She laced her fingers together and took a resolute breath. “When the robot wolf racing through Naidoc’s space dock and hurling himself at the Orion was identified as Vulf, the Conclave and all of Corsairs plus the pirate fleet had a collective fit. What you and Vulf achieved with his shift has changed everything for us, Jaya. We have hope, again. Hope that we’ll be able to shift and run as our animal selves.”
“Does it bother anyone that the shift is into an inorganic form?” I asked. I feared that the wild heart of shifters might resent or even fear a robotic form; that they might refuse it. Initially, they’d been over the moon at the thought of shifting, any kind of shifting. But once they’d had time to think, had that changed? Vulf’s brief recorded messages hadn’t provided much detail of his reception when he arrived back on Corsairs. I understood that he’d been wary of spies accessing anything he shared with me, but the lack of information fed my anxiety.
“Even three generations ago people might have felt like that. They might have been angry and afraid of shifting into a robot,” Laura admitted. “But now…people are grateful, giddy with the possibility. Vulf survived radiation. He could survive poison in his shifted form. People can see the opportunities of an inorganic second form. And that makes you, the shaman who initiated Vulf’s shift, hot property. The man who can claim you as daughter will shout that fact to the stars.”
The concern in her eyes elicited a weird emotion in me, a kind of baffled gratitude that existed on the fringes of a deeper shock. She cares. She hadn’t just claimed me as family. She meant it. I took an equal leap of faith and answered her openness with my own. “What if I can’t repeat Vulf’s shift?”
“Whatever happens, there’ll be criticism and people trying to use you.”
Laura’s pragmatic response resonated with me. I smiled wryly at her. “I’ve just fled that experience at the Academy—the Star Guild Shaman Academy.”
She nodded that she’d gotten the reference without my explanation. “Don’t run from us. Shifters are noisy and conniving and no better than anyone else, but we’re also loyal. We don’t run. We fight. You won’t be alone unless you choose to be. If there’s a fight, we’ll be beside you.”
“Will it come to a fight? The fact that Vulf and I are together, a shifter and a shaman, with him perhaps the sole shifter capable of shifting?”
“You’re worried about envy breeding resentment.” Laura relaxed in her chair, rocking slightly. “No.” She smiled. “As a society, we respect strength. Vulf is my son so it’ll sound as if I’m bragging, but he was already one of the strongest of his generation. Only a strong character could have resisted the pressure to join the pirate fleet and instead succeeded as a lone bounty hunter. Now he has you. You’re a unique mated pair, shaman and shifter. You’ll make your own place in our society, whatever happens regarding others shifting or not into robot forms.”
Her confidence that I had a place here was rock solid. However, my experiences of the day had left me raw, my skepticism a thin cover for the wounds of disillusionment and betrayal I’d suffered at the Academy. I’d thought I had a place there, and I’d ended up fleeing it. I let the subject drop. There was nothing either of us could do to anticipate the future; just be prepared.
Apart from the cat, the barns and sheds appeared empty of life, but the far side of the river held a herd of rust-colored cattle grazing placidly, and human voices drifted from the passing boats. There was life, only it was happening at a distance. Some of that was physical distance, but some was my attitude. I kept retreating into my own thoughts, going over the happenings of the day, beginning with Matron’s intrusion at breakfast. What had she known or guessed about the interstellar human governments’ intentions with regard to me? What had Alex, backed by the Galactic Court’s artificial intelligences, calculated would happen? Why hadn’t anyone warned me that humanity’s leaders would seek to control me, going far beyond simply using me as a bargaining chip in negotiating full membership of Galaxy Proper?
Or had Alex’s meeting with me been intended to prepare me for our governments’ actions?
“Jaya?” Vulf shouted. He ran through the house and out to the back porch, sweeping me into his arms.
I buried my face in his shoulder and imitated a boa constrictor, wrapping myself around him.
We didn’t move or say anything for the longest time.
Maybe our silence and holding each other said everything.
When I finally remembered his parents’ presence, I looked around, and Laura was gone. We had the porch to ourselves, although we were visible from the river.
Vulf didn’t care.
And once he kissed me, nor did I.
My lips froze. We’d had so little time together after our mate bond formed that I’d forgotten how intimate telepathy was.
He groaned.
It made sense. Names were more than a sound. They were a summary for a collection of identifying factors, including how a person felt about another. Given how intensely I’d missed Vulf and longed for him, his name would carry all of my love and yearning.
I melted into him, overwhelmed by the avalanche of his emotions as he ’pathed my name: desire, worry for me, protective instincts, possessiveness, tenderness, emotions without name, but all centered on loving me. I was lost to everything but Vulf.
He retained a smidgen more control. He pulled back fractionally and spoke rather than used telepathy. “You can tell me how you came to be here so suddenly while we hike to the cabin.”
I was already two steps down the porch, following him willingly—I’d follow him anywhere—when I stopped.
Our linked hands tugged as he kept going for an instant. Then he swung around to face me. With me a couple of steps higher, I looked down at him. “Your parents…”
He grinned, a slash of masculine amusement. “They’ll understand.”
I refused to be embarrassed. “No, I mean I think they need to hear my story, too.”
He sobered, his eyes searching mine.
“Your mom made me feel welcome.” I walked down the two steps to stand level with him and so that I could put my free arm around him.
He released my other hand to wrap me up in a loose hug.
Laura had been trying to tell me something important. I might have missed it—it was so far outside my personal experience—but waiting for Vulf had given me time to think. Vulf’s family wanted to include me as their own. I needed to demonstrate the same trust. Families, the good ones anyway, shared their troubles as well as their joys. If I didn’t shut them out, they’d be there for me.
“I’m not used to being part of a family, Vulf. I want to do this right. Your parents want to help us, and I want to show them that I respect that, that I like it. I don’t know.” I moved my hands restlessly over his back, unable to find the words to express what I meant.
He squeezed me a second before turning me to face back up the steps. “You’re right. Either Mom or Dad has gone with me to every Conclave meeting about shifting into my robot wolf form. They care, and if you’re willing to share what’s been happening at the Academy, they’ll keep your confidences, and they’ll help.”
We walked in the back door and, finding the kitchen empty, continued on to the vast front room.
Laura and Thor sat talking at the large table. Thor stood when he saw me. He was as tall as Vulf and only fractionally less muscled; a big, imposing man.
“Dad, this is my mate, Jaya.” Vulf gave me a push.
I knew that shifters needed touch. Laura had hugged me without asking. I appreciated that Thor waited, but…that put the pressure on me. “Hi, Mr. Trent?”
“Thor,” he rumbled, his voic
e deep.
“Thor.” I rounded the corner of the table, stretched up and hugged him.
When Alex left after Celine’s death, I’d pretty much blocked out memories of him and how easily our little, temporary family, had shared affection. So when Thor hugged me with a father’s protective embrace, tempering his strength, my eyes went a little misty, especially when he rumbled a greeting.
“Welcome home, daughter.”
I sniffed.
Vulf put an arm around my shoulders and his free hand on one of his dad’s massive shoulders.
Laura jumped up from her chair and tried to wrap us all in a group hug. “Thor always says the right thing. Few words, but always the important ones.”
As much as I’d have loved time alone with Vulf, we’d made the right choice to join his parents first.
We returned to the kitchen and sat around while Laura put out cakes and cookies, and heated up small savory tarts, all while brewing a pot of the herbal tea shifters served to family. Usually it was served at night, after dinner, but it was comforting now.
A simple blood test during childhood had alerted me to the fact that my father was an unknown shifter, and as a result I’d learned what I could of their culture and society. That still left me with significant gaps in my understanding since they were a tight knit group, suspicious of strangers.
Over tea, I summed up the situation at the Academy fairly quickly: the research shamans’ failure to deliver any insights into Vulf’s shift into robot form; their interest in the extent of my shamanic talent and how I’d taken out seven wraiths from half a galaxy away; and finally, humanity’s leaders’ desire to use me as a bargaining chip for renegotiating humanity’s position in Galaxy Proper to the level of full membership.
Vulf, Laura and Thor listened attentively. So far I hadn’t mentioned anything to justify my sudden appearance on Corsairs.
I turned my half-empty cup of tea slowly between my hands. “The leaders of humanity’s planetary governments met today at the Academy. They reached a consensus that simply using my shamanic talent and potential as a third Shaman Justice wouldn’t properly exploit my capabilities. They see me as a weapon.” The words stuck in my throat. I swallowed a sip of tea.
Vulf sat beside me, his shoulder brushing mine, his foot against my foot. He placed his cup down on its saucer with a precision that spoke of controlled rage.
Thor sat at the head of the table with Laura on his right and me on his left, sandwiched between him and Vulf. “What would they have you do?”
“They didn’t say. I was more concerned with the attitude underlying how they sought to control me.”
Vulf jerked in his chair.
His parents eyed him quickly before refocusing on me.
I needed to finish this fast. Vulf needed all the information so that his protective instincts would calm down. I wasn’t in danger, not here and now. “The leaders concluded that I needed what they called bodyguards. The men were in the room with me. They produced disrupters.”
“Guards, not bodyguards,” Thor said.
I put a hand on Vulf’s thigh. He was rigid with fury.
“In the Academy?” Laura asked, horrified. She obviously understood that disrupters were weapons specifically designed to disconnect a shaman from sha energy, and hence, from exercising their shamanic talent. Bringing disrupters into the Academy was a blatant insult, if not something more, to humanity’s shamans.
I nodded. “I read the threat to control me as a threat against all shamans. I decided not to wait around. I took away the disrupters and left. I had a portal set up a few miles away from the Academy. It was a leftover from my student years there. I hadn’t expected to need it. To be clear.” I looked at Vulf. “No one hurt me.”
“They threatened you.” The icy blue eyes of his wolf studied me, his fierce gaze searching mine for hidden hurts.
“They gave me an excuse to leave and join you. Only…” I paused as Vulf moved, standing and pulling me up so that he held me flush against him. “I don’t know what the politicians might order to try and get me back under their control.” I twisted to look apologetically at Laura and Thor. “I don’t think there’ll be trouble for at least a day. They need to confirm where I am. They’ll probably guess that I portalled to Vulf.”
“Corsairs doesn’t give up its own,” Laura said. “I can pass the word that various governments are after you. We hold off the Galactic Police, and that multi-species force includes far more powerful beings than humans. Don’t worry about your safety on Corsairs.”
Vulf growled. “Unless the interplanetary human governments convince some shamans to serve them and portal forces onto Corsairs.”
Laura’s eyes widened. “Would they?”
I shrugged, ashamed that I couldn’t automatically deny that other shamans might attack me. The last few weeks had shaken my sense of a secure, predictable world. Even unstable, dangerous wormholes had rules that I could rely on when I navigated them. But people’s behavior, that was mysterious and unaccountable. “I can’t guarantee they won’t.”
Vulf growled. “Pass the word that everyone is to carry blasters, and the rule is to shoot first and ask questions later. Does Uncle Eli still have a disrupter, Dad?”
Thor glanced at me.
“I don’t mind if you operate a disrupter near me,” I said, but I shivered. Disrupters prevented a shaman from accessing sha energy. I’d experienced the weirdness of being without sha when Vulf used a disrupter on me at our first meeting. But the effect of blaster shots on a shaman was worse. We seemed especially sensitive to the electric field put out by a blaster, and would convulse and, varying by shaman, suffer excruciating nerve pain.
I understood that with a shaman’s powers, ordinary people couldn’t risk questioning the shaman’s intentions before blasting them. Surprise was the best tactic to use against us. Plus, there was the fact that no shaman should simply portal onto Corsairs. The pirate planet had a reputation for repelling intruders. Still, Vulf was being this ruthless to protect me.
“Eli has a disrupter,” Thor said. “I’ll ask him and Abigail to stay alert. If we need it, he’ll bring it over.”
“Eli and Abigail live twelve miles upriver,” Laura added an explanation for my sake. “They’d be here in minutes.” Certainly before the effects of a blaster shot wore off.
I nodded, and continued patting Vulf’s chest unthinkingly, just little fingertip touches of reassurance and connection. “I’m not sure how long I’ll stay on Corsairs.”
He trapped my hand against his chest. “When you leave it’ll be on the Orion, with me.”
I smiled. Out loud, I said, “I was actually thinking that I’d like to submit my blood for DNA matching in your database as soon as I can. I’d like to know who my father is before I leave.”
“Oh, it won’t take long to match your DNA,” Laura said. “I have a sequencer here. We’re an heirloom farm. Maintaining ancient crops and livestock includes checking DNA before we acquire new stock. The sequencer is in the office. All you need to do is stick your finger in. It’ll prick it and send the results to the database. We’ll specify that your father has twenty hours for notification—an emergency match—and then, regardless of his reaction, you’ll learn his name tomorrow evening.”
I caught my breath at how quickly the process would work.
Thor, however, rumbled into protest, halting Laura with her hand on a side door from the kitchen. “What do you mean ‘regardless of his reaction’? The man will want to meet his daughter.” He frowned at me, a concerned frown. “Are you ready for that?”
“Jaya was worried her father won’t want to acknowledge her,” Laura said.
Thor made a sound of shock.
“The sooner Jaya submits her blood sample, the sooner the suspense e
nds for her,” Laura said.
That got the two men moving.
I didn’t need any urging to follow Laura, although I was grateful for Vulf’s presence. The actual process was as simple as Laura had described, but once she’d sent the sequenced DNA to the database, we all stood for a moment, staring blankly at the “data received” confirmation message on the screen.
“Mom? Dad? Vulf?” a woman shouted.
“Edith!” Laura smiled.
“I asked her to bring the spare communicator from my starship for Jaya,” Vulf said.
Edith found us as we returned to the kitchen from the office. She hugged everyone enthusiastically before remembering the communicator. She still wore her uniform, a utility suit in a red so dark it was nearly black. “Aunt Bree wasn’t going to give me shore leave, until Cyrus interrupted us. Aunt Bree gets wild when he does that. He hacks the ship’s PA system. He told her to let me go. I think he’s guessed you’re here, Jaya. I have to return to the Capricorn in the morning.”
Fortunately, I’d been aboard the Capricorn, the massive pirate ship Edith served on, and I understood that “Aunt Bree” was the captain of the ship. Cyrus was less easily classified. He was the ship’s Chief Intelligence Officer, but I suspected he served a similar role for the whole of the pirate fleet and Corsairs, itself. Certainly, Edith’s artless story was proof that the old man outranked Captain Bree Darnell on her own ship.
I accepted the communicator from her and stepped back a pace so that I could run through the authorization prompts that Ahab had set up to key the communicator to me.
A picture of the Orion flashed up onscreen as the communicator unlocked. “Good evening, Jaya.”
“Hello, Ahab.” I’d spoken the complete truth when I told Alex that Ahab, the AI embodied in Vulf’s starship, was my friend. “It’s good to hear you. I’m with Vulf’s family, at the moment.” I wanted to explain why I couldn’t chat, but then I had another thought. “Thor, Laura, would you mind if I left the communicator on so that Ahab could be part of the conversation?”
Cosmic Catalyst (Shamans & Shifters Space Opera Book 2) Page 5