Beholder's Eye (42 page)

Now, however, the Kraal officer hesitated, looking uncomfortable. “You don’t need to keep this vigil, Madame Ket. I assure you my med officer Carota-ro is quite qualified,” this with what I thought could be a touch of abused pride. “He is certain your associate will make a full and rapid recovery. As he is certain the implant has been safely removed and destroyed.” I didn’t take the bait offered by this last. I’d already assured the Kraal that Ragem could explain the presence of the device to his satisfaction once the Human awoke. I hoped Ragem would feel inventive.

And I wasn’t about to explain that I clung to Ragem’s limp hand because I’d lost so much else. It wasn’t for Ragem’s sake I haunted his bedside. It was for my own.

“This Ket has full confidence in your crew, Hubbar-ro-Kraal,” I managed to say steadily, looking up at him. “Please accept my thanks. What is our position now?”

“We are, as you requested, translight on a course to rejoin S’kal-ru and Admiral Mocktap’s fleet.” He frowned slightly. “Are you certain you don’t want me to send a message to S’kal-ru? Surely you wish to notify her about the failure of our mission here.”

“It can wait,” I assured him, closing my eyes. “Bad news can always wait.”

Ragem, on the other hand, would not wait. “Ansky?” was the first word uttered by his lips when he awoke later that shipday, his voice so dry and cracked it startled me from my own doze.

“Drink this,” I said instead of answering, putting a cup to his mouth and watching him swallow the liquid. Over the cup, his eyes met mine, read what was there, and squeezed tightly closed for an instant.

“I’m so sorry, Esen,” he said, shaking his head.

I hadn’t slept since arriving on Artos; the strain was beginning to tell on my Ketself. “Do you know how close you came to dying, too?” I hissed at him, my hand up as if to strike.

“How—No. Don’t tell me now. Come here, Esen.” Ragem, with only a slight wince, pulled me down so my long Ket face could hide against his shoulder.

Our anatomies didn’t match very well. Certainly it wasn’t Ket to seek physical comfort from a non-Ket. Yet I found a strange peace in those moments within the Human’s arms, an irrational sense of being protected from harm.

It would have been nice to believe.

“LET me do that,” I offered.

Ragem shook his head, at the same time performing an awkward yet successful twist with his fork to bring most of a scoop of meat into his mouth. “Broke my collarbone skiing few years ago,” he confessed after chewing and swallowing. “This,” he chinned the sling locking his right arm and hand to his chest, “is about the same.”

I would have preferred to help. The wound hampering him he’d taken to save Ansky and me—the gesture no less meaningful for being unnecessary. I’d never felt such gratitude to another being before, not even within my Web, and wasn’t completely sure how to dispose of the emotion.
A remarkable being,
I reminded myself,
if a bit too impulsive to be a survivor
.

We ate in companionable silence for a while, my own appetite far too great to be normal for a Ket. I felt unsettled when I considered it, and longed for a good long stretch as myself.
Out there,
added some new craving inside, remembering the vast clean sweep of space. Life did seem simpler in vacuum.

But what actions I could take had to be here and now. “Skalet’s trap isn’t going to work,” I said flatly, watching for Ragem’s reaction. He merely chased a playful vegetable around his plate for a moment. “I don’t care how confident she is. We need another plan.”

His eyes flicked up to me, their gray darkened by the low lighting in the dining room. The
Quartos Ank
’s cook believed in atomosphere. “We’re going to need a great deal more than that, Es.”

“What do you mean?” I studied his thin face.

Ragem put down his fork, then startled me by using his teeth to pull up the sleeve covering his arm. He spat out the fabric and shoved his exposed wrist toward me. It was coated in medplas.
Of course,
I realized, staring up at his now-set features.
The implant.
I’d forgotten.

“I was groggy after waking up,” Ragem went on, shaking his head in disgust. “It took me a while to remember. The emergency beacon must have activated when that tree tried to go through me.”

“I felt it. At least you weren’t dead,” I added, the memory of that relief crystal clear.

His mouth twisted and he shook the sleeve back down. “You could have fooled me,” he said a bit too lightly, as if to shrug away the discomfort of his own experience. I could have told him it wasn’t that easy. “The med removed it, but it broadcast from the last night in the valley until the ship left the system. That signal will be passed along by any Commonwealth ship that picks it up. They’ll be able to get a triangulation.”

“So Kearn knows where we’ve been—maybe even where we are.”

“It’s not as though I had a choice about it—”

I silenced him by touching his hand with my fingertips. “I wasn’t accusing, Paul-Human.” My fingers fluttered involuntarily. “I wonder what Skalet did with your signaling device on the
Trium Set;
if she hasn’t destroyed it yet, Kearn could be receiving some very confusing information about now.”

Ragem didn’t share my amusement. “Minimum damage,” he recited, as if making a report. “Kearn will contact Artos. He’ll find out what happened there. The Captain tells me ships were leaving the spaceport like leaves before a hurricane even before we were back on board.”

“Those ships only know that the Church of Bones was likely to ban non-Articans,” I thought out loud. “Hardly a surprise. If the story of what happened to Ansky spreads, why would they make anything more from it than some local, possibly mythic event?”

“Kearn knows the questions to ask,” he disagreed. “How long before he puts it all together? How long before he realizes Nimal-Ket was not what she seemed?” He hesitated, then went on with the air of someone burning bridges behind him. “As for me? Kearn’s going to figure my connection out pretty fast. I can handle that.” He toyed with his food for a moment, as though reluctant to speak, but before I could say anything, he looked up at me with a suspicious brightness to his eyes and added: “The hard part’s my friends and family. They’ll believe I’m dead.” Ragem raised his arm. “What else could they think, with the emergency beacon ending all at once?”

The Human was right,
I thought mournfully, though he didn’t have my own dark addition to the list:
How was Ersh going to take this news?
At least Ragem had the prospect of returning to his life and Web once this was over. “Let’s just hope my Enemy hasn’t been busy lately. Kearn doesn’t need any more fuel for his paranoia about me.” I stood. “I think I’d better send a message to Skalet.”

Before I could take a step, the door opened and two Kraal marched into the room, weapons drawn and aimed directly at Ragem. “Our pardon for interrupting your meal, Madame Ket, Hom Ragem. The Captain would like to see you both,” one of them said politely. “Now.”

 

Neither Ragem nor I had an easy time explaining to Captain Hubbar-ro why Ragem had had a Commonwealth implant in the first place, let alone convincing the overprotective Kraal he shouldn’t lock my friend in the
Quartos Ank
’s brig.
Of course Skalet would have to give me a ship that had one,
I thought with disgust. Skalet-memory conveniently reminded me that all Confederacy ships were so equipped.

I had to give the Kraal credit; he listened willingly enough. “Paul-Human did inform S’kal-ru about the signaling device on the
Trium Set,
didn’t he?” I argued.
Again.

“He could have told us about the implant at the same time and had it removed before coming on my ship,” Hubbar-ro said reasonably. “I am still unclear as to why your associate would require a Commonwealth emergency beacon in the first place. More serpitay, Madame Ket?”

As typical for Kraal leadership, this meeting—no matter that it was tense and involved fundamental issues of ship’s security—had to be held in a civilized manner. So Ragem and I sat in chairs almost as overwhelmingly comfortable as those on the
Trium Set
and sipped our second glass of ceremonial wine. Unfortunately, we were both too full from dinner to appreciate the plate of essentials. Hubbar-ro, on the other hand, must have either missed the meal or be a nervous eater. His hand stole to the plate again.

“This Ket has been placed in command by S’kal-ru,” I resorted to finally, perhaps lacking the requisite air of authority in this form, but he knew I was right. “Paul-Human shares my affiliation to her and her cause. She will decide on this matter.”

“You will allow me to confirm with S’kal-ru.” This wasn’t a question.

I gave him a quelling look. I hoped it was quelling. “If we may already be followed, does it make sense to send any communications that might be monitored?”

“But—”

“Of course we must contact S’kal-ru, Captain,” I soothed. “But we will not send sensitive information unless it becomes absolutely necessary. Is that clear?”

 

It had taken a bit more than that, but I had talked Hubbar-ro into letting me send the message I wanted. Skalet was much less cooperative.

“This is not a secure link,” I warned her again.

Following the lag, mere seconds as the
Quartos Ank
’s com system sent the plus translight burst carrying what I said, then retrieved the response and sorted it out, there were several words in sequence my Ketself had a bit of trouble translating, not being a species that used expletives.
A waste of very expensive technology,
I thought to myself.
But descriptive.

“S’kal-ru,” I said when that seemed all that was in the message, “we’ll be there by tomorrow night. I can explain—”

“Trailing who knows what behind you.”

I didn’t argue.

“You’re sure about Ansky,” she continued.