This Gulf of Time and Stars (31 page)

B
EFORE
THE DOOR COULD CLOSE
after Morgan, I stepped into the opening. “Move aside, please.”

Gurutz's attention had wandered after Morgan and the others. He started at my voice, leaking
astonishment
. “What did you say?”

I chose to ignore his lack of manners. “Risking my Chosen outside has changed our arrangement,” I informed him. “We're going to examine the levels we'll be using.” I smiled. “You're welcome to come along.”

“I can't leave my—” Flustered, he looked around for support. It having left with Morgan, he deflated. “You can't. This is a matter for—”

I moved forward.

“—Council.” The poor Om'ray hesitated, eyes dropping to my pendant, then backed out of my way. Attitude, my Human would say, was half the battle with aliens. Not always the better half, but I'd taken his point. Trusting those behind me to follow my example, I sauntered down the hall of Sona's Cloisters as if I'd lived there my entire life.

I'd left Barac in charge, much to his chagrin, bringing with me those most likely to make sense of what we might find: Jacqui, Deni sud Kessa'at, Nik and Josa sud Prendolat, and—after some thought—Degal di Sawnda'at.

Morgan wondered what had changed since Aryl di Sarc walked these halls. So did I; so did she, though her memories of this place were filled with loss. I could wish to spare her further grief.

I respected my great-grandmother's courage too much to even try.

Degal, like most of the others, didn't know Aryl existed. I hadn't felt inclined to share that a “ghost” inhabited my fatherless baby, there being a sufficiency of strange for them to face at the moment.

What Degal did know were the Prime Laws, the guiding principles set in place, I now suspected, not by the M'hiray but by the Maker in this Cloisters. Degal's familiarity with the finer details as well as resulting Council decisions might not seem immediately of use.

I was betting it would. There were deeper reasons here. Implications that teased at me—or was that terrified? I wasn't the only one to question this world. Morgan could name several within the Trade Pact where more than one intelligence had evolved in tandem, but those were either combined as obligate symbionts or isolated by adaptation to physically incompatible environments.

If Cersi was the Om'ray homeworld, where had the Oud and Tikitik come from—and why?

The first mystery to solve, however, was this building. My new memories told me something of its structure, as did those of the other M'hiray the Maker had intended to serve as Adepts, yet there were gaps not even Aryl could fill. As for the Dream Chamber?

It held a fascination I thoroughly distrusted.

The corridor was illuminated by light emerging from the curve where walls met ceiling, as we'd seen in the Council Chamber; unlike that space, this floor was less resilient underfoot and pale yellow. The outer wall was broken by a series of large triple arches, the inner being a metal door, the two outer being clear windows. Opposite those, on the inner wall, were smaller doors. Aryl showed me the trick to opening them, but I stopped after looking into the third identical room, each empty and too small for living quarters.

We passed framed art at intervals, none of it comprehensible. Deni grew so intent on whatever his device's display was telling him, I waited for him to walk into a wall. He certainly wasn't observing for himself.

Jacqui was, eyes round with wonder, head turning each time we passed a window. The Chosen pair divided their attention between the device Nik held in one hand, and where we were going.

With occasional dark looks at Degal.

Forget him, I wanted to tell them. Forget what Degal's Council had forbidden that had driven them to my mother and her lonely lab, starting with a daughter they hadn't allowed to be fostered. I wanted—but wouldn't. We'd forgotten too much recently.

You can't protect them from their choices.

I smiled at Aryl's crisp advice.
I but follow your example, Great-grandmother.

Deni stopped at one of the frames and we gathered around him. It looked like all the others, to me, of the same gray-green metal as the pendant weighing on my neck. Like the pendant, its disks and squares bore symbols. Not identical, I judged, comparing the two, but similar enough to have been made by the same hands.

If hands had been involved. Nothing about the Om'ray suggested they were capable of such construction. Another mystery.

Show me.
After I did so, Aryl replied,
I never knew what they were. Marcus—
a poignant pause—
I wondered if his clever devices could have told me, but he wasn't allowed inside.

“Deni?” I asked for us both, for he'd brought up his own.

Only to put aside one instrument to hurriedly fumble out another, repeating the same motion over the metal. He reached along a section of bare wall.

“I—a moment, please.” He touched Nik and Josa, consulting in private, as was their habit. Before Degal could be offended by this breach of manners, Deni dropped his hand, staring at the framed symbols. “It's a control panel—or input of some kind.” He looked down the hall, mouth moving as if counting those in view. “They're connected within the wall.”

I asked what I thought a sensible question, given we stood in an otherwise ordinary hallway. “What are they for?”

His smile was rapturous. “I have no idea.”

Om'ray technology?
Aryl sounded fascinated.
Enris always claimed it was so, that we were more, once.

But what? I might not
taste
change, but this left a sick feeling in my stomach. Rows of empty rooms. Panel after panel of controls across from them. Storage?

Or a prison.

Maybe I had another clue to offer. I passed Deni the pendant, pointing out the symbols. “Do these mean anything?”

The three huddled over it, scanning and muttering.

Sira.
It was Barac.
Andi says more Om'ray have entered the Cloisters. Coming to you.

We'd been noticed. My point made concerning Morgan, I saw no gain in further confrontation until I'd reason for it. “We've company,” I advised the others. “Let's see as much as we can first.”

“We concur.” Nik wasn't answering me. She handed back the pendant. “It's a transmitter.”

I paused, the chain over my head. Not was, is. “It's still working?” My voice had a regrettable squeak.

“If you'd put it on, please, Sira?”

And why would I do that? But the three gave me such earnest looks, I finished the motion, feeling the pendant thud into place.
The Tikitik can detect the metal of the pendant—and of tokens,
Aryl ventured.
Is that what they mean?

I don't think so.

Heads went down over instruments. Then up. Nik spoke, “Increased signal emission, both strength and complexity. I'd say it's intended to be worn.”

By a Speaker,
Aryl qualified, her mind voice as troubled as I felt.
They all wear one. Om'ray, Oud, Tikitik. Only Speakers may communicate with another race.

Making the pendants the perfect way to overhear that communication.

What was this world?

T
HE
WIDE SURROUNDING PLATFORM
and its low-railed wall, he'd glimpsed from the Council Chamber windows. Morgan hadn't expected the bridge.

It joined the platform at a pair of massive beautiful doors, their surface worked in intricate color and patterns, abstract or simply too alien to grasp. They'd been turned on centered-hinges, allowing him to see how the bridge threw itself up to meet a wooden platform built around the nearest of the gigantic trees. The bridge itself was of cunning construction, gray-green metal slats for a floor and more of the metal woven into a tight mesh, forming walls and a curved roof.

The wooden platform at the end, with its rope ladders, however well crafted, were light-years distant from the technology to create the bridge or the building behind him.

As arriving Om'ray arranged their bundles of foliage and bags of what he was to inspect, Morgan studied the Cloisters.

Aryl had shared an image of the one at Yena, her home Clan. That had sat high above its swamp on a three-sided tower, coated in vines. From below, the building had resembled two giant bowls nested one atop the other. From above, it was more like an opened flower: two walled platforms encircling a curved inner core—always curves, Morgan noted.

Sona's tower and lower platform were submerged in its swamp. Though water edged the remaining platform, diligence by the Om'ray, or some feature intrinsic to the structure, kept the walls free of moss or other growth. Luckily for him, it also kept away the abundant flying life, the volume of that frustrated hum and whine as much warning of what waited beyond as the gauze wrapping the heads of those Om'ray crossing the bridge.

The Cloisters' round outer wall was broken by a series of arches, within each a set of three more: centermost a door, outer two windows. Or clear doors. There were upper floors, smaller as the building rose to a dome, marked by a rising spiral of windows and what resembled white petals. Artistry or essential function? Both, Morgan decided, as impressed as he was mystified.

He chose the nearest Om'ray. “Who built this?”

The Clanswoman shied at the sounds from his comlink as if he'd struck her, returning to her work only after Morgan gestured apology and moved away. It was the same with the next he tried.

The question or who asked it?

These are ready for you.
Destin indicated a table assembled from planking and collapsible legs. It was covered in platters of a red gleaming wood, each with a portion of some foodstuff to test.

Morgan nodded, bringing out his scanner. Already set for Human standard, Holl had provided markers for the compounds required by M'hiray and Om'ray, substances readily available from a Human-sourced diet. Had they not arrived on Stonerim III, a Human world, the M'hiray might have come to a quick and unpleasant end.

He hadn't told Holl the scanner also contained Huido's latest, extremely comprehensive list of toxins. By adding as many of Cersi's organics to its database as he could, Morgan hoped to flag anything dangerously similar. Chemistry being chemistry. It'd be a shame if their new friends were like the Assemblers and tried to poison them.

Not that he believed the Sona planned to murder their guests. That they were capable of it, to preserve limited resources and save themselves, yes, but the interest of Destin and the others who
knew if what he hunted was palpable. If he lowered his shields, he'd
feel
it. They wanted hope above all.

Morgan set to work. The first offerings turned up negative. The table was cleared without comment and replenished.

Nothing. As the table was cleared a second time, Morgan didn't need Talent to read their disappointment. Some moved away in disgust, communing with others who gave him wary looks.

Destin waved over an Om'ray, taking the pouch from his belt. Putting her back to Morgan a moment, she turned to face him again, holding out two closed fists.

Demanding a demonstration—proof their technology could do what was promised, find a new source of what they needed.

Morgan set the scanner to audible, brought it over her right fist. Nothing. There was an unhappy murmur from those gathered to watch.

Over her left.

The scanner gave a loud cheery
WHIRR-PING!

The First Scout uncurled her fists, showing them to the Om'ray. On her right palm rolled a little brown nut, on her left, a wizened bit of purple.
Dresel
, she told Morgan with a satisfied smile, returning the precious scrap to its owner.

A shame Destin wasn't on Council. That being hardly political to say to her, he gestured to the table. “More.”

More,
she agreed, snapping orders to the rest.

They weren't paying attention. Heads had lifted, turned to face away from the Cloisters, into the undergrowth.

A shriek rang out, long and shuddering, sending a visceral chill down Morgan's spine. The sound was repeated. Whatever made it was coming closer—and nothing good, by the now-grim quiet of the Om'ray.

“Destin?” he whispered.

Tikitik.
She gave him a distracted, then calculating look.
Wrong time
—
bad time
—“@#$%#@^^”

The translator garbled the rest. No matter. A surprise visit so soon after their arrival? It couldn't be coincidence.

Another shuddering shriek, as though something died horribly. Or celebrated such a death.

Morgan?

Sira, sensing his tension.

We've company. Stay there.

Time to meet the neighbors, Morgan thought. Whatever they were.

S
TAY
THERE.

My Human was curious—and no fool. I swallowed my worry, though I tightened my awareness of him. Should these Tikitik be dangerous—

They are.
Before I reacted, Aryl added,
But they love to talk.

Talking, in my experience, could be dangerous too. In this, however, I trusted Morgan.

If not what I wore around my neck.

I fussed with the pendant as Deni, Nik, and Josa took the lead, festooned with instruments taken from their packs. A transmitter implied a receiver. A receiver implied—what? Someone or something paying close attention to Cersi's Speakers.

Maybe once, long ago; after all, the pendants were ancient, like the Cloisters.

The lift below Norval continued to function, though the city above had failed and crumbled. The thought made me want to toss the pendant into the next empty room—

As if I could afford to lose an object with meaning to the Sona, granting rank even among the non-Om'ray. I was, as Huido would say mournfully, stuck in sand.

The floor became a ramp, rising evenly as we went to circle the building's outer rim. Doors became less frequent, windows more
so. Outside was a dark wall of muted greens, mauves, and browns, interspersed with mist-filled shadow. It might have been twilight. I'd hoped for sunshine.

The canopy doesn't let it through.
Aryl shared a dizzying image of rounded treetops and a brilliant blue-purple sky. Things flew there, with black-and-white wings or clear ones. Flowers like giant twists of candy—I used my names while learning hers: wastryl, flitters, nekis, and fronds. The mighty rastis. In the distance, Aryl showed me the dusty jagged edge of a mountain range.

The source of the hot dry M'hir—namesake of that other space—the seasonal wind that freed the rastis pods—my heart beat with her
love
of this wild and terrible landscape, her
pride
in having lived here.

Beyond the mountains, a void.

At the incongruity, I slowed my steps. Beyond the mountains stretched the rest of this continent, or would be an ocean or—

Aryl had followed my thought.
It doesn't matter. Marcus could go there. We could not. Our world ends there.

She shared the memory, of flying in what I recognized as an antique aircar over those mountains. I felt the echoed urgency, Marcus Bowman's, his need to warn other Triads of the attack.

Attack?

I saw a ship bristling with weapons, landing.

Pirates?

Meaning someone else had found Cersi. Distracted, I was swept into the moment with Aryl—
reaching the world's
end
to be torn from all other Om'ray and cast adrift. Knowing the only hope was to find our way home, to 'port through the M'hir—abandoning Marcus, who'd trusted us, saved us—

—seeing him suffer for it, until I took my knife and—

“Sira. Sira di Sarc!”

I hadn't realized I'd stopped, that tears poured down my cheeks. My hand shaking, I wiped them away. It hadn't been my hand granting mercy to my dearest friend.

It might as well have been.

Taking a breath, then another, I managed to give Degal a
wavering smile. “Must be the baby.” It wasn't a lie. Aryl's grief tore at mine, reopening still-fresh wounds.

“You're pregnant?” He looked toward Jacqui.

And must have sent her a private message, for she stopped at once, turning back to us. “Is everything all right?”

“How can she be—? Baltir said—” Degal gestured a hasty apology, well aware what my reaction would be to the name of the Retian who'd carved out my insides in hopes of making more of me. At the order of the Clan Council, no less.

While I no longer cared, I couldn't resist. “Jason and I are happy he was wrong.”

“Why—that's—” the former Council member blanched, perhaps considering the unthinkable. Was my baby half-Human?

I sighed inwardly. In no way did this Clansman, who'd been willfully blind to the truth for so long, deserve it now.

Our people, who'd listen to him, did. “Our child is mine alone. Apparently,” I showed my teeth, “it's common here.” Among the Vyna, but that, he didn't need to know.

Oblivious, Jacqui stood moving her hands in front of my abdomen, squinting in concentration, her posture so like Nik and Josa with their scanners I wanted to laugh. I closed my lips over what I feared would sound more like hysteria.

Forgive me, Sira.
Aryl's presence had returned to its normal, soothing self.
I didn't expect—it won't happen again.

You weren't to blame.
Then or now.

What had happened—however painful—was in the past and not my concern. What was? Why Aryl, an Om'ray, had been unable to leave this part of the planet.

Could the Oud or Tikitik?

Could we?

I'd enough disturbing questions to last a lifetime without these. I shifted my attention to Degal, who'd changed the subject. “—thought the Sona were right behind us. Where are they?”

The Clan must show itself to the Tikitik.

“They've other visitors,” I stated, letting him assume I'd heard
from Morgan. “Let's hope they keep one another busy. I want to explore as much as possible.”

A light brush of fingertips on my wrist, a gentle
protest
.
Let us continue,
Jacqui sent.
You could go back. Rest.

About to argue the night of dreaming had been more than sufficient, I was struck by inspiration. We could cover more of the Cloisters if we split up and 'ported to different locations; I was willing to trust Aryl's memory, if not the one imposed by the Maker. No one would know—

The Om'ray will sense where you are,
she disagreed.
If not who. That was the rarer Talent—in my time.

Making it possible it was no longer rare, and any Om'ray could track any of us.

Between that disquieting realization and the pendant, I began to feel back on Plexis, tagged and monitored. With Huido and Huido's restaurant and real food—

And Assemblers, I reminded myself. Not Plexis, then.

Not yet.

Not, I told myself, ever.

When had I known we weren't going back, that there was only forward and this world?

When you met the Om'ray,
Aryl sent gently.
When you learned these few survivors were not the last of our kind. When you found hope, Sira.

Older, yes, and occasionally wiser, but she was wrong, that wasn't it, that wasn't—I stopped myself.

Of course it was. I
felt
Morgan smile, reacting to the
peace
within me.

I could no more help caring what happened to the Sona than I could the M'hiray, and by extension all the Om'ray on Cersi.

Except the Vyna.

No, including the Vyna, though I probably should meet them for myself before pronouncing judgment either way. Every family had its problem child. I pressed my hand below my waist.
Thank you, Great-grandmother.

I put aside the notion of 'porting inside the Cloisters. Given the First Scout's feelings about the Vyna's ‘cursed Talent,' we'd
be wise to be circumspect in its use. For now. We'd teach those who could touch the M'hir, if they wished.

“Sira?”

Jacqui, waiting patiently.

“Let's continue till someone stops us,” I said, rewarded by smiles from Deni, Josa, and Nik, a nod from Degal.

I spared a moment to hope Morgan was getting some answers.

And not, like me, alarming new questions.