Bill tried not to think about either the Ksala’s rough flirtations or the attraction he felt toward her male Vessel.
Knowing Moro was half-Sonta explained so much. Knowing a younger, ignorant Bill couldn’t have withstood both Moro’s flesh and Lyton’s deceit didn’t make the guilt and anger any less.
The normally heavy space traffic around Cedar idled in lockdown. A survey of com chatter showed many of the spacers still stunned by the passage of the Sonta worldships and their titanic ward. Nineveh and her shadow were the only things moving.
A rounded triangle of orange-pink light kindled directly in front him. The three worldships anchored it. In the center of the triangle a deeper blackness uncoiled, its starry arms reaching toward Nineveh and the Sonta shuttle.
“Is that safe?” asked Bill. “I mean, it eats stars.”
“I won’t devour you, Vilam. Not today.” Aksenna laughed as the black arms closed around them.
The universe flared white.
Seventy-Eight
“HELLO?” MORO ASKED in a thought. It wasn’t fair to be dead and still feel this small and helpless. He wasn’t alone. He sensed a presence around him, a subtle gravity pulling him slowly toward the tiny white star.
He had arms and legs again. Phantom pains jolted along them, like flesh waking from frostbite.
Delighted he could feel something, Moro begged the star, “Help me, please? I have to get out of here!”
Something deeper than mere sound thundered through the void, its vibrations roughly caressing Moro’s body back into a kind of existence. Arms, legs, eyes, breath. And voice. Standing on nothing, Moro faced the brightening star. “Hello?” he asked again. His illusory voice echoed as if in a vast cavern. “I am—”
The thunder answered him. It knew everything he was and was bitterly disappointed in him. He was not what it sought, but a clumsy copy. A cheat. The thunder intimated that Moro was polluted beyond cleansing, in so many ways. He felt the presence look within him, following the twists and arrays of Terise’s false nervous system. There was no trace of Lyton’s personality in this void, but the darkness made known its opinion of Moro’s hijacker.
“If I can go back, I might be able to force him out,” Moro began, sensing the offended presence wanted Moro himself gone by any means.
When Moro returned out of the void to his true body, the dark thunder replied, he would begin to die anyway. Hadn’t he craved death?
“I have someone to live for now. Lots of people. Die now, die later, I still have to try this,” said Moro. “You hate me, I get it. Let me go.”
The thunder caressed him again, less harshly. It had hated him because he reminded it of grief. It was beginning to see interesting differences in him. Reasons to keep him within the void, where his personality would be safe forever—
“Please, no,” Moro whispered. “I’ll go mad, and I won’t be any fun. Trust me, I’ve been insane before.”
The white star had been growing steadily larger in front of Moro. Now it eclipsed half the dark, a titanic burst of energy pouring out into the void. He wondered what particles it emitted. His skin burned and tightened. The thunder sang out in dismay and wrapped cool, safe shadows around him again. The star visibly dimmed.
“Think and be, in here?” Moro asked of his chancy ally. “All right, I’ll behave. May I bargain with you?”
Cautious assent.
“First, do you have the ability to send me back?”
“Yes,” sighed the darkness, its thunder refined to a voice’s timbre.
“What must I give you in return if you release me back into my real body?”
“Everything. Your life, your memories, your loves and hates.”
“Don’t you have them already? Some of them are pretty grim,” said Moro. “Most of them.”
“I merely scanned you. I thought you only a copy. Now I am not certain. Read your life back to me, as you know yourself to be.”
Moro focused on his earliest clear memory. He’d noisily chased a nanny goat across the crèche’s wide green garden. Gran Case laughed at him from the kitchen door.
Then: Moro cried in Merrick’s arms as his father took him from the crèche. Merrick’s voice told Gran, “Sasha, he should be with me. He’s all I’ve got.”
So many memories. Moro had been five, Jost nine. Demetra, already a bossy ten-year-old, smiled at Moro and gave him half her ice cream bowl at a company picnic. She turned her back on shy, skinny Jost, who plainly worshipped her. Moro had never seen anything sadder, even in the mirror. When he tapped Jost’s arm and offered him the bowl and another spoon, Jost’s grin lit his plain face like a sunrise. Demetra stormed off. Jost and Moro, sugar addled, imitated her walk and fell over in a giggling fit.
So many first memories! Good times and bad, they didn’t hurt to think about anymore. Telling them to an interested stranger made them someone else’s story. Were they coin for the ferry ride back into life, or a last sacrifice before he stepped off the final skyscraper?
A very long while later, savoring his memories of Val and Cama, the thunder said, “I was wrong. You are not a copy. You are someone I loved once. Born into another universe, living a different life. But so alike!”
The darkness settled around Moro, not wanting to release him. From it, Moro caught hints, flickering images of his counterpart’s memories, gone so quickly he couldn’t hold them all.
“I’m not him,” said Moro. “I’m myself, whatever this universe made me.” Out of habit, Moro reached up and felt the back of his neck where the hated ports drilled into his spine. He felt sleek plastic and hard metal for a moment. Then only bare, unmarred skin.
“Dream and be, in here. Your counterpart didn’t like being a slave, either. I can restore your freedom and give you control of your body,” said the star. “But there is a price.”
“I’ll pay it.”
“Most people would ask about the cost before agreeing. Not that he ever did.”
“What price?”
“If I help you now, my traces inside you will wake, and go to war against your shackles. Between them, that battle will probably kill you. If you want to survive beyond that death, I can revive you as my chosen Vessel. Give you strength and endurance beyond even a Sonta’s. You can still be killed, but you will exist for many thousands of years longer than those you love. No one must suspect you are mine, or they will hunt you. And when you die your final death, you will be become part of me.”
Moro thought of Val, doomed to endure several hundred years of being married to a worse monster.
“Do it,” he said. “I have to go back and kick the shit out of Lyton Sardis. Do you want to help or not?”
Seventy-Nine
THE ROILING BLACKNESS snapped apart suddenly. Nineveh jarred to an abrupt halt, its artificial gravity and inertial dampeners allowing a gut-wrenching lurch before smoothing to normality. A star field replaced the utter dark of M-space. From what little Hegen knew of astronavigation, it didn’t quite match the stars around Brightcliff.
“What?” Bill Sardis asked from the pilot’s chair. He swung a navigation helmet up away from his face. “We’re stopped?”
Hegen watched Aksenna-in-Savinilan. The Ksala’s hands clenched into tense fists. “Sera Aksenna?” Hegen feared poison or some other attack.
“We are betrayed by this very Vessel,” Aksenna whispered, turning Savinilan’s tear-brilliant eyes toward Hegen. “I dare bring you and my worldships no closer to Brightcliff. Danil is already there.”
“The tribe of Danil Sonta?” Bill asked.
“No. The Ksala Danil, as both Vessel and his true shape. I’m leaving our ships here. Tie up this traitor before I quit his flesh, and don’t let him kill himself before he answers to me.”
A burst of hissing Sonta curses in deep, masculine bass and feminine trills flooded the com channels. Aksenna answered with a steadily louder litany of counterproposals.
Hegen stared at Aksenna, trying to understand the new crisis.
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Bill Sardis had already shot out of his chair, popped a hatch behind him, and brought out a set of black fabric webbing secured by heavy steel rings. He interrupted the argument. “Sera Aksenna, will this do?”
Aksenna looked at the webbing. “You know how to use such gear, Vilam?”
Bill smirked. “Several ways and to several ends. Enough to keep this lad immobile as long as we need. Does he carry poison capsules in his mouth or a stop code in his brain?”
“Doctor,” Aksenna asked as Bill efficiently restrained her Vessel, “sweep his mouth. I cannot guarantee against a stop code, I’m afraid. When I am in Imraithi or Odasu, Savinilan is much by himself. I should have guessed he was an unhappy exile.”
Hegen complied.
“Will you kill him?” Bill asked. “From what I saw, he loved you. The man I watched calling home was more afraid of whoever spoke at the other end. If we could learn what fear keeps Savinilan on leash, and turn him—”
Aksenna gave Bill a slow smile. “You are a son of Sardis after all, Vilam. Win back Savinilan for me, and I’ll owe you a favor. Dare I guess what it might be? Do you want him?”
Bill leaned forward, scenting the confined Sonta’s hair. “Last week I’d have said yes, and happily. Now it’s more complicated. I may be dodging court summons and jail time. He’ll have to consent. And I’ll have to ask my partner. If she doesn’t kill me on sight.”
Hegen shook his head, both at their antics and the results of his examination. “I’ve found no poison delivery systems. He’s clean.”
“Poor Savinilan,” said Aksenna. “I wish he’d just talked to me. I could have helped.”
Hegen wondered at a Ksala showing more emotional warmth than her feminine Vessel. Imraithi might have been Moro’s grandmother in flesh, but Hegen had an idea of who would call the shots over Moro’s future. If Aksenna got the chance. She and the little lion would have to battle it out, no doubt.
The Vessel’s head drooped again. Outside Nineveh’s main view port, the portal faded around the worldship perimeters. The Ksala’s black-and-orange bulk collapsed a new portal around itself, flashing pure white in the second before it closed.
“Nineveh, respond!” said Odasu in Standard. “Is Savinilan restrained?”
“Oh yeah,” said Bill as Savinilan woke up and slowly processed his situation.
The Sonta man’s warm brown face blanched sallow. “You let her go? You idiots!” he roared, thrashing to no effect against his bonds. “You can’t let Ksaloni near each other! She’s too small. Danil will kill her!”
Eighty
“HE WILL KILL her,” Odasu rumbled, watching Aksenna’s true form vanish into a narrow portal ahead of them. Then the tall, veiled Sonta shook his head. “One or both of them may die today. Let it not be in vain.” He tapped a panel on the instrument array in front of his pilot’s chair. “Nineveh, use ion engines only from this point on and follow behind me.”
Alys looked at the Sonta queen sitting next to her. Where Aksenna had been deadly, mercurial, and compelling, her glacially detached Vessel cared little for their quest. And less for Alys.
Bill Sardis’s voice came over the com. “Course changed. In position. Still too many light-minutes out from Brightcliff. At this speed we’re hours from landing.”
“We must not impinge on their dueling ground or we will distract Aksenna,” said Odasu.
An indistinct, cut-off yell from Savinilan crackled over the com, followed by one of Hegen’s frontier curses. Then Savinilan said in Standard, “Go around them, you fools. Quickly! We need to be at Brightcliff before there is no Brightcliff left! One of Danil’s Vessels guessed something like this was in Danil’s thoughts more than a year ago. He had no proof. He sent me to Aksenna, to report back if she made a move to find the White Storm. But the last time I called in, I got Danil, instead. And Danil was talking to Aiyon’s Vessel.”
“Aiyon! What hold does he and Danil have over you?” Odasu asked.
“The life of my sister. My twin and my mother’s only daughter-heir. The queen of Danil thought her Ksala would bring the Danil Sonta fleet, not run himself. This is Aiyon’s meddling, though I can’t prove he started it.”
“Savinilan, you do your family some credit with your piety,” said Imraithi, “and dishonor with your deceit. Your relative guilt will be dealt with later. I agree. We must reach Anyatisa’s son. He will need Sonta aid, should Brightcliff be what Danil believes.”
“Why do you care now?” Alys sniped. “You didn’t bother finding him on Ventana. Or to rescue him during the last nine years!”
The lovely little Sonta queen shook her head. “Anyatisa made her choice. Sonta live so long, I thought to let her get Merrick out of her system. I believed he’d grow old and die long before she grew a single silver hair. If any of her whelps threw true to my design, I would have ample time to collect them. Until my agents visited what was left of Ventana, I did not know she had died from a single birth.”
“You bitch,” said Alys. “I’m glad Moro’s not one of yours anymore. He deserves better.”
A touch of pink flushed those ice-white cheeks. “He deserves Cama and your son? Ambassador, do you have any concept how deeply you may have poisoned Cama by letting her taste Moro? He was born a Vessel, but not for her.”
Eighty-One
“SO WE MUST fight?” asked Lyton, drawing a long black sword from a back scabbard.
Danil whipped his shorter blade around, making the cold air whistle with a metallic ring. “Not really a fight, Terrani. A diversion for me. Doom for you, if you do not quit that body.” He looked at Terise. “Ape-woman, is the old husk still viable for transfer?”
“It could be. I’ve kept it oxygenated,” she said, jaw set at the Sonta’s insult. “I’ve never tried a reverse. Lyton, are you certain you can—”
“I’ve dueled on a dozen planets,” Lyton scoffed. “And this body is peerless in the arena. A wager, Sero Danil? If you win, you shall kill me and this body but let my people escape. If I win and kill your Vessel, you will allow me and my folk to depart unharmed?”
Danil laughed. “A Terrani, besting this Vessel? I agree to your terms. Try me, ape-man.”
Val watched them close in a flurry of clashing strikes. Neither was the least scratched when they parted, but Lyton breathed a little too fast. Danil looked bored. His sword flicked toward Lyton’s right knee. Lyton pulled back, slower than Moro would have. He was overbalanced, presenting just a little too much undefended left leg. Danil’s return cut met Lyton’s armored thigh. Metal screeched and sparked, and a long gouge was left shining along the black metal.
“Sonta armor.” Danil nodded appreciation. “What traitor sold it to you?”
“Worth every credit,” said Lyton, slashing close to Danil’s wrist before the Sonta’s blade angled and blocked him.
“Enough foreplay. You’ve shown some aptitude. Now the real dance begins,” growled Danil and charged.
Watching it, Val couldn’t even whimper. Swords and armor screamed, voices for the near-silent attackers. Lyton was driven effortlessly away from the ship, his dueling skills barely enough to block the Sonta’s brute force and swift blade. Lyton’s armor grew webbed with shining impact lines. Val thought it only a matter of time before the armor failed or the Sonta’s blade found bare skin or a fastening.
They ended beside the tilted, carved stone, darting around its cover to strike futilely at each other. Lyton got in a few scores of his own, silvering Danil’s armor.
Movement beside him made Val glance away from the fight. Terise gave a thumbs-up gesture to one of the guards not holding Val. The man drew a pulse gun and aimed to follow Danil.
“No,” Val whispered. “They won’t kill unarmed witnesses!”
Danil bashed Lyton’s shoulder with his sword hilt and then flattened against the standing stone. The white pulse beam passed between his chest and Lyton’s face. In the next moment, Danil’s hand swept toward his belt. A dark blur left his fingers.
The guard wobbled. He tried to speak around the black steel knife sunk in his throat. He fell at Terise’s feet.
“Terise, don’t,” said a hunched-over and gasping Lyton.
“Such bad manners,” said Danil, stepping away as Lyton stood up and transferred the blade to his other hand. “A clean fight. Or I kill all of you. Do you need to rest, Terrani?” he asked courteously to Lyton.
“Fuck you,” said Lyton, raising his sword and settling into a wary stance. He kept his damaged arm down.
Danil considered Moro’s body. “Pretty bait. Not worth it. You couldn’t endure the mildest of ordeals on my ship. Not to mention Aksenna’s!” He stalked forward.
“Wait!” Val called, remembering too many arena fights. “Lyton, you need Moro for this, not just his body. If he’s alive in there, he can help you!”
“Donor personalities don’t survive—” Terise began.
“Moro is gone!” said Lyton.
Danil stopped, cocking his head as he looked at Lyton. “Perhaps not. Your stolen flesh and bone contain more than one conscious entity, ape-man. I give you leave to summon the Abomination, if you can. He is my true prey.”
Eighty-Two
“YOUR THIEF CALLS to you for aid,” said the darkness. “He is fighting a Sonta enemy. His skills do not match yours.”
“I would rather die,” agreed Moro. “He must not keep my flesh. Not when I know what he’d do with it.” Thoughts of Demetra, thoughts of Val. Let it be Lyton’s turn to feel sick, helpless fury!
“Crowded in here, yes?” The presence laughed. “You. Me. Him. Your stunned and silent Cama. Some parts of Lyton’s memory may remain with you, and you may wrestle for control. Even so, you may not survive long. Your body will be too damaged from the battle ahead.”
“If I don’t ask for resurrection, we won’t meet again? I hope you find him. The one you’re really looking for,” said Moro. “Thank you. Sero? Sera? I don’t even know your name.”
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