Abuti shook her head. “Not luck. We know this will work. You said I would get older, right?”
Aidan actually laughed. “True. But I never said how much older you would get.”
Sula swallowed hard. This discussion wasn’t exactly filling her with confidence, aside from the fact that one of her fangs had developed a slight wiggle.
The attitude of people on the street changed as they approached the university campus, which was within walking distance of the spaceport. Instead of disdainful glances, they were now subject to curious stares. Sula held her breath as they walked toward a group of students, two of whom she recognized.
“I know a couple of those guys,” she whispered. “If I can get past them, we should be okay.” When they passed by without accosting her, she exhaled with relief.
Abuti snickered. “Unless Aidan gets mobbed by a bunch of Zetithian-crazy girls.”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Sula said.
“I am receiving several interested looks myself,” Giklor said. “Have these people never seen a Zerkan before?”
“Probably not,” Sula replied. “I’ve been a student here for several years, and you were the first Zerkan I’d ever seen. You’d think there might be a few of you around here, though, wouldn’t you?”
“Not really,” Giklor said. “We seldom go offworld for education since our university system is far superior to any found on other worlds.”
Sula smiled to herself. Apparently, the denizens of Ursa Prime weren’t the only conceited folks in the galaxy. “That explains it.”
Passing through the ornate double doors barring the entrance to the administration building, Sula was once again reminded of the medieval castle vibe she’d always gotten from the architectural style. Aidan’s house had nothing on this place for ostentation.
The interior smelled exactly the same, making her wonder if the scent of ancient manuscripts hadn’t been concocted to enhance the atmosphere. Ursa Prime had also been colonized by humans, but its habitation went back at least five hundred years. Was this the first world to have its indigenous population wiped out by a plague? Or was this simply the birthplace of the dreadful practice?
As they entered the main hall, the superior attitude of the occupants was so pervasive, she was surprised she’d never noticed it before. Perhaps she’d been as awed as any other student back then. She viewed it through different eyes now, eyes that had seen firsthand what unrestrained arrogance could do.
As Aidan led them to the reception desk, a sideways glance revealed Curly and Qinta entering the building. A Vessonian woman whose graying hair was pinned up in a beehive shape sat at the desk.
“We have an appointment with Professor Dalb,” Aidan said.
The woman raised a haughty eyebrow until it seemed to disappear beneath her forehead ridges. “If you will sign the visitor’s logbook, the lift is over there.” She pointed to her left. “And by the way, that would be Dean Dalb.”
“Thank you for clarifying that,” Aidan said as he signed the logbook.
“Dean Dalb?” Sula murmured to Aidan as they rode up to the twelfth floor. “He was only a professor of anthropology when I left here.”
“Kinda makes you wonder who he had to bribe or bump off to get that position, doesn’t it?” Aidan remarked.
Sula had to focus hard on not biting her lip as her anxiety level had her adrenal glands working overtime pumping out epinephrine. Her hands were cold, and her chest felt tight, making breathing difficult. She took hold of Aidan’s hand, comforted by its steady warmth.
At least he didn’t seem nervous. Abuti was popping her fingertips on and off the wall behind her. Giklor said nothing, but his eyes seemed to glow even redder than usual. Perhaps it was only because of the dim lighting. She couldn’t be sure, though. Perhaps her own eyes were glowing brighter too.
Aidan stepped off the lift and tapped his comstone. “Yo, Curly. It’s a go.”
* * *
Sula’s trembling hand made Aidan wish there could be any way to avoid including her in the confrontation with Dalb. Not that he blamed her for being nervous. Even knowing what he did, he was a little anxious himself.
Halfway down the hallway, Sula suddenly stopped and clapped a hand over her mouth. “We’re too late,” she said in a horrified whisper. “If he’s been promoted to dean, the Ecos mission must have been successful.”
“Not necessarily,” he cautioned her. “However, it’ll be interesting to hear what he has to say.” He chuckled. “Especially when he realizes who you are.”
“I’m not sure I want him to recognize me. No telling how many minions he has working for him now.”
Taking her hand, Aidan raised it to his lips. “You’re forgetting we have minions of our own, and damn good ones at that.”
“You’re right. I just can’t help remembering…”
“That isn’t going to happen to us,” he said. “Trust me.”
“It isn’t that I don’t trust you, because I do. It’s just that, well, you know how it is.”
He kissed her hand again. “Yes, I do. But this is going to work.”
Her dark eyes searched his. “You’ve seen the outcome?”
He shrugged. “Let’s just say I’ve seen one outcome. But it’s enough to inspire confidence.”
“You aren’t going to tell me what it is, are you?”
“Not yet. Afterward, perhaps.”
Aidan had only seen one possible outcome. But he also knew there were variations on every theme, and knowledge of the future sometimes altered its path.
He only hoped he didn’t know too much.
When they arrived at Dalb’s office, the dean’s shapely blond Terran assistant seemed even more impressed with herself than the Vessonian at the desk downstairs. She merely nodded and said “Have a seat, and I’ll see if he’s free” when Aidan gave her his name. Clearly, the amount of money he was offering to drop in the university’s lap wasn’t enough to impress her, although she might not know about the proposed grant. Somehow, Aidan doubted that.
Spotting a scanner arched in front of the doorway to the inner office, he palmed the comstones over to Abuti. With no pockets, she merely held onto them with her sucker-tipped fingers like some weird version of Norludian finger jewelry.
To his credit—or discredit—Dalb didn’t keep them waiting long, and for once, Aidan was actually looking forward to shaking the hand of a stranger.
“You’ll need to walk through the scanner before you go in,” the assistant said with a toothy smile that seemed even less genuine than her hair color. “Security, you understand.”
“I’m not walking through that scanner thing,” Abuti announced. “You can’t make me.”
Meanwhile, Giklor sidled up to the assistant’s desk. “Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Giklor of the planet Zerka, and I am available for any healing you may require.” He punctuated this last statement with a wave of his forked tongue.
Clearly repulsed, the blond turned away from him, although judging from the retching sound she made, she was only moderately successful at hiding her reaction.
When the outer door opened slightly, Aidan glanced at Giklor, who responded with the horizontal blink peculiar to his species.
As Sula and Aidan passed through the scanner and entered the spacious office, Aidan was immediately struck by the décor. Various weapons and other cultural artifacts decorated the walls. Dalb himself sat behind an antique wooden desk that probably outweighed everyone in the room combined. Shelves of books covered one entire wall, and an ancient shield and spear hung high on the wall behind the desk. He hadn’t known what to expect, but Dalb himself was surprising.
For some reason, he’d expected the man to be Terran. However, the man he now faced was Edraitian.
Trust the gods to leave out that one pertinent detail.
If the gods were playing a joke on him, so be it. However, the man’s species explained a few things, his presumed arrogance chief among them.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Banadänsk,” he said, rising from his chair. Characterized by the blue skin and red hair of his kind, he held out a hand. He was as stiff-rumped as any Edraitian Aidan had ever met, from the crisp perfection of his dark tunic to the flattop crop of his bushy hair. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”
Aidan gestured toward Sula. “Allow me to introduce my wife, Prisha Banadänsk.”
Dalb stared at Sula as though unsure of what he was seeing. Had he expected her to be traceable and therefore unable to walk into his office without his prior knowledge?
The pause went on for several moments. Was he weighing his options? Or was he trying to convince himself that Sula really was a Zetithian and not the Terran woman whom he’d sent to her death on Ecos?
The hand Dalb held out seemed to shake ever so slightly. Sula, showing remarkable fortitude, grasped the man’s hand as though she was actually pleased to meet him. Was it possible they’d been wrong? Had they walked in expecting a trap only to confront an innocent man? Then again, perhaps it was simply the shock from seeing her alive that had him so rattled.
Dalb muttered a greeting and then extended his hand toward Aidan.
With a deep, fortifying breath, Aidan prepared himself for the visions that shaking Dalb’s hand would induce. The ensuing glimpses into the future were terrible indeed but highly satisfying.
An irrepressible smile tugged the corner of his mouth as he realized that none of their pursuers had ever gotten close enough to Sula to get a good look at her when she was wearing her Zetithian disguise. The most that could’ve been discerned from a distance was that she’d curled her hair, her Zetithian features not being obvious until seen up close. Therefore, their pursuers on Rhylos hadn’t been fooled by her disguise because they were simply following the nanobots.
Dalb might wonder if Prisha and Sula were one and the same, but without the nanobots, he couldn’t be sure.
Let him sweat.
Still, if Curly was right and they’d been shadowed after leaving Ursa Prime’s spaceport, Dalb’s surprise was simply a ruse intended to make them believe they’d succeeded in fooling him. Aidan would’ve used the same ploy had he been in Dalb’s shoes. He just wasn’t sure he would have been quite as convincing.
“About the grant,” Aidan said. “Zetithians are a highly resilient species, but we’ve become concerned that the loss of our homeworld has caused emotional problems for those of us that remain. The loss of home, family, and identity has been devastating to some.” He was thinking of Onca, who’d been taken aboard the refugee ship as a baby. His parents, for whatever reason, had only passed on his given name. He didn’t know any of his family or even the province in which they’d lived. Aidan’s father had been an adult when he was captured and sold into slavery. At least he knew his own name and where he’d been born. So many of the refugees didn’t. “In many ways, we’re all orphans.”
“You seem fairly well-adjusted,” Dalb said smoothly. “I take it you aren’t concerned for yourself.” Whatever he’d been feeling only moments before, he had either moved on from it or had brought it under control. If Althea had been there, she could’ve told Aidan exactly what the man was feeling. Once again, he wished they’d been able to rendezvous with Althea and Larry before attempting this meeting.
“Not particularly,” Aidan replied. “You see, there are those of us who know who our parents are and where we came from. It’s the children who grew up as refugees that concern me. Some have adjusted well. However, I would’ve thought that an anthropologist would be interested in studying this phenomenon. It can’t be that often that an entire intelligent species faces extinction, along with the loss of their homeworld. Surely, there would be repercussions, making it worthy of study?”
“Won’t you sit down?” Dalb motioned toward the two chairs in front of his desk before resuming his own seat. “As I understand it, most of the remaining Zetithians are currently living on Terra Minor.”
“That’s correct,” Aidan said. “Sending a team to study them wouldn’t cause the university a great deal of inconvenience. Not like sending a team to observe a primitive species where contact with outsiders is best avoided.” He paused, letting that sink in for a moment before continuing. “They all speak the Standard Tongue, so interviewing them wouldn’t be difficult. Especially given that there are so few of us left.”
Dalb tapped his chin with a fingertip. “Your situation would make for an interesting study.” He glanced at Sula. “Forgive me, Mrs. Banadänsk, but you bear an uncanny resemblance to a former pupil of mine, although she was Terran rather than Zetithian.”
“Interesting coincidence,” Aidan said.
“Yes, it is,” Dalb said slowly. “She was originally from India and had the brown skin and dark hair common among people native to that region. I wasn’t aware there were any Zetithians with that coloring.”
Aidan stole a glance at Sula. She could disguise many things—her hair, her ears and eyebrows, even her teeth, but although she was fluent in the Standard Tongue, her lilting accent and timbre remained. Dalb might not be sure of anything else about her, but her voice was unmistakable.
“There are variations in skin tone among our kind,” Sula said evenly. “Just as there are variations among Terrans. But you are correct. My mother was originally from southern India. I am a hybrid.”
“Ah, then,” Dalb said pleasantly. “That explains it.”
“This student of yours,” Sula began. “You speak of her in the past tense, and you seem to have had an emotional reaction to seeing me. Can you tell me what became of her?”
Aidan would’ve sworn Dalb turned a deeper shade of blue. “It is believed she died while working on a research project for the university.”
“Believed?” Sula sat back in her chair, her brow wrinkled in a convincing frown. “Do you mean to say you don’t know?”
“I didn’t know for certain,” Dalb replied. “That is, not until today, Sulaksha.”
Chapter 30
“I never thought to see you again, Sula.” Dalb’s tone was soft yet menacing. “But here you are, pretending to be a Zetithian, of all things.”
Sula snorted with mirthless laughter. “Considering how many times your people have tried to kill me, can you blame me for wearing a disguise?”
“Not really. But then, you always were a resourceful little thing. Flying a starship to Rhylos all by yourself, escaping that idiot we sent to dispatch you, living alone in the mountains for months on end.” He shook his head slowly. “You should’ve saved yourself the trouble and died on Ecos along with the rest of the vermin infesting that planet.”
“But I didn’t,” Sula said. “Nor did I see any reason to trust you after what happened there.”
Dalb chuckled. “You and Raj were two of our brightest students, which was why we sent the two of you to that lovely world. Raj came to me some months before your departure, telling me his suspicions. He didn’t know who was responsible, of course. He merely questioned how it was that so many habitable worlds had been discovered that harbored no intelligent life-forms—or primates—of their own. I suppose he mentioned this to you?”
Sula shook her head. “He tried to tell me something before he died. He said, ‘It’s happening again.’ I didn’t understand what he meant at the time, but I had plenty of time to think on the way to Rhylos.” She couldn’t believe how well this was going. He was falling right into their trap, almost willingly. Did he want to be exposed for the monster he was? Or did he believe that they wouldn’t live long enough to rat on him? “Rhylos was the first, wasn’t it?”
Steepling his fingers, Dalb tapped his chin. “Actually, Ursa Prime was the first. Would you believe there were intelligent bearlike creatures living here at one time?
Hence the name.” He smiled again. “One of my ancestors discovered this world and unwittingly infected the inhabitants with a disease that wiped them out entirely. Oh, not with the Scorillian plague—that virus only affects primates. It was a different disease, long since eradicated.”
“And from then on, such exterminations were deliberate?” she prompted.
He shrugged. “There were those who deemed it necessary. You see, in this way, the greater good is served. Higher life-forms need room to multiply and grow. These primitives might have developed into dangerous societies, posing a threat to the entire galaxy. In this manner, the dominant species are protected. You must understand this.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Be that as it may, you are as guilty as I, my dear. Even if you leave this room and spread tales about the university’s involvement, you will be seen as being complicit in this heinous act of genocide. You must have been aware that you were inoculated against this new strain of the plague prior to your departure.”
Sula’s heart dipped slightly as she realized this scenario was possible. But why would they have done that when the plague would’ve killed her so neatly? She shook her head. “I don’t believe that, nor can you prove it.”
“No? You were given a variety of vaccines in preparation for your journey. How could you prove that you weren’t given the plague vaccine with your full knowledge and consent? After all, it’s your word against mine.” Dalb’s insolent shrug made Sula long to punch his lights out. Unfortunately, he was beyond her reach. “And who would believe a little nobody like you?”
She took a deep breath, doing her best to control her anger. Aidan was sitting perfectly still, but his barely audible growl betrayed his emotions. All she had to do was keep Dalb talking, and he would hang himself. In fact, he was nearly there already. “But I wasn’t inoculated, was I? I somehow developed immunity to the disease on my own. That’s true, isn’t it?”
“Sadly, yes,” Dalb admitted. “Ordinarily, that would make you a person of extreme interest. However, because a vaccine has already been developed, you are worth less than nothing.” He rose from his chair. “You must understand that none of you can be allowed to leave here alive.” He looked down his nose at Sula. “Your death has already been reported. Your family may remember you, but they no longer grieve.” He held up a small dart. “You have somehow developed immunity to the plague, but he”—he nodded toward Aidan—“has not. It’s a fitting punishment for your interference, I believe. You get to watch another one of your lovers die.”
Mystic Page 29