But at last they had come, most of them anyway. And now they were listening as a perfectly normal human female whom they had known all her life told them what these “Others” (as the cloud-folk now chose to designate themselves) wanted.
On those ships out there, Katy Romanova said, were not just the mysterious Others; but also humans, and displaced Morthans, and assorted people of other species. And gens—because the Others could see nothing different about gens, to the Others a human was a human was a human.
“How can they travel in ships, if they don’t have bodies?”
That intriguing question was posed by Cab Barrett. The doctor was free to attend this gathering because Rachel Kane, once safely admitted to a modern medical facility, had agreed to let her unborn children be transferred from her body to incubation fields where the three fetuses could develop just as normally as if she had been able to continue her pregnancy.
She had been unwilling to consider that before, because as long as she was property her babies were property too. But that was no longer an issue, and for her safety and theirs the transfer had been made. Now she was recovering, with Dan Archer still hovering protectively at her side as though he could not quite let himself believe no second corporate marshal would arrive and try to take her away.
“Each of them travels in concert with a humanoid, with a corporeal person,” Kerle Marin supplied, and looked at Romanova for confirmation as he spoke. He was finding this experience new and exciting, and not unsettling at all. “It’s not ‘possession’ in the way I’m afraid some of you may be inclined to think about it, though! The Others can be one being, or a billion beings; which, and how many, depends on what seems needed from moment to moment.”
“And just why would such a being bother with trying to help displaced humans, and Morthans who are cast-offs because they lack healing gifts, and gens who’ve escaped from their owners? Especially why would they take responsibility for them, in such numbers that their own planet’s resources can’t keep pace?” That was Cabanne Romanova, speaking calmly because she was too old to be afraid of anything now except harm to her mate or her daughter or her granddaughter. And clearly this fascinating new turn of events did not threaten any of them, so she was enjoying it instead of shrinking from it.
“Because they’re compassionate people and dislike seeing others suffer, is one reason. But also because although you might not think so, living in a body has its advantages.” Lincoln Casey was participating in this set of negotiations openly, instead of covertly as he had done thirteen years earlier. Then his intimacy with Katy had been newly disclosed even to her, and he had been afraid of spoiling it forever before she could discover its possibilities for shared joy; but he had no such fears now. His bond to his wife was solid and tested and secure, and although he still did not relish intrusion on its sanctity by the Others he could tolerate the encroachment without having to fight against Katy’s fear and his own resentment.
“Such as?” Cab Romanova asked. She smiled as she did so, because she liked her daughter’s husband and she no longer bothered to hide that fact.
“Such as being able to operate the controls of a ship. Such as being able to build a ship; or to reactivate ships that have been stored in caverns on Mistworld, for thousands of years since the time when the Others’ ancestors came there.” Casey answered that question, too. It was knowledge he hadn’t possessed until the words came out of his mouth, and he looked toward his wife in astonishment. Of his own volition he asked her, “Did you know that already, Katy?” It didn’t seem possible that she could have picked up something that had bypassed him, while he was serving as her conduit in communicating with the Others; but the information had come to him so matter-of-factly that he wondered if he was expected to possess it already, and had somehow missed it during the turmoil that had been a constant part of this process thirteen years earlier.
“No. I knew they came to Mistworld from somewhere else, that they were colonists too. But I didn’t know until just now why those ships are so obviously not anything a human designed.” Katy smiled. She was excited, probably even more so than Linc was.
“The humans have given us many things, just by living on our world,” Kerle Marin resumed, with a different tone in his voice that left no one in any doubt that the Others were speaking through him now. “But without help from their own kind, they cannot cope with the influx of other noncorporeals that is overwhelming both our world and the other less hospitable ones where the people you call ‘rebels’ have their origin. So we have agreed that that our charges must create a new relationship with other corporeals, such as you humans on Narsai. We had every thought this could be done peacefully—but those of our charges who said that would not be possible, have been proved correct.”
“Is it still important enough to do anyway, even if it can’t be entirely peaceful?” The old philosopher, Trabe Kourdakov, asked that question. He frowned as he did so, because he was not happy about all this in the way that his wife was.
But he was a pragmatist, not an idealist, and he accepted the answer that came to him not from Marin’s throat but from his daughter’s. “Yes, it is,” Katy Romanova announced firmly, her voice clearly expressing another intelligent creature’s thoughts. “Life has not only the right to survive, but the duty to do so. If you did not believe that, your ancestors would not have traveled here from Terra to build this rich society in which you take such justifiable pride. It was a costly business, your histories tell you that. But you would say it was worth the cost, would you not?”
Yes, they would. On that point not one person present could dissent.
It had been many hours since the alien fleet’s arrival. Although she’d had time for some sleep, Katy Romanova was nevertheless worn out when this second assembly of Narsai’s two leadership groups finally adjourned. And she sensed that beside her, Linc was exhausted too; and as for young Maddy, the girl was in Linc’s arms being carried like a three-year-old instead of a leggy young woman of thirteen.
“Do you think if we agree to help these people, these ‘Others’ and the humanoids with them, the Commonwealth will allow us to do that?” Katy’s mother was at her side as they walked out of the conference room. If she was tired, this almost centenarian woman had to be much more so. Yet Cabanne Romanova’s eyes were bright, and Katy had the distinct notion that if she had told her mother the Commonwealth would undoubtedly pound hell out of Narsai for sending its disposable resources somewhere other than the Inner Worlds that answer would not have fazed her.
What she said was, with absolute honesty, “I don’t know, Mum. I suspect they won’t be happy, but leaders like Fleet Admiral Tanaka and Defense Minister Fothingill should remember Mistworld thirteen years ago. If they remember it well enough to take all this seriously—that’s the first step toward dealing with both the Others and the Rebs in a way that won’t be a total disaster.”
And then she yawned, and crawled after Linc into an aircar that would take her little family back to its home at last.
CHAPTER 25
George Fralick was in luck. Traveling at the maximum cruising speed which the corporate marshal’s long range shuttle could muster, he was only a day out from the Narsai system before he encountered a starship.
Here in the reaches between inhabited systems, sending a comm all the way to Terra—or even to New Orient—was not possible. One ship alone could not muster the necessary power, that had to be drawn from a star and it required booster equipment that normally was installed only in planetary orbit. So the captain of the ship that found Fralick and took him aboard had a decision to make.
To head for Narsai, and attempt to deal with the situation there on her own? Or to continue on course toward New Orient, and from there let Fralick report everything he had seen so that higher authorities could determine what should be done next?
Sally Greenberg did what any captain would have done, she ordered her ship to come about. Nine against one? Lousy odds, to be sure, but
unlike the Archangel her ship would have the advantage of knowing what it was sailing into instead of being taken by surprise while in planetary orbit. She’d been in worse fights, and to those people on Narsai it might make all the difference whether help came in a day’s time or in several weeks’ time instead.
It was like an omen, Fralick thought as he stood beside the trim young woman on the bridge of her ship and watched while the viewscreen began to show the first clear images of Narsai’s sun. His first and only command had been named Raven; and that was also the name of this vessel, built years after his Raven had been decommissioned and many times larger and more powerful. But that had been a lucky ship for him then, and he was convinced that this Raven was going to be another lucky ship for him now.
“We’re being hailed by a freighter, Captain,” came a voice from ops. Fralick did something he hadn’t done in years; he came damned close to answering, as if he had forgotten all the time that had passed and once again thought he was in command here.
Greenberg didn’t notice. She said, “On screen, Ensign.”
A grizzled fellow in civvies appeared, and identified himself promptly. “Angstrom, Tor. Wondering if you’re headed into Narsai, Captain…?”
Damn, the bastard was Narsatian. Both the accent and the lack of decent formality even with a Star Service command officer gave him away.
“Greenberg. Commanding Raven,” the Service officer responded with a glimmer of humor in her eyes. Plainly she wasn’t as bothered by Narsatian antics as Fralick was; but then, she hadn’t been subjected to Katy Romanova for the past forty years. “Yes, that’s our destination. I understand that you’ve had some trouble there, Captain Angstrom.”
“We thought so, too, at first. And you Star Service folks aren’t going to be happy, there was a ship lost.” Angstrom was not just Narsatian, he was lower class Narsatian. Barely literate, probably, although he had to know his maths and his sciences or he wouldn’t be able to command anything that was warp-capable. “But I thought you might already have heard something. Some bastard of a stuffed shirt diplomat named Fralick managed to get his tail between his legs and run during the battle—all fifteen minutes of it! And after our people were able to talk to their people, the ones from Mistworld, it got straightened out okay. Looks as if we’ve got new trade opportunities, and a place to settle population overflow so we might not have to be so damned rigid about family size, instead of being about to be conquered and occupied—or just plain blown to hell, the way it looked like for awhile there.”
“I’m Fralick.” To have denied it, or even to have remained decently in the background, was impossible for him right now. Greenberg at first looked surprised, then affronted; and she was within her rights, this was her bridge and the Kesran ambassador should have kept his mouth shut until she gave him leave to speak. But he rushed on, because this was one of the few times in George Fralick’s careful life when he could not control his own mouth. “Yes, I managed to escape before the Rebs shot me up along with the starship they destroyed. And a whole orbital habitat, too, if my instruments were reading correctly. How many human lives was that, Captain Angstrom? At what point will your expanded trade opportunities give you payback for their deaths?”
“Too bad, but the Star Service shot first and the Misties just shot back,” Angstrom responded, not at all abashed to learn that the personage he had just maligned had heard him do so. “Don’t know who hit the habitat. For your information it wasn’t destroyed, although people on it did die—but if we did know whose shot went wild, that couldn’t bring any of them back. Damned shame, of course, but letting a war start over it wouldn’t help anyone either. Just more people dead, is all we’d get for doing that.”
Greenberg braced her shoulders. She was a pretty woman, Fralick had noticed that immediately; willow-slim in a way that Katy never had been, not even before three pregnancies and then retirement had put extra flesh onto her already rather large-boned frame. Yet Katy had always attracted him, she still did whenever he somehow wound up in the same room with her.
Why? He still didn’t know, not even after forty years.
Greenberg was saying, “So you’re telling me I don’t need to rush the rest of the way in and rescue the good people of Narsai, Captain Angstrom? You think they’re all right?”
“Well, ma’am, at least I’d suggest you might want to comm them at Narsai Control as soon as you get within range. They can tell you a lot more than I can, but when I left things seemed to be going along fine. No one tried to shoot at me or keep me from sailing, anyway, and in my experience keeping every ship in harbor is the first thing a real enemy does.” Angstrom gave Greenberg the confidential grin of one old salt to another, and to Fralick’s absolute disbelief Greenberg grinned back.
“Safe journey, Captain,” she said formally. “Ensign, end transmission.” Then without looking at Fralick she added, “Now start hailing Narsai Control. Let me know the minute you get through to them.”
In their bedroom in the little house at the edge of MinTar, Katy Romanova and Lincoln Casey were just waking. It was morning—the second morning since Katy had taken her peaceful walk out to the terrace and had savored the early-autumn beauty of her garden, and had come inside expecting to discard her robe and spend a passionate half-hour in her husband’s arms. Instead Dan Archer had brought Rachel Kane through the front door—George Fralick had called from orbit, demanding a haven for Maddy—and since then, there had been no more peace until just a few hours ago.
They had slept now, until both were rested. When Linc reached out into another of the house’s three small bedrooms and sought Maddy’s mind, he discovered that the little girl was still slumbering soundly.
He let his wife know that. And then, very gently, he reached into her thoughts and he touched painful old memories.
This time she let him. She was ready now, she wanted that last barrier between them to come down at last. And although he was just as outraged as she had known he would be, just as angry with Fralick and just as hurt for her sake, the disgust she had feared never manifested itself in his thoughts.
“You really were scared that I wouldn’t want you anymore, if I knew George forced himself on you and you didn’t kill him for it?” Linc was holding her, her head tucked against his shoulder and their naked bodies pressed as close as if they had just made love. But they hadn’t, and this morning that might not be going to happen as usual—not because of any distaste for the idea on Casey’s part, but because right now Katy Romanova didn’t want even this man to touch her in that most intimate of ways.
She whispered with her voice as well as with her thoughts, “Of course I was. I was a starship captain, for gods’ sake! I should have been able to protect myself, that shouldn’t have happened to me! But it did—and if I’d fought back in the only way that would have worked, I’d have lost Maddy completely. And probably my own life, too, because while a human’s never been ritually executed on Kesra killing my mate would have been apt to make me be the first.”
“And do you really think I wish you’d taken that risk? Either of those risks?” Linc’s hand cradled her head, and his lips brushed tenderly against her hair. “Katy, the only reason I’m the least bit upset with you is that you didn’t tell me about this a long time ago. But Fralick, on the other hand…! The bastard. How could the skipper I looked up to when I was twenty-two years old, have done that to you? Or to any woman, for that matter?”
“He thought because I was his wife, he had that right. I know it sounds crazy, but from the way he acted afterward—as if it was nothing, as if he couldn’t figure out why I was so hurt and so shaken up—I’m sure he really didn’t believe he’d done anything wrong.” Katy sighed, and shifted in her husband’s embrace so that she could look up at him. “‘Just one more time, after hundreds of other times,’ he said.”
“He had to know he’d hurt you.” The golden Morthan eyes that met her human brown ones were grim.
“Yes, he knew that. But he
thought it was my own fault, because I fought him when I should have cooperated. Linc, he’d been a good lover; it may not be decent for me to tell you that, but it’s true.” Katy blinked back tears that until now she hadn’t shed. “When we were young he made me think I was in heaven, and even later on the physical part usually gave me just as much pleasure as it did him. That had nothing to do with why I wanted to divorce him, that last night before I left was the only time in more than twenty years together that he ever took me by force.”
“But that time he did,” Linc answered. “And there’s no excuse, Katy. None. I don’t want to hear about his culture, I don’t want to hear that he blamed you and you bought at least a little piece of that argument. He should have been executed, not you, and you know that as well as I know it even if you don’t want to admit it to me.”
“But I still didn’t want to see him dead.” She shook her head, and the tears spilled over at last although they did so in silence. “I can’t explain it in a way that you’ll understand, Linc. He’s Maddy’s father, he’s someone I once loved almost as much as I love you. I wanted him where he could never hurt me again—but I didn’t need revenge. And if I was going to go on being part of my daughter’s life, even the small part of it that was all the Kesran authorities would allow, I couldn’t have it even if I did want it.”
And that was at the heart of the bargain she’d made with perdition. She had not seen it before, but as always when she laid a problem out before Linc and looked at it with him she saw things that had eluded her while she did the analysis alone.
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