Spyridon (The Spyridon Trilogy Book 1)

by Lillian James

  And then he was alone in the hall. The dim lights flickered, the old technology threatening with the barren dark of space, but the power held. And Endetar settled in to wait and watch from the shadows.

  Leima held out her hand, and the silver in her eyes seemed to shimmer and shift as the edges of the dream began to waver into darkness. “You can trust me,” she said, but her voice had changed. “I won’t hurt you.”

  Jane frowned and stepped back. “What?”

  Leima leaned forward, and black claimed the sky. And then Leima was no longer Leima but a faceless thing that floated in the dark.

  “Baanrí. Is that you?”

  The khénta tossed and turned in the sheets of the smart bed until the gríth rolled to the floor. Naiya picked it up to study the carvings, but it held only the woman’s name: Enan Seirsha. It was a Nhélanei tradition long lost on Spyridon, the carving of a keepsake for one’s firstborn. In the scope of things, it was a meaningless trinket that served only to strengthen the Endet’s claim of the woman’s identity.

  Still, if there was a man on this ship who couldn’t be trusted, it was Niyhól Mikhél.

  “Baanrí,” she said again. The woman didn’t stir. Perhaps she was asleep; perhaps she was pretending.

  Or perhaps she simply wasn’t what they thought.

  Naiya straightened and looked around the room, but it offered no other information. An old gríth and the word of Endet Niyhól would do little to satisfy Endetar’s suspicions. They’d need more to justify action. And they would find it. Secrets were not kept easily aboard this ship unless Endetar wished it so. And this was one secret he wished to know.

  If the girl was who he suspected, they’d find out soon enough. And they’d find a way to keep her from Niyhól Mikhél.

  Even if it cost lives.

  Endetar straightened as the doors opened, but Naiya shook her head and turned away down the hall. He frowned at the closing doors, but he didn’t go into the khénta’s room himself. If Naiya saw nothing of significance, then it didn’t exist.

  Instead he turned the other way and walked through the dark. His link flashed a warning in time with a few sputtering beacons set into the walls, and the floor beneath him lurched and shuddered. Then everything went still and dark once more.

  They’d launched the jump. There’d be no deviation until they reached the next jump point. And, unless the flight plan had changed, they’d reach Spyridon in 140 cycles. He’d confirm their path next cycle, though, before he began the next steps in his plan. He needed to know exactly how much time he had to recruit the khénta to their cause.

  Dhóchas picked up speed as he walked, a crumbling behemoth that claimed little of her former glory. His uncle had been assigned the ship for her virgin and only flight before the war. He’d boasted of his post, so proud to be a part of such a lofty ideal as the exploration and unification of thinking life. And Endetar had sat on his knee, dreaming about one day following in his footsteps.

  The reality of that dream lay in stark contrast to the adventure he’d once imagined.

  In his uncle’s time, Dhóchas had housed eight thousand thinking beings, more than five thousand Nhélanei among them. She’d offered a school, a library, and a thirty-five level laboratory devoted to interplanetary study. She’d been self-sustaining, developing her own energy and more than 90 percent of the sustenance needed by her crew and their families when she was at full capacity. In her prime she’d been cutting edge, innovative, and awe inspiring.

  Now she was a shell. Her laboratories had been modified years ago to process the fuels used by the Meijhé. The school was empty, the library decimated, and nearly all of the residential levels closed off or used to store the remnants of the once great ship. The technology was old and failing, and in recent months the power had begun to waver.

  She was dying, and the crew knew it. They waited for it, waited for the dark and the cold to encompass them, and they wondered if that was better than what waited for them on Spyridon. But they didn’t complain. They didn’t voice fear or discomfort. They didn’t dare because they weren’t alone. Dhóchas housed 365 Nhélanei, nearly all of them pledged to his cause.

  And she housed one Meijhé.

  PART II

  CHAPTER 13

  Two hundred and five days till arrival

  Jane woke in the dark. Even with the light of the stars, the dark of the room was so like the dead of night that she wondered how many hours were left until the sunrise. Then she realized her mistake. She wouldn’t see a sunrise for several months.

  She wouldn’t see sunlight at all until they reached Spyridon.

  She ran through all they’d told her the night before. Or was it the day before, or earlier that morning? The mere fact that she had no idea made her wonder if this was just another vivid dream, but she knew it wasn’t. She was certain they’d told her the truth.

  She wasn’t human.

  She wasn’t from Earth.

  And she was going home.

  A home overrun by an alien species. She’d dreamed about the Meijhé, her imagination creating a legion of monstrous creatures that had run through her mind like a parade. Each more vicious than the last, they’d lashed at her with pincers, fangs, and serpentine tails lined with skin-shredding spikes. She’d come half awake at one point, clutching at phantom wounds as she gasped for air, but the dream had refused to relinquish its hold. She’d slipped back under, clawing for a consciousness that had no interest in her.

  She was exhausted now but awake enough to suspect she wouldn’t get more sleep tonight—and still disturbed enough by the dreams to find that a blessing. Instead she lay in bed and thought about the stars as she waited for someone to come for her. She wondered if they were still in Earth’s solar system or if they were well beyond it. She wondered what else was out there that she’d never known existed and how long it would take her to find out.

  And, of course, she wondered about the ship.

  As she donned the clothes Leima eventually had brought her, she kept glancing at the hidden door. Were there other rooms like this one just outside? Would they be filled with people from her home, other slaves like her? Or Meijhé, indescribable monsters whose sole purpose was to keep the crew in line?

  Would she step beyond this room into a space so unlike anything she’d ever seen that her mind wouldn’t be able to comprehend it? She imagined halls, rooms, cockpits, uniforms. She imagined, she realized, something from Star Trek. But what were the chances that reality would resemble the product of her—at least in function, if not in biology—human imagination?

  And perhaps she should have been reluctant to venture beyond this space. It was probably much easier to consider the vagaries of “what if” than the reality of the people who lived and worked feet from where she stood, people who might kill her if they found out the truth.

  But still…it was a spaceship.

  Once Jane was dressed, Leima left the room. And this time the door didn’t close behind her. The hall beyond was dim. The wall across from her held a single light set near the ceiling, and she wondered if it signaled the presence of another room.

  She’d never find out if she didn’t leave this one.

  She took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway. The hall was empty save for Leima to her left and another woman between them. A stranger with cerulean hair, wearing a maroon tunic identical to the one Eithné had worn the night before. Uniforms, Jane thought as she fingered the navy collar of her own.

  The hall curved slightly, going dim just past her room. As she looked into that void, she felt as if she was being watched. An odd, shivery itch skittered up her spine, and she turned away and hurried to catch up with Leima.

  They turned down a wide, straight corridor intersected by narrow, curving halls. Every two hundred feet or so, an intersection was cut through by large blue cylinders that seemed to run the height of the ship. At their base the metal floor gave way to illuminated glass so bright her eyes barely had time t
o adjust before they were bombarded by the next brilliant glare.

  She was trying to guess the purpose of the cylinders—power? Cryonic chambers? Torture devices fashioned by the Meijhé?—when Leima walked up to one in the second intersection and spoke. The metal split and widened, revealing a dim interior that held only a hovering metal disc. Leima stepped inside and then looked at Jane expectantly, and Jane almost laughed at herself. Elevators. They were just elevators.

  With unattached floors.

  She took a deep breath and then stepped inside. Instead of wobbling under her weight, the metal pooled around her feet and rooted her so she couldn’t lift her legs. Then they shot up toward the black.

  The disc hurtled upward in a dizzying rush and then, on a release of air, slowed to a shuddering halt. The doors opened to the sound of distant machinery, a rhythmic strobe and thump that sent vibrations rippling through the floor. They turned down a hall that curved away from the light of the elevators, and Leima spoke into the device on her wrist. A bluish glow shot out of it and bounced off the walls as she walked. When she slipped through a set of doors deep in the heart of the ship, the glow glinted off what seemed to be glass shelves and gleamed on the edge of a set of stairs, but it petered out before it could touch the walls.

  Jane put her hand on her wrist, but of course she had no device of her own to turn on. She kept close to Leima, but her gaze kept drifting into the black. And she couldn’t help but wonder who might be waiting in the shadows.

  They climbed the stairs to the third level, a large, empty room, dark but for a wide swath of light at the back. Their boots clicked on the rigid floor, offering an echo that made the dark seem unending. Jane kept her eyes on the light, a wall of white that stretched from floor to ceiling, and told herself they were alone.

  Leima glanced at her link and then led Jane through the light into a room walled in that floor-to-ceiling glow. Eithné sat inside watching a video on the far wall, a pile of clear, pointed polyhedral at her feet. Another was suspended several inches above the floor, a three-dimensional star spinning amid the crackle and spark of blue lights that bounced from point to point. Eithné gestured through a pattern of glowing, holographic symbols projected into the air before her, and the image on the wall changed. After a moment she pulled the star out of the light, and the blue sparks faded as the wall turned white.

  She stared at the blank wall, her fingers tapping on her knee. Then she turned and nodded to Leima. Leima made the same gesture she’d made the night before, touching the fingertips of her left hand to her chin and then lowering them to Eithné. This time Jane returned the gesture when it was offered to her. It seemed like the thing to do. But Leima’s already pale eyes flashed almost white, and she shook her head and hurried away.

  What did that mean? Had Jane done something wrong?

  “That was called a tekvar,” Eithné said. “It is a gesture of respect given to one of higher rank. The only person on this ship you need farewell in such a way is Endet Niyhól.”

  “Oh.” She’d already messed up. She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter, but her cheeks burned.

  There was nothing quite like being the new kid.

  “Sit down, girl. Eat. You look like you have been gone for a lifetime.”

  The comment sounded more like concern than insult, but heat flared in Jane’s cheeks again. She fought the urge to tug on the oversized uniform or smooth the frizzy wisps that always escaped her bun, and she mumbled the command for a chair. Eithné smiled as the metal rose.

  “You will master our language quickly, I believe. You are good with languages, yes?”

  “Yes. It’s what I do. Did.” Jane winced as her temple began to throb. “Back on Earth I translated documents to make a living.”

  “It is a Nhélanei trait. Most of us can learn new languages easily. Leima has had some trouble learning yours, but you will find that is unusual.”

  A Nhélanei trait that she actually possessed. The throbbing eased, and she took a bite of the food Eithné pushed forward.

  And almost spit it out.

  “What is this?”

  “The prime shift ration. It is…unpleasant, I know. But it is all that is available till the shift transition, and you cannot afford to skip a meal.”

  “No, it’s fine.” It was a salty, greasy pile of soggy cardboard strips. “I’ll eat it.” And pretend it wouldn’t come back up later.

  “I assume you slept well,” Eithné murmured as she rummaged through the glass stars at her feet.

  Jane grimaced, but she said, “I got a few hours.”

  “A few hours.” Eithné glanced up at her and frowned, and then she straightened. “Ah. No, you did not. You rounded the passes.”

  “I…what?”

  “You rounded the passes. It is an expression. It describes a length of time that is shorter than a full day but much longer than the span of this conversation.”

  “Oh…OK.”

  “This might seem like a trivial thing, but I assure you, child. It is not. Your mannerisms will give you away if you are not careful. A simple thing like an expression misspoken will make you noticeable when you would wish otherwise.”

  And the throbbing returned.

  “Now.” Eithné held up a new star. “If we may begin.”

  She held the star over the floor, and the crackling blue lights shot up and began to dance. An image flashed onto the wall of a woman with dark-brown skin and brilliantly purple hair.

  “Last cycle, I told you that you have gone through the jagat. You remember this word, yes?”

  “It’s what caused my healing and all the…” Jane waved her hands in the air beside her ears, as if to signify her panic of the previous night.

  Eithné smiled and mimicked the gesture. “The gevenfaen, yes. What I did not tell you was that until we found you, there was no recorded case of a Nhélanei going through the jagat off planet.”

  She was still smiling as if this was good news, but the slop turned to sawdust in Jane’s mouth. “Then what happened to me? If I didn’t go through the jagat, then—”

  “Oh, you did, child. I saw you heal. I witnessed you experiencing the gevenfaen. I have no doubt you went through the jagat. What I do not know is how.”

  She gestured to the woman on the screen. “This is Marhísh Seithen Tearlach. She gathered nearly all of the information we have on the jagat. There is still much we do not know, however, including how and why the process starts. But we do know that a Nhélanei will develop the strongest gifts when he or she reaches the age of the jagat healthy, well fed, and on planet. Until now. I imagine Marhísh would have loved to meet you.”

  Eithné gestured through the air, and the image shifted into one that made Jane’s head swim. It was a diagram of the Nhélanei body, but at first glance she’d thought it a distorted human. It was as if a child had guessed at the human body, or perhaps an artist had taken liberties with the truth. Some things were nearly right, like the lungs and the heart, but others were unrecognizable.

  “It’s so strange,” she said. “You—we—look so much like humans. It doesn’t seem possible.”

  “Evolution is largely influenced by the temperature and surface of a planet. Similar planets go through similar evolutionary patterns. I imagine Earth was originally considered your sanctuary planet because it was of the same category as Spyridon. The fact that a thinking species resided there that was technologically advanced enough to be able to keep you alive but primitive enough to be separate from the connected worlds was likely the deciding factor in your placement there.”

  “A thinking species.” Jane turned to Eithné. “How many are there? Are they all like us?”

  “There are more than I can count. And few are like us.”

  “Are the Meijhé?”

  “The answer to that, child, is far more complicated than we have time to discuss today.”

  “Are they on this ship?”

  Eithné hesitated, and then she shook her head. “If th
ere are nightmares aboard this ship, they are of our blood. And they can sense you through walls. They can feel the rhythm of your footsteps when you think you are alone. They can hear your fear in the racing of your pulse, just as I can now. And you need to know how they do it.”

  She turned to the wall and enlarged a cross section of the image. Just under the outer layer of skin lay a paper-thin layer of purple, tubed nodules.

  “This is called the sleik. It is one of the jagatai organs. They are all over the body, and they are dormant until the jagat. And then…” She gestured through the control panel, and the nodules began to pulse and fire like nerve endings.

  “What does it do?”

  “The sleik senses changes in pressure. The doran increases your sensitivity to sound; the vin-dath gives heightened smell. There are many more, but the most important is this.”

  She zoomed out so the whole body showed, and now flashes of light were everywhere. Under the skin, in the ear canals and nasal passages. The hands and feet radiated energy, as did the face. Eithné tapped out a few quick commands, and the skull disappeared. Under it the brain was an explosion of light. The pulsing was so frequent there were no dark patches, just light and brighter light.

  “It all starts and ends with the brain. When all of the jagatai organs are working, the brain compiles the information into what we call the sedfai. This is what grants you an expanded sense of your surroundings. But it requires proper blood flow. If the brain does not have enough blood, it cannot process the information sent by the organs. If it has too much, you die.”

  “That’s what happened to me last night?”

  “Last cycle,” Eithné corrected. “And yes.”

  “Why isn’t it happening now? Did my senses stop working?”

  Eithné frowned. “Do you feel nothing of what you felt last night?” When Jane shrugged and shook her head, Eithné said, “I imagine that is a defense mechanism. Your sedfai will return when your body is ready. And I assure you, child, your jagatai organs did not stop working.”