Aksenna broke off the star-tipped spear within him. Pain stung, more than she’d guessed for such a minor loss to her mass. Her light dulled to a sullen red-orange glare.
Danil, stunned by a strong dose of changed matter, curled, moaning around himself.
Aksenna considered him. She’d just purged most of the change corruption. Her thoughts were clear and precise, unmuddled by sentiment. He was bigger, slower, younger, and more stupid. Easy prey. Her tentacles raised, burning with all her ancient cunning and power. She’d finish him. Then she’d follow the White Storm’s lingering traces.
Danil whimpered, pushed too swiftly toward metamorphosis by the new infection.
Aksenna remembered her White Storm. As Vessels, they’d been lovers, of a sort. Back when he’d burned another color than white.
Antagonists, always. But in the end, when he’d been as helpless as Danil, she’d protected his favorite planet, then stood between him and a pack of starving, wild Ksala, buying him time to transform and flee.
Why had she done it?
Because love was stronger than hunger. Light and life were the only answers to the Black Cold waiting at the end of Time. Such was the frail mortals’ lesson at its core.
She’d known about Imraithi’s transgression, her Vessel’s secret experiments to recreate one of the Storm’s legendary consorts. And let it happen. She’d wanted to see her love again, to know if he approved of her slow change. In a universe where he still existed, maybe she could transcend a Ksala’s fate too.
But she found no scent of him now other than the broken, dying traces left on Brightcliff. Echoes. If the White Storm was dead, then someone else would simply have to take his place. A rich, bitter jest, that it might be her.
Her fires paled again, searing white spreading back from her wounded tentacle. When she curled against Danil’s bulk, the contact was given and accepted as simple comfort. They were not yet changed. But they were changing.
Eighty-Seven
“ARE YOU SURE?” Valier asked, imperious hand outstretched.
Basrali gave him the document. “To anyone who didn’t know about the body theft attempt, this makes Moro look like Lyton’s fellow conspirator and willing heir,” she said. “Between Lyton’s press conference, Moro’s interview, and the capital transfer, no one will know what to believe!”
“Rio Sardis will have a collective aneurysm,” groaned Moro, rubbing his forehead.
“This is bad,” Valier confirmed. His fingers traced several lines of text. Basrali could only guess which ones would outrage the Camalian prince more. “Sardis had to know what company and public reaction would be if he showed up claiming to be Moro and the director. Especially after Moro’s denials! How did Sardis plan to address that?”
Moro hitched closer to Valier, reading along. “How are we going to address it?”
“A political pivot? Change of heart?” the prince guessed. “Making amends for past wrongs?”
“From Lyton Sardis?” Moro and Basrali said at the same time.
“Point taken,” said Valier. “Nobody will believe that. He gambled a lot of allies for one shot at a Sonta key. He burned Terra Prima so badly they’ll take the company away from Moro in revenge!”
“I don’t want the damn company,” said Moro.
“Well, for the moment, Director, maybe it wants you! Rio Sardis Unlimited has been the best terraformer in the League for twenty centuries,” said Basrali. “I suspect a lot of us would like to leave Terra Prima cultural politics behind and get back to what we’re good at. You and Ventana would be a fine public relations symbol, at least.”
“Ventana?” Moro muttered. “It’s ruined.”
“It’s a big rock with a molten core, spinning around a gas giant in as sweet an orbital zone as I’ve ever seen,” said Basrali. “I have no idea why Lyton Sardis wanted to excavate so far into the crust. It won’t be the same, and it will take centuries to repair properly, but Ventana can be a living world again.”
Following the conversation, Larosain said, “If we escape this system, you might have access to Tena, Danil, and Aksenna’s aid too. It may not take centuries.”
“What’s going on up there?” Moro asked the Sonta.
Larosain closed his eyes. “Danil is hurting, angry, and scared. He has not matched himself against one of the Bound since he was first trapped. I’m alive and sane, so neither of them are dead yet.”
“Go, Grandmother! I wonder how she and Gran Case would have got along,” Moro chuckled. “I can feel Cama, but I can’t hear her yet. Val?”
Valier’s face stilled as he sought inward for guidance. “She’s here. She can’t speak to us, but she’s tracking us through all the interference. Why is this place shielded anyway?”
“It is a land of relics,” said the Sonta, his large hand stroking through the dark purple grass. “I know this plant. Blackgrass. It was native to one of the Sonta ancestors’ home worlds. It grew in colder lands near the poles, or high in mountains where nothing else could. It would have been ideal to seed this little planet.”
“The key, the standing stone, this grass,” said Basrali. “Lyton Sardis tried to summon something, but all we got were earthquakes and bickering Ksaloni. What was here? Is it still here?”
“Nothing answered the Ksaloni,” said Larosain. “I sense nothing alive and thinking but us. The shielding is fading, though. Perhaps it failed when the stone was destroyed?” He nodded back at the aftermath of the avalanche.
“Heh,” said Basrali, standing up and revealing Bill’s bracelet. She opened her jacket and ripped out the lining. “I brought these. Do you mind if I rig a better com?”
She’d expected Valier to grab his restored gadgets. He looked up absently, nodded permission, and bent back over the document.
“Do you have allies, Sera?” Moro asked.
“I’ve got someone tracking us, if he’s half as smart as I think he is.”
“Tell him to bring good lawyers,” Valier said, tapping the white plastic sheet. “This is several assassinations waiting to happen. I don’t see how Moro can be my Knife and a company director at the same time.”
Moro ruffled Valier’s light gold hair and then slid his hand down to the prince’s shoulder. “Easy. You abdicate and become my trophy husband.” His tone—languid, teasing, possessive, and far too close to Lyton Sardis on a mellow day—made both Basrali and Valier glare at him. “What?” asked Moro. “I’m joking, damn it. I haven’t the faintest idea how to run one of the League’s biggest companies.”
Basrali grinned. “Surround yourself with people who do, Director. One of them is coming here right now. And believe me, he’s likely to give you Ventana himself.”
“Who?” Valier asked, hand clenching at Moro’s wrist.
“The Rio Sardis Chief of Operations. Vilam Volker Sardis. Hold on!” Basrali yelped when Valier’s expression turned cold and hard. “Yes, he’s their son. He’s nothing like them. Director?” she asked as Moro shrugged off Valier’s grip.
Moro’s own face wore a strange blank look as he stood and walked away a few paces. His back to Valier, he dropped his head into his hands. His broad shoulders shook. From crying or laughter?
“He’s their son,” said Valier, glancing between Moro and Basrali. “Were you on Lyton’s ship of your free will, Sera, or because Vilam Volker Sardis put you there? Moro, did he hurt you too?”
“Er,” stalled Basrali. Bill had even said, “I sometimes chase men.” By rescuing Moro, she’d had no idea she might be helping a past rival.
“Enough, Val,” said Moro, turning around. “There is nothing between me and Bill Sardis except a stupid, blameless fantasy on his part, long ago. If he has a ship, he’s an ally.”
“If he tries to take you from me, I’ll kill him.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you,” Moro growled, wading through the grass to lift Valier into a tight hug. “We’re stuck with each other, get it?”
With his boots dangling off the gro
und, Valier put some effort into another kiss. Whatever he muttered next made Moro laugh.
Oh, that laugh was unfair, Basrali thought.
Larosain grunted and doubled over, hands knotting in the grass. Basrali knelt beside the Sonta giant. “I am well,” he gasped finally. “More than well.” He looked into the chill morning sky. “They’ve stopped fighting. They’re still alive.”
“Alive is good,” said Valier, wriggling out of Moro’s embrace.
“You don’t understand,” said the Sonta, face alight in wonder. “This does not happen. When Ksaloni meet in person, they always fight to the death. The winner always absorbs the loser’s energies.”
“Except when they don’t,” said Moro. “Is that a ship?”
“Yes,” said Valier. “And the shield is fading. Do you feel Cama?”
“Yes,” Moro answered him triumphantly, and Basrali had to look away again.
Eighty-Eight
PERSEPOLIS FLED TOWARD a Terra Prima stronghold world. It might be welcomed. It might also be blasted out of orbit when the stronghold’s elders learned who and what the ship carried.
Terise Volker had no idea how many of her crew were infected with the Camalian Plague. She’d been too busy stabilizing Lyton’s body. She had ignored her own trembling weakness as strain or age until she’d looked in a polished bulkhead. Only then did she recognize the blue hollows under her eyes and the blue edges of her lips. Her wrinkled skin was too pale, too clammy. Her breath rasped in her lungs.
One blood test proved Cama’s Plague burned inside her.
She gave Lyton’s care to her well-trained team. If anything remained of her brilliant, twisted husband, they’d know soon enough. The stronghold sheltered one of Lyton’s last clones, a boy barely more than fifteen. The only one now available, she suspected, finally seeing Vilam’s touch in the debacle on Cedar.
Lyton had gambled too much on taking Moro’s body and using it to bargain with an elemental creature out of Sonta legend. That living weapon’s potential had been too great for Terra Prima to ignore, so she’d supported Lyton’s schemes. When had her smart son turned? She knew the exact moment.
As she’d always warned, her husband’s perversions had been his downfall. She remembered Vilam’s face when she’d told him about Lyton’s neural access to Moro. When Vilam had realized the damning truth behind his sordid encounter with Moro. She felt a certain pride in her son’s vengeance.
The capital transfer didn’t bother Terise. Terra Prima would fight on, without her or Lyton, for its rightful share of League power.
But that Lyton had gambled so much else and lost! The weapon was a sham, a lie, an empty legend. He’d stripped productive Ventana, hunting for a ghost that wasn’t there. Then he’d been certain the creature was somewhere on Brightcliff.
The Sonta had Moro now. They would create more beautiful and compelling mongrels like him and parade them around the League. What human would not want his or her grandchildren to live five hundred years, or a thousand? To have birthright access to Sonta technology? Terise guessed how news about Manchester Station might spread. How would the League react when Ventana itself was rebuilt as a paradise by Sonta and Rio Sardis working together?
The Camalians had only been a test case, wearing down at humanity’s resistance.
When the Sonta left off their veils and became a common sight in the League, how long would true humans survive?
With a shaking hand on her tiny gold circle pendant, Terise weighed her soul against her mission. Terra Prima controlled vast temporal and financial power, hidden military schools and strongholds, and mercenaries hired out to defend weaker League governments. But its true calling was to preserve humanity as a pure, vital, godly race, equal to any in the galaxy.
She had to live, whatever the cost. She alone stood between the flocks of humanity and the wolves meaning to seduce and devour them whole!
So Terise Volker shut herself into the shielded cargo container, along with food, water, painkillers, and the most critical of her samples and lab equipment. She wrinkled her nose at the reek of perverted sex in the tiny chamber. No matter. It would soon smell worse.
Eighty-Nine
THE CABIN WAS wonderful and difficult to leave even for food and a war conference. The moment Moro thoughtlessly dropped Lyton’s soiled, slinky black trousers and vest on the cabin floor, Val yelped in warning. For once faster than Moro, he kicked the garments into the steel tub in the cabin’s bathroom. Golden flame ate into the cloth. Golden sparks swirled and vanished. Cama’s shed symbionts were returning home.
To Val’s giggling and Cama’s smug silence, Moro scrubbed himself once more. After cleaning up, they both looked at the provided clothing: tough, warm survival fatigues made of an uninspired tan polyfiber cloth. Val aimed toward the bed. Moro dragged him away from it.
“I’m not eating with Vilam Sardis.” Val sulked. “Much less talking to him!”
“The man’s our ally. Grow up and get dressed.”
The naked prince stopped, barring the door with outspread arms. “Not until you tell me what happened between you two!”
“Nothing.”
“Yeah, I can see ‘nothing’ too. He watched your ass when you got on board this ship. First he smiled. Then he looked like he was ready to throw up.”
Moro eyed Val, but the smaller man’s eyes held a now-familiar glint of obstinate purpose. It would be so easy to bend before Val’s earnest, possessive, well-meant questions. To offer him every safe, kind answer. Moro didn’t need Cama’s wordless warning to know he couldn’t give in every time Val pushed or pulled at him, not and be Val’s Knife.
Moro advanced until he towered over Val. That forced Val to stretch his neck, looking up. Moro held Val’s shoulders against the door and said, “Nothing happened between Bill and me. It was all between Bill and Lyton, only Bill didn’t know it at the time.”
“Oh,” said Val, huge-eyed, and as the truth hit, “Oh! Ugh. That’s—”
“Not Bill’s fault, got it?”
“I’M FULL. AND sleepy,” muttered Val two hours later aboard the courier ship Nineveh. He leaned against Moro’s chest, his head tucked under Moro’s chin.
“Then go sleep,” Moro teased him. “What are you, five? We have a room.” A room with a locking door, a real shower, and a good bed. Moro intended to further investigate the cabin with Val as soon as possible.
As long as he could. The voice in the darkness had warned him of freedom’s price.
Moro was hurt inside, from a combination of Dr. Volker’s false neurons and the white star’s fierce energy. Lyton’s personality may have been swept away, but Moro still felt unsettling tingles and brief numbness at odd moments. Even with Cama helping him, it would get worse. He didn’t want to tell Val, not yet.
Moro still saw flickers of memories not his. Hegen, Alys, and even Aksenna had looked at each other silently over Val’s head when Moro said he felt fine. Cama, nestling back into his thoughts as if she’d never gone, merely said, Whatever Terise Volker left behind, we’ll fix it.
He felt no trace of the presence from the void. But it had been in him all along, so how would he know now?
“No. Won’t leave you again,” Val said, winding his fingers into Moro’s loose hair.
Nineveh had a conference room with comfortable sofas around an oval table. Moro settled deeper into the cushions, pinned once more by Val’s weight in his lap. It felt shameless and wonderful. No one else seemed to care about Val’s possessive display. Instead of pushing his prince away, Moro hugged him closer. “Shall I carry you to bed?” he whispered.
Val nuzzled against the bare skin at Moro’s throat and tugged Moro’s hair just a little tighter around his fist. “Yes. Good husband,” came the sleepy whisper before Val’s eyes closed.
Basrali and Hegen chattered about terraforming New Ventana. Aksenna and Savinilan played at stalking Alys through the corridors. Larosain and Odasu, predictably, had a deck of cards. Displacement activities. The
y were all still stunned, feeling their way into the future.
Moro looked up to see Bill watching him. The skin crinkled around Bill’s eyes in a silent laugh, and he shared a brief nod with Moro before joining Basrali’s side in the discussion.
Val dozed in Moro’s lap, and Moro was in no hurry to move.
There had been better food than Moro expected from survival rations. Drinks. Laughter. The sight of humans, Camalians, and Sonta gathering without fear to share the meal.
Odasu without his mask and veil had looked shockingly inhuman for a moment, his predator’s pushed-out muzzle covered in a fine dark fur blending into his thick black mane. Until he beat Savinilan to a joke’s punchline, rumbling laughter and forgiveness at the smaller man. Watching their interplay, Moro guessed they were occasional lovers. Guessed too, from a couple of Savinilan’s unguarded glances toward the white-haired Sonta, that wistful Larosain might be invited into their union. Despite grim rumors, the Sonta seemed tender enough toward each other and their enfleshed Ksala.
Good to know for when Val and I visit them, Moro thought.
BRIGHTCLIFF AND ITS secrets were light-years behind them. No need for a pilot. Aksenna’s bulk surrounded both small ships. She and Danil had scuffled over the task, with Aksenna pointing out she had far more experience at split-mind sessions, and no young fool was going to transport her grandson!
Before Aksenna’s main awareness had returned to her female Vessel’s body, the chill and regal Imraithi regarded Val and Moro with the same interest Terise had given to laboratory animals. Moro curled his lip in a little snarl, regretting not having fangs like Odasu or Larosain. He knew neither Imraithi nor Aksenna were finished with him. Whatever their plans, they couldn’t make him give up Val!
Hearing his name, Moro looked up. “What?”
“The claims and counterclaims could go on for a century or two,” Bill said and then snorted laughter. “The stockholders will hate us. Terra Prima, Rio Sardis, and the Commonwealth might end up supporting generations of lawyers long after we’re all dust.”
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