Because it left me free, in the eloquence of the Scat, to eat our enemy’s heart.
So who was Symon’s female? They’d moved quickly through the night-zone, more quickly than I’d expected. It was as if she’d hurried to avoid it. I could understand why. The music from the various halls vibrated through the floor plates; the dimmer light turned every being into a silhouette who might or might not be drunk enough to grab at random; and even the beauty of the tiny port lights, floating high above to mimic a starry sky, couldn’t disguise the fact that several beings had recently ejected the contents of their digestive tracts.
Add a few Skenkrans overhead, move some dubious entertainment into the main area, and a Plexis night-zone would be astonishingly like Big Bob’s Recreation Complex, I concluded, unsure whether to attribute the similarity to the Human tendency to keep building what worked, or if this was some socio-economic trend that crossed species’ barriers. Spacers, loud music, and bars.
The night-zone ended as abruptly as it had begun, delineated by bright full-spectrum lighting and businesses whose windows didn’t contain flashing signs advertising: “No matter what your taste, we have the species for you!”
Perversely, now that it was easier to see and be seen, I lost sight of my quarry. I ran up one of the side ramps to a balcony overlooking the main concourse. Most levels were taller than a single floor—a result of retrofitting a refinery designed to munch asteroids—and Plexis took full advantage by hosting stores and other businesses up its walls as well as along the floor.
The concourse wasn’t busy. From the finer clothing and lazy movements of the beings below me, I guessed it was late evening in this section. I put my bag on the floor and stepped closer to the rail, looking for Symon. He should be easy to spot—taller than most Humans, big through shoulders and chest, his coarse brown hair unfashionably short and sprinkled with gray.
There. The two of them were almost out of sight, heading in the direction of the Claws & Jaws. Another threat to Morgan’s giant blood brother, this time coming in the front door? I snatched up my bag and, taking the chance, pushed myself into the M’hir . . .
... to stand within the shelter of one of the arched entranceways to the vast Skenkran-operated cafeteria. The cafeteria might be Huido’s neighbor, but it hardly afforded him competition as it was closed more often than it was open. I wasn’t surprised to find the door behind me locked, its surface plastered with several lurid “unsafe for any species” signs. More likely, they hadn’t paid their taxes. Huido had told me Plexis forgave poisoned patrons before bad credit.
The tall entranceway—one of five—was set deeply into the wall, with lumpy inlaid tile and plas plants competing for attention. Intended to make one feel as though entering a true Skenkran dome, it succeeded in being an ideal place for ambush.
Of course, I’d planned to be the one doing the am-bushing, my plan to crouch in wait until Symon and his companion walked by. What I’d expected to do next was unclear even to me, but I had no chance to try.
Within a heartbeat of my arrival, I knew I wasn’t alone.
Before I could turn my head, everything went dark. I began to drown beneath a swell of unheard music, its wild notes flooding my bones, singing of need . . . desire . . . an urgent, restless heat . . .
“Fancy meeting you here.”
The shock of that intrusion was visceral. I gasped as if struck, fought to regain vision, any sense of what had happened, what was happening—losing that sense even as I was able, barely, to clamp down my connection to Morgan, to keep him safely unaware. Otherwise he’d hear that voice through my ears. Symon. My Chosen would try to come to me—to ‘port. I knew it—
“What’s wrong with her, Jake?” I heard, higher-pitched, softer—no less cruel. Jake?
“I don’t know.” Neither do I, I thought, still blind, feeling rough hands grab my arms and pull me against a hard body, too numb to protest or act in my own defense. “Too much to drink, probably. You go home, Ruti, dear. I’ll look after her.”
“Why don’t you just leave her here?” Petulant, as though the child begrudged me Symon’s care.
Care? I tried to struggle, but he’d wrapped his arm painfully tight around my shoulders, supporting me in a parody of kindness.
“I look after my friends, don’t I?” Symon didn’t wait for an answer. “Now go. Remember what I told you about the Carasians. And watch for my friend Jase Morgan at the restaurant. I want you to tell him how very much I need to see him.”
“I know, Jake. I keep watching for him, but are you sure he’s coming?”
Morgan? My attempted sending was too late; I was too close to losing consciousness. Desperately I set my inner defenses as Symon dipped to put his other arm behind my knees, then lifted me against his chest.
“I’m quite sure,” I heard the renegade telepath say, a sickening note of triumph in his voice.
INTERLUDE
Ruti scowled as she walked up to the Claws & Jaws, bypassing the main entrance in favor of a smaller door set inconspicuously at the juncture between the restaurant and the upscale hostel beside it. She keyed the code for the doorlock, tapping her foot as she waited for it to accept and admit her. Why the Carasian didn’t use a more conventional palmlock was beyond her. . . .
As was the behavior of her friend. This was supposed to be their time together, she fumed, time hard enough to come by without his wasting it on some drunken spacer!
The door unlocked. Ruti pushed it aside rather than waiting for it open. She peeled the air tag from her cheek, slapping the cold, grotesque thing to join the line of its cousins on the wall, then hurried down the hallway to the kitchen. Since graduating to chef, she’d succeeded in avoiding cleanup—a situation that wouldn’t last if Ansel or Chee, the head dishwasher, spotted her without something to do. She could ‘port to her room, but Huido seemed to know whenever she entered the M’hir. Tonight wasn’t a time to make the Carasian irritable, not if she wanted to be able to leave early again tomorrow night.
Surely Jake would rid himself of that—that female by then. No matter that she’d been . . . Ruti swallowed, then admitted the truth to herself. Regardless of her shabby spacer clothing, Jake’s “friend” had been stunningly beautiful, with red-gold hair hanging in great, heavy waves down her back and huge, unfocused gray eyes. And Ruti wasn’t completely naïve—you couldn’t be after working nights shoulder-to-hip in a kitchen with beings who chatted about every physical aspect of life in obscene detail. Ruti had seen Jake take pleasure in the feel of that body against his.
When Ruti Commenced, she would be more beautiful. Far more beautiful than any Human spacer dreg. Jake would see her and forget anyone else existed.
Ruti might forgive him by then.
A few more steps. Ruti took an involuntary glance into the kitchen, then stopped to stare. It was full of beings, but no one was cleaning. Staff, looking miserable, angry, and, in one case, sound asleep, stood or sat near the back. For the first time since she’d arrived, the mammoth stove was silent, grease congealing on its cold surface. The giant steam table no longer boiled. Cupboards hung open, drawers were pulled into the aisles—even the doors to the undercounter stasis units were ajar, vegetables sprouting as they made up for lost time.
And Plexis security was everywhere.
“There must be another way.”
Huido swiveled three eyes to examine Ansel’s anxious face. “I’m all ears,” he said without humor, continuing to reach for various sidearms and other weapons, securing each to a clip embedded in his chitonous plating. The two of them were in the outer room of his apartment, the Carasian having reluctantly decided this wasn’t an opportune moment to be distracted by his lovely wives—no matter how they savored stress and excitement. “Inspector Wallace has asked me to come quietly to the station brig in five minutes. You know how many beings don’t leave there on their own limbs?”
Ansel wrung his hands together. “Then you must leave the restaurant now, tonight. Get off the
station.”
“That’s what I intend to do, old friend. Make sure you stay in here. With security at every door, it’s not going to be a quiet exit.” Huido hummed contentedly as he dropped a set of blast globes in a mesh bag.
“You can’t mean to fight your way out!” The Human looked appalled. “Maybe you should go with them after all, Hom Huido. It’s only an inquest—” he pleaded.
More eyes swiveled to gaze at the Human. “Wallace has that misbegotten pate and ribs—which have to be pretty ripe by now—and claims I killed the Neblokan, too. A wonderful notion. I wish we’d thought of it.”
“You’ve done nothing wrong—the Enforcers will believe you! The Sector Chief knows you personally.” Ansel, who measured influence as carefully as he kept the restaurant accounts, had been overjoyed to find Bowman’s name near the top of the restaurant’s list for an annual truffle gift box.
“Plexis security doesn’t like me much, Ansel, especially since they know I’ve kept track of ‘special fees’ they’ve requested over the years for certain less-than-legal services,” Huido rumbled. “Plexis likes Bowman and her Enforcers even less. You think Wallace wants an inquest? Hah! He wants to toss me out an air lock before anyone else asks questions. So if you don’t mind—” Huido pulled a particularly nasty and highly illegal biodisrupter from its hiding place, “—I like my plan. Blast my way out and take what opportunities arise.”
“Wait!” Ansel came to stand directly in front of the larger being. “The Inspector . . . his people . . . they haven’t seen your nephew—he’s been in his quarters the last couple of hours going over the accounts. We can use him as a diversion. He can pretend to be you—trust me, that would work.” At Huido’s menacing claw snap, the Human added quickly: “As long as you aren’t together. Then they’d notice immediately how much bigger you are.”
Appeased, the huge alien subsided, continuing to gently snick one claw together as if it helped him think. “I’m not saying I agree to this—but then what?”
“Then?” Ansel was breaking into a sweat. Huido suspected he was nervous around armaments that could take out the side of the station. A wise fear, though the Carasian had no intention of making such a mess—at least not in his own apartment. Suddenly, Ansel’s face brightened. “Then—you go through the service corridor to the Mission. The Turrneds will help—I know they will. They can get you offstation until all this is resolved.”
“Which leaves my nephew here to either be dumped out an air lock or to try and explain to Inspector Wallace,” Huido’s eyestalks began to dance. “I like your approach, Ansel. I definitely do.” He slipped his carefully padded vest over his weaponry, not so much to conceal anything as to prevent the metal-on-plate sound. The Carasian stood statute-still for a moment, then said: “Fine. Go tell Ruti to pack. She’s coming with me.”
“Sir?” Ansel, who’d started for the door, looked around with a frown. “Why take the child?”
“She has no records,” Huido reminded him mildly enough. “Any digging by Plexis could reveal her origins—something I doubt Sira would want. I’ll take care of her. Now hurry. Wallace must be finished ruining my kitchen by now. Which reminds me—don’t forget to make a full accounting of spoilage—including whatever they slipped into their pockets. We’ll send Wallace a bill. A big one.”
“Yes, sir.” Ansel seemed on the verge of saying something else, then stopped, nodding as if to himself. “And taking Ruti is a very good idea, Hom Huido. I’ll make sure she’s ready.”
Once Ansel was gone, Huido went to the amber-colored sideboard he used to store important items such as crystal decanters of Brillian brandy and the hideously expensive translight com system Morgan had insisted he install. Well, it would have been hideously expensive, but Sira hadn’t been the only one to make friends on Drapskii. The Makii had given him a very generous discount.
Yes, Huido thought as he prepared his message. He’d take good care of Ruti. Especially since the child had set him up so perfectly.
Carasians didn’t forget.
Chapter 12
I HADN’T been set up, as Morgan might put it. I couldn’t remember everything leading to my present less-than-desirable situation, but I did recognize the hand of fate.
And the folly of overconfidence.
I ran one hand over the smoothness of a wall that was more than it seemed. Since awakening here, in this peculiar little room, I’d had plenty of time to puzzle over its unique properties.
No furniture. What was left of my carryroll and its contents lay piled in one corner, where they’d obviously been tossed without care. My keffle-flute was still in its case, none the worse for rough handling. I couldn’t seem to get rid of the thing. Nearby, like an afterthought, was a belt of C-cubes and a container of water. What light there was came from a globe I’d found on the floor after fumbling in the absolute dark.
The memory of that darkness raised gooseflesh along my arms, and I wrapped them tightly around my waist. I’d mistaken it for the M’hir at first, believing utterly I’d become lost in that otherness. My desperate, futile efforts to reach for Morgan had seemed proof of death.
With the globe and its light had come reason. This was a prison, built specifically for me, or those like me. And there was something all too familiar about the prickly, unseen barrier keeping me here, locking me from the M’hir—and Morgan. The Drapsk had vowed to stop selling their devices when I’d become their Mystic One, admitting they’d less-than-openly made some of their technology available to “interested parties.” The Makii Tribe, I corrected to myself, had vowed to stop. They were my tribe, and in ascendance over the rest on Drapskii. But did they really speak for all? I’d avoided learning Drapsk politics—now I wondered if that had been wise. If they’d sell this technology to Symon, who else might have it?
Still, it wasn’t a perfect prison. I could sense the M’hir’s restless boil, but at an unreachable distance. My link to Morgan? It was there, however untouchable. It had to be. I couldn’t send thoughts outward along our link, couldn’t sense Morgan in return, but took cold comfort from my continued existence. If I lived, so did Morgan. That was likely all I’d have of our living bond so long as Symon kept me in his box.
The emptiness where Morgan belonged had a distinct structure within my mind, as if my thoughts were a weave and his had been the threads adding color and strength. Without his presence, I was no longer whole.
Symon would die for this, I decided, coldly and calmly.
Unless I died first, of course. I’d developed a spacers’ sensitivity to air and what I was drawing into my lungs now was considerably less fresh than when I’d awakened. Perhaps that was his intent—there wasn’t a door; the structure might have been built around me. If I didn’t exert myself, I probably had another hour or so before I’d notice the first symptoms of asphyxiation.
Of course, that assumed I didn’t freeze in the meantime. The temperature had been dropping steadily. I’d attributed my soon-continuous shivering to dread, until I went to take a drink and found ice floating in the container. My breath now left clouds in the air.
As a rule, the Clan weren’t fond of technology. I’d learned most of what I knew as crew on the Fox, but the true nature of my prison remained a mystery until it was too late.
A Human might have noticed this room looked a great deal like the inside of a stasis box, only larger.
That resemblance only occurred to me when a sickly sweet smell heralded a rush of dark green gas, and my next involuntary, shivering breath was the last thing I remembered.
INTERLUDE
Morgan shivered involuntarily, unsure why he suddenly felt cold. The Drapsk ship, the Heerama, was pleasantly warm inside, his hosts adept at hospitality. This meeting lounge could be modified to suit a customer of any species, including—he’d heard—non-oxy breathers. “Forgive my inattention,” he said quickly. “You were saying, Captain Heeroki? Captain Heerouka? Captain Heeru?”
Not that any of three beings sitting with
him was likely the captain, but Morgan preferred to be polite. Unlike the Makii, the Heerii didn’t correct his assumption—implying they either all had that rank, or couldn’t be bothered explaining who was who to a being unable to tell them apart without assistance. “I was saying, Oh, Mystic One,” this from the left-most, Heerouka, “that the Makii have been most unwise. We need your assistance.”
“I was under a contract—”
The Drapsk farthest to Morgan’s right, Heeru, waved one stubby-fingered hand in the air. Dismissal. “We have dealt with Hom Hawthorn in the past. A being who tends to—obsess—on certain issues. I assure you, Mystic One, your contract will be resolved to his complete satisfaction and your benefit. We have already taken care of the remainder of the repairs to your fine ship. With excellent new parts. She’ll be ready to lift this time tomorrow.”
“Really.” Morgan let the noncommittal word sit between them, watching as the Drapsk, one by one, sucked in a tentacle to chew. Before they became too distracted, he said: “If you don’t mind, I’d like to contact Hawthorn myself—in the morning,” he added, thinking of the poor Human’s likely condition at this hour. “You do realize I’m scheduled to head straight to Plexis—”
“With the Makii’s Mystic One,” Heeroki interjected quickly, a note of reverence in his voice. “When may we meet her, Captain Morgan?”
“Sira took herself to Plexis already.” Morgan grinned and waited for a reaction.
It wasn’t what he expected. Heerouka immediately curled into a tidy white ball of distress, while the other two stood up, antennae fully erect and tentacles fanned in a shocked circle around their tiny mouths.
While Drapsk were overly dramatic at the best of times, Morgan felt uneasy. Full eopari seemed a drastic response to missing the chance to meet Sira in person. “What’s wrong?”
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