by Jaleta Clegg
"The ship is still there," I said. I could barely see it from the window, a curve of metal lifting above the warehouses of the port.
"For how much longer? Rian isn't going to let us go. Not for a long time. And how many ships have landed here since we got to Milaga?"
No ships had landed, no ships had made contact. Only that one ship, waiting for something but no one knew what. Rian showed no sign of letting us contact them. Neither of us said anything out loud. It would only have depressed us further.
"Where's Scholar?" I asked, to distract her.
"Playing with Tivor's datanet, what there is of one. The equipment is so old, even Scholar is having trouble making it work."
I managed half a grin for her. I was still worn out from the march on the building. It was hard to believe it had only been that morning that Tivor had been freed. Rian had taken quick control. Kuran was not expected to live through the night. Not that anyone seemed to care. The only other member of the Inner Congress still alive was Kioren. He'd only been spared because he'd been sent away to the new farms in the south. Rian had sent one of her people to talk to him, among the others sent to every farm and village on the planet. From what I'd heard Kioren wasn't going to fight her. He'd been barely competent at agriculture. He was smart enough to recognize defeat when it was handed to him. If he played things right, he would still be part of the government. If he wanted it.
I was tired of the politics. I was tired of the capricious emotions of the people hurrying in and out of the building. The room high up one side provided scant relief. At least here I didn't have to pretend. I could let every emotion show.
"What are they doing now?" Paltronis asked.
"Rian's talking to them again," I said, glancing down into the plaza far below. Rian set up her central office in the open, as a symbol of the new freedom of Tivor. I suspected the rare sunny day had as much to do with her decision as her symbolic gesture.
Paltronis stood behind me, staring down through the streaked window. Rian was the center of a bustling crowd. She had taken charge, completely. A small army scoured the city for supplies and those still in hiding. There were people in the kitchens below, cooking up enormous amounts of food. Soldiers stood guard and patrolled side by side with the rebels. Messages were on their way to every part of the planet. People cleaned out the schools and hospitals. Rian was less than a day into it, but already she had made great progress at getting Tivor functioning again.
"She's not going to let you go," Paltronis said.
I didn't bother to answer. We both knew why Rian wanted me. Even now I could feel the emotions of those working through the city. There was an air of hope. Rian had told me to keep it going, to feed the positive as much as I could, and to suppress any hint of violence. She owed a lot of the cooperation she was getting to me.
"I'm going to the ship," Paltronis whispered. "I'll find a way to get you out of here."
"I could just walk out," I answered, "but it would cost everyone involved. And I don't think anyone else wants me. Not the way I am now." The broken place in my mind, the one that had cracked when I first found my powers, was bigger now. Each use of power strained it further, ripped my mind apart more. Only the drug Scholar had found for me kept me from breaking completely.
"Dace, there are people who can help you. You aren't the first person to suddenly find yourself with psychic powers. Or even empathic ones. And you aren't the most powerful person out there, not by a long ways."
"Don't lie, Paltronis."
She sighed. "So there aren't many out there as strong as you. The point is that Lowell knows where they are and he can arrange for you to get help."
"What if I want to stay here? I could rule the world."
"Now you're lying. You don't want Tivor, even if you are on the top now and not the bottom."
I pulled my knees up, resting my chin on them. I wrapped my arms around my legs.
"I haven't seen any birds," I said.
"Rian's people ate any they could catch."
"The birds gave me hope before. I'm more trapped now than I was then."
"Stop it, you're depressing me. Rian ordered you to spread happiness today."
"At least she's open about ordering me around, unlike the Tevalis'noru." I shifted my gaze to the distant mountains, shrouded in white snows and mysterious in the distance. If the day hadn't been so achingly clear, I wouldn't have been able to see them.
"They made me nervous," Paltronis admitted.
"You were scared?" I teased her.
"Not until I saw what they'd done to you. I don't want you anywhere near them. Which is why we have to get you off Tivor. Before they come out of that mountain and take over."
"We don't know what ship that is, or if they'll take us."
"Which is why I'm going to find out."
"I thought it was because you couldn't stand to be cooped up for long."
"You got me there," she said and laughed. "I never did like sitting around, waiting."
I saw a distant flock of birds and watched as they flitted across the sky. There was an easiness between us that felt right. We'd seen each other too honestly. We'd both withdrawn a ways, giving what privacy we could, but nothing could erase what we'd seen of each other. I understood her now, and I hoped she understood me. I trusted her with my life, and my sanity.
She shifted away from the window, wandering around the room. She fingered objects, picking them up and dropping them. Rian provided the bare minimum deemed necessary for our comfort. Two beds, two chairs, a small table, a comb, and a few packets of nutrient bars. I watched Paltronis pace.
"What are you waiting for?" I asked her.
"Night."
"Go now. It might be easier if you can see where you're going."
She studied me.
"Bluff and tell them Rian sent you," I added.
"Come with me."
I shook my head. "If I leave, Rian will know immediately. I can't leave yet."
"I thought you didn't care what happened to Tivor."
"I didn't think I did."
"Don't let her bind you here. You're too involved already. We're leaving as soon as I can make arrangements with that ship. Whatever Rian might say about it."
I nodded, accepting her plan. The truth was that I wasn't sure I could make it across the city. Emotions were still too high. I had little enough control. I was safer here, locked away from almost everyone, and they were safer with me here.
Paltronis opened the door to our room. I heard her talking with the guard outside. She said something about fetching food. The guard must have bought her story, he let her go after glancing to make sure I was still in the room. Maybe I was the only one Rian worried about. Rian should have worried about Paltronis, she knew more about tactics and politics than I did.
I didn't see Paltronis cross the plaza. She must have gone out a side door. I settled in to wait.
I closed my eyes, leaning against the cold stone behind me. I could feel Rian, a bright spot of emotions below me. The others swirling around her seemed to reflect her light. She was an empath, I realized with a start. Her power was subtle, just enough to tweak those around her. It was no wonder she had risen to lead the rebellion. It was no surprise that she had managed to convince me to help her.
I reached out farther, curious how far my influence could spread. I touched minds through the city, careful to keep my shields up. I tasted emotions, weak with distance. I closed my eyes again, reaching farther.
I touched those out at the farms. I pushed myself farther, stretching in my mind. I could almost hear the wolves howling. I yearned to feel them running through the snow, to touch their uncomplicated minds and emotions. I pushed even harder.
Something cold and burning stung my arm, spreading quickly through me. I snapped back into my own head so hard it hurt. I blinked open eyes swimming with tears of pain. The familiar fuzziness of the drug filled me with softness, like a smothering blanket of fleece.
I w
as lying on the floor under the windowsill. Scholar leaned over me, his face creased with concern. He saw me open my eyes and sat back.
"You're an idiot, Dace. What were you trying to do? Kill yourself? If the guard hadn't gotten worried when you didn't answer your door, you'd be gone for sure. I'm glad he was smart enough to fetch me. How could you be so stupid?"
"What did I do?" The drug made my mouth taste like week old socks. I rubbed my eyes, trying to ease the pounding ache in my head.
"You really don't know?"
"If I knew would I be asking?"
"I thought you'd learned with Mart."
"Learned what?" He was maddening. I wondered if anyone ever got a straight answer from him.
"Not to try stupid things like spirit travel. That's supposed to be impossible, but you just proved it isn't. You also proved it can kill you. Don't do it again. Please."
I managed to smile. "Thanks, Scholar. And I care about you, too." I pushed myself up to sit against the wall. "I don't know what I'm doing. And I didn't do it on purpose."
"I know," he said, patting my knee. "Want some lunch now? Even if it is almost dinner time."
I made a face. The taste in my mouth would overpower the bland food of Tivor without even trying. I didn't think I could take it.
"Sorry about the drug," Scholar said, "but I didn't know what else to try."
"I'm just glad it helps. Although I hate feeling as if my brain is wrapped in thick blankets. And I hate the taste of old socks almost as much." I tried to stand and almost made it. Scholar gave me a hand up.
"You need help," he said.
"I know. And the only place I know to get it is from the Hrissia'noru. Except I don't know how to contact them."
"What about the ones here? The Tevalis'noru?"
"They tried to kill me already, several times. And the rest of you along with me. You want me to trust them with my sanity?"
"If you don't have a choice, Dace, they're better than nothing."
"I still have a choice. Paltronis is working on it."
He understood that cryptic comment. He stayed until I finished eating what I could of the bland mush. He even tucked me into my bed and left me to sleep away the rest of the day.
Chapter 44
"Fifteen points for that round," Everett announced. "That makes five hundred seventy three for me and two thousand nine hundred and sixty for you." He frowned at the paper. "I don't know why I keep playing this with you."
"Because there isn't anything else to do and no one else will play," Leon answered.
"No one else is dumb enough to play with you. I'd say you were cheating except I can't figure out how you're doing it."
Leon grinned. "I learned from the best." He shuffled the cards.
"How long are we going to wait here?"
"As long as we need to."
"It better be less than five more days, or we'll be out of food."
Leon shuffled again. The cards snapped together.
"What other choice do we have but to wait?" Leon looked at Everett. "If I knew where she was, I wouldn't hesitate to find her. But something here is screwy. Where did they get the empaths from? I've never felt that much raw power in one place before. Something is wrong here. Really wrong."
"With Dace involved, you think it would be right?"
Leon flipped a card to Everett's side of the table. "High card deals." He snapped a card to the table in front of himself then set the deck aside.
"Sir?" Dyva stuck her head around the doorway. She was just as bored as they were. Only she didn't look bored now. Both men looked up from their card game. "You're going to have to see this to believe it."
"After the last weeks you tell me that?" Everett answered skeptically. But he was rising from his seat, leaving his card untouched.
He left his cabin on Dyva's heels. Leon stayed long enough to peek at the cards.
"I'm slipping," he muttered as he stuck Everett's card back in the deck. "That should have been a six, not a ten."
"You have got to be kidding me!" Everett's comment echoed down from the control room.
Leon hurried to join the others. All of them, including the Patrol refugees, crowded in the small room. The big overhead screen showed a low resolution scan of a ship out in far orbit.
"Where did that come from?" Leon asked.
"Your guess is as good as anyone's," Everett answered.
Commander Harouk had his face up almost against the screen, trying to identify the ship. He shook his head. "It isn't like anything I've seen. But the resolution's so low it could be almost anything. It reminds me most of an old intersystem colony ship."
"Whatever it is," Linzy said, "it's huge."
The blob of light that was the ship wavered through a haze of atmosphere.
"It isn't showing a beacon," Siy put in from where he sat by the com station.
"The big question, at least as I see it," Leon put in, "is what is that thing doing here? And who's flying it? And why?"
"That's three questions," Everett answered as he bent over Siy at the scan controls.
"Answer any one of the three and I can deduce the others," Leon said.
"No communications that I can pick up," Siy said. "And no sign that they recently entered the system."
"So, either they've been hiding for a while," Harouk said, "or they have some way to cloak their engine signatures."
"Or they just came in much farther out than usual," Russell, another of Everett's crew, said. "If they came in on a different vector and came in slow, they could sneak up on us. A ship that size would take a lot of slowing, we would have seen it if they came in at the usual distance range."
"The old colony ships used to do that," Harouk said. "Come in far out and spend a week or more slowing. It was easier on the settlers aboard."
"How come you know so much about them?" Leon asked the Patrol base commander.
"My dad's hobby," Harouk answered. "His grandfather used to fly one of those ships."
"But what if it isn't a colony ship?" Britneir, his assistant, asked. "And if it is a colony ship where did it come from?"
"We can stand here all day asking questions," Everett said. "Without doing anyone any good. Keep tracking it, Siy. If anything changes, let me know."
"You want to lose at cards some more?" Leon asked with a grin.
"I was going to invite Commander Harouk to a high level strategy session," Everett answered.
"The three of us?" Leon's grin widened and grew teeth. "Ah, yes, lots of high level strategy to plan."
"You're just looking for another victim," Harouk objected. "If you really had any planning to do you'd do it in front of your crew. You have before."
"I admit it, it was a ruse to get you into our game," Everett said. "I'm tired of being the only one losing to Leon. But we do need to discuss our options. That ship won't change them."
He turned to his crew and the Patrol officers crowded in the control room. "We've got five days left before we have to leave. If we push it longer than that, we'll be on tight rations all the way to Tebros." He glanced at Harouk.
"We haven't heard anything since that garbled message a week past," Harouk said. "No messages, nothing. Something's wrong in this sector."
The mood in the room sobered immediately. They knew there was trouble, but none of them knew how deep it ran.
"Lowell said something about pulling out, he gave the order," Harouk continued. "He knew something was coming. I told him I wasn't about to desert my post."
"You may not have much of a choice now," Everett said. He looked around the room at his crew and the Patrol officers. "We came here with one objective. We came to get Dace out, regardless of what Lowell may or may not have ordered."
"And we were here to protect Tivor," Harouk said, "although I never did figure out what we were protecting it from. Lowell ordered an evacuation. It's time we followed his orders."
Everett nodded, accepting Harouk's willingness to follow his lead. "There ha
s been no sign that Dace is still alive, despite Leon's assurances that she must be. I recommend we wait three more days. After that, we leave."
Leon flapped his hands. "We just sit here longer? What if she's right out there, waiting? We need to go out there and find out what's happening. There hasn't been any fighting since this morning. Things have been quiet. I say we send someone out tonight."
"Are you volunteering?" Everett asked Leon.
"If you'll let me," Leon answered.
"Not in that jacket," Harouk said. "Let us do it. It's what they're trained for." He indicated the three Patrol ground troops still watching the screen.
"What is that?" one of them said, almost as if cued.
Everyone's attention snapped back to the main screen. A flickering swarm of objects separated from the big ship. Three of them fell towards the planet, burning through the atmosphere.
"Landing shuttles," Siy said. "They're on a trajectory that will bring them right here. Still no communications," he added.
"No weapons, either," Linzy added.
"Whoever they are, I doubt they have anything to do with us," Everett said. "It doesn't change our plans. Are you leading your men?" he asked, turning to Harouk.
Harouk shook his head. "I'm not trained for recon."
"There's someone on the field," Dyva broke in. "She's going to get fried if she's caught in their landing blast."
"Open the hatch, let her in, we can deal with her in the airlock if we have to," Everett said. It was his ship, he was in command.
Leon leaned over Dyva's shoulder, squinting at the camera view that showed a figure running towards their ship.
"I know her," he muttered. "Lowell's guard dog, I think."
Everett leaned over the equipment to stare at the tiny screen. Dyva wriggled out from between them.
"Paltronis? Here?" Everett said as he slid into her vacated seat.
"Paltronis?" Harouk joined them, leaning in.
"Is that her name?" Leon asked.
"She was here with Lowell," Harouk said. "He sent her off on some errand. She didn't come back through the port. I don't know how she got downside. If that is her."