My father moved forward and I drew a deep breath as the spell was broken. “What’s wrong?” he said, stepping down from his level to mine. “Why does your stasis block remain in place?”
“Why shouldn’t the blockage remain?” I snarled. “You put it there, didn’t you! Why?”
Jarad put up one hand to silence me, then came close to where I sat and lifted both his hands to the top of my head before I could utter a protest. Instantly, I was afloat, suspended just like the lights glowing before my eyes. A breath later, I was freed.
Jarad paced in and out of shadows, flickering in and out of sight. I stayed still, holding the stone bench with my hands, checking my shields. They were intact. So what could he have touched in my mind to disturb him? What was happening?
Jarad stopped, only the edge of his dull red robe, three crisp pleats’ worth, in the light. “Who tampered with you?” he said. “Who removed the initial layer?”
“A friend tried to help me,” I said, careful and afraid.
“Helped?” The lights in the room dimmed then brightened. Jarad paid no attention; his eyes blazed at me. “What kind of help do you call it when it ruins everything! Sira, how could this happen after you convinced us! There were protections—” he choked, then went on: “Who removed it? No Clan would dare tamper with stasis—”
“No Clan did.” The form of my life couldn’t shift again like this, couldn’t change before my eyes. “I convinced you?” I said faintly.
“Of course,” Jarad said impatiently, bending forward. The light fought shadows for the right to reveal his expression and failed. “Do you think I’d have agreed otherwise? You argued Cenebar and me to the wall. Oh, he was easy enough to persuade, soft-headed old fool. I told you it was too great a risk, but you wouldn’t listen. No one ever attempted to lock stasis release to Joining before, to bind a mind past the moment of Choice. Impossible to test, you said, how could you prove it, except by putting yourself—”
“Wait a minute. You’re saying I helped block my own mind?” I said, playing out the dream, a stupor closing on all my thoughts. “I destroyed myself? Why? What drove me to this? I don’t remember!”
“An interesting development, Jarad.” The newcomer’s voice hit with the force of a blow. Every portlight flared, scouring shadows and squinting the eyes of the white-robed Clansman who stood in the doorway at the highest point of the gallery.
“You aren’t welcome in my home, Faitlen,” Jarad said with a voice that shivered along my spine. “How dare you come in here—”
The shorter Clansman worked his meandering way around the carvings on their pedestals, his sandaled feet making loud slapping sounds as he stepped down each level. “I requested admittance, Jarad.” Faitlen waved a disparaging hand at the unusual lights. “It’s hardly my fault if you ignore your own alarms. As for your welcome, I don’t seek it. The Council has its own interests to protect, in case you’ve forgotten—”
“You’d be wiser to protect yourself, eavesdropper. No one would grieve your passing from Camos.”
I didn’t need my father’s barely-leashed rage to make me wary of the man. The narrow-featured Faitlen reminded me of Morgan’s story of a shopkeeper he’d met on Plexis. The shopkeeper had had four arms, two of which he liked to use to sneak merchandise off the counter before it could be counted.
This Faitlen had two arms, both in sight, but I distrusted him. The power he’d broadcast in greeting was no match for what I sensed emanating from Jarad, and certainly couldn’t explain his confident air. It was as if he held some leverage or threat no less potent for my father’s refusal to acknowledge it.
Faitlen came to a stop at the end of my bench. Jarad glowered down at him from the opposite side. I had to slide back in order to see both their faces. “So good to see you freed from the heavy burdens of a Chooser at long last, daughter of di Sarc,” the Clansman said graciously. “The Council will be pleased all went so very well. I assume by his absence that the Human failed to survive?”
The Human? I hadn’t braced myself in time for another shock. I couldn’t move or speak, even to demand answers. All the while, my inner warnings screamed of the danger of showing too much reaction before these two.
Faitlen drew his own interpretation of my silence. He tugged at the edges of the vest he wore over his robe with an air of satisfaction. “Just as well, though Cenebar will doubtless have some complaint or other,” he said. “Didn’t I say, Jarad, that the Human’s death was the most likely outcome of Sira’s Commencement?”
Jarad growled deep in his throat, his eyes fierce points of light. “Now is not the time for this, Faitlen. Sira must go to Cenebar immediately.”
“An interesting development indeed, Jarad,” Faitlen repeated. “A mind in stasis after Choice and Commencement must surely be unique. And must be discussed by Council. Which gives you little time, Jarad,” his smile turned spiteful. “Council convenes at the third quarter.” Faitlen shimmered and disappeared.
“How does he know about Morgan?” I blurted, unable to contain myself.
I wasn’t prepared for my father’s chuckle either. The lights gentled to a glow. “Poor Sira,” he said almost sadly, sitting beside me on the bench, settling his robe neatly and dropping his arm onto my shoulders in a brief gesture of comfort. “I don’t know—yet—exactly what’s happened, or what you think has been happening, but the Human named Jason Morgan was the key to it all. I was about to ask you his fate myself before that misChosen fool interrupted us.”
So much for Rael’s concern about secrecy. Or was she part of this? “Morgan is fine—as far as I know,” I said, torn between frustration at being so confused and a growing certainty that being confused might be vastly preferable to understanding.
“Interesting.”
I stiffened. “I know, Father, how the Clan treats Humans who learn too much of its affairs. Jason Morgan is my Choice, if not my Chosen. I won’t let you hurt him.”
“Ahh.” A cat’s satisfaction, an audible purr to Jarad’s voice, as if something in my quick speech had pleased him. The strange lights answered to his mood again, warming from yellow to rose. “Some success, at least.”
“Success? You sound like this was all some kind of game,” I said. “Whose success? Not mine.”
“But it is yours, Sira.” Jarad’s smile widened as he looked down at me. “And so perhaps success for us all. Come. Let’s go to Cenebar and see if he can pry those buried memories loose for us.” His face tightened, its harsh lines suddenly grim. “We may need them.”
“Wait a minute. You’re pleased I’ve Chosen a Human?” I demanded incredulously. “What about Yihtor?”
“Yihtor. A problem we’d all believed dead and gone. From what little I’ve heard, he tried very hard, and unsuccessfully,to interfere. What other fantasies have you hidden under this stuff?” One of his hands smoothed the hair back from my forehead. A tendril lifted and clung to his arm for a fleeting moment. “Trust me, firstborn of my household. Surely you have some recollection of me.”
I stood, accepting the hand my father offered to help, releasing it immediately. “Nothing that involves trust, Jarad di Sarc.” I met his eyes and nodded more to myself than to him. “But I’ll come with you.”
I had to. I couldn’t hide in Sira Morgan any longer. I had to know Sira di Sarc. It had nothing to do with curiosity or desire. What I was beginning to imagine was so unbearable, I had to prove myself wrong.
Chapter 34
“UNIQUE, Jarad, truly unique. You know I’ve been keeping the most careful records.” From his glowing eyes to the restless movement of his extraordinarily long fingers, the Clan Healer, Cenebar di Teerac, radiated intense delight. His pleasure spilled over in power as well, pulling an answering smile from me.
My father was less amused. “Council convenes, Cenebar. You know how they’ll react if you can’t clear Sira’s block.”
The healer stopped circling me and dropped into a chair opposite my father. His gray-peppered black hair slipped in fr
ont of his eyes and he pushed it behind his ears absently. He seemed quite surprised by Jarad’s harsh tone. “Why so grim, old friend?” he said. “Although I’ve never seen nor heard of a partial stasis—or partial Choice involving a Human for that matter,” a conspiratorial wink at me. “The solution is straightforward. Sira’s release mechanism was within the initial layer. This layer will have left its image in the mind of the Human, Morgan. He can restore it in Sira’s.”
“And what good will that do? If the total block is restored, Sira will lose what fraction of power and memory she’s regained!” Jarad rose impatiently from his seat, towering over the slender healer. “Faitlen, that crasnig, is already drooling in anticipation of the disgrace to our House!”
“Tsh,” Cenebar replied calmly. I sensed his confidence; I saw no reason to share it. “I wish you wouldn’t jump to conclusions before I’m finished, Jarad. First, Sira must fulfill her Choice, no matter how she managed to prevent this from happening up until now. A remarkable achievement, Sira.”
“I had to protect Morgan—” I started to say, but Cenebar dismissed my interruption with a knowing look at my father.
“Sira’s Power-of-Choice must finish its attempt to Join with the Human through the M’hir. Then, with the block restored, Sira’s own trigger will automatically free her mind and restore its normal full function, including her memory. Truly an elegant solution,” Cenebar directed this last at me, his green eyes calm and reassuring under their bushy brows.
I’d wanted help. I was being offered my worst fear instead. “What happens to Morgan, if this Joining you want takes place and restores me?” I demanded, eyeing them both. “I want to know what happens to him.”
Before Cenebar could answer, my father stepped in quickly—too quickly, I thought. “Don’t you want to be whole again, to consummate your Choice?”
“Not if Morgan is the price!” I sought some sign of understanding on their faces, knowing it was futile. “Morgan isn’t Clan. What you’re talking about has nothing to do with him. That place, the M’hir, how can he survive there!” I lowered my voice. “What Morgan feels isn’t based on some outlandish instinct. He loves me.” Which is more than you do, I finished to myself.
“How Human of him,” Jarad said quite seriously, as if to remind me to pity lesser species. “However, your Joining with Morgan has been planned and must, according to Cenebar, take place. By Ossirus, you selected Morgan yourself—he was the only telepathic Human to satisfy your parameters!”
“My parameters?” I repeated. I didn’t like the sound of that, or what Morgan might have to say about it either.I looked away from Jarad only to be confronted by Cenebar’s well-ordered garden, seeing its straight, unwavering rows as another barrier to making either of them listen to me.
Jarad tapped once, smartly, on the metal tabletop. Reluctantly, I looked at him again. “Why do you think you were taken to Auord, Sira?” he said. “Why do you think you felt compelled to avoid anyone but Morgan, to seek out only his ship, to stay with him? Those implanted thoughts were the guarantees that you’d meet. They were yours!”
“Mine.” I remembered how hard I’d struggled to escape the compulsions, to gain my freedom. It would be really easy to hate Sira di Sarc.
“I’m sorry you’ve somehow become attached to this Human,” Jarad continued. He hesitated, then went on more softly: “You know this experiment means nothing to me compared to your health and well-being—”
“Morgan means nothing to you,” I said flatly. Or to her, I added to myself. That night on Acranam, when Morgan had told me of his fear that Sira di Sarc’s true nature would be the greatest threat to us—he’d been more right than either of us could have known.
My father shrugged. “That is irrelevant. You must be restored. Council won’t accept your refusal to Join the Human when it’s the only way to restore your full capabilities. You’ve no protection, no rights, as long as you remain neither Chooser nor Chosen.”
Ah. So this was the source of Faitlen’s hidden menace. And I’d been wrong to think Jarad impervious; there was a grayness to the stern features, a hollow feel to his power. I probed: “Rael said only Morgan was in danger from the Council.”
“Your sister knows nothing of these matters. None of this could go beyond Council without disastrous effects.”
“Sira,” Cenebar said earnestly, breaking the tension binding me to Jarad. “It took two planet years to persuade the Council to take your ideas seriously.”
“What ideas?” This came out somewhat shrilly. Patience, I told myself. These were reasonably intelligent men. “You’re talking to Sira Morgan, Hom di Teerac,” I reminded him. “I don’t have any ideas, remember?”
Jarad and Cenebar exchanged glances. Perhaps they exchanged more than that, for after a brief second, the healer nodded with visible reluctance. Jarad motioned me to remain seated, then came to stand beside me. Cenebar explained: “Jarad will grant you access to his memories of what has occurred, Sira. Will you accept his touch?”
I hesitated, but there was no real choice. I nodded, then closed my eyes, lowering only the outermost of my mental barriers. Instantly, information flooded my surface thoughts, information sorted and presented with an unemotional clarity that helped me absorb it without the numbing shock I should have felt.
I saw myself, my former self, through Jarad’s eyes. I didn’t know the quiet, bookish scholar, but the face was familiar enough, even viewed from his taller perspective. The computer under her/my hands paraded numbers across its surface. Jarad observed without bothering to understand. His daughter’s passion for numbers, for the obscure sciences of populations and growth, was too unClanlike to be generally acceptable, but harmless. After all, her exile might prove permanent; any hobby would help.
A hobby? During those long years, that Sira had focused on the study of her personal curse: the deadly nature of the so-called “Power-of-Choice” and its place in the life history of the Clan. When her research had exhausted all of the information she could access about living members of the Clan, she had started her quest to see the records from the Stratification and before.
It had taken two decades of argument and persuasion, as well as the convenient death of the most opposed voice on the Council, to crack open the wall of secrecy the Council maintained “for the good of all.” The Sira-I-had-been had devoured the records, much of what she found confirming the predictions from her calculations.
The Stratification itself had been a deliberate attempt to separate those bearing the genetic code for entering the M’hir from those who did not. The Clan had always had Choosers and mental linkage between mated pairs before maturation. But the new breed of Chooser whose abilities were amplified through the M’hir were deadly to any but others of the same ability. It hadn’t taken long for all to realize that candidates for the new Choosers had to be preselected for their own safety.
That Sira had skimmed past the arguments and discussions about the why and how of the separation. What mattered to her was that the Stratification marked not social change among the Clan, but a major force in its evolution as a species. By dispersing the new Choosers and their mates, now calling themselves the M’hiray, from the Homeworld, a new, incompatible species had arisen—a species whose fitness had yet to be proved by time.
Among the information the Council had deemed worth carrying from Homeworld was a detailed geneology for every member of the Clan who had left during the Stratification. They’d been a treasure trove of information to explore.
More years passed as that Sira added all of her research into her population models. The results were alarming. The trend to greater power in Choosers in each successive generation had acted to narrow the number of suitable Choices. Added to this, the Clan had never been a particularly fertile species; families of three children were unusual. The power to manipulate the M’hir was becoming concentrated: pooling in fewer, though stronger individuals, with the remainder of the population excluded from bearing children. Cou
ncil policies regarding Choice and reproduction had only accelerated the process. And this process had one inevitable ending.
Sira dared to make that dreadful conclusion. Not only was there a theoretical limit to how much breeding for power within the M’hir the M’hiray could tolerate and remain viable, but this limit had already been reached. Her existence—my existence—was more than a warning. A Chooser who could not find a mate was the first step on a downward spiral of population decline. There was no escape. The crash was inevitable and the M’hiray were a doomed experiment, not a new species.
Or was it inevitable? This other me had also proposed a solution. Bring the unusable Choosers into the breeding pool. A return to the old ways, of Choosers assessing every unChosen male, was more than unthinkable: at best, it could only slow the decline, and at a cost too terrible to consider by a sentient species.
A dramatic new approach was needed and that Sira naively believed she had one: hybridize with a compatible telepathic humanoid species, Humans themselves perhaps or any species without the Power-of-Choice. The most favorable outcome could be a new race, retaining M’hiray ability to use the M’hir, but freed at last from the deadly consequences of Choice.
At worst, a means might have been found to bring Choosers to Commencement without costing more M’hiray lives. Before Stratification, there had been Commencement without Joining, Clan mates who knew each other only through reality and not through the M’hir. A scandalous, heretical thought to the M’hiray. But in the name of survival, the dwindling numbers could be offset by new breeders, Commenced by contact with aliens, breeders who would hold off the end of their species until a better, more lasting solution could be found. At the very least, the mothers and their offspring could continue to enhance the M’hir for the remaining M’hiray.
I was able to learn all this with remarkable objectivity. Indeed, I found it impossible to identify myself at all with the cold analytical mind Jarad remembered for me; I’d never been this woman who almost casually predicted the death of her kind, and as easily, suggested the potential deaths of others as a solution. Had that Sira been isolated so long that people marched in her mind like those numbers on the screen?
A Thousand Words For Stranger (10th Anniversary Edition) Page 35