With the exception of the Council.
All were silent, inside and out, the only sounds the breathing and occasional movements of close to a thousand individuals. All stood motionless, children to adults, their eyes focused on where we stood—not in challenge, but in curiosity. There were Choosers here. I felt their uneasy power, but it was oddly dimmed, as though muted by some need beyond Choice, or, more likely, overwhelmed within the presence of so many others. It was enough to warn the unChosen. I saw them, Barac as well, clustered at the far side of the gathering. The M’hir itself seemed subdued, perceptible only as the faintest of traces.
I didn’t know what—or who—had summoned the Clan here, but I was glad of it.
“Here they come,” I said for those blind to the M’hir, feeling the surge of power as the Council announced itself.
Eight robed and hooded figures winked into place, standing before us on the carpeting, plus two more: Ica di Teerac, First Chosen of her House, and Ru di Mendolar.
The hoods were tossed back on shoulders, revealing faces I knew very well indeed, the most powerful Talents from their families: the First Chosen of Lorimar and Su’dlaat; the rest Clansmen, Sawnda’at, Mendolar, Friesnen, and Teerac; the last two my enemies in truth: Faitlen di Parth and my father, Jarad di Sarc.
They all stared around the factory floor, as if transfixed by the reality of what their inner sense must have told them was happening. Crisac di Friesnen gave a faint gasp.
“Greetings, Councillors,” Bowman said cheerfully. She had a way of projecting her voice, quite startling given her rather small, sturdy frame.
She caught their attention, all but one. Jarad, as foremost in power, spoke as his right—but to me.
“What is this?” he demanded. “What have you done?”
“Greetings, Father,” I said, making the appropriate power gesture in recognition of my equal. “This gathering? Wasn’t it ordered by the Council?” The gibe let me touch his thoughts on the deepest of levels. This time, Jarad, I need not keep your secrets. Morgan and I are safe from you now.
“Greetings, First Chosen of di Sarc,” he answered, smoothing his voice into something almost pleasant, his craggy features carefully noncommittal. “And our welcome to your Chosen.” This with a gracious gesture to Morgan.
It was a tactic. Acknowledging Morgan as my Chosen, here among all of our Human-phobic kind, was asking for a riot. I hadn’t thought him willing to risk that loss of control, not with the Enforcers present. My eyes narrowed. Take care, Jarad, I warned.
But, surprisingly, the crowd remained quiescent, as if what drew them here had nothing to do with Morgan or my private war with the Council.
Jarad bowed to Bowman. “And greetings to you as well, Sector Chief Bowman. And your warriors. Who might these be?” A wave at Bowman’s other guests.
“Board Member Cartnell,” said one, a Human male, tall and thin for his kind, slightly stooped as though accustomed to talking to smaller beings. He indicated his companion, the light scaling on her cheeks indicating she was possibly Papiekian, though that race had so many subspecies it was difficult to tell with any certainty. “Board Member Sta’gli.”
Board Members. These individuals spoke for their entire species on Trade Pact issues. I made the gesture of respect and saw most of the Councillors and other Clan follow suit without hesitation. We’d always, I thought to myself with some cyni cism, been quick to identify true power when we saw it. Jarad delayed perhaps a second. Faitlen’s hands remained still.
“What is your interest here?” he said rudely, going so far as to step forward. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Morgan casually flex a wrist—a move that loosened his throwing knife in its hidden sheath. “We are not members of your Pact! We are the M’hiray!”
“Two-o Board members may invite a-iy new species into-o the Pact,” Member Sta’gli said in a soft, singsong voice. “We are here to-o convey that invitation to-o the M’hiray-oo.” Though begun almost in a whisper, the voice was immediately amplified by some hidden means, carrying well over our heads to reach everyone present. There would be no hiding that offer from the Clan, I thought. From Bowman’s satisfied look, her side had brought some interesting tech.
Faitlen having broken Council protocol, Degal di Sawnda’at didn’t hesitate to follow suit. “We have no homeworld, Board Members,” he said bluntly. “This—” he gestured around himself, “—is the sum of our population. Why would you offer us membership? Where would be your gain—or ours?”
“Your gain would be what we all find within the Pact,” Member Cartnell said equally bluntly. “Protection from interference by others; trade; and the right to call on the resources of other members when you need assistance.”
“Our gain, Councillor, is to-o increase the diversity of the Pact.” Member Sta’gli’s tone took on a definite ring of menace. “And as members, you would agree to-o cease your interference with other species and to-o protect the rights of your own. This is a-iy more desirable solution than other options which present themselves.”
“What interference?” Degal demanded. “We have no interest in other species.” Several other Councillors nodded agreement, Faitlen emphatically.
The crowd remained still. I found myself picking out familiar faces. They might have been statues—or, I thought with an uneasy memory, Retians waiting for a summons.
“That is not quite true.” I hadn’t expected this stern admission to come from Jarad.
What are you up to? I sent.
Patience, that powerful, familiar voice said in my thoughts. I clamped down my shields.
“We of the M’hiray have harbored a criminal among us,” Jarad said loudly, as if taking on the role of evangelist to the already converted. “A fiend who has dared tamper with the core of what we are—to bypass the Power-of-Choice and the rights of Choosers—to sell our flesh to species who lack our gifts!”
Jarad had the stage, I had to admit, looking around at a thoroughly spellbound audience. Perhaps not wholly so. Ica di Teerac was frowning at her son-by-Choice. They’d always disagreed, she’d told me once, even when he was fostered away from her for the first years. And Morgan had that loose, balanced look which meant he was ready to dive in any direction should it be necessary.
And Faitlen di Parth looked positively ashen. “What are you talking about, Jarad?” he began.
“You should know, Faitlen di Parth,” Jarad said calmly. He gestured to Bowman. “This Human does have the evidence to prove what you’ve done with the aid of the Retians, does she not?” His voice rose again, power cutting under every word until what he said rang through the mind as well as through the ears. “Do you deny it? Do you deny stealing reproductive tissue from Sira di Sarc, my daughter, in order to attempt to grow—to grow!—some type of copy of her? Do you deny tricking Clanswomen from your own House into taking part in your schemes, so you might be the one to benefit?” Aha, I thought to myself, Faitlen’s fatal mistake plain before me. No one tricked Jarad and survived it. From the look on Faitlen’s face, he knew it as well as I did.
“And dare you,” Jarad had continued, “dare you deny taking Choosers from the safety of your own House only to have them die for one of your experiments?”
“Are you challenging me?” Faitlen asked in a shrill, desperate voice. “Are you? When it was—”
“I challenge!” Jarad roared, his voice like a dim echo of the deadly force he projected into the M’hir.
It was over in an instant. Faitlen crumpled to the carpet, a shocked look on his face as his mind exploded from within, abandoning the needs of his body. When Terk and ’Whix moved as though to help, Degal stopped them with a brusque: “He has already died.” What remained of Faitlen disappeared, discarded into the M’hir, most likely by Degal himself.
There was a disturbance in the hitherto motionless audience of Clan, individuals moving away to expose Faitlen’s Chosen as she writhed on the damp floor, her soaked clothes making patterns as she rolled in helpless agony. T
hen she, too, was gone, granted mercy by someone from her House, her body following her mind into the void.
I looked at Jarad di Sarc, knowing what he had done and why. There was only one way he could have made those so-accurate and damning accusations. He had known. He had been the one to send Faitlen after what Jarad considered his: my power and progeny. He met my eyes; in his I saw only implacable purpose.
Well, I thought to myself, I have my own.
Bowman coughed lightly. “There is also the matter of kidnapped Human telepaths, Councillors. Do any of you have—revelations to make about that?”
Ica stood straighter. If anything, Ru di Mendolar appeared as though she’d like to sink into the carpet. She’d looked at me once, then stared at Morgan almost hungrily. Now she kept her eyes down and her power dampened. “I do, Enforcer, Board Members,” Ica said. “It was my intention to counter the destructive path our Council was taking; to find other ways to our survival. We thought, in the Choice of Sira di Sarc for this Human, we had found such a way.
“I wish you to understand—you especially, Captain Morgan—that though we did take these individuals from their homes against their will, they were offered the chance to participate, or to leave with their memory of us removed. Two chose to leave.” I saw Bowman’s satisfied nod; she preferred things tidy, I’d noticed. I also imagined she would very soon be looking for those two and didn’t envy them. Then, a quick guarded thought from Morgan echoed my own: Had these been the source of Ren Symon’s knowledge?
“The rest,” Ica concluded, “wished to stay.”
“What were you offering?” Morgan asked. I wished he’d kept silent—any attention from the Council now could force our hand—but I understood.
“Why, power, of course? What else would they want? What else did you want?”
Fortunately, Morgan didn’t reply. I wasn’t sure what he could have said that Ica would understand.
“What they got from you, Clanswoman, was mindlessness,” Bowman accused. “If this was such a failure, why did you keep trying?”
Ru’s eyes flashed up. “It wasn’t a failure! We were able to transfer the Power-of-Choice to several of the Humans. It wasn’t much, but enough to prove the Choosers could, with the Humans’ help, gain some control. No one was damaged. They were healthy—sane! Someone interfered. Someone didn’t want us to succeed.”
I didn’t bother looking at Jarad. You gave them my list, I sent almost without emotion. And you made sure they’d fail.
“We shall investigate the matter, Enforcer, Members,” Jarad said smoothly, words overlaying the sending just to me: There can be no contamination of the M’hir. You will learn, Daughter.
“No,” I said out loud, “I think you will.” I summoned my strength—sparing an instant to be thoroughly grateful for the med’s tender care—and concentrated, pulling what waited just outside into this place . . .
A peacefully humming machine, nearly the size of Huido, appeared at the empty end of the carpet, surrounded by Drapsk, including Copelup. Their antennae were erect with delight. It might have been from traveling through the M’hir, however short the distance, but I suspected it had more to do with being surrounded by Mystic Ones. This would definitely result in some gripstsa, hopefully much later.
“We are not alone,” I said, stepping away from Morgan to stand near the Drapsk, relying on Bowman’s devices to carry my voice to everyone here, pitching my power to do the same. “We are not alone here and now. Four billion Humans and other beings inhabit Camos. Countless more share this part of space with us.
“And we are not alone in the M’hir. These are Drapsk. Their species not only exists partially within that place we’ve assumed was ours, their scientists understand it well enough to explore it with machines like this one.
“Maka, Makoori,” I said quietly. The two Drapsk assumed the gripstsa posture with its echo within that other space. Then louder, to the Clan: “Reach to them. What do you sense?” The audience might have been silent, but it was attentive. I saw an expression at last on those watching faces: awe.
“Copelup?”
The Skeptic turned on his machine. It was a cobbled-together version of his M’hir viewing tube, borrowing from some Human display technology and definitely untested. I crossed my fingers surreptitiously.
The projection formed over our heads. It was—I gasped with the rest—it was the M’hir, the way we saw it within our minds. There were the bands of power looping back and forth to this world.
And there was what I’d hoped and feared: along one of those bands moved a group of, for want of a better word, grazers. Other things moved through the view too quickly to decipher. It was as well. They were disturbing enough as glimpses.
“That will be all, thank you,” I told the Drapsk rather breathlessly.
Then I looked out at my kind again, aware of the Councillors and others at my back but no longer concerned with them. “We are part of this place. We are a part—and only a part—of the M’hir. The way we have chosen to live, to be separate, to exclude others, is an illusion.
“You know who I am,” I said. “Here is what I am.”
With that, I dropped every shield I possessed, opening my thoughts to them all, revealing everything: what had happened, what I’d felt. I hid nothing, not my caring for Morgan, not my mistakes, and certainly not what I knew of Jarad di Sarc. I refused to allow any shields to stand in my way, driving my thoughts outward with all of my so-vaunted power. It was an outpouring such as none of them had ever experienced before.
Let them make of me what they would.
INTERLUDE
Barac reeled under the impact of events and emotion, his head spinning after the rapid onslaught of so much power and so much information. What was Sira, that she could affect them all at will? How had the M’hiray produced such an individual and not known it?
The answer was there, in the memories she’d shared. There were those who had known, the same who refused to see Sira as anything but the future of their kind, blind to all that insisted an unmatchable Chooser would be its ending.
The death of Kurr, the one as responsible for his murder as Yihtor—that answer was also in these new thoughts, given to him freely as to everyone here.
Barac felt his lips pull back from his teeth. Jarad di Sarc.
With the understanding and the righteous anger came the dose of common sense Sira meant him to have. Jarad di Sarc had never been his to deal with . . .
He was Sira’s.
Chapter 60
I SLAMMED down my shields when I was done, rather surprised not to have been attacked while so utterly vulnerable. It had been a trap of sorts. Morgan had been ready to protect me—by mind or, as likely, by the simple expedient of his knives.
But then, my enemies—my enemy—knew as well as I that simply sharing what I knew would never be enough to harm him. We were too used to our independence, too accustomed to letting others handle the big problems.
“I call for a Council Vote,” I shouted. “A Vote to accept the invitation to join the species of the Trade Pact—to ask them for help in solving the crisis facing the M’hiray.”
The crowd, so mute until now, began to shout in echoes: “A Vote!” “Join the Pact!” “Down with the Council!” and other cries until the overlapping confusion made it impossible to make out anything more than a dull roar.
“Jarad di Sarc,” I asked, “will you call the Vote?”
He lost none of his confidence, none of his hauteur as he looked down at me for a long moment. I see and glory in your power, Daughter, he sent. A shame you have perverted it. Such waste.
I didn’t bother answering in kind. “Call the Vote.”
Knowing the Clan as well as I, he waved a graceful hand. The voices ceased. “I call a Vote from the Council of the Clan,” Jarad ordered. “It must be unanimous to carry weight,” he explained to Bowman. “We are not a democracy.”
“Wait!”
This cry came from the audience. I t
hink we were so used to their presence by now it startled us to be reminded these were all individuals. A group of three came pushing toward us. It was Rael and Pella, the former carrying an ancient weapon and the latter with an empty keffle-flute case slung over one shoulder. Between them, they urged a young Clanswoman toward the carpet.
“This is Tle di Parth,” Rael announced with a triumphant look at me. “It took some doing to get her to come forward, but here she is.”
“My daughters,” Jarad greeted them sardonically. Pella looked afraid but determined; Rael looked like some avenging goddess of war, hair lifted like a banner. Righteous wrath suited her, I thought, although I doubted the heirloom in her hands would actually work. “And what has Tle to do with the Council? As you can all feel, she remains a Chooser.” The unChosen certainly knew, having backed well away.
“Tle is the most powerful member of her House with the death of Faitlen di Parth and his Chosen.”
Morgan’s approval washed over me toward Rael. She glanced at him with surprise, then smiled ever-so-slightly before turning a much sterner face to Jarad. “You must have eight for a valid Vote, Father, or had you conveniently forgotten?”
Tle raised her head, her vivid green eyes intense in that childlike face. Her body, adult-sized but not yet mature, was rigid. She was, I recalled, one of the older Choosers, almost forty standard years of age, and potentially another who would have difficulty finding a Candidate for her Choice. “There is no law against having a Chooser on Council. Only,” she said scornfully, “habit.”
“Very well. Do you accept Tle di Parth on Council?” Jarad asked the others. I sensed their probes testing her power. There was no doubt in my mind and shortly none in any others’.
“We welcome Tle di Parth to Council,” Degal said. “Let us proceed. I vote to accept.”
I nodded. It was his son, Larimar, who through my memories he had lost twice over to Jarad’s scheming.
The others were quick to follow suit, Tle casting her first vote as a Councillor without hesitation.
Ties of Power (Trade Pact Universe) Page 46