd been part of them all along. Or belonged to them. The distinction was unimportant.

Tle had reappeared, tactfully walking in through the one door I hadn't. She gestured apology and sat, quiet and subdued, at the opposite end of the table. Her contrition wouldn't last; that she bothered at all made me wonder again about this “truth” of hers.

“Friends.” Mirim rose to her feet. “In this terrible time for the M'hiray, it is tempting to believe we've found what we've searched for these many years. To believe my daughter's arrival and her condition are for our benefit and we have but to act, to succeed for all.”

And didn't that sound unsettling? I prepared the locate for the
Fox,
just in case.

She glanced at me, a glint in her eyes as though she'd read thoughts I kept private. “It is, in fact, the other way around. Sira, we offer you our help. We are the only Clan who understand what you carry. We can help you survive its birth.”

I focused on the key phrase—ignoring the highly alarming rest. An “offer” implied they wanted something in return. From me. “What do you want?”

The others stilled.

My mother smiled. “That you ask the Presence our questions. Chief among them, yours. Where did we come from?”

“The Origin,” the others said in eerie synchrony. As if they said it often.

As if it were a prayer.

Y
OU
ARE MINE.
Obey!

Morgan woke with a start, heart pounding in his throat, skin slick with sweat. Gods. He hadn't had that nightmare for months, hadn't relived that oily mind voice crawling around his thoughts, threatening, promising, full of lies and pain . . .

He'd had to retreat deep within himself to escape, so far he'd needed help to climb out again.

Yihtor di Caraat was dead.

And he wasn't the same. Since then, he'd been trained by the best, honed in battle, and had his Chosen's incalculable strength at his call, always.

“Lights. Full.” Morgan sat up in the hammock, took slow, deep breaths. To his relief, the golden warmth along his link to Sira remained undisturbed. Not so his thoughts.

He'd
heard
Rael in the M'hir.

What did “dead” mean to the Clan?

“Captain. We have a problem.”

Jacqui, not Barac, hovered in the doorway. Wan and anxious, she flinched at a rattle from the nearby engine. The rattle wasn't
serious; what brought her here could be. Morgan rose to his feet. “What's wrong?”

“Can you leave—come to the control room?”

The control room he'd left locked, coded to admit only him or Sira. Not that locks stopped the Clan. Instead of answering, the Human went by her, half-running the corridor to the lift, pausing only to let her catch up before closing the door and sending it up.

He glanced down at Jacqui. “What's going on?”

“I—” She closed her mouth, looking miserable, then held out her hand as if words would be too difficult.

When he touched her,
fear
and
dread
poured through.
Ruti tried to do something to the ship. Barac's with her, stopped her. He sent me to bring you.

He replied with
calm
, feeling none of it himself. The lift opened.

Five steps to the yes, locked, control room door. Morgan keyed it open and took a quiet step inside, waving Jacqui to remain where she was.

He closed the door behind him. Barac cradled Ruti's unconscious form in his arms. Her hair streamed down, limp and lifeless, but her chest rose and fell with steady breaths.

“The baby?” the Human asked.

“She's fine.” The Clansman jerked his head at the console, then carried his Chosen to the copilot's couch, laying her there gently.

Blood cold, Morgan hurried over. Course disks were strewn everywhere, as if someone unfamiliar with their organization had tried to find a specific one. She had, he realized an instant later, spotting a disk on its own. For all her efforts—and there was sufficient damage to suggest Ruti'd tried some kind of hammer—she'd been unable to make the
Fox
eject what the ship's captain had installed.

He held up the solitary disk. “Plexis.”

“It wasn't Ruti.” Barac ran his fingers lightly over her forehead, his face bleak. “Someone dared enter her sleeping mind, Morgan. Dared control her. Who? Why?”

Because there were Clan outside any laws but their own, the
Human thought grimly, willing to take advantage of any disaster. He'd had that nightmare—or had it been more?

“First things first,” Morgan stated, evading the question. “Teach Ruti how to protect herself at all times—and Jacqui.” A First Scout would have that knowledge.

The Clansman nodded. “Of course. I should have—I never thought—”

“Why would you?” He should get back to the engines, but Morgan hesitated.

“What is it?”

“Why Plexis?”

“I think my brave one fought back the only way she knew how.” Barac offered a finger to Ruti's hair; it rose, sluggishly, to wrap around it. “Wherever this invader wanted her to go, Plexis would be Ruti's choice.”

Morgan hoped so, but the station could easily have been the invader's choice also, being a hub of transport, legal and otherwise. “Take her to the cabin and keep her there. I'll clean up.”

“You don't trust her.”

“Right now, do you?”

The Clansman's answer was to take his Chosen in his arms, then disappear.

“Thought as much.”

Morgan collected the loose disks. A few had been dropped on the floor in front of the console, but one had been thrown clear to the wall, as if Ruti'd wanted it as far from her as possible. He picked it up, reading the coordinates with a growing frown. Snosbor IV. Had this been where the invader wanted to send the ship?

Troubling, if so. Before all this, an age ago, Snosbor IV had been listed on the trader boards as their next destination.

Or the disk had bounced. Still, it'd be worth asking Ruti. If she remembered.

Plexis, now.

Risking more time from the engines, Morgan keyed in the com and waited.

“
Claws and Jaws-Complete Interspecies Cuisine,”
boomed a familiar voice. “We regret we cannot take—”

“Huido, please.”

“This is Hom Huido!” The voice paused, then asked coyly. “Can you not tell?”

Morgan almost smiled. “Hello, Tayno. This is Captain Morgan of the
Silver Fox.
I need to speak to your uncle.”

“Captain Morgan.” The deep voice resonated self-importance. “I'm to tell you, and you alone, that my esteemed uncle has left Plexis. I have assumed his place.”

Huido, leave his home and wives unguarded? The Human was, to be honest, just as shocked to hear his old friend would leave the repair crews unwatched. “Where did he go?”

“Hom Huido did not inform me. He received a message, but I don't know from whom. That was when he left.” A considering pause. “I could ask those in the pool. You can open their door, can you not, O most-trusted of allies?”

Why, the rascal. Morgan grinned. “Locked you out, did he?”

The clatter-clank of a heartfelt sigh. “He always does.”

You had to feel for the lad. “I'm sure you're where your uncle wants you to be,” the Human assured him. “Protecting the family during such perilous times.”

By the uneasy rattle during the next brief pause, he'd given the young Carasian food for thought. “Do you really think so?” With dawning enthusiasm.

“I do. Huido's put all his trust in you, young Tayno. There could be more assaults. Be on your guard.”

“I shall be Vigilant! I shall never leave my Post! I shall—”

“Let me know if Huido gets in touch,” Morgan interjected before the bellowed exhortations could become any louder and alarm the restaurant's other staff. “
Fox
out.”

Ominous, that a single message had made Huido haul orbit. Without contacting him first.

Who knew what had gone through that thick-plated head? Morgan snorted. Knock on that head when he saw him next.

If he saw him. Perilous times.

Impetuous Huido might be, but no fool. He'd take precautions. So would he, Morgan told himself. No one was going to steal his ship.

The
Silver Fox
had her secrets, among them the mental locks he'd added after a successful trade on Omacron. One released the scantech console that should have been removed when the starship was decommissioned from the patrol.

Another? Standing at the wall to the right of the consoles, Morgan concentrated, fingertips touching one another,
sending
a special command. A section of what appeared solid slid back and away revealing a cavity as deep as his arm. After putting the course disks inside, Morgan relocked it, waiting until the wall was featureless again.

A course could be manually input, but it would take a trained pilot and codes only he and Sira knew.

The ship safe, the Human went to check on his passengers.

A painful swell of
outrage
met him at his cabin door. Morgan knocked and entered.

Ruti was sitting up in bed, dark hair writhing around her head, her face flushed. Barac gave Morgan a grateful look. “She doesn't believe me.”

“I had a bad dream—”

How he wished that were true. Morgan shook his head gently. “Someone used you. Look at your hands.”

Ruti lifted her hands and gasped. Her nails were broken, a few severely enough that the fingertips bled. Her eyes went to Barac, filled with dread.

Then fury.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and jumped to her feet. “I won't be a puppet! I won't!”

Barac held out his hand. “You won't,” he promised, his voice thick with emotion. “I swear it.” Without taking his eyes from Ruti, he said to Morgan, “I've summoned Jacqui. We'll do this together. Now.”

Morgan left, heading for the galley. Jacqui passed him in the corridor. She didn't say a word, only gave a determined nod.

Well enough.

Passengers secure, he stuffed a pocket with e-rations and returned to the engine room.

Next stop, Stonerim III and Sira.

The
Fox
labored, pouring out her aged mechanical heart for him. Slowing would be as dangerous now as continuing with all speed.

It was going to be a long night.