Alastar glanced at the cool darkness of the vespertine sky as she walked across the Academe campus. The snow beneath her feet crunched, and the wind tousled the nape of her neck where the black strands of her short hair met the lighter gray-brown fur of her coat.
There was only one place on campus suited for star-gazing, a round hill unmarked by trees that rose just high enough to see over the tops of the old oaks and nelligreys that dominated the campus landscape. Alastar headed there first. She rounded the bend where the vegetation thinned and saw a lone figure crouched in the snow. The Karaka’An paused, then drew closer from a different angle, trying to discover what it was the other woman was doing. The figure had one arm thrust under the powdery snow and was staring at it; abruptly she stood and looked at her fingers, making a fist with such deliberation that Alastar could only conclude that something was wrong with the hand. Then the figure turned her gaze to the cloudy sky.
It was Laelkii’s friend, Alastar saw. Selnor’s moon was full, a brighter satellite than Alastar was accustomed to. In its light she could see deep hollows under the other woman’s eyes, and that she occasionally shifted ungracefully despite her usual stillness. Quietly, but making enough sound on the snow to serve as polite warning, Alastar approached her quarry.
Alysha glanced at her. Her irises were so pale as to be lost in the moonlight, leaving only the extreme black of her pupils. The two studied one another for a few minutes, then Alysha broke the silence. “You must be Laelkii’s friend.”
“Alastar Virgil,” Alastar said, dipping her head once. She never took her eyes from the darker, taller feline. Folding her arms behind her back, she added, “I see.”
“See what?” Alysha asked. She continued absently to flex the fingers of her right hand.
“The balance has flipped,” Alastar replied, calm. “Now that Brighthaven is looking rested, you are losing sleep.”
Her statement earned her a sharp glance, but no reply.
“She sent you after me,” Alysha surmised, mouth twisting into a smile so wry it hardly qualified as one.
Alastar nodded. “Yes. She is worried about you.” A pause, as the smaller feline glanced at Alysha’s arm. “As she was probably right to be.”
Alysha grimaced, returning her attention to her arm. “You saw me, then.”
“With your arm in the snow, yes. The cold will not numb it long. What happened?”
Alysha’s expression froze, closing even as Alastar watched. “I tripped.”
“I doubt that,” Alastar said, not moving when the other woman stared at her outright. “You are hardly so clumsy, from my observation.”
Another wry grin. Alysha turned from her, ears flat against her head. She flexed her fingers again, mouth tightening and lines springing up around her eyes. “So you trust your observations, do you, Alastar?”
“It is an efficient way of working with the world,” Alastar replied, watching. She was concerned at the way Alysha forbore to lean too much on her left leg.
“And what else have you concluded from your observations?”
Alastar watched. “That you are involved in something potentially illegal, or at least questionable, and that Brighthaven is in collusion with you somehow. That whatever it is must involve either punishing physical exertion or is sufficiently dangerous that you are continually injured by it. That Laelkii knows what it is. And that whatever it is, it has made you feel it necessary to protect yourself with killing force.”
Alysha’s shoulders tightened. “And how do you figure all of that?”
“There is an obvious relation between your exhaustion and Brighthaven’s. If it were legal, neither of you would hide it. Or if it is legal, it is controversial enough that Brighthaven does not want his involvement known. You always sport signs of some sort of physical stress, and Laelkii is not very practiced at dissembling. And finally, you have breathnache claws.”
“You know about my claws?” Alysha asked, surprise finally tainting her voice.
“The clathrate is not difficult to recognize,” Alastar said, “Black claws are sufficiently rare that when I saw yours I looked closer. I’d suggest painting them another color if you’d like them to go unrecognized.”
The silence stretched out, thinning. Soft flakes of snow began to fall from the small, heavy wisps of wet clouds.
“So, now what?” Alysha asked, turning back to her.
Alastar tilted her head. “Now, you either see a medic, or you talk to Laelkii, preferably both.”
“You don’t want to hear what this is about?” Alysha asked, brows rising.
Hands folded behind her back, Alastar said, “I was only asked to find you and ascertain your condition. You don’t know me. It is unreasonable to expect you to confide in someone you don’t know.” She stood unmoving as Alysha scrutinized her with those eerie washed-out eyes, a black silhouette against white snow superimposed on black sky. Alastar was mildly surprised as the taller Karaka’An drew away, still staring at her and cradling her right wrist.
“Oddly enough, that makes me want to tell you.”
Alastar paused, ears flicking outward. She could sense the delicacy of the moment, felt the soft, gentle nips of snowflakes falling onto her face. Carefully, she constructed her response. “If that is your wish, you have my silence.”
The wind tugged at her forelock, and Alastar watched Alysha pause, drawing herself up and inward. When the stream of words came, Alysha did not look away, as if Alastar’s reactions held more fascination for her than the story itself. Alastar listened solemnly, the wind and snow and deepening twilight relegated to the back of her mind.
Afterward, Alysha walked a few paces away, the sound of the snow crunching louder under her right foot than under her left as she favored her leg. “The club is getting worse. Since Angel left, Tiell’s been looking for some way to win back the audience, and his idea of doing it is to hire more people like her, and younger.” She closed her eyes. “I used to think I could make a difference. . . . ”
The silence rested between them as the tall gray feline stood, injured wrist cradled to her breast. Opening her eyes and casting them to the sky, Alysha said, “I’m due there in an hour. It’s Sloan’s turn to ‘watch’ me.”
The bitterness in the word did not escape Alastar. She watched the other woman, then said quietly, “Shall I tell Laelkii for you?”
“If you want,” was the reply. “She’ll find out one way or another.”
Another long pause, and Alastar tasted the snow absently as it fell on her lips. It was still a light fall. Then she said, voice hushed in the cold hill’s silence, “An hour is enough time to have your wrist examined at the Medplex.”
Alysha glanced over her shoulder at her, then smiled. “I suppose it is.”
She offered a calm smile in response, then turned to leave. “Stay well, Alysha.”
“Gods willing,” Alysha replied, her murmur almost inaudible.
Tugging the hood over her sensitive ears against the thickening snowfall, Alastar jogged back to the barracks. She ducked down halls dimmed for the evening, the sconces twinkling with simulated flame. The gray night gathering outside fit her mood, but while in the pit of her chest her heart brooded her mind sped with the celerity of lightning. She reached Laelkii’s quarters and chimed for entrance.
“Come in.”
Alastar slipped inside, shedding her cloak. Wrapped in thick, blue blankets in her bed, Laelkii glanced up from a data tablet, hastily put it aside. “You’re back already? Did you find her?”
“Yes,” Alastar answered, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Is your roommate in?”
“No, she’s out playing rhedball.”
Alastar summarized Alysha’s tale for Laelkii, starting with the very beginning since she was uncertain how much of it Laelkii already knew. She watched as the older woman’s ears lost their color as the story progressed. When she was done, Laelkii sank back against her pillows.
“NiiAna,” she whispered, “Oh, Alasta
r . . . she’s going to get herself killed at this rate.”
“That is precisely what I am afraid of,” Alastar replied, “And precisely what we are going to prevent.”
“Prevent?” Laelkii squeaked. “How in the name of stars can we help her? Sloan’s got her knitted up tighter than an Eldritch’s mouth!”
“I have a plan,” Alastar said.
“Good evening, Cadet,” Brighthaven said as he stepped into the back room.
Surprised, Alysha sat up. She had been sagging into the bed, nursing her bare, aching hands and wishing for gloves. The night after Alastar had spoken with her she’d had the bones reset, but Sloan had promptly broken them again. He had an unfortunate preoccupation with her right hand, which was the one she used most often. Freshly reset bones ached for several days during the winter unless kept warm, but Tiell would hear nothing of a dancer who danced with gloves thick enough to shield hands from the cold.
She cleared her throat and said, “Good evening, sir.”
Brighthaven brandished the key. “Let’s get this done so you can go to sleep. You look tired.”
Alysha seized on the excuse. “Very tired.” She turned her back to him, letting the blanket slide down beneath her rump and dipping her neck to expose the back of the collar. The motion aroused unpleasant memories, and the hair on her spine rose.
She felt his hesitation. “Is it cold? I can have the heat turned up.”
“No, thank you, sir,” Alysha replied quickly, “I’ll be fine once I’m under the covers.”
The palm of his hand rested against her shoulder and she felt the collar spring free. Alysha swallowed convulsively as the constriction on her throat eased. The pressure of his hand on her shoulder vanished, replaced at her shoulder-blade as the key unlocked the heavily beaded harness. It released with less recoil, and Alysha rolled her shoulders forward so that the straps dropped off them, delivering the jewelry into her lap beneath the blanket. She closed her eyes, waiting for the last one as the sensation of his hand vanished.
A lance of pain speared her just above her waist, and she jerked away with a gasp. Brighthaven grabbed her instinctively as she lost her balance, almost tipping off the edge of the bed. The bells on the belt jangled in mocking counterpoint to her motions.
His hands spread almost all the way around her waist. She hadn’t noticed their size before.
“Forrest!”
“It’s nothing, sir,” she answered, looking away so that he wouldn’t see the lie in her eyes. “Bumped a desk.”
“I see,” Brighthaven said, the space between the words too long for Alysha’s comfort. He helped her right herself, then tentatively touched an area to the side of the bruise. “Is that better?”
“A little farther to the left,” Alysha said, gritting her teeth until the hand moved away from the locus of pain.
“Big bruise for a desk,” Brighthaven commented as the lock on the belt clicked open.
Alysha forced her ears to remain upright. “It was a big desk,” she said, trying for a sheepish tone.
She was rewarded with a low, wry chuckle. “I’ve had my share of bad experiences with corners,” he said, “I empathize.” She listened to his footsteps as he stood and walked to the desk, then the sigh of the cushions as he dropped into the chair. “Pleasant dreams, Cadet.”
“Good night, sir,” Alysha answered. She decided against getting up to dress and slid beneath the heavy blankets, leaving the costume in a puddle of gems at the corner of the mattress. She shifted for several minutes until she found a position that didn’t jar her sore body and let loose a very quiet sigh of relief. Neither of them could afford his suspicions. She just hoped he didn’t suddenly develop Alastar’s facility with observation.
“Are you sure this is the night he’s with Alysha?” Laelkii hissed, glancing about nervously as the door slid shut behind them.
“I am certain,” Alastar said, unperturbed. She gave the room a cursory look before heading directly to the terminal. She’d watched Sloan sitting there so many times her footsteps were unerring. Getting into the suite had not been difficult; one of her classmates specialized in electronic lock-picking, an esoteric skill in an age where few people locked their doors. Alastar conceded that it had its charm, but her interests lay in different directions.
“I don’t know if we should be doing this,” Laelkii said, holding the bag with the decryption box. “What did you say our chances were?”
“Better than if we did nothing,” Alastar said, then added in a moment of candor as she sat in the seat before the terminal, “But worse than if we had waited another few weeks.”
“You didn’t say that before!” Laelkii exclaimed.
“No,” Alastar agreed, opening her bag and pulling out the AB-projector. She set it up on the table beside the terminal.
“Then why are we here?” Laelkii hissed.
Absently, Alastar replied, “You may or may not have noticed that Sloan’s attentions are becoming more violent. I don’t think Alysha will survive another few weeks if the trend continues as projected.”
The stunned silence did not distract Alastar as she brought the projector online and placed the dampening headset over her skull. Beside the projector she set up the decryption box, part of her final project for this semester. Encryption and decryption were her chosen specializations within the computer field, but far more of the night’s work would depend on luck, not her skill.
“I’m ready,” Alastar said in a hushed tone. “Are you going to watch the door?”
The white Asanii nodded, then paused. “Alastar . . . what exactly are you going to do to get past the protections?”
Alastar said, “That is what the projector is for.”
Laelkii’s eyes narrowed. “You captured Sloan’s brain wave emanations?”
“Some of them,” Alastar replied.
“Some of them?”
“About ten percent of the possible responses.” Alastar looked at Laelkii, calm but implacable. “Ten percent is better than nine, or none at all.”
Laelkii nodded uncertainly and positioned herself at the door into the bedroom. If she reported any noises, there would be ample time to escape through the window, or if necessary, the skylight, the same window and skylight that had been integral to their plan.
Alastar took a deep breath, pulled the projector onto her lap, and tapped the wake-pad on the terminal console. The 2-d screen lit up with a flat blue color, and she aimed the projector at it. A few seconds later, an image of a sunset over a beach flashed onto the display, its highly saturated colors piercing the Karaka’An’s eyes. Her heart turned a few seconds before the “Validation failed” message flashed across the screen; she had not recognized the image, and she had seen all of them clearly when she had hovered at the skylight, bouncing the AB-sensor off Sloan. Two more tries.
The screen blanked to blue again, and a few seconds later two bars of a melody played. Alastar recognized it as the beginning of the Lenaldin-jun River Suite, but she knew it was not part of her library. The “Validation failed” message new across the display again and Alastar closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, the blue screen had already faded to an image of swatches of serene color, a painting by the human artist Rothko. Relief flooded her; she recognized it as one of the patterns she’d recorded. Alastar waited for the terminal to drop into command mode.
Nothing happened.
She bit her lip, mind racing as the computer hung on the painting. Maybe the delay between the projected waves and the image had been too long; the projector had to match the image to one of the ones in its banks before it could replay the correct response. The average program had recorded one thousand of these validation tests and its particular subject’s unique reactions to them. Alastar had a little over one hundred. Had it taken too many slender shavings of a second for the projector to reply correctly? Or had the dampener not shielded the pick-up from her own, unauthorized brain waves? Just as sweat began to break out
beneath Alastar’s coat, the screen dropped to command mode.
Her shoulders slumped in relief. The Karaka’An hefted the projector off her lap, only now aware of how warm it had been and how it had vibrated slightly against her legs. She kept the dampener on and pulled the decryption box to her side. “We’re in, Laelkii!”
From the door, Laelkii replied, “Thank the Sun . . . talk about a gamble.”
“The game is just beginning,” Alastar murmured in reply, fingers flying as she searched for anything suspicious. Bills, transactions with banks and merchants, mail to and from agencies, particularly travel agencies, newsletters. It all looked innocent. Her eyes began to fog as she scanned files, pulled up images of everything from family gatherings to swimsuit pin-ups.
“What about those?” Laelkii had asked, staring from the door.
“Hardly incriminating,” Alastar said, “I’m sure everyone has a few.” She continued to search, the world narrowing to herself and the display. Half an hour later she leaned back and rubbed her temples beneath the dampener. She allowed herself two minutes to collect herself, then bent to the task again.
An hour later, Laelkii began fidgeting. “How much longer, Alastar?”
“Soon,” Alastar answered, not even hearing her own voice. Where were the files? Her search dwindled to the settings bank, riffling hopelessly through switches dictating Sloan’s interface preferences and alert sounds. She was so tired she almost missed the line that popped up as she scrolled through the clock settings, and then her mind snapped awake. The clock settings! The packet was programmed to dispatch at a specific time. Alastar renewed her search and grinned as she spilled into the secret area and lines of encrypted code new across the display.
“Got it,” she said, connecting her box. She made some adjustments, then sat back and waited. Watching the screen flash repeatedly, she became peripherally aware of how tight her shoulders and chest had become. Fifteen minutes later, the box softly buzzed, indicating it had cracked the code. Alastar leaned forward as the contents of the package opened. . . .
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