To Trade the Stars

by Julie E. Czerneda

  “The freezer.” Ruti began wondering about Ansel and the cooking wine.

  “Some months back, while Huido was away from the station, there was an incident. Sedly—our old chef—heard banging inside the freezer and called me. We unlocked it together. There’d been some—problems—in the freezer already and no one wanted to take chances. Your friend was standing inside, looking furious, and pushed by us all without a word of explanation. How did he get in there? Hmm? By putting himself there, that’s how. Teleporting, or whatever your people call it.”

  “You think he’s Clan?” If Ruti hadn’t been so flustered by all this, she would have found this ironic. “Don’t you think I’d know? Ja—he’s just a nice Human who’s been kind to me. Why is that so hard to imagine? As for how he ended up in the freezer—sounds like a Clan played a trick on him, and not a very safe one. Maybe it was Sira di Sarc herself. She has that kind of Power, doesn’t she?”

  “If it was Fem Morgan,” Ansel said firmly, “she would have had a good reason. She doesn’t play tricks.”

  Ruti closed her bag. “It doesn’t matter, does it? I’m leaving with Hom Huido. Just give me a minute to call my friend so that he doesn’t worry about me while I’m gone. You did say we had to hurry.”

  “Give me his name, and I’ll put the call through for you. I’m only trying to protect you, Ruti. Believe me.” Angry brown eyes met determined blue ones. Blue won.

  Besides, Ruti decided, she had nothing to hide. Neither did Jake. “His name is Jake,” she said proudly. “Jake Caruthers. You won’t need to connect through Plexis. He’s coded into my com already.”

  Ansel didn’t react to the name, merely nodded as though memorizing it. He activated the com while Ruti stayed sitting on her bed, bags to either side. The com hissed and popped to itself, then: This code has been disconnected. There is no forwarding code. This code has been disconnected. There is no—Ansel drew his hand from the shutoff. “Do you have another code?” he asked gently.

  Ruti was already trying in her own way, concentrating on the feel of Jake’s mind and throwing all her Power into a sending. Jake! Nothing.

  “He left with her,” she wailed, uncaring that Ansel had no idea what she was talking about, that he saw the tears spilling down her cheeks. “He left with her!”

  The Claws & Jaws had been carefully designed to allow its larger-than-most owner access to every room. Access didn’t mean extra space. For instance, a Carasian’s carapace came close to scraping both walls of the corridors leading to the private apartments and staff quarters, as well as those leading discreetly outside.

  Huido rumbled to himself. He would have doubled that width, despite the cost, if he’d known this would happen. Ansel had outdone himself in orchestrating his and Ruti’s exit without Wallace’s security being the wiser. Until this critical point.

  The two Carasians stood, a meter apart, eyes to eyes, without any room to pass one another. The nearest doorway where one could let the other pass was behind Huido. Which was out of the question. Not only were security personnel relaxing in that room, Huido certainly wasn’t about to back up from his nephew.

  “Why doesn’t Huido climb over him?” an impatient voice hissed from behind. Ruti, finally speaking. She’d looked dreadful, eyes and nose red, her bags clutched in both hands. There hadn’t been time for explanations. Perhaps she missed the kitchen.

  “That’s just—not done,” Ansel said quickly.

  “We can’t stay here like this!”

  Huido was open to suggestions.

  What he got was a nasty reminder of how the Clan acted for themselves. Before he more than registered the light brush of fingers on his back, Huido found himself staring down an unimpressed exit door instead of an abject and confused Tayno.

  Ruti had ‘ported them both to the far end of the hallway.

  Huido decided, under the circumstances, he wouldn’t worry about his grist. He’d be lucky to ever see his pool and mates again as it was.

  Not that he planned to thank Ruti for the experience anytime soon.

  Plexis security, with a Carasian—a bad-tempered Carasian at that—to bring to justice, hadn’t taken any chances. A broad area in front of the Claws & Jaws had been cordoned off to allow space for servo-deployed metal barriers and not one but three grav sleds were parked inside that clearing, carrying such useful equipment as auto-grapples and string-steel nets of the sort more typically found in freighters. Wallace knew who and what he was dealing with.

  Or thought he did. Ruti almost grinned as she stood beside the real Huido, surveying the scene on the Turrneds’ news monitor. Their exit out the back of the restaurant had been easy enough. Wallace, having believed he knew where his quarry was, had called all the guards from the kitchen to help him. Perhaps he’d suspected Huido wouldn’t come quietly.

  “What will your nephew do?” Ruti asked curiously. “If they try to take him away, that is?”

  A slither of plate over plate as Huido chuckled to himself. “Resist, I hope. But he’s likely too soft-shelled for that. Besides, it shouldn’t take long for even Wallace to realize his mistake. My nephew is a poor substitute.”

  Ruti didn’t argue the point. She couldn’t tell the two Carasian males apart and sincerely doubted any other humanoid could—unless it was Huido’s infamous blood brother, Captain Morgan, who hadn’t appeared before they’d left, despite Jake’s confident prediction. So, if Tayno did as promised and didn’t answer any questions—Carasians apparently didn’t lie well—they might have a considerable period of grace before Wallace figured out he had the right species but the wrong problem.

  While she had a problem with another species. Ruti stole a look around, shuddering inwardly as she confirmed all seventeen Turrneds were looking back. Didn’t they blink? Their attentive courtesy bordered on horrifying. She wasn’t the least convinced they weren’t planning to sacrifice her and Huido—after a suitable and heartfelt apology, of course.

  She and Huido had made their way here with a minimum of fuss—well, at least until they’d broached the back entrance of the Mission. Getting inside where servos off-loaded was one thing; getting both of them through the tiny door into the Mission itself had taken another use of her Power. The Carasian seemed resigned to accepting the inevitable, if not to being gracious about it.

  “We’re in luck, Ruti,” Huido rumbled quietly, as if sensing her thoughts. He turned and crouched in an awkward position, probably finding it hard to sit properly while festooned with heavy artillery. “Plexis happens to be making its closest approach to Ettler’s Planet this standard year. While I’d hoped to go elsewhere—anywhere else, in fact—this will do. A friend of mine keeps property there; a secure place for—unexpected emergencies.”

  “And how are you planning to get there? I can’t ‘port us without a locate, even if it’s within my range.”

  A shudder rattled more than the huge black being’s natural armor. “That won’t be necessary, Ruti. These fine beings—” Huido waved one of his larger claws in a gesture that sent the nearest Turrneds scampering to hide behind those farther back, slowly peeking out to shine their eyes on Ruti. The Carasian seemed not to notice, continuing: “—are willing to send more representatives to their Mission on Ettler’s. I reminded them it’s a system full of vile and violent individuals. Luck again,” he repeated. “They’ll gladly take us along.”

  Ruti sagged with relief, sitting on a nearby bench. She pulled her two bags on the bench with her, keeping hold of both. The one under her right hand contained what she’d brought to the station: clothing and her doll, Lara. It was safer than her pocket. The bag under the left held belongings she’d earned working at the Claws & Jaws; those, and gifts from Jake. The only other possession she could claim lay within, the reassuring warmth of her mother’s mind touching hers. She didn’t care if leaving Plexis ruined First Chosen di Caraat’s plans for a pathway to the station; she did care about taking any risk with her link.

  But Ettler’s Planet was in t
he nearest inhabited system to Acranam’s, Ruti thought with a deep sense of rightness. It was as though the station had brought her home these past weeks, instead of taking her farther away.

  Ruti leaned her head back against the cushions and closed her eyes as Huido began talking over final arrangements with the purring Turrneds, feigning disinterest. In truth, she was concentrating, sending her thoughts questing through the M’hir. Perhaps Jake had to shield himself. He could be in danger. Ruti couldn’t believe she’d so quickly assumed her friend had abandoned her. Jake Caruthers wasn’t like that, she knew. He cared about her. Didn’t he want the best for her? Hadn’t he protected her when she’d arrived on Plexis?

  If Jake let down his shields, Ruti would find him. Then she’d leave Huido for her true destiny.

  Chapter 15

  WHAT happens after destiny? Does a story come to an end, absolute and final? Or is it metamorphosed into the next struggle—cycling over and over, as life and death cycle through populations of living things?

  Does memory hold the future as well as the past?

  It wasn’t idle speculation. I’d been here—wherever this “here” was—before. At intervals, I could recognize I was experiencing what was past, not the present. It was as if my life was being replayed to ready me for something to come.

  ... That which tried to think fractured from that which couldn’t . . .

  “And do you still feel her? Your mother?”

  Adia found the question difficult to ask. I sensed her embarrassment as easily as I could the tightly-forged connection between my mother’s mind and mine. “You ask it as if I shouldn’t,” I said, rather rudely. The question felt threatening, although I couldn’t say why. I had no complaints of Adia’s care these past five years: she’d been kind to me and justly unkind to those who’d sought to trouble my peace. Why did I now sense she was unhappy with me?

  “She asks because we’re proud of you, Sira. It’s highly unusual for a link between mother and offspring to last more than a few months—a year at best. You’ve done a fine job of building a pathway between Stonerim III and Camos.”

  I smiled at my father. Jarad had materialized during supper, without warning to the sud Friesnens as was his right as Councillor and di Sarc. I’d been permitted to join the adults in Adia’s burgundy-and-gold sitting room—heart of the sud Friesnen House—as well as to sip on a very small amount of brandy. It tasted vile, but I knew it was meant as a compliment.

  And a warning. Something was brewing, in this civil exchange of spoken and unspoken thought. If I extended my other sense into the M’hir, I knew I’d feel it hiss and boil around each of the others here: Jarad, Adia, her father—Nanka sud Friesnen, a quiet, venerable Clansman whose claim to fame among our kind was in fathering an unheard of four offspring, three of whom were di. Those had left his House to set up their own, while Adia had returned after her fostering and Choice, to rule here as First Chosen. Her mother had the discourtesy to protest, despite her inferior Power, and now lived with one of her sons.

  “Isn’t it a good thing that my link to Mirim sud Teerac remains?” I asked.

  “Of course,” my father said quickly.

  His shields were impenetrable, so I had to rely on his expression for clues. Most frustrating. “But . . . ?” I began, raising my eyebrows.

  “The pathway has been established, Sira,” Nanka told me, offering me a second brandy which I refused hastily. “There’s no point having you and Mirim continue to pour your strength into it.”

  “And every benefit,” Jarad said smoothly, “in using your strength elsewhere. Even as we speak, Mirim is getting ready to leave Stonerim III.”

  I leaped to my feet, almost tipping over the tray beside my adult-sized chair. “And come here?” I asked eagerly. The link was central to my peace, but it was a poor substitute for my mother’s physical presence.

  They looked to one another rather than at me, granting me time, I realized, to collect myself and behave more appropriately. “Forgive me, Father,” I said, dry-mouthed, making the gesture of appeasement. I sat back down. “Where is my mother going?”

  He didn’t spare me; I supposed it didn’t occur to him. “To Deneb. The distance will test your link, but I’m sure you will succeed—to the enhancement of the M’hir for us all.”

  When? I remembered my manners even as he frowned at my sending in this group of adults. “When?”

  Jarad’s expression became withdrawn. I let out my other sense more cautiously this time, and felt his focus turn inward, to the Joining between himself and Mirim. More than focused. His gaze suddenly sharpened on mine. “I’ve told her to go—now.”

  ... not this . . .

  Even as he spoke, I felt my mother leave Stonerim III, her home since before my birth. She had pushed herself through the M’hir at his command, an immediate distancing that stretched the link between us past the breaking point.

  Somehow I held it.

  The link between mother and child attenuates by nature, a weaning process that frees the parent to become pregnant once more, while the child goes on to seek a new, more permanent connection through the M’hir to replace it. Natural, but there was nothing natural in this severing. Jarad risked all of us again. I knew it—this time understanding it was his ruthlessness, but seeing nothing he could gain.

  For no reason, I thought of the parade of unChosen visiting sud Friesnen, interrupting my music.

  I held and held. The effort drew my consciousness deep into the M’hir. I’d never regained the easy confidence of a child here, not since my terrifying journey to Camos, and did my best to feel my body, to cling to reality as I struggled to keep my mother.

  Mirim was wiser. She knew it was time for us to part, even if this was a brutal uncoupling. She resisted my effort to pull us together with a strength that distance matched to mine. Our link weakened . . . I cried out in the darkness . . . it broke . . .

  I was incomplete . . . I must have more . . . The M’hir heaved its reaction in stygian waves, directionless and violent, frothing with rejected power. Terrified, I fought to find myself within the chaos . . .

  ... opening my eyes to find my father leaning toward me, his hand outstretched as he felt the air around my face, his mouth widening in a smile as he said to me: “Welcome, Chooser.”

  Jarad had known he couldn’t lose, part of me comprehended. Had the link held, my mother and I would have built another valuable pathway for the Clan, increasing our family’s prestige. Since it failed, the House of di Sarc gained—me. As the most powerful female of my generation, I was a bargaining chip of inestimable value. My aching emptiness meant I was ready to be offered candidates for my Choice, candidates who would be selected by the Council and screened by my father to find the most worthy of Joining with di Sarc. His dynasty would continue.

  Part of me refused to comprehend I’d been ripped from my mother to further his scheming. How had he made her agree? What did she think? Was she feeling this agony as well? I couldn’t know. I couldn’t feel her thoughts any longer.

  ... memory had a pallid underbelly, hidden from the light until forced to turn over . . .

  ... my father’s voice . . . my mother pushing herself into the M’hir at his command . . . leaving me behind . . . I fought to hold her. It was only natural . . .

  ... but nothing about my link to Mirim was natural. I’d maintained it past time, strengthened it, insisted on it, despite what had grown to be her horror of the M’hir, despite her every struggle, waking and sleeping, to be rid of me. When I might have known, I’d convinced myself it was the M’hir itself trying to tear us apart. I swore to her—to myself—I hadn’t known.

  It didn’t matter. Mirim freed herself with a snap of rejected Power that burned without fire. I glowed in the M’hir, dazed and alone, reaching for . . . what? I didn’t know.

  But it knew me. From the unimaginable depths, it came. A Singer, ghostly familiar yet utterly strange. Where were the Watchers to protect me? I tried to flee, screame
d without sound for my mother’s aid, for anything to save me.

  My scream was answered by a touch in the utter dark, a hot, moist exploration that dismissed my shields, my identity, and sought what it needed. What was me reeled in horror . . . in pleasure beyond bearing. I became trapped in ecstasy that wasn’t mine but was, imprisoned by a rising urgency for completion that threatened everything about me and yet . . . had I been older, had I a way to relate what was being done to me to anything real, I might have succumbed. I might have followed the Singer . . .

  But the strangeness drove me back. The M’hir heaved its reaction in stygian waves, directionless and violent, frothing with spurned power. Terrified, I fought to find myself within the chaos . . .

  ... opening my eyes to find my father leaning toward me, his hand outstretched as he felt the air around my face, his mouth widening in a smile he said to me: “Welcome, Chooser.”

  INTERLUDE

  “Welcome to Plexis, Captain Morgan. Do you accept responsibility for the air you share while on-station?” The busy official didn’t wait for an answer before deftly applying the blue air tag to Morgan’s cheek. “Next.”

  Morgan stayed within the line heading to the ramp-ways, but seized any opportunity to surreptitiously lengthen his stride and ease around slower beings. Gray-uniformed security was always on the lookout for those in a hurry. Mind you, they’d pull aside those moving unusually slowly as well, on the reasonable basis that customers couldn’t be parted from their credits if delayed in transit.

  The Human knew he was good—damned good—at controlling his outward appearance, at blending into any crowd. He should be, given the years of practice he’d had. This time? The only reason he could continue to govern himself was his awareness of Sira. The barrier stayed between them—she didn’t or couldn’t acknowledge his strongest sendings—but she did exist. They were still one, in a fashion.