His index finger hovered in the air above the control.
If it was Port Authority, Morgan knew accepting the connection and the notification sure to follow would mean he’d be irrevocably (unless he could find the credits for a very significant fine) committed to leaving this world.
“We were happy here,” he mused out loud, comfortable with the habit of talking to his ship. Most of his adult life had been spent alone, like this, with the Fox herself as company. It was a preference both of his personality and for real protection from the unwanted thoughts of others. Until Sira’s teachings, he’d been reluctant to test his ability to screen out the mental noise of those around him, to risk exposing his own telepathic skills. Now, that was the least of his concerns.
Morgan touched his fingertip to the top of the button, feeling its coolness in contrast to the burning rage buried inside him. He guessed what it was—at least some of it: Sira’s parting gift. He doubted she’d meant to pass along so much of her anger; there was no question she’d honestly tried to protect him these past months. But he’d been aware of it, as he’d known most of her emotional turmoil. The link between them went both ways—he’d just made certain she wasn’t aware of how deeply.
He regretted nothing, yet hesitated to push the button.
The rage was something that, identified, seemed controllable enough. He’d left Barac intact, Morgan recalled, despite temptation. But it colored his every thought of her, spilled darkness on the love she’d offered to him at last, pouring like poison over everything he felt in return until all that remained free of confusion was their common purpose.
“She wants me to recover what was stolen. To seek them wherever they hide,” he reminded the ship. Didn’t you know that would have been enough, Sira? he added as if she were still close in his thoughts, listening to what was more than speech. Didn’t you realize I would do it for my own sake—that what harms you, harms me? You didn’t have to say: ‘As you love me.’
Morgan pressed the button, accepting his destiny, his other hand reaching for the yellow trip tape to insert at Port Authority’s request. That it had nothing to do with his true destination was a detail the Human deemed Pocular’s Port Jellies could talk to him about later.
If he ever came back.
Chapter 13
ONE advantage to having been a working spacer was that I knew the moment the Makmora dropped from translight and began docking maneuvers. The cessation of the almost soundless engine vibration, coupled with some abrupt shifts in gravity, left me in little doubt we were about to clamp on to something. But what?
This being a curiosity I couldn’t satisfy from the warmth of my bed, I pulled on my coveralls as quickly as possible. Time to head to the bridge and ask some determined questions.
The door handle wouldn’t budge.
Despite a sudden flare of anger, I had to smile. Did the Drapsk seriously think this could hold me in place? The locate of the bridge was easy to form; my Talent felt nearly normal again. I pushed . . .
. . . and felt as though I’d hit a wall. A prickly wall, at that.
This was not good.
As if to underscore my growing apprehension, the ship connected with something else with a clang and thud. Their pilot lacked Morgan’s finesse.
I calmed myself, using the discipline learned by Sira di Sarc over decades of honing her power to counter the newer and overly vivid imagination of Sira Morgan. I was constantly blending what I’d been with what I’d become; as constantly, I worried about recognizing the end result.
How were the Drapsk keeping me imprisoned? There was no opposition to the tendril of thought I cautiously allowed out past my shielding, no detectable change in what I could sense of the M’hir.
Not drugs, then, I decided with an immediate rush of relief. There was at least one, of my personal experience, capable of temporarily blinding my kind to the M’hir, of trapping our thoughts within flesh. So what else could it be?
For no particular reason, I remembered Sector Chief Lydis Bowman, the Trade Pact Enforcer whose intervention had likely saved both Morgan and me from the plans of the Clan Council and my father, Jarad di Sarc. I could almost picture her round, stern face, wrinkled around the eyes and corners of the lips as though equally ready to grin or scowl on an instant’s notice. She and her Constables had taken the risk of having experimental mind-deadening devices implanted directly at the base of their brains in order to protect themselves from possible Clan influence.
Now, as I looked around the very small space that was my prison, its walls soft pink and inclined to bulges more than corners, I found myself wondering for the first time if the Humans had invented that particular technology or purchased it—and if the latter, from whom.
I settled myself back on the bed. The Drapsk might be impervious to my other sense, but a seeking within the range of this ship might net me a mind I could touch.
Or more than one. Whew! The Makmora was no longer alone in space and no longer populated only by the Drapsk. I rubbed my forehead, blinking furiously, trying unsuccessfully to ease the painful impact of several hundred minds on mine. There was a cosmopolitan flavor to the confusion outside, making me quite certain that several different species were nearby, specifically on another ship limpeted to this one by prearrange ment, not in attack.
Which was both good and bad—considering the clearest images I’d received suggested the Makmora was clamped lovingly to a very large, very well-populated pirate.
“The mechanism must have been stuck, O Mystic One,” groveled the Drapsk who opened my door a short time later. His antennae were almost twisted about each other in what I charitably took to be sincere distress. “We should have provided you with a com system to use. I will see to it personally—”
Before the Drapsk could leave me on its worthy mission, a move sure to mean letting go of the door currently held open in its right hand, I lunged forward and took hold of the handle myself. “Thank you,” was all I bothered to say on my way out.
“O Mystic One. My apologies about your door,” Captain Maka began. “It—”
“Must have stuck,” I finished for him. “While I’ll be grateful for the com system your crew mentioned, I’d really prefer not to have this occur again, Captain.”
There was a concerted round of tentacle sucking at this, a general response from the bridge crew who continued to take a great deal of interest in my conversations with their Captain.
“Of course, O Mystic One,” Maka said in that very reasonable voice of his, antennae slightly dipped my way as if seeking more information about my frame of mind.
This time I saw where the bridge seating came from as three stoollike objects budded up from the floor upon coaxing by a Drapsk crewman, offering perches overlooking the rest of the bridge to myself, Maka, and his first officer. I’d missed it before, being too busy trying not to faint. Fainting was not part of my expectations of this visit to the Makmora’s bridge. Answers definitely were.
I seated myself, placing my hands on my knees and then interlacing my fingers into as magical-looking an arrangement as I could comfortably maintain, having no reason to assume the Drapsk would miss such a detail. Which one? Ah, there was a shift change occurring at the com post. I focused on the Drapsk waiting to take his post, pointed my entwined fingers at him in what I hoped was a suitably magical gesture, and pushed . . .
The crewman vanished with satisfying promptness, providing the first piece of information I needed. It was something about my room, then, that inhibited my use of the M’hir. My Talent was potent enough here.
And every Drapsk on the bridge appeared to know it, too. Every plume was aimed in my direction, a focusing of attention I suddenly had absolutely no doubt was a reaction to my use of the M’hir, as I grew equally convinced the Drapsk were the source of the mind-deadening technologies used by the Enforcers. Yet the small beings had no presence in the M’hir, something I quickly tested again. What were they? Did they know about the M’hir or was t
his some type of instinct? Serious questions, I realized, unsure if I wanted the answers or the complications they implied.
“Had Makoori displeased you, O Mystic One?” Maka asked in a faint voice, antennae vibrating furiously.
Since said Makoori immediately reappeared, almost falling out of the nearest lift as its doors opened, the question seemed moot, but I wasn’t about to lose any momentum with the credulous Drapsk. “You’ve all displeased me, Captain Maka. I came on this ship in good faith—only to be imprisoned while you dock with strangers. I feel my good name endangered,” I asserted, warming up to the tirade. “I feel my very existence endangered! How can I perform at the Ceremony on Drapskii in this state?”
They could have been slightly bizarre lawn ornaments for all the movement occurring through the next long moments. Perhaps the tips of various antennae fluttered. I relaxed, letting the Drapsk do whatever they needed to do in order to converse privately, hopefully having made my point.
“It was not our intention to alarm you, O Mystic One,” Captain Maka spoke finally, one four-fingered hand warm on mine. It was the first voluntary touch I’d experienced from a Drapsk, the ministrations of the med aside, and I immediately tried Morgan’s method to see if I could read the being’s thoughts. Nothing.
“Then what was your intention, Captain?” I asked coolly. “And to what ship are you clamped?”
“The ss-ship is-s the Nokraud, Fem,” hissed a new voice familiar enough to send an answering shiver down my spine. As I whirled to look at the intruder entering the Makmora’s bridge from the second lift, accompanied by a trio of Human-looking guards, I felt as though time had reversed itself—and not in my favor. “And the intentions-ss of your hossts-ss mussst have been to hide you from us-ss.”
I knew that body plan, similar to mine in size and shape but built with a predator’s abrupt agility. A pair of thin, tall crests rose from its snout to forehead, curling like a frame behind each forward-pointing eye. The crests were a mottled purple and yellow, the colors more like stains than natural pigmentation. The scaled snout, tilted down to better examine me as I remained seated, bore irregular knuckle-sized knobs along its length. Each of those eyes holding me pinned were bigger than my fist, with jet-black pupils slicing their gleaming yellow in half. The last individual of this species I’d encountered, Roraqk, murdered with less compunction than a cat, viewed primates as less-than-palatable entrées, and kidnapped me for a renegade Clansman. This being could have been Roraqk’s twin, save for the smooth curl of a stump marking the loss of most of its left arm. In an attempt to kill Morgan, Roraqk had used his ship as a weapon, casually ripping open a space station and killing dozens of innocents as well as most of his own crew in the process.
I saw no reason to assume any differing tendencies in the individual before me.
Or, I observed with a sinking feeling, in the second one stalking out of the other lift, frills pulsing with color.
INTERLUDE
Let me come with you. Barac witnessed the intensity of his mindsend in the darkening of Rael’s eyes as she turned to look at him. She easily held his urgency at bay.
“It is not necessary,” his cousin answered coolly, choosing to speak. Perhaps, Barac thought bitterly to himself, she preferred to avoid mental touch with a sud, especially one unChosen and an exile. “Stay here. Tend your bar.”
Barac spoke aloud as well, glad of Rael’s attention at least, though smarting over her casual flick of fingers at their surroundings, the currently deserted gaming area of the Spacer’s Haven. “This place?” he protested. “It’s Sira’s joke at my expense, nothing more. You can’t think I planned to stay here.”
Her gesture turned into the more gracious finger patterning of mollification and apology. “Forgive me, Cousin. I assumed this was what you sought when you left Camos.”
“What I sought,” Barac said slowly, holding her gaze with his, daring to send an underlying emphasis of power into the M’hir, “what I still seek, is justice.”
“Ah, yes,” Rael said, tilting her head thoughtfully. “Your hunt for those behind Kurr’s murder. Were your answers here?”
“Sira knows. She didn’t tell me.” Barac paused for a moment, then added honestly: “She might have—if things had gone better.”
Rael hesitated as well, raising his hopes. He’d caught up with her just as she’d been leaving for the shipcity, a choice of travel suited to secrecy from their own kind, despite the inconvenience. Her transport waited outside the Haven and her hood was already pulled up over her head: as much to confuse any observers, he supposed, as for protection from the evening’s rain. Rael wasn’t fond of uncontrolled weather. Actually, neither was he.
“If I come with you,” Barac coaxed, “we might be able to catch up to Sira.”
Rael smiled without warmth. “A chase we’ve run before, Cousin, without much success, if I remember. I’m going home, not hunting.” Before he could speak, she added in a low voice, “If it helps your search for justice, Barac, I can tell you that Kurr’s murderer, Yihtor di Caraat, has been dropped into the M’hir. He died three weeks ago, according to my source. They—the Council—tried to keep his body alive, to preserve his power in some way,” her generous lips twisted as if around an unpleasant taste. “Fortunately, Faitlen’s pet toad was unable to accomplish this feat, and Fem di Caraat dispatched her son’s remains personally.”
Barac put his hand on the back of the nearest chair, shutting down his awareness of the M’hir, slamming tight every barrier he possessed. Against Rael it might be enough. “Baltir again,” he said, drawing on his Scout’s training for that carefully neutral voice.
The Clanswoman’s eyes narrowed. “Why have you closed to me?”
Barac felt her power at the edge of his own; not a pressure, an exploration. “The memory is—painful,” he said. “We told you what happened that night in the Chamber. How the Council tried to force Sira into Choice with me, and when she refused to kill me by the attempt, they brought in that—creature. It promised to be able to impose some kind of physical bonding with Yihtor, something to—” he strangled on the words. From her expression, he didn’t need to elaborate.
“Games,” she spat. “They broke the Prime Laws and played with all our lives.”
“You can see why I don’t care to relive it.”
“All this is true, Barac, but not the truth.” Rael stepped closer, pushing back her hood so her eyes caught the light. Their expression was strange, as though she found something in him to fear, unlikely as that was. “You knew about Yihtor already,” she concluded, surprise in her voice. “Was that why you made your decision to leave Camos? Knowing he was out of your reach?”
Barac shook his head, checking the strength of his mental walls. Dangerous, conversing with the more powerful. They frequently took offense at suds who tried for secrets. His purpose was greater than any accustomed caution. “I decided when I was refused Choice for the last time,” he insisted. “That’s when I knew there was no longer a place for me under the Council’s rule.”
Rael was definitely alarmed now. “You’re trying to lie to me. Why?”
“How could I dare such a thing?” Barac taunted, glorying in being unafraid for the first time in his life of a superior power. How far could he push her for reaction? he wondered to himself.
Her voice hardened. “Hasn’t being scanned once been enough pain for you, sud?”
Barac shrugged, allowing his defiance to leak past his shielding to trouble the M’hir touching them both. “Sira I can understand. What would be your excuse for lawbreaking, Rael di Sarc? Why do you care so much about why I came to Pocular? What secrets are you holding tight?”
The air whooshed past his ears to fill the space where the Clanswoman had stood an instant before, speechless, her delicate features drained of blood. He’d rarely seen so clear an expression of guilt and remorse in his life.
Rael should never gamble.
The trouble was, why? He’d stirred up something u
nexpected.
Barac realized he was still gripping the chair’s back. He gave it a hard shove, sending it spinning into the nearest table, knocking the smoketrays and other glassware to the floor.
Maybe if he stirred enough pots, the truth he sought would finally rise to the surface.
Chapter 14
GRACKIK and Rek were their names, the former pirate being the one who’d lost an arm and the latter prone to flexing the corresponding taloned hand each time they stood in proximity as if it enjoyed making the comparison. Their voices and mannerisms were otherwise identical. For no particular reason—certainly their anatomy gave no obvious clues—I concluded they were both female.
And, despite the threat of their presence, I also concluded I was not currently on their menu. The Drapsk, it seemed, were good customers. But of what?
“You see, O Mystic One, it is merely business. You should not be alarmed.” This assurance had been repeated rather frequently by my new companion, the comtech Makoori. The Drapsk was basking in the glory of having been part of my “magic” in front of his kin, and had attached himself to me ever since.
I kept my shields up, my expression pleasantly neutral, and refused to budge from the Makmora’s bridge or even my stool, hard as it was becoming. Roraqk’s kind—called the Sakissishee to their snouts (the true name being so long and sibilant few others could manage it) and Scats when safely out of range—was a species even the unusually broad-minded Morgan refused to trade with, since Scats were firmly convinced all others existed as either food or disposable commodities. They would have constituted a serious threat to other species, had more than a handful ever left their cinder of a world. It also helped that they competed fiercely with each other at every opportunity, with cannibalism rumored to be quite acceptable on the winner’s part.
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