To Trade the Stars (34 page)

There was also the specter of not knowing who Symon might have bribed or influenced. He'd never worked alone in the past, Morgan recalled. Just thinking about Symon brought back that appalling image from Ruti's memory:
Symon's big, scarred hands gripping Sira, his ams around her
. Morgan groaned to himself, forced to see
Symon pressing Sira's helpless body against his. The look on Symon's face . . .

Enough! Morgan stopped dead in the street, fortunately still empty of witnesses, and rubbed one hand violently over his face. His heart was hammering in his chest; there was the taste of bile in the back of his throat. Not jealousy—fear. How could Sira be helpless? Had she been drugged? What was happening to her?

And if Symon touched her—harmed her—Morgan vowed to prove to his former mentor he was more than an apt pupil. Ansel had suffered. Symon would scream.

Huido hadn't known Symon was behind his troubles until Morgan's arrival; Plexis security had driven him here, a haven despite the Carasian's utter loathing of sand. Which was why Morgan had known to look in his old apartment first—trusting Huido to find any excuse to delay actually traveling over the free-moving sand of the Singing Dunes north of Rosietown.

Now it was up to Ruti to get him moving. Morgan shook his head as he walked, unsure he'd done the right thing listening to her. She'd only urged him to do what every fiber of his being demanded—find Sira. But he'd learned from bitter experience to mistrust such impulses. Should he have waited? Made sure Huido unfolded from his prayers for Ansel before the poor child assumed the alien was in a coma? He should have at least confirmed their arrangements. She was so young.

Or was she? Morgan wondered. Sira had looked similar to Ruti's age when they met—in Human terms, a girl barely old enough for puberty, only her eyes hinting at the years she'd lived before his birth. No, Ruti was younger. Morgan had felt some kind of link, silk-thin, between Ruti and someone else. Nothing like the one binding him to Sira, yet steady and undeniable, clear proof Ruti was a fosterling, connected to her distant mother. And he'd seen the doll she'd held in her hand. A child.

Of all things alien about the Clan and their ways, this remained the hardest for Morgan to accept. He understood, intellectually, it was because the Clan seemed so outwardly Human. It was too easy to fall into the trap of judging them by his standards. A Master Trader should know better. Ruti might be a child, but she wasn't a Human one.

Kill Symon.
Certainly that cold, vengeful exhortation hadn't been from a child of any species. She'd known exactly what she'd asked.

He had to trust them both, Huido and Ruti, to look after themselves. There was only one way to make them all safe—and that was to find Symon. And Sira. Morgan kept walking. He was going back to the shipcity, intending to speak to Captain Ivali of the
Venture
. Ivali had heard rumors of telepaths offering their services to the highest bidder; she'd sent a runner to find more information.

Danger
! The warning was annoyingly persistent, if nonspecific. There were safer routes than this labyrinth of narrow streets, connected by even narrower alleyways. Every intersection was licked at the corners by tongues of yellow sand from the last storm, and the rising sun created dark shadows. Fine. He wasn't interested in avoiding trouble. In fact, Morgan decided grimly, stepping over another tongue of sand, he was looking for it.

He wasn't looking for Drapsk. So when a group of small beings suddenly rounded the next corner in front of him, Morgan ducked into the nearest alley's mouth to watch them from hiding. These were Heerii, not surprising of itself. Several systems within this loop of the Fringe were apparently claimed by that Tribe, who seemed to enjoy trading at the edges of known space. There was no reason, the Human told himself thoughtfully, to believe these beings were from the
Heerama.
Why would that ship have detoured here, when Captain Heeru had been so set on joining Morgan on Plexis, to help search for Sira?

This group consisted of twenty-one individuals, three across, seven deep, moving quickly and in Drapsk-like unison. They might have looked like servo dusters in search of a street to clean, if it hadn't been for the crossed bandoliers supporting a pair of biodisruptors at each waistless middle. Armed and intent Drapsk. They escorted a servo transport, low-slung and open to the air, its cargo a nondescript pallet of the type used to convey large, bulky cargo from the warehouse to a waiting ship.

Morgan held in his breath, knowing the sensitivity of those restless blue-green plumes and hoping to hide his presence. There was nothing he could do about any scent trail he'd left. He didn't try to fathom his instinctive caution, even though until now he'd considered the Drapsk inconveniently helpful at worse. There was no doubt they adored Sira and seemed to extend that admiration to him as well—now that his
grist
had improved, according to Huido.

Morgan slipped back into the street, content to be careful. He stepped up his pace and, when the chance came, doubled back along a series of parallel streets. The advantage of knowing his way around, he smiled without humor. He'd lived here—in that hideaway where Huido and Ruti had waited—most of a planet year, earning credits to get the
Silver Fox
her first major refit.

He knew the surrounding desert, too, with its shifting dunes and endless starry sky. He'd planned to bring Sira to the secret home he'd made there, imagining how her hair would lift into the wind as her arms reached for him. Morgan lost himself in a bittersweet daydream.

Danger!
Attackers boiled out of a doorway—closed, like all the others lining the street, until Morgan walked by it. His inner warning had the Human already in a crouching spin, one hand reaching for his blaster, the other blocking a blow from the first of the three. He abandoned the attempt to draw his weapon; they were too close. Instead, Morgan continued his spin, moving up under the arms of the second assailant to drive his force blade into an exposed torso. The blade slid through clothing and bone as if through air. Two to one.

A sharp blow over his kidneys sent Morgan to his knees. A stab, foiled by his body armor. He rolled away, feeling hands grab and miss the shoulders of his coat. He kicked without looking and heard a satisfying grunt.

The Human changed his attack. Closing his eyes, he
reached
outward with his power. Two minds left. One shielded—a telepath. One vulnerable. He concentrated on the weaker, shutting down the centers of motor control, withdrawing as he felt that mind lose consciousness. Now. One to one. The other.

Morgan's eyes snapped open, and he stared into the thin, bearded face of the Human standing over him. “Put that down,” he said, backing the order with a warning flare of Power, seeing the other's eyes widen as he realized his shields were intact only because Morgan hadn't bothered to breach them. There was a thud as the blaster dropped from a limp hand. “Move.” The telepath stepped back, holding his hands away from his sides. His eyes roved the deserted street as though looking for help.

Morgan stood and dusted off his coat. “Who sent you?” he asked.

“Is Agger dead, too?” the other Human glanced nervously at the tidier of the two bodies.

“I'll ask the questions,” Morgan countered. “Who sent you?”

“He'll kill me.”

Morgan's eyes were like ice. “I'll do worse.”

The telepath looked as though he'd argue the point, then something in Morgan's expression changed his mind. “He said you'd know.”

“Ah.” Morgan shrugged, outwardly casual. “Games. Symon always liked them. You do realize he expected me to kill all three of you—that he'd waste your lives to slow me down. A few minutes. That's all you're worth to him.”

“Mebbeso,” the telepath agreed shakily. “But I'm not going to spill either. Symon's no enemy I want.”

“Do you prefer having me for one?” With that, Morgan stripped the shielding from the other's mind and waited, doing no more than show some of his Power. He estimated they had no more than a quarter of an hour before shops started to open and this would no longer be a private street.

“What are you?” Honest naked fear. “You aren't Human!”

Morgan's lips twitched. “Twenty generations pure stock,” he stated, letting his Power swell until he saw the other wince. “Now. I'm willing to let you go, you and Agger here, if you let me scan your memories of Symon. It won't hurt a bit. But if you resist? I'll still find what I want, but you won't enjoy the process. Your choice.”

 

Choice. Morgan ran, his heart pounding, hoping he was making the right one. The telepath, Serge Tosnulla, had cooperated—though the filth in his mind had made Morgan almost wish he'd been given an excuse to rip out what he wanted instead. He'd knocked Tosnulla unconscious, leaving the two to explain the gutted corpse of their companion when the local authorities checked the streets, leaving himself the task of deciding between the impossible.

Symon had brought all his lackeys with him from Plexis. He'd never had trouble attracting followers, Morgan remembered bitterly, though the technique varied. Symon could be warm and charismatic, as he had with Ruti, until you believed every word he uttered. Where or when he'd learned that skill, Morgan couldn't begin to guess; certainly before coming to Karolus. More commonly, though, Symon relied on sheer intimidation—sometimes physical, as if to prove he didn't need his mental abilities to control others.

Regardless of why his lackeys obeyed him, they'd already intercepted and kidnapped the two fosterlings brought to Ettler's Planet by the Ordnexians. Now they were on the hunt for Ruti. They'd had a tip on the Carasian's whereabouts. It was never easy to hide Huido for long.

A gang of renegade telepaths wasn't all Symon had brought from Plexis. Tosnulla had seen a stasis chamber, locked, that Symon had kept in a sealed compartment of the ship's hold. It had been transported to Symon's own quarters, in a secret location in Rosietown.

Stasis—the Human version, not the Clan's. If Sira was inside such a chamber, it would explain why Morgan couldn't reach her mind. She was in suspended animation, and would stay that way until released.

Final unpleasant surprise? Symon and his renegades were using Drapsk technology. Rasmullum hadn't recognized the devices and machines he'd helped carry and set up, but Morgan did. He'd have to talk to the Heerii Drapsk. But later.

Choices. Morgan had gone from too few to too many. But there wasn't really a choice. He had to make sure Ruti and Huido were safe, first of all.

He ran faster.

T
IME, I decided, must move faster outside my box. It didn't move at all inside, where I sat in one corner, reassured by the pressure of two walls on my shoulders, and waited—and waited—for someone to remember to turn on the lights. Or feed me. Or offer me access to other conveniences that were becoming quite important to my comfort. Not to mention clean the floor.

On the other hand, I was reasonably sure the box itself was moving—or there'd been a particularly prolonged series of station tremors. Not that I had any reason to believe my box and I were still on Plexis. The Drapsk barrier was my true prison. This box? I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my forehead on them, trying to think like Symon. His motives seemed clear enough. Clan-like, he valued Power. Human-like, he wanted it for himself. He must still believe I could somehow enhance his abilities, as Joining with me had so multiplied Morgan's.

There were, of course, fools in both our species. At least Jarad di Sarc had had the dignity to choose exile; a state reinforced by the aversion of my self-centered kind to disgrace and the Watchers.

Symon's motive, however, didn't explain why he'd put me in this box. If he hadn't trusted the Drapsk technology, he could have simply drugged me to unconsciousness—but he would have had to care for me, which meant people and the risk of exposure. Had that been it? Putting me into stasis would make it easy to move me without notice. It would also make it easy to keep me somewhere for a prolonged period of time.

Time that would have moved faster outside this box. I raised my head and stared at the dark, refusing to believe years might have passed. Symon wasn't that patient.

Secrecy. That made sense, especially since Symon knew Morgan. My Chosen was more than capable of tracking him down and freeing me, I thought proudly. Mind you, I wasn't sure exactly how Morgan would manage these feats. Symon must be days ahead of his pursuit, since no amount of impatience could change what it took to get the Fox through her repairs on Big Bob. But if I knew anything about my Chosen, he was coming for me. It was only a matter of time.

Time. The past. I lowered my hand, finding my keffle-flute case by touch, owning its music again as I owned all my memories. So much made sense now. I understood what had so terrified that other me, an understanding based in the strength of the person I'd become, Sira Morgan, and what I'd learned. There was life in the M'hir. Strange, wild, incomprehensibly alien life that interacted with my kind, with me, throughout our existence. This Singer? I didn't doubt its existence anymore or that it was still seeking me. I could pity it, a M'hir beast that seemed like our unChosen, desperately seeking completion, somehow becoming aware of me—drawn to me—instead of its proper kind. I understood its Power and the danger it posed.

The Singer shouldn't be able to seduce my conscious self, now that Morgan and I were Joined. I was complete. But it was waiting, eager, as if time was nothing in the M'hir, or as if there was no way to stop itself. And, reluctantly, I had to admit a terrible truth: a part of me now remembered the thrill of the Singer's touch through the M'hir and still longed for it, craved it as if addicted to a drug. The mere thought and my heart treacherously pounded faster, my body warming as only Morgan had warmed it. What would happen if I opened the case, cold to my fingers, and played? If I released my music into the M'hir? The Singer would come—even through the Drapsk's mechanical wall. He had already, and only my flight inside my own mind had saved me.