To Trade the Stars (8 page)

The Chief leaned forward, her eyes intent on mine. “Would Jarad di Sarc be involved? He had connections with Acranam, did he not?”

My father's name, from this Human, offended me. A wholly Clan reaction I concealed from the Enforcers, if not from Morgan, whose face immediately assumed that frustratingly bland look of innocence. I wasn't sure if he was amused or dismayed, too busy trying to sort out my own feelings.

Not love. Jarad and I had never felt warmth for one another, unless you counted pride of possession and moments of common purpose. Not hate. I understood all too well what had driven him to try and control my destiny, the living legacy of the House of di Sarc. I felt pity, I decided, for the waste of such power. “Jarad is not on Acranam,” I said flatly, though Bowman had no right to the knowledge. “He has been defeated in Challenge and chose exile.”

“Is he guarded?”

My hair writhed in outrage at the question, obviously startling everyone but Morgan who'd either expected it or was, as usual, too self-controlled to show any reaction without reason. “There is,” I said icily, while fighting my hair back to my shoulders, “no need.” One did not speak of Those Who Watched to non-Clan. I could barely bring myself to speak of them to Morgan in anything more than the most vague terms. As for Jarad, only the Clan Council knew the Watchers had moved of their own accord to forbid his movement through the M'hir after he'd appeared on Garastis 17, one of the oldest of the Inner Worlds. It was an ability and a response unheard of before this, and the entire Council shared my apprehension about its meaning. No, I decided with a shudder, I wouldn't be sharing this information with Bowman. “Trust me, Chief,” I told her, “Jarad di Sarc is not involved in any of this.”

Her keen eyes fixed on me, but she nodded once in acceptance. “Then when you next contact your Council, Fem Morgan, I trust you will inform me if they have any information about this—traffic—on Acranam. Especially if it concerns Trade Pact interests in any way.”

“Naturally, Chief,” I said sincerely, even if I was sure she didn't fully trust me. I smiled to myself. While it wasn't something Bowman needed to know, I considered her my staunchest ally, after Morgan, in the ever-shifting power struggles within the Clan. My relationship, however unofficial, with such a powerful alien puzzled and terrified others of my kind. It was a relationship I chose not to explain to them, based as it was on Bowman's continued faith in my good intentions.

Of course, as Morgan was fond of saying: the best way to keep faith with Bowman was to keep a good distance.

All I wanted now was to hurry back to the Fox and find out for myself what was happening on Acranam. They had shut down their dealings in stolen information, but not because I or the Council had ordered it. Only their former leader, Yihtor di Caraat, had had the ability to scan nontelepathic minds at that depth. With his destruction, they'd fallen back on the wealth he'd accumulated and attempted to develop an export trade in rare drugs from Acranam's forests. Morgan didn't expect the colony to last another decade.

Knowing the Clan and labor of any kind when there were Humans to do it for them, I gave them less. So this news of Bowman's was every bit as alarming as she thought—just not for the same reasons.

“I will contact the Council, Chief Bowman,” I said, burning with impatience to do so, but keeping that, too, I hoped, from all but Morgan. “As for your concern about your shield device, I'll ask, but I doubt I can help there.” I stood, Morgan doing the same, only to be stopped by Bowman's lifted hand.

“And now there's something else again?” Morgan asked sharply. “This is proving an expensive lunch, Bowman. What is it?”

“You and I should speak in private, Captain—if you don't mind, Fem Morgan.”

I began to bristle, then felt Morgan's amused thought:
Go. Let her think we can be dealt with separately
.

With a smile that was far more gracious than I felt, I concentrated on the
Fox'
s control room and
pushed
...

“Humans,” I told the ship. It was sufficient explanation.

 

While I wasn't overjoyed to be separated from Morgan at Bowman's whim, I hurried to our cabin, grateful for this chance to contact the Council without him close enough to hear every thought. While I firmly believed in telling my Chosen everything, I'd learned there was always a better time and place for that telling than during a conversation with the Clan. It wasn't Morgan's fault—it was theirs. If my kind suspected Morgan might be listening, they were impeccably polite—and never completely honest. And if they were sure he was there, they gave annoyingly monosyllabic answers to any question.

I closed the cabin door behind me, ordering on the lights, but dimly, so I wouldn't be distracted by the colors gleaming on every surface of our cabin. Morgan's tendency to add new creatures and plants without advance warning had startled me more than once.

We'd had to move out the desk to make room for two of us to inhabit his cabin. The original table had gone as well—replaced by a smaller one with two chairs that obligingly tucked underneath unless required. The bowl of flower petals remained, a fragrant reminder of worlds beyond the metal and plas of the Fox. I pulled out a chair, sat, and pulled the bowl closer with both hands, bending to inhale the petals' scent. The name of this particular plant eluded me, though its distinctive aroma carried memories of an evening spent trading with the Nenemans. A successful night for the Morgans, I recalled fondly, although sitting on the Nenemans' floating couches had made me queasy. Our last success, given the return trip had revealed the growing cracks in the Fox's translight drive.

Which I couldn't deal with now.

I considered the seven other Council members—the First Chosen of Lorimar and Su'dlaat, older Clans-men from the Houses of Sawnda'at, Mendolar, Friesnen, and Teerac—then nodded to myself. I pictured Tie di Parth in my thoughts before pouring Power into a sending through the M'hir. An odd choice, perhaps. Tie was the newest, least experienced member of the re-formed Clan Council. She was also an enemy, being of the House of di Parth—a House whose leader had conspired against me and mine, losing his life at the hands of my father. The Clan didn't forget or forgive.

What mattered most, however, was that Tie was another too-powerful Chooser; she faced the doom I'd predicted and proved with my own existence. I had no doubt she would do anything to save herself and our kind from it. In a sense, she was me, before I'd met Morgan and learned alien ways. It was always—refreshing—to deal with her.

As long as mine was the greater Power.

Greetings, Speaker and First Chosen of the House of di Sarc. To what do I owe this honor?
No delay. The line of Power binding us through that other space crackled and thickened as she poured her own strength into our communication. And more, as Tie probed for weakness in my shields—that politely aggressive reaffirmation of our mutual status from a Clanswoman at the peak of her abilities, determined to demonstrate those abilities at every opportunity.

I did enjoy Tie di Parth.
I understand the Council has been unsuccessfully trying to contact me, I replied. There's such a thing as a translight com, you know.

Confusion, quickly hidden. I knew full well the Council members wouldn't attempt to reach me mind-to-mind unless it was a dire emergency. Being the most powerful of my kind produced that caution, though I'd never acted against any of them. But to ‘port, unannounced, to the Fox? The echo of Morgan's plaintive “They could have knocked” came to mind, carefully private. It was so typical of the Clan to risk lives rather than use alien technology. It would have been Crisac's decision, not Tle's, so I relented, sending:
Is it about Acranam?

Acranam. Who else?
Tie let her revulsion into the M'hir. I ignored it. Many Clan resented how Acranam continued to refute the Prime Laws, most especially Council directives concerning Candidates for Choice. As far as I could tell, Acranam was simply proving our survival as a species was impossible. They wouldn't admit how many unChosen had been killed by their Choosers, but the Watchers had felt only one Joining since Acranam had been established, and that recently. This implied any planet-born offspring came from already Joined pairs; the irony was lost on no one that those pairs would have been preselected by the Council.

On my order, the Council stayed away from Acranam's affairs, beyond ordering any Choosers be sent offworld to protect their remaining unChosen. We had no need of conflict between ourselves, when all were faced with the same doom. Not so long ago, I'd confessed a sympathy for their independence to Morgan.

Had that restraint been a mistake? We had no records concerning those living on Acranam—bizarre as it seemed, our best information was a list of those Clan who had died over the last two and a half standard decades. The Clan practice of pushing bodies into the M'hir for disposal left no way to check who had truly died and who had preferred exile on Acranam with Yihtor di Caraat—with his promise of free Choice.

The source, I judged, of Tle's distaste for anything about that world. She wasn't getting any younger, waiting for completion. Acranam's wasting of potential Candidates for her Choice must rankle.

Not a Human compassion. The Clan version. I smiled, seeing no humor in the expression reflected by the mirrored tiles of the fresher stall, understanding Tie di Parth very well indeed.

But not enough to permit her reaction to waste my time. I sent a flash of impatience, reinforced with sufficient power to sting, then repeated my question:
What about Acranam? Have they returned to crime?

How did you?
—She wisely stopped to send a wave of appeasement, then continued:
Yes, Speaker. They again flout the Council and the Prime Laws. We wouldn't have known except that the fosterling was discovered in one of the holdings of sud Eathem, a House tied to that of di Caraat before its fall.

Fosterling?
Like a sudden cold rain, I felt the truth slipping through me.
Acranam is dispersing its children
.

Tie's confirmation was reticent, unconvinced. Probably Sawnda'at's influence—he was prone to avoiding conclusions even when the facts nipped his ears.
We know of only this one, Speaker. Surely the Watchers would have warned us
—

The Watchers should have screamed an alarm in every Councillor's mind for even one child. Stretching the mother-child link through the M'hir created a thunderclap in that space; the force of that thunder increased exponentially if the link began a totally new pathway. Which left, I realized, bile rising in my throat, only one possibility.
The Watchers would know if Acranam dispersed children through the M'hir, I
told her.
But not if they traveled from their mothers by starship.

As Tie seemed stunned by this heretical notion, I allowed her time to absorb it, busy thinking it through myself. Bowman had listed seven ships. Seven fosterlings? There could be that many. I might have found out for sure during the enclave on Camos, to which every member of the M'hiray had been drawn by the Watchers, but my mind had been on survival, not a census. Others might have paid attention. As a matter of courtesy, I'd never asked Chief Bowman what she learned that day. She'd promised not to make any recordings, and I really didn't want to know if that had been a lie. But she did have other sources of information—information she'd probably gladly exchange for our help with her schemes.

Which I wouldn't do. The Drapsk, as I warned the Fox, were trouble enough.

We should have known, I decided. I should have. It was our way to send children as far as possible from their mothers at a certain age. Given the length of time Acranam had been a colony, their first generation would be more than ready to be fostered.

Disturbing that Acranam was taking this step on its own. The Council, much as I hated to admit it, did serve a useful function by arranging all fosterings. Locations were carefully selected in order to enhance pathways useful to all Clan, not just a few. Foster families were selected for their stability and Power. Raising and educating a child with the Power inherent in my kind took more than kindness.

More than disturbing. By dispersing their children outward in secrecy, Acranam's Clan stood to gain seven pathways known only to themselves. There was a reason pathways were forged for all—it permitted the weakest of us to move freely through the M'hir, letting us be a species, no matter how far apart. Each generation had sustained existing pathways as well as built new ones. But as the M'hiray continued to produce Choosers too powerful to Join and mate, like me, we faced a future of fewer and fewer children—a future in which many Clan would eventually be unable to travel through the M'hir, isolating us from each other, dooming our kind. The link from child to mother was a precious resource for all, yet Acranam chose to keep it to themselves. One of their attempts had already failed. The others could all succeed, to Acranam's gain.

What do we know about these ships?
Tle's question interrupted thoughts growing darker by the minute. She'd recognized the danger as well.
We must know their destinations, if we are to find the pathways from Acranam. It should be possible to have scouts coerce or bribe their crews.

Unlikely to be that easy.
For all we know, the children could have ‘ported from the ships once within range of maintained M'hir pathways. That could have been overlooked by the Watchers.
Or been hidden by them, I thought to myself suddenly. After all, they'd kept silent about Morgan, something I'd always assumed meant they couldn't sense the Human in the M'hir—it being incredible they wouldn't react to an alien presence in that hallowed space. Now I wondered how far to trust that assumption—or the Watchers. Their notion of M'hir and the Clan's place within it had seemed indistinguishable from the Council's. But was it always? I thought uneasily, keeping that worry to myself.