To Trade the Stars (44 page)

“I'm
sud
.”

“Oh.”

“Oh,” he repeated, but gently. “I'm sorry to leave you. You've no idea how much I don't want to—but that tells me you are closer than you realize to Choice. A Choice I—a
sud
—can't survive, Ruti
di
Bowart. Is that what you want?”

Ruti wanted him to stay. She didn't care about anything else. “You can put me into stasis,” she offered. “Knock me unconscious—”

Barac shook his head as he stood away from the air-car and went to the cavern doors. “It takes a healer to impose stasis, which I'm not,” he said over one shoulder. “As for knocking you unconscious? That's hardly safe, is it? You'll be fine, Ruti. Wait here and I'll send help.” A pause as he began to slide open the first door. “What the—!”

There wasn't a world outside. That was Ruti's first impression of the seething, moving darkness that had replaced the sky and rock ledge. Then she was choking in dust and sand, hearing Barac struggling to close the door again. Somehow, she found her way to him, lent her strength to shut out the storm.

They leaned against the door, side by side, panting and covered in sand. Ruti was shocked by Barac's low chuckle. “Glad Huido missed that.”

Ruti couldn't laugh or smile, suddenly appalled by what she'd done. Her selfishness had delayed him—and now trapped him here, with her—against Barac's surely better judgment. She shouldn't have trusted her desire to have him stay. She'd thought it was because of her own fear.

But what if it was something else? What if it was what he feared from her?

“I'll be in my room,” she said, feeling strangled. Not looking at Barac, not thinking about him, above all, not
wanting
him—Ruti made herself walk away.

 

The angry howl of wind and sand penetrated the stone walls. Not as sound, but as a vibration Barac could feel when he pressed his hands against the doorframe. A way out, he told himself.

As if he'd survive ten minutes outside.

He might not survive much longer inside. Barac leaned his forehead against the door, eyes closed. Ruti was trying. He could feel her effort to keep to herself, to contain the Power-of-Choice. How could she? It was so new to her, so strange.

It felt old to him, this game of his kind. Old and tragic. Barac had grown beyond simply wanting completion. He'd felt that with Drapskii—and knew there had to be more to a Joining. He envied Sira the happiness she'd found with her Chosen. He'd dared dream of such a thing for himself. Until today, when there was no way out.

The saddest thing of all was that he was half in love with Ruti already. More than half, he decided, knowing what it cost her to stay away so long—when it was all he could do to stay here. She was extraordinary.

Barac measured the rest of his life in breaths. Two more. Ten. Then, a footfall behind him. The whisper of cloth. She'd come.

Barac drew in one last quick breath and turned, choosing his most charming smile as his final expression. That smile died on his face. “No!” he cried, lunging forward.

Ruti stood before him, but her right hand wasn't outstretched in an invitation to her Choice. It held Huido's weapon, and she was pointing it at herself.

I
F I could have pointed to any one decision in the past few days—or weeks, since I still had no accurate accounting of the time I'd spent in stasis—as being responsible for my being here, it was probably the one that had me think it was safe to follow Ren Symon and his companion through Plexis alone. That was probably it, I thought, critically. Although the moment I'd first met the Drapsk had brought a certain inevitable complication to my life I could have done without.

/
joy
/
satisfaction
/~
!~/joy/

“The same to you, I'm sure,” I told the landscape from my perch. I'd made myself walk over Rugherans until I reached one of the trees, then climbed as high as I could before it started bending over. The trees weren't leafless, as I'd thought. The stems were covered with tiny, rolled-up tendrils. Perhaps it was spring on this part of White. “You know, a very similar thing happened to me on Ret 7,” I continued. “Well, that tree had fallen to the ground already, but the basic principle of being abandoned in a hostile, alien environment was about the same. I seriously considered not climbing this tree, just to avoid the irony.”

“I'm glad,” I said. “I'd hate to think I've been talking for hours without anyone listening.”

I was, of course, not convinced anyone but myself was—but the sound of my own voice, however hoarse, was better than the alternative. White wasn't quiet. Once the roar from the
Heerama
had died away, I'd been able to hear it. Once I'd heard it, I was up the tree.

Imagine a sucking sound, steady, unchanging, as if the entire planet was an anxious Drapsk with a mouthful of tentacles. Worse, it came from below ground, beneath where I'd laid, as if the carpet of Rugherans was somehow sucking the life out of the planet itself.

Morgan would have laughed at me, I knew, and suggested the sound might be the result of some normal bodily function such as digestion or the Rugherans were singing to one another. He had the ability to look beyond the grotesque to the marvelous.

I didn't see much that was marvelous. Not to mention the ominous approach of sunset didn't help improve my opinion of White. Bad enough when I could see my surroundings.

“The Heerii talked to you,” I said in nice, loud Comspeak. “At least, they implied they could.”

I wedged myself up a little straighter, daring to be encouraged by what might be a response. I did my best to sort out what I was feeling from the creatures, trying to compose something meaningful in return. First contact. Morgan, I thought with vast self-pity, would love to be here, doing this, while I was getting a stitch in my side from my deathgrip on a branch. “Why am I here?” I asked.

“‘Known quantity,'” I repeated, elated. Definite progress. The Rugheran communicating with me, if it was one and not some communal effort, was reaching me through the M'hir—despite the Heerii's collar. I regretfully put aside the idea of trying to ask the Rugherans to remove it. It was far too complicated a concept for either of us. It also gave me an unnerving vision of a fibrous arm removing my head to achieve its goal. “What do you want from me?”

It didn't understand. “What do you want with Drapskii?” I asked, for no particular reason.

That, the entire population understood. I hung onto the tree for my life as waves of disturbance crisscrossed the landscape, fibrous arms lashing in the air like so many whips. A blast of
/attention/impatience/ ~notright~/responsibility/
coursed through my mind, then subsided.

“‘Not right.'” I picked out, once my heart settled down again. “Something about Drapskii isn't right?”

/attention/acguiescence/
The landscape returned to dark and lumpy, with the occasional pulsation—as though some stayed unhappy longer than the rest.

Whatever my dear Drapsk had done, it had seriously upset this species. I could sympathize. The Drapsk—or their planet? A year ago, I would have thought the concept laughably bizarre. Now, having seen that Drapskii had a presence within the M'hir, a presence closer to life than any rock should be, I was prepared to keep an open mind.

“What do you want?”

At this rate, I estimated, easing a cramp in my hip, I should have a clear, comprehensible answer to why I was up in this tree by the time I was a skeleton hanging from it. Still, I'd been right, in a sense. The Rugherans weren't helping the Heerii or the Drapsk, no matter what interpretation those self-centered optimists had put on their communications. The Rugherans had their own plans or needs—which seemed to involve the Drapsk's planet.

I hazarded a guess. “Do you want Drapskii?”

Another upsetting concept, given their reaction. When the arms stopped flailing,
/attention/~permanencechangepermanence ~/responsibility/

This wasn't helpful at all. Or was it? I'd been thinking like a Trader, like a Human. It supplied valuable insights, but I did have other ways to look at this, ways that might be closer to other M'hir dwellers. To a Clan, I reasoned, there was only one true change in life: between the seemingly permanent link between mother and offspring, to the truly permanent one between partners, forged during Choice and Joining.

The Rugherans and Drapskii?

Change. I drummed my fingers on the branch, certain I was close to some truth—or at least less confusion. Drapskii had changed years ago. The Drapsk referred to that event as when they'd lost the “magic” they desperately needed to somehow interact with the Scented Way. What if the Rugherans had lost something of their own at the same time, for the same reason?

Could both species actually want the same thing? To restore Drapskii?

If true, no wonder the Heerii had been willing, even eager, to risk holding me prisoner and bring me here. They might have believed they were supplying a Mystic One for the Rugherans, someone those beings could use to finish reconnecting their world for them. I could understand how that might seem quite reasonable to a Drapsk, if no one else.

Which didn't explain the Singer.

I surveyed what could be millions of Rugherans, given the entire planet was coated in the beings, unsure how to ask. Instead, I shouted: “Why me?”

Causality? There was more than the word. With each burst, I was getting an underlying sensation—less than language, more than emotion. A push to urge my thoughts down a necessary path, I decided. This time... I licked my lips, an odd memory come to mind, as if the Rugherans had taken me to it: I'd fought for my life in the M'hir long ago; a struggle I'd won by killing—damaging—something else.

Could it have been Drapskii? Was it why the Makii had picked me—not another Clan—as their Mystic One? Or was it simply that any passage through the M'hir was etched there, unforgettable and unforgiven, waiting to draw the traveler back? I'd read the work of a Clan philosopher who'd claimed our movements through the M'hir changed its nature, drew places closer together, inevitably reunited those who'd met in the past.

Had I done that to the Rugherans and the Drapsk?

“Did I cause the damage?” I asked desperately. “The ‘notright'?”

Perhaps this wasn't what mattered. But what did? “Why am I here? Why are you doing this? Why?” I shut my mouth to hold in what was becoming fear, not communication. The emotional load might have helped, because the next burst from the Rugheran was longer and more intense.

Then, it seemed they were finished talking to me, at least for the moment. I tried a few more times without success before resting my voice. Meanwhile, the sky continued to dim, chilling the air. The mist settled and fell, coating the Rugherans with a fine sheen. Perhaps that was how they drank, I thought, skimming droplets from the thinner branches with my fingers to put into my mouth. I rolled my ankles to keep checking there was something at the end of my legs, and tried to think.

However alien, the Rugherans weren't strangers. I'd sensed them before—when I'd ‘ported to Camos and battled the M'hir to survive. The Singer? His first touch had come when I'd lost my mother's, even if I hadn't understood what I was feeling until my own desire for Choice became aroused. That need could have summoned him, without my ever realizing it.

Was the Singer a Rugheran?

No. It wasn't because part of me loathed the very idea, having seen and felt too much of the species already. I had a better reason. The Rugherans might be difficult to understand, but they had minds I could detect in the M'hir; what I called the Singer had a presence, but had never offered signs of discernible thought. It was as if I reacted to him, rather than interacted—like an instrument being played, not one musician meeting another. I was aware my mind clothed the unknown in safely familiar imagery, that music did not exist in the M'hir. But what I described did.

And thinking about it was dangerous.

I must have dozed, somehow, because I didn't hear the song right away. It woke me, gradually, as if whispered in my ear.

Even when I opened my eyes, I didn't realize what I was hearing at first, too startled by what I saw all around me. For it was no longer dark—every Rugheran fluoresced with a cold white glow Bright dots were scattered over their bodies, but not at random. I could see the distinction between individuals by the whorls along their outer edges. Spirals and other shapes competed within, too complex to be sure if every decorated lump was an individual Rugheran, or if the pattern somehow repeated. I wasn't sure, after a moment, if the patterns stayed the same or were slowly changing.

There were species that communicated using visual cues. I sincerely hoped this wasn't the case with the Rugherans, having enough trouble with the burst of concept-laden emotions they sent into the M'hir as it was.

Then, I heard it. The Singer, faint but growing stronger as I paid attention; impossible to ignore once I had. Somehow, he was reaching out to me, now, even though I was deliberately keeping myself from his portion of the M'hir. Were the Rugherans responsible?