Ties of Power (Trade Pact Universe) (50 page)

It was, I recalled as I closed my eyes and fought to remain conscious, one of the potentials the M’hir life-forms used for food.

It occurred to me, as I hovered in that emotionally drained state, that if my existence as a too-powerful Chooser was a threat to the Clan, how much more a threat was this room full of Siras-to-be?

The answer spun around my thoughts until I grasped it, holding tightly. To save the Clan, I acknowledged with a pain rivaling the one in my body, there must be no more Choosers who could harm the unChosen. The di’s must end. Only the suds held any promise for our future.

It was a heretical thought.

But it sustained me as I did what had to be done, forcing myself from box to box, turning out the little lights within each, then hunting every cabinet and shelf for signs of more.

Rael hadn’t expected the Drapsk to take her arrival without Sira very well.

Still, she thought, gazing around the bland pink interior of the Makmora’s temporary brig—temporary because she’d had to wait in the corridor while the Makii unapologetically rearranged a bulb in the wall into something resembling a room with a locked door—they could have listened.

She’d seen a sippik nest torn down once, a servant at her summer house hooking the round papery structure from its lodging under the eaves. While Rael wasn’t fond of the outdoors, some of her guests enjoyed lounging on her balcony, an activity highly disapproved of by the fierce little insects. The nest had to go, and Rael, watching through the window, had seen the result: hordes of the small things climbing over the railings, furnishings, and glass—far more than she’d have guessed from the size of their home—most taking turns to dash into the nest to snatch a wingless juvenile and carry it to some imagined safety, while the rest attacked the hapless servant. Chaos had reigned until the last of the sippik were gone, their nest an abandoned ruin, and the servant sent home for treatment of his wounds.

The reaction of the Drapsk to Sira’s disappearance had a lot in common with her remembrance of that day: a panic-driven yet well-coordinated hostility. They’d brought her from the Nokraud to the Makmora, ignoring her objections and holding her despite her efforts to port. More of their despicable technology.

Rael tried to be angry, but couldn’t. The Drapsk were only acting how she herself felt. She’d use any method to find Sira and bring her to safety. In their opinion, this included keeping her, their one representative of the Clan, hostage.

Rael surprised herself by feeling sufficiently tired and calm to rest on the oddly shaped Drapsk bed, even if sleep eluded her. She kept her awareness of the M’hir open, hoping to sense something from Sira even if the Drapsk’s devices kept her own thoughts trapped inside her head.

It was an awareness she paid for, when a mental shout ripped through her shields until she cried out in an echo of pain. Sira!

Wincing, Rael focused all of her power into a reply, knowing Morgan’s mental voice beyond any doubt. Her efforts were in vain.

But when she lay back down, she felt unexpectedly comforted.

If Sira chose to count on this Human, so would she.

Chapter 49

THE boxes had possessed alarms of their own, I suspected, listening to the rush of footsteps past my hiding place, concentrating on making my mental presence into a ghost, less substantial than the minds of those near me.

They’d have trouble repairing what I’d done, I firmly hoped, starting with the plasterlike substance filling the damaged access panel and ending with the empty tissue dishes. If they thought like Retians and looked down the drain for the missing bits of me, they might find some. If.

On the other hand, I had indeed thought like a Retian, it being the only possible way of eluding Faitlen and the Scats in this place. I squirmed, easing the cramp starting in my right hip, hissing involuntarily at the spurt of pain. There had been more benefit from having pushed myself into this closet of dormant Retians than merely hiding in plain sight. Too worn to feel any xenophobia—or care if I did—I found the dozens of soothingly cool bodies provided a gentle pressure that helped keep me on my feet when I’d otherwise have oozed to the floor like something boneless. The support was so firm I could doze a bit. I didn’t, all too aware these sleeping juniors could be aroused to serve their elders at any moment. It was unlikely they’d be summoned during any search for me, however. Morgan had told me the juniors were none too bright and couldn’t be given any creative tasks.

I didn’t know how long I should wait here. But, I told myself, wrinkling my nose at the musty smell and feeling lumps of rubbery skin against mine, I’d been in worse places.

My world quivered, as though I were embedded in a bowl of gelatin tapped by a giant. I forced my mind to something closer to being alert, fearing at first the juniors were waking, the quiver being the outermost layer popping free into the corridor.

No further movement; perhaps the momentary shiver that had passed from one to another was a shared dream, remembering a childhood of mindless searching for food in the swamps before pulled by instinct to march onto land and capture by waiting adults.

Regardless, it was a warning giving me the energy to slide my way free, a task made much easier by the light coating of slime over each Retian. When I half-fell into the corridor, the space I’d left was immediately filled as my former closet comrades pushed themselves back together. I wouldn’t miss them either.

I was, I thought, growing remarkably light-headed—a consequence of internal bleeding or possibly simply my body attempting to shut me down so it could survive. Walking down this corridor, under the now-bright lights, didn’t seem a sensible course.

Something brushed past me; I raised a hand as if to sweep it away before recognizing the touch was inside my head. It didn’t feel like a threat. I risked widening my perceptions.

This way, sighed the inner voice, a voice I didn’t know, so weary it could have been my own. This way.

It was as good a guide as any. One hand on the wall for support, I began following the faint tug of that call, wondering what I’d find.

 

I didn’t know the name, but I knew the House behind that face with its lean, haughty features: Parth. Whichever daughter she was, I felt the power flowing to and from her within the M’hir, the link to her Chosen unquenched by the imposed sleep holding her motionless within the box.

There were two others in this room I’d entered, a passage achieved by the simple expediency of slipping through as the Retian leaving it struggled to maneuver an overloaded cart. One of the disadvantages to having independently mobile eyes was their tendency to converge on problems and so lose any peripheral range.

All three Clanswomen were in some type of coma; all three were adult and Commenced. All three carried the tiniest of offspring, provided, I had no doubt, through the services of the Baltir, not their Chosen.

I wondered what they’d think upon awakening to find those offspring linked to my power, not theirs.

The other two were known to me; I’d met them briefly when they were Choosers, during the time when I conducted my research into our population. Neither had much power of their own. Demer sud Parth. I hadn’t known she’d Commenced and so had no knowledge of her Chosen. The other, Est sud Parth, had Chosen Shedlat di Mendolar, taking the name of the more powerful partner as her right in the Joining to become Est sud Mendolar. Est had given birth to one child, a disappointing sud.

Three Clanswomen, I summed to myself, two of them suds and probably the third as well, all originally from Faitlen’s House. Each bore what could potentially be my genetic double—an enterprising and original theft for di Parth, had the Retian technology been capable of overcoming one simple problem.

What was being attempted here was obvious to me. They—I didn’t credit Faitlen with the resources or nerve to do this alone, although he was perfectly capable of substituting his own kin into positions of gain—were trying to increase the number of di’s, specifically those duplicating my deadly power. At the same time, they were trying to increase the potency of the mother-offspring link in these Chosen using my flesh. It probably was irrelevant whether the Clanswomen had been willing or not. It wasn’t going to work.

I could feel the power of the link fading, like three candles guttering in a wind. It was an invisible umbilical cord, forged through the intimate contact of pregnancy; without its steady strengthening until close to birth, the offspring would die. It had happened recently enough in our past to be one of the few medical details the Clan did know. Here was proof that it wasn’t the physical location of the tiny unborn within the body of any of our species that mattered, but something deeper and more unique. These stolen bits of me had been doomed the moment Baltir took them and encouraged them to grow within another’s power and out of range of mine.

I probably hadn’t needed to destroy those in the incubators, but given the Retians’ interest, I was grateful to have left nothing of mine for their experimentation.

My abdomen cramped in twin lines of fire just then, as though to remind me of one last subject to check. I felt no link to whatever might be inside me; I’d known the moment I awoke. What else could the Retian have done?

The other question, what was I going to do about it, required a certain amount of luck, energy, and bluff. I leaned on the case holding Demer sud Parth, knowing she wouldn’t mind, and wondered if I could convince my feet to move another step.

Don’t reach for her. Bitter advice, with the taste of Sira’s despair layered within his own, but Morgan knew Barac was right. He couldn’t yet conceal the use of his Talent in the M’hir—a Talent Barac referred to as blatantly obvious and undoubtedly Human. Trust Sira’s power, the Clansman had urged him. She’ll reach you if she must. Don’t lead trouble to her.

Shaking his head at what wasn’t an option, Morgan turned his attention back to what was. “Let’s go through this again,” he sighed, sweeping up the wrappers that constituted the remains of their practical, if decidedly tasteless, meal of c-rations. He glanced at the com system with its tally of messages—over seven hundred. Who’d have guessed his query for local artifacts would trigger so many prospects? Shame he was in no mood for business. He went on: “You don’t know who grabbed you away from Huido. Let’s assume Faitlen, shall we? You don’t know why. He said something about having donated you for some research or other to the Retians.”

“A role I’m quite grateful to have avoided.”

Morgan gazed at Barac. He noticed again the Clansman’s resemblance to Sira, a similarity that showed best when Barac’s elegance was rumpled and he was too tired to put on the excess of charm he apparently donned like a mask for Humans. “And you don’t know who might have killed the Clansman on Plexis or Bowman’s contact here if I didn’t. Did you meet any other Clan in the Baltir? Or on Ret 7, for that matter?”

“No—” Barac hesitated only a second. “There were no others.”

Morgan decided to let that one alone. He could guess what had happened; Sira had given him ample warnings of the risks Choosers posed to the unChosen. “So,” he passed Barac a cup of sombay. “We have a lot of questions without answers, my friend.”

The answers to several of these arrived before Morgan could take his first sip from his own cup, announced by a ferocious pounding on the small air lock, a pounding forceful enough to set off alarms, if not to echo through the bulkheads.

A second later, Morgan leaned back from the vid screen showing the Fox’s ramp and laughed softly. He waved Barac to the screen, quite delighted to share the first positive news since he’d arrived on Ret 7.

There, looking thoroughly wet, muddy, and miserable in the current deluge, raising his free handling claw to hammer against the Fox’s innocent hide while the other held a limp humanoid form barely out of the mud, was a very agitated Carasian.

Huido was home.

 

“I didn’t desert you! Morgan, tell him!”

Morgan looked up, amused to see Huido still holding the Clansman overhead by the waist. “Put him down, Brother,” he said calmly, returning to his efforts to bring Huido’s companion back to consciousness. “I’m sure Barac would have preferred your company to what he’s been keeping lately.”

A grunt and thud from behind signified that Huido had listened, but remained in too foul a mood to be gracious about it. Leaving a trail of mud and water, he’d trudged through the Fox to drop his prize in a chair. He hadn’t spoken yet—though overjoyed to see Morgan, a response Morgan’s own bruises would attest to—the Carasian apparently was too anxious to deal with what he obviously considered the Clansman’s disappointing sense of teamwork.

Before Barac could take further offense—to which he was probably entitled, considering what he’d been through—Morgan added: “I’ll apologize for him, Barac. Being out in the rain like that? It’s not a healthy thing for a Carasian. Tends to make them irritable, as well as swelling up the vocal membrane.”