The Clan, I repeated to myself, staring up in a vain effort to read something of an expression in his face of shell-shadow and gleaming restless eyes. “You know—”
“You pop out of nowhere. You’re Clan or a hallucination.” Huido clicked a claw impatiently on the side of his armored head. “Besides, there’s always been something tangy in your grist. Where is Morgan?”
I left the topic of my
grist
alone for the moment. “Yihtor has him.”
Huido fastened his hand weapon to its chest-clip, making a hollow thrum of distress. A gesture into the cave. “Let’s get out of sight. You can tell me what’s happened and what must be done.”
Huido’s pod had indeed come to rest on a precipice, he informed me as we talked over a fragrant boiling pot. I accepted a mug of its contents somewhat warily. “Was this in your supplies?” I asked cautiously, not eager to taste the dark liquid.
A rustle and click. All I could really see of him in the inadequate light from the boxed heat-source were glints of reflection from his shiny eyes and polished shell. “Supplies! Most of those slid over the cliff with that scrap heap of a lifeboat. Besides, who needs processed pap when nature herself is so bountiful? I plan to offer this on my menu as soon as we get back.”
I put down the mug carefully, trying not to be envious of his audible delight as Huido serenely enjoyed his own portion. I could only hope his clients had a digestive system as sturdy as his. “We must get to Morgan before Yihtor harms him,” I said impatiently.
Huido’s eyes formed a rosette of reflecting points. “I think you are worrying too much, Sira. Morgan has handled the Clan before.”
“Yihtor scares
them,
Huido,” I reminded the big alien. “He’s probably ripped through Jason’s mind already. We may be too late.” I closed my eyes very briefly.
“Don’t mourn him until we see a corpse.” Huido’s voice drew small echoing rumbles from the cave depths. Then he added, with a perception I hadn’t expected: “And don’t you believe you’d know?”
More briskly. “At least you can overcome what I’d expected to be the main problem—you can get me down from here, can’t you?”
I was surprised into a laugh at the plaintiveness of his question. Obviously, the Carasian had minded his exile a great deal more than it seemed. Perhaps his experimentation with the local cuisine had been triggered by as desperate a need as I had felt before being saved by Rael.
“I won’t know until I try, Huido,” I cautioned. I wasn’t about to let the Carasian know my greatest concern was not how to physically reach Morgan but what might happen when I used Morgan’s mind for the locate. I ignored the twisting discomfort deep in my stomach paired with any thought of Yihtor himself.
Huido finished my portion with a smack of approval. “Then there’s no reason to delay, little one,” he pointed out, tossing the empty cup into the dark to tumble against several others. “We have surprise on our side if we act quickly enough.”
He’d been the one delaying. Now that the Carasian was ready for battle, I hesitated. “The only surprise may be ours. Yihtor may well be expecting us. We could materialize into a trap. It could be day or night there—let alone whatever else awaits us.”
The Carasian was silent for a moment, then said heavily: “Morgan will try to buy us time. A story concocted to aid our escape will cover an attack even better. So we go now, before he tires.”
Or dies,
I added to myself, looking dubiously at the giant shadowy figure who was my only ally. My ability to travel through the M’hir was regrettably new. There was nothing in my memory or in the flash of information from Rael to guide me in an attempt to take along another person. But it was impossible to fault Huido’s logic or his courage. “This may not work,” I warned him. “I could lose one or both of us.”
Huido was as unshakable as the rock enclosing us. “It has to be better than walking.”
My hand delicately grasped between the tips of a shiny black claw, I closed my eyes and began to search the M’hir for our destination: a trace, any type of mental pattern that would read as Jason Morgan to that mysterious portion of my mind.
Slowly, carefully, I reconstructed Morgan within my thoughts. It was easier than the search I had conducted to contact my sister. I knew the feel of Morgan’s mind so well; the rhythms of his body were like my own. It was like searching the M’hir for the other half of myself. As I checked my image for flaws, I found myself dwelling on the sound of his laughter, pausing to remember the strange clarity of his eyes. A longing of intense power filled me and I
pushed
without thinking . . .
. . . Huido drew me hastily into the shadow of a small stone building. As we looked about in astonishment, I felt his light pat of approval on my shoulder. There was no time for conversation. We scrambled farther back as a personal land cruiser sped past, kicking up a light dust.
We had arrived in the midst of a spacious, thriving town. I was astounded by the permanence around me. Acranam was supposedly a recent listing, a newly discovered and empty world. Was that, too, a lie, fabricated to hide this unexpectedly elaborate stronghold of the renegade’s? The building we sheltered behind was crude, as were the others lining the wide street, but there were plentiful signs of long settlement.
Thoughtfully, I poked the toe of my boot at the beaten earth. There was more here than a criminal making himself comfortable. There was a scent of empire building.
“Well, where is he?” Huido rumbled as quietly as he could.
With great daring, I flicked out a questing thought and withdrew it quickly, restoring every barrier. The stone wall was warm under my hand. “Here,” I whispered with confidence, then, anticipating his next question. I continued: “This must be as close as I can take us. I don’t know why.”
A nod followed by a careful surveillance. We were nestled in the only shadow within reach. Voices raised in animated speech grew louder, then faded as their unseen owners passed. “Can you use your power to scout inside?” Huido asked once all was quiet for a few moments.
The blood left my face and I almost shuddered. Risk mental contact with Morgan—or worse yet, Yihtor himself? “No,” I answered as vehemently as I could in a whisper.
If Huido didn’t believe me, he kept his opinion to himself. “Keep watch up front, then. There are other ways to enter unseen.” I moved up to the corner of the squat building, ears and eyes straining. From that vantage point, I peered cautiously up and down the street.
To my left, the pavement disappeared quickly into a tunnel of jungle, almost immediately forced into an abrupt turn by the massive trees. To my right, the street was broad and straight, intersecting with other smaller thoroughfares until it also vanished into the green wall of the forest. The settlement thus lay nestled within a circle of towering vegetation.
Admirable cover against an aerial search,
I thought cynically. To be fair, the closeness of the luxuriant foliage softened the harsh lines of the one- and two-story buildings, lending them a warmth and color they would otherwise totally lack.
There was no further sign of the local populace—for which I was grateful as I winced at the sound of Huido’s assault on the thick wall. The sun beat down with inescapable directness and the oppressive humidity soon clamped my clothing tightly against my skin. The combination would be enough to keep most creatures indoors.
Indoors,
I repeated to myself somewhat numbly. I spared an instant to wonder how I’d missed it. There were no doors. The structures across the street overlooked the pavement only by means of small, paired windows. Daringly, I craned around to check the front of Morgan’s prison. It was the same. I crept back to where Huido had paused in his fight with the stonework. He was changing the powerpak of a stubby rifle with deliberate care.
“Hurry,” I urged him, resisting the impulse to glance over my shoulder. Huido spared two eyes to examine my face.
“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” the Carasian commented, snapping the cover back into place.
“This hole of yours may be the only door in this town. Do you realize what that means?” Holding my voice down helped disguise a certain shrillness.
Huido shrugged, lining up his improvised cutting tool. “One Clan, or all Clan. We still need to get inside.” Chunks of stone reddened and vanished as the huge being calmly resumed his noisy labors.
All very well for the mentally invulnerable alien, busily directing his beam. My own inner warnings were screaming, and I stayed where I was by will alone. I pulled Morgan’sblaster from my belt, then angrily shoved it back. Bluffing with a package sealer was one thing. Could I use a real weapon? Could I harm my own kind? I hoped I wouldn’t have to make that choice.
“We’re in,” Huido’s announcement was loud in the sudden silence as he switched off his tool. The jagged hole, large enough for a small cruiser and not to be missed from any distance, I thought with dismay, still glowed along its edges. It opened on an unlit room, apparently used for storage, to judge by the singed crates lining one wall. We stepped inside cautiously, I, for one, thoroughly distrusting the ease of our entry.
Huido might have read my mind as easily as Morgan. “No doors—so no guards.”
“No guards we can see,” I hissed over my shoulder, having moved to the one door. Something struggled in my memory, some thread of caution stayed my reaching fingers short of the knob. Ignoring Huido’s impatient grumble, I crouched before the portal and examined the handle—for what, I wasn’t sure.
A wisp of thought, let out carefully through my shielding, floated outward and tested. This was perhaps the strangest use of my power I’d yet attempted. I forced myself to relax and accept the improbable. My probing thought reached farther.
Instantly, I was paralyzed, having unwittingly set off the very trap I’d so cleverly suspected.
Idiot,
I shouted to myself, unable to so much as turn my head to warn Huido. An eternity passed.
An arch of blinding light passed close enough to warm my face. The spell vanished—along with most of the door and its frame. Huido drew me to my feet. “Are you all right?” he inquired absently, peering out into the deserted hallway.
I gaped at him. “Yes. But how did—?”
Eyestalks fluttered with what looked to be amusement. “Morgan has shown me such a trap before. Unless you know the proper mental code, a residual force pins the unwary and holds them for later capture. The machinery used is delicate.” A satisfied shake of his blaster. “It was fortunate only you could be so caught.” I didn’t bother to reply.
Our luck could hardly hold much longer—if luck it was. We searched the building with reckless haste, flaming down two more closed doors. I began to believe Huido. Perhaps Yihtor hadn’t expected a rescue attempt, or thought himself strong enough not to fear one. In that case, Morgan’s chances were even slimmer. Yet we had been led here, to this place, by the most specific manner of identification imaginable. Morgan was here and had to be alive.
And he was. Huido led the way through a third doorway into a small room, bare save for a single, low cot and its apparently slumbering occupant. I went forward slowly as Huido stopped, both of us mindful of blundering into any more invisible traps.
“Jason?” I called softly. There was no answering movement, no opening of blue eyes in a face more still than mere sleep. Gripped by sudden dread, I reached out and touched his hand. It was warm but strangely flaccid. His heart beat slowly, heavily, echoing the sense I had of his body’s waning strength. Huido, peering over my shoulder, gave a menacing growl. I looked up question-ingly.
“He has been forced into retreat.”
Even this nontelepath knew more than I. I felt a surge of hope. “Then he hasn’t been hurt?”
All eyes fixed on Morgan, the Carasian rattled his body armor with frustrated rage. “This is a dangerous state, used only as a last resort. Morgan almost died learning the technique, and then he had expert help to draw him back.” With touching gentleness, the alien lifted the unconscious man into his massive arms.
That action set off the alarm I’d feared. I was assailed by a blast of red-hot mental rage. As my mind burned with pain, I saw Huido using all four arms to try and hold a now-writhing Morgan. Before I could recognize the source of the attack, something deep in me responded, creating a barrier around the three of us. The pain stopped. Morgan settled into stillness.
Morgan had been right. This was how I was meant to be. A decision had to be made quickly, and I realized without surprise that it was mine alone to make. There was only one way to help Morgan any further. I borrowed strength unobtrusively from my shielding and
pushed.
Huido and his helpless burden vanished. Relieved of the extra responsibility, my shield resumed its more customary configuration, strengthening until the attack wavered and finally ceased.
Perhaps I should have mistrusted the impulse to stay, to await Yihtor’s next move. Perhaps my swelling confidence in my unseen strength and the increasing ease with which I could summon it was another sort of trap, luring me into a dangerous lack of caution.
And just perhaps there was a trace left of the Sira Rael remembered—a Sira willing to at least find out why she had been hauled across space to this meeting.
But the Sira who stood poised and alert, barriers firmly in place, eyes searching the gloom was a Sira who intended to take control of her own fate. I was no longer a piece to be moved at whim over some inexplicable game board. If the mysterious Yihtor thought otherwise, he would be the first to be surprised.
INTERLUDE
Frozen by astonishment, the figures in the control room of the Fox formed a strange tableau. Huido recovered first, shifting Morgan’s limp body so one handling claw was free to menace the gaping Clansman and the pilot with a disrupter. A swift gesture with the weapon, and the latter moved away from the control panels.