Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
INTERLUDE
Chapter 2
INTERLUDE
Chapter 3
INTERLUDE
Chapter 4
INTERLUDE
Chapter 5
INTERLUDE
Chapter 6
INTERLUDE
Chapter 7
INTERLUDE
Chapter 8
INTERLUDE
Chapter 9
INTERLUDE
Chapter 10
INTERLUDE
Chapter 11
INTERLUDE
Chapter 12
INTERLUDE
Chapter 13
INTERLUDE
Chapter 14
INTERLUDE
Chapter 15
INTERLUDE
Chapter 16
INTERLUDE
Chapter 17
INTERLUDE
Chapter 18
INTERLUDE
Chapter 19
INTERLUDE
Chapter 20
INTERLUDE
Chapter 21
INTERLUDE
Chapter 22
INTERLUDE
Chapter 23
INTERLUDE
Chapter 24
INTERLUDE
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Partial Genealogy of the Clan
No Warning Could Have Prepared Me To Face What Filled Most of The Right-Hand Corridor.
Or, rather, who. A pulsating mass pressed against floor, wall, and ceiling, as though the being had forced itself to fit within our parameters. Five long, fibrous-appearing arms lay in parallel along the near wall, as if we’d surprised them reaching toward our cabin door. There were no other obvious features of body structures. With the exception of the arms, the whole seemed insubstantial, as if darkness had been poured into this shape and left without form, only a glistening, as if wet or coated in the finest possible scales.
Morgan’s arm lifted into a valiant, if improbable, barrier between me and our latest uninvited guest. I put my hand on his wrist and gently brought it down. Rugheran, I sent to him, as tightly as my mind could focus. Despite this care, the flesh—if that’s what composed this being—quivered in response.
“I think it likes us,” I ventured hopefully.
“It could learn to knock, too,” Morgan muttered under his breath, but I heard the growing wonder in his voice as he surveyed the being stuffed into his ship. “Rugherarn. Sira. Do you realize what this means? First contact ...”
Novels by
JULIE E. CZERNEDA
available from DAW Books:
Stratification
REAP THE WILD WIND
RIDERS ON THE STORM
RIFT IN THE SKY
Trade Pact Universe
A THOUSAND WORDS FOR STRANGER
TIES OF POWER
TO TRADE THE STARS
Species Imperative
SURVIVAL
MIGRATION
REGENERATION
Web Shifters
BEHOLDER’S EYE
CHANGING VISION
HIDDEN IN SIGHT
IN THE COMPANY OF OTHERS
Copyright © 2002 by Julie E. Czerneda.
All Rights Reserved.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1225.
DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Putnam Inc.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
eISBN : 978-1-101-49739-5
First Printing, June 2002
DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA REGISTRADA.
HECHO EN U.S.A.
S.A.
http://us.penguingroup.com
For Scott Aleksander Czerneda
What should I give you, as you venture forth? I’d give you kindness and a generous heart—but you have those. I’d give you warm wit and wisdom—but you have those, too. I’d give you a sense of justice and chivalry—but no warrior imagined or real could have more. (And you’re already tall enough to reach all the cupboards, thank you, so no more height.)
Which leaves me, Scott, with just this riddle to send with you. What will you have wherever you go, yet never need to pack? Home. Heart. Family.
Always.
Love, Mom
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The end of a beginning. That’s how it feels to write a finale to the story begun by my first novel. Who knew it would lead to this? Well, Sheila Gilbert, my friend, editor, and publisher, who once more found what this book needed to be its best. And probably Roxanne Hubbard, who again fit a friend’s needs into her busy life. Thanks, Luis Royo, for capturing Sira from the beginning. And thank you to all the fine folks at DAW, who treat their authors like family.
Many people have given their enthusiastic support to my work. Debby de Groot, Kate Lennard, Wendy Bush-Lister, and Peter Robb at Penguin Canada made me feel like royalty. Then, the Palm eBook guys, the nicest people you could meet. Hi Mike, Jeff, Lee, Joth, and Hayden! To sign a book for the charming Martin H. Greenberg, then meet the Tekno Books folks in person? A high point of the year. Thanks also to Gordon Van Gelder, Laura Ann Gilman, Wen Spencer, Kathryn Helmick (Hi Kat!), Jim Seidman, Larry Smith and Sally Kobbe, Frank Hayes, Patricia Bow, Russell Martin, Michael Green, David Shtogryn, Jana Paniccia, and Don Hutchison.
I was Guest of Honor at Willycon 2001, Wayne, Nebraska. My thanks and Roger’s for a fabulous time to the SFFC, Ron Vick, Stan Gardner, and Kelly (Pancake Man) Russman. Hats, fame, and bowling! Thanks also to our friend, the amazing Frank Wu.
Happy hunting, Hounds of the IPU. I’ve sprinkled this book with nuggets just for you. My special thanks to MT O’Shaughnessy (Uriel) for his friendship and inspiration, and to Kristen Britain, convention queen and buddy. Thank you, Tim Bowie and Ruth Stuart, for allowing me to use your names as well as your good natures.
It’s been another year where kindnesses flooded in, but the production people will protest if I thank everyone I should. Still, there are four absolutely dear ladies whose generosity and affection I must acknowledge: Carol Bennewies, Donna Beuerman, Barb McGrath, and Cheryl McGrath. See you in July!
Thank you, Jennifer, for putting up with my writing while you were home—and for braving the book-stores! Scott, thanks for all those names—and making me lunch! Mom’s back—until the next book. And Roger? Come here.
Prologue
A KITCHEN can be a dangerous place for an argument. This one, in the rear of Claws & Jaws—Complete Interspecies Cuisine, looked like a scene from a low-budget horror vid. Knives protruded hilt-first from cupboard doors. What appeared to be body parts from several different species had been tossed in every direction, their flight paths marked by bloody trails of red, ocher, and corrosive green. And what had been done to the salads ...
Suffice it to say the regular staff had long ago run and, in one case, slithered out the service entrance to where they could listen at the door in relative safety. Now, they exchanged worried looks as the argument grew suddenly—and ominously—quiet.
They weren’t the only ones.
A cautious eye, gleaming black, peered over the edge of the mammoth, steaming hot stove. It was followed by another.
And another.
And another.
Until dozens formed an anxious, beadlike row.
“But, Chef Neltare,” a voice more accustomed to booming than pleading emerged faintly from somewhere behind the eyes. “Whatever name we use for your new pate ... I can’t add it to the menu. Not on Plexi
s. I mean—think of the clientele.” There was a clanging sound, as though pots had fallen loose inside a cupboard. It had an overtone of distress. “We can serve Humans liver pâté—we certainly can’t serve them Human liver pate. You do see the problem.”
The Neblokan standing in the middle of the aisle between the stove and the sous-station glared back, his shoulders forward and flared to their maximum width. While it wasn’t a particularly impressive display—evolution and culture conspiring to produce a species prone to the “find a crevice large enough to hide your head and hopefully more” philosophy of conflict resolution—this Neblokan had the bottomless courage that came of knowing oneself to be indispensable. There were, after all, only three Trade Pact Certified Multi-Species Master Chefs on Plexis.
And the other two had already quit.
“You try to confuse my genius with mere semantics?” the Neblokan shouted, reaching for another bowl of doomed salad. “I’ll leave today! Now! Before supper! You will have not only no Master Chef, but no clientele at all, Hom Huido!”
“No! No. Please. Believe me, Chef Neltare, I mean no insult. There simply isn’t a restaurant on the station that will allow sapient-based dishes to be served. The Food Inspectors alone—” A huge shape rose from behind the stove, head plates pulsing with agitation. "Perhaps—a special menu? To highlight your vast and undeniable talents in some, ah, less controversial way?”
“Semantics, I tell you! I spit at semantics.” A bile-yellow glob sizzled across the stove.
“I assure you, Master Chef, semantics are very much the issue here,” the Carasian took a careful sidestep to move clear of the stove and into what had seemed a generous aisleway, until he narrowed it with his bulk to barely passable. Seen in the light, his gleaming black carapace and jointed arms were streaked with a granular pink substance of highly suspicious origin and several wilted sprigs of garnish.
Huido Maarmatoo’kk, owner of the famed Claws & jaws, as well as what he hoped would prove a growing number of franchises throughout this quadrant of space, lowered his great claws to the floor in a conciliatory posture he trusted the Neblokan could read and thus forestall any further launches from the menu. The incensed chef had already accounted for most of tonight’s entrées. “I understand your species’ culinary traditions are more—” the Carasian struggled to find a word in Comspeak to encompass proudly cooking one’s parents for the ceremonial first feast of the next generation and settled for: “—liberal than those of other Trade Pact species. Still, you did pass the Trade Pact Certification. You did pass, didn’t you?” This with a suspicious rumble.
Chef Neltare looked shocked. “The certification cannot be counterfeited!”
“Then how did you miss learning that most non-Neblokans abhor cannibalism!” Huido restrained the urge to snap his lower pair of massive handling claws with considerable difficulty, and continued in what he hoped was a more reasoning tone. “Chef Neltare. It’s not as though we’re talking about beings eating one another for survival. Try to imagine how those beings would feel to discover they’d violated their principles for an overpriced appetizer.”
The salad bowl lifted threateningly. “Are you implying my appetizers aren’t worth the price?”
Huido switched tactics. “I have enough trouble getting truffles—how can you possibly obtain the—” even the usually callous Carasian hesitated, “—raw ingredients?”
“Hardly a problem in so vibrant a community as Plexis,” Neltare boasted. “In fact, today alone I was paid quite handsomely to take the ingredients for my new pâté—as well as a rib dish I modestly believe will be a marvel.” The being’s amber pupils glowed beneath their sequined eye ridges. “I hardly thought you of all beings would balk at this, Hom Huido. You’ve done it before, after all. Everyone says so.”
Wondering if he’d ever live down having served that Clansman’s corpse to a delegation of vastly impressed Thremms—a secret spread so far around the station as to have become legend, thus resulting in shiploads of vastly disappointed Thremms and a welcome decrease in uninvited Clan—Huido’s sigh shuddered through his body. The resulting vibration slithered free the topmost plates in the clean stack, most crashing to the floor. Huido calculated the cost of the nonrecyclable porcelains and winced. “All I know, Master Chef,” he said, almost to himself, “is my life is being ruined by success. I’ve hardly time for the pool anymore. And your novel approach to broadening the menu at the Claws & Jaws will be the ultimate straw, as the Humans express it.”
“Humans. Brain-dead pests with no taste buds,” the Neblokan muttered, the gleaming blue wattle beneath its chin swelling with displeasure. Then, perhaps realizing criticism of a species that included the giant Carasian’s dearest friend was likely unwise, given the ringing snap of a great claw, the being added in haste: “Except Captain Morgan. An epicure, of his kind. Remarkably cultured—”
Forgetting he was trying to reconcile with the being, Huido lunged forward, claws snapping in unison, sending the chef dodging behind his side of the stove. “Don’t talk to me about that unreliable excuse for brexks’ fodder! Too busy for the Pocular run, is he? Too busy to help his brother keep up with business or to see what a disaster he’s left behind! Too busy in his own pool to care about mine! Does he even call?”
As this last was delivered in a deafening bellow quite probably heard all the way into the dining hall, if not out into the Plexis concourse itself, the now-cowering chef didn’t bother to answer.
Chapter 1
“DON’T they ever knock?”
We were alone. Now. The Council representative who’d mistakenly ’ported into our cabin, setting off Morgan’s complaint and the Fox’s alarms—including some which should give said representative a well-deserved headache—had left as quickly as he’d appeared. With a little help from me.
And after one look at me or, rather, where I was.
I gazed at my hand, fingers spread over the warmer skin of Morgan’s stomach, fascinated anew by the firmness of muscle and curve of rib—both of which had moved quite abruptly in reaction to our visitor, as had his shoulder beneath my cheek. I shifted to nestle even closer. I’ve tried to convey the concept, my love, I sent into his thoughts, uninterested in speaking aloud in this moment before we had to stir, this moment before the universe demanded its share of us. How quickly I’d come to love waking together, lingering at the edge of peace.
Morgan chuckled into my hair, his arms gathering me in a brief, tight hold. No need of words, spoken or sent. My gentle, passionate lover, my Chosen, was also Captain of the Silver Fox, Karolus Registry. Lingering lasted only until he began to think of the day ahead and his starship.
Our starship, I reminded myself proudly.
For among the fundamental changes in my life: from the protective seclusion of a Chooser, to Choice with this Human; from being little more than a rumor to my kind, the Human-seeming Clan, to Speaker for their Council; and from being alone and hunted, to companionship and happiness—I counted becoming a partner and crew on this small ship as wondrous a change as any.
I’d been right. Morgan rolled away with a practiced twist to slide his feet to the floor in the narrow space between our bed and the fresher stall, leaving me cold along one side until I snuggled under the portion of sheet warmed by his body.
Temporary refuge. The sheet disappeared as suddenly as the Clansman had. “Time to get up, Lady Witch,” Morgan informed me, a laugh beneath the words. “We have bills to pay.”
I didn’t need to look to know the sheet was no longer in the cabin, though I hoped it was still on the ship. My Human’s Power left a tingle in the M’hir between us, just as his triumph left a surge of joy for me to share. “Show-off,” I said, pretending to grumble.
“Practice, practice, practice,” he said, knowing full well I was proud of his growing ability to move objects through the M’hir. My kind, the M’hiray branch of the Clan, had believed this was solely their talent.
They’d been wrong, I thought conte
ntedly, following Morgan into the fresher. About so many things.
INTERLUDE
“You know they’re wrong. This is impossible.” Barac sud Sarc, former Clan Scout and presently serving as Mystic One for the powerful Makii Tribe of the Drapsk, ran one hand through his thick black hair and glared at the image hovering a hands’ breath above the carpet. “I tell you, Rael, it can’t be done their way!”
“Tell them, Cousin, not me,” Rael di Sarc, also Mystic One for the Makii—though the Heerii claimed her, too, through some unfathomable confusion of Drapsk internal politics—appeared more interested in scrutinizing the delicate lacework tattooed from her thigh to ankle, revealed by the slide of blue issa-silk from her long legs. She was beautiful, of course, as all Chosen Clanswomen were; her green eyes and fair skin, her lustrous black and living hair a legacy of her Serona lineage. Beautiful and no fool—Barac knew Rael well enough to take her apparent inattention as its opposite. He also knew why she was reluctant to discuss their situation: she didn’t like admitting failure. Proud to a fault, like all their kind.
“Come back to the capital,” he compromised. “Talk to me.”
“Where I’ll trip over them at every turn?” Rael had recently moved from their luxurious apartments in the Drapskii capital to an equally luxurious, but isolated, suite in a small border town near the mountains. The reason given, and accepted by the Drapsk, was that the greater distance enabled the two Clan to further experiment with their Power. A lie. Rael was as fond of the beings as he was—hard not to be fond of creatures so devoted and earnest—which only made it harder for either of them to contemplate disappointing them.
Not to mention that Rael was perturbed by their hosts committing grispsta if, as she’d complained to Barac, she so much as winked. An exaggeration, but there was no denying the Drapsk fascination with the Clanswoman. The closer they could be to her, the happier they were. If she tried to walk anywhere, they crowded lifts and corridors until her steps took on the semblance of a dance in order to avoid contact. Whenever she grew frustrated enough to ‘port away, the little beings trembled in ecstasy and sent her extravagant gifts—which would have been more pleasing except for their tendency to deliver those gifts in person. At any time of day.
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