To Guard Against the Dark

by Julie E. Czerneda

  All at once, Sira tugged Morgan’s sleeve and pointed, her green eyes wide with delight. “There’s the Bakka-Phoenix Reader Zone!”

  They were keeping ahead—barely—of a horde of motivated Carasian females, in a station under mysterious siege and— “You’re shopping?”

  “I’m observing.” She grinned. “You know I’ve always wanted to see this level. No goldtags, remember? Sneaking up here’s on our list.”

  “Our—” Morgan closed his mouth. The list they’d made in off hours on the Fox. Of all they’d do together. Large, small, didn’t matter, Sira’d wanted to see everything, and he’d agreed, happily. Through her eager eyes, everything was made new for him, too. They’d time for it all.

  Hadn’t they a lifetime to fill?

  He’d found the copy he’d sent to Ettler’s for safekeeping. Destroyed what was now a list of nothing but regret.

  Morgan watched realization cross her face, dimming her smile, only to see that smile brighten again. “It’s bigger than I thought,” Sira assured him.

  “A recent renovation, Fem di Sarc,” Finelle offered. “The entrances were enlarged.”

  Yihtor spoke. “Where are they making us go?”

  “Down,” the Human guessed, the rampways in sight.

  “It’s twenty levels down to the Claws & Jaws.” Sira glanced over her shoulder. “Why enter Plexis here?”

  No answer, but since their overwhelming “YES,” the Carasians had been grimly silent. Nothing more to say—or nothing to say here.

  Sira was right, though. If these were Huido’s absent wives, they could have entered his pool in complete privacy. If they weren’t, that still didn’t explain why they’d entered on the upper level. Everyone knew Carasian females weren’t seen in public—or, for that matter, out of water, which could have been their delight in ambush.

  The same way “everyone knew” they were nonsapient as well as dangerous?

  As far as Morgan was concerned, all common knowledge about the species had originated within exceptionally clever black head disks. Delayed sexual dimorphism, particularly when it included a dietary change to predation, might have made their neighbors in the Trade Pact a tad nervous.

  Making this traipsing through Plexis—if by any stretch the females’ ponderous movement was traipsing—that much harder to understand, since it gave a substantial cross-section of the Trade Pact’s population their first, terrifying, look at what they’d let live down the hall.

  “Why here? They’re making a statement,” Morgan concluded. “What it is, I’ve no idea.”

  The backs of their hands would brush now and again, not quite by accident; neither of them were inclined to move farther apart. After all, this first ramp they took was spacious, with discreet holdfasts for those with appendages other than hands and an easy slope. There was a ramp elsewhere for servos the Carasians likely should have taken, given the labored wheeze of this one as it descended, but it was too late now. They’d switch in another four or so levels to the usual utilitarian structures built to accommodate grav sleds and whisk the blue tagged up or down with more concern for speed than safety. As those would be, at any time, jammed with living things and luggage, falling was impossible, pickpockets rampant, and being trampled imminent.

  Ramps now deserted, like this one. Morgan didn’t look forward to seeing what might be underfoot. Some things weren’t meant to be seen by the living.

  Another brush, this time of fingers, though Sira looked straight ahead. Yihtor’s scanned. The Clan are on the station, but we’ve a problem. There’s a Chooser, too. A hint of puzzlement he understood: Sira had thought the exiles composed of Chosen pairs. There’s no doubt. Yihtor feels her presence.

  Morgan understood that potential problem, too. The draw of a Chooser was a potent lure to any Clan unChosen, let alone Yihtor, who’d waited unnaturally long. Will he go to her?

  No. Not yet, she qualified, the line of her jaw firm. He’s not fully of this body he wears; what it wants isn’t what he wants. This could change.

  Morgan turned his hand so their palms met, his breath catching as her fingers laced through his. Is that how you feel? What you want?

  A thrill of HEAT answered, followed by a quenching wry humor. How I feel, inside and out, my dear Human, shouldn’t be possible. We are no longer Joined. No longer Chosen. This body was both, but not by me. Do I really feel this? Her fingers tightening, she met his gaze with her own, sober and serious. Can I? Or do I just remember how we were? “I miss you,” a whisper, as if she didn’t dare send it mind-to-mind.

  He didn’t dare answer. If he did, he’d beg her to stay, to be with him once more—only that, only once—but if his heart ached now for the hope of it, that once would be more than either of them could bear.

  Instead, Morgan brought his Witchling’s hand to his lips, then raised his head to look into her eyes—

  Only to see what awaited them below.

  “What is it?” Sira’s head turned.

  “Company.” A line of Plexis security surrounded the base of the ramp.

  Security in the eye-searing green of biohazard suits, usually employed for spills of noxious substances, particularly those found in spacer bars where anything could be considered drinkable by some being, and those inadvertent escapes from cargo holds or live food markets.

  To see a full troop thus garbed was, Morgan admitted, a tad alarming.

  “No wonder they were able to keep people in the stores.” Sira murmured.

  When they reached the bottom, Terk took a step to the side, scowling up at the wives. “Why don’t we have suits?”

  To his credit, he didn’t back down, even as dozens of eyes scowled in return, eyes coming closer. The enforcer crossed his arms. When a female snapped a claw, he uncrossed them. “We need suits!”

  “NO NEED!”

  Staggered, the enforcer was undeterred. “Fine for you—you’ve shells. What about us?”

  “You heard the Fems, Terk.” One of those in green pulled off her hood. “Don’t fuss.”

  It was Bowman.

  Interlude

  SECTOR CHIEF LYDIS BOWMAN.

  Her bright, miss-nothing eyes found me, though I held back to let Morgan greet her first. My heart, still pounding from what had and hadn’t passed between us, however foolish and fraught, tried to skip a beat then settled. From somewhere, I found the ability to nod.

  Bowman here explained a few things. I hoped.

  Sira. We have to leave. Now!

  Startled, I looked at Yihtor. The Chooser—but it wasn’t a Call, I realized, hearing Watchers HOWL!

  “Now!” Aloud. He grabbed my hand . . .

  I saw Morgan leap for us—

  . . . then was somewhere else.

  This was the Plexis I remembered: like a dingy repair shop, cluttered with low hanging wires, damp collecting against the bulkheads. That and the stink helped, when nothing could have prepared me for what was new here.

  From the howls, I’d expected bodies. There were five—four, I realized. Yihtor used the wall to lower himself to the Clansman who improbably continued to breathe, oblivious to all else.

  I couldn’t afford to be. Jason, we’re on a sublevel. The Clan were attacked. I sent what I could see, having no words for the ruin of their faces, for what had poured forth, for—I swallowed, hard, and looked around for anything more.

  There. A weapon—a Scat disrupter—tossed aside as if useless. More than one. I picked up the nearest, though it wouldn’t work for any other sort of being, Scat having their sensible side. Maybe I hoped whatever had done—whatever had been done here—wouldn’t know any better.

  No vid feed. With an echo of my own horror in his mindvoice. Bring me down there. An order.

  One I couldn’t obey, feeling the Watchers’ continued turmoil. We’ve done enough to the M’hir, I countered, then tried to
think. We must be near the Scat ship.

  I’m coming. Stay put, chit.

  Morgan vanished behind his shields, taking that bit of comfort. Shadows pressed in from every side, and I didn’t want to stay here, not even to wait for him, but Yihtor was in no state to leave.

  He’d made it to the floor. Put his hand gently on the fallen Clansman’s forehead, the only part of the face not covered in what I very much feared wasn’t only blood, and closed his eyes. Went still.

  Power swelled; I kept my distance. Whatever he attempted, Yihtor was no Healer. Not that anything could stop this death and weren’t we here, in NothingReal, to cause them?

  A final soft exhalation signaled the end. Yihtor straightened to lean on the filthy wall, tipping his head back against it. His gray-green eyes found me, dull instead of bright. “The Watchers have Nos. Have them all.”

  “Did you—” I hesitated.

  “Show him the way?” A pained shrug. “Yes, once I had what we need. Here.” He held out his hand. Shoved it at me, when I didn’t move right away. “Take it. The locate. The rest.”

  “The rest of what?”

  “My mother’s plan. I’d thought forcing myself on you the worst she could do—not that I was against it then.” At something in my face, he dropped his hand. “Sira, she’s working with another toad. Making us in tubes. Trying to plant the results in mind-wiped Omacrons.” He shuddered. “You can’t imagine how much she wants these bodies of ours.” A limp gesture to me, to himself, then up. “And the Chooser.”

  Oh, I could. Yihtor had missed Faitlen’s work with Retians—what I’d endured. It appeared they’d found another willing to let them tamper with us.

  The Trade Pact’s problem. “We’ll leave the husks for the authorities,” I decided, having a hazy notion of techs and devices gained, truth be told, from a few entertainment vids, but still. “They’ll want to know who did this.” And how, I shuddered. One body was contorted, as though the agony of her death had broken bones. I looked away.

  Yihtor’s gaze had followed mine. It stayed on the body. “My cousin and heart-kin, Merin di Lorimar. She reached along our bond as she failed. Merin’s with the Watchers now,” more briskly, looking up at me. “I know what did this. I’ve the image of those who came and who killed them.”

  He’d something else, I thought, mouth dry. The locate for Wys di Caraat and the rest of her followers. It could be over, that quickly.

  Or bring disaster on us all. I felt the Watchers’ unease; he would, too. Yet—I had to trust who he was now.

  I sat beside Yihtor, my back to the wall beside his, the disruptor on my lap. They were, in the end, his people. His mother.

  This was his choice. “What do you want to do?”

  “I’m tired, Sira. Of being this. Of being here. That doesn’t,” with a glance my way, “make me heedless of why.”

  “I know.” Morgan wasn’t going to be pleased, I thought. Not at all.

  For his sake, and all the others, I offered Yihtor my hand.

  “Show me.”

  Vermin were scarcer than I remembered down here. A good thing. Better? Those who did creep close, giving the corpses an interested sniff, disappeared the instant they noticed me. Not that I’d seem any threat to such hardened Plexis dwellers; I credited the residual aroma of Scat on the disrupter.

  What bothered me more than red eyes in the shadows were the faces in my mind. The Brill I could dismiss as Bowman’s problem.

  The old Omacron, dressed as any third-rate would-be entertainer wandering this station—this Galactic Mysterioso—was mine. The terrible power sept possessed, to kill with what wasn’t only sound, but borne along by it, was beyond anyone else.

  It could be beyond me. Perhaps. Among those horrific memories had been the shock of failed shields, as if some poison had eaten through what might have protected Clan minds.

  Almost there, Witchling.

  Glad to hear it. Glad? Morgan couldn’t get here soon enough. Be where I could protect him, soon enough, and if I hadn’t had vermin to distract me, I’d likely have given into instinct and ’ported to him.

  Yihtor’d known those killed very well. They’d been adherents of Wys from the beginning, influencing Omacron minds to do their bidding. Something he hadn’t done, a difference he believed would protect him.

  By now he’d be in full command of the Scat ship. Plexis Port Authority would bluster, but they’d let the Ikkraud depart. Bowman would see to it, Morgan had told me.

  Yihtor would take the ship back, as Merin and the others had intended, to Snosbor IV. The Scats would be afraid, but Yihtor had promised to let them live. I’d seen to that.

  Scats who wouldn’t leave their ship, not on a world inhabited by Omacron—how had we missed that clue?

  Have they found the Chooser? I’d warned Morgan she—whomever she was—would be Manouya’s next target.

  Plexis Security’s hinting some knowledge, but won’t confirm over coms. With bite. Then, stay clear of her, Sira.

  In case her mind was vulnerable, he meant. I’d shared everything I knew and guessed. We’d no guidance here except to assume the worst: that what exposed the exiles’ minds to the Omacron could be latent in anyone who’d been in mental contact with them. I hadn’t been. Rael’s Chosen, Janac di Paniccia, had; he’d lived on Omacron III, doing to his servants and neighbors what Clan did to those weaker-minded—to Rael’s outspoken disgust.

  I trusted Rael’s repugnance for any closeness to an alien mind to protect me now. Once we’d found the Chooser, I’d send her home to AllThereIs, then follow Yihtor. There were other ships. Fast ones.

  After this Omacron was dead.

  Docking now. In no mood to run down ramps or find a lift, Morgan had “borrowed” a Port Authority tug. My clever, precious Human.

  Who’d been taught his first shields by Omacron telepaths.

  We’d all believed the species harmless. Amusingly timid.

  I wouldn’t underestimate them again.

  Chapter 30

  “I DON’T UNDERESTIMATE HIM.”

  “I trust you won’t.” Sira’s eyes were haunted. Little wonder, Morgan thought, having seen what she had. She’d come aboard the instant he’d opened the air lock and gone straight to the nearest viewport to stare outside, arms tight around herself.

  Resisting the urge to rush into his. He’d covered his own impulse by closing the ’lock and going to stand on the control pad. A tap of his foot undocked the tug. A gentle lean forward sent it out and away. “We’re to meet on Level Five, one quarter spinward.”

  Morgan moved his hand through the air above the pad, piloting the tough little vessel over Plexis as though skimming an aircar over dunes. The station’s hull flashed below, and you got away with speed like this, as close as this, because all ships were stationary, including the rest of the tug fleet.

  Unsecured debris would end them.

  They passed over the sign few bothered to see: “Plexis Supermarket: If You Want It, It’s Here.” Those multicolored lights caught Sira. Band after band poured over her still, too-quiet form, then left her in relative darkness.

  Morgan tried not to look. The trip to reach her had been a blur; he’d pushed the tug beyond its red lines, ignored its warnings. This one he’d slow to a crawl if he could. Stop, if that was at all possible.

  Instead, he accelerated. “Almost there. You want to strap in?”

  “It’s a tug.” Incredulous.

  His lips quirked. “So it is.” A spacer, hook into a station tug’s wall harness? This was his Sira, his crewmate. “I—”

  “Stop! What’s that?”

  Morgan did the next best thing, dumping velocity with grabs of his fist as he brought the tug, designed for quick, abrupt corrections, back around in a slewing turn. The deck adjusted beneath them, servo dampeners taking hold, confounding senses dependent o
n vision as the station swung overhead, then below.

  Sira came to stand with him, clear of the control area. “There.”

  At first glance, what she’d spotted might have been a hole, punched through the station to show the space on the other side.

  But no hole pulled itself with long black arms.

  One of which came free and waved.

  At them.

  “You’re the master trader,” Sira said slowly. “What do you think that means?”

  Trouble, that at the very least. “We’re not waiting to find out.”

  Morgan sent the tug back on course with a quick flurry of movements. One thing they both knew.

  If a Rugheran wanted to find them, it would.

  Anywhere.

  As for finding— “What I want to know,” he told her, “is what Huido’s up to—the big lug isn’t answering coms. He’s not at the Claws & Jaws,” Plexis kept a running total of the living mass presently within each establishment’s forcefields, no doubt so they could later add excessive breathing to the bill and adjust taxes to penalize the popular. Security, at Bowman’s pointed suggestion, had grabbed those numbers. “The Heerala’s docked, but they don’t have him.”

  “He’ll go to his wives, won’t he?”

  “That’d be my guess.” Unless, Morgan added to himself, the arrival of females had Huido feeling heroic, a state of mind which not only tended to leave dents in walls and smash servos, but could very well send the Carasian hurtling joyfully toward dangers any sane being would avoid.

  “We should find him.” Sira knew Huido, too. “If he was the only Carasian onstation, I’d try a heart-search—his mind’s hard to forget,” with a small grimace.

  “Save your Power, Witchling. It shouldn’t be too hard,” Morgan assured her. “All we have to do is find the biggest threat.”

  He surprised her into a chuckle. “How do we do that?”

  “Easy.” The Human slowed the tug as the telltales for Level 5, Spinward ¼ came in view. He aimed them at the row of waiting tug ports, then dropped his hands, relinquishing control. Theirs would find the first available slot. “It’ll be whatever’s caused Plexis to lock her doors.”