“How did you know?”
“I could smell your dinner, and there is only one reason to leave a hot meal when you are tired. You needed something more, and from what we learned of the Ysheer, a spicier meal would be a good guess.” He rubbed at the back of his neck.
“Where is everyone else?”
“Sleeping.”
“Why are you here? Why aren’t you in one of the chambers?”
“There are only three. I gave you my room, Niisa is in the guest room and Debarren is in his quarters.”
She felt bad. “I am so sorry. If I had known, Niisa and I could have shared space. After a haunt, I can sleep on a floor if I have to.”
He chuckled. “There are emergency bunks if I really needed to crash, but I am blessed with being able to live on minimal sleep. I get my energy from the fire.”
“I would like to see that one day. I have only heard vague tales of Scorchers and the destruction that lets life begin again.” She found a pack of spices that made her tongue tingle, so she brought it with her back to the table.
“It isn’t really something that can be observed from the ground.” He lifted one hand, and it wreathed with flame.
She stared at the fire until it burned out. “That is beautiful.”
“Thank you, but your own colouration is just as lovely. You seem to be made of flame, though the first time I saw you, your fashion sense, I have to admit, threw me off.”
She laughed. “The formal clothing is a little peculiar. It was designed to create a specific silhouette, and it manages to do it quite handily.”
He groaned as he got to his feet, and he came over to sit across from her while she spiced up her rapidly cooling food. It was some kind of stew next to some kind of starch, and they both needed the help that the spices provided.
“Wait a moment.” He held his hands near her tray and heated her food back to a steaming temperature.
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure. I am also nice to have around on cold winter nights.” He grinned, and she could see a peculiar gleam in his eyes.
“Well, if you are on Wedderal in winter, I will make a note of it.” She returned to her meal and sipped at the water pack.
“Well, what if there was a Citadel outpost on Wedderal? You could join and have full access to our libraries, courses, information and, of course, additional assignments that would take Niisa back to the stars.”
She finished her meal and looked at him with amusement. “You have been paying attention, haven’t you?”
He shrugged. “It seemed sensible. There is no one with your particular talent in the Citadel, and twenty-nine Ysheer worlds that may need your help one day.”
“Haunts aren’t exclusive to Wedderal.”
“Aren’t they? I don’t know if you are aware, but no other Ysheer world has born a haunt in two generations. The ones that they have are slowly aging into the wave of souls.”
Yohwen put her tray in the recycler and returned to the table with a cup of caf. “This is news to me, but we don’t have a lot of contact between colonies.”
“You can check it on any of the newsfeeds that the Citadel has listed, and Relay can even give you a census report of the colonies if you like.”
She raised her hand. “That isn’t necessary. I just didn’t realise that we were getting scarce. Well, everywhere but Wedderal. Do you think it could be environmental or something in the solar radiation?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. We were simply told that if we wanted to find a Haunt, Wedderal was the world to go to. It appears that our sources were right.”
“So, what were you saying about a Citadel outpost on Wedderal?” She sipped at her caf and watched his eyes as he thought of how to answer her.
“Well, if there was a small gathering of agents or specialists at Wedderal, it would necessitate a small outpost that would allow for easier dispatch to this sector of space. Your government has already built one in the hopes of getting some of the grant money offered to those who house the Citadel specialists.”
“What makes someone a specialist?”
“A talent with single purpose or incarnation.” He got up and obtained his own cup of caf. “So, would you be interested in joining the Citadel?”
Yoh laughed, “Not really, but if Niisa wants to continue traveling, I will. It will only take me further from the little home I have.”
“What about if Niisa finds a mate and starts a family?” His words were quiet and his coal-coloured eyes were sympathetic.
“I suppose I will have to get along on my own and visit when I am allowed to.” She shrugged. It was the stuff of her nightmares, but she had confronted the reality long ago. Niisa’s family was pushing for her to get married, but she was putting it off so that she could enjoy the freedom of traveling the world. As much as she wanted it, Yoh was too practical to know that their eternal present couldn’t last much longer.
“It is very early to say it, but I would like you to consider me as a suitor.”
That made her blink. “For Niisa? Sure. I mean, she is a little brighter than you, but it could work.”
He stared at her in shock, then he snorted and rubbed the back of his neck. “I am making a hash of this. I would like you to consider me as a suitor for you. I have been assured that you are a good match for me, but until I met you, I wasn’t sure how this would work.”
She blinked rapidly again. “Me? Why would anyone want me?”
The words said far more than she meant to expose, and her heart thudded in her chest as sympathy filled his expression. “Because, you are worth winning. You are funny, intelligent, beautiful, and have a self-possession that I have rarely seen though I have been to dozens of worlds.”
Yoh felt a grin creeping up on her. “Don’t you usually just drop in and scorch the dead.”
He waved that away. “That isn’t the point.”
She laughed. “I am going to have to talk this over with Niisa. She is my sounding board.”
“Her alarm just went off. She is in the room to the left of yours or toward the cockpit if you will.” He took her hand and ran his thumb over her knuckles. “Think about it.”
She tried to hide the shiver that went through her at the heat of his hand. No one touched Haunts, ever. It was thought that it would interfere with the summoning process, but it had never been proven. She blinked rapidly. “I will think about it.”
He released her hand, but as she walked down the hall, she could still feel the heat from his grip.
She opened Niisa’s door quietly, stared and sealed the door again. “Well. That’s…uh.”
She returned to the galley and got another cup of caf.
Orkill cocked his head. “Why didn’t you speak to Niisa?”
“She was busy.” She slugged back the hot liquid and went for another cup.
“Doing what?”
She sat back and cupped the mug between her hands. “Who would be a more accurate question. You didn’t need to give up your bed for the night. Debarren’s was empty.”
His eyes widened in surprise, and then, he started laughing.
Yoh sipped at the caf and tried to remove the image from her thoughts.
The door down the hall opened again, and a hastily dressed Niisa appeared, her cheeks bright. Debarren’s hair was mussed, and his suit was slightly open at the collar.
“Yoh, I am so sorry that you walked in on…us.”
Orkill continued to laugh. He was snickering against the wall, and Yoh shuddered.
Yohwen asked Orkill, “Can you burn an image out of my mind?”
He wiped his eyes and shook his head. “No, but I can help you replace it with something else.”
She didn’t have a chance to ask what he meant by that. The com unit beeped, and they were off to the new site.
Chapter Seven
“I worked here yesterday to prepare the site as you described. I hope it will suit your needs.” Orkill spoke calmly in the dark of the underground facility.
Yohwen could feel the sun going down outside, but it didn’t matter. She pressed her feet into the soil and called those whose bodies had been on this floor hours earlier.
Debarren was standing with a gathering of other Citadel and Sector Guard personnel. The moment the scientists of the centre appeared, they spread out with recorders to start asking questions.
Niisa stood next to Yohwen and nervously said, “I am so sorry you came in on that.”
“I didn’t know you had a tattoo in the shape of a shooting star on your butt.” Yoh said it absently. Her mind was focused on keeping the people strong so that they had full cognition.
“Oh, right. I got it the night before my cousin’s wedding. You know, I have always loved the stars.”
Yoh smiled slightly. “You have always loved the stars. Will you keep Debarren?”
“I think so. We fit very well together.”
A soul was avoiding the folk with the clipboards, and he sidled up to Yohwen. “You are a Haunt, aren’t you?”
She inclined her head. “I am.”
“We haven’t had them here for so long. It took years to silence that gene. I never thought to see one of your kind again.”
“Silencing the genes that make Haunts?”
“Yes! We finally did it, and then, this struck. We never should have tried to distribute the sample to the other colonies.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You deliberately expunged Haunts from your population?”
“Of course. It is an old religion that creates a system of ancestor worship. We are more intelligent than that. What are you doing here?”
She focused, holding the others in the room in place was taxing her. “I am here to find out where the plague came from.”
The bright light frowned. “How far did it spread? We had containment. It shouldn’t have left our facility.”
“I am here, because there is no one left on your world to tell us the story.” She was honest. There was no profit to be had in lying to the dead.
He staggered back. “No. It wasn’t supposed to leave the facility. I did what they said. It was supposed to kill us and die here.”
“Why the secrecy?”
“They wanted the Haunts to disappear. The virus moves through the air and damages the genes that would trigger a Haunt.”
“Who are
they?
”
“The Barkenan. They are similar to us, but they don’t like the idea of dead being around.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
Niisa said softly, “Were there any other genes tampered with?”
“Well, there was some movement on the immune-system front. We had to make a hole for the virus to be introduced.”
Yohwen looked down and saw the recorder in Niisa’s palm. “How was the virus spread?”
“Oh, it was airborne. We set it up as a passive release when our trading ships lifted off the surface of a world. The visible gas would be lost in the vapour trail. We managed it on four worlds before the first sign of illness here in the base. We thought it was the last set of tissue samples we got from off world. Could it have been our own creation?”
Yohwen swayed, it was hard for her to talk and Haunt at the same time.
Niisa quickly asked a series of pointed questions that showed she had a far greater grasp of these things than Yohwen did.
In the end, it was clear. The people of Raven Touch had orchestrated their own demise, and it had only taken one small bacterial and viral sample to set off the entire deadly course of action.
The question remained, who the hell were the Barkenan?
At the end of the night, she staggered away with Niisa supporting her. Niisa’s recorder was being listened to, and men and women in sealed suits were sorting through the wreckage of the base, looking for anything that would tell them what the samples were or which worlds had been infected.
All Ysheer worlds were being contacted and asked to search for the virus that was identified in the tissue of the dead. The search was also on for the Barkenan.
Yohwen didn’t care anymore. She was exhausted beyond her ability to reason.
“I need to talk this over with Debarren, but Orkill will help get you to sleep. Is that all right?” Niisa was earnest, but her features were serious. There was going to be no funny business today until questions were taken care of.
Orkill supported her into her quarters, which were his quarters. He helped her out of her sealed suit and eased her vest and trousers from her body with matter-of-fact motions. Her Masuo formed flat filigree anklets, so she was wearing her undergarments and nothing else when he tucked her into bed and kissed her on her forehead. “You did well, Yohwen. You have likely saved millions of lives.”
She smiled slightly and turned over, letting sleep overtake her without another thought.
* * * *
Orkill stared at the tumble of blood-red hair on his pillow and reluctantly left, picking up her biohazard suit on the way. He lifted it and a flicker of light caught his attention. There was a hole in her suit.
He shook her shoulder, but she didn’t wake. He lifted one eyelid and only saw solid white.
He left his room and immediately went to find Debarren. The Healers and Niisa were in the plexi room on the side of the shuttle.
“Her suit was torn.” He lifted the fabric in one hand. “Is there still an active virus on Raven Touch?”
Niisa paled. “Is she all right?”
“She is asleep. I couldn’t wake her, but I didn’t try very hard.”
Niisa chuckled, but she took Debarren’s hand. “It wouldn’t matter if you blew up a small device next to her. After a Haunt, she sleeps until she is recovered, and last night was extremely difficult for her.”
One of the Healers asked, “What was different about last night?”
“The researcher wanted to talk to her, so she had to talk back. It is hard to keep the other souls in place while speaking. It is like sharing the same part of the brain or something.” Niisa shrugged. “Are you sure she is all right?”
“I have no idea. That is why I am here.”
Debarren disentangled his hand and got to his feet. “I will do a check. Do you think she will notice if I draw blood?”
Niisa shook her head. “She shouldn’t. She is so still when she sleeps, I sometimes confirm that she is breathing.”
Debarren lifted a med pack up and headed inside the shuttle.
Orkill paced up and down, gaining a few amused glares from the Healers who were going over the information that Yohwen and Niisa had obtained.