Camellia lifted her chin. “Coming after us to apologize.”
Glyssa caught her breath at the hope surging through her. Hope destroyed was so very painful, the worst experience in the world.
“Maybe you should contact your Fam,” Del said.
Glyssa feared to. Worse scenario was that Lepid had left her, too, preferring the more adventurous Jace.
CELTAROON NEST! Shunuk FoxFam yelled, leapt off Del’s stridebeast and headed down the path toward a spot on the right.
“They’re poisonous!” Glyssa gasped.
“He’ll be fine,” Del said. “He loves to kill them. Good skins for boots. But, hell, we can’t leave something like that near the path ready to hurt human or animal.” She followed fast, mobilizing the small party to stamp out the vermin.
* * *
Adventure sang in Jace’s blood and he jogged lightly down the hall, ignoring open doorways he glimpsed on either side.
He even refrained from the temptation of examining objects along the corridor. Sacks, boxes, other items dropped by the colonists.
Finally he stopped before a huge bronze door. As he studied it, he gulped. Engraved on the door was a list of the Captains of the ship. What a find! He wished he had a recordsphere. He’d definitely acted without too much consideration. But who would have thought the fox would be so deep into the ship?
Legend had it that people had rushed back into the ship when it began to plummet. Thankfully he saw no human skeletons—no skeletons at all. But the ground access doors were stories beneath him. This hallway housed officers, those higher up in the status of the ship.
Jace shifted, trying not to think of the amount of dirt lying atop the ship, or the distance he’d walked from the only open entrance. The hair on his body rose. Once more he stretched all his senses for anything, anyone, any inimical feeling aimed at him. Still nothing.
He reached out, but stopped before he laid his hand on the doors . . . could they be booby-trapped? Maybe, maybe. And anyone with an iota of curiosity would yearn, as he yearned, to see beyond those doors, the most wondrous furnishings of the ship. This cabin might have the most valuable items.
Everything in there would be the property of Camellia Darjeeling D’Hawthorn, with a finder fee going to the discoverer and the Elecampanes. Camellia was Glyssa’s friend. The one she laughed with as they rode with Del D’Elecampane toward the Deep Blue Sea.
That had his fingers curling, hands fisting.
A slight whimper came, more heard mentally than with his ears. Lepid? he projected.
FamMan. Now a loud whine, not behind the great door. A few doors along the hall, deeper into the ship. Dammit, why had Lepid gone so far?
Because the young fox had wanted to be a hero. Wanted to reach the Captain’s Quarters, see what treasures it contained, who wouldn’t? Then, like many young things, had been distracted by something else, in this case, an intriguing spell.
Shrugging, Jace turned away from the engraved door, tilted his head. Talk to me, Lepid. I am close.
You are here? In the SHIP? For ME?
Sure.
Jace felt relief panting from the fox.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! WONDERFUL FamMan.
Jace smiled, found the closed door on his right and knocked.
Wild barking came from behind it.
With effort, Jace enlarged his light-spells until they showed long meters before and behind him . . . and no one else in the corridor. Several dark squares in each direction showed open doors, but he noted no movement in them.
FAMMAN!
Now Jace could hear the frantic scratching of claws.
Calm down. I want to check some doorways first, and this door, too. He could already tell it wasn’t spellshielded. No Flair to stop him from going in.
Unlike the starship in Druida City, Nuada’s Sword, Flair worked fine here.
He powered up his spell lights so the bright brushed metal walls gleamed and the colonist-abandoned objects on the floor cast hard shadows. Retracing his steps, he paused outside each open door, sent another spell light in, and resisted the desire to explore when a gleam of an artifact or an odd shape teased his curiosity.
Behind his eyes a headache at the amount of Flair he was using began to build. He turned back, then headed farther down the hall to check out those doors. Even when one of the usually empty nameplates announced Umar and Dayo Clague, the former Captain and his lady, he didn’t stop. Narrowing his gaze, he placed the location on the blueprint in his mind’s eye, then turned back to the door that Lepid yipped behind.
As he returned, he banished his secondary light-spell and let the first shrink. When he reached the correct door, Jace ran his hands all over it, from top to bottom, along the recessed panel that would slide aside.
He felt nothing unusual, saw, heard, sensed nothing strange. The palm control panel came off easily in his hand, showing electronics and the manual door crank. That moved readily, too, as did the door sliding open.
Lepid’s barks rose to a crescendo when Jace stepped in. He didn’t see the FoxFam in the medium-sized room.
Here, here! In the wall!
In the wall?
He took another step, the door began to close. Stup! Sliding his foot into the crack, he stopped it, muscled it back all the way open and looked for something to prop it open . . . just in case. There were no loose items within reach. Testing the inner control panel, he flipped open the outer cover, used the manual crank to test closing and opening the door, set the door lock in the open position. Still . . .
FAMMAN! Lepid shouted telepathically.
“Just a minute!” Jace sat down in the threshold and took off his heavy boots, wrinkled his nose. He really should have gone for the suppress odor spell on these and his liners . . . and he thought that every time he took the damn things off.
FamMan odors, rumbled Lepid, actually sounding cheerful.
Huh, it took all kinds.
Jace put the boots side by side next to the far edge of the threshold, stood up, slipped a little and set his hand against the wall. He walked past the built-in closet on the left and the bed on the right. The small cubicle holding a toilet and a tiny shower was also on the left. Too small for Jace to feel comfortable in.
DOWN HERE! One last, demanding bark.
Lepid was hidden behind a wall panel. All Jace could see were pinholes.
Thank you, FamMan, for the light, Lepid whimpered.
Jace flinched. He hadn’t figured that the poor fox had been in the dark. Of course Lepid could see better in the dark than Jace, but all the same it had to be scary. Grimacing with effort, Jace conjured another tiny spell light and threaded it through one of the minuscule openings.
Oh, FamMan, you are so kind. Lepid’s tone was such that if he’d been human, he’d be sobbing.
“I’m here,” Jace soothed. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
Panting came from behind the wall.
“So a smell led you here,” Jace said.
It was a very interesting smell, Lepid said in a small mental voice.
“Not like the earlier smell that hurt your nose, the chili pepper,” Jace said. The perpetrator of these series of crimes knew about animals and odors and effects. Of course, since Jace had gotten a Fam himself, he’d become more aware about birds and animals. He supposed those with Fams would be good suspects . . . though he couldn’t imagine hurting a Fam.
He ran his fingers around the outline of the small panel that looked to be for ventilation. The metal didn’t feel like Celtan metal, odd, that. He did feel a trace of Flair, no doubt some sort of trap.
“So how long have you been exploring the ship?” he asked.
All the time, Lepid whispered. I thought going into this wall would be fun. It wasn’t. It was dark and I got tired and I didn’t see any openings to anything else. He paused for a moment. There should be openings to other places from the walls, shouldn’t there? T’Ash Residence had openings in the walls here an
d there. Another small pause as Jace determined the damn panel wouldn’t pop off with an application of more Flair.
And the cats in the PublicLibrary got into the walls and laughed at me when I tried to follow. So there are holes and passages in those walls, too.
Jace wondered if the Licorices knew that. Shrugged. Not his problem. Getting Lepid out was. He replied, “I think there should be openings to the walls somewhere. People would have to go in to work on . . . stuff.” Pulling the tool from his pocket, Jace pried around the ventilation grate. “But maybe before they landed all the openings were sealed or something. Or after they landed. I think they must have sealed all they could to preserve the ship.”
Lepid pawed at the grate again. Get me out!
“Did you see who did this? Did you smell him or her?”
Barely probable that the culprit was the cook, Myrtus Stopper. Jace really couldn’t see the man coming back to the camp to raid the ship, no matter how valuable the items might be.
Stopper hadn’t had to go into the ship to make his score, and though Jace didn’t know how much he got for those subsistence bars, it had to be plenty if the amount had impressed Laev T’Hawthorn.
That left the unknown villain who’d stolen the first box. The man or woman Myrtus said had caused the explosions. The Elecampanes hadn’t kept Jace or Glyssa informed about that, but the owners would have announced to the whole crew if some other culprit had been caught.
Snapping teeth from Lepid. NO! I did not see or smell the bad, mean person! I will hunt for the bad one’s smells, then I will BITE him.
“Nope, I think we’ll just teleport from here to my tent. We’re not staying down here any longer than necessary. We’re not supposed to be here.”
The fox snorted. You sound like Glyssa.
“Look fox, if you got caught in here, they might send you and Glyssa home immediately, and might not let you come back next year. Might cancel her contract and shares.”
The Elecampanes wouldn’t do that! They LIKE us.
“They could banish the both of you. This venture is more important to the owners than you, or their liking of you and Glyssa. If they sent you home, Glyssa would fail at her jobs. Her Family would be ashamed of her and not let her work in the main PublicLibrary of Celta.” The Licorices would be tough minded enough to do that. “Her Family might even throw you both out of the Residence.” That might be stretching it, but Jace figured living as a failure with the Licorices would not be pleasant.
A pause as Lepid thought, then he said, Uh-oh. I like the PublicLibrary. I like chasing those cats. Not playing there would be bad. I have my own bed in the Residence! And I am the only Fam in the Residence now. I would always be First Fam. Being sent home would be bad.
“That’s right.” Jace banged his fist against the panel and it popped off. Lepid shot out, not smelling too good himself. No doubt somewhere in the walls were fox markings and turds.
Oh, oh, oh! I am FREE! Lepid inhaled deeply and nibbled Jace’s toes. Jace danced away, laughing, then, stink and all, swept him up.
“What’s that sound?” Jace asked.
What sound?
“The ticking. I think it started when I opened your panel.”
Thirty-six
I don’t know what that ticking is. Lepid nudged Jace’s hand close to his nose, slipped his head under it. Jace chuckled, the Fam wanted cuddling, petting. So holding him close, Jace stroked him. Lepid hummed in approval, licked under Jace’s chin.
With a jaunty step, Jace headed toward the door.
The ticking stopped. A small explosion came from the door’s control panel, fire surged. Flames flashed outside the door, too, before it sprang shut, cutting his boots in two.
Lepid shrieked and leapt from Jace’s arms, ran to the closed door and threw himself against it, then subsided, coughing at the smoke in the air.
Jace stood staring at the blackened area where the door control panel had been, his thudding heart nearly drowning out Lepid’s barking and the final sizzle of dying circuits.
He inhaled and coughed himself as acrid air scraped his windpipe. He’d never smelled anything like the Earthan tech. But Earthan tech didn’t run on psi power, Flair. Most everything on Celta had an element of Flair. Only the Elder Family and Nuada’s Sword, the starship in Druida City, knew how to work pure Earthan tech.
Forcing himself to calm, he was not trapped, he shouted at Lepid’s renewed frenzy at the door. “Quiet down.”
We are trapped.
“No, we aren’t.” He had to repeat that just to hear his own words. “No, we are not. I took stock of my tent before I left.” Not really, but he could probably bring it up in his mind’s eye. He knew where the items he moved around lately were, even if Lepid hadn’t been able to chance teleporting.
Oh, oh, oh. THANK YOU, FAMMAN. Lepid jumped at him and Jace caught the young fox. Bigger than he’d been when he first arrived, but mentally and emotionally still more like a child than an adult.
“Just let me steady myself.” Jace strode over to look at the panel. Nothing but melted black stuff. The crank handle was gone, disintegrated by the explosion or falling into the hole that had opened behind the wall. And there was no sign of the gear or whatever the crank had been attached to.
Looks bad, bad, Lepid said. He wrinkled his nose. Smells terrible.
“Yeah.” Jace was breathing from his mouth. Turning to the wall opposite the control panel in the corridor, he put his hand against it, yanked it away from the burning heat.
Lepid sighed. This is not so good. We WILL have to teleport.
“Yes.” Jace squeezed the fox, for his own comfort as well as Lepid’s.
He went to the middle of the room, stood and began to calm his body, let his mind drift, squelching thought . . . then quieting, shifted Lepid who’d relaxed in his arms. The fox had faith in him. That was great.
FAMMAN! LEPID! Zem cried.
What? asked Jace, blown out of the beginnings of serenity.
What, Zem? called Lepid. We are teleporting to FamMan’s tent. See you soon.
Fear struck Jace, jolting through the bond he had with Zem.
NO! screamed the hawkcel, and Jace thought he heard the echo of the real sound from his Fam as he’d wailed into the sky. Our tent is not there!
WHAT? yelled Jace mentally.
It is gone, as if you packed everything up and left.
A terrible dread prickled along Jace’s skin. He squeezed down his own fear into a small ball, shut it behind a closed door. Breathed for control. I don’t like the sound of that.
No, Zem said.
No, Lepid said.
I had a spellshield in place. Someone got through it. Jace rolled his shoulders, setting that fact aside to be dealt with later.
Lepid looked up at him with big eyes. Will we get out of here?
“Yes,” Jace replied through clenched teeth.
I wish I could tell those in charge. None of the guards can hear me, Zem said sadly. Not even Mistress Cornuta Holly. My bonds with the Elecampanes are not strong enough for them to hear, and their minds are full of busy noise.
Jace loosened his jaw, made his telepathic tone even. Zem, I want you to fly to Glyssa’s pavilion. I know she was rearranging some furniture this morning. Because she’d wanted him gone, and she’d left herself.
Teleporting somewhere we don’t know is safe is VERY bad. Lepid shivered. All the Fams told me a man teleported into some furniture and it killed him.
Jace had heard about that incident a few months ago, too. He continued steadily, Zem can look at the sitting room. Jace knew that better than her bedroom, could guess at the light—the most important element in teleporting. When you are there, you can send us images of the room.
Send to me, too! Lepid said.
That’s what I said, Jace agreed. Between the three of us, we will put together a good picture. Good enough, he hoped, but they had little choice.
Very well, FamMan, Zem said.
Pain!
Zem’s pain.
Someone shot at me with a blazer! Zem cried. Jace sensed him zooming high up into the sky.
Lepid squealed in sympathy. Jace hugged him tight, eased up.
Are you all right? Jace asked Zem, struggling with his own panic at the thought of losing the Fam.
Only some outer feathers singed, but I do not think I can go into camp. Trago wants to kill me.
Trago!
Yes. I saw him. I think he has a hate for you. You made his mate leave him. Most males do not like that. A pause. I would not like that. Nor would you.
The idea of, say, Andic luring Glyssa away twisted Jace up. Worse than her leaving on her own.
But he hadn’t realized Trago had thought of Symphyta as his woman, his mate.
Critical mistake on Jace’s part.
And he could have defended himself with the fact that Symphyta had made her own decision, but obviously Trago blamed Jace.
He winced.
What are we going to do? asked Lepid in a small voice.
Can you recall the corridor well enough to teleport beyond it? Share that image with me?
Lepid paused, then shook his head. In fact, his whole body trembled. I have been down many hallways, most look alike. I can’t remember this one, where the boxes and sacks and other things are, how far apart the doors are.
Or which doors are open or closed, Jace ended for him. He tried to remember each end of the hall, but couldn’t recall, either.
Lepid shivered. I don’t want to teleport accidentally down, down, down into the ship.
Not good, Zem said.
I don’t blame you, Jace said.
Then Lepid’s ears perked up. We can go to the entryway, where the ramp is! Yes, we can do that! His lower jaw opened in a foxy grin and he wiggled in Jace’s grasp.
Jace held him tight, mouth flattening as he replied telepathically. No, we can’t. Someone threw a boulder at me and it broke into big pieces in the entryway, moved the ramp a little. The light is strange from the ripped tarp. Had he been the target, or had changing the parameters of the entryway for teleportation been the goal? Probably both.
Either way he felt like he was lagging far behind Trago—who he’d definitely underestimated.
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