Cates’ chin lifts proudly. “You’re right about liking privacy. Best not ask questions. It’s just nice you were allowed to visit.” He isn’t referring to our parents’ reluctant consent. A shiver moves my shoulders.
“. . . As for me being alone? On the way here there was an—accident. My family died. We’d served some wealthy folk for decades, so they give me leeway to be here enjoying the jungle. It’s turns since I got to be with outsiders. I confess, I tipped Saunders for bringing you. I’d asked her to look out for a botanist for me to meet. But when you arrived, well, you’re so young. I wasn’t sure I should talk to you.” He lets us absorb this for a moment before he adds, “Let’s talk plants.”
With a sympathetic glance at Cates’ worn expression, Aby slips away to rest beneath a portlight. Cates presses the vial into my hand and passes me his drawing of the elosia. We talk botany until exhaustion forces us to rest.
* * *
• • •
Aby’s howl of outrage wakes me. Dazed with sleep, I totter to the tent door, thrusting flaps open with both sets of arms. I am neatly pinioned by large Scats waiting for someone to do just that. My arms are twisted painfully. I’m pulled onto tiptoes. Aby is on the ground, her cheek red. The Scat pointing a blaster at her has a bite wound on his forearm that drips blood. His frills pulse purple and red, and clawed fingers tighten on the weapon. I’m about to watch my sister die.
But the Scats holding me pull me around to face the tent. Hope dies as Cates, the last of us still free, stumbles into the doorway. He grapples with his holster, fogged by our late night. His eyes are bleary, his movements clumsy and slow. I cry out but before the sound escapes a blast of heat and light passes me and ignites Cates. His eyes and mouth widen. Then he combusts with a sizzling crack. Cates is seared away but for bubbling, steaming goo that singes my nostrils with an acrid stench. I open my mouth to breathe and gag.
The Scat that fired the shot addresses Aby. “Careful ss-softflesh,” he tells her. “I bite back.”
I thrash between my captors. Notes spill from a carrysack beside the puddle that was Cates. Pain and the dark arrive together.
* * *
• • •
I hear a discussion as if from far away.
“A Moradhi and his-ss little mother! The price they’d bring!” A com crackles. “We don’t have to ss-sell them nearby!” I hear an angry voice over the distortion of the com signal. A low hiss of frustration, then, “Yes-ss ss-sir, the nuisssance Human is-ss terminated. Yes, ss-sir.” The com clicks out.
Claws snick as the Scat paces toward me, and I open my eyes, terrified. I’m in a cell looking out into a gray passage. Everything is designed to be hosed clean. Bile chokes me, and I swallow hard.
“Relax, mammal,” the Scat croons. “You’re not in the galley yet. If you are fortunate, you will be ss-sold.” He licks his snout with a long black tongue and saliva spatters to the ground, smoking. I try to register that the best possible fate for Aby and me is now slavery. I try. The com clicks on again. The voice on the other end is terse, but I don’t catch her words, only the pirate’s immediate acquiescence.
“Kort, bring the little mother,” he says to someone beyond my cell door. “Watch her teeth. These rations-ss bite.” There is malicious delight in his yellow eye.
He hits the cell release and waves at me with his blaster. “Annoy me, and I’ll ss-shoot her,” I am told. I go in the direction of the wave and pass a long row of cells. Aby follows somewhere behind me.
We are walked to a lift, and ascend several levels, before being directed into a boardroom. A female Scat, splendidly dressed in Orassian silks, sits at the head of a long table. A Human stands behind her, his expression dour. The room is so civilized, I rally.
“Captain, if you return us to Plexis our family would reimburse your costs,” I say.
The Scat laughs. “Oh, ss-softflesh, we’re not going to Plexis. We have business-ss elssewhere.” She lets me absorb that before continuing.
“The question is, do I ss-show you our air lock, or can we wring ss-some profit from you as Roraqk ss-ssuggestss . . . ?” A flick of her eye identifies the male Scat. Her expression is disdainful.
“I’ve witnessed many agreements,” I tell her shakily. “My sister can unlock those secrets.” Aby is mute, presumably overwhelmed.
“Once we have their information, they’d make valuable merchandis-sse,” Roraqk asserts from behind me. “Moradhi are rare pickingss-s.”
“We’d be better off picking their bones-ss,” the captain sneers immediately. “Our clientss-s diss-slike improvisssation.” She waves a hand at the door, and the Human behind her interprets the gesture.
“Put them back in the brig, Roraqk.”
* * *
• • •
I wake to find a Scat pacing outside my cell. His crests stand high, their color intense.
“What ship is this?” I ask. My voice shakes. He’s familiar, but I don’t know how I got here or who he is.
“My clan ss-ship, the great Torquad.” Beneath the Scat’s anger is pride. He eyes me and adds with a sneer, “I am Roraqk.”
“You don’t hold a high post on your family ship?” I gesture at his shoulders which lack crest or badge and wonder if this question will be my last.
But Roraqk’s answering snarl is halfhearted. “My posssition is higher than yoursss, C-cube.”
“You could take it over,” I say, wondering where my mouth is leading me, improvising furiously. I can’t let myself register that the Scat thinks of me as concentrated food.
“No, I couldn’t, creteng. The captain iss-s my mother.” Roraqk makes a strange wheezing sound at my crestfallen face. He’s laughing. “Ss-she killed her mother and took the Torquad, meat. It’ss-ss a time-honored tradition. The problem issss, that being ss-so, ss-she has taken precautionss-s.”
As he paces away, I check my pockets. The only thing in them is a torn slip of paper. On it is the drawing of a flower. The scribble alongside it says “elosia.”
A memory of holding a vial, of talking to a Human named Cates, swims forward. I reach for it, waiting Roraqk out, while I frantically try to recall anything else. But without Aby’s help, the memory prompted by the sketch is incomplete. Aby, however, is ominously silent. All I am sure of is, as unlikely as it seems, the vial contains something that suppresses telepathy.
Suddenly Roraqk answers my unasked question with a snarl. “Her deputy is-s a mindcrawler.” His tongue scatters stinking drool as it lashes. “Filthy mammal. The feel of it in my mind.” He growls, twisting as if to wring a mental touch out of his body. “At the firssst thought of mutiny, he knowss-s.” His clawed hands make a slashing motion to indicate what happens after that. “My s-ssiblingss died of their attempt. Now you propos-sse my death?” His voice carries a threat.
“Do you have our luggage?”
Roraqk’s fist bangs the plas fronting my cell and I jump. “We are piratess-s, fool. Of cours-sse, we have your luggage.”
“I can fix your problem, then.” I speak confidently, keeping the suspicion that I only have a sample of Cates’ serum, and that untested, out of my voice. Roraqk hisses at me in disbelief.
“Ss-speak, C-cube. The cells-s are s-sshielded in case of telepathic guestsss.”
I stare. Shielding is new tech, unreliable and very expensive. It’s a big investment to protect the pirates from a tiny sector of the population.
“There’s a black liquid in my carrysack, a small vial. It dampens telepathy.” This is where my guesswork begins. “But you have to inject it. I don’t know how you’ll get close enough without tipping him off.”
Again, that hissing laughter. “I have a remote crawler, and her deputy’sss-s off duty now. He’ll be ass-sleep.” Roraqk presses a button on my wrist com, which decorates his scaly wrist. “Kort! Go into the carrysackss-s we took. I need a vial of black liqu
id. Mother’s-ss ordersss-s.” The last is a low growl that would terrify me if I wasn’t already beside myself.
Roraqk watches me beadily until the com clicks again. “I’ve found it.”
“Bring it to me,” Roraqk answers calmly, “Oh, and Kort? Bring me the box from under my bunk.” The Scat isn’t stupid, staying in the only shielded area, and letting someone who doesn’t know what is happening do his running for him. He turns to me. “You didn’t bargain, ss-softflessh,” he comments idly.
“I couldn’t hold you to an agreement,” I wave one pair of arms to indicate the cell.
“C-cube, you couldn’t make me do anything out of the cell,” the Scat answers, wheezing again. He moves out of sight. All is quiet until there is a scuffle and Roraqk reappears, herding Kort to a cell, a blaster aimed at his back.
When the Scat departs again, Aby comments from a cell I can’t see, “Well, I guess slavery will be fun. Assuming they sell us.” She sounds sleepy, but her humor is on point.
I wince and put a jovial note into my voice. “If the serum doesn’t work, we’ll be killed, so there is that.”
“There is that,” Aby agrees. “There were Tulis here while you were sleeping. They wanted me to weave for them.”
Weaponsfire erupts overhead.
* * *
• • •
There is an eternity of running, bangs, and shouts. The door at the end of the hall hisses open. Will the beings approaching kill us immediately? Roraqk strides into view, a gash across his snout oozing blood. He ignores it. “C-cube!” He opens my cell door. I’m lifted off my feet, shaken, and dumped to the ground.
“It worked.” Roraqk’s eyes gleam, and I realize I’ve just been the recipient of cheerful exuberance from a Scat. Knowing he could just as easily have gutted me, I seize the moment, scrambling to my feet.
“Please take us home.” I make no attempt to disguise that I am pleading.
Roraqk’s crests swell. Turning his back on me, he strides into the hall, talking into my wrist com.
“Captain, Captain Roraqk,” Kort calls from the next cell. Roraqk pauses but doesn’t turn around. “I’ve always supported you. I had documents forged years ago stating your mother’s mother intended to transfer ownership of the Torquad to you, not her daughter. They’re flawless. You need them. You need me. I’m listed on them as witness. You deserve to be our captain, sir.”
Roraqk turns. “Perss-ssuas-ssive, Kort, but not convincing.”
“What if the document was also recorded by a Moradhi?” Aby blurts.
I hasten to add, “If you give me my wrist com, I’ll make an entry that says so, and Aby can weave something into our home to confirm it. If my mesh survives, proof that you own Torquad would fly inside Plexis. You know our kind. I can’t remember otherwise.”
Again, the sibilant laughter rises. “You have a remarkable knack for making yourself usseful, C-cube. But what about your sister’s memory of our arrangement? What happens if a mother checks her mind?” His tone has become sinister, and Roraqk’s eyes stare hungrily down the hall in the direction Aby’s voice has come from.
Aby speaks softly, persuasively. “We honor the privacy of our clients, Captain. I’ll see that your legal title to Torquad is woven into our home. No one will reexamine Ir’s memory—or mine—once a weaving exists to confirm it.”
Roraqk considers this for a long moment before he pivots toward the door. “If the document iss-s good, you are free, Kort. I’ll even make you my deputy.”
“Sir!” Kort acknowledges enthusiastically, but Roraqk is gone.
* * *
• • •
I dig over the pile of loose items from our luggage and spread Cates’ field notes across a pristine laboratory workbench. Aby stands beside me to help me remember events prior to the attack. Roraqk, having used the full sample of suppressant on his mother’s mindcrawler, has offered us our freedom only if I can replicate the drug. I try not to think about why pirates need such exquisite med facilities or the untrustworthiness of Scats. Tulis surround us, each observing me with all three eyes, as I begin to read. For the first time since the attack, I feel like myself. My wrist com waited for me on this table when I reached the laboratory.
But nothing remotely helpful springs from the pages. Doubt nips me; more to burn off restless energy than out of hope, I tip the luggage pile over again. I almost fail to see the tiny chip holder under Cates’ clothes.
Seeing those is enough of a trigger, and the event traumatic and recent enough, that I recall his death. I sit on the floor and cue my recording of our meeting. I listen to my claim to be a botanist and Cates telling me he’s just an amateur. Aby makes a soft, rueful sound but doesn’t comment.
I return to the table with the chip and hesitate before slipping it into my wrist com. It contains cross-section sketches and chemical analyses of “a protein synthesized from elosia nectar.” Finally, Cates supplies a chemical formula. I write it out and wave it at the bemused Tulis.
“Can you make this?”
My question has an electrifying effect on them. I’m left sitting at the table and musing that whomever Cates’ family served didn’t appreciate his abilities. I suspect the servant was better than his masters.
* * *
• • •
“The Torquad, captained by Roraqk, requests docking at Plexis,” Kort says into the com.
“Torquad, welcome to Plexis. Proceed to docking ring 27 parking space 44.”
I stand on the bridge listening anxiously. I’m so tired nerves are all that keep me standing. Scaled digits slide over my shoulders from behind. I startle, and hissing laughter sounds around us. So I ignore the scrape of Roraqk’s claws and turn to face him. I have to look up at his bared, smoking teeth and dripping black tongue.
“Why’d you go to EF178?” I ask him.
“To remove a fool, C-cube. Our employersss dis-sslike indis-sscreet behavior.”
I stare into his eyes trying to decipher that, ignoring that he is toying with me by answering my questions. We both know I won’t remember asking him anything.
“Why Plexis?”
More laughter. “You will prove my ownership of Torquad, remember? After that comes the ss-small matter of a freighter taking pass-ssengers where it ss-shouldn’t.”
“Very, very discreet passengers,” I temporize.
Kort grins over his shoulder before he turns to the com again.
“Torquad to Plexis. We have passengers from a shop called Glamor refusing to pay their fare.”
Roraqk is laughing.
“Your homecoming is ss-still really going to coss-st you, C-cube,” he says almost crooningly.
So it does.
* * *
• • •
Aby codes into our home the story of Cates’ guiding us on a remote jungle planet before dying in his bed of natural causes. It must’ve been traumatic. Details about what happened before the Torquad rescued us were thin, and Aby won’t talk about it. My wrist com logs are similarly brief. It was an eventful trip because during our time on board, the Torquad was legally transferred to Roraqk by his loving mother. The transfer was witnessed by me.
I continue to work in Glamor, wrapping purchases. But some things are different. My mothers are more protective. They wall in a room for me and set up a laboratory with sophisticated recording devices. I’m astonished and delighted they’ve accepted my need to manage my own memory.
Most strangely, from this time, on my birthday, a gift arrives. It might be expensive, in good taste or bad, and it is often exotic. Enclosed in every wrapper I find an unremarkable C-cube.
. . . Truffles continues
Interlude
HER ARM WAS rigid where it touched his, and Morgan would have banned the Scats, innocent or not, from every public space if it spared her the memory of Roraqk. He’d his own, dark and dire
. How it had felt to stop the workings of another mind. How easy to let his rage take over.
Rage that had come close to consuming him completely, when Sira had been violated on Pocular, her body cut open and used for an experiment. She’d sent him after her enemies, adding her fury to his. He’d barely made it back—
Beloved. Don’t think of then. Enjoy now. “Dancing,” she pleaded aloud, her tone faint, almost desperate.
In that moment, more than anything, Morgan wanted to hold her close. Kiss away the pain and promise her the past didn’t matter. Help her forget. Block those memories, if that’s what it took. He’d the Talent—
The mere thought made him sick inside. Sira had had most of her memories blocked once before. That it had been her decision, to remove Clan prejudice and let her come close to a Human, to him, in a desperate gamble to find a new path for her kind? Didn’t matter. The scars were there. The blank spaces. She’d lost some of herself, perhaps forever.
Not again. Only one thing could ease her new fears. One thing combat the overpowering reflex to flee or fight. Didn’t he know that himself?
Facing them.
“We learn from the past, chit,” Morgan said, making his voice low and harsh. “Understand that Scats are who and what they are. You keep from triggering their predatory instincts, they’re easy as Humans in a negotiation. Remember they’re not all Roraqk,” he said, stressing the name. Spotting a familiar shape, Morgan forced himself to point. “Same for them.”
Her flinch when she saw the Tuli walking past was like a stab to his heart, but he refused to have pity. “Not all Tulis work for Recruiters.”
“I know that,” with reassuring anger.
Morgan made a decision. “Then there’s something else you should know. You weren’t the only one who fled Smegard’s stronghold that night on Auord.”
The Clan Chronicles--Tales from Plexis Page 23