To Guard Against the Dark Read online

  Loved ones sang encouragement and stayed close, eager to welcome them home. A swift, easy journey for most; it would be longer for those in buds hanging loose, their walls shriveled, for those within lingered, caught in a dream of their own making. They would be free in their own time. Or not.

  The Watcher’s attention was for a bud unlike all there were or had ever been.

  This bud was armored in darkness that boiled and hissed and stung those who flew too close. Many did nonetheless, their songs filling with despair.

  For in the violent flashes of light that illuminated it, someone could be seen inside. Someone loved by all who’d been Stolen, by all who’d heard, which meant, here, by all.

  Someone trapped.

  Disturbance.

  Here, the Watcher knew, not Between. Aware, now, she reached outward, seeking. Another of her kind approached. For a Watcher to change position in AllThereIs took purpose and direction, for without song, they did not fly. Such a change imposed on the Dance, affecting all.

  Especially when a Watcher moved this quickly.

  With—ALARM!—dragging Singers in his wake.

  The Singers around the buds scattered, some flying into the living vastness of AllThereIs, others wheeling about to join those caught by the oncoming Watcher.

  ALARM!

  No, the Singers bound themselves. Willingly. More and more Singers joined; the Watcher’s purpose and direction become theirs.

  Together, they sang.

  The thing about space travel? It’s noisy, but you get used to it. The comforting din of rumble, whoosh, and whine lulls you to sleep. Then there’s an assortment of pops, clanks, or dire hissing that will have you on your feet before you’re awake, scrambling to the engine room. Or to the nearest spacesuit, vacuum being what it is, or rather isn’t.

  Footsteps? Those were new.

  With no place in my reality. Mine, you see, alone. My choice and that part was clear to me, if little else was.

  How could there be footsteps?

  I went to the cabin door and hesitated, fingertips brushing the cold metal. I leaned my forehead against it, closed my eyes.

  The footsteps weren’t his.

  These were heavier. Aimless, as his had never been. They wandered, as if lost, then stopped as though on the other side of the door.

  A door suddenly much too thin for my liking. I’d known creatures who looked like feet. I rolled my forehead from side to side in furious denial. Couldn’t be Assemblers. They scurried on fleshy cilia.

  Most importantly, I was alone. Would always be alone.

  Yet wasn’t, for someone stood on the other side. A stranger. Waiting.

  For what?

  I jerked back, eyes wide. Waiting for me to open the door. To let a stranger into my reality?

  “NO!” It wasn’t a word and wasn’t a shout. It was the outpouring of my pain and grief and determination to stay as I was, where I was—

  To never forget him. Never!

  The footsteps resumed, grew fainter, were gone.

  A wave of PAIN and GRIEF surged through AllThereIs, shattering the Watchers into fragments. Singers tumbled, their song a wail of fear.

  A Great One paused . . .

  —everything did, as if AllThereIs could hold a collective breath—

  . . . then continued.

  The Singers returned, their song of resolve, even as the Watchers rebuilt themselves and a third joined them.

  <>

  I stepped from the fresher, tossing still damp hair back over my shoulders, and pulled on my coveralls and boots. For the next few moments, for days uncounted, I would feast my eyes on his paintings, dwell in the memory of this leaf or that flower, recall the aroma of a planet’s night. When I could take no more, I would undress and climb naked between sheets that never warmed, and fall asleep, or what passed for sleep, here.

  To wake again and walk to the fresher.

  The ritual was mine, one I kept having left the rest behind, no longer in need of food or drink or activity. Sometimes I would let a finger’s tip touch the com button. Others I couldn’t bear it.

  I’d just closed the top fastener when I heard footsteps.

  Again.

  They sounded different.

  I went to the door and pressed my ear to the metal to listen more carefully. The heavy footfalls were back. The same.

  They weren’t alone. Another set marched with them down the corridor. No, not marched. Purpose to these steps and direction, yet their rhythm was as if they walked to music.

  “No music here,” I said or I thought as I turned away.

  The footsteps slowed and stopped, distracting me from a curl of vine. Stopped outside my cabin door. Two strangers now.

  Two wanting in.

  Annoying.

  I couldn’t rouse myself to shout this time, so tried reason. “There’s no room.” The cabin had been barely large enough for two.

  Without him, it was so much smaller.

  They hadn’t left. I could tell. “You can’t come in unless I know you,” I told them, feeling clever.

  <>

  I whirled, throwing the bedsheet at the door. “Strangers!”

  <>

  I stood where I meant to stay, panting though I’d no need to breathe, in our cabin. Unfair, to breach my walls.

  My mood darkened. Unwise. “Keep away.”

  <>

  They deemed me oblivious; I was not. Outside this cabin was AllThereIs, filled with Singers—my joyous, happy kind—part of the Dance of the Great Ones. I’d heard their Song, its strands woven by everything they were and experienced: love, imagination, and laughter, remembrance, curiosity, and joy, fascination, mystery, and wonder. They created. Lived.

  I was glad for them.

  They believed me trapped, unable to reach them.

  I wasn’t. This bubble of reality was my strand, my creation, and if that made me a dissonance in their Song, a tiny misstep in the Dance?

  Let them end me.

  I turned my back on the door and went to sit cross-legged on the bed, counting the petals of a flower I remembered from Acranam.

  I should have remembered what my sister could do.

  A form appeared, hovering in the air above the bed. A torso so insubstantial I could see petals through it. No legs. Hands without arms. The barest shape of a face followed, framed by the sweep of long black hair. A face my memory granted expressive green eyes and a generous mouth. Had hers lost them?

  Worse, I feared. Like the other Singers, she let what she’d been in NothingReal slip away and be, if not forgotten, then less.

  Could any of them understand that was why I remained in here? That I valued Jason Morgan—each moment of our life together—over anything AllThereIs had to offer?

  Slowly, as if drawing forth that other life took effort, her skin became opaque, then smooth and pale, a hint of pink over high cheekbones. A nose followed, arched brows, and there they were, at last.

  Those eyes and that mouth, both filled with regret.

  “Rael.” I acknowledged sadly, shaking my head.

  My younger sister had been betrayed and murdered on Deneb, along with her Chosen Janac di Paniccia, becoming a ghost in the M’hir to howl her warning to the rest of us. A terrible end—but there was more. What was really Rael, her mind, her personality, her passions, had been guided home by the Watchers. Free in AllThereIs to Sing in unending joy with Janac and our sister Pella and all those she loved.

  Except me. I should have realized Rael would be the one to reject my defenses. Well, I’d resisted her plans and those of others on a regular basis before; I trusted she remembered that.

  I had my doubts. She’d forgotten her arms and legs—which was, I had to admit, becoming rat
her disconcerting as the rest of Rael continued to solidify in front of me.

  “You don’t belong here,” I told her.

  “Where are we?” My sister’s projections weren’t like a holo or vid; she was, in part, physically present, enough to look around. I saw her recognize her surroundings. “Morgan isn’t here.”

  As if surprised.

  “Of course, he isn’t,” I replied. “He’s in Trade Pact space.” I should know. I’d died in the M’hir—my body had—’porting him there, along with Aryl and Enris, Barac and Ruti, being the truest of heart-kin and determined Morgan should have a future.

  I frowned. “You thought I was stuck in a lie.”

  Pink became rose, flooding over those cheekbones; Rael had never been able to hide her emotions. “If I’d lost what you have, Sira, I couldn’t have done otherwise.”

  “I choose the truth,” I said simply. Nothing between Morgan and me had been false. I wouldn’t start now.

  “I’m glad of that, though I wish you’d choose more. Choose us.” Rael tilted her head, hair flowing over a shoulder to cover a nonexistent breast. “Share your love, Sira, in the Song instead of locking it in this place. Will you, ever?”

  She’d remembered me, now. Enough, at least. “No,” I said as gently as I could. “I’ve no need of AllThereIs. You’ve no need of me. Leave me as I am, Rael. Sing that to them.”

  Tears glistened in her eyes but didn’t fall. “I would, heart-kin. For you, I would, but that’s why I’m here. We do need you.”

  I laughed, the sound harsh and bitter, burning in my throat like bile. She flinched, but didn’t vanish, and I stopped. “I’ve done everything. Lost everything. This,” I waved my hand at my spacer coveralls, “is all that’s left. What more could you possibly ask of me now?”

  Footsteps resumed in the corridor. The heavier ones. Pacing, though impatience wasn’t something I associated with Singers, granted a universe to explore.

  Rael’s long-fingered hand moved with its former grace, sketching the Clan gesture of appeasement to one more powerful.

  Unpleasant, that reminder of what we’d become among Humans. “I need you to leave, Sister.”

  But her apology hadn’t been offered to me.

  The footsteps stopped at the door, Rael lifted her hand once more, and a second figure began to appear. In my cabin.

  Before I could be outraged, before I could summon that oh-so-useful PAIN and GRIEF—

  —the figure was whole.

  My next breath came out as fog, as if I’d stepped into an ice-cold cargo hold, and part of me wondered why I breathed at all.

  “Sira.”

  Yihtor di Caraat.

  Chapter 5

  “THERE IT IS.” Seizing the manual control, Morgan slowed the tug’s progress past a lean, ominous shape. “The Worraud.”

  The starship’s main port was shut, its pitted hull revealed only in the flashes of the tug’s caution lights. Two figures loitered by the ship’s ramp, claw-tipped fingers hooked around weapons any other Port Authority would confiscate. But those crested heads dominated by elongated snouts, swinging with predatory grace to aim at the tug?

  Auord’s Port Jellies weren’t about to challenge a Scat ship, so long as its piracy took place offworld and to Auord’s profit.

  Some things, Morgan thought, didn’t change.

  Everything else could. Had. He swallowed to ease the tightening of his throat.

  Terk leaned forward, elbows on his thighs. “They haven’t taken the shipment yet—not with guards standing around—I can get down there first and intercept.” His big head turned. “Not saying I don’t like the play, Morgan, but orders were to keep our distance.”

  “Bowman will approve this. Trust me.”

  “I don’t.” A sudden predatory grin. “But, as I said, I like the play.” He started to get up.

  “Wait.” Before the Scats could grow suspicious, Morgan eased the tug along its path. Its rear vid feed showed more figures to the side, indistinct in the shadows. “They’re ready for trouble.”

  The other growled something improbable with Scat anatomy and leaned forward again. “Figures. And you can’t tell me why these things matter so much.”

  “You wouldn’t believe me,” Morgan admitted.

  “Clan,” Terk retorted, as if that said it all.

  Didn’t it? Even not knowing if the crystals housed any Stolen—or if the entities of AllThereIs could detect them in that state—

  Or if they’d reach into this space after them, as they had after the Hoveny, and this time take an entire world—

  “I’ll go.” He’d ’port the crate into the M’hir. Let the entities find it there; at least it’d be out of the hands of any meddlers in the Trade Pact. The thought of anyone releasing one of the Clan—making Sira’s sacrifice for nothing— “I just need to get close—” If the guards caught him, Morgan thought bleakly, so be it.

  “Ease your jets,” Terk objected. He waved at the screens. “These are the only eyes we’ve got down there—and you’d best be sitting here when Thel gets back. ’Nother option?”

  “If we can’t steal the crate, we destroy it.” Morgan lowered his voice. “Are you equipped?”

  “I think I’m insulted.” Terk put two fingers under the collar of his jacket and produced a thin black strip. “You know I travel prepared.” He flourished the strip. “Targeted digester—like the one that ate that rust bucket of yours. Eats anything. Crate’ll be empty before they know it. Trick will be the guards and the not-getting-dead part.” A dour grin. “Don’t want a medal that much.”

  “The ship won’t waste time once the shipment’s loaded. They’ll call for a tug—wait—” Morgan checked the listings on Thel’s sheet. “They’ve requested pickup in an hour. I’ll assign one and disable—” his nimble fingers flew over the control panel, “—its rear access proximity sensors. That’ll get you close without alerting the Scats, but—”

  “Close’ll do.” The enforcer pulled what looked like a standard-issue stunner from another pocket. After popping off the muzzle’s tip, he rolled the lethal strip into a tube and slipped that into the opening, then aimed the “stunner” at Morgan. “Gotcha.”

  Morgan eased the muzzle aside with a finger. “If you miss,” he warned, “I’ll send the tug into the ship. Foul her fins and ground her.”

  Terk gave him an unreadable look, then swore. “You’d do it, too. Cost your job, you realize.”

  Knowing as well as Morgan it could cost a great deal more. The Scat ship would be armed, no question. If such a collision set off those armaments, it would blow a hole in the shipcity, starting a chain reaction of explosions in its unfortunate neighbors. Murdering innocents as well as Terk.

  Better that, Morgan thought, than the entire world. Than—horrors—multiple worlds. If the entities had, as it seemed, no limits?

  He couldn’t afford to have them either.

  “Then don’t miss,” he told Terk.

  The enforcer left for the line of docking tugs well before the sound of the lock opening announced the return of Thel Masim. She’d a bundle in her hands, a bundle she handed Morgan as she took her station, eyes scanning the screens.

  He was surprised to find it not only warm but emitting a delicious aroma. “Thanks.”

  “No need. You’re so scrawny I was too guilty to enjoy my supper.” Thel settled back. “Scats get up to anything while I was gone?”

  Of course, she’d be aware who was finsdown. Morgan’s lips twitched. “Not that I saw,” he replied easily, taking her casual tone—and the bundle—as an invitation to take his own break. Going to the stool, now back in its corner, he opened the wrap, finding a crusty roll stuffed with still-steaming hortsal, the local and spicy version of white fish in butter sauce. “From Gordon’s Legion?”

  “Where else?” She’d a knack with the fee
ds, streaming view after view on her main one until Morgan blinked and focused on navigating the dripping delight to his mouth. “Ah.”

  He lifted his eyes and froze. The main screen displayed the feed from a docking tug: the rear feed, to be exact, somehow reestablished in time for a too-clear view of a chest covered in small crustaceans. Terk, climbing aboard.

  Without looking away, Thel pointed beside her. “C’mere.”

  Morgan rewrapped his supper and tucked it in the cleaner of his pockets, then brought himself and the stool. “You were watching,” he concluded.

  The corner of her mouth deepened. “I’m always watching. You should know that.”

  “Maybe I thought this time you’d trust me.”

  “If I didn’t,” she informed him cheerfully, “it’d be Port Authority in here to haul you off. And you wouldn’t have that nice supper. Eat it while it’s hot, lad.”

  Slightly dazed, Morgan took out the fish sandwich.

  “Can’t say I’ve the whole thing straight,” Thel told him while he chewed. “But if your pretty bud’s going to make those Scats sorry they picked my shipcity for their piracy, I’ll be glad of it. But no using my tug as a weapon.” Pointedly, she took the tug control in one hand, switching it to manual, then started it in motion.

  “It’s too—”

  “—soon?” she finished for him. “No point being late, is there?” A moment passed, then, “What I don’t get? The act. We go back, Jason, you and me. I’d have thought too far for that rowlas’ dung.”

  “You’re right.” About to lie, to blame Bowman’s demand for secrecy, Morgan changed his mind. “I thought if you believed I was now dregs, like your other waifs, you wouldn’t ask any questions. About where I’d been. About . . . things I can’t answer.”

  “Had your head on backward, you mean. Forgot, did you?” She made a rude noise. “I don’t care what’s blown out the air lock. Never have. No more of it, hear me?”

  “Understood.” That this old friend would take him back at face value, accept his word, warmed someplace inside that had grown very cold indeed.