by Diann Read
Weil poured a cupful from a container. “Never drink water from the faucets in the latrine,” he said. “It’s not safe.”
“Why?” Tristan asked—and suddenly thought of a whole string of questions: “What is this place? Why won’t the wall open for me? Why can’t we go outside?”
The doctor made a calming gesture. “You’ll only have to stay in here until you’re well. Governor Renier wanted to let you recover without disturbance.”
“Governor? What’s that?”
Weil looked briefly bewildered. “He’s the—the leader—over this sector of space. Do you understand that?”
“Of space?” Tristan furrowed his brow, feeling more confused than before. “Why does he want us here?”
“I don’t know.”
Something about the other’s expression and tone frightened Tristan. He held the steady gaze and swallowed. Glancing at Pulou, he pushed himself back, started to rise. “But we can’t stay here! My mother is sick!”
Weil caught him by the arm. “Tristan, listen to me.”
Tristan’s reaction to the grip, just above his elbow, came as sheer reflex: a warning hiss, a flexed hand.
The medic let go at once, but he said, “Sit down, will you, kid, and listen for a minute?”
Pulou set down his bowl, and Tristan saw the wariness in his eyes. He felt a tightness in his own stomach as he squatted again, facing the human but staying beyond his reach.
“You’re not on Ganwold anymore,” Weil said, his voice quiet as if he didn’t want to be overheard. “We’re on a different planet in a different star system. Do you understand that?”
Tristan felt disbelief. He glanced over at Pulou. When the gan confirmed it with a single nod, he said, “In a—spacecraft?”
“Yes,” Weil said. “That’s why I made you sleep. Lightskips and gravity changes are sometimes hard even for experienced spacers. Your friend was sick most of the way.”
Tristan looked back at Pulou, who nodded again.
“The Sector General,” Weil said quietly, “is in exile in this system—but I guess that doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?” He glanced uneasily around the room and lowered his voice still more. “I think he wants revenge, mostly. He knows your mother is sick and that you’re trying to find your father.”
“Revenge?” Tristan cocked his head at the unfamiliar word.
“That means to get even. Somebody hurts you, so you hurt them back.” Weil hesitated. “Doesn’t that happen where you came from?”
“No.” Tristan exchanged looks with Pulou. “There’s only tsaa’chi."
“What’s that?” Weil asked.
“It comes into your blood when there’s danger,” Tristan said. “It makes your heart beat fast. It makes it so you don’t feel pain and you want to fight, and when the danger is over it goes away. You can’t go hurt someone back; it’s already over.”
“Always,” Pulou said in quiet gan, “someone dies. It’s better to turn your back to anger.”
Weil looked at Tristan for a translation, and nodded. “Too bad most humans don’t have that kind of sense.” He sighed. “Look, kid, just be careful, okay? Don’t believe everything you may be told. . . . And if you ever need help, you can trust me.”
Tristan met his eyes. Searched them with his own for a long while before he gave a slight acknowledging nod.
The medic forced a smile. “You haven’t eaten very much.”
“I’m not hungry anymore,” Tristan said.
“I’m sorry,” said Weil. He gathered up the discarded bowls and left the room.
Six
The medic named Weil didn’t come back in the morning.
Tristan already lay awake, watching daylight pale the smoky skyscape, when the wall sighed open. He turned his head, then reached over to nudge Pulou and sat up.
He didn’t know the two men who stepped inside, one tall with gray hair and features that made Tristan think of a hawk, the other a little older than himself, stolid of face and stocky in his uniform.
Tristan got carefully to his feet, eyeing them, and saw Pulou in his periphery slipping up to stand at his shoulder. “Where’s Weil?” he asked.
“It’s all right, Tristan.” The old man smiled and moved toward him stiffly, leaning on a walking stick. “The captain has been transferred to a more urgent position. You don’t need his treatment any more.”
Something about that left Tristan uneasy. Made him remember what Weil had said the night before. He studied the old man’s face, studied those eyes through his own narrowed ones, and read suffering in them, as plainly as a scar upon his face. That startled him.
The other must have seen Tristan’s surprise. He smiled once more, dimly, and said, “It’s good to see you again.”
The tone held warmth, not threat, and Tristan’s wariness gave way to bewilderment. “Again? I’ve never seen you before,” he said.
The man appeared amused by that. “You wouldn’t remember, I think. You were only a baby the last time I saw you.”
Tristan cocked his head, his puzzlement mounting. “Who are you?”
“Governor Mordan Renier,” the man said. “I’m an old friend of your parents. It’s been a very long time.”
Tristan knew the name. Knew it from something his mother had once told him. A chill shot up his spine and he edged back a step, shaking his head. He let his hands curl at his sides. “You’re not my father’s friend!” he said.
The governor looked at him with hurt in his eyes, in the deep lines around his mouth. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you to forgive and forget, Tristan? To let bygones be bygones?”
Tristan shook his head and backed up again. A ball of ice seemed to have settled in his stomach. “Why do you want us here?”
The governor’s smile still held that suggestion of hurt. “To help you, of course. I was told that your mother is seriously ill and you believe your father can help her. Isn’t that right?”
Tristan recalled again what Weil had said. He hesitated. “Yes.”
“Do you know where your father is, or how to contact him?”
“No.”
“Well then, you’re going to need some assistance, aren’t you?” The governor reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder.
Tristan cringed under the long fingers. His stomach lurched, too. He locked his teeth to hiss a warning but then glimpsed the other’s eyes: full of gentleness, completely devoid of the provocation implied by his grip. Thoroughly confused by mixed signals, Tristan braced against reflex, keeping his curled hands close to his sides.
The voice bore gentleness, too. “It may take some time to contact your father, you understand. I hope you’ll find this room suitable until then.”
“No!” Tristan said at once, and made an angry gesture toward the skyscape. “It’s ugly! We don’t like having to stay in here!”
“I’m sorry, my boy,” the governor said. The gentleness left his tone; his voice took on a hard edge. “I would like to return to my own motherworld, too. But neither of us has a choice right now.”
He motioned at a sensor near the window, and a white panel slid out from its frame, covering it just as the sliding wall covered the doorway. With another motion the panel seemed to vanish, giving way to a view from a grassy hilltop that sloped down to sand and water. Water that rolled out to the sky like prairie grass in a wind and curled to white crests that crashed on the sand. Sunlight painted rainbows in the spray and flashed on the wings of circling birds whose cries sounded over the water’s thunder.
The roar fell silent. The water turned to desert sand as white and hot as the sky it reflected. Rock and dust stretched to the horizon, rippled by a wind that tossed the sand and rattled the brittle plants.
Then the desert disappeared under the growth of a forest floor, trees with trunks wider than the room and ferns drawn up from black loam by fingers of light reaching down between the shivering leaves. A
n unseen bird called.
Tristan reached for the window frame, tried to push the panel back, wondering what had happened behind it. He cocked his head at the governor.
Renier smiled. “The city is still out there,” he said. “This forest and the desert and seashore are recordings made on my motherworld. They provide a little variety.”
He left the forest on the screen and moved away from it. “I expect you’re hungry by now, Tristan. I would be pleased to have you join me for breakfast.”
“Pulou’s hungry, too,” Tristan said. Remembering Weil’s advice, he curled his hands and gave the words a threatening tone.
The governor flicked a glance at Pulou. “He can come, of course. But first—” He reached for a strand of Tristan's hair, lying loose on his shoulder.
Too close to his throat. Tristan evaded the touch, bared his teeth—
—and saw fury shadow the other’s face, hardening his eyes and jaw.
The hardness vanished in an instant. The governor said, gently, “You need proper clothes and grooming first, Tristan, beginning with your hair.” He drew two crystal pendants from his breast pocket and displayed them for the young man in the uniform. “Cut it like this, please, Rajak.”
Tristan eyed the pendants in the governor’s hand, and recognized the woman in one. “Those are my mother’s!” he said, and what she had told him flashed across his mind.
“Yes, they are,” the governor said. “These did belong to her once. Please sit down on the bed.”
Tristan stood still for a moment, staring the other in the eye. When at last he sat, he immediately wondered if he’d made a mistake. Rajak advanced on him with a shiny tool that looked like a weapon. He shot a half-panicked look across at Pulou.
The gan crawled up on the bed beside him, fangs bared and ears pinned back, and crouched close enough to strike should it be necessary.
Rajak didn’t seem to notice. “Sit still,” he said. “Don’t move your head.”
Tristan recoiled when the instrument came too near his ear, buzzing like a tsigi. He felt Pulou stiffen, heard his warning hiss.
Rajak barely paused. “Hold still,” he said.
Tristan squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his hands and teeth as the instrument vibrated at the nape of his neck. He reached up to shove it away. “Don’t!”
“Move your hand or it’ll get cut,” said Rajak.
Tristan saw shock in Pulou’s face and bit his lip. Hands knotted on his thighs, he bore it until the buzzing stopped and Rajak withdrew and the governor stepped closer. His face heated under the old man’s scrutiny; he kept his head lowered.
Renier said, “Well done, Rajak. The resemblance is truly remarkable.” He returned the holodiscs to his pocket and continued, “I’ll send Avuse with clothing for him. In the meantime, you will show him how to use the hygiene booth and beard foam. Breakfast will be served in one hour.”
“Yes, sir,” said Rajak.
When he heard the wall rasp open and closed behind him, Tristan lifted his head just enough to slide a glance across at Pulou. “It shows?” he asked, mouth dry.
“Yes.” Pulou looked away from him, too decent to stare.
He felt as if he’d been stripped and put on display before his whole clan, more violated than he’d felt when he found his fingernails cut off. Reaching to the nape of his neck, he pressed his hand over the tiny raised tattoo there, the clan mark meant only for the eyes and touches of mates. His face burned with humiliation.
“Come on, Tristan,” said Rajak.
Hand still clapped over his clan mark, he rose and strode past Rajak without a look at him.
Emerging from the hygiene booth several minutes later, he caught a glimpse of himself in the reflector on the wall. A fresh wave of humiliation made him twist his face away.
But something about that split-second image caught at his memory, drawing his reluctant gaze back.
Undistorted by ripple or shadow, like the reflections he’d always seen of himself in water, he found himself startled by a sense of new familiarity, a realization that he’d seen the same features somewhere else in a way detached from himself. He turned his head to study his face from different angles, to see if that would make the connection.
When he paused to smooth his shorn hair down over his ears and neck, familiarity became recognition. He looked like the young man in the holodiscs.
The trousers pinched at his groin, unlike his loose loincloth. Tristan shifted from foot to foot, tugging at a chafing inseam to relieve it. “I don’t like this,” he said through his teeth. “It’s too tight!”
“Stand still,” said Rajak. He adjusted the shirt across Tristan’s shoulders, made tucks at his waist, fastened the collar.
“That’s too tight!” Tristan said.
The other thrust a finger between fabric and flesh. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is!” Tristan pulled at it, but the catch didn’t give. He slid his hand around to the back of his neck and felt a measure of relief when he discovered that the collar concealed his clan mark.
“Put on the boots,” Rajak said, pointing.
They were tall and black, and as stiff as peimu hide that hadn’t been tanned properly. Tristan picked one up and studied it. “How?” he asked.
Rajak looked at him as if he were stupid. “Push your foot down into it. The other foot,” he added when Tristan tried. “It’s easier if you sit down. And tuck your trousers into the tops.”
The boot tops rubbed at Tristan’s shins; the foot part chafed his ankles and heels and insteps. Their stiffness from ankles to knees made it difficult to walk, so he stumbled.
“Here’s your jacket,” said Rajak, holding it out.
“I don’t need that,” Tristan said. “I already have this on.” He tugged at his shirt.
“This goes over that one,” Rajak said.
“Why? It’s too warm even for this one!”
“It’s proper. Put your arms in.”
Tristan glowered at him but obeyed, and then braced himself while the servant tugged at shoulders and sleeves and fastened the clasps.
The jacket bound his chest and upper arms, restricting his movement. His shoulder blades and ribs itched, and the jacket made scratching futile. Turning away from Rajak, he glimpsed Pulou through the corner of his eye, studying him. He didn’t dare meet the look, didn’t want to see Pulou, with his mane and his claws, grinning at him. A fresh wave of heat swept over his face. “Stupid!” he said under his breath.
“Come on,” said Rajak. “The governor is waiting.” He held the wall open for Tristan.
Beyond lay a passage that went both left and right, wide enough for three people to walk side-by-side, and gradually curving away so Tristan couldn’t see either end. Smooth whiteness covered the walls and short gray fleece quieted their footfalls along the floor.
Rajak turned left. Tristan followed, trailing a hand along the curving wall and trying to ignore the way he sweated under the shirt and jacket.
They passed a smaller corridor on the right with a door at its end, and three or four doors on the left indistinguishable from his but for the numbers on them. He hadn’t noticed if his own had a number.
“Here,” said Rajak. He stopped at double doors on the right. They parted as he approached. He said, “Tristan, sir,” and stepped aside, beckoning.
Tristan’s room would have fit inside this one nine or ten times. He looked around it, barely noticing the chairs at one side for the fireplace they stood around, scarcely seeing the cabinets that lined the back wall for the way they drew his vision up to sunlight flooding through panels in the ceiling. It didn’t even occur to him to wonder whether or not it was real sunlight; it was the first bright, cheering thing he’d seen here.
“Come in, Tristan.” The governor, standing beside a table in the center of the room, surveyed him and smiled. “Much better,” he said. “Now you look like the son of an admiral.”
&nbs
p; Tristan said nothing.
Behind him, the doors opened once more and someone said, “Lady Larielle, sir.”
Tristan glanced over his shoulder and immediately brought his hand to his forehead.
She appeared to be only a few years older than himself, tall for a woman, and willowy slender, with dark hair framing her face in loose ringlets. She said, “Good morning, Papa,” and placed her hands in the governor’s to allow him to kiss one side of her face and then the other.
Tristan watched her unabashed until she seemed to sense it and turned toward him. He ducked his head and touched his brow again and murmured, “Peace in you, mother,” in gan—the only proper way he knew to address her.
“My daughter, Larielle,” the governor said. His features tightened with some deep but indiscernible emotion as he added, “The last blossom left to the House of Renier.”
The young woman’s expression turned solemn at that; she pursed her pink lips and lowered her eyes.
“Lari,” the governor said, “this is Tristan Sergey, son of Admiral Lujan Sergey, the Commander-in-Chief of the Unified Worlds’ Spherzah. He will be staying with us for a time.”
Larielle reached out and took both of his hands. “Hello, Tristan,” she said. Her voice conveyed genuine warmth, as did her gentle squeeze of his hands. But her eyes, searching his, showed fear. Fear for him, Tristan realized.
“Please be seated,” the governor said, and motioned to the chairs beside his own and Larielle’s.
Tristan watched them draw their chairs back from the table and seat themselves. He imitated them, feeling awkward. Eyeing the space between the chair’s seat and the floor, he braced his feet and held to the edge of the table.
Pulou refused a chair altogether. “Flat-tooth things,” he said, and stood, studying the trays of food on the table. But he didn’t reach for any of it, and Tristan didn’t either. Mothers ate first.
A boxy machine entered the room on hidden rollers and produced hot dishes and mugs of bittersweet black liquid from racks inside itself. The dishes contained circles of meat, crumbly chunks of white bread under dark gravy, slices of green fruit with black seeds clustered in the center. The smell of the meat made Tristan’s stomach growl. He pressed a quick hand there to still it and glanced up, embarrassed. The girl and the governor hadn’t noticed; they had already begun to eat.