He licked his lips as the skidders came near, tasting sweat, mud, and a psychic tinge of foreboding. No joke, Morgan abruptly knew beyond doubt, no more than the crossing of the herd in front of his mudcrawler was a coincidence.
Morgan lunged for the controls. They were simple enough: a switch flipped up to engage the engine’s drive, a lever aimed and controlled the resulting force to steer the mudcrawler. He toggled the switch and leaned the lever full ahead in time to send a surge of wake into the path of the nearest skidder. It flipped, spilling its rider, who began swimming toward him almost as quickly.
Without thinking, Morgan swung the lever hard left to deal with the second skidder, holding on as a loud thud marked his success. His lips stretched over his teeth in a predator’s grin, but Morgan resisted the temptation to make sure of his pursuers. Instead, he aimed the mudcrawler at the herd of slow-moving beasts.
Time to see if they had the sense to get out of his way.
Chapter 31
“COPELUP?” I called, padding barefoot down the long, empty hallway. The flooring, though soft to the touch, carried a faint echo of my steps. The lights were dull—night-dimmed, I assumed. “Any Makii?”
I’d awakened in my bed, as tired and sore as if I hadn’t truly slept. Perhaps I hadn’t. There had been other times I’d come close to exhausting my resources, to pushing my Talent too far. The resulting weariness had been nothing compared to what I felt now.
But it didn’t matter. What did was discovering what had happened to Drapskii. My most vivid memory was of breaking threads, stealing energy to save myself. From what? I didn’t believe in monsters. What I did believe was that I’d personified my own failing strength and weakness, used some hallucination to goad myself into surviving at any cost—even their planet’s connection to the M’hir.
My misjudgment. I feared the result. So I’d left my room, hardly noticing the door was no longer locked, and began searching for my Drapsk.
After a while, I began to doubt I’d find any at all. The entire floor was deserted. Rather than head down in the lift in my nightshirt—another gift from the Drapsk—I went back to my room and dressed.
“Might as well pack, too,” I said out loud, remembering with guilty relief the Drapsk’s promise to allow me to leave today. They’d given me a boxlike carrier for my things, few as they were. I folded up the ceremonial dress, smiling as I imagined the look on Morgan’s face when he saw it, and put it inside. Then I picked up the small box.
I noticed its odd weight, one puzzle among many. How had the Drapsk brought a bit of the M’hir into this existence? And why?
Slipping the box into my pocket again, I pulled the dress out of the carrier and dropped it on the bed. I couldn’t leave, I admitted to myself, not without knowing what had happened and if they still needed me. Sira Morgan’s decision: the part of me who—despite the urgency to go to Morgan—knew full well what Morgan’s own choice would have been.
I took the lift to the main floor with an eerie sense of retracing my steps. The open area, with its bulblike eating rooms, was as deserted as the hall upstairs. From all evidence, I was alone in the building. I found myself half-running to the doorway leading out, beginning to suspect I’d done something truly dreadful to the Drapsk.
After one step out the door, I was convinced I had. The dark sky above was ablaze, as if set on fire, while the platform and walkways were literally stuffed with Drapsk of every possible color, all dashing to and fro as though they’d lost their senses. Fortunately, the walkway wasn’t flowing and the bowlcars sat abandoned, or there would have been some tragedies in front of my eyes. Had they gone mad?
“The Mystic One!” The cry sprang from a thousand tentacle-ringed mouths at once. The sky went black at the same time, throwing off my vision just when my horrified eyes saw most of the Drapsk turn to start coming my way.
I stumbled back through the hotel doorway by feel. As I started to close it, panic-stricken at the thought of the mob, the sky lit again. Immediately, the Drapsk stopped and fluttered their plumes.
“Fireworks?” I said in disbelief, staring upward as I stepped back outside for a better view. “They’re sending up the fireworks.”
“There you are!” Captain Makairi and four other Makii detached themselves from the near edge of the crowd and hurried toward me. When they were close enough, all five of them reached out to pat me gently, as if checking I was real. “We’ve been worried, Mystic One. Copelup said you would wake in your own time. Are you recovered?”
“Tired,” I said, hearing the truth of that in my own voice. I found myself patting them lightly in return, a gesture they didn’t seem to mind. “And concerned, Makii. What happened? Do you know if I succeeded at all?”
The five began to hoot uncontrollably. It wasn’t quite the reaction I expected, though it was, I thought, reassuring in a way. Captain Makairi recovered his equilibrium first, saying: “Come with us, Mystic One. We’re on our way to one of the Makii Houses—just behind this building. We will tell you how very, very well you did for all of Drapskii.”
As I should have guessed, the Makii House turned out to be the Drapsk version of a tavern. I let them herd me inside to where I stood waist-deep in purple and pink Makii. I looked in vain for a seat of any kind, noticing that most of those who’d been here a while had containers of various shapes and sizes firmly affixed to their mouths, their tentacles making this a very reasonable way to carry a drink. One result was a most unfamiliar absence of sounds, despite more of the bitonal music and the irregular thudding of feet as individuals milled around one another.
“Make way for the Mystic One!”
This shout from Captain Makairi—in Comspeak for my benefit and backed by the no-nonsense hand fan he produced and aimed around the room—had the effect of opening a wide expanse of floor in front of me and totally disrupting the party atmosphere. I felt as conspicuous as a disbeliever among Turrned Missionaries.
It didn’t help when the Drapsk began bowing in great waves, drinks still clamped to their mouths.
All I could do was to hurry to where Captain Makairi had found an actual table and chairs along one back wall—perhaps ready for aliens such as myself. Each Drapsk I passed brushed me lightly with their fingers, as if I were irresistible yet fragile. Since I felt the latter at least, I sank gratefully into the nearest seat, trying to ignore the scrutiny of every being in the room.
“Sombay, hot, with those spices she likes,” another Drapsk barked an order into the air. “Biscuits, Mystic One?”
Already drooling at the thought of the sombay, I nodded mutely, only now spotting the name inscribed in Comspeak on this one’s tool belt. “Maka. I’m happy to see you,” I said, delighted my own Drapsk were keeping track of me.
The Drapsk indicated gratitude with a quick touch from his antennae. “This pleases me also, Mystic One. We of the Makmora hold you in our souls. We never doubted you.”
“Where’s Copelup?” I asked, craning around in hopes of spotting those yellow plumes. None were in sight.
“The Skeptics . . . study . . . argue . . . Niakii . . . their numbers . . . results . . . speculate,” two other Drapsk answered in a confusing overlap of voices. “No fun,” they synched at last.
“Maybe I should go and talk to them,” I offered, weakening as the sombay was delivered steaming hot and with a fragrance promising it was exactly the way I’d come to love it. The Drapsk always did their homework. To complete their effort to pin me in place, a plate of fresh biscuits arrived, already split and filled with my favorite sweet spread.
“Then again,” I decided around a mouthful, “I could stay here a while.” I sank deeper into my chair. “Especially if you can tell me what is going on.”
INTERLUDE
Barac shook his head, convinced he’d lost his appetite forever. “You go ahead, Chief Bowman,” he said graciously. “I’ve already eaten.”
Bowman raised one eyebrow. “Must have been early,” she commented, helping herself to another spoonful of some green cereal. “Thought I was an early riser. Didn’t sleep well? Or don’t Clan sleep?”
The Clansman had to smile. Was there ever a moment this Human didn’t pry for information? Even now, when Plexis and the ships tucked in her sides were still an hour from stationday, the Enforcer’s eyes were bright and interested. “We sleep,” he gave her. “From the look of it, more than you do.”
“Hmmph,” was all she answered, busy eating. Barac looked over at the third member of this breakfast group.
Terk, leaning up against the galley wall, didn’t seem to have an appetite either or else, as Barac sometimes suspected, the Human was actually a servo and needed neither food nor rest. His appearance did nothing to belie the impression, Terk’s uniform having to cope with a barrel chest and unusually wide shoulders. His hair was pale and limp above features that, to be generous, looked like a sculptor had forgotten to finish them properly. His eyes, currently fixed on Barac and apparently not needing to blink, were like chips of stone.
All in all, Barac decided, not the look of a diplomat.
Nor the manners. Terk, seeing his commander occupied, asked abruptly: “So where did Morgan light off to? Didn’t Huido know? Or wouldn’t he tell you?”
“Didn’t the Fox file a destination?” Barac shot back.
Bowman patted her lips with a napkin. “There is an interesting tendency on Plexis to withhold information on departures, Hom sud Sarc,” she answered with a glint of real annoyance in her eyes. “They don’t consider themselves to be a spaceport, you see, and feel this should grant them unusual latitude in how they deal with us.”
“We don’t pay bribes,” Terk clarified, his normally deep voice a growl.
Barac knew better than to grin. “In answer to your question, Constable, no, I don’t know where Jason Morgan went. His friend, the Carasian, may know, but you’d have better luck with Plexis.” He tilted his head, considering the two Humans. They couldn’t know about Larimar. Why the sudden interest in Morgan?
“You told me you were investigating the telepaths who attacked me yesterday. What does Morgan have to do with them? Besides being one himself,” he added, quite sure these Enforcers knew this much and more about Sira’s Chosen.
Bowman pushed aside her plate, though it remained half full. She nodded once at Terk, who went to the door and locked it. Barac merely raised a curious brow. The Humans knew he could leave any time he chose, so this precaution wasn’t against him. “I don’t want interruptions,” Bowman answered, her perception, as always, uncomfortably close to that of a true mind reader.
“I’m becoming convinced we have a problem, a serious problem, Clansman Barac sud Sarc,” she continued, steepling her fingertips together on the table and regarding him with those keen, miss-nothing eyes. “But first, are you able to—what’s the word?—block any telepathic eavesdroppers?”
Barac started, automatically checking his shields. In place and properly so, despite there being no conceivable threat to his thoughts here. “Human eavesdroppers?” he guessed and was rewarded by her nod. “Yes. Of course.”
Her lips twitched, amused perhaps by the involuntary superiority in his voice. “Forgive the question, but it’s become an issue lately. Terk? Why don’t you give our guest some of the background to our—investigation?”
Terk tossed a sheet of plas covered with notations to land on the table in front of Barac. “Human telepaths have been disappearing,” the Human said bluntly, pointing at the sheet. “We’ve lost seven from our force in as many weeks. There are rumors, hard to confirm or deny, of civilian disappearances as well. The most solid are there.”
Barac pulled the sheet around so he could read the precise script. It was a list of two dozen names and systems, one link immediately obvious. “All male. I thought your females were as likely to have some Talent.” The Clansman was proud of the way he said that, as though Humans could have anything like the abilities meant by Talent among his kind; Morgan, he hoped, being the exception.
“We’ve noticed.”
The Clansman frowned. “So what are you implying? That this is why I was attacked? Someone is kidnapping male telepaths—Human and now, with the attempt on me, non-Human? I don’t recommend the practice.”
Bowman shook her head. “No, I doubt Sorl and his group had the same reasons for their attempt to carry you off with them, Hom sud Sarc.”
“You know them?” Try as he might, Barac couldn’t keep the outrage from his voice. “Then have they been arrested?”
“Not unless you filed charges with Plexis,” Terk said with a straight face. “We only deal with Trade Pact species, remember?”
“You persist in reminding me.”
“Homs,” Bowman interjected smoothly, as Barac and Terk kept glaring at each other. “We do have crimes enough to work with, if you don’t mind.”
Barac gestured appeasement and Terk pulled back a chair to finally sit. The atmosphere eased slightly. “Better,” Bowman approved. Her voice hardened. “Now, we have missing Human telepaths. We have a really quite desperate attempt to kidnap you, Hom sud Sarc, by the few Human telepaths left in this quadrant. To me, this suggests a possible cause and effect.”
“You think your telepaths are blaming the Clan,” Barac stated, turning the idea over in his own mind. “Do that many of them know we exist?” he wondered out loud.
“You know what they say. What you tell one telepath, you tell them all,” Terk said with a crooked grin. Bowman glowered at him and he subsided.
“As far as I know, telepaths don’t share information,” she explained. “They don’t share much of anything, except a tendency to mental illness if untrained. But this threat has united those who know one another. Do they know about the Clan?” Bowman repeated. “There have always been rumors, hints circulating here and there. If they wanted to learn about you, it wouldn’t have been difficult.”