Fortunately, Morgan didn’t reply. I wasn’t sure what he could have said that Ica would understand.
“What they got from you, Clanswoman, was mindlessness,” Bowman accused. “If this was such a failure, why did you keep trying?”
Ru’s eyes flashed up. “It wasn’t a failure! We were able to transfer the Power-of-Choice to several of the Humans. It wasn’t much, but enough to prove the Choosers could, with the Humans’ help, gain some control. No one was damaged. They were healthy—sane! Someone interfered. Someone didn’t want us to succeed.”
I didn’t bother looking at Jarad. You gave them my list, I sent almost without emotion. And you made sure they’d fail.
“We shall investigate the matter, Enforcer, Members,” Jarad said smoothly, words overlaying the sending just to me: There can be no contamination of the M’hir. You will learn, Daughter.
“No,” I said out loud, “I think you will.” I summoned my strength—sparing an instant to be thoroughly grateful for the med’s tender care—and concentrated, pulling what waited just outside into this place . . .
A peacefully humming machine, nearly the size of Huido, appeared at the empty end of the carpet, surrounded by Drapsk, including Copelup. Their antennae were erect with delight. It might have been from traveling through the M’hir, however short the distance, but I suspected it had more to do with being surrounded by Mystic Ones. This would definitely result in some gripstsa, hopefully much later.
“We are not alone,” I said, stepping away from Morgan to stand near the Drapsk, relying on Bowman’s devices to carry my voice to everyone here, pitching my power to do the same. “We are not alone here and now. Four billion Humans and other beings inhabit Camos. Countless more share this part of space with us.
“And we are not alone in the M’hir. These are Drapsk. Their species not only exists partially within that place we’ve assumed was ours, their scientists understand it well enough to explore it with machines like this one.
“Maka, Makoori,” I said quietly. The two Drapsk assumed the gripstsa posture with its echo within that other space. Then louder, to the Clan: “Reach to them. What do you sense?” The audience might have been silent, but it was attentive. I saw an expression at last on those watching faces: awe.
“Copelup?”
The Skeptic turned on his machine. It was a cobbled-together version of his M’hir viewing tube, borrowing from some Human display technology and definitely untested. I crossed my fingers surreptitiously.
The projection formed over our heads. It was—I gasped with the rest—it was the M’hir, the way we saw it within our minds. There were the bands of power looping back and forth to this world.
And there was what I’d hoped and feared: along one of those bands moved a group of, for want of a better word, grazers. Other things moved through the view too quickly to decipher. It was as well. They were disturbing enough as glimpses.
“That will be all, thank you,” I told the Drapsk rather breathlessly.
Then I looked out at my kind again, aware of the Councillors and others at my back but no longer concerned with them. “We are part of this place. We are a part—and only a part—of the M’hir. The way we have chosen to live, to be separate, to exclude others, is an illusion.
“You know who I am,” I said. “Here is what I am.”
With that, I dropped every shield I possessed, opening my thoughts to them all, revealing everything: what had happened, what I’d felt. I hid nothing, not my caring for Morgan, not my mistakes, and certainly not what I knew of Jarad di Sarc. I refused to allow any shields to stand in my way, driving my thoughts outward with all of my so-vaunted power. It was an outpouring such as none of them had ever experienced before.
Let them make of me what they would.
INTERLUDE
Barac reeled under the impact of events and emotion, his head spinning after the rapid onslaught of so much power and so much information. What was Sira, that she could affect them all at will? How had the M’hiray produced such an individual and not known it?
The answer was there, in the memories she’d shared. There were those who had known, the same who refused to see Sira as anything but the future of their kind, blind to all that insisted an unmatchable Chooser would be its ending.
The death of Kurr, the one as responsible for his murder as Yihtor—that answer was also in these new thoughts, given to him freely as to everyone here.
Barac felt his lips pull back from his teeth. Jarad di Sarc.
With the understanding and the righteous anger came the dose of common sense Sira meant him to have. Jarad di Sarc had never been his to deal with . . .
He was Sira’s.
Chapter 60
I SLAMMED down my shields when I was done, rather surprised not to have been attacked while so utterly vulnerable. It had been a trap of sorts. Morgan had been ready to protect me—by mind or, as likely, by the simple expedient of his knives.
But then, my enemies—my enemy—knew as well as I that simply sharing what I knew would never be enough to harm him. We were too used to our independence, too accustomed to letting others handle the big problems.
“I call for a Council Vote,” I shouted. “A Vote to accept the invitation to join the species of the Trade Pact—to ask them for help in solving the crisis facing the M’hiray.”
The crowd, so mute until now, began to shout in echoes: “A Vote!” “Join the Pact!” “Down with the Council!” and other cries until the overlapping confusion made it impossible to make out anything more than a dull roar.
“Jarad di Sarc,” I asked, “will you call the Vote?”
He lost none of his confidence, none of his hauteur as he looked down at me for a long moment. I see and glory in your power, Daughter, he sent. A shame you have perverted it. Such waste.
I didn’t bother answering in kind. “Call the Vote.”
Knowing the Clan as well as I, he waved a graceful hand. The voices ceased. “I call a Vote from the Council of the Clan,” Jarad ordered. “It must be unanimous to carry weight,” he explained to Bowman. “We are not a democracy.”
“Wait!”
This cry came from the audience. I think we were so used to their presence by now it startled us to be reminded these were all individuals. A group of three came pushing toward us. It was Rael and Pella, the former carrying an ancient weapon and the latter with an empty keffle-flute case slung over one shoulder. Between them, they urged a young Clanswoman toward the carpet.
“This is Tle di Parth,” Rael announced with a triumphant look at me. “It took some doing to get her to come forward, but here she is.”
“My daughters,” Jarad greeted them sardonically. Pella looked afraid but determined; Rael looked like some avenging goddess of war, hair lifted like a banner. Righteous wrath suited her, I thought, although I doubted the heirloom in her hands would actually work. “And what has Tle to do with the Council? As you can all feel, she remains a Chooser.” The unChosen certainly knew, having backed well away.
“Tle is the most powerful member of her House with the death of Faitlen di Parth and his Chosen.”
Morgan’s approval washed over me toward Rael. She glanced at him with surprise, then smiled ever-so-slightly before turning a much sterner face to Jarad. “You must have eight for a valid Vote, Father, or had you conveniently forgotten?”
Tle raised her head, her vivid green eyes intense in that childlike face. Her body, adult-sized but not yet mature, was rigid. She was, I recalled, one of the older Choosers, almost forty standard years of age, and potentially another who would have difficulty finding a Candidate for her Choice. “There is no law against having a Chooser on Council. Only,” she said scornfully, “habit.”
“Very well. Do you accept Tle di Parth on Council?” Jarad asked the others. I sensed their probes testing her power. There was no doubt in my mind and shortly none in any others’.
“We welcome Tle di Parth to Council,” Degal said. “Let us proceed. I vote to accept.”
I nodded. It was his son, Larimar, who through my memories he had lost twice over to Jarad’s scheming.
The others were quick to follow suit, Tle casting her first vote as a Councillor without hesitation.
Seven in accord; seven voting for the Trade Pact. They would not attack Jarad directly, but with this Vote they had turned their backs on his politics and schemes. But seven was not enough; there was one vote, now the deciding vote, left. I could see resignation in the faces of the Humans and Sta’gli, in the drooping antennae of the Drapsk, and in the limp feathers of the Tolian.
Every Human but Morgan. He stood, legs apart and hands ready, as though preparing for battle. There was a look of grim anticipation on his face.
“Then,” said Jarad di Sarc, “the answer is no, since I vote against acceptance. We don’t need these aliens.”
“Ah, but, Father,” I breathed, stepping closer to him, feeling my power surging as it demanded an outlet. “You have no vote.”
“What? Has your link to the mind of this—this Human cost you the last of your wits?”
I pulled myself to my full height, feeling my hair starting to lift of its own volition, as if there was too much power within me to contain any longer. I questioned neither its source nor any price I’d pay later. Now was all that mattered. “As First Chosen and most powerful of our House, I claim the Council seat of di Sarc. Step aside, Jarad di Sarc. Your time is over.”
Time. It narrowed itself down to this moment, forgot all that was before or might be after, focused on the breath coming from his nostrils and mine. I had Challenged him. He could flee—and I would permit it.
But not before he lost. There were too many here, starting with those from Acranam, who believed in his pattern of thought, his lust for power over all. They would understand this contest, this moment, better than all the reasoned arguments and cold logic I could give them.
Jarad smiled, knowing this and more, and struck.
He might have thought this first blow would end it, for, as I expected, he sent his power raging, not against me, but against my Chosen.
There were no rules in these struggles for supremacy among us, so none would cry foul if Jarad ended my threat to him by eliminating Morgan. My mind would dissolve into the M’hir, pulled there by our Joining, my body a mindless hulk.
A good plan? What a pity Jarad had not assessed his enemy.
Morgan’s shields, trained and tested, were holding; I could feel their strength as well as Jarad’s sudden and horrified comprehension. Yes, Father, I sent. We are truly Joined. His power— his Human power—is a match for mine within the M’hir. All of your lies have been found out.
“No!” the Clansman said out loud, as though he had no power to spare to return my sending. His fists raised, clenched above his head. “It cannot be! A Human resists me? Why have the Watchers allowed this? He pollutes the M’hir! No!”
“Yes and yes again!” I countered, standing close enough to Jarad that my hair lashed at his face, staring up into the madness growing in his eyes. “You have denied it—well, here is your proof, Father. Morgan is my Chosen because he deserves that place by all the measures of the Clan. End this now!”
“Never!” Jarad’s power left its assault on Morgan with a suddenness that sent the Human staggering. Terk supported him before he could fall, I noted even as my own shields took the new attack and I prepared to attack in return.
My strength wasn’t what it should have been—there was a price demanded by my body for all I’d been through over the last weeks. Jarad was at his prime. My goal wasn’t as clear—I needed his defeat, but couldn’t afford a killing blow, knowing this would cost Mirim, my mother and Jarad’s Chosen, her life, too. Jarad wanted the death of Morgan even more than my own.
But my purpose was too important for such minor details. I gained strength from it, sure to the core of my being that it was the survival of the Clan that was at stake. And, thanks to Morgan and the Drapsk, I did know where my duty lay.
Jarad never stood a chance. I began ripping apart his protections, layer by layer, methodically making my way to the level of thought where the control of his motor functions resided. Once I held those in my grip, he would have to admit defeat.
Then it was my breath stopping, my body abruptly losing control.
I had time to realize that Jarad had wrapped his hands around my throat and was choking me to death, before that hold was broken. Morgan tore him away from me, throwing the Clansman to the ground with an oath.
Jarad, his fine robes spread over the carpeting like a stain, crouched like some cornered beast, nothing left in those features but rage.
Then he was gone.
Unashamed to need it, I leaned on Morgan’s arm, then looked at the stunned Councillors. “I vote,” my voice was oddly husky and I coughed to clear it. “I vote to accept.”
Degal made the gesture of appeasement, with the undertone of acknowledging superior power. “First Chosen. Yours is the greater power,” he said, as if unsure I’d leave any of them standing. “You must speak the verdict.”
Politics by fear; rule by power. I looked over at Tle’s unformed face and thought—one thing at a time.
I gestured my agreement. “The Council is unanimous,” I said, looking at all of them and finding it hard to focus on any one face. “The Clan will join the Trade Pact. Our isolation ends here and now.”
It might have been coincidence that my hair chose that moment to slide up Morgan’s shoulder and tickle his ear.
INTERLUDE
Is she crazy?
“That is hardly the way to talk about the First Chosen of my House and the Speaker for Council,” Rael answered Barac aloud, trying to sound offended, but the touch of her power against his in the M’hir glowed with joy. “If she is,” Rael went on, “I suspect it will become contagious.” She stretched lazily on the couch. They were staying in Ica’s resort, the Clanswoman having decided to visit more distant relations. The Clan was still unsure how to deal with the respected and powerful First Chosen of Teerac. If it weren’t for the new obligations to the Human telepaths under the Trade Pact, Ica’s and Ru’s crimes would have been forgotten, their ideas just another in the frenzy appearing throughout the M’hiray daily now as everyone discussed their future. Sira had made sure even the children knew what might lie ahead.