Author's Note
Some Things Transcend begins within hours of the end of the novel Even the Wingless and concerns characters from the novel Mindtouch. It is recommended those books be read first.
Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.
—Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 5
If the dream is won
Though everything is lost
We will pay the price
But we will not count the cost
—Rush's "Bravado," Roll the Bones.
CHAPTER 1
If Jahir's residency had taught the two of them anything, it was that it was best to be prepared for emergencies...which is why they had a patient priority alert despite it being less of a necessity in their line of work than in other medical professions. Now that Jahir volunteered now and then at the starbase's civilian hospital, they heard it more often... and if Vasiht'h never enjoyed being jerked awake by it, he was at least a little less shocked to hear it.
The alarm that ripped through their suite was not the patient priority alert.
"What in Her name is that?" Vasiht'h asked, falling off his mound of pillows.
A scrabbling from the bed, a muffled, exasperated noise—Jahir slept under a lot of blankets, and tossed enough in his sleep to wake up tangled. "That's a comm request."
"Comm requests don't wake us up in the middle of the night!"
"No," Jahir said, and his tension sang in the mindline like electricity, "they don't." And then he was off the bed and out of the room.
Vasiht'h shoved the pillows away from his splayed feet and lunged out of his nest, hopping a few times to wake up a nerveless foot before hurrying after his partner.
Jahir was sitting in their common room in front of the wallscreen, nearly invisible in his pajamas: loose long-sleeved shirt and pants in midnight blue, a lot like the scrubs he wore in the hospital. His braid fell against that dark fabric like white silk, and it was the brightest thing in the room until the screen lit.
"Incoming transmission, well-streamed, Riggins-encrypted, destination code unlisted. Accept?"
"Yes."
Vasiht'h's ears flipped back. Real-time encrypted transmissions from unknown sources, going to an Eldritch, probably involved....
"Jahir Seni Galare."
I am not seeing the Queen of the Eldritch in my apartment at mark four in the morning, with sleep-rumpled fur.
/You are, and I believe I am a fair sight more inappropriately dressed than you./
Vasiht'h winced, not having intended that thought to travel. He padded up behind his partner so he was visible at Jahir's shoulder, and together they met the eyes of the Eldritch Queen, a woman he'd seen only once, at the wedding that had resulted in his induction into Jahir's family. Even transmitted across half the Alliance, she looked inimitable. Something about her eyes... like she was seeing more than surfaces, or the right-nows of a thing.
Jahir was talking. "My Lady. I apologize for how you find us—"
"I am aware of the time there and expected no differently. If my errand could have waited, I would have delayed, but it cannot. A vessel is waiting for you at the Veta military dock. If you are willing, it will bring you to a ship which will make rendezvous at the border with a vessel carrying the former Alliance Ambassador ad'Chatcaavan Empire, whom I believe you know. Your expertise there will be crucial."
Vasiht'h had known his friend for over a decade now, and he had yet to experience a flat-footedness quite as complete as the one the mindline now conveyed to him. They had had some communication with the Ambassador, it was true: the Alliance had requested their help—or more accurately, Jahir's help—speaking the Eldritch language in secure transmissions directly to the Ambassador. But they'd arrived one day to be turned away with the information that they were no longer needed. Both of them had assumed it was because the Ambassador had returned. But that was nearly a year ago...! Vasiht'h could sense how desperately Jahir was scrabbling to respond appropriately in the face of their entirely reshaped understanding of the situation. "...crucial, my Lady? In what fashion?"
"Because the tensions at the border are becoming critical, and the Alliance at last has an ambassador who may have enough information to help them understand how to win the inevitable confrontation."
Vasiht'h said uncertainly, "And he needs therapy," when what he really wanted to say was 'And he doesn't need a medical team.'
Liolesa glanced at him, spared him a distracted smile and even his name, impeccably pronounced in her flawless Universal. "Vasiht'h. Yes." Her smile became less symmetrical. "He has been in the Empire for almost a year, and out of contact with sympathetic voices for so long. We believe the face of a countryman will be salubrious."
"You're telling us," Jahir said slowly, "that the man we were in contact with—briefly—has been there all this time, my Lady. An Eldritch. Alone among dragons and slavers. A man whose last communication with us was a refusal to return in the face of possible capture and punishment."
Liolesa looked at Jahir now, and that expression... the two of them had counseled Fleet personnel before, and now and then Vasiht'h had wondered what it must be like to send people into war, knowing they might die. That look told him, somehow. Vasiht'h's stomach wrenched, and that was nothing to Jahir's shock at the confirmation, so abrupt it felt like smashing into a wall.
"I send you to your House-cousin, Lisinthir Nase Galare. If you leave tonight, you will be in time to meet him at the border. Otherwise, you will have to wait for him at the nearest starbase." Something in her eyes, then: was she... unhappy? No. Pain, he thought, stunned. She was not a woman he thought of as being easy prey to grief. "The transition may be difficult. It would help, perhaps, for you to be there sooner. Particularly you, since yours was the last friendly voice he heard. I would consider it a favor. To me."
"Of course," Jahir managed. "At once, my Lady."
She nodded. "Thank you. They're expecting you at the base. And cousin—I will remember your faithfulness."
Jahir managed a twitch of his head, a negation so instinctive he defaulted to the minimalist body language the Alliance had polished out of him years ago. "My Lady. I do my duty."
"Nevertheless." She smiled. "Goddess and Lord with you on your errand."
"As you say, my Lady."
And then the transmission ended.
What Vasiht'h could come up with, what he could pull out of the shocked and tangled thoughts in his head, in their head, was, "They left him in the Empire? After engineering the return of all those slaves? And they knew he'd done it?" He paused and added, astonished, "And he survived."
Jahir's nerves were so jangled, his muscles so tense, that Vasiht'h's shoulders ached. His partner stood. "We have to pack."
"Right," Vasiht'h said, and hastened after him despite his misgivings, a flood of emotions so overwhelming he almost hit Jahir when the Eldritch stopped abruptly and turned to him. Back-pedaling, Vasiht'h looked up at him.
"I know," Jahir said softly, and rested a rare hand on the Glaseah's shoulder, warm and gentle. "I know, ariihir. But we have to go."
Vasiht'h covered the long white fingers with his shorter, furred ones. He managed a lopsided smile. "Well. A case involving an Eldritch and a species of pathological sociopaths, dropped in our laps by a Queen with all our expenses paid by the military. How bad could it be?"
Jahir managed a smile, squeezed, and vanished into their bedroom. Which made Vasiht'h suddenly think it could be that bad, and worse, because when had he ever made a joke like that without Jahir laughing... on the inside, at least, if not on the outside?
"Goddess," he muttered. "Walk with us."
Jahir had been aware, vaguely, that
they lived nearer the border with the Empire than most Alliance citizens. The Alliance Core was comprised of nineteen sectors, nearly all of them spinward of Sector Veta where he and Vasiht'h had made their home for over a decade. The outlying colonies and frontier areas added another twenty-one sectors to the Alliance's total, and these areas were even more distant. Only Sector Alpha, home to the first worlds colonized by the Pelted fleeing Earth, was closer to the border zone that the treaty had established as buffer between the Chatcaava and the Alliance's multiple species.
He was also aware, again vaguely, that commercial transports did not run their ships at the maximum speeds Wellspace permitted. Engines began to wear precipitously when they were pushed in that folded nowhere-space, and most civilian ships never took their ships higher than Well 2 or 3, called the Lip of the Well. The occasional commercial courier service might go as high as Well 4, but anything past that tended toward diminishing returns when repairs and maintenance were counted against profit and safety.
The Fleet courier that came for them ran the Well's Deep, the maximum speed that could be coaxed from modern materials and propulsive technologies. Jahir sensed the strain in the superstructure as it shivered around him... like a horse, he thought, running full-out, sweating beneath the hand.
In his life, Jahir had been privileged to have access to wealth and technology far beyond the means of most of the Pelted, thanks to his connections to the Eldritch Queen and the Galare fortune. But even he was stunned by the sheer speed of their flight. It took them a little under a day to reach the station in the border territory where the Fleet vessel assigned for the actual pick-up was awaiting them. Nor was their journey the only part subjected to this efficiency. They had barely disembarked when their luggage was taken across the hangar deck to a new airlock. Before they could ask after the next step of their itinerary they were intercepted by a human in Fleet uniform, who paused, as so many people had when confronting two such unlike species, and where the taller and quicker of the two was also the one who couldn't be casually touched. Vasiht'h solved his conundrum by extending his hand, palm up, and had it covered in greeting.
"You must be the xenotherapists," the man said. "I wish I could offer you the hospitality of the base, but the Quicklance is waiting on you to cast off." He raked his eyes up Jahir's body and nodded. "Well done of them to send you, though. You'll be needed. Come with me."
"You have some knowledge we don't?" Jahir asked as they hurried after the human.
"I met the man before he left. The Ambassador. Good man. Would have been a hell of a poker player. I had him pegged for a success." The man stopped alongside the airlock. "That would have made him the first success. The rest of our ambassadors having failed, or come back dead, or crazy. And you know, he did good. Did more than any of the others. If they kicked him back..."
Vasiht'h's nervousness made the back of Jahir's teeth ache. He spoke despite it. "You think they sent him away for being too effective."
"The dragons," the man said, meeting his eyes directly, "don't 'send people away,' sir. That's not their style."
"What do they do?" Vasiht'h asked.
The man glanced at him. "They kill them. Or torture them." He nodded to the airlock. "Captain Raynor's got your briefing materials. With any luck, you'll be back here and on firmer footing within two days' time, three if the dragons are late."
"We'll see you then...?"
"Levy. Admiral Alon Levy."
Jahir inclined his head. "Admiral. We'll see you then."
The Seersa waiting for them on the other side of the airlock barely allowed the door to finish closing behind them before saying, "Aletsen, if you'll come with me? Your quarters are this way." The ship shivered beneath them and a strip of lights lining the corridor's ceiling flashed yellow once. "As soon as we've cleared the station, the captain will be available for questions. My name's Healer-assist Borden; I'm the senior medical officer on board." She grinned. "Also, the only medical officer on board. That's normal for this crew complement, though. We only carry twenty people. Here's your cabin." She touched the pad and the door slid open. "You'll find two data tablets waiting for you with pertinent information."
"Thank you," Jahir said for them both, and then she was gone.
"Very serious, this business," Vasiht'h muttered, padding into the room and glancing around before ducking his head beneath the strap of his messenger bag. "I wonder if I should keep my bags on as quickly as these people move."
"Half a day is a long time with saddlebags buckled to your barrel." Jahir sat on the short couch near the door, tried to breathe through the tension of the past day and a half... for his partner's sake as much as his own, for the mindline was quivering with their combined anxieties. "And yes. I imagine a very serious business it is."
"What did you think of Levy?"
"His commentary?" Jahir grimaced. "I wish we'd had longer to speak to him, since he met the Ambassador prior to his assignment."
Vasiht'h joined him, sitting on the floor and folding his forelegs. Tentatively, he said, "Did you know him? This particular Eldritch? I mean, before we were asked to translate." At Jahir's glance, the Glaseah said, "You've been so worried. I assumed... maybe he was an acquaintance from before you left the world? But I'm guessing not."
"No," Jahir said. "The Nase are a reclusive branch of the Galare, with properties that were much further north, close to the land that used to be held by House Imthereli before those lands were ceded to Galare and Asaniefa. There's bad business there, but what I know of it is mostly hearsay, and though the family issues were complex, I never heard aught of the son save that he was serviceable for the sole scion of the family, and heir to their lands. I never met him personally. The concern you sense..." Jahir trailed off, feeling Vasiht'h's attention like the wan sunlight of a winter day. Neither of them was feeling very comfortable. "I had thought this finished business. When we last spoke to the Ambassador, I assumed...."
"That he got out not long after?" Vasiht'h nodded. "Me too. I'd think rescuing the Eldritch heir and all the slaves in the harem would have been enough for one man."
"But he stayed," Jahir whispered. "Why?" In the mindline, the unspoken words shivered, chilled with more than cold. And how did he survive?
Vasiht'h brushed the fur down on his arms. "Why don't you get started on the data tablet, and I'll see if what passes for a genie in this cabin can make us some tea."
"That would be much appreciated, arii."
This at least was familiar, and calming: how often had they enacted this ritual? From their very first meetings, they had made each other food and drink and studied together. When Vasiht'h returned to his side with two steaming cups, it completed a circuit that relaxed them both, and they settled into the work.
...and such work. Lisinthir Nase Galare had patently not been punished for his audacity in freeing the slaves. He had, in fact, lived to free another, larger group of them several months later... and that in addition to all the treaty amendments he'd negotiated. The Ambassadorial Service had been thrilled with his accomplishments and asked repeatedly how he'd secured those victories, only to receive silence, or answers so bland Jahir could feel the secrets hiding under them like cankers. He strove to rein in those fears and failed, and through the mindline felt Vasiht'h's sudden attention like the swiveling of a laser.
Vasiht'h spoke first. "He did amazing things."
Said Jahir, "Everything has a cost."
Appended to the end of the debriefing was a very curt statement from one of those escaped slaves, a Fleet intelligence agent who'd been trapped in the court harem. On Lisinthir, the only subject discussed though Jahir had the sense the interview had been much longer, she'd said only that he had befriended the Chatcaavan Slave Queen and through her learned a great deal of how politics was conducted among the aliens. But that it was not typical for any 'wingless freak' to be capable of the sort of maneuvering necessary to succeed among the Chatcaava. "He may manage," the Seersa had said, staring st
raight into the recorder with orange eyes that betrayed a spirit that had survived brutalization and emerged scathed by it. Both of them were familiar with the look. "But if he does, he won't come home the same man. You'll have to prepare for that."
"There's a lot they're not telling us," Vasiht'h said at last, setting the data tablet aside to sip the now tepid tea.
"We probably lack the appropriate security clearances."
Vasiht'h snorted. "They don't understand how we do our work if they think that's going to matter once we lay a hand on your cousin."
No, Jahir thought. It certainly wouldn't.
The day passed too quickly with the ship barreling through Wellspace. Vasiht'h spent the night uneasy, sharing his far more sensitive friend's nightmares: nothing intense enough to wake either of them, but vague dreams of distorted fears, glimpsed at a distance where they could not be confronted and dispelled. The following day they continued doing what research they could; Vasiht'h chose to piece together any information he could find in the u-banks on Chatcaavan culture while his partner re-read the correspondence they'd originally shared with the Ambassador while he'd been in the Empire. He could feel Jahir's discontent with it, like burrs chafing his paws.
"What is it?" he asked finally, looking up from his tablet.
"So little," Jahir said, slowly rubbing a thumb and forefinger along his temple. "Our talking. We said very little to one another."
There was a static clinging to the mindline that hissed angrily and stung Vasiht'h when he reached through it. He grimaced, flattening his ears. "I take it you were hoping it would be more illuminating."
"It is, somewhat. But I was hoping to have more of a sense of his personality from it."
"And you got... nothing?" Vasiht'h sat next to him.
"I read over and over that he planned to stay his course." Jahir smiled, one of those lopsided smiles that Vasiht'h had come to love so well. "But as you know, and as I know, that could be the result of any number of traits: stubbornness, fear of failure, aggression, confidence, ignorance."
Some Things Transcend Page 1