by Alix Nichols
“It was incredibly kind of you,” Etana said. “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay that kindness.”
He blinked, taken a little aback.
Was he expecting her to consider the proposal real? Had the Gokks called her in to gently break it to her that it had been just to save her ass?
Etana’s face heated with embarrassment. “Sir Gokk—”
“Geru,” he interrupted her. “Please call me Geru.”
“Sir Gokk,” she repeated emphatically. “Please rest assured I took your proposal exactly for what it was—an act of generosity. Please don’t worry. I haven’t the slightest intention of accepting it.”
Dame Gokk’s shoulders sagged with relief.
Sir Gokk smiled and emptied his tumbler.
Oh no! They had feared she’d take advantage of their young son’s gesture.
Oddly, the son in question looked… flustered.
“I’d better fetch your watch, before we bid each other good night.” Sir Gokk’s voice was almost cheerful. “In case it’s transmitting our conversation.”
“I’ll get it!” Geru rushed next door.
He returned with the watch a moment later, but he didn’t give it to Etana. Instead, he fastened it himself around her left wrist. He didn’t look at her. But his breaths came fast and shallow, and his fingers trembled.
15
Keiron’s commlet pinged.
He checked the caller ID and stepped into a nook without bugs or cameras.
Only then did he answer the call. “Timm. It’s been five days.”
“Been busy,” his informer said. “Oh and call me Sim. I go by Sim in the sun-scorched valleys of Teteum.”
Keiron knitted his brows. “You in Teteum?”
“Just arrived. Theoretically.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Timm chuckled. “For a citizen of Eia to find himself in Teteum amounts to an act of treason. Unless, of course, he’s a diplomat tasked by Governor Boggond. Which I’m not. Hence, I can only be here theoretically.”
“May I suggest, theoretically, that you get your ass out of there as soon as you can.”
“Aww. The formidable head of LOR Enforcers shows solicitude for his Hente asset.”
There were some muffled words and a giddy female laugh.
Keiron stared at his commlet, trying to ascertain if the incongruous sounds had come from the device. They had. His informer was obviously flirting with a lady while making a confidential call to another arm of the galaxy.
Why am I not surprised?
Timm rasped to someone, “Half past midnight? Yes? I can’t wait.” Into the commlet he said, “By the way, the ‘aww’ wasn’t for you. It was for the innkeeper. A curvy war widow. Aheya bless her big… heart.”
“I need you alive,” Keiron said.
“As do I, at least until tomorrow morning. It would be a shame to miss such a bounty.”
“Did you contact me to brag?”
Under normal circumstances, Keiron didn’t mind Timm’s small talk, even found it entertaining, but today he wasn’t in the mood. “I have two twitchy probies waiting to be introduced to the head of protocol,” he said, “so if you don’t have anything of import, I’ll be on my way.”
“Ah, you’re at LORSS. Can’t your probies find Sir Pompous Ass on their own? Unless you recruit them from the nursery these days.”
Keiron couldn’t help a smile. “It’s like you said—the man’s a pompous ass. He insists that I present my new recruits personally before he deigns to give them a tour of LORSS.”
“All right, all right.” Timm’s tone grew more serious. “I actually do have something of import. Areg Sebi has been asking around for me.”
“Areg Sebi was executed yesterday.”
“Not quite.”
Keiron blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“No.”
“Hmm.” There was a brief pause. “I was sure it was a LORSS intervention. A mesmerizer-type rich-blood and an enforcer squad to cover—”
“Timm. What. Happened.”
“Areg Sebi got on the scaffold, put his head on the block, and then, bam! He was gone. Not a single person in the crowd saw anything.”
“How big was the crowd?”
“Huge. A few thousand people. Police and soldiers everywhere.” Timm swigged a drink, judging by the gulping sounds he made. “No one. Saw. Anything.”
“It does sound like a powerful mesmerizer. But not from LORSS, I’m sure of it.”
“If you say so.” Another gulp. “Sebi resurfaced in the evening. Police dogs tracked him to the corn plantations south of Iltaqa. There was a skirmish.”
“And?”
“Two cops dead, three wounded. Sebi got away.”
“Why do you think he’s looking for you now?” Keiron asked.
“Same reason as everyone else, I believe. Fake papers.”
“Will you help him?”
“Of course. If he can afford my help.”
Right.
Timm chuckled. “I’m all for justice and a better world, Colonel Yaggar, but I’m not running a charity here.”
“I figured that much.”
“Besides, this wouldn’t be an ordinary case, like helping out a tech-smuggler or an unlucky prizefighter. There’s a fifty thousand drinar prize on Sebi’s head. The entire police force and half of the population are after him. The risk for me would be huge.”
Keiron itched to say he’d pay for Sebi’s papers, no matter the price. Except… If word got out that the head of the LOR Enforcers had abetted a convict, it would reflect badly on Olinnie, who was still new as superintendent, still building her networks, and forging alliances. It would weaken her. Worse, it would play right into her haters’ hands. He couldn’t let that happen.
On the other hand, if his money could save a good man’s life, how could he not pay?
The question was if he could trust Timm not to talk. Keiron’s gut told him that he could.
As always, he chose to go with his gut. After all, it had saved his life more times than he could count, and on one memorable occasion, Olinnie’s life, too.
“I’ll pay,” he said. “Just get him what he needs.”
They hung up, and Keiron returned to his probies. Once they’d been formally presented to the head of protocol, he left them with the man, and headed to Olinnie’s office. She was in a meeting with a bunch of staffers, but she told Xeba to let him in.
Is that good news or bad?
“Eia’s ambassador stopped by this morning.” Olinnie waved for him to take a vacant seat around the long table. “He wanted to know if I’d authorized an intervention to save Areg Sebi.”
Keiron sat down, saying nothing.
“I assured him I hadn’t.” Olinnie’s eyes drilled into his. “Because there’s been no intervention, right?”
He held her gaze. “Your orders were clear.”
Her face relaxed with relief.
Keiron related to her what his “source on Hente” had told him about Sebi’s disappearance and the clash with police. He didn’t mention the fugitive seeking out Timm.
“Sounds like the work of a powerful rich-blood,” one of the staffers, with a long name Keiron could never remember, said.
“Probably a mesmerizer.” Another staffer nodded. “It would require exceptionally advanced hypnosis to put such a large crowd into a trance.”
Misaha knit her brows. “Even the best mesmerizer couldn’t possibly daze thousands of people spread over the entire city center, including officers trained to resist mind-tricking.”
“Is there a rich-blood who could?” Keiron asked.
“A time bender.” Olinnie shook her head. “But that’s really farfetched. We aren’t even sure time-bending is possible in Xereill.”
“ERIGAT has records…” Vetil said.
Olinnie nodded. “I’ve seen them. They’re ancient, from the Middle Ra Era, way before
the infusion of human blood. ERIGAT’s senior experts believe that what’s described as time-bending in those scrolls is in reality mass hypnosis.”
“What if they’re wrong?” Keiron asked. “Wouldn’t you like to find out? Don’t you want that rich-blood on our team? Shouldn’t we exfiltrate both him and Sebi?”
“Her,” Olinnie said.
Keiron frowned. How could she be sure the mesmerizer was a her?
“I don’t know that for sure,” Olinnie answered his unspoken question. “But mind tricks are gifts more frequent in women than in men, so statistically, there’s a higher probability the Hente rich-blood is a woman.”
Keiron pulled up the notes on his commlet. “My informer had reported earlier that a young menial woman, Etana Tidryn, had tried to get Lord Sebi’s sentence commuted to life imprisonment by invoking a forgotten canon called Maiden’s Privilege.”
“Smart!” Vetil said.
“She almost succeeded. But then Boggond issued a decree abolishing the canon. The marriage was declared invalid and the beheading was back on.”
Olinnie tilted her head to the side. “What makes you think she might be our mesmerizer?”
“A hunch.”
Olinnie bit her lip. “A hunch, huh?”
As she gazed at him, her eyes warm with shared memories, the lines on her forehead smoothed and her hollowed cheeks filled out. Even her hair turned a lot more pepper than salt.
“Yes.” Keiron’s voice sounded much hoarser than normal. “A hunch.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Vetil’s eyebrows go up in surprise and Misaha squint at them, puzzled.
Olinnie must’ve seen that, too, because her expression hardened, all playfulness fading from it. Instantly, all of her wrinkles were back as were the dark circles under her eyes and the salt in her hair.
“Even if the Hente rich-blood isn’t a time bender, LORSS could use her talents,” Keiron said. “The modified cyborgs and the thugs they work for are becoming a real threat to peace and security in Xereill.”
Olinnie’s staffers’ heads dropped in recognition of the truth in his words. With the Ra blood and the abilities that were growing increasingly rare in the galaxy, more and more Ra-humans chose “the way of the bionic.” In other words, they turned themselves and their children into cyborgs.
It followed. When you didn’t have any gifts, and the chance that your children would have gifts was close to null, there was nothing to lose by becoming a cyborg. And much to gain.
He was well placed to know that. With his parents having made the choice before he was even conceived, Keiron was a born bionic—the strongest, fittest and most resilient Ra-human kind in Xereill.
That is, not counting the modified cyborgs.
In a growing number of illegal facilities tucked away in remote parts of the Silver Path, these bionics got themselves fitted with banned enhancements. Their bodies were weaponized, and their minds connected through a central mainframe, which earned them the moniker of “hive cyborgs.”
The League of Realms had no knowledge of who was funding the facilities. But Silver Path warlords were beginning to hire modified cyborgs as mercenaries, paying them more than LOR paid its enforcers.
“I don’t disagree with you, Colonel,” Olinnie said. “Modified cyborgs should be able to block her hypnosis, but if there’s a chance she can actually bend time, she’d be a real asset for us.”
He furrowed his brow. So?
“The Council won’t endorse an exfiltration from Hente,” Olinnie said. “I’ve checked with each member twice.”
Keiron smirked. “They’re so laid-back because the enforcers can still handle the modified cyborgs. But for how much longer? Every new military intervention in the Silver Path has been tougher, and bloodier, than the last.”
“You lost five of your cyborgs within a year, Colonel,” the staffer with the long name said. “Please accept my condolences. I haven’t had the chance to express them in person.”
Keiron nodded his thanks. “Six. Six enforcers. Two of them were in their twenties.”
There was a heavy silence around the table.
“In a couple of years,” Keiron said, “when hive cyborgs become real war machines, what level of enforcer casualties do you think I should expect?” He turned to Olinnie. “An estimate, Your Grace?”
Chagrin flashed in her eyes, before she turned her profile to him.
Shit!
He hadn’t planned on broaching that painful topic today. Nor had he planned on cornering Olinnie like this. But rage over the young lives snatched by the scum of the galaxy had surged hot and sharp and had made him overstep.
His commlet pinged. It was Gemami, one of his probies, texting that the tour was over, and she and Elreido were headed to the top deck viewing hub. He texted back that he’d join them and lied to the room that he had to go.
As he walked down white corridors, Keiron wanted to kick himself for losing his sangfroid and letting his frustration get the better of him. His behavior could harm Olinnie. It was harming Olinnie.
“I can’t wait to get my piloting license,” Elreido was saying to Gemami as he joined them at the floor-to-ceiling viewport. “Can’t wait to fly a fast bird like the colonel’s.”
Keiron laughed. “You better study hard, then, because the license bureau wants nothing short of perfect.”
For a few minutes, they stood in silence gazing at the stars around LORSS and at Ramoh—the Ra homeland that it orbited.
“Sir, do you believe the story that the humans brought to Ramoh by the Originals had come willingly?” Gemami asked.
Elreido spoke before Keiron. “Most of them were dying of some horrible disease or another, so coming here was their only chance of survival.”
“Yes, that’s what Ra historians say.” Gemami arched an eyebrow. “I wonder what the human historians say.”
Keiron smiled at her. “I used to wonder that, too, when I was younger.”
“Not anymore?”
Keiron shook his head. “The wormhole which allowed Ra ships to travel to Terra in the Via Lactea galaxy closed centuries ago. We have no reason to expect it would open up again.”
“So, we might never know the human take on the events or meet pure humans,” Elreido said.
“Afraid so.” Keiron smiled at the probies’ long faces. “Accepting that some things just won’t happen gets easier with age.”
They fell silent again while the hub spun slowly until they were facing the interior of the rest and recreation sector of LORSS. Shops, eateries, gardens, game halls, theaters, and sports courts swam before Keiron’s eyes.
“Sir,” Gemami ran her hand through her short bob. “This place is so different from what I’d imagined. Such opulence! It’s like a luxury cruise ship back home.”
Keiron shrugged. “Hundreds of diplomats and staffers spend years in this place. They need to be able to unwind.”
“What about the enforcers?”
“You mean our Base isn’t remotely as opulent as this?” Keiron said, quirking an eyebrow.
The probies nodded, smiling.
“You’re welcome to spend your first, and all future leaves in the R and R sector of LORSS if you wish,” he said.
“Really?”
“Of course. Just know that it gets old. Give it a year, max two, and all you’ll dream of will be the old hammock under the crooked apple trees in your parents’ back garden.”
Gemami gave him a funny look.
“Yes,” Keiron said. “That’s what I dream of. It’s my idea of opulence these days.”
Ashamed for giving his recruits a half-truth, he turned away.
He hadn’t lied about dreaming of the hammock in his parents’ straggly garden. Lately, that hammock had become somewhat of a fixation with him. But in his dreams, Keiron wasn’t the only one stretched out on it. Someone else lay down by his side and molded her infinitely desirable body to his.
Her Grace, Lady Olinnie Tann-Lo.
16
“Lippin will be here any minute,” Rhori said, glancing at Etana’s bejeweled watch.
She grabbed the pen and notebook from the garden bench and scribbled:
You sure he knows what he’s doing?
Rhori nodded before writing:
He’s a top watchmaker and a tech buff. He’ll pull it apart and put it back together without Ultek suspecting a thing. Trust me.
“All right,” she mouthed.
Leaning back on the wall of Ma and Pa’s cottage, she stared at the steep slope of Mount Crog.
Two more days to go.
If Areg had been killed in the meantime, Ultek wouldn’t keep a victory like that to himself. The news would be announced from every rooftop in every town. It would be printed in every paper, including school and temple newsletters. The “Wanted” posters would be scraped off the walls of buildings. He’d summon her to recover his listening device. And to gloat.
“Hey, you two!” Mayka called from the kitchen. “Mind if I join you outside for a bit?”
Rhori darted inside to push Mayka’s wheelchair out.
Etana smiled for the first time in five days.
She loved Mayka with all her heart, as did Ma and Pa, but the way Rhori doted on her was the purest, most selfless kind of love she’d ever seen.
About a year ago, he’d caught sight of an aged nobleman zooming by in an imported motorized wheelchair. It had been a revelation.
Rhori asked Lippin to help him make such a contraption for Mayka. Lippin produced a brilliantly simple design for a manually propelled chair, and then Rhori spent all his evenings over the next seven or eight months building it.
Bulky but stable and undeniably elegant, the chair couldn’t give Mayka the independence she craved, seeing as someone had to push it. But it allowed Ma and Pa to show her Iltaqa and the surroundings. Mayka was able to attend the temple prayers. She met new people and made friends.
Rhori’s next goal was to save enough—no matter how long it took him—to buy her a smuggled level-two model she could propel using her chin or mouth.
“Did you hear the latest?” Mayka said as Rhori parked her chair next to the bench. “Gullie stopped by this morning and said everyone was talking about it.”