by Joyce Lavene
"I could have gone along all my life and never known." She reached out a hand to touch his face.
"No." He shook his head, putting his lips to her palm. "At some point, you wouldn't have been able to shield this energy from yourself or ENDO. I have merely been a catalyst."
He lowered his head slightly, his hair sliding across hers, meshing the strands. His eyes were intent on her face. His lips met hers gently then he smiled. "I have heard stories of the tribesman on Farga, the untamed ones that dwell outside R'agus and the government rum trade. Perhaps you're descended from one of those people. Their psi is the stuff of myth and legend. Yet perhaps it's real."
She lowered her eyes, some of the warmth leaving her.
Gael?
I am descended from the alleys, from slaves. I killed a man to win my knife. I stole food from sick children. She lifted her hand to cover the scar on her face, not looking at him. "I lied to become an ENDO agent. I ripped the slave mark from my face and I took a name that I saw once on a wall. I would have killed to get away."
"You are descended from misfortune and pain that made you strong and alone. You are strong still, Gael, but you are no longer alone. You've covered a part of yourself so that others wouldn't see but like this scar, it is a part of you." He took her hand in one of his own and bent his head to touch his lips to the scar she'd hated forever. A part of me.
Gael looked at him and she knew that what he said was true. But she wasn't willing to give up all she had been yet for what she could be.
In time. Old habits die hard.
Her eyes fell from his face to her tattered uniform. There was still a job to be done. "Chrysalines?" She looked back up at him, duty clearly written in her face. She pushed everything else aside and put their conversation back on their mission.
Kat was not to be led so easily. His eyes filled her vision, the blue so intense that she shivered, not able to look away. Surges of energy flowed through her, warming her and shifting something deep inside of her. It changed subtly to a sweet ecstasy that made her groan and move against him.
Rian mind magic?
Our magic, Gael.
"But business first? Until later then." He withdrew from her emotional field, leaving her breathless. "I shall attempt to explain the problem to you."
Please. Allow us, Sadoh Kalatri. Three of the smaller beings entered the room, their black eyes shining. They had, obviously, monitored their conversation and knew when to enter. They wore white robes similar to those Kat wore but their short bodies were bulky under their garments as opposed to Kat's slender height.
They came towards them. Gael felt the harmony surrounding them reach out to encompass her as well. She heard their chiming language in her brain but couldn't make sense of the sounds. Yet just a moment before --
Together, we can understand, if you will allow me to help you.
She looked at Kat, still surrounded by her fears. It seemed impossible to trust that this was happening yet inconceivable for her to ignore it. She broke down, feeling a shudder of awareness ripple through her as he touched her. "All right." All right.
The Chrysalines looked from one to another, concern clearly drawn in their regard of them. She is well, the female?
She is well. She wishes to hear your story. Will you tell her now?
We will. It is she who touched us from so far away. We know this now. They bowed to her slightly. We felt your coming. You have come to save us.
Gael glanced at Kat then back at them. If I can.
The Chrysalines' storytelling was more than words, much more than a painting being created for her with light and color within her mind. Their telepathy included the scents of their once green world, the cries of the birds, the wind and the rain. Their memories were the tapestries she'd seen, the visions that had haunted her. Her dreams.
Long ago, long before there was government, as she knew it, before Central had come and found nothing on that world, the Chrysalines had lived there in harmony, at peace with themselves and others. They were an old race, taking generations to mature from gestation to adulthood. The tapestries that had so confounded the ancient explorers were their works, the art of the last generation to survive. They spent their childhood as the beings there before them. Eating, weaving, preparing for the next generation.
Fortunately for the race, many had gone into the caves for shelter when the intruders had first come. By the time they returned to build the ore processor, an underground habitat had been established. A large delegation had been left behind to try to communicate with the off-worlders. They struggled to understand the strange creatures' frantic building. All attempts at communication failed. At last, the strange creatures had left. Then the processor had been started from the ship that hovered above the planet.
All the Chrysalines left on the surface had perished in the noxious ore dust. The ones that remained were in their next form that would last for several hundred years. Only recently had those cocoons begun to open. Many were lost to the slow spread of gas that permeated through the higher caves. Only the deepest cave dwellers had survived. We are those survivors. We number fifty. We were awakened to our new existence by our sole mature manifestation, Ardoc.
Gael was shocked and sickened by their story. There is only one adult?
Only Ardoc, whom you met.
Their minds chimed together to show her Ardoc, the winged adult who'd masqueraded briefly as Kat, taking the image from her thoughts. We awakened to a world that had been destroyed by toxic fumes by a people we did not know on worlds we had only dreamed of. There were some stores of food that were closely monitored for our survival. Then there was the enemy.
The ore processor, Gael confirmed.
We were ignorant of its power, fatally so for many of our brothers. Then we found we did not need to kill it with our bodies. We could destroy it with our thoughts.
As you destroyed the freighter, Kat joined solemnly.
They attempted to bring the creature back to life, to destroy what chance we had for the future.
Fifteen hundred lives, Kat sighed, lost.
Gael felt their depth of sorrow but also their commitment to preserving their own kind.
We called out to your people after the creature was silenced. They sent you to us. We felt your coming and attempted to have you understand so that you would feel welcome here among us.
My dreams. Gael shivered, thinking through with them what she could recall of the fragments of those vivid illusions.
Others not so dedicated to life came with you. They would have destroyed our world and taken your life as well. We could not allow this to happen.
The Chrysaline that saved my life?
He determined to enter his final transformation sooner than he should to keep you from the poison. It destroyed him. You are here with us now. Safe from those others. You can save us! The trio looked at Gael and Kat eagerly, projecting their visions of hope and salvation.
We must speak alone, Kat told them. We will decide what can be done.
The Chrysalines left them. They bowed in imitation of Kat's own elegant movement.
Chapter Nineteen
When they were alone, Gael paced the floor restlessly. "How could this happen? Weren't ENDO and ECHO set up to prevent this kind of tragedy?"
"Apparently, all of this took place before the advent of environmental concerns. The ongoing rush for cheaper, better ore is still trying to push us through preliminary scans on Planet 9. That's why the separation between ENDO and ECHO is so important."
"Why didn't they contact you, Kat, instead of trying to reach me? I'm no psychic. You could have helped them."
"You were open to their call," he explained. "On Ria we're taught, perhaps wrongly, that one must control psi energy, not reach out to embrace the general population for fear of personal violations."
She glanced at him. "Not that those teachings have stopped you when you thought it was necessary."
"As I told you, I do what I need to do
. But I would never have been open to the Chrysalines' impressions as a newly awakened psi."
She grimaced at the term but didn't argue with his assessment. "So what do we do now?"
"Do?"
"We have to stop Guardsman from restarting the processor. ENDO has to know about the situation here. We have to get off this planet."
"The Chrysalines believe our lives are in danger if we leave here. They won't allow us to leave. They brought us down here to their caverns to protect us."
"But they wanted us to do something to help them," Gael protested. "What can we do from here?"
"We must be creative." Kat smiled. "If the Chrysalines have managed to do all that they have from here, surely we can manage their rescue."
"Can't we reason with them? Explain somehow?"
"How would you explain this destruction?" He waited, one eyebrow raised as he watched her walk quickly across the floor.
"They must know we aren't all ready to destroy their planet for ore or they wouldn't have asked for our help. What happened with the freighter was an accident."
"Was it, Sadah? The Chrysalines were monitoring the freighter when the accident happened. It's in their minds that when the captain and Allen Denby found that there was life on this world, they agreed to sacrifice all of us to conceal it. To restart the processor knowing they would have time to process millions of fuel cells before an investigation could take place."
"Are you certain of that?"
"They are certain, Gael. I'm certain of that. How do we explain that there is good left in a race that would destroy its own people, to another race who have already been destroyed by them?"
"All right. But we'll have to be damned creative!" She stopped pacing abruptly and shook her head. "If I wouldn't have destroyed the cruiser we might have been able to convince them to allow us some communication."
"They've stopped all communication to and from the planet. It was part of the protection of themselves and us."
"Where are the others?" She stopped to consider Fris and the rest of the crew.
"Except for the six that drowned, they are all in a controlled sleep," he answered. "Where you would be right now if you hadn't manifested those psi battle scars."
"The cocoons." She nodded. "Well, at least they aren't hungry."
"Or thirsty?" He smiled down at her and took her hand. "Your mouth is dry like dust and your stomach is touching your backbone. Come, let's eat and drink before we solve these problems. Perhaps we'll think more clearly."
"But they have so little." She frowned, concerned.
"We'll see that they have more soon, Sadah." He tugged at her arm gently, pulling her reluctantly behind him. "You're looking quite skeletal."
"I suppose you've been down here eating and drinking clean water since they brought you here?" With a shock, she realized that it had been over a week. She looked at the purity of his white robe and the torn remnants of her filthy uniform.
"Yes! And bathing." His words made her mouth curl derisively as he led her through a long, low cavern.
The walls were bare, white misted with something that resembled moss. The ceilings were low and coated with a silvery trail.
"Why weren't you in one of those cocoons?" she demanded irritably.
"I was at first, if that makes you feel better. They spoke with me shortly after I got here and freed me to learn what I could teach them of us."
"How did they get you here, Kat?"
"They're powerful in their illusions, Gael, as you well know." They had to stoop to go through several doorways. "Each of us was taken by our own thoughts. I was following what I believed was your voice calling for help. I was in the mountains before I realized the ruse. Their control of their illusions as well as their psi energy is total. They link to form one thought, then Ardoc projects that thought where he deems best."
"That makes Ardoc a powerful leader." She considered the consequences to the outside worlds. "I hope he's a wise one as well."
"He's very old, perhaps five hundred years or more. He was waiting for the last of his race to be born with little food and less hope on a dead world." Kat's voice deepened with emotion. "When I met him, I wanted to weep."
They emerged into a cavern suddenly, deep and lush, that seemed to flow back into the depth of the planet with no end. It was warm here, sultry, with the scents of flowers and the splash of water. Everything was green and alive. It was a tribute to the far-reaching foresight of the ancient Chrysaline people who had found the cavern and cultivated it so long before.
"It's unbelievable!" She sighed, overwhelmed by the beauty and vibrancy of the place after the despair and death of the world above. "They could farm here and feed thousands. They wouldn't have to worry about the surface until it had time to heal itself."
"They aren't farmers." He smiled at her optimism. "The term has no meaning for them. They've always lived off the land. The trees and the plants are their sustenance. They take food as they find it. Anything else will have to be taught, if possible. Bartered for, if not."
"ENDO and ECHO could teach them." She frowned, pushing her brows together. "Well ECHO could teach them. This really isn't a job for ENDO. The planet could be maintained for them. We have so much to learn from them."
"First we must convince them that we can help if we can reach our world. For now though, there's a path to the river through there." He pointed the way. "I'll find you a clean robe and some food."
Gael watched him walk away with a sinking heart. He disappeared around a bend in the path. She hated the way she'd grown attached to him. She didn't want to let him out of her sight.
We are never apart.
His thought was curiously soothing. It was hard to imagine feeling that way about a psi contact but she knew her life was never going to be the same again. Savagely, she ripped her uniform off and waded into the warm river. She submerged herself and scrubbed at her dirty hair, the grit of too many days floating away in the current.
When she was clean and her skin tingled from the cleansing water, she swam a little, away from the bank. It was then that she noticed the group of Chrysalines standing off to one side on the shore. She felt their curiosity as they watched her, hearing their chiming voices in her head. For the first time, she didn't feel resentful of their intrusion into her thoughts.
Since the Chrysalines had expressed their story to her about their planet, she found herself waiting, wanting to understand their unspoken language. Her mind felt like a flower unfolding slowly, carefully to the sun. Still wary but suddenly willing, and not so --
Afraid?
Slowly, she stood in the swirling green water. She walked towards the shore where Kat waited, a white robe over one arm. She pushed her hair back from her face with a careless hand, water rivulets running down the lean length of her body.
His eyes were like the bluest sapphires watching her, his face carved in the likeness of an angel from the ancient's heaven. Shimmering waves of heat poured over her from him and daringly, she returned them, taking the robe from his hand as she stood before him.
"You learn quickly." His voice was a little breathless as he touched her tremulous smile with a gentle hand.
She made the traditional Rian obeisance to him. "My teacher is excellent, Sadoh."
"Your injuries are better?"
"I can still feel where they were but yes, they are better."
"There's food." He started up the path. "Basically fruit and some wild grain products I found. They'd either forgotten them or had never known that they were edible."
"They're so simple, almost childlike. Yet they have incredible power."
He agreed. "It's amazing that they survived. They're the most passive of people, the most mild. Yet they destroyed the freighter as one."
"They were fighting to save themselves and their children." She defended the Chrysalines, hearing the tone in his voice that expressed the absolute abhorrence of the taking of life. "People will do things they would never do any othe
r time to protect their young and their homes."
"I can help them, Gael. But I can never forget the tide of emotion, the fear and anger of those deaths. I've felt the death of one or ten but so many. It was like -- "
The falling of rain? Each drop, the precious soul of another being, released into the universe before its time. The waste so absolute.
They both turned to see the winged Arcon waiting for them. His wings were like gossamer, almost too ethereal to uphold his slender form. Around him were several more Chrysalines.
Gael recalled her earlier perception that the others were like his children. It had been a true observation. She inclined her head in respect for his age and dignity. Arcon could speak to her without Kat's help.
The smaller Chrysalines scattered, returning with various foodstuffs contained in beautiful woven bags. Water containers that were shyly offered to her seemed to be made of the same substance they'd found in the processor.
Arcon made a gesture and they all sat down on the warm, damp ground to eat. Needless death is tragic.
Yes. Kat agreed slowly. My soul cries out for them all.
Your soul. Arcon's intense stare was leveled at Gael. Your being does not cry. But it thirsts for justice. It angers at any senseless act. It is the soul of a warrior.
Perhaps. She returned his regard earnestly.
His eyes were like an old tree during a long winter, a rare shade of gray with the center green. It is good. Worlds need both tears and stern justice. He regarded both her and Kat seated beside her. You have strength together.
Gael watched him glide away then turned to Kat. "His face -- "
He nodded. "Like the ages."
"Or the mountains." She shivered. Weathered lined, formed by generations of his people, their struggle plain in his eyes.
"We'll find a way, Gael." Kat gripped her hand more tightly. "They won't suffer again."
Neither of them spoke while they ate the light grain in the tranquility of their surroundings.
But over the fruit they argued. Kat's plan wasn't viable in Gael's eyes.
"You see everything in military format," he told her bluntly. "Some things aren't solved by strength of force."