Triel frowned, folding her arms across her chest. “What are you not telling me?”
Jetta was quick to get her feet, adjusting her clothing and fixing her hair—and not answering the question.
“You’re the most insufferable patient I’ve ever had.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Jetta said, packing supplies from a salvaged storage crate.
“It’s not. I thought we were friends. I would hope you’re not hiding from me.”
Jetta lifted a brow. “Hiding from you?”
“Yes. You’re afraid of sharing any kind of feeling with me—unless, of course, I completely force it out of you. I need it, you know—positive psionic, emotional, and physical interactions are part of how my species regenerates after healing.”
Jetta’s actions slowed as she knotted a sack of tools. “I know that. But I can’t help you right now.”
Triel played with the webbing between her fingers. “Of course not.”
“Look, let’s just get to that resettlement. I’m going to need to barter for supplies and transportation, so grab anything off the ship that looks valuable, okay?”
Triel didn’t keep her disappointment to herself as they stripped the ship of anything that they could carry that might be worth a decent trade. Jetta pretended not to notice and busied herself by briefing the Healer on safety concerns.
Most of what Jetta explained Triel already knew: After the Dominion forcibly removed the native Algardriens from the planet, they destroyed the cities and confiscated or obliterated any remnants of their culture. Anything that could have possibly remained was quickly stolen and sold off by dog-soldiers and looters. The Healer had known that expatriates, defectors, and refugees from other planets came to Algar after being driven from their own homes, and that the once peaceful planet had quickly became a brutal warzone between rival immigrants known as Reivers. What she didn’t know was what had kept the Alliance from officially reclaiming the planet for the Homeworlds.
“This planet is one of the few that’s still habitable after the Motti plague,” Jetta explained as they headed towards the settlement. “But the people that came here—all the castaways, outcasts, and exiles that landed here—have made their claim. I know you’ve read the reports—the Alliance has tried forty-six times to negotiate a treaty with the Reivers, but there are so many different parties and so many different interests. What you don’t know is that before I was leading the SMT, the Alliance tried several times to secure various sectors of the planet, but each time miscalculated just how much opposition was actually present. There are so many people here now living in secrecy. It would take a massive, full-scale invasion to reclaim the planet, and with military resources as scarce as they were after the Motti war, and as poorly as everything is going now, it hasn’t happened.”
Triel struggled with the makeshift pack on her shoulders. Jetta had taken almost all of the weight, but the Healer felt ragged and spent, and every extra kilogram seemed to drain the last drops of her strength. “My hope,” she said, trying to reposition the pack, “is that something of my people still remains. Our most sacred places were never recorded on any map or written in any text.”
“Well, my best guess is that we’re about fifty kilometers from where you wanted to land,” Jetta said, scrambling over some felled trees and taking a visual sweep of the area. “We can stop at the resettlement, get what we need, and then head out. It’s too late to do the entire journey today, but if we cut our sleep, we could be at the temple by tomorrow morning.”
Triel’s heart sunk. Fifty kilometers? That was just a guess—neither of them knew the exact location of the temple, and at this point she would be lucky to walk one. Every last muscle ached from her premature emergence from cryostasis and the gestalt of drugs Jetta had used to revive her. To make matters worse, they had both gone without sleep and food for some time now. They had survival rations, but they had to conserve what little they had in case they couldn’t find the resettlement.
More worrisome was the emotional weight that had been dragging on her ever since she had begun to Fall. It was a dangerous hook that had lodged itself in the core of her being since she had first left her people, and it only pulled harder after she separated from Reht. She didn’t know how she was going to ever free herself of it with no other Prodgies to help cleanse her.
That is why I came here. I have to find a way to survive as a Solitary. I have to stay strong.
A hot lump swelled in the Healer’s throat. The prospect of surviving, alone and isolated, all of a sudden didn’t sound so appealing.
“Hey,” Jetta whispered, touching the back of her hand. Her eyes were earnest with concern. “You okay?”
The contact broke her thoughts. “Yes, I’m fine,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“We’ll just walk for an hour, then take a break, okay? We can also break into the rations. I know we’ll find food up ahead.”
Triel smiled. Even if she was sometimes unreachable, Jetta always seemed to know what was going on with her.
The songs of the yellow-backed Ciki birds kept them company as Jetta led them down a game trail through the forest. Breaks in the canopy let warm sunlight filter through to the Healer’s skin, and the air, peppered with the smells of koral flower and dewy moss, woke memories she had long suppressed. She hadn’t grown up on the southern continent, but she had performed restorations with several tribespeople who had, and their borrowed memories stirred odd recollections that surfaced in distant echoes and spectral reflections.
“Hey—you’re projecting,” Jetta said as she leapt over a boulder.
Triel took the long way around to conserve energy. “Sorry. I’m so rarely in the company of other telepaths these days; I sometimes I forget that you can pick that up.”
“No, it’s alright. It was nice.” Jetta fumbled with her words as she carefully made her way through thick underbrush. “Do you ever, well... How do you feel about the people you glean from?”
“What do you mean?” Triel asked, taken aback. This was the first time that Jetta had ever asked her about her telepathic experiences.
Jetta shrugged. “I don’t know. There was this one time, a long time ago—I was maybe two, and my uncle was trying to teach me Common. That’s when I found out I could peek into his head. It was so thrilling—to know things instantly. Imagine a two-year-old with an adult language base.”
“I can’t,” Triel said.
“But that was my first glimpse into ugliness. I accidentally absorbed more than just his language base. All of a sudden I was subjected to the memories of his accident, his fights with Yahmen, how he came to Fiorah. It was so weird. Overwhelming, I guess. I couldn’t relate anything to my own experiences. I resented him for a while, and now I realize I was mad because I wasn’t ready to know those kinds of things. It was helpful, yeah, and having a little insight into Yahmen saved my life, but I wasn’t ready. Having other people’s thoughts and experiences... sometimes it’s too much. I don’t want to be weighed down by someone else’s life.”
Triel wanted to take Jetta’s hand, hug her—do something—but knew Jetta wouldn’t be receptive. Instead she sighed deeply and offered her best advice: “For the most part I believe that being able to share someone else’s life experience is a blessing, but I was raised differently. You and your siblings never had a choice, Jetta. You’ve been forced to grow up early in so many ways. Prodgy children are protected from their elders’ experience until they are old enough and prepared to receive it, to avoid confusion and harm.”
Jetta didn’t say anything, but Triel knew by the way she guarded her feelings and pressed on ahead that she was affected by her words.
“Jetta,” Triel said, stopping her in her tracks and pulling Jetta around to face her. “You’ve been asked to do so much in your life, but all I’ll ever ask of you is to be my friend—and to let me be yours.”
Jetta’s cheeks flushed, but she didn’t turn away. A ray of s
unlight fell across her eyes, making them come alive in the colors of the lush, green summers of Triel’s youth. Her reaction was more than surprise and more than admiration at how beautiful Jetta really was, and she found herself pressing closer, until their faces were only centimeters apart.
Suddenly Jetta’s neck snapped to the left, and she crouched down low. She grabbed Triel and pulled her down, spilling her pack on the ground.
“Holy Gods—what are you—?”
But she didn’t finish her sentence. Jetta put her hand over her mouth and motioned for silence. Using hand signals, she instructed Triel to stay put as she withdrew her firearm and headed toward the next cluster of trees.
The only movement Triel saw in the distance was a bold opposorodent scurrying through the outstretched branches of the willowlai.
Jetta led her quietly to the safety of a clump of bushes near a gigantic, twisted firawood trunk and got down as low as possible. She parted a few branches, and to Triel’s surprise, three feather-pawed mountain wolves paced about twenty meters from their location.
Mountain wolves were the most dangerous predators on the planet, but the markings on their ears told Triel they had been trained. Many southern tribes had used them for scouts because wolves, like other wild animals, were unreadable to the Prodgies and were easily domesticated. Their howl was legendary for its complex harmonics and range, and in ancient times it was a means for tribes to communicate with one another at a distance.
Since all of the southern tribes had been eliminated, the Healer assumed the pack had reintegrated into the wild, but when one of them marked the tree with his forepaw, she knew that they were still under someone’s command.
Triel looked back at Jetta, who was studying their movements with a strange look in her eyes. Most off-worlders were terrified of the enormous black animals; they weighed in around five hundred kilos and stood over two meters tall at the shoulder. Despite their tremendous size, they were remarkably stealthy, capable of complete silence as they walked nimbly over branches and underbrush.
However, it wasn’t their size but their eyes, the color of burning coals, that spurred most people to panic. In Triel, it brought back terrible memories of one fateful summer’s day. Jasen—
(Scarlet eyes
Black disguise—)
Her chest felt tight and hot, the air too thin to breathe, but before she could do or say anything, Jetta grabbed her hand and squeezed.
“Whatever happens—don’t move from this spot.”
Triel didn’t have time to dissuade her as Jetta leapt from their cover and bolted in the opposite direction.
“Jetta!” she screamed as the wolves charged after her.
What was she thinking? Was she crazy? Why didn’t she just shoot them? Jetta had the best aim out of any soldier she knew.
Jetta used her smaller size against the wolves, dodging and ducking through narrow passageways between rock and tree. It slowed them a little, but they spread out through the forest and began to close in on her.
Triel ran after Jetta, not knowing what else to do, screaming for her to shoot her pursuers, but Jetta had holstered her gun. The Healer skidded to a halt in her tracks when she saw Jetta, surrounded and trapped, crouching on all fours. Her eyes were slitted, her lower lip curled under her teeth as she arched her back. Triel knew she was using her talents, but she had never sensed this type of energy from Jetta before. Usually Jetta projected her abilities, her mind spreading out like invisible roots into her enemy’s mind. This time Triel felt Jetta’s talents pulling at the seams of reality, tugging at the minds of the wolves and folding them into her own.
“Jetta,” Triel said, allowing herself to extend into Jetta’s wake.
The world changed. It was similar to Algar, fertile and mountainous, but the air was thinner and the sky a deeper blue. She became aware of her body, standing on all fours, and her tail wagged back and forth as her mate trotted over to greet her with a tender lick. His eyes were gold, his fur gray and white, his stature slightly bigger than hers.
(These are the wolves of Old Earth) Triel realized. They were the genetic ancestors of the ones on Algar, having been rescued off Old Earth and introduced to her planet after the Prodgies who made first contact with humans were impressed by the animal’s prowess, strength, and intelligence.
Time had no meaning as she saw through the eyes of many different wolves through the ages, with no hint of their chronological order. The real wolves encircling Jetta were barely visible, their blurry outline unchanging as the images rapidly flew past.
In a matter of seconds the Healer’s emotions swam through a succession of lives, each one different and evocative. She had never felt anything as strong or as pure as the shared memories of the wolf packs. Their minds were unfiltered and instinctive, their emotions unguarded and alive in her chest. They were all connected, she realized, their memories woven through the ages much like the different tribes of the Prodgy.
What are you doing, Jetta? Triel wondered as the borrowed memories came to a halt.
Jetta did not acknowledge Triel in any way. A low growl rumbled from her throat and she relaxed the arch in her back. Triel sucked in her breath as the mountain wolf with the one gray paw stepped up to Jetta, his ears forward, tail stiff and upright, and sniffed her. He inspected her neckline, then circled, giving her the once-over. The other two joined in, though not as bravely as the first, keeping a greater distance between themselves and Jetta.
Finally Jetta stood up and, to Triel’s astonishment, reached out and touched the leader’s nose, stroking it and whispering something into his ear.
“Jetta!”
“It’s okay,” Jetta finally said as she caught a good spot behind his ear and sent his gray-pawed leg kicking. “We have an understanding now.”
“Jetta, wolves—even domesticated ones—can be dangerous,” Triel said. She backed up as the three wolves turned and came towards her.
“Don’t worry—they just want to know who you are. Just let them do their thing.”
Triel was glad when they had finished their assessment and walked away, apparently disinterested in her, and returned their attentions to Jetta. The Healer had never seen Jetta so animated, nor with so relaxed a smile as she playfully tugged on one’s ears and lightly wrestled with the other.
“How did you do this, Jetta?”
Jetta shrugged as one of the wolves nudged her hand so she would continue scratching behind his ear. “Something I tried on Old Earth. I let them in me instead of me messing with them. These guys are just like the wolves I met on Earth, so I showed them that I could understand them and, more importantly, that we weren’t a threat. They’re not dangerous.”
“It’s over. You’re definitely Lakoba.” Triel laughed nervously as she watched Jetta crawl on top of the leader’s back. “But are you sure about this?” she said as one of the others resumed his inspection of her, wedging his nose underneath her armpit. “I’ve never trusted them. They can turn on you at any time.”
Jetta looked at her with a funny expression. “Completely.”
Jetta laid her head on the wolf’s neck, closing her eyes and listening beyond the means of her ears. “They were just scouting the area, looking for intruders. They can take us back to their camp. From their memories, I think they’re working under human handlers.”
Triel thought it over. “That can’t be a good thing.”
“Well,” Jetta said, carefully scrutinizing her as she slid off the wolf’s back. “We’ll have to risk it. You look almost as bad as I do.”
Triel knew Jetta wasn’t joking, and she couldn’t argue her point. She hadn’t felt right since she had started to turn, and their travels were wearing her down.
“You’re not planning to—”
But Jetta had already grabbed the Healer by her upper arms and was positioning her to straddle the wolf that had crouched down to take her onto its back.
“Let’s face it,” Jetta said, “we need our strength once we
get to the resettlement, in case things don’t go as well as we’d like. This is our best option.”
“I’m not exactly comfortable with this plan,” Triel began, but her words were cut short as the wolf stood up. She only kept herself from sliding off by knotting her hands in his coarse black fur. Her wolf whined and nosed at her until Triel adjusted her position and got a more gentle handhold on the white ruff of fur around his neck, unique among the wolves she’d seen. “I’ve never ridden a wolf.”
Jetta chuckled as she strapped their gear around the third wolf’s midsection, then scrambled atop the alpha. “Neither have I. Should be fun, yeah?”
Triel didn’t have time to contest the idea. Jetta and the leader took off, bounding through the trees at top speed. Her wolf took off after them, and it was all Triel could do to cling to his fur as his massive body hurtled through the forest.
The Healer had never experienced anything like it, nor had she encountered such an experience in any of her healings. As enormous and muscular as the wolf was, he seemed to glide through the underbrush, leaping effortlessly over rocks and branches and deftly winding in and out of the trees. She pressed her body low against his body as the wind whipped her face, making her eye water as the wolf broke free of the trees and picked up speed across the open meadow.
Triel looked over to Jetta, who was allowing her gray-pawed wolf to slalom between yellow clumps of sunshooter flowers. Jetta was beaming, so much thather aura, even in the daylight, shone like the brightest star in the night sky. It illuminated every cell in Triel’s body, and she inhaled sharply. Even though they were a good distance apart, Jetta radiated a supernal warmth Triel had only felt while being restored by another Prodgy. It wrapped around her, and for the first time since she had left her tribe, she felt her own wounds mending.
That is not Rion...
A new energy rippled through her body, cascading down her limbs to the very tips of her being, revitalizing the old parts of herself she had forgotten existed.
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