To Trade the Stars (23 page)

“And how are you planning to get there? I can't ‘port us without a locate, even if it's within my range.”

A shudder rattled more than the huge black being's natural armor. “That won't be necessary, Ruti. These fine beings—” Huido waved one of his larger claws in a gesture that sent the nearest Turrneds scampering to hide behind those farther back, slowly peeking out to shine their eyes on Ruti. The Carasian seemed not to notice, continuing: “—are willing to send more representatives to their Mission on Ettler's. I reminded them it's a system full of vile and violent individuals. Luck again,” he repeated. “They'll gladly take us along.”

Ruti sagged with relief, sitting on a nearby bench. She pulled her two bags on the bench with her, keeping hold of both. The one under her right hand contained what she'd brought to the station: clothing and her doll, Lara. It was safer than her pocket. The bag under the left held belongings she'd earned working at the
Claws & Jaws;
those, and gifts from Jake. The only other possession she could claim lay within, the reassuring warmth of her mother's mind touching hers. She didn't care if leaving Plexis ruined First Chosen di Caraat's plans for a pathway to the station; she did care about taking any risk with her link.

But Ettler's Planet was in the nearest inhabited system to Acranam's, Ruti thought with a deep sense of rightness. It was as though the station had brought her home these past weeks, instead of taking her farther away.

Ruti leaned her head back against the cushions and closed her eyes as Huido began talking over final arrangements with the purring Turrneds, feigning disinterest. In truth, she was concentrating, sending her thoughts questing through the M'hir. Perhaps Jake had to shield himself. He could be in danger. Ruti couldn't believe she'd so quickly assumed her friend had abandoned her. Jake Caruthers wasn't like that, she knew. He cared about her. Didn't he want the best for her? Hadn't he protected her when she'd arrived on Plexis?

If Jake let down his shields, Ruti would find him. Then she'd leave Huido for her true destiny.

W
HAT happens after destiny? Does a story come to an end, absolute and final? Or is it metamorphosed into the next struggle—cycling over and over, as life and death cycle through populations of living things?

Does memory hold the future as well as the past?

It wasn't idle speculation. I'd been here—wherever this “here” was—before. At intervals, I could recognize I was experiencing what was past, not the present. It was as if my life was being replayed to ready me for something to come.

...
That which tried to think fractured from that which couldn't . . .

 

“And do you still feel her? Your mother?”

Adia found the question difficult to ask. I sensed her embarrassment as easily as I could the tightly-forged connection between my mother's mind and mine. “You ask it as if I shouldn't,” I said, rather rudely. The question felt threatening, although I couldn't say why. I had no complaints of Adia's care these past five years: she'd been kind to me and justly unkind to those who'd sought to trouble my peace. Why did I now sense she was unhappy with me?

“She asks because we're proud of you, Sira. It's highly unusual for a link between mother and offspring to last more than a few months—a year at best. You've done a fine job of building a pathway between Stonerim III and Camos.”

I smiled at my father. Jarad had materialized during supper, without warning to the sud Friesnens as was his right as Councillor and di Sarc. I'd been permitted to join the adults in Adia's burgundy-and-gold sitting room—heart of the sud Friesnen House—as well as to sip on a very small amount of brandy. It tasted vile, but I knew it was meant as a compliment.

And a warning. Something was brewing, in this civil exchange of spoken and unspoken thought. If I extended my other sense into the M'hir, I knew I'd feel it hiss and boil around each of the others here: Jarad, Adia, her father—Nanka sud Friesnen, a quiet, venerable Clansman whose claim to fame among our kind was in fathering an unheard of four offspring, three of whom were
di.
Those had left his House to set up their own, while Adia had returned after her fostering and Choice, to rule here as First Chosen. Her mother had the discourtesy to protest, despite her inferior Power, and now lived with one of her sons.

“Isn't it a good thing that my link to Mirim sud Teerac remains?” I asked.

“Of course,” my father said quickly.

His shields were impenetrable, so I had to rely on his expression for clues. Most frustrating. “But . . . ?” I began, raising my eyebrows.

“The pathway has been established, Sira,” Nanka told me, offering me a second brandy which I refused hastily. “There's no point having you and Mirim continue to pour your strength into it.”

“And every benefit,” Jarad said smoothly, “in using your strength elsewhere. Even as we speak, Mirim is getting ready to leave Stonerim III.”

I leaped to my feet, almost tipping over the tray beside my adult-sized chair. “And come here?” I asked eagerly. The link was central to my peace, but it was a poor substitute for my mother's physical presence.

They looked to one another rather than at me, granting me time, I realized, to collect myself and behave more appropriately. “Forgive me, Father,” I said, dry-mouthed, making the gesture of appeasement. I sat back down. “Where is my mother going?”

He didn't spare me; I supposed it didn't occur to him. “To Deneb. The distance will test your link, but I'm sure you will succeed—to the enhancement of the M'hir for us all.”

When?
I remembered my manners even as he frowned at my sending in this group of adults. “When?”

Jarad's expression became withdrawn. I let out my other sense more cautiously this time, and felt his focus turn inward, to the Joining between himself and Mirim. More than focused. His gaze suddenly sharpened on mine. “I've told her to go—now.”

...
not this . . .

Even as he spoke, I felt my mother leave Stonerim III, her home since before my birth. She had pushed herself through the M'hir at his command, an immediate distancing that stretched the link between us past the breaking point.

Somehow I held it.

The link between mother and child attenuates by nature, a weaning process that frees the parent to become pregnant once more, while the child goes on to seek a new, more permanent connection through the M'hir to replace it. Natural, but there was nothing natural in this severing. Jarad risked all of us again. I knew it—this time understanding it was his ruthlessness, but seeing nothing he could gain.

For no reason, I thought of the parade of unChosen visiting sud Friesnen, interrupting my music.

I held and held. The effort drew my consciousness deep into the M'hir. I'd never regained the easy confidence of a child here, not since my terrifying journey to Camos, and did my best to feel my body, to cling to reality as I struggled to keep my mother.

Mirim was wiser. She knew it was time for us to part, even if this was a brutal uncoupling. She resisted my effort to pull us together with a strength that distance matched to mine. Our link weakened . . . I cried out in the darkness . . . it broke . . .

I was incomplete . . . I must have more . . . The M'hir heaved its reaction in stygian waves, directionless and violent, frothing with rejected power. Terrified, I fought to find myself within the chaos . . .

... opening my eyes to find my father leaning toward me, his hand outstretched as he felt the air around my face, his mouth widening in a smile as he said to me: “Welcome, Chooser.”

Jarad had known he couldn't lose, part of me comprehended. Had the link held, my mother and I would have built another valuable pathway for the Clan, increasing our family's prestige. Since it failed, the House of di Sarc gained—me. As the most powerful female of my generation, I was a bargaining chip of inestimable value. My aching emptiness meant I was ready to be offered candidates for my Choice, candidates who would be selected by the Council and screened by my father to find the most worthy of Joining with di Sarc. His dynasty would continue.

Part of me refused to comprehend I'd been ripped from my mother to further his scheming. How had he made her agree? What did she think? Was she feeling this agony as well? I couldn't know. I couldn't feel her thoughts any longer.

...
memory had a pallid underbelly, hidden from the light until forced to turn over . . .

... my father's voice . . . my mother pushing herself into the M'hir at his command . . . leaving me behind . . . I fought to hold her. It was only natural . . .

... but nothing about my link to Mirim was natural. I'd maintained it past time, strengthened it, insisted on it, despite what had grown to be her horror of the M'hir, despite her every struggle, waking and sleeping, to be rid of me. When I might have known, I'd convinced myself it was the M'hir itself trying to tear us apart. I swore to her—to myself—I hadn't known.

It didn't matter. Mirim freed herself with a snap of rejected Power that burned without fire. I glowed in the M'hir, dazed and alone, reaching for . . . what? I didn't know.

But it knew me. From the unimaginable depths, it came. A Singer, ghostly familiar yet utterly strange. Where were the Watchers to protect me? I tried to flee, screamed without sound for my mother's aid, for anything to save me.

My scream was answered by a touch in the utter dark, a hot, moist exploration that dismissed my shields, my identity, and sought what it needed. What was me reeled in horror . . . in pleasure beyond bearing. I became trapped in ecstasy that wasn't mine but was, imprisoned by a rising urgency for completion that threatened everything about me and yet . . . had I been older, had I a way to relate what was being done to me to anything real, I might have succumbed. I might have followed the Singer . . .

But the strangeness drove me back. The M'hir heaved its reaction in stygian waves, directionless and violent, frothing with spurned power. Terrified, I fought to find myself within the chaos . . .

... opening my eyes to find my father leaning toward me, his hand outstretched as he felt the air around my face, his mouth widening in a smile he said to me: “Welcome, Chooser.”

“Welcome to Plexis, Captain Morgan. Do you accept responsibility for the air you share while on-station?” The busy official didn't wait for an answer before deftly applying the blue air tag to Morgan's cheek. “Next.”

Morgan stayed within the line heading to the ramp-ways, but seized any opportunity to surreptitiously lengthen his stride and ease around slower beings. Gray-uniformed security was always on the lookout for those in a hurry. Mind you, they'd pull aside those moving unusually slowly as well, on the reasonable basis that customers couldn't be parted from their credits if delayed in transit.

The Human knew he was good—damned good—at controlling his outward appearance, at blending into any crowd. He should be, given the years of practice he'd had. This time? The only reason he could continue to govern himself was his awareness of Sira. The barrier stayed between them—she didn't or couldn't acknowledge his strongest sendings—but she did exist. They were still one, in a fashion.

Or perhaps, he thought dispassionately, coldly, he could function without their full link because he wasn't Clan and didn't have part of his conscious self existing within the M'hir.

Morgan was willing to take any advantage he could.

He'd taken advantage of the
Fox'
s speed, waiting impatiently for the Kimmcle to complete their repairs, then easily overtaking the
Heerama
to reach Plexis before the Heerii Drapsk. Not long before, he estimated. They should dock within hours. But sufficient to let him avoid their well-intentioned but always conspicuous help.

Was it well-intentioned? Morgan sidestepped a Whirtle with a tangle of grav sleds in tow, finally out of the main press of beings and into the concourse. He couldn't forget the warning he'd felt before the Heerii arrived, a warning just like those he'd learned meant imminent and very personal danger. He had no idea why the Drapsk might be a threat to him—it didn't mean they weren't.

First stop? The
Claws & Jaws
—to find the only being he trusted as much as his Sira.

The Human seemed to vanish among the throng of spacers and customers.

 

Early evening, a busy crowd, even for Plexis, and the restaurant was closed. Morgan studied it from his vantage point across the concourse, considering his next move. If he'd mastered the ability to ‘port, he could have put himself on the other side of those strangely locked doors. If he could—

As well wish for the ability to see through walls, the Human chided himself. There were other ways. He inserted himself within a passing group of Human spacers, accompanying them as they walked near enough to the restaurant to allow him to dodge into the shadow of the adjacent doorway. Morgan keyed in the override code Huido had given him and held his breath.

The door accepted the code. Morgan eased inside the instant the opening was wide enough to admit him, ordering the door closed and locked again.

Silence. That in itself was unusual enough to put Morgan on alert, testing his surroundings with his mind as well as his other senses. He immediately touched the painfully reassuring maelstrom Huido used as a brain. No, more than one—the wives.

Possibly an indelicate—and dangerous—moment to interrupt his friend, Morgan suspected, withdrawing his Power with a wince. He'd do it from a distance.