To Trade the Stars (26 page)

“Perhaps he has a point,” she conceded, talking more to herself than the Drapsk. “Huido is a being we both hold in high regard. If Barac's power is better used assisting him—for whatever reason—”

The container, now empty, popped free. Copelup caught it deftly in one hand, putting it with others on the table. “A splendid representative of an admirable species,” he agreed.

He meant the Carasian, of course. Copelup had been fairly blunt in his assessment of the Clan and its, in his words, arrogant presumptions about the M'hir. The Scented Way, Rael corrected to herself, aware she'd held all of these presumptions and her own share of arrogance before coming here.

“Barac would come back if I—” she asserted, then stopped, feeling:
a sending
. Copelup's antennae flopped in her direction as he sensed it, too. “There. I told you.” Rael started to smile as she opened her mind, then she locked down her shields to keep in all emotion. This confident, powerful contact wasn't her runaway cousin.

To what do I owe this honor
,
Councillor di Parth?
Rael sent, as they tested each other's Power in formal reacquaintance.

Tie was powerful, but younger, with the too-easily aroused passions of a Chooser frustrated by a lack of candidates for her Choice. Rael was impressed she'd been able to keep those passions from alienating her fellow Councillors. So far. She could feel the tumult of conflicting emotions within Tie now, barely under control. Not a social call.

Greetings
,
Rael di Sarc. I have information for the Speaker
.

Then why not contact Sira yourself?
Rael allowed Tie to feel her amused scorn, well aware other Clan were afraid of Sira's greater Power—not to mention her Human Chosen. Rael highly approved of that respect, even if she had little patience for cowards.

If that were possible
,
I would have done so
, with a snap of unease rather than temper.
She has
—
withdrawn
.

Explain
. Rael didn't notice how she sat straighter, glass forgotten in her hand. Copelup did, and chewed a tentacle thoughtfully.

She exists
—
as does her Chosen
.
The Watchers confirm it
.
But her mind is
... Tle's sending faded, as if she needed to concentrate elsewhere for a moment.

Her mind is what?
Rael demanded with snap of impatience to the sending, anxious to try reaching for her sister herself.

We don't know
.
There's something wrong
.
It's not retreat or our form of stasis
.
It's as if Sira has become spread within the M'hir
—

Not dissolved?
Rael's fierce denial of that possibility caused Tie pain. She didn't care. Sira was appallingly vulnerable through Morgan—a being with too colorful a past for Rael's comfort, however admirable his personal qualities.

Tie didn't protest—a sign she was truly concerned.
There's no diminishing of Sira's Power
.
But she's become
—
fragmented. There isn't enough of her in any one place to form a locate. I‛d hoped this was part of your experiments with those aliens, that she was there with you
.
Obviously I was wrong
.

The link was draining Rael's Power as well as Tle's, Power she would need to find Sira for herself. But she needed to know more.
What does Morgan say?

The Human?
Hesitation.

Ossirus, save her from xenophobic fools.
Her
Chosen—
who should know better than anyone where Sira is now!
If he didn't, Rael realized with a sinking feeling, he'd be doing anything to find her. She'd seen firsthand the extent of Morgan's attachment—his love—for Sira. There were risks to searching the M'hir. Morgan might be uniquely powerful for his species, but he was alien to that other space.

Tle surprised her.
None of us are sufficiently familiar with the taste of Morgan's Power to try a sending
,
and he isn't answering his com
.
We believe he isn't on his ship
, she sent almost primly.
Perhaps you would have better luck
.

I'll let you know.
Rael promised grimly. As she prepared to pull away from their link, she felt Tle's power holding them together.
What is it?

The information Sira wanted. She was right. Acranam's fosterlings were dispersed using starships
.
Under threat of deep scan
,
the First Chosen of sud Eathem admitted the involvement of Wys di Caraat
.
She didn't know the destinations of the others
.

Rael knew Yihtor's mother, First Chosen di Caraat, better than she cared to: a thoroughly unpleasant, powerful Clanswoman unlikely to forget or forgive Sira's rejection of her son and its result, but someone she'd considered harmless while on Acranam. As for fosterlings? Rael quelled her envy.
I don't see how this matters now
—

A dark, painful flare of emotions: anger, grief.
It matters
.
We've located another of the fosterlings: Nylis sud Annk
.
The Scat ship took him too far from his mother, destroying their link
.
The Watchers warned Council
,
but not in time
.
Nylis must have tried to use his Power in front of the aliens, and they killed him for it
.
He was alone, Rael. Abandoned by his own House
.
How can such a thing be?

Acranam,
Rael sent numbly, as if that could explain it, but it couldn't. Nothing could. To send a fosterling away from safety instead of to it? Insanity. To lose one like this? To have him killed even as he struggled—without help or comfort from his kind—to comprehend the shock of his new state, of suddenly becoming an unChosen? Rael couldn't imagine it. Tears welled up in her eyes, tumbling like something cold, hard, and foreign over her cheeks.

Sira must know about this
.
I'll do what I can to find her and tell her
, she vowed to Tie and herself, ending their connection.

She opened her eyes, having closed them to better concentrate on the sending, to find Copelup standing in front of her, his chubby hand patting her knee. “What's wrong?” the Drapsk asked. “Has something happened to Hom Huido?”

“Huido?” Rael choked on the word. “No, Copelup. No. But there's been a death. A tragic one. And we seem to have—lost—my sister. When I regain my strength—”

The Skeptic seemed to compress into himself. For an instant, Rael feared he'd continue shrinking into a useless ball of uncommunicative alien, but he stayed with her. “Don't tell me she's—” All six tentacles popped into his tiny mouth, as though to stop the next word.

“Oh, no, Copelup,” Rael assured him quickly, putting her hands over his. “No, Sira isn't dead. I'd know. I'm sure I would. I just need time to recover before I can search for her myself. There's something going on—” She stopped herself in time. Clan business, this business, wasn't for aliens, not even the Drapsk. “Sira could simply be trying to have some privacy.”

Tentacles popped free with a fine spray of moisture that thankfully missed Rael's face. A feather's touch against her ear. “You don't believe that. You're worried.” His voice became firm and determined. “What can we do to help, Mystic One?”

Rael blinked. She hadn't considered the Drapsk and their technology. “We must try to reach Jason Morgan. Otherwise? I don't know, Copelup,” she said slowly. “But as it seems beyond the experience of our Council, perhaps it's more within your understanding of the Scented Way.”

Somehow, the Drapsk managed to look smug.

 

Rael finally admitted—to herself—that she missed Barac, a
sud
—something she judged a consequence of their atypical friendship and a mark of personal weakness. Right now, however, surrounded by what could be mistaken for a riotously blooming garden, but was actually the varicolored plumes sprouting from the heads of far too many Drapsk crammed into a single room? She'd give a great deal to see her cousin trying to make his way through to her.

The
Silver Fox
had responded to their hail with an automated message about cargo holds and speed, but Copelup had responded to his new mission with gusto. He must have invited every Drapsk scientist even remotely connected with research into the M'hir—and they'd brought assistants. While the room where they gathered was large—a multileveled open space, with machines lining two walls—Rael worried if it held enough air for them all.

There was one good thing about a crowd of Drapsk. They were so quiet Rael could hear her own breathing. Most didn't speak at all, seeming to prefer to convey information, especially more technical details, chemically. Given the intensity of discussion now underway, with antennae flipping first one way, then the other in hilarious unity as different unheard ideas attracted attention and debate, Rael decided she might as well be in a garden tossed by winds from every direction. She tried her best not to sniff.

Rael tried her best to be patient, too, but after half an hour of soundless debate, she was finished waiting. The Clanswoman closed her eyes, assessing her reserves. Adequate for a heart-search. She couldn't
reach
for the Human—she'd never bothered to learn the taste of his Power. But she knew Sira's. Rael drew an image in her thoughts of her older sister, focusing her Power, concentrating on how Sira had looked last time they'd seen one another: the spacer coveralls, faded and patched, the familiar face that tended toward solemn until you looked into those gray eyes and saw the joy brimming within, her . . .

Contact. Or was it? It was as if the two of them hung suspended in the M'hir. Rael could “see” her sister—more correctly, sense the brilliant, almost blinding sphere of power that distinguished Sira in this place—but couldn't touch her thoughts. It was as if Sira had become oblivious to anything outside herself. It wasn't retreat, that defensive technique where a telepath drew on life's own energy to build an impenetrable shield, a shield that could only be opened by another. No, this was something Rael had never encountered before. As she strained harder, the sphere of Power that was Sira seemed to become two, then three, then an infinity of repeating globes before coalescing into one again so quickly its fragmentation might have been an illusion. The M'hir crackled and seethed—clear warning.

To her as well. Rael pulled herself free, reluctantly. She opened her eyes, expecting, and finding, the Drapsk to have reacted to her use of Power. Sure enough, those remaining on their feet were oriented toward her and statue-still. There were remarkably few balls of effectively-absent scientists, but she did spot a pair performing
gripstsa
toward the back. It seemed polite to ignore them.

“Were you able to reach her with your Power, Mystic One?” Copelup asked, predictably the least impressed.

Rael took her time before answering, aware Drapsk tended to add their own interpretations to whatever was said. She didn't want a misunderstanding to affect how they used their incomprehensible machines. “The technique I used,” she said carefully, “what we call the heart-search, is very specific. It cannot be fooled. It took me where I could sense Sira in the M'hir, the Scented Way, but—”

“But?”

“She wasn't there. Not
there
as in a location. Assht,” Rael hissed in frustration. “There's nothing I can describe for you—”

“Did you sense Drapskii? Was Drapskii there?” The eager questions came from another Skeptic squirming his way past the others to her. Levertup, Rael guessed, although he could have been any of the dozen or so yellow-plumed Drapsk dotted among the scientists. Still, Levertup seemed unique among the polite Drapsk in treating all around him, including Mystic Ones, with an odd mix of benign contempt and exasperation. Of course, Copelup was just as easy to identify; Rael need only find a Skeptic who blithely assumed he knew more than anyone else about everything.

Now, Copelup turned to his fellow Skeptic and their antennae whisked past one another in a feathery blur.

“What?” Rael demanded. There was only so much of this voiceless whispering she could tolerate.

“There's a reason, a good one, for Skeptic Levertup's question,” Copelup told her evasively. So she'd been right. “Before I explain, Mystic One, please tell us: were you able to communicate with your sister?”

Rael shook her head out of habit, though they couldn't see the gesture. At least not in a way she understood. “No,” she said aloud. “She didn't seem aware of anything outside herself. And there's something else. Tle—Councillor di Parth—described Sira's mind as fragmented. I saw that for myself. Sira seemed to be in more than one place at once for an instant—or there was more than one Sira.” Rael heard the note of wonder in her own voice and coughed lightly. “It might have been an artifact of the Scented Way. The longer one's consciousness lies within its boundaries, the harder it becomes to sort reality from imagination.”

“You say that other Clan also observed this, however, so we can—”

“But what about Drapskii!” Levertup, usually a very dignified being whose idea of dinner conversation involved pompous dictionary references, was hopping from one foot to the other in front of Rael. “Did you sense it?” He pressed closer, and the rest of the Drapsk took this as their cue to do the same, the entire roomful moving closer while hopping madly in unison. Only Copelup stood still, his back to the Clanswoman. He held up his small hands, his antennae fluttering wildly at the rest of them.
Saying what?