by S. L. Viehl
I followed his gaze. Like HouseClan Raska, the Torin all stuck together, moms and dads and kids, doing
the happy-family thing. They actually liked hanging out together, too; you could tell from their faces.
Then the light dawned—he’s looking for his ClanMother—and I’d wager good credits he’d been doing
that since he learned to walk. She must be a total bitch to ignore him like this.
Apparently he didn’t spot her, because he kept looking as we passed the food pavilions. I caught the
smell of something delicious, and my stomach rumbled.
Jakol must have heard, because he stopped and purchased two sticks of braised vegetables, and handed
one to me. “Eat.”
“Thanks.” I nibbled on it, found it tasted even better than it smelled—like caramelized onion and
pumpernickel—then polished it off. “That was good. What do you call it?”
“Anb’ land. The heart of the anbraea flower.”
I tossed the stick in a disposal bin we passed. “You guys eat a lot of flowers.”
He surprised me by asking a question. “You traveled here from Terra to find other crossbreeds like
yourself?”
I didn’t feel like explaining the intricacies of homeworld deportation laws. “Yeah. I got here at the
beginning of Namadar.”
He checked out a cluster of blue-skinned women discussing the merits of some silky fabric being sold in
big, colorful bolts. “Is this your first journey to the homeworld, then?”
“Your homeworld, pal, not mine. I was born in space.”
He gave me another skeptical glance. “You cannot claim Terra. Its people do not allow alien races to
inhabit their world.”
“We got around that.” I could see he didn’t comprehend. “My mother and I lived in the alien
underground, in tunnels beneath the surface. We stayed there until I got old enough to train and qualify as
a runback.”
“Runback?” He even said it in Terran, but his palate made it sound like Hr-roonh-vbehk?
“I played professional shockball. First-string sphere runner, NuYork StarDrivers.” From his blank look, it
was apparent that he hadn’t heard of me, and I felt amused by my own ego in assuming he had. “Do you
know what shockball is?” He shook his head, still perplexed. “It’s a sport I played. I was a professional
athlete.”
“They compensate athletes on your homeworld?”
Not nearly enough. “Uh-huh. Haven’t you ever wanted to find out anything about Terra?”
The curious expression faded. “No.”
“Too bad. Would make you appreciate Flower Central here a lot more.” By then we’d reached the
entrance to the subsurface labyrinth, and I indicated for him to proceed.
“We are to go in there?” He studied the mouth of the big cavern.
“Yep.” I thought of all the miserable years I’d spent in the tunnels under New Angeles, damp and cold
and wet, but this would be the last time. “In there.”
The sudden change from light to darkness forced my companion to pause. He blinked a few times. I
removed my shades and slipped them into my journey pack.
“Where are you taking me, Sajora?”
“Jory. You need to meet the others.” God, he was suspicious. Of course, they’d made him that way.
“There are five more.”
“Five more of what? Crossbreeds?” He scoffed. “There are more than five half-Jorenian beings on our
world.”
My step never faltered. “There are only five like us, Jakol. We’re special.”
“What say you?” He caught my wrist and tugged me to a halt. His long black hair reacted to the static
generated by the contact, and curled around my upper arm. “Explain to me ‘like us’ and ‘special.’ “
As moments went, it was a fairly intense one. Before, in the quad, I’d been intent on winning, and it hadn’t
mattered how he’d touched me. Here I was far too vulnerable. There was also something else tugging me
toward him, something I hadn’t felt since Rijor had died.
Not the time or place, Jory. “I need visual aids to do that, Jakol, and they’re right down that way.
Come on.”
“Do not address me thus.” He released me. “I am Kol.”
Christ, they were picky. About everything. “You changed your name?”
He made a bitter gesture. “No one addresses me as Jakol unless they intend harm.”
It must have meant something nasty in the ancient Jorenian language. “Your pardon, J—Kol.” I couldn’t
start feeling sorry for him now. I’d never get through the next hour. “It’s not far now. Follow me.”
We walked into the depths of the caverns, past the interior waterfalls, and around the stalagamine pools.
Funny how one underground was a lot like another, even on different worlds. The air tasted funny, the
stone felt clammy and damp, and the quiet crawled over my skin. I hated caves and tunnels and small,
dark places. I never felt like I could take a deep breath. It bothered me so much when I was a kid that I
repeatedly swore to Mom I’d run away one day and never live below surface again.
There are many such places, Mom’s ghost chided me. Some you build yourself.
Once we got past the tourist stuff, the sensor units dwindled until I was forced to take an optic emitter
from my pack and use it to illuminate our path. It took another few minutes to pick up the markers I’d
left.
“There.” I pointed to the narrow entrance of a small shaft just ahead. “That’s where they’re waiting.”
“Why have you gathered these ‘others’ here?” Kol looked around. “Why not meet in the open?”
“We don’t want to be monitored, and what I have to say is confidential.” When he stopped, I touched his
arm. “They’re friends, I promise.”
“I have no friends, lady.” He stepped away from me, and made a gesture of extreme courtesy. “Proceed
as you will.”
Everyone was still waiting inside.
I made a gesture of greeting to the other two females and three males. Someone had scrounged up a
couple of additional emitters and placed them in the natural rock shelves, and almost everyone had taken
off their hooded cloaks. In the dim light I watched my happy little group collectively check out Kol. No
one showed any surprise at the color of his skin or his odd-fingered hands.
Kol was pretty hard-pressed not to return the favor.
He was right: Crossbreeds were unusual but not entirely unknown on Joren. Generally when a Jorenian
bonded with an offworlder, the resulting progeny were born with physical attributes from both of their
ClanParents’ species.
Like me, however, these five took that blending business to the extreme.
One of the boys was huge, more like a Hsktskt than a Jorenian. His skin wasn’t blue, but a green so dark
it was almost black, and possessed a pattern of subtle, symmetrical ridges you couldn’t see unless the
light shone over him at just the right angle. He’d either shaved his head or had no hair to begin with. I
hadn’t asked. His white-within-white Jorenian eyes gleamed as he sketched a ceremonial bow.
“I am Nalek, of HouseClan Zamlon,” he said.
After being run out of HouseClan Raska, I’d returned to Lno and tracked Nalek’s name through the hotel
computer. It had taken a day to drive from Lno over to Talot Province, and another two to catch him at
the HouseClan dockyards, where the Zamlon had him working like a slave. He’d been the easiest to
convince.
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Kol made the appropriate gesture of response, and studied Nalek’s impressive musculature as though
sizing him up for a ClanSpar match.
I wasn’t worried about that. Nalek was a big, quiet lug who wouldn’t have hurt a fly.
The smallest person in the group stood at Nalek’s side, a little in his shadow. The fragile-looking female
had huge, iridescent offworlder’s eyes and skin paler than mine or Kol’s. As she peeped out to make her
timid welcome gesture, two stunted winglets appeared on either side of her shoulders. You could see the
beginnings of feathers sprouting all along the shorn appendages before she jerked them back down and
folded them tightly against her spine.
“Welcome.” The end of her sleek black braid touched the floor of the cave as she inclined her narrow
head. “I am Galena, ClanDaughter of HouseClan Nerea.”
Her voice still sounded shaky. Since I’d smuggled her out of Pnoek Province, she’d been nervous as hell.
Couldn’t blame her, seeing as her overprotective family had been ready to declare me ClanKill about an
hour after they’d met me. I got the feeling their hostility wasn’t because of my Terran hide, but to keep
Galena secluded, maybe to safeguard her from everyone who might make fun of her—or them. I’d been
forced to smuggle her out of the Nerea pavilion in the middle of the night, and they began pursuing us
before we left Pnoek Province the next day. Far as I knew, her kin were still searching for us.
“You have wings,” Kol said.
Before Galena could reply, a mocking tenor rang out. “ClanSon Varena has the gift of observation.”
Kol swiveled to stare at the square-bodied, compact form of the male who had spoken. Half again as
wide as he was tall, he wore the briefest of garments, mostly because of the thick scales of hard blue
exocartilage covering his body. His face was paved with smaller, thinner versions of the same. He had
two Jorenian eyes, but they were lidless, and he sported an extra pair of limbs, complete with
six-fingered Jorenian hands, between his shoulders and hips.
“Osrea,” the reptilian crossbreed said, but he skipped the welcoming gesture. “HouseClan Levka.”
Frankly, Osrea had been a complete jerk about joining the party. It had taken a week, but I’d finally
found him living in what amounted to a hole in the ground just outside Moalan Province. However
isolated and dismal, it had still been Osrea’s hole in the ground, and he hadn’t wanted to abandon it. It
had taken outright bribery to persuade him to come with me.
The last two stood at the very back of the cave. One was a female with purplish skin and an unruly mass
of thick yellow hair. She gestured first to the third male, who still wore his hood. “This is Renor, of
HouseClan Xado. I am Danea, of HouseClan Koralko.”
Renor and Danea, surprisingly, had found me. They’d met me one morning coming out of the Marine
Province tourist lodge, where I’d been staying with Galena. At first I’d thought they might be Nerea kin,
until Danea produced a datapad with a copy of the inquiries I’d sent to both their HouseClans, asking for
a meeting with them. She claimed they’d tracked me by contacting the tourist lodges and asking if they
had any Terran guests. I was satisfied to leave it at that, especially after I’d accidentally brushed against
Danea, then had gotten a good look at Renor. They both spooked me. A lot.
“Kol, of HouseClan Varena,” my companion said, and stiffly bowed to the group.
“Have you no horns?” Osrea asked, and his serpentine tongue lashed out to taste the air. “No auxiliary
limbs, no exotic appendages?”
“Why? Do your eyes not function?” Kol shot back.
He and Snake Boy both had chips on their shoulders the size of star shuttles. Teaching them to play nice
was going to be a job.
“Okay, Os, knock it off.” I’d been polite with everyone, but it never worked with him, so I matched his
blunt aggressiveness instead. “You can see he’s just like me—half Terran.”
He snorted through his recessed nostrils. “You have my condolences.”
“Kol.” I touched one rigid arm. “Osrea isn’t trying to start a fight.” Of course he was, but I couldn’t let him
do it. This was supposed to be a solemn occasion, not a brawl. I turned my head to address the others.
“Come on, everyone; let’s cease fire, okay? Kol is the last.”
“The last of what, lady?” Nalek’s rich, deep voice echoed like a mellow bell in the small alcove. “You
have yet to fully explain the purpose of this gathering to any of us.”
“Sit down,” I said. “My formal Jorenian is lousy; this is going to take a while.”
Kol reluctantly joined the circle as the others moved in and sat on the cold stone floor. I stayed standing
until they were settled, then took one more mental head count.
Jakol. Nalek. Galena. Osrea. Danea. Renor. And you, Sajora. Wherever souls went after death, my
mother’s was definitely dancing. At last, the seven complete. You must tell them all as one.
“Well?” Osrea’s tongue flickered with impatience.
Because of the promise I’d made, I had to say this in their language, in front of all of them. Then I was
done—done with Joren and Jorenians forever. I took off my wristcom and tossed it aside.
Here we go, Mom. Down at the line of scrimmage.
“I am the birth child of Kalea Raska.” Even with a couple weeks’ practice, it was still hard to wrap my
tongue around their liquid phonetics. Then I had to deal with doing the hand stuff with every other word.
“Know you my moth—my ClanMother?”
Everyone nodded along with Kol. Mom had been a well-known exobiologist, honored as Clanjoren, or a
daughter of all Houses. At least until she’d been thrown off Joren.
What did they call death? “My ClanMother has embraced the stars.”
Everyone smiled, and Danea said, “We wish you joy, ClanDaughter Raska.”
“I thank you for that.” No, I didn’t. I never understood this party-when-someone-dies attitude the
Jorenians had. “My mother’s diversion was unexpected. I come before you as her Speaker.” That was
roughly the equivalent of verbally presenting Mom’s last will and testament.
Everyone stopped smiling.
“You must not Speak to us, Sajora.” Kol got up and held out a hand, as if he intended to clap it over my
mouth. “Speaking must be before the HouseClan. You must return to the Raska to perform this
ceremony.”
“No, it’s not like that. Sit and attend to me.” I motioned him back down. “The Raska are not my
HouseClan. You six are.”
There were different reactions to this statement. Osrea erupted into laughter. Nalek looked appalled.
Galena covered her face with her hands. Danea’s hair fanned out. Renor made no movement or sound.
Kol simply stared. I knew what he was thinking. There was no possibility we could be ClanSiblings,
unless—
“Who says that Terrans cannot be amusing?” Osrea clutched his side and laughed again. “A good joke,
that one. Tell another, Sajora.”
Smart-ass. “Okay. What is the name of your biological sire, Osrea?”
That shut him up.
“Well, what say you?” When Osrea refused to respond, I turned to Nalek. “And you, Nalek Zamlon?
What is the name of the male who sired you?”
“I do not know.” He ran a huge hand over his dark, bald head. “I was never told.”
; “Sajora—Jory.” Galena’s pitiful wings spread wide, as if she were preparing to take flight. She just might
get a chance, now that she could grow her feathers back in. “I beg you stop this and return to the Raska.
No good will come of this… Speaking.”
“You think not, ClanSister?” I crouched down and took her small hands in mine. She was so damn brittle
and sensitive; I was almost tempted to let them all hang on to their illusions. But then I’d be just like
everyone else on this stupid world. And I had promised my mother. “Who was your sire?”
Pain etched her delicate features. “I have no knowledge of him, except that he was an avatar.”
“My sire is Terran and dead.” Kol sounded like he’d heard enough. “Finish what you must say, Sajora, or
I leave now.”
He meant it, too. I sighed. “Okay.” I got up and made what I hoped was the correct gesture for
expressing the dying wish of a Jorenian. Mom hadn’t exactly been thrilled about teaching me that. “I
Speak for the daughter of my HouseClan, Kalea Raska. Her words were given to me, to be brought to