A Thousand Words For Stranger (10th Anniversary Edition) Page 14

  “What we can’t see is Sira or your pet Human, Morgan,” Rael said, her own tone caustic. “To find one or follow the other, you will need a starship. How do you propose to pay for such a thing? Or are you ready to confess your bungling to the Council?”

  Barac frowned down at his plate. “Leave the ship to me.”

  Rael’s head tilted to one side, her eyes narrowing. “You’d better not break any more rules, Barac sud Sarc, not near me. Influencing Humans without authorization will—”

  “I’m the First Scout, Cousin,” Barac snapped. “It’s my business to know where and when to use the Talent. And which Humans can be bent.” He took a slow deep breath, trying to calm himself. Pride was a dangerous emotion to show before one’s superior in power, even one who was close kin. Temper was likely worse. Unconsciously, his fingers sought the relaxing warmth of the bracelet he wore on one wrist.

  “Where did you get that?” Rael peered closer, willing to be distracted. “It’s pre-Stratification, isn’t it?”

  Nodding, Barac held his arm toward her, the designs in the dull metal of the bracelet catching sparks from the room’s lights. “It was a gift from Kurr. He liked to collect such things.” The reminder thickened his voice. “He cared about our glorious history. He would talk for hours about the day the M’hiray were uplifted from the common clay of the Clan—the day our ancestors became Gods.”

  “Folktales,” Rael said dismissively, then tilted her head, her look suddenly doubtful. “You aren’t a zealot, are you? Mother’s group turns my stomach.”

  Barac frowned at the disrespect in Rael’s voice. Her mother might be Mirim sud Teerac, and no longer the First Chosen of her household, but she was still a formidable presence. Her link to her first offspring, Sira, had remained strong and fruitful for close to two decades, generating power channels through the M’hir that helped bridge the gap for many other M’hiray between Sira’s foster home on Camos and Mirim’s home on the rich inner planet, Stonerim III. Although Mirim’s links with Rael and subsequently to her youngest, Pella, had been a more typical five years each, there was no denying her contribution to the M’hir had benefited all.

  Just because Mirim had, since those days of glory, spent her time and the funds of her few followers searching for the lost Homeworld and its so-called M’hir-free life—the location of which all knew the Clan Council had refused to share— she did not deserve scorn. To each their own passion, was Barac’s motto, as long as they politely kept it to themselves.

  “Of course I’m not a M’hir Denouncer. And Kurr wasn’t either,” Barac said. Then he couldn’t resist. “But there is a Clan Homeworld, Rael. A place where this metal was mined and crafted.” His laugh was more bitter than amused. “And I can believe that if this place still exists, the Clan who could not touch the M’hir probably have folktales of their own about us, the M’hiray. The brave and powerful First Families—730 of the new breed of Choosers and their Chosen—who gathered together during the Stratification of our kind and simply left. Do they remember our great-grandparents as children who found one world and its people too small for their new abilities? Or as uncontrollable despots told good riddance and thrown out?”

  “And is there any point to any of this musty debate, Cousin?” Rael pantomimed a yawn. “Doubtless the Council knows your answers, and by the Prime Law the rest of us will be informed if the past ever matters again. I’m satisfied with our ways. As your brother should have been, sud.”

  Barac trembled, striving to control his tongue and temper, aware that Rael was within her rights to remind him of his place. But Kurr’s loss was too new, and her easy dismissal of Kurr’s beliefs cut too deeply to ignore. “Kurr was di Sarc, Rael. I shouldn’t have to ask for courtesy in his name. And if you’re so concerned about the Prime Laws, I suggest we turn our attention back to your sister’s problems.”

  Rael gestured appeasement, but her hands traced the ritual with detectable reluctance. Barac spared a moment to wonder if she’d leave him, allowing this concern to float to the surface of his thoughts. The Clanswoman shook her head immediately. “Sira needs more than your help—however well-meant,” she added graciously. “But before you stretch the Prime Law beyond recognition by tampering with more Human minds, Cousin, there may be another way.” She took Barac’s silence as encouragement. “Let’s do the Human thing. Call in the Enforcers to help us find our lost relation. If this Bowman already knows of us, where’s the harm? And she may well have information about Sira we don’t.”

  “Bowman wears a mind-deadener,” Barac’s lips twisted. “We can’t sense what she’s thinking, feeling—”

  “So what? There are always some Humans we can’t influence, but they can be handled. We’re far from helpless, Barac, just because we can’t control this one. Let her trust her machines; let her underestimate us. We can use that attitude to our advantage.”

  Without answering, Barac finished his meal. Rael waited with unusual patience. Finally, he shoved the remains into the disposal and wiped his hands. “I don’t know, Rael,” the Clansman said doubtfully. “It’s risky. Bowman’s met Jarad; she knows about the Clan.”

  Rael’s face might have been a work of finely sculptured stone. “She knows one di Sarc. You’ll present her with another. What could be simpler?”

  “You’ll come yourself?” Despite his misgivings, Barac had to smile, his dark eyes beginning to gleam. Then he shook his head. “It’s one thing for me to be with Humans—Scouts do it all the time. You can’t risk leaving a trail connecting you to that Human through the M’hir.”

  Rael’s eyes took on a dangerous luster. “I am Chosen. I go where I will.”

  Barac sighed. “Rael, if you leave a trail that links us both with the Enforcers, whoever is Watching the M’hir will taste it and alarm Jarad. You know that.” He thought a moment. “I’ll bring Bowman within Deneb’s system. No one would question your movements there.”

  “Inconvenient,” Rael complained, then lifted her shoulders in a philosophical shrug. “But perhaps wise.”

  Barac nodded. His smile faded beneath another thought. “But Bowman mustn’t learn about Sira.”

  “I’m not a fool, Cousin!” Rael hissed, her power flaring in an emphasis that burned across Barac’s mind. “Bowman will learn what we need her to learn—and live to remember it only as long as it suits us.”

  Chapter 9

  “CLEAR me, you slimy toads, or I’ll tell the ship it’s an emergency and you can watch us blast-dry your road!”

  The com was safely off. It was a satisfying, if impossible, notion. The Fox obeyed Morgan first and, in a limited way, local Port Authority second—I was at the bottom of her list. Morgan lay in a coma, sealed in gel by the ship’s med unit.

  And Ret 7’s Port Authority kept us locked to the ground, refusing a tug and clearance to the Fox with a professional courtesy bordering on insolence. It didn’t matter to me whether the priests, or His Lordship, or both, were behind it. I wanted off this mudball.

  The crew of any other trader would have called in the Enforcers by now. Such blatant local interference could potentially cost Ret 7 its listing for trade, let alone its license as a spaceport, were I to speak into the right ears. Spacers, especially those in trade, placed a high value on their freedom to come and go. But I couldn’t call on that kind of help. My compulsions wouldn’t even let my mind hold the idea without a struggle. Some time ago, a decision had been reached without my participation.

  I glared at the com panel. Making a decision of my own, and praying it was the right one, I terminated my link to Port Authority and punched in the call numbers of my neighbor: Ryan’s Venture.

  The captain herself answered. I cleared my throat. “Captain Ivali, this is Sira Morgan—”

  “How is he?” she interrupted, with an urgency that suggested a sincere concern. Our arrival had been observed after all. I enjoyed a vision of Venture’s crew lurking about in the torrential rain, and likely ankle-deep in mud, to watch for me.

>   “We have a medical emergency on Board, Venture. My captain had a disagreement with a Retian adult,” I hoped she knew enough Retian anatomy; I didn’t dare be specific. “I need to lift—”

  “Do you need additional crew, Fox?” No hiding the concern this time. Whatever lay between Jason Morgan and Ivali was now being ignored in the face of an outside threat. Spacers do stick to their own, I thought, given high enough stakes.

  “No, thank you, Venture,” I said with genuine warmth. “Captain Morgan was able to prepare the Fox for auto lift. But Port Authority won’t give us clearance.”

  “Outstanding contracts?”

  “None, Venture.”

  There was a startled pause. Apparently, Ivali knew something of Morgan’s business on Ret 7. “Are you certain, chit?” she said in a suddenly hostile tone. “You know the penalties incurred by breaking a recorded contract. You leave, and they’ll fall on us all.”

  “We have no valid outstanding contracts, Venture,” I repeated firmly. “Our merchandise turned out to be substandard.” Or will be shortly, I revised to myself, estimating the time it would take before the priests finished their changeover to the components I had sabotaged. “Clients contracted to that merchandise won’t be held to payment.”

  A brief pause. “May I ask, young Morgan, how you managed that?” Before I could answer, Ivali continued, her voice sounding as though she struggled not to laugh. “On second thought, save the explanation for your captain.”More formally: “Without outstanding contracts to protect, Port Authority can assume no control over offworld shipping. The other insystem captains and I will intercede on your behalf. Make your preparations.”

  “Thank—”

  She cut off my gratitude. “Take care of Morgan, chit. Tell him I expect some profit out of this next time we meet. Venture out.”

  Preparations? Beyond studying and restudying a vistape on lift procedures, what was I supposed to do? The course and servo pilot were set, capable of handling the ship completely on their own—which left the living component of the Fox.

  I went down to Morgan’s cabin to check on him, irrationally stepping as quietly as possible though I knew he couldn’t hear me. The room was bathed in a gentle mauve light, washing its brilliant colors to a monotone of shadows. A slightly too-clean smell filled the air. Only minutes might have passed since I had half-dragged Morgan here, shouting for the med unit, only to find it activating the moment Morgan’s unconscious form touched his bed. Sensors and handling arms had extended from their concealment in the wall to touch and assess, delicately cutting free his clothing as well as the plaster about his hands. Unable to help, and queasily unwilling to watch, I’d left the room. When I returned, Morgan was already encased in a healing cocoon of med-gel.

  The gel covered his face, smooth, gray, and opaque. I hated the look of it. For all I could decipher of the med-servo’s few indicators, Morgan could be dead and the stupid machine merely preserving his body. I hesitated beside him, feeling useless and unwanted. Questions without answers crowded my mind. Why had I rescued him? Why was I still on the Fox, when it was so clear Morgan had arranged to leave me behind? Where were we going now, and why?

  Why was my hand moving lightly, restlessly over the hard surface of the cocoon, for all the world as if I could do something more than the machine? As if caught by my attention, the fingers of my right hand curled into a loose fist, quiet once more. Morgan had eased my discomfort with a touch, I recalled. Had I once had such a talent? I wondered.

  Pain seared along my every nerve. I pressed my hands to my head, crying out at the burning there. Simultaneously, the sensors on the panel of the med-servo went wild. The cocoon, immobile itself, pulsed with varying colors as if the body buried within writhed in echoing pain. Or was I the echo? Hunched over waves of my own agony, I watched the machine whir and click, administering a concoction from its depths through tube openings along the cocoon. My pain eased in perfect harmony with the quieting monitor.

  I ran from it—not the machine, but from its unconscious occupant and the connection I knew was somehow being forged between us. Anyone who thinks there isn’t room for terror-stricken flight shipboard hasn’t tried. I was able to run until I crumpled into an exhausted, horror-ridden tangle of arms and legs, muscles shaking, mind mercifully empty of thought.

  The dependable Fox accepted the clearance code and docking tug on her own, obedient to the medical emergency lying in his cabin. She lifted from Ret 7 with neither her Captain nor crew in any shape to notice. With an unheard deepening in her engine’s roar, the Silver Fox headed outsystem, bound for the Plexis Supermarket.

  INTERLUDE

  Bowman had a philosophy: Shipside, she took her time eating, and woe to any crew member who interrupted her pleasure. This was a prerogative viewed by old-timers on board in much the same light as the need to clean ventilators, or monitor scans. It occasionally inspired amused contempt among recruits. Bowman was aware of both attitudes and valued them equally—which was not at all. Shipside, she ruled.

  Bowman sucked the juicy flesh from each of the pickled nicnics on her plate slowly, with full attention to their flavor, rolling the ovals over her tongue deliberately before swallowing. Barac sud Sarc watched with something approaching awe. “There’s more,” Bowman offered with contented confidence. ’Whix supervised the provisioning personally.

  “Another time, Commander.” Barac eased his back surreptitiously. “We really must discuss my cousin.”

  Commander Bowman couldn’t stop a small frown from drawing her eyebrows together. Then, recalling her feelings when Barac had made his reappearance on Auord, she wiped her lips delicately. “There are certain fundamental constraints in the way we travel about, Clansman. This stopover you propose near Deneb will take time, divert this ship from her intended course, and—”

  “How can you have a course,” Barac interrupted, “if you don’t know where you are going?”

  Bowman’s frown deepened. “I always know where I am going, Clansman. I simply don’t see any need to inform you.”

  “You’re following a ship that lifted from Auord the day after I was attacked.”

  “Possibly.” She tilted her head. “And you look better than when I last saw you. Care to explain that?”

  Barac counted slowly, to himself, collecting his patience, before he spoke. “You want to find Kurr’s murderer. So do I—”

  “Now.” She paused, sipping from her cup. “I thought you had other obligations to take care of first.”

  Barac abhorred the deadness which encompassed the dangerous mind across the table. It was maddening to have to rely on her voice and face for clues. “It seems my other obligation may be linked to this matter after all, Commander.”

  “All right, Clansman sud Sarc,” Bowman said, surprising him with an enigmatic smile. She tapped the rim of her cup with a sturdy forefinger. Barac was momentarily distracted by a scar which crisscrossed the finger and wormed across the back of her hand; how typically Human, to retain such a blemish. “We’re currently on course to Ret 7. Seems a ship recently out of Auord left abruptly and failed to register a true course with Port Authority.”

  “To evade you?”

  “Terk thinks so.”

  Barac didn’t bother turning to look at the taciturn Enforcer whose mental deadness was combined with an unblinking stare hard enough to bore holes. The commander was not quite trusting. Pleased to see him, definitely—for what she could gain. Barac clung to the hope that Rael was right—that they would gain more in return. Bowman was formidable for a Human. And all her people wore implants, making Barac feel alone on the ship, even when face-to-face with others. The conflict in sensation tended to make him queasy.

  “When I first mentioned this other obligation, Commander Bowman,” Barac said, “I wasn’t free to explain it to you.”

  “And now?”

  He hated the clearness of her eyes. They missed nothing, tested everything, and veiled her thoughts as well as the implant did. �
�I was escorting Jarad di Sarc’s daughter, Sira di Sarc,” Barac began, finding it repugnant to name names, but knowing he had to offer Bowman something. “The attack on Auord might have been aimed at Sira. We have our internal rivalries, of course.” Barac spoke the lie with confidence; a Human should believe it. How could any of them imagine the simplicity of Clan politics, a system based solely on personal power, measurable instantly and without error?

  “Fem di Sarc didn’t come to us or any agency on Auord.”

  “She wouldn’t,” Barac said. “But I’ve reason to believe she’s left Auord.”

  “Does Hom di Sarc know his daughter’s missing?”

  Barac felt his control slipping and drew within himself to master it. Bowman covered his silence with a moment’s satisfied attention to her dessert.

  “I appreciate that you find it distasteful to deal with me, Clansman,” Bowman said at last. “But you are here, so I assume you’ve decided you need me. Let’s try to put our mutual suspicions to one side for a moment. Now. Would you know if di Sarc’s daughter were dead?” Barac looked away.

  “So,” Bowman said, obviously intrigued. “I can tell you this much—she was taken in a sweep by recruiters and either escaped or was taken offworld. We narrowed down the possibilities to a handful of ships.”

  “Recruiters. Slavers, you mean!” Barac half-rose from his seat, bile rising into his throat, almost blinded by power which surged and seethed without target.

  “My people are good, Barac sud Sarc,” Bowman went on, unaffected. “But the vermin had their bolt-hole ready. Personally, I think di Sarc’s daughter escaped in the confusion of the raid. Would you consider her capable of this?”

  “No,” he said, without thinking, then flushed and sat back down. “I don’t know. Sira has led a very sheltered life, Commander. She’s not used to strangers.”