Morgan fought to regain his self-control, to think through his options. Maybe there would be some kind of stasis tube he could use to carry the tissue safely; maybe he could use his Talent to reach the sleeping minds of the Clanswomen, confirm or refute his suspicions. What would Sira want him to do, if recovering what was stolen was patently beyond his abilities?
Too late! The sound of a curtain being yanked to one side was paired to the return of full lighting, blinding both Morgan and that other so that they froze, squinting at one another for a comic instance.
Even as the force blade dropped from its sheath into his waiting hand, Morgan recognized Faitlen di Parth, member of the Clan Council. The Clansman must have valued his experiments enough to stay here on guard.
Morgan’s mind was suddenly calm and focused, cleared of everything but his rage.
What might have happened next, Morgan never knew. A scream tore through the air—no, it was unheard, echoing only in his mind. And Faitlen’s, as the Clansman put both hands to his head, writhing as if in pain. “No!” the Clansman shouted furiously, turning from Morgan and hurrying back into the room he had just left.
Leaving the Human no choice but to follow.
Chapter 44
THE Drapsk, especially the Makii, had been under considerable strain these few days, starting with my inexplicable truffle chase and culminating in the arrival of a new Mystic One right under their nonexistent noses. A Mystic One, moreover, without Tribal affiliation. They were not, I could tell, happy at all.
If anything, Copelup the Skeptic was in worse shape. My near-disaster in the M’hir had indeed registered, as I’d expected, on his instruments. Instead of pointless panic—he’d saved that for the aftermath—Copelup had activated the machine which collected matter from the M’hir, somehow keying it to the identity I displayed there. I could amply testify to the machine’s drawing power, despite having no idea how such a thing could work.
Copelup couldn’t explain either. For the first time since I’d met him, Copelup wasn’t interested in observations, information, or even my annoying questions. Once he’d seen I was safe, he’d performed eopari and, from what the others were telling me, might stay stubbornly dormant for days.
“Can’t they, well, move him?” Rael asked, walking around the ball of Drapsk now forming the centerpiece of my room on the Nokraud. The pair of Drapsk repairing the door hooted softly to themselves.
“The Makii,” I said with a stern look at the two within view, “assure me this would cause the poor fellow extreme disorientation when he emerges. Some of them find the idea quite entertaining. Since this disorientation might lead Copelup to need gripstsa, and since there are no other Skeptics on Ret 7 to perform this act with him, I find their amusement in poor taste.”
Rael looked doubtfully at the Makii crew, then back to me. Her words formed in my thoughts: Strange beings. Why are they helping you?
“Turn around,” I told her out loud, watching her stiffen with surprise as she obeyed only to see the Makii with their plumed antennae aimed at her. Then, I added in the inner speech: They have a connection to the M’hir, Rael. Not like ours, but as you see they can detect our presence there. The antennae, as I’d expected, switched instantly to point in my direction, even as the Drapsk continued working on the door. I felt Rael’s exploring thought reach toward them, shutting down as the Drapsk cooperatively turned their plumes her way again.
I thought Humans were bad enough, she sent, her generous mouth twitching into a smile.
I returned it without the offense I might have taken before we’d shared mind-to-mind. It had been Rael’s offer, the first thing she’d said to me after I’d brought her to Ret 7. Traveling through my sister’s ordered and open thoughts had been like an antidote to some poison I hadn’t realized was coursing through me. I now understood why she had involved herself with Ica di Teerac’s plotting and, seeing the depth of her concern for Morgan’s fate as well as mine, forgave it. We’d been heart-kin before I’d been Sira Morgan. I found, like an unexpected gift, we could be again.
Unfortunately, it was just in time to face the rest of the family, including a few I’d gladly send to Huido’s cook. “Sit, Rael,” I suggested. My room was the best the Nokraud could offer a passenger. Since it was also designed as luxury for a Scat, I concluded Grackik and Rek had their species’ sense of humor. The Drapsk, undaunted, had done a magnificent job in very little time to remove all evidence of that species’ preferred lifestyle, replacing cages, sandpits, and heating lamps with a mismatched but comfortable assortment of Human furnishings.
These included a pair of wonderfully odd chairs, the sort that looked hazardous to one’s health, yet were seductively difficult to leave once you took the chance. Rael hesitated but followed my lead, her look of surprised appreciation making me laugh. She peered over at me. “You seem remarkably cheerful for someone receiving the news I brought,” she commented dryly.
I shrugged. “When you are at the bottom of things, Sister-mine, any improvement is appreciated.” Her eyes glistened as I sketched the gesture of beholdenness and kinship in the air between us. “I’m simply grateful,” I continued with the truth. “I’ve been warned about Ica. And you are here.”
Rael’s face, transparent as always, showed her puzzlement. “Yes. And I’d like to know exactly how I came to be here.” She paused and licked her lips. “Not to mention some explanation of what I experienced in the M’hir.”
I understood. She’d seen the M’hir life-forms, but I knew she had no context to recognize what she’d seen. To her, they were oddities of the M’hir pathways and what really mattered was the Drapsk machinery. Rather than share the formless apprehension I felt, courtesy of the Drapsk, I pointed a toe at the ball on my carpet and replied: “I’m afraid there’ll be a delay. Your answers are in that brain, not mine. Suffice it for now that I don’t dare use the M’hir—and not just because of the Council’s Watchers.”
She winced and shook her head. “The Watchers. Let’s hope the power of your friend’s device clouded the trace we left, or they’ll know you’re here, if not why.” Then, more anxiously, “You don’t suppose the Watchers will react to the Drapsk—”
“Copelup hasn’t been concerned about the Watchers,” I said, more to reassure Rael than because I was convinced myself. “He said they monitor a different part or frequency. Something like that.”
“They think the M’hir has parts?” My sister was startled into a chuckle. “What odd little beings.”
“You can’t begin to imagine,” I agreed wholeheartedly. “We’d better hope he’s right—what the Watchers know, the Council knows. And you said Ica has a source on the Council?”
Rael gestured an apology. It was becoming habitual. “I never intended to plot against you, heart-kin.”
“And you didn’t, not really,” I assured her, the feel of her memories in mine more than proof. “To be honest, you were only doing what I should have done myself. It was time for me to come back. I had no right to choose exile, to take my happiness and leave the needs of the Clan behind me.”
“They betrayed you—” Rael sounded mystified. “Tried to use you, even kill you.”
I glanced at the Drapsk, now reluctantly installing the replacement door panel they’d taken from some other cabin presumably with the Scats’ permission. The fewer doors the better, as far as they were concerned. Anything that divided the Drapsk from one another diminished the whole. “I have learned to look beyond that,” was all I said, adding briskly: “Now, as far as Ica is concerned . . .”
We talked for an hour or more, sometimes by voice, as often our thoughts and feelings mingling underneath. Rael accepted there were things I chose to keep hidden—I had been this way before I had the secrets of others to protect, I remembered; I’d never been comfortable revealing my inner self completely to others, no matter how trusted, until I’d granted Morgan that right.
A right and a peril, I thought, when we paused a moment in respect for the loss of Larimar’s Chosen in the M’hir. Those Joined shared every risk, whether they shared belief in it or not.
“I don’t like it,” Rael said when we were done exploring plans and actions, all avenues seeming to lead to one possibility. “It’s risky.”
“Do you think there’s anything we can do, including hiding, without risk?” I countered, not particularly pleased with our results either. But there wasn’t time to debate or second-guess ourselves.
“So you agree,” I went on briskly. “We won’t wait to find out if the Watchers are aware of what I’ve done—we’ll grab their attention and turn it toward Ica’s group and the Human telepaths. The Watchers will sound the alarm to Council, keeping them both busy while we search Ret 7 for what was stolen from me.” And Morgan, I said to myself, my priority if not Rael’s.
“Pella—” Rael closed her lips over the name, but her concern lapped against my thoughts.
I didn’t share Rael’s sense of responsibility for our younger sister, having lately grown less patient with fools of any kind. “From what you’ve told me, Pella hasn’t done anything yet but linger in Ica’s orbit. If they scan her, that’s all they’ll find. Maybe she’ll learn something from it, but I doubt it.”
“You can’t trust the Council.”
I smiled, completely without humor. “Rael, my dear sister, I trust nothing but their predictability. I know exactly what the Council intends for me. I have no intention of helping them succeed.”
This was a point on which we didn’t agree. “I can’t believe the Council is behind what happened on Pocular—it makes no sense for them to act against you. At least, not so openly.” This last with a reluctant conviction. Rael had lost a number of her illusions.
“How much proof will it take, Rael?” I countered. “I told you what the Scats said about the Retians’ experiments. And Huido discovered a Retian named Baltir was involved in the attack on me. Baltir, Sister. The toad brought to the Council by Faitlen di Parth, in order to supply technology to use my mindless body to produce more ‘Siras’ if I failed to be willing or able to do so. The evidence,” I rested a hand on my violated abdomen, “proves they didn’t forget that plan.”
“After you left, Sira,” she argued, “the Council claimed it had no prior knowledge—”
“With shields wide open, no doubt?” I waved a hand, softening my tone. Rael wasn’t the enemy, not anymore. “It doesn’t affect our plan. We both know how the Council views rebellion. They react to it almost as violently as they do to the idea of Humans in the M’hir. They won’t be impressed by Ica’s venture into the forbidden.” I made two fists and brought them together gently. “We tie both groups up in accusation and counter-accusation until I have Morgan safe.” A new thought came to me, and I considered it before musing aloud: “We could add Bowman and her Enforcers to the mix.”
“You wouldn’t!” Rael said, aghast. “Bad enough they are already sniffing around you and your Morgan.”
“It was,” I responded mildly, “just a thought.” But not a bad one, I added to myself, quite willing to use whatever leverage I had against my enemies.
Rael regarded me suspiciously.
I smiled.
INTERLUDE
For all Barac knew, his body was still in the cell, probably crawling with hungry fungi dissolving their way through a feast of clothing, flesh, and bone. The thought was a distant horror, almost forgotten in the surging joy.
She was near.
He was desire.
Nothing else existed but the desperate need for completion, to reach the Chooser, to offer himself for her Testing. Barac flung himself forward, not knowing if he flew within the M’hir or ran across a midnight field. His destination was that light, that radiance.
He gasped, reeling as the Chooser sensed his approach and drove at him with her power. This was her place. He was the intruder. His was a contamination to be pushed aside.
Instinctively, desperately, Barac resisted, knowing this was the Test, the measure of his worthiness to Join her absolute perfection.
He resisted, but knew at once he would fail, that he wasn’t worthy of such overwhelming power. Just when he felt himself about to dissolve, crying out his disappointment and feeling her triumph, there was distraction.
Another!
A candidate was never offered to two Choosers at once. Barac experienced the why of it as he hung like a piece of metal suspended in the overlapping attraction of two powerful magnets, unable of himself to move toward one or the other.
Powerful magnets who became aware of each other, their thoughts filling with jealous fury. Mine the Choice, they screamed as one.
Barac felt his sanity returning as the attraction of the Choosers transformed into their battle with one another. He fought to free himself from their grip, but was stuck fast.
Helpless, he felt them tear at each other, pulling free pulses of power to bleed into the darkness. Invisible tears cascaded down his cheeks as their beauty weakened, their power faded. They were killing each other, as caught in passion as he had been.
Help me, he screamed without sound, trying to recapture their attention, to pull them from their fatal conflict.
It became more and more difficult to keep his thoughts straight, to understand what was happening. The moment came when Barac imagined the fungi from his cell had entered the M’hir with him, that clumps of it surrounded the doomed Choosers, climbing over their brightness, consuming it in some obscene feasting.
He struggled to reach them, then stopped. Somehow he knew it was too late for the Choosers. It was too late for him as well. Barac felt himself become less and less, spreading so thin he hardly knew where he began or ended.
Then, from the nothing, an outpouring of raw energy, strange yet oddly familiar, encircling what he’d become, collecting and compressing until Barac writhed with the pain of living again. There was a pull that threatened to rip his mind apart . . .